HOUSE CALLS- PART FIVE

Sherlock didn't have friends. That's just the way he worked. All the people he came into contact with seemed to understand this. All except one.

John. The bane of his existence, and irritatingly clever. John Smith.

Even the banality of his name irked Sherlock. It was as if his parents had looked at the ball of flesh and soft bone and nerve endings and cells and thought "Why bother?"
John Smith would never tell Sherlock that when the time came he wouldn't think John such a boring name after all. But that would be telling.

It had started at the third lecture of the new year. Sherlock had lived through yet another horrendous Christmas dinner. The comments from Mycroft about his deliberate isolation had begun to make him itch in a way that would only end with something quite dangerously toxic finding its way into his brothers evening tea; the failure to do so was a testament to his self-control. It was these comments that made him suspect of John Smith's motive the moment he chose the empty seat beside Sherlock in that lecture.

"Is this seat taken?" The unbearably cheerful voice said, breaking into the beginning of Sherlock's lecture process. He didn't have a notebook in front of him, or a dictaphone, no way to take notes other than his method. To loose it now would be disastrous.
"Please shut up. If you're going to sit down sit down but stop talking."

The stranger obliged, not offended, his grin appeared to widen in fact. He did shut up. Though that didn't make him any less distracting. Sherlock could practically feel him vibrate with excitement, and the strangers eye were rarely on the professor. He seemed far more interested in Sherlock than taking notes.
Sherlock refused to let it distract him and the lecture passed in relative normality.

Sherlock already knew that the stranger from the lecture had followed him. He had barely left the theatre when an excited voice was scratching at his eardrums.
"So that works then, your committing it to memory?"
"Yes."
The stranger hummed in an impressed manner, giving Sherlock a sideways glance and falling into step with him easily.

Sherlock stopped suddenly, allowing the stranger to walk a couple of paces before turning on his heel to face him.
"Is there a problem?" The stranger returned Sherlock's gaze with an interested air. Far too interested to be benign.
"How much did he offer you?" Sherlock said levelly, deep voice flat and uninterested, "You shouldn't listen to a word he says you know, he'd just as soon kill you where you stand as-"
"Who? Mycroft? No, no no, "The stranger shook his head "he's nothing to do with this, though I should drop in on him when I go." He wiggled his thin eyebrows at Sherlock and his mild expression "I've got to talk to him about a few things. You're not very talkative, he said that you'd be like that. He also said you wouldn't like me, he knows you awfully well doesn't he? He also said you'd have deduced me by now." He paused, "I guess he can't be right about everything!"

Sherlock allowed his face to become somewhat confused. Would Mycroft have stooped so low as to not only pay someone to spy on him, but also someone so... strange?
"Mycroft is hardly right about anything. Spend enough time with him and you not only realise his fallibility but also his banality."
"It wasn't Mycroft, Sherlock."

Sherlock gave a level gaze at the stranger. And for once in his life he was unnerved by the eyes that stared back at him. Old, and dangerous, set in the young face.

He watched as the stranger smiled warmly, sticking out his hand.
"John Smith." He offered. "And honestly, I'm not a spy for Mycroft. I'm... I'm here for a friend of yours."
Sherlock took the warm hand, his face still schooled into aloof blankness.
"I don't have friends."

Far from being offended however, Smith let out a shout, and rather loud, laugh.
"That's what you think."

It became somewhat of a weekly ritual. Sherlock would sit his lecture. Smith would turn up a few minutes later, sit next to him without speaking, and watch him commit the lecture to memory. They'd walk along the long path from Sherlock's lecture hall to the split in the path, where they would part ways for another week.

John Smith, though relentlessly cheerful and seemingly unfazed by Sherlock's focused attention, began to irritate Sherlock less and less. To the point where he found himself forgetting to keep up his disdainful air around him. He slowly began to enjoy the seeming admiration that John Smith seemed to foster for him, and Smith's willingness to be a soundboard for Sherlock's thoughts.

It was only after a couple more weeks of seeing Smith at his lectures that Sherlock finally hit upon a thought that was so mind-blowingly simple that he could not believe he hadn't considered it before.

He didn't know anything about John Smith. He had his name, and...that's it. He didn't know whether he lived on campus, or whether he really was working for Mycroft. And of all the things he still didn't know who this friend he apparently had was supposed to be.

