Fic: The dangerous book for boys. (Part three, AU, Sherlock/John, PG-13.)
The dangerous book for boys. Sherlock (BBC), PG-13, still wildly AU. Sherlock/John. Part three (of four!) Please forgive my liberties with Science; Science and I had only a brief fling before I married Humanities.
Part one.
Part two.
John blinks down at the phone, trying to remember what hour of the morning it is, and why he thought it was a good idea to get up and experience it.
Monday morning is a little strange; Harry is sullen with him on the way to school, grabbing her lunch out of his hands and refusing to hug him like she usually does at the gates. He supposes that's because he left her at their aunt's house yesterday, stalked out without thinking and abandoned her to dad's bullying sisters. She came back in glossy braids and starched, girly clothes. Probably things his cousin Maria outgrew. Harry'd looked like a little angel, until she'd started hitting him in the stomach. "They pulled my hair," she hisses at him, while they walk.
"They brushed it," John corrects. "It looks like hair, for once."
"I hate you," says Harry, and stomps away.
It keeps going like that. Sherlock is waiting for him outside the deli, engaged in some kind of heated argument with his phone.
"Of all the-" he exclaims, furiously. He sees John and thrusts the phone into his hands and paces in a circle around him. "Text him back and tell him he's a twat. No, tell him he's an imbecile. Two e's, two i's. No brains." John blinks down at the phone, trying to remember what hour of the morning it is, and why he thought it was a good idea to get up and experience it. "Remind him that I'm the one who delivered the chat logs."
"Chat- Sherlock," John says, firmly. Sherlock stops pacing. "Several questions: what. Who. Why."
"In reverse order: because, you don't need to know, and I already told you." Sherlock frowns. "Don't make me repeat myself before I've had a coffee." John shuts the phone and holds it out, glaring at him. Sherlock looks down at it like it's a live chipmunk, or something equally unexpected. "Is this a mutiny?"
"You are not any kind of captain that I know of," John reminds him. "And you're not the only one who'd like a coffee before processing the day."
"Fine," Sherlock grumbles. He bundles his arms against his middle and collapses onto the newspaper box, staring straight ahead. "Hurry up." John goes in and queues up with the crowd at the counter. Behind the cold case, Mr. Papaioannou rolls his eyes and motions at him. About eight second later John is shoved out the front door with a paper tray in his hands: two coffees, one black and one with extra cream, and two buttered rolls, still hot.
"I don't think I paid," says John.
"Mmfh," says Sherlock, mouth full of roll.
Even school is in on it, John thinks, when they make it to the yard. Trying to complicate his life. There ought to be an orderly stream of people going through the doors, all the late arrivals, a handful of last cigarettes getting smoked and boyfriends getting kissed. But instead there's an enormous crowd standing outside in the loop of the front driveway, shifting from foot to foot and trying to see over a police barrier. Sherlock nearly jumped for joy at the sight of the caution tape, coffee percolating freshly in his veins, and now he's careening through the crowd like a disheveled pinball. John just sighs and follows him, trying not to let him elbow anybody accidentally in the face. There are cars and vans, local police and some unmarked. John can see sniffer dogs and their handlers going in the front door. Lestrade is by the steps, his face drawn and serious, talking to a small circle of cops and people John recognizes from the school office.
"What's going on?" he asks, sort of hoping it'll be taken as a general question. The kid beside him, a haircut carrying a heavy bookbag that's poking into John's spleen, turns around.
"Bomb threat," the kid says, with morbid delight. "Called in this morning."
"They're just saying that," somebody corrects. "It's drugs."
"It's not drugs-"
"Heard it was a gun in a locker, went off-"
"Definitely not drugs," the kid insists. "If it's drugs, we wouldn't have to stand outside, right?" He glances around suddenly, and John tries to see what he's seeing. "Huh. Somebody'd better tell that asshole what a bomb threat is." John stands on his toes, looks over, and sighs. Sure enough, Sherlock has ducked under the tape and is practically running for the door. He's caught under the armpits by two police. John nudges his way to the front and calls for Lestrade, who actually looks up and over at him. John stage-gestures at Sherlock, and Lestrade follows it. He puts a pained hand to the bridge of his nose. Sherlock is released and shoved forcibly back under the caution tape; after a few minutes, his phone buzzes.
