It would normally have been a tight fit. Sherlock was so slim anyway that it hardly mattered when all three crammed into the backseat. Danielle just rested her purse on her lap, crossing her legs so they wouldn't bump into John's cane.
It was awhile before Sherlock spoke up. The sun had set by then. Danielle was trying not to be nosy, but Sherlock had been on his phone the whole drive here. She wondered what he was doing. She had to repeatedly
"Okay, you've got questions." Sherlock stated, after Danielle had been caught for the third time in a minute peaking at his phone screen.
"Yeah, where are we going?" Danielle asked as her cheeks went a bit pink.
"Crime scene. Next?"
"Who are you? What do you do?" John asked.
"What do you think?" Sherlock challenged. Danielle didn't answer, he had already told her yesterday.
"I'd say private detective." John began.
Sherlock tutored an eyebrow at his unfinished sentence. "But?"
The doctor sounded as if he were still figuring the answer out himself. "...but the police don't go to private detectives."
Sherlock actually looked proud at John's answer. Danielle could understand why, if she didn't have Sherlock's bony elbow so close to her hip. This is why she hated sharing cabs. "I'm a consulting detective." Sherlock helped John along. Most of the time he talked that way to everyone, Danielle noted. "Only one in the world. I invented the job."
Danielle opened her mouth to ask her own questions. "What does that mean?" John asked.
"It means when the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me." Sherlock explained with a roll of his eyes. Danielle figured that was more towards the police than towards her.
"The police don't consult amateurs." John noted with a laugh.
Danielle couldn't help it. She laughed too. She tried to cover it up at Sherlock's indignant stare, except...his own face was ridiculously petulant!
"When I met you for the first time yesterday, I said, 'Afghanistan or Iraq?' You looked surprised." Sherlock took John down a different conversation point.
"Yes, how did you know?" John asked, curiosity peaked.
"I didn't know, I saw." Sherlock explained. "Your haircut, the way you hold yourself, says military. But your conversation as you entered the room, said trained at Bart's, so Army doctor-obvious. Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists. You've been abroad, but not sunbathing. Your limp's really bad when you walk but you don't ask for a chair when you stand, like you've forgotten about it, so it's at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. Wounded in action, then. Wounded in action, suntan-Afghanistan or Iraq."
Danielle would never be able to hear of Iraq again without associating with Sherlock's voice.
"You said I had a therapist." John reminded, softly.
"You've got a psychosomatic limp-of course you've got a therapist." The detective scoffed. "Then there's your brother."
"Hmm?" John's face twisted in actual confusion.
Sherlock pointed one of his long pale fingers at John's phone. Danielle looked down at it, wondering what could possibly have been said about John's brother from a phone.
"Your phone. It's expensive, e-mail enabled, MP3 player, but you're looking for a flatshare-you wouldn't waste money on this. It's a gift, then." Sherlock reasoned.
John passed the phone to Danielle, who passed it along to Sherlock.
Sherlock pointed at the USB port. "Scratches. Not one, many over time. It's been in the same pocket as keys and coins." Sherlock looked up at Danielle. "The man sitting next to you wouldn't treat his one luxury item like this, so it's had a previous owner. Next bit's easy. You know it already."
"The engraving." John revealed just as Sherlock flipped the phone over for Danielle.
Harry Watson From Clara xxx
Danielle made a small 'aww' noise. 'It's a bit sad that she put on the three kisses and his brother just gave it away. And this is the new one too. What happened to Harry and Clara? Bad break-up? One of them died? Clara regifted it to John because Harry didn't like it?'
Danielle had barely managed to pay attention in time to hear Sherlock talking. "Harry Watson. Clearly a family member who's given you his old phone. Not your father, this is a young man's gadget. Could be a cousin, but you're a war hero who can't find a place to live. Unlikely you've got an extended family, certainly not one you're close to, so brother it is." Sherlock explained in rapidfire.
John and Danielle were both staring at Sherlock with matching dumbstruck faces. John had most certainly not thought his new roommate could have noticed all of that in the span of a few minutes.
"Now, Clara. Who's Clara? Three kisses says it's a romantic attachment. The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. She must have given it to him recently-this model's only six months old. Marriage in trouble then-six months on he's just given it away. If she'd left him, he would have kept it. People do-sentiment. But no, he wanted rid of it. He left her. He gave the phone to you. That says he wants you to stay in touch. You're looking for cheap accommodation, but you're not going to your brother for help. That says you've got problems with him. Maybe you liked his wife; maybe you don't like his drinking."
Danielle would have wolf whistled, but she suspected Sherlock wasn't done yet.
"How can you possibly know about the drinking?" John asked, answering Sherlock's unspoken question.
"Shot in the dark." Sherlock admitted with a small smile. "Good one, though. Power connection. Tiny little scuff marks around the edge of it. Every night he goes to plug it in to charge but his hands are shaking. You never see those marks on a sober man's phone; never see a drunk's without them."
Danielle was mystified. She turned to John, wondering if he had any sort of sense right now. He was looking down at his lap, to his apparently psychosomatic injury. She felt bad that now she knew so much about John's personal life, something he might not have been entirely comfortable with, still he knew nothing of her.
"My turn." Danielle cheered when she gave the phone back to John. She turned to the other person in the car. "When you met me, you knew everything about me. How? And I already know about the animal hair. So you can skip that." Danielle added.
Sherlock didn't even raise an eyebrow. "I know. You cleaned it off, but didn't put on a new shirt."
"Why should I? I was going back to them that night. Too much work." Danielle admitted.
"You love your cat more, as was evident by the fur on your arms and chest. If you were close, your sister would know that and have gotten you another cat instead of the dog. A dog is more of a family oriented pet. Your sister wants you to start dating. You haven't. You kept her around out of moral obligation, and you have since made an attachment. Even though you hate walking her and only do it as a last resort to avoid your neighbors."
