Chapter Text
He’s running, flying high as a kite on the adrenaline that’s being pumped into his system by the thrill of the chase and the knowledge he’s cracked the case once again.
The double murder was committed by the son-in-law as he had deduced twenty minutes after entering the bedroom where the slain couple had been found. The cocky git had been hovering in the background, playing his role of shocked, loving husband quite convincingly, but it took more than a little acting to disprove the evidence that was scattered freely all over the room. If one knew where to look, that is. Why Anderson is still a part of the force is a puzzle he is never going to solve. The moment Sherlock instructed Lestrade to arrest the son-in-law, the bastard made a dash for it. His legs are at least as long as Sherlock’s and he’s obviously in very good shape as Sherlock and John have by now been giving chase for ten minutes, weaving in and out of the throngs of shoppers and tourists in busy Oxford Street and they’re only slowly gaining on him. John’s close behind, keeping up on a heady combination of sheer willpower and army combat training but Lestrade and Anderson have already given up. He really can’t blame Lestrade as the man is nearer fifty than forty but Anderson is his age and by throwing in the towel this easily he has just handed him another reason for calling him a pathetic useless idiot, thank you very much.
If Anderson had only one ounce of the stuff John Watson’s made of in his body he would actually be of some bloody use to the force he is supposed to be serving. Sherlock slightly turns his head in order to smile his affection and gratitude upon his friend and nearly grinds to a halt. His gaze has travelled over the glass façade of the building he was passing and it hits him with full force, straight into his abdomen. The face that is about to throw the look to John is his father’s, the exact image of his father’s. He staggers for a moment, recovers himself and quickly scans their surroundings to find their murderer has made the fatal mistake of stopping for a traffic light. He pounces.
***
Back at the flat he stands looking in the mirror over the mantelpiece for a long time. Of course he knows he has Daddy’s face, Daddy’s figure, Daddy’s hair. He’s almost an exact replica, as if he were a clone produced in the sterile settings of a laboratory instead of the result of an embrace in the parental bed. He saw the same face in the bathroom mirror only this morning, slowly emerging from underneath the shaving foam as he was scraping away at his cheeks and throat. So why this startled reaction in the midst of an exhilarating chase?
He collapses into his chair, steeples his fingers against his lips, pondering. Was it the sprinting? No, the fastest movement Daddy ever displayed in front of his eyes was a kind of hurried walking – his body very upright and exuding dignity – so that possibility is written off. The flowing coat doesn’t come into consideration as well, as the cut of Daddy’s coat had been quite narrow, in order to set off his slender figure no doubt, added to the fact that he never had to make a run for it. This leaves out the possibility of the image of the wildly bobbing whorls pulling up memories as well.
The only evidence remaining is the expression on his face. Now he remembers it was different from his usual scowl of disgust at the utter dullness of the whole human race – with the exception of John of course. In fact it’s the expression that immediately crops up in his mind at the thought of Daddy’s face. A look of quiet benevolent fondness, not cast around without discrimination but almost always there while looking at his mother, Mycroft, himself.
His index fingers have started thrumming against his lips of their own volition, endless variations on variation number twenty six of the Goldberg-variations. He startles, fights the exhaustion that’s pulling at him, somehow this is important, he must think it through. His hands fall into his lap. He gazes down on them, he knows these hands so well. After all they’re the first objects he ever properly studied.
***
Autumn is nearing its end. In the park the last leaves are desperately clinging to the branches, awaiting the gust of wind that is to defeat them and lay them to rest on the ground. He has been busy all day with his chemical experiments and has had tea afterwards in the kitchen with Cook and Nanny and John. Cook had made the pear tartlets Mummy (and he) like so much and she had laughingly allowed him to wolf down two of them.
Now he is detecting. Sleuthing is his favourite game ever since he found the little plastic magnifying glass in Daddy’s desk, and ever since he endured the severe scolding Mummy gave him afterwards as he’s not supposed to enter either Daddy’s or Mummy’s study if they’re not in, and certainly not supposed to go snooping in their desks. Luckily Daddy intervened, telling Mummy not to work herself into a state over such a small matter and telling him he could keep the magnifier. He scurries across the house, the glass in front of his right eye, changing the angle, bringing it closer to his face or nearer to the object he’s scrutinising.
He examines the windows and doors for fingerprints, the floors for dog hair – and human hair, he’s found most people apparently lose an appalling lot of hair every day – the floor under the table in the dining room for traces of their meals. He has found Mycroft is a messy eater as the carpet under and around his chair is sprinkled with crumbs of toast, bits of scrambled egg and small pieces of pastry crust. The space around and under Mummy’s and his chair is meticulous (apart from some hairs) but he has discovered Daddy apparently feeds the dogs on the sly while he’s having dinner as the carpet near his chair is quite greasy. Small wonder the beasts are always lying faithfully on either side of him when it’s just the four of them eating together. He wonders how Daddy manages to do the feeding without Mummy noticing, for he’s sure she wouldn’t let it pass if she knew about it.
The sleuthing has taken him to the blue morning room. The lights are on as it’s already getting dark outside. Daddy is lying on the sofa in the customary position he adopts whenever his body is in contact with a long horizontal surface, giving off an air of total relaxation, long legs thrown over one of the sides, the head resting on a pillow, one hand holding a book, the other trailing on the floor. The book, Sherlock has noticed, is Chekhov’s collected stories part 4. Chekhov is Daddy’s most beloved writer so as long as Sherlock doesn’t make a sound Daddy won’t heed him.
He’s trying to determine when the room was last cleaned. The surfaces of the furniture are covered with specks of dust that are still wide apart. He has found little hairs, only a few long ones in a shade of ginger that tells him Brenda has probably been the one that did the cleaning and some that could have been on his head or Daddy’s as there’s no telling their hair apart and he has been in the room this morning as well to look for his book on geology.
