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Sherlock Fic: The Sound of Silence
Author: PipMer
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Word Count: 884
Rating: G
Genre: Friendship, Pre-Reichenbach, Post Reichenbach
Warning: Temporary Character Death
Summary: On the day they first met, Sherlock warned him about the violin and the silence. To John's chagrin, only one of those things turned out to be true.
“Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you?”
God, if only.
At least Sherlock had been telling the truth about the violin.
John’s hand unconsciously clenched into a fist as he sat in front of his laptop and tried to tune out his flatmate’s incessant chatter. Sherlock was in a whirlwind of motion, pacing back and forth through the living room, hands waving indistinct shapes in the air as his mind and mouth chugged along at a hundred miles an hour. Lestrade this, Donovan that, Mycroft’s an idiot, Mrs. Hudson took my skull, where are my cigarettes, I’m missing something, stupid, stupid!, pass me a pen, hand me my phone, John are you listening?, John….
“Sherlock!” John finally snapped. “Just shut up for five minutes, will you? Christ, I can barely hear myself think. Could you make good on that threat you made when we first met, about you not talking for days? Because I have yet to experience that sweet oblivion, actually.”
Sherlock paused in midstride and glanced at John, surprise and hurt warring for prominence in his expression. His previously animated features abruptly shut down as his piercing eyes swept over John’s frame. John lifted his chin and gave him a challenging stare.
Sherlock, of course, could never resist a challenge. He bit out, “I see that you got little sleep last night after a bad day at the surgery and a particularly bad date with what’s-her-name, leaving you in a most unpleasant state of mind and prone to irritation. I suppose I should not be surprised that your ordinary mind and your average temperament would lead you to project your feelings of inadequacy onto myself, which in turn…”
“Really, Sherlock? You’re going to respond to my plea for you to shut up by being even more of an annoying prat? Jesus.” John slammed his laptop shut and stood up. “That’s it, then. I’m off to Murray’s for the rest of the day. Good luck with the case and all, but I’ve had it. I didn’t sign up to be your sounding board.” With that, he grabbed his jacket and stalked out of the flat, slamming the door with unnecessary force. A stunned Sherlock was left staring after him.
John passed the rest of the day blissfully away from the presence of Sherlock Holmes. It wasn’t completely quiet at Bill’s flat, but close enough; no texts, no phone calls, no emails, no bellowing demands to cater to his every whim. John found he rather enjoyed the elusive sound of silence.
John sighed as he let his head hit the back of his seat. Five o’clock in the morning was too bloody early for anybody to be awake, let alone awake and on a train for a five hour trip to Edinburgh. Why they needed to be at the police station at 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning was anybody’s guess, but mostly Sherlock’s, since he was the one who insisted on leaving at such an ungodly hour. Well, whatever; John was planning to sleep the whole way anyway, so it didn’t really matter one way or the other.
At least, that had been the plan. What John hadn’t counted on was Sherlock’s need to summarise the facts of the case to himself out loud. What John really hadn’t counted on was Sherlock’s apparent need to have John listen to his manic mutterings. Honesty, if the skull had served its purpose without actually listening, why did John need to?
Bleary-eyed, John stared at Sherlock as his friend enthusiastically outlined the reasons why the brother-in-law couldn’t possibly be the murderer, but how some clues pointed to the sister and some to the daughter, and how could the police not see that the neighbour’s cat had been behaving strangely the night before the murder, and that could only mean one thing…
On and on it went, never ending, as John slowly but surely felt himself going insane. The five hour trip seemed to drag on endlessly, and still Sherlock kept talking. John drank cup after cup of coffee, clinging to wakefulness by a mere thread as he desperately tried to stay alert enough to follow Sherlock’s train of thought. It was hopeless, of course, but he needed to keep up the façade or Sherlock would grow irritated as well as irritating and start snapping at John for his lack of attention.
Needless to say, once the case was done two days later and they were once again on a train bound for home, John let out a breath of relief as he revelled in the heavenly sound of silence.
It was two days after the funeral, and John found himself sitting in his chair, barefoot, staring at the chair opposite. The sound of the clock on the mantel rang out harsh and heavy in the living area. The fan was set on its highest setting due to the heat. A slow drip, drip, drip could be heard leaking from the kitchen tap. All of these noises put together still couldn’t drown out the oppressive sound of silence.
“Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you?’
John choked out a sob as he cradled his face in his palms and surrendered to his grief and regret.