Fanfic - The Great Puzzle 1/3 [Sherlock BBC: John/Sherlock]
Chapter One - Part One
It takes a little work to analyse the possible dump sites. After that, it takes a little time to find the right one, and the case. Sherlock takes another taxi back to 221B, almost vibrating with the need to inspect its contents. The driver is truly atrocious, but finally, finally, he arrives back home.
Mrs Hudson has left a covered plate of sandwiches on the kitchen, perilously perched next to Sherlock’s chemistry kit. He ignores it; food is irrelevant now. Mrs Hudson has also taken Robert. This is slightly more troublesome, but Sherlock hasn’t the time to sweet-talk her into giving it back.
Label on the case - name, address, phone number, email address. Clothes, toiletries, all in keeping with Jennifer Wilson’s lifestyle. No laptop, that’s peculiar. No phone, that’s downright impossible, especially with her job. Phone’s gone missing then. How and why and where? Didn’t bring it with her? Not possible. She was a fastidious sort of woman, a careful one. With all those affairs, she’d have to be. She’d never be so careless with her phone. Possible but unlikely that she’d have lost it. Then why isn’t it in her case?
No. No, no. He’s going about this wrong. Why on earth would she have it in her case? That would be stupid, inconvenient. Mike’s had been in his coat, John’s in his jacket pocket. John. Sherlock snatches up his phone and sends off a quick text. Baker Street. Come at once if convenient. SH. But what if it isn’t? Surely John will come anyway. He’s got to. He’s moving in. Except he hasn’t moved in yet. And he might not want to. Where has John got to, anyway? If inconvenient, come anyway. SH.
No guarantees that John will come, but at the very least, he’ll know he’s wanted. He’d had a peculiarly useful way of pushing Sherlock’s mind onto the right track, nudging him away from the other possibilities. Only the drugs had ever done that before. He’s plain and obvious and unassuming enough, and no doubt he’ll last barely a week with Sherlock even if he decides to take up the flat - but he’s also ex-army, and a doctor, and his eyes had thrilled with delight both at Sherlock and the possibility of a mystery. Adventure.
Sherlock quite understands. The ennui he experiences between cases will one day be the death of him.
So. No phone in the case. A handbag, of course, but no phone had been found among the possessions found with her, either. The phone would have to have been easily accessible. And now it’s gone.
Only one person could have taken it. Why, though? A trophy? Nothing was taken from the other bodies. What makes this one different? The case had been dumped because it would have drawn attention. Why take the phone when it’s not necessary?
Sherlock growls under his breath and jumps up. He needs a nicotine patch. This quitting business is very tiresome. The phone, the phone, the phone is important. How is it important? He scribbles down the number on a piece of paper and studies it as he paces over to the ornate slipper in which he keeps his supply of patches.
He pastes the patch directly over the track marks that scar his veins. He doesn’t like looking at them anyway.
All right. Think.
Sherlock puts the paper down on his desk. The murderer has the phone. He must. But one must be certain in order to proceed with confidence. How best to confirm the location of the phone without actually laying hands on the murderer?
By making contact, of course. But his number is far too public.
“Mrs Hudson!” Sherlock yells. “I need to borrow your phone!”
No response. Either she hasn’t heard him or she’s ignoring him. Both possibilities are entirely likely. Perhaps John will let Sherlock borrow his phone. If he comes at all. Oh, this will be tricky. Sherlock puts on another patch, and then another, then throws himself on the sofa. He shouldn’t do this, he knows he shouldn’t. But he’s promised himself to stay off the hard drugs and he needs something to help him think, something to push his mind in the directions it needs to go. He sees so many possible paths all at once. It gets dizzying.
Sometimes, the cocaine had pushed him onto the wrong paths. Often, actually. That’s the reason - not Mycroft’s pressuring or even Mummy’s disappointment - that Sherlock had finally made the decision to kick his drug habit. It had made enduring the boredom between cases easier, but it had also ruined his ability to work those cases he found.
John’s somewhat like a drug. It remains to be seen if he will serve as a nicotine patch, or as cocaine.
Three patches, then. Never more, that’s a promise he’s made himself. And not for too long, either. Think. He’ll have to remove the patches soon. Think.
