White Noise

A Loner, Not a Lover

            He sat there for a while, but then realized that he had patients, not only patients, but Mrs. Turner was known to stop by unannounced, and what was he supposed to say when she found him shirtless in his own office, especially after a man had come in? John was worried by Mrs. Turner's observations, certainly she realized that Sherlock's appearance wasn't by accident, surely she could tell that they had some sort of relationship going on, not necessarily a romantic relationship that is, but one that was intimate enough to come make visits during work. She also knew that John was married, and he was afraid that she would tip Mary off, to warn her that her husband had been hanging around a very beautiful man who smoked in a doctor's office. Mrs. Turner was cruel like that, she prayed off of people's ignorance, of their secrets that they imagined no one noticed. Well of course she noticed, and she was one of the people you wanted to hide from. Nevertheless, John was half naked, and he was quite sure that his patients wouldn't want to come in here and talk to him while he had nothing on but a pair of well-worn trousers. So he rooted around in the cabinets, unearthing a very ugly looking hospital gown and pulling it on over his chest, just for now, while he looked for something more long term. John knew that there was some sort of supply closet filled with clothes just in case an accident occurs or something, like a baby throws up or a needle injection starts gushing blood. The problem was, he didn't know exactly where it was, and there was only one woman here that knew everything... Obviously he couldn't go to the all-knowing Mrs. Turner for help, so John did the next best thing; he grabbed his key ring and decided to go searching for himself. John opened his door carefully, peering out into the hallway to try to see who was watching. The hallway seemed empty, and Mrs. Turner was on the phone, twirling the cord around lazily in her finger with a look of death in her eyes. John took this as his chance, scampering down the hallway, feeling like he was wearing some sort of pathetic dress as he hobbled along in his hospital gown. He found the first supply closet without too much difficulty, trying a couple of unknown keys before it finally opened up. But when John looked around he found only cleaning supplies, and unless he wanted to dress himself in a shirt of mop tendrils and bleach labels, he was sure this closet wasn't for him. So he locked it back up and ventured a little bit more down the hallway, ducking into doorways when he heard his fellow doctors and nurses coming down in his direction. Thankfully no one encountered him and his atrocious choice of outfit, but he had also had a stroke of bad luck; he had tried three storage closets and none of them had the spare clothes. Now there was only one more closet he could think of, but it was in the red zone, it was virtually unobtainable without going in Mrs. Turner's line of vision. It was the first door on the right, the very first door in the hallway, right in front of Mrs. Turner's line of vision. No went in there and no one came out of there without her knowing of it, just because of her eagle trained eyes, darting to catch even the slightest quiver of movement in her hallway. So John crept very quietly, ducking into doorways when he had the chance and straining his eyes to try to see what Mrs. Turner was up to so far away. She was on the phone, he could tell by the gentle lean of her head that she was talking with it pressed between her ear and her shoulder, a position she often took when she was forced to type and talk at the same time. So he dashed for the closet door, his keys rattling in his hands while her attention was fixed on the computer. And yet he was caught, as soon as he came into her line of vision her head snapped up, and he froze at the spot he was caught in. Mrs. Turner's mouth gaped in confusion, and John could hear the annoyed man on the other side of the phone trying to regain her attention. John just smiled innocently, walking up as though he were careless to the closet, trying a few keys before finally swinging it open. Aha, just what he was looking for! When John swung open the door he found crates of shirts, pants, socks, even underwear lined up along the shelves. He took a nice cotton shirt, a very hospital color blue and pure cotton, out of the shelf and traded it for his hospital gown. It was very comfortable, and he was sure that no one would recognize it as the property of the doctor's office.
"Dr. Watson what on earth are you doing?" Mrs. Turner asked in a very exasperated voice, gaping at John from the doorway in which she stood. John turned with a smile, acting as if he had just been in here to look around when obviously she was able to piece the whole thing together.
"That stupid shirt ripped, you were right, it was too tight." John admitted quickly, a smile on his face that made it up to be a big accident. Mrs. Turner, however, didn't seem amused, her scowl deepened as she looked at him, as if she were putting the pieces together but she wasn't going to admit to it.
"That visitor you had, what did he want?" Mrs. Turner wondered, her eyes staring at John suspiciously. John just shrugged, trying to look casual as his thoughts roamed once more to the most beautiful of all men.
"Oh you know, he was complaining of a cough." John said with a little ironic smile.
"He wasn't coughing when I was with him, and he was sitting there for a while." Mrs. Turner observed, frowning as he started to find holes in John's horrible excuse for a story.
