"Afganistan or Iraq?" Sherlock inquired, meeting the eyes of 'John from London'.
"Af… How did you know?" John asked, visibly startled.
"Tan lines, psychosomatic limp, it was obvious." Sherlock shrugged over his deductions.
"Moving on!" Paddy, the host, yelled in his obnoxiously loud voice. "Now John, you've still got 20 potential dates lined up, but let's see how that changes after we've found out a bit more about you!"
The camera panned over to the screen, and the contestants turned to watch it as a recorded montage of clips of John's life began to appear.
"Uhh… My name is John. I live in London." The screen showed John in the doorway of a darkened room. "I'd show you round, but it's hideously untidy, and I'm normally quite neat I swear… anyway!"
The camera then showed John working through some papers as he unveiled that he was a doctor, and recently invalided home from Afghanistan. Sherlock smirked, which the camera caught, and so he winked.
So far none of the twenty remaining contestants had turned their lights off; and why should they: a soldier, and a doctor. They deemed him perfect.
Then a new face appeared on the screen.
"John's a great brother." Said a woman looking a slight bit like John, if you looked close enough, but it was obvious that they were brother and sister. "Always looked out for me. Although I should really look out for him as I'm the older one, but he's an army boy, he can look after himself." The camera zoomed out to show John sitting next to the woman, as she playfully punched him on the shoulder. He looked truly uncomfortable. "He's always said he's straight as like a poker or something, but he was in the army like and y'know what goes on there, so I reckon he's more like a bendy ruler." She laughed, John paled a bit, hissing "Harry, stop!" at her, but to no avail.
Sherlock doubted he'd ever fully understand the notion of embarrassment, but the show was obviously trying to use a clip like this for the ratings and the controversy, but for John it was just public humiliation.
"But yeah, he's lovely, and he needs someone lovely to go with him." Sherlock surmised that at least it finished on somewhat of a high note, but John's head was hanging down, with Paddy's arm around his shoulders, making the height difference between them seem like even more.
John recovered quickly though, as far as was visible to the majority of the contestants, obviously.
"So Sherlock, you've still got your light on. Wanna say something a little less stalkerish this time, mate?" Paddy joked.
"Nope." Sherlock joked back at him. At least he thought that it was a joke, he wasn't entirely sure of the mechanics, but it seemed to go down okay. "I kept my light on because we've both got interfering siblings. And because John's a doctor, so he must be at least adequately intelligent."
"You never know with the NHS these days." John piped up, making some of the contestants laugh genuinely but the majority chuckled awkwardly, not having any idea what the NHS was. John mentally ruled those ones off the potential dates list. Sherlock managed a small chuckle.
Paddy spoke to three other contestants, each squealing some rubbish about soldiers.
Sherlock and John both sighed, the camera zooming in on each of them individually.
"Right John, now it's time to see your talent, off you go!" John waved and disappeared back up the lift. "Now remember guys and girls: no likey, no lighty!"
Ooh. I can see you shiver with antici...
PATION.
Yeah. I had a little giggle over thinking what John's talent could be, and I've narrowed it down to three. Or four. Hmm.
I'm gonna do a minimum of three more chapters for this, but how did you like this one? Let me know.