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“Aye,” John sighs, the exhaled air causing small ripples to spread out in rings in his glass of red. “You’ve turned me to drinking, Sherlock, with all of today’s—mayhem.”
Sherlock frowns, “That’s unfortunate, given your family history of alcoholism.” He hisses when he has to adjust the bag of ice on his head. “And I would hardly classify it as ‘mayhem’.”
John sets down the glass with another aggravated sigh. “Oh no?”
-Three hours earlier-
John was scoping out a curiosity shop in Central London, or rather, he was scoping out the owner, who was telling tale of all the marvellous artefacts she had collected. He nodded along as if interested enough that the middle-aged woman was actually selling him on some of the items, trying to pick up on things that Sherlock would expect him to recall when he reported back later.
The woman excused herself to answer the phone and John took the opportunity to snoop around, glancing at the receipts book and a frequent customer list. When the owner went into the back with her phone customer to check inventory for some antique poster, John took a quick photograph of the list with his mobile.
“Pay close attention to the lamps,” Sherlock had instructed. John honestly couldn’t tell why; there were only two in the shop and one had a damaged base. Regardless, he decided to snap a photograph of the lamps as well before he ducked out of the shop, not bothering to wait for the owner to return.
He all but ran directly into Sherlock when he exited the building, his detective friend standing outside waiting for him and immediately grilling him. “What did you observe? Did you note anything special about the lamps or the owner’s earlobes?”
John made a face and said, “Sherlock, what? Wait,”when all at once the scene turned to an uproar. John went to grab Sherlock by the arm to pull him out of the way of a car that jumped the kerb, but his plan was negated by something solid striking him in the side of the head. John went down.
He was senseless for a fragment of time, clipped voices and images not fully understood by his spinning brain. His first mindful image was of Sherlock held between two men and moving, his feet staggering and dragging across the ground. John couldn’t manage to shout a warning (not that he expected that it would help matters) before Sherlock was shoved forcefully into the boot of the car, which slammed shut.
Sherlock hadn’t been trying to get away. The images in John’s head were blurry and confused, but it was clear that Sherlock was knocked out—or worse. Hit in the back of the head like John had been? Struck by the car? With the sidewalk spinning around, he couldn’t tell if there had been any blood on the detective.
John struggled to his feet, helplessly watching the navy blue car peeling off into traffic. “Sher—“ he gasped. “Sherlock!”
John gingerly touched the side of his skull while his other hand held his mobile phone to his ear. “Come on, come on…” he growled. Unable to stay in one spot, John was jogging down the sidewalk, unintentionally veering to the left, in the hope that he’d run into a trace of his friend, a telling pair of skid marks or witnesses to the abduction.
The line picked up.
“Sherlock, are you alright? Where the hell are you?” John demanded without waiting for a greeting. So many dark, disastrous scenarios spun through his mind: Sherlock held for ransom, Sherlock murdered, thrown to the bottom of the Thames or shot or stabbed, alone and bleeding, suffering from internal injury after being struck by the car. John went under the assumption that the kidnapping was related to the case they were on, even as Sherlock’s voice nagged at him, “Dangerous to assume anything without data.”
There was a pregnant pause in which John could hear his pulse racing in his ears. “Hello, Dr Watson.”
“Shit,” John muttered, his blood running cold. Definitely not Sherlock. “Alright, what the hell do you want?” The man holding Sherlock’s phone had a voice like a dodgy businessman and John was in no mood to be toyed with.
“Tell me, Doctor: how close to solving that case is he?” asked the kidnapper.
John replied, “Why don’t you just ask him? Loves to show off.”
“I’m asking you. And if you won’t answer, perhaps I’ll stop my car and interrogate him instead,” he threatened. “I could have a lot of fun with him and I’m quite persuasive, but I’m much nicer over the phone. So, if you wouldn’t mind…”
John stalled. “This is about the case, then? Right…I assume you’re the murderer? Otherwise, be a bit silly to go to the trouble of kidnapping a man off the street.”
“Would it, though?” came the taunting reply.
“Based on who you just threw into your boot, very silly indeed,” said John. He put his phone on speaker so he could text Lestrade an SOS.
Sherlock’s been taken. Navy Mercedes. The start of the number plate was YM. -JW
John pressed send and frowned. His phone had gone back to the home screen. “Hello?” he said cautiously. No one answered. “Hello?! Oh hell!” Either he’d accidentally hung up on Sherlock’s kidnapper, or the man on the other end of the line had found something better to do. John could only imagine what could be happening to Sherlock in either of those scenarios.
He dialled back but it was engaged. “Fuck! Who the hell are you calling?” he yelled at the phone, paying no mind to anyone around him.
A text came through. You didn’t get the rest of the plate number? GL
John shook his head irritably.
Obviously. JW.
“Oh, God, now I’m talking like him,” he muttered to himself, his hands shaking with worry.
John decided to hail a taxi to the MET so he and Lestrade could put their heads together, but he was delayed by his phone ringing again.
<Sherlock> Calling.
John answered it instantly. “Hello?” he said, attempting at a calm-sounding voice.
