Sherlock had followed a woman into a room slightly off the main one, pursuing a lead. She had said something that had led him to believe that she may have had information pertinent to the case, but it seemed she had been misleading him. He kicked himself for not realising that, and talked his way out of the room and away from the woman who was gradually moving closer to him. He scanned the room and saw Lestrade and John standing at the opposite end, holding champagne. He moved his way through the crowd towards them, occasionally throwing out a line at someone, and quickly figuring out whether or not they were likely to have anything. No one was, and so he got to the other two fairly quickly. "Anything?" John asked him before he could ask the same of them. "We didn't have any luck." "No." he replied. "I did think I had something at one point, but it turned out she had…other things in mind." "She was flirting with you?" "Exactly." John felt an unexpected spurt of jealousy. "Can we leave, then?" Lestrade asked, before John could say anything he might regret. "Or do we have to mingle for a bit longer?" "We can probably slip out now." John said, grateful for the interruption. "Well, let's go, then."
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Back at the flat, John went to bed and tried to convince Sherlock to do the same, without result. The Doctor was fiddling with the TARDIS for hours after John had gone to bed and K-9 had powered down, and Sherlock didn't go to bed at all, preferring to mull over the case. The next morning John wandered out to find Sherlock in exactly the same position. He walked over to him. "Sherlock." he said. There was no response. "Sherlock." he repeated, slightly louder. Sherlock startled out of his trance and stared up at John. "Is it morning already?" "Yes. I don't suppose you've had anything to eat since breakfast yesterday, or slept at all, have you?" "No. I don't need to yet, and it would be wasting valuable time. My time is better spent thinking." "Okay, I'm making you breakfast when I make mine now, and you will eat it. And you're sleeping tonight." Sherlock closed his eyes again. "You should never start a sentence with 'and'. It diminishes your image of intelligence." "As long as you do it, I couldn't care less." John replied, perfectly truthfully. "And you will." Sherlock's eyes snapped open and he glared at him. John smiled serenely at him. He snorted and sat up. "I never would have offered to be flat mates if I knew how annoying you were." he muttered. "Yes you would." John tossed over his shoulder, going into the kitchen. The Doctor came bounding down the stairs carrying K-9. "The Doctor didn't sleep last night!" Sherlock shouted after John. "But he's not human. He's like a Vulcan." "And actually, I did." The Doctor contributed. "Just not for as long as John. Sorry, Sherlock." "Hmmph." "Would you like some bacon and eggs, Doctor? I'm trying to get Sherlock to eat, and he does succumb to peer pressure, whatever he says." "It's actually only from you." The Doctor replied, sauntering into the kitchen. "It's more like John pressure. But yes, please. I didn't eat much yesterday, and your Vulcan metaphor ends at meat. And the time travel… Although not the space travel, I guess. Or the fact that most of the race are stuck-up bastards." John gave him an amused look, cracking an egg into a frying pan. "I take it you're not a great fan of your own race?" "No." he replied, getting plates out. "Non-interference directive, indeed…" John decided to ignore that and got the bacon out. He looked in the living room as he was frying it, and noticed with satisfaction that Sherlock was doing his hungry-puppy act at the scent. A few minutes later he carried two plates into the living room and set one down in front of Sherlock. The Doctor came in just behind him, carrying his own. They both sat down and Sherlock, rarely, started eating without complaining. John smiled affectionately at him and started eating himself.
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Lestrade came over later to deliver the news that he was re-interviewing some of the suspects and would they like to help? His department was a bit over-run at the moment. John replied in the affirmative, as Sherlock was currently in his mind palace going over the case and studiously ignoring everyone else. The rest of the day was passed fairly peacefully, except a brief squabble about Sherlock sleeping that night. It ended with Sherlock promising to go upstairs in a moment and John narrowing his eyes at him and going to his own bedroom. Sherlock settled onto the couch and closed his eyes again. Ten minutes later, John crept down the stairs again. "Ha!" he shouted loudly, making Sherlock jump and snap open his eyes. He relaxed again once he realised it was John. "I knew it. You are coming upstairs with me now." "John!" Sherlock said teasingly. "This is all so sudden!" John simultaneously blushed and glared at him. "You know what I mean." "Oh, fine." Sherlock replied, not budging. John raised an eyebrow and gave him an expectant look. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" he said, standing up. John turned around and stalked up the stairs. He stopped halfway up and stared hard at Sherlock, who sighed and followed him.
