Blind Man’s Bluff Part 1/4 (Sherlock fanfic)
Title: Blind Man’s Bluff Part 1/4(Sherlock fanfic)
Author: Rae666
Word Count: Approx 7,500
Summary: "We are gods among mortals. But even gods must be tested." Sherlock loses his sight temporarily and must rely on his other senses and John in order to solve the case at hand. But as the killer draws closer, could the pair be in more danger than they first thought?
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Season 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock or any of the characters. I wish I did but I'm just not that lucky. I am, however, lucky enough to be able to write about them.
Parts: Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Author’s Notes: I am in love with this show and the characters so I really I hope I do it and them justice.
This was originally written in 10 chapters but for the sake of LJ, I’m splitting those chapters up into four parts.
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Part 1
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Crime scenes, as a rule, don’t generally speak. Being crime scenes, they’re just… there - being a crime scene. Perhaps it is because crime scenes, much like the police officers milling about them, know the importance of not speaking a particular name. Unfortunately, it seemed no one had informed this specific crime scene.
This crime scene didn’t so much speak that particular name as scream it from the top of its non-existent lungs.
Even so, denial lingered in the air.
The lower officer’s exchanged knowing glances. Unlike the crime scene, they knew better than to say anything out loud. They had witnessed what happened to those who did. For them, they had discovered that mentioning a particular name, even if it were in casual conversation, would surely mean being sentenced to desk duty - the painful kind of desk duty that involved photocopiers and printer jams.
Detective Inspector Lestrade took one look at the body of the dead woman before him and felt his chest tighten. Dread washed over him and as he pulled his phone from his pocket, he was sure he could actually hear the rolling of eyes. Of course, he was partly right in this as the man standing with him in the doorway did in fact roll his eyes at that precise moment - though whether a definite sound had been made was debatable.
That man, Anderson, had no problem expressing his disapproval of the name that was on everyone’s minds but no one’s lips - the crime scene didn’t count as, technically, it didn’t have lips.
“You’ve got to be joking. We haven’t even started yet,” Anderson complained, eyeing the phone in Lestrade’s hand with distaste.
But Lestrade was not joking - he rarely joked about such things. He had learned very early on that when that particular name was raised, it was no laughing matter.
His eyes landed on the small off-white envelope beside the body. “We’re going to need his help on this one.”
After all, it is so rare for a crime scene to speak that it would have been unwise not to listen if one ever should. And this crime scene spoke quite clearly.
“Sherlock Holmes,” it screamed and much to the dismay of several officers of the law, DI Lestrade had to agree.
-----
Much like crime scenes should really be incapable of speech, flats are often found to be incapable of thought, though perhaps it is merely that they are incapable of expressing such thought that is the problem. But should they be capable, they would have many a secret to share.
Should 221b Baker Street be capable of thought, it would have many a complaint to make to its owner, Mrs. Hudson. But landladies rarely listened to their abodes, for the occupants tended to be much too loud - no matter how many bullet holes lined the wall or how many broken vials of acid and other such liquids littered the kitchen floor.
John Watson took one look at the mess and knew instantly the inevitability of the situation at hand. His lips thinned and he raised his eyes, from the glass and acid eating away at the flooring, to look at his dark-haired flatmate instead. “I take it we’re eating out then?”
“Eating?” Sherlock Holmes questioned, glancing up from his work and toward John with a bemused ‘what is this word you speak of’ expression firmly sitting on his features. “Who said anything about eating?”
“I did, for one,” John answered, edging a little more into what was meant to be the kitchen. He stopped short when he saw another spill and couldn’t decide whether it was more acid or just plain water.
Sherlock returned his attention to a beaker that had started bubbling over, replying in bored dismissal, “Food is unimportant.”
Eyes closing briefly, John shook his head. A small thought niggled at the back of his mind. “When was the last time you ate, Sherlock? I mean, you have eaten today, right?”
“Don’t ask questions that you already know the answers to, John,” the darker-haired man berated distractedly, his fingers moving up to sit just below his chin as if in silent prayer, eyes observing what was floating in the centre of the beaker of acid. “It wastes both your time and my own.”
“So does avoiding the question.”
Grey-blue eyes rose enough to consider the tawny-haired man but the owner of said eyes remained silent.
“You haven’t eaten then.” John let go of breath.
“I don’t have time to eat,” was the response as Sherlock danced around the spills of acid to reach a small Petri dish on the kitchen counter. With the same lithe movements, he edged back up to the overflowing beaker.
“Of course you have time to eat because normal people make time to eat.” John tipped his head to the side, watching the man before him pour the contents of the dish into the beaker. As he did this, he realised the mistake in his own words. “But then you’re not normal, are you?”
