"No."
"I didn't even-"
"I said no."
"But I-"
"Sherlock. We're not having this conversation."
"Evidently, that's not true."
"Look, could you try and not be a complete prick for one minute and just think about people who might give a damn about you nodding off high as a kite every night for this past week?"
"You didn't even let me finish."
"Yeah, well, the needles in your mattress did all the talking for you, though, didn't they," John spat.
Sherlock pursed his lips and said nothing. Trying to utter a single rebellious word when John was like this made less sense than making Anderson President.
Actually, no situation could be hopeless to that extent.
Point was, John was not someone to argue with when he was angry.
So Sherlock resorted to silence, letting John's anger permeate through layers and layers of apparent indifference.
"No," John repeated again. "I refuse to let you near your pack of cigarettes. The heroin is bad enough. That's gotta go, too, by the way."
"But sometimes it's so hard not smoking!" Sherlock was a tantrum-throwing toddler in a man's body, but John let him whine. Better for him to fuss all he wanted than to let him take a hit of nicotine.
"I suggest you make an effort, and quick," said John dryly, leaving absolutely no room for negotiation in his tone. He brushed past Sherlock and disappeared inside his bedroom, leaving a very frustrated detective alone beside the fireplace.
~
"Desperately in need of a shower, a good shave and a lawyer. It's the husband. Next!"
"Christ, take a day," muttered John, kneading his temple with two fingers as he crossed one leg over the other. His other hand rested on the armrest with an untouched notebook and pen; he couldn't keep up with Sherlock's bullet train brain as it dismantled cases relentlessly anyway.
Sherlock was restless. He walked up and down the same floor for hours on end, searching in vain for a release from this horrible prison of a world. Had everyone lost the ability to die in conveniently interesting ways? Sherlock thought humans cared about one another. Evidently no one gave a rat's toot about his own boredom.
No one except his flatmate and his tenant. And they didn't have a choice, not really.
"John," Sherlock tried for the fourteenth time, tried a fourteenth tactic. "John, sweet John, precious John."
"Sherlock, you know we're friends, but that's pushing it," said John, shooting him a long skeptical look.
Sherlock's brow furrowed. "I thought those were adjectives that people usually use to describe loved ones."
John's eyes flickered back to Sherlock's.
And stayed there.
Sherlock watched John's lips slowly contort into words.
"They are," said John. "But it doesn't work like that."
"What doesn't work like what?" The tinge of annoyance with the world was back.
"You can't call me those things just when you think you need to smoke, Sherlock," John stated bluntly. "Loved ones are people who care, people who won't let you give in to your bloody whims for a smoke or two. Or ten. Since we know it gets there anyway."
Sherlock was quiet for a very long time.
Sherlock was stagnant for a very long time.
He said nothing as he clambered onto his chair, setting his feet on the seat, and sat on the head of the chair. He laced his fingers together and sank into oblivion.
~
There were no more clients for the rest of the day.
~
When Sherlock resurfaced, John was halfway through his cup noodles.
"Good morning, John."
"It's nine o clock, Sherlock. This-" John exaggerated his motion of eating his noodles, "-is called dinner."
"Your sarcasm is not appreciated," Sherlock sniffed dismissively.
"Neither are your demands," John countered.
"John," Sherlock tried, exasperated with his flatmate. His flatmate, who would never understand the rush that Sherlock so craved. "I asked for one smoke."
"Yeah, but that's not what pisses me off," John's voice slowly crescendoed as he dumped his cup in the trash.
"What about me smoking-" Sherlock scoffed, like it was ridiculous that anyone should care at all, "-pisses you off?"
"Those things-" John visually reigned himself in and shot his gaze to meet Sherlock's. "Will kill you! And you don't seem to care that I give a flying f-"
"John," Sherlock tried weakly.
"-uck about you, when it's obvious you're nothing but an addict in need of a fix!"
"You really are overreacting." Sherlock wouldn't meet John's scorching gaze.
"Don't tell me I'm overreacting. These are normal reactions, Sherlock, this is how normal people react in situations like this," John spat his words out like they tasted foul. "Not that you'd know. Because 'normal' isn't an option with Sherlock Holmes."
And John pretended not to see the lump bobbing up and down Sherlock's throat. He blinded himself to the flash of incredulous hurt that tore through Sherlock's pale irises.
John tried to create the illusion that he was as heartless as Sherlock made himself look.
It was working.
Sherlock's name nearly escaped John's lips in apology as the detective mechanically brushed past him and disappeared into his bedroom. John let the outcry die out in his throat, his fingers curled as if to yank Sherlock back out and say he hadn't meant it, he hadn't meant it, he hadn't meant it.
John sipped his tea. It had gone cold, and it was disgusting, but John drank it all anyway. He sank into his plush red chair and dropped his head into his hands.
An exhausted exhale escaped him, but it sounded curiously similar to the name of the detective locked in his own bedroom.
~
Sherlock did these things sometimes. He'd be completely inaccessible, or childlike, or both, and simply drive John mad.
But Sherlock had been silent for days.
A week and four days, to be exact about it. Which John was.
