Sherlock (BBC) Fanfiction: Art of the Reasoner [ch.2]
Art of the Reasoner.
Summary: A world in which Sherlock is an artist, not a detective. Though that doesn’t mean he can’t help solve crimes. AU.
A/N: This should have been posted yesterday, but I was feeling especially frustrated by the Hotmail Incident. -_-
[ chapter one ]
⌘
“How hideous!” The client stared in horror at the portrait Sherlock had created in oil paints. “What have you done?”
Personally, Sherlock didn’t know why the man was acting so affronted. He had followed the request perfectly: ‘Show me as I am.’
How was he to know that apparently didn’t include the double chin and the collection of pimple scars across his nose and cheeks? Sherlock couldn’t be faulted for capturing the sickly yellow-orange fake tan, or for painting the hair with an oily sheen.
Honestly, Sherlock thought with a suppressed disgust, I told him to be more specific. If he wanted denial he should have ordered it.
The water in the bowl in which he was cleaning his paintbrushes was a foul green-grey-teal, but in the worst way-and Sherlock stared at the way the colours swirled over the surface, oil not quite mixing. Taking a deep breath, Sherlock steeled himself and turned around with a transparent grin.
“Shall I try again?”
“Yes, fine,” the man snapped irritably, cheeks ruddy red. “Do it right this time! I told you: be realistic!”
When people asked for realistic in art, they rarely meant it-Sherlock knew what realistic was.
Wine stain on cuff-drinker, sloppy at best; thinning hair combed slick back-vain and insecure; gold rings and necklace-need to be ostentatious, to prove his worth. It was the description of a dull, vapid little man.
Sometimes Sherlock really despaired for humanity. He hated people like this man. Of course, Sherlock couldn’t expect everyone to notice the details he did, but then there were idiots who were obviously, painfully obtuse, only seeing what they wanted to see.
As Sherlock started repainting the chin, he couldn’t help but pretend he was cutting the throat of the man with his paintbrush, pink paint flowing and dripping down the neck like blood.
He was only pretending, of course.
-
There was a beeping coming from somewhere in his studio. The noise was driving Sherlock mad. It wasn’t continuous, and it came and went, but the thing was that he couldn’t find it.
His flat was a mess in its default state: open half-empty paint cans; stacks upon stacks of yellowing newspapers; faded copies of National Geographic, worn and tattered obscuring the coffee table; canvases lying propped up where ever there was room. It was chaotic in a way that looked like an art bomb had exploded and seeped its way into every crevice.
He wanted to scream but that wasn’t destructive enough so Sherlock smashed one of his older easels, watching how it cracked and shattered into blocks and shards of wood. He emptied some white paint on top of them, mixing them so every wood piece was stained and then he hurled the pieces at a wall. They splattered with a sickening noise, sliding down slowly, leaving a white trail behind them as evidence of his anger.
Some might have called it an overreaction. But Sherlock hadn’t slept in four days and he was tired and wanted peace and quiet.
“Goddamnit, stop, you sick little piece of technology!” Sherlock finally yelled, his patience broken. The beeping didn’t respond to insults of course, and the noise persisted. Had Sherlock been insane-or more insane, depending on the definition-he might have thought the beeping had grown steadily shriller and louder to spite him.
The search for the source of the noise left a trail of destruction as he ran around, pushing stacks of papers over and rummaging through drawers without caring about the state of the contents. Eventually Sherlock uncovered a small object in one of the air vents.
Should have guessed, he thought mulishly. That was how the sound felt like it came from multiple rooms. Sherlock picked it up and turned it around in his hands. White paint from the earlier rampage flaked off and onto the object, which was a thin little phone and it was tied up with a garish white ribbon.
Sherlock reeled a bit; white noise, white letters, white ribbon and the smell of white paint overwhelmed him. Whitewhitewhite.
White for joy-for death-new beginnings-for endings-purity-eternity-for peace and tranquillity and ice and snow and endless white-
There were so many things white could have meant. Instead of wondering about it, over thinking the matter, Sherlock ripped off the ribbon and threw it on top of an overflowing paper scraps bin.
