Sherlock Fic: Leaving things undone: Day 5: Desire
Day 5: Desire
Actually, it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter what happens when he leaves. I lived alone before I met him (quite well in fact). I know how to make tea, how to order food and gulp down a few bites. The city isn’t a mystery to me, just as little as the people here. They disgust me at most, or confuse me with their incompetence and fatuity. But I know how to handle them. That’s why it really shouldn’t matter that he leaves.
But it does matter. That’s the problem.
I’m sitting here with the list I wrote so carefuly, crossing out item 5 again and again. It was a stupid item, a stupid idea that wouldn’t have worked anyway (and, angry at myself, I slash out with my pen again, tearing the paper and lightly painting the table surface). The list isn’t proper anymore. There are suggestions and basic approaches on how to proceed on each day scribbled in margins. But nothing can convince me. I’m finished. Over and done with.
(Why do I want him to stay?), I think and can’t find the answer. It’s not logical, it’s not typical. I’m past all recognition. (Should I tell John? Should I admit how helpless I am? Would he believe me?) I imagine a scenario in which I tell him about my despair. Then I chuckle because it’s ridiculous (childish even!)
Some files from my mind palace appear in front of my mind’s eye, lighting up and disappearing again. I search for similar situations, digging deep into the area that is responsible for emotions, but find nothing, no precedence, no sources. No data, no information.
And then a single file flashes. It’s dark green, inconspicuous, narrow, and it’s standing in one corner of my palace, far away from all the other things. I have to open many doors before I can enter the empty room in which the folder is lying on the ground, as if I had no idea what to do with it. There is no shelf, no gallery. Inside the folder is just one file. One sentence.
I shiver.
(John Watson tastes like his name: of warmth and caramel)
I open my eyes wide, feeling a sudden heat inside my stomach and press my hands against the soft skin there. From the outside it’s not any hotter than the rest (I lay my hands tentatively on my forehead, then my upper arm and my neck: nothing). My accelerating heart is pumping blood through my veins, and something whooshes inside my ears (I think of the delusion of people who hold a shell against their ear, believing they’re hearing the ocean. But it’s nothing more than our own blood echoing through our head, and this fact is much more astonishing than the idea that a sound could get caught inside a chalk shell).
Warmth and caramel. I lick over my lip, but taste nothing, lift my fingers to my nose and sniff. Nothing. I slowly sit up, turn my head until vertebrae creak, search the inside of my mouth with my tongue. I give up, disappointed. Then I look at the list. Item 5, I think. And then: this idea is even more stupid than the one I crossed out.
(And I get up and do it nonetheless).
My eyes adjust to the dimness of Johns room more slowly than usual, and my steps on the old wooden floor suddenly seem so much louder. My heart is beating in my throat, it must ring out right down to Mrs. Hudson’s. I swallow, standing frozen at the door, gazing into the twilight.
John is lying in his bed. I can hardly make out his body under the blanket (I think of the warmth underneath it, and then of Johns skin), my head spins and I stumble backwards against the door, putting my hand over my mouth in a panic, not wanting to make any sound. Thoughts swirl inside my head. I don’t know what I’m doing; I close my eyes and try to sort the chaos and to remember what I wanted to do upstairs: the plan, the plan.
(John’s mouth against mine and the taste of his tongue. His breath in my chest. The pores of his skin. The water drops in his hair.) I’m breathing hard through the hand which I’m still pressing against my mouth. I shut my eyes tightly and I hear my blood rushing through my body. (I need a mirror to confirm a guess, my pupils are very likely dilated, and I should really take my pulse...)
Someone presses against the door I’m leaning on and clicks it shut with a start, the vibration goes through my body. I open my eyes wide. An arm beside my head. A face in front of mine.
(John)
John.
“John.”
“Shut up,” he says. His arm brushes my neck, then he leans forward, presses his body against mine, pulls my head down a bit and kisses me (and I die).
And then I remember the small, thin folder in my mind palace, and I know this time I mustn’t forget things, I need to save and file them, I don’t want to lose this memory, I want to keep it.
John, tasting of sleep and toothpaste. His skin, smelling of soap and disinfectants and a bit of orange. His fingers on my neck, a light touch somewhere between tingling and insignificance (hold on to it, don’t lose it!)
