Like Wire (A BBC Sherlock Fan Fiction)

[four]

Curling at the edges, the excessively bright petal rustled its leaves in satisfaction with the oncoming breeze. Sherlock traced the delicate, soft edges of it before taking it by the stem and fondly coiling it around his unsteady fingers.

"You're different, but you seem happy," Sherlock mumbled to the petal with a sad sigh. 

Why couldn't he be normal? Why couldn't he be like everybody else? Why did he have to be different?

Yet at the same time Sherlock was relieved he was unique, he was completely baffled at how boring human beings really were. 

"Sherlock," Anderson acknowledged in his jeering tone.

In anger and frustration Sherlocks hand clenched the purple flower - pulling it just a bit too aggressively so the earth crumbled in on it and the roots were ripped apart. 

That's why you shouldn't be different.

"Uh-Oh!" Anderson scorned, "Is that what you did to your previous roommate?"

"Its what I'll do to my current one if you don't piss off!" Sherlock spat threateningly.

Anderson exhaled sympathetically, "You're new roommate? Whose the poor guy?"

Sherlock rose calmly from the ground, casting an intimidating shadow over Anderson, who seemed to cower for a second.

"You really can't work that out? Whose only just arrived in this bloody hell hole?" Sherlock asked.

"Oh, John," Anderson groaned, "God save him: his life and sanity,"

Sherlock took a step forward, his breath curled upon Anderson's skin, his shadow drowning Anderson: greedily devouring him whole.

"You don't scare me," he chuckled in response to Sherlock's approach, "You might scare the rest with your psycho thoughts, but not me.

"That's awfully naïve of you," Sherlock hissed, showing Anderson the flower he had pulled from the ground before crumpling it in his hands and letting it helplessly fall to the earth.

                                                                                        * * *

"Anderson said you were plotting to kill me?" John investigated as soon as he entered their shared room.

"Why are you talking to me?" Sherlock inquired, stiffening at Johns arrival.

"You are plotting to kill me? That's what Anderson said,"

"Yes - Anderson found my plans so lucky for you I won't be asphyxiating you tonight: thanks for the idea, by the way," Sherlock admitted, his comment sarcastic but his tone and expression almost too serious.

Sherlock tossed his body to one side, an obvious sign he no longer wanted to talk - but when did he ever? A box of something toppled off his body and lay to rest on the floor, where John scooped them up.

"You smoke?" John asked, he knew lots of people smoked under 18 but Sherlock didn't strike him as the guy, and this posh school didn't strike him as the place people would get away with it.

"Different circumstances to everyone else," Sherlock snapped.

Alert, he reached out and swiped at the box of cigarettes, snatching them from John and shoving them away in the bottom of his coat pocket.

"Different circumstances - right," John grumbled, launching himself onto his own bed.

"What do you want to be when you're older?" Sherlock asked, spinning a surprise question.

"A doctor," John answered before flushing red - he'd never told anyone that before, why had he just told Sherlock? "What about you?"

"A pirate," Sherlock joked, yet again his voice was so stoic he seemed to be telling the truth.

A much needed silence enveloped the room, Sherlock returned to his signature position: head flopped off the side of his bed, hands hovered thoughtfully over his lips. John blindly patted around for his laptop, which he finally found and tugged towards himself.

"What do you even do on there?" Sherlock interrogated, flicking one curious eye open.

"Wattpad," John giggled shyly.

"Wattpad?"

"It's a website for people to... write stories," John explained briefly, surprised Sherlock didn't already know of it.

Several more minutes went by in - mostly - silence, only the sound of Johns fingers rapidly hitting the keyboard could be heard, due to the fact the ticking and constant drumming of Sherlock's thoughts were only audible to himself.

"So... a doctor huh? Doctor Watson," Sherlock mumbled, "Well, Doctor Watson, seen any dead bodies?"

John shook his head.

"Do you want to?" Sherlock then asked.

"Oh god, you're going to show me your dead roommate, aren't you?" John joked - but as he said it he wondered if he might be correct.

"Not quite, I'm afraid," Sherlock responded, "He still haunts me though - sometimes I get voicemails from him, reminding me of what an awful roommate I was. I need to change my number,"

"How cliché," John complained.

"Hmm?"

"Being haunted by your victim,"

"I agree, its a very tedious storyline," Sherlock grumbled, stretching lazily out for his coat, "So, Dr Watson, you coming?"

"coming?" John repeated obliviously.

"To see some corpses," Sherlock replied, rubbing his hands eagerly together.