Since the case of the homicidal taxi driver, things had been going well for Sherlock. With John as his new 'assistant,' work was coming in at a steady pace. If Sherlock was as ignorant as the general public, he might have thought John was lucky to have around. Of course, Sherlock didn't bother with such niceties; however he could see that people were warmer to John, and generally liked him more – so he was useful, as opposed to lucky, to have around.
In this succession of cases, there had been few of interest. The only ones that had been of any interest were easy to solve, what with data carelessly left around. However, one case stood out to Sherlock.
A body had been found outside the French embassy. When we say 'body', we rather mean a log-like thing, burnt to a crisp, which ever-so-slightly resembled a body. Sherlock had found traces of petrol within a 10 mile radius of the crime scene in numerous place, but after checking CCTV and eye-witnesses, he narrowed it down to a small flat, 5 minutes from the embassy. In under an hour, Sherlock had concluded that the body was that of a now ex-Sikh agent; who had sold information to the French for a considerable price. The body was burnt at the flat, before being driven to the French embassy. Sherlock believed it was meant to be a warning, telling the French that the information was invalid, and that is what would happen if they continued to pry – but for once in his life, Sherlock wasn't sure.
However, the French were not deterred, but it was no longer Sherlock's business, much to his distaste. The case was handed over to Mycroft and never heard of again. That was a week ago, which meant that Sherlock and John had been flat sharing for about 3 weeks. To Sherlock, it didn't feel like it had been that long, in fact, it only felt like a few days to him. Of course it felt considerably longer to John, after all, even when he served in the army, he was not kept so on his toes.
Sherlock had been getting restless. John was getting hungry. Therefore it seemed like a perfect excuse to get out of the house. John stands in front of a self-checkout machine. He isn't entirely sure how to work it, but it can't be that hard. He had found everything he needed in the small Tesco Extra around the corner from Baker Street, but now he was just relying on the automated electronic voice to take him step-by-step through the process of buying his goods. For some reason, John felt like he wished he could have gone to a human checkout.
"Please place your items in the bag provided."
John does so, scanning the items, before depositing them in the bag.
"Item not scanned. Please try again."
He does so, but his action is futile.
"Item not scanned."
The voice is rather too loud for John's liking and he suddenly becomes self-conscious.
"You think maybe you could keep your voice down?" He questions the machine.
John plugs his card in and types the PIN number.
"Card not authorised. Please seek alternative methods of payment." The machine replies loudly
Everyone in the queue behind seems to sigh. JOHN rummages for change desperately.
"Card not authorised."
"Yeah. I've got it. Alright!" John shouts, having finally lost it.
After realising there's no way he's going to be able to find his way around the stupid machine, he storms out of the shop, leaving his shopping discarded by the victorious machine.
AN: I know it's really bad.. I'm just putting up the first two chapters because my friends asked me to... I don't think I'll carry it on. But it might as well be here as a failed attempt!
mbm xx