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Sherlock had devised at least ten different ways to murder his aunt—and get away with it—by the time they arrived at the rink.
He supposed technically Clara was to blame, as his besotted younger cousin was the one who had insisted Aunt Muriel drive her so that she could watch her beloved Harriet play in a club hockey game. But Clara hadn’t been the one to suggest that “both of you go, so Sherley can get a taste of the real Canada!” Thus, Clara was safe from harm, while Aunt Muriel was facing a fate of gradual poisoning over a period of several months.
By the time they took their seats in the mostly empty stadium, Sherlock had already decided which poison he would use (Clostridium botulinum; it would be virtually undetectable if administered correctly) and the game was already under way. Actually watching a sport in person did nothing to solve the mystery of why the bulk of humanity found them so entertaining—Sherlock did not see the appeal of overly aggressive people, padded down with too many layers, skating around and thrashing their oddly-shaped sticks about. However, after deciding that none of his fellow spectators were interesting enough to warrant more than a cursory glance, the only thing left to pay attention to was the ridiculous spectacle taking place on the ice.
“Alright then, Clara,” he said, stretching his legs over the seat in front of him, “which one is your Harriet?”
“She’s not—we’ve only been—she prefers Harry,” Clara sputtered, blushing to the roots of her hair, “And she’s that one, right there.” She pointed to one of the figures clad in white, wearing the number 30 with the name H WATSON printed along her shoulder blades. Harry was currently shoved against the boards, battling for something on the ice with a player from what Sherlock assumed was the opposite team.
“H Watson? Does she have a sister on the team?”
“No, a brother, John. In the back.” Clara pointed again to another player in a white jersey, this one sporting a number 4. He was standing a few meters away from the altercation in a defensive position, just watching but ready to interfere if needed. Sherlock couldn’t see what Harry and the other player were fighting for; they seemed to be merely clacking their sticks together on the ice like some odd version of a swordfight.
“What are they doing?” Sherlock demanded. Clara laughed.
“Fighting for the puck, what else would they be doing?” At Sherlock’s quizzical expression, her grin was replaced by a look of confusion. “Oh my God. You don’t know anything about hockey, do you?”
“They don’t even have hockey in England, I don’t think.” Sherlock frowned. “Besides, knowledge about sports is just trivial, irrelevant data.”
“Knowledge about sports is irrelevant data,” Clara mocked. Her accent was absolutely atrocious. She shook her head and chuckled. “Who even talks like that? Alright, basically all you need to know is that the players from the white team and the players from the blue team try to shoot the puck into the other team’s goal. Each goal is a point, and the team with the most points wins.”
“It seems… stupid.”
“Yeah, well. It becomes a lot less stupid when your girlfriend is on the team.” She looked at Sherlock out of the corner of her eye with a mischievous grin.
Sherlock’s frown deepened. “I don’t understand. Why would that make a difference? Is it sentiment?”
Clara turned to fix Sherlock with a look of incredulity, and for some reason her cheeks began to color again. Interesting. “Well… I mean, I suppose that’s part of it, but it’s mostly, you know, the… athleticism.” Her face was very nearly crimson. “And the um… the strength,” she finished weakly, turning away and staring fixedly at the rink. Sherlock merely cocked an eyebrow and decided to let it go for the time being. He turned once more to face the game.
The scuffle on the ice had escalated. With a growl of anger that even Sherlock could hear, sitting ten rows up from the rink, Harry threw down her stick and ripped off her gloves, putting her fists up. The blue player did the same, and the other players on the rink backed up, watching the two circle each other slowly.
“Oh yes! First fight of the game!” Clara said excitedly, eyes bright as she leaned forward.
Sherlock rolled his eyes, but leaned forward as well, despite himself. He could not commend the two players’ fighting technique. Their punches landed inconsistently, and their padding and helmets softened most of the blows. “This is the most boring fight I’ve ever witnessed,” Sherlock whined, flopping back in his chair. “They’re not even hurting each other.”
Clara managed to tear her eyes from the fight to throw Sherlock a brief, cutting glance. “Sometimes it’s not about actually hurting the other person. Sometimes it’s about just showing them you’re tired of their shit. But when someone does get hurt—like that, right there! Nice one Harry!” Clara clapped and pumped her fist as Harry threw a particularly hard punch to the side of the other player’s head that seemed to knock him off-balance. The zebra-striped referee blew his whistle and signaled something to Harry and the blue player, who picked up their abandoned equipment and skated to smaller, isolated boxes opposite the players’ benches. Sherlock didn’t think he imagined that Harry’s brother knocked the blue player in the shoulder as he skated past.
