Author's Note: For this one I thought I would try writing hallucinations… enjoy! Don't forget to review and let me know how I should improve, I would appreciate it so much!
"Remind me why we're doing this," John said as the plane shuddered again. "You realize that while you might be useful in London, you're not an international consulting detective."
"Yet, here we are, on our way to Maine," Sherlock said, a bored expression on his face. They were wedged onto a small plane, John in the aisle seat, and Sherlock in the middle. The detective was unhappy with his seat, because he was next to a mother and toddler. The toddler was continuously attempting to touch Sherlock, who would lean away with a repulsed expression every time. The mother took no notice.
The case that had captured Sherlock's attention seemed simple, but it had been going on for two months and no one had a clue as to what was happening. A person would be found dead in their home, with all of their fingers and toes cut off and their heart stabbed out.
Sherlock tapped his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair.
"I thought flying was supposed to be quick," he griped.
"You do realize that we have to fly over the Atlantic," John said.
"Of course I do, don't insult my intelligence," Sherlock sneered.
"Considering that yesterday I found out that you didn't know what reality television is…"
"Yes, well, I know many more things than that," Sherlock shot back. "I know that the woman next to me is flying out to visit her son because he was just diagnosed with a deadly disease, and that she's having an affair with her boss! I know that she grew up in Italy and dropped out of high school! Did you know that, John? Or is your mind so astoundingly dull that it can't see the obvious?"
The woman next to them had her jaw opened and she seemed to be struggling between shouting at Sherlock or punching him, but one look at the anger pouring off of him and she quickly averted her eyes.
"Sherlock," John said quietly. "That's not okay. Apologize."
"Oh, please, John. I insult you all the time. Often you don't even notice. Since when do I have to apologize to you?"
"Not to me, Sherlock. To that poor woman whose privacy you just violated."
"Fine," Sherlock hissed. "Sorry," he practically shouted at the woman, then he violently leaned backwards, shut his eyes, placed his fingertips below his chin, and returned to his mind palace.
Finally, at the end of a long day, they reached the Maine airport after having to catch a layover in Florida. They took a taxi to their hotel, which was in Portland, and after obtaining their room key, they took the elevator to their room.
"This is nice," John said, who was in a better mood after the transit was over. Sherlock too seemed to be in a better mood after having spent a solid three hours in his mind palace. Their room was simple with two queen beds and a view of the small city.
Sherlock observed the view. "Where's the city?" he asked, exasperated. "I thought that this was one of the largest cities in Maine?"
"It is," John said. "Bit different from London."
Sherlock took his violin out of his bag, which he had insisted on bringing, and began a high pitched tune.
"Um, Sherlock. We're in a hotel, and it's ten at night," John said, rubbing his eyes.
"So?"
"So, not only do I want to get to sleep, but there are also children in this hotel that I'm sure won't want to listen to a violin," then added after seeing a slightly confused expression on his friend's face, "Even if the violin is being played impeccably."
The next day, they were driving their rented car down the highway. They stopped at a small diner on their way their. It was filled with locals who seemed intrigued by them.
"From England?" their waitress asked as she served them eggs and coffee. "Why are you folks coming to Maine?"
"Mur-" Sherlock began, but John quickly spoke over him.
"Our jobs," he smiled.
After, they drove into a small town, they reached the house where the last person was found.
Sherlock hopped out of the car, pulling on his scarf.
"Sherlock, remember to be nice to the police here. You're not speaking to Lestrade, remember, you're speaking to people who rarely see crime during their life. We're not in London," John warned. Sherlock didn't answer.
"Who is in charge here?" Sherlock asked matter-of-factly.
"Dawson is," answered the cop that was standing on the edge of the lawn. "I'm afraid you can't go any further, sir. Crime scene."
"Yes, that's why I'm here," Sherlock said, irritated.
"Sorry," John cut in. "I'm John Watson, and this is Sherlock Holmes. He's a consulting detective. Just give us five minutes and he can give you data."
The cop frowned. "We have data. Sorry, I can't let you on the scene."
