Notes: My first Sherlock fiction. I had to get this out of my head! It stopped me getting to sleep last night.
Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock. Clearly.
Warnings: SPOILERS! For Season 2 Episode 3: The Reichenbach Fall
Word count: 1,557
Title: Brilliant
When the man had arrived at the flat John had wanted to punch him. He would have under other circumstances, but put it down to shock that he couldn't at this moment. Instead he just opened the door wider and gestured the tall man in with a muttered 'Wouldn't do to have a supposedly dead man remain standing outside my front door'. The taller man strode into the living room and stood in the middle turning full circle to view the room. John followed him in but didn't sit down either; even if his legs did feel a bit shaky.
The lanky man turned to him, perfectly calm 'You can tell it's your girlfriend that handles the decorating in here. No offence but it would have been very boring and empty if it had just been left to you. Though it's obvious that the decoration of the room has been left to a female.'
There was a brief silence. 'You were dead, Sherlock. I saw you fall with my own eyes. Seen your body covered with blood and in the morgue. Mycroft thought it might be good for me to see the body too. Make sure I knew for sure that you were dead.'
Sherlock made a familiar face, one that John recognised him as doing when he realised he'd done something rude to someone else and realised that social protocol demanded that he apologise. 'I am sorry, John. However it was for your own safety that you had to believe I was dead.'
John's face was no longer blank, his eyes flashed with his anger and his when he spoke his voice was just a little too loud for a thin walled flat 'My own safety? What from, the newspapers? Oh they had a field day, but I'm sure you know that, since you were alive to read them! The worst bit was that not a single person would listen to me when I told them that the papers were full of lies!' John didn't count Mrs Hudson or Lestrade. They knew Sherlock and already assumed the headlines were nothing but lies.
Sherlock's face pinched slightly. 'I never lied to you, John. I'm a fraud. As my friend I thought you should be the first to learn the truth before I jumped.' John snorted and had to look away from Sherlock. 'After all, there were was a slight chance that my plan would go wrong and I would actually die.' There was a long pause. 'Surely you know that I wouldn't lie to my best…' he sighed, 'my only friend.'
'Oh, but I know you were lying to me. It's obvious' John stated through thinned lips as he stopped his pacing. Sherlock only raised his eyebrows slightly.
'Would you care to enlighten me? What makes you so sure that I wasn't telling the truth? You know it makes much more sense,' the taller man began to walk around his companion. 'How would I have known so much about you without researching you beforehand? How come every one of our big cases ultimately involved Jim Moriarty? How did I always know so much about those cases and solve them right at the last minute? Unless, I was involved in those cases.' By this point he hand walked right around John and stopped, once again, facing him.
John stared at him and gritted his teeth together briefly before talking. 'Well, for one thing, you told me you were committing suicide. Even had me watch it, as you no doubt remember.' His face screwed up in anger. 'Thanks for that, by the way. Lovely going away present,' he shook his head swiftly as Sherlock went to talk 'Anyway, what I mean with that is that you clearly lied about dying; since you're standing right in front of me.'
'A one off thing I –'
'I'm not finished Sherlock!' John's face pinched in anger again. Sherlock had wanted answers to his questions, he would get them. He'd had years to think of the answers. He'd had to think of them. It was the only way to have some hope that his best friend hadn't lied to him. 'You also told me, that you researched me. But…' He shook his head again but this time with a hint of a smile 'But you didn't know I was going to be there.'
'Yes, I did, it –'
'Quit interrupting!' Sherlock's face showed some mild surprise as he closed his mouth. 'And no, you didn't. You had no way of knowing that I'd bump into Mike and mention that I needed a place to stay,'
Once again Sherlock opened his mouth to comment, this time he was interrupted before he could begin speaking. 'I know what you're going to say, "Mike text me" but he didn't! When I bumped into him I didn't see him pull out his phone at all. It would've been easy to see as we just had coffee in the park. I was next to him the entire time; there were no tables to hide a sneaky text under as we sat on the bench.' He paused for a second before shrugging slightly, 'I suppose he could have text you from in his pocket but I remember that he was never the best one for technology, Mike.' A slightly bigger smile took its place on his face. 'He's the kind of person who would really have needed to see his phone to remember what menu to go on, and the like. Then, with him being a…' John paused for a second, clearly floundering for a word before tilting his head to the side and accepting what he clearly felt was the best phrase he could come up with in a brief space of time couldn't look Sherlock in the eye as he said his next few words, obviously feeling they were a bit harsh 'being a bigger bloke,' he slowly raised his eyes back to the taller mans 'he wouldn't have been able to text easily with his thumbs without being able to see exactly what he was pressing. Unless he wanted to send you gibberish. Then, when we got to Bart's he took of his coat and left his phone in it. You remember don't you?'
This time he was clearly letting Sherlock have a say. 'Of course I remember.' He almost looked shocked at having to confirm that he remembered something to the man in front of him. 'I asked to borrow his phone as mine had no signal but he said he'd left it in his other coat. So you let me borrow yours.'
'Yeah, must've left it in his outdoor coat. So that rules out any way of you knowing that I was going to turn up at Bart's and therefore no way of you managing to do research on me before I got there.' John couldn't stop a slightly smug look from passing across his face before schooling his features into a more neutral position. 'That only leaves the conclusion that you figured out everything you did about me on your own, the way you said you did before. The tan lines, my posture, hair and all that.'
John shifted slightly in the silence that followed. He doubted Sherlock had changed that much in three years, he must be about to prove him wrong as usual. He decided to continue with one other thought that had passed through his head in the time his friend had been away before he started belittling his observations. 'Of course, there's also Harry.' He paused again for a second to see if Sherlock would continue John's train of thought. Surely he knew where he was going with this. However he just looked at him with an expectant expression, clearly waiting on John to continue.
'When you first mentioned Harry you always assumed she was my brother, just because of the name. If you had done research on me, like you say you had, you would've known she was my sister. I've got photos tagged of her on my Facebook page, so you would've already known and therefore you would have mentioned her as a sister from the start. You honestly didn't know Harry was short for Harriet.' John noticed Sherlock going to open his mouth and resumed speaking again quickly. 'And don't think that I'll accept that you said that just to throw me off that you were lying! I know you, Sherlock. You wouldn't have been able to pretend to get that wrong just to throw me off the scent. You're a show off. You need to show that you figured out everything about everything on your own. You were genuinely annoyed at yourself for not figuring out Harry was a girl. It was easy to tell.'
By now John had ran out of things to say to prove Sherlock wrong. So he just gritted his teeth once more and stared at his friend waiting for an answer. He was fairly certain he was right but of course, he had thought that before just to have been proven wrong by the lanky man in front of him. When Sherlock finally did open his mouth to speak John never expected the words that escaped him.
'Brilliant.' Sherlock paused, a small smile coming across his face. 'That was… brilliant.'