She felt herself smirked. Anyone would be attached to Erika if they knew her for five minutes. It was either that or admit undying devotion to Nightwing. The smug cat would love it.
"Then there was the fact about your many siblings. That came from the amount of biscuits. You were used to making large plates. You used a twelve pack, and took one before giving it to me." Sherlock explained. Danielle bit back a sorry. "Suggests you are used to the action. With three siblings, I imagine normal families have strict guidelines on how many you were allowed to consume. No doubt as the eldest you took first pickings."
"What about my job?" Danielle asked, mouth stretched out onto her cheek.
His face scrunched up. "I was wrong about the meaning behind it."
"Tell me anyway." She countered simply.
There was a pause, an actual pause. Danielle had a feeling Sherlock didn't pause that often. Not when he was being asked to show off.
"I'm not going to hold it against you." She immediately added. "You got it wrong, who cares? I get the date wrong so much I put three calendars in my flat. What right do I have laugh at you?"
The man stared at the woman sharing his cab. Usually, people laughed at him for any reason, especially the idiots of Scotland Yard. Sherlock never paid them mind. Most of the time people laughed to shake him off his deductions.
Even John looked a bit surprised at her admission.
"Your keychain, and your shoes." Sherlock stated in that same quickfire voice from earlier. "Comfortable, you weren't walking far. So you must live nearby. You arrived less than an hour after I moved in officially, and I never met you so Mrs Hudson must have told you I was coming. Now, the keychain. There wasn't a car key on the ring. Beyond that all of the keys were house keys, all the same brand. Take all of the facts together: Mrs Hudson, short walk, prior knowledge of my arrival, too many house keys. Conclusion? You were my neighbor, and you were a landlady."
"But why was I unhappy with it?" Danielle pushed.
"What person is happy with their job?"
"That's fair." Danielle had to admit, there was a point. "Bit presumptuous. Not everyone's unhappy with their job. You like what you do so much you made a job up for it!"
"You dislike it because of your mother." Sherlock stated flatly.
"Ah...Mum." She perked up. "That would do it. Yeah. Mum is good reason not to like things, yeah. I'll give you that one."
"She's controlling. You had those frilly toys on your keychain to annoy her. She wanted you to have a more respectable job. Over trimming your nails, not enough layers for London weather, hair with split ends, all multiple mistakes that any mother should have corrected well before your childhood. Your father wouldn't have cared for them, so this would imply a closer relationship to him rather than her. You can see how long ago your father's death was by the year stamped onto your keys. He must have encouraged your odd career choice, but you refused his money, he died not long after you purchased the next door. Your mother disliked you showing your father more affection so she let your less than ideal habits go unchecked."
Danielle felt herself smiling.
"Absent mindedness? You mentioned that too."
"Yes, I was just getting to that." Sherlock stated, sounding not at all like he was making that up. "You forgot to coordinate your nail color with your shirt. That and you made those rubbish biscuits, obviously a last minute decision because you forgot to prepare properly." he gave her a look. "And of course, you've already mentioned the three calenders."
Danielle looked down to her pale pink painted nails.
"There you go, you see-you were right." Sherlock told John.
"I was right? Right about what?" John asked in surprise. He'd been respectfully quiet while Danielle's whole life had been exposed like that. He wondered why she signed herself for it. Who wanted their entire life read out in front of stranger, by a stranger?
"The police don't consult amateurs." The consulting detective finished with a dramatic turn of his head to face the window. She could see a faint reflection of him biting his lip.
Now she let out the wolf whistle. That was actually impressive. The explanations, not the lip biting. She would be clapping and cheering if they weren't in an enclosed space.
"That...was amazing." John complimented.
"It was brilliant, yeah." Danielle agreed, her tone matching John's.
The curly haired detective looked round to them. He seemed genuinely surprised that they were still happy, that they hadn't tried to stop the cab. "Do you think so?" He asked, cautious.
"Of course it was. It was extraordinary; it was quite extraordinary." John noted.
Danielle nodded in agreement. "It was! I can see why you made yourself the only consulting detective. Bet the police love you for this!"
"That's not what people normally say." Sherlock mused, more to himself than to the others in the cab.
"Well what do normal people say?" Danielle asked.
Sherlock grinned. "'Piss off'!"
Danielle let out a bunch of giggles at that.
The two men just grinned.
Danielle stopped herself before she laughed any louder. She doubted the two men would mind at this point, but she knew the cabbie must mind. 'No one pays attention to the cabbie.' She thought to herself.
She used to work retail before being a landlady, she remembered hating that no one had ever seen her as person rather than a talking nametag. She had a respect for retail workers after that.
==NKMHLY==
AN: This took too long. It's hard to pick apart Sherlock's brain. That's what the title is, What Would Sherlock Do. I took Axis of Awesome song 'What Would Jesus Do' and rewrote it for Sherlock. Yep. That's what I did instead of write this, I wrote a parody song of a parody song.
I got to see Wonder Woman. Dear God, my heaven will just be that movie on repeat for all of time.
The vacations were just what I needed, though. Just this month, I've published over 37k words, posted a Johnlock one-shot (Mischief Sleeps In My Bed), AND I've applied to a new college that's much nicer than the old one.
Thanks to louise53, Demoness Kneesocks, Yele98, Savage Kill, Wolf and Leopard, RoonieTunes, Miramy, for favoriting
Thanks to louise53, bookwormultimate, artemis7448, Silver White Rain, Yele98, JanSmoe12, frostyhorse, shariskerssen, XXluvyaforevaXX, Miramy, BuckityBarnes, for following