sherlock fic: the greatest murder trial in history
Title: The Greatest Murder Trial in History
Disclaimer: NOT MINE.
Summary: John and Sherlock in the zombie apocalypse (inspired by this Tumblr post).
Words: 2,323
"The world's going to end, John."
Sherlock is perched on his chair, knees under his chin, watching the news with the volume turned up far too loud. John's trying to finish typing up their last case, but the commercials keep distracting him.
"John."
"What, Sherlock?"
"The world's ending. Or it will be. Soon." John twists in his chair, watches Sherlock flick a careless hand at the television. The news is running a story about several students who've all caught the same virus. Sherlock watches the screen intently, oddly still even for him.
John doesn't have the energy to deal with Sherlock's moodiness and cryptic declarations tonight, so he plays along: "Shall I purchase more ammunition for my gun in the morning?"
"Yes, please."
It's the please of all things that makes John jittery when he tries to go to sleep that night.
It doesn't take long, not in the grand scheme of things.
Wide empty streets, deserted schools, trashed hospitals.
Overflowing morgues.
To his credit, Sherlock never says I told you so.
Mycroft had given them a heads-up, right before things got really bad and borders started closing, but Sherlock didn't want to leave London and John didn't want to leave him, so they stay in 221b. (John didn't say that. He said he didn't have anywhere else to go. Mycroft had scoffed and Sherlock's lips had twitched with that rare, sly smile he only used when he thought John had said something particularly clever.)
So it's just them now, holed up in their flat. The bell rings occasionally but it's all wrong; even John can tell it's not a client. Usually it's a walker who's stumbled into the building, pressing the buzzer by mistake. They wait a few minutes for it to hobble away from the door before one of them goes down and takes care of it.
(They used to pile the bodies inside Speedy's - it's deserted and keeps them out of the way - but the stench got too bad. They drag them down to the end of the block now, stack them like sandbags against a flood.)
John had gotten his position back at the hospital for a few weeks but once things got really bad and they couldn't keep up anymore, he stopped going. The soldier in him feels guilty, traitorous, but there's not a single doctor left from St. Bart's now and he tells himself that trying to wrestle the world back is a nobler goal than simply easing the pain of those already too far gone and getting killed for his trouble.
Sherlock can always tell when John starts to get into one of his moods. That's usually when they go out hunting.
Molly was the first one they lost, alone in the morgue one night doing a post-mortem on someone who wasn't quite dead.
They sent Mrs. Hudson to her sister's. She called every night, as instructed, for about three weeks.
Lestrade lasted longer than most of the police; it was a dangerous profession to be in, the mortality rate almost as high as doctors. As soon as he realized he was sick he came to Baker Street, knocking on their door at three in the morning. John walked him down to the end of the street, then came back alone. Sherlock slept through the whole thing.
Neither of them are quite sure where Mycroft is, nor what he's doing, but he calls occasionally just to say he's still alive.
"We could keep score."
"Jesus, Sherlock, we're not going to keep score."
"I thought it might make this more enjoyable."
"Enjoyable?" Sherlock sighs. Sometimes it's easy to pull John out of his frustration and guilt. Sometimes it's not.
"Fine. No keeping score."
There's a little group of walkers at the end of the block, huddled around something that doesn't seem to be moving anymore. John pulls Sherlock behind a dumpster, waiting to see if the zombies lose interest and head their way.
"I've noticed," Sherlock whispers, "that these creatures tend to eat all of the flesh, not just the brain, as popular culture would lead us to believe." The sounds of zombies feasting rolls John's stomach and he focuses on Sherlock's voice. "They're unusually focused. Their victim must have been obese."
John appreciates that the filter between Sherlock's brain and his mouth is still faulty. It's one thing that hasn't changed, something he can hold onto.
"Alright, that's enough; boost me up." John climbs on Sherlock's back, then crawls up on top of the dumpster lid, lying on his belly. One, two, three, four. There are four of them.
Four shots later and the street is clear for another block. Sherlock grabs the back of his jacket to steady him as he jumps down. He tucks the still-warm pistol in his jacket pocket, rather than the waistband of his jeans.
"Four for me." John's not fond of the fact that killing assuages his guilt, but he can't deny that it works.
Sherlock quirks an eyebrow: "You said we weren't keeping score." John shrugs and starts walking.
"Four for me."
Sherlock found a small hand-crank generator in the science lab of a high school. They use it to heat the kettle for tea and to keep the satellite phone Mycroft gave them charged. John's sitting in the windowsill, gun in one hand and tea in the other, picking off walkers that have wandered down Baker Street. There's more of them than usual today; the sound must be drawing them out.
