Castle in the Air
A/N: This is my first attempt at Elementary and I'm terribly nervous… I hope you enjoy…
She wakes without fully knowing sleep had claimed her. With her body bolting upright, hair a wild mane, like a tangled shield against the crush of fear and panic. Her heart is pounding in her ears, blood rushing too quickly, veins coated and slick with the shimmery edge of adrenalin. She tries to find understanding, to push aside sleep and bring her panicked senses forward.
The dark air and nearly silent night do nothing to sooth. Nothing feels like what it ought to be.
While gasping for breath and the comfort of familiar surroundings she finds her fingers full of soft, aged cotton. Her one hand grasping the well worn threads of the bed sheet, held up against her breastbone while the other is firmly wrapped around an ever-calm Sherlock's shirt front.
With fingers sure and purposeful, he tames the inky strands that swarm the air between them, tucks what he can behind her ears. When the air goes from coal black to silvery gray, she meets his eyes in the darkness. His are sharp and piercing, sober as always. They remind her of razors or diamonds, clear and direct and impactful. Even in the darkness they're still so bright. They seek everything there is to see, and everything the light never touches. He sees without seeing, understands without fully knowing.
Finds everything she keeps so tactfully tucked away.
He lifts his hands, slides his fingers along the seam of her bent arm, and places the others along her shoulder, fingers tracing patterns along the blade of her back.
He's seated along the edge of her bed. Left knee tucked up close to his chest, the only truly solid thing between them, and his right thigh pressed along the seam of her hip. She doesn't think they have ever been so close, with nothing but the blanket and his jeans separating their skin. The barriers do nothing to keep the scorching heat of their bodies from colliding in waves. Like the tide to the sands of a shore.
It's not unusual to find him lurking within her personal spaces. She's found him seated under her window or skulking in her doorway more times than she's sure to admit but never before has he trespassed so criminally. He invades space but never solid boundaries. Doesn't touch or taste or tamper. Rummaging through her closet and rearranging her personal effects is nothing compared to the fact that there's currently no air to breathe that isn't laced in his scent; that the pads of his fingers are still lingering on her skin.
He's never touched her before.
She knows nothing of his inner battles. He's made sure of it. Only watches the wars he wages within the memories and lives of those left behind in his mind. His lips are sealed on all things pertaining to his past life. His lips are sealed but his eyes won't shut up. And It's their silent screams that tear the seams of her heart and allow caution and doubt to seep inside and mingle with her already churning emotions.
She doesn't know what to make of him when he's still.
He brings a hand up again and pushes a few stray raven strands out of her eyes, off her face, tangles his fingers purposefully within the masses of her hair along the tip of her spine. He drags his thumb along the length of her throat, continues down along the wing of her clavicle.
She finds her breathing is still erratic and yet she's sure the fear is gone. Knows she should acknowledge how out of character this is. How out of their depth they are. He hasn't spoken and she can't seem to find the strength to shift her weight at all. He lifts his free hand to her wrist, the one attached to the fingers still solidly braced within the fabric against his chest. She knows he's reading her pulse, watching her eyes dilate, listening to the way his proximity makes her breath catch.
Only this time he's not deducing anything. He's after one thing and she knows exactly what it is; permission.
She's never worried over crossed lines or unraveling heart strings before. Never stopped to consider he may actually see the woman behind the beeswax scented skin and the eager mind. If the silence that's settled between them and the look in his eyes are any indication of how he feels she has surely misjudged him. Again.
She wets her lips, prepares to speak. To say what, she isn't sure. She's well aware it should be something along the lines of dismissal or reproach. But the appearance of her tongue, as it grazes her lower lip, triggers a reaction from him, pulls him forward. A slight sound escapes him just before his mouth descends to hers. She can't be sure if it's a sigh or a moan.
Perhaps it's both.
His eyes, his movement, his speech, all of his gestures are always curt and precise. There's no finesse in his bones, no grace in his conscious. So she's startled to find his lips are gentle and his hands are hesitant. The novice hands of a seasoned veteran, the hands of a man who knows how to take what he wants and finally wants what he's taken.
