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what_we_dreamTitle: Four Things Sherlock Did in the Name of Science and One He Didn't
Series: Sherlock, BBC
Pairing: Not really any, or really vague Sherlock/John
Rating: PG
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ningen_demonai, from prompt for X number things Sherlock/John will do for science and one they definitely will not. I tried to make it longer to make up for my terrible terrible laziness.
Summary: What the title says
1. SABOTAGE THE CITY
John comes home at ten o’clock to find the flat dark. This isn’t unusual – Sherlock is apt to sleep whenever he pleases, a habit which extends not only to hour of the day but also to activity, occasionally with hair-raising results. John will never, ever forget the incident with the Bunsen boiler, although admittedly his eyebrows did eventually grow back.
What is unusual is that Mrs. Hudson’s lights are also off – she never misses the soap reruns. As he casts his mind’s eye back, it occurs to him that apart from car headlights he’s not sure any of the flats on the block had their lights on.
His suspicion of power-outage is proven correct when he flips the switch in the hall and nothing happens. Sighing, he stumbles upstairs and knocks on the door – he’s had too long a day at the clinic to find his keys and open the lock in the dark if there’s another option.
“It’s open,” says Sherlock from inside, and John enters cautiously.
“How long has the power been off?” he asks, tossing his jacket onto the sofa and following it more slowly. He kicks into something large and soft almost immediately, nearly tripping over it. A blanket, or a pull-over, he suspects.
On the other side of the room, an LED light flicks on, illuminating Sherlock’s wrist in its bright white halo and the rest of him in a softer grey. “Three hours, twelve minutes and thirty-one seconds,” he says, and lets the light go off. John pauses with one foot extended awkwardly, long past the days when he would have asked Sherlock why the hell he didn’t turn the light on when he entered.
“You’re very sure of that,” he says, with a kind of vague dread.
“I’m always very sure of my facts,” replies Sherlock, with false hurt rather than impatience. He might as well have waved a flag. John rubs at the bridge of his nose.
“You shorted out the power, didn’t you?”
“Well. Perhaps I gave it a nudge.”
“You didn’t short out the whole block, did you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” admonishes Sherlock. “At least five city blocks.”
John sighs, and sits down on something that crushes under him with the sound of distressed plastic.
“Watch out for the pie,” says Sherlock, belatedly.
2. SABOTAGE YOUR FLAT
It’s only when he reaches for the door to his room that Sherlock glances up from the kitchen table, where he’s adding something into a Petri dish full of blue liquid with an eye dropper. “Oh. You might not want to go in there. In fact, don’t. I sprayed the couch last week, I’m sure it’s perfectly acceptable.”
He doesn’t say what he sprayed it with, which is worrying, but there are bigger worries. John looks at him suspiciously. “Why?” He puts his ear to the door, listens. From inside comes the faint sound of heavy breathing. John straightens with alacrity. “My God, Sherlock, you haven’t kidnapped somebody?”
Sherlock looks up again, annoyed. “Of course not. Apart from anything else, I’d have put them in my room. There’s no lock on yours.”
John makes a note to purchase one in the immediate future. “Then what’s in there?” He puts a hesitant hand on the knob, and turns it slowly, ready to slam it shut again at a moment’s notice.
From the floor beside his bed, a full-sized pig looks up at him with dark, beady eyes. It’s very pink and also quite hairy, like a sort of off-colour peach, with ears the size of shovels and trotters bigger than John’s fist. The whole thing, he estimates with what little rational thought he has at the moment, must weigh upwards of seven hundred pounds. He closes the door slowly, and turns around in a daze.
“Why is there a pig in my room?” he asks, knowing he shouldn’t be surprised but still unable despite himself to put even the vaguest fringe of normalcy on this.
“I couldn’t very well leave it in here. It would have knocked over the table,” says Sherlock, with asperity. In the dish before him, the blue liquid is turning purple. “Don’t worry, someone will be along to collect it shortly.”
John, incapable of forming any sort of coherent thought, goes off to get a drink.
