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"Go sit over there, look through what you need but none of this leaves this office." Lestrade instructed.
Sherlock looked around the crowded area with distaste. "Do you not have a spare office?" The consulting detective asked.
"No, you stay here where someone can keep an eye on the two of you." Lestrade insisted. "I don't want a repeat of the last time you were here."
"It's fine." John assured Lestrade. "This will do fine."
The last time Sherlock had somehow found his way into the evidence locker. He did solve a cold case while in there, but even so, after that they were lucky to be let in the station again at all.
Sherlock did not look pleased, but he didn't argue.
"Nothing leaves the office." Lestrade repeated at John this time, as though it were John Watson who needed the reminder.
Sherlock sat down and flung open a file. "If you see anything that even maybe fits the description, let me see it."
John pulled up a metal chair from the side of another desk and opened another file. They were looking for something specific that Sherlock had seen in passing more than twice near linked crime scenes, something that could be nothing, could be only coincidence, but was most likely something so much more. Looking carefully through the images collected from cold case crime scenes, anything that might have been missed that didn't seem to fit at the time but could potentially solve the entire case. Yep, John thought morosely, this was going to be a long day.
A couple of officers yelled back and forth across the room, something about the coffee machine. This room was not ideal, it was loud and busy, and crowded. A woman working administration brushed past the desk and a pile of files were flung to the floor. There had been an order to those, and John spent half an hour sorting it out again.
Sherlock seemed engrossed in his task. John watched him and wished he had the kind of concentration it took to block the rest of the world out from around him. It would have made studying at Uni much easier.
A thin young man in handcuffs started shouting and a brief fight broke out. He was slammed against the wall and dragged off somewhere else.
The minutes crawled by towards lunch.
"He doesn't belong there." Sherlock passed John a picture. "The man standing beside the door, if he were at a different angle, but it's just the side of his head." He took out a magnifying glass and looked more carefully. He placed the photo in a specific pile.
John sighed and refocused on the task at hand. Lunch break, Sherlock wasn't interested in food, and so John joined a couple of staff detectives on a run to the sandwich cart, brought it back to eat at the desk.
"Want some?"
Sherlock only briefly glanced up and muttered something under his breath.
John did notice when Sherlock started getting a little antsy. He would stop paging through files and look up and around the office, frown at something and then close his eyes for a moment and look back down at his files.
Then the noise got worse after the lunch break. Sherlock frowned and rubbed at his head slightly as though he had a headache. His knee started jumping, and his fingers started fidgeting.
"Want to take a break? Get some air?" John asked. Sherlock didn't bother looking up and he didn't answer. John assumed that meant no, though he was tempted to just get up and take a break on his own. The faster they got through these files the better.
The next file John flipped through was one of the more gruesome ones. How many people did someone have to kill to spread that much blood on the walls? Or was it paint? He flipped over to the forensics report. Nope, blood. Apparently just one person. He hated to think he found that interesting. It wasn't that he hadn't seen enough blood in person to last a lifetime. He knew first hand exactly how much a person could bleed. He knew all that blood couldn't be from just one victim. Not unless... he looked up at Sherlock ready to draw his attention to it, but hesitated instead.
"There isn't enough." Sherlock swiped at something that only his own eyes could see. "The crowds, the onlookers hoping to catch a spot of blood or a body bag. All looking in different directions, what is catching their attention." Sherlock tossed another photo on the pile. His voice rose slightly as he studied the next photo. "The police. The scene, not if they can't see the scene. Also the killer is there, watching, enjoying. If he can't see the scene? Where? He watches the detectives, do they know, what do they have." That photo joined the other in the discard pile, and he looked over at the other folders. This time his voice was much louder. "Where are the others?"
Sherlock talking and working things through out loud. Not abnormal. What struck John as being off once he started listening, was that Sherlock was talking himself in circles and getting nowhere. Sherlock didn't do frustration well.
