EPISODE 2:

THE BLIND DERPFACE


Nearly two months passed and, for better or for worse, little had changed for our heroes (or the lack thereof, as they'd done very little of any worth since the events of A Study in Pink). Unlike Scottie and Emily, apparently John needed to take some time easing into living with Sherlock before fully jumping into the swing of things. Things around the flat moved slowly now that there wasn't a case going on. John was currently looking for work and Sherlock didn't seem to have any trouble occupying himself with various experiments. During the downtime the teenagers decided to start looking at their stay from more of a tourist's viewpoint, checking out many of London's most famous landmarks and attractions firsthand. A single client came in asking for help with a missing diamond, but Sherlock turned down the case, deeming it 'too boring' to bother looking into. Scottie and Emily had then tried to solve the mystery themselves but ended up getting nowhere. Except perhaps very, very lost somewhere in the heart of the city.

To everyone's surprise Sherlock ended up finding his interest peaked in the children's willingness to help out. Even though they never did get any closer to finding that diamond and he didn't care enough to step in, afterwards Sherlock started sending them both on little missions and/or errands of his own. Once when they were being particularly annoying Sherlock got Scottie and Emily into trouble by having Lestrade catch them in possession of alcohol, while another time he charged the wannabe super sleuths with the task of decoding a mysterious message that had been left on his blog.

The morning following the notorious James Bond marathon started like any other for the young Americans. Emily woke up considerably earlier than Scottie, but in his defense, she had only made it through a grand total of two films before passing out. After getting dressed, brushing her hair and teeth, and then fooling around with makeup for a bit only to end up wiping it all off anyway, the girl finally got bored of waiting for Scottie to wake up and leapt up onto his bed, shaking the entire thing. He groaned and squinted up at her.

"Morning sunshine," Emily beamed back.

Scottie scowled. "The fuck are you so excited about?"

Emily shrugged and retreated back to her own twin bed. Scottie rolled over with a grunt. "Hey Scottie?" Emily asked after a pause. He didn't answer, so she tried again: "Scottie? ...Scottie. Scottie. Skawdee. Scooter. Scurdur. Mr. Lewis. Lewis and Clark. Scottlate Moois. Beam me up, Scotty. Scotch tape. Scotland. F. Scott Fitzgerald-"

The boy finally sat upright and whipped his head around. "Jesus Christ woman, what?"

"I was just… I was just, y'know, thinking and. Well, we've been here for quite a while, haven't we?"

"Yeah. I suppose. But we're not even in the second episode yet, so..."

"Okay, but aren't you at least a little curious about how long this is going to last?" asked Emily. "I mean. Sure, things are going great, but like, are we talking wonderful fan fiction vacation that could abruptly end at any minute or trapped in an alternate universe forever?"

"You say 'trapped' like it's a bad thing." Having given up on getting back to sleep, Scottie climbed out of his bed with a yawn. His hair was sticking out every which-way, but he didn't seem very bothered by it just yet.

"Well. Not bad, necessarily. But don't you think it's a little scary? Not knowing why we're here or if we can even get back?" Scottie ignored her, and Emily raised an eyebrow. "Come on now. Don't tell me you honestly aren't homesick or anything."

"Um. No, not really?"

"Not even for your parents?"

"Nope."

"Your friends?"

"I like the ones I made here better."

"Pets?"

Scottie stopped and stared at her with wide eyes. His face twisted unattractively, he made a high-pitched whining noise, and his lower lip began to tremble.

"Ha!" Emily said, pointing. "See? You secretly want to go home just as much as I do!"

Scottie looked away, his vision blurred by unshed tears. "My babies," he whispered.

Emily shifted nervously. "Okay, stop that. Crying people make me uncomfortable."

"You're absolutely right," Scottie said with a quiet sniffle. "How far off track do you think it would throw the original plotline if we brought in a Gladstone?"

"Scottie. I'm being serious."

"So am I!"

Emily was getting annoyed now. She gave Scottie The Look, which usually signified he had said something that struck close to home and she wasn't having it. "Now see here," she started slowly, "I'm sorry if I can't say the same for you, but I have people who love and care about me waiting back home, and as… absolutely phenomenal as all this has been, the thought of never seeing them again is actually kind of terrifying. Not to mention there's our future to worry about - my future. What about college? I was going to go to art school, you know. But. Well, I hardly see how that can happen if I stayed here."

Scottie rolled his eyes so hard they might as well have fallen out of their sockets. "Goddamn, Emily, if you're this miserable why don't you just leave?"

A look of anger flashed across the girl's face. "Leave?" she echoed. "Yeah. Perfect. Let me just hop on a plane back to California with all the money and the passport I don't have. And go where? Home? That's assuming I still have a home to go back to, or anything else, for that matter!"

"Why don't you bitch about it some more? I'm sure that'll help."

Suddenly Emily jumped off of the bed and came up to Scottie, grabbing the boy by his shirt collar and pulling him close. "Hey. Hey. Why don't you shut the fuck up?"

But Emily's slight difference in height and quick temper in no way intimidated Scottie, and he made a point of showing so by lifting a hand between the two of them and then using it to flick the end of her nose playfully. Emily, of course, saw this as an acceptable excuse to sock him in the face. She immediately regretted having done so - not because he didn't deserve it, but because no one had ever taught her to throw a proper punch and this resulted in her hurting her fist a lot more than she anticipated.

There wasn't nearly enough force put into the attack to cause any real damage, but still Scottie stumbled backwards. He wiped the back of his hand across his face unhappily.

"Alright then. If that's how it's gonna be, I accept your declaration of war."


Meanwhile, John struggled with several grocery bags up the stairs into 221B. He'd already gone to the store once and had to come back because of technical difficulties and was already in a more or less bad mood.

"Don't worry about me," the doctor said as he entered the flat, loudly and sarcastically. "I can manage."

Inside John noticed Sherlock hunched over the desk in the living room, hands folded over his mouth and a laptop in front of him. John dumped the groceries in the kitchen.

