And now for the one time all three of the metaphorical cats left the metaphorical bag.
...
It all started on a damp afternoon in mid-April when Sherlock came home with a bruised cheek.
The bruise had begun a shocked red, an explosion of blood cells rushing through capillaries. By now, the passage of time had dulled it into a mellow purple hue, a stark and bare contrast of colour against his china-cup-pale skin.
A man had hit him, and was now wishing he hadn't. The man's hand had suffered much more than Sherlock's face. The prominent bone his bare, unsuspecting knuckles had collided with had felt like a whetted wedge of marble. He'd doubled over to cradle his wounded fist tight to his chest immediately after delivering the punch, protectively shrinking away like a wounded animal.
There's a reason boxers are encouraged to lightly bounce on the balls of their feet. In a fight, it's best to keep moving. The man didn't keep moving, he was too distracted trying to nurse something----anything---back into his fingers. This allowed Sherlock to neatly and efficiently disable him even further, and slip his wrists into a pair of handcuffs.
A useless piece of information: The man doesn't care that he lost the fight, or that he was arrested. He's just glad the police station has first aid.
Sherlock couldn't smile as he greeted Y/N upon entering the flat, although he wanted to. Smiling meant his contused muscles pulling up the corners of his lips, dragging them back, away from his teeth. The movement twinged more than he'd expected it to.
It was probably because of the lack of smiling that Y/N reached the fairly logical conclusion his wound was much worse than it actually was.
Sherlock can read Y/N like a book. Well, he can read everyone like a book, but she is his favourite. He'd read her many times, cover to cover. He'd memorised paragraphs. He'd kept notes and jotted in the margins. He is an expert on all things Y/N. It didn't take an expert to register her obvious, abt concern, though. Her shoulders had set and her mouth had fallen open enough to give Sherlock a glance at the rocky edge of her teeth.
"I'm fine," He said quickly, his words nudging the ones she'd been about to say gently back into her chest. "Remember that case with the bottle-opener?"
Y/N had been cleaning. There was something sticky on the table that would cling to her shirt sleeve every time she sat down. Scrubbing hadn't really helped. If anything, it had made the situation worse; the sticky thing had grabbed at the cloth and bitten off bunches of fibres. Now it looked like it had grown fur. It had evolved.
The door opening had been a welcome distraction, but the sight of her friend's beaten-up face had been very unwelcome. Well, not his face. The bruise flowing on his cheekbone was the worrying imposter. It had made Y/N's stomach slip between the rest of her organs and fall wetly onto the floor. Who had done this? And was revenge necessary?
Y/N nodded. She remembered all of Sherlock's cases. Mainly because he enjoyed telling her about them. She also enjoyed hearing about them. It was a perfect arrangement. "The guy with the black hair?" She'd asked the question but it didn't matter. She'd just said it as something to say.
"Yeah, him. I caught him today and he hit me." Sherlock had slipped his cobalt scarf from his neck and was now busying with his coat buttons. The material had crystal-clear droplets of moisture pebbled over the shoulders---from the rain---and harsh scrapes of murky globules staining the elbows---from where he'd accidentally ran them along the slick walls of an alleyway. Everything's always slick in April---showers and all that.
"Does it hurt?" Y/N asked, and she noted the slightest hint of a smile fluttering around Sherlock's biteable mouth, then a wince of pain causing it to retreat.
He liked her caring about him; not many people have ever done that. But caring meant worrying, and he didn't like the thought of worrying her. He didn't like the thought of lying, either. "Yes, a bit, if I move my face. I'll just use this side until it heals." He attempted a grin with one side of his mouth, wanting to make Y/N laugh and stop staring at him like that; like him being hurt somehow hurt her.
"Is that your blood?" She'd come closer now, not seeming to have even realised he'd say anything. Her eyes were fixed on the freckles of rusting scarlet dappled over the front of Sherlock's shirt.
He'd completely forgotten it was there. He'd planned to take his coat off in his room, change shirts, and discreetly wash the marked one without Y/N knowing. So much for that.
"No, that's not mine, don't worry," he assured, starting on his shoelaces. "I gave the guy a nose bleed. Not on purpose." He didn't want to describe their fight because that would paint mental images of him in danger in Y/N's mind. The last time he'd done that---drabbled excitedly on about how he'd narrowly avoided a light stabbing---Y/N had gone very pale.