The chirpy beeping noise was still coming from the phone, so Sherlock fumbled around with the settings until he finally turned off the alarm. In the spot where a reminder should read ‘appointment’ or something similar, it instead said, ‘Happy birthday, Sherlock. -Mycroft.’
In all honesty, Sherlock hadn’t checked a calendar in weeks. It might have been April Fool’s Day and he would have virtually no idea. Oh, he probably had known the date at some point but painted it away, removed it from his mind like he would destroy a canvas. Shredded, ripped, recycled but ultimately forgotten.
For a moment that lasted three beats of his heart, Sherlock stared at mobile phone and wondered whether it was worth the spite to throw it out. He liked cameras-but film cameras, not digital and certainly not phone cameras, because of the quality of the images. He didn’t mind computers, and he did play around with using tablets to draw with, but preferred working with something he could touch and smell and feel over a digital screen. The idea of having a phone was laughable when everyone he talked to he could simply meet in person.
After that initial hesitation, he slipped it into his coat pocket, thinking he’d never use it but he could at least sell it for something useful.
Strangely enough, he never did get around to doing that.
-
When Sherlock was very young, very small, he had climbed up a tree. No one ever asked him why he climbed the tree. They assumed he was exploring like all good little boys were meant to do. But exploring implied some level of aimlessness. Sherlock had a very specific reason for climbing the tree.
He wanted to see the leaves at the very top of the tree. From a distance, the sunlight bounced off the shiny green surfaces in a way that sparkled, and he wanted to get closer. Maybe the light would be bright enough to hide away the squiggles that marred his vision, floating white somethings he soon learned no one else could see.
Unfortunately for him, he had slipped and fallen and broken his leg. He didn’t cry, not even as they put the cast on his leg. His mother was unsettled, he could see that, but he just sat blank faced as they set his bone.
Though Sherlock never did reach the top of the tree, distracted by a singing bird which made him twist and fall without a scream, he did find out a way to blot out the squiggles.
His cast was bright white and while confined to his bed, he spent hours simply staring at it. Long enough that the floating squiggles faded and almost disappeared in the cavernous nature of the whiteness engulfing his vision.
For a long time, Sherlock had convinced himself that getting rid of what he could see that no one else could would help him fit in better, make him a little more normal.
It didn’t. In fact, the white was horrendously uncomfortable, and Sherlock itched in his own skin.
So he covered up the whiteness like he would do so on paper. He got some paints and smeared it on the cast and then asked for some felt tips to write on top of that.
The relief that followed when his leg was encased in colours and letters was strangely overwhelming. But forgettable-it was so inconsequential.
If it were not for the fact Sherlock had kept his x-rays-somewhere in the flat, perhaps hidden in a sketchbook or maybe even painted over-then Sherlock might not have even remembered the incident.
-
“Where the hell are you?” Sherlock grumbled under his breath, rummaging through his things like a madman. In a way he was fortunate to be such a social recluse because the state of his flat was anything but inviting.
He had been cooped up in his flat for two solid weeks, the rains making an outside venture impossible and pointless. He could hardly accomplish anything with water destroying his canvases and turning his paper into mush. The one day he did try brave the torrents of rain, he came back freezing and soaked to the skin.
Today was excellent though because the rains had stopped. Sherlock was going to run out to the park-or somewhere open-and play his violin because going stir-crazy in his home was not an option. All the words floating by his head felt as listless as him, fuzzy and indistinct.
Dull. When had art become dull?
He could barely drag himself to eat during the worst of the heavy rains, but now that the sun was out-barely peeking through the clouds, but sunshine nonetheless, all shades of golden yellow and lemon-Sherlock felt like he was bursting with energy. It was revitalising and completely exhilarating.
Sherlock’s violin and bow were leaning against the door, looking like a dog eager to leave the house and play (broken A-string notwithstanding).
His scarf was hanging loosely around his neck, always a ready choking hazard should it get caught in anything. It was threadbare and fringed with burn marks-from a test in varying charcoal textures; store bought and homemade.
However, Sherlock found himself busy trying to find his favourite coat. It was long and warm and mostly waterproof. He didn’t buy it, the item far too expensive for his usual tastes, but it was something his mother had given him. She was smart to exploit the little sentimentality Sherlock had with something practical to keep him healthy.
