Chapter Text
“Yeah, sure,” John murmured to himself—well, the audience, Mike the mic safely tucked away in the breast pocket of his jacket, “let’s split up, that’s totally a great idea. Not at all a problem, nope, won’t come back to bite us one bit…” He skidded around another corner, completely worn shoes sliding along the dusty linoleum floor. The room in front of him had the door wide open. The old office building had been long abandoned, but that didn’t keep urban explorers and other curious folks from sneaking in past the once-boarded up doors and windows.
The downpour outside certainly made things difficult. He was completely drenched and kept praying in the back of his mind that his microphone would survive the weather. John’s coat dripped down his jeans, and his soaking wet trainers certainly didn’t help matters. He’d already almost eaten it more than once, navigating the halls in a hurry.
It hadn’t even been a proper case, not really. Just an off-handed comment Wiggins had made while passing on information to Sherlock for the actual case he and John had been working on—forgery of an antique manuscript. Not the most exciting, but certainly interesting and worthy of being made into a two-parter for the podcast. But once that had been all cleaned up with a nice little bow, Sherlock thought it best to investigate a concern from some of his Irregulars.
A man hanging around one of their old haunts.
Wiggins claimed to have never seen the man, but passed on all the rumors other Irregulars were spreading. One particular young man—a runaway—had been holed up in this old office building for close to a month. Rowdy teens and curious explorers had found their way inside a couple of times, but this Irregular didn’t mind. So when wrappers and bags start popping up, he thought nothing of it. Surely it was nothing more than rubbish left behind by others exploring the old building.
Then the man showed up. Angry and violent, he tried to attack the Irregular when the boy refused to leave. He barely made it out. He met up with a few other members of the Baker Street Irregulars and two others informed him similar things had happened to them. They were kicked out of their usual hideouts with threats of violence from (seemingly) the same man.
Sherlock had been informed of the situation just last night. As soon as he and John had entered the building, there was the tell-tale sign of someone running. So they split up. And now John was staring into an old office with an old mattress tucked into the corner and a neat pile of rubbish beside it. Most worrying were the clothes. Small shirts and socks—too small to be from any Irregular. No, no one was that young… “Jesus, okay, uh…kids’ clothes.” A horrible sensation shivered down his spine. “Can’t worry about that right now, unfortunately. Come on, where is this guy?” He left the room.
John rounded another corner and was greeted with large glass doors leading to a courtyard in the middle of the building complex. The place was practically a pond, divots beside the cracking, paved pathways filling up with water spilling over the lips of raised garden beds. Even if the place weren’t abandoned, the courtyard would definitely be worse for wear—it had been a while since London had seen a storm like this.
There was a flash of a blue jacket John didn’t recognize near the other end. “There, there, the courtyard! Sorry everyone, I hope you can hear any of this…” He brought the flap of his pocket back up to partially cover the microphone, stepping out through a shattered door into the courtyard.
There was no way in hell that measly strip of fabric was going to do anything to really protect his microphone. He’d done his best to waterproof it—the poor thing had taken more than a few tumbles into pools, rivers, lakes, and bogs—but the rain was relentless. John pressed onward, running through the massive puddles. But even over the sound of the rain, his splashes could be heard.
The mystery man looked up, but not in John’s direction. Sherlock had made it to the courtyard too. They had him surrounded. They both pounced.
John was closer, right behind the man. He figured that gave him the element of surprise, but as John reached him, Sherlock reached out to stop him.
“Watson, don’t—”
John was already bringing their suspect to the ground. It wasn’t an easy feat by any means, the man was massive, but the flooding pathways and the unexpectedness of being grappled from behind worked in John’s favor.
They both fell to the ground remarkably slowly. When John hit his knees, arms still wrapped around his torso, that’s when he saw the glint of a knife.
“Shit!”
The man broke out of John’s grip frighteningly easily. Even worse, he didn’t take the opportunity to run. He grabbed John instead. Typically, John was more than capable than holding his own in a tussle. But this guy was as tall as Sherlock and close to a hundred pounds heavier. He twisted, bracing his free hand against John’s shoulder and slamming him into the ground.