“Wait, now what’s happening? The fight isn’t even over!”
Clara sat back and propped her feet up on the seat in front of her, less focused now that Harry wasn’t on the ice. “Technically, fighting is against the rules. So after a fight, the players involved have to sit in the penalty box for a few minutes.”
Sherlock frowned. “If fighting is against the rules, then why do they allow it?”
Clara shrugged. “Makes things more interesting, I guess? I think it’s hot, so I don’t question it.”
Sherlock’s frown deepened. “You’re ridiculous. This whole bloody sport is ridiculous.”
Having decided hockey was barbaric and mad, Sherlock only half-focused on the game for a while. There was more skating, and more fighting—quite a bit more fighting. Harry seemed to be involved in a disproportionate number of them, compared to the rest of her teammates. As she skated off to the penalty box after her fourth fight (in which she’d probably broken her opponent’s nose, if her right hook and the blood-stained ice were anything to go by), Clara cursed under her breath.
“These fucking assholes,” she muttered. “They’re only targeting Harry because she’s the only girl on the team.”
“If she doesn’t want to be targeted, why doesn’t she play on an all-girls’ team?” Sherlock asked. Clara turned to him with a look of disbelief.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. And don’t let Harry hear you saying that either, unless you wanna end up like that guy with your face bashed in. Besides, she’s actually one of the best players on the team... when she’s actually playing, and not sitting in the fucking box.”
Sherlock looked at Harry’s slumped figure in the penalty box. Her brother was standing up against the boards next to her, speaking passionately about something, while Harry’s expression kept getting more and more murderous. Finally she snapped and yelled at him, and John just shook his head and skated off in a huff. Sherlock caught a glimpse of John’s dark expression as John skated into position. It sent an inexplicable shiver down his spine.
As soon as the referee dropped the puck, John made a beeline for the opponent nearest him, throwing a solid punch. The other player, who was at least three stone heavier, immediately threw his gloves off and wrestled John into a headlock. John squirmed his way out of it, his helmet falling off in the process, and landed a gruesome uppercut. The taller boy clutched his face and cried out in agony, trying to skate away. John would have none of it, pulling him forward by the shirtfront and repeating the action. The referee blew his whistle frantically and skated between them. As John was shoved backwards towards the penalty box, Sherlock could hear him yelling, “Stay the fuck away from her, all of you, you fucking imbiciles!” The rest of the blue team’s players were looking at John as if he were a rabid animal. His teammates were squaring their shoulders, snarls on their faces and looking as if they were daring their opponents to challenge what they were saying.
“Hey! Earth to Sherlock! What are you doing, catching flies?”
Sherlock shook his head and looked at Clara, who was grinning widely at him.
“What?” he demanded.
Her smile grew. “You got your eye on someone, eh?”
Sherlock felt his face heat. “What? No. I was just surprised, is all. At the intensity with which he fought.”
“Oh my God,” Clara groaned. “You’re like an encyclopedia or something. Can’t you just speak like a normal person for once? Try it. Say, ‘I think John Watson is sexy when he fights, and I’d like to tap that ASAP.’ Okay, go.”
Sherlock gaped at his cousin, momentarily lost for words, before gathering his wits and snapping his mouth shut.
“Nothing’s changed. I still maintain that this sport, its so-called ‘athletes,’ and, most especially, you, are all ridiculous. In fact, I think I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I’m going to wait outside the rink until this idiotic game is over. He snatched up his coat and stormed dramatically up the stairs and out of the rink, trying to ignore Clara’s laughter trailing after him. Air, he thought, I need air, and he threw on his coat and hurried outside.
Sherlock watched the fog of his breath curl and evaporate as the frigid Canadian air pinched his cheeks. He knew this was an overreaction, was consciously aware of it, so why couldn’t he get his heart rate to slow? No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the fight out of his mind: John’s fierce expression, his look of unwavering determination, the agony in the other player’s face as John’s uppercut connected with the bottom of his jaw. It made something unfamiliar twist low in Sherlock’s gut. He wasn’t sure whether or not he liked the feeling.
