A/N: Happy birthday to Sevenpercent! I hope you like it :)
John finished his drink and sat back in his chair, considering whether or not it was safe to go to bed. Sherlock had shut himself away in his bedroom nearly an hour ago, after returning from identifying Irene Adler's body in the morgue. Given that the sum total of Sherlock's interaction with 'The Woman' had lasted less than an hour, John wasn't entirely sure why Mycroft feared that her death would push Sherlock into what he termed a 'danger night.' Surely nothing – beyond Sherlock being drugged, beaten with a riding crop, and robbed of his rightfully-won spoils – had happened in the few brief moments that John had left him alone with Irene in her room. Nothing that would attach such … sentiment … to her passing.
John shivered, becoming aware that the temperature in the flat had dropped significantly. Sherlock had started the search, then, and had found at least the first one. Drafty as the flat might be, only an open window could be the source of the increased chill. As cold as it was, Sherlock might be on the second, by now.
Might not be time for bed just yet. If Sherlock was playing the game, allowing himself to be diverted, it was a good sign. Of course, it meant that Mycroft had been at least partly right – that Sherlock needed the diversion of the search, the buzz of the nicotine.
John sighed and stood up, taking his empty glass into the kitchen and put it in the sink, and continuing down the hallway to tap on Sherlock's door before trying the handle. It wasn't locked. He eased the door open, glancing around the room to locate his flatmate.
John found Sherlock standing in front of an open window, dressed in pyjama bottoms, a t-shirt, and his blue dressing gown, cigarette smoke curling out of his mouth. John leaned his shoulder against the door frame, folded his arms across his chest, and tilted his head toward Sherlock's bureau.
"Didn't touch your sock index," he said affably. "Wouldn't dare, not after my favorite jumper became fodder for your acid experiment. Although, if you need wool for anything, or something to use to put out the next kitchen fire, or mop up a chemical spill, I wouldn't miss the lime green monstrosity Harry sent."
Sherlock snorted, taking a long drag on his cigarette, blowing the smoke out lazily.
"As long as you've got the window open, can't you blow the smoke outside?" John asked. "And smoke faster. It's bloody freezing in here. Hurry up so you can close the window and come out by the fire."
Sherlock huffed an acknowledgment, bringing his cigarette up for a last drag. He stubbed it out on the windowsill and made a show of blowing his lungful of smoke out the window before closing it. John stifled a laugh at Sherlock's intentional obviousness and pushed away from the door.
"Tea?" John asked.
"You do realise that it's half one in the morning?" Sherlock drawled, crossing the room to pull the duvet off his bed and wrap it around his shoulders.
"I do, actually. I also realise that in this country it's always time for tea, and there's clearly no sleep to be had here tonight, anyway. Come on, it'll warm you up a bit."
Sherlock didn't respond, but as John moved into the kitchen and filled the kettle, Sherlock trailed behind him, leaning on the kitchen worktop as John puttered about.
"Where did you find it?" John asked as he plugged the kettle in and flicked the switch.
"More than one this time, then," Sherlock replied.
John cursed, his head falling forward so that his chin rested on his chest.
"Yes, more than one," he said with a sigh. "Mycroft was quite … concerned. Seems to believe that her death is a trigger of some sort. Something that will push you back to drugs. Still doesn't believe me when I tell him the flat is clean. Insisted we search. I went through the motions, hiding them."
"You don't share Mycroft's 'concern'?" Sherlock asked with a sneer.
"That you'll turn to drugs? No. That you'll drive me round the bend in need of a distraction? God, yes," John answered, pulling mugs down from the cupboard.
"How many?"
"More than one," John ground out, refusing to give Sherlock any more information. He poured the water over the teabags and added milk and sugar. He handed Sherlock his mug, then grabbed a package of chocolate biscuits and went to sit in his armchair, enjoying the warmth of the fire. "Where did you find that one, then?" he asked around a mouthful of biscuit.
"Your table manners are atrocious, John," Sherlock chided.
"You have no manners to speak of, you berk," John replied.
Sherlock smirked, carefully collapsing into his own chair, his duvet wrapped around him like a cocoon.
"Loose floorboard behind the bureau," he said before taking a sip of tea.
"Ah," John replied, keeping his eyes fixed on the fire as he lifted his mug. He would not let his eyes dart around the flat to other hidden cigarettes. Sherlock would have to find them without any clues. He put his mug down and cleared his throat.
"What did her text say?" He didn't clarify. He didn't have to.
"Mantelpiece."
"Mantelpiece? She sent you a message about the gift on the mantel? She sent the gift, as well, then. I'm not sure which to ask first – how she put it there, or what was in it."
"She's gained entry before, John."
"Don't know how she did it then, either," John replied. "What was in the box?"
"Her phone."
"Her ph – her phone?" John repeated, surprised. "The phone from the safe? The one she took back after she drugged you? The one with the photos on it that Mycroft is so keen to get his hands on?"
"The very one," Sherlock agreed. "But he's not interested in the photos. They were just a convenient excuse. No, there's something else Ms Adler had on her phone, something both Mycroft and the CIA are eager to acquire. Mycroft used the photo scandal – used me – to get the phone. I don't like being used, John," Sherlock said, rising imperiously, putting the tea mug down on the desk and beginning to pace, stepping carefully as he pivoted so as to not trip over the duvet as it trailed behind him.
"You're not going to give it to him, are you?"
"No."
"Does he know you have it?"
"Yes."
"What will you do, then?" John asked.
