50. Cold Turkey (Part 2) (for Chezza456)
Note: Yeah so this turned out a tiny bit more...angsty than I'd originally planned. It's not angsty loads, but yeah it's not what I had envisioned. Still! It works right? Haha =)
Another Note: If any facts displayed in this fanfiction are in any way incorrect or invalid then it is the fault of the original sources. (My English teacher) Haha.
Enjoy!
Sherlock tapped his fingers on the arm of the sofa, one hand propped under his chin. His patience was wearing thin but at the same time his amusement was growing. He had to fight to stop his mouth twitching into a smile.
'Right, phone, keys, those files for Sarah, money for lunch. Sorted.' John was flitting about the flat trying to get ready for work. With, as usual, very little help from his flatmate.
'All set?' Sherlock stood and flashed him a grin.
'Yeah, I think so. Oh! No, I need the...thing.' John raced back into the bedroom and Sherlock rolled his eyes lightly. The blogger really was a scatterbrain when his mind was heavily occupied. He needed to learn how to sort his thoughts into files and folders. Much easier.
Perhaps I should teach him how to use the Mind Palace?
'Right, Sherlock I'll be back at around 5ish, yeah?' John re-emerged from the bedroom and stopped in the kitchen, jacket tucked over his arm, keys and phone clutched in one hand and a large green folder in the other. His tie was already crooked and Sherlock was about to go over and fix it but remembered what he was trying to avoid happening and stayed where he was.
'Of course, John. Have a good day.' Sherlock waved a dismissive hand without looking at the doctor and sat back down. He propped John's laptop on his lap and started typing, seemingly unphased by John's oncoming absence.
'Is that my laptop again?'
'Yes it is. Problem?' Sherlock still didn't look at John, but had to fight hard from smiling in amusement.
He's going to forget again.
'Nope, course not. Used to it by know. See you later then?' John wondered why Sherlock was in such an 'off' mood this morning.
'Later.' Sherlock quipped and still did not make eye contact.
John nodded once and frowned a little. Then his eyes widened as if in rememberance and he darted out of the flat.
Sherlock waited for the adequate amount of time to pass for the blogger to leave the building before leaping up, letting the laptop fall to his side and land on the sofa behind him. He dashed across the room and grabbed his coat and scarf.
He forgot. Perfect.
'John. There's a case. I need your help at the crime scene. Lestrade has asked for us both specifically. Morning, Sarah.' Sherlock burst into the clinic waiting room having spotted John stood at the reception desk with the same green file from this morning.
'Oh. Any reason for us both being needed?' John asked and his eyes locked with the detectives.
'None.' Sherlock answered shortly before directing his attention to Sarah. 'Can he leave for a few hours?'
'Erm, yes. It's pretty quiet here today, shouldn't be too much of a hardship.' She smiled up at John from behind the desk and Sherlock's jaw clenched tightly.
'Right. Well then, come along. It's a suspected murder.' Sherlock nodded for John to join him and the doctor put the file down.
'Aren't they all?' He grabbed his coat from a hook on the wall and half-jogged over to the consulting detective.
'It would seem. Although this one seems linked to Mrs Rutter's case last week. Or 'The Purple Jukebox' as you so wonderfully named it.' Sherlock darted across the corridor and out of the door before John could respond.
'You didn't like that title?' John managed once he'd caught up with Sherlock outside. The taller man's strides were always a lot larger than his own when he was interested in a case. Still, it kept John's fitness well-attended to.
Sherlock didn't answer, he hailed a cab and quickly climbed in. John rolled his eyes and followed.
'So, we've got Ms Kirkby, Scottish woman aged 68. She's got two sons, both over 20, both currently living overseas. She was recently seen with a middle-aged male walking a dog, found dead today at 3:30 this afternoon. No one heard any strange noises or evidence of argumentative behaviour coming from the building, we've got one witness across the road, says she saw Ms Kirkby conversing with the middle-aged man before letting him inside the house.' Lestrade explained as Sherlock and John entered the terraced London home.
'The witness, was she an old lady?' Sherlock waited for Lestrade's nod and grinned. 'Love those. Any signs of his escape?' Sherlock asked as he was shown into the room that contained Ms Kirkby. She was slumped in a chair, face and arms pressed against the kitchen table. Sherlock pulled on some gloves and began looking around the kitchen worktops as John examined the body and Lestrade continued to explain.
'None whatsoever. He must have had a key.' Lestrade shrugged. 'That is if it was him that killed her.'
