Three Is Company

Don't Talk To Strangers

John was in the pharmacy when he made the phone call, and it took less than ten minutes before he settled the yellow phone back within its hook on the wall. Musgrave was a terse man, and John's questions had made up the majority of the conversation. All the Doctor did was confirm John's suspicions, that and offer him a strict and stern warning about keeping it silent. His worries about the disease progression were quite real, and after hearing the lecture about the wellbeing of Sherlock Holmes John swore his silence upon the matter. He didn't want Sherlock to progress any farther down the hole that had been dug around him. He didn't want him to fall anymore, not without hands waiting to catch him. After the phone was hung John went back to his daily life, trying to occupy himself with the ailments of others before he focused too heavily on the ailment of his neighbor. He counted pills, he screwed bottle tops, he stuck labels. He spent his morning attending to his pharmaceutical duties, though when the afternoon came along and he had nothing to do but eat his sandwich and stare at the wall, well that was when the pondering began to start. That was when his worries caught up. John didn't know much about the disease Sherlock was suffering with. He knew it was a rare thing, so rare that it was often times misdiagnosed or faked by the patient. It was a difficult thing, hard to develop, hard to treat, sometimes even hard to identify. Sherlock's case was a bit more obvious than others, with his switch not only in personality but in gender, though this didn't make it any easier to treat. The personalities often times manifested as an effect of trauma, almost as if his body had entirely rejected himself and forced a new, protective personality to take his place. Perhaps that's where the roommates first appeared. Not at the aunt's house, but before she was even put into the picture. Perhaps Irene had manifested long before Sherlock realized what was happening. It was a terrible thing to comprehend, a disease that set people against you for no reason, something that acted as an automatic alienation. Mary was the perfect example of the general public's reaction, the disgust she felt, the confusion that she changed immediately into distrust. She wasn't a very open minded person when it came down to it, and when faced with a man who was literally one in a million, well there was no way she could allow herself to process him in an understanding and gentle way. She had set out to scorn, to ridicule. Somehow Sherlock's disease had proven her right, and with that she took it as her own small victory. And to celebrate she would never give the man a second chance. She wouldn't even give the woman a first chance. The disease itself was unfair on all fronts. Unfair to Sherlock, who had gone through so much as a child only to get pushed through deeper, more complicated mud later on. Unfair to John, who somehow felt that his childhood ignorance had elongated Sherlock's Hell. Unfair to Mary, who was making a fool out of herself over a thing she couldn't begin to understand. The whole situation was crippling, mind boggling, and depressing. John hated that all he could do for Sherlock now was push pills into three separate bottles and mislabel them. He was considering calling Musgrave again, though he had nothing more to say. He just felt the need to hear the plans again, he wanted to see into the Doctor's head and understand the treatment process. John might have called if the bell on top of the door didn't ring, announcing the visitation of his first costumer of the day. It was no matter, nor even a worry. People mostly showed up after work, driving home and picking up their prescriptions on the way. John wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed to see that this customer wasn't a customer at all. In fact it seemed to be a social visit.
"Most people would be hiding under the counter the moment a police officer arrived unannounced." John protested, watching the hat of Greg Lestrade meander through the aisles as he tried to give John another good scare.
"Oh come on! How'd you know it was me?" Greg whined, popping out from the tissue aisle with a disappointed frown.
"Because you step too loud." John explained. "You step and then you scuff, and with boots it's no better."
"Next time I'll tiptoe." Greg promised.
"Next time I'll make you clean up those black marks on the tile." John warned. Greg gave a noise of regret, turning back and realizing that he had indeed left his mark from the front door all the way to the counter.
"Ah well, it adds character to the place." He suggested. John gave a shrug, as if he saw some rationale in that after all. Perhaps with those scuffs he could pretend that he had a lot more traffic this morning.
"I suppose." John agreed. "What are you here for? Being a customer, or being a pest?"
"oh you know me. Maybe I'll buy a pack of gum so I can be both." Greg said with a smile, leaning heavily against the counter and tipping his police hat politely in John's direction. Well of course the pharmacist wouldn't be having any of that, and so he snatched the hat right off Greg's head and held it behind his back.
"Now come on!" Greg whined.
"It's annoying me." John said simply. "Don't you have any actual police work to do?"
"I'm taking a break from the police work, believe it or not. Usually police work is my break from doing nothing, but things are getting a bit heated out there." Greg admitted with a sigh.
"Oh ya, end of the month, right? Speeding ticket time." John guessed, setting the hat back onto the counter and appreciating when Greg hesitated to replace it atop his head. To John's surprise Greg looked a bit more dismal than usual, as if talking about work was a sure way to wipe the smile right off of his face.
