Chapter Text
“I am lost without my Boswell.”
The Holmes manor rested itself on the top of a cresting hill, isolated by swatches of forests with no end in sight. It was a proper sort of a manor; regal, with its imposing walls teeming with ivy, boasting halls that stretched like taffy, and ancient suits of armour that stood guard over the residents. Oh, there was no question to the vastness of its contents either, with more than double the number of empty bedrooms for the Lord and Lady Holmes and the servants. The antiques were regularly dusted, the furniture polished to gleaming, and yet there was a faint gloominess that soaked itself into the pine floorboards and the Trellis wallpaper. That, too, was proper.
When little Mycroft was born, he took to the Holmes manor like a fish to water. Even as a child, he was rightfully sombre, with all the vitality and vivacity of a drooping houseplant, blending into backgrounds as soon as he stepped into a room.
And then came Sherlock.
At the tender age of one and a half, Sherlock toddled from one misadventure to another, a litany of “Master Sherlock, no ,” following him wherever he went. If he was seated, he would squirm and tug at his collar, and faster than you can blink his nanny would find him balanced precariously on top of furniture not meant for sitting on. His buttons would be half undone, his sleeves askew. If the Holmes manor was a starched dress shirt, Sherlock was a stain from summer berries, vivid and alarming against a never changing backdrop.
The servants would scold him and his nanny would towel him clean with rough hands, but they were nothing more than a rotation of clattering shoes, a flash of a sock, the swish of a hem. They did not bend down to speak to him. And that was the crux of it. Spoken to, but never with.
Once, Sherlock had made the mistake of approaching his mother with his interests. He had barely come up to her waist then, and he went to her with dirt streaked on his face, grass in his blond hair. “Mother, mother, I have finished memorising the periodic table. It is Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium –”
“Dearest.” His mother patted him absentmindedly on the head. She said, as if commenting on the weather, “Children should be seen, not heard. Run along now.”
And so Sherlock curled in odd corners of the manor on those sullen, lonely days. He kept himself company with tomes half his size, and he might have settled there, curved over the books, like mushrooms in old wood. But occasionally serious grey eyes would peer from behind a doorway, and Mycroft would find him. He would take Sherlock’s small hand in his, hunch down, and whisper, “Would you like to play deduction?”
He would. He would very much.
Sometimes it was the staff they lingered on (“What do you think he had for breakfast this morning, Sherlock?”), and other times they would pause in the many rooms of their manor (“What can you tell me about the last three people to come in here?”), and sometimes they would go up to one of their great balconies, Sherlock clinging onto Mycroft’s leg in fear of heights, as they peered out, trying to find clues amongst the rolling fields under vast, overcast, skies.
But as they grew older their father’s hand would rest on top of Mycroft’s shoulder and turn his brother away. Words like “studies” or “arithmetics” or “politics” or “the solar system” were often uttered, and Mycroft would give an apologetic smile and a promise for next time that often went unfulfilled.
Then Mycroft was sent off to boarding school, only coming back for the summer, and Sherlock, older but not yet wiser, started to realise while summer berries stained bright, with enough time, their lustre faded and their juices began to sour.
“Do be quiet. Nobody wants to hear about that,” Stephen Wilkerson, a boy his age, had said to him once. Stephen and his sister and Lord and Lady Wilkerson were visiting the Holmes manor for something Very Important and they were all seated in the gardens for afternoon tea. Sherlock had been trying to explain that black ink, when diluted at different concentrations, contained within itself a multitude of colours. “You’re queer and dull, that’s what you are.”
Sherlock frowned at him over Darjeeling and crumpets. It was not the first time someone had told him to be quiet, but he thought it awfully galling coming from someone like Stephen Wilkerson of all people. So he said, unintentionally loud enough for everyone to hear, “At least I no longer wet my bed, and my father does not kiss his maids when he thinks no one is looking.” Then, at the stunned silence and blotchy red that rose on Stephen’s face, “Oh, were you not aware?”
He earned fifteen painful lashes for that, sharp whistles then wood cracking against his skin. When the switch was tossed aside, his backside aflame with pain, Sherlock stubbornly jutted out his chin and refused to apologise. He had only spoken the truth. But people, it seemed, did not want to hear the truth, and that hurt, in the raw sort of way that only children could experience, where there was no name to the damage but there was damage all the same, stayed with him long after his bruises healed.
And then he began to dream.
They were wisps of things, diaphanous and temporal, that came to him in dreams. The scent of burning shag. A hunting cap rubbing against the edge of his ears. His own voice, loud and exuberant and confident. He was older, in these memory dreams. Taller, cleverer, dark haired and pale. But sometimes, coruscant and shifting, he would be a woman or an animal, in a world filled with strange things he had no name for. He had a friend by his side in those dreams. The friend would change too, his face blurring and melting into one another like dripping candle wax, but as there were constants to himself, there were constants to his companion as well. He had a bowler hat, for one. A moustache for another. And his name, for a third, was Watson.
