Artist

John Watson sits in his armchair reading the newspaper while a hot cup of tea is steaming little white clouds into the air right next to him. He lifts up his head to look outside the window at the slowly rising sun. It promisses to be a beautiful summer day with a clear sky. The doctor hears a door opening and lets his eyes wander to the sounds direction. A very sleepy Sherlock marches through the living room only wearing his dark gown. Without saying a word he stomps into the kitchen and seconds later John hears glass smaching together. The kitchen looks as if a mad scientist had lived in there for month without leaving and in some way that is true. There had not been a case for some time and Sherlock got rather frustrated. At some point he started some experiments. John does not know what their purpose is but he thinks it has something to do with how to make a perfectly fine apartment unrecognizable in under ten seconds.

„And a very good morning to you too" John says sarcastically. Something very similar to a growl comes from the kitchen. John smiles and starts reading the paper again when someone bursts through the door. Usually any person would have jump at something like that or even get a heart attack from it but John does not even lift his eyes up from the paper.

„Good morning Lestrade" he says cheerfully.

„Oh...yes...good morning" Lestrade bubbles lookin around in the small room.

„He is in the kitchen...or should I say in the lab?" The DI turns around the corner and lifts an eyebrow at what he sees.

„Ehm, Sherlock?" he asks figuring that the consulting detective did not notice him. Sherlock lifts his head and in an instant his eyes start shining.

„Ah, Lestrade! Please tell me you are here because something horribly happened. Murder? Kidnapping? Did someone hide explosives around the city?" he asks getting more and more excited. Lestrade looks bewildered and shakes his head at the consultant.

„No...not this time. But we could still use your help. You see, there have been some robberies and..." Sherlocks eyes turn bored and he starts clattering with the glasses and bottles again. Lestrade has to nearly scream over the noise.

„...and we could not get a good description of him because he always wears some kind of mask." the DI stops to take a breath.

„Oh wonder, why would a robber wear a mask if he did nothing wrong...oh wait" Sherlock says ironically and turns to Lestrade.

„Is the agency so bad at its job that you cant even catch the little fishs any more?" he asks and gets a reproachful look from his room mate who is still sitting in the living room with the paper folded in his lap. This look stops Sherlock only slightly but enough to not through more insults at the DI though.

„We dont have any bigger cases at the moment, Sherlock. And I thought you might want to have something to do so I guessed..."

„I am not a child! I dont need to be entertained! Especially not with something so trivial" Holmes interrupts him. In the living room John shakes his head and throws Lestrade an apologetic look.

„Fine..." the DI says opening the door.

„...if you change your mind let me know" Lestrade disappears and John is left with a very bored and annoying Sherlock.

„You could at least think about it" another growl comes from the kitchen.

„I read about it in the paper. Over the last two weeks the robber broke into 5 houses and in two cases the neighbors or the residents actually saw a person wearing a ski mask." The clattering in the kitchen gets loader and John has to shout.

„He never took anything like jewelry...he only took one thing from each house...A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT." John gives up realizing that Sherlock does not listen to him and with a sight he stands up to go for a walk as he always does when Sherlock is unreasonable...quite a lot therfore. He walks through the parks and coincidently meets some old friends from college. He spends the day with them catching up on their life. It is late when he comes back home and Sherlock already went to bed. Stepping into the living room he stumbles over a bottle that must have fallen down from the table in the kitchen and rolled down to the living room. I dont really want to know how the kitchen looks right now. Its late, I will have to clean that up tomorrow. With a sight he makes his way to the bathroom and gets himself ready for bed. Upon entering his room he lets himself sink down on the bed and falls asleep immediatley after such a long day.

In the middle of the night John wakes from a noise in the living room. A clatter and then something rolling over the wooden floor. The bottle! Taking a wild guess he figures that it is not Sherlock sleep walking but that something else must be going on. As silent as possible he reaches for the gun in his drawer, stands up and opens his door. Peeking around the corner he notices Sherlock standing in his own rooms door frame. Upon seeing John ,gun in hand, the consulting detective lifts a finger to his lips. Yeah, no shit Sherlock Watson thinks and silently follows his friend who slowly makes his way to the living room. In the soft light of the street lamps they can make out a person walking through the room looking for something. At one point the robber stops abruptly and holds up something in the light. Sherlocks violin! John looks to his friend and notices the most angry expression he has ever seen on his face.

Without waiting any longer Sherlock paces into the room wondrously not falling over anything and stops in front of the apartments only exit. He switches the light on and for a moment John is blended by brightness.

