Misdialed - Sherlock/John fic - Chapter 14
Title: Misdialed
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Current Word Count: 39,662
Current Chapter Count: 14/?
Beta: satsuki_tears
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I don't even totally own the idea. :P
Warnings: Character Death
Summary:
AU John needs a new phone, one that doesn’t bend time and have an amazing man on the other end who claims to be the world’s greatest detective, except that he can’t figure out how he called Dr. Watson instead of his brother. However, with a criminal mastermind on the loose, John's phone connection may be the only thing that can save him.
-- -- -- --
Chapter 14
John was sure he should feel bad about how much time he spent on the phone, but he didn't. He found himself, more and more often, lounging at home when he got off work and just talking on the phone for hours. Sometimes the conversations were lively and animated. Sherlock would discuss a case he was working on, and John would listen and provide input when needed or when he thought Sherlock had overlooked something. Sometimes they argued because Sherlock called John names or because John didn't approve of what Sherlock said or was doing to those around him. Sometimes Sherlock played the violin. Sometimes he composed. Sometimes they didn't talk at all. The phones would sit on tables or arm rests and be completely silent while John pulled up a book to read or made dinner and Sherlock did who-knows-what.
The quiet calls weren't a problem. They were special because both men seemed to be completely fine leaving their phones connected across time even when they had nothing in particular to say. It was strangely intimate, being able to hear every time Sherlock sneezed, coughed, cleared his throat, growled, or any of the abundant noises that came from his throat while he worked, and the same applied to Sherlock as he listened to John move about.
After his talk with Mycroft, John texted the older brother less but thought about the younger brother more. John let silent phone calls go on longer and would prompt Sherlock to discuss more about his work to delay hanging up the phone.
"Do you love my brother?"
What kind of man asks that kind of question like that? As though it didn't matter what the answer was, as though John didn't matter, wasn't important or worthy? It was rude. It was almost cruel. It kept John from being able to read during the silent calls.
"Sherlock," he said one day just as Sherlock had been about to change a silent call into a violin session.
"Yes, John?" Sherlock asked. He wasn't next to the phone.
John closed his book and set it aside. "It's May. You've started building the case files I'm working with, haven't you?"
"Yes. A double murder and an arson attack," Sherlock confirmed. "I already solved those cases. The files are still with me, though. I knew they were connected by this Moriarty. Alas I still cannot find any information about him. The man is a ghost."
"Victor Trevor," John interrupted. Sherlock cut off his rant and did not start back up. "May 12th. Victor Trevor."
Victor Trevor, the first love of Sherlock Holmes. The man who got away because he was straight. The man who signified the break between the Holmes brothers. John heard Sherlock drag his bow across the strings of his violin, slowly and not to any specific tune.
"Yes. Two weeks ago. Double homicide," he said, voice flat as though he had not had a case in days and was about to start shouting.
"He and his wife were murdered, Sherlock," John clarified. "You knew them both. The same for the other one, Sebastian Wilkes - February 25th. House fire. You went to school with both of them."
"Richard Brooke as well," Sherlock spoke, near the phone now but still quiet. "I found him. He was alive after his family died in a car accident. He died last month. Another house fire."
"Everyone attached to this case who has died since.... since I started working on it has been someone you put away for murder. Everyone who they killed before going to prison was someone you knew.. Am I right? Except Jasmine Sheffield."
"I met her yesterday morning," Sherlock corrected. "She wasn't always a Sheffield. Before her second marriage, she was Jasmine Powers. She was the mother of a boy, Carl, murdered during my time at university. It was my very first serious case. When I met her yesterday, I recognized her instantly. That was when I made the same connection you are making now."
"Moriarty is killing off people around you, people you know." John said it with such clarity and assuredness that he was certain that if it had not been already true, he would have made it so with his words.
"That's what I'm afraid of," Sherlock murmured. He could be heard sighing heavily and running a hand over his face. John could almost see him doing it. "I hope he takes that into consideration," Sherlock murmured next.
"Takes what into consideration?" John asked. "What are you afraid of?"
Sherlock took a moment to think on his own and then he let out a short breath. "I'm hoping he doesn't know who I'm talking to on the phone all the time.... and if he does find out, I hope he understands you aren't technically 'around' me."
"Come now, Sherlock. Don't you think he would have killed me by now if that was his plan?" John asked. "All he's done to me is scare me."
