A/N: Very delayed, I know, sorry. Work happened, and work alone pays the bills. -csf


2.

Sherlock was really, really bored. So he turned to me as a source of inspiration on what he could do to pass the time. He went a bit too far in his interest over his personal blogger, for he decided to reconstruct my childhood. Or part of it; although I don't doubt he'll return as my biography sooner or later, when once again he's got nothing going on.

Whilst keeping his own childhood highlights shrouded in mystery. It really isn't fair. I'm the actual blogger, nearly biographer, here. But no, he had to copy my style.

My best mate lured me for a day outing, saying I needed a restful break. Then he drove me hundreds of miles to a town I once knew. Or thought I knew. In my child eyes, it was home for a couple of years. Now it feels oddly disconnected, like an item of clothing growing up. You still looked at it, a t-shirt depicting your telly heroes, it still appealed to you, but you could no longer wear it, and inevitably one day you'd have to give it up. Meanwhile you hid it in the back of the wardrobe so mum wouldn't throw it away.

That day, I've also realised so far, that day hasn't come yet.

'That was the chemists. Back when mum wasn't doing so well, but she could still manage. That was a police station, yes, I'm sure of it. Guess it's a block of flats now. Sherlock why are you smirking?'

He looks secretly amused, pacing leisurely at my side. I jab his ribs, and he doubles down theatrically before surrendering the information:

'Your accent is changing subtly, John. Just from the proximity with these streets. You are indeed priceless, John. A perfect sponge, easy to influence and manoeuvre, a gullible and suggestible man who once lead soldiers to battle with a steely determination. You are complex, paradoxical even, but— John!'

Yeah, I just tripped my friend and he almost smashed his nose on the pavement. There. Must have been influenced somehow.

No, wait, no. It was all me. I enjoyed it too.

He chuckles deeply.

'You know, John, childish behaviour is hardly a defence for your perfectly trained personality. Don't be ashamed, it's a natural effect of years of strict hierarchic and professional achievement. In the hospital, like once in the battlefield, you are the complete opposite. You demand attention, bark orders, enthuse followers into battle. I know you, John, I've seen you in action in all your might and grace. I would follow you into hades myself. And then there's Baker Street, where you feel safe, where you melt into a house cat, John. By my side, you don't have to choose a posture. You just do whatever comes naturally, and it's a relief, I'd imagine.'

'I'm not even listening.' But I roll my eyes for emphasis.

'You can pretend to others, but I know I capture all your attention— John? John, will you listen to me! I was talking to you!'

'Hmm?' I retort distractedly, crossing the street and gunning for a suburban house. I jump the low fence easily, Sherlock, immediately on my six, does the same.

If he recalls this is someone else's private property, he's not too fussed.

I turn around as I hear the tumble my friend suddenly contends with. Can't really hide a smirk. I know how to goad Sherlock Holmes, and have him follow my every move.

We're just too good at pushing each other's buttons.

Overall, we are a team on the level. A co-partnership, natural and fluid.

I just about manage to steady the genius, when my gaze mechanically follows the uneven ground. I find a metal edge of a box, perhaps, sticking out of the damp turf.

'I can't believe it', I murmur, letting go of Sherlock, barely making sure he's standing up; by now, all my attention is demanded by that metal geometry rising from the soil, protruding proudly half hidden by crumbled leaves.

'John? This is the house you grew up in. Of should I say, one of them. This house.' He takes in the old building, in a sort of transcendent awe.

He got that deduction right, though what he sees in those old walls that might possibly interest him, I cannot phantom.

'Hang in there for me, will you?' I gesture at him some lost attempt at explanation. The past coming up to meet me unexpectedly.

'What did you find?' he turns around, on a sudden scent.

I smirk, amused. 'Time capsule. I buried this - why, must have been—' My brain quickly whirls through the maths and I decide instead upon: 'ages ago.'

Sherlock sniggers behind my back. 'Around four decades, you'd say?' he pretends to help.

Not helping. Feeling too old here, as I kneel on the damp soil, the wetness of it seeping through the fabric of my jeans.

'I forgot about it', I say, but I don't know who I'm talking to.

Maybe to Sherlock, he's always there. Perhaps to myself, or to the child I once was, hopeful and full of dreams, burying this secret in the back garden.

One day I'll dig it up again, I had been so sure. A fulfilled prophecy, thanks to Sherlock's meddling.

'John.' Sherlock lays a concerned hand on my shoulder. 'Sure that's your old lunch box?'

'Yeah', I say in a broken whisper.

'If it turns out to be someone's dead pet, can I keep it?'

Very slowly I turn my face towards the expectant genius. Manners, Sherlock...

'It's not. This is my past. The treasure trove of a seven year old.'

'Neat', he comments. Sherlock seems genuinely interested in my past. As if in his high-functioning world all humanity was boring with the exception of me. Somehow I don't fit the mould. I don't belong in the generalisations he acquired to deal with the quotidian, and that enthrals him. So long as I surprise him once in a while, I keep him steadily hoping for more. The funny thing is, I don't do it on purpose. That's why it's so odd to me. That Sherlock is convinced I'm not ordinary at all.

I'll let him keep this reasoning fallacy.

I'm just John.

