Author's Note: I forgot to mention last chapter, but reviews would mean so much to us! PLEASE REVIEW! Alright, the story is slow and I'm not supposed to have emotions. NOT YOU, SHERLOCK! I meant the lovely people reading this. Plus it's not exactly my fault that you have emotions. I have one word for you: JOHN! John's not the one writing this. What makes you think you have the right to mess with the emotions of such a... damn you. HA! Told you so! Detectives can't work like this. You're making a mistake. Tell that to John. You know I need an assistant. I also know that you want more than just an assistant. If you didn't want to be picked on, you shouldn't have hacked the story in the first place. Oh no, I'm not letting you make all the choices. This story would be too boring without my help. Its already bad enough with all your useless sentimentality. *cough* John. *cough* Shut up. You know you secretly like it. Anyways, I think this Author's Note is long enough, don't you? Quite.
(Also, just so you know, if John is not exactly like in the show, it's intentional. This is my version of John. Thank god Sherlock did not comment on this.)
Last thing, I created a page on facebook about all of my fanfiction. You should check it out! www . facebook dot co m/ ChristineEponine (remove the spaces and dot is just a .)
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
"Uh, Sherlock, are you sure we're in the right place?" John asked his tall companion uncertainly. They were standing in one of London's less than savory alleys. He was eyeing the garbage all around him while hoping that the great Sherlock Holmes had made a mistake, yet all the while he knew that such an occurrence was highly unlikely.
"Certainly," Sherlock replied, destroying any lingering hope John may have had, "the door's right there." He pointed to what appeared to be the back entrance of a car park rather than a restaurant.
John eyed the door suspiciously before asking one last time, "Are you quite certain?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Always," he stated bluntly. "Now, let's eat." As the Consulting Detective strode confidently towards the worn out door, he pulled a glove from his pocket, which he used to open the door without sullying his hands unnecessarily. His companion followed him without another word.
Once the pair stepped inside, John stopped in his tracks and took in his surroundings. The restaurant would have actually been nice, had it not been in a state near structural collapse. There was dim, nearly romantic, lighting, stained and moth-eaten tablecloths, cracked glasses, wilting flowers, and broken furniture. Despite all this, the place was lively. Granted, the patrons were less than trustworthy and probably at least half of them were being hunted by the police. There was a man playing a guitar on a slightly raised platform in one corner of the room. "Well... this is... slightly nicer than I expected..." he observed, giving the building the highest praise he could manage.
"Good," Sherlock responded, leading his friend to a table opposite the guitar player. Once they reached the table, Sherlock pulled out a chair for John, a leg of which promptly fell off. This elicited a chuckle from John and an eye roll from Sherlock, who then swapped the chair with one from a different table and held it out for the other man with a simple utterance of, "Have a seat."
"Th-thank you," John said, internally cursing his stutter and the blush that came along with it. Still not gay, he reminded himself. When he looked up and saw his companion's raised eyebrow, he realized that he had actually said it out loud that time. His blush deepened to the sort of color Ms. Adler would gladly wear as lipstick and he couldn't meet Sherlock's gaze, though the other man's smirk was almost tangible.
Just when John was convinced the date... Wait, stop right there, this isn't a date, John. Get it through your thick skull that you are not gay! Just as John thought that the thing which was most decidedly not a date could not get any more awkward, the waiter arrived.
The waiter was a tall man in his early thirties with caramel colored eyes, long, greasy blonde hair held back in a ponytail, and dark stubble coating his jaw. What bothered John about the man the most was the way he was looking at Sherlock, his Sherlock! It is not really necessary to mention the rather obvious thing that went through his mind after that thought, again.
"Evenin' gov'ner," the afore mentioned waiter began with the most vulgar of all cockney accents, which was enough to make both men wince. He was looking only at Sherlock as though John did not even exist, and causing the latter to grind his teeth together. "The name's Paul. What can I get you two fine gentlemen?" The way he said 'fine' was so overly emphasized it was blatantly sarcastic. At the end of his speech, Paul winked at Sherlock, attempting to be as seductive as possible.
"I'll just have the soup," Sherlock announced with his arms folded on the table. Much to Paul's disappointment, he was not taking, or understanding, the bait. Instead he was observing the guitarist. The idiotic waiter was still staring at Sherlock, willing him to look at him and ignoring John completely.
