"You never showed…. at the crime scene.…" He breathed into the darkness, stating it more for his own benefit than the lanky figure lingering in the corner. He had not thought about what had brought him here. It had seemed like what needed to be done at the time. He had not questioned his motives, not once. Not as he slipped out the back door expecting his absence to be discovered within moments, nor as ran through the bustling streets of London in the rain, dipping and dodging the people who stared after him, condescendingly gripping their umbrellas. He simple hadn't thought. This was where he needed to be as so, drenched to the core and spluttering, here he was. There was a faint chuckle and a voice interrupted his thoughts, stole them.
"No. No, I suppose I didn't…" The words spoken should have been accompanied with rebellion, mirroring the rebellious spirit that made him so good at, well….. everything. But they were limp and lifeless, as if he was reflecting on something that had happened in a previous life, not something that could be remedied very easily in the present.
"Come on. I'll grab us a cab. Lestrade's waiting." My hand was outstretched before the movement even registered inside my head. I found it very natural to move in his presence, to talk and to act upon impulse. Somehow, what I did seemed like the least important thing in our exchanges. I found comfort in the fact that I would always receive the same amount of condescension from him no matter what I said or did. My hand lingered in the air, unfaltering as I waited for the light touch of his palms, lined with creases and perfect. There was no movement in the darkness. He was a statue among the elements, and unyielding.
"Have you ever felt," He talked as if we were still inside his head, analysing the cogs within it as they turned, "like you could…. jump off a bridge …. and no-one would notice? No-one would care?" He made no attempt at eye-contact as he voiced a question for which he expected no response, needed none. His dimly-lit face showed the torrent that swelled behind his tired eyes. It seemed to surmise pain with the same perfection that he seemed to do everything else.
"No…" I spoke with redundancy, merely wanting to interrupt the stream of wow that was washing through him. I had never figured him for existential thought. But my outburst had the desired effect. He turned towards me slowly and smiled a strange and absent smile. It did not project any joy but the resilience that set him apart from almost every other person I had come into contact with. In it I saw his stubborn-ness to show even an inkling of what consumed his thoughts and his single-mindedness to say what he needed to.
"I do. Most of the time. It would be so easy. One jump. One jump can't hurt anyone… except me." Instinct dictated for me to turn my face from him as he suddenly became unwilling to turn from me. Such irrefutable eye-contact did not bode well with the spilling of one's soul. The situation would become to muddles. But we stared at each other, not breaking once as his slim legs slid forward and his soles hit the floor. We were both standing, the height difference between us now reduced significantly. My horror at the words that pried themselves from between his lips rattled through me. "Sometimes I think about how long it would take someone to notice I was gone. To come looking for me. How long it would take someone to find me. I have this mental picture of a child, probably eight years old judging by the cow-lick and the contents of his left pocket, standing on a bank, on a fishing trip with his father. He hooks me as I drift just below the water. The kid looks like me probably even has a brilliant relationship with his parents for ironies sake. And he wonder who this person was. Why they did it. But I hate that idea….". I felt as if she had just issued a kick across my diaphragm as the breath from my lungs was stolen and my eyes began to sting and water. I could not pin-point the emotion that words so honest and terrifying provoked. It seemed a combination of at least three, all heightened. To hold them at once seemed almost greedy, and unbearably painful.
"You have no idea what you are saying…" I whispered with the sliver of my voice that remained. "You, the great Sherlock Holmes, cannot be so arrogant as to claim that there is no one in this world you care for him. Because you are, sir, are far too smart to even allow as modest an idea to cross you mind. You see that other people care about you…. Even love you. But you're scared. So your brilliant mind refuses to register it, and my god, you never act on it." The desperation for a reply that verge on sane from my clinically insane house-mate provoked me to talk louder and strained on my vocal chords. "I watch you. I watch you watching everyone else and it is the only time in our entire acquaintance that I have ever seen a hint of doubt cross your face. It drives you insane, the idea that the workings of some people's brains could be a mystery to you. And for a while you had me fooled. You actually made me think that people don't matter to you. Sure you parade around with this 'the end justifies the means' guise, but you are scared all the time. You hate this gift that you have, that dictates your life and your relationships, and makes you physically incapable of understanding anything that I am talking about right now because you have to modest enough to recognise your many, many human flaws to do so. But please…" I was fighting back the water that was seeping from the corner of my eye, "don't insult me by saying that no-one cares about you." My body shook violent where it stood, quivering against the cold air that had crept into the small upstairs room through the still gaping door to the street below. There was silence. We stared. He spoke.
