When All The Lights Go Out ~~ Sherlock x Reader

T E N

As John showed up to the party with his date, I offered them antlers (which his girlfriend kindly denied, though he did take a pair), and I introduced myself. I've never considered myself to be a very social person, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to talk to people, especially with a beer in my hand.
"Y/N, are you done being social? Molly texted that she'll be late so let's start."
"Oh, and who said that you're in charge. I'll start when I'm done talking princess. Aight? Besides, I'm almost done anyways, chill." I was still blushing from earlier, I couldn't seem to stop. But that would never get in the way of me being sassy.
"HA! Y/N, you really know how to put Sherlock in his place. I'm glad you moved in, now I won't have to deal with his majesty all the time." John started laughing and I joined him. "But seriously though, I've been excited to hear you guys play, hopefully it's better than last time I heard it." He winked at me and I gave him a playful scowl in return. Though all this accomplished was a jealous look from his girlfriend.
"FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE... I'll play." I walked over to the piano, chugging the rest of my beer in the process.
"You should never drink while you play, it'll just ruin your cognitive functions. You'll play worse than before." He gave me a cold look and I raised my eyebrow at him.
"Ummmmm, you've heard me play drunk. I'm good. Also, it's only one beer, what harm will that do? I can only get drunk on hard stuff at this point. Let's just start." I rolled my eyes at him and sat down at the piano to prepare for playing.
"If one beer doesn't effect you so much, why are your hands shaking?" I looked down at my hands which were, in fact, shaking the tiniest bit. I don't think he realized that it was because I was nervous that I was so close to him.
"Sherlock oh my god. You're insufferable! John, could you be a dear and bring me a glass of the strongest drink you can find? I don't think I can last long playing with this jerk over here." I bent my head backwards to smile at him, glad to see that he was complying with my wish.
I was only here during late hours in the day to practice, mostly to avoid Mycroft, so I had mostly been cramming the music in my head to prepare for now. I hadn't heard it much, but the few times that Irene Adler's text alerts went off made me both insanely jealous (for no god damn reason) and it made me crack up. I just hoped to god that she wouldn't text while we played tonight.
We started off with playing White Christmas, one of my song picks, and I lost myself within the music, not really caring about the awkward tension anymore. It was so wonderful to just play and forget everything, forget my mom, my dad, the boy. It could all fade away as I just focus on making beautiful music with Sherlock, no matter how weird he was. When the song finally finished, everyone clapped and I chugged my drink to hide the tears that started welling up in my eyes when I thought about my dad.
"Alright, next song!"
I gave a weak smile to Sherlock to tell him I was ready to continue, I tried to hide my sadness, even though I knew that it was hopeless. He could see right through me, one of the reasons why he scared me. Christmas may have some of my happiest memories, I couldn't help but wonder what I would be doing right now if I were still with my dad. Giving Sherlock a quick nod I rushed into the next song to block my brain from continuing the thoughts.
A few songs later, Sherlock and I finished our last song, We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Everybody applauded and I smiled and took a little bow in my seat.
"Lovely! Sherlock, Y/N, that was lovely!" Ms. Hudson clapped and giggled, she was a little tipsy.
"Marvelous!" John and his girlfriend smiled at us as Lestrade lifted his drink at me.
"I'm just glad that you wore the antlers Sherlock! You've never done so in the past! Y/N, you're going to do wonders for this house!" John walked over to her with tea to sober her up.
"Cake or minced pie?" John's girlfriend Jeanette came over to us with a tray of food, which I politely denied.
"Oh no thank you Sarah, the antlers are the only festive things I can put up with today." Jeanette crossed her arms as John rushed over to try to fix the problem. I, naturally, started laughing while trying to tell Sherlock her real name.
"Y/N, you're really not helping me out here! C'mon!" John shot me a look but I had my head in my hands trying to contain myself.
"No, Sarah was the doctor, and then there was the one with the spots, and then the one with the nose.... and then, umm... who was after the boring teacher?" I wheezed and started to breath more normally.
"Nobody." She looked at him dead in the eyes.
"OH! Jeanette! See, process of elimination!" I started laughing a little bit more at that, but stopped in time to see a new arrival, who must've been Molly Hooper. As people started to greet her, I started to stand up to go introduce myself.
"Oooo fuck." I muttered under my breath as I started to fall over from the head rush I got. Sherlock came up behind me to steady me. "Thanks..." I smiled lightly at him, mostly blushing though.
"I told you not to drink so much." I glared at him playfully and put my hand on his shoulder to steady myself once more. I looked over to the new guest to say hi, but she was giving me a confused look. I walked over to her (steadily this time) and held out a hand.
