AN. Welcome to my newest obsession. I would like to apologise now for any incorrect information and unrealistic characterisation. I am an amateur in the Sherlock fandom. I am also neither a police officer nor a pathologist, nor do I know what dead bodies are like; I don't particularly want people to question my browsing history. You may correct me with proper facts and where I have made grammatical errors - I enjoy learning, even if it is a bit morbid.

I do not own anything except for the plot. All recognisable characters do not belong to me.

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Chapter One

There was a body on the ground.

Clear sea-green eyes crinkling slightly at the sight, Sherlock Holmes paused on his casual evening stroll. It was almost midnight, and the night was quiet. A few blocks down the street, he could hear drunken singing as a rowdy bunch exited a pub, fading as they headed away from his direction. Perhaps this man on the ground was one of them, knocked out by drink and unable to crawl to the nearest main road to hail himself a cab home.

Sherlock huffed slightly as he made his way over to the man. He was no civil servant, it was not his duty to be picking up drunks off the ground, but it was just so unsightly to have a body sprawled chest-down in the middle of the street. He may be devoid of most human sentiment, but he was not completely careless.

Stepping closer, Sherlock's keen eyes noted the blood immediately. His study of the body changed from casual disdain to calculatingly intrigued. It was a small pool of blood, mostly from the head: pushed or jumped? Angle of the legs suggested the man had fallen front first. Sherlock looked up to study the buildings around him—it could only have been from the top of that office. Only three storeys, not high enough to cause a huge pool of blood upon impact.

Frowning slightly, Sherlock knelt beside the body and reached a hand to feel for a pulse. He shouldn't have died upon impact, not unless he'd fallen head first and broke his spine. Definitely no pulse, but the body was still warm. Recent fall, then. Careful hands pushed aside the curly dark hair, and Sherlock studied the man's face. Light stubble, slightly haggard face, blood glistening and wet on the side of the face that had hit the ground. The man had been stressed prior to his death: staying up late or frightened of something?

The collar of the man's coat was also damp with blood, and Sherlock's further study of the body found the man to be wearing what seemed to be robes. It was an odd choice of clothes—perhaps he worked at the court? It was a fair distance from where the body had ended up. As Sherlock moved slightly to study the legs and shoes of the man (black slacks, expensive Italian shoes), the glint of something caught his eye. Attention distracted, his eyes alighted upon the gold watch peeking out of the man's left sleeve. Sherlock's head tilted slightly as he reached a hand to examine the watch for some clues—

"Step away from the body."

Sherlock froze and looked up at the owner of the voice, his mind already running through a list of reasons for his hovering over a body on the ground. There were two of them, he saw now, both dressed in crisp white shirts and heavy cloaks, their breath misting slightly in the freezing air. One was older, deep frown lines on his face showing he was a man used to giving orders. The other just behind him was younger, but held the same hard look in his eyes; these men were used to conflict. Neither were dressed as police, but their manner spoke of law enforcement or authority of some sort.

He could work with that.

Standing up as gracefully as he could while keeping a look of grave professionalism on his face, Sherlock stuffed his hands in the pockets of his coat as he faux-respectfully nodded at the visitors. "Gentlemen," he stated, pulling out the badge he'd nicked from Lestrade the other day and advertising it in front of him, "it would seem we have—"

The older man stepped forward in a threatening manner, but Sherlock was unfazed. He was used to senior members of authority believing he could be easily intimidated. Setting his jaw a little as he stared back, he held his place by the dead man and didn't budge, his eyes quickly working on deducing the man in front of him.

In the few seconds of silence that followed, Sherlock had just deduced that the older man was married with no children, no pets, did not tolerate animals, was impatient, immaculately clean, who believed everything had its rightful place, had no vices, and detested unclean habits when their battle of wills was interrupted.

"I said, step away from the body," the man repeated, his words harder and brooking no argument. The man did not even deign to look at the badge Sherlock had held up. "We will handle this situation and your assistance is not required."

It was not like Anderson telling Sherlock to butt out of his crime scene, desperate to solve the case himself for glory and credit. The way this man presented himself and his partner, almost melting out of the darkness with no sound of footsteps nor announcement of his position of authority, made Sherlock suspicious of their motives. He had noticed neither of the men were particularly surprised to see the body, nor were they in any state of worry or concern, not even bending to see if there was a chance the man on the ground was still alive.

It was as though they were expecting this, and they were not wanting to draw attention to it.

Sherlock had just opened his mouth to retort when the younger man stepped up and said harshly, "Sir, you have been found with a bloodied body at your feet on a deserted street in the middle of the night with no witnesses. I suggest you step away before you are detained for questioning on the grounds of murder."

Instantly, Sherlock's face twisted slightly in disbelief. Surely these men didn't think he'd done this? This could have been just an ordinary jumper, an overworked man who simply could not handle the pressure any more and took a swan-dive from a building. Why did these men conclude this was a murder case? Sherlock knew the dead man could have been pushed off the building—he was impatiently aware he did not yet have all the facts—but his suspicion of the two men in front of him was only further aroused by their actions.

"This will be treated as a crime scene if you continue to stand there," the younger man continued in an attempt to bait Sherlock. "You've already committed a crime by impersonating law enforcement—you don't really want to add a murder charge to that, do you?"

Sherlock was extremely tempted to push these men's buttons purely to irritate them, but the approaching flashes of red and blue lights that heralded the police's arrival stopped him from having his fun. His eyes flickered from the two men to the police car rolling in towards them, his face carefully blank. The younger man did have a point: Sherlock did not have any particular desire to have his time wasted by being detained and questioned over the dead body or the unauthorised use of a police man's badge.

Accepting defeat, he stuffed the badge in his pocket as he nodded at the men again slightly. "Gentlemen," he said lowly, his eyes committing their features to his memory so he could study them later. With another quick glance at the body and at his surroundings, Sherlock kept his hands in his pockets as he turned on his heel and walked away without looking back.

He would track down the body and study it later; it would turn up at the morgue for an autopsy to confirm if it was suicide or a murder, and Sherlock knew he could always access it. For now, though, his mind was racing on the subject of the two men.

He resolved to ask Lestrade about them—perhaps after he reverse pick-pocketed the Detective Inspector's badge—because he knew they were not ordinary law enforcement. For one, they did not act or dress like police; for two, he knew neither had called the police for backup nor to report the body. The street had been empty before he had approached the body, and he had not heard a voice until they had stood right before him. Nor had either of them placed a call during their encounter. There was no possibility in which that police car had found them unless it was by pure chance, the probability of which was very slim.

It was definitely a very odd situation, and nothing prodded at Sherlock's interest like a good mystery, for a good mystery it was. The dead man on the ground had had a clean face and clean hair, old money family perhaps, his gold watch obviously a well-taken care-of heirloom. Aside from his dark eyes that hinted at some sleepless nights, the man had lived a somewhat comfortable life. The dead man's clothes had also been clean, worn well and with pride, if a bit old. He had not been a thug, but Sherlock had seen the tip of what seemed to be a sizeable snake tattoo on the man's left wrist.

The dead man had not been an ordinary court staff, and the men who found them were not ordinary police men. Oh yes, this was not a usual situation, and Sherlock was very much looking forward to unravel what seemed to be a very promising mystery.

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