Sherlock (BBC) Fanfiction: Art of the Reasoner [ch.3]
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: Dearest readers, I love you all. You make writing this more fun than it already is, and I thank you for that. J
[ chapter one | chapter two ]
⌘
Painting oneself was harder than expected. Sherlock had never really thought about immortalising himself in paint and canvas, but when the idea came, it took over his mind and ate at him like a parasite.
The journey was more important than the outcome. The slow strokes of the brush and the slick feel of paint against a textured surface. Sherlock had never really given himself the critical observation he heaped onto others. Who knew what results he could get from this?
Of course he needed a mirror, and in the craze of his flat he found one. It was broken, the bottom half shattered-Sherlock thought he vaguely remembered doing that to get the reflective glass pieces for a mosaic he had built, the mirrors for the thousand stars in the sky-but even so, it was perfect.
The colours came first, little bright spots of acrylic on a mess of dried paints, old smears on his palette from other works he never bothered to clean off. The wood was warped slightly and intentional or not, it curved smoothly to allow his hand a comfortable grip.
Sky blue, navy blue, and green-blue-grey-for his eyes. Peach, bubble-gum, salmon and yellow-for his skin. Black, dark brown with a dash of mahogany-for his hair. The rest could be added as he went.
Peace floated down around Sherlock as he worked, like a haze had covered him, his hands on automatic, translating the world his eyes saw into something tangible and undeniable.
Except when Sherlock finished, he stepped back and dropped everything in his hands with a start. In the emptiness of the room, the clatter of wood-on-wood felt like it echoed, louder than it really was.
The canvas was entirely black, dark as ebony and tar. Squinting, Sherlock could see patches darker than others, in some parts there were hints of colour underneath.
Looking at his hands, Sherlock saw how they’d been stained black, drying paint caking beneath his nails. Similarly, the palette was destroyed, black obscuring any traces of the other colours he prepared before. Shadows covered everything.
He had blacked out the canvas with writing.
Or was it really he blacked it out so he couldn’t see what he wrote?
-
After three more attempts of a self portrait with other mediums-pencils, watercolours, coloured pencils, graphite, ink, pens, felt tips, oil paints, a mixture of all of them-Sherlock gave up. Like with most of his works, he couldn’t really control himself, couldn’t by-step the urge to get rid of all the words and the writing and the floating piles of information that haunted him.
Even when he removed black as an option on his colour scheme, he could somehow mix the other colours and overlap them until he might as well have started with it.
A part of Sherlock wished he could read what he saw of himself, but when he looked in the mirror, only innocent white-washed letters floated around him, things he knew already. Scar on chin from chicken pox, structure of cheekbones from his father, shape of eyes from his mother.
Then again, he didn’t really need to know what was so revealing even his subconscious sought to remove it. He really didn’t need to.
That didn’t stop him wanting to.
-
Contrary to initial observations, Sally Donovan was capable of a smile. It was just the ones that were directed at Sherlock were very rare indeed. That was a shame since she had brilliant teeth and eyes that would shine when she cared to share them.
He’d seen her smile at him exactly three and a half times.
The first time was when he was shivering, wrapped up snugly in a few towels after falling into the Lea River. Running after criminals was not in the job description of a sketch artist. Sherlock ended up doing that more often than he meant to.
That evening, he painted what he had seen underwater. It looked like a dream and a nightmare, shafts of light and dark and shimmers and shadows. An entire wall of 221C was dedicated to the task. It almost made the entire endeavour worth it-Lestrade seemed to think the jump was worth it since it gave the evidence needed to convict the criminal, but Sherlock’s messenger bag had been soaked, destroying six full notebooks and a new set of water colour pencils.
So he gained a mural and lost a few sketchbooks. It all balanced out in the end. But at the time he’d sat petulantly at the back of an ambulance trying to remember everything that was lost. It was frustrating since he really couldn’t quite recall some details. Since the minutest details made for the most important bits, he left like he lost something vital-more so than blood or sweat or tears. Wasteful, he thought bitterly.
Then a warm nudge lifted his head and Sally was smiling-grinning, in fact-and there was mirth in her voice when she said, “You look like a drowned rat.”
Her phone made a little whirring noise when she took a photo of Sherlock and she proclaimed, “This is definitely going on Facebook.”
And that was enough to momentarily kick him out of his funk as he wondered whether it was worth the effort to display some outrage or to steal her phone and delete the image. Eventually he settled for giving her a slow, drawn out, judgemental gaze until she scowled and turned away.
