Chapter 34 - You're Missing the Obvious, Mate - He's a Man
Sherlock stood in the doorway to his bedroom regarding the figure curled up underneath the quilt. Clearly Rose had decided to reclaim lost sleep in Sherlock's absence. A warm smiled played on his lips, and he entered the room, shedding his jacket as he did so. They had unfinished business, and lunchtime or not, he was joining Rose in bed.
Sherlock lightly threw his jacket onto the chair in the corner of his room, then closed the door. The figure stirred, roused by the clicking of the door latch.
"How did you go?" Rose asked, sleepily eyeing Sherlock as he made his way around to her side of the bed.
The Consulting Detective smiled affectionately at his companion. "Good," he replied, unbuttoning his shirt cuffs before sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. "Hello, Rose," he rumbled in greeting. Sherlock leant over her, and found Rose instantly accommodating as his lips met hers.
He already knew how she would taste, the texture of her lips, and the response he would elicit from her. This knowledge did little to quell his own rising desire and an urgent need to plunder and devour. But he reluctantly drew back. Sherlock assessed that he was still a tad over-dressed.
"Mmm, you taste like fruit cake," Rose sighed, dropping her arms from Sherlock's shoulders as he straightened up.
Sherlock rose so he could undress. "I've brought you a sample of the one we've chosen," he said, rounding the bed while he swiftly unbuttoned his shirt. "I'll make you a cup of tea to go with it later."
He winked at her, and Rose smiled in response. She watched as Sherlock slipped off his shirt and dropped it on top of his jacket. He continued around to his side of the bed and unfastened his trousers.
"And how did you go with Mary?"
"Fine," Sherlock replied simply. His trousers dropped to the floor, and he stooped to pick them up. He shook them out and folded them in half, before they too joined the rest of his garments. "She's taken a sample of the cake home to John," he continued, before removing his boxers. Slipping underneath the quilt, he added, "We had it cut into nine pieces, and she'll tell John that they're from nine different cakes and he'll have to choose one."
Rose turned to her side, and shuffled closer to Sherlock as he did likewise. "Nine slices of the same cake?" she asked.
Sherlock grinned mischievously. "He'll get completely frustrated, but serves him right for not coming with us."
Sherlock edged forward, narrowing the gap between them. He was keen to start cuddling, but Rose drew back, clearly harbouring concerns she wanted to discuss. "But how did you go with Mary and... me... and us... hugging."
"She's fine, Rose," Sherlock answered, bringing his lips to hers anyway. Rose only allowed the detective-genius one kiss, and no more. "And... she likes you," Sherlock added, thinking he had to appease Rose somehow.
He decided to redirect his amorous attention elsewhere. He nibbled behind Rose's ear, listening intently for the sigh that should've escaped her lips, round about...
"But what about John?"
Sherlock's lips skimmed along Rose's jawline. "He likes you, too," he murmured, before nipping the smooth expanse of her neck.
"What! John?"
Sherlock halted his ministrations, realising his error. "He doesn't know anything," he said, quickly correcting himself. "Relax, Rose."
Sherlock dipped his head, and set about navigating Rose's soft curves, destination southward, until she made a definite bid to put distance between them.
"Rose, you're not making this easy."
"We haven't finished talking," Rose replied, pushing lightly against Sherlock's shoulders until he propped himself up onto his elbows somewhere in the vicinity of her midriff.
He looked up at her, impatience furrowing his brow. "I didn't realise we'd started talking."
When Rose narrowed her eyes at him, Sherlock tutted and rolled from her. Fluffing out his pillow, he said, "Fine," and arranged himself at the head of the bed. He sullenly fixed the quilt around his waist, then laced his fingers together before looking over at Rose and raising his eyebrows at her.
Rose pushed the quilt from herself and sat up, turning her body so she could face Sherlock.
"Mary," she began, "what did she say about us?"
Sherlock raised his eyes to the ceiling before heaving a sigh out of boredom. "Yes, she saw us hugging, which confirmed in her own mind the whole sex, money, arrangement thingy," he said, waving a disinterested hand at Rose as he spoke.
