Greetings lovely readers! Thank you very much to everyone who has left reviews, favorited, and/or followed this story! I'm always glad to hear what people think.

As per usual, this chapter is based on a cannon Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock story, feel free to guess which one. I hope you enjoy!


Chapter 11: Not My Boyfriend

John sucked in a quick lungful of air, and forced himself to roll over onto his side. He reached up and ran a hand over his face, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. His heart hammered in his ears as he pulled himself into a sitting position and threw his legs over the side of the bed. John griped the side of his bed tightly and blinked in the dim light of his bedroom. He'd been having a nightmare...

The good doctor used to suffer from nightmares frequently. They usually centered around his time in the army or, more frequently, concern for his sister. He couldn't quite place what this one had been about. Even though he had just woken up, it was fading quickly.

John stretched his arms wide and yawned, tipping his head over his right shoulder towards the stairs and the sound of music. Sherlock was practicing a sweet sounding waltz. A smile edged its way onto John's lips and he reached for one of his crutches. He was finally out of the clumsy medical boot, but his ankle was still tender. He used the crutches more for balance up and down the stairs, then for anything else. John suspected that in two more weeks he would be back to his old self.

John leaned heavily on his crutch and the handrail as he made his way down the stairs. He'd been woken so many times by Sherlock torturing his instrument; it was nice to hear a well composed song.

The good doctor made his way over to the sofa, wishing for a cup of tea but not quite having the energy to fix one for himself. Sherlock never faltered in his playing, bringing the waltz to a tidy conclusion once John was settled, leaning back on one of the armrests, with his feet stretched out on body of the sofa.

The world's only consulting detective gracefully set his violin down on the desk and began to methodically rosin his bow. "It must have been bad tonight."

"Hm?" John asked, tilting his head to one side, as he watched his flatmate.

"You usually settle back down when I play this waltz."

"You play for me?" John asked, disbelieving.

Sherlock shrugged. "At least once a week since you arrived. Your tossing and turning was distracting." A wry smile crept its way onto John's face until Sherlock added, "It was two or three times a week until I started using this waltz."

John leaned forward, his curiosity piqued. "What is it called?"

Sherlock held his bow out and studied it in the glow of the streetlights below them. "A waltz for John, I suppose."

A sudden heat crept over the back of John's neck as realization dawned. "You...composed that waltz...for me?"

Another shrug. "As I said, you were distracting me from my work."

John snorted in smug amusement, pleased that he'd repaid Sherlock some of the frustration the world's only consulting detective had caused him.

"What would you like to hear?"

John turned his head to face his flatmate, confused. "Excuse me?"

Sherlock turned, silhouetting his body in the light from the street, but John could still make out his face. "What should I play for you?" Sherlock repeated.

"I, uh, don't really know much classical music," John confessed with a shrug.

Sherlock tipped his head to one side, causing some of the light from their windows to spill over John's face. "I can play modern songs as well."

John considered for a moment before he replied, "Well..." John hesitated. It was only autumn, but he doubted Sherlock would complain about a song being out of season. "How about 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas?'"

He could just make out Sherlock's brow arching in the dim light. "Your favorite carol. Very well."

The good doctor smiled as he slid down on the sofa and pulled the blanket down from off the back, making himself comfortable. He knew Sherlock hadn't been asking if this was his favorite carol, merely confirming that John's request was his favorite carol. Sherlock probably even knew what it meant to him, too. The song reminded John of safety and family, an image he treasured because he so rarely had it. Hearing that song as a child had made him think that everything really could be alright, if he tried hard enough. He had felt a rare sense of peace. It was never a story John liked to talk about, because of how personal it was...

Watching Sherlock take up his instrument once more, John realized that he really didn't mind if Sherlock had deduced the whole story. For all his temper and bad manners, Sherlock wasn't the type of person to use this story against him Sherlock could be a holy terror and utterly disregarded the opinions of others, but John had never seen him cause pain just for the sake of causing pain. That, more than anything else, bolstered John in his opinion that there was more to the world's only consulting detective than the beast he seemed to want the world to think he was..


