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Sherlock pushed his way through the crime scene tape, taking in the scene as he did so. John followed close behind, smiling sort of half-sheepishly at the crowd that had gathered nearby replete with several reporters and a sizable portion of the neighborhood.
Sherlock was just at the entryway when a solid object stood in his way.
“Oi, and where do you think you're going?” An unfamiliar DI blocked their path.
Sherlock looked at the man disdainfully. “To the crime scene, of course.”
“Not gonna happen.”
Sherlock pressed a hand to his temple and sighed dramatically. “Do we really have to go through this again? The whole 'brilliant consulting detective tells you how to do your job' thing?”
“Oh, you mean the whole 'you're not allowed in there,' thing? Yeah, I think we do.”
“Don't be ridiculous.”
“Simmons, Cartwright. Restrain this man.”
“Idiot.” Sherlock snarled, brushing off the two detectives who tried to pull him back. “I hope you know what you're doing.”
“Sherlock, maybe we should-”
“No, John, I'm not leaving. I can solve this case.”
“Look, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is, I've heard about you and how you like to mess around at crime scenes out of some twisted idea of your own importance. I'm telling you – this time, it's not going to happen. The last thing I need is to hold some psycho's hand while he mucks things up.”
“Funny that.” Sherlock replied icily, his cool blank gaze narrowing as he spoke. “You claim to have heard of me, but you can't be bothered to call me by name.”
“Sherlock-”
“Enough, John. I get the point. If this – idiot – doesn't want to oblige himself of my services, that's fine. I'm sure he can muck up his own crime scene just fine.” The last line was said loudly enough that the nearby reporters could hear.
Sherlock turned to go, doing his best impression of someone who didn't care at all as the flickering flashes of photography captured his retreating figure.
Sherlock didn't say anything on the ride back to the flat, but his hands twisted fitfully in his lap and the silence was occasionally punctuated by a small, frustrated sigh.
John didn't know quite what to say. The incident had clearly affected Sherlock more than he let on, but what could he do? Sherlock was Sherlock and John fully expected any attempt at sympathy on his part to be called out for the saccharine rubbish it was.
So, he settled for making tea.
Sherlock had been very quiet since they'd returned home, hands steepled together in front of him, staring forward, but clearly not seeing the room before him.
John held out the tea cup and cleared his throat.
Sherlock took it from him and looked down into the swirl of milky tea.
“I would have been brilliant, John.” He closed his eyes and shook his head very slightly. John tried to explain away the hesitance behind those words. It was so odd to hear that voice drained of its usual confidence.
“I know you would have been, Sherlock. His loss.” Sherlock looked up then, meeting John's eyes, searching for some mirror of the doubts within himself, but all he saw was John's reassuring gaze followed by a firm nod.
And it's enough. Somehow, that's enough. John still believes in him and it's enough.
It was two days later when DI Lestrade stopped by early in the morning.
John was still rubbing his eyes and fighting back a yawn as he opened the door and let Lestrade inside the flat.
“Morning, John. Is Sherlock around?”
John waved his hand in the general direction of the sofa and retreated to the kitchen to look for some breakfast amidst the ruins of Sherlock's overnight experiments. He suspected that Lestrade's visit had something to do with the gaping hole in the front page of the morning newspaper where someone had cut out the lead story.
John puzzled over the row of glasses set out neatly beside the sink. They certainly appeared to have been freshly washed, but with Sherlock you could never be too careful. John chose one at random and gave it another good scrubbing before using it to drink from. He grabbed an apple for breakfast and went to go see what Lestrade and Sherlock were discussing.
Sherlock was still feigning disinterest in the case as John entered the living room and sat down on the sofa beside Sherlock, but John knew his flatmate well enough by now to know that it wouldn't last. Soon enough, they'd be traipsing around London looking for clues or some other such nonsense. It was a good thing he didn't have any plans for today.
As much as he didn't like to admit it, working with Sherlock was never dull and it had been a while since they'd had a case. Despite the absurdity of it all sometimes, John would take Sherlock's near-frantic genius ramblings over the wan, defeated expression he'd observed over the last few days anytime.
The case sounded interesting enough. Leading investment banker takes his own life after an embezzlement scandal. John wasn't sure what was keeping Sherlock from accepting for so long.
Ah, so that was the reason. DI Howard was in charge of the case and he'd been the one to deny Sherlock entry to the crime scene two days ago. No wonder Sherlock was being stubborn. Now, it seemed they needed Sherlock's help after all.
“Look, I know DI Howard can be a bit stubborn sometimes-” Lestrade admitted.
“And rude.” John added pointedly, between bites of apple.
“But we could really use your help on this one.”
Sherlock didn't look up from his phone. He was staring intently at the small screen, scanning the crime scene reports DI Lestrade had sent over the night before.
“Sherlock, you have to admit, you have a reputation for being-”
“Right?” Sherlock said sullenly from his perch on the sofa. He looked up with a hooded expression.
“I was going to say difficult to work with.”
John bit back a laugh. He'd seen a flicker of something else in Sherlock's gaze then, just enough of something to let him know that Lestrade had already won the argument even if it would continue for a while longer.
A few hours later, Sherlock paced within the confines of the meeting room he'd commandeered to examine the evidence gathered from the crime scene. Since DI Howard had concluded it was a suicide, the crime scene had been released shortly after that first night, but the evidence remained in custody while the police sorted out the details. The missing money from the bank's accounts was still stubbornly unaccounted for and had many speculating that there was more to the crime than just suicide.
Sherlock had tacked crime scene photos to three walls and strewn evidence bags across the table and over a few chairs. Pages from various lab reports and evidence analyses were spread out before him in carefully controlled disarray. He finally paused in the middle of the room, glancing at the gathering of detectives and other staff before him, wearing an expression that could only be defined as smug.
