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Sherlock ducked under the police tape at Lauriston Gardens, ignoring Sally and Anderson’s jibes. Finally, after the fourth victim, Lestrade had let him in on the case, and he could barely contain his glee. Serial killers were always interesting, far more so than the petty crimes of passion that he had been dogging through of late. The murders were always intelligently and meticulously planned, and solving them was more like an intricate game of chess than anything else.
“Caucasian male, mid-thirties,” Lestrade said as he led the way up the spiraling staircases. “Hasn’t been here long, some kids found him.”
Sherlock pulled on his gloves, only half listening to the detective inspector. He never gave up anything pertinent during these short briefings, nothing that Sherlock couldn’t pick up after a few minutes with the body. Instead, he let his eyes flicker across the creaking stairs and peeling banister, looking for potential clues.
The body was on the top floor of the decrepit building, through a half open door guarded by a blank-faced constable. Old boarding house, abandoned since the 80s, Sherlock catalogued as he followed Lestrade into the room. No signs of struggle outside the room, any evidence of footprints and dust perturbation already trampled by police.
Finally, Sherlock shifted his gaze from the surroundings to the body lying in the centre of the room. A short figure was sprawled on the floor, dressed in a black jacket with elbow patches and with his arms raised beside his head. Suddenly, all the deductions beginning to take shape in Sherlock’s mind crashed to an abrupt stop and collapsed in on themselves, leaving his mind blank.
“John.” The whispered name left his lips without conscious thought. Legs shaking, he backed himself up to the wall for support, certain that he would crumple into a heap otherwise.
“Jesus, Sherlock!” He could barely hear Lestrade’s frantic voice, even though he could see the other man’s face looming in front of him. “Oh, Christ. Did you know him?”
--
Sherlock wrinkled his nose as he sat down at the bar of the noisy, darkened pub. He hadn’t been in a place like this since Victor had dragged him out that one time in uni, and he had been none too pleased about it. The raucous laughter and blare of the football match in the background bore into his skull, overloading his hard drive without providing useful information.
The bartender sidled up before him, and Sherlock ordered a pint to avoid attention as he kept his eyes on the unobtrusive-looking door with the “Staff Only” sign a few feet from where the counter of the bar met the back wall. Garretson and his accomplice, who was the manager of the pub, should be meeting there right now. Just a few more minutes of enduring the racket of this hole-in-the-wall, and Sherlock would be out the door with his suspect.
“Waiting for someone?” a voice said from behind his ear as a body slipped into the seat beside him.
“Yes,” Sherlock replied shortly with even less patience than usual for this sort of thing, barely shifting his eyes away from their target.
“Mind if I keep you company while you wait?”
Sherlock let out a frustrated sign, annoyed at the man’s boldness and his own inability to simply leave. Sherlock searched his brain for the quickest way to get someone to leave. Piss off, said a voice in his head, and he grinned and turned around.
“You’re an army doctor, soon to be deployed abroad, shamelessly looking for a one night stand,” he said, eyes scanning the other man as the deductions revealed themselves to him one by one, “Your last girlfriend broke up with you a few months ago, probably due to your unwillingness to put your relationship above the army. Which you first got into to impress and prove your masculinity to your father, but he’s never going to get over the rift caused when you revealed your bisexuality, I’m afraid.” Sherlock paused and smirked. “So, still interested in my company?”
--
“The killer’s female,” Anderson’s obnoxious drawl dragged Sherlock out of the haze of his mind. The voice was even more irritating than usual. Snarling, he struggled to push himself up to his feet, but a hand firmly pushed him back. “She,” the man continued, seemingly oblivious to Sherlock’s murderous glare. “He could be telling us the murderer’s a woman.”
Sherlock forced himself to refocus his eyes on the body as Lestrade walked away to shut the door in Anderson’s face. Sure enough, beside John’s left hand were three letters scratched into the wooden panels of the floor: s-h-e. He bit his lip as he bullied his brain into concentrating and seeing the tableau laid before him as any other crime scene, noting the greying of his hair, the awkward angle of his shoulder and the aluminum cane lying uselessly beside him. These must mean something, he thought, but the normally lightning-fast synapses of his brain refused to spark and connect the dots.
“You should go home,” Lestrade said as Sherlock reached for the wallet and keys in evidence bags nearby, stumbling in his steps.
“Are these it? Did he have anything else with him?” Sherlock demanded as he pried the bags open.
“Go home. We’ll manage without you this once.”
“A phone. Did he have a phone?”
Lestrade pulled him unsteadily to his feet, and Sherlock was dismayed to find that he didn’t have the strength to resist as he was shoved out the door.