"Hi, I'm Sherlock and John's new neighbor. Y/N. I don't believe we've met yet." I smiled at her, but she only shot me a jealous look.
"Oh, ummm, yea. I'm Molly, Molly Hooper. Good to meet you." She shook my hand quickly and walked to put down the gifts in her hand.
"Let me, oh... holy Mary!" John took Molly's coat, revealing a very fancy black dress. She smiled and looked over at Sherlock to see if he had noticed. But all he was doing was sitting down and writing on John's laptop.
While everybody else started lightly conversing, I had no clue what to do with myself, I had never really met these people before. Since Molly seemed clearly uninterested in me, I walked over to Sherlock to see what he was up to. Not wanting to really bother him, I just sat on the arm of his chair like I had a couple nights before. I leaned on the chair back and played with part of his hair. This interaction, apparently, was an abnormal one, for everybody got quiet and looked over at us. This made me highly self conscious and I stopped playing with his hair immediately.
As if not even noticing that people were looking at us, he looked over at John and said, "The counter on your blog, it still says 1895." This odd comment snapped John out of his confusion.
"Oh no! Christmas is cancelled!" John rolled his eyes and walked behind Sherlock to, also, see what he was doing.
"Also, why do you have that picture of me on your blog?" He pointed to a picture of himself with a confused look on his face.
"People like the hat."
"No they don't, what people?"
I smiled at the picture, "Hah, it makes you look like a dork. But I like it." Again, causing odd looks from around the room.
"How's the hip?" Molly looked over at Ms. Hudson, breaking the awkward silence.
"Oh, it's atrocious, but thanks for asking." The sweet lady smiled and took a sip from her cup.
"I've seen much worse, but then I do post mortems." I laughed at the joke, but everybody else stayed quiet.
"Oh, God. Sorry." Molly looked a bit embarrassed, not really realizing how unsettling the joke would be to everyone, well, everyone besides me I guess.
"Don't make jokes, Molly." I hit him on the shoulder lightly and told him to shut up.
"No. Sorry. He's right..." Molly happily took a glass of red wine from Lestrade. "Thank you. I wasn't expecting to see you. I thought you were gonna be in Dorset for Christmas."
"That's first thing in the morning, me and the wife. We're back together. It's all sorted." I look one look at him and his closed body language. He looked uncomfortable, as if he didn't trust his own words. He was grinning anyways, something I can relate to.
"No, it's not." Sherlock and I commented at the same time, though I didn't mean to say it aloud.
"Yea... she's sleeping with the P.E. teacher." Sherlock finished what he was going to say and shot me a questioning look, as if he couldn't understand how I knew.
"Sorry," I looked over at Lestrade with an apologetic look. "I didn't mean to say that allowed, I hope it gets better with your wife." I looked down at my hands and started fidgeting.
"And John. I hear you're off to your sister's, is that right?" John nodded in her direction. "Sherlock was complaining... er... saying." The mindless conversation was a little boring for me, so I just leaned my head lightly on Sherlock's, hoping he wouldn't mind. The sounds of Sherlock being a smart-ass, John being done with the comments, and Lestrade drinking booze drifted through the air, making the space seem so full.
"I see you've got a new boyfriend, Molly, and you're serious about him. "
"Sorry, what?" Molly looked confused, obviously questioning Sherlock's observation skills.
"In fact, you're seeing him this very night and giving him a gift."
"Take a day off Sherlock." John shot him a look, and I lightly laughed, back at playing with Sherlock's hair.
"Oh, come on. Surely you've all seen the present at the top of the bag, perfectly wrapped with a bow. All the others are slapdash at best." He started to stand up, which took me off guard and I almost fell down. As he caught me, and then quickly looked and walked away, I smiled lightly. Sitting down in 'his chair' I waited for him to come back. "It's for someone special, then. The shade of red echoes her lipstick, it's either an unconscious association or one that she's deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper has love on her mind. The fact that she's serious about him is clear from the fact she's giving him a gift at all."
John and Molly shot each other awkward looks. Then I realized, the smartest guy in the room couldn't even realize the obvious crush that Molly had on him. "Ummm Sherlock..." I tried to get his attention to stop him, but all he did was wave me off.
"This gift would suggest long-term hopes, however forlorn, and that she's seeing him tonight is evident from her make-up and what she's wearing. It's obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and breasts..." As he read the note to the person who's gift it was (which I can only assume was his) he stopped talking. I did a mental face palm, though I was a bit jealous.
"You always say such horrible things. Every time. Always. Always."
"I am sorry Molly. Forgive me." He walked towards her slowly and said softly, "Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper."
