Working on the Edges

Chapter Eight

Sherlock met him dressed in the charcoal wool coat he'd worn the night they'd gone to dinner. John wondered if Sherlock had ever worn any of the team training clothes he must have been provided with.

And John immediately asked the question he'd been dying to ask. "What was all that about?"

Sherlock started walking immediately, and John followed him. He was making a habit of it. "Practice," Sherlock replied.

John bit at the impulse to smile, because Sherlock could be so childish and adorable sometimes. "No, the thing about not winning a medal."

"Lestrade doesn't think I can win," Sherlock said.

"Well, if all he's seen is the way you skated just now, I can see why he thinks that," remarked John.

Sherlock stopped walking and looked down at him thoughtfully. "Did you think I skated differently?"

"I barely recognized you out there," said John, honestly. "You were an entirely different skater."

"Good. And you're an idiot about figure-skating, so that's a very good thing."

"So you clearly don't like Lestrade."

"Brilliant deduction," drawled Sherlock and resumed walking.

"How come?" asked John.

"Do you like your coach?" Sherlock asked.

"Sholto?" John shrugged. "Yeah. He's not full of what you might call 'social graces,' but he's a nice guy. I mean, he knows what he's doing and I trust him. He's been through a lot, he's seen a lot, so I feel like you should listen to people like that. I mean, I respect him a lot. And yeah, I guess I like him."

Sherlock stopped walking again. Now the gaze he turned on John was narrow and John realized he'd been babbling a bit. "Do I need to be jealous?"

John couldn't help the laugh. "Of Sholto? No."

"Hmm," remarked Sherlock, as if he wasn't quite sure of that, but he kept walking anyway. "Well, I don't like Lestrade. We don't get along."

"Why not?"

"He's an idiot."

"Then why don't you get a new coach?"

"Because Lestrade is the best of a bad lot. And, according to my brother, he's the only person who can coach me without punching me on an hourly basis. I'm sure it doesn't help that he's shagging my brother, but they think I don't know that because they are idiots."

John blinked. "Your coach is sleeping with your brother?"

"Indeed," Sherlock sighed, as if long-suffering.

"Well, at least I know Sholto's not sleeping with my sister. Since she's a lesbian."

"Also an alcoholic who recently broke up with her wife," remarked Sherlock casually.

John gaped at him. He couldn't help it. "How did you know that?"

Sherlock whirled on him suddenly, catching him off-guard, his gaze very tight on him. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah," John said, forcing himself to believe it as he said it. He'd read somewhere that that was the key to a good lie. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not," said Sherlock firmly. "I can see that you're not. Don't try to trick me. It doesn't work."

"Don't threaten me," John said more sharply than he'd intended. But, damn it, he'd had enough scary things said to him today.

"I'm not," said Sherlock, slowly, looking at John and clearly working things out. Stupid brain, thought John, as Sherlock said, "But someone else did. You've been threatened today. You've had enough with threatening today. Who was it?"