Sherlock is still lying on the sofa, working out contingency plans, when he hears a knock at the door. Mrs Hudson moves to answer it. John, perhaps. Sherlock glances languidly at his watch. Yes, likely John. Also, bother - almost time to remove the patches. He sucks in a breath of enjoyment, imagining the nicotine coursing through his veins.
“What’re you doing?” John asks.
“Nicotine patch,” Sherlock says absently. “Helps me think. Impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days. Bad news for brainwork.”
“Good news for breathing,” John returns.
“Ugh, breathing,” Sherlock huffs. “Breathing’s boring.”
“Three patches?” John says. “That can’t be good for you.”
“It’s a three-patch problem,” Sherlock says. “I don’t leave them on long. You needn’t fear I’ll collapse.”
“All right,” John says. “You wanted me for something?”
Sherlock thinks about that for a moment. Ah, the text. Time to spring the trap he’d planned out before. “Oh yes,” he says. “Can I borrow your phone?”
“Need to call someone?” John asks.
“Text, actually,” Sherlock says. Is there any way around this? It’s risky, but no, he can’t see anything else he could do. John makes an inquisitive sound and Sherlock realises he’s been mumbling under his breath. Hadn’t that been one of those things Ellery had informed him was abnormal?
“On my desk,” Sherlock says hurriedly. “There’s a number. I want you to send a text.”
John frowns at him, but pulls out his phone and moves to check the number. “Just so you know, you shouldn’t call someone from halfway across London just to send a text.”
Sherlock twists a little so he can see John’s face from his reclined position. “I didn’t.”
John looks surprised at that. “You just -”
“I asked you to come so I could think at you,” Sherlock tells him. “Mrs Hudson took my skull, you see. But since you took so long, I used the nicotine patches instead. No harm done.”
John looks down at his phone. “So… the texting…”
“You’re here now,” Sherlock says. “And I do need your phone.”
John’s lips are quivering. Sherlock simply does not understand these mercurial moods of John’s. It’s fortunate that they aren’t intrusive. And at least he seems prone to bouts of good humour, unlike Sherlock’s own tendency towards black moods.
Sherlock dictates to John, who dutifully types out the message. “What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out.” There, Sherlock pauses. Where to draw the murderer towards? Northumberland Street might be safe. They could always keep an eye out from Angelo’s. But simply watching is of little practical use, and Sherlock knows he could not watch without attempting to lay his hands on the murderer. Better, perhaps, to bring him here. He hasn’t yet posted his new address on his website. Ought to be safe enough.
“Is that all?” John asks cautiously.
“No,” Sherlock says. “Add this. 221B Baker Street. Please come.”
John’s fingers hover over the phone for a good few moments before he slowly types out the addendum. “Um,” he says, sending the message. “Did I just text a murderer?”
“Well, yes,” Sherlock says. “You’re quite quick on the uptake.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” John says firmly. “Wouldn’t say that at all. Only in retrospect, really. Why are you asking him to come here?”
“Where else?” Sherlock asks.
“Of course,” John sighs. Then he drops his phone on Sherlock’s stomach, clears the table by pushing aside some papers, and sits down on it.
Sherlock stares down at the phone contemplatively. That casual air of ownership is new. A lot of things about John are new.
“Met a friend of yours,” John says.
A friend? That’s impossible. He doesn’t have any friends. Acquaintances, at best.
“An enemy,” John corrects when Sherlock expresses his incredulity. “Arch-enemy, according to him. Is he really?”
“Absolutely,” Sherlock says.
He only sees it because he happens to glance up at John precisely that moment. John looks absolutely devastated for a moment, but then, as before, the emotion is swiftly hidden behind calm neutrality.
Is having an arch-enemy that traumatising?
“Drove me to some out of the way warehouse,” John says. “Kidnapped me, really. I’d complain, but I don’t think it would do me much good. At least he offered to have me driven me back, but I told him I’d walk.”
“Did he offer you money to spy on me?” Sherlock asks. Doesn’t hurt to check that it was in fact Mycroft. Of course, there’s no one else it could be. Who else would be interested in kidnapping John to get at Sherlock?