Mycroft doesn't call often, but when he does it's usually on Sunday afternoons. Sherlock twitches in his chair, glaring at the phone. If John asked, he'd say he's not worried, that he doesn't care if Mycroft calls. John doesn't ask because he knows the answer he'd get would be a lie.
The phone beeps and Sherlock snatches it up. "For God's sake, Mycroft," he sighs, obviously put out.
John can't hear Mycroft's side of the conversation, but Sherlock is mostly grunting and sighing and trying very hard to sound as if the world is a terrible bore. After a few minutes, he leaves the window and goes to the kitchen, drawing the door closed so Sherlock can have a modicum of privacy, if he wants. John knows he won't use it, but it's polite all the same.
He cleans his gun with the last of their Q-tips. They'll have to find another grocery in the morning. Through the door, he can hear Sherlock end the conversation.
"Yes, of course. I know. I know. Fine. Until next time, then, Mycroft."
John gives him a minute.
"That one was a bank manager. Oh, please, John, only a bank manager would wear a pin like that. The pin! The silver pin on the lapel of his coat. Or it was silver; it's covered in blood now, but I feel fairly confident in saying he once worked in a bank. No, of course that doesn't affect whether or not you should shoot him; get on with it."
Sherlock's a good shot (of course he is, he's good at everything except social interactions and primary school knowledge) but not quite as good as John, so he doesn't use his gun that often. He claims it's to save ammunition; if only one of them is firing a gun, their stockpile of bullets will last longer. Really he just likes the up-close kills better.
He's a master of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, so he chooses his weapons carefully: a sword, a cricket bat, an axe. The axe is honestly his favorite; weighted like the bat, cuts like the sword. He likes the thrill of it all, the adrenaline that shoots through his system when he's eye-to-eye with a walker.
It nearly gives John a heart attack when Sherlock insists on playing bait. He breaks into a flat down the street from where they're patrolling, covering Sherlock as he waltzes down the middle of the road, axe swinging. John shoots them when they get too close, stay standing too long. Sherlock always complains that he's taking the fun out of it, but he'd rather have Sherlock whining than dead.
They run into other people - live people - sometimes, but those encounters are few and far between.
Once, when Sherlock is out collecting samples for his experiments, they watch a man walk calmly into a horde of zombies, corralled in the fenced-in playground of a primary school. John contemplates shooting him before he can get through the gate to put him out of his misery, but he's too horrified to raise his arm.
Sherlock wraps his hand around John's elbow and pulls him away. "We won't ever come to that," Sherlock assures him.
Honestly, one of the things John feared most about the whole situation would be that Sherlock would get bored. No cases, no new clients, just the endless monotony of stocking supplies and killing zombies and avoiding death. If Sherlock got bored, there was no telling what sort of stupid stunt he would pull or how loud and obnoxious his whining would get.
But it never happens.
"Now this," Sherlock gesturing grandly at the ghost town London has become, "this is a case for the ages, John. This will be the greatest murder trial in history. The victim: humanity. The accused: zombies. But the how - the how! - that's the real question. How did they slaughter us, John?"
He doesn't really care, he's just glad Sherlock is occupied.
"Look over there, at the woman and the two children. They're her children, or they were; the cheekbones give it away. Interesting, the way they still follow her. Do they follow simply because she's in front of them and they have no independent thought or because they feel some sort of familial bond? John, shoot one of the children first; see if the woman still possesses any maternal instinct."
(John always shoots the children first, but not to satisfy Sherlock's curiosity. Kids are the worst.)
It's Sherlock's idea to check out an Underground station. He needs more specimens and they've pretty well cleared the area around Baker Street, so they have to trek out a bit farther.
Neither of them anticipated that it would be so crowded.
There were people, hundreds of them, on the trains when the lines stopped running and the zombies took over. Few of them are coordinated enough to make it up the stairs so they pace along the tracks and platforms, knocking into each other and fighting occasionally. That's not even counting the ones so long decayed at street-level that they fell down the stairs and went to pieces, the ones without legs who just pull themselves along with their arms.
Their flashlights attract attention and even Sherlock's not bold enough to stay very long. They run back the way they came and Sherlock's halfway up the stairs - long legs skipping every other step - when he realizes John's not behind him.
"John!"
"Fuck! Sherlock!"