Holmes and Watson. Watson and Holmes.
The way Watson would look at him in the dreams when Sherlock spoke, like he wanted to be there by his side, fascinated by what he had to say, delighted by his knowledge and his skills, was everything.
Sherlock woke, once, scrubbing tears off his cheeks. He did not know what frightened him more – that his mind was no longer his own during sleep, playing these strange visions over and over again, or how desperately he wished these dreams to be true.
Summer that year could not come fast enough. It was not only the promise of warmer weather and tart cherries, longer days and flushed petunias, but rather the return of his brother from boarding school. They had picked Mycroft up at the train station instead of sending for him – Sherlock insisted. Amongst the throngs of people milling about at the station, he had spotted his brother standing by a suitcase, prim and proper, a miniature version of their father. The trains around them blew their sharp whistles, steam pluming the space between, and for a moment, his brother with his neatly combed hair seemed like a stranger.
But then – “Hullo, Sherlock,” Mycroft had said. There was none of their father’s coldness in his eyes or his smile. “Been keeping out of trouble?”
“Never,” answered Sherlock happily, while his mother simply sighed beside him.
He could ask Mycroft about his dreams. Mycroft would know. Mycroft knew everything .
But he was no fool. He waited for the carriage to bring them home. He waited for his mother to leave them, for the servants to take Mycroft’s suitcase, and he waited for all of a quarter of an hour for his brother to settle in before rounding on him with, “I have been having strange dreams recently.”
“What kind of dreams?” Mycroft was undoing his cufflinks, but spared Sherlock a cursory glance.
“I’m older in them,” he blurted out. His voice had come out too loud, and he tried again, quieter, “I am in London with a friend and we solve crime and stop criminals and there are so many different versions of me, and a few even where I am not in London, but I always, always , have a friend.” That was important for Sherlock to emphasise. He chewed on his lower lip, struggling to find the right words. “They are… so real. Like I am there. Like I have been there before.”
“Like memories, you mean?” His brother’s words were soft but his grey eyes were piercing.
Were they his memories? How strange, to have memories of things he had not experienced. And yet, as he turned over what his brother said, it had seemed right, the way a deduction felt right when he slotted the correct information in place. Trust Mycroft to always know the answer.
“I think,” Mycroft said carefully, “it might be best for you to forget such dreams.”
Those were not the words that Sherlock had expected to hear. Why ought he forget the dream-memories that brought him so much joy when he lived in a dusty hall that brought him none? “They seem important.”
“Of course to you they do. But I think, rather than focusing on these… dreams, it is better to focus on your waking days.”
How easy for Mycroft to claim. He was already achieving outstanding grades in his classes and was expected to be made into a Prefect in time. No doubt he had his own gaggle of admirers at school already.
Sherlock scowled. And, for the first time, he thought that Mycroft did not know everything after all.
Perhaps because he refused to relinquish his hold on the dreams, they only grew stronger as time passed. His dream memories told him, explicitly, that he had a partner waiting for him. His partner was to be his friend and companion and they would go on wild adventures through murky moors and across crooked cobblestones, and Sherlock would never, ever have to be lonely again.
It was difficult not to feel a certain amount of smugness that lengthened his spine, lent a spring to his steps. Some of his other lives had not met Watson until much later, having spent decades alone. At eleven, the idea of waiting until his twenties or thirties to finally meet the one person who would understand him was as ludicrous to him as sitting still for his father’s droning lectures on finances.
“Have you heard of a Watson household?” he asked eagerly of everyone that came across his path. It did not matter if they were a servant or a guest or the telegram delivery boy. And they were not allowed to leave until they answered him.
“I believe so,” a select few would say, bringing Sherlock’s spirits to the skies, before crashing it down as he learned that none of them ever had a son with the Christian name John. He begged his parents for subscriptions to medical journals, the one thing they humoured him on. If Watson was his age, there was not much he could do until he was old enough to search the whole of London. But if Watson was older…
At thirteen, he had seen it. In Support of Germ Theory – the Critical Need for Surgeons to Don Masks During Operations by the one and only John H. Watson.
Then it was a simple matter of writing to the New England Journal of Medicine for Dr. Watson’s contact information, proclaiming himself as a fan. When Sherlock had received it, it was also accompanied by the sentence – Dr. John H. Watson, 26.
There was a brief moment – so brief, it mustn’t be held against him – where his heart plunged. Watson was so old . Perhaps not too old, but double the age that Sherlock was. A full fledged adult. Something unhappy squirmed in him. If he was being truthful, he had been hoping for someone closer to his age. A bosom friend he could trample through the woods with, hunting down clues and fighting off imaginary tigers. Adults were…
But, he composed himself. He mustn’t cling to trifles. More pressingly, he must compose a letter to Watson so that they could begin their friendship properly.
