A/N: This chapter accidentally ended up double-length due to the intrusion of character development. Just FYI.
It's a slightly longer cab ride to get to their next destination, though nothing too egregious. On the way Sherlock takes it upon himself to finally fill John in on the particulars of the cab driver case he'd first begun 'investigating' the day after his hellish weekend of detox.
"So you're telling me," John remarks flatly, staring straight ahead through the front windows of the cab, Sherlock in the seat beside him. "That you knowingly allowed a serial killer to drive you to a deserted location, followed the bloke into an empty building, and then repeatedly called him a moron to his face. And that despite having had your phone on you the entire time you never bothered ringing anyone for help."
"That would be the gist of what I'm communicating to you, yes." Sherlock's voice comes out slightly distracted as he closely examines the casing of the pink phone in his hands.
John could start shouting, lecture his teenaged companion until he's blue in the face... but he already knows full-well it wouldn't do any good. Instead he just sighs and rubs at his forehead.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're a complete idiot?" he asks wearily.
"Multiple times. I believe that's a functional inevitability of having a younger sibling." Sherlock pulls the cover off the mobile for a moment, peers underneath, then snaps it back into place. Before he can pry anything else loose the cab comes to a stop by the kerb. Sherlock and John both hop out (John paying fare yet again - hopefully Mycroft follows through on his promise of a stipend soon) and John surveys the location they've arrived at.
It's a small shop tucked up beside a cozy-looking residential building, faded red awning over the door proclaiming it to be 'Speedy's Sandwich Bar & Café'. Sherlock pockets the pink phone and heads straight for the establishment's front door.
"Hullo there! What can I get for you today?" a young man standing behind the counter greets in a cheerful Irish lilt. He's short, dark-haired, and looks a year or so younger than Sherlock. A bit too young to be working in a café, John thinks, but then he supposes he really shouldn't judge peoples' ages by their looks. Plenty of folks have deceptively youthful features, school kids especially - poor sod probably gets teased to hell and back by his peers over it.
"I need to speak to Mrs Hudson," Sherlock replies without preamble. His tone comes out dismissive enough to be considered quite rude, and to make matters worse he's not even bothering to look at the boy as he speaks, having instead fallen to his usual habit of letting his gaze drift over all the non-sentient details of his surroundings. John's never been able to tell if that quirk is some sort of avoidance technique or if Sherlock honestly finds things like sandwich displays more interesting than people. Either way, it's something he's long since learnt to work around.
With a friendly smile he steps easily into his usual role of facilitating polite conduct between Sherlock Holmes and the world at large. "If she's in, that is. Thanks."
The lad behind the counter doesn't answer for a few seconds. He's busy staring at Sherlock with an odd sort of look on his face - a strange mixture between fascination and glee. It's only when Sherlock's eyes finally flick away from the chalkboard menu beside them to meet the other's dark brown gaze that the boy shifts his expression into a more normal-looking smile. John furrows his brows as the young man seems to completely ignore the elder of them to address Sherlock alone, as if John hadn't even spoken.
"Oh sure, sure. She's just round back, I'll go and fetch her. Erm... could I let her know your name?"
"Sherlock. She'll know who I am."
"Right-ho! Sherlock..." The way the boy mutters his friend's name as he turns and disappears through a door behind the counter makes the hair on John's neck stand on end. Quickly he shakes off the feeling. Christ, since when has he been this bloody paranoid? Getting all unsettled over some goofy-looking kid in a clerk apron, honestly. Beside him Sherlock taps his foot with impatience and frowns at something out of John's line of sight.
"Gay," he mutters after a short pause. John blinks and glances sidelong.
"What?"
"The shop boy, that Irish fellow. He's gay."
"You can't possibly know that," John objects. Not that he doubts his friend's observational abilities, really, but in this case...? No way. Sherlock still can't talk to girls without going red in the face, for god's sake. What could he possibly know about determining folks' sexual orientation? Especially from just a few exchanged words and a glance.
As usual, though, Sherlock promptly proves him wrong. "Tinted eyelashes, clear signs of taurine cream around the frown lines, tired clubber's eyes... and then there's his underwear."
"His underwear...?" John echoes in bafflement.
"Visible above the waistline - very visible. Very particular brand." Sherlock sniffs to himself, glowers a bit and glances elsewhere. "Plus there's the extremely suggestive fact that he keeps shooting me coy looks through the doorway."
