Fic: A Study in B Flat (2/5)
Title: A Study in B Flat (2/5)
Author: sorrel_forbes
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Just a bit of swearing
Word Count: ~1,800 of 8,500 words
Notes: Beta-read and cheer-led by the inimitable dulcemia. Thank you also to swissmarg for a second read through. Any remaining awkwardness is all my own.
Summary: In which Sherlock is a violinist and consulting composer who writes the pieces his clients are too dim to ask for, and John is an ex-army doctor and handy amateur clarinettist. Together they make music.
A story containing deductive inferences, music for adrenaline junkies, and the development of an unforeseen relationship.
[Part Two: I Don’t Eat When I’m Playing]
Part Two: I Don’t Eat When I’m Playing
One Saturday morning, just about when John thinks he’s finally getting the hang of living with Sherlock, he stumbles downstairs in his dressing gown, and registers sleeping people in the sitting room.
“Sherlock?” asks the man, as he looks up blearily.
John recognises his face, and the woman’s too, from the previous day’s news report.
“Fuck me,” he protests.
He feels Sherlock approaching from behind even before the touch of a hand on his elbow. Senses his presence long before Sherlock speaks, but still twitches at the disturbance.
“Easy, John,” says Sherlock, his sleep-deepened voice betraying no little amusement. “We have company.”
“That’s rather the point,” protests John, sagging against the doorframe. “I wasn’t prepared to entertain New Scotland Yard in my pants and dressing gown this morning.”
The woman eyes him critically as she sits up on the sofa. “Well, I’ll be,” she says. “Freak really did get himself a flatmate.” Her emphasis on the word ‘flatmate’ is unfathomable. John looks back at her for a moment, and then beats a strategic retreat to the kitchen. He puts the kettle on.
Two days later when he is even more properly startled by a human foot in the fridge, Sherlock explains that every so often he will attend a pub quiz night with NSY, fail miserably at answering trivia (boggle at the useless and irrelevant things people know, is how he puts it), and then pump his contacts for practical shortcomings in contemporary forensic techniques. If he’s inspired, he’ll research the problems using body parts from the morgue at St Bart’s for testing. Apparently he publishes articles in forensic chemistry journals when he needs a break from the artistic grind.
John has words with him about food safety, chemical safety and pathology, and resigns himself to yet another of his flatmate’s idiosyncrasies.
*
Unpleasant surprises aside, flat-sharing with Sherlock’s actually a lot of fun. John’s favourite days are when he comes home from the clinic and Sherlock is feeling expansively creative. He will play while John sits down with a cuppa, and then they will improvise together. (Sherlock will name a key to get him started, because unlike certain mad geniuses of his acquaintance, he doesn’t have perfect pitch.) Or alternatively, Sherlock will hand him some sheet music and they will play around with that. Later, John will feel pleased when he recognises snatches of their sessions that make it into Sherlock’s published works. He’s started paying more attention to classical music again, now that he has a more personal connection. Sherlock doesn’t always compose that way, but they both enjoy the process when he does.
Even so, John knows exactly what Sherlock meant when he said that he found music to be a sticking point for flatmates. Sometimes he will scrape away at his violin-some kind of modern atonal cacophony-or maybe it’s just random scraping; John doesn’t know-and won’t let up until the small hours of the morning. It seems to happen most often when he's itching for a new commission, and this is an observation that has given John an unexpected appreciation for the intrusion of prospective clients into the sanctuary of his sitting room.
Occasionally Sherlock picks up a new job without even the slightest hint of melodrama, such as a new solo piece for the violist Julia Adler. Sherlock politely informs her that it will be ready in a matter of weeks. John has some input into the resulting composition, and they turn out a piece that has experimental influences derived from his love of jazz.
Other times, Sherlock is unaccountably difficult. Esperanza Jeffries puts Sherlock on the warpath right from the beginning. She’s barely even entered the flat before he’s looked her up and down and decided “Boring! Go away.” She doesn’t go away.
