JOHN WATSON
The cab ride to the Whitehall district was nothing if not uncomfortable. Sherlock maintained a silence that, while perhaps not characterizable as stony, was unquestionably one that forbade interruption. The detective’s silhouette framed in the window, John could see with his peripheral vision that Sherlock had forgone his usual practice of watching the London cityscape blur past, but rather had his gaze fixed on the cabbie’s headrest in front of him. John was also staring straight ahead, though he suspected Sherlock was not having to exercise so much restraint to keep himself from turning to look at the cab's other passenger.
When they arrived at the expensive flat, Sherlock paused momentarily to check that his disguise remained immaculate, which, of course, it was. John moved to climb out behind him, but Sherlock held up his hand.
"You never know who might be watching," he said, holding his cell phone to his mouth as though addressing someone on the other line. "Take the cab around the block, then get out and wait at the café across the street. If I need you, I'll send a text."
He shut the door in the doctor's face and slid the phone back into his pocket.
"Sir?" the cabbie asked, turning slightly in his chair.
John sighed, aggravated, and said, "Around the block once, and then pull up by that café."
The driver nodded and started the engine. "I know it's none of my business," he said, "but that's kinda sketchy-like. You folks with the police or something?"
"You could say that," John replied, watching Sherlock in the cab's side-view mirror. Mrs. Larkin had by this time met him on the doorstep, sweeping him into an embrace. Sherlock bent over and kissed her soundly; as the cab pulled away from the curb, she ushered Sherlock inside, probably chattering about her day and what she was fixing for dinner.
John glowered, sinking angrily into the black pleather seat. Sherlock hadn't needed to kiss him - how hard was it to just press your lips up to someone else's? Apparently, the high-functioning sociopath found it difficult - or had he just been saying that? It would be so like Sherlock to humiliate him for his own amusement. John scoffed to himself. Well, if that had been his intent, the doctor had seen to it that it flashed in the pan. He'd definitely one-uped the detective when he snogged him. Indeed, Sherlock's moment of astonishment was the silver lining on an otherwise dismal rain cloud.
The cab, having completed its circuit around the block, came to a stop outside the small coffee shop. John thanked the driver, tucking into his wallet (again) to pay for the combined fare. He ducked under the red and white striped awning, ordered a cup of English Breakfast from the bored-looking girl at the counter, and sat at a booth next to the window where he could watch the flat where even now Sherlock was presumably doing his thing.
John rubbed his forehead, nodding to the girl when she set the cup and saucer next to his elbow. Sipping the strong tea, the doctor peered over the cup's rim. Across the street, a shadow passed in front of a window; was that Sherlock?
Holding the warm cup between his fingers, John frowned. It shouldn't have been such an issue, kissing the bloody detective. He'd kissed Mike Stamford once, when they were both totally smashed. Nearly everyone had a story like that - at least one. Granted, both he and Sherlock had been sober, but it was for a case. The problem, John decided, was that he had enjoyed it. The doctor grimaced and swirled his tea.
He could be objective about this. Taking a deep breath, John gave himself a moment to sort out his jumbled feelings. Five minutes later, he hung his head in despair, feeling just as confused as he had before.
Fact: Sherlock was attractive.
Everyone knew that. Even Lestrade had commented on it once. Women could tell each other when they looked good, so there was definitely nothing inherently bent about John recognizing the fact that his flat mate was unsettlingly good-looking.
Fact: John was not gay.
He wasn't. Despite having a penchant for frumpy jumpers and being a bit of a sentimental romantic, Dr. Watson most assuredly fell under the label of "heterosexual". He'd never felt the least bit of attraction to another man. Before that morning.
Damn.
Fact: He cared about Sherlock.
Of course he did. Sherlock was his best friend. If Mike hadn't introduced them, John probably would have shot himself later that same fateful afternoon. He liked the adrenaline high he got from chasing around London after serial killers and bombers and thieves and smugglers. He (usually) liked Sherlock's warped sense of humor, and (usually) found the eyeballs on the dining table amusing, even if it was also completely unhygienic.
All of that was relatively straightforward. The problem was in the final known variables.
Problematic Fact A: John's wife died yesterday.
Problematic Fact B: John seemed to enjoy snogging Sherlock like a stupid teenager.
