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swissmargTitle: The Case of the Vanishing Pants; Part Four - The CLAN
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swissmarg
Rating: R
Characters: John/Sherlock
Word count: 8,148
Summary: Five times John and Sherlock lost their pants in the service of a case.
Warnings: Full male and female nudity. And manscaping. Yes, I went there. Also, homophobia, brief mention of cancer and mastectomy, and a completely transparent caseplot.
Disclaimer: The original Sherlock Holmes stories were written by Arthur Conan Doyle, and are now in the public domain. The BBC version upon which this story is based was created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. This is a transformative fanwork which was created solely for fun, not material gain.
Notes: This is unbetaed because it's been delayed long enough already by vacation, surgery, and the temporary kidnapping of my laptop, and I'm leaving again for a week and didn't want to either delay this any longer or scramble for a beta reader at the last second. On another note, the CLAN is entirely fictional and not based on any specific club.
Part One - The Dehydrator
Part Two - The Plutonium Pellets
Part Three - The Resiniferatoxin
Part Four - The CLAN
"I don't see what the problem is. You've nothing to be ashamed of," Sherlock said as he typed something into his laptop.
"It's not that," John said with one eye on the match. "I just don't fancy parading my bits around for a bunch of perfect strangers to ogle."
It had been another long day at the clinic, and he'd been looking forward to plopping down in front of the telly with a beer and a box of fish and chips, and turning off his brain. Sherlock, on the other hand, didn't have an 'off' setting, and was all fired up about a new case.
"Really, John, they're naturists. They're not there to look at you; they're there because they feel more comfortable without clothes."
"I won't feel more comfortable."
Sherlock hunched his shoulders and scowled at his screen. "You don't need to go then. Although it would be more convenient if you did. A single man showing up is bound to be looked at askance, and this is the first halfway interesting murder in months."
John tore his attention away from the telly and regarded Sherlock with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. His enthusiasm for mysterious deaths was disturbingly infectious. As was the nonchalance with which he presumed John's participation.
"So, you'd want us to pose as a couple," John said, just to be clear. "As a cover."
"We don't need to get matching tattoos and call each other 'pet'," Sherlock said, sounding mildly irritated. "Just act the same way you always do. People will assume what they assume."
They're not completely wrong, John thought, but didn't say it. They weren't actually a couple, but things had happened and been said over the past couple of weeks that definitely put them on the far side of 'just friends'. They weren't all the way there yet, and John still wasn't sure if they should be. Dinner last night - albeit pleasant - hadn't brought any clarity to their situation. John had come home from work exhausted and sore from the laundry mishap, and his brain had simply been too fuzzy to deal with complicated emotional entanglements.
It was clear that there was an attraction between them, and a mutual affection, but there was also the trust issue. John needed to be able to believe and trust Sherlock, wholly and completely, in everything, and he didn't know if he could yet, or if he would ever be able to. He knew that this was as much his fault as Sherlock's; his psychological assessment said so.
For example, John found it slightly suspicious that Sherlock had come up with this case the day after the disastrous incident with the washing. He knew this was irrational: Sherlock couldn't possibly have induced the president of the Central London Association of Naturists - otherwise known as the CLAN - to send an email this morning if he hadn't urgently needed their help. The murders themselves had taken place over the course of the last month, long before their mutual shower. The suggestion that Sherlock might have killed two people merely in order to get John naked again was uncomfortably close to the actual accusations that had been levelled at Sherlock in the days leading up to his fake suicide. John decided then and there not to dwell on it any further, and to trust that this was all just an insane coincidence.
He hung his head in defeat. Of course he was going to say yes. "Did you say they have hot tubs?" he asked, hoping to maintain at least a scrap of dignity through all this.
Sherlock clicked to another window and quoted briskly from the web site: "'Visitors are welcome on Saturdays from five p.m. onwards for textile-free relaxation in the swimming pool, jacuzzi, and sauna, accompanied by refreshments and drinks in the pavilion'."
John rubbed his eyes and licked his lips. He'd had quite enough of saunas, thanks much, but a whirlpool with jets of warm water massaging his back and legs wouldn't be entirely unwelcome, especially after the stress of the past couple of weeks. "All right, I'll come along, but I am going to sit directly in the jacuzzi and not move until you're done with whatever observations or investigations you need to make." In addition, the water should give him enough cover in case he became distracted by Sherlock walking around naked.
He'd had a guilty wank the night before to images of what might have happened in the shower the day before, minus the chemical burns, of course. They were both recovering well, with only mild redness and irritation remaining. Sherlock had offered to apply the aloe vera gel to John's back this morning before he left for work, but John had thought, on the whole, that was probably a project best left to another day.
"Fine," Sherlock said in answer to John's stipulation, managing to sound both grudging and smug at the same time.
Oh God, he was done for.
By the next day - Saturday - John was feeling much improved, and was even looking forward to the evening. After having been broiled, exposed to radiation, and burnt during their last three cases, the prospect of warm, soothing water on his battered skin sounded heavenly. The worst that might befall him as a result of this investigation, he reckoned, would be a case of athlete's foot.
When he arrived home from work that afternoon, ready to go to the club, Sherlock was sitting in his chair, checking the weather on his phone. John was surprised to see that he had slicked his hair and parted it on the side so that it lay in thick waves across his head. In addition to a pair of black-framed glasses, he was wearing jeans and a faux turtleneck shirt with a burgundy cardigan over it. The outfit was more casual than Sherlock's usual attire, but still smart. It was as if Sherlock had taken John's style and brought it to the pages of GQ. John wasn't sure whether to be flattered or humiliated. Or, just a bit turned on.
He could be your boyfriend, a voice inside John's head told him. In fact, he is, it added smugly, for the purposes of today's excursion, so it's perfectly fine to ogle him.
John tried to ignore the nervous flutter these thoughts instigated and asked, as neutrally as he could, "Who are you supposed to be?"
"You tell me," Sherlock said as he stood, snapping his phone shut. "Pick a name you're not likely to forget."
"Do we need a disguise for tonight?" John was still wearing his work clothes, consisting today of his red shirt and brown cord jacket. He flipped mentally through his wardrobe, trying to come up with something that might work as a disguise. Aside from military items, there wasn't much.
But Sherlock answered impatiently, "Not you, John. My picture from the papers is still too fresh, especially for those with an interest in remaining anonymous to me."
John's picture had been printed too, of course, but Sherlock was right: he was the only one who ever got recognised.
"So." Sherlock pulled at the bottom of the cardigan to straighten out the wrinkles. "To keep things simple and minimise the chance that you'll slip up, you are a GP with a private practice. We needn't mention anything more than your first name, which is common enough. I, on the other hand, am an industrial chemist, and my name is..." He looked expectantly at John.
John ignored the frankly insulting suggestion that he couldn't maintain a false identity, because Sherlock had awarded him a private practice. Instead, he crossed his arms and studied Sherlock, trying to come up with an appropriate name for him. Something that suggested brains, something he wouldn't forget, nothing that was either too mundane or too outlandish, but still a bit special. Wendell? Oliver? No, how about: "Lionel?" he suggested.
Sherlock nodded. "Lionel. Fine. Shall we?"
He picked up a black coat from the back of his chair and put it on as he went to the door. It was like a shortened version of his greatcoat, with big lapels and ending at his hips. He looked like a Burberry advert.
"You certainly went to a lot of trouble" - and expense, John thought, but didn't say - "with the wardrobe, when you're only going to be taking it all off once we get there."
"It helps me get into character," Sherlock said, already on his way down the stairs.
The CLAN was housed in what had once been a cricket pavilion, Sherlock told John as they emerged from the taxi - the fact being 'obvious' from the gables, cupola, and long porches. The former cricket field behind it had long since been chopped into parcels, but the club retained a good-sized garden surrounded by a high wall to shield it from curious eyes. When the weather was clement, CLAN members could indulge in textile-free sunbathing, lawn games, and picnics, they were informed by Peter Agrawal, the club president, who greeted them – clothed - at the door.
He was several years older than John and had a receding hairline and a paunch of a belly. John immediately relaxed a notch about spending the next couple of hours naked with a bunch of strangers. For all that he considered himself generally uninhibited and progressive in his views, he had been secretly harbouring insecurities about his less than rock-hard physique. Sherlock had seen him in all his dubious glory several times now, and didn't seem to be disgusted by his body (quite the opposite, if his little display in the shower were anything to go by), but John was very much aware - especially when he compared himself to Sherlock's slim, muscular lines - that he was past his physical prime and settling slowly but surely into the sags and spread of middle age. He'd been picturing the members of the CLAN as some sort of fitness-crazed hardbodies, bulging with muscles and silicon, but if this was their president - a very ordinary-looking gentleman of no particular physical prowess - then John didn't think he needed to fear looking too out of place.
Agarwal ushered Sherlock and John into the office, thanking them profusely for taking the case. He offered them seats and proceeded to go over the basic facts. It seemed that two of their members had died over the past month after imbibing sports drinks dosed with antifreeze. The police – under the aegis of Dimmock, who refused to let Sherlock anywhere near his cases (which didn't mean Sherlock hadn't already accessed everything about the investigation in NSY's database) - were tapping in the dark regarding both a motive and the source of the drinks, but as the only known connection between the victims was their membership in the CLAN, the investigation was focusing on the club.
The bar did sell the same sports drinks which the two unfortunates had died from, but everything had been seized and tested - twice - all the way back to the manufacturer, and not a trace of the poison had been found. Sherlock snorted, as if to say that had been a waste of time and resources, but let Agarwal continue.
