pur·suit
/pərˈso͞ot/
Noun
1. The action of following or pursuing someone or something.
2. An activity of a specified kind, esp. a recreational or athletic one.
Synonyms
chase - pursuance - occupation - quest - persecution
"..shhh…it!"
Sherlock had been very still for quite a long time in his bath, not splashing, not dripping, only very nearly drowsing away the time until supper was to be delivered. As such, he's nearly in a pleasantly catatonic state and has lost interest in eavesdropping on his no doubt frustrated but resigned flatmate.
"Where's the other bastard they've set after me? Hiding?" The voice he hears, penetrating even the drip-drip-drip of the tub faucet, is absolutely not John's. It is foreign and it is irate.
Well, not foreign as in not-English, but not a voice that's familiar, either. Which is brilliant, because if Lestrade pops up again like a bad pence and trails about at his and John's heels for the remainder of the time spent in Cardiff, Sherlock will likely be forced to top himself or commit a mercy killing.
Sherlock has noted the way in which the Inspector eyes John, and 'Greg' or no 'Greg', and perhaps especially due to the 'Greg', he absolutely doesn't like it. The DI can trundle off and find his own damned friend if he so desperately needs one; John happens to be—and will firmly remain—Sherlock's.
"Fuck's sake, that's my bad shoulder, arse," Sherlock hears John exclaim, hissing. It startles him out of his tangential fit of whatever emotion that just was—wait, was it…was it 'jealousy'? Oh, surely not. "Shite!" John exclaims, meanwhile. "There is absolutely no need to threaten me, mate—I've said I don't know, damn it! Why're you even here?"
Sherlock concludes he must've drifted off, though, despite his best intentions, to have missed the sounds of forced entry into their hotel room by a person clearly unfriendly—and a bloody dolt besides. No wonder his elder brother wants this matter cleared up; this idiot of a double-crossing double agent demonstrates about as much finesse as an elephant rampaging through Harrod's Fine China department.
Sherlock sits up, carefully so there's no splashing to give him away, and blesses the fact he can be quieter than any species of the order Rodentia when he must need.
"I could give a fuck about your fucking shoulder," John is informed by the galloping dolt. "I'm going to blow your fucking head off if you don't start talking and we'll see how you like that, then!"
"Oi, ouch! I can't very well say, can I? Since I haven't the faintest idea what you're going on about—shite, stop that! What are you, some cretin, you birdbrain? I said, you're barking—I've no idea who this chap is you want me to talk about. Whoever the hell he is, the git's not here. Can't very say what I don't know, can I? I'm bloody alone, I was waiting on Room Service!"
Oooh! Sherlock's eyebrows cock with interest. There's a gun involved, apparently, and this could become very interesting indeed, and very quickly. It behooves him to shift his arse: John is need of potential rescuing.
And if that's not sexy and seductive, Sherlock really doesn't know what is.
Extracting himself from the cooling water is the first step, and accomplished with nary a ripple. Also, Sherlock is not 'hiding', not at all; he was only bathing, and demonstrably that is a dull occupation, however sensuously pleasing, when one is suddenly presented with the opportunity to pursue one's main occupation.
That is to say, the apprehension of the criminal element.
"I'll fucking do what I want, won't I? I have the damn weapon here!" The poor excuse for a criminal attempts a suitable snarl, but Sherlock deduces he's very unused to waving what's likely a stolen gun about, and is probably a fat-arsed slob and not at all fit sufficiently to effectively subdue an ex-Army doctor with it. If the ex-Army doctor allowed it. Again, it's likely only a ploy till John can secure Sherlock's safety and locate an advantage. "Now, where is he? Talk or you're a dead man."
(But the shoe is really on the other foot, as Sherlock is of course scheming to rescue John, this one time. And it is not at all a problem to discover he may employ the exact same occasion as a chance to flirt further with his flatmate, perhaps even convince him that the one bed they will share this night is a perfect place to experiment. And by 'experiment' Sherlock refers to the 'seduction' he's been mulling over for positively hours now.
Two stones, then, with one 'bird'. Bird, bird—bird? What, oh?)
"You fucker! Talk, I said!"
That right bastard Mycroft's fretting over is yet squawking just like one; bother the fellow—he should just sod off and not go about threatening innocent doctors on holiday in Cardiff.
But clearly he has, so there must be something more to the bloke than simply a hard-on for . Right-oh. Mustn't be distracted by fancy, as it's also clear the double-agent is fast losing the upper hand out in the main area of the hotel room. Sherlock knows this simply by the quality of John's short silence.
And his (sometimes) testy flatmate's tiny snort. "Oh, not hardly, mate," John shoots back. "Don't even go there. If you'd just shut your trap for a half a sec, I'd tel you I don't know anything. You've the wrong room, git-for-brains."
Motivated in the extreme, Sherlock casts about him for a few tools to tackle the job at hand. That is to say, disarming the dolt and impressing John with his own virtuosity whilst doing so.
Hair lacquer in an aerosol can, a tiny tester left by the lovely, thoughtful, absolutely brilliant staff of the Angel, is Sherlock's first weapon of choice upon a survey of the contents of the array of free product available. He grabs at the zip ties in pocket of his discarded coat, thinking forward, and arms himself additionally with a complimentary toothbrush. And then crème—shaving, also in an aerosol canister; how helpful.
"Wrong tree, barking up," John offers up, sounding helpful, if long-suffering. "Tell me, have you even tried enquiring at the main desk? Because I'm terribly afraid I can't help you. Don't know this 'other fellow'. There's only me here, as you see."
Sherlock catches a glimpse of his own face in passing, in the foggy mirror. He's grinning like a loon, and part of it's John's sass and part of it's the Angel.