Sherlock didn’t answer, focusing his attention instead on the reaction taking place in the beaker. John found his own eyes drawn to what was going on and though he was sure he didn’t want to know, his brain was too slow to stop his mouth from asking.
“Oh God… Are those fingernails? Human fingernails?”
“Well of course they’re human - I couldn’t very well use an animal’s nails to prove my theory, could I?”
“And just what theory are you trying to prove?”
Sherlock raised his eyes, mouth opening ready with an in-depth response. What came instead was a beep beep from his phone and his response fell away, his gaze going back to the experiment. “Could you get that for me, John?”
John huffed a little but did as the man asked, taking up the phone from the counter. His mind still attempted to catch up with the current topic of conversation as he gave up trying to remember what the original purpose of it had been.
“It’s Lestrade,” John informed his flatmate, opening the new message on the phone and reading it in silence. “He wants your help.”
At that, the taller man narrowed his gaze and looked up once more, curiosity settling in his eyes. He considered the idea of helping the Detective Inspector for a mere moment before shaking his head. His eyes dropped back the beaker and he lowered himself to better stare into the clear liquid inside. “I’m busy.”
“You’re busy?” John questioned, unconvinced by Sherlock’s words. He knew, as well as the consulting detective, that his lack of enthusiasm was nothing to do with being busy. “You mean it’s not interesting enough.”
“How could I possibly know whether or not it’s interesting enough without first hearing the details?” Though it was phrased as a question, John knew the man wasn’t seeking an answer. For whatever logical reason, Sherlock had decided that the case was beneath him. What John didn’t know was that the lack of details was the cause for that.
“Yes, how could you possibly know?” John rolled his eyes, sarcasm dripping from his drawn out words.
The phone beeped once more. This time he didn’t wait for Sherlock’s instruction to read the message. “He says it’s important and involves a note.”
“A note?” Sherlock stood, his eyes darting about the room as he processed the information. “Just the one note?”
An ever so slightly exasperated sigh slipped past John’s lips. “Maybe you should ask him as he’s the one with the crime scene.”
In one short moment, the taller man went from contemplative and still to lively and alert, a flurry of movements as he sprung forward, abandoning his experiment. He already had his coat halfway on before he looked to John expectantly. “Well?”
“Oh, you want to go now?” John asked, turning to face the man as he mocked him. He circled his hands in mid air, moving to point behind him at the mess still in the kitchen. “Shall I just see to the Bunsen burner so we have a home to come back to?”
“If you would, please, that is an excellent idea. I’ll meet you outside when you’re ready.” Ignorant of the frustration on his flatmate’s face, Sherlock smiled and took his phone from the doctor’s loose grip. “And do be quick, John. Detective Inspector Lestrade will be waiting for us.”
-----
As the consulting detective had stated, DI Lestrade was waiting for the pair. He was not alone.
Sergeant Donovan stood with him, lost in her conversation with Anderson. She was not so lost though to end it abruptly, both parties taking an unconscious step back and away from each other as a taxi pulled up and Sherlock climbed out. They thought they were in the clear and had not been noticed.
They were wrong.
“Good evening, Donovan, Anderson,” Sherlock said as he approached the tape, a smile firmly on his lips. He said nothing else. He didn’t need to.
“Freak,” Donovan greeted in reply, hostility clear in her voice and face. She raised the tape without question. Had Lestrade not been there it would have been a different story - you didn’t need to be the world’s only consulting detective to see that much.
Sherlock slipped under the tape with the ease of a feline and moved on toward Lestrade without another glance to the Sergeant. John, however, nodded in thanks as he trailed closely behind, offering her a friendly smile for her trouble. He had noted once to Sherlock that he didn’t think she liked him all that much, to which Sherlock had replied, “Nonsense, John. Sergeant Donovan neither likes nor dislikes you. Now, me on the other hand - I don’t think ‘detest’ would be strong enough a word.”
And upon reflection, John had to admit that there was a definite air of indifference to her attitude. He still hadn’t decided whether or not that was a good thing.
Lestrade led the way and, after donning the appropriate blue suited attire, they entered the crime scene.
“Five minutes,” he said, standing guard by the door.
“Five minutes?” Sherlock repeated in question, his eyes already moving in rapid succession from point to point across the scene and body. “A whole three more than you usually give me.”
He dropped to his haunches, moving the tail of his coat back and out of the way in one fluid motion as he did so. Inch by inch, his eyes considered the dead woman before him, taking in every aspect, every little visual detail from the colour of her nails to the quality and cut of her diamond earrings.
