For the third 'Let's Write Sherlock' challenge, which prompted fanfics inspired by songs. This was based on 'Lovers in the Backseat', by the Scissor Sisters.
Warnings: Major character deaths, Sherlock/John, violence, descriptions of blood.
He's going to kill them.
His brother had been an ordinary cab driver, before the diagnosis, before the pills and the poison and the newspapers and the panic whipped up in the public about it. He'd always felt the person responsible for the mysterious suicides had been some sort of genius. As it turned out, he'd been right.
He hadn't known it was his brother until he'd been contacted by the police and gone to indentify the body. He'd known then that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson needed to die. One of them – he still doesn't know which, and even if he did he wouldn't discriminate between the two – shot his brother through the upper chest, tearing lung and bone, and they'd left him to bleed. The police may have told him they didn't know who the culprit was, but he'd known it was one of them who'd decided to tiptoe around the edges of the justice system and just…shoot.
They murdered his brother, and it's not in his nature to forgive.
He changes his life in the name of revenge. He gives up his pleasant job, his medium salary, and he becomes a cab driver. The company accepts him for training and registration with little fuss; it's only a small-time business. He trains, he passes, and he drives. He waits for weeks for the right opportunity, hovering on the streets and passing over possible fares in the hope of seeing them. It's a vague hope, but one he knows, with patience, will be recognised.
In the end, it's absurdly easy. He sees them out of the corner of his eye, standing on the street corner; Sherlock has one hand on John's shoulder, casual and undemanding. John laughs at something that's been said and lost in the bustle of the street, raises a hand, then beckons for a cab with a swift, casual motion.
He waits for about ten seconds, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his fingers begin to throb, making sure they won't think him suspiciously eager, before pulling up.
They haven't learned from experience, taking a taxi without thinking. Even if they do stop to consider he's been too careful, going through the arduous process of actually becoming a driver, instead of just impersonating one; even if they call his company, he's registered. He's 'safe'. He's waited so long for exactly the right moment of the right night.
This night, they're going to die.
The only thing they might notice are the gloves he's wearing, dark leather and snug-fitting, but they slide into his cab and give directions without glancing at him. He turns a corner smoothly, drifting into traffic, one vehicle amongst many.
They're kissing in the backseat, but it doesn't bother him. They murdered his brother; quite frankly, he doesn't give a damn what they're doing. To see them so close, so vulnerable, so oblivious, does nothing to soothe his angry heart. They're still going to die.
He leans forwards and turns the radio down, listening discreetly to their scattered conversation. As he eavesdrops he can tell, just from the way he speaks, that Sherlock Holmes is a proud man; he's exuberant in every sense, lapping up attention. John Watson animates that pride, focuses its energy and turns it from simple egotism into showing off. It makes him sick, the murmured chattering, soft and happy. They don't deserve happy.
He turns too violently down the next street, jolting the cab as he draws them along a road less travelled, where the shadows flick in the corners of his vision, turning every brick to ink. The jolt alerts Sherlock; he leans forwards, glancing out of the window, frowning. There's suspicion written over his face – John has torn down the mask he used to wear, exposed him, made him softer and more open, like a turtle flipped onto its shell. The expression he sees reflected in the driver's mirror compels him to take one hand from the wheel, reaching discreetly into space between his feet where he knows his gun is sitting. It's a delicate thing, almost pretty, the first he could get his hands on. He's had it for months, just waiting to sneeze out a bullet.
Sherlock is going to say something, and then John leans forwards and touches his hand, his knee, kissing his ear, distracting him. It works. The suspicious look is wiped blank for a second or two, seconds bought by the press of lips to a neck, and it's enough. He turns again, slides the cab expertly to a halt, and shuts the radio off.
This time, the suspicion is on both sides. They're quick to notice, he'll give them credit; not that credit will do them any good. John starts forwards, leaning to the edge of his seat and wrinkling his forehead in confusion.
"Excuse me-"
The gun shuts off the words, even when it's not been fired. He brings it up sharply and points it straight at Sherlock's left eye. He watches them jump and freeze. It feels good to see sweat bead upper lips and foreheads; he can almost feel their throats tightening in terror.
He doesn't speak, jerking the gun to the left to indicate they should get out of the cab now, or else. He won't give them the satisfaction of knowing why this is happening to them; he'll leave them as in the dark as his brother was about why they've had to die so suddenly.
They scramble out, perhaps believing that obeying will save them. He follows, keeping the gun trained on Sherlock because he knows John isn't foolish enough to try anything when the man he cares most about is in danger. The way to manipulate a soldier is to give him a civilian to look after. It slows him right down.
The side-street is a remote one, empty and draped in shadow, but he makes them retreat into a tiny alley all the same, just to be safe. There's barely room for him to stand against one wall, holding them to the opposite with his gun, and the threat of what it can do. Close-quarters might have put him at risk if he hadn't planned this, but he has. He's practiced every movement, made it into a routine, and his hands don't sting, or sweat. They remain perfectly steady. He's prepared, and he doesn't care if they are or not.
He makes them put their hands on their heads and kneel. Sherlock speaks, because he has his pride and his superiority.
"Who are-"
'Are' seems like such a commonplace word for the great Sherlock Holmes's life to end on, but he doesn't allow him to get any more than two words out. The gun kicks silently in his hand, and the bullet passes through skin and nicks the jugular with little more than a coughing sound, lodging in the wall behind with a clink. Sherlock's eyes bulge and he brings down a hand, seemingly automatically, to press to the wound. He looks surprised, and it's comical; his eyes hold the same, widened look of a man choking on a piece of vegetable.
Only he's choking on his own blood.
It dribbles from his mouth and neck, slides down his chin in a stream that turns into a river and a waterfall, staining a white shirt pink and red and brown. Sherlock Holmes slumps back against the wall, too dignified to gurgle, but with the same lack of grace found in a dropped ragdoll.
The expression on John's face is beyond description. He looks like he can't believe his eyes, and more; he looks dulled, as if someone has shaded him in grey, elongated the lines of his mouth until he's slack-jawed and staring. There's blood misted over his chin and one of his cheeks, whilst the other side of his face remains dry.
At first John's hands reach reflexively for Sherlock as his frantic kicking and rattling breathing fades, but then he stops, and turns. His face is blank, but his eyes are burning. If they'd been carved of stone, they would have been stalagmites. Angry.
The bullet hits just above the right eye, slicing the brow in two. John doesn't even have the courtesy to look surprised.
It takes longer than he'd practiced to clean up because he deviates from the plan. Instead of leaving them in the alleyway, he lifts their bodies, grunting and straining – who would have thought dead flesh bore such a weight? – and places them on the backseat of the cab. Sherlock's head rests on John's, a crude replication of an embrace. In an afterthought he considers to be kind he twines their limp hands together. The flesh is heavy and soft, like rubber, and squishes as he forces their fingers to touch.
He throws the gun carelessly onto the front seat, closes the doors and locks them before peeling off his gloves and stuffing them in his pockets, alongside the keys. Let them be a burden to whomever has to cut them out; he no longer cares.
Before he walks out of sight he turns back and catches a glimpse of them through the windscreen. If it weren't for the blood dripping onto the upholstery, and the fact he's left their eyes open, as they left his brother's, they could be sleeping.
One of these days I will stop killing the characters I write. This is not that day.
Thanks for reading, reviews welcome!