A/N: Here I go again, playing with odd, fleeting ideas, trying to shape them into a convincing story. -csf
1.
DI Lestrade rushed up the familiar seventeen steps to 221B, puffing slightly out of breath, eager to reach the maddening but brilliant consulting detective he kept as a secret not-so-secret aid for Scotland Yard's most baffling cases.
'You're fascinating,' he heard in the marked posh diction of the consulting detective himself, speaking in the kitchen-slash-laboratory, presumably to his long suffering flatmate, the unflappable doctor Watson.
Greg smirked to himself, fully expecting John's sassy response of "tell me something I don't know" and just next something more suspiciously toned, such as "how come? Have you been experimenting on me again?"
Instead, the seasoned inspector had heard nothing by the time he reached the landing. The lights were on in the kitchen and the door to it was ajar, framing a strange tableau of the two flatmates. John was standing up sipping tea from his favourite mug, and Sherlock was leaning from his seat at the microscope, transfixed by his observations through a pocket magnifying lens, studying John's hand. At least that's what the inspector made of it. Should anyone else assume Sherlock was proposing to John, Greg could definitely see where those rumours came from. It was infuriating, as if those oblivious two feigned some electric tension between them just to keep the oldest Yard betting pool going; it was reaching six figures in the next week or so, and none of those two yet made a move, setting up the inspector for life.
'Sherlock?' Furthermore, the inspector cleared his throat, starting to feel awkward.
John smiled brightly at him in welcome, but rolled his eyes as a running commentary over his life, much too fondly for the inspector to sympathise.
'Callouses, inspector,' Sherlock grumbled. 'The Green Herring case's main alibi rests on the husband's callouses, have you not noticed yet?'
Noticed yet, he said. Sherlock was in a good mood then. The one that put Greg Lestrade as "one of the best of Scotland Yard's dim bunch". Nothing to do with handholding John's hand whatsoever; the inspector knew better than to believe that. Must be really fascinating callouses, John's callouses.
Almost eavesdropping by telepathy, Sherlock frowned and bit at him: 'John's hand is a brilliant biography of the man he's been even before we met, inspector. I trust you have come to interrupt us for good reasons.' Finally Sherlock lowers his magnifying lens and John's freed hand scurries to snatch a biscuit from a neatly arranged plate at the table, clearly laid out to tempt the skinny detective.
'Well, the thing is—' It now occurs to Greg Lestrade that this scene is about to turn messy fast. Better get it out fast. 'The Yard got a couple of threats you should know about.'
'England? The Queen? Mycroft?'
'Actually, John Watson. You should take a look at these letters, mate, I brought them over. You too, John, of course.'
John presses his jaw tight before remarking carelessly: 'There's got to be a home advantage to living with the world's best detective, no worries, I'm sure we'll get this all sort— Oh, I meant no offense, mate,' he finishes sheepishly but Greg notices he still doesn't amend the honorary title of Best Detective Ever he's awarded to Sherlock.
The genius himself, though, is sitting, apparently controlled and calm, at the messy kitchen table, among crockery and borosilicate labware, scrawled notes in bits of paper and encyclopaedic volumes open at random pages forming unstable towers. And is that test tube fuming from a colourless solution; is it... safe?
'How long has this been going on?' Sherlock's words are steel sharp and bring focus back to the visitor.
'Yesterday we got the first letter. It got a bit lost before it got to my desk.' With a chin jut he indicates the envelope. 'Bastard can't spell my name, I'm flattered. The desk sergeant only put it on my desk after I left for the night.'
'L'Estrada. There's an alias for you if you ever need a bad one.'
Sherlock is perusing the letter with what passes as a valiant attempt at x-raying without equipment. John stands beside him, supporting himself casually on the back of Sherlock's chair and reading over his flatmate's shoulder. Standing closer than two regular flatmates usually stand, Greg notices, but sharing life and death situations tends to shoot interpersonal distance, he guesses.
'A bit of crude language, not particularly imaginative...' John states then shrugs. 'I have been insulted more imaginatively by some criminals Sherlock and I caught', and he flashes a proud beaming smile at them.
'I will not tolerate some halfwit degrading your image like this, John!'
'Hey, cut it out! Don't go all gallant on me, Sherl! I'm not going to deem every insult a crime of honour. It doesn't even raise my blood pressure. As far as I'm concerned that was a waste of a stamp.'
Sherlock's features darken quickly. If Greg can read it right, he's thinking John is an idiot if John thinks he's about to let go of this. If John has taught Sherlock something about himself is that Sherlock is fiercely loyal. In fact, much like John. The detective is not about to brush off the gratuitous vitriol encased in paper by a poison pen, soon to stop being anonymous at the hands of the great detective of Baker Street.
'And the second letter? Today's morning post?'
'Yeah, joined the first and million others in the Inbox tray. Too many fingerprints, I'm afraid.'
'Kensington area postmark stamp. A bit posh for a common hater, no? Maybe a tourist, trying to spot the Queen's body double while dishing out hatred to one of her faithful army men?'
'Retired, Sherlock.' John cuts in, modesty becoming him.
