Disclaimer: The characters of Sherlock are not mine, nor is the story, nor are the characters from the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I make no monetary profit from this. Nor do I own or profit in any way from anything to do with My Fair Lady.

Deducing Pygmalion

Act III: An Ordinary Man (Let Emotion in Your Life)

The Holmes brothers sat facing each other in the small sitting room of 221B Baker Street. An uneasy silence had settled in the room, and one got the sense that the prevention of the next World War depended entirely on its not being broken. The skull on the mantelpiece looked uncomfortable. Even the tea and fairy cakes the landlady ("Not your housekeeper") had set out for them looked like they wished they could be elsewhere.

"When will you stop playing your little games, Sherlock?" said Mycroft finally. "It's absurd. Little criminals, little killers. Do you really think it makes a difference?"

"It keeps me occupied." Sherlock glared at his brother over the tips of his steepled fingers. "And you know I'm after bigger fish."

A lesser man would have rolled his eyes. Mycroft merely pressed his lips together. "Moriarty." The contempt practically dripped off the word. "I'm nearly starting to believe that he's the product of your wishful thinking – an excuse, Sherlock, for you to carry on with this 'consulting detective' business of yours. If it's crime fighting that you want to do, I can give you the Met-"

"I've really got all of New Scotland Yard that I'm prepared to handle, thank you very much. You needn't gift wrap the rest of it to send to me at Christmas."

"I'm only trying to help."

"Acknowledged. Appreciated. Unnecessary."

And there was silence again as Mycroft shifted his arm (as if to reach for one of the tea cakes) and Sherlock's lips curled into the slightest suggestion of a sneer (as if to say "Your weight, Mycroft, I thought you were watching it.").

"You're only making a fuss because it's me," said Sherlock, opening the second salvo of verbal sparring.

"Of course I'm worried because it's you. You're my brother."

"I'd have thought that you of all people would refrain from stating the obvious. No, what I meant, Mycroft, is that you have an abject sense of the waste of what I'm doing. A mind like mine, you think, shouldn't be wasted on trivialities like a missing cat or the murder of a salesman, or other garden-variety crimes."

"Yes, and it shouldn't. You have a gift, Sherlock, and a heritage, and to squander it as you do is disgustingly irresponsible."

"You're wrong. Oh, I was born ridiculously smart – we both were – and I doubt there is anyone who measures up, but you cruelly underestimate the abilities of the rest of the population."

"You say that." Mycroft was incredulous. "You think the 'rest of the population' consists of stupid sheep."

"Most of them are stupid sheep. Utterly dim, utterly hopeless. But there are, I'm sure, people out there who are only like that for want of proper education, proper training."

"I know. The public education system keeps me up at night, when I don't have to think about the Far East. I don't see your point, Sherlock."

"My point is that it's no waste to let me use my mind as I like. Mycroft, the real tragedy is for those people who never learn to think, despite the fact that they'd be adept at it given the chance. So instead of hounding me as if I was letting the world down, why don't you use your considerable resources to train somebody up for whatever role you have in mind, and leave – me – alone?"

"Don't sulk, it was barely tolerable when you were four, and it's positively unbecoming now. And you know very well that no-one can do what you do."

"I bet you anything that I could pick a man off the street, and within six months of rigorous practical training have him using deduction to tell what you ate for breakfast from the color of your socks. Incidentally, was the extra marmalade really wise? I thought you were on a diet."

Mycroft ignored that dig, and resettled his fingers on the handle of his black umbrella. "It wouldn't work, Sherlock."

"That's true. But someone could come close."

"You're upsetting Mummy, you know."

"I don't have to listen to this." Sherlock left his seat so abruptly that he might have been spring-driven and stalked to stare out of the window.

Mycroft plowed on anyway. "You haven't talked to her in months."

"I email!"

"'Dear Mum, Still breathing – S.H.' is your standard message, I believe. She worries about you."

"Oh, for God's sake!"

"I worry about you. There's no reason for you to be living like a dog in a wretched little flat above a store like this, much less for you to be getting a flatshare with" – Mycroft consulted a small black notebook – this John H. Watson. He blogged about you last night, did you know that?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Man with a life like his, I'd expect so. It's probably the longest thing on his blog yet. Your point, Mycroft?"

"I've already said it. You don't have to live like this. Mummy wishes you'd settle down-"

"I'll settle down when I'm old, decrepit, crippled and senile, thank you very much."

"Settle down and find a nice girl, were her words. Or a nice boy, if that's what you'd prefer. Mummy says she wouldn't mind."

"I notice you haven't done that."

"I have my work."

"And I have mine!" Sherlock whipped around to glare balefully at his brother. "Even if it isn't running the British government. You can tell her, Mycroft, that I'm an ordinary man-"

Mycroft did roll his eyes at that.

"An ordinary man," repeated Sherlock, "who desires nothing more than an ordinary chance

To live exactly as he likes and do precisely what he wants

An above-average man am I, of some eccentric whim

Who likes to live his life, yes, with some strife

But doing whatever he thinks is best for him

Well…maybe not so ordinary a man…

But let emotion in your life!

And your serenity is through!"

"Girlfriends." Sherlock's mouth twisted around the word in distaste. "Or boyfriends for that matter."
"They won't stop calling you on the phone

Never give you a moment alone

And insist on the enthralling fun of overhauling you.

