FIc: Once a Soldier, Always a Soldier 1/3
FIC: Once a Soldier, Always a Soldier 1/3
Title: Once a Soldier, Always a Soldier 1/3
Pairing: BAMF!John/Sherlock, Moriarty
Rating: PG-13 ultimately
Word Count: 3800
Warnings: Mild Violence
Summary: John decides to take things into his own hands. Spoilers up through episode 1x03
Prequel
Part 2
Part 3
John waited for the ranged target as it moved toward him, and he could already see the tight bunches in the center mass. His last target had lost most of its face and head by the look of things. It was nice how natural the guns felt in his hand again. He’d even gotten a shoulder holster for his gun, purely for vanity reasons. It made him feel more like a bad ass, whereas Sherlock continued to tell him he was wasting his time, which made him feel like a dumb ass.
John grinned and pulled the paper target off the trolley and set it next to the others. It had taken him less than a week for his firearms training to kick back in to gear. He even had a knife in his boot now. If anyone in authority gave him grief over walking around with such weapons, Mycroft or Lestrade would soothe things over, as they always did.
If he were honest with himself, he’d admit that he felt better now, than he’d had since the war, but it wasn’t due to getting back into a training regimen, oh no. John had his confidence back, something he sorely missed, particularly strapped to a bomb.
That would never happen again, he’d never let it happen, not to him and not to Sherlock. He couldn’t understand his overwhelming protectiveness to his still relatively new friend, but it was there. Sure, John would run around in the night, searching for criminals, helping Sherlock sort out who was responsible, but Moriarty was a different matter entirely.
It turns out, John had been entirely irresponsible for not doing this sooner..
Sherlock had a mind like no other, a mind that intrigued and baffled John at times, but he usually found it fascinating. It was only various body parts, human or otherwise lying about their flat that drove him crazy.
But that was the problem. Sherlock would get so invested in his cases, so focused, that John knew he tuned out the noise and people around him to think. It was as good as putting on a bow and handing him over to Moriarty.
John’s skill lay in another direction, medicine for certain, but he was also a military man. He hadn’t much cared for it, but felt the need to do his duty and help keep as many soldiers on the front line alive.
Sometimes he won, but more often he lost. The battlefield is no place for man nor beast, then again, isn’t that what they often turned into before battle. Animals high on adrenaline and fear and ultimately excitement. John was certainly not immune to the call to arms. In fact, walking patrol on the front lines was a thrill for him. The danger, the fear, the complete rush that came from stumbling upon the enemy.
الاستسلام او الموت
Always the same. “Surrender or die”. Most surrendered, but others put up a fight, and he could see it in their eyes the moment they made the choice to resist.
John didn’t give second chances, and the other man, probably on lone patrol, ended up with a bullet in his brain. His comrades in arms didn’t understand how he could be a medic, a doctor, and find it so easy to take a human life.
In his mind it was simple. Either you were a good guy, or a very bad guy. If it came down to him and the very bad guy, John planned to make sure it was the bad guy.
Maybe that’s why his nightmares would never go away, because he felt like he was the monster in the dream, he was on the one coldbloodedly shooting down his comrades, not the enemy. That fear, combined with pain and terror of his injury would probably always haunt his dreams. And all of his training had made his dreams even worse as of late. He’d wake up in a cold sweat, sometimes screaming out a name, or just a scream of primal fear.
Sherlock would come look at him, leave, then bring him tea. He would invariably ask if John wanted to talk about it, only because it was expected of him to ask, and John always declined. Theirs was not that sort of relationship.
John was certain Moriarty was just toying with Sherlock, even Sherlock knew it, but didn’t seem to care. It was all just a big game, after all.
John planned to take down Moriarty.
Sherlock’s Pet. Hadn’t that rankled.
But it was true, aside from their first case, he’d mostly run around with Sherlock with no clue as to what was going on. But that was going to change. He was no longer going to play Doctor with Sherlock, not now anyway. When Moriarty was taken care of, then perhaps Sherlock would get his doctor back.
Unless of course, John became settled in as a military man again. It was beginning to feel like a comfortable shoe to him. He was certain Sarah would find that odd, but he never talked about it with her. Come to think of it, he hadn’t called her in over a week.
Oops.
Mycroft wasn’t pleased by his brother’s antics either. The brat was beginning to make him nervous with all of his silly ploys to bring Moriarty out in the open. And so he looked to John. John the soldier, not John the medic.
“See anything odd today?” Mycroft asked, tapping his umbrella on the floor.
“Followed a black car for a few miles, only to find it was a woman with a car full of children. So I’d say no.”
John was cleaning his gun on Mycroft’s table
“Don’t scratch that table, it cost a small fortune.”
“I’m sure you can afford another, Mycroft, but I’ll be careful.” John was grinning at how similar he and Sherlock could be.
“How’s the rest of your training going?” Mycroft asked.
“Good. Sherlock catalogs each new bruise I come home with, berates me, calls me names, then goes back to brooding, or whatever it is he does.”