West entrance. Be quick.
The back door has a cordon, but less of a crowd. No dogs, John thinks. People always want to watch the dogs going in.
"Tell me everything," Sherlock says, when Lestrade has ushered them inside and pushed them into a quiet classroom. All the lights are off; there's the sound of booted feet in the hall, but little else. "Where is it? What is it? When did the call arrive?" He makes an irritated noise and spins around, pressing his face to the glass panel in the door. "No. No time. Let me loose, I'll discover it myself."
"No," says Lestrade. "I have police detectives roaming the halls. How exactly do I explain you to them? Sorry officer, it's just a student of mine, he's got a knack for this sort of thing." He frowns. "No. You stay here. I'll give you as much as I can, because God knows, it isn't much."
"Fine." Sherlock perches himself on top of a desk, feet on the chair. "Go on."
"Call came in five minutes after the first bell. Just long enough for everyone to be seated, coats off. A voice on the other end-"
"Who took the call?" Sherlock interjects. "What sort of voice?"
"I did," Lestrade continues, patiently, "and it was a man speaking, using one of those toy voice changers. Sounded like Mickey Mouse. Said we had ten minutes to clear the premises, or tick-tick-boom. That was it. We cleared the building and the bomb squad moved in. They found zip, so far. Let's hope it stays that way." John nods and agrees.
Sherlock says nothing.
"Did they trace the call?" John asks. Sherlock makes a dismissive snort. "Well, alright, I don't know, isn't that what you're supposed to do?"
"Typically, yes."
"And is this not typical? Isn't it usually a prank? A cry for attention, whatever? Somebody with an exam today, a troubled person, something like that?"
"That's right," Lestrade says. "Most times." There's a knock on the door, and Lestrade looks between them both for a minute, then slips out to answer it. John stares at Sherlock, who for once is too busy examining the tops of the desks and the posters around the classroom to look back at John.
John clears his throat.
"Yes, fine," Sherlock says, finally meeting his eyes. "I have my suspicions. Kenneth was just a steroidal fly at the edge of the web, is that plain enough?"
"Sherlock, that is-" John grins. "The complete opposite of plain." He can't help himself, a laugh bubbles up. "We should work on your translations." And now Sherlock is looking at him like he's a lunatic. But a nice lunatic, maybe. He's almost smiling.
"You-" he begins, and the door clicks open.
"You two," Lestrade says. "With me. Now."
The three of them are standing in the boy's locker room, staring down at a fancy shoebox that's been hastily unwrapped. There's a green silk ribbon curling on the floor beside it. "It was taped up when they found it. Just sitting right here. Bomb squad opened it, but it's nothing. Just a pair of dirty shoes." Lestrade checks his watch. "You've got about forty seconds with these before they come back to collect. Lucky for you, something more pressing came up. Apparently there's a bigger package taped to the soda machine, and it isn't footwear."
Sherlock kneels in front of it, goes down on hands and knees and stares into the box. After a minute, he reaches forward with his thumb and forefinger to pull out the left shoe. It's a black leather lace-up, spotted and stained. Sherlock turns it over, gently. John can see light glinting off the the soles- no, not the soles. There's bits of glass and metal stuck into the bottom of the shoe, only the bottom. Like somebody put them on and stomped all over a mirror.
"Well?" asks Lestrade.
"Carl Powers," says Sherlock, immediately.
"So it's for you, after all" Lestrade sighs. "I was afraid of that. The weird ones are always for you." John watches Sherlock. There's a dazzling smile creeping up at the corners, that fierce cold grin that puts acres of distance in his eyes. His fingers are trembling slightly, and John knows it's not from fear.
It might be happiness.
"Oh, yes," says Sherlock. "It's for me."
It's almost perfectly dark, just a long line of green light in the sky where the evening's fading, and the first pinprick stars. They're under the bridge again, perched on the edge of the railing. Sherlock is facing him, his long legs splayed out on either side, hands in his pockets. There's a manic pulse in the tap of his foot on the rail. John knows that he would probably strangle someone for a cigarette right now, the way he's practically vibrating, but he hasn't touched one in John's presence since the last time they were here. He's not really thinking too hard about that.
"When I was fifteen," Sherlock says, "the chemistry lab exploded."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me."
