Disclaimer: Of course I still don't own a thing…

Chapter 36: Misconceptions

John dropped out of his chair and took cover behind it, training taking over. Sherlock, instead, was stock still, eyes swivelling to take in as much data as possible, to determine where the shooter was, possibly which calibre his firearm was, and so on.

His reasoning was interrupted by a low growl from his friend. "Down and take cover! Do you want to die?" The former officer just about stopped himself from adding, "soldier," swimming perilously close to a full-blown flashback.

That cut through the consulting detective's concentration, and he did slip under the table. Given the position of the windows, it would be hard for a bullet to reach him there unless the gunman was so close as to be visible against the glass. He really needed more survival instinct, he supposed.

"You don't happen to have a firearm in the veritable armoury you turned this home into, do you?" the doctor asked. He should have brought his gun along. But with police guarding the house, introducing an illegal weapon had seemed like inviting trouble.

"I'm afraid not, sorry. My mummy has always been very firm about what was allowed in the house," the sleuth mumbled. She wouldn't believe him when he told her he wasn't responsible for the one bullet hole, Sherlock already knew. "It doesn't mean that we don't have long-range weapons, if we can determine where exactly our enemy is."

"Yep, but I don't guarantee my aim with that blowgun you have in the other room, or maybe a longbow – it wouldn't surprise me if you had one lying about somewhere," John huffed. If they died, and it was his fault for not wanting to get a police record, he was going to be haunted by guilt beyond the grave, he knew.

"You don't need to be my knight in shining armour, we've been over this," the detective retorted, wondering why there had not been another shot yet. That meant a careful adversary, wanting to aim, instead of one who would waste bullets and run out of them without hurting anyone. "Besides, Lestrade should arrive any minute. He's late enough as it is."

The doctor decided that rushing the inspector a bit would not go amiss. He took out his mobile phone and repressed a sigh of relief when the man answered on his second ring. "There's someone shooting at us, Lestrade, so if you could kindly hurry the fuck up," he growled in a low voice.

"You didn't tell me Anderson and Donovan's killers were still around!" the officer chided.

"They're not, this is a new situation, but it seems everyone homed in on us today. Must have the stars against us, or something," John replied, trying to diffuse his own fear with jokes. For all the weapons in this house, against a gun he felt like a sitting duck without one of his own.

"I'm almost there, John, don't worry. Just don't lose it," Lestrade reassured, before hanging up. Then tense minutes, and then the inspector called back. "I managed to surprise your shooter. I dropped a good hit on the back of his head, and now he's subdued. No worries, John. Thanks for the warning."

"Dyaus bless you, Lestrade," the doctor replied, with a deep sigh, before hanging up and turning to his friend. "Get a cup for the inspector. He definitely deserves one."

Sherlock slithered out of under the table – and managed to look breathtakingly graceful while doing so. John straightened slowly, feeling a bit rigid. Dash it all, he wasn't so bad during the war. Since he'd been shot, he felt like a broken toy. It didn't help that during the game he'd gotten unused to long waits full of danger. The goddamned blog had spoilt him, for all that he didn't check it often enough.

He'd just flopped back into his chair, when, to his shock (he did receive an update a second before Lestrade's call, but reading that had seemed useless after the inspector's assurance), another shot echoed.

This time, rather than standing still, the sleuth swivelled around and upended his friend's chair, making him fall on his side and saving him from a much better aimed bullet.

"What the fuck?" John swore fervently. "Lestrade can't have been overpowered! Not with what he said."

"He has not been. I'm afraid we've forgotten the game's first rule, John. Don't trust anybody," the consulting detective stated, dropping once again at his side, with an aborted gesture as if to check if his friend had accidentally got hurt.

"You think he's the one who's been shooting at us from the start?" the doctor hissed, frowning.

"Not smart of him, I'll grant you, but what do you want? Even with him being one of the smartest officers of the entire Scotland Yard, this just means he can see what he's staring him in the face half of the time. No wonder that his actions are illogical," Sherlock huffed.

"I'm more worried about him missing me the first time," John quipped, "for all that a gun is not usually in their pocket, you'd think that our policemen would be trained to handle firearms. Just in case."

At that, the detective giggled, huddled close to him on the floor. They were insane – all of them, Lestrade included. The world was fucked. When they finally got their breath back, the doctor asked, "What do we do? Can we make him see reason?"

"Doubtful. But I suppose we can try," the sleuth replied, shrugging. He called Lestrade himself, resolute to give him a piece of his mind. "I had a lot of opinions about you and your life, detective inspector, but I'd never pegged you as a coward," he hissed, as soon as the officer answered – which, once again, only required a few rings.

"And despite what my officers said, I would have never believed that you would actually become an accomplice to a murder, Sherlock. Am I on speakerphone?" Lestrade retorted sternly.

"No. Do you want to be?" the consulting detective queried, glaring as if the man could see him.

"No, no," the policeman said hurriedly. "This is better. I have to ask – is John feeding you your lines?"

At that, the sleuth actually snorted." Does this seem likely to you, Geoff? Or even possible at all?" He rolled his eyes, and John, even unaware of what was going on, giggled softly again.

"This is not the time to joke, Sherlock!" the inspector barked, "I'm trying to figure out if you'll be spending life in jail or not, do you understand? Fine, nevermind your exact words. What I really need to know is: has John threatened you or anyone you know – your family, Molly, anyone at all – to persuade you to use this house and request police protection, knowing I owed you too much to refuse your plea?"

"You are deeply overestimating John, if you think he would do that," the sleuth sneered.