John shifts his head so he can see over Sherlock's shoulder, where sure enough he can just spot the Irish boy standing beside an older woman who appears to be in the midst of washing her hands. He's smiling, furtively darting glances Sherlock's way, a faint blush on his cheeks. Clearly flirtatious.
"Oh... fair enough," John concedes, letting himself settle back to his original stance. He's still dubious of Sherlock's unexplained possession of perfect gaydar, however. "Why on earth do you know what sort of underwear gay blokes wear?"
Sherlock flicks his eyes toward John, then immediately turns his gaze elsewhere. There's a subtle shift in his bearing as he does so that leads John to regret asking the question. Ah, christ, right... the dealer, wasn't it? Vincent or whatever his name was - that shady bloke Sherlock used to live with before he'd become established as a permanent resident of John's sofa. A mysterious figure the boy never brings up, avoids discussion of at all costs, and whom he'd always silently allowed John to refer to as his 'boyfriend' early on in their friendship.
John hadn't known any better at the time, of course, and to be fair Sherlock hadn't corrected him. He'd overheard Sherlock on the phone with the guy a few times, and from his end of things the conversations had always sounded more or less like domestic disputes with a (perhaps slightly overbearing) romantic partner. It hadn't been until Sherlock turned up at his flat one fateful night beaten halfway to hell that John had finally clued in to the true nature of the relationship. And after that Sherlock had simply never left the sphere of John's protection - began hanging about the flat like he'd always been there, pointedly changing the subject whenever the topic of his previous living arrangements came up. There'd been no reason to dwell on past traumas, so John had let it drop.
Now he finds himself with far more questions than he's strictly comfortable with. Far more than Sherlock's willing to answer, too, by the dark look on the boy's face. Luckily a distraction soon arrives in the form of a little old woman bustling out from behind the counter.
"Sherlock, dear! Oh it's been ages."
Sherlock's shadowed scowl shifts quickly into a smile - not one of his obvious fakes, strangely enough, but something genuine. The woman comes round to the front of the counter to envelop him in a tight hug and Sherlock uncharacteristically allows the embrace without complaint.
"Mrs Hudson," he greets in an upbeat tone, patting her on the back. He draws back a bit to gesture toward the café door. "I need to get in to see 221C for a moment, if you wouldn't mind."
"Yes, yes, of course - no doubt you've some grand scheme afoot. First things first though, young man! Where on earth have you been!? We'd all thought you'd been killed!"
As she speaks Mrs Hudson's busy fussing over Sherlock's appearance, patting down an errant lock of curly hair, straightening the zip on his hoodie, then fixes him with a stern glare as she steps back to put her hands on her hips. Sherlock's smile goes a bit forced.
"It's only been a few months," he points out. Mrs Hudson clucks her tongue.
"Well, you can never know in these situations, can you? And with that boyfriend of yours, dear, honestly! Everyone knew how he treated you, it was only natural to assume the wors-"
Sherlock clears his throat loudly, expression snapping back to his usual spectrum of annoyed-to-indifferent, and takes a step away from the woman. John notes out of the corner of his vision that the dark-eyed Irish lad's standing behind the counter now, leaning on the polished top in a posture that seems almost deceptively casual. As the conversation progresses he seems to be just... watching them. Like a spider tracking flies. It's eerie.
"If you'd just unlock the basement flat, then, Mrs Hudson," Sherlock reasserts. "We'll only be a moment."
At the word 'we' Mrs Hudson looks suddenly to John, smiling widely as if she's only just now noticed him.
"Well bless my stars! And who might you be?" She abandons her standoff with Sherlock to instead put her arms on John's biceps. She eyes him up and down as if appraising a newly-purchased thoroughbred, then nods in appreciation. "Oh, yes, he's a much better fit for you dear!" she exclaims, turning her torso to address Sherlock over her shoulder. Quickly she faces John again. "Now, what do you do for a living, then? Dealing drugs? Prostitution?"
"W-what?" John sputters, flabbergasted. "God, no - I'm... I work at St Barts. Trauma surgery."
"A doctor!" Mrs Hudson sounds utterly delighted. "Oh you have gone up in the world, Sherlock."
Sherlock, for his part, looks like he might be ill. "He's my friend, Mrs Hudson. We're not dating."
"Oh hush. No need to keep anything from me, you know that. There's no shame in it so long as you're happy together." Without waiting for a reply the elderly lady lets go of John's arms with a fond pat and bustles off towards the back of the shop, beckoning them to follow. Mercifully the unsettling Irish boy stays behind, though John notices his gaze seems to fixedly track Sherlock until they've left the room.
