Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to the BBC, and the original characters to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Define: Splash
- (noun) A sound made by something striking or falling into liquid
- (verb) Cause (liquid) to strike or fall on something in irregular drops.
'to be nobody but yourself in a world which is trying its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.'
(E. E. Cummings)
"Sherlock," John called, sticking his head out of the kitchen to peer at him, "where's the butter?"
"Hmmm," Sherlock mumbled. He glanced up at John from his reclining position on the sofa. "Experiment."
"Experiment?" John asked, exasperated. It was impossible to keep any food in the flat with Sherlock around. "What experiment did you need butter for?"
John caught Sherlock's smirk and rethought. "Actually, you know what? I don't want to know."
"Suit yourself," Sherlock replied, shrugging, and closed his eyes again.
John sighed and returned to the kitchen, resigned to having only marmite on his toast. "You going to eat something?" he yelled at the irritating man.
"No," Sherlock told him, sounding distinctly bored.
"But you're not on a case," John pointed out, feeling slightly confused. It had been two days since their last job, and Sherlock had been eating fairly regularly – for him, anyway.
"But I will be," he replied, and John could hear the sound of him getting up and traipsing over to his bedroom.
"How do you know?" he asked curiously, wondering if it was simply a guess.
"I never guess, John," Sherlock's voice drifted back. John gritted his teeth, hating that yet again the infuriating man had managed to pick up on his thoughts. He had been in the army, for God's sake. He should be better at disguising his emotions.
Then again, Sherlock liked to be the exception to every rule.
"Put a cup of tea on for Lestrade, will you?" Sherlock asked, smirking, as he floated back to the kitchen.
"Lestrade?" John asked in confusion, straining his ears to hear any footsteps up the stairs. But, no. He couldn't hear a thing.
"Tea, John, tea," Sherlock prompted him, before spinning in a circle. "We have a case!"
"But how do you know?"
There was a knock on the door. "Oh for Christ's sake," John muttered. "How are you always so right?"
"It's a talent," Sherlock grinned, and sat down at the table, pulling a distinctly dodgy looking Petri dish over to him. John wrinkled his nose. In the kitchen, seriously?
The person knocked again.
"Are you going to get that?" John questioned. "You're so bloody excited about the case."
"It's Lestrade, John, he can let himself in."
"He has a key?" he replied foolishly. "Umm . . . Why?"
"I'm not the only one who likes to pick pockets, you know," Sherlock said, glancing up briefly at him.
"He's a policeman!"
"Detective Inspector, actually," Sherlock corrected.
There was yet another knock, accompanied this time with the call "It's Lestrade, Sherlock, open the door!"
"Oh for the love of-" Sherlock cursed. "I know it's you, idiot!" he called back. "Let yourself in!"
"But-" the voice cut off. John frowned, starting to head out of the kitchen to answer the door. Quickly though, there was the sound of a key scraping the lock.
"Fingers trembling slightly," Sherlock muttered, listening hard. "Ah, it's one of those cases."
"One of what cases?" John asked sharply. Anything that rattled the seasoned Detective Inspector was most definitely not a good thing, in his opinion.
"Sherlock," Lestrade said quickly, appearing in the kitchen. "We need you."
"You always do," Sherlock said, eyebrows raised. He shrugged on his coat, hanging on the back of a chair, and John followed suit. Dangerous or not, he wanted to be there.
"Shall I get the . . ." he trailed off, realising that mentioning his gun in front of the DI was not the best plan.
"It's not dangerous, John," Sherlock said impatiently, then smirked at John's disbelieving face. "Not anymore dangerous than usual, anyway."
"Then why . . .?"
"Don't worry about it, it's just Lestrade being . . . sentimental," Sherlock said, his lip curling.
"It's personal, John," Lestrade said, glaring at the child-like detective. "It doesn't matter."
"Ok then," John said, feeling strangely left out. Then he shook himself. He wasn't 5 years old anymore, he was an adult, and adults don't go around sulking because they feel a bit lonely.
"Where are we going?" Sherlock demanded.
"Down by the river, near Greenwich," Lestrade replied swiftly. "Will you come?"
John looked at Sherlock, knowing that he was unlikely to refuse.
