New Fic: A Study in Observation
Title: A Study in Observation
Author: jupiter_ash
Rating: G
Beta: trillsabells
Word Count: 2K
Pairings: None
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes created by ACD, Sherlock owned by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.
Summary: There’s a drugs bust and Sherlock isn’t being co-operative, but nothing goes quite as expected.
Warnings: Mention of drugs. Does plausible crack need to be warned for?
Spoilers: None.
Author’s Note:
This came about following a twitter conversation I had with Flawedamythyst and EarlGreyTea68 that somehow started with grapes and included coming up with as many grape related film titles as possible. By the end of the conversation the premise of this story had come to me, although there are no grapes involved. Ladies, enjoy. Amy, the title is especially for you. Consider the story an early birthday present.
*-*-*
He was actually surprised by how long it took for anyone to figure it out. It wasn’t exactly a secret after all, he wasn’t hiding, although it turned out to be much less ‘figure it out’ as ‘stumble across it, make an unnecessary fuss and then become overcome with embarrassment’. Apparently it had been a surprise, and despite being rather obvious it transpired that it had never crossed any of their minds. Ridiculous, especially since there were plenty of people like him around. Society had changed and provided you were sensible and didn’t cause any trouble it was all fine.
Of course Sherlock had known instantly - well he would, wouldn’t he - but it had never been an issue between them. In fact, between Sherlock treating it as some sort of an experiment - although he would never admit it of course - and Mrs Hudson’s fussing he had never been so well supplied.
Ironically, it had all come down to yet another drugs bust.
Lestrade wanted Sherlock to return the evidence from the case with the cardboard box and Sherlock was resisting by flouncing around in his blue dressing gown before flinging himself down on the sofa for the long haul. Rolling his eyes, John knew they would be here for some time and decided to do something sensible; he went to make a cup of tea. Since he was feeling generous, he also made one each for Sherlock and Lestrade, despite Sherlock’s grumbling that it would only further encourage them. He wasn’t sure Lestrade’s team needed any further encouragement as they started to comb through their flat, while Lestrade sat on Sherlock’s chair and tried to reason with the detective.
Taking his own seat, John ignored them and set about enjoying his first tea of the day. He drank it fast, sighed, was reminded that this whole thing wasn’t going to be over soon, and went to make a second cup. It was that sort of a morning after all.
He was just back at his chair, savouring the smell of tea, when there was a cry of triumph and all eyes snapped in surprise to where Donovan was now holding up a clear storage bag. A clear storage bag of dried leaves. A clear storage bag of very familiar dried leaves. Familiar to everybody in the flat.
“Cannabis?” Lestrade looked across at Sherlock. “You?”
Sherlock huffed and flopped onto his back with an expression of utter boredom. “As usual you see but you don’t observe.”
“Cannabis?” Lestrade repeated.
John blew on his tea and tried not to sigh.
“You do know this is still illegal, Freak?” Donovan declared.
“Is it?” Sherlock said lazily.
“You know full well you need a licence to be in possession.”
“Goodness,” Sherlock said flatly.
“Do you have a licence?”
They already knew the answer for that.
“Nope,” Sherlock said.
Lestrade swore under his breath. John took a mouthful of tea.
“Oh my god, there’s more.”
“Donovan, how much have you found?”
They watched as she pulled out a second partly used bag and held it up also. “About twenty grams so far.”
Lestrade rubbed his head. “Tell me it’s left over from a case. Or an experiment,” he said.
“Of course not,” Sherlock said. “Look at it, those types of leaves, that good quality, that well kept, it’s clearly for personal use.”
“Ah-ha, so you admit it then,” Donovan said.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “If this is an example of a thorough police investigation it’s a wonder you ever catch any criminals.”
“Twenty grams of cannabis, Sherlock. Your flat. No licence.,” Lestrade said. “Tell me why I shouldn’t slap handcuffs on you and drag you down to the station to be charged.”
“Waste of time,” Sherlock said, waving his hand. “Circumstantial evidence at best. You’ll never get it to stick.”
“Bloody hell, Sherlock, you have a history, remember.”
“Cocaine, Lestrade. Hardly relevant.”
“Extremely relevant,” Donovan said.
“Wrong.”
