this is my first fic so please bare with if it doesnt make any sense. it will, eventually. i own nothing
Sherlock looked up at the room that was now his home. It wasn't too shabby for a dead person, a small lodging close to his grave with a table, currently covered in paper and the general stuff that covered the table back in baker street. He'd managed to source a microscope as well so you could still find body parts in the fridge, not that there really was a fridge per se. Just a cupboard that managed to always be incredibly cool no matter what the outside temperature was. Next to that was a two ring gas camping stove and some hooks for pans and other cooking equipment. To the right of that again was a sink like contraption. It was, essentially, just a bowl that had a leaky tap over it. When he was done with the water he'd throw it out the grimy window. No one seemed to notice. To the left of this improvised kitchen and behind where he was sitting was a curtain rail with a heavy drape on it to act as a screen to his bedroom - a small bed with some hangers and a chest with his clothes in. All in all the room was exactly one-and-a-half lengths of himself. He'd measured it.
It was at this moment that miss Adler sauntered from behind the drape and opened it. Completely naked.
"you know that doesn't impress me don't you?" Sherlock said as he raised an eyebrow
"secretly you love it" she said, raising her own eyebrow to match and bending over so close that she was practically on his lap.
"oh for crying out loud! Put some clothes on you deranged woman I'm trying to work!" he almost pushed her purt bottom away but decided she'd probably take it the wrong way,
"suit yourself" her bottom lip stuck out as she sacheyed over to Sherlock's chest and got out a crisply ironed shirt.
"not my clothes! I don't have many. Anyway, you couldn't have walked down the middle of London naked, you would have been arrested." he had to admit, against his better judgement, she did look good in it. And irritatingly unreadable, which in it's own way was quite... Arousing? No, that couldn't have been it. He was above all of that. The idea of love just seemed so vulgar to him. You had to bear your soul to someone you didn't trust just because your primitive mind said that they were baby making material. He wished that sometimes ordinary people could keep their desires in check, then maybe the world would be a little simpler to live in. Mind you, the woman currently sitting opposite him with her legs wide open and no underwear on that he could see would be out of a job. He had to be thankful to her, he supposed, after all she did find the room for him. She'd contacted him just after it was splashed all over the news that he'd flung himself off of a building, his phone making that antisocial sound that always made him smile inside when he heard it. He wondered if that was the sound she made when... He cut himself out of that train of thought,he didn't want to go down there. At all. Ever. Going down that train of thought would make life messy.
She seemed not to hear him as she draped herself over the adjacent chair in what Sherlock presumed was an incredibly uncomfortable position and twiddled her hair.
"have you been to your grave recently?"
"no" he said, going back to his microscope and the slide of blood underneath it.
"I have"
"oh really" he was getting good at sarcasm these days. Now that he didn't have John to point it out to him he'd had to start noticing it by himself and trying it out. John would be proud.
"your little friend was there. That's the eighth time this month" she smiled, she knew mentioning his live in would spark his attention.
He gave her an incredulous look, "you've been counting?"
"yes. Every time he brings you flowers. It's really quite pathetic." sherlock snarled under his breath. No one called John pathetic.
"he was talking to you as if you were there! It was hilarious! Kept talking about your things, how he couldn't touch them, that your violin was gathering dust. Sweet little thing. I wish I had a live in like that."
"don't call him a live in. moriaty called him that."
"does it remind you of him then?" the look on Sherlock's face, a sort of hidden hurt - the way his mouth got very small and quivered ever so slightly - told Adler she'd gone to far. She knew how Moriarty had threatened the live in and some others, and how much the mysterious man opposite her truly missed his only friend, how he wished he could tell the short man that he was in fact, not dead, and wished he could move back into baker street without anyone knowing. But he couldn't, someone would notice. London was big enough to hide in, but due to the press coverage before his fall everyone knew what he looked like, and he wasn't exactly inconspicuous with those eyes. Those beautiful eyes, like ice. Ice on a sunny day.
"I think it's time I went home, leave you to whatever smear of bodily fluid you've got under there"
"blood"
"any particular type?"
