The Lying Detective (Sherlock x Female!Reader)

Chapter 1: Therapy and Shakespeare

"Tell me about your morning. Start from the beginning."

"I woke up." John responded, smiling tightly.

He was sitting in a chair a few feet away from an ash blonde, shoulder length haired woman, his new therapist, who is sitting in a low armchair.

Dark blue floor length curtains are tied back either side of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the rear of the room, looking out into the back garden, and similar curtains hang either side of a smaller window beside him.

"How did you sleep?" His therapist asked, in a soft German accent.

"I didn't. I don't." John said.

"You just said you woke up." She said, alittle confused.

"I stopped lying down." John said, quickly.

"Alone?" She asked.

"Of course alone." John replied.

"I meant Rosie, your daughter." She said.

"Uh, she's with friends." He responded.

"Why?"

"Can't always cope....and, uh, last night wasn't good." He said as he thinks about last night when he stayed up all night, drinking.

"That's understandable." His therapist said.

"Is it? Why? Why is it understandable? Why does everything have to be understandable?" John asked, then he smiles and laughs bitterly.

"Why can't, um, some things be unacceptable and--and we just say that?" He asked as he gestures briefly at the end of his sentence, then lowers his hand onto the other one and taps his index finger against it.

"I only mean it's okay." She said.

"I'm letting my daughter down. How the hell is that okay?" John asked her, harshly.

"You just lost your wife." The therapist said, softly.

"And Rosie just lost her mother." John replied the he pulls in a harsh breath, then clears his throat.

"You are holding yourself to an unreasonable standard."

"No, I'm failing to." He said.

"So there is no-one you talk to, confide in?" She asked him with concern.

"No-one." John said and he sits there in silence for a moment.

"Is there anything you're not telling me?" The therapist asked him. John thinks for a moment, yes there is something he is not telling her: he is seeing and hearing his dead wife everywhere he goes, he even talks to her like she's still here.

John looks at the woman, bites his lips as he sees Mary standing behind the woman. He huffy out a small laugh and said. "No." He clears his throat awkwardly as he sees Mary looking at him, tears running down her face.

The therapist notcies his gaze was off to the left of her shoulder and asked him. "What are you looking at?" She turns in her chair and looks towards where John was looking. "Nothing." He said. "You keep glancing to my left." The woman said, facing him.

"Oh, I suppose I was just....looking away." He laughs, nervously.

"There is a difference between looking away and looking to. I tend to notice these things." She said.

"I'm sure." John said, as he smiles tightly.

"Now I am reminding you of your friends, I think." She said after she breaths out a small laugh. "It's not necessarily a good thing." John replied, smiling humorlessly.