"John, I have told you to stop making me into a hero. You search and you search for the redeeming qualities that could somehow make you feel better about our living together, but you will never find it. With every instant that you think you know me I am back-stabbing you and using you for my own entertainment. I laugh at you, John, and your pathetic attempt to try to help me. You are expendable and a tool which I use gain a better insight into the human psyche. So don't flatter yourself by thinking that I hang around because of you. That I hold any value in your opinion or our relationship. You are a pawn that I manoeuvre and will continue to do so because I do not care!" He was breathing heavily now, his nostrils flaring with every syllable. "You mean nothing to me. Like the rest of humanity. So why don't you all just leave me alone." His eyes narrowed as he spoke the last word, spitting them as if they tasted bitter on his tongue. He glided towards me as a consuming shadow, stopping inches from my face. Contempt leaked visible from his pours as he mouthed the word 'friend' to himself and laughed. I fought the urge to step backwards, to give into the hurt and the shock that now crippled my nerve-endings and drove me merely to stare at him. I wanted to retaliate. To swing my clenched fist forward so violently that it would leave jumping off a bridge unnecessary. I wanted to turn on my heels and save myself a spit-covered face from another 'belittling'. I wanted to run out the front door and close it behind me with a slam that would leave the entire house shaking, crumbling and never look back.
"You don't mean that." I mouthed back, casting my tearing eyes away from him, only to be sucked back again. "Y-you don't….." I trailed off, unable to finish. I felt the warm stings of salty tears as they ran down the sides of my cheek and patted loudly against the maroon carpet. On impact they exploded like a mushroom-cloud of liquid before being soaked in to the depths of the carpet. I looked into my room-mates eyes. The rest of his face became a blur, but I saw his eyes. Crystalline blue and piercing. They widened as they stared at me, taking in the site before them. Other times I knew I would have done anything to not let him see me like this. I would have hidden from his all-too-inhuman gaze, sparing myself the pity that came with his realisation that I was stupid and human. Unworthy. Above all things, I wanted to preserve the image he had had of me just minutes before. The doctor ravaged by war who could stand most anything. As untrue as this idea of me was, it seemed to be tolerable for him. But even that was gone now and I was the hollow shell that he would have no trouble saying 'goodbye' to or leaving behind if he felt like a bridge-jumping experiment. For a year now I had watched those eyes penetrate and judge me, filing away information about me for a moment when it would have to be spilled in just this manner to crush me, to get rid of me. I watched him pierce my very soul. I watched him construct the impenetrable shield around him that prevented me having any impact on him and I was left hollow. I hated him.
"Sherlock, I—"I looked at the vision of solidarity and of coldness that was erected before me and did not finish my sentence. His face was unmoving as he judged me still, even as I began to turn from him. I dragged my head away to face the exit. I wondering, in my state of confusion and emptiness, if there was anything I could say to put paint to the relationship that had been a lie and was now at its completion. There was nothing. I thought of the man that I had thought him to be and of the fool I had been to let him seduce me into the state of calm in which I had been living for the past year. I wanted to know if he had always viewed me with the same distain that he showed to all the corpses we came into contact with.
"Goodbye, Sherlock." I whispered, more to myself than to the shadow looming behind me whom would care little for my parting words. I felt like someone had rapped their fist around my heart and was now squeezing it lifeless at my urging. My body felt numb and I longed for the feeling to spread to my head. With every step I took from him I felt my leg grow heavy, as though the limp had only be absent at Sherlock's urging and now I was unprotected again. Crippled again. I tried to remember a life before Sherlock and couldn't. He seemed to have wormed his way into all of my memories, making me more critical of them. It seemed as though he was in my head now, and I would never be free of his lingering presence, being the companion that had defined my mundane world. It happened in an instant.
"John, wait—". There was explosion of motion from behind me as I felt the wood beneath the carpet yield to the force of a person spring forward. My leg gave way as I turned and I felt my entire body give way under the loss of support. I could feel gravity ceasing me by the shoulders and forcing me downwards and I could not fight it. I closed my eyes as the hard ground loomed just centimetres from my face. I waited for the impact. I waited. Nothing. My eyes flickered open in confused fright and the light poured into them and blinded me. I winced and suddenly became aware of the heat being emitted on my left shoulder, through my damp clothes. My vision cleared and I saw those brilliant blue eyes before me again, staring down at me in sudden concern and fright, as if he could not breath. They were opened as wide as the rest of his face would allow and set pointedly upon my face. They were swimming in an emotion that I had never seen them bare. I felt the warmth of his cupped hands around me, holding me in mid-air as if he were not sure to lower me or pull me to my feet. His entire body flexed under the strain of my weight but his face stayed serene, as if detached from the workings of the rest of his body. Suddenly, the happenings of the previous moment hit me like a stream train. Struggling awkwardly from his grasp, I lumbered to my feet, pushing against the carpeted floor with my quickly draining energy. He rises in unison, monitoring my off-balanced body as I try to stand without wobbling. His hands are in a constant state of unrest at his side, ready to lunge if I were to give in to gravity once more. The same expression lingered on his face, diluted by embarrassment and hurt as I push him gently away from me with one quivering hand. He eyed it pensively. Nothing escapes the master detective. When he is at arm's length, I let it drop to my side and turn my body away from him. I glanced towards the open door, saying nothing. Urgency rushes to his face as he anticipates my next move before I do.
