Sherlock Fic: You're Two Metres Shy of Being a Giraffe
Title: You're Two Metres Shy of Being a Giraffe
Author: Narcoleptic_ll (Narkito)
Characters: Sherlock, John, Lestrade
Rating: PG-13, because of some mild violence. // Gen-fic
Word Count: 2051~
Summary: Sherlock and John take a tumble down the stairs in the heat of fist fight. Lestrade makes and effort to make some sense of the facts.
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"I still can't believe you pushed me down the stairs."
"It was an accident; you had me on the ropes I wasn’t exactly..."
"Ah, so you admit you were going to lose, because I'm better at this than you."
"No, I admit I was going to lose because you're two metres shy from being a bloody giraffe, all you need are brown spots and yellowish skin and you're done, they would lock you up in the zoo and everything."
Sherlock was not amused by this comment, to say the least.
John’s hair was sticking up in all directions, his hand alternating pressing the blue ice-pack to his right eye and to his chin. He was sitting on Lestrade’s desk, his bum crumpling some very important papers as he shifted positions uncomfortably.
Sherlock sat in front of him, on a plastic chair that dug into his back in all the wrong places. Some of his curls were plastered to his forehead, a bruise beginning to form on his left upper cheek, right over his zygomatic bone. He was holding his left side, where the fall had made most of its damage.
Lestrade, crossed arms over his chest, exhaled audibly and looked in disbelief to both of them.
“So, explain this to me again, why were you two arguing?”
Sherlock and John looked at each other rather sheepishly. To pinpoint the exact moment the argument had started meant they had to go back to the night before, when John, exhausted after a double shift at the surgery, went up to his room -glad there was nothing burning on the middle of the kitchen or similar- only to find Sherlock sprawled on his bed, reading a book. And a bunch of Petri dishes littered around the floor.
“Oi, my room is off-limits to your experiments, get out.” John shakes Sherlock’s leg by the knee at the time he sits on the edge of his bed.
Sherlock barely looks up his book and goes back to reading. Not uttering a word.
“Sherlock, didn’t you listen, out of my room, now. I’m tired; I don’t have time for this.”
This time Sherlock closes the book, keeping his index finger as a marker, and stares down at John.
“I’m sorry, John, but my experiments are of the utmost importance and your room was the only one with the appropriate temperature. You may sleep in my bedroom if you want.”
John thought for a moment about fighting it, but immediately gave up. Too tired to even think of a half-witty response, he sighed rather miserably and went downstairs to Sherlock’s room. Upon opening the door it became rather obvious Sherlock’s room was most certainly not fit for living, let alone sleeping. It all went downhill from there.
Back at the station, John opened his mouth to explain, but closed it immediately after, words failing him. Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
“Well, if you must know...”
“If I must know, Sherlock? You two started a shouting match in my office and then beat the daylights out of each other! This is not about if I must know, this is about what you can tell me that’s going to stop the ASBOs with your names on it!”
Sherlock crumpled in his chair and set his jaw, crossing his arms over his chest, wincing in pain and stifling the reaction all at once. The ripped pocket of his shirt hanging over one of his hands.
The night before, once John had finally managed to find a comfortable position on the couch to sleep on, Sherlock had trampled down the stairs and dragged him out of it (by turning all the lights on) so he could play soundboard to his latest ideas on the case he didn’t even know they had.
“Oh, it is brilliant! John, here now, we must go out and investigate!”
“Investigate? No, call Lestrade, let his team go.”
“Nonsense! Here’s your jacket, let’s go!”
Reluctantly, John followed.
After running around chasing the bad guy -actually no, bad guys, plural, which Sherlock, in his almighty “I’m smarter than thou” arrogance, hadn’t anticipated for-, and getting sucker punched on the right eye, John was knackered. He was sitting outside Lestrade’s office, holding an ice-pack to his eye, waiting for the corresponding reports to be filled and finally be well on his way to a decent sleep.
His mobile rang. Mrs Hudson, the screen announced.
“Mrs Hudson isn’t a bit early for...”
“Listen to me, John, dangerous experiments from Sherlock I understand and have learnt to tolerate, but whatever you were doing up in your room last night ate through the bloody ceiling and now I have half of the fire department going up and down holding their heads trying to contain whatever you were brewing up there!”
John had tried to interject a few words on his defence and Mrs Hudson had gone through every intent with the force of a freight train.
“Plus,” she continued, “I’ve been trying to get hold of you and Sherlock for the past hour! I am not pleased, dear, at all!” He heard a male’s voice on the background, Mrs Hudson’s answer was muffled; she had probably covered the microphone. “Yes, quite alright. John, dear, I have to go, when you and Sherlock are done running around the city, I need to talk to you both.” There was a soft click, and the line went dead.
“Quite a shiner you’ve got there,” John hadn’t even had the time to put his mobile away, when Sergeant Donovan made an entrance.
“Yes, quite.” His voice was clipped, spending as less energy as possible, very much focused on this one task of getting himself home to get some sleep.