'Of course it was him, a middle-aged man wouldn't walk a dog with a woman of 68 unless they were related or he was interested in her money.' Anderson quipped as he leant against the doorframe of the backdoor.
'And you would know would you, Anderson? What's that, thanks to experience?' Sherlock remarked and continued swiping his finger along the sink's edge.
'Oi, who agreed we were bringing the Freak in here? No one mentioned anything.' Sally Donovan pointed at Sherlock and crossed her arms.
'I'll have to re-decontaminate.' Anderson chipped in and Donovan shot him an annoyed glare.
'Alright, thank you. I asked for them both. I needed Sherlock because...well there's a...some sort of message. Upstairs.' Sherlock's eyes darted upwards and he rose from the sink.
'Upstairs?' He turned to Lestrade and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. 'Show me.'
'Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori. Any guesses?' Lestrade read out. It was written, in what seemed to be toothpaste, on the dressing mirror in Ms Kirkby's bedroom.
'It's Latin.' John answered.
Sherlock hid a smile and glanced sideways at his blogger.
'Latin?' Anderson asked having followed them upstairs.
'What's it Latin for?' Donovan joined in.
John paused, swallowing hard and clenching and unclenching his left fist.
'Go on, John.' Sherlock sounded stern but a hand on John's shoulder told John he was supporting him. Of course the genius already knew what the latin translated to.
John swallowed again, with the reassurance of Sherlock's hand, he translated the saying.
'It is sweet...and fitting to...die for one's country.' John struggled but managed without too much hesitation.
'Which means?' Anderson asked. Sherlock rolled his eyes but knew what John must be going through having read the saying on the mirror and being made to translate it too. He decided to leave his Anderson-insults for the while.
'It means, that there is no greater honour than the honour of dying for your country. It is also the title of a World War One poem. Written by Wilfred Owen, a World War One soldier himself, his poem speaks of the cruel reality of fighting on the front line and he does so through the use of extensive and graphic adjective devices. It's more of a laugh towards those at the time who believed war to be nothing but a game. The war forced him to face a conflict between his Christian beliefs and his role as a soldier. "I am more and more a Christian," he wrote to his mother in May 1917. "Suffer dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed: but do not kill". Soon after, Owen was invalided out of active duty. Suffering from shell-shock and fever,' Sherlock paused and his hand at John's shoudler squeezed as he touched the sensitive topic. 'and wrestling with his moral dilemmas, he was sent to recuperate at Craiglockart, a war hospital near Edinburgh. There he met the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who encouraged him to develop his war poetry.'
'Quite the poet fanatic, Freak?' Donovan snorted but Sherlock's face stayed straight and his eyes flicked to John to find the smaller man to be staring up at him.
'How do you know all that?' John asked, his eyes filled with something...disbelieving.
Sherlock shrugged. 'I take an interest in things concerning people I care about. However, with the number of people I care about being so small...I take a very big interest.'
Before John had time to respond, Sherlock bent his head and kissed the blogger. It wasn't the type of kiss he'd planned, quick, passionate and to get John back for forgetting this morning. It was one filled with a kind of softness that the detective didn't even know he was capable of achieving. A couple of gasps were heard from around them but Sherlock didn't care. He was even certain that even if John had remembered to kiss him this morning, this kiss would've still very much happened. He felt bad for the position John had suddenly been put in, facing his hellish past and watching it collide with his present like that. And having to face it in front of such people. He kissed his blogger, a hand at the back of his neck and another latched onto his coat and pulling him closer. John had been surprised at first, most likely because of the suddenness and the fact they were in front of people. But he'd eventually started kissing back and Sherlock had smiled against his lips when he did so.
When John pulled away, he prepared himself to have to awkwardly explain the situation to Anderson, Donovan and Lestrade. But the room was empty.
Sherlock stood straight with a slightly confused frown. Then his eyebrows fell in realisation when he looked at the mirror.
The toothpasty message had been smudged and strewn so it was no longer legible, most likely by Lestrade. No doubt it was Lestrade's decision for them to leave the room too. Sherlock's eyes focussed past the smears and onto his and John's reflections behind them. They were stood exactly in line of the mirror and for the first time Sherlock realised how oddly perfect they looked beside each other.
A good coat and a short friend.
Sherlock let out a chuckle and saw John's confused expression in the mirror. Just as the blogger opened his mouth to ask what was funny, Sherlock turned and gripped him by the coat again and crushing their lips together in one swift move.
'Shut up.'