John looked down at the last dregs of his tea and wondered if he should make a third cup or if that was indulging too much. He also wondered if he should say anything, but he knew well enough that despite appearances, Sherlock was totally within his element. He certainly wasn’t bored any more.
“Tea, John.”
It seemed that Sherlock had taken the decision out of his hand and was waving lazily at the near full mug he had placed in front of his flatmate earlier. Cold now of course. Waste of bloody good tea that was.
He put on a sigh, got to his feet and busied himself with making another cup of tea for each of them. For a moment he considered what type of tea and then decided to be sensible and moved around the members of the ‘drugs bust’ to dig out two standard Tetley tea bags while he waited for the kettle to boil. He smiled apologetically at Donovan and the others.
“Tea?” he offered, because really it was only polite.
They ignored him. That was hardly a surprise. People generally ignored him, especially when Sherlock was around.
The kettle clicked off. Hot water, mug, tea bag. Hmmm, tea. If there was one thing that Sherlock knew not to experiment on it was the kettle. And a bloody good kettle it was too. His birthday present from Mycroft actually. Well, that was to say it had been Mycroft’s credit card that had been used to buy it. That was the same thing according to Sherlock.
The argument was still going on in the sitting room when he wandered back out, and from Lestrade’s expression it was pretty easy to see who was winning - or in Lestrade’s case, not winning.
He placed the mug down in front of Sherlock, who was now upright and had a certain gleam in his eye.
“So you’re trying to say that someone planted drugs in your flat,” Lestrade was saying.
“Don’t be absurd. If someone wanted to plant drugs in my flat it would be cocaine or heroin, not cannabis. Use your brain.”
“So if it’s not yours, you don’t use it, it’s not for a case or an experiment and someone didn’t plant it there, then whose the bloody hell is it?”
John frowned as he took his seat again. “It’s mine,” he said.
There was a sudden silence. All the eyes - except the ones in the fridge - were once more on him.
“You?” Donovan said, her mouth falling open.
He nodded and sipped his tea.
“I told you,” Sherlock said, almost too gleefully. “Blind, you’re all blind. So quick to jump to the conclusion you want you ignore all the evidence under your noses. And you wonder why you need my help.”
“Do… do you have a licence?” Lestrade said.
“Of course,” John said. “I’m good for up to thirty grams. I’ve got a prescription here somewhere as well if you want to see it.”
“How?” Donovan said, the two bags of cannabis leaves still in her hand.
“Use your eyes and your brain,” Sherlock said. “You’re in the kitchen, it’s all there in front of you. Open your eyes and really look. Does anything strike you as out of the usual? A bit excessive? Anything at all?”
It was obvious the moment Lestrade got it. John just shrugged and sipped his tea.
“No biggy,” he said. “I thought you already knew.”
“Knew what?” Donovan said.
“John’s a vampire. Obvious.”
Donovan almost dropped the bags in surprise.
Lestrade sighed. “Tea?” he said wearily.
John nodded. “And any type of tisane really. The normal stuff’s usually fine, you know, from the supermarket. Mycroft sometimes sends me some more unusual discoveries from his travels. That’s nice. I only use the hard stuff when, you know, nothing else is going to do it.”
Lestrade nodded.
“I haven’t really needed it recently, only if my shoulder’s playing up or Sherlock’s being even more of an arse than usual.” He didn’t mention the occasions when Sherlock had wordlessly made him a cup of cannabis tea, when he couldn’t or wouldn’t. The nights when the nightmares became too much, when his shoulder burned where the silver bullet had gone through, so close to his heart, and where the splinter of exploding wood had gone through his leg. His leg had technically only been a flesh wound, easily healed once the wood was removed, less easily forgotten though if his limp and the imaginary pain were anything to go by. Sometimes cannabis tea was the only thing that would help. Considering all, it could have been worse, a lot worse. At least the tea wasn’t destroying him.
“Tea?” Donovan said.
He shrugged again.
Vampires were addicts, that was what every school kid learnt, and while that wasn’t exactly medically or scientifically true it was close enough. They were, for instance, dependent upon one particular beverage for survival. Blood was the famous one, overly done in all the films and books because of the perceived fear and horror around it. It wasn’t even that bad, not now at least, and from what he’d heard from a friend human blood wasn’t even all that great. Abattoirs were more than willing to bottle and process the blood that would normally be discarded. In fact they’d made an entire industry out of it, experimenting with flavours, types and consistencies. No blood vampire would ever be driven to feeding directly from a human. It was just messy and inconvenient. It did happen of course, but it was extremely rare, but tell that to the film writers. Any blood vampire who got to that point now without good reason was wildly out of their mind and control and would probably be grateful for a stake through the heart.