“What do you think?” he questioned, stopping in his search long enough to meet his flatmate’s gaze.
“Uh,” John started, giving himself that internal shake needed to remind him that he wasn’t just there to observe Sherlock at work - though sometimes he did wonder if that was exactly why Sherlock brought him along.
He joined the taller man beside the woman, examining her closely.
“Well?” Sherlock asked, after a short drawn out silence, and the doctor drew back a little.
“No physical trauma to speak of,” John answered, swallowing the small lump in his throat. “So more likely something internal - heart possibly but she’s too young for heart problems…”
“Which means?” Sherlock interrupted, more eager, less impatient, waiting for John to reach his conclusion.
“Poison possibly?” the doctor questioned, narrowing his eyes on his flatmate.
“Two minutes,” Lestrade called from the doorway, his voice a low grumble as he reminded the consulting detective of his time limit.
But Sherlock was already done. He pushed to his feet and faced the Detective Inspector. “You mentioned a note.”
“We’ll get to the note - first tell me what you’ve got about her.”
Sherlock glanced to the body. “Professional escort - her drink no doubt poisoned by her client. The question is why. It can’t be theft or he would have taken all of her jewellery, not just her necklace. So possible jealousy - the necklace a gift he gave her and decided to take back.”
“Escort? You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”
Sherlock shook his head, impatience fast setting in. “The way she’s dressed, the expense of her jewellery - she wants to show off, likes to, but she doesn’t do it just for attention. There is an element of professionalism, the colours toned down just enough to show she’s serious but not too much that she won’t be noticed - she wants to stand out. And the jewellery, she wouldn’t buy it for herself - too expensive. They’re gifts from admirers - clients.”
He took a breath and circled the body, pointing to each piece of jewellery in turn. “The earrings don’t match the bracelet or the watch - different designs from different jewellers. When buying gifts like that, you would try to complete the set. So different designs,” he said, raising one hand and then the other as he continued to speak, “most likely different men.”
“And how, exactly, does that make her an escort?” Lestrade asked, eyeing the man before him carefully.
John nodded in agreement to the DI’s uncertainty. “She could have just had a lot of boyfriends.”
Sherlock blinked at both men. “Your simple mindedness never fails to amaze me. No, these aren’t gifts from lovers - she wouldn’t wear them all at the same time if they were. Questions would be asked, suspicions would be raised.” He paused and raised an eyebrow at Lestrade. “Or would you fail to notice if your wife started wearing a pair of expensive earrings that you didn’t buy her?”
Rhetorical question, or so Lestrade hoped, because he refused to answer it, grumbling instead.
“Check her bag,” Sherlock continued. “You’ll find her business card no doubt, and a diary. That should tell you who she was meant to be meeting tonight.”
“And what about the necklace?” John asked, his fingers running along the neckline of the dead woman. He could see it now, the same thing Sherlock had seen.
“Dressed like that, she must have been wearing a necklace and she wouldn’t be so careless as to lose it. Small scratch marks on her neck suggest it was removed by force.” He spun on his heel, coat floating briefly on the current created by the movement. “Now, the note?”
Lestrade let go of a frustrated sigh and turned his head to the side, digging into his pocket for the evidence bag that sat there. His eyes moved about the small room, checking for any unwanted visitors - a paranoid habit he had never been able to break since first meeting Sherlock and allowing him to look at a crime scene. He was always waiting for that time when his superiors would seriously reprimand him.
“Here,” he grunted, handing the bag to Sherlock.
With practiced ease, Sherlock opened the bag and tipped the small envelope out into his open and waiting hand. He turned it over, holding it up to his face. He ran a fingertip along the edges of the flap and then finally, he pulled the note out.
“Interesting,” he hummed, unfolding the note and looking down at the contents. There was no actual note to speak of, no written words anyway, just a complicated symbol printed in the centre of the paper.
“What’s interesting?” John asked. He slid up next to his flatmate and gazed over the paper. Whilst he had to agree that the intricate symbol was interesting, he hadn’t the faintest idea of what any of it meant.
Sherlock bounced back, lifting the note and it’s envelope into the air in excitement and causing John to make use of his quickened soldier reflexes in order to avoid being knocked over. “This isn’t a jealous admirer. A jealous admirer wouldn’t leave us this.”
“And just what is… this?” John motioned to the paper, wishing, not for the first time, that he could see inside of the consulting detective’s mind.
Said consulting detective set to pacing the small area, his movements animated and smile growing as his eyes still darted back and forth, connecting the invisible dots in his mind. “What do you do when you want someone to know you’ve been somewhere? You leave a note or a card - a calling card. This is a calling card. Oh, this is just brilliant!”
