The pitter patter of the rain hitting the windows echoes around Jim's flat as he sits on the sofa with his legs crossed and his laptop on his lap. It'd been raining for nearly a whole freaking month, every single day, every minute of every day. It wasn't heavy rain but it was enough to irritate the inhabitants of London.
It'd had started a few nights after Jim and Sherlock's dinner date but the change in weather didn't affect their high sprits. Not at first anyway... They'd been a few incidents where Jim had snapped or had gotten moody and told Sherlock to go home.
There was never anything major that happened between them. Just Sherlock being annoying and Jim getting, well, annoyed. Nothing out of the ordinary between the pair, really.
When they did have their first major argument... Jim didn't really understand what it was about. Not until after anyway. Sherlock just seemed to... snap.
A whole month of them being cute and 'coupley' together and then Jim suddenly has a whole bunch of things shouted at him as he sits there, fingers on the keyboard of his laptop. He didn't even know what he did and now, all he can do is sit here as a few words slowly flitter.
He hadn't expected Sherlock to blow up like that and Jim had always found it hard to stay switched on when someone begins to shout at him. So he didn't get much from the ten minutes Sherlock was shouting about... something. Jim thinks he remembers Sherlock saying something about kissing and his 'damn laptop'.
Jim tries to think.
He was typing an email to his mum and turned slightly away from Sherlock as the other man leaned forward. Then Sherlock was on his feet and shouting.
Did Sherlock... lean in for a kiss?
If he did, it looks like, from Sherlock's point of view, that Jim avoided it in favour of his laptop. It makes sense, that Sherlock would get annoyed but surely that wouldn't cause him to get so angry all of a sudden and Jim's pretty sure that he hasn't 'avoided' kisses before.
Crinkling his forehead up, Jim puts his laptop on the coffee table and looks at the door that had slammed closed a few moments ago. The rain continues. Pitter patter. Pitter patter.
Just as Jim stands, there's a soft knock on the door.
He frowns. That's not the soft knock of an angry Sherlock.
Jim moves quickly, albeit he was apprehensive, towards the door. His hand settles on the door handle and a cold shiver runs down his spine as he remembers the time he was playing scrabble and he scared himself over opening the door.
Breathing in deeply, Jim pulls the door open.
Then he stares. And stares. And stares.
In front of him, is a dripping wet man that makes Jim wonder if he was entirely accurate about the whole 'drizzling' thing. Despite the man's state, Jim doesn't hesitate to reach out and bring him into a fierce hug as he lets the first sob pass his lips.
"Jim?" questions Sebastian, automatically hugging his friend back.
"Best moment for a surprise visit ev-ever," Jim mumbles into the other's damp shirt, his tears adding to the wetness.
He doesn't fully understand why Sherlock was gone.. But, God, did it hurt to know he was gone.
Sherlock had stormed out, absolutely fuming for some reason and Jim didn't have a clue what to do. He doesn't even know what he's done, for God's sake!
"Jim?" Sebastian asks again, more urgent now. "What's wrong?"
Jim shakes his head, clutching tighter to the other boy.
"Okay. Calm down," Sebastian hushes him, rubbing his back a little before he walks them both into the flat.
He shuts the door before kicking his shoes off and then leading Jim, who hadn't loosened his grip at all, to the sofa. He sits Jim down before he sits on the coffee table, beside Jim's laptop and directly in front of the tearful boy.
"What happened, Jim?" Sebastian asks with a frown, his usually joyful features twisted in worry.
"I - I... S-Sherlock..." Jim manages to stutter a few words before he gives up and lets the tears that want to flow flood his face.
Sebastian's expression hardens the moment Sherlock's name passes his friends lip. Guiltily, Jim realises he hasn't kept Sebastian up to date on his life over the past few months. For all Sebastian knows, Jim was still affected by the whole situation where Sherlock kissed him outside Bart's.
"What happened?" Sebastian repeated, voice no longer having that soft tone people have when comforting a crying person.
"He... I don't.. don't know" Jim admits, trying to calm his breathing and wipe the tears away. "I was just on the.. laptop and then he started s-shouting for no reason. You know what I'm like... I- I switched off... I don't know what he said..."
Sebastian's frown seemed permanent now. "Why was he here?"
"We're together.." Jim said, voice glum. He'd never sounded so miserable before when he told people that Sherlock and he were official.
Sebastian nods and adopts what Jim calls his 'thinking/plotting to kill' face.