Sherlock flounces off to recline artfully on the sofa, calling out as he goes: “John! Fetch the tea, will you?” John figures that he might as well brew some tea to make up for Sherlock’s outstanding rudeness. But when he brings it out, the superior and pitying expression he catches on the young woman’s face makes him all of a sudden less inclined to make things easier for her.
Vindictively intending to leave her to her fate, he’s barely shifted his weight when Sherlock sits up with an evil gleam in his eye.
“Stay, John.”
So. He wants an audience... Should be interesting. John does his best to radiate an air of mild and inoffensive curiosity. Sherlock dumps four teaspoons of sugar into her tea without stopping to ask if she’d like any at all. Then he glares at her as if daring her not to drink it. He waits silently until she starts to speak again, presumably for the sole purpose of being able to interrupt:
“You are a Classicist. You like sweet and frilly things, and all the florid gilt of Vienna. You disdain symmetrical restraint and counterpoint on the one hand, and fear dramatic tension on the other. You like kittens and pink. I cannot think of anything that could be more facile or mind-numbing than producing the neo-Classical commission that you are planning to ask of me.” He picks up his violin and plays a superbly sarcastic rendition of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, inching closer and closer into her personal space. “Don’t even think of coming back, unless by some miracle you develop enough intelligence to appreciate proper music,” he suggests.
This time she does go. Sherlock nonchalantly puts his violin back in its case. “What a repulsive woman,” he remarks loudly. “You do realise that everything you said to her is also true of Molly-at-the-morgue, don’t you?” ventures John. Sherlock remains unmoved. “Not quite. Molly likes Tchaikovsky-sentimental, I grant you, but not without substance-and dead bodies, and she has half a decent brain in her head. Besides, did you see the way she looked at you?” John is reminded of the episode some time later when Sherlock’s brother Mycroft suggests that he and Sherlock might play something together “for Mummy’s birthday.” The feeling of déjà vu is not least reinforced on account of the blatantly condescending assessment that he is subjected to.
“Just be glad he hasn’t kidnapped you yet,” says Sherlock, and John rolls his eyes disbelievingly.
It’s a certain class of unusual client that Sherlock seems to live for, though. Max Altman is one of them: an amateur Bach scholar and musician who’s built his own harpsichord. He asks for a collection of recherché conundrums based on an original theme to be developed by Sherlock; something for him to tease out of a Sunday morning to keep his mind sharp in his retirement from an academic career in theoretical physics. The notion has Sherlock rubbing his hands with glee, and John is spared from petulant expressions of boredom for a whole two months while he works on the project. He feels awed and privileged to witness the creation of the intricate, Baroque-inspired masterpiece.
*
John is working his way through a series of technical studies in the sitting room one afternoon when Sherlock strides in through the front door, with paper bags in his hand.
“Sandwich?” he offers, as he begins to chew through one of his own. Even performing such a mundane act as eating a sandwich, he is compelling. He paces the length of the room, moving with grace. He bites his sandwich; he holds out a bag. His gestures and attitudes are striking compositions of shape and form.
John is surprised by his uncharacteristic consideration, but declines nevertheless. “You know I don’t eat while I’m playing,” he says, “but thanks. I’ll get it later when I’m done.”
“Won’t be any good later,” says Sherlock. “There’s melted cheese.”
John puts down his clarinet suspiciously, and pulls out his cleaning cloth. He almost says that Sherlock could have just asked if he’d wanted a break from John’s practising, but then he doesn’t. If Sherlock’s inclined to try out some generosity to get his way from time to time, then John’s not going to say anything to discourage that.
It doesn’t surprise him when Sherlock picks up on his cynical train of thought. “Yes, of course I could have asked you to stop, but I don’t just need to think; I need you in a good mood. I’ve been working on a new commission.”
He thrusts some pages of music at John, who doesn’t pick them up. He’s eating his sandwich, after all.
In the end, they clear off the coffee table and lay out the pages.
“Clarinet concerto for the Docklands Sinfonia. What do you think?”
John lets out a low whistle. “Good God,” he says. “You must really hate the clarinettist; what did he do? Run off with your girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend? No, not my area.”