"Goodness, though, but it's so lovely to see you've broken up with that awful Vincent fellow," Mrs Hudson natters on as they walk. "He was a nasty piece of work, that one. I'm still getting lads in here falling all to pieces about his gang threatening their families... though of course ever since he was arrested it's gotten much quieter. Whole ring's nearly broken up from what I've heard - suppose you had something to do with that, dear, hm?"
Sherlock keeps his mouth shut, but the glance he shoots Mrs Hudson's way when she looks back at him conveys confirmation enough. The old lady smiles indulgently and turns to fetch a keyring off a peg as they pass by.
"I always knew you were different, Sherlock. So clever! Ran circles round the rest of the poor souls coming through here... even if you did tend to be high as a kite more often than not. You've finally dropped that silly crack habit, then, I take it?" She asks this as if it were a perfectly normal question, perhaps to be inquired of a casual acquaintance over Sunday brunch - John still isn't quite sure who this woman is or what she does (runs some sort of safe haven for junkies and street kids, by the sound of things...?) but he's definitely beginning to like her.
Sherlock abruptly looks affronted. "I was on cocaine, thank you. Crack is a vulgar plebeian debasement."
"Oh it's all the same in the end, isn't it?" Mrs Hudson leans conspiratorially in close to John. "They all think their drug of choice makes them better than the others. It's just one great pissing match, really."
John laughs, surprised by her choice of words. "I'm sure."
Sherlock ignores them to instead study the lock of the flat entrance they've now come upon. "The door's been opened recently," he remarks with a frown.
"No, can't be. I've got the only key." As if illustrating her point Mrs Hudson reaches around Sherlock's arm to slot said key into the lock. It clicks open easily. Sherlock's frown deepens a few notches but he wastes little time darting through to the room beyond.
John follows, shooting a questioning look back to Mrs Hudson when she doesn't seem to be accompanying him. She just shakes her head and waves him on without her.
"I try not to go in there if I can help it, dear. The chill really doesn't agree with my hip." She pats the joint in question and takes a few steps back towards the wall, apparently planning to wait out here for them to finish up their business. John flashes her an understanding smile, then heads off after Sherlock. It's not much of a jog, however, as in the very first room of the flat they find the identical image of the photo in the pips message... with one added detail.
"Shoes," John points out flatly after a pause to take in the scene, the trainers in the middle of the floor. What on earth are a pair of shoes doing arranged carefully in the sitting room of an empty flat? A cryptic message of some sort? Or just a forgetful tenant?
Sherlock, predictably enough, makes a beeline straight for the objects. With a sudden start of adrenaline John grabs the boy's arm to haul him back.
"He's a bomber, remember?" he hisses. Sherlock shoots a glare his way and tries to yank his arm out of the older man's grip, but John holds firm.
"I know what I'm bloody doing," Sherlock snaps. John is, of course, far from convinced.
"No, Sherlock, you don't," he retorts. As if either of them know a single damned thing about explosives, christ's sake. Sherlock's glare turns absolutely venomous, but John refuses to budge. Firmly he ignores the wheedling voice in the back of his mind telling him to just let the kid go, find out what's so special about those shoes, discover the story behind the phone and the pips and the photograph...
A much stronger force overrides the impulsive urge - the instinct to behave, to meet expectations, to follow the orders of the world. It's what's kept him on the straight and narrow all through school, spared him the current dismal fate of his alcoholic sister, keeps him slogging through his medical training even when he's ready to drop from exhaustion. Just because the thought of letting Sherlock go muck about with some trainers that may or may not be bombs sounds strangely, scandalously fun doesn't mean John's about to just let it happen. Someone has to be the bloody adult here.
"Look, whatever this is about... we have to let the police handle it," John explains as patiently as he can manage. "Charging in headfirst's just going to get somebody hurt."
"Oh, is that so?" Sherlock retaliates with a sneer. "Interesting how that concern didn't seem to apply when a certain someone ran straight into a tunnel full of armed smugglers wielding nothing but a short bit of pipe."
John blinks. Did... Sherlock just accuse him of being a hypocrite? For saving him? Bloody ingrate. A frown flits over his face.
"That was different."
"Was it?" Sherlock looks plainly furious now. Finally he manages to yank his arm free from John's grip and takes a step back, out of range of being grabbed again. "Or did all the excitement just make you forget to put on your stupid little responsible adult act for once?"
"I'm not putting on an-" John starts, offended, but Sherlock drowns him out with a sharp question.
"Why did you associate with me, John?"
