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I am tied together with knots and strings, delicate and pulled taut at the edges. I am an unbalanced equation, a lone electron orbiting a weak nucleus that doesn’t wish to keep me. I am a shattered bowl being clutched by clumsy hands in hope that the pieces will hold together. I am without glue, without substance - before long I will unravel and shatter apart. I am not strong enough alone to be structurally sound.
If John ever heard the poetic metaphors that dance around in my head, I doubt he would believe they came from me. I am all numbers to him, high and mighty and consistent. I guess I am consistent, if anyone would care to follow my habits I doubt they would have much trouble predicting my every move. I am not random, I’m just a different kind of expected than other people.
Maybe that’s why I took to observing them, memorizing their every pattern - because I am so consistently different from them. I think it while looking out the window of our flat, watching the little people in question pass by silently far below. My violin hums numbly against my jaw. I’ve been here a long time, I didn’t care to keep track of how long. Mrs. Hudson stopped by a while ago, she brought me some tea and asked in a motherly sort of coo if I was doing alright. I didn’t feel the need to answer. She knows how I’m doing. The tea still sits cold on the coffee table. John hasn’t been here, the whole time I’ve been playing. He hasn’t been here for several days, in fact. He still sleeps in his new flat, with Mary.
It’s a dull sort of pain by now, I’m used to it. The sort of constant kind of loneliness I am resigned to bear. He doesn’t want to stop by and see me because he wishes I had never come back from the dead. I pushed him away, left him behind, and now he’s returning the favor. Good. It is, logically, what I deserve.
So I play, alone, lurking in my window like a phantom. I’m producing dry, lilting tones with my violin, they’d probably sound tragic if they were not so wilted by normality. I don’t know when my hands started playing tunes so bland, melodies that all sound like something you’ve heard before but can’t quite place. It’s haunting in a dull, grey rain clouds sort of way - like fading memories and dusty pictures of faces you can’t remember the names to. Like the passing of time - as sluggish as the eroding of a mountaintop and altogether too fast to hold onto. It could be sad, and maybe I do feel sad, but I never truly know what I’m feeling. I feel through my fingers, let my violin and poetic metaphors tell me the state of my heart. I really shouldn’t, emotions are useless anyway. And what they tell me is never very clear.
I know the exact second John is going to walk into view. It’s almost an intuition, except somewhere in my placated mind I know it was a complicated deduction based on years of time spent with the man and observation of his habits, too quick for my conscious mind to really register. He walks by down below, drizzling rain making the pavement slick and shiny, bathed in dull grey light. He turns and walks up the steps to the front door and I don’t react, don’t move - he will find me like this. With my violin and my heart in my hands.
I listen as his blundering footsteps trudge up the stairs. He puts his coat and hat on the hat stand by the door, and I can imagine the face he makes at me from where I’m standing, my back to him, music still sighing from my grizzled hands. The chords have changed, almost against my will, my music is no longer common melodies, everyone’s song - it’s his. Slower, sadder, longer than his usually is - but it’s John. Standing behind me, wondering what to say that will coax me out of this melancholy trance. Wondering what to say that will make things right, that will punish me for what I’ve done. I hope he yells at me, it’s pretty likely he will. It will be good for him to get it out. I know he likes to look put together in front of Mary.
“Hello, Sherlock.” He says it like he knows it sounds cliche, but can’t find anything better to say and it frustrates him a bit.
I don’t answer, and he sighs. I’m almost on edge as he paces across the room, picking up the tea cup on the coffee table and taking it to the kitchen.
“You really need to take care of yourself, Sherlock. Leaving tea and paper and rubbish lying around, you’re losing your edge.”
He’s a few feet behind me, looking around the flat. I feel it when he looks back at me, the weight of it tingling on the back of my neck. He expects an answer.
I don’t give it to him, opting to turn around slowly instead, bow still singing against the violin strings. I hold his gaze, preferring to turn to where I can see it, stand up to it instead of letting it tingle the back of my neck. I look indifferent, I know. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say with this intense glare, but whatever it is, John has seen it before. He looks at me almost condescendingly, his eyes dancing back and forth, asking me why. Why I’m like this. He knows, I’m sure he does.
“Well. How have you been?” It’s not quite a cheery tone, more matter-of-fact than anything.
He straightens his back, taking a step into my personal space, standing taller in the face of my silent defiance like the doctor and soldier he is. From this distance I could touch him with a small gesture. I can hear his breath. I let my eyes flick towards the ground, letting the music continue to fill the silence, speak for me. He - at least in some sense - knows the answer to that question too. He knows how to stand up to me, but I know if I hold out long enough he’ll simply give up. He knows me, but he still doesn’t know quite what to do with me. I gladly take advantage of that.