If he painted her, he’d use the richest browns and maroons in Copic markers-not bright like sunlight, but like moonlight, soft with many faces. Since he had nothing on hand, he spent some time scratching her face in the dirt at his feet with a stick. When Lestrade came for him, one sweep of his foot removed all the evidence.
Nothing was left behind. It never existed.
-
Mrs. Hudson had been fond of Sherlock ever since he had met her in Florida all those years ago when he was travelling the world.
He had impulsively asked her to stand and let him draw her-something about her wrinkles and her eyes made her seem worth capturing. He wrote out her life story while she smiled kindly. She was very sweet, but Sherlock figured she was a fleeting member in a crowd. He never predicted he would have reason to meet her again.
If Sherlock believed in destiny, he might have said it worked in funny ways. Instead he remarked about how strangely improbable that this could have happened at all.
So it was later that evening she had hunted him down, desperate for help. It was his earlier sketch of her, along with Sherlock’s testimony, that later became her alibi. Apparently her husband had tried to pin a murder on her. With Sherlock proving that Mrs. Hudson couldn’t have been anywhere near the crime scene, the lies leaked out and Mr. Hudson was put to the death penalty.
“You’re an Englishman, aren’t you?” she asked curiously. When Sherlock nodded, she smiled and said, “I was right about that accent.”
Sherlock just stared at her blankly, part of his mind occupied with the photos of the disembowelled victim the police had shown him, and he had wondered over whether or not it was a bad thing that he wanted to draw that, to touch the organs and find exactly what shade of pink and red would match them. Could he capture death in art? It felt wrong, but so, so right, too.
Something he would need to further study.
“Yes, well. If you’re ever in England,” Mrs. Hudson said, “and need a place to stay, come to Baker Street. I have a flat share which you’re very welcome to at half-price.”
“Thank you.” Sherlock smiled warmly as he could, eyes reading the words around her face-grief, betrayal, anger-and he said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
For some reason, he actually did keep the gesture in the back of his head, always waiting in case he ever needed it. Sherlock never thought he would-in the same way he never thought he would be presented with ample opportunity to paint dead bodies at crimes scenes. You live and learn though.
It was fortunate the offer was still open after all these years.
“I play the violin. Loudly,” Sherlock warned over a cup of oolong tea. “And I paint-compulsively-on walls, doors, floors and ceilings.”
Mrs. Hudson gave him a fond, maternal smile, which irrationally made Sherlock want to protect her from himself all the more.
“I also have a skull; a real human one. I keep paintbrushes in its eyes. When I’m frustrated, I’ve been known to smash easels.” For a second, he thought about adding that he now worked with the police (somewhat), but there was no need to scare her.
“Honey, if you like to paint then why not take out the lower flat as well? 221C has an unfortunate spot of mould, but I’m sure it’ll work out.”
“But 221B is perfect.”
“Sherlock, I didn’t say you have to choose. Take both,” Mrs. Hudson said as she sipped at her tea. “Of course, you’ll need to pay half-rent on the two spots, but that’s essentially two places for the price of one.”
“Don’t you need the-” money, Sherlock wanted to say, but cut himself off. Mrs. Hudson’s eyes looked like she had heard the unspoken but understood.
“Never mind that; I could never find anyone interested in 221C anyway.” She smiled like the case was closed and lifted a plate, offering, “Biscuit?”
-
Sherlock moved in later that evening. He kept his studio for sentimental reasons, but he got to work stripping 221C of its wallpaper and wondering how he going to arrange 221B into something homely. More furniture than he cared to admit was damaged with paint or plain old stress-induced destruction.
As time passed, Sherlock’s attempts to keep his main flat art-free failed. Buckets of paint sat on the kitchen table; canvases leaned against walls and piled up in corners; bookshelves rapidly filled with filled sketchbooks. Even the paint stained skull was sitting on the mantelpiece, looking decidedly creepy with paintbrushes poking out of its eye sockets.
While Mrs. Hudson didn’t seem to mind the encroaching invasion of art, Sherlock tried his best to keep it contained in 221C. In a way, he wanted his flat to represent him properly, like his clothes did. His clothes were well worn and loved with a hint of style-though there were bits of paint stubbornly clung to the sleeves and buttons. Most of the real insanity was hidden inside, or in the building’s case, underneath in many locked rooms.