"We'll follow in a cab"
"Address?" John asked before Lestrade left. Honestly, how had Sherlock managed to survive before him?
Lestrade reeled off the location then left, yelling a quick "hurry" behind him.
"What's up with him?" John asked, grabbing his keys and following Sherlock out of the flat.
"I explained earlier, John. Do try to keep up."
"Fine," John huffed. "Why's he being sentimental?"
Sherlock said nothing, so John sighed and climbed in the cab that Sherlock had managed to grab.
"Greenwich," Sherlock said sharply to the cabbie, and relaxed back into his seat.
They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes and watched the whirl of London pass. No one would suspect that the two of them – perfectly ordinary looking blokes – would be on their way to a murder that had got an experienced DI nervous. He thought back to what Mycroft had said, all those months ago.
"When you walk with Sherlock Holmes you see the battlefield."
It was so true it was laughable.
But he wouldn't give it up for the world.
"Does it never bother you?" John asked a short time later, completely out of the blue.
"I may be brilliant, but I'm not a mind-reader," Sherlock answered impatiently. "Does what bother me?"
"At times it seems like you are," he muttered rebelliously, but explained anyway. "Travelling in cabs, I mean. After that case with the cabbie, doesn't it worry you that you are in effect getting into a stranger's car?"
"I can take care of myself,"
"But still," John pressed.
"No," he sighed finally. "It doesn't bother me. There are murderers in every walk of life, John."
John said nothing, wondering why exactly he'd brought it up, except for the fact that it had been niggling at the back of his head for a while. Being in a cab didn't bother him, precisely, but it did make him think twice about blindly trusting a stranger. Now, he was always prepared.
"I can't go through my life constantly worrying about risks and murderers. It's enough to drive anyone mad," said Sherlock quietly, his face strangely pensive.
John nodded. "Ok," he said, satisfied with the strangely human response. Getting a response out of Sherlock that wasn't sarcastic, biting, or unemotional was a difficult feat.
Sherlock stared at him for a moment longer, before turning his head away. John made no attempt to guess at the reason behind the shadow in his eyes, knowing that for Sherlock, privacy was a need, not a want.
"What's the address, mate?" the cab driver asked, breaking the overpowering silence.
As Sherlock swiftly answered the cabbie, John stared at him discreetly. What was it about this difficult, impossible, brilliant, man that had him so captivated?
"Work on your subtlety, John," Sherlock snapped, looking out of the window again. John startled slightly and then scolded himself for thinking that any action could be discrete around the world's greatest detective.
"We nearly there?" he asked in reply, ignoring his flatmate's words.
Sherlock heaved a sigh, but answered. "Very close."
Sure enough, the cab pulled up in front of a large, imposing warehouse. The river ran nearby and John shivered as he stepped outside. A chill hang in the air, and he pondered what a horrible place this must be to die.
Sherlock was already out and striding towards the semi-circle of police cars that were parked around the warehouse. John could just make out Lestrade's figure chatting to an unknown man as he passed some money to the taxi driver. The man muttered 'cheers' and drove off. John spared a thought for the strangers who ferried people around for little thanks all day long – and had such an ability to do harm if they so wished. Then he shook his head, bringing to mind what Sherlock had said earlier, and headed over to the police cars.
There are murderers in every walk of life, John.
And wasn't that so true?
"Ah, John," Sherlock said when the man in question reached them. "I need your opinion on the body."
John nodded to Lestrade and Sally who glanced over at him when Sherlock spoke. They both seemed engrossed in a conversation with a forensics team, but Lestrade spared him a smile and a jerk of the head as if to say 'go on'. The man still looked weary, a shadow hanging in his eyes just as they had in Sherlock's earlier.
"Come on," Sherlock said impatiently, hurrying into the warehouse by a large open door. John followed, breathing in the slight tang in the air and knowing without a doubt that this would be bloody. It was dingy inside, but when they got to the body, there were lights set up by the techies circling around the dead man.
Except it wasn't a dead man, not really. The boy looked young – thirteen, fourteen? – and John felt his heart constrict. He had to look away for a couple of seconds, breathing shallowly through his mouth. One of the nearby techies gave him a sympathetic look and he managed a nod in return. It wasn't the blood that bothered him – though there was plenty enough of that – it was the age. Christ, the kid looked incredibly small lying in the middle of the empty warehouse floor, just as he was. He was so still, and John had grown up with enough cousins to know that children that age should never be lying so quietly.
