~~~
John Watson was limping down a sidewalk on the way back from his therapist when he hears somebody calling his name.
"John!" A slightly overweight man calls out to the soldier. "John Watson!" The short, grey haired man turns to look. "Stamford, Mike Stamford. We were at Bart's together." He adds after seeing the confused look on John's face and holds out his hand to shake.
"Yes, sorry, yes, Mike, hello." John recognizes his old friend and shakes his awaiting hand.
"Yeah, I know, I got fat." Mike jokes.
"No, no." John tries to deny but they both just end up chuckling.
"I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at." Mike says to John after they both exchange pleasantries. "What happened?" He asks paying no mind to the cane in the ex-army doctor's hand.
"I got shot." John replies curtly.
"Are you still at Barts, then?" John jumps to change the subject when they sit down at a bench in the park after getting some coffee.
"Teaching now, yeah." Mike says. "Bright young things like we used to be." He chuckles. "God, I hate them." He adds jokingly and they both laugh. "What about you? Just staying in town till you get yourself sorted?"
"I can't afford London on an Army pension." John tells him.
"You couldn't bear to be anywhere else." Mike realizes. "That's not the John Watson I know."
"Yeah, I'm not the John Watson." He snaps and they both grow silent.
"Couldn't Harry help?" Mike asks after a little bit.
John scoffs, "Yeah, like that's going to happen." He replies.
"I don't know, get a flatshare or something?" Mike suggests shrugging.
"Come on, who'd want me for a flat mate?" John jokes seriously and Mike chuckles. "What?" He asks after hearing Mike's laugh and seeing the look on his face.
"You're the second person to say that to me today." He replies still smiling.
"Who was the first?"
~~~
A curly haired man walks into Bart's Morgue accompanied by a small brown haired women. He walks over to the slab where there is a black body bag waiting for him.
The man unzips the bag. "How fresh?" The curly haired man asks looking inside at the body.
"Just in." A light haired brunette replies walking into that side of the room. "67, natural causes. Used to work here. I knew him, he was nice." The girl, Molly Hooper, smiles lightly.
"Fine." He zips the bag up and turns to Molly giving her a toothless smile. "We'll start with the riding crop." The curly haired man, Sherlock Holmes, says popping the 'p.'
With that, Sherlock took his big coat off and began violently beating and smacking the pale corpse with his riding crop. Molly watched from the window outside, cringing at every smack of the leather on the dead mans body.
"So, bad day, was it?" Molly jokes smiling slightly coming back into the room.
"I need to know what bruises form in the next 20 minutes." Sherlock says taking notes of his work in his small black notebook. "A man's alibi depends on it. Text me."
"Listen, I was wondering." Molly starts a small blush creeping up on her cheeks. "Maybe later, when you're finished-"
"You're wearing lipstick." Sherlock notices after he turned to look at her. "You weren't wearing lipstick before."
"I, er, I refreshed it a bit." Molly's blush grows a little more. Sherlock nods his head slowly not really understanding her reaction to his question.
"Sorry, you were saying?" Sherlock turns back to his notes.
"I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee." She spits out finally.
"Black, two sugars, please. I'll be upstairs." Sherlock walks out of the room.
"Ok." Molly says slightly deflated at her failed attempt at asking Sherlock out.
~~~
Upstairs in the lab, Sherlock holds a bulb syringe and gently releases some liquid in to a petri dish when there is a knock at the door and two men, John Watson and Mike Stamford, walk into the room. Sherlock look up at them briefly but then looks back down to continue his experiment.
"Bit different from my day." John says walking into the lab upstairs to the morgue. Sherlock stands up strait then walks over and sits down in front of the microscope.
"You've no idea!" Mike jokes chuckling lightly.
"Mike, can I borrow your phone?" Sherlock asks without looking up. "There's no signal on mine."
"And what's wrong with the landline?" Mike questions with a smile.
"I prefer to text." Sherlock replies.
"Sorry," He apologizes, "It's in my coat."
"Er, here use mine." John offers holding out his phone.
Sherlock looks up slightly surprised. "Oh, thank you."
"This is an old friend of mine, John Watson." Mike introduces.
Sherlock walks over to retrieve the phone from John. As soon as he has it, he instantly starts texting whoever it was he was trying to reach.
"Afghanistan or Iraq?" Sherlock questions abruptly still texting.
John, confused looks over to Mike who is smiling knowingly. "Sorry?" John asks surprised.
"Which was it, in Afghanistan or Iraq?" Sherlock repeats looking over to him then back to the phone. John looks over to Mike again and his old friend is trying hard not to laugh.
"Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you-?"
"Ah, Molly, coffee, thank you." Sherlock interrupts John handing him his phone back as Molly walks into the room holding his coffee. "What happened to the lipstick?" Sherlock asks right before taking a sip of his coffee after noticing the lack of lipstick on Molly's lips.
"It wasn't working for me." She said dejectedly with a false smile.
"Really? I thought it was a big improvement. Your mouth's too small now." Sherlock tells her making small mouth like gestures with his fingers as he walks back to his computer.
"Ok." Molly says leaving the room really confused at Sherlock's mixed signals.
"How do you feel about the violin?" Sherlock suddenly asks, again not looking up from his work.
"I'm sorry, what?" John asks startled.
"I play the violin when I'm thinking and sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flat mates should know the worst about each other." Sherlock rattles off turning to look at John with a smile.
"You told him about me?" John turns to Mike.
"Not a word." Mike smirks at the look on John's face.
"Who said anything about flat mates?" John then questions Sherlock.
"I did." Sherlock replies grabbing his coat and putting it on. "Told Mike this morning I must be a difficult man to find a flat mate for. Now here he is, just after lunch, with an old friend clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't a difficult leap." Sherlock explains his reasoning then wraps his scarf around his neck.
"How did you know about Afghanistan?" John asks.
"Got my eye on a nice little place in central London." Sherlock ignores John's question. "Together we ought to be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o'clock. Sorry, got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary." Sherlock walks over to the door.
"Is that it?" John's question stops Sherlock in his tracks.
"Is that what?" He questions walking back to face the man.
"We've only just met and we're going to go and look at a flat?"
Sherlock looks over to Mike then back to John, "Problem?" Sherlock asks.
"We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting. I don't even know your name." John says.
"I know you're an Army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan. You've got a brother worried about you, but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know your therapist thinks your limp's psychosomatic, quite correctly, I'm afraid." John, realizing he wasn't using his cane as a crush instantly fixes it. "That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?"
He gives John another slightly smug smile and walks over to the door and opens it and walks out. Suddenly he peaks his head back in and says, "The name's Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker Street." Sherlock gives a wink and a click of the tongue. "Afternoon."
"He's always like that." Mike says smiling at John's surprised expression after the door closes after Sherlock.
~~~~~~~~~
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