Title: The Case Of The Perfect Stitch-Up: PART THREE - Honesty and Lies

Author: starjenni

Disclaimer: Not mine!

Characters, Pairings: Sherlock/John gen. (although could be seen as slash if you lie on the floor, tilt the computer sideways and squint). In this chapter, cameos by some of my own characters.

Warnings: Arguments, swearing, thoughts of violence, mentions of death. It's quite angsty, so a warning for that too.

Rating: T

Spoilers: For all episodes.

Summary: John's finally had enough of trying to change Sherlock's heartless nature and decides to move out. However, a case pops up just before he can, leading the pair on a wild, complicated and above all difficult adventure. How is this going to help their already existing problems? The s**t, as the old proverb goes, has hit the fan…

The surgery that Moorland worked for turns out to be just as small as it is private, with the only other surgeon working there being one Dr Thorsten. They discover that he is in the only operating theatre, training his nephew Dan who is undergoing his surgical clinical clerkship with him. When they enter, they find him soundly rebuking the nephew over a cold corpse; possibly not the best position to find him in, John thinks ironically to himself.

"Your stitching is abysmal," Thorsten is saying to the nephew as they enter. He is a large, thickset man, who obviously works out, with a grim line for a mouth and two very bright, cold eyes. The nephew is a tiny scrap of a fellow compared to him, and he looks up at Thorsten with frightened eyes.

"I'm trying - "

"Try harder - "

"Dr Thorsten?" Sherlock asks, interrupting an otherwise potentially long debate.

Dr Thorsten looks up and turns around, and John gets a glance at the stitching going on. Thorsten is right - the boy's suturing is clumsy, inexperienced. And they appear to be working on a heart.

He glances at Sherlock, but one look at his face tells him Sherlock has already noticed this, and he feels the familiar fizzle of admiration that he always feels when Sherlock does something like this, something observant, something genius.

I will miss that, he thinks, and clears his throat to get rid of the lump suddenly forming in it.

"Do a lot of heart surgery here, do you?" Sherlock asks, after his introductions to who they are and why they're here.

Thorsten gives Sherlock a quick, hard look, and turns to the boy still struggling away. "Dan, could you leave us for a bit?"

The boy glances between them, quickly divines the situation and practically flees in his obedience. Thorsten shuts the door behind him, looks at the mess of stitches on the corpse and sighs. "He started out so well and then suddenly got worse…beginners luck I suppose. Still, if he doesn't improve…"

"Why are you working on the heart?" Sherlock persists, his eyes, as always, showing nothing.

Thorsten looks carefully at Sherlock, but answers honestly, "Because I am considered an expert in heart surgery." He catches the quick flick of a look Sherlock gives him and nods. "This is about Moorland, I know, the cops have already been onto me, they know about my reputation. But I'll tell you what I told them - I have several witnesses who will testify that at the time of Moorland's death I was at a large party for one of my closest friends." He smiles coldly at Sherlock. "So I have, as they say, the perfect alibi."

Sherlock says nothing, simply surveys Thorsten with blank eyes, and John can't help but wonder what is going through his head. He says, "You and Moorland - were you close?"

Thorsten's jaw sets. "I'm not close to anybody. But I suppose so, yes."

They are about to leave when they are stopped by the receptionist. She is round about forty, with sandy blonde hair and a grim expression.

"He done it," she calls lazily over to them. Sherlock stops, turns back and looks at her.

"Why do you say that?"

She pouts; her lipstick is orange and clashes with her blue suit. "'Cause he must 'av." She shrugs. "I know he says he got alibis, but that don't mean he's ain't his killer. He's got a perfect motive and everything, ain't he?"

Sherlock frowns. "What do you mean?"

The receptionist looks at them. "You mean he didn't tell you? Moorland was the co-owner of this place with Thorsten. Now he's dead, this whole place belongs to Thorsten." She pops a new piece of gum into her mouth. "Now if that ain't a motive, I dunno what is."

They catch up on the paperwork over dinner, this time free Italian courtesy of Angelo. It turned out that the receptionist was right; Thorsten and Moorland had both opened the surgery together with both their savings, and had been doing a good business operating on those who would pay for such private and close care.

