Laurel walked down the sidewalk, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. Stupid rain, she thought to herself as she shrugged deeper into the coats collar, trying to stay as dry as possible. Cars sped by on the puddle ridden street, splashing dirty water onto the sidewalk. It had been raining for days. The clouds loomed over the entire city, endlessly pouring rain down onto the busy cobble stone streets.
Laurel had spent all of her money moving to another country with her friend and what happens? Nothing. The sights she had wanted to see had to wait, due to constant cold rainfall. The one night she was supposed to go out and have fun, to celebrate her new life with her friend, had completely fallen through. Where the hell was Sara? The two were supposed to meet by the statue in Piccadilly Circus, but Sara hadn't shown up; then when the downpour started, after waiting over an hour, Laurel left to find shelter and try to dry off.
She pushed against a heavy glass door that lead into a small, yet very crowded tea house. The lighting was dim, the tables and chairs were all antique and mismatched.
"Sit where ever you'd like." A small voice cried out from the bar.
Laurel looked over and saw a scared looking old man. He was thin with balding white hair, a large nose, mouth painted in a deep frown and two dark blue eyes that were magnified by an odd octangular shape of glasses. She looked around the floor and saw only the one table by the door left empty. It was also conveniently right next to the window, so that she could keep an eye out for her friend. Laurel sat down, making herself comfortable, taking off her wet jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair. She picked up her purse and dug through it, looking for the cell phone she was positive she'd left back at the flat. Damn it! Where was Sara?! Had she gotten lost? The books store was only a short bus ride away from the apartment, there was no way she could've gotten lost...but then again it was Sara. She put her purse down with a sigh, debating whether to go back out into the rain and look for her friend, or back to the flat—maybe she had forgotten about the plans?
"Cup of tea, miss?"
Laurel looked up at the thin man who had been behind the counter, to find that he was standing in front of her, holding out a small china cup of tea. "Er...Sure. How much?" She asked, taking the tea from the man.
"It's on the house. It's a new blend I've just brewed, so I'm handing out free samples to everyone." He explained, and turned to the next table, handing them the same cups off of his brown tray.
Laurel shrugged, who would say no to free tea; especially on a night like this? She held the cup up to her lips, blowing on the hot liquid. Just as she was about to take a tentative sip a man in a grey coat and a billowing purple scarf burst in through the doors, causing a cold chill to sweep throughout the tea house. "STOP! DO NOT DRINK THE TEA!" The man cried, as he took several steps deeper into the store. Now that he was under the light Laurel could see his wavy black hair, pensive intense eyes, which seemed to be raking across every face in the tea house, his thick lips and sharp cheek bones. He slowly removed his gloves and announced, "Your tea has been poisoned."
Gasps erupted from everyone in the cafe. No one knew what to think or what to do. Laurel felt her heart beating a mile a minute. Was this actually happening? Did this happen often? Was this a British thing? Dinner theater perhaps? There's no way someone would actually poison tea. She looked questioningly at the cup in her hands and slowly sniffed the liquid, trying to detect any hint of odor that might be harmful.
"I'd listen to him."
Laurel looked up to see another man; this one was shorter and blond. He had a kind face, but worry etched throughout. He smiled and pointed to the seat across from her. "May I?" He asked "I've been chasing after him for the last ten hours and could do with a bit of a rest."
"Help yourself." Laurel nodded; too shocked to really process everything that was happening.
"You might want to watch this." The blond man said, "This is the good part." He cleared his throat and called out to the other man, "Sherlock, how can you be so sure it's this man?"
The dark haired man, who'd been called Sherlock, turned towards his friend and rolled his eyes, "Isn't it obvious?" he looked around the room at all the confused faces, "Of course it isn't, to all you normal people." He said with disdain.
"Don't take offence." The blond man whispered to Laurel, "That's how he refers to everyone who's part of the human race."
"The other day when the police had found the flower vendor, who'd been living on the streets, dead, they thought that it would be best to find out who the DNA of the blood left on her skin, along the stretch marks from where she'd been strangled, belonged to." Sherlock started his explanation. "I knew that seeing as how the police and scientists in this country couldn't find their way out of a box, I thought to look into the traces of pink specks that were found smudged into her bruises. I knew immediately that..." Sherlock stopped his story and quickly dove down behind the bar, coming up, holding the old thin man face down against the counter. "This man was her killer. He murdered her because she saw him mixing the poison into the tea; she knew he was planning on killing his customers and making it look like a mass suicide. He had to kill her or else he would've been discovered."