Halfway through pulling his mattress up to see whether the coat was caught underneath, he heard it: an annoyingly familiar chirping beep.
The flare of irritation dissipated when Sherlock remembered: the phone was in his coat pocket.
Finding the coat was easy now he had a sound to track it with. It turned up underneath the couch pillows, though he had no recollection of how it got there. Tugging it on, he patted down his pockets until he found the still ringing phone. Accepting the call, he put it to his ear and sighed loudly in exasperation.
“Mycroft, I bloody well told you-”
“Hello? Sherlock Holmes?” queried a slightly static voice that was most definitely not his brother. Casting his mind for the voice, Sherlock couldn’t quite place it. Male, most likely but-oh.
“Detective Inspector Lestrade?” Sherlock replied cautiously, wondering what supposed trouble he was in now. He spared a fleeting glance at the open window and frowned at the idea he might miss out on the sun. “How did you get this number?”
Then he shook his head and said, “Wait, don’t answer that. Mycroft’s the only one that knows this; he must have given it to you. Whatever illegal activity he thinks I’m doing, I’m innocent.”
That drew a startled laugh out of Lestrade.
“No, no, no,” he chuckled. “I’m here to thank you. Your sketches led us right to the culprits. They are startlingly accurate.”
“Hmph,” Sherlock replied, tone noncommittal. That had been nearly a month ago. He’d redrawn the image on one of the kitchen cupboards and decidedly forgot about it. It wasn’t important.
What was important was every second passed wasted indoors.
“And,” Lestrade hesitated and continued, “About that abduction case. You were completely right about it. It took a while to get the search warrant, but when we did, it all came out. The kid’s fine.”
There was a following moment of awkward quiet where Sherlock debated how to take the social cue to say something. He honestly couldn’t care less about the story. He had already known he was right-affirming after so long did nothing.
“I’m sure this is all lovely, Inspector,” Sherlock finally said with a growing impatience, “but I really do have things to do-”
“Yes, right. I’ll cut to the chase.” There was a deep breath during the pause, before Lestrade said firmly, “I want to offer you a job.”
-
One day, Sherlock woke up and looked at his flat and decided, This is too small.
It was too long a walk from the hustle and bustle of life. When the generator failed, it was inconvenient to live without the electricity lighting everything up. Some might have considered painting by candlelight very romantic and a throwback to some old renaissance era, but it really strained Sherlock’s eyes and when he painted or sketched in the dim lighting the paintings didn’t turn out like he wanted.
Sherlock didn’t spend that much money: the flat he had bought; the generator made his electricity; the price of water was minimal; and food was more an offhand thought rather than something he regularly stocked in his shelves. He wasn’t quite sure what taxes he paid because officially he was unemployed-freelance artist that hated commissions didn’t quite cut it-but Mycroft took care of that part of things. The only thing he fixated on getting money for was his art supplies.
But then Sherlock decided, This is too small, so he started being more careful with the money he did bring in. He took on a few more commissions-as stupid as they were-and made sure he didn’t break anything that would be costly to replace.
The saving process was a little slower than usual because Sherlock had impulse urges to get higher quality supplies when he saw them, and occasionally the odd purchase-oh look, is that a real human skull? How fascinating!
Slowly, but surely, the money in the old paint can was growing and growing by the weeks.
He had a plan, an odd feeling since he generally wandered around and went where the current took him. But when a Holmes had a plan, well, God help us all.
-
Electric blue, electric yellow, electric crimson-the colour of sirens and alarms and lights in the night, all so vibrant and hypnotic.
“The job offer is still open.”
Sherlock looked up with a flat expression from where he was sitting on the ground. Someone-a paramedic, probably-had put on his shoulders a garish orange blanket which Sherlock thought would be fun to paint on. Within his bag he had some nearly finished acrylic tubes and the good part of a broken paintbrush, so he had set to work when everyone’s attentions were turned to the dead bodies.
“Are you still harping on about that?” he asked as he finished the rough outlines of a police car, the writing in Sharpie next to it listing how many years the vehicle was in service and how times it had crashed and how. Three years, two no wait, three collisions because of the varying number of paint flakes embedded in the scratches.
