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l4long-winded · 7 months

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iv. the distraction of rising temperature

summary: now that you and sherlock are at a friendlier standing, it's time to explore more of your friendship. or whatever it is (cavill!sherlock x afab!reader)

reflection: i am terribly sorry that this took so long. i just wanted everything to be how i envisioned it and of course, i ended up overdoing it. i have that nasty habit of rereading and editing until i have a singular part. then, i do it all again with the next and the next until it becomes far too much. i intended this series to be shorter, but alas, some things are not meant to be. please enjoy and feedback is always appreciated and encouraged!

warnings: seamstress!reader, conflicted!sherlock, reader has a nickname, flirting, fluff, close proximity, mystery brewing, cursing, longwinded descriptions, overthinking, sherlock is in deep denial, suggestive language, alcohol consumption, enola makes an appearance, off screen character death, somewhat slowburn, enemies to lovers, sherlock observes reader, a fitting with far too many boundaries crossed, sexual tension, victorian era, eventual smut (please let me know if there are other warnings i need to add)

word count: 10,023

previously: mr. wright and jane austen

( this work has been cross posted on ao3 )

This is the second time you face the golden 221B in front of you and it’s definitely different than the first time, less animosity, about the same nerves, much more intrigue. After you received your book from Sherlock, he seemingly began to appear frequently around the building and around your shop. Only a couple of days passed by and you could recall seeing his recognizable frame through the window strolling by, through his voyages to and from his flat in which he would say nothing but give a slight nod of his head in acknowledgment. He certainly must know you found the book, but it’s clear he won’t approach unless you do so first out of respect for your boundaries. While his note conveyed his desire to restart fresh, it didn’t mean he would go out of his way to assume what you decided to do. Something about that sustained reverence is what pulled you to his door this afternoon, this being the sole amount of free time you’ve had in these troubling times. You’re steady as you breathe in and out for some extra confidence and to quite possibly shake some traveling nerves (it barely helps).

Once you dictate yourself as ready, you rap onto the door and take a single step backwards when you remember how much space Sherlock takes up on his lonesome. The last time, when he insulted you and disregarded your noise complaint, you felt rather small not just by his words, but by your stature compared to his. He loomed over you and narrowed his eyes in a way that caused you to lose hold of your convictions for just a moment, but the moment was enough for him to gain the upper hand, a shark smelling blood in the water. You’re convinced he’s not going to purposely agitate you this time around, but you also don’t want to accidentally toss him another opportunity. You’re hopeful he’ll be true to his word, not stupid enough to drop your guard. You still barely know anything about each other and strangers took advantage of people all the time.

The door comes open with a haste you’re not prepared for and you can’t help but take a half step back from it in reaction. Your hands capture themselves in front of your abdomen in efforts to balance yourself, as if the pull of the door would suction you inside and awkwardly leave you standing in Sherlock’s flat without invitation. It’s hardly a dramatized action since you feel the air surrounding whip around the rebellious strands of hair framing your face. Except, as you ground yourself and shuffle your feet, the person standing in front of you is very obviously not Sherlock, but a young woman with familiar features. Her eyes widen upon recognition of you, her head turning back to look into Sherlock’s flat for what appears to be answers.

“It’s a woman,” she calls back and it gives you the indication that you probably interrupted the two from some sort of discussion. It would explain her haste and why Sherlock’s marching over in what you surmise is in a mix of impatience and irritation. “Were you expecting a seamstress?” The girl asks as Sherlock gets closer and you can see him pause as he gains a better look at you, your eyes locking onto his despite the young woman sitting in between the two of you. From your peripheral vision, you could see her engaging in careful glances switching back and forth between you and Sherlock, an attempt present to decipher what the correlation to one another is since Sherlock’s offered silence. His gait’s suffered a stop enough for the girl to draw on her inspection and you’re not prepared for her scrutiny while seemingly under his.

“Give us a moment,” he finally utters, his eyebrows pinching together in the process of giving the young woman a simple, yet loaded, look. You may not know what’s going on here, but you’re aware of this look having been on the receiving end of one and having conjured it on your own. She seems to quickly catch on and she backs away with her hands up from the door and floats into the flat without further questions. Sherlock seems grateful for her lack of continued communication as he steps through the frame and shuts the door behind him.

“Excuse my sister… Enola’s fully prepared to insert herself into anyone’s business at any time if she becomes interested in any form.” Ah, his sister. That’s what looked so familiar about her. Well, you probably should have guessed it from how she quickly came to the conclusion that you were a seamstress. You suppose that such observational skills run in the family. That dynamic must be insufferable to be around, but you came from your own version of chaos in a family. There’s hardly room for judgment.

“She’s curious, huh? Sounds like she’s trying to mimic someone we both know.” You’re teasing, of course, teasing with an inkling of truth to your choice of words. To your amusement, you watch in real time as Sherlock exhales and musters a small smile.

“Trust me, she doesn’t want to be like me,” he replies and you ponder what he could possibly mean for a second since Enola’s enthusiasm proved to you in a shortened time frame of just how much she matches Sherlock. Your hesitation to ask about it warrants him to continue speaking. “You’re not at work at this hour?”

Somehow, he’s accounted for your schedule and you’re taken aback for an interlude. He doesn’t budge or comprehend how this information is not common knowledge so you have a feeling he’s not trying to be all knowing or superior. It’s perhaps something that just happens to him whether he’s in control of it or not. “No, I didn’t have too much to do today so I decided to take a break. I actually wanted to speak with you about something, but it seems as if I’ve arrived at a bad time.” You don’t want to interrupt him and his sister and could always return later, but Sherlock waves it off and crosses his arms.

“It’s not a bad time at all. Please,” he presses his arms forward into the air, “continue. I trust you received my informal letter?”