Those two statements had no interest in reconciling themselves. On one hand, even the thought of Sherlock holding his waist and kissing him made his cheeks burn. On the other hand, Mary had died. Yesterday. Even if John was "legally emancipated," as Sherlock probably would term it, and could kiss whomever he pleased, that did not make it right. In fact, it was an insult to her memory that he was even having this discussion with himself. John groaned inwardly, setting his empty teacup back on the table.
It was then that he got the text.
Meet me at the back of the flat. - SH
*****
SHERLOCK HOLMES
Ashley Larkin met me at the black-painted-oak-wood-veneer-covered-aluminum-door-typical-for-London, wearing a knee-length-no-pet-hair-black-skirt and a clean-white-hand-ironed-by-the-dry-cleaner-so-they-are-wealthy-enough-to-live-here-and-aren't-just-putting-on-appearances-blouse. Judging by the faint smear of tomato-sauce-with-cilantro-and-mango on her wrist, I had caught her in the middle of preparing dinner (but-it-was-too-early-for-dinner-so-it-must-be-some-slow-cooking-dish-that-took-hours-of-preparation).
"Jamie!" she exclaimed, pulling me to her. I could smell the generic vanilla-scented-with-an-alcohol-base perfume she was wearing (nothing-intimate-in-anticipation-of-her-husband's-return-but-also-nothing-indicative-of-an-affair).
In the voice I had been mentally rehearsing, I smiled and said, "Hello, love." I also kissed her, attempting to replicate exactly in reverse the kiss John had given me, only slightly-less-impassioned-because-there-was-obviously-less-going-on-in-the-romance-department-here-than-at-the-Watson-residence. It must have come off alright, because she smiled (recent-visit-to-the-dentist-to-slow-an-ongoing-battle-with-a-history-of-cavities) and drew me inside. I was dimly aware of the cab pulling away from the curb. John would follow my instructions. He generally did.
The house was austere-and-expensive-so-decorated-to-impress-Larkin's-political-opponents-with-his-wealth. The front room had a plush carpet hidden beneath an Oriental rug (not genuine: too-low-thread-count), an imported-teak-wood-coffee-table, and a real-black-leather-settee. The television was a 130 cm Japanese model, and a high-end one, at that. All this and more my eye took in in 0.37 seconds.
"Were you going to change before dinner?" Mrs. Larkin asked, relinquishing her grip on my arm.
"I thought I might. I haven't had a change of clothes all night, after all." I kept my tone casual, with just a hint of annoyance appropriate to one who has been stuck at work on overtime.
The woman clucked reprovingly. "What are they thinking? Keeping you there so late? From what they told me, I was worried you might be out even later."
"We caught a lucky break." I pulled my overcoat off. "They finally managed to agree on - on the terms."
Mrs. Larkin's eyebrows arched at my slight hesitation. Interesting.
"What was going on, anyway?" she asked, the very picture of nonchalance. "The wanker on the phone just said there was a 'crisis'."
I chuckled offhandedly. "Yeah, it was a crisis, all right. Some national security crap."
"So?" she asked expectantly.
I hesitated, both as an actor and as a detective. What little I knew about Larkin from Mycroft's papers suggested that even if my brother found him inconvenient, the man was a loyal citizen. That being said, his wife was clearly used to wheedling information from him. How much could I say safely? And then I had it.
"There's... Well, to tell you the truth, there's been a kidnapping," I said quietly.
My "wife's" face held shock, but her eyes, briefly, showed triumph.
Gotcha.
"Of who?" she asked, feigning innocent curiosity.
"Can't say," I told her apologetically. "It's all very hush-hush."
"Of course," she said smoothly. "Why don't you go change? I'm making those tropical pork chops you like so much for dinner."
Repressing the urge to say "I know," I reached out and took Ashley by the waist again, kissing her gently while I carefully fished her cellphone out of her back pocket.
"I missed you," I said, tucking the mobile up my shirt sleeve as I let her go. For a moment, she had the decency to look surprised, and then her face slid back into the mask of the good British wife. I nodded to her and strode down the hall to the stairs. The bedroom would be on the second floor, and that was, conveniently, both where I needed to go to "change before supper" and the most likely place to begin searching for evidence.