“So, your boyfriend, maybe?
“Which is fine,” he adds, at the same time as Sherlock starts to answer him. “It’s all fine,” he says lamely.
But what Sherlock has said is this: “No, no, I consider myself more as being married to my art.”
“Just your ordinary garden-variety wanker, then,” concludes John.
“I suppose so.” Sherlock looks uncharacteristically thrown. “I understand convention forbids discussion, though.”
What’s that? Then suddenly John understands. Oh. “Oh, sorry. No; I meant the clarinettist. Bit of an arse, I meant to say.”
“Not at all. The orchestra also engaged me to find their soloist for them: I wrote this piece with a very particular friend in mind.”
“Another genius!” exclaims John. “Not Mycroft; you said ‘friend’, after all, and he’s a pianist in any case. Do you have another brother I haven’t met yet? A sister? I expect it’d take a Holmes or the devil himself to handle this.”
“Hardly,” says Sherlock pointedly. “You sell yourself short. You’ve played most of it before, you know; I’ve transcribed from recordings. It’s all yours, if you want it.”
John suspects that he might be blushing. Not very manly, he regrets. His voice has a slight strangled quality to it as he asks, “A dear friend of yours, you say?”
“A particular friend, is what I said. But, yes. He is rather dear to me.”
“I can’t play it, though!”
John tries to panic quietly on the inside, but finds that he can’t contain himself. “I’m not a virtuoso... Sherlock, what have you done? Do you even have a backup plan? It won’t be what your orchestra needs if you can’t get anyone who can play the solo.
It’s not strictly what they asked for, either, is it? Shit. Fuck.” Sherlock interrupts.
“John! Stop. Breathe. Did you not hear me at all just now? I’ve heard you play it. You’ll get there. I know you can keep up.”
‘Oh, please, God,’ thinks John.
Part One: Violin or Viola?
Part Two: I Don't Eat When I'm Playing
Part Three: The Most Ridiculous Thing
Part Four: Not a Very Nice Piano
Part Five: I Don't Have Friends
Author: sorrel_forbes
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Just a bit of swearing
Word Count: ~1,800 of 8,500 words
Notes: Beta-read and cheer-led by the inimitable dulcemia. Thank you also to swissmarg for a second read through. Any remaining awkwardness is all my own.
Summary: In which Sherlock is a violinist and consulting composer who writes the pieces his clients are too dim to ask for, and John is an ex-army doctor and handy amateur clarinettist. Together they make music.
A story containing deductive inferences, music for adrenaline junkies, and the development of an unforeseen relationship.
[Part Two: I Don’t Eat When I’m Playing]
Part Two: I Don’t Eat When I’m Playing
One Saturday morning, just about when John thinks he’s finally getting the hang of living with Sherlock, he stumbles downstairs in his dressing gown, and registers sleeping people in the sitting room.
“Sherlock?” asks the man, as he looks up blearily.
John recognises his face, and the woman’s too, from the previous day’s news report.
“Fuck me,” he protests.
He feels Sherlock approaching from behind even before the touch of a hand on his elbow. Senses his presence long before Sherlock speaks, but still twitches at the disturbance.
“Easy, John,” says Sherlock, his sleep-deepened voice betraying no little amusement. “We have company.”
“That’s rather the point,” protests John, sagging against the doorframe. “I wasn’t prepared to entertain New Scotland Yard in my pants and dressing gown this morning.”
The woman eyes him critically as she sits up on the sofa. “Well, I’ll be,” she says. “Freak really did get himself a flatmate.” Her emphasis on the word ‘flatmate’ is unfathomable. John looks back at her for a moment, and then beats a strategic retreat to the kitchen. He puts the kettle on.
Two days later when he is even more properly startled by a human foot in the fridge, Sherlock explains that every so often he will attend a pub quiz night with NSY, fail miserably at answering trivia (boggle at the useless and irrelevant things people know, is how he puts it), and then pump his contacts for practical shortcomings in contemporary forensic techniques. If he’s inspired, he’ll research the problems using body parts from the morgue at St Bart’s for testing. Apparently he publishes articles in forensic chemistry journals when he needs a break from the artistic grind.
