Like Grave Robbers
Sherlock stared at John, and John stared at Yorick's lipless grin. Yorick, with no eyes to stare with, sat dead upon the mantel.
The silence in the room was stifling them, like a wool blanket in the middle of a sweltering summer. Even though Sherlock looked as calm and collected as ever, on the inside, his heart was thundering and he could feel sweat threatening to pool along his hairline at any moment.
"I don't know if I can do this," John finally spoke, after an eternity.
"Because I'm a man?" Sherlock asked the obvious just to get it out of the way.
"You know it's not that," John said, offhandedly, still staring down Yorick.
Another long silence.
"John, what is it?"
All the words were there, he just wasn't ready to say them to Sherlock, so he continued his stare down with the skull.
Annoyed, Sherlock climbed to his feet, stomped across the room and picked up Yorick. He glared down at John, who was finally looking at him (and also looking very small). "John, you must talk to me," Sherlock demanded. "What is the problem?"
For half a moment, John felt clever that he'd provided Sherlock with a problem he couldn't solve, but since there were two people in the (budding) relationship, he realized he had to speak up.
"It's that," he said, looking at Yorick cradled in Sherlock's hand, currently being held upside down.
John had never seen the man look so perplexed. He brought the skull eye level with himself and stared at the bone then back to John.
John didn't want to be with him because he had a skull on his mantel?
"I can get rid of the skull," Sherlock offered.
"It's not specifically the skull, Sherlock," John said, "It's what it represents."
"And what does it represent?"
"That you're a thief."
Sherlock was taken aback, looking down at John with his eyes slightly narrowed in confusion.
"You're a thief, Sherlock, and a horrible one at that," he shrugged, tripping over his words, "Not horrible in the sense that you get caught, because you don't, but because of what you steal. You're not a common thief who steals non-consequential things like jewelry or electronics or money. No, you're much worse. You steal people's hearts, you steal memories and private moments, you steal bones and blood, and life itself. You steal things that should be impossible to steal. And what makes you so terrible, is that you steal from everyone and anyone. Suspects, witnesses, hell, even from the people who would love you and take care of you if you gave them half a chance. And I," John paused, took a breath, "I don't want to be another skull on your mantel."
Sherlock sank to the floor with Yorick in his hands.
John picked absentmindedly at a loose thread on his pants. His voice was low. "You've made us like grave robbers. Taking what isn't ours. Taking things that should never be ours. Going places we never should be, seeing things that weren't ours to see. Already, you've made me a bit like you."
Sherlock ran his hands over the smooth surface of the skull's cheekbones.
"Besides, you said you were married to your work. And, you are. You're always leaving me behind - getting in taxis while I'm looking the other way, running down the sidewalk without warning, climbing up buildings and not buzzing me in." John rubbed his face. "It's like asking me to be your mistress, and then making me watch you bed your wife."
"But you said 'it's all fine,'" Sherlock rebutted.
"I did," John recalled. "But," he shrugged stiffly, "I think I was wrong."
"What changed?" Sherlock asked.
John looked at Sherlock, his eyes somehow painfully soft. "I don't know."
Sherlock's mouth went completely dry. "Where do we go from here?"
"I don't know," John echoed himself. He got to his feet. "Let me... just let me think it through, Sherlock," he said and went upstairs to his bedroom.
Sherlock stayed there on the floor, not moving, except to occasionally hold the skull up and look at it, or rub his hand across it's features.
(I might rewrite this scene later. Please let me know what you think.)