When John came back down in jeans and a jumper, Sherlock was no longer in the den by the fire. He checked that his wet clothes were still hung in the bathroom and the landrover still parked outside. Sherlock surely couldn't have gone far in not but a towel and a blanket but worrying about him was as second nature as two coffees, both black, one with sugar. It was a small relief to see him sitting out close to the cliff's edge through the wide kitchen windows, still wrapped and bundled against the wind that had dried his hair so it blew in frizzy clumps of tangled curls. He nearly blended in with the black rocks and the paleness of the sky. He really shouldn't have sat so close to the edge. He really should come in and get dressed before he catching a cold or worse. John licked his lips, pushing the warning words away, and found plenty to do in the kitchen instead where their late lunch still begged to be prepared.

Peas. Peas would be good, and some sausages. Something warm and hearty-where was the bread? He didn't bother not banging the heavy pots and pans together as he searched for the ones that would do. He was starving and really so should Sherlock have been after thrashing about in the sea as they had. So peas and sausage and bread and perhaps some potato, maybe bacon, maybe a salad and fuck. John gripped the counter tight, his body rigid and tense as he bent his chin to his chest. Fuck.

He hadn't thought. Sherlock never said. And the one person whose love meant more to him than any other's... was hated by the man whose opinion he respected above all. Of all the things John had learned to accept about his dramatic companion, his jealousy had never been among them. For all the want to pick apart his argument and dissect from within it everything wrong, his heart was miles from the desire to plainly say he'd long since retired the fantasy that he or anyone else could tame him. Gender notwithstanding, Sherlock did not come to heel and no health code sanction or fine could make him abandon his scientific methods for stability, for a future, or for love. Sherlock knew only one way to be and only one way to care. Man or woman, Sherlock's work came first. With Mary, John came first. No man worth his weight in salt could place unconditional favor below the manic whims of a madman. But perhaps, to some small extent, it was still somewhat true that had he been more romantically inclined, that over the last seven years John would have tried harder to break him of his habits and trap him under a golden band.

John took several deep breaths, eyes closed but slowly opening as his white-knuckled grip on the counter turned rosy with slack. He cursed every moment he'd ever thought to himself how much like a real relationship living with Sherlock had been and the stupidity of his own mind to have believed he was the only one to have thought so. It had been real in all but ceremony. Much as he wanted to tell Sherlock it was different, that he'd misunderstood, that he'd gotten it wrong, how better could John describe it? What they had had was as close to a happily married life as he could point to as an example. Replace foot chases, handcuffs and bomb threats with nights in and tongued kisses-handcuffs optional-and what difference was there? There were still two cups of coffee, both black, one with sugar waiting on a table with the morning paper shared over hot plates of beans, eggs, and toast. What kind of idiot divorced his husband in the context of his next marriage?

The same idiot who was stuck on how to fix it. For now at least he could get the burners going to warm them both some food. Peas and sausage and bread and potatoes. He set the cast-iron griddle on the electric coil and sought about for something to open up the plastic wrapping on their beef and pork mixed links.

John tidied up as water boiled and meat sizzled, finding the general trackings of their things in the usual places. Sherlock had moved his laptop again, this time to the kitchen table which was habitually scattered with his findings. John pushed them aside for plates, not at all surprised to find knife-marks in the wooden surface he could not recall having been there before. As he dropped their silverware more or less in their places, he looked outside the window at his solitary friend to see him quite less so. There was another man standing out there with him, tall and big of build. He had the look of a giant to him in the way he stood, legs firmly planted with his arms just so. A fisherman, John surmised, though even for a man with a boat, their shack was certainly out of the way. He let the sausages sit a bit longer on the one side as he kept his vigil out the window instead, watching the towering man in his long, thick coat and woolen cap and the still seated Sherlock who inclined his head in his regard but remained as sat and bundled as he'd been before. There were no outward signs of distress-not on Sherlock's part-but the man's fists clenched and unclenched uneasily and even for a man used to keeping his balance on the sea, his stance was far too rigid with all his weight baring down hard into the Earth as though he wore cement shoes. Sherlock turned around far enough that he could see John in the window and, following his gaze, the man too looked in. John rolled his shoulders back-instinct, little pinpricks of habit that made him adjust his posture to seem taller and more imposing. He was fairly certain he could take him if he needed to. He'd be a right sight himself afterwards but big men fell hard. Intimidated or not, the sailor seemed to think better of taking up much more of Sherlock's time and he stormed away back down the headland to the moors with little in the way of farewell. Sherlock watched him go for a minute then looked back inside at John before raising up in his large, mummified mess and shuffling back towards the shack.

