This Sherlock is a little more sensible. Because Aaron Samuels was sensible as well. Okay, agreed that he was dumb but he was sensible.
Crimes on the way. Unlike the movie, I'm gonna make Sherlock and John good friends before the infamous Halloween party.
So, it's still a loooooong way to go.
Sherlock cleared his throat, "I was here on a case and I was wondering if you could help."
Help? How can I help you solve criminal mysteries?
John did not voice his doubts. He simply nodded, and tucked into the meal just as it arrived. Sherlock didn't even touch his plate. After watching John eat for sometime, he spoke, "I've observed that I think better when I explain it to someone else."
"It?" John finally found his voice as he choked on the pasta.
Sherlock suddenly stood up, "Come with me." He ran out of the restaurant. John looked down at his poor half-finished meal. After moments of serious contemplation, he muttered, "God damn it to hell!" and stuffed some of pasta into his mouth. After five to six blocks, Sherlock stopped and whispered directly into John's ears, who had caught up with him rather quickly than Sherlock had expected him to, "John, I think a woman is in danger."
John shuddered when his warm breath tingled in his ears. Nevertheless, he got the message, "Call the police?"
"There's no time for police. Now listen to me, I'm going to break into that flat," he subtly pointed to a flat on fifth floor, "You will-"
John's eyes widened at that prospect, "No, Sherlock, are you-"
Mad? Crazy? Insane? Demented? Out of your friggin' mind? Delirious? Nuts? Barmy?
"-sure?" he finished lamely.
Sherlock answered, extremely irritated, "Of course, John. I would not have suggested it if I had not thought it through. Now, you'll make sure no one interrupts me while I'm at work."
He did not even bother to ask whether John wanted to do this or not. He simply went round about the building, checking all sorts of exits and vantage points. He climbed over the back wall, not even paying a single second of attention to John. Thankfully, living in Afghanistan meant that John was used to such scenarios, and he was able to follow Sherlock without much difficulty.
"There's a fire exit there, secured by a padlock. I'll pick it, you make sure nobody gets here."
And after five minutes, they were inside the building, having bypassed the security personnel outside. As soon as they were about to reach the lobby, Sherlock grabbed John urgently and pinned him against the wall, looking extremely annoyed.
"Be careful John," he hissed, pointing at a distance, "CCTVs. The security personnel will come running to get you the instant they spot us."
John's heart rate had increased exponentially. He simply nodded, mumbling something incoherent and possibly apologetic.
"We have to use the stairs. We must not be seen." He beckoned to him towards the opposite direction. "Main Power room," he whispered, "I'm going to cut off all of it. Make sure you knock out anyone who comes here." And with that, Sherlock set to open the lock to the room. Within a minute, it stood open.
"It'll take them at most twenty minutes before they come here and restore the lights. We have to get out of the building before that. So start running as soon as I switch it off. Start the flashlight in your phone as soon as you reach the stairs."
John nodded again, "Are you sure you don't want to... phone a friend?"
Sherlock flashed one of his smirks, "But you're already here. Three, two, one, go!," and he switched the power off. The whole building went black instantaneously.
He remembered that he had to run. So he did, with Sherlock close behind. He switched on the flashlight and ran like the devil, both of them. In a minute they reached fifth floor and almost crashed near the door of the flat he had to break into. Right on time, John brought the flashlight to the lock.
"Shoot!" he cursed softly, "It's a computer lock. How could I not have expected that?" John's head began spinning in confusion. His mum was continuously calling him, but he had to press 'Reject Call' every time. "So, we won't be able to get in?"
"It'll take more time. And by then, the lights will have been restored and we'll be caught. John," his face was illuminated in the blue light, and he looked so... intense with those piercing eyes of his, "Leave. Now!"
"I'm not going to leave you, you idiot!"he said resolutely, "Either we stay or we leave."
John could have sworn that a tiniest fraction of a smile had appeared on Sherlock's face, though why he might have done so was beyond him at the moment, "Alright, keep your hands steady."
John smiled, "Aye aye, sir!" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sherlock trying his best not to smile. Within five minutes of fumbling and undignified French curses, Sherlock opened the door very deliberately and kept a finger to his lips, "Turn the light off."
John did as he was told and was at once welcomed by a string of German and Serbian words. His rational mind was tearing him apart. He should have called the police without allowing for Sherlock's demands. These guys could be anything. Drug dealers, smugglers, hitmen and a lot of other things. His eyes darted everywhere. Sherlock might not have been keen on his safety, but John had to be sure of it. The only emergency exit route seemed to be the balcony and he sure as hell wasn't going to jump even if desperate situations called for desperate measures.
But even if he felt nervously nervous, he trusted Sherlock. A sort of trust that just existed. He knew that Sherlock would have some back up plan in his mind.
"They're in the inner rooms," Sherlock whispered into his ear, as quietly as possible, "We need to find the woman and get her out of here alive."
"And ourselves too. If I die here Sherlock, I swear my ghost will get back at you for it."