Y/N's muscles relaxed in her clothes. "Okay, good. I mean, not good that you gave someone a nose bleed but good that it wasn't...you know." She hadn't trailed off, that was the intended end of her sentence. 'You know' is something she doesn't let herself contemplate. "I'll get you an ice pack."
"Thank you." Sherlock followed her to the kitchenette. His brain had been absently daydreaming of a snack all the way home. "I'm starving, I had to chase him for about half a mile."
Their fridge and freezer are one and the same; it's one of those ones with the smaller door at the bottom (the freezer part) and a larger door at the top (the fridge part). Y/N was digging around for an ice pack when the light was suddenly blocked by Sherlock above her, hunting for leftovers in the fridge.
"That's, how long? Five minutes of running? You poor thing," she teased, getting a good-natured glare falling from above. It landed on the top of her head.
Sherlock found half an uneaten cheese sandwich and piece of a cake, which made him happy. Well, the cake did. The sandwich was slightly hard. It would make a good brick, he'd contemplated, then started wondering if bread would be a good insulator while he leaned against the counter to consume his snacks. He was watching his flat mate's breath billow in front of her. She's still fudging about in the freezer.
It took Y/N a little while to find an ice pack, and even then it wasn't one of those ones designed for medical purposes. It was a transparent bag of blue goo that you freeze and then leave in a lunch box to keep things cool. It had fallen right to the bottom then been stuffed to the back of the second shelf, hidden by their collective stash of ice cream.
"We should really get a proper one of these," Y/N mused as she took Sherlock's arm and moved him to where she wanted him to be; in front of a chair and slightly illuminated by the kitchen light.
Sherlock let her, pliant and yielding. "I like this one. It feels nicer," he said, mainly to distract himself from what it felt like having Y/N nudge him about.
She released him when they were on the other side of the kitchen table and his wrist continued to tingle pleasantly where she'd held him. "Here, sit down, you're too tall."
That made him smile again, wince in pain again, and he sat, muttering as he did so:
"No, you're too small."
An age-old argument. One of their favourites.
Now that Sherlock was sitting, Y/N got close enough to hold the ice pack to the tender patch of grape-coloured skin. To do so, she'd nudged his knees apart, casually getting between his legs. He went beetroot coloured.
Y/N might have noticed but didn't say anything. What she did say is: "You're an idiot."
To which Sherlock couldn't help laughing, a rumbling chuckle from somewhere in his throat. He's staring up at her, but only casting glances at her eyes. Y/N thinks this is because mutual gaze spooks him (and it does) but that's not why. He's letting his vision meander over her nose, her lips, the shadows her hair makes across her forehead.
"And yet I solved a crime today," he amended her teasing observation, using one side of his face to smirk at her. Even if it didn't hurt to use the other side, he still wouldn't have. Smirking is most effective when done with only one end of your lips.
"And could have gotten a concussion."
"You worry too much."
"You don't worry enough."
Another age-old argument. Both of them fight their side with equal passion, but both are wrong. Sherlock worries all the time, he's just buried it under a thick pile of nonchalance. So thick, it seems that he's forgotten it's there himself. Y/N doesn't worry too much, she worries an adequate amount, given the situation. Some would say she should worry a little more. Like that time she'd assisted Sherlock with a case that involved a burning building, two chivs and a car chase. That should have worried her much more than it did. And, despite not showing it, it worried Sherlock a great deal. That had been Too Close. Too close to something happening to Y/N.
That is one of Sherlock's main worries, one of the largest in the group of them that sit, dormant, six feet under the soil of his mind. If Y/N came home with a beaten-up cheek he'd go ballistic, or have a panic attack, or maybe both, not necessarily in that order.
The only reason Y/N isn't smothering him like Hell right now is because she thinks it would probably annoy him. Thinks. He'd actually really enjoy it, but he won't admit that to himself let alone her.
The ice pack was, unsurprisingly, shockingly cold against Sherlock's face. It feels like your mouth does if you chew extra-minty gum then drink water. He'd made a hissing sound as Y/N gently, so gently, pressed it to his skin, a narrow rushing of air through his teeth and tongue. Y/N had grimaced apologetically and uttered 'sorry' several times as if she was opening his palm, pressing the words into the centre, and closing it up again, even though it wasn't even her fault. Little gifts of empathy.
"It's fine," Sherlock said back, realising with a sinking feeling that he'd left his cake on the other side of the room.
