Chapter Text
There’s something rotten on the wind today, Sherlock decides. The day started off normal enough, cozily tucked, safe and sound in their shared apartment above the busy New York streets. But as the minutes stretch ever on, something in the air shifted. Slid just left of center. Just this side of unnerving. Nothing outwardly noticeable, of course. Not to anyone else at least. Nothing he could quantify rationally or scientifically. A sense of seemingly sourceless foreboding claws its way through his stomach to settle heavily in his chest, entirely unwelcome and apparently here to stay.
He and Liam had gotten in late last night after wrapping up a case involving one and a half pairs of stilts and a set of triplets. It took them away for a few days, and by the time it all was officially wrapped up they barely made the last train home, stumbling on just as it began to pull away from the station. The whole affair had been honestly more taxing to their patience than to anything else, but they still collapsed, exhausted, into bed no sooner than they got through the door. That left their humble little abode currently bereft of anything substantial he could feed Liam this morning. His lips curl sourly into an irritated grimace. They didn’t even have the grounds he needed to make the morning coffee. Unacceptable. The threat of Liam waking to any empty plate was enough to spur him out of his own cocoon of comfort and out to the bakery.
He turns his mind toward unraveling the sense of dread dogging him. Nothing had been off with their cases. The one they just finished was odd enough, certainly, but nothing beyond the pale for them overmuch. It had been several months since their first case with the garment factory, and nothing quite so heinous or distasteful had come their way since. All was well with their little Irish crew last he heard. Liam makes a point of visiting them weekly when they can for drinks and questionably irresponsible, definitely illegal bar games. Sherlock doesn’t mind the rowdy group but it’s clear as day to him that Liam keeps in touch with them regularly for more than just personal enjoyment. He huffs an amused half-chuckle. Liam never lets a good resource go once he’s got his talons dug in.
All their jobs since had been straightforward. Simple. Robberies, embezzlement, a stray murder or two, some twit that attempted to bribe a reporter to not release compromising photographs of him and a mule… All standard stuff he wouldn’t have looked twice at before. However, he owed Pinkerton a debt he’d never be able to repay. and so he completes these meaningless cases to the best of his ability. Perhaps his brain is misinterpreting apprehension for ennui? He shakes his head almost immediately in denial. Sure these cases were rote, but working with Liam gives everything a certain charm it didn’t have before. The blonde is able to take the most grueling slog of a case and make it enjoyable somehow. Sometimes through petty crime just for the hell of it. He’d have half a mind to lecture Liam about his slightly criminal tendencies, but the exceptionally bushy and utterly unremovable mustache on the statue of that racist ass of a client they had was so damn funny. They still couldn’t get it off and somehow everything they tried only made the faux facial hair look worse. Sherlock finds himself completely enamored with this wild playfulness Liam keeps hidden beneath the shiny veneer of a proper gentleman he projects into the world at large.
No. He’s felt the iciness of his persistent listlessness many times before. His mind dissociating from his body, leaving him numbly adrift and desperate to fill the void with anything he could be it drugs or scientific pursuits. This wasn’t it. Finding no clear reason internally for his worries, he turns his attention outward. Midnight blue eyes quickly scan the street they walk down, the reverberation of worn rubber soles echoing dully against cobblestone as he takes it all in, categorizing and collating observations at light speed. A thousand tiny details no one but he would ever see, sorted and consigned in his mind to ‘interesting’ and ‘not interesting’ in less than the span of a neuron firing.
Well, almost no one. Liam would see everything he has and more, knowing him.
His pace slows only minutely, but it’s enough for his companion to notice almost instantly. Billy’s whistling cuts off, the shorter man turning an inquisitive gaze towards him. He quirks an eyebrow in silent inquiry. Billy’s no Liam, but he’s no slouch when it comes to being observant either, a fact he’s proven time and time again. As much a boon as it is a bane really, especially when the man turns that introspection his way.
