Chapter 90 — He's Not About Thinking. Not Sherlock.
Rose approached cautiously, because something wasn't right with him. Her initial impression of how he regarded her was wildly uncharacteristic of Sherlock.
At first, she thought he was upset she'd been out late, that she'd somehow betrayed him by spending time with her friends. So much hurt in his red-rimmed eyes. But that was… utterly ridiculous. He wasn't insecure like that. But a tiny arch of his brow changed his look somehow. He'd betrayed her. He was guilty of something, and came off looking like a child about to be reprimanded. Her heart wrenched. Something awful had happened.
"Sherlock?"
Her words hung in the air, joining the remark she'd uttered when she first entered the flat.
"I'm so pathetic. I can't even last until midnight." And the light chuckle that accompanied her statement, that seemed so inappropriate now, the one she had to strangle out of existence when she actually saw his expression, still hovered on the periphery.
Sherlock slowly rose from his seat on the two-seater in front of the fire. In a rush, he was in front of her, seizing her, locking his arms around her and knocking the breath out of her.
Rose slowly reached for him. His breath came in short bursts, hot on her neck. His normally lean figure had sort of crumpled. He still said nothing.
Make a deduction, Rose thought to herself as he tightened his grip on her. That's what Sherlock would do.
Tobacco wafted from him. It was caught in his coat, his hair, and his skin. But he was cold. His face, his coat, and his hair, when she reached up to smooth a hand over it. Rose had been out in the elements, but she'd already shed her coat the second she came through the door. Underneath, she was warm. Sherlock hadn't removed his Belstaff. The cold night air had settled on him like frost.
So he hadn't been here long. He'd been out smoking and walking. And that means thinking and over-thinking, being Sherlock.
But his eyes…
as if he'd been…
crying.
Not just thinking.
"I'm here," Rose whispered, gently stroking Sherlock's nape. A cold sense of dread encircled her heart. "I'm here, now."
.
