Tangle of Anger - Standalone (Dad 'verse)
Title: Tangle of Anger
Author: Pic Akai
Rating: PG
Fandom: Sherlock
Summary: When Lestrade and Laura first meet Sherlock, he is a very angry little boy. This fic shows several snapshots of their first month as foster carers for the Holmes brothers.
Word count: ~5,900
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the people, characters, situations etc in these works of fiction, except for the ones I have created. They are written for entertainment purposes and no infringement or specific comment on any person is intended.
Status: Finished.
Notes: This is part of the Dad 'verse. It'll probably make more sense if you've read Dad first. I should also point out that the views expressed about social workers here are not my own, and the actions of the social worker within do not reflect a) the actions of all social workers, clearly, and b) the attitudes of the social work profession as a whole. It might help to remember that this would have taken place in the late eighties.
"You're a police officer." It was the first time the little boy had spoken all hour, just as they had their coats on and Lestrade had his hand on the door, ready to leave. Lestrade and Laura both turned round, expectantly.
Mycroft, the older brother who they'd spent most of the preceding hour chatting awkwardly with, shook his head with a warning look at his brother, but Sherlock carried on regardless.
"You're a detective, actually. You've got at least one older sibling, probably a sister, and at least one younger. Maybe more. You play football regularly, like you said, but it's not for exercise like most people. You actually enjoy the game, for the tactics, and the-" the boy faltered here a second and frowned on his next word, "People. You like expensive things, clothes and food, but you don't bother with them - the food because you can't cook and she doesn't want to bother with the fuss, and the clothes probably because you won't really get a chance to wear them in your line of work. Anything else because you're afraid of it getting stolen or broken."
He shifted his gaze to Laura. "You're a lecturer - or you used to be, but you gave it up to foster. You lectured in the field of literature. You're an eldest child with at least two younger siblings. Unlike most people, you're not fostering because you can't have your own children, but you want to...help." The word seemed to taste odd in his mouth. "You intend on having your own children anyway, probably while you're still fostering. And you love dogs but won't get one because he's afraid of them."
He concluded this speech by staring at them, almost defiantly.
Lestrade and Laura raised their eyebrows at one another. After a pause, Laura said, "That's very clever."
"It's not clever," the little boy snapped immediately. "It's obvious."
"It took you an hour to work all of that out," Mycroft interjected. "I know-" he said loudly, apparently pre-empting his brother's protestations, "Not all of it. But I know you didn't get that about dogs until just now, and that was obvious when they entered." Lestrade was faintly amazed at the fact that he didn't, like any normal older sibling would have done, say this in a way which conveyed any smugness or sense that Sherlock should feel stupid. He just spoke as though it were fact.
"I'm not scared of dogs, anyway," he put in, feeling like he should clarify that point. "I just don't particularly like them."
Both brothers stared at him, equally creepily, though one look was a lot more disdainful than the other.
"And I'm afraid I don't have any younger siblings," Laura said, actually sounding apologetic. When Sherlock's face darkened, she added, "Though I did spend a lot of time with my younger cousins."
This didn't seem to appease him.
There was another silence before Laura said, "Well, it's been nice meeting you both. I hope we'll see you again soon. Take care." They left the room, followed by the social worker.
The second the door closed, Mycroft's gaze was back on his brother. "I wish you'd stop doing that," he said, sounding annoyed. "I don't know what you hope to achieve by driving all of them away. They were perfectly nice - by far the least dull - but your childishness is going to make them reconsider."
Sherlock kept his scowl on. "I want to go back home," he said. "Eventually they'll get bored of me and let us go. Everyone always does."
"How many times must I tell you? This isn't a school, where they can just send you somewhere else. They have to find us a home. It's the law. We are minors, and as such, legally, we must be cared for by an adult or adults." Mycroft was frowning too, by now.
"Anna can take care of us," Sherlock muttered at his knees. "She was before they got involved."
"She was taking care of us until mother and father returned," Mycroft said sharply, "and then they didn't. And she wasn't interested in sticking around, and I can't say I blame her."
Sherlock began to turn red. He was fairly vibrating, getting tenser and tenser by the second, now rocking slightly back and forward. Mycroft sighed. "Sherlock, don't-" But before he could finish, Sherlock was up, dashing across the room to kick at the sofa Mycroft sat on.
"Don't you say that!" he shouted at the top of his voice, and sure enough this brought adults tumbling into the room, neither of whom Mycroft recognised. Sherlock was by now pounding the sofa, and then when one of the adults stepped forward he turned and ran back toward the other side of the room, reaching the window and banging his fists on the glass. "Don't you say that! Don't talk about them like that! I want to go home! Nobody can keep me here! You can't-" he broke off to wriggle out of the grasp of an older, very alarmed-looking lady, and headed for the box in the corner, full of baby toys. These began to be flung about the room.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" The small table next to it, with its two plastic chairs and its paper and pencil crayons, went flying too. A man who'd just entered the room had to duck out again to avoid being hit in the face with a chair. Sherlock started a scream now, no longer with words, but still full of just as much rage as he then threw himself to the floor and began to beat and kick anything within his reach, rolling and writhing and lashing out at anybody that got near him.
Finally, having seen that Sherlock wasn't likely to injure anybody without warning, Mycroft stood up and left the room. In the corridor a woman stopped him, a colleague of their social worker. "Are you all right?" she asked, peering around him even as she spoke to look in at the scene in the meeting room. She had to raise her voice quite a lot to be heard above the noise.
"I'm fine, thank you," Mycroft replied placidly.
"And...how about your brother?"
"He is, I believe, quite upset," said Mycroft. "However, you may wish to inform your colleagues that if left alone, he tends to calm down much faster. The more anyone tries to interact with him, the longer this tantrum will continue."
The woman seemed to think about that, hand on his shoulder, a pen held between her fingers, and she looked between him and the room, where Sherlock still thrashed. "It's normal to be angry when someone we love dies," she said eventually. "And it's difficult to understand when you're that young. It's a bit different to being annoyed because you can't have your own way."
"I agree," Mycroft said slowly, "which is why I described this as a tantrum and not as an outpouring of grief." The woman's attention focused sharply on him then. "This behaviour far predates the death of our parents."
The woman appeared to be searching for a reply to that, when the man exited the room saying, "Jesus, he bloody bit me!" He was cradling his hand, and as he hurried down the corridor the woman took her hand off Mycroft's shoulder, appearing to decide that it was her turn to join the fray.
Mycroft leant back against the wall, hands folded in front of him, and thought longingly of school, where things were ordered and precise and somehow, despite the hundreds of boys all living in one space, often quieter than home.
* * * * *
"We are actually going to do this." It was half question, half statement. Lestrade looked across the table at his wife, pretty certain about the answer he was going to get but needing to hear it anyway. Laura often said he wouldn't manage to decide whether or not to eat if she wasn't around, and he would protest even as he felt that actually, that might be fairly true. He could make decisions; he had to, at work. But making them was tiring, and it was often just easier to be ordered about. Besides, that way if things went really wrong, he could always blame her.
