An Age of Silver (9/23)
"An Age of Silver" (9/23)
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5a / Part 5b / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8a / Part 8b
Warnings specific to this chapter: Mentions of memory loss in an OC; inaccurate use of holograms.
----
The middle of January was as unremarkable as the beginning had been.
This month wasn’t particularly cold, nor was it particularly warm. The snowfall had been average, and the skies were clear on as many days as they were overcast and dreary.
Sherlock worked a variety of odd cases that month, each one lasting only a few days at the most. They weren’t especially challenging cases, but the fact that he could solve each of them so quickly was buoying in and of itself.
Hopkins’ case continued to stagnate. Even with the knowledge that there were, quite probably, two men involved in the murders as opposed to one, no progress was made. With no leads and no abductions to offer new evidence, Hopkins was forced to put it on the back burner as other, more pressing murders began to command his attention. Sherlock worked on the case in what free time he had available, but he proved to be no more successful than the Yard
Sherlock saw Hopkins infrequently, as they both became occupied with their respective work. Sherlock didn’t realise how much he had come to rely on seeing Hopkins on a regular basis until going several days without even hearing from the man became a rule rather than an exception. It made Sherlock irrationally irritable, and he began to regard the few times they could see one another as almost sacred.
Which was why, on this afternoon, Sherlock found that he was having to actually fight back anger as he waited for Hopkins in his office at the Yard. They were supposed to meet for a lunch that was already going to be brief, as Hopkins was going to be occupied with meetings for the rest of the afternoon, and Hopkins was currently nowhere to be found.
He arrived at his office ten minutes after Sherlock showed up, and Sherlock didn’t bother to hide his annoyance.
“You’re late,” Sherlock accused the moment Hopkins breezed through the door.
“Not my fault this time, honest to God,” Hopkins sighed. He dumped their lunch on his desk and shed his coat. “Your brother wouldn’t shut up.”
“My - what?” Sherlock blinked at him. “What did he want with you? Is there something new in regards to the case?”
“No.” Hopkins pulled out several small containers from the bag, handing three to Sherlock and keeping the rest for himself. “This meeting was scheduled weeks ago. He wanted to discuss something else.”
“This was planned?” Sherlock couldn’t mask his incredulity.
Hopkins nodded. He sat down behind his desk and propped his feet up.
“It went a bit longer than I was expecting, though; sorry again. His fault, like I said. And lunch is on him to make up for it, so I guess that’s something.”
Sherlock was still staring at him, dumbfounded.
“He set up a meeting with you,” he repeated slowly. “He - didn’t kidnap you?”
Hopkins gave him a strange look. “No. That the sort of thing he does, old man?”
Sherlock thought it best not to get into that right now. “What did he want?”
Hopkins’ face darkened. He stabbed a piece of meat with his fork and chewed contemplatively for a few moments. “He wanted to discuss some security concerns.”
Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.
“Security concerns?”
Hopkins’ eyes flicked to Sherlock’s face, and then away. “You never told me you had a security detail.”
Sherlock leaned back in his chair. He crossed an ankle over his knee and began to pick at his own meal.
“That,” he said dismissively, “is nothing. It appeases my brother. I am far more concerned about his more invasive ways of meddling in my life--namely, his frequent usage of CCTV to spy on me. And those damned vid screens he keeps tapping into.”
Hopkins gave an unexpected, gruff chuckle.
“So that’s why you hate those things.”
“Mm,” Sherlock hummed non-committally. “His people themselves are much less of a threat to my privacy. I find that they are quite easy to ignore, in fact. And I practice giving them the slip whenever I’m particularly bored-though occasionally that fails, I must admit.”
Hopkins snorted and shook his head.
“Now you’re just shitting me.”
Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at him.
“There are five men in the building right now who are connected to my brother, and they are here on his orders,” he said. “Two of them work on Dimmock’s team. One works in the lobby downstairs. Another is in Forensics, and the fifth,” he flashed a smile he knew would unnerve Hopkins, “works for you, Stanley.”
Hopkins stared at him.
“Fuck,” he said flatly. Sherlock shrugged.
“It’s nothing you need concern yourself with. They are some of Mycroft’s best agents, and they are more than suitable for the jobs that have been assigned to them. They went through the same training as every other officer in this building. You needn’t worry that somehow your team’s performance has suffered because of the presence of Mycroft’s men. Think of them merely as officers with some... special skills. Oh, and there are two more bodyguards in the building across the way. They’ve been watching us the entire time. No, don’t bother, you won’t be able to see them.”
Hopkins turned back around to look at him. He frowned, and then returned to his food. Sherlock was puzzled.
“You’re upset.”
Hopkins shook his head.
“No,” he said. “No, not really. I’m not even all that surprised, to be honest. I just -”
He broke off.
“You just what?” Sherlock prompted.
“I just don’t know how you manage it so well,” Hopkins admitted finally. “I think I’d go mad. I probably will go mad, because the thing is... Mycroft’s assigning me security, now, too. That’s what he wanted to talk about.”
This was unexpected, and Sherlock stared at him blankly for a few moments. Had he seen this coming? Should he have seen this coming? He had surmised that Mycroft wanted to discuss his security with Hopkins. It wasn’t unheard of for Mycroft to kidnap those closest to Sherlock in order to feel them out. He tried to buy their loyalties and considered the ones he failed to persuade worthy of keeping in Sherlock’s life--or, as in Victor’s case, Mycroft found them so remarkable that he hired them on the spot for his own purposes.
But if anyone could catch Sherlock by surprise, it was Mycroft. Mycroft didn’t work by anyone’s schedule but his own, and if he wanted to speak with someone, they were brought to him.
This was most unusual.
“Did he say why?” Sherlock asked finally, aware that the silence had stretched on for longer than was socially acceptable. Hopkins shrugged.
“He said that it was about time, whatever that means.” Hopkins gave a weak smile. “Starting to think you’ve been hiding something from me. You’re not James Bond, are you?”
Now it was Sherlock’s turn to snort. Hopkins quickly sobered.
“I told him this was ridiculous. I’ve known you fifteen years, what makes now so different than the beginning?” He ate in irritation for a moment.
“But he refused to listen,” Sherlock knew his brother only too well.
“I’m getting a security detail. Hopefully they remain more inconspicuous to me than to you; I don’t know what I’ll do if I figure out where they’re hiding.”
They ate in silence for a while longer, Sherlock contemplating this sudden, odd behavior on Mycroft’s part--strange even for him. It couldn’t be because there were threats now on Hopkins’ life--Sherlock would have known about that long ago. And Mycroft would have consulted him.
“Remind me,” he said finally, and Hopkins looked up, “to teach you how to give them the slip. I’ll show you all my tricks.”
