The Obscure Mind

Chapter One

Even before John opened his eyes, he knew what he would see out the window. The scene would be the exact same as yesterday, and the day before that. The sky would be the same shade of grey, the London cityscape still peering in at him through his window. It hadn't moved, or changed, from yesterday or the day before that.

It had been different in Afghanistan. There, when he opened his eyes, the scene he would see from his window was never the same. The first night he'd spent over there, after he'd been deployed, he was alarmed to find that the building he'd seen in the darkness the night before was no longer perched at eye-level with his room. Instead, it had been lying in a smoldering heap far beneath him. In the first month, it had seemed like no structure was impervious to whatever bomb had been placed inside. The yellow stucco buildings that clawed at the clear blue horizon crumbled and were rebuilt elsewhere, until the only thing John had, in terms of familiar scenery, was the cloudless sky, the heat and the sounds of every-day life merged with the occasional scream of terror.

But the London that he knew, the London that he'd grown up in, never changed. New buildings were built so slowly that John already knew of their presence before they'd been finished. At first, when he'd returned, the colorless scene was enough to drain the life out of him. It was clear that that was what had happened to everybody else, their faces pale and lifeless. It reminded him of a horror movie, with zombies wandering lifelessly from street to street, seeing only what was right in front of them, only what image was directly in front of their eyes. Lines and wrinkles began to etch in their faces, and John had thought he was safe until he looked in the mirror one day. Bloody hell, he'd thought. He'd been back only a few months and already London had aged him, left its mark on his face. Eventually, he realized that he missed Afghanistan. He missed the hellish casualties of war, the sensation of adrenaline pumping through his veins instead of seeing the world through a veil of drowsiness. He thought he was sick. He had to be, to miss that world of pain and confusion over the security and serenity of London. Slowly, as his disability pension began to whittle away, he wondered if he should seek help from his therapist. Tell her he was suffering from more than just the ghostly pain of a long healed injury; tell her that he hated being a civilian. But he couldn't. The moment he reached out and trusted her- a therapist, of all people- was the moment they locked him up. And while John despised the hollowness of the city, the hollowness of a mental institution was ten times worse. So he struggled on for yet another month, feeling as though he was drowning in a pool, with his lips only a centimeter from the surface, so close that he could feel the air. But every time he opened his mouth to inhale the oh- so- sweet oxygen, water filled his lungs instead, and he sunk even deeper beneath the surface.

But, despite the limitations of science, for every disease, there is a cure. The only thing he regretted was that the cure to his particular ailment was yet another ailment. And for John, that cure happened to be Sherlock.

So when he opened his eyes, it wasn't the familiar sight of the city that etched itself into his sleep filled eyes, but a familiar pale face that was hanging just inches above his. He blinked slowly, letting the sleep drift gently from his eyes, and then shut them for a moment or two. When he reopened them he was met by the same face, this time a few centimeters closer. He leaned back into his pillow, content with the warmth of his sheets. He stared into the ghostly grey eyes that met his own, the insipid, near flawless flesh that swept across high cheek bones down to a firm pair of lips that were a shade too light. His eyes traced up to the other man's forehead, where thick, dark brown curls hung heavily. The face leaned in closer, yet again, this time with several long fingers attached to a hand. The fingers landed gently around his mouth, and began to pry it open.

Finally, John broke the silence. "Sherlock, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Sherlock's pale eyelids covered part of his eyes as he peered down into John's open mouth. "Gathering research for an experiment," he said, his voice coarse and deep.

"You should have told me you were questioning you're sexuality before you asked me to be your flat mate," John retorted, watching the other man's face for a response.

"Not that kind of an experiment, John."

"Ah," John paused for a moment, "Does this have something to do with the decapitated head in the fridge?"
Sherlock snorted, a smile playing on the corners of his lips. "That really bothers you, doesn't it?"

"We put food in the fridge, not body parts. We've had this conversation before."

"You don't complain about the skull on the fireplace."

"Freddie? Nah, he's alright."

Sherlock muttered something under his breath, sticking his fingers further into John's mouth. He tilted his head slightly to the side before saying, "Thought so." He then withdrew himself from John, dusted his pajamas off, and corrected his body position.

"Yes, this does have something to do with the head in the fridge. I'm measuring the coagulation of saliva after death, and it occurred to me that I don't have a living test subject to compare it to."