"We're going to do this," Laura confirmed, reaching her hands across the table, palm up, waiting until he placed his hands in hers. She clasped them tightly together. "You said exactly the same before Kiera and Nathan, and I turned out to be right about that, didn't I?"
"Mmm." Lestrade still felt their loss keenly. It had been a month since they'd left and they'd only been with them for eight, but he still felt it weird not to be woken up in the morning by four determined thumps of a small fist on the bedroom door, followed by, "It's breakfast time!" They'd taken most of the kids' pictures down from around the house, not wanting to make their new additions feel unwelcome, but they'd kept one in the living room and one on the chest of drawers in their bedroom, as well as a photo album full. Lestrade wondered if this was what all foster parents went through every time a kid moved on, and decided it couldn't be because then nobody would ever do it. Would it be harder or easier with your own children leaving, but as adults? He couldn't decide.
"I trust you," he smiled, and she smiled back. "Just…Sherlock and Mycroft. Bloody hell. I mean, what is that about? Can't we rename them?"
"They're not dogs, Les," Laura rolled her eyes, releasing his hands and reaching for her notebook.
"Might as well be, with names as ridiculous as that," Lestrade mused. "Suit them, though. They aren't half odd. Really, how are we going to be able to introduce them to anyone with a straight face? Frank? He'll tear them to pieces."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Laura said, already engrossed in her writing by now but still, Lestrade marvelled, with enough spare brainpower left over to carry on a coherent conversation. "All he's got on them is their names. I imagine they'll manage to dig up loads more on him."
He grinned. "Now actually, yeah. That's quite a handy trick. We could get them to bring that out at Christmas when things get really dull."
"Again, darling," Laura looked up at him for this next statement, "not dogs."
* * * * *
The Holmes brothers had been staying with the Lestrades for two days now. They were in the middle of a third. It still didn't feel like they were living here yet, but Lestrade knew that soon it would. Or at least, he hoped so. Mycroft was unfailingly polite. Sherlock was unfailingly rude. It was an unnerving combination and neither of these demeanours helped with making the place seem like a family home. Still, early days, and all that.
Their social worker was due to arrive for the post-placement check in an hour and a half. Lestrade, not for the first time, was beginning to doubt their abilities. Were they really capable of taking all this on? Worse still, he could tell that Laura was starting to do the same.
Sherlock had just been refused access to his chemistry kit - the kid had an actual, real chemistry kit, one that most likely would have said age 16+ on the box, had it been the sort to come in a cardboard box- until he ate a significant portion of his lunch. So far, what he'd managed to eat was nothing. "But it's mine!" he was currently screaming. "You can't keep it from me! It's my legal property! I'm not hungry! You can't make me!" Mycroft was calmly finishing his pasta salad as though there wasn't a banshee sitting opposite him, and Lestrade was trying and failing to follow his lead. Weird, how the sense of sound could do so well to put you off your food. He sympathised, a bit; Sherlock's food probably tasted angry.
Laura, having delivered the bad news to Sherlock about what he was required to eat before he could leave the table, had almost finished her pasta. She'd tried starting a conversation with Mycroft, but it was impossible without shouting, and they'd given it up fairly soon.
When Sherlock dropped from the chair to the floor without apparently even noticing, and definitely without a break in sound, Lestrade looked at him again only to discover that he was quite an alarming shade of dark red now. As usual - and this really, really should not be usual - he'd moved to the wordless shrieking part of the fit by now. Laura had said the night before that she considered it progress that by that day's seventh tantrum, he'd stopped trying to tear the room up but was staying mostly in one place and shouting. Lestrade had agreed at the time but now he was feeling like at least if Sherlock moved about a bit, the sound wouldn't seem quite so bad.
"Okay," he said grimly, pushing his plate away and standing up, "I give up." Laura looked at him, surprised, and he shrugged at her in return. He wasn't at all sure this was going to work, but he supposed it was worth a try. "Put your shoes on," he said to the screaming child on the floor, and was unsurprised to receive absolutely no response.
Undeterred, he went to the hall and put his own shoes and jacket on. He contemplated picking up Sherlock's but decided against it; kid probably needed to cool down now anyway. He returned to the kitchen with Sherlock's shoes in hand, and fought with him for around a minute before he managed to get them both on him. Sherlock's protests were more token than anything, he thought, but the kid could hit bloody hard for a seven year old.
"See you in a bit," he said to the room, standing up with Sherlock held bodily under one arm. Thankfully he wasn't anywhere near as heavy as he was strong - probably because he never seemed to eat anything - so this part wasn't as difficult as he'd feared it might be.
He carried the screaming tangle of anger down the road, staring blankly past anyone who stared at them, which was absolutely everyone. He wondered if feeling the cold air might do anything, but it seemed to have little effect. The sound was starting to peter off a bit now, but he knew that that only meant Sherlock was giving himself a rest before amping it up again. The longest one they'd had to deal with had lasted just over an hour. The social worker told them she'd seen one which went on for more than two. They were slightly ahead, having been advised by Mycroft that things generally went quicker if Sherlock was left to get on with it, but still, an hour of screaming was more than enough for anybody. At Sherlock's volume, a minute was pushing it.
He readjusted his grip while he waited for the lights, now holding Sherlock almost like a baby, if that baby were painfully large and abnormally hairy on top. Apart from that, Lestrade thought, there wasn't too much difference. Sherlock bucked occasionally and tried to wriggle down, but he seemed to have the sense not to do it while they were crossing the road, which Lestrade was thankful for. They walked another few minutes before they came to the entrance to the park, and after another minute, Lestrade was glad when they got to the bench he'd been vaguely aiming for. The old woman who'd been sat there took a long look at them, then gathered up her bag and left.
Lestrade put Sherlock down on the bench next to him, but fisted a hand in the back of his shirt. They'd bought him some T-shirts but he hadn't been interested in them. "Tell me about this woman," Lestrade said, speaking into Sherlock's ear so there was a chance of him hearing without Lestrade having to bellow. He winced as he did so, as this brought him ever closer to the sound of the human alarm.
Sherlock ignored him. "All right, then," he said. "I'll go first. Late twenties. Jogging through the park, but she's not wearing sportswear, so, not for exercise. Late for something? But then she doesn't seem very worried about it." He thought for a moment.
He'd opened his mouth to continue but almost tripped over his tongue when the screaming stopped and Sherlock said suddenly, "Of course it's for exercise." This was said through a mouthful of tears and probably snot, but it was definitely said, not shrieked. "She's jogging on her lunch break, or on her way home from work if she only does mornings." Sherlock sniffed; not the sniff of someone upset and trying to contain it, but someone whose head was full of various liquids. "She's got expensive trainers, good for running, not just for style, but her clothes are smart and they don't match. So she's been to work or maybe going but that's unlikely, and she's brought a change of shoes to jog in." He looked scornfully at Lestrade. "You're an awful detective."