“That I did… Thank you for the book. I love it. I have my own copy back home, but I failed to bring it with me during the move. It’s already helped immensely.” You can’t stop yourself from beaming thinking about it. It’s been something to turn to when your brain’s overloaded or your hands are itching for relief from remaining in the same position for so long.

“I’m glad to hear it. Jane Austen’s work doesn’t get nearly enough attention. I assume it’s because people are too behind to understand.” He shrugs his shoulders because it really is an unfortunate circumstance. While she has some traction, much more than when she was alive, you and Sherlock both know why that traction isn’t grander or why she didn’t become acclaimed until later on. It’s a stark elephant in the hall, but you choose not to address it and shake your head to change the subject.

“Well, as much as I appreciate the gesture, I do hate how you’ve ruined the mystery of your name. I was going with Shoulders Holmes before you had to add your input.” Your hands come up to your hips in a mock scolding. It achieves the desired effect as Sherlock releases his arms from the hold against his chest and he stares at you with levity in his eyes. Him and his damn bluer-than-blue eyes.

“At least you had something to go off. I’ve referred to you as Lily for a while now.” The confession causes your hand to come up and grasp your charm out of habit and you want to release it the second you do, but you endure where you are as you try and study his face. It’s not the most terrible nickname since you enjoyed flowers, but it’s come out of left field.

“Not bad,” you exhale, “but my name is Y/N. Or… if you wish to call me Lily, I wouldn’t be opposed.” You grasp the charm tighter, though you’re not sure why you feel inclined to do so. You shouldn’t care so much what he would think of your name as even if he doesn’t, it’s not something you could change. His validation ought to mean nothing to you, and yet as you stare up at him, you feel relief flood your system as he repeats it to you. Warmth nuzzles across your back and shoulders and you could swear the same comes up to hug the apples of your cheeks, all because Sherlock saying your name is a new experience and sensation you didn’t know you could be so fond of. It eloquently rolls off his tongue and his tone is one of approval.

“So, we’re officially acquaintances, then? No longer mortal enemies who glare at each other from across the stairs?” You can’t help but laugh at the dramatics of the situation. But looking back, glaring at each other or refusing to acknowledge one another did seem to be the pattern you both fell into. You feel sheepish about how you acted, but from his body language, he also seems to be ashamed of his antics. His question was genuine as much as he intended it to sound as if he was joking.

“Correct, officially acquaintances. And I, your new acquaintance, have a proposal for you.” You watch as confusion flits over Sherlock’s face. The lines he does have are there from thinking, you can tell. “I want to help you with your investigation.”

This is not what Sherlock expects. His eyebrows raise in incredulity as he regards you. The movement in his shoulders tells you how he’s restraining himself, but you can’t tell if it’s from celebrating or expressing to you of his surprise. He persists in his stillness, quiet befalling the both of you as you look into the depths of his eyes and he traces them at different points of your facial structure and then different points of your body. Normally, a man gazing this intently at you would cause you to protect yourself and hide away, but you can almost see the cogs shifting inside of Sherlock’s head. He does what most don’t and that’s think before he speaks, analyze before jumping to conclusions that may be wrong. Considering how he’s done that before and it ended with you two disliking each other, you don’t say anything to properly give him his time of contemplation.

“I sense a condition of some sort incoming,” he decides on after a beat and you fidget with your hands because he’s right, you do have a condition. You didn’t come up here for just a friendly chat as you had days to mull over what you wanted to say to him and how you two could move forward from starting off on the wrong foot.

“Right,” you begin, and you know he hears that too often, “I want to help you with your investigation, but only if you come down to my shop and allow me to fit you for something. You don’t have to buy anything, I’m not trying to be bought,” you reassure him, “but I also could use some more business. What I’m implying here is that we could help each other out.”

Sherlock is still again. He doesn’t display to you much besides that recurring restraint. You don’t know how he could possibly read you and you could barely do the same to him, but it doesn’t stop you from trying. You stand taller to appear more confident in this and you wait for him to say something with bated breath. There are a number of ways he can respond and you lean more towards rejection than anything else. You wouldn’t be angry if he refused this altogether, there’s nothing obligating either of you to each other just because you’re now standing on common ground. He wants to say something, you can see it playing at his lips, but it’s difficult to dwell on because suddenly the both of you lightly startle hearing Enola’s voice through the door, “I have places to be, Sherlock!”

The impromptu rushing has you falter. You’re sure he’ll wave you away now, but he doesn’t create any rampant motions. He simply looks at you one last time before he speaks, “I’ll think about it.” That’s all you could ask of him since the task isn’t the most conventional of sorts. It came to fruition because of how you didn’t recognize his gift as a full reason to forgive him for his past behavior. There’s also something particularly sleazy about the idea of Sherlock presenting you with a gift of your liking solely to encourage your succor in his work, a light test behind asking him of this. By how he didn’t immediately leap at the opportunity, you’re guessing his heart was in the right place and cease those questions burdening you, the ones asking of his intentions and morals.

You depart thereafter with a polite dip of your head, one he mirrors before he watches you retreat to the stairs. It’s when you’re out of his sight that he enters his flat once more, his sister sitting comfortably in the chair at his desk. He needs to talk with her about areas being off limits because this is becoming ridiculous at this point.

“It’s about time,” Enola chimes, which in turn leads to Sherlock rolling his eyes. He resumes what he did before you knocked on his door and that’s tending to the map in front of him where Enola marked off new spots for him to travel to. They helped each other from time to time and she would soon be off embarking on another adventure he would wind up worrying over with the dangers of the world in his head. He’s examining the map with a comical magnifying glass, too busy immersing himself back into the work because he doesn’t want his mind to stray to you. Lately, it’s been doing that more than he could handle and such a detriment in focus must be tended to accordingly. While you hold the fabric he’s chased for ages now in your possession, he’s treading lightly since any interaction with you might further cloud his head. This is a phenomenon he’s not used to.

