Disclaimer: Characters belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; this particular version belongs to Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss

The Good Doctor
Chapter 1

The Beginning

"No, please, don't kill me!" a rather large man cowered on the floor of an abandoned warehouse, facing his unknown attacker and begging for mercy. Footsteps echoed throughout the desolate building as the figure slowly drew near. The man heard a click resonate and widened his eyes. His attacker had stolen his gun when he was ambushed from behind earlier. Tonight was most likely the day he was going to die. By his own gun too.

"Don't be stupid. I'm not going to kill you. Just taking out the bullets," he heard the stranger say. "By the way, thanks for the gun," the figure added. The scared man had no idea what the other man looked like as his attacker expertly managed to stay hidden within the shadows. The large man scrambled up from the ground and swung his head around, attempting to sense where the other was. He felt like an animal, trapped while his predator slowly circled his prey from the shadows.

He panicked and and threw his two black briefcases onto the floor. "You can have it! Take it. Take it all. Please, just don't kill me," he shouted, sweat streaming down his face.

The unknown man chuckled and responded,"No, I don't want your drugs. But, what I do want to know is this: how many people, would you say, died because of your drugs? How many family members suffered, felt pain because the one they love OD'ed on the filth you put out on the streets?"

The large man was sweating profusely at this point. "I'm just a dealer. I don't make the rules!" he shakily responded.

"Right. So the hordes of people dying every day...they're not your responsibility at all. You just sell them poison," he said sarcastically, still circling the drug dealer.

Suddenly, the large man was attacked from behind. The figure knocked him over, forcing him to collapse. He stuck a black cloth bag on the now whimpering man and proceeded to tie his hands together. He moved on to the ankles, making sure the ropes were securely tightened. The stranger then dug through the drug dealer's pockets, took the man's cell phone, and then grabbed the remaining rope, tossing it over one of the rafter beams in the ceiling a few times and pulled, forcing the man's body to ascend a few feet off the floor.

"Help! Stop!" the large man futilely cried, the black cloth muffling his screams. The intruder secured the rope around a conveyer belt that had stopped functioning for years.

"Hope you enjoy prison," the stranger said, dialing 999 after opening the briefcases and placing them below the man's head. He held the phone up to his ear to confirm that it was dialing and left it on the conveyer belt, walking away and leaving the squirming drug-dealing scum dangling upside down from the ceiling as the police rushed towards him.

"Warrington," Sherlock said as he neared the crime scene after exiting the cab and saw a black-haired average looking man. It was dark at night, but they had set up flood lights for visibility as the area was rarely visited so the city had refused to place any sort of street lights anywhere.

"Sherlock Holmes?" the inspector asked as he lifted the yellow tape for the tall dark-haired man, "I'm Detective Inspector Warrington from narcotics. I had Lestrade call in a favor. This isn't any normal case. It's, well, odd," he explained.

Sherlock nodded and started walking. "I assume we're dealing with the same man here as the last two cases. Otherwise you wouldn't have called me as this isn't even a case at all," he said as he led the way into the warehouse. A couple of policemen were manning the door and immediately slid open the heavy doors as soon as they saw the unruly-haired consulting detective approaching.

Sherlock approached the conveyor belt in the center of the room and looked at the scene before him. The forensics were busy dusting for fingerprints and bagging all the evidence.

"How'd you know about the other cases? We hadn't even released the full stories to the press yet," Warrington asked. Sherlock rolled his eyes and ignored him. He continued to survey the crime scene.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something glinting. Interesting, he thought. Sherlock reached into his pocket and pulled on his gloves. He bent down and picked up the object, identifying it as a bullet.

"A .45. Intact, meaning it was unused. Obviously,'" he said as he continued to stare at it. "You're dealing with a man with very strong morals," he said.

Warrington scratched his head. "How'd you reckon?" he asked.

Sherlock practically shoved the small bullet up his nose. "The bullet."

The DI stared back at him with a blank face, causing the consulting detective to shift his head to the right out of annoyance. He turned his head back towards the inspector who stood in front of him.

