John peeled his eyes open, brain rebelling at being dragged from sleep so early. Noise. Veritable racket. Danger? Battle? He rolled to his left and groaned. No, Sherlock. He replayed the events of yesterday: Sherlock appearing in Ireland, the fight on the cliffs, sharing the hotel room…

John watched in resignation as the mad detective rushed around the room, banging drawers open and shut, and then in dismay as he realised the things Sherlock was haphazardly tossing from the wardrobe were his.

"Sherlock," John croaked, voice scratchy from sleep as he sat up. "What are you doing? What time is it?"

"It's six, and we're leaving," Sherlock replied. He was already dressed, hair done (curls arranged fashionably messy), and he had his hands full of John's shirts.

"Oi!" John said as Sherlock stuffed them into John's suitcase. "Shirts have to be folded."

"Not these shirts," Sherlock said from the wardrobe, grabbing the last gingham button-up by the sleeve. He jammed the hapless shirt into the suitcase after the others. John's military sensibilities cried out in distress, but he took a deep breath.

"Ok," he said slowly. Patience. Always patience with Sherlock. "Is there a reason you're awake at six o'clock in the morning and attacking my things? Or does this one get chalked up to 'general insanity' too?"

"Your incomprehension of something does not make it insane," Sherlock said, coming to stand in front of him. "Are you planning to sit there all day?"

John glared. "Yes. I wrote it in my calendar: 'Saturday: sit.'"

"Nope." Sherlock grabbed John's forearm and he was caught off-guard enough to allow Sherlock to pull him to his feet. As soon as he was standing Sherlock turned on his heel and disappeared into the bathroom. He heard the sound of water from the tap.

Sherlock called back, "Normally I'd agree there isn't anything better to do than sit." He reappeared holding John's toothbrush and John saw with amazement that he'd put toothpaste on it. "But not today. Today, John, we have a case!" Sherlock thrust the toothbrush at John's (left) hand, and John took it, shoving Sherlock away.

"All right, all right, Jesus," he said, making his way to the bathroom. "You know, I—" The door slammed and Sherlock was gone. John sighed and looked at his reflection. Six a.m. One should never look at one's reflection at six a.m.

But as John brushed his teeth his irritation gave way to anticipation. A case. Their first case together since he'd left Mary. Of course he'd been working with Sherlock while he was with Mary, but he knew it would be different this time. No constant phone calls to check in, no leaving early to be home for dinner and no guilt if he missed dinner. No games half-played only to be interrupted by dull reality. He'd be playing full-time again, and now there was no one to drag him back. He remembered Mycroft's words from the night they met: "When you walk with Sherlock Holmes you see the battlefield." John grinned and thought, Well, here we go again… Once more unto the breach.

John had just finished dressing when Sherlock strode back into the room saying, "The taxi will be here in a minute. We've got the nine-fifteen flight back to London."

"I suppose I'm not getting the money back I paid for tonight," John muttered half to himself as he put on his watch.

"Taken care of," Sherlock said, shrugging on his coat and pulling his scarf around his neck.

"Really?" John raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, the woman at reception sympathised deeply with Waffles' untimely death." Sherlock grabbed John's jacket and held it up.

"Waffles?" John asked, hardly daring himself to guess. He turned and put his arms into his black coat. Sherlock did this so often when he was in a hurry—helping John into his coat—that John almost didn't notice it anymore.

Sherlock clapped the jacket onto John's shoulders and said, "Yes, our pet corgi."

John was glad he hadn't tried to guess. He turned around and Sherlock must have seen the mixture of confusion and concern on his face because he rolled his eyes and said, "Oh come on, you must have noticed the board behind the front desk?" John continued to look at him blankly and Sherlock explained, with the longsuffering air of one doomed to be forever explaining, "It's covered in pictures of corgis. The receptionist owns two herself. It was an elementary deduction that she'd be understanding about the necessity of an early departure owing to a corgi-related crisis."

"And you named our imaginary dog 'Waffles'?" If he ever thought he had reached a point where Sherlock could no longer surprise him, he was proven wrong time and time again.

Sherlock stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. "You don't like the name?"

"No, it's… fine," John said in surprise.

"Good." Sherlock suddenly turned his head, listening. "Taxi," he said, though John had heard nothing. "Let's go, John. The game is on!"

John couldn't help smiling as he followed Sherlock quickly out the door and down the stairs. Actually he liked the name Waffles for a corgi. It was fittingly absurd. He liked dogs as much as he hated cats, but knew he would never dream of bringing another living thing into 221B. John grimaced at the thought of the experiments Sherlock wouldn't be able to resist. Poor Waffles. His death was probably for the best, John decided as he ducked into the cab beside Sherlock.

Greg Lestrade checked his watch. Eleven-thirty. He was standing in an alley with a few police officers and a dead body. The body had been found much earlier, around five o'clock in the morning by a group of young people stumbling home from a night of clubbing. Lestrade, unfortunate enough to be on call at the time, had been summoned to the scene.

