Printed // Sheriarty AU

4

* sherlocks POV *

After what happened, it was difficult to get to sleep. So many thoughts were racing through my mind that I thought I was going crazy. I began to second guess myself. Did the moments prior even occur?

Or was it all in my Head?

John has said that I am fixated on the past,  that I am obsessed with Jim. Maybe that's true. I have a need to see him and yet I still don't understand as to why. It's been 10 years, surely my brain would've deleted him or at least let him go but my mind only thinks of him.

We were young friends,  just trying to find our identities and we find them through each other. He protected me. He saved me. And that's all good for when you're a teenager but being as it's 10 years later... perhaps it is obsession. Perhaps a part of me needs him to protect me again. To save me again. From what,  I do not know but I need him to be with me. I can't seem to let him go.

He's a murderer. He's a psychopath. He's on the run. Those things would put off most people but to me, those things made him all the more interesting. Those points within his life that made him who he is today seem to be drawing me in. I need to know him again. I need to know his past, the way he functions, everything.

So maybe John is right. Maybe this is just obsession. Although, I want it to be more than that. You could call it psychological love.

Manic love.

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I woke up the next day after around 2 hours of light sleep, with only one thing on my mind, making it difficult to function and focus on anything else, especially sleep. I got out of bed and put on my blue dressing gown, and running fingers through my hair to make it kind of presentable.

I reach down to grab my phone from the bedside table and I turn on the screen to see no new messages. Just the time, 5:49, and a notification from Google about some actor's death or something. I turn off the screen in disappointment, hoping for a text from Eddie or...

Hopefully Eddie will text soon. After seeing Jim, I know that he's nearby. He's just out of my reach.  The secret investigation that we would do would not go unseen by Jim.  Like he said last night,  I can't go see him for whatever reason he has, but I can't wait any longer.

I walk out of my bedroom and into the living room. Mary and John would still be asleep at this time, so silence fills my ears. I hate it. Silence just shows that I'm alone and that no one is with me. I need noise, I need to be surrounded by talking so it created the illusion that I matter. That I am indeed not alone.

I need to be distracted.

I sit on the wooden chair and I open up my laptop. What can I do to distract myself? Look at cases? Look at news reports? Nothing is good enough!

I end up deciding to leave the flat. I get dressed in my usual attire - burgundy shirt today, and I grab my coat, scarf and gloves and I head outside. I do not know where I will go, I'll just go wherever my legs take me. It's noisier outside. The sound of cars stalking the roads, the sound of congestion, the sound of people's lives aging and moving forward. Everything is going so fast, yet I am moving so slow. I do not belong with these people. I do not belong with the people I have. John, Mary,  Tom, Eddie,  any of them. Their lives are moving forward, yet I am stuck. I am stuck aging but never progressing.

Perhaps that Is why I need Jim. I need him to help me move forward. To give me a purpose that the others in my life cannot give me.

I end up outside a bookshop a few blocks from the flat. I can't help but enter. Surprisingly it's open and it's around 6am. As I enter I am met with bookshelves among bookshelves stacked with intellectual books that all seem to have been picked specifically to the taste of the owner. At the back of the bookshop, a man is sitting with his legs on the desk behind the till, reading a book of which I cannot read the title, but he seems invested in it.

I stroke my hand along the bookshelves, dust grasping at my fingertips. The books are hardly touched, which shows their eloquence and beauty. I never usually browse in bookshops but this bookshop seems different. It seems too delicate. Too beautiful. It's almost as if... it's set up.

I walk to the man behind the till. He has gingery brown hair, with blue-green eyes and a dominant jaw line. You wouldn't expect a man like this to be behind the counter in a bookshop, you'd expect him to be with angels in heaven with all the other pretty men.  He wears a blue shirt, which seems to be shop uniform, along with a name tag.

Sebastian

"Can I help you with something?" The man asks with a slight Irish accent, with a bit of German.  He never takes his eyes off of the book he is reading: Jack Reacher, and he licks his finger whenever he goes to turn the page.

"No, thank you."

I decide that perhaps it it best to leave, seeing as I'm not going to buy a book, but I will come back.  This place is not what it seems, and I'm going to find out why.

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* 3rd person *

Sebastian watches Sherlock leave out of the corner of his eye. He didn't expect anyone to enter this shop, seeing as it's a bookshop and people read online nowadays, especially Sherlock Holmes.

Sebastian puts his book down on the counter and he grabs his phone out of his trouser pocket. He dials the number,

"Hey J, you wouldn't guess who just walked through the shop doors."

Hey Guys!  Some more plot as to what is to come in the future. The rant at the start is kinda me venting about my feelings but I feel it incorporated well with the Story! 

What did you guys think about the six Thatchers?

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!

-darcie