Heeeee. ~ I'm glad some of you enjoyed the thought of Sherlock hugging a teddy bear! Believe me, I had fun writing the damn thing.
Huzzah! I present to you the third installment. It's kind of meh for me so I'm sorry if it seems kind of forced, but I read and reread this chapter several times over and determined that it was good enough. Hopefully I'm right, yes?
BBC Sherlock is owned by the BBC (no shit), Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss; actual Sherlock Holmes (and the story this chapter is based upon) is owned by the amazing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who'd weep at how the little shit he regretted creating ended up becoming fiction's most beloved character and the Sherlock fandom's main heartbreaker, oops); finally, The Avengers is the property of Stan Lee, who is one adorable motherfucker.
3.
"For God's sake, Sherlock, what the hell are we doing here?" John hissed as a toy helicopter whizzed above his head.
Sherlock and John were currently standing in the middle of a toy store, the former examining shelves housing several puppets and the latter blatantly ignoring the stares coming in from concerned parents.
"We need to speak to the owner," Sherlock replied, still distracted by the dust on the shelves. "He's one of the two Garridebs in England. I highly doubt James Winter would bother going to Leeds for the other one tonight – not when there's one here right in the heart of London ready for the taking. I'm certain this is where he'll be heading."
"Who's James Winter?" John asked, furrowing his brow.
Sherlock reached into his pocket, pulled out his magnifying glass and examined the shelves closely. "Do you remember the client that came to us a week ago about financial claims?"
"The one from Liverpool?"
"Accent suggests a person from Liverpool but his pronunciation and his usage of colloquialism suggests American. Restaurant coupons, driver's license and tickets from his wallet suggest Kansas," Sherlock corrected in one breath. He cocked his head and added as an afterthought, "Obviously."
"Obviously." John exasperatedly mouthed, rolling his eyes behind Sherlock's back.
Sherlock continued on, oblivious to John's disdain. "His grandfather, Hamilton Garrideb, left him fifteen million dollars, but only if he found two other Garridebs to split the money with him. The story in itself is already highly suspicious, what with all the unexplained discrepancies. I've already concluded that it is a fake, but what I don't understand is why our client would go through so much trouble."
"I checked with Scotland Yard and went through their photographic files – " Sherlock rolled his eyes at the look on John's face. "They knew I was there, John."
The doctor glared at him.
"They would know I was there if they bothered to check the security cameras. It's not my fault they're lazy, isn't it? I wasn't trying to hide myself."
John resignedly sighed – fighting with the detective was a futile effort. Sherlock took this as a sign for him to continue. "As I was saying, I looked through some files and found out that a convict recently escaped from Kansas, and unless Garrideb has an evil twin he failed to mention, they are one and the same. Subtract a little facial reconstruction on the chin and forehead plus copious amounts of hair dye and we have James Winter alias "Killer" Evans, wanted for the murder of three men," Sherlock sighed loudly and put the magnifying lens back in his coat pocket. "Let's solve this case quickly, John, it's turning out to be quite a bore. Let's hope we get a serial killer by the end of the week, shall we?"
"Sherlock!" John hissed. A mother and her child were staring at the pair of them fearfully. The father looked ready to strangle the pair of them with his umbrella. "Keep your voice down, people are staring!"
"Oh, let them be, John. They've got nothing else to do with their petty little lives," Sherlock dismissed.
The father gripped his umbrella tighter.
"Sherlock!"
"Mr. Holmes?"
Sherlock and John turned to stare at the chipper blonde girl standing behind them. She couldn't have been older than seventeen. Her smile was wide as she regarded Sherlock and John.
"Yes?" Sherlock replied, straightening himself up and propping up his coat collar. Bastard.
"I'm afraid Mr. Garrideb isn't here right now. He's at Leeds."
The detective's ears perked up. "Leeds? What's he doing at Leeds?"
"I don't know, sir," the girl shook her head, ponytail swishing behind her. "He just said he needed to take care of financial business with a friend."
"When did he leave?"
