Lo Stesso Tempo (Sherlolly)

Chapter Eight

Present

Sherlock looked up as the door opened. Mike Stamford walked in, followed by another man.

"Bit different from my day." The stranger muttered.

"Oh you have no idea." Mike chuckled.

Sherlock sat. "Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine."

"And what's wrong with the landline?"

"Oh, I prefer to text." He didn't have to contend with people's jabbering and annoying voices that way. God knows how Mycroft could stand it.

"Uh here..."

He looked up and glanced over the visitor. Potential flat mate. Military service... Hard to tell where though. Right. He was supposed to say something.

"Thank you." Mike introduced his friend as John Watson. "Afghanistan or Iraq?" He took the phone and typed in Lestrade's number.

"Sorry, what?"

"Which was it," he looked up. "Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"Afghanistan, sorry how did you-"

"Ah, Molly! Coffee, thank you." And the lipstick was gone... Good, he liked her without it. Her lips were a bit small but she looked better when she wasn't trying so hard. "I thought it was a big improvement," he lied. "It's too small now." There, perfect. And now he could go back to not caring about her appearance. "How do you feel about the violin?"

"Sorry what?" Watson asked.

"I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end, would that bother you?" That wasn't really the worst of it. He shot the wall, talked to Billy the skull, left body parts in the fridge. No need to run him off though, he'd keep that to himself for now.

"You told him about me?"

"Not a word." Mike smiled.

"Then who said anything about flatmates?"

Sherlock shrugged his coat on. "I did. Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is, just after lunch, with an old friend clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't a difficult leap."

It took him less than ten seconds really.

"Is that it? We've only just met and we're gonna go look at a flat?"

Yes... "Problem?"

"We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting, I don't even know your name."

Mmm not entirely true. Would he have to explain it? Apparently. Where to start? The obvious. "I know you're an army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him. Possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp is psychosomatic, quite correctly I'm afraid." He'd have to do something about that... "That's enough to be going on, don't you think? The name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is two-two-one B Baker Street. Afternoon."

**
John was watching him. Again. Sherlock sighed and broke the silence of the cab. "Okay, you've got questions."

"Yeah, uh... Who are you? What so you do?"

"What do you think?"

"I'd say private detective... But the police don't go to private detectives."