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“Let's play truth or dare!” exclaimed Daisy, John's new girlfriend.
Sherlock scoffed. “That's hardly an intellectual use of our time.”
Daisy looked crestfallen, her conventionally pretty face screwing up as if she was about to cry. Sherlock knew she wasn't sincere: as soon as he had seen her smudged lipstick from a kiss John hadn't given her and her hair sticking up at the back, he had known she was cheating on John. He wouldn't have liked her even if she wasn't but the knowledge that she was toying with his doctor irked him.
Sighing, John gave him a look. “Sherlock.”
“I was merely pointing out that her suggestion was something a teenager would put forward.”
“It could be fun,” came the quiet voice of Molly from beside him. She and her new boyfriend, a postman that Molly met when she answered the door a few weeks ago, had been invited over by John as some sort of get-together. From what Sherlock had seen, the relationship would last only a few more weeks before the man's wandering eyes would land on someone new.
“Yeah,” said Nameless Guy Of No Consequence. “We'd get to learn more about each other.”
Resisting the urge to hum in interest, Sherlock raised an eyebrow. He glanced between Molly and John who were both nodding and smiling. Sherlock resigned himself to the inevitability of having to play the game – but only because it would be the perfect way to reveal what he knew.
“I'll go first,” said John, shifting on his chair. “Someone ask me.”
“I will,” said Sherlock, immediately.
John gave him a suspicious look. “All right. Shoot.”
Deciding not to make a comment on his choice of words, Sherlock said, in an exaggerated bored tone, “Truth or dare.”
For a moment, John gave him a shrewd look. Then, surprising most of the people in the room, he picked, “Dare.”
With a raised eyebrow, Sherlock studied him. It was obvious that John was avoiding truth in case Sherlock asked him about his love life. And he would have done exactly that whilst adding a comment on the fact that Daisy was cheating on him. As it was, Sherlock decided on a different tactic. “Tell me a secret.”
“Huh,” said John, his eyes still narrowed. Sherlock kept a neutral expression, flicking through the relatively 'safe' bits of information which John was likely to throw out, all of which he already knew, of course. However, John always knew how to throw him. “I once stole my neighbour's parrot.”
“What?!” exclaimed Daisy, giggling like a silly schoolgirl.
“Well, I didn't technically steal it. I always had a bit of a chat with old Mrs. Thompson and she'd shown me her parrot a few times so, when she went into hospital, she asked me to look after it. Unfortunately, she died and, by the time her estranged son came to pick up the bird, I'd grown attached. So I ran off with the cage when he was about to leave with her. Mum was livid.”
Sherlock blinked, rather surprised by that new titbit. However, he began to frown, a little annoyed. That wasn't the secret he had been hoping for. “That's hardly a secret,” he told John.
The doctor sighed. “Really. And how did you know about it?”
“I'm not saying I knew but your mum, Mrs. Thompson's son and, no doubt, the rest of your friends and family you were on speaking terms with at the time likely know. I was looking for something no-one knows.”
They stared at each other then, John unimpressed and Sherlock impatient. It didn't take long for a brief flash of understanding in John's eyes and the corner of Sherlock's mouth twitched upwards in a barely concealed smirk. A moment later, it was confirmed when John declared his turn over and glanced around for the next player.
“Ooh, me!” cried Daisy, putting her hand in the air as if she were in a classroom. “Me! Dare.”
“Dare, hm?” said John, smiling warmly at her. Sherlock scowled, ignoring Molly's concerned look. “Well, I told you a secret. So now I dare you to tell me a secret.”
“Okay. Well. I don't usually tell anyone until we've dated for at least a year,” said Daisy, pausing to giggle and annoying Sherlock further, “but I'm actually a huge Michael Jackson fan!” John chuckled, looking at Daisy fondly and Sherlock sank into his chair further, scowl deepening. “I absolutely love his songs. I could dance to them all night.”
