Sherlock stumbled into the pub with his hands shoved in his pockets, wiping the blood off on the lining of his pants. At three in the afternoon, the place was nearly empty and the few patrons that were there didn't spare him a glance. A blonde at the bar looked up with mild interest and crinkled her brow in confusion when her eyes met his. This happened less and less often as the general public began to forget the funny looking man in the plaid hat. Despite the media frenzy that Moriarty's trial and Sherlock's suicide had generated, there existed of Sherlock only several blurred, unflattering pictures. For this he was grateful. As soon as he broke eye contact with the blonde he caught her turning back to her crossword puzzle and, satisfied that he had not been recognized, he settled on the opposite end of the bar. With his hair shorn short and several small, purpling bruises around his mouth and across the bridge of his now crooked nose, he was fairly certain that there were maybe two or three people on earth who would be able to spot him in a crowd. Not that it mattered at this point. The last of Jim Moriarty's extensive network was fading away in a bathtub in a house down the road, and he wouldn't around for very much longer. Sherlock smiled at his watch. About two more minutes. Of course, there was still Moran, but he no longer seemed to be interested in carrying out Moriarty's dying wish…Sherlock had seen him board a plane to Mumbai two months before, and his worldly possessions followed shortly after.
Sherlock felt the way he did after any case, except that this one had lasted three years. Three years. Really? And this one had not contained any real mysteries. Only impossibly long, cold, bored nights in hostels and squats and camped out in the apartments of hit men. The bartender raised his eyebrows at him impatiently.
"Right, sorry…are you still serving lunch?" Sherlock gave his hands a final wipe on his jacket and rested them on the counter as casually as he could manage.
"We amn't. I can get you crisps and, er, buttered toast. If ya like."
"Perfect. I'll have ten bags of crisps and half a loaf, dry. Try to burn it slightly." Sherlock struggled to remember what he was meant to say to get the bartender to stop staring at him. "If you don't mind."
He sat in silence for a good half hour after his food arrived, steadily finishing off the toast and opening his first bag. The last few days had been particularly brutal…he barely tasted any of it, simply tearing it into pieces and chewing it systematically. The pub was filling up, and the blonde at the end of the bar was still staring at him every ten minutes or so. Sherlock stood and made for the exit before she could work up the nerve to approach him, but a carrying voice stopped him just steps from the door. It was a young man, unemployed, recently moved back to his hometown to live with his elderly parents. They were sick. He had spent at least one night at one of their bedsides. Sherlock could smell the hospital as he passed him, and there was the imprint of course fabric fading on the man's right cheek. He had sat down beside the blonde woman and was beginning to impress upon her the stress of being a top surgeon. Sherlock looked at the woman for the first time; she had shrunken away from her admirer, who was maybe five or six years younger than herself, and her crossword puzzle was only a quarter-filled. So she was either an idiot or an alcoholic. He was able to resist interrupting her ordeal for a second or two.
"Gay."
He had only muttered it, but both the woman and the younger man looked up.
"Whatcha mean then? Thas rude as hell."
Sherlock surveyed him coldly. "Is it? It's true."
The woman suppressed a smile, and rolled her eyes at the would-be suitor. "He's right. I'm gay…and taken." She pulled out a chain with an engagement ring from under her blouse, waving at him somewhat obnoxiously and laughing as he grumbled away.
Sherlock was about to step out at last, when she pulled him onto the stool next to hers.
"How did you figure that? Am I so obvious?"
"Not to someone like him. Or anyone else in this pub."
"But it is to you."
"Well," he sniffed haughtily and smirked, "it should be obvious to everyone."
"Hmm," she leaned back, arms crossed, "show me."
It had been too long.
"You have a French plait."
The woman snorted and played with the end of her plait doubtfully. "Well done."
"You have a French plait, but the double knots in your shoelaces say that your fingers aren't particularly nimble, says that the braid was done by a friend. Fairly intimate, you washed your hair last night and it was braided this morning at eight, no, seven. Very early to be seeing a friend. So it was either a family member or a romantic partner. Statistical likelihood says they're female, and your age and clothing say that it's not a relative. A mother or aunt would be too elderly to manage the small intricacies of the braid, and the quality of your clothing implies that you do not require the generosity of a relative. Nearly forty, you wouldn't need a roommate either. You're not dressed for business or leisure, and it's a weekday in March, so you're clearly not here temporarily, which might have explained you staying with a sister or close friend."
Sherlock might have overdone it. The woman was narrowing her eyes in a vaguely familiar way. She reminded him of someone, and he reminded her of someone as well. Things were growing entirely too uncomfortable.
"All of that is…circumstantial. Who's to say I'm not just a very careful person who double knots her laces and plaits her own hair?"
"I really should be going."
She gripped his wrist, and he caught her eyes darting to the blood encrusted under his nails. "No, go on. Please."
She had said please. "It's your perfume. You're wearing two scents…you showered last night, so it's not yesterday's leftovers. One is the one you put on this morning, and the other is the one your partner was wearing last night when the two of you had sexual relations. Bleu de Chanel and Calvin Klein…something. I forget the name of that one. Both perfumes marketed to women."
He knew he had gone too far. He knew it the moment her eyes widened and she jerked away. And he definitely knew it the moment she clapped her hands to her mouth and whispered, "You're Sherlock Holmes."
Sherlock barely had time to mutter "obviously" before Harry Watson threw her punch.
