Lock to Protect My Heart
SUMMARY
The Lock he carried to remember his distance
SUMMARY
It gleamed like solid moonlight against his china white breastbone.
It had been there for so many years, unchanged only through the mindful application of care to prevent a tarnish. To keep it in working order, although it did not hold to a function in the way similarly cared-for clocks did.
It's mirror gleamed too. Gleamed with the reflection of that unmarred silver and the pale skin it decorated.
Crystal eyes perused the immobile gleam, shaped like a shield, hanging from a thread of silver looped through the small semi-circle of a bar that disappeared into the shield's top. At its centre, a small black circle, a tiny, slender trapezium of darkness attached to its curved floor, so dark It could be a keyhole, but actually it was deeply inlaid onyxes, impossible to see without the glare of artificial lighting in the night.
Long, nimble fingers reached up. The reflection's opposite hand did the same over the bathroom sink.
As a child he had fancied that the little lock could keep his heart safe, just as he had once fancied that he could become a pirate. It had worked whilst he had believed such things. He did not even know why he wore it anymore.
His other hand reached up. The first rose once more, trailing its way to the nape of his neck, barely ticking the surface of his skin with the tip of a nail as the little silver clasp was hooked and opened, separating the ends of the chain and breaking the uninterrupted line of metal that had circumnavigated his throat and lifting the lock from his chest.
His hands lowered and hovered together in front of him, thumbs pressing either end of the chain into the first joint of their matching forefinger. The lock was suspended upon a double line of silver, the left of which was transferred to the right hand, to be held up, where the lock charm spun slowly, the etching in its back of a crest with a lion up on its hind legs in its centre revealed to the owners eye. His family crest.
It was actually a family heirloom. His brother had a signet ring with the same crest ferreted away somewhere for formal public occasions when a display of ones pedigree was required.
He had found it whilst hiding from his mother in an effort to avoid school and the bullies that had plagued him so thoroughly for being what they called 'A Freak'. He had hidden in the attic and started searching through all of the boxes, which held all sorts of old treasures. Dusty old books he revisited in his teens, photographs, sketches from past generations, both artistic and scientific (creativity and knowledge ran strongly in his blood) and jewellery. The chain and lock pendant had been in a plain little box, wrapped up in tissue paper, clearly not the original box, made as it was with grey cardboard that certainly was produced decades after the pendant was etched, never mind when it was cast.
He had dropped it with small, fumbling hands, the locket tumbling across the floor with an almighty clatter. He tilted his head a little and bent down, picking up the little silver lock, would have fit easily into his seven year old fist and examined it with all the curiosity of his hungry mind.
When his mother's footsteps sounded at the door twenty minutes later, she was surprised when he youngest had walked out of the attic without hiding from her.
"Sherlock, there you are. You're going to be late for school!" She had walked over to her son, his school back in the crook of one arm and swept her child up in her arms, mostly so that he couldn't make another break for it quite so easily. Then she saw the loop of silver hanging from her son's neck. "What's that you've got there?" She hooked the necklace on her fingers for a closer look.
"Can I keep it, Mummy?" asked the little boy. His mother paused for a moment. It barely needed any consideration. Her son would so rarely ask for anything, probably due to the fact that he was quite happy to share his older brother's things and his father was quite happy to teach his son the sciences, which delighted the little boy endlessly. Considering his privileged background, there was very little that the child owned, beyond clothes, books and his infanthood toys that were actually his own and not things his brother had once had that he liked.
"Of course you may, darling." she said. "But keep it under your shirt so it doesn't get damaged. That's a very old heirloom from your Daddy's family. Grandma Theresa might tell you about it when we go see her this weekend."
"Okay Mummy." Cupid bow lips smiled widely as tiny hands tucked the silver pendant away safely. And there it had stayed for over two decades.
The fully grown man, who had been that little boy sighed deeply, bare chest expanding briefly before returning to its usual size.
He moved his left hand under the pendant, palm up and lowered the lock and chain into his left palm, before closing his hand around the silver pile.
Blue eyes looked towards the left, where their owner's body care products resided. For all his laziness he was fastidious where his hygiene was concerned. His left hand rose, hovering over the bottles and then with a brief sound like someone pulling a zipper and then a clatter the lock tumbled behind the bottles, disappearing from sight.
He didn't particularly need a lock to keep his heart secure anymore.
"Sherlock, do you want a cup of tea?"
The dark-haired man smiled at the voice of his new flatmate coming from the kitchen. He had never met a man who could shoot a serial-killing cabbie and quite happily indulge in Chinese and tea afterwards with little issue afterwards. It would appear that John Watson was a man in his own class.
Sherlock Holmes turned away from the mirror and opened the door, stepping into the lit hallway.
"Yes, John tea would be lovely."
Notes:
Somewhat OOC, but I don't know anyone who I can say for certain is not sentimental behind closed doors.
The lack of Page breaks is not a mistake, it's meant to be like that because none of the content of this piece is meant to be viewed as seperate bits despite their distance from each other on a linear time frame (I've already been asked twice why the memories and the present day are not separate, or at least why the memories are not italicised).
I also used the real Holmes family crest on the back of the lock (minus colours). I got to wondering if they had one and went for a look. Found it was a lion in red and white stripes with a black background.
I don't own BBC Sherlock. It would be... interesting if I did but it wouldn't compare to the creations we have been blessed with.
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If inconvenient, review anyway.