A/N: Terça-feira. -csf


III.

Sunday, 9.30am

'I really think the blindfold is a step too far, mate.'

'Control variables, John. Fair test. Reproducible results. I must account for the basic values of the scientific method, don't you see?'

I let my head sink back further on the sofa's fleur-de-lis cushion, and allow the unexplored darkness behind my eyelids be my main focus for a stretch. Sherlock's melodies are ever present, a solid and comforting reminder that I am not alone.

Of course, I told Sherlock he could experiment with me. I too want to know how this gift works, to understand it, know its limits, see how I could use it, make it a favourable extra rather than a nuisance and a curse. And who else but my best friend could I trust to be there along the way?

'Alright, I can hear your music. Can you change your mood?'

A short burst of elation floods the high bars of the music score playing in my head; quick, joyous and a touch innocent and youthful. I take that as a yes.

'How did you do that?' I demand to know.

His rich baritone voice displays some pride as he answers me without reservation. 'Merely a happy thought, John.'

'You're right, I can tell. It didn't …last, not like the other changes. When you're brooding—'

'I don't brood.'

'Yeah, you do. And when you do, it lasts longer. Even if you then get a great idea and become excited, there are still some chords from the broodiness a while longer. Human emotions, they are like that. They don't just snap from one to another, they …fade away.'

'Whereas my telepathic answer was a short burst of code,' Sherlock completes my train of thought, but I wouldn't be sure that he still talks to me, he's just deducing away in his trance-like state, and I can tell, because his mind goes into hyperdrive and all of a sudden his music is incredibly complex, but all those new lines – trains of thought? hypotheses? – come together in beautiful harmony. I let my head sag back against the cushion in awe and amazement. If this is anything like being inside Sherlock's brilliant mind, then I may just have found myself my own field of studies that I want to spend the rest of my life learning.

'John?' he finally notices me.

'Wow,' I say, as the high of surfing my friend's amazing brilliancy starts to fade, and another melody picks up. 'That was… incredible.'

I hear the coffee table's feet scratch against the hardwood floor just as Sherlock's clothes rustle from him getting up suddenly and stepping away. I think I spooked him. I eavesdropped on something too personal for Sherlock.

'I'm sorry.' He ignores me.

His music is now dense, hard to follow. New chords have been added that muddle his overall theme and composition. With some shock, I realise he's blocking his broadcast by inserting musical statics – how does he even do that?

'Sherlock, please. It's not really fair. You said I could listen in to your emotions. You said you trusted me.'

'I do trust you, John,' he dismisses my concern at once.

'Then what is it?' I push the blindfold away at last, to find my friend steepling his fingers in front of his chin, shoulders tense, standing up in front of the fireplace.

'A person's mind should be their last refuge, John.'

His words are purposefully bland, monotone. In a way, so is his muddled melody now.

'It still is. Look, I promise that I'm not trying to find out who was your first crush in high school or uncover some odd foot fetish you may have, okay?'

Some amusement hits his eyebrows and the perky keys in his melody.

'Foot fetish?' he repeats.

'I'm not the one with a sock index, okay?'

He looks towards his bedroom, absently. I can tell by the fast pace and the multiple entries that his mind is racing right now. Nothing new there. 'So you say you can still reach erroneous conclusions, John. Even with this newfound musical gift.'

'Of course I can. I am interpreting audio cues for emotions, what d'ya think?'

'Right. Keep that in mind,' he directs, as a man clinging onto some dignity. I find myself frowning and squinting. We live and work together, I get there is something Sherlock is trying to hold back, some secret he doesn't want exposed… then I just shrug it off. Yes, I'm still curious, but I get it. And it's oddly endearing and humanising that Sherlock fears I will uncover some deep secret of his, such as a …love of socks?

'For the record, Sherlock, there is no foot fetish, right?'

'Of course not.'

'Which is fine, it's all fine.'

'Of course it's fine.'

'Anyway, this thing you're doing now should grant you some privacy.'

I can hear his surprise, so I keep my gaze firmly focused on the yellow smiley face above the sofa.

'What thing?'

'I don't know. Your music went all dull, muted, like a bad record playing on a LP player. Statics, or background noise.'

'I'm doing nothing.'

'You're a bit muted, mate.'

He takes a couple of seconds to say 'Oh.'

Whatever he's feeling right now, it blankets all else, and it grants him the veil of privacy he wished. I purposefully don't look at him. Whatever this strong emotion, it is powerful and obliterating, and it diffuses the emotions I could identify so easily before.

He's a certified genius, and he picks up on the clues I give him. I hear him take a deep breath and work himself out of that emotion, returning to his familiar melody lines, mostly positive or bland for my benefit, even if a solo violin still wails sadly in the background, but even that disappears in the sea of emotions after a while.

Right, I need to teach Sherlock to express his emotions more clearly – what else is new? Right now, there is just too much, and I'm left confused as to the overall tones of this scene.

.

Sunday, 11:01am

Tea lifted the mood in the morning light bathed living room. On cue, Sherlock thought happy thoughts for me (a double suicide-murder pact), angry thoughts (the chased criminal with the shotgun on the ceiling beam), sad thoughts (missing 221B in his time away, he says), I surprise pinched him (and he punched me back), excited thoughts (Lestrade phoned, offering to bring cold cases), hungry thoughts (as I drop tea and toast by his side and he pretends he's not really pecking at it when I'm not looking) and spitting bullets thoughts – which is where we are at, right now, as Mycroft Holmes has decided to drop by in an unannounced visit.

