John sat down at his computer. On the desk, he had placed his journal, a pen and a mug of tea. He opened his blog and clicked the 'new post' button in the corner. He had fallen behind with updating the blog. Mostly because Sherlock had become uninspired, bored, fed up of potential clients and their mundane, waste-of-time problems. But there were a few to recall, so he cracked his knuckles and began to write. He thought back to the case of the missing girl whose parents came to 221B Baker Street.
III
"She's seventeen. But she's a young seventeen y'know," the dad began in his thick cockney accent.
"What he means is she's got severe OCD. So she's been very sheltered because she's too scared to go outside a lot of the time," the mum finished, holding back tears.
Sherlock paced back and forth with his palms together in front of him while John sat in his armchair making notes.
"Have you contacted the police?" Sherlock asked.
"Yes."
"Well then let them handle it." He waved his hand at them and sat in his chair opposite John.
"But Mr Holmes, you don't understand… She'd volunteered for an experiment."
Sherlock's ears pricked. He looked at the couple with more interest now.
"What kind of experiment?" he asked.
"This one. Claiming to completely cure her OCD. It was only supposed to be for two weeks. She's been gone a month and a half." The mother handed him a leaflet.
A flame ignited behind Sherlock's eyes. He took the leaflet and examined it closely.
...
They walked through the halls of the research facility dressed in white lab coats, avoiding workers and breaking through key-coded doors. Nothing. No trace of the girl or the experiment she had agreed to take part in.
"Do you think there's another building? Or like a basement or something?" John whispered.
"Maybe. Let's just keep looking," Sherlock whispered back.
They walked along another corridor in silence. Sherlock peered around a corner, revealing a love bite on the side of his neck. John choked on a laugh as he tried to supress it.
"Can you die quietly please?" Sherlock whispered.
"Just admiring your hickey."
Sherlock's eyes widened; he placed a hand on his neck and gave John a scowl.
"It's Margaux, she got a bit carried away the last time I… saw her." Sherlock returned to peering around the corner.
"I know. We live together. I heard it all."
"Well it won't be happening again so you can just shut up about it."
"That's what you said the last time, and the time before that." John was enjoying himself.
"Well I mean it this time. Now can you make yourself useful?" Sherlock disappeared around the corner, walking slow and confidently in his lab coat as if he was meant to be there. John followed a few moments later.
They found the girl on an abandoned floor of the facility, along with three other test subjects. They were sleeping in hospital beds, connected by tubes and wires to machines.
"You don't have to pretend you don't like her," John whispered as they carefully unclipped the people from the machines.
"Of course I like her. I don't dislike her, do I," Sherlock snapped.
"I mean you like her," John continued. "You're… dating her."
"Ah, that's where you're wrong," Sherlock began as one of the researchers entered the room and charged for him. "I'm not dating her, and I don't do silly crushes." He dodged the researcher and swung his fist around, punching him and knocking him out cold.
"So what are you doing sleeping with her then? I didn't take you for a no-strings-attached kind of guy. Then again, I didn't take you for a strings-attached guy either." John continued to unhook the wires from the subjects as Sherlock fought off each person who came charging into the room.
Sherlock groaned "For god's sake, John. I've engaged in sexual intercourse with Margaux three and a half times…"
"And a half?"
"In the past two months. It's never planned and it's never accompanied by a date or romantic gesture. It's nothing."
"Does she agree?"
Sherlock turned to face John, trying to catch his breath. "Yes," he said.
III
John pondered over a title for the post. 'The Cloaked Trials' seemed fitting. He typed it in and clicked publish.
"Just sent another one live," he said.
"Which one?" Sherlock answered from the kitchen. He was sitting at the table looking through a microscope.
"The one with the girl on the OCD experiment."
"Ah yes. That was an interesting one."
John looked through his journal, stopping on a page crisp with notes.
"I still need to write about the Bart Mentford case. Are you ready for me to do that yet?"
