Chapter 4: All that Matters
If this was a ruse, a clever ruse by his own defunct hardware, it was a cruel and capricious one and Sherlock thought, savagely, even sociopaths must have some limit. What does that even mean? Nevermind. Not important. Not. Important. To open the door, this instant, would be important.
Thirty-two minutes after the morning light had started to filter in the stingy window, Sherlock hears steady footfalls making their way to his cell. He does not move an inch from his current position, back flat and legs straight along the sparse cot, eyes closed and palms joined as in prayer, fingers touching his lips.
When he hears the locks open and the man shuffling somewhere at his head, he offers the smallest of acknowledgements, eyes narrowly open as he murmurs, "I told you it was the mail boy, but did you listen?"
Lestrade huffs and shakes his head, "Alright, alright, you were right. That's what you wanted to hear, right?"
"Wrong! I would much rather you release me immediately."
"Yes, well, regardless of how you feel about the matter, I still need you to get back and sign some paperwork."
Sherlock snorts and straightens up, feet on the floor, hands adjusting the lapel of his jacket. "I've told you, I have things that I need to get back to. Matters requiring my immediate attention."
"Is this about that John fellow?" Lestrade asked, frowning. "Because Mycroft just did a check-and there's no one else at your flat, or the surrounding area for that matter."
The younger man's eyes narrowed into the thinnest slits, "You had no business talking to my brother about-those things."
"Woah, is that hesitation I hear? Think you're losing your sting, mate." Lestrade moved to settle beside an unnervingly silent Sherlock. "So who is he anyway? Why're you so wired to see him again?"
"This is a matter you don't need to worry yourself about-and before you say anything , it's not anything to do with drugs. I've been clean for months, I have no intention of resorting to that again." For a moment Sherlock looked at him almost pleadingly. "Believe me."
A heavy sigh. "I believe you, Sherlock."
Sherlock stands and waits just inside the door with uncharacteristic politeness, although Lestrade could feel his nervous energy from the balls of his feet.
Lestrade turned and grinned at the him, "You must introduce me someday."
After wasting two more useless hours at the station, Sherlock walked out of the Met and went back to his flat. No use delaying the inevitable. John was back. And he had never been this frightened in his life.
Theories, theories, all he had were theories and none of them made sense. John, in his flat, waiting. How did he even know John would be waiting?-he had better wait, after leaving Sherlock all those years. Sentiment. John, in his flat, back in his life, his own improbability, offered to him. Visible, present, in full size and shape and color.
He walked, dazed, along the street. Walked up, mind blissfully empty of all expect the fact that in nine, eight, seven more steps he would open the door and see John again. John, waiting, as he made Sherlock wait all these years.
Goodness, how long had he stopped making promises to random metaphysical beings arbitrarily assigned homes up in the ether? How many constellations had he deleted and re-entered and re-deleted, entire galaxies and supernovas burnt out from one little boy's stubborn decision to stop believing?
If this was a ruse, a clever ruse by his own defunct hardware, it was a cruel and capricious one and Sherlock thought, savagely, even sociopaths must have some limit. What does that even mean? Nevermind. Not important. Not. Important. To open the door, this instant, would be important.
What would he even say? Where does one begin?
The morning of John's return, he had been having an overwhelmingly difficult time relaying simple instructions to the new pathologist at St. Barts. Molly Hoopers's usefulness was surpassed only by her sheer idiocy.
He was pacing across the cramped floor space of the flat, narrowly avoiding stacks of books along the way. He clutched and pulled at his curls in frustration.
"Listen-stop talking, stop blubbering-just listen. I need you to make an incision right underneath the left socket. Yes, yes, about 2 centimetres, and then I need you to pour hydrogen peroxide in the open wound. What? Do you see the reaction? Describe it to me? No, no, it has to be right now or the results won't be right, keep your hand steady and… WHAT? What did you do? Well don't just stand there, record it! Take a video or-what? Good god, woman, couldn't you at least have gotten a phone with a decent camera? Stop talking! Stop talking and start recording! I'm on my way now."
