A HUGE, EXPLODING MEGA-THANK YOU to all my reviewers, people who have favourited this, put this on alert, etc. I couldn't be more ecstatic about the response this has gotten! I HEART YOU!

Disclaimer: BBC Sherlock is not mine. I wish it were. Constantly.

Warnings: Violence. Gore. Hypothetical Gore. Pastries.

Hypothetically

Chapter Two: Corpus Delicti

Sent 11:38 AM

John, how amenable are you to a propane-fuelled flamethrower? -SH

Sent 11:39 AM

As a preliminary, sedating step, I should say, climaxing into the actual murder. -SH

Sent 12:21 PM

Your prolonged silence suggests 'no.' -S

Sent 1:02 PM

Would a handheld blowtorch be objectionable?

Sent 1:33 PM

Really, John?

Sent 2:07 PM

Misplaced my mobile. What's this about fire? With your track record, you're likely to burn yourself alive. -JW

Sent 2:13 PM

Doubtful. And while I find your concern touching, it is you that I plan to burn alive. -S

Sent 2:19 PM

Did you forget about a certain shower curtain incident 3 weeks ago that required the fire brigade to evacuate the block? -J

Sent 2:20 PM

You would not allow me the use of the kitchen while I cauterised those severed extremities. -S

Sent 2:22 PM

You still have to thank Lestrade for having your arson charge reduced to an Asbo. -J

Sent 2:41 PM

What? Are you sulking away in your Mind Mansion now? -J

Sent 2:43 PM

Mind Palace. I abhor reducing my methods to visual metaphors, John, but when I must, at least remember them correctly. -S

Sent 2:47 PM

Right, whatever. Late shift tonight at the clinic. Won't be home until late. -J

Sent 4:01 AM

Islington, Toast n' Grill Diner. Murder, white male, early 20's. Need your help. Please come immediately. -GL

Sent 4:02 AM

John, meet me by the door at once. We have a case! -S

John groaned as he felt a palm jostling his shoulders into the mattress. He had been drifting along in the comfort of sleep like a leaf floating on top of a lake when a rude disturbance rippled through him. The vigorous shaking intensified, and John clutched the pillow tight against his body. He refused to let what remained of what could still be a full night's sleep slip through his fingers. Reading his mind, the demonic force at work over his bedside let out a frustrated sigh and wrenched the duvet clear off the mattress.

Gurgling in restless misery, cold and clad in nothing but his shorts, John invoked the name of his tormenting demon. "Sherlock…"

"John, why are you still pursuing this sleeping thing? I've been texting you; we have a case!"

John glared at the red digits of his alarm clock: 4:13 AM. It had been 40 hours since he had placated Sherlock with a not-so-innocent rhetorical question regarding how he would best be murdered. It was only a matter of time before the consulting detective would relapse into his insufferable self."Sherlock…we've been over this…I need this sleeping thing."

Sherlock's silhouette paced away from the bed. "Sleeping is redundant!" He flicked on the light switch, which kindled a horrid moan from the drowsy doctor. "Meet me at the front door in exactly ten minutes. We have a crime scene to commandeer!"

The cab pulled to a stop with enough force to send John careening against the unoccupied front seat. Wearily blinking himself awake, he attempted to regain his bearings; however, his efforts were truncated by the curt slamming of the door on Sherlock's side. The cabbie, his fare already paid, anxiously cleared his throat for him to leave. John could only imagine how Sherlock must have harassed the poor driver while he slept.

When John exited the cab, he found that the dark early morning sky was painted blue by the swirling lights of police cars that were parked askew in a nondescript car park. A barrier of tape hung around a portion of the lot that had been allocated to a local diner. Against one of the cars sidled near the tape, Bobbies gathered to pass around pastries and coffee. The scent of coffee—even horrendous, oily coffee—reminded John of his lingering exhaustion with a vengeance, and he would have given anything for a jolt of caffeine.

Instead, he was treated to the acerbic voice of Sally Donovan as he double-timed to catch up with Sherlock. "'Ey, you! Why are you here, Freak!" She stood by the tape with her grimace accentuated by the faint glow of a lamp hanging over the backdoor of the diner.

