Thank you-Arigato-Gracias-Merci for all the wonderful reviews I received from this! The response has been amazing, and I HEART YOU ALL for your kind encouragement!

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

Warnings: Gruesomely dead things, not-so dead things, and an angry woman.

Hypothetically

Chapter Three: D.O.A.

John frowned at the unoccupied laboratory. The fluorescent ceiling lamps glowed over the workbench, which was pristine from the beakers of hazardous acids and petri-dishes of blood and other unmentionable fluids that he would have been accustomed to viewing in their own kitchen had he bothered to go home. Not a single slide was present under the unlit microscope, and the seat pulled next to it was empty, Sherlock-less.

He groaned and flicked open his mobile to reread the concise text.

Sent 11:37 AM

Barts. –SH

He already searched the computer lab and the morgue was dark. Unless Sherlock had been referring to some nightclub called Barts, which John would find both unlikely and unsettling, the tosser had not bothered to wait for him.

"Fantastic," he growled before stalking out of the laboratory. It was only a quarter of three in the afternoon, but it already felt like the longest day in John Watson's life. Not did Sherlock just wake him at four in the pitch-black morning to visit a gutted corpse in a diner, but after leaving the scene, he had to report to the clinic for a shift. He had fervently wished to return to their flat after his last patient; however, sometime between the paranoid mother insisting her sniffling child undergo an M.R.I. and delousing a crotchety old man, Sherlock had sent him that dreaded text. Despite his exhaustion, John went immediately to Barts at the end of his shift while cursing himself the entire way.

And now Sherlock was not there. John paused in the corridor to check if he had been left any additional texts or voice messages, but he already knew it was a wasted effort. Upon realising that he had again stopped in front of the morgue, his blue eyes strained through the dark window and noticed the shadows of three bodies lumped on separate examination tables. That could not have been right; Molly would never have closed the morgue before shutting away the corpses.

John pressed a hand on the door handle, and to his surprise, it creaked open. A plane of light draped over the naked shoulder of the first corpse in the row of tables, and the sight of pale, marred flesh, unnerved John. "Erm, hello? Molly?"

A metallic scraping noise shot ice water through his veins. Horrified, John turned to the second table. The corpse atop it was moving! He almost tripped over himself jumping backwards. He could almost make out the undead creature's head lolling in his direction, glowing eyes catching the slivers of light from the corridor, and then in a horrible, deep voice, it emanated a word. "Jooohn…"

"SHIT!" he howled. He did fall over then, and while flailing his arms for purchase against the wall, John managed to flick on the light switch.

Sherlock slowly blinked to adjust himself to the light while aiming a level gaze at the trembling doctor on the floor. He lied on his back with his legs crossed and hands folded neatly over his stomach on an examination table situated between two naked corpses. "Hello, John."

"The fuck, Sherlock!" John shouted between breaths saturated with adrenaline. "What the hell are you doing!"

"Thinking," he softly replied.

John scrambled to his feet. "Thinking? You nearly scared me to death, you git!"

"Then you would have to find your own morgue. We're using this one."

John shot Sherlock a withering look as he approached the table and mused whether this was one of those days the consulting detective thought to bring his riding crop to the lab. God help him, John might have found a body in this morgue on which he just might use it. "We? You mean you and these two stiffs?"

Sherlock lifted his head a centimetre. "The stiffs? I believe you remember the former Mr Thomas from this morning." He gestured at the table to his left, which supported the victim, now covered with bloodless wounds over his ashen flesh. John hardly recognised the corpse in such a sterilised state.

Not removing his eyes from John's direction, Sherlock motioned to the opposite corpse. "And may I introduce Mr Parker Blake, also Of Late, found dead by his charming girlfriend five hours prior to Thomas. You will discover that they share a common death."

John hesitantly gazed at the second body, a young skinhead whose abdomen had been dealt the same horrifying treatment. Even in the clinical glow of the morgue, where the wounds had been drained clean, John could only imagine how hideous the other murder scene must have been.

"The tattoo," John offered, while averting his eyes from the second corpse, "it's on the arm of the other man as well. You were right about the men associating with the gang."

Sherlock closed his eyes like a contented cat. "Of course I was right about the gang. Although you will notice that the other body carries distinct tan lines at the shoulders. He wore those dreadful wifebeaters on a near daily basis to prominently display his emblem. Unlike the former chef, he still paid his dues to the Garrotter Street Rogues, for all the good it did him."

