(( woof! This turned out a lot longer than I imagined! I hope you all like it, considering it may be my last story for a couple of weeks! I hope it turned out interesting – it was rather loads of fun to write! Leave a review if you'd like!))

Sherlock was very rarely surprised, as a rule. Nearly every possibility was in the back of his mind, somewhere. Of course, some were more likely than others to occur. John didn't fully understand how his mind worked, really, so whenever John called him wrong, Sherlock just had to grit his teeth and bear it. No, John, he was not wrong, he just had not shared his idea. Should he share every idea he had with the doctor, John would grow bored of him so quickly.

Of course, he was surprised now.

Never, in a thousand years, would he have expected John Watson to be sitting there. His eyes flicked over him. Tired, of course – hadn't slept in a long while, partially Sherlock's fault. He hadn't been home yet. Still wearing his medical coat, as well. Given that it was nearly four in the morning, now, Sherlock wondered what he had been up to.

There was blood. That blood made Sherlock internally cringe. It was staining the bottom of his medical coat, making an unfortunate garnish at the end of the long white fabric. With that, there was a smudge of dirt on his cheek – traces of brick dust on it, which Sherlock didn't doubt came from the brick dust at the crime scene.

His hands had been freshly scrubbed. But, Sherlock's mind protested, if he had been standing that close, he would have been positively covered in brain matter. Why wouldn't he have-

Oh. He had showered. There was a bit of water at the hollow of his neck, and the smudge of dirt was several shades darker than it should have been, indicating that he had been wet. He had showered, and obviously not at the Yard shower – they would never have allowed a suspect to do. That smacked of guilt, and Sherlock felt his hand clench in his jacket.

"Hope I didn't wake you." John offered him a light joke, raising his head so that he could stare Sherlock in the face. Upon witnessing Sherlock's angered expression, John jingled his handcuffs together. "Sherlock. You're going to have to keep calm, yeah? I told Lestrade, I didn't want you on this case. Too personal, you know? Though it's not like Lestrade's much listening to what I say, now."

The words entered Sherlock's mind with a brief delay. No, Sherlock was too far gone. Down within the delves of his Mind Palace – of John's part, specifically.

When he had met John, he, of course, knew he had to make a bit of space for him. A room seemed adequate – surely John wouldn't prove interesting enough to warrant much else. However, like a disease, once John's room was full, he started to branch out into other rooms. Even now, Sherlock would occasionally open a book or drawer, and John would be there. So Sherlock had expanded John's space.

Originally, he constructed a gardener's shed from John. It was far apart from his work and Sherlock could lounge there whenever he wanted. Deleting things from John's area seemed cruel to him, so Sherlock did not. However, that small shed had sprang up and downwards. Now, it somewhat resembled a small battle tower on the edges of his Mind Palace.

Sherlock took his memory techniques very seriously.

Now, he was scrounging through John's personality. Was there anything he had missed? He knew John had killed before, of course, but would he do so like this – obviously in cold blood, dragging a man down an alley? All that talk about having a heart and about having friends – was it all a fluke, intending to bring Sherlock down? Indeed, what if John intended to kill him, as well? Had he made rooms with an assassin?

Sherlock was, at his heart, fairly paranoid. He had to be. Wandering down the street, he could see kills-for-hire, drug dealers, desperate men, frightened men, stupid men. Of course he was well-versed in self-defense, but there was always the small point of fear. After all, Sherlock's place was in the mind, not in the fists. Or the gun, for that matter.

"Sherlock." John's voice was lightly pleading now, as he looked up at him. There were a few moments of awkward silence. "You look like you're going to have a stroke in front of me. In chains or not, I'm still your assistant. You mind letting me know what you're thinking?"

Sherlock's head shot up towards John, and he maintained eye contact. When Sherlock made a point to keep eye contact, it was…frightening. Abnormal. As if John was the only thing in the room, yes, but also as if John was a specimen under a microscope. He stared at him furiously, and then he blinked once.

"I have nine theories. Four place you as the murderer, one place you as holding partial credit, and four place you as being framed. I don't have sufficient evidence to prove any single one, especially not to the cavemen at NSY, but all of them are tentative, regardless."

