Chapter Text
1.
For better or worse, Sherlock is a scientist’s son. This particular scientist might have been a back-stabbing traitor who made his money with ideas that were weeping blood with the injustice they had brought to this world and who didn’t hesitate to try and kill his own family for his greed, but unfortunately a scientist all the same. That is how Sherlock knew him when he was a child and for the longest time, that was the only way he could have known him at all.
Silas Holmes was nothing but the vision outside of the wagon that was supposed to bring Sherlock and Mycroft to the University, a proud father smiling a sad smile, who had to depart from his sons and the wife and daughter he couldn’t save. His silhouette shrank the farther they had travelled and Sherlock had hugged his books closer to his chest, the only pieces of his father he could take with him. The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus, A Brief History of Yll and a particularly hefty encyclopaedia on butterflies that could be found in the Eld. Memories of happier days he could return to whenever he wanted to hide himself away within the annotated pages that had shaped his childhood and the image of the man who had raised him.
And that was all he used to be. A nostalgia-tinged footnote in Sherlock’s life – a life he would make worth living by sheer force of his stubbornness even if it killed him along the way – and that was all he should’ve been. A lot of things should’ve stayed a certain way and didn’t in the end, but Sherlock has made disregarding his own psyche’s wishes to examine what is slowly poisoning him an art. He has had more than enough time perfecting it. There are more important things to focus on, after all.
But for better and worse, Sherlock is Silas’ son and coined to be a scientist on top of that. He has come to the University to study the Arcanum and read every book in the Archives, starting with the Tomes and then burying himself in the Stacks. The only thing that is keeping him from progressing to Re’lar is the lack of a Master who would be willing to sponsor him. Sherlock knows that most of the Masters harbour a strong distaste for him and the way he seldom knows when to let sleeping dogs lie, but as long as it gives him more time to spend in the Archives, it is all the same to him.
There is so much more to learn than merely what the Masters know; there are ten times ten thousand books, a million worlds and an uncountable amount of experiments and ideas to explore. Far would it be from him to dare think he knows more than the Masters, but he does know where he can find that additional knowledge. He’s a scientist and a scholar, after all. Accumulating a variety of sources to draw from is the first principle for a well-founded education, Silas used to say. It is one of the few pieces of advice Sherlock can still agree with.
As such, he is always bound to find sources he does not agree with or that directly contradict what he thought possible. It is part of the process for him and makes up a significant portion of why he adores learning. He thrives on logic, calculating probability and finding patterns; uncovering new aspects only adds to these experiences that fuel Sherlock’s thirst for knowledge.
He does think, however, that there are some fundamental truths to the universe he shouldn’t be able to discover might be defective after all. Because so far, as loath as he is to admit it, Sherlock is unable to grasp what exactly compels the wind in this courtyard to behave as it does.
Nothing about it is predictable. No pattern to discern or rhythm to make sense of. It has a mind of its own. It does not abide to the carefully laid out laws of nature Sherlock studied as a wee lad, nor the complex mechanisms of meteorology Master Enright explained in the few lectures Sherlock could listen to. It is infuriating and intriguing – the perfect combination to hold his attention like nothing else.
He is aware of the name of the courtyard of course. The House of the Wind – a place where the wind always takes the road less travelled by, no matter the weather or season.
He is also aware of the name it used to go by: Quoyan Hayel, the Questioning Hall.
As a scholar, he should be appalled by this frankly embarrassing translation error. He wouldn’t have made such a frivolous mistake like thinking Quoyan to be an archaic form of the word for question. It is obvious that it should be wind instead. If he were in the right set of mind, he would already be climbing down and running towards the Archives, ready to pore over histories and dictionaries to recount the mistranslation back to its roots.
Instead, he still sitting there, overlooking the courtyard and watching the early autumn leaves dance through the air and be carried by the wilful fancies of the wind that always seems to change its mind right before it could decide on any one direction to take. Instead of drawing graphs or trying to identify a cardinal wind direction – if there even is such a thing at a contradictory place like that – he closes his eyes and breaths slowly, his heart beating gently with the sacred atmosphere up there, far away from the noise of the Fishery or the gossip of Mews.