“My answer is the same as before,” Sherlock declared. “No.”
“Well, you get dragged into crime scenes often enough that you might as well be on our payroll,” Lestrade pointed out in a dry voice.
“Pardon me for finding criminals and other unfortunates so much more engaging to observe and record rather than upstanding, average citizens.”
Lestrade crouched down and sighed heavily. Shirt wrinkled, jeans worn, shadow of stubble-hadn’t gone home in two days, overtime; smells of coffee and cigarettes-mix of stress and fatigue; his wristwatch ten minutes slow-too busy to notice or care about the battery failing.
“Don’t you realise that you could help if you wanted to?”
“That’s my brother’s job, not mine.”
“Your brother? The one that gave me your phone number?”
“Yes, that’s him. And don’t sound so interested. The British government’s already snapped him right up.” Sherlock paused and frowned, continuing in an almost petulant tone, “They wanted me as well. I yelled at them until they left my flat. Authority is dull and completely restrictive. Where’s the fun in following the rules?”
“I’ll just pretend you didn’t say that then, shall I?”
Sherlock’s smile was slightly plastic and fake, like a warped grin on a porcelain doll, but Lestrade seemed adamant to get the man to work with him.
“Becoming a detective would mean you have authority.”
“Boring. My job is recording details, imprinting what I see onto something tangible,” Sherlock declared passionately. “It’s not to run around like a cartoon hero, saving the world from bad guys.”
“What’s wrong with being a hero?” Lestrade asked.
Sherlock snapped back, “What’s wrong with not wanting to be one?”
-
For all he bemoaned about the phone being a gift from his brother, Sherlock never sold it, never abandoned it, threw it away, or lost it. He actually kept it in pretty good nick for a couple of years-good by Sherlock’s standards at least.
The keys were slightly caked with paint and craft glue and the screen was bordered small smears of clay. Mycroft had good foresight to buy a waterproof one since Sherlock had dropped the phone in water-in cups, the bath, in the sink-more than once when a sudden urge to create something struck at him.
When he finally got control of his senses, Sherlock looked down at the phone shattered into a hundred pieces of small metal bits and curled wires, screen with a spider-webbing crack-all far beyond repair. Broken.
It felt good to destroy something.
His father just died and Sherlock didn’t know.
“Sherlock-” his mother’s voice was thin and reedy and gasping like there wasn’t enough air for her, “-he’s dead. Siger, your father, he’s dead.” The rest was mostly incoherent sobbing, but Sherlock could hear enough over the crackling and static of the phone to pick up the words, “Cardiac arrest” and “stress”.
He should have guessed. He should have visited more and painted his father’s face and read out the diagnosis and realised and help. Too late now; all of it was too late.
And Sherlock was so bitter because he could have seen it, he knew he could have. In his mind’s eye, he could see the floating words and his father’s face. Increased wrinkles, hunched shoulders, slow movements-tired, stressed, weary.
For a while, he thought about his mother. What she and his father had was intense to the point where it was unhealthy. They fought a lot. Except she loved him, she really did, and there wasn’t an ounce of relief in her voice on the recount of Siger’s death.
Intense, Sherlock remembered writing that down when he first painted them, truly painted his parents on canvas with a brush. Intense like they would die for the other without blinking an eye. Burning hate beneath the love, anger for being so dependant-two independent individuals forced to rely on someone else-a constant aching because their love wasn’t as easy as it used to be...
Mycroft came around to check on Sherlock in a surprisingly short amount of time. Perhaps he had tried calling and worried when no one answered. Perhaps he just knew how Sherlock would react to their father’s death. Perhaps his flat was bugged. Who really knew? Sherlock didn’t care.
He was numb. Numb like alcohol made him, but everything was duller and slower rather than sharper and more vibrant. It drained at his emotions liked a pulled plug sucked away at bathwater.
His brother had made him eat a pastry he’d bought on the way, shower and then change in to cleaner clothes, all the while packing some others in a tattered suitcase he found under Sherlock’s bed. Mycroft explained he would be taking them to their childhood home, to attend the funeral.
