The Adventure of the Civil Partnership Chapter 4 Minutiae

[rairakku1234]

Sherlock and John are hunting a kidnapper who has been taking newlywed couples across the Greater London Area and Sherlock has the perfect way to flush him out. Warning: Pre-Slash/Slash of Sherlock/John Work in Progress - Very Slow Updates



Disclaimers: I certainly do not own Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s amazing creation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Hamish Watson. I also do not own Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and the BBC’s adaptations of those works.

Spoiler Warnings: Series 1 and 2 of Sherlock

Ratings: M Warning Pre-Slash/Slash.

Beta: Ivory Winter
4/7/2013 Repost Grammer Corrections

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Chapter 4 Minutiae

An hour later John sat on the couch endeavoring to bandage Sherlock’s feet while the man fidgeted, plucked absently at his violin, and mumbled to himself. “Sherlock, sit still,” John ordered. “I’m almost done, but if I don’t get these properly bandaged up, who knows what ridiculous disease you’ll manage to pick up from the detritus of your leftover experiments”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but stilled his feet. “I need more data, John. What we learned today was interesting but highly inconclusive. In none of the Yard’s interview notes was there any indication that the Ashdowns were considering adoption. The interview notes with Walsh are barely a half page in length and appear to cover only the most basic questions about how often they ran together and if Walsh knew if either was having an affair. DI…” Sherlock paused, setting the violin aside, and using long arms to drag the coffee table closer and shuffle through a few papers, “Morton, who performed the interview, either didn’t ask enough questions to elicit the necessary information or, as our new marathon trainer Walsh indicated, chose to ignore data that didn’t fit his view of the case.” Sherlock tapped interview notes imperiously, finishing with, “That makes the adoption information very interesting and possible useful.”

“How?” John asked applying the last piece of tape to hold the simple bandage wrap on Sherlock’s foot. “Done, I’ll check the bandage again this evening. Please, Sherlock, try not to get it wet or dirty.”

Sherlock nodded, carelessly acknowledging the instructions while answering John’s question. “Adoptions are fraught with emotion and stress. I’m actually surprised that Morton didn’t include that in his report; it would have strengthened the case for uxoricide. Very odd...” Sherlock’s voice trailed off, placing the violin on his chest and resumed plucking absently.

“Uxoricide?”

“Hmm… Oh, murder of one’s wife.” Sherlock elaborated, obviously not paying attention to the conversation. Several minutes later, John returned to the room after clearing up his medical kit, Sherlock commanded, “Laptop, John.”

John sighed, moving into the kitchen to retrieve Sherlock’s laptop for the lazy genius instead of handing him John’s, which was lying on the coffee table, barely out of arm’s reach. Sherlock raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the maneuver. “I need to check my blog,” John answered the silent question. “Judging by the number of missed calls and texts I have been ignoring from Harry and my full voicemail, I’ve more than a few people to answer to. The longer I wait the worse it will get. Unless of course my husband wishes to pass on the good news,” John added somewhat mischievously, laughing out loud when Sherlock shuddered.

“Ahh… well give Harry my… salutations,” Sherlock replied sardonically. It was always painfully evident that Sherlock wanted to say more about Harry and her behavior towards John, but he had learned to keep his observations to a minimum after several rather loud ‘domestics’, which had resulted in John leaving for several hours to cool off. Sherlock’s first, and only, meeting with Harry hadn’t helped matters. John had finally given in to Harry’s demands to visit Baker Street after she had gotten temporarily on the wagon long before The Fall, even before the disastrous Christmas Party. John had made the mistake of running up to his room for a minute to find a photo, and by the time he had returned the situation had been completely out of control.

“You fucking nutter, what do you know! You’re the reason my brother keeps getting into dangerous situations, including almost being blown up. For all I know you’re the reason he doesn’t call me. What are you holding over him to keep him here?” Harry had been screaming at his flatmate.