Sherlock ignores him in favor of scrutinizing the city. They aren’t far from the home he and Liam share, a couple of blocks at most. That means he knows this area, and these people, very well. The brown paper bag in his arms crinkles a protest when he clutches it a little tighter, a hint of creaminess from the buttery baked goods contained within wafting by. Cheese danishes. Liam’s favorite. He deserves a treat, after all. He was the one who had to deal with the ferret. Sherlock cringes at the thought. He really hopes he didn’t actually smuggle it home like he’d joked.
The sweetness of his confections offsets the dusty moisture of the streets. It rained last night. Not enough to wash the filth from the worn stone streets, but enough to leave it wet this morning, and his neighbors scrambling to rehang laundry or drain any containers abandoned overnight to the elements. Children were stomping around in scattered puddles before the summer sun rose enough to take away their fun, much to the chagrin of any watching mothers. He feels the tackiness of rising humidity in the chafing of his shirt collar against his skin already. Yet another muggy New York day.
Everything around him slows to a crawl as he analyzes all the minute signals his neighbors unwittingly broadcast like beacons in the sky. He idly wonders if it’s like this for Liam. Does everything come to a screeching standstill when he turns that unfathomable ocean of razor-sharp intellect on his task? For himself, it’s like time stops. Life in perfectly suspended animation, allowing him to move freely about the frozen scene in his mind as a voyeuristic specter intent on picking it all apart. Bit by juicy, sordid bit.
Behind him there’s the Petersons from the bakery he’d just left about a block back, working in tandem to drag out their newly returned chalkboard from where they’d likely tucked it inside at the first threat of rain last night. Liam hadn’t let him keep it after the Apleton affair, no matter how intense his doe-eyed begging was, and had even fixed the squeaky wheel on it as an apology before dropping it back off surreptitiously in front of their door one night. They’re dusted with flour from the morning prep work, but there’s a stark line at their wrists where the dust ends abruptly. Freshly washed hands, so as to not gum up their recently recovered menu board. There’s more flour on the apron of Mr. Peterson than Mrs., and a streak of dried egg white down one side to boot. Mr. Peterson does tend to be the less steady of the two thanks to the tremor in his hands, which is why it’s Mrs. Peterson who starts writing the specials while her husband casually chats away at her, a soft smile on his lips. She has a delicate scrawl free of the common misspellings those without much schooling make. Perhaps she has some level of education higher than expected for a woman of her status, but he'd never had a chance to ask. Mr. Peterson is prattling on, something about the price of pork and how much he’d like a coffee if Sherlock’s lip reading skills haven’t stagnated. He frowns as he remembers how Mr. Peterson’s trembling hands spilled the salt container behind the counter as Mrs. Peterson wrapped up his purchase. Maybe he could find the time to compound him something to help steady the old boy’s shaking.
Just off to his left is Granny. Not his granny of course, but it’s what she insists they call her. She’s a gnarled and bent old woman who’s seen far more than her fair share of hard work, and is the de facto grandma for everyone in this neighborhood, themselves included. Her husband passed away many years ago, as she likes to tell it, and her son is long grown. He went west to pursue a fortune, and she hears from him by letter every few months, though she wishes it were more frequent. She has a pronounced limp from rheumatism that she tries to cover up with sheer force of will most days, but recently has taken to using the cane Liam made her more often than not. She took a real liking to Liam after he started advising her on how to save her ailing garden, and they’ve been fast friends ever since. It’s not uncommon for Granny to stop him to prattle on about this or that while she shoves some basket of something edible into his hands for ‘your Liam.’ What a novel way to describe Liam, that. His. Something about it makes his heart swell enough to buoy it above his anxiety today, even if it isn’t true.
She’s settled at a small table situated just in front of her building, cane across her lap, with another neighbor, a young woman he’s never spoken to but who has clearly sought out Granny for sage advice with her tumultuous relationship. Her long blonde hair is tousled from running sweaty hands through it in agitation, blowing slightly in this ominous wind. She hastily brushes it away once again from red-rimmed eyes, pausing in her tirade on ‘honorless men’ only momentarily to acknowledge him with a tip of her head. Granny sees him seconds after she does and offers him a wide, toothless smile before resuming her self-appointed matronly duties with minimal interruption.