"I don't want him to take our fight too seriously and drag it out. I don't want it to bleed into your time," Sherlock said, almost ignoring John.
"Sherlock-," John tried, but the other man cut him off.
"I don't want you to be collateral damage, John. Can't you understand?" he asked, rushed and anxious. John's mouth snapped shut, and for several moments they were both silent. The only sound over the call was Sherlock's sudden heavy breathing.
John heard the soft sounds of Sherlock rummaging around for something and seemingly unable to find it. He could still hear Sherlock's laborious breaths through all of it, like he was an asthmatic who couldn't find his inhaler. John frowned and closed his eyes.
"Sherlock," he said just as the rummaging ceased. "I'm still here." Put down the cigarettes, he thought. "I'm not going to die on you." Not like Sherlock would. "Sherlock?"
John strained his ear to pick up any sound the phone would give. He heard the click of something metallic being set on something wooden. Sherlock had put down the lighter. When Sherlock's voice spoke up again, John could tell Sherlock hadn't smoked anything. His voice sounded teasing and a little strained.
"You're going to be the death of me, Doctor," he said, a half laugh coming from his throat. He took a slow, deep breath and held it. After a full thirty seconds, he let it out just as slowly. "There. I crushed the cigarette. Didn't even sniff it." And John smiled at the annoyance he heard.
"I'm so proud," John said back, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't teasing... but he was being honest too. "Don't worry. Everything turns out alright in the end."
"You say that as though you read it in a book," Sherlock said with a sneer and sniffed, but he seemed much calmer now.
"I'm in the future. How do you know I didn't?"
"Touche, Doctor. Touche."
John chuckled and felt his heart warm. He would miss this banter.
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
Mmm. He had to admit. This didn't happen every day... especially not in John Watson's flat.
"Right," was the first thing he could think to say. "C-Can I help you?"
He dropped his shopping bag on the nearby table and looked at his peculiar visitor. It was a woman of surprising beauty. She was sitting in his chair, legs crossed and poised like a queen. She had no fear in her posture or eyes. Only her crossed legs showed she had a sense of decency, for beyond her glistening earrings, she wore no clothes. She smiled coyly at John.
"Dr. Watson," she greeted. She held out her hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you at last. Well, when I say 'meet you', I mean in person, of course. I've seen surveillance of you and a few snap shots over the last year. It was sort of my job. Sort of. Do you like my battle dress?"
"I'm sorry. Have I - Have I missed something?" John asked, glancing around the rest of his flat that was visible and checking for other people. As far as he could tell, they were alone. What did she mean 'battle dress'? She wasn't wearing anything.
The woman just grinned broader. "Sherlock sent me with the finest regards. I was meant to come just before your birthday, but I figured why not a month early? I'd stand to shake your hand, but he told me you were a bit... sensitive." She raised her eyebrows suggestively on the last word.
John cleared his throat. "Obviously didn't really bother you much," he said, shuffling forward awkwardly to take her hand. He held it just long enough to shake and then released it.
"Irene," the woman finally said. She leaned over toward John, her arms now covering her chest. "Irene Adler. Surely Sherlock has spoken of me before."
Her tone was smooth and milky, like a voice in a commercial trying to get John to buy chocolates or a sultry temptress to buy porn. He wasn't sure which. He took a seat on the arm of his couch, keeping a wary eye on her.
"Nope. I don't think he has. I'm sure he would have warned me." John looked away from her again, his cheeks probably burning. "You have a disc or something for me?"
"Oh. Straight to the point. He's got you pinned, lover boy," Irene cooed. She stood, probably knowing John would look further away, and moved over to the coffee table. She lifted a long coat off it, which had been folded neatly before, and put it on. John let out a sigh of relief and look her dead on. "He gave me a gift for you, yes. But you'll have to beat me to get it."
"Excuse me?" John asked. He put his hands on his knees and stared her down. Something about her coat seemed wrong. It wasn't made for her. John couldn't imagine her running around town wearing only that. She seemed much classier.
"I don't play fair like Sherlock," Irene explained. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from the coat pocket and lit one up. She then proceeded to not listen to John's protests about smoking in his house. "You play my game, Doctor, or you don't get the prize. It's as simple as that. Yes or no?"
"Sherlock wouldn't like-," John tried, not seriously trusting Irene at all. He didn't even completely trust that to be her name. But before he could finish his sentence, she'd snapped her lighter shut and set a testy glare on him.