John thought he knew a little better, but kept it to himself. The smugness had it's uses, but he knew there was more hidden beneath that expression than the consulting detective would ever let on. John liked knowing there were a few secrets about Sherlock that only he knew about. They were treasures of a sort, bits of something withheld from public view, just for him.
“The body was found here, yes?” Sherlock pointed to a photograph of the entryway.
DI Howard nodded, tight-lipped, eyes glittering with malice. He'd only begrudgingly agreed to this consultation.
“That was just for show. The murder took place upstairs.” Sherlock stepped a few paces forward and pointed at a photograph of the upstairs study.
“So it was murder, then? How do you figure?” Lestrade crossed his arms and tilted his head inquisitively.
“Obvious, isn't it?” Sherlock couldn't keep the glimmer from his eyes as the gathered crowd erupted in whispered conversations.
Next, Sherlock bounded over to the wall of photographs from the morgue.
More and more John wondered how much of the bravado was just for show. How much effort did Sherlock put into coming up with these big reveals? How much did he give up for what appeared to others as near effortless genius? John knew him well enough by now to know that sometimes there were doubts, uncertainties, or complications, but Sherlock rarely allowed them to come to the surface during something like this. Despite the performance, Sherlock must have worked this all out before he ever voiced the words aloud. He wouldn't risk it any other way. He was looking for confirmation, sure, but he didn't expect to be surprised.
John wondered if even this must be a little boring to him.
“Didn't anyone find it odd that in this so-called suicide by poison, there was no container found anywhere near the victim?”
John was pleased to see even Anderson and Donovan smirk at that.
Sherlock flipped through the pages of the coroner's report. He handed the file over to John, pointing out one lab result in particular.
“With that amount of poison in his system, he wouldn't have had a chance to wash his glass and put it away. Isn't that right, John?”
John nodded. “Definitely not. This is a fast-acting poison. He would have been affected almost immediately after ingesting it.”
Sherlock snapped the file folder shut and pivoted towards DI Howard.
“I suggest you check the decanter and glasses collected from near the kitchen sink. You'll find residue of detergent, but if I'm not mistaken, you'll also find your poison.”
John glared at Sherlock briefly. He should have known better than to think Sherlock would have done the washing up after an experiment with no ulterior motive.
“You'll also want to speak to the wife again about her whereabouts earlier that evening and since it's doubtful she could have dragged the body down the stairs alone without causing additional trauma, I'd also suggest you look more closely at the assistant. That suicide note was a convincing forgery, though not quite convincing enough. It suggests the perpetrator was used to imitating his signature.”
John had barely closed the door to the flat after they arrived home when Sherlock answered his unspoken question.
“You can relax, John, I threw out the poisoned glasses. The ones by the sink this morning were the control group.”
John shook his head and breathed a relieved sigh tinged with laughter. Of course.
A few moments later, he sat beside Sherlock on the sofa, turning towards the other man. “You really were quite brilliant tonight, Sherlock. Just like you said you would be.”
John watched something shift in Sherlock's expression then. Just the barest hint of something held back, something not said. Sherlock slumped against the sofa cushions, running a hand across his face. A very small smile didn't quite reach his eyes. “Thanks, John.”
“You look tired. When's the last time you slept?”
“Mm. Not sure really.”
“And have you eaten?”
“Not for a while.”
“Why?”
“I was on a case.”
“No, you weren't.”
“Hmph. Well, I should have been.”
John swallowed thickly, not sure if he should say any more, but the idea had been troubling him since the cab ride home and he needed to ask. “Is it worth it, Sherlock? Not taking care of yourself just to prove your clever?”
Sherlock looked down at his hands. His answer was quiet and John had to lean forward to hear it. “Truthfully, sometimes, yes, it is.”
John sighed and leaned back against the sofa cushions, pressing his hands against his eyes. It had been a long day and he wasn't in the mood to argue the point, but he felt he had to do something to make Sherlock see sense.
He wasn't sure if the idea would have come to him quite so quickly under ordinary circumstances, but he was tired and it was late and he'd only eaten an apple all day long.
John turned towards Sherlock again, inching forward to lace the fingers of his right hand within Sherlock's left.
Sherlock looked down at where their hands met with an uncertain expression.
“You don't have to prove anything to me.” John said finally.
Then he bent forward and kissed Sherlock, lips pressed against that clever mouth, half open as if he was about to say something in response. John brought his hands up to Sherlock's shoulders, as the long line of the other man's neck arched forward, returning the kiss. Sherlock brought his own arms up to circle John in an embrace, fingers smoothing across the rough fabric of John's jumper as their mouths moved together. There was a small sigh of something between relief and relinquishing, not distinguishable as coming from one or the other and then John parted his lips and tilted his head pressing all the passion he felt for Sherlock into that kiss. Sherlock pulled away for a moment, gray blue eyes sweeping over John, both men breathless and trembling at the prospects ahead. Then Sherlock closed the gap between them once more, pressing his mouth to John's, running his tongue over John's bottom lip and across his teeth. John bit back a moan and Sherlock leaned closer, pressing John back against the cushions, kissing him with the same intensity of focus John had thought reserved for gathering evidence or outwitting criminal masterminds. John reached up and ran his hands across Sherlock's collar, his fingers ending up grasping at Sherlock's dark hair, entwining the strands between his fingertips as the kiss went on and on.
In the morning, John woke to the sound of Sherlock's phone beside him on the nightstand chirping a notification of a new text message. It was from DI Howard.
I suppose I owe you an apology. I'm sorry I didn't let you assist with the case at first. It won't happen again. - Howard
John smiled and wondered just what exactly Lestrade had said to make that happen.