Jim watches his friend, placing his trust in the boy to sort his emotions out for him and somehow provide an answer to why Sherlock blew up like he did. Sniffing, Jim uses the sleeve of his jumper to wipe his nose before he slumps into the sofa.
His chest hurt. No... His heart hurt.
He didn't even know what Sherlock was angry about. Jim doesn't understand why his heart aches and why his eyes are leaking... He doesn't seem to be understanding much lately.
"Well," Sebastian says after a few moments of silence "Let's get your mind off it." He looks to the clock that sat on the wall beside the hallway. "Some movies tonight and then tomorrow we'll go to some of your favourite shops. Buy you a new beanie or something, yeah?"
Jim nods slowly, frowning. That was very... un-Sebastian. Last time he found Jim crying over a guy, he'd very casually asked Jim if he wanted him to go smash the guy's face into a wall. When it came to his friends, Sebastian's methods were often violent - so this was a surprise to say the least.
Not caring that he was being treated like a child who fell over and got a scrape, Jim asks for tea and curls on the sofa as Sebastian rushes to provide him with a lovely milky, sugary and typically British drink.
When the drink arrives, Jim sips at it slowly and keeps his eyes ahead of him. Sebastian takes the seat beside Jim. The man drinking tea glances to the side at his friend, just knowing that he had something on the tip of his tongue and that it was going to come out soon.
Jim just had to wait.
"Jim..." Here it comes. "I don't like this Sherlock guy, but I can tell you do."
Jim blinks, frowning. "Where you going with this, Seb?"
"I'm saying.." He trails off again before turning to look at Jim and grinning. 'I'm saying don't push this one away."
Great. Now Sebastian sounded like his mum.
Did he really push that many people away?
"Wait a second, how the hell is me getting shouted at for something equal to be me pushing Sherlock away?" He asks, temper flaring.
Sebastian's eyes widen at Jim's sharp tone and quickly shakes his head, shoving his hands up in defence. He looked like he was frantically doing Jazz hands.
"No, no. I didn't mean it like that. I just... can tell you really like this guy. I didn't mean that this situation was you pushing him away. Just that, in general, you shouldn't."
Jim simply sniffs, looking away and sipping at his tea.
Hours pass with the two just sitting there in a stony silence before Jim stands and disappears into his bedroom. He reappears a minute later with a bundle of pillows and covers cradled in his arms. As he drops them all on the sofa, Sebastian raises an eyebrow.
"What's this?"
"I'm going to bed," Jim explains, as if the statement explained everything.
"Okay.." Sebastian trails off, still confused.
Jim looks blankly at his friend for a heart beat before he shrugs and twirls on his hell, making a beeline for his bedroom once again.
Sebastian frowns and calls out before Jim steps over the threshold into his room. "These for me, then?"
"Yep!" Jim calls back, popping the p. "You're on the sofa," and then Jim's bedroom door slams shut and doesn't get anymore answers to his questions.
Once he'd shut the door behind himself, Jim leans into it and rocks onto his heels as he lets his head fall back and bounce off the wooden door with more force than he intended. A long, drawn out sigh leaves his lips before he uses his arms to push himself off the door and cross the to room to his draws. He opens the third one, pulling out a plain white top since, thanks to the rain, it was a chilly night. Jim then removes every single piece of clothing except his boxers and shrugs on the white top.
He then turns and heads for the bed, only to stop by the side of it and look over his shoulder. There, on a chair, sat a large blue teddy bear that had a stupid grin on it's face and seemed to be staring at Jim. It was the bear that Sherlock won him on their date to the fun fair.
Jim snatches the teddy from the chair and quickly climbs into his bed, cuddling the teddy so much that if it were alive Jim would have suffocated the poor thing. He squeezes his eyes shut and does his best not to start crying again.
But that was pretty hard, because his Sherlock was gone.
Jim doesn't know what time it was when he feel asleep but he did know that when he woke up, his first thought was something about how he should still be asleep because for someone who'd just woken by he was very, very tired.
Feeling depressed and lonely, Jim drags himself out of the bed to put the bear back on the chair where it sat. He makes a brief mental note that he had yet to name the teddy (who gets a teddy and doesn't name it?!). Once his bed is made, Jim moves to his wardrobe and picks out a black top that had a fierce looking skull on the front and a pair of black skinny jeans. He grabs a black beanie to match before he makes his way to the bathroom.
Almost two hours later, Jim is showered, shaved and dressed. He puts his glasses on, finding he'd become used to wearing them once again. After a check in the mirror, he decides that he looks a bit like a depressed hipster but he also decides that he doesn't give a shit because he really does feel depressed.
