Sherlock One Shots

The Incredulous Enigma

How? How had it come to this?

This was the only thought on John's mind as he sat, strapped to a chair, with the cool barrel of a .44 semi automatic Magnum pistol resting against his temple. He glanced over at Sherlock, who was tied to a chair beside him, bloodied and beaten, a gun to his head as well, and sighed.

"How could I have let this happen?" he said, his shoulders slumping in defeat as he realized there was no escaping this time. There would be no happy ending for the two of them, and it was all his fault.

"Don't blame yourself John," came Sherlock's raspy reply. "You can't blame yourself."

"I can and I will," John insisted. If it hadn't been for his foolishness, neither of them would be in this current situation, facing certain death inside an old abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town, most likely never to be seen again...at least not alive.
John heard the familiar 'click' of a gun being cocked and a new feeling of dread mixed with complete and utter guilt overcame him. On the outside John maintained a cool composure, though inside he was currently cursing the very day he was born. Cursing himself for having been so naive and for being the cause of Sherlock's imminent death. He closed his eyes tightly, preparing for what was to come.

"I'm so sorry," he said, "I'm so sorry." John felt someone moving his chair, and when he opened his eyes he saw that he was now facing Sherlock, whose head had dropped down, blood soaked hair concealing his face. In the dim light John could see the tip of the pistol pressed against Sherlock's head, and forced himself to look away. A large hand grabbed his chin and forced him to turn his head back, and he heard a voice begin to speak.

"No. You're going to watch." John sucked in a breath when he heard this and shook his head once.

"No. I can't," he said quietly. "I won't! You- you can't do this! I-"

"John."

John slowly lifted his eyes and saw Sherlock staring at him, face completely devoid of emotion. He took in a deep breath and sighed.

"It's okay."

"What? Sherlock no, it's not okay. This isn't right."

"It's okay," Sherlock repeated, looking down, and this time John wondered if he was talking to himself that time. Sherlock lifted his eyes to meet John's gaze and nodded. "It's okay. You can't blame yourself for this."

With that Sherlock closed his eyes and seemed to be holding his breath. John began to struggle against his restraints, and when he felt one of his hands slip out of the rope he breathed a sigh of relief, glad that whoever it was that had tied him down had obviously not been a Boy Scout. No way was he going to sit there and watch his best friend be brutally murdered, especially not since it was his fault he was even here. He may not come out alive at the end of this, but if his last act was to save Sherlock's life, so be it. With adrenaline now pumping through his veins, he lunged for the gun.
___________________________________
4 days prior

"Sherlock, have you seen my blue jumper?" John called out. "You know, the one with the stripes?"

"John, I'm not one to give fashion or dating advice, but if you are planning on wearing that for your date with Lisa-"

"-Liesl-"

"-it will certainly be the last thing you wear on any date with her."

"Do you know where it is or don't you?" John asked through gritted teeth.

"You could either check the bottom of your wardrobe...or the pile of ash in the rubbish bin."

"...I don't even want to know." John said, sighing and covering his face with his hands. "I'll just find something else to wear."

John returned to his room to continue getting ready, but when he grabbed his phone to tell Liesl that he'd be a bit late for dinner he saw that she'd texted him, cancelling their date. She claimed to have to stay late at work for something, what that something was she hadn't said. With a sigh, John began undressing, and when he came back downstairs in a pair of loose trousers and a t-shirt Sherlock gave him a strange look before turning back around to look out the window.

"If you're going out like that, don't expect to even get through this fourth date with Lexi."

"Date's off," John said, going into the kitchen to make himself some tea. He called the restaurant and cancelled his reservation, then walked into the sitting room and sunk down into his favourite armchair. "Looks like it's just another boring night in."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Sherlock said quietly, still staring out the window. John was about to ask him what he meant by that, but closed his mouth when he heard footsteps pounding on the stairs outside the door. He really hoped it was just Lestrade coming with a new case, and not some madman on his way to murder them. They really needed to start locking their doors.
The door opened and John turned to see two rather large men in suits glaring at him.

