V.

Standing behind the greasy counter, studying the POS system, quickly reading up on the establishment's sales records of the day, searching for John. His illusive presence fading quickly as time passes on his abduction. New patrons are coming into the pub, obliterating John's comforting lingering presence. Someone has moved his chair already, the only one that was angled towards the table with the acute angle pointing at the left, like a left-handed person would leave it. In that John is not unique, but left-handedness is not a mainstream trait, and a useful tell. There is no way I can smell his presence, his scent long ago carried away by the open air breeze, just as any shed blond hairs or clothes fibres. All that is John's essence is quickly disappearing in front of my very own eyes. And the rowdy, loud, new pub clients; one of them actually had the nerve to interrupt me and call out for a round for him and his mates.

Just because I'm on the other side of the counter doesn't mean I actually work here!

It's this generic hoodie's fault. Never would have happened in my long coat.

The common idiot claimed that I was sub-par at the job and had poured out all the pints full of foam and no beer. I probably have, I needed to get him going and to not come back for more. He is moments away from an aggravated complaint to the pub owner, who finally shows up, raised by the rising commotion, half-drunk himself, like a true master expert on the scene. Likely outcome: I'm about to get kicked out.

No sign of John within the roll of paying customers, as I reach the end of the day's transaction. No, can't be. I clearly saw John, he left his indelible mark in here as he does everywhere he goes.

John's presence is always incredibly loud to me.

'Oi, you! What are you doing there?'

I once lost John for two years. I know too well when I'm imagining John, and when his presence is real.

I look to the angry owner, huffing fretfully as he hurtles his sleep numbed body my way. Oh, time to make my leave. Can't stay to explain myself. Someone has John, my best friend got kidnapped.

The doctor is the one who lingers and pacifies with endless explanations. I'll just bolt out of here. Cellar – that will do nicely. There's usually an old coal shaft in old pubs, where the beer drums are rolled in on delivery days, and that's a neat escape.

John.

I stop short with the owner and half the drunk patrons chasing me through the dingy backstairs, leading to the cellar. There, on the narrow walls, a trace of brown leather, just scratched on the dirty wall, and if it did not fully match John's favourite shoes I wouldn't have cared.

John's been dragged down these steps. Inertia lining that ominous scratch on the wall. No fight, subdued or too trusting. No, the angle, slightly too contrived – no, stupid – John was dragged down the steps, his shoes scraped the wall as they went unchallenged.

John loves those shoes, he's going to be upset. Ergo, John is subdued, unaware, the narcotic has rendered him powerless to resist being dragged away from me.

Okay, John, you have a valid excuse for being a no-show at the pub, you are forgiven.

There are loud poundings against the cellar door I wedged shut, its resistance about to be breeched. I need to hurry.

The cellar is a wide, low ceiling area, dimly lit by a small window high up, that casts light on hanging veils of cobwebs, likely kept for ambiance by the slob owner. The air is stale, heavy and impregnated with warm alcohol vapours. The atmosphere is so thick and indistinct that I'm struggling to pick up on John Watson in here. Can he still be here? Please. Those other victims. Just bones discarded in the anonymous landscape, I don't know, can't tell, what happened to them. Let it not have been a similar fate to John's, too quick, to unbearable for me to ponder.

I'd be lost in a world without a friend like John. Without John.

'John! Where are you?' I call out. Stupid move – too emotional, too vulnerable, too desperate – just as efficient as frantically looking around, circling on myself, making me dizzy, searching, begging for clues – looking for the army doctor.

.

'It's alright now, John.'

The cellar door flings opens, a flight of stairs away. I couldn't care less.

Kneeling on the floor, holding on to the limp body of my best friend, as he breathes quietly, unconscious, in my arms. I try to do the job that is his alone, to be the doctor, and I fail miserably, my treacherous mind going blank. I hesitate to touch him, touch his face, too scared of what I may find yet.

Above us, our two-faced client stops messing with the carbon dioxide tanks that the pub uses in the pressurised beer.

Carbon dioxide poisoning, neat. Not as efficient as carbon monoxide, but given time just as deadly producing asphyxiation. The skeletal remains of the victims won't show any signs of the COD, if they're ever found abandoned in the rural landscape too soon.

