UPDATED 5/25/2014
Disclaimer: I do not own BBC's Sherlock or any of the characters based off of Sir Conan Doyle's most excellent work. I make absolutely no money off of this.
Warnings: This IS a story where men like other men. Not that anything happens in this chapter, but I felt like people should be forewarned.
John Watson repeatedly dissuaded himself from ever considering his current predicament normal. For, to all outside observers, he had little less than recently shacked himself up with a madman, sociopath, and/or whack-job of the highest degree.
And they were right, sort of.
The doctor admitted on many occasions that if Sherlock were anyone else but himself, he'd have been gone quicker than lightning out the door. John would hobble merrily back to VA housing with or without a psychosomatic bum leg. Sherlock, for all his genius intellect, poor performance of violin, and detrimental personality quirks, was still the queerest, most fascinating creature John had ever befriended.
That thirst for scientific adventure coupled with that wonderful deductive skill kept even the most awkward of situations from making John think twice about his recent life decisions. A variant of this mantra repeated his head whenever the more stressful or disturbing of incidents occurred.
Like now, for instance, as John held the mutilated skeleton of a thawing poodle. It smelled like dry ice and an acrid musk from being rained on for two nights, but otherwise it wasn't the first animal dissection the doctor had ever seen. If one breathed heavily through the mouth it wasn't so bad.
Due to a recent string of serial pet murders John was spending his evening in this muggy residential quarter. Today the criminal responsible for such a heinous accomplishments graduated to now include humans in their repertoire. The dead poodle laying outside the back of the row-house had been the first indication something was amiss.
As to why John was holding up the victim? Well it was the only way Sherlock could see the underside of the creature's body where more fleshy tissue than bone remained. Never mind Watson was beginning to feel nauseous; he happened to have a great fondness for dogs. Never mind a three-day-old, wet corpse of a victim's rapidly thawing bodily fluids were beginning to seep into his coverall suiting. It was all the more likely to soak into his favourite blue jumper beneath the semi-protective garment. Counting John as a former Captain in Her Majesty's military, Sherlock expected more out of his assistant than squeamishness in the face of science!
So, John endured.
The doctor gave in to handling the thankfully not yet maggoty flesh of this horror of an anatomy experiement. The same, unfortunately, could be said about the second victim still being photographed inside the house, but Watson chose not to think about that. It was better to remain focused in the immediate present.
"It's fascinating, Watson. Utterly so... the trick to keeping a corpse frozen without the significantly decreased temperatures of a freezer after a nearly complete dissection," Sherlock mumbled offhandedly to the surgeon in front of him as he prodded the meeting points between flesh and bone with a slim set of tongs.
"Don't you think it would be better if someone else, perhaps one of the forensics team members for instance, helped you examine this? I haven't taken a veterinary anatomy class in years, Sherlock, and not one criminology course. That, and we never used dogs in our lessons anyway..." John sighed, feeling a little out of his depth.
Sherlock scoffed before verbalizing his response, "Anyone else besides you, John, and the mental chatter would be far too irritating. I can generally block out your incessant internal mutterings..."
Watson chose not to be insulted at the statement. It wasn't said with any kind of malice. Sherlock might as well have been talking about the weather for all the vehemence he put behind it. After months of living together, he was hardly taken surprise by his friend's lack of tact.
"...Thus, I need someone like you to lift the mammal long enough to allow me the freedom to examine it's underside. Besides, that insufferable Anderson is refusing to leave the perimeter of the woman's body 'til they've finished with their procedures. This is, by far, the more interesting activity above twiddling our thumbs," the consulting detective ground out in that aristocratic lilt of his, acting all the more the inconvenienced body in this situation than was necessary.
The consultant continued to pick and prod at the skeleton for a minute more, humming and 'ahh'ing at various points. This was no doubt more play or pleasantry than actual deduction for the consulting detective, John thought ruefully. Sherlock liked to maintain a posturing air of detached importance throughout proceedings like these. Not only that, it was rare for the man to find someone with such a thoroughly delicate dissection ability as his own. All these victims were doing was inciting an insatiable curiosity towards the murderer. Even Watson could tell whomever did the work on the victims was no amateur.
It didn't bode well for the police if this was done by some psychotic killer with a professional background in medicine or taxidermy. People like that were far too adaptable and resourceful. The biggest leap between experimentation and serial murder had been crossed with the killing of Hartford Street's seventy-six year old widower. Donovan had already made the off-handed comment that such cases like these were often the work of an individual obsessively fascinated with the macabre. Her pointed stare at Sherlock was a clear indication whom she thought was the most likely candidate. Before John could protest the insult, the consultant cut him off. It was useless to explain the futility of dissuading the woman. Anything the doctor would say would just press the DI to remind Dr. Watson of his extensive medical schooling.
Watson sighed audibly after a pause standing in the mild evening air. Half the street had been cut off for use by the police. They were interviewing the neighbours and spending their time tracking the footpaths from the townhouses. It was undetermined how the perp had gotten in and out of the house without any damage done to the property, and how no one seemed to remember anything out of the ordinary in the last week. Someone had to have noticed a man or woman carrying the kind of equipment necessary to perform these dissections, or at least someone making an excuse to purchase enough dry ice to freeze over the flesh of a poodle and an old lady?
"Oh hush now John, you're distracting me with your sighing about. If you didn't want to come I could have left you at home, but you insisted on the excuse to get away from your medical interns' paperwork," Sherlock drew out, frowning up at the shorter man from his hunched over position. John groaned a bit louder, not wanting to be reminded about that lovely development in his day-to-day career. He rolled his eyes heavenward before turning his gaze back down to watch Holmes' inspection.
How might he look if heady with something else besides the fervour of crime solving?
Bright blue eyes arrested him, inquiringly, but John was quick to cover his sudden fantastical thoughts. It was not the appropriate time or place to wonder about that. Watson thanked God and country, again, for his adept use of the steeled military façade. Even if Sherlock could deduce that he was thinking something, he'd never guessed exactly what. The doctor had tested the theory time and time again, and had regularly been proven right.
Sherlock, John was happy to find, was not so completely masterful in the art of deduction. And it was most blatantly apparent in the case of emotions directed solely at his person.
"I never said I wasn't grateful for the distraction, but when I said I thought we should go out for a bit fun I was considering the idea of which pub would be most appropriate. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind-"
"Oh god, what is he doing here...?" his partner cut him off abruptly as stormy orbs flicked away. Sherlock stood to his full, arrogant height to glare over the shorter man's shoulder. John's brow rose in response and he too tilted his head in the same direction.
The aristocratic figure of Mycroft Holmes leaned precariously against a characteristic umbrella rooted firmly into the asphalt. He was resplendent as always in a dark bespoke suit probably worth more than a month's salary at St. Mary's. The government official was an uncommon occurrence at crime scenes and unlike his brother maintained the appropriate distance behind the police tape. Sherlock, with a pert scowl, stepped around John to make his way over.
John carefully dropped the poodle back to its original spot before rushing after his own personal eccentric.
Why was the elder Holmes gracing them with his presence this evening?
AN: Updated/beta'ed for my own sanity. I would so love a real beta though. Working through each chapter as it comes. Quite a few more to go. I'd like to remind everyone this story is a focus on my OTP of Mycroft/Lestrade, but it's a really, really slow burn on that one. To keep myself sane, I'm taking a look at Sherlock/John as well. Cheers.