A/N - Here's chapter one of a new chapter fic I've been working on. More chapters will be posted depending on feedback! Un-beta'd and un-Brit-picked.
Warning(s) - Minor character death(s), semi-detailed description of crime scene(s), eventual Johnlock.
"I'm off to visit Sarah." John called, tugging and smoothing out his beige jumper while looking at his flatmate.
"You'll be back before the night ends." Sherlock stated simply, not tearing his eyes from the smiley face on the wall. Before John could even open his mouth to make any sort of protest, the sociopath was waving him off as if his silent words were breaking his concentration. Though, knowing Sherlock, that was probably true.
Muttering under his breath and pulling on his jacket, he paused at the bottom landing to address Mrs. Hudson that he was leaving.
"Do try and make sure he doesn't get himself into too much trouble, Mrs. Hudson, I'll be back late."
"Not his babysitter!" She replied, wagging a finger at him and ushering him out of the doorway. The all too common reply made him laugh, sending her a grin before rushing out of the building.
It was nippy out, but not as chilly as he thought it would be. Even though the clouds looking foreboding and threatening heavy rain, it was relatively easy to hail a cab. Less than fifteen minutes later, he was getting out in front of a tall building, and less than three minutes later he was knocking on the door of his girlfriends flat.
Being with her made him forget all of the troubles that Sherlock piled onto his shoulders. There were never talks about dead bodies or poisons or offhand comments about Donovan and Anderson were sleeping together still. It was warm in her flat- the heat hadn't been turned off because the owner didn't forget to pay the bill. There weren't experiments littering every inch of the place, and there wasn't a grotesque body part anywhere in sight.
Shoes kicked off at the door, jacket slung over one of the pristine pastel couches, a happy couple making small talk at the table while sipping tea. Laughter and smiles and a comfortable silence that had very little chance of being interrupted by a bombing.
This is what life was supposed to be on a regular basis, John knew it. He loved the thrill of the chase, but it was so utterly pleasant to get a break sometimes. Sherlock would call it dull, pedestrian, domestic. John would call it the life of a normal human being.
"-And then, then she said that the dog had done it!" Sarah giggled, shaking her head. "Like a dog would go out and buy a pregnancy test? It was the worst excuse possible!"
"What was she thinking?" Laughter bubbled up again, causing wide smiles and crinkled eyes.
John beamed, shaking his head and listening to the gossip. He could listen to her talk for ages. Sagging slightly in his chair and leaning back to stretch his legs out in front of him, he spotted something curious on the countertop behind his girlfriend. She kept rattling on about how everyone had already known that the girl was cheating and how her husband was the last to find out, when he sat up and frowned.
"There are two wine glasses there," It was a plain and simple state of fact. Two wine glasses with tiny splotches of red still left at the bottom. Sarah was always clean, always on top of any sort of mess left in her own flat. "When did you have wine?" He was really more curious about whom she had wine with, but he left that comment out for just a moment.
"What? Oh, those!" She followed his gaze, opening and closing her mouth just once before shaking her head and turning back to her boyfriend. "I had a visitor earlier, I must have left those out by mistake."
"Wine? It's just past dinner, a little early for wine." What was meant as an offhand comment was unfortunately taken the wrong way by the young lady, who huffed quietly.
"He was just a friend, John! He didn't feel like tea, and we agreed on wine, that's all that happened." Normally he'd shrug it off, continue on asking about the pregnant girl and her affair, but this situation was coming off slightly less than normal. Sarah was never this defensive, and she didn't seem to want to make eye contact with him anymore.
"I only mentioned that it was a bit early for wine, Sarah, why are you getting defensive?" The second he finished speaking, John knew that he had said the wrong thing. Stupid, stupid, he had been spending way too much time around Sherlock.
"Defensive! You're the one always out and about with that Sherlock, and I never question a moment of it, even when you blow off our dates for him! I have wine with one guy and now I'm in the wrong? You've got to be bloody joking with me!" She huffed again, louder this time, crossing her arms over her chest and pursing her lips.
"Sherlock and I work together, and we aren't off having a bit of wine in the middle of the day! We're around dead bodies and madmen and Yarders!"
Both of their voices were rising at this point, frustrated with each other over absolutely nothing. He felt perfectly normally having a row with a chip 'n bit machine, but having one with his girlfriend? John couldn't be any more furious at her suggestions and sneers. If there was nothing wrong with solving cases with his flatmate, then why couldn't she have wine with a man that she refused to name?
It was all fair, in her mind.
Having a drink with a man that wasn't her boyfriend wasn't close to comparing to working a case in the most insane hours of the night.
After tossing his teacup a little too hard into the sink, (it had only split down one side, but still got the point across that their row had gotten too heated) John stood dead still in the middle of the kitchen with his girlfriend still in her seat, sniffling and rubbing her eyes.
Christ, he was making her cry, all because he couldn't control his stupid mouth.
"Sarah..." Well, he bloody screwed up this night. "I'm sorry, I'm just a bit ticked. You're allowed to have a spot with your friends, even if it's before dinner. I didn't mean to be an arse."
