Gigue in C Major

"Who's Martha?" asked Sherlock while John was commencing the washing-up. He was balancing his chair on its back two legs, his fingers steepled and his restless legs pulsing with movement as his feet bounced against the kitchen wall, rocking the chair backwards and forwards.

A pause. A sigh. A cringe. All of frustration. John leaned forward, his elbow on the counter, his eyes out the window, his shoulders sagging.

"All right, you got me. How did you find out?"

"I may not care about St. Valentine's Day, John, but neither am I oblivious to it. Many crimes of passion take place before, during, and after the holiday."

Sherlock felt like a violin-bow, balancing on one string, in constant peril of falling and making a screeching noise in an accidental whisper across more than one string without the proper intent. But in control of itself, oh, always in control of itself. And in control of the people who could hear its music.

"So in other words, you found the card." John picked up another dish and set to scrubbing again.

"Elementary, my dear John. To John, from Martha, with love and kisses. And you left the roses to which said card was attached at work. To prevent me from knowing about her."

"Yeah, well, I guess that didn't work." John finished rinsing the sink and began to rinse the grease, grime, and bubbles off his hands. "Where'd you find it, anyway...I thought it was in my-"

Sherlock interrupted with a barking laugh. Violins could pierce peoples' ears with the sharpness of their singing. "-John, do you really believe that your little hoarde of sentimental things would be safe from me in the bathroom cupboard?"

Turning off the water, John observed meekly, "Well, there's nothing in there but cleaning supplies, Sherlock, and God knows you don't care about cleaning. I didn't think you'd notice."

Violins could be low, too, not as deep as a cello but still dark and rich."Didn't think I'd notice that the rim of an infrequently-used cabinet would suddenly be devoid of dust?"

"Um-"

"-Never forget about dust, John," Sherlock said, twirling his fingers in the air to emphasize his point. Fingers limber enough to dance across the fingerboard of a violin like stars sparkling in the sky. "Dust is eloquent."

John didn't say anything to that, instead taking a dishtowel and wiping up the water he'd slopped onto the counter and floor.

"And it's a good thing I'm not a blackmailer," Sherlock continued, with some humor in his voice. Violins could, after all, play Dvorak. "I don't think you realize that the kinds of things you're keeping in there would make a man like Charles Augustus Milverton squeal like a little girl given a pony."

If the Scarlet Pimpernel had been named such because of his ability to blush, John would have been in close competition for the moniker at that moment as he paused, paralyzed in the process of his wiping-up.

"Sherlock, tell me you didn't look at the flash-drive you found down there."

The detective's serpentine smile assured John that this private space had been violated as well. Haydn would have been an appropriate author for a symphony dedicated to the Scarlet Pimpernel.

"Don't worry, John. I found it all rather dull after a few entries. I only skimmed the first thousand words or so."

Illustrating his indifference, and perhaps because he needed to put up a protective barrier of some nature, Sherlock got out his mobile and began to type furiously in lieu of playing a stretch of Paganini's most virtuosic work as John, flabbergasted and humiliated, stood straight and struggled to respond coherently.

"...Christ, Sherlock, you never-"

"-if you hadn't created the content in the first place, I'd never have read it." Sherlock's voice was as taunting as a fermata.

"That was private, Sherlock! My therapist told me to write it. To let out latent sexual energy out and all that rot."

"If your therapist told you to begin a serial shooting spree 'to let out latent sexual energy', would you do that? Guns are phallic." So are violins. Arguably.

John grasped his hair with one hand in aggravation and reached out vaguely to put the dishtowel on the counter, though it missed and landed in the rubbish bin. He stooped to pick it out again with two fingers.

"Sherlock. That sounds like a wonderful idea right about now. How about I start with my nosy git of a flatmate?"

The dishtowel was covered in coffee grounds, and John threw it at Sherlock, who, without looking up from his mobile, caught the damp thing in one hand. Coffee grounds scattered like termite droppings across the linoleum. John'd sweep it up later. Maybe. He was a cello, they did the background work.