The Angel is proving truly an Angel, when in need. The detective resolves briefly, instantly, to request John tip them well, later: these helpful minions, and their complimentary delights. It's a bloody arsenal for a thinking man, what they've left him, and that's only in the loo.
But no matter, the Work is at hand!
The bird-brained, arse-headed, completely shoddy excuse for a villain has been apparently reduced to shouting, and it's mostly unintelligible to Sherlock, safe away from the blast as he is in the loo. He winces for John's sake, though. No one likes to spend time with the mentally incompetent, especially not Sherlock, and definitely not John, either, and Mycroft's prey is certainly that.
Sherlock echoes his flatmate's sniff of disdain, but makes cure to keep to the Q.T.
"You!" the ruffian howls. "Will tell me what I want to know, or I'll shoot you through head, and I'm not joking about, here! Arrgh!"
Oh, but he's a noisy bird, this one, and Sherlock can only shake his head over it. Here he is, maintaining a cautious furtiveness and the bleeding fuckwit is making enough noise to alert the entirety of the Angel!
"I've told you and told you; do you not hear me? Your hearing gone south, mate? I've no idea what you're talking about," John snaps, and his snarl is the real, honest-to-god proper kind: it has grit built into it. "You've got the wrong damned room!"
"Right—no. Bad! Escalating!" Shifting about ever faster, the detective disdains the Egyptian cotton towel he employs to rapidly rub his skin to semi-dampness. "Must save John, Sherlock—keep to the task, damn it!"
Fabric rustles. Clothes will only delay. Modesty is for idiots. Besides, John's out there. And John has eyes that see.
There's absolutely no need to hide Sherlock's wares away, not at this late date. Rather, it's the opposite: Sherlock would quite like to indulge in a bit of a peacock display. It's a rather successful gambit, evolutionarily speaking, for many species, and no reason why it can't work out for him—and John. Also, he recalls he should always remain forward-thinking when it comes to the good doctor, as John could still so easily slip out of Sherlock's grasp and escape down the Angel's pub after this whole pathetic mess is cleared up.
Which would not suit Sherlock's aims a'tall, ta. No—'pursuit' is the word he's seeking at the moment, and this comes down to pursuit, plain and simple.
Accordingly, he's starkers when he cracks the door and presses a curious eyeball to the gap. What greets Sherlock's darting gaze when he peers out ever so carefully is exactly what he expects.
There's a man of middle years in the room, obviously some sort of clerk-type, and yapping away at some volume, lording it over and crowing to Sherlock's flat mate as to his own wonderful clevernesses. He's moved on from berating Sherlock's flatmate for news of the detective's whereabouts and is now completely centred on how he came to be in their hotel room in the first place.
Specifically, having settled finally into some sort of not-as-manic state, he's detailing some convoluted plan as to the data he's stolen, the funds he's diverted and how lovely the weather will be in the Costa del Sol. This, periodically interspersed with threats to John's life and longevity. As he apparently plans to shoot John in the head after he's finished prosing on and on about himself, and that is just simply expectable and terribly tedious and, well…
Boring. And dull, really, for the measure. People do talk, blast them. Interminably on and on, and then never manage to say anything to the point.
Sherlock sighs his exasperation. Quietly, though; he's not an idiot.
John, for his part, has his blond-grey head well tucked down, his hands up, his jaw taut, and is issuing what sounds like small grunts and varied sibilances. "Shite!" he's saying, like an angry hedgie, really; and '…shhhh…ite!' is the least of them.
(Hedgehogs, when irritated, make all manner of small irate noises, and this Sherlock knows, having met one as a child. He'd rather liked it; it had not particularly liked him.)
But yes! As Sherlock had suspected, precisely: John is actually physically captured; held at a terribly short distance by the idiot former paper-pusher armed with a silenced pistol, and that initial shushing sound Sherlock caught at the very beginning of this debacle was the sound of his best mate in the world attempting to warn Sherlock away. How thoughtful!
(Sherlock is temporarily rendered struck-still by a wave of sheer smittenness, and with John Watson, naturally. His friend is clearly the best of all possible friends to be had, and well worthy of Sherlock's flirtations—nay, his wholehearted pursuit!)
There's a flurry of activity, suddenly, occurring between the bird-brain twit and Dr Watson. It's lightning fast and over in a blink, but Sherlock sucks in an irate breath, nonetheless: John is abruptly showing a tiny trickle of blood on his frowny face and it's beyond all the bounds of what's acceptable, that Sherlock's friend be injured!
"Well. You're a bit of a cock, aren't you?"
John recovers ably from the nasty little rap to the temple the double-agent-gone-bad delivers him and goes on to ask of the man politely, during a teeny-tiny pause in the flow. He smiles briefly at his captor, tilting his newly injured head just a smidgeon and glancing upwards the Bird's enraged features. It is the 'bird, flown', indubitably.
"All gung-ho to harm me and ruin my supper? It's not even like I did anything to you, arsewipe. And I still say you've the wrong room, you know. I don't know of any bloody detectives. I'm here by myself: I'm on holiday, for chrissake!"
Well! How unutterably aggravating! And what insufferable twat, this blasted ham-handed bastard Mycroft has sicced his younger brother on!
And, also? Shite! As not even Vatican Cameos will work here.
Sherlock restrains himself from bolting forward and bowling over the gun-bearer, but it's a near thing. There could be an explosion and that wavering pistol is situated far too close to his lovely doctor's head.
No. No.
Sherlock rocks back on his bare heels, contemplating. Clearly, this situation is not quite as cut-and=dried as he first thought.