Two days late... Not bad. I should probably say that I actually started writing a new story (it's called Your Mind is Your Worse Enemy) and it's way better than this one, in my opinion... I have no idea how I manage to write two stories and do my homework at the same time, but so far it's working. You better not expect regularly updates any longer. The exams are coming to get me... More information on my new story at the end.
Disclaimer: Fact: Sherlock's not mine. Fact: Sherlock belongs to British people. Fact: I'm not British. Fact: Tea came to England because of a Portuguese queen and Portugal gets no acknowledgement about that. Fact: The tea in Portugal sucks (except the wild berries one. Delicious.).
Music: Seven Nation Army - The Glitch Mob Remix (The White Stripes)
Don't forget to review, comment, follow and blah blah blah. You know the procedure and you know how much it makes me happy! Please forgive any grammar mistakes and anything else wrong you find out.
07:00 AM (Kitchen)
"Good morning dear. Have you been up all night?" Mrs. Hudson placed the tray with two teacups and three plates filled with toasts and all sort of biscuits, while Sherlock observed on the microscope one of his experiments. "I seriously hope you already got rid of the brain." The old lady poured some tea in one of the teacups and handed it to Sherlock.
"Brain? What are you talking about?" The young man received the hot beverage, sipping a bit. He observed the warm biscuits in front of him, licking his lips. They looked so marvellous. But then he remembered what John said two nights ago…
"Ok then. No more biscuits to you. You just can eat them when I'm close to you and only after I checked them out."
"John, you're making no sense. You're not a chemist, how could you possibly 'examine' them?"
"I don't."
"But you just said that if you don't examine, I can't eat."
"Exactly." And with that, John left Sherlock's bedroom, leaving behind a very baffled detective suffering from withdrawals who just got the notice that he was forbidden to eat biscuits.
"You know. The one in the fridge." Mrs. Hudson was now pouring tea on John's. Seeing Sherlock absent-minded, she shook slightly his shoulders, snapping him out of the memory. The detective nodded apologetically.
"Sorry, Mrs. Hudson. You saying…"
"I was asking if the brain is already in the garbage." The small woman lifted the plate with toasts to Sherlock, receiving a positive answer.
"I never had any brain in the fridge." Mrs. Hudson grabbed cinnamon powder and sugar and spread them over the toast. "At least outside of the head." The detective muttered, looking away from the stern eyes of the landlady. He stood up from the chair, grabbing the petri dish he was observing before and took it to the kitchen counter. Sherlock started to open multiple drawers, seeking for labels. "Where are the labels?"
"Second row, first drawer." The detective opened the drawer and rummaged it. He took the labels and a pen, writing 'Dangerous: keep away from fire' with a vivid red. "So what was that thing in the Tupperware?" Sherlock was almost telling the old lady that she was becoming schizophrenic when his mind made a click.
"Oh! I see! It wasn't a brain, Mrs. Hudson. It was pasta." The dark-haired man threw the pen away and placed the experience carefully inside the freezer.
"Pasta?! It was pink and was all sticky and stank and… It was awful!" The woman put a hand covering her mouth, afraid she would throw up any moment now.
"It was pink because I add a pigment. It was sticky because I forgot to drain the water and put a lot of butter. It stank because I accidentally mixed an experiment with it. It was awful because every meal I try to do has the same description. I think that's all."
"Pasta… Oh dear Lord. It was pasta…"
"Yup. Now, can you pass me the toast? It's getting cold."
"Sure, sure."
Sherlock sat down again and ate soundlessly and quietly. The only disturbance in the silence was the eventual sip of tea. Mrs. Hudson stayed there too, eating some biscuits. Although he would never admit, Sherlock enjoyed having breakfast with the old lady. She was like a mother and if he hadn't the amazing mum he has, he surely would consider Mrs. Hudson his own mother. Sherlock loved her too much and to do something people consider normal with a normal person (measurably), brought him stability.
"Tell me, sweetie, are you and John still angry?"
"How could you possibly know that?" The young man huffed and put the cuppa down.
"A woman simply knows. Don't try to understand, though. No man has ever got an answer for that." She smiled tenderly and packed the rest of the food for the still sleeping John. Sherlock huffed again, finishing his tea and placing the teacup in the sink. He began to open the drawers one more time and before he could find what he was looking for, Mrs. Hudson passed him a white memo and her favourite pen, with a look that said 'if you also throw this pen away, I'm going to get really mad at you', something that made him comply without any clamour. He quickly wrote key-words that would remind him of a new question for his mother. "I was asking you this because my nephew, Nathan, is going to stay with me for a couple of days – he's just about arriving – but I wanted to make him a surprise by making his favourite cake. As I still need to get the shops of this month done and he hates going shopping, the alternative was he staying on my flat alone."
