John unlocked the front door in a hurry and took the steps to the flat two at a time. He cursed to himself as he struggled with his key in the lock and pushed the door open, nearly tripping into the flat in his haste. He glanced around, eyes skimming over the piles of papers, the files, the maps and facts sheets pinned to the walls and doors. This was how their home looked now.
"Sherlock?" he called, shutting the door behind him. "Sherlock!"
He heard a clatter coming from their bedroom and his heart faltered for a moment until he placed the sound as the rattle of their closet door and not of the screen being put back into place on the window. John drew a deep breath, trying to calm down.
He'd received a text from Sherlock demanding that he come home immediately, right as he was about to start doing the inventory check – the last thing he had to do on his Saturday shift. John had paid the nurse extra out of his own pocket to finish it for him and had run out of the surgery to catch a cab. He'd sent several text messages and left voicemails, trying to get Sherlock to tell him what was going on.
He ran through the list of other committee members in his head and wondered which one of them had died this time and how. He didn't think he could stomach another death like Brace's. Whenever he'd closed his eyes over the past two and a half days, he saw image of the man's body smeared on the asphalt. And Sherlock crouching over it, grinning.
Sherlock strode out of the bedroom, that familiar intent look on his face. It hadn't fully left his expression since this whole thing had begun, but after identifying McKinney it had become harder, more intense. There was never a moment now when John didn't see Sherlock's eyes gleaming, even when he was still and silent and thinking. There had been more prolonged periods of silence over the last two days, interspersed with manic bouts of dialogue – monologue, really, because Sherlock didn't seem the least bit interested in what John had to say. John had come home both days since then to find Sherlock in mid-tirade to the skull, only to switch his focus to John when John was at home. It scarcely seemed to matter if John was actually listening.
But occasionally he'd out himself by not noticing when Sherlock asked him a direct question and that would send the detective into a huff, throwing himself into some new avenue of research or stalking into the kitchen for a sulk. His normal sulking spot on the sofa was currently unavailable.
John was getting sick of it, sick of the whole thing. He wanted his chair back. He wanted his flat back. He wanted his husband back.
"Where would you be if you weren't here?" Sherlock demanded, crossing the room in three long strides, grasping John by the upper arms and leaning down, studying him intently.
"What?" John demanded.
"Where would you be, John?" Sherlock snapped.
"At work, Sherlock! Like I should be! What's going on? Who's died this time?"
"Died? Died? No one's died, John! I'm not talking about work! Where would you be if you weren't here or at work? Where do you go? What do you do? For how long do you do it?"
"What?" John asked, struggling to catch up and trying to shrug off Sherlock's grasp at the same time. The detective tightened his grip until John gave up. "Wait, what do you mean no one's died?"
"I mean no one's died, John! It's not that complicated a sentence!"
John felt a flash of anger that shifted some of his panic and fear. He'd just spent twenty minutes in a cab trying to keep himself calm all while imagining the worst for some poor victim.
"I understand the bloody sentence, Sherlock! But we've been dealing with murders for the past two weeks! You called me out of the blue and insist I come home – what else was I supposed to think?"
"You're free to think whatever you want – although a little more careful consideration would be appreciated," Sherlock replied in an offhanded tone that made John want to snarl. He knew, he knew Sherlock never meant it. And normally, John could just shrug it off. But he was getting tired of being reminded that compared to the great Sherlock Holmes, John Watson had the intellectual capacity a toddler in a sandbox.
"If someone had died, I'd have told you," Sherlock continued. He released John and pulled out his phone, tossing it unnecessarily given the small space between them. John managed to catch it with some fumbling and Sherlock huffed.
"What?" John snapped. "You didn't have to throw it!"
Sherlock stared at him until John gave in and read the text message.
No McKinney, no job. I don't work for free.
John read it three times before comprehension dawned and Sherlock started making impatient noises. He looked up again, some of the frustration draining away.
"He's–" John started, then looked down at the phone again. "He's just stopped?"