"What?"
Sherlock furrowed his brow at Rose, wondering what part of his explanation she had failed to understand.
"John told her ages ago—cute anecdotes relating to Sherlock, or some rubbish," he explained, and when Rose's eyes widened, he added, "You know, the Shelley-Rose 'Sherlock paid me to have sex with him,' confession. And then you came out of my bedroom, naked most probably, introducing yourself as Rose, talking about phone-sex or something, and she put two and two together, and—"
"I wasn't naked! And there was no talk about phone-sex! Is that what she said?"
"What?" Sherlock asked, bewildered. He barely remembered speaking; the words were coming out of his mouth and bypassing his brain. Sherlock only had one thing on his mind right now, and speaking coherently was not it. Rose was sitting in front of him and she was very, very naked. "No," he said slowly, trying to remember what he had just uttered. "She didn't say that."
"You're not making any sense."
"Rose," Sherlock said gently, reaching toward her. His hand caressed the silky, smooth expanse of her back, and he looked up at her with what he hoped was an expression of deep sincerity. "I have an erection."
Rose's studied Sherlock's eyes, because his words and his expression seemed at odds. When he failed to offer any further explanation, Rose asked, "That's it? That's all you have to say?"
"Yes. In my defence."
"Your defence of what?"
"Of speaking ineloquently."
Rose opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again when nothing came out. Sherlock continued to wait for her response, raising his eyebrows slightly with a hint of a smile gracing his lips.
Rose frowned at him, and said, "You know, you're probably classified as a genius. But right now, I'm not seeing it."
A devilish grin grew on Sherlock's face, and he pulled Rose closer. He drew up on an elbow and brought his lips to Rose's torso. She shuddered beneath his touch, so he murmured, in between delivering light, feathery kisses, "We haven't had sex since last Thursday."
"Friday," Rose sighed, as Sherlock's efforts had her reclining back onto the mattress at last.
"Friday was just for you," Sherlock retorted, a rough edge to his voice as he loomed over her.
"You didn't want me to do anything to you," Rose explained. "You said you had work to do."
"I know," he agreed, as he stretched his full length along Rose's body, instantly melding to her. Her skin was already heated by his earlier attention. "In hindsight, I should've masturbated in the shower once I'd finished working and found you asleep."
Rose chuckled beneath him. "I thought that's what I was for—offering you an alternate source of friction so you don't have to masturbate."
Sherlock's closed-mouth rumble had Rose laughing along with him, as they both recalled the inexperienced detective's comment to Shelley, after she had just deflowered him. Unless you've never masturbated before, the end the result is still the same. What you use as friction should be irrelevant.
Laughter heals, Rose thought, warmed by the moment. And making jokes about being a sex worker with the one person who understood everything she was going through went a long way towards helping her accept her past, and move forward. Besides, this was a memory they both shared.
As the laughter died away, Sherlock pressed his lips to Rose's, kissing away her smile. She wanted to be tasted and touched, to have him take her through all of those familiar sensations, but a mild panic still simmered beneath it all.
When Sherlock's mouth left hers to cruise lazily over her skin, Rose whispered, "Just tell me we're going to be okay."
Sherlock lifted his head, his eyes meeting Rose's. "We're going to be okay," he dutifully repeated. He cupped one breast in his hand, and bent his head, intending to lave her nipple with his tongue.
But Rose hadn't fully given herself over to his attentions just yet.
"And Mary will keep our secret?" she asked, her voice still barely above a whisper.
Sherlock abandoned his attempts with his mouth, and instead used his hands to caress, before responding with, "Yes."
"Do you really trust her?"
"With my life," he murmured. There had been no hesitance in his response. He really wanted to get on with it. When Sherlock dipped his head again, and heard the sweet sigh of pleasure escape Rose's lips, he knew the conversation was finally over.
