Title: In Love Or Something
Paring: Sherlock Holmes X Reader
Warnings: fluff, angst, Sherlock is an asshole and a sweetheart but he's also like a coin, if you flip him you're not sure which side of that equation you'll get, cutesy.
Spoilers: yes!!! for the new season 4, which I finally watched!! Huzzah!
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There was an idea that writers could just pick up a pen, and whenever they wished, the words would come forth. That idea was, sadly, just an idea, and ever the mundane human you were, there was nothing that could make it get any better. Tea did nothing. Meditation, well, that was out of the question. You stayed in the room above the flat of the Sherlock Holmes, asshole supreme, and, notorious noisy man. Whenever your fingers would poise to write the fictional story you were destined to (or taught to, after five years spent at a very expensive university where you studied novels and deconstructed them to buggery), the tall man would shoot the wall, would call your name, would bang the door on his way out to solve a crime.
You see, the was your plight. Middleclass, female. Owner of a diploma in the arts, or really, a fancy paper that failed to get you into a publishing house two years ago when you graduated with honours. Your uncle, a policeman at the Scotland Yard knew you were soon to be penniless and had no problems shaking up anywhere until you found a job, and pulled strings to allow you to stay in the spare room in 221B Baker street, prime real estate in London. Well, that was a month ago. You now worked as Sherlock Holmes' new Watson, since the other man could not run around to corpses and crime scenes after becoming the primary caregiver of his daughter.
But your story...!
"_________, I need you to look at something," Sherlock called your name, that baritone tenor getting to your nerves like tears when gas comes.
You barely grit your teeth, and pushing the computer from your lap, you march down the stairs to see what's wrong in the land of Holmes. Sherlock stands in the middle of the lounge room, holding his head like it's a football, or perhaps, on fire. He's wearing pyjamas, yet, it's after ten o'clock on a Tuesday and he's usually elbows-deep in a bag of thumbs from Molly Hooper or finding someone's amnesiac step-grandmother.
"Yeah?" You ask, hands upon hips akimbo. "Don't tell me you need an idiot's perspective on something."
He releases his hands from his head, giving you a small smile. "You're not an idiot..." He goes to protest.
You raise a brow at his claim. "Just last week you yelled it at me before I went to bed. And threw a slipper at me." You say bluntly, staring him directly in the eyes. "So, what is it? I'm not telling you where your cigarettes are."
His eyes look bleary, come to see it, and there's a slight stumble in his step when he moves back to sit in his favourite chair. He's not using, you're on him like a hound about that, and there's no way he's drunk, he absolutely loathes day-drinking when the days of the week don't begin with an S. You're not an idiot, he's right, but even an idiot could see that Sherlock Holmes, detective extraordinaire, was –
"You're sick." You say.
He goes to protest, "No, I'm not," he exclaims, wincing at his own tone. "I – I didn't call you down here to mother me, I need a hand on – on –," he repeats the word once more, and then, sneezes into his pyjama sleeve. "How am I sick?"
You shake your head, moving toward the kitchen. It's a mess, as always, but some of it is your mess, so you do not complain. You flick the kettle on, and tidying up the dirty dishes into some semblance of a pile, you ruminate on how Sherlock got sick. "It could be because of that time you went out and didn't bring an umbrella, you know, the night when all the taxis were on strike," you call out, pulling down two mugs and tea bags. "...or that night when you didn't bring your coat and we went into the sewer to follow a lead on foot," you gag at the memory, remembering how cold it was underground, and how lucky you were for wearing one of Uncle Greg's knitted jumpers. "Or –,"
There's another sneeze, and a splutter, "Okay, I get it. I'm the idiot."
You bring the tea to the lounge, and handing Sherlock his cup (a mug with a picture of a panda on the centre), you take yours to the window, far away from the germs he's giving off. "I wish I recorded that, it would be so nice to hear you say that phrase over and over," you laugh to yourself, blowing the steam from your chipped blue and white mug. "But I wasn't called down here to fuss about and make tea out of goodwill. I am an author."
"You will be if you ever write something," he says into his mug.
You decide right then to ignore what the asshole of the year has muttered, and take a deep chug of your tea. If your mouth was full, you couldn't spar with him with insults and mockery.
"So?" you prompt, with an air of irritation to your tone. "Do I have to sniff a cadaver, or look at a case file...?"
Sherlock is silent, cradling his tea in his lap. If he wasn't six-foot-tall, and owned a handgun, you could have no problem picturing him as a small, sick boy, nose red and eyes bleary and breathing congested. "It's...it's nothing." He finally says. "Forget about it."
You place your half-drunk mug on the windowsill, and take your leave.
When you come down six hours later, it's almost afternoon tea time, and having written fifteen words shy of a thousand into your word processor, you decide it's time to stretch your aching back, work out the kinks that found their way into your smooshed buttocks, and get more tea. You hardly look around, but when you see the milk's all gone, and there's no orange juice, and none in the cupboard either, you grab your wallet, and prepare to take leave to the Tesco's around the corner.