Jim moves into the kitchen then and makes himself some toast that he precedes to cover in Marmite, which made him sad again because over the past few weeks every time he'd had Marmite Sherlock had been there to pull a face and inform Jim that he didn't understand how he ate the stuff.
Today was just going to be a sad day, it seemed.
After eating his toast and drinking a cup of tea, Jim enters the living room with a plan to rudely wake Sebastian up but he finds that Sebastian has disappeared from the sofa and he can hear the shower running.
While he waits, Jim makes himself some more tea and opens up his laptop to talk to his online best friend, Don.
From there, things pass in a blur. Sebastian appears, drinks tea, comments in Jim's glasses and ten the two of them are off into town to do some shopping. It's like Jim blinked and found himself in front of his favourite shop to buy beanies from.
"I want that one" Jim tells Sebastian, pointing to a red beanie.
And being the good friend he is, Sebastian smiles and enters the shop to go buy it.
And, of course, that's when Jim turns and to lean against the window to wait and he comes face to face with a very upset looking John Watson. Jim flinches at first and then blinks at the doctor, raising an eyebrow.
Before he can asks, John pipes up.
"What the hell did you do to Sherlock?" The short man spits, scaring the crap out of Jim.
John was in the army, right? Jim thinks Sherlock said something like that. Well, it shows...
"I- I didn't do anything."
John does not look convinced. "Then maybe you can explain to me why he came home last night, weeping like a lost child and locked himself in his room? It took me forever to convince him to come out. He wouldn't say a word about it but I know for a fact that it's you. It's always you!"
Jim flinches again as John points a finger at him.
He hadn't realised how much Sherlock told his doctor friend. Did he tell John every time they had a spat or Jim upset him?
"I don't know why he's angry at me, I -" Jim tries to explain, only for John to interrupt.
"He's not angry. He's miserable. I'd go as far as saying heartbroken," John was getting more annoyed by the second. He looked like he was very close to punching Jim.
Surely that was a bit dramatic, right? Heartbroken?
The door to the shop opens then and Sebastian strolls out, approaching Jim and eyeing John cautiously. Jim felt both safer and more eager to flee. On one hand, he knew Sebastian wouldn't let John hit him but on the other he knew that heated words directed at Jim often caused Sebastian to use his own fists.
He didn't want any trouble. Especially between Sherlock's best friend and his best friend.
"I'm going to guess you're the friend that likes to share a bed?" John asks, voice layered with sarcasm and bitterness.
Sebastian raises a challenging eyebrow, almost as if asking if John really wanted to use that tone with him.
"And I'm going to guess your the friend of the lovely man that left Jim in tears that night?" Sebastian replies is a bittersweet tone of his own.
John glares at Jim briefly, as if he didn't believe he was upset by this situation with Sherlock. Automatically, Jim shrinks away from the hateful looks. Oh, the memories of school that look brings back... Jim shivers as he suddenly gets a mental image of a cackling Carl Powers.
"W-where's Sherlock?" Jim mumbles, feeling like John was demanding his lunch money.
John's glare somehow intensifies. "Oh, so now you care?"
That pushes Jim's fears out the window and he clenches his fists, stepping forwards. He could almost feel his blood boiling. "Of course I care. He's my boyfriend, I care a hell of a lot about him."
John snorts. "He was your boyfriend"
Jim shakes his head, denying it. John nods, a spiteful smile twisted onto his lips.
Sebastian's arm comes across Jim's chest then and he pushes the man backwards, eyes on John. "That's enough, now."
Tired of not fighting his own fights, and still beyond peeved over John's not caring comment, Jim struggles against Sebastian's arm until his friend moves and allows Jim to step close to John again.
"His is my boyfriend, so drop the over protective friend bull shit because newsflash, darling, couples fight and argue and have misunderstanding and yes, they make each other cry, so get the fuck out of my business because this has nothing to do with you. Sherlock—"
Whatever Jim was going to say is lost to a groan of pain as John draws his arm back and socks Jim right on the jaw. Shocked, and frankly not one to physically fight back, Jim stumbles backwards and despite Sebastian's effort lands on his arse.
Sebastian automatically ducks to check Jim's okay and when he sees the way Jim is holding his mouth open and looking down as if to assess the throbbing pain in his jaw, he straightens and glares at John.
And Jim's 150% sure that Sebastian would have punched John, had there not been a shout of Jim's name from across the street from a certain blue scarf wearing detective.