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It is a cool night on the 30th of April in the year ( 2000 | 2024 | 2026 ) and Sherlock Holmes is sitting alone in his bedroom ( at a boarding house in Dulwich College, with Victor sleeping so deeply on the bunk above him that Sherlock may as well be the sole occupant of the room | at his home, 221b Baker Street | at 221b Baker Street ), thinking deeply as he has become accustomed to doing each night ( : indifferent to his immediate surroundings (provided they were unobtrusive) as his mind traverses a seemingly endless cosmos of thoughts. | : tucked under his soft weighted blanket, head resting against his wall and weaving threads of thought as intricate as the ones that make up the fabric of the bed he sits on. | , this time with a hanging sense of dread piercing his heart. )
He stares absently at a nondescript point on the wall as his mind wanders. As it does, he realises that he feels strangely ( lonely, for a boy who frequently chooses to avoid the company of all but one of his peers | accustomed to being engulfed by a warmth he seldom felt before he lived with John and Marianna. He notices the affection that he usually keeps tightly in check (the one he feels specifically towards the former) bursting through him | like he is crumbling, as if it's him withering away in that awful hospital bed and not John (who is alive, he reminds himself. Comatose, but alive ) ) and the realisation ( scares him | scares him | scares him ).
He rises from his bed and ( starts pacing in attempt to stimulate his brain (knowing that Victor won't mind the noise); so that he can better examine the feeling that is weighing down the perpetually fearful part of himself that is engulfed by his emotions, floating it away in the weight of this sinking feeling that still isn't quite unfamiliar enough not to hurt as much | walks silently over to his desk, the floorboards creaking steadily until he stops and pulls out the drawer he fills with his personal items, his fingers trembling slightly as he pulls out a picture of him, John and Marianna in which they are all smiling and holding out mugs of tea (how he kept his secret even when he saw that smile, he didn't know) | sinks to the floor with his head between his knees, like he is going to cry, and stares at the gaps between the floorboards without seeing them, trying to do what he knows he has to if he ever hopes to keep himself and everyone he knows alive: ignoring awful feeling pouring through his body; this awful fear and the guilt he felt that was only temporarily stopped when Marianna set him right days ago ), pondering the best course of action ( as he has always been at least somewhat confused by the painful and all-encompassing mass of emotions that guide his actions more than he wishes them to.
He doesn't believe that he will ever truly halt this confusion with any finality, but maybe, if he listens hard enough to the too-loud creak of the wooden floor underneath him, he can understand what he is doing wrong that leaves him like this (and has done for so many long nights in the past, with and without his realisation) and probably will for an endless droning of months in the future. | —if there was one, for this strange blanket of sentiment he knew would destroy him if it was taken away | from where he sits on the floor the flat that is too empty with his best friend so far away (how had he survived this loneliness he must have felt before him? When had his home become a before and after the harm he had caused his best friend, the man he had fallen in love with? (Comatose but alive. Comatose but alive.)) )
Even from this new position, the ( schoolboy | detective | monster )'s brain does not offer him any insight on his situation. Not one to give up easily, he tries this for many minutes before starting to ( pace slower | sitting back on his bed, this time on the end, and smiling—just hesitantly, because he hasn't let himself believe that his new little group won't leave him just yet. He anchors his mind in memories of the three of them to stave away the thought | directing his gaze wistfully upwards through the window and at the bleak wall of darkness beyond it, glossy eyes still only seeing blurs instead of shapes )—as if that could help him figure out how to calm the fear deep in his heart.
Somehow, he feels that it does ( , a little. But not enough, not nearly enough | . Maybe he won't be as destroyed by this contentment with living with—no, even having two favourite people as he has thought for so long | something to change how he thinks. He isn't sure that it is a good thing ). Even still, he feels his arms shake in time with the flashes of terror that course through his core and knows that this isn't over, not yet. Maybe it ( never will | is a only result of his past experiences, this fear that pins down and pushes so many people away. If everything goes right this time, or even if it doesn't, it isn't the worst thing that could happen to him, being loved and loving back. Maybe he deserves this, even after choosing to stay away from everyone else for so long, even after all the lies he tells his Watson about the way he really loves him | won't be for months, years even. Maybe not even until they put him in the ground (cause of death: Sherlock Holmes's shame) ), he thinks. After all, he is still alone. Loneliness can never subside if that is still true.
It is strange to think that in the future, Sherlock, inevitably and unbeknownst to the version of him that exists now, ( will move on from feeling like this, just for a while, when he talks to Victor the next morning | still lives in 221b Baker Street | will listen from where he lies amongst the jagged cliffs reaching into the sky around him and know that the expression on his Watson's face matches the one he wears now, the one he associates with himself being at fault ) and his heart will be stabbed with white-hot ( joy | joy | guilt ), the kind that hangs within him a for a fleeting moment. When it does, it seems to become a part of him; despite how easily it is overshadowed by ( the same cloud of different kinds of sadness he is plagued by each day, each one complex and exhausting | the thrill of the next case, although that never seems to drown it out fully | a deep emptiness ) as the world keeps turning around him, even as he is motionless in his room.