John awoke to the smell of hot tea and old papers. He blinked open his eyes and smiled at the steaming mug of tea and the scone on the coffee table. He was still on the sofa. The good doctor rolled into a sitting position and stretched, causing the blanket he'd wrapped around himself to fall to his waist.

"Mrs. Hudson was up just a minute ago," Sherlock murmured from his position on the floor. He was surrounded by small towers of boxes and piles of papers on all sides.

John smirked as he reached out and brought the mug to his lips. "Don't worry, I wasn't about to assume you were going soft on me. Do you even know where the kettle is?"

Sherlock snorted with amusement, his gaze never leaving the papers he had clutched in his hands.

"What are you looking over?" John asked, setting his tea down and reaching for the scone.

"Old cases," Sherlock replied in a distant tone, tilting one paper in his hand to get a different perspective on it. He'd gone over his files before, but he just had so many of them. It had taken him years to see the threads of the power behind the crimes of London, the hints of the spider in its web. He knew before John had ever come to him that he wanted the unearthing of this 'spider,' to be his final achievement. He suspected the case of Ms. Adeline, and Mrs. Dwight were connected in important ways to his finally goal...but he couldn't see how yet.

Sherlock had stewed over his recent cases for the last two weeks before deciding to exhume his older ones and look for clues that might have been invisible to him before. It was somewhat surprising that his excavations, which had quickly spilled into the living room, hadn't woken John. Not that he particularly tried to be quiet, nothing of the sort. No, John must still be catching up on sleep debt from Mrs. Dwight's case.

"Tell me about them," John urged, pulling the blanket high over his shoulders as his t-shirt and pajama pants did little to keep out the morning chill.

Sherlock turned to frown at him. "All of them?"

John shrugged. "If you want to. It'll be more material for the blog and it will keep you occupied."

Sherlock considered this for a moment. Retelling the story would cause him to look at the cases in a new light, and might aid him in his private search for the as of yet unnamed spider. He glanced at the paper in his hand, which turned out to be an old medical record that was pivotal in the solving of his very first case. His first case hardly seemed relevant to this last, larger one...but it was best to leave no stone unturned. He had so little time left, rushing would only make him sloppy.

"Very well," he said at last, holding up the papers in his hand for John to take. "What do you see here?

John took the papers and studied them for a moment. "Looks like the records of a live birth, healthy male baby, and the records for a stillborn birth," the good doctor's voice softened as he spoke, his sorrow at a death decades old and well beyond anyone's ability to change evident in his voice. Sherlock bit his tongue as he squashed the impulse to comment. This foolish ex-army doctor would save the whole world if he could.

"Anything else?" Sherlock prompted, urging John to look more closely at the papers in his hands.

John stared until he thought he might get a migraine then scrunched his eyes closed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "No," he said, sounding a bit defeated. "They look perfectly normal to me." He peeked up at Sherlock and, surprisingly, a smile was tugging at the edges of his lips. "What am I missing?"

"Examine where the doctor noted the state of the baby," Sherlock said softly, unused to having such a willing audience. Usually he had to brow beat (literally and metaphorically) people into seeing reason.

His blogger took a deep breath, and bent his head once more to review the documents in his hand. Sherlock could see the confusion and doubt warring on John's face until, suddenly, clarity dawned. John looked up, hesitant, and pointed to the papers in his hands. "There are some odd marks here, where the doctor noted the state of the newborn. It looks like they were about to mark them both as stillborn births. " He looked back at the papers once more before adding. "They were both born on the same day, to the same doctor. Maybe the stillborn shook him up and he was a bit sloppy in his documentation?"

"Not bad," Sherlock replied with a nod.

John perked up a bit. "Really?"

"Yes," Sherlock confirmed. "You missed everything of real importance to the case, but at least you're thinking."

John growled in irritation and thrust the papers back at Sherlock. "What's the story, then?" he asked impatiently.

Sherlock smiled to himself and took his time straightening the papers before he replied. "When I was at university, I was much the same as I am now," he said at last. "So it must come as no surprise that I had little contact with others outside my classes. It might have continued that way indefinitely if it weren't for the adder."

