He Talks In Maths [a Sherlock fanmix]

[suchaprince]

Full album art, tracklistings, and download links under the cut.


This mix started out as a honest-to-goodness general Sherlock fanmix. I swear it did. It just… didn't stay that way for very long.

For that I blame two things. The first being Sufjan Steven's Enchanting Ghost because when I decided I wanted it on this mix everything after it just became more and more Sherlock/John and I just couldn't deny my shipping heart.

The second thing I blame is wordstrings's amazing Paradox series. It was the very first thing I read in the Sherlock fandom and it was just hauntingly gorgeous. Honestly, it was like it infected my brain, that's how much I would find myself thinking about it. And so, even though it wasn't my original intention, this mix became my own soundtrack for those stories. It became a re-telling of the storyline in 19 tracks.

I've actually been sitting on this mix for a few weeks, I really wasn't sure if I was ever going to post it or not, but then a new part of the verse was posted a couple days ago and well, I couldn’t not post it. (After a few additions inspired by the latest part, of course. Seriously, it was perfect timing that I read 'A Thousand Threads of What-Might-Have-Beens' the same day I came upon a great male cover of Sawdust & Diamonds.)

The quotes coupled with each track are from the above mentioned fic series, which I have happily copy-and-pasted with permission from wordstrings. So if you were planning on reading it (which you really should if you haven't!) be careful of all the lovely little spoilers for the story in this post.

I really hope you all like the mix. There is most likely a John counterpart to this coming. No promises, but knowing me it'll probably happen rather soon. The John mix is now up!





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He Talks In Maths
a Sherlock fanmix

1. Owen Pallett - Export 7 (Owen’s Voice)

[Instrumental]

Drawing in a long breath through his nose, Sherlock decides to brave an experiment. He is in perfect health. He is awake, aware, quire keen. His mind is, just at the moment, entirely free of artificial stimulus. So let us, Sherlock determines, embark upon a little test. The only important test, really. The one for all the marbles.

-An Act Of Charity-

2. Ian Cooke - Music

God forbid that if we never met
I wouldn't have a worthy subject to apply
I wasn't gonna think about you today
But I broke and I did anyway
I want you to say something to me
But I won't say what it is

"Fine. No, fine. I'll--God, why must I--I'm not like you. These things I order you to do...there are others. Which I... I think about things. I'd like to say them to you. I won't, though."

-An Act Of Charity-

3. Maximo Park - I Want You To Leave

So little holds my interest
I find it hard to concentrate
So I wait to be renewed
I'm overwhelmed by thoughts of you
How was I to realize you were a blessing in disguise

He shakes his head. His lips are parched. How does one explain something when one cannot breathe? It's too much to ask of a fellow. Even of a high-functioning sociopath. Sherlock slaps his hand--once, very hard, but not hard enough to alarm John--to his forehead. It helps a bit.

"I get so confused," he murmurs. "You can't know what it's like. Facts all in a row before you, and never knowing what's right. Every single day. Have you any idea, in this world of yours, how impossible it can be to do the right thing? Do you know what it's like when everything is so very vivid and so very fucking detailed that you suddenly find that it all turns grey? I want to be...I want you. Near me. Not like my work, I can't ruin my work, I want you...possessed. Yes. And everything I touch gets dissected and thrown away after it's used. Do you suppose I want that happening to you? So get the hell out of my flat."

-An Act Of Charity-

4. Grizzly Bear - On a Neck, On a Spit

Each day, spend it with me now
All my time, spend it with me now
But each day spend it with you now
All my time, spend it with you now

It's fine it's fine it's fine God it's fine it's better than fine it's almost like not being alone, being with him. It's so very close. So near it's only a hair's breadth to not being alone anymore. He's so boring, incredibly dull really, and then he does or says--it's fine. He's not like everyone else either. My brain is leagues above theirs, and so is his heart. That makes him the antithesis of dull. He's unique, only not the way I am. What on earth produced a character like that? Don't hurt him, always ask him first, so that it's fine. Try to be like him. Less grey. More colour. Their sort, not yours.

Sherlock will just have to try harder. And anyway, he has John now to tell him right from wrong. Doesn't he?

