For damascended on tumblr, based on his/her prompt for the johnlockchallenges' gift exchange. The prompt: "The violin and the romantic composers (1820-1900). Take that however you will. Any rating." Remember, prompts are only the basis for your work, and you can take it in whatever direction you see fit." Thanks for a good prompt!
Of Mendelssohn's E Minor Concerto
It was early summer of 2010. Sherlock was in a moment of rare repose, skimming his well-worn biography of Mendeleev for a citation, when John entered the apartment of 221B.
Accompanied by a woman.
"This is getting tedious," said Sherlock loudly when John and the woman entered - she was exactly John's height, 5'6, and really that was all that mattered at the moment, except for the fact that she was walking rather too closely, amorously, to the doctor, their hands clasping each others' tightly, their bodies almost glued together as they tried to sneak up the stairs to John's room.
"What is?" asked John sheepishly, sounding completely oblivious, which Sherlock knew was an act.
"You already completed the phrase," answered Sherlock, sounding quite bored as he held up the book at an angle so that he wouldn't have to see
this girl, who he could see was a clinical psychologist from the counseling center near John's clinic. They must have just come from the underground, given how much they were both sweating from the lack of air conditioning.
"What phrase?" Despite being five minutes away from an excellent shag, John couldn't tear his eyes away from his friend, and he hesitated. Then he nodded at the psychologist and gestured her up the stairs, and she trotted up with a smile that masked irritation. John stepped into the living room to speak to Sherlock.
Sherlock, feeling aggrieved that John was continuing to play the game, threw the biography onto the coffee table, his mouth curing into a frown. He stood up, grabbed his violin from his case, and played a few piercing, shuddering notes, shifting up and down on the fingerboard with his typical agility.
While John looked mildly impressed, and perhaps a bit fascinated by the way Sherlock's hand moved (as he always did), but he looked no less confused.
Sherlock rolled his eyes and gently placed the violin on the table.
"Mendelssohn. E minor concerto. You know it's my favorite. The question is, why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" asked John, again acting as if he had no idea what Sherlock was talking about. Which, generally happened very frequently, but at this moment Sherlock knew it had to be a lie.
He clearly wanted Sherlock to be all brilliant and explain the whole plan back to him, just like any clever villain would.
Well, Sherlock knew how to do that sort of thing quite well.
"The shifting, perhaps. It's seductive," said Sherlock quietly, "particularly considering the arguably phallic shape of the upper part of the instrument."
"What?" asked John, but it seemed to Sherlock - based on John's face - that he'd hit the nail on the head, so Sherlock returned to the main quest - to find out what exactly John's intentions were.
"There are several reasons you would be doing this deliberately, John," said Sherlock, standing in a flash and pacing, his arms clasped behind his back. "There is undoubtedly a maniacal delight you get in taunting me."
"What? Taunt you? Why would I do such a thing?" asked John.
"That's a question that has been plaguing me since the very beginning," said Sherlock, not making eye contact with the doctor. "But at this moment I believe the solution - which I have had some difficulty in accepting - is undeniable. There is relatively little else I can conclude at this point, John," he went on, keeping his eyes to the floor until, all of a sudden, he raised them again to meet John's eyes. "Except whenever you dismiss the impossible, the improbable, whatever it is, must be the truth."
Then, as if plunging into a cold river, he advanced towards John with two large, fast steps. Mere inches away from the doctor's face, the detective contemplated the other man's eyes, which were wide with confusion and...hope?
The detective inhaled and exhaled. John smelled of breath mints, fortunately.
It took him a few moments to muster the courage, but soon Sherlock said: "I demand that you stop playing this game and court me properly. Since it's clear to me that such a course of action would be...of interest to you."
He'd calculated that John would take that moment to his advantage and press their lips against each other's, that their tongues would duel and wrestle like violins in a fierce duet, but the doctor just remained stoic.
"What on earth are you on about?" asked John, his face muscles twitching a bit, flirting with the question of whether to laugh or be angry. Neither of which was an unreasonable or unexpected reaction, on Sherlock's part.
For a moment, Sherlock doubted himself, but there was something he saw in John's face that made him conclude that yes, he'd been right all along. It was just a matter of coaxing John out of his hesitation.
"Are you leaving it up to me, then?" asked Sherlock, his eyes wide and observant.
"To do what?" asked John, playing dumb still, but there was an impish gleam in his eye that made Sherlock almost shudder with desire.
There was no more questions to be asked. With a fierce motion, Sherlock pressed his lips against John's, and for a rapturous, long moment, they engaged with each other warmly, passionately, and with great delight.
They broke away with gasps for breath, gazing into each others' eyes and feeling the weight of their tongues returned to their own mouths, pausing between the first and second movement of a long piece of chamber music.
"Erm. Lauren," said John with fatigue and embarrassment.
