Chapter Text
John’s up and moving before Sherlock even finishes the call. There’s a flurry of clothes and quick washes and stupid, dopey, smitten grins on both sides, and they’re down the stairs and into a cab before John realizes that a crime scene probably isn’t the best place to be so disgustingly smug. Sherlock keeps sneaking glances out of the corner of his eye, and with the tiny upward curl at the corner of his mouth John gives up trying to be completely serious. His heart is soaring, he’s utterly punch-drunk with both physical and mental exhaustion, but there’s no place he’d rather be than here with Sherlock, rocketing through almost-deserted streets under a pink-stained dawn.
All of those softer parts of his heart, those parts he was trying to protect, have thrown the doors wide open and Sherlock has settled himself rather comfortably inside.
………………………………………………
The blue curtains are up and large floodlights have been brought in, but the gloomy shadows persist over an already-grim scene. John shakes off the feeling and follows on Sherlock’s heels as he stalks down the pavement. When the cab pulled up Sherlock’s demeanour switched in an instant; all softness gone, all secret smiles vanished. His laser-sharp focus and fierce intelligence roars to life and John basks in the heat of the flame as Sherlock snaps off rapid-fire facts to the somewhat startled PC, who panics and starts fumbling for a notebook to write them all down.
John shakes his head fondly. He can’t blame her. It’s like being caught in a riptide, with Sherlock, snatched up and pulled out to sea with no firm ground to find your way back on. He looks around and realizes neither Sally nor Lestrade are in sight, so he watches for a moment as Sherlock paces about the body (a young woman this time—very young, and very petite.) John sighs. He should probably tell Lestrade that they’re here, find out more of the details.
“Where’s Inspector Lestrade, or Sergeant Donovan?” he asks, and the terrified PC almost drops her notebook.
“Upstairs, sir, in the victim’s flat. Rest of SOCO are up there, too.” She steps backward as Sherlock swoops past her, and gives John a bit of a pleading look.
John stops for a moment. “New on the job, then?”
She nods. “Yes, sir. A month.”
“Then here’s a secret. Just write down whatever he tells you and ignore him the rest of the time. If you need a translator come find me.”
Sherlock stands up and gives John a withering look. Even his rather ruffled hair looks offended. “I think we both know PC Khatri would be better served paying close attention to my methods. Besides,” Sherlock snatches the notebook from her hand, glances it over, and flips it around to show John. “Her note-taking skills show an organization of thought and presence of mind lacking in most police officers. She’ll be a DS in five years, a DI in nine. Now. If you’re finished besmirching my character, I’d appreciate some information from Lestrade. If you would be so kind.”
John chuckles and Sherlock rolls his eyes before going back to his work. John can’t help it—Sherlock may be able to turn off the rather soul-shattering experience they’d had not 8 hours ago, but he can’t. It’s still making him buoyant inside. He feels buzzy, light, and altogether stupidly happy.
John makes his way up to the victim’s flat, directed there by a few other officers he knows and is friendly with. He steps out of the lift on the 8th floor and finds Donovan standing with a small knot of officers, peering into a flat but not crossing the crime scene tape.
“Hallo, John,” Sally says, and the shadows under her eyes seem emphasised in the dim hallway light. “You look disgustingly chipper for this hour of the morning.”
“Yes, well, Army and medical training will do that to you. Awake and alert in the space of three seconds. Well, that and living with Sherlock.”
Sally snorts. “Yeah, I imagine. Where is His Nibs anyway? Boss’ll be wanting to see him.”
“He’s with the body. I’m sure he’ll be up. Anything interesting in there?”
Sally glances back into the flat. “Nothing yet. Well, nothing out of the ordinary of every other murder. Carmen Ellis, 26. Worked at the off-licence down the way. Not married, has a girlfriend though.” Sally’s shoulders slump. “Christ, I’ve probably got to call her. No one else has.”
John winces in sympathy. “Sorry. It’s the worst part of the job. Believe me, I understand.”
Sally smiles tightly and turns back to watch SOCO, taking notes as she does. John waits around a few minutes but nothing more is forthcoming, so he decides he might as well go back downstairs with Sherlock. He’s just turning when movement a few doors down the hall catches his attention. A flat door swings open and Bob Taylor steps out, half-dressed and yawning. He fumbles with a large keyring packed with a dozen keys and a large gold medallion before he drops them, picks them up and almost drops them again before he can lock his door.
