Gloves (BBC Sherlock Fan Fiction)

You left your gloves behind-

The black leather ones you wore when we went out on particularly cold cases where it was windy and there had been rain.

That day- that day, it hadn’t even been cold enough to warrant carrying them alongside your magnifying glass and wallet. When I got back to the flat- when I got back home- I discovered them sitting in a pile of things you’d deemed unworthy of taking with you.

I didn’t think much of them in that moment because of the words and sounds and lies I could not rid my mind of.

But months later- weeks later- I did not do a good job of keeping up, did I? With time. But eventually, as I began shutting away things that left nothing but the bitterest of tastes of you, I found them again.

Mrs. Hudson- as ever, not a housekeeper- must have put them in the coat closet ages before. They were sitting on the shelf above the rod, next to a scarf Molly gave me at Christmas. I wish I could say that I didn’t think much of them or I didn’t even recognize them, but that would be an outright lie.

I surprised myself with those gloves.

I should have just looked past them and put my coat on to go to the shop- I could have done what I did with everything else, I could have just taken them into your bedroom and placed them among the cacophony, could have found them somewhere to reside. But I didn’t.

I picked them up, wiped off the thin layer of dust, and I simply held them.

My- my mind wasn’t with me in that moment- it wasn’t very often, I’m afraid- but this time, it was off in a very different place than usual.

It was with me as you broke into that flat in Chinatown.

It was with me as we raced against time, jumped across rooftops, chasing the cabbie down, my cane forgotten.

It was with me, watching as a very bare Irene Adler slipped on your coat.

It was with Mrs. Hudson and I, every time you elected to play your violin over sleeping.

It was there as you had your very first moment of doubt at the inn at Baskerville.

It was standing on the street outside St. Bart’s, my eyes fixed on you, as a very different sort of doubt ate you alive from the inside out.

In these gloves- sewn into the seams, or something- I could feel you, could hear you, could almost see you as you sat motionless across from me in your chair- your throne, your center of the universe, and gateway to your very own kingdom.

My legs carried me- ever obedient- to my chair, all traces of leaving for the shop forgotten. I sat, one glove in each hand, staring down each inch, every stich, every wrinkle as if I were a fortune teller and these ghosts of your palms would tell me anything I didn’t already know.

I held them to my face, and after the initial smell of the coat closet wore off, the smell of rich leather filled my nose- accompanied by the bite of the time that had passed, the things I never said, and the life you should have had time to live.

I attempted to wear them myself, but the fingers were just a hair too long, the palm not wide enough.

My uncertainty regarding what to do with them only lasted for half of one heartbeat before my legs lifted me out of my chair, back to the closet where I slipped both gloves into the left pocket of my everyday jacket, and picked up my cane, ready to go out.

With the comforting weight and feel of you in my pocket, I was able to soldier on at least half as well inside as I did outside. It all felt like less of an act when- if rushed at the market register or suffocated on the tube, perhaps- I could just reach into my pocket for a moment as I took a breath and felt for leather.

I won’t lie to you. Things weren’t all too easy- weren’t easy at all, in fact- still were painful beyond belief. But I could almost taste an easier life with the shell of your hands in mine. 

~~~

AN: Please comment, vote, fan- should you so desire. 

 SM x