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sherlock holmes | BBC SHERLOCK ☆ ( 1/3 )

[irrigo]

Player nickname: ichi
Player DW: irrigo
Way to contact you:
Email: ezzigreenie@hotmail.com
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Other: @plurk
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Current Characters: xion. minatsuki takami. john egbert. celty sturluson. river tam. shijima kurookano.

Character: Sherlock Holmes
Fandom: Sherlock (2010 BBC)
Character Notes:
History:
spoilers for season 2

PRE-SERIES

Not a whole lot is known about Sherlock's childhood and early life, but suffice to say it wouldn't have been the most normal. He grew up with his mother and his older brother Mycroft (possibly his father too but no one has mentioned him) and was presumably raised by his brother to some extent, because he responds to Mycroft's, "I'll be mother," as he pours tea with, "And there is our whole childhood in a nutshell." He was always precocious and incredibly intelligent, and his interest in crime-solving started when he was still young, although at the time nobody really listened to his opinions on cases because he was a child. (He also wanted to be a pirate at some point in time. ~*~The More You Know~*~) Still, he pursues the detective career, and somehow ends up as the world's only "consulting detective" for the police.

A STUDY IN PINK

Sherlock lives and works alone for a while, but eventually moves out of his Montague Street apartment due to a disagreement with his landlord and ends up landing a flat at 221B Baker Street. He also gets an unexpected flatmate, Dr. John Watson. Thanks to John's tolerance, they get along rather well from the get-go, and Sherlock takes John along with him to the first case of the show which involves a series of suicides that are actually murders. Sherlock shows off all his deductive skills as usual, and then ditches John to go and look for an apparently crucial piece of evidence.

Sherlock ends up in their flat with the latest victim's suitcase and in the end, gets his hands on her phone number while her phone is missing. He texts the victim's phone and organises a meeting with the murderer. He and John go chasing after a cab that stops at the designated meeting point, but the passenger is just some American tourist, so they give up and go home - to a surprise drugs bust by Detective-Inspector Lestrade, which is really just a way of keeping Sherlock in line when he does things like withhold crucial evidence. In the midst of all this, the driver of the cab that they pulled up earlier shows up, and texts Sherlock with the instruction to go with him. Sherlock follows alone, and the cabbie reveals himself as the murderer.

He taunts Sherlock by refusing to explain how he pulled off the murders unless Sherlock gets in the cab, and because Sherlock is a colossal moron, he climbs right in. It turns out that the method is a "game" - one bottle has a deadly pill, the other pill does nothing, and the victim gets to choose; whatever the victim takes, the murderer takes the opposite. If they take neither, they get the gun. Sherlock takes his time to chat with the guy, and once he hears that a "fan" of Sherlock Holmes is paying the man to murder, he deduces the motivation and all that, and then promptly chooses to get shot. Of course, the gun is a fake and he knew that. The murderer still goads him though, and says he didn't win because he didn't play the game, which is enough to provoke Sherlock. Thankfully, before he can swallow the pill he chose, a mysterious shooter kills the man from the building beside them, and Sherlock manages to squeeze one last bit of information out of the wounded man - his fan's name is "Moriarty".

Outside, he realises that John is the one who shot the man and technically saved Sherlock's life, they giggle over crime scenes, briefly antagonise Sherlock's brother the government Mycroft, and go back to their brand new home at 221B Baker Street.

THE BLIND BANKER

Sherlock gets e-mailed by an old university acquaintance to help out with an incident at the bank, which means it's time to investigate.

It turns out that someone broke into the bank and left weird yellow spray paint marks on the wall, and Sherlock concludes that it was a message for someone - a bank worker who would have been in the right place at the right time. They break into the worker's flat to investigate him but find him dead, assuredly murdered despite that it is set up to look like a suicide, which means the spray paint was a death threat somehow. Shortly after, a very similar death happens, which means a serious case is going on, and the killer is some kind of incredible gymnast too.

They start looking for what connects the two victims, which they find is frequent trips to and from China, and Sherlock eventually realises that they were both smugglers, murdered because one of them stole something. He goes back to the morgue and checks the bodies of the two earlier murder victims, both of which have lotus tattoos, this proving to the police that it is definitely the Chinese smuggling ring behind it all, and nobody committed suicide. With help from various sources, they eventually decipher what the spray paint messages mean, and also what the stolen item was.