"You Sherlock Holmes?" one of them asked. John shook his head, and the man looked at Sherlock, who had his back turned to him, still staring out the window. One of the strangers took about three steps to cross the room and grabbed Sherlock by the back of his collar and began pulling him towards the door. The other one grabbed John and yanked him out of his chair.

"You're coming with us."
_________________________

"What do you mean I've been summoned by a kidnapper?"

"I mean that over the last three weeks there have been six disappearances, and all of them point to you."

"How so?"

John stood silently in the background and watched as Sherlock was shown photograph after photograph of various locations around London. Even after the slide show had finished John had no idea what the pictures meant, or how they had led these people to Sherlock.

"I don't get it," he said. Sherlock breathed a heavy sigh and turned to face him.

"If you look carefully, there are letters at each scene. An 'H' written on the pavement where the first victim was last seen, a manhole cover, representing an 'O' at the scene of the second... So forth and so forth until the letters have spelled out-"

"Holmes?" John guessed, and Sherlock nodded his head. One of the large men standing on the far side of the room, blocking the exit, made a strange noise.

"Wow," he said, "he is good."

"Of course I am-"

"Sherlock..." John warned, not wanting to cause any sort of trouble with whoever these people were that were apparently enlisting Sherlock's help. The detective sighed and rolled his eyes, but remained quiet.

"So," John said, "where do we start?"
________________________

In all his days of military service, John had seen some pretty gruesome things. Yet, he still was a bit unnerved at the sight of the deceased young man lying before him, face disfigured beyond recognition and body covered In unsightly cuts and bruises, and missing all but one finger. The body of the first kidnapping victim, Alexander Wright, had just been found near the River Thames, and Sherlock had been called in to examine it, since the kidnapper-turned-murderer obviously wanted him working on the case. John had come along as well, like he always did, and had been standing off to the side observing Sherlock as he worked.

All of a sudden there came a piercing scream from somewhere in the woods, followed by complete and utter silence. Not a second later John found himself running after Sherlock as they weaved their way through the dense forest, jumping over roots and ducking under branches to get to whoever it was that was in trouble.

Suddenly Sherlock froze, and when John followed his line of vision and looked in that direction he saw a young woman, hunched over, leaning against a tree and clutching her side. Her breathing was staggered and heavy, and her face was hidden from view by a thick curtain of dark hair.

Sherlock wasted no time in approaching her, but John kept his distance, just in case this was some sort of trap. He'd seen enough horror movies to know to never trust a damsel in distress. Not always, at least. He used his phone to shine some light in the woman's general direction, and when he saw that the entire left side of her shirt was soaked in blood he rushed over to her.

"What happened to you?" he asked as he tried to get her to lay down. She looked up at him, and despite the fact that her face was dirty and tear stained, John recognized her as the second kidnapping victim, Lara Thomas.

"He...He got me," she said, her voice frail and shaken. She struggled to breathe a few more laboured breaths, then collapsed into John's arms. His doctor instincts finally kicked in and he began applying pressure to her side, where she appeared to have been stabbed, and began looking around for something to use to bandage the wound.

"Sherlock, give me your scarf," he said, reaching up.

"John..."

"Sherlock your scarf!"

"She's dead, John."

Looking down, John saw that Lara's eyes had closed and she was no longer breathing. With a sigh he laid her down gently and stood. He called for help, then looked to Sherlock, who had bent over to pick something up off the ground, a piece of paper it looked like. He handed it over to John and asked him to examine it.

"It's a note." he observed. "It says... 'Now that I've got your attention, I'll give you three days.'" He glanced down at Sherlock, who was crouched over the body. "Three days for what?" Sherlock stood up and shrugged.

