AN: (6/13/15 - I am still slogging through formatting changes...I am really hoping that I can put some time into it today so all of the chapters will be fixed and chapter 30 will get posted!)
Thank you for all of the reviews, etc., for the last chapter! I feel I should apologize, though...I went back and read over this fic so far, and I'm kind of embarrassed. I think a big overhaul will be coming soon (maybe at the end of the semester, when I have more free time). In the meantime, I'll keep plodding forwards. I really like where this is going in my brain, and I hope I can do it justice as we keep progressing through the story. More notes at the end. Please enjoy!
"So where are we going, then?" John asked as he followed in the berth of Sherlock's weaving through the pedestrian traffic.
He had realized he was following Sherlock blindly across London, just as he had to the crime scene on their first case together, and didn't want to find himself abandoned in a strange place again. This time, if he were to be abandoned, he would at least know where he was.
"To the bank," Sherlock replied. "An old acquaintance of mine works there, asked me to look into something discretely."
John couldn't help but snicker. "He wants discrete? And he called you?"
Sherlock glanced over at John's tone and quickly took in the nonverbal cues. He gave John a thin smile, recognizing the jibe for the friendly ribbing it was. "I did manage to tail you all the way across town from the flat without you noticing."
John laughed again, "Sheer luck!"
"Oh? Some would call it expertise."
Sherlock told John more about his acquaintance, Sebastian Wilkes, as they bantered companionably on their way to the bank. They had known each other in Uni, Wilkes had seen value in Sherlock's "little trick" of deduction and occasionally invited him to parties to show off. The invitations stopped when Sherlock showed off too much, crossing the line from entertaining to insulting and provocative to provoking.
After embarrassing Wilkes in front of two young women he was sleeping with who were attending the same party by calling attention to the double-play, he quickly found himself socially ostracized.
Wilkes had always known potential when he saw it, though, and kept in touch with Sherlock periodically throughout the years. Today, his investment would pay off.
Sebastian Wilkes was exactly the kind of man John was expecting when they entered through the lobby of the investment bank. He was too polished, too friendly, too arrogant, too conceited, and emmuch/em too entitled for John's liking. John had met enough of the type before – born into wealth and influence, wielding it carelessly as though everyone had each in abundance.
He was the type of man who used people like pawns. John felt he resembled Lucius Malfoy in attitude, and was sure that had Wilkes a title, the likeness would only be more apt.
So, John didn't like Wilkes. But, John did understand the value of doing favors for well-connected individuals. In this case, the value was several thousand pounds in the form of a cheque, now safely guarded in his jacket's breast pocket, thus solidifying his role as Sherlock's minder and assistant. There was also always the possibility of referrals should Sherlock manage to keep the case quiet and close it up quickly.
John was no longer even trying to listen to the details of the case - his mind had drifted back to his financial concerns and his chat with Harriet - when the banker said something that immediately commanded all of John's attention. Wilkes didn't notice the way his eyes sharpened, breath caught, and how he was suddenly raptly attentive, but Sherlock did.
John coughed an interjection.
"Yes, what?" Wilkes acknowledged John's interruption with barely concealed agitation.
"You said the room was sealed – no way in or out?" John asked.
"Yes," Wilkes glanced at John, then back to Sherlock. "None of the electronic locks show any openings or closings during the night, and the video surveillance didn't catch anything – it takes still shots every 60 seconds."
"And there's no way someone could have got in and out without you knowing in that 60 second timeframe?" John asked.
"I believe that's why I called Sherlock," Wilkes drawled in response.
John scowled and turned away in thought, which Sherlock found much more interesting than Wilkes' recounting of events. He filed the reaction away to deal with later. If he pounced on John's reaction now, the doctor would likely become more guarded, thus providing Sherlock with less data to work with. It would be best to finish the case first; or at least work on them concurrently.
Sherlock had already hypothesized the most likely entrance to the room without triggering an alarm was the windows, thus the intruder most likely scaled the building and infiltrated from the window outside. More data would be required to confirm, but that could be found concurrent with the investigation into motive. It was not petty burglary or vandalism. A message was clearly being sent.