"Is that my computer?"

Sherlock didn't respond.

"It's password protected."

"Of course," muttered the detective, starting to type.

"What?!"

"Mine was in the bedroom."

"What, and you couldn't be bothered to get up?" John looked as if it were taking all of his self control to keep from blowing up at the other man. "It's password protected!" he said again.

Sherlock kept on typing, unconcerned. "In a matter of speaking. Took me less than a minute to guess yours." He now glanced up at John for the first time since he'd returned. "Not exactly Fort-"

But the original line was interrupted by Mrs. Hudson, who now came hurrying into the flat frantic and winded. "Oh, Sherlock! Come quickly!" she beckoned from the doorway. "The children are going at it!"

Sherlock and John exchanged glances. "I thought you said the boy was gay?" John hissed.

Sherlock shrugged. "Still figuring things out? I hear experimentation is very popular in the teenage years."

"Oh, Sherlock, please come!" Mrs. Hudson went on.

The was a loud thud from downstairs and a laugh that quickly turned into a scream. Without any hesitation Sherlock and John leapt to their feet and hurried down the flight of stairs with Mrs. Hudson leading the way. The door to 221C was still flung wide open as the landlady had left it, and the three of them ran through the vacant mess of a living room to the much better taken care of bedroom which clearly contained all of the commotion.

"Ouch!" Scottie's voice rang out. "Why the fuck would you hit someone there, much less with a throw pillow!"

"Because fuck you, that's why!"

Sherlock, John, and Mrs. Hudson came in to find Emily towering over Scottie with a pillow. Lying on the floor looking up, he threw up his arms defensively as she smacked him over the head with it multiple times in succession. Finally the boy saw an opportunity and kicked Emily in the stomach, knocking her backwards. Scottie snatched the pillow away and readied himself to take a swing at her. Emily was just starting to get up when she felt a pair of arms wrap around and restrain her.

"Hey!" Emily shouted, squirming about in John's tight grasp. "No fair!"

"Yeah, that's right!" Scottie said victoriously. "You hold her down for me!" He lifted the pillow and made to take a step forward but was pulled back by the collar of his shirt. He looked up to see Sherlock towering over him, unamused. Scottie dropped the pillow. "Is... Is that not what we're doing?" he asked sheepishly.

Once they were finally able to diffuse the situation, all five of them went back to 221B, where Emily and Scottie were seated at opposite ends of the sofa and avoiding eye contact. Mrs. Hudson loomed over them, arms folded. "Now what do you two have to say for yourselves?" she asked sternly.

"Well I'm not sorry, if that's what you're getting at," Scottie grumbled.

"Typical Scottie," Emily glared. "Never willing to be the bigger person."

"Pretending like everything is okay between us isn't a solution!"

"Well I'm certainly not willing to compromise!"

"Emily! Scottie! Enough!" barked John, suddenly adapting his Soldier Voice. "Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock and I all have better things to do than sit around sorting out whatever childhood quarrel is going on here. We're not suggesting that you aren't allowed to get into disagreements, but is it really worth driving the entire building up the wall with them?"

"Yes," came the guilty party's decisive answer. John groaned and buried his head in his hands.

"I need to go to the bank," Sherlock suddenly announced. The man got up and passed the others to get his coat.

"Wh-really? Now?" Mrs. Hudson exclaimed.

"I'm not getting payed enough to babysit," retorted the consulting detective.

John frowned. "You're not getting payed at all."

"Precisely."

"Hold up, I'm coming with," John said.

"Are you planning on leaving me in charge of the two of them?" asked Mrs. Hudson in disbelief. "You know they won't listen to me!"

Scottie jumped up and hurried to John's side, suddenly realizing that this could be the start of the second episode. "Hey, I wanna come too!" the boy pleaded.

John raised an eyebrow. "And what about Emily?"

"Like hell I'm going to stay here if he gets to go."

John looked helplessly to Sherlock, who merely shrugged and continued out the door. He turned back to Emily and Scottie. "Alright, but only if you guys promise not to get into any more trouble, you hear?"

"Deal!"


A little later Sherlock lead John and the kids through the revolving doors into Shad Sanderson Bank. There was very little eye contact on the taxi ride there, much less conversation. John had long since given up on trying to understand what the ordeal was even over, but just in case it escalated again he stopped Scottie and Emily just as they entered the large bank.

"You made a promise, remember?" he warned.

The teens nodded and rolled their eyes and the like. Although not certain of their intentions still, he passed off this response as "good" and caught up to Sherlock again as the other man was stepping onto an escalator. "Yes, when you said we were going to the bank…"

"You better not embarrass me out in public," Emily whispered snidely to the boy standing next to her.

Scottie practically choked. "I better not embarrass you?" The girl didn't answer, so when she started forward again he reached out and grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking at it. She let out a yelp.

Just as this happened John whipped his head around from halfway up the escalator. He narrowed his eyes at the kids and they instinctively hugged onto each other with cheesey innocent grins. When the man looked away again Scottie and Emily let go and squeezed past one another onto the escalator.

Sherlock gave his name at the reception desk and he and John were shortly escorted in the direction of Sebastian Wilkes' office. The remaining two, however, were shown to a lounge area and instructed to wait behind.

Scottie seated himself with crossed arms and stared hard at the wall ahead, apparently determined to ignore Emily. "I'm going to the ladies' room," she announced without bothering to take a seat herself. Scottie continued to not acknowledge her presence as she disappeared down a hallway and then returned within the next ten minutes.

"Real mature," she hissed, noticing that she was still being ignored.

"Hey, did you hear something?" Scottie shot back rather loudly but still didn't look over. "'Cause I could've sworn it sounded like a whiny little bitch."

Emily pulled back Scottie's chair so that it tipped over and he hit his back against the floor with a thud and a shriek. The entire line of receptionists lifted their heads at the noise.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Scottie struggled to pick himself up again.

"You're my problem!" Emily shot back.