"You couldn't use yourself?"

"I was collecting my own saliva for about an hour in my mouth, but then Mrs. Hudson surprised me and I accidentally swallowed."

John chuckled under his breath. "Well, you can't use me. Don't you have any other friends you could ask?"

"Freddie no longer produces any saliva."

John sighed. Sherlock had a difficult time connecting with the rest of humanity, his mind being miles ahead of everyone else's. The world looked different from his eyes. When everybody else went through life with tunnel vision, Sherlock had a 360 view of the action. He could see through everyone and anything in seconds, based on the type of dirt under their fingernails, the date set on their watch, and the type of fabric their clothes were made of. Things no one else even considered were the first things that popped into his head, and while John saw him as nothing short of genius, the rest of the world thought of him more as a freak. He'd learned, however, that Sherlock didn't care. People weren't important to him. He didn't have any friends besides John, and because of that, people were quick to assume they were dating. It was hard to believe that Sherlock had a "friendly" relationship with anyone.

"You'll just have to pay someone, then."

Sherlock nodded swiftly, agreeing with him. Morning was the only time Sherlock agreed with him, before he had his coffee and wasn't awake enough to argue. He then pulled out his phone from his pants pocket, and began texting as he left the room. John sighed slightly before gently stepping out of bed, glancing briefly at his thoroughly bruised hands before pulling on a shirt and heading downstairs.

Unlike Sherlock, John was a morning person. The moment light pooled through his window and began to warm his sheets he felt safe. His blankets felt crisp and soft, and everything was quiet. It meant another thing, also. Back in Afghanistan, it meant that he'd lived to see another day.

The apartment they shared was a mess, as always, due to Sherlock's occasional moments of hyperactive behavior when he was bored. The smiley face he'd sprayed on the wall with yellow spray paint was still hovering with a high amount of contrast to the rest of the almost Victorian era wallpaper, and bullet holes still left it with a pock-marked complexion. Finding Sherlock sitting at the kitchen table, he commented, "Just to be clear, you're paying for the wall."

"It's not my fault I was bored."

"There are other things to do besides shooting the wall."

"I already put mascara and lipstick on you while you slept. There really wasn't anything left to do."

John made a bee line for the coffee pot, pouring himself a cup carefully.

"How are your hands?" Sherlock asked.

John scowled. "Remind me not to argue with walls."

"That sore? You usually love punching walls."

John nodded. "Sore and tired."

Sherlock smirked. "I'd help you out with that little problem, but I think that would be crossing the line as friends."

"Mmm. I'd stick to solving crime, Sherlock, and give up your career as a comedian."

Sherlock frowned. "Mycroft said the same thing." Mycroft was Sherlock's brother, and "arch enemy". While John could hardly say he was on the same page as his sister, he could never say they hated each other. At least not on the same level as the Holmes brothers. The two of them couldn't be in the same room as each other without Sherlock wrinkling up his face in dislike, and Mycroft frowning with an air of superiority. John figured that Mycroft's personality likely was created by his high position of authority in the British Government, or maybe was just born like that. It wouldn't be far reached to say that personality issues ran in the family.

Shuffling into the living room, John sat in his favourite, firm red chair, which faced the windows, unconcealed by curtains for once. The air outside was so cold that he could see it as it came out in muddled clouds exhaled from the passerby's beneath them. The stillness of the apartment was gentle, and if John held his breath, the only sounds he could hear were Sherlock's breathing and the dust settling. Neither of them spoke, and both of their minds drifted into separate worlds. The moment John let his eyes slip closed, he could feel the heat of the desert and blowing sands biting into what exposed skin was left on his body. The texture of his chair shifted until it no longer felt soft and warm but metallic and cool, the sensation he received when touching his gun. The cold, bitter grey of London was yanked away from him and he was lost in a country hundreds of miles away. He could feel the movements of his squad around him, and he was aware of every one of their actions. He'd left fear behind him about a kilometer back, and he no longer thought of death as an enemy or a threat; it was just the inevitable. It made no sense to be scared. He was a soldier. He was here to make a difference, and if he died… well, game over. Life wasn't really life if all you thought about was death. It was just precursor to whatever world lay beyond it if the end was all you could visualize. John had every intention to live in the moment he was living in now. To remember the colour of the door before he kicked it in. To remember the faces as he pushed passed them, looking for his mark. To remember finding him, pulling the trigger and hearing the shot. He had never wanted to remember hearing the screams ripping through the air. But six months later, sitting in his flat, John couldn't remember the colour of the door he kicked in. He couldn't remember pushing past people or looking for his mark. He didn't remember pulling the trigger or hearing the shot. Every time he closed his eyes, however, he remembered the screams. They still echoed in his head, and every time he heard a similar sound, he was launched back into a war he had only just left.

