Chapter Three: Roster
John spent the day chatting up Emile and the other trainers. He'd finally got Sherlock to put on his boxing gloves (the detective wouldn't hear the possibility of taking a break while John got some antiseptic for the cut that had already opened on his knuckles, and was working on a punching bag by the time his doctor was back with the bandage), and he was spending his time with the fighters. Even though John was engaged with the older men, he kept his eye on his patient from across the gym. He could see Sherlock get chummy with one man, speak for a minute or so, eye him up, and move on.
Prunier commented on how hard it was to find good doctors who would work with them anymore. Boxing wasn't a sport much-liked by medical men, he added with a chuckle. It used to be that fighting was respected, fighting was something to brag about. He touched the scars on his hands fondly, absently. John's hard drive wasn't as big or fancy as Sherlock's, but he found somewhere to file it away anyhow.
He must have been doing something right. Brousseau invited him to dine with himself and his own ringside doctor later that evening. He'd started to say "Before..." but with a sideways glance between himself and Emile, he'd stopped. Emile gave a subtle nod, and Brousseau's slit of a mouth tilted into a sharp smirk. "Before the match."
John tried his best not to look confused. He nodded, smiled painfully, shook both of Brousseau's hands with his own before the older man swept away, taking his fighter with him. They came in threes: trainer, fighter, doctor. John wondered if Sherlock would be able to pair the fighters he was meeting to the trainers he hadn't just on John's descriptions alone. Probably.
He leaned on the ropes, watched Sherlock practice his swings between verbal jabs in lighthearted French with the broad but fast fellow he was sparring with. Leaned there with Emile, who was mostly quiet. They'd both been on edge during the entire exchange with the other trainers, and both had hidden it expertly, and only then could let it leak out of them.
Emile turned covertly to John. "You know what he means when he says the match, don't you?"
The wheels had been turning since then, and he was fairly sure he'd figured it out. "Dirty underground stuff, right?" He winced when Sherlock took a jab to the ribs. "And the ones that aren't fighting take bets, I'll wager."
Emile nodded. "Those three, me, four more. Not very big, but the crowd can be. Four matches a night. Rules are very lax." When he frowned, John thought it didn't suit the face at all. "Boys have always been hurt, but it's never been this bad. Money gone missing and now Henri..." Even John could see that Henri's death had hit Emile harder than he liked to show, than maybe even more than Sherlock knew. "You've both been invited. Do go to dinner, it may help."
"Sherlock's the best," John reassured him. "He'll work it out."
"I'm worried he may not work it out fast enough," Emile sighed, and with a sad smirk, clapped John on the shoulder and moved away.
"Peter," came Sherlock's voice (cheerful on a day that didn't involve a corpse, so unlike him), and John looked up to see the man bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waited. "Water, please?"
John took one last look at Emile's retreating figure before he reached into his bag for the sports bottle. When he attempted to hand it over, Sherlock leaned on the ropes and grinned ear to ear, waving his gloved hands to show his helplessness. John gave a low growl of a sigh and levered himself up to stand on the outside edge of the ring, holding onto the top rope as he administered water to the parched boxer.
"Learn anything interesting?" Sherlock asked once he'd got his breath back. John folded his arms, leaning to mirror him.
"I've been asked out. Dinner."
"Me too. Pub."
John was sure that Sherlock was getting an infinitely better deal. Worse yet, he knew that Sherlock wasn't going to enjoy it. Oh, he'd pretend to, but he'd have no more fun than John would be having, forcing caviar down his throat. They both grimaced at their own prospects.
"How about these fighters, then?" John asked.
"Some of them are only gym patrons. The fellow I had words with earlier, he's one to keep our eyes on. Amateur work on the scar on his right cheek—professional wound, but not a professional clean-up. You may be the only accredited man at the match, Peter."
John frowned deeply. "I don't like it. It sounds..."
"Dangerous?" Sherlock's eyes were bright, probing.