"Mrs. Hudson, be direct." The young man cut her and stared at her, showing the pen perfectly still on his hand.
"Nathan also despises being alone, so I was wondering if y-"
"No."
"Please, Sherlock. He's a smart man and I think you'll like him if you give him a chance."
"No."
"Why not? It's just for a few of hours. The only thing you have to do is give him some tasks. He'll do anything." She was begging now. That the detective's weakness: seeing a person he cares pleading over and over. How could he say no?
"First of all, I'm going to a morgue. He's not accustomed to my methods and I don't know how he would react upon watching my procedures regarding what you consider appalling dead bodies. Second of all, that's Molly's function, and I bet she would be slightly resentful if I gave her position to a completely stranger." Sherlock swallowed the rest of the tea and ate the last bit of the toast and got up, cleaning the crumbs out of the table and trying to make Mrs. Hudson understand that he considered the conversation as finished. Yet, she didn't give up.
"Oh, don't worry about Molly, dear. She's sick, the poor girl. Yesterday I sent her a homemade soup with the freshe-"
"Yes, yes, very interesting."
"So?... Can Nathan go with you?" The old woman joined her hands and begged with her eyes, making Sherlock more prone to fulfil the will of the landlady. He was just about to please Mrs. Hudson when John came from the hall, spiked hair on the weirdest places. The doctor entered the kitchen and gave a morning kiss to the sweet woman. She clasped her hands around his. "Hello dear. Had a good night of sleep?" She received a snap coming from John's neck as a response.
"Obviously not. I can say by the amount of times John cracked his neck so far that he fell asleep while sitting with his head resting on the headboard, probably reading that ridiculous Invisible Man book. I can further deduce that he woke up in the middle of the night, went to the kitchen and ate some American cookies with a cup of tea. Wrong decision, John. You already had five pounds and a half to loose, now you have six. Yes, Mrs. Hudson, some people gain a lot during night." Sherlock had a smug smile on his face and the old woman had her head on her hands. Besides what everyone thinks about John, he could have a really bad temper when he was on a not-so-good mood. Most of the times, it was his work that originated these moods, the difficult patients, the idiot boss and the worst of all, the awful coffee. Only when he got home, late at night, he would get a cheerful smile for the first time on that day, all due to the detective. He would complain about the most ridiculous things, scream how everyone was always against him and grumble how fat Mycroft was each day. The problem was that, this time, Sherlock was the source of the problem and he wouldn't notice that.
John smiled evilly at the tall man. "Congratulations, you got everything right but one." He went around the kitchen table until he stood behind Sherlock.
"Really? What did I get wrong?" The detective turned to face the short man with the weird smile still on his face.
"I didn't fell asleep while reading the Invisible Man."
"You didn't?"
"No, I didn't. I fell asleep after texting you."
"So that's why you didn't text me back. See Mrs. Hudson, John isn't angry with me. He simply was too tired."
"Oh no, I am truly angry with you." With that, John grabbed a hand of biscuits and a no longer warm toast and left for his bedroom. A few minutes later, the thoughtful man and Mrs. Hudson heard John shouting. "Could anyone turn the water heater on?" The landlady pushed herself from the chair, heading to the stairs.
"Sorry, dear! Give me a second!" She peered Sherlock from the hall. "And you, young man, don't forget about my nephew. He'll arrive soon and I know you just have to be in the morgue at nine, so you better not leave before that." She began to climb down the stairs slowly, the hip getting worse and worse every day.
11:23 AM (Living Room)
Sherlock was fuming from the ears. He was mad at Mrs. Hudson for 'making' him interact with someone he clearly didn't want to; he was mad at John for going to work instead of having fun with a dead body in the morgue; and he was completely pissed off with the twerp named Nate (or something closed to that) for not arriving in time. It was past eleven and the kid still hadn't arrived, so Sherlock gave up on waiting. During the last two hours, the detective played several Beethoven compositions; obtained the unexpected results from the experiments with milk (John wouldn't be happy); shot the wall thrice; organized his old cases alphabetically, then by date and finally by level of entertainment. The detective threw some uninteresting papers for the doctor's chair and wagged the imaginary dust from his tailored suit. With his favourite coat on his left hand and searching for the house keys with the other, he went downstairs. When he opened the main door, he saw a soaked man on his twenties, a small bag on the step next to him and a piece of paper swirling on his fingers.