John cleared his throat, finally getting the waiter to acknowledge his presence. "I'll have what he's having," he growled through clenched teeth. Paul nodded and turned back to Sherlock who was still staring intently at the guitarist.
"No more 'an soup?" the waiter, who apparently did not know when to give up, asked to his current fixation. "You look hungry." John could take no more.
"You took our orders, now go do your blooming job!" he barked.
"Fine then," the man huffed at him. His voice became sweeter as he turned back to Sherlock. "And good evening once again to you sir." with that, he left to fill out their orders. Once he was gone, Sherlock's eyes left the guitarist and flickered over to the man seated opposite him, who was still fuming.
"What are you so upset about, John?" he asked, tilting his head to one side in a very confused and curious manner. "The food's free; the manager owes me a favor."
"That waiter was being very rude, or did you not see the looks he was giving you?" John responded, still with clenched teeth. Sherlock did not know why the waiter's behavior to him was upsetting his friend so much, but for some mysterious reason, he rather liked that it was.
"No, John, I was watching that man over there, playing the guitar," he explained.
"Why in the bloody hell were you going that?" John snapped, but instantly regretted it. "I'm so sorry, Sherlock. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. Why were you watching the guitar player?"
Sherlock got an expression on his face that is typically only seen on five-year-olds in candy stores, but Sherlock gets every time he gets to explain something to John. Every time he tries to hide it, but he never can. At least, not from John. "Because I've heard this song before, and every once in a while he hits a wrong note, but with certainty. He's playing it wrong for a reason," he explained in one breath.
John looked at the guitarist curiously. "Why?"
Sherlock's expression gained annoyance, yet didn't lose the glee, and he rolled his eyes. "Well, either he wrote his own awkward variation, or he's communicating something."
"Like what?" John inquired, his curiosity growing by the minute.
"I don't know yet, but every time he hits a wrong note it's either a semitone flat or semitone sharp," Sherlock sighed in exasperation. Whether it was directed at his friend or his own lack of knowledge was unclear even to him.
John looked at him blankly. "What does that mean?" he asked, perplexed. He had no idea what on earth a semitone whatever was. Sherlock did not take his friend's lack of musical knowledge into account.
Sherlock's eyes gleamed even brighter. "You're a soldier, you tell me," he prompted. If there was one thing Sherlock enjoyed more than displaying his vast and dizzying intellect it was... No, nothing, but teaching his best mate how to deduce was a close second.
John thought for a bit as he looked around the room. "That bloke with the blue fedora is staring at him too intently," he observed, motioning with his head to a man seated at the bar. "Either he's the one the message is for, or he's gay."
"He's gay," Sherlock quickly explained. "The real recipient wouldn't dare look at the correspondent. Why do you think they're using music?" He leaned closer as though that would impart some of his deductive skills upon the other man.
John scanned the restaurant again, ignoring Sherlock's proximity and his own raised heart rate. The two things had nothing to do with each other... Nothing at all... Right? "Then it's the woman in the too-tight suit. She hasn't looked at him all night," he decided when he had gotten himself under control. Sherlock felt his jaw tense slightly when he heard that John had been watching her all night. He filed that thought away in his mind palace in the room called 'confusing John-related thoughts'.
"Good, John, you're learning," Sherlock noted with a small amount of pride apparent in his voice. He leaned even closer to John. "But tell me now, how does one encode a message given only two possible signals?"
John thought for a moment, then suddenly, it clicked. "Morse Code?"
Sherlock beamed at him. "I've written the message so far," he told John while sliding his napkin over to him. "Well, John, what do you think?" John looked at the writing on the napkin. It read, 'Colonel arrives tomorrow. Prepare cover."
John glanced at Sherlock's expectant face. "Who's this colonel chap?" he questioned the detective, whose eyebrows knitted together in response.
"I haven't the slightest idea," he sighed deeply and pouted, obviously hating not knowing something. Sherlock behaved so much like a spoiled child sometimes, it was almost unbelievable. It always made John smirk. Sherlock noticed the smirk. It only made him pout more, crossing his long, pale arms in front of his chest. John had to fight very hard not to burst out laughing and upset his companion even more. John's struggle was ended when the overly flirtatious waiter returned with their food, wiping his smirk away completely.
