Sherlock X Reader One Shots || 𝐹𝐿𝑈𝐹𝐹 + 𝑆𝑀𝑈𝑇

What Happened In Room 32 (Part 1)

CONTEXT: 

A spur-of-the-moment kiss leads to a passionate night together. But does Sherlock want more? Or did he see it as just a fling? 

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Another wedding.

Y/N was at that age where everyone she knew seemed to be getting married. This time it was her flatmate's old friend and previous roommate, John Watson. Y/N had met him several times, but she wouldn't say they were friends---she hadn't spent enough time with him to call him a friend. He'd come over for a cup of tea, then by the time the kettle had boiled he'd have to rush off again, usually to the surgery where he works, or he just has to leave early because it takes so long to cross London back to his new house.

John's distance---physically and emotionally---had made Y/N wonder why Sherlock had been invited to the wedding at all. Sure, he'd lived with Sherlock for a couple of months before moving out with his girlfriend several years ago, but that had been, well, several years ago. They didn't even seem that close; when John came over Y/N couldn't help noticing Sherlock's change in demeanour. It was like watching him put on an outfit she wasn't used to seeing him wear; turning him into an aloof stranger. During conversation, it was almost as if he was keeping John's companionship away with a ten-foot pole, skillfully dodging any queries into his personal life, steering topics back to simple things like work or...well, work.

"Why do you go all quiet when John comes over?" Y/N couldn't help asking one day, after one of said man's hurried visits. Not only had Sherlock said very little, but the things he had said had been clipped and in a tone of voice that suggested he'd rather not have to say anything at all. Not like the Sherlock Y/N knew; excited about cases and science and a book he'd just read, mind constantly whirring with ideas and thoughts he enjoyed sharing.

"You know how you sometimes act a certain way with a person, and then before you know it it's too late to show them who you really are?"

Y/N thought about it. She definitely knew that feeling, and it was somehow comforting to know that even The Great Sherlock Holmes wasn't immune to such mistakes. To this day, a colleague of Y/N's has been under the impression that Y/N's name is pronounced [wrong way], just because Y/N had been too shy to correct him when they'd first met. And she'd be lying if she said she hadn't faked a small part of her personality every now and again to fit into social groups. "I get that. Why, out of all the ways you could have acted, did you choose to pretend to be an unfeeling machine?"

Sherlock had shrugged his shoulders, continuing to tune his violin with his long pale fingers. "I was in a bad mood back then. I got introduced to John while I was looking at some evidence at the labs in Scotland Yard. Sally had been ordered to fetch the evidence for me, which she obviously didn't like, and had told me what she thought of me just before John walked in. I guess I just...wanted someone to think me pretty cool. Which he did, so I didn't stop doing it."

Y/N had tried to imagine that; Sherlock not doing all his little Sherlock-things---pretending to be someone else---in his own home. "You had to go months without singing in the shower? Without mouthing the words to ABBA as you wash up? Without doing that thing you do where you eat your food in a certain order?"

The corners of Sherlock's lips had twitched up with an embarrassed smile. "I don't sing in the shower." Before Y/N could contradict him: "And I could still do the last thing; he knows about my Asperger's syndrome. I think that's what made him think I was interesting; I'm like...an oddity. Something strange in his boring little life. That's why I couldn't do the other things; he'd think me boring."