He had a hard time believing that they were only fighting the war overseas, because he could still hear the sounds of gunshots in his ears.

A hand landed gently on his shoulder, squeezing it gently as a figure walked past. Slowly, John was sucked back into the world of the living, and he became aware of his surroundings. There was no desert, no members of his squad, no raid, and no screams. Instead, there was a quiet London flat, stranded in the middle of a sleepy city, shrouded in clouds. Sherlock sat in the much more modern chair across from him, which had its larger counterpart, a sofa, pressed against the wall beneath the yellow smiley face. He sipped his coffee, wearing the same expression he always did when he was also lost deep in his thoughts. John often wondered where Sherlock's mind drifted to when it was left to freely float. His was stuck in Afghanistan, and Sherlock likely knew that, but where did his own mind go? He couldn't always be thinking about a case. There simply wasn't enough cases often enough to satisfy his dark intellect, hence the macabre experiments. Boredom plagued him often, which resulted in his occasionally manic depressive behaviors.

Did he think of a person? Sherlock had no friends besides John, and John avoided being introduced as his friend, with good reason. Many people hated him with passion, and if not at least disliked him. Every time the two of them introduced themselves, John mulled over whether he'd rather be Sherlock's friend… or everybody else's. He'd learned not to defend him from the angry slew of comments that came his way about Sherlock's behavior, as Sherlock truly didn't care. Instead, he'd listen politely or agree. He'd lived with him for a while now, but he still hadn't chosen if he wanted to stand beside Sherlock in an "us against the world" manner. He didn't want to wake up one day to discover that he'd isolated himself from everybody else because of Sherlock. It's not like Sherlock would care if he left him. He might have a harder time paying the rent, and he might actually have to find a job, but he wouldn't suffer from the loss of companionship. He might miss slinging insults at John when he got in a bad mood, or having someone average to compare his intelligence to. Did he really want to give up everybody else for someone like him? Someone that woke him up in the morning by sticking his face inches away from John's? Someone that conversed on a regular basis with a human skull and stuck body parts in the fridge?

The clouds outside began to tint a slight shade of pink, indicating to John that the sun had finally risen, doing so later in the winter months. Sherlock sighed heavily, and then flicked his piercing gaze to John. "I have a case," he said, caffeine beginning to churn through his system, causing his eyes to lighten and his voice to grow an edge of excitement. John's favourite form of daily entertainment was this; watching Sherlock's mood shift and change based on what was running through his mind. He lived for puzzles, for questions that other people found too difficult to answer, and for putting together everything in seconds. Nothing was more fun, and nothing was more important.

John allowed the corner of his mouth to tug upwards in a smirk, and locked eyes with him.

"Did Lestrade invite you, or are we party crashing?"

"He invited us."

John's mouth set in a firm line. "You said the same thing last time, but we ended up crawling through a window to get to the crime scene."

Sherlock sighed. "I only lie to you when I think your little internal irrationally moral voice will bitch at you, making you bitch at me, putting everyone in a poor mood."

"I don't 'bitch at you'!" John retorted. "I rarely even nag."

Sherlock shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Do you want to come?"

"I need to shower first, but then I will."

"I'll wait."

