A tiny click, then a tiny flame.

"I know a real gun when I see one," Sherlock admonished.

"None of the others did."

"Clearly. Well, this has been very interesting. I look forward to the court case."

"Did you figure it out? Which one would you've picked? Come on," the cabbie taunted, "play the game." He continued speaking, but in truth, it was unnecessary. It had been torture for Sherlock to ask for the gun, to stand up calmly, to walk toward the door. Still the addict.

The detective's fingers twitched at his sides. He had chosen. And yet… he wasn't sure. It gnawed at him. His own uncertainty. The possibility of this… this… person beating him. Perhaps if I choose wrong, that's alright. It'd be over. It would all be over, and I would deserve it for being so stupid, so predictable, so –

Shattering glass, a startled cry, the cabbie collapsing onto the floor clutching his chest. Sherlock's head whipped around, but he was already too late. Whoever it was, he'd gone. No time for this now, there are only a few precious moments left.

"My sponsor, who was it? I want a name."

"So the shooter – no sign?" Sherlock asked, shoulders slumped in annoyance beneath a ludicrous orange blanket.

"Cleared off before we got here. Got nothing to go on." Lestrade shrugged, seeming less concerned then he ought to have been.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that." Sherlock perked up a bit. Deduction mode. He began his rambling series of observations and their interpretations, growing more excited with every sentence, his eyes absently surveying the scene. "You're looking for a man, probably with a history of military service, nerves of steel…" Oh. He noticed a jumper-clad man, short statured, who to his eyes appeared incomparably fierce. OH.

He mumbled something to Lestrade about ignoring what he'd said and began to wander toward the police tape.

"I've still got questions!" the DI insisted.

"Oh what now," he demanded petulantly, failing to notice John closing the distance between them.

"Excuse me, Lestrade, but he's in shock. Look, he's got a blanket." How John managed to say this without bursting into a fit of giggles, he himself did not know. "And he's just caught you a serial killer… more or less." Lestrade sighed, and John lifted the crime scene tape for his flatmate.

After the brief delay of an uncomfortable conversation with Big Brother – Mycroft, must learn to call him Mycroft – the pair was finally walking out of this bizarre evening.

"So… dim sum?"

"You did get shot, though." Sherlock was barely coherent around the dumpling crammed in his mouth.

John's lo mein paused in mid-air. "Sorry?"

"In Afghanistan. There was an actual wound."

"Oh yeah, shoulder." John shoveled the noodles onto his tongue. Nothing tasted better past midnight than Chinese straight from the carton. They sat for a few moments, chewing in companionable silence, side by side on the sitting room sofa. Again, it was Sherlock who spoke first.

"Good shot."

"My shoulder?"

"Tonight."

"Oh. Yes, yes, must've been, through that window."

"Well you'd know." Sherlock hesitated, then ventured, "Are you alright?"

"Yes, 'course I'm alright," came the automatic reply.

"Well you have just killed a man," Sherlock insisted.

"Yes… it's true. But he wasn't a very nice man."

"No. No, he wasn't really, was he? And he was a bad cabbie. Should've seen the route he took us to get there."

John giggled, a noodle slipping out of his mouth. Sherlock had been laughing as well, and hadn't noticed what he was doing as his thumb ran across his new flatmate's lower lip to catch the errant lo mein. At least, he hadn't noticed until John froze.

"Oh, John, I'm… I didn't…"

"Sherlock."

"It's just, I wasn't thinking and…"

"Sherlock, about earlier. Downstairs. In the hall."

"Oh, um, it's ok. You don't have to explain, I'm sure you didn't realize – "

"I realized."

"Well, then, you probably didn't mean – "

"I did." A warm, steady hand fell onto the detective's thigh. "Sherlock."

There were dark eyes, tanned skin, stubble, and then…