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It's cold on the roof of the Brownstone.
Not quite cold enough to chase you back indoors, though, just enough to make you wish you'd put on a jacket first. But you've been telling yourself that you'll go grab one in a second for so long that it's starting to get dark, so you're resigned to just putting up with it now.
You watch the bees crawl around inside of the hives, trying to make sense of their movements. It all seems completely aimless to you on the surface, but you know that it makes sense to them, designed for efficiency. It's a nice distraction. They're cuter to you than they used to be, even if the muffled buzz does get kind of grating after a while. But it's easy to lose yourself in picking out one specific bee and following where it goes, what it does, how long it takes you to lose it.
"There's nothing wrong with you, you know," A voice says from behind; and you hadn't heard him sneaking up on you, but for some reason, you're not surprised to find Sherlock there when you turn around.
Maybe you're desensitised. Waking up to find a guy perched on the end of your bed like a gargoyle a dozen times will do that to you. You turn away again, and he comes to stand next to your chair, which might have felt like he was hovering over you if his gaze wasn't fixed on the bees. A mutual distraction. Despite everything, you're not on edge waiting for him to continue. The tension of the rest of the day is gone now - tomorrow, you'll meet up with Andrew, and you'll end things with him. All that's left is passing time.
Sherlock doesn't ask why you're on his roof at this time of night rather than in your own apartment. He just keeps talking, as if nothing has happened since, like this is a perfectly normal place to continue that conversation. You feel like you've been up here for hours.
"Earlier, you asked, 'What is wrong with me?'" He isn't looking at you. You can't decipher the expression on his face, so you look away from him again. "And I told you that I wasn't an expert on love, but what I neglected to do was actually answer your question."
Carefully, you weigh up the pros and cons of punching him in the arm again.
Sherlock continues, "But the problem is, that question is built on a flawed premise. You think that you aren't feeling what you're supposed to be feeling, except there is nothing you're supposed to feel here, just something you might have expected yourself to. You have no obligation to experience romantic interest in anyone."
"There's no reason for me not to be interested in Andrew. He's a great guy." You hate how rehearsed it sounds.
It's true. Andrew's everything you could want in a boyfriend. And you like having him in your life, you like spending time with him, you like having sex with him; you enjoy nearly every aspect of your relationship, aside from the inevitable progression of it. Introducing him to your parents now that you've met his. Valentine's days, birthdays, anniversaries. Moving in together permanently. Knowing that this is it for you - you break up at some point, or you spend the rest of your lives together. And it's not the thought of being with Andrew, because if you had to pick someone, you're fairly confident that he'd be an ideal long-term partner. It's just the thought of being with anyone. You think about milestones, and checklists, and 40-something years of waking up in the same bed beside the same person to repeat the same routine of domestic bliss, and you don't want any of it.
You don't know what you want, what more he could possibly do that would make you want that kind of life with him. You're starting to feel this uncomfortable, creeping suspicion in the pit of your stomach that you might never want that with anyone.
"He is. But it's rarely that easy, is it?" Sherlock rocks back and forth on his heels, and you wish you could borrow some of that nervous energy.
"You were wrong before," You tell him. Sherlock, for once, says nothing. "Maybe I've done it in other relationships, fine, but I never sabotaged things with Andrew. I put in the effort to make it work. I did everything right."
"And yet." The silence after those two little words is deafening.
"And it isn't working, alright? Is that what you wanted to hear?" You sound angrier than you feel; mostly, you're tired.
Sherlock goes still. "No, not really."
The stupid thing is, you almost want to blame all of this on him. When you think of how assured he'd been, how sincere, when he told you that you'd never be happy in the confines of a traditional relationship, you could strangle him for it. As if he'd somehow jinxed you by putting that thought into words. Like maybe, if Sherlock hadn't pointed out that it was a 'meeting the parents thing,' it wouldn't have felt like one. You could have told yourself it was less serious than it was. You could have gone to dinner with Andrew and his father and not felt the dawning horror that everything was going perfectly.
"Whenever I've brought this up, it's not because I want to be able to say 'I told you so' when your relationships inevitably fail, it's in the hopes that, perhaps, this will be the encouragement you need to stop putting yourself through them." Sherlock says, passing by inevitably with ease while you struggle to hear anything that comes after it. "The difficulty with your romantic engagements is not strictly due to a lack of effort on your part, it's that they conflict with your own nature."