John's at the foot of the stairs; he had tripped and a few of the crawlers had latched onto his sweater. He's thankful for the Army boots he kept in the closet, for the corduroy pants he wore because it was chilly when Sherlock tugged him outside that morning. He's kicking them in the face, and most are so old their heads pop right off, but they're stronger than they should be and the just keep coming.
"John!" Sherlock's rushing down the stairs, sliding down a few steps and twisting his ankle. He wrestles with the gun that's tucked at the small of his back; it's caught on his shirt and he rips it free right as one of the zombies reaches for John's neck.
The gunfire echoes off the walls of the station, deafening them and drawing more attention, but Sherlock has dispatched with enough of the crawlers that were holding John down that he can reach out, pull the doctor upright, and shove him towards the stairs. John is shaky and Sherlock is hanging onto the railing to compensate for his ankle; as they reach the street, they both collapse, panting in sync for a moment before Sherlock rolls over and tackles John.
"John? John!"
"M'fine, Sherlock--"
"Are you sure? Are you posit--"
"Yes, Sherlock, I'm... I'm alright. We're alright."
It takes them twice as long to get home; John is too short and too shaky to properly support Sherlock's weight. They pass a pharmacy on the way and John ducks inside for bandages.
He lets Sherlock borrow his old cane.
John's eating stale graham crackers with peanut butter for dinner.
Sherlock stands at the window, surveying the empty world on the other side of the glass, violin on his shoulder.
It's been almost six weeks since Mycroft's last call.
As Sherlock begins to play, John closes his eyes. If it wasn't for the permanent stench of decay, or the sorry state of his supper, or the occasional sharp notes that find their way into Sherlock's mournful tune, John could almost pretend that the world hadn't ended.
"Who's the judge?"
"What?"
Their words are muffled behind the old shirts they've tied around their faces, spritzed with Mrs. Hudson's perfume to make venturing outside slightly more bearable.
"You said once that this was your greatest case, the greatest murder trial in history." Sherlock is stacking bodies on the sidewalk while John keeps watch, gun trained on the opposite end of the street.
"I did, yes."
An empty trashcan topples over as a zombie stumbles into it - one of John's early warning traps. Before it can decide to head towards them, John has shot it between the eyes.
"So when you figure it out - how we were killed off - who's going to be the judge in this great, historical trial?"
Sherlock frowns, points at the dead walker not twenty feet away: "Isn't that what we're doing now?"
Disclaimer: NOT MINE.
Summary: John and Sherlock in the zombie apocalypse (inspired by this Tumblr post).
Words: 2,323
"The world's going to end, John."
Sherlock is perched on his chair, knees under his chin, watching the news with the volume turned up far too loud. John's trying to finish typing up their last case, but the commercials keep distracting him.
"John."
"What, Sherlock?"
"The world's ending. Or it will be. Soon." John twists in his chair, watches Sherlock flick a careless hand at the television. The news is running a story about several students who've all caught the same virus. Sherlock watches the screen intently, oddly still even for him.
John doesn't have the energy to deal with Sherlock's moodiness and cryptic declarations tonight, so he plays along: "Shall I purchase more ammunition for my gun in the morning?"
"Yes, please."
It's the please of all things that makes John jittery when he tries to go to sleep that night.
It doesn't take long, not in the grand scheme of things.
Wide empty streets, deserted schools, trashed hospitals.
Overflowing morgues.
To his credit, Sherlock never says I told you so.
Mycroft had given them a heads-up, right before things got really bad and borders started closing, but Sherlock didn't want to leave London and John didn't want to leave him, so they stay in 221b. (John didn't say that. He said he didn't have anywhere else to go. Mycroft had scoffed and Sherlock's lips had twitched with that rare, sly smile he only used when he thought John had said something particularly clever.)
So it's just them now, holed up in their flat. The bell rings occasionally but it's all wrong; even John can tell it's not a client. Usually it's a walker who's stumbled into the building, pressing the buzzer by mistake. They wait a few minutes for it to hobble away from the door before one of them goes down and takes care of it.
(They used to pile the bodies inside Speedy's - it's deserted and keeps them out of the way - but the stench got too bad. They drag them down to the end of the block now, stack them like sandbags against a flood.)
John had gotten his position back at the hospital for a few weeks but once things got really bad and they couldn't keep up anymore, he stopped going. The soldier in him feels guilty, traitorous, but there's not a single doctor left from St. Bart's now and he tells himself that trying to wrestle the world back is a nobler goal than simply easing the pain of those already too far gone and getting killed for his trouble.
Sherlock can always tell when John starts to get into one of his moods. That's usually when they go out hunting.