"I have no idea," he said, smiling. "But I do know that this should be fun."
_________________________

The moon had just come out of hiding when John and Sherlock found themselves climbing out of a taxicab and walking over to where Lestrade was waiting for them at the edge of a forest in Croyden. Apparently the third missing person had just been found, one day after the first two had been, face down in a pool of her own blood in the middle of the woods. When John and Sherlock finally got to were the body was, John began to feel bad for the two young ladies who had found this woman. They must have been horrified to come across such a sight while out on a nighttime jog through the woods.
Sherlock had been interrogating the two women for several minutes when Lestrade and a few workers from Scotland Yard showed up.

"Ah, Anderson, you're looking rather puerile tonight," Sherlock said when the forensic analyst walked by him.

"Bite me."

"Hey now., that could very well have been a compliment," Sherlock said, smirking. "Of course, you didn't know that's did you?" Anderson only growled in response before turning away to examine the body.

"So, what have you got so far?" John asked Sherlock, who sighed and shook his head.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don't know who's behind this, what they gave me three days to do, or what it is that will happen when the time runs out. This has got to be the most frustrating case I've taken on."

John let out a breath and nodded his head, worried for the first time in his life that Sherlock might actually not be able to solve the case, and worried that this time something worse might happen as a result other than a guilty man walking free.

"Hey, Freak," Anderson said, stalking over to them. John rolled his eyes, thinking that he and Sergeant Donovan had been spending too much time together. "Found this in her pocket. Lestrade said to give it to you." He handed Sherlock a folded up piece of paper, then turned and walked away. John peered over to see as Sherlock unfolded the note. Written in a nearly illegible handwriting was a single sentence:

Tick-tock goes the clock.
__________________________

"Are you sure this is Nathan Cressler?" Sherlock asked as he peered on the body laying on the table. The face was so covered in bruises that it barely resembled a face.

"Yeah," Lestrade said slowly, nodding his head."We're sure. When he was checked into the psych ward of the Hospital earlier today they did some tests. Of course, by the time they received any results... Nathan here had somehow escaped, and when he was found this afternoon..." he trailed off and looked down, and John decided he'd heard enough. He left the room and took out his phone. Just as he was dialing Liesl's number, her face appeared on his screen. She was calling to reschedule their date for the next evening, an invitation John gladly accepted.

He didn't spend much time on the phone with Liesl, as she was at work and couldn't talk for long. When John walked back into the morgue, he saw Sherlock and Lestrade huddled together staring at Nathan's body.

"What are you looking at?" John asked when he approached them. He looked down, and his yes landed on a group of strange looking cuts on the right side of the torso. After several seconds John realized that someone had carved three words into the man's chest: He'll get you.
___________________________

After three days of chasing strangers and hiding in sewers Sherlock was nearly out of his wits trying to solve whatever this enigma was that had been presented to him. John had gone out on a date with the woman whose name always escaped Sherlock, mostly because he didn't care enough to commit it to memory, and Sherlock was taking advantage of the silence to spend some time in his mind palace. So far he had nothing, absolutely nothing, and it was driving him insane.

It would have been something. If he'd actually had some information to go on, but this person had left him with no clues as to what their identity was, or what it was they were planning to do. It was absolutely infuriating. Sherlock had always loved a challenge, but this was proving to almost be too much of one.

He began pacing back and forth in his bedroom, deep in thought, trying to put the pieces together in his mind. He barely felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. While still pacing he reached into his pocket to pull it out, and glanced down at the screen briefly. He ceased walking when his eyes caught sight of the words the text message contained:

Time's up.
___________________________________

"I had a great time tonight, Liesl," John said as the two walked hand in hand down the pavement just outside the pub they'd spent the last few hours in. Liesl sighed happily and smiled up at John.

"Me too."

A black jaguar with all tinted windows pulled up beside them, and Liesl gestured to the car.

"That's my ride," she said before giving John a quick hug and turning to go to the car. She paused about halfway to the vehicle and stared at the car for several seconds, then turned around. "Oh, John?"

"Yes, Liesl?" John said, smiling at her. She smiled back and sauntered up to him until her chest was pressed flush against his.

