Hello dears,

My 2nd Sherlock FF, very excited about the idea myself - hope you will be too.

Repeating myself but English is not my native language, so any mistakes with the language are due to that - forgive me.

Usual disclaimers apply, naturally.

ML


Boredom manifests itself in a various ways, depending on the person experiencing it. Some fall to the plain state of passiveness; some get depressed; some get cranky and some merely try to occupy themselves with something, anything, to snap out of it. There are also different types of boredom. There are the ones you choose yourself - when the boredom is that of long Sunday afternoon after night of partying and it doesn´t really bother you all that much and the ones you are forced into - when you are waiting for something or someone in circumstances you have no control over and little to keep yourself busy. And then there is the boredom which is brutally forced on you by the sheer lack of anything interesting in the world, the type that can turn into something destructive because of the pure disregard of the consequences. This was the type of boredom Sherlock Holmes experienced.

It was late summer in London, unusually hot and humid, and it dragged on like a grandmother with a bad hip crossing the street after the pedestrian lights have turned red a long time ago and your wife is on the backseat giving birth. The suppressing weather seemed to have paralyzed the whole city, and this resulted in the unfortunate fact that no case of interest had crossed the threshold of 221b Baker Street for a good while. Sherlock had been frustrated and tense, sulking and pouting and snappy, and it seemed only a grotesque serial killer or a suspicious order practicing some unholy rites could have brought an end to it. For the first time in his life Watson actually almost hoped that some kind of criminal mastermind would emerge and make living in Baker Street humanly possible again; now with what he had to deal with started to become too much. Sherlock was out of control, plainly put, and at times when John came home from running errands or attending some clinic hours and heard some strange noises protruding from their flat to the street, he was slightly afraid of going upstairs to see what Sherlock was in the middle of that time. The living space of Baker Street was more or less like it would have faced a bomb attack, and he chose not to even think what the state of Sherlock´s own bedroom was, given he locked himself in sometimes for days with only strange sounds and foul chemical smells being the only signs he was still alive. John coped with it the best he could - by staying away from the detective´s way, after the few miserably failed attempts to make human connection to him in the hopes of being able to distract him with something as mundane as conversation or offer of food.

It had been a particularly tediously hot day, the air was still and the promise of a massive thunderstorm was almost tactile in the early evening air. John had stepped out to get some air, which had proven to be a miscalculation of the worst kind; the air was like a warm, wet towel on his face and offered no cooling breeze what so ever. Determined to get out from the house for a while after having enough of the strange banging sound coming from Sherlock´s room, a one which sounded quite a lot like something being hammered through the floor, he had walked around aimlessly for about three quarters of an hour. He had been more or less lost in his thoughts, letting his mind wander, and without him even realising it his feet had take his back to Baker Street.

He stood outside for a while, listening if there was some other odd sound to be heard. The apartment seemed silent, however, and John, saying a little thank-you in his mind, opened the door and stepped in. He closed the door behind him and was enveloped in the dusk of the unlit hallway; it almost felt as if being embraced by a lover after the beating of the merciless sun. He stood there in the quiet corridor for a while his eyes closed, enjoying a moment of silence. As he started to make his way upstairs the silence was suddenly disturbed by arguing voices. He wasn´t quite able to make of what they were saying but he recognized the other one as Sherlock´s, whereas the other one, even though also a male voice, was higher and belonged to someone possibly younger, or at least in a more agitated state of mind.

Had stopped on the landing behind the door leading to their apartment and was unsure whether to go in or not. The decision was taken away from him as the door was slammed almost to his face and a man, dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, about mid-20s to 30, gashed out and almost ran into John. The man, seemingly angry, pushed him aside against the wall, and turned his face into the room where John could see at least as angry Sherlock standing in the middle of the room, his hands clutched into fists.

"You will hear from me, Holmes, this ain´t the end of this!" With that the stranger turned, ran down the stairs and vanished from the door.

John looked after him for a few seconds, then turned back to the room and Sherlock. He was still standing in the same place, visibly stirred.

"What was that? Who was that?" He knew he probably shouldn´t interrogate Sherlcok too much, especially in his current state of mind, but he couldn´t help himself from asking.