"Let emotion in your life

And you're up against a wall!

They'll make plans and when they find

"You have something else in mind

And they'll give you Hell while you fail to get anything done at all!

You want to think of crimes or murders

They only want to talk of love

Take them to a lab or crime scene

And they'll throw up and refuse to put on their latex gloves!

"Let emotion in your life

And you invite eternal strife!

Let them buy their wedding bands for those anxious little hands—

I'd be equally as willing to watch Anderson go stripping

Than to ever let emotion in my life!"

"I'm a quiet-living man,

Who prefers to spend the evening in the silence of the morgue

Who likes an atmosphere as restful as well-stocked laborat'ry

A pensive man am I, of scientific joys

Who likes to contemplate, meditate

Far from humanity's mad inhuman noise

A quiet-living man…

But!

Let emotion in your life

And your sabbatical is through!

Let the others who like sex

Tie the knot around their necks

I'd prefer a new edition of the Spanish Inquisition-"

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, eh?"

"…Than to ever let emotion in my life," finished Sherlock. He turned slowly, caught in mid-gesture, to find John Watson standing in the doorway, his grin turning sheepish as he looked from one Holmes to the other, hoping, Sherlock could tell from the very slight tilt forward at the waist, that one of them would get his little joke (Sherlock didn't, God knew if Mycroft did).

"Sorry, I couldn't resist that," he said finally. "Mrs. – ah – Hudson let me in. She told me to go straight on upstairs. I'm not interrupting anything, am I, Mr. Holmes?"

"Sherlock, please." Sherlock smiled at the doctor. It was friendly enough, though if John were being completely honest, he'd have to say that it was just a bit intimidating. "Doctor John Watson, my brother Mycroft," he said, and Mycroft acknowledged the introduction with a slight nod – the barest inclination of his head – and an appraising look. "He was just leaving. Take a fairy cake for the road, Mycroft, just one shouldn't hurt."

"Don't rush out on my account," said John. "Look, Mr. Holmes – Sherlock – I won't be long. I only dropped by to tell you that I can't go through with the flatshare. I'm sorry. There's some trouble with my pension that I don't rightly understand – that nobody rightly understands from what I gather – and I don't think I could keep up my end of the rent."

"Oh." Sherlock glared accusingly at his brother. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

"You can't blame everything on me," said Mycroft blandly.

"He's the British government," Sherlock told John by way of explanation.

"I hold a minor position."

"Please. You run it when you're not busy being the CIA or Interpol."

"It's a nice place though." John cut in, keenly aware of the barbs in the conversation and quite desperate to clear the air until he got out of there. "Very nice. I don't suppose," he added in a wistful sort of joke, "that you could see your way to letting me stay on until I can pay you back?" And he laughed to show he didn't mean it.

Sherlock looked at him as if he was seeing the doctor for the first time. "No," he said, and the word was slow and drawn out.

"Didn't think so." John smiled in what he hoped was a good-natured way. It had been a mad request to start with. "I'll be off—"

"I have a better proposal for you."

John stopped in mid-step. "Sorry?"

"Sherlock, no," said Mycroft warningly.

"Yes." The man approached John with quick, energetic steps – he practically bounced – and came worryingly close to violating all Western standards of personal space as he leaned in, eyes bright with excitement. "What would you say if I said that I'd let you stay here for six months, free of charge, on the condition that you agree to learn the science of deduction and its application to the greatest extent of your abilities?"

"The science of deduction? Like, like on your website?"

"Ah, so you've seen it. What did you think?"

"You said you could identify a software designer by his tie and an airline pilot by his left thumb. That stuff?"

"Yes."

"Can you actually do that?"

"And I can read your military career in your face and your leg, and your brother's drinking habits in your mobile phone. Mycroft, where are you going? This is just getting interesting."

"Why would I be interested in another of your little games, Sherlock?"

"Because you're subsidizing this one."

"And why would I do that?"

"Because if I fail to teach him how to think and observe properly at the end of six months, I promise that I'll leave off being a consulting detective and do whatever inane patriotic work you want to set me to." Sherlock made a face. "For a year. Not forever."

"Five years."

"Three."

"Done. And if John Watson can successfully solve a case on his own at the end of those six months, you will agree that I've proved that ordinary people can be trained up to do what I can, and you will back off and leave me be."

The look Mycroft gave John weighed him, measured him, slung him in the balance and found him wanting. "Oh, I doubt that."

"Well, will you?"

"I think I will, Sherlock."

"And you?" This was enthusiastic, and to John.

"Well, I – I -" John didn't really have to think about it. "I don't have anything better to do," he ended up saying, more than a little lost and clinging quite firmly to the thought that he was going to have somewhere to stay for the next half-year to make sure that it was real.

"Splendid. Mrs. Hudson!" he called to the landlady who was coming up the stairs. "Doctor Watson will be lodging here as well."

"That's nice, dear," she said, giving John a small smile. "There's another bedroom upstairs. If you'll be needing two bedrooms."

"Of course we'll be needing two."

"Oh, don't worry, there's all sorts around here. Mrs. Turner next door's got married ones."

John found himself opening and closing is mouth like a fish, searching for a way to refute that politely, while Mrs. Hudson went about the flat tutting about the mess Sherlock had made and asking about the serial suicides that the media had been making so much of.

Sherlock shot Mycroft a grin, clearly a challenge. 'The game is on."