"Hey!" the doctor blurted out, not knowing what was being discussed but not liking his friend's tone. Sherlock just waved away his protests.

"You're not helping your case, Sherlock," Lestrade snapped, "did you not know that you were being used to set a trap for my colleagues?"

"Did I know? Lestrade, the idea was mine, and I had a hard time persuading John that it was a good plan. To be fair, I was doing that for the mysterious player that seemed to be able to use people as puppets, but if I had known that Anderson and Donovan were part of Dyaus' game, I would have pushed even more for it. For God's sake, you can't tell me that you honestly believe either of them would have been a desirable divinity," the consulting detective ranted.

There was a silence on the line, so long that Sherlock suspected the man might have hung up on him. Then, the inspector croaked, "They what?"

"Oh, do keep up Lestrade, you know how I hate when I am forced to repeat myself." The detective rolled his eyes in annoyance, and John was tempted to giggle again at his friend's dramatic antics.

"Donovan and Anderson were among Dyaus' chosen ones?" Lestrade echoed, incredulous.

"I know, I know, I was just as shocked when I discovered that. To your God's partial justification, they both would not have had to murder each other – they counted as one team only. At least Dyaus realised that each had no more than half a brain functioning, if even that," the sleuth commiserated.

"I didn't know, Sherlock. Otherwise I would never have sent them to deal with John. I suppose that there was a reason they were such good cops," the officer sighed. Before the detective could object to his assessment, he added, "So…they were not, indeed, collateral damage, falling into a trap Watson plotted for me?"

"I'm involved, Lestrade. If you don't believe that John wouldn't turn on you slyly – he's much more likely to challenge you to a duel at dawn, honestly, if he had no other option – believe at least that I would be able to adjust the situation so that there would be no accidental victims," Sherlock declared haughtily.

The officer should have been annoyed, but instead, he chuckled. "Pretty sure of yourself, are you?"

"When have I done something I didn't mean to, Lestrade?" Sherlock queried, appalled that the man would dare to laugh at him.

"Do you want the list in alphabetical or chronological order?" the inspector quipped.

"Upsetting dimwits doesn't count," the detective remarked, getting up and marching across the room in annoyance.

John shot him an alarmed look – that made him a target once again, and even if the half of the conversation he could overhear didn't seem threatening, he'd have sworn that the policeman wouldn't go out of his way to gun him down, either, and he'd been wrong about that.

Sherlock rolled his eyes at his friend's concern, and after a second handed over his phone. "He wants to talk with you."

"You know what Sherlock said, I assume, but I want you to confirm it: Donovan and Anderson were contestants, just like the both of us?" Lestrade asked without preambles.

"Not sure why you wouldn't believe him but you would trust me, but yep. I was surprised too, but we had to deal with them somehow," John confirmed.

There was a deep sigh. "I suppose. And as far as why I would believe you, it's because I think you're not a bloody genius who would be able to dupe the whole British police if it suited him. But mostly, I'm still astonished that neither of us recognised the other's status."

"I get it, Lestrade. I had much the same situation myself. My boss was a contestant, too. And she was such a nice, supportive person. I'd never have believed that. Say, what do you think of leaving the gun in the holster and coming in? We can have a nice cup of tea and commiserate together," John urged.

"Did you seriously just invite me for tea after I shot at you?" The inspector sounded rather baffled.

"You didn't hit me," the doctor pointed out. "And you did spare your men to protect me, when you should want me dead to begin with. True, they tried to murder me too, but you had no idea they would. I'd say it evens out. If anyone has a right to be angry, it's Sherlock. You did put a hole in his mum's kitchen cabinet. But I think he can be talked into forgiving you."

John laughed, and Lestrade joined in. "You're something else, John Watson," the officer acknowledged.

"Is that a yes?" the doctor queried cordially.

"I suppose. See you in a mo," the inspector agreed.

A few seconds, and there was a knock at the door. Sherlock opened immediately, one hand stretched. "Gun, please. It's not that I don't trust you, Lestrade. Call it insurance. Besides, you're perfectly capable of fighting without it. Perhaps even better," he requested politely.

"Glad that you realise that," Lestrade retorted, surrendering his weapon.

"I've never wanted you dead, Geoff. As much as it pains me to admit it, without you I wouldn't get my most interesting cases." The consulting detective visibly winced at being forced to confess that.

"Well, I'm flattered that I have some uses," the inspector replied, with a smirk. He refrained from rolling his eyes or chiding the man about the wrong name. It would be entirely pointless, after all.

"Come in, Lestrade, we have tea, though I'm not sure you deserve any biscuits," called John from the kitchen.

Lestrade looked actually apologetic. "Sorry, John. I worked for almost a decade with Donovan and Anderson. As annoying as they are…well, they grew on me."

"What, like a fungus?" Sherlock interjected, "That might actually be a good definition for the both of them."

"Sherlock!" John scolded sternly. Just one word, but it was enough to make the sleuth shut up abruptly, and just a hint of a pout started forming. Clearly the man didn't see anything wrong with what he would define just stating facts. "Sorry for him," John mumbled, handing over a steaming cup of tea.

"I haven't lost it with him this long. I'm not going to now, no matter how tempted I am. Besides, I'm the one needing to offer my deepest apologies at the moment. I assumed that you had organised a nefarious plot in order to take me out, and not stopped when I didn't come. I'm a cop. I should know better than to do that," Lestrade said, before taking a slow sip.

"Yes, you should," Sherlock hissed, glaring at him.