It was worth it to see the slow, genuine smile that spread across Hopkins’ face.
And later that night, when he was back at Baker Street, Sherlock pulled out his mobile to tap out a short message to Mycroft.
I appreciate you not kidnapping him.
The response, as he expected, was immediate.
I was only attempting to comply with your wishes, little brother. Have a good night.
----
Sherlock woke one morning with his left hand throbbing, and the oral analgesics he took did little to lessen the ache. He went about his business as normal, but the pain was always present in the back of his mind. Two days later, he woke with swollen fingers and stiff knuckles.
The morning after that, he couldn’t move his hand.
“If you’re here about the eyeballs, they aren’t ready yet,” Molly said when she discovered Sherlock in her office later that afternoon. She took one look at his face, though, and immediately grew concerned. “What’s happened?”
Wordlessly, Sherlock tugged off his left glove. Molly took in his swollen fingers and sighed.
“Do they hurt badly?” she asked gently.
“I am finding it difficult to concentrate on much else,” Sherlock admitted. “And recently, I’ve found that I’m having difficulty moving them. Molly, I don’t know what to do.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “And you’re coming to me for advice?”
“I always do.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you actually going to listen to what I say this time?”
“Yes.” Sherlock held out his hand. “Molly, please.”
She took the hand between both of her own, cradling it, and when she tried to move one of the joints Sherlock tensed and tried not to jerk his hand away.
“I have a friend who specializes in grievous injuries,” she said finally. “His name is Jason Branson, and he was trained during the Conflict. He’s an expert when it comes to dealing with amputations and the complications that can result from them. Sherlock - this is beyond me, now. You need to talk to him.”
“And what’s he going to tell me?” Sherlock pressed. She was quiet for a moment. “Molly.”
She sighed.
“You’ve done all you can for that hand,” she said softly. “Painkillers will only last you for so much longer. After that - you either live with the pain, or you have the hand reconstructed and a prosthesis put into place.”
Sherlock, even though he had been expecting this, found that the words still landed like a blow. He withdrew his hand, nodding his thanks to her, and put the glove back on.
“He wasn’t wrong to do what he did,” he said after a moment.
Molly’s face softened.
“Of course not,” she said. “Victor did what was necessary at the time. And now you need to do the same.”
Jason Branson was an exceptionally busy man, but the moment Sherlock sent him an image of his left hand, he cleared his schedule one Wednesday afternoon so that he could fit Sherlock in right away.
Sherlock underwent an entire day of grueling tests before Branson reached the same conclusion that Molly did.
“We need to keep in mind that, while your original surgery was performed by a professional, it wasn’t done in the best of circumstances,” he told a groggy Sherlock late in the afternoon. “It was bound to develop complications at some point. To be honest, I’m impressed that you got normal use out of that hand for as long as you did.”
Sherlock had been at the hospital since shortly after dawn. He had endured scans and blood tests, and had been pumped full of various drugs so that his hand could be properly imaged. He had also needed to be put on a particularly strong set of painkillers so that the technicians could move his hand freely without causing him debilitating agony.
“I need the prosthesis,” Sherlock said thickly, and Branson nodded.
“If you want to continue on with the quality of life you’ve been experiencing until now, yes. You need to have a prosthetic device attached to that hand, and the accompanying surgery that reconstructs part of the wound.”
“How long will the surgery take?”
“Four hours. Ideally, you’ll be kept overnight for observation after that, and then you’ll be told to stay at home for about a week to make sure that the prosthesis takes to your various tissues. The physical therapy after that will last for about three weeks.”
Sherlock sighed heavily.
“Right,” he said finally. “When can we do this?”
They scheduled the surgery for March. Until then, Sherlock would need to come in for weekly injections that would dull the pain in his hand and hopefully keep it functioning for the next two months.
“You’re in good hands, Mr Holmes,” Branson said cheerfully. “Er… bad pun not intended.”
Sherlock couldn’t help but snort, for that was exactly the sort of dry humour Hopkins enjoyed.
“I’m sure I am,” he said wryly. He reached for his coat while Branson gave his records a final cursory glance.
“One last thing, Mr Holmes. It seems your previous physician never noted how you lost your fingers in the first place,” he said, a frown creasing his brows. “I’ve always assumed it was a war wound, from the newspaper photographs of it that I saw. But it doesn’t say anything here about you having served in the Conflict.”
Sherlock slid his arms into his coat and adjusted the collar.
“Is this necessary information?” he asked finally. Branson shook his head.
“I’m just curious.”
Sherlock considered him for a moment.
“You weren’t incorrect. It is a war wound,” he said finally. “Just not from the one that you’re thinking of. Good day, doctor.”
----
Hopkins’ schedule began to settle down as January faded into February, though more often than not he needed to reschedule their lunches so that they were dinners instead.
“I hope that’s actually food I smell,” Hopkins commented one evening as he stepped into the flat. Checkers, who had taken to napping in a patch of sun on the steps outside Alice’s flat, had evidently followed Hopkins up the stairs. Sherlock watched as Checkers darted across the main room to his new favourite spot by the window.
“No experiments tonight,” Sherlock said as Hopkins stepped into the kitchen and deposited a bag on the table. He pulled out the various spices Sherlock had requested that he pick up from the shops on his way over. Sherlock nodded his thanks.
“Dry spell?” Hopkins teased lightly.
“I have another paper due,” Sherlock said. “I can’t move forward with any experiments until that’s finished.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. He did need to have this latest article to his editor by Wednesday, but paper deadlines had never stopped him from performing experiments before. But Hopkins could stand to have a decent meal once in a while, and though Sherlock found the task tedious he knew Hopkins would sustain himself on cigarettes and meager amounts of takeaway if given the chance. The man hated cooking, and he was exceptionally terrible at it.
Therefore, tonight the kitchen was only for food.
“How goes the case?” Sherlock asked as Hopkins moved into the other room to properly greet Checkers.
Hopkins snorted. “It goes.”
“That’s hardly promising.”
“Tell me about it. Checkers likes your present, I see,” Hopkins said, quickly changing the subject. The tank with the frog had been set up in one corner of the flat, and Sherlock had set a chair next to the tank because he’d discovered that Checkers enjoyed watching the creature. The dog - he was no longer a puppy, and really was far too big for the armchair he liked to sleep in - would brace his front paws on the chair and peer into the tank, sometimes for minutes on end. He was doing that now, completely heedless of the fact that Hopkins was scratching him behind his ears. “You should name him.”
“Hm? Oh, the frog? Henry.”
Hopkins blinked at him.
“You… actually named him?” he asked, surprised. “And it’s Henry?”