“Yes,” John says.
“Did you take it?” Sherlock asks.
“I thought about it,” John says. “Figured we could split it.”
Sherlock’s lips crook upwards of their own accord. Peculiar.
“Couldn’t in the end, though,” John says in a vaguely apologetic voice. “Sorry.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” Sherlock says. “Whatever makes you happy.”
John hadn’t taken the money. John hadn’t taken the money. John had chosen Sherlock.
There are so many things that are new about Doctor John Watson.
John’s phone rings. Sherlock peers down at it, and John obligingly reaches over, tilting the screen into view. Number withheld. Sherlock smiles in satisfaction. That’s it, then. The killer clearly has the phone. Now, if only he takes the bait.
“That’s him,” John says. “The murderer.”
“Must be,” Sherlock says. “And now we wait.”
“Just wait?” John asks. “Surely we should call the police.”
Sherlock scoffs at the thought. “And have them make a mess of things as always? They truly are very trying to work with.” Unlike John, who has been quite pleasant to have around, and whose words help rather than hinder. But he mustn’t get used to it. John will be leaving soon. Sherlock surprises himself with the realisation that he’d really like to try and make this flatmates thing work with John - John who’s been properly appreciative of Sherlock’s mind, John who’s taken everything that’s happened in his stride, John who’d chosen Sherlock over Mycroft. But there’s nothing he can offer John; nothing he and only he can do for John. There is nothing holding John to 221B and to Sherlock, and so even if he takes the flat, it won’t be long before Sherlock himself inadvertently drives him out.
But John does so clear his head.
“I’m sure they say the same about you,” John says dryly, and Sherlock grins. He knows they do. “At least fill them in on what you’ve got so far -”
“There’s little new we can tell them,” Sherlock says, waving off the suggestion. “I need a way to lay my hands on our murderer first.”
“Then at least tell them you’ve got the suitcase,” John insists. “They’ll need to log it in as evidence. Catching the murderer’s all well and good, but we need to make sure he stays in prison - not escape on a technicality.”
“Surely the evidence is damning enough,” Sherlock says, frowning.
“Not everyone sees the world the way you do,” John says. “In fact, it’s pretty safe to say practically no one does. We can’t look at him and read his guilt. And there’s always going to be a question of whether the evidence was planted, if you go rummaging for it without an officer on hand. After all that work catching them, do you really want them to slip the net again?”
Sherlock thinks about that for a moment. He knows the procedures the police need to follow. Of course he does. He’s always considered himself above that, though. It’s hardly due procedure to call in a consulting detective. And it’s so boring, following up on all these tiresome details when all he really wants is to just get at the heart of the mystery. But of course John has a point as well.
“Soon,” he concedes reluctantly. “I want to have more facts first. Who is this person who can abduct his victims from the middle of a busy street without anyone noticing? Someone we don’t think twice about, someone we trust. Who passes unnoticed, wherever they go? Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?”
He looks over at John, who’s leaning forward slightly, eyes focused on Sherlock with a slightly disconcerting intensity. John’s biting his lip in thought.
“People we tend to overlook,” John says. “Uh, janitors, cleaners, homeless people.”
“Unlikely,” Sherlock says. “Our murderer still has to convince his victims to travel somewhere with him, and people are quite close-minded about the homeless.”
“Doormen,” John suggests. “Uh, police officers.”
“There’s a possibility,” Sherlock says thoughtfully. “Our victims were driven, of course. But all the same, why get in a police car if you haven’t been involved in an accident or some such?”
“What, they just get into his car?” John asks. “What does he do, drive up to them and ask if he can give them a lift to certain death?”
“I highly doubt he phrases it quite like that,” Sherlock says with a grin. He rather likes John’s sense of humour. “He wouldn’t - oh!”
Sherlock swings up and off the sofa, catching the phone before it can tumble off his body. “Oh, John, you’re brilliant,” he crows happily, seizing John by the shoulders. “That’s it, of course that’s it, that’s how he does it.”
“Great!” John says, eyes wide. “How does he do it?”
“It’s so obvious,” Sherlock moans. “How did I miss it all this while? Oh, John, you should have come earlier. I could have solved this ages ago if you’d been here.”