"I wonder if the essential oils in coffee grounds would preserve a body?" Sherlock mused, lazily changing the subject by segueing into an intriguing cadenza. "They use caffeine in facial rejuvenation formulas for middle-aged women. Might a corpse disposed of in the skip and covered in coffee grounds appear to have died at a later time than a body that wasn't covered in coffee grounds?"

John sat in the other chair and leaned on the table, putting his head in his hands. His voice was grounding, like the orchestra reminding him that it was time to descend from the spiralling, frantic beauty of fifth, sixth, seventh position. "You're impossible, Sherlock."

"By the way," he purred, suggesting his way back up the scale despite himself, "I wouldn't have looked in your 'secret stash' if you hadn't been acting so secretive lately. Your patterns are so regular, John, any time you deviate from them, it's obvious what's going on."

John sighed. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Sherlock...but I really like the woman."

Sherlock said nothing, taking a rest of a few measures to put down his mobile in respect to John's feelings. He found love tedious, but their last argument had centered around Sherlock being too inattentive in these kinds of conversations, so he listened with forced patience.

"She's...she's just exceptional in so many ways, Sherlock," John continued, propping his chin upon his hands and looking off towards the door of the flat, as if expecting said Martha to waltz in any minute. "I mean, she's kind, considerate, and thoughtful - more than I can say for you, I might add - and she makes an effort, you know. And she is an appropriate age," he added, as if anticipating Sherlock's protestation to that effect, "she's only seven years older than me. Which isn't a lot, you know, at my age."

"Fine," said Sherlock, shrugging. He hated to be reminded that John was six years older than him. It made mortality seem that much closer. And it wasn't as if the melody, clumsily carried as it was by the cellos, was that exciting to the audience. "Continue."

"And...she cooks, you know?" John sighed. "I like that. There's only so much I can do in the kitchen. She...she can bake. Nobody bakes anymore." He paused, a wistful smile forming on his lips. "And I have to say, fresh scones or biscuits once in a while is nice."

"Noted. Go on." This conversation was bordering on tedious. How many times could they repeat the same mantra of notes?

"And, you know, she's really got a keen mind. All in all, she's capable of much more than you imagine, I expect," John said in reluctant conclusion. "Moreover, she's a really nice shag. Surprisingly so."

"As you very enthusiastically described on your memory stick," Sherlock said with a grin. He decided it was time to leap back into the fray, to give some direction to the music of the conversation that was steadily driving itself into the ground with the thumping of alberti bass.

"You said you didn't read that much," John said with an unhappy pout, though he was past the point of being offended.

"A little goes a long way." They were in call and response mode as he alerted the slower instrument to his existence and superiority.

"For you, maybe."

"Dear, dear, John." He couldn't resist a snarky deviation from the notes on the page, his pitch rising higher, higher, higher. "If that's what you think your problem is, go prescribe yourself some virility medication. Though from what I hear in the shower some mornings-"

"-Sherlock." It was a warning that he was going too far, and needed to come down from the higher positions once again lest the audience's ears begin to bleed. Sherlock continued to bounce on the back legs of the chair, thinking how he might convince John to give up his hunt for amour this time.

"Fine," he said, changing dramatically to the lower registers as he began to seduce the rest of the orchestra again, "You're more than capable of making your own decisions, John. Who knows," Sherlock continued, already dancing in the middle strings again, "maybe this older woman with short blonde hair, a passion for doctor - nurse roleplay in the bedroom, favoritism towards -"

(He grabbed John's rumpled jacket from the table and pressed it to his face to smell it, tipping the chair backward even more. It was time for an unexpected note, á la Bartok.)

"-Kasbah Nights...same as Mrs. Hudson uses, John..."

It was familiar territory for him, the violinist, even if it surprised the audience, and he threw the jacket back at John with a shove.

He was quickly back on track, gliding up a scale in a crescendo of perpetual motion. "...who is also an avid user of natural supplements and has what you describe to be exceptional cooking skills - maybe she will be what finally settles you down, John. Go get married, John. Have a family if she's not past menopause, or don't have a family and just have rousing sex the rest of your life. Go review your bingo slang. Go have a boring, safe life. Go get fat. Leave Baker Street. What's stopping you?"

He let the echos of the well-defined tenutos speak for themselves.