In the semi-obscurity, I desperately try to assess John's condition. Has he been poisoned by the lethal gas already? Is he going to be alright?

He snores. And reaches out for my hoodie as a child snuggling in a warm blanket.

If he snores he breathes, there is no lack of oxygen.

The narcotic will soon wear out of his system. It always does when I'm drugging him, at least.

I find I can breathe too, it comes as a small revelation.

The angry mob finds us at the bottom of the winding stairs. Someone turns on the electric lights that flood low ceiling cellar – finally someone acts reasonably – and finds the odd party assembling by rows of beer kegs.

I hamper John's head with the hoodie I've taken off, lowering him softly to the ground. This won't take long.

I get up, not without some regret – John won't hear my brilliant deductions, he'll be upset with that – and look around at my audience, taking a deep breath before I start speaking–

The fake client speaks first:

'I think he was trying to kill his friend, dad. I was down here, fixing the tanks' leak again, and he slowed up, dragging the other man... Oh, dad, I'm scared!'

Can't help rolling my eyes. The damsel in distress routine. This is why John needed to be awake, really. He'd put an end to this nonsense very quickly – John is the witness to this woman's schemes, but he's too busy playing Sleeping Beauty on the floor.

'There's a perfectly logical explanation', I start.

For some reason no one ever asks for it, whenever I say that.

'Grab them!' the father directs to his mates.

I step at once in front of my fallen friend; need to keep John safe in the midst of this parody.

The young woman inches closer too, contrary to any killer's relieved instincts. I frown at that, but there's hardly the time for analysis. I'm about to be forcibly manhandled by three or four half-drunks brutes, and that's even before the police gets here. How inconvenient.

'Stop it now!'

The strong command makes us all turn our heads and still ourselves.

That an awkward, still getting himself up, groggy John could shout out a quiet command that turns all players in the room to instant submission is certainly a product of his military training. That he immediately reads the situation is pure strategy. And that he quiet and decisively acts upon it to defend me is all John, the strong soldier under the unassuming façade.

'She's the killer we've been looking for, I'm afraid', John accuses simply, about the waitress. 'Nearly got me and my best friend here too. If you don't believe me, ask that beer casket over there.'

The leader of the riot party and owner of the establishment looks over at where John pointed and states coolly:

'It's empty. It's an historical artefact.'

I quip in: 'It's also big enough to conceal a man's body. A dead man's body. Asphyxiated by carbon dioxide and half-preserved in fermented alcoholic beverage. Granted, there's not enough ethanol content in beer for a full embalming, that would be a poor attempt if I ever saw one...' John holds in a chuckle, that refocuses me at once. 'But it holds off the rotting stench enough for the first few days until the body is moved.'

I glance at John. He doesn't fail to deliver a proud smile as a recompense for my quick deductions.

The father looks at the young woman. John looks away from the scene, gallantly. Maybe he already knew that the father would doubt his daughter and check the casket. He must have sensed something wrong in her a long while back. Or, at least, my friend would wish to believe murderers are distinctive from the regular folks on more grounds than just societally instilled morality.

An old casket becomes the epicentre of all morbid interest, as it's opened for us all to behold its unusual contents.

The crowd of patrons gasp at the finding, one looks positively nauseated. The young murderess slumps on one of the beer kegs. John quickly confirms the discovered body is beyond medicine's power. I handcuff the young woman as one of the clients feels now sober enough to dial for the police.

'Sherlock, you had handcuffs with you?' John asks me, sounding curious.

'Just drop it, John. Pocket magnifying glass and fingerprints kit also. Won't leave home without some essentials, what kind of detective do you assume I am?'

We cross gazes and we both giggle to the shock of an audience.

.

'Kidnapped again', I notice quietly.

The van's back doors are open onto a nice sunset, that helps wash away the lingering effects of the lethargy in my body and mind, and the shock discoveries of the past day. Sherlock and I sit quietly, leaning back on a rolled up blanket, enjoying the view.

'Yes, John. I wish you would stop making a habit of being taken away to be ritualistically murdered if I don't intervene in the nick of time.'