"How did you get from finding pink specks to knowing he did it?" The blond man asked, clearly just as confused as the rest of the crowd.
Sherlock once again rolled his eyes. He let out a deep sigh and said "The pink specks were paint chips. A water based acrylic paint that is found only in china and Taiwan. That shade of fuchsia is very rare in this part of the country and I've only seen it on one particular item. One particular item that would have to be hand crafted and hand painted, all by one single man. This man, who makes and paints his own personal tea cups."
The sounds of sirens were heard in the distance, coming closer and closer. Laurel tore her gaze away from Sherlock and looked at her tea cup, and at the surrounding cups. He was right. They were all the same colour of purple pink. She slowly put the cup down and pulled some hand sanitizer out of her pocket, hoping that it could possibly sanitize potential poison.
"So now you're a tea cup expert?" The blond man asked, pushing himself up from his chair.
Sherlock twisted the thin mans arm and began to lead him towards the doors, where the police cars had now gathered, awaiting their suspect. "Don't be silly John, I don't have time to research fine china—however is an avid collector."
The blond man, who Laurel now knew was named John just looked at the ground, shook his head and chuckled. "Of course. Yes, I should've know." He looked down at Laurel as Sherlock handed the man off to the police. "Sorry to ruin your evening." John said, turning back to Laurel and offering his hand. "My name is John Watson, and that mildly scary man over there is Sherlock Homes, he has a great talent."
"Solving mysteries?" Laurel guessed.
"Ruining evenings." John corrected. "Beg my pardon, but your accent, are you from America?"
Laurel scoffed, "I think not, I'm Canadian." She smiled and held out her hand, "Laurel Rice, It's nice to meet you."
John shook her hand. "Likewise. So what brings you out on such a miserable night? Had I not been trying to solve a murder I assure you I'd be inside blogging or something to that extent." He said, mimicking typing with only his two index fingers.
Laurel stood and put her jacket on. "I was supposed to meet my friend, Sara. We both just moved here and were going to go out, but she never showed up."
"Oh?" John questioned.
"She went out to a used book store not far from our place and I haven't seen her since. She should've been back by now, hours ago, actually." She pulled her jacket, which was still heavy and wet, from the chair and began to put it on. "Actually maybe I should go back to our place to see if she's there."
"Is she usually punctual?" John asked.
Laurel nodded, "The girl is never late. I'm actually really worried."
John held up his finger, indicating for her to stay where she was. "Sherlock!" He called over his shoulder.
"Hmm." A grunt was the only answer John received as Sherlock wrote out his own statement of what had happened that night, having given up on the policeman who'd been in charge of writing it.
"There's a woman here whose friend seems to have gone missing. I thought maybe we could—"
"Has she reported to the proper authorities that there is a missing person?" Sherlock asked, as he continued to scribble onto the piece of official paper.
John looked annoyed, "No, she hasn't the girl has only been missing for a few hours."
"Has she checked her flat? Perhaps she fell asleep, or other such nonsense that females do."
"Sherlock, can we please just help her, she isn't from around here and I think—"
"John!" Sherlock cut him off angrily. He threw the papers at a young scared looking officer. "We do not do cases that make me bored. Just simply talking about this is boring me. I am bored. BORED!" He shifted his body towards Laurel, keeping his eyes on the floor, clearly very exasperated by the entire event. "I'm sorry miss but I cannot—"He looked up at her and his voice failed. His eyes quickly darted around her features. Dirty blond hair, nearly soaked with rain. Smooth face, big eyes, filled with worry, full lips and ample breast and curves to go with her lovely features. "I cannot promise that we will find her by the nights end." He finished his sentence, trying to regain his composure.
"Uh, what?" John asked, clearly confused.
"Let's go to her flat first, to check if her friend was or is there, if not we will retrace her steps." Sherlock announced, throwing his scarf around his shoulders. "Lestrade, are we done here?"
"What?" The officer in charge looked up from a talk he'd been having with one of his officers. "No! I need you to finish the statement and I need 's statement."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I wrote down my statement, that's truly the only one that matters. You have more than enough witnesses here that will give you a statement, so you have no need for John, or I or..." He looked at Laurel, and rolled his wrist around in the air.
"Laurel Rice." John informed, on her behalf.
"or Laurel Rice, to give you our statement, it's simply a waste of our time when there is so much more to do." He finished, as he began to herd both Laurel and John out of the tea house.
"You have other things to do?" A snide voice crept out from a group of police. "I highly doubt that."
"Shut it Anderson!" Sherlock snapped as he walked past the cop cars. "Now, where do you live?" he asked turning to Laurel.
