The Quiet Man

As it Is

Sunlight. It’s coming from the wrong direction. It’s too bright. It’s too early for this, what? Where am I? Wait. Oh. Right.

I’m in Sherlock’s bedroom. I’m in Sherlock’s bed.

Sherlock is alive.

Yeah. That’s right, yeah. I remember. God. What kind of a–

Oh Jesus, my head. Ow. Well, great. That’s just great.

What was I thinking? I surely did not need to drink that much, did I? I don’t know. Maybe I did. It was a tough day, really. The toughest, after the day he–

Right. Yeah. Okay. That didn’t happen. Don’t think about that.

My mouth is sticky and dry. Horrible. I haven’t felt this hungover in years. Where is he? Jesus. I slept here with him, he got into bed with me. Well, it’s his bed, he might as well get into it. With me there, drunk and breathing on the back of his neck.

Oh, shit.

He spent the night in that bed with me pressed into the back of him, yeah. As if that’s normal. Sure, people spoon their dead flatmates all the time, that’s completely expected, right? Oh god, how embarrassing. I didn’t grope him or anything, did I? Think think think...no. I don’t remember doing that. Surely I’d remember if I’d groped him. That’s sort of a significant landmark in a relationship, the first drunken grope. No, I didn’t do that. I wasn’t thinking about it, was I? I don’t know. I just...I had an arm around him. Definitely that. He was all right about it, though. Wasn’t he?

I think so.

Right, yeah, he didn’t shrug me off. Unless he got up in the night to get away from me, slept the rest of the night on the sofa.

Christ.

Ouch. I’ve pulled all the muscles in my back, what the hell did I do? Tension, stress, the deep-seated anxiety that comes with getting the impossible thing you’ve been wishing for over the past three years. The pain of longing ends with physical pain. Doesn’t seem fair, does it.

Oh, this is great. Sure. I slept in my clothes, apparently. Of course I did, yeah. Sherlock put me to bed, that’s...yeah. For some reason he put me in his bed. Why didn’t he just push me onto the floor? Or send me up to my own room? Or just leave me in my chair, drooling on myself and twisting my neck in a way I would feel for days? I would have woken myself up eventually. I would have stumbled up to my own bed. He didn’t have to do that.

He took off my shoes, and pulled off my socks. I don’t know why he did that, either.

He’s not here now.

Where did he go?

The floor is cold under my bare feet.

“Sherlock?” Oh god my head. That was so, so dumb. Christ. I need a shower. Where is he? He didn’t leave again, did he? Breathe in, breathe out, oh Jesus, my head.

His room looks practically untouched. The window is open, just a crack. His dressing gown isn’t hanging off the hook on the back of the door anymore. He got up.

There were two bodies in this bed in the night. I’m not a consulting detective, but even I can see that. Two pillows for two heads, a pattern of creases in the sheets, different on each side. He was here. We were close enough to touch.

I don’t need the bed to tell me that. I remember.

The light in the kitchen is even more painful. A sunny morning when I would prefer an overcast one. “Sherlock?”

“Morning, John.” He’s sitting at the table, tapping away at a laptop, with a pile of phones beside him. He doesn’t look up. He’s in his dressing gown. He’s still wearing his pyjama bottoms and a grey t-shirt I’m fairly sure I spent most of the night stroking. It should have marks on it; some kind of guilty stain. The sound of his voice makes me feel giddy. That’s him: there’s no one else it could be. There’s no one else like him. I want to touch him, make sure he’s real, but I guess I’ve done enough of that in the last few hours.