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The next morning, Sherlock was in a light trance on the couch when John came down. As John opened his mouth to ask him when he came down, Sherlock opened his eyes and cut in smoothly. "John. My phone." John raised an eyebrow at him. Sherlock sighed heavily. "John, could you please either give me my phone or look at it yourself?" "Where is it?" Sherlock gestured vaguely to his right. John glanced over. "Sherlock. That wasn't informative." "On the desk." John found the phone in amongst messes of cold cases and read it. "It's Lestrade, he wants to know when we're coming down and who we'd like to interview." When Sherlock frowned in confusion he explained. "He came over yesterday while you were ignoring everyone, and I said we'd help with re-interviewing all the suspects." "Well, I'm staying home." A smile slowly spread over John's face. Sherlock frowned at him. "What?" "You called it home. That's the first time you've called the flat home." Sherlock grunted noncommittally. "Well, are you going to text him back?" "Yes, right." He texted Lestrade back saying he'd come over in an hour. As he was composing the message, Sherlock looked up again. "Say you'll interview Felicity and Alana." "Why?" "We haven't talked to Alana." "And Felicity?" "Talk to the servants." "I might need someone to distract Felicity while I do that." "Take the Doctor." John sighed. "I'll go ask him." He traipsed up the stairs and knocked on the door of the TARDIS. "Doctor?" He opened the door and looked around for a minute, before he looked down and just saw his legs sticking out from under the console. "Doctor?" he repeated. The Doctor slid out from under the console as John stepped hurriedly back and bounced up. "Hello, John!" "Hi, Doctor. I'm going to re-interview Felicity Sorrows and Alana Federi. Sherlock's refusing to come, for reasons unknown, so I was wondering if you wanted to come?" "Do you want me to? Because I need to work on the TARDIS, she's being temperamental, but I don't have to do it now." "No, it's alright, you stay here." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I'm fine." "Alright then. Bye!" the Doctor said as he slid back under the console. "Bye." He went back downstairs, looked at Sherlock, who had fallen back into a trance, and sighed. He really did look angelic like that. Which was a change from the adjectives usually used to describe him. He went into the kitchen and made himself a piece of toast and jam, and went out, collecting his coat on the way. Sherlock sank deeper into his trance.
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As it turned out, it started raining after John came out of the butcher's with pork sausages. Which was unfortunate, as John hadn't thought to bring an umbrella, and had decided to walk there. He was currently ducking from shop cover to shop cover, but getting soaked anyway. He stopped under one to see if it eased any, and looked across the street to see a couple kissing underneath an umbrella, obviously completely oblivious to the rain. He sighed. He knew it was completely lame, a 40-year old man envying a teenage couple this blatantly, but was it really too much to ask for a steady relationship? He decided that if he'd gone that far, he might as well run the full gamut of embarrassing, and tried to imagine him and Daisy in a similar position, but somehow it kept changing into Sherlock. He shook his head and tried to suppress his subconscious. Not gay. Okay, maybe a bit gay. For Sherlock. But… He shook his head again and looked up to find that the rain had eased slightly. He carried on walking and tried to leave those thoughts behind.
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Sherlock felt like he was on the edge of figuring the case out. He ran through the suspects again, this time focusing on the less likely ones. Alana… possibly. Sara… probably not. Felicity… a possibility, but couldn't have been there when he was strangled. Mr. Boni? What possible motive could he have? He might have wanted to dispose of Larry, but not Robert… But… wait a second. Mr. Boni… Felicity… Oh, god, Felicity! He jumped up and ran out the door, grabbing John's service pistol on the way, with one overwhelming thought dominating his brain. "JOHN!"
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John approached the big wrought-iron gates of Felicity Sorrows' place, and wondered how to get in without her knowing. Eventually he went around the back to find a servant's entrance, and found an intercom. "Hi. I'm delivering from the butcher's?" he asked, holding up the sausages in one hand and putting on the lower-class accent of his youth. His accent had become increasingly aristocratic the more he was around Sherlock, he reflected. "We haven't ordered anything." "Oh. I must have got the wrong address. Sorry, but I don't suppose I could come in to dry off for a while? It's pouring out here." he asked, exaggerating slightly. "Sure." A kindly older voice interjected. "Let the poor boy in, Violet." "He's hardly a boy." he heard Violet grumble as he got buzzed in. "Thanks." he said gratefully as he went in. He actually was rather wet, and it was delightfully warm inside the kitchen. "That's alright." the cook smiled at him. "I'm Jean Brous, and this is Violet Carriero." "I'm John," he thought frantically. "Holmes." Why? Why that, of all names? "Hello, John. We share a name, then, oui?" "You're a bit old to be a butcher's boy." Violet said bluntly, resuming the chopping she must have stopped to let John in. "Yes, I know. The war. I came back unemployed, and this was the immediate available employment." John explained. "I'm trying to get employment elsewhere, but I came back injured, so it's hard." "Ah, I'm sorry. You must excuse my kitchen hand, she usually has better manners, but the recent events in the house have been hard on all of us." "What's happened?" John pretended he didn't know. "If you don't mind me asking, that is." he added hurriedly. "No, not at all. The mistress's husband was murdered." "Murdered?" John asked, in the same breathy way he had heard all too often himself. "Really? Do they know who it was?" He heard Violet choke back a sob and Jean looked worriedly at her. She seemed unusually affected by it. Oh, God. She was quite beautiful, in the slightly exotic way that he seemed to prefer. Oh, god. "No. They're still investigating." he heard Jean say as he came back to the kitchen. "Thank you for letting me sit in here for a while," he said. "But I should go now if I want to finish my deliveries." "Are you sure?" he asked. "Yes, but really, thank you." he said as he edged out the back door. He sighed and turned around to see Felicity Sorrows standing straight-backed outside the door. He jumped slightly. "Oh, hello, Ms. Sorrows." "Come with me." she said, turning to go inside the house.