"Not far." She said. "Just down this way."
As the three made their way through the still miserable rain, John made small talk whilst Sherlock listened, interjecting here and there with questions of his own regarding Sara.
"So, Laurel," John asked, weaving through a series of puddles in the cobblestones, "What inspired you and this friend of yours to move from Canada to England? Bit of a long way to go." He frowned slightly as he made a misstep, soaking one of his feet to the ankle.
"Well, actually, we had no really great reason other than that we felt like it, if you can believe that. About a year ago I got a job in a hospital in the small town I'm from, so I had to move away from the city and Sara, so naturally we missed each other madly since we're best friends. It turned out that my new job was great, but my new boss was a vindictive jerk, so after about a year of telling her how unhappy I was and us having dinner together over Skype too often, she told me she had managed to get a job in London and that I was coming with her. And that was that, I guess. I gave my two weeks notice, got all packed up, and here we are in England. It's been a fun adventure so far, until now. Like I said, Sara is never, ever late."
Sherlock interjected, thrusting himself between John and Laurel, who had been walking slightly ahead of him. Laurel noticed immediately how tall he was; always liked tall men, she mused to herself.
"Laurel, is Sara a librarian of some sort? Does she work with books?"
"Wow, yeah, she does. How did you figure that out?"
"I didn't 'figure' it out, I observed it. I'll explain it later, if I must. Right now I believe that time is running out for our Sara. Was she at the Central location?"
"Yes, that's where her new placement is. She's a library tech, they've got her working in their archives and a little bit out front just to get started. Why, is something going on at that location today?"
"Not something... someone. Someone I thought we'd dealt with already."
John suddenly looked alarmed, disregarding his puddle-jumping and walking straight through a huge pool of water. "Sherlock, come on now, you don't mean he's back? You saw him, saw him dead on the roof. He shot himself in front of you!"
"Yes, John, but as may have noticed before, the man is never what, whom, or where he seems. We know that Richard Brook is dead, but what of his creator?"
Laurel looked confused, but decided to hide her ignorance of the situation by fumbling around in her gigantic purse for her keys. "Uhm, we're here, actually. This is our flat, I apologize in advance for the mess..."
John and Sherlock both chuckled as she was turning the key in the lock. Sherlock breezed through the door in front of her, startling her as he walked directly towards their flat without her having said which one was hers. "Oh, never fear, I'm sure your mess is nothing compared to mine. John is forever trying to convince me to stop leaving specimens in the fridge, but where else would I put them?"
"Severed heads are not to be left next to the jam and the takeaway cartons, if you ask me," John retorted, "and anyways, didn't I say I'd get you a minifridge for that sort of stuff?"
Sherlock pulled off his scarf and began to unbutton his long elegant coat in one smooth motion. Laurel was entranced for a moment by his graceful hands, and then remembered that they needed her to open the flat. "I um, I keep saying apartment to most people when I say where I live, I have to get used to the lingo over here." She opened the door wide, waiting for Sherlock to breeze in ahead of her once again. He seemed pleased that she'd done so, and took advantage, gliding into the flat with his coat and scarf over one forearm. John smiled at her and followed her in. Pippin, Sara's cat, immediately began twining herself in Sherlock's long legs, meowing for attention. Laurel went to the kitchen automatically to grab the insistent cat a treat; she'd learned long ago it was the only surefire way to get her out from underfoot.
John was following Sherlock as he wandered about the small flat, picking up books, tea mugs, hair clips, and any small objects to hand, and putting them down again after a short but thorough inspection. "Sherlock. Are you absolutely sure this could be Moriarty? I know you've had concerns, but.."
"As usual John, I am absolutely sure of of the fact. Moriarty is involved. In fact, I am quite certain he will be here soon to meet us. I daresay he is expecting me." Sherlock ran a finger along the mantlepiece above the converted to electric fireplace, noting the dust on his finger and shrugging indifferently at the line he left on its surface. He tossed his coat and scarf onto their one shabby purple couch, and as he did so, sat abruptly in Laurel's favourite chair, steepling his fingers and settling back into the plush antique velvet.
Laurel's mind had been whirling since the tea house, and now she grew worried as she saw the look of trepidation on John's face at this short speech by Sherlock. Obviously Moriarty was somebody dangerous... Laurel could already see that John was the easygoing one of this pair, and if he looked that much more worried than usual...