He was a tea vampire. Any type of tea or tisane really, although he had his favourites and some were stronger than others. There were also coffee vampires - Starbucks’ favourite people - milk vampires - whose existence had revitalised the milkshake industry - fruit juice vampires - ditto for smoothies - and of course alcohol vampires. He tried not to think about Harry, hooked on spirits and overindulging on absinth, refusing help.
“Right, enough,” Lestrade said getting to his feet. “Sherlock, I want the evidence from the Cushing case back in my office by tomorrow morning or you’re off all cases for three months. Donovan, put those back where you found them. John… sorry about all this.”
He actually did look sorry, which was decent of him. John wasn’t overly bothered - although the three cups of tea might have helped there. It wasn’t as if it was some big secret. He was who he was. It was just that no one ever suspected that he might be anything other than fully human. He just didn’t look the type. After all, vampires were supposed to be tall, slim, arrogant and strangely alluring. So pretty much like Sherlock in fact. No one expected a short, fair, mild mannered jumper wearer to have superior strength, perfect hand eye coordination or calmness under pressure. In fact, people were more likely to suspect him of being a shape changer or selkie than a vampire.
He sipped at his tea as they all trailed out, waited a moment until the front door had closed and then looked pointedly at Sherlock.
“Happy now?” he said.
“I’m not bored anymore.”
John snorted. “Of course you’re not. You’ve just humiliated Lestrade and co. with little inconvenience to yourself and have something to taunt them with for months to come.”
“They humiliated themselves. How many types of tea do you have in there? Not once did they stop and question it. And you enjoyed it too.”
There was that. Technically he could have stopped it at any point. The expression on everybody’s faces had been classic. As ‘coming outs’ went, it had been amusing.
“Sherlock,” he said.
“Yes, John?”
“Shut up and drink your tea.”
*-*-*
The End
Author: jupiter_ash
Rating: G
Beta: trillsabells
Word Count: 2K
Pairings: None
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes created by ACD, Sherlock owned by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.
Summary: There’s a drugs bust and Sherlock isn’t being co-operative, but nothing goes quite as expected.
Warnings: Mention of drugs. Does plausible crack need to be warned for?
Spoilers: None.
Author’s Note:
This came about following a twitter conversation I had with Flawedamythyst and EarlGreyTea68 that somehow started with grapes and included coming up with as many grape related film titles as possible. By the end of the conversation the premise of this story had come to me, although there are no grapes involved. Ladies, enjoy. Amy, the title is especially for you. Consider the story an early birthday present.
*-*-*
He was actually surprised by how long it took for anyone to figure it out. It wasn’t exactly a secret after all, he wasn’t hiding, although it turned out to be much less ‘figure it out’ as ‘stumble across it, make an unnecessary fuss and then become overcome with embarrassment’. Apparently it had been a surprise, and despite being rather obvious it transpired that it had never crossed any of their minds. Ridiculous, especially since there were plenty of people like him around. Society had changed and provided you were sensible and didn’t cause any trouble it was all fine.
Of course Sherlock had known instantly - well he would, wouldn’t he - but it had never been an issue between them. In fact, between Sherlock treating it as some sort of an experiment - although he would never admit it of course - and Mrs Hudson’s fussing he had never been so well supplied.
Ironically, it had all come down to yet another drugs bust.
Lestrade wanted Sherlock to return the evidence from the case with the cardboard box and Sherlock was resisting by flouncing around in his blue dressing gown before flinging himself down on the sofa for the long haul. Rolling his eyes, John knew they would be here for some time and decided to do something sensible; he went to make a cup of tea. Since he was feeling generous, he also made one each for Sherlock and Lestrade, despite Sherlock’s grumbling that it would only further encourage them. He wasn’t sure Lestrade’s team needed any further encouragement as they started to comb through their flat, while Lestrade sat on Sherlock’s chair and tried to reason with the detective.
