Greg glanced over at John while they walked towards the flashing police cars. Most of his friend's clothes had been dry except for his jumper and jacket that had taken the worst of the deluge from the previous day, so he was wearing Greg's warmest jacket instead. It was too big on him, but Greg thought he looked...well, he wanted to say adorable but he doubted his friend would appreciate him even thinking such a word applied to him. It did though, almost as much as he had that morning when he'd found the good doctor sprawled on his sofa, snuggled in his clothes. Seeing him like that, knowing he'd come all the way to his flat, under that awful weather, just to take care of him, well… that had almost been too much for Greg. He'd been that close to tell him… What? That he liked him as more than a friend? That he was attracted to him? That he'd somehow fallen in love with him and had only just realized it? But whenever Greg imagined confessing those thoughts to John, he couldn't help picturing him laughing in reaction, thinking he was joking or something. Not that he'd blame him. If someone completely unexpected, say like Dimmock or Anderson, said those things to him out of the blue, he'd probably react that way, and then maybe tell them to back the fuck off out of sheer surprise, so yeah… Maybe not such a good idea.
John caught him staring and raised an eyebrow.
"Maybe I should have left you to sleep at my place. You look completely knackered," Greg said as he lifted the police tape for John to pass under.
"I would have been angry if you had. Actually, I'm still pretty mad at you for being such an idiot yesterday. You're lucky to be back on your feet today."
"Yeah, well, I had a good doctor looking after me."
"And you better remember that the next time you go gallivanting under the rain."
"I wasn't 'gallivanting', I was working," Greg said indignantly.
"Already bickering like an old married couple, I see," Sally said as she walked towards them. "Thanks for your help, Doctor Watson. If he hadn't been up and about today, the case would have gone to someone else."
She led them to the shabby backroom of a sandwich joint. Not killed at home, that was new. The place would have been cramped even without all the SOCOs working the crime scene and there was only one way in and out, through the shop's front door.
"He's taking more risks," Greg pointed out. "Sally can you see if there are any CCTVs pointed this way? Maybe we'll get lucky this time."
She nodded and trotted off while a couple of officers left the backroom for them to enter. It was really, really cramped. The victim was just as expected. Dead, obviously, with those twin streak of blood from the eyes down, the cut in the right hand and two puncture marks at the neck, but John noticed the area around the punctures looked a bit different, although he couldn't pinpoint exactly how they differed. The victim had been a huge man, the kind that immediately put you in mind of a bull, with bulging muscles everywhere and a neck as thick as his thigh. The Fury was definitely taking more risks given the previous victims had been an overweight man, an old one and a small woman.
"This is usually the kind of scenario where the victim knew his killer, right? The Fury couldn't have sneaked up behind him in this set-up, which means the victim had to invite him in, wasn't suspicious and didn't even have time to fight," John said.
Greg raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I imagine all this mess on his desk would be on the floor by now if he had tried fighting off his killer," John explained, pointing at the piles of loose papers, stacked metal boxes, bulging brown envelopes… Wait a minute.
Greg carefully opened one of the envelopes and smirked, then checked a couple of the metal boxes, solidifying his niggling suspicions.
"Drug dealer," he told John. "Working from the backroom, less chances of getting caught than selling on street corners. I bet he didn't sell many sandwiches. Want to check out the fridge?"
John chuckled and said he'd leave it to Porky in case there was bacon in it.
"And now we know why the Fury killed him. We'll have to check his file," John said, then looked at their man, covered in tattoos, scars, his face twisted in an angry scowl even in death. A career criminal if he ever saw one. "I bet it's huge. It's gonna take ages to link him to the other three, if we even can. I doubt your old friend even worked his case. Not his division, right? Do you think the Fury is branching out?"
"Drugs kill, so this bastard probably killed people indirectly by selling the stuff. That might be enough for the Fury," Greg looked around the backroom but there was honestly not much he could do there so he left the place to the SOCOs waiting outside.
"Neighbours?" John asked.
"The rats, you mean? They're usually not very talkative, but be my guest," Greg said indicating the narrow alley that ran down the side of the fake sandwich shop.
They carefully walked the length of it, shining borrowed torches on the ground and there were indeed a few rats that scuttled out of their way, but apart from that, nothing seemed to have been disturbed or left by the Fury so they went back to the main street and interrogated the other shop owners around as well as the neighbours, but this wasn't the sort of place where you hung around at night and no one had seen or heard anything or anyone. What a surprise. Thankfully, Sally was more helpful and pointed towards a CCTV at the very end of the street that was pointed their way so maybe, just maybe, they'd get their first glimpse of their serial killer. One could only hope at this point. They were about to return back to the Yard when Porky called out for him.