It seems that I do. It seems most definitely that I do.

What a tremendous advantage that will be.

-An Act Of Charity-

5. Rufus Wainwright - Poses

The green autumnal parks conducting
And the city streets a wondrous chorus singing
All these poses oh how can you blame me
Life is a game and true love is a trophy

"How horrid. You're making fun of me," Sherlock observes, settling his head back down.

"Has that ever happened to you before? Sham smiling and then smiling?"

"Shut up."

"I've never seen a human face do that before."

"Shut up."

"It was like watching two people behind one set of eyes, you're barking mad, you know that, don't you? You're wired wrong."

"You like me, though."

"Do I?"

"Of course you do. I'm a marvel."

"God, I do," John says, breathing hard and grinning into Sherlock's hair. "I bloody well do. You're amazing."

-The Death and Resurrection of the English Language-

6. Snow Patrol - Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking

I could do most anything to you
Don't you breathe
Something happened, that I never understood
You can't leave

It feels so very safe to be this dangerous--when he abandons control entirely, nothing can ever be John's fault.

It's getting worse and getting better by the instant. His blood pounds through his ears and his face and his groin, not enough room and too much pressure and far too quick. John thinks he might actually black out for a moment, but just as he falls, Sherlock gives him a breath from the detective's own lungs. As if it's mouth to mouth underwater. As if they're both drowning.

We probably are, to be fair, thinks John, clutching the sheets into his fists because he can't help himself.

When it's over seconds later, it's more like death than it ought to be. And also exactly like being raised from the dead in a blaze of glory. None of that was the shocking bit, though. Not in the slightest. Sherlock is, after all, entirely insane.

-The Paradox Suite-

7. Grizzly Bear - I Live With You

Return
Been gone too long
Return
And they’ll try, they try, they’ll try
To keep us apart

For instance, he is a man capable of withstanding a great many things which normal people find intolerable. Sleeplessness and hunger, for instance, he rather likes. They sharpen his mind, and the empty stomach is like an anchor, reminding him to keep pure and focused and clear-headed. He didn't sleep for the two days he was looking for John, and he didn't eat either. Those weren't hardships. But nevertheless those two days were the worst of his life, and that was in spite of having a problem, and an exciting problem no less, a case to work on. With John missing, everything went back to the way it was before John was around. No one to stand next to him while all the details of the world howled in his face, and no one to distract him from the howling of the world inside his head either.

And if Sherlock had been subjected to a single day more of it, he might have crawled out of his own skin.

That all makes perfect sense. To be expected, really, he supposes. He wants John, needs John, cannot tolerate the world without John. It's entirely selfish, and that's quite in character. Fine.

But what in hell was the other feeling, the sensation of knowing John was hurting, it was like a constant shrieking in his own ears, for completely unselfish reasons. Almost charitable ones. At least, he imagines that this is what charity might feel like, to a freak. Even when he is being ruthless with himself, as he always is.

And neither was it a useful discovery to learn that when you are in sympathy with the victim, when you are imagining what might be happening to that person, you are less effective. Less quick, less brilliant, less aware.

-The Death and Resurrection of the English Language-

8. The Mountain Goats -International Small Arms Traffic Blues

Our love is like the border between Greece and Albania
Trucks loaded down with weapons
Crossing over every night
Moon yellow and bright
There is a shortage in the blood supply
But there is no shortage of blood

His phone is on his uninjured side, though. Perfect. Even though he's shaking, fast losing the strength in his fingers, he gets it out. The right message. Everything important, that is. Everything he wants known about who he's turned into in the past few months.

First floor, being murdered.
You were the best part of it.

SH

-The Death and Resurrection of the English Language-

9. Stateless - Bloodstream

I think I might've inhaled you
I could feel you behind my eyes
You've gotten into my bloodstream
I could feel you floating in me

"Sorry," Sherlock whispers. "It's just such a wonderful day. It's Christmas, it's just...better than anything."

John's kindly face is beginning to resemble a much-folded piece of scrap paper, and it's the most stunning thing Sherlock has ever seen. The doctor sighs, and tries to work this out. It's a struggle, though, and he's in a bit of a strop again, and Sherlock doesn't blame him for not understanding. Sherlock can't stop smiling either, however. It's all too utterly lovely. Suddenly, just as John's beginning to glare in profound and sheepish annoyance, John glances along Sherlock's line of sight and finds his own arm.