"Yes, obviously," Sherlock replied in a tone of voice that told John he was rolling his eyes without John having to see it. The doctor raised his head again, glaring hard, but Sherlock ignored him. "That's why we haven't had any contact in two days, why no one else has died. Why no one else will die."
John felt a wave of relief so sudden and unexpected that he managed to keep himself standing upright only from long ingrained military training. He let his head drop back and closed his eyes, exhaling a deep sigh, his hold loosening on the phone.
"Thank God," he murmured. "No one should have gone the way any of them went. Especially Brace. God."
"Precisely," Sherlock answered in a clipped tone, plucking the phone from John's fingers. "Which is why I need to you to tell me where you would be if you weren't here or at work."
John raised his head again, frowning in confusion.
"What? Why does that matter?"
Sherlock heaved a sigh and dropped his head slightly to one side, arching an eyebrow as it to ask if John were serious. After a moment, he rolled his eyes again.
"Oh, very well," he muttered. "It should be obvious but I can see that it isn't." John opened his mouth to snap at the unnecessarily snippy comment but Sherlock kept talking over him – as usual. "He's not getting paid so he's not killing. He's not killing so he's not leaving us clues. But he's still out there, John. We have McKinney but we don't have him."
"I know," John replied darkly. If Sherlock noticed his tone, he didn't let on.
"Establishing some sort of understanding as to his daily activities may help establish his patterns," Sherlock said.
John frowned again, shaking his head.
"What's that got to do with me?"
Sherlock raised his hands as if appealing for some sort of divine intervention.
"Oh, I'm so sorry I'm not following your brilliant–"
"He has a job and a family. He does his job and goes home to that family. He was also a soldier. He has training similar to yours, at least the basic training. A former soldier with a civilian career – if you will – and a family. By all outward societal standards, a normal person. Whatever it is that you do when you are not here or at work may help shed some light on his activities and frame of mind."
John waited for the words to make sense, to rearrange themselves into something other than what he thought he'd heard.
They didn't.
"Are you– Sherlock–" he started, then fought to regroup and sucked in a deep breath, holding it and releasing it slowly. "You're suggesting I'm like him?"
"In some ways, there are significant similarities, yes. You're both former soldiers with very specialized training that you've carried back into your civilian lives. In terms of appearance you seem similar enough – the sketch we got from Holly is not that detailed but when you consider colouring and general appearance, neither of you stands out in a crowd. You both have families – granted, he has children and you don't, but you both have somewhere to return in the evenings after work. A normal life."
John stared. He felt his hands balling into fists and forced his fingers back open.
"How dare you," he said softly.
Sherlock paused, looking surprised.
"What?" he asked.
"How dare you," John repeated, hearing the sharp edge in his voice. "You– how dare you insinuate that I'm anything like him?"
"Oh, come on, John, I did not say that you go about killing people because someone's offered you money! You're the one who turned down Mycroft's offer of a bribe to spy on me, so you clearly have some sort of ethical standards that you associate with earning a living."
"You're damn right I do!" John yelled. "I don't go around beating people with cricket bats or pushing them off bridges or kidnapping and murdering little girls!"
"Yes, I know," Sherlock said. "Although you've clearly demonstrated your willingness to kill when the situation required it."
"To save your bloody life!" John shot back. "Because you were too bloody stupid just to ignore that stupid cabbie and his stupid game! I do not make a habit of shooting people I don't know because of some misplaced political idea or because I thought it might be a good career move!"
John froze when Sherlock's eyebrow twitched upward and he gave John a long, piercing look. The doctor waited for the word "Afghanistan" to come out of the detective's mouth. His breath caught in his chest and his hands curled into fists again.
"And had you been listening to me, you'd have heard that I acknowledged that," Sherlock said, his voice suddenly icy, his expression locked down, hard.
"I am listening to you!" John yelled. "I'm standing here in our fucking disaster of a flat listening to you tell me that you think I'm like some sodding serial killer! Seven years, Sherlock! Seven fucking years you've known me and you think that's what I deserve?"