“It’s called thinking, John. Thinking.”
Over the last two months, he’d actually found Mycroft as easy to bait as Sherlock. At least he kept himself amused when he wasn’t getting his arse kicked by the Israeli fighters Mycroft had rounded up to work with him. Things were finally starting to become automatic to him now and he was feeling confident. Not overly confident, not since Moriarty was still out playing games, leading Sherlock on merry chases around the city. Or France. Or Spain. John was getting annoyed at the whole thing.
“The tracking device is working splendidly,” Mycroft beamed. “It’s made life much easier on my men.”
“When this is all over, I’m telling him about it, you do know that right?” John’s voice was tight.
Mycroft waved a hand in the air. “You have to admit, entering it into his body under the guise of a tetanus shot was genius.”
John looked at him, frowning. “It wasn’t genius! He stepped on a nail, he had to get the shot regardless. It was lucky you had an excuse to inject it into him. Luck, not genius.”
Mycroft pouted. “It was my idea.”
John slid all the pieces of his gun back together, slid the magazine home and flipped on the safety.
“Alright, time to go home and make sure Sherlock hasn’t gone off any wild chases while I was gone.”
“No, he’s still home,” Mycroft said, holding up a scanner.
John hated the fact that he was in possession of such a scanner as well. But he never turned it on, and never would, not unless it was an emergency. Shooting Sherlock up with the tracking chip was bad enough, he wasn’t going to intrude anymore on his privacy.
“Afternoon, Mycroft,” John said wearily and left his office. He was going to catch a cab, but one of Mycroft’s men offered him a ride home. And by offered, insisted.
Nobody wanted to lose John to Moriarty again, not if he was Sherlock’s weak spot. The thought shouldn’t make John smile, but he couldn’t stop the silly grin on his face. Maybe, when this was all over, and if he gathered up the courage, he’d try and exploit that a bit.
***
“Playing with Mycroft again?” Sherlock said from his normal position on the couch as John entered the flat.
John tried not to smirk at the hint of jealousy in Sherlock’s voice. “I wouldn’t call what we do playing. I’m trying to keep both of us alive you know?”
“I’ve had no trouble keeping myself alive thus far in life, I don’t see why that would change anytime soon,” Sherlock returned, fingers still steepled under his chin.
“Tea?”
Sherlock sat up quickly, feet on the floor. “Yes.”
“When did you eat last?”
“What day is it?”
John lied. “Friday.” It was Thursday, but if Sherlock couldn’t bother to keep track, that wasn’t John’s problem.
“Are you cooking?”
John sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m cooking.”
“I’d prefer take away.”
John popped his head out of the kitchen, kettle in hand. “I’m offering to cook and you want takeaway?”
“I’m having a craving.”
After all this time, John was still baffled by Sherlock’s ability to pout. He wondered how long he’d stood looking in the mirror as a child, perfecting that look. He was very good at mimicking emotion, even if he wasn’t actually feeling the emotion.
“Fine, what do you want?”
“Changed my mind, we’re going out,” Sherlock said, sliding off his robe and tossing it over a chair.
“I don’t want to go out, I just got in,” John complained, holding up his kettle. “And I want tea.”
“They have tea outside.”
John rolled his eyes and returned to the kitchen, putting on the kettle. “I’m staying here, and I’m having tea, and I’m cooking dinner.”
“Boring.” Sherlock flopped back down on the sofa, picking up his violin, idly plucking at strings.
John joined him on the couch, shoving Sherlock’s feet to the ground. “I’m sorry nobody has been murdered this week,” he said wryly.
“A robbery would do. A hit and run. Oh, perhaps a kidnapping!”
“Only you would be excited about a kidnapping.”
Sherlock said nothing, his eyes staring into space as he stroked his violin. “I wonder where he is,” he wondered aloud.
“I suppose dead is too much to ask.” He knew exactly who Sherlock was referring to, and didn’t bother to pretend that he didn’t.
“No, he’s too clever for something so mundane.”
“Right, death is too boring for psychopaths and high functioning sociopaths,” John muttered, getting up to see to the tea.
Sherlock jumped up after him, following him to the kitchen. “Death is only boring if there is something left when you die. Being a ghost and haunting you would be fun for an hour or two, but then what? Somehow, I don’t think there are many ghostly criminals that need hunting.” He leaned against the counter, watching John intently as he made the tea.
“I do know how you like it, Sherlock,” John said, feeling his stare.
“Yes, but you’re adding the milk, then the sugar, thus diluting the heat that allows for the sugar to dissolve more evenly.”
John shoved the cup into his hand. “Shut up and drink your tea, Sherlock.”
“Are you having sexual relations with my brother?”
John choked on his tea. “Are you insane?” he sputtered.
“It was a reasonable deduction, given the evidence.”
“Evidence? What possible evidence could their be that I’m -- involved with Mycroft?!”
Sherlock rose to his feet, pacing a small circle as he began to recite observations.
