always right || for onteamdyson
I'll give you the gift of light
if you'll concede I'm...'>
Sherlock gets the call after the first one is found. The body in the photographs that they e-mail to him is almost unrecognisable as human. Only the shape of the viscera and the mostly-intact extremities give any clue.
He decides to take the case after the second body is found, brutalised in much the same fashion as the first. What strikes him most is the total destruction of the victim's face, how it's been beaten in so thoroughly as to be a concave mess of blood, flesh, and shattered bone and teeth. Just beneath what's left of the chin, the small intestine is wound tightly several times about the neck.
John doesn't want to come. This isn't unusual. He's not as fond of travel as an ex-soldier ought to be. Not for business, anyhow. Transatlantic flights make him cringe. They offend his doctorly sensitivities. All of those people trapped together, breathing the same air. He forces Sherlock into an influenza vaccination and smiles as he administers it. He's lucky. A week or two alone to spend time with his latest girl. Sherlock wrinkles his nose when he isn't looking.
It isn't quite fair, he thinks. Not with something so interesting afoot. To be without John at his side isn't like being without a limb. He's perfectly self-sufficient. But it's like walking around without shoes on -- they're not strictly necessary, but they're comfortable, they're insulating, they're safe and warm and all sorts of other important things.
He misses him with particular fervency on the flight, trapped for hours next to an incurable idiot who prattles on about the most nonsensical things for hours. Even when Sherlock closes his eyes and feigns weariness it goes on and on and on. He's trying to be polite, mostly to prove to John that he doesn't need him after all, that he can get on fine on his own, thanks. But he caves, eventually. He always caves. Only an hour before they land he turns to the man and tells him loudly about how he's cheating on his wife with his male tai-chi instructor and how he's miserable at work and slowly working his way towards heart disease with his binge eating, the tai-chi and the very energetic sex that follows notwithstanding.
Sherlock can't say he regrets it after the fact, either. Not given the conspicuous and utterly lovely silence that surrounds him on all sides for the remainder of the flight.
After that it's taxis, new places, people everywhere... jarring accents and habits, sights and smells, sounds. It's always disorienting, and much as Sherlock loves novelty, being without his usual relevant internal database and GPS system is disorienting and unsettling.
His meeting with the local authorities is predictably inane. The only thing that brightens his very long and mostly intolerable day is the news that another body has been found and the crime scene left untouched for his viewing pleasure. When he clambers out of the car they provide him and strides along the sidewalk towards the building in question, there's very nearly a bounce in his step. This is the most novel set of serial murders he's seen in a long time. All apparently unrelated victims, all of the same blood type, and all apparently murdered by someone they knew -- or, at least, someone they willingly let into their homes. What possible reason could he have to be unhappy?
if you'll concede I'm...'>
Sherlock gets the call after the first one is found. The body in the photographs that they e-mail to him is almost unrecognisable as human. Only the shape of the viscera and the mostly-intact extremities give any clue.
He decides to take the case after the second body is found, brutalised in much the same fashion as the first. What strikes him most is the total destruction of the victim's face, how it's been beaten in so thoroughly as to be a concave mess of blood, flesh, and shattered bone and teeth. Just beneath what's left of the chin, the small intestine is wound tightly several times about the neck.
John doesn't want to come. This isn't unusual. He's not as fond of travel as an ex-soldier ought to be. Not for business, anyhow. Transatlantic flights make him cringe. They offend his doctorly sensitivities. All of those people trapped together, breathing the same air. He forces Sherlock into an influenza vaccination and smiles as he administers it. He's lucky. A week or two alone to spend time with his latest girl. Sherlock wrinkles his nose when he isn't looking.
It isn't quite fair, he thinks. Not with something so interesting afoot. To be without John at his side isn't like being without a limb. He's perfectly self-sufficient. But it's like walking around without shoes on -- they're not strictly necessary, but they're comfortable, they're insulating, they're safe and warm and all sorts of other important things.
He misses him with particular fervency on the flight, trapped for hours next to an incurable idiot who prattles on about the most nonsensical things for hours. Even when Sherlock closes his eyes and feigns weariness it goes on and on and on. He's trying to be polite, mostly to prove to John that he doesn't need him after all, that he can get on fine on his own, thanks. But he caves, eventually. He always caves. Only an hour before they land he turns to the man and tells him loudly about how he's cheating on his wife with his male tai-chi instructor and how he's miserable at work and slowly working his way towards heart disease with his binge eating, the tai-chi and the very energetic sex that follows notwithstanding.
Sherlock can't say he regrets it after the fact, either. Not given the conspicuous and utterly lovely silence that surrounds him on all sides for the remainder of the flight.
After that it's taxis, new places, people everywhere... jarring accents and habits, sights and smells, sounds. It's always disorienting, and much as Sherlock loves novelty, being without his usual relevant internal database and GPS system is disorienting and unsettling.
His meeting with the local authorities is predictably inane. The only thing that brightens his very long and mostly intolerable day is the news that another body has been found and the crime scene left untouched for his viewing pleasure. When he clambers out of the car they provide him and strides along the sidewalk towards the building in question, there's very nearly a bounce in his step. This is the most novel set of serial murders he's seen in a long time. All apparently unrelated victims, all of the same blood type, and all apparently murdered by someone they knew -- or, at least, someone they willingly let into their homes. What possible reason could he have to be unhappy?