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Chapter Text

“—so he’s one of those people who likes to wear the mascot outfits? What are they called… furries?” John asked, half-joking, half-concern; the visual was both entertaining and disturbing. “He’s not gonna hop up on the counter and bite me, right?”

Mike snorted, nearly sending his drink pooling down his shirt. “No, it’s nothing like that—he looks totally normal. I’m just saying, he doesn’t socialize like a person. Imagine a stack of cats in a trenchcoat, then give them all degrees in chemistry.” He shouldered through the double doors of Barts, hinges smacking back with the force, coffee sloshing hot over his thumb, earning a slight wince.

John kept pace, cane ticking sharp against the tile. “Charmed already.”

“I’m trying to help set your expectations.” The fluorescents hummed faintly as they cut left down a corridor; the sound made John feel claustrophobic. A burst of laughter ricocheted from somewhere behind them—students, by the pitch of it. Mike lowered his voice, “I think you two will hit it off if you give him a chance. Just don’t let his little performances bother you.”

“Performances?” John raised a brow. “Are we talking about a genius or a street magician?”

“Not a bad comparison. Instead of predicting what card you pulled, he’ll tell you where you store your passport and why. Head-tricks, not hand ones.” Mike hesitated, the quarter-second pause of someone debating how much to say. “Some spine tricks too, if you startle him.”

John gave him a look. “He’s a gymnast on top of it?”

“If quadrobics qualify.”

John’s cane ticked a steady metronome on the tile. He did his usual mental drill without conscious attention: Count the exits, clock the cameras, smell the room—cleaners, ethanol, a faint veil of old coffee, the medical tang of iodine deep in the concrete like the building had soaked in years of autopsies and never dried. He rolled his shoulder, ache flaring up before subsiding.

Mike slowed before a tall wooden door, wearing the grin of a dad who’d absolutely overspent on a Christmas surprise. “‘Who’d want me for a flatmate,’ that’s what you said, right? Funny, ‘cause this guy says the same thing.” Three brisk knocks followed by a metallic groan from the hinges.

John’s pulse ticked up a beat against his collar. The air beyond had an edge to it. Not colder—tighter. Like the room held its breath.

The air was stale and flat, walls painted industrial white. The lights were fluorescent with a faded yellow tint, washing the color out of everything—and subsequently—anyone in the room. “Bit different from my day,” John commented as he walked in, taking his time looking around the room and at everything it stored.

“Oh you have no idea.”

Given the context of Barts, along with the equipment, it was clearly meant to be a pathology lab of some sort. But with all of the mess, it looked more like a studio flat having been wiped out by a hurricane. Benches bristled with clutter. Alarm switches stippled the walls like museum labels. Racks of pipette tips sat in tidy rows beside a heap of dog-eared notebooks. A microscope planted like a sentinel. Strips of matte lab tape layered everywhere in overlapping flaps; some ends bore a fuzzy fringe where someone had idly… chewed? No—picked—at them.

Saline containers came in threes on the center table, different brands lined up like nesting dolls. A bottle of rubbing alcohol, a jar of wooden swabs. A tray of microtome blades with a handwritten warning: ‘SHARP’. A metal stool showed small scratches across the seat, as though something had a habit of launching off it repeatedly.

And there was a man.

Not at the center of the room, but somehow the center of gravity, like the room had arranged around him while he wasn’t looking. Abnormally lanky: long bones, tight wiring, joints that read as a fraction sharper than human default. Curls neatly managed, the face cut from planes and angles instead of soft curves. He didn’t look up when they entered—he didn’t have to. The angle of his head shifted barely a degree, followed with his nostrils flaring once.

“Mike,” the man said flatly, recognizing without a visual, as if he’d somehow been able to distinguish the scent. “Can I borrow your phone? No signal on mine.”

“And what’s wrong with the landline?”

The man’s voice was as cold as the metal bench beneath his hands. “I prefer to text.”

“Sorry,” Mike shrugged, tone familiar with his antics, “it’s in my coat.”

A small dip in the man’s brow—not quite sadness or annoyance, something quieter. His pupils pinched down in a strange way, going back to normal before John had a chance to second-guess it.

John’s mouth spoke before his brain caught up. “Uh, here. Use mine.”

He dug his mobile out of his jacket, the spike of pain in his shoulder stealing a breath. He hissed—the stranger’s head twisted up at once, like a deer catching a twig snap through the trees.

The stare that hit John was mechanical and unblinking. Not rude, no. Assessing. He had the unnerving sense that his height, weight, gait, breathing pattern, and pain map had been mentally filed in some unseen notebook.

“…Thank you,” the man said, words arrhythmic, as if they had to be dragged through a narrowing in the throat. Gratitude under a layer of confusion, like he hadn’t expected kindness to exist here.

Something in his chest warmed at the praise; he felt good about himself. ‘Thank you,’ it rang in his memory.

Mike jumped in to fill the silence, “This is John Watson. Old friend of mine.”

The man uncoiled from his stool. It was all joints for the first few movements—jagged and jerky—before the motion melted into something disturbingly fluid. He seemed taller standing, like his posture had suddenly gained a new sense of authority.

He took the slide phone with a brush of rough callouses. His thumbs moved too fast—not fidgety, precise. Like a pianist sight-reading at tempo and immediately adapting.

Then, without looking up: “Afghanistan or Iraq?”

John blinked. What? Oh, right.

Wait, no—what?

He tilted his head, brows knitting together. “Sorry?”

“Which was it?” Still typing. Calm. Certain.

John looked at Mike. He smirked again, like he was watching the plot-twist of a film he’s already seen.

His chest tightened up a bit, mouth opened and shut, brain scrambling for words and coming up blank. ”Afghanistan,” John said finally, voice sharper than intended. “Sorry, how did you…?”

And then the man looked at him. Really looked.

It felt like stepping into bright theater lights—too sharp, dissecting him without laying a finger. He wasn’t sure whether he had moved closer or the stranger had. John felt pinned like a frog on a tray, as though every scar and wound he carried had been catalogued in an instant.

His pupils weren’t round.

Before he could recover, the door clicked. A woman entered with a mug of coffee.

“Ah, Molly! Thank you,” the man lit up suddenly; his voice warmed, but his face took a moment to follow. He looked friendly now as he handed the phone back, swapping to take the cup instead. The change didn’t last for long, though—he glanced over her mouth, the focus almost anatomical. “What happened to the lipstick?”

John turned, curious. Molly radiated nerves—her smile was broad and unconvincing, like she’d been practicing it in a mirror. “It… wasn’t working for me.”

“Really? I thought it was a big improvement.” He squinted, measuring the differences. “Your mouth’s too… small now.”

John blinked at the bluntness. It wasn’t cruel, but it read more like reporting lab results rather than makeup critique. Molly didn’t argue, she just nodded, retreating as quickly as she’d come. She didn’t look angry, guilty rather. Like someone who’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t.

Steam billowed out from the top like Mike’s cup from earlier as he crossed the room again, already lost to whatever thought had tugged him back to the microscope.

“How do you feel about the violin?” He asked without preamble.

John blinked. They’re doing questions now? We were just simply… moving on from earlier? He threw another look back over at Mike, a silent question asking ‘Is he serious?’

Mike, unhelpfully, just smirked and shrugged—’Get used to it.’

John’s jaw hung ajar. He let out a breath through his nose, smacking his lips together before finally muttering, “Sorry—what?”

“I play the violin when I’m thinking,” the man repeated smoothly, as though he were filing a necessary disclosure form. “And verbal communication isn’t exactly my specialty. I get most of my thoughts across with body language. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other, after all.”

His brows perked with the question, as if genuinely curious. The words body language stuck in John’s head; like it was his native tongue, and English was just the clumsy translation.

He smiled, a sharp little crescent that pinched the corners of his mouth into a V. For a heartbeat his eyes narrowed nearly shut in an expression somewhere between ‘pleased with himself’ and ‘caught you’. The kind of look a younger sibling gives when they’ve broken something valuable, and know for a fact that the parents will blame you instead.

John stared. His thoughts weren’t blank—on the contrary, they were jostling for the front of his mind like commuters squeezing onto a packed train. He blinked rapidly, then sputtered out, “And you—you told him about me?” He managed to squeak out finally, like he’d come up for air.

Mike shook his head. “Not a word.” He looked genuine—amused, but not lying.

“Then who said anything about flatmates?” John shifted his weight from one leg to the other, feeling suddenly off balance. The stranger rose from his chair, and John finally understood Molly’s previous skittishness.

“I did,” the stranger said back with utter nonchalance. He slid into a long coat in one clean movement, shoulders aligning with the fabric like it remembered his shape. “I told Mike this morning I’m statistically difficult to house with a human being. Now he turns up after lunch with an old friend who’s just off from overseas deployment and sick of sleeping in a shoebox. We can afford a good address together, I’d imagine.” He looped a scarf twice, knot crisp and practiced. “Tomorrow evening. Seven o’clock sharp, we’ll meet there.”

“Hold on,” John interrupted. “How did you know about Afghanistan?”

He didn’t acknowledge the question. Or worse—he did—and simply filed it under ‘unnecessary repetition’. “I need to check the mortuary,” he went on, patting his pockets. “I’ve misplaced my riding crop—Molly was supposed to bring it back when she fetched the coffee.”

John stood there with his mouth hung ajar, trying to find shapes of words and failing. Riding crop in the mortuary would have flagged as a joke in his mind if not for how strange everything else he said was.

“Is that it?” John called out to him before the man could exit, voice cracking slightly.

The man turned back, hand still on the door. “Is that what?”

“We’ve only just met and we’re going to go look at a flat?”

He paused, then crossed the distance in three light steps. He tilted his head in a way that made something in John’s hindbrain tense—that same feeling of unease as when the drill sergeant suddenly snaps his focus on you.

“…Problem?” He asked, voice neutral.

Yes…?

The stranger tilted his head and looked around the room, breaking the moment as if appealing to some unseen audience for a reaction.

John’s pulse leapt in his throat. He mirrored the head tilt without realizing—the subconscious instinct to mirror kicking in—and glanced at Mike for calibration. He had this look on his face, like he was waiting for the gasp he knew would come.

John faced forward again, words tumbling out in a rush. “We don’t know a thing about each other. I don’t know where we’re meeting, I don’t even know your name. For all I know, you could—” He cut himself off before saying ‘not even be human’.

The man’s lips parted a fraction. His eyes fixed and didn’t blink. When he spoke, the sentences came predictably and inevitably, as if read off from a teleprompter.

“I know you trained as an Army doctor and came home on a medical discharge,” his gaze didn’t falter. “Your shoulder’s the culprit more often than your leg. Your brother pushed you toward therapy but you won’t take his money—ethics, not pride—possibly because of his drinking, more likely because he walked out on his wife.”

He flicked a glance at the cane. “Your limp isn’t structural; cane rhythm falters when you’re distracted and disappears when you’re caught off guard. Psychosomatic, then. I think that’s plenty to go off of, don’t you think?”

The only motion in his face was at the mouth. The rest of him had gone still in an almost predatory way—relaxed, but ready—prepared to pounce at a moment’s notice. Somewhere behind the words, a faint vibration hung through the air. Not speech, but rather… a hum? A purr maybe—no—must be something to do with the vent above.

Silence hovered for a moment, suffocatingly still. John’s eyes darted helplessly, like someone trying to keep themselves from running. The other man’s stayed on him without wavering.

“The name’s Sherlock Holmes,” he finally spoke up, as though he’d withheld it on purpose for suspense, “and the address…”—a ghost of that crescent smile—“…is 221B Baker Street.”

John’s eyes stilled just in time to watch the man wink, followed by a click of his tongue, and a swift exit out the door.

It felt like the lab itself exhaled with him; the fluorescent hum climbing back into hearing. John stared as the wood fell back shut, gaze fallen blankly onto the documents taped onto it—never once actually reading a word. He looked back down at his phone, like it would reveal some sort of trick about what the man did.

Mike, the saint of unhelpfulness, broke the ice. “Yeah. He’s always like that.”

“God help me,” John said. He was never strongly religious, but at that moment, he meant it almost literally.

They stood in the emptied gravity for a moment, almost like meditation. A trolley squeaked a few hallways back. From an adjacent room, voices bled thinly through the plaster.

“…He does that with everyone he meets?” John asked finally, turning back around.

“Not everyone,” Mike tilted slightly. “Just the ones he finds intriguing.”

“How flattering—you knew I’d be one of them, then?”

“Of course I did. He claims not to have a type, but you notice patterns if you look close enough. You fall right into that type of box he likes.”

“In what way exactly?”

“Up to interpretation.”

John nodded before racking his cane again, making his way across the room and back to that familiar metal stool.

Without the obvious distraction present anymore, and with his heart rate significantly lowered, Watson actually had a moment to examine it. Fine cross-hatching in the steel, as if from a ring with a rough gem, or… no, not a ring. Wrong pattern. He reached out and ran his finger over the grooves—they were shallow, but there were a lot of them.

It looked as if somebody kept a pet in here—one that scrabbled up and down the stool for practice. He thought about the tape, worry-picked into soft frills. How the man had tracked his breath the moment he hissed.

“Spine tricks, you said.” John murmured, barely audible.

“You’ll see,” Mike folded his arms. “Sometimes he—if you slam a door, which you shouldn’t do; he doesn’t like sudden noises. He’ll sometimes jump up onto a table like it’ll… somehow save him from something. If you comment on it after, he acts like you’re insane.”

John pictured the man clearing a bench in one smooth movement, coat flaring, the not-quite-round pupils locking onto the source of the noise. He felt a lunatic flicker of curiosity under the sensible concern.

“Tomorrow at seven, then.”

“Mm. He’ll be early,” Mike raised his brows, another faint smile coming up onto his cheeks. “He always is. Show up at 6:30, he’ll be impressed.”

“What makes you think I want to impress him?”

“You handed him your phone the second you saw rejection touch his face.”

John looked back over at him, wanting to say something but ultimately keeping quiet. He shifted toward the door, as if it might swing back open. It didn’t, of course.

He finally moved: pocketed his phone, adjusted his shoulder, and decided to not let his mind linger on what a riding crop and a mortuary have to do with each other. John had the sudden, stupid certainty that the next twenty-four hours were going to be worse for his sanity, and somehow better for every other part of him.

“Would you rather the sugarcoating,” Mike stood up to follow, voice remaining casual, “or the blunt truth?”

“Start with the lie.”

“The lie is that you’ll get used to him.”

“And the truth?”

Mike’s teeth flashed back in another grin, “You won’t want to.”

John snorted despite himself. The lights hummed, his cane ticked, and on the lab door behind them, a poster about hand sanitization lifted another millimeter at the corner, as if a draft of wind had found it. Or as if a finger—absent, invisible—had idly picked.

Chapter Text

Bright but hazy: the kind of London morning that made every window look like it needed a second wash. Humidity pressed at the glass; the sky wore the same gray as his thoughts. Another wonderful day in the UK. That’s sarcasm, if you couldn’t tell.

John’s hotel room did not improve the mood. Dark gray walls, two lamps with nicotine-yellow bulbs, and a carpet that pretended to be clean only if you kept your eyes above waist height. If he wheeled in a couple of mop buckets, you could mistake it for a janitor’s closet pretty easily. He sat on the mattress—a single-layer slab with one sad, frumpy pillow, and a paper-thin blanket. All colored in the same blasé fashion as the rest of the interior. He bounced once, like testing a bridge that might not hold.

Silence. Then the radiator made a sound like a coin dropped down someone’s throat.

He rubbed at the ache in his shoulder and tried—not for the first time, unfortunately—to set the morning aside. He could catalogue the room: one door, two lamps, cheap kettle, a TV that had seen better decades, and his crummy laptop that was held together by sheer willpower. He could pretend the air wasn’t tight, that his subconscious wasn’t still partially in fight-or-flight.

‘Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other, after all.’ He heard it echo through his mind again in that precise, pompous cadence. The lab at Barts seemed to hold its breath when the man spoke, as if even the fluorescents above were taking notes. And then those eyes—too intent, too steady, catching a hiss of pain like a twig-snap through a distant treeline. Pupils that weren’t… round. He blinked, remembering the way the room seemed to rearrange itself around the stranger as if he were the focal point of its very existence.

John just couldn’t get his mind off of that new man he’d met—not in that… not in a gay way, obviously. Who would think that? Just… he was just strange, was all. The kind of strange that sticks to you under the skin; interrogation-room strange. If Holmes had told him to confess, John might’ve started listing off every wrongdoing he’d ever done in his old barracks.

John turned to his laptop, sitting closed on the desk in the corner, an idea slipping to the forefront of his mind. He stood before he could talk himself out of it and flipped open the device. He typed in “Sherlock Holmes” and hovered over the enter key, as if pressing it would make the man step through the screen and guide him through the links himself.

Nothing much. No holiday photos, no group shots from some university, no tagged drunken parties, not even an abandoned MySpace page. All he could find was some sort of old school registry and an empty Twitter account—the username @SherlockHolmes claimed, but never put to use.

John leaned back slightly, frowning at the lack of results. It was like he didn’t even exist. He’s probably just more keen on internet privacy than the average user—not everyone wants their full legal name stamped across the internet. But it was strange nonetheless. Not even a Facebook page? Really?

He clicked back to ‘All’. One link he’d skipped initially now tugged on his eyes: “The Science of… Deduction?” Watson muttered under his breath, squinting at the last word. He’d skipped over it the first time because it didn’t immediately have Sherlock’s name listed, but… it looks like a custom blog of some kind. The title had the smug confidence of a man who names his ship ‘Invincible’ before sailing straight into a storm.

Click

The page loaded instantly, like a door opening before he had a chance to knock. Bare-bones black-and-white, nothing but links and text. No profile photo, no menu, not even a cheery ‘About’ section. It looked less like a blog and more like a private archive—a filing system kept for an audience of one.

The Science of Deduction. . . Author Sherlock Holmes

Comment . . . Next Page . . . All Entries

John clicked to be redirected to the ‘Next Page’, whatever that entails. The first entry he was met with? “The Handshake: Three Seconds, Six Clues”. It had an identical outdated interface to the home, but much more text this time around. A date, too—apparently having been uploaded onto here only three days prior. Good to know that he’s active somewhere on the internet.

