A/N: chapter 1 of 2

It Was Worth Many Waits

It would be a stretch of the truth (an extremely elastic truth) to call Sherlock Holmes an easy man to be a friend of. Not that he wasn't alright, sometimes. Just that when he got in the thick of a big, sticky case, he could be, to phrase it delicately, a great big git.

Mycroft recommended the case to Sherlock (when I say "recommended", I mean forced Sherlock to take it, and when I say "to Sherlock", I mean he insisted that I somehow convince Sherlock to investigate). It didn't help that Mycroft recommended it, what with that petty feud of theirs. It also didn't help that we had to spend three days on a Dutch cruise ship with pompous diplomats, or as Sherlock deemed them, "the hellions of high society". Sherlock did his best to act his worse in any situation requiring formal etiquette (although he did at least refrain from clothing himself in bed sheets ), and I was therefore burdened with the responsibility of acting adult enough for the both of us while simultaneously attempting to coerce Sherlock into behaving accordingly. As far as sticky cases go, this one was molasses mixed with honey, and if Mycroft hadn't assured me that the resolution would ensure European peace for the next decade, I would have jumped off that hellship and swam for shore days ago.

As it were, my bloody conscience persuaded me otherwise, because not only was there the international peace nonsense to take care of, but also my most-loathed position as Sherlock's caretaker. I was fine with being his friend, or his colleague, or his partner in investigation. I was even fine, sometimes, with being his idiot if it helped him reached conclusions, but I would not gladly suffer being his babysitter. And it was this sort of case that relegated me to that status.

Sherlock was doing that moronic thing where he refused to eat while he worked. Simply refused. Like an infant. That was alright for a case that lasted a day or two, maybe even three with Sherlock. But we were on that damn ship for a week, and I coaxed more food into Sherlock than I was pleased with (for the record , the amount of food-coaxing that I am normally pleased with is no coaxing at all). Sleep, too, seemed a rare entity, and I am not such a happy camper when running on very little sleep for days on end.

By the end of the week my temper was thin as a strand of hair, and Sherlock's thinner, and about every four in five words we said to each other were malevolent.

"John, pass me a pen."

"You're sitting at a desk. There's a pen directly in front of you."

"Out of ink."

"Well, you're going to have to get up and get one. I'm having a sit."

"As am I. But, unlike you, I am also participating in that activity you so rarely indulge in: thinking; and it would logically be best for me to continue thinking while you, sitting there doing far less thinking, if any at all, pass me the pen."

The pen bounced off the back of his head and onto the desk.

"I shall use a less literal sense of the word "pass" next occasion, as you seem to not have the ability to inference that I was employing a colloquialism."

Git.

The only thing that stopped me from killing Sherlock myself then and there was that someone else tried to do it first by firing a gun through our porthole window. The bullet lodged itself in the wall where Sherlock's head had just disappeared from. He look up from where he'd bent over to pick up the pen.

"Out, now." I fumbled up from my chair and grabbed my revolver from the bedside table. Sherlock slammed the door behind me. We stood in the hallway.

"Who is shooting at us?" I hissed.

"More importantly," said Sherlock, "How did they shoot at us through a porthole from the outside of a ship?" He darted off down the hallway, his coat billowing behind him. We raced up three flights of stairs to an upper, open-air deck. Sherlock slammed his back onto the wall and peered around a corner.

"Sherlock, what-" I heaved a breath, "how could anyone possible follow us after shooting from outside the ship?"

"More than one of them."

"Why? We haven't antagonized anyone on this case. Well, you have, but I haven't! And you were just being rude. Not worth shooting us, is it?" I checked behind the corner to my left. "Besides, this ship is full of international diplomats and important people. Aren't they better targets?"

"Easier targets, certainly. But if someone wanted them shot, they'd already be- ah. Ahhh."

I whipped my head back around. "What?"

"John, you are most definitely on the left side of the stair step line!" Sherlock dug his phone out of his pocket and started tapping furiously.

"What are you on about?"

He stopped typing for a moment, fixing me with the particular concentrated glare he used when he was trying to tell if I was being sarcastic.

