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He was alone. He was alone and standing in front of the spiral staircase like it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and Sherlock couldn’t tear his eyes away.
He’d noticed the man near immediately. A cursory glance around every room he entered had long since become habit, but Sherlock couldn’t recall a single moment before this one right here, right now, that he’d been so singularly transfixed by a single person.
Maybe it was the way the man stood— tall, sure, confident in his elegantly pressed suit. Blonde hair swept back from his face in a way that left you breathless when those ruby eyes of his met yours. Maybe it was the way his mouth parted just slightly as his gaze trailed up the polished marble, his lips curling into an ever-so-faint smile.
But most likely it was the way Sherlock could see just how different this man was: different from the mousy man pickpocketing across the room, from the easily-impressed girls clinging to to his side. There was a wonder in this man’s gaze that betrayed his intelligence. He was admiring not the architecture or the material of the staircase, but the lovely perfection of the golden ratio in its build.
He was the most interesting person in the room. And that was so obvious Sherlock could tell it from a single glance.
A noble, a second son, a maths professor. Melancholic and intelligent. Achingly beautiful but in so many ways it was dizzying.
The man smiled at him when Sherlock said all of this aloud, and he couldn’t help but be faintly relieved that the girls had finally noticed him too, that they had taken enough interest to add him to their wager. His scarlet eyes widening in surprise before crinkling in an amused smile. The surprise was a reaction Sherlock was used to, but the curiosity— the delight— in his expression sent Sherlock’s heart racing.
And then he spoke.
“Let me try this…”
A violinist, a make-shift chemist. An Oxford graduate, Sherlock’s favoritism of his mother. The drug habit.
They weren’t just guesses, weren’t just simple hypotheses but deductions of the same calibre Sherlock himself made near constantly. And the man knew it, knew he was right. There was a teasing glint reflecting in his eyes, the quiet “Are you surprised? Did you underestimate me?” going unspoken, unsaid.
He was dangerous, Sherlock realized in that instant, saw this man for who he was— the sly curl to his mouth and the depth to his gaze. He was the same as Sherlock and Sherlock’s blood was singing in his veins, brain already whirring with the conversations he wanted to have with this man, the questions he wanted to test him with. He was dangerous because Sherlock was interested now, captivated by this ruby-eyed nobleman.
The girls at his sides were growing bored, either unable to keep up with or possibly or perhaps just unimpressed by the current flow of conversation and began to tug at his sleeves, pointing out other passengers to add to their bet. The man held his gaze for a moment too long, amused and beautiful with a single arched brow as his gaze flickered unimpressed between the two girls that Sherlock had just lost any and all interest in.
Did he want to keep talking too?
But in the end it was he who broke the thread, turning away from the man and his pretty eyes. Chance had a funny way of bringing interesting people back to Sherlock Holmes’s doorstep, after all, and this ship was only so big. There was a bet on the line, too. Which could likely pay this months rent if Sherlock paid his cards right. And so with a half-hearted wave and a last winning grin, a final last look at the curious expression of the strange man at the foot of the staircase, he left.
“See you, mathematician.”