John was looking more perplexed than usual, and Sherlock put it down to his unusual vehemence. It was all reverse psychology, like the piece by Mozart that, when turned upside-down, was a duet part, and Sherlock was chuckling inside at the cleverness of the trick.

John'd recant. He'd come to his senses sooner or later. Or else this lady, no more interesting than a harp, would toss him, same as all the other ones. Or maybe she'd get too clingy - as older women (and harps) were wont to do - and John would toss her. And then the cello could get back to practicing with the violin, undisturbed by further distraction of unrelenting, bird-songlike pizzacato.

Or the two of them would stay together forever, but Sherlock didn't take this possibility seriously. Violins were the leaders of orchestras, not harps.

"Leaving Baker Street," said John carefully, "is the last thing I'd do, Sherlock."

It was the perfect supporting phrase for another climbing solo.

"Well, I'm glad to know that!" Sherlock said, clapping his hands together in an expression of contained delight. "So she'll be moving in with us? That means no children then, I expect. Well, I hope you don't mind my practicing violin while you shag, I don't like to listen to that sort of thing, you know."

"No," John said, his tone suspiciously thoughtful, "no children."

He was still supporting, as always, with the sawing of alberti bass that shone through any moment that Sherlock paused for breath.

"I think this might actually work out, John," Sherlock said with false enthusiasm, hating the woman already now that he knew John was serious enough with her that she'd soon be a live-in. "When do I get to meet this exciting woman?"

The look of deep consternation on John's face broke at this moment, and John, in a moment of clarity, began to laugh, bitter and painful and low and hiding his face with his hand.

This was a break from the music on John's part. Cellos didn't usually burst into spontaneous solos. What was going on here?

"Sherlock, you don't get it."

He didn't. He put down his metaphorical violin with a squawk. "Don't get what?"

"Who Martha Is."

Sherlock nodded. He suspiciously began to check if his notes were out of tune. "Of course, this whole conversation began with me asking, 'who is Marth-"

The last syllable went unsaid as he met John's eyes, and, all of a sudden, he paled.

He'd been playing a viola concerto. On his violin!

"Not."

He couldn't bring himself to say it. To admit that he'd been so fooled. It was his fault for not reading the music, which was clearly in contra-alto clef, now that he looked at it.

"NOT."

John nodded the affirmative. He had just realized the perplexing musical problem himself. There aren't many viola concertos in the world, and it took him by surprise, too.

"NOT!"

Sherlock's violin began to cry at the abuse it'd endured.

"Yes!"

"In love?" Sherlock exclaimed, and he lost control of the chair he was rocking in, and he tipped over backwards onto the floor. That's what hadn't been right.

"You alright?" asked John, who seemed as if he'd been expecting Sherlock to fall for a while. He stood over his friend and smiled feebly.

"In LOVE!" Tipping over was irrelevant. Sherlock stared at the ceiling with a thousand things rushing through his head. Most of them notes that he'd memorized by ear.

"I'm afraid it's true."

"She sent you flowers at the surgery!"

It was so very clear in retrospect; that was why he'd had to go to such undue lengths on the higher strings, to make up for the fact that he'd been missing the lower one.

"I guess she didn't want to-"

"-How long, John?" Sherlock was sitting up, standing, leaving the chair unrighted, pacing across the floor with manic energy. He was frantically practicing his Wohlfahrt at speeds previously unheard by human ears in an attempt to reassure himself that he was a violinist, not a violist. "How LONG?" he yelled in a screeching g sharp in John's face when his flatmate didn't reply quickly enough.

"A while, now," replied John quietly. "Ever since she realized that I wasn't gay."

"Why didn't you tell me in a more straightforward fashion?" Sherlock demanded, grabbing John's jacket and throwing it on the floor in frustration, just for the sake of throwing something. He was realizing that Wohlfahrt did write a book for viola, too.

"To be fair, you did have more than enough information to figure it out," John said huffily, rescuing his jacket from under Sherlock's stomping foot, "I thought this whole time you knew."

"How could I know!" Sherlock exclaimed, though in truth his mind was reverberating like a violin string with the opposite feeling. How could I not know?

