Long Fingers, Short Nails
For @a-shrunken-farewell - a Sherlock Secret Santa gift from one lesbian to (possibly?) another - a Femlock ficlet inspired by this post:
John was fascinated by Sherlock’s hands. Who wouldn’t be? Those long, elegant fingers. Those perfectly manicured nails. Those perfectly manicured, very short nails.
Did Sherlock keep them short for the sake of her violin? Or was there another reason? Another, more interesting reason?
John told herself not to obsess. Plenty of women had short nails. John kept her own nails short, for ease of scrubbing at the clinic, and to reduce the possibility of accidentally scratching a patient. Short nails didn’t have to mean anything.
But what if they did mean something? What if they meant, well, that Sherlock also didn’t want to accidentally scratch anyone. In what context would Sherlock be concerned about that possibility?
John knew exactly what context she hoped Sherlock might have in mind. It was a context John herself had certainly had in mind from the moment she moved in to 221B. A context she had resolutely told herself not to think about, ever since Sherlock told her she was married to her work. A context she couldn’t stop thinking about.
Especially when, as now, Sherlock was playing her violin. John stared, and stared, and stared — mesmerized by those long, long fingers, with their short, short nails. Did Sherlock keep her fingernails short because she was a violinist, or a lesbian, or both?
With a final flourish, Sherlock laid her violin and bow aside. She gazed back at John.
“You have a question,” she said, in that maddening way she had of reading John’s mind.
Thanks, @sherlocksecretsanta, for organizing this gift exchange.
Long Fingers, Short Nails is also on AO3 as one of my 221B Ficlets.