Chapter One: Caught in the Act
A lone figure, covered head to toe in skintight, black polyester clothing ghosted expertly through the shadows of a poorly lite street, his lean frame easily maneuvering undetected past the few people wandering about after dark. It was late, very late and the figure continued to glide across the roofs, making sure to steer clear from the view of the small but numerous cameras carefully positioned throughout the rooftops, stopping only when he reached his desired location. Once there he hunkered down and swapped his fake glasses for a new pair of infrared night vision binoculars originally strapped to his back. He pointed them at the apartment across the street, quickly spotting the two targets as flashing red beacons. The man smirked to himself and pulled out a small, untraceable smartphone and speed-dialed one. It was answered on the first ring.
"Are you in position?" a female voice demanded him immediately.
The man rolled his eyes despite the fact that she couldn't see it. She never changed.
"Yes, I'm here."
"Targets?" she barked. He resisted the urge to sigh at her.
"At their house, like they normally are. Well, most of the time anyways. Unless our resident psychopath decides to run off on a case, then they end up in the most unique situations I'm honestly surprised they haven't died by now."
"Dimitri, focus. This is important and don't call Sherlock a psychopath. If anyone you fit that role far better than he does."
Claimed psychopath leaned his back against a rotted wall of the musky, abandoned apartment complex directly across from his targets, lazily double checking their positions before answering her.
"Yes, fine. Whatever," he dismissed. "Lie all you want, angel, but you're only offended because you have a major fangirl crush and refuse to seek help about it."
The woman sputtered suddenly, her voice rising alarmingly in pitch.
"You shut your whore mouth! I do not have a crush I simply see what they keep ignoring and plan to make them admit it to themselves."
Dimitri crouched down as a window was suddenly thrown open in the building next to him, moving into a darkened corner but still within distance of the stairs in case he needed a quick escape. He lowered his voice slightly and moved the goggles to his back again.
"I agree their continued circling around each other is annoying but why do you feel the need to intervene? I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually."
The woman gave an unladylike snort. "Yeah, when their old and wrinkly. I don't have that kind of time and frankly neither do they. Look, we can argue about this later, just watch them."
"Alright, Angel. Although I feel I should warn you, they've already found me."
"What do you-"
Abruptly there was a gun being pointed at him by a short, muscular man with cropped straw-blond hair and hardened pale grey eyes.
"Don't move," The man, or John as Dimitri knew him as, instructed in a deadly serious voice. Dimitri smiled and slowly raised a single hand over his head, the other still holding the phone to his ear.
"I'm going to have to call you back later, Angel. Your boys have me at gunpoint."
"Boys?" she echoed. "All I heard was John."
Dimitri glanced behind him to see Sherlock in his entire dark, curly haired and vivid blue eyed glory walk in through the door and stand next to John, watching Dimitri with a calculating frown.
"Who are you talking to?" Sherlock questioned him, not really expecting to get an answer.
"Ah," The woman still on phone breathed. "I see."
She paused for a moment. "You did this on purpose, didn't you?" she accused him, a little bit of anger entering her voice.
Dimitri shrugged, mindful not to make any sudden movements least John decided to become trigger happy. He was a war vet afterall and reflex's born from survival were hard to control, even if you were bleeding heart John Watson.
"You caught me" he admitted to her, not in the least bit sorry. He wanted to know just what it was about these two men and their relationship, or lack thereof that had his angel so invested. And a little lying on his part was just to be expected.
She sighed loudly at him but decided not to argue. "Gods, fine, just be home within the next hour or so help me Dimitri…and don't mess with them to badly, okay?"
Dimitri smirked at the two men still watching him wearily, flashing his pointed teeth like his angel preferred to do for intimidation.
"No promises." He said then hung up on her. Dimitri shuffled his feet a bit, already planning his escape, not missing Sherlock's watchful eyes as he observed him with hawk-like attentiveness. Fucking geniuses…this might prove harder than I originally thought. Not that I'm not up for a challenge. Dimitri smirked internally.
"What can I do for you boys?" Dimitri remarked at them in an overly casual voice.
"Why are you watching us?" John asked, taking in the stranger's thick black coat, tight black jeans and combat boots with a raised eyebrow. The fact that his long hair was cut in choppy layers and equally as black as his outfit didn't really surprise John. Neither did the small backpack full of equipment nor the high-tech looking goggles strapped to his back.
"Oh, that. See, you actually weren't supposed to know, you naughty men. Now you've gone off and ruined my perfect plan." Dimitri's smirk widened as he watched John's expression turn into adorable confusion. Ah how he enjoyed playing with people.
