John slammed the door behind him, hoping the loud noise would at least inspire Sherlock to look up from where he sat, but he didn't even bother a glance, staying absorbed in the newspaper. John stomped up to his chair and snatched the newspaper away. "Brilliant, this has got to be a record! We should really start a tally on the wall next to your bloody gunshot smiley face!"
Sherlock looked up at him calmly, feigning ignorance. "I assure you I don't know what you're talking about."
John gripped the arms of Sherlock's chair, leaning in toward him. "You killed Ruby's dog! It's dead, Sherlock!"
Sherlock stood up, irritably brushing John off. "It wasn't intentional. I needed a Bichon Frise and Ruby had one readily available."
"Why on earth did you need a Bichon Frise?!"
"For an experiment, which, I'll have you know, saved a man's life. Where's that tea I made?"
John looked at the mantel, where a mug of congealing cold tea was sitting, next to a large jar of rat poison. Maybe he should just move out. He could only vaguely remember the days where things were sane. Sane and boring, a small voice in John's head reminded him. He shoved the thought away angrily. "Well, now the dog's dead and Ruby's refusing to talk to me. Eleven. I think this is eleven women that have sent me packing, due in some way to you."
"Oh, John, that's hardly fair. I never even met that neurotic secretary." Sherlock scratched his head, looking absently around the kitchen. It was nearing three in the afternoon, but he was still lounging around in a bathrobe and pyjamas.
John took a deep breath. He would not punch Sherlock. He would talk this out rationally. "The point is, could you lay off a bit? If you're never going to approve of any of the women I date, keep out of it!"
"It's not my fault you date dull women," Sherlock said, opening the spice cabinet. "Do we have any cumin?"
"What on earth d'you—I don't date dull women! None of them is ever going to live up to the Glorious Intellect of Sherlock Holmes, you know. One genius is more than enough to deal with." Sherlock smiled a bit at this.
"Where's that tea?" Sherlock muttered.
John impatiently grabbed the mug. He didn't feel as if they'd resolved the conversation quite in the way he wanted, but he had gotten his point across, at the very least. John slid the mug across the counter to Sherlock a bit too vigorously. Sherlock fumbled to catch it a second too late and it tipped and spilled down his shirt.
"God—sorry," John mumbled, looking for a dishrag.
Sherlock shrugged off his robe and peeled off the wet shirt, then looked anxiously in the mug. "Thank God, there's some left."
John felt himself redden as Sherlock peeled off his shirt. Why? There was nothing to be embarrassed about. Still, he could feel his ears growing hot. He averted his eyes and snatched up the newspaper he'd just wrenched away from Sherlock, then settled in his chair. He could hear Sherlock in the kitchen, stirring something. Cumin in the cold tea, most bloody likely. He glanced up at Sherlock a couple times, his foot jiggling.
"Aren't you going to put a shirt on?"
Sherlock looked down at himself. "Why?"
"It just…it seems uncomfortable. Aren't you cold?"
"No. I'm not uncomfortable, John." Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him. What an asshole. "Are you?"
"No! Do what you want. Forget it." John buried his face in the newspaper again, flustered. The sight of his flatmate shirtless shouldn't bother him. And it wasn't that that bothered him. It was the fact that John couldn't help but glance up every now and then and notice and admire the lines of Sherlock's torso, the curve of bone at his hips, the small of his back, how pale he was—there was nothing wrong with noticing, John told himself.
The more he thought about it, though, the more flustered he became, and found that he couldn't retain any words he was reading in the paper.
He could hear Sherlock sitting across from him, and he could smell the cumin and tea quite strongly now. "I hope you're not going to drink that," John said from behind the paper.
"Not unless it becomes necessary. It's an experiment I've had on the backburner for a while. I need something so I don't completely languish away in stagnation."
John snorted at his overdramatic take on the recent lag in cases and scanned the paper. "Another police disappearance. That's…three this month?" He looked up from the paper expectantly.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Oh, that's still going on? Isn't it obvious? They're all dirty cops. They're getting paid to disappear. Dull."
John turned back to the paper, disappointed. He wanted a case as much as Sherlock did, otherwise he was stuck arguing about dead dogs and spilling tea.
When the buzz came at the door, John leapt up. "Client?" He flung open the door to the flat. "For God's sake, Sherlock, put a shirt on!"
John returned with an elderly gentleman, who looked around the flat warily before sitting in the chair John offered him.
"Sherlock?"
Sherlock returned fully dressed; how he'd managed it so fast was beyond John. "This is Duncan—what was your last name?"
"Reynolds, young man. The second. So you're Sherlock Holmes," he said, looking up.
Sherlock paced in front of him. "My reputation precedes me," he said, a bit smugly, John thought.
"I hear you're the best, which is why I came to you. You're going to tell me I'm crazy…but I swear I'm not."