"You're...my god."

One corner of Sherlock's lips quirks up still higher.

"Happy about the blood transfusion?"

Sherlock nods. This is spectacular. How did he end up here? He never expected it to go this well, his life, the way all the pieces fit together now.

-The Death and Resurrection of the English Language-

10. Radiohead - Karma Police

For a minute there
I lost myself

"What was it like in your head?" he asks quietly. "Then you'll remember what you tried to do to stop it."

Long black eyelashes flutter shut as the detective drops the syringe again. He rubs both hands over his face. It's obvious to John that he hasn't slept all this time, and that could be half of it. But John is leaving nothing to chance. "Yes. Yes, that's. Yes. Well, there was..."

"Karma Police playing for almost sixty hours now," John says patiently, marveling at what his life has turned into.

"And the colours were gone, all of them. I wanted them back, because I couldn't see my violin, and your eyes were blank, it was horrible. But I know when it's white, the white isn't there really, it's just in my head, so...and it hurt, very badly. All of it hurt. I don't know that it's ever hurt like that before. Only a few times, anyway. So I mixed up something to fix it, it was chemistry. Science."

-Entirely Covered in Your Invisible Name-

11. The National - Cherry Tree

Take us down and all apart
Cherry tree
Lay us out on the table
You’re sharp alright
But no one is asking so leave it alone
Leave it alone
Can we?

"No, I'll leave you. Leave you flat. Alone. I'll do it too, I. I'll rip my own heart out and leave it here, but I'll do it. You've said I was wired wrong. I can do. I can. I'll leave you, and it'll kill me, probably. But you won't get to see any of it happen."

Sherlock is shocked.

John wondered what it looked like from time to time, but now he knows, he doesn't like it. It looks shattering, like he's just viciously reversed the detective's gravity.

"I'll find you," Sherlock says fiercely. "I can find you anywhere."

"Not necessarily."

-Entirely Covered in Your Invisible Name-

12. Barcelona - Please Don’t Go

Oh, please don’t go
I want you so
I can’t let go
For I lose control

"You could," John agrees. "You could probably have killed me any number of times. But you aren't going to kill me, Sherlock. You're going to allow yourself to be bullied just this once, because it's by me, and you aren't going to kill me, you're never going to kill me."

"Why not?"

He sounds desperate. As if he actually needs to know, which John thinks is altogether heartbreaking.

"You know why already," John says gently.

"Tell me."

He's pleading now. This question has clearly crossed his mind. And John wonders how horrible that must be, knowing yourself to be light years above ordinary and a maverick law unto yourself, on the day you realize you might hurt the people you least want to. John thinks it must be the worst feeling in the world, as if your cancer were contagious or as if you emitted toxic radiation. He thinks about how careful Sherlock always is, how precise, how very thoughtful, and he loves him for it.

"You could tell me, if you thought about it hard enough."

"I can't. You don't know what it's like."

"I don't need to know what it's like to know you won't kill me. If you killed me, you'd never get to see what I was about to do next."

"Oh, thank you," gasps Sherlock. John wonders if a person can be wound so tightly that when they release some of it, they disintegrate, because that seems to be what his friend is doing as he lets goes of John's wrists and descends into a broken marble heap on top of him. "I knew you'd tell me why. That was. I never meant to...I can't think sometimes, I'm sorry, I--"

"Sherlock, shut up," John orders.

-Entirely Covered in Your Invisible Name-

13. Rufus Wainwright - Go or Go Ahead

Your heaven's inventions, steel eyed vampires of love
You see over me, I'll never know
What you have shown to other eyes
Go or go ahead and surprise me

As he's retreating, John grabs Sherlock's arm, brooking no argument, his strong fingers closing around a slender wrist. Once he has it, he unbuttons the French silk cuff and yanks it backwards. White arm is revealed, a good expanse of bared flesh, and Sherlock is one hundred percent certain that this has to do with drugs, and that is not going to help the onset of panicked nausea in any way. He's going to lose all sense of himself in another moment, a white cloud will descend, and the blank will eat him. The John starts writing something on the blue veins of Sherlock's upper wrist. It takes Sherlock a moment to realize that's what he's doing: writing.