"I've usually got a bit more to go on," Lestrade said, still quite shell-shocked from the relative peace, though not at all ungrateful for it. "What about him, then?"
They returned half an hour later, Lestrade feeling thoroughly insulted, and thoroughly relieved because of it.
* * * * *
"Sherlock?" Laura called softly, standing outside his bedroom door. It was midnight and the others in the house had already gone to bed. The boys had been with them three weeks and so far, Sherlock had never been asleep before anyone else. Sometimes she wasn't even sure he'd slept at all, but then he managed to function without the rattiness that most kids had when they were tired. He was certainly irritable, that was for sure, but it didn't seem to be connected to sleep or lack thereof.
Every night, whoever went to bed last would go to check on him, ensure he hadn't escaped through the window or set the place on fire, both of which seemed fairly viable prospects. They'd been given several ideas for how to deal with a non-sleeping child from their training, other foster carers and particularly the clinical psychologist they'd visited earlier that day, but as Lestrade had said, "You've either got to be young enough or stupid enough to be fooled into using them, or you've got to want to. And he isn't and doesn't."
The clinical psychologist wasn't an appointment they'd booked. It was one the boys' emergency foster carers had booked while they were with them, in conjunction with their social worker. Mycroft had explained earlier that day that Sherlock had already been to see several people, and reeled off a list of professionals including names, location of offices and various qualifications, but they couldn't really cancel the appointment without good reason, and Laura didn't think the social worker would accept that. Lestrade had said, sighing into his coffee, "Well, one more couldn't hurt."
They'd offered Mycroft something too, just ordinary counselling for him, someone to talk to about his parents. Nobody had been surprised when he declined.
Laura tapped on the door, and when she received no answer - which was, all told, quite a polite response compared to the usual, "Go away!" or simply, "No!" - she opened the door.
"Sherl…oh." Laura's speech stuttered to a halt as she took in the scene before her.
Sherlock was kneeling on his bed, facing the wall, with a black marker pen in his right hand. He was currently using the pen to write what appeared to be some kind of formula on the wall. Laura watched in silence for a few seconds, mouth still halfway through his name, until Sherlock stopped writing and turned round, a slightly manic little grin on his face.
They stared at one another for several seconds more.
"Sherlock," Laura began again, having composed herself. "What are you doing?"
Sherlock held the grin. "Teaching myself," he said. "You wouldn't understand." He turned back to the wall and began to edit the formula, crossing out a little 1 and replacing it with a 3.
"No, probably not," Laura agreed, eyes moving away from the patch where Sherlock was writing to take in the other bits of information written in various spots around the room, though none above five foot high. "Les has always been more scientific than me."
Sherlock made a derisive sound at this statement.
"Why are you writing on the walls?" Laura tried.
"They were close," Sherlock said.
"Yes…" Laura said, thinking as she spoke, "but what will you do when you've filled them all up?"
Sherlock's writing faltered a little at this, though he didn't stop. He also didn't reply.
"Eventually," Laura continued, "all of your work's going to run together and then you won't be able to make head nor tail of it."
"Yes I will," said Sherlock immediately, but not entirely convincingly. She smiled, making sure he couldn't see her.
"Why don't you try paper?" she suggested, crossing the room to his desk and picking up the pad of graph paper they'd bought him two days ago, which so far had sat untouched. She held it out in front of her like a peace offering. "When you finish that we can get you some more."
Sherlock turned to look at her now, pausing in his writing. "Paper's not big enough," he said dismissively. "My thoughts don't fit."
And that, she could well believe. Laura thought for a while, looking for an argument which would save them the expense of re-wallpapering Sherlock's bedroom every month. Finally, she had it. "How about we get you some blackboards?"
Sherlock stopped again and looked over his shoulder at her, suspicious as usual. It hurt her to see that little face so distrustful, but she couldn't let it show. "We could put them up around the room, several next to each other. So you can use them and then when you need more space you can just clean them off again."
The little boy wavered, his eyes drifting away from her as he thought. Eventually he met her eyes again and said, "Different colour chalks," and then his attention was back at the wall, so fast she couldn't be entirely sure he'd said it. Sometimes, though, you had to settle for a possible fantasy.
"All right," she replied, clamping down on a smile. Sherlock was incredibly sensitive to anything he perceived as mocking. "Tomorrow, we'll get some." She'd have to argue it over with Lestrade a bit, but he'd come round soon enough once he saw the state of Sherlock's walls. When they replaced this, she had a feeling it wouldn't be with paper with pictures.
Satisfied that the situation was under control, for now, Laura turned her attention to more pressing matters. "Would you like to listen to a tape to help you to sleep?"
Sherlock paused again to give her that familiar withering look. She hadn't expected anything less, but at least this way she could say honestly to the social worker that she'd tried. "No, I don't want to, and no, it wouldn't help me sleep."
"All right then. Goodnight, I hope." She came over to him to give him a hug from behind. He stiffened, as he usually did, but she fancied it was getting more conscious these days than not, which was possibly a good sign. She pressed a kiss to his curls and released him, leaving the room quietly.
Once the door closed behind her, Sherlock heaved a little sigh, and put the top back on the pen.
* * * * *
"She's due in half an hour," Lestrade shouted over the noise, "and he doesn't look like he's-"
"Hang on," Laura yelled over the top of him, before gesturing him out into the hallway. They breathed a joint sigh of relief once the door was closed, at least one solid barrier between them and Sherlock.
"He doesn't look like he's going to be shutting up any time soon," Lestrade continued. "What the hell are we gonna do?"
Laura shrugged at him. "There's not a lot we can do," she said. "Just hold the meeting out here or upstairs."
He frowned at her. "You know that's not what I meant. How's this going to look?"
Laura leant back against the wall, putting her hands in the pockets of her fleece and closing her eyes. He moved towards her without planning to, standing in her space and wrapping his arms around her waist. She took her hands out and did the same, resting her head against his shoulder now instead. They stood quietly for a minute, letting the background noise wash over them.
"Can you not take him out?" she suggested.
He shook his head and felt her hair tickle his cheek. "He's in a violent mood," he said. "Back to the kicking. Dunno if we're back to the biting but I don't fancy finding out."
"I thought he was getting better." Laura sounded perturbed. "We haven't had one in two days and this is the third just this morning. Was he saving them all up or something?"
There was another silence. "Could be," Lestrade said, thinking this over. He lifted his head up and pulled back just enough so they could look at each other. "He knows she's coming and he's far from stupid. He might actually have been planning this for today."
They shared a worried look. It was horrible to think that Sherlock might be trying to show them up as unfit carers, because the result would be that both of the boys would be moved on. Lestrade did think they'd been making progress, with both of them, but now it looked like maybe they hadn't.
"Where's Mycroft?" he asked, to distract himself from this train of thought.
"He's at the library. He said he'll be back before she arrives." They were two weeks into the new school year, and Mycroft was by his own account glad to be back at school. Sherlock wasn't, but then Sherlock rarely seemed glad about anything. Usually Mycroft would have boarded for the entire half-term, sometimes over the holiday too, but it had been decided that he would for the time being come home at weekends, to allow more time for bonding with his new family. Nobody ever phrased it like that, new family, but everybody knew that's what they meant, distasteful as it was. Your parents have died? Terribly sorry, have some new ones. If only it were that easy.