Molly was the first one they lost, alone in the morgue one night doing a post-mortem on someone who wasn't quite dead.
They sent Mrs. Hudson to her sister's. She called every night, as instructed, for about three weeks.
Lestrade lasted longer than most of the police; it was a dangerous profession to be in, the mortality rate almost as high as doctors. As soon as he realized he was sick he came to Baker Street, knocking on their door at three in the morning. John walked him down to the end of the street, then came back alone. Sherlock slept through the whole thing.
Neither of them are quite sure where Mycroft is, nor what he's doing, but he calls occasionally just to say he's still alive.
"We could keep score."
"Jesus, Sherlock, we're not going to keep score."
"I thought it might make this more enjoyable."
"Enjoyable?" Sherlock sighs. Sometimes it's easy to pull John out of his frustration and guilt. Sometimes it's not.
"Fine. No keeping score."
There's a little group of walkers at the end of the block, huddled around something that doesn't seem to be moving anymore. John pulls Sherlock behind a dumpster, waiting to see if the zombies lose interest and head their way.
"I've noticed," Sherlock whispers, "that these creatures tend to eat all of the flesh, not just the brain, as popular culture would lead us to believe." The sounds of zombies feasting rolls John's stomach and he focuses on Sherlock's voice. "They're unusually focused. Their victim must have been obese."
John appreciates that the filter between Sherlock's brain and his mouth is still faulty. It's one thing that hasn't changed, something he can hold onto.
"Alright, that's enough; boost me up." John climbs on Sherlock's back, then crawls up on top of the dumpster lid, lying on his belly. One, two, three, four. There are four of them.
Four shots later and the street is clear for another block. Sherlock grabs the back of his jacket to steady him as he jumps down. He tucks the still-warm pistol in his jacket pocket, rather than the waistband of his jeans.
"Four for me." John's not fond of the fact that killing assuages his guilt, but he can't deny that it works.
Sherlock quirks an eyebrow: "You said we weren't keeping score." John shrugs and starts walking.
"Four for me."
Sherlock found a small hand-crank generator in the science lab of a high school. They use it to heat the kettle for tea and to keep the satellite phone Mycroft gave them charged. John's sitting in the windowsill, gun in one hand and tea in the other, picking off walkers that have wandered down Baker Street. There's more of them than usual today; the sound must be drawing them out.
Mycroft doesn't call often, but when he does it's usually on Sunday afternoons. Sherlock twitches in his chair, glaring at the phone. If John asked, he'd say he's not worried, that he doesn't care if Mycroft calls. John doesn't ask because he knows the answer he'd get would be a lie.
The phone beeps and Sherlock snatches it up. "For God's sake, Mycroft," he sighs, obviously put out.
John can't hear Mycroft's side of the conversation, but Sherlock is mostly grunting and sighing and trying very hard to sound as if the world is a terrible bore. After a few minutes, he leaves the window and goes to the kitchen, drawing the door closed so Sherlock can have a modicum of privacy, if he wants. John knows he won't use it, but it's polite all the same.
He cleans his gun with the last of their Q-tips. They'll have to find another grocery in the morning. Through the door, he can hear Sherlock end the conversation.
"Yes, of course. I know. I know. Fine. Until next time, then, Mycroft."
John gives him a minute.
"That one was a bank manager. Oh, please, John, only a bank manager would wear a pin like that. The pin! The silver pin on the lapel of his coat. Or it was silver; it's covered in blood now, but I feel fairly confident in saying he once worked in a bank. No, of course that doesn't affect whether or not you should shoot him; get on with it."
Sherlock's a good shot (of course he is, he's good at everything except social interactions and primary school knowledge) but not quite as good as John, so he doesn't use his gun that often. He claims it's to save ammunition; if only one of them is firing a gun, their stockpile of bullets will last longer. Really he just likes the up-close kills better.
He's a master of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, so he chooses his weapons carefully: a sword, a cricket bat, an axe. The axe is honestly his favorite; weighted like the bat, cuts like the sword. He likes the thrill of it all, the adrenaline that shoots through his system when he's eye-to-eye with a walker.
It nearly gives John a heart attack when Sherlock insists on playing bait. He breaks into a flat down the street from where they're patrolling, covering Sherlock as he waltzes down the middle of the road, axe swinging. John shoots them when they get too close, stay standing too long. Sherlock always complains that he's taking the fun out of it, but he'd rather have Sherlock whining than dead.
They run into other people - live people - sometimes, but those encounters are few and far between.
