The Cold Case {Sherlock/Johnlock}

THREE

John looked up as the train slowed down, pulling into Marylebone. The man next to him stood up as soon as it stopped, a strong whiff of the aftershave he was wearing seeming to smack the doctor across the face as he swept across to the door and disappeared from sight as soon as he reached the stairs. There was something strange about the entire thing that had struck John almost as soon as the man had spoken, but he was slightly too tipsy to think properly and far too tired to care.

With a mechanic, lazy kind of buzzing, the train doors dragged to a close and the train started off again. John could imagine all these Tube trains, sprawling out over London like a cobweb- all the people. Where were they going? Where had they been? He had a strange kind of fascination with other people, the fact that everyone's lives were so interlocked without anyone properly realising. How many other semi-drunk ex-army doctors were making their way back to the flat they shared with a herebrained detective? He was willing to bet that, as far as London went, he wasn't the only one.

Without realising his eyes had been closing, the vibration of a phone jolted him upright. Glancing at it, he felt the slight relief that always came with a reply from Sherlock, just because it tended to mean he hadn't got himself killed of abducted (though he'd accepted the fact that that might not always be the case.)

'This and that. When are you coming back?'

John yawned hugely, and tapped out a reply with one hand. 'about ten minutes.'

'Hurry up,' Sherlock had texted back in his usual tolerant manner. 'I'm going to want some tea.'

--

John had, honestly, meant to make Sherlock some tea. But almost as soon as he'd stepped foot in the flat, he'd fallen asleep on the couch in the corner (above the wall that was full of bullets), snoring loudly enough that Mrs Hudson had considered going upstairs to check what was going on before, knowing John and Sherlock, deciding against it. As far as she knew, the detective had been at home all day, not chasing down frozen leads from a decades old observatory with holes in the walls. And she had no idea where John had been- but since the doctor's escapades didn't terrify her, she didn't mind him disappearing at times.

Without a clue of how long he'd been asleep for but unbelievably grateful for the quiet bliss that had come with it, John was woken by someone shaking his arm with remarkably cold hands. Staring blearily around the flat with only the faintest recollection of where he was, he slowly adjusted to the tall figure that was standing in front of him. Evidently he'd been asleep for much longer than he'd expected, because the dull sky was now pitch black from what he could see between the curtains, and Sherlock was dressed in one of his seemingly endless supply of silk dressing gowns. John rubbed his eyes with his arm.

"You have been on a date," Sherlock said almost as soon as he'd opened his eyes, sounding offensively surprised.

Bewilderment was really the only thing John was capable of at the moment, and he blinked hard at the detective. "No I haven't," he replied, his voice cracking halfway through.

Sherlock smiled knowingly. Usually John would be able to work out exactly what that meant, but since he'd been awake barely ten seconds and was struggling to remember what it actually was that he'd been doing today, he didn't have a hope of figuring it out.

"Then why have you got a phone number in your pocket?"

Something in that sentence sobered him up enough for a sarcastic retort. "People give you their numbers before you go on a date with them, idiot." He shifted out of the position he was in, groaning when he realised he'd slept with his leg tucked under him and it now felt like the screen on a static television. "And why are you looking in my pocket?" He realised after he'd said that that his jacket was hanging on the door, but he'd not taken it off.