He Stole My Cab (Benedict Cumberbatch Fanfiction)

Chapter Fifty Six

It was the little things; the small things that made me feel more like myself. The minute, selfless details that I picked up on that brought a smile to my dry, chapped lips. He was the only thing that really made me smile. Well at first anyway.

Like the way he would twirl my hair between his fingers when he thought I was still asleep. I could picture those soft eyes staring down at me, his glasses resting at the end of his nose as he was too distracted to read the morning paper. I kept my eyes tightly shut, not wishing to see him but just to relish in his company, allowing my other senses to do the work for me. Breathing in his clean, minty smell or the faint lingering of his deep cologne. Feeling my heartbeat fluttering in my chest or listening to his mirror mine.

He didn't want me to know but I did. I'd hear his soft mutterings into the phone after lunch or whilst I sat supposedly watching the TV. He would politely, always so politely, request for a delay in his filming schedules whenever he felt like he couldn't leave me that day or that hour. I don't know how he knew but he did.

It would come in waves. Sometimes I felt a little better and could face going for a walk, even if it was just through the rooms of the apartment. And some days I felt so good that I would order a taxi and go back to my own apartment to see Tina and collect a few bits and pieces and feel like my old self a little more. But then there were sad days, lonely days even if I was surrounded by people it wouldn't have made a damn difference. Everything that had happened in the last year would push down upon me, all the pain and anguish in one concentrated blow. Again and again. All the turmoil I had put Benedict through pushed the hardest on me, tightening my chest and restricting my breathing. It was like being trapped, encaged by my own mind. So much pain. My fault.

But he would know. Even if I said nothing or showed no signs of anything he knew. He would sit beside me in my silence just happy to be there with me and that in turn would make me happy. He would caress my skin, his warm touch soothing my internal panic. Even if he was reading he would have a hard or an arm against mine.

My favourite was when he would read his scripts aloud, but never the Sherlock ones, he would only reveal snippets of those details as I think he enjoyed seeing some reaction. I guess it must have been boring for him but he never showed it. He would read the lines in many voices, many accents and always peer above the paper, just enough to show his arched eyebrows and twinkling eyes to see whether he had made me laugh or smile, and he often did. At first I didn't try to smile or laugh but I saw the hurt in his eyes and I couldn't do that anymore to him. Even if it took all of my energy I would smile for him.

No I've changed my mind. My favourite wasn't when he read his scripts. It was when he read a specific script. He had one script one day about a government statistician who joins World War One; he is married but unhappily and falls in love with a suffragette. When he read those lines he would sit on the floor in front of me, sat back upon his heels so his eyes would meet my own. He would read the lines as though they were meant only for my ears, only we could cherish that moment. The worlds rolled of his lips and encircled me in a cloud of pure love and admiration. But it would fade. As we lay in bed at night I would listen to his slow, rhythmic breathing and feel nothing but cold and sad.

As much as he made me smile he also made me feel disgusted in myself. I would watch as he would sing softly to himself whilst cooking or doing the washing, or see him laugh whilst watching the TV or on the phone to a friend. And then he would see me. And all the happiness would drain from his face. He thought he could hide it, at least I guess he did but I would see it. See how his smile would falter only for a Nano second before returning to his face. It must have exhausted him to keep up a constant facade. But he did it. For me.

One night he came home carrying a large box which, judging by the strain on his shirt buttons was rather heavy. I made to get up but he shook his head and stumbled to the table, breathing heavily. I could feel the cold bite of the air as he shut the door behind him, picking up the post from the floor. He looked at each letter, his eyes frequently darting between me and the words. In his hand he held a postcard, I don't know who it was from but it made him smile as he studied the words and the pictures and the familiar flare of anger rose in me as his smile faltered as his eyes flicked back to me.