Secretly I Think You Knew

It's Not as Easy as it Looks

When they pulled into the driveway Sherlock hoped right out, making a note that Mycroft hung the car keys on the hook and left the garage door open, perfect for a nightly retreat. Sherlock went up to his bedroom and dropped his bag on the ground, sinking onto his bed and making sure the door was properly shut before taking out his notebook from under his mattress. Sherlock took the note out of his pocket and tucked it into the pages, running his fingers over the scrawled letters and breathed in deeply; trying to feel John's skin hours after it had touched the paper. Sherlock turned the page and got his pencil out again, beginning a drawing, his feelings and his emotions from the day. It felt as if he were emptying his soul, everything he had felt, everything he had seen or heard, leaking out from his brain through his pencil onto the paper where there would stay forever. After a while Sherlock's hand started to cramp but he ignored it, this drawing taking a lot of time. When his hand stopped Sherlock saw three figures, constructed out of pencil lines and dots and dashes. On one side there was Sherlock and Mycroft, standing together although Mycroft was much taller, unrealistically a giant compared to Sherlock. The Mycroft giant had a rope tied around Sherlock's neck and the small Sherlock was pulling on it as much as he could, the rope pulling his neck as he grasped for something he could reach. On the other side was John, even smaller than Sherlock, walking away with a look of shame, not looking back as he started his long journey off of the page, where Sherlock couldn't reach him. This actually said a lot about the current situation, Mycroft was preventing him to go to John and John thought he didn't want to come in the first place. Sherlock sighed, looking at the drawing once more, staring at it so deeply that he could memorize all of the little marks. This was going to change, somehow, someway; Sherlock would get free from Mycroft's rope and run right into John's loving arms. When darkness had fallen Sherlock waited until he heard his brother's footsteps stop, his bedroom door shut and finally the mattress creaking as it was forced to support his weight. After Sherlock was positive his brother had gotten in bed he waited an hour, watching the red clock on the side of his bed impatiently, the numbers moving as slowly as they possibly could, the sun sinking lower and lower, time seemed to be stopped, it seemed to be crawling. Sherlock read John's note a good twenty times in that hour, reading over the scrawled handwriting, trying to imagine John, hunched over his desk in his room, trying to think of the right words to say and know it might be the last thing he ever could say to Sherlock. Little did he know Sherlock was in nearly as much agony as he was, trying to figure out just what to do and when to do it and how to do it. This attempt at communication was a feeble attempt, a desperate one really, to finally talk to John face to face, to make sure there were no secrets, no unspoken words between them and finally clear the air once and for all. Sherlock was coming for one last time; Sherlock was coming for a goodbye. He sketched one more picture in his notebook of John and himself, sitting on the hood of a car, kissing under the stars. It was a rather sappy picture, Sherlock didn't know if his soul was trying to be extra cheesy today or what, maybe it was because he was going to throw rocks at John's window in the middle of the night to purse their forbidden relationship. Maybe he was just trapped in a pathetic romance book, where the couple always ends up together and suffers a tragic ending. But you know, what type of cruel author would give their star couple a horrible ending? Sherlock sighed, when he had ten minutes until his hour was up he silently shut his notebook, dropping it onto his bed and getting up to make sure he looked alright. In the bathroom mirror he tried to see himself as John would see him, in the darkness, with a desperate, hopeful look on his face. Sherlock tried to practice a desperate, hopeful look in the mirror. A please forgive me look, even the look of a person who was about to be kissed, just for good measure. It looked nothing like he had drawn; he looked more like a fish than a man in love. Whatever, this was just improv, when he saw John coming closer and closer to him, and then he'd see firsthand what it's like. Then again, he could never let John kiss him, not when so much could go wrong. Sherlock sighed, pulling on his trench coat and shoes and slipping as quietly as he could out of his room. Every squeaky floor board sounded like an explosion going off, every step that creaked made him look towards his brother's room in terror, expecting the door to open, expecting Mycroft to come out in his pajamas and a scowl and drag him away by his ear. Then again this was easy to explain, he wanted to go for a walk because he couldn't sleep, he only needed a drink of water, it was a lot easier to explain than getting caught halfway down the driveway in the family car. Miraculously Sherlock made it downstairs without so much of a stir from Mycroft's room, either he was an amateur ninja or his brother was in a deep sleep, probably dreaming of very boring things such as tax refunds and asexual reproduction. That must be, after all, how he planned on expanding the Holmes family. One day he would be sitting, eating breakfast and suddenly he would split into two identical Mycrofts, both of which would keep an eye on Sherlock and all his clone children. Sherlock opened the door as quietly as possible, grabbing the car keys (all while making sure the keys didn't click and jangle) and slipping out the door. The car was in the garage which was, for some miraculous reason, still open, as if Fate had decided that Sherlock needed some rebellious fun in his life. If even Fate pitied him, Mycroft's iron fist must be worse than he thought. Sherlock slipped into the driver's seat and took a deep, nervous breath. If this was too loud, or if Mycroft heard, there would most certainly be consequences, horrible consequences. Maybe he should just walk...No, he had to get there soon, so that Mycroft didn't come back to find his bed empty. Sherlock closed his eyes and turned the key, the engine revving almost too loudly. Sherlock winced, not letting out the breath he had been holding as he looked to the door, expecting his brother to come. But once again, all was silent. Slowly Sherlock backed out of the driveway, not turning on his headlights in fear of illuminating Mycroft's bedroom. He might have just pulled this off after all.