The letter, unlike the one to the journal, was hellish to craft. After every line or two, Sherlock found himself pacing through the great halls of their manor, trying to suture his thoughts together without the skills of a real surgeon. There was too much he wished to say and not enough ink and paper to contain any of it.
It had been Mycroft, of course, home again, who caught sight of him over the edge of a newspaper. His brother called out, “Make a list first, Sherlock.”
Sherlock dignified a response by sticking his tongue out.
The final letter, with Mycroft’s advice being begrudgingly listened to, ended up a respectable length at a single page long. Sherlock had introduced himself and said that he was a fellow enthusiast of medicine and had found Dr. Watson’s recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine absolutely riveting, and would he be so kind as to continue a correspondence?
There. No frills, no fluff. After all, he deduced that Watson did not have the same memories as he did. He could not think of a reason, had Watson known about their alternative lives, that he would not have tried to track Sherlock down with the same tenacity that Sherlock did.
He posted the letter himself. Then, he tried waiting patiently for a reply.
“What if the letter had gotten lost on the way there?” he pestered a scullery maid who scowled at him over a large pile of laundry. “Or what if the recipient no longer lived at the address I was provided?”
To an agitated stablehand, he would wonder, “What if the letter was stolen by a gang of miscreants during delivery?” The miscreants would know, of course, once Sherlock was reunited with his partner, it would be the end for them and their devious ring of crime.
“No, there has not been a letter for you,” the servants started to snap at him when he bounded towards them early in the mornings. “We will tell you if there is.”
Finally, finally, after far too long, there came a reply.
Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes , the letter had read – his heart leapt. He was Sherlock Holmes – Thank you very much for your kind letter.
Please excuse the belatedness in my response, as certain hospital duties have kept me occupied and away from my writing desk. However that is not to say your letter was not a priority nor was it forsaken from my mind, as your words of support were an unexpected welcome.
It is always a pleasure to be acquainted with a fellow lover of science and medicine, especially one so young as that! Not to mention to meet one who understands the importance of germ theory as your letter claims you do. I daresay you are familiar with Louis Pasteur’s excellent insights into the matter? I understand his views may be looked upon as drastic and caustic from an outsider perspective, but I do believe there is much to be gained from his studies.
If convenient, I look forward to hearing more from you.
Yours sincerely,
John Watson
The letter was shorter and stiffer than he had hoped. Still, they were Watson’s words to him, the very first words in this lifetime, and he clutched the letter to his chest, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. He put the letter under his pillow and slept with it every night, the page crinkling when he shifted. Watson was so far away in London, but now there was physical evidence that linked them together, a relationship still so tenuous and new.
Sherlock controlled himself, knowing that other people – including poor, dear Watson – had certain ideas of how a friendship should be formed. They did not, for example, upon meeting a stranger, talk with them for hours and hours about their interests. Nor was it appropriate to send a letter a day no matter how much he wanted to. Once every three months, he told himself sternly, and then they could proceed from there.
Sherlock turned instead during those arduous waits between letters to tease apart the rest of his dream memories.
One particular set were the songs he would play for Watson. Watson seemed to favour songs by Wilhelmina Norman-Neruda, and Karl Holz. Sherlock had learned the violin a few years prior – it gave his fingers something to do, the music an anchor for his mind – but now he practised with a renewed fever. His fingers blistered over, bruises appeared on his shoulder and chin, but the pain was nothing as his mind swam with Watson’s future praises at hearing his favourite songs.
His father had passed by him practising once. He had paused by the doorway and remarked, “That is a complicated piece.”
“It is,” Sherlock answered smugly. He attempted a bow while he continued playing. “And I am a singularly excellent violinist.”
Other parts of his memory sometimes left him disquieted. Not every version of himself, but there were too many where he had turned to substance. Every single Watson had disproved. The silences, the hunted, hurt looks flashed his way, the rows that were not so silent after all.
But those Sherlocks found their Watsons too late.
But he was different. He had his memories and he knew it would only be a few years longer before he would have his Watson as well. He did not need chemicals to keep his mind occupied, not as long as he had his hopes. And would that not be better? A friendship with Watson that did not have such a cleaver between them?
When Sherlock was fifteen, two years after the start of their correspondence, he mustered up his courage and asked Dr. Watson if he may visit him during his summer break to continue their discussions in person. When the good doctor’s reply came – he said yes! – Sherlock whooped and hollered and jumped onto his bed with such force it gave an alarming groan in response.
Not even two days back during summer and he was headed to London.
Sherlock sat on the train, drumming his fingers against the window as his foot jiggled to and fro. Four smudges appeared against glass as his fingertips ra-ta-ta’ d against it. The scenery outside blurred by, patchy greens, scattered houses, and dense forests, but he paid it none of it any mind. The last letter Dr. Watson had sent him was still clutched in his other hand, the edges crinkled. He skimmed the words again, his heart speeding up.