Needless to say, everyone associated with the club was distraught, not only because of the deaths of their friends, but due to the fear that the killer might still be at large among them. Attendance at their gatherings was becoming abysmal. If the perpetrator wasn't caught soon (and hopefully found to have no connection whatsoever to the CLAN), the club would have to be disbanded and its assets liquidated to pay for the legal proceedings.
"Right, I think we have enough to be going on with," Sherlock said suddenly, leaping up out of his chair in the middle of Agarwal's hand-wringing. He was buzzing with nervous energy, and John could practically see the theories slotting into place behind his eyes.
"So, any ideas yet?" John asked, attempting to remain casual as they took their clothes off in the changing room Agarwal directed them to. There were no cubicles, just benches down the middle and the standard rows of lockers lining the walls. They were the only ones there, having arrived early so they wouldn't miss any of the other guests.
"Several," Sherlock said as he skimmed out of his form-fitting trousers, unveiling his - by now unsurprising - black pants. "Only two are even slightly interesting, however. I'm afraid the whole thing is going to turn out to be rather obvious." He sounded perturbed.
"God forbid the killer didn't make it complicated enough for you. Wouldn't want you to be disappointed," John teased and stepped out of his pants.
He concentrated on folding his clothes and stowing them neatly in one of the lockers. God, he was only now realising that he was going to be spending the rest of the evening trying to avoid staring at other people's privates, not just Sherlock's. It was going to be like their first interview with Irene times fifty. He deposited a one-pound coin into the locker, closed it, and removed the key, which he fastened around his wrist. Maybe he'd just slip into the jacuzzi and shut his eyes for the remainder of the evening.
Sherlock closed his own locker, and John was about to follow him out into the main club area when he nearly ran into the bench, because: what had Sherlock done to his... down there?
He wasn't going to look, he really wasn't, but even at the periphery of his vision, he noticed that something was different - and there was something deeply wrong about the fact that he could tell at a glance that the appearance of Sherlock's genitals had changed overnight, but there it was. They looked bigger. That wasn't physically possible, was it? He wasn't aroused; his penis was hanging the same way it always did - and again, the fact that John knew how Sherlock's penis 'always' hung was not something he wanted to become public knowledge. But there was somehow more of it. It was more obvious, more...
All of a sudden it hit him. Jesus. He'd shaved. Sherlock Holmes had manscaped. He hadn't completely denuded his groin; there was still a closely cropped bunch of hair right around the base of his shaft. But the skin of his lower abdomen, the inner creases of his thighs, and his scrotum were entirely hairless, and John suspected he would find the same was true of his perineum, if he cared to check. Which he didn't. No. No, he didn't.
"John?" Sherlock had stopped, too, and was watching John with a curious expression. "Is everything all right?"
John shook his head and forced himself to meet Sherlock's gaze. "Uh..." was all he got out. And then he looked again. Stared, really.
"It's all part of the character," Sherlock said.
"Sorry?"
"Lionel. The industrial chemist. John, please, it's not brain surgery. Do keep up. Lionel prefers to keep himself well-groomed for his partner." Sherlock gestured toward John, somehow conveying that he was talking about the fake GP John-with-no-last-name who John was supposed to be playing, as opposed to the real trauma specialist John-with-a-last-name who was Sherlock's partner albeit not in the same sense, although even that was becoming debatable, and... oh fuck, this was going to be complicated.
"He does," John echoed faintly. The thought that Sherlock had done this for him... but no, it was all just play-acting. His character. Nevertheless, he wanted - God help him - he wanted to touch.
"I thought 'John' would appreciate the visual aspect of Lionel having a certain amount of hair," Sherlock was saying. "Especially as he himself prefers to remain au naturel. But not so much that it would get in the way when they engage in-"
"Sherlock!" John squeaked as images of what exactly 'they' might engage in that involved keeping hair out of mouths appeared tantalisingly before his mind's eye. And yes, it was true that he'd always found the completely hair-free genitals of both the female and male variety which were often featured in pornography somewhat disconcerting. But how had Sherlock known? Or had he invented a persona for 'John' that only happened to coincide with some of John's own traits?
Sherlock's expression became thunderous at John's outburst. "Lionel," he hissed. "If you aren't going to be able to keep up your end, you might as well leave right now."
"Sorry. Lionel." John swallowed and clenched his fists. "It's just that 'John' would prefer it if 'Lionel' didn't discuss things in a public setting that they might get up to in private."
Sherlock paused, watching John shrewdly. When he finally spoke, it was with a cold edge. "Of course. You don't want anyone to get the wrong idea."
"No. No," John repeated firmly. He stepped close to Sherlock and grasped his wrist. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be speaking as himself to Sherlock or as fake-John to Lionel, but it was all getting jumbled up now anyway. He caught his eye, cloudy blue meeting cool grey. "I'm not ashamed of you, or of you and me together. But when you say things like that... Are you trying to get us kicked out for public indecency? This is difficult enough. Lionel," he added after a second, so that his words could be taken as part of the game.
Two spots of high colour appeared on Sherlock's cheeks, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed heavily.
"Besides," John continued, "I'm not in it for the shock value, or to prove something to anyone. Although I'm sure the look on some people's faces might be entertaining enough." He let his eyes dance with amusement.
"It's nothing they don't already think anyway," Sherlock said, his expression relaxing a bit as well.
John grinned. "Couldn't you just see Don-"
"Oh, hello!" a woman's voice broke in.
John turned to see they had been joined by two women, pleasant looking and maybe in their early thirties. And, of course, he and Sherlock were standing there naked. Holding hands, more or less. Well, here went the trial by fire.
"Hi," John said, reminding himself of the role he was now playing. "Erm, sorry, first time here." He forced himself to walk over to the women, holding out his hand to the closest one and hoping that he wasn't breaking all kinds of rules of etiquette by approaching them completely naked while they were still fully clothed. "My name's John."
"Jen," the first woman said as she shook his hand, keeping her eyes casually trained on his face. She had short-cropped brown hair and a friendly smile. "And this is Deidre. It's her first time too, but I've been a member for a few years."
"This is my partner, Lionel," John said, congratulating himself on not stumbling over either the name or the relationship.
Sherlock had come over as well and was hovering behind John's shoulder, close enough that John could feel his body heat, but not actually touching him. He reached around to shake Jen and Deidre's hands as well.
Jen went over to a locker and began shucking off her clothes as she continued chatting. "I think it's great that the two of you are going textile-free together. My ex never really got it. I mean, he came a couple of times, but it was all like a peep show to him, you know? But see, Dee," she said to her friend, "not everyone's like that." She leaned over to confide in a loud whisper to John, "She thinks all the blokes here are bound to be gaffing idiots."
"Or gay," Deidre muttered from where she was trying to discreetly remove her clothing, keeping her back to the room. Her head whipped around toward John and Sherlock in mild mortification. "Oh God, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I only meant, the decent ones are always gay, and the straight ones always only have the one thing on their mind."
"I mean, the point is, it's not a meat market," Jen went on, unconcernedly shrugging her bra off. "It's just a place where we can be ourselves and let our skin breathe and interact without any barriers." She turned around, revealing that one side of her chest was scarred and flat where a breast had been removed. "Oh. Cancer," she explained cheerfully as she saw where John's eyes had drifted.
"Nice work," John said, because it was; there was hardly any puckering or puffiness. "Looks to be longer than five years, congratulations."
"Uh, yeah, six and a half, actually," Jen said, "but how-"
"Sorry, I'm a doctor," John explained sheepishly. "And, gunshot." He nodded down at his shoulder.
"God, really?" Jen made a half shocked, half sympathetic face.
"Yes, Afghanistan, he's something of a war hero," Sherlock interjected. "Well, this has all been simply fascinating, chit-chat chit-chat, we'll let you get to it. And you needn't have gone to all the trouble," he said to Deidre, flicking his eyes clinically over her body, "she's entirely heterosexual. John?"
"Lionel," John scolded him as he allowed himself to be pulled through the door, "that was rather rude."
"Oh, neither of them are involved in what we're here for." Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "And I was only being helpful. Better she know now than make a fool out of herself all night."
John couldn't help admitting that Sherlock might have a point. He only wished there were someone who could give him the same type of advice.
They each picked up a complimentary towel from the stack by the entrance - both for drying off after water-based activities, and for sitting on to keep the surfaces hygienic - and took up their positions: Sherlock perched on a stool at the bar, and John in the jacuzzi up on the deck, with a panoramic view of the garden. London was under a level three cold weather alert, and it looked absolutely frigid out, with long icicles hanging from the roof, and the remnants of several light snowfalls swept by the wind into forlorn piles under the brown, dry bushes. The contrast made the hot, bubbly water he slowly lowered himself into even more soothing. He angled himself so that he could see nearly the entire room and propped his elbows up on the edge of the tub.
Sherlock was talking to the man behind the bar, who was exactly of the type John had imagined would populate the club: in his early twenties and with perfectly sculpted muscles that moved sensuously under his smooth, tanned skin. He'd already served Sherlock a drink - something golden in a wide tumbler, with ice - and Sherlock was running his fingers around the rim of the glass, leaning forward, focused on the other man, listening intently to whatever he was saying. John found himself clenching his jaw and making a fist with his left hand, an uncomfortable tightness in his chest, before he caught himself, forced his hand flat and looked away.
It was just an act, he reminded himself. Sherlock was playing a part, trying to get information to stop a killer from striking again. Well, correction: he was trying to get information to prove he was cleverer than either the police or whoever had poisoned the drinks. But as the upshot was the same, John preferred to focus on the justice and prevention angle. And anyway, regardless of Sherlock's motives, he and Sherlock weren't really a couple. Were they? He wasn't sure. He didn't want to ask. Sherlock was free to chat up anyone he wanted. Not that he ever had in the four years John had known him. (Really only two years: during the two years Sherlock had been gone he might have worked his way through the entire cast of Cirque du Soleil, for all John knew.)
