'Yes!' Sherlock exclaimed, looking at his phone.
'What is it?'
'My is at the dentist again.'
'Does he let you call him that?'
'He calls me Sherl.'
'What'd he say?'
'He's willing to pay for the wall, I just have to sign some stuff.'
'You're going to go do that?'
He flexed his fingers. The callouses and perpetual indentations in his fingertips that were the mark of a habitual violinist were nearly gone. He missed the touch of metal, wood and horse hair, the translation of feeling to expression. 'I have a Stradivarius to collect.'
He unconsciously turned his coat collar up as he swept out the door.
'Sherlock-' John began, but he was already gone, 'Oh, okay. That's fine. Leave me here. Sure. Absolutely fine.'
As he walked down the empty escalator in the tube station (It was one of those odd times of day when the tube seems almost deserted) Sherlock wondered who exactly he was supposed to meet, if Mycroft was at the dentist. He knew his brother had ways of getting around the city faster than any civilian, but judging from the length and punctuation of his texts, he was somewhere early in the dentist appointment.
He changed trains, heading towards central London, and Mycroft's rather extravagant, and oddly medieval lodgings.
He ascended to street level, and as he traversed the distance between the tube and his brother's home, a light flurry of snow began to fall. The world seemed crisp and crystalline. Comprehensible. He revelled in the chill air, resisting the urge to run the last couple of blocks. He was tired of the damp not-quite-winter that had hung over the city like a miasma for the past several weeks, seeping in one water drop at a time.
Sherlock gazed up at the lead-paned, mullioned windows, palace-like in the snow, and the triptych of heraldry set in stained glass. Their medieval cousin Richard's white stag, with gold antlers and a crown about its neck, the Holmes family crest, three fleur-de-lys over a field of blue with with a gold band and a field of red with a white tower, and the Scottish unicorn which for some reason -unicorns aren't real, Sherlock- Mycroft insisted in depicting without a horn .
Sherlock unlocked the door, an imposing structure of oak and iron rivets. He wondered, not for the first time, how badly people had injured themselves opening, closing, or accidentally running into this door. And it was too heavy to slam shut when you got annoyed with the world, so what fun was there in that?
Even Sherlock needed both hands to open it, as he slipped quietly inside. He was secretly freaked out by the paintings and suits of armour that lined the dark hall and felt a sudden stab of guilt for going along with John's plan a few days ago. But it was John's plan. He was scared, how could he refuse?
'Hello?' He called, his voice both echoing and muffled by the stone and wood. 'I need my violin, brother mine.'
To his surprise, as he turned the corner to face the long table of the dining room, he saw Lestrade.
'Hello, Geoffrey.'
Lestrade made a face at him that he didn't understand, 'How are you, Sherlock?'
'I miss my violin.'
'Mycroft is keeping the Strad under lock and key.'
' 'Course he is. Can I have it?'
'He told me to give you these.' Lestrade gestured to a stack of documents. Sherlock looked over them, cursorily. Mycroft had already sorted out and budgeted all the repairs to 221b.
'And this.' He passed him a manila envelope. Undoubtedly information pertaining to an unsolved case.
'How is my brother?'
'Being told to floss, I imagine.'
Sherlock exhaled through his nose. A small noise. Smaller than a laugh. 'So, you're his... Goldfish now, I suppose?'
Lestrade looked confused, trying to figure out if this was yet another variation on his name.
'Anyhow,' Sherlock was reaching inside the helmet of a nearby suit of armour, finding, as he expected to, a small steel key, 'you take care of him, George.'
A few minutes later Sherlock was walking through the snow, swinging a shabby violin case, the edges of legal-looking documents visible between the clasps around the edge.