The Handshake: Three Seconds, Six Clues. . . Author Sherlock Holmes . . . 26th January, 2011

A handshake is not a formality, it’s a self-report.

In the span of three seconds, one can determine: the subject’s dominant hand, their occupation, their degree of honesty, their alcohol intake, their marital status and signs of infidelity, and whether they are armed. Callus placement and pressure can give insight to what tools and equipment they frequently handle. Honesty and fear can be determined through the temperature of their palm and degree of moisture. Their alcohol intake can be guessed on whether they have a tremor in their thumb. Marital status can be easily determined through the presence of a ring, but recent divorce or unfaithfulness can be clued at if there is a tan line on their ring finger. And shoulder stiffness can be a sign of carrying concealed weight.

A weak handshake isn't an inherent weakness; it’s guilt. A strong handshake isn’t an inherent strength; it’s overcompensation. Most people are unobservant and only see “firm” or “limp”—”confident” or “insecure”. In truth, every part of someone’s grip is a confession. Pay attention to it, that’s six facts about a stranger for the observant, zero for the dull. If you fail to notice, you’ve wasted both their time and yours. –SH

John narrated the text in his head in the same fashion he’d heard at the lab—words unspooling with cool, dissecting confidence. Impatience intertwined with dullness and an utter lack of humor. Small, impossible details apparently all living in the skin and bones of a simple grip if you bothered to pay attention.

He flexed his thumb uncomfortably on the trackpad—somewhere in the middle of the second paragraph, he began to feel watched again. Ridiculous, given the page was just basic text. But still, the sensation was the same as in the lab: the sense of being filed and shoved into an organized little box with a handwritten, slightly-frayed label. He could almost hear that faint vibration again—what he could only describe as a purr—trilling through the man’s throat. John told himself it had to have just been a faulty vent back there, but the back part of his brain knew that wasn’t true.

He continued to scroll: “Telling Professions by Pen Brands,” “There’s Never a Good Alibi,” “How to spot an Alcoholic by their Mobile”. Not science so much as indictments delivered in bullet-point sentences. The entries read like PSAs to the city: ‘Don’t get cocky, I’ll figure you out in ten minutes flat.’ It was unsettling and, annoyingly, extremely compelling. Despite the faint strain of white LEDs creeping into his eyes, John couldn’t pull his gaze away from the website—it was like it had some sort of subliminal advertising woven in; affirmations that compelled you to keep reading.

He tried to be sensible as he thought back. That glossy-eyed stare? Could easily be contact lenses reflecting unnaturally. The frilled tape? People fidget with things all the time, that doesn’t inherently mean anything weird. For all John knows, that isn’t even his doing, it could’ve been the other girl with the picking-habit. The marks on the stool? Plenty of reasons for cross-hatching on steel—some labs actually keep animals, or maybe one of the people there has a service animal.

Mike’s voice shoved itself back into his memory: “He’ll sometimes jump up onto a table like it’ll… somehow save him from something.” Then later, how he smiled, “Show up at 6:30, he’ll be impressed.” John hated that he remembered the last part. He hated how compelling the promise was.

He clicked back to the homepage, then to ‘All Entries’, then forward again—more out of nerves than curiosity.

John shut the laptop and listened to the ambiance around him. The thin hum of the lightbulbs, the radiator whirring—it felt like mockery somehow; reminding him how empty it is here. He took out his phone. Tomorrow, seven o’clock. 221B Baker Street. 6:30 if he wants to impress, which he knows he does.

“This is insane,” he mumbled to no one in particular.

The radiator ticked once as though it agreed.

6:30—because it’s practical, not because he cares about what this weird, eccentric… furry thinks of him. Not to impress him. Practical. He laid back on the mattress, covering his legs with the insultingly-thin blanket, trying to match his breathing to the slow, steady buzz of the lights. He wasn’t thinking about Holmes’ weirdly-shaped pupils, or his funny little scarf, or how he somehow made sitting up from a chair look both creepy and graceful at once. Obviously not.

He was.

⊰ ⋆🐾⋆ ⊱

“Hello,” Sherlock said, approaching—having just crawled out of a taxi. Yes, crawled.

“Ah, Mr. Holmes—”

“Sherlock, please.” He offered his hand. John took it almost instantly—excitement or Army conditioning, hard to tell—and felt soft pricks as Sherlock squeezed. Not painful… at least, not yet. He glanced down: the nails were shaped too precisely, the tips sharp as stilettos, a few layers thicker than normal. Acrylics? He looked closer. No glue lines, no plastic shine. Natural, just… sharpened. Keen.

“You poked me a little there,” John said with an awkward half-laugh, not sure if it had been a passive-aggressive nip or simple unfamiliarity with the gesture. The second option didn’t seem likely, given the man had written a whole essay on handshakes. “Round them out next trim, maybe.”

“Yes, well, I am not too fond of that process.”

They stood beneath the awning of Speedy’s Sandwich Bar & Café, the ground floor of an old Victorian townhouse refitted into flats. Humid air, low clouds, grimy streets. A bus sighed at the curb; chatter could be heard through the restaurant’s window. Sherlock blinked slowly, taking in John and the doorway, as if preparing his next action.

“Prime spot,” John said, clearing his throat. “Must be expensive.”

“Mrs. Hudson—landlady—gave me a special deal. Owes me a favor.” Sherlock stepped towards the door, light and casual, “A few years back, her husband was sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help out.”

“Sorry, you… stopped her husband from being executed?”

Sherlock glanced at him as if the question were strange. “No. I ensured it.” He smiled like that was normal.

John gave a half-nod, half-shake of his head that meant ‘I’m following, but I have no clue what you’re on about.’

“Sherlock!” An older woman’s voice—warm, brittle—spilled out as she spread her arms. Sherlock didn’t speak back, but to John’s surprise, he stepped in for a hug. His long arms wrapped around her, then he leaned down to rub his cheek along her face. Not a kiss. A rub. Slow, deliberate.

Odd. Sherlock didn’t strike him as the physically affectionate type. It didn’t even look like proper affection, really. Played more like a nature documentary. “I’m just saying, he doesn’t socialize like a person,” The familiar voice echoed through his mind as John thought back to yesterday.

“Mrs. Hudson, Dr. John Watson,” Sherlock said, one hand raised like he was holding a small ceremony.

“Hello, come in, dear,” she ushered them inside. John managed to slip out a quick ‘thank you’ before Sherlock took the lead.

The hall was narrow and dim, beige wallpaper brushing John’s sleeve as he took the stairs. Bamboo pattern, faded; the cane clicked in a steady rhythm against the wood. Sherlock’s long legs went ahead at an easy pace, but he stopped at the first landing—looking back, waiting without comment. John took another step, shoulder tight, breath measured, then two more. The building smelled of old dust, tea, and something vaguely medicinal.

At the flat’s door, Sherlock stepped aside, shrinking neatly into a corner so John could take a look.

Fully furnished, if “furnished” included the natural sediment of someone’s hoarding habits. Papers and books everywhere, plastic storage bins abandoned at angles that suggested distraction. The carpet was red with gray accents; the paint a weary sage. Shelves climbed high and the ceiling higher. A tall window wore honey-brown curtains and a film of city air. It was messy—but compared to his bleak hotel, it felt like fresh oxygen.

“Well this could be very nice,” he muttered, mostly to himself. House-flipper eyes could see the potential under all the garbage. “Very nice indeed.”

“Yes, I think so,” Sherlock smiled—a genuine one. “My thoughts precisely.”

John limped into the next room and stopped. A central table crowded with lab equipment—microscope, pipette tips, beakers, yet another tray of blades. It looked like it was originally meant to be a kitchen, but only because he could see a fridge shoved off into the corner, an oven repurposed as counter space, and a microwave propped up on a chair.

“As soon as we get all this rubbish cleaned out, we can…” Sherlock started, but this time, John was the one to cut him off.

“So I'm just… moving in then? Just…” He gestured between rooms, words failing to assemble. Sherlock’s mouth parted, then paused—the same odd hold he’d had just before his deduction speech at Barts.

“So this is all…? You lived here already?” John waved a hand at the lived-in chaos. “You made it sound like we were going to go check out someplace brand new.”

“Well obviously, I can… um,” Sherlock drifted to the far side of the room and began tidying in small, apologetic bursts—picking up a stack of books, shuffling it twice, setting it down three inches to the left as if that were any form of progress. “I can straighten things up a bit… of course.”

He aligned a pencil back in a small holder, a page edge lifted and settled, then forgot both in favor of smoothing an already-flat cushion with the heels of his hands. Silence gathered. Street noise threaded through the window: a horn, a brief shout, the scuff of a passerby. John stood still and let the quiet run on. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Sherlock turned a coaster ninety degrees, then back to its original position.

John watched the long limbs move with what looked like guilt, searching for a job that would count as cleaning. He followed him to the mantel, squinted, and then: “Is—Sherlock, that’s a skull?” John pointed with his cane.

Sherlock’s lips pressed into a straight line. His gaze flickered once, twice. “…Friend of mine.”

A few more seconds slid by—long enough for the building to creak in its joints, and for the sound of Mrs. Hudson’s radio downstairs to start faintly seeping through the floor. Dust mites floated in lazy circles against the window’s light.

“What do you think, then, Dr. Watson?” Mrs. Hudson called from the doorway at last, evidently just as immune to the clutter as Sherlock was. “There’s another bedroom upstairs… if you’ll be needing two, that is.”

“Of course we’ll be needing two?” John nipped back, more sharply than intended.

“Oh, don’t worry, there’s all sorts ‘round here,” she replied sweetly. Though John didn’t appreciate the implications very much. “Mrs. Turner next door’s got married ones!”

John shot Sherlock a look; he’d already retreated to a different corner the moment John’s eyes left him, as if in an instinctive dodge. He was now straightening a crooked painting, or at least, pretending to. Christ, he’s thin. Surely no one actually thought… no, absolutely not.

“Oh Sherlock, the mess you’ve made!” Mrs. Hudson scolded lightly as she came through the kitchen. At the sound, Sherlock’s posture visibly shrank; the spine softened, the head dipped. John could have sworn his hair flattened at the sides… his curls must hate being in trouble as much as he does.

It was almost funny. John sank into the loveseat and kept watching. Every remark from Mrs. Hudson triggered another burst of performative tidying: a book stacked here, a paper shuffled there, a perfectly clean surface wiped in an attempt to give the appearance of effort.

Plenty of motion. No progress.

The silence returned, not awkward so much as expectant. The kettle downstairs whistled as pipes ticked and clinked throughout the walls. John let half a minute pass—Sherlock couldn’t seem to solve the problem of where to put a stray magazine. He drifted near the window, then back to the table, and eventually flopped it abstractly next to a discarded petri dish.

“I looked you up on the internet last night,” John said finally, curious to see which way Sherlock’s spine would curve.

Slightly backwards, evidently.

“Anything interesting?” Sherlock asked, turning with that same straight-lipped awkwardness from before.

“Found your website. The… Science of Deduction, right?”

That changed him. The defensive busywork expression loosened into something bright and almost… boyish. His eyes did that thing where they just about squeezed shut from his cheeks.

“What did you think?” His pitched lifted on the last word, hopeful, hair ruffling as he rocked up onto his toes—an unconscious spring toward praise.

John hesitated, the pause stretching on uncomfortably long. Five beats passed, then six—at the seventh, Sherlock’s face seemed to dim. “Yeah… interesting blog. Might help to soften your tone a little.”

The hopeful light flickered out of Sherlock’s eyes as quickly as it’d lit up. His shoulders stiffened as his posture curled back down into that same withdrawn stance.

Regret pricked through his chest. John hadn’t meant to deflate him, but… he didn’t exactly want to lie either. “You said you could identify a software designer by his… his tie, and an airplane pilot by his left thumb? If I’m remembering correctly?”

Sherlock nodded, inhaling to continue—

Heels clicked on the kitchen tile: Mrs. Hudson returned with a newspaper. “What about these suicides then, Sherlock?” She called out as she walked back into the living room, the headline bold and aggressive, “I thought that’d be right up your alley. Three suicides—exactly the same?”

A car slowed outside. For a heartbeat, Sherlock’s posture broke—he dropped almost completely to the floor and sprang forward, full-body, to the window. The motion was so smooth and sudden that it couldn’t read as a one-off; this was clearly some sort of practiced routine. “Spine-tricks.”

“…Four.” He peered down as a police car nosed into a space along the curb. “There’s been a fourth. Something different this time.”

“Right, and…” John dragged a hand down his face, blinking hard as he lifted himself back up. He shot a look towards Mrs. Hudson, asking silently if she’d seen what he’d seen. “…How’d you come to that conclusion?”

“That’s Lestra—’s car, if he’s coming directly to me then it’s serious.”

Les-tra-who? He didn’t catch that name all the way.

John stepped toward him before quickly flinching back—Sherlock dropped from the window to the floor in one liquid motion. This time, John caught the mechanics: the low drop, the catch on both hands, knees tucked, toes barely kissing carpet, then a spring back up.

Mrs. Hudson had to hop aside to avoid being clipped as he scurried for the door. By the time her gasp arrived, he was already halfway down the steps.

“Mrs. Hudson—ma’am,” John lifted his hand as if he were a crossing guard, waiting for her attention, “Tell me I’m not just seeing things. Please… Is Sherlock wearing a tail?”

Chapter Text

“Where?” Sherlock’s voice rang from the stairwell—sharp, bright, eagerness barely veiled by a thin layer of professionalism.

“Brixton, Lauriston Gardens.” A tougher voice, one unknown to John replied. Not deeper than Holmes’ per se; if anything, a touch higher, but it carried more confidence and a note of command. “Lauriston Gardens”, the address to a crime scene, no doubt. But why on Earth is he going out of his way to tell that to Sherlock?

With his cane clicking down the steps, John was finally able to crane his head around the corner, getting a proper look at Sherlock and—what was it, Laschmidt? The other fellow, anyhow. Sherlock leaned forward excessively in the doorway—bent knees, balanced on his toes; posture almost digitigrade. The other man did the exact opposite: curving back as if Holmes were some sort of gross pest rather than an ally.

Police? He looked the part, he’s got the car—redundant question. Of course he was. But why was he here? He’s slightly shorter than Sherlock, but about twice as thick, a bit older too judging by his gray hair. White dress shirt with a black coat—original. Not that John could talk; his wardrobe strictly consisted of collared shirts and wool sweaters.

“What’s new about this one? You wouldn’t have come to get me if it wasn’t something different.”

“You know how they never leave notes…? This one did,” La…sanders said with a short nod. “Anderson’s on forensics. Will you still come?”

‘Still come?’—‘Still?’ What business did Holmes have knowing anyone in forensics? Why is his presence expected?

“Anderson won’t work with me, remember?” He huffed, spine tilting back. What business does Holmes have developing rivalries with anyone in forensics??

“Yes or no? I’m not here for your life story.”

“Yes, but not in your car. I’ll follow right behind.”

Lasmith bowed his head down before turning away—an odd sign of respect considering his tone otherwise. “Thank you.”

Sherlock stepped back as the door shut, spine gradually straightening. He paused, as if he had to take a moment to process the exchange. Fair, John did too, if not already evident by his open-jawed stare. A couple of short, breathy chuffs escaped from Sherlock’s throat, lips twitching in restraint before caving in and bursting into cheer.

“Brilliant!” He jumped up into the air, “Yes! Ah—Four serial suicides, and now a note! Oh, it’s like Christmas!”

Watson stood in shock at the sight—every piece of information that came within a kilometer of this flat was utterly absurd: The landlady’s husband got executed in Florida, Sherlock helped it happen, the man darts around on all fours, his kitchen resembles a munitions test site, there was a glimpse of what he swore was a costume tail under his coat, a policeman came to the door to personally invite him to a crime scene… and the news of four suicides has got him ecstatic?!

“Mrs. Hudson, I’ll be late—might need some food,” he paced around the flat’s landing with enthusiasm, practically bouncing as he raked his hands through his hair in rapid succession; it read like some sort of nervous tic, “Something cold will do just fine!”

Sherlock turned to him with a wide-eyed focus, the bloody things glowed green with how they caught the light. John stumbled back a bit, and it was like the sudden movement triggered Holmes to spring into action: “John!” He leaped out at him, getting within a few inches of his face, “John—have a cup of tea, make yourself at home! Don’t wait up—”

Before John could even react properly, Sherlock hopped back towards the door, scurrying in a blur of motion before bolting out—the hinges swung open, and then they slammed right back shut. He stood frozen solid at the end of the stairwell, cane trembling in his grip as his mind scrambled to rationalize the movements he’d just seen—no explanation saw fit. There was a moment of cold, empty silence before Mrs. Hudson sauntered back to the top of the stairs.

“Look at him, dashing about,” she sighed fondly as she made her way down, “My husband was just the same, always jumping into action at a moment’s notice… you’re more of the sitting-down type though, aren’t you?”

“Mrs. Hudson,” John turned. His expression made her pause mid-step. He didn’t look amused, not in the slightest. He looked like he’d just seen a ghoul. “How does he… what the hell makes him move like that?”

She sighed, folding her hands together. “I’ll put the kettle on, dear. Come upstairs; you need to keep that leg rested.”

“No—no!” John’s shout made her jump, “What was that?! Don’t just walk away from me!”

“You’re not the first, love. He… can be unsettling at first.”

“So it’s not just me? I’m not mad, then? He’s bolting ‘round like a stray animal and we’re just—what—pretending that’s normal?!

Mrs. Hudson’s eyes flickered with sympathy, though John couldn’t tell if it was for him or Holmes. She drew a deep breath before turning away, and only then did John realize how loud he’d been.

“No, ma’am—I’m sorry,” Watson pleaded as he followed her upstairs, making an effort to soften his tone. “I’m just… I’m not judging him, but… literally how does he manage that?! One moment he’s stood calm and still, the next he’s—you saw it! He dropped to the floor and ran around quadrupedal, like it was nothing! The human spine isn’t supposed to bend like that, it… it looked natural on him—too natural!”

