John's P.O.V
"How do you figure that," the D.I asked exasperated.
So he had been hoping to be wrong John thought.
"It's clear and plain. A tedious question to ask me, just take my word as gospel and find the killer," Sherlock said, with a dismissive wave of his hand before picking up one of the dead man's hands to study closer.
"Do you think you could walk us through it a bit more than that, hmm?," John pressed, knowing neither of the other men were going to find a way to work it out between themselves. He would have to ask Greg sometime how long it had taken in the years before John was around for Sherlock to figure out every single one of the D.I's buttons. Five minutes or five years.
Sherlock looked reluctant for a moment, weighing the options of hovering closer to a corpse or showing off just how clever he was. John was relieved that at least the detective went with the predictable answer.
"What do you people spend your time thinking about? Rainbows and gumdrops? It is obvious – murder. Look around you, look at this room and this flat. Nothing out of place, everything shining- just waiting for someone to point out how lovely it looks. Kingston Moran liked having people think he had good taste even though it's clear a decorator did this. Don't you see John, just look at the man," Sherlock told him in an inpatient tone, holding Moran's hand up a bit higher as if to emphasize whatever point he was making.
It took John a minute, but he got there.
"The clothes, you're talking about the clothes?," he asked, for the sake of not sounding over confident.
"Yes, very good shouldn't doubt yourself so much John. The clothes, precisely. Moran wouldn't be one caught dead, excuse the pun, in this polyester track suit number- it is rather nasty," the detective said and both the other men visibly stopped themselves from muttering posh git under their collective breath.
"No- if he were going to kill himself he'd wear one of those suits in the closet. Leave an attractive corpse; no one wants to die in their sleep clothes. Not to mention his hands John, just look at them. No discolouration, no hint of orange."
"Yeah, what's it mean?"
"It means that Moran wasn't holding the gun for hours, wasn't holding it long enough for the perspiration on his hand to react to the metal of the gun. Copper, zinc, bit of nickel in the coating. Should have discolouration on his fingers, all that time he spent thinking about whether he really wanted to off himself. But Moran didn't want to die, that gun was forced into his hands. Look at his sleeves, inconsistent gun powder residue. Moran certainly wasn't shot with a rifle but there isn't enough residue here for the handgun I'm sure was used. Bit of ferrozine spray will show you that. Another set of hands then- holding Moran's in place," Sherlock pointed out, wrapping his own long gloved fingers over the hand in question.
"Easy to fake angles when you don't think about it I suppose. Just tell the man to pick up a gun and he's bound to do it with his dominate hand. Then just hold it in place and pull the trigger for him," the detective finished without pausing for breath until he'd gotten it all out, dropping the dead hand as he turned to John expectantly.
"Bloody brilliant, yeah," John said with a smile, unable to stop himself from fluffing up Sherlock's feathers a bit more and stifling a laugh at how the other man preened under the compliments.
"So, the note, Lestrade," Sherlock wheeled, holding out an expectant hand.
"Still not sure what it means, even with all that," Greg muttered, though he gave up the plastic evidence bag without any more fuss.
Leaning over Sherlock's side a bit, John couldn't blame the Yard for not knowing what to do with the piece of paper they'd found. It made no sense to the doctor either.
The Sandman's coming in his train of cars
With moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars
So hush you little ones and have no fear
The man in the moon he is the engineer
The railroad track it is a moonbeam bright
That leads right up into the starry night
So come you little ones and run up the stairs
Put on your 'jamas and say your prayers
"What's that mean then?" John asked after giving up on his own attempted deductions. The slightly pained expression on Sherlock's face told him that it didn't make much more sense to the detective either.
"It's an old poem John, The Sandman, meant for kids and their dreams. What does that have to do with Moran?" Sherlock pondered to the air, ignoring the eye roll from John once the doctor realized he wasn't a part of the conversation going on in Sherlock's head anymore.
"I'm going to need everything you've got if I'm calling this a murder Sherlock, no hiding evidence," Lestrade informed them after watching the silent act for a few moments.
"When I've got evidence to hide, I'll let you know. Send the gun and that shirt to Barts. I'll get some samples of the residue. Then John and I really must be off, we were just about t-,"
"To finish cleaning up that last disaster of an experiment, shouldn't put it off," John cut in, ignoring the confused look Greg gave him for interrupting a Sherlockian thought so casually and the suspicious glare he was getting from the mad detective himself.