"It should," Sherlock says, icily. "My protocols are exemplary." John thinks of the fire blanket, and reminds himself to invest in some less flammable clothing. "Anyway, I arrived just after the fire crew did. There was only one person inside when it went up. A laboratory assistant. Carl Powers. Officious, but otherwise harmless. Normal. Boring. Destined for a mid-level university position, two-point-five children, dying in bed at a respectable eighty-three."
"Sounds ghastly."
"Utterly." Sherlock either completely misses the sarcasm in his tone, or more likely sweeps past it. "The explosion was caused by a gas leak. Hydrogen. Human error, they said he didn't read the levels properly."
"But you don't think it was an accident?"
"I know it wasn't." Sherlock leans closer. "They were chasing us out of the hall when the gurney rushed by, and his shoes- they stuck over the side. An exceptionally tall person, Carl Powers. Big feet. Large soles. You saw them today."
"Hm," says John. "The bottoms were covered in glass. Big chunks of metal. From the explosion?"
"Yes. But it doesn't fit. He was supposed to be standing up. Standing up, John." Sherlock huffs impatiently and shifts closer on the railing. "Think about it. He's standing in front of a pressurized chamber. The leak is running inside. Seconds after he opens the valve to release the nitrogen, everything instantaneously ignites. There's no time to turn away, to crouch. There was a single explosion, one burst that would have knocked him backwards, and he didn't get up again. He didn't walk across the floor and stud his soles with glass-"
"His soles were already up," John says, everything suddenly clearing. "The metal got blown into the bottoms of his shoes because his feet weren't on the floor. Lying down?" He stares at Sherlock. "Already dead?"
"Possibly. The coroner's report-"
"How on earth," John cuts in, "did you get the coroner's report?" Sherlock waves away the question.
"It's not important. The report confirmed everything. There was an unusual amount of shrapnel in the knees and thighs, less on the face. If he'd been bending over the controls, it would've been the reverse. And timing was key- there was extensive blood loss. A cold body doesn't bleed. Either he died mere moments before the blast, or during. It's a puzzle, John, don't you see?"
"I suppose," he says. John's not sure that's the word he'd use, but this is Sherlock, and it's different. Everything is. "How did the police miss the shoes?"
"Because the killer cheated," Sherlock scowls. "Powers was loaded into the ambulance and pronounced en route. Somewhere between the site and the morgue, the shoes were lost. Stolen. And along with them, any chance that I'd be taken seriously." John can see the material in his coat pockets bunching as he clenches and knots his hands. "I went directly to the chemistry master, who called me a fantasist. I gave testimony to the police and was ignored. When I called the newspapers, I was given a warning by the headmaster. Useless," he adds. "The staff reporters had already hung up on me. I broke into the closed lab. I was caught. That same night I was packed into a car and told never to come back." John can almost picture it: Sherlock dragged out the door, wild-eyed, still trying to shout over everyone.
"So, alright," he says. "The shoes. Somebody keeps the shoes-"
"The killer keeps the shoes."
"-and gift-wraps them for you, and plants a bomb, and then calls it in himself, because- why? Just so they'll be found?" He shakes his head. "Why would he hand over evidence?"
"Because it's a game." Sherlock sounds totally serious. "He's trying to win. But he needs me to play."
"Some game," says John, sharply.
"It offends you."
"Of course it offends me," John says, his voice rising. His face feels warm. "Murder offends me. It ought to offend you. It ought to offend everybody." Sherlock doesn't respond. "Anyway, what's this all got to do with Kenneth and the drugs?"
"Ah." Sherlock taps his foot on the rail again. "It's not a direct connection. Not yet. Just a feeling. But obviously I've touched a nerve, gotten his attention somehow. Besides, there's more than Rohypnol and GHB making the rounds. Kenneth's supplier has a pet chemist. Or is one. There were warehouse thefts, but they didn't make sense at the time. Potassium permanganate, iodine, yes. But pentaerythritol? Plasticizers? The list was too scattered. Unless you're processing drugs and explosives, both."
"Christ," John exhales. He looks out at the river. "What is this?" he asks, partly to Sherlock, partly to himself. "What are we involved in?"