Warm water trickled down John's body, and he found himself fully relaxing for the first time in a long time, the heat enclosing his body. He was perfectly safe. The bathroom door was locked, and he shoved a chair under the door knob for extra support. The window was locked and coated with a laminate, so if someone were to scale the building and attempt to smash the window in, the pieces would remain exactly where they were, leaving only spider like cracks in the glass. The third and most comforting feature to the room was his large, military issue handgun that laid on the counter, ready for any form of action. None of these precautions were unnecessary. Since meeting Sherlock, he had shot a serial killer, had to save his date from an ancient Chinese death contraption, wrestled with an eight-foot-tall Czech assassin, and had been strapped up to enough bombs to take down a house with a sniper pointing a gun at his head. No, while Sherlock had only one friend, who was him, he had many, many enemies. All of which knew they'd get the most reaction out of Sherlock when they put John in danger. So that tended to happen often, but it was easy to see why. Every kid wants to make the playground bully cry by taking his favourite (and only) toy. While Sherlock never cried, criminals certainly viewed him as the playground bully, because he was very rarely wrong with his deductions, putting many people away for things they otherwise would've gotten away with. The police also tended to dislike him, because his mannerisms frequently led to him insulting their intelligence. Since John had joined Sherlock, however, they had begun to view him as lightly closer to human, seeing him bond with someone, and while Sherlock would never admit it, he worked better with an assistant.

John dressed in the comfort of his safe room, and decided to leave his gun behind. He wasn't a soldier anymore. It wasn't fair for him to pretend to be. He shifted the chair away from the door, and flicked the lock open. Instantly the door opened, and Sherlock's head popped through the opening.

"Don't you think a lock, a chair, and the locked window is a bit overkill, considering all you're doing is taking a shower?"

"For all I know, you've learned to climb walls."

"I promise I won't peek."

"I want that in writing before I ease off my security."

Sherlock didn't need to know about his fear of being killed, or of the threats he'd received from his enemies. Ignorance was bliss, and John preferred to hide in the bathroom without the company of a paranoid Sherlock.

Mrs. Hudson was nowhere in sight as the two of them climbed downstairs, which was unusual, but pleasant. John half opened his mouth to comment on it, but bit his lip, knowing she would appear if he commented on it. They stepped out onto Baker Street, feeling the nip of the cold air bite into their skin. Sherlock hailed a cab and gave the address to the driver as they climbed in. The driver frowned, and then turned around to face Sherlock. John immediately stiffened, remembering the first case he worked with Sherlock, where a cab driver forced his victims to commit suicide with poison.

"Are you sure you want to go there, sir?"

Sherlock's brow furrowed before saying, "Of course."

"But, sir…"

"What is it?"

"That's a mental institution."

The driver eyed John with renewed suspicion. John looked surprised at Sherlock, and then said, "Look, we're paying you, so take us there." He ended it with a polite smile, so the cabby turned around to the front and started the engine.

"Why are we going to a mental institution? I thought you had a case."

"I do. It just happens to be at a mental institution."

John scowled. "What happened?"

Sherlock's face burst into a smile. "Three murders."

How morbid, John thought, that this is what makes him happiest.

"Three patients with schizophrenia were killed, each with a note in the hands of the body in a code. No forensic evidence connecting them to a killer has been found yet."

"Has anyone been able to read the code?"

"No. All of the notes appear to be napkins with drawings of sheep on them."

Sherlock handed him his phone, with the photo of a napkin crumpled up in a grey hand displayed on it. The vague outline of a sheep could be made out. "What time did in happen?"

"Three o'clock this morning. Lestrade's been there since four."

"He's been there for six hours?" John and Sherlock rarely stayed at a crime scene for more than twenty minutes.

"Our job is much easier than his."

John nodded, twirling Sherlock's phone. "Do they have a cause of death?"

"No. They wouldn't even be sure these were murders if the patients hadn't been found outside their rooms. Nobody has a clue how they got out."

The taxi pulled to a stop outside a large, almost industrial building. The brick was a dusty yellow-brown, mimicking the colour of the grass that spread around the building. Thick metal letters hung on the top of the building, and they read, "Waterloo Mental Institution." The same metal was used to bar every window, although each was so small it was impossible the climb out. Trees sprung up on the far side of the building, but leaned in the opposite direction of it, as though they were afraid of catching the illnesses that plagued the people inside. The yard seemed to have been stripped entirely of life, but the effect could've easily been created by the thick clouds that hung in the air. Snow was surely on its way.