221C was beginning to look a bit more organised in the chaos though. Sherlock tried painting murals and frescos rather than disjointed snippets. They morphed though, scenes of joy in the middle of a forest merging into a wildfire and then the charred remains of trees with the full moon in the background.
It was rare that Sherlock would paint without visual aid or something from a memory, so those particular pieces always had a hazy dreamlike quality-and the words written alongside were always more jagged and never stuck to English.
Tonight, Sherlock was stretched out on the couch, a laptop balanced precariously on his stomach. Lestrade had insisted a while ago that Sherlock buy a good phone and a laptop so that they could stay in contact better-cases didn’t follow some linear pattern with office hours, after all. The afternoon of that request, two parcels arrived on his doorstep.
He had a particularly vicious argument shortly after about not needing to be babied by his brother. Mycroft, predictably, denied everything. Irritated, Sherlock spent the rest of the evening learning how to hack websites, and when that got boring, the Wi-Fi accounts of his various neighbours. People really needed to choose better passwords.
There were all kinds of art, and Sherlock was dipping his hand into the world of website design. He’d always wanted a place to record his many works.
Art of the Reasoner, he decided to call it.
-
Normally, Lestrade wouldn’t call Sherlock up when there were no bodies to paint, but today’s case had an exception. The victim in question was rich-and had been recently robbed. Nothing extraordinary, but Sherlock was promised a look into the man’s personal art collection should the stolen diamonds be found.
It was with incredible swiftness that Sherlock recovered them from the dresser of a fired maid. If he had seen himself, he would have described his expression as glowing. Of course, creating art was the best prize one could hope for, but he wasn’t going to say no to an invitation to see a private collection. Some of the best artworks were, unfortunately, hidden from the world-they were like tantalising mysteries tucked away, longing for admiration.
Sometimes, Sherlock could read secrets in the brushstrokes.
Just before he left the Yard to go collect his prize, he caught Sally’s puzzled expression as she stood just to the side of Lestrade’s office door.
When she noticed that she had Sherlock’s attention, she asked, “It really is all about the art for you, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is,” Sherlock answered, hands deep in his pockets, just waiting for Sally to continue. Part of his mind ran off, focussing on how his coat smelled a bit like turpentine, how the fluorescent lighting was too bright, and the sounds of conversation seeping through the vents-but he tried to concentrate.
“So it isn’t about being a sick weirdo who gets off on dead bodies?” Sally queried bluntly.
“Just because you always see me painting the dead doesn’t mean that’s all I paint.”
Sally opened her mouth and then closed it after a pause, nodding. With a small smile-smile number two-she said, “I’ll believe that when I see it, freaky little Da Vinci.”
-
It was a slow burning sensation, something that gradually snuck up on him. Sherlock had never been completely and utterly bored before, per se. Irritated? Yes. Frustrated? Most certainly. Angry? Without a doubt.
Boredom was a feeling he rarely experienced since he was always a self-driven individual. Art was something he could do alone, or he would seek out people to use as models. But it always spurred from a want to do it, a need to create.
Except...
Since taking a more active role in being a ‘sketch artist’, Sherlock found his life lacking. There would be periods in-between the admittedly exciting cases and bursts of creativity.
Some days he would just lie on the couch, boneless and feeling like jelly, watching the words fade in-and-out of focus around him. Boredom dulled his floating letters and observations and Sherlock batted his hand at them, disinterested in copying them down.
The strange lack of desire and motivation ate at him, especially when interesting crimes-to paint, at least-were running dry and walks through dirty, narrow side streets weren’t quite cutting it like they used to. He tried walking a lot, for the fresh air, but it hardly brought the inspiration and burst of euphoria and adrenalin he wanted. Sherlock had walked so much the soles of his shoes were wearing thin and he was pretty sure that his mental map of London was more updated than that of Google Maps.
He’d even taken the effort to memorise the street signs. One of these days he’d have to go through with his plans of making a collage of them on the east wall of 221C.
On the occasions he ran into a drug dealer-he knew where to look, so it wasn’t entirely coincidental-Sherlock was very tempted. The only thing that held him back was how he refused to give Mycroft the satisfaction of saying, ‘I knew this would happen.’
Maybe the fact he was making an impact with his observations was sucking the artistic feeling from him. His dry spells used to only last a day at the most-now, a week without doing anything was normal.
Sherlock should have quit working for the police; should have removed the distraction of panic, adrenalin and victory.
But there were more things than drugs that were addictive.