Sherlock tricks John and his new girlfriend Sarah into going on a date to the Chinese circus that's in town, and then tags along on the date like a douchebag. It turns out that he's sure the circus is just a cover for the Chinese smuggling ring, so he sneaks around the back while John and Sarah watch the show and ends up getting into a scuffle with someone back there. John and Sarah join in the fight, they manage to knock the guy out, and Sherlock confirms his suspicions with a black lotus tattoo on the man's foot - unfortunately, the rest of the circus troupe doesn't stick around.

And then John gets kidnapped by them because they think he's Sherlock. Sherlock gets there in the nick of time and manages to save John and Sarah, but the woman who heads the gang escapes. John miraculously manages not to get dumped. Everyone is happy!

THE GREAT GAME

Sherlock throws a fit because of his lack of cases, and then there's an explosion. Mycroft comes over to give Sherlock a case that is totally unrelated to the mysterious and enormous explosion; he wants Sherlock and John to recover the Bruce-Partington Missile Plans, and Sherlock says no because he's a brat. Fortunately for him, somebody wants to play a game with him that involves a lot of bombs!

He receives a phone call and an attached photograph to give him a hint as to the case he's supposed to investigate - but the phone call is from a hostage strapped with bombs, and he has a limited number of hours to solve the case and find the hostage before the bombs go off. This same format continues for four cases; the only failure is when, during the third case, the hostage attempts to describe the man who is behind it all and is immediately killed. The four cases appear to be connected to the culprit somehow, and in the fourth case, Sherlock finds out from the woman they apprehended that a certain Holmes fan named Moriarty was the reason her criminal plans could get off the ground.

John and Sherlock finally find the Bruce-Partington Plans for Mycroft, but instead of giving them back to his brother, Sherlock offers them to Moriarty in addition to a meet-up. He goes to the pool and waits, but instead of Moriarty, John steps out! (Kidnap count: 2.) John speaks on Moriarty's behalf for a while as his hostage, and finally, the man himself steps out. He mocks John and Sherlock for a while, delivers some vague threats, and Sherlock defines him as a "consulting criminal"; eventually, Moriarty just walks out, and once Sherlock has gotten the explosives away from John, he changes his mind and decides he should kill them anyway. The scene closes with Sherlock pointing his gun at the explosives and waiting to pull the trigger.

And then everyone who watched the show as it aired had to suffer through an excruciatingly long period of cliffhanger.

A SCANDAL IN BELGRAVIA

Sherlock doesn't pull the trigger and nothing explodes, because Moriarty gets a phone call and leaves, and everybody just goes home.

John and Sherlock go back to solving more standard cases for a while, and then Mycroft still exists and spirits both of them away to Buckingham Palace for a fancy client. There is some drama because Sherlock refuses to put his clothes on. Once he stops being a five year-old, they hear about Irene Adler, "The Woman", a dominatrix-for-hire who takes photographs of her clients and will only hand them over with appropriate payment. She has photos of the unnamed fancy client who Sherlock is working on behalf of, and refuses to hand them over for anything, but claims she won't use them. Begrudgingly, Sherlock takes the case.

He sneaks into Irene's house with John and is confronted by Irene Adler. Who is naked. Clothes were out of fashion in this episode, I guess. She proves herself to be a particularly smart woman, and also shows an interest in Sherlock, but is tricked into revealing the location of the phone that stores the photos, along with a lot of other valuable information - in a safe, of course, with a passcode. A group of Americans burst in and threaten both Irene and John (hostage count: 2) to force Sherlock to open the safe. He guesses the combination correctly, but realises that the safe is set up with a gun triggered by its opening, so he uses that to shoot one of the Americans, giving himself and Irene the upper hand. He snatches the phone. Alas, Irene gets him with a drug before they can get out of the house and takes the phone back.