He sighed. “I know I’ve been somewhat… rash towards you lately, Sherlock, but… you know you can talk to me, right? About anything.”
I keep staring at the ground, focusing on the forlorn notes I’m playing. His song has switched to a minor key, a slow moan, like a lament. It’s almost mysterious, a little haunting, it makes my chest itch like it needs something to be happening while I’m listening. I imagine birds flying out of a tree in a big flock, or dozens of pairs of faceless men and women dancing in a ballroom. You tell me I can talk to you, so listen, John. This is what I’m feeling. It is not made of words.
“Sherlock, are you ok?”
I jump when I feel his hand on my shoulder. I practically slink away, cringing from the touch like a skittish animal. I meet his eyes and he drops the hand sharply, a look twinged with apology overtaking his features. I’ve stopped playing my violin.
John looks away, trying to decide what to do, I think. My head is buzzing and I can feel a tingly warm spot seared into my shoulder where he touched me. I don’t know what’s going on - he’s touched me before, but it’s never felt like this. I didn’t even know people could feel something so… intense. He looks back at me, a question in his eyes. I want to back away from him, to turn my back, to run and hide and shoot all this skittish buzzing into the wall with a gun. But my feet don’t want to work for me. Awful day - when my body won’t obey my own commands.
He watches the expressions on my face, searching. Waiting. His gaze is searing - almost as branding as the spot on my shoulder. His mouth is turned down at the edges, like he’s concerned for me. I don’t like people to be concerned. There’s no use - I can’t be helped. There’s something in my chest that suddenly hurts. It aches, threatens to bring me to my knees with the weight of it, not even Russian whips across my back hurt this much. I can’t - John I ... wait -
With incredible caution, he reaches a hand up to my face. I watch him do it, and for one of the very few times in my life, I feel helpless. At his mercy.
His fingertips brush tenderly against my cheek and I can’t take it, I melt. I let my face lean into the touch, but just barely. The expression in his eyes is so impossibly John, I can hardly stand it. Sad, but almost smug, like he’s found a fatal flaw in a patient and knew exactly what to do to remedy it. I can’t define or describe the warmth that floods my stomach, there are no words - it’s not made of words. It’s a feeling that can’t escape my mouth, can’t be spoken or cataloged, can’t be turned into a room in my mind that I can lock the door to. It simply is, and it lights up the entire hollow of my head in spectacular colors. I am afraid John can see them flashing in my eyes, but I couldn’t break his gaze if I tried.
John smiles just slightly, a tiny thing. He brushes his thumb across the cheek that he’s now holding cupped in his hand, and lightning sparks behind my throat. There are no words - it’s not made of words.
“It’s ok. You’ll be ok, Sherlock. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
I laugh just barely, an ugly deep-throated sound that isn’t close to a good expression of the sunshine exploding into being in my head. It’s entirely overwhelming and I don’t know what to do with it. I want to cry or smile or throw things across the room - but most of all I want to stay here, I want him to stay here.
“I have to go, Sherlock. Speaking of being a doctor, I have a patient in a half an hour.” He takes his hand off of my face, leaving it unbearably cold. “I’ll be back, I promise. I’ll see you later, ok?”
I don’t answer. I think if I tried to speak right now, it would come out as a desperate whimper to stay, stay please…
He turns away, grabbing his coat by the door again. My violin hangs limp by my side.
John stops in his tracks, an arm still only half in his coat. Twisting around just enough to look back over his shoulder at me, he opens his mouth like he’s going to say something. That ache starts up again in my gut. He decides better of it, apparently, closing his mouth and smiling at me tightly. Then he is gone, much too fast, leaving me much too cold. I feel hollow, like porcelain.
It takes me a moment to force my feet to move. I don’t run after him, how could I? What would be the point? Oh, but I can’t help but turn back to the window, knowing it won’t do me any good to see him walk away. But I do. I do and there’s that horrible weight in my stomach, churning and whispering thoughtless things. It hurts to see him go, hurts to know he’ll come back - and I don’t understand it at all. I’ve never understood anything I’ve felt.
I watch his small form trot by far below, and I feel something snap in my head. I am tied together with knots and strings, delicate and pulled taut at the edges. I am a shattered bowl being clutched by clumsy hands in hope that the pieces will hold together. I am without glue, without substance - I am hollow as he walks out of sight. There’s no words for these feelings - no way to describe them or understand them. I can’t tell you what it’s like.
There are no words.