"It doesn't matter what Sherlock would like or not. He's dead. It's my rules now, and I like them the way they are. Do you want the damn disc or not?" she asked.
Her sensual attitude was gone, replaced only with distaste. Her words bit down when she said 'dead', and it didn't take a doctor to realize her anger stemmed from Sherlock's passing and not from anything John had done. John cleared his throat and motioned for her to continue. Like an appeased feline, she fell back into her coy grin and sat on the edge of the table, facing John.
"I knew Sherlock for four years before he died. You knew him for one. If you can name something about him that even I don't know, you win. But I warn you now, I know things about him even he doesn't know. Poor baby." The woman was damn near purring.
"Sherlock plays the violin," John began. Irene snorted and rolled her eyes. John glared. "But he never wanted to play for profit."
"Please. He never does anything for profit. He only accepts money because he knows it's necessary to pay Ms. Hudson and buy a few heads of lettuce," Irene countered. "You'll have to do much better than that."
"Sherlock doesn't like lettuce," John shot back.
"True, but he eats it because Ms. Hudson told him he needed more green in his diet," Irene explained easily.
"How did you say you knew Sherlock?" John asked. She made him uncomfortable, made his collar itch and his stomach churn and his chest pound. With anyone else, he would have thought he was attracted to her, but this was different. This was uncomfortable.
"I was one of his cases. I was the illegal," Irene said, wiggling her fingers at the word. "He caught me, and he let me go. We played a bit of cat and mouse and got very.... very close. Now you're stalling."
"Am not," John said and hated how childish he sounded. That's what this was. It was jealousy, like a child who got cheated out of cookies. "Fine. Sherlock's favorite color is purple, but he only owns one purple piece of clothing."
"A button up shirt that makes him look like dessert."
"He's a master of his own personal fighting style-"
"Yes. I saw him take out a Turkish mercenary with it."
"-but he's still rubbish at fighting because he doesn't eat properly and he never exercises."
"Sherlock didn't tell you that. You're assuming based on your profession."
"Sherlock likes men."
"Oooh, clever one. Yes. He claims to be asexual, but he's really just too nervous about physicality. You should have seen his face the first time I showed up in this little outfit." Irene winked, and John's mouth went a little dry. He glanced at the cigarette in her fingers and down to the pocket where the rest of the box sat.
"That's Sherlock's coat," he said, and he didn't care that it wasn't something she didn't know. He suddenly needed to know if it was true. The outfit she meant was her wearing nothing. That coat wasn't included in her wardrobe or she would have claimed it in her speech. It wasn't hers, but... the cigarettes in the pocket. The lighter she used looked just like the one Sherlock had described to him.
Irene's face fell from its foxy grin and she looked down at her only garment. She tapped her cigarette into a small bowl she'd stolen from John's cabinets. He recognized it, but he hadn't left it there. Irene took her eyes from John for the first time since he'd walked into the room, and looked uneasy to boot.
"I stole it," she said. "These are his cigarettes too. Or, they're the same brand. The man loved his nicotine."
"He stopped smoking," John corrected, not doubting the truth of that statement at all. Irene laughed sourly.
"That he did. Because of you, but you knew that already," and she sounded a bit sour at John too. "He gave up his bad habits because you told him to. He'd do anything you asked him to. He did everything for you. Gave you everything."
"No. Sherlock only ever did things for himself," John said, shaking his head. Irene dropped her cigarette, stood, and slapped John across the face in one fluid motion.
"See?" she asked. "You didn't really know him at all."
John held his stinging face as Irene walked over to a small bag behind the door. She took the coat off and hung it on the door and pulled out a set of clothes from the bag. John kept his head turned away, gently rubbing his sore cheek and giving her privacy. They didn't speak the whole time, but John didn't know what to say anyway. This was another heart broken by Sherlock Holmes, the man who didn't know how much he meant to every person he came across.
"Some special boyfriend you were," Irene murmured, pulling on the last bit of clothing, a short black jacket. Her shirt was white and she had black denim trousers. It was like an outfit she'd grabbed at random, not really thinking. "Never came to visit him. Didn't even come to the funeral."
"I didn't know," John began, trying to explain. Irene scoffed.
"Hardly. Mycroft sent the announcements out to everyone Sherlock so much as bumped into. I doubt he would've missed you - the famous John Watson. Then again, maybe you weren't welcome," she said, acid creeping into her tone.
