Snake in the Grass

Disclaimer: Sherlock and its characters belong to the BBC and Arthur Conan Doyle - just the Shift concept belongs to me

"The game is afoot."
― Arthur Conan Doyle

The Case

"John get back down – I can hear you tensing to run."

The annoyed face of the giant hound snarled in the direction of the living room but still grumpily relaxed his muscles and settled back down on the floor, resting his head on the kitchen table in-front of an old rag soaked in chlorine.

"This is vital to the case," The voice of the focused detective continued from where he was sat on the sofa adding notes to St Bart's confidential yearly scientific report that he'd just printed from their files, "Depending on the timing of when that replica rag coated in the correct amount of chlorine becomes odourless depends on whether that was actually how she was killed – I can't continue until I know how the victim was murdered and your sense of smell is regrettably superior to mine."

John inwardly cursed his pin-point senses, gnashing his teeth from the toll of four hour boredom that was hanging over him; there wasn't even anything he could do to help pass the time when he was stuck like this – laptops, books or tea weren't designed for the use of a hound.

There was a time, in the long distance past where sitting with no means of distraction for a few hours would have sounded as a time for some pleasant relaxation; simply taking comfort from where he had ended up in his life.

But since Moriarty's 'Shift Shelter' chemical, as it had been donned by someone or other, had hit the black-market all those months ago John had gotten used to a life full of non-stop chases, crime scenes and an egotistic detective; especially since it had caused the crash of the Shift Criminal Activity Department as they could no longer distinguish a suspects heritage from presence and Sherlock had decided to unofficially and single-handedly become the shut-down department.

Hence meaning that staring at an old cloth was not an activity he had any desire to be involved in.

The dull beep of John's ringtone broke through the silence and he raised his head to the noise, only to have it pushed back down as Sherlock ran past him to retrieve the phone from upstairs, "Stay!"

The doctor huffed at the empty room, he may technically be a dog – but that didn't mean he could just be treated like one.

Gliding back into the room with his scarf wrapped around his neck, he finished a text and shoved John's phone into his trade-mark coat pocket before putting it on; John actually couldn't remember the last time that he had been able to keep his phone on his own person.

"I don't understand why Lestrade still insists on ringing you when he has a case; it's not like you're the one who's going to be solving it," The detective muttered as he moved a string of intestines from the microwave to the fridge so they wouldn't go bad whilst they were out.

Maybe because he knows that you're more likely to have my phone on you than yours, John thought to himself.

Using their unique ability to tell what the other would be saying if they weren't in their form Sherlock mumbled, "Well it's not like you can use it as a hound."

Heading to the door he stopped just as he was about to disappear down the stairs and poked his head around the door to give John an expecting look.

The hound replied with his own head tilt towards the rag that still had a faint scent of chlorine wafting off it.

Sherlock sighed and said in a tone as if he was talking to a small child, "I've worked out that it was suicide – so it doesn't matter if she used a chlorine rag or not; boring. Now this new case, well we can only hope for the best!"

Then he bounded down the stairs, shouting a brief good-bye to Mrs Hudson as he ran out of the building.

With a deep growl John changed back to his normal form, angered at having just been robbed four hours of his life.

Knowing that Sherlock wouldn't leave for the crime scene without him; partially because he just doesn't do that and partially because there was a likelihood Lestrade wouldn't let him onto the scene without his 'handler' as he'd once been called much to the detective's displeasure, John purposefully took his time getting his coat and keys.

Once two minutes had passed, where he could imagine Sherlock was close to storming back in, knocking him out and dragging him to the crime, John made to leave. But at the last second he quickly switched the intestines from the fridge into the microwave once more; see how the feline feels about having used all those hours on an experiment which will have rotted by the time he returns.

The house was surrounded by the classic yellow police tape, various members of the force surveying the area in their fluorescent jackets and politely moving curious on-lookers away from the perimeter.

As Sherlock stepped out of the black taxi each officer suddenly found something that looked to be of vital importance in the opposite direction and quickly headed off to investigate; there was always the risk of interaction with the detective ending with him getting a fist to the face, and it wasn't that they didn't want to hurt the stuck-up man, more that they were wary of the gigantic hound that was always at his shoulder disguised in that friendly short human form.

Lestrade spotted them from across the road and strode over, "Ah, Sher… John," He finished as the detective brushed past him without a sparing glance; shaking his head he turned to the doctor and took his outreached hand.

"Hey Greg, haven't seen you in a while," John commented, ducking under the tape as the police detective held it up for him.

Lestrade smirked, throwing the Shift a bemused look, "You have noticed the fact that you're the only one who can stay in the presence of Holmes for extended periods of time?"

"Ah - you were starting to feel the headache."

"I'd describe it as more of a never-ending migraine, which is always followed by a side dish of a head-ache."

"It's really that bad?"

Closing the door behind him Lestrade's expression dropped to show the extent of his exhaustion, "Sherlock has forced himself onto literally every single new case for the past six months – now just try to jot up the number of people who would seriously consider switching alliances in order to knock him off and how much more time all his appearances have given him to annoy these people even further… let's just say being the keeper of the peace isn't the reason I joined the Yard."

John gripped the man's shoulder; it wasn't as if he hadn't been noticing the strain in his friend's eyes with each passing meeting, "So you have a good week hiding in the basement of paperwork?"

"Oh it was heaven."

"… so he had clearly only recently returned home –" The detective was announcing to the empty room; not realising that the two men hadn't followed him straight in, "…John?"

The doctor blinked, turning his head to his name as he walked into the living room, "What?"

Sherlock stared at him with aggravation, "I asked for your opinion – were you not listening to anything I just revealed?"