John couldn't help but think of the many times Sherlock demanded quiet in order to think. There were distractions everywhere, suspects being led in, statements taken. Everything around them was constantly moving, busy, noisy, and totally chaotic, and it already been a long day.
And John wasn't the only one to notice. Sally Donovan stood along the far wall fixing them with a steady glare. There were others too, not many, but a couple of the more perceptive agents in the room were also glancing at their corner. Focusing on Sherlock. Not good.
"Are you..." John started asking and then snapped his mouth shut. Asking if things were alright wasn't going to do any good, because it was glaringly obvious that things were not alright. He reached out and gently placed his fingers on Sherlock's wrist, eliciting a slight flinch from his friend and a sudden halt to all things verbal. Sherlock did not, however, pull away. John held his fingers steady, and Sherlock looked down at John's hand on his wrist as though it were a new mystery to solve.
Rapid pulse.
John let go and sat back. Okay. What now? Sherlock had his quirks and he could be bloody infuriating, but he was also a genius the likes of which John had never had the pleasure of seeing before. Part of that genius came with certain weaknesses, one of which included sensory overload. John knew Sherlock was struggling, and he wasn't going to let it happen here. He placed a marker in the file he was looking through and closed it carefully. Then got up and walked away. He'd only taken three steps.
"John?" Sherlock did notice him leave. John could hear the uncertainty in the other man's voice.
"I'll be right back." He continued on towards Donovan, with Sherlock watching closely. He didn't even dare guess what his friend's mind was getting up to. John caught Sally's attention and pulled her aside. "It's too busy in here. Is there somewhere quiet?"
She looked past him again. "Is he high?"
John gave her a withering look. "Yes, that's exactly it. He smuggled something in here to use in front of everyone because we all know he's stupid enough to get high in a room full of detectives."
She huffed out an exasperated breath and waited for him to continue.
John glanced back to where Sherlock was sitting. "An empty office? Conference room? Large closet? I don't care what, just someplace quiet where he can think. "
"So what up with him then? A panic attack? Great that's all we need here is the freak going mental on us. Can't you just take a break somewhere else? Away from here?"
"We're close to finding something." John explained. "If we could look over the files somewhere quiet, I'm sure he'll figure it out."
She sighed. "Fine. There's the old interrogation rooms over where they're renovating on the east side. Shouldn't be anyone around."
John went back and sat down. He leaned in, not sure how to go about this. "Sherlock."
Sherlock regarded him closely, suspiciously.
"It's really loud in here and it's given me a splitting headache. Sally's got a space we could move to." John stacked up the folders and picked up as much as he could. Sherlock just stared at him. "You know, you could help me with these." John added, and Sherlock gathered up the rest, which wasn't much.
They walked down the hall, to a corridor and turned left and stepped around a construction barricade. Sally unlocked a door and stood back, John glanced inside. Clean-ish. An older room but plain, long unused since the new addition had been completed. A table bolted to the floor and a couple of old chairs. John dumped his pile of files down on the table, and took the other pile from Sherlock.
Sally rolled her eyes and walked out slamming the door shut.
If he'd been intending to do any work right away, John would have sat at the table. As it was though, he sat on the floor and leaned back his head. He just breathed, and Sherlock stood over him watching. And then, slowly he sat down a couple feet away and took the same pose. Head back, eyes closed.
"You don't have a headache." Sherlock said softly.
John took a relieved breath. "Better?"
Sherlock nodded his head slightly. "Obvious, was it?"
"To me at least."
Sherlock looked away.
John shrugged. "It wasn't that bad."
Sherlock looked up and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Oh for gods sake, I don't want pity, John. This..."
"Wasn't the end of the world. I don't think anyone even noticed anything unusual, and even if they did, it isn't like you care what any of them think, right?" John assured him. "Ready to keep on?"
Sherlock looked over at the table and then back John sitting beside him. "In a minute."
"Would you like some time alone?"
"No. Unless you want..."
"No." John leaned up against the wall. Tilted his head back. "I think I'm exactly where I should be."