"Thought this might interest you," he explained, holding out a dirty sheet with two addresses and phone numbers attached, nothing else. "It was in one of the stash boxes, I thought it might be of use to you before it's whisked off to forensics for processing."
Greg thanked him and snapped a picture of the paper with his phone.
"Want to check these out?" Greg asked.
"Could be dangerous," John replied.
"When has that ever stopped you? We'll just snoop around and if there's anything interesting going on, we'll call for back-up, okay?"
He knew John would agree before he'd even given him a conspiratorial nod.
ooo
The first address they checked out looked like a replica of the small shop they had just left, but according to a neighbour, it hadn't been open in months and a quick peek through the window confirmed it looked abandoned: locked down, dusty and cobwebbed. The second address was yet another little sandwich shop like the other two. No surprise there, but the metal railing that was supposed to keep trespassers out had evidently been forced open at some point.
"Backup?" John asked before trying to peer in through the dusty window. "There doesn't seem to be anyone here either though."
"We'll just check it out, yeah? It's open."
John made a gentlemanly after-you gesture, so Greg pulled the opening wider before slipping inside. It was grimy and judging by the smell, had been empty for a while too.
"So the victim used to skip location from time to time to throw off cops, is that it?" John asked, his nose twitching in displeasure at the musty smell of confinement.
"Maybe, but someone has been here recently," Greg said, pointing his flashlight at drag marks in the dust on the tiled floor leading to the back of the kitchen. "Maybe he stocked some of his merchandise here. I'd better check if there's some left. I don't want that stuff ending up in the street if I can help it.
John nodded and followed close behind until they reached a walk in fridge. It was rather small but so was the fake sandwich joint. Greg shone his lamp on the shelves but the only box there contained individual packets of sugar that had seen better days. He turned towards John, who was waiting in the doorway since the fridge was so small, about to say they were done here, but John wasn't alone. Unawares, standing right behind him, was the shadow of a third person. He would have missed it entirely if it hadn't moved right at that moment. Greg was about to shout out a warning when the shadow pushed John, shoving him inside with Greg, before slamming the door shut. Greg dropped his torch when John landed on him, sending the both of them crashing against the nearest shelf in complete darkness, landing in a heap on the sticky floor.
"Fuck," Greg muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "You alright?"
John was lying half atop him, his face buried in his stomach. At least, he'd had a soft landing. Greg just wished his traitorous body did not find so much enjoyment in the prolonged contact given the circumstances. Locked in a smelly fridge. Really, there were appropriate moments for such thoughts, and this was definitely not one of them.
"Yeah, fine. Sorry. I didn't even hear him sneak up on me. That was rather lame. Did you see him?"
"No," Greg admitted. "Just a shadow. You?"
"No. Sorry. Didn't even have time to turn around... Do you have your torch nearby? I think mine broke," John said and the sound of rattling plastic made itself known. "Yep, broken. Where's yours?"
"I dropped it too but I think I heard it roll under a shelf near the back."
"Okay, don't move," John said, stretching over him to reach the back of the fridge, creating friction in all the right places. "I'll just- Aah... Sorry," John said, falling down atop him again when he tried to get up. "Urgh, the shelves are all slimy. I really don't want to know what I just touched."
"That's...ah… alright," Greg managed to say but if John didn't stop squirming atop him right now…
"Erm… Greg?"
Oh, God. Too late. But it was pitch black, so Greg could just shove him off and deny everything. Except he didn't.
"You don't have a fridge fetish, do you?" John asked, startling a laugh out of him. Count on John to say something completely unexpected.
"If I didn't know before, I can definitely answer that by the negative now."
"Oh… so… that means… you… does it mean that you...err..."
At this rate, they'd die of old age before John finished his question so Greg filled him in despite his earlier resolve not to do such a risky thing.
"Yeah, but just ignore it. We do have more urgent things to do right now."
"Right, yeah. Torch," John said, sounding a bit dazed, but -damn him- he wiggled atop him again, the bloody tease, and a moment later, his phone screen was on, barely illuminating the small space.