Sherlock and Rose had finally settled on a routine that satisfied them both—they would spend Saturday nights and Sundays together at Baker Street, and most week nights that Sherlock wasn't faffing about at Bart's, back at Rose's residence in Leinster Gardens. Rose would spend a few hours in an evening sitting at her dining table, responding to emails or instant messaging sessions as a part of her crisis centre work. She made herself available to respond to messages from 10pm until 2am. Occasionally she took to the phone to discuss various matters with Tracey Yale, her supervisor. During this time, Sherlock laboured through his endless wedding checklists, frequently muttering to himself, or he'd take to Rose's sofa in a fit of inactivity and boredom, sighing loudly so that Rose would lavish him with attention. It didn't always work.
During one such evening, Rose wearily pulled her ear buds from her ears, after she had finished listening to a call that was previously recorded for educational purposes. In between writing emails or messaging via Skype, she would listen to counselling calls that the centre made available to their staff undergoing professional development training.
Rose stretched her arms above her head and yawned. At the same time, Sherlock threw his phone onto the coffee table in exasperation.
He rose from the couch and announced bitterly, "Well, Mike Stamford's out."
Sherlock stormed over to the kitchen, grabbed the kettle, and took it to the sink to fill.
"Who's Mike Stamford?" Rose asked, leaving her seat and drifting over to the brooding detective. She thought she'd heard the name before.
"A friend of John's from Bart's," Sherlock replied. He set the kettle onto its stand and flicked the switch. "They trained together. He's not coming to the wedding."
"Oh," Rose remarked, wondering why Sherlock was upset about this particular RSVP, when there had been a handful of invited guests who had also sent in apologies previously. She knew Sherlock was raging to somebody on the other end of his phone just then, but this in itself wasn't unusual of an evening. Subsequently, she had turned up the volume on her headphones and ignored him.
"Actually, I told him he couldn't come. In hindsight, it may have been a bit harsh and hypocritical on my part."
"Why's that?" Rose asked. She leant against the kitchen bench, ready to lend Sherlock a sympathetic ear. It had already been fine-tuned this evening anyway after attending to the needs of her call centre clients. Sherlock seemed unusually upset, and Rose felt a bit guilty for ignoring his phone conversation when it had apparently grown heated.
Sherlock heaved a sigh, and busied himself with retrieving two coffee mugs from the overhead cabinet. He set about preparing mugs of tea for them both.
"He rang me to confirm that he was coming after all—some conference that he thought he had to attend had been postponed—then he asked about John's stag night. I told him I hadn't even thought about it yet, so he started giving me suggestions." Sherlock began angrily spooning sugar into the mugs as he spoke. "He was pretty adamant about hiring a stripper, and I told him under no circumstances would we have a stripper for John Watson's stag night. So he said a strip club then—the lads would be expecting it." Sherlock lightly tossed the teaspoon onto the bench. Turning to Rose, he said, "Then he told me this not-so-amusing anecdote about one of the porters at Bart's whose own stag night ended in a brothel. Can you believe that?"
"Ah... yes," Rose replied quietly.
Sherlock's expression froze, and his eyes widened when he realised to whom he had been venting.
He blinked multiple times, then stammered, "Did you... have you..."
"Only once in the whole time I was there," Rose answered, her tone unemotional. "It doesn't happen very often, but there are groups of guys who do that sort of thing. Some of them even find it cheaper to take trips abroad. Amsterdam brothels are pretty popular for stag nights."
"And men do this," Sherlock asked. "Normal, every day, groups of males..."
"It only takes one sleazy guy, egged on by his mates to organise a visit. The ones who object probably drift away before the action starts, hoping their mates don't notice."
"And the groom? The man who is actually committed to marrying somebody else?"
Rose shrugged. "He's not necessarily part of the decision making. He might not want a part of it, although some do, especially if it's a planned weekend abroad specifically for alcohol and sex. The group who came through Lyceum Street said they left the groom-to-be passed out in a hotel room. And you know it's not just guys. Some Hen parties can get pretty seedy... or so I'm told."
Sherlock tried to keep his voice even when he asked, "So they all... the stag party... did you all... together?"