“You spend all your free time with him; you haven’t seen Sarah outside of work, and you haven’t been returning her calls, which leads me to believe that you’re avoiding her.”
“Have you been looking at my phone?!”
“Irrelevant. There are five missed calls from Sarah, and you’ve not returned any of them. More often than not you come home smelling of -- something I can’t place exactly, but there are definite overlays of Mycroft.”
“You’ve totally lost your mind. Complete nutter,” John muttered, still blinking owlishly at Sherlock.
“Besides, that would be the wrong Holmes I'm after,” he added under his breath, shaking his head. He began getting pots and pans out of the cupboard, hoping to make enough noise to make Sherlock flee the room. He didn’t.
“You’ve gotten a haircut, and you have this strange aura about you, though I don’t particularly believe in auras, you get my meaning. There is something different about you, that I can only assume has something to do with my brother.”
“Would you stop saying that! I’m not shagging your brother, just drop it, would you? You know what I’ve been doing and you know why I’m doing it, so stop the games for five damn minutes so I can make some fucking supper!” John shouted, banging a pot loudly on the counter.
“And people say I’m tetchy,” Sherlock grinned, but left John to his own devices. He had another puzzle to sort out, John's mention of another Holmes he was after. Interesting.
***
John was sitting at his desk at the clinic, just the quiet night to catch up on paperwork when his phone beeped. There was a message from Sherlock waiting.
Or not.
Want to save your friend, Johnny boy?
The old Andike theatre. No police or
Sherlock might lose his head.
JM
John stared at text for a full minute before jumping to his feet. He had much to do and little time to do it.
Rushing home, he pulled a large box out from under his bed. Minutes later had a Walther 9mm strapped to his ankle, his army issues gun in shoulder holster, and one and one tucked just below the back of his neck. For some reason, nobody ever patted there. He added extra ammo clips to his pockets, and the special bullets for the rifle.
Now the rifle, was going to be harder to disguise, but a long coat ought to do the trick, and hopefully that would be the only gun he needed.
He came at the theatre from the back, hat pulled low over his eyes. There was one guard on the back exit, but he didn’t see anyone else in sight.
John gave the man a smile and nod as he walked past, trying to look like any other citizen out for a stroll. Once he turned the corner, he pulled out his rifle, scanning the rooftops in case he was missing anyone. Confident there was only one guard in the back, he loaded the dart into the gun and chambered it.
One step around the corner, rifle raised, and before the other man could even draw his gun, he was clutching at the dart in his neck. A moment later, he dropped to the ground without calling out an alarm.
So far so good.
John was positive there would be at least two men standing guarding the front door, but he saw no one. He searched the rooftops, or anyone on the street who seemed suspicious. Everything seemed normal.
Frowning, John walked to the entrance of the theatre, listening at the door, then slipped inside. Again, the entrance was empty, leaving him feeling uncomfortable, but he felt no eyes upon him. Moriarty must be feeling confident then. Good. Over confidence had been the undoing of more than one man.
He heard the voices, bantering back and forth, but for the moment, he ignored them. He wasn’t going to just walk into the room like the sacrificial lamb.
First order of business was to the cut the lights outside the theatre’s actual entrance. He didn’t want a shaft of light giving him away when he slipped into the room. The question now was, how to knock out the ceiling light without making a racket. He knew the theatre, he knew there was a balcony level, and he had no doubt that this time, there would be snipers. He had to deal with them first.
After he got rid of the blasted light.
Well, there was nothing for it, it was going to make noise, but with any luck, the theatre itself would muffle it. Cringing a bit, he used his rifle and slowly pushed it against the light until it cracked, louder than expected. Pressing his back against the wall, he waited to see if anyone would come out to investigate.
After five minutes of nothing, John opened the door and slid inside. Moriarty had Sherlock handcuffed to a chair, just waiting for John to show up. He could see two steady red lights on Sherlock, one on the head and the other on his neck.
Silently, John slid along the back wall until he reached the stairs to the first balcony. Saying a prayer to a god he didn’t really believe in, he slowly made his way up the stairs. Near the top, he could see the shoes of the sniper and stopped, laying himself down on the steps. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but he’d been in worse for sure.
Carefully, he shimmied up the stairs until the man was in sight. His attention was fully focused on what was happening downstairs.
Nice.
John didn’t use the laser scope, not for this close of a shot. Lining up the shot, he let out a breath of air, listened to his heart, firing between the beat.
The sniper felt his neck, and John barely made up the rest of the way to catch him before he hit the floor. A loud thump was the last thing he needed.
“Where do you think your pet is, Sherlock. I have to admit, this is getting boring. You’re not the greatest conversationalist when you’re irritated.”
“John is not foolish enough to come here, he knows you’ll just use him against me.”
John listened as the grabbed the snipers rifle and put the dot back on Sherlock, though it was lower on his chest. He couldn’t keep the gun high enough without holding it, but he needed to use his rifle one more time.
“He loves you, he’ll come,” Moriarty crowed.