“Dr Watson, I’m so sorry I lost you. We must have hit a dead zone,” said Sherlock’s kidnapper.
John’s brain tried to lock onto the vital clue he had just been given. Where did Sherlock’s phone lose reception? He couldn’t remember Sherlock ever mentioning it, but there were a few dead spots nearby that destroyed John’s reception.
Think!
“Just calling to inform you,” the man started talking again, “that I’m just going to store Mr Holmes for a little while. Long enough that I can slip away from all this…investigating.”
John clenched his fist. “If you hurt him, the investigation is over; I will hunt you down and I will kill you. There. Problem solved.”
Sherlock’s kidnapper had the nerve to laugh. “The police couldn’t find me. Sherlock Holmes was after me for three days. What makes you think you can find me when I’m trying to disappear?”
John’s fingernails were digging into the palm of his hand. “Then meet me,” he growled. “Meet me and we’ll settle this.” He couldn’t say why he was making an obviously useless request, except that he was simply that desperate.
The man spoke, “As fun as that sounds, I think I’ll skip it and go have dinner instead. Ciao.”
“Wait!” John cried, but was too late; his phone told him the call had ended.
John hailed a taxi. His efforts to get Sherlock back had not ended.
On the way to NSY, John glanced over a half dozen texts he’d missed from Lestrade while he’d been talking to the man who had Sherlock. The man who had said he was going to ‘store’ Sherlock for a while, in a way that had made John’s already iffy stomach churn.
John couldn’t recall being this undone when Sherlock had been kidnapped once before. Granted, John had been unaware that his friend had been gagged and bound in a dank basement and left for dead until Lestrade came by the flat to return him, with Sherlock looking annoyed and a touch ruffled. John had been so surprised that his sense of worry was over in a flash.
Knowing that Sherlock was out there in the hands of people who would not hesitate to hurt or kill him if the detective provoked them was causing a panic the likes of which John had rarely felt. Other notable instances included being shot and watching the very same detective falling to his death.
John tried Sherlock’s phone several times, but it eventually went straight to voicemail. He stormed into Lestrade’s office, steaming angry like a bull.
“Have you found his mobile?” he demanded, not even stopping to consider that Lestrade had his office phone to his ear.
Lestrade put his hand over the mouthpiece. “GPS on his phone has been disabled. Our guys in tech are trying to override it, God knows how.” He returned to his conversation, leaving John to pace back and forth, trying the phone again.
You’ve reached Sherlock Holmes. Leave a message and don’t be boring.
“Dammit, dammit,” John swore, putting his phone back into his pocket aggressively.
He was about to go back into the office and demand that Lestrade get mobilised when he heard his text alert noise. John scrambled for his mobile and finally found it and managed to get it facing upright.
Dr. Watson?
John seethed. This had better not be more taunting. He was in the middle of jabbing out an angry reply when another text came through.
It’s Angelo from La Bottega.
He stared at the phone. Angelo? What the hell could he want?
Funny thing, I was on my way to the skip and I saw Sherlock being dragged down the alley by these two guys.
John’s eyes ran over the text at least ten times, trying to comprehend it, trying to manage a decent reply. Again, he was unable to send a text back before he’d received another and he stood there dumbly for an additional thirty seconds.
So I knocked them out with a couple of wine bottles and Sherlock’s sitting inside the restaurant now with a headache.
…Dr. Watson?
“No, I was merely caught off guard,” Sherlock replies, finally giving up on the ice and giving the warm air in the restaurant access to his impressive bruise. Thankfully, he’d only been knocked unconscious by the handle of his kidnapper’s gun and not injured by the car.
“I was happy to return the favour,” inserts Angelo, setting down a plate of pasta and bread in front of John. “Lucky I forgot to throw out the rubbish last night, or you’d have been lying in it,” he teases Sherlock.
John, still a bit fatigued from his frantic run to Angelo’s café, digs into his plate, satisfied to let detective and restaurateur exchange details.
“I actually heard the little ‘clue’ he gave,” Sherlock is saying, rolling his eyes. “He’ll ‘skip’ meeting you and go get dinner? Ciao? If our positions had been reversed, John, I would have found you long before Angelo had to step in, even though the man’s penchant for showboating would have annoyed me to near distraction.”
Angelo claps Sherlock on the shoulder fondly and Sherlock reacts with a wince of pain that he quickly conceals. “Just be glad they chose my skip and my restaurant. But, I’m sure Dr Watson would have figured it out eventually,” he adds with a glance at John.
“No, he wouldn’t,” Sherlock quips carelessly.
“Hey,” says John, pointing at Sherlock with his fork, “I’m going to let that one slide but only because there’s a slight chance you’ve got a concussion.” And because I’m so pleased that you’re safe, you bloody pain in the arse.
Sherlock hums something noncommittal as Angelo retires to the kitchen once more. He leans forward moments later and says, “John, there’s been a hit on my website suggesting that my services are needed to expose the criminal responsible for a supposed ‘accidental’ electrocution. I’d like you to come with me to examine the evidence.”
John stares back at him, polishing off a mouthful of bread. “Only if you wear rubber-soled shoes.”