Sherlock has used a spurious diagnosis of sociopathy to keep people at arms' length since he was 15. Now we follow him through Florida and to university.
Set between 1995 and 1996, this covers Sherlock's time in Florida, the start of his University years, and his meeting with Sebastian Wilkes (TBB). There is reference to events in 'Trefoil' chapter 3. Mycroft's sage wisdom refers to upcoming chapters in 'Ensemble' starting with chapter 2.
Check chapters for specific trigger warnings.
Trigger warning: mention of domestic abuse, mention of serial killer, sexual activity
It was expected that Sherlock would attend university. With his intelligence and need to keep his mind busy, it was a foregone conclusion. The question was, which one would best suit the troubled young man.
Mycroft had spent the previous five years indoctrinating the angst ridden teenager with his own newly acquired pontifications: "caring is not an advantage", "alone is what protects us", "love is a chemical defect found on the losing side", "all hearts are broken." At first Sherlock had ignored his older brother. He was too busy developing his mind palace, conducting strange experiments in the garden shed, playing pirates with his younger brother, and running around the countryside with his red setter collecting specimens to study. In his fifteenth year his world fell apart, and, against his own better judgement, Mycroft's sage 'wisdom' began to strike a chord with the devastated teenager, still reeling from losing both his beloved Grand-mère, and his constant companion, Redbeard. Even his younger brother, Linley, could not pierce the shell of isolation that Sherlock had created for himself. The malicious diagnosis of sociopath his vengeful psychiatrist had labelled him with in revenge for exposing the emotional abuse of his own children had proven a lifeline. It kept others at a distance, and allowed him to indulge in the worst excesses of his own personality. He wallowed in his isolation and perceived abnormality. His own lack of sexual interest in others only reinforcing the words Mycroft whispered in his ear like some all-knowing pedagogue.
It was Mycroft who forced Sherlock's hand in choice of university. His grades and intellect were more than enough to ensure a place at the most prestigious of colleges. Oxbridge was a certainty. Mummy and Daddy urged their middle son to follow his older brother into Oxford. Had Sherlock known his brother's own distaste at the suggestion, he would perhaps have considered it, if only to spite his overbearing older sibling. As it was, he wanted as much distance from Mycroft as possible. He also craved modernity. A medieval college with all its history and tradition was not for him. In the end he chose Churchill College, Cambridge, as much for its high proportion of science students as its modernist architecture.
However, first Sherlock needed to get away. To leave his parent's home and strike out on his own. He chose America for his gap year, only because it was new and shiny in comparison with the stifling history and traditions of Europe. He hoped to find a freshness of spirit in a country that boasted it's place as the land of freedom and opportunity.
So he arrived in New York with high hopes. What he found was that people are much the same the world over. Power and privilege still held sway over the masses. Instead of the British old school tie, it was Ivy League college alma maters and fraternity allegiences. Instead of a family pedigree stretching back to the Norman Conquest, it was the colour of your skin and the size of your bank balance.
And on the streets the poor were still poor, even more so when health care was not a right, but a privilege. The homeless were still homeless, and crimes and evil intent were much the same as anywhere else.
Sherlock made his way down the east coast, supplementing his meagre budget with cash-in-hand manual labour and solving the odd problem for grateful strangers.
By the time he reached Florida, local new reports were beginning to show a worrying trend. It appeared that there was a serial killer on the loose, but, because the deaths were spread over two states and several jurisdictions, no-one had noticed. Young women and men, found bound, beaten and dumped along I95. All were homeless or, at least, itinerant. The killer had no preference for race, gender or sexual orientation. It was age and body type that were the attraction. 18-25 years, tall, slender, blond, whether natural or dyed. A visit to the public library in Jacksonville and several hours with newspapers archives enabled Sherlock to identify seventeen potential victims over a five year period.
Sherlock ruminated on what little he knew as he continued to hitch-hike south, finally arriving at Fort Lauderdale. It was here it met a charming lady from Welwyn Garden City called Martha. She'd come over from London with her husband, Albert, nearly twenty years before. She still provided some of the entertainment in her husband's club. Her age now made her act more of a niche attraction, dancing a bored seduction in the late afternoon for older punters as they drank their cares away before a younger clientele began the more lucrative evening trade. Most of her time was spent coaching the new girls in the right moves to attract big tips, and doing the accounts in the cramped back office that also served as her dressing room. Martha offered him a job washing dishes in the kitchen, with a bed in the tiny loft above the office. Sherlock saw no reason not to accept.