"Adder?" John asked, leaning forward and tipping his head to one side in confusion. "What does an adder have to do with these medical records? Those births took place decades before you could have been at Uni, unless you're about to tell me that you've mastered the art of time travel."

"Patience," Sherlock advised with a smug smile, knowing he had his audience hooked. "I was walking past the southernmost dormitories, which curved past a small bit of woodland on campus. I was practicing my skills of observation heavily in those days, although I wasn't sure yet what I would do with them. As such, I noticed both the trail of an adder that had recently passed by, as well as signs that a person had fallen off the road and into the woods, knocking out some branches as they went. I looked over the edge of the embankment into the beginning of the woods and saw a body slumped in the leaves, so close to the small wall of earth that I don't think anyone would have seen it if they didn't have a strong sense of deductive reasoning, or they knew what they were looking for.

"I scrambled down the hill and turned the body over. It was another student, given the books strewn on the ground not far from him. I checked his legs and found two puncture marks just above his right ankle. Adders, as you know, aren't usually fatal, but this was a bad bite, and he was showing signs of an acute allergic reaction. I called campus security and he was immediately taken to hospital."

Sherlock paused to frown at his blogger. "Get that smile off your face John, I know what you're thinking. This wasn't about charity. By the time I'd confirmed my theory I'd thoroughly contaminated the scene and could have been charged with murder if I didn't call for help."

"Naturally," John agreed in a tone that made it perfectly clear that he didn't believe any of Sherlock's excuses. His smile stayed defiantly in place. "What was his name?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes at John's defiant attitude. "Victor Trevor, although that information is entirely irrelevant. Anyway, once the paramedics arrived, I went on my way and thought no more about it. That, is, however, until he showed up at my flat. He had some misplaced gratitude to express."

John barked with laughter. "I bet that's exactly what you told him, isn't it?"

Sherlock shrugged. "More or less. He absolutely refused to be put off. Thankfully, he didn't get in the way of my work."

John nodded, still smiling. "Wouldn't want anyone to change your priorities."

Sherlock's eye twitched, but he refused to be baited. "He was the first person, outside of my family, to genuinely appreciate my particular skill set. He continually set the most plebian logic puzzles before me and was always shocked at the speed with which I dispatched them. I began to tell him my deductions so that I could demonstrate what an appropriate challenge actually was."

"You were friends," John interjected.

Another shrug. "Well, when he discovered that his father was in some unusual distress he asked me for help."

John frowned and leaned forward a bit in his seat. "What was the matter?"

"He was being blackmailed. All Victor knew was that his father had become sullen and withdrawn in a most unusual fashion. Once I arrived at his father's house with him, and saw the open check book in his study I suspected the truth. When I assembled the torn remnants of a half burned letter, I knew."

John leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands. "What did the letter say?"

"Most of it was burned, but there was just enough left to make out its meaning." Sherlock patted the ground around him for a moment before his hand darted into a thick stack of papers and retrieved one with a blank back. Turning the blank side up Sherlock plucked a pencil from behind his ear, and scrawled on the paper for a moment before handing it over to John. "It looked, more or less, like that."

John glanced down at the paper in his hands. Sherlock had used his pencil to smudge much of the page, and only a few words were even legible. It read: I know...,Doctor...fae. The legible words were spaced out wide apart, indicating that none of them were likely to be part of the same sentence.

The ex-army doctor studied the replication of the letter for a few minutes, rearranging their order, turning the paper around, and anything else he could think of to wring understanding from the clue Sherlock had presented to him. When his attempts to fold the paper, as though the right combination of folds would somehow result in a new message resulted in Sherlock's unbridled laughter, John huffed in frustration and straightened the paper on his knee. "I know this will feel like a stupid question in a moment," John began, "but how does this point to blackmail?"

Still shaking with repressed laughter, Sherlock gestured at the papers Johns still held. "Mr. Trevor Senior, had been a doctor for the majority of his adult life. By the time I met him, he had retired, but Victor had told me of his career many times. Even for a doctor he had retired early. They lived a seemingly middle class lifestyle, yet Victor went to a prestigious University with no student loans or financial aid. Also, the books I had seen the day we met were new, not used. Projecting Victor's family's likely income, they still wouldn't be able to live that comfortably without drawing off some sort of family money, or some supplemental income."