„You broke into the wrong house my friend" Sherlock says stepping closer to the masked stranger who does not move an inch. Suddenly he spins around, takes a pot from the table and smashes it into the window shattering it into a million pieces. Sherlock runs forward but it is too late. The robber jumps through the window and hits the ground pretty hard loosing his mask on the way. He stands up and limps over to the violin case that fortunately didn´t fall an the asphalt but into some bushes leaving it unharmed. He glances up at Sherlock who is standing in the window and then runs away as fast as he can. Sherlock and John storm down the stairs but they loose the robber around the next corner. Downhearted they return to the flat. Sherlock is pissed and leaves it to John to call Lestrade and tell him what had happened. Only half an hour later the detective inspector rang the doorbell.

„I didnt think that I would see you again this soon" he says unable to hide his good mood. It was about time that Sherlock had to ask for his help for once. Holmes does not even notice his presence though. He is taking a closer look at the broken glass on the floor. John is sitting in his armchair as usual and watches his friend deducing. He looks tired and a little bit unfocused.

„John, are you alright?" Lestrade asks worried. John looks up at him and sights.

„That was my favourite cup" he says looking back at the broken pieces on the ground.

„Ah...my condolences. Since you told me on the phone that you saw the robbers face I took the liberty to bring our phantom draughtsman right away." The detective steps to the side and a young man with very arrogant features enters the room.

„Good day. My name is Dwaine. It would help us really much if you could describe the mans face as detailed as possible. Everything could be important to identify the man" he says taking a notebook out of his backpack and settling down on the couch.

„Well, first of all it was a woman." Without looking up and still rummaging through the room Sherlock starts depicting even the slightest detail of the face he saw for no more than a fraction of a second in the damp light. Lestrades eyes grow wider by the second and some point he starts shaking his head.

„...her eyes were of dark brown color and deeply sunken in. Her nose was slightly pressed to her right side and she had a birthmark in the shape of a half moon next to her left nasal wing..." the words just babble out of Sherlocks mouth. At one point the young man does not move his pencil anymore.

„Why did you stop?" Sherlock asks and steps closer to look over the Dwaines shoulders.

„That does not look like her...at all. Didn´t you listen to what I just said!" he shouts and looks at Lestrade in disbelief.

„Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to draw all that you just said? That is impossible!" the young man exclaims packing his stuff.

„I am out of here. Call me if you find someone who can actually describe the robber properly" he hisses at Lestrade and leaves the room. The detective covers his eyes with one hand.
„Great, now we have a witness but nobody who can accustom to his description." Lestrade sights and sinks down on the couch closing his eyes.

„Dont worry, Lestrade" John says holding his paper in front of him.

„Here, maybe this will help." Lestrade takes the paper with a confused look on his face.

„What am I supposed to do with that? Look for a new job in the application section?" he says not as sarcastically as he wishes to.

„Turn it around" Watson says confidently and sips at his cup of tea. Lestrade turns the paper around and instantly his eyes grow wide. Sherlock who noticed his reaction steps behind him and takes a look at the paper as well. There was a bigger section without any text and with a pen someone had drawn a perfect depiction of the woman Sherlock had just described. It was skillfully made with different hatchings and the woman seems almost alive. Sherlock looks at John and down to the paper again.

„I didnt know you saw her too" he says noticing all the small details he had seen through the window and admiring the realistic drawing.

„I didnt" John simply states taking another sip. Lestrade stands up and opens the door.

„This is great John. I dont understand how you did it but with this I will guarantee you that we will find her." With that the detective leaves the flat with the paper in his hands.
„When did you learn how to draw like that?" Sherlock says sitting down opposite to John who notices his friend being miffed about not deducing that earlier. He smiles.

„When I was younger I had a very beautiful picture of my mother when she was a young girl. With the years going by it wore out and turned yellow so I started drawing it from memory. I liked that so much that I started drawing other things like the landscape around our house or Harry playing with the neighbours kids. In medical school I had a big adventage because you actually need to draw a lot there. Bones, veins and so on. When I went to the army I kind of lost sight of it and I never needed it again...until now. I guess it can still be useful sometimes" he finishes his story.

„Indeed...I may be taking you up on that someday" Sherlock implies.

The next day Lestrade came through the door triumphantly holding up the violin case. They had catched the robber after her neighbours had recognized her in the drawing.

„When I showed them your drawing they actually thought it was a picture from the newspaper" he says smiling at John who returns the smile.

„Happy to help" he says sipping tea from his favorite cup holding up a tube of superglue when noticing Lestrades puzzled expression.

I know its been a long time since I updated this collection but right now I finally have some time to work on it again. This story was requested by Madiline Magnolia.

Please let me know if you liked it and if you have a good idea for the next story I am always open for requests:D Take care!