A Doctor in a Box
John's current accommodations were... clean. That was the only positive adjective Sherlock could muster, and he wasn't entirely certain it was all that positive. They were still within Greater London, though it was a near thing. Further afield than Sherlock had deduced; John must have been spending most of his time in more familiar areas much closer to the city center. It was in an inconvenient location, and not even terribly close to a tube station. As with most older buildings, this one had been carved up in whatever way the architects believed was the most cost-effective manner when it lost its original purpose. Given the residual signs, John's flat was likely built as a professional space of some sort, part of a set of workspaces for craftsmen supplying a long-closed storefront on the ground floor. A twin bed was to the right against one wall as they walked in, a kitchenette to the left, a desk and dining table that shared two matching chairs, and the world's smallest couch filled the little room with two doors for a closet and a bathroom through the kitchen area. Sherlock had stayed in more spacious hostels, the only difference being the lack of a top bunk for the bed. Upon second glance, it resembled the room in the posh facility where Mycroft tried to have him fixed entirely too much.
"I know I've said this in the cab, but is this really the most efficient way to do this? Shouldn't we just call the police and get it done that way?" John asked. The repetition was tedious, but the comment was accompanied by swift action. Sherlock had barely crossed the threshold and John's now properly dead phone was plugged into the waiting charger by the desk.
John takes meticulous care of his other possessions and leaves the charger plugged into a live socket despite the fire hazard it poses. He was not too busy to unplug it and his grasp of electronics is not good enough to understand the details of the minimal risk, so it must actually be poor to the point he is unaware of the risk, Sherlock thought to himself. Alternate possibilities: a latent tendency toward sloth or a hint of recklessness. Unwashed teacup and plates in the sink from a modest lunch despite our meeting at seven being his only engagement for the day, possible corroboration of minor lazy habits. Unforgivably tiny bed even for a man of John's stature is made to military standard, as expected. None of this furniture is his, all rented from the landlord. No meat on the grocery list: is money that tight or is the good doctor a vegetarian? Why is a surgeon living in such cheap accommodation and still in need of a flatmate? Bad blood between him and his sister, but she has money even with the drinking, is doing well enough to own a luxury device and then give it away instead of selling it when it is no longer wanted. Inscription reduced resale value, but a phone case or skin would hide it completely and the iPhone is in high demand. Could have easily fetched...
"Sherlock!" John shouted, pulling him out of his deductions.
"I was thinking," Sherlock said, reflexively. He'd spent most of the cab ride thinking, though that had been productive as it was focused on the case and not a deluge of rubbish he didn't need cluttering up his mind. He needed a fag.
"Well, don't hover in the doorway," John said, gesturing irritably with his cane. Hateful thing, something really needed to be done about the cane and if John's phone was charged they could get on with it. Sherlock properly stepped into the room and closed the door, closing his eyes and leaning on the wall to block out all the extraneous information flooding his brain.
"We will only need to wait fifteen minutes or so to send the text to ensure that it remains charged long enough to get to a proper stakeout location. I told you, we can set the time frame if we have to, though the exact wording needs to be perfect," Sherlock reworded what he'd said in the cab, which was tedious. Why was John being tedious all of the sudden? He pulled off his gloves to search out some nicotine patches from his pockets. Only two, which was suddenly a problem. Even just opening his eyes to get his coat and jacket off filled his head with garbage deductions from the state of the carpet. He managed the sit on the square little loveseat, though he could feel John's eyes on him as he fumbled off the wrapper of the first patch. Perhaps this was where it would go wrong? It always went wrong somehow, but he'd hoped he could at least get one whole case finished before John realized how unlikable Sherlock was and started teasing him.
"What's that?" John said, suddenly much closer than Sherlock expected him to be.
"Nicotine patch, it's impossible to maintain a smoking habit in London these days. Bad news for brain work."
"Good news for breathing."