The puddle John’s head landed in was a particularly deep one. He could feel water tickling his right ear as he tried to twist out of the way. The man’s hand moved from his shoulder to his neck. John thrashed, reaching out to push him away. But he could barely brush his fingertips against his jacket.
Yet the knife never came down to greet him. Sherlock leapt forward, half on top of the suspect as he wrapped his hands around the man’s wrist and held the knife back. John attempted to kick out, land a blow on anything at all, but he could barely twitch under the man’s bodyweight. As Sherlock pulled back, the attacker’s grip changed. Unfortunately for John, it shifted rather than letting up. His head twisted further, and then he had water making its way into his mouth. He sputtered. What a shitty way to go out—half-strangled, half-drowned in a few inches of water. John did his best to pull his head back, up, to the left, anything. John’s vision was starting to go. Sherlock grit his teeth, pulling harder.
A crack echoed through the air and John could breathe again. He gasped, immediately hacking up the little bit of water that made its way into his throat. He felt hands on him in an instant, pulling him upright. John’s head swam. “—alright?” He blinked. “I asked if you were alright, Watson!”
John coughed, whole body heaving as he tried to get his head back on straight. “F-Fine,” he managed, reaching up to prod his throat. He winced.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw blood. His head whipped in the mystery man’s direction, but not without a grimace. The man writhed on the ground, holding his left shoulder, knife forgotten on the ground. Sherlock swiped it out of reach with a flick of his foot.
Before John could get to his feet himself, Sherlock was pulling him over behind a planter box. “East side, upper floor.” The two of them kept crouched behind the stone as Sherlock retrieved his phone. “Gregson,” he said the second the man answered on the other side, “there’s been a shooting. One injured.”
John could hear a faint “What?!” before Tom’s volume lowered enough for John to not catch anything through the phone. Sherlock rattled off the address. John leaned his head back against the planter and closed his eyes for just a moment, trying to catch his breath.
“Well…l-listeners,” he managed through another body-wracking cough, “it would seem this little excursion…” he took a moment to clear his throat, “turned into a proper case…” He cracked an eye open and leaned forward, looking past Sherlock towards the attacker. The man was still out in the open, barely getting up onto his knees before crying out and keeling over again.
Gritting his teeth, John pushed himself away from the raised bed and stumbled towards him. Sherlock sat straight up, pulling his phone away from his ear. “Watson!”
John slipped his arms under the man’s uninjured shoulder and began directing him towards another planter. With every movement, the man cried out. The front of his shirt was scarlet. What the rain did wash off got stuck in the puddles around them, darkening the water. John took a moment to risk a look in the direction Sherlock had pointed out. He saw an open window on the second floor.
Once out of sight from the window, John leaned the man up against the stone. He reached over and tore off the hem of the man’s shirt. He feebly lashed out. “Don’t you—”
“I don’t think—” John interrupted, biting down a cough, “—that was worth getting killed over, do you? Even if you are an absolute prick…” Admittedly, John didn’t feel too terrible about the groans as he put pressure on the wound.
A moment later, Sherlock appeared by John’s side, standing upright and staring at the open window. “Sherlock—”
“They’re gone.”
“Could you cut them off?”
Sherlock looked down at John, still putting his weight against the bleeding shoulder. Sherlock’s eyes flicked to his neck. “Are you alright?”
“M-Me? I’m fine, Sherlock,” he said, his hoarse voice entirely unconvincing.
“I’d rather not leave you here with an attempted murderer.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time I was around an attempted murderer, Sherlock,” John said through a half-hearted laugh. “Or an actual murderer. You do know I deal with actual murderers on the regular thanks to you, right?” Despite his raspy voice and aching throat, he powered through. “Go catch the shooter, Sherlock.”
Sherlock shook his head. “They’re long gone by now.” Turning his attention away from the window, he crouched down and leaned in towards their suspect’s face. “Who are you?”
The man’s teeth grinded together. “Piss off,” he spat.