He pulled himself together and focused again on the body, forcing his soldier and doctor persona to come to the forefront. He'd seen bodies many times, and several looking worse than this. He'd do whatever he could to bring the kid's killer to justice.
Besides him, Sherlock was examining the body in minute detail, without ever touching him. He was muttering under his breath and John strained to catch the words.
"-blood, but whose? . . . abrasions . . . traces of ink pen . . . young-"
John ignored him, knowing better than to interrupt Sherlock's thought process, and instead crouched down next to the boy's head, squinting carefully at the large dent and the blood piling out from it. Pretty much the whole body was red, and bruises were evident across his bare arms and stomach, where his t-shirt had ridden up slightly. There were no other obvious wounds, however, except the head wound and the bruises. It was . . . odd. It didn't look like the sort of murder that killed most children these days, in John's humble opinion.
"Looked like he died from the head wound," John declared, watching as Sherlock looked at him with an unforgiving stare and sharply jerked his head in acknowledgement.
"Caused by what?" he demanded, and though John knew the question was merely a formality – it was almost a hundred percent certain Sherlock already knew what had killed him – he bent his head again and thought seriously.
A few seconds later, he believed he had a definite answer. "It seems to be a blunt object, not very wide. Probably something like a bat or anything fairly heavy, really."
Sherlock dismissed this with a flick of his eyes towards John, and stood, circling around the warehouse.
"And yet," he was murmuring to himself, "where's the weapon?"
"The murderer would have taken it with him, surely?" Lestrade answered, joining them inside the warehouse. His body was strained and John could see his eyes glance unwillingly over to the body every so often. He had no idea what was causing Lestrade so much distress about this murder, unless it was simply the age of the victim.
"If he had any sense at all, of course," Sherlock responded abruptly, not stilling from his pacing. "The weapon wouldn't need to be very large, would it?"
John shook his head, opening his mouth to detail further, but Sherlock held up a hand.
"Not interested," he barked, muttering to himself as he turned away. John and Lestrade exchanged exasperated looks.
"Do we have an identification yet?" John asked quietly, watching as Lestrade angled his body away from the boy on the floor.
"Not as of the moment," Lestrade answered in a low, rough voice. "No one's reported a kid missing, though our forensics have estimated that the body has been here at least a day."
"Wrong!" Sherlock announced, spinning around to stand in front of them. "He's been dead for at least a day, yes," he agreed. "But not here, and neither has that blood."
Lestrade frowned. "What do you mean the blood hasn't?"
"How much blood would a young boy normally lose from blunt trauma to the head, John?" Sherlock asked instead.
John thought for a second. "Head wounds bleed a lot," he said carefully.
"There's at least two pints of blood around that body," Sherlock declared, his eyes sparkling. "It's all come from the same wound. Is that realistic?"
"No," John said, understanding dawning on him. "It's not his blood?"
"Of course not," Sherlock scoffed, and Lestrade made a funny choking noise. When John looked over, however, the older man was composed, his fidgeting hands the only sign on any distress.
"Anderson!" Lestrade yelled, and the man in question came in, scowling at Sherlock as he did so.
"Yes?" he asked snidely.
"Take a sample of that blood and compare its DNA with the body's," the DI ordered, before turning back to Sherlock. "Anything else you can help with?"
"The blood's not all his, so why would it be there except to disguise the fact that the boy wasn't actually killed here? The weapon's not here because either it's been disposed or it's still where the boy was actually killed. Judging by the fact that this scene is set up to throw the police off, I imagine it would have been thrown away." Sherlock reeled off. "The man you're looking for will know this area of the river well, he works around here, left fragments of dust on the boy's clothes and the bruises are vivid enough that it in all likelihood it is a man perpetrator, and a strong one. Works in construction, likely, or something similar. The fact that there's no blood smeared suggests that the man is strong enough to carry the body all the way. Probably an older man, carrying a young boy would attract attention unless he could pass as a father."
"Do we have a motive?" Lestrade asked, dark eyes fixed on the brilliant man in front of him.