Sherlock looked at him as if he had only now realized John was in the room. "Just an old acquaintance." His voice held controlled anger in it.

Sherlock took two swift steps to the table and grabbed something from it, stuffing it in his pocket.

John looked at him, questioningly. "And that?"

Sherlock shrugged and slouched down on his chair. "Nothing." His voice made it clear there wouldn´t be any more elaborate answer provided. He took his violin which was resting on the floor and started playing vigorously, random excerpts of some long-forgotten melodies amplified to a speed which made them incomprehensible.

John cut in. "Sherlock!"

He throw the violin aside. "John." He suddenly sounded almost calm. Almost.

"Sherlock, what is going on? Are you in some kind of trouble?" John may have not sounded particularly worried, but inside he was. The character making his exit didn´t seem too trustworthy, and he could still see that Sherlock was if not upset, at least seemingly annoyed.

The dark man looked at him with his piercing eyes.. "That would at least make things interesting." He stood up, tall and thin, and left the room with long, fast steps. On his way he muttered over his shoulder, "Worry not, my dear Watson, I´ll take care of it."

The sound of the door slamming shut was the last he heard of Sherlock that night.


John woke up in the next morning to a persistent banging of the door. He glanced at the watch and saw it wasn´t even 7 AM. Grunting, he got up, threw on his robe and made his way to the door. He yanked the door open more or less convinced there would be Mr. Holmes who had, for some reason or another went out without his keys. "What now?"

His surprise was more than evident on his face when behind the door he saw not his flatmate but Lestarde with two other officers. "Oh, sorry, I thought.. Nevermind." He shook his head and straightened himself a bit. "What´s going on?"

Lestrade looked grim. "Morning, John. May we come in?"

John was confused. There was something off in Lestrade´s behavior. He raised his eyebrow in a questioning manner, adopting a bit more formal tone himself. "Is this a drugs bust?" He was only half joking.

Lestrade glanced down on his shoes and then raised his eyes back to meet John´s. "John, we really need to come in."

"Fine, fine, come in." He stepped aside to give way. "You know your way, don´t you." There was no intonation to make the statement a question.


All upstairs, John didn´t ask the men to sit down. He tried to be as credible as he could in his robe and hair ruffled after a night´s sleep. "So what is it? Who died?"

Lestrade clenched his jaw in an expression conveying the regret of being a messenger with bad news. "Is Sherlock here?"

John made a gesture which could have meant lack of knowledge or ignorance. "Probably in his room." He pointed to the correct direction.

Lestrade nodded to one of the officers accompanying him, who went for the door and knocked on it. "Mr. Holmes, would you please come out?" The man was young and sounded somewhat nervous.

In an instant John realized he had his hand on the holster of his gun. Something was seriously amiss here.

"What´s exactly going on here?" He looked at Lestrade with a demanding tone in his voice.

The officer at Sherlock´s door shook his head in a sign that there was no movement in Sherlock´s room. Lestrade nodded his head to the other officer who went to accompany the other behind Sherlock´s door. With a very quiet voice, he said, "Go in."

The other man opened the door from the handle and pushed it in, himself stepping aside from it, hand ready on the gun. Nothing happened, so he carefully peered in, never leaving his grip. "There´s no one here, sir." Relief was obvious in his voice.

Lestrade shook his head. "I didn´t expect there would be." He sounded almost resigned.

Before John had time to ask yet another time what the hell was going on, Lestrade put his hand on his shoulder. "John, I would very much appreciate if you would come with us, I need to talk with you."

Watson shook his hand off from his shoulder. His voice was a bit thicker than it had been. "First you tell me what is going on."

Lestrade sighed. "4.30 this morning there was a body found in Speaker´s Corner in Hyde Park. Stabbed, very imaginatively I might add. The assumed murder weapon was found about an hour later in one of the trash cans nearby."

John felt a grip around his chest, and although he dreaded the answer he had to ask. "What does this have to do with Sherlock?"

Lestrade looked at him, the agitation apparent in his tired eyes. "The fingerprints on the murder weapon belong to Sherlock Holmes."


Thank you for reading. ALL comments are welcomed, please spare a moment to review! If for nothing else, is it worth taking further?