"You have data, yet it's been two months and you haven't solved it," Sherlock said. "Give me just two minutes, even, and I promise you that I'll have more information than you've collected over the past week." His face was hopeful, and John knew how desperate he was to see the body. He pulled from the depths of his coat pocket the badge he had nicked from Lestrade, and waved it in front of the cop. "See? I have proof," Sherlock said, and pulled the badge back into his pocket; clearly, he didn't want the cop seeing the name "Lestrade" on the badge after John having said his name was Holmes.
"Well, I suppose if you're a detective," the cop said, scratching his chin. "Who's your boss? Obviously you're not from around here, from the accent, so I just need more verification. Put your boss on the phone," he decided finally.
Sherlock sighed dramatically and quickly phoned Lestrade, then handed the phone to the cop.
"Scotland Yard? From London?" the cop was saying. "Right. Okay. Thanks." He gestured forward. "You guys can head on in," he permitted. Sherlock's smile broke across his face and he nearly sprinted toward the house, pausing on the outside to observe the sidewalk.
They walked inside, receiving several, glances from officers, but the cop outside must have already told them the consulting detective was coming inside with a walkie talkie. The gave John and Sherlock space.
The body belonged to a teenager. All of her fingers and toes laid on the bloody carpet below her, completely severed from her body.
Sherlock crouched next to her, prodding her body, and sniffing her clothing. Finally, he stood up, and looked at John, who bent down next to her and evaluated the body.
"Well?" Dawson asked after watching their performance. "What have you got?"
"Dead for seventeen hours," John said. "She has no indications of harm to her body aside from the severed fingers, toes, and stabbed out heart. No signs of a struggle." He turned to Sherlock, who took a deep breath.
"Drugged," he said confidently.
Dawson scowled. "No, there's no traces of poison in her system. We checked."
"There are," Sherlock corrected under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing. But she was clearly drugged," he said, looking around at them all. "Really? You don't see it?"
"Just walk us through, Sherlock," John said, exasperated.
"Alright. First, I immediately took note of this girl's appearance in all of the photos around the house. If you had all observed, you would have noticed that she always dressed with her hair neat and pinned up, and she wore blouses and skirts. Very well-dressed. Yet, she's dead with her hair down and she's wearing sweatpants and a tee shirt. Clearly, she wasn't planning on going to school yesterday. Now, she obviously went out for breakfast, because she has a ketchup stain on her shirt and her breath smells of coffee. And no, she didn't eat at her house, because she has her purse on her, so she went out to breakfast then returned home. Why was she skipping school? Most likely complications with her boyfriend. She came back, but didn't eat anything else, despite it being much later than lunch, because she still has egg in her teeth. She's not anorexic, so she wasn't feeling well, then. No one else was home, obviously, and it wasn't intentional suicide because why would she chop her toes and fingers off first? No, I think that she was drugged at the diner she ate breakfast at, returned home because she wasn't feeling well, and most likely was hallucinating due to the drug. She was home alone when she cut off her own fingers and toes then stabbed herself."
"Brilliant," John breathed. Dawson's eyebrows were raised high.
"If you're just making this up, Mr. Holmes…" He shook his head. "What diner?"
"I'm going to figure that out. John, I need you to visit the families of all of the other victims to ensure that my hypothesis is consistent for each victim. Ask if they had been out to eat, what they've done, et cetera. I'll find the diner and the murderer within the hour, officer," Sherlock said enthusiastically, rubbing his hands together. "I'll admit, this case was much more simple than I had thought, but nonetheless still fun."
John obliged Sherlock's orders and after asking Dawson where the other victims lived, he drove Sherlock to a large, family owned diner in town (Sherlock's first guess) then drove himself to the house of one of the earlier victims. Sherlock would be walking to the other diners, because they were all centrally located in the town.
Sure enough, Sherlock's hypothesis had been accurate. The wife of the family said that her husband had indeed gone out to breakfast, but he hadn't said where. John thanked them and drove to the next location. It was beginning to rain, and the driveway was long, tucked deep in the woods.