"Ghosts don't exist, John-"
"Shhh..." They both stiffened at the unintelligible voice coming from the inner rooms. The voice of a woman.
"Did you hear that?" he mumbled, "They have the woman as captive."
Sherlock listened. "Yes." His face became grave. Without John's knowledge, he whipped out his phone and typed out a text, hiding the phone behind himself.
"What do we do now, Sherlock? How are you planning to take on five-so grown and possibly armed men and get out of here?"
Sherlock smiled and shifted towards the dark, "Create a fire. Make them evacuate."
John frowned, "How?"
Sherlock came into view again and looked directly into John's eyes, the promise of danger glittering in them, "I have a lighter. They have a gas cylinder." He pointed in the direction of the kitchen.
"Are you mad?" he almost growled without thinking, "You'll get us all killed."
"No, of course not. Use the law of effusion! It requires a large magnitude of leak rate to create an explosion. I've done several experiments at home pertaining to that, and I can handle it, John."
John's head swirled at the explanation. He shook his head, "Couldn't you just burn the curtains instead of using a theoretical law-?" But the cold-blooded scream of a woman silenced both the boys for a moment.
"Listen to that, she's dying. We need to act fast. And curtain fire can easily be extinguished and then they'll know that someone in the house has set them on fire and then we'll be found."
John's heart turned to lead on hearing that. We couldn't be found. Sherlock couldn't be found.
"As soon as I give you the signal, start moving as quickly and as inconspicuously as possible towards the room in which the lady is kept in. In case there's an explosion, which I guarantee won't be there, you'll be farthest from the kitchen, so there's some chance that you'll be safe."
"Be careful," he mouthed to Sherlock.
"Trust me." And he walked off stealthily in the direction of the kitchen.
Even in the danger, John could not help but notice how perfect Sherlock's body was. He was lean, but in a healthy sort of way, and not like his ribs were sticking out his chest. John tried to tell the little voice in his head that that was because his shirt was so tight that it was almost see-through and that he only happened to notice it. He watched Sherlock Holmes sit near the cylinder, starting the countdown on his watch. He was going to keep the valve open for exactly a minute and a half. Mad man or not, Sherlock trusted him. He had no idea how very much special it felt to know he was the only person in the world that Sherlock Holmes had confided in about his secret occupation.
If Sherlock could trust him, so could he. Sherlock considered him a friend. He could do friends. For the moment. He looked at his watch, straining his eyes. Five minutes were still remaining. They were behind on their schedule. Sherlock almost crawled towards him and with a flick of his wrist, threw the alighted cigarette lighter into the kitchen. He grabbed a piece of Chinese crockery and threw it against the wall.
"GO!" he whispered urgently.
John moved swiftly towards the room. When he had reached it and crawled into it as soon as the men came out, he realised that Sherlock hadn't told him the full plan. Because as soon as they reached the kitchen in a desperate attempt to extinguish the flames, Sherlock locked three of them inside.
"Watch out!" John screamed, remembering just in time to avoid his name.
Sherlock turned and almost ducked in time as a baseball bat came down crashing on his head. Everything forgotten, John grabbed a gun lying on the floor, pointing at them, said in a impassive and icy voice, "Let him go, or I'll shoot you in the-"
John stopped as he saw the look of terror in Sherlock's otherwise brilliant eyes, as the two men who held him down sneered at something behind him.
"Drop that gun, kiddo," came a cool, female voice and the feeling of hard coldness of a gun against his temple made his stomach drop. He was as good as dead.
"You pull the trigger," he continued in the same icy voice, "and the same goes here."
The woman laughed as she came into view, "Nice. Okay, what about this?" In a twinkle of an eye, she had the gun pointed at Sherlock, "Your lovely friend over here? Be a good boy now and hand over the gun."
John knew not to panic. She was only fibbing. But the gun was on Sherlock's temple.
"That's a good boy," she said patronizingly, "So heavy for you, isn't it?"
"What's the point?" John tried his best to smile, "We're all gonna die anyway. There's a gas leak if you haven't noticed. Three of your people are locked in that room and any time, there's gonna be an explosion," he sniffed into the air, "And that's the tell tale smell, isn't it?"
John was trying his best to imitate a traditional pantomime villain, and was failing miserably. But the threat of his words were very real. The woman realised this as she sniffed in the air too. He thought he heard some scuffling in the corridor and his heartbeat quickened. Things happened so quickly that he lost focus.
"Interpol! Put your weapons down and your hands in the air where they're visible!"
Handcuffs were being slammed onto wrists, even on that of John's and Sherlock's until a man, probably DI Lestrade, yelled at them that the two kids were hostages, "Sher-boys!" John realised how much Greg resembled his father, "Are you alright?"
After John was free of the cuffs, he ran to his friend and without any thought, cradled his head, checking for damage, his heart thumping loudly in his chest. Luckily Sherlock had managed to shield some of the impact. John was breathing so fast and so hard that no words came out of his mouth.
"Come on, boys," the DI said kindly, "I'll take care of it."
Once they were out and the paramedics had tended to Sherlock, DI Lestrade's lecture began.
