Kleptomaniac (A Johnlock Fanfiction) [2015 Wattys Award Winner]

Chapter Five

Sherlock shouldn't have done this. He really, really shouldn't have. John's going to bring police, and then their... relationship, the only companion he's had since his brother... it'd be over. Like that. Just because of a note. A note, written at midnight, written in the dark, influenced by the cold outside and the warm inside and two drops of water on a man's lip. Why would he do this?

Sherlock is hesitantly searching through the park, almost frightened by thoughts of a face to face with John Watson, but, you know, it's all rather trivial anyway. So what if John sees him for the first time? It's not as if it would matter.

What Sherlock hadn't thought about is his end, though. When he sees John. He wasn't expecting to freeze in his shoes, he wasn't expecting for his jaw to lock. He wasn't expecting what happens to him.

A smile, a wave, a voice heard in the midst of tens of thousands of others, with children rolling in snowbanks and mothers guarding their broken down hearts. That's what Sherlock hears in this park, and he sees the geese and the snow and the shade of the trees around the frozen-over pond so clearly, his eyes wide and his lips open to breathe in the chilly air. Sherlock was expecting a conversation, short, careful.

Sherlock was expecting John to say hello angrily, and maybe push the days' events out of his mind. He was expecting himself to not be so struck, to not be quite so interested in his rugged soldier face, painted dark with heavy knowledge.

But when Sherlock hears that voice...

It tears through him.