He was going to see Watson. He was going to see Watson .
The train could not move fast enough, and he barely registered his grumbling, empty stomach, so jittery from nerves. When the train finally stopped at the station in London, he disembarked, his eyes wide in wonder. It was massive, far greater than the one near the Holmes’ estate, filled with gleaming locomotives and passengers that flowed and ebbed around him like ocean waves. A local attendant, smart in his uniform, told him where he would need to go to find a hansom for the next leg of his journey, even as someone jostled past him without so much as a how-do-you-do or an apology.
Sherlock found Watson’s residence of course. He was a detective, even if he was not famous yet, and despite how overwelcoming the city was, piecing together clues to a location was child’s play. Tucked away in a corner was the brick building, and it reminded him of the Watsons from his dreams. Two stories tall, it was clean and squat, with white walls and a polished black door much like a moustache. Precise and warm.
A servant led him in after he knocked, expecting his arrival. He could barely focus, his mind trying to memorise every inch of the hallways, trying to deduce anything he could of Watson by the curve of the entrances and the shine of the bannister (the good doctor was, for example, a man who treated his maids well judging by the cleanliness in the hard to see spots).
There, through a doorway and in a tidy office, was John H. Watson. He was an average sized man, a touch taller than Sherlock was (although Sherlock had not yet stopped growing), and stoutly. There was an impressive moustache on his kind face, and there, in a corner, was his signature bowler hat hanging from a coat rack. Watson was deep in concentration reading a newspaper at his desk, a hand rubbing at his chin in a familiar gesture.
“Watson,” Sherlock called out, his excitement bubbling over.
“Oh.” The older man gave a small start. Then, putting down the newspaper, “ Doctor Watson.”
The admonishment was light. No more than a small rap on the knuckles he had received a hundred times from his governess, but still Sherlock flinched.
“Doctor Watson,” corrected Sherlock, his face flushing. He should not have made that mistake. He was better than this.
But Watson either did not notice his embarrassment or gave him the grace of ignoring it. “You must be Mr. Holmes.” The good doctor walked over, smiled, and extended a hand.
They shook hands. Watson’s hand was cool, and his grip was firm.
“I hope I have not kept you waiting,” Sherlock said. He had arrived early, of course, as is manners.
“Not at all, not all.” He gestured for Sherlock to sit in one of the empty armchairs, which he did, feeling awkward and rusty at the joints. “Helen!” Watson called out to the hallway through the open door. “Will you bring us some tea?”
A maid poked her head in, perfect ringlets of blonde hair that made Sherlock wish his own hair was longer. “Yes doctor, right away.”
“She seems lovely,” Sherlock said as she left. His insides immediately curdled. ‘Lovely.’ What an utterly useless word devoid of any observation. Helen was married despite the missing wedding ring from the indentation on her ring finger, nursing a minor drinking addiction judging from the pallor of her skin and the jaundice in her eyes, and had just finished writing a letter if still wet ink smear on the side of her palm was anything to go by. And yet all he conjured was lovely .
“Hm? Helen?” Watson had busied himself with tidying his desk, sheets of paper being shuffled between his capable fingers. “She’s been with us for years. Charming woman, makes a mean cup of tea that I do hope you’ll like. The train ride in was not too awful, I hope?”
There was that smile again. It was so similar to the one he saw in his dreams, and he was so close, oh, so close, if only his words and his tongue would cooperate.
“The train ride was fine – the seats were a little tough, but I was…” Sherlock flushed again, his hands finding each other and fidgeting. “I was just excited to meet you.”
“That’s very kind,” said Watson. The words were clipped at the ends.
Sherlock did not know what more to say. Should it have not been easier between him at Watson? So he fell back on what he could rely on, and what he knew would impress him. “You are someone who enjoys smoking shag, I see,” he said in a rush. “Three cubes of sugar with your tea, your eggs well done, always, and a brisk walk after lunch to steady the spirits.”
His face felt flush, as it always did after a proper deduction, and he found himself trembling, back straight, waiting for the praise.
Watson’s lips parted. But the praise did not come. Instead, the man’s eyebrows furrowed and those lips sealed themselves again, the edges tugging downwards into a frown. “I beg your pardon?”
“I – I only meant –”
“Have you spoken to one of my housekeepers before this? It is rather improper of her to blather on about my personal details like this.” The disapproval was heavy, butter spread thick on toast.
“No, never, it is but a simple matter of observation and deduction.” Sherlock’s hands were clenched together so tightly his fingertips were white. “There is your pipe lying on your desk, clean of course, but there remains a trace residue, right by the edge of the pipe – you can tell so much by the tobacco ash as well, over a hundred and forty types can all be discerned if –”
If Sherlock could explain it – if he could just explain it properly, then he could solve all of this. He simply needed more words, or the right words. So he continued to try and pin down the frantic workings of his great mind with greater words, and Watson’s frown grew larger and larger.