John’s face turns pink enough that Sherlock can see the flush of colour even in the muted light. He watches, charmed, as the colour spreads across the bridge of John’s nose, and splashes over his cheeks and jawline.
There’s a loud sort of commotion downstairs, and Sherlock lets go of John’s shoulders with a frown. Mrs Hudson doesn’t sound happy, but the noise isn’t abating.
“What on earth is going on?” he murmurs, getting up. Then Lestrade shows up - and not just Lestrade, but Donovan and Anderson and Beech and Smith - just about everyone he loathes, really.
“Lestrade,” Sherlock says coolly. He shouldn’t be surprised. He isn’t. He works best with Lestrade and Gregson, but they both do tend to throw their weight around when they think Sherlock’s withholding evidence, or failing to work fast enough. They never do understand that Sherlock needs to have all the pieces in place before he presents the evidence. It’s no use knowing the gist of a thing without being able to prove every aspect. It’s at moments like these that Sherlock’s opinion of them falls, moments like these which ensure that Sherlock will never have anything more than a purely professional relationship with them.
“What’s this, then?” John asks, getting up from the table.
“Drugs bust,” Lestrade announces. Anderson’s already over at the mantelpiece, attempting to pull the knife out of the pile of letters.
“Ah,” John says, frowning. The others begin to spread out, snapping on gloves and touching his things, they’re ruining his system, Sherlock hates it. Mrs Hudson is standing in the door, wringing her hands. She’s upset, and that’s just as bad. John is liable to find out that Sherlock was once a drug addict, and that’s the worst of all, he knows how people like John regard addicts, recovering or otherwise. “Where’s your warrant?”
“What?” Lestrade asks.
“Warrant,” John says patiently. “Presumably you have one. Seeing as I’m also living here, I’ve got the right to read it, don’t I?”
“Oh,” Lestrade says. “Well. We don’t have one.”
John makes a thoughtful sound under his breath. “I’m not really quite up on my law,” he says pleasantly. “But wouldn’t that mean that you have no legal cause to be here, and that we could in fact have disciplinary action taken against every person in here?”
That does it. No one in the room is moving now.
“I suppose it does,” Lestrade says. He’s looking a little pale.
Sherlock can’t think. His mind is completely and utterly blank, and all he is capable of doing is staring at John.
“In that case, would you be so good as to take your men outside?” John asks politely. “And then perhaps we could have a little chat, like civilised men?”
Sherlock doesn’t pay attention to what Lestrade says, or the commentary from the people there as they troop down the stairs with their metaphoric tails between their legs. Mrs Hudson comes over, gives John a hug (he looks bemused, but hugs her back) and retreats to her room after a few reassurances from John and an absent smile from Sherlock.
“Sherlock?” John asks after a moment. There are footsteps on the stairs - two people, slow and hesitant. Unwilling.
“It’s all so new,” Sherlock says helplessly.
John turns that over in his head, just as Lestrade and Donovan reappear, looking somewhat chastised but still defiant. “Is that bad?” John asks with a tinge of anxiety.
“Not in the least,” Sherlock says.
They sit down like - as John put it - civilised people.
“Information exchange, then?” John says. He still sounds for all the world like he’s sitting down with three of his best friends, and they’re going to go frolic among daisies after having a nice cuppa. Sherlock swallows the half-hysterical laugh before it can emerge. “Have you found anything useful?”
They have, but Sherlock’s not entirely certain how to fit it into his information. He mulls the puzzle of Rachel over in his head, allowing John to fill the police in on what Sherlock’s discovered thus far. The attempt at contacting the murderer is met with consternation, but they allow John to finish detailing what he knows of Sherlock’s discoveries before turning their attention to Sherlock.
Rachel. Rachel. Ugh, why would she scratch out her stillborn child’s name? Death roughly coincides with the collapse of her marriage, possible correlation. But no, that can’t possibly have anything to do with this. Jennifer Wilson scratched the name into wood. With her nails. It would have been hard, it would have been painful. She’s got no reason to do it.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Sherlock bursts out in frustration, leaping from his chair and pacing furiously. “Why Rachel, why would she write that?”
