I really shouldn't be publishing this while MIW isn't done, but I needed to. So yeah.


No one expects a knock at their door at 5 am, least of all John Watson. He sleepily rolled out of bed, rubbing his eyes while attempting to put on a dressing gown. He'd gotten back from...wherever it had been last night (?) and collapsed on top of the covers, so he wasn't exactly in the best state to be receiving. Obviously, the person at the threshold of the flat didn't particularly care about that. He picked up his phone from the bedside table and walked out to the main part of the flat. John ran a hand through his hair, which had fluffed into a crazy mess, trying to remotely fix it before he opened the door.

The man standing in front of John didn't look at all familiar. John wracked his brain for a reason he could know him. His hair was dark and haphazardly curly, his form was thin, his cheekbones were pronounced, and his eyes were clear blue-grey. He was beautiful, and it was so strange that the army doctor nearly had to step back. "Hello," John's fuzzy voice said. "Can I help you?"

He cocked his head at John. "It would help if you invited me in. The morning is quite cold."

"Alrigh-" The man pushed past him, heading toward the chair across from John's preferred one. That chair had always been empty as far as John knew, and yet the visitor seemed so right in it. John shook his head and sat down, waiting for the man to tell him why he was here. Of course, the man refused to speak for several minutes, staring at him. His gaze was penetrating, searching, taking John apart piece by piece. This person had something about him, but John thought he was too tired to fully figure it out.

"So, who are you, and what are you doing here at 5 in the morning?" the army doctor asked, impatient suddenly.

The man merely smiled, a gentle smile that lit his face up, even though John felt it looked slightly odd on him. Something told him that this man was rarely happy enough to do such a thing. "I have something to ask of you."

"You could have started with that," John berated, but the visitor didn't react.

"I've lived adjacent from you for around a year now, and since we are acquainted and I have few others to ask, I would like you and I to perform an experiment."

John looked at the man with surprise. He'd never seen this man in his life, and he would have noticed if the two of them had lived in flats just across from the other. "Really?"

"I will seldom 'pull your leg', as many mundane people call it. I have no desire to, besides. The experiment is simple: you have to pretend to be my partner."

John raised an eyebrow. "Partner?"

"Partner, lover, boyfriend, whatever you say now."

His mouth fell open. "What makes you think I'm willing? We just met, and I'm not gay, plus it's bloody five am and I can't think straight!"

The man shook his head. "We've met before. And as I said, I can ask few others, considering I can hardly stand speaking with most individuals, and you just have to pretend. Pretending is the only reason I thought it vaguely appropriate to say anything." His bow lips turned down. "I...lost someone recently, and before that, they lost me, and I want to see if I can recover at all. You will be invaluable." He muttered something under his breath after that, but John couldn't hear what it was.

The doctor knew about loss. It brushed the corners of his mind sometimes, but he had pushed it so far away that he wondered what he was mourning. All the dreams John had with the mysterious pain faded as soon as he woke, so he never remembered them. He still felt a part of himself missing.

Somehow, he knew what he'd answer the not-familiar, yet beautiful stranger. It made absolutely no sense, but the sentence came out all the same. "I'll do it."

It was the man's turn to ask, "Really?"

"Of course. I do things if people ask me nicely." A small grin spread over John's face. "I should probably know your name if we're going to be fake boyfriends."

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes, but I go by Sherlock. The normal public calls me something else."

"What is it?"

The man, Sherlock, gave him a lookover. "You're an army doctor, recently discharged because of an injury, not so bad that you are permanently disabled, but bad enough to send you home. Your limp is psychosomatic and you were stationed in Afghanistan. You have a sibling that you refused to share a flat with because you don't like them, either because of their drinking or the fact that they just walked out on their wife. What does the public call me?"

John stared at him blankly for several seconds, long enough to make most people uncomfortable, but not Sherlock. "Explain how you know all of that. It's all correct, by the way."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and explained everything. When he finished, John was staring even worse than before. "Brilliant."

"What?"

"The public calls you brilliant."

"Is it really brilliant?" Sherlock's question was a real wondering sort.

"Of course. It's extraordinary."

Sherlock smiled, a mischievous smile this time. "That isn't what people usually say."

"What do they usually say?"

"Piss off. And then they call me Freak."

John's mouth turned down. "They shouldn't be allowed to call you that. You're not a freak."

The other man just smirked. "That's the kind of thing my boyfriend would say. You're rather good at this for knowing me for five minutes."

"That isn't it. It's normal to try and defend someone."

"Obviously it is not normal to me." Sherlock began to get up out of the chair. "You are aware of the new case taken by the Scotland Yard?"

John shook his head. "Nope."

"Doesn't matter. I'll be at the crime scene, and as you're a doctor, I want you there with me." Sherlock paused on his way out of the door. "You've seen a lot of bodies, haven't you? Grave injuries, deaths. Do you want to see some more?"

John's answer surprised neither him nor the man that had invaded his flat so early in the morning. "Oh God yes."


Sherlock appeared in front of John's door again several hours later, wearing a long black wool coat, a navy scarf tied around his neck. "The crime scene isn't far from here," he started. "You might want to hurry. Lestrade will be peeved if I show up late again."

"You don't seem the type to be late," John remarked, sliding his own coat on and grabbing his cane.

