Sherlock X Reader One Shots || 𝐹𝐿𝑈𝐹𝐹 + 𝑆𝑀𝑈𝑇

What Happened In Room 32 (Part 7)

Y/N stood in the middle of the kitchen, wiping soap suds from her hands with the tea towel she'd used to dry the crockery from dinner. At some point, while she'd been washing up, Sherlock must have snuck back into the flat and to his room, because she heard him opening the chest of draws that stood along the wall near his door. She used the word 'snuck' because she hadn't seen him go by---which wasn't surprising, seeing as she'd been facing the sink---but she hadn't heard him either, even with their decrepit old floorboards. So he had snuck. 

If someone was to take a good long look at Y/N, right now, and guess what she was feeling, they'd probably say she seemed 'lost'---and they wouldn't be entirely wrong. She was kind of lost, lost in thought, lost in feelings and memories and her own head. Usually, it wouldn't bother her that Sherlock had 'snuck', but today it did. Maybe because he'd chosen macaroni and cheese for dinner. Maybe because he doesn't usually sneak, but today he'd done it three times; out of the hotel room they'd shared, out of the flat, then back into it again. 

And every time he did, Y/N hadn't chased after him, hadn't asked him why he'd snuck, but this time she would, she decided. You can always tell when your best-friend-in-all-the-world is acting differently, you always know somethings up, and it always bothers you. Sherlock had lied when he'd said he was fine, Y/N had realised as she'd scraped hardened cheese off one of their bowls with her fingernail. And he'd been lying this morning when he acted like his usual self at breakfast, in the cab, as he unlocked the flat. The question was why. What was he hiding, and why was he hiding it from her? No secrets. That was their unspoken agreement. It was unspoken but that didn't make his violation of it any less alarming.

...

Sherlock's door is open when Y/N goes to his room, which she took as a good sign. If it was closed and locked, then she would have become properly worried. 

 He's sorting his socks into his chest of draws, the laundry basket empty by his feet. He's spread them all out on top of the chest, the sock draw hanging open. Y/N knows he keeps his socks in specific rows and has to stop her lips from twitching into a smile at the memory of him once explaining them to her.

"Hey," she gives his door jamb a little knock. "Want some help?"

He offers her a small grateful smile. Grateful for helping him or grateful for not calling him strange, she wasn't sure. "Okay. Thank you." 

Sherlock watched her as she selects two socks, pairing them and putting them in their correct place, then, satisfied she knows what she's doing, asks: "Don't you have anything better to do?" There's a hint of teasing in that remark, in the glint of his eyes as he gives her a sideways smirk. 

"I don't know. I just...wanted to hang out." Y/N's brow almost furrowed in confusion at how alien those words felt rolling off her toung. 'Hang out'. Sherlock and Y/N don't 'hang out' because they're usually already in the same place. 'Hanging out' is scheduling a location and time to meet, to be together, which they never do. They've never had to do, now that Y/N thought about it. She never has to invite Sherlock to spend time with her because he's usually already there. And if he's not, she knows where he'll be. He'll be curled up reading in his favorite chair. He'll be in the kitchen, lighting the various things he can find around the flat on fire and calling it 'science'. He'll be on the sofa thinking, staring at scraps of paper pinned to the wall, pouring over today's newspaper, raiding the cupboards for biscuits. He's like a constant, ever-present force in her life, the middle point on a map. If home was a graph he'd be the centre point.

Suddenly Y/N realised something and it hit her like a ton of bricks. She'd felt strange today, different, as if someone had broken into the apartment and moved all the furniture three centimetres to the left. She'd put it down to being the after-effects of a one night stand. Spending the night, no strings attached, with her best friend---the man she was secretly in love with---and lived with, was bound to stir up some kind of emotional storm, right? She'd put her discomfiture down to embarassment, to self-consciousness, to the sorrow caused by unrequited love.