“You’ll get used to him dear.”

His knee bent to take another step. John halted, reaching up to rub his eyes.

“The lie is that you’ll get used to him.”—“And the truth?”—“You won’t want to.”

He let out a defeated sigh as his thoughts replayed the event. The smug bastard—Mike read him like a damn book that day. Haven’t seen each other in years, and yet the man somehow just knew John would get a kick out of this whole thing. He hated that he was right, and he hated how he couldn't stop himself from feeling utterly thrilled by it all.

“I need to—I’m gonna go, ma’am,” he breathed, a mix of guilt and shame lowering his voice. “I want to go follow him. I shouldn’t, but… there are things I need to ask. My curiosity will eat me alive if I don’t.

He gave her an apologetic nod before turning around, tightening his grip on his cane—it rapped unevenly against the steps as he descended back down, each knock on the wood echoing his doubt. By the time he reached the door and pushed it open, a rush of cool air hit him, sharp enough to clear his head.

He half-expected the street to be empty, but when he finally emerged outside, the breeze whistling against his face, he saw Sherlock standing at the roadside, coat flaring as he waved for a cab.

“Sherlock! You—”

“Oh good, I was hoping you’d come along.” Sherlock barely looked at him, only flicking a glance over his shoulder before bellowing, “Taxi!”

“Come along?” John blinked, floored. “No! No, I haven't agreed to anything—” He smacked Sherlock’s arm, as if he could swat the idea out of the air. “Put your hand down, dammit. I’m not spending all day chasing after you, I just have—”

“Too late.” A cab screeched up to the curb, and Sherlock had the door wrenched open before the tires even stopped rolling. “Either come along or stay behind. Your choice.”

John stood rooted, heart pounding in his chest. Sherlock already started climbing in, a black blur of cloth disappearing into shadowed leather. John looked to the strangers passing on the pavement, as if one might offer advice, or tell him what the sane choice would be. None did.

“God, help me,” he muttered again, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Fine, but you’re answering my questions.”

“Terrific. About me, I assume? My favorite subject.”

Bloody arrogant, he is. John reluctantly plopped down into the seat next to him, setting his cane down on the floor as he shut the door. He took a deep breath as Sherlock told the address—he didn’t even know where to start.

“So you’re… okay, for starters, I don’t care what you do,” he prefaced as the taxi began to drive, “I’m not judging, I’m baffled—how? Like… seriously, how? I’ve been a doctor for years now, and I have never, not once in my life, seen a human being propel themselves like that, especially not down a whole flight of stairs!”

Sherlock watched him speak, his expression neutral, the only indicator of emotion being his brows slightly perked up.

“You’re a doctor, an Army doctor, in fact.”

“Yes, that’s—of course I am, that’s what I just said!”

“Any good?”

John’s face collapsed into an exasperated scowl. He gave a curt nod. “Very good.”

Chapter Text

“You’ve never worked with him before, I take it?” Lestrade asked as John approached the door, stopping him mid-movement.

“…No, of course not—I just told you, we only met two days back.”

He drew a sharp breath, stepping closer. “Then here’s a warning: If you freaked out over him sprinting up some steps, what you’re about to see will floor you.”

John’s brows knitted. “It’s that bad?”

“For someone like you? Yeah.” Watson gave a funny look in response—‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Lestrade caught it and added, “You try to put an explanation on everything he does, but you can’t. Whatever you think he’s gonna do, toss it out—I guarantee you’ll be wrong.”

John blinked at him, pulse quickening. Lestrade gave him a pointed look. “If you plan on sticking around him, take my advice: Stop trying to make sense of things.” Before he could form a reply, Lestrade gestured to the knob. “Go on, then. Let's get this over with.”

His fingers tightened around the handle. “…Right.” The way Lestrade spoke left a thrum in his chest—it felt like a dare he wasn’t sure he wanted to take. He took a deep breath, twisted the knob, and pushed the door open.

The room was almost empty. Bare walls, wooden floors, and a woman’s body sprawled across it; limbs loose, eyes glassy. The stillness was broken only by the sharp scrape of nails against wood—Sherlock wasn’t standing over the body with some sort of magnifying glass like John imagined a detective would. There was no clipboard, or camera, or… anything of the sort. He was everywhere at once, prowling the room in sporadic bursts.

He crouched low beside her, spine folded so sharply it looked painful, nose hovering barely an inch from her hair as he took in long, deliberate breaths. He muttered to himself between whiffs: “Perfume. Recently applied. Strong—trying to cover something. Vomit too, faint—choked on it in the end. Asphyxiation.” Lestrade raised a brow at the movement, but didn’t intervene, as if this were just a part of his procedure.

Then, without warning, he sprang to her other side, dropping hard to the floor—was it a stumble, or intentional? He made no effort to get up, shifting his limbs around until John eventually realized that he was trying to mimic her pose. Sprawled out, head tilted to the side, lips parted, staring at nothing—like he was trying to envision the scene through her eyes.

“She didn’t struggle—trusted who brought her here. Or knew she had no choice, maybe a hostage.” In a blink he was up again, crawling forward on all fours to sniff at her hand, taking a particular interest in one of the golden bands before carefully removing it. "Necklace, bracelets… all spotless, except the ring. Unhappy marriage, ten years or better.” His eyes narrowed at the piece as he raised it to the light, taking a moment before inserting it back onto her hand.

Fascinating and horrifying all at once. Lestrade wasn’t exaggerating. This most definitely surpassed his antics in the stairwell. Not so much on the physical end of things, but definitely the behavioral one. He crossed his arms, watching intently as the detective rolled around. He thought the scene couldn’t get any stranger, but as Holmes leaned closer, eyes now focused on the tips of her fingers…

John’s voice cracked out before he could stop himself: “Sherlock?!”

“Right—enough!” Lestrade’s voice pierced through the room as he stormed over, quite literally dragging him away from the body. “I’m already breaking a page’s worth of rules letting you in here, asshole. The last thing I need is somebody asking why your tongue ever came in contact with the corpse!”

“Bitter trace. Pill coating. Not swallowed voluntarily.”

All he could do was stare, mouth hung open in utter shock—watching in stunned silence as Lestrade had to haul a grown man from a body after he started lapping at its fingers. Jesus fucking Christ. The sight made his stomach flip—he pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, throat bobbing as he tried to keep his gag reflex at bay.

Lestrade let out a groan as he pulled the man’s weight by the coat, voice low and grating as he wiped his hands. “Bloody hell, Holmes. You have one minute to make up for that stunt before I write that you need a muzzle in the rulebook!”

Sherlock’s eyes flicked up at him, pupils wide in an almost playful fashion. “Poison capsule. The coating still clung to her fingertips—she hesitated before taking it. Not the kind of pill anyone would choose for their death, too foul. Clearly wealthy—she wouldn’t have settled for something that unpleasant. No traces of alcohol, so she wasn’t intoxicated, nor did she have anything substantial to wash it down with.”

He shifted in Lestrade’s grip, writhing towards the body like he was magnetized to it. “Traveled from Cardiff; coat’s damp. Heavy rain a few hours ago, but London’s been clear. Umbrella’s bone-dry, back of the collar is wet, must’ve been flipped up then—both say heavy wind. Couldn’t have come far if it’s still damp. What city fits all that, Lestrade?”

Sherlock paused his rambling for just a moment, looking up at the man holding him for approval, that familiar v shape returning to his lips. “Is that enough, or should I continue?”

“Do you have anything else, or is that your smug way of saying ‘I’m finished’?”

“Of course I have more. I could go on for an hour if I truly wanted.”

“…Brilliant,” John muttered, his heart still hammering against his chest, eyes widened with disbelief. Lestrade let out a noise crossing a sigh and a growl at Sherlock’s arrogance—John thinks it’s pretty well-deserved here, though.

“Late thirties, white-collar job. Something in media probably—look at the shade of pink she drowned herself in. Her suitcase was small, so it couldn’t have been an extended trip, not with how clothes-conscious she clearly must be. Overnight stay, nothing more.”

“There was no suitcase, where are you getting that from?”

“Yes there was. Correction: You didn’t find a suitcase. Tiny splash marks on her right heel and calf, dragging one on wheels behind her—you don’t get that pattern otherwise. So where is it? Couldn’t have been left at a hotel, look at her makeup—left on for hours. Would’ve touched it up if she’d stopped somewhere recently.”

“We get it,” Lestrade interrupted, voice firm and full of authority. “Think you’ve well impressed your new friend here—wrap it up, what’s your conclusion?”

“Forced ingestion—not a suicide, a murder. Obviously.”

John swallowed hard. How the hell…?

“Obviously?” Sneered a familiar, nasally voice as the door creaked back open. Anderson leaned in, craning his head into a conversation he was clearly never invited to. “From what? The position of her shoes?”

“Anderson,” Lestrade groaned, already at about his wits end with this evening. “Why are you here? You’re supposed to be on the ground level.”

“I was halfway down the stairs before I realized he was still carrying on. Figured I’d come to catch the encore.”

“Halfway down the stairs? So what—you were lingering up here before then?”

Anderson’s mouth opened briefly before closing back shut as he reconsidered his story. “…Either way, what was the trick? Because I sat in here for forty minutes dusting for fingerprints, and I couldn’t find a damn thing! The closest thing we have to a clue is the word she scraped into the wood.”

Scraped into the wood? John hadn’t noticed anything of the sort in—

Oh. Well would you look at that.

“That’s because your mind can only process surface-level observations,” Sherlock snapped, climbing back into an upright stance, straightening to his full height. “The only pieces of evidence you know how to look for are what was spoon-fed to you in training—never once have you put your own thought into anything.”

“Enough, both of you. I’m not playing referee tonight.” Lestrade stepped between them, cutting the line of sight. “Anderson, shut the door on your way out. Sherlock, try behaving for five minutes—that muzzle rule is still under consideration.”

John caught himself almost cracking a smirk at the bickering—almost—before the memory of Sherlock licking the hand of a corpse dragged his stomach back into knots.

The door clicked back shut, and the room returned to silence. Anderson was out for barely a second before Sherlock dropped back down to all fours, approaching the woman’s body again as if he hadn’t just gone on a whole monologue about solving it.

“Christ, what are you looking for now?” Lestrade grumbled, hovering closely behind. His jaw was tight, face scrunched into a scowl as he folded the edges of his sleeves once over, already preparing to drag him out again. “You cracked the code, now leave. You know I can’t let you wander around here too long.”

“I know how she died, but I need to know why.” He complained as he began to rummage around the body once more. “What good is knowing the how if I don’t know the who?”

“No, Sherlock—time’s up. Out.” Lestrade’s voice cut unforgivingly. Sherlock ducked flat against the floor to evade his reach, but Lestrade didn’t even break stride. He just hooked an arm under Sherlock’s chest and started hauling him towards the door—something he’d clearly done at least a dozen times before.

“The word!” Sherlock dug his heels into the floor, “Carved into the boards—Rachel! But why? Who’s Rachel—why did she wait until she was about to die to write it?!

“Lurking around it won’t give you new insight; save it for the paperwork. You’ll have plenty of time for all your little deductions later,” Lestrade grunted back, shoving him out into the hall. John followed without thinking, still half in shock.

Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering something about paperwork—Sherlock skipped a few paces ahead, rattling off clues to deaf ears. But none of it meant a thing to John, not at this moment. His mind stayed trapped in that room, the smell still stuck in his nose, staring at the image burned into his head.

‘You try to put an explanation on everything he does, but you can’t.’

His stomach rolled—was he just meant to get used to this? Everyone else had: Lestrade treated it like routine, Anderson like a nuisance, Hudson like it was charming. John alone was left with his heart pounding, still trying to make sense of it.

He licked a body. Sherlock Holmes—world’s first and only ‘Consulting Detective’. Tongue against dead human flesh as if it were nothing. And yet, despite the madness, a part of him wanted to see more.

Lestrade barked something out as a blur of movement darted in front of them—Sherlock bolted off again, of course, but it barely registered to John this time. He blinked. His body kept moving, but his mind stayed snagged on the same grotesque loop. By the time his brain caught up, the bare walls echoed with the slam of a wooden door below.

⊰ ⋆🐾⋆ ⊱

“You look lost,” Sally called out to him, noticing the way John’s head flicked around the scene outdoors. “He’s gone if that’s what you’re scanning for.”

“Who—Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yeah, took off a minute ago. Looked manic, doubt he’ll remember to pick you back up.”

“…Fantastic.” John’s eyes swept around the area again. “Do you know where I could get a cab, then?”

“Over that way: Main road’s around the corner, take a right.” Donovan looked at him with that same sympathetic look: the shine Mrs. Hudson had in her eyes—the same twitch in the brows as Lestrade. Nodding, John ducked back under the police tape before she spoke up again: “You want my thoughts on all of this?”

Not really. No, he can’t say that, be polite. ”What’ve you got?”

“Stay away from that man—if you can even call him one. You see it too, don’t you?”

“See what?” Her words pricked his skin, sharper than they should have. “Did I see that he just ruled a murder in mere minutes despite that a whole team of forensics couldn’t manage a clue? Yes, I did.” His muscles tensed up, like she’d just insulted him too.

“He’s not human. He’s a wild animal. Trapped in the body of a man.” Her voice lowered as she stepped forward, “And do you know what happens when a man tries to befriend a beast?” John stared back at her, jaw tightening as their eyes held contact. “Siegfried & Roy. They say nobody could’ve predicted that the tiger would attack him on stage. But it did. Because that’s what tigers do.”

“You’re saying he’s gonna eat me or something?”

The silence stretched out as they stood there, separated only by a thin line of caution tape. “Animals need enrichment—playing detective won’t always be enough. Everyone insists the tiger’s tame; safe to pet. But is anybody surprised when it finally bares its teeth?”

He held her gaze a beat too long. “Did the tiger go crazy, or did you jab it with sticks until it bit back?”

Her expression flickered—anger, then doubt, before circling back to that same glint of pity. John didn’t wait around for her to settle on one. With that, he turned on his heel, cane clicking faintly against the asphalt.

The sirens remained flashing, blue and white washing every surface in their vicinity. The day’s obscenity was beyond him. He tried to keep his eyes on the road, to focus on the pavement—but the images kept intruding: Sherlock crouched over a corpse, spine bent like a tight hinge—tongue flicking like a snake. The grotesque mimicry, how he laid sprawled on the floor, jerking like a snared rabbit.

John shook his head as if to scatter the thoughts, but they stayed persistent; heavy in his chest—fascination tangled together with repulse. The way he seems to default to all fours the moment he focuses, how his bones twist and creak into impossible formations. ‘A genetic mishap’ said Lestrade—‘a beast’ claimed Sally. How it took dragging him by the back of his coat to keep him from toying with a dead body. Watson still supported the argument for dropping him off at a laboratory.

Yet here he was, outside a crime scene, getting worked up and defensive when Sherlock was rightfully labeled a freak. Any normal person would need to witness barely a fraction of what John’s seen before deciding to make a run for it, and yet here he was: Sherlock licks the hand of a dead woman, Watson wonders what he’ll do next.

Ring-ring

John froze. Not his mobile—he checked out of habit. The sound came from ahead, sharp and close. For a moment, he half-expected an officer to wave him over, phone in hand, Holmes on the line with some fresh insanity.

Instead, he was met with a booth. Red paint faded from sun-exposure, glass panels trembling with the piercing buzz.

He frowned, scanning the street. Completely empty apart from the police force—even that was a bit of a distance. A thought popped up before he could wave it away: What if Sherlock’s ringing it? Using his… weird creepy genius powers to hack the booth and set up some elaborate prank.

But that’d be ridiculous. Whoever it was chiming for, it wasn’t him. Holmes had a phone, if he wanted to get ahold of John, he could use it. Better yet, he could quit being such a twat and come fetch him a ride.

John kept walking, but eerily enough, the moment he visibly lost interest in it—the ringing halted.

Well, obviously. Phones don’t sit on hold forever. Weird coincidence, move on Watson.

He cut through two crossings, weaving back towards the brighter roads. The hush of the lonely backstreet dissolved into noise—chatter spilling from pubs, bus engines growling, the wet splash of tires dipping through gutters. Normal city life, loud and careless. Relief, almost.

He slowed his pace a little, adjusting the grip on his cane. The press of bodies around him was usually claustrophobic, but after the deafening silence from before, it felt almost welcoming. Staying with the crowd would help the memories from that day rub off… he wanted it to, at least.

A cab trundled by with its light off—John raised his hand too late to flag it. Of course. He pulled his coat tighter, trying to focus on everyday things: the soft glow coming from an evening café’s open sign, a couple singing together off-key, a child laughing too loudly on the adjacent curb. For a few steps, it almost worked.

Ring-ring

Almost.

His stomach took on a faint queasiness, like he was being taunted. This time it came from a narrow pet shop, still open despite the hour. The door was left slightly open, fluorescent light spilling onto the pavement. Inside, the landline rattled in its holster, vibrating the wall as it shrieked. Parrots began to squawk, rabbits thumped their feet, and dogs howled at the disturbance.

John lingered outside, throat tight. Nobody behind the counter, no clerk rushing to answer—just rows of restless creatures and a phone that wouldn’t stop blaring.

No—he’s moving on. Faster this time, trying to shake it. Keep walking, call a cab, go back to his hotel. Shower—yeah, a hot shower when he’s back. Get the smell of that woman’s perfume off of him. Relax and forget about all the horrifically morbid things he’s had to witness this evening.

Ring-ring

His chest clenched.

Another booth, identical to the first: Red and bleak, standing out on the open pavement like it had been planted there just for him. Waiting. The shrill noise lured his eyes in like a siren’s song, receiver clattering on its hook in a beck and call.

Three of them now, one after the other. Following him—but why?

It wasn’t a coincidence—too convenient; too perfect. Catered too closely to the day’s events, not natural. He looked around frantically, heartbeat banging in his ears.

“Christ…” he muttered to himself, voice thin. “Two days with Sherlock Holmes, and I’ve gone bloody mad.”

Ring-ring

His feet carried him forward before his mind had a chance to catch up.