Sherlock didn't answer, and he walked down the stairs like he was dismissing the statement. John thought this was strange, but followed. The sky was dark, a result of it being winter, even though it was only seven pm. Rain spat from the sky, not much, but enough for John to be glad he brought a warmer jacket. His companion was quiet all through the cab ride, his hands pressed together like he was praying poised under his chin. John wasn't really sure about the whole 'boyfriends' thing; however, something told him the tall man sitting next to him was trustworthy. He laughed, thinking of the entirely mad things that could come out of it.

"Why are you laughing?" Sherlock asked monotonously, as if he wasn't really paying attention.

"Because you and I are so crazy that the mental hospitals exist because of us."

Sherlock smiled. "Get used to that."

The rest of the cab ride went by quickly, and soon the two of them were strolling into a decrepit flat, not well taken care of at all. There were police cars all over the place, but Sherlock neatly maneuvered through them. Inside, officers were walking around with flashlights. A gray-haired man stood out a bit, talking to a darker-skinned woman with corkscrew curly hair. "Lestrade. Where's the space?" Sherlock asked without prelude.

He turned to look at him. "Oh. Figures you would show up. Down the hall and to the left. Who's that?"

John answered, "I'm a doctor. Sherlock asked me if I could come on this case with him."

A mousy-looking man came up to them, wearing plastic gloves and what John thought was an extremely unpleasant expression. "He has no clearance to be on the crime scene, much less his tagalong. Tell the Freak to leave." John saw Sherlock nearly imperceptibly wince at the name, and John himself had his fists clenched.

"Anderson, I wouldn't have to bring my own people on cases if you lot weren't so incompetent," Sherlock said, walking past Anderson without a second glance. The man fumed, but John just tried to choke down a laugh. Sherlock really had them all beat, didn't he?

"John, look at the place. Anything that looks wrong, tell me." John nodded, scanning the area. The room was small, smelled of beer, and had been recently vacated. There were bottles in random places on the floor, the necklace draped on the back of one of the chairs was expensive but not too much, and strangely familiar, the ceiling had cracks spider-webbing over it. Overall, an alcoholic's flat, and a woman's one at that. It reminded John slightly of his sister Harry, but he shook that thought off before it could get much farther than a simple statement.

"Harry Watson," Sherlock blurted.

"What?"

"Is it so impossible to forget your own sibling's name? I would be infinitely more jovial if I forgot my brother's, but I expected more from you, John."

"No. I meant how did you think of her? I did too, but she lives somewhere else."

"She obviously doesn't. This is her flat, which she so conveniently was kidnapped from. The question is why."

John stared at him, angrily and in disbelief. "What evidence is there to prove my sister lived here? You've never even met her!"

"True enough. It's probably why she's in this predicament." Sherlock ignored John's questioning look. "You see the mail on the table? All the postmarks have been crossed out. She's moved from somewhere else; hasn't even been long enough for the Forward on the letters to have gone. The boxes in the corner have old things in them, badly done photographs with a female that looks exactly like you and her girlfriend. Bottles covering the floor, your sister has been an alcoholic for some time. That necklace has the initials CW on the back of it; Harriet bought it for Clara as a wedding present around...a year and a half ago."

"I remember Harry wouldn't take it off when I got home from the war," John said in wonder. "I knew there was something about it."

Sherlock shifted on his feet. "The person that took her had big feet, balance of probability, we're dealing with a man. Heavy footsteps, heavy enough to bend the floorboards a little. This man knew what he was doing as well, deliberately having used enough chloroform for two hours of unconsciousness. She's not that far from here, considering this criminal had a sponsor that knew the traffic patterns."

"How do you know if he had a sponsor?"

"This man was hired to be the muscle of this operation. He isn't smart, he ran off clomping through the building so everyone would know he was there, and that is not a mistake a smart criminal makes. In conclusion, Harriet was physically kidnapped by an idiot but in the custody of someone very intelligent, however, she was taken not because of anything she did. Only letters were taken along with her, so something about her correspondence damned her." John winced at the description of his sister's fate, but Sherlock didn't seem to notice.

"Why do you call her Harriet? No one calls her that."

"Because it is her formal name, and I do not informally know her."

John took that reply and began to walk outside, knowing Sherlock had a destination in mind. The detective, as John now thought of the man beside him, was incessantly fidgeting, tapping his fingers together, wearing a zigzagged path behind him. Lestrade and Anderson were having a conversation about the possible meanings of the scuffs on the walls. Not that they knew anything. When Sherlock carefully avoided them, John had a feeling there might be a reason. Of course, Sherlock would never admit weakness to others; John was an exception just because he was an experiment.

As Sherlock stood on the sidewalk, John reached a hand out and entwined it through his. The detective looked down in what seemed to be alarm mixed with relief. "Why did you do that?" he asked. The other man noticed he made no move to pull his hand away.

John shrugged a shoulder. "You needed me to."

Sherlock gave him a small but genuine smile. "Thank you." The Yarders nearby gaped at their exchange, but John ignored them.

"And just so you know," he got closer to Sherlock's ear so the policemen couldn't hear them. "that was amazing in there. You're extraordinary."

Sherlock's pale face tinted the barest shade of pink. "I knew you'd be the best subject for this experiment. You make an excellent boyfriend."

"You deserve one." That didn't exactly help the color spreading across the detective's features. "Now, let's go find my sister."


The night before conducting his experiment, Sherlock Holmes woke up with tears running down his face. This was too common; it cut at what little sanity he had left. 221C wasn't close enough; eventually, he'd have to get closer. It hurt too much to be far away.

"I just want to pretend for a little while. Then I'll cease this infernal...emotion," Sherlock whispered quietly to himself. He knew he was lying, but was far beyond caring about it. "Just a little while."