Chapter Text
Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It
‘Heard it on the grapevine’ was something Sherlock’s father might have said. His grandfather, product of a less politically correct age, would have spoken about ‘jungle drums,’ and his grandmother, if feeling whimsical, would have said, ‘the noise runs that…’ as she translated directly from her mother tongue.
Strange to hear things on a grapevine in this day and age, then, when there was an entire technology of communication. Electronic, virtual means which might create barriers between people – thank God – but also kept them in contact.
Maybe contact wasn’t the correct word, mused Sherlock, staring narrow-eyed at the screen of John’s laptop. ‘Aware’ was probably a better choice. He reread the e-mail he’d received early that morning – sent even earlier (insomnia? More worried than he seemed?) – containing the parachronistic expression. It had been sent to his old address – another anachronism – and forwarded to the one for the Science of Deduction site via a simple filter.
‘Heard on the grapevine you were a consulting detective.’ Really? But of course, it was logical Sebastian might have heard of Sherlock’s doings. He maintained networks – school, university, professional – made sure he knew the right people, things, trends, the next thing. And now he wanted Sherlock’s help. Help he knew Sherlock would have been more than capable of providing, whatever was going on at the bank, even without the title of ‘consulting detective.’
And if Sebastian wanted to contact him, a simple name search would have brought him to Sherlock’s Web site, concrete details of Sherlock’s consulting detective work and an up-to-date e-mail address. And someone so techno-savvy as well. Tut-tut, Sebastian. Slipping, are we? Not very likely.
Conclusion: Sebastian knew exactly what Sherlock was and how to get in touch with him, but didn’t want Sherlock to know he knew.
Interesting, because reverse the names and the same was true. Sherlock had kept an eye, a private eye, he smirked, on Sebastian over the intervening years. Sebastian was still with Shad Sanderson. Of course. An investment banker. Naturally. Director of the trading floor within five years. Bang on schedule then. Bully for him. White Collar Boy.
Smart, intelligent even, Sebastian wasn’t Sherlock’s intellectual equal, of course. He did know how things worked, though. Always had. Must be a fairly newish family thing: his stockbroker father, who’d worked in the New York exchange and – horror of horrors – married an American had not only ridden out the 1983 end to the Stock Exchange’s fixed commissions but adapted to its 1986 post-Big Bang deregulation, to manage an investment bank. Unlike Sebastian’s fallen-by-the-wayside late-start, long-lunch, early-finish merchant banker grandfather.
Sebastian was good-looking, Sherlock supposed, if one liked that oh-so-Eton floppy-fringed look. Sherlock gave into sentiment at this point and dug out the cache of photos he kept hidden more securely than anything else. Wouldn’t do to have it unearthed during a drugs bust, or for John to come across it while cleaning. He traced with a finger the face of the straighter-haired of the two young twentysomethings in the corner of the booth. A quick glance might show a group of ex-public school university students in a pub. A closer look would reveal a bored Sherlock, trying not to be too openly disdainful of the herd, sitting next to someone dressed similarly to the crowd, but with a wicked gleam in his mid-blue eyes and a sardonic twist to his mouth.
Had life and responsibility dimmed that light and pasted a false smile on that mouth? Oh fuck it. What was the point. Sherlock shoved the photos back, determining, as ever, to burn the box soon. Not quite yet though. He could remember the pub, the evening, the day after he’d met Sebastian, and Sebastian’s dismissal of someone who’d stopped by to talk to someone in their group, meaning someone from their college, as ‘most likely to have a Radiohead poster.’
He’d infuriated Sherlock by being unable to explain why he’d thought that (quite correctly), just saying it was something about the bloke. Sherlock pointed out all the ‘things’, one after another, from the shoes to his choice of drink, right to the way his jacket was incorrectly buttoned. He threw in the bloke’s Division, subject and career ambitions for good measure, in his irritation. Sebastian was impressed, he recalled, although he hadn’t said so, of course – never did – as it had saved him time in slotting the bloke accordingly into the ‘to be ignored’ or ‘to be used’ binary.
When Sherlock correctly predicted the guy would rejoin them with a drink identical to Bill’s after going to the bar, Sebastian clapped his hands together and dropped one onto Sherlock’s leg, stroking and squeezing, confusing. He laughed harder when Sherlock pointed out that it seemed Bill was otherwise engaged; poor Sebastian would have to do without his help in discrete maths, or undo a few shirt buttons to get his attention, like Chessy had. Sebastian had grinned again, saying it looked like he’d have to make do with Sherlock’s help in that case. Sherlock wasn’t studying maths, of course, but it was one of the components of his course this year, and he found it easy enough.
“Why should I?” he’d challenged. “What’s in it for me?”