Ring-ring

Chapter Text

“There is a security camera on the building to your left, do you see it?”

John’s grip tightened on the receiver, a knot of unease. The voice was calm and calculating, every syllable set carefully into place. It wasn't a question, not even instruction—it was a test.

His eyes darted around the booth, from the glass to the dial. “Sorry, who’s speaking?”

“Do you see the camera, Dr. Watson? Yes or no?”

His head spun around for a moment. Would you look at that? There it was—fixed to the brickwork, lens staring directly at him through the panes. “…Yeah.”

“Good. Now watch.” The camera shifted, slow and deliberate. Right, then down. “Do you see what it’s pointed at?”

John followed the movement, pulse hammering. Dark paint. Darker windows. Chrome accents reflecting orange from the streetlamps above. He was pretty sure he knew where this was going already.

“Get into the car, Dr. Watson.”

The driver’s door opened with choreographic precision. A man stepped out from the driver’s side, dressed in government-black. Anonymous and efficient, the kind of man who could blend into any crowd. He opened the rear door with a smooth click. Not an offer. A demand.

He froze, phone pressed hard to his ear as he stared. His thoughts were racing a mile a minute in his head, but they all led back to one familiar face. “How are you… doing this? Are—Sherlock, is that you?”

“Not far off, Doctor. But speculation wastes everyone’s time. Step into the car and you’ll have your answer.”

The driver looked at him without expression. Waiting. Christ. Maybe the sergeant was right.

The receiver clicked dead. John pulled it from his ear, staring at it like it might come to life and bite. He could feel his heart pounding in his throat. The driver hadn’t moved, not even to blink. Just stood there with the door open, an invitation with the weight of a threat.

He swallowed, setting the phone back down in its cradle. No option was ideal, and every nerve in his body screamed ‘trap’. But a man didn’t spend months under fire overseas to chicken out at a suspicious car.

John shoved the booth’s door open, and the hinges creaked like a warning plea. The air bit against his skin as he walked out, the temperature felt like it’d dropped at least ten degrees—or maybe that was just his blood running cold. His boots scuffed against the pavement as he crossed the street; chest tightening, lungs shallow, but his stride remained steady. One thing you learn in the military: never let them see you cower.

Watson paused at the door, lips pursed tightly together. He glanced back at the street as though there would be an escape route to flee to. But he knew there wasn’t—whoever this was, they had access to the cameras, the phones, all of London no doubt. Running would be worthless here.

With a curse beneath his breath, he ducked his head and slid into the seat, door clicking shut behind him.

The driver followed suit, and the car moved at once. Tires crossing the asphalt as if it were glass—suspension luxuriously smooth. John braced himself against the seat, beads of sweat gathering on his forehead, every instinct torn between striking, bolting, and freezing.

The interior was sleek black. Authentic leather, pristine—unnervingly so, like it'd just come off the lot. But it smelt strange, his nostrils flared as he tried to pinpoint the scent: on the surface, it smelt like new rubber, but the undertone was akin to what he can only describe as a veterinary office.

“…So what's your name then?” He spoke up finally, head tilting to the side as he tried to capture a better look at the driver.

The man at the wheel hesitated for a moment. “Oscar.”

“Right—you got pets?”

“One. A Terrier.”

“My sister-in-law's got one of those, what d'ya call him?”

“…Oscar.”

Despite the stiffness in his posture, John couldn't help but crack a smile. “You named your dog after yourself?”

He waited for a response, but never received one. The driver's eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead as John's gaze wandered to the window.

Two days. Two bloody days he's known the bloke for, and he's already being abducted by proxy. What a life.

“Any point in asking where I'm going?”

“Patience.”

“Is that a fancy building name, or are you telling me to be quiet?”

His eyes looked back for a moment, locking on John's before resuming to the street. “You’re a smart man. Guess.”

Right then.

Storefronts and lampposts whipped by in flashes as he stared through the dark tint, the streets becoming older and increasingly rundown as they wheeled along—not the end of town he expected a car like this to cab him to. Before he knew it, they were pulling into the garage of a washed up warehouse.

The wheels slowed to a halt, the hum of the motor cutting cleanly. John sat for a moment longer than he should have, hand hovering on the handle. The driver had already stepped out, waiting, but offered nothing—no words, no glance. Just the open door, and the silence hung thick in the air.

The cold slapped him as he climbed out. Not wind this time—the kind of damp chill that lives between concrete walls. It crept into his bones before he’d even cleared the car. The garage smelt faintly of oil and dust, the air too still, as if it hadn’t been disturbed in years.

His boots scuffed against the concrete, each step reverberating a cavernous echo. The sound of his cane struck sharper, too loud, like the ticking of an old clock—marking each second that went by. The driver stayed behind him, only moving to close the door. Shadows pooled high against the metallic rafters above, broken only by the intermittent flicker of fluorescent light. And there—further in—sat a figure. Upright, composed, utterly still, as if he’d been waiting there his whole life.

His instincts rose like bile: count exits, measure distance, weapon check—none, of course. Only his cane.

The man ahead didn’t move. Not a tilt of the head, not a shift in posture, nothing. Just a silhouette outlined in pale light, one leg crossed neatly over the other, something long propped at his side. A cane, John thought. No—an umbrella?

Without so much as lifting his head, the voice came. Calm. Certain. The tone of a man who knew the game was entirely his to conduct.

“Have a seat, Dr. Watson.”

John’s steps echoed as he crossed the open floor, each one feeling heavier than the last. The figure ahead remained still—a painting hung in the shadows. As he approached closer, the details became clear: His suit was immaculate, seams cut into razor-straight lines, screaming of money and authority.

But that wasn’t why John suddenly froze.

He squinted, convinced the light was just playing tricks on his vision. The man’s scalp, shiny where his hairline had receded, wasn’t the strange part. It was what rose above it—two shapes, subtle in the dark, too symmetrical to be stray hair or an illusion.

His mouth fell open. Shut. Opened again. His brain scrabbled for excuses: prosthetics, some grotesque rich-man surgery, an elaborate prank. Christ, maybe he was hallucinating from stress. His therapist mentioned that can be a side effect of PTSD.

But then one of them twitched.

Not a slip of fabric, neither glued-on rubber. Flesh. Real. A second pair of ears, but not a human’s. Triangular and sharp, standing proud on his head like they’d always been there. Patchy fur mirroring his thinning hair.

John’s stomach felt like it’d dropped clean through him.

“What… what the hell are those?” His voice cracked, finger jabbing up at him before he could restrain himself. “No—what are you? Are you even…?”

The man smiled faintly, unbothered. He gestured to the chair opposite, voice as calm and precise as it had been on the phone. “Please take a seat, Dr. Watson. You’ll have time for all your little inquiries in a moment.”

‘Little’ is a vast understatement.

John couldn’t drag his eyes away. Sharp. Pointed. Organic. There were no seams, no stitches, nothing to explain them. Not prosthetics. Not surgery. Not special effects. Ears. Animal ears. Just… attached to his skull. Like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

“You know, I've… got a phone.” John stated dryly as he limped over, doing his best to mask his fear. “I mean, very clever, no doubt. Can't even… begin to wrap my mind around how you… did all that. But, er… you can just ring my mobile.”

“When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, you must learn to be discreet.”

“Driving me mental with psychic phone booths is more discreet than just giving me a call?”

“Your leg must be hurting you. Sit down, I insist.”

“If I wanted to sit, I would've.”

The man's head tilted, ears rotating like a bloody pair of… fleshy satellite dishes. Christ. It made his skin crawl just looking at them. “You don't seem very afraid, Doctor.”

“Hard to take you serious when you've got sphynx ears, quite frankly.”

His face broke out into a grin at John's words, chuckling as the appendages twisted forward at him. Fucking nasty looking, they were. “The bravery of the soldier,” his teeth shone with artificial whiteness. “Bravery is quite a flattering word for stupidity, don't you think? Tell me, Watson, what is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?”

His eyes scanned the man's face, finally breaking contact with his… appendages. “I don't… have one. I barely know him—met him two days ago.”

“Mmm, and since then, you've managed to move in with him and begin tagging along to crime scenes? Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?”

“Who are you?”

“An interested party.”

“…Interested in Sherlock? Why? I'm guessing you're not friends.” His gaze wandered back up to the man's hairline. “You two come out of the same lab or something?”

The man stared at him for a moment, brows raising before falling back flat. “I am the closest thing to a friend that somebody like Sherlock Holmes is capable of having—an enemy. If you were to ask him, I imagine he'd even go as far as to say arch-enemy. He always has loved his theatrics.”

“…You know, you don't have to say his full name every time. With a name like Sherlock, there's only one guy who'll pop up in your head.”

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes—is that any better for you, Watson?”

“Quite worse actually.”

Beep.

John felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, fetching it with his free hand as he glanced down at the screen.

Baker Street. Come at once if convenient. SH

“I certainly hope I'm not distracting you, Doctor,” the man sneered. “Tell me—do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?”

“Correct me if I'm wrong…” John put his phone back into his coat, “but I think that's none of your business?”

“Perhaps not to your standards,” the ears twisted backwards, John recognizing the pose as mild aggression—assuming they behave the same as his sister’s old tabby. “But I think I have something of interest to offer you.”

His face raised slightly as the man dug through his suit pocket, pulling out a thick wad of cash. “I'd be happy to pay you a good sum of money on a regular basis, assuming you've already decided to move into 221B Baker Street—to make the troubles of dealing with him worthwhile.”

“Why?”

“Because you're not a wealthy man—”

“No, in exchange for what? You don't just throw money at a man out of… pity.”

“…Information, and your silence.”

“On what?”

The man's eyes narrowed into an expression John couldn't quite read. “You've seen it haven't you?”

He stared back at the man in silence. That does nothing to narrow things down. The skull on the fireplace? The way he runs on all fours? How he licked a dead body in the name of detective work?

“Dr. Watson, I have a question for you. It's only… just occurred to me that you might not have connected the dots yet. Do you know who I am?”

“…A stalker?”

He gave back a dry courtesy-laugh, one clearly not motivated by actual amusement. “My name is Mycroft Holmes.”

The name punched the air out of his lungs. Holmes.

John’s stomach lurched. His finger shot upward before he’d even thought about it. “Those—those bloody things, they’re… they’re genetic, aren’t they? Don’t—don’t you dare tell me he’s got them too. That’s why he acts so funny?”

Mycroft’s smile hardly moved. “Naturally.”

“Naturally? Naturally?! You say that like we’re talking about male-pattern baldness! No—I haven’t ‘caught on already’! What sane person would?!

“You didn’t faint,” Mycroft replied coldly. “You commented and carried on. That’s more composure than most present when given their first exposure to the topic.”

John’s grip tightened on his cane until his knuckles went white. “Composure? That wasn’t composure, that was me pretending my brain wasn’t screaming bloody murder! Christ almighty… he’s not just eccentric, is he? He’s—he’s like you.”

Mycroft leaned back slightly—not fear, not shame, just… disappointment. “Regular humans cannot traverse on all fours comfortably, certainly not with increased efficiency. That alone should have given it away. With all his quirks, the presence of ears and a tail should hardly be the most shocking—”

“And a tail?!” John exploded, stumbling back a step like he’d been shot, breath stuttering as his voice cracked against the echoey walls. “Are you just fucking with me right now?! You’re telling me—Sherlock Holmes, the world’s first and only consulting detective—walks around London with a bloody tail tucked under his coat?! And I’m just—what? Meant to sit here and nod along like that’s perfectly normal?!”

“Normalcy is irrelevant, Doctor.” Mycroft remained unnervingly calm as John’s footsteps rang louder than his cane—certainly not good for his limp.

“So when I saw him shoot down the stairs of his goddamn flat, and I asked his landlady, ‘Is he wearing some sort of tail?’, I wasn’t just losing my mind then?! She just laughed and said I’d get used to him—Christ! I should’ve known it then!”

“So you have seen it.”

“Of course I’ve bloody seen it, you prick!”

“I fail to see why I’m responsible for your conflicting statements.” He replied back, tone infuriatingly nonchalant. “I am aware this is a topic of great concern. That is exactly why I request your silence on the matter.”

“Oh—my silence! Brilliant! Tell you what, here’s an idea—how about you ask him to stop crawling on the ground like a Labrador and licking corpses in front of police officers?!”

“If only self-control were as simple as a polite request. In reality, the only reliable leash for Sherlock Holmes is a straightjacket.”

John stared at him, ‘composure’ burned away to ash. He’d almost managed to rationalize this one—a creepy rich bloke with money to waste on strange surgeries. Fine. That he could live with. But genetic? No. That’s not just bizarre quirks, that’s a whole new goddamn species he’s living among!

His heart battered against his ribs as he fought to steady his voice. “What else, then? Ears, tail, running about on all fours—what else haven’t you told me? Claws? Whiskers? Am I going to wake up one morning to him coughing up hairballs in the kitchen sink?”

Mycroft only raised his brows. A gesture that said, quite clearly: You tell me.

“While I sympathize with your new revelations, do try to save the dramatics for Baker Street. You and I were meant to be having a civil discussion.”

“Right. Civil. Of course.” John’s stare was glassy, his words flat. “Because finding out my new flatmate’s an alien is just another Tuesday. Silly me.”

“‘Alien’ is a rather inaccurate label, Doctor. Our kind is as native to this planet as yours. Now where were we?”

From his coat, Mycroft produced the familiar stack of cash, extending it with a steady hand. John only realized it had vanished when he saw it again. “Keep me informed on his whereabouts. Let me know what he’s up to. And of course—keep the anatomical discoveries to yourself.”

John’s grip tightened on the cane, his weight shifting with the heat in his chest. “Why? Why the hell should I? You’re bloody mad, you know that? Everyone can see he’s not… normal. So what’s the difference, eh? Him tearing around London like a lunatic, or me just saying it out loud?”

“And what do you think happens when you cross a man with access to all of Britain?” Mycroft’s voice was calm, almost curious. “Do you truly assume my reach ends at camera feeds and phone booths?”

“Yeah? And what happens when I ring the authorities and tell them there’s a pair of cat-men loose on the streets?”

“The authorities care far less about new species than they do my wealth, Doctor.” Mycroft stepped closer, the tap of his umbrella echoing off the concrete. “If animal control were the issue, he and I would’ve been caged long ago. Silence isn’t about fear—it’s about convenience. And image.”

John let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “Convenience and image. Right. Well you can keep your bloody hush money—I’ve survived worse than your umbrella tricks.”

“Pride is an admirable trait,” Mycroft replied smoothly, pocketing the cash without breaking eye contact. “But it does tend to shorten one’s lifespan.”

John’s jaw tightened. He adjusted his grip on the cane and straightened his back, making sure his voice didn’t waver. “Then I’ll take my chances.”

Silence stretched. Mycroft studied him for a beat too long, then took a step back, his shoes clicking against the polished floor. “As you wish, Doctor. But remember—your choices rarely affect only yourself.”

Beep.

If inconvenient, come anyway. SH

“I imagine people have already warned you to stay away from him,” Mycroft continued smoothly, catching the flicker of John’s attention. “But from your left hand, I can already see that won’t happen.”

That snapped John’s gaze back to him. Of course. Related to Sherlock. The creepy deduction thing runs in the family then. “Come again?”

“You’ve got a tremor. Left hand.” Mycroft’s eyes dipped once, then back up. “Your therapist calls it post-traumatic stress. She thinks you’re haunted by what you’ve seen overseas. She’s wrong.”

He stepped in closer, umbrella ticking softly against the concrete, leaning down until John could properly feel the weight of his eyes. The ears were pointed forward now, sharp as blades. “You’re under stress in this moment, yet your hand is perfectly steady. That’s not trauma, Doctor.”

John’s body screamed to step back, but he ignored its cries. He held his ground, jaw tight, spine ironed straight.

Mycroft’s smile cut like a razor. “You don’t fear the war.” A pause, deliberate and cruel. “You miss it.”

The words landed like a strike to the chest. John’s throat worked, but nothing came out. Mycroft didn’t wait for a response—his lips curled into that same uncanny shape as Sherlock’s, but colder. “From army doctor to cat wrangler. The battlefield is calling you home.”

Beep.

Could be dangerous. SH

⊰ ⋆🐾⋆ ⊱

John trudged his way back up the steps—the ones of 221B Baker Street, of course, where else? Why he was here though, honestly, he doesn't know. Oscar asked for a destination, it's all he could come up with.

Surely not the address to his hotel. The hotel with his suitcase, his clothes, his toothbrush—all the sensible trappings of a sane life. No, apparently that wasn’t what his brain reached for. Instead he’d given directions to this madhouse. Because of course, after being abducted by a stranger with literal cat ears growing out of his skull, the best option was to return to the flat of an insane freelance detective who is also—apparently—some sort of bloody feline anomaly… hybrid… creature-thing.

His ‘little inquiries’ never were given their turn like he was promised.

The moment he opened the door, he was hit with a sight that, depressingly, didn’t even register as shocking anymore. Six feet of grown man was ricocheting between chairs and tables on all fours like a panther in a criminally undersized zoo enclosure.

John stood in the doorway, staring. His heart beat once, then twice. The sheer absurdity of it pressed down on him. Two days—two goddamn days—and this is what his life had become.

“…So what's this then?” He asked finally, tone stale, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “You just gonna keep bouncing around, or do I get an explanation?”

“Thinking.” Sherlock replied as his body sprung between objects. “I need movement when I do so. Repetitive movement. Standing still for too long agitates me.”

“Right. Of course.” John shifted his cane, mouth tightening.

Known the bloke for forty-eight hours and he was already watching him hop furniture like a manic housecat while trying to process the revelation that he wasn’t even human. He wondered—not for the first time—if he’d actually died in Afghanistan, and this was all some fever-dream purgatory.

“‘Come at once if convenient—if inconvenient, come anyway,’ that's what you said, right?” He took a step closer, cane thumping against the carpet. “What do you need then? Didn't bring me here to watch you do acrobatics, did you?”

Sherlock paused mid-pounce, spine arching before he straightened and vaulted down, landing neatly on his arms. He popped upright, barely a foot of distance left between he and John, like some horrific curly-haired Jack-in-the-Box. “Oh, right, of course. Can I borrow your phone?”

