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Sherlock descends into deep thinking -- or, as others see it, a trance -- when he plays his violin. Nothing particularly recognizable comes out of his prized stradivarius, yet he tinkers with tunes and toys with melodies he may have half heard during his latest cases. He invents arpeggios. He abuses scales. He climbs through the notes on squealing catgut trying to snag at the ether of thoughts, and some would say he sacrifices song for that endeavour. The tempo will change suddenly, the midst of his frenzied climaxes stopping. Stuttering. Staggering.
Listeners hate him.
Sherlock, were he to care, would not be surprised.
The act represent life. It represents violence. Vendetta. Is peaceful and beautiful until it is not. Powerful and humbling until silence says more.
Nobody understands.
Sherlock plays on.
In the past, it would drive his former flatmates mad. It is the only way to get Mycroft twitching, which is a victory Sherlock will repeat as often as possible. And today, while he has only a minor investigation that will probably solve itself in a day or two, Sherlock guides his bow up and down with jerking wrists to see if he can count on Watson to be just as disturbed as the music.
John Watson is not like other people, though. He is unlike any roommate Sherlock has had before.
For starters, John Watson is not alive. He thinks. He exists. He moves and responds and replies. But John lacks a heartbeat as much as he does a memory of his past. The former makes the other an ideal candidate for a partner and a flatmate. No need to fear death from a criminal’s weapon or Sherlock accidentally/on purpose poisoning him. The doctor is available to stay up long hours and never complains of cramped conditions from prolonged surveillance.
Yet the other can hear. There’s no telling how the discordant harmonies may provoke the doctor. It’s rare for the detective to care, though try as he might, he can’t seem to keep himself from becoming attached to this particular client and case.
Sherlock is proud of how easily he can read a person’s history. He can only partially read John, reaching into his mannerisms and routines to cobble the start of a profile. It all gets lost, though, when Sherlock tugs. Like a fragment of paper drifting under a wet surface, the moment Sherlock grasps a fact he trusts, the entire image unravels. Fragile pieces dissolve and muddy the pond. There is to Watson an assertive, dominant personality dedicated to doing what needs to be done. And paired to that is a man content to follow and pledge life and limb and loyalty to a superior. In some aspects John is fearless. In others, he becomes frozen with indecision. John is honest, until he doesn’t know he is lying. He hopes for Sherlock’s favour, until the moment when he pulls the detective from his focus to force feed him, immune to threats and tantrums. Unimpressed, until he is impressed. He is so easy to impress.
The only conclusion to draw from that is that John possesses a void that requires filling. A void unlike any other addiction or dearth that Sherlock has seen in the vacant stares of his fellow humans. John is a riddle and Sherlock agrees that his death to blame. It makes the most sense, a hypothesis fueled all the more as all documents pertaining to the doctor have been purged. All witnesses have gone missing. Even John himself seems reluctant to find the catalyst, perhaps drawn to Sherlock simply to placate that indescribable hole and using his lost memory as an excuse to stay.
Not that John needs an excuse, though Sherlock will admit that the case is what first drew him in. Selfish, selfish Sherlock, who would not have known what a wonder Watson is had he not been thirsty for distraction.
He muses, making music while he moves from one theory to another. The possibilities create ripples. One would have as much luck asking moving water to hold still, the thoughts here, there, everywhere, spreading and expanding and widening in scope. Deceptively, they hint that the answers are not so deep, the bottom obscured so one may never know if they will step in and find no purchase for fathoms and fathoms, or if diving enthusiastically in will lead to a neck connecting to shallow, sharp rocks.
These kinds of puzzles are the detective’s favourite to tread in. Frustrating and freeing. His song is as choppy as waves. If John is a picture in the water, Sherlock is Narcissus, gazing at the pool in hopes of seeing something he can take away with him. This is not about beauty and conceit. This is, for once, not about Sherlock. The detective’s reflection and his own past relationships obscure the image beneath. Unlike his metaphor, it is safe to play Narcissus here. He will not waste away. He can’t with John watching out for him.
“Did you bring opium inside?”
John, faithful to a fault.
“It helps me think,” Sherlock says, over the screech of his continuing, seemingly endless solo.
“There are dens for that,” mutters Watson, stooping to move the opium lamp from the chair he has adopted. He stops when his fingers touch the lamp’s brass side. “I…”
“Problem?”
Watson flounders, before scooping the tool up. “You didn’t even use it.”
“Didn’t get that far,” hums Sherlock. “That just seemed the place to put it. It can rest until needed.”
John watches the detective as he paces, the bow still weaving. The song is now one of implied conflict, a battle hymn that might fit an opportunity to challenge Holmes on his methods. Or, perhaps the doctor is wondering if Sherlock meant that he, too, should rest until needed. Sherlock couldn’t rightly admit at what he had meant. His intention in speaking had been to loose ideas. They will float about until a pattern forms. He changes key, a little regretful about the first bit of wrongness that follows. He plays flat, mimicking his audience’s flat look. Then swings to sharps for himself, his mind snagging on a thread now that he wants to follow.
