Mrs. Hudson left the flat in the early evening to meet John and Mary at the restaurant. Surprisingly, they had chosen to meet up at the same place where John was supposed to propose to Mary, but it ended with a very strange reuniting of Sherlock and John.
Sherlock had finished with his mess in the kitchen and started cleaning out one of his guns so it wouldn't be in bad condition for when he would actually need to use it. The entire flat was empty so when he finished cleaning it off, he used the wall for target practice, aiming for the eyes of the yellow spray-painted smiley face. His accuracy was almost perfect, even with closed eyes.
But every time he shut his eyes for an long period of time, it was like he could hear familiar voices calling out to him. The first few times, he heard the dreadful sound of Jim Moriarty's annoying voice and checked the flat to see if he was actually there. Obviously, there still wasn't anyone in the flat or on the stairs. Sherlock was getting increasingly ticked off by the voices echoing in his head.
The only solution he could think of at that moment was put on the third nicotine patch which he decided not to put on today, just because of John's concern over the situation. He opened his violin case, adding a fresh layer of rosin onto the bow and quickly tuning up the instrument before playing one of Handel's sonatas.
The intonation, tone, vibrato, rhythm, and speed were perfectly executed, just the way it was written on the sheet music. But Sherlock was only using his talent to clear his mind, no matter how many times John, Mary, or Mrs. Hudson would try to convince him to do lessons for children so he would get paid in actual pounds, not gifts. The problem, to Sherlock, was that children simply wouldn't listen. They couldn't fully understand what their instructors meant by "tone" and "counting" no matter how many times it was explained to them. Sherlock knew he would probably end up yelling at someone or breaking something in frustration at such a child.
"Hello, dear. I'm back! John and Mary are here too!" Mrs. Hudson said, opening the door for herself and the couple behind her.
"Yes, hello everyone. Where's your son?" Sherlock asked, placing his instrument upon the sofa.
"At home, the neighbor was watching him while we were out." Mary replied with a smile.
"Did you get any cases recently?" John questioned.
"Yes. But I'm not interested." Sherlock's bored tone of voice was explanation enough.
Mary followed Mrs. Hudson down the stairs to chat about some sort of feminine topic that John and Sherlock wouldn't enjoy. The two men sat across from each other and discussed whatever John wanted since Sherlock was particularly bored that evening.
"So...?" John hinted, wanting to hear about the case Sherlock was offered.
"What?" Sherlock furrowed his brows before coming to a realization of what John meant, "Oh, not interesting. Mycroft's suggestion. Never a good idea to listen to my brother."
"Why not? It could lead you to him."
"A regular, old murder? Highly doubtful and against probability."
"Well, you should still look it over. You've been sitting in a flat for days. I'm surprised the place doesn't look like it was ransacked from your strange activities caused by boredom."
"Fine. Let's go, now." Sherlock sighed and got up quickly, throwing on his dark collared coat.
John rolled his eyes and followed after his friend murmuring in a mocking way, "The game is on!" the way Sherlock did on a case he was actually interested in. His wife was still in another room discussing who-knows-what with Mrs. Hudson so John had no time to tell her where he was going, since Sherlock had to be taking giant, quick steps to wherever he was going.
He was headed towards St. Bart's Hospital to check if the body of the man was there, which it most likely was. Molly was already at work and busy washing a few tools for dissection of certain areas of the body. Sherlock burst through the doors dramatically and gave her a quick nod to address her before checking the names of bodies taken into the hospital from the past three days.
"Sorry for the drama queen here. He's on a case he isn't mad about and doesn't seem happy about it at all." John apologized to Molly.
"It's alright." She muttered as Sherlock made a loud "Aha!" noise once he found the name of whoever he was looking for.
The two men rushed down the hallway of brightly-lit, white rooms filled with body bags and names attached to each. They stopped to check into Room 135 and try to find the body of the gambling, lawyer, ex-husband of Angela's. Sherlock recognized the name from the last name he saw when Angela was digging through her purse and pulled out an I.D. card. The last name hadn't been changed to "Holmes" yet and the first name was quite generic and simple- Tim, short for Timothy.
Timothy Perry. The third table's bag had a tag reading that name. John stood beside his best friend as he opened the zipper of the body bag, completely unfazed by the ghastly colour of dead skin. He pulled out the pocket microscope from his pocket and studied over what he saw. John watched, not looking for wounds or anything since it had all been previously done by other doctors at the hospital.
"Huh, strange." Sherlock mumbled.
"What?" John asked.
"John, touch this bit of skin right here." He pointed to the dead man's left wrist.
John was reluctant but poked his finger at it, realizing what Sherlock meant with his odd command.
"It's...not real skin. So why aren't you taking it off?"
"It's not coming off. I cannot rip it off of the real skin to see what's underneath it."
"And...what, exactly, do you plan on doing now?"
"Wait a couple of days until the body's skin ages a bit so the patch of artificial skin will come off easily."
"Okay...so, we go back to Baker Street?"
"I'm sure your wife is waiting on you, John."
"As is Mrs. Hudson for you." John joked, getting a cab to get back to the flat while Sherlock stayed out on the London streets and walked back to 221B. There was a slight breeze in the air, causing his long jacket to fly upwards, almost like a cape, while he continued on his way with a serious look on his face. He was trying not to think about the comment of always trying to look cool while doing his detective work that John made a while ago. It was still engraved in his mind.
