"Sherlock, we're coming in" Lestrade shouted through the door to flat 221B.
"What now?" I shouted angrily from the other side of the door
"Drugs bust" he excused himself. John opened the door, dressed in a beige woollen jumper and supporting himself on his cane.
"Really, Lestrade, you had to do this again?"
"Sorry John" Lestrade pushed his way past John into the room. It spelt acrid, like sulphur. I sat in the centre, cross legged, holding a pigs eye in one hand and a Bunsen burner in the other.
"This is getting dull" I mumbled as the team clattered into my refuge. They made so much noise, every vibration shaking the floor slightly. Donovan stank of Anderson's cologne, the knees on her skirt had the same red fibres Anderson had on his back. At it again. Suddenly the light felt too bright, and I could hear the flickering of electricity burning through the filament.
"Ew, gross!" Donovan shouted upon opening my freezer.
"Don't go in there, the heart might thaw"
"You keep a human heart next to the frozen peas! You're such a Freak!" she squealed. I hate the word freak. Too many people have called me that, all through my life. It started with my father, and it wouldn't end until I died. Father called me all sorts of names. The only one I've never been called by anyone else is stupid. I'm not stupid. I'm not a freak. Mycroft spent half my adolescence trying to drill those things into me. He thought I lacked his self esteem. Maybe because I was the one who took all the beatings and name calling when he was upstairs studying. Maybe because I was the one who got bullied at school and had to suffer the boredom of actually being in the right year group for my age. They wouldn't move me up because I 'lacked social skills'. Who cares about social skills anyway? I started to notice the whiteness of the freezer door, tiny imperfections looking gigantic as I magnified everything. Anderson's phone started to ring. Everyone was talking. Donovan and one of the techies clad in white plastic were muttering the word 'Freak'. John was tapping his foot infuriatingly to the beat of Hall of the Mountain King. Lestrade was opening my cupboard doors, rooting around for non existent cocaine. I hadn't kept drugs in my apartment for years, not since they showed up the first time. I could feel the floor vibrating under me with the weight of five intruders. Lestrade had slept in a hotel last night- rumpled trousers, same socks as yesterday, stain on tie. The newer lab tech still lived with his parents- his mother made him wear that shirt, no kid fresh out of university irons a pastel pink shirt, especially not with a baby blue tie to bring out his eyes. The older man had been a doctor- a surgeon- callouses in index finger from holding a scalpel- had to stop and move to lab work due to drinking habit and less steady hands. The deductions came thick and fast, without giving me time to process them properly. I heard myself speak some of them out loud.
"Sherlock, stop it, you'll make the poor lad cry" John warned as I told the younger lab tech about his girlfriend's other boyfriend. I mumbled an apology, but I wasn't sure it made it out of my mouth. Apologies hardly ever did. I meant to say them, but my brain disregards them and replaces them with more important things. The buzzing from the fluorescent light bulb was penetrating, digging deep into my head. It almost hurt. Then the temperature changed slightly as Anderson fiddled with the thermostat. As though I could hide cocaine under the dial. I think I growled at him. Dislike flooded my brain, and I managed a few seconds of relief from deduction before I started noticing the dust on his shoes- too busy fiddling with Donovan to polish them. Everything about him glared at me; his rat like face, the buttons done up wrong on his shirt, the incorrectly tied left shoe lace. I felt like bashing my head against the wall with the weight of the onslaught. I felt my phone vibrate from the sofa on the other side of the room. John picked it up.
"Mycroft" I said, reading John's face. "What does he want?"
"Wants to know if you need him to get rid of them"
"Tell him they're almost done" I glared at Lestrade. "Anderson, please get out, I can't think with you looking at me. At least turn around" I felt like screaming, but managed to restrain myself.
"But-" the objectionable man protested
"Just do it" Lestrade snapped
"You always side with-"
"I'm not taking sides, Anderson" Lestrade dismissed as though talking to a child. Wife kicked him out. Hasn't seen his children- Kate and Max- for three days. Missed the boy's football match- has unread text from blonde boy with football, Friday at 3.40 so should be at match.
"Why aren't you at Max's football match?"
"How the hell... How do you even know his name?" Lestrade looked flummoxed. Always liked that word. Mycroft made me write it out thirty times so I got the spelling right when I was six. I like the spelling. Fluxometer- Dr. Who- Flux. I used to enjoy that programme. Donovan farted, she doesn't think we heard. Of course I heard. The whole place stinks suddenly, not just of her but of all the sweat and the germs and the spit flying around my living space. John sipped his mug of coffee, leaning against the arm of the sofa, unaware and unfazed by the sudden sensory overload. How do normal people do it?
"Found anything?" I asked
"No. Sorry to bother you, Mr. Holmes" Lestrsde bowed. They all left, Anderson murdering complaints. Donovan knocked past me and spat 'freak' in my ear. I flinched away from her, disliking the intrusion on my personal space. She shut the door, and the room was beautifully quiet.
"Bacon and eggs, Sherlock?" John asked, his voice grounding me. I grimaced at the thought of the greasy, messy food. I'd rather have grapes in the middle of the night, when John's gone to bed and I can eat in total silence, in the dark, so that it's just the taste that hits my senses. Sight and sound and smell and taste all at once is overwhelming. I placed the pigs eyes back into a jar, and left the bunsen burner on the floor. Skull sat on the fireplace and I looked at it for a while. Then I played my violin. Everything was better. Chaos had depleted and order resumed. Until next time...