Upon initial inspection the murder appeared to be a mugging. Victim was male, early thirties, dressed in a smart suit. He'd been stabbed in his left side; blood soaked through his shirt and suit jacket, staining the pavement where he lay sprawled on his side. Wallet and phone not found on the body, evidently stolen.

The victim was young and in good shape. Maybe the poor sod had even tried to fight—coming home drunk from the bar, being held at knifepoint, just enough alcohol to convince him to play the hero… The story was fairly straightforward. In other words, not a situation in which he would normally text Sherlock.

To his own surprise, what had made him text Sherlock was the man's socks. One black and one navy blue. Five years ago Lestrade wouldn't have even noticed this detail, or if he had he wouldn't have assigned any meaning to it. A man rushing to get ready for work on a Friday morning accidentally grabs two different socks. Mystery solved. But now… Maybe he'd been working with Sherlock for too long, or maybe because it had been five-thirty in the morning, but something about the mismatched socks struck him as ominous: wrong by more than just a fashion mishap.

He'd used his phone to take a picture of the full body, and then one of the man's socks. He texted both pictures to Sherlock writing, Stab wound and mismatched socks. Have a look? Sherlock, who apparently never slept, had texted him back within minutes: In Ireland. Be there at 11:15. Do not disturb crime scene. SH

Lestrade had grinned at the confirmation. So he'd been right. The socks must be important if Sherlock was willing to fly in from Ireland for it.

He checked his watch again. Eleven thirty-five. Sherlock bloody Holmes had better be there in the next five minutes. He'd had one a hell of a time convincing his superiors to let him leave a body in the street for five hours. They'd blocked off the alley and put up a tent, which had the double benefit of protecting the scene as well as hiding the body from view of the main street.

There. Cab. It pulled up and Sherlock sprang out of the car, unbuttoned coat flowing dramatically out behind him. Lestrade rolled his eyes. The man may as well cut the pretence and buy himself a superhero cape. John got out of the cab next, paying the driver and negotiating placement of suitcases. So John had been in Ireland too. He supposed Sherlock wouldn't go anywhere without John if he had a choice. The two of them had been inseparable ever since the 'Study in Pink' case when he'd first met John.

"I see you've let the police stampede through here," Sherlock said brusquely, dropping to the ground and whipping out his magnifying glass to scrutinise the pavement.

"Hello to you too." Lestrade crossed his arms over his chest indignantly.

Sherlock either ignored him or didn't hear him. Probably both. Sherlock had perfected ignoring people to the point that he was actually able to block them from his sensory awareness. Lestrade retaliated by glaring at the top of his head. He immensely disliked that Sherlock never seemed to remember they were his crime scenes, and that he was only there by invitation. Unfortunately Lestrade knew he was going to get absolutely nowhere on his own with only a pair of mismatched socks to go on, so he set about steeling himself against everything that was Sherlock.

"All right, Greg?" John asked, coming to stand next to him.

"Good to see you, John." He nodded. John was smiling, clearly in a good mood. Lestrade was glad to see it. He'd seen less of John since the wedding, but each time they met John had seemed… Depressed? No, that wasn't it. Tired? More like worn. It was nice to see him looking cheerful now, the lines of tension in his face smoothed away.

John Watson was the only person Lestrade knew who could actually feel more relaxed in Sherlock's presence. Lestrade thought in wonder, How can you spend so much time with Sherlock Holmes and not want to throw him off a building? Then he remembered with a start that Sherlock had, in fact, thrown himself off a building, and it hadn't gone over well with John. At all.

The two of them watched Sherlock for a while. After walking back and forth across the alley at what would have appeared to be a leisurely stroll to anyone who didn't know him, Sherlock finally bent down to examine the victim. Lestrade checked his watch again. Sherlock was agonisingly slow about this process. He knew he couldn't complain—he knew he couldn't do half as well in even double the time—but all the same, he couldn't help rocking back on his heels impatiently as Sherlock took what seemed like ages to examine the body, and probably every spore floating around it.

He looked over at John and saw him gazing at Sherlock with rapt attention. Lestrade bit his lip in agitation. Maybe John was secretly a Zen master, skilfully trained in the art of patience. He furtively glanced sideways again to recheck John's expression: still captivated. On the other hand maybe John wasn't so much enlightened but simply mad as a March hare. For all he knew John was currently mistaking Sherlock for a football match. He shook his head and decided that waking up at five was not good for his reasoning processes.

He rolled his shoulders to stretch them and sighed. As always in these situations Lestrade wished he had something more useful he could at least appear to be doing, rather than helplessly waiting on Sherlock's every whim. As the years went by it had become more and more tempting to just throw in the towel and bring a book to the crime scenes. But he hadn't given up yet. Each time he allowed Sherlock free reign of an area, he crossed his arms and managed to maintain his dignity by snapping at Sherlock to hurry up and barking orders at everyone else.

Sherlock was the better detective; of course Lestrade knew that. He'd have to be as thick as Sherlock assumed he was not to understand that. That's why he continued to call him in. At the end of the day catching the murderer was more important than pride. He just had to grit his teeth through the investigation and count backward in his head to keep himself from kicking the world's most brilliant detective square in the arse.

