Sherlock X Reader One Shots || 𝐹𝐿𝑈𝐹𝐹 + 𝑆𝑀𝑈𝑇

A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words (Part 2)

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).