ESC: Lifting the Detective

It was early evening when a taxi pulled up beside 221B Baker Street, holding a very quiet Sherlock and a rather tired John.

The case that was in the process of being solved wasn't a particularly nice one, then again, were there any particularly nice cases that didn't involve disturbingly linked murders and sadistic serial killers?

Although this one was slightly out of the ordinary: a man obsessed with collecting eyes of children, specifically girls. This linked in with the case of a seven year old girl who was abandoned two weeks ago and her body was found by travelers who weren't actually travelers, they were really the people who murdered the child, stole her eyes and sent them to the man who collected the eyes.

However, the travelers had somehow gotten on the wrong side of this collector and ended up with holes for eyes. Apparently it all makes sense according to Sherlock, but John still didn't understand how it all 'added together nicely'.

John sighed. He climbed out of the taxi after paying and thanking the driver, because of course, Sherlock was 'thinking' and climbed out of the taxi, leaving John to pay. Again.

Sherlock seemed to always have some source of money but never even used the half of it, it's like his head was entirely made up of some sort of machine that never registered anything that was part of the daily lifestyle. John was constantly reminding him to eat, sometimes even having to force feed him, (John never, ever wants to do that again after last time.) and always telling him to get at least some sleep. He wondered how the man survived before he started living with him.

Sighing heavily this time, John joined Sherlock outside the door to 221B and turned to him expectantly. After moments of staring, Sherlock finally noticed John looking at him. "What?"

"Are you going to open the door or should we just stand out here and freeze to death?" Of course John over-exaggerated, it was the beginning of March so it was quite cold, cold enough for John to zip his jacket up before leaving the flat but not cold enough to wear full winter gear.

"I don't have the key, what makes you think I have it?" Sherlock asked, looking puzzled.

"You're telling me you don't have the key?"

"Yes."

"You're saying you walked out of the flat - with your wallet, phone and a tub of human eyeballs, but not the key to the actual flat?"

"Why do you keep asking, I thought I made it clear that I don't have the key."

John groaned and rubbed the back of his aching neck, "this is ridiculous."

"Why is it ridiculous? Can't we just ask Mrs. Hudson to let us in?" The taller man looked down at John with a curious look, in which John returned with a confused expression.

"Mrs. Hudson left to visit her son in Wales. She came into our flat and told us and she gave both of us a hug and left. This morning."

Sherlock stared at him for a moment before nodding, "right."

John looked up at him, astonished. "You seriously don't remember her saying goodbye to us this morning? Sherlock, it was only 4 hours ago!"

"Did her saying goodbye help me with the case?"

John paused, he knew exactly what was going to be said next. "Well no, but-"

"Then it's not important." Sherlock snapped.

"-But you did get an idea for what happened to the abandoned daughter."

"Oh."

"Oh indeed."

There was a silence between the two before Sherlock showed the look. Yes, the everybody move out of my way and shut up, Anderson leave the room, I am having a crime-scene epiphany look. Before John could say anything, Sherlock had turned around, walked down the steps and turned a corner into an alley.

When John joined him after a long, hard sigh of tiredness, he saw Sherlock looking up at the kitchen window that open slightly. And about 10 feet above the ground.

"Lift me up." Sherlock suddenly said, stunning John for a moment.

"What?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes and let out a harsh sigh, "I said lift me up. Honestly John, do I have to keep repeating myself? You're no older than 40 and-"

"How the hell do you expect me to lift you?"

"Oh come on, you were a 'soldier', as you keep reminding me. I'm not that heavy."

"I was a doctor, and you're heavier than I am, why can't you lift me?"

"Do you want to keep bickering in this alley or do you want to actually get inside the flat some time today?"

John groaned and knelt down, "fine, all right." He linked his hands together, "if you end up with a broken neck, don't blame me."

"Don't be so ridiculous, John." Sherlock said as he was lifted by john, gripping the jagged bricks on the wall to balance himself, "if I were to fall from this height, the likely chance of me breaking my neck would be very small. I would be more likely to fracture my collar bone or break my arm, perhaps dislocate my shoulder, but that's all depending on how I land. However-"

"Just. Get. Inside. The flat." John said through clenched teeth as the weight of Sherlock began to get the better of him, it's not that the man was fat, it was his height and muscle weight which just made him so unbelievably heavy when on the shoulders of a 5 foot something ex-war doctor with a weak leg.

Sherlock muttered something under his breath and lifted the kitchen window enough for him to climb through, and eventually, to John's relief, Sherlock climbed through the window. John heard a few smashes of glasses and plates that had been left on the side, and a string of curses from Sherlock as, what John assumed, his head hit the wooden floor of the kitchen. "Sherlock? Are you okay?" He called up. After hearing nothing, he grumbled something under his breath and walked around to the front door, violently pushing the buzzer. To his surprised, the door clicked open and John walked into the eerie flat.

"Sherlock?" He called out before shutting the front door. He climbed the stairs quite quickly but carefully until he got to the apartment door. He honestly didn't know what he was expecting, but he assured himself that this was probably the doings of Mycroft. Somehow.

Slowly, he opened the apartment door a peered around before fully opening the door. He stepped in and walked towards he kitchen where he found the great Sherlock Holmes, laying on the wooden floor, unconscious. John felt like letting out a full blown laugh; this man could fight off trained Chinese warriors, rabid dogs and get hit by a car and still manage to survive, yet he falls onto the kitchen floor and he's conked out.

