One of Sherlock's secrets actually did escape his grasp this time. He had them all clutched to his chest, stacked on top of each other like boxes a little too large to carry all at once. They were too large to carry all at once; he dropped one and it fell to the floor with a thud, its contents spilling out over the lino, skittering around like marbles.
Luckily, though, someone helped him hastily retrieve the metaphorical marbles and shove them back in their packaging before anyone else could get a look at them. At it. Sherlock's secret is a little less secret now; the box suddenly seems much harder to hide. So many people know he's trying to hide it; it's grown bulkier with the attention. It's only a matter of time before it is too big to pick up at all. Then he'll just have to leave it out in the open. We'll get to that later.
It was a Wednesday, at two forty-seven in the morning when one of Sherlock's secrets became a little less secret.
The place: Scotland Yard.
The person to uncover it (quite by accident): Greg Lestrade.
And it was all because of a street lamp.
...
"No, I said prickly, that's---what is that?"
"Stubbly."
"Exactly. His was more prickly."
Nicky scrubbed---once again---at the paper testily with the smudged stub of an eraser just about managing to cling to the end of his pencil. He had one hand spread over the sheet, pinning it to the desk so it didn't tear, and released it now, using that same hand to prod at the upper half of the page. It was empty, besides the ghost-like imprint of the sketch he'd just furiously rubbed out. The sketch had been of hair, but the hair hadn't been prickly enough.
Y/N was right, it had been more 'stubbly', if anything, maybe even bristly. Nicky didn't know that. He hadn't gotten a good look at the criminal he was supposed to be drawing, he hadn't gotten a good look at any criminal, ever; he's just a police sketch artist. He's also tired. And rapidly running out of patience with the tall curly-haired man in the long coat who kept barking orders at him. He's trying his best, he really is. Nicky is trying his best, not the curly-haired man. The curly-haired man could try a lot harder---in Nicky's opinion, anyway.
"That was prickly, what do you even mean, prickly?"
Y/N leaned over to get a better view of the half-finished picture that sat squarely in the centre of the table. It was fraying and worn thin from many, many corrected mistakes, little swirls of pencil-shavings and gummy lumps of eraser scattered everywhere. The picture itself wasn't...bad. Nicky is good at what he does, it was Sherlock and Y/N who were struggling; describing someone's face has turned out to be much more difficult than anyone would have expected. Y/N actually recalled saying, thoughtfully, "He had a nose" when asked what he looked like by Lestrade. Not one of her proudest moments, although, to be fair, it was 1:48 am, and she had been crouched in a dark room for the past five hours.
So, yes, Y/N had seen the criminal, he'd even met her eyes for a second---probably wondering whether she's worth silencing. He'd decided that she wasn't, and chose to flee instead. They'd pursued on foot---her and Sherlock---but to no avail. It is now forty-five minutes later and they're still no closer to showing Scotland Yard just who it is they're looking for. Nicky's drawing is just a rough outline of a face with two ears sticking out the sides (and even they were somehow the wrong shape).
"Prickly," Sherlock said, dropping the word down onto the desk and nudging it towards Nicky again like it's a food he's refusing to eat. "Short. Like... like stubble."
Nicky bit back a joke about how he will probably have grown stubble by the time this is over, and instead pulled his chair in closer, his torso sort of wilted over the table, and set his pencil back into motion. He was sick of the scratchy noise the graphite made, sick of the LED lights reflecting stark and bright off the A4, and sick of getting things wrong. The only thing he wasn't sick of was the woman the curly-haired man had brought with him. She was softer-spoken than her taller companion and kept handing him apologetic smiles from across the desk.
Sherlock was sick of that. The way Y/N's pupils had gone all big, the way they followed the sketch artist's pencil around the page. Apart from when they'd dart up to glide over his hands or up his uniform-covered arms, finishing at his hair or lingering over his mouth. Maybe that's why Sherlock was being so clipped; he'd deny jealousy if asked, but of course anyone in the room could tell he'd be lying, even if they weren't all trained police officers. "No, his hairline started much further back, and it dipped here, then went really far forwards here." He dragged the tip of one finger over the gap on the paper representing the man's forehead, ignoring Nicky's nettled frown.
"He had a widow's peak," Y/N translated, the kind edge to her tone making a little bristle of something crackle its way up Sherlock's spinal column. "His forehead was quite large, a really blocky kind of rectangle shape."
"I'll see what I can do." Finally having some clear instructions to work off of, Nicky's shoulders loosened as he dipped his head to scribble a rough hairline onto his currently-faceless drawing. "Eyebrows?"
