Five Times Sherlock Thought He Was Being Kind
Title: Five Times Sherlock Thought He Was Being Kind
Words: 1,090
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
A/N: So, I got a bunch of Five Things prompts from icanbreakthesky regarding the BBC’s new miniseries Sherlock, and I've also had a week where I didn't have work or school to worry (so much) about.
1. “Mycroft?”
“What is it, Sherlock?” he asks, without opening his eyes. Even without his sense of sight he can picture Sherlock clear as day. Sherlock is silhouetted in his bedroom doorway, expression much too serious-faced for a ten year old and yet perfectly Sherlock all the same. It’s the way Sherlock always appears to him late at night, whenever something’s weighing heavily on his young mind.
He can hear Sherlock’s slippered feet padding across the floor, heading his way. He rolls over to face the wall, waiting for Sherlock to climb into the bed before rolling over to address whatever it was head on.
“Mycroft,” Sherlock says after a moment. “I did a bad thing.”
Mycroft cringes unintentionally. The last time Sherlock admitted to doing ‘a bad thing,’ Mycroft had been put in charge of bringing Sherlock over to the neighbor’s to apologize. Not an experience he’s wanted to repeat.
“What did you do, Sherlock?” In response, Sherlock hugs him, and that worries Mycroft more than the nighttime visit. “Honestly, Sherlock, after your adventures with the neighbor’s French doors, it can’t be that bad-“
“You got a big packet from that university in France last week.”
Mycroft’s eyes are open suddenly. “The University of Par-“
“I buried it in the garden.”
He can’t speak.
“So you don’t have to go away now,” Sherlock nods, skinny arms clinging round Mycroft’s neck insistently. “Now you can’t go, right?”
Mycroft goes to Oxford, gets a degree in politics and most of a degree in international relations before he gets appointed to a minor position in the British government. He vacations in Paris whenever Sherlock’s antics becomes a little too overwhelming.
2. It’s dark, but not dark enough. Sherlock can see the face of his watch in the glare from the streetlights, can see the second hand ticking round unbearably slow. He tries to contemplate time, wishing idly that he could somehow will it to move faster than sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, on average four weeks in a month, twelve months in a year, x number of years in an eternity-
He’s been watching the seconds count down for an hour and twenty-seven minutes. He cannot sleep. He thinks this is what people do, except other people sleep, they enjoy others’ company, they snuggle and cuddle and engage in all other manner of ridiculous shows of affection. Sherlock closes his eyes, willing himself to sleep and wishing for a cigarette, a needle, something, anything. He just needs a little, just enough to get through-
Sally rolls over onto her side, throwing an arm across his bare chest, and yes, no, Sherlock decides, this is quite incredibly more than enough. Sliding sideways slowly, he climbs out of the bed. He’s dressed again in just a few minutes; out the door and breathing in the cool night air in another.
He doesn’t speak to her again for a month, three days, and twelve hours, give or take ten minutes or so. She tries at first, before moving on to staring as the days go by, glares as they turn into weeks. The weeks become ‘Freak’s, muttered under her breath at first, then growing bolder as more and more time passes.
He doesn’t understand at all where the animosity comes from; his explanation wouldn’t have made sense, and she wouldn’t have accepted it anyway. A clean break, the gift of righteous indignation, sparing of an even more prolonged period of mutual animosity and simultaneous stubborn refusals to simply depart-what more kindness could he have possibly done her?
3. Lestrade is staring at him.
“Promise me you will never do anything like that again.”
Sherlock nods after a second. “I promise.”
“…you’re lying, aren’t you?”
A longer pause, this time. “Yes.”
“Why-“
“Because that’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?”
Lestrade’s leaning forward on his knuckles, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. Sherlock decides his best course of action is to quietly extricate himself from the man’s office while he’s still able.
4. These things ended so often, Sherlock muses as he pushes the window up a bit further, with people shouting at him. He’d only been trying to help, after all. Make conversation, be friendly, all of that nonsense. There’d been no way for him to know, after all, that the landlord’s wife hadn’t been home last weekend, and it hadn’t been her he’d heard.
He crawls through the window silently, dragging his backpack along as well, and glances around the cavernous space in front of him, making a plan for the night. One pass by the Rosetta Stone for old times’ sake, and he figures he better find a place to set up camp. He’s always been partial to the Islamic World room. Thirty four, if he recalls correctly…
Once he’s settled in among the artifacts, he pulls his laptop from his bag. He finds the wireless network, logs on to BritMus-Staff (Secure Network) quite easily, and opens his blog to post.
Do not send post to my Montague Street address. Disagreement with landlord. No longer there. New address to follow.
5. John is yelling at him again.
“You incredible idiot!” John yells, trying to gesture violently. Thanks to the blankets that’ve been forced round both their shoulders yet again, however, the effect is more akin to a gigantic, very perturbed bird attempting to take flight. Sherlock tries very hard not to laugh, because he knows that will only make John angrier, and if he gets any angrier at this point, he’s going to be airborne shortly, and oh dear, he can’t quite keep a smile off his face.
“You-you think this is funny, Sherlock?”
“John,” Sherlock tries to break in, even though he knows it’s useless when John is in a state like this. They’d survived, for better or worse, against a million to one odds; Moriarty escaped into the night; a case unsolved-who wouldn’t find that hysterical?
“No Sherlock, no, this is not funny. You, you shot I don’t even want to think how many kilos of explosives, nearly killed us both-if I hadn’t tackled you into the pool-and the snipers-“
“Would you like my shock blanket, John?” Sherlock asks, starting to unwrap himself, to offer it out to John. “You seem like you might benefit from another.”
John’s face indicates he’s near apoplectic. Sherlock sighs silently, wrapping the damp blanket round his shoulders again and pulling it to cover his smile as John continues to rail.