"Well ya, ya I know, it's smoker's cough, so it's um, it's not constant." John muttered, making this all up as he went. The smoking part was convincible, but everything else was complete bull crap, he was spewing lies out as he went and Mrs. Turner obviously didn't believe anything he said.
"You get more and more confusing every day Dr. Watson." She decided.
"A patient's cough doesn't make me confusing, it's my job." John defended, skirting around her observation the best he could. Mrs. Turner was a bit confused, probably about John's response more than her question, and so she just nodded, glaring at him in the most peculiar way before finally migrating back to her desk where she belonged. John sighed heavily, deciding that their little conversation could've gone a lot smoother if he had time to prepare. But alas, he had made do the best he could, and so he slipped back into his office before any more questions could be asked or alarms could be raised. As soon as Mrs. Turner's questions faded from his mind, however, his own started to emerge from the murk. Sherlock's visit had been strangely cold, and although John didn't know him as the warmest person he suspected that there ought to be a bit more interaction between the two of them, especially if they had just spent a very romantic night together. Sherlock had kept his distance, he barely smiled, and he talked as though he were already bored with the conversation, as if he didn't want anything from John except the shirt off his back. And to avoid a kiss, was this all some game he was playing or was he legitimately uninterested in John now that they had shared a night? Was he really that kind of man, love them and then leave them? Or was he just being bitter, was this John's punishment for being so direct, for stealing his shirt as a little joke? Would he ever get the chance to see Sherlock Holmes again? He couldn't live with that, if he had to give up Sherlock now it would be like severing a limb, or removing an internal organ. He couldn't live without him, not now after they had been completed, not after they had bonded in the darkness. Finally John had gotten what he wanted, a beautiful man with a beautiful soul, and he was staring to doubt that Sherlock was as serious as he was. So obviously he had to make Sherlock love him, love him for more than just a body, he needed to make Sherlock love him for a soul. He suspected that would take a bit more than simple conversation and scowling at each other from a distance, they might actually have to talk to one another, about something a bit more in depth than just their names. That night when John returned home he knew that he had to stay there. He couldn't visit Sherlock again, as needy as he was he didn't want to appear that way, so he stayed put, formant you might say, in his own little prison. His house was the only place that wasn't improved by Sherlock's presence in his life; it was the only place that looked, if anything, even more dismal than before. The walls were darker, the white paint was uglier, the faces were more miserable, especially the one in the mirror, and the birds seemed to cease their singing. It was miserable, and as John lumbered through the door he was very much tempted to just slam his wedding ring down on the table and leave forever. But he knew, he knew that it wasn't going to be that easy. Divorces were messy, costly, and emotionally traumatizing for both parties. And while in the end John would be free of his chains from a governmental angle, he knew that they would always be clasped to his ankles if he didn't find a better way to get Mary out of his life.
"Oh John, you're on time!" Mary exclaimed joyously, throwing her arms around John's neck as he walked through the house with concrete feet. She was in the kitchen, cooking up whatever tonight's diner was going to be, while Rosie played with her dolls in the living room. They were currently having some sort of mountain cliff adventure, and in her little mind the dolls were climbing up the side of a mountain, not the meager side of their old blue couch.
"Yes I am, I got finished for now, but it's just a matter of time before they hit me again with more unnecessary work." John muttered miserably. Mary just frowned, patting his shoulder and standing very close, as if expecting some sort of kiss to make him feel better. Contrary to her rather optimistic views, the only thing that would plummet his mood back into the center of the earth would be a kiss by anyone who wasn't Sherlock Holmes, so he kept his lips a good distance apart from hers, just in case.
"You're always gone, I've missed you." Mary admitted softly, her hand trialing up to his face and her fingers running over his cheeks like sandpaper. John tried not to wince, and he was going to make some sort of excuse before there was a shriek of delight from the living room and one of the dolls flew across the room, smacking into the window and falling limply back onto the floor. Mary just laughed, finally letting John out of her clutches and going to help Rosie pick up her doll.
"What on earth happened?" Mary wondered.