"I remember that. Was that before or after you compared me to a baboon?"
"I was illustrating a point."
It's hard not to smile at how exasperated he sounds, as if that was a perfectly normal image to invoke and you're the odd one for continuing to bring it up. "And what point was that?"
"You were looking for a way out. And despite your decision not to take it then, you now find yourself in need of an exit again," He says, decisively.
"I don't know what to do." It comes out so softly that you're not sure if he'll be able to hear you. You think you're talking to yourself as much as you are to Sherlock. "I know I have to break up with Andrew. But the thought of finding someone new and going through all of this again for no real reason, just because I don't enjoy being in a relationship, it's..."
You trail off.
There are things you don't hate about it. You've dated enough to see the advantages of trying again whenever it doesn't work out. Meeting someone who stands out to you in some way, getting to know them, becoming friends. Being attracted to someone you can tell is attracted to you, and letting that desire boil over. It's just everything after the first three dates when it starts wearing on you, not quite the idea of commitment, but the claustrophobia of routine; once you're close enough that it's time to start being more than just friends, and the fun gives way to thinking about the future. The reality never lives up to the expectation - you keep convincing yourself that it's worth another shot, but you don't even know what you're hoping to get out of it.
The thing about a relationship is that it's always heading towards the end goal of being in that relationship. Once you're past the stage of finding out if you might be compatible together, it's just a means to that end. And you want to want it. You do. But this thing you're supposed to feel which makes it worthwhile, that pull towards another person, a love like a need for them to love you too... It isn't there. You just feel uncomfortable.
His voice is softer now, "As I said before, Watson, this aspect of you isn't a character flaw. It's not something you need to solve."
Those words should comfort you to hear. They don't. Because if it's not an issue, it's not something you can fix. If you can't make it into a mystery, or a problem with your attitude, or a matter of finding the right person, then it's something you have to live with. It's you. You don't know why that seems so impossible to accept.
"That's easier for you to say."
"You're right. It's easy for me to say, and I imagine, a great deal harder for you to believe." Sherlock gestures awkwardly. "But for what it's worth, I think you might find it worthwhile to try."
It is easier for him. Because he's a man, and that comes with much less pressure to find a life partner over another one-night stand. Because he has always been a man, because he doesn't feel that urge you do to just pick someone nice and settle down no matter how unappealing it sounds, because there aren't that many people in New York who don't have some kind of hangup about being with a woman like you, and who knows when you'll find the next one? Because he's been in love before. It's easier for Sherlock, because for everything weird, or off-putting, or insane about him, he felt - still feels - what he was supposed to for Irene. You should want that. You don't know what the alternative is. What does your life look like, without that type of relationship?
You try to picture it; never dating again, never even trying to, living with the knowledge that you'll never be expected to feel anything for someone other than affection or physical attraction; and the emotion which finally shines through your fatigue is relief. A sense of pressure suddenly abates. Even just the idea of it is dizzying, the concept of not having to do this anymore. Of not having to want it.
And it doesn't instantly become easy to bear, the unease you feel towards romance, the worry that you won't overcome it. But it becomes clearer in your mind. More defined, something you can pick up and examine. It's a shift in perspective away from viewing this as an inability to cope with normal relationships, and towards the view that maybe, you don't have to cope with them. Maybe that should have been a red flag to you a long time ago, always thinking of romance as a thing to put up with for other rewards rather than something enjoyable in and of itself. But it wasn't. You'd never come so close to making things work before, used to getting out before things could feel too real. And you might not love him, but you like Andrew; you're more than half afraid that the friendship you had won't survive past the death of your relationship, but you're glad it led to realising this. You have the option not to participate. To do something else instead. To do whatever you want, really.
"It's still remarkable to me," Sherlock's voice shakes you out of your thoughts. You can feel the weight of his attention on you, heavier than if he was staring, the two of you still looking out towards nothing in particular together. "I- I haven't known you nearly as long as you have known yourself, Watson, and yet you're still trying to work out something I've known for some time now. There is nothing wrong with you."
He leaves you there on the roof with that said, and it feels less like a dismissal and more like a parting gift. You don't get up to follow him yet.
Soon, you'll go inside where it's warm, or back to your own apartment. But for now, you watch the hive by the last of the sunlight - seeing, but not observing. You sit very still, full of feelings that you don't yet have the language for, but which threaten to spill over into something that's not quite love.