Sherlock sat at a small wooden table in the visiting center of a high security prison. Adara stood behind him holding her arms tightly to hold off the cold, despite her wearing a polar coat. Sherlock also wore a more temperature appropriate coat as his now sported a fur collar. Across the table from Sherlock was an inmate, their client at the moment. A couple of guards near the exits made up the total occupancy in the cement room. Adara glanced at her watch once again using one of the windows of the room as her light source.
"Just tell me what happened, from the beginning." Sherlock droned.
"We'd been to a bar, a nice place, and er….I got chattin' with one of the waitresses and Karen weren't to 'appy with that. So…when we get back to the 'otel, we end up havin' a bit of a ding-dong, haven't we." Adara mentally groaned while Sherlock took the more verbal route and let out a deliberately noisy breath of disappointment.
"She was always getting' at me, sayin' I weren't a real man."
"Wasn't a real man." Sherlock corrected. The man paused.
"What?" he asked dumbly.
"It's not 'weren't'; it's 'wasn't'." Adara pointed out with a tight grin.
"Oh." The inmate muttered, baffled by the interruption.
"Please, god…just continue." She requested pinching her nose between her fingers. The man frowned in offense but complied.
"Well, then I dunno how it happened but suddenly there's a knife in my hands." Sherlock gave him a deadpan stare. Really…he didn't know how it happened?
"And, you know me old man was a butcher, so I know how to handle knives." The man explained. Adara frowned, blinking blankly at the man. Sherlock glanced down at the man's hands sitting still on the table.
"He learned us how to cut up a beast." Adara grimaced in disgust.
"Taught." She chimed. The man glared at her.
"What?"
"Taught you how to cut up a beast." Sherlock finished for her this time. The man clenched his jaw tightly, looking between the two irritably.
"Yeah, well, then….then I done it."
"Did it." Sherlock huffed. The inmate snarled angrily at the constant interruption, slamming his hand down on the table repeatedly.
"Did it! Stabbed 'er….over and over and over, and I looked down and she weren't'…" Adara stared up at the ceiling while Sherlock let out a loud breath through his nose, turning away. The man quickly regained his composure and corrected himself.
"…..wasn't moving no more.." Adara winced.
"…any more." The man finally finished correctly. He let out a shaky breath, lowing his head.
"You've gotta help me. I dunno how it happened, but it was an accident I swear." He told them softly. Sherlock and Adara shared a tired look. She pulled her coat tighter around her and turned to walk away, prompting Sherlock to stand and follow after her. His metal chair slid nosily across the cement and they turned to leave.
"You've gotta help me, Mr. Holmes!" the man begged. They stopped.
"Everyone says you're the best. Without you, I'll get hung for this." Sherlock peered over his shoulder at the man.
"No, no, no Mr. Berwick. Not at all." He explained, looking at Adara thoughtfully.
"Hanged, yes." He finished with a lip quirk. Adara rolled her eyes and followed him out of the facility.
"I told you this would be a waste of time." She griped, frowning at the snow flurrying around them. Sherlock sighed.
"It sounded interesting." He weakly protested.
...
...
Gunshots ring out in 221B Baker street. Sherlock lounges in his armchair, head lying on the back. Still in his dressing gown and pajamas, his bare feet stretched all the way out in front of him as he barely sits in the chair. The man's eyes open to stare blankly at the ceiling. His pays no attention to the opening and closing of the front door. Instead he looks over the sofa where a yellow smiley face has been spray painted on the wall, now sporting two bullet holes in the smile. He turns back to face the front of the room and lazily raises his left hand. He fires two more shots, hitting the eyes. Sherlock turns to observe his work and shoots once more, making a hole for the nose. John ran up the stairs, holding his fingers to his ears. He stops once he reaches the landing and stares at his flat mate incredulously.
"What the hell are you doing?!" John shouts.
"Bored." Sherlock sulked. John squinted his eyes in disbelief, leaning forward to make sure he heard the man right.
"What?..."
"Bored!" Sherlock reiterates loudly, springing up from the chair and aiming his gun again. John recoils and covers his ears. Adara emerges from Sherlock's room, reading over her phone with a set of noise cancelling headphones on. John watches her as she smoothly walks past him, ignoring the gunshots going off.
"Are you kidding me?! Why are you letting him do this?" he shrieks incredulously. Seeing John's distress Adara gently took off her headphones and looked over at Sherlock who was observing his creation curiously.
"It's not the worst thing he's done. What is he complaining about this time?" she inquired.