But before you call out to say where you're going, you see him. Face pressed into his shoulder, sitting upright in his sofa seat. Legs out like they were full-length broomsticks, and not appendages, a hand dangling over the side of the armchair in a way that could never be comfortable. You're not a heartless woman, just a killjoy realist, and instead of just turning and going to get milk and juice, you go to Sherlock's room. The one he said never to go into, even if the world was ending.
Selecting a spare blanket, you drape it over your roommate's sick body, and retreat to the outside world to complete the chores.
You're over a thousand words on your story now, and having told Sherlock you're taking the day off, it's now a week after he got sick, and now better, he's back to being an asshole about everything and anything. Thus, while he goes around solving policemen's unsolvable puzzles, you've got your head down in a silent zone block, typing away madly before the inspiration leaves you. It's been a hard week, and hardly getting to type around the lifestyle as Sherlock's new blogger, you're down about your progress. Thank goodness it isn't November, because otherwise you'd doubly punish yourself, and try and do the writing challenge where people write 50,000 words in a month.
There's someone sitting beside you in the next cubicle, impeccably dressed. You peer over at him, and narrow your eyes. You've met Mycroft Holmes before, and like you don't like Sherlock at the best of times, you most certainly don't like the eldest Holmes brother at the worst. He's nothing but a pencil-pushing moral compass, and you're nothing but a keyboard-tapping writer with a slight anger problem.
You deserved a holiday. Perhaps Berlin was nice this time of year? Somewhere the lifestyle of the Holmes wouldn't follow you.
In Morse Code, he clicks a pen against his leg.
S-H-E-R-L-O-C-K.
You roll your eyes. You wonder if there was a possibility that one day, you could roll your eyes so hard, they'd roll backwards into your head. Or out, and roll away to their heart's content onto the sidewalk. You look through your laptop bag, and finding your loyalty card for an ice creamery, you tap against the desk.
P-I-S-S—O-F-F—M-Y-C-R-O-F-T.
He chuckles dryly, and goes on.
N-E-E-D-S—A-N—EYE—ON—H-I-M.
You reply, T-A-L-K—O-U-T-S-I-D-E.
Taking your time, you tuck your laptop into its bag, with now a thousand words, and four hundred and thirty on top of that. You fold the cord into itself, and slip your phone into your pocket. You do this all while knowing that the elder brother of your roommate is watching, and while your time is not worth money, his is, and wasting it is as sweet as the petty squabbles you win against Sherlock.
But once you're outside the library, and you've bought yourself a coffee with extra sugar and cream, you take a seat under a monument, and listen to what bargain that Mycroft has intended to strike.
"So, Sherlock needs an eye on him?" you say, inhaling your coffee. "What else is new? Is the show Doctor Who British government propaganda to hide the fact that there is alien life?" He doesn't say anything to that. "Ooh, no news is good news, I'll tell all my friends that gossip..."
Mycroft sighs. "He's volatile still. Getting over the whole ordeal of losing his close friend, finding his sister...ah, there's so much trauma in his life you just have to close your eyes and point, and there'll be one there to choose from." He eyes your coffee, seemingly jealous of your sweet dose of caffeine. "And don't tell your friends that that show is real, you'll just sound crazy."
You laugh to yourself. "I'm a twenty-seven-year-old woman, sitting on a bench on her day off, and yet, still talking to a Holmes. I am a writer. I am a lackey to whatever Sherlock gets up to! I talk to myself when I'm writing to get an idea of what the words will sound like when read! Crazy? Oh, man, you don't know crazy until you're where I am."
Mycroft doesn't contest on that. Instead, he hands you a note. It's handwritten, in a curly font that makes you think it's from a woman. The paper is nice, a soft yellow cardstock, bought probably at a newsagency. You're no idiot, yes, but you're smart enough to deduce that this note is from his mother, and not a woman he works with. Or maybe, just by reading the first few words gave it away.
Sherlock, I gave birth to you, raised you and taught you all that you know! It says. You can almost picture his mother scowling writing this, Don't forget to call your father for his birthday –
You close the notepaper in on itself. "So, am I a carrier pigeon now?"
He considers it, but instead says, "I don't trust the postal service –,"
You make a noise, "Her majesties own postal service? I should go to Buckingham and tell her myself that the Mycroft Holmes, backbone of the United Kingdom doesn't trust –,"
He rolls his eyes. "to get there in time. Father's birthday is in three days."
"Okay, okay, I'll keep an eye on your brother," You chuckle to yourself, eyeing him. "But not for money, and not for your sick obsession of watching people constantly on CCTV to satisfy your strange ways." You stand, and chugging the rest of your coffee, place the empty cup into Mycroft's hands. "Until next time, Microsoft Holmes."
You would be at forty words off the next thousand on your creative piece, but instead, you're standing beside Sherlock with your notepad and recording device at the ready, and looking at a very deceased man.
