Chapter One
John stuffed his hands into his pockets and let out a sigh, watching his breath vaporize in the cold Winter air. Sherlock was, as always, looming over the most recent body with Lestrade at his side, ready to snap up any new information that the consulting detective could offer. John could never keep himself calm at crime scenes, there was always the nausea in the pit of his stomach, or the horrified gasp at what monstrosity the killer introduced them to.
He could feel the disapproving stares Anderson and Donovan were sending him, he could almost hear their curiosity 'why hasn't the doctor run for the hills yet? Surely, nobody on Earth could have enough patience to deal with the Freak.' He shook his head to clear his head of any thoughts as he moved toward the caution tape for a breath of fresh air.
He felt a cold drop of water splash onto his forehead and looked up with a groan as cold sheets of rain was dropped on the crime scene like the Heavens just opened up. He wished Sherlock would at least hurry his tenacious examinations up before the thunder rolled around. If there were any curious observers, they were gone now, all scurrying to find shelter and John wished he was among them.
But there was one remaining onlooker, a little girl that couldn't be older than twelve still stood stock still in the drizzling rain, watching the constabulary hurry about like headless chickens. John cast a glance back at Sherlock to assure himself that his flatmate hadn't run off somewhere before turning back to the girl.
She was Asian, that, John could see without Sherlock telling him so. She was careless about her appearance, she wore a jacket that didn't match her shirt and a pair of jeans that was a size too big for her... and her sneakers had holes in them. But, other than her shoes, the rest of her clothes were in good shape, so she wasn't poor. She hadn't run for shelter from the rain yet, and she had a carefully detached expression as her eyes darted from the body, to Sherlock, who was studying the body, and to Lestrade, who was listening to Sherlock ramble.
And then her gaze fell on him. There was no shock, or horror, in her eyes, just a look of resignation and forced apathy. "Who's that?" John jerked and gasped sharply at Sherlock's sudden intrusion on his musings.
"I don't know..." John was saying, but Sherlock was already at the plastic barrier and was lifting it over his tall frame, leaving John to hobble after him.
"Evening." The girl turned from the crime scene to acknowledge the two of them. "Sherlock Holmes, world's only consulting detective, you?" The girl blinked.
"Bored, curious, and won't talk to strangers." she replied, brusque, but not rude.
"Ah..." Sherlock cocked his head with a slightly puzzled look on his face. "...huh, wise decision." He glanced back at John who had just caught up to him. "John Watson, my assistant." John nodded curtly at the girl.
"Nice to meet you." the girl greeted him politely. "Can you tell me what's going on here?" She shot a glance at Lestrade, who was watching them curiously, wondering why they were still at the crime scene, Sherlock had already finished his examinations.
"Oh, not much, just a murder." Sherlock wrinkled his nose a little in contempt. "Boring case." The girl raised an eyebrow.
"A murder? Boring?" Sherlock let out a breath with an annoyed look that spoke of many past conversations like this one. Apparently, the girl had caught on to it too and was quick to redeem. "Nevermind that. What are you doing here? If the case is boring, I mean? Shouldn't Scotland Yard be enough to handle it?" John blinked in slight surprise. "I mean, if the case was dull, then that means there has been one, or more, cases like it before?"
John could almost hear Sherlock's brain clicking and whirring into motion. Why had Lestrade called them in? Other than the fact that he was up against a wall, of course. "Yes, well, everybody at Scotland Yard is incompetent... except maybe Lestrade, there may still be hope for him." Although, Sherlock didn't sound so hopeful when he said that.
"I don't think it's a very good idea, calling them incompetent when they are still clearly within hearing range." the girl narrowed her eyes at Sherlock. "They might not invite you to crime scenes anymore."
Sherlock cleared his throat. "Obviously, I've hit a nerve. Are you a friend?"
The girl shook her head. "Cold."
"Family?" She snorted.
"Colder."
"Cadet?" Even Sherlock sounded dubious at that.
"I think it should be obvious that I don't live in England." The girl grimaced. Sherlock shrugged his shoulders with a grumble that sounded suspiciously like 'well it was worth the shot'.
"No, you don't live in England, you're here on vacation." Sherlock continued, louder and more confident.
"Yes, I have a pamphlet advertising London in my back pocket, that I got at the airport." The girl filled in.