Sherlock handed over the fair and the two of them stepped out of the cab, quickly heading for the door. The smell of disinfectant greeted John's nose, and while the building wasn't a hospital, it reminded him of one, with its pale walls and floors so well cleaned that you could see your reflection in them. It was as though the cleaning staff had hoped to cure the patients by scrubbing away all pollutants and whitening the entire lobby. But unlike a hospital, there were no sounds except for the squeaking of their shoes. There was no beeping of machines, nurses talking, or cups of coffee being poured. No screams of pain echoed the room. Even the receptionist, perched at a large desk, typed quietly. John looked up at the ceiling, which was also white. He noted that his and Sherlock's dark clothing stood out strongly compared to their surroundings, which John had begun to hate. It was as though someone had sucked the life out of a hospital.

Sherlock caught the gaze of the receptionist, whose brown hair had been slicked back so tightly into a ponytail that it looked painful. "Can I help you?" she asked, her voice lifeless and dull, as though she had been sneaking some of the drugs prescribed to the patients. "Yes. I'm Sherlock Holmes, and this is my colleague, John Watson. We've been called to assist with the crime scene by Detective Inspector Lestrade." He extended his long, pale hand, but she ignored it, and spoke through a radio, instead. "Detective-Inspector? You're consultant has arrived."

The familiar voice of Lestrade carried over the radio, static making it hard to comprehend. "Fourth floor," she told them. Sherlock had already begun to walk towards the elevator, but John hung back at the desk for a second.

"Um, where on the fourth floor, exactly?"

Her face wrinkled in distaste at John, putting more pressure on her strained scalp. "Just follow the God-awful smell."

John spun on his heel, calling a half hearted, "Thanks," as he ran to catch Sherlock in the closing elevator door. Sherlock stuck his foot out, holding the door, and John slipped in sideways. Sherlock pressed the button, and the elevator began to whirl upwards. Sherlock smiled as the crappy elevator music came on, and John began to feel dizzy as the elevator sped up. Finally it stopped, and Sherlock grabbed John's arm to stabilize him as he began to sway. "Are you alright?" he asked, his gray eyes meeting John's warm brown ones. "Yeah," John said. "Disinfectant gives me a headache." Sherlock nodded, and as the elevator doors swung open, another smell greeted their noses, even less pleasant than disinfectant.

Vomit.

The putrid scent punctuated the air, and the hallways finally had another colour besides white. Yellow crime scene tape blocked off a part of the passage, and police officers leaned over the three bodies, which had a grey tinge due to the florescent lighting. Each corpse appeared to have thrown up a bit, but the vomit itself appeared to be nothing more than liquid puddles on the laminate floor. Two men and a woman were the victims, but as Lestrade approached them and read off their names, John drowned the sound of his voice out. He had to stop listening. He had to stop thinking of them as people. Every night he found himself jumping up from his deep slumber, haunted by the face of yet another victim. He couldn't stop their deaths. By the time he and Sherlock arrived they were already dead, and he constantly had to remind himself of that. But, despite his mental will, he was still a doctor, and every time he saw another human being lying dead on the floor, he still felt the urge to run over and attempt to revive them.

So he pretended they weren't real. He pretended that it was a video game, and that these creatures crumpled in heaps of the floor in front of him were holographic images, and not things that once had a pulse. He swallowed the feeling of dread in his throat and stepped forward, visualizing catching the killer instead of saving the dead.

He'd always been like this. As a child, he'd been the soft-hearted kid that buried every animal that happened to wind up dead on the side of the highway, and the one that took home the bird with the broken neck that was bound to die anyways. He tried to comfort all the lost cats, even though they attempted to claw at him or spread all the diseases they happened to be carrying. Sherlock, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. Every time he found road kill, he'd insist upon bringing it home in his backpack, hanging it on the walls of his brother's room using duct tape. He also fed it to the neighborhood coyotes and foxes, analyzing with complete fascination the patterns in which they ripped up their food and where they hid the bones. It was amazing that the two of them could share a flat as adults, but of course, they never met as children.