"He isn't dead, Irene," John said, forcefully. Irene pause with her hand on Sherlock's coat, ready to pull it off the door. "Maybe he is for you, but I still talk to him every day. Neither of us can explain it, but he still calls me and sends me texts throughout the day. He's a year behind me and still solving cases, and I'm still getting to know him. We're living a year apart, as crazy as that sounds. When I found out he was dead... I'm still going to try to save him."
Irene's face was a mixture of shock, disbelief, and annoyance, but there was another emotion trying to make room for itself. That emotion was hope. She slowly took Sherlock's coat off the door and laid it over her arm.
"Well if that were true, Doctor, you would have earned all I have to give and more. Unfortunately-," but a noise stopped Ms. Adler's conclusion. It was John's phone going off, sending a low beeping noise through the flat.
Irene stared at him, almost daring him to answer it with her eyes. John pulled the phone from his pocket and clicked it on. It was a text, just as he'd known it would be, and it was from Sherlock, something else John had expected.
"Bloody bored, John. No cases, and it's raining. Sherlock," John read off.
Irene nearly clawed John with her nails as she snatched the phone from him. She stared at the message, her lips locked into a line. She pressed them even closer together as the phone went off again. Another message. Probably some crack at Lestrade. Sherlock liked to pick at Lestrade when he was bored.
Irene half threw the phone back at John after she read it. Just as he'd guessed, it said Lestrade was probably falling apart at the joints because of the amount of rain in London and his old age. Irene placed a hand gently over her mouth and stared at the floor.
"It isn't possible," she murmured.
"That's what Sherlock said," John said. Irene snapped her gaze to him.
"Does he know?" she asked. "Have you told him he's...?"
"No. Mycroft told me not to," John answered, shaking his head.
"Well screw Mycroft. How are you going to save him if you don't tell him?" Irene snapped, but she didn't seem angry at John anymore.
"That's what I said," John agreed, nodding. "And I will. I'll tell him. But not yet. I don't want him to over think it."
"I'd tell him now," Irene said. She knelt down next to John, and gave him a look he couldn't quite read. Was it pity? "I'd tell him every day, whenever I could."
"Are we still talking about his death?" John asked. "I can't really... you know, read you."
She smiled then and rose slowly to her feet. Her lip touched his cheek in a soft kiss and then she sighed. "That's almost what Sherlock told me," she said. "Anyway, I admit defeat, Doctor Watson."
Irene held Sherlock's coat out for him to take. It was softer than he expected, and he tried to push it back into her arms, but she wouldn't have it.
"He would want you to have it, not just the recording," she explained. "Just... tell him for me, alright? The world still needs him. He should give thanks for what he has and stay home."
"Irene," John started but she put a finger to his lips. John frowned and fished in the pockets of the jacket. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes and tossed them to her. "I'm sorry."
"Save him for me, Doctor, and there will be nothing to apologize for. Well... except maybe for stealing his heart." John knew he was okay with her because that had been a definite tease, and she winked.
Tapping the cigarettes against her hand, she gave him one last smile and nodded. Then she was out the door and down the stairs without a proper goodbye. John nodded to the empty space she let behind and slid onto the seat of the couch. He fished around in the pockets and realized Irene had left the lighter too. The cool metal was somehow just as grounding as the coat.
From the back pocket, he drew another CD, and he had an inkling he knew what it would be about: Irene Adler. Sherlock had to explain how someone as memorable as that woman hadn't been on his recording about relationships.
"Ah, and part of me doesn't really want to know," he mused aloud, hand stroking the fabric of the coat in his lap.
-- -- -- --
Preview, Chapter 15:
"I was called in to deal with a case where the perpetrator was already known. It was a woman... THE Woman," Sherlock explained. "I decided this morning that you needed to know this part of my life in order to have a complete understanding of me."
"Oh God," John sighed out and covered his mouth. "I don't want to hear this."
"John-," Sherlock tried, but John spoke right over him.
"It's not trivial, Sherlock!"
When Sherlock figured out the phone mystery, what else would John have to offer in the way of conundrums? And that's when he had the most brilliant of brilliant ideas - an idea that would keep Sherlock around for as long a time as they had remaining.
"Understand, it is about the only subject on which I am, and I hate the word, shy about. It isn't fear. I've only ever been afraid of one thing since my mother died, and it certainly isn't this."
Click HERE for Chapter 15!