Lestrade suspected Mycroft would find very little in the local library that would amuse him, but it was somewhere where you definitely couldn't hear Sherlock, and Lestrade bemoaned the fact that he'd had to skip out of today's match because the social worker was coming.
There was a sudden crash, and they both started. Laura winced very obviously. "I'll bet that was the clock," she said.
"I'll check," Lestrade offered grimly. "You go and take a walk, we'll swap when you get back. No point both of us having raging headaches when she gets here."
Laura wasn't stupid; she didn't even try to protest, simply kissed him and left. Lestrade watched her shut the front door, then took a deep breath and opened the door again.
* * * * *
They were nearing the end of the meeting, which was being held in the Lestrades' bedroom. It was a bit strange, sitting on your bed and having a social worker sit across from you in the armchair while she talked through a form, but the uncomfortable feeling of being seen in your most honest representation wasn't that far removed from the way the initial fostering application felt.
The social worker had spent some time with Mycroft first, sitting in his bedroom and trying to comment on his schoolwork, and she'd tried to talk to Sherlock, but Laura had pulled her out of the way just in time before she got a particularly vicious boot to the shins. She was supposed to be there mostly for the kids, but it seemed easier for her to talk to the carers.
"Well, that all seems fine," Mrs Gardner said, putting the cap back on her pen and starting to gather up the papers she'd scattered around herself. She watched as the Lestrades gave each other visible relieved looks. "Is there something I've missed?"
"No," Laura shook her head, "we were just concerned, what with Sherlock as he is today. Like I say, he's been much better recently but it seems to have all kicked off again for no apparent reason." Sherlock had in fact quieted about five minutes ago, and Lestrade was itching to go and check on both him and the living room, but as the social worker had said they'd only be a few minutes he'd waited it out.
"Oh, that." Mrs Gardner laughed, as though she came across seven year olds having huge tantrums like toddlers every day. Perhaps she did. "No, I wouldn't worry. It's obvious that you care about him - about both of them - and to be honest…" She paused a moment, looking unsure, but then continued. "I didn't think you'd be able to stand them for more than a week. Most people didn't get past the first meeting; too disturbed with Sherlock's little…thing, and how smart the both of them are. You were the only ones who got past the second, so you're obviously made of stronger stuff, but their emergency carers - they couldn't wait to be rid of them, and they've been doing this for twenty years. They've seen it all, but…" She shook her head. "Anyway. If you care enough to worry about what that looks like then you probably care enough to keep them." She stood, hoisting her huge bag onto her shoulder, and smiled.
As they followed her down the stairs, Lestrade tried to sort his thoughts out. He was glad that things had ended with the conclusion they'd hoped for - they were fit carers, doing the best they could with insane circumstances - but the social worker did have a habit of talking about Sherlock and Mycroft like they weren't actually people. It was like none of the kids actually got a say in what happened to them; it was all about whether they'd fit in the bedrooms and who'd 'put up with them' long enough. He'd use those terms himself, of course, but he didn't really mean them. He had the feeling that Mrs Gardner did, and maybe that was why they were foster carers and she was a social worker.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs Mrs Gardner paused, peering through the open living room door. When she went inside and they were able to follow her, Lestrade could see Sherlock, curled up in an armchair reading one of Mycroft's books; from the edge of the cover he could see, it looked like the Ovid collection in the original Latin. Sherlock was still red and tear-stained, and his shirt was completely askew. Lestrade could also see a small bruise beginning to form on his jawbone.
"I see you've calmed down now," Mrs Gardner said, and Sherlock ignored her, surprising absolutely no one. "Would you like to talk to me now?"
He ignored her still.
"Sherlock," Lestrade said, aware that he could easily spark another fit but feeling the point had to be made, "don't be rude. You're being spoken to."
Sherlock's head turned towards Mrs Gardner at glacial pace; when their eyes finally met he hardly looked like the poster boy for conversationalists, but Lestrade figured this was better than nothing.
"No," said Sherlock, very clearly.
"How are you finding living here?" Mrs Gardner asked, regardless. Out of the corner of his eye, Lestrade saw Laura wince a little, and he hid a smile. Was the woman a glutton for punishment?
"Which part of 'no' are you finding difficult?" Sherlock asked her. "It's a complete sentence; the shortest complete sentence in the English language, actually." Lestrade telegraphed a look at Laura which said clearly: That piece of knowledge is all your fault.
Mrs Gardner opened her mouth and looked as if she might press on, but then decided better of it. "Well, all right then," she said. "Perhaps next time. It's been nice seeing you again," she added before turning to leave, in what everyone in the room knew to be a complete fabrication.
When she'd gone, Laura set to putting the room to rights, mourning over the loss of the carriage clock as she collected its pieces into the rubbish bin. Lestrade made a mental note to get her a new one for her birthday; it wouldn't be the same but she'd appreciate it. He knelt down beside Sherlock, reaching his hand out to cup the boy's face. Predictably, Sherlock jerked away, but when he tried again Sherlock let him, looking sulkily and determinedly down at the page in front of him. "That's going to be very pretty by tomorrow morning," Lestrade said, referring to the bruise. "How'd you get that?"
"Can't you tell?" snapped Sherlock.
"We've got forensics teams, y'know," he smiled.
He waited until Sherlock ground out, "On the coffee table."
Lestrade looked over at the table, which was several inches out of its usual position. "Hmm. Better put some padding on those legs, eh?" When Sherlock didn't reply, he added, "Want some ice?"
"No."
"Well then," Lestrade settled himself into a more comfortable position, cross-legged on the floor. "Want to tell me what all that was about?"
"No."
This strategy didn't really work, but Lestrade and Laura had decided between them that anything was worth several tries when it came to Sherlock. He was contrary enough that you never knew whether he'd suddenly decide to go along with something he'd previously been fighting against. Lestrade thought for a bit.
"Did you get what you wanted from it?" he ventured.
Sherlock turned to look at him, which was unusual. "I didn't want anything from it," he said, with scorn, but with a heavy helping of unsurety on top of it. Now that was interesting.
"Mycroft says you do this to get your own way," Lestrade said.
Sherlock scowled. "Mycroft's an ignoramus." The word sounded wrong coming out of the mouth of a seven year old, even one with as cultivated an accent as Sherlock's.
"So why did you do it, then?" Lestrade asked, openly curious.
Sherlock looked very hard at his book, and Lestrade didn't think he was going to get an answer until, when he was about to give up, Sherlock muttered, "I was angry."
Thereafter, he refused to say another word on the subject, and soon ran off upstairs.
Lestrade stayed sat on the carpet for a few moments, watching as Laura returned and started to stack newspapers, and hoped that one day Sherlock would be able to feel sadness as well as anger.