Lestrade's voice broke through John's visualization. "Like I told you, three o'clock this morning is the approximate time of death, and they were found by a security guard doin' his rounds." Lestrade's face was almost as washed out as the faces of the corpses, and they bore similar expressions of pain. John could easily see the lines etched in the DI's face, and his graying hair and serious eyes stared at the men through a veil of exhaustion which made its mark on his face. His figure was lean and muscular, and while he wasn't tall and gaunt like Sherlock, his height was far above John's. "Do we have a cause of death?" Sherlock asked quickly, and John could hear the whirring of gears in his brain. Lestrade appeared to be minutes away from falling over. "No, but the Coroners are guessing it's some kind of poison." Sherlock stepped quickly over the tape, slipping on a pair of forensic gloves before bending over to examine the figures. John spotted an orderly talking to Sergeant Donovan, who looked much more refreshed than her boss did. He quickly strode over to join them, his eyes set on the orderly. The two women looked up as he approached, Sergeant Donovan only for a minute before returning her gaze to her notes. John quickly extended his hand to the orderly, whose name tag read Melissa Hodges. "Dr John Watson. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms Hodges." Her eyes firmly met his, although the rest of her body quivered slightly and her head turned towards the floor. "I-I-I didn't see anything. I left at six, l-like I always d-do." John watched her green eyes flick between him and Sergeant Donovan, who was staring at the space behind Ms Hodges with high intensity. Her eyes flicked to the bodies on the floor, her pupils growing quickly and her mouth twitching slightly before her face mutated into an expression of disgust. "How awful," she murmured.

"Swollen ankles!" Sherlock called over, not averting his gaze from the cadavers. John nodded absentmindedly, before asking, "Can you tell us anything about the victims?" Ms Hodges didn't respond for a moment, her eyes hanging on the corpses. "Oh, I didn't know much about them. Just that they were all schizophrenic, and that they were on strong antipsychotics. They, uh..."her voice trailed off, and she stared intently at the floor and swallowed. "...didn't really have any close relatives of friends."

"But they were sick the day before. They threw up most of the food we gave them." John nodded, finding his attention drifting off of her and landing on Sherlock, who was poking the side of one body. "Thank you for your time, Ms Hodges," he said curtly, lifting the crime scene tape to make enough room for him to step under. He bent down on one knee beside Sherlock, who continued his poking. John leaned in until his lips were inches away from Sherlock's ear before whispering, "What the hell are you doing? You look like a pervert." Sherlock grinned. "Look! It's bloated." John rolled his eyes. "That's gross, not funny."

"You're being narrow -minded. Think! Off the top your head, what poison would cause both swollen ankles and bloating?"

"No clue."

"Me neither." His grin doubled in size. "Our killer was original. How refreshing."

"Okay, so how did the killer slip the poison to the victims? According to the orderly I just talked to, the victims didn't have any family or friends, so no visitors."

Sherlock's grin faltered. "Oh. An inside job. How boring. That limits it to mainly staff with access to patient's food and medication."

"Why would a nurse or doctor want to kill three schizophrenics, and leave sheep napkins in their hands?"

In a swift movement, Sherlock tugged the napkin from the corpse's hand, unfolding it to allow John to look at it. From a direct angle, John could more clearly see that the sheep was stamped onto the paper, and not drawn.

"It's a logo, John. Likely just napkins from the cafeteria. Also, look at each napkin. They're all crumpled in different ways. If the killer purposefully left the napkins in their hands, they would've been crumpled similarly. It's more likely each victim had the napkin in their hand when they began to react to the poison, clutching it tightly in pain. As rigor mortis set in, it would've been difficult to remove them."

"So the killer handed them each a napkin? Why would they do that? Were they trying to cover up a cough?"

Sherlock flipped over the napkin, then announcing, "There's no phlegm."

"Why else would you hand someone a napkin?"

Sherlock looked thoughtful. "Typically it's used for wiping your fingers after having consumed something."

"The vomit consists of mainly liquids, and they were throwing up most of what they ate the day before."

His eyes narrowed into slits, as he began mentally pursuing different directions. "They also give napkins with hot coffee and tea."

"The vomit was clear." John said, trying to duplicate Sherlock's thinking face to see if it duplicated the affect.

Sherlock froze slightly, and the light bulb only John could see above his head went off. "Cold water, too."

"Okay…?"

"What type of element reacts violently with water?"

"Alkali metals, but…"

"Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, etcetera. But what alkali metal is used in mental institutions?"

"Lithium is used for bipolar patients."

"Naturally. It doesn't have an effect on schizophrenic patients, however, but if the doctors were experimenting with different types of medications in a cocktail, lithium could be a key ingredient."

"But lithium medication isn't poisonous."