“You could use a new tie,” Enola says, breaking him free of his current task. He attempts to imagine she’s not sitting there to continue, at most shooting her an annoyed glare. Still, he can’t completely ignore her. There’s a reason she said what she said, why she chose those certain words, why she’s lying because she knows he has an impressive tie collection.

“I could’ve sworn I’ve talked with you about eavesdropping.” He doesn’t notice her stand until she reaches for the magnifying glass from him. He stands at his full height and looks down at her, again in agitation as he watches her continue on with his task. It’s like she knows he’s trying to corral his thoughts towards this subject to not stray away against his best wishes.

“I’m just making an observation. If you’re going to a fitting, why not?” Sherlock refrains from scoffing. He didn’t decide to attend yet and here Enola goes acting as if he has a plan set in stone to visit you at your shop. It confirms her eavesdropping, but he doesn’t want to give away any more information than that. Enola cannot know of how much you’re in his head, how he accidentally fell into a repetition of observing you from afar, how he wrote you a note and sent you his copy of Persuasion by Jane Austen. He knows his sister and she will just get the wrong idea. He knows what this may look like to her and that could be farther from the truth.

“... She’s pretty.”

It’s the last thing Sherlock anticipates for Enola to say. While she regularly institutes new ways to catch him off guard, this is not one he could have accounted for easily. His ego alerts him he could have prevented this had he just given more thought to what is lurking through her young mind, but alas, it’s too late for him. She’s said her piece and he now has no choice but to scrutinize it deeper than it needs to be. He doesn’t want to explore anything to do with that factor or anything relating, but Enola’s robbed him of his decorum and magnifying glass, left him a foreboding entity standing at his own desk with nothing to do but think back to how you stood before him just moments ago. You and your imperfect hair pinned to your head save for the defiant strands that love to dangle over your eyes, you and your fluttering lashes that you’re unaware almost whisp to your cheekbones from the length and fan, you and that cheeky smile adorning your lips when you say something teasing or sarcastic.

Enola’s observation is not unprecedented or incorrect. As much as he wants to declare to Enola that you’re indeed unpleasant to look at, he can’t bring himself to do so. You’re attractive, he’s known this already. He didn’t need Enola’s opinion on it. Especially not since such an opinion has led his head to recall the curves within your facial structure, the slope of your neck, how the lily of the valley rests right above your accentuated chest, how the corset cruelly punctuates your hips almost as if they’re beckoning in a pair of hands to rest upon them. These are the thoughts he wishes to avoid. They’re distractions to him and his work, they make his palms feel clammy, his fingers twitch on his desk as he imagines the pair of hands referred to on your hips as his own. This hasn’t happened to him before. He doesn’t know how to approach it or push the less than gentlemanly images beginning to flood his mind.

Thankfully, Enola passes him back his magnifying glass. “Earth to Sherlock,” she says and he’s centering himself back to this reality. He merely gives her a look before he returns to the map. He won’t dare say a thing. Enola’s too much like him and she would know something’s bothering him inside whether his comments were negative, agreeable, or neutral. It’s not worth fanning the flames of her active imagination.

You’re at the front desk busying yourself with checking off commissions and reworking invoices on parchment paper. Mrs. Thomas is there again at a nearby chair resting her feet before she goes home. She’s attended this shop often and you would regard her as a friend by how much you see her if it weren’t for how she’s a paying customer and how her closeness with your father wrote any of her actions off as mourning and pity in your eyes. You don’t want to necessarily see it this way, but it’s difficult not to with how she always seems to smile at you with sympathy lurking in her pupils. As much as you appreciate it, you’re tired of people looking at you with emotion rather than respect since you’re running this shop on your own. Even before, your father may have done a lot, but it’s you who’s created clothing under your former roof with your mother and sister. You don’t think that credit will ever be rightfully handed to you with how everyone cautiously addresses you.

The sad part is that each time it happens, you are hit with the painful reminder of how your father is gone. You’re already constantly thinking of that on your own and it follows you to your work since his last name is plastered on the building and sewed into the tags of the clothing you design. It’s bitter icing on top of the cake for your (his) remaining customers to come in here and talk to you about it or subconsciously bring the fact forth with how they maneuver their facial expressions towards you. Running on fumes is not easy at all and it’s harder with complex emotions involved.

The bell to your front door rings alerting you of a customer walking in. Their steps are heavy on your floorboards and there’s about three taken until you lift your head to view who’s entered your establishment. It’s those broad shoulders you’re sure you could recognize from kilometers away, his face a bit weary as he takes in the area of the shop for the first time inside instead of searching through the window. He walks to you slowly and instead of allowing this awkward gait to greet you at your desk, you round the obstruction and meet him halfway on the path. He pauses in front of you and you’re unable to suppress the grin forming on your features in surprise and disbelief that he came so soon. You thought he would take longer to think about what you offered, perhaps a few days, not mere hours.

“Pardon me,” he begins, “you wouldn’t happen to know where I could possibly be fitted for a tie around here, would you? My sister instructed me how I was in dire need of one.” Much like your own grin is growing by the second, as is his with his emboldened statement feigning cluelessness. You tap your chin in pretend thought as you look up at him, one arm tucking beneath your elbow across your chest.

“Ah, you have a wise sister. You’ve come to the right place. We have a large assortment of ties. Is there anything specific you’re searching for?”