I let myself push against the door. My face is hot and I want to breathe and at the same time I don’t want to stop tasting him. I want to look at him, want to know what his face looks like when he’s kissing me, but for some unknown reason I just can’t bring myself to open my eyes. My hands move on their own, skim over John’s arms, over the naked skin and feel the bed’s warmth that grows stronger when my fingertips reach a few centimetres under his shirt sleeve.
Suddenly, John breaks away from me a bit, he’s breathing heavily and I remember that I need air as well. He starts kissing a trail down my cheekbones and I feel all the heat from my face and stomach wandering lower. I turn my head so that he can reach my neck. Then he brushes with his teeth over the pulse point under the soft skin on my throat, and I let out a silent moan.
Meanwhile my hands have gone down to his hip, my fingers hook into his shorts first, then push up his shirt a bit, like a question made of fabric. I feel John’s nod against my neck and I lift his shirt even more, my fingertips sensing the warmth. John’s breath dances over my skin, then he takes a step back (what did I do wrong?) and he takes off his shirt completely. I have my eyes open again (strange how I lose the junctions between my actions. But I need to save all those things!), watching his body, then the scar on his shoulder. I lift my hand, ready to skim over it, when John grabs my wrist and holds it against the wall above my head. It’s his secret, I realise, the scar. Something he won’t tell everyone. They all know it exists, what caused it. But seldom is one allowed to see it, and no one ever gets to touch it. Not at first, anyway. (I want to be the exception), I think, not really knowing what that means.
In the next moment I squirm free of his grip and push him back. He isn’t surprised, in fact there’s a faint smile I’ve never seen on his face before, then he slumps back onto his bed, and I concentrate on filing this smile, putting it into the dark green folder while I’m taking off my shirt as well (and I don’t know what I’m doing).
I straddle him, my legs beside his waist, my hands pressed into the mattress right beside his head, my hair frameing his face as we kiss again, this time by my rules. I force his lips apart, feel out every inch of the inside of his mouth with my tongue and save the taste of each tooth and the sound John makes when I grind my burning hip hard against his. It feels good and I repeat the motion and smile against John’s lips, and that feels good as well.
John’s hands seem to be everywhere. On my cool back, which feels even colder with John’s heat underneath me; his hands are gentle at first, then firmer, leaving red lines on pale skin. They are on my neck, pushing my head almost painfully down against his face. Fingers are entangled in my curls, disappearing, pulling, other fingers ghost over my cheekbones, my jaw, my ears, my pulse, wandering lower, hovering over the fabric of my trousers, indecisively. My head keeps spinning.
“John,” I say and can’t get enough of his name in my mouth. He shakes his head but I don’t want to give up, even though his fingers are so close, so close... I exhale in surprise, hissing, and let my head sink to his collarbone, and there John smells so strongly of John that I almost faint, I feel drunk, nothing makes sense. (I want to keep that feeling, I don’t want to lose it), is what I’m thinking while John’s fingers are crawling und rubbing over me and I’m seeing stars in the twilight.
And then I say: “You will stay, John. You won’t leave.”
After that all that I can remember are John’s eyes, which he opens wide, and the way he looks at me, his movements frozen, his whole body tensed and stiff. His sudden snicker. More of a choked laugh. He pushes me away, I’m still drunk, seeing the events through mist and fog and unable to understand what’s happening. John says things. Then he shouts things. In the end I leave his room.
(I don’t know why)
Afterwards I lie in my bed, feeling like I have an hangover or am kicking heroin. I try to remember if I took too much before I realise that my new drug is called John Watson and that I don’t understand it at all and don’t know how to dose it. (And since when does the drug reject the junky?)
Day 5: Desire. I feel bad, John’s words are red arrows in my brain.
(“I’m sick of your games and experiments,”) says one red arrow.
(“Is this your ultimate attempt to keep me here?) (Emotional dependency?) (Is this the sacrifice you are willing to make for the convenience of a flatmate who won’t ask questions and does anything you demand?”), other red arrows are shouting.
The arrows bore into my mind, leaving bleeding wounds. I can’t tell if they’re telling the truth. I’m not sure myself why I did it. (Should I tell him how helpless I am?)
