Capture.

1. A beginning.

T: I've been reading a great deal of 'Doyle Verse' fic in the last week and stumbled onto a little hidden well of inspiration that's bubbled out into this! Follows directly on from Hunting and I really would recommend reading that before this otherwise you're going to be pretty lost! Slash, angst, fluff, serious AU, smatterings of OCs and potential spoilers for everything from The Great Game backwards. Double read though I apologise in advance if I miss anything, I've not the greatest spell checker in the world, plus I have a tendency to interpose words here and there! I own only the aforementioned OCs; everything else belongs to the BBC/Mark Gatiss/Steven Moffett/ Sir Arthur.

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Sherlock moves with his usual sense of purpose and there's a glimmer in his eyes that all but screams that he's working through a wonderfully juicy puzzle. So he can be forgiven for simply trotting along as swiftly as his gammy leg will allow and for biting against the desperate want to ask for a moment to clarify…well basically the last half an hour.

Ok so he'd kissed him back, actually, no, 'kiss' was far too simple a word to wrap around the incident at the fort, but now it was literally as though they'd cycled back to where they'd been Before, which is weird, most especially now that the levity of the kiss is wearing off and his head's focused back onto the revelation he'd been afforded on the journey down.

He half wishes he'd not allowed himself to be caught into the shear elation of seeing Sherlock again, that he'd been sharp and angry with the younger man because it would have given him some time.

Not that he's all to certain what he would have done with that time, or if it really would have helped in the least, but…

Which is why he'd decided not to push, to let Sherlock frame an explanation about the entire matter as though it was little more than another string of deductive leaps…

…or maybe until his hormones get the better of his rationality.

He snorts a nervous sort of laugh at that particular mental image and Sherlock glances at him from the corner of his eye before enquiring,

"Do we want three tickets or is Patterson making his own way home?"

He registers first that they've somehow managed to reach the train station and work their way right to the front of a rather long line without his actually realising and the seemingly spontaneous question but a moment later.

Of course he knows Sherlock well enough to realise that it's anything but and has simply to raise his eye brows for the younger man to state,

"Once you chased my trail here to Sussex it will have been very obvious to Mycroft that I was using Irene as my intermediary. As finding her would require a knowledge of her condition and as it is not a thing so easily explained it would make sense that Patterson 'came along for the ride'. This means that he shall have seen Michale and will, in turn, have been convinced to stay in order to 'clear the air'."

He knows that Sherlock has to be right, he's using that matter of fact tone of voice he always has when he's feeling 100% certain of himself and thus ridiculously smug, after all.

However…

However when he'd text Guthrie at some stupid hour of the morning the other had made no mention of staying, indeed he'd given the impression of already being happily ensconced back in London.

"Hm then either Irene has gotten cold feet or Patterson got angry enough to simply want it all over and done with..." It's thinking out loud, of course, this proved all of a moment later as he pulls their tickets from the machine and states, "Platform two," before he's striding off again.

They find a spot at the very back of a stupidly cramped carriage and, though he's very aware that he's likely going to spend the next hour stood on already aching legs, he feels a great deal more 'at home' than he had on the ride down.

"Something is troubling you," The statement is somewhat expected given that Sherlock looks entirely as though he has fallen asleep propped in the corner and he all but glares at the younger man as he states,

"Seriously, you've not even got your eyes open."

"Yes but I had them open earlier and noted how you were deliberately pacing your gate, as well as how clearly distracted you were by some internal thought or another."

Which means he'd prod and prod until he found some entirely un-thought of cause for this distraction and likely make things ten times worse. Which is why, in turn, he simply goes for blunt honesty.

"You've been lying to me from the very start." It's angry rather than hurt which is something, though he'd much rather it'd managed to stay completely emotionless because then he wouldn't be getting sympathetic looks from the spotty teenager crushed in a few inches from Sherlock's other side.

A long, dreadful, pause as Sherlock likely sorts through the multitude of small little half truths he's told over the period of their…friendship…then,

"Mother felt that I was still too young to be handling that sort of money when it first came my way and by the time she deemed me 'responsible' I'd gotten onto the cocaine."

"You mean you spent it?"

"Ha, god no, Mycroft stashed it away in some ridiculously high security savings account as incentive for me to get clean and there it stayed until last month." He's pretty certain that he'd have spotted drug use even in Sherlock and the trust has likely not been touched because the younger man had simply forgotten about it, which prompts the question of,

"What happened last month?"

"Our well dressed Irish friend took a stroll about Europe and I decided to go along for the ride."

Moriaty, of course, though it's a little strange for Sherlock to be so very aware of listening ears, which has him asking,

"Did you return together?"

"Alas no, he got quite caught up in some thing or another while we were in Switzerland. He was, however, kind enough to introduce me to a friend of his whom gladly took up the mantle of travelling companion."

Which means he's been incapacitated, likely killed if the stand off at the pool is any indication of how things go whenever the two are in one place together and that there's someone new chasing after Sherlock hoping to avenge the Psychopath.

"Is that what this has been all about?" Which sort of spills from him before he can catch it.

Sherlock half opens his eyes a moment later, affords him the strangest of looks, and then simply goes back to pretending to be napping.

"Who'd you go as?" The question is mostly about edging the conversation away from the more dangerous areas, though he is also somewhat curious to know just how his flatmate had managed the 'peep' Irene had so very casually mentioned.

"Emmitt Kelly." It's a somewhat random name that he feels he should know and it cycles through his head in that really annoying way for what seems forever, then suddenly it clicks,

"The Hobo?"

"Hobo clown, though I suppose the distinction is not truly necessary."

"Amazing," Which he really does mean because the tramp had been a good foot and a half shorter than the younger man, which would have meant long periods of time stooped over, plus there was the matter of the contact lenses he must have been wearing in order to change his eye colour, not to mention the facial hair and the smell

The smug smile wonders back into place on the other's lips and he's feeling more confident of himself, a man on safer ground, until Sherlock's phone kicks, randomly, into life.

"Hello…ah and how did that…right so you want me to…yep ok, got you." It's calm, as though he's simply being informed of some erroneous piece of information or another, which makes the statement of, "I shall be taking a detour to the New Scotland Yard," all the more curious.

"Right and why aren't you excited? I mean it's a case, right?"

"Yes and no."

"Sherlock," Just his name, but pitched in the way that he knows Sherlock knows is meant as warning of what continuing on a path of oblique statements might bring…not that he'd ever raised a hand against the younger man, no matter how hard the temptation on occasion, but they were both of them very aware that given the right motivation…

Which is why it is of little surprise when, all of a breath after his admonishment, the younger man states simply, "Paterson is in jail."

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T: I'm trying to work a good chapter ahead as with Hunting so I'll set a Tuesday update regime and let you know of any wobbles down the line! Oh and I'd appreciate a review, though a watch is fine if you're shy!