Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter Text
1. Introduction.
"Detective Donovan, this is Sherlock Holmes."
Sally Donovan automatically puts out her hand, but the well-heeled though too thin and sickly-looking young man openly ignores it, keeping his own hands clasped behind his back, and instead taking a moment to examine her critically with steely grey-blue eyes, and she feels for that moment as if he can, impossibly, read and know everything about her just with this one look, which is uncomfortable to consider, and she bristles at both the attention and the snub, so she casts a questioning gaze back at Lestrade, who tells her, "I'll be taking him to the scene."
Sally gapes, "And he's a civilian? But we can't-" And Holmes is already walking away.
"He knows his stuff. You'll see. It'll be on me, alright?" He reassures, and is already jogging after the young man before she can reply. "Sherlock! You have to stay with me, you know!"
When she catches up with them the dark haired man is leaning closely over the body, smelling it. And he's not even wearing a forensic suit, but has only removed his long coat and put on a pair of gloves, which he's using now to actually touch the victim- picking up a hand and examining the fingers closely.
Seeing her look of outrage at the already innumerable breaches in protocol, DI Lestrade cuts her off before she can speak with a placating hand up,
"Just... give him a minute. Let him work."
"And does my professional opinion not matter at all?"
"It does, its just-"
Their 'guest' stands up and sniffs in derision. "This woman died of natural causes. Why have you wasted-?"
Sally laughs mirthlessly, gesturing at the victim, "Do you not see the bleeding head?"
"She hit her head when she fell. Its clearly not what killed her." He won't even deign to look at her as he speaks, but is circling the room, taking everything in.
"Clearly?"
"As clear as the fact you've just moved out of your fiance- no, just a boyfriend's- apartment, where you lived" He pauses only a half second, "2 years? And on the market again already, I see," with an amused glance at her freshly manicured fingernails. "Yes, it is."
"Just where the hell do you-?"
"Sherlock-" Lestrade cuts in with a warning look to each of them. "How was she killed, if it wasn't murder?" He's got his notebook out, ready to take notes. This whole charade is an insult, Sally considers.
"Do I have to do everything for you?" With the mien of a put-upon child.
"Don't get smart, Sherlock."
He smirks. "Diabetic Ketoacidosis. Coma, then death. Easy enough to deduce if you're paying attention."
Sally crosses her arms across her chest and returns her own smirk. This is where this pretender is put in his place. "Well that's where you're wrong. We have her medical history. No diabetes."
Without hesitation, words coming almost too rapidly to process, "She was undiagnosed. Recent weight loss despite a diet of junk food, chronic dry mouth, smells of fruit." He looks at either of them pointedly, as if they should understand, and shakes his head in clear disappointment when they clearly do not. "Nearly a third of people who die of ketoacidosis have no known history of diabetes."
Sally appeals to Lestrade, this cannot be tolerated, "What is he even doing here?"
Lestrade looks almost sheepish, "I asked him to come take a look. As a consultant."
"Since when do we hire consultants? What are his credentials? You do realize if-" She's pushed too far, Lestrade is her superior and he puts all his authority into his next statement-
"Since now." End of argument. Holmes has retrieved his coat and is fixing his scarf. "Listen, he's not exactly a people person, I'll admit, but, he knows his stuff. Its strictly off books."
She gapes, "So he's not even getting paid? What's in it for him, hmm?" She raises her voice to address the next bit to Sherlock, who is flipping up his collar for show, "What are you, some kind of freak? Get off on this sort of thing? You don't belong here."
Sherlock merely looks at her and, turning to Lestrade, "Call me when you've got something that won't bore me." He walks briskly away, comfortably passing through the police tape meant to keep the obviously disturbed hangers on like himself out.
Lestrade only shrugs apologetically at Sally.
Chapter 2: Love
Chapter Text
He wakes up feeling the soft caress of her lips on his cheek, only to open his eyes to an empty room, first light making its way in through the window, his heart fluttering in his chest. The woman.
He has no cases today (my kingdom for a good murder!) and she won't leave his head. It makes him feel weak, not in control, and he takes it out on John with scathing remarks and restless irritability, until he's driven him from the flat ("I'm going OUT. Don't call or text me or I will invite your brother over for tea.").
He watches through the window as John disappears down the sidewalk, then picks up his violin and begins playing her theme, which he'd composed when she'd falsified her own death (We have that in common, don't we?). He doesn't permit himself to think about where she might be or what misbehavior she might be getting up to, just allows the rolling, exotic melody to fill the yearning emptiness inside.
A good murder really would do right now.
Chapter 3: Light
Chapter Text
"You’ll never be the most luminous of people, but as a conductor of light you are unbeatable"
x
Focus, focus, focus. What does it all mean? Too much information, not enough of the right kinds of information. Sherlock's frustration levels are steadily rising, nearing overflow. He paces the flat, papers strewn everywhere- floors, walls, table, couch. What am I missing? Impossibly difficult.
"Sherlock?" John walks into the flat with a somewhat befuddled look on his face.
Typical.
"What, what, what??" Sherlock turns on him. John remains unaffected.
"So I take it you're still on the Hudson case? From this morning?" He clears a space off his chair and pulls his laptop onto his lap. "Unless something new has popped up?" He adds hopefully.
Sherlock looks for a moment as if he's about to explode, but instead collapses onto the couch, papers and all, folding in on himself, despair evident on all his features. "It escapes me." He moans. "I'm missing something. How can I be missing something?" He buries his face in a throw pillow.
John glances over to him and takes (just a little) pity. Easier for all our sake. "They can always just get another. They're irritating little beasts anyhow, at that age."
A few moments pass, and John is checking his emails when Sherlock suddenly stiffens and lifts his head and blinks unseeingly at John.
Okay, this is getting strange. John closes the laptop. "What?"
Sherlock slowly grins. "Oh, John."
Suspiciously, "Yes?"
"Oh, John, John, John, John." Full on grin now.
"Stop it now."
"You are brilliant. Have I told you that? Well of course you're not really, but at the same time..."
"Sherlock..." John warns.
But he's already moved on, tossing on his suit jacket and out the door he's gone.
x
The next day John receives a message on his blog account. A photo of a little girl, Ciara Hudson, happily reunited with her missing puppy, Pongo. John chuckled to himself.
Sherlock sipped his tea across from him. "It was the father. The 'irritating little beast' had chewed one too many slippers and he gave it away in secret thinking that was the end of it. Didn't know his daughter would come to me to find it. The paint chip on the gate was merely a distraction."
John didn't bother asking how Sherlock knew what he was chuckling about. "You're a fine man, Sherlock Holmes."
"Mmm. Couldn't have done it without you." He murmured over the rim of his cup. John tucked away a discrete smile.
ChiefDoctor on Chapter 1 Mon 10 Jul 2017 02:03PM UTC
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