Click HERE for the Masterpost!
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Current Word Count: 39,662
Current Chapter Count: 14/?
Beta: satsuki_tears
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I don't even totally own the idea. :P
Warnings: Character Death
Summary:
AU John needs a new phone, one that doesn’t bend time and have an amazing man on the other end who claims to be the world’s greatest detective, except that he can’t figure out how he called Dr. Watson instead of his brother. However, with a criminal mastermind on the loose, John's phone connection may be the only thing that can save him.
-- -- -- --
Chapter 14
John was sure he should feel bad about how much time he spent on the phone, but he didn't. He found himself, more and more often, lounging at home when he got off work and just talking on the phone for hours. Sometimes the conversations were lively and animated. Sherlock would discuss a case he was working on, and John would listen and provide input when needed or when he thought Sherlock had overlooked something. Sometimes they argued because Sherlock called John names or because John didn't approve of what Sherlock said or was doing to those around him. Sometimes Sherlock played the violin. Sometimes he composed. Sometimes they didn't talk at all. The phones would sit on tables or arm rests and be completely silent while John pulled up a book to read or made dinner and Sherlock did who-knows-what.
The quiet calls weren't a problem. They were special because both men seemed to be completely fine leaving their phones connected across time even when they had nothing in particular to say. It was strangely intimate, being able to hear every time Sherlock sneezed, coughed, cleared his throat, growled, or any of the abundant noises that came from his throat while he worked, and the same applied to Sherlock as he listened to John move about.
After his talk with Mycroft, John texted the older brother less but thought about the younger brother more. John let silent phone calls go on longer and would prompt Sherlock to discuss more about his work to delay hanging up the phone.
"Do you love my brother?"
What kind of man asks that kind of question like that? As though it didn't matter what the answer was, as though John didn't matter, wasn't important or worthy? It was rude. It was almost cruel. It kept John from being able to read during the silent calls.
"Sherlock," he said one day just as Sherlock had been about to change a silent call into a violin session.
"Yes, John?" Sherlock asked. He wasn't next to the phone.
John closed his book and set it aside. "It's May. You've started building the case files I'm working with, haven't you?"
"Yes. A double murder and an arson attack," Sherlock confirmed. "I already solved those cases. The files are still with me, though. I knew they were connected by this Moriarty. Alas I still cannot find any information about him. The man is a ghost."
"Victor Trevor," John interrupted. Sherlock cut off his rant and did not start back up. "May 12th. Victor Trevor."
Victor Trevor, the first love of Sherlock Holmes. The man who got away because he was straight. The man who signified the break between the Holmes brothers. John heard Sherlock drag his bow across the strings of his violin, slowly and not to any specific tune.
"Yes. Two weeks ago. Double homicide," he said, voice flat as though he had not had a case in days and was about to start shouting.
"He and his wife were murdered, Sherlock," John clarified. "You knew them both. The same for the other one, Sebastian Wilkes - February 25th. House fire. You went to school with both of them."
"Richard Brooke as well," Sherlock spoke, near the phone now but still quiet. "I found him. He was alive after his family died in a car accident. He died last month. Another house fire."
"Everyone attached to this case who has died since.... since I started working on it has been someone you put away for murder. Everyone who they killed before going to prison was someone you knew.. Am I right? Except Jasmine Sheffield."
"I met her yesterday morning," Sherlock corrected. "She wasn't always a Sheffield. Before her second marriage, she was Jasmine Powers. She was the mother of a boy, Carl, murdered during my time at university. It was my very first serious case. When I met her yesterday, I recognized her instantly. That was when I made the same connection you are making now."
"Moriarty is killing off people around you, people you know." John said it with such clarity and assuredness that he was certain that if it had not been already true, he would have made it so with his words.
"That's what I'm afraid of," Sherlock murmured. He could be heard sighing heavily and running a hand over his face. John could almost see him doing it. "I hope he takes that into consideration," Sherlock murmured next.
"Takes what into consideration?" John asked. "What are you afraid of?"
Sherlock took a moment to think on his own and then he let out a short breath. "I'm hoping he doesn't know who I'm talking to on the phone all the time.... and if he does find out, I hope he understands you aren't technically 'around' me."
"Come now, Sherlock. Don't you think he would have killed me by now if that was his plan?" John asked. "All he's done to me is scare me."
"I don't want him to take our fight too seriously and drag it out. I don't want it to bleed into your time," Sherlock said, almost ignoring John.