"Well, uhm, let's see. He was still here when I signed in, but when I came back from lunch break he was already gone. He just left a note about what he was doing and that was it. You know what's funny, though, is that you're the second person to see him today. Another guy came in the same time I did and asked to speak to him. He left after about, I don't know, thirty minutes?" The girl said this all in one breath.
John noticed Sherlock's countenance change, almost as if a light bulb clicked in his head.
"Thank you for your help," the detective said.
"You're welcome, sir," the blonde replied happily, and proceeded to coo down at a baby in a stroller.
"We need to go back here after closing time," Sherlock whispered to John, turning to him.
"Sherlock, I've got a da –"
"There's a reason Winters fed Garrideb that story of the inheritance. He wanted him out of here for a reason. Winters is looking for something in this store, and we need to find out what it is, can't you see?"
Sherlock grabbed a bunch of action figurines from the shelf (quite eagerly, John noticed) and set them on a children's table. "Let's pretend that this is Nathan Garrideb – " he set a figurine down on the left side " – and that this is James Winters," Sherlock set down another figurine from across the guy. He sets a figurine directly in front of him before picking up the last two action figures. "This is us," Sherlock continued, setting two dolls side by side on the other side of the table.
If John had been told three days ago that he would end up holding action figures (Avengers, no less) with Sherlock Holmes, he would have died from the laughter.
"Okay, so James here – " he picks up the Captain America action figure " I've always hated him, anyway; he's too blue and his biceps are too big to be attached to his elbows – Winters presumably has something hidden in this place that could prolong his jail sentence. He comes to London to get rid of it, only to find out that Garrideb – " Sherlock picks up Thor " – is occupying the place, so how does he get him out of there? Trick him into thinking that there's an inheritance waiting for him. Winters tells him to travel to Leeds and fetch the other Garrideb – " John watches in amusement as Sherlock gets Thor to Hawkeye by making him walk " – and the time needed to get there is just enough time for Winters to find what he needs. So, tonight, we – " Sherlock picks up Iron Man and The Hulk " – are going to find the thing he's looking for before he finds it." He holds Iron Man and The Hulk with one hand and Captain America with the other and bangs them together as if they were fighting.
Were those pew-pew-pews John was hearing? Dear Lord.
John raised his hand. "Yeah, one question."
"What is it?"
"Exactly which one of us is Iron Man?" John manages to blurt out before he burst into laughter.
Sherlock casts his eyes downwards at the two figurines in his hand before calmly replying, "Me, of course."
"You?" John guffawed. "What makes you Iron Man?"
"Because I, as you say, 'purposely' provoke you when I'm bored and turn you into this big – not in a literal sense, of course – angry monster," the detective explained, shaking The Hulk when he mentioned 'monster'.
That earned him a glare.
Sherlock grinned slyly at him. "Besides, something about Robert Downey, Jr. just screams Sherlock Holmes."
John cursed loudly for the fifth time that hour as he tripped over a basketball.
"Have you found something useful yet, John, or are you just being noisy again?" Sherlock asked sarcastically. He was holding a flashlight and standing before the storage room door picking the lock.
"I'm trying, Sherlock, but there all these damn toys on the floor!" the doctor whispered loudly. He resisted the urge to throw a rubber duck at the consulting detective's head.
"Use your flashlight, then."
"How can I when you took it?"
"John, I – "
The pair of them stopped bickering long enough to hear the sound of the main doorknob jiggling incessantly. Sherlock instantly turned off the flashlight, John turning to battle mode beside him. The both of them hid behind one of the numerous shelves in the toy store.
By the time the intruder managed to pry open the lock, John and Sherlock had already managed to adjust their eyesight to the darkness. A flash of moonlight revealed him to be James Winters as he stalked to the shelf Sherlock had been examining earlier in the morning. The pair of them watched as Winters started tapping random patterns on the wood. After several clicks, John and Sherlock watched as the bookshelf moved to reveal a staircase leading downwards. Winters flicked on his flashlight and started walking down the stairs.