Sherlock picked up another slide and placed it under the microscope. "That case is still ongoing," he said finally.
"We're never going to know who sent those threatening texts; might as well put the case to rest. The police have."
"The police are idiots."
John flicked through to another case. He already knew the title he wanted to go with for this one, so he typed it in; 'The Framed Widower'.
III
They walked into the prison, signed their names and walked to the assigned table. Sherlock crossed one leg over the other and clasped his hands together in his lap, his posture remaining perfect.
"I loved her," said Mike.
"Then why is everybody saying you killed her?" Sherlock replied coldly.
They sat across from Mike in his dark grey prison jumpsuit. His head had been shaved and his sunken eyes were framed with deep purple shadows. It had taken Sherlock one glance to know he was innocent, but he didn't want Mike to know that.
"Look, she was involved in something bad. Really bad. But I don't know what. I was just getting close to figuring it out when she was killed. I think that's why she was killed. And they made it look like I'd done it." Tears welled up in the corners of Mike's eyes. "My wife meant everything to me. I didn't hurt her, I swear."
"Do you know where the keys are to your house?" Sherlock asked.
Mike nodded.
...
"Give me your wallet," said Sherlock quietly.
"Why?" asked John.
"Just do it."
John handed over his wallet and watched as Sherlock opened it and slid out his bank card.
"Thanks." Sherlock slipped the card into the crack of the door and began fiddling with the handle.
"You know, if you can do this to the evidence locker then you could have just done it to his front-bloody-door," John whispered.
Sherlock stopped for a moment to ponder what John had said. He was right. Never mind. Sherlock shrugged and continued to mess with the lock. The door popped open and the pair stepped inside, looking through boxes of evidence for Mike's keys.
The house had not yet been cleaned since the murder of Mike's wife. They examined the blood spatter on the walls and the dried footprints in the carpet. Sherlock crouched near the stairs where the prints stopped, looking through his small magnifying glass.
John wandered into the living room, looking through drawers and cabinets, taking a moment to stop and admire the beautiful black-and-white wedding photographs on the bookshelf.
"It was a woman," Sherlock called from the stairs. "A woman committed this crime and tried to make it look as though Mike did it."
John joined him in the hall.
"Young. Mid-twenties, and blonde; fake blonde. With a trained dance background."
III
John continued to type up the case, adding his writerly flare to the story. He remembered how Sherlock uncovered the truth of Mike's wife; of what she had been involved in. He wrote about the closure Sherlock brought to a young girl's family and the justice in finding her killers. He wrote about the happiness of watching Mike get to walk free. Yet now he sat, staring at the screen as he pondered on how to end the story.
"Sherlock, how exactly did that whole thing end with Mike?" John called over.
"Who's Mike?" Sherlock replied, his face buried in a book.
"Mike Weller? The guy who almost went down for his wife's murder?"
"Oh, Mike. Eh," Sherlock shrugged. "He thanked me, shook my hand. I gave him the number of an excellent crime scene cleaner… the usual."
John let out a small groan. "Just seems a bit of an anti-climax for the blog post really."
"That's life, my friend."
John sighed, finished the post and clicked 'publish'. He closed his laptop and stood up.
"I'm going to nip to the shop, do you want anything?" He asked as he pulled on his coat.
"No."
"Okay…"
Sherlock closed his book and looked across the empty flat. He thought about John's question; about his final meeting with Mike Weller. He wondered if he should tell John the truth. But then, he still didn't quite understand that night himself yet.
III
"Mr Weller, I hope you don't mind me dropping in like this." Sherlock stepped through the door.
"No, not at all Mr Holmes. Any time, really."
Mike led him into the kitchen and offered him a drink. He shook his head and watched as the kettle began to boil on the stove.
"I've actually come over here with something for you," Sherlock began. "Something I found that I've kept hidden until now to avoid the police confiscating it."
"Whoa, well is that…"
"Legal? No, of course it isn't. Do you want it or not?"
"Sure."