“Whichever you deem best,” he responds almost instantly, his face leaning towards yours in the process for just you alone to hear. It’s a curious endeavor since there’s only you and him and Mrs. Thomas sitting in a chair. It’s then that Mrs. Thomas reminds you both of her presence, “I thought you wanted to commission more than that,” she booms out. She can be loud for an older woman.

You glance back and forth between Mrs. Thomas and Sherlock, then. You didn’t know that they knew each other and by the look on Sherlock’s face that crosses for a split second, he seems alarmed. It quickly passes through and then he’s impassive all over again.

“Yes, you’re right. I wanted to commission a, um…” his eyes scan momentarily, a sign that he’s trying to think fast that you know Mrs. Thomas won’t notice, but you do, “a vest” he decides. “A vest and a suit jacket.”

Not taking the hint that this is more than he’s bargained for, Mrs. Thomas laughs. “Might as well be fitted for the entire suit! Don’t you think so, Ms. Wright?”

Mrs. Thomas holds an unusual expression you haven’t seen before, a genuine and beaming smile that reaches her eyes and erases the sympathy from them that you consistently detect. You’re not sure what she’s doing, but instead of dwelling on her, you pivot to bring your full attention to Sherlock. It’s transparent to you that he’s hiding something, though you feel as if it’s more for Mrs. Thomas then it is for you. Still, you might as well have some fun with his visit. It’s not like you had a line of customers to dawdle on.

“Why, Mrs. Thomas, you are correct,” you can just see how Sherlock narrows his eyes at you in a warning, but despite this, you continue and hook one arm into his, now side by side, “Let’s do an entire fitting and then we can discuss that commission of yours, Mr. Shoulders.”

Sherlock fakes a smile at you, it’s tight lipped and you know this is not what he wanted, but he goes along and waves his goodbye to Mrs. Thomas who is finally standing from her chair to leave. She lingers watching you two disappear into a backroom.

“I did not agree to this,” Sherlock mutters, almost petulantly. It sounds foreign coming from such a deep voice.

“But here I am agreeing… Come on, it’ll be over before you know it. Remove the items on your torso besides the undershirt, please.” You half expect him not to listen, to put his foot down and ask for the tie again, but to your surprise, Sherlock blows a breath out through his nose and then he starts by ridding off his jacket sleeve by sleeve. You feel rather smug by his obedience, but you don’t wish to stop him through this, so you leave him to strip as you said as you go to retrieve your measuring tape and return with fresh paper for your pen and inkwell. When you return, you’re met with Sherlock undoing the current tie sitting at his neck. It slips free and the shirt is as poofy as a falling parachute through the sky.

“Erm… that shirt’s rather… large on you,” you don’t know if that’s the correct word. It seems as if it fits and yet it doesn’t, extra fabric bunching at his arms and waist. You tilt your head examining it and Sherlock takes a glance down to assess what you may mean.

“I’m aware,” he mutters. “I have trouble finding correct sizing and I don’t necessarily make the time to have actual appointments with tailors. Some things fit enough, nothing like a glove.” He shrugs his shoulders and it’s obvious to you he’s reserved himself to this way of dressing. For the most part, he didn’t do a bad job. He dressed elegantly and his other items seemed to fit him accordingly, but the bunched up fabric was for sure going to hinder you in taking his measurements. Because of this, you know what you have to do, and your fingers nervously wind the tape around your hands as you stare at him almost abashedly.

Noticing this, Sherlock looks at you quizzically. “What?”

“Sherlock, do you mind… removing your shirt? It’ll be easier to take your measurements that way, but if you don’t wish to, you aren’t obligated.” You’re already pushing him further out of his comfort zone and how he probably thought this would all go. You can see his hands flex at his sides, quiet as he stares forward and visibly ponders what he should do in this situation. You wouldn’t blame him if he rejected it entirely and put his tie and vest back on, strung his jacket along his arms and walked out of this invasive nature. It shouldn’t be this awkward, it never is with other male clients, but there’s a palpable energy between you that neither of you understand. Each step towards each other in any setting feels like a step too far, but always in the right direction.

He says nothing. You wish you could see past the flesh and skull in his head to truly capture what he may be thinking, but eventually, he whispers, “Very well, then,” and he starts at the cuffs. He unbuttons them gradually, and he glances at you once before he starts to tackle the buttons at his torso. One by one, they come undone, pectoral muscles displayed, a patch of hair on his chest that you had not expected to be there from how clean shaven he keeps his face. From every masculine element about him, it’s something you should’ve probably guessed. That and the swell of muscles in his arms that you didn’t regularly encounter on men around, such that bulge as he slips the white garment off of him completely. He turns away to discard the item with his other clothes, and then he’s left vulnerable standing in front of your full body mirror. He doesn’t look at himself. He keeps his eyes on you, waiting for another direction perhaps.

“Thank you. Let’s start with your arms.” You must carry this out as confidently as humanly possible even with the stature of Sherlock taking you a bit aback. Like a professional, you have him shift his arms out to measure his wingspan, the width of his back rather prominent to you at this moment since he is by no means a small man. You’re timorous as you measure around his biceps, as you catch the scent of his musk and tobacco standing this close by. You alternate between stretching your tape out at his limbs and then moving downward to write off the numbers each time. It’s an intimate affair as much as neither of you would like to admit it, and all that can be heard is the sound of each of your breathing. Not wanting this to be cumbersome, you try and find your voice literally kneeling before him while asking him to adjust his legs. Fortunately (and unfortunately) for you, his trousers are concealing him and it’s less inconvenient on you than when you tended to his torso.

“So, you spoke with Mrs. Thomas about a commission, hm?” You mark off the measurement with your thumbnail and then jot it down.