I wonder if he's been abusing CCTV cameras again to know Mrs Hudson is baking cake. The sweet scent waffles through the floorboards, in a homely way.

'Sherlock, I understand your helpmate is recovering from the recent ordeal, however this case cannot wait. You don't need doctor Watson for this case and I frankly can't see where you'd use him. You can solve this from the flat and, if necessary, use my men for the legwork,' Mycroft declares to his umbrella, if we were to trust appearances alone. Mycroft Holmes likes to act too posh for the cluttered mess of 221B.

'Why then don't you solve the case yourself?' his brother spits back.

'I'm much too busy, I made a promise to the King. We are still learning to work with each other and one of us can be very childish indeed.'

I cover up a snigger, pretending I just sneezed weird. Mycroft seems utterly unconvinced. His music has been all blustering buffoon style since he crossed the threshold. Reminds me of a tuba. An angry tuba, right now.

'Doctor Watson, are you fairly confident you have not overdosed on painkillers?' he asks me, acerbically.

I'd be upset if I couldn't still hear the mirth in Sherlock's upbeat melody.

Their two melodic lines compete and overall try to overlap each other, much like their competitive edge in real life – sibling rivalry – and don't go well together at all.

'Leave the case, Mycroft,' I plead, 'I'll make sure Sherlock looks at it at some point.'

While Mycroft's tuba protests something dissonant, Sherlock's orchestra adopts Tchaikovsky's triumphant tones as brief inspiration. I knew it, my friend wanted the case all along.

Mycroft makes his excuses and leaves as if he knew 221B was on a demolition countdown, now he has dropped his case.

He brushes past Mrs Hudson, who "you-whos" her way into the flat.

'And how is John today, Sherlock?' she asks, completely ignoring that I'm there, she could just ask me.

'He says he's "fine", just like yesterday's "fine", Mrs Hudson. Yet he's moving better, the bruising on his side is going down, and he has been eating, drinking and excreting within normal parameters for a man of his age and physical tone.'

'That's all very good and nice dear, but how is his—?' she points clearly to her head. 'Is he still hearing things that aren't there?' Sherlock nods and she tuts, 'Oh, dear. My Aunt Margaret was the same. She was convinced the tall coat hanger would talk to her. Sher named it Herbert. Or was it Gilbert?'

I'm about to protest, when I realise it's actually not even half a lie. I am hearing orchestras that are not there. So I try to take this gift in hand, and I focus on Mrs Hudson, with her motherly fussing, and the gorgeous lemon drizzle cake she's uncovering as a gift to her tenants in our kitchen. She is already setting out a tea tray to go along with it. Our not-your-housekeeper-dear has a vivacious melody of her own, that wraps around Sherlock's like a warm hug. It's uncomplicated, which surprises me, for I know Mrs H has deep complex layers to her. Maybe age has just made sense of those layers and moulded them into a coherent melange.

Before long, Mrs H brings the tea tray to the living room and pours us all a cuppa. She hands me mine with special attention to the bad bruising around my temple, a remnant from the bump. 'Oh, John, dear, what have you done to yourself this time?' she laments, as the music shifts too.

'It's nothing, Mrs H. Someone was about to shoot Sherlock, you know.'

'Did you shoot him down?' she asks, motherly.

'Ugh, yeah. Terribly sad, the whole thing,' I reply.

'Next time, make sure you hit the nasty shooter in the stomach. Give him a painful death. You are too hot-headed sometimes, John Watson.'

'Yes, Mrs H.' I mean, what else am I supposed to answer when the humour is barely present in her melody line? She means it. She wishes gruesome death to anyone who dares to harm her boys.

'Is that a new case, Sherlock? Oh, how exciting! Is it a beheading? I know how much you like those…'

'It's twins,' the detective mutters, still speed-reading through the manilla file Mycroft left behind. His music becomes intense, frantic and elated altogether, even if he keeps his façade placid and composed. 'Can't be, it's never twins.'

'And, yet, twins exist,' I quip. Sherlock ignores me, not even his music acknowledges me at this point.

'The Chandler brothers are a couple of overprivileged mercenaries who take online delivery to its fuller potential. They have been setting themselves apart through a killing spree that is totally random in their victim choosing. A variety of torture methods shipped in advance to the victim's house allows for a more convenient attack in the comfort of the broken into home.'

Mrs Hudson looks visibly upset and gets up to collect all the mislaid tea cups around the flat and rinse them.

'Online orders can be traced,' I point out.

'The whole thing is lost in some fiscal paradise in a tropical island and not even Mycroft's people seem able to trace the orders being placed or to establish a pattern among them. It's like every aspect of the method is randomly chosen, annihilating any attempt at prediction.'

'What? Do they flip a coin? Just like that?'

Sherlock's eyes grow wide and his melody explodes into a full orchestra, each thread of music brilliantly balanced with the other, but also individual and rich. With effort, I try to reconcile with the fact that I am listening to Sherlock's multiple strands of theories – even if he tells me it is dangerous to hypothesise before having enough facts. I knew he did it anyway!

'Sherlock…' I want to ask if I can help.

'Are you in pain, John?' he asks me. I shake my head. 'Then shut up. I need to think. You can listen in if you like, just don't interrupt.'

And how am I supposed to interrupt, even if I wanted to? It's hardly fair. Sherlock can read my mind, but I could never read his. It's a one-way broadcast.

I may be the single audience to Sherlock's brilliancy, but once more I cannot make sense. Its meaning still evades my grasp.

.

TBC