"Hmmm… Is this 221B…" He stopped and looked at the paper again "… Buck Street?"
"Baker Street." Sherlock corrected.
"Yeah, that. Sorry." The man passed his hand on his head embarrassed.
"I presume you are Mrs. Hudson's nephew?"
"Yes. Hello, I'm Nathan." The men shook hands. "Mr. Holmes, correct? My aunt told me I was gonna spend some time with a private detective."
"Consulting detective."
"There's no such thing as consulting detective, Mr. Holmes." Nathan tilted his head to the left and gave a smug smile to Sherlock. To Sherlock. The detective analysed the younger man from top to bottom, deductions jumping in front of his eyes just like it would happen to everyone else, excluding the rare exceptions as Irene Adler. He noticed every single detail. His problems with women in general; the fact that he was pissed off with his mischievous turtle; the big discussion he had with his father and specially, the fact that he really wanted to use the loo.
Too bad, no one says that consulting detective isn't a real job.
Sherlock closed the door on his face, heading up to the flat again. The TV team was standing with all their equipment on the top of stairs, stunned. A chap on the door came from behind Sherlock, with a pleading request to come in. "Well, I'm clearly not going to the morgue anymore, so… Unless you want to capture with your cameras more horrid" The dark haired man made quotes with his hands "experiments, I suggest you to leave right now and film Dr Watson while he's still working." Not a single person made a move. Sherlock checked his flamboyant watch and passed through the annoying people. "His lunch break starts in about thirteen minutes. If I were you, I would rush." The detective gave a fake lustrous smile and locked the wooden door.
01:05 PM (Surgery)
John opened the door to see the whole TV crew scattered on his office. He barely had the chance to say 'What the hell…' when Charlie interrupted him. "It was this or body parts. Keep doing whatever you do as if we weren't here."
"Are you insane?! This is a hospital! I have patients waiting outside!" John bursted. His new assistant, a short blonde woman, came in and asked if everything was alright.
"Yeah, sorry Mary. No worries."
"I could bring some tea, if you want."
"No need, thank you. Call in Mr Peterson, please."
Mary gave him a wide smile and nodded, disappearing behind the now closed door. John faced the all set of people in the room and whispered slowly "If any of you makes a sound or disturbs my patients, I swear…" And with that, he left an open threat wandering on the air.
01:12 PM - First Patient
John gets interrupted several times by Charlie's questions and Mr Peterson's too.
"Are you sure this is legal, Dr Watson?" The old man points at the cameras filming him. Lucky for John, the man is almost ninety and believes everything he says.
"Oh yeah" He grabs a tongue depressor and asks for Mr Peterson to open his mouth. The man promptly does as he's said, looking up at the ceiling. However, the questions are still not over.
"Wha ahe dei ea?" John finished examining the old man's throat and put the depressor in the dustbin. He then put the stethoscope and listened to the heart beats.
"No particular reason."
01:38 PM – Second Patient
"I won't take my clothes off with this people in here."
"I'll pull the curtain, you just have to go there please, miss."
"No way!"
"Please, Miss Montague, the cameras aren't capturing a thing."
"THE CAMERAS ARE ON?!"
02:02 PM – Third and Fourth Patients
"Who are they?"
"Friends."
"Are they nice?"
"Yes."
"Are they gonna stay here?"
"Yes."
"Do they speak?"
"Yes."
"Mike doesn't."
"I know."
"It's not because he can't, he simply doesn't want to."
"I can see that."
"Say hello Mike."
"…"
"Do you see my dilemma, Dr Watson?"
"You are a funny kid, Jackie."
"Do you think I don't know that?"
04:27 PM – Twelfth Patient
"I'll sue the whole hospital! How dare you film me?! This is supposed to be private! Oh, you're so going to be fired!"
05:38 PM (Living Room)
"Welcome home, John. How was your day? Are you still mad at me?" Sherlock was reading some case file when he heard the door open. He changed the page and lifted his foot till it reached the coffee table. "Tea just made. Have a seat."
John fell on his armchair and stretched his arm to get the cuppa. Sherlock still didn't eye him. Hours passed like this. The young man got up and made his way to the bedroom. "Stop pitying yourself. Now that you don't have a full time job anymore, you have more time for fun. We still didn't solve the case from yesterday. Go get some rest, we're going to Scotland Yard tomorrow morning."
So, in my new story John is an army doctor who lost his best friend to an overdose eleven years ago. He wasn't able to deal with the pain and his mind started to create projections of his dead friend, and together they solve the most extraordinary cases. It's an AU that begins in a ASiP and and will continue from then on... Tell me what you think of it!