I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this. I only put them in situations for your twisted pleasure. Remember to drop a comment or suggestion! ;).

Chapter 2: The Reassurance

Back in London, Sherlock was on the verge of another 'Bored!' incident. It had been two weeks since their last case, and nothing had happened. No mention of a new case to work, no mention of what happened after the last case. Although, he had received a very strange text message off Molly which just said: 'Congrats John!'. That was confusing.

"Boys- you've got another one." It was Mrs Hudson at their door, and standing behind her was a man looking completely distraught.

"Come i-" John started, however was interrupted.

"Do come in. Yes, take a seat and tell us everything." The man slowly walked in and perched on the edge of the chair, as if it was going to hurt him if he sat on it properly.

"It was my wife. They found her hung from the ceiling fan in our kitchen. No prints, so sign of struggle, no weapon, nothing."

"I see. And where were you when this happened?" Sherlock asked. The man looked as if he was going to cry.

"Why?! Why would you ask me that?! The police asked me, the inspectors asked me, but why?! Why would I kill my own, beautiful wife?!" He then began to cry. Loudly. John offered him a tissue.

"I'm not saying you hung your wife, but where were you?"

"I was away, on a work trip. The meeting I went to overran, so they booked us into a nearby hotel for the night. They said it was too dangerous to drive home at that time." Sherlock was deep in thought.

"We'll take it. Now, take us to your home so we can examine the crime scene." Sherlock swept out of the chair and put on his coat in a matter of seconds.

"Come on, John." He straightened his turned up collar and left the house. John sat there, bewildered for a moment.

"Come on John!" Sherlock shouted from downstairs. John sighed and put on his coat. He locked up the flat and they followed the man into a taxi.

"So, tell us about the incident in as much detail as you can."

"Okay. I was at a works meeting up in Birmingham, and it overran. I called my wife and told her I'd be staying at a hotel overnight. I went to the hotel, perfectly normal, and arrived home the next afternoon. I walked into the house and everything was normal. Nothing was out of place, nothing was damaged, there was no blood anywhere. I walked into the kitchen and she was hanging from the ceiling fan, dead as dead." The man kept giving John and Sherlock details, and eventually they arrived at the man's home just outside Oxford.

It was perfectly normal. No detail about the house could in any way suggest to an onlooker that someone had been found dead inside just weeks before. Even the police tape had been removed. The flowers weren't wilted, nothing was wrong. Even when they gingerly entered the house, nothing was wrong. There were no marks, scratches, dents or spots anywhere. The walls were decorated plainly, although every inch was adorned with butterflies, moths, spiders, and every manner of creature in display frames- most even had missing limbs stuck in other places on display, with a magnifying glass over it and labelled. There were cushions everywhere, too. They moved into the kitchen and the ceiling fan was broken. You could tell there'd been weight there. That was the only thing that even hinted at any strange or horrific occurrences.

"Thankyou." said Sherlock, and the man left.

"Sherlock, you do realise we still don't know what that man's name is, right?"

"Name? Oh, of course, his name. Hang on. Excuse me!" Sherlock called down the hall. The man came jogging back in. "What's your name?"

"Sherlock!" John hissed. "You can't just ask people what their name is- you've known him for two hours!"

"Why not? We didn't know his name, and now we will. What's the problem?" John sighed and shook his head.

"My name is Dean, I'm an Aquarius. I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach and frisky women. And I did not kill anyone."

John looked at Sherlock. Sherlock raised his eyebrows.

"Okay." said John. "Thankyou Dean." Dean left.

"Okay." said Sherlock. "Look at the cracks around the fan. They indicate that pressure was evenly distributed around the fan, so she was hung directly in the middle. This means we're looking for someone who knows either this house or this particular model of fan extremely well. To get her exactly in the middle would take some knowing. It also means that this bolt was unscrewed to fit the rope. We need to examine the body to find out what type and thickness of rope was used, as well as how heavy she was. This will tell us if the person hanging her out on any extra pressure, perhaps pulling her down, and then we can figure out how heavy that person was, narrowing it down. This should help. The police said there were no prints anywhere?" Sherlock swivelled to look at John. John was just staring at the fan.

"I'm so sorry, do you need a minute?" asked Sherlock.

"No, I'm... I'm fine." Sherlock put his arm around John and pulled him close. This was the first indication that anything happened that night two weeks ago, and John was happy that it had happened. John looked up at the fan.

"Sherlock, how did you miss that?" There was a bunch of strands of the rope stuck in between the bolt and the fan.