Sherlock snorted. “You know nothing about him, give it up.”
“Twice, he’s tried to sacrifice himself to save you, Sherlock, twice. And then there’s the way he looks at you, like an adoring puppy.”
“Is this the best you can do, Jim? Talk rubbish to distract me? I thought you were an intellectual, capable of intelligent conversation,” Sherlock taunted, yawning. “Did you know the Earth circles the sun? Fascinating, isn’t? John told me. He’s smarter than you give him credit for, Jim. He won’t walk into a trap.”
“Boring. If you and I were to team up, we could have so much fun, Sherlock. Surely you see that."
"I see a psychopath. Intelligent for certain, but a psychopath nonetheless."
John was barely listening. At the moment, he was screwing on a small night vision scope to his rifle. When he stood up, he search the dark of the other balcony until he found his target. This time, there was nothing to be done about the thump; that is if John could make the shot in the first place. There was a big gap, and he was shooting a human with tranquilier gun. Easy close up, not so much across a theatre. But he had no choice.
Finding his target, John steadied the rifle on the rail, let out a breath and listened to his heartbeat. Adjusting for trajectory, he waited until his heart was between beats and fired.
John didn’t quite hit what he was aiming for, but it still did the job. The problem was, there was now blood pumping out around the dart. He’d hit the jugular vein. The man dropped with a thump.
John picked up the sniper rifle, putting a dot back on Sherlock’s head while he checked the chamber, making sure it was loaded, and flicked off the safety.
The dot on Sherlock was now pointed at Moriarty’s head.
“Well, that’s an interesting development,” Sherlock said, a small grin on his face.
“What?” Jim scowled.
“You’ve got a bit of a spot on your forehead. Oddly enough, the ones on me have seemed to disappear.” Still grinning, Sherlock called, “Hello John! You’re late.”
“Had a few things to do. Felt a bit peckish, so I stopped for tea and scones. Alright, Sherlock?”
“Peachy. Handcuffed to a chair and stuck talking to a megalomaniac. It does wear on a person and I’ve been bored for hours.”
Moriarty was looking back and forth between the balconies, searching for his men.
“Sorry Jim, they’re taking a bit of a nap, well one of them is, the other is possibly bleeding out or dead by now, but mistake happens.”
Unlike Moriarty’s men, John’s dot didn’t waver a single centimeter from the center of Moriarty’s head.
“How are you, Jim? What was that you were saying about me? I didn’t quite catch it, since I was taking out your men.”
“Perhaps you’d be willing to take off the handcuffs now?” Sherlock asked politely, they’re beginning to chafe.
“No!” Moriarity snarled.
John pulled his gun from it’s holster and shot a hole right next to Moriarty’s foot. “Next time, it’s your knee. Handcuffs. Now,” John growled.
“Oh fine,” Moriarty huffed, moving to unlock Sherlock’s cuffs.
“Don’t try to be clever, Jim, or you’ll find you’ll be dead before your body can hit the ground.”
Sherlock rubbed his wrists and slouched in his chair, studying his adversary. “What do you say, John? Shall we kill him now? It would end the game, which is rather depressing,” Sherlock sighed.
“Actually, Mycroft doesn’t want him dead, he wants to study him.”
Sherlock snorted. “He would,” he muttered. “He’s been trying to study me for years.”
“Oh do get on with it,” Moriarty shouted, not feeling at all comfortable with any of this.
“Don’t worry, Sherlock. Mycroft promised you could visit Moriarty anytime you liked, or until he escapes, which he thinks is inevitable at some point.”
“My brother isn’t a total moron. How surprising.”
“Boring,” Moriarty sang. “Do make up your --”
A dart to his neck silenced him before he could finish his sentence.
“Sherlock, text your brother and tell him he has some clean up to do. I've no doubt he has people waiting outside. By the way, remind me to tell you about the microchip."
"The one in the tetnus shot?"
"You knew?"
"Of course I knew, John. You had guilt written all over your face, and I found the right frequency to detect it. I trust you'll remove it now."
Sherlock jumped up from his chair, rubbing his wrist, and going through Moriarty’s pockets until he found his phone. He sent a quick text to Mycroft and Lestrade, and a moment later, John was at his side.
"I told Mycroft when this was all over, I was going to remove the chip. It wasn't my idea, by the way."
“Are you certain you brought enough guns?” Sherlock asked, seeing the difference in the way John's clothes were hanging on him.
“Didn’t know what I was getting into, did I? Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Don’t be an idiot, of course I’m alright. But I hear sirens, so I think we should make a hasty exit. Do you have something to take care of the guard outside.”
John scoffed. “He was the first to go down,” he said, leading them to the side door. He poked his head out, saw the man still on the ground and grinned.
“Fancy a run, Sherlock?”
“You know, John, I think that’s a splendid idea." Sherlock grabbed his arm. "Does this mean I have my doctor back?"
John grinned. "Of course, but the gun stays, just in case you find you need your soldier back."
"I think I can live with that."