"So you suspect someone in the gang?"

"Most likely. Lestrade is canvassing Islington and the surrounding boroughs for the Rogues, and he is detaining Mr Blake's lover for her assault on Sergeant Donovan as an added measure."

John glanced at the nude body of Parker Blake and returned his eyes to a very much alive, very not-naked Sherlock. "Well, that's progress, then." Sherlock sneered, and John remembered that he was irritated with his flatmate. "Is there a reason you demanded that I come here? Did you want me to bring you a pillow so you can dream about freezing tongues in our icebox, or some other damnable experiment?"

"Don't be ridiculous, John. You know that I don't sleep while I am investigating."

"What else is there to investigate?"

Sherlock's eyes flashed open. "Everything, John. Joey Smallish."

"Who?"

"A fishing boat discovered a floater five kilometres from Swansea. Despite being waterlogged a fortnight in the Bristol Channel, his passport identified him as Joey Smallish, wanted for a series of violent robberies and a known associate of the Garrotter Street Rogues. His remains, still sought for questioning by the authorities, were extradited to London. After pulling a string or two, I have spent the better part of the day becoming acquainted with Mr Smallish."

John found his resolve to leave the morgue for their flat falter. Sherlock knew just how to ensnare him with a dramatic twist. "What string, exactly, did you pull, Sherlock?"

The door squeaked open. "I've got your tea. Two sugars, dash of milk—oh, hello!" Molly Hooper came to a startled halt at the sight of a new person in her morgue. "John. It is John, right? I remembered?"

"Thank you Molly, most excellent," Sherlock cut in tersely. Barely shifting his position on the examination table, he extended a hand for the proffered cuppa.

Molly nibbled at her lip. "Aren't you cold? I have a blanket in my office if you would like it." She offered John a tremulous smile. "Sometimes I sleep here during an all-nighter. It gets nippy, and there's nothing warm to cling to. Although that one time we did have that burn victim."

She let out a few stumbling laughs at her failed attempt at humour. John's eyes jumped to twice their size while Sherlock, predictably, said nothing. "R-right. Well, uh, I'll just be…out there," she stammered before scurrying past John.

John sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose. "You shouldn't use her like that. Especially after what happened with Jim."

Sherlock waved away the reprimand with the hand that was not occupied with tea. "I see no reason for all that to matter. Besides, who do you think is using whom? I determined the cause of death of her recent guest."

"Joey Smallish…he drowned, didn't he?"

"Wrong." Sherlock's deep voice resonated gleefully in the morgue. In a single graceful motion, Sherlock swung his legs down from the table. His vertebrae emanated an indignant crack through his suit jacket at having been abused on the examination table for so long. Serves him right, John thought.

At eye level Sherlock smiled at John like a toddler about to show his mother a fingerpainting. "Heroin overdose. There were over twenty empty rolls in his upper digestive system. A kilo of heroin coated his innards."

"A kilo?"

"Sixty-thousand pounds on the street. The man was a drug mule, John. He was not a kilometre from a ferry traveling from Dublin. It's not unheard of for London gangs to import product, although there must have been a set of intriguing circumstances if they went to an Irish supplier rather than the Afghans or Turks."

"Drug mule." John paled as a revelation swept over him. "That's it, isn't it? That's what those other two swallowed?"

"Obviously. What other foreign object would a gang member willing ingest?"

He pointed at the wound exposing the inner cavity of the nearest disembowelled victim. "That's why they cut them open? Sixty-thousand quid—a kilo of heroin?"

Sherlock's jade eyes flared with frustration. "No."

John felt like he had been tripped. "No?"

"No. It's not the drugs. They were drug mules; that presents itself as the most likely scenario, but there is something more. You're forgetting that the chef had removed himself from the gang at least two weeks prior to the murder. It was a fortnight ago when Joey Smallish went for a swim in the Bristol Channel. Do you believe in chance, John?"

"I met you, didn't I?" he replied dryly.

The right side of Sherlock's mouth twisted into a smile. "I'm disappointed. I would have expected you to have been disillusioned by such things, given your browser history of online poker websites."

John flushed. "What did I say about stealing my laptop?"