"Baker Street then?" he added hopefully, to which Sherlock merely nodded before stealing into Anderson's unguarded pack to get those samples he'd wanted.
"Alright, I've got to go interview the brother but I'm serious about keeping me in the loop," said a D.I who John thought was already too accustom to being out of the loop to even know what he would do if Sherlock suddenly changed that pattern.
A short goodbye and a promise to call was all it took to get away from Lestrade and the prying eyes of the Yard. John tried not to be too pleased.
The ride back to their flat was a quiet one. Actually, it was a dead silent one. As Sherlock just looked out the window the whole time and ignored John as if he was a deleted bit of data on sweeping. It bothered John a bit. It might have bothered him more if it was out of the ordinary.
I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you?
Sherlock shot from the cab the second it stopped in front of their flat, not pausing for anything as mundane as paying the cabbie or checking if John was following. Because John would pay and John would follow. Obvious. Childs play.
Even Sherlock stomping up the steps ahead of him didn't throw John off, he just made sure to close the door to the flat as he watched Sherlock pace around the space like the caged animal John almost always half expected he was. .
"Tea then?" he questioned without really asking, since John knew Sherlock would listen without answering. .
Heading into the kitchen and flicking on the kettle, looking back into the sitting room took John's breath away for longer than he cared to talk about.
Sherlock had sat himself in the armchair that had been unceremoniously deemed his through their unspoken agreement, curled into his usual tight ball with knees hugged tightly to his chest despite ruining the crisp lines of his suit. What caught John's attention was that the detectives head wasn't resting childlike against his knees as it would have been any other day. Instead it was tilted a little to the right as Sherlock's hands seemed to toy almost absentmindedly with John's not-quite-legal gun. Long, slender fingers tinkering with bullets and chambers as they ran across cool metal. The giant brain of one Sherlock Holmes' seemed otherwise occupied with thought and didn't look to be paying attention as the always overactive hands waved the gun around like it was merely an extension of his left arm. The barrel coming to rest against the left side of that mad, insane, beautiful, brilliant, cracked but not literally, non-bulletproof skull in way that made John feel as if someone was threatening him and it wasn't just the detective aiming somewhere decidedly Not John.
"Sherlock, what are you doing?"
"Why would he do that John? Why leave a child's poem and make the police look at things closer? Did he want to get caught or did he just want them to know there was someone out there that they couldn't catch?"
"What are you on about?"
"The case, John! Why do something so stupid, why reveal so much? Is he meant to be The Sandman? Is Moran? There is nothing to gain from it, no benefit to the killer! Why did he bother, why not go silently into the night? Why go through the trouble of forcing a man to shoot himself so convincingly only to put on a show afterwards? It makes not sense."
"I don't really expect these guys to use a lot of sense."
"Well you wouldn't, would you? You're an idiot, just like everyone on the Yard."
"Sher-,"
"Exactly the same, always wanting to be normal, be boring. John Watson who knows just how to act and just what people will think of him. How impressive, do you come by those gifts naturally or did you practice all by your clever self?"
"I don't have a clue what you're talking about- just give me the gun, alright Sherlock?" John gritted out, ignoring the swell of anger forming under the detective's words.
The steel grey eyes watched him with a vicious, almost defiant glare. Then a left hand full of insanity shifted from lazy twirling to sharp movements as it snapped the handle of the gun into John's waiting palm.
"Good, good thanks," the doctor said, releasing the short breath he hadn't meant to be holding.
"Please John, 3,471 verdicts of suicide in the last year in Britain alone, 2.9 percent because of guns as Mr. Moran could attest to a point. Much lower than in places like America but still. I'm hardly going to do something as tiresome as shoot myself."
"You'll have to excuse me if knowing that's true doesn't help much," which wasn't a lie. John forced himself not to visibly shiver at the thought that the only reason Sherlock continued to be here to be furious with in the first place was that the world's only consulting detective didn't want to die in any mundane sort of way.
"This isn't news to you John. I told you straight off that I couldn't guarantee either of our safety or wellbeing. Part of the danger you say you like so much," Sherlock told him in a voice that was starting to reach levels that would ensure Mrs. Hudson would ask John if they'd had a domestic in the morning.
"That's different! That's out there, that's other people. It's criminals and murderers and whoever else decides to act on the impulse to shoot you. That's solving cases, this is just you and it's not right. People don't go waving guns around like it doesn't matter."
This was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. It took Sherlock less than half a second to leap out of his chair to crowd into the doctor's space.