John returned to the browning sausages, checking right after that the boiling peas and potatoes hadn't gone right past soft to mushy. He heard Sherlock come in and the door close behind him as his footsteps took up the stairs rather than across to the kitchen. John served up plates with butter and brown sauce an tucked into his without waiting.

He hadn't gotten but a bite between his teeth before Sherlock came back down in a thunder of footsteps wearing a jumper that didn't belong to him but of which John was tired of complaining. One of Sherlock's many confiscated articles over the course of seven years. Shopping for Sherlock was in many ways just opening another man's wardrobe. He took his seat opposite and started in on his food without comment, seasoning with salt and pepper before ever taking a bite.

"Good to see you've got an appetite," was all John could really muster without further quips on the rarity. "So who was that, then?"

Sherlock shrugged, drinking down a sip of water with a swallow of veg. "Leon Sterndale. He works aboard a fishing freighter docked in Plymouth."

John frowned as he dropped a slice of buttered bread on Sherlock's plate. "Bit of a ways to Plymouth. What was he here for?"

"Seems the Vicar Roundhay called and told him about the Tregennis family. He caught the first train he could find out to see for himself. The police weren't terribly helpful in regards to his inquiries and the vicar thought it prudent to mention I too had been investigating the case." Sherlock tore a corner of the bread off and popped it in his mouth. "Friend of the family according to him."

"A train from Plymouth to here with time for a check in at the police station and a walk out to us all before two?" John asked.

Sherlock looked up with a spark in his eyes and that look-the we both know what's really going on here look-which for once was precisely right. "How many family friends get a call from the vicar before dawn?"

"Very, very, close friends."

"Which looks to be the missing piece to our lost motive." Sherlock cut his sausage into bite-sized pieces, mopping up the lost juices with bread as he indulged in his hunger. "The family dispute was quite obviously inheritance. Old home like that with three siblings living together but not too with their parents? Both dead then with the house left for them to share and the money certainly going further with them sticking to their inherited land. Mortimer not staying with them but not leaving the town suggests that he doesn't trust them with the money he feels he should receive. Still, it wasn't enough for him to kill before. Maybe whatever murder weapon he's gotten his hands on now has him feeling rather assured he'll get away with it but still there must have been something to finally push him to it. You saw the house but perhaps you didn't look inside the window as I did. Old furnishings. Heirloom china. These people weren't spending their fortune on plasma television screens and other modern luxuries. I'm far more inclined to say it was Mortimer that wanted the finer things in life and was denied them by sensible siblings. So what could they possible spend a large amount of money on that would dip heavily into his potential pockets and also cause a link between the Tregennis siblings, Vicar Roundhay, and Mr. Sterndale?"

"A wedding," John said with a fair share of knowledge on the wince-worthy costs.

Sherlock nodded. "Exactly. And no matter the time, day or night, the vicar would surely call a fiancee with the bad news rather than let him hear it from the police or news sources."

"So you think this Leon Sterndale was set to marry Brenda Tregennis."

"I do." Sherlock's smile was positively indecent.

John mopped up the last of his food with a second slice of buttered bread. "That still doesn't explain how Mortimer managed to kill his sister and drive his brothers insane," he reminded him, trying to put some perspective into his friend's devilish delight.

Sherlock gave a small roll of his eyes. "There is more than one mystery in every case, John. It can be just as important to discover why someone has done something as it is to learn the how."

"You really feel that motive is worth the same as the means to conviction?" John asked, feeling along the broken skin of his left fist out of sight under the thick wooden table.

The detective stood up, his mouth still full with one last bite as he stepped away from the table and back towards the stairwell. "Only when there's a crime," he said and, leaving his plate and all for John to tidy away, he retreated back to his room.


The murder of Mortimer Tregennis transpired early the next morning. Sherlock found it a spot of luck that the vicar had called the landline to The Look Out House first before calling the authorities. He was down and into the landrover with his heels not yet smashed into his shoes before John could talk the vicar off the phone and return it to the cradle. Sherlock idled outside the door for him, his impatience in the honk of the horn as John tumbled out the door himself with more of his clothes draped over his arm than worn. They were more than halfway back to town, tearing down the roads like a thing possessed, before John could even spare a thought to what or why as he pulled a jumper on over his missbuttoned shirt. If he thought about it, he didn't really want to be there in the car again with Sherlock indecently happy about the death of a man they'd spoken with just the day before. He supposed it was better than the alternative. A case meant further distraction from the things he no longer cared to delve into-not yet, anyway. And a part of him would never forgive himself if he missed out on one last case, one last chance to find the good still left to them.

