'Ello, my lovelies, here is another chapter for your enjoyment. As always, a massive thank you to FrankandJoe3 for being so amazingly awesome. And thank you to everyone else for following and favouriting me. There will be some Johnlockiness in this chapter, but no mush yet. Just be patient and it'll come.

Chapter 4: Revelations

Given that Martin Brooke's flat and business were a lot farther away than the crime scene and Sally Brooke's flat, Sherlock and John had to take the Tube, much to Sherlock's chagrin.

"Why do you hate the Tube so much?" John asked as they walked to the station.

"I resent having to be surrounded by small-minded idiots for any length of time," Sherlock responded grouchily. "It's why I generally avoid crowds of any kind."

When they were seated comfortably and the Tube began to move, both men fell into their own thoughts, Sherlock's thoughts drifting to the doctor sitting beside him in the aisle seat. He looked at John's reflection in the window and pulled out his mental file labelled 'John'.

Ever since they had met six months ago and John had moved in, Sherlock had been thinking things that made no sense, feeling things that he'd never felt before, things that worried him. Lately, whenever John smiled at him, he felt a strange, squirming sensation in his stomach that resembled nausea, but was more pleasant. Whenever John touched him, his skin tingled as if he had been blood deprived and something had sent his blood rushing again. What really startled him was the fact that he'd actually begun feeling bad whenever he upset or offended John.

He had puzzled over these feelings for months and he had still reached no conclusion. He hadn't been lying to John in the restaurant, he really was curious about how sex was pleasurable because he'd started to think that maybe his strange feelings had something to do with sex. But that didn't make sense either, because he had never felt anything sexual for anyone in his entire life, so why should he feel such things for John Watson? In his desperate search for answers, he'd even briefly entertained and quickly dismissed the asinine notion of soul mates. True, he did feel a certain connection to the ex-army doctor, but the idea that there was one person in the entire world that you were destined to be with was so ludicrous that Sherlock couldn't focus on it for very long without becoming nauseated by the idiocy.

Turning his attention back to his file, he removed mental documents which consisted of instances of either him experiencing strange feelings or John expressing interest in him. Despite the doctor's insistence that he was not interested, Sherlock could tell that the other man did feel something for him. It was there in his eyes, his words, his motions, the way he locked his lips around Sherlock. Sherlock could've told John that the more he insisted that he was not experiencing a physical attraction to the detective, the more obvious it was, but he hadn't wanted to push the poor man… Which was another unusual thing. All his life, Sherlock had pushed people, deliberately making them uncomfortable with his knowledge with absolutely no regard for their feelings. So why should he care what John felt?

Maybe he was ill. Perhaps he was suffering from some personality disorder. But, no, his physical health was perfect and he had no other symptoms consistent with personality disorders. So then why did he feel warm inside whenever John returned his text messages or acted concerned about him. Why was it that whenever his thoughts wandered, they wandered to John? Why did he get a little twinge of sadness whenever he upset John? It didn't make sense. It wasn't logical. If he was going to be attracted to people, wouldn't it make more statistical sense for that to happen earlier in his life?

He considered calling Mycroft, but quickly dismissed the idea, knowing that he would never again allow his brother to treat him like an invalid who required assistance. He had vowed long ago that he would never again let Mycroft know that he needed him for anything.

So he would figure out the reasoning behind these feelings on his own. If he thought about it, it made sense that when two people live together, the two people would grow closer and since he'd never really had a flatmate or a friend, maybe that's what he was feeling: friendship.

His brow furrowed in frustration, knowing that explanation didn't fully make sense. If he and John were simply growing closer as friends and flatmates, then why did he feel a near-constant tugging sensation in his stomach pulling him to the doctor? Why did he feel a warm tingling in his genitals whenever he happened to catch a glimpse of John shirtless? Why did he feel an irrational hatred of Sarah whenever John said he was going on an outing with her?

Frustrated with his lack of progress, Sherlock put his mental documents back into the file and shoved the file back in place, deciding to come back to it later.

The rest of the Tube ride and the subsequent walk to the mortuary was spent in silence, making Sherlock think that John was lost in his own thoughts.

When they arrived at the funeral home, they walked right into where the undertaker was grooming an old male corpse.

Martin Brooke was a tall, strong man close in age to his ex-wife. His thick brown hair reached a little past his shoulders, his black suit jumper barely concealing muscles more suited to a rugby player. He sensed the two men behind him and turned to face them, his face finely sculpted aside from his bulky nose, his eyes pitch black, the pupils indistinguishable from the irises.

"Hello, gentlemen," he said, his voice as calm and oily as his smile. "What can I do for you today?"

"I'm Sherlock Holmes and this is Dr John Watson. We're here regarding your daughter."

