Disclaimer: nothing mine, or I wouldn't be fan-fictioning, would I?
A.N. I apologize to John. I know he's better than this, but the prompt took a strange form. And I apologize to all my readers that are waiting for me to update other fics. I promise I'll get to them all in time, but feel free to insult me.
It happened a Thursday
Lestrade can be considerably daft sometimes. Like calling Sherlock to check a perhaps-suicide-but-it-rubs-Greg-the-wrong-way case. The boy (says Anderson) jumped off his house's balcony to his death, obvious suicide, but Philip can miss things sometimes (and still be surprisingly insightful at random times). Sherlock is desperately bored, so he agrees to come.
Of course, John is with him. The consultant beelines for where the boy is supposed to have jumped from, while John exchanges a polite word with a policeman they know. It's a mix of Sherlock not being there, the dead boy's appearance being – now that Greg thinks about it – quite like the detective's at first glance, and the method of death. John starts breathing funny and oh fuck, he's having a panic attack isn't he? What is Greg supposed to do beyond being sorry he's wanted them here?
Thank God that Sherlock is back, disappointed at not being followed as always. He glares at Greg, as if it's all his fault (and he's already sorry about it, but he's not the one who's given John these triggers to begin with), but manages to quickly pull John out of it. Then, with a scathing, "The railing is too high for the boy to climb over it without some sort of stool. That. Isn't. There. He's obviously been thrown over it," he drags his friend away from the place. Greg would love some clues about who did that, but after what's happened he understands if Sherlock wants to give up the case.
At home, John is apologetic. Ashamed. "Stop it," Sherlock prompts. "Not your fault."
"How did you survive?" the doctor blurts out. After he asked for the 'why, not how,' the matter was dropped. Until now.
"As I said, there were thirteen possibilities..." the sleuth starts, joining hands in his mock prayer thinking pose.
Before he can continue, John cuts in, "Don't lie to me. There's no way that there are so many tricks that would work with what I've seen."
"You don't want me to lie?" Sherlock asks, and if it made sense at all, John would say he sounds surprised.
"No!" he shouts. Does he need to say it? Apparently yes, because Sherlock queries, "Not even a bit?" and isn't it strange? Sherlock usually is all for brutal honesty. The only lies he tells are in order to manipulate people, and John bloody hopes he doesn't even dream of manipulating him (again) now.
"Tell me the truth," he orders in his best no-nonsense voice.
"Since you insist...Height is nothing to light waves, John," the detective states.
"Uh?" is the most intelligent answer the doctor can muster to that. "How is this related to anything?" He's held Sherlock's apparently lifeless wrist, and that was no bloody hologram.
"I'm not human. I'm an hooloovoo," Sherlock says. With a straight face, the bastard.
"Very funny, Sherlock. I didn't know that you read Douglas Adams."
"Who?" the detective asks, with the same puzzled look he reserves to pop culture references, and his ability to lie – because he has to know – is astounding. Of course, John shows his own well-loved book. Why the pretense, really?
"So this Adams knows us. Good. I don't have to explain then," Sherlock declares.
"You're a super-intelligent shade of the color blue," John needlessly quotes the book. True, he's wondered many times exactly what bloody colour his flatmate's iridescent eyes were supposed to be. But such a statement is not typical of Sherlock, even with the detective's conceitedness. What is he aiming for?
"Yes. I got this...suit, for lack of a better word, done to blend in with the local race I wished to study, but I'm serious when I say that the body is just transport," Sherlock explains calmly.
"So only your...transport got hurt in the fall, it's that what you're trying to say?" John chokes out. And John must be crazy, because he's talking as if it might be not a shameless lie or a bout of madness on Sherlock's part. But God help him, Sherlock has felt alien so many times, that being told he is seems frightfully reasonable. And it fits in with what John has seen – the broken skull, the blood...Ok, not thinking back there.
"Yes. I'm sorry that it took me two years," Sherlock apologizes. He's apologized for that until the words sounded empty, but now he adds, "To have a perfect duplicate of my transport realized and get it shipped here really couldn't be done in less time."
"And you are here to...study us. What are we? Your experiment?" John wonders. Anger is creeping in. Is everything an experiment to Sherlock? Even their friendship? ...Do hooloovoo have friends? Why is John starting to accept this like everything else Sherlock says? Is the doctor crazy?
"Yes." Flat out. "But I'm a poor scientist."
"Why?" the doctor queries. That sentence makes him hope, he's not even sure for what. But that something Sherlock did might be genuine.
"Why would I wait two years to have a perfect duplicate of this body made instead of taking whatever they had in store?" Sherlock counters, challenging.
"Because you're a posh git and like your custom-made transport?" John hypothesizes.
"Oh, John," the detective sighs, profoundly disappointed. "I could have taken whatever and moved on with my study. New face. New continent. I did it because you liked this," he admits.
"What?" the doctor croaks.
"I've fallen for my supposed-to-be- guinea pig, and not only in the literal way. There. I've said it. If you get disgusted, start hating me, or even are completely freaked out, maybe I stand a chance to recuperate enough objectiveness to properly end my research." For all his genius, Sherlock doesn't expect the fervent kiss that shuts him up.