Disclaimer: settings and characters as depicted in BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.
Two for the price of one
After his success abroad, Sherlock felt that it was as if Moriarty wanted to test his resolve. They went for another three weeks without any further contact with the master criminal, which Sherlock found unnecessarily coy. In the meantime, there was a case for Scotland Yard to solve – a rather peculiar murder dressed as suicide dressed as an accident that required all of John's not inconsiderable talents at smoothing ruffled feathers.
Not only were they not working with Lestrade and his team – which was slightly good, because Sherlock knew that John was still angry with them for their lack of faith in the consulting detective – but they were reduced to working with Dimmock. The younger detective had yet to learn Sherlock's methods and working style, which cause considerable friction between them with John often caught in the middle. In fact the consultant couldn't believe how dense Detective Dimmock could be on occasion and had several rather sharp comments lined up about his treatment of John to boot.
Dimmock seemed to think that just because Lestrade had volunteered John's assistance in the still unsolved case of the missing financier, that he could monopolise John's attention and time. He treated John very much like a walking reference and personal servant. Only Sherlock had rights to John, something that Dimmock had yet to learn.
Thus Sherlock was very pleased when Moriarty's next task had a direct impact on Dimmock. It appeared that the young DS had been investigating several of Moriarty's lower orders and the consulting criminal wished for the DS to be rendered impotent. Not literally, John was quick to point out when he spotted Sherlock glaring at his chemistry set, a comment that earned a reluctant quirk of the lips. Sherlock liked that his John could follow his more obvious thought patterns.
"We need to find a way to sabotage his career, or at the very least divert him into harmless lines," Sherlock mused aloud, balancing the skull between his hands and whirling to look at John. The doctor tilted his head a little, obviously thinking about a way to satisfy Moriarty without doing anything irreparable to Dimmock.
"Who's Moriarty's biggest opponent in that area of the community?" John asked suddenly, "Could we frame him for Dimmock's investigation? Two birds with one stone, sort of thing?"
Sherlock stared at his flatmate, his mind whirling at a thousand miles an hour. In the space of fifteen minutes, during which John started reading the evening paper, Sherlock considered and discarded a number of possible scenarios that would effectively neutralise Dimmock's investigation, remove a small nuisance from Moriarty's criminal underworld and showcase his creative abilities to his 'employer' in one fell swoop. Through it all, John sat there in his plain cream jumper, frayed trousers and mismatched socks, reading the evening paper and sitting perfectly still so as to avoid distracting the thinking genius.
"John, you are brilliant," Sherlock breathed, "So very brilliant that I'm beginning to suspect you're an idiot savant."
"That term isn't used any more," John commented without looking up, a small smirk on his face, "I'll take it as a compliment though."
"You do that," Sherlock twirled on the spot, depositing the skull on the mantelpiece and leaping for the door, "Don't wait up – I've got some people to see."
"Take my gun and be careful Sherlock," John replied, "You know I worry."
"Yes my Heart," Sherlock replied and bolted up the stairs to liberate John's gun from the lockbox he kept it in, bounding back down and out of the house in a flurry of coat and scarf.
It was not difficult to put the first few parts of his plan in place. Sherlock relished the task – it was such a change from his usual diversion that the novelty was almost as addictive as his nicotine patches. Coming back to Baker Street in the early hours of the morning, it struck Sherlock that it would be very easy to slip into this double life for real. To tell John one thing and yet do the other. It would be so easy to deceive his flatmate about certain points of their work, to set slightly less than perfect traps for Moriarty – something that his new playmate would see as Sherlock's attempts to propitiate John's concerns, while John saw them as more honest attempts to end the Game…
Sherlock slipped silently up the stairs to the flat, his mind alight with possibilities until he stepped through their door and saw John asleep on the couch, a book under his hand.
His Heart had waited up for him, despite being told to go to bed at his usual time. Lit by the reading lamp, John seemed to sleep in a floating pool of light. All thoughts of deceit melted away.
John had faith in Sherlock: a self-professed sociopath with the most abominable manners and habits that any flatmate – any partner – could have. His Heart allowed him to be cold and unfeeling, to be brutish and rude, to take without asking, to demand, sulk and generally misbehave… allowed him to do all that and more not because he was a doormat with no will of his own, but because by some inexplicably random providence, he understood.
John had always just… got it. His protests were tokens, designed to highlight the boundaries and customs that Sherlock was trampling without seeking to truly curb him. The argument about the way Sherlock refused to show any feeling for the victims of Moriarty's Game had never been about his lack of caring or anything else – it had been John's way of reminding Sherlock that his dispassion was alienating those he worked with.
For the first time, Sherlock understood that work went better with John because John did the feeling for both of them. Sherlock didn't need to acknowledge it, to waste time putting it aside, because in some inexplicable, invaluable symbiosis, John had already taken the burden from him.
Moving silently, Sherlock slid to the floor in front of the couch and laid his hand over John's chest, measuring the pulse beneath the sturdy ribs. Although he still had work to do, he put it aside for now, revelling in the presence of his living, breathing Heart.
A/N – ok, that was sappy, but it got away from me…