She sat down next to John on the couch, folding hands in her lap as she did so, and trying to take a few deep breaths to clear her mind. "Listen, John, Sherlock, I can tell that you both seem to know a lot more about what's going on here. Would you possibly mind filling me in? It's just, I've been holding back my worries about Sara now all afternoon, and this is all a little much, and I would really love some answers." She looked down at her hands, resisting the urge to lift one to her mouth to start biting her nails, her dreaded nervous habit.
John moved closer to her on the couch, patting her on the shoulder. "That's completely understandable. I'm sure that Sherlock would be willing to give you a quick run down of the facts, wouldn't you, Sherlock.." John's voice drifting off with a faint note of surprise; Sherlock had suddenly sat up straight in the chair, coming out of his brown study when John had laid his hand on Laurel's shoulder. He bolted upright and strode about the room, obviously agitated.
"Well, John, if you stopped flirting and making small talk for a moment, I could get on with that."
John looked at Sherlock, exasperated, and moved a bit further away from Laurel on the couch. "Honestly, Sherlock, you take any comforting on my part as flirting, you'd think by now you'd see how many people you put in traumatic situations..."
As John and Sherlock bickered, Laurel felt a note of surprise creep into her mind. John had been friendly, yes, but it was true, he was really doing nothing more than comforting her. Was Sherlock... jealous? He didn't seem the type of man to be jealous of much. Too much in his head, not one to care about the world about him unless it was interesting in some way to him... it didn't help that as they fought, Laurel decided that Sherlock was well and truly gorgeous. She wondered how many women around London felt the same way about this obviously unobtainable man. Or was he unobtainable? She watched Sherlock pacing, not really hearing the argument between him and John, observing instead his wonderfully well put-together suit. It appeared he liked the colour purple, as his button up shirt was also this colour. A lovely deep shade, with tiny, shiny purple buttons... Laurel shook her head and sat up straighter. This wasn't the time to let her feelings get away with her.
A sudden knock at the door surprised them all. Laurel jumped up and headed to the door without thinking, sliding the deadbolt and peering through the peephole. "Who is it?" the peephole seemed to be obscured. She opened the door a crack and John jumped up. "Laurel, wait.."
The door burst open wider, shoving Laurel to the floor. After a beat pause, an elegant man strode in, dressed in what Laurel thought was also a fantastic suit. He wasn't wet from the rain at all; in fact, he was so well put together that Laurel wondered where he had been before this. His large, dark brown eyes seemed almost black in the dim light of the flat, and inhuman in their coldness. He smiled, an electric expression on his face, as both John and Sherlock took a step back. As the door opened wider, he pulled Sara in behind him. She was rain-bedraggled, her ponytail falling out in spiky wet pieces, her lipstick smeared where she had been obviously hit in the mouth. Laurel tried to run to her immediately. "Sara.." As she choked out the name, John grabbed her tightly by both arms, dragging her back. "No, no... not a good idea, trust me."
The inhuman man in the suit smiled even wider, baring his sharp, small teeth. "Well, well, Sherlock. I'm impressed, it took you even less time that I'd thought for you to get here."
Laurel was immediately and painfully afraid of what was going to happen next.
"What is it you want with the girl?" John asked, still firmly holding onto Laurel's shoulders.
Moriarty turned his excited face to Sherlock and made an exaggerated frown, "He's so simple. How do you keep from boring yourself?"
"Kidnapping?" Sherlock questioned, ignoring everything that had just been said. "That's seems a little menial for you."
Moriarty shrugged, "It depends who you take, and what they can do for you." His eyebrows moved up and down suggestively as he nudged Sara with his elbow.
Sara made a disgusted face and shoved him back. "Laurel, this man is mental—seriously, he's not right in the head."
Laurel shook her head, shocked that Sara was insulting this oddly attractive yet clearly crazy man, when she should've been scared stupid. "Shh!" she commanded, trying to keep her friend from getting hit again.
Moriarty leaned towards Laurel, exaggerating a whisper and saying "Between you and I, she does have a bit of a mouth on her."
Sara took this chance to slam the heel of her foot into the toe of Moriarty's shiny black shoe and running quickly towards her friend, but was suddenly jerked backwards. Her captor had snatched the back of her hair and pulled her back against him, this time keeping a vice like grip on her hair, digging his finely manicured nails into her scalp.
"Whew! Close one!" He pretended to wipe sweat off his head, and as he did so he gracefully pulled a gun out of his jacket, holding it against Sara's neck.
"I still scuffed your shoe." Sara muttered a small victory.
"Oh my God." Laurel's voice sounded hollow. She slowly took in a deep breath. Her body felt numb, except for the tight hold that John had on her arms now, possibly keeping her from falling down. "There's a gun now." She finished her thought.