More people were coming in now. Jen was introducing Deidre to Agarwal near the bar. Deidre looked slightly ill at ease, with her arms crossed and her shoulders hunched inward. Another man, probably in his sixties, with white hair and a drooping, creased backside, was heading for the pool, visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the room next door. In fact, as John scanned the members and visitors trickling in, he noted that the majority of them were over forty. Leathery wrinkles and pasty flab dominated. There were, of course, other young people, such as the very tattooed couple who were obviously friends of Jen, going by the friendly hugs that were exchanged, and the group of four athletic-looking men and two equally fit women who tumbled in, laughing and snapping their towels at each other on their way to the pool. John watched as they executed some very impressive dives. The overall impression he had was no longer of a soft porn den, but more of a retirement club for hippies.
As John swept the room with his eye, he tried to see anything that might indicate a potential killer. He didn't really have a firm opinion on profiling, but sometimes a person would give off a certain vibe of something being not quite right, a bit off. It was harder to tell from a distance - although Sherlock would probably be able to pick out a killer from a crowd at fifty feet. John considered that, if he were really serious about being Sherlock's partner - in a professional sense - and not just his sidekick-stroke-assistant, he should probably be talking to people, rather than hiding in the corner.
He was about to lever himself up out of the tub when Jen came up on the deck.
"Mind if I join you?" she asked.
"Not at all." John waved a hand at the otherwise empty tub and gave her an easy smile. "Was beginning to wonder what I'd need to do to get some company."
Jen stepped in and settled next to John. John shifted away the arm he had draped over the edge of the tub so that it wasn't actually around her shoulders.
"What about your boyfriend?" she asked.
"Who, Lionel?" he asked, momentarily thrown by the label. He had a boyfriend? Of course, he had a boyfriend. He'd been thinking of Sherlock (well, Lionel, but really it was Sherlock) as his 'partner', but to most people, that would be synonymous with 'boyfriend', and Christ, that really laid it out there, didn't it? His boyfriend.
He was uncomfortable with the word. He associated it with immaturity, impermanence, and frivolity. Yet if he and Sherlock went ahead and added a sexual element to their relationship, others would view them as 'boyfriends', in the same way that he referred to the women he'd dated in the past as his girlfriends. There was something disquieting about putting Sherlock in the same category as those women. He was so much more. Even though John had always vaguely imagined he'd end up in a permanent relationship with a woman, he'd never met a woman he actually wanted to spend his life with. Sherlock, on the other hand, was the one person he couldn't imagine living his life without.
He had to focus. He'd have time to think about all of the implications later, but right now, he had a part to play, and he was well on his way to bollixing it up royally. In order to answer Jen's question, he looked around for Sherlock and found him still at the bar, talking to a middle-aged, balding man on the stool next to him.
"Lionel's...having a drink," John said, aware of how lame that sounded.
They should actually be together. That was his role, to provide Sherlock a reason for being here; they were supposed to be on a date, a couple exploring the naturist lifestyle together, and here he was, hiding in the jacuzzi with a woman he'd just met while his supposed boyfriend was chatting with random men at the bar.
"I erm...The jacuzzi just looked so tempting," he tried to explain. "Been a bit of a hard week. And you?" he said in an attempt to redirect the conversation. "What happened to Deidre?"
Jen nodded toward a table in the far corner, where Deidre was talking and laughing with a thickset, dark-skinned woman with short-cropped, bleached hair and several tattoos running down her shoulder and arm. "Tammy introduced her to Ray. Best thing she could have done. Things got a bit awkward after Lionel..."
John cringed. "Yeah, sorry about that. He tends to spout off like that sometimes. If it makes any difference, he did think he was being helpful."
"I guess he was. But how did he know? I mean, I had no clue, and he doesn't even know us."
John shrugged. "He's pretty good at reading people." He chuckled. "The first day I met him, he'd never laid eyes on me before, but he accurately diagnosed my PTSD, as well as my sister's substance abuse – based on her phone. The next day, he outed a couple who were having an affair in front of all of their coworkers."
Jen erupted in peals of laughter. "Oh my God, no he didn't! What, is he also a doctor?"
"No, chemist, actually. Not the kind that dispenses drugs, the kind with test tubes and lab goggles."
For some reason, this struck both of them as so patently ridiculous that they exploded in a bout of mutual giggles. John was gasping for air when a hand grasped his shoulder and a deep voice sounded in his ear.
"John."
John turned his head to see Sherlock crouched next to him. His long, lean thigh was positioned so that John couldn't see his groin, but the pebbling around his nipple and the firm pressure of his hand on John's shoulder were enough to make John's mouth go dry and set his heart racing.
"Um, Lionel. Hi," he said, still grinning as his laughter subsided. He lifted his hand to place it over Sherlock's on his shoulder, because it seemed the natural thing to do, and he really, really wanted to touch him. "You remember Jen."
Sherlock eyed her coolly and said, "Yes," before returning his focus to John. "If you can spare the time, I need you for a moment." His voice was as tight as the hand on John's shoulder.
"Yeah, all right." John stood, and Sherlock let go of him and went to stand by the window. "It was nice talking to you," John said to Jen, adding awkwardly, "I may be back..."
'Sorry,' she mouthed at him with an apologetic look and shooed him off.
John picked up his towel from the chair he'd draped it over and went over to where Sherlock was standing.
"What's going on?" He shivered a little and blotted the water off his skin to minimise his heat loss. The room was otherwise kept at a comfortable temperature, but next to the window, he could feel the cold seeping in.
Sherlock took John's elbow and pulled him closer so their conversation could be kept confidential. His body was warm, and John leaned in automatically, close enough that their thighs brushed. He kept his line of sight very carefully directed at Sherlock's face. It didn't help much. Memories of their previous nude encounters filled in every line, bulge, and shading of colour from the neck down. John realised with a flush of embarrassment that he was well on the way to what must certainly be an egregious faux pas. He didn't know what the CLAN's policy was on the public display of stiffies, but he hadn't seen any others.
"It would be easier to convince people that we're here together if you weren't sitting over here flirting," Sherlock said in a low, steely tone.
"I was not flirting," John protested with an incredulous laugh, all while secretly thrilling at the intimate timbre of Sherlock's voice. "And you're one to talk, the way you were going after that Adonis behind the bar. I'd say you were practically undressing him with your eyes, but-"
"That was part of my character."
"So is Lionel a cheat, or a tease?" John challenged him.
"That's not what was going on, and you know it!" Sherlock snapped.
"Yes, I do, but not everyone else does," John replied coolly. "And that's all that matters, isn't it? How we appear to everyone else?"
"No, that's not- I mean, yes, of course, but-" Sherlock stumbled over his words as he tried to untangle the real-them vs. fake-them strands of their conversation.
John put a calming hand on his arm and took a deep breath. His own thoughts were none too organised, but if even Sherlock was getting flustered, the chemistry between them must be even more powerful than he'd assumed. "All right, stop. I think we're both overthinking this whole thing. Let's concentrate on why we're here. We can sort out ... the other stuff later." He held Sherlock's gaze until arousal swirled dizzily in his abdomen. He concentrated on the feel of the wooden deck against his toes, the towel between his fingers, and tried to breathe shallowly so that Sherlock's smell wouldn't be so strong in his nostrils. Did Sherlock not feel that too? How were they not kissing yet?
Sherlock darted his eyes away. "Yes. Yes, you're- Of course." He frowned and dropped his hand from John's elbow. "This is exactly why-"
"Hey, hey," John said gently and caught his eye again, sliding his hand down Sherlock's arm to entwine their fingers. He tried to quiet his own racing heart and force calmness through their joined hands. "I'm here for you. Just tell me what you want. Tell me what you need me to do."
For a brief moment, all of Sherlock's shields and layers of obfuscation fell away; he wasn't Lionel or a high-functioning sociopath or a deductive genius or even a reluctant hero who would die to protect his friends. He was just a man, without a name, his heart open and raw and beating in John's hand, and John didn't know - he didn't know what to do with it. He needed someone to tell him, because he couldn't do this. He couldn't be responsible for it; there had never been anyone in his life who was this important to him, and he had absolutely no fucking clue how to make a relationship work, really work, with arguing and laughing and being bored and having sex and loving each other through it all, no matter what, because you both wanted - needed - more than anything to help each other be the best you could be, and that is what Sherlock deserved, nothing less. And at some level, even if John wasn't sure he deserved it, he knew that if didn't get at least something back, he'd bleed out all over both of them, and that would be the end, really the end, and he couldn't go through that kind of loss again, and he didn't think Sherlock could either.
"You want to be part of this," Sherlock said, half question and half conclusion. John knew he was talking in layers again, and God help him, he did, he wanted it so badly he couldn't think straight, but that was the problem: he wasn't as clever as Sherlock and he couldn't afford to make a mistake or lose everything over a misunderstanding at this point.
And so he said, "Of this investigation, yes," as if that's all that Sherlock were asking, and pleaded silently with him to understand, to allow him the loophole and not take it as a rejection.
But with those words, Sherlock's mask fell back in place, supplemented by the carapace of glasses and hair gel. "Fine," he said, drawing himself upright and pulling his hand back. "I'll need you to talk to people then, as many as you can. You're good at drawing people out, making them like you." It sounded like an accusation more than a compliment.