John smirks. There’s a pleasant ache in his jaw from last night’s activities and now a triumphant and possessive roar in his chest. He crosses his arms and waits as Taylor starts their way, almost laughing as Taylor stops short when he realizes John is there.
“Morning!” John chirps. Taylor looks like hell, half-asleep and stubbled, his uniform shirt buttoned crookedly and tucked in too tightly. It makes John giddy.
“Ah, hello, Dr. Watson,” Taylor smarms, casting a quick glance over toward Sally. “Nice to see you again.”
“It absolutely is,” John agrees, and his voice drips with honey. “I hope you had a good night last night, because I certainly did.”
Taylor narrows his eyes at John. “It was very … productive,” he says. “If you’ll excuse me. Ma’am,” he nods to Sally and hurries away, tugging down his cuffs.
“Fix your shirt before the Boss sees you,” Sally calls after him. She shakes her head. “Four years in and he still can’t wake up like the rest of us. Can’t blame him as its not his normal shift, but still. And what was all that about, anyway?”
John plasters on an innocent smile. “Just making polite conversation,” he says.
“Mmmmhmmmm. Pull the other one.”
“Trust me, Sally, this is one discussion you probably want no details about.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I want absolutely no information about Sherlock Holmes’ private life.”
“And you’ll get none.” John grins. “But really, what’s Taylor’s story, anyway? Bit old for career change, isn’t it?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. Lots of people start late. If they can meet the fitness tests, and their exams are good, we take them. If you’re looking to be a cop at that age, its because you really want to be one, not some sort of young person fantasy of what policing actually is. Took him a while longer to get through training than most, though, with having to take bereavement leave in the middle and all.”
John ruthlessly tamps down the small flare of sympathy. “Yeah? Who for?”
“His fiancee. Such an odd thing, too. She was in prison for being involved in some scheme to sell illegal, wild-caught exotic birds of all the ridiculous things. We were in on it because DEFRA wanted Sherlock’s help to track the path of the stolen birds so they could find everyone involved. This was…oh, maybe six months before Sherlock’s, er, holiday.”
Something tickles the back of John’s mind. He’s fairly sure he wasn’t involved in this case—exotic birds is something unusual enough he’d have remembered it, he’s sure. “Well, okay, so…what? She was killed over birds?”
“No, it was suicide. Couldn’t take the prison term, though it was only 7 years. They were engaged. He’d had no idea about any of it. She was a veterinary assistant. Said she was working on the side for a rescue.”
John frowns. Taylor may be a complete shit but that’s a devastating experience for anyone. And since he and Sherlock have sorted things out, John figures can spare a moment of sympathy. “Yeah, that’s…that’s pretty terrible. Well, ‘ta, Sally. I’m going to get out of your hair.”
Sally waves him off, already turning to a SOCO team member covered head to toe in bright blue suit. John punches the lift button and gets on, his earlier euphoria a bit subdued after hearing about Taylor. It’s sad, really. Perhaps Taylor is just lonely, and Sherlock’s attention was perhaps a little too welcome? He’d been trying to make John jealous; the stupid prat probably wouldn’t even think twice about leading Taylor on if it served his purpose.
When John reaches the cordoned off area around the body, Sherlock is nowhere to be found. Lestrade gives him a wave, though, and says John’s just missed him, gone upstairs to the flat. John shakes his head ruefully. Typical.
But as John turns to walk back toward the flats, he’s hit by a wave of dizziness so strong he has to stop and sit on a nearby bench. His stomach growls and John realizes it’s been well over 12 hours since he’d eaten, and he hasn’t had any coffee, tea, or caffeine of any kind. He’d better get all of this sorted quickly before he’ll be of use to anyone.
He makes his way down the pavement and around the corner to the nearest shop—the Boots he’d been watching a few days before. Fortunately they have a cooler with cold orange juice. John pops the top off and downs half of it before the refrigerator door closes, earning him a dirty look from the woman at the till.
“Low blood sugar,” he says, and her understanding nod allows him to peruse the energy bar selection unmolested by demands for payment. As he’s trying to decide between “Hi-power Cranberry Crunch!” and “Chock full ‘o Chocolate,” the pharmacist brushes past him. John glances at her, and she smiles and reaches for her keys to unlock the door to the pharmacy.
A big ring with a few keys, with a large gold medallion hanging off of it.
John feels like his brain has been thrown into overdrive. Pharmacist. All of the victims shared the same pharmacist. But Taylor isn’t a pharmacist. He was a…a…what did Sherlock say? “A middle manager at a Sainsbury’s or Tesco. No, Sainsbury’s.”