“I thought only serial killers left calling cards at crime scenes?” John watched Sherlock through puzzled eyes which widened when the taller man stopped his pacing abruptly and turned to face him, a grin splitting his face - like a child discovering a new toy or an axe-murderer discovering a new axe.
“Exactly, John. Exactly. A serial killer.” His thoughts were turned inward once more, body stilling and eyes falling even as the energy still buzzed throughout him, constantly searching for an outlet. “Now, why would a serial killer take her necklace? A trophy? No, that’s not it… it’s something else.”
John was still lost on the serial killer comment though, his mind not even attempting to ask why the necklace was so important - he would leave that to Sherlock.
“This was a serial killer?” the tawny-haired man questioned, looking between his flatmate and the DI uncertainly. “But this is the only body, right? Don’t you need more than one victim to have a serial killer? That’s why they’re called serial.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Sherlock answered. “This is the first. This is the start.” His eyes fell to Lestrade, waiting to see if the man objected and when he didn’t, Sherlock knew he was right in his assumption. They had themselves a serial killer who was just starting out.
“So if this is a serial killer,” Lestrade started, cautious with his words as he considered the man before him, and God help him, he knew that Sherlock was rarely wrong about such things. “Why did he choose her and how do we stop him?”
Mouth quirked upward in one corner, Sherlock faced Lestrade, his eyes practically sparkling from excitement. “I have absolutely no idea but I intend to find out.”
He handed the note and envelope back to the Detective Inspector as he strode past the man, his thoughts well ahead of his footsteps.
For a man who knew everything simply by deducing it, he seemed perfectly ignorant to the notion that perhaps a particular crime scene had been screaming his name for a reason. But then, even if he had noticed - and when questioned later he would deny that he had - it didn’t matter to him because this… this was exciting and brilliant and in no way boring.
-----
Sherlock, being Sherlock, had memorised the symbol the killer had left behind. John, being John, had copied it down into his notebook.
Two snakes, they both agreed on that, entwined with one another inside of a rectangle. Both snakes curved in such a way that they took the form of the letter ‘S’. Again, both flatmates agreed. They disagreed, however, over the importance of this.
“Maybe his name is Steven or Simon,” John suggested inside of the cab.
“Oh God, I hope not,” Sherlock replied, retracing the details of the symbol in his mind’s eye.
“Excuse me?” John asked, incredulous. “You hope not?”
Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. “It lacks imagination. A five year old could come up with something more exciting than that and I highly doubt our killer is a five year old.” He shook his head, going deeper into thought. “There’s something below the surface - something beyond just what the symbol looks like. It represents something.”
Ignoring Sherlock’s unintentional jab at his intelligence - or lack of, so it often seemed in Sherlock’s opinion - John settled further in his seat and stared down at his notepad. The passing streetlights lit it up enough for him to make out the outlines. “And you want to know what it represents.”
“Very good, John. You are learning.” But Sherlock was only half paying attention to his colleague. The rest of his attention was focused on his internal collection of images and snippets of information he had gathered through the years. “Our killer chose this symbol for a reason. These snakes, they mean something to him. They’re important somehow. If we can figure out what they mean then we’ll learn a little more about our killer - hopefully about what makes him tick.”
John looked to the dark-haired man beside him once more. “You keep saying ‘him’ and ‘he’. How do you know it’s a man?”
“Two reasons, John. The first being statistics.”
“What about them?”
“Statistics state that most serial killers are white males.”
“Right… of course they do. Why didn’t I know that?”
Sherlock’s brow burrowed and he frowned at his flatmate. “Why would you know that?”
Unable to think of a suitable response, John rerouted the conversation back on track - or at least slightly more on track. “What’s the second reason then?”
That distracted Sherlock. He went back to staring out of the window, his eyes searching the streets for nothing in particular. “Look at the victim. She’s an escort. Her clientele would have consisted mainly of wealthy men. No doubt her diary will reveal that it was a man she was meant to be meeting earlier.”
He paused in his speech and movements, a spark of a thought passing through him. Only when it was fully formed did he restart in both speech and movement once more. “Of course, the killer - he must have posed as a client which means it wasn’t just a random killing. He had been watching her. He knew her work.”
The cab stopped outside of 221b Baker Street and Sherlock was out of the door in an instant, too lost in thought as he clambered toward the flat in his hurry for more research facilities. That left John to pay the driver with the last note in his wallet.
“Keep the change,” he added as he pulled himself from the car, resigned in the knowledge that the few shiny coins that would be left over would barely be enough to buy a good cup of tea let alone anything else.
