Imagines and Preferences: Book 1

Preference: Humming | Sherlock

Summary: You hum and they all react differently.

QOTP: RDJ or Ben?

Word Count: 1020

Jim -
You're watching TV together when he gets a phone call, so you have to pause the show while he has an intense conversation with one of his men about about one murder or another.

You grab your phone from the table and decide to play a game while you wait for him to hang up, and, after a while, you absentmindedly begin to hum. It's a dodie song, but you're not entirely sure which one; you don't know all the lyrics, and you're not really paying attention anyway.

Suddenly, Jim angrily stands up from the couch, causing you to jump and look up at him. He doesn't walk out of the room, just continues talking, so you go back to playing your game, thinking it was whoever he was talking to that made him mad.

Of course, you start humming again.

"Hold on- Will you stop?!" It takes you a second to realize he's talking to you.

"What?" you ask, completely confused. You aren't even aware that you were doing anything.

"Stop humming! I have an idiot in one ear telling me he missed his target, and you annoyingly humming in the other!"

You pause for a second, setting your phone down and looking up at him. He seems to think the conversation is over, so he goes back to talking on the phone.

Suddenly, the phone is out of his hands. You hold the speaker to your mouth. "You're an absolute idiot and Jim's definitely going to have you killed. Have a nice rest of your short life. Goodbye." You hang up and throw the phone on the couch, then look back at Jim, who's wide-eyed.

"I haven't given the orders to kill him yet," he simply says, using a casual tone to pretend like the past five minutes hadn't happened.

"You can do that later," you reply. "But first, you're gonna lose the attitude. Second, I'm going to finish this show without you. And third, you're gonna deal with me humming every day, every waking second, for the next month. You just screwed yourself, James. Hope it was worth it."

He smiles sheepishly; he knows you're going to stay true to your word. "I'm sorry...?"

"You better be."

John -
Sherlock and Mycroft are back at their childhood home, visiting their parents, and you and John are both off work.

There's nothing on TV, nothing you want to watch on Netflix, and nothing to do. So, you're sitting on the living room floor, playing wordless checkers.

The game hasn't been going on long enough for either of you reach the other side and gain a king, so there's been no taunting of any kind.

At some point, without really realizing, you start humming Bohemian Rhapsody. Once you realize you're doing it, you don't stop because there's no point in it anyway.

John doesn't seem to mind.

You get to, "Too late, my time has come. Sends shivers down my spine. Body's aching all the time," when you start mumbling the words, also absentmindedly. John hears you, realizes what the song is, and starts mumbling, too, only half paying attention.

By the end of the verse, you're both singing a little louder and neglecting the checkers a little bit more.

"I see a little silhouetto of a man. Scaramouch, scaramouch, will you do the fandango?"

By this point you're both genuinely singing, the checkers completely forgotten. It's the most dramatic performance either of you have ever done.

You go back and forth singing, "Gallileo, Gallileo,
Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo Figaro - magnifico."

It turns into full blown duet that's honestly Britain's Got Talent worthy. By, "So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?" you're on your feet, dancing like idiots, having way too much fun despite the lack of background music.

At the end of the song, you're laughing at yourselves, happy that Sherlock never has to know about it because of the grief he'd give you.

Sherlock -
When he's in his mind palace, he's dead to the world. Therefore, he can't hear you. Right?

You hope so.

You've horribly sang along to so many songs when cleaning the living room while he was on the couch, in his mind palace. He never said anything or teased you about it, so you assumed he really couldn't hear you.

Most of the time, that's true.

Lately, you've taken to sitting in the living room in his chair, reading a book or scrolling through your phone or something, around the time he goes into his mind palace. You've really got nothing else to do when you're both home besides talk to him, so what else can you do?

Anyway, while you're reading or on your phone, you usually end up humming. When you realized you were doing it, you didn't really care that much because if Sherlock's in his mind palace, he can't hear you, so you can't annoy him.

But he can hear you. Surprisingly, though, it doesn't annoy him.

It typically calms him. It has the same effect on him as him playing the violin has on you. He likes it more than anything else. And even in his mind palace, he can hear it. It's like background music, and sometimes he finds himself humming, too, though he's not sure if he's actually doing it or if it's just him in his head.

It's very confusing, so he tends not to think about that and just appreciate whatever this is for what it is.

Eventually, though, there's a problem.

One day, you're not there, and he's trying to go into his mind palace, but it's a lot more difficult than it used to be.

He doesn't figure out why until later, when you're home and humming as usual, and it's just as easy as it was before.

It doesn't logically make sense to him, but he knows it's true, and it has him wondering if this means that he's falling in love with you.

And he's perfectly okay with that idea.