John has words with him about food safety, chemical safety and pathology, and resigns himself to yet another of his flatmate’s idiosyncrasies.
*
Unpleasant surprises aside, flat-sharing with Sherlock’s actually a lot of fun. John’s favourite days are when he comes home from the clinic and Sherlock is feeling expansively creative. He will play while John sits down with a cuppa, and then they will improvise together. (Sherlock will name a key to get him started, because unlike certain mad geniuses of his acquaintance, he doesn’t have perfect pitch.) Or alternatively, Sherlock will hand him some sheet music and they will play around with that. Later, John will feel pleased when he recognises snatches of their sessions that make it into Sherlock’s published works. He’s started paying more attention to classical music again, now that he has a more personal connection. Sherlock doesn’t always compose that way, but they both enjoy the process when he does.
Even so, John knows exactly what Sherlock meant when he said that he found music to be a sticking point for flatmates. Sometimes he will scrape away at his violin-some kind of modern atonal cacophony-or maybe it’s just random scraping; John doesn’t know-and won’t let up until the small hours of the morning. It seems to happen most often when he's itching for a new commission, and this is an observation that has given John an unexpected appreciation for the intrusion of prospective clients into the sanctuary of his sitting room.
Occasionally Sherlock picks up a new job without even the slightest hint of melodrama, such as a new solo piece for the violist Julia Adler. Sherlock politely informs her that it will be ready in a matter of weeks. John has some input into the resulting composition, and they turn out a piece that has experimental influences derived from his love of jazz.
Other times, Sherlock is unaccountably difficult. Esperanza Jeffries puts Sherlock on the warpath right from the beginning. She’s barely even entered the flat before he’s looked her up and down and decided “Boring! Go away.” She doesn’t go away.
Sherlock flounces off to recline artfully on the sofa, calling out as he goes: “John! Fetch the tea, will you?” John figures that he might as well brew some tea to make up for Sherlock’s outstanding rudeness. But when he brings it out, the superior and pitying expression he catches on the young woman’s face makes him all of a sudden less inclined to make things easier for her.
Vindictively intending to leave her to her fate, he’s barely shifted his weight when Sherlock sits up with an evil gleam in his eye.
“Stay, John.”
So. He wants an audience... Should be interesting. John does his best to radiate an air of mild and inoffensive curiosity. Sherlock dumps four teaspoons of sugar into her tea without stopping to ask if she’d like any at all. Then he glares at her as if daring her not to drink it. He waits silently until she starts to speak again, presumably for the sole purpose of being able to interrupt:
“You are a Classicist. You like sweet and frilly things, and all the florid gilt of Vienna. You disdain symmetrical restraint and counterpoint on the one hand, and fear dramatic tension on the other. You like kittens and pink. I cannot think of anything that could be more facile or mind-numbing than producing the neo-Classical commission that you are planning to ask of me.” He picks up his violin and plays a superbly sarcastic rendition of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, inching closer and closer into her personal space. “Don’t even think of coming back, unless by some miracle you develop enough intelligence to appreciate proper music,” he suggests.
This time she does go. Sherlock nonchalantly puts his violin back in its case. “What a repulsive woman,” he remarks loudly. “You do realise that everything you said to her is also true of Molly-at-the-morgue, don’t you?” ventures John. Sherlock remains unmoved. “Not quite. Molly likes Tchaikovsky-sentimental, I grant you, but not without substance-and dead bodies, and she has half a decent brain in her head. Besides, did you see the way she looked at you?” John is reminded of the episode some time later when Sherlock’s brother Mycroft suggests that he and Sherlock might play something together “for Mummy’s birthday.” The feeling of déjà vu is not least reinforced on account of the blatantly condescending assessment that he is subjected to.
“Just be glad he hasn’t kidnapped you yet,” says Sherlock, and John rolls his eyes disbelievingly.