Sherlock hated being bested. He decided that he would confront Smith about this the next time he saw him, and found himself geared up and looking for John Smith the next week as students continued to file into the lecture hall.

John Smith didn't turn up. He didn't turn up the next week either.

Sherlock turned detective in order to make some enquiries. He found nothing, there was no John Smith on his, or any other course at the uni, no one else had evenheard of him. It was though he had just dropped right out of the sky.
And now he was gone.

Another few weeks passed. Sherlock continued with his studies, fully focussed on the work before him, shunning the attentions of others. He didn't want people. People were messy, they talked to much and stupidly, they were wrapped up in the world of this latest band or that latest trend or who was sleeping with who. Sherlock had tried getting on with them, but ultimately he and people avoided each other.
But he still remembered John Smith and the shine in his eyes.

He had very nearly almost given up on seeing Smith again when he spied him, walking into the same lecture hall. Smith caught his eye and grinned, waving both arms at Sherlock and making him groan slightly with embarrassment.

Smith strolled casually up to the seat next to Sherlock, and without uttering a word sat down.

The lecture went as expected and as they left Sherlock attempted to brush Smith off.
"Woah hey, Sherlock what-"
Sherlock rounded on John Smith.
"Six weeks. You were gone six weeks. You don't take notes at lectures. Your name isn't anywhere on the University database, there isn't a single student who can lay claim to having lived with you, worked with you or even having seen you the a bar. Enough is enough. Who are you?"

John Smith's mouth pursed into a thin line, and he seemed at once chastened and delighted. The same spark in his eyes that he got when listening to Sherlock expound his latest theory had found its way back now.
"Well. That took you long enough!" He grinned. "I told you, I was here for a friend of yours."
Sherlock's brows knitted. Smith wasn't going to give him an easy answer clearly.
"I-"
"'Don't have friends' I know, I know, boring things, other people, eh Sherlock? But friends is different to a friend."

Sherlock could feel a headache coming on, and was glad when Smith was interrupted by a sandy-haired man, rather red-faced and looking a little grumpy, appeared at Sherlock's shoulder and shoved Smith's arm in a chiding manner.
"You! I have been running 'round this city for three hours looking for you! You can't just do that! And why are you at the u-"
He had turned to face Sherlock, as though to apologise on Smith's behalf, on seeing his face however the sandy-haired stranger's face had gone slack and he had been struck dumb. His eyes widened. His gaze roamed around Sherlock's face, the intense gaze something that Sherlock couldn't bring himself to look away from. He looked at Sherlock as though he fully expected him to disappear.

"John, this is Sherlock." Said Smith quietly. Sherlock couldn't draw his eyes away from the older man. He was stocky and unassuming, his face was open and kind and Sherlock felt a pang of something unfamiliar in his stomach. He knew this man, but he didn't know him.
"Sherlock, this is John Watson."

Sherlock proffered his hand, and was surprised by the surety of the man's handshake.
"Pleased to meet you...John."
John still hadn't continued talking and John Smith had started to dart anxious looks between the two of them. He began to dance nervously on the balls of his feet before speaking directly to John Watson.
"John, we have to go. I said no for a reason but now-"

John Watson tore his gaze away from Sherlock, only then noticing that they hadn't broken their shake, in order to glare at Smith.
"You said-"
"I didn't." Smith said airily, holding his hands aloft in surrender. "I promise. And now we really have to go."
"Right. Fine. Right."
Watson turned his gazed back to Sherlock.
"It was good to see you, Sherlock." He said, swallowing hard after saying his name, before turning on his heel and beginning to walk stiffly back the way he came.

Sherlock watched him walk away. The odd pang felt strangely like guilt, but he couldn't put his finger on what he had done to John Watson to feel guilty about. He turned back to John Smith.
"So, Smith and Watson. Inventive."
"Inventive?"
"Well. John is clearly his name, but it most certainly is not yours."
Smith laughed heartily, gripping Sherlock firmly by the shoulders.
"I have missed you Sherlock! But, there's always the next time!" He gave Sherlock a gentle shake, before walking off after John Watson.

There was only one thing Sherlock wanted to ask John Smith now.
"Smith?"
He turned to face Sherlock.
"Who was he?"
Smith smiled and nodded, knowing full well who Sherlock meant.
"That was the friend I was keeping an eye on you for."
Smith smiled softly, a hint of sadness in his eyes.

This time Sherlock let him walk away.