I stared back. Sherlock sigh in exasperation and resumed tapping.

"Seriously, John. The periodic table. And you mocked me for the Copernican thing. The stair step line. The line that divides metals from nonmetals on the periodic table."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Metals, John, metals! They're on the left side of the stair-step line. They conduct. You conduct. By Jove, what do you do with your free time?"

"I follow around a sociopathic consulting detective," I deadpanned, trying to figure out whether I had just received a compliment or an insult.

Sherlock tapped once more dramatically and shoved the phone in my face.

"The cruise line," he said triumphantly. "Not the diplomats. The target was the cruise line itself. It seems their CEO did a little embezzling-"

A bullet rammed into the wall six inches from my elbow. I pushed Sherlock around the corner and onto the open deck. We ran, crouching along the railing, then dived behind a cocktail bar.

"There," I gestured toward a figure who'd just scampered across a mine field of beach chairs across from us. I raised my gun and waited for him to reappear.

Another whizz and metallic clink. I ducked my head, my arms instinctively covering my neck.

"Here's another," Sherlock grimaced, pointing across the deck at another figure.

"Have you got your gun?" I fired at a foot sticking out from behind a beach chair. The shot ricocheted off the railing.

"Yes," said Sherlock.

"You take the other one, then." I duck as another bullet smashed into the bar and broke a glass.

I fired again and produced a strangled yelp. Hit him dead in the shoulder. Goddammit.

"Have you got him yet?" I turned to Sherlock.

Sherlock aimed and shot. And missed by fifteen feet.

"Right," I nodded. I fired. The figure slumped. "I'm going to go- the other guy. I got him in the shoulder."

I scampered off towards the first man, partly because he still had his gun and partly because I knew exactly what it was like to have a shard of metal tear through your arm. He was whimpering by the time I got there. He'd dropped the gun a few feet from where he lay.

"It's alright." I dropped to my knees beside him. "You're alright."

The whole of his shoulder and arm was a bloody mess, but it looked like the bullet had missed the subclavian artery, thank God.

I needed materials. Did they even have paramedics on a cruise ship?

Another shot rang out. I ducked my head.

Between Sherlock and I, yet another man had taken cover behind a beach chair. Sherlock sent off a shot at him, but it came closer to hitting me than his target.

I tied off a makeshift tourniquet on the wounded bloke's shoulder and approached the most recent gunman from his flank. As he ducked behind a chair, I grabbed his gun hand and twisted. The gun clattered onto the deck.

The man yelped in surprise, then turned and sprang on me. I staggered back a few feet, knocking into beach chairs. I knocked him one across the face and he knocked me one in my ribs and then my back was against the rail and he was pushing me against it and I could hear little waves crashing into each other.

Quite suddenly, the man released his grip on me and fell backwards. Sherlock stood over him with a bludgeon-like salt shaker. He looked me over.

"I'm fine," I straightened my sweater. "You alright?"

"Yes, Im-"

I was gone after the first syllable, jogging back towards the man with the bullet in his shoulder.

The ship made port that night. All passengers disembarked safely, save for the few with bullets lodged in them. Sherlock sent a text to Mycroft. The gunfight was covered up relatively easily.

We'd come in at Portsmouth and had to take a train back to London. The station wasn't far from the ship, so we walked. It was getting late, and it was dark, and I was tired, and only half listening to Sherlock's explanation of the case. I trailed a little behind him.

"A personal grudge, mostly, although tainted with a good bit of financial scandal." Sherlock gestured about like he was conducting a symphony. Sometimes I wondered what people could possibly think he was. He continued on, look straight ahead. "Certainly the best way to corrupt Howard's reputation would be to sink one of his ships. And what better ship to sink than the one with every European diplomat of any importance on it? The preeminent voyage in Howard's career."

Mycroft Holmes should consider himself an inordinately lucky man, for when he grabbed my elbow and swung me into an adjacent side street, my fist was two inches away from his face before I recognized him.

"Always the soldier, Dr. Watson." He smiled in that particular way of his that mixed condescension and contrivance into a mask of something akin to emotion.

