AN: I think just one more chapter to go after this. I have elsewhere promised this fic would end with Sussex and bees, and Sussex and bees you shall have. I've been thinking about rewriting the title and summary when I post the last chapter though. That cool? Also, for those who can't find the fics I linked to in the first chapter, the two not on FFN are on "Archive of Our Own." Try googling the titles with the author names!
John curses when the killer leaps the fence and flees, but Sherlock doesn't say a word. He just whips off his long coat and wool scarf and shoves them, along with his cane, into John's arms. The coat is unexpected—especially considering the downpour of rain—but John knows what the cane means and curses again, louder. "Sherlock!"
He isn't fit to go running about on that leg like that, especially in this weather, but he does it anyway and never apologizes for rushing off or for being an arse and worrying John. John doesn't run after him—his legs are fine, but he has armfuls of coat and scarf and cane, and somebody needs to text Donovan. So John does that.
Donovan finds John before either John or her got a text, and there is a period of anxious waiting in Donovan's police car while the rain lightens up and John frets himself mad. Then he finally gets a text that says merely "Bushy Park SH" and John curses again and tells Donovan to drive and she drives.
A second text giving a more specific location arrives on the way. John nearly jumps out of the car before it's stopped moving, but remembers to grab Sherlock's cane, only praying that he'll actually need it. He tears across the sodden, muddy grass, halfway to falling with every step he's running so hard, and then he hears Sherlock calling out for him and he only runs faster. Then he stops, because there he is.
Sherlock is on the ground, bent over a prone murderer, clamping the man's hands behind him and pinning him with Sherlock's good knee in the man's lower back. All his weight is surely on his prisoner, for Sherlock's bad leg is bent uncertainly to the side. If there is a cringe of discomfort in Sherlock's expression, however, it is utterly overwhelmed by the exhilarated grin. The other man, meanwhile, looks very uncomfortable indeed. And they are both completely covered in mud. John thinks he knows where the mud has been collected—his own shoes and trouser cuffs are dark with it from his dash through the drizzly park—but these two must have hit the ground and rolled right through it.
"Did you know you'd be flopping about in mud puddles? Is that why I have your coat?"
Sherlock just grins that grin at him, but relief is finally hitting John and he is not in the mood.
"You won't be so happy when the adrenaline wears off and that knee starts complaining," he snaps. "You're in no fit state for stunts like that anymore."
Sherlock's smile falters, but Inspector Donovan and some others are showing up and so nothing more is said on the subject.
"I think if you search this man," Sherlock says instead to Donovan in his smugly triumphant case-solved voice, "you will find the gun that killed Miss Abigail Dunham, and if you search his flat, you will find the music box stolen from her home, and those from the two other thefts."
"Music boxes?" says one of the officers. "Thefts?"
"None but Miss Dunham's ended in murder," clarifies Sherlock. "And one was unreported."
Donovan rolls her eyes, but she is smiling. She directs one of her men to handcuff Sherlock's prisoner and John comes forward to help Sherlock to his feet and thrusts his cane at him.
"He'll have associates, almost certainly, almost certainly. Definitely a superior. I think in questioning—"
"We'll do the questioning," Donovan interrupts, still smirking, not unkindly. "John, why don't you take Mrs. Watson home to get cleaned up?"
"You don't need us to stay for questioning?"
"Like you ever stay for questioning. We'll just take your statements tomorrow."
"Thanks, Sally," says John. "Can we trouble you for a ride? I don't want to think of the tip I'd have to give anyone who had to clean their cab up after us." She nods and sends another of her men to drive them home.
Sherlock is struggling not to be seen limping, but in a fit of pique John does not offer him the usual surreptitious arm. He grabs Sherlock's coat and scarf from Donovan's car and they ride home in silence. John stews a bit but tries to calm himself. He wants to say that Sherlock will be feeling this for days, if not weeks, just like he always does, wants to say that this isn't psychosomatic, isn't something he can outsmart with another dose of danger and he should know that by now. He wantsto say that Sherlock is too bloody old to take such risks, and John is too old to watch him take them, and for God's sake he actually told Donovan that he knew the man had a bloody gun. He wants to say all these things but he doesn't because he has said some variation on all of them before, and Sherlock hates it when he repeats himself.
Sherlock (or more Sherlock's mud) hasn't half dried by the time they get home. John pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.
"Go on then," he says. "I'll make tea."
And he does. He goes into the kitchen and puts the kettle on and glares at it while he waits for it to boil.
Then he walks into the living room with Sherlock's mug and sees Sherlock stretched out on the sofa. Still dripping, still mud-smeared. Mud is on everything. Dirty water is collecting in a crease of the sofa cushion and dripping into a puddle on the floor. Sherlock's eyes are closed serenely.
