John's first shift goes by smoothly. There's not as many customers as the McDonald's he got fired from two weeks ago for moving too slowly. Here the manager doesn't yell at him for moving slower than the other employees... employee singular as the case may be.
While he's standing at the till, nearly dozing off, a young man with tightly curled hair walks in.
"Are you Sherlock Holmes?" he asks John, eyes wide, smile beaming.
"No, that would be me," Sherlock says from behind John before he can answer.
"Can you guess my order?" the man asks. He's practically buzzing.
"How would you react if I told you I was gay?" Sherlock asks in return.
The man's smile falls and the energy coming off him in waves seems to ebb.
"Look, man. I have nothing against gay people, I just don't want it shoved-"
"Double espresso, no flavour shot," Sherlock says and turns around to make it before the young man even confirms.
"Woah, cool! How did you know?"
You're pretty much a walking espresso yourself. I knew that you wouldn't want a flavour shot by your answer to my question, because it implies an underlying uncomfortably with homosexuality. As such you hyper-perform masculinity and would not want a flavour shot because they are perceived as feminine. And oh no, you wouldn't be content with just a single espresso. You need to prove to yourself that you can handle more. It's why your arms are hanging stiffly at your sides; you just came from the gym - as evidenced by the sweat stains on your t-shirt and the gym bag slung over your shoulder - where you just had to load that extra weight onto the press.
"Just a hunch," Sherlock replies as he hands the man his drink.
The man pays with change and is gone out the front door just as quickly as he came.
"That was brilliant," John says as Sherlock deposits the change into the register, "How'd you do it?"
Sherlock repeats the string of logic back to John.
"Brilliant," John mutters to himself as Sherlock turns to go unpack boxes in the back.
Over the next hour John fills ten peoples' orders. He tries to guess each one to himself and fails every time but one.
"Your leg is hurting, why don't you go to the back and sit for a while?" Sherlock asks as he comes out from the back room.
"Oh no, I'm fine," John lies.
"You have a slight grimace on your face and are placing all of your weight on your left leg. Just sit for a few minutes. I can handle this horde of customers myself." He gestures at the empty line, five customers sitting scattered around the shop.
John wants to sit. His leg is aching, pain radiating outward from where he got shot only three months ago. After a moment of hesitation he agrees and shuffles stiffly to the back room. On a box next to one of the chairs around a small table there he sees a book, and, on top of the book, a piece of paper. He sits in the chair and after a minute his curiosity overcomes him. He picks up the black book and lifts the piece of paper off of it. The paper is a note written on the back of an invoice sheet. The note is addressed to him.
John,
Don't come back out until you've finished chapter two.
-SH.
John chuckles once and runs his hand over the strange circular inscription on the cover. He turns the book on its side and reads the spine. Robopocalypse? He's never heard of it. It doesn't seem like something he would normally read. But he wants to read it, because Sherlock left it there for him.
After about ten minutes alone Sherlock sees a woman with black hair and bright red lipstick walk into the shop. She has a sweater zipped up over her black t-shirt. She strides over to the register.
"It's kind of ironic for someone who's asexual to be working at a sex shop, don't you think?" Sherlock says by way of greeting, softly so that none of the other customers can hear.
"What? How did you know?"
"That you work at the sex shop next door or that you're asexual?"
"Both," she says, one of the corners of her mouth lifting slightly, then falling so rapidly it could have been just a twitch.
"Well, as for the sex shop, I can see the outline of a name tag through your sweater. It's hot outside, so you're wearing the sweater to hide the logo on your shirt that betrays where you work. You aren't sweating much so I know you couldn't have worn the sweater far. There's only one potentially embarrassing place to work within a one block radius that has red in its logo - which I can see partially poking through the top of your sweater - the Love Shop next door. And I know you're asexual because you're wearing two bracelets. One of them is composed of the colours of the asexual pride flag. Tell me, is Irene your name or the name of your partner?"
The woman looks down at the bracelet on her left wrist as if she had forgotten it was there. The name Irene is engraved in a small plaque affixed to the bracelet.
"It's my name," she says, "my girlfriend's name is Elizabeth."
"Right. So what would you like to order? Something cold, I'd wager, seeing as the Love Shop doesn't have air-conditioning. Tell me, your medical alert bracelet, is it for an allergy?" She nods, her mouth hanging slightly open, "Of milk, not to nuts. You had a peanut butter and jam sandwich for lunch, I can smell it faintly on your beath. After the jam you probably won't want anything with fruits, so a vanilla bean frap made with soy milk it is, then."
"Correct, wow."
"What size?"
"Small."