John furrows his brows in confusion. "What?"
"Why did you go out of your way to interact with me, to talk to a useless street vagrant?" Sherlock clarifies angrily. "Why didn't you just toss a few coins in my violin case and walk away without a word like everyone else?"
"Because I wanted to help," John replies, vaguely bewildered by the sudden interrogation. And really that answer should be obvious, shouldn't it? The entire time they've known each other he's been-
But Sherlock firmly shakes his head before John can even finish his thought.
"No, no you fucking didn't, did you? Not really. You knew I was a junkie from the very start and yet it took you an entire month to even bring up the idea of quitting coke. And you never once asked after my living situation, did you? Nor my family, or where I went to school. You were plainly not interested in helping, John - not until my being physically injured forced your hand."
John feels like he should argue, set the record straight. He even opens his mouth indignantly to do so. But then with a sudden, sick bolt of shock he realises that Sherlock... christ, but he might actually be right? About the timeline, at the very least - looking back, John really hadn't gone to any great lengths to offer aid beyond buying his new friend lunch every day. Even weeks after they'd first met he'd still been... but then no, that wasn't fair, was it...? He'd just wanted to avoid meddling, that was all. Obviously he'd have done more if he'd known...
"No, John," Sherlock continues, cadence beginning to speed up to a veritable rant now. "The truth of the matter is that you befriended me because you crave novelty. Excitement, danger, adrenaline. You chose to pursue the most viscerally hands-on branch of medicine for that very reason, didn't you? Subconscious thrill seeking. And then once the dull routine of hospital life inevitably began to wear you down you went and sought out a new source of diversion. Started hanging about with the shiftless teenaged vagrant you happened to stumble upon one morning outside Barts. A convenient source of turmoil to break the stifling monotony you'd found yourself trapped in."
Despite his fast-paced speech, Sherlock... really doesn't seem to be offended by any of this. Or even all that angry. He's frustrated, yes, but John can read enough of the boy's mannerisms by now to see that's mostly because he's having to laboriously explain a concept which to him appears dead obvious, not because the subject matter upsets him at all.
And somehow the fact that the kid doesn't care just makes it all the worse - not only is John being accused of associating with Sherlock for no reason beyond some macabre quest for excitement, but Sherlock by all rights appears to be fine with that. His tone of voice and body language suggest this is all a totally acceptable basis for friendship in his mind, and that John's the idiot for not understanding how the whole thing works, for thinking it should be any different.
John stares at his companion for a frozen, hollow second. It's not true, obviously. It's not. He isn't the sort of bloke who'd start talking to a destitute teenager out on the street just for the bloody thrill of it. That's... god, that would be...
"You don't have to defend your actions." Sherlock's voice has levelled out some now, no longer the manic rant he'd been spitting out. Though he still sounds frustrated. "But for god's sake don't act like you're morally superior when you're not. You let me drag you all the way down here without complaint - you didn't even bother to ask where we were going. And now you're trying to put a stop to it all just because you think ringing the police is the more socially responsible thing to do."
"It... it is, though," John mutters. He's beginning to feel almost shell-shocked. Sherlock throws his hands up with a furious growl of annoyance.
"Yes of course it is, for fuck's sake! But is it what you want to do? Do you honestly want to drop everything right now to go begging the grown-ups for help? Get bundled out of danger and never find out what's really going on?" Sherlock fixes him with a stormy, soul-piercing look, but John finds himself with no decent response. Finally after a short pause the boy delivers his final words in a low, vaguely bitter tone. "The ultimate question is this, John: Are you acting like a reasonable adult right now because you are one? Or because you think you should be?"
A thick veil of silence seems to stifle the air between them. Sherlock's marbled grey-green eyes stare levelly into John's, daring him to respond, already knowing (and damn that kid's intellect, because for the love of god he might be right) exactly what the answer is.
Out of nowhere a loud ringtone shatters the quiet.
Both of them startle badly, taken off-guard in the wake of the tense standoff. Sherlock's hand darts immediately for his jeans. Glancing up to John one last time, as if to ask 'Well? Are you going to stop me?', the boy retrieves the pink mobile from his pocket, briefly checks the caller ID, then answers the call via speakerphone so they'll both be able to hear it.
"Hello?" he greets quietly. John takes a step forward to lean in close over the tiny earpiece next to his friend, personal conflict momentarily pushed aside in favour of more important matters.
From the other end of the line they can hear short, hitching breaths, like someone's crying.
And then a terrified woman's voice speaks.
"H-hello... sexy."
