"What is it?" Sherlock asked, uncertainly, as his mother held up a camera.
"Open it!" Mr. Holmes chimed in, both parents looking very eager. Sherlock picked the box up and carefully set it on the table, surprised at the weight. He tried to deduce what was in it, but couldn't think of anything. With a resigned sigh, Sherlock dug his small seven-year-old hands into the blue and silver wrapping paper.
Riip! He grinned as he tore off a large chunk of the shell. The sound of gift wrap tearing was always satisfying, and soon the entire present had been revealed.
Sherlock studied the box, thinking. It was black and shiny, with a couple of zippers going around it. The right side of the case was much wider than the left, and it was made out of a very hard and durable material. Something delicate, then, but what?
He unzipped the mysterious case, slowly opened it, and gasped.
It was a violin. He had always wanted one, often times when Mycroft brought him into town he would stare wistfully at the fiddles on display in the music store window. The instrument was beautiful, scarlets and golds and tangerine oranges blended into each other, like a sunset slowly spreading over the horizon.
"Mummy, Daddy...I don't know what to say," Sherlock stuttered, half in awe and the other half in shock. Coming from any other person, this would be the anticipated reaction, but coming from Sherlock Holmes made it infinitely more meaningful. He was rarely at a loss for words, not to mention able to express gratitude at all. So it was with a pleased expression on his father's face that he reached up to ruffle his son's unruly hair.
"You were very good this year, and we appreciate the fact that you've finally stopped trying to blow up your action figures with your homemade TNT—"
"—I used a slightly altered version of Tetryl—" Sherlock mumbled under his breath, but no one heard him.
"—So Mummy and I decided that we would reward you with this," his father finished. Just then, there was a loud crash and a girl just younger than Sherlock poked her head out from behind the Christmas tree.
"Eurus, darling, stop skulking around," Violet called, "come join us, it's Christmas!"
She didn't say anything at first, but disentangled herself from the branches and took a seat next to Sherlock, her eyes on the violin. Eurus looked back up to Sherlock, "I can teach you, brother, if you want."
"Really, sis?" Sherlock exclaimed, "that would be nice." She gave him a rare smile, and he closed the case carefully. "I think I'll take this to my lab, maybe I can examine the chemical composition of the varnish," and with that, he picked up the violin and disappeared upstairs.
"Try not to blow it up, Sherly," Mycroft yawned, walking down the stairs, evidently just woken up from a nap. Sherlock rolled his eyes and tried to shoulder-check him, but Mycroft dodged out of the way.
Quietly closing his door, Sherlock flipped on the light switch and set the case on his messy lab table, brushing papers and test tubes off the desk to do so. He opened the case again and took the instrument out this time, marveling at how light it was. Sherlock wasn't exactly sure what to do, but he copied what his sister did whenever he watched her play.
First, he set the instrument down on the table and flipped the latch in front of the bow, gently removing it from the case. There was a small metal cylinder at the end, which apparently tightened the bow hair, according to his sister. Eurus maintained that the distance from the bow hair and the wooden part had to be about the width of one's pinky, so Sherlock stuck his finger in and began to turn. Then he searched in the case for a shoulder rest. He knew how to put it on, but wasn't sure how to position it, so he played around a bit until it felt comfortable. Finally, at long last, he set the bow on the first string and pulled, an ear-screeching squeak emanating from it, the bow sliding around and hitting a wooden piece. Sherlock cringed, for he did not know how to hold the bow, nor did he know how to stop the squeaking.
"You need rosin," Eurus had appeared in the doorway, a grin on her face, "Here, let me show you." She opened up a compartment in the case Sherlock had not noticed before, and pulled out a piece of wood with a ruby-colored block in the middle. Sherlock watched, fascinated, as she began to rub it on the hair, a faint puff of white powder flying up.
"I think I put a bit too much," she admitted, "but seeing as it's your first time playing I doubt it will make any difference...put it up on your shoulder, will you?"
Sherlock complied, but his arm was starting to tire. Eurus shifted his right hand fingers around until they were in the correct bow hold position, and told him to play a note. He chose the first string, and played it again. The bow still slid a little, but this time sound came out.
"I did it!" Sherlock smiled at his younger sister, "now what?"
"That was your G string, these three are the D, A, and E strings," Eurus rattled off, pointing at each of them, "But first it needs to be tuned, and I best put on some tapes." She took the violin from him and Sherlock waited anxiously for several minutes, in which she turned the pegs, adjusted some little knobs, and laid out neatly cut pieces of electrical tape across the black piece. When she was done, she began teaching him the parts of the violin.
"This here is called the scroll," Eurus touched the swirly piece of wood at the top.
"Scroll," Sherlock repeated, rubbing it. It was very glossy and oddly satisfying to touch.
"Under the scroll are the pegs. I used those to tune your violin. And this little area here, where the strings go inside, that's called the peg box," Eurus continued, "this black piece that runs all the way down to the middle is the fingerboard. It's where you can place your fingers and make different notes."
"What's that thing?" Sherlock asked, pointing to a small bump at the top of the fingerboard.
"It's called the nut," Eurus answered, "but I'm not sure what it does." She gradually moved down the length of the violin, telling him about bridges and tailpieces and chin rests, and explaining the functions of everything from a sound post to fine tuners. When she finished, Sherlock recited them all back to her, having stored them away in his mind palace.
"Can you teach me the notes?" Sherlock asked, eager to play, but Eurus shook her head.
"Maybe tomorrow. It's getting late," sure enough, the sky outside Sherlock's window had gotten dark, "and Mummy and Daddy are going to call us down for dinner soon."
Sure enough, the voices of their parents floated upstairs, inviting them to supper. Eurus packed the fiddle up and ran away, but Sherlock lingered in his room for a moment.
"I think," he said, talking to his violin, "I will call you Shezza." With that, he turned and left, shutting the door behind him.
Author Note:
I love how Sherlock's violin playing is highlighted in the series, as I'm a violinist myself, so I wanted to write a little something about it. I don't know if I'll add more, but if you guys like it I can definetly write up another chapter or two. Happy new year!
-Irene xx
Fun Fact: I actually did name my own violin Sherlock (Shezza for short) because I am absolutely obessed with the show. Sherlock seems to like the name as well, since he used it as an alias in HLV; so I figured, why couldn't it work for his violin too?