Y/N had entered Sherlock's bedroom casually, and gravitated straight to the chunky old wardrobe in the corner of the room.
Sherlock's room is simple and practical, with a few personal treasures dotted here and there, but, ultimately, nothing Y/N hadn't already seen before. She's been here many times, for various reasons---usually to wake her flatmate up for breakfast or because he'd forgotten he'd made an appointment with a client. She also strays into his space when she's just plain bored; seeking him out just as something to do.
Basically; Sherlock's bedroom is well-charted territory. He'd let her explore to her hearts content a while ago, and doesn't mind her popping by (so long as she knocks first). So Y/N was working on autopilot, mainly, as she unhooked a hanger from the wardrobe and turned around to head back to the kitchen. But then something caught her eye, something she hadn't seen before.
A white triangle was poking out from under Sherlock's bed.
Y/N stepped closer and found the triangle to be some sort of paper. It's thick, more like card than paper, and textured, the colour not quite pure, more like the off-white of your teeth.
It's sketching paper, Y/N realised upon further inspection. Curious, and checking that the door frame was empty of all Sherlocks, she set the clean shirt on the bed and knelt down by the piece of card.
Giving it a gentle pull, she found---as suspected---it to be just part of a much larger piece of sketching paper. And on it was...
Her.
Well, a romanticised, beautified version of her.
The card was A3, the picture of Y/N blown up so that her head and shoulders filled it. She was smiling but looking down. She didn't look like she was posing for the photograph, it was almost as though she's been caught unawares; laughing at something on her phone or in a book she's reading out of shot.
Why is it in black and white?
Then Y/N caught on. It's not a photo. It's a drawing.
She nearly dropped it the few centimetres she'd lifted it from the floor, but managed to hold onto it; curiosity tightening her grip. She couldn't let it go. It was too...
beautiful.
Breathtaking.
Literally breathtaking: she can't breathe, and remembered, suddenly, that that's something she should be doing. She let the air she'd been holding in slide from her lips in a trembling breath. They're parted in wonder, or awe, or fear, she didn't know what it was but it was making her stomach flop around her abdomen like a fish out of water.
There's another sheet under this one, and she tugs it all the way out from under the bed. Another comes with it, caught between it and another sheet, she's sliding piece of paper after piece of paper from the bed like it's a giant, silent printer, the only sound being her own too-quick breaths.
...
Concerned, now, and cold, Sherlock stood from his chair and wandered to his bedroom. Had Y/N passed out, somehow? Had she gotten distracted by a photo on the dresser she hadn't noticed before? He hoped it wasn't that one of him (seven) and Mycroft (fourteen) in their school uniforms. It was taken in summer and featured a pair of rather embarrassing shorts, and a goofy grin (well, on Sherlock's part; Mycroft's mouth was a perfect example of a line).
What's taking Y/N so long to walk five meters down the hall, select a shirt, and return so that he could cover his chilly shoulders?
As Sherlock approached the open door, he could see the top of Y/N's head; it appeared to be bowed to the carpet.
Yes, she's crouching on the ground by his bed, staring down at something on the floor. Puzzled, he stepped closer, then halted when he was level with the door jamb.
The blood dried inside of him, crumbled, and he nearly fell to pieces where he stood.
Y/N had seen him approach and dragged her gaze from the masses of drawings before her. She met Sherlock's eyes. They were wide like those of a man staring down the barrel of a gun.
He'd stopped breathing.
"...These are me."
Sherlock had to swallow several times before that lump in his throat would go down enough to let him speak, and, even when he did, it was in a tone small and shaky. "You weren't supposed to know about them."
But that just made him sound shadier, he realised, more like the creep that he is. He's squeezing one hand into a fist; a subconscious gesture, the hard ridges of his nails biting into the delicate skin of his palm. He squeezes harder and it smarts, a sharp little scream of nerve cells. He feels he deserves it.
Y/N ducked her head again to leaf through a few of the pictures. They're spread around her---'A Beautiful Mind' style, as if they're newspaper trimmings she was sifting for codes.