Then John realised the large, bleeding gash on his forehead and didn't feel like laughing any more. He sprung into action by heading towards the body, then he paused. If Sherlock was unconscious...then who opened the door?

Just before John could turn around, he was pushed into the bookcase. Letting out a pained gasp as he hit the floor, he looked up at his attacker to see that it wasn't anybody he could recognize from his face being covered by a plain, white mask. Was this just some random attack? When you're friends with Sherlock, you get used to random attacks by either well known criminals or jealous husbands who have had a bit too much to drink.

"Who are you?" The attacker asked, his voice muffled by the white mask on his face.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" John may have been feeling like absolute shit by now, but he still had a little bit of fight left in him.

"Why was your friend trying to break into the flat?" The attacker changed the subject and John really just wanted to sleep. Why is it so difficult to just be able to sleep?

"We live here, why are you here?"

"You're Sherlock Holmes?" The other man backed away slightly, ready for an attack.

"No." John was getting fed up with this, "I'm his friend, colleague, John Watson. Why are you here?" Now John knew how Sherlock felt, constantly having to repeat himself. The attacker straightened slightly, his shoulders relaxing. John slowly rose from the floor, not taking his eyes off the man. This was an unexpected visit by a man in a white mask, John figured he could possibly be extremely dangerous. Then again, everybody who's looking for Sherlock is usually extremely dangerous.

"He has something of mine and I want it back." The masked man said almost threateningly, he reached for something in his pocket and John backed up a little bit, his back hitting the bookshelf.

"I'm sure - whatever it is - we can be reasonable and can arrange some sort of, meet up, or-"

"I want it now." He said before swiftly making his way towards the body of Sherlock in the kitchen. John followed quickly and muttered a curse under his breath as he stood in the doorway, watching the man lean in and search Sherlock's coat pockets. John heard a satisfied noise from the masked man and saw him pull something from the pocket; the small tub of human eyeballs. John almost smacked himself in the face, he did reconize this man, well, his voice anyway.

The man stood and John went to say something, when suddenly the masked man was pulled to the floor and Sherlock was up in an instant, pointing a gun towards him. There was a moments silence of John staring at the scene before him, mildly confused and wondering what the hell was going on. The masked man was sitting upwards at this point, hands behind his head, quietly pleading not to be shot, and instead of shooting him, Sherlock smacked him around the head with the gun, knocking him out. John stared as the mask was whipped off of his face.

"...Care to explain?" John didn't take his eyes off the man.

Sherlock put the gun on the counter and swayed slightly before balancing himself against the same counter. "First, get me some ice will you?"

John shook himself out of his confused trance where he was trying to add all the pieces together. The man on the floor was the abandoned girl's father who they had interviewed a few days ago, why was he here and why did he want Sherlock's silly little tub of eyeballs? John was thinking hard as he gave Sherlock an ice pack and stared at the wound on his head realizing that it was actually real.

Sherlock hissed at the coldness of the ice before speaking, "the girl's father was a high earning businessman and his wife had left him for another man. Outraged and stressed, this man abandoned his daughter by the roadside to get back at the mother, and hired the two travelers to kill her, take the eyes and give them to him, hoping to fool the police into thinking it was the collector instead of him. This way, the wife would surely want to have a relationship with him again, right? Wrong." It took a few moments for it to sink in to John's head; this was crazy.

"His wife stopped contacting him completely after the found death of their daughter, so he was even more angered and distraught, and looking for somebody to blame for his own mistakes. He then stole the eyes of the travelers, again, letting the police think it was the collector. While you were downstairs interviewing him, I decided to take a look around the upstairs and I discovered the eyeballs under a loose floorboard in his bedroom. I figured he would immediately know it was me who had found and taken the eyes and that he would come here looking for them, so I left them in my coat pocket and, well, here he is."

"So he was a copycat?" John asked.

"Yes."

John stared at Sherlock, absolutely baffled. "You knew- you knew all of that already yet you still carried on with the case for another few days?"

Sherlock lightly shrugged, "I needed to know that I was correct."

John groaned, "so you purposely forgot your key."

Sherlock paused, "well not exactly, no."

"So you were stunned as soon as you climbed in the window?" John had a hint of amusement in his tone; it's not every day you hear that someone got the better of Sherlock bloody Holmes.

"Can we not go through this? I'm becoming very dizzy and feeling nauseous, meaning I'm probably suffering from a mild concussion, and you're standing there with a smile on your face." Sherlock groaned in pain.

"Oh right, yes, sorry." John then went into the bathroom and collected the first aid kit, ignoring the unconscious body on the floor and helping Sherlock sit down into a chair at the table. "I'll call the Yard after I deal with you. Hopefully you don't suffer too badly from this," He said dabbing the gash with a rubbing alcohol soaked cloth, silently apologising as Sherlock hissed in pain. "You're going to need to explain everything again."

"Yes, yes, I know." Sherlock snapped.

"You know this all could have been avoided if you would have just remembered your key." John smiled slightly.

"Shut up, John."

~end~

AN:

Hopefully that wasn't too terrible and hopefully the whole murder thing made sense, it is quite late so I'm half asleep. I wrote it for my wonderful girlfriend because I promised I would write it tonight c:

Part 3 hasn't even got a name yet, not gonna lie, so it might be a while before I upload it.

Hope you enjoyed!