“Thinking of her child?” Donovan suggests. “People do that.”
“It was ages ago,” Sherlock says. “Why would she still be upset?”
“Why -” Donovan begins.
“It can be traumatising losing someone you love,” John interrupts. “Especially a child, especially a stillborn. It’s like they never really had the chance, you know, to do anything, to be anyone. And she was the mother, on top of that. I imagine she felt some measure of guilt, as well. Wondering if it was something wrong with her that made her lose the child. Not everyone feels that way, of course, but for some it can take far longer than a decade or two to even start letting go.”
“Oh,” Sherlock says, thoughts temporarily derailed. “That makes sense.”
John smiles at him reassuringly. “She knew she was dying; it’s entirely probable she was thinking of the baby she’d lost.”
“Yes, of course,” Sherlock says absently. “She would, if death was on her mind, death and dying too soon. But it doesn’t explain why she would write the name down. That took effort. It would have hurt. It’s not something you do unless it’s important.”
“It’s a message to whoever found her,” John says thoughtfully. Sherlock listens, his brain still working furiously, trying to puzzle through the myriad choices open to him. “She was trying to give us information. Maybe it’s not the child herself, maybe it’s the name - a code or something -”
And that’s it, snap - everything else clears away and the truth is beautifully, painfully obvious.
“John, you can never leave me ever again,” Sherlock orders wildly, diving for his laptop. “Email address, on the label, the bag. What’s the email address?”
Lestrade and Donovan are both asking questions as John reads out the email address to Sherlock. Obvious, so very obvious. A password, of course, nothing else could make sense. A password for a smartphone. Oh, she was clever. Sherlock doesn’t even register the explanations he’s providing as he logs in and goes straight for the GPS.
Three minutes. Oh, he will positively explode with the waiting. John’s hand lands on his shoulder, stilling the impatient fidgeting.
“She was rather ingenious, wasn’t she?” John says.
“She must have realised, while she was in the taxi,” Sherlock says. “He must have told her what was going to happen - she couldn’t get to him while he was driving, so she started planning instead. Trying to figure out how to escape him, but coming up with a contingency plan to make sure he was found if she died.”
“A taxi?” Lestrade says, astonished. “It’s a taxi driver?”
“Yes, of course,” Sherlock says, watching the little clock timer on the screen. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. You said it yourself, John, he as good as drives up to his victims and asks to take them to certain death. He drives a taxi, that’s how he gets his victims in his car, where he can take them wherever he wants. Come on.”
The timer continues to scroll in patient circles.
“Oh,” John says. “That’s what you meant.”
There’s yet another knock at the door downstairs. It’s a revolving door tonight. Probably one of the detectives returning. Lestrade had best get rid of them. Sherlock’s in no mood for Anderson now, not when he’s so close to catching the murderer.
“A bloody cabbie,” Donovan says in a marvelling tone. “No one would have seen it coming.”
“That’s the point,” Sherlock says. “That’s how no one managed to see them vanishing. What could be more normal than a person getting into a taxi?”
“Isn’t this doorbell working?” Mrs Hudson says, leaning in around the door. “Sherlock, dear, the taxi you called for is waiting downstairs.”
Sherlock looks up from the screen. “I didn’t call -” he begins, then stops. “Ah.” The GPS tracker chimes as if to punctuate the word.
221 Baker Street.
They all stare at it for a moment. Then Sherlock clears his throat and looks back at Mrs Hudson with a smile. “Taxi, you said?”
“Yes, he’s waiting,” Mrs Hudson says. “Are you going out again? It’s awfully late.”
“I don’t believe I am,” Sherlock says, then twists to look at Lestrade and Donovan. “Well? Have at it. He’ll have her phone on him, or in the taxi - that will surely be enough.”
It’s John whom Lestrade is looking at, though. “You’re good for him,” he says with a faint smile. “Better than us, that’s for sure.”
The expression on John’s face is surprise, Sherlock’s sure. But pleasure as well. “Thank you,” John says. “And you know, next time you want information - just ask.”
Lestrade grins outright at that. “Noted.”