"Sherlock-," John tried, but the other man cut him off.
"I don't want you to be collateral damage, John. Can't you understand?" he asked, rushed and anxious. John's mouth snapped shut, and for several moments they were both silent. The only sound over the call was Sherlock's sudden heavy breathing.
John heard the soft sounds of Sherlock rummaging around for something and seemingly unable to find it. He could still hear Sherlock's laborious breaths through all of it, like he was an asthmatic who couldn't find his inhaler. John frowned and closed his eyes.
"Sherlock," he said just as the rummaging ceased. "I'm still here." Put down the cigarettes, he thought. "I'm not going to die on you." Not like Sherlock would. "Sherlock?"
John strained his ear to pick up any sound the phone would give. He heard the click of something metallic being set on something wooden. Sherlock had put down the lighter. When Sherlock's voice spoke up again, John could tell Sherlock hadn't smoked anything. His voice sounded teasing and a little strained.
"You're going to be the death of me, Doctor," he said, a half laugh coming from his throat. He took a slow, deep breath and held it. After a full thirty seconds, he let it out just as slowly. "There. I crushed the cigarette. Didn't even sniff it." And John smiled at the annoyance he heard.
"I'm so proud," John said back, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't teasing... but he was being honest too. "Don't worry. Everything turns out alright in the end."
"You say that as though you read it in a book," Sherlock said with a sneer and sniffed, but he seemed much calmer now.
"I'm in the future. How do you know I didn't?"
"Touche, Doctor. Touche."
John chuckled and felt his heart warm. He would miss this banter.
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
Mmm. He had to admit. This didn't happen every day... especially not in John Watson's flat.
"Right," was the first thing he could think to say. "C-Can I help you?"
He dropped his shopping bag on the nearby table and looked at his peculiar visitor. It was a woman of surprising beauty. She was sitting in his chair, legs crossed and poised like a queen. She had no fear in her posture or eyes. Only her crossed legs showed she had a sense of decency, for beyond her glistening earrings, she wore no clothes. She smiled coyly at John.
"Dr. Watson," she greeted. She held out her hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you at last. Well, when I say 'meet you', I mean in person, of course. I've seen surveillance of you and a few snap shots over the last year. It was sort of my job. Sort of. Do you like my battle dress?"
"I'm sorry. Have I - Have I missed something?" John asked, glancing around the rest of his flat that was visible and checking for other people. As far as he could tell, they were alone. What did she mean 'battle dress'? She wasn't wearing anything.
The woman just grinned broader. "Sherlock sent me with the finest regards. I was meant to come just before your birthday, but I figured why not a month early? I'd stand to shake your hand, but he told me you were a bit... sensitive." She raised her eyebrows suggestively on the last word.
John cleared his throat. "Obviously didn't really bother you much," he said, shuffling forward awkwardly to take her hand. He held it just long enough to shake and then released it.
"Irene," the woman finally said. She leaned over toward John, her arms now covering her chest. "Irene Adler. Surely Sherlock has spoken of me before."
Her tone was smooth and milky, like a voice in a commercial trying to get John to buy chocolates or a sultry temptress to buy porn. He wasn't sure which. He took a seat on the arm of his couch, keeping a wary eye on her.
"Nope. I don't think he has. I'm sure he would have warned me." John looked away from her again, his cheeks probably burning. "You have a disc or something for me?"
"Oh. Straight to the point. He's got you pinned, lover boy," Irene cooed. She stood, probably knowing John would look further away, and moved over to the coffee table. She lifted a long coat off it, which had been folded neatly before, and put it on. John let out a sigh of relief and look her dead on. "He gave me a gift for you, yes. But you'll have to beat me to get it."
"Excuse me?" John asked. He put his hands on his knees and stared her down. Something about her coat seemed wrong. It wasn't made for her. John couldn't imagine her running around town wearing only that. She seemed much classier.
"I don't play fair like Sherlock," Irene explained. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from the coat pocket and lit one up. She then proceeded to not listen to John's protests about smoking in his house. "You play my game, Doctor, or you don't get the prize. It's as simple as that. Yes or no?"
"Sherlock wouldn't like-," John tried, not seriously trusting Irene at all. He didn't even completely trust that to be her name. But before he could finish his sentence, she'd snapped her lighter shut and set a testy glare on him.