He decided to take his chance with that comment. “That's not the only thing you love, is it?” he asked. John froze, his smile fading.
Daisy herself frowned at Sherlock, looking confused. “What do you mean?”
Sherlock sat up from his slouch, leaning towards her. “You have quite the love of kissing, don't you? As suggested by your smudged lipstick – which, incidentally, couldn't have been John as I was there when he greeted you and he still believes he's in the stage of dating where kissing is not yet allowed. So you kissed someone else on your way here, perhaps meeting your lover on the way from your place to here. Judging by the state of your hair when you came in, I would say it's with someone who likes to run their hands through your hair. Most men hold women around the waist as they kiss so I would say that your other lover is, in fact, female.”
There was a silence as he ended his speech and he sat back, steepled his fingers and grinned at them all in satisfaction. For a while, no-one moved. Then, looking horrified, tears in her eyes, Daisy jumped to her feet. She grabbed her things before pausing to look at John. The doctor merely stared back, apparently stunned by the obvious information. Daisy left without another word.
After a few minutes more of silence within which Sherlock was beginning to get bored, John turned back to glare at him. “Sherlock,” he growled. “Did you really need to humiliate me in front of our friends? You couldn't have waited until everyone had gone home?” Sherlock opened his mouth to answer but John raised a hand. “No. Don't. Don't bother. I already know the answer to that, don't I?”
“I'm so sorry, John,” said Molly, quietly, drawing Sherlock's attention to her and her boyfriend.
“No, no, Molly,” John sighed. “You've got nothing to be sorry about. I should have thought this through before inviting you over. Sorry you had to witness this. And to you, Chris.”
“I wouldn't bother apologising to him,” Sherlock drawled, completely of the opinion that John had nothing to be sorry about either. It bothered him that he was apologising to a stranger who was unworthy of their time. “His relationship with Molly will only last two more weeks.”
“What?!” Chris looked angry, as if he was genuinely insulted at being told the most likely outcome of their fling. Sherlock only glanced his way, unconcerned. Growling, Chris stood, apparently ready to punch Sherlock; the consulting detective knew he wouldn't be able to get past Molly, let alone John.
True enough, Molly stood and stepped between them. “Don't. Let's... Let's go somewhere fun?”
Chris cast him another glare before glancing at Molly and nodding. “All right. Let's go.”
John didn't say anything till they'd left, forcing polite smiles and spouting apologies to them both. Then he turned to stare coldly at Sherlock. “You couldn't just-? No. Forget it. I shouldn't even bother asking.”
“Probably not. Though, I must say, if you had given me a proper secret, I would have been distracted for a little while longer.”
That was when John flew off the handle. He threw up his hands, growled a little, paced up and down and then whirled to face Sherlock. The ice in his eyes made Sherlock blink. “You want to know a secret? Sometimes I fantasise about killing you – right now, I'm wondering how I could get away with strangling you. And I don't want to know how I could!” he snapped, turning on his heel and striding off before thumping up the stairs. His bedroom door slammed and the noise echoed through the empty flat.
Alone, Sherlock sat still and thought.
The next morning, Sherlock woke in his bed for once, having decided to move there sometime in the early hours of the morning. For a moment, he lay there, listening. Was John awake? Had he already left? Deciding to find out, Sherlock swung his legs off the bed and stood, stretching lazily. He stumbled from the room and headed for the living room.
As it turned out, John was nowhere to be seen. Judging by the time, he had already left for work. Rolling his eyes at that, Sherlock turned to his chair to find a folded note on the arm. Tilting his head, Sherlock read what was on the outside.
Let me tell you a secret.
Raising an eyebrow, Sherlock picked up the piece of paper and shook it open. Inside were two words. Slowly, a grin formed. John had left a puzzle for him. There were various things this note could be about but he would discover them. Letting the paper fall to the floor, he grabbed John's laptop and started it up, not as bored as he usually was while John was out playing doctor.
The note landed on the carpet, open for all to see: I lied.