"Got another murder, actually." Greg admitted. "Hasn't even hit the papers yet."
"Another murder?" John whispered, repeating the sentence as if that would make the situation any more manageable. Instead it shoved the words more forcefully into his brain, cramming as if there was no more space for contemplation.
"Found him this time right in town. In a dumpster outside the grocery store." Greg admitted.
"That's an awfully stupid place to hide a body." John murmured.
"Ya well, it's stupid but effective. Can't get a print, can't get anything. The thing's all covered in yesterdays' bread, spoiled milk, and cracked eggs. And I thought a body on its own smelled bad. This is just...God." Greg rubbed his eyes, as if trying to message the memories right out of his brain.
"That's two murders in the past two weeks, isn't it?" John guessed.
"Ya. And that's two more murders than we've ever had before. Two weeks overcoming some two hundred years of history."
"Surely not two hundred years of peace." John scoffed.
"Well, at least thirty years! Because I've certainly never heard of anything like this!" Greg complained.
"You're not thirty."
"I'm pretty sure my parents would have told me if there was a murder three years before I was born." Greg insisted, defending his math with a stiff upper lip.
"Is there any relationship to the last victim? Could it be some family affair?" John presumed, hoping for a simple explanation. Hoping that these were not random attacks, therefore putting everyone in town at risk.
"We're running his finger prints now, but just from the look of it...well it feels random to me. They don't look anything alike. The only thing they share are their wounds." Greg admitted.
"Same killer then." John muttered.
"Same killer." Greg agreed, heaving a great breath and nearly reclining all the way down onto the counter. "I'm exhausted."
"I can imagine." John murmured. "But what now?"
"We've got nothing to go on. I mean, it'll make sense if he lived here, but that's still a couple hundred people to investigate."
"You say 'he', as if you already know the killer is a man." John pointed out.
"It's out best guess as the moment. The wounds, the method of death, it all corresponds to someone with strong arms."
"Women have strong arms." John pointed out.
"Stronger than that, I dare say." Greg muttered. John huffed, finding some error in this baseless theory. Certainly Greg was ignoring more than half the population of likely suspects, but for the sake of the conversation John decided he ought to stay quiet. Surely there was one competent police officer that would consider a woman capable of murder.
"That's terrifying." John admitted.
"Ya." Greg muttered. "More so when you imagine that he won't stop at just two. We might have a serial killer. Our very own maniac."
"Way to be optimistic about it, Greg." John scoffed, trembling at the thought.
"I'm serious! I mean, I'm not trying to be all like your big brother, but I'd honestly advise you to be a bit careful when walking out alone. Especially at night."
"You think I'll get jumped by your big bad serial killer?" John chuckled.
"It's possible! I mean this is terrifying, really. Usually they go after weak, defenseless people. But this is the second man we've found, the second buff man, somehow overcome."
"And by weak, defenseless people you of course mean women."
"Well...ya."
"Just checking." John sighed. Sometimes he wondered if leaving this town only to return put a filter overtop of all the ridiculous words that came out of people's mouth. When he was young this sort of attitude was all he knew, though when exposed to a university and all of its perspectives, John started to see the world a lot more completely than could ever be glimpsed within the city limits. He wondered if Greg even knew he was being disrespectful. Of course the man was only mimicking the language he heard every day.
"I'm serious John, take care of yourself. And take care of Mary." Greg warned.
"I will." John promised. "I really don't take the company of killers. They're not my type."
"Good to hear." Greg chuckled. "But what if this serial killer needs his prescription?"
"Then I'll get his dollar and his name." John guessed. "And I'll turn him into you, so long as you promise not to try to scare me with that uniform of yours."
"Ah, no deal." Greg scoffed.
"Soon I'll be in utter disregard for any police around here, automatically thinking it's you trying to pull some stupid prank."
"A job well done, in my opinion. Just flash my name around however much you want. I'll get you out of speeding tickets if you're nice." Greg assured.
"Delightful." John chuckled. Greg took a deep breath, pushing himself away from the counter as if to force himself from staying forever. He snatched his hat back from the counter, covering up his styled grey hair and giving a small but tortured smile.
"Back to it, I guess." Greg sighed. "Just wanted to pop in and give you some friendly neighborhood advice."
"Don't talk to strangers is all I got from it."
"Well, that's good enough for me." Greg shrugged. "I'll see you around."
"Ya, be careful out there." John agreed. Greg nodded his head in agreement, turning and scuffing his way all the way back out the door. The long black streaks of his boot sole were soon the only reminders of the warnings he gave, though there was still a deep, uneasy feeling within the pit of John's stomach. A serial killer. Could it really be a situation so dire?