Finding Watson Pt 1

I.

Sherlock Holmes awoke with a start in the dim first light of morning. He immediately began to assess himself, discovering a large, tender bruise of horrendous size beneath his left eye and the skin of his lip torn and bleeding profusely. The skin of his knuckles were raw and pink, blood dried around the edges, indicating the tale of a unfortunate stroll beneath the lights of London. He could remember the assailants leaping at them in the dark. He could remember throwing his fists at the men, battling for the sake of the other man who was crying out his name for help. It seemed as though those moments of battle Sherlock remembered most vividly, like the images were still fresh and present or as if the events had been recorded and were being played back to him.

“Sherlock!” the ex-army doctor had cried as the men had begun to drag him away from the detective and into the shadows of the night time alleyway. The consulting detective was preoccupied with defending himself against the other men, though he heard the cries and made an additional attempt to make it through the crowd of men to his distressed friend. Sherlock felt as if he were on a high and he was hallucinating the events. It felt as if they were duelling with a score of men, half of them working to restrain and to take away John while the other half fought to keep Sherlock from meddling in their plans. The colours swirled around him, blurring the shapes and forms of all of the pursuers and causing Sherlock's abilities to become impaired. “Sherlock!” The detective's memory went black after that ejaculation, probably stolen and masked by some illicit drug.

The scene had been cleaned, obviously. There were no signs and no evidence as to there even being a brawl in this alley the night before. Each piece of litter seemed to have returned to its place amongst the bile on the pavement of the alley and each yellow weed that sprung from the cracks in the sidewalk was untouched. Not a leaf was torn or defiled, but each plant looked as if they had never been disturbed.

Sherlock's nose turned up to the sky at the breaking dawn. The sun met the sky today at 7:15 am. Sherlock had been laying there on the pavement, in the cold and slowly being coated with dew for nearly seven hours.

This made the detective abashed for John had been taken seven hours ago on enigmatic circumstances. Anyone could have taken his dear friend. His friend could be so far away or he could be bereft of life. Some much could have happened in the period of seven hours.

For once, Sherlock was terrified to the point of emotional recognition. His only faithful companion- the ex-army doctor who was willing, after only two brief minutes of knowing him, had taken up residence in a flat with him, who had gunned down a man for him and had saved his life numerous other times- Dr. John H. Watson had been kidnapped and he had no leads. There were no scuff marks upon the cement to follow, no blood upon the bricks of the nearby buildings and- most alarmingly- still no John. Sherlock's brain seemed to shut off at the thought of losing John and the fault falling on him.

He couldn't have been kidnapped. He had just gone to get help. That was right.

No. It wasn't John wouldn't have been gone for seven hours getting help and he wouldn't have gotten side tracked. The only plausible explanation was that John had been kidnapped.

Sherlock quickly pulled out his mobile phone to call John, hoping to be able to connect to him, though he knew that the chance of actually reaching him was very slim. However, upon the glowing screen was a message. It read, “You've always been alone. You've always investigated alone and you go into danger alone. Now John is alone and in danger alone. You have twenty-four hours to find him if you value the life of your companion. Call: 001-843-2374.”

Sherlock reacted immediately without much thought. He tapped the highlighted number with his thumb and called it. He placed the phone to his ear and listened to it ring. He looked so odd with his body battered, his coat pooling behind him and his legs crossed while he sat in the middle of a deserted alleyway. At least he would look odd if anyone were looking.

The phone went on with its blearing noise for a long moment before John's crackling voice was heard on the other line. He sounded like he had when he bore Moriarty's bomb beneath his coat beside the pool. He sounded so terrified.

“S-Sherlock...” John rasped out, the phone going static with his heavy breathing. Perhaps they had a bad connection also with all of these buildings in the way of the signal.

“John. I'm coming for you.”

“No. You can't, Sherlock. Please don't-” He said sternly before the line went silent.

“John? John?” Sherlock asked into the phone. Had something happened to John? Was he not meant to speak to him? Alarmed, he pulled back from the phone to see if the timer was still running. Luckily, the timer still ticked and the numbers still ran, pulling back one after the other to show off the next number for a split second before moving on. John hadn't hung up yet, or at least the line was still open. John could have been snatched from the phone for all that he knew.