“Technically,” he admits. It bewilders you further. You stand so you can wrap the tape about his waist, one hand behind his back feeding it through. His warm skin touches your fingers. You’re face to face with his chest and neck here, but you ensure your eyes stay on the tape measure. You’re unaware of how he’s examining the top of your head.

“Technically? What’s technical about it?”

“Well, I wasn’t asking about a commission from you.” This is enough for your head to snap up. Your hands are still firmly on the tape measure around his waist, locking him in position to be this close to you, to be centimeters from this boulder of a man as he stares down at you with sincerity in his eyes. He’s literally so close that you can feel the heat radiating off of him. Those nerves from earlier are recollecting in your veins holding his steely gaze, but you don’t make any efforts to depart after his confession.

“You were asking… about my father? Why? Did you know him?” You should let go of the tape, but you don’t have the number yet to do so. Letting go just to wrap it back around him would be redundant. This isn’t any better since it’s trapping you practically against him, minimal distance between the two of you that any onlooker would confuse it as some kind of flirtatious bout, his naked torso feeding into the hypothetical guess. You stay where you are, blinking up at Sherlock who shakes his head back and forth.

“I did not. I just noticed that you were here alone so often. It made me question who Mr. Wright was. And so I came up with a bit of deception to tell Mrs. Thomas on her way out one day. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant conversation.” While honesty is easy for him to undergo, he does seem ashamed of his actions. The corner of his lips quirks for a second and it clicks for you that he knew about your father’s passing. And if he knew about your father’s passing, then it had you questioning his motives again. You want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but you hate this kind of subject.

Slowly, you look down to mark the number and then write it onto the pad of paper below. Having that be his last measurement, you detach from him and sigh out in displeasure as you look over the other measurements you’ve taken thus far. “So you got me that book out of pity,” you note, the excitement in your voice drained out from yet another person giving you special treatment you never asked for. “You asked about him because you thought he would help with your investigation since I wouldn’t, didn’t you?” You’re disappointed and you don’t bother to hide it. His cold exterior melting away so abruptly suddenly makes sense now. For a moment, you feel like a fool.

But Sherlock doesn’t allow this to last long. “Yes and no,” he replies and it leaves you puzzled. You stare at him from the side. He’s grabbing his shirt and slipping it back over himself, but he’s still looking at you in the process. “I thought that Mr. Wright may help me with my investigation, yes, but I also wanted to know if you ran this establishment by yourself. I guess a part of me knew that already, but I’ve never been one to carry out without confirmation or evidence.” He leaves the shirt open, the hair on his chest trailing down still very much visible. He conceals more of what makes him a man underneath those professional clothes, the clothes of a proper gentleman and a proper detective, but it’s not any less distracting. “Now, I don’t wish to offend you, but I did not know your father. I had little reaction to the news that Mrs. Thomas broke to me. But I knew you. I didn’t get you that book out of pity. I did it because I misread you.”

He buttons his cuffs somehow without struggling. You’re used to watching men and women alike grapple with said buttons because of the transition between left hand and right hand. You don’t think he’s ambidextrous, but much like other things about him, he’s most likely perfected it in a way where there are less steps, where there is less of a scuffle. You pay attention to this because his words are different from what you’ve experienced during your time in the city with a plethora of people coming to and from your shop. They hold weight because they’re about you, not about anyone else, but you and how you feel. It’s strange to be so known in the eyes of someone you met more than three weeks ago, but it’s also paradoxically freeing to be seen in a light free of that shame that’s haunted you since your arrival.

“I’ll… I’ll bring you that tie.” You settle on, a bit overcome with emotion in this instance from your thoughts bouncing to your father, his passing, the overwhelming “support” everyone’s extended out to you, and how Sherlock has given you what you’ve been craving for a long while now, and that’s validation and transparency. You don’t want to face him with the sting of tears in your eyes so he does appear to be confused as you walk away from him, but in your movement, you take heavy breaths to pull yourself together. It’s only when you feel secure in your features that you move to pull a royal blue tie into your hands. You’re sure it’ll bring out his eyes and he hardly uses color from what you’ve seen in his attire.

Soon, you remerge into the room, and Sherlock’s hands are politely cupping one another behind the small of his back, his shirt now fully buttoned. He’s still not looking in the mirror, the floor his choice of perspective, but with your return, he shifts his eyes up to your face and a thoughtful expression forms. He extends a hand out to you, but you raise your own to stop him.

“May I?”

He falters. You can tell he’s juggling whether he should allow you to or not, but in due time, he lowers his hands back to where they were before behind his back. It’s the slight nod that permits you to walk to him, which you do and you upturn the collar of his now wrinkled shirt for the access necessary. His pupils follow your hands with every movement and they only shut when you lift the fabric over his head to lay it around his neck. You situate both ends and Sherlock involuntarily takes a single half step forward from the light tug, his abdomen brushing against yours. Both of you hear the hitches in your breaths, and you could swear his adam’s apple bobbed from a light gulp, but neither of you choose to comment on it. You busy yourself with maneuvering the tie into its correct loops. You try to ignore how awfully domestic it feels and how your heart thuds harder in your ribcage.

“Your heart’s beating fast,” he says, that matter-of-fact tone as present as the day you met him. You forgot that your chests are pressing together and you rectify it by stepping that half step backwards that Sherlock took forward. He’s sturdy this time and doesn’t budge.

“It’s the temperature here,” you lie. This seems to appease him since he doesn’t say anything else about it, to your relief. You slip the knot upwards, one hand holding the tail, the other not stopping until it reaches his neck. Normally, you’d pull away from the client and have them view themselves in the mirror. Since this is not a normal time, you stay there in that position, your fingers against the cloth against his neck. His pulse is resting right into them and by how his jaw sets, you know he’s aware of what you’ve discovered and what you’re about to say.