John swallowed and nodded. He didn't like the cold, blank look on Sherlock's face, but he couldn't try and fix it now. "Yes, okay," he said. "Not Jen or Deirdre. I'll-" He let out a nervous breath. "I may need a few minutes. Sitting somewhere. Possibly in the water."
Sherlock glanced downward, while John kept his eyes resolutely forward.
"I apologise," John said flatly. "Unprofessional of me."
To his surprise, Sherlock laughed briefly, and John hoped that was relief he heard and not mocking. "No, it's... I have the perfect assignment for you, actually," Sherlock said.
John dared to look at him, and Sherlock raised his eyebrows in the direction of the jacuzzi. John checked over his shoulder. Jen had vacated the tub, and in her place were a man and a woman who couldn't have been a day under eighty.
John snorted and turned back to Sherlock. "You think you're being cheeky, but I'll bet those two know more than everyone else in this room combined, including the killer. You should be the one interviewing them."
Sherlock favoured him with a small, wry smile. "I'll trust you to report back to me on the latest in denture cleaners and hip replacements. Oh, and a word to the wise: the gentleman didn't let his lactose intolerance stop him from indulging in an ice cream with his granddaughter this afternoon." He winked and walked away, leaving John unsure whether to curse his pettiness, be astounded by his insights, or simply admire his magnificent arse.
Shaking his head, John sidled back to the jacuzzi. He held his towel casually in front of him until the last possible second, then bent quickly at the waist in order to block the evidence of his well-functioning reproductive system from the room with his leg as he stepped into the tub again.
He introduced himself to the others - Ronnie and Bill - and within short order had a fairly detailed biography of both of them as well as the CLAN. Bill in particular was keen to pontificate at length about the Gymnosophist Society, the Camp, and the Sexual Offenses Act of 2003.
Ronnie, on the other hand, seemed to be suffering from an impairment of either her hearing or her short-term memory, as she asked John twice over the course of five minutes where his wife was. When he informed her both times that he wasn't in fact married, she told him, twice, "Oh, dear, I know how that is. My Freddie's dead and buried himself, not that he was a good husband, bit of a ladies' man he was. Well, we're better off without them, dear."
Bill ignored Ronnie's interjections and steamrolled on with details of his holidays on Sylt in the 1960s. John had to admit that Sherlock might have known exactly what he was doing. It didn't look like John was going to be able to get anything useful out of this pair.
The third time Ronnie asked John where his wife was, he bit the bullet and said, "Actually, I'm gay" – a more accurate explanation seemed too complicated - "and in a long-term relationship with that man over there." He pointed at Sherlock, who was standing, wide-legged, his hips undulating slowly in what John recognised as a sign of distraction and suppressed impatience, as he talked to an elderly man leaning on a cane.
This time Bill stopped his monologue and took note. "You mean the leggy chap with the hair what's talking to Bruce?"
John nodded – he didn't know who Bruce was, but the rest of the description certainly fit Sherlock to a tee.
"Is that so?" Bill gave John an appraising once-over. "Yeah, I can see it now."
"Sorry, what can you see?" John asked, perfectly politely.
"Oh, it don't bother me," Bill assured him. "Had an uncle what was bent." He leaned in, put a hand on John's shoulder, and whispered, "It was the cravats gave it away," while gesturing at his neck. He leaned back again. "Had a couple of those on our street, too, back in the eighties, shacked up together bold as you please; said as they was just housemates, but we all knew what was what. Never had a spot of trouble until the one up and died. That AIDS thing. Big to-do over the house, ended up being repossessed, and no one wanted to buy it once it all got out. Ruined the property values in the neighbourhood, let me tell you. It's a good thing I never wanted to sell."
"Yes, unexpected deaths can be messy," John acceded, gritting his teeth against the urge to run roughshod over the man's blithe stereotyping and prejudice. He recognised that a few words from a relative stranger such as John wouldn't put so much as a dent in a lifetime's worth of misinformation. And there were over twenty more people he needed to talk to before the night ran out. So he decided to cut to the chase, especially as Bill's callous comments gave him a way to bring up the poisonings without being too obvious about it. "Speaking of, I read in the paper that two of the club members here might have been poisoned?"
"Don't you believe a word of it," Bill railed. "Suicide pact, or I'm a monkey's uncle. Jonestown all over again. They were having an affair, and someone found them out."
John's ears perked up at that, although he knew not to jump to any conclusions yet. Everyone would have their own theories as to what had happened; the deaths must have been a popular topic at the CLAN in recent weeks. "How'd you know that?" he asked.
"Think how you could trick someone into drinking antifreeze unawares," Bill said scornfully. "They'd have spit it out in a second."
"Oh, no, it's very sweet," Ronnie piped up. "We had a dog once that licked up a spill as if it were ice cream. Awful convulsions, died that night." She looked eerily cheerful as she related the tale, then peered more closely at John. "Where's your wife?"
John sighed. "Over there," he said, nodding in Sherlock's direction. Deeming himself to be once again physically presentable and in possession of all the useful information he was going to get out of the pair, he stood up and excused himself.
"All right," John said, once Sherlock had finished with Bruce and they were able to claim a table to sit down and talk privately. "Aside from a possible case of early-stage dementia, we have the theory that it was a suicide pact. Could the two victims have been having an affair?"
Sherlock shook his head. "No, they never had contact outside of this room."
"Bill also said something about Jonestown, although I think he was getting his stories mixed up because the Jonestown massacre didn't have anything to do with a secret love affair being found out. You do know about Jonestown?" John asked.
"Yes, yes, the mass cult suicide in Guyana," Sherlock said quickly. "It would be brilliant if this were something like that, might even be worth my time, but Agarwal is no Jim Jones, and it doesn't make sense for there to be only two deaths and so far apart."
"Well," John continued, "antifreeze is apparently sweet-tasting, so the victims would likely not have noticed they were drinking it. Although I don't think that says anything about whether it was suicide or murder. If I were going to poison myself, I'd certainly rather take something that tasted pleasant."
"Of course, ethylene glycol, that's why so many accidental poisonings of children and pets occur."
"Yes, Ronnie said her dog died of it, in fact."
"Ronnie?" Sherlock glanced behind John at the jacuzzi. "The old woman?"
John nodded. "Although I'm not sure how much of what she says is true and how much is fantasy. She seems a bit confused."
Sherlock's eyes gleamed with interest. "Tell me everything she said."
John went over everything he remembered, skipping the bit at the end where he'd said that Sherlock was his wife, because it was really very much not relevant, and anyway, it was Lionel and 'John' who were liaised, not he and Sherlock.
When John was finished, Sherlock got a faraway look for a few seconds. Then he reached across the table and grabbed John's shoulder.
"Oh, John. Oh-ho-ho! John! I knew you were the right man for the job!" He beamed and drew in a sharp breath, rising slightly from his chair as if he were going to lean across and- John wasn't sure; kiss him, possibly? But then he jerked back into his seat and fluffed his fingers nervously through his hair, disturbing the smooth, slicked-down style he'd adopted for his disguise.
John glowed under Sherlock's praise even as a little tingle sparked in his chest. "You've got it?"
"Well." He glanced at John, then quickly away and tapped his finger against his mouth. "It's pedestrian. Disappointing. But yes, I think I know what happened."
After that, things moved quickly. Ronnie readily admitted to having brought the doctored drink bottles from home and giving them to the two victims, whom – in her confusion - she'd imagined were her late husband and one of his flings. Jen volunteered to help Ronnie get her things together before she was taken out to Dimmock and the two uniformed officers summoned by Agarwal.
"So you're actually Sherlock Holmes and John Watson," Jen said, as they stood outside the club and watched the police cars drive away. It was dark and the air was so cold it hurt to breathe, and the taxi John had ordered wasn't there yet.
"Guilty," John admitted with a rueful smile. Sherlock, once more sans glasses, didn't even look up from his phone.
"This was really rather exciting," Jen said, rubbing her gloved hands together against the cold. "So the whole thing... the disguise and your stories... It was all part of the investigation?"
"Well, I am really a doctor," John said. "And Sherlock really does know his way around a chemistry laboratory."
"And the part about you being together?" The question was both hesitant and hopeful, and John had absolutely no idea what to answer. He didn't want to announce it to a perfect stranger before he'd discussed it with Sherlock.
Sherlock looked up sharply at the sound of a car honking.
"Our taxi, John. Come." He took hold of John's arm and started walking toward the kerb.
"Read the blog," John called over his shoulder at Jen before he disappeared into the stuffy, overheated interior of the waiting car.
"Baker Street," Sherlock told the cabbie and settled into the far corner of the seat.
"Brilliant as usual," John said as the taxi pulled away. "Tragic, though."
Sherlock made a noncommittal sound and stared out the window. He didn't seem as pleased as he usually was after solving a case and showing up the police. He'd been in a much better mood after both the Lepowsky investigation and tracking down the plutonium smuggler, even though neither one had ended with them apprehending the culprit.
"You're disappointed there wasn't more to it?" John ventured.
"It went much as I expected it would," Sherlock muttered.
John didn't say anything for a while as they drove through the icy streets. He wasn't sure what was bothering Sherlock, but if they were still Lionel and 'John', he'd reach over and take his hand and suggest they go to Angelo's for dinner.
He waited until the next traffic light.
"Hey." John slid over and put his hand over Sherlock's, where it was resting on his leg. "I could use something to eat." He waited until Sherlock turned to look at him, then squeezed his hand and rubbed the back lightly with his thumb. "Angelo's?"
Sherlock moved his thumb to capture John's fingers and smiled. "Okay."
End notes: Incredibly, there is no legislation in the U.K. that requires bittering agents to be added to antifreeze in order to prevent poisonings, although some manufacturers add it voluntarily.