He felt the disposable phone he’d bought for the holiday buzz against his hand in his pocket, and he fished it out. It was a text from Clara. Where are you? The game is over, mom is on her way. I’m gonna say goodbye to Harry. He could barely move his bare fingers to type out a reply; he must have been out here longer than he’d thought. No sense in freezing before Aunt Muriel could come and rescue him. He turned absently around to walk back into the building, internally debating whether or not he should delete hockey from his mind palace. As soon as he walked through the doors, he ran bodily into someone. Sherlock opened his mouth to make a cutting remark, but the words caught in his throat as he registered whom he’d run into.
John Watson evidently hadn’t bothered to shower before he left the locker room. His hair was sticking up in some places, matted down in others, and the grey thermal he’d thrown on hugged the muscles in his shoulders. He smelled like men’s body spray mixed with dried sweat. Sherlock should have found it disgusting, repulsive, repelling. Instead, his heart dropped in his chest, and he felt that twisting feeling in his gut again.
“Oh, sorry about that!” John said with a grin, his dark grey eyes glinting in the artificial light of the lobby. “Guess I’d better watch where I’m going next time!”
“No, no, it’s… fine,” Sherlock replied, trailing off as he watched John’s pupils dilate. It was fascinating. Why was it fascinating? His brain wasn’t working correctly.
“Oh, you’re British, eh?” John asked, raising his eyebrows slightly.
In any other situation, Sherlock would have snapped “Obviously,” turned on his heel, and marched away, bemoaning the idiocy of the human race. But if he did that he wouldn’t be able to look at John anymore, and looking at John had suddenly become very important. It was for deductive purposes, of course, he needed to know everything about the brother of his cousin’s girlfriend. It was perfectly normal to be protective of a cousin you only saw once a year. So Sherlock just nodded.
“I’m visiting my cousin, Clara. I believe she’s dating your sister.”
“Oh, Clara, right! She’s great. She’s good for Harry. Calms her down a bit. Harry needs more calm in her life.”
Sherlock smirked. “Yes, I gathered that from the game.”
John’s expression brightened. “Oh, you saw the game?”
“Most of it,” Sherlock replied, feeling his face warm slightly for no apparent reason. “You played…well.”
John laughed. The sound made Sherlock’s stomach clench tighter. “You don’t know anything about hockey, do you?” he asked, grinning.
“Not a thing.” Sherlock found himself grinning back without being consciously aware of it.
“Well, maybe I’ll have to teach you sometime.”
Sherlock froze. Did that mean John wanted to spend time with him? That was a terrible idea. He was only in town for a few more weeks, and he didn’t have friends for a reason, and besides, he’d already determined that hockey was useless and ridiculous and had to be deleted immediately. He opened his mouth to as much to John.
“That would be good,” was what he said instead, and since when had he said things without meaning to?
“Great,” John answered, still grinning. They stood there a little awkwardly for a moment, just looking at each other, until Sherlock felt his phone buzzing insistently in his pocket. The caller ID indicated it was Clara.
“What the hell have you been doing?” she demanded as soon as he picked up. “Mom’s already here, I’m in the car.”
“Alright, I’ll be right out,” he told her. He ended the call and looked back up at John. “I’ve got to go. My aunt’s here to pick us up.”
“Right, of course,” John answered. “Well why don’t I give you my number? And we can arrange that hockey… thing.”
“That would be the most convenient way to get in touch, I think,” Sherlock replied with forced casualness. Once John had punched his number into his phone and handed it back to Sherlock, they exchanged goodbyes, and Sherlock walked out to Aunt Muriel’s car.
“What the hell are you grinning about?” Clara demanded as soon as Sherlock closed the car door. Sherlock realized that he was smiling stupidly, and hoped belatedly that he hadn’t been grinning like that throughout his entire exchange with John.
“None of your business,” he snapped, furrowing his brow and looking pointedly out the window. Clara laughed, but didn’t press the subject.
As they drove idly home, weaving through the streets of the small town, Sherlock felt his phone buzz once more. His heart jumped when he saw that it was from John, and he hurried to open it.
Looking forward to teaching you all about hockey :) it said. It made a surge of something unidentifiable and warm pulse through him.
As am I. he replied, smiling to himself. Suddenly, hockey didn’t seem so ridiculous after all.