Laughing, the two ran off down a back alley, coats flapping in the breeze.
Title: Once a Soldier, Always a Soldier 1/3
Pairing: BAMF!John/Sherlock, Moriarty
Rating: PG-13 ultimately
Word Count: 3800
Warnings: Mild Violence
Summary: John decides to take things into his own hands. Spoilers up through episode 1x03
Prequel
Part 2
Part 3
John waited for the ranged target as it moved toward him, and he could already see the tight bunches in the center mass. His last target had lost most of its face and head by the look of things. It was nice how natural the guns felt in his hand again. He’d even gotten a shoulder holster for his gun, purely for vanity reasons. It made him feel more like a bad ass, whereas Sherlock continued to tell him he was wasting his time, which made him feel like a dumb ass.
John grinned and pulled the paper target off the trolley and set it next to the others. It had taken him less than a week for his firearms training to kick back in to gear. He even had a knife in his boot now. If anyone in authority gave him grief over walking around with such weapons, Mycroft or Lestrade would soothe things over, as they always did.
If he were honest with himself, he’d admit that he felt better now, than he’d had since the war, but it wasn’t due to getting back into a training regimen, oh no. John had his confidence back, something he sorely missed, particularly strapped to a bomb.
That would never happen again, he’d never let it happen, not to him and not to Sherlock. He couldn’t understand his overwhelming protectiveness to his still relatively new friend, but it was there. Sure, John would run around in the night, searching for criminals, helping Sherlock sort out who was responsible, but Moriarty was a different matter entirely.
It turns out, John had been entirely irresponsible for not doing this sooner..
Sherlock had a mind like no other, a mind that intrigued and baffled John at times, but he usually found it fascinating. It was only various body parts, human or otherwise lying about their flat that drove him crazy.
But that was the problem. Sherlock would get so invested in his cases, so focused, that John knew he tuned out the noise and people around him to think. It was as good as putting on a bow and handing him over to Moriarty.
John’s skill lay in another direction, medicine for certain, but he was also a military man. He hadn’t much cared for it, but felt the need to do his duty and help keep as many soldiers on the front line alive.
Sometimes he won, but more often he lost. The battlefield is no place for man nor beast, then again, isn’t that what they often turned into before battle. Animals high on adrenaline and fear and ultimately excitement. John was certainly not immune to the call to arms. In fact, walking patrol on the front lines was a thrill for him. The danger, the fear, the complete rush that came from stumbling upon the enemy.
الاستسلام او الموت
Always the same. “Surrender or die”. Most surrendered, but others put up a fight, and he could see it in their eyes the moment they made the choice to resist.
John didn’t give second chances, and the other man, probably on lone patrol, ended up with a bullet in his brain. His comrades in arms didn’t understand how he could be a medic, a doctor, and find it so easy to take a human life.
In his mind it was simple. Either you were a good guy, or a very bad guy. If it came down to him and the very bad guy, John planned to make sure it was the bad guy.
Maybe that’s why his nightmares would never go away, because he felt like he was the monster in the dream, he was on the one coldbloodedly shooting down his comrades, not the enemy. That fear, combined with pain and terror of his injury would probably always haunt his dreams. And all of his training had made his dreams even worse as of late. He’d wake up in a cold sweat, sometimes screaming out a name, or just a scream of primal fear.
Sherlock would come look at him, leave, then bring him tea. He would invariably ask if John wanted to talk about it, only because it was expected of him to ask, and John always declined. Theirs was not that sort of relationship.
John was certain Moriarty was just toying with Sherlock, even Sherlock knew it, but didn’t seem to care. It was all just a big game, after all.
John planned to take down Moriarty.
Sherlock’s Pet. Hadn’t that rankled.
But it was true, aside from their first case, he’d mostly run around with Sherlock with no clue as to what was going on. But that was going to change. He was no longer going to play Doctor with Sherlock, not now anyway. When Moriarty was taken care of, then perhaps Sherlock would get his doctor back.
Unless of course, John became settled in as a military man again. It was beginning to feel like a comfortable shoe to him. He was certain Sarah would find that odd, but he never talked about it with her. Come to think of it, he hadn’t called her in over a week.
Oops.
Mycroft wasn’t pleased by his brother’s antics either. The brat was beginning to make him nervous with all of his silly ploys to bring Moriarty out in the open. And so he looked to John. John the soldier, not John the medic.
“See anything odd today?” Mycroft asked, tapping his umbrella on the floor.
“Followed a black car for a few miles, only to find it was a woman with a car full of children. So I’d say no.”
John was cleaning his gun on Mycroft’s table
“Don’t scratch that table, it cost a small fortune.”
“I’m sure you can afford another, Mycroft, but I’ll be careful.” John was grinning at how similar he and Sherlock could be.
“How’s the rest of your training going?” Mycroft asked.
“Good. Sherlock catalogs each new bruise I come home with, berates me, calls me names, then goes back to brooding, or whatever it is he does.”
“It’s called thinking, John. Thinking.”