"How many times do I have to tell you, DO NOT GO INTO SUCH SITUATIONS ALONE, and now you drag some poor innocent soul along with you? Why didn't you call us sooner?"
Sherlock was avoiding John's eyes deliberately. So he did call the police. Bastard! He should have known better.
"And you!" the DI turned to John, "You know how mad he is! Why did you not call?"
No, I don't know how mad he is. I've just met him... today. John shuddered at the revelation that he was about to kill a man for someone he had not even known for one whole day.
"You utter idiot! You do that again and I'll cut you off all the free cases I let you on."
Sherlock sniggered at him, "No you won't, because you need me."
Lestrade looked too annoyed to reply, but he did, "Yes, I might. But I don't need a bleeding kid putting his life in danger for it."
And for the umpteenth time, John's phone buzzed in his pocket. He gazed at the caller ID. Shit! It was almost one-and-half hours since he had last spoken to his mum.
"Yeah, I'm sorry I'm at Greg's house. He invited me over... no... you can speak to his father if you want..." He passed the phone to the DI who played the role of a jolly father quite efficiently while glaring daggers at both of them.
"Yes, Mrs. ... Greg is having quite a good time as well, " DI Lestrade was speaking very awkwardly, "... yeah they're all very happy... yes..." Seemingly reassured, John's mum cut the phone as the DI handed it back to him and walked away as someone called him.
"Now Sherlock," said he before going away, "This is the last time. If you ever try and get into such things, I'll have you locked up."
Sherlock looked as bored as always. It would have been quite an achievement, John mused, if only that were not his natural expression, "No need to mention this incident in your report, Detective Inspector. I'm sure you can cook up any story to illustrate how efficient your department is."
"Yeah, shut up, smartass," he said fondly, "Don't teach me how to do my job. Now," he dug out a few notes from his pocket, "There ought to be a few cabs around in the main road-"
"Thank you Detective Inspector," John replied curtly, before Sherlock could say anything, "We can manage ourselves." Sherlock simply shook his head, thinking that they could've split the money. The DI gave both the boys an exasperated look and walked away with a small 'take care'. As soon as the DI was out of sight, John spoke, "So... you did call the police. Why did you lie to me?"
"I didn't lie to you," Sherlock threw away the orange blanket and started to walk away. John followed him, as usual.
"You said you didn't call the police."
"I said there was no time to call the police. I never said that I didn't call."
"Then why did you break into the flat?"
At that, Sherlock smiled mischievously, the one which made John's stomach do flip flops again "Well... I made the approach for Interpol easier, didn't I? They did not have to break the door in, the smugglers couldn't escape, and the woman..." he looked very ashamed of himself, "well, I misjudged that."
After a few moments, he added further, "Also, I was proving something for myself."
"What?"
"You."
John frowned, "Me?"
"You think I didn't know that they'd have a computer lock? I gave you every opportunity to flee, but you didn't."
His heart skipped a beat. So, Sherlock had decided to throw the two of them into danger just because he needed to test his loyalties? He really was insensitive, wasn't he? Sherlock looked quite pleased with himself. But then he seemed to be put out with something, "Were you really going to shoot that man?"
Maybe not that insensitive. John decided to let him have his own thoughts on that, "I might have. I might not have. So, what happened there?"
Sherlock shook his head slowly, "Smugglers. They were torturing the man for information. I thought that the woman was in danger. But she turned out to be the boss. Quite a hot-headed boss, shouting away like that. And cool when she needed to be. What a waste of human resource!"
John nodded. He did not want to know any further than that, and neither did Sherlock say anything beyond it. Maybe he would ask him later. Because, now that the adrenaline was fading away, and John was returning to his former, nervous self, he started to stutter again. And that's when he decided that talking to Sherlock Holmes and walking with him at night was going to be very injurious to his mental and emotional wellbeing. He had to go, and his mum was tense anyway. Sherlock sensed his apprehension and thrust a few notes in John's hands.
John's hands tingled with anticipation as Sherlock wrapped his fingers around his wrist, "Take a cab and go home. Mummy must be very tensed."
Sherlock Holmes could sometimes really be the put-off of the century. "Idiot," he remarked as he noticed how mockingly Sherlock had said 'mummy'.
And the awkwardness overtook him once again, "Err- see you tomorrow, I guess?"
Sherlock smiled a small smile and nodded, "Goodnight John."
After he got into the cab, John remembered that he hadn't thanked him for the cab money. Right on cue, John's mobile phone buzzed, not long enough for a call. Text? Mum never texts.
It wasn't from his mum. Thank you for your help. SH
How the hell did he get my number?
Don't ask me how I got your number. The reply is never satisfactory. SH
John laughed to himself. Sherlock could be very... Sherlock.
Thanks for the cab money too :)
The reply was almost instantaneous.
Really, John? Emoticons? SH
And a big tit too.
Shut up.
I'm sorry if it seemed like the danger ended so easily for the dynamic duo. I have set myself a limit of 10 pages per chapter, and I was sorta exceeding it.
Next chapter: Lunch with Plastics.