He'd expected Y/N to pass him the ice pack then continue with whatever she'd been doing. She didn't, though, much to Sherlock's delight. She cupped his chin with her other hand, curling one finger under it and using the gentle hold to tilt his head back and slightly to the side. She was inspecting him, removing the ice pack enough to assess the damage. The touch was tender; a stark contrast to the ways people normally treat him. It made Sherlock have to remind himself to breathe---not that that helped; Y/N smells nice, the scent sort of drowning him---but he didn't mind.
"It's not bleeding, which is good," Y/N observed distractedly. She could probably let him go now, but she's still supporting his skull, sort of stroking the side of Sherlock's face with the pad of her thumb.
Sherlock was finding it difficult to keep his eyes open.
"He didn't break the skin."
"I was lucky he wasn't left-handed; he had a ring on that one."
Y/N made a humming sound in her throat because the way she saw it there was nothing lucky about her best friend being punched in the face. Her eyes slid from running along the length of Sherlock's cheekbone to his bespattered shirt. The stains were beginning to go brown; the life trickling from the blood after so long separated from a body. "Do you want me to get you a new shirt?"
Sherlock wanted to say 'no, stay,' because her hands gently cradling his head was the kindest touch he'd received in quite some time. "Okay, thank you."
Y/N released his jawline slowly because he'd given some of the weight of his head into Y/N's care. She made sure the hand he'd lifted to take the ice pack was in place before letting that go too, the entire process of pulling away from him slow and gentle, like forcing the petals of a flower apart that isn't quite ready to bloom.
Sherlock remained where Y/N had put him, holding the bag of, well, it's mostly slush now, to his wounded cheek, and watched her leave the room. He wanted privacy while he removed his shirt, although he's not quite sure why; Y/N will still see his bare torso when she returns with a clean one.
He fiddled with the buttons of his blood-stained shirt with one hand and managed to shrug it off, leaving it on the table. He intends to wash it later---dunk it in some cold water---but the stains had dried long ago; another few minutes won't hurt.
He waited for Y/N to return. He expected her to be back by now, and was trying his best not to look shy about being half-naked. He hoped Y/N wouldn't judge him harshly for...well, for anything. For his pasty white skin the colour of tissue paper. For the fact that his muscles aren't utterly chiselled like those men on the covers of magazines. That, over Christmas, he'd gained the tiniest bit of softness in the centre of his stomach and it hasn't really gone away.
Despite lack of shredded-ness, Lestrade and John had pointed out how much healthier Sherlock looks now. Well, Lestrade had declared he 'Doesn't look like such a rake anymore' while giving him a hefty pat between his less-prominent shoulderblades, and John had said he 'Looks well taken care of'. Although slightly cryptic, their message was clear: Sherlock has evolved from skeletal to...average. Maybe a little better than average. He looks like someone that is, as John had put it: 'well taken care of'. Someone who gets enough exercise and enough sleep and enough everything else a person needs to function within usual parameters. Someone whose face regularly splits into a grin.
Sherlock knew people often get that way when they are in a relationship. He knew this because---since he'd shifted from lanky to lithe---several people at Scotland yeard had asked him if he was in one. He'd furrowed his brow at them, and shook his head, confused at first, but then after much time spent examining himself in the bathroom mirror, he sort of understood their assumption. He looked how John had looked when he'd moved out with his girlfriend. Well, a taller, more athletic version of him, but the same key elements were there:
The subtle curves of muscle and slight amounts of softness replacing hollows and knobbly bones.
The crinkles in the corners of his eyes from laughing and chatting through a smile.
The posture straightened with confidence, a self-assuredness that can only come from knowing that you're adored.
He'd smoothly transitioned from wrangly youth to a fully-grown, domestic man.
That's what happens when people enter a stable, beneficial, happy relationship. They get happy. Less tense. A little bit lazy. Comfortable, John defensively corrected when Sherlock made a fond little jab at his new physique all those months ago.
Now Sherlock's the one that seems to have 'settled down' and gotten 'comfortable', he realised bashfully as he let his spine sink into his chair a little more. He's not bashful just because he's a bit softer now than he used to be (both physically and mentally) but because the very fact that he'd gone through this change is pathetically ironic:
Yes, he's settled down, he knew that now. He's settled down with Y/N.
But they're not even dating.
By this time, several minutes had dripped by, the long-hand of the wall clock sliding over the first minute mark, then the second. The kitchen is cold, and Sherlock felt a shiver bristle down his spine, his exposed torso blossoming with goosebumps.
By the time three minutes had gone by, Sherlock called out---in a teasing tone---to the person he's settled down with but is not dating:
"Have you gotten lost?"
But he got no answer.