"We?" repeats Sherlock, suddenly. When John glances back at him, there's a strange look on his face, something he can't decipher. He's caught on something, stuck. Waiting for John to respond, but John doesn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about. Sherlock's brain again, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, leaving him behind. "You keep doing that," Sherlock says.
"Doing what?" Sherlock makes an impatient noise and gestures in the air, like he's already explained himself perfectly. "Oh. Right. You, then," John corrects, and Sherlock's eyes narrow. It's like pushing a button; John can feel a flush of irritation flooding to the surface. "What do you want me to say? Fine, it's you. It's all about you, it's your world, I'm just living in it. Is that what you're telling me?" He slides off the rail and stands up, conscious that Sherlock is staring at him again, still, always. Saying nothing, not even trying to slow this down. Whatever it is. "I offered to help-"
"It is mine," Sherlock interrupts. "The game."
"Forget it, then," John says. "Forget it, it's not my problem."
He walks away and up the path and he can feel Sherlock's eyes still on him, on his back, like the warm print of a hand.
He feels like such an asshole.
John dreams the lights again. They're far too bright and everything reflects, dazzles in his eyes, and he can't see.
"John," she says. He can feel her hand. He's crawling and everything under him crunches and scatters, and there's a hot, sharp sting in his elbows. He can't see her face. He's so cold, and she's calling, and suddenly there are arms around his waist, hauling him up, and he twists and cries out and pulls away, no, he's not leaving, and then it's Sherlock, shaking him by the arm, Sherlock covered in his blood. His face is too close, and he's white as a sheet. "Wake up," says Sherlock. "Wake up, you lazy-"
John opens his eyes and he's alone, in the middle of the bed, in the plain brown darkness of his room. He feels a tremor coming up in his chest and he shoves his face into the pillow, so that Harry won't hear him cry. He gasps it out, sobs and inhales and lets it pass through him. Afterwards he lies there bonelessly, wondering if he should even look at the clock. Three in the morning. There's a buzzing sound. His phone, face-down on the nightstand, vibrates once. Missed message. John rubs his eyes and flips it open.
It's a text, an hour old.
ChemPlex warehouse, on King's Road.
My source says activity.
I need you.
There's a second one, sent not five minutes ago.
If it's convenient,
please hur
It stops there.
John's internal debate rages for about a quarter of a second.
Part four.
Part one.
Part two.
John blinks down at the phone, trying to remember what hour of the morning it is, and why he thought it was a good idea to get up and experience it.
Monday morning is a little strange; Harry is sullen with him on the way to school, grabbing her lunch out of his hands and refusing to hug him like she usually does at the gates. He supposes that's because he left her at their aunt's house yesterday, stalked out without thinking and abandoned her to dad's bullying sisters. She came back in glossy braids and starched, girly clothes. Probably things his cousin Maria outgrew. Harry'd looked like a little angel, until she'd started hitting him in the stomach. "They pulled my hair," she hisses at him, while they walk.
"They brushed it," John corrects. "It looks like hair, for once."
"I hate you," says Harry, and stomps away.
It keeps going like that. Sherlock is waiting for him outside the deli, engaged in some kind of heated argument with his phone.
"Of all the-" he exclaims, furiously. He sees John and thrusts the phone into his hands and paces in a circle around him. "Text him back and tell him he's a twat. No, tell him he's an imbecile. Two e's, two i's. No brains." John blinks down at the phone, trying to remember what hour of the morning it is, and why he thought it was a good idea to get up and experience it. "Remind him that I'm the one who delivered the chat logs."
"Chat- Sherlock," John says, firmly. Sherlock stops pacing. "Several questions: what. Who. Why."
"In reverse order: because, you don't need to know, and I already told you." Sherlock frowns. "Don't make me repeat myself before I've had a coffee." John shuts the phone and holds it out, glaring at him. Sherlock looks down at it like it's a live chipmunk, or something equally unexpected. "Is this a mutiny?"
"You are not any kind of captain that I know of," John reminds him. "And you're not the only one who'd like a coffee before processing the day."
"Fine," Sherlock grumbles. He bundles his arms against his middle and collapses onto the newspaper box, staring straight ahead. "Hurry up." John goes in and queues up with the crowd at the counter. Behind the cold case, Mr. Papaioannou rolls his eyes and motions at him. About eight second later John is shoved out the front door with a paper tray in his hands: two coffees, one black and one with extra cream, and two buttered rolls, still hot.