He recognized that look.
Fear.
Oh, there was discomfort there, layered inbetween. Possibly disgust, it was hard to tell. But the fear, now that was an expression Sherlock had grown up seeing around him when he opened his mouth and spoke. He could not mistake it. At some point, he let his voice die off; at some point, in one last attempt to salvage what he could, he asked Watson about his recently published paper.
His own voice continued to speak, someone else bowing across the strings of his throat. How many words had been spoken between them? How many empty platitudes and well wishes? Sherlock did not count. His mind was a thousand miles away, mired in the memories of a thousand lifetimes.
A dull, sour throb started in the back of his teeth. It spread to his chest, to his joints, to his fingers. Belatedly, he noticed the stinging in his eyes.
This was all wrong .
“Be safe on your way back,” Dr. Watson said, at the end of things, with a clasp of a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder.
“Of course.” He was smiling. It was frozen onto his face.
And frozen there it stayed as he bid his goodbyes, his legs carrying him out of the Watson residence. He must have still been smiling, three streets later, when he realised he had forgotten his cane.
Sherlock stood, immobile, in the middle of the busy walkway. An odd sort of buzzing filled him, sizzling out at the edges. But the cane had been a present from Mycroft. So he gathered himself and turned back.
(He should not have.)
“I left my cane behind,” he explained to the housekeeper who opened the door wider to let him in.
It was supposed to be quick. There was no rhyme or reason to linger in a place where he was not welcomed. When he saw his walking stick leaning innocently against the wall in Watson’s office, he grabbed it intending to leave. But Watson’s voice, even muffled through a wall, was distinct. And curiosity, Sherlock had never lacked.
“I was rather surprised that you had invited such a young man over for conversation.” A woman’s voice, Helen from before, said.
Watson laughed. “I do suppose he isn’t the usual clientele I meet with.”
“No, sir. The boy is…” A pause, full of meaning. “He is a rather odd duck, isn’t he?”
When Sherlock was seven, he smarted off to some village boys, and they had pushed into a duck pond. He had not understood, then. He told the servants he jumped in himself.
“That is certainly one way of putting it. The Holmes’ family is rather well off, you know. Not of course at the same level of prestige as, say, the Van Zieks, but known enough in certain circles. You’ll find it does no harm to keep yourself connected. And, well…” Sherlock could see the rueful smile. “A boy like that, I suppose he wouldn’t have many friends.”
It was the pity, in the end, that broke him.
Other things, his logical mind could sweep away. Watson did not have the memories he had, and so would react unpredictably in their meeting. Watson was much older than him, and thus the difference in age and experience might make him cooler than the Watson in his memories. Sherlock himself was so much younger than any of his previous lives when the two of them first met, and those variables must be taken into effect. The Watson in his memory could often be exasperated or angry, or disapproving.
But nowhere, in any of the iterations of his past lives, had Watson ever pitied him.
Sherlock turned and left.
The journey back was an afterthought. Sherlock had walked along a road, looking at nothing, thinking of nothing. Thunder rolled in the distance. Then a storm came down, sudden and heavy. Rain fell in sheets, a thick downpour that crashed and clattered against the cobblestones, drenching his clothes in an instant. His trousers, jacket, and shirt plastered to his skin in chilling clumps, his carefully selected outfit washed grey.
Around him, dark umbrellas snapped open. Those less fortunate ran for cover, water splashing underfoot, covering their heads with a newspaper if they had one. Sherlock kept walking, step by cold, miserable step. When he was younger, too easily overwhelmed by the rest of the world, this was the trick that helped him survive. Focus on one thing at a time. One foot forward, then the next. Breathe, in then out. His vision blurred.
He must have hailed a hansom at some point. The haze of the train station in the storm did not seem real. Somehow, he fumbled out the soggy remains of his return ticket, and somehow, he found himself – soaked, frozen, numb – sitting in a compartment that roared its way back home.
Home . Sherlock gave a broken, hysterical giggle at the thought, a hand pressed against his mouth. Hot tears blurred his vision.
With every breath, every beat of his heart, every rhythmic jerk of the train as it sped along the tracks, it told him what he should have known from the start.
He was alone in this world. And he always would be.
A year later, he took cocaine for the first time.
To no one’s surprise, and certainly not Sherlock’s, he had no more success making friends as he grew older as a rabbit would find success flying. So he went back to his books and his chemistry set and his violin. But even the violin had become a bitter thing, and he spent most of his sessions plucking out meaningless tunes, strange melodies that irritated and abrated those around him.
Dr. Watson continued their correspondence.
The letters still came to him, infrequently. They were addressed to Sherlock Holmes on thick, carded paper, and they arrived with little fanfare.
