A/N: This is set shortly after "A Lifetime For Music". Rated for character death (not Sherlock, so no panicking, but if you're read "Time Well Spent", you already know that), and for anything else that comes under the M rating.
They were down in a tube tunnel, which was unpleasantly warm and damp, droplets of water falling from pipes above their heads, although Sherlock didn't seem to notice. He was buzzing, darting about the crime scene, noting things that should have been impossible to see without a torch of his own, as John examined the body, trying to get some sense of what had happened to it.
Sherlock was not suited up, of course, and John was. He ignored his husband's constant yammering about whatever it was this second that was flashing through his mind, and looked at the cuts on the victim's chest and torso. Not knife wounds, no. To narrow and precise for that. Scalpel marks. And straight, sure, consistent.
"Surgeon," he said, interrupting Sherlock's monologue about fungi on the walls and under the victim's nails. Killed in the tunnels, but not this tunnel, since there wasn't near enough blood for the wounds. The victim had been sliced with the Y-pattern used in autopsies, but the body hadn't been actually opened up. Even so, this would result in the loss of a great deal of blood.
"Dental surgeon, my dear Watson," Sherlock corrected, not even losing his stride. "Note the smell."
That was the sum total of Sherlock's pet names for John, and he only used it on cases. John was never sure if it was an affectation, or if Sherlock was really establishing some personal connection to John in a professional setting. He liked to think it was the latter, so he never asked in case he got the answer he didn't want.
John leaned in and sniffed. Yes, Sherlock was right. It smelled of a dentist's office, faintly, and John wondered how much time their mystery dentist-murderer spent at work that this scent carried over to the body.
"Maybe the victim was the dentist," the lead forensics expert, Bailey, suggested. John was glad it wasn't Anderson; not that Sherlock thought any more of Bailey's abilities, even though this was the first time they'd worked with the man, but at least the constant antagonism wasn't in the air.
"Not with those teeth," Sherlock replied in his off-handed, arrogant way, and John exchanged a sympathetic look with Bailey. It was hard to work with Sherlock when one knew him, even when one was married to him. Working for him the first time must be like being hit by a tornado. John tried to remember their first case, but he was so used to Sherlock by now it was difficult to recall exactly what it had been like.
"What's wrong with his teeth?" John asked.
"Upper right canine is four to five degrees crooked from the midline, and he has some faint discolouration on his lower central incisors, which he would have had corrected had he been a dentist."
John checked.
This was, of course, correct.
Bailey gave him a glance.
"He noticed that?" he hissed. John repressed a smile.
"Oh, yes," he replied. He pushed himself to his feet, turning away from the body. Lestrade was following Sherlock's excited movements with his eyes, waiting with resigned patience for some additional information.
"Now all we must do is find a dentist who has a penchant for murdering people with scalpels," he said, as if this were a simple prospect. John rolled his eyes, but Sherlock didn't deign to pay attention to him. "Most likely a man, but could be a tall or exceptionally strong woman." After the Sandford case, Sherlock was more conscientious about including women in his consideration of mass murderers. John was cheered by this progress – even though none of the serial killers they'd tracked in that time had actually been women. Several of the murderers who killed out of passion had been, of course. This wasn't unexpected or abnormal.
"And you can find this for me, can you?" Lestrade asked.
"To be sure," Sherlock replied easily and John suppressed another eye roll.
"Can we move the body?" Lestrade continued.
Sherlock cast a look at John.
"John?" he asked. John felt somewhat bad for Bailey; this was after all, his job, but he met the other man's eyes, and Bailey nodded. They'd been down there for long enough by John's standards, and John was getting hot and itchy in his suit, so he was glad when Bailey agreed.
"Yes, we're fine here," he said. He'd examine the body more at St. Bart's, and he knew Sherlock would probably "assist" him, wanting to get as many details from it as possible. John was fairly sure Sherlock would even pin down in which tunnel the victim had been killed, and where the poor bastard's clothes were now, provided they hadn't been burnt. Even then, he'd probably find the pile of ashes.
