Watch Me Play.

|Play|PresentDay|January2012|

“Sherlock?”

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“Sherlock.”

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“Sherlock?”

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“Sherlock.”

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“Please Sherlock.”

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He says his name five times a day. At times, fives times seems excessive and yet somehow, at others, it seems like it isn’t anywhere near enough.

The first time he says it, it is nothing more than a tentative question. In fact, he often has to try once, twice, three times to utter the two-syllable name. He is always ashamed of how weak his voice is on that first try, but there is nothing he can do about it; nothing ever changes. He doesn’t expect a reply. He doesn’t expect anything really, not anymore. He has grown used to the silence, the depression that seems to seep from every pore on the other mans’ body, every piece of furniture he touches, his skin, his very being.

He doesn’t really expect anything the second time he says the name either. His voice is still cautious, but he manages to stop the upward lilt at the end of the utterance. This time, if he’s lucky, they’ll make eye contact, but nothing else. Some days he thinks this is worse than the silence; he will be forever haunted by the look his friend gives him, the ‘what are you doing here?’ Or the, ‘what am I doing here?’

The third time is a more urgent question and so what if it sounds like he is begging, it isn’t beneath him. It doesn’t fare him any better than the previous attempts at gaining the other mans attention, but he will not give up, he will never give up. Sherlock has lost his voice many a time and each time they find it again, be it buried inside of him or trapped inside his torturous brain. And it is torturous, his brain; it tortures its’ owner and everyone around him, deducing, deducing, deducing, stripping everything down until it loses all meaning, all significance and it just dances around and around the vast chasm that is his mind.

He brings him tea this time, but the fourth time he says his name, he takes it away again, stone cold and untouched.

The fifth time is a plea: a desperate, raw plea. A plea that is left hanging in the air, unanswered and ignored. It is always late now and the only thing he can do is wrap a blanket around the taller man’s slender frame, and hope that it is enough. Enough for both of them for the time being; he feels shut out and alone but he knows that Sherlock does too and as long as he’s there for him when he finds his voice again then everything will be okay.

He watches him for a while then, unable to do anything else. He watches him, watching the windowsill. Some may think that he is looking out of the window, waiting for someone perhaps, but he knows different. He knows that Sherlock has nobody to wait for and what he is really looking at is the violin, propped up against the glass. 

Normally, notes and scales and arpeggios would ring out from 221B Baker Street, especially at times when Sherlock loses his voice. But not this time.

He hasn’t touched the violin in such a way since this blanket of silence began.