“Fishing, I tell you. Running around with the freak’s going to kill you soon enough. With fishing, on the other hand, odds of dying or getting punched are...” she made a so-so gesture with her hand, “less.” John limited himself to look up to her and blink a tear out of his right eye, pressing the ice-pack a bit harder than necessary. Sally’s posture seemed to soften a bit. “Did you have that looked at? Need to go to the A&E or something?”
“No, not necessary... thanks, though.” She nodded into his general direction and walked away. John was about to call her and ask about Sherlock when the aforementioned pushed through the doors that led to the hall. He was grinning madly, completely high and bright eyed, walking on the haze of his brilliance. Something inside of John clicked and turned tightly. He chose to ignore it for the moment.
“John, here you are. Ready to go?” John stood and something fuzzy settled at the bottom of his stomach, Sherlock’s words warmer than usual.
“Yes, please, all I want is to get some sleep, I’m so tired.”
“Sleep? What? No! We’re going to the mortuary, at Bart’s, there’s a body I want to...”
“No, Sherlock, I’m not going. And neither are you; Mrs Hudson called, she’s very upset, apparently your experiments ate through the ceiling.”
“Ah, yes, well, what a pity, you should go and talk to her about it, text me if something...”
“Sherlock, you’re not listening to me. I told you she wants to talk to both of us. You and me, together. She seemed very angry when she called, said half the fire department was at the flat trying to figure out what to do. I don’t know how much this is going to cost, but I’m betting it’s going to be expensive.”
“Oh, what a shame I wasn’t there when the reaction happened. But well, if you pick up a few more shifts at the surgery I’m sure you should be able to afford it.”
“Sorry, what?” John stopped immediately, staring at Sherlock, all the warm and fuzzy gone in a fraction of a second.
“To pay for the repairs, John, please, do keep up.”
“Me? Me?! I’m not paying for it! You kick me out of my own room, fill it with god knows what kind of bacteria and I have to pay for it?! Forget it, not a chance!”
Sherlock, not deterred from his objective at the slightest, had simply walked past him. His mind already at Bart’s, the tips of his fingers barely touching his lips.
“Look at me when I’m talking!” John hadn’t meant for the action to be so violent, but he had grabbed Sherlock by the sleeve and spun him around with enough force to throw him off balance.
Sherlock pushed back at John on pure reflex, his face a wild mix of surprise and annoyance. John pushed with added force in retaliation, and Sherlock made an abrasive comment on his black eye and persona. In a couple of seconds they were both pushing at each other and panting, Sherlock had grabbed John from the shoulders and was charging him against a wall. John was trying to get him off of him by tugging at the lapel of his coat, forcing him to the side. Then, a small opportunity; Sherlock lost his grasp on John and John took it as an opening to connect his fist to Sherlock’s face, right under the left eye. By now, a handful of people had come up to see what was going on.
As Lestrade’s booming voice filled the hall with a resounding “stop it!”, John lost his footing and pushed Sherlock down the stairs, going down as well in the process. Sherlock managed to rotate their relative positions and John hit the floor first with an oof escaping him. Sherlock landed on top of John, knocking the wind out of them both. As soon as John had enough to breath, he had enough air to laugh.
“Oh, god, Sherlock, I hate you!”, he said between chuckles. Sherlock pushed himself off and rolled to a side, giggling like a maniac as well. The audience stared unbelievably to the mezzanine where two full grown men were sniggering hysterically.
“Oh, and by the way, Mrs Hudson left a message on my mobile; I think she wants us out of the flat.” John laughed harder at that.
“Oh, Sherlock, I truly do hate you right now.” He said as the waves of laughter passed, rubbing his chin where Sherlock’s elbow had connected with it at some point.
Lestrade and other officers came down the stairs and help them stand up.
~~~
“So, let me get this straight. You two were fighting because of a failed experiment...”
“It didn’t fail!” Sherlock protested.
“If it ate through the floor and the ceiling, it counts as failed.” John clarified, and then bowed down his head back to the I’m-so-sorry position.
Lestrade, inhaled deeply and continued “... so, an experiment went very wrong, caused major damage to your flat and this cheapster here doesn’t want to pay for it. That it?”
“Hey, I’m not cheap!” Sherlock shifted looks from Lestrade and John, then back again.
“With all due respect detective, it’s true; Sherlock’s not a cheapster, as you so blatantly put it, conceited and selfish, perhaps...”
“I thought you were defending me...”
“No, not really.”
“OK, enough. You,” Lestrade pointed at John, “go get some sleep. And you, say you’re sorry, pay for the damage and don’t disturb him for the next eight hours.”
“I’m not a child; you cannot boss me about like this.”
“Yes, Sherlock, yes I can. You do not comply; I arrest you for the scene you just caused an hour ago. If you can’t talk it out like regular people, then yeah, you get to be bossed around. We good?” Sherlock and John both nodded with their eyes cast down. “Good. There’s a police car waiting for you outside. I don’t want to hear from you for the next twenty-four hours.”
John got off the desk, dragging a few papers with him and offered his hand to help Sherlock up. Sherlock looked at his hand and weighed his options for a moment. Then he took it and, as he was getting up, “where are you going to sleep? Your room gone all Swiss-cheese like?”
“I don’t know. We’ll figure it when we get there. You hungry?”
“Famished.”
“Good, you can buy me Chinese on our way home.”