I did not bother sparing a glance for the other rooms as I passed them. The information they contained was irrelevant to this case. The door at the end of the upstairs hall was ajar, and led into a chic master bedroom. There was a (teak-with-ebony-inlays) desk in the corner under one of the two double-paned windows that framed the voluptuous (cotton-sheets-with-real-feather-pillows-on-a-mahogany-bedstead) bed.
I walked straight to the desk, rifling through the contents. Bills, tax forms, assorted receipts for innocuous household goods - nothing useful. I felt a buzz in my shirt sleeve and realized I was still hiding Mrs. Larkin's mobile. Irritated, I withdrew it, intending to toss it onto the bed, when my eye caught sight of exactly how the text message read.
I had never realized my face contained enough color to feel so big a drain when my brain caught up to what I was seeing. Hurriedly, I pulled out my own mobile and texted John.
Meet me at the back of the flat. - SH
I could climb out the window, and Miss Ashley would be none the wiser. Dropping heavily onto the bed, I opened her text messages (her first mistake: not keeping her phone password protected).
I reread the most recent message, breathing deeply through my nose.
It was from a blocked number.
12:09 pm
I'll have someone there in ten. - JM
I looked at the time. It was already 12:10. I had nine minutes. John would be here in four, which gave us five to get to a place of relative safety. Four, if John asked questions.
I scrolled back up through her previous texts.
11:59 am
There's a cab out front, just like you said. Two men, it looks like, plus the driver. - AL
10:30 am
You're going to get a visit later. Two men, one who looks like James. Play along. - JM
Yesterday
9:46 am
It's finished. - JM
Two days ago
7:46 pm
I'm fixing it as we discussed. And I'll have someone come collect in ten. - JM
7:32pm
I've got the info you wanted. Ukraine election. Kiev. Call-collect for full account. Remember the deal. - AL
I kept reading. There was a lot to go through. At the three-minute mark, I stood and pushed the window open, carefully popping the screen out of place and sliding it under the bed. No need to make the clean-up too easy for anyone. Then I grabbed tightly to the window sill and swung myself over, hanging precariously for a moment while I checked that I wasn’t about to drop in front of any other windows. Luckily, that part of the wall was nothing but brick and siding, so I allowed myself to drop, landing on top of a large rhododendron bush. Anyone with some modicim of sense would be able to look at the bruised, broken leaves and know where I fell, not to mention the missing screen from the window above. Still, the plants absorbed most of the shock, so while I found myself rather scratched up, at least I had not twisted an ankle. I made my way across the yard, sticking to the paved garden path as much as I could to minimize tracks in the lawn.
John met me at the gate, eyes widening when he saw me, so I drew the conclusion that something about dropping from a second story window had probably dishevelled my appearance.
“You alright?” he asked, pulling a leaf out of my hair.
“Not for long,” I said quietly. Grabbing his arm, I slipped out the gate and started down the sidewalk. “Your poor little Miss Ashley isn’t quite so harmless as we were thinking. I doubt Mycroft needs to tell her James has been kidnapped - it appears that she set her husband up.”
I could almost hear John’s jaw drop and smiled grimly as I veered onto the lawn of a neighboring apartment complex. There was a tools shed on the side, and I could tell from the street that it was unlatched. Pushing John roughly inside, I climbed in after him and pulled the door exactly as shut as it had been before - open by exactly an inch and two eighths. It smelled of moldy-disuse-because-the-tenants-had-the-money-to-hire-their-own-gardeners, but it was in just the right spot to watch the Larkins’ flat.
“Time?” I asked John, staring at the window I had jumped from.
“Uh... 12:17,” he replied. Two minutes left. “Sherlock, what exactly is going on?”
“Ashley Larkin is working for Moriarty,” I said. John’s sharp intake of breath indicated that he now understood some of why we were hiding in a musty, abandoned tools shed. “According to the texts she has been exchanging, they have been in communication for about two weeks. She has been selling him government information supplied by an unsuspecting Mr. Larkin. Apparently, he liked to talk about his job a little more than is healthy for an MP. Moriarty set up James’ kidnapping as a favor for Ashley in return for the information. Mrs. Larkin is a bit shallow - she suspected her husband was losing favor with people high up, so she had him offed. He’s probably dead. If he isn’t, he will be soon.”