When he was five, he fell from a tree and skinned his hands and knees. Curious, he had poked and prodded at the scabs that formed, peeling them back and revealing the fleshy pink of his still tender skin, causing fresh beads of blood to well up anew. It had hurt, but he had still done it. There, on his left knee, was still the remnants of a scar, from when he had not allowed his body to heal.
He read the letters that came. Then, calmly, coolly, he would pen back a response.
During those times, his morocco case sat neatly beside him. Odd, he would think as he turned the cold metal of the syringe in a hand, that he should be so surprised at his own self-flagellation and addiction.
On the trip back from London two years ago, he had dimly remembered seeing the River Thames at a distance. The river wound across the city like a glittering snake, thick, powerful coils of rushing water. It had been gutted with filth that day, churning from the rain, and yet the thought of its cool, murky depths had been strangely appealing.
Seven percent was his preferred dose. How easy it would be to increase that. How simple, how painless.
It was only the thought of Mycroft finding his body that stayed his hand.
At seventeen, Holmes left for school again, this time to London, this time for university.
His things were crammed hodgepodge into a suitcase, bits and bots, socks and ribbons for his collar, his favourite chemistry book with the pages stained and cracking, so much and yet so little to represent his life. He had fingered the neck of his violin, the lacquered wood and its familiar curves, and he stood there for some time before it, too, found itself in its carrying case. At the manor gates, his father had nodded at him and said, “Take care.” Behind them, the horse pulling his carriage gave a nervous whinny and tossed its head. The words were not a gesture of comfort, but rather, a warning. Do not embarrass us out there.
He rode the train to London, feeling nothing but the dull desire to escape. It had been easier, as the familiar scenery faded away, to focus on the limitations of his body, and to take care of his needs one by one like a machine. Food, water, and lodging. Nourishment was easy enough to come by, but adequate lodging was a different matter.
In a fit of self-loathing, Holmes eventually found himself on Baker Street. The street was, perhaps, a little wider than some of the Baker Streets that shimmered in his dreams, and a little cleaner. Otherwise, each step forward was like stepping in an echo that had no origin. When he reached 221B, he pressed a hand against the brick wall. The memories in him were warm. The brick underneath his skin was cold.
Holmes’ family had provided him a stipend to live on, but it was modest in every sense of the word. Still he spoke to Mrs. Hudson, inquired as to the price, and stood in the middle of the apartment, examining what should have been, while the lady chattered happily away next to him about the proximity to the university, the safety of the area, and the quaint little shops nearby.
This was right, the room. Every inch of it bled nostalgia to the quickening of his pulse. He knew the hearth, the dark floorboards, the gaudy wallpaper. How often had he dreamed of this place? Holmes drifted to one of the tall windows, and ran his fingers along the edge. Outside, sleek hansoms rumbled by, their wheels rattling against the brick roads. The angle of the view, that too was right.
Even as the world seemed to tilt and heave beneath his feet, his mind could not help but summarise the facts in its familiar staccato:
- He was not a child any longer, crying over a scraped elbow, needing the fantasy of belonging when no one would play with him.
- He did not have enough money to live here alone.
- There was a Watson in London but it was not his Watson.
- He did not have a Watson.
There was not much to deduce.
Holmes signed the lease anyways.
A letter from Mycroft came to him a few days after he moved in with his meagre belongings. It read, simply, Send note if in need of assistance , and contained enough banknotes for the first three months of rent.
Irritation and appreciation blossomed and fell together. Must he be the younger brother, forever? He crumpled the letter and put the banknotes somewhere safe, determined not to touch it even if he had not a copper to his name.
It had not failed to escape his attention that his past lives had the unique job of a consulting detective. Who is to say, while he was younger than the many versions of himself, he could not open his own agency to earn some coins on the side?
Sherlock Holmes – Detective Spectacular. No problem too small!
And if there was a voice, perhaps, that whispered, you are playing house by yourself with broken dolls, he paid it no mind.
The jobs trickled in. Initially from classmates who wished to know if the girl they fancied might give them the time of day, but then slightly more interesting cases from referrals. By the time a year had passed, he had a steady, albeit slow flow of clients, tidy distractions for his mind as his university classes – a smidge more interesting than the lessons in his youth, he would give his professors that – still often bored him to tears.
More importantly, a year later, he was still at 221B Baker Street and in a tucked away cupboard, Mycroft’s money continued to sit there, untouched.
On an autumn day, the weather brisk and the puddles wide, Holmes was wrapping up another case with a client. This case had been so trite and pedantic it took him little more than fifteen minutes and the inspection of a few letters to tell his client that: yes, the sender of the letters to his sister is indeed the very same as the bank assistant who had tried to swindle their family prior, and absolute not, under any circumstances, should his sister marry the brute.
His client was a man in his thirties, and hard work at the docks over the years had beaten him down. Still, Holmes felt a flicker of respect at the man’s concern for his sister’s well being. The case, however, felt dull. Everything was all so dull.