"So," Sherlock says, fiddling with the tablecloth and not eating again. "Thorsten has the perfect motive and the perfect alibi…And there's something else, that has to be, something to do with their relationship…"

He glances at John, who has stayed suspiciously silent for a long time, and finds him frowning deeply into his drink. It's a frown that Sherlock knows well, because he often has it across his own face, it's a frown that says there is something wrong here…

"What is it?" he asks.

John shakes his head, still preoccupied with the problem in his head. "Something. I'm not sure…" He taps his fingers on the table and Sherlock becomes preoccupied with the interesting sight of John figuring something out. Is this how he looks all the time? So far away and detached and on the edge of some wonderful discovery? So far away from the world and yet so much himself, so fully him? So…concentrated?

"Sherlock," John says finally, in a voice that rings of the same distance that Sherlock's often does. "Could we go back to look at the body? Tomorrow, I mean? I feel like there's something I've missed…"

Sherlock takes a sip of his water, trying not to look too pleased. "Of course."

John's preoccupation with whatever he has missed means that he is vaguely amiable with Sherlock for the rest of the dinner, and Sherlock welcomes this hiatus; their relationship has been altogether too stressful the past week or so.

The break lasts until they get back to 221b and are greeted with John's half-packed stuff littered all over the living room, and they both remember just what John was meant to actually be doing tomorrow, and the awkwardness descends upon them again like an over-greedy vulture.

"Oh," says John, a bit weakly.

They glance at each other.

"I can always postpone - " John starts, just as Sherlock also says, "You don't have to postpone - " and they stop and stare at each other.

"I thought you didn't want me to go," says John flatly.

"I don't," says Sherlock, and he can't help it, he can't help it, but it's forcing its way out of him, all this resentment - "But since you're going to go anyway - "

John's laugh is completely humourless. "So now you'd like to get rid of me sooner rather than later?" and that is not fair because John was the one who decided to go, John is the one giving up here, he can't turn it around like this, as if his decision is Sherlock's decision, and Sherlock snaps before he can really stop himself.

"Do you have any idea," he grinds out, "What it is like to be me?"

John snorts. "Oh god, Sherlock, save me the sob story - "

He turns to go upstairs, and Sherlock should let it go, he really should but he really can't; he lunges forward and grabs John's arm, turns him around so that John will listen for once.

"People use me," he snarls. "Everyone, all the time. They use me when they need me and when they don't need me they either ignore me or they try to change me, because they think foolishly that they can, that it will be better. Everyone - Lestrade, the entire police force, Mycroft - no one ever questions whether they should, because it's not as if I don't enjoy it, but they do, they use me and when I am not useful I am nothing to anyone John, and I thought that you - " The last word leaves him in a choked gasp, and he has to drop John's arm and step back to collect himself before he gets really angry or really upset, it could easily go either way right at this moment.

John has gone very quiet.

"I thought that maybe you might be different," Sherlock continues calmly to the floor. "That you accepted me for me, and you did such a good job at that, didn't you John, staying here, putting up with all my little trials and annoyances, oh good job you, but in the end - in the end - you are just as bad as anyone else and I was an idiot - I was such an idiot - for thinking anything different, but I know now and it's over now and that is it now, that is it."

He didn't mean to say so much, to ramble so, to show such bitterness. He tries to take in a deep, cooling breath, but there is no air here that is not clogged with pain and heat and anger, the flat is thick with it.

He glances up at John, as if daring him to say otherwise, but John's not stupid, and he's not the type of man to protest something that is a lie. His face is torn, but it is honest.

"I just want what's best for you," John eventually says, with apparent effort.

Sherlock shakes his head. "No, you want what's best for society, John." He flashes him a rather desperate, humourless little smile. "You're ever the soldier aren't you? Sacrificing one person for everyone else."

Something sets in John's jaw. "The greater good," he agrees.

Sherlock nods; an acknowledgement. They both know there is something in what John believes, that people are important, that the more the better, that a person should change themselves to help the world, but all Sherlock can think is what sort of world is it, what sort of world can it really be, if people need to change to fit inside it? The world should change for people. People should not change for the world. Or is this just a selfish, selfish view that John doesn't get because it would never occur to him to be that self-obsessed? Is Sherlock just being vain?

It is all too much, too close, and Sherlock flees before he does or says anything else that he cannot take back. He has been honest, but it has most likely lost him John forever.

He sits on the edge of his bed and tries not to wonder if John will still be there when he comes out in the morning.

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