"Difficult to say," Sherlock answered immediately. "Not sexual, the boy's clothes are mostly unruffled and there's no sign of interference. Why else kill a young boy? A grudge against the family? It's too violent and the bruises too deep for it to have been done by a boy his age, so family related most likely. Could be gang violence, but his age makes that unlikely, as does his clothes."
"Clothes?"
"Well cared for and expensive," Sherlock said, gesturing to the body, twirling on the spot to do so. "He comes from a middle class background, unlikely to be in gangs so young. So, we have a grudge against the family, an accident, or a problem within the family."
"Could it be an accident?" Lestrade asked, and John pretended not to notice the quiet pleading note in his voice. Sherlock was as oblivious as ever when it came to simple human cues, and blazed on.
"Weren't you listening, Lestrade?" he demanded, flapping a hand in the detective's direction. John's soft 'Sherlock' went uncommented upon.
"Could be an accident, but less likely than the other options. The amount of care in moving the body and staging a murder scene suggests the perpetrator wasn't blinded by emotion – probably not an accident then. Why hide a body in a crime scene if the accident was innocent?"
"Could have been manslaughter," John chipped in, his mind puzzling away at a slower rate than the quick-fire man standing in front of him.
Sherlock nodded jerkily. "Either domestic violence, in which case manslaughter is highly possible – meant to hurt not kill – or it's a deliberate act of violence against the family. The fact that no one's reported the boy missing suggests domestic violence or neglect, and an unwillingness to claim the boy as their own."
"That's horrible," John said quietly, struggling to wrap his mind around the thought that a boy could have been so unwanted that his parents either killed him, or didn't care enough to look for him once missing. How could a mother do anything but love their child? John's father had been an alcoholic, though not a violent one, and he'd grown up almost suffocated by love from his mother. He often thought it was to make up for the let-down of their father, and the fact that she refused countless times to leave the miserable bastard.
Sherlock uttered a sharp laugh. "Really, John," he said, "you've killed others, seen men die in battles, and watched people suffer traumatic injuries, but you cannot stand the thought of someone not being loved?"
John frowned, catching Lestrade's jerky movement towards Sherlock out of the corner of his eye. The man reached out quickly to place a hand on the consulting detective's wrist, and Sherlock froze for a moment at the touch before resuming his previous whirling movements.
"Everyone deserves to be loved, Sherlock," John said, his voice troubled. There was something going on here, something private between Sherlock and Lestrade that John was not privy to, and he desperately wanted to know.
"Naïve," Sherlock responded, and was John imagining the note of bitterness in his voice? No, there was Lestrade again, squeezing the man's wrist once, twice, before letting his go. Sherlock flexed his hand a few times, and glanced in Greg's direction. John watched in confusion.
John shook his head. "I don't think that's naivety."
Sherlock snorted in derision, probably at his 'emotional' words, before turning to Lestrade. "Send me the results of the post-mortem as soon as you have them," he demanded. "And I'll need the results from that blood."
"Of course," Lestrade nodded, his gaze blank and his eyes hard. "Keep me updated."
Sherlock tilted his head in acknowledgement. John smiled at Greg and resisted the urge to ask for answers.
"Let's go," Sherlock barked, turning with a whirl of his coat and striding from the warehouse. John uttered a goodbye and followed, cursing his desire to trail after the madman like a foolish sidekick.
The thick silence that hung over the journey home was not broken until John placed a cup of tea in front of Sherlock. The man didn't look up, but John wasn't prepared to keep his mouth shut any longer.
"What was the problem with Lestrade today?" he asked quietly, his voice shattering the stillness. He sat down next to Sherlock on the sofa, lifting his legs up and placing them back down on his lap. Thoughts of his heterosexuality filtered through his mind, but he decided he really didn't care at the precise moment.
Sherlock was silent for so long that John had given up on him answering. Once his tea had been drunk, he wriggled free from the heavy weight of Sherlock's legs and was just tracking down the TV remote when Sherlock's voice made him pause. He was still sitting with his fingers joined under his chin, but his eyes were present now, and watching John.
"He was married once," Sherlock said in a matter-of-fact way, as if Greg's past made no difference to him. John sank down into the sofa.
"What happened?" he dared to ask.