John carefully sets the mug of hot tea down on the table and then erupts in cursing fit to rival any he's done tonight. Sherlock's eyes pop open and he looks over startled at John.
"What the hell are you doing?" John roars. "Get off the sofa! Get off!" Sherlock dutifully and stiffly does so, carefully concealing his wince, and eyeing John as though he has nothing to explain his outburst. "Why on earth were you on the sofa you… you idiot?"
Sherlock draws himself up, offended, although the effect is a little lessened by his plastering of mud.
"Where else should I be?" he grouses.
"Washing up!" John growls. "Obviously washing up, what did you think? You're filthy!"
"Tea wouldn't do me much good in the shower," Sherlock sniffs.
"I thought you might like a cup with a soak," John says through gritted teeth. "And I figured you might have a soak since you buggered up your knee. But apparently the great Sherlock Holmes' prescription for a buggered up knee is to get mud and rainwater all over the sofa!"
Sherlock narrows his eyes at John. "You aren't really angry because of the sofa," he decides. "You're angry because of the risk I took tonight."
"You know what? No," John shouts, throwing his hands in the air. "You're wrong. I really am angry about the sofa. I don't even careabout you running off tonight. You know why? Because I have already accepted the fact of your untimely death. It may not have happened tonight, but it will someday. You are going to get yourself shot doing something stupid, and I've accepted that. I've moved on. So now I am free to really, honestly be upset about my sofa!"
There is a silence. John breathes heavily. Sherlock and the sofa drip.
"It isn't properly yoursofa," Sherlock offers.
"But I'm the one who will end up cleaning it," John says. "And it will be mine upon the event of that untimely death I mentioned, and I'd like to inherit it in passable condition, thanks."
Another silence. They stare at each other.
"Too bad," Sherlock finally pronounces. "I'm leaving it to Mycroft."
There is only a beat before John laughs, an involuntary huff of breath that turns into a chuckle and then, with another look at his mud-caked husband, into a full on giggle. Sherlock just grins, a triumphant grin, a happy grin, almost like the one he wore bent over his captured criminal but not quite.
"Oh, just go wash up," John groans through his laughter. "You're a mess."
"So I've heard," says Sherlock, but he takes his tea from the table and his cane from its place leaning against the couch and goes off to his shower and soak.
John has wiped the sofa down when Sherlock emerges sometime later, leaning on his cane and wrapped in his dressing gown, and is hoovering up the bits of dried mud, and has left two tea towels on the wet spots of the rug. He smiles and switches the hoover off when he sees Sherlock and pushes it into the corner.
"Hey, I wanted to say," John says as Sherlock lowers himself into a chair. "I'm sorry about not helping you to the car earlier tonight. That was childish. And, uh, for snapping at you."
"Expected," is Sherlock's non-apology. "'Bickering like an old married couple' is the phrase, I believe."
John gives a little incredulous chuckle as he too sits down heavily in an armchair. "We're really doing it, aren't we?"
"Or a good imitation, yes."
"No, not the bickering—well, yes, but… Growing old together. We're really doing it."
"That wasthe purpose of the original agreement, as I understand it."
"Cheeky. And no, actually!" he exclaims suddenly. "The purpose of the original agreement was to solve some case! I don't remember it now, though I'm sure you do. I'm not certain you ever even told me. And now that it's on the table," he adds, pointing an accusing finger at Sherlock and barely keeping himself from laughing, "I've always suspected it was all a ruse. I bet we didn't even have to get married to solve it. I think you made it up."
"A bold accusation," says Sherlock behind steepled fingers, with a straight face but letting his eyes twinkle. "And a bit late. By about twelve years."
"Yes, well, I'm sticking to it."
"As it happens, you're right. It was all an excuse to get you to make an honest woman out of me."
"A flimsy excuse."
"An excellent excuse."
John laughs and gets up to go throw the wet tea towels in the bathroom hamper. When he comes back in he stops and leans against the wall.
"I'd like to grow to be quite a bit older with you, though," he says, and it's almost a by-the-way except for his solemn eyes.
Sherlock looks him in those eyes and then, finally, nods once.
"I'm sorry, John," is his quiet and unexpected answer. "So would I. It is, in fact, very important to me that I do so. I will be more careful in the future."
John is shocked into momentary silence, and then smiles. He knows better than to believe it, even if Sherlock thinks he's being sincere. It's a promise that will only last until the next chase. But… it's nice to hear all the same.
He looks over at the sofa and shakes his head. "The mud is never coming out of those cushions, I'll have you know."
Sherlock smirks. "Have it steam cleaned," he says. "And send the bill to Mycroft. It's going to be his sofa, after all."
John snorts, and Sherlock snickers, and then they both laugh, and keep laughing, for far longer than the joke really deserves.