"Here's your soup, folks," Paul announced to 'both of them,' meaning Sherlock, as he set the bowls on the table. "I added a little somethin' special for you," he added with a wink as he set one of the bowls in front of Sherlock. John scowled and Sherlock released an exasperated sigh while scanning the waiter with his eyes. John saw the look on Sherlock's face and immediately his scowl turned into a smirk. He knew what was coming. There was one thing Sherlock did that always scared people off. Except for John, that is.
Sherlock opened his perfectly shaped mouth and, with a perfectly calm expression, told Paul, "Look, I understand that you're desperate for a nice guy's companionship after your messy breakup with Eric, but you'd really have better luck with that man over there in the blue fedora." The poor twit's jaw dropped so that it almost touched the floor, figuratively speaking.
"How did you-" he began, but was interrupted by Watson.
"Don't ask. You'll never understand." When the man did not take the hint to leave and was still standing like a statue in disbelief, John continued. "Shouldn't you be flirting with someone else now?" The question made Sherlock's lips curl into a crooked grin, which incidentally made John's heart rate increase, and finally shook Paul out of his dumbfounded stupor. Once he had regained composure, the waiter glared at the two men and stormed off in a huff, presumably in the direction of fedora-guy. A few moments of silence accompanied his departure, but were broken by John.
"That was bloody brilliant," he praised the man seated opposite him. Sherlock shrugged and tried in vain to hide that his grin grew. "How did you know?"
Again Sherlock looked like a child on Christmas morning. "First, His key chain dangles visibly from his belt, and on it is a name tag. This name tag, however, says 'Eric,' so we know that he lives, or in this case recently lived, with another man. Secondly, he's clearly very drunk, which suggests that he recently experienced an emotional trauma. He could have just been at a party, but that's unlikely given his age. Third, he has been awkwardly staring out the window for as long as I observed him. Outside is nothing more than an alley, so he must be awaiting the unwanted arrival of some person. Fourth, he was patted on the back by an appreciative patron when he was serving another table, And nearly fell over. He walks and moves himself perfectly naturally, so this could not have been due to a sensitive back. Therefore, his reaction was due to a skin deep, but painful, injury. It suffices from here on to say that Eric was abusive, and that he may be coming back for his set of keys," he explained.
John smiled brilliantly, causing Sherlock's breath to catch. "You never cease to amaze me, Sherlock," he praised, his voice full of awe. Sherlock could not help but return the smile.
"You've been amazing a few times yourself," Sherlock replied, still smiling. John's face turned a deep scarlet and he stared into the depths of his soup.
"Th-thanks," he stuttered. There was a mildly uncomfortable silence while both men pondered their soups. Comfort diminished further as time passed, until a loud crack drew both men's attention from the other.
"Alright, who's bloody idea was it to set this table with a broken chair?!" yelled a flabbergasted and rather overweight patron lying atop a, well, what was a three-legged chair. Laughter filled the room, and nearly permeated Sherlock's mental barriers before John called their return to silence.
"Best not mention anything, Sherlock. People don't appreciate finding out you're the one who dropped them on their arses." Awkwardness once again crept between the two men. Oddly enough, Sherlock was the one to break their reveries.
"How's the soup then?" Sherlock inquired of his uncharacteristically quiet companion.
John's eyes flickered to Sherlock's face, then returned this soup. "It's nice... Nice soup..."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow and stared at John curiously. "Not really, but it's better than anything we could have done." This assertion was enough to end the other man's embarrassment. He looked Sherlock in the eyes defiantly.
"You cannot judge my cooking," he said defensively. "The only time you have ever tasted something I cooked was after it had burned due to us running out on a case at your insistence."
Sherlock stood up. "Let's go then, I have some work to do. Impress me." A small grin broke out on John's face.
"As you wish," he replied, following the dark haired detective who, after waving to a man in the kitchen, was already halfway out the door. By the time John actually caught up with Sherlock, he had already hailed a cab and was stepping inside with a swish of his trench coat. John followed him and after what felt like no time at all, they had arrived back at the flat. Upon entering, Sherlock sat upon his chair, trying to figure out the meaning of the message, while John retreated to the kitchen.