The television had never been more of a useless box spouting sad excuses for information. The doors and windows had never been more confining. The winter had never been so stagnant. The flat had never been so silent.
And this, dear reader, drove John madder than anything Sherlock had pulled before.
So our beloved Watson decided to go out for a while.
~
The flat had been silent when he left.
At least something had changed in John's monotonous life.
A single, screeching semblance of a violin note slashed the atmosphere of 221B, piercing John's eardrums as he walked into the flat. His initial annoyance melted away into the floor like the snow off his boots as his soft eyes traced his endearingly moody flatmate's outline against the grey backdrop of the London winter.
John didn't bother saying anything, he knew it was pointless. So he went and stood beside Sherlock instead.
And stared into the same oblivion that held Sherlock's attention.
After a minute of fixing his gaze on nothing in particular, John was jolted back into reality, noting how the screaming violin had faded into background static, the way sirens become known to the ears after a while of the blaring noise.
Sherlock had a slight frown on his face, like he was a five-year-old, sulking at the loss of his favourite toy. The thought, ridiculously, made John want to smile.
"You'd like it, wouldn't you," Sherlock murmured all of a sudden, without taking his eyes off of an invisible horizon, like a ship's captain, intoxicated by the beauty of the vast expanse of uncharted waters.
And then John realised something. It hit him with frightening clarity, that Sherlock was his horizon.
Sherlock was everything he wanted to chase for the rest of his life. He embodied the thrill that John craved, the innocence John loved, the genius John admired, and the bravery John only hoped to possess someday.
"Like what?" John, in light of his mental discovery, nearly forgot what Sherlock had said.
"A normal person to keep you company," The words stung like salt on a paper cut. "To go shopping with you, drink with you, that sort of thing."
John's eyes grew wide. He really had hurt Sherlock. Immensely.
John's thoughts were so loud, at first John thought they drowned out the sound of the horsehair bow dragging across the E string. Then he realised Sherlock had stopped playing, and had turned his full attention to John.
The eyes that bore into John were not hurt. Or angry. Or resentful.
They were just...so.
CuriousPristineAliveScrutinisingGorgeous
"Perfect," The word left John, sliding through the gaps in his teeth, slithering out like a promise made to the corpses in a graveyard.
Binding.
"Don't do that." Sherlock's swirling eyes hardened ever so slightly, like he was afraid.
Afraid? "Do what?"
"Haven't you made enough fun of me already, John?" Sherlock snapped, tearing his eyes away from the speechless man next to him and returning them to the cold sun, setting behind dense clouds in the evening sky.
"Haven't you had enough to get off on?" John threaded his words into a gentle chain, slowly slipping his words through Sherlock's ear. "Don't you understand it yet, Sherlock?"
"Understand what?" The venom behind Sherlock's words was absent. His tone was hollow, helpless and absolutely terrifying.
"That a cigarette could kill me?" The detective went on. "Thank you, I hadn't been aware of that vital piece of information when I crammed smoke into my lungs instead of oxygen."
"No, I think you understood that, too." John took another cautious step towards Sherlock, and ever so gently threaded the tips of his calloused fingers into Sherlock's palm. Sherlock stayed perfectly still, save for the slightest clench in his jaw.
"What you don't get through your thick head," said John, almost whispering, "is that I care if a cigarette kills you. And one day, it will kill you. And I'll lose you, and I will not let that happen. I won't let that happen, Sherlock."
"John," an alarmed whisper tore through Sherlock's lips.
"And...normal, was that what you said?" John went on. "You better listen hard, 'cause I'm not saying this again."
Sherlock kept his eyes fixated on the ground and said nothing.
"Look at me, Sherlock."
And the look on Sherlock's face nearly ended John's life. The words tumbled out like blinded angry soldiers, drunkenly fighting for what they believed in. Sherlock was worth the fight. He was worth it all.
"I don't care what is normal," John enunciated clearly. "Because I don't want what is normal." After a moment's hesitation, he tipped Sherlock's chin up with his free hand. "You are everything, everything I want. I don't need a single thing other than the constant reassurance that you'll be here when I come home, Sherlock, I just-"
If John had meant to say anything, it fizzled out as a tear traced its salty path down a pale cheek.
But Sherlock's eyes.
His eyes shone like rippling reflections of stars billions of miles away, casting their blinding brilliance into inky darkness and illuminating the night sky for one person, and one person alone.
John lost all ability to form a single coherent thought as a slender body collapsed against his body, as a tuft of chocolate curls made a home in the crook of John's neck, as vulnerable arms validated that John was really here, that he would always be right here.
John wound his arms around Sherlock, cradling his torso as he gently hummed an old song he was sung as a child, before his mother died and left them alone.
You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are grey
John smiled to himself, casting the abalone sky outside a cursory glance before closing his eyes.
I never told you
How much I love you
So please don't take
My sunshine away
John watched as the last slivers of pale sunshine dissipated into the pantone sky, like a memory to be locked and tucked away into the safest parts of Baker Street, and Baker Street alone.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Two updates in one night
I thought why the hell not
I love that song
Okay peace
~A.M.
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