Albert was scum. Sherlock took an instant and visceral dislike to the man. He was too quick with his temper and his fists, and he had no qualms about groping his tall, skinny, blond dancers as and when he chose. 'Big Al' as he liked to be known, claimed to have ties to the London Mob, and to have been an enforcer for the Cray Twins. He certainly had a lot of dealings with organised crime in Florida. Sherlock found evidence of money laundering, drug running and prostitution, but he needed more. When he'd found Martha in tears in her pokey back room after her husband had humiliated her and dragged her from the club floor by her hair in front of a room full of punters, he'd offered her a way out and a promise of a better life if she would help him bring her husband down. With her help he matched Albert's frequent business trips through Florida and Georgia with the dates of the murders. With his help, Martha persuaded her husband to move a considerable percentage of his personal assets into her name, for his legal protection and extra tax breaks. When Sherlock had first proposed the subterfuge she'd argued that it was dirty money, coming from crime. Sherlock had swiftly convinced her that, when they were successful, she would need the money to rebuild her life. Putting it to good use in London was far better than it sitting in a police evidence locker in Florida whilst she struggled to earn a living. She had, after all, earnt it herself through the hardest means.
It took a while. Sherlock spent each day in the kitchen, washing the plates and dishes, whilst rebuffing the advances of both the male and female staff who thought the pretty boy in an apron who wore sweat so well would make a pleasant diversion. A few choice words and a surly snarl were usually enough to dissuade all but the most enthusiastic. If all else failed, the spray hose in the sink soon doused an admirer's ardour, and their shoes.
One night, Sherlock was curled up for the night in his loft. It was the early hours of the morning and, as usual, sleep eluded the young man, not that he was particularly bothered. He preferred to use the quiet after the club had closed to reorganise his Mind Palace, one of the few useful and positive things Mycroft had ever taught him.
A noise from the office beneath him caught his attention. At first he thought it was an intruder making for the large safe that loomed, conspicuously, in the corner of the room; the safe used daily by Martha to secure the ledgers and the takings. Listening intently it became obvious that the intruder was focusing their attention on the opposite wall to the safe. Sherlock knew from long hours in the room chatting with Martha about England, that there was nothing on that side of the room save some coat hooks, a rack of Martha's costumes, a ratty sofa and side table, and a wall full of photos of Albert with various celebrities, from both the criminal and entertainment industries.
Pride of place amongst the many framed portraits was a large photo of a beaming Al with his arm thrown round the shoulders of a rather bemused looking Frank Sinatra. Martha had once explained that they had bumped into the star on a rare vacation in Las Vegas. Really, Al had gone to negotiate some business and needed his wife as cover for his activities. The singer had been leaving a nightclub when he had quite literally run into them. Sinatra had posed politely, as he would with any fan, before his body guards shooed them, none to gently, away. Al had arranged for the photo to be enlarged and framed, boasting about his good friend Frank and their get together one weekend in Vegas. It warmed Sherlock's heart when Martha giggled about her brutish husband's star-struck silliness. He swore to himself that she would have a life where she could laugh all day if she chose.
The sounds from the office beneath him continued. Something, possibly a ledger, had been placed on the desk. Listening carefully Sherlock could hear the rustle of paper turning, the snip of scissors and the rip of sticky tape. Finally the ledger was closed with the distinctive thump of a large book, then silence before the subtle clink of steel upon steel and the whizz of a tumbler being spun. A final faint bump, then the door was closed.
Listening intently, there were no further sounds save the usual night-time symphony of the neighbourhood.
Sherlock lay still, replaying the noises he had heard, trying to piece together the actions that had created them. It did not take long for him to realise he was an idiot. There was no way an accomplished criminal like Al would trust anyone, least of all his regularly brutalised wife, with unfettered access to his complete business, especially his criminal dealings. Anyway, in the unlikely event of a police raid, it would have been foolish in the extreme to keep details of his deals with organised crime in that large, elderly, exceedingly eye-catching safe that dominated the corner of the office.
There had to be another safe. One that held the secrets of Big Al and his true business empire. One that was, perhaps, hidden behind an overblown photo of Frank Sinatra hung above a ratty old sofa on an otherwise non-descript wall hung with self-aggrandising photos.
