Sherlocked

Rose

The party was almost a week away, but it didn’t stop me from getting a dress and shoes to match. I had never been much for the beauty queen crowd in high school or college, but I was excited for this opportunity to go out on the town dressed up.

I wondered to myself how much it had to do with impressing Sherlock. I was not exactly one to flaunt myself for attention, but I had to admit that I wanted him to notice. He seemed to notice everything and nothing about me at the same time. He could tell me how much weight I had lost since I moved in, but not that it was because I had stopped eating sweets while watching romantic comedies as a form of therapy from my break up. He could tell that I was wearing a new perfume, but not that I kept wearing it because he said he liked it.

And he certainly didn’t know that I was finishing the painting of him quicker than I usually finished paintings because I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he looked at me that day in the meadow, as if I was something new and exciting and different to him. I knew no one, especially not a woman, had ever challenged him the way I had. No one had ever forced him to step beyond his usual perception to see things differently.

John was downstairs catching up with Mrs. Hudson now that he was well enough to climb down a flight of stairs by himself with a cane. Sherlock and I had the flat to ourselves. I emerged from my room to soak my brushes in the sink and wash the paint off my hands.

“Painting again?” Sherlock said, a hint of curiosity in his voice. I knew he wanted me to explain. He had taken an interest in my work lately, ever since he stumbled upon the painting of him I had been working on.

“Yes, I just finished. Would you like to see?” I asked, half hoping he would say no.

“Yes, I would,” he said, and I was surprised by his enthusiasm. He rose from where he had been sitting in his armchair, tossing away an old book, which I recognized as my copy of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” before following me into my room. The finished painting sat on the easel in the center of the room, bathed in the light from the window.

Sherlock sat in front of me, in all his glory, completely absorbed in the one activity that I found brought him the most calm, coaxing gorgeous strains of melody from the strings of his violin.

“It’s very, very good,” Sherlock said, seeming at a loss for any other words.

“I have a portfolio of my other work. Would you like to take a look?”

Sherlock just nodded in response, still looking at the painting in front of him, his mouth a tight line.

I showed him prints of my work, as most of the pieces were either in galleries or were purchased by wealthy art lovers in San Francisco. A lot of them were of fellow college students I had painted when we used each other for models. I had painted a girl named Candie, whose hair was such a rich gold that I used gold leaf to paint her portrait. I had a print of Aaron staring back at me, holding a camera up to one eye, his other squinted shut. He had been in school for photography, and I wanted to capture that passion like he had captured so many freeze-frames of the time we had spent together.

Sherlock eyed them all appreciatively, sneering only slightly when he saw the one with Aaron as the subject. I carefully gauged each reaction, finally satisfied that he either was impressed or very good at pretending before I retrieved a canvas that I hid behind my bookshelf.

I showed him a piece I had always been too self-conscious to put on display. In one of my classes we were told to paint a self-portrait, and I had done so during the darkest period of my life. I had used one of the candid shots Aaron had taken of me shortly after my mother’s death. It was painful for me to look at. Where I usually painted in saturated color, his painting was gray and leeched of color and life. My eyes were dull, my hair limp and lifeless as it brushed thin shoulders. I remembered losing ten pounds when my mother died. I didn’t leave the house, even to get groceries.

“This one’s different,” he said, his finger touching the pale gray cheek of the strange young woman in the painting.

“I hate it,” I said. “This was painted four months after I found my mother dead in the apartment we shared together. She was bipolar. One day she would be up, painting a whole painting a week. The next week she would be drinking herself to sleep and crying all the time. I used to be so afraid to leave her alone. One night I finally agreed to go out with my friends to a movie. I came home and found that she drank half a bottle of bourbon along with her entire prescription of antidepressants. She was on the living room couch. A lot of terrible things have happened on that couch.”

I knew he was recalling the time he found out I discovered my boyfriend and my best friend on the same couch, shortly before I loved to London.