And that was a good enough apology for Sarah.
"You're a berk sometimes, John Watson."
And that was a good enough apology for John.
It took a few minutes of awkward silence for John to ask about the pregnant girl's husband. He wanted things to reverse, he wished he could control time so he could go back and think before he spoke.
Sherlock was probably going to be right, after all. A row and a broken mug definitely didn't fit into his plans of staying overnight.
After an hour, his mind cluttered with too much gossip to comprehend, he had fixed his mistake and was quiet obviously going to get on Sarah's good side.
"So Jean, she said that her son had never done it before, but it came out the next day that he had been arrested for it twice already!" Replying with the appropriate responses for all of the information that Sarah was pouring out, the sun was falling and the sky outside was getting darker by the minute- and the end of that story is when the weather took a turn for the worse.
"Oh, bugger, John, the rain! They said it would storm, but it wasn't supposed to hit until tomorrow!" Fussing about and peeking out the window, the storm barreled down hard and loud. "You've got to stay, you can't go out into that!"
Thirty minutes later, the two of them were heading to the bedroom for more than just a kip.
"Mm, Doctor Watson, you do so well at making me forget I was mad at you not just a few hours ago." The slender girl rested her head on her boyfriend's bare chest, squirming against him to get comfortable.
"That's my job, isn't it?" He chuckled, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her body closer to his. Sarah made a pleased sound, drawing slowly on his chest and smiling up at him. "I knew there was a reason you kept me around."
Content and warm and covered by a thin sheet that John had grabbed from the heap on the floor, they were humming with post-pleasure happiness, all smiles and sighs now. It was reassuring that he was so good he could get her to forgive him for breaking one of her mugs and accusing her of getting too friendly with another man.
There was nothing left to say, so they simply rolled onto their sides, John's arm tucked tightly around her waist with his body pressed up against her back. Completely unaware of the time or how the storm was, the couple fell asleep wrapped in each other, blissful and quiet.
Hours and hours passed by before the sun began peeking through the shades on the window from the girl's side of the bed. It trickled across the floor and the two bodies in the bed, warm and pale. Still early in the morning, far too early for a phone to be ringing so loudly.
Grumbling and nearly falling off the bed, John scoured the floor with his fingers until he felt his trousers. There was no need to open his eyes, he could easily guess who would call at such a ridiculous hour. He hurried to answer, not wanting to wake up his girlfriend with the insistent sound from his mobile.
"Sherlock," Grunting and rubbing at his eyes, he sighed and stayed half bent off the bed, fully prepared to drop the phone and go back to sleep if the call was pointless. "What do you want?"
"Have you just woken up? Sleeping is so dull! Hurry and rush back to the flat, Lestrade says there a case that Anderson can't sort out. It'll be a pleasure showing him how utterly useless he is." From the sounds of it, Sherlock hadn't slept at all, and even now, he was playing the violin while on his mobile.
"Bloody hell, Sherlock, what hour is it? Can't this wait for a few?" Part of him just wanted to hang up and return the call later, when there were more than a handful of hours under his belt.
"John! I need my doctor!" He could practically hear the roll of the eyes on the other end of the line. "You are my doctor, are you not?"
"A doctor, yes. Your doctor, no. Your flatmate who needs to sleep like a normal human, absolutely. Bugger off."
More sounds on the other end of the line and a falter in the music that was being played; Sherlock was getting frustrated and grumpy, but at this point, John didn't care much. It was actually quite fun ticking off his friend.
"God forbid I have a normal life," John muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "Fine, Sherlock, fine."
Pulling himself up onto the bed properly and hitching open his eyes, he squinted and wrinkled his nose at the odd smell.
"Hold on a mo' Sherlock," Taking the mobile from his ear and adjusting to the light of the room, he blinked over and over, staring at his girlfriend on the bed next to him. Something was definitely wrong, but his mind had to be playing tricks on him. The smell and the coloring all over, he recognised it. It was too familiar.
As soon as his senses and eyes caught up with his brain, there was an ear-shattering scream in the small room. The scream came from John himself, and he shoved himself so hard away from the sight that he fell off the bed and knocked into the floor beside it.
His blood curdled, his eyes stared unseeing, and his entire body went rigid.
"John! John Watson!"
The voice brought him out of his stupor and he slowly brought the phone back up to his ear. It didn't matter if he was hearing right or smelling right or feeling right, all he wanted to know is if his bloody line of vision was right.
"John, what the hell are you screaming about?"
John's hand pointed up to the bed, shaking worse than it had in his entire military career.
"Speak up, John, stop pointing, I can't see it!"
Sherlock was getting even more frustrated and antsy, completely thrown off course by hearing the screams over the other end of the line. His friend was babbling and making no sense at all; he couldn't get a single proper answer out of him for a good two minutes.
"S-Sherlock... Sherlock!" John's voice was cracking, a mixture of the early morning rise and the pure shock that was riveting throughout his body. "Sherlock, she's dead! Sarah's dead!"