"John, you can't-. Don't go." For the first time I see a look desperation on his face, not pitiful but verging on terrified. His mouth hung open, as he breathed heavily. His eyes darted frantically from me to random corners of the room. He waited for me to break the silence. Not this time. Pivoting on his heels, he attempted to say something that seemed to get stuck at the base of his through. He coughed and spluttered. I gazed with him in confusion, holding my body awkwardly, waiting from his body language to tell to get the hell out of his house. He advances on me again, this time stopping inches from my face. I tilt my head upwards to meet his eye. His black eyebrows arch as he looks down at me, no longer like he is studying a corpse but really looking at me. His bottom lip quivered and he bit down on it without much though. His head still twitched from left to right as if from the aftershock of a battle ensuing inside his head. For a moment, he closes his eyes with a long sigh and I feel his breath across the top of my head. They flicker open again with more purpose.
"John." He breathed, grapping my trembling arm as he spoke. "You know I don't… I'm sorry." His face is full of remorse and focus as he holds my gaze in his. "I just… I can't do this. Not anymore." His eyes dart across my facial features; my nose, my cheeks, my mouth, before returning to my eyes. "Not anymore". My left eyebrow rose in rapid response, trying to be on the same wavelength as his for the first time in history.
"Sherlock, what are you talking abou—". I was cut-off as he leaned forward onto his toes and lowered his head towards mine. I could feel his warm breath across my cheeks as his eyes closed and he closed the millimetre distance between my lips and his. I felt the warmth of his thin, pink lips as they pushed against mine for no more than a second, thrusting forward in a moment of spontaneity, or bravery. He held them there, keeping the pressure as lines formed around his eyes in his passion and concentration, like he was trying to shorten weeks on thought into one instant. Reluctantly, he pulled away with a loud smack and held his eyes closed. Shocked, my lips remained pouted even as he backed off several steps, sweating profusely. He did not dare open his eyes until he had his back to me. I could do nothing but stand there as if my arms were tied to my sides and my shoes pegged to the floor. My eyebrows rose as my lips un-pouted. I watched his raise his hands to his head, caressing it as though it were about to explode. He seemed to forget I was in the room for a moment as he battle with his thoughts, recoiling left and right, back and forth. I felt light-headed as I let my left foot slide backwards. I put pressure on it, sidling to the door and hear a terrible creak erupt from beneath my feet. I winced as he came to a sudden holt and straightened. We remained like that, catching our breath before he finally spoke, breathless and awkward.
"I-I…" Slowly, he spun to face me with his eyes on the ground. "I-I love you, John. And have concluded after weeks of observation that this is a more than ample time to voice my…. Admiration." Straightening his tie nervously, he lets his eye-line rise. I opened my mouth to talk, but was beaten but a completely flustered Sherlock who found no confidence in my look of dismal shock. "I understand your reaction, John. There is nothing I can discover in your character to inspire the idea that you have any homosexual tendencies, besides the pink teddy bear that you stuff into your pillow-case every morning after spending the whole night caressing it. I, myself, have little interest in …. Anyone. You should be no different. You are of average appearance, though prematurely grey, you have absolutely no academic-merit that I find of any value, you completely at odds with the world around you and cease every possible opportunity to make yourself look ridiculous in a field in which you will never be given the respect you deserve and, dear god, you are a terrible dancer." He breathed in noisily as for the first time since the start of the sentence, concluded he was on a roll and continued. "But I find myself with an ill-advised attachment to you that I have found very difficult to accept. And now, although I have received no advances from you at present, I have deduced that the most logic course of action is to either drive you away or make you aware of the feeling which I had just voice and in so doing, determine—"
"Sherlock." I spoke suddenly, regaining power of vocal chords. He seemed caught off-guard by my interruption as I could see that his mind was far ahead of his mouth. I strode forward, no longer thinking about the codes of conduct or the best way to go about things that would be most acceptable to Sherlock. "Please, just….just shut up." I leaned forward, with all my energy returned, and kiss him again just as a gust of wind from the street below blew the door to 221B Baker Street shut for the day.
-The End