Sherlock shook his head. "They divorced, doesn't matter," he said bluntly. "Lestrade's child was only ten when he was hit by a drunk driver whilst cycling home."
"Christ," John breathed, horror struck by the knowledge.
"He died of his injuries two days after the accident," Sherlock narrated, his voice so blank it was as if he didn't feel Greg's pain. John felt like every word was stabbing into him. Poor Greg . . . "Lestrade hates to see injured children now."
"So any case with a child . . . ?" John asked, hating that he wanted to know the answer.
"He remembers his son, and it hurts him," Sherlock said, and John would have wanted to scream at him not to be so bloody emotionless about this, except that he knew Sherlock's empathy with Greg was prominently displayed in every word. It was there in the measured way he spoke, in the way that he remembered the details of what Lestrade had told him, despite his habit of deleting any 'irrelevant' material. It was implicit in every jerky gesture he made, so different from his normal seamless grace. Sherlock was not a sociopath, no matter how many people he managed to convince.
"How long ago was this?" John questioned, ignoring the voice that told him he was being a nosy bugger and shouldn't keep invading Lestrade's privacy.
"About eight years ago," Sherlock informed him, standing up from the sofa and striding into the kitchen to do god knows what.
"Two years before he met you," John summarised, following the figure in and leaning against the side. Sherlock glanced at him with a small smile playing around his lips.
"Two years, one month and fifteen days," Sherlock confirmed and John's heart froze, because Sherlock would have only known that if Lestrade had told him, and that meant at one point he had been counting the days, and that hurt John to think about. Lestrade, in the past year, had been a solid rock for the two of them, someone to chat to and complain to and work with and who had never ever mentioned something so personal to John. How well did he truly know the man?
"He was on a crusade to rescue all the children in the world then," Sherlock mentioned, his eyes gazing heavenward as he remembered. "I was not a child."
"But he saved you anyway?" John asked, holding his breath. Sherlock never talked about his days doing drugs, but veiled hints from Lestrade had given him enough information to gather it hadn't been good.
Sherlock shrugged, a plebeian gesture he normally never indulged in, and strolled into the lounge, climbing over the coffee table as he plucked up John's phone.
"Still no messages," he growled, and John sighed. The conversation was clearly over. He grabbed his laptop and settled down in the armchair, logging onto his blog. The information gained from Sherlock was more than he normally got, and he could live with that.
"Did Sherlock tell you?" Lestrade asked quietly in the morgue two days later. Sherlock was hovering over the boy's body, finalising some conclusions and harassing poor Molly. John and Lestrade were patiently allowing him space to work.
"Yeah," John said, flushing slightly. "I'm sorry." He had thought he had been subtle, his gazes not too sympathetic or too pitying. Obviously, he'd failed. Sentiment, he could almost hear Sherlock say derisively in his ear.
"It's ok," Greg replied, his gaze never leaving Sherlock's form. "It was a long while ago,"
John nodded, unsure how to make it all right between the two of them. He had had no right, of course he hadn't, to have demanded answers from Sherlock.
"What was his name?" he asked suddenly, then bit his lip in embarrassment. "You don't have to answer that," he added.
"Luke," Lestrade said softly, rubbing a hand over his face. "He was ten years and three months old when he died, and it felt like my life was falling apart."
"I'm sorry," John said again, because what else could you say to that? He was so sorry it had happened to Greg, one of the best men he knew.
"It happened," Lestrade spoke, his voice rough. "I lived, even if my marriage didn't. And it brought me to Sherlock."
"He wouldn't speak about himself," John said, watching the man in question hover around the body, every so often exclaiming something or other. They were far enough away that they couldn't hear what he was saying – and luckily vice versa.
"No, he never does," Greg agreed. "He was worse then, more volatile, less grounded, and I knew that he wasn't alright, despite what he claimed about coping fine on drugs."
John cocked his head to the side, but didn't interrupt, sensing Lestrade simply wanted to talk.
"He was shooting up every day, but god his mind was brilliant," Lestrade continued. "That was the hardest part, the fact that he could still think so well under the influence of drugs. How do you explain to an addict they need to give up when they're at their happiest when high?"
