1. Broken
Sherlock got the call mid afternoon, which wasn't unusual, of course-but the way he reacted to the call was.
John liked to think he had been living with Sherlock long enough to tell when the detective reacted differently than usual (the detective in question would probably scoff at this idea), and so he was curious when Sherlock's expression changed ever so subtly during the call, his eyebrows furrowing just the smallest bit.
"What is it?" John asked when Sherlock had hung up.
Sherlock actually hesitated, a slight frown curving his lips. "Murder."
"Yes, I understood that, thank you. So, where is it?"
"What?" Sherlock asked distractedly after a moment's silence.
"Where is it?" John repeated again, studying his friend curiously.
"Oh." Sherlock blinked once, glancing at John once before immediately looking away. "Uh, you know what, John, you can just stay home this time, no need to come with." Sherlock said, his voice light and far too casual.
"No need to come with-? Sherlock, what's going on?"
"Nothing." Sherlock was already heading for his coat, tying his scarf around his neck. "I don't need your assistance today, I am perfectly capable-"
"What the h-"
"Don't wait up."
"Sherlock-"
"Don't wait up."
Sherlock made his exit, slamming the door behind him.
John's eyebrow furrowed, still trying to process what had just happened. True, Sherlock never really invited John to come along, by now it was just an unspoken agreement between them that the doctor would accompany the detective to each crime scene, it was normal. But Sherlock actually dissuading John from coming? That wasn't normal. There had to be something odd about the case, but what?
Well, John wasn't just going to sit here and wait around for Sherlock to come back-he had to see for himself. He stood up and stretched, working out the kinks in his neck from sitting so long. He walked to the door, pulling his coat from the rack as he went.
Sherlock was wrong if he thought John was just going to let this go.
As he left the flat, he texted Lestrade.
Sherlock took off without telling me where the crime scene was.
-JW
He hailed a taxi, and as he got into the car he got a reply from Lestrade, which contained the address of the crime scene.
John gave the address to the cabbie, and as they drove off, a nagging, uncomfortable feeling in the back of his mind, asking him if it was really a good idea to interfere. He shook it off; Sherlock was probably being unnecessarily mysterious just because he was bored, and this wouldn't be the first time he had done that either.
John arrived at the crime scene about ten minutes later, which was in an alley behind an old, rundown row of buildings.
The body, a middle aged, dark haired man in a dirty business suit, lay on his back on the ground, a bloody bullet hole in his forehead, his eyes staring vacantly at the sky. Lestrade and Donovan were standing a few feet away from the body, and Sherlock was kneeling beside it, his back facing John.
"We ran his ID," Lestrade was saying. "His name was-"
"Luke Fleming," Sherlock interrupted. "40 years of age, unmarried, comes from a rich family, all deceased except for the father."
Lestrade's mouth dropped. "How would you know all that? You've barely looked at him since you got here!"
"Don't worry about how I know," Sherlock snapped, glaring up at Lestrade. "I just know, isn't that enough?"
John raised a skeptical eyebrow. Sherlock never passed up a chance to display his intellectual prowess and make everyone else feel like dolts, the detective was a complete show-off.
"You're right about all that, Sherlock, but how did you know?" Lestrade asked.
Sherlock huffed irritably and stood up, pulling his gloves back on. "He ate at an Italian restaurant before he died, and was followed here by his murderer." Before Lestrade could ask how again, Sherlock continued. "He has a receipt in his left pocket, and the restaurant in question is in that direction," he said, pointing to the right, and stepping in front of the body's feet. "He was heading in the other direction when the murderer got his attention, and when he turned around to see he was shot." John could now see Sherlock from the side, and he looked almost angry. Was he angry at the murderer? Did this man mean something to him? Then John noticed that he was actually glaring at the dead man himself, and that crushed his former, fleeting suspicions. Sherlock clearly had no kind feelings for the dead man at his feet. He could almost hear what Sherlock wanted to say-I wish I had done this myself.
It was then Sherlock noticed John's presence. He swore loudly, whirling around to face John. "What are you doing here?" Sherlock demanded to know. "I thought I told you not to come!"
Donovan actually chortled a bit when John took a hasty step backwards. Yes, he should have not interfered, and suddenly for some reason was not able to think of any logical reasons why he was there. I thought you might need me was certainly a stupid excuse, Sherlock didn't actually need John at any crime scene. I wanted to see what you were up to wasn't a very good reason either, in fact, it bordered on just plain creepy. So, instead, John settled for a more intelligent approach.