"Emile said these things get dirty. You're going to get the stuffing beat right out of you, if you keep acting like a kid, bouncing around like you're on holiday."
"We are on holiday," Sherlock added. Before John could begin again, he broke in: "I assure you, the concern is appreciated but unfounded. I've got you to look after me, after all."
And he stepped away from the ropes and back into the ring, where his sparring partner gladly welcomed him with gloved fists.
Sherlock slouched down in the bus seat almost as soon as he'd touched it, legs folding nearly over his head. Nevertheless, the facade of Addison never left him, not until he'd walked up the stairs to the flat above the cafe and dropped into the bed. He put fingertips to his mouth in thought, closed his eyes, and prompted John to begin without even waiting for the man to join him in the room.
John told as much as he could remember, sitting at the foot of the bed and gesticulating when something was more difficult to explain (and even if Sherlock didn't see, it still brought an amused flicker of a smirk). He talked about the trainers, each man's name, all of the details he could remember about each of them, Brousseau's invitation to dinner. Most especially, he put emphasis on Emile's feelings on Henri's death, and Emile's concern that Sherlock could be in the same danger Henri had been in. Sherlock asked several questions (How old is Mongeau? Can you guess? Did they talk about any of the fighters? Who were they watching? Rings, jewelry?), and then was quiet for a short time.
"You best wash up for dinner," Sherlock said at last, levering his legs over the side of the bed and standing in one swoop.
"Wait, that's it?" John asked, his eyebrows pressing downward until his eyes were unbelieving dark slits.
Sherlock paused halfway through his waltz around the room, head turned to John. "What's it?"
"No deductions? No leads or anything?" He shifted his weight. "You've usually got it solved by now, don't you?"
"Don't be stupid, John," Sherlock sighed, clearly not pleased—his angular shoulders sagged like a petulant adolescent, like he'd been let down. "I haven't collected all of the data yet. The first match is tonight, and with the two of us working together on this little problem, it should be quick and painless."
John scoffed. "When I'm mopping your blood up, you tell me it's painless."
"Pain can be ignored."
"You think I don't know how hard you're getting hit? You might not feel it but I know what it's doing to your insides. You're a bloody lunatic, and I wish you'd pay attention to yourself now and then," John snapped, and he regretted the word choice. Instead of letting it stew, he spun away for the bathroom to wash up for dinner.
He hadn't packed nice clothes. He hadn't thought he'd be dining out (with Sherlock, yes, but they were hardly ever more upscale than the noodle joint on the corner), let alone by himself. He had a good pair of trousers, and he realized he looked less than threatening in all the jumpers he'd shoved into his luggage. It would have to do. Sherlock was true to his word and had sauntered off unshowered and unshaven to a bar three streets down with a handful of the other fighters. Just what they needed, getting pissed before the big fight.
"Details," Sherlock had reminded him as he paused in the door frame, punctuating the word with his finger in a jab to John's collar bone. "Data, data, data," he murmured, large feet quick down the staircase.
Emile led the way. Dinner was sitting oddly in John's stomach, and the anxiety of the match was already turning his insides sour. Around the back side of the gym in an unlit alley, two big black doors in the ground led down a pneumatic lift into the basement. An illegal fight in a back-alley basement, John thought as he rocked on his heels, how dull.
It was less dull when Emile threw the doors open and they descended into the belly of the underworld. They were in the maze of backstage changing rooms, but John could hear the pulsing crowd in the underground arena as if he were standing with them. Loud chanting, shouts of joy and anguish, an announcer gibbering excitedly in a constant stream of French. The sound of a bell.
"They will be announcing the roster now," Emile said quietly, and with a quick look around them as they made their way toward the noise, he added: "Your boy Addison will be back here. We will find him after the matches are announced."
John nodded, grim-faced and wire-jawed, keeping an extra eye out for Sherlock should they pass him. He wanted to say something before the fists started flying and he had to be his doctor. He wanted to get a word in before he had to let professionalism stand before friendship. He hoped he'd get the chance. Emile must have caught John's face in the corner of his eye, and he nodded too.
