John folded the cheque carefully and tucked it into his wallet, behind his Military ID and impotent key card. "So," he said. "An incentive…"

Sebastian Wilkes raised his eyebrows. "I'm sorry?"

"Just something Sherlock said the other day." John glanced through the open door to his left. Sherlock was nowhere in sight, but he could hear him… was Sherlock Holmes laughing? Now that didn't exactly happen every day. "He told you that he didn't need an incentive," he went on. "What'd he mean by that?"

Sebastian reflected on this for a couple of seconds, then chuckled. "Oh," he said. "You know, I wondered if he was still gnawing on that old bone. I suppose he's still not over that whole thing with his brother."

"And what's that?" John wasn't in the least surprised at the reference to Mycroft. It had already become clear to John that Sherlock's brother was the most well-connected man in Britain; people who didn't know him knew of him.

"Second year of university," Sebastian said, narrowing his eyes in a way he clearly thought made him look shrewd. "Everybody in the faculty hated him by then… he was practically a recluse. So his brother decided to buy him a friend."

"You."

Sebastian nodded in self-satisfaction. "I bunked with him for six months, until he had a heroin overdose, or something, and spent six months in a loony bin somewhere. By the time he came back he was a year behind the rest of us and didn't have a thing to say to me, so he must have found out Mycroft was paying me." He shrugged. "I did what I was asked to do, so I earned the money fair and square. Even took him on a few double-dates – not that he was anything other than embarrassing. I was lucky to get any at all with him hanging around with that tombstone face of his."

John reflected that yes, Sebastian Wilkes was lucky to have "got any at all" at university, but it was more likely his own smug face and slimy personality that had scuppered his chances at dating, not a "friendship" with Sherlock Holmes.

"Though he was useful in some ways. He could always pick out the girls who were dirty, if you know what I mean." Sebastian clasped his palms behind his head and swung slightly on his padded leather chair.

"Yeah, I bet he could." Sherlock had already informed John just the night before of how many sexual partners Sarah had had, and how recently. "Anyway, I should probably go find him…"

He wandered out of the office, leaving awkward silence behind him; he'd originally meant to thank Sebastian for the cheque and tell him that it was a pleasure doing business with him.

~o0o~

Sherlock kept up a constant stream of one-sided conversation all the way out of the building, mainly about Ming dynasty pottery and how to tell a fake piece of white porcelain from the genuine article, just by sight. They finally stopped at the kerb, where Sherlock held his hand out to hail a cab; John abruptly pulled the cheque back out of his wallet and held it out to him between two fingers.

Sherlock frowned at him, confused.

"Mycroft doesn't have to pay me to keep me around, Sherlock," he said. "And neither do you."

Just for a second, John saw a flash of understanding cross Sherlock's face; then he cleared his throat and returned his attention to the busy road in front of them. A cab had just slowed down and slid into the stopping lane; John gave the driver a quick glance, though he'd no idea how a person could tell their cabbie was a serial killer just by glancing at them.

"Given what happened when a cheque in my name was discovered in your wallet," Sherlock remarked as they got in, "that's demonstrably untrue."

John felt his face twitch. Two English smugglers, one Tong henchman and a young girl were dead. He himself still had a whacking great headache from the concussion he'd sustained the night before last, Sherlock's neck was criss-crossed with two sets of strangulation marks, and the whole case had given poor Dr. Sarah Sawyer enough trauma to last her a lifetime.

So why the hell couldn't he stop smiling?