Funeralfuneralfuneral. Greys and blacks would traditionally be expected, but weather reports predicted sunshine and Sherlock would need to bring yellows and lush greens and maybe reds, or if that wasn’t enough, a stencil scalpel knife so he could paint his pain with blood-
-or perhaps not, Sherlock thought when he met his brother’s gaze. Mycroft motioned for him to exit the flat with a short, jerky nod. Looks like the diet will be broken yet again. Sherlock didn’t say it though. That was his own form of kindness; understanding silence.
Without protesting, Sherlock followed Mycroft out, only pausing to grab his messenger bag. The next few days went in a bit of a blur for Sherlock. It wasn’t so much grief as understanding there was nothing really to be done now.
-
He was alone with the open casket, given space and privacy to say his final words. There was nothing to be said though, so Sherlock was sketching the slack, peaceful face of his father. Black dust from the pencil pressing so hard on the paper stained the heel of his drawing hand, and he had to consciously loosen his grip on the stick of wood before he broke it.
The last time he’d broken a pencil from grief was when he was in rehab. He’d snapped a pencil in half from the pure longing withdrawal forced on to him, and then proceeded to try and carve his name into his thigh. That was when his art supplies were removed from him, and after that, the words filled his vision and blinded him.
It was almost curious how death didn’t deter the amount of words and information that soared around in front of Sherlock’s eyes. If possible, there was more. The words dripped with death and pain and details. Always the details-so important, and they were all wrong. The smell of embalming chemicals, the slack muscle look of relaxation on his father’s face, the cut of his funeral suit and the way the tie was done in a full-Windsor knot, not the half-Windsor his father preferred.
During the few times he had copied images of the dead onto paper or canvas, it felt like an intrusion, something wrong and a little forbidden. This though, this felt like peace. He didn’t need last words because he’d done this.
When there was no more room to write down the suspended observations, Sherlock stood to leave. He had barely turned his back before he hesitated. Slipping a hand into his coat pocket-he had washed the coat clean for the occasion, no paint or clay on it, and it felt too soft-Sherlock pulled out a folded scrap of paper.
On the drive to the countryside days before, Sherlock had drawn a very rough rendition of the time his father took him to the National Gallery. As a boy-not-quite-yet-teenage, Sherlock had been oddly entranced by the works of Turner, until his father dragged him to see Van Gogh.
At the time, he wasn’t amazed by the sunflowers or the abstract swirls of bright colour and went back to Turner, preferring the fuzzy, hazy realism.
Now, Sherlock could appreciate Van Gogh for his insanity, for his vivid interpretations of the world. The intensity was something special in itself. He never told his father that though. He should have.
Something in him said his father always understood him a little more than his mother for the same reason he had seen a beauty in Van Gogh’s insanity. Perhaps he saw that misunderstood genius in Sherlock and accepted it.
Whatever the reason, Sherlock would never know. Quietly, with a gentle hand, he slipped the drawing into his father’s inner coat pocket-over his heart-and patted it down softly.
The picture was of his father standing close to Sherlock as they were surrounded by some of the greatest artworks ever to be created. With only pencil and paper, Sherlock could hardly do them justice, but he made his father and himself the main focus of the image. He’d drawn his father happy.
Irrational, he thought abruptly, completely irrational to be sentimental for the dead.
Sherlock left the room without turning back. His hands were shaking.
-
Painting dead bodies after the funeral didn’t seem quite so wrong. Going to the morgue became a normal activity for Sherlock-as normal for him as was going down to visit the edge of the Thames to mix polluted river water with his watercolours.
At first, he was technically breaking into the morgue, but since he didn’t touch or steal anything, it was hesitantly allowed for him. Not to mention that with any lock put in place, Sherlock had the strangest knack of being able to pick it.
He was there now, eyes riveted on the sight of a chest cavity being ripped open. There was a slightly desperate longing to paint the heart and the way the bones shined in the bright artificial lighting-but there was a compromise to be in the morgue. He wasn’t allowed to bring paints in. Contamination, they explained.
So instead, Sherlock was sketching feverishly, coloured pencils staining the tips of his fingers as he smudged lines with a harried focus. He was sitting on the metal table to the right of the body, legs swinging back and forth as he worked.