"I know. I've already lost one."
John's dry throat bobbed painfully.
They opened a discreet back door to the chaos of the crowd. The space wasn't large, enough for a ring and rows of makeshift bleachers to surround it, but every inch was packed thick with shouting men (and the occasional brave, muscled woman who could hold her own in the undulating mass), shoulder to shoulder. It was hotter than the gym upstairs, packed tight and sweating and drinking and laughing. Colorful money in slick hands, awaiting the matches, all eyes on the judges' table. John tugged at his collar, tried to breathe the thick air and found it lacking. Someone nudged his way past the two of them, and Emile dragged John to a safe location to listen.
"Le dispute premiere," came the voice over the whining PA, and the crowd grew suddenly hushed. "Michaud et Bonnay!"
Not the first match, John noticed with a distinct loosening in his chest. He hardly had time to register the fact before the shouting started once again, and the quick exchange of money began. Bills passed en masse from shouting revelers to several strategically-placed betting tables (they could only be betting tables, what else could they be?) within the crowd. That was where the money came from. John wondered if he oughtn't put a bit on Sherlock to win. To track the money, of course.
"Le dispute secondaire," and John rolled his eyes when the voice paused for dramatic effect. "St Martin et notre boxeur neuf, un oeuf du cul de la poule, Addison Darling!"
The crowd half-cheered, half-shouted in confusion and, John read instantly, anger. Who was this new fellow? Money was flying, bets going down on the veteran and the new kid in stacks. He wondered if any of them knew Henri was dead. If any of them had killed him.
"Second match," Emile said in John's ear. "He will be in the wings. We can find him before he starts."
"Good," John said, though he was sure Emile couldn't hear him over the next announcement. He was back through the door first, and it was John leading Emile, pressing doors open until he found a damp, stinking locker room that had seen cleaner days. Three fighters in various states of undress were there, and one of them was Sherlock Holmes. Shirtless, shoeless, but utterly unflappable and smirking in a tight V when his trainer and doctor burst through the door.
"Second match," John said, somehow breathless. Had he been walking that quickly?
"Excellent," Sherlock replied, hopping to his feet. "I'd hate to be last, most of the energy would be gone by then. And the crowd. Peter, my tape?"
John wrapped Sherlock's knuckles tightly, carefully, avoiding the detective's solid stare on him when he asked: "How was dinner?"
"You've been drinking," John grumbled, jerking the tape harder than he'd meant to.
"That's what chums do at pubs, isn't it?" Sherlock asked, flexing his fingers in a strength test.
"Don't—" If John hadn't been so worried, he'd have laughed. He almost did. "No one says chums... Addison."
"I only took enough to appear social," Sherlock continued flatly. "Don't worry, Peter, I'm not compromised. Dinner?" he tried again.
"Boring," John noted, making sure that Emile hadn't heard him; the man had paid his way, after all. He tugged the glove on over Sherlock's waiting hand, began lacing. "Brousseau's doctor's an idiot. Wouldn't know a scapula from a spatula. He can probably bandage something up, set a bone maybe. Clean up after it's done for sure. Might be a janitor for all I know."
Sherlock gave something that might have been a chuckle. "I expect you'll tell me more after the fight."
"Don't talk about the bloody fight," John sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "I wouldn't even be watching if I didn't have to clean you up every time you bleed into your eyes."
"Your vote of confidence is well-appreciated." He was quiet while John fixed the second glove on, and finally added: "Don't let me distract you from what's important."
They sat together until the crowd cheered, the first match ended, and Emile steered the both of them out into the lights.
AN: The French is from my good friend and lovely beta, who we'll call Lady Dan. Her grandparents are French, and she speaks it, so if it's wrong BLAME HER. I will send all your hate mail her way 8D. Anyhow, I hate to break up the build-up and the fight, but there's more suspense this way. Hope my failgrammar doesn't keep you from enjoying, leaving some love and STAYING AWESOME!