"That was your plan? Seriously?"
They were walking quickly down the street away from Tony Bauer's flat. The night air was cold on John's face. Sherlock tossed him his gun back. The safety was still on. Tony hadn't known that though.
"It was the quickest, most efficient way to get the information we needed," Sherlock said.
Sherlogic at its finest, John thought: The quickest, most efficient, most sociopathic way to get what they needed. John took a deep breath. He should have seen it coming. What other solution could Sherlock Holmes possibly come up with for this particular dilemma? It was fast, effective, and utterly lacking in empathy.
John would have felt worse about it, but at the same time he knew he would've had to back out a long time ago if Sherlock's morally or at least legally questionable methods bothered him on more than just a surface level. Sherlock's plans worked, and this one was no exception. Now they had another body—a living one this time—with scars on his thighs.
"You know, just for future reference, pulling a gun and ordering someone to take their trousers down does tend to traumatise people a bit," John said, figuring he could at least remind Sherlock there was such thing as a moral compass, even if neither of them found much cause to use it.
"He'll be fine," Sherlock replied dismissively. "He'll have worse happen than getting a picture taken of his legs."
"Worse," John agreed, "but probably not weirder."
They turned a corner and John leaned back against the side of a building. He shook his head. "That was ridiculous."
"Perhaps a bit," Sherlock conceded, familiar mischievous gleam in his eyes. He took a step forward, blocking John up against the wall. It was closer than anyone else would have stood, but that was Sherlock.
In spite of everything he found himself chuckling. "We literally scared the trousers off him."
Sherlock laughed. It was one of his real laughs, deep and appreciative. A rewarding sound for those who could get him to do it. John wondered if there was anyone else on that list with him.
"I told him to keep his pants on," Sherlock said and John laughed harder, which seemed to make Sherlock laugh harder too. He felt lightheaded, and suddenly appreciated the supportive wall at his back.
After a moment John breathed, "We should not be laughing about this." He raised his eyes to the sky to try to calm himself.
A scattering of stars was just visible through the city's light pollution. He looked back at Sherlock and saw the detective had followed his gaze up. John smiled at him while he couldn't see. Sherlock had called the stars beautiful once. Actually they were the only natural, non-criminal, and non-chemical thing John had ever heard him call beautiful. He suddenly felt an urge to stuff Sherlock into a train and take him out to the middle of a field far away in the country, to make him look up at the stars there, to point out the few constellations he knew (the ones Sherlock had probably deleted), and convince the scientist that he could keep a few things in his mind that weren't practical, but only beautiful.
It was a moment before John realised Sherlock was looking back at him.
"What?" Sherlock asked. His eyes were as black as his hair in the low glow of the streetlight.
I love this. This night-world of alleys and streetlights and guns and you looking like— Was there a word to describe Sherlock Holmes standing on a corner in slanted streetlight? Both 'hero' and 'villain' vied for the spot but neither fit. He looked like something from out of John's dream, was what it was. One of those dreams when John had woken up in Mary's bed panting, as though he'd been running through London with Sherlock all night, the detective's face lingering before him as the sunlight of reality swept the dream away. The scene was breathtaking in its own right—it always had been, each night-time hunt when John glanced over at the detective and saw the play of gold light and shadow across Sherlock's features—something he'd spent two years thinking he'd lost forever. It was here, now, overwhelmingly close, almost painfully real, and John found the words blurring in his mind as he took in the heat of Sherlock's eyes on him and the arrogant authority of his stance.
"Nothing," he managed eventually. "I just don't think we'll be getting a Christmas card from the Bauers this year."
Sherlock grinned. "So he'll have a story to tell. I'm sure we did him a favour. This may be the one decent story he has in the whole of his unremarkably dull life."
John sighed, shutting his eyes. "And I know who he'll tell it to first," he said, pushing himself off the wall.
"What the bloody hell, Sherlock?"
Greg Lestrade was standing in their living room and he was not at all happy. Sherlock was pinning pictures to the wall, looking very annoyed about being interrupted. John was sitting at the table with his cheek resting on his fist, content to be a witness rather than a participant in this particular conversation.
"The construction of that question doesn't allow for a logical answer," Sherlock muttered, tacking the reports on the corpses next to their photos.
"Ok," Lestrade said, clearly working to control his voice, "is there a reason you pulled a gun on Mr."—he checked his phone for the name—"Tony Bauer tonight?"
"What do you think, Lestrade?"
"Honestly, I don't know."
"Shocking."
Lestrade put his hands on his hips. "You can either tell me here, now, why you were harassing Tony and Kathleen Bauer tonight, or we can go to Scotland Yard and you can tell another officer who won't have my talent for being patient with you."
"Yes, there's a reason!" Sherlock snarled, whipping around to face the DI. "There's always a reason! I do not do actions without reasons. Frankly it's astounding that you don't know this yet. Really, Lestrade, how long does it take you to learn anything? You must've spent ten years in secondary school. Miss and Mr. Bauer are involved in my murder investigation. If they have a problem with that, they can file a complaint with themselves, because it's their own fault for living their inane, stupid lives in a way that has put them directly in the way of my murder investigation."