John jerked back, nose wrinkling. “That's what those texts were about? I was on the other side of London, for Christ's sake.”

“There was no hurry,” Sherlock said breezily. “You were going to come back here anyway.”

“Confident, aren’t you.” John gestured vaguely toward the door. “Mrs. Hudson's got a phone, doesn't she? Can't just use hers?”

“She's downstairs. I shouted, but she didn't hear. Or ignored me, she likes to do that.”

John barked out a sharp laugh. “You can vault your way across every chair in the flat like an Olympic gymnast, but you can't take two seconds to leap down the steps and knock? You ever wonder maybe that's why she ignores you?”

Sherlock stared. Not offended, not even confused—just that awful, unblinking stare, with his pupils far too wide in the lamplight. As if John had spoken another language entirely.

John sighed, dug out his mobile, and held it out. Sherlock didn’t take it. Just looked at it.

Watson blinked. “You’ve got the attention span of a goldfish or what mate?” He thought that’d snap Sherlock back into action, but evidently not. “Christ—you just want me to do everything for you, is that it?”

He grabbed Sherlock’s wrist, twisted it palm-up, and dropped the phone into it. “There. Happy? Why do you need it anyway—let me guess: battery died, couldn’t be bothered to pick your arse up and grab a charger? Thought it’d be easier if I’d fetched you mine? I hope if you plan on treating me like your butler, I’ll be getting paid for it.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to text you if my phone was dead.” He snarked back, finally acknowledging the mobile in his hand and pulling it close. “Her case. Suitcase. Obviously.”

“I'm not seeing how those two dots connect.”

Sherlock’s voice dropped to a murmur as he prowled back toward the table—literally prowled, moving on all fours before sliding up into a chair. “The murderer took her suitcase; his first big mistake. It's no use. No other way. We'll have to risk it.” His head snapped back ‘round. “John. There's a number on my desk—take your phone back—send a text to it.”

He stared at Sherlock for a moment before smiling faintly—not joy, rather disbelief. “You asked for my phone. I put it in your hand for you. And now you want me to take it back so I can type on your behalf?”

“Yes. The number on my desk. Send a text to it.”

John laughed again, sharp and humorless. The cat thing clearly isn’t limited to his acrobatics, he’s got the damn entitlement down, too. He reclaimed the phone from Sherlock’s palm, but didn’t move to send anything. Instead, he stared down at the other man.

“You’re fond of theatrics, yeah? Heard you like ‘em—have you got any arch-enemies by chance?”

His eyes narrowed at John’s words, pupils shifting, now resembling a slit more than his usual oval. “…How much money did he offer you to spy on me?”

So it's a recurring pattern, then. “Quite a bit. More than enough for three months' rent.”

“Did you take it?”

“…No.”

That elicited a prominent scoff from him; eyes rolling. “Pity. We could've split the cost—think it through next time.”

John's face was contorted in a cross between ‘What is your problem?’ and ‘Why am I not surprised?’ He watched Sherlock for a moment—the room and both the men in it completely still.

“What are you, Sherlock?” He said at last.

“A lot of things. A sociopath, genius, the world's greatest detective. Care to narrow it down?”

John’s voice sharpened. “I'm serious mate. He had ears—” John jabbed his phone toward him as if it were an object of leverage. “And before you make some smart-arse line about how ‘Oh, John, eVeRyOnE hAs EaRs’, you know fully well what I'm talking about.”

Sherlock's neck turned in a slow, unsettling rotation, eyes never leaving John’s face. Like an owl sizing up whether the beast in front of it was predator or prey. “…I've worked with Lestrade for five years now. Never suspected a thing past eccentricity. The fact that you've cracked it in just two—”

“No. Shut up.” John lurched forward, cane biting into the rug. “Your little nemesis dodged every single one of my questions. You're not pulling the same shit on me. What are you, Sherlock? Because I thought: maybe it was just surgery with him. Thought maybe you were just weird. But if he's related to you, then those two things are connected. Animal ears, crawling around a crime scene like you're Scooby-Fuckin’-Doo? What am I supposed to think?”

Sherlock stared back—his mouth opened, like he was about to answer… but then it closed back shut.

“‘Our kind is as native to this planet as yours—The authorities care far less about new species than they do my wealth’” John quoted, playing back Mycroft's words to Sherlock's ears as he felt his face start to burn. “He said it plain as day! Neither of you are human… so what are you?”

The silence stretched out—Sherlock didn't move, didn't blink; he just held John's eyes with that glassy patience. The kind that told every bone in your body to look away first, and the kind that also compelled you to stare deeper. For a beat too long, John felt like the animal here—cornered in a cage.

“What defines ‘human’, John? Opposable thumbs? Pattern recognition? Complex speech capabilities? Is it just the body that labels a person, or is it their soul?”

“Spare me the philosophy, Descartes. I'm asking for a proper label, not a paradox.”

“That's a shame, because it's all you're gonna get out of me.” He finally averted his gaze. “Never been a fan of labels—they're constricting. Be grateful; that's more confirmation than most ever receive.”

John shifted his weight, his cane creaking faintly. Sherlock didn't notice—or pretended not to. The pause went on a second too long, John almost considered a fake cough to fill the silence.

Dodging questions is a passed down trait, too, it seems.

“On my desk—the number. If you've forgotten.”

Bloody prick.

Chapter Text

“Jennifer Wilson,” John read from the note, brows knitting together. “That was… hang on. Wasn't that the dead—”

“Yes.” Sherlock’s voice was flat. “That's not important to you right now. Just enter the number.”

John looked over at him, weighed the argument, and let it go. His mind was still too saturated with the revelation that cat-people apparently existed for him to care about whether Sherlock wanted him texting corpses.

“Are you doing it?”

“Yes, Sherlock. You can see the phone in my hand—what else would I be doing with it?”

“I can't see the screen from this angle. Have you done it yet?”

“Christ—yes! Hang on a second, would you?” His fingers pecked at the keyboard. “Right. What do you want me to type?”

“These words exactly: ‘What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out. 22 Northumberland Street, please come.’”

Before John finished the first sentence, Sherlock unfolded from his gargoyle crouch and slipped away behind him. Plastic wheels whispered. Chair legs dragged across carpet. Something thumped down onto leather. A zipper unspooled with a quick, metallic shiver. The air shifted—sweet perfume, a powdery floral scent—as if air had been blown over a pile of ground-up rose petals.

“Have you sent it?”

“Almost—what's the address?”

“22 Northumberland Street. Hurry up!”

John turned.

A pink suitcase. Folded pajamas. A paperback. A perfume bottle—likely the source of the smell.

“That's… Sherlock—” he took a step back, a wash of negative feelings rising through him. “That's the pink lady's case. Jennifer Wilson. The—”

“Yes. Obviously. I told you earlier.”

He looked at Sherlock, then the case, then Sherlock again.

Sherlock clocked the flicker in his eyes and let out an operatic sigh. His shoulders rose and fell; the muscles under his curls seemed to tense and settle, like ears flicking under hair. “Perhaps I should mention—I'm not the one who killed her.”

“…I never said you did.”

“Why not? Given the text and the fact that I have her case, it'd be a perfectly logical assumption.”

They say nobody could’ve predicted that the tiger would attack him on stage.

“If I thought you killed her, I’d probably have started running by now.” John said, artificially dry, though the worry hadn’t quite left his voice. “Do people usually assume you're the murderer or something?”

Sally’s warning snagged at the edge of his thoughts.

Sherlock's eyes turned to crescents, teeth flashing. “Now and then, yes.” His fingers idly tapped the suitcase—light, rapid touches, almost a knead—before he stilled them.

But it did. Because that’s what tigers do.

“How did you get this, Sherlock?”

“By looking.”

Of course.

“The killer must've driven her to Lauriston Gardens; you don't forget a whole suitcase unless you're driving. Pink this bright—an immediate attention-grabber, especially for a man; which is statistically more likely. He’d notice quickly and need to ditch it. I checked every backstreet five minutes from the address—sure enough—found it in less than an hour.”

“…And you worked all that out because you realized the suitcase would be pink?”

“Of course it would be pink, didn't you see her outfit? Pink coat, pink skirt, pink shoes, pink—”

“Yes, I get it. Pink.” John nodded, glancing away. “It's just… ‘Why didn't I think of that?’ Brilliant, honestly.”

He looked back just in time to see Sherlock’s pupils blow wide, then pinch back into narrow slits. A faint vibration purred in his throat before being swallowed down. “…Because you're an idiot.”

Christ.

Sherlock was a prick. Plain and simple. Yet no offense rose—nothing real, at least. John waited for the sting of insult, but was instead met with curiosity. Or worse—a nasty thought crept in—interest.

The sergeant’s voice slid back in like a cold draft: he’s not human—he’s a wild animal. Keep your hands clear of the bars; only idiots start sticking their fingers into the cage. That’s fine advice. Sensible, even. He was smart enough to hold onto that. He would be. If Sherlock would just… stop doing things like that.

The way his spine rolled like it was built with too many vertebrae, pupils shifting from full moons to waning slits at a moment’s notice, how his throat seemed to instinctively vibrate at praise—it wasn’t natural. Not a single bit of it. He should be alarmed, he should get up and walk out the door.

This isn’t someone John should be gravitating towards. Creepy obsession with murder mysteries or not.

The visual of that dingy warehouse struck him again: Mycroft Holmes, statue-still under the fluorescents, feline appendages growing out of the top of his head like he’d been dosed with radiation. An extra set of ears. Sherlock has them too—the man said it himself—he just knows how to cover them.

“Practically everyone is. Don’t take offense.” Sherlock’s voice softened a half-tone; he blinked once, slowly. “You see what's missing, don't you?”

“From the case? No. How could I?”

“Her phone. No phone on the body, no phone in the case, and we know she had one—you just texted it. So where could it be if not anywhere on her?”

“She could've left it at home.”

“Serial adulterer, John. A careful one. You don't leave your phone lying around when you’re juggling lovers.”

John’s gaze went back and forth between Sherlock and the case as his thoughts clicked forward; gears shifting in his brain. The smell of the perfume scratched at the back of his nose—Sherlock took it in with a sharp, experimental sniff, like it’d reveal a new clue to the puzzle. “Why did you have me send that text?”

“Because—where else would her phone be? She could've lost it—sure, if you want the easy answer—but the likeliest probability is that it’s in the killer’s possession. Either he took it from her or she left it when she abandoned the case.”

“So you weren't having me text a dead lady. Rather, a murderer? What good is that going to do for—”

Ring-ring

Both of them turned as the phone buzzed.

A sharp grin eased across Sherlock’s face as his eyes locked onto the mobile. “…Kills a woman, and a few hours later, the corpse messages back.” His voice lowered to a murmur. “If someone had just found the phone, they'd ignore a text like that. But the murderer?”

Ring-ring

Sherlock snapped the suitcase shut and sprang to the coat stand. “Immediate panic, of course.”

John blinked; his body moved before his brain caught up. “Have you told the police about this yet?”

“Four people dead—no time for formalities.”

“You can't ring the cops, but you can wait for me to drive halfway across London?!”

“Yes! Mrs. Hudson took my skull after you complained.” Sherlock slid into his coat in a single ripple, scarf looped with effortless precision. “My only other option is Anderson; he's only good for hissing at. Get your cane, we're going. Quick.”

“I'm not spending all day chasing you around, Sherlock. Didn't I say that earlier?”

He jammed on his shoes as he glanced back at John. “And then you got in the cab. Come on, two for two—you're already standing.”

I think you two will hit it off if you give him a chance. Just don’t let his little performances bother you.

Goddamn you, Mike. The little performances are what’s keeping him reeled in. He knew that when he said it, too, undoubtedly.

John shook his head—amused despite himself. “Your friend Sally and I had a little chat after you ditched me at the scene. Want to know what she said?” Sherlock's head tilted forty-five degrees, like a fox scenting a path. The hem of his coat brushed his calves as weight shifted; for a moment, the fabric twitched in the back, as if something swayed beneath it.

“She said that you're a wild beast. In the body of a man.” He leaned on the cane, just a fraction. “And that trying to befriend something like you never goes well. What do you have to say about that?”

The room did a slow lap of silence as they stared at each other. The radiator ticked—a car chuffed past outside. John looked entertained; Sherlock didn’t.

“‘A man mixed with a wild beast’ would be a more accurate description. Do tell her to be less… ignorant next time.”

Their gaze held together a beat longer before Sherlock turned. He slipped the chain and swung open the door with a neat, quiet pull—corridor exhaling the scent of dust and tea.

John cursed under his breath, but he followed regardless, like the idiot he is. Down they went: John in his rhythm of click, step, breath—Sherlock ahead by a landing, weight balanced on his toes, glancing behind him to make sure he was participating in the little game of tag.

At the ground floor, he waited, holding the front door open with a metallic click of the latch. Night air slid in—Sherlock’s coat flapping lightly against his shins with the draft—the scent of damp stone, greenery, and restaurant food from Speedy’s next door wafting in. John gave a small, exasperated nod at the polite gesture; Sherlock was still thoroughly on his nerves, but not enough that he’d miss the opportunity to go play Spot-the-Killer together.

Sherlock lifted his head, taking a deep breath in as if he were mapping out their path with scent. John got ahead a few steps before Sherlock finally set pace—it took him three strides before he was able to refine it into something vaguely human-shaped—slowing himself to match John’s cadence.

John rolled his shoulder as he followed the other man’s lead. “Where are we going again?”

“You are awful with addresses—it’s Northumberland Street. A five minute walk from here, no use in taking a cab.”

“Right. For someone with two good legs.”

“Four, when I don't have an audience.”

He opened his mouth for a moment before deciding to close it back shut. It wasn’t the number that snagged him, it was the word—audience. What was he when no one was watching: man or animal? He thought back to the stairwell sprint, how he’d leveled three flights of spiral stairs in less than thirty seconds, doing so while crawling around like a cheetah in a scarf. How just a moment ago, the back of his coat twitched like it was hiding a counterweight—like his spine didn’t end where it was supposed to.

Sensible men keep their distance from things that rewrite anatomy. Sensible men don’t tag along to crime scenes with vigilante detectives who run their tongues across corpses. Sensible men turn the other way, walk back home, and go to bed.

John isn’t a sensible man, if you couldn’t tell by now. He was more on par to someone leaning over the creaky side railing of a cliff to see how long the fall would be.

“So you ask the killer to come meet us somewhere and you think he actually will? He'd have to be pretty stupid to do that, no?”

“‘No’ indeed—he'd have to be brilliant. The smart ones are always desperate to be caught; they want a spotlight! That's the frailty of genius, John—naturally, you want attention for it.”

John looked over at him, raising a brow. Is he self-aware, or totally oblivious? “Now that we know his victims were abducted, that changes everything,” Sherlock spoke as they made their way down the sidewalk. “Because all of his victims disappeared from busy streets, crowded places, yet nobody saw them go.”

John's cane tapped the ground like a metronome; a ticking clock counting every second of patience he had left with this man. “So it's somebody out in the open then?”

“Exactly! Who passes unnoticed wherever they go? Who can hunt in the middle of a crowd?”

“Don't know. Who?”

Sherlock glanced over with a smirk—the look that said he’d already worked it out.

“Not a clue. Are you hungry? Don’t answer that—we're right by one of my favorite shops—you’ll love it.”

John almost argued—killers should really be a bigger priority than snacks—but Sherlock didn’t wait for confirmation. Fine. Food, then.

His face shaped into something akin to disgust as he started visualizing what Sherlock’s ‘favorite’ must be; he didn’t exactly trust a weird mutant cat-person thing that, mind you, is way too comfortable touching dead things, to have a similar dietary palate as him.

The first thing he thought of was literal cat food—some sort of strange wet slop in a little tin can with a foul smell. Then the idea worsened; the visual of Sherlock eating a corpse like some kind of feral animal popped up in his mind. Crouched on all fours, head leaning over a freshly opened wound, teeth bared and digging their way into the—

Eugh. Quit thinking about that, dammit. What the hell is wrong with you?

He prays that isn’t… a thing.

No—he doubts it. He’s still more human than feline, so his food intake probably reflects that logic. Probably. Hopefully. If he’s bringing him to a shop, then it’s likely a restaurant of some kind—Sherlock seems pretty unashamed about how strange he is, but it’d be weird, even for him, to suggest food and then bring him somewhere that doesn’t cater to… people.

Two turns later, Sherlock angled toward a narrow frontage. It was a small hole in the wall—bottle-green paint, homey lamps; a generic mum-and-pop diner by the looks of it. Thank God. Not a pet shop. Sherlock paused on the threshold, taking a small, deliberate sniff—John copied the whiff, mostly as a final bout of reassurance to himself that this place would serve actual edible dishes instead of kibble. Steam, vinegar, frying oil, and something yeasty were what he took in.

Human food.

As he palmed the handle open with a neat twist, the bell gave a polite ding. Warm air hit John’s face as they entered, immediately giving a cozy sensation to the building. His cane tip caught the bottom of the door by accident, tripping him off his balance for a moment—Sherlock reached his hand out, holding the back of his palm against John’s chest to keep him steady.

“Do avoid any broken bones before we get a chance to order,” Sherlock said as he quickly slipped down into the empty window booth. John followed, of course, but not without first rolling his eyes at the remark.

Before either of them had a moment to get situated, a man—hefty one, middle aged, fuzzy beard—came over to greet them. “Sherlock! There he is. My boy, where have you been, eh?” He spoke warmly, palm landing on Sherlock’s crown and raking through the curls in a rough ruffle. “Vanish for weeks, no visits to me? Cruel little thing. Too skinny, nobody around to keep you fed.”

He then looked over at John, scanning him up and down, face shifting into something more knowing; like a teenage girl who'd just overheard juicy gossip. “The blonde one will change that, I hope. Our deal is for your date too. On the house, everything.”

Sherlock’s reply was nothing but a small smile and a slow blink; he didn’t shrug off the touch, no, he leaned into it. John felt heat rise to his cheeks. “That's—thank you. I'm not his date though.”