Taking his own seat, John ignored them and set about enjoying his first tea of the day. He drank it fast, sighed, was reminded that this whole thing wasn’t going to be over soon, and went to make a second cup. It was that sort of a morning after all.
He was just back at his chair, savouring the smell of tea, when there was a cry of triumph and all eyes snapped in surprise to where Donovan was now holding up a clear storage bag. A clear storage bag of dried leaves. A clear storage bag of very familiar dried leaves. Familiar to everybody in the flat.
“Cannabis?” Lestrade looked across at Sherlock. “You?”
Sherlock huffed and flopped onto his back with an expression of utter boredom. “As usual you see but you don’t observe.”
“Cannabis?” Lestrade repeated.
John blew on his tea and tried not to sigh.
“You do know this is still illegal, Freak?” Donovan declared.
“Is it?” Sherlock said lazily.
“You know full well you need a licence to be in possession.”
“Goodness,” Sherlock said flatly.
“Do you have a licence?”
They already knew the answer for that.
“Nope,” Sherlock said.
Lestrade swore under his breath. John took a mouthful of tea.
“Oh my god, there’s more.”
“Donovan, how much have you found?”
They watched as she pulled out a second partly used bag and held it up also. “About twenty grams so far.”
Lestrade rubbed his head. “Tell me it’s left over from a case. Or an experiment,” he said.
“Of course not,” Sherlock said. “Look at it, those types of leaves, that good quality, that well kept, it’s clearly for personal use.”
“Ah-ha, so you admit it then,” Donovan said.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “If this is an example of a thorough police investigation it’s a wonder you ever catch any criminals.”
“Twenty grams of cannabis, Sherlock. Your flat. No licence.,” Lestrade said. “Tell me why I shouldn’t slap handcuffs on you and drag you down to the station to be charged.”
“Waste of time,” Sherlock said, waving his hand. “Circumstantial evidence at best. You’ll never get it to stick.”
“Bloody hell, Sherlock, you have a history, remember.”
“Cocaine, Lestrade. Hardly relevant.”
“Extremely relevant,” Donovan said.
“Wrong.”
John looked down at the last dregs of his tea and wondered if he should make a third cup or if that was indulging too much. He also wondered if he should say anything, but he knew well enough that despite appearances, Sherlock was totally within his element. He certainly wasn’t bored any more.
“Tea, John.”
It seemed that Sherlock had taken the decision out of his hand and was waving lazily at the near full mug he had placed in front of his flatmate earlier. Cold now of course. Waste of bloody good tea that was.
He put on a sigh, got to his feet and busied himself with making another cup of tea for each of them. For a moment he considered what type of tea and then decided to be sensible and moved around the members of the ‘drugs bust’ to dig out two standard Tetley tea bags while he waited for the kettle to boil. He smiled apologetically at Donovan and the others.
“Tea?” he offered, because really it was only polite.
They ignored him. That was hardly a surprise. People generally ignored him, especially when Sherlock was around.
The kettle clicked off. Hot water, mug, tea bag. Hmmm, tea. If there was one thing that Sherlock knew not to experiment on it was the kettle. And a bloody good kettle it was too. His birthday present from Mycroft actually. Well, that was to say it had been Mycroft’s credit card that had been used to buy it. That was the same thing according to Sherlock.
The argument was still going on in the sitting room when he wandered back out, and from Lestrade’s expression it was pretty easy to see who was winning - or in Lestrade’s case, not winning.
He placed the mug down in front of Sherlock, who was now upright and had a certain gleam in his eye.
“So you’re trying to say that someone planted drugs in your flat,” Lestrade was saying.
“Don’t be absurd. If someone wanted to plant drugs in my flat it would be cocaine or heroin, not cannabis. Use your brain.”
“So if it’s not yours, you don’t use it, it’s not for a case or an experiment and someone didn’t plant it there, then whose the bloody hell is it?”
John frowned as he took his seat again. “It’s mine,” he said.
There was a sudden silence. All the eyes - except the ones in the fridge - were once more on him.
“You?” Donovan said, her mouth falling open.
He nodded and sipped his tea.
“I told you,” Sherlock said, almost too gleefully. “Blind, you’re all blind. So quick to jump to the conclusion you want you ignore all the evidence under your noses. And you wonder why you need my help.”
“Do… do you have a licence?” Lestrade said.