Sherlock pulled a VHS tape from the breast pocket of his coat and placed it on the kitchen counter. He watched as Mike gulped, the kettle whistling behind him.
"It's from your wife."
Mike nodded and picked up the tape.
"Well… bye." Sherlock stood up and headed for the door.
"Wait! Mr Holmes, have you watched it?"
Sherlock turned. "No, I have not."
"Well, would you maybe… stay with me while I watch it?" Mike was holding the tape as if it were his most precious possession.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Fine."
He sat on the couch in the living room and watched as Mike fumbled with the VHS player. He slotted the video in and backed up quickly to sit in a chair. On the screen appeared Mike's wife. She was pretty; her eyes glossy and her nose red.
"Hi Mike," she began. "If you're watching this video then I'm gone. Cliché right?" she laughed. "I'm going to tell you the secret. The one you've been trying to figure out for the past few months." She took a deep breath, a breath that Mike seemed to mirror simultaneously.
Sherlock glanced between the television and Mike, the love between them still evident through a screen.
"back when I was training as a dance teacher, after one of my evening classes, I was witness to three students purposefully pushing another girl down the stairs. They killed her. I watched the whole thing happen from behind a door but they caught me, and they threatened me. They said if I went to the authorities, they would claim that it was me, that I'd coerced them into helping me and that I had been abusing them. It was their word over mine. I was young, I was scared and so I kept quiet. The girl's death was ruled as an accident and I never spoke of it again.
Mike, I'm making this video because I don't think I'm going to be around much longer. I don't know who it was but somebody has called in an anonymous tip to the police and these girls think it was me. I know you've noticed something's been wrong with me lately and your nosey arse has been trying to figure all of this out. But you're getting too close to the truth, and these girls don't like it. Mike if anything happened to you because of a mistake I made when I was twenty-two, I don't think I'd ever forgive myself. I must pay for what I did, or rather, what I didn't do, and if it means protecting you well… it's all worth it in the end.
I'm leaving you this tape because I don't know what's going to come out about me after I'm gone; I don't know how much your opinion of me may change and I want you to remember me like this. Mike, I didn't ever think I was capable of loving someone the way I love you. Before I met you, I was cold, damaged, distant. But you… you have made me appreciate life. You have made me value life so much that I would give mine up for you.
I love you. Goodbye."
The tape ejected from the player and the screen glowed blue. Mike sat in silence, glaring at the television. Sherlock didn't dare speak. His wife's words would echo inside the walls of his mind palace forever: 'You have made me value life so much that I would give mine up for you.' He stood up and walked out of the room, letting himself out of the house and walking down the street until a cab pulled around the corner. He stopped it.
He had somehow found himself outside a flat that wasn't his own. He stood outside, the words still running on a loop in his head. A man stepped out of the building, leaving the heavy door open for Sherlock to walk inside. He climbed the stairs and came to a yellow door. Number Six. He knocked.
Margaux opened the door and peered her head around it. There stood Sherlock. He was paler than usual, the blue of his eyes clashing with the irritated red in his waterline.
"Sherlock? Has something happened?" She asked.
He stepped towards her, placed his hands gently on her face and kissed her. She welcomed the kiss, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. They staggered together into her flat, enough for Sherlock to close the door with his foot.
"Are you okay?" She whispered.
He avoided her question with another kiss. Softer than he had ever kissed her before. She took his hand and led him into the bedroom.
III
The internet didn't need to know about the tape. Not to mention the fury Lestrade would unleash on Sherlock if he found out he had withheld evidence. He went into his bedroom and changed into his pyjamas and dressing gown.
III
A loud bang startled John as he walked through the front door. Another bang. He ran up the stairs to the flat, pushing his fingers into his ears. As he approached the doorway, he saw the cause of the bangs. It was Sherlock; slumped in his armchair firing a gun at the wall.
"What the hell are you doing!?" John shouted.
"Bored," said Sherlock.
"What?" John couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.
"Bored!" Sherlock shouted.