A/N: "Let's see where this goes" type of plot. Let's say that if I find more where this one came from, I'll get you more. -csf
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'I really don't get it, you know?' I huff, annoyed, as I walk aimless circles over the living room rug.
He impossibly scoffs the more, his smirks impossibly taking over the sofa. He crosses his legs in contrived haughtiness, and comments: 'Am I supposed to be surprised that you don't get something, John?'
I glare the Glare Of Instant Death to the dammed man, knowing all along he's impervious to it.
'No, you don't get to talk just yet. Right now you just listen.'
'You are attempting a level of bossiness you fail to acquire with me', he declares, rolling his eyes. 'If this is about the Tandem Thieving Twins, I assure you they didn't go far.'
'Sherlock, you let them walk free!'
He isn't bothered by the truth I produce, as if he was deflecting it off his thick exterior.
'I knew it won't take long to catch them again.'
'We could have nailed them, but instead you let them escape the warehouse. And why? Because you were bored. You didn't want the game to end just yet. You wanted to chase them all over again.'
The consulting detective smiles like the Cheshire Cat.
'Guilty as charged. They aren't killers. They purloin high end articles. The countess was terribly inconvenienced by the missing Pearl of Saigon. You apologised to her that they got away. We've been over this already, John. I apologised too.'
'Only because I caught onto you, mate.'
'Naturally. I was endeavouring to keep it a secret from you and your nagging morality, John.'
'It's like you don't see anything wrong!' I shout, angrily.
'Sociopath, remember?' he snaps, his eyes acquiring a steely grey glint.
'Convenient label to deflect attention from your insecurities, remember?' I return, just as easily.
'Are you sure?' he asks airily, looking away. I'd swear his eyes are more innocent sky blue now. The man has got changeable eye colour, according to his moods and whims.
'I'm absolutely positive', I assure him sternly.
Sherlock keeps his gaze away, I still catch a glimpse of a hiding smirk. He gets up and paces the centre of the room.
'John, I did it for us, for you.'
'Oh no, you don't! Don't you go blaming it on me now!'
'No blame, just rationally providing us with our needs. Have you failed to notice the current country-wide lockdown has put you 78% more on edge than usual?'
I catch myself sitting on the sofa. Or falling down on it. 'Seventy—? Sherlock, you can't just run a statistic analysis on me to justify—'
'Of course I can, John. It's easy. You do the same, to a lesser degree of accuracy. Everyone does it.'
I get up. '78%?' I press him.
'It's rapidly climbing to 86% now.'
'Do I really come with an analogue dial you can read, or do LED lit percentages float above my head when I'm speaking?'
Sherlock completely misses the concept of elaborate sarcasm, and ponders me with some curiosity, whilst reviewing his own mental processes. He abruptly sits in his leather armchair, in a silent invitation that I join him.
'It's a technique I developed', the detective finally tells me. As he well knew, in my reverence over his mental acuity I'm derailed by my own curiosity. I shuffle to my armchair, sitting down, getting comfortable, a bit more quiet at last.
'A technique', I repeat, egging him on. Sherlock always needs to have the last word, so he rushes to complete the information he's giving me. He's leaning forward on his chair, perching on the edge, about to fall off it seems.
'John, think of it in terms of a sci-fi film, if you will. Augmented reality glasses or screens would be the closest way I could describe it. At any time I can, and usually do, run my constant analysis on other people. I see it in diagram form.'
'Hmm.'
'You don't believe me', he deduces.
Not true. I do believe. However, I know Sherlock, and the genius man works better under pressure.
'No, I... guess I believe, it's just... can't see it myself, you know.'
He leads back on his chair, suddenly all crisp lines and cold demeanour.
'You want proof. You want to see what I see.'
'Would love it if you told me, yes.'
He nods, slowly, and gets up, jittery, to face the living room windows. 'Only for you, John', I still think I can hear him say. He turns. 'You are, of course, my blogger. It's only right you know this about me. I would, however, think it wise not to divulge this information on your media exposés.'
'People might get the wrong idea of you.' Freak. Machine. Spock.
'Oh, not that. I expect that', he dismisses my concerns easily. 'It is a knowledge that can be used against me by my enemies.'
'I don't see how', I confess.
He smiles sadly, but will not elaborate.
Sherlock suddenly draws the curtain over the window, stretching the fabric until he sees a simple canvas in front of him. He grabs a marker pen out of the cluttered desk to his right, and in the same twirl he urges me gently to get up, guiding me by the elbow to stand in front of the drawn curtain.
Magician hands with spread fingers and ethereal touch hover over my left shoulder. 'Core body temperature, heart beat, breaths per minute', he waves away the imaginary figures from his mind's eye. 'Healthy standards, we shan't concern ourselves with those.' His hand raises slightly. 'This is the area you are trying to learn about, John. It infers from the previous set of data, and extrapolated given your history and known reactions. Your rest level is at 43%, John.' He tuts, taking note on the damascus curtain. 'Since the pandemic was declared it never went above 76%. You carry the world's worries in your Hippocratic shoulders. Your mental processes are at 90%. Mind you, these levels compare to a baseline of your individual performance, they are not a direct comparison to mine or a universal standard. And your physical energy level is at 80%, with the caffeine from your morning breakfast tea still kicking in. It will drop considerably after the first 4 hours.'
