A/N: Hello dearies! Thank you again for taking a read at this and to those who've added me to your alerts and have reviewed and such.
And a special thank you to TheGirlWhoImagined! They added me into their Sherlock community-OC Romancing (Oc sherlock stories y'all). I've never been added to a community before so I felt super duper special. 3
FWI, this is hell week for me. I'm getting ready to move into my apartment so please be patient with me. I want to try my best to keep this story going once classes start again but it'll be on the far back burner. Anyways, please enjoy!
A week later, John and Sherlock took cover from a rainstorm in a corner bookstore and café. As per usual, they sat by the window.
They'd been working on another case and were following a trail that had suddenly gone cold. John was hungry and Sherlock needed to collect his thoughts.
John perused a tabletop menu and Sherlock folded his hands in front of his face to think.
A few minutes later, a woman returned with two cups of warm tea. When she'd set down his cup from her left hand, Sherlock noticed the white rough finger pads. She'd also worn a black brace around her wrist. Sherlock chose to tuck that bit of information away for later.
A few days later, after the case was finished and John was working back at the clinic, Sherlock decided to return to that same café for another look.
He remembered a woman with a wrist brace. If he was lucky, this woman would fit the bill of The Cellist. Many times, performers and musicians suffer injuries from over use, especially on the wrists and back for cellists. And string players almost always had a patch of rough, thick—almost white—padding on the fingers of their left hand.
Sherlock sat at the same table and looked at his own fingers. The calluses weren't as thick as they once were but, because of recent playing, they started to grow back.
He checked the clock on his mobile; it was roughly the same time as when the two of them had come in before—just after three. The shop was at a slow point in the day and he was one of few customers there.
An older woman came to him first.
"What can I get for you today?"
"Just coffee, thanks." Sherlock said with a weak smile.
He was looking around the shop. Towards the back of the café, a woman came out with a bus tub—she was clearing away tables and wiping things down. She had on the same wrist brace.
His tea was brought out. Sherlock silently watched her as he sipped at the cup.
Her blonde hair was pulled back and the loose strands hung in front of her face and her eyes—blue, he'd assume—were always down at the tables, as if concentrating or simply lost in thought. Her nimble fingers picked away at the objects on the tables and, as she was wearing a skirt that day, Sherlock could indeed see by her calves that she'd been a waitress for a long time.
A small stain—probably coffee—showed she had been working many morning shifts and had yet to do laundry. She stood up straighter and bended and twisted her back and released a sigh. Another ailment of a cellist: bad back problems.
Sherlock still wasn't entirely sure, though.
As a test, he decided to leave a small note on the napkin.
Your playing is quite good. Maybe something other than Bach next time?
Sherlock finished his cup and slid the napkin under the edge of the mug, slipping out of the cafe in silence.
The next morning, Sherlock was already awake to see if he could hear anything. He sat eagerly in his leather chair, his legs perched beneath him, wrapped in his dressing gown.
A small smile crept on his face when the music started again. It was a slow, somber melody. Definitely not Bach—much more of the romantic style.
Of course there were the odds The Cellist decided on their own to make a change.
He'd return to the café a day later. This time his note read:
"La Muse et le Poète" op 132 Camille Saint Saëns. 8:30. Are you familiar?
Later that night, Sherlock found his own copy of the piece—part of the repertoire he'd once been required to learn. He dusted it off and opened the front page. Then he waited again.
The hands on his watch slowly crept to eight thirty and then he began.
In his mind, the orchestra began the piece. After just the right amount of rests, Sherlock entered.
He hadn't played the piece in a while so he was a little rusty. It still sounded gorgeous, to him. The piece was quite lovely.
Across the street, he could hear The Cellist respond with their low, vibrating entrance and Sherlock smiled widely.
He'd found them! The Cellist.
The tone of The Cellist for this piece was outstanding. Although some people would argue he'd had no heart, it made his heart wretch inside.
His fingers slid back and forth on the black ebony board, his bow bouncing and sliding from string to string, note to note.
Then the two of them came into unison and Sherlock's breath hitched. He hadn't played with another individual for years and it felt so refreshing. Like being introduced to an old friend yet having new life breathed into him. His mind was floating on a wave of euphoria and endorphins and the hum of his body became slow and relaxed.