"Of course he had eyebrows!" Sherlock exclaimed. That sentence was actually supposed to end in 'you idiot', but he'd snipped that part off. He'd called Nicky an 'idiot' earlier and Y/N had given him a look so sharp he'd reached up to check he still had a nose. He'd decided, then, not to make her unhappy ever again in his whole life.
Sherlock's love for Y/N will always win over all else. Even jealousy at her obvious attraction to a strapping young policeman.
Taking in a deep breath then letting it out in a drawn-out sigh, Nicky finished mentally counting to ten and said in as much of a level tone as he could muster: "Yes, I know that. What I meant was, could you describe them to me? Shape, size---"
"This is stupid."
"It's not stupid," Y/N said resolutely. She was tapping one of her nails against the smooth surface of the desk, her fingers sounding like a miniature businesswoman, wearing miniature heels, striding off to a miniature meeting. "How are they supposed to know who to look for if we don't---"
Sherlock ran one large hand through his hair, the curls jumping free and staying that way; frizzed about his head. He's also tired. They're all tired, and he feels guilty because it's his fault.
Skylerman's---that's where he and Y/N had been crouching for five hours, waiting for someone to rob it. Or not. Sherlock didn't know for sure whether Skylerman's would be the next place their thief would hit, and he didn't know he'd hit it that night. He just hoped, and dragged Y/N along because---he didn't know why, really. Because he didn't want to get lonely? Because he wanted to impress her with his exhilarating, zany career?
Anyway, they'd been staking out Skylerman's---a squat little jewellery store growing out of the back of a WHSmiths like a particularly shiny tumour. It still managed to shine then, during the dead of night, although 'reflect' is probably a more accurate description. From every direction, smooth, absurdly-expensive rocks lined up on glass shelves had grabbed the fuzzy orange light of the street lamps and thrown it around the inside of the shop, covering everything in amber freckles.
The street-lamp-through-diamonds freckles had covered Y/N's face, making her look like she had a rather beautiful form of chickenpox. Sherlock had gotten rather lost in it, and, before he knew what had happened, a window was smashed, an alarm went off, and there was the thief, snatching shiny things and cramming them into his pockets. That's how Sherlock had realised he should be paying attention, actually; the orange dots all over Y/N's cheeks he'd been admiring started to move about as the jewels producing them were snatched up by the intruder.
If he hadn't been staring at Y/N's face---if he hadn't been head-over-heels in love---he would have caught that diamond-grabbing crook and they wouldn't be here describing the exact shape of said crook's eyebrow to an over-glorified cartoonist.
Okay, that wasn't fair. Nicky is good, even Sherlock, with his blood green with jealousy, had to admit that the man had talent. But he just wasn't talented enough to draw what he hadn't seen.
"I meant this is stupid, limiting ourselves to one person. Give me some paper, I think I know someone else who might be able to help. Y/N," Sherlock had to force the words from his throat, evict them in a way that he hoped didn't sound as disgusted as he felt, "Stay with Nicky and help him finish this picture."
Looking, quite frankly, glad the idea of being rid of the curly-haired man, Nicky eagerly tore off a sheet from the pad and handed it to Sherlock. He took it, trying not to snatch, and, like ripping off a plaster, tore himself from Y/N's company and started a brisk walk towards a room he guessed would be empty.
...
"Here." Sherlock slammed the sheet of A4 down on Lestrade's desk but, it being paper, didn't give off the authoritative, conclusive vibes Sherlock had been aiming for. Greg didn't even look up until he'd finished tapping a few more buttons on his keyboard. This would have been irritating had Sherlock not liked the noise it made as much as he did. Click. Click. Click.
Lestrade's office is beyond 'messy', so it took him a second or two to locate the newest edition to his desk's pile of files, photos and documents. When he did, his eyes narrowed. He took the paper in one hand and brought it closer to his face to examine it, gaze sliding along the clean lines, taking in the delicate gradient of carefully shaded shadows and textures.
Eventually, he looked up at Sherlock's face, hardened and clenched with general irritation about the whole nature of the evening. Well, morning. "Did you do this?"
Deadpan: "No, I found someone upstairs to do it."
Greg's brow furrowed; one long, confused, hairy caterpillar. "You did." Before Sherlock had time to protest, he'd taken pale his wrist and turned it over, exposing the large spread of Sherlock's palm. "Your hand is covered in graphite."
And so it was, pinkie finger to wrist stained with a dark cloud of grey.