To his annoyance, the family wasn't home. He turned, about to leave the porch, when his heart suddenly flipped in his chest. Hundreds of spiders were climbing up the porch stairs.
They were large, black, and had red prints on their large rear ends. Their legs made small clicks as they scuttled onto the porch. John leapt backwards, shocked at how many there were; it was as though there was a sea of spiders below.
To his horror, they began to climb his chair that he was perched on in terror. They were gnawing at him, and he gasped in fear as they overwhelmed his toes. Desperate, he pulled out his jackknife, and began to hack at them, using all of his strength in order to get the wretched spiders off of his toes. They wouldn't stop, but he fought back screaming, because he was a soldier, and he wasn't going to let an army of spiders make him scream. But they climbed his arms, scurrying down to his fingers, which throbbed underneath them, and he violently hacked at the spiders, anything to get them off.
It seemed that it was hours that the spiders were on him, when they changed direction and made for his chest. His breath caught as they began to eat out his chest, digging their pinscers into him, swarming his heart…
The sound of a baritone voice broke the scuttling sound of the spiders, but John didn't hear it, because he was too busy lacerating the spiders as best as he could, killing as many as possible, and suddenly, there was a voice, screaming his name.
"John! John!"
A hand had taken the jackknife out of his hand, and now John screamed, because the spiders were descending on him, and he had no weapon against them…
"John, stop it, you're hallucinating, they aren't real!"
They aren't real.
They aren't real.
They aren't real.
He opened his eyes. The spiders were gone, and Sherlock was above him, pressing his scarf against John's chest.
"The spiders," he cried out, because he had to warn Sherlock, what if they came back?
"They're not real, John, you were hallucinating," Sherlock was saying, then he felt the pain. It was on his hands and feet, and his chest, it felt like it was going to split. He managed to say "spiders" one last time before blacking out.
He woke up in a white room. Obviously a hospital. Sherlock was sitting, clearly thinking hard. John sat up, gasping as pain flared through him.
"Sherlock?" he asked. The detective's eyes shot open.
"John, you moron," Sherlock said, a disgruntled expression on his face.
"What happened?"
"Apparently the diner that was serving people hallucinogens was the one that we ate at this morning."
John closed his eyes, remembering the swarm of spiders that had been crawling over him relentlessly. "But… it was so real. They attacked my fingers, my toes, my heart…" He gasped as everything fell into place. He tried to wiggle his toes and fingers. He only felt a pinky and index finger on one hand and a thumb on the other. No toes.
"Sherlock!" he cried out. "My fingers - my toes!"
"That's why I called you a moron. You hacked them off yourself, John, in attempt to protect yourself from the spiders," the detective said brusquely, and despite his tone of voice, John could see lines of worry etched into his face, and the fact that his flatmate appeared to care suddenly made the situation feel even more drastic. "You almost died from blood loss after stabbing at your chest. I got there just in time, after realizing that the diner that served the hallucinogens was the same one that we ate at."
"What a stupid way to almost die," John muttered. "Attacking spiders that were all in my imagination."
"The doctors say they can reattach most of your missing fingers and toes," Sherlock said cheerfully, and lifted a bloody plastic baggie. John nearly vomited.
"Sherlock! Don't show those to me!" he shouted. Sherlock quickly put them back down.
"I swear, if you tell Scotland Yard that I almost killed myself because of imaginary insects, I will…" John said in a low voice.
"Don't worry, John, I will not tell a soul," Sherlock confirmed. Something was awfully suspicious about the tense he used.
"You already did, didn't you?"
"Sorry, John. Don't worry, no one will judge you," Sherlock said, smiling, and then the nurse came in.
"You must be enjoying your trip to Maine," she said jokingly.
"You have no idea," John replied, and offered a half-hearted smile back.
Author's note: So I thought that hallucinations would be fun to write, and they were. Please comment and let me know how I should improve! Thank you so much for reading this, it means a lot to me!