Part Five: The Pond
Author:
swissmargRating: R
Characters: John/Sherlock
Word count: 8,148
Summary: Five times John and Sherlock lost their pants in the service of a case.
Warnings: Full male and female nudity. And manscaping. Yes, I went there. Also, homophobia, brief mention of cancer and mastectomy, and a completely transparent caseplot.
Disclaimer: The original Sherlock Holmes stories were written by Arthur Conan Doyle, and are now in the public domain. The BBC version upon which this story is based was created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. This is a transformative fanwork which was created solely for fun, not material gain.
Notes: This is unbetaed because it's been delayed long enough already by vacation, surgery, and the temporary kidnapping of my laptop, and I'm leaving again for a week and didn't want to either delay this any longer or scramble for a beta reader at the last second. On another note, the CLAN is entirely fictional and not based on any specific club.
Part One - The Dehydrator
Part Two - The Plutonium Pellets
Part Three - The Resiniferatoxin
Part Four - The CLAN
"I don't see what the problem is. You've nothing to be ashamed of," Sherlock said as he typed something into his laptop.
"It's not that," John said with one eye on the match. "I just don't fancy parading my bits around for a bunch of perfect strangers to ogle."
It had been another long day at the clinic, and he'd been looking forward to plopping down in front of the telly with a beer and a box of fish and chips, and turning off his brain. Sherlock, on the other hand, didn't have an 'off' setting, and was all fired up about a new case.
"Really, John, they're naturists. They're not there to look at you; they're there because they feel more comfortable without clothes."
"I won't feel more comfortable."
Sherlock hunched his shoulders and scowled at his screen. "You don't need to go then. Although it would be more convenient if you did. A single man showing up is bound to be looked at askance, and this is the first halfway interesting murder in months."
John tore his attention away from the telly and regarded Sherlock with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. His enthusiasm for mysterious deaths was disturbingly infectious. As was the nonchalance with which he presumed John's participation.
"So, you'd want us to pose as a couple," John said, just to be clear. "As a cover."
"We don't need to get matching tattoos and call each other 'pet'," Sherlock said, sounding mildly irritated. "Just act the same way you always do. People will assume what they assume."
They're not completely wrong, John thought, but didn't say it. They weren't actually a couple, but things had happened and been said over the past couple of weeks that definitely put them on the far side of 'just friends'. They weren't all the way there yet, and John still wasn't sure if they should be. Dinner last night - albeit pleasant - hadn't brought any clarity to their situation. John had come home from work exhausted and sore from the laundry mishap, and his brain had simply been too fuzzy to deal with complicated emotional entanglements.
It was clear that there was an attraction between them, and a mutual affection, but there was also the trust issue. John needed to be able to believe and trust Sherlock, wholly and completely, in everything, and he didn't know if he could yet, or if he would ever be able to. He knew that this was as much his fault as Sherlock's; his psychological assessment said so.
For example, John found it slightly suspicious that Sherlock had come up with this case the day after the disastrous incident with the washing. He knew this was irrational: Sherlock couldn't possibly have induced the president of the Central London Association of Naturists - otherwise known as the CLAN - to send an email this morning if he hadn't urgently needed their help. The murders themselves had taken place over the course of the last month, long before their mutual shower. The suggestion that Sherlock might have killed two people merely in order to get John naked again was uncomfortably close to the actual accusations that had been levelled at Sherlock in the days leading up to his fake suicide. John decided then and there not to dwell on it any further, and to trust that this was all just an insane coincidence.
He hung his head in defeat. Of course he was going to say yes. "Did you say they have hot tubs?" he asked, hoping to maintain at least a scrap of dignity through all this.
Sherlock clicked to another window and quoted briskly from the web site: "'Visitors are welcome on Saturdays from five p.m. onwards for textile-free relaxation in the swimming pool, jacuzzi, and sauna, accompanied by refreshments and drinks in the pavilion'."
John rubbed his eyes and licked his lips. He'd had quite enough of saunas, thanks much, but a whirlpool with jets of warm water massaging his back and legs wouldn't be entirely unwelcome, especially after the stress of the past couple of weeks. "All right, I'll come along, but I am going to sit directly in the jacuzzi and not move until you're done with whatever observations or investigations you need to make." In addition, the water should give him enough cover in case he became distracted by Sherlock walking around naked.
He'd had a guilty wank the night before to images of what might have happened in the shower the day before, minus the chemical burns, of course. They were both recovering well, with only mild redness and irritation remaining. Sherlock had offered to apply the aloe vera gel to John's back this morning before he left for work, but John had thought, on the whole, that was probably a project best left to another day.
"Fine," Sherlock said in answer to John's stipulation, managing to sound both grudging and smug at the same time.
Oh God, he was done for.
======
By the next day - Saturday - John was feeling much improved, and was even looking forward to the evening. After having been broiled, exposed to radiation, and burnt during their last three cases, the prospect of warm, soothing water on his battered skin sounded heavenly. The worst that might befall him as a result of this investigation, he reckoned, would be a case of athlete's foot.
When he arrived home from work that afternoon, ready to go to the club, Sherlock was sitting in his chair, checking the weather on his phone. John was surprised to see that he had slicked his hair and parted it on the side so that it lay in thick waves across his head. In addition to a pair of black-framed glasses, he was wearing jeans and a faux turtleneck shirt with a burgundy cardigan over it. The outfit was more casual than Sherlock's usual attire, but still smart. It was as if Sherlock had taken John's style and brought it to the pages of GQ. John wasn't sure whether to be flattered or humiliated. Or, just a bit turned on.
He could be your boyfriend, a voice inside John's head told him. In fact, he is, it added smugly, for the purposes of today's excursion, so it's perfectly fine to ogle him.
John tried to ignore the nervous flutter these thoughts instigated and asked, as neutrally as he could, "Who are you supposed to be?"
"You tell me," Sherlock said as he stood, snapping his phone shut. "Pick a name you're not likely to forget."
"Do we need a disguise for tonight?" John was still wearing his work clothes, consisting today of his red shirt and brown cord jacket. He flipped mentally through his wardrobe, trying to come up with something that might work as a disguise. Aside from military items, there wasn't much.
But Sherlock answered impatiently, "Not you, John. My picture from the papers is still too fresh, especially for those with an interest in remaining anonymous to me."
John's picture had been printed too, of course, but Sherlock was right: he was the only one who ever got recognised.
"So." Sherlock pulled at the bottom of the cardigan to straighten out the wrinkles. "To keep things simple and minimise the chance that you'll slip up, you are a GP with a private practice. We needn't mention anything more than your first name, which is common enough. I, on the other hand, am an industrial chemist, and my name is..." He looked expectantly at John.
John ignored the frankly insulting suggestion that he couldn't maintain a false identity, because Sherlock had awarded him a private practice. Instead, he crossed his arms and studied Sherlock, trying to come up with an appropriate name for him. Something that suggested brains, something he wouldn't forget, nothing that was either too mundane or too outlandish, but still a bit special. Wendell? Oliver? No, how about: "Lionel?" he suggested.
Sherlock nodded. "Lionel. Fine. Shall we?"
He picked up a black coat from the back of his chair and put it on as he went to the door. It was like a shortened version of his greatcoat, with big lapels and ending at his hips. He looked like a Burberry advert.
"You certainly went to a lot of trouble" - and expense, John thought, but didn't say - "with the wardrobe, when you're only going to be taking it all off once we get there."
"It helps me get into character," Sherlock said, already on his way down the stairs.
======
The CLAN was housed in what had once been a cricket pavilion, Sherlock told John as they emerged from the taxi - the fact being 'obvious' from the gables, cupola, and long porches. The former cricket field behind it had long since been chopped into parcels, but the club retained a good-sized garden surrounded by a high wall to shield it from curious eyes. When the weather was clement, CLAN members could indulge in textile-free sunbathing, lawn games, and picnics, they were informed by Peter Agrawal, the club president, who greeted them – clothed - at the door.
He was several years older than John and had a receding hairline and a paunch of a belly. John immediately relaxed a notch about spending the next couple of hours naked with a bunch of strangers. For all that he considered himself generally uninhibited and progressive in his views, he had been secretly harbouring insecurities about his less than rock-hard physique. Sherlock had seen him in all his dubious glory several times now, and didn't seem to be disgusted by his body (quite the opposite, if his little display in the shower were anything to go by), but John was very much aware - especially when he compared himself to Sherlock's slim, muscular lines - that he was past his physical prime and settling slowly but surely into the sags and spread of middle age. He'd been picturing the members of the CLAN as some sort of fitness-crazed hardbodies, bulging with muscles and silicon, but if this was their president - a very ordinary-looking gentleman of no particular physical prowess - then John didn't think he needed to fear looking too out of place.
Agarwal ushered Sherlock and John into the office, thanking them profusely for taking the case. He offered them seats and proceeded to go over the basic facts. It seemed that two of their members had died over the past month after imbibing sports drinks dosed with antifreeze. The police – under the aegis of Dimmock, who refused to let Sherlock anywhere near his cases (which didn't mean Sherlock hadn't already accessed everything about the investigation in NSY's database) - were tapping in the dark regarding both a motive and the source of the drinks, but as the only known connection between the victims was their membership in the CLAN, the investigation was focusing on the club.
The bar did sell the same sports drinks which the two unfortunates had died from, but everything had been seized and tested - twice - all the way back to the manufacturer, and not a trace of the poison had been found. Sherlock snorted, as if to say that had been a waste of time and resources, but let Agarwal continue.