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. I never talk about it. You’re the only person I’ve ever shown this to,” I said, picking up the painting and returning it to its place behind the bookcase.

When I turned around Sherlock was right in front of me, his face inches away from mine. I searched his face for something, waiting. When his pupils dilated even in the well-lit room, I took it as a sign. I leaned forward, my lips barely brushing against his. I felt his intake of breath, his surprise, but he didn’t withdraw. If anything, he seemed to gravitate closer to me until our lips touched again. I ached in my throat and my chest and deeper inside me, feeling the warmth of his breath on my lips.

Unable to maintain the distance, my hands came to rest on his chest, feeling his heartbeat under my palm as I closed the tiny space between our mouths. His lips were soft and warm and full, exactly as I would have imagined them. He seemed frozen, unsure of what to do, and I kissed him again. He responded this time with fervor, gasping as his lips crashed against mine. My hands went up to his shoulders and then his hair…and just as quickly as it began, the kiss was over.

Sherlock pushed me away, accusation in his eyes, as if he was the shocked victim of an assault I had laid against him.

“Sherlock…” I began, unsure of what to say to him. I hated to pleading tone in my voice, as if I needed him for something that he alone could give me. I was not the one who needed. I was the one needed. And I thought that Sherlock had needed this just as much as I did.

“I am dedicated to my work. I have never understood love or its silly notions. You of all people should be aware of that trap. It’s merely a distraction from more important things.” He sounded slightly out of breath, but his voice was firm.

It was worse than if he would have slapped me. “So, that’s what you think of me. I’m just a distraction to you. Well, give me a couple of weeks to find another place to live and I promise I will never distract you again.” I couldn’t help the edge of hysteria in my voice. I felt betrayed.

Before he could see me cry, I gathered up my purse and coat and scarf and stormed out of the flat, noticing that John was in the living room and had probably heard our entire exchange. The door had been open.

John looked as if he were about to ask me a question, but I just shook my head, wiping furiously at the tears that had already started to fall before leaving, slamming the door behind me and setting out on the London street with nowhere to go.

_________________________________________________________________________________

John

After Rose left the flat, the door rattling in its frame with the force of her slamming it, I stood as quickly as I could and made my way to what was now my room.

Sherlock stood in the middle of the room, arms at his side, hands clenching and unclenching. His face was blank.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I yelled, unable to restrain myself. I felt a certain kindred spirit in Rose. She put up with Sherlock spectacularly. And what was more; she had managed to love him.

My eyes shifted to the painting right behind Sherlock. I was wrong. She didn’t just love him. She was in love with him as well. All my years of being a bachelor, and I couldn’t manage to make a girl feel what Sherlock had made Rose feel in just under two months of living under the same roof.

“John, I-“ Sherlock started, but I didn’t have it in me to let him finish. I had been a witness to a great number of things since I got back to find that Rose had become a part of Sherlock’s life. He needed to hear this.

“You don’t have to explain a thing, Sherlock. I heard everything. You can’t stand there and tell me you don’t feel anything for her, Sherlock. She cares for you, quite possibly loves you, and you told her she was nothing but a distraction. Do you have any idea how much you must have hurt that kind young woman? I have watched the pair of you for almost two weeks now, and if you tell me you don’t have feelings for her, I have no qualms calling you a liar. You’ve said quite possibly the most hurtful thing you could have said to her, and you should be ashamed of yourself.” I stood there after my speech, feeling tired and slightly winded, and waited.

Sherlock smiled harshly. “Are you going to tell me that I should apologize?”

“No, I’m telling you an apology won’t be nearly enough to repair the damage you’ve done. You had better be honest with yourself and think about what it would mean if she left. Because she has been hurt before, Sherlock, and I don’t think she was bluffing. If she leaves, you may never see her again.”

Unable to stay and hear him lie to himself yet again, I turned around and followed Rose’s example, deciding to foot it to the pub around the corner, leg be damned.