Pic
This entry was originally posted at http://ficofpic.dreamwidth.org/47986.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Author: Pic Akai
Rating: PG
Fandom: Sherlock
Summary: When Lestrade and Laura first meet Sherlock, he is a very angry little boy. This fic shows several snapshots of their first month as foster carers for the Holmes brothers.
Word count: ~5,900
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the people, characters, situations etc in these works of fiction, except for the ones I have created. They are written for entertainment purposes and no infringement or specific comment on any person is intended.
Status: Finished.
Notes: This is part of the Dad 'verse. It'll probably make more sense if you've read Dad first. I should also point out that the views expressed about social workers here are not my own, and the actions of the social worker within do not reflect a) the actions of all social workers, clearly, and b) the attitudes of the social work profession as a whole. It might help to remember that this would have taken place in the late eighties.
"You're a police officer." It was the first time the little boy had spoken all hour, just as they had their coats on and Lestrade had his hand on the door, ready to leave. Lestrade and Laura both turned round, expectantly.
Mycroft, the older brother who they'd spent most of the preceding hour chatting awkwardly with, shook his head with a warning look at his brother, but Sherlock carried on regardless.
"You're a detective, actually. You've got at least one older sibling, probably a sister, and at least one younger. Maybe more. You play football regularly, like you said, but it's not for exercise like most people. You actually enjoy the game, for the tactics, and the-" the boy faltered here a second and frowned on his next word, "People. You like expensive things, clothes and food, but you don't bother with them - the food because you can't cook and she doesn't want to bother with the fuss, and the clothes probably because you won't really get a chance to wear them in your line of work. Anything else because you're afraid of it getting stolen or broken."
He shifted his gaze to Laura. "You're a lecturer - or you used to be, but you gave it up to foster. You lectured in the field of literature. You're an eldest child with at least two younger siblings. Unlike most people, you're not fostering because you can't have your own children, but you want to...help." The word seemed to taste odd in his mouth. "You intend on having your own children anyway, probably while you're still fostering. And you love dogs but won't get one because he's afraid of them."
He concluded this speech by staring at them, almost defiantly.
Lestrade and Laura raised their eyebrows at one another. After a pause, Laura said, "That's very clever."
"It's not clever," the little boy snapped immediately. "It's obvious."
"It took you an hour to work all of that out," Mycroft interjected. "I know-" he said loudly, apparently pre-empting his brother's protestations, "Not all of it. But I know you didn't get that about dogs until just now, and that was obvious when they entered." Lestrade was faintly amazed at the fact that he didn't, like any normal older sibling would have done, say this in a way which conveyed any smugness or sense that Sherlock should feel stupid. He just spoke as though it were fact.
"I'm not scared of dogs, anyway," he put in, feeling like he should clarify that point. "I just don't particularly like them."
Both brothers stared at him, equally creepily, though one look was a lot more disdainful than the other.
"And I'm afraid I don't have any younger siblings," Laura said, actually sounding apologetic. When Sherlock's face darkened, she added, "Though I did spend a lot of time with my younger cousins."
This didn't seem to appease him.
There was another silence before Laura said, "Well, it's been nice meeting you both. I hope we'll see you again soon. Take care." They left the room, followed by the social worker.
The second the door closed, Mycroft's gaze was back on his brother. "I wish you'd stop doing that," he said, sounding annoyed. "I don't know what you hope to achieve by driving all of them away. They were perfectly nice - by far the least dull - but your childishness is going to make them reconsider."
Sherlock kept his scowl on. "I want to go back home," he said. "Eventually they'll get bored of me and let us go. Everyone always does."
"How many times must I tell you? This isn't a school, where they can just send you somewhere else. They have to find us a home. It's the law. We are minors, and as such, legally, we must be cared for by an adult or adults." Mycroft was frowning too, by now.
"Anna can take care of us," Sherlock muttered at his knees. "She was before they got involved."
"She was taking care of us until mother and father returned," Mycroft said sharply, "and then they didn't. And she wasn't interested in sticking around, and I can't say I blame her."
Sherlock began to turn red. He was fairly vibrating, getting tenser and tenser by the second, now rocking slightly back and forward. Mycroft sighed. "Sherlock, don't-" But before he could finish, Sherlock was up, dashing across the room to kick at the sofa Mycroft sat on.
"Don't you say that!" he shouted at the top of his voice, and sure enough this brought adults tumbling into the room, neither of whom Mycroft recognised. Sherlock was by now pounding the sofa, and then when one of the adults stepped forward he turned and ran back toward the other side of the room, reaching the window and banging his fists on the glass. "Don't you say that! Don't talk about them like that! I want to go home! Nobody can keep me here! You can't-" he broke off to wriggle out of the grasp of an older, very alarmed-looking lady, and headed for the box in the corner, full of baby toys. These began to be flung about the room.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" The small table next to it, with its two plastic chairs and its paper and pencil crayons, went flying too. A man who'd just entered the room had to duck out again to avoid being hit in the face with a chair. Sherlock started a scream now, no longer with words, but still full of just as much rage as he then threw himself to the floor and began to beat and kick anything within his reach, rolling and writhing and lashing out at anybody that got near him.
Finally, having seen that Sherlock wasn't likely to injure anybody without warning, Mycroft stood up and left the room. In the corridor a woman stopped him, a colleague of their social worker. "Are you all right?" she asked, peering around him even as she spoke to look in at the scene in the meeting room. She had to raise her voice quite a lot to be heard above the noise.
"I'm fine, thank you," Mycroft replied placidly.
"And...how about your brother?"
"He is, I believe, quite upset," said Mycroft. "However, you may wish to inform your colleagues that if left alone, he tends to calm down much faster. The more anyone tries to interact with him, the longer this tantrum will continue."
The woman seemed to think about that, hand on his shoulder, a pen held between her fingers, and she looked between him and the room, where Sherlock still thrashed. "It's normal to be angry when someone we love dies," she said eventually. "And it's difficult to understand when you're that young. It's a bit different to being annoyed because you can't have your own way."
"I agree," Mycroft said slowly, "which is why I described this as a tantrum and not as an outpouring of grief." The woman's attention focused sharply on him then. "This behaviour far predates the death of our parents."
The woman appeared to be searching for a reply to that, when the man exited the room saying, "Jesus, he bloody bit me!" He was cradling his hand, and as he hurried down the corridor the woman took her hand off Mycroft's shoulder, appearing to decide that it was her turn to join the fray.
Mycroft leant back against the wall, hands folded in front of him, and thought longingly of school, where things were ordered and precise and somehow, despite the hundreds of boys all living in one space, often quieter than home.
* * * * *
"We are actually going to do this." It was half question, half statement. Lestrade looked across the table at his wife, pretty certain about the answer he was going to get but needing to hear it anyway. Laura often said he wouldn't manage to decide whether or not to eat if she wasn't around, and he would protest even as he felt that actually, that might be fairly true. He could make decisions; he had to, at work. But making them was tiring, and it was often just easier to be ordered about. Besides, that way if things went really wrong, he could always blame her.