"The three victims went to Ireland together and returned on the ferry each a kilo heavier—two weeks ago. With the exception of Mr Smallish, the other two would have passed the product onto their superiors by now, so I will reiterate. It is not the drugs. The murderers were searching for something within the two gentlemen before us that would have remained inside their stomachs. Something larger."

John cast another glance at the destroyed bodies on the table, trying his best not to recall the jokes he exchanged with his friends back in medical school about surgeons leaving watches and wedding bands inside patients. "And what would that be?"

"I intend to find out before they attack again. The fact that they have struck twice with such ferocity indicates that they have not yet found it. Therefore there will be more victims. I find it will be as simple as determining which of the Rogues moonlighted as drug mules." With a full smile, he added, "And if I do find a Rolex, Doctor, I will return it to you with some suspicion."

A dry laugh escaped John before he could remember his morbid surroundings. As he fought for control of himself, a thought crossed his mind. "They were mates, weren't they?"

One of Sherlock's eyebrows arched into a stray black curl. "They?"

"Smallish and Robert Thomas. He must have been on the ferry when Smallish died, and having to act fast, the others kicked him into the sea. That must have been why he quit the Rogues immediately after."

A wrinkle creased Sherlock's forehead, and John felt a thrill leap through his torso at having found something that the consulting detective had not seen. "Seriously…you didn't think of that? Sherlock, how would you feel if I died in front of you?"

"How would I feel?" Sherlock spat out the last word like it had burnt his tongue.

John rolled his eyes. "Yes you bloody Vulcan! I asked you about feelings, or emoticons, as they are known in your preferred language. How would you feel if I died in front of you?"

Despite having the freedom to move in almost any direction in the morgue, Sherlock had the appearance of a trapped animal. Varying degrees of confusion and even a glint of indignation flickered over his face. Then, only briefly, John glimpsed the same hurt expression he recalled on Sherlock's features the night at the pool when he had been forced to be Jim Moriarty's voice box.

Sherlock swiftly flashed him an artificial smile that erased all traces of his vulnerability. "I suppose it depends on the manner in which you die. It would be a travesty if it were something as banal as a gunshot or a stabbing."

"Right," said John bitterly. "Wouldn't want my death to bore you."

"Exactly. Now if you would care to join me, I will be extracting the empty heroin rolls from Mr Smallish for further examination." Sherlock crossed the morgue to the refrigerated cabinets and pulled one in the middle open by half a centimetre. At once, the air flooded with the damp stench of decomposing flesh.

John steeled the contents of his stomach. "No, I don't think I will. You and two corpses is quite enough for one day, I think."

Immune to the spectacularly horrible odour emanating from the body, Sherlock kept his hand clasped over the cabinet handle. "Problem?"

John chewed the inside of his cheek. Of course there was a problem. Sherlock, as always, was an insensitive, amoral contradiction. He also knew that it was not worth his time to vent his frustrations to the detective, especially since time was a commodity he needed this evening. "Not at all. In fact, I have a date tonight."

Sherlock shut the cabinet door with a heavy thud. "I would suppose this was the reason for your supposedly misplaced mobile yesterday afternoon?" He paused at John's flushed confirmation. "In any case, that's irrelevant. What I do recall, however, is you foreswearing all romantic activities during a case following the completely preventable incident with the boa constrictor."

"By 'completely preventable' you mean altogether avoidable if you had not let loose the murder-snake in our flat," John growled back. "We made the plans yesterday, before the case, and I intend to keep them. So don't follow me. Don't do anything, actually."

"Where are you going?" called Sherlock as John turned to the morgue door.

"Home!" he shouted. He then liberated himself from the corpse-riddled room and its sickly aromas.

"Murder-snake," muttered Sherlock to the nearest corpse. "Please."

John had actually lost his mobile the day before. He was puzzled when he sat down in his office at the clinic, flipped open the phone—undoubtedly the correct make and model—and found that it was not his. It was a pleasant surprise discovering that the true owner was a striking therapeutic masseuse who had come to the clinic every Thursday to offer her services. When she called him with his own mobile to arrange the exchange after lunch, it naturally evolved from there.

He did not expect a beautiful, dark-eyed woman like Kristie—a masseuse!—to agree to dinner with a short, funny man like himself, but when she did, he was ecstatic. He would not be letting his depraved flatmate ruin this one. No crossbows, abductions, boa constrictors, and goat livers in the bedroom; John would have none of that, absolutely not.