Sherlock is not opposed to helping me dig the ground, with our bare hands, extracting the metal box from the compacted soil. It finally gets released of the strong hold, raised from the earth, and it's a far cry from the shiny box I remember laying on a deep hole I had just dug by the old oak. Now speckled with rust and discoloured, it also feels smaller as I hold it up with my adult hands.

'Key?' Sherlock asks, with the seriousness of a professional.

I scoff. 'Lost ages ago! Will you do the honours or shall I?'

He follows my gesture as I'm ready to pick up a lost brick and smash the thing.

'It'd be my honour', he interjects before I assail the container. Taking out his set of thin nail files from a jacket pocket, he puts an honest effort into picking the tiny lock.

I'm amused by just how serious he's acting. It's a silly memento of a child's imaginative play. I can't remember what it holds. Could be a very old, very stale, very mouldy, ham sandwich for all I can remember.

The lock snaps. It doesn't quite unlock as much as it breaks, too oxidized to put up more than a feeble fight to protect my childhood secrets.

I see Sherlock leaning back, holding his weight on his ankles, patiently giving me the next action.

He's really taking this too seriously...

I lift the cranky, rusty lid and peek inside, Sherlock's face just over my shoulder.

There's a yoyo, a Batmobile (but no Batman action figurine, I think Harry had nicked it), a few foreign coins I had amassed somehow, and a few pieces of yellowed paper.

I turn my attention to the Batmobile, as Sherlock fingers the papers.

'There's only Robin in there.'

'That won't do, John. You need your Batman.'

'I doubt Harry still has it, though. I think she threw it onto the roof while I was crying and demanding she hand it back...?' I eye the roof suspiciously through the blurry memories.

'Your sister has the soul of a true villain', he appreciates, somehow both serious and amused.

'All older siblings do, mate. You should know.'

'Indeed... John, I'm intrigued by this family picture.'

He hands me a square piece of sepia toned paper. I have to squint to see the boy with a huge smile and big eyes, under a bowl haircut that honoured the decade I grew up in. A bullish looking girl sulked in a dress she hated, sat tomboy-ish on a fence. Mum and dad held hands by our side, making my heart skip a beat. It's been a long time since I thought of them that age. They look so young, full of a liveliness that age stole from them. There's also the house, newer, fresher, and a family friend leaning with his arms crossed loosely on the fence.

'Crikey, it's been a while... What's with the pocket magnifying glass?' I recognise on the detective's hand.

'I want to conduct studies on the image. I won't damage it, rest assured, it's a purely observational exercise.'

I shrug. 'Sure, knock yourself out. I'm taking this box with us back to London. Hardly a theft, seeing I buried it here in the first place.'

'Naturally, John. I recognise that smile and it's a perfect match to the boy identified in this old picture.'

I chuckle, amused, and steer the genius off site through the unlocked front gate, as his got his nose glued to that magnifying glass. What he intends to find in that old, grainy photograph is beyond me.

.

'You mentioned a rotting corpse, John', Sherlock reboots some time after.

Sadly, it occurs right in the queue for the fish and chips shop, as we line outside in the hope of an ambulant style meal.

The two blokes behind us, glance at us in sudden distrust and find some more space between us than the strictly necessary according to the social distancing recommendations. Neat, I'll keep this trick in mind next time others in the queue are getting too friendly and close.

'Well, I didn't find it at home.'

'Shame', he comments, offhand. I frown. Does he mean we could gave explored my memory already back at the house, or that I lost some childhood opportunity to become more like him?

When did Sherlock explore his first rotting corpse? My friend is very precocious, I would venture he was still in the cradle.

I try to recall what it was like for me.

'There are some woods, Sherlock, over the other side of the train tracks. We used to go there as kids, to do what kids do. Run around, play hide and seek, climb trees, look for bird nests. One day we found a hut, the thing was nearly collapsing on its own. Went inside and voila.'

'Naturally you called the authorities or a responsible adult.'

'My friends did. I vowed to stay behind and guard the finding.' Suddenly I need to scratch the back of my neck. 'I may have poked it with a stick somewhat.'

'Perfectly understandable, John.'

'—I mean, the poor sod deserved more respect—'

'I do it often myself. No better way to assess the extension of rigor mortis in the presence of potentially toxic substances on the body.'

I blink. 'You poked a dead bloke? When? You don't let Scotland Yard catch you doing that!'

'I won't be so careful any longer, now you confessed to your partiality in poking blokes, John. Dead blokes, I think your expression was.'

All of this. Just wrong.

Sherlock proceeds: 'Just last week you insisted I waited for you to don gloves and poke Lestrade's dead body at the scene.'

'By then it wasn't poking, I was checking for a pulse!'

'So you say.'

I look around, furious now. The two blokes behind us have given up on the chippy and are nowhere to be seen.

'This is inappropriate conversation for meal times, Sherlock', I hiss, but he fully ignores me, as he moves up and orders exactly what I wanted, down to the last detail. He even orders some chips for himself, and I know he'll pick some of my meal when I'm not looking. He's like that.

'Alright then', I mutter, shaking my head and releasing some tension. The attention to detail in the order was flattering, even if the available menu was not that long to begin with. Sherlock always knows me. 'Let's park ourselves somewhere and I'll tell you all about it over the food, you're clearly not going to get queasy on me.'

He wolfs back a predatory smile. 'Neither will my army doctor.'

I roll my eyes, what is he like?

Sherlock is going all softie, I tell you.

.

TBC