"He's bored." John scoffed. Sherlock heard the word and took it as his que to start firing again. He switched hands and shot at the smiley face again. Sherlock then swings his arm behind his back and shoots again in his contorted position.
"Bored! Bored!" he rants angrily. Adara scoffed.
"Oh grow up, Sherlock. You're just sulking about the case in Belarus. I told you it wasn't worth the time, but you didn't listen to me and now you don't have a case to work on." She scolded. Sherlock turned to glare at her, holding his arm out and shooting at the wall without looking. Adara rose a brow at him challengingly. While he was distracted John rushed forward and grabbed the gun out of the man's hand; Sherlock not protesting the confiscation.
"I am not sulking." Sherlock refuted indignantly.
"Sherlock, you're having a temper tantrum. You have no one to blame but yourself for being bored." She countered, crossing her arms over her chest. Watching the spat unfold John slid the clip out of the pistol. Sherlock scowled at the insult and headed towards the sofa.
"Don't know what's got into the criminal classes. Good job I'm not one of them." He huffed dramatically. John locked the pistol back up into the small safe on the dining room table.
"So, you take it out on the wall?" He asked in mild amusement. Sherlock ran his fingers over the yellow smile.
"Ah, the wall had it coming." The taller man swished his dressing gown around himself and flopped dramatically into the sofa. Adara rolled her eyes and went back to her phone, standing by the wall. John took the time to shrug off his coat.
"So, what happened in Russia?" he inquired, looking between the couple curiously. Sherlock uses his feet to push himself into a more upright position.
"Belarus." He corrected. John waited, but after a minute of silence he realized he wasn't going to get anything else. Sherlock spotted John's amused smirk out of the corner of his eye and turned to scowl at the man. Everyone was mocking him.
"What he neglected to say was that it was an open and shut domestic murder. All he did was butcher the English language and his girlfriend. It was a waste of time…..like I originally stated before this one took the case." Adara elaborated, shooting her boyfriend a pointed glance. Sherlock huffed, turning away from her childishly.
"Ah, shame." John muttered sarcastically, trying to contain his grin. Adara giggled; John shooting her a knowing grin. Turning to walk into the kitchen he froze, throwing his arms up in frustration at the absolute disaster on the table. Instead of dwelling on it he heads towards the fridge with an annoyed growl.
...
...
Meanwhile, Adara makes her way in to sit on the coffee table next to Sherlock who refused to look at her.
"Sherlock…" he nearly turns his entire torso completely around to face the wall.
"Sherlock, look at me when I'm talking to you." she gently scolds, waiting for him to loosen up. His shoulders dropped minutely. Letting out a tired sigh Adara reaches over and holds Sherlocks hand. The man tilted to look at her out of the corner of his eye, still not fully turned towards her.
"Dear, it's over now. Please try not to dwell on the lost case. I'm sorry you're bored but you can't take it out on the wall." She gently explained. Sherlock pursed his lips, now turning to face her with a smidge of guilt. She would take it.
"Is that a head!" John shouted from the kitchen. Adara turned that direction before looking back at the man on the couch.
"I think he found your experiment. We probably should have warned him." she mused. Sherlock merely grunted.
"Just tea for us, thanks." Sherlock called back instead. John walked into the living room, staring at them incredulously.
"No, there's a head in the fridge." John reiterated. His irritation grew as he received blank looks.
"Yes." Adara nodded innocently. Dr. Watson blinked owlishly, amazed at the lack of reaction we was recieving.
"I told you he's done worse than shooting at a wall." She reminded with a small grin.
"A bloody head!"
"Well, where else was I supposed to put it?" Sherlock snipped.
"You don't mind, do you?" he inquired as an afterthought, only sparing John a small glance.
"We got it from Bart's morgue." Adara explained. John buried his head into his hands. Why was she helping him with this? Not that he was all that surprised.
"I'm measuring the coagulation of saliva after death." The man elaborated. John looked over at Adara in exasperation. She shrugged.
"He hasn't gotten around to buying a specialized freezer yet. I told him not to take the whole head home but contrary to what you believe he doesn't always listen to me." she calmly explained.
"I see you've written up the taxi driver case." Sherlock butted in, gesturing towards the open laptop on the table. John mumbled out a distracted 'yes' before plopping down onto Sherlock's silver armchair.
"A Study in Pink. Had a nice ring to it." Adara added with a grin. John frowned and stared between the two of them.
"I was only gone for a couple hours…." He pointed out in confusion. How had the two of them managed to go through all these things in just a short amount of time.