John raised an eyebrow and shared an amused glance with Lestrade who was leaning against the wall; happy to be able to sit this interaction out, "Well unless you expect my canine hearing to work through walls then no, I couldn't hear what you were saying."

The detective looked momentarily startled, but it quickly melted into annoyance and he slid into the kitchen, taking out John's phone and starting to send texts which would probably be directed to contacts in distant countries; kicking the doctor's phone bill up even more.

Running a hand through his hair at the Shift's childish behaviour, John began to scan the room since Sherlock's display showed that he had no intention of repeating himself; sometimes he wondered if switching the man with a child would leave him to deal with fewer tantrums.

John Watson wasn't a stupid man; the doctor and captain title proved as much, so endless crime scenes at a constant rate with the same genius detective had left him to pick up a fair few of the observation skills involved.

The most obvious attribute of the room was the bloodied body lying on the centre rug; the man was position with his stomach to the floor, deep scars digging through his back yet the extent of blood seeping underneath him showed that he had been attacked from the front. His arm was spread out towards the small fireplace, his fingers stretched in the direction of a small iron rod where he had tried to crawl and reach an object to draw to his defence; it had been a brutal and savage attack.

Moving to the rest of the room it showed no signs of a struggle; the only item out of place was a fresh coffee stain with a disregarded mug nearby and the lack of area which the blood sat suggested he definitely wasn't suspecting an attack; so perhaps the victim knew the killer? Or maybe didn't but simply didn't think them to look like the dangerous type.

Letting out a gentle sneeze he walked over to the TV and noted that the date of the programme guide was around a month old; with this he swept his eyes around the room as a whole and realised that it showed no recent signs of life – no odd objects lying around, no accidently forgotten scraps of food, even the little plastic bin in the corner was empty. Clearly the victim hadn't been living here recently; if it actually was his house.

"Alright kid, I'm up to date," John called out to wherever Sherlock had disappeared, there were most likely a million pointless things that he hadn't picked up but he really didn't care about finding out what the man had for breakfast yesterday and how he chose to eat it.

Lestrade threw the doctor a humorously panicked look and quickly sped forward and grabbed his shoulders, "No John! Don't tell me you've turned into one of his clones – I wasn't gone that long; you can't leave me to be the only normal person within this weird little crime-fighting team of ours."

The corner of John's mouth threatened to quirk into a grin, "One of?"

"The supposed professional detective here has long suspected that I have somehow made un-identical clone versions of myself and donned them as members of the homeless society; I believe he claimed it could be the only explanation for why so many people would willingly work for me," Sherlock drawled as he appeared from the kitchen, hitting the send button one more time before slipping the phone away.

John threw the detective a withering glare, "How much debt am I going to be in at the end of this month?"

"Just enough for you to have to write up some detailed reports on my actions and whereabouts for Mycroft," He replied before shutting back down to his emotionless work mode.

"He's just return from abroad; non-recreational purposes going by that patchy tan, and the lack of suitcases along with the empty wardrobes around the house show that he left his visiting country very quickly – "

John glanced up, "How can you be sure this is house? There are no pictures or anything around connecting him."

"I phoned his estate agent," The detective replied in a tone that implied his answer to be the most obvious thing in the world, "There's a 'For Sale' sign with the Wickershem Society three houses down and in these borderline upper class estates where each house owners trying to outdo their neighbour on the class level, our guy was going to have brought it through the same over-priced company."

Chucking Lestrade a kitchen note-pad with black scribbles over it Sherlock continued, "There's most of the information you need on the guy – and you should thank me, I had to listen to the estate agents sob-story about her lack of love life to get that; not that I can't understand why the guy left her if she regularly reveals her personal life to strangers down the phone, very stupid of her – if you're answering the phone to someone who's looking for knowledge about a customer then clearly they're only faking interest in order to achieve what they want. This society is sometimes so dim it's actually hard to believe."

"The man, Sherlock?" John sighed, it was one grating aspect of the feline to always forget that he hadn't actually revealed any facts after finding them; yet he'd still get in a sulk when you didn't know the information that he hadn't told you.

"Lawrence Carter, forty-three, brought the place three years ago moving from a house further out of the city, works in a travel agents on flexible hours and was recently sent off to sort out a hotel contact abroad. Lives alone; no wife, no kids and from the emptiness of this place plus only the one contact in his phone for his boss – no friends. All in all a very boring man who has now been violently murdered by a –"

"Fox formed Shift," John added from where he was knelt examining Lawrence's body.

"Exactly," Sherlock agreed, "So the question is why has such a dull man who's not on the Shift records or has had any history with the heritage suddenly rushed back home terrified and got himself killed by a fox formed."

Looking up from where he was squinting at the note-pad attempting to read the detective's scrawl Lestrade prodded, "Can we have an answer then?"

"I'm working on it," Sherlock replied, sliding past the Yard worker, "Come on John we need to go and speak with Lawrence's wife."

"You said he didn't have a wife," John shouted through the door that the detective had escaped through, stopping to take a moment to give Lestrade a comforting pat on the shoulder on his way out.

"Fine; ex-wife if you want to be specific."

"You implied that he hadn't been married."

"No I stated that he didn't have a wife – not that he had never had a wife. Really John you need to start listening to the details of what I say."

Slamming the door of the taxi behind him the doctor glared at his fellow Shift - there was a short moment of silence between the two with John continuously staring down a man who wasn't even looking in his direction. The driver nervously shuffled in his seat.

"Give me my phone."

"43 Hammersin Way please."

The taxi slowly started down the road, making its way back onto the main junction and briefly stopped at a set of traffic lights.

"Do you think your skull would make a good chew toy?"

A/N:

I'm half way through the next chapter - and it will be longer than this one :) Though I can't predict when it'll be uploaded x

Thankyou, please review :) x