Sherlock Holmes loves words. He loves the way they fit into his mouth, like a sweet candy. He loves the way they roll off his tongue. He loves how something as simple as 26 letters combined can make or break a man. He loves the way he can command words and lead them through a beautiful sympathy. He loves how words can have alternate meanings. He loves the way he can hoard words, learn them, and take many different languages and master their words too. He loves words. He loves how they echo in your head and through generations to come. He loves words.
He loves words because they fit around him; because with words he can tell any tale, can become any man. He loves words because they always find a home in his head, on his lips. He loves how they feel and how they sound and how they dance from his brain into coherent thoughts. Words are always at his disposal and he can use every single one of them; they cascade from his lips and they are beautiful.
All except for one word.
Jerry.
He can't explain it. Jerry isn't even a word – it's a blasted name. And he's known four Jerry's throughout his entire life. He's never had trouble saying any of their names. In fact, he can do it now. Jerry Miller, Jerry Kusack, Jerry Rutlidge, Jerry Chambers. None of their names feel awkward and wrong. And yet, when he names this unknown Professor Jerry, once responsible for Joan's learning, his mouth distorts and he can't say it quite properly.
He is quite aware that he already dislikes this man he's never met, whose name he has only ever heard once. He thinks the name Jerry with disdain and can't help his face from making mocking expressions as he does so. He also finds himself wondering what Jerry is like, what drew Joan to him. He wonders what Jerry did to make Joan fall for him.
He bets that Jerry is a nice, normal man. He bets that Jerry lives on a routine – up at 6:00 A.M. sharp before walking his golden retriever and then getting in the shower at exactly 6:45. Then he will get dressed and make coffee and toast at 7:15 before walking to his morning classes, half an hour before any of his pupils are expected. He bets that Jerry wears brown shoes with his brown dress pants and his brown dress shirt with his matching brown jacket with a nice little brown tie tucked underneath said jacket. He bet that Jerry had brown hair and brown eyes and was just so very brown – so very boring and unnoticed. He bet that Jerry was underwhelming.
He would bet that Jerry never stayed up until odd hours over the morning. He would bet that Jerry didn't have security cameras all over his house, or locks lined up against a wall. He would bet that Jerry never shook Joan out of bed at 2 o'clock to drag her to a crime scene (he doesn't want to think about what Jerry might have shook Joan awake at 2 o'clock for). He would bet that Jerry is on friendly, speaking terms with his parents and was perfectly content to live out his life in the same routines, smiling with the same neighbours and sharing the same inside jokes with them. He would bet that Jerry has never had an addiction problem and he would bet that Jerry never regularly bullied his local homicide division.
The more Sherlock Holmes thinks about Jerry, the more he frowns. Jerry is the type of man that every woman wants to be with – he is stable and understandable and he would never forget an anniversary or birthday or anything important. He would never tune out someone who was speaking to him. He wasn't aggravating or irritating and he didn't have a tattooed or drug-ravaged body. Jerry is everything that Sherlock, himself, will never be. Jerry is honest, Jerry is wonderful. Joan still calls Jerry with her problems.
He thinks how Joan would have fit into Jerry's routine. She would get up with him and walk the dog and they would laugh as they went. They would wave to the neighbours and attend dinner parties. They would fall asleep at the same time and she would help him prepare for class and he would cook dinner when she was going to be late for surgery (he wonders if Jerry could have put Joan back together after her patient, well, died).
He laces his fingers together and picks up on one very important detail.
Yes, he bets Jerry is a nice normal man.
But Joan's no longer with Jerry, is she?
I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: foreversky.
~TLL~