Sherlock actually looked taken aback – John cursed on occasion but rarely yelled and even more rarely directed the two at Sherlock.
"You want to know where he is? Take a look around you!" He threw his arms wide. "He's right here! He's been here for two bloody weeks! I eat, sleep and breathe this man because you do!"
"Of course I do!" Sherlock retorted. "I want to find him, John! He's killed–"
"Oh, he's killed thirty-one people, sure, Sherlock, I know! I know! I spent half the day shifting rubble with you praying to a god I don't even believe in that Mycroft wasn't dead under there, too! I saw those bodies! I saw Kelsi Murray's little skeleton come out of the ground! I saw Laurence and Kenton dead in their homes and Brace all over the road! I saw all of that! But that isn't why you're doing this! You're doing this because he's playing a clever little game!"
John sucked in a breath and Sherlock opened his mouth to say something, but John beat him to it.
"And he's playing his clever little games because you're paying attention! Why not, Sherlock, why not? Why shouldn't he want an audience? It's fun right? It's all so fun and he's got you to play with! You have no idea where he is or who he is or what he even fucking wants! And he ends up here!"
John strode away, then spun back, extending his arms again.
"He ends up right here and he doesn't even have to be here! He could be on the other side of the planet for all we know! His job is finished, it's done! You can follow me on around on my errands all you want and figure out what I do and what he's likely to do because we're both oh so normal unlike you – ha, because you're such a genius! A proper genius! But what good does it do you? He's taken over your mind!"
"And what would you have me do, John?" Sherlock said. "Stop investigating?"
"Yes!" John shouted. "Yes!"
Sherlock stared at him with a blank look and John felt a moment's shock and a twinge of fear at the complete lack of expression on his husband's face. It wasn't the focused look he got when he was thinking that put him millions of miles away. It wasn't the detached look he got when he was dealing with someone he deemed an idiot but had to listen to.
It was just empty.
Then there was thunder in those grey eyes, anger and darkness sweeping over his face.
"You're asking me to stop looking for the a murderer," Sherlock said flatly, but there was an undercurrent of danger in his voice, one that John didn't miss. It was deceptively subtle but he felt suddenly that it was like a venomous snake – poised to strike.
His words brought John up short.
"I'm asking you to give the case over to Mycroft," he said carefully.
It was the wrong thing to say. Sherlock drew himself up to his full height, his lips curling into a snarl.
"This is my case," Sherlock said softly, his voice smooth but taut.
"Only because Mycroft called you in," John insisted. "Sherlock, he can do this. He can catch this man. Let it go. It's– look at yourself! You've lost weight and you're barely sleeping – you're a wreck! For god's sake, Sherlock, let it go!"
"Your appeal to a god in which neither of believes is irrational," Sherlock snapped. John sucked in a deep breath, pursing his lips. "And your confidence in Mycroft is misplaced. At the moment, what do you imagine he can do? Look bruised at someone? He asked me to take this case because he could not make any progress! Like dozens of cases before and dozens of cases to come! I am the man he goes to when he cannot get things done, John! What do you suppose turning it back over to him will accomplish?"
Sherlock moved past him, as if to return to work, then spun back fast.
"Seven years ago you asked me to care that people were dying! People are still dying all the time, John! Thirty-one people have died! Would you like me to remain unaffected by that? What is your fascination with being disappointed in me, John? My response isn't good enough if I don't care, nor is it good enough if I do! What do you want?"
"That's not why you're doing this!" John shot back.
"Am I not, John? Have you developed the ability to read my mind? Or perhaps you just assume that you have ability to understand my motivations that you simply lack for everyone else?"
John stiffened, his jaw tightening.
"Oh, so sorry, have I offended you? Disappointed you? You could add it to the list of things I've done that qualify as unacceptable, I'm sure you have quite an extensive catalogue by now. Have I failed to live up to your expectations again, John?"