The arrest itself is quite anti-climactic. The cabbie - Jefferson Hope, his name is - gives up quietly when Lestrade and Donovan appear to arrest him. He confesses to all the murders, but refuses to explain how he had made the victims kill themselves. The fake gun found on him is certainly how he got them to follow him out of the car and do what he wanted. No doubt he’d forced them at gunpoint to swallow the pills. Sherlock doesn’t doubt that he’d played mind games of some sort with his victims, but the end result is the same: an apparent suicide and a nearly flawless murder.
It’s been quite a beautiful case.
And John still hasn’t left.
Eight days now since John had first moved in with Sherlock, and he still hasn’t left. Sherlock’s prediction of a week is clearly wrong, and Sherlock cannot help but be pleased by it. John is such a delightful flatmate. Really, the best he’s ever had.
It’s not that John doesn’t complain, of course. He doesn’t quite like having Sherlock’s experiments in the refrigerator, and he - as he promised - protests when Sherlock plays the violin in the early hours of the morning. But after he gets a good grumble out, John’s generally quite forgiving of the experimentation and music. He’s been so accommodating, in fact, that Sherlock’s giving serious thought to John’s request that he package up any refrigerated experiments.
“I don’t want decomposing flesh dripping into my curry,” John had explained. “It ruins the taste, and it’s a waste of money. Also, it could kill me.”
All very good points. Sherlock doesn’t quite see the point in eating as often as John does, but he’s willing to concede that if one wanted to eat curry, one would generally prefer it to be free of ptomaine. Still, wrapping or sealing some of his experiments as John asks, might alter the results. This dilemma is something that requires thought. Sherlock has determined to give it careful consideration. This fact, in turn, has caused some surprise. Never before has he been willing to compromise on his experiments.
John Watson is endlessly fascinating, if only for the responses he provokes in Sherlock.
Sherlock finds that he cannot stop analysing John. Whatever else he is engaged in, part of him is always paying attention to John. That part knows when John is tired (often; he doesn’t sleep well), when John is stressed (often; possibly lingering trauma from the war), when John is relaxed (occasionally; when John is watching truly atrocious television), when John is intrigued (occasionally; when Sherlock explains the nature of his current work).
John is interested in Sherlock’s work. He has already demonstrated a willingness to follow Sherlock around once. Sherlock wonders if he would be willing to do so again.
So it is that when a new case crops up (a civilian looking for aid this time), Sherlock asks John to accompany him.
John accepts.
This, Sherlock decides, is quite delightful.
He solves the case (of course he does), and John remains constantly by his side, perfectly happy to let Sherlock talk at him, allow the sporadic comments on his (and everyone else’s) intelligence (or lack thereof) to slide off his back, and generally be appreciative of Sherlock’s genius. It is a heady feeling, made all the better by the fact that John demonstrates no antagonism towards the fact that Sherlock’s intelligence is clearly far superior to John’s own.
In fact, John goes on to make it to a month, and though they do have sporadic quarrels - whether or not it’s acceptable to leave a human hand in the shower, for instance, or a whole pig’s carcass on the table - they generally manage to sort things out quite well. If John feels that he is becoming unreasonably frustrated, he takes himself out the door rather than become confrontational with Sherlock.
It’s rather a novel way of dealing with Sherlock, in all honesty. Most people prefer to hurt him in some way - either with (ineffective) words or (marginally more successful) fists.
And he does try the patience of most, he knows. He tries John’s patience too, at times, but John remains with him all the same. Surely there’s something to that.
He makes a study of John’s expressions. One day, he hopes to catalogue them all, and assign them their proper emotions. It’s always tricky. People are always subtly different in the way they show their feelings. He has analysed general trends, of course. He has had to, in order to understand the people he works with, the criminals and victims alike. He has never before been tempted to make a thorough analysis of a specific case study.
He is making excellent headway with John.
Besides John’s responses to various situations, he also finds himself examining John’s lifestyle. John is still unemployed, though he has been looking for a job. In the interim, while he waits for responses, he spends as little as he possibly can. The rent and utilities must of course be paid. Food is the cheapest he can possibly afford. The same goes for toiletries, which in addition are bought in bulk, presumably for a discount. John does not go out if it entails spending money, except on those occasions he had been working with Sherlock, and they had wound up at restaurants.