It's a moving experience to watch Sherlock Holmes at a crime scene. It doesn't matter how many times he's done it before, John is never bored. It's like watching a performance. Flawless. Art heightened to precision. And Sherlock is elegant. He walks slowly, seemingly casual, but John knows it's controlled. Carefully controlled. Because Sherlock's energy is electric and John can feel the hum of it in the air. The detective's bright eyes sweep the scene, reading invisible information. He's completely engaged; he's fascinating.

Slow, measured footsteps. A sudden turn on his heel and his coat flares out behind him as he spins and drops to a crouch. Evidence recorded. A leap to his feet. Graceful, even steps. Mind cataloguing torrents of information. A pause and a half-step back. Something worthy of closer attention. A slight shake of the head. Maybe not. Forward. Pause. Crouch. Leap. Turn. Forward. Whirl. Back. He's mesmerising.

Sherlock tilts his head when he stands over the body. He's motionless but John sees his wiry muscles are tensed, restraining his own relentless momentum. He can see it in the angle of his shoulders, the line of his neck. Slowly, slowly, Sherlock circles the body. The appraisal in his eyes is predatory. Merciless. The victim is not human. It's a corpse, and he's stripping it—tearing it to scrutable pieces with his eyes.

He sinks to his knees. Graceful, always graceful. (He must have spent hours walking round with books balanced on his head when he was a child. It's the only explanation.) His long, delicate fingers move nimbly over the body, never fumbling; undoing buttons, turning up sleeves—a smirk: a theory of his confirmed—turning down the collar, pulling shirt free from trousers. He hikes up the shirt to inspect the stab wound. A wider smirk, he knows what's happened here.

"John."

John. It was always 'John' and never 'Lestrade,' despite the fact that Lestrade would be the one filing the paperwork on this.

Lestrade followed John as he moved to stand next to Sherlock.

"So?" Lestrade asked, standing over his (regrettably) only consulting detective, who was still crouched next to the body. "What've you got?"

"Many things. Most importantly that this man did not die from a stab wound."

"Well, he's done a very good impression of it," John said, nodding in approval.

Sherlock looked up at the doctor and Lestrade caught a smile on the detective's face before he turned his head back toward the body.

"You're saying the stabbing didn't kill him." Lestrade was always hyperaware of how clueless he sounded next to Sherlock. How could John stand it all the time?

"It's obvious," Sherlock said, because it was his favourite thing to say. "Just look at the wound." He lifted the man's shirt and gestured to the mark as though it were sufficient explanation.

"And?" Lestrade had to ask. "What about it?" Sherlock never explained anything without constant prompting.

"Look at the bruising around the puncture! He was clearly stabbed postmortem."

"Clearly," Lestrade muttered sarcastically.

"And here," Sherlock shifted, grabbing the man's arm where he'd rolled back the sleeve. "Look at the wrist. More postmortem bruising. On both wrists."

In holding up the victim's arm Sherlock's coat sleeve had slipped down and Lestrade was surprised to see some angry bruising around the detective's own wrist. Sherlock noticed his sightline and glanced involuntarily at John before tugging his sleeve back up. Odd. Maybe John wasn't as patient with Sherlock as Lestrade thought.

"And his shoes," Sherlock continued, moving down toward the man's leg. He slipped a shoe off and indicated the back heel. Look at the scuffing pattern, very specific, both heels. Combined with the bruising on the wrists I'd say it was fairly obvious his body was dragged."

"Incredible," John said, shaking his head.

Sherlock didn't appear to acknowledge the comment except for his eyes—they blinked a few times rapidly and Lestrade knew he'd heard it.

"He died somewhere else," Sherlock concluded, jumping to his feet in an outright age-defying manner. (No man over thirty should be able to hold a crouched position for that long and then leap to his feet as lithely as a child.) "He was dragged here and then stabbed in order to make it look like a mugging. The position of the body was the first clue."

Lestrade and John looked at him blankly.

"He's lying wound-side-down!" Sherlock said indicating the victim's position with a sweep of his hand. Receiving no affirmation of understanding he continued with feigned reluctance. Emphasis on 'feigned.' Lestrade, of all people, knew exactly how well Sherlock loved this: showing off, launching into intricate explanations that made every other person in the room feel like a right muppet. Lestrade wondered how many people, apart from himself, regularly imagined strangling Sherlock with that damned scarf.

"Look, corpses don't bleed do they?" Sherlock said, diving into the explanation. "It's difficult to fake a stabbing on a dead body. But not impossible. If you're in time—and judging by the amount of blood I'd say they can't have been more than thirty minutes after his heart stopped—you can drain the blood using gravity. They stabbed him on the left side and then positioned him on his left to allow the blood to drain from the puncture, making the amount of blood loss convincing despite the heart having stopped sometime earlier."

"Amazing," John said, looking at Sherlock with plain admiration.

Sherlock's eyes swept John's face and lingered for a moment, his expression briefly a mixture of several things, before he turned his head away.

Lestrade often saw Sherlock look at John like that. He wondered, not for the first time, if John knew and chose to pretend he didn't, or if he honestly didn't know that Sherlock was completely, hopelessly in love with him.