Three Is Company

I Don't Like You Watching

With that the brief tape went blank, the VCR rolling across the film that appeared to have been much longer than necessary. For a while it displayed the blackened ends of film, playing various sounds of static as the screen tried to display a picture that wasn't available. John was quiet, not able to force himself to hit pause. For some reason the static felt better, more natural. It was a good background noise to the thoughts that were running madly in his head. Love...Sherlock had mentioned love. Was that really his intention, had he been so self-aware before their meeting in the night? Had Sherlock not acted on impulse, not been driven by Irene like a puppet on strings? Had he been conscious and willing during that whole interaction, where for the first time in his life he actually took a chance? John sunk his head into his hands, dropping the remote at his feet as he began to muddle in his agony. What had he caused by not being supportive? What had he done by running away? Had Sherlock really been in love, so much so that he would take chance into his own hands, that he would try to manipulate their fates? Sherlock had never been brave...was this what his bravery amount to? Abandonment? Where was he now, if not some institution? What had he done when John slipped away? Had Sherlock deemed himself insane, unfit to live in close proximity to someone who showed him an ounce of kindness? Had he decided that he was prone to falling in love, to making mistakes to such a magnitude? John had begun to tremble, feeling his fingers shaking as they tried to latch onto his face, the very same features that had been stroked by terrified hands one week before. Sherlock had been gentle, careful, intimate. He had wanted something, and John had denied him that. John had left him alone, alone without an explanation. John had panicked. And this was where his panic had led them both. John rose towards the phone, he intended on calling the Doctor for some proof of his neighbor's wellbeing. If he wasn't in the house then John deserved to know where he went. He was determined to find out, to come to his neighbor's aid, even if that meant the whole truth had to come out. At this point John trusted the Doctor more than he trusted himself, and to hear Musgrave's reassurances over the phone may serve to settle his startled heart. Though suddenly the static stopped. It was replaced by the sound of fiddling, interference with the camera. The chair that was his interviewing spot was empty, though there was a dark figure lingering next to the lens, moving steadily across the wall as if to find the switch. John stopped in his tracks, too transfixed with the screen to even sit. The light turned on, the camera displayed the background, the man. Sherlock, trembling, standing against the chair and pulling his fingers madly across the cloth backrest. He was crying, his face lined with the streaks of past tears, his eyes bubbling with the set of new ones. His mouth was agape, as if clenched to try to keep the next sob from passing through his lips. John didn't need any further proof of the time line. He knew exactly when this was filmed.

"I kissed John." Sherlock announced, in a voice so mangled that it was difficult to categorize it as human. His words were almost incomprehensible, though John knew what he was expecting to hear. The man was trembling from head to foot, his eyes rolling between their lids as if they were animate and acting on their own. For long periods of time he would remain silent, twitching, as if his brain was turning on and off, as if his consciousness was taking a short vacation. "I kissed him, and he didn't want it. It was...it was the worst thing I've ever done. He hates me now. I've had his lips on mine, and I think I love him more than ever. But I don't think I'll ever see him again." he gave a tremor, his face screwed up in hesitation. His jaw was set, his eyes squeezed shut. Another gap, one so lengthy that the man appeared to have fallen asleep. He didn't move, he didn't speak. In fact his chest hardly seemed to move at all. Inanimate. Like clay. Suddenly his eyes opened again, opened with a sudden alertness, a sudden aggression. Whatever life had been lacking from the cold shell of a man was suddenly reawakened, and with a part of his lips Sherlock began to move again. The man began kneading his fingers so deeply into the cushion of the chair that he appeared to be tearing into the fabric with his fingernails. Sherlock's whole body swayed, contorting against the back of the chair, leaning heavily into it and thrusting himself into the bend of the furniture with a long, low sigh. His voice was raised to a higher octave, a feminine whisper, and at once there seemed to be a disparity in identities. Sherlock's broken body was going through the motions, though it was Irene Adler now sitting in the driver's seat. The woman didn't seem to notice the camera was rolling, for while she gave it a passing glance she did not acknowledge the blinking red light. Instead she continued to run her palms along the length of the chair, as if there was some sensual value in the act. The woman swayed for a long moment, pushing herself against the chair with an increasing level of exclamations. This lasted for a long while, until her voice pinnacled into a shout and she at last fell silent. Draping herself across the back, satisfied, she took gasps with Sherlock's mouth, the shared body being the only resemblance between the two. Then the woman rose to her feet, standing atop her toes so as to rise to an extraordinary height, and turned to retreat back up the steps. John blushed to notice that the profile of his neighbor's body seemed to have widened within the last couple of moments. Irene vanished up the steps, her footsteps fading as the sound of a door began to squeak across the interior of the house. It didn't take her long to reappear, now with a wig placed atop her head to hide the curls that bore the resemblance of her occupied body. The woman was applying lipstick as she descended the stairs, smacking the very same lips that John had kissed some minutes earlier. Her body was fit tightly into that same red dress, perhaps the only option a woman of her situation had to wear. It flattered her figure, though John could not help but notice the body of Sherlock Holmes, the structure of his bones hidden along the strapless chest line. Irene didn't linger very long. John could hear the rustling of keys and the slamming of the door, though still the tape continued to roll. The light was on in the house, the lamp that Sherlock had turned on as he began to film his confession. Perhaps he wanted that confession to be longer. Perhaps he had more to say.