A/N: Thank you everybody for reading and reviewing, I'm so incredibly grateful! Sorry for the amount of sulking Sherlock is doing in this fic, but they're finally talking things through.
Hope you enjoy :)
John stepped out of the cab and into a completely normal and calm residential area. Not where he would be looking for criminals, but if it was one thing Sherlock had taught him it was that criminals could be found anywhere. The shop down the street, the lovely old couple next door, and even your own wife, apparently. John gritted his teeth at the memory, trying to shake it off of his mind. They had to look for evidence. He looked around for Sherlock but he was already way ahead of him.
"Wait up!", he shouted after the detective, waving his arms to catch Sherlock's attention. He knew they had to sit down and have a proper talk somewhere where Sherlock would be unable to run away, but that would have to wait until they had some real lead to Moriarty.
"He lives here, flat 4C", Sherlock said when John had caught up to him.
They managed to sneak into the stairwell and crammed themselves into the tiny and, according to John, not completely trustworthy elevator. It made a rattling sound as it very slowly ascended through the empty stairwell. John shuffled towards the mirror in the back of the cramped space as to not ram into Sherlock when the elevator suddenly came to an abrupt stop. The doors creaked open and they stepped out onto the stone floor.
"So you're just going to knock on the door asking if you could search his flat?", John asked dubiously.
"As I already told you, he's not home. Do try to keep up", Sherlock sent John a condescending look. Then he took out a lock pick and started to work on the door.
"I have a feeling Lestrade wouldn't approve of this", John chuckled.
"If I needed his approval on everything I would just sit at home and London's criminals would be running amok", Sherlock said and the lock opened with a loud click. They stepped into the flat. It smelled faintly of baked beans.
"He only left half an hour ago", Sherlock said and sniffed carefully. "There is a slight smell of hydrogen peroxide coming from that cupboard", he then said and pointed at one of the green painted kitchen cupboards. He opened it and rummaged through it, finding a blue t-shirt.
"This belonged to his last victim, a woman in her thirties. There are faint bloodstains along neck and the killer obviously tried to remove them, but failed".
"Right, we can leave now then. Let's just give Lestrade a call and he'll pin the murder on this man", John said and started to leave. He was stopped by Sherlock grabbing his arm.
"No, it's much more important to pin this on Moriarty, and find out where he is hiding", he said and continued to search through the flat. When he came back to John he only held a piece of paper.
"How is that a lead to Moriarty?", John asked hesitatingly.
"Maybe it isn't, but it's a copy from a note in the murderer's calender. He's meeting someone at the small café down the street at 10 this evening. It might not be someone from Moriarty, but I've got a feeling that it is", Sherlock said and started to form a text to Lestrade.
"You've got a feeling? You don't believe in solving crimes through getting feelings and hunches or trusting your gut", John laughed.
"No I don't but why would this man, a seemingly ordinary man if we overlook the fact that he's a murderer, write a coded note in his calendar?", he asked and held the note out to John.
"It's only a bunch of nonsense", John shook his head at the collection of letters that didn't form any coherent words. "How do you know he's meeting someone?"
"It says so right here", Sherlock looked at John and sighed when John showed no signs of comprehension. He pointed at the letters. "Every second letter is part of the actual note, the other letters are just nonsense, as you so eloquently put it. When you have the letters that are part of the actual note, you need to further decipher each letter by replacing it with the letter in front of it in the alphabet. I don't understand why he thought this would puzzle the police, even Anderson could figure this one out".
"Right", John mumbled and they left the flat.
John almost exclaimed 'bored!' but then realized that Sherlock probably would think that he was mocking him. But, truth to be told, he was bored out of his mind. They had been sitting in the alley beside the run down café for two hours without anything happening. Even Sherlock seemed ready to leave when they suddenly spotted the man who's flat they had broken into. He was standing outside the café, talking to a big, rugged man who seemed very annoyed.
"Is that our man?", John whispered.
"I would believe so", Sherlock whispered back. Soon enough, the man made his way back down the sidewalk with John and Sherlock carefully trailing behind him. The sun had already set so the risk of them getting spotted was not very high. The man walked a few blocks and then entered a warehouse.
"We should locate another way in", Sherlock mumbled and disappeared into an alleyway, jumping onto a dumpster and in through an open window.
"Right", John sighed and tried to do the same thing, only with more bruises and mumbled swearing.
"Shh!", Sherlock shushed John and pressed a hand to his mouth while dragging him behind some barrels. John furiously tried to bend Sherlock's hand away from his face, but to no avail.
"What?! What's going on?!", John tried to ask, and apparently Sherlock understood him.
"Don't. Make. A. Sound.", he whispered quietly, close to John's ear. John tried to squirm away, to get a good look of what was happening, but Sherlock stopped him and looked him in the eyes.