I lowered my hand and exhaled. "Apparently I need to be."

"It does seem so. Very well done with the case, may I add. Precisely the reason I wanted to see you. I simply wanted to express my congratulations and gratification by physical means." He handed me a large, dark bottle. "Arrack, I believe it is called. Imported from Sumatra, a beverage similar to brandy, I'm told. I hoped that you and Sherlock could perhaps enjoy it as thanks for taking the case. I'm aware it was not an easy affair to investigate."

"Oh," I said, a little lost for words, a situation that seemed to occur far too often with Mycroft. "Oh, well, thanks. Thanks very much."

"You will find that this alley will lead you to the thoroughfare which Sherlock is at this moment strolling through. He should be at the intersection in approximately forty five seconds. Goodbye, Dr. Watson."

He walked off, swinging his umbrella.

"Cheers," I mumbled. I headed down the alleyway Mycroft had indicated. Just ahead was the main road. I peeked out, trying to pick out Sherlock in the throng of people. I peered behind me to see if Mycroft was still there, and when I looked back, Sherlock had walked by. I fell into step behind him.

He was still talking. I wondered if he did this often, this not-realizing-when-I-disappear-thing. "…and with their rather clever contraption they were able to fire a gun into our porthole. "Quite simple."

"Yes, right," I mumbled.

Sherlock looked back at me. His eyes flickered to the bottle in my hands.

"Where did you get that?"

"Oh, just-"

"Nevermind. Did you surmise the reason for Howard's letter?"

"Do tell."

"It was a bribe, John, and a failed one…"

We made it back to London in the wee hours of the morning, and although my body insisted that I was exhausted, my nerves were still far too jittery to do any sleeping. And Sherlock, well, he didn't sleep.

I sunk into my armchair by the fire, the bottle of Afflack or whatever it was called still hanging from my hand. Sherlock hung up his coat and scarf by the door, whistling some tune he liked to play on his violin. He plopped into the chair across from me, crossing one leg over the other.

He cut off whistling in the middle of a phrase.

"Your left hand is shaking."

I looked down. The damn thing was. I squeezed my fingers together.

"Are you alright?" Sherlock asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Fine Just a bit overtired, I'm sure."

"We did get in a gun fight. Considering your somewhat recent return from war, reliable sources inform me that you could be experiencing some sort of post-war trau-"

"Ever heard of arrack?" I levered myself up and, miraculously, found two clean glasses in the kitchen.

"You mean the late 19th century criminal? Involved in a bank robbery scheme under the cover of a secret society of redheads."

"No, Sherlock. The alcohol."

"Alcohol?"

I sank back into the chair and poured out half a glass for each of us. I looked up as a thought occurred.

"Have you ever had alcohol?"

"Well, I see no reason that I should have."

"Not even a pint at the pub? Wait, no, why would you go to the pub?"

"What use is it to me or my work?"

"No, no, it's fine. Just, you. I mean, drugs, but no alcohol."

"There are distinct differences- one is a depressant, the other a stimulant. You know mind my craves stimulation."

"Alright, alright. Here. Mycroft gave it to me."

Sherlock took the glass. At my last statement, he crinkled his nose. "That consideration makes this even more undesirable, you do know."

"Oh, come on, your brother wouldn't poison your drink."

Sherlock glared pointedly.

"Alright, well, fine. He hasn't this time. He gave it to me. He wouldn't poison my drink. Besides, he said it was out of gratitude. A thanks for solving the case."

"What is the brand?"

I turned the bottle towards me. "Giant Rat."

"Appetizing."

I concluded that the best way to dissipate Sherlock's argument was to commit the act myself and hope he would follow, so I raised my glass and took a sip. It was a good bit stronger than any brandy I'd ever had, but not bad. A little burn.

Sherlock regarded his glass skeptically. I swirled and sniffed.

"It's good," I said.

He lifted the glass and took a drink. Well, sort of a gulp.

