The flat seemed darker without Y/N to light it up. Only her belongings kept it from returning to the dismal grey it had been before she'd moved in. Sherlock had never really noticed how dingy the apartment had been before Y/N, how dingy his whole life had been. How had he survived for so long without laughing with a friend? Without messing around, sharing jokes, just talking to someone?
However he'd done it, he obviously no longer knew how, because loneliness was eating away at him within an hour of Y/N's absence. Thoughts of what Y/N was doing right now were eating away at him too, and he was struggling to keep them at bay. Tom letting her try some of his meal, holding his fork out for her pretty lips to close on. Y/N taking his hand resting on the table. Tom admiring her over the rim of his wine glass.
Sherlock was getting a stomach ache.
...
As the clock on the kitchen wall's hour-hand dripped down to Six o'clock, Sherlock decided to visit Mrs Hudson. He hadn't spoken to her since he'd gone out to get the milk the other day, and felt it was time to render that. Plus he could really use the company.
His landlord's door swung open welcomingly almost immediately after the first knock, as if its occupant had been waiting by it for some time, anticipating his call.
She probably had.
"Hello, dear. All on your own tonight, are you?"
Older people had always been a place of comfort for Sherlock. Maybe because he was the youngest child, and thus always drawn to motherly figures. Maybe because his job is so full of darkness that he often feels he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders; being with older people---people who have seen more things than he could imagine---often offered a new perspective that he would never have been able to fathom due to the simple fact that he isn't wise enough yet. How many times had he brought a problem to this woman, handed it over to her and she'd picked it apart quickly and easily for him, as if it was nothing more than a troublesome ball of yarn?
His pain soothed a little by her aura, he offered her a smile, but it still came with obvious effort. "How did you know?"
Mrs Hudson placed one of her little bird hands on his back (the small of it, that being as high up as she could reach) and ushered him into the flat. He liked her flat, probably because while his flat's decor was that of cold indifference, hers was homely and quaint and splashed with evidence of a rich and exciting life. Gifts from past lovers, souvenirs from far-away places. She'd done things. Sherlock...hadn't. He kept little prizes from cases he'd found especially interesting, but all they reminded him of were blood stains and the looks on family's faces as he delivered the truth of what had happened to their loved one. Mrs Hudson's trinkets were nothing like that, they were splashed with colour and wrapped in webs of stories.
"I saw Y/N get in a taxi a little while ago. She was all dressed up, she looked ever so pretty, didn't she?" Her eyes, brimming with sagacity, graced his face casually, daring him to admit that, yes, he did think she was pretty, very pretty indeed.
"Yes, if you like that sort of thing," he answered blandly, making the older woman roll her eyes.
Mrs Hudson asked Sherlock if he would like to stay for dinner, which he was grateful for. He didn't want to go back to the flat alone again, be left to his own devices; he knew that would mean hours of hiding from his own thoughts. To keep his mind busy, and because he was nice, Sherlock had cooked their meal, telling the older woman to 'relax, really, it's no trouble' whenever she tried to nudge him out of the way and take over in the classic maternal way many women over sixty seem to magically acquire.
They'd been eating in silence for a little while, aside from the occasional complement of sherlock's culinary skills, when Mrs Hudson said suddenly:
"Don't let it go back to how it was before, will you, Sherlock?"
"What do you mean?"
"Back to how you were before John moved in. And then how you were again when he moved out and before Y/N moved in. Don't let yourself go back to that."
Oh, that's what she meant. Without meaning to, she had just inadvertently voiced one of the things Sherlock had been worriedly turning over in his mind since Y/N mentioned she'd like to 'get back out there'. His fear that, without a best friend, he'd retreat back into his sullen, stony persona, using arrogance and rudeness to cover the deep hole in his soul.
"It's not really something I can control. If Y/N moves in with this Tom guy---"
"She's not going to do that. She wouldn't do that if you just tell her how you feel---" Her tone of voice was pleading, like a mother begging her child to cut out whatever self-destructive behaviour they were into. In a way, that's sort of what was happening.
Feeling himself frosting over, stuffing any evidence of having feelings back into the box he'd kept it in for so many years, Sherlock answered in a measured tone: "I don't feel anything," putting emphasis on the word 'feel' as if the very idea was absurd.