Needless to say, everyone associated with the club was distraught, not only because of the deaths of their friends, but due to the fear that the killer might still be at large among them. Attendance at their gatherings was becoming abysmal. If the perpetrator wasn't caught soon (and hopefully found to have no connection whatsoever to the CLAN), the club would have to be disbanded and its assets liquidated to pay for the legal proceedings.
"Right, I think we have enough to be going on with," Sherlock said suddenly, leaping up out of his chair in the middle of Agarwal's hand-wringing. He was buzzing with nervous energy, and John could practically see the theories slotting into place behind his eyes.
"So, any ideas yet?" John asked, attempting to remain casual as they took their clothes off in the changing room Agarwal directed them to. There were no cubicles, just benches down the middle and the standard rows of lockers lining the walls. They were the only ones there, having arrived early so they wouldn't miss any of the other guests.
"Several," Sherlock said as he skimmed out of his form-fitting trousers, unveiling his - by now unsurprising - black pants. "Only two are even slightly interesting, however. I'm afraid the whole thing is going to turn out to be rather obvious." He sounded perturbed.
"God forbid the killer didn't make it complicated enough for you. Wouldn't want you to be disappointed," John teased and stepped out of his pants.
He concentrated on folding his clothes and stowing them neatly in one of the lockers. God, he was only now realising that he was going to be spending the rest of the evening trying to avoid staring at other people's privates, not just Sherlock's. It was going to be like their first interview with Irene times fifty. He deposited a one-pound coin into the locker, closed it, and removed the key, which he fastened around his wrist. Maybe he'd just slip into the jacuzzi and shut his eyes for the remainder of the evening.
Sherlock closed his own locker, and John was about to follow him out into the main club area when he nearly ran into the bench, because: what had Sherlock done to his... down there?
He wasn't going to look, he really wasn't, but even at the periphery of his vision, he noticed that something was different - and there was something deeply wrong about the fact that he could tell at a glance that the appearance of Sherlock's genitals had changed overnight, but there it was. They looked bigger. That wasn't physically possible, was it? He wasn't aroused; his penis was hanging the same way it always did - and again, the fact that John knew how Sherlock's penis 'always' hung was not something he wanted to become public knowledge. But there was somehow more of it. It was more obvious, more...
All of a sudden it hit him. Jesus. He'd shaved. Sherlock Holmes had manscaped. He hadn't completely denuded his groin; there was still a closely cropped bunch of hair right around the base of his shaft. But the skin of his lower abdomen, the inner creases of his thighs, and his scrotum were entirely hairless, and John suspected he would find the same was true of his perineum, if he cared to check. Which he didn't. No. No, he didn't.
"John?" Sherlock had stopped, too, and was watching John with a curious expression. "Is everything all right?"
John shook his head and forced himself to meet Sherlock's gaze. "Uh..." was all he got out. And then he looked again. Stared, really.
"It's all part of the character," Sherlock said.
"Sorry?"
"Lionel. The industrial chemist. John, please, it's not brain surgery. Do keep up. Lionel prefers to keep himself well-groomed for his partner." Sherlock gestured toward John, somehow conveying that he was talking about the fake GP John-with-no-last-name who John was supposed to be playing, as opposed to the real trauma specialist John-with-a-last-name who was Sherlock's partner albeit not in the same sense, although even that was becoming debatable, and... oh fuck, this was going to be complicated.
"He does," John echoed faintly. The thought that Sherlock had done this for him... but no, it was all just play-acting. His character. Nevertheless, he wanted - God help him - he wanted to touch.
"I thought 'John' would appreciate the visual aspect of Lionel having a certain amount of hair," Sherlock was saying. "Especially as he himself prefers to remain au naturel. But not so much that it would get in the way when they engage in-"
"Sherlock!" John squeaked as images of what exactly 'they' might engage in that involved keeping hair out of mouths appeared tantalisingly before his mind's eye. And yes, it was true that he'd always found the completely hair-free genitals of both the female and male variety which were often featured in pornography somewhat disconcerting. But how had Sherlock known? Or had he invented a persona for 'John' that only happened to coincide with some of John's own traits?
Sherlock's expression became thunderous at John's outburst. "Lionel," he hissed. "If you aren't going to be able to keep up your end, you might as well leave right now."
"Sorry. Lionel." John swallowed and clenched his fists. "It's just that 'John' would prefer it if 'Lionel' didn't discuss things in a public setting that they might get up to in private."
Sherlock paused, watching John shrewdly. When he finally spoke, it was with a cold edge. "Of course. You don't want anyone to get the wrong idea."
"No. No," John repeated firmly. He stepped close to Sherlock and grasped his wrist. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be speaking as himself to Sherlock or as fake-John to Lionel, but it was all getting jumbled up now anyway. He caught his eye, cloudy blue meeting cool grey. "I'm not ashamed of you, or of you and me together. But when you say things like that... Are you trying to get us kicked out for public indecency? This is difficult enough. Lionel," he added after a second, so that his words could be taken as part of the game.
Two spots of high colour appeared on Sherlock's cheeks, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed heavily.
"Besides," John continued, "I'm not in it for the shock value, or to prove something to anyone. Although I'm sure the look on some people's faces might be entertaining enough." He let his eyes dance with amusement.
"It's nothing they don't already think anyway," Sherlock said, his expression relaxing a bit as well.
John grinned. "Couldn't you just see Don-"
"Oh, hello!" a woman's voice broke in.
John turned to see they had been joined by two women, pleasant looking and maybe in their early thirties. And, of course, he and Sherlock were standing there naked. Holding hands, more or less. Well, here went the trial by fire.
"Hi," John said, reminding himself of the role he was now playing. "Erm, sorry, first time here." He forced himself to walk over to the women, holding out his hand to the closest one and hoping that he wasn't breaking all kinds of rules of etiquette by approaching them completely naked while they were still fully clothed. "My name's John."
"Jen," the first woman said as she shook his hand, keeping her eyes casually trained on his face. She had short-cropped brown hair and a friendly smile. "And this is Deidre. It's her first time too, but I've been a member for a few years."
"This is my partner, Lionel," John said, congratulating himself on not stumbling over either the name or the relationship.
Sherlock had come over as well and was hovering behind John's shoulder, close enough that John could feel his body heat, but not actually touching him. He reached around to shake Jen and Deidre's hands as well.
Jen went over to a locker and began shucking off her clothes as she continued chatting. "I think it's great that the two of you are going textile-free together. My ex never really got it. I mean, he came a couple of times, but it was all like a peep show to him, you know? But see, Dee," she said to her friend, "not everyone's like that." She leaned over to confide in a loud whisper to John, "She thinks all the blokes here are bound to be gaffing idiots."
"Or gay," Deidre muttered from where she was trying to discreetly remove her clothing, keeping her back to the room. Her head whipped around toward John and Sherlock in mild mortification. "Oh God, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I only meant, the decent ones are always gay, and the straight ones always only have the one thing on their mind."
"I mean, the point is, it's not a meat market," Jen went on, unconcernedly shrugging her bra off. "It's just a place where we can be ourselves and let our skin breathe and interact without any barriers." She turned around, revealing that one side of her chest was scarred and flat where a breast had been removed. "Oh. Cancer," she explained cheerfully as she saw where John's eyes had drifted.
"Nice work," John said, because it was; there was hardly any puckering or puffiness. "Looks to be longer than five years, congratulations."
"Uh, yeah, six and a half, actually," Jen said, "but how-"
"Sorry, I'm a doctor," John explained sheepishly. "And, gunshot." He nodded down at his shoulder.
"God, really?" Jen made a half shocked, half sympathetic face.
"Yes, Afghanistan, he's something of a war hero," Sherlock interjected. "Well, this has all been simply fascinating, chit-chat chit-chat, we'll let you get to it. And you needn't have gone to all the trouble," he said to Deidre, flicking his eyes clinically over her body, "she's entirely heterosexual. John?"
"Lionel," John scolded him as he allowed himself to be pulled through the door, "that was rather rude."
"Oh, neither of them are involved in what we're here for." Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "And I was only being helpful. Better she know now than make a fool out of herself all night."
John couldn't help admitting that Sherlock might have a point. He only wished there were someone who could give him the same type of advice.
They each picked up a complimentary towel from the stack by the entrance - both for drying off after water-based activities, and for sitting on to keep the surfaces hygienic - and took up their positions: Sherlock perched on a stool at the bar, and John in the jacuzzi up on the deck, with a panoramic view of the garden. London was under a level three cold weather alert, and it looked absolutely frigid out, with long icicles hanging from the roof, and the remnants of several light snowfalls swept by the wind into forlorn piles under the brown, dry bushes. The contrast made the hot, bubbly water he slowly lowered himself into even more soothing. He angled himself so that he could see nearly the entire room and propped his elbows up on the edge of the tub.
Sherlock was talking to the man behind the bar, who was exactly of the type John had imagined would populate the club: in his early twenties and with perfectly sculpted muscles that moved sensuously under his smooth, tanned skin. He'd already served Sherlock a drink - something golden in a wide tumbler, with ice - and Sherlock was running his fingers around the rim of the glass, leaning forward, focused on the other man, listening intently to whatever he was saying. John found himself clenching his jaw and making a fist with his left hand, an uncomfortable tightness in his chest, before he caught himself, forced his hand flat and looked away.
It was just an act, he reminded himself. Sherlock was playing a part, trying to get information to stop a killer from striking again. Well, correction: he was trying to get information to prove he was cleverer than either the police or whoever had poisoned the drinks. But as the upshot was the same, John preferred to focus on the justice and prevention angle. And anyway, regardless of Sherlock's motives, he and Sherlock weren't really a couple. Were they? He wasn't sure. He didn't want to ask. Sherlock was free to chat up anyone he wanted. Not that he ever had in the four years John had known him. (Really only two years: during the two years Sherlock had been gone he might have worked his way through the entire cast of Cirque du Soleil, for all John knew.)