Over the last two months, he’d actually found Mycroft as easy to bait as Sherlock. At least he kept himself amused when he wasn’t getting his arse kicked by the Israeli fighters Mycroft had rounded up to work with him. Things were finally starting to become automatic to him now and he was feeling confident. Not overly confident, not since Moriarty was still out playing games, leading Sherlock on merry chases around the city. Or France. Or Spain. John was getting annoyed at the whole thing.
“The tracking device is working splendidly,” Mycroft beamed. “It’s made life much easier on my men.”
“When this is all over, I’m telling him about it, you do know that right?” John’s voice was tight.
Mycroft waved a hand in the air. “You have to admit, entering it into his body under the guise of a tetanus shot was genius.”
John looked at him, frowning. “It wasn’t genius! He stepped on a nail, he had to get the shot regardless. It was lucky you had an excuse to inject it into him. Luck, not genius.”
Mycroft pouted. “It was my idea.”
John slid all the pieces of his gun back together, slid the magazine home and flipped on the safety.
“Alright, time to go home and make sure Sherlock hasn’t gone off any wild chases while I was gone.”
“No, he’s still home,” Mycroft said, holding up a scanner.
John hated the fact that he was in possession of such a scanner as well. But he never turned it on, and never would, not unless it was an emergency. Shooting Sherlock up with the tracking chip was bad enough, he wasn’t going to intrude anymore on his privacy.
“Afternoon, Mycroft,” John said wearily and left his office. He was going to catch a cab, but one of Mycroft’s men offered him a ride home. And by offered, insisted.
Nobody wanted to lose John to Moriarty again, not if he was Sherlock’s weak spot. The thought shouldn’t make John smile, but he couldn’t stop the silly grin on his face. Maybe, when this was all over, and if he gathered up the courage, he’d try and exploit that a bit.
***
“Playing with Mycroft again?” Sherlock said from his normal position on the couch as John entered the flat.
John tried not to smirk at the hint of jealousy in Sherlock’s voice. “I wouldn’t call what we do playing. I’m trying to keep both of us alive you know?”
“I’ve had no trouble keeping myself alive thus far in life, I don’t see why that would change anytime soon,” Sherlock returned, fingers still steepled under his chin.
“Tea?”
Sherlock sat up quickly, feet on the floor. “Yes.”
“When did you eat last?”
“What day is it?”
John lied. “Friday.” It was Thursday, but if Sherlock couldn’t bother to keep track, that wasn’t John’s problem.
“Are you cooking?”
John sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m cooking.”
“I’d prefer take away.”
John popped his head out of the kitchen, kettle in hand. “I’m offering to cook and you want takeaway?”
“I’m having a craving.”
After all this time, John was still baffled by Sherlock’s ability to pout. He wondered how long he’d stood looking in the mirror as a child, perfecting that look. He was very good at mimicking emotion, even if he wasn’t actually feeling the emotion.
“Fine, what do you want?”
“Changed my mind, we’re going out,” Sherlock said, sliding off his robe and tossing it over a chair.
“I don’t want to go out, I just got in,” John complained, holding up his kettle. “And I want tea.”
“They have tea outside.”
John rolled his eyes and returned to the kitchen, putting on the kettle. “I’m staying here, and I’m having tea, and I’m cooking dinner.”
“Boring.” Sherlock flopped back down on the sofa, picking up his violin, idly plucking at strings.
John joined him on the couch, shoving Sherlock’s feet to the ground. “I’m sorry nobody has been murdered this week,” he said wryly.
“A robbery would do. A hit and run. Oh, perhaps a kidnapping!”
“Only you would be excited about a kidnapping.”
Sherlock said nothing, his eyes staring into space as he stroked his violin. “I wonder where he is,” he wondered aloud.
“I suppose dead is too much to ask.” He knew exactly who Sherlock was referring to, and didn’t bother to pretend that he didn’t.
“No, he’s too clever for something so mundane.”
“Right, death is too boring for psychopaths and high functioning sociopaths,” John muttered, getting up to see to the tea.
Sherlock jumped up after him, following him to the kitchen. “Death is only boring if there is something left when you die. Being a ghost and haunting you would be fun for an hour or two, but then what? Somehow, I don’t think there are many ghostly criminals that need hunting.” He leaned against the counter, watching John intently as he made the tea.
“I do know how you like it, Sherlock,” John said, feeling his stare.
“Yes, but you’re adding the milk, then the sugar, thus diluting the heat that allows for the sugar to dissolve more evenly.”
John shoved the cup into his hand. “Shut up and drink your tea, Sherlock.”
“Are you having sexual relations with my brother?”
John choked on his tea. “Are you insane?” he sputtered.
“It was a reasonable deduction, given the evidence.”
“Evidence? What possible evidence could their be that I’m -- involved with Mycroft?!”
Sherlock rose to his feet, pacing a small circle as he began to recite observations.
“You spend all your free time with him; you haven’t seen Sarah outside of work, and you haven’t been returning her calls, which leads me to believe that you’re avoiding her.”