The man flicked the air with a dismissive hand. “Boyfriend, friend-friend—doesn't matter,” he pointed to Sherlock, tapping his jaw lightly, fond rather than teasing. “This one here got me off a murder charge. He saves my life; I feed him, feed whoever he brings through the door. That’s a fair contract.”

“Yes. Three years ago I proved to Lestrade that Angelo here was in another city entirely at the time of a particularly vicious triple murder.”

Angelo grinned as if they were reminiscing on old Christmas tales instead of court hearings. “If not for my clever little kitty, I’d be eating prison food right now. Instead, I cook. Much better.” He gave Sherlock’s shoulder a squeeze before brushing a piece of dust from his coat. A tiny, almost paternal fuss that said more than the words.

“You were eating prison food—the main defense was that you were breaking and entering someplace entirely different.” Sherlock added, his voice deadpan but face slipping out warmth.

“One year is a lot better than a lifetime.” Angelo knocked his knuckles on the table. “I’ll bring something to start with. He likes the alici—says he doesn’t, but won’t let me take the plate back,” he told John with a conspiratorial smile, already half-turning toward the counter. “I’ll bring a candle. Nice light; makes the face look beautiful. Romantic for you two.”

“I’m not his—” He started, but cut himself off with a sigh. Whatever. He slumped back into the booth, posture loosening as he continued to take in the scene around them. He thought about speaking up again when Angelo returned, but decided against it. He pretended to need to scratch his cheek to hide the redness as the man left a small white one down on the table. “…Thanks.”

Sherlock looked perfectly content with the situation, staring out the window without a care in the world as John scanned through the menu, tapping his fingers idly against the wood, nails—no, claws—leaving a series of little tick tick ticks against it.

Angelo wasn’t wrong—this place would be a good place to bring a date. Make a mental note for the next time you meet a nice woman, John. The lights above cast a dim amber glow across everything they touched. The room smelt pleasantly faint of sauce and noodles. And the tables were even decorated with fancy little napkins.

John started thinking about the conversation they’d had leading up to this as he looked over at Sherlock, who didn’t seem intrigued by the menu in the least. The laminated sheet lay face-down on the wood. His eyes darted out to the window outside to match his gaze, but when he saw nothing of interest, his focus turned back to Sherlock’s face.

John never said he wanted food—Sherlock told him to shut his mouth before he could answer whether he did—but he evidently didn’t have an appetite either… so why did he drag him to a place like this? He looked through the glass again, taking another scan, as if it’d somehow reveal the man’s intentions. The street he’d had John text was distantly visible, but there were undoubtedly better spots to sit at if a bench were the only goal.

Was he his date?

John blinked a couple times—shook his head—like those actions would somehow dismiss the idea.

It… made sense, he supposes. Sherlock doesn’t seem too keen on social customs after all, just judging by how he speaks and interacts with people. Is this some awkward, clunky way of trying to get him and John at a dinner table together?

The wink at Barts, inviting him to move in together the moment they’d met, Mrs. Hudson’s assumptions, Angelo’s too—

Right. John is a complete idiot, isn’t he?

He shouldn’t jump to conclusions. He could also… just not know what friends are supposed to do together. No—shut up, John—quit rambling. Sherlock’s a genius. Socially awkward or not, he knows enough to recognize that you don’t typically drag a man to a romantic little Italian place and ask him to move in if you’re just buds.

He probably should ask for some confirmation first, though. Wasn’t the fact that Sherlock didn’t bother correcting Mrs. Hudson or Angelo plenty already?

“People don't have arch-enemies in real life, do they?” John asked finally—prefaced with a painfully staged cough—mind scrambling for ways to bring it up and wandering back to the warehouse as a result. “Doesn't happen, just a… thing you see in movies.”

Sherlock hummed faintly. “Life would be awfully dull then, wouldn’t it?” Sherlock mumbled, still more focused on the street outside. “What do real people have, then? In their real lives?”

“Well, friends, for starters. Acquaintances, coworkers, enemies. You know, people you like—don't like—that sort of thing.” He lowered his voice a few decibels. “Lovers, like a… girlfriend. Or wife.”

“Right. As I said—dull. I'd much rather something more dramatic.”

“A girlfriend isn’t dramatic enough for you?” John gave him a look, scoffing through a humored smirk. “You've never been with a woman then, I take it.”

“Of course not. Women aren't my area.”

He blinked once at the blunt tone. That answers part of the question. “Right, go figure.” John nodded, taking another glance around the restaurant as he chose his words. “Are men your sort of thing, then? Am I going to be stepping over boyfriends in the hall once I move in?”

Sherlock's eyes finally moved from the window, but the focus they had on John wasn't nearly as… steady. His lips parted, like he was about to speak, before pressing them back together. John tried to read the expression, but for all he’s concerned, it could mean ten different things.

Maybe that's a bit personal. John's not gay of course, but if he was, he probably wouldn't… like being put on the spot like that. “Sorry, that sounded—sorry. It's fine if you do, I don’t—there’s nothing wrong with two—”

“I know it's fine.”

Their eyes held for a few more seconds before Sherlock's finally caved, head flicking back to the window. His cheeks had no additional color to them; not flustered, then. But he didn’t seem upset either. It’d make no sense for him to be; if he could tolerate Mrs. Hudson and Angelo’s comments without rebuttal, then surely John’s wouldn’t be an issue all of the sudden?

John has never been good at reading body language. Quite frankly, he’s awful at it. These last two days have been great examples.

“…We’ll see.”

We’ll see what? If he’s queer? If other men are gonna be coming by the flat—if John is one of those men?

That same hum started to creep in—John glanced down, noticing the faint shiver trilling through Sherlock’s throat. He did too, apparently, because he conveniently needed to readjust his shirt collar—knuckles pushing at the bump in an attempt to silence it.

Involuntary response. Purring? Lestrade was right, he should keep a journal logging this stuff.

“Across the street. Taxi—stopped abruptly,” Sherlock said, pointing. “Nobody getting in, nobody getting out. Oh, that's clever.”

He turned to the glass, mostly just to humor him. “You think that's our guy?”

“Stop staring, John. We're both staring. If more than one person stares it's clearly suspicious.” He mumbled as he shoved his arms back through his coat. “Come on, we're following him.”

“What—but we didn't order anything yet? Won’t you make your friend upset?”

“Angelo will still be here in an hour, the cab won't! Come on!”

Christ. The door flung open as they rushed out, cold night air whipping them in the faces, entry bell jingling overhead. Sherlock’s eyes were laser focused on the cab, completely oblivious to his surroundings. No—Sherlock’s smart—he wouldn’t just…

He would.

Sherlock, like a tunnel-visioned moron, lunged out directly in front of traffic. John screamed out for him, trying to grab at anything to hold him back, but the man was just mere inches out of reach.

The sound of a horn blaring—thankfully not one of impact—rang through John’s ears as the idiot-genius sprang out in front of it, just about getting hit. The tires squealed, but before they'd even fully halted, Sherlock was darting away.

On all fours. Again.

What happened to not wanting an audience?

“Sherlock! Goddammit—” John called out, taking chase once the car stopped moving. “I have the plate number, you don’t have to—quit running dammit!”

“Good for you!”

He’d already thumbed it into his notes app between breaths—four characters, a space, then another three—“0V04 PYG”. If Sherlock's confident this is their guy, they could just submit this to the station and get on with their day. Sherlock evidently doesn’t always care for logic, though.

The cab of interest hit the gas—clearly noticing the deranged man beelining to it like a panther—but Sherlock skidded his feet like a cartoon character, suddenly switching direction. Before John could even cross the street, he watched the man dart sideways and duck into an alley.

How the hell is he supposed to keep pace with this?

“Sherlock—bastard! Wait up for me, would you?!” He shouted into the darkness, voice echoing off the brickwork.

“No time, try to keep up!” His voice rang back, faint under the sound of his hands and shoes slamming against the concrete. John couldn't see it clearly—too dark—but Christ. Watching him sprint across flat terrain was way freakier than up a stairwell.

Before he could even get a quarter of the way through, he suddenly heard it: loud, hollow clanging—metal being pierced with sharp keratin points.

“What—are you bloody mad?!”

He was scaling a fucking pipe!

“Rooftops are faster—no pedestrians gawking—no cars to run into me!”

“Great! But you can't take two seconds to find a ladder?!”

“Don’t need to—this works fine!”

Goddamn jungle cat. Not human. Not human at all. Whatever, he’d follow on the pavement. He’ll try to, at least.

He cut left through a narrow alley that smelled like a wet dumpster, feet dodging puddles and cracks, shoulder clipping a stack of crates before he burst back onto a busier street. Above him: a bloom of pigeon wings gone flying, followed by the thud and scrape of Sherlock’s landing. He could hear his claws from all the way down here—clicking once, twice—then a small burst of silence as he jumped between two rooflines.

Nobody down on the ground seemed to pay any attention to it—was this just a normal occurrence on this end of town, or are people nowadays too caught up with their mobiles to notice the literal cat-man playing parkour a few feet above them?

He couldn’t keep sights on Sherlock; he tried to pick lines below that’d keep him in earshot. Whenever he lost the silhouette—trench coat acting as a black flag against the stars—he chased the sound instead. The creak of an old gutter flexing, a skitter along slate, or a metal hatch groaning with pressure. Sherlock crossed a gap by springing himself off an old window ledge—John winced in an internal apology for whoever had to repair the damage afterwards.

John ducked in a cut-through between two terraces and came out by a mews. His lungs burnt hot, but nothing he couldn’t handle—running doesn’t come scarcely when you’ve been deployed overseas. A voice from a window shouted something about keeping the noise down; neither John nor Sherlock heeded it.

He lost him for five seconds. Then ten. Panic flickered—he considered shouting—but then the sound returned: a double-tap on corrugated tin, a short scrape, and the ear-piercing shriek of claws against pipes. John followed it like a calling. A cat shot across his path—actual cat this time—and gave a sharp yowl at his intrusion.

He vaulted a railing and gained ground, but nearly ate pavement when a cyclist materialized from the dark like a jump scare. He shouted out something akin to a ‘sorry’ over his shoulder, but before he could check-in with the man, he’d already returned to running. Up above, Sherlock skimmed the ridge of a narrow roof and treated chimney pots like personal stepping-stones. Once again—mental condolences for whoever owns that building.

The street bent, traffic noise thickened, a river of engines up ahead. John’s pulse spiked as he narrowed his eyes, scanning the various vehicles driving through. Then suddenly—finally—he saw it: The cab!

John hadn't caught up with it, of course. But he could see it—up ahead—Sherlock undoubtedly saw it first.

If Sherlock's still on the roof, and the taxi is on the street, how is he gonna get to—

John's heart just about stopped as he watched it.

From at least two stories high, Sherlock leaped down—leaped—landing right on its goddamn hood. A sharp crunch filled his ears, and John could only pray that it was the sound of the car parts collapsing, not his bones.

The car alarm began to blare automatically, but John could barely hear it over the sound of his own instinctive shrieks. He immediately scrambled over, adrenaline pumping as his head went dizzy. He shouted something out at Sherlock, but barely processed his own words. Sherlock scrambled up onto the roof of the car—more animal than man—hanging on by his claws as it screeched to a halt.

By the time John got there, the rear door was hung open—Sherlock bent over and ducking his head through.

“No—dammit!” Sherlock groaned, not in pain, but annoyance. “Californian! LA, Santa Monica. Just arrived here—not our target.”

“Get down from—shut up for two seconds!” John screamed at him, not listening to a damn thing he was rambling about. “Are you suicidal?! Suicidal—or fucking stupid?!”

“After wasting all that time? A bit of both, quite frankly.”

“I'm not joking, Sherlock, you're fucking insane!” John circled the taxi, reaching up to quite literally drag Sherlock down from it. “Stop it—stop moving! Need to rest, you'll make it worse if you keep—what is wrong with you?!”

He didn't fight back as John wrestled him to the ground—he shouldn't be able to—Christ! After a two-story FOOSH like that his scaphoid should be cracked, perilunate dislocated, DRUJ unzipped, radial head chipped… his AC joint or clavicle would be shattered, maybe even a C5–C7 wedge. He's clearly only running off shock, anybody else would be paralyzed either by agony or spinal damage.

But he… didn't look injured.

John's jaw hung agape as he stared down at the man in his arms—blinking once, twice—the realization setting in that he had his arms wrapped around a complete medical anomaly right now. “You're not human… you're not—” John wheezed out; exasperated. “You should be—”

“Yes, we've already established that. Now, if you would stop cradling me like an infant, that'd be—”

“You should be dead!” His voice raised back to a bellow, earning a flinch from the man beneath him. “I know you’re some weird fuckin’ cat thing! You didn't tell me you're bloody Superman on top of it!”

“I'm not! I can survive long falls because I've got a low terminal velocity and a flexible spine, which—”

“I don't care what you've got, goddammit! I care that you need a bloody hospital!” He shook him—not the best move for somebody who just fell from two stories onto a car hood—but he wasn't exactly thinking rationally at the moment. “Christ… what is wrong with you?! How often do you do shit like this?”

“Jumping off roofs? Don't get many opportunities. General life-threatening stunts? All the time.”

John let out a long groan—a mix of relief, astonishment, manic joy, dread, and panic—before digging his face down into the navy fleece of Sherlock’s scarf. He wanted to scream at him, hit him, grab him, hold him—everything except letting go. Sherlock made some sort of retort, but John didn’t hear it. Not over the sound of the car still blaring. Not over the sound of his own heart slamming against his ribs. His fingers stayed firm in the fabric of Sherlock’s coat as they laid embraced on the asphalt.

“Holy shit—is he dead?!” A man from behind—assumingly from the taxi—came running over. “Fuck—oh my God!”

“Of course I’m not, it was only—”

“Stop talking, Sherlock!” John shouted again, lifting his head up just enough to get the words out. The man kneeled down next to them, not knowing where to put his hands but clearly wanting to help. “He’s fine, he’s—you can go.”

“No—no, he needs a doctor, we need to call an ambulance! What’s the number for 911 here? I don’t—”

“I’m fine. Stop crowding me!”

The stranger gave them space, but his eyes never left the sight. With his breath somewhat caught, John straightened his posture, looking down at Sherlock with wide eyes. “You… just about gave me… a bloody heart attack. Do you know that?”

“Who are you guys? How did he survive that? Is this some sort of—”

“Police.” Sherlock shuffled in his coat pocket for a moment before pulling out a badge, flashing it at the tourist. “Go on, back to your cab, don’t let this ruin your vacation.”

“Is… is this normal procedure in the UK? This is just what you guys do here?”

“Nah. Only in London.”

The stranger nodded, eyes widened in a thousand-yard stare. “…Right. Yeah, yeah—of course. I’ll… I’ll go then. Good luck.”

What a fucking day this has been.

John listened as the man staggered away, using the pitter-patter of shoes against asphalt as a way to ground himself back down to reality. One breath in—one breath out. The air was humid, it smelt like it would rain soon—of course it would, it rains every goddamn day here. The car alarm shut off finally. He could hear the cab driver muttering something to the tourist, but John couldn’t make out the words. He didn’t care. Another breath in—another breath out.

He lifted a hand to Sherlock’s curls, pushing them back from his forehead as if to check he was still there. Sherlock stirred slightly at the touch, but he didn’t move away, giving only one slow blink as John’s thumb wiped a drop of sweat from his brow.

“So that wasn’t the guy I take it? Just a cab that happened to slow down?”

“Unfortunately.”

John nodded as Sherlock began to straighten himself out, watching as all six feet of him stretched and bent back to height. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his coat. Ruffled his hair back into shape. Dusted off his trousers. John didn’t want to let go still, not really, the doctor in him kept screaming to get him somewhere safe—but Sherlock clearly had no interest in medical assistance.

“So a consulting detective is with the cops then?”

“No. I told you, they just come to me for help since they're all incompetent.”

“Then how'd you get a police badge?” John’s eyes flicked down to his coat. Sherlock smirked as he dug back through his pockets, pulling it out and presenting it to John. He leaned down to read the text. “Detective Inspector… this belongs to Lestrade? How'd you get your hands on that?”

“I pickpocket him when he's annoying. Which is always.” Sherlock set it in John's palm—an offering. “You can keep this one, I've got plenty more. He annoys me quite often.” Despite the insanity of the situation, the sheer trauma of it in fact, John couldn't help but let his face be taken with a grin. Sherlock looked puzzled. “What? What's funny?”

“‘Is this normal procedure in the UK?’ He asks after—” John's laughter interrupted him, forcing a pause. “After watching a man fall down from a rooftop onto his cab. Like it's just a damn Brit’ thing or something.”

Sherlock's mouth took on that familiar V shape as he watched John's amusement. “I hope you've got your breath back, because I don't want to have to pay for the damages to that man's motor.” He took John's hand, gently at first, as if testing for permission. It made something in his chest bloom. “We should run before he comes to his senses.”

“Yeah, whether I've caught my breath or not is the concern here. Not the twelve ribs you must've shattered doing that.”

“Please—I only start cracking bones at three stories. Two only warrants bruises.”

They moved—at first, a clumsy trot—before it eventually turned into something steady and sane. The cabbie called after them, but his rant bounced off brick, thinning with distance until there was only a faint hum in the air. Sherlock didn’t tug John’s arm so much as guide it; a precise pressure at the palm of his hand that said ‘left here, straight on, don’t trip on that curb.’

John’s lungs burned deep in his chest—Sherlock, on the other hand, remained maddeningly composed. The night breeze blew past them like a sigh as John’s adrenaline finally started to fade, slowing to a walk once they arrived at more crowded streets. They didn’t talk. They didn’t need to. The city filled the silence for them.

Ten minutes later and the front door of 221B opened with a creak; John and Sherlock arrived back home—which yes—John has started calling it that in his head already.

“You are ridiculous, Sherlock. Absolutely bloody ridiculous.” He scolded lightly as they approached the steps, one arm around Sherlock's ribs to support his weight. “I swear. I'm gonna cover you in bubble wrap before we go out next time.”