“Getting kicked out, freak?” Anderson sneered from where he leaned against the wall. “What did you do, lick the corpse?”
“Shut it, Anderson, and get on with your job,” Lestrade snapped. Sherlock found himself being dragged down the stairs and, despite repeated protests, Lestrade didn’t let go of his arm until he was caged into a cab on the main road and heading to Baker Street.
--
Sherlock watched as the other man’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open before closing again, making a marvelous impression of a goldfish. “How did you know that?”
Sherlock sighed. One of the curious ones, then. Irritated, he listed the evidence from the man’s military bearing, his dry hands to the shirt he was wearing. A silence followed, and Sherlock turned back to staring at the painted door, thinking that he would soon be left alone.
“That was amazing.”
At that, Sherlock snapped his head around, surprised that the man was still there and that he, shockingly, appeared to actually be praising him.
“Do you think so?”
“Of course it was. It was extraordinary. It was quite extraordinary.”
It was Sherlock’s turn to look dumbfounded, as he took another look at the other man. Even sitting down, Sherlock could tell that he was short, but fit. Dirty blond hair was cropped closely in an army cut, contrasting with deep blue eyes and the boyish grin he was wearing even though he had to be over thirty. Sherlock caught a faint whiff of alcohol on his breath, but he couldn’t have had more than a pint or two judging by the intensity of the smell and the clear-eyed look he was giving him.
That was when Sherlock heard the slamming of a door behind him and an angry dismissal as Garretson emerged from his rendezvous. Sherlock leapt from his seat to chase after the suspect as Garretson noticed him and bounded out a side door. As he raced down the cobblestones of the back alley, Sherlock could dimly hear the thumping of another pair of footsteps behind him.
--
Sherlock seethed as he stood in the ruins of his new living room. Barely unpacked boxes had been ripped open and the contents flung about. The neat lines and edges of the world around him had finally been thrown into chaos to match the shambles of his mind palace, but that didn’t stop the fury from clawing its way through the walls.
How dare he? How dare John go and get himself murdered, was he really that much of an idiot? Why hadn’t Lestrade called him in earlier, before the killer had even set his sights on John? Or was he angry at himself, for refusing Mycroft’s offer to keep an eye on John, for discounting that month as an aberration, for the unread letters that still sat by his bedside and not as ashes in the fireplace as he had intended?
An alert sounded beside him, and Sherlock reached for his mobile phone on reflex.
Message: Mycroft Holmes
Sherlock tossed the phone aside, not flinching at the crunch it made as it landed. Better that it was broken, anyway. There was nothing anyone had to say that he wanted to hear.
Phone, he remembered, as he thought of the evidence bags at the crime scene. There wasn’t a phone amongst the objects found at the scene, but there was a number on the “if lost, please return to” card in John’s wallet, right below his name and above his email address.
A call to the number went unanswered, but with a flash, he remembered the email address: [email protected]. John was clever – not a genius, but intelligent. If his phone wasn’t with him, then it must be with the killer. He had planted it with him. Heart thumping, Sherlock logged onto the website and entered John’s email as the username. As for the password –
He sucked in a deep breath and typed in a single word: s-h-e-r-l-o-c-k.
--
“That was ridiculous,” John giggled as the two of them leaned against the door, inside of Sherlock’s dingy flat on Montague Street. “That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.”
Sherlock heard an unfamiliar, giddy laugh bubble from his own lips. “You might be revising that once you’ve invaded Afghanistan.”
“That won’t be just me,” John replied as he turned to look at Sherlock, grinning at him with something sweet and affectionate underneath that made his heart thump. Sherlock would berate himself for the sentimental expression, but he had already spent the past week trying – unsuccessfully – to suppress the warm feeling that he knew in the back of his mind to be inevitable. Instead, he forced himself to stop thinking, to stop repeating the now-familiar list of implications and consequences as he pulled John towards him and pressed their lips together.
John’s mouth was warm, and eager as his tongue darted out to swipe against Sherlock’s own bottom lip. Considering the circumstances under which they had met, Sherlock shouldn’t be surprised by how enthusiastically John fisted his hands in his shirt and pressed in against him, but he still felt a jolt at how much John seemed to want him, even after all he now knew about Sherlock. Sherlock’s mind went blissfully blank, his focus narrowed down to nothing but the smell and taste of the man before him.
After long moments, John was the one to pull back. Sherlock moved forward to recapture his lips, but two firm hands on his chest stopped him before he could.
“Are you sure about this?” John whispered, his breath brushing Sherlock’s cheeks with a look in his eyes that Sherlock could not interpret. “I’m deploying in three weeks.”