"John?" Kristie jostled him to the present, in which they were both seated at the corner of a Greek restaurant. He blinked and looked at her over his wineglass. She was truly beautiful in a green dress, truly…concerned. "John, are you well? You're stabbing your leg with a spoon."

John glanced down at the piece of steel he was currently attempting to drive through his trouser leg. "Ah, brilliant. I'm just brilliant. And did you have a lovely day?"

She stared at him oddly, but nonetheless began to rattle off the details of her most likely corpse-free day. John listened half-heartedly, nodding at the appropriate times, when a sudden vibration from his mobile tore down his illusion of normality.

Sent 7:19 PM

Heroin overdose not accidental. Found pinpricks in each of the 21 rolls from victim's stomach. Premeditated murder. –S

Kristie's voice weakly tethered him to the restaurant. "…and I suppose it is a natural bodily reaction, but really John, the boy was six. Six, and I bet he hadn't…"

The mobile vibrated again, and John lost a thirty-second battle of wills before glancing down at the lit screen.

Sent 7:21 PM

I find this sort of death intriguing. Do you John? –S

"…so there the boy is crying, and his Mum goes and screams at me that I'm a paedo!"

"Wait, w-what?"

Kristie crossed her dainty arms. "You haven't been listening to a word, have you? What's so important then?"

John sighed and deleted the messages. "Sorry, no. I haven't been listening. I promise though, I'll stop. This," he gestured at the mobile before placing it face down on the table, "isn't more important to me, right now, than this moment."

Her expression softened by a fraction, and he took this as an opening. "Would you like to order some dessert? It looks as though you've had a difficult day, and I would have to lobotomise myself to forget the details of mine."

"Then let's end it, Doctor." His face fell, but she smiled. "And let's go to my flat for a cuppa instead."

While he flagged down a waiter for the bill, the phone buzzed against the table.

Sent 7:26 PM

I suppose not. –S

John could not believe his splendid luck. One moment he was witnessing his own date careening into a fiery demise and the next, he was in a sitting room feeling his heartbeat tremor as Kristie undid the buttons of his shirt. She did not even flinch when she saw the spidery lines of the scar on his shoulder; she merely ghosted her long nails over it past the contours of his deltoids.

She grinned at him salaciously. "Your muscles are tight. Perhaps you'll do with a massage?" His eyes widened, and his heart thrummed out of control. "Go on, lie down. The bedroom's the second door on the right. I will be right in with some warming oils."

He lifted himself off the sofa after a parting kiss and stumbled down the corridor. He had not engaged in any physical relations since he had broken up with Sarah, unless one were to count the time he tackled Sherlock to the floor for preserving eyeballs in his jam—which John very pointedly did not count. But now he was about to get off with a masseuse, and a stunningly attractive one at that. John made a mental note to ignore his mobile, wherever it was now, during all of his future dates if this was to be the result.

He pushed open the door to her perfumed room (orchids), and sat himself on the edge of a plush bed. God, he had almost forgotten what it was like to lie on a woman's bed! Any moment now she would walk through that door, with wonderful oil, with a beautiful smile, and whisper his name.

The last thing that John expected was Kristie to let out a blood-curdling shriek. A soldier's instinct overwhelmed him as he burst through the bedroom door and sprinted through the hallway. "What! What is it! Are you okay?"

Kristie stood trembling in the middle of the sitting room next to a broken bottle of massage oil. Despite the oil pooling past her stocking feet, her sole focus was the mobile that her shaking hand held in the air. "I-I…the mobile. I thought…it was mine again. Like last time. Thought I had messages when I heard…it vibrate."

John blanched. "Oh no. Oh hell no."

Her dark brown eyes focused on his. "John! You need to read these. They're sick! Oh…oh god, John!" Before Kristie could dissolve into tears, John wrapped an arm around her and gently took the phone from her quivering fingers. Already having a feeling gnawing at his stomach at what he was about to read, he flipped it open.

