He looked out of the window for the umpteenth time, enjoying the scenery, soaking in the sights, observing every fine nuance, wondering about the intrinsically delicate details of life. It was a part of his nature, to observe the details, a manner in which he thought. It was him, not just a way of thinking, or an embodiment of his mind. It was him.
He had resigned himself to working on autopilot, doing things automatically, usually unaware of his surroundings. His mind used to wander as he would work or go through tedious and routine tasks, which had irked him to no end.
He had enjoyed the periods of activity his mind and body gave him when he delved into his thoughts. There were so many different insights on something as insignificant as a raindrop, especially the one he was currently staring at right now, its liquid nature allowing him to notice and trace its path down the window glass.
Peace. It was peaceful and quiet in the flat, the only actual discernible sound that could be heard being the sound of a sleeping flat-mate.
He enjoyed such rare moments of peace, for it gave him ample time to think, and allow his mind to be still. It helped him calm down, and feel energised also. People would never understand how much, at times, he craved for solitudinal silence, or peace. They always thought he needed excitement in his otherwise mundane life. He loved it, yes, but it came at a heavy price now.
Once upon a time, he could pay the toll needed to sustain a lifestyle as active as this, but now he was getting older, though he preferred to think otherwise. Even his mind had begun to yearn increasingly for the solitude he occasionally experienced, savouring every moment of it as if it were the last.
The sight of rain sent a shiver down his back, reminding him of all the times when, as a child, he used to sit and watch the glittering crystals fall out of the heavens from his bedroom window, enthralled and captivated by their simple perfection of being. Nobody knew this, luckily, for if they did, he would have been thoroughly ridiculed.
Often he thought about various things, but nowadays he found his mind increasingly wander to investigate about a gnawing alien feeling in his heart. Alien, for he had never felt it before until now. He had felt a million different emotions in the course of his life, ranging from anger, happiness, frustuation, depression, manic activity, coldness, impartiality, hope, loss. But this was something different, entirely now. He decided to call it longing, after thinking about it for a while.
This longing he felt, it filled his head with numerous questions. Longing for what? Love? Nay, the world had enough of it. Longing of faith, happiness, and physical relationships? But he had them all, and yet the feeling never went away. Companionship then. He wanted a companion to complete him. Yes, it made sense to him. A companion to…. Complete him. Complete the hole in his being, the void, the other whole of his two halves. Someone who did not require words or actions for expressing himself, someone who could see when he was jesting, and when he was hiding something. Someone who would nurture him, but not push him. Someone who could differentiate between his seventy different smiles, one for each occasion, and forty nine different frowns with practised ease.
His friend, flatmate, whatever people called it seemed to fill the void. He knew him well. He knew when he was hurt and hiding the pain, when he was famished but acting as though he was not, he knew how to calm his being and excite him, what to tell him when, how to comfort and reassure him when things went wrong, like they always did. He also knew that whatever he felt, so did his friend.
One would say that they had probably grown on one another. But it was still akin to a comfort blanket for him to have his friend's presence nearby his. He had made peace with his flatmate's idiocy and brilliance, his practicality and imagination, his agility and his slowness, his smartness and his dumbness, his light and his darkness.
He smiled a little as, from the corner of the room, he heard Sherlock enter the room quietly, having woken up finally. The smile stayed on john's face as he heard Sherlock wish him a good morning. John had been awake all night, watching the raindrops fall, and now, at the crack of dawn, Sherlock joined him in his watch.