'Hardly retired, going by the persistent nightmares and flashbacks you still experience from time to time.'
'It was one time, Sherlock!' John is immediately exasperated.
'Hmm.'
Greg muses on Sherlock's quick dropping of the subject, very unlike the detective, usually a hound dog on a scent until he exposes the dissected truth to the minutia. Was it really one time? Could it be John is unaware of other times?
'Wait, what do you mean the Queen's body double?' It's Ignore The Inspector's Question Time at 221B, it seems. Greg shakes his head to clear it.
This is potentially bad. John is Sherlock's structure. If he cracks, Sherlock will crumble fast.
'Two envelopes, Sherlock. Same contents. Cut out letters from newspapers and magazines. Very old school, but effective. Regular scissors, adult sized, looking very much like any others to me.'
Alright. So this part is like a choreographed ballet. The inspector goads the detective by giving him assurances that there is nothing, no evidence, to pick up on. The detective gets riled up, he snarls, fixes a frightening gaze on Greg, and starts calling him an idiot, whilst illustrating in devastating detail why he's an idiot, by exposing on a multitude of clues Greg has missed. In three, two, one, go.
Eye roll, piercing icy blue stare. 'Small transection on the blade axis, midway over the length of the word "destroy". The cut itself is precise, effortless. The scissors are new, sharp, haven't blunted over time. If they had been sharpened, you would find more traces of defects on the line of the cut. New, then. New and already marked? Used inappropriately then. To cut metal wire or chicken bones, I don't know yet, not enough clues.' Sherlock fluidly brings closer his magnifying lens at studies the paper. 'Transference. As the blade cut into the newspaper it transferred particles from its last job. If I can find fibbers clinging to the paper clippings or identify the brand of glue...' He confidently slides the microscope closer. 'You can go, Lestrade! And you, John! I've got work to do and you'll only be in the way.'
John and Greg share a look. Then John smiles fondly at the back of the detective's neck, where the curls revolve in an unruly spiral. 'Tea, Greg?' he brings his focus back to the kitchen with a visible effort.
'You're not worried, mate?'
'I've got Sherlock, why should I be?'
'You really are taking this very well.'
'Former soldier, remember? I need to open a new teabags package to get you that cuppa, Greg. Pass me the scissors on the top drawer there?'
The inspector notices he's been leaning on the counter and drawers. Stepping back he open the first drawer, the one he assumes every house will have, whether a drawer, a box, or something else, where a miscellanea of useful tools, bits and bobs mingle together. He grabs the scissors and tries to hand them towards John, who is biting his lip, looking expectantly at him.
'You know, it was a godsend you came when you came. Sherlock was driving himself up the walls, no good cases at all. I did text you that, but you didn't answer.'
'I guess I didn't, I've been busy. Training a new inspector, the guy is worse than Early Years Anderson. Couldn't find a clue if he was holding it in his open hand—'
John smirks and sips his tea. Greg, suddenly suspicious, studies the scissors he is holding in his hand. Oh, John wouldn't, would he?
'I'll swing by at the end of the day with some cold cases for Sherlock, John.'
'Great. Anything you can get him, he'll take it, mate. How about a pint after that?'
'Yeah, you're paying, John.'
'Deal.'
.
As it turns out, Greg returned to a buzzing office full of investigators on the brink of a nervous breakdown and a broken air conditioning unit once again. He sat at his desk forlornly remembering how cool 221B had been during his prolonged break. No one mentioned his absence. After all, he did so much unpaid extra work that his bosses turned a blind eye for fear that he would retaliate by only doing his hours. But then what would Greg do in his flat, staring at the dismal wallpaper again, and who buys a wallpaper measuring five lotus flowers per width, in a wall measuring fifteen lotus flowers high, and that would make seventy five lotuses per strip and with five strips across each kitchen wall, and subtracting the cabinets, window and door's blank spaces... Greg had once been drunk enough to try to count the damned lotuses. He kept losing count and starting over, then he fell asleep. Morning came as a bliss, and now Greg didn't like looking at those ominous lotuses, accusing him of not knowing their collective number.
Greg ran a tired hand over his face. He couldn't' blame Sherlock, could he? John was far more interesting than lotuses. The little prick had actually fooled a seasoned police officer, a detective inspector even, with his fake threat letters. Greg should really had seen right through it. Someone threatening John, when Sherlock was such a better target; famous, haughty, impossible and infuriating?
With a deep sigh, Greg finally notices a new manila file on his desk. New case? Who from? How long? He opens it with the usual mix of trepidation (he enjoys being an investigator, thank you very much) and overwork exhaustion.
Sherlock would like this one, I bet. Murky and unusual. Maybe save John from having his head bitten off when Sherlock finds out the poison letters' author.
'Chandler?' Where was his trainee now? Chatting up the ladies in the Foreign Office liaison desk again?
'Yes, chief?'
Chief. Good grief, he is green, this one.
'Grab your kit, we're going to a crime scene. We just need to swing by somewhere first.'
The young officer in training grins widely, tired of photocopying chores for all of the department. A real case, can't wait.
.
TBC