Sherlock wore a disingenuous grin as he approached his hostile colleague. "And a good morning to you, Sally."

Donovan made no gesture to lift the tape for them. "The scene is closed to Asbo yobs."

Sherlock widened his wry smile so that it must have hurt his facial muscles. The Yard had welcomed the news of Sherlock's fiery indiscretion and resulting Asbo with unadulterated glee. John was certain that Donovan would hold it over him for at least a month longer than the business with the Solar System.

"Let them through, Sergeant." Lestrade emerged, clutching the backdoor of the diner ajar.

Sally grumbled, but stepped aside to leave them to navigate the tape on their own. Just as he brushed by the irritable Sergeant, John noticed that the side of her face was deeply discoloured. It was the beginning of an ugly welt, angry and purple, that stretched from the outside of her eye to the bottom of her nose. Beyond Lestrade's shoulder, Anderson stood in a corridor snapping photographs of the crime scene. He stared at Donovan from his place in the corridor, flushed and quickly shuffled away.

Donovan shot daggers at Sherlock, silently daring him to say a word. John was afraid that he would; however, Sherlock merely smirked before striding away. "Thank you, Sergeant Donovan," he called over his shoulder.

"Don't you burn anything in there, Freak!" she cried back.

Sherlock walked past Lestrade into the crime scene. The beleaguered inspector sighed while massaging the pale grey bags ringing his eyes. John gave him an empathetic smile.

"I think he'll like this one," Lestrade mused.

"I hope so. He's been a terror this week," John replied. He brushed a hand through his short blonde hair and reflected on the number of explosive experiments, whingeing, and generalised acts of destruction that had occurred in the days before Sherlock began to plot his pretend murder. "If he doesn't like this, I certainly will."

Lestrade gave him a pat on his shoulder. "I'll like it well enough when we've wrapped it up."

The corridor opened into a cluttered kitchen. The floor was greasy with splattered raw eggs, which discoloured tatters of a slashed long-sleeved shirt and jacket. The floor, however, was scarcely any cause for concern compared with what was spread over the countertop.

A young man had been laid against a wooden carving board, enveloping it with his crimson torso. The board had been saturated with dark blood, which now dribbled down the cabinets in thin, branching ribbons. As John edged closer to the scene, a sickening realisation came upon him that the victim's chest had been carved open with long, jagged wounds that extended from the xiphoid process of his sternum to his lower abdomen. Organs—a lung, an aortic valve, some tissues that had not been identifiable to even John at first glance—had been ripped out of the slashed cavity like red streamers from a gift box.

"Delightful," whispered Sherlock through an enchanted breath.

"Delightful?" John hissed back. He did his utmost to avoid glancing at the look of pure agony locked into the corpse's dull eyes. It was much too early for this.

Sherlock hovered over the body and allowed his captivated platinum-green eyes dart over its misfortune. He had already pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves over his slender fingers, which were now reverently tracing the amoebic bruising pattern over the deceased man's right arm. Sherlock repeated the motion over the other arm, frowning a little when he discovered a dark tattoo—a scythe embedded into a skull—emblazoned on the bicep.

"John," came Sherlock's soft call. When John next looked at his friend, he wished he had not. Sherlock was poised over the open chest cavity with his pointed nose nearly dipping into the carnage. Lestrade shot John a disconcerted expression, and he could only half-heartedly shrug back. It would not have been a normal case if Sherlock behaved appropriately around a victim, living or deceased.

Without moving his head a millimetre away from the dead man's torso, Sherlock gestured impatiently for him. John exhaled the contents of his lungs, and after reluctantly pulling on a pair of gloves he ambled to Sherlock's side. "Having fun, are we?"

A blinding camera flash interrupted whatever blunt reply was likely to come from the consulting detective. Sherlock lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at the source of the uninvited light.

"Go on, take a bite out of him while you're at it. That is how you get your thrills, isn't it?" Anderson glanced at the digital display of the photo—Sherlock standing in a compromising position over the corpse—before turning to a frowning Lestrade. "Victim's name is Robert Thomas, twenty-three, sous chef, employed for six months at the diner. Came in early to prepare the kitchen for breakfast service. Cause of death was cardiac arrest due to exsanguination—"

"Yes, yes, Anderson, and the colour of his blood is red," snapped Sherlock. "If you would like to continue spouting useless facts like a cretin, you might very well go behind the door and tell it that it's closed."

