Unframed reality (Sheriarty)

5

I wake up to the sound of an insistent knocking against the metal surface of my van's door. My head is pounding and there is a faint mumbling voice in the background but I can't discern what it's saying until I open the door of the van hoping at least the knocking will be over.

"Get your lazy ass out of the van it's almost noon," James says, practically pulling me out of bed since the mattress is about everything I can fit in the back of the Van, apparently he doesn't care that I'm only wearing a tee-shirt and a pair of flannel pants because I end up in the freezing weather outside anyway. I fight against his grip and fall back on my butt over the little patch of floor surface that separates my bed from the van's door, James seats beside me, "brought breakfast, eat, " he shoves a paper bag at my chest and then inspects the place I call 'home' over his shoulder.

He looks unimpressed but says nothing, for some reason I hope my drugs and syringes are not on display for him to see. I normally don't care about this, but I also never receive visits here, so why would I previously care.

I open the paper bag and there is a polystyrene tray full of syrup dampened chips, a paper-wrapped turkey and blue cheese sandwich and lemon flavored iced tea bottle. This is a really questionable choice of food to give someone if you don't know them all that well, I muse as I stuff my face with the dampened chips, because, who besides me puts syrup on chips anyway?

I consider for a second if I let this information slip last night and realize I don't remember what happened after my fourth or fifth drink. I blame this on the combination of both drugs and alcohol, I don't drink alcohol for a reason and that is drugs on their own make the cut for me, so I don't need it.

James stares intently at me as I continue to stuff my face with the food he brought me and I can feel a slight blush crawling up the back of my neck.

"So you play the violin," he points out and I know he saw the open case in the further corner of the van when he scanned my improvised dwelling a second ago.

"I do," I reply and stop eating to observe him.

"I like violins," he simply says, "are you any good?" He asks and I try not to feel offended by this.

"Why are you doing this?" I inquire not bothering to answer him.

"Asking about your talents?"

"All of it, the questions, the food, the drinks, all the... Care-," I can't help but turn up my nose at the simple expression leaving my mouth and the words my brother used to tell me growing up, start playing on repeat at the back of my skull.

All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.

"Because we're just alike, you and I," James starts and for a moment I try to discern what he means by that, " except you're boring!" He finishes, booping my nose and suddenly my mind is blank and all I can think about is the blood consuming all the paleness left in my neck and advancing towards my cheeks.

He chuckles still looking at me intently and I'm unable to think anything remotely clever to say, so I don't.

"You should see your face right now," he tells me laughing.

"Well, I can't see it, can I?" I make my best attempt at irony but it doesn't come out wholeheartedly.

"You look like you are in shock, it's just human contact, Sherlock, it's perfectly normal, you know?"

I decide I'll just ignore his remark and continue eating my food.

"Well, hurry up then, surely you have some classes you don't want to miss, don't you?"

"I've got advanced mathematics," I say after a moment of consideration, pondering whether I should tell him or not I'm not really enrolled in this university.

"Thought we were clear about the fact that you are not a student in my class," he says, stealing one chip from my tray and scrunching his nose when the syrup coating the chip drips down his fingers, he eats it anyway and flashes me a smile.

I feel the need to look away when he starts licking his fingers one by one, but I still hold his suggestive gaze.

"And what will you do? Kick me out if I show up?" I ask and he shakes his head in a childish way, fingers still in his mouth and I can only find this far more suggestive, "how did you enjoy my chip soaked syrup?" I inquire to conceal the fact that all the blood that was previously rushing up to my face is now pumping down to my crotch.

"I have to admit it's surprisingly good," he shrugs finishing cleaning his fingers from the syrup.

I push him out of the van when I finish my food, with the vague excuse of getting a change of clothes, when all I'm worried about is having to endure another of his classes without a single ounce of heroin in my bloodstream.

...

This becomes our routine, for the next weeks, I attend his classes and pretend I am interested at all in advance mathematics, although I have to admit he teaches advanced maths like it was preschool mathematics, he's amazingly good at what he does, a proper genius if you will and yet I'm a proper genius too and mathematics are not difficult to me, just outstandingly boring. In exchange for this James pretends he doesn't see I'm pretending and turns a blind eye on the fact that some times I just spend the entire class staring at his ass when he is writing on the blackboard with those tight jeans of him.

I no longer bother to find a stranger's settee to crash at night and find myself anxiously waiting for his morning visits for breakfast and lightly flirtatious conversation, he keeps telling me we have to stop running into each other like this, even when he clearly plan every single one of our encounters with extreme care. It shows in the home-cooked meals he brings every morning, all of the meals I one way or another admitted to him I was keen on.

I can not agree more with him about the fact that we have to stop meeting in my messy van that now more than ever suffers the consequences of me sleeping in it on a daily basis.

So on the third Friday morning since I met James Moriarty, I wake up before dawn, pay a rapid visit to the student dormitories building a block away from where my van is parked to take a quick shower and get ready to pay Jim a visit at his flat. I know where he lives since week one but I have never been there because I didn't accept the first time he asked me to go and then he probably didn't want to push it so he never asked again.

I can't cook in my van so I have to visit the nearest coffee shop on my way to Jim's flat, I know he loves tea so I buy two sixteen ounce cups of his favorite brand and some pastries, I won't even try to pretend I'm a cook, he would know I'm lying anyway.

The security guard of the building is Italian, I tell him I want to surprise my boyfriend with a special breakfast and he doesn't even ask me what is his flat and let me pass. So much for private security.

James mentioned the number of his flat once and I hope remembering it correctly when I take the lift to the sixth storey, the door with his number is white and impersonal as it is the rest of the building, I ring the bell an wait for Jim to open, except he doesn't.

Instead, Sebastian Moran opens the door, only wrapped waist-down in a towel.

"I think it is for you Jimmy," he shouts over his shoulder with a smirk.

"Who is it? Jim asks walking into my view dressed but with dampened hair.

I'm not stupid I can put two and two together, so I shove the teacups and the pastries bag onto Sebastian's chest and run away.