Things go back to normal, although Irene begins to text Sherlock a lot, and it stays that way until on Christmas, Sherlock receives Irene's precious phone as a present, and she turns up dead the next day. He spends a while in apparent mourning over her, everyone flips out, and then he follows when John is taken away in a black car (kidnap count: 3) and finds that Irene Adler is actually alive and well. He goes straight back to the flat and finds that the kindly landlady, Mrs. Hudson, has been attacked by the Americans who stormed Irene's house previously. He promptly kicks them out and throws the leader out of a window several times. The phone stays with Sherlock despite Irene's return to the living, although he remains unable to unlock it.

Irene shows up at 221B on the run, now that her fake death has been ruined (because someone posted it on their goddamn blog) and they talk about whatever she has that is threatening her life. She shows the information to Sherlock - an apparent code, which he promptly deciphers to be a particular plane. Irene sends this straight off to Moriarty, thus foiling a plan of the government's to avoid a terrorist attack. Mycroft calls Sherlock over to scold him, and Irene tags along to mock and make demands, but Sherlock has a sudden moment of realisation while they talk, and announces that for all she pretends it was a game, Irene was in love with him; he enters the passcode - I AM SHERLOCKED - and unlocks her phone, giving Mycroft access to everything. She begs for help now that she's essentially being left for dead, and he walks out.

Naturally, when she's captured and to be beheaded, Sherlock saves Irene and allows her to be on her merry way.

THE HOUND OF BASKERVILLE

Caseless and desperately bored yet again, Sherlock starts turning to more trivial cases, and ends up accepting a job from a traumatised man named Henry, involving a mysterious demon hound that killed his father twenty years ago.

John and Sherlock start investigating the area first, beginning with locals and moving on to the chemical and biological warfare research centre, Baskerville, which is rumoured to perform experiments like genetic mutations. They break into it by way of Sherlock pretending to be Mycroft, and don't end up getting a whole lot done this time around, because people start to realise something is up; they very nearly get caught, but a fan of Sherlock steps in and helps them out before anyone can find out who they really are. Since they got a fair bit of nothing there, they decide to take Henry out to where he saw the "hound" as a child that night.

John gets separated from Sherlock and Henry, and while he's gone, the two of them see the demon hound. Sherlock flips out about it, which he explains as experiencing fear and doubt for the first time, and has a row with John who is trying to be the rational one as usual. Henry continues to be insane, John avoids Sherlock for a little while, Sherlock starts coming to more logical conclusions and apologises to John while he's at it. And then he slips John what he is reasonably sure are hallucinatory drugs, because that's what friends do.

They go and investigate Baskerville again, with Mycroft's blessing instead of illegally this time, and Sherlock secretly runs a test; he locks John in a room and waits for him to hallucinate while Sherlock gets to sit back and watch on the cameras. He then checks out the sugar, which he thought was the source of the drugs, and finds that he was wrong. With the help of one of the scientists, he gets into the CIA classified files on one of the computers, and finds that it's an airborne drug that was part of Project H.O.U.N.D, and it causes everything they've been experiencing, such as fear and hallucinations. Sherlock figures out that it's in the fog at the hollow where Henry sees the "hound", and he very nearly catches the man responsible, but the guy runs into a minefield and explodes.

And Moriarty is set loose on the world again.

THE REICHENBACH FALL

Sherlock's fame has sky-rocketed and he becomes a media sensation. Meanwhile, Moriarty breaks into three places at once and then just sits there and waits to be caught. Everyone is pretty confused, and also concerned.

They have a court hearing for Moriarty; being that Sherlock is the only man to have met him, he's naturally involved, and he meets a journalist named Kitty there who he insults a lot which obviously won't be important later or anything. It all goes well until the jury has a unanimous vote of "not guilty" and Moriarty walks free - right into 221B, where he delivers a lot of vague threats to Sherlock and hints that their "game" is nearly over. The first case comes up, which leaves Sherlock trying to find a pair of kidnapped children with little more than the imprints of a shoe. He manages, of course, and the children are alive despite ingesting a lot of mercury, but when the kids are in police custody and he goes to speak to the girl, she starts screaming hysterically at the sight of his face.