The young doctor doing the post-mortem check-Molly, she had said, but Sherlock didn’t remember her last name-turned and shot a quick, shy smile at him. Of all the morgue attendants, she seemed to allow the most amount of leeway for his work. She made the conscious effort to stay out of the way as best as possible while still doing her job so he could capture everything with his eyes and hands.
One day he would have to paint her. She would suit a soft, warm pastel colour scheme. Nothing bright and attention grabbing, and he would blur her features a little into the background-a gentle overall feel.
Though in all honestly, Sherlock doubted he would remember to do that. Not when there was a plethora of organs and skin and muscle and death to draw. Not for the first time, Sherlock wished he could take parts home.
Nothing too extreme, like a head-but if he could, he wouldn’t say no-but he would love to take a hand or some fingers or, if it wasn’t too terribly intrusive, some eyeballs.
“Sherlock-” Molly started as the mortuary door opened, revealing Sergeant Sally Donovan. She was quite... volatile with Sherlock. Her eyes zoned in on the body first, taking in its open ribcage before noting Sherlock sitting beside it.
“I can’t believe it,” Sally muttered loudly. She stepped back out of the room and before the door had even swung shut, she yelled loudly, “Freaky little Da Vinci’s in here, Lestrade!”
There was a muffled affirming shout, and Sally poked her head back in the room, frowning as she said, “You know Da Vinci liked to cut up bodies. See how everything worked inside and then draw and label it.”
When Sherlock just quirked an eyebrow at her-as if her taunts were below his radar-Sally added casually, “Leonardo was also meant to be gay. I wonder what that says about you.”
Lestrade walked past Sally, giving her a sharp look but not verbally reprimanding her. She took the silent cue to leave the room, not bothering to glance back at Sherlock; he was still drawing, hands on autopilot during the entire exchange.
“Detective Inspector,” Sherlock hummed smoothly in a mild greeting. Turning to Molly, her gloved hands stained crimson, he asked, “I’m terribly sorry, but could you give us a minute?”
For a moment, it looked as though Molly wanted to argue-why didn’t Sherlock leave?-but she took another look at Lestrade and sighed softly, removing her gloves before quickly scurrying out of the room, a quick warning about leaving the body alone.
The corpse lay between Sherlock and Lestrade, but the latter made no move to get closer. Sherlock continued sketching; only throwing a cursory glance to the paper and the body before pinning Lestrade with a curious stare.
It wasn’t often Sherlock admitted it, but he was wrong. When they first met, he thought Lestrade would be well represented coloured in blacks and greys and splashes of blue, but that was wrong. As they met more and more, he had to concede that Lestrade would suit brilliant violets and ruddy-red purples with silver threading through it like an intricate weaving.
The silence was finally broken by Lestrade, who exclaimed, “Is that three nicotine patches on your arm?”
Four, actually, Sherlock thought of replying, feeling the fourth patch on his upper arm, hidden by his sleeve. Thinking better of it, he decided on remarking, “You see me next to a dead body and that’s your first response?”
“That says a lot more about you than me,” Lestrade deadpanned.
“I should hope I’m not getting too predictable for you,” Sherlock sighed and finally put his work to the side. “And the patches are there for a similar reason you wear them. Cigarettes are deadly, after all.”
“Never took you for someone to control your impul-wait, how did you know that I’m wearing them?” Lestrade looked down at his long sleeved coat and back up at Sherlock with only a faint incredulous stare. He’d grown used to Sherlock being observant, but there were still occasions it surprised him.
“Long sleeves don’t cover the fact you occasionally scratch at them. Not in the way you scratch at an insect bite but in a similar way children scratch at plasters that have been on too long; not that I’m comparing you to a child or anything,” Sherlock grinned. “Also, there’s a faint nicotine stain on your fingers. Clearly you’re trying to quit but you aren’t quite there yet.”
“No stain on your fingers,” Lestrade observed after a short pause.
“I’m quite over cigarettes.” Sherlock tapped one of the patches with his index finger. “Not over the nicotine hit though.”
“So I was right about impulse control.”
“But grateful I’ve already been through rehab.”
“Marijuana?” Lestrade asked wearily, as if he was suppressing the urge to judge.