"I don't think I paid," says John.
"Mmfh," says Sherlock, mouth full of roll.
Even school is in on it, John thinks, when they make it to the yard. Trying to complicate his life. There ought to be an orderly stream of people going through the doors, all the late arrivals, a handful of last cigarettes getting smoked and boyfriends getting kissed. But instead there's an enormous crowd standing outside in the loop of the front driveway, shifting from foot to foot and trying to see over a police barrier. Sherlock nearly jumped for joy at the sight of the caution tape, coffee percolating freshly in his veins, and now he's careening through the crowd like a disheveled pinball. John just sighs and follows him, trying not to let him elbow anybody accidentally in the face. There are cars and vans, local police and some unmarked. John can see sniffer dogs and their handlers going in the front door. Lestrade is by the steps, his face drawn and serious, talking to a small circle of cops and people John recognizes from the school office.
"What's going on?" he asks, sort of hoping it'll be taken as a general question. The kid beside him, a haircut carrying a heavy bookbag that's poking into John's spleen, turns around.
"Bomb threat," the kid says, with morbid delight. "Called in this morning."
"They're just saying that," somebody corrects. "It's drugs."
"It's not drugs-"
"Heard it was a gun in a locker, went off-"
"Definitely not drugs," the kid insists. "If it's drugs, we wouldn't have to stand outside, right?" He glances around suddenly, and John tries to see what he's seeing. "Huh. Somebody'd better tell that asshole what a bomb threat is." John stands on his toes, looks over, and sighs. Sure enough, Sherlock has ducked under the tape and is practically running for the door. He's caught under the armpits by two police. John nudges his way to the front and calls for Lestrade, who actually looks up and over at him. John stage-gestures at Sherlock, and Lestrade follows it. He puts a pained hand to the bridge of his nose. Sherlock is released and shoved forcibly back under the caution tape; after a few minutes, his phone buzzes.
West entrance. Be quick.
The back door has a cordon, but less of a crowd. No dogs, John thinks. People always want to watch the dogs going in.
"Tell me everything," Sherlock says, when Lestrade has ushered them inside and pushed them into a quiet classroom. All the lights are off; there's the sound of booted feet in the hall, but little else. "Where is it? What is it? When did the call arrive?" He makes an irritated noise and spins around, pressing his face to the glass panel in the door. "No. No time. Let me loose, I'll discover it myself."
"No," says Lestrade. "I have police detectives roaming the halls. How exactly do I explain you to them? Sorry officer, it's just a student of mine, he's got a knack for this sort of thing." He frowns. "No. You stay here. I'll give you as much as I can, because God knows, it isn't much."
"Fine." Sherlock perches himself on top of a desk, feet on the chair. "Go on."
"Call came in five minutes after the first bell. Just long enough for everyone to be seated, coats off. A voice on the other end-"
"Who took the call?" Sherlock interjects. "What sort of voice?"
"I did," Lestrade continues, patiently, "and it was a man speaking, using one of those toy voice changers. Sounded like Mickey Mouse. Said we had ten minutes to clear the premises, or tick-tick-boom. That was it. We cleared the building and the bomb squad moved in. They found zip, so far. Let's hope it stays that way." John nods and agrees.
Sherlock says nothing.
"Did they trace the call?" John asks. Sherlock makes a dismissive snort. "Well, alright, I don't know, isn't that what you're supposed to do?"
"Typically, yes."
"And is this not typical? Isn't it usually a prank? A cry for attention, whatever? Somebody with an exam today, a troubled person, something like that?"
"That's right," Lestrade says. "Most times." There's a knock on the door, and Lestrade looks between them both for a minute, then slips out to answer it. John stares at Sherlock, who for once is too busy examining the tops of the desks and the posters around the classroom to look back at John.
John clears his throat.
"Yes, fine," Sherlock says, finally meeting his eyes. "I have my suspicions. Kenneth was just a steroidal fly at the edge of the web, is that plain enough?"
"Sherlock, that is-" John grins. "The complete opposite of plain." He can't help himself, a laugh bubbles up. "We should work on your translations." And now Sherlock is looking at him like he's a lunatic. But a nice lunatic, maybe. He's almost smiling.