It’s a certain class of unusual client that Sherlock seems to live for, though. Max Altman is one of them: an amateur Bach scholar and musician who’s built his own harpsichord. He asks for a collection of recherché conundrums based on an original theme to be developed by Sherlock; something for him to tease out of a Sunday morning to keep his mind sharp in his retirement from an academic career in theoretical physics. The notion has Sherlock rubbing his hands with glee, and John is spared from petulant expressions of boredom for a whole two months while he works on the project. He feels awed and privileged to witness the creation of the intricate, Baroque-inspired masterpiece.
*
John is working his way through a series of technical studies in the sitting room one afternoon when Sherlock strides in through the front door, with paper bags in his hand.
“Sandwich?” he offers, as he begins to chew through one of his own. Even performing such a mundane act as eating a sandwich, he is compelling. He paces the length of the room, moving with grace. He bites his sandwich; he holds out a bag. His gestures and attitudes are striking compositions of shape and form.
John is surprised by his uncharacteristic consideration, but declines nevertheless. “You know I don’t eat while I’m playing,” he says, “but thanks. I’ll get it later when I’m done.”
“Won’t be any good later,” says Sherlock. “There’s melted cheese.”
John puts down his clarinet suspiciously, and pulls out his cleaning cloth. He almost says that Sherlock could have just asked if he’d wanted a break from John’s practising, but then he doesn’t. If Sherlock’s inclined to try out some generosity to get his way from time to time, then John’s not going to say anything to discourage that.
It doesn’t surprise him when Sherlock picks up on his cynical train of thought. “Yes, of course I could have asked you to stop, but I don’t just need to think; I need you in a good mood. I’ve been working on a new commission.”
He thrusts some pages of music at John, who doesn’t pick them up. He’s eating his sandwich, after all.
In the end, they clear off the coffee table and lay out the pages.
“Clarinet concerto for the Docklands Sinfonia. What do you think?”
John lets out a low whistle. “Good God,” he says. “You must really hate the clarinettist; what did he do? Run off with your girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend? No, not my area.”
“So, your boyfriend, maybe?
“Which is fine,” he adds, at the same time as Sherlock starts to answer him. “It’s all fine,” he says lamely.
But what Sherlock has said is this: “No, no, I consider myself more as being married to my art.”
“Just your ordinary garden-variety wanker, then,” concludes John.
“I suppose so.” Sherlock looks uncharacteristically thrown. “I understand convention forbids discussion, though.”
What’s that? Then suddenly John understands. Oh. “Oh, sorry. No; I meant the clarinettist. Bit of an arse, I meant to say.”
“Not at all. The orchestra also engaged me to find their soloist for them: I wrote this piece with a very particular friend in mind.”
“Another genius!” exclaims John. “Not Mycroft; you said ‘friend’, after all, and he’s a pianist in any case. Do you have another brother I haven’t met yet? A sister? I expect it’d take a Holmes or the devil himself to handle this.”
“Hardly,” says Sherlock pointedly. “You sell yourself short. You’ve played most of it before, you know; I’ve transcribed from recordings. It’s all yours, if you want it.”
John suspects that he might be blushing. Not very manly, he regrets. His voice has a slight strangled quality to it as he asks, “A dear friend of yours, you say?”
“A particular friend, is what I said. But, yes. He is rather dear to me.”
“I can’t play it, though!”
John tries to panic quietly on the inside, but finds that he can’t contain himself. “I’m not a virtuoso... Sherlock, what have you done? Do you even have a backup plan? It won’t be what your orchestra needs if you can’t get anyone who can play the solo.
It’s not strictly what they asked for, either, is it? Shit. Fuck.” Sherlock interrupts.
“John! Stop. Breathe. Did you not hear me at all just now? I’ve heard you play it. You’ll get there. I know you can keep up.”
‘Oh, please, God,’ thinks John.
Part One: Violin or Viola?
Part Two: I Don't Eat When I'm Playing
Part Three: The Most Ridiculous Thing
Part Four: Not a Very Nice Piano
Part Five: I Don't Have Friends