"Do you need anything else down here, Sherlock?" Lestrade asked.
"Finished ages ago," the consulting detective replied, to which Lestrade only rolled his eyes.
"Let's pack it up," he sighed, gesturing to the forensics team and officers around him. John assisted with getting the body into a body bag, but didn't volunteer to help bring it to the surface. He was dying to get out of the tunnel and his suit, so he followed Lestrade up into the March air, Sherlock in tow, emerging onto a taped-off area of a busy London street. Other police officers were milling around, keeping the growing crowds at by, and John wondered what the fascination was. It wasn't as though there was anything to see. The body had been discovered in the tunnel by a tube employee doing routine electrical maintenance; although it had not been down there long, maybe overnight at best. It had stayed down there until now, so only the police coming and going were visible. And, of course, Sherlock's whirlwind arrival on the scene, dragging John behind him as though John was caught in the crosswind, which, he would admit, was sometimes what it felt like.
He stripped out of his suit gratefully, noting Sherlock watching appreciatively, as if he was actually stripping down altogether. He smirked at his husband, who raised an eyebrow, all sorts of promises in his expression. He wondered if anyone else noticed this. Sherlock had a nearly insatiable libido, which would have come as a surprise to most people, and had to John, in the beginning, since Sherlock had been so insistent on being married to his work. Not that John minded Sherlock's enthusiasm though, because he felt the same.
"Mind on the job, Holmes," he muttered when Sherlock stepped over to him as John finished divesting of the suit and plunged it into a trash bin near one of the forensics van that was set up for that purpose.
"My mind is always on the job, John," he replied easily, hands in his pockets. "It's just a matter of the nature of said job."
"Well, how about this job?" John asked, grinning.
"I don't know, I really don't," Sherlock said. "You wore that jumper just to distract me. It won't work."
"I wore this because it's still cold, and I had my jacket on before we went down," John pointed out. Sherlock was about to reply when John's mobile, in his jeans pocket, rang.
"You were saying about mind on the job, John?" Sherlock asked but John rolled his eyes, making a dismissive gesture, pulling out his phone and answering it without checking the number. Sherlock wandered away as John refocused his attention on the caller.
"Yes, John Watson," he answered.
"John?" came a somewhat unsteady voice from the other end. John bit his lip against a groan, putting his hand on his forehead. He saw Sherlock pause on his way to talk to Lestrade again, casting a questioning glance at him, but John waved him away, shaking his head.
"What is it, Harry?" he sighed. Checked his watch. It had just gone on noon. She sounded drunk. There was no reply and John frowned. "Harry? What do you want?"
He was annoyed at this interruption, not least because it came from his alcoholic sister. She had been doing so well for so long, going to rehab the day after John and Sherlock married, but before last Christmas, she'd fallen off the wagon again and hadn't gone back to treatment. She'd relapsed a couple of times before, but had always sought help immediately afterwards, and John knew how frequent relapses were for addicts. In fact, it surprised him that Sherlock never actually smoked, especially when he was particularly stressed. But then, when Sherlock set his mind to something, he usually bent the universe to his will.
"Harry, where the hell are you? How much have you had to drink?"
Instead of replying, she launched into a diatribe about how John treated her, how Sherlock treated her – as if she actually ever spoke to or saw John's husband – how the world treated her, how their parents had loved him more, had always been so proud of him for being a doctor, for going off to serve his country in Afghanistan, how she was so tired of being the useless sister of a war hero. John closed his eyes, feeling himself war between anger and weariness. Harry berated him for never visiting, although he did call her often to ask if he could see her, or at least he had until she'd started drinking again.
"Harry, I'm going to hang up," he said. "Call me again when you're sober. If that ever happens. I don't need to put up with this."
She screamed something about him not loving her, which John felt wasn't fair – he did love her, he just didn't like her when she was drunk.
"For Christ's sake, Harry, shut the hell up for once," he snapped. "Go back to rehab and then I'll talk to you. If you want to feel all petulant, you go right ahead, but I'm busy right now."