"We're going to do this," Laura confirmed, reaching her hands across the table, palm up, waiting until he placed his hands in hers. She clasped them tightly together. "You said exactly the same before Kiera and Nathan, and I turned out to be right about that, didn't I?"
"Mmm." Lestrade still felt their loss keenly. It had been a month since they'd left and they'd only been with them for eight, but he still felt it weird not to be woken up in the morning by four determined thumps of a small fist on the bedroom door, followed by, "It's breakfast time!" They'd taken most of the kids' pictures down from around the house, not wanting to make their new additions feel unwelcome, but they'd kept one in the living room and one on the chest of drawers in their bedroom, as well as a photo album full. Lestrade wondered if this was what all foster parents went through every time a kid moved on, and decided it couldn't be because then nobody would ever do it. Would it be harder or easier with your own children leaving, but as adults? He couldn't decide.
"I trust you," he smiled, and she smiled back. "Just…Sherlock and Mycroft. Bloody hell. I mean, what is that about? Can't we rename them?"
"They're not dogs, Les," Laura rolled her eyes, releasing his hands and reaching for her notebook.
"Might as well be, with names as ridiculous as that," Lestrade mused. "Suit them, though. They aren't half odd. Really, how are we going to be able to introduce them to anyone with a straight face? Frank? He'll tear them to pieces."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Laura said, already engrossed in her writing by now but still, Lestrade marvelled, with enough spare brainpower left over to carry on a coherent conversation. "All he's got on them is their names. I imagine they'll manage to dig up loads more on him."
He grinned. "Now actually, yeah. That's quite a handy trick. We could get them to bring that out at Christmas when things get really dull."
"Again, darling," Laura looked up at him for this next statement, "not dogs."
* * * * *
The Holmes brothers had been staying with the Lestrades for two days now. They were in the middle of a third. It still didn't feel like they were living here yet, but Lestrade knew that soon it would. Or at least, he hoped so. Mycroft was unfailingly polite. Sherlock was unfailingly rude. It was an unnerving combination and neither of these demeanours helped with making the place seem like a family home. Still, early days, and all that.
Their social worker was due to arrive for the post-placement check in an hour and a half. Lestrade, not for the first time, was beginning to doubt their abilities. Were they really capable of taking all this on? Worse still, he could tell that Laura was starting to do the same.
Sherlock had just been refused access to his chemistry kit - the kid had an actual, real chemistry kit, one that most likely would have said age 16+ on the box, had it been the sort to come in a cardboard box- until he ate a significant portion of his lunch. So far, what he'd managed to eat was nothing. "But it's mine!" he was currently screaming. "You can't keep it from me! It's my legal property! I'm not hungry! You can't make me!" Mycroft was calmly finishing his pasta salad as though there wasn't a banshee sitting opposite him, and Lestrade was trying and failing to follow his lead. Weird, how the sense of sound could do so well to put you off your food. He sympathised, a bit; Sherlock's food probably tasted angry.
Laura, having delivered the bad news to Sherlock about what he was required to eat before he could leave the table, had almost finished her pasta. She'd tried starting a conversation with Mycroft, but it was impossible without shouting, and they'd given it up fairly soon.
When Sherlock dropped from the chair to the floor without apparently even noticing, and definitely without a break in sound, Lestrade looked at him again only to discover that he was quite an alarming shade of dark red now. As usual - and this really, really should not be usual - he'd moved to the wordless shrieking part of the fit by now. Laura had said the night before that she considered it progress that by that day's seventh tantrum, he'd stopped trying to tear the room up but was staying mostly in one place and shouting. Lestrade had agreed at the time but now he was feeling like at least if Sherlock moved about a bit, the sound wouldn't seem quite so bad.
"Okay," he said grimly, pushing his plate away and standing up, "I give up." Laura looked at him, surprised, and he shrugged at her in return. He wasn't at all sure this was going to work, but he supposed it was worth a try. "Put your shoes on," he said to the screaming child on the floor, and was unsurprised to receive absolutely no response.
Undeterred, he went to the hall and put his own shoes and jacket on. He contemplated picking up Sherlock's but decided against it; kid probably needed to cool down now anyway. He returned to the kitchen with Sherlock's shoes in hand, and fought with him for around a minute before he managed to get them both on him. Sherlock's protests were more token than anything, he thought, but the kid could hit bloody hard for a seven year old.
"See you in a bit," he said to the room, standing up with Sherlock held bodily under one arm. Thankfully he wasn't anywhere near as heavy as he was strong - probably because he never seemed to eat anything - so this part wasn't as difficult as he'd feared it might be.
He carried the screaming tangle of anger down the road, staring blankly past anyone who stared at them, which was absolutely everyone. He wondered if feeling the cold air might do anything, but it seemed to have little effect. The sound was starting to peter off a bit now, but he knew that that only meant Sherlock was giving himself a rest before amping it up again. The longest one they'd had to deal with had lasted just over an hour. The social worker told them she'd seen one which went on for more than two. They were slightly ahead, having been advised by Mycroft that things generally went quicker if Sherlock was left to get on with it, but still, an hour of screaming was more than enough for anybody. At Sherlock's volume, a minute was pushing it.
He readjusted his grip while he waited for the lights, now holding Sherlock almost like a baby, if that baby were painfully large and abnormally hairy on top. Apart from that, Lestrade thought, there wasn't too much difference. Sherlock bucked occasionally and tried to wriggle down, but he seemed to have the sense not to do it while they were crossing the road, which Lestrade was thankful for. They walked another few minutes before they came to the entrance to the park, and after another minute, Lestrade was glad when they got to the bench he'd been vaguely aiming for. The old woman who'd been sat there took a long look at them, then gathered up her bag and left.
Lestrade put Sherlock down on the bench next to him, but fisted a hand in the back of his shirt. They'd bought him some T-shirts but he hadn't been interested in them. "Tell me about this woman," Lestrade said, speaking into Sherlock's ear so there was a chance of him hearing without Lestrade having to bellow. He winced as he did so, as this brought him ever closer to the sound of the human alarm.
Sherlock ignored him. "All right, then," he said. "I'll go first. Late twenties. Jogging through the park, but she's not wearing sportswear, so, not for exercise. Late for something? But then she doesn't seem very worried about it." He thought for a moment.
He'd opened his mouth to continue but almost tripped over his tongue when the screaming stopped and Sherlock said suddenly, "Of course it's for exercise." This was said through a mouthful of tears and probably snot, but it was definitely said, not shrieked. "She's jogging on her lunch break, or on her way home from work if she only does mornings." Sherlock sniffed; not the sniff of someone upset and trying to contain it, but someone whose head was full of various liquids. "She's got expensive trainers, good for running, not just for style, but her clothes are smart and they don't match. So she's been to work or maybe going but that's unlikely, and she's brought a change of shoes to jog in." He looked scornfully at Lestrade. "You're an awful detective."
"I've usually got a bit more to go on," Lestrade said, still quite shell-shocked from the relative peace, though not at all ungrateful for it. "What about him, then?"
