AN: HOLY CATS IN PAJAMAS I AMSOOOO SORRY! I was compeltely swamped with testing and it's the week before finals and I had church duties and...and...
Right. Story. Sorry about that wait. I said I'd update reglarly, and waiting four days is not acceptable. Will try to be better from now on. But back to the story...
It was easy for some people to forget that John was a soldier. He was too nice, too mild-mannered, too normal.
John didn't forget.
And he had a feeling that Anderson wasn't going to forget anytime soon, either.
It had been a normal day at a crime scene. Sherlock had swept in, John at his heels. Anderson had complained, Donovan had failed to keep a few choice remarks to herself, and Lestrade was at wits' end. It was normal, everyday stuff.
Then Anderson had taken it too far.
Sherlock knelt over the body, tugging the dead man's wallet out of his pocket and rifling through the contents, taking note of not only the credentials but the various states they were in. John watched, barely daring to breathe, as Sherlock put it back, and looked over the rest of the body, taking each thing slowly and seriously. He watched as the detective stood and circled the corpse with slow, calculated steps.
The man didn't give any outward sign of noticing the whispered conversation between Anderson and Donovan—no sign that anyone else would see, anyway. But John, accustomed to his friend's ways, noticed the tightening of his eyes, the tension in his hands, the slightly clipped way in which he stepped.
Sherlock was probably more annoyed with the fact that they were talking at all—noise was not something he welcomed while making deductions.
John, however, was rapidly getting fed up with the conversation itself.
"Unnatural, it is."
"Agreed. He should be in a mental institution, not moping about a crime scene."
"He's going to contaminate it. There's only one way this can end."
"Self-righteous prat thinks he's better than all of us…we were actually trained for this."
John felt his fists clenching, and tried to control his breathing, staring fixedly at Sherlock, ignoring them. Sherlock glanced askance at him, as if sensing his barely restrained anger, and seemed to understand. He shook his head just slightly, barely enough that only John noticed. Don't do it.
He knew John too well.
"Wonder what he's paying the 'good doctor' to follow after him all the time."
"Told him to get a new hobby. What's your bet on?"
"With Watson? Hmph. Golf."
"Really? I really think he should try fishing."
"Doubt he'd be able to handle either of them. Why does he stick around this freak, anyway?"
"Dunno."
"Adrenaline junky, mark my words. He likes the thrill."
John closed his eyes and tried to tune them out. Sherlock, again displaying the remarkable ability to see when his friend was about to lose it, stood up abruptly and began spouting off deductions right and left, practically laying out the dead man's whole life story for all present to read. John tried to concentrate on his friend's words and ignore the two standing behind him.
However, just as Sherlock was running down…
"Sometimes I wonder how he could know all that."
Donovan, sounding equal parts awed and resentful.
A rustle of paper. "How much you wanna bet he did it?"
That was it.
Anderson didn't know what hit him. One minute he was holding out a little bundle of bank notes to Donovan, and the next, a deafening crack had made everyone's heart leap and Anderson found himself with an empty hand. The bank notes fluttered to the ground, shredded. Anderson stared at his hand a moment, and looked for the source of the sound.
John was all the way across the room, Browning in hand, glaring at Anderson. "No. Bet." he growled.
Anderson looked back and forth between the gun, John's face, the bank notes on the floor—and the bullet hole in the wall, right by his nose.
John glared at Anderson one final moment before twirling the gun around his finger and shoving it back into his trousers. The flourish was unnecessary—but he couldn't resist, with Anderson watching with such big, astonished eyes.
John looked at Lestrade, daring him to object, and then at Sherlock, expecting him to be smirking at Anderson or doing something else equally smug. Instead, Sherlock was looking almost as shocked as Anderson, as if he honestly hadn't expected John to react so violently in his defense. He looked like he was just realizing something that he knew he should've seen before.
"Sherlock, you said something about a mother-in-law, right?"
Sherlock blinked the surprise away and nodded at John. "Yes, I did."
"Then let's go. Lestrade—I think Anderson's going to need a blanket. One of the orange ones."
As they strode out of the room, John again looked at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye. Sherlock seemed to have gotten over his shock and was now smiling to himself, smirking cheerfully. He glanced at John with a look in his eye that was almost admiration—and, upon finding John looking back, he broke out into a grin.
John grinned back.
AN: I'll admit...I enjoyed writing this. Immensely. Can't you see the look on Anderson's face?
I don't have time for much more right now, but here's what I'll do to make up for the hiatus: If you want multiple chapters tomorrow, tell me in a review, and I'll post the extra to make up for my absence. Two or three, but not four. I do have limits...seldom though they make an appearance.
If I get no reviews telling me thus, I'll assume multiple chapters aren't wanted and only post one. Your choice.
Love, C.L.