Work Text:
For all that it is a house in New York, Siger Holmes' house on Baker Street has enough spaces in it to confound a lab rat. When Joan first moves in, it is simply enough: entrance, doors straight ahead lead to the second floor, to her right and another right is the living room, go straight instead of right and there is the kitchen. Upstairs: bathroom second to last door, walk-in closet, Sherlock's room, hers on the far-right hovering above the kitchen.
Navigating is easy. Learning the house is harder. There are always drawers to be discovered, false panelings, loose floorboards. She starts finding these to make sure Sherlock isn't using; if he does she will know each and every place he can and will hide his addictions. She starts with her own bedroom, and although she keeps her room sparse, she finds no less than fifteen nooks in addition to the usual places like pillows and mattresses.
She slowly moves her way across the house in no particular order. Outside her room is hard; those are Sherlock's spaces and it's crammed full of things and junk and things that have no use to her, but every obvious use to him. Downstairs is even worse, piled with books, locks and handcuffs with no keys hanging from odd corners.
Sherlock knows she's searching. He has to with his mind and the burdens of it. He makes no comment on it, and Joan has no desire to update him on the careful cataloging she does. She keeps this list in the safest place she can think of: not papers or computer files, ripe for finding or hacking, but her own mind. She made it through med school; what is a house to the human body?
Past the half-way point of her stay with him -- following him across the city, solving crimes, having her own life, it all takes time -- she finally gets to his bedroom. She doesn't even realize it at first; it's just the last room to enter. She takes in the clothes strewn on the floors, the unmade bed, covers kicked to the ground. She takes in the size, the fact the bathroom is much further from here than her own, and it hits her.
She feels like an intruder, a stranger; she has not been invited here. Backing out of the room, she quietly shuts the door behind her.
Sherlock returns that night, arriving loudly with a banging door and yelling about his latest encounter with Detective Gregson. He seems to have forgotten his coat goes on the coat hanger; he's half-out of his jacket, and she is sure his missing scarf is on the coat hanger. He struggles out of his sleeves. "There we go!" he says, and throws it on the armrest before setting himself down.
"As I was saying, our favorite police officer Ty was there and he had to -- " He continues without even asking how was your day, Joanie?, and Joan raises an eyebrow and listens, the medical journal she was reading still on her laptop screen.
"I am going to bed now. You are more than welcome to keep reading that disgustingly outdated medical article. I don't understand why you bother, what with your insistence at a permanent life of babysitting incapable addicts."
Joan ignores the jab he makes at the both of them. She lowers the screen. "I noticed, that I am not sleeping in the guest room."
"Well, yes," he replies, giving her that wide-eyed charm. "I do know how to treat my guests."
"There was no need to swap the bed frames out of courtesy."
"Who said I -- "
She gives him a look. "The scratches on the floor are the same, and the ones in my room are older."
"Watson, were you sneaking about my room? I assure you your dogsniffing ways," he gestures with his fingers, "are completely unnecessary; I told you I'm not going to use again."
He makes a great fuss about leaving the living room and delaying his trip up the stairs to grab something, but Joan knows how this game is played. She lets him get half-way up the stairs before she gets up and moves to the kitchen long-ways, passing by the banister.
Ah, there it is: he sneaks a glance at her, and she has him. She holds his stare, waiting.
He gives her an answer just as she thought he would. "You sleep in the master bedroom," he says, "because you are the master." He tosses something down.
She looks at her hands. Leather cuffs with silver buckles and rings. She lifts them up to her face and runs her fingertips against the fleece lining. She thinks of the marks on his bedposts, of the vulnerable look on his face, the one he always gets when he stops evading and finally gives her what she wants.
She putters about the kitchen while she waits to hear Sherlock's door shut. Then, she settles down at the kitchen table, hands still learning the cuffs. Her laptop and its article lies forgotten on the armchair.