"Breathing's boring," Sherlock said dismissively, sticking the first patch onto his forearm and wishing the drug into his body faster. John's hand settled on Sherlock's shoulder. The thin material of his green dress shirt and vest did nothing to inhibit the warmth of John's fingers, giving Sherlock's mind something tactile to focus on. It immediately stopped him from overloading. Untrusting of that sudden relief, Sherlock started unwrapping the second patch to correct the issue chemically. Habit ensured he hadn't rolled the sleeve up too far and exposed anything incriminating.
"Two of them?" John asked, a doctor's concern with the edge of doubt. Did he think they were laced with something? Had Mycroft stuck his nose in already and warned John about the drugs? No, there would have been signs, and John might even have just told him directly if he'd had a clandestine meeting with the personification of the British Government.
"It is a two-patch problem," Sherlock replied, though he wasn't just talking about the case. He'd have used a third if he had it, and now he didn't have any emergency stash left in his coat. He took several slow breaths, holding the patches on his skin to speed the delivery, sighing in relief when he started to feel the change in his personal chemistry. John was thinking. Sherlock could see him without turning toward him using the reflection on the window and every line of the man's body screamed with the effort of processing what he'd just witnessed, but he said nothing. Vague approval dawned in the man's eyes and John gave a silent nod before stepping away.
He thinks it was nicotine withdrawal, Sherlock realized. He clearly thinks that I have only recently started using patches - accurate, though not based on deductively sound observations. Likely assumes I either forgot to use a patch or resisted the urge until I was feeling poorly enough to swoon. Did I swoon? No, it wasn't that obvious. Closed eyes, rigid posture, moving to the chair without looking: most obvious assumption is some sort of light sensitivity. Most likely mistaken for a headache, not necessarily sudden onset since I was also quiet and withdrawn in the cab. That bit of approval at the end: Good on you, Sherlock, for quitting a bad habit. No grand speech or hackneyed encouragement, just 'good news for breathing' and an approving look. Do I like that? It feels... something. Polite, unobtrusive. Good. Yes, I do. Much preferable to the other reactions: Mummy's grand voice mail after Mycroft informed her. Mycroft's blatant - accurate - accusation that I am only maintaining my use of nicotine as the anti-smoking laws tighten. Hypocrite, he's doing the same thing.
"I'm just getting a drink while we wait," John's voice pierced through Sherlock's thoughts again. "Not much in at the moment, but I've got filtered water, orange juice, milk." Sherlock looked over at the doctor. He stood in front of the counter with one glass in front of him and the cupboard open ready to take out a second. Dr. Watson must be big on hydration, a good habit to develop in the hotter climates he spent the majority of his career in. Probably best to appease him.
"Water is fine, just a small glass. We had tea not long ago," Sherlock answered. He wouldn't normally give the explanation, but if he was going to live with John, he would need to set a strong precedent or waste untold amounts of time fending off the doctor's reflexive care-taking.
"And nearly an hour of vigorous exercise." It was a good counter-argument; Sherlock wouldn't waste the brain power on it this time. John brought Sherlock the first glass of water, spilling a little and frowning angrily at his left hand. He was limping more than Sherlock had ever seen as he returned to sip from his own water. This horrible little flat was hard on them both.
"Just a few more minutes, then we can begin. We'll need to be ready to get into position," Sherlock said to refocus their attention on the case, keeping his eyes on the point of light on the tabletop created by the light bending as it passed through his water. He lessened pressure on his arm and took a breath as the initial rush of nicotine in his system started to stabilize. "I am almost certain this will work. There is the slight chance that the phone was also dumped, but then it would have been in the same skip as the suitcase. Perhaps he's taken a trophy. Escalating behavior, possible after getting away with it repeatedly. Greater possibility he didn't see it in his car even after he remembered the suitcase."
"You said there would be a plug there. We could just go," John suggested. Sherlock looked up from the cup in time to see the Doctor shrug. "I'm assuming any stakeout location with electric is also heated, and we won't risk missing something if we get caught in traffic that way."
"I need to think, John," Sherlock insisted. "I need to craft a stimulus I can be certain the killer will respond to predictably that would not cause an innocent man to act in similar fashion. I've been constructing a profile of the killer, but there is now a mistake and new behavior to consider. I'm nearly certain, but there are a few additional possibilities I need to visualize before I can move forward." John nodded in response. After a moment he turned back to the kitchen.