"Hey!" a deep voice bellowed from behind them. Both teenagers looked up to see a dark-skinned security guard bigger than the both of them put together approaching. "Keep it down over there or I'm going to have to ask you kids to leave."

"He started it," Emily shouted with an accusatory finger at Scottie.

"She invaded my personal bubble!" the boy shot back.

The security guard frowned. "I mean it. Where are your parents, anyway?"

"Probably making sweet love on Mr. Wilkes' desk," shrugged Scottie.

"Or talking about what a fucking disgrace this one is," Emily added with a nod to Scottie.

This time it was Scottie's turn to come at Emily. He kicked the girl in her shin and she immediately retaliated by pinching his forearm.

"That's it," the security guard growled and grabbed the both of them by their shirts.

After being thrown outside of Shad Sanderson, Scottie and Emily waited on the pavement with their backs against the bank's wall until Sherlock and John returned.

"Traders come to work at all hours," Sherlock was saying. "Some trade with Hong Kong in the middle of the night. The message was intended for someone who came in at midnight." He held up a slip of paper for John to see. "Not many Van Coons in the phonebook."

The men stopped a foot or so away from Scottie and Emily. "Well there you are," John commented. "You weren't that bored, were you?"

"Sure, let's go with that," Emily muttered unhappily. She stood up and held out an arm. "Taxi!"


The cab dropped them off outside of Van Coon's apartment complex. Sherlock pressed the buzzer, stared up at a security camera for a moment, and then hit it again. There was no answer.

"So what do we do now?" John asked. "Sit here and wait for him to come back?"

Sherlock scanned his eyes across the series of buzzers and then tilted his head to look at the building's side. He turned back to John with a triumphant grin. "Just moved in."

"What?"

"The floor above. New label." The detective tapped at one of the resident names labelled Wintle. Unlike the others it was merely a slip of paper and had been hand-written.

"Could have just replaced it," John offered.

Sherlock pressed the Wintle buzzer and looked towards John again. "No one ever does that." Moments later a woman's voice came over the intercom.

"Hello?"

"Hi!" Sherlock smiled at the camera, slipping into a character that was obviously not his usual self. "Um, I live in the flat just below you. I-I don't think we've met?"

"No, well, uh… I've just moved in."

"Actually, I've just locked my keys in my flat." Sherlock then made a sort of guilty face and bit at his lower lip. Scottie let out a squeal at this and Emily jabbed him hard in his side with an elbow.

"D'you want me to buzz you in?"

"Yeah. And can I use your balcony?"

"...what?"

"Your balcony. Is that alright?"

"I… um… Yeah, I s'pose so. Come on up."

There was a rather irritating buzzing noise as the front door unlocked and the group let themselves inside. From there Sherlock instructed John and the kids to wait for him outside of Van Coon's flat so that he could let them in. They did so, and Sherlock continued up another flight of stairs to Ms. Wintle's flat.

Just outside the door to the flat, John was standing with his hands clasped together in front of him and occasionally tapped his foot with impatience. Neither Scottie nor Emily spoke to one another. Finally they heard something from the inside and John leaned forward, calling out, "Sherlock? Sherlock, are you okay?" John waited for a moment and glanced over at Scottie, who merely shrugged. "Yeah, any time you feel like letting me in," John tried again through the door. "Sherlock!" John shouted as soon as it got quiet again. He began pacing up and down the hallway as he waited. Emily leaned her back up against a wall and sunk down alongside it until she was sitting. After another minute or so the front door swung open and Sherlock found that Scottie was the only one still waiting in front of it.

"Took you long enough," muttered Scottie. He pushed past Sherlock and into Van Coon's flat as if he owned the place. "So, did you phone the police already or should we do that?"

Sherlock blinked. "I… What? Sorry, how did you know about...?"

"That Van Coon is already dead? Lucky guess."

"I let them know," Sherlock answered after a moment of thought. "The Yard should be on their way and arriving shortly."

"Then we wait," Scottie sighed and threw himself down in a random seat just as the others were coming in.

It wasn't long before the others arrived. Without any introductions the forensics team immediately got to work, dusting near every surface in the flat for prints and a photographer got to work on his photoshoot of the dead man lying on his bed. Even though Scottie and Emily weren't talking to each other enough to coordinate any shenanigans, they seemed to be making themselves just as much of a nuisance as if they had been; Emily by striking poses in the background of as many crime scene photographs as possible and Scottie by rubbing his hands over objects just before the forensic officers had a chance to do anything with them. Sherlock hardly seemed to notice this behavior and left the room for a minute or so, returning with his coat off and now wearing a pair of latex gloves.

John did, however, and grabbed one and then the other by the crook of their arms and yanked them as far out of the way of the other men as possible. "The hell's the matter with you two?" he hissed. "First the bickering like a couple of toddlers and now this?"

Scottie jerked his arm free from the doctor's grasp. "Oh my god, piss off, okay? We're just trying to have a bit of fun."

"Fun?! All you're doing is making it even harder for skilled professionals to do an already difficult job! That should not be fun!"

"...it's a little fun," Emily said quietly, looking away.

"Been away three days, judging by the laundry," Sherlock was saying. The others looked over to see him crouched in front of an open suitcase. With a satisfied sigh the man straightened himself again and turned to John. "Look at the case. There was something tightly packed inside it."

"Thanks. I'll take your word for it."

"Problem?"

"Aside from these two shits? Yeah. I'm not desperate to root around some bloke's dirty underwear."

Sherlock strode to the foot of the bed now. "Those symbols at the bank - the graffiti," he went on. "Why were they put there?"

"What, some sort of code?"

"Obviously."

Now Sherlock was closer to the bed's headboard and fooling around with the deceased Van Coon's inside jacket pockets. "Why were they painted? If you want to communicate, why not use email?"

John shrugged. "Well, maybe he wasn't answering."

"Oh, good. You follow."

"No?"

Sherlock threw John a judgemental look before going back to what he'd been doing and began to inspect Van Coon's hands. "What about this morning? Those letters you were looking at?" he asked casually.