Taking advantage of one of Al's business trips a few days later, Sherlock and Martha carefully opened the safe. The combination was simple, probably because Al assumed no-one would ever know to look for it. Inside the wall safe were cash, passports with Al's photo in several false names, details of a couple of bank accounts, the current year's true business ledger, and a large, well-thumbed hunting journal. The journal drew Sherlock's attention, since Al was no hunter. Opening the book revealed exactly how much of a hunter Big Al actually was, and his preferred prey. Inside were page after page of sickening polaroids, detailed notes and taped in trophies from Big Al's reign of terror along the I95.
Sherlock sent Martha to the bank to empty her account by wiring it all to an account in London, before she could stumble across the evidence of her husband's hobby. In the mean-time Sherlock called the nearest field office of the FBI to report the identity of an inter-state serial killer, requesting the immediate dispatch of field agents to their location. Using a pair of Martha's silk gloves to protect the journal from fingerprints, he flicked through the pages, reading out names, dates and locations over the phone, until the FBI had no choice but to believe him. When agents arrived and began to review the evidence presented to them by a teary Martha, they couldn't believe their luck. Extensive details of the operation of the local crime syndicate plus a serial killer. It was a career maker.
Sherlock had slunk quietly into the background, having removed a great deal of cash from the wall safe. He packed the stacks of bills into a cardboard box, sealing it tight before slipping out of the back into the ally. He went to the nearest FedEx office, shipping the package to his parent's house, with a note to leave the package, unopened, in his room pending his imminent return.
The trial of Albert Hudson was a sensation. It had murder, the Mob, drugs and exotic dancers. It also had a large photo of Frank Sinatra. Al tried to get a deal for leniency if he informed on his criminal contacts. The highly detailed records he'd left in the safe were more than enough evidence to proceed against his accomplices without the dubious word of the murderer of twenty two young people. Martha Hudson was cleared of all complicity in her husband's crimes and was allowed to return home to England. She was accompanied on her journey by a gangly, pale-skinned boy with strangely coloured eyes and a head of dark curls. The boy held her hand with tender care in the taxi, at the airport, and squeezed it gently in reassurance as the plane took off, heading across the Atlantic for a home she had not seen in two decades.
That there was a bank account and a box of dollar bills waiting to ease her way helped calm her nerves. There was also a framed photo of Ol' Blue Eyes, this time on stage at Caesar's Palace; a small reminder of his part in the 'Liberation of Mrs Hudson'.
-0-0-0-
And so it was, in the autumn of 1996, that Sherlock Holmes entered his self-contained room in the student accommodation of Churchill College, Cambridge. He had chosen to read Natural Sciences so that he did not have to specialise in chemistry alone. Concentrating on one subject would have been torture to his agile mind. Cambridge, with its unique approach, gave the opportunity to indulge his interests in a broad spectrum of subjects including biology, pharmacology and even pathology. His one fear, boredom, would hopefully be kept at bay.
Also kept at bay were the other students. His surly demeanour and sharp tongue ensured his continued isolation from his fellow students; a situation that suited him admirably. If anyone did persist in straying too close, his observations and deductions about their most intimate secrets soon sent them scuttling away, although it did earn him a few encounters with irate meat heads who preferred to make their arguments with their fists and, in one case, a well-aimed boot. But, on the whole, Sherlock was left in peace to continue his solitary life, only mixing with others during lectures or when he remembered to eat, wandering in to the formal hall, finding a quiet corner, and nibbling sporadically at his food as his nose remained buried in a book.
It was there that Sebastian Wilkes, his most persistent tormentor, liked to continue his niggling attack at Sherlock's defenses. Like a midge, he would buzz and hover, only moving in to sting with well-placed barbs when he was ready. He tormented by highlighting Sherlock's difference from the norm, labelling him a freak and goading him, usually over Sherlock's rare appearances at breakfast, to expose who had been shagging whom the previous night. It not only maintained Sherlock's isolation from those who might have become his colleagues, if not friends, but also highlighted his lack of practical knowledge of all things sexual. His knowledge of the theoretical was incredibly broad. He had, after all, spent several months working in a strip club that covered for a prostitution ring, however Sherlock had no interest in the practicalities and unfortunately, this lack of experience showed. Sherlock's retaliatory deductions to Sebastian's attacks unknowingly provided the Management Studies student with valuable information with which to further his own future ambitions. Wilkes was not above a spot of coercion, if not outright blackmail, to achieve his ambitions.
