A/N: As far as the last chapter... I did try to warn you... This chapter is more filler than feels, so you can have some recovery time before the next round ;) It really shouldn't be a surprise though, if you know your ACD. (I own nothing, btw) Thank you for all the lovely reviews that you wrote, despite the trauma I caused… I really appreciate!


Six hours earlier

John sat in his little bland apartment, trapped in a web he didn't know a thing about and couldn't care less about anyway. He was bored. Not in a shoot-the-wall-because-it-somehow-had-it-coming sort of bored. Just a nice normal sort, like regular blokes experienced. After all, he couldn't do anything about the sniper. He just had to sit and wait and it riled him like nothing but Mycroft and inaction could.

Bored. He tried to not think the word in that voice. He failed. Damn the man for ruining even ennui for him!

There was nothing he wanted to do. John couldn't watch crap telly anymore because even now he could almost hear those baritone vocals screaming insults and interjections and corrections at the screen every time he tried to turn it on and it was unbearable. He didn't feel like reading or blogging or much of anything. John could now completely understood why the poor flat took a beating whenever there wasn't a case. If he could have mustered the energy, he'd do just about anything to escape the realm of the Bored. If he could have thought of anything to do, that was... John couldn't even open the windows to look at the nonexistent view because he might get shot (again)! He almost did, if only to piss Mycroft off. Which gave him an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.

It had been a long time since John had done anything even remotely resembling artistic. (Helping that utterly ridiculous cross-dressing actor-detective with his makeup for a disguise that one unmentionable time did not count.) But he had a steady hand (most of the time), an excellent knowledge of anatomy, plenty of paper bags, more flour than he knew what to do with (because cooking for one was next to impossible, even now), and of course, time. Too much time, actually. So it didn't really matter that he didn't really have much skill or practice.

He sent the neighbor boy on an errand run to get some decent paint and a wig and some other supplies. Who knows what the lad thought his quiet neighbor was up to, considering that shopping list. John was glad he'd been absentmindedly bribing the kid with the cookies Mrs. Hudson insisted on baking for him every week. John hadn't really considered the collective oddity of some of those requests that when he wrote it up: he'd been given worse, much worse, shopping lists in the past. He winced as memories of bloody body parts in crime scene bags and running to Tesco's at 3am and rows with pin-and-chip machines viciously resurfaced.

Trying to distract himself, he blew up a big red balloon and taped it to a piece of cardboard before layering on the first few strips of paper mache. He soon fell into a mind-numbing rhythm of dipping, smoothing, and shaping. John worked and fiddled and cursed (creatively) for hours, blissfully free of any flashbacks.


It was finished. An (almost) perfect model of his head. The coloring was a bit off, and the nose was a little lumpy, but that was ok. John was ridiculously proud of himself.

He was literally watching the last of the paint dry when he had another brilliant idea. A chair, broom handle, pillow, a few old clothes, some newspaper, and a bit of string, and John had a full-sized movable model of himself. He grinned like an idiot. He hadn't had this much fun since…

Nope. He was not thinking about it. John was having fun and he was going to continue having fun and damn whatever happened three years ago today it didn't matter right now. He positioned the dummy just so, ostensibly reading a book, before carefully opening the curtains in such a way that he couldn't be seen. Every now and then he wiggled the model's arms to 'turn' the page, or shifted the chair so it looked like the pile of odds and ends was actually alive. He giggled quietly to himself, imagining Mycroft's reaction as he glanced at his watch.

Exactly one minute after his spectacular entrance (right on cue), John's phone rang. Unlisted number.

"What are you doing, John," Big Brother purred, "I thought I told you not to do anything rash. Like sticking your head out your window like you want to get shot!"

"Like my puppet, Mycroft?" John scathingly replied. "I'll admit, it's nice to be pulling my own strings for once. I thought the dummy was good, but this is precious."

John relished listening to the silence on the other end of the phone. It wasn't something that happened when talking with Mycroft. Ever.

"This changes things," Mycroft finally recovered, "You should have notified me of your plans."

"As if you ever tell me any of your plans! Especially the ones that directly concern me. Speaking of, why is the sniper trying to kill me? And why do you know? Or care? Your brother is dead, due to someone's miscalculations so I don't know why you even bother keeping an eye on me!"

Silence echoed across the line again. John was in good form today. He smiled even wider than before—yelling at Mycroft was one of the few things he actually enjoyed nowadays. John waited for a reply for another minute before he noticed that Mycroft had hung up on him. The smile diminished slightly at the realization. But not by much.

He maneuvered the puppet to look like it had fallen asleep before he went to the bathroom to wash the last of the paint, plaster, and glue from his hands. His phone started to vibrate. He ignored it—most likely it was Mycroft being a prick again.


Someone knocked on John's door. Probably one of Mycroft's men, come to babysit.

"Sod off!" he shouted through the toothpaste in his mouth. Somehow he had gotten glue in his teeth and the taste wouldn't come out. The door opened, hesitantly. Apparently John wasn't scarier than Mycroft. Their mistake. He turned from the sink just in time to see a tall black and purple blur fly across the room, almost as if to tackle his facsimile, only to jerk awkwardly at the same time the fake head exploded in a spray of red rubber and brown plaster. John, momentarily stunned, watched in slow motion as the freakishly gangly person fell facedown into the floor. He probably would have stood there indefinitely, toothpaste dripping down his chin, if the sight of the rapidly-spreading red stain hadn't yanked his battle instincts into immediate action.