Whew, this turned into a long one. Finally got some direct narrative thrown into the mix. Tie-in to the common story thread occurs at the end. Promise!
These characters are not and will not, sadly, ever be any possession of mine. They are the original creative property of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and are currently being leased to the lovely Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.
2. The Violin
When Sherlock first mentioned the violin, that apparently innocent day back at Bart's, John really hadn't been paying attention. Or, at least, he was too busy being shell-shocked by everything else about this man, who was frankly nothing less than bizarre, and hadn't immediately picked up on the details. He remembered now, of course. He remembered perfectly.
"I play the violin when I'm thinking."
Right. More like,"I play the violin when John's trying to sleep," or, "I play the violin when John brings a date over," or, "I play the violin when I adopt the malicious mentality of a five-year-old."
The second time the violin came up was the morning after the conclusion of the taxi driver case. John, to his eternal shock, had risen first, and was in the kitchen brewing his morning tea when Sherlock finally appeared, swathed unceremoniously in his faded blue bathrobe. Without so much as a word or an acknowledgement of John's presence, he made his way straight to the fireplace and took up residence in his chair. When John returned to his own seat with his tea, it was to find his flatmate curled up, feet wedged beneath him, delicately tuning the violin draped across his chest.
Needless to say, John was taken aback.
"Is that…a violin?"
"Yes."
"What's it for?"
"For playing."
"So…back at Bart's, you were serious? You actually play the violin?"
"Yes, obviously. This didn't seem so difficult for you to grasp 'back at Bart's'."
His tone of voice made no attempt to match John's, but the doctor couldn't shake the feeling that he was being mocked. "Well, no. I didn't really know you properly."
"If you can't accept that I play the violin, your knowledge of me is obviously still far from perfect."
That morning, when a case was solved and a client was on her way and all was right with the world, John thought "the worst" about Sherlock was actually quite spectacular. In the course of a few hours he'd fingered his way through Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky, even obliging a few requests from John, whose novel soon lay forgotten. He watched in amazement, watched the same porcelain hands that had frisked a dead body not hours ago turn elegant and magnetic in the caress of an endless stream of notes. And all the time Sherlock lay there, draped across his chair like a well-sated cat, his head tipping back in perfect content. He played every piece with his eyes closed.
John had failed to remember the second, and perhaps the most important, half of Sherlock's introductory declaration.
"I play the violin when I'm thinking."
Looking back with his hard-earned new perspective, John thought that simple sentence sounded more and more like a threat.
The third, fourth, fifth, and virtuously every other proceeding time the subject of the violin came up, it was a bleeding nightmare. Bad case. Screech. Row with Mycroft. Screeeeeeech. Simple, unquantifiable boredom. SCREEEEEEEEECH.
"Nice" playing, as John was quickly and repeatedly informed, didn't do a bloody thing. "Nice" playing was a waste of time. "Nice" playing didn't drown things out properly.
Right, thought John, with a trembling jaw and a perfectly steady left hand. Like my sanity.
In all honesty, when it came to John's occasional discomfort, Sherlock neither understood nor cared. Mostly because it was irrational; the truth of the matter was quite simple. Discordant, grating notes were the only things that did the job properly. They drowned out the worthless noise that pressed in from the rest of the world, that poured out from his over-busy brain. They obliterated conventional patterns and chased off all that was unimportant. Discomfort brought everything into focus.
This was the infallible reasoning that allowed Sherlock to carry on scratching vigorously at the strings, unconcerned, while John attempted to talk to his sister, girlfriend, or employer on the phone.
But then, there was Sherlock's private vow. The vow that he'd never spoken or written down or even thought about with complete personal candidness. He'd locked it away deep in his hard drive, mostly because it wasn't anyone else's damn business.
I will take care of John.
It may have been the forty-third time. Or fifty-sixth time. Neither of them was bothering to keep the tally at that point. But this time, when the violin came out, it was different.
The case had been running on four days straight. Sherlock's early prediction had been two, maximum, so it'd become overlong by any stretch. As was becoming custom, they returned to the flat at an ungodly hour of the night, still mid-work, still caught in the middle of a lead, still vibrating imperceptibly from the adrenaline that was pumped into their veins on permanent time-release.
None of it made any difference to Sherlock. If anything, he felt better than he had in weeks. Fantastic. It was only after they'd shed their coats, only after John fell directly onto the couch with his shoes still on and box of takeaway still in hand, that he remembered.
John.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. He'd missed something.
What had he missed? They'd eaten (they naturally meaning John) on the way back, Sherlock had made sure of that, despite the time it detracted from returning home to do research. John had been drinking from his coffee thermos all day, so he'd maintained a regular intake of fluids, though the number of bathroom breaks had been abominable.
He wasn't sick; he didn't show any of the standard symptoms. Again, Sherlock had been watching. He'd promised.
He'd been watching and nothing…
Oh.
The thermos. The coffee thermos.
What day was it?
Not taking his eyes off the couch, where John groaned and shifted slightly, still completely face-planted, Sherlock pulled his mobile from the pocket of his hanging coat and flipped to the calendar.
Tuesday. Very recently Tuesday. They'd begun on Thursday. Late.
Four days.
Had John slept?
No. Sherlock knew for a fact that he himself hadn't gotten so much as a wink, which meant neither had John.
He shut off his phone without looking at it again, feeling the cold weight of failure close in on every side. It was an old enemy. But this particular brand, new with his acquaintance to John, always had an oddly sharp, bitter edge. Sherlock did not like it.
He put away the leftover food himself and settled down at his desk, not wanting to lose the flow of the case. But he was still very much aware of John, splayed pathetically across the couch.
"Go to bed."
"Hmff…what?"
"I said go to bed. It's been four days. You're no use to either of us delusional."
"Mmm'not delusional."
"You thought a lamppost was a hitman."
"Yeah, well, that was right after we'd dodged a hitman. And it was lurking behind that corner. Very suspect behavior."
"Are you accusing a lamppost of acting suspiciously?"
"It was a perfectly innocent mistake."
"You shot at it."
"Look, even if I wanted to sleep, I couldn't. And trust me, I want to."
"So do it."
"I can't, I'm too…it's all too much right now. There's no settling yourself down after nearly getting shot with four days of coffee in you. Might as well forget about it."
John migrated from his chair to the couch and back again, limbs sluggish, eyes bruised with exhaustion, every nuance begging for the unattainable peace. Sherlock tried to focus on his work, but John's movement, John's unease, John's restlessness, made it utterly impossible.
He was most certainly not taken care of.
When Sherlock abandoned his work and pulled out the violin, John caught sight of it from his chair. He cringed unconsciously as the knobs turned and the bow rose, ready for what he knew was coming.
A soft refrain floated into the room.
John looked up, stared at Sherlock. "What are you doing?"
"Playing."
Sherlock didn't need to ask. He played Bach, a particular concerto, the one that John asked for more than any of the others. John's favorite. Watching over the neck of the violin as he swept the bow over the strings, he saw the muscles in John's neck gradually relax, the grip of his hand on the armrest loosen. It took a very careful half-hour, but finally John's eyes fluttered closed. His chest began to rise and fall in the steady rhythm of sleep.
Sherlock carefully placed the violin back in its case. He went around the flat and shut off every light, even the one in the hall, until the only thing left glowing was his computer screen. He dug his robe out from behind the couch and gingerly, very gingerly, settled it over John. On him, it was long enough to be a blanket.
Sherlock stayed up until the sun rose the next morning and beyond, working with an unfamiliar level of absolute clarity.
John's tranquil breathing was his violin.
A/N: Good reviews are fun. Honest reviews are useful.