"And the letter?" John pressed again, impatient to see how everything connected.

"Fae, or fairy stories of babies switched at birth are not uncommon. This taken in combination with the family wealth, the open check-book that had impressions of a recently made out check for a large sum, payable to "cash," and the sudden behavioral changes indicated that Mr. Trevor senior had switched two babies at birth, been paid handsomely for his actions, and had now been found out and was being blackmailed."

John's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "There are some other explanations, surely."

Sherlock nodded. "Six strong possibilities at least, but once I struck upon my first theory, and saw Mr. Trevor Senior faint mid-explanation, I assumed I had the right idea."

"Why do have this picture in my head of you storming into their house, barreling through the study, kneeling at the fireplace, assembling the letter and blurting out your theory all before you had been properly introduced?" John asked with a wry smile.

"Obviously." Sherlock confirmed. "I had a case to solve and observing unnecessary social niceties would only have wasted time."

John covered his mouth with his hand to smother his laughter. "Right. Of course. What happened after he fainted?"

"Victor and I moved him to a couch and revived him. Once he was conscious again he verbally confirmed my suppositions and clarified the specifics. He had been working labor and delivery early in his career, and as is the case with most middle class doctors, his salary did little to mitigate his student loans, especially when compounded with malpractice insurance. He was the doctor in attendance on a very busy night when Mrs. Clemons gave birth to a stillborn son. This was her third failed pregnancy and she was beside herself.

"The Clemons were a wealthy family, and so her husband, Mr. Clemons offered Victor's father an exorbitant amount of money if he could…'fix' the situation."

"Couldn't they have adopted?" John asked. "Especially if they were as wealthy as you say?"

"Persons of wealth and/or supposedly distinguished lineage can get fussy about bloodlines. Mr. Clemons wanted to report to his family that his wife had delivered successfully without the supposed shame of either another failed pregnancy, or having to adopt someone from outside the family."

John's features twisted with disgust, wishing he could be surprised. He'd seen too much of the world, even before he met Sherlock to disbelieve what the world's only consulting detective told him now. He thought he saw matching distaste in Sherlock's features and wondered if that was because of the Clemons actions, or their idiocy (because everyone was an idiot according to Sherlock), or both…

"As I said before, it was a busy night, particularly for labor and delivery. Victor's father was also overseeing the labor of a very young homeless woman, who had repeatedly protested that she would not, could not keep her baby. He went to check on her after speaking with Mr. Clemons and found her very near delivery. He helped her with the final effort, and as soon as the baby was out, he pronounced its breathing was distressed, cut the cord, and rushed it out of the room. He cornered a nurse who had just come out of surgery and demanded assistance.

"They cleaned up the baby together, and determined that any breathing difficulties which may have occurred were now resolved. Victor's father asked the nurse to wash and dress the baby for him while he attended to the mother of a stillborn. It was so busy that night, the nurse didn't question him. Victor's father then returned to Mr. Clemons and retrieved the stillborn, which Mr. Clemons volunteered without question. Victor's father returned the young homeless woman, and pronounced that her child had not survived. He told us that she was relieved, and declined even to hold the stillborn boy.

"Her child had also been a boy, and so it was an easy thing for Victor's father to collect him from the nurse he'd been left with and present him to Mr. and Mrs. Clemons. He repeated many times how much the boys' mother had not wanted him, and how he had really been helping the child. I imagine he said as much to Mr. and Mrs. Clemons in an attempt to ameliorate his conscience."

John glanced down at the birth records, which still rested in Sherlock's lap. "I imagine these are proof of the switched babies, but exactly, how do they factor in?"

Sherlock nodded at the papers. "The son, George Clemons, grew up wild and reckless. He wasted money, abused drugs and alcohol, and, I was told, fathered five illegitimate children by the time he was twenty five. Victor's father discovered this when, two months after George's 'parents' had disowned him he secured these birth records in an attempt to uncover the truth, and to profit from it. The documents listed Victor's father as the attending at both births, and George was able to observe the truth. Two weeks later he delivered copies of these birth records and a threatening letter to Victor's father. He demanded a monthly income from the retired doctor that would bankrupt him in three years."