Clearly, the time for them to move had come. Sherlock and John moved out of their hiding place and stealthily walked across the room to the shelf, but not quietly enough, for Winters hurried up the stairs to check on the noise the pair of them made. His face split into a wide, menacing grin as Sherlock and John whipped out their revolvers.
"Hey, hey, hey! No need to be so rude. I just wanted to talk," Winters said, not bothering to fake an accent anymore. He raked his eyes appreciatively down Sherlock's form. "You know, it's not every day I get to meet the world's only consulting detective and his little sidekick," he said, emphasizing the last 'k' and winking at John. The detective rolled his eyes. Americans can be so dramatic. "I should've known you'd be here, knowing about your reputation. A lot of guys say that you're good, but they never mentioned how rude you both were." Winters gave them a mock pout. "You're ruining my plans. I'm gonna need to fix that – "
Winters took out a pistol hidden in his sleeve and fired two shots in rapid succession. The first bullet whizzed past their ears, but the second one dug itself into John's thigh, eliciting a cry from the doctor. The last thing John saw before he fell down was Sherlock's arm crashing down on Winters' head, effectively knocking him unconscious with the butt of his gun. Sherlock's arms wrapped around John in mere seconds.
"John, are you alright? Are you hurt?" Sherlock demanded an answer, examining the bullet hole in his thigh.
"It's alright, Sh'lock," John slurred, applying pressure to his trousers. The pain was hard to ignore, but it was something he had gotten used to throughout his army years. "It's just a graze."
"Are you sure?" Sherlock asked. He whipped out a pocket-knife and gashed a hole in John's trousers. The graze was bleeding quite a bit as it was kind of deep, but it was, all in all, just a scratch. "Yes. Yes, it's just a graze. Thank God."
It was times like these when John was grateful to call Sherlock Holmes his best friend.
After the ordeal, Lestrade took to monitoring the both of them even more closely. The detective inspector had found them mere minutes after the whole shooting ordeal had happened, having heard reports of a shooting at Covent Garden. The first thing he saw was James Winters lying unceremoniously on a bed of flowers in front of a broken window. While indescribably irked that Sherlock and John had took it upon themselves to solve another case behind Scotland Yard's back yet again, his annoyance was alleviated by the secret Winters had been trying to keep.
Counterfeit printers, along with a millions worth of pounds, were found at the end of the staircase. Sherlock had noticed miniscule ink stains marking the shelf he was examining and deduced Winters' plan. Before being turned into a toy store, a professional counterfeiter had been using the place as a warehouse for counterfeit production before being killed by Winters himself. Winters, knowing that the copy machine could still be used, opted to try and restart the business before being stopped. He was brought back to jail on charges of murder.
As a joke, John bought the whole set of Avengers action figures for Sherlock. The detective had taken it with a sneer, but John could see how ecstatic he was at getting them. John, recovering from the bullet wound, stared at the consulting detective. Sherlock was currently playing with the action figures on the living room table complete with sound effects and grandiose movements.
John knew that he should be worried by how the detective was playing with them (from what he could tell, Sherlock was recreating a crime scene with all of them), but he couldn't bring himself to care. Not when Sherlock's loyalty during the shooting was still fresh on his mind.
And if John noticed Captain America hanging limply from a tree outside the window, he didn't say anything.
Okay, several notes:
a.) Look me in the eye and tell me you can't imagine Sherlock recreating crime scenes with action figures. I dare you.
b.) Please don't think I hate Captain America! I just think of him as the guy Sherlock would despise the most, but that doesn't mean I hate him! I quite love him, in fact. My favorite next to Loki and Iron Man. !_!
c.) Uh, let's see. I gave a purple shirt of sex for the first chapter and a sexy Mycroft-umbrella for the second. How about a nice dancing GIF of Martin Freeman for this chapter? :)
d.) I'll throw in a YouTube video of Martin singing if you can guess the story this chapter's based upon, too. ^_^
e.) Review, please! They motivate me a lot.
f.) Damn, this is a really long author's note, isn't it?