"Of course. You've never been here before and don't want to risk a larger size in case we suck."
She blushes slightly. After paying, she drops a quarter in the tip jar and sits at a table close to the counter.
He watches her take a sip. After she swallows, she turns to him and smiles. I guess we don't suck. Sherlock wouldn't know. All he drinks is the plain coffee and espresso. Molly says he has a caffeine problem and limits him to three drinks a shift 'for his own good', she says.
"How do you like the book so far?" Sherlock asks as he hears John's distinctive gait approach from behind.
"Can I borrow it?" John asks.
"Sure," Sherlock says, still staring at Irene. He sees her left hand go to her throat as she swallows repeatedly. She drops her drink and it falls on its side and rolls off the table.
"Oh no, I guess one of us should clean that up," John says.
Sherlock leaps around the counter and rushes to Irene.
"It's not that urgent. There's no need to run" John calls after Sherlock before he realizes something is wrong.
"Where's your epipen?" Sherlock shouts from in front of her.
She points towards the door.
Sherlock runs out of it and into the shop next door. The clerk behind the counter's eyes dart up from attaching pricing labels to boxes of red dildos.
"Where's Irene's bag?" Sherlock shouts at them.
They just stare at him, label-maker in hand, eyes wide and unblinking.
"She's having an allergic reaction. I need the epipen from her bag!"
The clerk raises their free hand and points to the storeroom in the back.
He darts into the room. There's two bags there. Which one is hers? One has a pride pin on it. Is that Irene's? No way to be sure. He opens them both. Reaching into the one with the pride pin he finds a wallet. Inside is the ID of the blue-haired clerk. Not Irene's. He slings the other bag, a purse, over his shoulder and sprints back to the coffee shop.
John is kneeling by the woman, his cane lying in the puddle of vanilla frap, a phone pressed to his ear.
Sherlock upends the purse, dumping its contents onto the floor
John is reading the information from her medical alert bracelet to a 9-1-1 operator.
"Her epipen? I don't know." John says.
Sherlock holds it up.
"Oh, here it is."
Sherlock begins to read the instructions but John yanks it from him with his free hand. He shifts the phone to his elbow and removes the blue cap in one swift, fluid motion, then jabs the orange end into Irene's thigh through her black pants.
A few seconds later Irene starts gasping in lungfuls of air, and John pulls the epipen away.
"Yes, I gave it to her. She can breathe now. How far are you away? Two minutes? Okay."
A little over three minutes later the ambulance arrives to take Irene to the hospital. After it pulls away Molly bursts in through the door.
"What happened?" she shouts. Not angry; frightened. "Is anyone hurt?"
"No, a customer had an allergic reaction, but she'll be fine," John says and Molly's face blanches.
"I know I put soy milk in her drink."
They both turn to Sherlock.
"She's allergic to dairy but I know I used soy milk."
"Maybe you made a mistake," John suggests.
"No, I didn't," Sherlock says.
"Maybe there was cross-contamination," Molly this time, "Like you accidentally mixed the drink in the dairy mixer instead of the non-dairy one. You have to be more careful. Let's hope she doesn't sue us."
"No, that's not it either!" Sherlock shouts. The few customers that weren't already staring at them before are now. "There's something going on here and I'm going to figure out what it is." He stalks off to the back and comes out a minute later with a mop and bucket.
John and Molly are on the ground, picking up the Irene's belongings and throwing them haphazardly into her purse.
Sherlock gets to work mopping. John gets up with a huff and makes his way back behind the counter and Molly leans against it, hands on her hips.
Just as Sherlock is finishing up mopping, the bell above the door chimes and Jim Moriarty walks in.
"Hey, Sherlock," he says, not yet seeing Molly.
"Moriarty," Sherlock replies, saying his name as if it were a curse.
"Honey!" Molly says, her voice sticky with it.
"Sweetie!" Moriarty goes over and pulls her into a hug, "I found your keys," he announces as he releases her, holding them out in front of her.
She snatches them from him.
"Oh my gosh! Thank you, Jim," she says, placing her free hand on his chest, "Mrs. Hudson was not pleased when I had to wake her up this morning to let me in. Where did you find them?"
"Under my bed. God knows how they got there."
Molly giggles as if what he'd said was a joke.
"Hey, while you're here, why don't we go out to lunch? Let me just go get my purse."
"Alright," Moriarty said, his smile faltering, but Molly doesn't notice; she's already turned away.
Sherlock sticks the mop back in the bucket then wheels it towards Moriarty, closer than necessary. He stops right next to him, their shoulders almost touching.
"I know it was you," Sherlock says without looking at him, then he wheels the bucket off towards the restroom.