“Jesus.”
“Mmm.” I stood as close as was feasible to the door, watching the street outside for any activity.
“Sherlock,” John said quietly behind me.
“Mmm?”
“We need to talk about earlier.”
“Which part of earlier?”
“The part where you asked me to -”
“Shh.” A cab had just passed by; possibly it was our welcoming committee come to say hello with a piece of lead and a large revolver.
“What?” John’s question was sharp. Interesting.
“I told you - Ashley Larkin is trouble.”
“But why are we out here?” he whispered, watching the flat opposite over my shoulder. The trepidation was apparent in his voice. “Shouldn’t we be getting more evidence?”
I passed him Ashley’s mobile. “Read the first text.”
A moment passed as John unlocked the device.
“Oh.”
“Indeed.”
“So someone’s going to -”
John’s sentence (presumably about to end in something truly original like “just show up?”) was cut off by a scream which was in turn cut off by a gunshot.
“Oh, shit,” John breathed. “Sherlock, we have to -”
“There’s nothing to be done, John,” I said flatly. “She’s already dead. This is one of Moriarty’s hit men, remember. A hit man who will probably come looking for us in a second.”
Right on cue, I could see the back door of the flat open and a tall, well-built thug stepped out, carrying a semi-automatic.
Tan lines suggest military duty somewhere hot - possibly Afghanistan like John. Current occupation suggests a mercenary. Muscle development indicates advanced martial arts skill, and also a possible steroid addiction.
It wasn’t Moran, but Moriarty’s assassin still looked well-equipped to handle the gun he was hefting. I slipped my hand into John's jacket pocket, stealthily removing his Browning even as the doctor stared at the killer on the other side of the fence. The mercenary took in his surroundings judiciously, examining all of the nearby buildings with equal care. He was evaluating them, I realized, trying to figure out which one I would have fled to.
Then the man's eyes landed on our tool shed. He stared straight at me, and though I knew that the darkness and the door were more than enough to conceal us from sight, I also knew we were found out, all the same.
Ashley's phone buzzed in John's hand.
"It says 'Peekaboo'," he said, obviously disgusted.
"Tasteless," I muttered.
I could see the possible scenarios plainly in my head. If I shot him now, Moriarty would know without question where we were, if he didn't already. If I did not shoot, then the assassin would, and the wooden shed was hardly in any condition to repel bullets.
My plan was a poor one - I am the first to admit it. However, my number of options was also severely limited.
"On the ground," I said tersely.
John did not question the order, lying flat on his stomach. Perhaps he guessed what I was going to do. Probably. As I said, it wasn't ingenious, just unexpected. Unfortunately, that was as good as it was likely to get. I joined the doctor on the floor, pressing myself as close to the damp, splintery floor as I could.
Then the shooting started.
Dozens of bullets raked the shed at chest height - had either of us been standing, we would have been dead. I wrinkled my nose as I felt chips of wood falling down onto my hair. The second bullet stream was lower, closer to the ground, and I could hear John's nervous hiss as he shrank closer to me, covering his head and trying to flatten himself.
I was just thinking that maybe covering my head wasn't a bad idea when the shots petered out. Though the force of the shots had shoved the door the rest of the way closed, the wood was now so pockmarked with bullet holes that I could see clearly the dark outline of a man on the other side. I raised John's gun, aiming carefully. The door creaked open, and it was only John's exclamation of relief that stopped me from shooting detective inspector Lestrade in the chest.
*****
JOHN WATSON
"Get in a little over your heads?" Lestrade asked, offering John his hand.
"I had things perfectly under control, thank you," Sherlock answered coolly, getting to his feet.
John took the DI's hand as Lestrade laughed and pointed at the ruined tool shed.
"You call this 'under control'?"
"Oh come, now," said Sherlock, smirking. "A little gunfire isn't that unusual for the London PD, is it?"
"Sherlock, that bloke turned this thing into Swiss cheese."
"And if it would have been him opening the door, and not you, I would have shot him," the detective replied calmly, handing John his gun.
John stared at the small firearm.
"Christ!"
"Not quite," Sherlock said with a small smile.
"No, seriously though," John said, turning to look at the detective. "How the hell did you get a hold of this without me noticing?"