Sherlock inhales wearily, his lungs expanding painfully around his hurting heart, and sighs. He is not in the habit of trying to deceive himself on purpose. After Silas, he is quite sick of being deceived at all, be it by another person or his own emotions. Therefore, he tries to be as honest as he possibly can. He knows that, lying beneath his academic endeavours, is a motivation he cannot strictly attribute to the set of principles he abides by to become a scientist in his own regard. Or, truthfully, at all. There is no scholarly explanation whatsoever for the tiny slip of paper he is gripping in his hand and it gnaws on him like the rain weathers on the stones of the rooftop he’s sitting on.
It is meticulously folded, as he is wont to do. Sherlock does nothing by halves, even things he can barely convince himself are not a joke he is trying to play on himself. Maybe he took training his Alar a bit too far a few days ago and his mind permanently split into two separate parts with contradicting beliefs.
One part tells him that there is nothing wrong with hoping that the Questioning Hall could indeed able to answer his questions that are preying on his mind.
The other part tells him that even hoping for this to answer any of his questions is a pathetic display of weakness his brother would be ashamed of knowing about.
Sherlock cannot decide for the life of him which part he should trust, so he continues to stare into the slowly dimming sky and out to the courtyard for a few more minutes, contemplating this strange place. Five roads lead away, drifting into the various directions of the campus, away to Haven and to Imre.
Legend has it, The Questioning Hall used the wind as a messenger of answers and the students of days long past made a game out of it. Write a question on a piece of paper and let it take flight above the courtyard. Depending on which road the wind carries it, a different answer awaits.
Yes. No. Maybe. Elsewhere. Soon.
Of course Sherlock knows that this silly notion is attributed to the previous translation error. But Sherlock has been long enough at the University to know the importance of Naming. If it was called The Questioning Hall, who was he to say it could not have something magical within it?
He just hopes that, now that is has been renamed, the potential flickers of magic have not been torn away, leaving him destined to stay as unmoored as he is feeling right now.
But The Questioning Hall continues to attract students to try their luck. It is still the sanctuary of broken hearts and hopeless dreamers who are desperate to find answers.
And Sherlock, despite his father’s influence and his scholar brain, is also his mother’s son and therefore a romantic at heart. All of this is to say that Sherlock might have come for the peculiar wind conditions, but he has stayed and returned repeatedly for the questions he needs answers to.
Something akin to protectiveness floods him whenever he thinks of taking some of his measuring devices up there to gauge the wind speed; he wants to guard the charm and magic this place still possesses, the one tiny mystery he wants to keep to himself and look at from the outside like a snow globe he can shake and admire without risking breaking what’s inside.
In some ways, that is precisely what he feels for James. Perhaps, somewhere tucked in a faraway corner of his heart that is not resigned to deny him any and every chance of finally telling James what has been choking him ever since he arrived at the University.
Sometimes, he is overcome with the urge to grab James by the shoulders, seize him by the neck and shake him until he goes limp in Sherlock’s grasp. To study every last one of James’ expressions as he takes in Sherlock, his undivided attention so addicting.
Sherlock does not want to share him. He wants to hiss and scream at whoever dares try to disturb their sanctuary. He wants to stare at James until he can see his face every time he closes his eyes. He wants to repeat James’ name so many time until it’s the only sound he can still make, the only sound he can remember ever hearing.
But he does not have the courage to speak his name aloud, not now, not in the peaceful silence of The Questioning Hall, that would undoubtedly be able to tear out every last of Sherlock’s desperate and downright pathetic questions that keep spinning in his head.
The trouble with a quick and clever mind is that it is near impossible not to fixate on something once it has been awarded the full attention of his brain. Try as he might, he will not be able to eat nor sleep nor stop thinking in circles until he has a satisfactory explanation for whatever it is he has set his sights on.
And with the subject of his obsession being one James Moriarty, there does not seem to be a satisfactory explanation altogether. The enigma incarnate lives and breathes to evade Sherlock’s logic, and yet he seems to be the one thing that has ever made sense to him.
For all of his protectiveness, James loves tormenting him so.
He follows him around the University, a shadow that rushes out of the dark corners of the corridors at first signs of trouble, positioning himself in front of Sherlock. The one person who does not treat Sherlock’s overactive imagination like an unfortunate side effect of his particularly strong Alar. Instead, he welcomes it, shares the experience with him.
Naturally, Sherlock has seen how James looked at his father, at the height of his power and influence, the yearning written so clearly in every line on his face. He knows about Bea and the equation of runes James keeps tucked away under a loose floorboard in an inn somewhere in Imre which he refuses to tell Sherlock about.