"I-"

Sherlock held up one hand. "Don't. Any confessions or protests on your part will only condemn you, John. They will not hold any sway with me. The most you can do for yourself, right now, is to sit and listen. For now, John, you are to pay the part of the skull – you remember the scene in Hamlet, yes? With Hamlet and the skull of Yorick? The skull gave Hamlet the intense realization that all men die. Should you remain quiet, perhaps you will give me a similar realization."

"I don't think-"

"The dead do not speak, John."

John fell quiet. His fingers felt deftly across the chains, and Sherlock understood that John was trying to remind himself where he was. Suspected of murder, he had no hope but to place all of his trust in Sherlock Holmes. Heaven help the poor man.

"One." Sherlock's voice was quiet, but he stood up from the table. Like a shark circling its prey, he started to walk around John. He was looking for any signs of weakness, any twitch, anything that gave John away. "You have a personal vendetta against the man and you shot him in cold blood. You did work with him, I imagine. It would be rather unlikely that you could harbor such a massive hatred against him, but it could happen. After all, hatred does pick at the lines of morality, does it not?"

Had he much trust in the theory? Not really. John dealt with Sherlock Holmes. The man had limitless patience (or, really, as much patience as anyone could be expected to have), and he was one of the few people in London who thought that most violence could be solved with words. Not that he wasn't keen to go to arms when the situation called for it.

John's eyebrows raised, and his hands clenched to fist. Insult was clearly written all over his face – by that, Sherlock meant that nobody could ever see it but Sherlock. He gave a shake of his head, but continued to let Sherlock talk.

His voice grew angrier as he continued to circle around John. "Two." It was spoken through gritted teeth. "You were having a PTSD flashback and found a man. The murder has shown some signs of being rather military – dragging a man into a back alley, likely clamping a hand around his mouth, and shooting him where you know he would die. It would all be held with you believing that you were back in the war, yet. That's also fairly understandable – your nightmares have become more frequent and your limp has been visible."

At that, Sherlock didn't have much faith. It was true that John's PTSD had been growing worse, and sometimes, he did have flashbacks. They were always very light. One night, Sherlock had went to John's aid during the throes of a particularly violent nightmare. John had bolted up straight in his bed and called Sherlock 'Colonel Moran', and then ordered him to get down. That was the worst of it, and there was a big leap between that and the murder of an innocent soul.

John's face blanched. Whether out of embarrassment or anger, Sherlock wasn't positive, but he thought the former. John didn't like to admit weakness. It was what endeared John to Sherlock. Obviously full of weakness – every human on the Earth was, aside from Sherlock. And yet, when Sherlock pointed them out, he didn't deny it. He would perhaps deny its severity, but never the fact that he had a weakness. Sherlock enjoyed it.

Sherlock's hands settled on John's shoulders from behind, and he gave them a tight squeeze. It was an intimidation technique, really, and part of him felt a bit bad that he had to do such techniques to John. "Three. A romantic anger. You found the man with one of your girlfriends, and you decided to gather revenge against him. You stalked him, brutally, and then you decided to get him out of the picture finally. There are some points to corroborate this – he worked with you, you would have known where to find him, and the close range of the kill dictates some sort of personal attachment. Then again, wouldn't you have wanted to see his face if it was personal?"

Sherlock was nearly ready to discount that theory. John's romantic life may have been important to the man, yes, but he would never have killed over it. Then again, if Sherlock had a romantic betrayal, he felt as if John would do anything in order to make Sherlock feel better. He didn't think too much into that- that led into a series of sentimental paths, and Sherlock couldn't even admit that John was his friend on a daily basis.

John seemed to feel the same towards his theory. He let out a barely-disguised snort, and he rolled his shoulders back in order to get Sherlock's hands off of them. His entire expression seemed to read disgust and…well, frankly, a bit of disappointment. How dare Sherlock even think that of him.