He caught Sherlock up at the entrance to the living room, the detective shrugging out of his jacket as he still puzzled over the case - completely unaware of John’s brief absence. “So what does it all mean? Why this symbol? Why her? Why take the necklace?”
“That’s a lot of questions,” John remarked with an air of flippancy, pulling free of his own jacket.
Sherlock ignored him, heading straight for the laptop lying closed on the table - John’s laptop. But that was all semantics, it was a laptop and it was there, ready and waiting to be used. “The biggest question of all is where do we start?”
John glanced toward the clock and rubbed at his eyes with his left palm, vaguely aware of an unsettled rumble in his stomach that reminded him of how he hadn’t eaten. “When you say we, I really hope you’re not including me in that statement. It’s two in the morning and unlike you, I actually require sleep… and food - which I have yet to have, by the way.”
“Who could sleep at a time like this?” Sherlock asked, his fingers already tapping away at the keyboard, eyes trained on the screen.
“I could actually.”
Grey-blue eyes rolled. “Don’t be a spoil sport, John. We both know what you would rather be doing.”
There was a pause where John refused to answer and Sherlock considered what else to say, the tip-tapping of the keys stilling for a moment.
“I need your help, John.”
Smiling tightly, John shook his head. “You really don’t.”
“Quite true,” Sherlock said after a moment’s consideration, “but I would like it all the same.” And here he began to sulk a little. “It’s just not the same talking to the skull anymore - I’ve grown quite accustomed to listening to your idle chatter as I think.”
“If that was meant to be a compliment, it was rubbish one.” And yet John took a seat on the couch all the same, observing Sherlock in his work.
“It was merely a statement of fact. How you take it is entirely up to you.” Here he swung the laptop around and pointed to the image on the screen, his eyes locking with John’s expectantly. “Ouroboros.”
“I’m sorry… Ouro-what?” John asked, looking over the image. It was a circle. Although, no, upon closer inspection, it was a snake - gripping its tail at the very end.
“Ouroboros,” Sherlock repeated, turning the laptop back around so he could tip-tap at the keys once more. “It symbolises infinity, in a sense anyway. A serpent attempting to devour its own tail.”
“And just what has that got to do with our symbol?” Unlike Sherlock, who thrived on simple snippets of information and had long since mastered the art of putting all those snippets together, John felt like he was staring at a ‘connect the dots’ picture - only without any numbers to help. The lack of sleep wasn’t helping much either.
“Look at your notes again, John.”
John did so.
“What do you see?”
And there it was. How had he missed that? “The snakes are eating each other’s tails?” He frowned. “Why?”
“Precisely. Why indeed?” The dark-haired man leaned forward, nose nearly pressed to the screen as he let go of a growl of frustration. “What are you trying to say?” he murmured under his breath.
“Maybe he just likes snakes,” John mumbled in reply, voice drifting. He fought to keep his eyes open, unable to stop a yawn from slipping past his lips. “Or maybe he’s just twisted.”
“Twisted…” Sherlock repeated, the word hanging on the air. He raised his eyes once more, about to say something further but his flatmate was fast out of it - a light snore already escaping his sleeping form - and the detective’s words fell dead before they even hit the air. It could wait until morning.
-----
“Get up, John - we’re going out.”
One foot still in the dream, John pulled himself up, vaguely aware of a blanket falling away from his torso. He blinked his eyes several times, attempting to figure out what had happened to the horde of zombie-aliens he had been fighting off moments before. And the fish… where were the fish?
“John,” Sherlock called from the doorway, looping his scarf around his neck. He raised his eyebrows, awaiting his flatmate’s reply.
“Sherlock?” was all that came. Puzzled eyes searched the living room before landing on the detective. It took a further few moments before John figured out what had happened. The realisation came like a splash of cold water to the face and he sprung to his feet - wavering slightly from the sudden movement. “What time is it?”
“Nine-thirty,” Sherlock answered, now preoccupied with slipping his hands into his gloves. “I called ahead - Lestrade is expecting us. If we leave right this moment we should have just enough time to grab a quick lunch after meeting Lestrade.”
“Hold on.” John held both his hands up for emphasis, eyes closed in an attempt to catch his breath better.
Had someone, and in this case there was really only Mike Stamford to blame, told John prior to his sharing a flat with Sherlock that the detective had a habit of planning your day for you - without consulting you - he may have changed his mind about meeting said detective. But then, both flatmates knew he would have still stuck around - though neither was quite sure why.