She cursed colourfully at him and John bit down on a retort of his own.
Then she screamed.
It had a different harmonic.
"Harry?" John demanded. "Harry?"
She cursed again, not at him, then John heard something on the other end of the line, a horn blaring, then another. Harry shrieked, cursing wildly, and John tightened his grip on the phone. The sounds around him suddenly died away, so he was standing in isolation, the other officers, the cars, the crowd, even Sherlock forgotten and vanished.
"Harry!" John snapped.
"Oh my God! Fuck!" she swore and then John heard the sound of crumpling metal and breaking glass. His eyes flickered, as if he were trying to see the situation himself, to get a visual based on the sounds. How many cars? Where was she?
"Harry!" he cried. "Harry!"
Another horn, more screams, more glass breaking. John jerked the phone away from his ear a moment, staring at it in panic, then pulled it back.
"Harry! Harry, dammit, pick up your phone! Harry!"
He could still hear something on the other end of the line, but it was faint, as if it wasn't coming from her, or whatever vehicle she'd been in. John's heart did double time; this was too close to home, and his eyes sought out Sherlock's form. Sherlock, talking to Lestrade. The image confused him a moment, as his brain sought to differentiate Sherlock's crash from this one, to keep them from superimposing on one another.
"Harry!" John snapped again. "For God's sake, Harry, answer me!"
As though Sherlock had heard him across the wide expanse of street that separated them, or as if he sensed John looking at him, he glanced over, and his grey eyes and normally detached expression were immediately filled with concern. John saw him gesture at Lestrade and begin striding over, his long legs closing the distance between them quickly.
"Harry!" John shouted into the phone. "Dammit! Harry! Answer me!"
He felt Sherlock's hands curl around his upper arms, supporting him, and John's weight gave into them, as if his legs had just been waiting for permission to weaken.
"John," Sherlock said, but his voice sounded far away, unimportant. "John. What is it?"
"Harry!" John yelled again. "Goddammit! Pick up the bloody phone!"
"John!" Sherlock snapped.
"John, what's happened?" Lestrade asked. John tried his sister's name again, then looked up, almost surprised by the presence of the two other men watching him with concern, Sherlock's personal and deep, Lestrade's more professional.
"I don't know," John gasped, lying. He looked at his phone, as if it would give him some answers. "Greg, can you – can you find out about a – crash? Just now?" He bit his lip, wanting it not to be true, and could feel himself starting to shake. Sherlock's hands tightened on his arms. "I think my sister – I think my sister was just in an accident. I heard-" he stopped, unable to voice what he'd heard.
Lestrade stared at him only the briefest of moments, then nodded curtly.
"Yes, of course," he said, glancing at Sherlock, the two of them exchanging a look over John's head, which John ignored. "Come with me."
Carefully, Sherlock took the mobile from John's fist.
"No! No, no," John protested, trying to get it back. Sherlock pocketed it, then put a hand on John's cheek, far more intimacy than he usually displayed at crime scenes, or at least at crime scenes when they were out in public like this, if only to keep the police off of their case. He'd kissed John at crime scenes before, but that was usually in celebration of figuring something out, and had nothing to do with John's desires.
"Come on," Sherlock said gently.
"Give me back my phone!" John demanded, half pleading, half ordering.
"Come on," Sherlock repeated.
"Dammit, Sherlock!" John said, then heard the sob threatening to break in his voice. Sherlock wrapped an arm around John's shoulders, effectively pinning John against him and John found he couldn't break away, he had no will to.
"Come with me," Sherlock said again. "We'll find out what happened."
John suddenly didn't want to know, and tried to pull away. Sherlock held him fast and John felt a moment of panic – he had to get out of this. But Sherlock had him moving, walking slowly but surely to the nearest patrol car, where Lestrade was in the front seat, talking on the radio. The DI turned toward them as they approached, and John knew it didn't matter what he wanted or didn't want to know. The expression on Lestrade's face told him he was going to find out, one way or the other.