"Sixty, male, ambidextrous, straight. Woodworker, low education, raised in the country. Lived, still, in the countryside." He states, examining the corpse that looks like it was either ready to get from the slab and dance in a Michael Jackson music video, or go straight into the furnace to become ashes. "See the dirt under his nails? Callouses on fingers, splinters."
You nod, doing your best to make sure you weren't being disrespectful to the deceased man, but also, not show how much the seven-day-old corpse who had once been named Alvin Ludwig was making you feel about the curry you had for lunch (and how much it wanted to make a reappearance).
Your Uncle stood by the door of the morgue, beside the man who had been doing the post-mortem. It was Molly's day off; she and her friend Harry had decided to take a trip to Bath. But Uncle Greg watched the both of you, perhaps a little too closely.
"So, what's the verdict?" He asked Sherlock.
He placed his magnifying glass away in his pocket. "He's a victim of that perp of yours." He states. "If you see here, by his ear, there are two holes that seem unnoticeable, but appear to be deep enough to pierce the skull."
The other man at the door's eyes are wide, and comes the corpse to see it. "Cause of death?"
Sherlock shakes his head of curls, "If you checked the mouth, though, you'd notice a lack of hydration –,"
"This means that Mr. Ludwig had been attacked by the killer," you say, "but instead of the standard death the others had, he survived it. Starved to death."
Sherlock smiles to you. "Exactly."
Later, you're not in a morgue, but outside it, and Sherlock is off speaking to a detective heatedly about his observational skills. You barely get to get a word in edgeways, and waiting it out, see your uncle alone, pocketing his phone from whoever he was calling at the Yard with the new evidence.
"_________, you look well," he grins, bringing you in for a hug. "I haven't seen you in months! How's everyone going at home?" You talk about your family, and he rants about how your mother would always be on the lookout for trouble. You don't believe it, but laugh away. He's her twin, anyway, he'd know her better than anyone. "So, I see you and Sherlock are getting along fine. You've even taken up John Watson's blog, yeah?"
You blush at that. "I'm not replacing him, or anything," you say, "He's busy being a father, and I'm busy running around after this one." You glance to Sherlock, who's now teaching the Dewy-decimal system or something to another detective. "He is a handful and a half!"
Uncle Greg raises his eyebrows so far up, you wonder if they'll disappear into his receding hairline. "Understatement of the year, _________, I'm telling you," he laughs, "no, I thought, you'd get right on like a house on fire, I knew you'd be good together."
You pause at that. "We're not...just because we live together and work together and I complain a lot about him and a lot about his brother together doesn't mean I like him." You say, crossing your arms. "We're just...Uncle Greg, honestly? Was this a matchmake from the beginning?"
He shakes his head, holding his hands out. "No, no! I just – I know Mrs. Hudson, and I knew there was a spare room –,"
Sherlock approaches, collar flicked up, cheekbones looking like they were made of cut glass, "What's going on?"
You punch your uncle's arm lightly, and tug on Sherlock's sleeve. "Nothing, we're leaving. I don't want to pay for takeout when there's perfectly good leftovers in the fridge."
Once back at 221B Baker street, you're thinking of the two thousand six hundred words you could be writing, rather than forcing Sherlock to eat around the clock, and with him at the little dining table, pushing around yesterday's peas on a plate, you sigh. This story keeps evading you, and slowly, you place your head in your hands, and groan.
"Don't tell me what's wrong," Sherlock states, a pea speared upon his fork, "let me deduce." You keep your head in your hands, but not protesting, he goes on. "You've been on edge about your writing for as long as I can remember, but it isn't that...it happened recently, so it isn't something my brother said." You glance through your fingers, and see him. He's got his thinking face on, fingers poised under his chin, "Not two hours ago you spoke to your uncle."
You're silent as he goes on.
"You're a headstrong person with a sense for humour and such, so it wasn't humiliation in the conventional sense, no, he's an uncle, not a cousin, so he'd naturally ask about the same topics that your parents would, and parents ask about more personal issues, not that I would notice from personal experience..." His eyes meet yours, and slowly his face grows red. "He thinks you're in love with me."
You chuckle at the wording. "Sounds more like an inflation of that ego of yours when you put it that way," you don't deny the fact. Yes, your uncle thinks you're in love with Sherlock Holmes. That is a fact.
He quirks a brow. "No denial?"
You place your hands in your lap, and look at Sherlock in the eyes. "You're right. I am an idiot..." you go to stand, but as you go to walk away, he catches your wrist in his hold, those thin fingers capturing you. "Sherlock –,"
He shakes his head, voice no more than a whisper, "No, I'm the idiot, for not realising that the feelings were mutual," he says.
You grin to yourself. "Looks like we're a pair of idiots in love or something."
Perhaps writing down something fictional when you lived a life alongside Sherlock Holmes would never work. Besides, it was more interesting anyways.