“Now really. Even your alcohol damaged intellect should be able to determine that John didn’t want to deal with your alcoholism while recovering from Afghanistan and that John clearly voluntarily chooses to stay in Baker Street,” Sherlock had snarled back.

John had quickly stepped in between the two of them, “Harry, my ending up strapped to a bomb wasn’t Sherlock’s fault. Moriarty kidnapped me. And for not contacting you immediately afterwards, well…” John had trailed off, not knowing how to contradict his flatmate without it being blatantly obvious that he was lying.

Harry had not taken John’s defense of his flatmate well, and continued to throw abuse at Sherlock until John lost his temper and escorted her out. She had called the next day and tried to apologize, but the damage had been done and neither one had a good word to say about the other. John still wasn’t sure what had started the fight. Sherlock and Harry both refused to talk about it but John had suspicions involving Sherlock and pointed deductions. John had not allowed them to meet since then, and when meeting with Harry had tried, unsuccessfully, to change her opinion of Sherlock, or at least convince her to be polite.

Harry had gotten even worse after Sherlock’s apparent death, berating John repeatedly for refusing to believe that Sherlock was a fraud. Then once Sherlock had returned and had his reputation restored, she had initially refused to believe the truth and then repeatedly demanded to know why John would choose to live with someone who, according to her, apparently thought so little of John that he hadn’t told John he was alive. John never bothered to explain the truth to her. He felt sure that there was no way she would keep it to herself, and would likely use it as more ammunition in her verbal war. He never bothered with Sherlock’s opinion once he learned to keep his snarky comments to a minimum, which he mostly did unless John ended up away for several days cleaning up her mess after a bad episode.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from my big bad older sister, although at some point I may ask you to get Mycroft off my back in return,” John retorted, only half joking, picking up his laptop and mobile as he headed up to his room. The text messages from Harry had been less than flattering and he didn’t think Sherlock needed to hear this conversation.

An hour later John was sitting on his bed slowly typing out his last reply to another congratulatory e-mail and trying to finish calming down before he went back downstairs. John was glad that he had dealt with Harry for now but he had not enjoyed the conversation. Harry had been skeptical, too put it mildly. She ranted that Sherlock wasn’t emotionally aware enough to fall in love much less to marry anyone. Her tirade had then moved onto John’s perceived inadequacies. It had been a barrel of laughs to be told repeatedly by his sister that even if she hated Sherlock, John surely wouldn’t be interesting enough to keep his attention.

Once Harry was done raging about the marriage she moved on to his failures as a brother in general, beginning by heaping abuse on him for not telling her that he was dating his ‘nutter of a flatmate’ before moving back onto her typical topic of trying to pump John for information on how Clara was doing, with John failing to convince her that he hadn’t seen Clara in almost a year. The whole conversation had been made truly priceless when John had realized that the soft clicking noise he was hearing occasionally in the background was Harry refilling a wine glass. At that point he had drummed up an excuse and hung up on her. The only blessing of the conversation was that Harry was so completely incensed with him that he could reasonably avoid talking to her until he had to admit that she was right and that they had gotten married for a case. John rolled his eyes and sighed deeply at the thought. He loved his sister but wished she would get her act together, get back on the wagon and stop trying to run his life.

After finishing up his last e-mail, a reply to a thrilled Mike Stamford, John meandered back down to the sitting room. A small smile lit the corner of his mouth as he leaned in the doorway.

Sherlock was standing on the couch tacking pictures and papers to the much abused wall behind the couch, the smiley face and the bullet holes haphazardly papered over with case notes. While Sherlock sorted he would occasionally throw out a comment, apparently for John to hear. John was never sure how he should feel about this particular eccentricity of his friend. He was honored that Sherlock thought John was important enough to share his ideas with, a worthy audience so to speak, and John was very rarely told off for ‘thinking too loud’, disturbing Sherlock’s ideas. John just never knew quite what to make of the fact that in some of these moods Sherlock was as unaware of John’s absence as he was unbothered by his presence, he just continued to talk to John either way. Today it amused him, he loved seeing Sherlock in full case mode; so alive.