"You're obviously Asian and your sneakers are a Japanese brand." Sherlock observed.
"But my shirt is of an American one." The girl smiled with clear interest in the consulting detective's deductions.
"Your glasses arn't, though, you got them in Japan, therefore, you live in Japan." Sherlock said smugly. "But you pointed out that you don't live in England when I guessed you were a cadet, you know the requirements of joining the police force. So you have an interest in the occupation. You were quick to defend the constables when I called them incompetent, you have an admiration for them."
The girl shrugged her shoulders. "Guilty."
"You were studying the crime scene, not the body, but the people surrounding it. You were observing their reactions, their expressions, psychology student?" The girl rolled her eyes.
"I haven't even graduated high school yet!" Sherlock hummed.
"Future psychology student, then."
"Contemplating criminal justice, actually."
"Then the observing expressions?"
"Well, sure the body is interesting, but the bodies arn't going anywhere, whereas, the interesting expressions on people's faces are only shown for nano-seconds."
Finally, Lestrade couldn't contain his curiosity any longer and walked over. "Is something wrong?" John just shook his head at him, slightly shell-shocked.
"No, we just might've, potentially found Sherlock's soul mate." Lestrade's eyebrows met his hairline as he saw the girl.
"In a primary schooler?" Lestrade honestly looked worried. The girl's eyebrow twitched almost indistinctly.
She turned to look at Sherlock. "I look like a twelve year old?"
"Asians are a great deal smaller than Europeans." Sherlock pointed out, she scowled at him.
"I'm sixteen, turning seventeen next year, Spring." Silence...
"Uh, ah, awkward." Lestrade stammered sheepishly.
"Don't worry about it, everybody thought I was nine when I was twelve..." The girl chuckled a little.
"Um, excuse me..." Three heads swiveled to look at John when they heard the patient exasperation in his voice. "... Rain, people?" The three heads turned Heavenward to watch the downpour.
"Hm, better get to shelter, then, shouldn't we?" Lestrade excused himself to leave with his team of constables. Sherlock turned to the girl.
"Your hotel around here?" The girl shook her head. "Well, Baker Street is... would you...?" The girl looked from Sherlock, to John, and back uncertainly.
"You have a frightening skill in observation, and you were just jumping around gleefully at a crime scene with a bloody body." John cocked his head. It was a good argument. "...Fine. But just for a short while." John was only half aware that his jaw was hanging open.
Sherlock just looked mildly interested. "Well, that's a new development."
"What is?"
"Usually people turn around and run for the hills screaming bloody murder when I invite them into my house." The girl just shrugged her shoulders.
"I'm an existentialist, Mr. Holmes." She held out her hand. "Sasaki," she introduced herself, "Sasaki Ayumu."
Mrs. Hudson was near catatonic at the sight of her tenants. "Goodness gracious!" she wailed as she bustled around, putting a pot on the stove and draping worn blankets around the half-drowned trio. "Come here, by the furnace." she said authoritatively.
Then she caught sight of the youngest of the freezing trio. "Mrs. Hudson..." John trailed off at her half-inquisitive, half-aghast look.
"I'm really sorry for the inconvenience." Sasaki spoke up at John's look of despair. "I'd hate to intrude, but it's simply impossible to get back to my hotel in this kind of weather." Sasaki had a nervous, unsure, shy look on her face, John had seen that look on Sherlock's face enough to know that it wasn't entirely genuine.
Mrs. Hudson melted immediately. "Oh, but of course you could stay! It really is dreadful weather, isn't it? You poor darling!" She set down steaming cups of tea in front of the three. "Now drink up and get warm! I'm not a doctor like John is, but I'm pretty sure you three were near hypothermia!" Sasaki had to smile warmly at the mother hen as she gratefully wrapped her small hands around her cup and blew on her tea.
"So... doctor." John pulled his sleepy gaze away from the dancing flame in the furnace. "Are you a ...surgeon?" John nodded lollingly, then his eyes widened in surprise.
"Wait, how did you...?"
"You smell of disinfectant, and the incisions on your pointer fingers, Doctor, it's from holding wires taut during surgeries, isn't it?" Sasaki pointed out. "They run in perfect, diagonal lines across your fingers, unlike the small pinprick of a scar on Mr. Holmes's left finger where he must've drawn blood, only enough for a few drops." She turned to Sherlock. "You are studying in forensic, or chemical sciences?" Sherlock blinked.