There are loads of them. Hundreds, maybe. They're not all on A3 card, some are on A4, A5, normal printer-paper, on napkins, little torn snippets of paper, sketched onto the backs of receipts, train ticket stubs---
Sherlock had drawn them, Y/N had pieced that much together now. He had to have done, no one else knows her this intimately; sees her laughing sleepily at the television late at night, clutching a hot drink in both hands at the end of a long day---
"They're me---" Y/N said again, moving some aside, flipping them over to find more on the back, her eyes, her mouth, her hand holding things---books, her phone, food---or resting atop other things---tabletops, the arm of a chair---her own legs neatly curled against her chest. "---But they don't look like me."
When Sherlock remained silent, she seemed to suddenly worry she'd insulted him.
"I don't mean it like that. I don't mean they're not good. They're good, they're...Jesus, Sherlock, they're really really good."
Sherlock remained motionless. He probably couldn't move if he tried. He's like a hare in the middle of the road as a car hurtles towards him with its headlights on full beam.
"I just mean...they're of me but they don't look like me. I don't look like that."
Sherlock knew he had to say something. He had to at least do something, run away, take in a breath, or just blink at the very least. "I drew what I saw," he managed tentatively, pushing the words from his chest.
He just stood there, gripping the door jamb with one hand as Y/N leafed through more of his drawings. They're all bare and vulnerable on the floor, bare and vulnerable like Sherlock is right now (and not just because he's still standing there without a shirt).
There's a long silence as Y/N picks up a napkin with a single line on it; the sweeping curve of her shoulder, leading up to the top of her head.
A full, detailed and shaded A3 sketch of her cooking something in a pan over the stove, her hip jutting out to lean against the counter.
An A5 page clearly torn from a notebook, caked in biro scribbles that somehow form to make a perfect rendition of her face, split open with a smile.
...
She'd remained in some kind of rivery for several minutes, now. That's several minutes---Sherlock contemplated with a knot in his stomach---that she hasn't attacked him. She could have done---he's right there, his tissue paper skin exposed and prickled from the cold. If she'd have attacked him, he would have let her. He wouldn't have dodged a hefty kick, or shielded his face from a flailing fist. He would have just stood there and accepted it.
But she doesn't seem like she's going to attack him. She doesn't even seem angry. Just confused. Puzzled, like she's confronted with a difficult math problem. If she was angry, Sherlock would know. He'd be able to tell because he'd sketched her face enough times to know what the tensing of each muscle means, the rising of her eyebrows or the pursing of her lips. And because he loves her.
Tentatively, he took a step into the room. A tiny one, not even lifting his socked feet from the floor. He just edged them slightly forwards, feeling the friction between each material, the coarse carpet dragging at the fibres.
When Y/N didn't react---just lifted a picture of her hand curled about a pencil---Sherlock deemed it safe and took another step closer to the bed. Y/N had left his clean shirt there, spread over the duvet, discarded and forgotten. He reached out a hand and snatched it up, slipping his arms quickly into its silky embrace. He didn't bother to do up the buttons, just tugged it firmly around himself like a cloak, as if he hoped he'd turn invisible if he wrapped it tightly enough.
Y/N still hasn't moved or even registered his presence. She let him pass by her quietly as though he really had turned transparent, let him come around to stand by her side. He crouched down when she didn't flinch at his proximity, hesitantly folding one leg neatly over the other. He knows he has to explain himself and he'd rather do it honestly, face to face. Not by the door, not looking as though he hopes to run for the hills; even if that is what he really wants to do, more than anything.
Well, not more than anything. There are several things he'd like to do more than that, but knew he could not. Especially not now. Not after this.
He's unusually small, cross-legged on the ground. Like a child who knew they'd done something wrong.
Y/N's eyes are now sliding along the curves of that first image; the head-and-shoulders sketch spread over an A3 rectangle of card. The one she'd thought was a photograph.
After some time, she muttered quietly: "I can't get over how beautiful they are."
Sherlock licked his lips. His mouth is arid but his hands are clammy and he wipes them on the fabric of his trousers. One of his palms is red with four painful little lines pressed into one of the creases. Meekly: "Are you angry?"