While John kept his hands busy, Sherlock relaxed into the inadequate loveseat with his hands pressed together and turned his focus inward to play out a few different scenarios. A sudden chase through London's streets, the urgency and danger of catching a killer reminding John enough of his days as a soldier to command all of his attention, might get rid of his limp. Those happened often enough in Sherlock's line of work, and setting up a stakeout by laying bait for this killer was likely to result in optimal conditions for that occurrence. The only method of contacting the killer was the victim's cell phone, which made John essential. Well, he could have bothered Mrs. Hudson, but that might have brought her into the line of fire and she was unlikely to allow him to use her mobile for this purpose knowingly. John was a willing participant in the evening's events. 'Oh, God yes' was clear and enthusiastic consent.
No, no, that is not where that train of thought ought to be going and it needs to stop immediately, Sherlock grunted in frustration as he once again had to combat ancillary thoughts. The solution to the distraction was obvious, but he had no time to sort through that particular backlog of observations to acknowledged and discard them. He had a case on and he needed to focus. This endless derailment of his mental process needed to stop. He tried again and failed to cleanly envision the stakeout. The mental picture of spotting the killer outside Angelo's needlessly included a smiling blue-eyed blond, a bottle of wine, and romantic music. Yes, alright, fine, he's a well-educated soldier and doctor. He thinks my deductions are brilliant and extraordinary instead of invasive and freakish. He is capable of showing concern without being stifling and offering support without needless criticism. He is nice to look at: while ill he collected a bit of extra padding from the inactivity of his convalescence but he has neither neglected his physical therapy nor picked up sedentary habits and therefore maintains much of his soldier's physique beneath the softer exterior. It's attractive both blatantly and metaphorically. So is his face, particularly the cute nose and expressive eyes. The collective scent in this room is pleasantly masculine and I won't mind it being in my flat, absent the stuffy contamination from the dismal surroundings. He is also highly sexual given how he chose to characterize the explanation of his closeted bisexuality and will clearly not be content in a relationship with someone on my end of the gray-sexual spectrum. I'm so thankful for my endocrine system proving that it still functions properly by insisting on endlessly bringing up the topic. Now shut up about it and focus on The Work or he'll get bored and go away.
"Right then," Sherlock said decisively, then started running through the logic aloud in order to properly refocus his mind on the things that mattered. "You have a point about getting into position before we trigger the killer. There were a few options I had for a stakeout location, but I've narrowed down the parameters considerably. We have no way to know how much she told the killer prior to her death. Best to go closer to the city center, as it won't be credible if we try to lure him out this far. It must seem to come from the victim, you understand, so it can't be far from where she would have been staying. Angelo is quite happy to let me use his place of business for such things on occasion, providing an ideal location."
"You have that set up in advance?" John said. He limped over to open one of the upper cabinets slightly out of Sherlock's view. All he could see from his seat was a sliver of him as he stretched up high for something. The gray jumper the doctor wore rode up to expose the pinstripe button down underneath, but Sherlock took firm hold of that observation and chucked it into the growing pile of things he would deal with later before it could grow into further speculation.
"I have developed a network of contacts and resources. Otherwise, I'd spend all my time waiting on idiots to follow up on leads for me and die of paperwork-induced tedium filling out all the requisition forms." A bark of laughter sounded as John pulled down a canvas weekender bag with tasteful leather accents. A man's bag, it was small and sturdy in neutral brown. It was more of a metro style than Sherlock would have expected, but not from a pricey brand. Clearly selected for practicality, there was a very nice zippered compartment on one side for organizing bits and bobs which Sherlock got to see put to use as John packed with military efficiency. Until that moment Sherlock was under the impression he was capable of rather speedy packing himself, but John had sorted his bag in half the time it would have taken Sherlock to pack his own leather case. In fact, it was done so swiftly that Sherlock wasn't finished being stunned at the implication that John would be staying at Baker street with him tonight. Sherlock got his jacket and coat back on and then they were off again, another forty-five-minute ride ahead of them.