John's aware of the breath against his face and does his best to clench his jaw. There are no thoughts about how fair this is, no memories of how many times he so often, and sometimes venomously, denied being anything more than Sherlock's friend. Colleague. Dear god, he's doing it again. He's falling into patterns he shouldn't. He's letting his loneliness make him see what had never been there--

Well, who the hell is he kidding? It's always been there. It's why he's always been almost frantic to pull a girlfriend time after time, though so willing to let them go. He'd never been heart broken at their departure, just pleased to start the chase again, to reaffirm his heteronormity.

"Do you know anything by the Beatles?" John asks, chancing a damning glance upwards. What would the harm be, breaking through the veil?

It could cost him his best friend.

Oh, he's not sure he could stand that.

"The musical group, not the insect," he says as a bad joke and immediately follows that up by: "Can I ask you something...objectively?"