Wilkes finished recounting the details and left them to glean what data they could from the vandalized office. As expected, Sherlock wasted no time launching himself into his investigation – bouncing about to view the vandalized portrait (eyes spray-painted over by a virulent yellow, seemingly figures from one of the Chinese numerical systems – most likely a code of some kind, further research would be required) from various angles around the office, trying to ascertain exactly for whom the message had been intended.
On the ride to the residence of Eddie Van Coon – the investment banker Sherlock had deduced the message was clearly meant for – John felt himself once again under the intense scrutiny of the consulting detective.
"What do you know about this case?" Sherlock met his eyes with startling intensity as he held his tented fingertips against his lips in what John had come to recognize as his contemplating-a-problem pose.
John blinked and whetted his lips. "What makes you think I know anything?"
Sherlock did not so much as blink, but his expression somehow becoming more focused. "Why are you deflecting? You barely managed to feign interest for most of the discussion in Wilkes' office. Then something caught your attention. Something that startled you so much you were willing to break with your stubborn adherence to manners and interrupted his admittedly tedious and uninspired retelling of events to ask a rather dull clarifying question – one that would have been completely unnecessary had you actually been paying attention rather than pretending to. Do not insult my intelligence, John. Of course you know something, you would never have interrupted otherwise. Hard not to notice, really."
John sighed and shook Sherlock's hand off his arm, rubbing his forehead. "Look, I don't know anything –" he stopped Sherlock's objection with a glare " – I don't! But," he acquiesced, "I was suspicious. It reminded me of something I'd heard a long time ago. Odd occurrences that just couldn't be explained. People showing up where they shouldn't – locked rooms, high-security places – with no physical evidence of their entrance or exit, items going missing from secure locations, things like that."
"Prior to your return to London?"
John nodded and gave Sherlock the smile that looks like a grimace, the look he has when the answer to Sherlock's question is layered and he's too lazy to explain. "Yeah," he admitted, then added: "In the war."
"But not common knowledge." Sherlock tapped his fingertips against his lips. John knew he was being subjected to the highest level of scrutiny and wondered how much longer it would take before Sherlock would deduce the statute of secrecy away, or come to some unfortunate conclusion about John's mental state.
"No, it was all kept very quiet," John replied.
Even allowing for those possibilities, John was proud of the misdirection he had crafted. Many veterans referred to their time in Afghanistan as time spent "at war." He just happened to be referring to a different war. A war he had fought as a different person. With a wand (and a cloak and a stone).
It wasn't a lie - not exactly, any way. He had heard a lot about Death Eater movements during the war, almost all of those incidents included magical transport of some kind. He'd even been involved in a magical bank robbery once. The thought of that almost made him chuckle, though he was sure to hide the urge from Sherlock. Wilkes' security, while impressive to muggles, had nothing on anti-apparition wards and a dragon.
John just hoped there was no magical involvement and Sherlock could explain the vandal's entry some mundane way. It wasn't that he didn't want Sherlock to know about him - the man was quickly becoming his best friend - he just wasn't sure where he stood any more. He wasn't really the John Watson he'd spent his whole life as. He also wasn't really the Harry Potter he once was. He was some kind of amalgam of the two - more than either had been previously, and undeniably different. He was completely unprepared to answer Sherlock's questions yet. He barely understood himself, and desperately needed the opportunity to sort himself out before he could even begin to deal with Sherlock.
Hopefully, the element of truth in his responses would keep Sherlock off his scent for just a little longer.
Sherlock looked at John with an annoyed and expectant expression that demanded elaboration, quirking just one eyebrow upwards. John blushed slightly and cleared his throat again. He seemed to be doing that a lot today.
"Sorry. It just seemed familiar. But I'm sure it isn't." John berated himself internally for his clumsy explanation.
"Sherlock examined him for a moment longer. John felt dissected by his gaze, like one of the specimens he experimented on in the kitchen. Not for the first time, John thanked whatever higher powers might be that Sherlock wasn't a wizard, and therefore not a legilimens. He never wanted to learn what a concentrated legilemency attack would feel like powered by a focused intellect like his. Voldemort and Snape had been bad enough – with the immeasurably intensity Sherlock applied to his pursuits, John was sure his mind would best resemble mush before he could even attempt to push Sherlock out.
John shifted uncomfortably at the thought. Sherlock was still staring at him.