Anderson's thin lips spread into an ugly scowl. "Now listen, you psycho—"

Sherlock pushed his arm across the air to wipe out Anderson from his circle of existence. "As a farce of a forensics officer, Anderson has failed to observe the most basic underpinnings of this case. John, if you would be so good as to examine the stomach? The oesophagus as well."

After a tentative nod of approval from Lestrade, and taking a hesitant breath, John took Sherlock's place over the corpse. He flinched when confronted by what he could only describe as a pile of vital organs, and his own, still-functioning ones sunk at the thought of having to dig through such a mess to find what Sherlock had requested in the meat puzzle. Fortunately, he discovered both the stomach and the still-attached oesophagus at the top of the heap, and John felt his head whirr at the sight.

"They've been slashed open…lengthwise, several times. Uh, by a straight-edge pocketknife."

Sherlock offered him a small smile. "Quite right. You've demonstrated again, John that you, unlike our esteemed colleagues of Scotland Yard, you possess the ability to see."

John warmed at the praise. "Ah, well thanks, then. So that was good?"

"Not even slightly." John's face fell as Sherlock pressed forward. "The former chef walked into this dreary establishment, but as he did so, he harboured a secret that he had been hiding for the last six months he had been on the payroll. Perhaps it was his desire to secure steady employment as he concealed his membership—ex-membership as of two weeks ago—to the infamous Garrotter Street Rogues. The skull and scythe tattooed on his left arm is their insignia, although the ink is still dark indicating his membership to the gang occurred in the last year. The tan lines below the elbows more than likely coincide with a disturbing pattern of sunny weather in London over the last two weeks. Ergo, he wore long-sleeved shirts to cover the tattoo. The inference: something happened in that two weeks to reform this man into the model citizen we see fileted before us."

Sherlock paused to catalogue the blood mingling with the raw eggs splattered on the ground. "There were three men that encountered the chef, who was no doubt in a fright judging by the state of the floors. That suggests he knew them, or more importantly, feared them."

"Three men?" stammered Lestrade.

"Obvious. One held him down by his arms; that is evident by the bruising. Another gutted him like a freshwater trout—a right-handed man with a serrated blade going on the asymmetry of the wounds—while a third, left-handed man of the merry crew tore at his organs with an unfortunately dull straight-edged pocketknife."

"Poor sod," murmured John.

Anderson squinted unhappily at the ex-human on the countertop, but Lestrade stepped forward before he could speak. "And why would three men commit such a crime of passion?"

Sherlock scoffed. "Passion? Is that the first excuse your meagre little brains can supply when you encounter more than a pint of blood on a corpse? The chef's shirt and coat pockets were upturned and slashed to bits before they discarded them on the floor with the eggs. No doubt the killers were desperately looking for something on his person, or rather in his person. The upper digestive organs, as John so eloquently observed, have been slashed open. They gutted him alive to find a missing object that he swallowed."

Lestrade's brow furrowed. "Dear God…now this is just too…swallowed? But what? What would this chef have swallowed that would have supposedly attracted the attention of three men?"

"Something that they did not find. If they had, I gather they would not have taken the initiative to continue cutting the organs to ribbons. They left, disgruntled," Sherlock bent over several angled drops of blood dappling the floor. "This way." The ends of his dark grey coat swished as he vaulted through the crime scene as though it were his play yard. John followed, and not a step behind, his ears picked up Anderson growling about his "defiled" crime scene to Lestrade.

Sherlock threw open the backdoor from which they had entered, only to face an unpleasantly startled Sally Donovan. "Out they came, and away they went. Acta est fabula, at least for the dearly departed. I'm afraid that your suspect—the girlfriend of the previous victim—had nothing to do with this string of crimes."

Lestrade's mouth fell open. "Pr-previous victim?"

A flash of blue from a police car flickered in Sherlock's eyes. "Yes, of course there was a previous victim! Do you fancy yourself a parrot in an upcoming life, Inspector?"