"Well that's a lot of time to half start a handful of projects. Sherlock doesn't focus on just one thing very well and reading your blog was the tamest activity I could tempt him to do." John hummed in mock understanding. Honestly, he should just be thankful the flat was still one piece. Minus the wall of course. Sherlock shot her a miffed look, not liking being talked about as if he were a child she was babysitting.
"So how did you decide on the name, John?" Adara inquired politely, prompting the man to engage in conversation. Obviously, she knew how he got the title but would try anything to keep the doctor distracted to maintain some level of sanity until Sherlock got another case. John blinked at her, clearing his throat distractedly.
"Well, you know. Pink lady, pink case, pink phone. There was a lot of pink. Did you like it?" he asked, looking between the duo expectantly. His expression faltered as Sherlock boredly began flipping through a magazine.
"Quite."
"Ummm….No." Sherlock and Adara turned to glare at one another. John stared at Sherlock offended at the negative answer.
"Why not? I thought you'd be flattered." John pointed out quietly. Sherlock lowered the magazine onto his chest, turning his glare at the man.
"Flattered?" he deadpanned in disbelief.
"Sherlock sees through everything and everyone in seconds. What's incredible, though, is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things…" John shook his head, holding up a hand in protest.
"Now hang on a minute. I didn't mean that in a…"
"Oh, you meant 'spectacularly ignorant' in a nice way?" Sherlock interrupted sarcastically. He went to lift the magazine back up before roughly setting it down and glaring even fiercer at John as he remembered something.
"And I am not mothered by Adara who as you put it 'fills many of the emotional gaps that Sherlock so desperately is missing.'" he huffed irritably. Adara bit her lip and reached over to pat the man's thigh consolingly.
"He wasn't totally inaccurate, dear. While you are brilliant, there are small things you miss." She reminded. Sherlock bristled.
"Who cares about that stuff. It's superfluous and a waste of time." He countered. Adara bobbed her head back and forth thoughtfully.
"Maybe but a lot of it is very important to everyone else. Sometimes keeping up with popular trends can be useful." She rebutted. Sherlock groaned dramatically.
"Uh, dull." He grumbled.
"Look, it doesn't matter to me who's Prime Minister.."
"I know…"
"….or who's sleeping with who…"
"Whether the Earth goes round the Sun…"John added quietly. Sherlock closed his eyes and threw his head back in exasperation.
"Not that again. It's not important." Sherlock snipped. John sat up in the chair to look at Sherlock properly.
"It's primary school stuff. How can you not know that?" John argued. Sherlock pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes in frustration.
"Well, if I ever did, I've deleted it." He explained quietly.
"Deleted it?" John frowned in confusion. Adara and Sherlock shared a look before the man swung his feet around to sit up and face John.
"Listen. This is my hard drive, and it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful…really useful." He explained, pointing to his head.
"Ordinary people fill their heads with all kinds of rubbish, and that makes it hard to get at the stuff that matters. Do you see?" Sherlock continued. John bit his lip, trying to keep in his comment.
"But it's the solar system!" he blurted. Sherlock sighed roughly, burying his head in his hands.
"Oh hell! What does that matter?!" he growled in frustration.
"Sherlock." Adara admonished gently, recognizing the impending explosion that he was heading for. Sherlock didn't like to be reminded of his imperfections; even more than that he hated to be made fun of. He heard her and waited a beat, trying to calm himself down.
"So we go around the Sun. If we went around the Moon, or round and round the garden like a teddy bear…" Sherlock's voice got increasingly louder as he went on, unable to maintain control of his ire.
"…it wouldn't make any difference. All that matters to me is the work. Without that, my brain rots." He finished heatedly, scratching his hair aggressively before glaring at John.
"Sherlock, calm down. John didn't mean to…" Adara went ignored as Sherlock set his sights on his flat mate.
"Put that in your blog. Or better still, stop inflicting your opinions on the world." He snarled with finality, shoving the magazine across the table. The room was silent as he lied back on the sofa, turning his back to the room and swaddling himself tightly in his dressing gown, curling into a ball. Adara groaned, leaning her head into her hands. Now he had done it. Turning her head to face John she sent him a sympathetic frown.
"John…." She began to try and apologize but John held his hand up, silently prompting her to stop. She nodded, not wanting to upset him more. The damage had already been done. John stood abruptly and headed towards the door. Hearing the noise Sherlock looked over his shoulder curiously.
"Where are you going?" John jerked on his jacket.