He didn't respond.
She knew being left alone was Sherlock's favourite past time, he could go to his mind palace or whatever he called it.
She put her own clothes on and slipped out the door, Sherlock didn't notice, but John did say he had a habit of carrying on a conversation when no one was there. So she shouldn't be surprised or upset that he didn't notice her leaving, but it did. She hadn't joked that night, she would have him, anywhere, any time, but that wasn't his thing.
It was growing dark when Sherlock left his mind palace, he hadn't noticed the woman leaving, but she'd left his shirt, creased, on his chest. It annoyed him that she didn't respect his clothes, ironing was a very hard thing to do, especially when you lived in essentially what was a slum. John would respect his clothes, and Molly.
Molly. He sighed.
She was an enigma to him. He knew Molly had feelings for him -probably some instinct saying he had good genes. which he did. And he did honestly enjoy her company. It was just that he never seemed to be able to open his mouth without making one of them feel awkward or hurting her feelings. Sherlock counted himself as a man with an incredible vocabulary, and the idea that he couldn't have a conversation with someone he liked irked him greatly.
Take Christmas.
He was only trying to point out that she had a date and would be leaving soon and then he had to go and read the bloody label. He was sorry. Truly. He didn't enjoy embarrassing people or making them think he was just horrid. Every time it just showed him how much he didn't understand his own species, something he was not about to admit, not even to john.
He sighed again and looked around the room, and then at his phone. 11:25pm. Now seemed as good a time as any to wash. The sink was full and he retrieved his soap from inside his chest, the smell of it helped to deter moths from his clothes. As he stripped off and neatly folded his shirt and trousers over the chair he contemplated his old home. He decided that there were only two possessions that the missed, the first being his violin and the second being a bath. A nice big one with hot running water. He shivered as he scrubbed himself with a somewhat threadbare flannel. He had been back to baker street a couple of times, making sure that John and mrs Hudson were out before he did so. John hadn't touched any of his things, his violin was in exactly the same place as he'd left it. Seeing it made him want to weep, the instrument seemed to signify everything that he had given up for his friends. He had considered taking it, but he was sure John would notice. He didn't notice much but he was bound to notice that. So Sherlock left, with only a few clothes - nothing too fancy - and some soap, and left his precious possession behind with his most precious friend until such a time as he could have it back.
Thinking about it now as he shivered again he really should have taken a toothbrush.
He was glad that Miss Adler was telling him what John was up to. He was also glad, in a very selfish and needy part of his mind, that John was mourning him. it meant that he hadn't believed what Sherlock had told him in their last conversation.
He took the water and tipped it out the window, no small feat as he had to stand on a chair to do it. He spilt a little of it down him. It didn't matter too much as he wasn't wearing any clothes but he would have to clear the puddle up by his feet. He took the flannel and willed it to absorb the water. It didn't. This annoyed him but what could he do? Not much, that's what. He wasn't keen on using his precious toilet roll to clear it up, so he would leave it. The water would leave a stain, but there were plenty on this scummy floor. Sherlock took his clothes and hung them up to air them. He wasn't overly fussed about walking around in the room in the nude, the only person who had come to visit him had been Miss Adler, and he would hear if she came up the rickety staircase to see him. And she'd already been here once today. He closed the drape and got into bed. His feet stuck out the end so he curled up under the sheets and tried to drift into his intoxicating and confusing dreams. He found it odd that whilst in his dream state, everything made perfect sense and was so clear, yet when he awoke not only were they fussy but he realised the many laws of reality that he had broken in his subconscious state. His brow furrowed as he stared at the wall and contemplated these dreams. Nearly all of them had John in them. A few had Molly, Adler and Lastrade and even Mycroft, but always John was in them, telling sherlock that he was coming to get him, that friends kept him safe. But he was wrong. Friends could never keep Sherlock Holmes safe, only the absence of them. And that lack of friendship was what kept John safe, that's what Sherlock had to keep telling himself, over again, like a mantra.
"alone keeps me safe, alone keeps me safe. It has to." and with this circulating in his head, he fell into the arms of his dreams.