There are so many secrets between them, and yet Sherlock can’t turn back now. It is far too late for that. He thinks, in the privacy of his mind, that he would give the last of his body heat to warm James. He would let James try every last experiment that he reads about in his Alchemy books on him. He would let James try to find his name in the crook of his neck, lips pressed there, until he can’t remember his own name. It is far too late to pretend otherwise, as if he wouldn’t give his life for James’ fancies.
And, dear god, he is already in Sherlock’s mind, in his head, and try as he might, he cannot convince himself to see James as a parasite, as an infestation destined to kill him. In his lovesickness, Sherlock can’t see James as anything else than a bloody, magnificent revelation.
He bows his head, sighing. At least in his mind he can say James’ name. At least there, he can keep him, in the endless corridors of his imagination and the bottomless ocean of his thoughts. Sherlock wants to keep him, but to keep him, he must have him first. With the uncanny tension between them that has been weighing on his chest for weeks now, he fears he might’ve lost him already.
James has always been tricky to nail down. He might be enrolled in the University just like Sherlock is, has even been Re’lar since the term started, but he is never to be found in the dorms or anywhere around campus for that matter when he doesn’t want to be. Imre is his home of choice, as far removed from the hustle of the University as he is able without neglecting his classes, but his residence changes quicker than the direction of the wind at the courtyard.
One day he sleeps in the inn right next to marketplace, the next he sleeps in the house of the lady that took him home that night, then he moves to the other side of town, singing late into the night in another inn’s dining room to entertain the guests, and afterwards falling asleep behind the bar with the innkeeper stepping over his sleeping body. He never tells Sherlock where to find him; Sherlock still does, with increasing precision, but a voice in the back of his head frets what will happen when James actively doesn’t want to be found by him. It wonders each time they part ways if this might be the last time he sees James and he feels torn apart with the desire of clinging to James’ trouser leg, begging him to take him with him, and the knowledge that the closer he gets, he will only drive James away more quickly.
No, Sherlock has to go about this with caution. And the safest way to do this lies within this piece of paper.
It does not contain a fully-formed question, because compressing all of what Sherlock feels for James and all that James encompasses in the cosmos of Sherlock’s feelings into one simple question seems like a task Sherlock could spend the next twenty spans of his life on and would still not be satisfied with.
Instead, it just says “James?” with a shaky question mark, the perfect representation of his uncertainty-ridden thoughts. Feeling uncertain is something Sherlock doesn’t enjoy even on the best of days, and he has not had a remotely good day in quite a few spans, but it is all the more intense because it is James at the centre of it.
If names wield power, James’ must be the most powerful of them all, because just a mere whisper of it would be enough to bring Sherlock to his knees in a prayer.
He sighs once more, stands up and walks to the edge of the building, the courtyard tranquil in its simple beauty. The piece of paper is rough and warm in his grasp, his fingers clammy with nervousness. He dreads the moment of truth but knows he won’t be able to escape it any longer, because otherwise he will lose his mind or lose James, and what’s the difference between the two anyway?
With one last look around, he raises his arm and, with only the briefest of hesitation, lets the wind take his question away and, perhaps, his heart along with it. It soars through the air, twisting in the breeze. Some of the autumn leaves still writhe in an eternal spiral, never quite touching the ground or taking proper flight. For a few breathless moments, the slip of paper remains in limbo as well, undecided on the direction it should take and whether it should provide Sherlock with an answer in the first place.
Sherlock presses his lips into a firm line, his eyes following the question with rapt attention, so intensely focused, he doesn’t think he can observe anything else ever again. There is only that question and the uncertainty that weighs on Sherlock’s chest like a brick. It’s nearly suffocating, the waiting and hoping that has been haunted him for so long now. Just the idea of it coming to an end now seems impossible.
But then, miraculously, it drifts to the right, slowly dwindling to the ground with gentle spins, further down and down until it comes to rest on the cobblestones of the road to Haven.
The answer is clear and not clear at all. Maybe.
In some ways, this is not a new discovery at all. James is the embodiment of maybe, in all of his beautiful contradicting and tantalising ways. And yet, having it so openly displayed eases Sherlock’s mind. It is not a no. It is a thousand possibilities and a million chances. Maybe, he will be able to take one of them. Maybe, maybe.
He has to smile about it, fond despite himself in the sole company of the wind. Now he has his first answer, and James, of course, still evades him like no other. He wouldn’t want it any other way, would he?