Posts tagged Drabble

Vengeance
Word Count: 188

My brother is not a kind man. Sociopath? Not quite. He can certainly feel, he just chooses not to. Caring has never been an advantage for us; something to be foregone, ignored, banished. Sherlock cares for John. Cares for the doctor far more than he lets on. My brother likes to pretend that I don’t notice. I notice more than he thinks.

John provides him balance; stability. Right now, to all extents and purposes, my brother was dead-I’d had the death certificate written up myself. Sherlock was cut off from that stability; from John, in order to protect him. He would do anything to keep John safe. I was almost jealous of the attention my brother gave him. Almost.

Sherlock is possessive to a fault. John made him happy, provided structure, he was Sherlock’s. That possession had been threatened; my brother was pushed away from something he felt to be his. He’s so vindictive when he doesn’t get his way. Moriarty was dead: Gone. But, he had only been the controller. The puppets still existed-Sherlock’s balance was gone.

Vengeance was sure to be swift. It would be terrifying.

Jumpers
Word Count: 480

“You’re really going out like that?” Sherlock had been lounging in relative silence all day, having been overcome by one of his brooding moods. Having seen no end in sight to it, I had made dinner arrangements with Sarah. Apparently, that was all it took to catch his attention-I’d have to remember that.

“Well, yes, that was the plan,” I replied, pausing in putting on my coat. He made a soft sound, a sound of dismissal. But it wasn’t. He wanted me to ask ‘Why?’ “Why?” His lips twitched. It was as much a smile as his current torpidity would allow. 

“You don’t look right.” I looked down at myself. Shoes-practical, perhaps a little dressy; trousers-slacks, a light grey; black belt; striped jumper over a white button down. I didn’t look right?

It struck me after a moment, a moment long enough to have Sherlock sighing; the jumper. It was new, not one that Sherlock had seen me in before-a gift from Sarah. “You don’t like my jumper.”

“It makes you resemble a pumpkin.” The jumper had an assortment of differently coloured stripes, none of which even remotely resembled the colour of a pumpkin. I told him thus.

He snorted and waved a hand in my direction. “Then it is a mystery far beyond my capabilities as to how you’ve managed it. However, the manner still stands that you look like a pumpkin. That thing is atrocious.”

“This ‘thing’ was a gift.”

“From Sarah, yes, I know.” He didn’t sound very impressed. “She has horrible tastes. Put something else on.”

I bristled at his tone and his insufferable habit of ordering me about. “I will not.”

He let out a laugh. It was becoming clear that his interest in picking apart my wardrobe was overcoming any laziness. “Yes you will. You hate the jumper as much as I do, more so. It’s itchy, uncomfortable; the collar is too close to your neck, not one that you would normally choose for yourself, it makes you feel enclosed.” I said nothing, I didn’t have to. He was right, he was always right. Infuriating. “You walked down the stairs slowly, before putting your coat on with less hurry than you normally do. You clearly wanted me to see the jumper and develop an opinion on it. You knew what my opinion would be, and yet you waited to hear it anyways. You want me to tell you to take it off, unable to get past your own sense of morals-or whatever is compelling you to wear it-to do it yourself. 

“Take it off. If you don’t, I will get up and spill something horrible on it. Do what I ask and no harm will come to it.”

I went back upstairs and changed before leaving for my date. I knew the jumper wouldn’t be there when I got home. Sherlock would make sure.

Hollow
Word Count: 239

It’s my hollow place. The place I go to when I simply need to stop. Stop everything; stop thinking, stop moving, stop seeing, stop existing. It’s beyond my mind palace, outside the reach of information, not past logic. Logic remains even in my hollow place. It’s because of the logic that I wait until John is gone, until he’s out with her. It’s because of logic that I make a concentrated effort to hide the needle and vial, fingers fumbling and unwilling to cooperate, should he come home early. Logic said he wouldn’t.