Billy watches in silence while he moodily looks for clues that don’t exist, hoping to somehow explain this pervasive feeling of wrongness that crept upon him. Finding nothing he sighs heavily, hoping the utter normalcy of their surroundings will help unravel the tight knot in his stomach.
It doesn’t.
Billy stops walking long enough for Sherlock to pull up evenly with him before matching his slower pace. When it’s clear the detective doesn’t intend to offer up any insight into his odd behavior, Billy allows curiosity to get the better of him. The man is patient, but even he has his limits and his restraint is often at war with his inquisitiveness. It’s one of the many reasons he’s a good investigator, and one of Sherlock’s closest companions.
“What’s gotcha so jumpy there, Ponytail?” he asks, with all the grace of an inebriated cow in an antiques store. Sherlock rolls his eyes at him. While Billy is often observant and introspective, he’s rarely subtle when it comes to harassing him. Sherlock lets the quiet stretch for a little while longer, contemplating his reply while Billy watches expectantly. He sighs heavily. In the end his answer is less than satisfying for either of them.
“I dunno Billy,” Sherlock starts uncharacteristically slowly, a hand coming to roughly scratch at the back of his head. “I’ve jus’ gotta weird feelin’ is all.” Normally he’d be reluctant to share something as subjective as a feeling, but he knows Billy won’t judge him for this. Billy himself is often prone to frivolities like feelings, hunches, and intuitions that prove more often than not to be spot on. Sherlock suspects this has far more to do with the man being more perceptive than he outwardly portrays rather than any sort of preternatural senses, but the point stands. If he says something feels off, Billy will be the first to believe him no questions asked.
Billy hums noncommittally in response, quickly doing his own sweep of the street, searching for anything he could have possibly missed in his distraction. Finding nothing out of place either, he turns his face skyward, watching fat white clouds pass lazily by. Another few minutes pass before he deigns to offer an equally unsatisfying reply.
“I don’t know, Ponytail. I can’t say as I know what yer feelin’, but seeing you this out a sorts is making me nervous.” His confession settles heavily alongside the feeling of dread. They make it another few steps before they hear the sharp crack of glass followed quickly by a shocked yelp. Their heads whip in tandem toward the noise. Beyond the shop window to their left is the tailor, Mr. Sharp, positively aghast, staring at the new fracture in his full-length mirror. He nervously stutters while his hands flounder uselessly, flitting about the object as if his frantic kinetic energy would prevent further disaster.
“That’s uh… something.” Billy forces a laugh, but it sounds hollow. They stare at the distraught tailor for a few seconds longer before leaving him to his troubles. Making it down the rest of the block without further delay Billy, just ahead of him again now, turns sharply into the narrow passageway that leads home before stopping dead in his tracks, whole body going suddenly rigid. Sitting a few feet from the mouth of the alley, looking as unimpressed as all felines typically do, is a large and lean black cat. It fixes them with iridescent green eyes, seemingly glowing in the bright morning sun.
The men share a carefully blank look, both equally unimpressed with the heavy-handed foreshadowing the world was seemingly subjecting them to today. ‘Superstitious now, are we Sherly? And here I thought you couldn’t stoop any lower.’ His own personal demon doesn’t even have to be here to torment him, he hears Mycroft’s mocking tone in his head all the same. He blinks slowly at the cat, which blinks slowly at him in return. He decides he needs to get home as soon as possible. The paw-based portent of doom decides it needs to lay down.
Billy clears his throat, nervously rubbing his hands together with a weak “Let’s just get back to Mr. William, yeah?” before he begins to creep far more dramatically than necessary around the cat. Refusing to allow this tiny beast to intimidate him, Sherlock marches confidently past the little monster. He’s rewarded with a lazy swipe at his ankle –which does not make him flinch at all thank you very much– but passes without further incident. He sees the corner of their building come into view as his strides lengthen purposefully in anticipation of finally making it home. He's embarrassed to feel some of that tension bleed away, if only a little. If there really is anything wrong then Liam will undoubtedly already know and be halfway to fixing the problem.