“Of course,” John said. “I’m good for up to thirty grams. I’ve got a prescription here somewhere as well if you want to see it.”
“How?” Donovan said, the two bags of cannabis leaves still in her hand.
“Use your eyes and your brain,” Sherlock said. “You’re in the kitchen, it’s all there in front of you. Open your eyes and really look. Does anything strike you as out of the usual? A bit excessive? Anything at all?”
It was obvious the moment Lestrade got it. John just shrugged and sipped his tea.
“No biggy,” he said. “I thought you already knew.”
“Knew what?” Donovan said.
“John’s a vampire. Obvious.”
Donovan almost dropped the bags in surprise.
Lestrade sighed. “Tea?” he said wearily.
John nodded. “And any type of tisane really. The normal stuff’s usually fine, you know, from the supermarket. Mycroft sometimes sends me some more unusual discoveries from his travels. That’s nice. I only use the hard stuff when, you know, nothing else is going to do it.”
Lestrade nodded.
“I haven’t really needed it recently, only if my shoulder’s playing up or Sherlock’s being even more of an arse than usual.” He didn’t mention the occasions when Sherlock had wordlessly made him a cup of cannabis tea, when he couldn’t or wouldn’t. The nights when the nightmares became too much, when his shoulder burned where the silver bullet had gone through, so close to his heart, and where the splinter of exploding wood had gone through his leg. His leg had technically only been a flesh wound, easily healed once the wood was removed, less easily forgotten though if his limp and the imaginary pain were anything to go by. Sometimes cannabis tea was the only thing that would help. Considering all, it could have been worse, a lot worse. At least the tea wasn’t destroying him.
“Tea?” Donovan said.
He shrugged again.
Vampires were addicts, that was what every school kid learnt, and while that wasn’t exactly medically or scientifically true it was close enough. They were, for instance, dependent upon one particular beverage for survival. Blood was the famous one, overly done in all the films and books because of the perceived fear and horror around it. It wasn’t even that bad, not now at least, and from what he’d heard from a friend human blood wasn’t even all that great. Abattoirs were more than willing to bottle and process the blood that would normally be discarded. In fact they’d made an entire industry out of it, experimenting with flavours, types and consistencies. No blood vampire would ever be driven to feeding directly from a human. It was just messy and inconvenient. It did happen of course, but it was extremely rare, but tell that to the film writers. Any blood vampire who got to that point now without good reason was wildly out of their mind and control and would probably be grateful for a stake through the heart.
He was a tea vampire. Any type of tea or tisane really, although he had his favourites and some were stronger than others. There were also coffee vampires - Starbucks’ favourite people - milk vampires - whose existence had revitalised the milkshake industry - fruit juice vampires - ditto for smoothies - and of course alcohol vampires. He tried not to think about Harry, hooked on spirits and overindulging on absinth, refusing help.
“Right, enough,” Lestrade said getting to his feet. “Sherlock, I want the evidence from the Cushing case back in my office by tomorrow morning or you’re off all cases for three months. Donovan, put those back where you found them. John… sorry about all this.”
He actually did look sorry, which was decent of him. John wasn’t overly bothered - although the three cups of tea might have helped there. It wasn’t as if it was some big secret. He was who he was. It was just that no one ever suspected that he might be anything other than fully human. He just didn’t look the type. After all, vampires were supposed to be tall, slim, arrogant and strangely alluring. So pretty much like Sherlock in fact. No one expected a short, fair, mild mannered jumper wearer to have superior strength, perfect hand eye coordination or calmness under pressure. In fact, people were more likely to suspect him of being a shape changer or selkie than a vampire.
He sipped at his tea as they all trailed out, waited a moment until the front door had closed and then looked pointedly at Sherlock.
“Happy now?” he said.
“I’m not bored anymore.”
John snorted. “Of course you’re not. You’ve just humiliated Lestrade and co. with little inconvenience to yourself and have something to taunt them with for months to come.”
“They humiliated themselves. How many types of tea do you have in there? Not once did they stop and question it. And you enjoyed it too.”
There was that. Technically he could have stopped it at any point. The expression on everybody’s faces had been classic. As ‘coming outs’ went, it had been amusing.
“Sherlock,” he said.
“Yes, John?”
“Shut up and drink your tea.”
*-*-*
The End