"Yes!" John hissed. "Quite frankly, you have! I'm sick of your games, Sherlock–"
"Seven years ago, you accused me of being cold and uncaring for not considering the victims that Moriarty was using against me! Are you upset now because I've taken an interest in this case?"
"You're doing this for fun! Just like you were doing then!"
Sherlock's eyes narrowed dangerously, flashing brightly.
"Oh, I see," he said, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. "You expect I should have changed."
"Yes! Yes! Yes, I expect that! Because I thought you had!"
"And why should I change, John? For you? Because you don't like the way I do things? Because you dislike my motivations? Because you imagine me as someone slightly different? Because you think you could take Sherlock Holmes and make him better, make him acceptable and normal?"
"What? What? No! I expected that because you have changed, Sherlock! You are better! You've proven that! But this– no, no, you know what, it's not even this? It's the fucking smoking. A whole month you were lying to me! And as soon as you gave that up you just found another addiction! What the hell is wrong with you?"
Sherlock's expression was like chiselled marble.
"You think doing my job indicates something is wrong with me," he hissed.
"When you do it to the point of obsession, yes! We don't even know this lunatic's name and he might as well have moved into our flat! I can't even sit in my chair because his case is all over it!"
"And because the mess bothers you, you think I should give up on the one case I've yet to solve?" Sherlock snapped.
"Oh, so you're worried about your perfect record, is that it? The great Sherlock Holmes, defeated by a killer who's normal like his stupid husband?"
"If you ever–"
"If I ever what, Sherlock? You think it all the bloody time! You obviously thought I was too stupid to catch you smoking and you were right about that, weren't you? If some construction workers hadn't damaged some pipes and sent me home early, you'd still be sitting up there on the roof, puffing away, and I'd still be down here, nicely ignorant like you want me! Good old, John, not much to look at, bit dull, really, but he does as he's told and he's always on hand! No need for you to worry about him, because you're Sherlock Holmes, the bloody genius! Well, what about me?"
"What about you?" Sherlock yelled back.
John stopped short, as if all the air had been driven from his lungs. He stared at Sherlock, waiting for him to say something else – anything else, to apologise, to even look remorseful, but Sherlock's expression stayed cold, locked, angry. John opened his mouth then closed it again, feeling the hard twist in his heart and stomach.
"Yes," he said finally, all the fight gone out of his voice. "Yes. I think that about sums it up."
He stared at Sherlock again for a long moment and the detective stared back, grey eyes sparking. They were standing barely two steps apart but it might as well have been a continent right now. He tried to see some hint of warmth in Sherlock's expression but there was nothing. He'd been shut out. He waited another second, another ten, another twenty, hoping for something. Anything.
Then he drew a deep breath.
"All right," he said, nodding slowly. "All right. I'm going out."
"Out?" Sherlock demanded. "Out where?"
"Tricia's," John said, giving the only answer he could think of at the moment. He was still holding his keys, he realised. He was still dressed in his work clothing. Like the last time. He unlocked the door and stepped into the stairwell, blinking in the dimmer light.
"When will you be back?" Sherlock snapped.
John turned around again, looking past the detective at their flat that was covered in case files and maps and notes and all the disarray that came with living with Sherlock. It suddenly felt overwhelming and suffocating. This was supposed to be his home. But he couldn't walk through it without upsetting something that pertained to a man – a former soldier like him – who pushed people off of bridges and murdered children for a living.
"I don't know," he said woodenly, then went down the stairs. He was on the pavement and hailing a cab before the door was yanked open behind him.
"John!" Sherlock shouted at him as John slipped into the cab and shut the door with a hard click. "John!"
John glanced up to see Sherlock on the pavement, expression suddenly panicked, grey eyes wide and filled with denial. He met Sherlock's gaze for a moment and the detective yelled his name again, ignoring the stares this brought from other pedestrians. John closed his eyes and turned his face away. He leaned his head back against the headrest and gave the cabbie Tricia's address.