Archive of Our Own ^beta

He could not bear to go directly back to Baker Street.

Which was unforgivably foolish, he knew. After all, John had not lived there for months now, even before Sherlock’s return. A place could not feel any emptier than it already had. Could it? But nevertheless. This day had signalled the end. The end of what he wasn’t even sure. So why was he still there? No one noticed him, no one even wanted to dance with him. Not that he cared. When he set the music on the stand for John [and Mary, he supposed] and left, donning his coat over the wedding suit, the battle armour, he had really intended to go home. Where else would he go?

But once in the cab, he changed his mind.

That decision was in part, at least, because he was afraid of what he would do when he was alone in the Baker Street flat. With no hope that John would pop in unexpectedly ever again. Or rarely anyway. He knew where the stash was hidden, although he had never intended to extricate it from the hiding place. He kept it just so he could prove to himself that he didn’t need it.

But tonight was different.

So, instead of going into 221Baker Street, he went to a cash point and took out as many pounds as he could. Then he waved down another cab and offered him a ridiculous fare to take him all the way out to the family home. There was no explanation for why he suddenly wanted to talk to Mummy, but it was what it was . He only hoped that Mycroft never found out, although that seemed extremely unlikely.

During the trip, he replayed the entire day in his mind. Not in a desire to reminisce about it all, but more in the manner of rubbing salt in a wound. There was something almost like pleasure in the pain; suddenly, and out of context, he remembered one night years ago, when he’d been an unhappy student at Eton.

There was some stupid game going on in the residence hall common room and somehow he found himself dragged into participating. Maybe he’d thought the annoying attempts at bullying him would stop if he pretended to be more like the others.

Tell the truth or take the dare.

When his turn came around, he could tell from the smirks that the only reason they had chivvied him into joining the game was so that they could ask him some embarrassing question. Probably something to do with sex, since that seemed to be all they thought about.

He chose the dare.

Someone produced a candle, which the leader of the group set in a teacup before igniting it with a silver cigarette lighter. “Hold your hand over the flame for a count to ten.” The boy, whose name Sherlock thought was Norton, grinned at him. “Dare you.”

“Who does the count?” Sherlock asked.

Norton pretended to consider the question, before pointing at a boy whose name Sherlock had never bothered to learn. “Freddie will do it.”

Judging by the blank look on his face, it was not a guarantee that Freddie even knew how to count to ten, but Sherlock only shrugged. Attempting to convey only boredom in his own expression, Sherlock held his hand, palm down, over the small flame.

It hurt.

But he kept his lips pressed firmly together, unwilling to give the idiots any satisfaction at all by showing pain.

The counting was going slowly, as expected.

The last time anything had hurt this much was when he jumped off the roof of the garden shed when he was seven. Broke his leg and spent the rest of the summer confined to bed. Mummy brought him little treats for his tea and Papa kept him supplied with pirate stories. Mycroft poked his fat head in at least once a day to smirk at him.

How long could it take for even an idiot to count to ten?

Well, pain was an interesting topic for consideration. But possibly not when his flesh was starting to singe.

“TEN!” Freddie finally shouted.

Sherlock knew that they expected him to yank his hand instantly away from the flame, but instead he pulled it back slowly. It was ridiculous to imagine that he had gained some sort of victory over the others by doing that, but he allowed himself a moment of satisfaction anyway. Then he stood and gave them a tight smile. “If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I have some chemistry to swot up on.”

Which was a lie, because he had already finished the textbook for the course.

Once back in his room, Sherlock rummaged through his collection of the various medical supplies he had accumulated over time. Finally, he uncovered the jar of aloe gel. As he slowly massaged it into his palm, he thought about pain. Broken bones and burnt flesh.

Even then, as a schoolboy, Sherlock Holmes knew that those things were far from the worst kind of pain one could suffer.

*

The taxi finally pulled to a stop in front of the Holmes residence.

Sherlock handed over a thick wad of notes, glad of the payment Mycroft had wrested not from the government, but from the palace for ‘services to the Crown’ during his time away. It was very useful to have a brother who happened to be a favourite of the monarch.

He had a key, of course, but chose to knock instead. It was a surprise when his father, rather than Mummy, opened the door. “Sherlock!” he said in a delighted voice. “How lovely to see you. Come in, come in.” He lead the way into the parlour, then looked curiously at Sherlock as he took his coat off. “You either have come from a quite formal affair or are one your way to one.”

Sherlock had quite forgotten that he was still in his ‘battle dress’. He dropped onto the over-stuffed sofa and stretched his legs out. “The Watson wedding,” he said.