“Just… just hang on a moment,” John continued, satisfied that Sherlock had fallen into silence. He opened his eyes once more and lowered his hands. “At least give me a chance to get ready before you start dragging me out the door and all over London. I haven’t even brushed my teeth.”
Sherlock considered this in an almost clinical manner before giving a curt nod. “You have ten minutes - the cab will leave in twelve.” With that, he swept from the room leaving John wondering whether or not he truly would leave without him.
-----
As it stood, John didn’t risk it.
He hurried about, stubbing his toe in the process and dripping toothpaste onto the very bottom of a clean shirt in his rush to make it out of the flat before the taxi left. He had thought of hanging back for an extra minute or so to see if Sherlock would still be there but his throbbing toe told him that it wasn’t worth it. Sherlock would have agreed with the throbbing toe.
It wasn’t long before they were pulling up outside of Scotland Yard and Sherlock was paying the driver - which was a good thing as, in his rush, John had left his wallet at home.
“The girl’s diary - did you find it?” Sherlock questioned when Lestrade approached them inside.
“Good morning to you too,” Lestrade replied, his voice a low and gritty rumble. His eyes flashed to John, sympathetic as they considered the man. “I see he’s dragged you along too.”
John shared a weary smile with the inspector that said it was still far too early in the day for Sherlock’s energy and antics but both knew they really had no choice. They went where Sherlock instructed them too. And no matter how many yawns John had to force back or how much caffeine Lestrade had needed in preparation after Sherlock’s phone call, Sherlock remained oblivious - completely focused on the task at hand.
“Did you find it?” he repeated.
“We did and don’t think for one moment that I’m letting you take a look. I do have officers working the case as well, you know.” Lestrade grumbled, turning on his heel and leading the way to his office.
“Your officers are idiots.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
Sherlock shot him a pointed look. “You asked me for help.”
“And you’re enjoying every minute of it. But I’m not having you run off on your own - that’s not how this works.”
“Isn’t it?”
Lestrade held the door to his office open for the pair then closed it behind them before rounding on Sherlock. “No, it isn’t. There are boundaries, Sherlock, and rules. You can’t go around doing as you please all the time.”
Sherlock merely glanced around the room, bored as he played with the fabric of his gloves. He smiled tightly. “And criminals, they care about such rules and boundaries?”
“Sherlock…” The inspector drew out the name in such a way that said he knew he couldn’t just hand the diary over without a fight but at the same time, he knew exactly how the meeting would end and it would end with Sherlock getting what he wanted - just like a child.
“He’ll be on his best behaviour,” John put in, half wondering if Sherlock even had a best behaviour setting in that computerised brain of his. “Won’t you, Sherlock?”
There was a moment of drawn out silence where Sherlock considered arguing and the others waited for him to do exactly that. So when he spoke again, it surprised both John and Lestrade to hear what he said. “Of course I will.” The reply was short and tight but would have to do and it was enough for Lestrade.
“On the desk,” the inspector said, relenting.
He hitched a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his desk and the box that sat there. Sherlock moved forward immediately and withdrew the diary from inside the box. He rifled through the pages until his eyes locked on the entry for the previous day.
After several moments and with an all too dangerous smile, he closed the small book with a quiet ‘clap’ and looked up to John. “How do you feel about Mediterranean food?”
-----
Of course, John should have known the moment Sherlock mentioned Mediterranean food that by the time they were sitting in the restaurant, looking over the menu, the words tumbling from his lips would be, “Don’t you think this is a tad expensive for lunch? Or for any type of food really…”
“This is where the victim was the night she was murdered.” Sherlock folded his menu away and focused on watching the entrance.
The place was quiet, a couple sitting toward the back and a group of businessmen sitting close to the window. Sherlock had already dismissed them as suspects.
“Yes, I get that,” John answered, voice hushed as he glanced to the staff and other customers. “That part I do understand. What I don’t understand is why we’re eating here. I mean, forty pounds for a starter? That’s just a little bit ridiculous.”
“You need to eat, remember?” the other man responded, tone bored, almost lethargic if it were at all possible for a tone to be such a thing. “You told me so last night.”
A little exasperated, John laid his menu on the table and surveyed Sherlock, meeting the man’s eyes. “Yes, I need to eat but this wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes and went back to staring at the entrance, hands folded neatly beneath his chin. “You have heard the phrase about two birds and one stone?”
“Yes, I have.” John let go of an irritated huff and spun in his seat, glancing to the doorway before looking back to his flatmate. “And what do you keep looking at? Who are you waiting for?”
“No one, it was just a theory.” The dark-haired man shook his head, his lips quirking at the corner as his attention went back to John and the menu on the table. “Are you ready to order?”