Sherlock shrugged, and Hopkins laughed.
“Henry, then,” he chuckled. “Henry, the poison dart frog. I like it.”
“Dendrobates leucomelas, actually,” Sherlock told him. “He’s a yellow-banded dart frog.”
Hopkins looked at him over his shoulder and flashed him a grin. “Also known as the bumblebee poison frog.”
“I knew you’d done that on purpose,” Sherlock said triumphantly, feeling a swell of pride in his chest. He always enjoyed moments that proved Hopkins was just as clever as Sherlock hoped he would be.
“I know how you like bees, but I couldn’t just get you a beehive for your birthday,” Hopkins said. “So this was the next best thing.”
They shared a quiet dinner over some mindless television. Hopkins faded quickly after the meal was finished, and by sundown he was falling asleep on the sofa. Sherlock nudged him with his knee as he got up to put their plates in the kitchen.
“Goin’ for some air,” Hopkins said blearily. He stood and stretched before heading for the door. Sherlock ran the faucet and began to rinse the cutlery.
“I’ll join you in a moment.”
He found Hopkins up on the roof ten minutes later, which was a usual haunt of theirs during the summer, when Baker Street was too stifling or the weather outside too inviting to waste an evening inside. They rarely frequented the roof in winter, but this year the season almost temperate.
Hopkins was smoking, probably from the pack that he had started to carry around in his pocket at all times. He offered a cigarette to Sherlock, who declined.
Night had come on quickly once the sun’s slow descent finally carried it below the horizon. The stars were already out, glinting against the blackened sky.
“Beautiful, isn’t it,” Hopkins said absently. He drew on his cigarette. Sherlock handed him a beer he had brought along from the kitchen and then sat down beside him.
“It’s not real, Stanley.” Sherlock stretched out anyway on his back, face turned to the sky and the not-real stars, tucking his hands behind his head.
Light pollution had become such an issue in recent years that no one could see the actual stars in London anymore. The city’s solution to the problem had been to set up a vast holographic projection that they turned on at night. It mirrored the real night sky, except it had the added benefit of being much closer and brighter, and therefore able to cut through the interference from city lights.
“It is, in a way.” Hopkins took a long swallow of beer before lying back next to Sherlock. “It’s what the sky would look like right now if all the lights went out.”
“But it’s not real,” Sherlock insisted, and Hopkins gave a short bark of laughter.
“Just because it’s not real doesn’t mean people can’t be affected by it,” he said, nudging Sherlock with his knee. He put an arm behind his head and added, “Sometimes all that matters is that we perceive it to be real.”
Sherlock fell silent at that. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a star, a true star, in the London night sky. It must have been at least ten years back.
Hopkins stubbed out his cigarette on the gravel roof and then flicked the butt away. The moon was rising off to their right, the true moon, a pale disc in the sky that had yet to be washed out by the lights. That day would come, though, and soon it would be added to the holographic illusion.
“You all right, old man?” Hopkins asked eventually. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
“Not when you have something to rant about, and I know how much you hate this sky.” Hopkins’ voice took on a teasing lilt. “Go on. Tell me what a waste of power and money it is to keep the projection going. Tell me what they’ve got wrong this night. Is Orion out of place again?”
Sherlock gave a wan smile and nudged Hopkins with his knee in return, but could otherwise think of nothing to say. They lapsed into silence again, watching the sky. It was almost serene, and Sherlock could very nearly forget that they were in the midst of a horrific case. But Hopkins checked his phone discreetly, and at regular intervals, and Sherlock couldn’t maintain that illusion for very long.
Sometimes all that matters is that we perceive it to be real.
“I’ve been having these dreams,” Sherlock said at length. He felt Hopkins turn to look at him, and kept his eyes fixed on Andromeda. “Not often… but often enough. I see Victor in them, and he’s always too far away. Not by much, just - just barely out of reach. I chase him, I try to catch him, and I always fail. And when I wake up -”
Sherlock swallowed. His voice came to his ears from very far away, as though someone else was speaking, laying bare the secret he had been keeping for two months now.
“And when I wake up,” he continued, softer, “it feels as though he was just here. And I wonder if I was wrong to stop looking all those years ago.”
In the months following Victor’s death, Sherlock had indulged the irritating, relentless voice in the back of his mind that wondered whether Victor was truly dead this time. The idea had taken him across the continent, where he had methodically searched all of the Trevor family estates before having each one destroyed. It had taken him back to Victor’s French home on three separate occasions, and to the cottage in the South Downs countless times. He had chased imaginary leads and gut feelings and misplaced intuition.
He had chased his ghosts, and he came back empty-handed.
“You weren’t wrong,” Hopkins said gently.
Sherlock nodded.
“I know. But that’s not usually the first thought on my mind when I am woken by one of those dreams.”
Hopkins shifted, and his shoulder inadvertently brushed against Sherlock’s arm. The touch bled through both their shirts, and Sherlock felt an unexpected warmth rush through his chest.
“How long?” he asked finally.
“Since Christmas,” Sherlock said softly.
He expected Hopkins to then ask why he was being told this, and Sherlock didn’t have an answer for that. At least, not one he could voice out loud. The fact of the matter was that Hopkins was the only one Sherlock had ever considered telling about the dreams. He had always trusted Hopkins with his life; somewhere along the way, he had realised that Hopkins could be trusted with his heart as well.
And Victor was a large part of that.
“Do you want them to stop?”
Sherlock blinked, taken aback by the question.
“Yes,” he admitted finally, “and no. I’m tired of experiencing them… and yet I’m very aware that those dreams are the only place left on this Earth where I will see him again.”
Sherlock rolled to his knees and stood before offering a hand down to Hopkins, who took it. He hauled Hopkins up.
Hopkins’ grip was warm and firm. He smelled of spice and cigarette smoke, and Sherlock went lightheaded. Had Hopkins always smelled like that? If so, he could not recall it ever being so... distracting.
“I’m sorry about the dreams.” Deep lines of concern had etched themselves into Hopkins’ face. “I wish I could help.”
Hopkins’ collar was slightly off-center, and Sherlock straightened it with a twitch of his fingers. He let his thumb rest for a moment in the hollow of Hopkins’ throat, and he felt Hopkins swallow hard.
“You already do.”
----
Sherlock was recalled to the Holmes family estate on a bitter morning in February following news of his stepfather’s death.
February was always a wretched month, its days alternating between dreary grey and deceptively brilliant. Throughout it all, it was cold, more so this year than January had been. It was also usually so frigid that ice crept up the windows of 221B and stayed for the entire month. Sherlock, in recent years, had taken to holing himself up in the flat virtually until March, and the fact that he was forced to leave-in order to make a socially-acceptable appearance at a funeral, no less-compounded his already-foul mood.