"You were a little distracted by the gunman," Sherlock said matter-of-factly. "It wasn't very hard." He frowned at Lestrade. "What are you doing here, anyway? I don't recall calling the police."
"You didn't," Lestrade said shortly. "That one did." He nodded at John. "Bloody good job, too, or else we might have two bodies instead of one."
"Three," Sherlock corrected automatically, peering over the DI's shoulder to where the assassin was lying face-down in the grass.
"Pardon?"
"The mercenary shot a woman in the house approximately a minute before he came looking for me."
Lestrade swore. "Why didn't you say something sooner? We could've called an ambulance!"
"No point," the detective answered, still sweeping the corpse on the lawn with his eyes. "The man you shot is a trained killer - Ashley Larkin was dead before she hit the ground. Possibly it's just as well. She did have Moriarty kidnap, and theoretically murder, her husband."
The detective inspector had gone slightly slack-jawed at this retelling.
"Wait, hold on," he said. "Moriarty is behind this?"
"Of course," Sherlock sniffed. "Wasn't it obvious? He's probably watching us right now. I imagine he expected this to happen - that would be why he sent Tweedle-Dumb instead of his pal, Moran. Didn't want his boy toy getting shot."
"Er, Sherlock..." John said, "there's a bit of a problem, isn't there? We know Moriarty did this, but if he's dead," John nodded at the assassin, "and she's dead," he nodded at the house, "then how do we find out where Moriarty is? I don't think we're any further now than we were this morning."
Sherlock snorted. "You are correct in one respect, John: you certainly don't think. We are most assuredly farther in our investigation than we were when you got out of bed."
"Care to elaborate, then?" Lestrade asked.
"Moriarty practically led us here. He thinks he's playing cat and mouse, but with the help of some of the evidence we found today, it should be only a matter of time until I work out where he's holed up."
"What evidence are you talking about, Sherlock?" said John. "I mean, granted, I only showed up in time to get shot at, but from what you told me -"
The detective brushed him off. "There is plenty to be observed, if only one actually looks. Take our friendly cadaver here, for instance." Sherlock stepped around Lestrade and strode to where the gunman's corpse had collapsed. "The detective inspector's team was lucky - they drove up behind him and he was intent on making you and I full of holes, so he didn't realize the danger. It was Lestrade who shot him, since Sally usually does the driving, and the detective inspector’s gun is a different model from hers, so the wound looks different to the trained eye."
"Right as always," the DI nodded, pulling out a cigarette. "Any idea who he is?"
"Not presently," Sherlock admitted. "No special tattoos that I can see, nor does he match the profile of any of the 457 world-class hit men of which I am aware. Probably he's nothing more than your run of the mill hired mercenary. I'll have Mycroft look into it. At any rate, who he is isn't nearly as important as where he came from."
"Because if he came from wherever Moriarty is hiding out, and you can deduce the location, then we know where Moriarty is hiding?" John asked, kneeling next to the body.
"Precisely," Sherlock said with satisfaction.
“So can you?” Lestrade asked. “Deduce his location, I mean.”
“This second? No.” Sherlock carefully pushed the dead man onto his back. “There’s too much information to consolidate at once. I need to gather what I can here and then sit in my mind palace for a while, preferably without distraction.” He looked meaningfully at John.
“I’m distracting?” John asked incredulously. “I don’t make a habit of shooting holes in the wall or exploding beakers in the microwave or reenacting murders in the bathtub or -”
“I know that,” Sherlock said calmly, examining the bottom of the gunman’s boots, scraping off a soil sample and capping it in a plastic canister. “But you can be distracting nevertheless. Attempts at conversation. Crap telly. Tapping away at your little blog.”
"Sherlock..." said Lestrade, a hint of warning in his voice, perhaps recognizing the murderous glint in John's eyes.
"Right, got it," the detective said, ignoring both the other men on the scene. "Call a cab."
"Call one yourself," John muttered, but he started down to the street anyway.
Sherlock was already talking to himself about the contents of his soil sample when he joined the doctor on the street corner.
"Obvious organic content... Water-saturated, but then it has been wet today..."