This plants the seeds of doubt. The policemen, barring Lestrade, aren't particularly fond of Sherlock in the first place, and with his latest incredible, near impossible deduction coupled with the girl's reaction to him, Donovan and Anderson bring up their suspicions to Lestrade, who starts to have doubts too. Moriarty taunts Sherlock with this, and Sherlock starts to pick up on the tale that Moriarty is spinning. When the Yard comes in to take Sherlock in for questioning and investigation, he plays along until he manages to steal a gun, pretends to take John (handcuffed to him) as his hostage, and the two of them go on the run as fugitives.

sherlock holmes | BBC SHERLOCK ☆ ( 2/3 )

[irrigo]

Their first stop is Kitty's house, where they find Moriarty, who has come up with an elaborate and convincing lie to simultaneously protect himself and destroy Sherlock; he claims to be an actor named Richard Brook, hired by Sherlock Holmes; he says that Sherlock's cases are fake, and everything was set up by Sherlock just to make himself look good. He's been selling the story to Kitty, which means it's about to go public. Sherlock catches onto everything that this means, and starts to make plans of his own - he solicits the help of Molly Hooper, the local coroner, and although what exactly he asks of her is unknown, he tells her that he thinks he's going to die.

He meets up with Moriarty on a rooftop, where the story Moriarty has been writing is to end once and for all, and Moriarty's perfect ending is for Sherlock, disgraced, to commit suicide - unless he wants John, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade to all be killed. (Hostage count: 3.) The exchange flips around a bit; Moriarty begins as the victor, and then Sherlock believes he has the upper hand, but Moriarty reveals that his "advantage" was just a trick; Sherlock then realises that his friends are safe as long as Moriarty is still alive, to which Moriarty promptly responds by shooting himself in the head. With no other choice, Sherlock calls John, gives his final words, says that "Richard Brook" was telling the truth about him being a fake, and jumps. He leaves John to wonder, despite the overwhelming evidence, whether Sherlock Holmes is really dead.

Of course he's not really dead he's Sherlock Holmes.

Personality:

Well, for a start, he's Sherlock Holmes, and he's kind of a genius.

Sherlock comes off as an utter bastard at first. He flaunts his intelligence and talents, he's incredibly rude and blunt, and he has absolutely no regard for social etiquette or personal boundaries. He is logical, analytical, and observant to the point that it becomes disturbing or unnerving. When others call him a psychopath, he corrects them and he defines himself as a "high-functioning sociopath" - but it should definitely be noted that while he displays lapses in conscience or morals, as well as antisocial behaviours, he is not actually a sociopath, because he shows clear and strong emotions a lot, and obviously understands morals, and has some level of conscience. What should be taken away from his reference to himself as a sociopath is that it is what he sees himself as, apparently, or at least what he calls himself.

He does often appear, from a surface level, to be a sociopath or emotionless due to generally separating himself from people and feelings, though, and he is especially apathetic to anything he deems uninteresting, he is horribly selfish and self-centred, and incredibly thoughtless; he's often snide or antagonistic, particularly towards people in authority, and he's also frequently insulting - however, it's a half-half when it comes to whether he is intentionally insulting or not, because while he does have a sharp tongue and insults anyone who annoys him or deserves it, he's also just generally careless and tends to say insulting things without realising or thinking about it (for example, pretty much everything he ever says to Molly).

When it comes to social cues and such, there are generally two possibilities to explain Sherlock's utter disregard for them - either he is oblivious to the strange or disturbing nature of an action, or he honestly doesn't care how other people see it. He's not completely clueless, because he does interact with people and some things are obvious, but there are instances in which he really doesn't see what's wrong with what he's doing. This would be because he only pays attention to and stores knowledge that he considers to be useful; what is and is not a faux pas isn't something he would think important at all, so he doesn't distinguish between "acceptable", "weird" and "unacceptable", and wouldn't keep check on his actions in the situations where he did know. (Pointing out when he's doing something unacceptable might surprise him, but ultimately wouldn't do much good, considering his lack of caring.)