"So, what would you like for supper?" John inquired while standing on his toes to get a better look at the measly food stuffs they still had. They really needed more groceries. And soon.
"I don't know, use whatever's in the kitchen," Sherlock answered without moving a centimeter.
John sighed and shook his head, looking at his friend. "For such a creative genius, you really are unoriginal when it comes to food."
Sherlock's eyes traveled to the blonde. "Why would I waste creative energy thinking about food? It's just a way to keep from dying," Sherlock announced while opening John's laptop which was sitting on the coffee table.
John decided it would be better to just ignore the comment and that Sherlock was using his laptop without asking first. He began skimming through some cookbooks until he found a recipe that only required ingredients they currently had available. "How about chicken?" he asked. Sherlock ignored him and began plucking at the strings on his violin. "I'll take that as a yes." John looked at the recipe he had selected. It was fairly simple, but looked good. He gathered the ingredients and began to cook.
"The first question is whether it's a code name..." Sherlock mumbled to himself while pacing the length of the room. John ignored him, something which had strangely become increasingly difficult for him, and continued cooking. A mouth-watering aroma began to fill the flat. "And why music? Surely they could have just passed a piece of paper... no, one of them must have been under surveillance..." Sherlock muttered, brows furrowing. A timer went off in the kitchen and John opened the oven. This time, the food was not burnt.
"Sherlock, food's ready," John called into the living room. "Would you please clear the table?"
"Some of that stuff has to stay there," Sherlock called back.
John shook his head in exasperation. "Well, at least make room."
Sherlock grudgingly walked over to the table. He picked up a large rack of test tubes and a preserved rat and placed them on top of a large box of nicotine patches. "There," he announced.
"Thank you," John said, smiling as he put the food on the table. His smile made it impossible for Sherlock to retain an ill humor. "Bon appetite."
"You never told me you speak French," Sherlock remarked. John shrugged.
"You're Sherlock Holmes. I assumed you knew."
"I can't observe everything anyone does. I have to analyze only information that's relevant in order to maximize the efficiency of my brain," Sherlock explained.
"Since when have I been 'anyone'?" he demanded with a look of mock hurt.
"No, you're John, I know. You're better than most people," Sherlock confessed, "but still, I ignore everyone when I'm thinking about a problem, which is a great deal of the time."
John was shocked. "Wait, did you just give me a compliment?" he asked, too surprised to blush at what Sherlock had said.
"I don't give compliments," Sherlock insisted. "I was acknowledging a fact."
"It was still very flattering," he insisted, grinning. He then turned serious as his smile faded. "I didn't think you cared about my existence other than as a replacement for the skull on the mantle."
"Care perhaps is not the best word," Sherlock admitted, "but you are useful."
John's grin disappeared entirely and he looked disappointed. "And the touching moment vanished just like that," he muttered. "For a second I almost thought you were human." For reasons unknown to him, Sherlock wished he could take back what he had said.
"John, I didn't mean that entirely," he claimed quickly, "but you must understand it's important that I keep a professional distance from everyone. Closer ties are the causes of mistakes." The look on John's face morphed from disappointment to compassion and... something else. Sherlock could not quite tell what.
John then did something that surprised them both. Maintaining eye contact, he reached over the table and placed his hand on Sherlock's forearm. "You know you don't need to keep everyone at arms' length to remain a genius," he murmured. Sherlock found he could not look away from the other man's eyes. Or form coherent sentences.
"You're right," Sherlock replied when he found his tongue, "a dead genius is still a genius." Sighing, John removed his hand and broke eye contact. The spot where his hand had been tingled strangely.
"I see that we'll never agree on this," John sighed. He looked down at the table and noticed that neither of them had touched their food. "You should eat, you're far too thin." Sherlock studied his face. John refused to look at him as he began eating.
"I keep enough weight and muscle mass to function," Sherlock asserted. John looked up from his plate and met Sherlock's gaze with a look of determination.
"I worked hard on this meal, you bloody well are going to eat it."
"I never said I wasn't going to eat it," Sherlock assured him, "but I protest being labeled as 'too thin.'" John looked satisfied and returned his focus to his food. Sherlock followed suit with much less enthusiasm. The rest of the meal passed in silence.