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And in front of him there sat the noteless side of the paper. Sherlock spun the pen between his fingers lazily. He reached for one of John’s notes, it was a little pitiful how many of them had floated right off the board. “Edit audio”, read this one. Or that was what was deciphered from it.

Words can be simple things once they are taken out of your pure thoughts. Simple, inaccurate, but actual.

The back of Sherlock’s pen grazed the linguistic constructions. Out of it came the softest rustle, yet it made him aware of having the capacity to hear, silence furled in on itself and reminded that it is night. It is quiet. However, you do exist. And that air of existence didn’t want to contain itself, it just kept reaching to feel.

Pen came to scrape paper. Well, no it didn’t. It came to add to it, perhaps complete it as it happened to have a purpose. The lapse shifted away and then, shoving thin strokes of sunshine through the window, it was morning.

Sherlock cleared a decent part of the table as John entered the kitchen.

“Good morning, Sherlock, up all night, were you?” He asked. “I certainly heard something at 3 am.”

“Good morning. Not all. And I don’t think that noise was my doing.” Sherlock turned over and folded the paper, and put the pen beside it.

“What’s that?” John sat down opposite Sherlock with a bowl of cereal.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. A few notes.”

***

The writing was carved into the paper and over it spilled splotches. Ink dripped, slipping into the next words, pulling over the previous ones. The shine of the sun ran dry through the paper, pointing to its roughness, how it took in all the weight of feeling.

“It didn't end up meaning anything though, but, God, it was Huge. Again, it doesn't really matter that much, seeing as, well, it got set on fire but… mate, what are you writing?” Watson's voice emerged from behind Sherlock, upon the sofa.

Sherlock lifted his gaze. Past Watson, in the corner of the living room stretched thin silver, it glittered in the light of the falling sun. Odd indeed. Perhaps a trick of the dust and light in the mess of the room. Hadn’t had a brush up in a decent while.

“Research stuff or what?” John slipped closer to him, hovering behind; Sherlock swiftly pulled the paper away. He brought the pen to his ear defenders, a slight click as he hit against them.

“No, rather unserious compared to that. Just some particular… emotion notation, I’d say.”

Watson backed up. “Oh, yeah. Cool, good. People usually save the introspective stuff for when they're alone though.” He coughed, expecting attention to what he’d been saying previously.

“If I decide to be introspective about my experiences when alone, I often find it ends in a puzzling detachment of myself. Besides, it isn't that complicated.”

Was it not? He put the paper back in place, but the words had got smudged beyond their shapes. Sherlock crossed a good bit of it out. It wouldn’t be too wise to attribute such value to his emotion, other things were pulling at his string of focus, much more potentially life threatening.

“Well, neat anyways I suppose. I’ve tried holding a few diaries, never really worked out,” John spoke and Sherlock dared to glance at him. Then to gaze. Then start to feel a sense of uncertainty wrap around himself. “Ah.”

There really was a spider web in the room. A bug tangled up in the dim-lit corner. A shadow crept over it.

Sherlock pulled on his ear defenders and escaped to the pen, twisting around with his fingers, swooping words onto the page to just get it bloody over with. It's what comes with joy – the fear of losing it. The ache of hurting it. It's irrationally sensible, writing it down is making it make sense and it matters but then it is priority to forget and discard it because, no, your emotions will play no such part when it comes to the safety of everything, everyone around–

Watson sat next to him, watching him write and… it popped. Liquid poured out the pen, sticking to Sherlock's hand before he dropped it onto the sheet. It oozed. Few sentences on the top of the page remained unscathed. And that little amount of words below, cut through between ink, read simply.

John sat away. “Oh, whoops. Seems like ‘emotion notation’ won’t be going too well.”

“It certainly won’t be.” Sherlock took hold of the paper, moving to the kitchen.

“I love you. You” and one ink split, “love” and yet another ink thread, “me.”

Too blunt. Blue slid off and into the water after a good scrub.

“You mustn't suffer because of it,” it cut off, the rest of the pathetic sentence was drowned out. Sherlock tore it. This was utterly useless in the end. Soft light slipped away bit by bit, giving way to shadow, to this late evening.

“Bad luck, isn’t that?” Watson said, as Sherlock allowed himself to pass back into the living room.

“Maybe not, I feel like the paper was distracting me anyway.”

“Assumed so, don’t think you were even listening to my impressive story.” He spoke while lifting in his hand another pen, from the floor, judging by the shoved mess.

Sherlock reached for the pen, whisking it away from Watson’s hand. Hm. “Right. I’ll be resigning to my room now.”

“Ah. Will you come back out anytime soon?”

“I suppose not.”

“Welp, I wish you… for you to go to sleep at a reasonable time. Good night, Sherlock.”

“Good night, John.”