-
A lot of people had told Sherlock he was awkward. More assumed he didn’t know any better.
False. No, it was more than that. Ignorant.
Sherlock knew exactly how a well placed ‘thank-you’ and ‘please’ could affect the tone of a conversation or the way the public saw him. He understood, in some ways better than most, how a clean cut suit could raise his social standing; how trimming his hair and removing the paint stains could change the assumptions made on him; how lowering his voice and looking up through his lashes could manipulate the right person.
He knew all of this. The man wasn’t stupid, after all-sometimes he was oblivious, but he was surrounded by people every day. If he didn’t pick something up, there was something wrong with his hardware. And he could hardly preach about the importance of details if he couldn’t see something as obvious as manners.
He recognised and occasionally acknowledged social graces for the sake of it. Key word being: occasionally. Normally it was easier to be a little strange, a little stand-offish, something new and odd and different. That was because that was who Sherlock was, and it would a damn sight too late to try and change that now.
Regardless of how he was seen, at least he was real.
Take for instance, the woman Sherlock was painting: chartreuse nails, cyan highlights, heavy coral foundation that was two shades off the real skin tone-screamed of plastic, of self consciousness, of wanting to be better by hiding in transparent masks.
Sherlock stank of paint fumes and his fingers were a plethora of colours. His skin was too pale to be healthy, his eyes a blue a shade too bright to be comfortable, and his teeth were crooked little squares in his mouth. Nicotine patches with swirls of felt tip littered his skin, but they were hidden by a coat feeling a little ragged around the edges.
Except that was all Sherlock, nothing else added, not anything exaggerated or falsified. He only acted when he needed something-manipulating people was a task he considered better left Mycroft’s territory.
People were so blind, it ached. Sherlock didn’t need to hide himself-he doubted they could read his mind like he could to them. Actually, sometimes Sherlock purposely made an errant comment to get a reaction and force them to see he wasn’t normal.
Sherlock despised the idea of being normal.
So he never hid himself and still he was never seen unless he made the effort to shine a little bit brighter. He liked it that way.
-
They were in a small lunchroom, the closest one to Lestrade’s office. Sherlock had heated up some take away pasta from Angelo’s, but was picking at it instead of eating it. Sally was staring at him as she ate small bites of her fruit salad. They were sitting across from each other in silence.
“Let me guess,” Sally said, breaking the calm. “You don’t eat?”
Her gaze was sardonic and almost curious as she watched Sherlock twist his pasta into little clumps, playing with his food as if he were a child; his plate had their air of organised chaos, neat piles of spaghetti between piles of splattered tomato sauce and half-crushed meatballs.
“I do eat,” Sherlock replied with a cool voice. “Just not while I have a creative block.” He proceeded to then carefully top the piles of spaghetti with the meatballs and the chunks of tomato and carrot, making each little hill look like a nest for birds with the penchant for collecting knick-knacks.
“A ‘creative block’,” Sally repeated as if disbelieving. “What if the block never goes?”
“Theoretically I’d starve then. But,” Sherlock said as he looked up with something feral glinting in his eyes, “that’s never happened. Starvation is a surprisingly hardy motivator.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it, freaky little Da Vinci,” Sally snorted.
“That’s such a mouthful,” Sherlock commented with a resigned sigh. “How about you just call me ‘Leo’?”
“Short for Leonardo?”
“Since you refuse to use my given name, I don’t see why not.”
“Hmm,” Sally hummed as she thought it over. “Freaky Leo. That does have a better ring to it.” She took a bite and when she swallowed, said, “I’ll give it a trial run.”
When Sherlock looked up from his pasta, he caught the end of a smile quirking her lips-number three-and the fleeting moment passed when she scowled and flicked a piece of pineapple at his head.
He neatly caught the piece between his teeth and swallowed it, remarking dryly, “I see you’ve started going to the Sunday markets.”
Sally exhaled heavily and said, “I don’t even want to know how you knew that.” She stood and added, “Let me go see if Lestrade can be any faster.”
“He’ll be here in three minutes,” Sherlock predicted as he turned back to his plate. “Finish your lunch.”
He heard the hesitation, the soft scrape of chair on the linoleum floor, and the small clink of the metal fork against the plastic bowl.
Sherlock destroyed the small piles of spaghetti with his fork and smiled a little himself.
-
His mother was dead. Suicide: a single bullet to the head.