John frowned. "Bills."

John, Scottie, and Emily looked on with slight disgust as Sherlock reached into the corpse's mouth and pulled something out of it. Coming closer they could see that it was a black origami flower.

"Yes. He was being threatened," Sherlock concluded. He carefully slipped it into a plastic bag.

"Not by the gas board."

"Bag this up, will you? And see if you can get prints off this glass," a third man came into the room. Scottie and Emily immediately recognized him from the show but for once didn't give it away.

"Ah, Sergeant. We haven't met." Sherlock offered out a hand to Dimmock, who rather rudely placed his hands on his own hips himself.

"Yeah, I know who you are," Dimmock growled. "And I'd prefer it if you didn't tamper with any of the evidence. And whose kids are these? Don't you think it's a little inappropriate to be bringing children onto a crime scene?"

"Well, technically we didn't know it was a crime scene when we first got here," Emily huffed. "And what do you mean, 'kids'? You yourself barely look old enough to even be in the police, let alone have advanced to the rank of Detective Inspector."

Sherlock lowered his hand. "Detective Inspector?" he echoed. "I've phoned Lestrade. Is he on his way?"

"He's busy. I'm in charge. And that's right; it is Detective Inspector, not Sergeant. Dimmock." The man started back into the other room, saying "We're obviously looking at a suicide."

Following him out, Sherlock handed off his evidence bag to one of the forensic officers and began taking his gloves off.

"That does seem the only explanation of all the facts," John agreed.

"Wrong. It's one possible explanation of some of the facts. You've got a solution that you like, but you're choosing to ignore anything you see that doesn't comply with it."

Dimmock squinted. "Like?"

"The wound was on the right side of his head."

"And?"

"Van Coon was left-handed." To illustrate his point, Sherlock attempted to mime shooting himself of the right side of his head with his left hand. "Requires quite a bit of contortion."

"Left-handed?"

"Oh, I'm amazed you didn't notice. All you have to do is look around this flat. Coffee table on the left-hand side; coffee mug handle pointing to the left. Power sockets: habitually used the ones on the left. Pen and paper on the left-hand side of the phone because he picked it up with his right and took down messages with his left. D'you want me to go on?"

"No, I think you've covered it," John said softly.

"Oh, I might as well. I'm almost at the bottom of the list. There's a knife on the breadboard with butter on the right side of the blade because he used it with his left."

"John is left-handed and I've seen him shoot with his right," Scottie pointed out. "I know that doesn't exactly help your argument, but. Just saying."

John frowned. "Wait. When did you ever see me fire a gun…?"

Emily rolled her eyes. "Even if that were true, people generally don't fire guns with their non-dominant hand. I'm a lefty too and I can tell you right now that if I were about to commit suicide like that, there's no way I'd randomly pick up the weapon with my right hand to do it."

"How d'you know?" Scottie shot back. "You've never even held a firearm before."

"I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"It sure has hell diminishes your credibility."

"Why, you-"

"Enough!" Dimmock shouted. "Mr. Holmes, I demand that you keep these two on a much tighter leash, or I'll have no choice but to remove them from the premises."

Everyone got quiet for a moment and Sherlock pursed his lips before continuing on with his previous train of thought. "Conclusion: someone broke in here and murdered him. Only explanation of all the facts."

"But the gun. Why-"

"He was waiting for the killer. He'd been threatened." Sherlock walked away to retrieve his scarf and coat.

"What?"

"Today at the bank," John informed the Detective Inspector. "Sort of a warning."

"He fired a shot when his attacker came in."

"And the bullet?"

"Went through an open window."

Inspector Dimmock remained as skeptical as ever. "Oh, come on!" he exclaimed in disbelief. "What are the chances of that?!"

"Wait until you get the ballistics report," Sherlock insisted. "The bullet in his brain wasn't fired from his gun. I guarantee it."

"But if his door was locked from the inside, how did the killer get in?"

"Good! You're finally asking the right questions."

Looking rather pleased with himself, the drama queen of a man shoved on his gloves and fluttered out of the room. John pointed apologetically towards him for Dimmock. "Alright, come along, kiddos." The doctor motioned with his head for Scottie and Emily to follow him out of the flat and they did, but made sure to exchange a dirty look with one another just before doing so.


The next leg of their journey wasn't particularly exciting. Sherlock, John, Scottie and Emily interrupted Sebastian's business dinner at a nearby establishment. After informing him that Van Coon had been killed, the boys went to discuss things in private in the men's bathroom and Emily was forced to wait around outside. The following morning John left for a job interview as Sherlock arranged several photographs from the crime scene above the fireplace on the mirror.

Scottie and Emily avoided talking to one another whenever possible, mostly keeping to opposite ends of the room as they scrolled through Tumblr (undoubtedly reblogging each other's posts the entire time). Sherlock was on his own computer for a bit and then had taken a chair towards the center of the living room and faced it towards the mirror, where he sat quietly with his fingers pressed underneath his chin and stared straight forward for some time.

"Could you pass me a pen?" the man finally said.

Scottie popped his head out from underneath the living room table, which he'd covered with a blanket and stuffed with anything plush he could find to make himself a pillow den. The boy then ever so kindly reached over the table and grabbed a ballpoint pen, which he chucked across the room and sort of in Sherlock's direction. The pen hit the rug a couple feet from Sherlock's chair and rolled off it, but the detective made no move to pick it up.

Time passed and eventually John returned, strolling through the open door and dropping his jacket off onto his armchair.

"I said 'could you pass me a pen'," Sherlock repeated.

"What? When?" John squinted back at the man and then glanced from Scottie to Emily, who each met his eyes and shrugged.

"'Bout an hour ago."

"And you didn't think to… I don't know, ask one of the kids to help you out with that?"

"Didn't I?"