“Have you been looking at my phone?!”
“Irrelevant. There are five missed calls from Sarah, and you’ve not returned any of them. More often than not you come home smelling of -- something I can’t place exactly, but there are definite overlays of Mycroft.”
“You’ve totally lost your mind. Complete nutter,” John muttered, still blinking owlishly at Sherlock.
“Besides, that would be the wrong Holmes I'm after,” he added under his breath, shaking his head. He began getting pots and pans out of the cupboard, hoping to make enough noise to make Sherlock flee the room. He didn’t.
“You’ve gotten a haircut, and you have this strange aura about you, though I don’t particularly believe in auras, you get my meaning. There is something different about you, that I can only assume has something to do with my brother.”
“Would you stop saying that! I’m not shagging your brother, just drop it, would you? You know what I’ve been doing and you know why I’m doing it, so stop the games for five damn minutes so I can make some fucking supper!” John shouted, banging a pot loudly on the counter.
“And people say I’m tetchy,” Sherlock grinned, but left John to his own devices. He had another puzzle to sort out, John's mention of another Holmes he was after. Interesting.
***
John was sitting at his desk at the clinic, just the quiet night to catch up on paperwork when his phone beeped. There was a message from Sherlock waiting.
Or not.
Want to save your friend, Johnny boy?
The old Andike theatre. No police or
Sherlock might lose his head.
JM
John stared at text for a full minute before jumping to his feet. He had much to do and little time to do it.
Rushing home, he pulled a large box out from under his bed. Minutes later had a Walther 9mm strapped to his ankle, his army issues gun in shoulder holster, and one and one tucked just below the back of his neck. For some reason, nobody ever patted there. He added extra ammo clips to his pockets, and the special bullets for the rifle.
Now the rifle, was going to be harder to disguise, but a long coat ought to do the trick, and hopefully that would be the only gun he needed.
He came at the theatre from the back, hat pulled low over his eyes. There was one guard on the back exit, but he didn’t see anyone else in sight.
John gave the man a smile and nod as he walked past, trying to look like any other citizen out for a stroll. Once he turned the corner, he pulled out his rifle, scanning the rooftops in case he was missing anyone. Confident there was only one guard in the back, he loaded the dart into the gun and chambered it.
One step around the corner, rifle raised, and before the other man could even draw his gun, he was clutching at the dart in his neck. A moment later, he dropped to the ground without calling out an alarm.
So far so good.
John was positive there would be at least two men standing guarding the front door, but he saw no one. He searched the rooftops, or anyone on the street who seemed suspicious. Everything seemed normal.
Frowning, John walked to the entrance of the theatre, listening at the door, then slipped inside. Again, the entrance was empty, leaving him feeling uncomfortable, but he felt no eyes upon him. Moriarty must be feeling confident then. Good. Over confidence had been the undoing of more than one man.
He heard the voices, bantering back and forth, but for the moment, he ignored them. He wasn’t going to just walk into the room like the sacrificial lamb.
First order of business was to the cut the lights outside the theatre’s actual entrance. He didn’t want a shaft of light giving him away when he slipped into the room. The question now was, how to knock out the ceiling light without making a racket. He knew the theatre, he knew there was a balcony level, and he had no doubt that this time, there would be snipers. He had to deal with them first.
After he got rid of the blasted light.
Well, there was nothing for it, it was going to make noise, but with any luck, the theatre itself would muffle it. Cringing a bit, he used his rifle and slowly pushed it against the light until it cracked, louder than expected. Pressing his back against the wall, he waited to see if anyone would come out to investigate.
After five minutes of nothing, John opened the door and slid inside. Moriarty had Sherlock handcuffed to a chair, just waiting for John to show up. He could see two steady red lights on Sherlock, one on the head and the other on his neck.
Silently, John slid along the back wall until he reached the stairs to the first balcony. Saying a prayer to a god he didn’t really believe in, he slowly made his way up the stairs. Near the top, he could see the shoes of the sniper and stopped, laying himself down on the steps. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but he’d been in worse for sure.
Carefully, he shimmied up the stairs until the man was in sight. His attention was fully focused on what was happening downstairs.
Nice.
John didn’t use the laser scope, not for this close of a shot. Lining up the shot, he let out a breath of air, listened to his heart, firing between the beat.
The sniper felt his neck, and John barely made up the rest of the way to catch him before he hit the floor. A loud thump was the last thing he needed.
“Where do you think your pet is, Sherlock. I have to admit, this is getting boring. You’re not the greatest conversationalist when you’re irritated.”
“John is not foolish enough to come here, he knows you’ll just use him against me.”
John listened as the grabbed the snipers rifle and put the dot back on Sherlock, though it was lower on his chest. He couldn’t keep the gun high enough without holding it, but he needed to use his rifle one more time.
“He loves you, he’ll come,” Moriarty crowed.
Sherlock snorted. “You know nothing about him, give it up.”