Sherlock spun suddenly and jumped off the couch, wincing slightly when he landed on his blistered feet before striding quickly towards the desk, frowning slightly at John. “You really should have limited your conversation with Harry to ten minutes. That level of tension can’t possibly be good for your shoulder,” Sherlock said, digging through the files on the desk. “So what do you think of the plans for tonight?”

John frowned, “What plans, Sherlock?”

Sherlock turned from the table and blinked at him, “The ones I mentioned about a half an hour ago. Your conversations with Harry typically last ten to fifteen minutes depending on her level of inebriation, and I estimated an additional ten minutes would be necessary due to the discussion of our marriage, so you would have arrived down here about thirty minutes ago,” Sherlock answered, frowning when John just shrugged his shoulders. “The club, dancing tonight,” Sherlock continued waving an irritated hand.

John just sighed. “Sherlock, I just got back down here a few minutes ago. I also had to reply to some e-mails, so I didn’t hear the plans. And, Sherlock, no dancing tonight, not on your feet. Maybe tomorrow night.” John put up a hand before he could interrupt, “If they seem to be healing properly. You’re the one who arranged the meeting with our trainer on Sunday, that’s only three days from now. If you don’t let your feet heal properly, you could do some serious damage to yourself on Sunday.”

Sherlock frowned, irritated, “John, I told you, we need to get out and explore these people’s lives. There must be points of intersection somewhere, but they won’t become apparent to me unless I can see how they lived.”

“Fine, Sherlock, I get that,” John groused back, “but if I remember correctly there were other activities on that list that don’t involve you damaging your injured feet, besides, I doubt the couples went out on Thursday nights to go clubbing. Friday and Saturday nights are typically date nights and, in my experience, are much more popular because there is no work the next day,” John supplied with a sudden burst of inspiration, hoping the information on boring human behavior might win the fight, since if Sherlock was truly attached to this plan of attack for the case, he had no chance of not ending up in a club tonight.

Sherlock frowned for a moment, actually seeming to consider John’s words, before turning back to look at his case wall. “Does date night only apply to clubbing or would those who enjoy pub quizzes normally be willing to attend on other nights?” Sherlock asked.

John heaved an internal sigh before answering, “I haven’t personally done the pub quiz routine, but I imagine that they would normally go on whatever night the pub was holding the game.”

“Hmmm… In that case we will be headed to the pub tonight.”

John nodded, closing his eyes in anticipated horror. “So pub quizzes, huh? Alright then. Lunch?”

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand. “Not hungry, John.”

John just turned and stared at Sherlock, best military doctor look plastered on his face. “Two meals a day on training days, Sherlock.”

“Fine,” Sherlock snapped, “but a small meal. I need to think.” John didn’t reply, he just smiled to himself as he turned away, moving into the kitchen.

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John felt himself tensing slightly when he followed Sherlock into the pub. Normally he would have been chuffed to have a night out at the pub, usually with Stamford or other mates who had been discharged from the service, even occasionally Lestrade. He just couldn’t imagine it with Sherlock, even on a case. Moving further into the pub the sheer number and variety of people there surprised him; he hadn’t grasped how popular pub quizzes were.

John started, almost stopping in surprise when Sherlock reached back without looking and grabbed John’s hand, urging him forward into the midst of the crowd. When John was finally even with Sherlock in a small quiet spot near the center of the crowd, he was astounded to discover that Sherlock didn’t loosen his grip, but leaned his body down slightly and whispered into his ear, “We need to mingle with some of the groups and join one of the smaller teams. Charm them for me please, dear doctor.” John worked very hard to hide the shiver of electricity that ran through his body as Sherlock’s breath ghosted over his ear.

John covered the attempt to gather his thoroughly scattered thoughts by scanning the crowd. “Any…” John stopped to clear his throat a little, “anyone in particularly we need to find tonight?”