“Your pulse is—”

“It’s the temperature here,” he parrots and you can’t even fault him for it because you used the same line. His wit may just hold a candle to yours. The speeding pulse introducing itself with your digits remains this way as you gaze at Sherlock. He doesn’t make any efforts to push you away and you don’t stagger backwards even if you think you should. It’s obvious to the both of you that you’re riddled with nerves and this is not an ordinary encounter nor an ordinary fitting. Eventually, you release the tie and step off to the side to maneuver out of his way. His stare follows you, but he soon removes that to walk to the mirror and view how the tie looks on him.

“Not bad, Lily,” he says.

You hide your smile behind your hand as you meet his eyes in the mirror. You were right, the tie enhances his irises. “Blue’s your color, Shoulders.”

It’s late at night, Sherlock paces the length of his floor, cautious in each step since he did not wish to alert the tenants below of his confusion and distress. Or more so, he did not wish to alert you. He’s refrained from playing his violin at such late hours in consideration of you and it’s well past the time that you’ve arrived home from work. He chose not to discuss the fabric he needs for his investigation and opted for it to occur tomorrow. He didn’t want to put a dent in whatever it was that was going on between the two of you since he usually transformed into a different person in detective mode. He’s been told he’s a pain in the ass to work with and it all has to do with the fact that he’s not a team player whatsoever, but someone who does everything by himself. He plans to get that over with when the time comes in his efforts to not completely scare you off as he has done to others in the past. You’re new to getting along with each other and he would like to keep himself from ruining it, a prophecy he holds in his head as a possibility since he is the reason for his lack of approachability. For once, for reasons he doesn’t understand, he would prefer to maintain a friendly status with you rather than antagonistic, or worse, estranged. Don’t ask him why that would be worse, he won’t answer.

Although he will see you tomorrow and he will most likely receive another piece to aid him moving forward, it didn’t stop him from trying to think about the details of the murder. They’re swarming his head all over again and he’s reliving his arrival at the crime scene to see if there’s anything he missed. This would be easier on his brain if he could just return back to the area, but of course, the police force wouldn’t be too keen on letting him reenter. Many officers hold resentment towards him and his intellect because of spite and envy and they don’t appreciate the proud aspects of Sherlock’s personality. Details stand out to him, almost perfectly outlined in paintings of what others deem as muddled colors. A man like Lestrade may display his appreciation for Sherlock’s talents and inevitable solutions, but there’s always the matter of ego to contest. A man’s ego in the fit of the “game” is fragile, especially when another’s wit and ideas are involved, superiority pouncing on what already is insecurity and vulnerability. Men in positions of power such as these hold, in Sherlock’s eyes, the most amount of emotion because they allow their arrogance and pride to corrupt their performances. While they’re in competition with Sherlock, Sherlock is in competition with himself and therefore it ensures the progression of his self growth, a means to always expand on what is already extraordinary.

But the unnerving fact of all of this despite these truths is how Sherlock’s pride still gets in the way. He stubbornly avoids the veracity of his arrogance because even if he did accept the claims of others in terms of his self-conceit, it doesn’t erase the many accomplishments he’s done up to this point. There are more to be consummated, just like this case in particular that refuses to let him sleep and refuses to let him think about anything else in his life, the basic essentials to survival sometimes neglected as a result. Forgetting to eat and nourish himself is not the ideal way to go about everything and really, nutrients would surely help him think better, but it’s how his brain is wired. It will linger on a subject until he can carve a path to the answer, until he can properly close a case and contribute a difference to the world the best way he can. This is his benefaction. Where others still trace as their purpose, he knows he’s in the thick of his own and this slump will be hurdled over as he’s done to other slumps of yesterday.

A clumsy sort of sound disrupts his current brain’s thought cacophony, knocking out of rhythm drawing his focus to his door. He’s not expecting anyone at this hour, especially not this late, so he’s bewildered to say the least. He stares at the door with intrigue, hopeful he imagined the distorting noise as he did not wish to halt his growing examination and introspection, but soon enough, the knocking continues and he knows it won’t disappear unless he answers the door as the person behind intends the impromptu meeting. He sighs his displeasure, but ultimately adjusts his loosened tie for the sake of etiquette, saunters to the door and brings it open after counting to three in his head. Sherlock’s not sure what he expected or who he assumed would be standing across from him, but it certainly wasn’t your back covered in alabaster lace, soft knots of fabric at each arm dangling from where you’ve adjusted the ties accordingly. He swallows with difficulty, especially noticing how your hair isn’t in its usual condition shapened by various tools and pins. It’s loose and free and no longer haphazardly restrained, bold in movement as you turn your body towards him upon your recognition of the door being open. He swears there’s brilliance in your eyes as they widen at him, light up in a fashion he cannot fathom correctly from how they also appear to be bloodshot, almost as rosy as the tint currently coating your face and chest.

“Sherlock!” You beam, definitely with more excitement he’s ever been confronted with in your presence, “I thought I heard you pacing. I knew I wasn’t the only one in this building who couldn’t sleep.” As you lean towards him, your hands find the left and right sides of his door frame. Your cheek presses into your shoulder as you regard him with commendation in your glowing features, innocently acute joy settling in your smile and the crinkles around your eyes. He doesn’t understand how you could be so happy to see him nor why you’re even standing here before him this late, but he does catch how you’re swaying from one side to the next on his frame he feels an odd surge of resentment suddenly for.

