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

Chapter Thirteen

His bed seems colder than before.

There's a stain, a silhouette where Sherlock's body had lain, and John finds it being so empty. It's a conundrum he can't fit his mind around, a medical anomaly that he doesn't dare confront with his tiny, normal human brain. How can a bed feel emptier than before? How can the bed sheets feel so flimsy, feel so worthless?

John wants to rip up all the paper in the house, if it stops him from calling that number just to hear that beautiful fucking voice. It's a melody. It's a song. It's every record in his dad's house played at top volume; a voice that makes him want to dance and cry and laugh and love. He can't process it. It's too beautiful, and too lonesome, and John wants to hold it to his chest and breathe it in.

Why does he always come back?

***

He purchases a flower in the morning. It's pink, and rosy, and he doesn't know why he got it in the first place - but then he buys another. And another. And then he asks for a bouquet, and then two, and he hides it behind his back so when the time comes, no one but John will see.

***

The note is short, and it makes John smile.

I miss you.

- SH

But when he opens the door to call out his name, nothing is there except for a delicate rose.

John picks it up between two of his fingers, and when he holds it to his chest, thorns catch on his clothing. He doesn't care.

***

He wants Sherlock to appear in the middle of the night, every day, for forever. He wants him in the bed, to take up the empty, cold space; he wants his lips pressed to John's neck, the shell of his ear to caress soft skin and even softer breaths. Whatever lusting he had is now gone, replaced with this ravenous, filthy need. John needs so much of Sherlock, but he can only take what his mind allows.

He wants the curl of his lip and the drawl of his letters and the touch of his skin and his hair and his eyes and he's just so beautiful.

How does John even manage?

***

The knock is completely unwarranted. It comes in the middle of the night, when John is just about to pop open a beer and sink shamelessly into bed, then watch TV, then fall asleep drunk and lonely, and hope that he doesn't have nightmares that cling to him endlessly. He lets out a soft, sighing huff, and then sways his way up from the leather, eroding couch to receive the knocks. "Coming," he mumbles hoarsely.

He opens the door.

He sighs.

He adjusts.

Sherlock stands in front of him, a dumb grin plastered sillily across his cheeks. One hand is behind his back, and the one that isn't is displaying a folded up note which Sherlock promptly shoves into John's chest. There's a coy smile in his eyes, a shy blush spreading softly across porcelain cheeks. John looks down at the note, and then a sheltered grin appears as he looks back up at Sherlock.

"What does it say," John murmurs.

"Read it." Sherlock gestures to the note, and John opens it, bracing himself from the inevitable gust of words.

Dear John,

This is the cliché of all clichés, and usually I'd try harder to inspire originality and whatnot - but I simply cannot think of any other way to say this.