A/N: So how are you liking it so far? Too much plot for my liking... But I am hoping to atone for that soon xD Bear with me. There will be smut. I don't like to go too long without smut. That and some throwaway reference to Australia xD
Thank you very very much for your reviews. I appreciate them muchly. I'm not sure how long this story will be but seeing as we have a murder to solve and two frigid men to get into bed with each other, it could be sort of long xD I hope you don't mind.
Disclaimer: Bleargh I forgot the disclaimer. How stupid of me. And I misspelled Australia... Smooth. Needless to say, Sherlock is not mine.
Chapter Two:
Sherlock was bored. He was so bored it almost hurt. He almost wished he was in physical pain. Then he'd at least have something to distract himself with.
How long had it been now? A month. At least a month. A month of turgid, painful, monstrous boredom. John was no help. He seemed too willing to adopt a normal lifestyle when a case wasn't available. He worked, he went shopping, he watched television, he visited... that woman. Sometimes Sherlock wondered if John was really the man he had thought he was. All this domesticity couldn't be good for his brain.
Sherlock had surprised himself by not growing bored of John. He could really be a dull, repetitive, ignorant little thing. Rather like a hamster. But Sherlock couldn't help but watch him whenever he was anywhere close to him. He studied him; it was his only break from the endless tedium.
John had been living with him some months now and Sherlock had had more than enough time to roughly sum up his character and his habits.
When it came to his belongings John was neat almost to the point of obsession. Sherlock had gathered that piece of information from the state of his laptop. Though the model was at least a year or two old, the keys looked like they had never been touched; there weren't bits of food stuck between the keys or fingerprints smeared across the screen. Sherlock put it down to his military career.
John treated Sherlock's total lack of organization or personal grooming with quiet irritation and disapproval and Sherlock had caught him trying to tidy up the disarray once or twice in the first few weeks of his being in Baker Street but that little quirk soon wore off when he realised the magnitude of the task.
"What the hell is this?"
Sherlock looked up, trying to arrange his face into something which might be even vaguely construed as being interested in whatever tedious little thing it was John was about to start nagging him about.
John was holding something long, misshapen and rather soggy. It was dripping sluggishly onto the floor. John's expression was a mixture of exasperation and disgust as he held it at arm's length, his nose slightly wrinkled.
"You know what it is," Sherlock said calmly. "If you aren't able to indentify women's hosiery by this late stage in your life then I'm afraid that all my suspicions about military service are proved correct."
John stared at the stretched stocking, still looking vaguely revolted. "Why was it in the dishwasher?"
"You know why it was in the dishwasher," Sherlock said, stretching and folding his hands behind his head.
"If I knew why would I be asking you?" John said irritably, dropping the stocking onto the floor, where it landed with a limp splat.
Sherlock rolled his eyes as though John was asking the stupidest, most obvious question one could possibly ask. "It was in the dishwasher because I wanted to know the precise amount of time that pantyhose could last when submerged in water without stretching or disintegrating," he said, in one long monotone. He paused, staring at John's furrowed brow. "So many women wear pantyhose these days and the Thames is an ever popular place to dump bodies. I just wanted to be prepared."
John stared at him for a moment, looking blank. "Whatever," he muttered, turning on his heel and stalking from the room.
Sherlock stared after him, part of him wanting to throw something at him. He refrained. Just. It would have relieved his boredom for a few moments just to see how John would react to having a pair of wet pantyhose thrown at the back of his head.
Instead he picked them up and tossed them on the coffee table. He sat on the edge of the sofa, staring fixedly at a burn mark on one of the coffee table legs.
He saw John return out of the corner of his eye. He was putting his coat on. "Where are you going?" Sherlock snapped before he could stop himself.
"Out," John said sullenly, buttoning his coat. "I can't stand it when you're like this."
"Out where?" Sherlock asked, finally looking up. "With Sasha?"
"Sarah," John said through gritted teeth. "Stop pretending you have no idea who she is. Just because you're determined not to have a normal life doesn't mean I have to follow suit."
John turned to leave. Sherlock narrowed his eyes at his back, feeling a pulse of anger at John's words. "Happily it means little to me how you lead your life or who with," he said irritably, leaning back in his seat and staring at the ceiling.
He heard John pause at the door. He silently willed him to retort, to argue. Sherlock wanted him to argue.
He heard the doorknob turn and exhaled in irritation, at John and at himself for his own pathetic attempts to demand John's attention. It had to be the boredom. He hoped it was the boredom.
"Oh!"
He heard John stop short in the doorway.
"Oh, John. Nice to see you. Is... eh, he here?"
Sherlock jolted upright. "Lestrade," he said, clawing his way to his feet. "Lestrade!"
John flattened himself against the wall to avoid being trampled by Sherlock on his way to the door. "So," Sherlock barked at Lestrade who looked slightly taken aback. "What is it?"
John forced Sherlock to one side. "Why don't you come in?" he said, obviously trying to atone for Sherlock's usual brusqueness.
"There's no time!" Sherlock snapped, pushing John back to the wall with one hand and pinning him there. "Lestrade," he said slowly, staring at him with what he knew was a slightly deranged expression. "What is it? Is it..." he took a shuddery breath. "A murder?"
"Sherlock," John gasped. "You're... strangling me."
Sherlock ignored him.
"Yes," Lestrade said carefully, taking a slight step back. "It is a murder."
John felt a shiver go up Sherlock's arm; if he hadn't had Sherlock's hand half embedded in his chest he wouldn't have noticed it. He could see Sherlock's face: completely nonchalant, completely blank except for his eyes which were blazing with a strange, ardent glare that would have made any normal person back away.