He kissed her lightly on the cheek. I looked away, hiding the look on my face. Of course, he's known her for longer. Being so used to the quiet rejection that I'm usually given, I didn't mind it very much, doesn't mean it didn't bother me though. I dug one of my nails into my thumb, that way I could just focus on the stinging feeling. Suddenly though, it was all interrupted by a familiar orgasmic ring tone.
"That wasn't ... I – I didn't ..." Molly started stuttering, very obviously confused by where the noise had come from.
"No, it was me." Sherlock walked over to me, or to the chair which I was sitting at. He had draped his coat across the chair earlier, and he went over to get his phone from the jacket.
"Really?!" Both Lestrade and Molly looked very confused, and Molly had a blush peak up on her cheeks.
"It was my phone." He waved it in the air to show that he had only gotten a text.
"Fifty seven?" John looked over at Sherlock with a questioning look.
"Sorry, what?" Not even looking up from the screen Sherlock mindlessly asked about the question.
"Fifty seven of those texts, the ones I've heard."
"Sixty one, four more from when off when I was practicing with him over the past few nights." I sleepily watched Sherlock walk over to the mantle place and grab a neatly wrapped present that was left there.
"Good to know you two are counting, Y/N, care to join me?" He started walking away to his room and I reluctantly followed. He ignored all of John's questions as we walked away. I took off my shoes and laid down on his bed, wrapping my arms around myself.
"What's in the box?"
"Her phone." He pulled what I assumed was Irene Adler's phone out of the small box and started inspecting it. The others looked into the room as I started to drift off. "You'll catch a cold like that." He pulled out some of his blankets from under me, and then tucked me in, again.
"Stop doing that. I don't wanna be the pesky neighbor who you always have to tuck into bed, this'll make the third time." I looked at the shocked looks on the faces of Molly and Lestrade.
"Holy hell, when did this happen?" Lestrade then took a sip of whiskey from his glass.
Sherlock stood up and made a phone call to Mycroft, you could tell from the annoying voice on the other end, and because Sherlock addressed him by his name. Everyone waited in silence until he finished the call, and I just hugged the blankets around me. When the call finished everyone let out a breath.
"You okay Sherlock?" John gave him a questioning look as Sherlock closed the door after a quick response to shut everybody else out of the room.
"Why did you lock everyone out of your room besides me?" I was too tired and depressed to really be flustered. Thinking about my dad had really got to me. I'd been avoiding it for the past couple of days, but now I really couldn't.
"I'm not dumb Y/N, in fact, I'm the opposite of that. Don't think for a second that I missed when you almost started crying while we were playing. I didn't miss the sad looks and sad smiles. I usually wouldn't care, but you intrigue me. So, what's wrong?"
"My dad... I just miss him is all, we used to do a father daughter day just before Christmas. I didn't want to lose him too. And now I have nobody else. I-"
I couldn't continue, I just started crying. For the first time since I had landed in London, for the first time since he died, I cried. Letting it all out is hard for someone who hides all their emotions away behind a locked door. I tried my best to not cry on his sheets, but I couldn't do much besides lie there, helpless.
Sherlock came over to the other side of the bed and moved my hair out of my face. "It's okay...." It was clear that he had no clue how to comfort people, but he tried his best. I dug my nails into my hand, the pain was nice in its own way. But Sherlock took my hand to stop myself from doing so, and all I could do in return was grab his sleeve, as if to tell him not to leave me. And he didn't. He sat on the bed and did work on his phone until I drifted off to sleep. Then he walked out of the room to get John's computer, and got to work laying next to me in the bed on top of the sheets.

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Hey! So this is the tenth chapter so that means that I'm going to be editing the other ones, I did say that I'd do this every five chapters. Expect updates on the weekends while I edit. Some major story points might be changed, idk yet. Also, for those who want me to update my Jack Dylan Grazer x Reader book, I'm sorry. It might be another month, or longer, before I update that one. I'm still out of ideas, and I really just want to focus on this story for now. I really want to start playing into the idea that Y/N is emotionally damaged, and is slowly finding out that Sherlock was the boy who saved her all those years ago. SO, I do have some stuff planned for this story, but again it'll have to wait until I'm done editing. Also, if you couldn't tell, Y/N is a big old representation of me. So on all the parts when she's crying and experiencing all this emotional shit, that's just me venting. If you don't like this kind of stuff, welp, sorry lol. Anyways I love you all!
<3!!

P.S. Imma try to make my future chapters longer like this chapter. At least over 2000, I usually just reach for 1000. This chapter however was almost 3000 words. So they might take a little longer to write, but the writing will be longer. After the break my writing has also improved, so look forward to these things.
UNEDITED CHAPTER lol