O-H-N W-A-T-S-O-N

He stops, looks at Sherlock pointedly. But it's difficult to form a response under these circumstances. Sherlock's heart has turned into something crystalline in the shape of a geodesic dome, electrically lit and giving off napalm and laser beams. He can't be certain of the device's precise structure or function, but that is exactly what it looks like, at any rate. He can feel it in his chest.

"You. You knew about that," he says stupidly.

John quirks a smile and licks the end of his index finger.

Y-E-S Y-O-U C-R-A-Z-E-D T-W-A-T

"For how--"

"Ages."

John reaches up towards Sherlock's forehead. The middle of his forehead.

M-I-N-E

Silence reigns for about five seconds.

"You've made your point. I don't think you need to say it now," Sherlock mentions hoarsely. "The...other thing. Because this was. Good."

-New Days to Throw Your Chains Away-

14. Sufjan Stevens - Enchanting Ghost

And if it pleases you to leave me, just go
Stopping you would stifle your enchanting ghost

"I don't believe it. Say that again."

"You didn't run then, but you can run now."

"The first part."

"You can leave me?"

"Bloody hell," John whispers. He's unbuttoning Sherlock's coat. Why? That makes no sense, and it's cold out here, and John isn't ever cruel. "Amazing. Literally amazing."

"What is?"

"The kindest, most loving thing you've ever said to me is that I can leave you. That is amazing. Better than...I can't. Just better. I don't think we need to worry about your morals any longer. You're sorted. And thank you."

"So," Sherlock says, swallowing. "Goodbye. Be very good to yourself, and keep warm. I'd like to kiss you first, but then I might change my mind. So don't kiss me."

"Oh my god," says John.

Then he is quiet, his lips pursed. He stands looking at Sherlock, feet a little apart on the dead grass. The lines under his eyes are dark today, and they make his small face look still smaller. He's so small, such a little one really, and bigger than the whole wide world. He reaches for Sherlock's hand and turns it palm up in his own. He sets his fingertip right along the creased V of his lifeline.

J-O-H-N

"There isn't room for the rest of it," he adds.

Sherlock wonders if crying, which is involuntary, is supposed to be triggered by wonderful things happening. Because that makes absolutely no buggering sense, but he can't breathe and his eyes feel glassy. John is smiling at him as if he is very stupid, and that is magical, feeling stupid has never felt so utterly spectacular.

"Why have you unbuttoned my coat?" he questions in a wrecked voice.

"Because I'm freezing my bollocks off," John answers, stepping neatly inside the wool.

-New Days to Throw Your Chains Away-

15. Ben Sollee - Sawdust & Diamonds

I wanted to say: why the long face?
Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face
Burro, buck and bray songs of long face!
Sing: I will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay
Just to lift your long face
And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
Your precious longface

John's head tilts. He frowns, and his lips purse in thought. It occurs to the still very sleep-addled Sherlock that he had better shut up. He's well in just now, John seems quite pleased with him, what with all the unexpected care-taking, but the doctor's face has clouded. He's not angry, but he's puzzling something over.

"Um. You liked the last few days, did you now?" he inquires.

Sherlock thinks very quickly. He did, and he also didn't, not in the least. But there's a right and a wrong way to say that.

What is the proper way?

"There isn't anything about you I don't want," he says. "Even when you're miserable and half-delirious. It was something new about you, so I wanted it."

And that's the truth. It's one of the truest things he's ever said. But John doesn't answer. He bites his lower lip, in fact, and--

"Thinking about you in pain is nauseating," Sherlock hastens to add. "Thinking about you in pain without me, all alone, is--it's not bearable."

And that's also the truth. One of the other truest things he's ever said. It dissipates the growing maelstrom in John's already storm-coloured eyes, and John tilts his head and leans back in for a kiss, one that's thankful and trusting and oh so very, very warm.

The truth is a useful tool on occasion, Sherlock thinks as his breath is stolen away from him.