3. POISON SOMEONE ELSE
“Are you sure you want me to come out?” asks Sherlock of the mobile phone, sitting cross-legged in his armchair. “Anderson was positively acidic last time.”
There’s a short pause, and then Sherlock replies, “Oh dear, still? How very sad.” Another pause, and then, more sharply, “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Lestrade. His absence will increase the station’s IQ by at least fifty points... Yes, fine.” He hangs up, and his features rearrange themselves in their usual mercurial way from irritation to joy. He flips open his laptop, types a few words, and then snaps it shut again.
“You’ve been very concerned about Anderson lately,” says John, looking up from the paper.
“Hm? Hadn’t you heard? Apparently it’s some kind of food poisoning.”
“Yes, I heard. But you’ve never been interested in anyone’s illness for more than five minutes, unless they’ve got a toe-tag on.”
“Schadenfreude,” replies Sherlock, standing up abruptly and jumping down from the chair to head for the door.
“Really?” asks John. And then, as Sherlock picks up his coat, “Sherlock, you didn’t do it, did you?”
Sherlock doesn’t bother to look at him, pulling his coat on facing the door. “Do what?”
“Give something to Anderson.”
He grabs his scarf and turns. He’s smiling. “Sherlock!” says John, scandalized.
“Oh, relax. It’s nothing serious. Well. Not fatal, anyway. And it’s his own fault. I told him it was mine, and not to drink it.” As though that were fair warning for preventing poisoning. John runs his hands through his hair.
“Sherlock, you can’t just –”
But he’s already gone.
4. POISON YOURSELF
Man sprawled on the couch, eyes glassy, skin pallid, sleeves rolled up. Needles on the floor, vomit on the couch.
It’s a scene John’s too familiar with, from his education, his residency term in Public Health, from Afghanistan. But he never thought he would be dealing with it in his own flat.
He checks Sherlock’s vitals and finds them stable enough, heart racing under damp skin but not dangerously so, and cleans him up. Puts the needles in a plastic container to toss in the Sharps bucket at work. Puts the dirty pillowcase in water.
“Don’t look like that, John,” slurs Sherlock, staring up at him with red-rimmed eyes. He’s lying on his side now, face pressed against a clear cushion.
“How am I supposed to look?”
“It's - nothing serious.”
“Nothing serious? Nothing serious? Sherlock, you could have died. How high were you before I got back? You must’ve been through the roof – you –” he shakes his head. “We can talk about it when you’re in something microscopically closer to a sound mind.”
“Needed to know, John,” he says, closing his eyes.
“What? What could you possibly learn to excuse this, Sherlock? Whether you can get clean a second time? Whether it’s better after a break? Whether you could survive it?” He hammers the wall so hard a picture falls down; there’s no glass in the frame, and it clatters harmlessly on the floor.
“Whether Burrows could’ve killed his wife.” He pulls the blanket John draped over him further up his shoulder with an arthritic gesture. “Impossible.”
John shakes his head, and strides out of the room.
5. KILL
“Kill her,” Moriarty’s voice had said, over the phone. “The perfect opportunity Sherlock. No one to miss her, no one to mourn her. She won’t even notice – paint thinner’ll do that to a body. It will buy the good doctor’s freedom, and that’s what you want, isn’t it?” He had laughed, laughed that half-giggling, half-sniggering little laugh while John fought the two goons pinning him to the wall and got nowhere.
“Part of what you want. Let’s be frank, Sherlock. You want to kill her, don’t you? Oh, I know you do. I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice.” He still played with his tone, pitching it first high and then low, teasing. “You want to know what it feels like, to cut the cord, drain her life away between your hands. I can tell you, Sherlock: it feels fantastic.”
John clenches his teeth now, riding in the back of the squad car taking them both back to Baker Street, and Sherlock glances at him but says nothing. Lestrade cut them loose after filling out an hour’s worth of paperwork, with the promise of more in the morning.