"Hmm." Sherlock allowed, noncommittally. "Well, should we encounter anything that defies explanation by logic and deduction, I shall gladly defer to your experiences with the unexplainable odd experiences of war," Sherlock rolled his eyes as he turned away from John, muttering about inferior minds and what it must be like to have no logical explanation for things the happenings of the world.
"John couldn't imagine Sherlock making good on his comment. Even if they did encounter magic on the case and Sherlock was completely out of his depth, he doubted the detective would relinquish control of his case, even if the aurors showed up.
"However, I doubt we will have to worry about that," Sherlock clarified "There has yet to be a case I have failed to crack by applying my methods." John huffed noncommittally and turned to watch the greys, blues, and tans of London wash past the window.
Sherlock used John's silence as an opportunity to analyze the new data he'd obtained from his flatmate's behavior: First, there was the reaction to his deduction of childhood neglect or abuse. While John's short and compact stature could be explained through simple genetic variability when compared to his sister's slightly less-condensed frame, Sherlock was convinced nature had been helped in this case by a lack of nurture.
His preference of baggy jumpers offered him a way to draw attention away from himself. It was hard to pay attention to a man whose clothes screamed "don't look at me," much less tell anything about the doctor's physique from underneath all his layers. That was a common enough – and fairly obvious sign – for survivors of childhood abuse.
And yet - perhaps because of this - John Watson had grown into the kind of man who dedicated his life to protecting and serving others. First as a doctor; then as a soldier, which brought Sherlock to his next observation.
Sherlock needed to compare the way John had spoken about "the war" just moments ago to his past memories of John's reminiscences, which was an admittedly limited pool of data. The doctor didn't speak much of his past at all, and only in generic terms when he did, but to the best of Sherlock's recollection – which was really quite superb – John had never referred to his time spent as an army doctor as time spent "in the war."
He'd made glib comments about "getting shot at," and had commented occasionally about differences in the weather – alternately praising and cursing London's cool damp or the more extreme conditions "in the desert." But he had never mentioned "the war."
This suggested two possibilities to Sherlock: (one) John had been involved in another conflict prior to his service in Afghanistan, and (two) it had left a greater impression on him than the bullet wound responsible for invaliding him home.
The definitive article John had used – "in THE war" – indicated significance not ascribed to other conflicts. War left indelible impressions on most people; John Watson was no different in that regard. He had already demonstrated great faculty under pressure and admirable composure in the most high-stakes situations. He did not flinch away in close quarters as did so many others traumatized in combat.
Initially, Sherlock had thought that unflinching reliability came from the unique mindset of a medic; the gunfights, explosions and fighting were not John's battleground, the field surgery was. That explanation would have also tidily explained John's now-cured psychosomatic limp; the intermittent tremor he suffered in his dominant hand because of the shoulder injury posed a threat to the future of his career as a surgeon – surely justification enough for his mind to create an alternative malady easier to cope with.
It would have explained it. If the assumption had been valid. Which it wasn't.
Sherlock had made the mistake of believing the field surgery was his home field, the battleground on which he performed best. He was sure that John was a better surgeon than shooter – even if he was a crack shot. It seemed sound, prima fasciae, and yet, he referred to some other experience as "the war." What other field was there in which John could claim expertise and apply in conflict? Now he was alluding to strange happenings in high-security areas…this did not fit with any previous information Sherlock had gleaned regarding John's military career.
Sherlock needed more data. Again. He could have groaned if it wasn't so fantastically entertaining. He was almost tempted to talk to Mycroft about obtaining a copy of John's service records, but it would be so much more satisfying to deduce the details on his own.
It seemed the unassuming little doctor had managed to temporarily stump the great Sherlock Holmes yet again. He was much more than he seemed. It made Sherlock grin wolfishly inside.
Sherlock was still wary of the secrets John kept from him, but he was growing to trust the doctor despite that. He was looking forward to further unraveling the mystery of the man who was quickly becoming his friend despite (or perhaps because of) the subtle inconsistencies that surrounded him.
The taxi rolled to a stop and Sherlock bounded out, leaving John to sort out the fare. He was ready to focus on the case again and would worry more about the John problem later. Van Coon's flat should provide him with new data to consider.
Thank you again for taking the time to read - reviews are always welcome and valued! Mycroft's going to pop up again soon - I'm excited about that.
See you then!
-M