“Are you sure?” the man had asked for the umpteenth time. “You are sure?”
The words tumbled out of him before he could stop himself. “Look at the bottom corners of the letters. Pomade. The same kind on both letters at the same place. A coincidence, possibly, if that were the only clue. The colour of the ink, it is the same shade of indigo blue as well. He tried to hide his handwriting – should have hired someone else to write it for him if he had any wits about him – but you see the way the i’s are dotted? The spacing between the i and the dot is always the same. The the letters ‘r’ and ‘s’ are exaggerated in the letters to your sister, crudely so, no doubt he thought himself clever as they are the most common letters in the English language and easily identifiable, but there are a few ‘r’s that he has missed and it bears the same curve as his letters to you – I could go on but please. Do try to keep up.”
The man gaped at him. Holmes knew he should not have explained so. The reasons kept to himself, his deductions were a marvel. Outloud, they made him into something frightening.
Then, “You’re a cold one, Mr. Holmes.” His client gave him a gap toothed smile, and slid forward his payment. “But much ’bliged for your help.” He tilted his cap and was gone.
…Cold? Him?
The words stuck, a splinter. When he passed by a mirror later in the day, he could not help but glance at himself. The same familiar blonde hair, carefully slicked back, bright aqua eyes, and thin lips pressed into a line. He could see the after image of his mother and father there, if he tried. He was not cold. He simply was .
And yet.
He made a feeble attempt at continuing his haemoglobin precipitation experiment, but after an hour or so, admitted defeat and tossed an empty beaker aside in frustration. The morocco case called to him with its siren voice.
But the thought of staying holed up in his room, picking over a cold plate of dinner before readying himself for bed seemed dismal even by his own standards. There was a local Irish pub nearby, was there not? Whelan’s, if his memory served. He had overhead classmates mention it to each other before, a halting invitation extended to him by Victor Trevor which he had quite happily declined previously.
Holmes flung on a coat, scarf, and a hat, and decided to try his luck.
The pub was loud when he found it. He winced as soon as he entered, his senses assaulted by everything. In the dim lighting, he took stock of the thirty-four, no, thirty-five men packed into the building. Most of them were his age, although a few had touches of grey in their hair or beards, and two seemed firmly in their fifties, murmuring to each other away from the University crowd. The stench of alcohol was strong, the air tepid and moist, but it was the noise, the irritating cacophony of London squeezed into a fever pitch, that made him almost turn on his heel and walk back out.
What use was that? To come all the way here and then leave? He made himself squeeze over to the bar, ordered a stout, and managed to find an empty seat in a corner.
There, he was outside, surrounded by others, even if he had not initiated any conversation. That ought to have counted for something. And yet, as he took another long drink of his beer, casting his eyes around at all the other customers who clearly came with a fellow companion, he found himself feeling even more isolated than ever.
You’re a cold one, Mr. Holmes.
What was he trying to prove? Who was he trying to prove to? He could have easily achieved the same level of inebriation at home with a glass of whisky. Curling his hands into fists, nails digging into the soft leather of his gloves, he stood up. He grabbed his empty tankard and made his way back over to the bar to return it. He was going home and wasting no more time on – on –
There was a commotion where the bartender was. A man (student, his mind supplied. Forensics. Japanese. Widower) was trying to order a lager. The bartender, a burly man with his thick arms crossed over his chest (married. No children. The beginnings of a cold), was refusing to sell it to him.
“This is fake money,” said the bartender, his voice booming out. But he sounded, despite his accusations, amused. “This here Orient is trying to cheat me.”
A small audience had gathered, men with ruddy cheeks and alcohol on their breaths, and they tittered at the bartender’s words.
“I did not cheat you,” the Japanese man replied. His words were accented, quiet, but firm. “Please, inspect the coins again.”
Holmes spared a glance at the shillings on the counter top. Even from where he stood, his mind buzzing, he could tell they were real. So he told the bartender as much.
The atmosphere around him shifted. Holmes recognized the discomfort even if he did not understand the reason for it. He had said something wrong again, something other people had not wanted to hear even if it was the truth. The Japanese man had turned his head towards him at his words, his mouth parting in surprise. Holmes was so exhausted. Must he deal with this, now, too?
“And who in the devil’s name are you?” the bartender snapped, leaning forward. He dropped a meaty arm onto the counter and hid the coins behind it. “I say it’s fake money, and so it is. What are you sticking your nose in unwanted business for, eh?”
“Is it considered unwanted business these days to simply state the truth?”
“Green lads like you ought to keep their mouths shut when they don’t know what the truth is.” By the way the bartender was leaning, he was left handed. There was a slight bend to his nose, almost imperceptible, but it had been broken before and reset. When the body learned pain, it did not forget easily. Avoid left hook, aim for nose. Three sharp jabs, face, throat, abdomen. Holmes’ hand flexed.