"And four. The most interesting one to myself, and perhaps the most likely. You were hired to do this, John. Perhaps out of money, perhaps out of a need for excitement. Many villains have fallen, John, because they need excitement. I've no doubt that it is how I will die, someday. Regardless. You were hired to do this, you planned it out, you enacted it." A small smirk pulled Sherlock's lips to the side. "Perhaps you were doing this in order to prove yourself to me in terms of intelligence. You've felt rather idiotic next to me, haven't you, John, you need to prove yourself, and the idea engulfed you, destroyed your sanity, destroyed your morality, destroyed your-"

"Sherlock." John's voice was calm, and it made Sherlock realize what he was doing. He was leaning over the table across from John, breathing heavily, his nostrils flared, his face red. For what it was worth, he looked like a madman. John's handcuffed hands went over to rest on Sherlock's, and he looked up at him. "You're not going to do anybody any good if you're going to act like this. The only thing you'll do for yourself is get pulled off the case. You know fully well what sort of person I am, Sherlock. At least, I hope you do. You can think whatever you'd like of me, but calm down."

"Why aren't you defending yourself!?" Sherlock's voice snapped on the last word, and he leaped away from John as if he were made of poison. "You are supposed to be shouting your innocence from the rooftops, John! I am inclined to believe that you are innocent – you are my friend, among other titles! However, I cannot use your rank as my friend to put you in complete innocence!"

John looked at the table quietly, before shaking his head. "Just a skull. What's five? The one where I'm partially guilty?"

"Ah, yes. Partial guilt. You weren't the one who killed him, but you were in the company of a man who was. Someone in your work, someone in your life, John, wanted to see this man dead. You were close enough to him to agree to help, and then, you watched as this man was brutally murdered." Sherlock paused, taking his hands back and pushing John's to the edge of the table. "This would explain the lack of powder marks on your hands, but the appearance of blood. Of course, you would still be held guilty if this is, indeed, the case."

John's face was expressionless. He was a rather good skull, as it turned out – however, what Sherlock really needed was an assistant. Oh, he would have rathered anybody sitting across from him right then, from his own mother to his older brother, anyone other than John. The only person that he absolutely needed by his side. He let his face slip for one second to show his desperation, and John gave a small nod.

"Six, then. Where you are innocent. You encountered the scene several days prior, and for one reason or another, you received the smudge of dirt on your cheek. I may not have noticed – I've been rather busy the past few days. The blood on your coat was received while you were working, and you haven't cleaned it off. You are completely innocent and I imagine this is all very traumatizing for you." Sherlock spoke, giving a small shake of his head. He was calming down, now. The theory was already discarded in his mind – stupid. Improbable.

"Seven. You were knocked out and brought to the scene of the crime. That was where you got your markings. When you woke, you were so confused as to what had happened that you panicked. You showered, Lestrade took this as a sign of guilt, and immediately apprehended you. Until I hear your story, I'm quite inclined to believe this one. You're so damn trusting."

"Eight. You witnessed it as an innocent bystander. You were walking by on the street, heard the shot, and investigated. In doing so, you got a bit of blood on your coat and a bit of dirt on your cheek. For one reason or another, you didn't call the police, but you went home to wash up. Likely you left a bit of forensic evidence at the crime scene and Lestrade convicted you. Your crime scene etiquette has been growing worse, I'm afraid. My fault."

"Nine, and the last. You knew what was going to happen to him, and your inner sense of morality told you that you should stop it. However, you didn't particularly like the victim, and you didn't care much if he lived or died. Ridden by guilt that you didn't tell the police, you have now put yourself in the martyr position – you deserve this, because if it weren't for you, a man would have been alive today."

John had sat by and listened – occasionally a smile would grow to his face. His hands had been deposited in his lap, and he shook his head once Sherlock had finished. A chuckle escaped. Sherlock raised a questioning eyebrow. "Nothing. It's just…God, Sherlock, you're the most brilliant man in London. In the entire United Kingdom, really."

A warm flush invaded Sherlock's cheek and he raised a finger to say something, but nothing came out. Indeed, he just stared at John in dumb amazement until Lestrade opened the door and told him thath is time was up.