A/N: Again, so sorry for the delay. I love you all for being able to put up with my inconsistency, and I love you all for reading this story. Here's chapter six for you.
Hope you enjoy :)
"It's Moriarty, isn't it?", John asked when Sherlock put the phone away.
"No, the M stands for Mycroft – of course it's Moriarty", the detective spoke sarcastically. "He's showing off again, proving that he doesn't need to hide from me".
"Good, that means that he'll make a visible mistake and we'll catch him", John concluded.
"He's not stupid, John. He is as likely to make a mistake as I am"
"Which is... not very likely?"
"Not very, no", Sherlock muttered, texting Mycroft back.
"It was nice of Mycroft to send you that picture", John tried.
"He's only trying to flaunt his power", Sherlock scoffed. Well, at least John had tried.
John considered updating his blog. He hadn't done that in a very long time, and he had probably lost a lot of readers, but updating it still felt reassuring. He reached for his computer.
"You're not serious, are you? We have barely even started on the case, you'll have nothing to write about", Sherlock looked up disbelievingly.
"How did you...", John started, but decided to ignore it. "So how do we continue with the case?"
"We'll have to go to the place in the photo and examine the graffiti. Judging by the facade on the buildings it's probably somewhere close to Hyde Park, so not a very long distance from here".
"Seriously! They've already cleaned it up! And Mycroft sent me the picture less than an hour ago!". Sherlock looked as if he wanted to punch the brick wall.
"Maybe Moriarty's men cleaned it up. They only left it here long enough for you to see it"
"Thank you very much John, but that is already clear as day!", Sherlock growled irritably. "Why would he write 'need a hint?' if he doesn't even leave me the spray paint as a clue?"
Sherlock studied the brick wall closely, looking for rests of the spray paint. He took out a small magnifying glass and carefully scraped off a sliver of brick.
"I'm going to run some tests on this and hopefully there will still be rests of paint", he proclaimed and put the sliver in a small plastic bag. To John it really just looked like a tiny piece of brick, but apparently Sherlock saw potential clues on it.
"How could someone spray this and leave without being seen by the camera?", John asked and glanced up at said camera. It occurred to him that Mycroft could be watching them. And that he probably was, that nosy git.
"It only takes pictures every 60th second", Sherlock mumbled while examining the ground in front of the wall. "I'm not getting anything else out of this, let's take this to the lab". The detective stepped away from the wall and looked at it one last time before turning around to hail a cab.
After half an hour of Sherlock examining and John tea drinking, the detective cried out in excitement.
"Discovered something?", John asked, looking up from his phone.
"Indeed I have! Not only rests of spray paint, but also tiny cloth rests. Whoever Moriarty hired wasn't very good at covering up their tracks", Sherlock chuckled, sounding like a child on Christmas. John didn't understand his enthusiasm.
"I understand why the spray paint could serve as a clue, seeing that there aren't that many brands of that kind of paint. But clothes? Won't that be very hard to distinguish?"
Sherlock shot him a look of disappointed and irritation, and then he proceeded to thoroughly ignore his question and continue with his work. And after a few more minutes of silence John gave up with a sigh. He sat back down in the uncomfortable wooden chair and sipped his tea.
"How's it going?", Molly all but whispered, cautiously entering the room as to not disturb in the research.
"I believe some progress has been made, although the consulting five year-old over here is not really sharing his discoveries", John muttered. He strongly believed that both him and Sherlock were much too old for this kind bickering. Despite that, he didn't want to be the first one putting his pride aside.
"...I'll just leave you to it then", Molly dubiously smiled and backed out of the room.
"Consulting five year-old", Sherlock looked up and raised one of his eyebrows questioningly.
"Can you or can you not trace the cloth rests to the culprit?", John stared intently into those steel blue eyes.