John started to take another step forward when he felt something underneath his shoe. He stepped back again and crouched down to pick up a little ballpoint pen. "Could this possibly be the pen that you couldn't be bothered to retrieve from half a foot away?" Sherlock didn't answer, and so John stood upright again and tossed the pen to him. The detective caught it with one hand but never took his eyes off of the photographs on the wall. "Probably didn't even notice I'd gone out, then."

Beat.

"Yeah, I went to see about a job at the surgery."

"How was it?" Sherlock asked absently.

"It's great. She's great."

Emily chuckled to herself.

"Who?"

"The job."

"...she?"

"It."

Scottie, who was now lying on his back and half sticking out of his fort with a laptop perched on his stomach rubbed at an eye. "For fuck's sake," he muttered. There was another brief pause before Sherlock jerked his head to the right and changed the subject.

"Here, have a look."

"Hm?" John strode over to the table and looked at the opened web page.

"Don't bump anything," Scottie warned.

John skimmed through the article, apparently not hearing the boy. "The intruder who can walk through walls…"

"Happened last night," explained Sherlock. "Journalist shot dead in his flat; doors locked windows bolted from the inside - exactly the same as Van Coon."

John straightened his back and met Sherlock's eyes. "God. You think…?"

"He's killed another one," the detective confirmed grimly.

"Wonderful," John breathed. "New Scotland Yard, then?"

"About freaking time." Emily slammed her computer shut and slid it under the couch.


"Seriously? Is this place so secret that we're never gonna get to see the inside of it in person?" Scottie groaned, pacing back and forth across the police station's headquarters. "We already know what's in there. It's really not a big deal."

Emily waited a tad more patiently. She was seated against the wall with crossed legs and currently flipping through a comic book. She glanced up at Scottie and frowned. "Look, I'm annoyed too, but you doing… that isn't helping anything."

Luckily the delay wasn't long, and Sherlock and John returned several minutes later with Detective Inspector Dimmock.

"I'm to take you in a police vehicle," Dimmock said bitterly.

"Are we in trouble?" Emily asked cautiously.

"The hell would they be taking us if we were?" Scottie whispered. "We're already at the Yard. Dumbass."

"...so we're not in trouble then?"

"Probably ought to be, but for now we're headed to the deceased Brian Lukis' flat. Sherlock insisted I bring you two along and he and Dr. Watson follow in a cab. Dunno why he's so dead set on giving children private tours of crime scenes, but… Until you give me a reason not to, I'll condone it."

The teenagers then went with Dimmock into a police car parked outside. Upon arrival at their destination, the group joined up with Sherlock and John and entered the building. Inside Sherlock was the first to duck under the police tape sealing off a stairwell. The others followed him upstairs quietly as Sherlock did his thing.

Sherlock pushed back a curtain and smirked. "Four floors up," he finally said. "That's why they think they're safe. Put a chain across the door and bolt it shut. Think they're impregnable. They don't reckon for one second that there's another way in." The consulting detective pushed back through the others and made a beeline for a shut skylight just above the landing.

"I don't understand," Dimmock said slowly.

"You're dealing with a killer who can climb." Sherlock stepped up onto something to get a bit off the ground.

"What are you doing?"

"He clings to the walls like an insect." Sherlock unhooked the latch and pushed the window upwards, allowing some sunlight to stream into the room. "That's how he got in."

"What?!" choked Dimmock.

"Climbed up the side of the walls, ran along the roof, dropped in through this skylight."

"You're not serious! Like Spiderman?"

Emily mimicked holding up a walkie talkie. "Alright, we're gonna need to put out an APB on a fellow in a red and black spider suit."

"He scaled six floors of a Docklands apartment building, jumped the balcony to kill Van Coon."

Dimmock laughed in disbelief. "Oh, ho-hold on!"

"And of course that's how he got into the bank. He ran along the window ledge and onto the terrace. We have to find out what connects these two men." Looking somewhat pleased with himself, Sherlock hopped down from his stepping stool. His eyes then fell on a pile of books scattered up the side of the staircase. He came towards one of them, picking it up and taking it with him.

"Are we going with Dimmock again?" asked Scottie.

Sherlock shook his head. "Not unless he wants to tag along and renew any overdue books."

"Books?" John echoed. "Why are we going to a library?"

Without turning around, Sherlock waved the book he'd collected out to the side to show John. "West Kensington Library, to be exact. Date stamped on the book is the same day that he died."


At the library, Sherlock checked the reference number stuck to the bottom of the book's spine and located the shelf where it belonged. The man then shoved the book he had with him into the shelf and began pulling out other books and examining them.

"You can't just leave this here." Scottie took the book they'd started with out again. "Then they're not gonna know it's checked in and what with Lukis being dead and all, I don't suppose he's in any position to be paying off late fees." The boy then took off back the way they'd come, presumably to return the book.

Sherlock shook his head and continued on with what he'd been doing. Emily circled around to the other side of the aisle and pulled off a sizeable stack of books with both arms, placing them down again on the floor.

"Oh wow what a totally random happenstance," she said rather suspiciously. "Sherlock, John, come take a look at this."

John hurried over without even realizing that she'd stolen his thunder and Sherlock came moments later. They stopped in front of yet another set of yellow spray painted symbols. Sherlock hugged onto Emily for a moment as a way of praising her. Undeserving as it was, she beamed victoriously at John, who shook his head with a slight smile.


That afternoon the troop stopped by 221B Baker Street to add the newest photographs from the library to the array on the mirror and then headed out again for the National Gallery.

"The world's run on codes and ciphers, John," Sherlock was saying. "From the million-pound security system at the bank, to the PIN machine you took exception to, cryptography inhabits our every waking moment."

"Yes, okay, but-"

"But it's all computer-generated: electronic codes, electronic ciphering methods. This is different. It's an ancient device. Modern code-breaking methods won't unravel it."

"That's his way of saying he doesn't know shit about what the cipher means and needs advice," Scottie whispered to John.

Sherlock's smug look faded but he kept going forward. "Eloquently put."

John smiled in disbelief. "Wh-You need advice?"

"On painting, yes. I need to talk to an expert."

