Our relationship - SH
What relationship?
This relationship.
The - I bring you coffee, and you drink it?
No.
I wouldn't call it a relationship of sorts Sherlock, a friendship maybe.
So we are friends?
When have we not been?
You haven't been talking to me the same.
Well, you left, it's difficult for conversations when the other person isn't there. Then again you wouldn't know.
I have noticed that you haven't been there.
John, doesn't make you coffee I take?
The texts would vary, going from downright silly to subtext to arguments.
They never did address the problem at hand, just skate around it, which was why she was in her apartment, and not on another date.
It was impossible to be on a date, when she'd receive texts with various assumptions on the man's character, before he'd even open his mouth.
How Sherlock was not there, but then again was there was amazing.
Not that she'd inform him about that fact.
The texts would also always come in utterly inappropriate moments, like when Lestrade asked her out again –
No - SH
What?
Don't go on a date with him.
And why? We both know him. He's a nice guy.
He's not ready. He's still in love with his ex-wife, soon to be wife again.
She just apologized to Lestrade, and made up some clever lie of being busy and important with the dead.
No, she was in her apartment, watching telly, and hiding under her covers. Not that she cared, as it kept her from an awkward setting.
She could only imagine the sort of texts he would start sending her if she were to go on a date with Lestrade again.
Had she in fact wanted to go on a date with Lestrade, she would have, despite his efforts to warn her.
There was knock on the door.
She half-expects John back at her door.
She snorts, as the knocks turn more urgent.
Before she even gets to it, the door burst open.
Sherlock strides in, stopping the moment he sees her on the sofa.
He looks sort of surprised, before eyeing her from top to bottom.
"You are not on a date, then," he says rather breathlessly.
"No," she says sort of in awe of his distraught appearance.
"Not on a date with Lestrade, then, as I can see. You have gotten in-doors with the kettle on written on your face," he says in a clipped tone.
"Did you run here?" she asks standing up from her spot in the sofa. "There isn't anything wrong is there?"
His blue eyes are hooked on hers.
She raises her brows.
"Absolutely nothing wrong," he says, and it almost seems as if he's about to leave.
The door is still ajar.
"Oh for Gods sake Sherlock – just say it," she says annoyed.
"Say what?"
"You're supposed to be the clever one, yet you send texts, you come running here mortified over the idea that I could possibly be on a date," she says slamming the door shut in front of him.
"I am not mortified," he says, and this time she moves to him closely.
She stares up at him, before putting a hand on his warm pounding chest.
"What do you want then?"
"I asked you the same. You did not answer. Do you expect me to answer?"
"I don't expect anything," she says, smiling up at him, a faded shade of red on her lips.
"You've already said that," he says breathing down on her.
"You're in my apartment," she says grinning.
"Yes," he says irritated at his foolish behaviour.
They just look at each other; she smiles, and is about to walk away, before he starts murmuring in her ear "Are you walking away again?"
"Well, I wasn't expecting dinner," she says pulling on the top button of his black shirt, while looking at him coyly.
"Where have you heard that?" he murmurs back.
"People do talk Sherlock," she says with a smile.
"So do you want to know?"
"Know what?"
"If I've had dinner before-,"
"Not really-," she says, slipping away from him. He stares at her; she stares at him back, as he removes his coat. "-Interested – are you staying?"
"You've got the kettle on," he says putting his coat over a chair, folding his scarf, heading towards her kitchen.
"Yes, I have," she says, and he starts to make a fresh new batch.
Fetching cups from her kitchen cupboard making him and her cups of tea.
She could confess that the gesture itself was surprising. "I didn't know you were domestic."
"I might not do it, but it doesn't mean I don't know how to," he says stirring milk and sugar into the cups.
"So, do you want to know?"
"I thought you were going to tell me, I didn't know I had to consent," she says, as he hands her the cup of tea, their fingers grazing each other.
"Well, I have to be sure you're ready," he says smirking.
"I've got a cup of tea, I won't be anymore ready than now," she says grinning settling down on the chair by the kitchen counter gesturing that she's prepared.