"Thank you for having confidence in me", Sherlock scoffed. "I have actually done this before. The cloth is made of a cheap material from a clothing store close to where Moriarty's message was written. It's a mix of 90 percent cotton and 10 percent polyester. There are rests of the chemicals used for dying it, but they are faded and suggests that the piece of clothing is old or well-worn. Small traces of men's cologne can be found on it. Thanks to my knowledge of different colognes and perfumes – stop giggling, John – I can determine that it's of a cheaper kind. This indicates that even though this man leads quite a meager life, he makes an effort to look his best. I would say that his height is about 178 cm, judging by the height at which he sprayed the message. And if you can stop pestering me with your ridiculous questions for just a couple of minutes I will be able to extract the culprit's DNA from the skin molecules I found", he said very quickly and returned to look through the microscope. John had to bite his lip as to not exclaim "brilliant" or something ridiculous of that sort. And he did actually shut up and continued with sipping his tea.
When the two of them walked out of Barts some time later, it was with great confidence. Sherlock had successfully managed to extract DNA from the evidence and it led them to a poor factory worker whom had been convicted of a couple of minor crimes before.
"He's most likely just an underling without actual contact with Moriarty, but that doesn't mean that questioning him wont lead anywhere", Sherlock said as they climbed into a cab.
"It's the only lead we've got anyways", John thought out loud. "Where is his flat located?".
"Near Ravenscourt park", he looked at his watch. "And we're lucky because he isn't there at the moment, he's at his day-job".
"His day-job?", John wondered.
"Yes, doing Moriarty's dirty work is obviously just something he does on the side, therefor his night-job. His day-job is at a factory in the other side of London.", Sherlock shot John an insufferable look as if to say 'really, John, really?'.
"So, how are things?", John asked in an attempt to change the subject. At first Sherlock looked bewildered, but soon caught on.
"I would deem that you know me well enough by now as to not try to actually do small talk. But fine, things are fine really. Nothing more, nothing less", Sherlock shrugged uncharacteristically
"That's good. Have you been occupied with other cases? I mean, because you haven't really been accessible to either me or Lestrade".
"I am fully aware of that you have been chit-chatting with Mrs Hudson and she did most likely tell you to 'knock some sense into him, because he has been spending far too many days locked away in his bedroom'. And yes, I overheard most of your conversations. The walls are fairly thin".
John thought of how badly he actually wanted to knock some sense into him, or at least knock him, at that particular moment, but he decided against it. A sulking consulting detective was a difficult consulting detective. Well, more difficult than before anyways.
"I'm glad that you decided to get out a bit more, too much wallowing in bed is not good for you", John said, trying to sound a bit more composed than he actually was.
"Says the man who put me in that position in the first place", Sherlock muttered, just loud enough for John to hear it.
"Excuse me, what?! It's not my bloody fault that you felt like sulking for two months!"
"I was NOT sulking, I was thinking", Sherlock objected turning to John with exceptionally fiery eyes.
"Of course you were, because the genius Sherlock bloody Holmes can only think properly when he's locked away in his room! Don't even bother to lie because you know that I'm not buying rubbish like that! You were definitely sulking, although I have no idea why". The cabbie cast a worried glance at the two men but John ignored him, not lowering his voice.
"You have no idea why? I already knew that you're not really born to deduce, but you're usually not this daft", Sherlock murmured darkly, suddenly looking more smoldering rather that fiery.
"We can't all be geniuses, Sherlock", John said scornfully, trying not to show how much he had been hurt by the comment. Sherlock looked at him for a moment, before the fire disappeared from his eyes and was replaced by something soft.
"I'm sorry, John. That was very inconsiderate of me". John could have sworn that the softness in Sherlock's eyes was regret.
"It's true, though. I am really daft, aren't I?", John chuckled, but wasn't really able to sound unaffected.
"No, you're not daft. I wouldn't lo..., like you if you were", Sherlock smiled, a genuine but sad smile.
"Is this about...that? Y'know, what you said earlier, at the airport", John asked and suddenly Sherlock stopped smiling. He looked away quickly.
"Oh look, were already here. Let's get going", he said and jumped out of the cab, leaving John feeling odd and confused.