"I...I...um..."
"Go home, John," Sherlock said darkly. "Don't make me ask again."
John turned on his heel and quickly made his escape, face burning red, feeling the eyes of all Scotland Yard watching him as he left. John groaned inwardly as he hailed another cab. He was a bloody soldier, for goodness' sake, he should have known better, should have had a plan. Or, at least, not have let the detective fluster him so easily. What was up with that? He supposed it was because the detective was acting so strangely, being so unpredictable, John didn't know what to expect, didn't know how to act around this odd new side of Sherlock. Well, John reasoned, the detective would have to come home eventually, and the doctor would get a second chance.
###
It was an hour later when Sherlock finally came back to the flat-John had been ready to get the detective to come clean, but Sherlock had walked in, promptly told John to shut up, and went straight to the kitchen. A few minutes later, an unpleasant odor floated in from the kitchen. John wanted to complain but resisted the urge, Sherlock would have ignored him anyways.
The rest of the week went just as smoothly. Sherlock was overly agitated, irritable and generally not that fun to live with-basically, he was exhibiting all his unpleasant qualities at once times one hundred. By the second day, John had lost count of how many times he would have liked to wring the detective's neck (or shoot him and dump him in the nearest river, it depended on his mood). It was true, usually John wanted to wring his flatmate's neck several times a day anyways, but this was just pushing it to the extreme. Soon Sherlock started shutting himself up in his room and not coming out for hours. That was fine by John, Sherlock was driving him absolutely mad.
Besides being stupidly irritating, Sherlock continued to act strangely. He was unusually focused on this Fleming case, one that John had learned was the kind he would usually dismiss as just a six or a seven, and sixes and sevens Sherlock usually moved past or just neglected because they were "boring", but not this time. He was spending every spare second he had on it, even turning down what John thought sounded like a more interesting case, a man who had been murdered in four different ways.
"Can't, Lestrade, sorry," Sherlock had said curtly to the detective inspector, who had actually come to the flat to fetch him.
"What do you mean, you can't?" Lestrade demanded, looking flabbergasted.
"Too much to do," said Sherlock simply, already waving him away.
Lestrade laughed. "You mean the Fleming case? Sherlock, really, I'm happy to see that you're so-er, dedicated to it, but that's not really what we need-"
"And as usual, Inspector, I don't much care what you need," Sherlock replied coldly. "I told you, I am busy and I am not interested. Now go."
Lestrade glanced over at John disbelievingly, and John, unsure of what to say, just shrugged with an apologetic expression. He couldn't explain this any more than the inspector could. The detective was already walking away. "Goodbye, Lestrade. I trust you can handle this one on your own. If not-well.." Sherlock stopped, but didn't turn around. "Well, you'll be doing it on your own."
Lestrade didn't protest, his confused expression changing to one of suspicion.
"I'll-I'll try to see if I can-" John began, but the inspector cut him off.
"No, leave it. If he doesn't want to come, don't try to make him come." He moved to leave, then thought better of it, turning back to John. "Keep an eye on him," Lestrade said quietly. "I haven't seen him like this since-you know."
"Oh…" John breathed, understanding. Since his drug days. "Right. I will."
"Good. I'll be in touch." Lestrade gave him what seemed like a sympathetic look, then left.
"Sherlock," John called after the detective, who was heading for the mantelpiece. "Why didn't you take the case-?"
"Don't talk to me," Sherlock snapped, and John's mouth dropped as he pulled a cigarette from behind the skull. He took a lighter out of his pocket and lit it in the middle of John's protest.
"What are you doing?" John asked.
"What does it look like?" Sherlock said casually, sucking hard on the cigarette, then blowing out the smoke, partly into John's face.
"Whatever happened to going cold turkey?" John demanded after he had quit coughing. Sherlock shrugged indifferently and continued smoking, his expression blank.
"I said-" John tried again, but Sherlock stopped him. "I heard you. Here's what happened to going cold turkey, John-I decided I wanted to have a cigarette, and now I'm having a bloody cigarette. Not too difficult of a deduction, is it?"
After this incident, John had gone straight to his room and called Mycroft-and though the detective's brother sounded concerned, he just told him precisely what Lestrade had advised him to do-keep an eye on him. "That's what I'm doing," he said indignantly to Mycroft, but the elder Holmes had already hung up.
###
One day, after Sherlock had locked himself in his room as what was now becoming usual, John decided it was high time to find out what the detective was up to in his room all the time. He crept up to Sherlock's door and put his ear to it, listening.