“Kill her,” Moriarty had said again, and John watched while Sherlock cocked the gun. “It’s all for the thrill, Sherlock. Everything you do, everything you are. Solving crimes? Boring. Being the man who can choose to pull that trigger, who pulls it, that’s what you’re looking for. What you’re searching for in your tiny little life all trapped up in police tape. You’ve got the scissors, Sherlock. All you have to do is use them.”
The squad car stops in front of 221 and they get out, cop nodding to John, who nods back awkwardly. Sherlock doesn’t bother to acknowledge him, just heads immediately for the door and the stairway beyond. John shoves his hands in his pockets and follows.
“You won’t get this opportunity again, Sherlock. I’m original, you know that. Never give the same gift twice. This is your present: a nice incentive to do what you’ve always wanted to. You get the doctor, and you get. To pull. That trigger.”
“Sherlock –” the pain of having his arm twisted up behind his back silenced him far more efficiently than a gag, so John could only watch. Watch as Sherlock slowly lowered the gun at the woman in rags lying comatose on the floor. And then, quick as a viper, spun to shoot out the iphone instead.
How Sherlock knew the cops were there is a question John can’t ask, because right now I didn’t isn’t something he can hear. Instead, as Sherlock lets them into the flat and shrugs out of his coat, John simply says, “Thanks.”
Sherlock raises an eyebrow, and John elaborates, “For making the right decision.”
“The right decision?”
“Not killing that woman.”
Sherlock gives him a strange look, then crosses to sit in his chair. He picks up his violin but not the bow, fingering the strings without apparent thought. “I’ve never tried before,” he says, after a thoughtful minute, “to be the man someone else wanted me to be.”
John, taking off his shoes, looks up. Sherlock isn’t looking at him, but he must see the motion all the same. “It requires a surprising amount of calculation. The experience certainly sheds a much clearer light on the failure of marriages,” he adds, running a thumb over the bottom curve of the violin.
John, standing on the doorstep with one shoe on and one shoe off, has no idea whether to be pleased he was worth the effort, or terrified of what would have happened if Sherlock had decided to be the man he believes himself to be.
Series: Sherlock, BBC
Pairing: Not really any, or really vague Sherlock/John
Rating: PG
Notes: For
ningen_demonai, from prompt for X number things Sherlock/John will do for science and one they definitely will not. I tried to make it longer to make up for my terrible terrible laziness.Summary: What the title says
1. SABOTAGE THE CITY
John comes home at ten o’clock to find the flat dark. This isn’t unusual – Sherlock is apt to sleep whenever he pleases, a habit which extends not only to hour of the day but also to activity, occasionally with hair-raising results. John will never, ever forget the incident with the Bunsen boiler, although admittedly his eyebrows did eventually grow back.
What is unusual is that Mrs. Hudson’s lights are also off – she never misses the soap reruns. As he casts his mind’s eye back, it occurs to him that apart from car headlights he’s not sure any of the flats on the block had their lights on.
His suspicion of power-outage is proven correct when he flips the switch in the hall and nothing happens. Sighing, he stumbles upstairs and knocks on the door – he’s had too long a day at the clinic to find his keys and open the lock in the dark if there’s another option.
“It’s open,” says Sherlock from inside, and John enters cautiously.
“How long has the power been off?” he asks, tossing his jacket onto the sofa and following it more slowly. He kicks into something large and soft almost immediately, nearly tripping over it. A blanket, or a pull-over, he suspects.
On the other side of the room, an LED light flicks on, illuminating Sherlock’s wrist in its bright white halo and the rest of him in a softer grey. “Three hours, twelve minutes and thirty-one seconds,” he says, and lets the light go off. John pauses with one foot extended awkwardly, long past the days when he would have asked Sherlock why the hell he didn’t turn the light on when he entered.
“You’re very sure of that,” he says, with a kind of vague dread.
“I’m always very sure of my facts,” replies Sherlock, with false hurt rather than impatience. He might as well have waved a flag. John rubs at the bridge of his nose.
“You shorted out the power, didn’t you?”