He slid into the cab without so much as a word to John, who followed after a moment's hesitation on the sidewalk. The detective's taciturn nature all the way back to the flat did nothing to lessen John's mounting frustration. No matter how uncomfortable the conversation, Sherlock was not going to evade the question of what happened that morning by being even more rude and antisocial than usual, nor did the present crisis mean he had the right to act like as much of a prat as he damn well pleased.
The cab car pulled to a stop outside of 221B, and, eager to begin experimenting, Sherlock was halfway through the door before John even managed to climb out the back seat. The doctor trudged to the door himself, hands buried in his pockets. Inside, ascending the stairs, he found the door to their flat hanging on its hinges and Sherlock inside, running around like a madman as he carried boxes of laboratory equipment to the kitchen table.
"Where did you get all that?" John asked, ducking out of the way as the detective marched past with a flask of 5.0 molar Hydrochloric Acid in one hand and an equally strong bottle of Sodium Hydroxide in the other. "I swear I've never seen half of this stuff before. And since when do you own a... whatever that is?"
"Atomic absorption spectrometer. And I don't. I'm borrowing it from Molly."
"Borrowing it?" John looked quizzically at the large machine now sitting where the microwave had been that morning.
"Well, I'm not planning to keep it, so it counts as borrowing."
"She doesn't know you took it, does she?"
Sherlock coughed and did not reply, instead dividing his soil sample into a half-dozen smaller petri dishes. John leaned against the doorframe, watching as his flat mate measured out a milliliter of the basic solution and distilled it before pouring it over the first dish. The detective then placed a pH paper on top of the dirt, watching it turn blue green.
"So the original sample was weakly acidic," he murmured aloud, reaching for another instrument.
John chose that moment to speak.
"You can't ignore me all afternoon."
Sherlock did not even look up as he scrawled "silty" on a notepad.
"I'm not ignoring you."
"But you are evading my question."
"What question?"
"What I was trying to talk to you about before we nearly got shot to death?"
The detective paused as though thinking a moment. Then he said, "Nope. Must have deleted it."
John sighed aloud, tucking his hands under his armpits as he leaned more heavily on the wall.
"I was asking you about this morning. The... kiss. What was that about, really?"
This time, Sherlock's stopping was not an exaggerated pantomime. In fact, for an instant he looked decidedly discomfited.
"You know it was for a case," he said, turning to look at John, his expression unreadable.
"Because the great Sherlock Holmes couldn't figure out how to kiss a girl?"
"As I told you," he replied, turning to glare at the stove instead, "relationships aren't really my area."
John frowned. "So you expect me to believe that in all your life you've never snogged anyone before?"
He could practically hear the eye roll when Sherlock answered him. "Plenty of people choose to remain celibate, John."
"Yeah, a nun might," the doctor chuckled. "And I asked if you've snogged someone before, not about your sex life."
"I never really understood the point," the detective said, turning back to putter with his little dishes of earth. "What could possibly be pleasing about having someone shove their tongue down your throat? Especially since I can tell exactly where it's been."
"Endorphins," John argued, caught up in proving, once and for all, that kissing did have merit. "But the physical sensation isn't the sole point, Sherlock. It's about -"
"Yes, John, fascinating. I know you seem to think that constant lectures on sentimentality might cause some of it to rub off on me, but as a high-functioning sociopath, I really don't care. Leave me alone, I'm working."
John blinked rapidly, struggling to contain his hurt feelings.
"Yeah, alright," he said quietly. "Have fun working, alone. I'm going to... go read a book or something."
Disgusted, the blonde man exited the kitchen in a huff, going to his room and dropping onto the bed. He tried to distract himself, flipping through his copy of The Art of War, but when he came to the realization that he had reread the same paragraph three times and still didn't know what it said, he gave up. It was blatantly unfair that Sherlock had such a knack for getting on his nerves. He couldn't even go get a pint at the pub by himself unless he wanted to risk getting drugged, shot, kidnapped, blown up...
The list continued, and John was exhausted just thinking about it. Throwing the novel on the floor, the doctor paced to the window, peering out the curtain at the quiet Baker Street below. He wasn't going to think about the detective, he decided. He would focus on finding Moriarty. He let his forehead rest on the cool glass, purging his thoughts of Sherlock and imagining instead how good it was going to feel to wring Moriarty’s sorry neck.
Then as John let the curtain fall back into place, he groaned quietly, wondering who he thought he was kidding.