He's scribbling his lesson the very curtain behind me. I try to step away to look, he locks me in place. He's not done explaining. Or drawing. He quickly delineates around me, as a chalked line around a corpse in a crime scene.
'You said I'm 86% on edge.'
'It varies to the instant, John.'
'How can you get an accurate figure for edginess?'
Sherlock's face falls into the act of aloofness. 'It's calculated using a mathematical formula of the three gaged levels I talked about, obviously.'
I blink and shake my head. 'So, let me get this straight. When you turn your sensors on, you can actually see – what? Numbers? Dials? Little battery charge symbols?'
'Obviously I can change the layout. Usually it's percentages. If I'm keen on observing you they may be represented along a scale where your regular parameters are highlighted. It's really just elementary stuff, John.'
I won't let go of this wonder. I step away from the curtain and admire his illustrated diagram. It's really unprecedented.
'And when did you develop this technique, Sherlock?'
'Sometime in my family home, how should I remember?'
I don't think it's true he does not know exactly, but I give him the privacy for now.
'It's bloody amazing, I'll tell you that!'
He blinks, as if snapped from wherever he was way too fast. No time to stop the hard drive spinning inside his mind, I think.
'You think so?' he asks, just a tiny edge of vulnerability in there to let me know he's 100% human.
'I know so.'
'Thank you, John... Was I right about the levels, in your assertion of yourself?'
'Yeah, quite accurate, really, now I think those through.'
'Do you mean you don't regularly gage your intellectual and biometric parameters?'
'Not in accurate percentages, I don't. More like absolute concepts. I'm tired or that's clever.'
'Oh, how curious of you!'
I don't know if he means me, or mankind.
'Also, that better be a water based marker pen, or Mrs Hudson will not be amused.'
Sherlock shrugs, rolls back the curtain in a wide gesture and pretends: 'Crisis averted. Mrs Hudson won't ever find out.'
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'What else levels do you measure on people? Is it always done in numbers? Do you ever turn it off?'
The detective in the long coat accompanying me for a short brisk walk in the park shrugs himself inside his wall of woven wool, before acquiescing to participate. 'I can turn it off, with varying degrees of success. More like letting it run in the background without fully acknowledging. A good deduction will almost completely disintegrate the functioning of the running analytics for a moment, as will a few other rare examples.'
'Is that the same thing that has you forgetting me at crimes scenes and shooting off.'
'I don't do that anymore... so often.'
I chuckle, he proceeds as if my good humour had given him some reassurance. 'Performance levels are usually in numbers, yes. They are far more exact than emotions. I don't like to measure emotions in numbers. Feelings are fluid, intermingling and too complex for numbers.' He's actually grimacing, as if uncomfortable.
I think we're catching on to something important here.
'What are emotions then?'
'Elaborate abstract concepts I cast aside, John.'
'No, I mean it. What would emotions be in the rare occasions you actually assess them in your analysis?'
Sherlock buries his hands in his pockets and keeps his gaze studiously averted from mine as he responds: 'Sometimes they used to be colours, even patterns. Mycroft was a bit freaked out when he heard that.'
'Your brother... is he like you?'
Sherlock faces me straight on, amused. I particularise: 'Can he run the numeric analysis on folks like you do?'
'Yes, I believe he can. Naturally, if you were to ask him, he'd deny it. Then deport you somewhere you wouldn't be able to return from.'
Takes more than that to spook me. 'Guessed as much. But I really don't care about Mycroft. I was wondering if it runs in the Holmes family.'
He shrugs, not forthcoming. Either an inate gift or a learnt behaviour, it's as unique and extraordinary as Sherlock himself.
We stop by a murky pond and observe it without intention.
'What about the colours thing? Can you still do that?'
'You're curious', he recognises, curious himself. 'John, you want to scientifically study me, because you're a doctor and you've found a human anomaly.'
I feel guilty now. I don't consider people to be anomalies, that would be incredibly wrong. 'No, you're right, none of my business', I backtrack, a lead weight dropped upon my stomach.
Sherlock softens his stance, much to my surprise.
'I didn't say I won't be your guinea pig, John. Consider it the payback for the last time I experimented on you.'
'When was that?'
'Thursday, at 11:17.'
I blink, utterly confused. 'Hey, wait a minute! What happened on Thursday? How come I can't remember?'
'Nothing you need to worry about. Just drop it, John, I meant it when I promised we'd never talk about it again.'
'What?!'
'We'll start experimenting on me today, John. Think of all the possibilities to explore!'
'I really don't get you sometimes, mate.'
'That too might change somewhat', Sherlock assures me.
Something in his troubled eyes tells me he hopes his trust won't be broken. This is how a genius opens up. He's willing to let me hear the symphonies in his mind, that are unique to him, hoping I can translate them into the English language. I would like to believe someone can.
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