They returned half an hour later, Lestrade feeling thoroughly insulted, and thoroughly relieved because of it.
* * * * *
"Sherlock?" Laura called softly, standing outside his bedroom door. It was midnight and the others in the house had already gone to bed. The boys had been with them three weeks and so far, Sherlock had never been asleep before anyone else. Sometimes she wasn't even sure he'd slept at all, but then he managed to function without the rattiness that most kids had when they were tired. He was certainly irritable, that was for sure, but it didn't seem to be connected to sleep or lack thereof.
Every night, whoever went to bed last would go to check on him, ensure he hadn't escaped through the window or set the place on fire, both of which seemed fairly viable prospects. They'd been given several ideas for how to deal with a non-sleeping child from their training, other foster carers and particularly the clinical psychologist they'd visited earlier that day, but as Lestrade had said, "You've either got to be young enough or stupid enough to be fooled into using them, or you've got to want to. And he isn't and doesn't."
The clinical psychologist wasn't an appointment they'd booked. It was one the boys' emergency foster carers had booked while they were with them, in conjunction with their social worker. Mycroft had explained earlier that day that Sherlock had already been to see several people, and reeled off a list of professionals including names, location of offices and various qualifications, but they couldn't really cancel the appointment without good reason, and Laura didn't think the social worker would accept that. Lestrade had said, sighing into his coffee, "Well, one more couldn't hurt."
They'd offered Mycroft something too, just ordinary counselling for him, someone to talk to about his parents. Nobody had been surprised when he declined.
Laura tapped on the door, and when she received no answer - which was, all told, quite a polite response compared to the usual, "Go away!" or simply, "No!" - she opened the door.
"Sherl…oh." Laura's speech stuttered to a halt as she took in the scene before her.
Sherlock was kneeling on his bed, facing the wall, with a black marker pen in his right hand. He was currently using the pen to write what appeared to be some kind of formula on the wall. Laura watched in silence for a few seconds, mouth still halfway through his name, until Sherlock stopped writing and turned round, a slightly manic little grin on his face.
They stared at one another for several seconds more.
"Sherlock," Laura began again, having composed herself. "What are you doing?"
Sherlock held the grin. "Teaching myself," he said. "You wouldn't understand." He turned back to the wall and began to edit the formula, crossing out a little 1 and replacing it with a 3.
"No, probably not," Laura agreed, eyes moving away from the patch where Sherlock was writing to take in the other bits of information written in various spots around the room, though none above five foot high. "Les has always been more scientific than me."
Sherlock made a derisive sound at this statement.
"Why are you writing on the walls?" Laura tried.
"They were close," Sherlock said.
"Yes…" Laura said, thinking as she spoke, "but what will you do when you've filled them all up?"
Sherlock's writing faltered a little at this, though he didn't stop. He also didn't reply.
"Eventually," Laura continued, "all of your work's going to run together and then you won't be able to make head nor tail of it."
"Yes I will," said Sherlock immediately, but not entirely convincingly. She smiled, making sure he couldn't see her.
"Why don't you try paper?" she suggested, crossing the room to his desk and picking up the pad of graph paper they'd bought him two days ago, which so far had sat untouched. She held it out in front of her like a peace offering. "When you finish that we can get you some more."
Sherlock turned to look at her now, pausing in his writing. "Paper's not big enough," he said dismissively. "My thoughts don't fit."
And that, she could well believe. Laura thought for a while, looking for an argument which would save them the expense of re-wallpapering Sherlock's bedroom every month. Finally, she had it. "How about we get you some blackboards?"
Sherlock stopped again and looked over his shoulder at her, suspicious as usual. It hurt her to see that little face so distrustful, but she couldn't let it show. "We could put them up around the room, several next to each other. So you can use them and then when you need more space you can just clean them off again."
The little boy wavered, his eyes drifting away from her as he thought. Eventually he met her eyes again and said, "Different colour chalks," and then his attention was back at the wall, so fast she couldn't be entirely sure he'd said it. Sometimes, though, you had to settle for a possible fantasy.
"All right," she replied, clamping down on a smile. Sherlock was incredibly sensitive to anything he perceived as mocking. "Tomorrow, we'll get some." She'd have to argue it over with Lestrade a bit, but he'd come round soon enough once he saw the state of Sherlock's walls. When they replaced this, she had a feeling it wouldn't be with paper with pictures.
Satisfied that the situation was under control, for now, Laura turned her attention to more pressing matters. "Would you like to listen to a tape to help you to sleep?"
Sherlock paused again to give her that familiar withering look. She hadn't expected anything less, but at least this way she could say honestly to the social worker that she'd tried. "No, I don't want to, and no, it wouldn't help me sleep."
"All right then. Goodnight, I hope." She came over to him to give him a hug from behind. He stiffened, as he usually did, but she fancied it was getting more conscious these days than not, which was possibly a good sign. She pressed a kiss to his curls and released him, leaving the room quietly.
Once the door closed behind her, Sherlock heaved a little sigh, and put the top back on the pen.
* * * * *
"She's due in half an hour," Lestrade shouted over the noise, "and he doesn't look like he's-"
"Hang on," Laura yelled over the top of him, before gesturing him out into the hallway. They breathed a joint sigh of relief once the door was closed, at least one solid barrier between them and Sherlock.
"He doesn't look like he's going to be shutting up any time soon," Lestrade continued. "What the hell are we gonna do?"
Laura shrugged at him. "There's not a lot we can do," she said. "Just hold the meeting out here or upstairs."
He frowned at her. "You know that's not what I meant. How's this going to look?"
Laura leant back against the wall, putting her hands in the pockets of her fleece and closing her eyes. He moved towards her without planning to, standing in her space and wrapping his arms around her waist. She took her hands out and did the same, resting her head against his shoulder now instead. They stood quietly for a minute, letting the background noise wash over them.
"Can you not take him out?" she suggested.
He shook his head and felt her hair tickle his cheek. "He's in a violent mood," he said. "Back to the kicking. Dunno if we're back to the biting but I don't fancy finding out."
"I thought he was getting better." Laura sounded perturbed. "We haven't had one in two days and this is the third just this morning. Was he saving them all up or something?"
There was another silence. "Could be," Lestrade said, thinking this over. He lifted his head up and pulled back just enough so they could look at each other. "He knows she's coming and he's far from stupid. He might actually have been planning this for today."
They shared a worried look. It was horrible to think that Sherlock might be trying to show them up as unfit carers, because the result would be that both of the boys would be moved on. Lestrade did think they'd been making progress, with both of them, but now it looked like maybe they hadn't.
"Where's Mycroft?" he asked, to distract himself from this train of thought.
"He's at the library. He said he'll be back before she arrives." They were two weeks into the new school year, and Mycroft was by his own account glad to be back at school. Sherlock wasn't, but then Sherlock rarely seemed glad about anything. Usually Mycroft would have boarded for the entire half-term, sometimes over the holiday too, but it had been decided that he would for the time being come home at weekends, to allow more time for bonding with his new family. Nobody ever phrased it like that, new family, but everybody knew that's what they meant, distasteful as it was. Your parents have died? Terribly sorry, have some new ones. If only it were that easy.