"You-" he begins, and the door clicks open.
"You two," Lestrade says. "With me. Now."
The three of them are standing in the boy's locker room, staring down at a fancy shoebox that's been hastily unwrapped. There's a green silk ribbon curling on the floor beside it. "It was taped up when they found it. Just sitting right here. Bomb squad opened it, but it's nothing. Just a pair of dirty shoes." Lestrade checks his watch. "You've got about forty seconds with these before they come back to collect. Lucky for you, something more pressing came up. Apparently there's a bigger package taped to the soda machine, and it isn't footwear."
Sherlock kneels in front of it, goes down on hands and knees and stares into the box. After a minute, he reaches forward with his thumb and forefinger to pull out the left shoe. It's a black leather lace-up, spotted and stained. Sherlock turns it over, gently. John can see light glinting off the the soles- no, not the soles. There's bits of glass and metal stuck into the bottom of the shoe, only the bottom. Like somebody put them on and stomped all over a mirror.
"Well?" asks Lestrade.
"Carl Powers," says Sherlock, immediately.
"So it's for you, after all" Lestrade sighs. "I was afraid of that. The weird ones are always for you." John watches Sherlock. There's a dazzling smile creeping up at the corners, that fierce cold grin that puts acres of distance in his eyes. His fingers are trembling slightly, and John knows it's not from fear.
It might be happiness.
"Oh, yes," says Sherlock. "It's for me."
It's almost perfectly dark, just a long line of green light in the sky where the evening's fading, and the first pinprick stars. They're under the bridge again, perched on the edge of the railing. Sherlock is facing him, his long legs splayed out on either side, hands in his pockets. There's a manic pulse in the tap of his foot on the rail. John knows that he would probably strangle someone for a cigarette right now, the way he's practically vibrating, but he hasn't touched one in John's presence since the last time they were here. He's not really thinking too hard about that.
"When I was fifteen," Sherlock says, "the chemistry lab exploded."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me."
"It should," Sherlock says, icily. "My protocols are exemplary." John thinks of the fire blanket, and reminds himself to invest in some less flammable clothing. "Anyway, I arrived just after the fire crew did. There was only one person inside when it went up. A laboratory assistant. Carl Powers. Officious, but otherwise harmless. Normal. Boring. Destined for a mid-level university position, two-point-five children, dying in bed at a respectable eighty-three."
"Sounds ghastly."
"Utterly." Sherlock either completely misses the sarcasm in his tone, or more likely sweeps past it. "The explosion was caused by a gas leak. Hydrogen. Human error, they said he didn't read the levels properly."
"But you don't think it was an accident?"
"I know it wasn't." Sherlock leans closer. "They were chasing us out of the hall when the gurney rushed by, and his shoes- they stuck over the side. An exceptionally tall person, Carl Powers. Big feet. Large soles. You saw them today."
"Hm," says John. "The bottoms were covered in glass. Big chunks of metal. From the explosion?"
"Yes. But it doesn't fit. He was supposed to be standing up. Standing up, John." Sherlock huffs impatiently and shifts closer on the railing. "Think about it. He's standing in front of a pressurized chamber. The leak is running inside. Seconds after he opens the valve to release the nitrogen, everything instantaneously ignites. There's no time to turn away, to crouch. There was a single explosion, one burst that would have knocked him backwards, and he didn't get up again. He didn't walk across the floor and stud his soles with glass-"
"His soles were already up," John says, everything suddenly clearing. "The metal got blown into the bottoms of his shoes because his feet weren't on the floor. Lying down?" He stares at Sherlock. "Already dead?"
"Possibly. The coroner's report-"
"How on earth," John cuts in, "did you get the coroner's report?" Sherlock waves away the question.
"It's not important. The report confirmed everything. There was an unusual amount of shrapnel in the knees and thighs, less on the face. If he'd been bending over the controls, it would've been the reverse. And timing was key- there was extensive blood loss. A cold body doesn't bleed. Either he died mere moments before the blast, or during. It's a puzzle, John, don't you see?"
"I suppose," he says. John's not sure that's the word he'd use, but this is Sherlock, and it's different. Everything is. "How did the police miss the shoes?"