Undeterred, Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been giving some friends of mine quite the scare. I don’t take kindly to that.”
“Shut up!”
“You’ve certainly been…roughing it,” Sherlock said carefully, eyeing the man up and down, “but you aren’t homeless. No, you have somewhere to go. And yet you keep popping up around typical hiding spots.” Sherlock cocked his head, beginning to smile. “Looking for someone?”
The sound of sirens began to fill the air. Despite Sherlock’s interrogation, the man’s lips were sealed. He said little more beyond a few choice swears aimed at both Sherlock and John before first responders flooded the scene. Paramedics carted the man away and John brushed off their concerns, trying to do what he could to avoid a hospital visit. But Sherlock was distracted—he would not take his eyes off the window.
Gregson approached, arms folded and looking particularly drowned in his long coat. “The shooter, Sherlock?”
“Gone.” Without any more explanation, he started heading towards the building. John and Gregson were close behind, Gregson waving for a few of his officers to follow. Sherlock led them up the stairs and to the east side of the building. He stopped in front of a cracked door. Slowly, he pushed it open.
The room was completely empty, but wind whipped in through the wide-open window. Tom moved to take a step forward, but Sherlock held out his arm and stopped the inspector in his tracks. “Don’t disturb anything,” Sherlock muttered.
Gregson’s eye twitched. “Sherlock, I know damn well how to investigate a crime scene…”
With Sherlock leading the way, they all entered. Sherlock’s eyes raked over everything. Every surface, every wall, every object on the nearby desk. But the main thing that drew everyone’s attention was the chair pushed up against the window. The back was just about flush with the wall, the top right below the lip of the windowsill. Sherlock approached, crouching down beside it. His eyes flicked back and forth across the windowsill and he brought his own hands up, mimicking holding up a rifle.
“Sherlock?” John asked, voice finally beginning to clear up.
“Not a rifle,” the detective said quickly.
“No?” Gregson asked.
“No. No markings.” He leaned down, nearly pressing his nose against the windowsill. “But at this distance you’d expect it…”
John stepped over, trying to get a look at the angle. It was a hell of a shot, that much was clear. He shook his head, feeling a twinge in his neck. “Mate, it’s definitely not impossible to make that shot with a handgun, but rifle is much more likely.”
“But they didn’t use a rifle, Watson.”
John slowly nodded. “So…we’ve got an expert on our hands?”
“Or someone who doesn’t think.” Sherlock whipped around to face Tom. “As soon as a surgeon pulls that bullet out, I want to know what it is.”
John cocked his head. “Erm, I’d say nine mil.” He’d seen that exact type of wound more times than he cared to admit in his time in Ukraine. It doesn’t take long to get decent at recognizing the damage done. “Definitely not a typical round for a rifle.”
“Yes, but what.”
“I can get you that information,” Tom said. “And I’ll get forensics to see if they can ID anything else.” He waved his officers into the room.
Sherlock gestured to John. “Watson, over here.” With a frown, John approached the window. Sherlock was taking in every angle of the chair pushed up against the wall. “If you wanted to make the same shot with a handgun, how would you position yourself?”
John’s brows furrowed for a moment as he took a second to think. He raised his hands as if holding a gun. He looked out across the courtyard at the officers milling about and blood-filled puddles. “No, that’s not right…” He crouched down and held out his hands again, resting his arms on the windowsill. “Yeah, this makes more sense. Given the distance, I wouldn’t risk anything without a way to steady myself. Plus the angle he was hit at makes more sense this way.” Bullet barely going in through the front—moreso the side. Any higher it would have gone through the back.
“Excellent. Then why the chair?”
That gave everyone else in the room pause. John bit his tongue for a moment, looking over at the plastic chair dragged into position. “Hm…” He couldn’t think of any practical uses for it. Certainly in an inconvenient position, it would have been a hinderance if anything. “Well, he definitely didn’t sit on it—straddling a chair while trying to make a shot like that isn’t helpful.”
“If you boys are done playing pretend, can we take a proper sweep of the scene now?” Tom mumbled.