The surface of the light blue rug that gives the room its name has only been disturbed by three different pairs of feet (and the paws of three dogs) since it was hovered. Brenda’s, his and Daddy’s as can be easily deduced from the facts that: a) Sherlock knows he was here this morning, b) Brenda has been the one doing the hoovering (hair evidence), c) Daddy is lying on the sofa and he had to walk in the room to get there, d) his shoes are beside the sofa, e) his shoes are a very large size as Daddy has very large feet.
So the room was done last Friday at the latest, as today is a Sunday and Brenda and her mother, Mary, are around to do the housekeeping from Monday till Friday only. What puzzles him though are all the traces of mud the carpet is showered with as these belie the thorough going-over the room has obviously been given earlier.
Now he has crept truly close to the sofa and is investigating his father’s shoes. His father didn’t deign to untie the laces apparently but has jerked them off his feet and thrown them near the end of the sofa, which explains their somewhat disheveled appearance. Before that he was out in the park as there are traces of mud on the soles and on the instep of the left one. This fits nicely with the traces of mud all over the rug so Sherlock decides Daddy has been pacing the room at random after having been outside before collapsing on the sofa with his beloved author.
He edges slowly towards his father’s hand and applies the magnifying glass. Like his feet, his father’s hands are large. However they are also extremely narrow, with slender tapering fingers crowned with rather long nails that are always meticulously clean and shiny so the overall effect is one of feminine elegance. To top it all off the skin is very soft, with an almost creamy richness, the tone one of ivory, come summer or winter. The skin is flawless, the inside of the hands almost as soft as the outside. (This is where Sherlock’s own hands differ from his father’s as the skin of his hands is now covered with scars from cuts and bruises and chemical experiments that went awry.)
These are the pampered hands of a man that doesn’t have to use them to make a living, except to draw his signature with a flourish under documents others have drafted and typed for him. Sherlock loses himself in the almost translucent webbing between the fingers for a while, then becomes distracted by the faint flowery scent the hands exude, from the lavender soap bars Nanny boils for all the family members each year at the end of summer. He sniffs; underneath the lavender he smells a sweeter perfume.
Suddenly Daddy’s hand is cradling his face, his thumb tracing his cheek.
“Find anything interesting?”
He looks up. Daddy has laid the book aside and is smiling down on him, slate-grey eyes beaming.
“You’ve been outside.”
“Yes. And … ”
He smells the hand again. The sweetness under the lavender is all-consuming and suddenly he knows.
“You’ve been outside together with John at the apiary to check whether the honey is ready for harvesting yet. Afterwards you washed your hands in the scullery, then you came here. I guess you and John had an argument about the harvesting as you were still upset. I can tell because you walked all over the room. Brenda will be angry because she has done the room only last Friday.”
His father ruffles his hair.
“Well done, my boy. You are extremely observant. It’s obviously a talent you have and a most fortuitous one. And I thank you for the warning. Seeing as I’ve apparently incurred her just wrath I’ll try to circumvent Brenda for the next few weeks.”
He chuckles and Sherlock chuckles along with him as the idea of Daddy trying to avoid running into Brenda for fear of a castigation is ridiculous.
Daddy keeps on moving his thumb over his cheek and they gaze quietly at each other.
“Daddy … ,“ he doesn’t know how to proceed.
“Yes my darling boy.”
“You … you really do like John, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Don’t we all?”
“Yes, but you really like him … you like him the most. More than Nanny or Cook. I know Brenda and Mary and David don’t really count. And Mr Talbot, I don’t know whether there is anyone who likes him.”
“I’m sure Mycroft recognises Mr Talbot as the best educator any boy could wish for, as you will find out for yourself very soon. And Brenda, Mary and David are part of our household too, even if they don’t live here. We are fully dependent on them for our comforts and they are fully dependent on us for earning their living. So there is a mutual benefit for both parties and they do, as you express it, count, Sherlock.” He pauses. “And yes, John and I grew up together on this estate, Mummy brought Nanny when she married me and we hired Cook ourselves, so I’ve known John all my life and can’t imagine him not being around.”
His voice has risen, just the tiniest amount, a stranger wouldn’t hear it but Sherlock does.
“I’m sorry Daddy,” he says, “I had no intention of upsetting you.”
Daddy pats his head.
“No, I’m the one that should apologise, Sherlock. My response to your question was exaggerated.”
He smiles, but now there is no mirth in his eyes, the grey has turned dark and watery. Sherlock finds himself falling into a deep well as he looks into them.
“I do hope you will find a John of your own one day Sherlock, because we all need a John. Just promise me one thing, if you do find him make sure you treat him better than I did mine.”
His voice is choked. He sighs and turns his back to Sherlock.
“Now make yourself scarce will you? I want to be alone for a while.”
He tiptoes out of the room. He’s never seen Daddy so truly upset before.
***
“Sherlock! For God’s sake!”
He bolts back into reality again. John stands in front of his chair – in his bathrobe, wet hair plastered to his skull, a thoroughly annoyed look of exasperation on his face – proffering a steaming mug of tea.
“Christ, you were miles away. If you’re that exhausted go crash on the sofa, will you? At least you won’t ruin your back if you’re lying on a flat surface. I wouldn’t dare offer the sensible option of actually going to lie in your bed. Whatever you do, you’re going to drink this tea first. The level of dehydration you’ve submitted your body to today must have reached an all-time high.”
Sherlock lets the stream of angry-sounding words wash over him, extends his hand for the mug, smiles his gratitude.
Surely he’s found his John. And he’s going to keep him.