“Where’d you get that keyring?” John demands, urgency making his hands shake.
The pharmacist looks startled. “Boots 50th Year. We all got one. It was…oh, about 5 years ago now. Are you okay, sir? Wait, do I recognize you? I do, you’re Dr. Watson! Oh, how exciting! Are you here for a case?” She’s beaming now and John wants to scream aloud, but he reins in his impatience.
“Yes, thank you, but … please, do you happen to know a Bob Taylor?”
“Bob? Oh, yes, he was manager here when I started. Lovely man, Bob. Shame about his fiancée.”
But John’s already moving for the door as she says the last.
Sherlock, you great idiot, it wasn’t a sodding Sainsbury’s.
…………………………………………………………………………………
John can feel the beat of his heart in every slap of his shoes on the pavement. He pokes at the lift call button and flexes his fingers impatiently as he waits. He wants to get to Sherlock as quickly as possible, but he knows he can’t cause a scene and tip Taylor off. So when the lift doors slide open John jumps inside and pushes the button for the 8th floor, and tries to calm his breathing.
He can’t believe Taylor has managed, for almost three weeks, to completely fool Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock’s blind spots rarely, if ever, manifest themselves on cases, but it seems this time he walked wide-eyed and willingly into the most vicious trap that could have possibly been set for him: an appeal to his own ego and recently rediscovered sex appeal. You stupid, stupid man. I’m going to have to teach you the undeniable power of your own gorgeousness when this is over, just to keep you from doing something this idiotic ever again.
The lift doors open again and John strides out into the hallway. Sherlock is nowhere to be seen, so John pokes his head into the victim’s flat. Lestrade looks up from a drift of papers scattered across the floor.
“Sherlock in here with you?” John asks, and hopes he doesn’t sound too breathless.
“Was for about half a minute,” Lestrade replies. “Took a look around, deemed it all pointless, then left.”
“Any idea where?”
“With Taylor, I think. He was out in the hall when Taylor walked by; I saw him turn and look toward Taylor’s flat and then walk that direction, anyhow.” Lestrade eyes John critically. “Something you need to share, mate?”
“No … not yet. Let me talk to Sherlock first. It might be completely wrong.”
“All right. But don’t hold out on me.”
“Nope, wouldn’t dream of it.” John ducks back out into the hall and counts the four doors down to Taylor’s door, and knocks.
No one answers.
But John can hear the muffled sounds of conversation within, and the light from under the door flickers with moving shadows. He knocks again.
Nothing.
It wouldn’t be the first time Sherlock would have left John at a crime scene without telling him, but John’s gut is telling him he needs to be on the other side of that door, right now. So he braces himself solidly against the floor and slams into the door with his shoulder as hard as he can. He grunts with the force of the impact, and the old wood creaks around the handle but doesn’t give.
“Oi! Taylor! Open the bloody door!” John yells. He’s about to hit it again when the door pops open and Taylor is standing there with a smile on his face and a gun in his hand, held low and threatening just at his hip.
“Oh, do come in, John. Sherlock and I were just having a little chat.”
……………………………………………………………………
The first thing John sees is that Sherlock is sitting on a chair, hands tied together in front of him, in the miniscule space of Taylor’s sparse flat. John’s puzzled for a moment—Sherlock could have gotten out of that in heartbeat. But one glance at the barely-veiled interest in his eyes tells John everything he needs to know: Sherlock is here because he chose to be, and only still here because he wants to be, and Taylor’s about to tell him something he wants to know. So John simply puts his hands in the air and sinks down onto the threadbare sofa. Taylor leans against the front of the door of the tiny flat, gun pointed directly at Sherlock’s head, and smirks.
“I have to be honest, John, I didn’t expect to see you this morning,” he says. “I thought you’d be long out of the way by now. I mean, this could have been so much neater than it will be. But you can’t expect everything.” Taylor sighs dramatically.
“I…I don’t understand,” John says. He really doesn’t, fully, but he finds the playing the ingénue usually gives the more talkative among them the opening they need to talk themselves right into a confession. Sherlock smirks approvingly from his seat and John fights to keep the answering smile off of his face.