John stared for a moment, waiting for Sherlock to elaborate on his theory. “No, I’m not ready to order,” he answered, trying to push the distracting question aside. “What do you mean ‘just a theory’? Anytime you want to share… as you know, sharing is good.”
Sherlock’s smile turned tighter. “In the girl’s diary - all of her entries were written in blue ink except the one for today which was written in black.”
“You think it was written by the killer?”
Sherlock didn’t reply.
“So we might be meeting a killer… for lunch? This is ridiculous, Sherlock. Even by your standards”
The detective just lowered his eyes to John, keeping his gaze level, one corner of his mouth twitching with a mischievous smile. “If that entry was left by our killer then he wanted us here for a reason - I highly doubt we would be putting ourselves in any real danger.”
“No, of course not. Why would we do that?” With a roll of his eyes, John returned his attention to the menu for some distraction.
“You know, I haven’t got the money for this,” he went on after a few beats of silence. “I haven’t even got my wallet.”
“Which is why I’ll be paying. Honestly, John, you really do let the most trivial things get to you.”
John thought to argue that money was hardly trivial and did indeed matter but the look in Sherlock’s eyes had him asking himself what the point would be. Sometimes it was best just to know when to give in. The same was true when it came to the idea of meeting a possible serial killer for lunch.
Any normal person would have objected more. But then, any normal person wouldn’t have been sitting there with Sherlock Holmes in the first place. And whilst John still considered himself to be a rather normal and ordinary person, it was difficult not to admit that the consulting detective was rubbing off on him.
In the end, John ordered the cheapest thing on the menu whilst Sherlock sipped at his tea, eyes still flicking back to the entrance every so often. When the bill came, John slipped a few extra mints from the small bowl into his pocket, for that time later when he would be too busy running around after Sherlock to eat anything else, and headed to the bathroom as Sherlock paid.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered how Sherlock did it - put aside the obvious needs of his body to purely cater for the needs of his over-active mind. Sherlock, on the other hand, wondered how other people - such as John - allowed themselves to be distracted by such menial things.
He was still pondering this when the young waitress returned with his card and receipt. She wavered and he looked up.
“Are you Sherlock Holmes?” she asked, glancing to the name on the card briefly and giving it a dubious look as if such things had a habit of changing often.
“Yes, thank you. I am.” A false smile in place, he took both card and receipt from her but found his eyes drawn to her other hand, where she played with a slip of paper.
“A man just asked me to give you this.” She held out the paper. “He said it was important.”
“A man?” Sherlock took the paper, eyeing it with caution. He had seen no one come in. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He had seen no one suspicious come in. There had, however, been a delivery man with a bunch of flowers when the waitress had been seeing to his bill.
His hand tightened around the paper. “The man with the flowers?”
She nodded and he stood hastily, pulling his coat on as he regarded the girl.
“Which way did he go?” He studied her confusion as she struggled to find the answer.
“I don’t know - left, I think.”
“Left?” he repeated but her squeak of a response was no more than a whisper as he darted toward the doorway and swung left once there.
It was in that moment that a highly befuddled and ever so slightly irritated John Watson emerged from the bathroom. “Sherlock?” he called, uncertain, his gaze following the dark figure out of the door. “Sherlock!”
Of course, by then it was too late. He realised as much even as he tugged his jacket free from the chair and gave chase. It was a pity though, that it wasn’t until Sherlock found himself in a darkened alleyway that he realised the same thing.
He heard footsteps approach from behind and a small smile played at his lips, sardonic and dry. Oh what a fool he was. What an idiotic fool.
“I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t come,” he said but the man behind remained silent. “The flowers were a nice touch - very distracting.”
He spun on his heel to face his foe and realised his mistake almost immediately. He had expected to see a gun aimed at his head. Dull. Any barbarian could pull a trigger and actually hit their target from such a close range.
But he didn’t see a gun. In fact, he didn’t have time to see much of anything and had even less time to marvel at the originality behind the attack. A blast of water hit his face, only it wasn’t water. It stung far too much to be water.
Sherlock blinked and swiped at his face, using his scarf and the sleeves of his coat to mop at the wet that clung to his skin. Not that it particularly mattered anymore, the damage had been done and he was already too aware of the fact that no matter how much he blinked or how wide he opened his eyes, he could not see.
The world was wavering before him, blurred and fading, and he was standing in a darkened alley staring blankly ahead, unable to see.
“Sherlock!” John’s voice carried down the alleyway and in the muddled darkness, Sherlock heard two sets of footsteps - both quickened as one disappeared behind him and the other approached from upfront.