Sherlock shook his head, “When the first couple, the Turpins, disappeared the other couple on their team stopped going to the pubs. At least according to the other couples’ social media websites.”

“So what are we doing here if none of these people knew the first couple?” John asked, confused.

“You really are getting better at asking the correct questions, John.” Sherlock beamed at him. John glared back, not in the mood to be patronized. “This was the only outside activity the Turpins participated in, it is highly plausible that they crossed paths with him in this very pub.”

“Yeah, but it’s been five years, Sherlock, and I don’t remember you saying that any of the other couples came here.”

“True, but something in this activity caused the Turpins to come to the kidnapper’s attention. Always start at the beginning whenever possible, John,” Sherlock said before leaning forward again and saying, “Now we really need to mingle before everyone gets settled.”

John rolled his eyes before turning to scan the room again. “Aright then, let’s get me a drink and go find the quizmaster. They can probably introduce us to a team or two that takes on newcomers.”

Five minutes later they were being introduced to a married couple in their late twenties or early thirties “John. Sherlock.” John introduced them, elbowing Sherlock in the ribs to remind him to shake hands, another part of him relaxing when it became obvious that neither one of the couple recognized their names.

“Nice to meet you, Abby, and my husband, Neal,” said the redheaded woman, smiling politely, introducing herself and partner. “I always love to meet newcomers. What brings you here?”

“Ahh…We decided that we got into a bit of a rut at home recently and wanted to try something new,” John answered as they sat on the bench opposite the couple, deciding that if Sherlock didn’t provide any details John could make up the story he wanted and let Sherlock play along. “Didn’t want to be dull, boring, predictable...” John continued, smiling slightly mischievously, linking his right hand with Sherlock’s left and set their joined hands on the table.

Abby smiled at them from across the table, her eyes taking on an almost identical look to the women from the surgery when she spotted the ring on Sherlock’s finger, her eyes swinging quickly to John’s and noticing his. “How long have you been together?” she asked. “And what beautiful taste in rings you have.”

John smiled but before he could speak Sherlock cut in with, “I thought you were exaggerating, John, but it really is amazing how quickly women notice wedding rings.”

John burst out laughing, quickly joined by Neal and Abby. “Mate you really need to be more observant if you just realized that,” Neal chortled at Sherlock, causing John to laugh even harder, practically sliding off the bench at the idea of an unobservant Sherlock. Sherlock looked puzzled for a moment before joining in the laughter.

John caught his breath listening to Sherlock answer Abby’s question, “I met John a little under three years ago. Sadly I must admit it took me longer than it should have to figure out his importance in my life, but he was kind enough to consent to be my husband anyway.”

John had to control the urge to praise Sherlock for his acting, the man really was amazingly good, but John had a quick thought and decided that if Sherlock was going to play that game with strangers twice in one day, John could too. And if John was not a great actor he certainly had more experience in flirting than the detective. “Ahh…, My dear Sherlock, it’s hard to turn down what makes you feel alive,” John said, smiling teasingly while raising Sherlock’s ring finger to his lips and kissing the ring in a deliberate imitation of Sherlock’s move at the end of the ceremony yesterday.

Sherlock turned back to the other couple keeping John’s hand in his and sliding himself closer to John on the bench, asking Neal, “I’ve never done a pub quiz before, John suggested it as something we could try. How does it work?”

“Pretty simple on a night like tonight. The quizmaster will be around in a few minutes with blank question sheets for us to put a team name on. This lot runs five rounds with ten questions in each round. At the end of each round all the teams turn in their answer sheet. Bottom team at the end of each round is dropped out of the game. Last team standing at the end of the five rounds with the highest score wins,” Neal summarized, Sherlock concentrating intently, while John used his thumb to massage the back of Sherlock’s hand.

“So what categories are on the tick for this evening?” John asking out of enlightened self-interest. Sherlock got stroppy at QI and he couldn’t imagine him keeping up the act if every category tonight was about movie idols or popular knowledge.