Sherlock just nodded and leaned in again, not wanting to think of anything but John’s warmth pressed up against him.
--
Sherlock tore through the darkened streets, hugging the tablet to his chest with one arm and taking shortcuts over rooftops and through alleyways as he chased the blue dot on the screen. This, at least, was familiar, the feel of the cold January night air through his curls and seeping through the open collar of his coat. The burn in his lungs, the way neon and incandescent lights danced across his vision, his mind focused on pursuing his quarry. If he ran fast enough, perhaps he could escape the unfamiliar ache of guilt, rage and grief following three steps behind, throwing their shadows across the streets of London as they towered over him.
But even as he leapt from one pool of streetlamp-lit pavement to another, his brain refused to zero in on the chase as it usually did. Something nagged at him in the back of his mind, a deduction trying to take form without his permission.
A cane. Loss of mobility – loss of purpose, for someone who was so active and enjoyed being so?
The password. Obviously no current romantic attachments.
And yet, no attempts at contact. The John Watson he knew, with his easy confidence and the mischievous glint in his eyes – he would have tried, wouldn’t he?
For once, Sherlock didn’t want to know. What did it matter anyway? The result was the same, no matter what John had been thinking at the end. Murder was murder, and dead was dead. He, of all people, should know that.
But, a traitorous tendril of thought questioned, what if it had mattered?
--
The whitish glow of early morning shone through the seams in the threadbare curtains of Sherlock’s bedroom window. The beeping of John’s alarm was sharp and piercing in the quiet room, and Sherlock reluctantly opened his eyes. The display of the clock glowed 6:00 am, and he was instantly furious at himself for falling asleep. He had meant to make the night last as long as possible, somehow hoping that by sheer force of will he could stretch apart the seconds so that they could spend an eternity hiding between each tick of the clock.
Beside him, John groaned and the mattress shifted. Sherlock closed his eyes again, flipped over in the bed and flung his arm like a vise across John’s chest. He felt John pull him close and nuzzle into his curls. Sherlock buried his nose in John’s bare chest and tried to pretend that all was fine, but the countdown in the back of his mind wouldn’t stop and coloured every warm, tender moment with the sour tint of desperation.
Finally, after several minutes, John extricated himself from the cage of limbs and blankets and planted a kiss on Sherlock’s lips.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in Sherlock’s ear. He gave Sherlock a soft kiss before stepping into the adjoining bathroom.
Sherlock turned around so that his back faced the door of the bedroom, closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of John getting ready. The sound of the shower turning on and off, the rustling of cloth and the clattering of plates and knives and mugs in the kitchen. He heard the footsteps as John returned to the bedroom and set a mug of tea on the bedside table, but didn’t turn to look.
“Sherlock, I have to go.”
He squeezed his eyes tighter, drawing his arms and knees closer together.
“Please, Sherlock.”
John’s voice was rough and wavering. He felt a warm hand settle on the crook of his elbow, but he couldn’t make himself turn around to face whatever expression was currently on John’s face, knowing that he wouldn’t be seeing it again for a long time, if ever. All of his previous misgivings about sentiment, all the reasons why he never wanted to be involved in a relationship came flooding back in that instant.
“I know…I know you’re not one to wait,” John was saying. “But maybe when my tour is over, if you’re still, I mean, if you’re willing –”
“Just go, John.”
The words were bitten out, scraping against each other as they clawed their way up his throat. Finally, the pressure on his arm ceased, and with a quiet goodbye John left.
--
“Love is a much more vicious motivator.”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes, staring at the spotted white pills that were one of the last things that John saw.
This, then, was the cabbie’s game. The old tenet of Caring is not an advantage rang through his head, and it made something sharp and sickening rise to his throat. It only grew stronger as the other man began to explain his arrangement with his sponsor, about the funds he received for every dead body. How much money had he been given for John? he wondered bitterly. How much was John’s life worth – a few months’ rent in the city? A year’s tuition for university?
“Time to choose,” said the cabbie.
Sherlock sneered, raking his eyes over the man and noting his weak spots. “What if I don’t choose either?”
“You can take your fifty-fifty chance, or I can shoot you in the head.” Sherlock watched as the man drew out a pistol and aimed it at the space between his eyes. “Funnily enough, no one’s ever gone for that option,” he continued, but Sherlock didn’t hear him.
Everything fell away as he stared numbly at the gun in front of him. Plastic, and painted with cheap black paint. The barrel nowhere near large enough to allow the passage of a bullet. Just a toy. Perhaps enough to fool ordinary civilians who had never seen a gun off the telly, but not Sherlock Holmes.
And, definitely, not a veteran like John Watson.