"I suppose I should shut up during this, shouldn't I?" she adds in his silence.
He just stares, smiling vaguely, before looking pensive.
His cup of tea is untouched on the counter.
"I have found myself distracted before," he says his gaze fixed on her. "When I was younger I made a game of it. Unbeknownst to my brother who still firmly believes I know nothing on the subject," and while he says that he's stroking the inside of her wrist.
She swallows, trying to be caught up in what he's saying, instead of what he's deliberately doing on her wrist.
"I learned a great deal, but I was never starved for it. It was a great amusement of course, but I have been avoiding it ever since," he says making small decisive circles now.
"Of course, my interest has peaked on occasion, and my appetite has been a bit varying to be honest."
"I thought you didn't do compliments," she says, trying to slip her arm away, but he holds her back.
"I don't," he says.
"What are you saying then?" she says staring down at her wrist.
"Why did you start wearing lipstick?" he asks.
"I thought you were going give answers, not questions," she says amused licking her faded red lips.
"You weren't supposed to talk," he says.
"That's a promise you know I could never keep," she says.
He let's go of her wrist, and goes around the counter.
As she sits, he towers over her.
"I do find you interesting," he says.
"That's because you don't understand do you?" she says standing up.
He looks at her puzzled; she keeps a certain distance between them.
"I got over you, well, the best I could – get over you, and it would have been easier, if you'd not been so interested."
"Oh, but your pulse-,"
"Chemistry, not feelings. Nothing's ever happened between us. You lived here for months. Not properly, but here I was swanning about you. You never gave me the time of day-," she says frustrated at him and her.
"I noticed-,"
"You never gave a sign. You just left, and all of a sudden you were alive again. And then the texting began, makes it difficult for a girl to forget."
"You're lying," he says.
"No, no, I'm not. It might be surprising, but I'm not," she says a bit angrily.
"Yes, yes - you are lying. You haven't changed for me. You haven't changed at all. You are just not afraid of me anymore," he says closing in the distance between them.
He was never one for knowing someone's personal space.
"I've never been afraid of you-," she says almost in spite.
"You never spoke up,"
"Just means I was shy-,"
"Then I asked you for a favour-,"
"Yes, well, you always ask for favours-,"
"But I never supposed you'd say yes-," he says, and his eyes are searching her face.
For a second she almost reverts to her old self, the old mouse she calls it.
She was just a silly girl standing in front of a man.
This time it isn't something he needs, or anything of the sort.
He isn't flattering her.
"That you'd be willing to set yourself in the line for me, like that."
"There is plenty of people who would-,"
"No, there aren't. Very few would, and I would like to thank you," he says reaching for her hand.
She looks at his outstretched hand, before putting hers in his reluctantly.
His hand is warm, as they shake firmly.
He doesn't let go of her hand though.
"Thank you. You might be the most pleasant distraction I've come across," he says.
"A distraction means something that will pass-," she avoids his eyes, keeping hers steadily on his chest.
He is staring at her too firmly for her liking.
"When has anything never passed?" he asks, hand still holding hers, as he moves even closer.
She can feel the heath emanating from his body.
"I don't want to be something that passed-," she says finally looking him in the eye again.
She regrets it when she catches his eye.
His gaze is piercing; his hand is warm, as he whispers leaning into her ear, "I don't want you to."
She holds her breath.
She did not expect that.
She expects him to release her hand and go wordlessly.
He doesn't.
He's still there, a living-breathing phantom in her home staring into her eyes.
She's about to ask him to leave, but then he does what she never anticipated.
He leans in, not for a whisper, not for any sort of jest.
His aim is for a kiss.
She doesn't stop him, the second his lips meet hers – whatever was slow and patient vanished. It's a hungry kiss, she moans into his mouth, as they collide against the wall causing picture frames to plummet into the floor. Her hands are around his neck and in his hair, as his hands roam her body. He starts to un-do her top, opening buttons with a hurried determination, as they head in the direction of the bedroom.