"Well, that's a shame, because she likes you too, you know. I can tell. She smiles at you."
Sherlock huffed a laugh. "She smiles at everyone."
"Yes, but not like that."
...
The conversation had ended there because Sherlock couldn't think of anything else to say. A small part of him wanted to argue back, tell her she was being a dreamer, an idealist, that she was seeing what she wanted to see. But the majority of him didn't want to talk about it anymore, so he just kept quiet.
As much as he respected her intelligence, Sherlock didn't believe what Mrs Hudson had said for a second. She loves him, and like everyone that loves someone, she wanted the best for them, which sometimes meant lying. Her logic was, probably, that if she could convince him to confess his love to Y/N, even if she'd never shown any signs of attraction, there was still some tiny chance that she feels the same way. And, to Mrs Hudson's optimistic it's-better-to-have-tried-and-failed mind, that trumped doing nothing. 'At least you tried' she'd always say whenever he'd had to give up on a case. She was applying that same logic to this problem, but, the way Sherlock saw it, trying was not an option. Best case scenario would be him telling Y/N he loves her, and her politely turning him down, then their friendship being shrouded in a slight awkwardness for the foreseeable future. Worst case scenario: He tells Y/N he loves her and she gets completely creeped out and then moves out within a week.
When Mrs Hudson eventually sent Sherlock on his way, she looked sad and tired. Sherlock felt guilty that the thundercloud above his own head had spread to hers, and tried to tell her to forget about all this, but obviously she refused.
Feeling somehow worse than he had before, Sherlock showered, then shrugged on his pyjamas and flopped half-heartedly into bed. It was only nine, but he hadn't been sleeping well recently and decided to try to catch up on a few hours. 'Everything will look better in the morning', wasn't that the phrase? He hoped being unconscious meant he wouldn't think about the fact that Y/N wasn't home yet, or that she might not even be home for breakfast tomorow.
...
Y/N did come home before breakfast, though, she came home at around ten pm. Sherlock knew because he heard her footsteps up the stairs, not that he'd been listening for them, of course (although he noted---with a twinge of guilty joy---that there was only one pair of footfalls).
Sherlock lay in his darkened room, the sheets slightly knotted around his feet from tossing a turning, hearing Y/N kick off her shoes and pad to the bathroom next to his bedroom. Five minutes ago he'd been riddled with anxiety, his thoughts as knotted as his duvet, but now he could feel himself relax. Just hearing the familiar sounds of Y/N getting ready for bed, the sink running, things being taken out and placed back in cupboards, the sounds of Y/N being in the flat was enough to calm his nerves.
The bathroom door closed and Sherlock waited to hear Y/N's footsteps fade away as she went upstairs to her room, but they didn't. They left the loo, then seemed to cross to Sherlock's door, where they stopped. After a few moments there was a tentative knock, so small that he doubted whether he'd heard a knock at all.
When another knock sounded, louder this time, Sherlock knew it hadn't been a trick by his hopeful imagination, and clicked on his bedside light, pulling himself up into a sitting position. "Yeah?"
"Can I come in?" Y/N called through the door in a tone Sherlock didn't recognise.
"Of course." He couldn't help smiling as she entered, the way he does when he's pleased to see her, which is always. "What's the matter?" His smile broadened at the sight of her in her pyjamas.
"Nothing. Just...this will sound weird but can I stay in here with you tonight?"
He hadn't been expecting that. His lips tugged upwards at the corners. "I thought after this morning---"
"I know. But...now I don't think I'll be able to sleep without it."
"I don't think Tom would like you sharing a bed with another man." He was only half teasing her; vengeful boyfriends of Y/N was something Sherlock genuinely didn't want to get involved with. Having to stand there and assure them that Y/N meant nothing to him when actually she meant everything---
"Don't." Was Y/N's only reply.
Sherlock had, quite frankly, expected more. She usually matches his joshing with her own perfectly sculpted quips, them mock-arguing with each other being one of his favourite pastimes. But she didn't take the bait this time. She looked tired. The sight of her standing there, all small and vulnerable in faded nightclothes, made Sherlock want to personally carry her to the bed himself.
But he didn't, because he didn't dare, and instead opened the covers for her. "You're welcome to sleep here. I... I liked it too."
She didn't move, so he added:
"What is it?"
"There's something else I wanted to tell you."