With the sway of the melody, Sherlock found himself shifting his weight from foot to foot and wondered if The Cellist was sitting in her own chair, rocking back and forth or bobbing her head with each melodic sentence.
When the piece ended, he'd wish it hadn't. He looked down at his fingers on his left hand—lines from his strings dug through the callous and it felt wonderful. He needed to play more often.
"That was—fantastic." John and a woman were standing in the doorway, slightly dumbfounded.
"Oh, you're back." Sherlock frowned. He set down his violin in its case and began to loosen the bow.
"Yes, and this is Lisa." The woman at John's side reached out to shake his hand.
He took hold of it and gave it a quick jiggle. "Lovely, I'm sure." Then he retreated back into the privacy of his own room.
Sherlock didn't understand why he'd felt so…energized and lively! He'd only felt this way when he'd find a case—and a good case: one of those cases that made him actually think. One that didn't waste his time.
But he knew he wanted more of it. He had grown accustomed to listening to The Cellist from his living room window and, now that he experienced playing with them, he craved more of it. It felt essential and his fingers were already craving feeling the strings biting into the flesh under his fingertips.
There were so very few of any of his desires that he gave into. This one gnawed away at the innards of his stomach and it growled and tossed and turned, just as Sherlock did in his sleep that night.
The next few days he'd been distracted from another case; however, he didn't fail to notice the cello playing. This time, The Cellist chose to play in the early evening, close to around dinner time.
Sherlock tried his hardest to stay focused on this case. If he didn't get this one soon, Mycroft would be on his case. His fingers still itched to pick up his violin, but his stomach had settled from the night before and his boredom defiantly receded.
The next day, both he and John waited in the corner café. Sherlock was in the middle of his thoughts and John in the middle of his lunch.
The blonde waitress with the wrist brace—The Cellist—came up to them.
She stopped in front of Sherlock, her arms crossed in front of her chest.
"It's you." Her soft voice, barely a whisper, broke Sherlock from his trance. The corner of Sherlock's lips raised into a smirk.
"You're The Cellist, then?" Sherlock heard John ask her as the phone in his pocket vibrated.
My office. Now. –MH
Damn you, Mycroft. Sherlock's smirk faded away and shrunk into a frown. "Come on, John." Sherlock stood up and walked past the woman.
He could hear the confusion in John's voice. "What? Now? But I thought—."
"My dearest brother is calling."
"Oh, um, sorry." John's chair scraped on the floor. "Um, welcome to the neighborhood."
Sherlock's smirked returned.
After meeting with Mycroft, Sherlock needed to use the lab at St. Barts to analyze the chemical compound of fertilizer he'd found on the victim's boot. Molly was there, of course, and asked him out for coffee again.
Of course, Sherlock knew what was going on but really, it bored him. Coffee and small talk bored him.
That's why he'd rather choose to stick his eye down a microscope and watch organisms and observe structural compositions in small petri dishes.
What he found really had excited him, more than the idea of going out for coffee, anyways. The fertilizer contained a chemical that released toxins when it was wet. Whenever the gardener—the victim—would water the plants, they'd slowly be infected with a deadly toxin. It was slow, deliberate, and systematic.
And quite eloquent, he admitted.
Sherlock left St. Barts, Molly giving him another awkward wave goodbye, hailed a taxi, and got to 221B in no time.
Eager to tell John the newest development, he ran up the stairs to their flat. But then he smelt something different. It was fresh and clean, like fresh laundry mixed with femininity, like a soft flowery smell.
Sherlock slowed his pace and walked up the second small set of stairs and into their flat.
Sitting in the mixed chaos of the room was John and the woman from the café, in his chair.
"Oh, Sherlock!" John stood up upon seeing him enter, as did the woman—The Cellist. "She just popped over. Thought it'd be best to actually introduce herself since… well…you know."
"Yes, John, thank you." Sherlock began to peel off his scarf and his eyes shifted back over to The Cellist.
"I'm Anna. It's nice to finally meet you, Sherlock Holmes."
Also, I'm not trying to say Molly sucks. I actually really love Molly. She's adorable and I ship Sherlolly all the way!