Sent 8:00 PM

John, you are ignoring me. –S

Sent 8:11 PM

John. –S

Sent 8:24 PM

John…-S

Sent 8:31 PM

John, I would like to drive rail spikes into your femurs with a German Hammer. I want to drill screws into the outer centimetres of the muscle tissue of your arms and the floor. -S

Sent 8:32 PM

I would then depress 100-kilo weights over your hands and feet, until I have effectively crushed the underlying bone structure into shapeless flesh. –S

Sent 8:33 PM

Then I would seal you in the room. Even after decomposition and your skeleton is removed, the oils of your body will leave your imprint, so that I will know you remained there. -S

John felt chills rain down his spine, yet his face was hot as he read the last text. "Kristie, I should probably explain to you that—"

She looked up from his shoulder with glimmering eyes that wept dark, messy lines of mascara. "He's the same bloke who texted you about the blowtorches, isn't he? I didn't think…Shit, John! Why does he want to kill you?"

"You read that? Well, uh, no, it's not like that. You see—"

"Oh! And what if he followed you here!" She tore away from John's chest and seized a wooden chair. "John, shutter the windows! I'll secure the front door and call 999!"

"No! Really!" pled John, but his frightened love interest had already propped the chair against the doorknob. The situation was spiralling out of control; even if Sherlock was not there, he still possessed the uncanny ability to cause mayhem.

The mobile vibrated again, and Kristie turned to him with enormous, reddened eyes. "Oh god! What does that one say?"

When his eyes flickered over the glowing mobile, he felt something twist in his abdomen. "Oh no."

Before he could stop her, Kristie had stolen the mobile out of his hand. "'We are out of milk again. –S,'" she read aloud. A look of confusion fell over her large eyes. "What the hell is this, John?"

There was no recovering from this. Rage poured over her face as she threw the mobile at his chest. "Sick pervert!"

"He's unusual and pretty eccentric, yeah, but I wouldn't say he's a pervert!" John paused and reanalysed the situation. "You meant me, didn't you?"

Before he knew it, John was trudging down the stoop with his ears ringing and his face slapped raw. There went the evening. A familiar vibration whirred through his trouser pocket, and groaning aloud, John checked his traitorous mobile.

Sent 8:46 PM

Did you like that one? –S

Sent 8:48 PM

NO! –J

Sent 8:49 PM

=( -S

In contempt of the exasperation he had for Sherlock, John laughed at the text. Perhaps their conversation about expressing feelings had sunk in at some level. John shut off his mobile and started down the road for the nearest pub.

"Bloody sociopath."

Reviews are not only appreciated—they are WORSHIPPED!

To My LOVELY-LOVE-LOVE Reviewers:

TSylvestrisA: Twisted, bizarre and wonderful in the same sentence make me so insanely happy. I imagine it will take him a while, during which time a few wacky misunderstandings are likely to ensue…CharmingKarma: I can see you were quite brilliant at that game =) Your review had me giggling and feeling just awesome, so thank you so much. Princess Autumnal: I agree. Dark humour=win in BBC Sherlock. I'm happy that you like mine. Thank you for your reviews! Kunoichi Umi: Much love for your reviews! And thank you for commenting on my Sherlock-tangent. Anonymous: Thank you, Anon! I'm glad you liked my characterisation—that's the biggest compliment I feel I can get in this fan-verse =) Redbelladonna: Your high school experience sounds way more awesome than mine. I'm jealous now. ViciousHerring: Thank you! And it's good to hear that you've got some friends you can count on to drain your blood when times get rough. I'll definitely be continuing, your review helps a lot! ladypredator: Well put, LOL. Poor Lestrade indeed, and poor unsuspecting John. meredithriddle: Thank you so much for your reviews, they make me blush! All I can say is that when the xiphoid fits...and that I can think of several ways to implement a garlic press as a torture device. Howlynn: Thanks for your long review! You've raised an excellent question, which goes to the heart of the story—as the hypotheticals continue, how is John going to cope with them? My idea was to have Sherlock construct the most intricate, creative death possible for him, and thus far John accepts it as one of Sherlock's quirks. However, as it continues, John will no doubt get more exasperated with the situation (especially after this chapter). That will lead to some fun times…hehe, elbow wrench… OkamiLupus: Thanx for reviewing! Oh I have several chapters still planned. It won't end so soon, I'm having far too much fun. CowMow: I am very happy you like this bizarre freakish thing. It's continuing, I'll update as often as I can. Thanks for your review, I really enjoy reading them!