Chapter 5: Defending each other
"John, could you get me a coffee?" John looked up from the file he was reading, surprised by the request. They were standing in the morgue, inspecting the bodies of three supposedly-linked murder victims, and Sherlock never ate or drank anything while working.
"Sure. I'll be back in a few minutes," he said, putting down the folder on a nearby table. He turned to the door, then hesitated and turned back. "Hang on, I don't know where the closest coffee machine is." Anderson was trailing behind Sherlock closely, making sure his precious evidence wasn't 'contaminated'. Lestrade was sitting off to one side, making his way through a stack of paperwork. Molly was clearly occupied with watching Sherlock, her eyes tracking his every movement. Only Donovan wasn't doing anything, so John directed his question/comment towards her. She rolled her eyes.
"I'll show you where it is, I could use a break anyways." She led the way through the swinging doors, and with a final glance at the group, John followed.
They made their way down a series of hallways, until they came to a group of offices. He found the nearby coffee machine and set the water to boil, getting out five cups.
"What do you and Anderson want?" he asked the woman lurking behind him.
"Anderson will have a black coffee with three creams, and I don't want anything, thank you." John put back one of the cups, and started to get out the things for the drinks. Donovan watched in silence until the water was boiled, and then her curiosity took over. "What's it like, living with Freak?"
"I'm never bored," John said dryly, obviously used to the question. He was scooping out coffee into filters, the movement familiar and practised. "And don't call him 'freak,' it's really unprofessional, not to mention rude." It had always irritated him, but he hadn't really called her on it until now. From the silence behind him, he guessed that no one had ever pointed that out before. Unfortunately, she recovered quickly, and the next words out of her mouth had John clenching his fists around the box of teabags, denting the cardboard.
"He is a freak. Psychopathic, unnatural, thinks he's better than the rest of us. It makes sense to call him that, he needs a reminder every once in a while." Her voice was matter-of-fact, stating her opinions as certainties, as though they were un-debatable. John could feel his anger starting to burn inside his veins, and he took a couple deep breaths to control it. He popped a tea bag into one of the mugs, then started to pour out the water.
"He isn't a psychopath, for one thing. Too much of an attention span, a psychopath wouldn't be able to sit at a microscope for three hours. Secondly, he doesn't think that he's better than us, he knows he is. Lastly, it wasn't a request for an explanation. Stop calling him 'freak'."
"I don't understand how a normal guy like you could end up defending someone like him. Why are you doing it? Can't you see how wrong he is?" John turned around.
"He is never wrong, about anything. I would stop talking right now, if I was you."
"And if I were you, I wouldn't be defending the freak."
"I told you-"
"I'll call him what he is; a freak. He's a freak, John." She'd been smirking the entire conversation, from the first time she saw John's fists clench. She thought that she was getting through to him, knew that someday, he would see that she was right, and Sherlock was dangerous.
She had underestimated the effect of her words, however. The next thing she knew, there was coffee splashing against her chest, the boiling water dripping downwards, leaving dark stains on her white blouse.
"Oh, sorry, I must have tripped," said John, who hadn't moved from where he was leaning up against the counter. "I think you'll want to put some cold water on that, just in case you end up with an unpleasant burn." He picked up the remaining drinks and headed out, leaving Donavan spluttering behind him.
Oooo000oooO
"Is that why you keep him around?" Anderson asked, his nasally voice cutting into Sherlock's thoughts. The consulting detective deleted the words and the person behind him, and concentrated on the second woman's feet, drifting back into calculations and information storage. "Just to fetch you coffee? Handy, I suppose." Sherlock took in a single breath, and realized several things.
-The first and third women were killed by the same person.
-The second one was unrelated.
-She had been killed by her own son.
-For her money.
-Anderson wasn't going to shut up until he got an answer.
"Anderson, stop talking, I'm busy solving the case that you so hopelessly bungled when you chose these bodies for me. The second woman is irrelevant, you can take her away." There was a pause, as he moved on to the third woman. "Pass me a pen," Sherlock said, and held out a hand. A second later, his fingers wrapped around it, and he used it to hold the third woman's toes apart. "Thank you, John."
Anderson looked over at Molly, who had given him the pen. They shared a look of bewilderment. Had Sherlock Holmes just said thank you? Was the world coming to an end? Despite the fact that he had addressed a person who wasn't there, the words were completely unexpected.
"Your pet has left the room," Anderson said. Sherlock's head jerked up at that, and he turned slowly, until his intense eyes were fixed on Anderson.
"If you value your position, never refer to John in that way, ever again." He turned back to the corpse.
"How did you get him to follow you around, anyways? He seemed a sane sort of bloke. Normal, at least." Sherlock exhaled heavily, and straightened.
"You insisted on supervising me, but I cannot work with you blabbering on like the idiot you are. Stay silent, or go away. Every word you speak only accents your ignorance. John Watson is not normal in any sense of the word, he is extraordinary, and if you had any brains at all, you would know it."