"There's something I have to tell you." She leaned in close so that her lips gently brushed against John's ear as she spoke. "He's got you."

And then everything went black.
___________________________

John, how much longer are you planning on staying out? SH

John? SH

JOHN. SH

Sherlock! JW

John, where are you? SH

I...I don't know. JW

God, how drunk are you? SH

I'm not drunk. JW

Sherlock...he's got me. JW

Quit playing around John. SH

I'm not playing. He's GOT ME. JW

I don't know where I am. JW

I hear voices. JW

Wherever it is that you are, I'm coming to get you. SH

Sherlock switched to the GPS tracker app he'd installed on his phone and typed in John's number, hoping it would work. This was the first time he'd had to use it, and he would be very upset if he'd wasted the £3 it had cost him to purchase the app.

Please hurry Sherlock. JW

According to the app, John was somewhere on the outskirts of London. How he'd managed to get there Sherlock had no idea, but he was starting to feel that John really wasn't kidding, that whoever 'He' was had really gotten him, and though he hated to admit it, that thought disturbed him to the core of his being. He couldn't possibly imagine John being tortured and disfigured as the rest of 'His' victims had been. Imagining it made Sherlock sick to his stomach, so he instead focused solely on the blinking red dot on his screen that represented John's phone, and subsequently, John.

I'm on my way. SH

After an incredibly long and anxiety-filled ride, the cab finally stopped in front of an old warehouse and Sherlock hopped out of the car after throwing some money at the cabbie. The car sped away into the night, leaving Sherlock standing completely alone in the dark. With only a slight hesitation he walked forward and pressed on the door. It opened slowly, and Sherlock could see nothing but darkness inside. He took in a breath, then stepped over the threshold.

"John?"

What happened next was a blur in Sherlock's memory. All he remembered was being hit in the head with a heavy, blunt object, then waking up to find himself strapped to a chair, a gun being held to his head. In the dim light of the old warehouse he could see a figure standing before him.

"Well, well, well." Sherlock lifted his gaze to see Anderson walk out of the shadows, a smug smile on his face. "Looks like I've finally got you."

"Anderson...?" Sherlock breathed, obviously in disbelief.

"Ever since the day I met you, you've made my life a living hell. And when I was young, my Mum always told me if I didn't like something to get rid of it. and now, thanks to the help of that woman standing beside you," Sherlock glanced up to see Liesl smiling sinisterly at him. "I can finally do just that."

Sherlock was vaguely aware of someone talking who wasn't Anderson, and it was then that he noticed someone sitting beside him, and realized that it was John. There was a bruise on his forehead, and he was tied to his chair with a piece of rope that looked like it would snap at any minute. The very sight of him like that made Sherlock's blood boil.

Sherlock heard himself talking, but he had no idea what he said. He heard the gun being pressed against his head being cocked, and heard John speaking again. Once again Sherlock heard his own voice, but was unaware as to what it was saying. He closed his eyes and held his breath, then waited for the inevitable, but it never came. Instead Sherlock heard the sound of metal clanging, and pictured a gun falling to the floor. He opened his eyes to see what looked like three people all charging towards John, who had somehow managed to free himself. Sherlock could only look on in terror as they closed in, and he prayed to whatever deity might help him that John would be okay, that his military training would be sufficient to keep him alive. He heard a gunshot, two, three, four, five...

Then nothing. Sherlock stood up and fell on his back smashing the chair he'd been sitting in, then rushed over to the pile of bodies laying on the floor. His heart nearly stopped when he failed to see any movement.

"John?!"

"...Sherlock..."

Before Sherlock even realized he was moving he had found John and helped him to stand up. He allowed John to lean against him as they made their way to the door, towards freedom and life and a now Anderson-free world. Just as Sherlock's hand made contact with the door handle, he heard a woman laughing behind them, followed by a grunt and the sound of a gun being cocked.

"Not so fast boys."