Sherlock snatched it back protectively, as if it was a wounded limb he wished to keep from harm, and jammed it into the depth of his coat pockets. He can't deny it, sure, Lestrade isn't the most intelligent man on Planet Earth (that would probably be Mycroft) but he's not incompetent, either. And he knew Sherlock well enough by now to tell when he's lying.
Indifferently, or what he hoped sounded that way: "Okay, maybe I did. So what?"
"'So what'?" Lestrade's confused-hairy-eyebrow-caterpillar levelled-up to a bemused-hairy-eyebrow-caterpillar, and inched a bit further up his forehead. "This is amazing."
Poker-faced, again: "It's nothing." But he's glowing inside.
"It's not nothing, and you know it. You have a natural talent---"
And the glowing was extinguished abruptly, snuffed out, doused, switched off. Sherlock hadn't put hundreds of hours of practice into perfecting his skill just to have someone say he was 'born lucky'. It was much easier to act pococurante, now, as he said with a tone as plain as flour:
"Who cares?"
"Who cares?" The back of Greg's legs bumped into his wheely-chair, pushing it away from his desk dramatically as he stood up to brandish Sherlock's drawing in his face, "Sherlock, I mean, look at this---"
Sherlock didn't look, his pale eyes hardening as he swatted the paper away like it was a fly that kept bothering him. "No, you need to look at this. May I remind you that this man is a criminal---he's killed three security guards already---and he's currently loose on the streets? The streets that are under your jurisdiction."
"Okay, okay." Sighing, defeated, Greg exposed both palms in a gesture of surrender, throwing a little eye roll into the mix.
It made Sherlock uneasy; watching the older man handle his secret in this laze manner was like watching him hold a priceless porcelain vase with only one hand. Any minute he's bound to accidentally let it slip from his loose grasp, or overestimate its durability and crush it's petal-thin curves with clumsy fingers.
Lestrade was now scanning the drawing into a chunky photocopier that stood like a sentry in one corner of the room, the machine grumbling angrily about being woken up at such an ungodly hour. When it had finished he removed the wad of Wanted posters from the tray, and Sherlock tapped one finger on them. They were warm, warm like the bed he wanted to be in.
"If anyone asks, I didn't draw this."
Clearly surprised: "Why?"
"I have my reasons." That had sounded---quite unintentionally---mysterious. To hone in the effect, Sherlock pushed his hands into his pockets once more, hoping his obvious desire to remain an enigma would put the detective inspector off from asking any more questions. It worked, in a way.
"Who do I say drew it then?"
"I don't care." Sherlock waved a nonchalant hand, catching sight of his watch face as he did so. Three in the morning. Guilt gripped his brain again, clutched it, pressed its long, talon-like claws into tender parts that made him flinch. He'd made Y/N sit with him in a darkened jewellery store, chase a criminal for well over a mile through darkened alleyways, and now he'd made her wait for him in a police station while he sneaks about doing art. At least the police station isn't darkened, it's the opposite, in fact, Nick's office a bleak, harsh white against tired eyes---
Nicky. Y/N had been talking to him for seventeen minutes.
"Make something up."
Greg was staring at the picture again, the original stacked neatly atop the duplicates "Okay, okay, fine, it's just...wow, Sherlock."
He's glowing again.
...
Lestrade pinned Sherlock's drawing to the Wanted board in the main part of the building amongst other 2D renditions of petty thieves, violent muggers, and savvy smugglers. Several officers gravitated over to get a look at it. Not because they wanted to know who they were searching for, but because the newest addition to the slice of cork stood out amongst all the rest like a mute swan among greylag geese. The contrast in quality was...quite frankly, staggering. Several people were gazing at it with an expression bordering on awe, others tilting their head as if confused whether it was a black and white photograph, then joining the awestruck people when they realised it wasn't.
Feeling his cheekbones heating, Sherlock slipped a hand---not the one smeared with graphite---from his pocket and undid his coat buttons. These people had never seen him blush before, and they weren't going to start now. He wouldn't be able to call them 'imbeciles' with the same level of conviction if they'd seen him flushing the same colour as the girl's section in the magazine aisle at CoOp. And then they'd ask him why he's slightly lit up with shy pride, and then he'd have to confess to spending many hours and many parts of his vast intellect capturing natural beauty via pen and paper like some kind of lollygagger---
"Wow, that looks just like him," Y/N's voice interrupted the lecture Sherlock had been mentally scolding himself with.
He'd just gotten to a part that involved calling himself a 'hopeless romantic' that was 'wasting time with silly doodles' but pushed that aside and blinked down at his flatmate, best friend, and secret crush, with an expression bordering on moony. He'd meant to say: 'I've solved the problem, we can go now', or 'So, you had no luck with Nicky's artistic prowess, I take it?'---or something else snarky, but instead all he did was squeak out a curious little: "You think?"