-A Thousand Threads of What-Might-Have-Beens-

16. Songs: Ohia - Love and Work

We are constellations in our own way
And there are these three degrees of merit to us
There is love and work and lovers’ work

If Sherlock wanted to rip his eyes off the stately progression of various neural frequencies, he would be physically incapable. It isn't that they're elegant and organic and mathematical and gorgeous and pure and human and divine. Though they are. It isn't that they're the closest scientific approximation to John's thoughts he's likely ever going to view. Though they're that, as well. It isn't even that he can see clear as day all the aggregated individual interactions and permutations between the billions of neurons living inside the skull of the man he loves so much that it hurts to look at him occasionally. That's true too, but that isn't what strikes Sherlock right through his core either. It's that John said that he deserves privacy, and privacy means keeping some things hidden, and John has just invited Sherlock inside his head.

The detective feels as if he's just crested the top of a roller coaster.

He is falling either:

1) in circles like a felled predator
2) to pieces
3) in on himself
4) through the dull grey floor
5) apart

or perhaps

6) in love

though that seems rather redundant at this juncture.

-A Thousand Threads of What-Might-Have-Beens-

17. Clogs - Last Song

If this was our last time
What would we do?
What would we say then?

Sherlock's eyes squeeze shut. The pain is excruciating. Deserved, he thinks, because his friend sounds anguished. He's never heard anyone sound like that. John is saying his name again, just over and over, frantic, Sherlock, and it's like he's praying for something. It's wonderful. Sherlock ought to say goodbye. Now is clearly the time for it. And John shouldn't look this frightened. Why does he look so? Everything is fine, after all. It's as it should be. What would he most like to say to John, if he didn't have time to explain it, wanted it to be correct from the beginning, needed English to work the way it's meant to for the very last time?

"If you hadn't been in the world," Sherlock says, "it wouldn't have been worth visiting here at all."

John screams something in return, but Sherlock can't hear it.

He thinks it's still his name.

-A Thousand Threads of What-Might-Have-Beens-

18. ChicagoSoul - Clam Crab Cockle Cowrie

I do as I please
Now I'm on my knees
Your skin is something that I stir into my tea
And I am watching you
And you are starry, starry, starry
And I'm tumbling down, and I check a frown
Well, just look around
It's why I love this town
Just see me serenaded hourly! Celebrated sourly!
Dedicated dourly; waltzing with the open sea
Clam, crab, cockle, cowrie
Will you just look at me?

John throws his hands in the air. "Because you seemed to think it was all right to tell me you returned from the brink of death so as to pay me back a fiver for cab fare. As if you were in a snit over an accounting balance. It wasn't nice."

"A fiver?" Sherlock cries. "It was because of...of the hospital. You didn't have to do that, to do something mad just because I'm mad, I never imagined a life where I even wanted such things from a person before I met you, let alone a life where anyone would dream of tolerating them, let alone coming up with new ones unasked. It was something I didn't even know I wanted and you gave it to me just because you're good, and it was a miracle, you're a miracle. An electroencephalogram? You did that because I'm insane, it was tailored for me, and you...you understand. So yes, I wanted to give you something like that. Something...it was an act of charity, John. I wanted to return it in kind."

-A Thousand Threads of What-Might-Have-Beens-

19. Grizzly Bear - Lullabye

Chin up
Cheer up
My love's another kind

"You can say you love me if you really want to," Sherlock says a bit sheepishly. "I promise not to fuss about it."

"I don't have to," John returns with an easy smile. "You love me, and you don't want to hear it at the moment. And I think it just so happens to be my greatest joy and privilege to be with you. You lucky, lucky, bastard."

-A Thousand Threads of What-Might-Have-Beens-

DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM ZIP
from sendspace
from my server

If you would like a link to any of the individual tracks, just ask!

[view the mix on tumblr]
[view the mix on 8tracks]

And while you're here, please check out some of the other fandom-y things I've worked on:
more fanmixes + more things sherlock
or come join us at 221b-fanmix

This Sherlock fanmix was created for you with love by suchaprince. The quotes coupled with each track are from the Paradox series written by wordstrings, which served as the inspiration for this mix.