My mind is bleeding into the night. And the memories are just loose pages in a dark green folder.
Actually, it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter what happens when he leaves. I lived alone before I met him (quite well in fact). I know how to make tea, how to order food and gulp down a few bites. The city isn’t a mystery to me, just as little as the people here. They disgust me at most, or confuse me with their incompetence and fatuity. But I know how to handle them. That’s why it really shouldn’t matter that he leaves.
But it does matter. That’s the problem.
I’m sitting here with the list I wrote so carefuly, crossing out item 5 again and again. It was a stupid item, a stupid idea that wouldn’t have worked anyway (and, angry at myself, I slash out with my pen again, tearing the paper and lightly painting the table surface). The list isn’t proper anymore. There are suggestions and basic approaches on how to proceed on each day scribbled in margins. But nothing can convince me. I’m finished. Over and done with.
(Why do I want him to stay?), I think and can’t find the answer. It’s not logical, it’s not typical. I’m past all recognition. (Should I tell John? Should I admit how helpless I am? Would he believe me?) I imagine a scenario in which I tell him about my despair. Then I chuckle because it’s ridiculous (childish even!)
Some files from my mind palace appear in front of my mind’s eye, lighting up and disappearing again. I search for similar situations, digging deep into the area that is responsible for emotions, but find nothing, no precedence, no sources. No data, no information.
And then a single file flashes. It’s dark green, inconspicuous, narrow, and it’s standing in one corner of my palace, far away from all the other things. I have to open many doors before I can enter the empty room in which the folder is lying on the ground, as if I had no idea what to do with it. There is no shelf, no gallery. Inside the folder is just one file. One sentence.
I shiver.
(John Watson tastes like his name: of warmth and caramel)
I open my eyes wide, feeling a sudden heat inside my stomach and press my hands against the soft skin there. From the outside it’s not any hotter than the rest (I lay my hands tentatively on my forehead, then my upper arm and my neck: nothing). My accelerating heart is pumping blood through my veins, and something whooshes inside my ears (I think of the delusion of people who hold a shell against their ear, believing they’re hearing the ocean. But it’s nothing more than our own blood echoing through our head, and this fact is much more astonishing than the idea that a sound could get caught inside a chalk shell).
Warmth and caramel. I lick over my lip, but taste nothing, lift my fingers to my nose and sniff. Nothing. I slowly sit up, turn my head until vertebrae creak, search the inside of my mouth with my tongue. I give up, disappointed. Then I look at the list. Item 5, I think. And then: this idea is even more stupid than the one I crossed out.
(And I get up and do it nonetheless).
My eyes adjust to the dimness of Johns room more slowly than usual, and my steps on the old wooden floor suddenly seem so much louder. My heart is beating in my throat, it must ring out right down to Mrs. Hudson’s. I swallow, standing frozen at the door, gazing into the twilight.
John is lying in his bed. I can hardly make out his body under the blanket (I think of the warmth underneath it, and then of Johns skin), my head spins and I stumble backwards against the door, putting my hand over my mouth in a panic, not wanting to make any sound. Thoughts swirl inside my head. I don’t know what I’m doing; I close my eyes and try to sort the chaos and to remember what I wanted to do upstairs: the plan, the plan.
(John’s mouth against mine and the taste of his tongue. His breath in my chest. The pores of his skin. The water drops in his hair.) I’m breathing hard through the hand which I’m still pressing against my mouth. I shut my eyes tightly and I hear my blood rushing through my body. (I need a mirror to confirm a guess, my pupils are very likely dilated, and I should really take my pulse...)
Someone presses against the door I’m leaning on and clicks it shut with a start, the vibration goes through my body. I open my eyes wide. An arm beside my head. A face in front of mine.
(John)
John.
“John.”
“Shut up,” he says. His arm brushes my neck, then he leans forward, presses his body against mine, pulls my head down a bit and kisses me (and I die).
And then I remember the small, thin folder in my mind palace, and I know this time I mustn’t forget things, I need to save and file them, I don’t want to lose this memory, I want to keep it.
John, tasting of sleep and toothpaste. His skin, smelling of soap and disinfectants and a bit of orange. His fingers on my neck, a light touch somewhere between tingling and insignificance (hold on to it, don’t lose it!)