Sherlock could picture it clearly. It would be all shades of red, almost brown at the edges where the blood dried, but the rest would be glistening wet crimson stains, dotting the marble whiteness of his mother’s skin. And then there would be her eyes-wide open and frozen, he could imagine. Open and unseeing and utterly, devastatingly blue, brilliant and vivid and definitely more lively than Sherlock’s grey ones. Yes, even death couldn’t take away the life in her eyes.
Except none of that mattered since his mother was dead.
It was quick, painless and almost elegant. It was one of father’s favourite hunting guns-mother hadn’t lied when she said if she wanted to die by anyone’s hands, she wanted them to be their father’s. This was the closest she could do it by since her husband was six feet under and most definitely decomposed.
Mycroft told had told Sherlock this in person, his eyes red and puffy but still sharp with knowledge and almost defiant, like he wanted Sherlock to try and mention it.
You’re hurting, he thought of saying, slightly dazed. There are new words around your head, floating and telling me things. That’s not right. You’re not meant to change. He thought it but didn’t say it. He didn’t say anything.
Even so, Sherlock barely felt any shock. Like he knew it was inevitable. From Mycroft’s sigh, he had known it too.
Then again, death was the one inevitable thing.
It was the thing above all others that tore people apart.
Ironically, it was also the one thing that brought people together.
The only constant in life was death. A bittersweet fate every human shared.
In a way, Sherlock knew he should have been grateful that his mother kept herself from sharing their father’s fate for as long as she did.
-
It was awful how complacent Sherlock had let himself become. He’d forgotten how well and truly ensnared he had been at the height of his cocaine addiction. It was so many years ago and as much as he’d like to think otherwise, time did fade memories. The human mind was a flawed design, after all.
After he stood by and watched his mother’s casket get lowered into the ground-right next to father’s, following their wishes wholly and completely-he’d left Mycroft to deal with the logistics of inheritance. For all Sherlock cared, Mycroft could keep it all.
Except Sherlock needed to do something and what he needed to do was see the music. Only once, he had said adamantly, only this once. Even to his own ears, the pledge was as false as crocodile tears.
It wasn’t hard to get what he wanted. There was almost no hesitation before he prepped the needle, only pausing for a moment to think, Is this worth it-?
Sherlock wished he could explain how music had colour, had a texture and feel unlike anything else on earth. He wished he could record it and share it, but then another part of him was greedy and thankful that only he could experience such an exhilarating wonder.
He never felt like he was flying when he was using. He could best describe the feeling as being more alike to being completely submerged underwater, warm pressure surrounding him, coolness ticking his ears and the edges of his nose and everything blurry and sharp around him. He could taste copper on his tongue and salt around the edges of his lips.
Sherlock never flew but he never was quite drowning either. There was the feeling of water choking him but never really destroying him. It was a balance he danced on gleefully.
One week, two weeks, three weeks, four? Time blended together so finely it was hard to tell the moments apart.
When Sherlock painted, he would usually find an old chipped mug and fill it with warm water. He would clean his brushes in the water, over and over again, and it didn’t take long before it was impossible to discern exactly what colours made up the disgusting murky grey. Time was getting to be just like that-impossible to split up, isolate and name.
Before this, Sherlock had forgotten just how overwhelmingly wonderful it was to be so open-eyed to the world; to see and comprehend and just wonder. He’d forgotten the joy to be had, or at least he’d suppressed the urge to remember. Except now he knew and he didn’t want to forget, not this time around. He could try use up all the paint in France and colour in every dull spot on Earth and Sherlock would not forget how exhilarating it was to be able to see again.
A small part of him could feel his violin strings slick with blood, his fingertips raw and ragged around the edges. Not that he would stop plucking away at the strings, the A-string out of tune but producing beautiful, floating notes, regardless.
Another small part of him could hear yelling in his apartment-real or not real?-and the heavy air of smoke curled around him like a shroud and weighed him down.
Real or not real? Sherlock thought again as something pulled at him around his stomach. The violin was ripped from his hands but the notes stayed flying in the air, swaying as if they were dancing themselves-like little stars in the sky.
“Sherlock!” an angry voice filtered in through the haze, sound slow and muted like Sherlock was deep under the crashing waves of a beach. The water must have been cold, because he was feeling more and more numb. But in the good way, so it wasn’t too bad.
“You idiot, why did you do this?” the voice continued, and try as he might, Sherlock couldn’t reply. All the while, the music notes kept dancing even when there was no music to be had, only screaming.
Real or not real?