"How did George even know it was a possibility that he was switched at birth?" John asked, utterly lost.

"After one too many indiscretions his parents informed him of his true parentage. I assume they intended to discourage further misbehavior by insinuating that a cutting George off would be no hardship for them, as he was not actually their child. He either didn't listen, or didn't care. When he found the threat realized, he meandered to the hospital where he was born, and charmed the documents out of a young records clerk."

"Damn," John muttered, running a hand over his face. This story was layers upon layers of ugliness…but he saw no malicious gleam in Sherlock's eyes. He was just telling the story as it was. "What happened next?"

" George died in a car accident three days after I visited the Trevor household," Sherlock replied, gathering up the papers as the story wound down. "As far as I know they were never blackmailed again."

"Did you and Victor finish school together?" John asked, wondering if Sherlock and Victor had stayed in touch. If they had it was probably through e-mails or texts, because Sherlock's work had obviously become the all-consuming force in his life.

Sherlock shrugged, his face carefully impassive. "I imagine we graduated the same year, but I didn't see him much after the truth about the blackmailing came out. My talents were no longer a source of fascination for him Given his elevated respirations, muscle tension, and furtive eye movements the few times we did speak afterwards, I deduced that I, and my deductive reasoning, now represented an unpleasant reminder of his family history."

John's face had crumpled with sympathy. Sherlock, naturally, observed this, and because he found such sentiment oppressive, he rushed to complete his story. "He did inherit a good portion of his family's money, when his father fell ill and died a year later. Most likely his father's pre-existing heart condition was aggravated by the stress of his past."

The ex-army doctor swallowed hard and forced himself to look down at the papers around them. Sherlock had lost his friend because of his gift, because of his brilliant mind. John knew that the world's only consulting detective had spent several years in the throes of addiction to heroin and cocaine when he was younger. Had that happened right after University? He didn't know many of the details of Sherlock's life, but not for the first time he was struck with how...lonely it seemed.

John looked up and found Sherlock busily sorting through paper, just as he had been when John woke up. Was he really that unmoved? Somehow, John doubted it. There was a sharpness to Sherlock's movements now, a slight jerkiness. John was no consulting detective, but maybe he didn't have to be. "I'm sorry about your friend," he said softly.

Sherlock stilled for a moment, but didn't turn his head to meet John's steady gaze. At length he said, "I don't have friends, John. Not only are they tedious, but in my line of work they are a liability."

A warm hand on his shoulder brought Sherlock's pale blue eyes around to meet John's darker ones. "I'm still sorry," John repeated, squeezing his flatmate's shoulder gently. They held each other's gazes for several long, silent moments before the sounds of Mrs. Hudson's footfalls on the stairs caused them to turn and separate.

"My, but this place is dusty," she said cheerily, sweeping into the room with a plate of sandwiches and tea. "What sort of project are your boys working on? You've been at it all morning."

Sherlock and John spoke simultaneously.

"Nothing," Sherlock replied, turning back to his papers.

"Sherlock was just telling me about some old cases of his," John said. They looked at each other again; Sherlock was glaring and John was smiling unabashedly.

Mrs. Hudson smiled also, amused. "It's good that your spending some of this quiet time together. Too many couples get too caught up in their day to day lives, and don't remember the important little things that keep a relationship going." She brushed off her apron and started making her way back towards the door. "I'll just leave you to it, then."

John stared after he retreating back, open mouthed, only just managing to call after her, "He's not my boyfriend!"

"I notice that you've never denied that your gay," Sherlock rumbled in an amused baritone.

John looked over his shoulder at him and narrowed his eyes. "Right. I'm done trying to comfort you now." He stood, wrapped the blanket around him for warmth and grabbed himself a sandwich.

It did not escape Sherlock's notice, however, that when John returned a few minutes later to pour

himself some tea, he poured a mug for Sherlock as well, before returning to his room. The

world's only consulting detective reached out a took a sip, letting it warm him.