"It's password protected. She's a bit cleverer than you," Sherlock said, smirking at John's interjected 'Oi!', "so it'll be a bit more of a challenge to figure it out, but I'll get there in the end. I'll get past the security and find out what other bits of 'protection' Ms Adler had collected, see if I can't figure out what's got Mycroft's knickers in a twist," Sherlock replied before giving a cry of discovery, dropping the duvet from his shoulders, and moving to pull the left earphone away from the bison skull and remove a cigarette.
"Open a window," John groused as Sherlock dug a lighter out of the pocket of his robe.
"I thought it was cold in here?" Sherlock spoke around the cigarette he clamped between his lips as he reclaimed the dropped duvet and tightened it around his body before opening the window.
"It is. I'll nudge the fire up from 'cheery' to 'inferno', shall I?" John said, climbing from his chair and moving across the sitting room. He adjusted the fire controls and turned back to his chair. A red package next to his open laptop caught his eye.
"So, what did Molly give you, then?" John asked, gesturing to the gift as he slumped back down in his chair.
"What?"
"The present she brought you. Nicely wrapped in paper to match her lipstick," John said, his tone disapproving. "Do you ever think before you speak?"
"Always, John."
"I'm not convinced."
"I did … apologize," Sherlock offered.
"Yeah. Yeah, you did. That was a bit good. Might want to do it again, though, the next time you see her."
Sherlock grunted, stubbing out his cigarette and closing the window. John watched as he crossed the room, picked up his tea and Molly's gift, and returned to collapse in his armchair. After taking a mouthful of tea, he set the mug down and began carefully unwrapping the box.
"You're one of those. Should have known."
"One of those what?"
"Unwrapping the present so carefully rather than tearing into it," John said with a laugh. "Aren't you going to deduce it?"
"It's from Molly. It's probably something unabashedly twee covered in hearts and kittens," Sherlock said as he finally peeled the paper from the box, folded it neatly, and set it aside. He pulled the lid off the box and stared.
"Well?"
"It's a dissection kit," Sherlock answered, pulling the leather bundle out of the box and unrolling it to expose the tools inside.
"She's got your number," John laughed.
"Well of course she has my number, John. It's programmed into her phone."
"No, I meant, she knows you. She sees you. What she sees in you, I can't quite fathom ..."
"Why? What do you see in me?"
"I see an arrogant, selfish bastard who uses his extraordinarily clever mind to solve puzzles, thereby helping people he can't be arsed to care about," John said with exasperated fondness. "The ones you do care about … well, you help them, too. And piss them off. Occasionally you even apologize for it."
"The hood over the cooktop," Sherlock interjected.
"What about it?" John asked, unfazed at the unexpected shift in topics. The conversation had clearly become too sentimental for comfort.
He hoped he'd managed to keep his expression bland.
"There's a cigarette there. And another one in the bathroom, probably among the cleaning supplies, but wrapped somehow to avoid contamination. In the finger of one of those hideous yellow gloves, I'd imagine. And a second one in my bedroom."
"If ten minutes of distraction is all this bloody 'danger night' hide-and-seek game gets, maybe we should try Cluedo again. At least then I wouldn't have to deal with freezing to death wreathed in smoke."
"You're hardly freezing, John. And the fire is responsible for far more particulate matter than five cigarettes might be."
John waved the argument away.
"Is that all of them? The cigarettes?" Sherlock asked.
"You don't think that's enough?" John asked mildly.
"That wasn't a yes."
"It wasn't a no, either.
"You only hid three after the old woman was killed."
"That wasn't … personal."
"This is?"
"Isn't it? She beat you. Doesn't happen often, does it? Thought that might make it a bit … intimate."
"She didn't beat me, John," Sherlock protested angrily. "I won. She cheated."
"I suppose that's one way to look at it," John agreed with a touch of amusement.
"It's the only way to look at it."
"Okay, so, she's a cheat. Not surprising, really," John said. "And her death, and your reaction to it, are not personal. I can go collect those cigarettes, then? In the kitchen and loo?"
"Not the one in the bedroom?"
"You haven't figured out where it is. Wouldn't want to reveal a perfectly good hiding spot by disturbing it now."
"Hmm," Sherlock agreed. "Leave them all. I need to think."
"About Irene?"
"About her phone," Sherlock responded with an exasperated eye roll. "Go to bed, John. You need sleep, and you'll only distract me with inane conversation if you stay up."
"Right," John replied. "Merry Christmas, then, Sherlock."
John stood and moved to the door, pausing before heading up to his room.
"That's not all of them. The cigarettes. Any that I find still in place in the morning, I'll dispose of."
Sherlock nodded a brief acknowledgment and settled into his thinking pose, hands pressed together, fingertips resting on his bottom lip. Whether he was trying to deduce the locations of other cigarettes hidden around the flat or trying to puzzle out the security code or contents of Irene's phone, John didn't know.
Turning, John headed up he stairs, wondering if Sherlock would manage to find the cigarette hidden in the barrel of his Browning.
This isn't quite the story I thought I was going to be writing. I thought I was going to write the origin of the Danger Night cigarette seek-and-find game, and maybe one day I will, but this is what came out when I sat down to write.
This scene ties in loosely with a comment John makes to Sherlock in chapter 2 of my story 'Double Bluff', as well as vaguely referencing my one-shot 'Fortune and Bust', in which John removes Sherlock's stash from the flat before moving in.
All of the stories I've written that deal with Irene Adler are Sevenpercent's fault. I think a plot bunny escaped her farm and made itself at home in mine ... and went a bit nuts breeding. It only makes sense that this tangentially Irene story is then a birthday fic for Sevenpercent. Hope it's happy!