“Well. Perhaps I gave it a nudge.”
“You didn’t short out the whole block, did you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” admonishes Sherlock. “At least five city blocks.”
John sighs, and sits down on something that crushes under him with the sound of distressed plastic.
“Watch out for the pie,” says Sherlock, belatedly.
2. SABOTAGE YOUR FLAT
It’s only when he reaches for the door to his room that Sherlock glances up from the kitchen table, where he’s adding something into a Petri dish full of blue liquid with an eye dropper. “Oh. You might not want to go in there. In fact, don’t. I sprayed the couch last week, I’m sure it’s perfectly acceptable.”
He doesn’t say what he sprayed it with, which is worrying, but there are bigger worries. John looks at him suspiciously. “Why?” He puts his ear to the door, listens. From inside comes the faint sound of heavy breathing. John straightens with alacrity. “My God, Sherlock, you haven’t kidnapped somebody?”
Sherlock looks up again, annoyed. “Of course not. Apart from anything else, I’d have put them in my room. There’s no lock on yours.”
John makes a note to purchase one in the immediate future. “Then what’s in there?” He puts a hesitant hand on the knob, and turns it slowly, ready to slam it shut again at a moment’s notice.
From the floor beside his bed, a full-sized pig looks up at him with dark, beady eyes. It’s very pink and also quite hairy, like a sort of off-colour peach, with ears the size of shovels and trotters bigger than John’s fist. The whole thing, he estimates with what little rational thought he has at the moment, must weigh upwards of seven hundred pounds. He closes the door slowly, and turns around in a daze.
“Why is there a pig in my room?” he asks, knowing he shouldn’t be surprised but still unable despite himself to put even the vaguest fringe of normalcy on this.
“I couldn’t very well leave it in here. It would have knocked over the table,” says Sherlock, with asperity. In the dish before him, the blue liquid is turning purple. “Don’t worry, someone will be along to collect it shortly.”
John, incapable of forming any sort of coherent thought, goes off to get a drink.
3. POISON SOMEONE ELSE
“Are you sure you want me to come out?” asks Sherlock of the mobile phone, sitting cross-legged in his armchair. “Anderson was positively acidic last time.”
There’s a short pause, and then Sherlock replies, “Oh dear, still? How very sad.” Another pause, and then, more sharply, “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Lestrade. His absence will increase the station’s IQ by at least fifty points... Yes, fine.” He hangs up, and his features rearrange themselves in their usual mercurial way from irritation to joy. He flips open his laptop, types a few words, and then snaps it shut again.
“You’ve been very concerned about Anderson lately,” says John, looking up from the paper.
“Hm? Hadn’t you heard? Apparently it’s some kind of food poisoning.”
“Yes, I heard. But you’ve never been interested in anyone’s illness for more than five minutes, unless they’ve got a toe-tag on.”
“Schadenfreude,” replies Sherlock, standing up abruptly and jumping down from the chair to head for the door.
“Really?” asks John. And then, as Sherlock picks up his coat, “Sherlock, you didn’t do it, did you?”
Sherlock doesn’t bother to look at him, pulling his coat on facing the door. “Do what?”
“Give something to Anderson.”
He grabs his scarf and turns. He’s smiling. “Sherlock!” says John, scandalized.
“Oh, relax. It’s nothing serious. Well. Not fatal, anyway. And it’s his own fault. I told him it was mine, and not to drink it.” As though that were fair warning for preventing poisoning. John runs his hands through his hair.
“Sherlock, you can’t just –”
But he’s already gone.
4. POISON YOURSELF
Man sprawled on the couch, eyes glassy, skin pallid, sleeves rolled up. Needles on the floor, vomit on the couch.
It’s a scene John’s too familiar with, from his education, his residency term in Public Health, from Afghanistan. But he never thought he would be dealing with it in his own flat.
He checks Sherlock’s vitals and finds them stable enough, heart racing under damp skin but not dangerously so, and cleans him up. Puts the needles in a plastic container to toss in the Sharps bucket at work. Puts the dirty pillowcase in water.