His fingers fall away from her wrist, drops his knee to the bed, tucks it beneath himself in order to drag her closer. His lips are still hesitant, waiting for her response. She's well aware he holds her in too high an accord to forever alter their relationship by single handedly crossing lines drawn in the sand.
She understands he needs to know she wants this too.
She drops the sheet, releases his shirt and trails both hands along the line of his arms. Slips her fingers under the sleeves of his shirt, traces his muscles and bones and wonders if there's a way to forever embed the feel of him in her memory. Knows he could teach her how, wonders if she'd truthfully want to learn.
She parts her lips, welcomes him into the warmth of her, tastes him for the first time and swears it will not be the last. When his tongue passes her lips, she releases her own sigh.
The sound would appear to be the permission he's been looking for.
With all the finesse one can posses while burning in the flames of passion, he lifts her from the bed and into his lap. He carefully fights the fabric of her t-shirt until he finds purchase along the skin at her hip. He drags the backs of his fingers along the edge of her ribs before cupping her side. He traces the tiny line of lace that trims her underwear. She can't help but wonder if he's counting the stitches all while exploring her mouth with his tongue.
She knows he commits movements and actions and expressions to memory like poetry or paintings or lyrics from a song. She thinks of his Attic Theory; wonders if he's deemed her a memory worthy to share the shadow corners of his mind with his theories and deductions and quirky assumptions. But she finds herself fearing the more plausible scenario; that she's only eluded his understanding to the point of forced action. He can't get her out of his mind until her gets her out of his system.
Just another enigma he's posted on the wall; can't tear it down until he's figured it out.
She's sure she'll care tomorrow. When the reality and regret are pooling together like ice in her veins. But in the moment, with her hands in his hair, fingers trailing his cheekbones, the shell of his ear, and the pronounced line of his jaw; she knows nothing could make her care less.
(…)
She wakes, without fully knowing sleep had claimed her; her body bolting upright to find the room a whirl of light and color and sound. There's nothing left of the silence of night. The bed sheet is clutched at her breastbone but this time both of her hands are fisted against her irregularly beating heart. Her eyes dart around wildly searching for any indication that she's replaying a memory not a dream over and over behind her eyes. She brushes the ends of her ponytail off her left shoulder as she takes in her surroundings.
She can hear Sherlock rummaging through her closet, murmuring to himself, something about a pink top with a hem trimmed in lace. When he emerges and finds her wide awake and wide-eyed he hesitates for the briefest of moments before continuing with his routine and drapes the selected items across her legs on the bed.
He avoids her eyes, says nothing to her directly, which leads her to believe he's in possession of some secret she'll never be privy to.
He clears his voice before he finally speaks. "Ah, wonderful, you're awake. Come, get dressed quickly. Gregson is waiting on us." He turns his back to her, stares dutifully out the window so she can dress. Her heart sinks, she's dangerously close to tears without fully understanding why.
It's almost as if he can feel her emotions writhing in pain at his feet, because he clears his throat again and turns for the door. He's sure to keep his back to her at all times, pauses only when he reaches the open frame. "Perhaps, Watson, you'd benefit from a moment of peace and some solitude on your way to the crime scene. It would appear you did not sleep so well last night."
His eyes dart briefly in her direction, so very quick she nearly misses it through the veil of sleep and sorrow. " I'll text you the address and you can follow at your leisure." And with that he is gone.
She listens to him as he continues through the brownstone. When the door slams behind him and her phone chirps with his promised message she lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She reaches for the clothes he's laid out for her. Slips the shirt off the hanger and falters when her fingers graze the lace along the edge. She drops the shirt and slips her fingers beneath her sleep shorts, runs her thumb along the line of lace at the band of her underwear.
She shakes off the memory, gets dressed. When she turns for her phone she nearly trips over the chair, his chair. It's no longer positioned under the window; it's all but half way to the bedside.
She may have been asleep last night, but he surly was not.