Spoiler alert: Study in Pink
Beta-ed: star-chan89
The second chapter in which Sherlock's been rescued by his new companion.
They ran, and John, as expected forgot his cane. Unexpected, however, was the laugh, and they did laugh effortlessly together. It seemed that the small doctor enjoys the same sort of rush of adrenaline and silly chases. He appreciates the irony of life. He will do, Sherlock decides, he will be a good audience. As he said about their murderer, it was a flaw of geniuses that they did need an audience. It had been ages since he had a good audience. It was fun.
"Shut up." was the thing Sherlock told John, disbelief on his face when he realized that Sherlock was an addict before. Obviously, Doctor Watson didn't think much of drug abuse. Luckily, that was over, but he always had some stash just in case. It made things easier because for him the worst thing was lack of choice. His time in the rehab clinic was just awful. He had endured it to prove Mycroft wrong. His experiments with drugs were just an attempt to improve his mental abilities, but in the end, it had proven to be a failure; a thing people could turn against him. Damn Lestrade, he knew him all too well, he knew there had to be that stash somewhere. His unwillingness to play was getting worse.
After the serial killer was shot dead, he waited for the police and for them to determine and examine the scene, everything went back to normal slow pace and he became boring once again. There was nothing like the rush of winning. The dead killer knew that all too well. Even Sherlock wasn't sure would he take the pill just to prove he was right. He was right most of the time but there was always something, something he got wrong, there was no perfect score.
His mind was back to its normal pace when he started to think about the shooter. He stood and began to describe him to Lestrade.
"Man, probably with military history" He looked at John who stood there stable and unmoved, an impassive expression on his face like he's looking at something boring and ordinary "and nerves of steel."
John looked away with an innocent movement of his eyebrows, a bit too expressive and Sherlock stopped realizing that he was describing John; a soldier with fighting experience, moral standards, and nerves of steel that was shown all day long while dealing with Sherlock's whims.
"Ignore me," he said to Lestrade and started to say all the things he would never say about himself.
He said that he is in shock and that he can't think straight and was not really paying attention to what he was saying. He just wanted to shake Lestrade off and reach Doctor Watson, to examine him up close.
John looked at him steadily and stable without any sign of stress, anything that would give him away. Even after he realized Sherlock knows there wasn't any sign of backing down, apologizing or regret.
"You have just killed a man," Sherlock said trying to get John's reaction, but even then he didn't hide from his action.
"Well he wasn't a very nice man," he said looking around and Sherlock was impressed.
His mild description of a serial killer that made people kill themselves just for fun, showed that John was a man of his action, ready to stand behind his decisions and not feeling obligated to pretend and deny the necessity of his act of defence.
That's why he smiled and stopped examining John features in search for stress, trouble or all that excessive emotions that makes guilt build up until people expose themselves. There wasn't any of that on John, he had acted as a soldier in a war, and his actions were justified.
The moment turned into small laughter as they joked about it. It was refreshing.
John then turned on Sherlock telling that he would take that pill and didn't take his answer that he was expecting him. He dismissed it easily and called him an idiot. Sherlock smiled satisfied. It was the way he called him an idiot; he's done it with a smile, fondly, without any judgment.
"Dinner?" asked Sherlock simply.
"Starving," John answered with a smile.
Then, Sherlock started to talk about how to recognize a good Chinese restaurant. John walked behind him listening.
The conversation did flow, and John kept contradicting him. After all, he's seen today, and being observant enough to appreciate what he's been seeing, he still kept listening to Sherlock and didn't believe everything that he's saying. Others would usually, after finally admitting his abilities, turn him off tuning in just for the solution. John actually seemed interested in their conversation about door knobs.
After just a few days it seemed to Sherlock that John was always there. Life before him seemed distant. That was very good because life before on Baker Street was full of Mycroft and mother and their meddling. When he agreed to go through rehab they agreed to back off and leave him alone. Contacting John wasn't leaving alone, but it was a very good start and it showed John's morals. Not that Sherlock cared much about morals but it did mean that he could trust his new flatmate; he didn't do that very often.
I loved the way Sherlock asked "Dinner?"