Once, when Sherlock is out collecting samples for his experiments, they watch a man walk calmly into a horde of zombies, corralled in the fenced-in playground of a primary school. John contemplates shooting him before he can get through the gate to put him out of his misery, but he's too horrified to raise his arm.
Sherlock wraps his hand around John's elbow and pulls him away. "We won't ever come to that," Sherlock assures him.
Honestly, one of the things John feared most about the whole situation would be that Sherlock would get bored. No cases, no new clients, just the endless monotony of stocking supplies and killing zombies and avoiding death. If Sherlock got bored, there was no telling what sort of stupid stunt he would pull or how loud and obnoxious his whining would get.
But it never happens.
"Now this," Sherlock gesturing grandly at the ghost town London has become, "this is a case for the ages, John. This will be the greatest murder trial in history. The victim: humanity. The accused: zombies. But the how - the how! - that's the real question. How did they slaughter us, John?"
He doesn't really care, he's just glad Sherlock is occupied.
"Look over there, at the woman and the two children. They're her children, or they were; the cheekbones give it away. Interesting, the way they still follow her. Do they follow simply because she's in front of them and they have no independent thought or because they feel some sort of familial bond? John, shoot one of the children first; see if the woman still possesses any maternal instinct."
(John always shoots the children first, but not to satisfy Sherlock's curiosity. Kids are the worst.)
It's Sherlock's idea to check out an Underground station. He needs more specimens and they've pretty well cleared the area around Baker Street, so they have to trek out a bit farther.
Neither of them anticipated that it would be so crowded.
There were people, hundreds of them, on the trains when the lines stopped running and the zombies took over. Few of them are coordinated enough to make it up the stairs so they pace along the tracks and platforms, knocking into each other and fighting occasionally. That's not even counting the ones so long decayed at street-level that they fell down the stairs and went to pieces, the ones without legs who just pull themselves along with their arms.
Their flashlights attract attention and even Sherlock's not bold enough to stay very long. They run back the way they came and Sherlock's halfway up the stairs - long legs skipping every other step - when he realizes John's not behind him.
"John!"
"Fuck! Sherlock!"
John's at the foot of the stairs; he had tripped and a few of the crawlers had latched onto his sweater. He's thankful for the Army boots he kept in the closet, for the corduroy pants he wore because it was chilly when Sherlock tugged him outside that morning. He's kicking them in the face, and most are so old their heads pop right off, but they're stronger than they should be and the just keep coming.
"John!" Sherlock's rushing down the stairs, sliding down a few steps and twisting his ankle. He wrestles with the gun that's tucked at the small of his back; it's caught on his shirt and he rips it free right as one of the zombies reaches for John's neck.
The gunfire echoes off the walls of the station, deafening them and drawing more attention, but Sherlock has dispatched with enough of the crawlers that were holding John down that he can reach out, pull the doctor upright, and shove him towards the stairs. John is shaky and Sherlock is hanging onto the railing to compensate for his ankle; as they reach the street, they both collapse, panting in sync for a moment before Sherlock rolls over and tackles John.
"John? John!"
"M'fine, Sherlock--"
"Are you sure? Are you posit--"
"Yes, Sherlock, I'm... I'm alright. We're alright."
It takes them twice as long to get home; John is too short and too shaky to properly support Sherlock's weight. They pass a pharmacy on the way and John ducks inside for bandages.
He lets Sherlock borrow his old cane.
John's eating stale graham crackers with peanut butter for dinner.
Sherlock stands at the window, surveying the empty world on the other side of the glass, violin on his shoulder.
It's been almost six weeks since Mycroft's last call.
As Sherlock begins to play, John closes his eyes. If it wasn't for the permanent stench of decay, or the sorry state of his supper, or the occasional sharp notes that find their way into Sherlock's mournful tune, John could almost pretend that the world hadn't ended.
"Who's the judge?"
"What?"
Their words are muffled behind the old shirts they've tied around their faces, spritzed with Mrs. Hudson's perfume to make venturing outside slightly more bearable.
"You said once that this was your greatest case, the greatest murder trial in history." Sherlock is stacking bodies on the sidewalk while John keeps watch, gun trained on the opposite end of the street.
"I did, yes."
An empty trashcan topples over as a zombie stumbles into it - one of John's early warning traps. Before it can decide to head towards them, John has shot it between the eyes.
"So when you figure it out - how we were killed off - who's going to be the judge in this great, historical trial?"
Sherlock frowns, points at the dead walker not twenty feet away: "Isn't that what we're doing now?"