"The bullet. It's intact, meaning the man who did this must have been in contact with a gun at some point, either his own or perhaps taken from the drug dealer you found here an hour ago. However, the man you found merely had a few bumps on his head as you informed me on the phone earlier, meaning that whoever did this had no intention of killing. We are dealing with some sort of vigilante, perhaps. Definitely not a family member or friend of anyone who's ever died from his drugs as that sort of thing spurs emotion, most likely rage which isn't the case in this instance. Same MO as the other two cases. Two criminals, left immobilized as the police is called, leading to their inevitable arrest. No traces of DNA. Obviously you know it has to have been a man as the evidence suggests a person of enough strength to physically deal with grown men. Could be multiple people working together, but in most cases, vigilante acts like this suggests singular. One person. One man. Quick. Clean. Simple. Less likely to get caught. Seems like a hobby of some sort as all cases occurred late at night which could be explained by a man who has a regular day job. Could also be explained by darkness giving cover, but judging by the time consistencies, the former seems to be the better fit. With that pieced together, I'd say male, mid twenties at the very least, but definitely older, works a regular job, and is tired of the world either by age or what he's seen and wants to take matters into his own hands. Now, if you excuse me, I need to get back to my experiments," he concluded.

Warrington stared at him, his mouth slightly agape. "Lestrade said you'd be like this, but, bloody hell. I had no idea. How did you know all that?" he asked.

"It's all in the evidence," Sherlock said as he walked out of the warehouse.

John yawned as an intern ran up to him waving the morning paper. "Doctor Watson, have you seen the paper today? They found another one!" the gangly boy excitedly said. "He's like Batman or something!" John turned his head towards him mid-yawn and took the paper from him.

"Oh, hello, Andrew. Let's see here, 'Drug-Dealer Arrested; Vigilante Strikes Again?'" he read aloud. He quickly scanned the article which didn't say much. The journalist just went over what little information Scotland Yard had released to the media, speculating if the whole thing was the work of a rival drug-dealing gang or a vigilante-type of person.

John yawned again and blinked his eyes several times to clear them of the tears that had formed.

"Had a late night out, huh, doctor?" the intern smiled at John. Doctor Watson was Andrew's favorite person on the entire hospital staff. He was even thinking of switching to trauma, following the good doctor's footsteps. There was something about him that just made Andrew admire him; he exuded something Andrew couldn't pinpoint, but he always felt like John had a bigger presence than what he appeared to look like.

John smiled and said, "Ah, no, not really. Just extra tired from all the excitement we've had the past few weeks."

Andrew nodded. "If you'd like, I can get you some tea," he offered. John nodded, uttering a small thanks as the boy rushed off towards the cafeteria. He was a nice kid, John thought. Reminded him of himself before he went to the military. Being exposed to that kind of stuff really changes you.

He headed over to the clinic from the emergency centre. It was a rather slow morning, so the head of trauma had asked him to take over clinic duties as they were having a bit of a shortage that month. He had no choice but to agree, but luckily, it was a slow morning there as well. John opened the door on the far right and walked in, yawning again. He got on his computer and logged on. He checked the time. "9:45...it should be in by now," he mumbled to himself. He checked his off-shore bank account and squinted. Ah, there it was. £40,000.

"Doctor Watson?" Andrew called out as he opened the door. John slightly jumped and quickly exited the browser. "I've been looking for you at the trauma centre," the intern said as he handing over the tall styrofoam cup containing tea.

"Ah, sorry about that," John said, "It was a bit slow so I was asked to go on clinic duty."

Andrew shook his head. "No worries. I'll leave you to it then, sir," he said as he closed the door behind him. John raised his cup in thanks and sipped it. Today was going to be another long day, he thought.

A/N:

Greetings, everyone!
This story popped into my head when I was trying to sleep yesterday (always happens to me. Don't you hate that?) and I got so excited, I had to write it. Haha
So, this means I'm working on two active fics, but they balance each other out as they follow similar formats.
This one is supposed to be a bit darker than Parallel. I've been itching to write normal versions of John and Sherlock. Er. Well, as normal as this fic is gonna get.

Sorry the chapter is short, but I felt like the first chapter should be just a quick introduction.
No worries. My imagination is running rampant with this one. I've been having a bit of trouble with Parallel, so this is just something to get my mind going.

Be on the lookout for more Sherlock drabbles. For some reason, it's so easy to write him (maybe because we're more similar than I'd like to admit) and kind of difficult to write John (whom I thought I was similar to. haha), but I think I'm gonna take a shot at that sometime. Or something like that.

Thank you for reading! :)