"Both, actually." Sasaki hummed to herself, the sound was positively hypnotic to the drowsy doctor.
"Mr. Holmes..." Sasaki broke the brief silence in the room.
"Just Sherlock, please." Sherlock insisted, Sasaki nodded.
"...Sherlock," She smiled a little, bemusedly, glancing at John. "...I think the good doctor has abandoned us."
Sherlock shifted in his seat to look at his flatmate. John was sleeping, quite deeply considering the deep dips his chest took. He was curled up under Mrs. Hudson's blankets like a large dog, emitting contented sighs every few minutes. "So he has."
"Poor thing, he must be exhausted!" Mrs. Hudson cooed at the unconscious man. "Sherlock, dear, help him to his room, will you?" she asked sweetly. And the cold-hearted, sociopathic detective could not, for all the world, keep from relenting.
"I'll, er... you want me to open the doors for you?" Sasaki offered kindly, jumping up as Sherlock heaved the sleeping man to his feet, slinging John's arm over his shoulder.
"Please, that would be lovely." Sherlock grunted in reply as he wrapped a firm arm around John's waist.
After a few gentle attempts from Mrs. Hudson at coaxing John into wakefulness, he was conscious enough to drag his feet sluggishly up the stairs to their shared flat. "Second floor, deary." Mrs. Hudson whispered to Sasaki and the girl scuttled off to open the door to John's room.
She drew the duvet away from the mattress for Sherlock to dump his half-coherent flatmate onto the bed. She threw the covers over him as soon as the three of them had him stripped out of his soaked clothes. "Wonderful!" Sherlock sighed in relief when he was finally liberated of his burden. "Not exactly a conventional house call, is this? I do apologize." He and Sasaki sat at the foot of John's bed for a moment of peace and quiet as Mrs. Hudson tucked John in.
"I've had to tend to piss drunk older sisters before, I'll be fine as long as I compare this incident to those ones." Sasaki grinned wryly.
Sherlock let out a snorting laugh. "Quite right."
The two of them moved downstairs to give the exhausted doctor some privacy as Mrs. Hudson returned to her own rooms to find something suitable for Sasaki to wear. Sasaki stared blankly at the skull on the mantle as Sherlock poked at the splintering logs in the furnace. "Is that real?" Sherlock was distracted from his gentle stabbing to look at Sasaki, then followed her gaze to the skull.
"Yes, that is real." was his usually blunt reply. Sasaki just nodded like having real, human skulls decorating your mantlepiece was an everyday occurrence.
"You don't happen to call it 'Yorick' sometimes, do you?" She chuckled jokingly, Sherlock abandoned his prodding entirely to blink at her blankly.
"Uh..." Sasaki forcefully pulled her gaze away from the skull to level a curious look at Sherlock.
"You know... Yorick, from Hamlet?" Still, Sherlock graced her with his blank look. "Uh, nevermind." Sasaki shrugged her shoulders. "It's not important."
"Is it common knowledge?" Sherlock asked, moving to his usual seat, which felt strange because Sasaki was sitting where John should be.
"Well..." Sasaki looked like she was choosing her words carefully. "...yeah, kind of." Apparently, Sasaki had come to the conclusion that telling Sherlock outright was alot less humiliating than trying to sugarcoat her words. "The play was written by William Shakespeare, after all."
"And you're not disturbed that I don't know this? I know John is, at least somewhat annoyed." Sasaki shrugged her shoulders.
"I'm not disturbed by the things you somehow know, why should I be disturbed by the things you don't know? Besides, like I said, I'm an existentialist."
Mrs. Hudson burst through the door at that moment, taking Sasaki and leading her downstairs to her bathroom for a warm bath she prepared, ignoring the clear 'but I'm already almost dry!' whines that Sasaki was whimpering. "She'll stay with me in my flat. You take a bath and go to sleep!" The stern landlady ordered Sherlock.
"Goodnight!" Sherlock heard Sasaki call quietly over her shoulder as to not awaken John.
"Goodnight." The door swung closed behind Mrs. Hudson. "Strange visitor."