Y/N looked at him, met his eyes for the first time in a while. Her eyebrows have risen an inch up her forehead. "Angry? Why would I be angry?" She gestures at the ring of paper spread about them, almost encapsulating them both in a little ring of carpet. "These are..."
Her sentence trails off and Sherlock says nothing. Y/N noticed a piece of paper she hadn't seen before and tugged it free from the pile. It's a letter from the bank, Sherlock's monthly statement, the familiar blue Barclay's logo printed proudly at the top. A gash of graphite is showing through the blocky paragraphs and Y/N turns it over. On the back is---predictably---a drawing of her, but in this one, she isn't wearing clothes. Or if she is it's a shoulderless dress or maybe a tank top. The drawing pitters out just after her bare collarbones.
There's a harsh line straight through the middle.
"You crossed this one out," Y/N said, still holding it. In the picture, she's smiling straight at the viewer, as if into the friendly eyes of a loved one. She looks very beautiful.
Sherlock is red, and is glad she isn't looking at him. The red goes right from his cheeks down his neck and pools about his chest. He still hasn't done up his shirt buttons. Maybe he's forgotten; there are more pressing things at hand, like his collapsing relationship, the world as he knew it tumbling in planks around him.
When he spoke, he had the nervous air of a man about to pop his head in a tiger's mouth for a bet. " I...it was supposed to be a...you know...a nude. But I stopped. I know these drawings are like something a serial killer would do, I'm not that crazy, I do know roughly where to draw the line."
"You shouldn't have," Y/N said. "Drawn the line, I mean. The real line, this one, through the picture." She traced the pad of her finger down it tenderly, as though it's a scar on her lover. "It looks like it was going to be really good."
Sherlock didn't know what to say to that. He swallowed. He'd done a lot of that in the past ten minutes which surprised him because his mouth seemed to have stopped producing saliva. "It's pencil. I can erase it if you want."
Embarrassment, or shame, or something else similar finally spurred him into motion and he started collecting them up, heaping the pictures into his arms. "You should---now that you know about these---you should probably keep them." Some were spilling free, fluttering back to the floor to lay exposed before their eyes. It was like a metaphor, in a way:
The pictures and Sherlock's secret can no longer be contained.
"It would be weird for you, knowing that I have them." He pushed them to Y/N's arms and she blinked at him.
"I can keep them?"
"Yes." There's a friction to his voice, grave and defeated like a wet stone being dragged across a large rock. "I'd completely understand if you threw them away---"
But Y/N clutched them defensively to her chest. "No, I'm keeping them."
This makes Sherlock's brow pull together like a stitch tugging at two pieces of material, but Y/N is too busy to notice. She'd placed the stack of various papers, cards and---in a few cases---tissue paper onto her lap and is now gently teasing them into an orderly pile, lining up the edges and angling the corners so they all pointed squarely in four directions.
When she was satisfied, she put them aside, setting them softly onto the floor by her left ankle and turned her attention back to Sherlock. It bore into him like a microscope; he felt magnified, scrutinize; as if he was being examined.
"Can I ask you a question?" Y/N asked, which, in itself, is technically already a question.
Sherlock would usually have pointed this out, playfully try to wind her up a little bit, but he didn't this time. It saddened him to realise he'll probably never be able to again. Y/N may not seem to mind the drawings but surely their relationship will never be the same again. He nodded. "Anything."
"Tell me...Why?"
Tipping his head to the side. "Why what?"
Y/N motioned at the pile of drawings, the stack thick and uneven and pale; like a shoddy building days away from being knocked down to make way for a car park.
Well, that's how Sherlock saw it.
"Why did you do this? Why are they all me? I mean, there's loads of them, they must have taken hours, months---"
"I like drawing," Sherlock cut her off, not wanting to hear anymore. He doesn't want to hear her spell out his secret, perverted hobby in detail; it made him feel like he might be sick. Even the few words she had already said were too much. He wanted to forget them so buried them under more words: "You're a good person to draw because I live with you so I know you well enough to draw you from memory. Mostly."
Y/N is looking at him expectantly. She knows there's more. He just needs to find the courage to give it to her, to feed her that last little sentence and hope she doesn't spit it out.
"....And you're pretty."