I smile at that. 'Sure. Just as soon as you do that too.'

'I'm glad I found you, though', he admits.

It must have been bad, if he's willing to voice this much when usually only stubborn silent ignoring of past events would be permitted between us.

'Case closed, then', I surmise.

He nods. 'End of the distraction.'

I can feel some tension creeping back to the detective's stance, at my side. I allow it to grow unchallenged, as the night brings new sounds to the land. Insects buzzing, the birds stilling after their sunset performance, the creek nearby seems to grow louder in the countryside silence.

'Am I on a road, John?'

'It's a metaphor, Sherlock, but, yes, of course you are.'

'Am I a stationary object or moving, according to the second law of physics?'

I huff, amused. 'It's really up to you, mate.'

He ponders the same still night sky, allowing some of the landscape's slow pace influence him.

'Are you on that metaphorical road with me?'

I nod, quite sure. 'I'm there every part of the way.'

He nods slowly in reply. 'Feels like you've been on my journey even before I met you.'

My smile is open and honest. He trails his head to face me straight on, analysing me, because Sherlock can't turn off that giant thoughts magnet of his.

Feels nice to be a part of something so much bigger than me. Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and he's going places, righting wrongs, saving lives.

'Do you mean before you advertised to Mike for a flatmate?'

He nods, shyly looking away. 'I've always hoped to find... a companion. I think I had almost forgotten it, though. Didn't think I'd ever find you.'

'Someone like me', I correct him. He's so clingy.

'You', he insists. It had to be me. I turn my head to find his crystalline green eyes as he holds my gaze in the dim light inside the van.

Don't think he'd have said this to me back in London. The fast pace city just another layer of his carefully constructed armour.

'I'm flattered, Sherlock.'

'Don't be. It's a heavy burden', he advises me seriously. Ominously.

The surprise of it makes me chuckle. He is at once shocked by my reaction. Pull the other one. How can a world class genius be so equivocated about his incredible worth as a friend and a companion?

I turn my smile to the open starry night outside the van. 'I think our roads must have been destined to meet.' He keeps silent, watching me attentively. Dismissing my words for the lack of scientific rigour? No, seems more than that. Wanting to see the predestined roads I see, wanting to believe in a reason behind the chance that brought us together, so that it may keep us together.

Smirking to myself, I add: 'I took the long way home.'

'That's alright, you had lives to save in a foreign land at war. As far as excuses go, it's a valid one.'

'Would we have ended up together if we hadn't met earlier, do you reckon?' I ask in a soft whisper. Before so much destruction in my life?

'No', he whispers his answer. In his life too.

'Does that mean it was meant to be?' I insist. That there was a reason for the twists and turns on my own road?

He surprises me by stating:

'It means I could have been imprisoned for accidentally killing a few flatmates in our flat. Poison, electrocution, asphyxiation, third degree burns, and so forth. I don't expect ordinary flat mates last longer than goldfish.'

I giggle full-heartedly. 'You wouldn't go to prison. Mrs H would help you embalm the bodies and hide them under the floorboards.'

He hums, content with my creativity. He's rubbing off on me. 'I bet she would.'

'She really cares about you, Sherlock.' We all do.

'I know', he says, and there is no quick wit about it. Just appreciation. 'She's adopted you too, John. I'll always be her favourite, but it's quite disgusting the way you keep smiling your way through her affections.'

I know better than to take him seriously. Our talk is turning weird. All the best, open talks do, it's their natural course, or curse.

'Have you reached a decision about the job offer?'

He hums in the affirmative.

'You need me. You get yourself kidnapped all the time.'

'I get myself and you out of it all the time too.'

'True. I've taken that into account also, when making my decision.'

'So what is it?'

He tosses, turns over, and turns off the silly fairy lights.

'You'll find out in due time, John. Only remember anything is possible.'

I huff at the teaser, but smile to the van's ceiling.

Yes, anything is possible with Sherlock.

.


Belated A/N: There's an unwritten duty to return your characters in the same state you found them, but that doesn't mean you can't have some fun with them before then. I'd expect Sherlock to get kicked out of any and every lecture he fronts. I'll investigate that and let you know at some point if I find out. -csf