It had been after the Blind Baker case, that it had really hit Sherlock that John was in danger just by associating with him. His blogger, his conductor of light could easily be hurt by the degenerates that they chased all over London. What if the gun had went off before John had tipped over onto the floor, he could have easily been hit.

He needed to train John, use code words to get him to do things that would confuse anybody else. He couldn't really call out for him to duck, so many people stopped to look before even considering to duck down. Not that he thought John would do that, he had been a soldier and Sherlock was certain if he simply said duck, the good doctor would duck. But once again if he said that a criminal, would surely do the same thing. He needed to find some way to make John instinctually duck down if he heard Sherlock shout something. Putting his fingers together he went inside his mind palace to find a way to accomplish what he needed to do.

He pulled out an hour later with the perfect solution. He would use classic conditioning along with negative reinforcement to get John to duck on command. Pavlov had done it with bells and dogs, surely Sherlock could find a way to condition his flatmate to duck at a certain phrase. First he would need a phrase and then he could begin, something obscure….he had it Vatican Cameo's! It was an old military code word for duck. Sherlock did not know if John knew it, but he would condition John into reacting when he heard it.

Sherlock decided to start small, grabbing a small blue ball he stared straight at the back of John head, "Vatican Cameo's" he yelled hurling the ball. His aim was true and the ball bounced off John's head with force. John as expected reacted immediately afterwards, if that had been a bullet his blogger would have been dead.

"What the bloody hell was that Sherlock!" demanded his irritated flatmate rubbing the back of his head.

Sherlock gave his flatmate an innocent look and quickly bent over his microscope acting like he didn't do anything.

He smiled faintly as he heard John grumbling, this was going to work he just had to make sure he kept at it.


Sherlock knew that there was a gun on the other side of the safe, once he opened it the shooting would begin. He would get only one chance to warn John and he could only hope that these past few weeks of hitting John with the rubber ball and yelling Vatican Cameo's worked.

"Vatican Cameo's" said Sherlock clearly and then opened the safe.

Sherlock couldn't help but feel pride as he caught sight of John ducking. He knew that it work, take that Pavlov!


So found this on my laptop and decided to finally hoped you liked.