Ever so faintly, he could hear a voice-a recorded voice. Was Sherlock watching telly in there?
John was about to move away when the door opened with a bang, giving him a terrific thump on his head and causing him to yelp aloud. Dizzy, his head pounding from the blow he just received, he stumbled backwards and into the kitchen. Reaching out for support, he blindly held out an arm and grabbed for the table, and felt his fingers knock into something, and then there was the loud shattering noise of glass breaking on the floor.
"John!" Sherlock roared, and the doctor, his mind instantly cleared by the sound of the glass breaking, turned to see the damage. It was one of Sherlock's large beakers, broken in half, glass spread across the floor.
"What have you done?" Sherlock hissed, stepping into the kitchen. "You idiot, what have you done?" The detective was actually terrifyingly livid, breathing heavily, his lips pulled back in an absolutely feral snarl.
"Sherlock, I'm sorry," John tried, but Sherlock just growled angrily. "Get out of my way." John stepped aside, and the detective scooped up the broken beaker in his hands carefully, and lifted it gingerly, with an odd sort of reverence.
"You broke it," he said heatedly, looking up at John. "What is wrong with you?"
"I'll buy you another one," said John irritably, brushing the detective insults aside-as usual. "It's just a beaker, it can be replaced-"
"It can't be replaced, you imbecile," Sherlock spat. "This isn't-"
"What?" John asked snidely. He was so sick of all this crap, that he barely even felt sorry anymore."Is it made of some kind of special, rare glass-"
"Maybe it is!" Sherlock snapped. "And you broke it!"
"I said I'm sorry, alright?" John said defensively, holding his hands up in the air. "What is wrong with you anyways? You have been acting like a total headcase since that Fleming murder last week- "
Sherlock interrupted him with a loud scoff, still scowling darkly at him. He tossed his head, looking rather like an angry horse.
"Honestly, Sherlock!" John said, "you have been giving me a hard time all week for no reason, and I want to know why."
Sherlock plastered a fake, simpering smile onto his face. "Perhaps it's because my moron of a flatmate destroyed one of my personal possessions," he said, his voice high with faux cheeriness.
One...two...three...four... John counted silently in his head, in a vain attempt to calm himself. In a barely restrained voice that was tight with anger, he spoke. "So are you going to tell me what's going on or not?"
"No," Sherlock said stiffly, then winced. He was caught.
"So you admit there is something going on?" John said, pointing an accusing finger at him.
"There is nothing going on except for the fact that you broke my beaker!" Sherlock shouted, shoving the broken beaker in John's face, as if he didn't already know he broke the stupid thing.
"What is so important about the beaker?" John roared.
In response, Sherlock glared at him, then abruptly turned and walked away. "Where's the glue?" he called over his shoulder.
"You can't fix it, Sherlock!" John called back. onetwothreefourfivesixseven "The thing's shattered, I told you-"
Sherlock whipped around, his face absolutely red with rage. "Yes I can!" He shouted back, and he marched past John and into his room, slamming the door shut.
A moment later, John heard him lock the door.
fivesixseven-screw it!
"Fine!" John yelled at the shut door. "Stay in there forever, why don't you? I certainly wouldn't mind!"
"I think I will!" Sherlock yelled back. "In the meantime, why don't you make yourself useful and find me some glue?"
"I'm not your bloody servant!" John shouted. "That's it, I don't know what is wrong with you, but you better get going on sorting it out, because I am done trying to!"
"Good!" Sherlock shouted in response. "Go bother someone else!"
John took a deep breath, then went for his coat, muttering to himself the whole way, absolutely throbbing with anger.
"Where are you going?" Sherlock demanded a moment later.
John didn't answer, pulling on his coat.
"John!"
"I'm leaving." John called back tersely. "I'll be back whenever you're done being such an annoying git!"
The detective was quiet for the smallest second. "Well, then don't expect to come back anytime soon!"
"Fine. Good! Then I won't come back!" John yelled, and he strode out the door and slammed it as hard as he could, the sound and force of it reverberating through his entire body as he stomped down the stairs and out of the flat, wanting to be anywhere but here.
Author's Note: Hello! I didn't expect to post this so quickly-I'm still going through, shall we say, withdrawals from my last story, but I am very excited for this one! And before you get any ideas, no, Sherlock is NOT on a mind altering drug...who would write something like that? *wink* Anyways, hope you liked and please review! :)