Before Sherlock could allow himself the humor, Mrs. Hudson's heels came clicking through the hall. “What have you two done?” She asked, voice on par to that of an angry mother's. “Upstairs, Sherlock! Go look!”

John looked at her, then at Sherlock, whose gaze was staring up the steps with knitted brows. Sherlock mumbled a curse under his breath before pushing John's arm away, rushing up the stairs with a mix of urgency and contempt.

“What, is he being grounded?” John asked her as he leaned his weight against the wall.

“No, but he should be!” She huffed, rewrapping her cardigan around her chest with a huff. “Imagine if his father were here—he’d have that boy over his knee in an instant if he saw the ruckus he’s caused tonight!”

“Wait—I’m confused. Sherlock and I were only out for, what… half an hour? What’d he do?”

“You tell me! I was making tea when his little friends from the station came to the door with a warrant!”

“A—what?” He looked up at the second floor for a moment before springing into action, rushing up as quick as his legs would allow.

Gone for 20 minutes, and the flat was full of uniforms. Terrific.

“—can't withhold evidence, Sherlock!” The familiar voice of Lestrade rang through the room, occupying Sherlock's chair as he spoke. “Plus, we're not breaking in—it's a drug bust!”

“Drug bust?” John echoed, taking in the scene. He missed the first part of the conversation, but c’mon—really? “Him?” He nodded his head in Sherlock’s direction; a handless point. “Sherlock's said you've worked with him for five years, and yet you seriously think he'd be a damn junkie?”

Lestrade gave him a look that said ‘you’re awfully confident’; Sherlock’s was more of a ‘don’t make this worse for me.’ John evidently didn't read the room, because he kept going. “You could search this flat all day and I doubt—seriously doubt—you'd find anything that couldn't be labeled ‘recreational’.”

“John.” Sherlock warned.

“You want to test that theory, Doctor?” The D.I. laughed back. “You’ve barely met him, remember that.”

“Yeah, I think I would actually. Because—”

“John.” Sherlock said again, firmer this time. “You should really shut up now.”

John blinked, confidence wavering as he saw Sherlock's expression. He scanned his face: eyes, brows, lips, eyes again. “…No—Sherlock—you? Really?”

Sherlock sighed theatrically, head rolling back with his eyes, like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole already. “Lestrade—you could have just called me! You didn't need to dress up like a damn sniffer dog to—”

“No no, Anderson's the sniffer dog. I'm just the handler.”

Sherlock paused for a moment before snapping his head to the kitchen, whole body turning with the motion. “You—Anderson?! Oh for—what the hell are you doing on a drug bust? You're forensics!”

“He begged on his knees for shotgun in Greg’s car,” Sally's voice came from the adjacent room as Anderson gave a snarky wave. “You seriously think he'd miss the chance to rummage your flat?”

“Hi Sherlock.” Anderson wiggled his fingers—voice especially nasally with the juvenile tone.

“Christ—and you all wonder why I'm mean to you.” Sherlock groaned, running one hand through his hair as the other pinched his nose bridge. “This is childish, you know that?”

“Yeah, it's how you've got to act when dealing with a six-foot primary schooler.” Lestrade got up from the chair, hands on his hips—first Mrs. Hudson was carrying on like she’s his mother, now the D.I. was scolding him like he’s his father. “Listen—this is our case. I said you could have three minutes at the scene, I didn't say take it into your own hands, do you understand that?”

“What, so you're just—can't ring, you'd rather bully me? I was going to bring it to you, John and I were—”

“No you weren’t. Don’t blame your new friend for this. You were going to do what you always do: try to solve everything by yourself without letting us in on a single thing ‘till you’ve got all the pieces.”

“I wasn’t blaming—” Sherlock tried to sputter out a retort, but his usual stoic demeanor was dwindling down by the second. “Why a drug bust? You couldn’t make something legitimate—had to just…”

“It’s legitimate if we find something. And knowing you?”

“I told you—I'm clean! I don't even smoke now!” Sherlock snapped back, but his face—his voice—felt different now. He looked less like a vigilante being reprimanded by the police and more like a boy who'd been caught cheating on an exam. “Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

The man sighed as he watched Sherlock pace around and huff. “I'll call ‘em out of here if you work with me, alright? Can you do that?” His voice softened notably from before. “I know you've been doing good lately—proud of you—but you need to work on not shoving yourself into places you don’t belong. Alright?”

John's face scrunched up with recoil as he listened to the man speak. Sherlock: a genius detective who can jump two stories down onto solid metal unscathed—who found a dead woman's suitcase in an hour—and who is apparently a drug addict—being sat down and scolded like a delinquent child.

“Sherlock.” Lestrade put a hand on his shoulder. “Look at me.”

“No. Don’t touch me. I’m going outside—leaving,” Sherlock announced as he spun around for the stairs. The worst part about it is John can’t even really blame Lestrade for the tone of voice, because Sherlock’s was matching it. “Have fun snooping—John's right, you'll find nothing.”

“Hey—no—Sherlock!” Lestrade watched with a pang of guilt in his eyes before it quickly turned to frustration. “God! That usually works, dammit.”

“I told you we should've left Anderson behind, he would've cooperated otherwise.” Sally broke the ice with a sneer. “Also, I found eyeballs in his microwave. Surely there's a case we can make against him with that, right?”

Everyone in this room was infuriating in their own, insufferable way.

“You know, I might sound crazy when I say this, so forgive me in advance…” John put his hands up preemptively, “but maybe if you treated him like a grown man—given that he is one—he might be less… annoyed by you lot?”

Lestrade looked at him like he'd just said the sky isn't blue.

“It's the only way to get through to him, we do it for a reason.” Anderson's voice intruded on John's ears once more. “He's smart and all, but his maturity got stunted before he could make it to junior high.”

John's gaze flickered between the three main offenders as an idea popped in his head. “So what—you're saying he's like trying to debate a ten year old then?”

“Might as well; he's a boy with a personality disorder and a pair of stilts.”

John hummed as he looked up at the ceiling, trying to bite back a grin. “Mm. Not a great thing for you to admit in a room of officers—given how you stare at his lips when you argue.”

Anderson's mouth fell open at the accusation. “What?! What the hell are you implying, Watson?!” He pointed at him—turning to Sally and Lestrade for backup, but being met only with laughter rather than defense. “You both are just gonna let him say that?!”

“Now John—” Lestrade tried to chime in, but was rather preoccupied with trying to hold his composure. “That's—you know, that's not very—”

“Known you for a day, Philip, and he's already clocked that you've got a thing for Holmes!” Sally—unlike Lestrade—had no shame in her cackle. “See? I'm not the only one saying it anymore—that gives it validity!”

“Don't encourage him, Donovan—that's disgusting! Both parts of it!” Anderson seethered as he turned back to John, jamming a finger at him between rooms. “You're just as big a prick as he is! Great job—we've got two of ‘em now!”

“That's good news for you, isn't it?”

“Greg!”

They talk like this… and yet Sherlock’s labeled the immature one? John didn't know if he was thoroughly amused or utterly disgusted by the bickering; is he in the middle of a uniformed drug bust or a high-school lunch table?

“If you're all done arguing, some silence would be great,” an unfamiliar uniform complained from somewhere in the kitchen hall. Finally, someone sane. Well, John participated too, but they started it.

Christ, he sounds like one of them now.

John turned to the window as he heard the front door downstairs open and shut; Sherlock leaving the flat. He eased the curtain back as if moving too suddenly might spook him through the glass.

Head tipped, shoulders set, he cut and re-cut a short line on the pavement: three steps, turn, three steps back, turn again. When he stopped, his sleeve passed once across his cheek in a brisk, mechanical motion—the kind you make when the cold air stings your eyes. John’s breath fogged the pane as he leaned closer, eyes narrowing. Shoes and radios rustled behind him as he wondered: did this whole stunt really get to him?

He’d jumped two stories onto metal, palms-first, and barely grunted. Bristled when anyone tried to help, even. But the police turn up with a warrant, and now he’s outside pacing frantically like he’s trying to focus on anything except coming apart.

He couldn’t hear him, and Sherlock kept half-turned, face angled away. All John had were the small tells: his blink rate a shade too quick, a swallow snagging thick at his scarf, knuckles pressing to the tip of his nose, the collar on his coat pulled up higher than the weather required. Another neat swipe of the sleeve, smoothing the grit of the fabric.

Could be the cold. Could be nothing. It read, to John, like fragile composure being barely strung together. Though we’ve already established that his read on people—Sherlock especially—is notoriously faulty.

Suddenly, an awfully familiar car began to pull up to Baker Street: a black taxi cab with a suspiciously human-sized dent in its hood. John was surprised it was still able to even drive, honestly. How the hell did he manage to—Christ, what awful timing for Sherlock to go sulk outside.

“Unlucky,” John mumbled. The cabbie got out of his car and approached Sherlock—oddly calm given the situation, not angry like he’d expect. Sherlock’s pride would probably not appreciate negotiating damages while he’s trying to avoid tears, though. He was about to walk down there, maybe help explain what’d happened earlier—but suddenly, something happened that made him stop dead mid-step.

The cabbie pulled out his phone while they were talking, presenting it to him like a prize.

John's stomach sank, adrenaline spiking back up in his chest. He couldn't see himself, but he was almost certain his face would be as white as a ghost's.

The phone was pink.

The dead lady’s mobile. Jennifer Wilson’s. The one that Sherlock predicted the killer would’ve had his hands on.

“No… no, no—” John's voice gradually raised as he stepped back, a twisted sense of dizziness setting in as his mind put the pieces together. “He was right, he was—”

Sherlock took a step towards the cab. The man—no, the killer—guided him inside. Opening the rear door like it was waiting just for him. John didn't waste a second before bolting across the room, making the heads of every uniform in the room turn.

“Watson? What's wrong with you?” Lestrade called out, but John didn't reply. He twisted sideways at the landing, taking the steps down two at a time. He heard someone begin to follow behind as he wrenched the door open—but the chuff of the engine starting told him none of it mattered.

As John ran out into the night, the tires were already squealing away, the rev and rattle of the motor filling the air like a cruel sneer.

“Watson! What's your problem? Doctor?” The D.I. called again, climbing down the steps and approaching the threshold. John stared out at the street. He wanted to move, but he couldn't. His body wouldn't respond to what his brain was screaming for it to do.

“He's going to be the fifth.”

“What are you talking about?” Lestrade got closer, footsteps thumping behind him on the pavement as he looked around. “The fifth what?”

“He took him. The killer just took him.” He pointed out at the road, his arm shaky and his breath shallow. “He's going to be the fifth victim.”

“The—suicides?”

Chapter Text

“Watson, talk to me.” Lestrade tried for command, but John’s blown pupils and clipped breathing knocked the edge off his voice. “What do you mean ‘the killer ran off with him’? Kidnapped? You sure he didn't just storm off in a cab to sulk?”

“No, you weren't—sir, shut up for two seconds!” John pivoted on him, voice ragged. “Listen.”

Lestrade’s hands went up, taking half a step back. “Right. Listening.”

“Sherlock had me text the dead woman’s phone because he knew the killer would have it,” John fired off the words, trying to cram as many together in one breath as possible. “He dictated an address, we sat nearby to watch, and a cab showed up a few minutes later acting all weird.”

“Of course he did,” Lestrade muttered, jaw tight. “And instead of writing the plate down—”

“I told him to! He jumped on the bloody bonnet instead.”

“So why are you back here without him?”

“Because he thought he’d misread it—he was looking at the passenger, not the cabbie.” John dug for his mobile with shaking fingers. “Then I see the same car pull up outside just now—big dent in the hood, can’t miss it—and the driver shows him a phone.”

“And?”

“Pink!” John’s thumb hammered redial. “Jennifer Wilson’s phone. The one he predicted the killer would keep. Held up like a trophy! That’s our suspect, and now he’s got your best detective in the back seat.” The phone buzzed idly in his hand as he spoke.

Lestrade's face dropped; despite being outside, it felt like they had walls closing in on them. “Right. Cab description?”

“Black paint. Light on top. Giant dent in the hood, obviously.” John swallowed. “I wrote the plate—Sherlock didn’t. I did.” Lestrade nodded as John’s phone stopped ringing; nobody picked up. John opened the notes app back up where he'd written it down and handed it over to him. “Can you track the woman’s phone or something?”

Lestrade was about to go walk back up to the flat, but Sally was already on her way down, heels just clicking against the threshold as John looked over. “Donovan!” Lestrade pointed at her. “Get Traffic and CCTV. Looking for a black cab, obvious bonnet dent, plate number zero–Victor–zero–four–Papa–Yankee–Golf.”

“What're you on about? We’re on a drugs bust, Greg—”

“Yeah, well either call it off, or tell Anderson to go snoop his flat without us. We're gonna be holding an autopsy instead if you don't get moving!” He shouted back, hands flapping with incomplete signals. “Radio. Car. Now. John—you go in the back seat.”

Sally’s eyes flickered between Watson and Lestrade; two men who looked like they'd seen a ghost—only two, no looming third. Urgent. More important than whatever they were doing before. She nodded, following Lestrade’s lead. They piled out—blues on, sirens off. Sally slid into the right-hand side, radio still pushed up to her mouth, as John took the back as instructed.

“Control from D.I. Lestrade,” Sally spoke into it, her voice clipped and to-the-point. “Hotlist plate as given. Any ANPR on the route?”

Lestrade leaned over as he started the engine, putting his own two-cents into the radio. “We also need urgent CSLI on the victim handset ending five–six–one. Possible active homicide.”

Static, then: “Received. ANPR hit two minutes ago, Chiltern Street to Marylebone Road, southbound Gloucester Place. Stand by for CSLI.”

Lestrade laced them through traffic with a precision that comes only from rehearsal, one hand wrapped around the wheel, the other hovering over the siren switch. Lamps outside strobed amber through the glass as they breezed past; John could feel his hands begin to sweat.

“CSLI update,” Control crackled. “Handset now eastbound Marylebone. Turning south. Next fix in sixty.”

“Drop to York Street,” Sally said, eyes locked on the mirror as one hand braced the dash. “Control, any cameras on York?”

“Traffic camera shows a black cab turning left. Dent present. Plate matches. Next camera lost in the gap.”

“The gap?” John asked, blinking as he leaned forward between their seats.

“He knows the blind spots,” Lestrade shot back, eyes never parting from the road in front. “He’s planned a route.”

John stared out at the smear of lights. “Of course he did.”

The radio snapped again: “Handset east of Great Portland. Speed matches vehicle. Next fix in thirty.”

Hard right. Tires squealed as Lestrade yanked the wheel; John could feel his head start to throb. He pictured Sherlock's face the moment he'd seen the cabbie pull out the phone—how his head craned forward, weight tilting like a cat who'd just seen a bird outside.

“CSLI—handset now stationary,” Control said. “Triangle bounded by Torrington, Gower, and Chenies. Confidence high.”

“Roland-Kerr,” Lestrade translated. “The University.” He killed the lights and siren in the same motion. “Soft from here.”

Sally traced a path on the dash map. “Back alleys all through. Service lanes off Gower—Control, cameras?”

“Cab turned into a loading bay off Gower Mews forty seconds ago.”

They slid into a narrow service strip behind a shuttered annex. A black cab idled crooked, roof light dead, bonnet caved like a giant fist had crushed it flat. The night held its breath.

“With me,” Lestrade murmured as the car came to a stop. “John, behind. We check the cab first, then the building.”

John nodded as he felt his old instincts click back into place—scanning the immediate area for possible cover spots, exits, and pathways. His eyes darted around all the dark windows above them, none looking occupied at this hour.

“Control, at location,” Sally spoke into the radio. “CSLI still fixed?”

“Stationary in your block.”

John pulled out his mobile, dialing the woman’s number again before holding the display up. The cab’s front seats hummed to life with a faint, tinny ringtone.

Ring-ring

The other two paused momentarily at the sound before John spoke up. “Sherlock was right,” he said, presenting his screen like evidence. “Dial the dead lady’s phone, cab starts ringing. See?”

Sally raised her brows—not in suspicion, but mild surprise—only just having put the pieces together. “He got dragged off by the pink lady's killer?”

“Yes, of course he did—who else would come to drive him to his death?” Lestrade muttered back with a strict tone.

“Neither of you filled me in. Plus, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who'd love to shove the freak in their trunk.”

Lestrade waved for her to shut her mouth as they moved closer, the ringtone and faint vibration of the mobile still humming from inside of it. “The driver door's shut, the rear isn't.” He pointed, easing the door wider. A ghost of perfume hung in the stale air—powdery, floral, and all too familiar. “No scuff, no smear; looks like he didn’t struggle.”

“He walked in,” John said, his own head leaning in. “Cabbie didn’t force him.”

Lestrade backed out. “Either threatened him quiet, or he wrenched on something stronger than fear.”

“Yeah. Idiot’s curiosity got the better of him,” Sally muttered, thumbing her radio. “Control, cab located, empty. We're behind a college annex off Gower. We'll clear the building—requesting units to box the block.”

“Plural.” Lestrade talked over her. “Two buildings. We don't know which one they ducked into.”

“Then we split.” Sally cut him a look. “Two officers.”

“Three bodies,” John said.

“Right. Two officers,” she repeated.

“Sally, he's coming along,” Lestrade gestured at him. “We already dragged him along, he’s why we’re here in the first place.”

“You dragged him along, all I did was—”

John didn’t wait for the verdict. He chose a door and went.

He shouldered past both uniforms as he beelined towards one of the entrance doors. Lestrade shouted something out at him, but John didn't catch it—he didn't care—he didn’t have the patience to deal with these two’s bickering.

Institutional air slapped his face; the corridor swallowed the noise as John tried to call out for Sherlock, giving back only a faint echo. John tried to pry a door open—locked—he tried a second one—locked as well. Didn't matter, he had to be in here somewhere, just try all of them; eventually one will open up.

He can only hope that he'll walk in to find him still alive and standing.

A stairwell yawned invitingly; he took it two at a time. His knee stabbed—he ignored it. His cane would make this a hell of a lot easier, but he can’t even remember when he last saw it.

Sally’s heels caught up; the entrance door burst back open. “Watson!” She hissed out after him before murmuring back into her radio. “With Watson on the right annex, first floor. He’s heading up to the second.”