Sherlock licked his lips. "Excellent," he breathed, his voice shaking slightly.
He turned and only then seemed to realise that he still had John pinned against the wall with one hand. He froze for a moment, blinking down at John's upturned face. John blinked at him confusedly, wiggling uncomfortably against Sherlock's painful grip.
He hastily let John go and turned on his heel, stalking back across to the sofa.
He fell down into the seat, staring at Lestrade still standing in the doorway. "What are you waiting for?" he said impatiently. "Come on!"
John rubbed the place where Sherlock's hand had been pressed into his chest. He exchanged a dark look with Lestrade and led him through to where Sherlock was practically bouncing on the sofa.
...
"Where are we going?" John asked for what could have been the sixth time.
He didn't expect Sherlock to answer. He hadn't the other five times. He was seated opposite him in the taxi, staring fixedly out of the window and jigging one knee at an alarming pace. "Kensington," Sherlock replied, taking John by surprise.
"Why?" John asked, deciding that he might as well attempt to extract more information from Sherlock now that he was apparently on a roll.
"That's where she died," Sherlock said, glancing at him very briefly.
Their former hostilities seemed forgotten. Sherlock had been increasingly sullen in the three or four weeks since he'd been without a case. He barely spoke to John unless it was absolutely necessary and even then he had adopted a disdainful air, as though John was hardly worth speaking to. Sherlock barely looked at him these days.
John tried to tell himself that he didn't care but some stupid, disobedient part of him had the gall to be hurt by Sherlock's negligence. He'd only known Sherlock a little under a year but his attitude towards him had become increasingly cold. John was beginning to fear that he regretted allowing John into his carefully guarded existence.
"Do you think it was suicide?" he ventured to ask.
"Well, if I think it is suicide is yet to be seen," Sherlock said dryly, checking his phone. "But Lestrade evidently thinks otherwise or he wouldn't have bothered contacting me."
"Okay," John said, wishing he could think of something cleverer to say.
He spent most of his time lately feeling like a complete idiot in Sherlock's presence. It didn't help that Sherlock's life was full of the most outlandish, insane happenings that any ordinary person couldn't help but feel overwhelmed. Yet Sherlock treated everything as so entirely mundane and commonplace. John at least wished he could train himself not to look so obviously amazed by Sherlock's deductions; it would be a small step in the direction of regaining his dignity.
The taxi came to a halt outside a very expensive looking terrace house in a street that John had never stepped foot. It was surrounded by identical towers of very white, very tall houses that seemed almost to shrink away from the dirty grey footpath. There was a swarm of police cars, cluttering up the already narrow street and a clump of ogling onlookers clustered around number 8, barely heeding the police tape.
Sherlock grabbed his sleeve and tugged him out of the taxi after him, barely giving John time to shove money at the driver. He dragged John past the staring bystanders and John had to duck quickly to avoid being tangled in the tape.
Lestrade was standing by the gate, as usual looking as though he regretted inviting Sherlock yet again to meddle at his crime scene. He tiredly nodded them through.
Sherlock finally let go of John's sleeve and hurried up the stairs. John followed.
The inside of the house was extremely well decorated and furnished. Sherlock seemed to know exactly where he was going, leading John up a narrow flight of very cream stairs and then immediately into the first bedroom on the landing.
John's view was blocked momentarily by Sherlock's tall figure as they entered but then he saw it. Hanging limply from a steel light fixture in the far corner of the room was a young woman's body. John looked up. The ceiling was very high. He swallowed slightly, averting his eyes instead to two police officers who had been lurking about inside and were now staring at Sherlock.
"Get out," Sherlock told them before walking straight across to where the girl's body hung.
The policemen seemed to know who he was because they exchanged a quick look and both made for the door. John stepped aside to let them pass, slightly disappointed to have lost his distraction.
He forced himself to look. It was a horrible sight. For John at least. Her eyes were half-shut, her skin was papery white and she was hanging like some grotesque ragdoll from her neck. The rope around her neck looked thick and strong and was tied tightly around the light fixture above her.
Sherlock however, far from being revolted by the sight seemed to be fixated by it. Hastily pulling a pair of gloves on, he turned her this way and that, prodded and poked her, searched on her clothes, for what John couldn't guess at and then, abruptly, seemed to lose complete interest in her and turned instead to the chair lying on its back below her.
John stared up at the woman, noting the bruising around her neck.
"It looks like suicide to me," he remarked while Sherlock stood the chair up.
"That's because you don't look properly," Sherlock replied distractedly, stepping back with a small satisfied grunt. "This wasn't suicide."
John jerked. "What do you mean?" he said blankly. "She has bruises on her-
"I'm not suggesting that strangulation was not the cause of death," Sherlock said sharply, turning to him. "I am simply stating that this could not have been suicide."
"Why?" John asked.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Because that chair is too short," he said bluntly, brushing past John.
John blinked at the chair. And then up at the woman's body. He realised, with a jolt of irritation at his own stupidity, that the chair was indeed some good inches too short for the woman. The fixture was far too high.
He followed Sherlock back out and down the stairs. "Perhaps she stood on the back of the chair?" he suggested.
"No," Sherlock said, not turning to him. "Have you ever tried hanging yourself while standing on the back of an unsteady chair? She wouldn't have been able to have tied herself so securely while balancing like that."
John shrugged as they stepped back out into the mess of police cars and people. "What now?" he asked Sherlock. "Who is she anyway?"
Sherlock turned to him, his eyes glinting. "She's the daughter of a novelist."
John blinked. "What novelist?"
Sherlock smirked slightly. "The novelist."
TBC