John looked down at him for just a second, a long, considering second which seemed to stretch on forever, then his gaze flicked to a spot behind his head and he crawled halfway up him, reaching for the very back of the fridge where he retrieved Greg's torch, turning it on with a triumphant cry before handing it back to him and moving very carefully to get back up, doing his best not to step on any of Greg's appendages or bang his own against the shelves. Good thing none of them suffered from claustrophobia.
"Here," John said once he was upright and squashed against a shelf to leave enough room for Greg to manoeuvre, offering a hand up.
With the torch on, the place seemed much too bright, especially with them having to stand so close together. John looked at his phone.
"No signal," he said.
Not surprising in this kind of fridge. Greg checked his own anyway, just in case. No signal. They inspected the door but it was old and only opened from the outside. Trying to force it open only resulted in bruised shoulders. It was a damn stupid place to get locked in.
"Donovan will soon notice we're not at Scotland Yard. She'll find us. Porky knows where we went, too," Greg said, trying to reassure John. "This thing is so old, I'm not even sure it's airtight anyway," he added, but that might have been a lie since they couldn't get a signal through.
"So we wait?" John asked.
Greg shrugged, he didn't have any better ideas.
"So we don't have anything better to do right now?" John added.
Damn, trapped and double-trapped. Did he want to have this discussion with John? Yes and no, it really depended on the outcome, but for that, he had to go through the discussion. And, judging by John's face, he wasn't going to let it go, whatever Greg decided. John had always been stubborn that way, sometimes it was endearing, other times it was damn annoying. Right… might as well take the dive now, get it over with, be mortified for the rest of his life and try to put the whole thing behind him. Behind them, if John still wanted to see him after this, even if it was just as friends.
"This is not how I imagined it would go," he muttered, holding the torch pointed at the floor, that much less light to shine on his embarrassment.
He leaned against the shelf on one side while John did the same facing him, his own legs on either side of John's given the lack of space.
"If ever," Greg added, trying to think on how to go about telling his friend he was having not so friendly thoughts about him. He must have stayed silent too long because John took over.
"So you're… attracted to me?" he asked, cocking his head to the side as if trying to read what Greg couldn't say right off his face.
Their eyes met and Greg felt the now familiar twinge of want stir deep in his body. There was no denying it. After that dream he'd had of John, and his own body's betrayal just now, he had no doubt he was attracted to John. He nodded, his voice seemingly trapped in his throat somewhere.
"But you're…" John trailed off, waving a hand towards him, showing him up and down as he searched for his words.
"Straight? Yeah, I know. Believe me, I was confused too, but Sally has this theory-"
"Donovan?" John exclaimed. Squeaked, really, but it was cute.
"Yeah. Apparently I made 'this face' at the widow's crime scene," Greg said making sarcastic quotation marks in the air, the light of his torch bobbing around. "And since then, she's convinced I'm madly in love with you."
John froze, eyes wide, and so did Greg when he realized what he'd just said.
"I'm not... I mean… maybe… Oh, fuck it," Greg said, running a hand through his hair. Was he imagining it, or was it starting to get hotter in the small space of the walk-in fridge? He didn't know where to look so he settled on the bright spot of light of his torch and he just babbled on and on, he couldn't stop himself now. "I like you, John. A lot. And I don't care if I'm straight, or not, or if I don't know what I'm doing, because I'm pretty sure I don't have a fucking clue, but... I don't care. I can't help what I'm feeling, but I didn't mean to spring this on you either, and I'd understand if you don't-"
John pushed himself off his shelf, the sudden movement shutting him up, then he took a step forward between his legs, bringing them face to face, tantalizingly close. The burn in Greg's lungs informed him quite painfully he'd been holding his breath so he let it go, but his heart was still hammering in his chest and he wondered briefly if it would ever slow down again. He hadn't felt like this for years… decades. Then John licked his lips, something he did often, but this time, he was staring at his own lips as he did so, and that was undoubtedly one of the most arousing things Greg had ever seen. John closed the distance between them while Greg's heart was chanting yes, yes, yes, finally, finally, finally in a loop. After that, it was all John, and only John: the feel of his lips on his, his hands on his hips, his chest against his, his face, a bit of stubble, the tip of his nose, cold, his fluffy hair tickling him... He was everywhere. He was soft and hard, hesitant and urgent, and so unbelievably delicious. Greg moaned against John's mouth, overcome by pleasure and emotion. This felt so right, the two of them, it was a wonder it hadn't happened sooner. It was so glaringly obvious that many had seen it before either of them did, so perfect that Greg would never let go.