"Eureka!" said Sherlock. He reached up to grab the pieces of rope. They came away fairly easily.

"Okay, we're done here. Go and tell... Ga, no... Ste... the man, that we're leaving."

"I'll go and tell Dean that we're leaving."

"Right yes Dean I knew that." John smiled.

At Scotland Yard, John and Sherlock were talking to Lestrade.

"Hey, did you manage to figure out who stole that painting? We've been at it for weeks and the manager wants compensation now."

"Yes, I told you, it was the manager." said Sherlock, evidently bored.

"That son of a-! He's getting no bloody compensation off us! Molly's waiting for you."

"Thanks Greg."

"Who the hell is Greg?"

"Oh for God's sake Sherlock."

"Molly. Excellent. You have the body of the deceased?"

"Um yes. Her name was Sophie, 32, and worked as a private dentist." She unzipped the bag to reveal Sophie's face and neck. The rope marks were around 10mm thick and appeared to have some kind of plait imprinted on her skin. Sherlock took the strands out of his pocket and removed them from the plastic bag.

"She was hung with 10mm Manila rope, took about twenty minutes for her to die by asphyxiation. How much does she weigh?"

"158.3 pounds."

And Sherlock was lost in thought for at least 10 minutes.

"I've got it!" Sherlock spun round and kissed John on the forehead. "I've got it- it was James, no, Steve?, no..."

"Dean?"

"Yes! It was Dean."

"Why would he kill his own wife and then come to us about it?"

"Okay, first of all, when he came to see us, he used the past tense about his wife straight away, and shed'd only been dead for a week- no rejection or confusion or anything, the flowers were perfect, he still lives in the house, and also, there was no sign of a break-in, so whoever did it had to have a key. Dean has a key. Second of all, the animals on the walls. That's not normal."

"Plenty of people have butterflies on their wal-"

"No. He removed their limbs. And the way they were framed and put in place wasn't professional- it was him. That's not normal. Third: he knows the house. He would have known exactly how to hang her directly in the centre, probably thinking that the evenly distributed weight wouldn't make the ceiling collapse completely if at all, which, granted, worked a little. Fourth- when you look around the house, his and her belongings were distinctly separate. There was one wall dedicated to his animals, and nowhere else in the house was here any mention of them. Her cushions, blankets and whatever else she had were put in specific places so he could always keep them separate. He never loved her- or he could have at one point, but that doesn't matter anymore."

"But, why come to us to solve a murder that he committed?"

"For the recognition. All of the little animal torturing he did wasn't credited to him, not until now. Everyone thought what you did- that he'd bought them for decorative purposes. No- so he had to do something more drastic to get attention, and when Scotland Yard couldn't solve the case, he came to us to get recognition. Simple."

John took a deep breath.

"Wow. Okay, we need to alert Scotland Yard."

"John, we're at Scotland Yard."

"I'll, er, I'll go and tell Lestrade." said Molly. She quickly left the room. John turned to Sherlock.

"You know," he said. "You really are incredible. Incredible."

"Well, I was only being rational, seeing thi-"

"Shhh." John put this arms around Sherlock's neck, and Sherlock put his hands around John's waist. Then, they kissed. The first real acknowledgement that that had happened. They continued kissing for what seemed like hours, until they heard running outside and broke apart. Lestrade came jogging in.

"Dean? Dean?! The guy who brought you the case in the first place? How?"

"Inspector that's a lot of questions." replied Sherlock, who immediately answered all of them, explaining the entire situation.

"Wow." said Lestrade. "I need to get a team out to arrest him then, before he does something even more drastic for attention. And let's give this poor woman a funeral." Molly nodded slowly and zipped up the body bag.

When John and Sherlock burst back into 221B Baker Street, Mrs Hudson came briskly walking up to them. "Boys! You haven't been home for ages! What happened?"

"Well, Mrs Hudson, it's a long story involving an animal torturer hanging his wife from a ceiling fan. So, why don't you make us some tea and then we can discuss it?" Then Sherlock bounded upstairs, and John followed slowly.

"I'm your landlady, not your housekeeper!" Mrs Hudson called up the stairs, but she brought tea and listened to the story nonetheless.

When she'd left, Sherlock turned to John.

"Shall we?"

"We shall." And they resumed where they'd left off at Scotland Yard.

It led them to Sherlock's (admittedly larger) bedroom, where they slept, unclothed, John resting his head on Sherlock's chest, Sherlock with his arms around John, until 8:38am the next morning.

Molly

John's still gay.

SH