The small crowd throws up a cheer when the card is revealed and two men pat him on the back.
"Had enough practice?" the dealer asks
Sherlock nods. Now that he's betting real money, the dealer won't go easy on him. He's been throwing the queen down first to make it simple to track, but now, with some quick sleight of hand, he'll throw the black card down first. Sherlock manages to follow the queen, but when the time comes, he throws his twenty down on one of the black cards. The crowd sighs as the card is flipped over.
"Sorry mate!" the dealer says, scooping the cards up again after pocketing Sherlock's money and showing the queen. "Have another go?"
"Let's go," Sally says.
"Now sweetie, I don't give up that easily. That was just more practice." He pulls out all the cash in his wallet and counts it out. Five hundred quid. The dealer looks at him warily, but greed overrides caution as he eyes the stack of bills.
"Let's go," Sally hisses. He's not quite sure if she's in character or really concerned.
"Just one more, then we're done. If I lose it I'm all out of money and if I win I don't want to press my luck." His date relents. The worry in her face is genuine.
The dealer starts his patter and Sherlock keeps his eye on the cards. He'd tried a fake out, but Sherlock had predicted that, so finding the queen was no problem. However, he didn't put his money down, yet.
"It's a lot of money," Sherlock says, laying the accent on thicker. "Hope you don't think I'm bein' rude but if you could show me you're good for the bet, I'd appreciate it."
The dealer looks quickly at his compatriot who is acting as lookout, signaling him to alert them to the presence of police, but the lookout is distracted by a shapely woman in a tiny dress and misses the cue.
He smiles grimly. "Of course I'm good for it. He pulls out his own stack of bills, peels off ten fifties, and lays them on the surface, as far away from Sherlock as possible.
"Alright then," Sherlock says. He makes a huge show of pretending to consider which card, and finally points to the middle one.
The dealer sighs and turns the queen over just as the lookout picks up his cue and stage whispers "Police!"
Quicker than he's ever pickpocketed anyone before, Sherlock scoops up his winnings, grabs Sally's hand and runs. The crowd and the grifters scatter in various directions but Sherlock makes sure to pull Sally into a densely packed area surrounding a theatre where a play has just let out. After a couple of blocks they slow to a walk but he doesn't release her hand. They walk along silently, their breath puffing out in front of them in clouds.
Sally starts to laugh and he follows suit, the laughter the perfect accent to the hum of adrenaline.
"I think I'll hand it out to the homeless. Unless…" He trails off and looks at her.
"No, Sherlock. I can't take money from you. I'm fine. I've been fine."
They've stopped and are facing each other, breath fogging the space between them. The air smells like it's going to snow and he wants to see snowflakes caught in her hair. Her cheeks are red and she's smiling at him and he knows she is telling the truth about being fine. And he has her in his arms before he has formed the thought, "I want to kiss her."
These kisses are different from the ones he has given her when he is bored and curious. Different than the ones he gave her when he was high and lonely. Even different from the ones he'd given her last week while he buried himself inside her. He finds himself unafraid of what the kisses mean.
"Skip the concert?" he gasps when they break apart.
"Yes, sure, of course," she says, punctuating each word with a kiss on his neck.
"Let's go back to yours."
"Why?"
"More privacy."
"No, yours."
"Why?
"You have a much nicer bed."
He groans and pulls her into the nearest alley. He should be hailing a taxi but he can't pull away from her long enough to do even that. He needs to be closer to her so he pushes her against the wall and unzips her coat, reaches his hands under her jumper and around her waist. She jumps at the first touch of his cold hands but presses into him as he pulls her as close as possible. He briefly considers taking her right there against the wall, but it's too sordid, too public, too cold, plus their logistical problems involving the fact that Sally is wearing tights.
"We should get a taxi," she whispers.
"I know."
He doesn't have a condom (does she?) and is wondering if they'll have to stop at a chemist's on the way back (oh god the back seat of a cab, practically a room in its own right) when he hears rather than feels the dull thud at the back of his head. The night explodes with stars and he suddenly feels like sitting down. He does.
The ground looks awfully nice, so he lets himself go limp, falling on to his back. He barely registers the pain as his head hits the pavement.
"Sherlock?"
The sounds of a struggle are followed by another thud, but this one has a slightly different tenor. Sally's scream is muffled by a hand on her mouth and she drops to the ground. Sherlock stares up at a dull bare lightbulb illuminating the back entrance of a pub, watching black and silver shapes float in front of his face. A figure eclipses the light and pulls out his wallet. As he empties it, he speaks calmly, holding Sherlock's ID card.
"Just came to get my money back, figured I may as well grab yours, and hers. You're Sherlock Holmes, and she's Sally Donovan. I have your addresses. Forget my face."
Sherlock's vision is clearing but he still feels like he's swimming in jelly as he pulls himself toward Sally, the thug's footsteps receding as he returns to the street.
When he reaches her, he assumes she's been knocked out as well, but as wraps his arm around her waist his hand comes away sticky. Blood is gushing steadily from a wound in her abdomen.
"Fuck," he says. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." He pulls his scarf from around his neck and presses it to the wound and does the only thing he can think of.
He screams for help.
He means to go in the ambulance with her. Of course he does. But as they put her inside, so pale and covered in her own blood, he looks down and sees that he is covered in her blood as well. His hands are sticky with it and so is his hair where he has raked them through it. And the enormity of the fact that she has gone into that ambulance and may not come out alive, as well as the enormity of what that means to him, and the staggering fact that it is his fault, and that it would not have happened if she hadn't cared for him and he hadn't been showing off and he hadn't been so bloody distracted hits him and before he knows it he is racing down the alley, fleeing before the police try to question him.
Once he's several blocks away, he throws his jumper and coat in a bin and finds that there is even blood on the t shirt underneath, though not as much. It is impossible to get a cab because he looks like murderous lunatic, so he walks home. And by the time he lets himself into his flat he has made a decision. By the time he is out of the shower he has a plan, and by the time he sits in his father's chair he has put the plan in motion. It is a simple plan, and he knows that on some levels it is a cowardly one, but it is the only thing that will prevent anything like this from happening again.