"Oh God no. It wasn't like that. We still had one prostitute per client in separate rooms. They had to pay individually. Mark said, in hindsight, we should've offered them a deal. Our little house wasn't set up for orgies." When Sherlock's eyebrows shot up, Rose weakly offered, "So... I only did the best man. He was drunk, and he couldn't... finish."
This was not the information Sherlock wanted to acquire so casually. He huffed and turned back to the tea, pouring the water into the mugs. The best man. The thought sickened him. He was the best man, and Rose had already done him.
Feeling completely self-conscious, and regretting her last item of disclosure, Rose hastened over to the fridge to retrieve the milk. She brought it back and hesitantly placed it on the bench next to the tea things. Sherlock decided to continue his story without looking up from jiggling the tea bags in the mugs.
"After I'd given Mike a lecture about the exploitation of women, he tried to make it clear that he just wanted a stripper, not a prostitute. I advised him that the issue was still the same, and if he maintained the belief that these women are employed in this industry by choice, then he wasn't welcome at the stag night, or for that matter, the wedding."
Rose gaped at him, but Sherlock kept his attention firmly on his tea bag jiggling.
"You said what?" Rose asked.
Sherlock bowed his head and breathed out deeply. "I may have been channelling Ms Small at the time."
"Oh, Sherlock," Rose said, wrapping her arms around one of his.
"Of course I'm a complete hypocrite," he muttered, plopping the tea bags onto the counter. He went to grab the milk that Rose had placed next to the mugs, so Rose released his arm.
"Sherlock," she said softly, fixing him with steady gaze until his eyes met hers. "You and I aren't the same people we used to be."
Sherlock couldn't maintain eye contact with Rose for very long. He concentrated on pouring milk into their mugs—a task that required his utmost attention apparently—and then slowly stirred the tea in both. Just how was he different to these... hooligans... who thought it was perfectly acceptable to include in their lads' evening of entertainment a trip to a brothel. How was he different? Sherlock's stomach felt tight, and he began to find it difficult to breathe. He looked down, and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Tea. They were having tea together. Tea and biscuits. Sherlock tapped the spoon on the side of the cup to get rid of the residual liquid.
Clenching the teaspoon a little too tightly, he said, "But I was wrong. I made a mistake."
"It's in the past. It doesn't matter now," Rose responded, a little too readily for Sherlock's liking.
He dropped the spoon and turned to her, a solid lump forming in his throat. "I should never have sought the services of a sex worker."
"Sherlock—"
"I shouldn't have paid you to come to my place, or demanded a cheaper rate, or—"
"Sherlock, don't do this."
"—or forced you to lower your defences. I made you feel vulnerable. I exploited your financial situation, and disregarded your own emotional needs."
"Stop it," she urged him quietly.
The guilt Sherlock had felt when his actions had been analysed and criticised by The Clarence House Cannibal came to the fore. The feeling was as raw now as it had been on the evening Ms Small had told the detective that he was no better than the MP, John Garvie.
Sherlock leant back against the kitchen counter, taking his gaze from Rose and focussing on a spot on the floor some distance away. "I didn't care about you as another human being," he continued, his voice rasping slightly. "You were merely a service I needed and used."
Just where has this all come from? Rose asked herself. She moved in front of the dejected genius. "It was three years ago," she said softly, reaching for his hands when his eyes met hers. "Everything's changed."
"No, Rose. This was as recent as five months ago."
"But everything's... changed... now." Rose's eyes began to sting. Had everything changed? Sherlock had confirmed for her that he no longer saw her as a sex worker. Was he taking that back? Panic took hold of Rose's heart, making her pulse thready.
"When I came back to London, I didn't imagine I'd be... alone." Sherlock brought their hands together, and distractedly skimmed his thumb over Rose's, keeping his gaze lowered. His thoughts had drifted back to the days after his so-called resurrection. "I felt isolated from everybody I knew, even though I was physically among them." Sherlock fixed his eyes on Rose, the blue-grey irises glistening with the intensity of the self-loathing Sherlock had brought upon himself. "I needed you for a purpose. And I paid you £800 for it."