He arrived at his childhood home late in the afternoon, having traveled first by train and then by cab, deliberately making the journey a meandering one so that he could put off his arrival for as long as possible. Despite his efforts, however, he was still the first of the family to arrive, and that irritated him to no end. No doubt Mycroft had done that on purpose, so that Sherlock was forced to spend extra time alone in the house that he hated.
There was a pervasive chill throughout the vast house, and stepping in from the cold was merely a figure of speech at best. It felt rather as though Sherlock had merely stepped from the ice box into the fridge, and when one of the staff offered to take his coat, he refused.
“When is my brother due to arrive?” he asked, and was informed that Mycroft wasn’t expected until dinner. Sherlock resisted--just barely--giving a waspish reply, and instead stole upstairs, where he was most likely to find some peace and quiet in the meantime. The staff was occupied with preparing for his brother’s arrival, and with the guests they would be hosting after the funeral tomorrow. They did not much care what Sherlock did, so long as he didn’t get in the way.
His childhood room was the one at the end of a long corridor on the second storey, though that was the only thing about it that had remained unchanged after all these years. None of his personal possessions remained. The ones he had deemed important had made the move to London with him; the rest had been discarded. If his mother had saved any of his childhood toys, they had either been given away long ago or packed away into storage. Sherlock didn’t much care, either way.
The room had been converted into a study in the intervening years, but someone had dragged in a camp bed for his use. Sherlock spent some time perusing the bookshelves, listening to the activity that filtered up from the ground floor. Eventually, curiosity got the better of him, and he set out to explore the rest of the house.
Erik had not changed the house much since Sherlock’s mother passed away five years ago. Her presence still radiated from the furniture, the artwork that lined the walls, the general decor. Violet Holmes had possessed a strong personality, a wicked sense of humour, and a stubbornness that persisted even as memory loss set in and she forgot that the man she lived with was her husband; that the men who sometimes visited were her boys. It showed in the bold artwork she chose for the corridors; in the striking sculptures in the garden and the dining room.
Sherlock missed her terribly. And, if he was completely honest with himself, he was also starting to feel the marked absence of the man who had not been his father, but who had tried to fill the role nonetheless. Sherlock never let him.
Mycroft arrived finally just before dinner, and they dined together at a table that was far too large for just the two of them.
“Did you bring your suit?” Mycroft asked as they started in on the second bottle of wine. Sherlock took a couple of seconds to answer. He really shouldn’t have had any of the drink.
“Yes.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“I’m drunk, not a child,” Sherlock retorted. “But you’re welcome to go through my belongings if you like.”
Mycroft declined.
Sherlock went to bed with a headache and woke up wanting to remove his head from his neck. Light made the agony worse, and there was no avoiding that on this brilliant wintry morning. It took a handful of oral analgesics and two glasses of water before he could even contemplate getting ready for the day, and even then the headache never disappeared completely.
The funeral was long, dull, and lightly attended. Sherlock didn’t recognise very many of the mourners, and the ones he did know were distant relations by marriage that he hadn’t seen since they were all children. He spoke little, counting down the minutes until it was socially acceptable for him to escape up to his room. As midnight approached, Mycroft and four of their cousins were in the library downstairs, some of them smoking and all of them working their way through the house’s brandy. Sherlock, whose headache had finally intensified in to the migraine that had been threatening all day, pressed his palms to his eyes and willed sleep to come. Or for everyone else in the house to disappear. He would take either, at this point.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand, shattering the room’s silence. Sherlock turned his head and stared it for some moments, uncomprehending. No one tried to call him on the device anymore, everyone preferring instead to use their vid screens. And if someone needed him specifically, they knew that their only hope of reaching him immediately was by text.
But one person had compromised, conceding to Sherlock’s distaste for invasive forms of technology but usually refusing to give up the middle ground and indulge him completely.
“Stanley,” Sherlock greeted finally as he answered the phone. His voice was a rough croak.
“Hey.” Hopkins’ voice echoed slightly, and his words were breathy. He was either standing in his kitchen, having just returned home after a run, or he had just finished a late-night round of sparring in the Yard’s gym, which would be deserted at this hour of night. Sherlock couldn’t tell which of those options was correct, and the realisation irritated him.
“Has there been a new development in the case?”
“What? Oh, no. I just heard about your stepdad. Thought I’d give you a call.”
“John?”
“No. Alice, actually. I stopped by this evening; she told me you’d gone home.”
Sherlock blinked, and then realised what had been nagging uneasily at the back of his mind all day.
“I missed our meal,” he said quietly. “Apologies. I... was distracted this morning. I didn’t think to call...”
He trailed off.
“You have nothing to apologise for.” Hopkins’ voice was filled with too much understanding. “Has it been all right? All things considered. I know how you hate that house.”
“It’s Mycroft’s now,” Sherlock said. “It’ll go to me when he’s gone. I don’t want it.”
“I know.” There came the sound of a running faucet. “Were you close?”
“Erik was a decent man.” Sherlock worried a loose thread on his sleeve. “But he wasn’t my father. I don’t think I ever forgave him for that.”
“I’m sorry.” There was a slight pause, and Sherlock feared the conversation had run its course already. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Sherlock answered automatically.
“No, you’re not,” Hopkins said at once. His voice grew quieter. “Tell me.”
“I hate this house,” Sherlock muttered. “I hate it, Stanley. I hate - I hate that I lost my mother more than twenty years before she died. I rarely visited after my return, you know. I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand to be around her when all she would do was ask for Victor, or for my father. I was always eighteen or - or five, to her. She remembered me, but never the right me. It hurt. It still hurts.”
Hopkins was quiet, listening, allowing Sherlock to say the words he had been needing voice for two days. When it was over, he sat in silence, absorbing them, giving Sherlock the benefit of a listener who wouldn’t offer him useless platitudes. And then he moved on.
“When are you due back?” Hopkins asked.
Sherlock blew out a harsh breath between his teeth, gathering himself. “The earliest train I could get arrives in London tomorrow evening.”
“What time? I’ll come get you.”
“I -” Sherlock stopped and blinked. “I appreciate the offer, Stanley, but I can arrange a cab.”
“You could, but you won’t.” Hopkins gave a sudden bark of laughter. “Believe me, I’m not being kind. This is for my own entirely selfish reasons. You missed our lunch today; I expect you to make up for it. I’m picking you up from the station, and then you’re coming with me to dinner.”
Sherlock grinned despite himself.
“If you insist,” he said dryly, and he could hear Hopkins’ smile through the phone. “My train arrives at eight.”
“I’ll be there, old man. See you tomorrow.”
