Four small things...

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/236113.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: Sherlock (TV)
Character: Sherlock Holmes, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Homeless Network
Collections: BBC "Sherlock" for Canon Addicts
Stats: Published: 2011-08-07 Words: 1855

Four small things...

by spycandy

Summary

Four small things Sherlock did for the Homeless Network and one time they returned the
favours

2009

1. For once the strains of violin music drifted in through the open windows of his dingy bedsit, rather
than out. The busker was not too bad, thought Sherlock, as he peered at another sample of silk fibres
through his magnifying lens, they had a light touch and some enjoyable dramatic flourish.

For the previous hour, the player's repertoire had mostly consisted of run-of-the-mill popular classics,
which drew plenty of spare change from passers-by if the jangling of coins was anything to go by.
But that had abruptly shifted into what appeared to be a lively improvised flight of fancy.

However, there was something very peculiar indeed about the current playing style and musical
phrasing. Sherlock laid the samples and his equipment on the table for a moment and listened with
his eyes closed.

Oh! Of course!

He reached for a pale blue plastic bag, tucked under the table, behind the stack of Sunday
newspapers and pulled out a small packet. He spared it a single glance to check the label, then flung
it out of the window.

The music stopped. “What the... Where did...”

There was a long pause, in which only inane conversation and passing traffic could be heard.
Eventually there was a quick pizzicato of notes, ending with several clear pure Ds.

Moments later, the busking violinist launched into yet another rendition of Vivaldi's Autumn.
Tedious, thought Sherlock, but the rattle of coins immediately proved it was far more lucrative than
the three-stringed inventive playing had been.

He turned back to the fibres, still half-listening to the music. If the busker deigned to play anything
interesting during the afternoon, he'd cheerfully chuck down some spare rosin as well.

>>>

2. When he returned from the morgue to collect his things from lab staffroom there was a muffin
perched on top of the precarious pile of folders and notebooks he had left there. A post-it note was
pasted beside it, emblazoned with a logo advertising an obesity conference in 2007, reading simply
‘For Sherlock’.

There was no one else in the staffroom to ask about the origins of the offering, but three crumb-
coated discarded paper cases in the bin suggested that others had received similar homemade gifts.

Ever eager-to-please Molly was the obvious suspect for such a cake and run but the golden-brown
muffin was not her style. He had seen her pause over the cakes in the canteen, and without fail she
went for chocolate in the end, the darker the better. Of the other visitors to this room today, Cora was
obviously on a diet again, while medical students Simon and Dizzi lacked baking facilities in their
digs.

That left... Mike Stamford. Interesting. Sherlock broke off a tiny fragment of the muffin top between
his finger and thumb and sniffed it before tasting. Ginger – so it hadn’t been a trendy new unisex
cologne that Mike had been wearing earlier. And the choice of post-it note was very much the man's
idea of hilarity.

Mike was an improbable poisoner and abandoning the muffin would no doubt be seen as rude, so
despite feeling far from hungry, Sherlock left it balanced atop his papers as he carried the whole
precarious stack out of the hospital side doors. Maybe he would nibble it later.

“Mr Holmes!”

Tyrone was waiting outside, swaddled in a hideous orange puffa jacket. His worn jeans were soaked
from the hems to halfway up his calves and he was shivering, but he still bounced up cheerfully with
the news. “Five cars stopped at the warehouse. Four old bangers and one fucking gorgeous Alfa. I
wrote down all the plates for you.”

“Thank you Tyrone,” said Sherlock, shifting the papers onto one hand while he pulled a £20 note
from his pocket. The muffin slid sideways and the homeless young man sprang forward to rescue it
from toppling onto the wet pavement.

“Keep it,” said Sherlock.

>>>

3. “I can't, like, afford to pay you or anything. But I could work it off! I can be anywhere you need
eyes and ears. Just... Please, can you find Albert?”

It actually was an intriguing mystery, the first to present itself in a very dull week. Who would steal a
homeless man's dog? It wasn't as if Albert was a prize, being odd-looking, scrawny and barely house
trained. But the animal was utterly loyal to his odd-looking, scrawny master, who lacked any kind of
home for training in.

“Very well Joe,” said Sherlock. “Lead me to the scene of the crime.”

Ten minutes later they stood in the recessed doorway of a fancy soap shop. “It's a prime spot,” said
Joe. “Well out of the wind and it smells good.”

“So you bedded down here, in your green sleeping bag, with a bottle of disgustingly cheap cider,
several Evening Standards – for reading or for lumbar support? -- and Albert curled up by your feet.”

“Both, I have trouble with my back on hard concrete, but I always read the sports section first. Hold
on, how...”

Sleeping bag, cider bottle and newspapers were all now just as absent as the dog, of course, but each
had left its traces. “And when you woke up, Albert was gone.”

“He'd never leave me. That dog had stuck with me through everything.”