I’m too hollow to care. A tin man, a machine, running on logic and chemicals. Safe from the tedium of emotions and the insecurities they cause. Emotions are human; I’m far too hollowed out to be human-John has implied that many times. So many times that it must be true. Logic saw the flaw in that; my hollow place moved away from the logic. Logic began to not exist.

But a machine must run on logic (and chemicals). Without the logic, I can’t survive. Not as a machine. I couldn’t be human-John said so­-so I needed to be a machine. If I couldn’t, then I was lost. Lost, lost, lost, hollow and lost.

I heard the door click open-distant; downstairs­-moved to hide the syringe, fitting the vial between the cushions, the needle under the couch. My hands shook. 

John was home early. 

Logic had failed me.

Muffins
Word Count: 703 

I was startled awake by a large clatter and a sound of pained frustration. A very loud sound of pained frustration. I tensed; that wasn’t normal. Sure, when Sherlock became frustrated he would often take it out in a loud and rather destructive manner, but never before had he sounded like he’d hurt himself. I was out of bed and down the stairs quicker than I would have thought possible, forgoing my dressing gown in my haste. 

Not in his bedroom; not in the bathroom; not in the living room; kitchen-I could hear the water running.

I threw the door open expecting to see blood, or something that would indicate that Sherlock was in danger or distress. Instead I saw only a pan lying over turned on the floor, and a very grumpy looking detective running his hands under the faucet. “Shut up,” he said before I had the chance to open my mouth.

I cocked an eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest. He knew I wasn’t about to listen to him. “You woke me up. What happened?” It wasn’t the smoothest way to pose the question, and I knew that it would only serve to further frustrate my flatmate. It wasn’t that I enjoyed frustrating him, although occasionally it did prove for an interesting morning so long as it didn’t get to the point where he stormed off. When that happened, it meant that I would be facing many sleepless nights listening to him scratch at the violin-making no attempts to be melodic-or waking at four AM to gunshots.

He kept his back to me, hands still under the water, and refused to respond. I glanced at the pan on the floor, then back to Sherlock, connecting the dots. I kept an eye on him as I walked over, not putting it past him to move away or hide his hands; he didn’t. He let me take a wrist and pull it out from under the stream of water, allowed me to inspect it. He’d burned himself, both hands. I touched the red flesh gently, fingertips barely ghosting over it. Sherlock hissed and jerked away, sticking the hand back under the faucet.

“You tried to take the pan out of the oven without mitts!” I found the notion almost absurd. Sherlock was brilliant, the smartest man I had ever had the pleasure, though at times I am unsure if it should really be called a pleasure, of meeting. Yet, he had tried to take the pan out of the oven without mitts. I barely managed to restrain a smile.

He practically growled, shooting me the coldest look he could. He’d noticed, I’d hardly expected him not to, that I had to fight to maintain my composure. It only worsened his mood. “Oh, you are getting better at deducing, aren’t you?” His tone was caustic, dripping with acid.

I ignored the bite and smiled. “You don’t normally cook. Although I can see why,now,” wrong thing to say; his eyes narrowed to slits. I took a step back and cleared my throat. “Important case?”

He shook his head, once.

“Ah,” I was at a loss. I couldn’t think of any other reason that would see Sherlock in the kitchen, attempting to cook-what appeared to be, although it was rather hard to tell when the evidence was crumbling on the ground-muffins. “Then what?” I’d missed something. I could tell from the way his eyebrow lifted and his lips twitched into a smirk just ever-so-slightly. He was enjoying this.

“John,” he said my name carefully as he stepped back from the faucet and shut it off gingerly. “What day is it?”

“Tuesday.”

Sherlock found that immensely amusing. I’d clearly overlooked something again. “Oh, John, that’s precious.” I blinked. What? “The muffins were for you.”For me? Sherlock rarely did anything altruistically. The only other time he’d ‘made’ something for me, it had been drugged and I’d spent the night in a blur of colours.

My confusion was evident. Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’re a doctor; go get something to bandage my hands with. We can discuss your amazing ability to forget your own birthday when you get back.”

Oh.