----
Part 10
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5a / Part 5b / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8a / Part 8b
Warnings specific to this chapter: Mentions of memory loss in an OC; inaccurate use of holograms.
----
The middle of January was as unremarkable as the beginning had been.
This month wasn’t particularly cold, nor was it particularly warm. The snowfall had been average, and the skies were clear on as many days as they were overcast and dreary.
Sherlock worked a variety of odd cases that month, each one lasting only a few days at the most. They weren’t especially challenging cases, but the fact that he could solve each of them so quickly was buoying in and of itself.
Hopkins’ case continued to stagnate. Even with the knowledge that there were, quite probably, two men involved in the murders as opposed to one, no progress was made. With no leads and no abductions to offer new evidence, Hopkins was forced to put it on the back burner as other, more pressing murders began to command his attention. Sherlock worked on the case in what free time he had available, but he proved to be no more successful than the Yard
Sherlock saw Hopkins infrequently, as they both became occupied with their respective work. Sherlock didn’t realise how much he had come to rely on seeing Hopkins on a regular basis until going several days without even hearing from the man became a rule rather than an exception. It made Sherlock irrationally irritable, and he began to regard the few times they could see one another as almost sacred.
Which was why, on this afternoon, Sherlock found that he was having to actually fight back anger as he waited for Hopkins in his office at the Yard. They were supposed to meet for a lunch that was already going to be brief, as Hopkins was going to be occupied with meetings for the rest of the afternoon, and Hopkins was currently nowhere to be found.
He arrived at his office ten minutes after Sherlock showed up, and Sherlock didn’t bother to hide his annoyance.
“You’re late,” Sherlock accused the moment Hopkins breezed through the door.
“Not my fault this time, honest to God,” Hopkins sighed. He dumped their lunch on his desk and shed his coat. “Your brother wouldn’t shut up.”
“My - what?” Sherlock blinked at him. “What did he want with you? Is there something new in regards to the case?”
“No.” Hopkins pulled out several small containers from the bag, handing three to Sherlock and keeping the rest for himself. “This meeting was scheduled weeks ago. He wanted to discuss something else.”
“This was planned?” Sherlock couldn’t mask his incredulity.
Hopkins nodded. He sat down behind his desk and propped his feet up.
“It went a bit longer than I was expecting, though; sorry again. His fault, like I said. And lunch is on him to make up for it, so I guess that’s something.”
Sherlock was still staring at him, dumbfounded.
“He set up a meeting with you,” he repeated slowly. “He - didn’t kidnap you?”
Hopkins gave him a strange look. “No. That the sort of thing he does, old man?”
Sherlock thought it best not to get into that right now. “What did he want?”
Hopkins’ face darkened. He stabbed a piece of meat with his fork and chewed contemplatively for a few moments. “He wanted to discuss some security concerns.”
Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.
“Security concerns?”
Hopkins’ eyes flicked to Sherlock’s face, and then away. “You never told me you had a security detail.”
Sherlock leaned back in his chair. He crossed an ankle over his knee and began to pick at his own meal.
“That,” he said dismissively, “is nothing. It appeases my brother. I am far more concerned about his more invasive ways of meddling in my life--namely, his frequent usage of CCTV to spy on me. And those damned vid screens he keeps tapping into.”
Hopkins gave an unexpected, gruff chuckle.
“So that’s why you hate those things.”
“Mm,” Sherlock hummed non-committally. “His people themselves are much less of a threat to my privacy. I find that they are quite easy to ignore, in fact. And I practice giving them the slip whenever I’m particularly bored-though occasionally that fails, I must admit.”
Hopkins snorted and shook his head.
“Now you’re just shitting me.”
Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at him.
“There are five men in the building right now who are connected to my brother, and they are here on his orders,” he said. “Two of them work on Dimmock’s team. One works in the lobby downstairs. Another is in Forensics, and the fifth,” he flashed a smile he knew would unnerve Hopkins, “works for you, Stanley.”
Hopkins stared at him.
“Fuck,” he said flatly. Sherlock shrugged.
“It’s nothing you need concern yourself with. They are some of Mycroft’s best agents, and they are more than suitable for the jobs that have been assigned to them. They went through the same training as every other officer in this building. You needn’t worry that somehow your team’s performance has suffered because of the presence of Mycroft’s men. Think of them merely as officers with some... special skills. Oh, and there are two more bodyguards in the building across the way. They’ve been watching us the entire time. No, don’t bother, you won’t be able to see them.”
Hopkins turned back around to look at him. He frowned, and then returned to his food. Sherlock was puzzled.
“You’re upset.”
Hopkins shook his head.
“No,” he said. “No, not really. I’m not even all that surprised, to be honest. I just -”
He broke off.
“You just what?” Sherlock prompted.
“I just don’t know how you manage it so well,” Hopkins admitted finally. “I think I’d go mad. I probably will go mad, because the thing is... Mycroft’s assigning me security, now, too. That’s what he wanted to talk about.”
This was unexpected, and Sherlock stared at him blankly for a few moments. Had he seen this coming? Should he have seen this coming? He had surmised that Mycroft wanted to discuss his security with Hopkins. It wasn’t unheard of for Mycroft to kidnap those closest to Sherlock in order to feel them out. He tried to buy their loyalties and considered the ones he failed to persuade worthy of keeping in Sherlock’s life--or, as in Victor’s case, Mycroft found them so remarkable that he hired them on the spot for his own purposes.
But if anyone could catch Sherlock by surprise, it was Mycroft. Mycroft didn’t work by anyone’s schedule but his own, and if he wanted to speak with someone, they were brought to him.
This was most unusual.
“Did he say why?” Sherlock asked finally, aware that the silence had stretched on for longer than was socially acceptable. Hopkins shrugged.
“He said that it was about time, whatever that means.” Hopkins gave a weak smile. “Starting to think you’ve been hiding something from me. You’re not James Bond, are you?”
Now it was Sherlock’s turn to snort. Hopkins quickly sobered.
“I told him this was ridiculous. I’ve known you fifteen years, what makes now so different than the beginning?” He ate in irritation for a moment.
“But he refused to listen,” Sherlock knew his brother only too well.
“I’m getting a security detail. Hopefully they remain more inconspicuous to me than to you; I don’t know what I’ll do if I figure out where they’re hiding.”
They ate in silence for a while longer, Sherlock contemplating this sudden, odd behavior on Mycroft’s part--strange even for him. It couldn’t be because there were threats now on Hopkins’ life--Sherlock would have known about that long ago. And Mycroft would have consulted him.
“Remind me,” he said finally, and Hopkins looked up, “to teach you how to give them the slip. I’ll show you all my tricks.”