John sniggered and Lestrade shot him a withering look. "By your murder investigation, I assume you mean mine? The Rodgers case."
"Oh yes, your case. By the way if you'd like to contribute to it in any way at all you can get one of your more diplomatic officers to convince Mr. Bauer to give me a blood sample."
"Why? What does Tony Bauer's blood have to do with the Rodgers case? And what about his accusation that you ordered him to pull down his trousers in order to take a picture of his—"
"Thighs," Sherlock said with an eye roll. "Thigh scars." He gestured to the pictures he'd finished putting up. "Did you know your victim, David Rodgers, has a strange pattern of scarring all across his thighs? No? Did you know that there have been two other corpses this month with the same kind of scarring? Did you know Tony Bauer also has scars on his thighs?"
Sherlock looked hard at Lestrade. "God, it's physically painful to watch you connect the dots. Rodgers was killed by a slow-acting poison. The stabbing was a cover-up, as I said. I have a feeling we'll find poison in the other two bodies as well," Sherlock said, tapping the pictures of Neil Parker and Brandon Riley. He turned back to the inspector. "If Bauer has scars on his legs he might have poison in his veins. We need a blood sample, and sooner rather than later. You know," Sherlock added glibly, "in case he's dying."
"So that explains the request this morning for an exhumation warrant on three completely unrelated graves," Lestrade said, walking closer to look at the pictures of the bodies. "You think these people were poisoned too."
"Bingo," Sherlock said without enthusiasm.
"Anderson and Donovan bet you were high."
"Really. And what was your bet?"
"Well, they owe me money now."
"Thank you for the vote of confidence," Sherlock said flatly.
"What about her?" Lestrade pointed to the one female body on the wall. "Amy Elliot?" he asked, reading her name. "You want to dig her up too? Doesn't look like she has scars—"
"She doesn't, but I want an autopsy anyway. Need to know all the variables we're dealing with."
"Ok, we'll get you Bauer's blood sample, and three grave exhumations—Jesus…" He trailed off probably thinking of the paperwork ahead.
"Good," Sherlock replied. "Then I suggest you get on with that and let me continue with my work, which incidentally involves handing you perpetrators with enough evidence to convict them, all wrapped up with a nice bow on top."
Lestrade put his hand to his forehead. "Look, no one down at Scotland Yard appreciates your assistance more than I do—"
Sherlock raised an eyebrow and it probably occurred to all of them just how literal that statement was.
"But I can't have you going off on your own like this without at least giving me a heads-up. I can't keep fielding nine-nine-nine calls from people shouting about Sherlock Holmes! You need to figure out how to conduct an investigation without harassing your witnesses."
"I need the freedom to work."
"And I'm doing the best I can!" Lestrade snapped. He took a breath and continued more calmly. "I do trust you to get the job done, you know I do. But if you're going to be pulling guns on people and getting emergency services called on you, then I'm going to have to keep showing up here."
Sherlock glared. "Why? I'm smarter than you and your team combined. If you trust me why can't you just assume I have spectacularly brilliant reasons for everything I do?"
Lestrade sighed, "Because, Sherlock, you are so nearly mad I'm afraid one day you're going to go round the bend and I won't notice."
Sherlock blinked at him.
"That's right," Lestrade continued, "it's my waking nightmare that one of these days you're going to show up at Scotland Yard with a bunch of old ladies claiming some kind of criminal knitting network conspiracy, and the worst part is I'm going to believe you until the men in white coats show up to drag you off."
Sherlock looked over at John, who shrugged.
"And that will be a very embarrassing day for me professionally, so you have to understand why I'm taking precautions."
"Why are you talking about me going insane as though it's both impending and inevitable?"
"I'd say 'likely,' more than inevitable," Lestrade amended.
"Look," John cut in, "if you want the cases solved you have to let Sherlock do it his way. The risk you run that he might turn up with a pineapple rather than your perpetrator is the price you pay for his talent."
"A pineapple," Sherlock repeated, uncomprehending. John and Lestrade ignored him.
Lestrade dropped John's gaze. "I know; I know…" He looked back up at Sherlock. "Fine, do what you need to do. But just know that every nine-nine-nine call with your name on it means a conversation with me. You want to see less of me you find a better way to conduct your interviews."
The DI turned toward the door and stopped just before reaching it. "And you," he said, looking back at John. "Not that I know anything about you owning an illegal firearm—for the record I don't—but next time you could ask him a few more questions before you let him borrow it."
"Have you met Sherlock?" John asked. Lestrade narrowed his eyes. "Then what would make you think I let him?"
Lestrade shook his head mumbling something about a 'consulting liability' as he left the flat.
"I am misunderstood," Sherlock announced, flopping onto his back on the couch.
John smiled fondly at his flatmate-detective. He was dramatic, but he wasn't wrong.