The payroll clerk was pushed down a set of polished oak steps, but was found at the foot of her own polyester carpeted stairs. The civil servant in the camping shop was meant to look as if he had had a heart attack, but his renal system had been wrecked by a massive overdose of salt. A long term poisoning, because a single oral dose large enough to damage you, would make you vomit.
Sherlock walks the police through these basic facts - runs with them, actually, since these are conclusions which should have been reached on day one - and then asks the question which everyone seems keen to avoid: what links these two deaths? Whitehall. Government. But no one is pursuing this, because Government employs thousands of people in London and statistically a few are likely to die around the same time, at any time.
"But these were murders," says Sherlock. "Murders which were made to look like accidents." He stares piercingly at Lestrade. "You suspected this, or you wouldn't have asked for my help."
Lestrade shuffles in an uncharacteristically apologetic way. "Well, I might have been wrong."
"But you weren't. They are murders. Why aren't you investigating?"
Sherlock and Lestrade, almost nose to nose in Lestrade's office.
"Did their work overlap?" John asks getting in between them. "Or their social lives?" Lestrade is shaking his head. "Then could it be two unrelated murders? Not everything has to be a serial killer."
Sherlock gives him a scornful glance. "It's not a serial killer."
"Ok," says John, "so tell us what you think it is."
"Well," says Sherlock, "there is an overlap of evidence -"
He stops. The Italian wool fibres. Of course. Found at both scenes.
"Sherlock?" says John.
Sherlock looks up. "What? Oh. No, a wrong line of thinking. I'll have to come up with a different theory." This is the plain truth.
"Right," says Lestrade. "So you've got nothing for us?"
"Nothing," says Sherlock. "Come on, John."
He escapes and stands motionless in thought on the kerb outside New Scotland Yard until John hails them a cab.
When they arrive home Sherlock goes into his bedroom claiming a headache, shuts the door and does not reply to an offer of tea.
John shrugs. Sherlock being Sherlock. He stretches out on the sofa, which makes a change, and prepares himself for the next chapter of his book, in the full knowledge that it might end up as a nap instead of a read because of the steady build up of sleep deprivation over the past few weeks.
He is getting comfortable when he feels a lump under the cushions. Pushes his hand into the sofa and feels silk. Draws out his navy dressing gown, the one Sherlock gave him.
Sherlock has borrowed it, the cheeky beggar. Well, he does just help himself to anything of John's he takes a fancy to, or which is nearer than Sherlock's own possessions - phone, laptop, and now, apparently, dressing gown.
Or maybe this is a time when he has appropriated it for re-inoculation. John holds the silk to his face. No, definitly not straight from the wash. It smells of John. Fine, he'll just have it back as it is...
Sherlock has no concept of boundaries. John has a pretty strong sense of same. His eternal downfall. He grimaces and closes his eyes.
Opens them some time later with a gasp and a yell, finds himself on the floor, heart pounding, eyes staring.
Sherlock appears and crouches beside him with a concerned expression. He brings John a terrible cup of tea and does not drink the one he made for himself. After a bit John gets up and makes himself a decaff coffee.
When he comes back to sit down next to Sherlock, he is feeling normal again after the nightmare. But the dressing gown has vanished, typical.
No boundaries.
Sherlock will do this. John will accept it. That is all.
He turns his thoughts from the list of John's possible reactions. There is one potential consequence which sets his heart racing in a mixture of fear and excitement, but other reactions, given John's habits of secrecy and control, are more probable.
He stands, holds out his hand to John. "Come with me. No questions."
John gives Sherlock his hand willingly, a quizzical look on his face.
"Sleep in my bed tonight," says Sherlock, drawing John in that direction. "With me," he adds, in case this was not obvious. "No more nightmares."
John's hand jerks in his. "I'm fine Sherlock," he says, but allows himself to be pulled into Sherlock's room.
"I'll leave you to it for a moment," Sherlock says with an odd note of formality, and shuts the bedroom door, going into his bathroom. The luxury of en suite, never more than a footstep from a shower.
John is still standing fully clothed next to the bed when Sherlock emerges in his dressing gown. His arms are folded. "What's going on," he asks, sounding angry and uncertain.
"I'm not propositioning you," says Sherlock. "But I am asking you to sleep with me in my bed, in the literal sense. Will you?"
"Why now?" says John. He has the look of a man who expects a very good answer.
"Because I can prevent the nightmares," says Sherlock with slight pride, "and I want you to sleep." John has not said No, he notices.
He waits, and watches John's face.
Nothing. Total control. John's hands are steady in their folded arm configuration. Legs strong and still. Nothing.
John looks at him and Sherlock cannot read his expression at all. God, all this time. He could never have guessed if John had not given himself away in Avebury. But he has gathered the evidence since then, and now, knowing the truth, and seeing it completely concealed - amazing.
Arousing, actually.
"Ok," says John. He unfolds his arms and pulls off his jumper, shirt, begins to undo his belt, all the while watching Sherlock's face.
Sherlock finds it increasingly uncomfortable. John's gaze is steadily on him, moving from Sherlock's eyes, which he examines with great intensity, down to Sherlock's mouth and back again. Sherlock feels his mouth watering, swallows, licks his lips.
Nothing from John. No expression on his face whatsoever. It would be frightening if it were not utterly erotic.
John pulls off his belt and lets it clatter to the floor. Very slowly unbuttons his trousers. Very slowly unzips.
Sherlock cannot move. Must not. He stares at John, now just in plain white T shirt and grey jersey trunks, and is frozen.
John suddenly relaxes and grins, laughs aloud at Sherlock's startlement. "See," he says with a chuckle, kicking his clothes aside and making for the bed. "Not so funny when someone does it to you, is it?"
Oh God.
Sherlock is warm and trembling all over. John is so strong. So... strong.
John is sprawled on the left hand side of the bed, leaving Sherlock the near side. "So, what, all you want is for me to sleep?" he says with a smile of great wickedness.
Sherlock climbs into his own bed feeling like a guest. Lies on his back next to John. "Sleep," he says, not succeeding at all in keeping the tremor from his voice.
"Ok," says John cheerfully. He is propped on his right elbow looking down at Sherlock and it strikes Sherlock that this is not the pose of a timid person, but someone accustomed to getting what he wants. In bed, Sherlock thinks deliberately, making everything worse.
John must have noticed - how can he not? - but remains inscrutable.
Sherlock stares at John, feeling an increasing urge to kiss him (for a start) and gain control, return the situation to normal. But John's face is so open and unruffled that Sherlock suspects he will never totally have the advantage over John, in this.
Cannot believe he is even thinking this.
John gives a long blink and says, "Night then," and rolls away.
Sherlock lies still, attempting to regain rational thought. It is always a down side of sexual engagement. Loss of blood supply to the brain. A joke. Yet true.
John rolls back suddenly and says, "Thank you." He leans over Sherlock and pauses. Sherlock actually sees the Sod It! light go on in John's eyes. Then John bends and kisses Sherlock lightly on the lips. "You're completely mad, but thank you."
He flops back onto his other side and lies still, ready for sleep.
Sherlock lies speechless and eventually licks John's taste from his lips - coffee, sour cherries. It is lucky he never planned to sleep anyway because now he really can't.