Words: 1,090
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
A/N: So, I got a bunch of Five Things prompts from icanbreakthesky regarding the BBC’s new miniseries Sherlock, and I've also had a week where I didn't have work or school to worry (so much) about.
1. “Mycroft?”
“What is it, Sherlock?” he asks, without opening his eyes. Even without his sense of sight he can picture Sherlock clear as day. Sherlock is silhouetted in his bedroom doorway, expression much too serious-faced for a ten year old and yet perfectly Sherlock all the same. It’s the way Sherlock always appears to him late at night, whenever something’s weighing heavily on his young mind.
He can hear Sherlock’s slippered feet padding across the floor, heading his way. He rolls over to face the wall, waiting for Sherlock to climb into the bed before rolling over to address whatever it was head on.
“Mycroft,” Sherlock says after a moment. “I did a bad thing.”
Mycroft cringes unintentionally. The last time Sherlock admitted to doing ‘a bad thing,’ Mycroft had been put in charge of bringing Sherlock over to the neighbor’s to apologize. Not an experience he’s wanted to repeat.
“What did you do, Sherlock?” In response, Sherlock hugs him, and that worries Mycroft more than the nighttime visit. “Honestly, Sherlock, after your adventures with the neighbor’s French doors, it can’t be that bad-“
“You got a big packet from that university in France last week.”
Mycroft’s eyes are open suddenly. “The University of Par-“
“I buried it in the garden.”
He can’t speak.
“So you don’t have to go away now,” Sherlock nods, skinny arms clinging round Mycroft’s neck insistently. “Now you can’t go, right?”
Mycroft goes to Oxford, gets a degree in politics and most of a degree in international relations before he gets appointed to a minor position in the British government. He vacations in Paris whenever Sherlock’s antics becomes a little too overwhelming.
2. It’s dark, but not dark enough. Sherlock can see the face of his watch in the glare from the streetlights, can see the second hand ticking round unbearably slow. He tries to contemplate time, wishing idly that he could somehow will it to move faster than sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, on average four weeks in a month, twelve months in a year, x number of years in an eternity-
He’s been watching the seconds count down for an hour and twenty-seven minutes. He cannot sleep. He thinks this is what people do, except other people sleep, they enjoy others’ company, they snuggle and cuddle and engage in all other manner of ridiculous shows of affection. Sherlock closes his eyes, willing himself to sleep and wishing for a cigarette, a needle, something, anything. He just needs a little, just enough to get through-
Sally rolls over onto her side, throwing an arm across his bare chest, and yes, no, Sherlock decides, this is quite incredibly more than enough. Sliding sideways slowly, he climbs out of the bed. He’s dressed again in just a few minutes; out the door and breathing in the cool night air in another.
He doesn’t speak to her again for a month, three days, and twelve hours, give or take ten minutes or so. She tries at first, before moving on to staring as the days go by, glares as they turn into weeks. The weeks become ‘Freak’s, muttered under her breath at first, then growing bolder as more and more time passes.
He doesn’t understand at all where the animosity comes from; his explanation wouldn’t have made sense, and she wouldn’t have accepted it anyway. A clean break, the gift of righteous indignation, sparing of an even more prolonged period of mutual animosity and simultaneous stubborn refusals to simply depart-what more kindness could he have possibly done her?
3. Lestrade is staring at him.
“Promise me you will never do anything like that again.”
Sherlock nods after a second. “I promise.”
“…you’re lying, aren’t you?”
A longer pause, this time. “Yes.”
“Why-“
“Because that’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?”
Lestrade’s leaning forward on his knuckles, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. Sherlock decides his best course of action is to quietly extricate himself from the man’s office while he’s still able.
4. These things ended so often, Sherlock muses as he pushes the window up a bit further, with people shouting at him. He’d only been trying to help, after all. Make conversation, be friendly, all of that nonsense. There’d been no way for him to know, after all, that the landlord’s wife hadn’t been home last weekend, and it hadn’t been her he’d heard.
He crawls through the window silently, dragging his backpack along as well, and glances around the cavernous space in front of him, making a plan for the night. One pass by the Rosetta Stone for old times’ sake, and he figures he better find a place to set up camp. He’s always been partial to the Islamic World room. Thirty four, if he recalls correctly…
Once he’s settled in among the artifacts, he pulls his laptop from his bag. He finds the wireless network, logs on to BritMus-Staff (Secure Network) quite easily, and opens his blog to post.
Do not send post to my Montague Street address. Disagreement with landlord. No longer there. New address to follow.
5. John is yelling at him again.
“You incredible idiot!” John yells, trying to gesture violently. Thanks to the blankets that’ve been forced round both their shoulders yet again, however, the effect is more akin to a gigantic, very perturbed bird attempting to take flight. Sherlock tries very hard not to laugh, because he knows that will only make John angrier, and if he gets any angrier at this point, he’s going to be airborne shortly, and oh dear, he can’t quite keep a smile off his face.
“You-you think this is funny, Sherlock?”
“John,” Sherlock tries to break in, even though he knows it’s useless when John is in a state like this. They’d survived, for better or worse, against a million to one odds; Moriarty escaped into the night; a case unsolved-who wouldn’t find that hysterical?
“No Sherlock, no, this is not funny. You, you shot I don’t even want to think how many kilos of explosives, nearly killed us both-if I hadn’t tackled you into the pool-and the snipers-“
“Would you like my shock blanket, John?” Sherlock asks, starting to unwrap himself, to offer it out to John. “You seem like you might benefit from another.”
John’s face indicates he’s near apoplectic. Sherlock sighs silently, wrapping the damp blanket round his shoulders again and pulling it to cover his smile as John continues to rail.