“Don’t look like that, John,” slurs Sherlock, staring up at him with red-rimmed eyes. He’s lying on his side now, face pressed against a clear cushion.
“How am I supposed to look?”
“It's - nothing serious.”
“Nothing serious? Nothing serious? Sherlock, you could have died. How high were you before I got back? You must’ve been through the roof – you –” he shakes his head. “We can talk about it when you’re in something microscopically closer to a sound mind.”
“Needed to know, John,” he says, closing his eyes.
“What? What could you possibly learn to excuse this, Sherlock? Whether you can get clean a second time? Whether it’s better after a break? Whether you could survive it?” He hammers the wall so hard a picture falls down; there’s no glass in the frame, and it clatters harmlessly on the floor.
“Whether Burrows could’ve killed his wife.” He pulls the blanket John draped over him further up his shoulder with an arthritic gesture. “Impossible.”
John shakes his head, and strides out of the room.
5. KILL
“Kill her,” Moriarty’s voice had said, over the phone. “The perfect opportunity Sherlock. No one to miss her, no one to mourn her. She won’t even notice – paint thinner’ll do that to a body. It will buy the good doctor’s freedom, and that’s what you want, isn’t it?” He had laughed, laughed that half-giggling, half-sniggering little laugh while John fought the two goons pinning him to the wall and got nowhere.
“Part of what you want. Let’s be frank, Sherlock. You want to kill her, don’t you? Oh, I know you do. I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice.” He still played with his tone, pitching it first high and then low, teasing. “You want to know what it feels like, to cut the cord, drain her life away between your hands. I can tell you, Sherlock: it feels fantastic.”
John clenches his teeth now, riding in the back of the squad car taking them both back to Baker Street, and Sherlock glances at him but says nothing. Lestrade cut them loose after filling out an hour’s worth of paperwork, with the promise of more in the morning.
“Kill her,” Moriarty had said again, and John watched while Sherlock cocked the gun. “It’s all for the thrill, Sherlock. Everything you do, everything you are. Solving crimes? Boring. Being the man who can choose to pull that trigger, who pulls it, that’s what you’re looking for. What you’re searching for in your tiny little life all trapped up in police tape. You’ve got the scissors, Sherlock. All you have to do is use them.”
The squad car stops in front of 221 and they get out, cop nodding to John, who nods back awkwardly. Sherlock doesn’t bother to acknowledge him, just heads immediately for the door and the stairway beyond. John shoves his hands in his pockets and follows.
“You won’t get this opportunity again, Sherlock. I’m original, you know that. Never give the same gift twice. This is your present: a nice incentive to do what you’ve always wanted to. You get the doctor, and you get. To pull. That trigger.”
“Sherlock –” the pain of having his arm twisted up behind his back silenced him far more efficiently than a gag, so John could only watch. Watch as Sherlock slowly lowered the gun at the woman in rags lying comatose on the floor. And then, quick as a viper, spun to shoot out the iphone instead.
How Sherlock knew the cops were there is a question John can’t ask, because right now I didn’t isn’t something he can hear. Instead, as Sherlock lets them into the flat and shrugs out of his coat, John simply says, “Thanks.”
Sherlock raises an eyebrow, and John elaborates, “For making the right decision.”
“The right decision?”
“Not killing that woman.”
Sherlock gives him a strange look, then crosses to sit in his chair. He picks up his violin but not the bow, fingering the strings without apparent thought. “I’ve never tried before,” he says, after a thoughtful minute, “to be the man someone else wanted me to be.”
John, taking off his shoes, looks up. Sherlock isn’t looking at him, but he must see the motion all the same. “It requires a surprising amount of calculation. The experience certainly sheds a much clearer light on the failure of marriages,” he adds, running a thumb over the bottom curve of the violin.
John, standing on the doorstep with one shoe on and one shoe off, has no idea whether to be pleased he was worth the effort, or terrified of what would have happened if Sherlock had decided to be the man he believes himself to be.
