Chapter Text
The gallery was full of people and whispered conversations, but Sherlock was oblivious of them all. His headphones were blasting Wagner as he walked through the place. Normally he would only take seconds observing each painting, cataloging what is worth in his Mind Palace and soon he would be striding for the next one. It has been a while since something really caught his attention, all the new works being boring and predictable. He could read each stroke of the brush and tell what the artist was trying to say – and they were all so annoyingly unimaginative.
He stopped in front of another one. Sherlock was already thinking of all the better things he could be doing instead, his fingers moving along with the music in an invisible violin, when his breathing stuttered. He took a step back. The seconds ticked by as he observed the painting in front of him, his mind trying to absorb it all. Everything he though he knew was brushed aside as he observed the next stroke. How could…? And, for the first time in a very long time, Sherlock Holmes, renowned art critic, didn’t know what to think.
Watson was the name at the bottom corner of the painting.