Chapter 3: Texting Constantly.
John. SH
John. SH
John. SH
Sherlock, I'm on a date.
Why? SH
Just stop texting me!
That doesn't answer my question. SH
Sherlock, I told you to stop texting me, I'm busy!
I'm bored. SH
Then, I don't know, bake a cake.
No, wait, I take that back. Stay out of the kitchen.
Cake is for Mycroft, John, surely you know that by now. SH
I haven't eaten cake in three years. SH
But… Birthdays? You know what, never mind, we'll talk about it when I get home, just stop texting me! I'm trying to talk to my date.
Obviously you prefer to talk to me. SH
John, who are you even with? SH
Is it that hair-lady? SH
Because she's cheating on you. Probably. SH
She's not cheating on me, and her name is Lisa.
Please sign your texts. It's easier to know if it's really you. SH
Of course it's me, it's my phone. You know what, I'm going to turn off my phone now. We'll talk when I get back.
Remember the St. Matthew's case? Signing is important. SH
Don't turn off your phone. SH
John? SH
John, please come home. SH
I need you. SH
What kind of 'need'? As in, 'I need someone to pass me a pen' or 'I'm bleeding, I may need stitches'? JW
You know that I always need you. Though, now that you mention it, I probably shouldn't have tried to make that cake. SH
John, at what point does a burn require medical attention? SH
I'm coming home. There's no fire, I hope? JW
Oh, finally. Not to worry about the fire, I put it out. SH
I'll be there in 5. Don't poke the burn this time. It makes it worse, remember? JW
You realize that my memory is three times more accurate than the average person's? SH
That doesn't really matter when you keep deleting everything I tell you, does it? And I'm here, by the way. JW
If I delete it, you just tell me again. What? Oh, good. SH
Oooo000oooO
When John came home from that oh-so-dull date with Lisa, it was very obvious, right from the start, that something was wrong. Mrs. Hudson was in a flurry, cooing and clucking about the rent and 'I don't know what he's been up to this time, but I don't think it'll be easy on the furniture'. Later consultation with the detective himself told John that she'd been out of the house when the fire department had been called and returned home a little after 8pm, oblivious to the entire thing.
"A most fortuitous coincidence," Sherlock had said. John had simply glared.
"The flat's a mess," he'd said.
And indeed it had been. The walls were stained dark with smoke, the cupboards partially burnt away. The oven… The one time it got used, and Sherlock had managed to completely destroy it. Black peelings of metal broke off to the touch, and with the streaks of varying degrees of monochrome, it was hard to tell what the misshapen lump of appliance used to be. There was also a new smear of yellow on the wall, which would later be revealed as icing.
John had walked in, taken one look at the place, blinked several times, turned away, and looked back again. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath. His brain was already reeling at the estimate of how much the repairs would cost them.
"I'll just use Mycroft's account," came a baritone drawl from the sofa. There was a pause. "No, I didn't read your mind; your face was being obvious. Now come over here and fix my hands."
"What did you do?"
The expression Sherlock gave him was one of withering scorn. "What you suggested, clearly. Irrelevant. My hands hurt."
"Yeah…?" The ex-soldier was having a hard time processing the scene in front of him. He still hadn't moved from the doorway.
"I was baking a cake, John." This was said in that tone of voice that made it clear just how much of an idiot he thought you were. "Come on, they're all red and puffy."
If he had been a better doctor, he might have focused on the fact that he was dealing with a burn victim here. If he had been a better soldier, he might have wanted to deal with the kitchen first. If he had been a better flatmate, neither of them would have been there right then. So John decided to be a better nothing, and fixated on the crux of the matter. "A cake. You were baking a cake?"
Sherlock's nose wrinkles, and he twisted himself around so that he was sitting upright on the couch, instead of lounging horizontally. "Yes, we've established that. Now fix my hands."
It took a good few moments for John to collect himself, before hanging up his jacket and coming to his friend's aid. Once he did so, he knelt on the floor, becoming level with Sherlock's knees. He held his palms out as a gesture for the detective to meet them with his own.
