Author's Note: Just a quickie prompted by pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch and his mum, Wanda Ventham, at the Chelsea Flower Show today. I did this for a giggle!
Beside him, a wretched sigh announces Mycroft's presence. He vividly recalls his brother quoting Conrad at him down the phone when faced with the full grandeur of modern musical theatre.
'Oh the horror, the horror!'
Somehow, even Lloyd Webber seems preferable now to bank after bank of lurid blooms. And there is nothing, nothing as far as Sherlock is concerned, so utterly pulse-stopping as a discussion of herbaceous geraniums. If you had asked him six months ago, Sherlock would not have been able to envision a horror so complete as this. There is only one excuse.
It must be love.
There has always been a level of filial love, of course. Why else would one endure year after year of family Christmases. But this is beyond the pale. Beyond even bloody Monty Python DVDs! Oh yes, he is willing to endure the misery of endless hours of John and Lestrade quoting along with some inane rubbish about Romans or knights in shining armour, but mile after mile of gardens commemorating children's hospices and the dead of the First World War is testing his devotion too far.
Ahead, John is walking along with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, bending forwards a little, head turned to one side and listening intently to Sherlock's mother, who is holding forth about something horticultural. He looks a little reminiscent of Prince Philip with that walk, Sherlock thinks, and then wonders vaguely if it is something to do with the military.
There were the poisonous plant displays of course, but no one else was interested and he was not allowed to linger as he would have liked. They wanted to get on to the show gardens, the artisan gardens, the orchid displays, they said. His mother and John. Oh yes, this had to be love. For no one else would he put up with this. Especially if, as he had deduced from the way John's eyes lit up when Mummy invited him, it was going to be an annual torture.