"Of course," said Sherlock, letting the doctor trudge up the stairs, knock on the door, and mutter some paltry, sad excuse to the poor woman on the other side.
When she descended the stairs, still buttoning her top shirt-buttons on the way down, she looked at Sherlock, and she looked at John. Her eyes narrowed, clearly seeing the doctor's bluff, but having too much dignity to slap him outright.
Once she was gone, the doctor and the detective approached each other more shyly, almost apologetically.
"How...how did you know?" asked John, looking at the detective with eyes that were akin to a puppy's.
Sherlock smiled in a lopsided way, trying to keep his joy contained. "Mendelssohn, John. Of course you knew I would figure it out. I admit it wasn't as obvious as you tend to be. Congratulations, I really didn't catch on for quite a while. It was absolutely brilliant, and ultimately quite a successful plan."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," said the doctor with a small smile in return, "but anyway, however you came by it, you made the right conclusion."
"You mean..." asked Sherlock, and he was somewhat taken aback. "...you mean it wasn't by design?"
"No," said John, "I mean, there's certain things I suppose I couldn't hide of course, but I don't think I was doing anything to specifically-"
"-You didn't," asked Sherlock by way of further clarification, "choose your girlfriends' heights and number of dates with any specific pattern?"
"No..." said John, looking like he was going to laugh at any moment. "They were entirely by chance. Why, what do you think I was doing?"
With some embarrassment, Sherlock produced a chart - sketched on the back of a grocery receipt - that detailed the heights and number of dates on which John went on with each girl, arranged chronologically by time. The chart consisted of plotting out the heights of John's girlfriends (the y-axis) on a chronologic x-axis.
The heights of John's girlfriends (including one-night, never-to-be-repeated dates, some of which Sherlock had to infer solely based on the rumpledness of John's clothes or other less telling factors) since January 2010 were as follows:
5'7 5'7 5'7 5'6 5'8.5 5'8.5 5'8.5 5'7 5'9.5 5'9 5'8.5 5'7.5 5'8.5 5'7 5'6 5'7.5
The number of females who had entered John's world since they began being roommates was considerable, yes, but not daunting.
"What is this?" asked John, who seemed inexplicably amused by this.
Sherlock grumblingly explained, "How was it that you managed to go out with three girls in a row who were exactly five feet, eight and a half inches tall? And previously, three girls who were exactly 5'7? That seems an absurd coincidence."
He sighed, as John seemed rather bewildered.
"I thought - especially looking at the second half of the list - that you were recreating a piece of music by the choice of girlfriends. The main motif of a piece of music that you know to be one of my most favorites to play."
"Mendelssohn's E minor violin concerto," said John, enlightenment dawning on him.
Sherlock, feeling frustrated, explained further, "The way the heights ascended, the way they descended - it looked like a scale that ended with a broken chord. The repetitions also seemed to fit. I also scrutinized the number of dates that you spent with each girlfriend."
He gestured to another scribbled list on the piece of paper which read:
3 dates = 3 beats (for the sake of argument... quarter note equals 1 beat)
1 date
4 dates
2 dates
3 dates
1 dates
4 dates
2 dates
2 dates
2 dates
2 dates
2 dates
2 dates
4 dates (Sarah - NZ trip counts as one date)
"Given these," Sherlock said, "I had enough information to string together a rhythm. Once I counted it out, I could immediately tell what you were doing. It was easy to assign a note to each height of girl and know which piece of music to which you were alluding."
"So that's what all this is," said John, pointing to the part of the list that read:
5'6 G (John's height - elementary, since the letter "G" when pronounced is closer to "J" than any other note on the scale)
5'6.5 A
5'7 B
5'7.5 C
5'8 D
5'8.5 E
5'9 F
5'9.5 G
6'0 A
6'0.5 B
"Yes," said Sherlock with some melancholy in his voice. "You're sure you didn't do this on purpose?"
"I'm not that clever," said John, smiling. "But now that I think about it - there was something I was doing on a subconscious level that perhaps is much less complicated and rather more obvious."
"And what was that?" asked Sherlock with a huff, hating to think he'd missed anything.
John walked up to Sherlock and tipped his head up, to look at the detective all the more clearly.
"Very simply - as you noted, I've been choosing girls that are at least as tall or taller than me. Why do you suppose that is?"
Sherlock flinched, because aside from his theory, which had just been disproven, he had not much of an idea.
John responded with a smile. "Look at it this way," he said softly. "I was - to some extent - trying to date you the whole time."
Which left Sherlock with two concurrent feelings - a feeling of amazement at his sheer stupidity and a feeling of delight at John's words.
"Well, what do we do now?" asked Sherlock, trying to choose which of these feelings would trump the other.
Delight won out as John took his hand and pressed more hot, wet kisses against his lips.