His hands were, indeed, quite burnt. And also, half-covered in yellow icing.
"I don't know how you managed to survive alone. I leave you alone for two hours; the fire department's been called, the stove's in tatters, and you somehow get your hands scorched."
"You can be quite melodramatic at times, John."
John fixed him with an incredulous stare. "Says you."
"I believe you're thinking of Mycroft."
"Speaking of which… he kidnapped me again. Wants you to take this case of 'highly pressing national security'." Sherlock groaned.
"Please do not speak of my brother while I'm injured. It doesn't help the healing process. What did you say to him?" A smirk played around John's lips.
"I told him I'd tell you, and that you'd think about it, and then you'd refuse."
The detective chuckled, and withdrew his hands from John's. "Did you really?"
"Yeah. Happened yesterday. Didn't want to mention it then."
"You shouldn't have at all."
"You shouldn't have been playing in the kitchen. Lord knows that Mrs. Hudson is going to kill us."
"Kill us? Our landlady?" Sherlock shook his head as he made his way towards the door. "I should hope not. Even a dull case like that might prove too difficult for the Yard to handle. And since I wouldn't be there… they'd have no hope." John shrugged.
"Who knows? Maybe they could recruit your brother. Or Anderson could be a hidden genius or something."
"Stick with the 'or something,' John; it's much less disturbing," he said, while tugging on his coat.
The doctor had to notice the peculiarities of his flatmate's face when he scrunched up his nose like that. It was really very… Did he actually intend to go out with his hands all injured like that? John glared. "And where do you think you're going?"
"To the Yard. Lestrade mentioned he had something interesting for me." As he strode into the hall, John darted forward and caught the elbow of his sleeve, tugging him around.
"Um, no, Sherlock. Hands, remember? Bathroom, with me, now." And the detective sighed as he allowed himself to be dragged away.
So that was how they got here, with Sherlock sitting on the side of the bathtub, and John kneeling in front of him, careful doctor's hands turning over Sherlock's multitalented ones. His flatmate had received varying degrees of burns from his escapade in the kitchen-"Cake, John! It was all for the cake!"- and had been consequently subjected to a half-hour of examination.
"You're an idiot, you know," he finally said. Sherlock shot him a withering glance. Under normal circumstances, it might have been considered insulting, that I-am-dealing-with-morons look. Luckily for John, it was tempered by Sherlock's impatience to get the examination over with, so it made him look more like a scolded puppy. John held his gaze for a moment, before shaking his head and tying the last of the bandages. "Finished," he declared proudly.
The detective held up his hands for inspection, turning them over in the air. Red and yellow splotches of damaged skin were now covered in a wrapping of white. Apparently, the sight was distracting. "It looks strange," Sherlock muttered, eyes narrowed. He glanced up. "John, why does it look strange?"
"It's called gauze, Sherlock. It helps." Normally, one was supposed to take the afflicted person to the hospital to treat second-degree burns, but John had decided that he could deal with it with home supplies. The thought of subjecting any poor nurse to treating his friend was a bit less than pleasant, and Sherlock certainly wouldn't go easily anyways. "Guess I won't be woken by Bach at odd hours for a while, then." John grinned when his flatmate denied him a response. "I'd keep off that for at least two weeks."
Sherlock just scowled at him.
"I would tell you not to use it for longer than that, but I have this feeling you wouldn't listen." This earned John a smile. Just a small one, the corners of Sherlock's mouth twitching upwards ever so slightly.
"Good deduction, John."
"Yes, well, thank you. Now what are we going to do about the kitchen?"
The detective only smiled.
Oooo000oooO
Greg hopped out of the police cruiser, and headed up the steps of 221 Baker Street. He hesitated for a moment, then brought his knuckles to the door three times. The landlady answered it almost immediately.
"Hello, Detective Inspector," she smiled. "Here to see Sherlock? That's good, he'd been awfully bored all day. John's at the clinic, and you know how he gets when John's gone. Mind the experiment on the carpet, I almost stepped in them myself." She stepped back, letting him inside.