"You don't display any signs of mental illness," Sherlock said, sitting across from him, steepling his fingers. John pulled up a chair next to them, grabbing a spare bit of paper to make notes; Sherlock never bothered with such "trivialities," but John found notes helpful.
"That's a compliment, coming from him," John assured Duncan. "Go on, it's all right."
Duncan looked anxiously between the two men. "I have to tell you, first, about when I was a boy during the Blitz. The air raid sirens went off while I was delivering newspapers—I was late getting home, and the streets were completely empty. Except for one man, running down the street. He waved at me and smiled, like nothing was wrong. I was terrified that, somehow, he was a Nazi, but he wasn't dressed like a soldier—anyway, he grabbed my hand and told me to run and to not turn around. I don't know what was chasing us, I only caught glimpses…but I think that man saved my life. I got home and he disappeared. Then, last week, I saw the man again. I knew it was him, he even had the same outfit on. And he hadn't aged at all!"
John frowned and looked up from his notes. The man was completely in earnest, and Sherlock was leaning forward, listening with interest.
"He never told me his name or anything…but I need to know how this is possible. That's why I'm hiring you," Duncan finished, swallowing.
John bit back a laugh. It was ludicrous; a man's faulty memory, surely. He waited for Sherlock to turn the man away, but Sherlock interlaced his fingers and asked, "How old were you during the Blitz?"
"Eleven. And there's one more thing: when I saw him last week, he'd just stepped out of this blue police box: the old-fashioned kind that you don't see any more…I don't know if that's useful at all…"
"A police call box? Aren't those all torn down now?" John asked.
"Yes, decommissioned and torn down years ago! I hadn't seen one in ages," Duncan said.
Sherlock sat back in his chair. "I'll take the case."
John raised his eyebrows, but Duncan looked relieved. "Th-thank you! Oh, thank you, sir!"
"We'll need a description of him, as accurate as you can make it," Sherlock said.
Duncan began rattling one off. "He had a ridiculous haircut, all floppy on one side, and brown. Youngish, looked to be in his late twenties both then and now. His face was all forehead and chin, and deep-set eyes. Bowtie, tweed jacket, very thin trousers, funny little boots and red braces. And he liked to talk very, very fast…does that help?"
"Not in the slightest. Not now anyway. Where were you when you saw this 'police box'?"
"Near Portobello Road, on some side street close to the park. And the box was just…there on the sidewalk."
Sherlock frowned. "There's not a police box on Portobello Road."
"I know! But there was last week. Came out of nowhere, it did. And disappeared just as suddenly! I went back a few hours later and it was gone."
"Did you get a photograph of it?" Sherlock asked.
Duncan shook his head mournfully. "Why would somebody put a box on the sidewalk and move it a couple hours later?"
"Did you see the box at all that night of the Blitz?" John asked. As absurd as the story was, he found himself becoming engrossed.
Duncan scrunched up his eyes. "Not that I recall. It wasn't such an unusual sight back then. They were all over. There might've been one…"
"You said you 'caught glimpses' of what was chasing you. Describe it."
"Do you have any paper? It might be easier if I drew it for you."
John tore a sheet of paper from his notebook and passed over, then watched as the old man sketched out a creature with tusks and flat, glassy eyes. It was a good drawing, but the creature looked like some fantastical monster. As Duncan drew, he explained, "It was eight feet tall, more or less? The skin, here and around here, was grayish, with blue patches here…there was a sort of sheen to the skin."
John raised his eyebrows at Sherlock. "That looks like some kind of…alien."
"But that's what I saw," Duncan insisted. "I know I did."
John thought back to the "hound" from Baskerville. They'd had experience with scary beasts people "saw" before.
"Thank you," Sherlock said after a moment's pause. "Leave your information with John. We'll be in touch." He rose, taking the drawing, and without a backwards glance disappeared to his room.
"He does that," John said apologetically. "But don't worry, if Sherlock's taken your case, he'll solve it. You're in good hands."
Once John had collected Duncan's contact information and sent him on his way, he knocked on Sherlock's bedroom door, but Sherlock burst it open and strode past him before he could finished knocking.
"Aliens! Finally, something fun to do!" He looked back at John as if noticing him for the first time. "Did you want something."
"Yes. Aliens. Aliens, Sherlock. You can't think…I mean obviously this man is a bit mad, right?"
"No—no he's not. People who are mad don't even consider the posiblity that they're mad. This—OH!" he spun and clapped his hands. "THIS will be fun. Aliens? Mystery boxes? Unaging, bow-tie wearing immortals? Christmas!"
"And you've gone round the bend now too—brilliant. I'll visit you at the asylum."
"Don't be foolish—you'll be admitted right along with me!" He tossed John his coat. "Come on John! There are aliens to catch!"