Frugal, though not desperately so. Sherlock hopes that this does not mean John is saving up to move out.
One anomaly in John’s behaviour is that after the first week or so, John had started going out to the pub almost every evening. The location is evident from the state of John’s shoes and jacket when he returns late at night, sometimes even in the early hours of the morning. But John spends little there, and never returns drunk. John is also not that avid a sports fan, and never has friends call round the house, so Sherlock is at a loss to know why John insists on spending so many evenings out at the pub.
Perhaps it is precisely because he doesn’t have friends round, that he chooses to meet them outside? Though Sherlock and John have compromised on Sherlock’s experiments, it does not follow that John would subject his friends to the same. It is the explanation that makes the most sense (and allows for a non-drinker to remain in a pub for hours without getting summarily ejected - surely he is with others who do spend money).
Sherlock is generous enough to allow John his evenings. Besides, as proven by his tests, John will always return to his side if he asks.
John does not quite like it when Sherlock texts him to return, only to ask him to send a text to Lestrade.
(Or to anyone else.)
But John prefers to spend the daytime hours at home. He’s quite pleasant company, in all honesty. He has an ability to read Sherlock’s moods; he knows when Sherlock desperately needs quiet and time to himself, when Sherlock is in need of company, when Sherlock’s boredom is getting the best of him, when he should ignore Sherlock’s sulks and when he should force Sherlock out of them. He doesn’t always get it right, but he does so more often than anyone else. Even Mycroft doesn’t handle Sherlock quite as well, though that could certainly be attributed to Sherlock’s antagonism towards his brother.
Speaking of Mycroft, his brother had come to him once in the course of the past month, ostensibly to ask for Sherlock’s services in a little puzzle involving one of his employees. Sherlock had turned him down, of course, and at any rate, Mycroft’s real reason for turning up had been to inform Sherlock that John’s background checks had turned up nothing worrying.
Not that Sherlock had been worrying.
John has led a fairly uninteresting early life. There are a few official records of domestic disputes at his house when he was a child, but nothing came of them. There is an (unsubstantiated) possibility that John had fallen in with a few unsavoury characters in his teenage years. Despite his connections, however, he has never committed any crimes. He studied at Barts, spent a few years in a hospital, then signed up for the army. During training, his instructors had reported him to be remarkably focused, talented and intelligent, with an ability to work well under pressure. As an army doctor, he should not have been on the front lines - but had in fact been tapped to take part in two ops, both classified enough that Mycroft had regretfully declined to provide details. Clearly, his ability to work well under pressure had also translated into an ability to work well under fire. He was, by all accounts, well liked and a fierce protector. He had been awarded a Military Cross. The injury that had led to his being invalided home was a bullet to the shoulder.
Some of the bullet fragments are still lodged in John’s shoulder. Sherlock notes that in the unlikely event John is injured, the attending medical team should be informed that he cannot undergo an MRI.
John had undergone surgery for the injury at a medical base in Afghanistan. Four months after the initial injury, he had finally been flown home, tired and drained a way that had little to do with the injury itself. John had evidently meant to make a life-long career out of the army, and having been discharged, no longer quite knew what to do with himself.
His qualifications make him best suited to be a trauma surgeon. His loss of precision movement in his left arm makes that impossible.
It’s no wonder he’s taken to Sherlock’s particular brand of madness. He doesn’t need to have a perfectly steady arm to follow Sherlock around, and the controlled chaos that frequently surrounded them must feel in some way like being back on the battlefield.
A good rush of adrenaline also enables John to temporarily work around the stiffness and faint tremors. He pays for it later, when things have settled, but he seems to enjoy the rush all the same.
John is quiet and peaceable. John is excited by danger. John has killed people. John has saved lives. John is unassuming and easily overlooked. John has undergone classified, specialised training.
John is a study in contradictions, and Sherlock loves everything about it.
Then, one day, John asks Sherlock a question. It’s a perfectly ordinary day. There’s nothing about it, or John’s behaviour, to suggest the words that will come out of John’s mouth.
“I have a question,” he says. “A hypothetical scenario I’d like to put to you.”