You’re a cold one, Mr. Holmes . By God, give him a reason, give him any reason.
Perhaps it was the attention of the room on them or the way that violence was imminent, but the Japanese man cut in and said, “If you do not believe my money to be real, will you at least return it to me?”
“Why should I? It’s evidence, it is, that you’re a swindler.”
Holmes took a step forward. “It is evidence that the eyesight you have been blessed with is as piss poor as the drinks you serve.”
“Listen here, you dandy of a boy –”
“You will serve the good man his drink,” Holmes snarled, “or you will return his money.”
They stared at each other in dark silence. The people around them had given them a wide berth, as if sending a brawl was about to break out. Holmes and the bartender judged and sized each other up. Finally, the bartender took the coins and flung them at the ground where they bounced and scattered. “Get out.”
For a second, the room went red. But was he standing here to right a wrong, or to simply satiate his own bloodlust? And so, after a dangerous moment of silence, Holmes returned his tankard properly, smiled his most condescending smile, and said, “I was just leaving.”
An unasked for but welcomed path opened for him. A few men sneered at him as he walked by, but it was nothing new compared to what he was used to. He marched with his head held high, for if he were to wake tomorrow morning with a pounding headache and a mouthful of regrets, he would leave with a shred of his dignity in tact –
“Wait, please wait!”
He turned to the voice. He was outside, and silhouetted by the light of the bar, was the Japanese man who had chased after him. Holmes’ footsteps stilled in the chill of the night air.
“Thank you,” said the stranger, catching his breath when he reached him. “For what you did back there. I must say, it is not like me to make a scene.” The Japanese man cast a look over his shoulder at the establishment and then offered Holmes a fleeting smile. “Perhaps I should have let it go. But you know, we come to a foreign land with so little, it seems a shame to give up our integrity as well.”
Holmes had a thousand barbs at the ready for animosity, but he stood there, unsure of how to react to the raw sincerity that was offered up to him, bleeding and true. He said, curtly, “I did not do anything besides presenting the facts as they occurred. Anyone else would have done the same.”
“Nobody else did.”
He was handsome, this stranger, in a tidy blue suit and polished shoes, and there was a balance to the way he had hurried after Holmes that betrayed his athletic fitness. As he stared up at Holmes with open admiration, his face illuminated by the streetlamps, Holmes’ heart clenched for a longing he thought he had long since strangled.
“Think nothing of it. We are both students at the same university after all.” Holmes adjusted the scarf at his neck. “You are a Forensics Science student, and given how you are seeking cheaper lodging closer to the university, it seems ill-mannered to allow the bartender to mistreat a fellow student as such.”
The stranger blinked. Holmes held his breath and waited for the judgement.
Then a wide grin broke across the man’s face, and he gave a sharp laugh of delight. “Remarkable! How did you – you must have –” He shook his head, but the grin remained on his face. “Let me buy you a drink. I insist. But perhaps at a different location.”
Why on earth would the man offer that? Holmes was cold. He was rude and ill-tempered and prone to fits of melancholy. He did not even have a Watson.
“Forgive me. Where are my manners?” the man said with a bow. “Miko – Yuujin Mikotoba.” He extended a hand.
Holmes stared down at the hand. “Sherlock Holmes.” Mikotoba’s hand was warm and the handshake was firm.
They walked together through the misting rain that had started to fall, a well made pair despite the miserable weather. Holmes kept his strides long, his pace brisk, and yet Mikotoba fell in pace next to him as easy as anything, as though he had always belonged there.
“Now you might have written my autobiography earlier,” the Japanese man began, “but I must confess I am curious as to your own field of study at the university.”
Surely there could be no harm in admitting. “I am a student of chemistry.”
“Chemistry.” Mikotoba had mulled over the word like it meant something more than its syllables suggested. Then he beamed, and Holmes’ breath caught in his throat. “Of course you are a man of science. You seemed to have brought detection as near an exact science as it will ever be brought in this world.”
Oh. For once, Holmes’ mind moved too slow. Oh .
Their conversation was awkward at first, two dance partners still adjusting to the tempo. But they soon reached the bar, and as the candles kept burning, the beer kept flowing, slowly, surely, they found their footing. Holmes thought of all his dreams and memories, and the scrap of hope he still hadn’t thrown away. The man in front of him was not John H. Watson. He was not a surgeon, and had been through no wars, even if there was something melancholy about him, at the edge of his lips, or in the twitch of a finger, something Holmes did not think Mikotoba himself realised he exuded.
Even if the person in front of him was not Watson, he gave the same sense of familiarity as Holmes’ memories did. The same sense of comfort, of belonging, of –
The music started and the stranger who was a stranger no longer asked him to dance.
Yuujin Mikotoba had travelled six thousand miles to reach London, and Sherlock Holmes was finally home.