"How did you know?" exclaimed Lestrade. "The press hasn't caught word yet! My people are sworn to secrecy! If you've been hacking my email again—"

"Only to prevent you from replying to another letter sent by a Nigerian princess," interjected Sherlock between Lestrade's spluttering. "This case would have been a three, a four at best, but you bothered to call. That says you need me, which you so obviously do. Clearly this is not the first crime scene you have frequented this morning. I can tell that much by the garish rings under your eyes and your men enjoying a coffee break outside the tape. You encountered this exact scenario in the last…four hours, I would say, and I reckon that both victims are members of the same upstanding organisation. You arrested the girlfriend at the last scene so I can imagine your merriment at another murder in a lacklustre café while she whittled away her time in custody."

Sherlock paused, but was met with only a flabbergasted silence. Rolling his eyes, he continued. "'How did you know about the girlfriend, Sherlock?' I'll gladly tell you. As a, shall we say, enthusiastic associate of the Garrotter Street Rogues, she was not likely a cooperative witness toward London's finest at the scene of her lover's murder. She resisted questioning and clocked Sergeant Donovan in the face, which sexually excited Anderson. Otherwise, he would not look at the welt below her eye with such thinly veiled enthusiasm."

"What?" cried Anderson.

"What!" growled Sally. She glared at the forensics officer. "Is that why you've been staring at me like that?"

Lestrade appeared to be experiencing a migraine as he overlooked his two colleagues having a lover's quarrel in the middle of a crime scene. The only person who appeared entertained by the situation was John. He had erased his own fatigue, the complete impropriety of the scene that had unfolded and beamed at the infuriating man in front of him. This was Sherlock at his menacing best. "Incredible, and absolutely wonderful."

Sherlock shook himself out of his universe of sharp deductions. His cynical smile stretched further up his face. "Amateurish thugs. It's barely a proper murder, although I suppose it will suffice."

John snorted back. "And you don't find the fact that he was on the carving board the least bit intriguing?"

"I find it disappointing. They used their pocketknives to gut a man in a kitchen full of limitless possibilities: ovens, pots, garlic presses…" As Sherlock trailed away, it appeared that a light flashed behind his eyes. "Oh!"

The smile fled John's face. He knew what that 'Oh!' meant. But surely Sherlock wouldn't. After all, Lestrade had just handed him a perfectly lurid, real case to entertain his overwhelming intellect.

Excitement flickered through Sherlock's expression, and he intruded upon John's bubble of personal space. Oh yes, he would. "John, forget everything I said previously."

Anderson and Donovan halted their bickering and stared at each other in excitement, wondering if they had heard correctly, if the horribly arrogant Sherlock Holmes had just admitted to committing a mistake. Lestrade whitened over the details in his notebook. "What?"

Sherlock disregarded Lestrade with an annoyed sideways glance. "In the cab. Forget what I said in the cab, John. Although keep the elbow wrench and the gerbils in mind for future reference."

John was beginning to understand why the cabbie had been so anxious to get rid of them. "I was asleep in the cab."

"Then it's not a concern."

"Sherlock!"

"John." Sherlock's sombre, jade eyes pierced into him. "I would like gouge your eyes out of their sockets with an ice cream scoop and grate your flesh to the deep muscle tissue. I want to boil your bones in salted water until they are soft, then burn you away, bone and flesh, and scatter the ashes from the roof of Bart's. But your eyes I want to keep, just so that I may cut them into thin slices, like tomatoes."

When Sherlock finished with an elated smile, John found himself nearly trembling and unable to speak. Unfortunately, he did not even have the opportunity.

"Holy shit." John turned to find Greg Lestrade looking like he had just swallowed a dirty sock. Next to him, Anderson was pale with his jaw hanging open, while Sally mouthed, 'What the fuck?' Even the Bobbies were gathered close on the other side of the tape, looking quite sickened with their coffee and pastries.

He returned his attention to Sherlock, who was silently imploring him for a response. What came through his larynx surprised even him. "What kind of knife, um, would you use to slice my eyes?"

"Paring. Obviously."

John did not know what was so obvious about using a paring knife to dissect his dislodged eyeballs. "That's…that's good, Sherlock."