Sherlock looks up from his phone briefly. “Is it really hypothetical?” he asks in interest. He’s found that that particular phrasing usually means it’s not. What’s got John asking Sherlock, of all people, for advice?
“Not entirely, no,” John says wryly. “Some parts are, though.”
“Go on, then,” Sherlock says, putting his phone down on the table. He tucks his legs up under him and watches John.
“All right,” John says, clearing his throat. “Um. Say there’s a person you can’t stand. Whom you absolutely loathe. He does things that go against everything you stand for, and you’re pretty sure he’s involved in illegal things as well. But you’re also pretty certain he’s got himself covered, and you’d never be able to pin anything on him. And he’s not the only one involved anyway.”
This sounds promising.
“What would you do?” John asks. “Pretend you’re fine with him and try and get information to bring the whole group down? Or just focus on taking him down? Bearing in mind, of course, that it’s going to be very difficult to get any information on him or his people. And that he’s very good at acting, and probably has everyone around him fooled.”
John falls silent and looks at Sherlock. He’s wearing Expression #48. Uncomfortable, then, but eager for Sherlock’s opinion. This is important to him. Sherlock turns the problem over in his head.
“It depends on how integral he is to the group,” Sherlock says at last. “If the group can function without him, it is far more important to gain enough information to bring the whole group down. If, on the other hand, he is the lynchpin of the group and it is likely to collapse once he is removed - well, the choice seems obvious.”
John thinks about that for a while. He’s wearing Expression #32 now, but is licking his lips nervously every so often. That deserves a new categorisation of its own. #54 it is. John does have a tendency to lick his lips when he’s nervous, or excited, distracted - actually, maybe Sherlock needs to think about re-organising his list; he needs sub-categories.
“Presume the latter,” he says at last. “But his… friends can be quite… violent.”
“It is imperative,” Sherlock says sharply, “to preserve your own safety. If it appears likely that they will turn on you, clearly they must be taken down at the same time.”
John smiles thinly. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Good to know you’re of the same opinion.”
“John,” Sherlock says, leaning forward. “If you’re involved in anything -”
“I’m not,” John says reassuringly. He pushes to his feet with a sigh. “I’m just wondering if I should be.”
“Don’t,” Sherlock says abruptly. It certainly sounds like an interesting situation, but also a dangerous one. John could get hurt, John could even get killed. Sherlock realises that he is standing. He doesn’t remember getting up. “Tell me about it, I’ll come up with a way to -”
“Let me think about it,” John says. “I want to make sure I’m not jumping at shadows in the first place.”
“I have contacts,” Sherlock insists. “People on the street. Lestrade. Lestrade likes you. Mycroft, even.”
John’s eyes are slightly widened, his mouth just a little open. Sherlock can’t remember what expression that is. He’s got it classified somewhere, but he can’t remember.
“Sherlock,” John says, then falls silent. He takes a few steps forward, reaches out, and clasps Sherlock’s biceps in a firm grip.
“I’ll be fine,” he says finally. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“I’m not worried,” Sherlock says, because of course he isn’t. What would be the point of getting worried? “I simply believe that it would be quite inefficient for you to embark on a solitary crusade, especially given the resources available to you.”
The smile John gives him is wide and open. “I know,” he says. “And thank you for that.”
There are two cold spots on Sherlock’s arms when John lets go.
John refuses to speak any more on the topic, despite Sherlock’s very subtle questioning. Instead, he chooses to act as if it is a completely normal day. He makes chicken salad for lunch and badgers Sherlock until Sherlock has some. He puts the kettle on at precisely four, and makes tea for both of them. He puts the leftover salad in tortilla wraps for dinner, and stares silently at Sherlock until Sherlock finally eats one. In between, he reads a medical journal, surfs the internet for an hour, watches some television, and reads a bit of a novel.
He thoroughly ignores any attempts at information-gathering. This, Sherlock thinks, is rather annoying.
After dinner, John puts his jacket on. “Out to the pub,” he tells Sherlock.
Sherlock rolls over on the sofa. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he says warningly.
John grins. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, and leaves.
He doesn’t return.
Chapter Two - Part One
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