"Because the killer cheated," Sherlock scowls. "Powers was loaded into the ambulance and pronounced en route. Somewhere between the site and the morgue, the shoes were lost. Stolen. And along with them, any chance that I'd be taken seriously." John can see the material in his coat pockets bunching as he clenches and knots his hands. "I went directly to the chemistry master, who called me a fantasist. I gave testimony to the police and was ignored. When I called the newspapers, I was given a warning by the headmaster. Useless," he adds. "The staff reporters had already hung up on me. I broke into the closed lab. I was caught. That same night I was packed into a car and told never to come back." John can almost picture it: Sherlock dragged out the door, wild-eyed, still trying to shout over everyone.
"So, alright," he says. "The shoes. Somebody keeps the shoes-"
"The killer keeps the shoes."
"-and gift-wraps them for you, and plants a bomb, and then calls it in himself, because- why? Just so they'll be found?" He shakes his head. "Why would he hand over evidence?"
"Because it's a game." Sherlock sounds totally serious. "He's trying to win. But he needs me to play."
"Some game," says John, sharply.
"It offends you."
"Of course it offends me," John says, his voice rising. His face feels warm. "Murder offends me. It ought to offend you. It ought to offend everybody." Sherlock doesn't respond. "Anyway, what's this all got to do with Kenneth and the drugs?"
"Ah." Sherlock taps his foot on the rail again. "It's not a direct connection. Not yet. Just a feeling. But obviously I've touched a nerve, gotten his attention somehow. Besides, there's more than Rohypnol and GHB making the rounds. Kenneth's supplier has a pet chemist. Or is one. There were warehouse thefts, but they didn't make sense at the time. Potassium permanganate, iodine, yes. But pentaerythritol? Plasticizers? The list was too scattered. Unless you're processing drugs and explosives, both."
"Christ," John exhales. He looks out at the river. "What is this?" he asks, partly to Sherlock, partly to himself. "What are we involved in?"
"We?" repeats Sherlock, suddenly. When John glances back at him, there's a strange look on his face, something he can't decipher. He's caught on something, stuck. Waiting for John to respond, but John doesn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about. Sherlock's brain again, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, leaving him behind. "You keep doing that," Sherlock says.
"Doing what?" Sherlock makes an impatient noise and gestures in the air, like he's already explained himself perfectly. "Oh. Right. You, then," John corrects, and Sherlock's eyes narrow. It's like pushing a button; John can feel a flush of irritation flooding to the surface. "What do you want me to say? Fine, it's you. It's all about you, it's your world, I'm just living in it. Is that what you're telling me?" He slides off the rail and stands up, conscious that Sherlock is staring at him again, still, always. Saying nothing, not even trying to slow this down. Whatever it is. "I offered to help-"
"It is mine," Sherlock interrupts. "The game."
"Forget it, then," John says. "Forget it, it's not my problem."
He walks away and up the path and he can feel Sherlock's eyes still on him, on his back, like the warm print of a hand.
He feels like such an asshole.
John dreams the lights again. They're far too bright and everything reflects, dazzles in his eyes, and he can't see.
"John," she says. He can feel her hand. He's crawling and everything under him crunches and scatters, and there's a hot, sharp sting in his elbows. He can't see her face. He's so cold, and she's calling, and suddenly there are arms around his waist, hauling him up, and he twists and cries out and pulls away, no, he's not leaving, and then it's Sherlock, shaking him by the arm, Sherlock covered in his blood. His face is too close, and he's white as a sheet. "Wake up," says Sherlock. "Wake up, you lazy-"
John opens his eyes and he's alone, in the middle of the bed, in the plain brown darkness of his room. He feels a tremor coming up in his chest and he shoves his face into the pillow, so that Harry won't hear him cry. He gasps it out, sobs and inhales and lets it pass through him. Afterwards he lies there bonelessly, wondering if he should even look at the clock. Three in the morning. There's a buzzing sound. His phone, face-down on the nightstand, vibrates once. Missed message. John rubs his eyes and flips it open.
It's a text, an hour old.
ChemPlex warehouse, on King's Road.
My source says activity.
I need you.
There's a second one, sent not five minutes ago.
If it's convenient,
please hur
It stops there.
John's internal debate rages for about a quarter of a second.
Part four.