"No, but straight lithium is. And if we run a tox screen on the victims, we'll find lithium, logically. That would mask the cause of death."

"But wouldn't someone notice the affects of the poison?"

"Not if it was dismissed as food poisoning. Lithium poisoning also causes confusion, but that would be masked by the side effects of anti-psychotics."

"A doctor would avoid giving the patient water."

"Not if all they were taking was lithium capsules, which don't contain pure lithium, so they wouldn't have a reaction, theoretically."

"But if someone were giving the patients straight lithium on a regular basis, and the doctor would allow them to consume water because it should've calmed their stomachs instead of worsening the illness, no one would expect murder. Then, at three o'clock last night, the killer gave the victims the fatal glass of water outside their rooms. But..."

"But what?"

"Why not just give them water inside their rooms, so the death looked natural?"

Sherlock grimaced. "Look at them, John."

"I'd prefer not to, thanks."

"All of them died in pain."

"So?"

"So, why kill someone at all when you have no motive? Why watch them writhe in pain on the floor?"

"I don't know, why?"

"Sadistic pleasure."

The words made John shiver, but his companion remained unbothered, staring straight ahead at the white walls, lost in thought. Having been labelled with many mental illnesses, Sherlock was familiar with many of the terms and allowed them to roll fluently off his tongue, whereas John couldn't spit out the unfamiliar words. As a high functioning sociopath, what everyone else thought of him was totally irrelevant to what he thought of himself, and while he wasn't a complete narcissist, he loved himself more than anyone else could. Adoring someone like Sherlock was a difficult thing, and while he was nothing short of being a great man, he was a far ways away from being a good one.

"Should we check the security cameras?" John asked, knowing his answer might easily be blown off.

"Why not? We know our killer is a sadist and has a vague knowledge of the elements, along with budding necrophilia."

"What?"

"There's a saliva stain beside the lips of the man on the right."

"That's impossible," John said, shaking his head rapidly.

The pair stood up, Sherlock quickly moving behind John, clamping onto the sides of his head and turning him so he could see the stain. "Right there, see?" he asked.

John wriggled away from his grasp, turning to face him. "No, it's not that." Sherlock cocked his head slightly, like a dog hearing a strange sound.

"Have you ever seen sadism and necrophilia in the same person?"

"Why not?" he asked.

"Sadists enjoy watching other people experience physical and emotional pain, where as necrophiliac's are aroused by corpses."

"Oh." Sherlock looked shocked he hadn't thought of it. John took a step back, worried that when his huge ego cracked there might be an explosion of some type. "Corpses don't feel pain, or show it. We have a second killer, which also explains why the first killer didn't just leave them in their rooms. The second killer wanted to see the corpses after the crime, whereas they would have a hard time doing that if the crime scene was in an enclosed space. It would be obvious if they were standing about staring in there, whereas out here, many staff members are watching. Better camouflage."

John nodded, biting the inside of his lip. Sherlock had this down to a science, and while he made it look easy, it never was. It was like watching a dancer perform- the moment you try and duplicate what they made look easy, you make a fool out of yourself.

Suddenly, Sherlock's phone beeped, and he swiftly pulled it out of his pocket. His mouth curled when he saw the caller I.D., but picked up anyways.

"What do you want?" he snarled, an unusual tone for him. "No, I'm busy. Yes, I have a case. Yes, I have my idiot with me. No, I don't want to have breakfast with you."

John scowled at being called Sherlock's idiot, but he instantly knew it was Mycroft on the phone, because the only two people in the world that thought of him as stupid were the world's only consulting detective, Sherlock, and the man who was really calling the shots behind the scenes in the British Government, Mycroft.

"Fine," Sherlock said, scowling, "But I'm taking my idiot with me."

When he hung up his phone, John growled at him, "I'm not your bloody idiot."

Sherlock clapped him on the shoulder, a smile covering his face. "Said in an affectionate and loving way, of course. Want to eat breakfast, paid for by the British Government, the CIA and MI6?"

"Only if I can order the most expensive item on the menu with extra everything for takeaway."

"Ah, I've taught you well."

"What about the security footage?"

"What do you think we have Lestrade for?"

"He looks like he might pass out."

Sherlock shrugged. "We're in a hospital of some sorts. They'll find something to treat him with. If not, well, I have his wallet to keep for memories."