“Yes, fine, go ahead,” Sherlock said, brushing past Gregson and the other officers already swarming the scene. “As soon as you get a name, tell me everything you can. Where he was born, where he lives, how long he’s been in London.” John rushed after him. “And get me that bullet!”
“Feeling alright?” John looked up. Mariana sat across from him at the table, typing up a report but only giving half of her attention to it. The other half was spared for John.
He lowered his hand from his throat. “Yeah, fine.” After a good night’s rest, his voice was back to normal and there wasn’t much irritation on the inside. The outside was a different story, however, with faint finger shaped bruises showing up on his skin.
Mariana looked like she wanted to interrogate further, but a buzz from Sherlock’s phone interrupted her train of thought. The detective sat up from his place on the sofa and opened the message in an instant. “’Winchester nine millimeter jacketed hollow point,’” he read aloud. He looked to John.
John started to nod. “Well, there wasn’t an exit wound, so hollow point would have been my guess. Nothing else?”
“Still working on identifying the firearm,” Sherlock grumbled.
“And does that…tell you anything?” Mariana asked. “The bullet, I mean.”
John shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “Not really. It’s pretty common, I s’pose. Not exactly the same as what our gun uses, but we’ve seen it before. The, uh…” John hesitated, smelling gunpowder for a split second. “Dancing Men…” He shook his head, clearing the memory. “Forensics ID’d that as a hollow point.”
“So…unhelpful.”
“Entirely,” Sherlock grumbled from the couch. But right as he got to his feet, his phone buzzed again. Once he read the message, his face went particularly still.
John watched, frowning. “Sherlock?”
Sherlock’s answer was quick. “He’s dead.”
Both John and Mariana shot straight up. “Wait, what?” said Mariana. “The guy you found? The one who attacked you, he’s dead?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” John mumbled, “that wound wouldn’t kill somebody. Not unless there were some severe complications, o-or a preexisting condition, maybe.”
Sherlock began to approach, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “No, it wasn’t the bullet that killed him. He killed himself.”
“Uh-Wh-Killed himself?” John spluttered. Mariana’s paperwork was entirely forgotten, staring wide-eyed at Sherlock.
“Got his hands on something sharp.”
“Jesus…”
Sherlock slowed to a stop beside the table where his friends sat. “He refused to reveal any information about himself while he was alive. The morgue will identify him.”
A heavy silence hung in the air, only broken by the soft sound of Sherlock’s fingertips rapping against the table. “Our shooter didn’t want him dead.”
“Didn’t want—” John took a second to think on the absurdity of the claim. “Sherlock, the man was shot.”
“Non-fatally.”
“Okay, so our shooter missed. I mean, it was pouring rain and you were on top of the guy!”
“Exactly…” Mariana and John exchanged a look. Sherlock leaned forward, pressing the heels of his palms against the edge of the table. “No one with any sensibilities would risk a shot under those conditions. Handgun, at that distance, the fact that we were moving and fighting, the weather? Someone would either have to be completely brazen, or…” Sherlock trailed off, looking expectantly at John.
He bit his cheek for a moment. “Or they knew exactly what they were doing.”
Mariana’s head shot up from her computer. “What, like a, uh-uh, an assassin? A hitman? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, no,” John said quickly, “The guy was shot in the shoulder. And forgive my hazy memory, but I feel like a headshot would have been clearer.”
Sherlock offered a sharp nod. “It would have.”
“So, our shooter wanted to incapacitate him. Not kill him.”
A grin began to spread across Sherlock’s face. “And why do you think that is, Watson? Certainly there were other opportunities to harm him or bring him to vigilante justice or send a message—he’d been causing scenes for a while, after all. So why then.”
It wasn’t quite like a lightbulb went off—moreso a dimmer switch slowly being turned. “Because…he was trying to kill me…”
“That would be my theory.”
“So…not an assassin,” Mariana said, fully closing her laptop. Her attention was completely drawn away. “What, you two have a guardian angel instead?”
John just shook his head. “Why?”
Sherlock wouldn’t stop grinning. “That’s where this becomes a proper case.”