They were coming up to the gallery's entrance now but took a sharp turn at the last second, circling around the building to approach Raz, resident hooligan, in the middle of his latest graffiti piece.

"Part of a new exhibition," the young man explained as the group approached, entirely unconcerned by their presence.

"Interesting," Sherlock said without much conviction.

"I call it… Urban Bloodlust Frenzy."

"Catchy," John also said with the same amount of obvious disinterest.

"Y'know, I've always wanted to play around with spray paints before," Emily commented. "Not vandalization of public property, per say, but like, stencils on canvas sort of thing. Or you know - those guys at really touristy locations who you pay to do those landscape things right in front of you in a couple of minutes."

Raz didn't pause in his work, but he smiled a little and glanced over his shoulder at the girl. "You an artist too, eh?"

Emily pursed her lips into a smile. "Well. I know how to wield a paintbrush, if that's what you mean."

"Hit me up sometime. I'll give you a lesson."

John came in between the two of them with a stern look on his face. "Um. No offense, but I don't think you're exactly the sort of crowd she ought to be hanging out around."

Sherlock took out his phone from a coat pocket and held it out towards Raz, who turned around and tossed one of his spray cans at John. John caught the can with a surprised look. Raz took Sherlock's phone with his now free hand and scrolled through the photographs of the yellow ciphers.

"Know the author?" the detective asked.

"Recognize the paint. It's like Michigan; hardcore propellant. I'd say zinc."

"What about the symbols? D'you recognize them?"

Raz squinted even harder at the screen. "Not even sure it's a proper language."

"Two men have been murdered, Raz. Deciphering this is the key to finding out who killed them."

"What, and this is all you've got to go on? It's hardly much, now, is it?"

Sherlock, John, and Raz didn't even notice the fight that had broken out until it was already in full swing. With little warning, Scottie grabbed a can of lime green spray paint from Raz's duffel bag and sprayed it at Emily, nailing the tips of her hair and the left side of her jacket.

"Hey!" John barked. "Knock that off!"

Emily reached down and grabbed a hot pink can for herself. "Yeah! Knock it off, asshole!" she shouted. The girl then did the exact thing Scottie had done and managed to color a thick pink stripe across the front of his shirt.

John pinched at the bridge of his nose while Scottie and Emily chased each other with the spray paint in a circle around him. Next thing they knew Raz and Sherlock had completely disappeared, only to be replaced by a couple of cops. The kids, by this point dripping in wet paint, let out simultaneous yelps and shoved the spray cans into John's unsuspecting hands before taking off down the sidewalk.

They didn't stop running all the way to Baker Street, which thankfully wasn't all that far. They entered the foyer and immediately began arguing over who had dibs on the shower first. The troublemakers didn't get far, however, before running into a less than pleased Mrs. Hudson.

"Oh! Goodness!" the woman gasped. "Did a piñata throw up on you both? No, I don't want to hear it! Out, out, out, the both of you! I will not have you wiping off green and pink on all the furniture!" Mrs. Hudson shooed them backwards out the door.

"But, how are we supposed to get clean if we aren't allowed in to showe-" Emily started to say.

She was answered by a hard jet of water from a gardening hose. The girl shrieked at the sudden cold blast. Scottie laughed at her suffering just before receiving the same treatment. Once Mrs. Hudson decided she had done a good enough job of hosing the kids down she gave a satisfactory nod and tucked the torture instrument away again.

"Now don't you dare think of coming in again until you've dried off first. I'll go and fetch a couple of towels." With that the older woman disappeared into 221 Baker Street again, leaving Scottie and Emily dripping wet and shivering but (for the most part) only still covered in paint that had already dried. As promised, Mrs. Hudson returned with towels shortly and then left them alone again.

Emily hugged onto her towel and turned her head away with a pout. "Nice going."

"As if you weren't partially responsible for all that," Scottie rolled his eyes.

"You fired first."

"Only because you provoked me. And then escalated it."

Emily snapped her head around and glared. "A lady doesn't start fights; she only finishes them," the girl quoted.

"Oh? So you're trying to pass off as a lady now?"

Before their dispute could continue on, John pulled up in a taxi and stopped in front of them both. He opened his mouth as if he were going to say something. He didn't, though. Instead he shut it again and flipped Scottie and Emily off on his way back inside.

"What's his problem?" Scottie asked softly and bitterly. Emily merely shrugged.


After a change of clothes and yet another trip to New Scotland Yard and then Shad Sanderson Bank, they now found themselves strolling through Chinatown. Sherlock and John went on with their investigation as they normally would, but now made more of an effort to keep an eye on Scottie and Emily and keep them from starting anything up again. They had gone back to not talking and ignored one another for the most part, save an occasional dirty look as the group rounded a corner.

Noticing the tension, John scurried to the front of the group and cut them off. "You know what? New plan: I've got five quid for each of you to spend on whatever you want down here. But you have to promise to get along and not get on anyone else's nerves, alright?"

Emily folded her arms and cocked a hip out to the side. "Bribery? That's really what you're resorting to?"

"Take it or leave it."

"How does ten pounds sound?" the girl finally said. "That's more in dollars, right?"

John made a face. "I'm not haggling with you. I only just got a new job. I can't afford hand out that kind of money whenever I want to make sure you two cooperate."

"Y'know, Emily may be a royal pain in the ass, but she knows how to get what she wants, I'll give her that much," Scottie smirked. "And I don't know, I think ten pounds each sounds about right. You know how the Chinese like to jack up prices on cheaply made merchandise."

John looked like he was trying really hard to fight them on this one, but ultimately let out a sigh of defeat as he reached for his wallet.

"Well, now that they've sufficiently weaseled twenty quid out of you, shall we get on with it?" Sherlock pressed with a slightly amused expression. He nodded his head towards one of the little touristy shops.