“Packet of crisps?” Sebastian had offered and amazingly got off his arse to fetch some and lob one over. “Plenty more where that came from.”
Sherlock pushed the souvenirs back along with the photos. He would burn them. He would. Just – not now. Not when John was due back. Sherlock figured the high ground was not even turning down the case, whatever it was – if it was – but ignoring the e-mail. How rude. But he hadn’t reckoned on John’s finances, or lack thereof. Force majeure. Not his decision: “I need to go to the bank.”
On my way. SH, he texted. To Sebastian’s phone. He knew the number. If John found him silent and blank on the ride over to Bishopsgate and as they entered the bank, he said nothing. Sherlock had wondered what it would be like, seeing Sebastian again. It was…amazingly like the first time, entering his den, his lair late one evening, only this time not to complain about the noise and the smell of smoke, both contravening college rules…
A voice called out, “it’s open,” and Sherlock pushed open the door to the small living area to see Sebastian Wilkes and another bloke and a girl he recognised. (Smoke. Drinks. Music. Striving.)
“Coming in?” Sebastian. (Lounging. Expansive. Shirt half-unbuttoned. Fringe flopping into squinting eyes.) Did he even know who Sherlock was? He poured him a drink and held it out, at any rate. For some reason Sherlock entered, closed the door behind him, crossed the room and plonked down next to Tilly – yes, that was the name she went by. He took the drink and sat watching, fascinated, trying to take in all the details of the room, the furnishings and the interaction.
Rupert, that was the bloke’s name. (Minor public school. Look at the shoes.) Tilly (blonde, not naturally that shade though, had slept with Rupert and heavily petted with Sebastian. Had a boyfriend in London as well.) Didn’t need deducing: she screamed her affairs loud in Hall.
They tried to ‘draw him out.’ But he couldn’t work out why he’d been asked in, particularly as his host was trying to wrangle a threesome. This had gone on long enough. Head swimming, eyes rolling, tongue thickened, Sherlock said, “She won’t fuck two men at the same time. Same evening, maybe, but that’s another matter. And he won’t fuck you without the buffer of a woman present. Plus neither of them is anywhere near drunk enough, and this occasion isn’t special enough to warrant it. On May Day, perhaps?”
Pashmina ruffling and wrapping, the ends whipping him, a substitute for a glove in another age, or a hand? name calling, threats, boots and lace-ups stomping out. Door slamming. Sebastian laughing.
“You owe me, buddy,” he said, when he’d hiccupped to a stop.
“How much?” Sherlock wondered, confused.
“Not money, you…” More laughter, unable to continue.
“Why are you so amused?” Sherlock had been wondering for a while.
“Don’t you get the giggles when you do weed?”
(Weed. Dope. Pot. Oh, secondhand smoke.) He’d never tried. No one at school had offered him any. He didn’t move in those circles. Obviously. So, silence then.
“Here.” His host lit up, held it out. Seemed rude not to take it. “Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes. What kind of name is that?”
“I don’t know, Sebastian.” For some reason, that struck them both as funny.
“I’ve seen you around, you know.”
Sherlock didn’t mention they lived on the same Staircase, ate in the same Hall and college café – Sherlock refused to call it a restaurant or use its ‘quirky’ name – drank in the same bar, frequented the same JCR... “Oh, yes?”
“When you’re off to fencing. Tighty whities, whatever they call ’em. Classy sexy. Like Steed.”
“Who?” Sherlock didn’t bother decoding the first part.
“Mate! Haven’t you ever seen The Avengers?”
He rummaged around and produced a VHS of an old-looking TV series. The man on the cover, English gent, waistcoat, brolly – Sherlock felt a little Big Brother and must have looked ill, because with a, “here,” Sebastian forced another drink on him. When Sherlock looked up, the video was playing, and it was camp and too much, and that night had catalogued six new experiences. Not just the drink and the weed and so-bad-it’s-good telly, but the complete cliché of the munchies and crap sugary food, and sloppy kisses, and even sloppier handjobs. He left when Sebastian fell asleep or unconscious. Sherlock put him in the recovery position and spread a throw thing over him.
Another time, another…office.
“How long’s it been? Eight years since I last clapped eyes on you?”
(Hmm, uncertainty over numbers from someone who spent his life with them, made a fortune from them. Again the old-fashioned turn of phrase.) Sherlock filed that away to puzzle out later, and at the same time he pushed down the memory of the occasion, eight years ago. The fucking organic chemistry research prizegiving ceremony at the reunion. It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career. Had it been Sebastian’s unexpected reappearance somewhere he’d no reason to be after their…separation that made him desist, not continue his probationer research studentship into a DPhil? The Magic of a Kind Word. No, credit where credit was due; that’d probably been the drugs.