Abby pointed at a card on the table, “Hard to say, they pick five sections randomly from a pool of fifteen, could be anything from science to music to sports.”

John continued to make conversation with Abby and Neal, with Sherlock throwing in a word here and there, although it was obvious to John that he was surreptitiously watching the crowd. A few minutes later when the quiz started John found that it was a lot more fun than he would have ever predicted. John even found as the evening progressed that he was relaxing and very easily behaving like he was just having a night out with Sherlock his friend, not Sherlock his fake husband. John behaved almost entirely normally with Sherlock as the night went on, just throwing in a soft touch to Sherlock’s forearm here and there. He also got to continue enjoying his hand being held by Sherlock, the man didn’t let it go very long for most of the evening. Sherlock used it to give John subtle directions, giving a small squeeze or tug when he wanted John to continue a line of conversation, or look at something. Although most of the time John had no idea why Sherlock was having him do that, which was an entirely normal feeling. It was obvious that Abby at least took their behavior to be the mannerism of a couple.

Unexpectedly, the four of them did very well. Sherlock was absolutely rubbish at the first category, popular actors of the nineties, but John was able to help Abby and Neal with a few questions, so they managed to get enough points to stay in the game. Sherlock blew them all away in the second category though. The quiz master would pipe a short segment of music through the speakers and they needed to identify either the song or the composer. Sherlock got them all, even some of the popular music, to John’s great surprise.

“Fantastic!” John said, staring at Sherlock. “I can see you knowing the classical stuff, I’ve heard you play most of those at the flat, but I’m surprised you knew all that top forty songs.”

Sherlock just smiled. “Ahh..., John, wouldn’t want to tell you all of my secrets and ruin my mystique, now would I?” John just burst out laughing.

In the end their team won. Sherlock didn’t know all the questions but almost anything he didn’t know, or couldn’t deduce, John, Abby, or Neal had a good chance of knowing since it was usually stuff Sherlock classified as popular culture and therefore dull. That said John managed to surprise them all by knowing the answer to an obscure question about Sikhism. Sherlock raised an eyebrow at John, asking a silent question while Neal and Abby congratulated him. “Afghanistan, remember? One of the locals who worked with my unit was Sikh, he wasn’t adverse to answering questions.”

After accepting their prize of coupons for free food and drink at various pubs, they said good night to Abby and Neal. “Mate, that was brilliant,” Neal said, shaking John’s hand, “Abby and I haven’t done that well in ages, we’re both tone deaf so we always get stuck on the music stuff. You know if you two wanted to do more of this there is a round robin tournament next weekend for a fundraiser. Our team is already full and we don’t have any more spaces, more’s the pity, but if you’re interested you two could make your own team.”

“Oh?” John asked absentmindedly, worrying about how early he was going to need to be the next morning for his shift, it was now getting quite late. He vaguely wondered if Sherlock had learned all he needed and might be ready to go.

“Yeah,” Abby said holding out a card to John, “It’s for a children’s cancer ward, if you’re interested there’s an application on this website.” John’s tongue was suddenly stuck to the roof of his mouth and his heart rate kicked up several notches when Sherlock abruptly moved up behind him and ran one arm about John’s waist and with his other hand reached forward, plucking the card from Abby’s hand, looking at it briefly before tucking it into John’s trouser pocket.

“We shall certainly consider it, but for now I must get John home, it’s long past his usual bed time,” Sherlock said, practically dragging John out of the pub, his arm never leaving John’s waist until they reached the street and Sherlock moved forward to hail a cab. John was still blushing and disorientated when a stray thought about Sherlock’s usual inability to notice innuendo occurred to him.

“Sherlock,” John said trying to control the laughter bubbling up in his chest. “Do you actually know what you just implied to that couple?”

Sherlock grinned, “Honestly, John, we needed to get out of there so you can get some sleep, you have an early shift tomorrow. I cannot be held to blame if those dull people make incorrect deductions.” John smiled back and shook his head.