Occasionally, he would approach Sherlock quietly, as he sat in Library, sidling up and throwing his arm around Sherlock's shoulders as he tried to wheedle further information about both students and fellows out of the man. It took six months, but finally Sebastian pushed too far. By now, Sherlock was well aware of the man's tactics and how he had been manipulated into playing the game through his own naivety.
"Come on mate. You can tell me. You know I can help you. Keep dear Cassandra's rugger-bugger boyfriend and his mates away from you so you don't take a beating. After all, announcing in formal that he'd allowed her to shag him up the arse with a dildo was perhaps not quite politic old man."
"You manipulated me into that. I didn't say anything, merely that they both looked exhausted, probably from excessive sexual activity, and that he was suffering from a tender backside and a newly acquired limp. It was you, Sebastian, who announced to the hall what activity had probably caused his injuries."
"Come on, we're mates. Call me Seb. And I didn't manipulate you into anything. I just opened the door and you walked yourself right through, leaving the way clear for me to finish the story off."
"Yes. And for you to walk away scot free, while I am blamed for exposing their activities. Just stay away from me Seb. I have no interest in your attempts to ingratiate your way into the boardroom of your girlfriend's family's multi-national when graduate. And I have no need for your 'protection'. I will not participate in your little games any more. Just stay away. I have no use for you."
"Oh, Sherlock Holmes. You'll be singing another tune soon enough, and then you'll come crawling to me. You see, people here like me. They believe me. So if I tell them that the Freak is saying this or doing that they will believe me. See how well you do when I start directing all the rugger-buggers and muscle heads to your door for every bit of gossip about their shagging habits. After all, you're well known for, what do you call your little parlour trick, deducing is it? Yes, deducing every little thing about their lives. It wouldn't take much to persuade them that every titbit of salacious gossip, every dirty joke or lewd story originated with you. After all, you're the frustrated little virgin, obsessed with other people's sex lives. Of course it'll be you. And I won't be there to protect you. How do ya feel about that Mr Sherlock Holmes?"
"Perfectly fine, actually. Because I happen to know a few useful facts about you." He registered the shocked expression on his tormentor's face. "Oh, I see. You didn't expect that the same technique you had me use on others would work on you as well. Allow me to demonstrate. I presume that your current paramour, the Honourable Phoenicia Dewhurst, will be somewhat miffed when she discovers that you're also currently shagging the Master's wife every Thursday night whilst the Master attends the meeting of the Fellows. I should imagine that her father, who I understand is currently sponsoring your education with a view to you joining one of his more prestigious companies, will also be somewhat irked when his bereft daughter announces the end of her hopes of an early marriage and charming children because her intended turned out to be a cheating shit. Shall I continue, Seb?"
"You … you bastard. You can't prove a thing. She won't believe you without proof."
"You have gone out of your way to demonstrate, to the entire student body, that my deductions about their extra-curricular activities are accurate. I do have proof, not that I need it. Let's just call it insurance shall we. You ensure I am left alone to continue my studies in peace, and I will leave you alone to exercise your libido wherever you may choose. You will desist from accosting me in the formal hall, or anywhere else within Cambridge. In fact you will simply leave … me … alone."
"OK Freak. If that's how you want to play it, then fine. I was trying to make your life here a little easier, maybe get the sad little virgin laid, but as you're so ungrateful I'll just leave you to stew all on your own. Go back to your lonely wanking. I'm done."
Sherlock turned back to his book as Sebastian's footsteps retreated into the distance. He took a moment to wonder whether the man really believed what he had said. Whether he was delusional enough to believe that, by drawing attention to Sherlock's skills in such a crass way, and raising his profile amongst the other students, he was somehow doing Sherlock a favour, at least in his own weird view of the world. Sherlock shrugged. Could someone who was so obsessed with his own gratification, sexual and otherwise, be so shallow to truly believe that everyone else was interested in the same things? Was that possible? A review of the evidence seemed to indicate that yes, Sebastian Wilkes was one of those entitled narcissists who believed that everyone of any consequence had the same attitude to life as himself, and anyone who didn't was only worth using then throwing away. Sherlock contemplated this for a moment before filing the information away. One day, perhaps, he would need to turn his attention to the study of psychology.
Curiously, Sebastian Wilkes now shared a shelf in his Mind Palace with the shortly to be executed Albert Hudson.
Una Stubbs was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. Her great grandfather Sir Ebenezer Howard, a Victorian stenographer from a relatively modest background, founded the garden city movement and personally oversaw the construction of Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City (revealed in Who Do You Think You Are?).