Cauldron-Born [SHERLOCK FANFIC]

Surrounded

Sherlock zipped up the corpse in one of his many body bags and dragged it behind the sofa to examine later. Huffing, the detective snapped his head towards John. “John! Have you found the directions?”

Pursing his lips and his muscles stiffening, John blinked once, turned around in chair slowly, and stared at Sherlock with a penetrating glare that Sherlock immediately understood. However, just to humour his own agitation, he barked—

“What?”

Tossing a hand at the computer screen, John said, “I’ve only been sitting here for twenty minutes, and if you had better internet connection maybe this process wouldn’t be so slow!”

Rolling his head back and then forward, Sherlock replied loudly, “Oh! Blame the electronics! Thank God, Mr. Garner—,”

“You can call me Charlie!” Charlie corrected wearily as he peeked at the bloodied rag under his nose. The bleeding had finally stopped. “I’d rather be called that if you don’t mind.”

“Fine. Whatever. Well, now that you’ve stopped gushing, I’m going to work on this body and then you, if you don’t mind. I want to get to the bottom of this as quick as possible.” Sherlock returned to the body and crouched beside it, like a kitten toying with a new plaything.

Alana went over to John and rubbed his back lovingly. “Finding anything?”

John shook his head. “Yeah, they’re saying this address Charlie gave me is invalid. Don’t quite understand since this place is so—common.”

“It’s rigged!” Sherlock shouted behind the couch.

“What?” John hollered back.

Popping his head up, Sherlock repeated confidently, “The computer’s rigged then. We can’t locate him because he doesn’t want to be found. I’m sure he won’t lose track of his precious son. I mean, only a fool would just let his son wander around pumped full of toxic chemicals.”

Looking over at Charlie and then at Sherlock, John guessed, “You think Charlie’s got a tracker on him?”

“Oh, John! Only in the movies do they install people with trackers! Let’s be sensible! If I was Professor Garner, what would I do to keep track of a man without being found? He probably has connections. But who? Who would he contact to have full surveillance over a person?” Tapping his chin with his spidery fingers, he groaned. “Oh! My mind’s blank! Phone Mycroft.”

“Listen, I’m not your bloody secretary—,” John began before being cut by the detective.

“Oh, shut up! I don’t care! Phone him, and ask him to try and locate this man!”

Alana broke from John’s side and went over to Charlie to tend his nose. As she pulled the cloth away from his face, Charlie stuttered in a whisper, “What’s your name again?”

“Alana Watson,” Alana replied, watching the boy’s eyes. She squinted one of hers, almost asking the boy to stop staring at her.

Reading her discomfort, Charlie looked away and clenched his jaw once.

“There, go wash up, don’t blow or mess with your nose—don’t want it bleeding again,” Alana instructed, giving him a sealed smile.

Nodding in appreciation, Charlie left to carry out her instructions.

“Hello, Mycroft,” John said in a professional voice, “this is John. I’m leaving a message and hope you return it immediately. It’s about Sherlock and the ‘man-eating’ case he’s on. Call back as soon as possible. Ta.” John hung up his mobile and tossed it over his shoulder, not doing anything until he heard it land safely on the sofa behind him.