“Won’t you tell him, Sherlock? You are so fond of hearing yourself talk.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “PC Taylor here was recounting his grievances. It seems his fiancée managed to get herself caught—by me, it seems—laundering illegally-caught wild exotic birds. Parrots, Cockatoos, that sort of thing. I was brought in to find the most likely route from capture to sale, and that route went right through Anne Farran’s flat. Taylor’s fiancée.”
Taylor laughs, and the sound is stretched and awful. “Seven years! She was given seven years,” Taylor says from the doorway. “Seven years and she couldn’t take it, not my poor Annie. Too much of a free spirit, needed to be always doing something, to be outside. It crushed her.” Taylor saunters over and sits down on the coffee table, his knees almost touching John’s. It’s suddenly and almost startlingly intimate, and John’s amusement turns to ashes. Taylor’s face is a hair’s breadth from his own now, his eyes hard and searching. “They found her hanging by a bedsheet, a week after what was supposed to be our wedding date.” Taylor’s face crumples and John has to hold himself steady to keep from flinching backward. “She told me, she’d said Sherlock Holmes had done it, had found her and had her arrested.” Taylor looks up, eyes red and glassy. “And then turned her against me. Made to think I’d rumbled her, when I hadn’t, just to get her to confess.”
John blinks, incredulous. “So, what, this is some sort of sick revenge fantasy? You kill a bunch of people to get Sherlock over here? And then, what, seduce him into just letting you kill him?”
Sherlock leans forward on his chair, his pose almost a mirror of Taylor’s as he narrows his eyes and folds his hands together. “No, not exactly, John. He killed Melinda Barry, a woman he knew from his chats with her as manager at Boots, to catch my attention. He simply missed his opportunity to kill me the first night—and things changed a bit when he realized you were in the picture. He over-complicated things, as most criminals have an annoying tendency to do.”
Taylor goes pale and his hand starts to shake. Sherlock continues. “The crux of the matter, however, isn’t anything to do with the women you killed. You have one motive: betrayal. Anne Farran believed you betrayed her, you hadn’t, and in turn you are hurt. But instead of discussing it like rational adults, as John and I had, she refused to hear you and severed all contact.” Sherlock has Taylor’s attention now, John fading into the background of his consciousness. “Yes,” Sherlock continues. “That really is too bad. Because it’s rather amazing what can be cleared up when two people truly connect, trust and rely on each other—“
“She wouldn’t ever listen!” Taylor shouts, and in an instant, he lunges across the tiny space and the gun is now pressed to the middle of Sherlock’s forehead. “She wouldn’t listen. I tried to tell her I hadn’t known! She hated me at the end, and I loved her! I loved her, and she’s dead, and it’s all your fault!”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “But yet, Taylor, I never spoke to her. I never had any contact with Anne Farran. I only found her, and then the case was over for me. It was the police, and I’m guessing your DI, in fact, that told her you’d ratted her out. Classic strategy. I’m surprised you missed that, honestly.”
Every muscle in John’s body is vibrating, keeping himself in the background of Taylor’s attention, waiting for a twitch, a sign, something from Sherlock that will give him enough of an opportunity to act. It comes when Sherlock suddenly lifts his hands straight up and knocks the gun sideways, the barrel arcing over his shoulder and toward the wall. There’s a shot, and John braces, jumps, and hits Taylor in a full tackle, tumbling them both to the ground. A quick scramble for the gun ends when Sherlock kicks it away. John manages to pin Taylor down long enough for Sherlock to retrieve the gun, hands still tied, and point it at Taylor.
“That’s quite enough out of you,” Sherlock says, and Taylor stops struggling at the sight of his own gun looming in his face. John and Sherlock direct Taylor to the chair. John unties Sherlock’s hands and uses the ropes to tie up Taylor, and then John gives in to one of the most uncharitable impulses in his life and clips Taylor across the back of his head with the butt of his gun, knocking him out cold.
“That felt better than it should have,” John says, flexing his fingers and shaking the sting of the impact out of his arm. There’s a frantic pounding on the door, and he can hear Lestrade yelling from the other side. “See, I told you, I should have gone to the pub. How’d you figure it out? The keyring?” He turns to check on Sherlock and finds him staring with hooded, ravenous eyes. “What?” John says, though he already knows.
Sherlock lowers his chin a fraction and looks up through his eyelashes. “Only you could make assault with intent to harm so extremely attractive,” he says.
John should be appalled, but he just grins and goes to open the door to the swarm of police officers waiting on the other side.
…………………………………………………………………
They should be tired.