More people were coming in now. Jen was introducing Deidre to Agarwal near the bar. Deidre looked slightly ill at ease, with her arms crossed and her shoulders hunched inward. Another man, probably in his sixties, with white hair and a drooping, creased backside, was heading for the pool, visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the room next door. In fact, as John scanned the members and visitors trickling in, he noted that the majority of them were over forty. Leathery wrinkles and pasty flab dominated. There were, of course, other young people, such as the very tattooed couple who were obviously friends of Jen, going by the friendly hugs that were exchanged, and the group of four athletic-looking men and two equally fit women who tumbled in, laughing and snapping their towels at each other on their way to the pool. John watched as they executed some very impressive dives. The overall impression he had was no longer of a soft porn den, but more of a retirement club for hippies.
As John swept the room with his eye, he tried to see anything that might indicate a potential killer. He didn't really have a firm opinion on profiling, but sometimes a person would give off a certain vibe of something being not quite right, a bit off. It was harder to tell from a distance - although Sherlock would probably be able to pick out a killer from a crowd at fifty feet. John considered that, if he were really serious about being Sherlock's partner - in a professional sense - and not just his sidekick-stroke-assistant, he should probably be talking to people, rather than hiding in the corner.
He was about to lever himself up out of the tub when Jen came up on the deck.
"Mind if I join you?" she asked.
"Not at all." John waved a hand at the otherwise empty tub and gave her an easy smile. "Was beginning to wonder what I'd need to do to get some company."
Jen stepped in and settled next to John. John shifted away the arm he had draped over the edge of the tub so that it wasn't actually around her shoulders.
"What about your boyfriend?" she asked.
"Who, Lionel?" he asked, momentarily thrown by the label. He had a boyfriend? Of course, he had a boyfriend. He'd been thinking of Sherlock (well, Lionel, but really it was Sherlock) as his 'partner', but to most people, that would be synonymous with 'boyfriend', and Christ, that really laid it out there, didn't it? His boyfriend.
He was uncomfortable with the word. He associated it with immaturity, impermanence, and frivolity. Yet if he and Sherlock went ahead and added a sexual element to their relationship, others would view them as 'boyfriends', in the same way that he referred to the women he'd dated in the past as his girlfriends. There was something disquieting about putting Sherlock in the same category as those women. He was so much more. Even though John had always vaguely imagined he'd end up in a permanent relationship with a woman, he'd never met a woman he actually wanted to spend his life with. Sherlock, on the other hand, was the one person he couldn't imagine living his life without.
He had to focus. He'd have time to think about all of the implications later, but right now, he had a part to play, and he was well on his way to bollixing it up royally. In order to answer Jen's question, he looked around for Sherlock and found him still at the bar, talking to a middle-aged, balding man on the stool next to him.
"Lionel's...having a drink," John said, aware of how lame that sounded.
They should actually be together. That was his role, to provide Sherlock a reason for being here; they were supposed to be on a date, a couple exploring the naturist lifestyle together, and here he was, hiding in the jacuzzi with a woman he'd just met while his supposed boyfriend was chatting with random men at the bar.
"I erm...The jacuzzi just looked so tempting," he tried to explain. "Been a bit of a hard week. And you?" he said in an attempt to redirect the conversation. "What happened to Deidre?"
Jen nodded toward a table in the far corner, where Deidre was talking and laughing with a thickset, dark-skinned woman with short-cropped, bleached hair and several tattoos running down her shoulder and arm. "Tammy introduced her to Ray. Best thing she could have done. Things got a bit awkward after Lionel..."
John cringed. "Yeah, sorry about that. He tends to spout off like that sometimes. If it makes any difference, he did think he was being helpful."
"I guess he was. But how did he know? I mean, I had no clue, and he doesn't even know us."
John shrugged. "He's pretty good at reading people." He chuckled. "The first day I met him, he'd never laid eyes on me before, but he accurately diagnosed my PTSD, as well as my sister's substance abuse – based on her phone. The next day, he outed a couple who were having an affair in front of all of their coworkers."
Jen erupted in peals of laughter. "Oh my God, no he didn't! What, is he also a doctor?"
"No, chemist, actually. Not the kind that dispenses drugs, the kind with test tubes and lab goggles."
For some reason, this struck both of them as so patently ridiculous that they exploded in a bout of mutual giggles. John was gasping for air when a hand grasped his shoulder and a deep voice sounded in his ear.
"John."
John turned his head to see Sherlock crouched next to him. His long, lean thigh was positioned so that John couldn't see his groin, but the pebbling around his nipple and the firm pressure of his hand on John's shoulder were enough to make John's mouth go dry and set his heart racing.
"Um, Lionel. Hi," he said, still grinning as his laughter subsided. He lifted his hand to place it over Sherlock's on his shoulder, because it seemed the natural thing to do, and he really, really wanted to touch him. "You remember Jen."
Sherlock eyed her coolly and said, "Yes," before returning his focus to John. "If you can spare the time, I need you for a moment." His voice was as tight as the hand on John's shoulder.
"Yeah, all right." John stood, and Sherlock let go of him and went to stand by the window. "It was nice talking to you," John said to Jen, adding awkwardly, "I may be back..."
'Sorry,' she mouthed at him with an apologetic look and shooed him off.
John picked up his towel from the chair he'd draped it over and went over to where Sherlock was standing.
"What's going on?" He shivered a little and blotted the water off his skin to minimise his heat loss. The room was otherwise kept at a comfortable temperature, but next to the window, he could feel the cold seeping in.
Sherlock took John's elbow and pulled him closer so their conversation could be kept confidential. His body was warm, and John leaned in automatically, close enough that their thighs brushed. He kept his line of sight very carefully directed at Sherlock's face. It didn't help much. Memories of their previous nude encounters filled in every line, bulge, and shading of colour from the neck down. John realised with a flush of embarrassment that he was well on the way to what must certainly be an egregious faux pas. He didn't know what the CLAN's policy was on the public display of stiffies, but he hadn't seen any others.
"It would be easier to convince people that we're here together if you weren't sitting over here flirting," Sherlock said in a low, steely tone.
"I was not flirting," John protested with an incredulous laugh, all while secretly thrilling at the intimate timbre of Sherlock's voice. "And you're one to talk, the way you were going after that Adonis behind the bar. I'd say you were practically undressing him with your eyes, but-"
"That was part of my character."
"So is Lionel a cheat, or a tease?" John challenged him.
"That's not what was going on, and you know it!" Sherlock snapped.
"Yes, I do, but not everyone else does," John replied coolly. "And that's all that matters, isn't it? How we appear to everyone else?"
"No, that's not- I mean, yes, of course, but-" Sherlock stumbled over his words as he tried to untangle the real-them vs. fake-them strands of their conversation.
John put a calming hand on his arm and took a deep breath. His own thoughts were none too organised, but if even Sherlock was getting flustered, the chemistry between them must be even more powerful than he'd assumed. "All right, stop. I think we're both overthinking this whole thing. Let's concentrate on why we're here. We can sort out ... the other stuff later." He held Sherlock's gaze until arousal swirled dizzily in his abdomen. He concentrated on the feel of the wooden deck against his toes, the towel between his fingers, and tried to breathe shallowly so that Sherlock's smell wouldn't be so strong in his nostrils. Did Sherlock not feel that too? How were they not kissing yet?
Sherlock darted his eyes away. "Yes. Yes, you're- Of course." He frowned and dropped his hand from John's elbow. "This is exactly why-"
"Hey, hey," John said gently and caught his eye again, sliding his hand down Sherlock's arm to entwine their fingers. He tried to quiet his own racing heart and force calmness through their joined hands. "I'm here for you. Just tell me what you want. Tell me what you need me to do."
For a brief moment, all of Sherlock's shields and layers of obfuscation fell away; he wasn't Lionel or a high-functioning sociopath or a deductive genius or even a reluctant hero who would die to protect his friends. He was just a man, without a name, his heart open and raw and beating in John's hand, and John didn't know - he didn't know what to do with it. He needed someone to tell him, because he couldn't do this. He couldn't be responsible for it; there had never been anyone in his life who was this important to him, and he had absolutely no fucking clue how to make a relationship work, really work, with arguing and laughing and being bored and having sex and loving each other through it all, no matter what, because you both wanted - needed - more than anything to help each other be the best you could be, and that is what Sherlock deserved, nothing less. And at some level, even if John wasn't sure he deserved it, he knew that if didn't get at least something back, he'd bleed out all over both of them, and that would be the end, really the end, and he couldn't go through that kind of loss again, and he didn't think Sherlock could either.
"You want to be part of this," Sherlock said, half question and half conclusion. John knew he was talking in layers again, and God help him, he did, he wanted it so badly he couldn't think straight, but that was the problem: he wasn't as clever as Sherlock and he couldn't afford to make a mistake or lose everything over a misunderstanding at this point.
And so he said, "Of this investigation, yes," as if that's all that Sherlock were asking, and pleaded silently with him to understand, to allow him the loophole and not take it as a rejection.
But with those words, Sherlock's mask fell back in place, supplemented by the carapace of glasses and hair gel. "Fine," he said, drawing himself upright and pulling his hand back. "I'll need you to talk to people then, as many as you can. You're good at drawing people out, making them like you." It sounded like an accusation more than a compliment.
John swallowed and nodded. He didn't like the cold, blank look on Sherlock's face, but he couldn't try and fix it now. "Yes, okay," he said. "Not Jen or Deirdre. I'll-" He let out a nervous breath. "I may need a few minutes. Sitting somewhere. Possibly in the water."