“A little bit of everything, really,” Sherlock said lightly, smiling thinly. Actually, I used stuff a whole lot stronger. “Now, what did you need to see me about?”
“A case.” At Sherlock’s expression, Lestrade hastened to add, “A complex one-murders are happening in broad daylight, in crowds, but not a single witness to the act.”
-
“Artists observe the world and try to interpret it. How is that so much different from a detective?” Lestrade asked, rubbing his face wearily.
He and Sherlock had been talking for over half an hour-long enough that Molly had politely chased them out of the room so she could finish her job. They were now in one of the many empty laboratories, lukewarm coffees in hand.
“For one,” Sherlock replied in a petulant tone, “I won’t actually be able do to any art.”
“What if you could?” Lestrade asked, and Sherlock could see the growing stubble and the long hours tied in with it; he wondered whether he was really so important-so necessary-that this man could justify an hour off work to appeal to Sherlock to take on a rather dull sounding mystery.
“I’m listening,” he finally said, putting down his coffee and exhaling heavily. “But I told you. I’m not meant to be the hero.”
Heroes were people like Lestrade. Sherlock was a type more alike with Mycroft than he cared to admit-more mirrors and shadows than anything absolutely tangible. He preferred to work behind the scenes and let his art speak for him.
“You wouldn’t be in the spotlight,” Lestrade insisted, his tone warming with enthusiasm. “Officially, I could put you down as a sketch artist. If you happened to go to crime scenes and paint there, piping up with an opinion or two, I’m sure we could brush it off. I mean, if you helped us with the case.”
Sherlock’s hands paused in their fiddling of his bag strap and he looked at the other man with a curious gaze. The idea was not repulsive.
“That sounds-” he cast around for a non-committal term, “-interesting.”
“To be honest, it’d be easier if you were on the force.” Lestrade laughed and said, “It’s getting hard to explain how you’re conveniently at so many crime scenes to begin with.”
“I’m not going through university to get qualified,” Sherlock said. He’d done that, for a very short stint. He couldn’t see the appeal of tertiary education, though he had tried it for his mother’s sake. It was barely any better than school, so he quit, and he moved out of home as he did so. “If you expect me to go back to that hellhole, it’s no right here and now.”
Lestrade nodded and rocked back on the heels of his shoes. “I’m sure we can come to some special arrangement.”
Sherlock put his hands together lightly, fingertips brushing his chin as he thought. He had never really found an opportunity to work and continue doing art outside that of commissions. It was something he could see himself looking into.
What was the harm, regardless, of him taking on this? Would he need to change some of his morals? Like reporting drug-users when he saw them? Because he wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do that when it would feel so damned hypocritical. And the homeless people he had grown to know over the years-if they stole bread to keep themselves alive, would he need to take them to jail? Again, he wouldn’t do that.
Then there were the hookers on the shady street corners-they liked him because he paid for them to keep their clothes on and stand while he tried to capture their eyes and their life story. Prostitution was frowned, surely, and while Sherlock wasn’t part of it, he knew people that were.
How can I join the police, Sherlock thought, when I am willingly elbow deep in crime?
His mind quickly jumped to an image of his mother. In his mind’s eye, she was gardening, because that was the hobby that took up most of her time these days. She was quieter, too, especially since father had died. Perhaps announcing he had a job catching criminals would make her smile, make her proud. Not that he needed the adoration, but as a son he had to do something, right? Paintings of sunflowers only made smile for a little while.
If he worked with the police, that was a steady income, right there. The money in his paint can would last for a few weeks in the place he wanted to rent in the middle of London. He’d been trying to get out of his small studio for ages except there was never enough savings to work with. But an income would mean he could stay for months and even buy more high-end materials to work with-
Of course his thoughts turned back to art, and the need to be able to freely continue doing it.
On that note, Sherlock nodded and said, “I’ll give the sketch artist work a trial run.”
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A/N: Because I have multiple paint sets that have practically the exact same colour under different names, I used this as a guide when describing colours (well, I tried to). Just to make a standard. Not that it matters, but details, people!
Anyway, this was meant to be a drabble piece. Can any of you believe it? This re-enforces my idea that I talk too much. ^^
[ chapter three ]