They should be exhausted and sitting somewhere with a horrid cup of tea and giving statements to the police but instead they’d lit out of Camden after giving the absolute minimum of information possible and now Sherlock’s got John pressed up against the closed door of their flat, one hand in John’s trousers and his tongue down John’s throat.
“Jesus,” John gasps on an indrawn breath. “I … yes, God yes, like that.” Sherlock pops the button on John’s jeans and shoves them down until he can get a better grip on John’s cock and strokes him hard, much harder than John’s accustomed to but it feels brilliant, like a flashfire at the base of his spine. The flat is fully illuminated in the bright summer morning and John can see everything, every fleck of green in Sherlock’s eyes, every flyaway curl, every bead of sweat starting to form on Sherlock’s forehead. It’s almost startling, a vivid Technicolor replay of last night, when everything was dark and hot and a bit dream-like.
The tension in his groin grows all too real, though, pulls tight as Sherlock strokes him while pressing kisses under his jaw. It’s almost too much, so John gently pushes Sherlock until he takes a step backward, his hand falling away from John’s body. John reaches out to cup his hand around Sherlock’s hip and rub his thumb over the ridge of the bone so prominent he can feel it through Sherlock’s trousers.
“I want to strip you naked,” John says. “Get at all of that gorgeous skin of yours. Press you to me until we’re sticky and too hot and we come until we pass out.”
Sherlock moans a little, and drops his head forward until it rests on John’s shoulder. He turns slightly and begins to kiss and lick and suck lightly on the side of John’s neck. “That sounds rather perfect,” Sherlock says, and pulls away to unbutton and shrug off his shirt.
John does the same, shucking shirt and jeans and pants as quickly as possible. When he refocuses after taking off his socks, Sherlock is sprawled over the sofa, stark naked, his cock bobbing lightly with every quick breath. He’s gorgeous, perfect, and there for him alone, so John wastes no time sliding onto his body until they’re pressed shoulder to groin, John’s knees around Sherlock’s thighs and his hands shoved up under Sherlock’s shoulders. Some urgency lost, they kiss with mouths slanting across each other, and John can’t get enough of Sherlock’s taste, of the heat of him, of his cock pushing insistently at the crease of John’s groin.
“Tell me the lube’s still in that basket,” he grits out, because he doesn’t want to move; who would when they’ve got Sherlock Holmes like this, aroused and straining beneath them? Sherlock throws an arm back to rummage around in the small basket around the side of the sofa and comes back with a palmful of slick. Everything becomes warm and wet and the bright spark of Sherlock’s touch shivers down John’s spine and tightens his balls.
Sherlock grins at his reaction and lifts his hips under John’s arse until they’re settled where Sherlock can circle his still-slick hand around them both and stroke with maddening slowness. John gasps and and wraps his hand around Sherlock’s, helps him pull them both into a deep, rolling orgasm that leaves John panting, lying plastered to the warm, soft skin of Sherlock’s chest. It’s hot and sticky and they’re covered in come and lube, and John never wants to move again. Sherlock lazily drags his fingers up John’s spine until they rest at the base of his skull, teasing the hair there in tiny, gentle circles that make John’s heart swell.
“You never said,” Sherlock starts, then pauses. “You never required that I be yours alone. Why?”
John sighs. “Because people don’t belong to people, Sherlock. I wanted you to choose me. I wasn’t sure where you stood regarding the whole…relationship thing. I was afraid to ask.”
“You’re not afraid of anything.”
“When it comes to you, I think I’m afraid of everything.”
Sherlock is startled enough he lifts his head looks hard at John’s face. “You still don’t trust me.”
John props his chin on Sherlock’s chest and meets his eyes. “No. I don’t trust me to not screw this up. I don’t trust that I’ll not be that jealous idiot, I don’t trust that I won’t hold on too tightly. You’ll feel trapped and want to run, and I think if you ever actually choose to leave me— for someone else or not, doesn’t matter— it would almost be worse than…than when…”
Sherlock blinks, swallows heavily and then clears his throat. One hand cups John’s cheek. “Even when you thought I was dead, know that my sole purpose was to make it so I could come back to you, and you alone.”
John grins. “I do know that, now. And it's absolutely amazing.”
The exhilaration of their life together is absolutely fundamental, it seems; John marvels at how he could have so misjudged the depth of the connection that brings his life spark, heat, purpose. He’ll never doubt it again. John kisses him then, slowly, deeply, reveling in the security of that one truth, the bright summer sun warming their skin and filling the flat with golden light.