She had given the two men plenty of grief over the 'cake incident,' which had ended up on John's blog under the name of 'The Adventure of the Yellow Cake,' despite Sherlock's displeasure with its publication. However, two months later, the flat was back to normal, thanks to Mycroft's cooperation, and Sherlock's hands were back to normal, thanks to John's help.
Lestrade made his way up the stairs, and hesitated a second time, before tapping on the door.
"Busy," Sherlock's voice intoned. Lestrade closed his eyes for a moment, begging any deity there was to give him patience. Sherlock was obviously in an unhelpful mood today. He opened the door and stepped in. As he'd expected, Sherlock was lying on the couch, fingers flying over the keyboard of his phone. He barely spared Lestrade a glance, before devoting his attention to the screen. "I said I was busy," he muttered.
"Busy texting? There's a case, Sherlock. We need your input, I've even kept Anderson off the scene for you."
"Must be important," Sherlock mused. Before Lestrade could confirm it, the infuriating man barreled on. "Unfortunately, John's in a meeting right now." That gave the DI a moment's confusion.
"You can do the case without John," he said. "You've done it before."
"You misunderstand me. John is in a meeting, so I'm texting him every twenty-three seconds." You thought you understood the consulting detective, and then he came up with the strangest things, sending you all the way back to square one.
"What?"
"It's a tradition," Sherlock explained, his fingers already tapping away again. "He finds the meetings boring, so I text him every twenty-three seconds, giving him something else to focus on. Instead of thinking about how bored he is, he's wondering what I'm texting him. It's quite ingenious, really."
"What are you saying?" Greg asked, curiosity getting the better of him. Sherlock tossed the phone to him, and he caught it.
"I'll give the texting a break and let him think that I'm finished. You have three minutes with the phone." Lestrade scrolled through the texts, a smile growing on his face as he pictured the doctor finally getting out of his meeting and reading the texts.
John? SH
John, where are you? SH
I looked up, and you were gone. SH
Of course, your meeting. SH
I need a pen, a blue one. SH
The rats have escaped. SH
Don't use the shower when you get home. SH
I'm bored. SH
Still need a pen. SH
Did you know that I've never had a case with a butler as the culprit? SH
The world needs more murderous butlers. SH
John. SH
Why aren't you answering my texts? SH
Lestrade is at the door. SH
Now he's on the stairs, he must have a case for me. SH
He's in the apartment. SH
John, we have a case, I need you. SH
I asked you for a pen ten minutes ago. Where is it? SH
The phone suddenly vibrated in Greg's hand, displaying a new text. He looked down at it, then up at the dark-haired man sprawled across the couch. "John texted you back," he said. Sherlock leapt up and snatched the phone from Greg's hand, whirling away to sit back down, eyes fixed on the screen. Eventually, he began to laugh. Greg stared in disbelief, the low chuckle strange to hear from the self-diagnosed sociopath that he consulted on a regular basis.
"What's so funny?" he asked. Sherlock didn't even look at him, back to typing on the phone, keys making a constant clicking sound under his fingers.
"John," Sherlock said. Aaand… back to square one.
"What?"
"John is amusing when he's angry." The smile was audible in the words, and the answer completely threw Lestrade for a loop. Sherlock Holmes, amused by another human being for anything other than their stupidity? It was unthinkable. But then again, John Watson seemed to have turned the world upside down, so perhaps nothing was impossible anymore. "I'm coming with you," Sherlock added.
"Oh, now you are? Well, that's just brilliant." Lestrade started to lead the way out of the room. "What changed your mind? Decided to give poor John a break?"
"He's meeting us at the crime scene," Sherlock answered, and swept out of the room ahead of Greg, collecting his scarf and coat on the way.
A/N: Hi, Tazia here again. To give you the who-wrote-what of this story, I have to break it into three pieces. Part one, with all the texts, I wrote John and ticklethedragon (my co-author) wrote Sherlock. Ticklethedragon wrote part 2, the aftermath, and I wrote the part with Lestrade.
Review, please! It's very easy to get discouraged when no one is reading!
See you next time for Chapter 4: Eating Together