Silly thing to ask, really, not very smooth, secretive, or mysterious of him, but he has some kind of affinity---nay, addiction---for Y/N's compliments. They feel like sucking on a wedge of chocolate, a warm, sticky, melty feeling oozing down into his chest and slowly filling his whole body.
"Yeah, are you joking?" She's still staring at the picture, pushing herself up onto her toes and swaying slightly to see around the growing group of uniformed onlookers. "You saw the guy, it's basically an exact match. Who did it?"
And, just like that, the melty-chocolate-feeling was gone, like he'd choked on it. Trying to steer Y/N's interest away from its current fixation, Sherlock took an overdramatised step towards the exit, hoping she'd follow suit.
She didn't.
"I was just about to come and get you, we can go home now." Another step, this time he dared to reach out and take her coat-covered arm. Little tingling sensations radiated from the spot and he blushed for a whole different reason; he's not even touching her skin and his curious body still gets all on edge.
Hopeless romantic.
"Who drew it?" Y/N asked again, a little firmer this time. She must have noticed that Sherlock is never too keen to point her in the direction of another's talents.
"I found someone upstairs to do it." He gave her arm a tentative little tug, feeling suddenly like an annoying child trying to get his mother to stop chatting with the other mums at Sainsbury's and take him home. It just added to his embarrassment. Sleep would be nice. Sleep, then, in the morning, he'd go and catch that stupid jewel thief who got away because he'd been too distracted by Y/N's stupid beautiful face. "Can we go now?"
"Wait, I want to get a closer look." She wriggled her arm free and slipped her hand down to take Sherlock's hand instead, her fingers slotting comfortably into the space between his, like the interlocking pegs of a zipper.
Sherlock's cheekbones had blossomed scarlet, his stomach sort of curling in on itself as Y/N started pulling him insistantly forwards until they were face to face with the board. His entire left arm was tingling like an electric current was buzzing through it. Heart attack? He wondered vaguely. "Why?" Fell limply off his tongue, a prime example of a delayed reaction as he joined Y/N in examining his drawing.
She was looking at it with an entirely different expression to Sherlock's. His brow was furrowed, the space between his eyes crinkled in a critical squint, but Y/N's face was all gappy, features spread out; all raised eyebrows and wide eyes and gaping mouth.
"What do you mean, 'why'?" She sputtered, brandishing her free hand at the picture.
What is it with people gesturing at things when they don't feel you're appreciating them as much as you should? It's like they're directing your eyes to what you're supposed to be appreciating, just in case you were---somehow---accidentally looking at something else. What did they think was going to happen? That the person would concede: 'Ah, yes, that actually is magnificent. Sorry, I thought you were talking about that stain on the wall.'
"It's amazing. Someone made that, Sherlock. Made it with their hands. Even you have to admit that's cool."
He didn't think it was cool. A little Mycroft-sounding voice in his head had barked a sarcastic, haughty laugh at Y/N's praise. When Sherlock looked at the thief's poster, a perfect duplicate of the expression he'd given him in Skylerman's frozen forever on his face, he saw thousands of hours of his life he would never get back. A habit he couldn't quite shake.
Y/N didn't. She saw... what did she see?
"It's not that good. Anyone could do it if they practised enough."
Y/N gave his hand a frustrated little shake. Sherlock let the movement oscillate through him, his whole body---God knows why---utterly pliant to Y/N's touch.
"Maybe so, but this person actually did it. They worked really hard to get that good, and now look at what they can do." She'd settled now from stark, bare astonishment to quietly reverential, gazing at the picture with a subdued sort of humbleness. "Don't you think that's amazing?"
No, but he liked knowing that she did. Y/N's words were like seeds falling into his ears and settling in his chest, blooming into lush, vibrant flowers, filling his torso with colour. If he's not careful they'll keep growing, up and out of his mouth, and he'll say something dumb like 'I'm the one that worked really hard to get that good. That was me'. He tried to settle them, to keep them contained as he put on the best indifferent tone he could muster (which, with his baritone, is pretty indifferent): "I guess."
Some part of him; some small, selfish, hopeful little part had presumed Y/N would carry on trying to persuade him otherwise. He'd thought that maybe, just maybe, she'd keep pouring out compliments in an attempt to win him over, change his mind, while he revelled in her praise.
But she didn't. Instead, she turned to look at him sadly, and said in a voice thick with disappointment: "Why can't you just see the beauty in things?"