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Sherlock had always been interested in the arts. Violin was always an escape for him. When his brother got too overbearing and his parents berated him, when his peers got overly opinionated and when he put too much pressure on himself, he always had his music. Ballet and acting were things he picked up from watching. There was an old playhouse near their first rickety house and in his preteen years he would sneak in by disguise and hide in the high-top balconies. The ballerinas had so much perfection and looked beautiful with their graceful movements. They danced like flowers in the wind and he found himself following along. Shakespearean works were the most interesting he found, though a few others could be captivating as well. Even from rafters he paid close attention to the facial expressions and seemingly trivial additions to the performance. After pirate, actor seemed like an enchanting profession. Of course Mycroft scoffed at either idea but it still reeled a young Sherlock in. Painting and drawing were later additions to his artistic arsenal. During university he would sit in the old trees when he was supposed to be studying. He didn’t need to study though, he memorized the work anyway, so he began sketching. Violin was considered distracting and other students would tease the young man for doing ballet, so Victor, a friend...close friend… introduced him to another aspect of art. He could very well draw just about anything, though he seemed to sketch Victor the most. This aspect of art too detailed and showed their importance, he found it captivating and personal in that way. Eventually Victor bought him paints and he dabbled in such as well. One thing that was the same in all variations of art was that they were ways to show emotion - powerful ways to show emotion. That's what he liked most, when he was unsure of what he was feeling, art would show him.
But life went on and art got away from him. When he got into drugs he found a new escape. This one had an edge of danger which made it more appealing. Mycroft tried oh-so hard to keep him aligned but one could only do so much. Then Mycroft introduced Sherlock to Greg. Greg gave Sherlock cases and tried to keep him away from ‘the recreational side of things’ as well. Cases helped, they kept his mind at bay but he still found his addiction to control him.
It was then Molly who convinced him to look into the arts again. She asked him what he did for hobbies one time, trying to make small talk, and he said he didn’t have any. Upon her tedious list of suggestions was learning an instrument. Me stared at the letters on the page for a moment, reminiscing of the nights his older brother would stay up with him as he learned his way with a Stradivarius. That night he asked Mycroft for a favor, he got him a violin, the same one from all those years ago. He stayed up late into the morning playing old pieces. He couldn’t seem to find his art though, he couldn’t compose himself.
So for years that's what he did. Solved cases on behalf of the idiots of Scotland Yard, on bad days try not to overdose, and on good days, play the violin.
When he met John, however, everything seemed to have a purpose. He found himself trying. When he could, he stayed away from the drugs. When he could, he was mindful of John. Something was attractive about his new flatmate. He felt drawn like a moth to the flame, yet he didn’t really know how he felt.
John seemed to like the music with Sherlock played at ungodly hours of the morning. Not long after their run in with Moriarty at the pool, Sherlock had an idea. He shut his eyes and focused on that night. His gun aimed to the vest, both men prepared to die. He thought of the look of John’s face. Bravery and fear. A soldier. Sherlock began to play, he didn’t know what he was playing, his mind didn’t catalog it. He just played. The next morning as John sipped his tea, gaze cast to the paper in front of him, he asked about the music.
“It was beautiful.”
“What?”
“Your playing. I mean it’s always brilliant, but last night it was… I don’t know… more emotional?”
“Thank...you?”
So Sherlock did that more often. He set aside the old works and bought new music sheets. He would compose from memories of John, John and cases, John and work, John and home. He chose not to question why it was always about John. The small addition to his life had become such a vital component of it.
Then Sherlock had to die. When he stood on the roof and spoke into his mobile he rethought everything. John wasn’t the flame, he was the moth. Sherlock was the pain, John had to suffer. He’d always hated goodbyes and this was one he wished didn’t have to be. Then he laid on the concrete and listened to his flatmate - no - friend’s, world shatter.
That night was the last he played the Stradivarius for a while. Mycroft gave him a discrete living space for the night. It wasn’t the right violin, it was one supplied by his elder brother’s minions and it felt different in his hands but he played anyway. “That's my friend…” His music was unbearably melancholy that night.
Dismantling Moriarty’s complex web was painful. Physically and emotionally. Some nights weren’t bad, if you got lucky some small family would take you in for the night and feed you up, but most nights weren’t so great. At one stay in a third world country, Sherlock stayed with a small family for a week. Despite their lack of food or money they seemed perfectly fine taking in the shabby-looking brit who didn’t talk much. When he went to leave the little girl of the family gave him a parting gift. A stack of papyrus sheets, tied together with twine. He held onto the gift, eventually stealing some writing implements from one of Moriarty’s bases. When nights weren’t too cold or too hot, he would lay low and sketch. He would close his eyes and picture John, in his chair, typing away. John, laughing so hard his tea came out his nose and soaked the copy of The Hobbit he’d been reading. John, scolding Sherlock for destroying his favorite jumper. Always John.
Once more art knew before him. And as he stared at the perfect pencil lines he wept silently, for he feared, he loved John.