After an abysmal day spent mostly avoiding each other through the evening, John was half impressed Sherlock had remembered to wait for him at all. He certainly hadn't remembered how to drive. "If you hit somebody, I swear to God-"

"The only thing I'm likely to hit at this hour is a dog. Left." He turned the steering wheel hard left and John braced for it, hand on the roof as Sherlock banked around the turn and into another straight.

"Dogs count. We don't run dogs over."

"Dogs should be kept on their leads. Left again."

"You should be kept on a bloody lead!" John braced again, his foot finally popping past the tongue into his shoe as he counterbalanced with his weight. "Sherlock, we can't investigate if we're both dead!"

"Then I should advise you not to die," he said with all the calm and rationale of the cloth.

John was pleased to see him return to something much more agreeable in town, signaling and stopping when advised and no longer casting very heavy doubt on his better driving aptitude in comparison to John himself. They still made it to the vicarage in a frankly staggering amount of time. John pulled his shoelaces tight while Sherlock very nearly forgot to put the landrover in park as he bolted out the door to the still fresh crime scene. A child at Christmas. John collected the keys from the ignition and pocketed them as he followed more slowly behind.

Inside the vicar was inconsolable. John had him take a seat in the other room while Sherlock danced around the terror stricken corpse sitting beside the fire. John could only make out so much from the open doorway but he could read Sherlock's movements to the last bow. Something had certainly caught his eye. At least the harrowing trip had not been a waste.

"It's the work of Lucifer himself!" The vicar cried, his hands shaking on the cold glass of water John handed him. "It's the same as Mr. Porter described it!"

John sat forward in the seat opposite him, casting intermittent glances towards Sherlock while trying to calm his patient over. "I know it seems supernatural at first but trust me, this is the act of a man, not a spirit. We deal with this sort of thing all the time. So just go ahead and give me a couple good, deep breaths, okay?" He breathed with him in example, in and out. "Okay. Now have a drink and just keep on breathing until you feel like you can speak."

The vicar nodded, his nerves still rumbling through his body as he obeyed the doctor implicitly. "I was... I came down. I opened the door. He was.. s-s-sitting there... like that. I swear to you I saw... Jesus, save us, I saw the devil standing there beside him as clear as I see you in front of me." The penitent man bowed his head, sweat beading on his brow. "I threw open the window to scream for help but my voice, God, in my terror I could not make a sound. And as I turned back to see... he'd vanished... Gone. No sound and no trace. I.. I'm not mad, Dr. Watson. I swear to you I am a sober man and I know what I saw when I opened that door."

John nodded, never one to call a man crazy to his face. "The mind can play funny tricks on us," he said, catching a glimpse of Sherlock leaning down by the fire, his back obscuring his actions though he could be seen pocketing an envelope as he stood. "Just keep breathing like I showed you and you'll start to feel better."

"I thought you... the police, they'll have someone come get me like they did George and Owen. But I'm not.. You have to believe me, Dr. Watson. I'm not crazy."

"I know you're not. Deep breaths, remember? In and out," John repeated, and he sat and breathed with him for several more breaths till he could see the vicar's body relax, his head hanging lose as the stress broke into tears. "What you are is is very, very wound up. And the more you relax, the easier it's going to be. You don't have to be afraid. Just breathe and relax and try to remain calm."

The vicar nodded into his hands as he cradled his face. John stood and brought him back a box of tissues just in time to watch Sherlock jump out the ground floor window. The sounds of sirens rang down the drive. John watched Sherlock pause in his inspection of the windowsill and look back in towards him, a slight nod given as he climbed back inside.

"Thank you, Mr. Roundhay, we'll show ourselves out," Sherlock called as he strode past the crying man, stopping only for a moment to tap his shoulder to beg his attention. "If I were you, I would suggest to the police that they inspect the fireplace. There's some rust-colored grounds there that might interest them."

The vicar looked up but Sherlock was already halfway gone, John left to shrug off his rude exit and expedite his own. "I'd do as he says and, uh... leave out the part about seeing the Devil for now," he advised, taking steps back towards the door as he spoke. "Sherlock and I will cover that bit, alright?"

He nodded his tear streaked and fear stricken face as John hurried out the open door, tipping his chin to the police as they passed on the walk and avoiding questions with Sherlock's impatient honk of the horn as John hurried to the landrover with the keys.