Without saying anything to them or each other first, Emily took off with her money in one direction and Scottie the other. No more than a half hour later they met up again in a restaurant across from The Lucky Cat. Scottie got there before Emily and had pulled up a chair facing the window as Sherlock and John scribbled down notes excitedly. A waiter came over shortly and set down a plate of food in front of John before asking if Scottie wanted anything. The boy shook his head.

"Found you," Emily said, approaching the table.

John looked up at her and smiled. "And we found out where the symbols come from. Hangzhou numbers. Ancient Chinese."

"Yeah but I found ramune and pocky and those candies with the edible rice wrapper things so… I win."

"Perhaps you missed the big news while you were out buying Chinese candies and soda," Scottie began with a tight smile, "but we're sort of caught up in the middle of an international smuggling operation gone wrong. Maybe you shouldn't make light of it."

"Well good for you for figuring that one out," the girl answered with just as much sass. "Would you like a gold star or a scratch and sniff sticker?"

"Guys…"

"I'll take the sticker, please."

"Remind me, when was the last time that it rained?" Sherlock asked distractedly. Without waiting for a reply he got up and went across the street to Soo Lin's address, Scottie and John close behind. Emily noticed that the doctor hadn't taken much more than two bites of his meal, if that, and flagged down the waiter to get it boxed up.

Once she'd gotten that taken care of and went to rejoin the rest of the group, Sherlock had already climbed into Soo Lin's flat. Emily temporarily lost track of John and Scottie, but found them again as she skirted around to the front side of the building.

"D'you think maybe you could let us in this time?" John called at the shut door. He waited a moment before continuing: "Can you not keep doing this?"

"Well, good to know Scottie isn't the only one capable of being a colossal shit on repeat occasions."

"For your sake, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," muttered Scottie.

Sherlock's voice came from inside, but they couldn't quite make out what he was saying.

"See? He even agrees with me."

John shushed Emily and pushed her out of the way, leaning closer to the door. "What?"

Sherlock said something else slightly louder, but it wasn't any better.

"Any time you want to include me," John grumbled, starting to pace back and forth.

"Y'know, maybe we should find a place sit down and wait," Scottie suggested, tugging at John's arm. "Sherlock probably found something inside and got sidetracked by it. You know how he is."

"That's no excuse!" John yanked his arm away. This caused Scottie to tip off-balance for a moment, but he was able to keep himself from falling over. With a frustrated sigh the boy pulled out the last of his spending money and took it to a nearby vendor.

"What the hell was that about?" Emily wondered aloud.

"No, I'm Sherlock Holmes, and I always work alone because no one can compete with my MASSIVE INTELLECT!" John yelled into the door's letterbox. The man let go of the lid and it slammed shut. He turned around and threw his hands out to the side as if he expected Emily to offer an explanation as to his behavior. She of course had one, but kept it to herself.

Moments later the front door swung open. Sherlock was standing in the doorway looking winded. "The, uh, milk's gone off and the washing's starting to smell," he wheezed. "Somebody left here in a hurry."

"Here," Scottie said, offering out a water bottle to the detective. The others hadn't noticed him rejoining the group. "You look like you could use this."

"Oh. Um. Thanks." Without wanting to admit that he was very grateful for the gesture, Sherlock took the bottle and cracked it open.

"Somebody?" John echoed.

Sherlock took a big gulp of water, nodding all the while, and swallowed before answering him. "Soo Lin Yao. We have to find her." The detective cleared his throat and bent down to pick something up off the floor.

"But how, exactly?"

"Maybe we could start with this," Sherlock suggested, looking at the backside of the envelope he'd collected.


The letter led the ensemble to London's National Antiquities Museum. Once there Sherlock sought out the guy who'd left the note for Soo Lin, a young museum employee called Andy. While they waited, Scottie and Emily had begun to pace around opposite ends of the front part of the museum. Emily spotted a drinking fountain a little ways down a hallway that branched out and decided to go towards it, but was immediately cut off by a security guard.

"Hey - I need to see your sticker before I let you past."

"My… My what?" Emily smiled, not quite following.

"Your sticker. Showing you paid the entrance fee."

"I'm just getting water," the girl explained.

"No sticker, no water. And you can't take that in with you." He pointed at the plastic bag Emily was carrying, which contained John's leftovers from earlier.

"She's with us," Sherlock said, holding up a police badge that she knew was pickpocketed off of Lestrade at some point or another. "Police investigation."

The other gentleman raised an eyebrow. "Cops are working with kids now?"

"Yes, they're called interns," John said, pushing past the security guard and taking Emily by the crook of her arm. He already had Scottie with him. Along with Sherlock they followed Andy down the hallway. Andy stopped in front of a heavy metal door to unlock it and went in first, the rest of the group not far behind. At the bottom of a short flight of stairs he flipped on the lights, revealing another sort of corridor, this time lined with neatly organized museum archives.

"She does this demonstration for tourists; a-a tea ceremony," Andy told them. "So she would have packed up her things and just put them in here."

He showed them to one of the stacks on the wall and turned an odd looking handle attached to it, which widened the gap between the archives. John, Scottie, and Emily came closer to look inside, but Sherlock seemed distracted. Instead he fixed his attention on something further down the hall, and walked closer to it. The others looked up to see that it was in fact a marble statue of a nude woman, and had been spray painted across its front in the same yellow Chinese numbers as before.

"Well, well," Sherlock purred. "Looks like Miss Yao was involved too."

"Wh-What do you mean?" Andy stammered. "Do you know what those markings are about? Is Soo Lin in trouble?"

Sherlock didn't give the boy an answer to a single one of his questions, but instead thanked him for his assistance and informed him that that was all they would be needing. The sun had set now, and it was dark when they exited the museum.

"We have to get to Soo Lin Yao."

"If she's still alive." John's response sounded doubtful.

"Sherlock!"

A familiar face ran over to join the boys plus Emily. It was, of course, the same Raz that they'd run into earlier that afternoon, and he looked excited about something.

John stiffed. "Oh, look who it is."

"Found something you'll like," Raz told Sherlock just before taking off in another direction. Sherlock didn't have to be told twice and went bounding after the younger man, while John, Scottie and Emily caught up at a more relaxed pace.


