Hello again. This is almost the EPIC FINALE to my NOT-SO-EPIC-BUT-A-BIT-CRAP story. I know I'm not good with the whole 'uploading new chapters regularly' thing but I am a fail when it comes to doing things and finishing them on time... which is why I fail at homework too!
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John knew what Sherlock had done. Even though it could have looked like an accident, and that the gash could have been from the glass flask, he probably made it look that way so that they didn't suspect he was up to something dodgy again. There was no doubt about it, but mentioning it would be admitting his own defeat in lack of trust for his flatmate and all around best friend, which is not something anyone wants to do, but, secretly, John knew it could not be helped. The worst bit would be seeing the smug 'I-told-you-so' look on Greg's face.
He was on his hands and knees, looking under the chairs and table in the living room area for anything suspicious. Lestrade and the unfamiliar woman he'd called in were scouring the upstairs rooms in case John himself was somehow smuggling drugs in the flat for Sherlock, which he knew full well he wasn't, but the reply to his protest was 'It's protocol, I'm afraid.' John smirked. Lestrade shouldn't even be involved with Sherlock's life, let alone letting him assist him in his profession... 'Protocol...' he scoffed to himself as he pulled out what seemed to be a nasty looking rubber glove from underneath Sherlock's chair and sniffed it warily. The grimace on his face, he decided, was not even half accurate in summing up how foul it smelled.
One thing he DIDN'T miss about Sherlock was his terrible habits and those discarded experiments he lay strewn about the house like the magic house-cleaner fairy was going to come and pick them up after him, tidying as he went... that was usually Mrs. Hudson's favourite hobby apart from watching daytime TV, baking and spying on them and their neighbours whilst pretending to be doing the crossword in the newspaper.
Picking up the machete knife thing he'd seen earlier, he slid it back into Sherlock's desk draw by his side. It had no blood on it, whic relieved his worry. Maybe it WAS just there from earlier and Sherlock hadn't done anything to himself deliberately like he'd said. Maybe it was just an accident with the glass and he didn't want to own up to being clumsy and wrong.
He sighed, hoisted himself up off the floor and stretched his back. He then walked achingly slowly towards the kitchen area as he wished to linger away from it as long as possible: as usual, it was a tip, and it would take him a good hour to survey and find anything interesting or vaguely important. It wasn't his turn to tidy it up because it was NEVER his own mess, but he then realised he didn't have to, or more he couldn't, because the police needed the 'crime scene', or whatever they were referring to it as, to be in the exact same condition.
Throwing the glove into the bin, John looked at his own gloves. He had to wear them; Greg practically rammed them on his hands and shoved him in through the door. They were latex: the crappiest, most uncomfortable stuff in the world that you could wear on your skin, he decided. Worse than spandex, too. The amount of times he had to peel it off his hands when working as a field medic and his hands were sweaty and consequentially extremely smelly made him loathe them even more.
Sherlock never used them. Only once or twice, where he wanted to preserve his own evidence because he was fixated, would he put them on for the minimum amount of time. If he were to be forced to wear them by someone, he'd put them on and then rip them off again when their back was turned. John grinned at the thought and headed over to the sink where he found the jar of what looked like woodlice that had been killed with chlorophyll again. The same one he swore he'd threw out yesterday.
Next to the sink there was a pile of dishes and a dishcloth which was fairly new, but had burns and holes in already, which Sherlock had probably used to mop up any acid he'd managed to spill on himself.
This was something that John worried about. Sherlock was, as many people knew, reckless. He knew that he could kill himself with fumes or acid ingestion or god knows what, but he never would listen to John constantly reminding him, and would put his safety glasses on and set alight things that were made for cooking, or teddy bears with sad eyes that had never done anything wrong. This was what John worried would finally be the death of Sherlock Holmes.
Shuddering at the thought, he covered his face with his hands and turned so that he could redirect himself towards the main 'experiment hazard bench' or the countertop on which his flatmate dumped all his random science junk.
Deciding swiftly to pull himself together, dragging his feet to a standstill and surveying the mess in its entirety, he soon noticed three identical objects covered in papers and books of people he'd never heard of before, right next to the horrible flask-mess which he had chosen to ignore (though it was hard, sine what used to be a solid was obviously now almost a liquid). He delicately moved the papers to check that he hadn't seen what he thought he had, but, to his dismay, he had thought correctly.
A low growl sounded and John grabbed them from the table. He didn't care anymore about the policemen standing just outside the door, or the two inspectors upstairs, OR the fact that he could get arrested for disturbing the evidence and causing a little bit of a mess.
He slipped them into a little evidence bag and then into his shirt pocket, and grabbed his jacket from the door hanger. As soon as he swung out of the door a flush of dread filled him and his heart thudded to the bottom of his stomach. The policemen. They would check him.
He inched his way down the stairs and tried to get a good look through to top window of the front door to see if the policemen were there. He couldn't see anyone, but he wouldn't take the chance. He had to find out where they were.
As soon as he put his foot on the next step, he heard Mrs. Hudson's laugh and a chorus of rather manlier ones and he soon realised that they were checking her apartment, too. He gave a huge sigh of relief and practically ran down the rest of the steps and out of the door, laughing to himself as he went.
On the way to the hospital to visit S.
JW
Someone had some explaining to do.
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AS ALWAYS reviews are VERY much appreciated and even though this fic hasn't been very top-notch it's always good to know what people think, good or bad, or just advice!
Thanks for being patient... but that's what the whole Sherlock fandom has to be. PATIENCE... UGH COME ON SERIES THREE!