John ignored her and kept moving, hitting the landing before continuing his routine: handle, grab, twist, locked, try the next.

He burst into the first room he saw open—an empty seminar lounge. Nothing. Back out. Handles, locks, breath. The corridor dead-ended at a wall of glass. Beyond, a narrow quadrangle separating the two buildings.

“Stop—for two seconds,” Sally caught his sleeve, then pointed. “Look.”

He listened to something she said finally. Across the quad: a lit square, third floor, one room in from the corner. Two silhouettes. One seated. One standing.

John’s stomach dropped. He spun and sprinted back. Down two flights, out, across, up two, then the trouble of locating the room after that. Limp or not, that'd take minutes at least—time that he didn't have.

“Located them,” she told Control. “Left annex, third floor, north end. Greg—where are you?”

John returned to the staircase, but not to descend. The sound of his soles marching up another floor echoed in the corridor—something in the back of Donovan’s mind told her that Watson's plan was no longer to reach Sherlock directly.

“John.” She warned, following. “We hold this sightline. Greg's coming ‘round the north door. He can handle this.”

“He won't make it.” John shoved through crash doors and ran the corridor until the two rooms lined up—his window to theirs.

He saw them now—boxed in that bright rectangle like a tableau. Sherlock by the desk, angled forward; the cabbie reclining in his seat, patient like a spider. A tiny glass vial glinted between Sherlock’s fingers. He tipped the contents into his palm, a single pill, white as a tooth. Then he leaned in; intent.

Sally’s voice thinned to a wire. “Don’t.”

John’s body answered before he did. The old muscle-memory rose like a tide: stance set, elbows locked, sightline threaded across the quad. The safety snicked off—despite its small click, the sound seemed to fill the corridor.

He breathed out. The world narrowed to a tunnel. Crosshairs, glass, throat, pill.

The trigger snapped back like a twig.

Light blew white on the pane, then the sound caught up. Flattened by distance, slapped back by stone. The windows both flowered outward, shards separating like glitter; the near one spat glass across John’s sleeves. The cabbie jerked forward—chair skidding, heel catching on the tile—then he folded. Like his body just lost access to its bones.

Sherlock flinched with a feral arch, spine flashing in all the wrong angles, vial rattling back down to the desk. His head snapped to the fallen body, then to the shattered window, eyes blown to black. It was too dark for him to see John and Sally on the other side; he didn’t bother staying long enough to squint.

Sally’s hand flew to her mouth, muffling a shriek that she couldn’t bite back, eyes wide as she stared at the now-murderer. John felt the buzz of recoil ring all the way into his teeth, the smell of hot metal and powdered glass lodging itself in his nose. His finger was still welded to the trigger.

Time felt like it slowed down as John stared through the panes. His arm stayed steady, but the rest of his body began to tremble. He watched the room across—Sherlock stood over the man, shouting something, things he couldn’t hear. Despite the layers of clothes, his body still felt cold, goosebumps bristling along his skin as he held his firearm.

He blinked once, twice, before shaking his head. Like that’d somehow wash away the scene in front of him. “He wasn't going to make it,” John said, voice distant even to his own ears. “He had the pill right at his lips.”

She didn't say anything. That was the worst part. John was expecting to be scolded, screamed at, threatened even. But not met with silence. She watched him—watched the gun, the shake forming in his wrist. Her eyes scanned him, looking him up and down as she processed what she'd just witnessed. Sally had seen death before, time and time again, the gunshot isn't what shocked her. It was who fired it.

The door ahead opened. Lestrade had finally made it to the room. John watched the progression: how his face immediately shrank into horror at the sight, running to Sherlock first, turning to examine the cabbie, then back to Sherlock. Lestrade stepped back, and a moment later, he heard Sally’s radio crackle behind him. “Donovan, I found them, he's—Sherlock's fine. I think. The cabbie though, he's dead. On the floor. I don't—”

She held down the button, bringing it back up to her lips. “I know.” Her voice still held that flat tone, eyes never parting from John's. “I watched it happen.”

Then she clicked it off. Silence.

The moment stretched. John’s arm didn’t budge—not yet—barrel still hung in the air as his head slowly spun back around. He stared at Sally, she stared back, neither one said a thing. Her gaze faltered for a moment as her eyes flicked down to the floor, shaking her head in what John assumes is some sort of… disbelief. Or disappointment. Maybe both.

“He wouldn't have lived otherwise,” John tried to explain, palm up, swearing an oath to the empty hall. “He was about to do it—the pill—the one that killed those four other people. He was about to—”

“I shot him,” she said. “Alright?”

“…What?”

“I shot the suspect. That's our record.”

John blinked. He looked around, as if the empty room might provide some sort of answer. “Why? Why would you—”

“Because you're not an officer. You're not authorized to have done that. I am, though. If I say I took a defensive shot across a quad to stop a murder, they’ll believe I acted in good faith.” She steadied, shoulders resetting into her usual professional stance. “Do you understand?”

He stared for another beat, then nodded, relief and shock tangling into one. “Right, I—thank you, Sergeant. Thank you.” He awkwardly pocketed the gun back into concealment, a slight smile washing across his features.

“One time thing. Your freak burns through favors fast.”

John nodded again. “Yeah. Yeah—I can… see that.”

Sally keyed her radio back on. “Shots fired. Suspect down in the left annex, second floor. We’re safe. Repeat, safe.” She clicked off and glanced at him once, expression unreadable, before turning back to the corridor.

Glass shards rasped under John’s soles as he stepped forward to follow; he could feel the buzz of recoil in his forearms and the old tinnitus hiss through his ears. They retraced fast—down the stairs two at a time, breath and bootfalls bouncing off brick.

At the ground floor, as they opened back up those same entrance doors, the night air blew back over them. Sirens began to rise somewhere close, that distant wail that says you’ve started something bigger than yourself. Lestrade, back in view, broke off to meet the first car. Sally gave a clipped two-sentence account to the constable sprinting up the path before steering John back to the edge of the pavement. He stayed by the two cars—the dented cab still sputtering with broken parts like an injured animal.

Five minutes evaporated through the mix of static and shoe-squeaks. Someone taped off the lane, another shooed away a gawker. John remained still where she’d parked him, hands lying uselessly at his sides, pulse still hammering in his throat. The smell of warm rubber and rain hung pungent in the air. An ambulance nosed in, engine ticking, and for the first time since John had pulled the trigger, he let himself fully exhale.

Blue lights strobed the area as the college campus became the next crime scene. Sherlock was escorted to the ambulance by a uniform, sitting on the edge like an oversized schoolboy, legs long yet still not touching the ground; kicking idly. A paramedic draped an orange cloth around his shoulders. Sherlock immediately shrugged it off himself. The paramedic immediately put it back.

The D.I. could be seen approaching, straightening his coat as he walked away from a previous conversation. The two men had already barked the basics at each other; now came the backlog of emotion.

Sherlock's posture perked up slightly as he saw him again. His speech was muffled by distance, but John was still able to make out most of what he said. “Look at this weird blanket they keep putting on me, I don't understand why,” he said, genuinely puzzled. “I've taken it off three times now and they just keep wrapping it back on me. Do they usually do this to—”

Greg struck him across the cheek with a sharp slap—not enough to leave any real pain—but enough to get the idiot's attention. “What is wrong with you, Sherlock? Are you stupid?!”

Sherlock recoiled with a feline quickness. “Don't hit me—” he spat, face scrunching into a defensive scowl as his spine arched. “Go take it up with John; he already said that today.”

“If multiple people ask you the same thing in one day, take the hint!” He leaned closer, raising his voice an octave as exasperation frayed into fear. “Be glad Watson watched you like a hawk, or none of us would’ve clocked you driving off. So what—you get mad at us, next course of action is to go joyriding with a serial killer?

“That's not why,” Sherlock started, but was quickly cut short.

“Then why?! He didn’t drag you. John says he showed you the phone and you climbed in like a—” he gestured with his hands in pure frustration. “Like an idiot?!”

“He said he’d show me how he did it.” Sherlock’s voice went quiet and precise. “I was curious.”

Lestrade barked a laugh with no humor behind it. “Ever heard that ‘curiosity killed the cat’? With how much you love to jump around and act like one, that should be common knowledge for you!” Lestrade took another step closer before finally backing off. He pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a deep, shaky sigh. “You don't have nine lives, alright mate? Curiosity isn’t worth your corpse.”

Sherlock’s eyes broke away, bouncing everywhere but Lestrade’s face. The orange slipped again. A medic shuffled it back onto him.

Sally drifted back to John’s side as he watched. Neither wanted to step into the middle just yet.

“So who shot him? The cabbie—”

“Donovan. She and I split up between the two buildings looking for you—she spotted you quicker than I did, but she was on the wrong side.”

Sherlock's brows came together in a look of utter disbelief. “Sally? Why? She'd never—”

“Because, nuisance or not, you’re ours. No lethal party tricks on our watch, got it?”

Sherlock blinked at the word. He looked back into the ambulance, up at the paramedics, wondering maybe if the shock from the whole situation had caused him to start hallucinating. “Ours?”

“Yes.” Lestrade held his stare. “Ours.”

Sherlock didn’t buy it. “You're lying.” He shook his head, the concept of anyone at the Yard truly wanting to help him felt foreign. “You're hoping you can… craft some loyalty between us. So I start actually listening to you.”

“I'm not Sherlock, I swear on it.” Lestrade took a step closer. A pang of guilt stung in John’s chest as he listened to them speak. “Even Anderson likes you a bit. Probably not in the way a married man should. But he still likes you.”

That made Sherlock visibly recoil, a rumble that almost sounded like a shrill growl coming from his throat as he moved to stand up. “Right, you're making me sick. Quit with all the sentiment.”

“Sherlock, look at me.”

“No—you're grossing me out now. Go away. And tell the paramedics to stop shoving this stupid thing at me,” he said as the blanket fell to the ground. “It's an awful shade of orange, tell them to bring blue next time at least. Or black.”

Sherlock took a step, Lestrade did the same, not wanting to let him just wander back off; not trusting him to yet. “Sherlock—listen, just promise me that next time, you'll tell us when you find new things. Stop wandering off by yourself.”

“I'm not promising you anything, leave me alone—”

“Fine, next time you throw one of your tantrums, I'm holding your hand until you calm down—no more running off into the sunset with murderers when you want to prove a point.”

Sherlock yanked his hand away at the mere thought of it. “If you try that, I'll start clawing at you—stitches on the face aren't fun, fair warning.”

“What if I hold both hands—we put little mittens on you? Can't claw me then, right? Mittens of shame? I’ll get Mrs. Hudson to knit a pair.”

“I'll bite.”

“I'll stand behind you then. You've got a twisty spine, but you're not an owl.”

“You’re infuriating. Now if you'd excuse me—”

“I'm sure Anderson would be more than happy to help restrain you if I ordered it. How's that sound to you—”

Sherlock paid back the earlier slap with a loud thwack to the face, swatting him like a territorial cat getting possessive over toys. Lestrade was going to continue—he still had actual questions to ask about the whole cabbie drama—but he figured it'd probably be better to save them for once Sherlock's had a fresh eight hours of sleep and some breakfast.

Sherlock had evidently at some point spotted John and Sally standing there—of course he did, he could probably smell them if anything—because the moment he got Lestrade off his tail, no pun intended, he walked straight towards them, coat flaring like the cape of a royal monarch.

“Sherlock, hey,” John forced a cough. “Sergeant Donovan here's just, err… been explaining everything. The whole two pills thing and all that.” Sally played along as he spoke, nodding, the closest thing to a friendly gesture she and Sherlock have ever shared. “Dreadful business that guy had going on, wasn't it?”

Sherlock didn't reply immediately. He looked at John, then at Sally, then back at John once more. “Good shot.”

“Boy-Genius here finally learned what a compliment is?”

“Not you, Sally—I was talking to John.”

Both of their brows raised; John looked much more caught off guard than she did. “What, you think I wouldn't save you if it came down to it?” Sally tilted her head, weight leaning forward. “I think you're insane, but I don't think you should be put down. Psych ward, not a coffin.”

John couldn't help but crack a smirk at the joke; Sherlock's face remained neutral. “I didn't guess based on our relationship, I know because of how the shot happened.”

The sergeant scoffed, eyes rolling in a way that groaned ‘Not this again.’ “Right. Of course. Because you know everything. Go on then,” she waved her hand in a small circle, “give us the little speech.”

Sherlock’s posture straightened, that demeanor of lecture returning to him. “The bullet they dug out of the wall was from a handgun either of you could carry. Kill shot over that distance—no tremor, clearly acclimated to violence then; that’s a soldier’s hand, not a sergeant’s. It could be somebody hired to kill the cabbie, people like him tend to make enemies, but that conflicts with Sally taking the blame on record. That means it would've had to be someone she knew. Only leaves one option.”

John stared back at him with pressed lips and widened eyes. All that from a gunshot? Really? He looked over at Donovan to gauge her reaction—she looked completely nonchalant; a bit annoyed at the smugness maybe. “Sherlock, that was—”

“We need to get the powder burns out of your fingers. With Sally taking the statement, it’s unlikely anyone will look past ‘handgun, two panes of glass, corresponding caliber’. But let’s not tempt ballistics tech with a slow night. I’m sure you both would prefer to avoid the court case.”

John swallowed. “How did you know I carry—”

“Outline through your pocket when you came to the flat,” Sherlock said as a matter-of-factly. “Ex-military; you’d keep one close. Seemed like a more sensible solution than just being happy to see me.”

Sally laughed. “Always needing to show off, right? You’re forgetting one thing, though,” she cut in, tone bright with mockery. “Say ‘thank you’. It’s what normal people do when their friends do them favors.”

“Well I’m not normal, am I?” His brows knitted together, eyes narrowing as they scanned across her face. “I was actually going to ask about that—why are you taking the blame? You dislike me, you don't know him, so why the favor?”

“Because I'm glad to see you finally get a boyfriend.” Her tone was shameless. “Hoping he manages to house-train you. Harder to do that if he’s in custody.”

John choked. “We’re not—”

“So he’s an investment then,” Sherlock cut dryly.

Sally shrugged. “I did him a favor because he shows people a bit of respect, unlike you. I’m still waiting on that ‘thank you’—unless you’d rather prove me right.”

Sherlock stared down at her, glare locked in tight, like winning a staring competition will somehow squeeze him out of this. He took a deep breath in, backing up slightly as he exhaled through his nose. “Thank you, Sally, I… appreciate it.”

She flashed dimples, surprisingly warm given her usual scowl when Sherlock’s present. “See? Not hard. Teach him manners,” she told John, turning to face him. “Greg’s tried for years. Never sinks in. Just gets swatted at.”

John hesitated for a moment before nodding. It felt dehumanizing: even when she was kind to him, it sounded more like she was talking to a troublesome pet rather than a human being. He gets that most of it is irony—hopefully—but it still left a sour taste in his mouth.

He didn’t understand their dynamic. Friends don't raid each other's homes on phony drug busts to avoid a phone call… but enemies don't rush across London to save each other from serial killers, either. They definitely don’t take the fall for a possible murder charge. So what are they, then?

Nothing about Sherlock Holmes was normal—the way he talks with his coworkers felt about as weird as his spine tricks. He was a strange bloke, to put it nicely. But John would be lying if he said that isn’t the exact thing that makes him want to keep tagging along.

A uniform shouted something at the sergeant from a distance, and with that, she walked off, leaving Sherlock and John alone on the asphalt.

Once she was out of earshot, the sound of heels clicking across the pavement going faint, Sherlock turned to John. “Are you alright?”

John stared. “Am I—? You were the one nearly poisoned, idiot. Why are you asking if I’m okay?”

“Well you have just killed a man. War or not, I imagine that's still pretty… jarring.”

“Yes I…” John looked up at him, lips thinning into a straight line as their eyes met. Something about them made it hard to talk, like the words suddenly just didn't want to come out. He considered it, feeling the tremor still ghosting in his forearms. “…That's true, isn't it? But he wasn't a very nice man.”

‘Nice man.’ Christ, he's picking up on the way Lestrade talks down to him. Sherlock gave a slow blink as he nodded, a smirk tugging sharp corners at his mouth. “No. No, he wasn't really. Not a nice man. A bloody awful cabbie too, quite frankly. Should've seen the route he took us to get here.”

John couldn’t bite back his laugh before it spilled out, cheeks flushing a rosy pink as he hunched over slightly. “Stop, we can't be giggling! We're at a crime scene—stop it.”

He gauged John’s reaction; once he saw it was positive, his smirk turned into a full grin, letting out a giggle of his own. He held the smile for a moment before smoothing it away, spine shivering as if to expel the excess positivity. “Should we get dinner?”

“God, yes. We never actually ordered at Angelo’s.”

“Back there, then. He gets upset if I leave unfed.” Sherlock’s eyes ticked down. “Plus, you forgot your cane at the booth.”

“I—is that where it went?” John looked at his empty hand like it had betrayed him. “Christ—I could've spared my knee an hour of hell.”

Sherlock smiled again, looking over at John momentarily before letting his eyes flick away. “I was going to text him to bring it over, Lestrade's melodrama intervened.”

“Well that's a good thing then—he's already your free chef, don’t make him your courier.”

“I’d tip,” Sherlock shrugged, deadpan. “The food is free, not the errands.”

John rolled his eyes, but the smile wouldn’t leave. He always thought Afghanistan would be the thing he told stories about for the rest of his life, but he's gained more tales to tell in the last two days than he ever did while deployed. “Can we get a little to-go box for Mrs. Hudson while we're there? I uh… I raised my voice at her when I first came by your flat. And I feel bad about it. Should get her a little something as apology, y'know?”

“Angelo will applaud your sentiment. He’ll put you on his good list.”

“He feeds me for free just for being associated with you. I think I'm already on his good list.”

Sherlock's face squished into that same little crescent, eyes gone ink-dark into pleased slits. John watched him, staring with an expression that could only be described as pure admiration—and he didn’t feel the least bit ashamed by it.

He understood, suddenly, why strangers kept calling them boyfriends.