Punching angrily on the keys of his blackberry, he stalked to the doorway, grabbing his scarf and coat. The sheer incompetence of some people!
"You shouldn't talk to her like that. She is helping you, you know."
"She is being especially difficult and incompe-" He froze. His head swung so fast as he looked around, trying to trace the voice. That voice. There was no way he should have recognized it now, not with the decades that passed, physiological changes that should have gotten in the way-not that there was real physiology involved of course, but the mind was a wonderful thing, curator and creator, and-goodness that voice. He would recognize it at any time, at any place.
"Still haven't learned to take care of yourself, Cap'n?"
He made a noise quite close to a choke. Damn his self control. (Or lack of one.) "I have been certified by a few choice institutions as complete shite at it, to be honest."
Sherlock turned, slowly, almost as if he were afraid to look. There, standing by the fireplace, hands clasped at his back and looking at him with a level gaze, was John.
Years of reflexive observation and deduction warred with a deeper, stronger instinct-to RUN. Fight or flight-and at the back of his mind Sherlock chastised himself for succumbing to such a primitive urge, but there it was-he stood rooted on the spot, mind going on overdrive with the sheer enormity of the data. Quality, he'd always said, not quantity of the data made for the most important deductions.
Later on as he would sit by himself in the cell, he could hardly recount any of the minute, physical details of that moment. Only that John looked at him as he had always looked at him. John looked at him as if Sherlock was his best friend, as if after all this years nothing had changed, and as if that was all the mattered.
It is their first case after Lestrade releases Sherlock from his custody and into the arms of his long, lost friend, 'John.' Lestrade had yet to be granted the privilege of meeting him. An attempted inquiry through Mycroft proved unsuccessful, and even without the forbiddingly calm look and pursed lips directed at him, the DI was quick to give it up as new cases had accumulated and claimed almost all his time.
It had gotten to the point where he was overwhelmed enough to call upon the self-proclaimed consulting detective, who had been uncharacteristically holed up in his flat for the past week. Big. Mistake. Big mistake.
Lestrade clutches his cellphone tightly, imagining a pale, slender neck in its stead as he vacillates between typing out his message or simply saying fuck-it-all and throwing the damn thing at a certain annoying, curly-haired idiot. Seriously, the nerve of this man.
Is it not enough that he is being allowed access to crime scenes, to cases, to puzzles that are somehow able to distract him from his less noble vices? Does he not realize how much the DI is putting on the line for this-this-this brat's caprices? Must he make a fool of Lestrade, of his team, of the entire police force and its institution with his… toy?
He snaps. "Is this all a game to you, Sherlock?"
Sherlock whips to him, interrupted mid-deduction, the thing balanced quiet casually on his left palm. "Pardon?"
"This isn't one of your playground games, Sherlock, no matter how easily this comes to you. You have no right to make a scene here."
"Exactly who is making a scene?" Lestrade gets a good serving of sardonic brow. "I am here at your request, solving your case for you. You are the one causing a scene right now."
"Sherlock…" Breathe. Breathe. It does not help that he barely had five hours of sleep in three days. It really doesn't. "Can you explain to me why,exactly, you have decided to bring that skull along to one of my crime scenes?"
Sherlock looks at him, blinking, confused. He glances at the skull, then somewhere behind him. A look almost like embarassment creeps on his face, but he is quick to rearrange it.
The consulting detective sniffs, "Helps me think."
Notes: Not much has happened yet, I know, I know! Give John some time to settle in, okay? We will get there soon, I promise.
Let me know what you think? :) I love hearing from you guys! xxx
I owe you guys a bunch for making you wait, so here's a sneak preview of the next bits:
1) An implosion.
2) An explosion.
3) People move out. Again.
Yes? No? Haha. Thanks for reading! :)