"I know, but—"
"I bullied you into taking me in," Sherlock continued, "and I didn't believe you would want to be around me if not for monetary gain."
Rose drew her hand out of Sherlock's grasp and reached out, gently cupping his cheek. "That says more about how you felt about yourself," Rose carefully explained, "than what you thought of me." Her face softened as she tried to give Sherlock a smile in reassurance. "You didn't believe you deserved to have someone care for you—that I could care for you—when everyone else you were close to seemed too busy to fit you into their new lives." Rose brushed Sherlock's cheek with her thumb, as he studied her intensely. "I let you into my life because I wanted you there, not because you bribed me or bullied me. And it was a misunderstanding—the money thing. We've sorted it."
Sherlock covered Rose's hand with his, and brought them back down to hold between them. "Until very recently, I thought it was perfectly okay to pay a woman for her company, and for the use of her body. Your body, Rose."
She noted the desolation in his eyes, and she slid her arms up to his neck. She was just about to offer him further reassurances when, in a sudden rush of movement, Sherlock pulled Rose into a firm embrace.
"I'm sorry," he bid her, his voice cracking. Sherlock buried his face into Rose's neck, a sickly feeling of shame and self-disgust overpowering him.
Rose felt a wave of tenderness toward him. She held him close, his head cradled by the crook of her neck, and she gently stroked a hand across his shoulders. Sherlock had threaded his fingers into Rose's hair and held fast.
"Forgive me," he said, his voice almost like gravel, and his hold on her intensifying.
Rose's heart jolted at hearing the desperation in his voice. Whatever Tonya Small had said to him, it had sat with him since before Christmas when Rose herself had succumbed to her own grief. It had probably eaten away at him, until his guilt consumed him and he had lashed out when triggered by Mike Stamford's ill-timed request.
How could she forgive him when she didn't think he'd done anything wrong in the first place?
There was a long silence while Sherlock clung to her, but then she felt his breath hitch. Realisation dawned on her as to the extent of his turmoil.
He was crying.
Rose felt the pressure building up behind her own eyes. She continued to hold him. She would give him as long as he needed to let his emotions free.
Before too long, Rose felt Sherlock release his firm hold. He pressed his lips to her neck then straightened up. He swiftly turned back to the kitchen counter, avoiding eye contact with Rose, and said, "You should really get that."
Rose was confused for a split second until she realised that an instant message on her computer was beeping at her.
"Sherlock," she began. She didn't want to dismiss what had just happened so readily, but Sherlock had picked up the teaspoon again and began stirring their teas once more in earnest.
"Please answer that," he bid her in a low voice.
Rose quickly turned from him and hastened over to her computer. She bent over the table, instead of sitting in her chair, and quickly typed a greeting in response. Sherlock brought over her mug of tea, and silently placed it next to her computer.
Rose looked up at him, and went to open her mouth to speak, but Sherlock beat her to it.
"Stay focussed on your work," he said, retreating to the living area with his own tea. "You've already lost one job because of me."
He took a seat in the armchair that faced away from Rose, rather than the sofa where he usually sat, and retrieved his wedding checklist from the coffee table in front of him after depositing his tea.
"Sherlock," she said softly, as she made her way over to him.
"Don't, Rose. Help someone who needs you," he said without looking around. "I don't know how you can stand me," he muttered under his breath.
He was pushing her away, Rose concluded. A classic defence mechanism, and he was probably embarrassed about his emotional response. He was feeling particularly vulnerable and was putting up walls. Perhaps now was the time to let him know just what he meant to her.
"Stand you?" she repeated, walking around his chair and seating herself on the coffee table in front of him. "Sherlock," she said, leaning forward into his personal space until he had no choice but to meet her gaze. His eyes still swam with unshed tears, and Rose knew immediately what her next words should be.
"Sherlock," she said again, reaching for his hand and imploring him with her eyes. "I'm in love with you."