“Oh, of course. It went off well, then? I know that you planned it.”

“Damn Mycroft,” he muttered. It was odd that Mummy had not yet appeared. He glanced toward the doorway.

“You mother is attending a reunion of her university chums,” his father explained. “She will be returning tomorrow.”

Well, that was annoying. Sherlock still did not know why he’d come all the way out here just to talk to her, but it was inconvenient that she was not present.

“It seems that tea is called for,” Daddy said. “Come along.”

With a sigh, Sherlock stood again and followed him into the kitchen. He sat at the table while Daddy made the tea, fetched the milk and sugar, and cut two slices of cake. Not a wedding cake. Just an ordinary chocolate cake with obnoxiously pink icing.

Soon they were sat together at the table. Sherlock drank some tea and poked at the icing.

“You have come here directly from the wedding, have you?” Daddy spoke as if the matter were quite normal.

Sherlock licked icing from the tines of the fork. “Everyone was dancing” he said, knowing he sounded petulant, but not caring. His father was no stranger to the moods of his most wayward son.

“But you love dancing.” Daddy added more sugar to his tea; his sweet tooth was legendary and clearly genetic.

Lost in his own thoughts, Sherlock spoke absently. “There was no one for me to dance with.” He instantly regretted the words. “I was tired of it all, so I left early.”

“Not really the done thing, my boy, leaving a wedding early. Dr Watson will wonder about you.”

Sherlock only shrugged. “He didn’t notice I was going. No one did.”

“Well, it will be a change for you now, I suppose.”

Sherlock took another bite of the cake. “Everything was already changed. Nothing was the same after I came back.”

“We know it was difficult for you.”

Sherlock knew the little smile he gave was bitter. “As my dear brother has told me, much of it was my own fault.”

“Your mother gave him a severe tongue lashing over that.”

Now his smile, while no larger, was less bitter.

His father seemed to know that there was nothing to be said that could matter at the moment, so they sat in silence, drinking tea and eating cake.

Finally Sherlock stood. “I better get back to London,” he said. “In case Lestrade has a case for me.” He did not mention that the last time he’d seen Lestrade the man had been dancing and none too sober.

“Why not stay the night? Your mother would be so happy to see you.”

He shook his head. “Thank her for the cake.”

“Well, at least let me drive you to the station. The last train will be leaving in half an hour.”

Sherlock agreed to that.

As they approached the station, his father said, “You know, Sherlock, Dr Watson seems a loyal sort of fellow. He will not abandon you just because he now has a wife.”

Sherlock could have explained to his father about the unexplored secrets of Mary Morstan [he was not yet ready to consider her a Watson, despite all evidence to the contrary] and about an unexpected pregnancy, but he didn’t bother. Instead, when they parked in front of the small railroad station, he just thanked him for the ride, sent greetings to Mummy and ran for the train.

During the journey back to London, his mind jumped around, recalling the time he jumped off the shed and broke his leg and then the time he jumped off Barts and ended up with a broken heart. Or when he took a dare and seared his flesh over a candle and the time he dared to take one more chance in the effort to get home and ended up hanging from the ceiling of a Serbian prison.

Pain. But awful as all that was, it paled at what he had felt standing next to John Watson as he pledged his life to someone else.

*

Oddly, over the next few days, the flat in Baker Street seemed to be both a refuge and a prison.

At some point, he took the ebony box from underneath the floorboard in what had once been John’s room and was now empty. The box sat on the desk in the parlour, taunting him. Daring him.

He drank tea provided by Mrs Hudson, but refused to allow her to sit, because the look of pity on her face was annoying. Finally, one day he actually left the flat, going out to buy a stack of newspapers and several packets of ginger nuts.

“Tea, Hudders,” he shouted on his return, running up the seventeen steps to his flat. “Lots of tea.”

She muttered something about rude tenants, but brought up a pot of tea anyway.

Sherlock was sitting on the floor, surrounded by newspapers. “I will find a case,” he announced. “A case that will make Dr John Watson sorry he is not a part of it.”

Mrs Hudson just shook her head, noticed the ebony box and frowned, then took her leave.

*

By the next morning, Sherlock had found his case.

John might be off on his stupid sex holiday, but wait until he heard about the case that Sherlock was working on. It had several features of interest, including blackmail, jewel theft, and—hopefully—a locked room murder.

Of course, if John asked nicely, he might be inclined to let him in on the case. Maybe.

If John would only ask.

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