“Twice, he’s tried to sacrifice himself to save you, Sherlock, twice. And then there’s the way he looks at you, like an adoring puppy.”
“Is this the best you can do, Jim? Talk rubbish to distract me? I thought you were an intellectual, capable of intelligent conversation,” Sherlock taunted, yawning. “Did you know the Earth circles the sun? Fascinating, isn’t? John told me. He’s smarter than you give him credit for, Jim. He won’t walk into a trap.”
“Boring. If you and I were to team up, we could have so much fun, Sherlock. Surely you see that."
"I see a psychopath. Intelligent for certain, but a psychopath nonetheless."
John was barely listening. At the moment, he was screwing on a small night vision scope to his rifle. When he stood up, he search the dark of the other balcony until he found his target. This time, there was nothing to be done about the thump; that is if John could make the shot in the first place. There was a big gap, and he was shooting a human with tranquilier gun. Easy close up, not so much across a theatre. But he had no choice.
Finding his target, John steadied the rifle on the rail, let out a breath and listened to his heartbeat. Adjusting for trajectory, he waited until his heart was between beats and fired.
John didn’t quite hit what he was aiming for, but it still did the job. The problem was, there was now blood pumping out around the dart. He’d hit the jugular vein. The man dropped with a thump.
John picked up the sniper rifle, putting a dot back on Sherlock’s head while he checked the chamber, making sure it was loaded, and flicked off the safety.
The dot on Sherlock was now pointed at Moriarty’s head.
“Well, that’s an interesting development,” Sherlock said, a small grin on his face.
“What?” Jim scowled.
“You’ve got a bit of a spot on your forehead. Oddly enough, the ones on me have seemed to disappear.” Still grinning, Sherlock called, “Hello John! You’re late.”
“Had a few things to do. Felt a bit peckish, so I stopped for tea and scones. Alright, Sherlock?”
“Peachy. Handcuffed to a chair and stuck talking to a megalomaniac. It does wear on a person and I’ve been bored for hours.”
Moriarty was looking back and forth between the balconies, searching for his men.
“Sorry Jim, they’re taking a bit of a nap, well one of them is, the other is possibly bleeding out or dead by now, but mistake happens.”
Unlike Moriarty’s men, John’s dot didn’t waver a single centimeter from the center of Moriarty’s head.
“How are you, Jim? What was that you were saying about me? I didn’t quite catch it, since I was taking out your men.”
“Perhaps you’d be willing to take off the handcuffs now?” Sherlock asked politely, they’re beginning to chafe.
“No!” Moriarity snarled.
John pulled his gun from it’s holster and shot a hole right next to Moriarty’s foot. “Next time, it’s your knee. Handcuffs. Now,” John growled.
“Oh fine,” Moriarty huffed, moving to unlock Sherlock’s cuffs.
“Don’t try to be clever, Jim, or you’ll find you’ll be dead before your body can hit the ground.”
Sherlock rubbed his wrists and slouched in his chair, studying his adversary. “What do you say, John? Shall we kill him now? It would end the game, which is rather depressing,” Sherlock sighed.
“Actually, Mycroft doesn’t want him dead, he wants to study him.”
Sherlock snorted. “He would,” he muttered. “He’s been trying to study me for years.”
“Oh do get on with it,” Moriarty shouted, not feeling at all comfortable with any of this.
“Don’t worry, Sherlock. Mycroft promised you could visit Moriarty anytime you liked, or until he escapes, which he thinks is inevitable at some point.”
“My brother isn’t a total moron. How surprising.”
“Boring,” Moriarty sang. “Do make up your --”
A dart to his neck silenced him before he could finish his sentence.
“Sherlock, text your brother and tell him he has some clean up to do. I've no doubt he has people waiting outside. By the way, remind me to tell you about the microchip."
"The one in the tetnus shot?"
"You knew?"
"Of course I knew, John. You had guilt written all over your face, and I found the right frequency to detect it. I trust you'll remove it now."
Sherlock jumped up from his chair, rubbing his wrist, and going through Moriarty’s pockets until he found his phone. He sent a quick text to Mycroft and Lestrade, and a moment later, John was at his side.
"I told Mycroft when this was all over, I was going to remove the chip. It wasn't my idea, by the way."
“Are you certain you brought enough guns?” Sherlock asked, seeing the difference in the way John's clothes were hanging on him.
“Didn’t know what I was getting into, did I? Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Don’t be an idiot, of course I’m alright. But I hear sirens, so I think we should make a hasty exit. Do you have something to take care of the guard outside.”
John scoffed. “He was the first to go down,” he said, leading them to the side door. He poked his head out, saw the man still on the ground and grinned.
“Fancy a run, Sherlock?”
“You know, John, I think that’s a splendid idea." Sherlock grabbed his arm. "Does this mean I have my doctor back?"
John grinned. "Of course, but the gun stays, just in case you find you need your soldier back."
"I think I can live with that."
Laughing, the two ran off down a back alley, coats flapping in the breeze.