It was worth it to see the slow, genuine smile that spread across Hopkins’ face.
And later that night, when he was back at Baker Street, Sherlock pulled out his mobile to tap out a short message to Mycroft.
I appreciate you not kidnapping him.
The response, as he expected, was immediate.
I was only attempting to comply with your wishes, little brother. Have a good night.
----
Sherlock woke one morning with his left hand throbbing, and the oral analgesics he took did little to lessen the ache. He went about his business as normal, but the pain was always present in the back of his mind. Two days later, he woke with swollen fingers and stiff knuckles.
The morning after that, he couldn’t move his hand.
“If you’re here about the eyeballs, they aren’t ready yet,” Molly said when she discovered Sherlock in her office later that afternoon. She took one look at his face, though, and immediately grew concerned. “What’s happened?”
Wordlessly, Sherlock tugged off his left glove. Molly took in his swollen fingers and sighed.
“Do they hurt badly?” she asked gently.
“I am finding it difficult to concentrate on much else,” Sherlock admitted. “And recently, I’ve found that I’m having difficulty moving them. Molly, I don’t know what to do.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “And you’re coming to me for advice?”
“I always do.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you actually going to listen to what I say this time?”
“Yes.” Sherlock held out his hand. “Molly, please.”
She took the hand between both of her own, cradling it, and when she tried to move one of the joints Sherlock tensed and tried not to jerk his hand away.
“I have a friend who specializes in grievous injuries,” she said finally. “His name is Jason Branson, and he was trained during the Conflict. He’s an expert when it comes to dealing with amputations and the complications that can result from them. Sherlock - this is beyond me, now. You need to talk to him.”
“And what’s he going to tell me?” Sherlock pressed. She was quiet for a moment. “Molly.”
She sighed.
“You’ve done all you can for that hand,” she said softly. “Painkillers will only last you for so much longer. After that - you either live with the pain, or you have the hand reconstructed and a prosthesis put into place.”
Sherlock, even though he had been expecting this, found that the words still landed like a blow. He withdrew his hand, nodding his thanks to her, and put the glove back on.
“He wasn’t wrong to do what he did,” he said after a moment.
Molly’s face softened.
“Of course not,” she said. “Victor did what was necessary at the time. And now you need to do the same.”
Jason Branson was an exceptionally busy man, but the moment Sherlock sent him an image of his left hand, he cleared his schedule one Wednesday afternoon so that he could fit Sherlock in right away.
Sherlock underwent an entire day of grueling tests before Branson reached the same conclusion that Molly did.
“We need to keep in mind that, while your original surgery was performed by a professional, it wasn’t done in the best of circumstances,” he told a groggy Sherlock late in the afternoon. “It was bound to develop complications at some point. To be honest, I’m impressed that you got normal use out of that hand for as long as you did.”
Sherlock had been at the hospital since shortly after dawn. He had endured scans and blood tests, and had been pumped full of various drugs so that his hand could be properly imaged. He had also needed to be put on a particularly strong set of painkillers so that the technicians could move his hand freely without causing him debilitating agony.
“I need the prosthesis,” Sherlock said thickly, and Branson nodded.
“If you want to continue on with the quality of life you’ve been experiencing until now, yes. You need to have a prosthetic device attached to that hand, and the accompanying surgery that reconstructs part of the wound.”
“How long will the surgery take?”
“Four hours. Ideally, you’ll be kept overnight for observation after that, and then you’ll be told to stay at home for about a week to make sure that the prosthesis takes to your various tissues. The physical therapy after that will last for about three weeks.”
Sherlock sighed heavily.
“Right,” he said finally. “When can we do this?”
They scheduled the surgery for March. Until then, Sherlock would need to come in for weekly injections that would dull the pain in his hand and hopefully keep it functioning for the next two months.
“You’re in good hands, Mr Holmes,” Branson said cheerfully. “Er… bad pun not intended.”
Sherlock couldn’t help but snort, for that was exactly the sort of dry humour Hopkins enjoyed.
“I’m sure I am,” he said wryly. He reached for his coat while Branson gave his records a final cursory glance.
“One last thing, Mr Holmes. It seems your previous physician never noted how you lost your fingers in the first place,” he said, a frown creasing his brows. “I’ve always assumed it was a war wound, from the newspaper photographs of it that I saw. But it doesn’t say anything here about you having served in the Conflict.”
Sherlock slid his arms into his coat and adjusted the collar.
“Is this necessary information?” he asked finally. Branson shook his head.
“I’m just curious.”
Sherlock considered him for a moment.
“You weren’t incorrect. It is a war wound,” he said finally. “Just not from the one that you’re thinking of. Good day, doctor.”
----
Hopkins’ schedule began to settle down as January faded into February, though more often than not he needed to reschedule their lunches so that they were dinners instead.
“I hope that’s actually food I smell,” Hopkins commented one evening as he stepped into the flat. Checkers, who had taken to napping in a patch of sun on the steps outside Alice’s flat, had evidently followed Hopkins up the stairs. Sherlock watched as Checkers darted across the main room to his new favourite spot by the window.
“No experiments tonight,” Sherlock said as Hopkins stepped into the kitchen and deposited a bag on the table. He pulled out the various spices Sherlock had requested that he pick up from the shops on his way over. Sherlock nodded his thanks.
“Dry spell?” Hopkins teased lightly.
“I have another paper due,” Sherlock said. “I can’t move forward with any experiments until that’s finished.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. He did need to have this latest article to his editor by Wednesday, but paper deadlines had never stopped him from performing experiments before. But Hopkins could stand to have a decent meal once in a while, and though Sherlock found the task tedious he knew Hopkins would sustain himself on cigarettes and meager amounts of takeaway if given the chance. The man hated cooking, and he was exceptionally terrible at it.
Therefore, tonight the kitchen was only for food.
“How goes the case?” Sherlock asked as Hopkins moved into the other room to properly greet Checkers.
Hopkins snorted. “It goes.”
“That’s hardly promising.”
“Tell me about it. Checkers likes your present, I see,” Hopkins said, quickly changing the subject. The tank with the frog had been set up in one corner of the flat, and Sherlock had set a chair next to the tank because he’d discovered that Checkers enjoyed watching the creature. The dog - he was no longer a puppy, and really was far too big for the armchair he liked to sleep in - would brace his front paws on the chair and peer into the tank, sometimes for minutes on end. He was doing that now, completely heedless of the fact that Hopkins was scratching him behind his ears. “You should name him.”
“Hm? Oh, the frog? Henry.”
Hopkins blinked at him.
“You… actually named him?” he asked, surprised. “And it’s Henry?”
Sherlock shrugged, and Hopkins laughed.