I let myself push against the door. My face is hot and I want to breathe and at the same time I don’t want to stop tasting him. I want to look at him, want to know what his face looks like when he’s kissing me, but for some unknown reason I just can’t bring myself to open my eyes. My hands move on their own, skim over John’s arms, over the naked skin and feel the bed’s warmth that grows stronger when my fingertips reach a few centimetres under his shirt sleeve.
Suddenly, John breaks away from me a bit, he’s breathing heavily and I remember that I need air as well. He starts kissing a trail down my cheekbones and I feel all the heat from my face and stomach wandering lower. I turn my head so that he can reach my neck. Then he brushes with his teeth over the pulse point under the soft skin on my throat, and I let out a silent moan.
Meanwhile my hands have gone down to his hip, my fingers hook into his shorts first, then push up his shirt a bit, like a question made of fabric. I feel John’s nod against my neck and I lift his shirt even more, my fingertips sensing the warmth. John’s breath dances over my skin, then he takes a step back (what did I do wrong?) and he takes off his shirt completely. I have my eyes open again (strange how I lose the junctions between my actions. But I need to save all those things!), watching his body, then the scar on his shoulder. I lift my hand, ready to skim over it, when John grabs my wrist and holds it against the wall above my head. It’s his secret, I realise, the scar. Something he won’t tell everyone. They all know it exists, what caused it. But seldom is one allowed to see it, and no one ever gets to touch it. Not at first, anyway. (I want to be the exception), I think, not really knowing what that means.
In the next moment I squirm free of his grip and push him back. He isn’t surprised, in fact there’s a faint smile I’ve never seen on his face before, then he slumps back onto his bed, and I concentrate on filing this smile, putting it into the dark green folder while I’m taking off my shirt as well (and I don’t know what I’m doing).
I straddle him, my legs beside his waist, my hands pressed into the mattress right beside his head, my hair frameing his face as we kiss again, this time by my rules. I force his lips apart, feel out every inch of the inside of his mouth with my tongue and save the taste of each tooth and the sound John makes when I grind my burning hip hard against his. It feels good and I repeat the motion and smile against John’s lips, and that feels good as well.
John’s hands seem to be everywhere. On my cool back, which feels even colder with John’s heat underneath me; his hands are gentle at first, then firmer, leaving red lines on pale skin. They are on my neck, pushing my head almost painfully down against his face. Fingers are entangled in my curls, disappearing, pulling, other fingers ghost over my cheekbones, my jaw, my ears, my pulse, wandering lower, hovering over the fabric of my trousers, indecisively. My head keeps spinning.
“John,” I say and can’t get enough of his name in my mouth. He shakes his head but I don’t want to give up, even though his fingers are so close, so close... I exhale in surprise, hissing, and let my head sink to his collarbone, and there John smells so strongly of John that I almost faint, I feel drunk, nothing makes sense. (I want to keep that feeling, I don’t want to lose it), is what I’m thinking while John’s fingers are crawling und rubbing over me and I’m seeing stars in the twilight.
And then I say: “You will stay, John. You won’t leave.”
After that all that I can remember are John’s eyes, which he opens wide, and the way he looks at me, his movements frozen, his whole body tensed and stiff. His sudden snicker. More of a choked laugh. He pushes me away, I’m still drunk, seeing the events through mist and fog and unable to understand what’s happening. John says things. Then he shouts things. In the end I leave his room.
(I don’t know why)
Afterwards I lie in my bed, feeling like I have an hangover or am kicking heroin. I try to remember if I took too much before I realise that my new drug is called John Watson and that I don’t understand it at all and don’t know how to dose it. (And since when does the drug reject the junky?)
Day 5: Desire. I feel bad, John’s words are red arrows in my brain.
(“I’m sick of your games and experiments,”) says one red arrow.
(“Is this your ultimate attempt to keep me here?) (Emotional dependency?) (Is this the sacrifice you are willing to make for the convenience of a flatmate who won’t ask questions and does anything you demand?”), other red arrows are shouting.
The arrows bore into my mind, leaving bleeding wounds. I can’t tell if they’re telling the truth. I’m not sure myself why I did it. (Should I tell him how helpless I am?)
My mind is bleeding into the night. And the memories are just loose pages in a dark green folder.