"She got blown up, it wasn't a mountain, it was a volcano! BOOM!" Rosie shrieked, scattering the rest of her dolls to the wind in glee. John found that, if anything, to be violent and rather disturbing, so his busied himself pouring a glass of scotch and standing miserably at the counter, downing the alcohol in a single gulp and resting his head against cabinets behind him. John couldn't help but wonder what life would be like if Sherlock was his husband instead of Mary, if he had gone into domestic life with that angel by his side instead of the devil. Dinners would be different, that's for sure, Sherlock probably didn't know how to cook, so they would either eat take out or leave the grueling task to John every night. And he was fairly convinced that Sherlock didn't have a job, since he seemed to have all the time in the world to stalk people at work and show up uninvited, so John would have to be the one to make all the money. They wouldn't have Rosie, for obvious reasons, but they could adopt of course, and maybe that would yield a child who was a bit more distinguishable from her horrible mother. Most importantly the living room would be painted another color; in fact the whole house would be refurnished, into something tasteful and modern, with Sherlock's flare for the dramatic and John's cheap simplicity. After dinner they would sit out on the front porch, hand in hand, sitting on a rocking swing or maybe just two plastic lawn chairs, their heads lolling on their necks in exhaustion as they listened to the wind hit up against the plastic siding, and they would watch the sun sink below the horizon, and listen as the singing of the morning birds turned into the hooting of the owls and the screeching of the bats. John would be at peace, he would be happy. He would be so unbelievably happy. And yet, what would Sherlock feel? That man's heart was a mystery as it was, hypothetical situations seemed to be least drastic enigmas than the one John was facing right now. Sherlock was a bit of an odd bird, he had known that of course, since he had met him, Sherlock seemed to be a loner more than a lover, and yet he was so emotional and so romantic that John had a hard time imagining him living alone. Victor had made the cut, what had made Victor so special? They had lasted a couple of months, at least by the dates on which Sherlock posted pictures of them, so why did Sherlock leave his heart open for so long to Victor if he was going to padlock it for anyone else? Were his expectations really that high, did he go through men like they were simply at his disposal? How many other men sat in their kitchens right now, downing their alcohol and recreating their night with the beautiful Sherlock Holmes in their heads, wondering when he would return? Was John the most recent of many? And what had happened to Victor, who broke it off? Why? John didn't want to share the same fate, but obviously if Victor Trevor wasn't good enough for Sherlock then John didn't stand a chance. So he had to be better, more loving, more appreciative, what Victor had in looks John had to make up for in love, and he was quite sure he could do that. The one thing John that he was sure Victor didn't have was a low self-confidence, and for a man like Sherlock, one who seemed to want to control everything, a very submissive boyfriend was especially useful.
"John honey could you put the pasta on the stove?" Mary called from the living room, obviously too caught up playing Barbie dolls with Rosie to pay attention to her cooking dinner. John sighed heavily, but nodded, dumping the pasta into the pot and watching it as it slowly went limp, swirling in the bottom of the boiling water. John watched it for a while before he got bored, going to pour himself another glass of scotch and swishing it around a couple of times in his glass before downing it quickly. Alcohol made everything better, that was his general outlook on life. He could deal with Sherlock's unusual coolness another time, and with Mary's usual misery, but alcohol took the edge off of the sword, and so when they struck him down he only felt a dull pinch instead of a shooting, cutting pain. John sat down at the table not ten minutes later, watching as Mary scraped the last of the canned pasta sauce out of the bowl in the microwave and into the mountain of mushy, over cooked spaghetti. Rosie sat in her chair excitedly, her little head just reaching over the table so that she could see what was going on. She insisted that she didn't need her high chair anymore, and just to amuse her they allowed her to sit on the chair itself. One of these nights she was going to cave, but tonight didn't seem like it would be tonight, because she seemed perfectly cheery despite her inability to raise her arms much higher than the brim of the table itself. Mary put the pasta down triumphantly in the middle of the table, looking as though she expected praise for making something that was so painfully effortless. Nevertheless they all ate in silence, Mary was trying to stir up some conversation but John pretended that he was too engulfed in his pasta to s attention, when in reality the only thing worse than this dinner was her attempts at making conversation. It tasted very watery, as if the pasta hadn't been drained properly, and only half of the sauce was warm while the other tasted suspiciously room temperature. Even Rosie seemed to have doubts as she strangled the noodles against her fork, trying to bring them to her mouth so far down but spilling most of them onto her bib and down the front of her shirt. Mary assured that they would take care of that in bath time, but John had a sneaking suspicion that Rosie's little pink shirt would always have some mysterious stains on the front due to some overdue laundry. When dinner was over they did the dishes in an equally dismal silence, washing the plates of their red sauce and drowning them in soap suds. John was the drier, rubbing the washed dishes with the towel before putting them, still dripping wet, into the cabinet with the rest. Rosie had long since disappeared, and Mary muttered something about hoping she didn't get pasta sauce on the couch. Mary disappeared without a word, which John surely wasn't going to complain about, so he retreated back to the couch and opened up his laptop, pulling up Sherlock's Facebook and scrolling absentmindedly though.