Sherlock didn’t know why he expected to come back and everything be the way he left it. But Mary made John happy, and if John was happy, Sherlock was happy. Or at least that's what he told himself. He closely inserted himself into nearly everything they did, neither cared. He planned the wedding as if it was his own, only the best for his, as John informed him, best friend. He continued to sketch John, though not as often for he didn’t live with him anymore and most of his memories included Mary. He tried to stay away from composing as well, fearing the love would bleed through the strains but it became unavoidable and he wrote John and Mary’s song. Instead of fighting off what the art tried to say, he let it stand. For, after all, weddings are about love.
A few weeks before the wedding John sheepishly asked Sherlock if he knew how to dance.
“Do you - by happenstance - know how to dance? Like the waltz or something?”
“Of course. … Why?”
Sherlock held onto the feeling of dancing with John. It was romantic, no doubt. John’s hands were dry and slightly callused, eyes soft and almost worried, breathing shaky then finally calming with the rhythm of movement. Sherlock made sure not to play the song he composed when they practiced, for he dread the emotion that would ensue from the two art forms trying to get across the same sentiment.
As far as stag night, Sherlock tried his best to delete that. Apparently being drunk and then hung over made things harder to forget, surprisingly. He got too close to too many things.
Years of watching performers act on stage had at times became useful in detective work but never in his life had he ever been more thankful for the skill than now. He spent the entirety of the nuptials with a steady façade. Not that it’s a good thing that the Mayfly Man tried to kill one of John’s oldest friends, but Sherlock had to be grateful that for some period of time, his mind wasn’t overly fixated on hiding his heartbreak. For a moment Sherlock accidentally let the act fall. Mary and John were excited by the idea of a third Watson and Sherlock and John stared for a minute too long, sharing silent understandings.
With that Sherlock had left. Maybe being left separated from John would be good for him. He sat on the roof, smoking. He could be doing worse things but part of him was still trying, for John. He stared at the papyrus book which sat beside him. He wished he’d never had to jump.
When Sherlock next composed, he wrote for little Watson. She wasn’t a moot point and everything pleased her uncultured young ears which Sherlock decided to cultivate. Being a Godfather was a large responsibility.
And there she laid. The woman who shot him. The woman John loved. The mother of John’s child. Mary, who died so Sherlock lived, bleeding out in John’s arms. Something shattered deep in Sherlock as John groaned in furry. He did this, once again he messed it all up.
John cut ties. Sherlock got back into a drug habit. The art left him.
But things fix themselves right? We seal cracks in the ceiling with stick glue and plasters. Everything's okay… They didn’t talk about what happened, usually.
“Sherlock…”
John avoided the topic so Sherlock stopped testing the water.
“Hm?”
Time heals all wounds, they say. It’s more like time makes things more relevant than the wounds. You stub your toe and bite your knuckles to refocus the pain.
“I’ve been thinking…”
But eventually John’s brief stop-bys became full days. Like it used to be.
“That's never a good sign.”
Maybe tape could hold the floodgates?
“I think I want to move back in… All the way. Me and Rosie… and you. - If you’ll have us that is.”
Things won't always be good.
“Did you just- Sherlock, did you just flinch?”
“I’m sor-”
“Oh God... Sherlock…”
And sometimes they will be better than good.
“Y-you what?”
“I love you, Sherlock.”
Sherlock continued to draw John when he wasn’t looking, the moments he’d play with their growing daughter and the moments they would just share together. Sherlock continued to compose, even teaching Rosie how to play the violin as well, eventually handing the Stradivarius down to her. He wrote without thinking, the memories writing their own pieces. Someday he made one for their wedding, which in all honesty, Rosie helped create. Then they danced together. This time the music and movement melded within one another and the sentiment was heard loud and clear, filling the air. He no longer had to act, there was no reason to pretend.
So when they were equally grey and aged they lived their own form of art. They would sit in the lounge as Sherlock played or out with the bees as they enjoyed the evenings. Though getting old had its challenges and often Sherlock’s hands were too shaky and he couldn’t draw or contrive any music. Those days they’d dance. It wasn’t like it used to be but that was fine. They would sway in the evening breezes to all the different works Sherlock had created over the years.
Then one crisp Autumn day Sherlock let go. He died in his sleep, beside the man he loved. And they had said goodbye before, it’s sure they’d say hello again.
So John sat silently in the lounge, staring to the empty chair across from him. Sherlock’s violin music played in the background. Rosie and her husband had come by a few days prior and boxed up some of Sherlock’s things. On top of it all sat a thick stack of papyrus paper tied with a twine bow.
He flipped through the detailed images, each dated. A tear dripped from his cheek, nearly smudging the graphite on a sketch of him scrunching his nose at a baby Rosie. Sherlock once told him how much he had loved the arts. He told of their emotional power and how each became important to him. So as John closed his eyes on the world he thought of how much he owed artistry.
“I missed you.”
“Oh come on. It’s only been six months.”
“I missed you nevertheless.”