"You were the one responsible for getting her husband executed, Sherlock," John said, though Sherlock more than knew that. "I assumed that, given the circumstances-"

"-John, never assume anything! Haven't I taught you that by now?" He was furiously applying rosin, as if that would solve the problem at hand.

"Well, yes, Sherlock, but how was I to know that this would be another case like that of Lestrade?"

Sherlock grabbed John's coat from his friend's hands and threw it on the ground again, viciously. He might need to change his strings after sullying them so. "Because you, Mycroft, and Molly Hooper are the only people on earth that I ever address on a first-name basis!"

John just shook his head, both at the way his jacket was being abused and at the fact that Sherlock was so brilliant yet such an idiot. "Way to treat the people that put up with you, Sherlock. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that people like hearing their first names?"

There was a brisk but polite knock at the door, and Mrs. Hudson's customary, soft yoo-hoo was heard as she let herself in without waiting to be admitted. It was as sweet and seductive as a clarinet. Worse than a harp. "Hello, boys, I thought I heard more noise than usual, so I thought I'd come up and see-"

Sherlock, in the meantime, had slipped to the floor like a wet noodle, or a broken violin string, and he interrupted in a tired voice. "-Your name is Martha?"

"Why, of course dear. Didn't you know?"

She looked at John with a whats-going-on-here sort of look, and the doctor replied quietly, "He finally figured it out."

"How much?" she asked pointedly.

"All," he replied.

"Oh." She smiled. "Good. Well, I hope the brunt of the storm's passed. How'd it get out?"

John was careful to omit the juicy parts of the story. "...The Valentine card you sent with those roses. Stupidly, I brought it home with me."

"Oh. Well, that was rather silly thing to do, dear." She sidled up to John and put her arms around his neck. It was clear that they'd been making music together for some time, and were very comfortable in duets now.

"It was a silly thing to send me flowers." He put his hands on her waist and pecked her on the cheek, exchanging with her the melody for harmony.

"It was a silly thing to get me that autographed book by Connie Price and bring a refill of my herbal soothers before I asked." She leaned her head on his shoulder, where it seemed to rest perfectly. Their notes seemed to intertwine with seamless grace.

"Well, I guess we're just a couple of silly people," said John in a way that Sherlock had never before heard him speak, the glossy sheen of the cello in love.

"I guess so," agreed Martha Hudson in gentle agreement, and the two of them touched noses, staring into each others' eyes as their notes faded into a companionable silence.

Sherlock snapped at that moment like a violin exposed to freezing cold, closing his eyes tight against the sight. "Never guess," he hissed, perhaps more to himself than to his friend and landlady. "If you must, at least hypothesize!"

"Though, I must say," Martha Hudson said, ignoring Sherlock's interjection, warmly breathing into the nape of the cello-player's neck, "half the fun's gone now that Sherlock knows. Sneaking about was so thrilling."

"Who says we can't still sneak about?" John replied, pinching her bum in a very coy fashion, to her single-reed coo of delight.

Sherlock felt like he was going to faint and clatter all over the floor in a million different violin-pieces...a scroll here, a finger-board there, tuning pegs somewhere over here, a bridge somewhere over there, horsehair everywhere...

"I'm going to spew," he said, almost crawling to the loo. It was time to disassemble himself. Hopefully, he thought, someone named Antonio Stradivari would put him back together.

Then again, he realized as he dry-heaved into the porcelain goddess, at least the clarinet wasn't an instrument that would compete with the authority of the violins, like a flute or a harp might.

Indeed, the clarinet was rather complementary. An elementary choice of companion for his favorite celloist.

Maybe they could form a solid trio?

And, maybe, if he couldn't get himself back into the shape of a Stradivarius, maybe he could be rebuilt into something a little more flexible. A five-string violin / viola?

Maybe?

"After the revelation of Lestrade's first name, Sherlock realises that Mrs Hudson's first name might not be Mrs. Show me how he finds out what her first name is?"

Prompt from LJ on Sherlockbbc_fic by Anonymous on Prompting Part XXVI (page 5).

Oh god I had too much fun making this into a near-piece of music.