"Out. I need some air." He answered tightly, before heading towards the stairs. Sherlock silently snarled and jerked the throw pillow towards him before returning to his fetal position. The couple sat in silence as John stormed down the stairs. As the door shut behind him Adara whirled around to face Sherlock. Well, face his back.
"I hope you're pleased with yourself." Sherlock grumbled before turning his head just enough, so his words weren't muffled.
"By your tone I would say you are not pleased. Please mother, tell me what I have done wrong this time." He snipped. Adara stood sharply.
"Now that is enough. You've had your sulk now you need to be an adult and get over yourself." She told him sternly. Sherlock tightened up even more into his ball, knowing if he turned around he would see her grey eyes staring daggers at him.
"I realize that your feelings were damaged by what John wrote but it was never his intention to hurt you. The man practically idolized you on his website and just because he put in a few, very accurate, imperfections in with it you decided to get defensive and malicious." She told him heatedly, putting her hands on her hips as she stared down at his figure. The man was too stubborn to face her but she knew he would at least listen.
"He practically told the world that I am a grown man who is socially inept and too much of a freak to keep track of what all the other simpleton's value." He snapped, before returning to his fetal position. Adara closed her eyes and sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Moving to sit directly behind him on the couch, she reached over and ran her fingers gently through his curls.
"Sherlock, John is not the people we went to Uni with. He is not those kids you grew up with. He's your friend. You may not admit it, but he is already becoming your closest friend besides me. That is not the message he was sending to the world. All he did was make you seem a bit more relatable and real. This blog is part of his therapy, it's basically his diary . This is how he sees you. Not as some freak, but as a real person who he enjoys being around. It's true you have your idiosyncrasies but so does everyone else." She soothed, never stopping her calming motions on his head. Sherlock slowly unfurled but didn't quite turn around to face her. Instead he opted to frown at the back of the sofa. Footsteps heading their direction shattered the moment and Adara looked up to see Mrs. Hudson on the landing.
"Hello Mrs. Hudson." She politely greeted. Sherlock only turned his head enough to acknowledge her existence before turning back, this time stretching out his legs along the sofa.
"Hello dear. Where has Dr. Watson rushed off to?" she inquired in concern. The man had flown past her in a huff not too long ago. Sherlock flailed a bit, prompting Adara to remove herself from the couch. He stood up and walked straight across the coffee table to reach his destination by the window. Adara rolled her eyes at the immature gesture but let it slide. She watched with a small smile as Sherlock frowned like a sad puppy as he looked down the street at where John no doubt was walking away.
"Look at that Mrs. Hudson. Quiet, calm, peaceful." Sherlock grimaced, taking in a drag of air.
"Isn't it hateful?" he groused, though much more subdued than his earlier fit. Adara quirked her lip. At least her was getting there. While he spoke, Mrs. Hudson unloaded some groceries from her shopping bags and set them on the kitchen table along with the receipt.
"Oh, I'm sure something'll turn up, Sherlock. A nice murder, that'll cheer you up." The older woman suggested with a chuckle. Adara sighed almost wistfully.
"It can't come soon enough." She hummed, shooting Mrs. Hudson a knowing look. The woman grinned, knowing Sherlock was a bear to deal with during the down times. Finished with her unloading she makes her way back into the living room; only to pause as she stared at the damaged wall.
"Hey what have you done to my bloody wall?!" she shouted. Sherlock turned to grin impishly as his work.
"I'm putting this on your rent, young man!" Mrs. Hudson angrily scolded before storming back downstairs.
"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson!" Adara called, wincing as she heard the woman slam the door to her own flat.
"Wipe that grin off your face, Sherlock." She told Sherock with an amused smirk. He simply shrugged and turned to fully look at the bullet ridden smiley face. He grinned broadly at it, getting a snicker from Adara.
"Are you feeling better now?" she asks gently, walking to meet him in the middle of the room. Sherlock pursed his lips.
"I suppose so." He reluctantly admitted. Adara grinned, knowing he would remain stubborn about his feelings. Taking his noncommittal answer she wrapped her arms around his waist, grinning as he returned the favor…Suddenly a massive explosion rings out, shattering the windows of the flat and hurling the couple to the floor. Instinctively Sherlock shielded Adara's head as they fall amongst the debris. Sherlock groaned, and pushed himself up onto his forearms. His eyes flitted down to Adara worriedly as she gingerly touched a bruise on her cheek from hitting the coffee table. From the floor they both turned to stare at the gaping holes where the windows used to be.