That budding hope he feels drops leaden into his stomach the moment their building comes into full view. If the sense of wrongness that’s plagued him all day has been an uncomfortable caress, the feeling that hits him when they step up to the facade is a punch to the gut. That tickle in his hindbrain is going haywire as he slowly strides up to the door, his eye at last catching on what he’d been looking for all morning. Evidence of the wrongness that irks him.
There’s a pair of large, ostentatious tropical pants flanking the entryway to their stairs. They were brought back as a souvenir by the owner of the building after a long-dreamed of trip to South America. Mimosa pudica. A perennial flowering plant that belongs to the legume family Fabaceae. It’s frankly a ridiculous and vain plant to keep in this often mercurial climate, but during the humid summer months does quite well in its oversized pots soaking in the sunshine. He pauses just long enough to confirm his suspicions before throwing open the door to ascend the stairs, heart pounding wildly in his chest. Mimosa pudica is also known colloquially as the “Shy Plant” due to a unique ability the leaves possess to close upon themselves protectively for several minutes after encountering a physical stimulus. It’s a parlor trick the owner likes to show off to anyone who will watch.
Not only had several leaves on the left plant closed up, but the entire pot has been shifted 1.9cm to the left. Whatever moved the plant exposed a crescent of dry concrete previously protected from the rain by the very pot it now borders. The incongruity screams at him as loud as any alarm. He races up the steps two at a time, eyes lingering only briefly on one of the pictures lining the wall that’s been knocked slightly askew. He curses under his breath. Billy is hot on his heels, picking up on his panic if not the clues themselves. He reaches the landing and grabs the door handle, not bothering to reach for the key in his pocket. He could see the scratches from the sloppy lockpicking job a kilometer away. It opens without resistance, as expected.
“Mr. William?” Billy calls out from behind him, distress seeping into the slight warble in his voice. It’s pointless. The second they step over the threshold Sherlock can tell Liam isn’t here. The apartment has that pronounced stillness that only comes with inoccupancy. There’s a different quality a space has when there’s people in it. A feeling of fullness, of life. An innate sense of the proximity of another person even when you can’t immediately see them.
Sherlock motions with his arm for Billy to wait at the threshold. Billy grimaces, but complies, unconsciously bringing his hand to rest on the grip for his gun. The detective takes a moment to compose himself before cautiously stepping into their home turned crime scene. He can’t allow his fear for Liam to overshadow his ability to think rationally. He needs to be at his best, better than his best. A deep breath in as he maneuvers around their tiny couch to check Liam’s room for any signs of life. A measured breath out as the door swings in on creaky hinges, the noise as grating as nails on a chalkboard. Empty. As expected. The bed is made perfectly, as always. Liam’s brown wool overcoat and bowler hat hang on the brass hook against the wall, where they always do when Liam’s home, with his outdoor shoes tucked neatly beneath them. Atop the small stand adjacent to the bed sits Liam’s black leather eyepatch. Something in Sherlock’s heart clenches painfully to see it there, the final metaphorical nail in the proverbial coffin. Liam never leaves the house without it. Never takes it off actually, unless it's just them at home tucked safely away from prying eyes and curious glances.
Sherlock steps briefly into the room to pocket the item, leaving the door open behind him when he moves to make a cursory search of the bathroom and remaining bedroom, finding those exactly as anticipated.
“Ponytail?” Billy calls from his position in the hall. He’s feigning composure, but Sherlock has known him long enough to hear he’s beginning to panic as well. The detective exits his bedroom, opening his mouth to beckon Billy to enter the now hastily swept apartment when the words die in his throat, utterly strangled by the icy grip of terror that chokes him. He absently feels his breathing pick up and become more shallow as he stares wordlessly at the kitchen counter.
Next to their carelessly discarded bread knife is a single bright red drop of blood slowly congealing on the polished wooden surface.