To my beautiful sirens, There-Are-Things-I-Can't-Say, PersiaAmelia, and HyperActiveSkittles, how can I ever thank you enough?

More angst in this chapter, but then, I warned you it would come.


Dead Air

3.

Asher moves past the man that is John Watson and plunks herself down on the sofa. After a few moments of standing stiffly in silence, John hesitantly moves away from the door and seats himself in an old armchair opposite her. For a moment, Asher studies him intently, this man that her favorite uncle loves. Much smaller than she had been expecting, almost tiny, with a tanned, friendly face and blue eyes that are steady and calm and yes, yes, she can see it. She can see it. If her uncle loves this man, this man loves her uncle even more.

"Has anyone ever told you you've got a psychosomatic limp?" she says, out of the blue, and instantly regrets it to some extent, because John's face goes positively sickly under his tan, and his fists clench and unclench on his lap.

"Yeah, I- yes. Yes, I've been informed." He replies tersely.

"By Sherly, most likely." Asher says knowingly, and she doesn't miss the spasm of pain that contorts John's features when she mentions her uncle's name.

"Right, yeah, so you're- you're Sherlock's niece, then?" John says wonderingly, "He's never said anything at all about you."

"He doesn't like to talk about his family much, in case you hadn't noticed." Asher points out drily as she gets to her feet and begins to wander about the flat. "So you two are… what, exactly?" she continues slyly as she inspects the skull on the mantle.

"Harry, you're looking grim." She contemplates, stroking it.

"Harry?"

"That's his name." Asher says blandly, "And you never answered my question."

John blinks. "Oh. Right. We're… colleagues of a sort, I suppose. Friends."

Her back turned to him, Asher rolls her eyes. "More like a couple." She mutters.

"Sorry, what?"

Asher turns around and smiles at John. "I said, living with Sherlock must be a lot of… trouble."

John smiles back, the first genuine smile she's gotten from him; it lights up his face and makes him look ten years younger.

"Oh, completely. It really was. He was an arrogant sod, always left his experiments lying about in unsanitary places. I found an entire head in the refrigerator once. A head. He played the violin at hellish hours of the night and wandered about in nothing but a bed sheet and his eyes were so bloody gorgeous sometimes I-"

John cuts himself off, eyes wide, seemingly horrified.

You wondered why none of those things, those insufferable, annoying things, could make you think less of him. You wondered why despite everything you could never imagine leaving him.

"You were close." Asher states quietly.

"Yes." John says, resigned.

"Do I remind you of him?" she asks suddenly.

John swallows thickly.

"So much it kind of hurts to look at you." he admits.


The man the skull belongs to was NOT actually named Harry, by the way. I suspect Sherlock knows his real name, and Asher just made something loony up on the spot. She does that quite often, actually...