"It doesn't matter what Sherlock would like or not. He's dead. It's my rules now, and I like them the way they are. Do you want the damn disc or not?" she asked.
Her sensual attitude was gone, replaced only with distaste. Her words bit down when she said 'dead', and it didn't take a doctor to realize her anger stemmed from Sherlock's passing and not from anything John had done. John cleared his throat and motioned for her to continue. Like an appeased feline, she fell back into her coy grin and sat on the edge of the table, facing John.
"I knew Sherlock for four years before he died. You knew him for one. If you can name something about him that even I don't know, you win. But I warn you now, I know things about him even he doesn't know. Poor baby." The woman was damn near purring.
"Sherlock plays the violin," John began. Irene snorted and rolled her eyes. John glared. "But he never wanted to play for profit."
"Please. He never does anything for profit. He only accepts money because he knows it's necessary to pay Ms. Hudson and buy a few heads of lettuce," Irene countered. "You'll have to do much better than that."
"Sherlock doesn't like lettuce," John shot back.
"True, but he eats it because Ms. Hudson told him he needed more green in his diet," Irene explained easily.
"How did you say you knew Sherlock?" John asked. She made him uncomfortable, made his collar itch and his stomach churn and his chest pound. With anyone else, he would have thought he was attracted to her, but this was different. This was uncomfortable.
"I was one of his cases. I was the illegal," Irene said, wiggling her fingers at the word. "He caught me, and he let me go. We played a bit of cat and mouse and got very.... very close. Now you're stalling."
"Am not," John said and hated how childish he sounded. That's what this was. It was jealousy, like a child who got cheated out of cookies. "Fine. Sherlock's favorite color is purple, but he only owns one purple piece of clothing."
"A button up shirt that makes him look like dessert."
"He's a master of his own personal fighting style-"
"Yes. I saw him take out a Turkish mercenary with it."
"-but he's still rubbish at fighting because he doesn't eat properly and he never exercises."
"Sherlock didn't tell you that. You're assuming based on your profession."
"Sherlock likes men."
"Oooh, clever one. Yes. He claims to be asexual, but he's really just too nervous about physicality. You should have seen his face the first time I showed up in this little outfit." Irene winked, and John's mouth went a little dry. He glanced at the cigarette in her fingers and down to the pocket where the rest of the box sat.
"That's Sherlock's coat," he said, and he didn't care that it wasn't something she didn't know. He suddenly needed to know if it was true. The outfit she meant was her wearing nothing. That coat wasn't included in her wardrobe or she would have claimed it in her speech. It wasn't hers, but... the cigarettes in the pocket. The lighter she used looked just like the one Sherlock had described to him.
Irene's face fell from its foxy grin and she looked down at her only garment. She tapped her cigarette into a small bowl she'd stolen from John's cabinets. He recognized it, but he hadn't left it there. Irene took her eyes from John for the first time since he'd walked into the room, and looked uneasy to boot.
"I stole it," she said. "These are his cigarettes too. Or, they're the same brand. The man loved his nicotine."
"He stopped smoking," John corrected, not doubting the truth of that statement at all. Irene laughed sourly.
"That he did. Because of you, but you knew that already," and she sounded a bit sour at John too. "He gave up his bad habits because you told him to. He'd do anything you asked him to. He did everything for you. Gave you everything."
"No. Sherlock only ever did things for himself," John said, shaking his head. Irene dropped her cigarette, stood, and slapped John across the face in one fluid motion.
"See?" she asked. "You didn't really know him at all."
John held his stinging face as Irene walked over to a small bag behind the door. She took the coat off and hung it on the door and pulled out a set of clothes from the bag. John kept his head turned away, gently rubbing his sore cheek and giving her privacy. They didn't speak the whole time, but John didn't know what to say anyway. This was another heart broken by Sherlock Holmes, the man who didn't know how much he meant to every person he came across.
"Some special boyfriend you were," Irene murmured, pulling on the last bit of clothing, a short black jacket. Her shirt was white and she had black denim trousers. It was like an outfit she'd grabbed at random, not really thinking. "Never came to visit him. Didn't even come to the funeral."
"I didn't know," John began, trying to explain. Irene scoffed.
"Hardly. Mycroft sent the announcements out to everyone Sherlock so much as bumped into. I doubt he would've missed you - the famous John Watson. Then again, maybe you weren't welcome," she said, acid creeping into her tone.