"Tuesday morning, all you've gotta do is show up and say the bag was yours."

"Oh, you can just hold onto those," Raz offered. "Gift for your daughter. I've got more."

"Wh-"

"Forget about your court date," Sherlock instructed.

The group continued onwards and into a skate park, where a bunch of people who were older than Scottie and Emily but younger than Sherlock and John were showing off skateboard tricks to one another and being rather loud about it.

"If you want to hide a tree, then a forest is the best place to do it, wouldn't you say? People would just walk straight past, not knowing, unable to decipher the message."

Raz pointed at a particular spot on the heavily-graffitied walls, indicating the partially painted over markings left by the Chinese smugglers in their distinctive yellow paint.

"They have been here," Sherlock muttered, looking intrigued. "And that's the same paint?"

"Yeah."

"John, if we're going to decipher this code, we're gonna need to look for more evidence."

"You think there might be more around here?" asked John.

"Might be. And we'll probably find it a lot faster if we split up. Cover more ground."

"Well if that's all you need me for," Raz said with his chest puffed out all proud-like, "I think I'm gonna take my leave. And, say, I've got some free time now, so if you want to come kick it at my place, some of my friends and I could show you the ropes of stencil makin', like you was talking about earlier."

This comment was obviously directed at Emily, who seemed flattered by the gesture. John, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as charmed by it and shepherded Emily further away from the man. "She's fine. Thanks."

"Hey, whatever, man." Raz threw his hands into the air and turned away. "I'm just being friendly."

"Emily and I will look together," John told Sherlock. "I don't like the idea of her walking around alone at night. Especially with people like… well, that hanging around."

"Fair enough. Then Scottie and I will cover ground in the opposite direction."


"So, random question, but… Where did you and Scottie say you were from, again?" John asked nonchalantly. "In the states, I mean."

"Oh. Well, I used to live in LA. California."

"So then you didn't come from the same place?"

Emily shook her head. "He grew up in Tennessee. Some little town no one's ever heard of."

John nodded slowly. "Alright. Then… how did you two meet?"

"Online. Look, not that I mind chatting it up with you are anything, but you're not gonna help me forgive Scottie any faster and aren't we kind of in the middle of a case here?"

The two of them were going through an underpass, examining the posters and graffiti as they went. They came out to find a set of railway lines. John had a flashlight with him, which he pointed at the ground in front of them. "Hey." John elbowed Emily and nodded towards the beam of light. It was pointing at several splashes of yellow paint up against the tracks. "I think we're close," he said.

"I think we're more than close. Look." Emily reached out and took John's flashlight from him. She then used it to point up at a brick wall ahead of them. It was fully caked with the large yellow symbols.

John took a step back, his mouth open in surprise. Without skipping a beat he whipped his mobile out and began calling Sherlock. Emily waited patiently while Sherlock never picked up. John exhaled and put his phone away again. "Alright, I'm gonna need you to run and get Sherlock. Let him know we found this."

"I thought you said you didn't want me walking around by myself out here."

"...okay I'll go then. I don't suppose you have a mobile of your own on you? No? Alright, then take mine, and call Sherlock if anything happens. Alright?"

"But... then I'm still out here alone," Emily protested. "Why can't I come with you?"

"Then who's going to keep an eye on the wall?"

"Are you expecting it to get up and walk away? Look, if you're so worried that something's going to happen and we'll lose the message again, let's just snap a picture of it, alright?" The girl took John's cell phone and backed up a couple steps to get a picture of the wall with the flash on. She handed it back to him. "See? Can we both go now?"

"Alright. Fine."

They found Scottie and Sherlock again further down the railroad.

"Answer your phone!" John called out as he approached. "I've been calling you! We've found it." Without waiting for a reply the doctor spun around again and ran back the way he came. Sherlock went darting after him, followed by Scottie, who chucked and empty yellow spray can at Emily on his way past.

"Ouch!" Emily winced as it bounced off her shoulder and hit the ground. "Was that necessary?!" She picked it up again and threw it back at Scottie, but he was already too far ahead, even if her aim hadn't been completely off.

Back at the wall, John made to show Sherlock the Chinese writing. Much to his surprise (but not Scottie and Emily's), in the few minutes since they'd left it the thing had been entirely painted over in black.

"It's been painted over!" John said, as if that much weren't already obvious. Sherlock shined his flashlight at the wall. "I don't understand. It-It was here… ten minutes ago. I saw it. Emily saw it. A whole load of graffiti!"

"Somebody doesn't want me to see it," Sherlock concluded. He did a full 180 and grabbed onto the sides of John's head with both of his hands.

"Hey, Sherlock, what are you doing…?"

"Shh, John, concentrate. I need you to concentrate. Close your eyes."

"No, what?" the man stammered. "Why? Why? What are you doing?!"

Sherlock lowered his hands so that they were now clinging to John by his upper arms. "Now kiss," Scottie whispered. Normally Emily would've jumped onboard with this line of teasing well, but she was still very much cross with him and in no mood.

Sherlock and John were spinning now. "I need you to maximize your visual memory," Sherlock was instructing him. "Try to picture what you saw. Can you picture it?"

"Yeah."

"Can you remember it?"

"Yes, definitely."

"Can you remember the pattern?"

"Yes!"

"How much can you remember it?"

"Well, don't worry-"

"Because the average human memory on visual matters is only sixty-two percent accurate."

"Jesus fucking Christ, I had him take a photo," Emily let out, pulling in between them both.

Sherlock dropped his arms. "Oh?"

"She did. See?" John gave his phone to Sherlock, who took it, looking embarrassed.

"Except it's weird," Emily said half to herself. "Supposing our guys only painted the wall because they didn't want Sherlock to see it, they must have known that John and I found it, right? Then… wouldn't they have noticed us taking the picture anyway?"

"Don't worry about that. We have the message, so the only thing that matters now is decoding it."

TO BE CONTINUED...