Sherlock glanced downward, while John kept his eyes resolutely forward.
"I apologise," John said flatly. "Unprofessional of me."
To his surprise, Sherlock laughed briefly, and John hoped that was relief he heard and not mocking. "No, it's... I have the perfect assignment for you, actually," Sherlock said.
John dared to look at him, and Sherlock raised his eyebrows in the direction of the jacuzzi. John checked over his shoulder. Jen had vacated the tub, and in her place were a man and a woman who couldn't have been a day under eighty.
John snorted and turned back to Sherlock. "You think you're being cheeky, but I'll bet those two know more than everyone else in this room combined, including the killer. You should be the one interviewing them."
Sherlock favoured him with a small, wry smile. "I'll trust you to report back to me on the latest in denture cleaners and hip replacements. Oh, and a word to the wise: the gentleman didn't let his lactose intolerance stop him from indulging in an ice cream with his granddaughter this afternoon." He winked and walked away, leaving John unsure whether to curse his pettiness, be astounded by his insights, or simply admire his magnificent arse.
Shaking his head, John sidled back to the jacuzzi. He held his towel casually in front of him until the last possible second, then bent quickly at the waist in order to block the evidence of his well-functioning reproductive system from the room with his leg as he stepped into the tub again.
He introduced himself to the others - Ronnie and Bill - and within short order had a fairly detailed biography of both of them as well as the CLAN. Bill in particular was keen to pontificate at length about the Gymnosophist Society, the Camp, and the Sexual Offenses Act of 2003.
Ronnie, on the other hand, seemed to be suffering from an impairment of either her hearing or her short-term memory, as she asked John twice over the course of five minutes where his wife was. When he informed her both times that he wasn't in fact married, she told him, twice, "Oh, dear, I know how that is. My Freddie's dead and buried himself, not that he was a good husband, bit of a ladies' man he was. Well, we're better off without them, dear."
Bill ignored Ronnie's interjections and steamrolled on with details of his holidays on Sylt in the 1960s. John had to admit that Sherlock might have known exactly what he was doing. It didn't look like John was going to be able to get anything useful out of this pair.
The third time Ronnie asked John where his wife was, he bit the bullet and said, "Actually, I'm gay" – a more accurate explanation seemed too complicated - "and in a long-term relationship with that man over there." He pointed at Sherlock, who was standing, wide-legged, his hips undulating slowly in what John recognised as a sign of distraction and suppressed impatience, as he talked to an elderly man leaning on a cane.
This time Bill stopped his monologue and took note. "You mean the leggy chap with the hair what's talking to Bruce?"
John nodded – he didn't know who Bruce was, but the rest of the description certainly fit Sherlock to a tee.
"Is that so?" Bill gave John an appraising once-over. "Yeah, I can see it now."
"Sorry, what can you see?" John asked, perfectly politely.
"Oh, it don't bother me," Bill assured him. "Had an uncle what was bent." He leaned in, put a hand on John's shoulder, and whispered, "It was the cravats gave it away," while gesturing at his neck. He leaned back again. "Had a couple of those on our street, too, back in the eighties, shacked up together bold as you please; said as they was just housemates, but we all knew what was what. Never had a spot of trouble until the one up and died. That AIDS thing. Big to-do over the house, ended up being repossessed, and no one wanted to buy it once it all got out. Ruined the property values in the neighbourhood, let me tell you. It's a good thing I never wanted to sell."
"Yes, unexpected deaths can be messy," John acceded, gritting his teeth against the urge to run roughshod over the man's blithe stereotyping and prejudice. He recognised that a few words from a relative stranger such as John wouldn't put so much as a dent in a lifetime's worth of misinformation. And there were over twenty more people he needed to talk to before the night ran out. So he decided to cut to the chase, especially as Bill's callous comments gave him a way to bring up the poisonings without being too obvious about it. "Speaking of, I read in the paper that two of the club members here might have been poisoned?"
"Don't you believe a word of it," Bill railed. "Suicide pact, or I'm a monkey's uncle. Jonestown all over again. They were having an affair, and someone found them out."
John's ears perked up at that, although he knew not to jump to any conclusions yet. Everyone would have their own theories as to what had happened; the deaths must have been a popular topic at the CLAN in recent weeks. "How'd you know that?" he asked.
"Think how you could trick someone into drinking antifreeze unawares," Bill said scornfully. "They'd have spit it out in a second."
"Oh, no, it's very sweet," Ronnie piped up. "We had a dog once that licked up a spill as if it were ice cream. Awful convulsions, died that night." She looked eerily cheerful as she related the tale, then peered more closely at John. "Where's your wife?"
John sighed. "Over there," he said, nodding in Sherlock's direction. Deeming himself to be once again physically presentable and in possession of all the useful information he was going to get out of the pair, he stood up and excused himself.
"All right," John said, once Sherlock had finished with Bruce and they were able to claim a table to sit down and talk privately. "Aside from a possible case of early-stage dementia, we have the theory that it was a suicide pact. Could the two victims have been having an affair?"
Sherlock shook his head. "No, they never had contact outside of this room."
"Bill also said something about Jonestown, although I think he was getting his stories mixed up because the Jonestown massacre didn't have anything to do with a secret love affair being found out. You do know about Jonestown?" John asked.
"Yes, yes, the mass cult suicide in Guyana," Sherlock said quickly. "It would be brilliant if this were something like that, might even be worth my time, but Agarwal is no Jim Jones, and it doesn't make sense for there to be only two deaths and so far apart."
"Well," John continued, "antifreeze is apparently sweet-tasting, so the victims would likely not have noticed they were drinking it. Although I don't think that says anything about whether it was suicide or murder. If I were going to poison myself, I'd certainly rather take something that tasted pleasant."
"Of course, ethylene glycol, that's why so many accidental poisonings of children and pets occur."
"Yes, Ronnie said her dog died of it, in fact."
"Ronnie?" Sherlock glanced behind John at the jacuzzi. "The old woman?"
John nodded. "Although I'm not sure how much of what she says is true and how much is fantasy. She seems a bit confused."
Sherlock's eyes gleamed with interest. "Tell me everything she said."
John went over everything he remembered, skipping the bit at the end where he'd said that Sherlock was his wife, because it was really very much not relevant, and anyway, it was Lionel and 'John' who were liaised, not he and Sherlock.
When John was finished, Sherlock got a faraway look for a few seconds. Then he reached across the table and grabbed John's shoulder.
"Oh, John. Oh-ho-ho! John! I knew you were the right man for the job!" He beamed and drew in a sharp breath, rising slightly from his chair as if he were going to lean across and- John wasn't sure; kiss him, possibly? But then he jerked back into his seat and fluffed his fingers nervously through his hair, disturbing the smooth, slicked-down style he'd adopted for his disguise.
John glowed under Sherlock's praise even as a little tingle sparked in his chest. "You've got it?"
"Well." He glanced at John, then quickly away and tapped his finger against his mouth. "It's pedestrian. Disappointing. But yes, I think I know what happened."
After that, things moved quickly. Ronnie readily admitted to having brought the doctored drink bottles from home and giving them to the two victims, whom – in her confusion - she'd imagined were her late husband and one of his flings. Jen volunteered to help Ronnie get her things together before she was taken out to Dimmock and the two uniformed officers summoned by Agarwal.
"So you're actually Sherlock Holmes and John Watson," Jen said, as they stood outside the club and watched the police cars drive away. It was dark and the air was so cold it hurt to breathe, and the taxi John had ordered wasn't there yet.
"Guilty," John admitted with a rueful smile. Sherlock, once more sans glasses, didn't even look up from his phone.
"This was really rather exciting," Jen said, rubbing her gloved hands together against the cold. "So the whole thing... the disguise and your stories... It was all part of the investigation?"
"Well, I am really a doctor," John said. "And Sherlock really does know his way around a chemistry laboratory."
"And the part about you being together?" The question was both hesitant and hopeful, and John had absolutely no idea what to answer. He didn't want to announce it to a perfect stranger before he'd discussed it with Sherlock.
Sherlock looked up sharply at the sound of a car honking.
"Our taxi, John. Come." He took hold of John's arm and started walking toward the kerb.
"Read the blog," John called over his shoulder at Jen before he disappeared into the stuffy, overheated interior of the waiting car.
"Baker Street," Sherlock told the cabbie and settled into the far corner of the seat.
"Brilliant as usual," John said as the taxi pulled away. "Tragic, though."
Sherlock made a noncommittal sound and stared out the window. He didn't seem as pleased as he usually was after solving a case and showing up the police. He'd been in a much better mood after both the Lepowsky investigation and tracking down the plutonium smuggler, even though neither one had ended with them apprehending the culprit.
"You're disappointed there wasn't more to it?" John ventured.
"It went much as I expected it would," Sherlock muttered.
John didn't say anything for a while as they drove through the icy streets. He wasn't sure what was bothering Sherlock, but if they were still Lionel and 'John', he'd reach over and take his hand and suggest they go to Angelo's for dinner.
He waited until the next traffic light.
"Hey." John slid over and put his hand over Sherlock's, where it was resting on his leg. "I could use something to eat." He waited until Sherlock turned to look at him, then squeezed his hand and rubbed the back lightly with his thumb. "Angelo's?"
Sherlock moved his thumb to capture John's fingers and smiled. "Okay."
======
End notes: Incredibly, there is no legislation in the U.K. that requires bittering agents to be added to antifreeze in order to prevent poisonings, although some manufacturers add it voluntarily.
Part Five: The Pond
no subject
Date: 2013-02-24 06:50 pm (UTC)