Sharps and flats are the same. They occupy different homes on the scale. They possess different names, but they are identical sounds. John bothered by the opium here, but not by Sherlock’s patronage in the back alley houses. The other both bold and broken by an implication Sherlock had not meant to make.
“That just seemed the place to put it.”
“What?” sighs the doctor, dropping into his seat. The lamp in his lap.
“That just seemed…” Sherlock repeats, his volume lost to the violin. He gazes about, the mantle available. His pile of newsprints had been utilized as a table for dinner the night before. There are many places he could have let his lamp lie. People are creatures of habit and while Sherlock understands that reasons exist beneath each, he does get caught himself in acting out parts before he knows the urges behind them.
“Tell me Watson,” Sherlock tries anew. “What are your thoughts on the narcotic? No, wait, don’t answer. Let me extrapolate.”
Sherlock turns away, the strings straining. He feels close to a snap, if not from the vibrating violin than from an encroaching revelation. He is missing a piece. He is missing something in his piece.
After patiently waiting for perhaps two or three minutes, dear John interrupts Sherlock’s search with a, “Well?”
“Well…well...” where one makes wishes. Tosses down their coin into the dark to disturb the water. Pays their toll to ferry across the turbulent tides when they die.
Sherlock had just about died. Many times over, but he is thinking of one time specifically.
Their second case together.
The fountain, with the shine of bright copper being tossed to the frothing waters. The pool that couldn’t be placid, glittering in the sun with the few coins not snatched by beggars when it was safe to be seen creeping through the park. A man as desperate as those poor souls. That man had attempted to shoot the detective before his arrest, and John had stepped in front of the bullet. The whole engagement had been a very useful demonstration of his capabilities as a corpse. Sherlock had only been concerned for a moment, learning that John only felt inconvenienced by needing to pluck the projectile from his chest. That chore was not so dire to demand they rush their crossing through a park on the way home. A park with a fountain -- fast moving water. Shallow stone. The doctor had stopped there to assist a child with a bloody knee, Watson more concerned with alleviating a nanny’s presumption of his complexion and shot-up breast pocket, than he had been before the confrontation with the gunman. John had not once doubted that Sherlock would solve the case.
“You hummed something then,” identifies Sherlock. He strives very hard to stay on topic, the memory months back and untouched before now. The answer has nothing to do with deducing the doctor’s stance on opium, but when a path is suggested in these sessions of his, Sherlock will trust himself. “You wrapped the boy’s leg up with gauze you had carried in case I needed it. And you hummed something to put everyone at ease.”
“I haven’t a clue of what you’re going on --”
The music changes. A wrong note. A right one compensating. The frenetic composition melting wholly into something softer. A cradle song of sorts, the bow drops down to be caught by Sherlock’s hooked pinky so he may pluck the parts. Pizzicato. Each plink a puncture into the silence and each putting him in the presence of what he seeks.
Not a flash of insight from his own conclusive powers, but a reaction from the good doctor. John is staring at Sherlock with tears on his face. The lamp is clutched as one might a child.
Sherlock stops.
He could continue. He could grind out a refrain again and again with the persistence of a music box. Wind up Watson until Sherlock is satisfied. Those tears -- the product of a dead man -- could be the waters that run between truth and the comfortably dry lie. There are no reflections in a drought.
No one to gaze back were Sherlock alone.
But Sherlock has stopped.
“Do you remember?”
“I...I don’t know. I’m not sure why I’m...I...I haven’t any thoughts on opium. I mean, I know what it is. Obviously. I can tell you the help and the harm it causes and...not in the house, please. Just...don’t bring it into our flat.”
“Understood,” promises Sherlock. John has mistakenly answered a previous inquiry. Or, perhaps he has said enough for all problems. “Shall I play further?”
John Watson turns away. His eyes trail to the bookshelf, as they often do. “What you were playing before the...play the nonsense songs. For now. Perhaps...perhaps the lullaby later?”
“I’ll hold you to that,” ensures the detective, gracious enough to commit further experimentation for when both are prepared. That doesn’t mean he will ignore the flinch Watson unknowingly gives at the mention of holds.
Opium. Music. Restraints? Things to look into. And if John is not ready to assist, Sherlock could piece enough of a picture together to attempt a bluff on his brother. If Mycroft doesn’t know Watson’s situation, he’s the closest to the available evidence and Mycroft may fold if he thinks Sherlock knows.
For now, though, Sherlock plays nothing particularly recognizable on his prized stradivarius. He tinkers with tunes and toys with melodies not half heard during his latest cases. He invents arpeggios. He abuses scales. He climbs through the notes on squealing catgut, sacrificing song for invention. The tempo will change suddenly, the midst of his frenzied climaxes stopping. Stuttering. Staggering.
The act represent life. It represents violence. Vendetta. Is peaceful and beautiful until it is not. Powerful and humbling until silence says more.
Nobody understands.
No.
Nobody understood, until now.
Sherlock plays on.