It's fairly obvious that he doesn't care what other people think of him from that, but his apathy extends to the point that he doesn't even begin to care when the media takes an interest in him; as long as he's still getting cases, he couldn't care less what the public thinks about him. He doesn't care any more or less whether people think well or badly of him, and he seems to be accustomed to the more negative side without dwelling on it too much. He does, however, enjoy getting complimented on his intellect and brilliance - he says that it's a rare surprise when John does it for the first time, so it begins as a pleasant sort of change from the hostility he usually gets - and it does annoy and provoke him when people underestimate or undermine him to his face. An insult to his capability or challenging his genius will instantly get to him, and he'll be compelled to prove himself in some way.

This would be, of course, connected to his total superiority complex! Sherlock believes in himself and his own mind above all else, which is all well and good, but it crosses the line of self-confidence and enters the realm of infuriating arrogance, which is not pleasant on top of him being both egotistical and narcissistic. He thinks that he's right 100% of the time, and refuses to accept any other possible outcome; while this is all well and good most of the time, considering he is very almost always right, it doesn't do much good when he ends up stuck in a situation where he is wrong - for example, it led to his freak-out in The Hounds of Baskerville because he experienced doubt in himself, his perception and his knowledge. It also sucks for anyone who tires to reason with him, argue with him or present an alternative.

His apathy certainly doesn't lead him to being lethargic or unmotivated, though; rather, he feels the need to be constantly stimulated and motivated. He is an incredibly driven person who has to be in motion at all times lest he become agitated, and once he does have something to work on, he's completely focused and dedicated to his work. As much as he throws things around left and right, and gets bored easily, if something manages to catch his attention it will hold it until he is thoroughly finished with it.

His focus, drive and determination stack up with a number of other factors - his egotism, arrogance, his disregard for "acceptable" behaviour - and amount to his notable and absolute refusal to lose. He will not allow someone else to defeat him, and he won't admit when he has lost, even if it's in the most minor of things. He puts his life in danger to prove that he's smart. He nearly plays the cabbie's suicide game in A Study in Pink just because he has to know whether he was right or not, and whether he won. As John puts it, "he will outlive God trying to have the last word". He definitely lacks morals, or at least lacks any particular care for most of them, so in combination with his need to win, his tendency to look down on people and his constant forward motion, this means he can often be very manipulative and underhanded; he'll lie or put on an act to get what he wants from someone, and generally doesn't care what happens after he's gotten it.

Do not think that Sherlock Holmes is an all-around mature man, though. He is, in fact, ridiculously childish. He's bratty, with a tendency to throw fits or tantrums and complain about everything, and he has an immature streak a mile wide. He shoots holes in the walls of his flat because he's bored, starts shouting about it to John when he gets scolded for the destruction, and then proceeds to sulk quite furiously; he snaps at people and uses his deductive skills cruelly against them when he gets grumpy and starts to throw insults all over the place more than usual. He also appears to be able to hold a rather fierce grudge, because he and Mycroft seem to have been on bad terms for a while - and although the original reason for their split is possibly less bratty than their interactions throughout the series, Sherlock does seem to do things purely to make his brother's life miserable, and turns down his help no matter how incredibly useful it might be because of a childish feud. He makes fun of Mycroft's weight a lot, too, which should tell you something about just how mature he really is.

Sherlock is extremely eccentric in a way that is hard to describe, but obvious from his various mannerisms and other personality traits. He does weird things like write up blog posts about over 200 different kinds of tobacco ash, and gets upset when nobody else reads or understands them. He just comes off as a really strange person, with leaps of logic that are usually inexplicable to other people and the tendency to be wildly dramatic sometimes. None of this is helped by his aforementioned desperate need to prevent boredom and stay motivated by work; he's generally picky with what cases he takes, but if he becomes desperate enough, he'll take anything, and he can resort to a lot of strange things to keep himself entertained or otherwise occupied between cases. He seems fairly crazy, to be perfectly honest. He doesn't make much sense at all to people who aren't Sherlock Holmes himself. (Something he prides himself on, really.)

He's either the worst or the best kind of unpredictable, depending on who you ask. He comes off as fairly bipolar sometimes; he can have huge mood swings in a matter of seconds, going from angrily ranting at high speeds to lying face-down on the lounge to dashing about excitedly. He reacts to things fast, and although he does think everything through, it's occasionally worth wondering how exactly his mind works, because he can at times appear extremely impulsive; he reacts immediately, and he acts fast, and he tends to make up his mind in a split second without actually telling anyone about what's going on, like suddenly jumping up and chasing a taxi across London without saying so much as a word to John.