"Yes- imagine that, what people would say if they knew what John Watson has to put up with. Imagine all the talk. How embarrassing for you."
"That's not what I said, I don't think that," John snipped in return, pulling his body into its defensive soldier stance while also taking a careful step back.
Sherlock was quick to bridge that space again. If anything, the detective used it as an opportunity to lean closer into John.
"Filthy liar," the mad detective hissed into John's ear, deep voice dripping with venom. .
"I am not!," he snapped, trying to keep from yelling pointlessly when the head of tangled curls pulled back only far enough to stare properly at John with a face devoid of any emotion again. John had never been embarrassed of Sherlock. At his wits end maybe, or occasionally wishing his flatmate had an ounce of tact in his ridiculous body but never properly embarrassed by him. Those were the things that made Sherlock who he was.
Slowly the skull that was so precious to John shook from side to side, obviously disagreeing with the doctor's words.
"It would be best if you left now, easier for everyone in the long run," the soft Cupid's bow told him in words as blank sounding as the rest of Sherlock.
"I understand if you need some time to figure out what you will do, your things can stay while you and Harry find you a better alternative," the always direct and usually cutting tongue added what might have been casually.
"Sooner rather than later though, as quickly as you people can manage. I'll try to keep my expectation for that relatively low," was about the moment when John stopped watching Sherlock's mouth as if someone else was speaking and repositioned his furious glare to the detective on a whole.
"You don't get to just decide everything like that Sherlock! You don't get to tell me when to go," John growled at the other man, pressing back into the few centimeters between them before Sherlock finally moved the smallest bit back.
"I think you'll find that's exactly what I do," the detective bit back, manic grey eyes boring into John.
"Not with this Sherlock."
"Of course with this John! I was foolish earlier but allow me to be realistic for both our sakes now. I wish you gone. At your earliest convenience. "
"You can't mean that. You can't," John told him, swallowing thickly.
"You said stay; you said that- not me. So you don't get to decide that you want me to go now," he added, never looking away from the set of eyes which has a gaze so fierce it made the doctor wonder briefly if perhaps they were radioactive or something else equally life threatening.
It would make sense he thought wearily.
"I'm letting you go," was the surprisingly soft whisper of a reply John got back, to which he blinked several times at before he was sure he had heard correctly.
"What are you on about? Why do you think that's what I want?"
The glare this earned him which screamed that the answer was obvious you idiot reminded John that he really had to let Sherlock know how much he hated The Face. The affectionate name for exactly what the other man's features were doing at that moment, as if they both knew what was really going on when only one of them did.
"I am what I've always been John, I won't hold a grudge against you for that. I may have…forced your hand with us but I've realized my mistake. It's not your fault, not really. No one would blame you. Who'd want to be tied down by a sociopath after all," Sherlock told him with a weak attempt at a smile which John might have appreciated more if it didn't seem so heartbreaking.
Well fuck.
"You know that's not tr-,"
"Of course it's true!," Sherlock, suddenly back at full volume, yelled at him, seeming to grow more frustrated with each second John didn't leave like he'd requested instead of being soothed by this information as the doctor had maybe hoped.
"It's true with Donovan, it's true with Lestrade, I bet it's even true with Anderson but I'd be pleased if you could prove that without me present – he does put me off so and the look on his face will be so hideous. I do think you believed you could be happy with me this morning but that was before you had data on how other people would factor in. You don't want other people to know. As Sergeant Donovan pointed out – You. Would. Not. Be. Caught. Dead. with Sherlock Holmes," the detective punctuated each word with a jab of an elegant finger in John's direction.
The overall effect left John stunned with his jaw hanging open like a big mouth bass.
"That look really isn't as adorable as I thought," Sherlock grumbled, looking like he had lost all interest in this argument they were having.
"I wish you to go. I wish you to go so that I may start my experiment of what You Gone will be like. Could be dangerous," said with the same is-that-heart-breaking-or-are-you-just-blind smile as the tall thin man curled into his chair again.
"You can get back to your boring life. I imagine Sarah will still take you back, especially once you've moved out of here and she knows you're serious about your relationship now. She'll be thrilled. No more Sherlock Holmes getting in the way for John Watson. You can both stop worrying about the Freak and move on with your dull existences," was added as a softly spoken after thought while the head of curls finally nestled into pointy knees as if no longer observing the room meant nothing in the room could see Sherlock Holmes either.
Perhaps that had been true for longer than John cared to think about.