"John, I need you to trust me. Please, stay here until I say it's okay for you to move. These guys are too many, we can't handle them ourselves", he whispered so quietly that it was hardly audible. His warm breath against John's ear made him a bit calmer. As long as Sherlock knew what he was doing they wouldn't be in too much trouble, right?
A sudden gunshot and a scream made John breathe a quick rush of air and he looked at Sherlock. Sherlock could see a tiny bit of what was going on through a gap between two barrels and he shook his head at John, signaling that they couldn't move from their hiding place just yet.
A couple of minutes later, the place was cleared out and they could stand up. There was a man lying on the floor in the middle of the room. John entered doctor-mode and took four steps through the warehouse to get to man. He quickly concluded that the man had died from internal bleeding from being beaten up rather than being shot, seeing as the bullet only had grazed his upper arm.
"John, I have sent a text to Lestrade and he will be here shortly. Let's go home", Sherlock said, unusually quiet.
"Aren't you going to look for clues?"
"I saw several of the men who were here and at least two of them are in the criminal records. It won't be hard to locate them"
"Okay, sure, we can go home if you want to", John said, feeling that something odd was going on.
"All right Sherlock, what's going on? Normally you would happily take on an army of criminals without a thought of them being 'too many'. And you would definitely not leave a crime scene and give Anderson the pleasure of investigating it instead", John was actually more concerned for his flatmate than he had been all the time when he had been sulking away in his bedroom, not bothering to eat. He looked up at Sherlock as he was wandering back and forth through the living room, refusing to sit down and discuss things with the doctor.
"Sherlock, are you even listening?"
"Yes I am! It was stupid of me to drag us both into danger just because I was too eager to solve the case!", Sherlock exclaimed, kicking a stack of newspapers across the room.
"...Sherlock, please calm down and sit", John said and pushed Sherlock's favorite armchair towards him. The detective rolled his eyes but sat down.
"Now, what's that all about? I apologize for saying this, but you haven't been acting like yourself for the past weeks", John tried to smile reassuringly but it felt more like a grimace.
"I'm acting like I always do, John. Don't say something preposterous like that", Sherlock moved to stand up again, but John stopped him.
"Sherlock, please. Tell me what's wrong, just this one time", John asked pleadingly. He hated it when Sherlock seemed to suffer in silence and refused to tell him what it was that bothered him. It made him feel like he was a worthless friend.
"I shouldn't put you in danger like I did today", Sherlock said quietly. He didn't look at John.
"What do you mean? You've always been okay with us running into danger"
"I used to be, but I don't think you understand. John, you always seem to rely completely on me to fix the situation whenever I've made a miscalculation or a wrong deduction. You seem to think that I have some kind of superpower that allows me to save us from every bad situation we're put in. But it doesn't work that way. One day I'll make a mistake, even more horrible and unfixable than the one on the roof at Bart's or the one with Magnussen, and maybe I won't be able to fix it"
John was stunned at his flatmate's words for a moment.
"Sherlock, I know what I'm doing when I'm throwing myself into danger with you. I can assure you that I don't rely on you to fix everything, even if you're the clever one"
"But what if I got you killed? What if I couldn't save you?", Sherlock exclaimed, staring into John's eyes.
"That's a risk I'm willing to take", John replied, sternly.
"Well, I'm not", Sherlock said, just as sternly and just a tad more stubbornly.
"I'm not some damsel in distress, a maid that you have to keep from harm! I was in the bloody army!", John stood up to his full height and was prepared to storm off into the kitchen and make himself a cup of tea at any moment, because this was really too much for him.
"That's a good reason for it to not happen again. You got shot in the shoulder. Where will it be the next time?", a hint off bitterness had crept into Sherlock's voice, even though he just looked... worried. John sighed and sank back into his armchair.
"Sherlock, what's the reason for you saying all of this? This is nothing like you, because you know that I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, even in dangerous situations"
"Because the guilt over the danger I put you in after the roof at Bart's and after Magnussen was eating me up. I can be responsible for my own life, but not for yours", Sherlock looked defeated.
"So the reason for you saying this is because you would feel guilty if I was harmed? Sherlock, I don't think-"
"I would also never forgive myself if you were harmed. I wouldn't be able to live without you. I wouldn't be able to eat even if I felt hungry, I wouldn't be able to sleep even if I felt sleepy and I wouldn't be able to breathe even if my lungs ached for oxygen. I thought that my life was good before I met you, I thought that I was doing all right. But then I met you, John, and realized that my life before you isn't even worth calling a life. I realized that I couldn't be without you"
John didn't know what to say. Sherlock's words rattled around in his mind but didn't find a grip. Did Sherlock really mean what he thought he meant? Was this still about the things that had happened earlier that day or was this something deeper?
"...You're not just talking about today's events, are you?", he asked in a thin voice.
"No, I'm not", Sherlock answered in his deep baritone.
John steeled himself.
"Then we'll need to have a proper talk".