His subsequent reaction was one of the most comical things I have ever seen in my naught inconsiderable experience over three continents. Sherlock Holmes, having swallowed the liquid, made a face like he had just gulped down a caterpillar. He coughed three times, stuck out his tongue, and then sniffed, trying to regain an ounce of dignity, all the while still wearing the caterpillar face.

"Why the hell would you want to drink that?" He spluttered. Sherlock, spluttering. This could be very interesting.

"Try not to take such big gulps," I advised. "Just little sips. You'll start to like it."

Sherlock, despite glaring quite furiously at me, took a small sip. Then another.

"You said Mycroft gave this to you?"

"Yeah, after we got off the ship."

"Was I there? Wasn't I there?"

"Not really. He did one of his things where he pulled me into a sinister alleyway and then handed me a bottle of gourmet liquor."

"Ah, that thing. It does sound like him."

Sherlock refilled his glass.

"And where was I?"

"Oh, you just kept walking."

"Oh," he said, as if I'd told him I'd decided to join the circus.

I refilled my glass.

Sherlock refilled his.

A sip.

A gulp.

Another refill.

"My dear doctor," slurred Sherlock Holmes, "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent." He leapt from his chair, knocking into my desk to point out the window. I snorted, then sneezed.

"If we could fly out of that window, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable."

"I," I replied with grave solemnity, "am certain that is true."

Sherlock tripped over the rug on the way back, then danced around his chair.

"I think it's bedtime," I said, taking Sherlock's arm.

"Round and round the prickly pear!"

"Thank God your room is on this floor."

I swung open the door and pushed Sherlock in.

"Look!" he gasped, "There you are!"

I stared, confused. He pointed to the periodic table mounted on the wall. That again.

"All those metals you could be!" he began to sing, and I understood why he must have taken up the violin. "John is sulfur, John is bromine, John is sodium, John is iodine."

"Alright."

Sherlock flopped on his back, halfway on the bed. I dragged his feet up from the floor and pulled his shoes off.

"Night, Sherlock.";

"John is phosphorus, John is cadimine."

By the time I was halfway up the stairs, the singing had subsided. I shrugged my own shoes off, flopped into bed and fell asleep.

"John."

"Mm?" I rubbed my eyes and tried to find a suitable mug for coffee.

"I think I am dying."

"Right."

"There is an infernal pounding in my head. If you would be so kind as to lend me your revolver."

"It's all yours if you can get up and get it." I poured some water into the machine.

"John, I warned you that a gift from Myroft is like a wooden horse in Troy. He was poisoned that dreadful beverage, I'm sure of it. Now, his intent…"

"Sherlock. It's a hangover. It's natural."

"Explain to me again why you would want to drink that wretched beverage willingly when you knew the consequences?"

"Ask yourself, you drank it, too."

Sherlock opened his mouth to retort, then closed it. He steepled his fingers and furrowed his brow. When I left for work, he was still sitting in the same position.

"I'm off to work, Sherlock. Try not to think yourself to death."

I stopped by the grocery after lunch to pick up more coffee and milk but still made it home relatively early. There hadn't been many patients at the clinic that day.

Sherlock laid sprawled across the settee, his feet on the armrest and violin on his lap. He had his coat and scarf on.

"There you are, John. Could you possibly have taken any longer?" he drawled, straightening up. "I've been waiting."

"Well, I went to the grocery," I defended, gesturing with the milk. You could have texted."

"Phone was in the kitchen. Grab it, will you? And keep your coat on. We're going out. There's a sedentary old coin collector who wants to see us."

Sherlock hailed a cab. "136 Little Ryder Street," he told the cabbie.

"What's this?" I asked, "A coin collector? I knew you had odd hobbies, but really."

"He sent me an email this morning. Said he'd heard of my website- see, John, people read my website."

"Sure they do."

"Although it seems superficial on the surface, I think it will prove to be an interesting enough case. I need to collect some facts."

"And why did you have to wait for me? You could have gone without me."

"I had to wait for you because you were taking so long. Besides, I can't be expected to take notes on these things."

"What did you do before you had me to do everything for you?"

"At least I didn't have to wait."