“Henry, then,” he chuckled. “Henry, the poison dart frog. I like it.”
“Dendrobates leucomelas, actually,” Sherlock told him. “He’s a yellow-banded dart frog.”
Hopkins looked at him over his shoulder and flashed him a grin. “Also known as the bumblebee poison frog.”
“I knew you’d done that on purpose,” Sherlock said triumphantly, feeling a swell of pride in his chest. He always enjoyed moments that proved Hopkins was just as clever as Sherlock hoped he would be.
“I know how you like bees, but I couldn’t just get you a beehive for your birthday,” Hopkins said. “So this was the next best thing.”
They shared a quiet dinner over some mindless television. Hopkins faded quickly after the meal was finished, and by sundown he was falling asleep on the sofa. Sherlock nudged him with his knee as he got up to put their plates in the kitchen.
“Goin’ for some air,” Hopkins said blearily. He stood and stretched before heading for the door. Sherlock ran the faucet and began to rinse the cutlery.
“I’ll join you in a moment.”
He found Hopkins up on the roof ten minutes later, which was a usual haunt of theirs during the summer, when Baker Street was too stifling or the weather outside too inviting to waste an evening inside. They rarely frequented the roof in winter, but this year the season almost temperate.
Hopkins was smoking, probably from the pack that he had started to carry around in his pocket at all times. He offered a cigarette to Sherlock, who declined.
Night had come on quickly once the sun’s slow descent finally carried it below the horizon. The stars were already out, glinting against the blackened sky.
“Beautiful, isn’t it,” Hopkins said absently. He drew on his cigarette. Sherlock handed him a beer he had brought along from the kitchen and then sat down beside him.
“It’s not real, Stanley.” Sherlock stretched out anyway on his back, face turned to the sky and the not-real stars, tucking his hands behind his head.
Light pollution had become such an issue in recent years that no one could see the actual stars in London anymore. The city’s solution to the problem had been to set up a vast holographic projection that they turned on at night. It mirrored the real night sky, except it had the added benefit of being much closer and brighter, and therefore able to cut through the interference from city lights.
“It is, in a way.” Hopkins took a long swallow of beer before lying back next to Sherlock. “It’s what the sky would look like right now if all the lights went out.”
“But it’s not real,” Sherlock insisted, and Hopkins gave a short bark of laughter.
“Just because it’s not real doesn’t mean people can’t be affected by it,” he said, nudging Sherlock with his knee. He put an arm behind his head and added, “Sometimes all that matters is that we perceive it to be real.”
Sherlock fell silent at that. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a star, a true star, in the London night sky. It must have been at least ten years back.
Hopkins stubbed out his cigarette on the gravel roof and then flicked the butt away. The moon was rising off to their right, the true moon, a pale disc in the sky that had yet to be washed out by the lights. That day would come, though, and soon it would be added to the holographic illusion.
“You all right, old man?” Hopkins asked eventually. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
“Not when you have something to rant about, and I know how much you hate this sky.” Hopkins’ voice took on a teasing lilt. “Go on. Tell me what a waste of power and money it is to keep the projection going. Tell me what they’ve got wrong this night. Is Orion out of place again?”
Sherlock gave a wan smile and nudged Hopkins with his knee in return, but could otherwise think of nothing to say. They lapsed into silence again, watching the sky. It was almost serene, and Sherlock could very nearly forget that they were in the midst of a horrific case. But Hopkins checked his phone discreetly, and at regular intervals, and Sherlock couldn’t maintain that illusion for very long.
Sometimes all that matters is that we perceive it to be real.
“I’ve been having these dreams,” Sherlock said at length. He felt Hopkins turn to look at him, and kept his eyes fixed on Andromeda. “Not often… but often enough. I see Victor in them, and he’s always too far away. Not by much, just - just barely out of reach. I chase him, I try to catch him, and I always fail. And when I wake up -”
Sherlock swallowed. His voice came to his ears from very far away, as though someone else was speaking, laying bare the secret he had been keeping for two months now.
“And when I wake up,” he continued, softer, “it feels as though he was just here. And I wonder if I was wrong to stop looking all those years ago.”
In the months following Victor’s death, Sherlock had indulged the irritating, relentless voice in the back of his mind that wondered whether Victor was truly dead this time. The idea had taken him across the continent, where he had methodically searched all of the Trevor family estates before having each one destroyed. It had taken him back to Victor’s French home on three separate occasions, and to the cottage in the South Downs countless times. He had chased imaginary leads and gut feelings and misplaced intuition.
He had chased his ghosts, and he came back empty-handed.
“You weren’t wrong,” Hopkins said gently.
Sherlock nodded.
“I know. But that’s not usually the first thought on my mind when I am woken by one of those dreams.”
Hopkins shifted, and his shoulder inadvertently brushed against Sherlock’s arm. The touch bled through both their shirts, and Sherlock felt an unexpected warmth rush through his chest.
“How long?” he asked finally.
“Since Christmas,” Sherlock said softly.
He expected Hopkins to then ask why he was being told this, and Sherlock didn’t have an answer for that. At least, not one he could voice out loud. The fact of the matter was that Hopkins was the only one Sherlock had ever considered telling about the dreams. He had always trusted Hopkins with his life; somewhere along the way, he had realised that Hopkins could be trusted with his heart as well.
And Victor was a large part of that.
“Do you want them to stop?”
Sherlock blinked, taken aback by the question.
“Yes,” he admitted finally, “and no. I’m tired of experiencing them… and yet I’m very aware that those dreams are the only place left on this Earth where I will see him again.”
Sherlock rolled to his knees and stood before offering a hand down to Hopkins, who took it. He hauled Hopkins up.
Hopkins’ grip was warm and firm. He smelled of spice and cigarette smoke, and Sherlock went lightheaded. Had Hopkins always smelled like that? If so, he could not recall it ever being so... distracting.
“I’m sorry about the dreams.” Deep lines of concern had etched themselves into Hopkins’ face. “I wish I could help.”
Hopkins’ collar was slightly off-center, and Sherlock straightened it with a twitch of his fingers. He let his thumb rest for a moment in the hollow of Hopkins’ throat, and he felt Hopkins swallow hard.
“You already do.”
----
Sherlock was recalled to the Holmes family estate on a bitter morning in February following news of his stepfather’s death.
February was always a wretched month, its days alternating between dreary grey and deceptively brilliant. Throughout it all, it was cold, more so this year than January had been. It was also usually so frigid that ice crept up the windows of 221B and stayed for the entire month. Sherlock, in recent years, had taken to holing himself up in the flat virtually until March, and the fact that he was forced to leave-in order to make a socially-acceptable appearance at a funeral, no less-compounded his already-foul mood.
