[If you want to know who someone is, you look at where they live. People leave marks on their surroundings. Sherlock recalls having read once that one of the marks of sentience is the exertion of will upon one's surroundings, the shaping of what exists to one's own form. Nonsense. A mark of life, perhaps, yes, but sentience certainly isn't required. It is, however, an inviolable trait of humanity more than any other creature. And so it isn't, really, in the end that he disagrees with Bruce. It's just that he prefers to approach the problem this way.
The house is dark, utterly silent, empty. Sherlock enters unhurriedly, eyes roaming the walls, the floor, the furniture, everything that might give some clue as to who lived (lives?) here and why they're absent. Idly he drags his first two fingers along the top of a table, leaving a trail in the fine layer of dust that's collected on top, and sniffs thoughtfully at the residue on his fingers before moving on to the kitchen. Kitchens are lived-in, used, eloquent, and this one still has dirty dishes in the sink and half-eaten meals on the table, dried and crusted to the plates in some places and beginning to mold in others.]
Family of three, mother and two children. Left in a hurry, whoever they are, roughly...
[He bends to get a closer look at one of the plates, sniffing delicately.]
no subject
[If you want to know who someone is, you look at where they live. People leave marks on their surroundings. Sherlock recalls having read once that one of the marks of sentience is the exertion of will upon one's surroundings, the shaping of what exists to one's own form. Nonsense. A mark of life, perhaps, yes, but sentience certainly isn't required. It is, however, an inviolable trait of humanity more than any other creature. And so it isn't, really, in the end that he disagrees with Bruce. It's just that he prefers to approach the problem this way.
The house is dark, utterly silent, empty. Sherlock enters unhurriedly, eyes roaming the walls, the floor, the furniture, everything that might give some clue as to who lived (lives?) here and why they're absent. Idly he drags his first two fingers along the top of a table, leaving a trail in the fine layer of dust that's collected on top, and sniffs thoughtfully at the residue on his fingers before moving on to the kitchen. Kitchens are lived-in, used, eloquent, and this one still has dirty dishes in the sink and half-eaten meals on the table, dried and crusted to the plates in some places and beginning to mold in others.]
Family of three, mother and two children. Left in a hurry, whoever they are, roughly...
[He bends to get a closer look at one of the plates, sniffing delicately.]
A week ago. Bit more.