“He didn't run off of his own accord,” said Sherlock. “See here on the pavement. He tried to resist
being dragged away from you.”

“Aw, aint that something?” said Joe. “Such a good dog.”

“Stop being sentimental, it's distracting. Now where...”

The scratch marks gave a very general sense of the dog-knappers initial direction. They'd clearly
crossed the road, but then what? Oh! Above the shops opposite Joe's doorway were several storeys
of flats. Sherlock studied the windows, one by one.

“Third floor, second flat from the end,” he said, striding across the road towards the panel of door
buzzers. His usual daft neighbour act gained him access within a record 40 seconds and he ran up the
stairs, with Joe trailing after in awe.

On the third floor, he hammered at the door of the suspect's flat and was rewarded with the sound of
skittering animal feet and a female voice calling, “Bad dog! Hold on, I'm coming!”

When the door opened, Albert clearly saw his chance and made a bolt for it, straight into his master's
waiting arms.

“What do you... Oh!”

“Yes, I think we have everything we came for,” Sherlock told the shocked woman. “Next time you
feel the need to do some do-gooding, maybe consider some warm food for your neighbour Joe here,
rather than misguidedly “rescuing” his dog to feed it up.”

As Sherlock strode back down the corridor towards the stairs, he could already hear the woman
stammering apologies and an invitation to come inside for lunch. He'd rather thought that might be
the result, given all the charitable stickers in her window.

>>>

4. There was something in the way that the young woman eyed the crisp £50 notes as he pulled them
from his wallet that made Sherlock hesitate just a fraction. Oh, she had earned the money fair and
square, long hours dressed in that skimpy outfit, turning potential customers away while the detective
in the shadows logged the cars that slowed as they passed. She could probably have made a lot more
tonight than she would by taking his cash.

It certainly wasn't his place to tell her how to spend it, to offer patronising advice on clinics and rehab
and getting the hell out of that vicious circle. She was entitled to her own bad decisions, just as he
had been entitled to his.

He wanted no part of smug middle-class voices muttering about how giving 'them' money only fed
habits, supported criminals, made matters worse. Yet still he found himself swallowing a plea to at
least spend some of the money on a coat, on a warm meal, on a safe place to stay.

“Hannah...”

“Thanks Mr H. Easiest night I've had in ages,” she said, holding out a hand for the cash. “You ever
want to lurk and watch me not work again, just let me know.”

He smiled at her as he pressed the money into her hand. Then, on a whim, he shrugged off his short
grey woollen jacket and wrapped it around the shivering girl's shoulders. He'd been planning to buy
a new coat anyway – a long blue one had caught his eye just a few days earlier.

Smug middle class voices at the back of his mind muttered, she'll only sell it as he walked away.

>>>

And 1.

There were times, noted Sherlock, as the smooth blue wooden wall loomed in front of him, when
out-of-date knowledge was more dangerous than no knowledge at all. Thanks to the brand new
construction site security hoardings, what would have been a clever and confusing short cut through
mews and back alleys just a week ago, had become a deadly trap.

He glanced around in an urgent search for escape routes, but the walls were tall and flat and even the
drainpipes were modern, non-weight-bearing plastic. Dratted crime prevention officers.

Five against one was not likely to go well, especially when the five boasted such charming and
carefully thought out nicknames as 'Smasher' and 'Fists'.

Give them their due though, they didn't waste time on gloating. Your average hired thug would have
had a few choice words to say about detectives who ran into dead ends – giving Sherlock time to
identify any weaknesses or goad them into an error. But the Johnston Gang simply clocked their
geographic and numeric advantage and set about a sound beating.

He liked to think he'd got a few useful blows in – at least cost one of the gang a tooth or a rrotten
headache. That was certainly how he would, many hours later, optimistically interpret the deep
bruising to the knuckles of his right hand. But the truth was that barely a few moments into the 'fight'
a blow to the back of the head sent him reeling.

After that, it was mostly just pain, although he couldn't help observing that the cushion-toed sports
brand trainers of one of his assailants were particularly unsuited for delivering a good kicking. He
was concentrating on this discovery when distant shouting – and the barking of a dog – interrupted
the onslaught.

“Oi!”

“Come back here Albert!”

“What the fuck's going on!”

“Gerroutofere! Yeah go on! Run for it! This is our... oh, bloody hell.”

“Fuck, that's Mr H.”

“Is he alright?”

“Nah, don't look it. You got any minutes to call an ambo?”

“Don't need minutes for 999.”

“Okay. I'm calling now.”

The voices were familiar. The dog licking his face was very familiar. And the warm weight of the
wool jacket placed over his shoulders was most familiar of all.

He tried to raise his head and look around him, to confirm who exactly was gathered in the dead end,
but that only made everything spin in a whirl of pain.

“Just you stay still Mr Holmes,” said Tyrone, patting him on the upper arm. “Let us look after you.”

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