"What do you mean, 'regarding my daughter'? Is there something wrong with her?" Mr Brooke asked, his tone and the look in his eyes rapidly changing from confusion to panic and remaining on the latter.

"Tell me, sir, is it possible to remove the heart without breaking the ribs?" Sherlock asked calmly, walking up to stand in front of the man.

"What?" he demanded in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about? Where's my daughter? Is she okay?"

"Do you have access to a Finochietto retractor?"

"Look, I don't have time for this," Mr Brooke said, pulling out his phone.

"Your daughter is dead," Sherlock said harshly.

Mr Brooke froze, his entire body and breath stilling, his eyes on his open phone.

"But you already knew that, didn't you?" Sherlock continued calmly. "You already knew she was dead and if I hadn't known that already, then the blatant falseness in your voice and eyes would've made it clear. You're a good liar, Mr Brooke, but nobody can lie to me."

"So the rumours are true," Mr Brooke said, all traces of fear and panic gone, looking up at the detective and putting his phone away. "You are a cold, heartless genius."

"Why would you kill your own daughter?" John asked incredulously, standing a bit behind Sherlock and to the side.

"Because then maybe that bitch of a mother would get some sense knocked into her," Brooke said, his voice harsh and full of aggression.

"Wait, sorry, you had an affair and she's the one that needs to be punished?"

"She was the one who demanded the divorce," Sherlock explained calmly, smiling slightly. "He didn't want to divorce, but she tricked him into signing divorce paper and kicked him out… Come on, John."

"What?" John asked in confusion as Sherlock turned and walked a bit towards the door.

"We have all the information we need," the detective explained. "Let's go."

"You really think I'm gonna let you walk out of here?" Brooke said, pulling a gun from a drawer and pointing it at Sherlock. "There's no one else here," he said to John without looking at him. "Go for your phone, and I'll shoot."

"But you'll probably miss, since you've never fired a gun before," Sherlock stated calmly, walking up to Brooke until the gun was pressed against his chest. "There. Now there's no way that you'll miss."

"Sherlock—" John said in a slightly panicked voice.

"It's all right, John," the detective assured, not looking away from the man holding him at gunpoint.

"Killing a little girl with chloroform is one thing, but killing a fully aware person by shooting them in the chest, well, that's quite another. Could you really do that? Pull the trigger and watch me die in agony? But of course you are able to do that, you have to be so that you can prove your father wrong when he said that you weren't a real man. His words have stayed with you your whole life and poisoned your actions, so that everything you did, you did to please him rather than yourself. But it's gotten worse recently because your father's dying and you're desperate to hear him once say that he's proud of you. That's why you had the affair, because he told you that it was manly to be unfaithful to your wife. Because that's what he was. He was unfaithful and abusive to others, so you thought that that was what being a man was. The bad news is he was wrong and you're an idiot. But the good news is that you may still have a chance to redeem yourself in prison."

"I could do that," Brooke said, anger and hatred in his voice as he cocked the gun. "Or I could just shoot you and then kill myself."

"Easy, John," Sherlock said, holding out a cautionary hand as the doctor took a step forward.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you now," Brooke said threateningly, the gun still pressed against the detective's chest.

"Because you want to keep your other foot."

"Wha—?"

Before Brooke could finish the question, Sherlock shifted a leg, a loud bang sounded and the man doubled over in pain and surprise. Sherlock grabbed his gun and backed away beside John, both men pointing guns at Brooke.

"You bastard!" Brooke gasped, clutching his foot while leaning back against the table.

"Why does everyone always assume that my parents weren't married when I was conceived?" Sherlock asked, looking at John without moving the gun.

"Expression, Sherlock," John said without looking at the detective.

Brooke lunged forward in an attempt to get his gun back, but Sherlock quickly slammed the butt of the gun into the man's temple, successfully knocking him out.

"Come on, John," Sherlock said again, tossing the gun onto the floor and turning to walk out the door.

John paused to put his gun back into his jumper and followed the detective out of the funeral home.

"Lestrade?" Sherlock said into his phone once they were on the sidewalk. "Yes, we've found the killer. It's the mother's ex-husband, Martin Brooke. He's currently unconscious on the floor of the Brooke Funeral Home at 2567 Moffat Lane… Yes, we'll be there. Lestrade wants us at the station," he said to John after he hung up.

"This is gonna be fun," John remarked sarcastically, always dreading the paperwork part of a case.

"Oh, it won't be that bad," Sherlock said confidently.

John glanced at the other man, saw his cool and confident expression, and trusted him completely.

Okay, so I know that case was a bit short, but 1) I wasn't really sure how to make it longer since I'm not as good as Steven Moffat, and 2) I figured that there are some cases that are easier than others, and 3) I got the impression that some of you wanted some mush and hurrying the case along will get to the mush sooner. Anyway, please comment and tell me what you think and, if you feel so inclined, please check out my blog at .