“Sherlock?” the doctor repeated, but the name was more than just that. It was a question. It was ‘what happened?’. It was ‘are you okay?’. It was also ‘you are an absolute idiot, do you know that?’ but that wasn’t as important.
In fact, to Sherlock, nothing less than confronting the assailant was - not the stinging sensation in his eyes or his current lack of sight, or John’s stalled footsteps.
“I’m fine - just go after him.” He kept his eyes closed and pinched at his brow, not wishing to alert his flatmate to his current predicament. Because John was so very much the type of man to believe that Sherlock’s health took precedence over chasing the suspect.
As it was, John conducted a quick once over with his eyes and, finding no traces of blood on his friend, gave a nod and sped off down the alley. It was only when he could see no sign of the man he was meant to be chasing that he thought to ask himself why Sherlock hadn’t followed. Upon that revelation, he couldn’t get back to the detective fast enough.
When John did arrive back, he found Sherlock leaning against the alley wall, his gaze heavenward. To anyone passing by, it looked like the man was merely cloud watching. To John, it looked like he was deep in thought.
What he was doing was listening.
“You didn’t catch him then?” he asked without looking to John.
“No - too fast,” John answered, thoughts distracted as he searched Sherlock over once again for any sign of injury that he may have missed the first time. There had to be something because Sherlock Holmes, the world’s greatest consulting detective, didn’t hang back. He didn’t let the villain or scoundrel or hoodwink get away because he fancied doing a bit of cloud watching.
“What happened?” The words finally slipped past his lips when the silence got too much for him, worry seeping in.
Sherlock’s jaw tensed but his reply was light, flippant. “I followed our friend to here.”
“And?”
“And you chased him away.”
John’s lips twitched at the corner in irritation. Something the universe should have warned him about Sherlock Holmes - and she had been planning to, she had just never gotten around to doing it - was that as much as the great detective loved to show off, talking to him at times was worse than talking to a brick wall. At least with a brick wall you knew the wall didn’t think you were an idiot.
“Yes… yes, I remember that part. I was here for that part. Now, what about the bit before that - where you and Mr. Quick were facing off?”
“You make it sound so dramatic, John.”
John tilted his head to the side, surveying the man before him. “And isn’t it? Because I’m assuming that was the killer, wasn’t it? That’s why you were chasing him in the first place?”
“It was.”
“Right…” John scoffed. “And that’s all you have to say?”
“I answered your question.”
“You answered one of them.”
A small smile played at the very edges of Sherlock’s lips. “Ah yes, you still want to know what happened.”
“Only if you feel like sharing, of course.” Sarcasm. Thick, dripping sarcasm.
Sherlock’s hesitation should have been enough of a telltale for John. It should have alerted the doctor immediately but he was still far too busy being angry at his friend for risking his life that he was a little slow in ‘deducing’ why Sherlock wasn’t so forthcoming.
In the silence that stretched on, the chill in the air cooled John’s blood and the adrenaline began to ebb away. His shoulders slumped and he regarded Sherlock. “He outsmarted you, didn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Sherlock replied with that same air of arrogance he always had about him.
“Then what would you say?”
“Distracted,” Sherlock decided on because he refused to believe that a common murderer could outsmart him of all people.
“You could have been killed,” John pointed out, which was really quite good of him considering how often the consulting detective seemed to forget about his own mortality.
“Doubtful when I had my trusty blogger following behind. Besides, he didn’t want to kill me.”
But the shorter man remained unconvinced. “I suppose he just wanted a chat?”
Sherlock pulled the slip of paper from his pocket and held it out to John, or at least in the direction he figured John was standing in judging by where the sound of his voice came from. “Read this - it should tell us what he wanted.”
John grumbled but snatched the paper away. Once unfolded, his eyes skimmed the words written there. None of it made a lick of sense to him.
“Out loud,” Sherlock instructed in the silence that was left behind.
“Oh for-” John started, swearing under his breath and thrusting the paper back at the dark-haired man. “Read it yourself.”
“Normally I would but then, normally I would be able to see what’s written there.”
John opened his mouth to speak but his words stalled along with his brain. “I’m sorry… what are you saying?”
“I’m blind, John.” And here his gaze met the doctor’s, which for John was extremely disturbing considering he couldn’t quite work out how his friend knew exactly where to look. But even without actual sight, the consulting detective still managed to stare down at the man before him with that perplexed look he reserved for ‘idiots’ - or in other words, anyone who wasn’t Sherlock himself. “Why else do you think I didn’t join in your chase?”
And somehow ‘I thought you were out of breath’ just didn’t quite seem like a good enough response.
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Thank you so much for reading. Part 2 here