Despite all of this and how horrible he appears initially, Sherlock is still a human, albeit a human who thinks himself above other humans and aspires to be God. He shows what is very likely loneliness after years of being hated and rejected by others - he is pleasantly surprised when John compliments his genius, and says that no one ever really compliments him; they generally react with hostility, and Sebastian remarks that everyone at the university hated him, which Sherlock appears a little desolate about it - and he also appears to have a terribly addictive personality, what with his history with drug abuse, and having outright begged John for a cigarette once when he was suffering from a stimulation withdrawal. Sherlock's entire life is run the way it is to fuel his addictions, whether they be traditional, or of the intellectual sort.

He also shows genuine compassion and emotion for people close to him on rare occasions. Even though he's usually socially incompetent, when he insults Molly particularly badly on Christmas, he apologises very humbly and properly, and even kisses her on the cheek, an incredibly intimate and meaningful gesture from someone like Sherlock, and proof that he knows how to act decently despite appearances. Sherlock is loyal and very protective of his friends and those he becomes close to, shown by his surveillance of John, the effort he went to to save Irene Adler, his fury when Mrs. Hudson is hurt, keeping John out of more dangerous crime scenes, his panic whenever his friends are threatened - he cares a lot, or he wouldn't have even gone through the danger of pretending to commit suicide to save them. He doesn't need friends, but he would obviously like to keep the ones he has. He's not sentimental, but he does clearly have a healthy amount of feelings for his friends, and he shows through Mrs. Hudson that he's not above affection either. His companionship with John is a whole 'nother, long story, too.

Overall, he's a man who's less godly and more human than he would really like.

First Person (entry type):

John's out and I'm bored. He told me to "live blog" the next time I watch any of the rubbish that airs on television. I'm waiting for the results of an experiment, so I may as well occupy myself.

11:40
Tacky opening sequence. The first character died within the ten minutes pre-sequence; predictable and boring. No mystery to speak of.

11:53
Yawn.

11:55
Main characters are boring and tiresome, not to mention their stupidity. Are the three shirts necessary? Honestly.

12:01
Idiots, she's clearly the monster you’re hunting. Look at her flat; not a sign of night activity within the house. Unless she's going out every night - which she isn't, her make-up is enough of an indication of that - she's probably the mysterious creature that operates in her area, a creature that isn't mysterious at all if you just had the mental capacity to pay attention.

12:05
Their initial suspect is dead and now they're confused. SIMPLETONS.

12:12
Experiment is going well. It's congealing faster than expected.

12:13
Oh, the show? I don't know what's happening now. Pointless drama.

12:17
I don't understand. She's the monster, not to mention guilty of several charges of murder. They've confirmed this, and they're not killing her. Your weapon is right there. If you already know the thing's weakness and it's vulnerable, why not kill it?

12:18
John has informed me that it's sentiment-related and that I should just take it as it is.

12:22
Good, that's good, they're finally killing her. Well, I'm glad that tedious situation is wrapped up. Oh, the older one is crying about it. Senseless. Not particularly realistic either, although I suppose I shouldn't have expected any semblance of sense or realism from this tripe.

Bored again. Tell me something interesting to keep me occupied, or I'll have to resort to more drastic forms of entertainment and John will have something else to complain about.

sherlock holmes | BBC SHERLOCK ☆ ( 3/3 )

[irrigo]

Third Person:

There are some days when Sherlock decides that if he doesn't have a case, then there's no point in getting out of bed. John complains and insists on him getting up, but sometimes the day ahead is looking particularly bleak and the way he sees it, there's honestly no reason to suffer through it. If he's going to be bored by being awake, then he may as well just sleep until there's something interesting to find. (These days are generally regarded as much better than the ones where he has too much energy to spend his time sulking and becomes absolutely manic with boredom. Much better.)

But usually, on such occasions, someone will dig up a case, an experiment, anything of mild interest to try and drag him out of his bed. Today is no different. Today, Lestrade arrives and spends the first minute of his time at 221B trying to convince Sherlock to get out of bed. He's acting like a child, they say. He doesn't see much reason to prove them otherwise.

