Lestrade had phoned John up from Scotland Yard. He needed help with some teenagers who had mysteriously vanished. He was out of his depth once more and had phoned John up in hope of him persuading Sherlock to look at the case. He was hoping of finding some closure.
John strode out of his bedroom and to Sherlock, who was very involved with his experiment. This was his third attempt of persuasion.
"Sherlock, is there anywhere inside of you that could find the slightest bit of empathy towards these kids?"
"John, I told you, I don't do teenagers."
"They need your help!"
"Wrong. They need help."
"You know you're the best man for it."
"I'm not discussing it John. No teenagers."
"You don't even have to interact with them, they're missing!"
"I help people who are innocent, I'm pretty sure that these teenagers brought this on themselves."
"You were a teenager once!"
"Yes, and we all know how my school life was. They're stupid, arrogant and ignorant of the world around them. I hated everyone in my school."
"There must have been some people you liked."
"My chemistry teacher wasn't stupid. The rest were."
"I give up. I'm going down to Scotland Yard."
"Great. Bye." Sherlock muttered sarcastically into the microscope.
Grabbing his coat on the way, John made it down the staircase towards outside.
"Bye Mrs Hudson. I'm just going to the Yard."
"Oh, John, without Sherlock? Why?"
"Teenagers."
"Ooohh, I see. Have fun- if you can."
"See ya."
He opened the front door to a cold winter breeze, there was no more colourful autumn anymore leaves spread across the pavements, it was a dull winter grey.
He walked along the dimly lit streets to a cab, turning up his coat and wrapping his scarf around his neck.
"Taxi!" he called out to the road.
A taxi drew up and he stepped into it.
"Scotland Yard please."
"As you wish, Sir." The cab driver replied.
At Scotland Yard, John had just been briefed about the case.
"Right everyone, listen up. These are kids we are talking about. We need to move quickly. Last Tuesday at Seven pm, Sarah Leonel and her friends met up at Charing Cross Station to get a train back to their homes. From what I assume was 'pre-drinking' for some party at one of their homes, to put it simply, they were seen drunk. Yes, they were 15. Yes. Yes. It's illegal, but that's not the point right now, the point is that they never made it to their party. And this is the strange part. At 7:30pm all of the underground cameras completely shut down. All the stations cameras, the cameras surrounding the stations, everywhere. And the kids weren't seen again on the cameras. We looked at the footage of the train they got on, and they were there, and then the cameras shut off for 1 minute, and then they were gone. We don't know what happened. We have no leads. 7 teenagers are missing and it's going to be front page news soon. Any ideas anyone?"
"How long did you say the cameras were shut off for?" said a young detective, clearly new here.
"Exactly 1 minute. That's another thing everyone. It was exactly one minute. To the millisecond. That means that it was definitely premeditated and that someone or a gang is behind it, and planned it."
"I have to call Sherlock. He has to help with this." John said.
"No luck Lestrade, he's quite persistent that it's not going to happen."
"God help me, we need him!"
"I know, I've never seen him so stubborn, if it was adults or children, I'm sure he's have been right on it, I don't understand."
"He can have nothing to do with saving the actual kids if that's what he's scared of. "
"I've said that."
"Well, I better get to work John, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to give you the task of making him say yes."
"Wish me luck." John sighed.
"I give you all the luck in the world for that stubborn ass." He chuckled.
He knew he didn't have much hope with persuading Sherlock, he was the most ridiculously arrogant and stubborn dick he had ever met.
He had been arguing with Sherlock for an hour.
"Sherlock, listen to me! They need your help."
"No."
"Give me one good reason."
"I don't do teenagers."
"I said 'good', Sherlock, not pathetic."
"No."
John looked over to Sherlock and saw something he'd never seen before. Fear. Sherlock had fear in his eyes.
"Are you, are you scared?"
"No."
"Are you actually scared of teenagers?"
"Why would I be?"
"You said you had a bad time in school, but still that wouldn't make sense considering you don't even have to talk to them or come anywhere near them."
"No, John."
"What is it then?"
"Do you really want me to tell you?"
"Yes."
"I know what took those kids already. I don't need to solve it."
"What, how do you know Sherlock?"
"It took me when I was a teenager."