“Pardon my asking, but what are you doing here at this time of night? Is something troubling you?” It would explain the time and lack of warning for this visit, and he almost furrows his brows in preparation for some kind of predicament to heed, but those inclinations soon fly out the window as your palm reaches out to lay on his chest in efforts to appease the situation and dull the severity he’s approximated. He’s aware of how his heart rate picks up at the contact, but it’s hardly a point of contention or even importance because it’s occurred to Sherlock how you’re leaning not for warmth or security, but because you’re off balance. The disturbance of your equilibrium leads him to watch your body language and hear your speech pattern which sounds oddly slurred now that he’s thinking on it.

“No, nothing, nothing is troubling me,” you reassure with a pregnant pause in the air. You knit your eyebrows together as your smile falls into a thin line. “I suppose the apparent absence of company is troubling, but other than that, everything else is swell. It’s just the loneliness.” Your hand comes off his chest to wave off the worry simultaneously as your other hand departs from Sherlock’s door frame. In doing so, you stumble forward and almost fall, but Sherlock’s stature does not allow for that to happen. Seeing that he’s a force in front of you, his arms piston out to hold underneath yours, and under another circumstance possibly coupled with deep embarrassment, you would most likely lean away and apologize. Instead, you linger into his touch, weight shifting into him that is both nothing to Sherlock and yet so critically eminent to him all the same. He can smell something florally sweet coming from you and something so distinct that his conclusion of your visit is strengthened and emboldened by it.

“You’re drunk,” he conjects aloud, having already deciphered it internally. It’s relevant and obvious and sure it took him little time to figure it out, much less than the average person would take, but there’s a small portion of him that feels foolish because for a split second, for a split second he believed you were overjoyed to see him simply because he was him. Your drunken stupor’s seeking another’s companionship and there’s nothing particularly special about it being Sherlock since he was clearly the closest nearby.

“It would seem that way, but nonetheless alone!” You protest and concurrently confirm his thoughts at the same time. “You’re aberrantly strong,” you continue, your hands grasping at his tight forearms without a hint of shame. He almost slips and grins, but he keeps his impassive nature and gestures towards the hall. If he takes a few steps out, he could see your flat’s door from here. There’s not much distance to cover to get you safely back into your home.

“I’ll walk you back to your flat.” Sherlock’s willing to help you back and is fully prepared to do so, but you’re quick to rip your arms from his hold. The motion almost sends you flying backwards which then prompts him to shoot his arms out to further guide and protect, but fortunately, you find your footing and attempt to stand taller, squaring off your shoulders and raising your chin.

“You can’t make me go back there. If I see that damned sewing machine again, I’ll… I’ll put it out of its misery!”

A threat of this sort should not bother Sherlock whatsoever, especially not one threatening an inanimate object that not only he does not use, but one that couldn’t affect him directly no matter its livelihood or destruction. Yet, as he takes in your stance, your folded arms over your chest in your sincerity, drunk or not, he knows you’re not at all bluffing. You’ll break it and your sober-self will experience the consequences of such, your work no longer able to be attended to unless you replace the item. It’ll greatly inconvenience you and you have quotas to fill, clients to attend to, a business to run that he cannot authorize to be blundered due to one night of overindulgence. You work too hard and he couldn’t let you throw that away just because you drank a bit too much in one sitting.

“I suppose I could see what our other neighbors are up to. There’s bound to be someone awake, right? Maybe Mrs. Hudson is having a late night tea,” you ponder audibly with one finger coming up to thoughtfully caress your chin. You solely take one step to venture further into the hall, but Sherlock’s arm captures your waist this time, firmly planting you in your spot in front of his door frame. Before you could kick your feet out and push him away (you do neither, and make no efforts to do so, really), he levels you with his gaze and tilts his head to his flat. He feels your hands lightly grasp his arm in place at your waist. If he didn’t know the context of this situation, he would’ve guessed your arms would then wind about his neck for some kind of intimate dance. This does not happen, his mouth dry from how close this contact is nonetheless. It’s almost as overwhelming as how he had to hold still as you prodded him for measurements earlier in the day, except it’s you who’s in a vulnerable position with an inebriated dilemma and an insufficiency of clothing. Such insufficiency that others would deem improper, and worse, take advantage of, your reputation around bound to be soured due to everyone’s perception of what it meant to be a gentleman and what it meant to be a lady. This behavior is in defiance of that perception and he couldn’t enable you to make a fool of yourself, he wouldn’t forgive himself. He does not trust people.

“I have tea,” he clarifies after he realizes that there was too long of a bout of you two just locking eyes. His arm slowly snakes from where it’s encircled about your waist, but a helpful hand maneuvers to your back to further help you steady yourself. Your smile soon returns and your walking continues, this time into Sherlock’s flat.

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

One arm lays over Sherlock’s broad shoulder, the other reaching out to touch trinkets that Sherlock gingerly pulls you away from. From what he can tell, you’re in awe of what you see the more you two explore the length of his floor. He gently deposits you onto his loveseat to sit down.

“Here you are,” he says and then stands towering over you. You’re gazing up at him with the same admiration and astonishment that you did when you first entered his home and he chooses to ignore it. “Stay here and try not to touch anything. I’ll get the tea brewing.”

He’s reluctant to leave you behind seeing as his work is in disarray, his own form of organization that could easily be misshapen by your currently all-too-curious hands, but he also fears that you’ll do something worth regretting if he doesn’t entertain you and keep your attention in some way.

“Sir, yes, Sir,” you nod, one hand saluting him. “I won’t touch anything.” Normally, he wouldn’t believe someone with sticky fingers under the influence, but it’s different with you. He finds it easier to trust you when you smile at him like that and the amusement from how you then sit on your hands certainly skews his judgment.

