Hi steph! This one was just a drabble so in a way this is complete..đ
I suppose this is the last one, unless I find more on my old hard-drive. Hope you enjoy this one too!
Also, I didn't know whether I wanted this to be in modern day or Victorian so it might be a little messy. You tell me, what it feels like to you
They had met at Cambridge.
In those days, Sherlock had been an islandâa sharp, jagged piece of land that local shipping lanes deliberately avoided. He was the freak who could tell a lecturer where heâd spent his weekend based on the chalk dust on his cuffs, the boy who didn't speak unless it was to humiliate a peer or correct a professor. He wore his isolation like armor, convinced that the human heart was a chemical defect found on the losing side of an equation.
John Watson had been the sun around which the universityâs elite rotated. He was a creature of effortless privilege and devastating charm, possessed of a sharp, classical beautyâblonde hair that fell perfectly over a high forehead, stormy blue eyes that seemed to hold a permanent, secret amusement. Where Sherlock was all sharp angles and sudden, erratic movements, John moved with the fluid, dangerous grace of a panther in a tailored suit.
He was always surrounded. In the courtyard of Trinity College, in the smoky corners of local pubs, in the grand library hallsâthere was always a flock. Students, professors, women, men; they clung to his words as if he were handing out currency.
Sherlock had spent three months observing him. He told himself it was an ethnological study. A data-gathering exercise on the mechanics of unearned popularity. He would sit three tables away in the dining hall, a book open but his eyes fixed on the way Johnâs fingers wrapped around a cold glass of water, the specific pitch of his laugh, the way he would lean in close to someone, creating an instant, intoxicating illusion of intimacy.
"Itâs just a socio-biological anomaly," Sherlock had written in his journal during his second term. "The subject possesses a high degree of facial symmetry and a voice frequency that triggers dopamine release in inferior minds. My accelerated pulse when he enters a room is merely a physiological response to an overcrowded environment."
It was a lie, of course. The first real lie Sherlock Holmes had ever told himself. His heart didn't beat faster because the room was crowded; it beat faster because John Watson had a habit of looking directly through the crowd, past the sycophants and the admirers, straight into the dark corner where Sherlock sat, and smile.
The first time John spoke to him had been in the dead of winter, beneath the stone arches of the cloisters. Sherlock had been retreating from a disastrous chemistry lab, his hands stained with silver nitrate, his mind furious with the slowness of his lab partner.
John had stepped out from the shadows, entirely alone for once. He hadn't used the loud, performative tone he used with his circle. He had spoken softly, his voice low that seemed to vibrate directly against Sherlockâs spine.
"Youâve been watching me for eighty-four days, Holmes," John had said, leaning against the cold stone wall, his light eyes glittering in the twilight. "If you want to know what I taste like, you only have to ask. You don't need to keep taking notes."
Sherlock had frozen, every synapse in his brain firing at once, a catastrophic system failure. He had tried to formulate a scathing retort, a brilliant deduction that would tear the popular boyâs ego to shreds. But John had simply stepped closer, close enough that Sherlock could smell the winter air and expensive clove tobacco on his wool coat.
John hadn't humiliated him. He hadn't called out to his friends to laugh at the strange, pale boy from Christâs College. He had reached out, his gloved fingers gently brushing a stray lock of dark hair from Sherlockâs forehead, his thumb lingering against the skin of Sherlock's temple just long enough to feel the frantic, terrified thudding of his pulse.
"Don't look so frightened," John had murmured, a devastatingly beautiful smile touching his lips. "Your secret is entirely safe with me."
(what is this 3rd or 4th one that i have sent you, I have lost count. It feels so great to have atleast some part of my work out there, and know that someone might be reading it and enjoying it. If I ever complete these you'll be the first to know! promise <33)
ASDLFJA:SDLFJ PEACOCK NONNY!!!! I adore all of these fics that you keep sending us, and you have a small following of people who are happy that even if you never publish these, you still continue to share them with us, even if it prompts someone else to write more <3
This is really Lovely, Peacock, and I really DO hope you one day find your mojo to write again. Thank you so much for sharing!!
OH, and yes, this is I think the third one? Here's the entire saga:
Excerpt From a Story of Mine
-- Rosie Story Inspired by the above one
Johnâs Toenail Clippers Ficlet (May 2026)
