It was 3:00 on a spring Tuesday afternoon, and Baker St. was blissfully quiet for a change. Sherlock was just wrapping his scarf around his neck when John looked up from his blog and peered over the top of his laptop.
"You are wondering where I am going, and what I am doing," stated Sherlock just as John was about to talk.
"Actually," said John, stifling a smile and putting on his serious tone, "I don't care as long as you get the bloody milk while we're out. You had the last of it in your tea and I don't fancy a trip to Tescos this afternoon."
"Mrs. Hudson will allow you the use of hers," Sherlock answered, turning towards the door. It wasn't as if he was expecting John to mind where he was going, but John not caring was different. Caring was John's job.
Even so, John would not have been especially excited about where Sherlock was going. It wasn't as if Sherlock was being ashamed of his involvement in ballet, but he knew from experience that announcing he was a danseur wouldn't complement his image as cold and reasonable. And John would bloody well laugh at him. Before he could stop himself, he pictured John laughing, but it wasn't John at all. It was Mycroft, the memory coming up from the basement of his mind palace.
The room was flooded with sunlight, and all the French windows were open, letting the autumn breeze float in. Sherlock was only as tall as the armchair in the corner of the sunroom. But he was twirling gracefully through the room, remembering the music his mother had shown him earlier in the day on her violin. He had grabbed for it afterwards, but his small fingers made a clumsy parody of the melody she had easily made.
He contented himself by remembering, storing the music away in his mind as he danced. When he was listening to music, or when he was dancing, he could forget everything. He could forget being smart. He could forget Mycroft.
Mycroft had came into the room, and laughed at him before he gently but firmly told him to stop dancing.
"You're eight, you should be out squishing bugs or getting dirty," Mycroft said, "not playing the ballerina. Go take Redbeard out for a walk, and pretend to be a pirate."
Pirates were okay too. And walks were fun, looking at all the silly people who would call him a cute boy even when he could tell what their actual business was. They never liked him after he told them what they were really up to.
But dancing was better.
As soon as Sherlock had settled into Baker St. the first thing he did was research dance studios that would be willing to teach him more techniques. Now that he had a flatmate, dancing in the flat would be absurd and out of the question. So to a studio it was. He learned, and his teachers were surprised that he had never had lessons before. He bit his tongue for once, not telling them that observing dancers as opposed to just watching them was what taught him. But he said nothing. Dancing was too important.
As he walked down to the corner between Baker St. and Crawford St. he let the corners of his mouth turn up in amusement. The Work was really all that mattered in the end, but it was dancing that helped him regain his clarity of mind. Ballet was all about the poses and technique and rigid training, mental as well as physical to do everything that was demanded of him, to make every curve and line of his body fluid with the music. And for once, his mind could stand still instead of crashing in his ears.
Sherlock got out of the cab in front of the studio, turning his collar up against the spring air and against anybody who might be looking at him. The only person who knew he was a danseur was Molly, to whom he had used his dancing lessons as an excuse to not go get coffee six months previously. She had promptly enrolled in classes as well, and he was acquiring an appreciation for having somebody he knew at his dance classes. At least she was always going out of her way to be nice to him.
The other person who knew about his habits was Mycroft, who, no doubt, had used his security cameras to extract this information.
Molly greeted him at the door, handing him a strawberry banana smoothie.
"Thought you'd like this," she said. Judging by the flavour and the fact that the smoothie wasn't cold anymore, Sherlock knew she had ordered it for herself instead but had decided for some reason that she wouldn't eat it.
"Molly," he said in greeting.
"Hullo Sherlock," she said, pushing through the door and walking into the lobby. "How are you doing today?"
"Judging by the state of your eyes and your hastily done hair, you've been upset about something," Sherlock stated, waiting for her reply. It wasn't that emotion mattered, truly, but she would be more pleasant to dance with if she were in a better mood. His tongue had caused all of the other students in their class to switch to a different class time without an acerbic, obnoxious danseur and his timid friend.
"Yes," she said, "well, it's a silly thing to be worried about, Sherlock."
"If it's silly than it's a waste of your time as well as mine," said Sherlock, already regretting his decision to reach out. "We have ten minutes."
Sherlock was into his black tights and ballet slippers much more quickly than it took Molly to dress. He waited outside the women's changing room until she came out, apologising for how long she had been in there.
They waited in silence until the instructor walked in. Molly was fidgeting, but Sherlock didn't need to talk. It wasn't necessary.
As they warmed up at the barre under the instructor's supervision, Sherlock looked over his shoulder at Molly.
"Your cat is bothering you."
"Not him, himself," she answered, "but he keeps vomiting, and he never goes outdoors but every night he hacks up grass."
"Close the windows, and take him to a vet."
"I have."
"Silence." The instructors voice cut in on their conversation. He tapped at Sherlock's wrist until it was straight, and then took his rod and tapped Molly's toes on the barre. "Your foot is not a flag, keep it pointed."
"Yes, Mr. Geoff," he said, with only a hint of a whine in his voice.
The lesson went relatively silently, except for Mr. Geoff's instructions and the music filling the room.
"Changement, chasse, bourreé. Now pas de chat. No, Miss Molly, more gently. You are not a grasshopper."
Sherlock focused solely on each movement of his muscles and his weight shifting as he completed each exercise. When the lesson was over he walked back to the changing room, arching his back like a cat and raising his arms. He was always sore afterwards.
He had completely forgotten the strawberry banana smoothie on the counter near the changing room mirror. Molly must have given it to him before the lesson. He sucked at the straw absent mindedly as he fished in his bag for a towel to towel the sweat off his face and torso.
A cat that never went outdoors, vomiting up grass. It had to go outdoors. But how? Even though it had to have some mundane explanation, he set to work on the problem. The cat could possibly escape through a window, if the window was open, or an air vent. Did Molly have air vents in her flat? He couldn't remember, he had deleted her flat a long time ago to make space for a study on the effects spider venoms upon human flesh.
It would be completely without point for somebody to break into her flat every night and take her cat outside, only to return it in the morning. People are rarely so random. Maybe it ate grass while it was outside, why was it outside? Why did cats eat grass? What do cats eat anyways? Sherlock wasn't quite sure. But what anybody wanted with Molly Hooper's cat was difficult to fathom. He would need more data.
He walked out into the lobby with a purpose. Molly was already waiting for him. Her waiting didn't make sense, since she had to take a cab to North Gower St. but today her waiting was useful instead of a ridiculous waste of time as it usually was.