"Have you brainwashed him?" Anderson asked, leaning a bit closer. "There's a bet going on, you know. Is he your pet project? Are you paying him to follow you around and act infatuated with you? I wouldn't put it past you." The heel of Sherlock's hand connected with his nose, and there was an unpleasant snap. Lestrade, who had been reading his paperwork, looked up and rushed over. Molly had her hands over her mouth, and was staring at both of them in mute astonishment.
"He broke my nose!" Anderson yelled, furious, and quite unaware of how ridiculous his voice sounded. Lestrade had to hold him back as he threw himself at Sherlock, hands clenched into fists.
"Sherlock, you'd better have a good explanation for this," Lestrade said tightly, after he had gotten Anderson calmed down and checked the damage. "You really did break his nose, we're going to have to go to A&E."
"He insulted John," Sherlock said imperiously, "and distracted me from my work." Lestrade felt like something was wrong with that sentence. He ran over it a couple times, and realized that Sherlock had more or less tacked on his work as an afterthought, which was surprising.
In the end, Greg helped Anderson out the door without any other comments. Sherlock turned back to the third body without watching them leave, and Molly sank into the seat Lestrade had vacated.
"Maybe that was an over reaction-" she started to suggest.
"Molly, be quiet, I'm working." She fell silent, and Sherlock continued to inspect the feet of the third victim.
There was no talking until John came back through the doors alone, holding four cups. He stopped and looked around, taking in the absence of Anderson and Lestrade. Then he visibly decided not to ask, instead dropping a coffee by Sherlock, and another by Molly, before setting one down on the counter for Lestrade to pick up later.
"Was it just chance that you threw Anderson's coffee at her, or was it a conscious decision?" John's head snapped up, and he stared at Sherlock for several seconds, before relaxing and smiling.
"Complete coincidence. How did you know?"
"My first clue would be that she isn't with you. And the set of your shoulders speaks of anger, but relaxed enough that you got the last word in, there's no resentment there. The coffee on your shoe, that was the last piece of the puzzle; not the right angle to have been spilled, but it was thrown away from you. Not dark enough to be unmade yet, so you had prepared it for someone, but all of us have our coffees, which means that it was Anderson's, the only one left out."
"Fantastic, as usual," John allowed. "Where is Anderson, anyways? And Lestrade?"
Sherlock went uncharacteristically silent.
"Hmm." John looked around carefully. "You want me to guess?" Sherlock turned fully away from the table, a smiling teasing at the corners of his mouth.
"Please." It took a few more seconds of John tapping his fingers against the desk and looking around before he spoke, pausing between every suggestion as if waiting to be corrected.
"Anderson annoyed you and you hit him. Probably broke his nose, by the looks of it. Lestrade helped him to the A&E."
"And how did you guess that?" Sherlock's tone was indulgent, but his expression gave away his honest interest.
"Bloody tissue on the table, blood on the floor there and there," John gestured. "It's too much blood for a split lip, and how else would he have gotten injured, it's not as if the morgue is particularly dangerous. Molly isn't looking at you, which means you've upset her, so you're in a bad mood, still a little bit angry, which backs up the idea that Anderson didn't just hurt himself, you would probably still be laughing. And all of that adds up to Anderson getting punched in the face."
"Not bad," Sherlock said, turning back to his work. Molly's mouth was wide open and she wasn't bothering to close it. "You missed the blood in the hallway coming in, didn't start observing until you knew you should, that's a point against you. You disregarded the possibility of other injury with too much ease, there are many other things that could produce that much blood, for example if I had stabbed him with a scalpel in a non-vital area. And lastly, of course, you cited Molly's discomfort as proof for me being… 'still a bit angry' when she was simply overreacting to the events of a few minutes earlier."
John nodded, seeming to be honestly taking in and processing the information.
"Fair enough."
"So, I'd say you passed, but with almost no style, and many mistakes," Sherlock said, and slid the table with the woman he was currently examining back into the wall, letting it shut with a clang. "I, on the other hand, have solved the case and am prepared to go rally the good troops of Scotland Yard to arrest the third woman's Uncle."
"Brilliant," John said, without a trace of sarcasm, and when Sherlock left, snatching the coffee cup off the table as he went, John followed.
A/N: SURPRISE! Bet you didn't think you'd hear from ME again. What has it been, a year? A little less; ten months? Holy mother of god, I'm sorry. But I kinda fell out of the Sherlock fandom, and Ticklethedragon stopped writing, and we just sort of stopped...everything, I guess. Anyways, I was deadly bored today and found this unfinished chapter on my computer, so I decided to finish it. I'm pretty sure it's all my writing, although Ticklethedragon was supposed to write the second part. Hopefully she'll read this and be inspired to help me complete it; if not, I'll do my best by myself, no promises.
So, this is Tazia, back in business with my Johnlock.
Since Ticklethedragon is out-of-fandom right now, I have no beta, and as such, I must claim all mistakes as my own. If I've made any glaring errors or screwed up my British, let me know, it's been a long time since I was writing British people.
Review, review, review, I'd like to stay on top of this now that I've gotten back to it, and the alerts I get whenever you review remind me that I should be writing.
Up next, hopefully sometime soon (but no promises, sorry): Taking Care Of Each Other, otherwise known as the essential sick!fic... Yay!