Title: Of the Angels
Author:
llassahFandom: Sherlock (bbc)
Spoilers: Series 2, episode three
Prompt:
PictureThe child had been five when he died. Typical mawkish grave. Dull. Overgrown, though, tucked away in the corner of the churchyard-ancient-some of the yew trees had to be at least 900 years, no corners: pre-Christian- died: 1847. Sadly missed, etc. Fall of a sparrow, etc. Typhus? Family could afford a headstone, and the cherub was of reasonable quality, but small. Lower middle class, then, living close to the main carriers of the disease, but able to bury their child in something other than an unmarked grave. A child whom they loved.
He has a choice between looking at this, and looking at his own grave. More mawkish and dull than this, although the odd thrill he feels when he sees the black, smooth surface gives him pause. Anderson came to the grave once, put a plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex on the ground, then went into the church, did three brass rubbings and bought a postcard. Donovan came twice, once to rant, once to apologise. She’s broken things off with Anderson, but will keep sleeping with him, because apparently he has the heart of a romantic and the touch of a generous and skilled lover-he assumes. It cannot possibly be for his brain, appearance or personality.
Molly Hooper-Molly hasn’t visited at all, because she has no need to. He showed her a picture of the gravestone once, and she said ‘very nice, Sherlock’, as if he had been personally responsible for it, then asked him if he would prefer apple or orange juice. Molly is kind in odd ways: she is more used to dealing with the dead, which sometimes fails to translate to live humans very well, but he rather likes the lengthy periods of silence, the way she sometimes looks at his torso as if seeing a Y incision cut into it. She hasn’t had any romantic attachments since Moriarty, although the boy at the butcher’s shop is interested-he gives her nicer cuts than she pays for, though that could be because she’s handy with a bone saw. Her posture’s terrible, she prefers cabbage to sprouts, but doesn’t really like either, and she brought him a skull as a gift because he looked sad, gave it to him even though he had just systematically been through her entire house, looking for traces of Moriarty, including her bathroom cabinet (dull,) bank statements (dull), and underwear drawer.
She has one vibrator-unthreatening, bullet style, pink-uses it after she has had a bath, has three books on rotation that she masturbates to, to four particular scenes. One: the heroine is seduced in a carriage by a highwayman (he has made extensive notes, decided their respective heights would have to be four foot four and five foot one for the act to be logistically possible, given the dimensions of the type of carriage most likely to be used in the period). Two: the two main characters are huddled together in a cave, and must copulate in order to counteract the effects of hypothermia (medically dubious? Ask J- no). Three: a pedestrian naughty schoolgirl scene (she relishes both the restraint and the spanking. Authority figures-Lestrade? Possible. Mutual). Four: intriguing, a gay Viking romance, depicting the torrid love affair between the marauding Viking and the Lindisfarne monk he keeps…marauding. She hasn’t thrown him out of her house yet; she waits for him to pick apart Moriarty’s web, and for all that she has daily evidence that he is alive, she mourns him.
Lestrade comes often, sits with his back resting against the stone, and smokes, staring out into the graveyard. He is cast into shadows, but when he stretches out his left leg a shaft of sunlight catches his sock. He finishes the cigarette, then stands up, takes a cigarette out of the packet and puts it on the top of the gravestone, puts his hands in his pockets and walks out. He is terribly calm. His wife has left him, his flat feels too big for one, he consults John on the flimsiest of pretexts, he smokes with some grim relish, his record has been cleared after the most cursory of enquiries-Mycroft- and he’s started jogging, but will stop again in about three months, give or take a week. Each time, when night falls, Sherlock picks the cigarette up, lights it and blows pale smoke across the black of his grave.
Mrs Hudson hasn’t touched a thing in his rooms. Mycroft is paying the rent. She visits every two weeks, mainly to tell him off for leaving John all on his own, poor man, third girlfriend this month, acid stains on the carpet, blood on the doorstep, not his housekeeper. Her hip aches badly when it’s going to rain, and she thinks about dying more than she used to.
He’s waiting for John, the smell of ivy and privet pervasive, the yew adding darker notes as the sun warms the leaves. John tells him - the stone- all his news, every dogged defence of him, each testimonial, each chase and near miss, each painstaking effort to restore the name of a man too dead to use it any more. Sentimental idiocy. He is in danger far too often, or just enough for his hand to remain steady, his leg (relatively) strong. He blames himself, has nightmares. Harry’s drinking again, and her hand is starting to shake. He cleans his gun every night. John visits every week, reports as if to a commanding officer, and Sherlock listens, because he owes him that. He’s standing next to a pitiful relic commemorating a commonplace occurrence, itching to step forward and be seen, because it’ll be glorious, like the first hit of nicotine, a perfect fifth, three murders in three locked bell towers on one night, and cocaine and tea how Mycroft makes it and then-
it all tumbles down. His work is unfinished so he waits by small stone angels. He breathes in, out again. Listens to John speak. Hopes.