Lestrade suspected Mycroft would find very little in the local library that would amuse him, but it was somewhere where you definitely couldn't hear Sherlock, and Lestrade bemoaned the fact that he'd had to skip out of today's match because the social worker was coming.
There was a sudden crash, and they both started. Laura winced very obviously. "I'll bet that was the clock," she said.
"I'll check," Lestrade offered grimly. "You go and take a walk, we'll swap when you get back. No point both of us having raging headaches when she gets here."
Laura wasn't stupid; she didn't even try to protest, simply kissed him and left. Lestrade watched her shut the front door, then took a deep breath and opened the door again.
* * * * *
They were nearing the end of the meeting, which was being held in the Lestrades' bedroom. It was a bit strange, sitting on your bed and having a social worker sit across from you in the armchair while she talked through a form, but the uncomfortable feeling of being seen in your most honest representation wasn't that far removed from the way the initial fostering application felt.
The social worker had spent some time with Mycroft first, sitting in his bedroom and trying to comment on his schoolwork, and she'd tried to talk to Sherlock, but Laura had pulled her out of the way just in time before she got a particularly vicious boot to the shins. She was supposed to be there mostly for the kids, but it seemed easier for her to talk to the carers.
"Well, that all seems fine," Mrs Gardner said, putting the cap back on her pen and starting to gather up the papers she'd scattered around herself. She watched as the Lestrades gave each other visible relieved looks. "Is there something I've missed?"
"No," Laura shook her head, "we were just concerned, what with Sherlock as he is today. Like I say, he's been much better recently but it seems to have all kicked off again for no apparent reason." Sherlock had in fact quieted about five minutes ago, and Lestrade was itching to go and check on both him and the living room, but as the social worker had said they'd only be a few minutes he'd waited it out.
"Oh, that." Mrs Gardner laughed, as though she came across seven year olds having huge tantrums like toddlers every day. Perhaps she did. "No, I wouldn't worry. It's obvious that you care about him - about both of them - and to be honest…" She paused a moment, looking unsure, but then continued. "I didn't think you'd be able to stand them for more than a week. Most people didn't get past the first meeting; too disturbed with Sherlock's little…thing, and how smart the both of them are. You were the only ones who got past the second, so you're obviously made of stronger stuff, but their emergency carers - they couldn't wait to be rid of them, and they've been doing this for twenty years. They've seen it all, but…" She shook her head. "Anyway. If you care enough to worry about what that looks like then you probably care enough to keep them." She stood, hoisting her huge bag onto her shoulder, and smiled.
As they followed her down the stairs, Lestrade tried to sort his thoughts out. He was glad that things had ended with the conclusion they'd hoped for - they were fit carers, doing the best they could with insane circumstances - but the social worker did have a habit of talking about Sherlock and Mycroft like they weren't actually people. It was like none of the kids actually got a say in what happened to them; it was all about whether they'd fit in the bedrooms and who'd 'put up with them' long enough. He'd use those terms himself, of course, but he didn't really mean them. He had the feeling that Mrs Gardner did, and maybe that was why they were foster carers and she was a social worker.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs Mrs Gardner paused, peering through the open living room door. When she went inside and they were able to follow her, Lestrade could see Sherlock, curled up in an armchair reading one of Mycroft's books; from the edge of the cover he could see, it looked like the Ovid collection in the original Latin. Sherlock was still red and tear-stained, and his shirt was completely askew. Lestrade could also see a small bruise beginning to form on his jawbone.
"I see you've calmed down now," Mrs Gardner said, and Sherlock ignored her, surprising absolutely no one. "Would you like to talk to me now?"
He ignored her still.
"Sherlock," Lestrade said, aware that he could easily spark another fit but feeling the point had to be made, "don't be rude. You're being spoken to."
Sherlock's head turned towards Mrs Gardner at glacial pace; when their eyes finally met he hardly looked like the poster boy for conversationalists, but Lestrade figured this was better than nothing.
"No," said Sherlock, very clearly.
"How are you finding living here?" Mrs Gardner asked, regardless. Out of the corner of his eye, Lestrade saw Laura wince a little, and he hid a smile. Was the woman a glutton for punishment?
"Which part of 'no' are you finding difficult?" Sherlock asked her. "It's a complete sentence; the shortest complete sentence in the English language, actually." Lestrade telegraphed a look at Laura which said clearly: That piece of knowledge is all your fault.
Mrs Gardner opened her mouth and looked as if she might press on, but then decided better of it. "Well, all right then," she said. "Perhaps next time. It's been nice seeing you again," she added before turning to leave, in what everyone in the room knew to be a complete fabrication.
When she'd gone, Laura set to putting the room to rights, mourning over the loss of the carriage clock as she collected its pieces into the rubbish bin. Lestrade made a mental note to get her a new one for her birthday; it wouldn't be the same but she'd appreciate it. He knelt down beside Sherlock, reaching his hand out to cup the boy's face. Predictably, Sherlock jerked away, but when he tried again Sherlock let him, looking sulkily and determinedly down at the page in front of him. "That's going to be very pretty by tomorrow morning," Lestrade said, referring to the bruise. "How'd you get that?"
"Can't you tell?" snapped Sherlock.
"We've got forensics teams, y'know," he smiled.
He waited until Sherlock ground out, "On the coffee table."
Lestrade looked over at the table, which was several inches out of its usual position. "Hmm. Better put some padding on those legs, eh?" When Sherlock didn't reply, he added, "Want some ice?"
"No."
"Well then," Lestrade settled himself into a more comfortable position, cross-legged on the floor. "Want to tell me what all that was about?"
"No."
This strategy didn't really work, but Lestrade and Laura had decided between them that anything was worth several tries when it came to Sherlock. He was contrary enough that you never knew whether he'd suddenly decide to go along with something he'd previously been fighting against. Lestrade thought for a bit.
"Did you get what you wanted from it?" he ventured.
Sherlock turned to look at him, which was unusual. "I didn't want anything from it," he said, with scorn, but with a heavy helping of unsurety on top of it. Now that was interesting.
"Mycroft says you do this to get your own way," Lestrade said.
Sherlock scowled. "Mycroft's an ignoramus." The word sounded wrong coming out of the mouth of a seven year old, even one with as cultivated an accent as Sherlock's.
"So why did you do it, then?" Lestrade asked, openly curious.
Sherlock looked very hard at his book, and Lestrade didn't think he was going to get an answer until, when he was about to give up, Sherlock muttered, "I was angry."
Thereafter, he refused to say another word on the subject, and soon ran off upstairs.
Lestrade stayed sat on the carpet for a few moments, watching as Laura returned and started to stack newspapers, and hoped that one day Sherlock would be able to feel sadness as well as anger.
Pic
This entry was originally posted at http://ficofpic.dreamwidth.org/47986.html. Please comment there using OpenID.