"He isn't dead, Irene," John said, forcefully. Irene pause with her hand on Sherlock's coat, ready to pull it off the door. "Maybe he is for you, but I still talk to him every day. Neither of us can explain it, but he still calls me and sends me texts throughout the day. He's a year behind me and still solving cases, and I'm still getting to know him. We're living a year apart, as crazy as that sounds. When I found out he was dead... I'm still going to try to save him."
Irene's face was a mixture of shock, disbelief, and annoyance, but there was another emotion trying to make room for itself. That emotion was hope. She slowly took Sherlock's coat off the door and laid it over her arm.
"Well if that were true, Doctor, you would have earned all I have to give and more. Unfortunately-," but a noise stopped Ms. Adler's conclusion. It was John's phone going off, sending a low beeping noise through the flat.
Irene stared at him, almost daring him to answer it with her eyes. John pulled the phone from his pocket and clicked it on. It was a text, just as he'd known it would be, and it was from Sherlock, something else John had expected.
"Bloody bored, John. No cases, and it's raining. Sherlock," John read off.
Irene nearly clawed John with her nails as she snatched the phone from him. She stared at the message, her lips locked into a line. She pressed them even closer together as the phone went off again. Another message. Probably some crack at Lestrade. Sherlock liked to pick at Lestrade when he was bored.
Irene half threw the phone back at John after she read it. Just as he'd guessed, it said Lestrade was probably falling apart at the joints because of the amount of rain in London and his old age. Irene placed a hand gently over her mouth and stared at the floor.
"It isn't possible," she murmured.
"That's what Sherlock said," John said. Irene snapped her gaze to him.
"Does he know?" she asked. "Have you told him he's...?"
"No. Mycroft told me not to," John answered, shaking his head.
"Well screw Mycroft. How are you going to save him if you don't tell him?" Irene snapped, but she didn't seem angry at John anymore.
"That's what I said," John agreed, nodding. "And I will. I'll tell him. But not yet. I don't want him to over think it."
"I'd tell him now," Irene said. She knelt down next to John, and gave him a look he couldn't quite read. Was it pity? "I'd tell him every day, whenever I could."
"Are we still talking about his death?" John asked. "I can't really... you know, read you."
She smiled then and rose slowly to her feet. Her lip touched his cheek in a soft kiss and then she sighed. "That's almost what Sherlock told me," she said. "Anyway, I admit defeat, Doctor Watson."
Irene held Sherlock's coat out for him to take. It was softer than he expected, and he tried to push it back into her arms, but she wouldn't have it.
"He would want you to have it, not just the recording," she explained. "Just... tell him for me, alright? The world still needs him. He should give thanks for what he has and stay home."
"Irene," John started but she put a finger to his lips. John frowned and fished in the pockets of the jacket. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes and tossed them to her. "I'm sorry."
"Save him for me, Doctor, and there will be nothing to apologize for. Well... except maybe for stealing his heart." John knew he was okay with her because that had been a definite tease, and she winked.
Tapping the cigarettes against her hand, she gave him one last smile and nodded. Then she was out the door and down the stairs without a proper goodbye. John nodded to the empty space she let behind and slid onto the seat of the couch. He fished around in the pockets and realized Irene had left the lighter too. The cool metal was somehow just as grounding as the coat.
From the back pocket, he drew another CD, and he had an inkling he knew what it would be about: Irene Adler. Sherlock had to explain how someone as memorable as that woman hadn't been on his recording about relationships.
"Ah, and part of me doesn't really want to know," he mused aloud, hand stroking the fabric of the coat in his lap.
-- -- -- --
Preview, Chapter 15:
"I was called in to deal with a case where the perpetrator was already known. It was a woman... THE Woman," Sherlock explained. "I decided this morning that you needed to know this part of my life in order to have a complete understanding of me."
"Oh God," John sighed out and covered his mouth. "I don't want to hear this."
"John-," Sherlock tried, but John spoke right over him.
"It's not trivial, Sherlock!"
When Sherlock figured out the phone mystery, what else would John have to offer in the way of conundrums? And that's when he had the most brilliant of brilliant ideas - an idea that would keep Sherlock around for as long a time as they had remaining.
"Understand, it is about the only subject on which I am, and I hate the word, shy about. It isn't fear. I've only ever been afraid of one thing since my mother died, and it certainly isn't this."
Click HERE for Chapter 15!
Click HERE for the Masterpost!