-
Mrs. Hudson had found Sherlock and cried out in shock. Calling Lestrade, he had come to pick Sherlock up. After spending a jerky, sleepless night in a cell, Mycroft came for him.
And then hell followed with the pseudonym of a Rehabilitation Clinic.
-not again, no, no, not again, not again, no, no, not again-
It was a long time before Sherlock would stop asking, Real or not real?
It was an even longer time before Sherlock’s hands stopped shaking every time he picked up his violin. Flakes of dried crimson covered the strings and stained his hands like crushed pigments.
The tips of his fingers, if observed closely enough, could be seen dotted with faint, thin scars. His skin was vanilla white but his scars were the colour of cream.
Strangely enough, it took no time for him to paint again. He took to catching fireflies and painting them because they reminded him of little stars in the sky. They were as close to seeing music as he could get without destroying himself again.
Sherlock didn’t forget the euphoria, but this time he re-remembered the pain.
It took the longest time of all before Sherlock deigned to speak with Lestrade and Mycroft again. He almost understood why they did it, but resentment was something hard to break.
-
It was autumn and frost hung everywhere, cold edging closer like a shadow stretching as the sun set. Breath came out in thin wisps of white fog, cheeks flushed cherry red and the fireflies all died in their jar.
The flat was as cold as outside because Sherlock didn’t want to turn the heating on. Lestrade was visiting and his expression was pinched in discomfort, but he said nothing either, just sitting on the couch, still wearing his jacket as he looked over Sherlock with a critical eye, concern hidden carefully under a blank mask.
No mask could hide a person away from Sherlock though. Sherlock who was thinner than was healthy and had gaunt eyes and fingertip-shaped bruises on his arms and neck from when he pressed at them, needing something, anything to distract him-
The men didn’t have much to say to one another. Not quite yet. Lestrade brought no cases and Sherlock had not yet found forgiveness.
“Why did you do it?” Lestrade queried cautiously on the cold afternoon. “The drugs, I mean,” he clarified as a quick afterthought and Sherlock bit back the urge to snap, Obviously.
Wasn’t it clear why Sherlock used? Because he was bored, because he was tired, because he was aching and the sight of music promised to take it all away. And maybe, just a little, he wanted to dance the line of hallucinations and nightmare once again.
There was no point to a world he couldn’t see in.
When Sherlock said nothing, Lestrade pressed, “I thought you said you were clean.”
“I’m clean now,” Sherlock snapped bitterly. A snapped violin bow hung from a crooked finger, the frayed lines smelling of resin and felt smooth to the touch.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Sherlock frowned and looked up with baleful eyes. “How is it your concern?”
“I work with you.” A thin frown twisted at Lestrade’s face and he added, “Sometimes, I’d like to consider that we might be friends.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then you should know the day I started using again was the day my mother died.” Sherlock could feel how his face was stiff and there was a challenge in his eyes. “Is that sufficient enough for you, Inspector?”
Before Lestrade could reply, Sherlock continued ruthlessly, “Or should I add she didn’t die in the way we gasp one last breath and fall, but she sought it out, the barrel of the gun pressed to her temple before she pulled the trigger with a grin on her face.”
Standing up from his seat, Sherlock persisted with tightly controlled anger, “She followed him-him being my father-somewhere, I don’t know where-death is Hell or Heaven or a limbo in-between-with a smile. Am I just meant to not react? I am a freak, but I am not a heartless one. I feel. I loved them. Love them... Loved them? What tense do I use? What does it all matter?”
“Sherlock,” Lestrade said quietly, soothingly, “it matters. Of course it matters; of course you can mourn them.”
“I don’t mourn them,” Sherlock spat back, deflating even as he tried to stay angry. “I fear them. That intensity, it’s not normal. They didn’t care about anything as long as they had each other.”
He sat down again and gripped at his chest, gasping a little. He was still weak-drained from the detox. According to doctors, he was meant to rest. Sherlock didn’t like being told what to do.
“I hate them for leaving me. For having eyes that burned when they looked at each other. ‘S not right,” Sherlock mumbled, voice hushed.
Lestrade said sadly, “That’s not abnormal. That’s love.”
“Then I would rather walk the fires of Hell than experience that.”
⌘
A/N: Randomly browsing BreathingIsBoring’s tumb1r, and I found this picture:
It made me oddly happy. Now, I wonder why... XD
Also, observant readers might notice a few illusions to stars. *CoughTheStarryNightCough*. :)
[ chapter four ]