Despite the slight nerves urging him to stay here with you, he soon finds his kitchen and pours water into a pot. He drank tea earlier so there’s not any that he can grab for you at this time at his disposal. It’s not much of a hassle placing the pot onto heat, his teapot checked for the proper leaves he would soon pour boiling water into. He wonders what preference you may have, if you favor lavender, or perhaps peppermint, or maybe something simple like black tea. He wonders if you drink some in the early hours of the morning to properly wake up, if you brew some for the sake of having something warm to drink with a fresh muffin for breakfast, if you rely on it to calm your rapidly beating heart in the plight of increasing stress. Sherlock wonders if this what you drink when you’re reading, if it’s what you nurse with cautious sips in the midst of stitching pieces together, if it’s what you turn to when you cannot sleep and you decide that you might as well find some kind of warmth in it with blankets that aren’t doing their job, and dreams that won’t make slumber any more appetizing. He wonders if it’s stopped assisting like it used to and instead of taking distance from it to rebuild its charm and tease tolerance, he wonders if it was easier to turn to wine. If it was easier to drink more and more than to sit with thoughts that won��t dare to leave you alone, if each gulp of the alcohol silenced them and buried them until the consciousness of being alive is nothing but a ghost of a whisper you cannot hear unless you’re left without hobby, task, or another human being. If you become painfully aware of how you have no one but yourself in moments like these. Oh, he wonders, he wonders. He wonders if you’re just like him.

It’s the distant sound of a door opening and closing that stops him from wondering. His head snaps up from staring at the surface of the water and immediately, he attends where he left you. When he sees you’re no longer sitting at his loveseat, he pivots to the front door and then marches over to it. Swinging it open, he glances back and forth to see if you left. Knowing that you’re drunk, you couldn’t have possibly gone far, but you’re nowhere in his sight and the thrill of panic sets into his back. It’s the creaking floorboards in his flat that drive him to step back inside, the door shut behind him as he tries to follow the muffled sound for as long as it carries, which isn’t long. Still, it leads him into his bedroom and he cautiously infiltrates the area only to find his made bed now in disorder with you settled underneath his comforter. Your hair fans out in a halo on his pillow as you bury your head into it, your eyes lazily coming open to meet his gaze.

“I told you not to touch anything,” he says, his voice quiet. It’s lacking sternness, but he can’t really be upset since he brought you into his flat with little control in your hands. He’s taking in your size in comparison to the size of his bed.

“I know, but,” you yawn, your eyes shutting in the process, nose wrinkling, a cushiony soft sigh falling from in between your lips that he equates to the hymns he’s heard inside of churches, “I got tired waiting for you. Your bed’s awfully comfortable. I think I might actually fall asleep.”

He didn’t take long in the kitchen, he knows that. However, he’s been drunk before, he understands how those minutes alone must’ve felt like centuries to your own devices. He should be shooing you out and getting you downstairs to sleep in your bed, but something in him can’t seem to do so. You look so… peaceful. It’s not like he was going to make any use of his bed himself since he planned to think all night, at most falling into his sofa for an hour or two of rest. With how much you’ve been through and how you’re constantly working yourself to the bone, Sherlock’s long acquiesced to having you spend the night here before he’s rationalized it.

“Go ahead. You deserve repose.” Sherlock comes closer to adjust your/his pillow. He doesn’t want you to wake with an uncomfortable kink in your neck or aggravate the impending migraine you’ll certainly wake with. He’s in the middle of fluffing, his wrists above your head, when he feels your hands grasp at them. Your hold is dainty, barely there, but he could feel it scorching him. He restrains himself, from doing what he doesn’t know, as he looks down into the depths of your pleading eyes, as your right thumb maddeningly strokes the sliver of skin unprotected by his shirt’s cuff. He confronts the drought in his mouth again and it travels to his throat the longer you keep your hold on him. An onlooker would surely be apprehensive to this image. His brother would absolutely lose his mind if he knew about Sherlock’s abandonment of propriety with an unmarried, unbetrothed woman laying in his bed. He would absolutely lose his mind if he knew of the thoughts mashing together in Sherlock’s head, one after the other, of how he could climb in and join you.

“Lay with me,” you breathe, almost as if you could hear those pesky fantasies clouding his mind. He grips the pillow tighter as he considers it. The prospect, as much as he wants to deny it, is tempting. Something… something in him wants to accept it. Something in him wants to settle in beside you. It’s that something, whatever the hell it is, that causes him to release the pillow from his tightening vise. He brings his hands to himself, your hold physically easy to depart from, but the willpower to pull away is what he had to muster. He feels out of breath.

“I… I-I have to go get your tea.” He points to the door and thankfully, you don’t say anything else. You just watch as he leaves the room.

What you don’t see is how his back leans into the door after he closes it, a large hand coming up to scrub down the length of his face. He’s not sure what came over him or why he even dared to consider laying with you in such a state. It’s wrong. For many reasons. The main being how you’re not sober and unaware of what you were asking for. This is not something he can do. It’s against everything he stands for. Whatever this is, whatever realm of feelings you’ve awakened within him, they have to stop. It’s unknown, thought manipulating—a distraction. Before you came in, he was busy with work. Work he has to get back to now that you’re taken care of and out of his sight. His hands clench into fists and then stretch out at his sides as he ventures back to the kitchen and pours the hot water into the teapot. He picks out the black tea leaves at the end and stares at the door to his bedroom with a tray in his hands.

He’s ready to tell you how there will be no funny business and how this is purely a friend looking out for a friend, nothing more or less, as he brings the door open… only to find you asleep, one of his pillows firmly in your arms, half of your face pressing into it. He sighs and eventually brings the tray to his bedside table. You’ll need it when you wake up.

Maybe he’ll tell you tomorrow morning.

#henry cavill #henry!sherlock #sherlock holmes #sherlock holmes x reader #enola holmes #l4l.writes #beyond answers #the distraction of rising temperature #henry cavill x reader

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