After catching sight of the paling officers of Scotland Yard, he decided to have some mercy, if only for the benefit of poor Lestrade, whose heart did not look like it could take much more. "Uh, Sherlock's been plotting the perfect method to murder me…hypothetically, that is."

Sherlock pulled away from him. "Yes. And you didn't like it."

"No! No, I did. That was a good one, the ice cream scoop…and grater, sure…" John's voice fell away, and he scolded himself for speaking in the first place. For God's sake, he was defending his own murder scenario, not reassuring a girlfriend that a particular skirt made her arse look slim!

Sherlock folded his arms with a huff. "Stop that. I can tell you're lying. You wear the identical expression when you tell Mrs Hudson that you enjoy her green bean casserole."

Regaining some vigour into his features, Lestrade cleared his throat. "Might we discuss the case? The suspects? The actual murder here?"

"If we must!" bit out Sherlock. He turned up the collar of his coat and stormed after Lestrade under the tape toward the side of the darkened car park. It was in this inopportune moment that Donovan approached John.

He did not dislike Sally Donovan, but he certainly did not like her, either. Whether it was her disdain for his best friend or the constant advice she dealt upon him under the pompous facade of her 'concern for his safety', John hardly found himself endeared toward the Sergeant. Donovan did not appear to notice this as she leered at him. "I didn't want to say 'I told you so', but there it is. If I were you, I'd leave London tonight."

"Leave the city? Why should I do that?"

"Didn't you just hear that psychopath?" she exclaimed incredulously. "He's out for blood—your blood! And in a none too pleasant way by the sound of it!"

"First—he's a sociopath, not a psychopath." He had heard Sherlock correct them so many times that even he was accustomed to doing so at this point. "Second, I doubt it would be any good leaving the city. I'm sure he would see it as some kind of game: hide-and-seek, perhaps. And finally, I don't know if you care or not, but he's constructing these scenarios hypothetically."

"And how well do you think Sherlock Holmes does hypothetical scenarios? From where I'm standing he's got an Asbo to prove he's been practising the bit with the burning. You're mad enough to live with the Freak. To stay now, that's suicidal!"

John frowned. "How's your face feeling right now? Must throb a bit—I can bother someone with a first aid kit for a compress, if you like. Even get you some ibuprofen."

Donovan glowered back.

"John!"

He moved past her to join Sherlock at the other side of the tape. Arguing over the details of the case with Lestrade appeared to restore the consulting detective's good humour, although under closer inspection, John observed that Sherlock appeared more dishevelled than usual.

Before he could ask, Sherlock triumphantly tossed him a rumpled, white bag. John peaked inside, hardly believing the contents under his eyes. "Pastries?"

"The officers threw them at me, very unskilfully, I must say. Ordinarily I would have ignored such pathetic attempts to distract my attention, but I recalled your tirade during our previous case about your skipping meals."

John lifted a flaky, jam-filled pastry from the bag. "You allowed yourself to be pelted by pastries so that I wouldn't have to skip breakfast?"

"I caught a bag of pastries that had been hurled in my direction so that you would avoid screaming at me the next time a murderer is chasing us with a gun, yes." Sherlock nonchalantly picked a crumb off the lapel of his jacket. "No doubt the elite of Scotland Yard were unsettled by my plans for you and likened the jam in the pastries to the vitreous humour of the eye; hence why they proceeded to stone me with their breakfast."

John, who had just bitten into the jam-filled roll, cursed the universe that Sherlock spoke whenever he had a meal. "By any chance did the Bobbies throw a cup of coffee at you?"

Sherlock's eyebrows perked up. "Yes, several in fact. But they were over-sweetened, and you prefer your coffee bitter, John, so I dodged them."

John set his jaw, allowing the enticingly sweet jam from the roll overwhelm his mouth. It was strawberry, delicious, and outweighed whatever Sherlock had to say about dissecting his eyes. Either he was going mad, or John was becoming desensitised to his violent demise. Most likely both, he thought as he took another bite from the pastry and erased Donovan's annoying conversation from his recent memory.

"Don't tell Mrs Hudson that I hate her green bean casserole," John said at last.

The hard lines of Sherlock's expression dissolved into an earnest smile. That would have been certain death for them both.

Reviews are not only appreciated—they are WORSHIPPED!

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