“I hope you learned something to help the case,” John yawned, once they were settled in the cab, his adrenaline kick from the evening starting to wear off. “I would hate to have had you waste that amazing acting you did back there.”

“Nothing wasted, John.”

After a moment of waiting for Sherlock to elaborate, John prodded, “Well? What did you learn?”

“Abby and Neal have been married for four years, and were reunited after a several month separation approximately six months ago due to financial stresses. -The quizmaster is shagging the leader of the second place team. The bartender was highly interested in pursuing a relationship with you, and would have asked you out on a date despite my presence except you failed to notice her rather obvious advances. The couple at the table to the left of us are considering a divorce, the brunette woman sitting in the all-girl college team three tables over is undergoing a sexual identity crisis as she is discovering herself to be attracted to her blond teammate, who I believe, but lack the data to prove, is her roommate and is currently in a relationship with a male. And finally, these coupons appear to be nothing more than an attempt to get us to pay to participate in other events. They do not appear to cover more than half of what one would need for an evening out,” Sherlock words coming out in a tumbled rush.

John stared at his flatmate for a moment before snorting, “Been holding that in all evening?”

“Yes, this acting normal business is exhausting and dull,” Sherlock groaned. “I’m surprised that the kidnapper didn’t pull more couples from the pub quizzes. On top of how open Abby and Neal were to us, utter strangers, about their lives, the people at the surrounding tables were giving both close friends and new acquaintances a great deal of personal information. It astounds me how little awareness individuals have of their surroundings. The kidnapper could effortlessly accumulate at least basic data and start hunting for his prey. Even if he had to switch pubs and venues to avoid being noticed, the victim pool is large and varied, so one would think he could find numerous couples to fit his criteria.” Sherlock paused for a moment, fingers steepled under his chin, concentrating, “So something changed.”

“Do you think something went wrong?” John asked after considering Sherlock’s words. “He tried to grab a different couple and I don’t know… It didn’t work or he almost got caught so he went elsewhere to stalk people as a safety precaution against being identified?”

“Possible,” Sherlock said. “Again, not enough data to hypothesize accurately. I can think of at least seven distinct reasons that would have caused him to switch his hunting ground.”

“Alright. So what’s the next step?” John asked.

“Need to open up some more lines of inquiry,” Sherlock said. “Tomorrow when you finish your shift I need you to stop at British Association for Adoption and Fostering and pick up some brochures on the adoption process. The information available online was useful but hardly complete, and I would like to be sure of the steps that the Ashdowns may have been taking. I intend to meet with several relatives of the missing couples tomorrow and I might be back late. So be ready to go clubbing tomorrow night.” Sherlock rolled his eyes and added before John could voice a protest, “I’m sure that you will have cleared my feet by then, you indicated they were healing well earlier.”

“Fine, Sherlock,” John said resignedly. At least he had managed to keep his friend off his feet for one night. “Are you telling the families that you are investigating the disappearances?” John frowned briefly. “Wouldn’t there be a risk of them talking and spreading the word that you are looking into the cases again?”

“It would, but they won’t know that I’m looking into the cases. I have several different cover stories to meet with these relatives. I’ve scheduled a meeting the sister of the husband of the fifth couple under the guise of an old college friend recently returned from overseas who wanted to catch up with an old mate,” Sherlock answered. “I have other similar cover stories for the other relatives.”

John nodded and then unable to help himself, “Okay, just be careful not to open too many old wounds alright? These people are probably holding out hope every day that they come back.

“Don’t be obvious, John. If I upset these individuals too much, they may ask questions or remember me. That would be counterproductive, as I don’t know if any of the relatives are under any kind of surveillance from the kidnapper,” Sherlock huffed, leading the way out of the cab as it arrived at Baker Street, John paying the cabbie before he followed his flatmate upstairs towards a well-deserved rest.

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FanFiction Writer Notes:

Thanks to all the wonderful people who are taking the time to review.  I love hearing all your thoughts and comments. I consider it an honor.

Thanks,Rairakku
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