"How did you?" John asked, scarcely believing he was gaining such an insight into the man. It felt wrong, almost, but he didn't really believe Sherlock didn't know what they were talking about. The man was extraordinary, and his mind would have figured out Greg would return the favour by explaining Sherlock's past to him.
"I told him he couldn't work until he was clean." Lestrade shrugged. "He hated it, loathed me for making him do it, but he did." Greg bit his lip, glancing towards Sherlock with a troubled look on his face. "I've never seen him like that," he said after a couple of beats of silence. "He was . . . wild, when withdrawing, like a caged animal. Petrified, too, and it took me a while to work out why."
"Sherlock, scared?"
"Every move I made towards him was seen as a threat, and every raised hand equalled pain. He'd scream at me if I tried to ask him questions," Greg recalled, his eyes faraway. "He was very messed up, John. The drugs allowed him to think, but they also allowed him to file away every little thing he didn't want to remember, and it all came crashing down on him."
"Like what?" John asked, so quietly he could barely hear his own words. He had never imagined . . .
"He wouldn't tell me much, and even Mycroft was surprisingly cagey, but I don't think his family was ever very loving, John," Greg informed him, and John thought back to his words a couple of days before, and Sherlock's reaction to them. "His father was not a nice man."
"Still isn't," Sherlock said, and both of them jumped, not having registered he had crept so close to them. His face was expressionless, his mask firmly in place. "I'm done," he said tightly, changing the subject. "I'm getting a cab."
He walked away, and John followed with a short goodbye to Lestrade who wandered over to talk to Molly.
"Good chat?" Sherlock asked acidly once they were alone. John flushed, shame sinking into him.
"I'm sorry," he said sincerely, feeling sympathy for the lonely man next to him. "It's none of my business."
Sherlock waved a hand. "Curiosity is not a sin, John."
John watched him and wondered if the brilliant man in front of him had ever been told that it was.
"My father was unpredictable," Sherlock said one night, his revelation springing to life in the quiet cold air as they walked home from a restaurant. They were in between cases, the boy's father arrested many days ago, and John hadn't allowed himself to think about their previous conversations. His interactions with Greg were practically normal again, even if there was perhaps more of an understanding there than before.
John glanced up at him, not saying a word.
"He hit me for the first time when I was seven years old, and perfect Mycroft was away at boarding school." Sherlock's voice held a tone of bitterness, and John's heart sank. Why had he ever wanted to know about Sherlock's past, what had made him like he was? This was Sherlock's business, and sadder than John had allowed himself to imagine.
"I vowed, then, that I would learn everything there is to learn and never be taken by surprise again," Sherlock continued, his gaze straight forward. John blew air out of his mouth slowly, carefully, and let him speak uninterrupted. From the sounds of it, Sherlock had never told a soul.
"I was," he said, quietly. "He hit me again and again throughout the years, and I never could predict when. Sometimes it was a cuff around the head, sometimes a full on beating. I never learnt, never could see with him. I was too close, too sentimental and emotional to ever deduce what he was going to do," Sherlock spat, and John closed his eyes.
Out of his friend's mouth poured a heart-breaking tale of abuse and belittling and recriminations and above all, Sherlock's desire to be stronger than his father, cleverer, and escape from that life. John had to look away at some points, too overwhelmed to face the amazing man beside him, but Sherlock's voice never faltered.
"Lestrade saved me like one of his little children," Sherlock finished. "And I hated it at first, but he gave me crime, and sobriety, and he let me use my brain for something that wasn't self-destruction, and I forgave him for it." The unspoken gratitude hung in the air.
"You helped him as well," John commented softly. "You gave him a purpose that he lost after Luke died."
Sherlock didn't say a word, but John knew he didn't imagine the gentle brush of a hand against his.
"You saved me, too," John added, fumbling for the key. "Funny how these things go."
He slid the key into the lock, and the two of them stepped into the shadowed hall of 221B Baker Street.
A/N: My first Sherlock fic in a loooong while! I needed a little break from Changes, and a half finished version of this has been hanging around on my laptop for ages, so I finally got around to completing it. I hope you enjoyed it!
Any and all feedback is appreciated and loved to pieces :) If there's a desire for it, I might do a fic covering Lestrade and Sherlock pre John.
Dreams x