He arrived at his childhood home late in the afternoon, having traveled first by train and then by cab, deliberately making the journey a meandering one so that he could put off his arrival for as long as possible. Despite his efforts, however, he was still the first of the family to arrive, and that irritated him to no end. No doubt Mycroft had done that on purpose, so that Sherlock was forced to spend extra time alone in the house that he hated.
There was a pervasive chill throughout the vast house, and stepping in from the cold was merely a figure of speech at best. It felt rather as though Sherlock had merely stepped from the ice box into the fridge, and when one of the staff offered to take his coat, he refused.
“When is my brother due to arrive?” he asked, and was informed that Mycroft wasn’t expected until dinner. Sherlock resisted--just barely--giving a waspish reply, and instead stole upstairs, where he was most likely to find some peace and quiet in the meantime. The staff was occupied with preparing for his brother’s arrival, and with the guests they would be hosting after the funeral tomorrow. They did not much care what Sherlock did, so long as he didn’t get in the way.
His childhood room was the one at the end of a long corridor on the second storey, though that was the only thing about it that had remained unchanged after all these years. None of his personal possessions remained. The ones he had deemed important had made the move to London with him; the rest had been discarded. If his mother had saved any of his childhood toys, they had either been given away long ago or packed away into storage. Sherlock didn’t much care, either way.
The room had been converted into a study in the intervening years, but someone had dragged in a camp bed for his use. Sherlock spent some time perusing the bookshelves, listening to the activity that filtered up from the ground floor. Eventually, curiosity got the better of him, and he set out to explore the rest of the house.
Erik had not changed the house much since Sherlock’s mother passed away five years ago. Her presence still radiated from the furniture, the artwork that lined the walls, the general decor. Violet Holmes had possessed a strong personality, a wicked sense of humour, and a stubbornness that persisted even as memory loss set in and she forgot that the man she lived with was her husband; that the men who sometimes visited were her boys. It showed in the bold artwork she chose for the corridors; in the striking sculptures in the garden and the dining room.
Sherlock missed her terribly. And, if he was completely honest with himself, he was also starting to feel the marked absence of the man who had not been his father, but who had tried to fill the role nonetheless. Sherlock never let him.
Mycroft arrived finally just before dinner, and they dined together at a table that was far too large for just the two of them.
“Did you bring your suit?” Mycroft asked as they started in on the second bottle of wine. Sherlock took a couple of seconds to answer. He really shouldn’t have had any of the drink.
“Yes.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“I’m drunk, not a child,” Sherlock retorted. “But you’re welcome to go through my belongings if you like.”
Mycroft declined.
Sherlock went to bed with a headache and woke up wanting to remove his head from his neck. Light made the agony worse, and there was no avoiding that on this brilliant wintry morning. It took a handful of oral analgesics and two glasses of water before he could even contemplate getting ready for the day, and even then the headache never disappeared completely.
The funeral was long, dull, and lightly attended. Sherlock didn’t recognise very many of the mourners, and the ones he did know were distant relations by marriage that he hadn’t seen since they were all children. He spoke little, counting down the minutes until it was socially acceptable for him to escape up to his room. As midnight approached, Mycroft and four of their cousins were in the library downstairs, some of them smoking and all of them working their way through the house’s brandy. Sherlock, whose headache had finally intensified in to the migraine that had been threatening all day, pressed his palms to his eyes and willed sleep to come. Or for everyone else in the house to disappear. He would take either, at this point.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand, shattering the room’s silence. Sherlock turned his head and stared it for some moments, uncomprehending. No one tried to call him on the device anymore, everyone preferring instead to use their vid screens. And if someone needed him specifically, they knew that their only hope of reaching him immediately was by text.
But one person had compromised, conceding to Sherlock’s distaste for invasive forms of technology but usually refusing to give up the middle ground and indulge him completely.
“Stanley,” Sherlock greeted finally as he answered the phone. His voice was a rough croak.
“Hey.” Hopkins’ voice echoed slightly, and his words were breathy. He was either standing in his kitchen, having just returned home after a run, or he had just finished a late-night round of sparring in the Yard’s gym, which would be deserted at this hour of night. Sherlock couldn’t tell which of those options was correct, and the realisation irritated him.
“Has there been a new development in the case?”
“What? Oh, no. I just heard about your stepdad. Thought I’d give you a call.”
“John?”
“No. Alice, actually. I stopped by this evening; she told me you’d gone home.”
Sherlock blinked, and then realised what had been nagging uneasily at the back of his mind all day.
“I missed our meal,” he said quietly. “Apologies. I... was distracted this morning. I didn’t think to call...”
He trailed off.
“You have nothing to apologise for.” Hopkins’ voice was filled with too much understanding. “Has it been all right? All things considered. I know how you hate that house.”
“It’s Mycroft’s now,” Sherlock said. “It’ll go to me when he’s gone. I don’t want it.”
“I know.” There came the sound of a running faucet. “Were you close?”
“Erik was a decent man.” Sherlock worried a loose thread on his sleeve. “But he wasn’t my father. I don’t think I ever forgave him for that.”
“I’m sorry.” There was a slight pause, and Sherlock feared the conversation had run its course already. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Sherlock answered automatically.
“No, you’re not,” Hopkins said at once. His voice grew quieter. “Tell me.”
“I hate this house,” Sherlock muttered. “I hate it, Stanley. I hate - I hate that I lost my mother more than twenty years before she died. I rarely visited after my return, you know. I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand to be around her when all she would do was ask for Victor, or for my father. I was always eighteen or - or five, to her. She remembered me, but never the right me. It hurt. It still hurts.”
Hopkins was quiet, listening, allowing Sherlock to say the words he had been needing voice for two days. When it was over, he sat in silence, absorbing them, giving Sherlock the benefit of a listener who wouldn’t offer him useless platitudes. And then he moved on.
“When are you due back?” Hopkins asked.
Sherlock blew out a harsh breath between his teeth, gathering himself. “The earliest train I could get arrives in London tomorrow evening.”
“What time? I’ll come get you.”
“I -” Sherlock stopped and blinked. “I appreciate the offer, Stanley, but I can arrange a cab.”
“You could, but you won’t.” Hopkins gave a sudden bark of laughter. “Believe me, I’m not being kind. This is for my own entirely selfish reasons. You missed our lunch today; I expect you to make up for it. I’m picking you up from the station, and then you’re coming with me to dinner.”
Sherlock grinned despite himself.
“If you insist,” he said dryly, and he could hear Hopkins’ smile through the phone. “My train arrives at eight.”
“I’ll be there, old man. See you tomorrow.”
----
Part 10