"Wrong," Sherlock abruptly interrupted, staring hard at Dimitri. The smirk slide of Dimitri's face as he regarded Sherlock with the same seriousness. No fun. Sherlock continued to analyze him.
"This is what you wanted all along, to see us face to face," John sent a surprised look at Sherlock but Sherlock ignored him in favor of staring at Dimitri. "You knew those blinking blobs of light weren't really us, just Mrs. Hudson and her dull friend as they drank tea and caught up. Now the question remains, why?"
Playing stupid Dimitri replied, "Why what?" as he inched his body where he wanted, as subtly as he could. He knew a major weakness of Sherlock's besides his suicidal tendencies of putting himself in ridiculously dangerous situations was his almost impulsive need to explain how he's always right. Dimitri was hoping that would be a suitable distraction. But then again this was Sherlock and he knew better than to underestimate him. Again, fucking geniuses.
Sherlock sent him a dirty glare at his pathetic attempt at acting dumb.
"Why you went through so much trouble to see us and are now trying just as hard get away. John, I suggest you cuff him before he goes through with whatever he's been planning for the past five minutes. We can take him to Lestrade and get more answers out of him later."
John looked between Dimitri and Sherlock for few seconds before sighing and slowly moving to do as Sherlock asked. Dimitri scowled and glared daggers at Sherlock, backing away from the advancing John.
"Now that's just not nice."
Ever the polite one John attempted to calm the strange man. He hadn't really done anything wrong except spy on them so he was extremely reluctant to resort to more violent methods. If he was being honest, besides the man's odd appearance and questionable spying he saw no reason to treat him like a dangerous criminal. But then again, after all the time he spent with Sherlock he knew better than to just assume things, for all he knew this man could be a notorious serial killer. Not one to argue with Sherlock though he held his tongue and did what was asked of him, trusting that Sherlock had a damn good reason for all this silliness.
"Don't worry, I'm sure this is all just a misunderstanding so if you'd be kind enough to not move." John told him sternly, making sure the gun remained pointed to his vitals. He had no intention of using it unless things got truly out of hand, but the man didn't need to know this.
Dimitri sneered at them both, already tired of the game and a little disappointed with them both. By this point he was directly behind the door and his left hand was already reaching for the small, glass ball in his backpacks pocket. Sherlock's eyes narrowed and he took a step forward as if to stop him.
"Yeah, no thanks boys, I have places to be and Angel will yell at me if I'm late again. Not that she doesn't look sexy as hell when she yells but that usually get me an object to the face if I tell her that. I still don't understand her fascination with you both but…"
Dimitri whipped out the orb and launched it at John's person.
"Think fast!" Dimitri cackled gleefully, already turning away to sprint out the door.
"John don't!" Sherlock warned but it was too late, John reflexively caught the orb with is free hand while the other still held the gun steady, quite a feat if it wasn't for the fact that the orb was a timed smoke bomb. Half a second later there was a small explosion as John immediately held his breath and rapidly blinked his streaming eyes. They were lucky it wasn't laced with chili powder which was truly nasty stuff, or a literal bomb. Holding back his urge to cough violently John painstakingly waited for the smoke to clear before turning to Sherlock's extremely aggravated face.
"Bad luck, mate." John said to him as he held back a sudden laugh at Sherlock's heavily dusted with white powdered form. They'd both need a shower after this.
Sherlock scowled darkly at him before brushing what he could of the powder off his coat.
"Shouldn't we go after him?" John asked, confident they could both still catch the man if Sherlock was that bothered by it all.
"No need, he's already long gone."
Sherlock wrinkled his nose at the remaining powder coating his body but eventually gave up trying to clean himself off as he briskly strided to the now empty door, his long coat billowing behind him.
John immediately caught up to his fast moving flatmate.
"Wait! Sherlock! What do you mean he's long gone? And where are we going?"
Sherlock paused long enough to give John a small smirk of his own.
"To a case, John. We can investigate this "angel" later. I already have a good idea who she is and if I'm right, and I'm always right, then that won't be the last we've seen of that man. Indeed, we might even get to meet the famous Fallen Angel herself soon."
Sherlock's own smile widened at the thought, a new case with the added mystery was just what to needed to elevate his growing boredom and this "fallen angel" was something no one seemed to know anything about. She was practically a ghost in normal society. Yet somehow she held a strong influence in the underworld. Interesting.
"Wait, a case? We can't just go to a crime scene looking like this; we have to at least change." Sherlock ignored him to hail a cab.
"Sherlock!"
"No time, John! The game is on!" Sherlock yelled back at him as he swiftly entered the cab and John was left to blindly follow or get left behind.
Again.