"What was the point in this meeting, might I ask?" Sherlock sighed, clearly bored by the situation and wanting to get on with the evening. "Was it just for theatrics?"
Moriarty gave him a big smile and looked around the room. "Oh! Look at all of you!" his voice changing pitch with every word. "All so scared."
"No one here is scared." Sherlock muttered his retort.
"I am." Laurel interjected, assuming that as sexy as he was, he was probably just as mad as Moriarty.
Sherlock shook his head. "Look at the gun, clearly pointed at her throat, not a kill shot. She's also barely been touched; therefore he needs her for something, something that she hasn't done for him yet. Also, no torture of any other sort of real harm has come to her, seeing as she is still relenting against him—which he's clearly surprised by." Sherlock turned towards Moriarty. "That girl is giving you more trouble than she's worth?"
Moriarty let in a huge mock gasp, "I would never be so rude as to insult a lovely young lady like that." He said as he gave Sara's hair another yank. She let out a muffled grunt of pain.
"I do have one question." Sherlock said, bringing his fingers into a delicate steeple in front of his lips.
"Oh?" Moriarty questioned, using the barrel of the gun to scratch his temple.
"Why bother with all of this if you don't' even plan on telling me what you're up to?"
Moriarty laughed, "It's all about reading between the lines, ." he said these words as though they were some sort of statement. "By the way, I thought you'd be interested to know that I've obtained a new partner. He's wonderful."
"I'm sure he is." John said, sarcasm dripping from every word.
"Oh yes!" Moriarty continued, either ignoring the sarcasm or perhaps because he didn't know what it was. "He's very witty, a smart dresser, and very good. Oh, he is very good. Much better then you are, Sherlock. I think you're going to have fun with this."
"Is it someone I know?" Sherlock asked, a pensive look on his face, as though going through a mental rolodex of potential people who'd join this mad man.
"Not yet." The smile faded from Moriarty's face as he twisted Sara's hair around, she gasped and tried to turn her head with him, but the gun digging into her throat was slightly problematic, and was keeping her from moving. He puffed his cheeks up and blew onto his wrist, moving Sara's hair away from him, and checked his watch. "It's time to go, I'm afraid, but I'll see you soon."
"You're not taking the girl." Sherlock stated.
"No?" Moriarty looked worried for a moment. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice, she's not being as cooperative as we'd like, so we'll have to hold onto her for awhile. Consider this a message of good faith, and an encouraging nod to a good chase."
Sherlock took a step forward, "I don't want to play games with you! There will be no chase this time." He was angry, his lips frowning and his brow furrowed. He clenched his fists and glared daggers towards his enemy.
"That's a shame, you don't seem to have a choice in that either. Also, my new associate loves games, in fact he even beat me a few rounds." Moriarty turned towards Sara, "Any last words?"
"Not a fan of the way you phrased that last bit." Sara muttered to him, he only gave her a goofy grin in return. "Laurel." She said, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth, but I kind of had to swear an oath on my life, or else that one eyed bastard would come after me, or send his team to kill me, or erase me, or...I don't know! I guess they don't really kill people unless they're bad—like you." She glared at Moriarty. "Oh, when my new boss finds out about this you'll have a whole bag–of-dead-babies-kind-of-avenging-torture coming for you!" She threatened him.
"Don't ruin the surprise!" He sang. "And I can only hope they do notice you're absence. My associate can't wait for that part."
"Laurel, I'm sorry I couldn't tell you!" Sara said, ignoring the loons' crazy ramblings.
"Tell me what?" Laurel cried, finally pushing away from John and taking a step towards her friend.
"Ah! Ah!" Moriarty pointed the gun at Laurel. "That's enough chitchat. See you soon!" his last three words were high pitched and girly as he quickly stepped outside of the doorframe, pulling Sara after him, and shutting the door.
Sherlock and John ran towards the door, opening it and finding no one there. Just strands of Sara's hair and a puddle from where she'd been standing, no trace of Moriarty, as usual.
"So what now?" John asked.
"We go after them!" Laurel volunteered, urging them to follow suit.
Sherlock shook his head. "This isn't right."
"What?" John moved closer to Sherlock. "This is no time to escape to your mind palace, we need to focus. We need to figure out who Moriarty's new friend is, and who Sara works for and possibly a lot of guns."
"We need a Doctor." Sherlock said.
Laurel collapsed onto the floor suddenly, her legs giving out. I am not going to faint, dammit, she thought to herself. I don't faint, wimps faint and I am not a...-was the last thing she remembered thinking before falling into blackness.