"Is it a case that you genuinely need my assistance for," he says; he refuses to roll over and face either Lestrade or John (or— the scent of perfume seeps into the room, Mrs Hudson) and if they want to think of him as a child, then so be it. "Or is it that John called you here and you're just offering the first unsolved case that you found in some misguided attempt to help? I'm sleeping, not dying. If it's dull, I don't want to do it. John can do better than that."

"He didn't call me here," says Lestrade.

Sherlock rolls his eyes and glances over his shoulder at Lestrade (it's an unseasonably warm day but he's wearing his jacket even when there's no one in here to impress, he's covering a stain; crumbs on the right leg of his pants; card in his jacket pocket, hard to see all the numbers, 601, female's handwriting, phone number, kept but in bad condition, unsure about the offer but he and the wife are in a bad state again; powder on his shoes, too, John and Lestrade had lunch together at the café downstairs, honestly, do they think he's an idiot?) and he scowls. "Yes, he did."

"Alright, he did," admits Lestrade, and Sherlock drops his head back onto the pillow to bask in his own smugness. "Will you take the case anyway? I swear, we're stumped, you know I wouldn't call you in otherwise. My reputation takes a beating enough as it is because of you."

That's true. He'd heard John on the phone earlier, too, so he knows that Lestrade doesn't owe them any favours. If it's good enough for Scotland Yard's reputation to bear it, then it might be good enough to solve. He's been at the crime scene for approximately ten seconds when he decides that yes, it is good enough.

"We need to find out where he was going," he announces to no one in particular; he says we, but he doesn't expect assistance. He rarely ever does. Someone in the background speaks up, Anderson, where he was—? but he waves his hand and cuts off the noise, and he crouches down to look. "Yes, where he was going, this man was on a train, but he never made it to his destination; there are still stains on the shirt, he wouldn't go anywhere in that state, probably had a hotel room to stop off at first, maybe a public bathroom. He was carrying a duffel bag, not a suitcase, which means it wasn't a formal business meeting, he didn't want it to stand out as one but he's wearing a suit, he wanted to look nice; marks from a wedding ring on his left hand but he's not wearing one, he's having an affair, he would've taken it off when he left home, so he was going to meet up with the woman, but he never quite made it, he got taken off the train, so we need to find out where he was ultimately—"

"Sherlock," says John urgently, and he stops. Sherlock realises belatedly that John has been saying that throughout his whole explanation, which is strange because all he usually gets is silence and rapt attention. Or disbelief, but hardly from John any more. "D'you think you could not do this while the man's family is standing right there?"

Sherlock looks over at the woman and her two children, all staring at him pale-faced and wide-eyed, and he frowns. "Why?"

"Because it might be showing some actual basic human decency," hisses John. "No, don't tell me that you don't care about that, or that it's not important. Save it. Just keep your brilliant thoughts to yourself until his whole grieving family isn't within hearing distance."

It doesn't make sense to him - it does in theory, of course, it's simple enough to understand the idea or the reasoning, it's just that in practice it's so unimportant and so impractical - but he keeps quiet anyway. Which is fine, because it gives him time to finish wrapping up this tedious part of the case while they're all nattering about. He opens the suit jacket and lifts one side - aha. Good. Well, he's taking this case somewhere fast, then. By the time John comes and taps him on the shoulder, he's finished and he's plotted out his next five moves from here, too.

Sherlock holds up the hotel card and the train ticket that he found in the jacket pocket, and he shows them to Anderson's stupid condescending face. "I believe we have a train to catch."

Now the fun can begin.

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Additionally!
» We have an Activity Check at dramadramaduck every two months and the next one is in March. Because your application was accepted in February, you will not be required to participate!
» Our requirements are simply 20 comments. These can be from your characters journal, others journals, or any post on the main community. Any posts your character makes his/herself will count as a comment itself.
» If you have any questions about the AC/AC requirements or anything else, feel free to contact any of the moderators; our contact information is available on any of our communities profiles. :)

[irrigo]

thank you very much!! ♥