“Sherlock?” his companion requested, ushering him back to the phone. His voice wavered ever so slightly, but that was hardly audible with the phone so far from Sherlock's ear. “You've been to all of these places and I've written about them all in my blog. Go to the site where our first adventure ended. There, you'll find the first clue- but be careful Sherlock!”John came out of his painful discourse with that statement. With the level of distress in his voice, Sherlock knew what John really meant; he would have to play a dangerous game to get back the good doctor that would most likely jeopardize both of their lives multiple times. He would have to gamble life and limb to return John to the flat alive and well.

“Thank you, John. Now matter what you do, don't let them hurt you.” He ordered his companion, to which he agreed. Then, the line went dead. Sherlock pulled back and looked over the timer. It read one minute exactly.

Sherlock leaped to his feet in an instant and he streaked down the street, his feet moving double-quick and creating a raucous on the pavement as hard sole met hard cement. He remembered where the school building was precisely, as he knew this city inside and out. He was taken off guard only by several cars, one nearly running him over- the man that sat in the seat screamed and bellowed at him, muttering unintelligibly under his breath and giving Sherlock a few rather unsightly and deplorable hand signs. He had no time to stop and get a cab, though it would have been a great convenience to rest his feet and acquire the power and speed of an automobile. However, his feet had already set to reaching the school on their own. Besides, he had no idea how many trials there would be and a cabbie that took him through horrendous traffic and horrible routes just wouldn't do.

Sherlock reached the school building, barely scathing fifteen minutes. At this rate, he would be able to find John before the night came. The detective caught his breath, then turned toward the building at his right. He could remember the mistake that John had made- entering the school's twin on the left- that so benefited him. Without that, Sherlock would have had a far worse chance of deciding correctly as he wasn't quite alert when he was taken inside. So, Sherlock remembered which building he had entered.

Sherlock hurried up the dim stairways and corridors until he reached the lecture hall in which he had been faced with the choice proposed by that wonderfully brilliant, misguided, perfectly good waste of genius cabbie. Sunlight from the hot orange morning sun poured into the room, giving the tables and chairs a sunburst glow. Here was a rectangular object- resembling a chalkboard or a tablet- covered in a dark cloth. Nothing could be seen through it, yet it seemed to hold the utmost importance. On either side of the covered tablet was a massive red button. The two buttons were identical in every essence. They both were the same size and they were positioned at an equal distance from the tablet. Sherlock knew what sort of game this was without much effort. Earlier in the year, he had come here during a Study in Pink- as John had titled it. He would need to make a hazardous decision once more. This tablet certainly contained some information of vital importance. What could it be? Was it worth whatever consequence would arise from choosing incorrectly? Most importantly, what was on this tablet?

A bullet was shot out, barely scathing Sherlock's head, noticeably shifting his bistre curls. He stiffened, then ducked below the tables. He then realized that this attempt was futile. The gunner had missed purposefully; this was apparent due to the fact that the bullet had been shot from Sherlock's front and there was a limited amount of room before him. This meant that the gunner would have had a clear shot at him, yet he didn't take it. When glancing back at the new bullet hole in the window, Sherlock was reminded of the last events of the night. He remember- prominently- the dying word of the genius cabbie, 'Moriarty'. He was mystified as to how he hadn't known that John had shot down the cabbie because everything had added up, pointing only John as the shooter.

Sherlock pushed himself from the floor as fast as a meerkat from its burrow. His eyes even resembled those of pray, which was something new for the detective's features to accommodate. For once, he was weak. John made him weak-- or at least, the absence of him made him weak. His mouth dropped open to speak, but starring down the barrel of a pistol quickly extinguished whatever words that had been on his tongue like water would a natural fire.

“Sherlock Holmes!” The man cried out. “It's a pleasure to meet you!” His voice was tenor and his speech wavered every three syllables or so. His face was etched with shallow wrinkles and his eyes were a fleeting and stormy grey. His hair was a silky, tar black with flecks of silver within the stiff bristles. He seemed to be a young man- mid twenties to early thirties- taken by stress and- upon observing the unforgiving state of the woman's picture peeking from his back pocket- he was a widower, burdened by stress and the lack of his wife. Stress possibly caused by his wife. Perhaps he had cheated on her, or perhaps she had been disloyal to him. Perhaps he had got her in an undesired state. Upon examining the stitching of his trousers and the ring finger of his left hand, he retrieved that they had a short marriage and he had most likely cheated on her and regretted it. The wedding ring had been removed, then replaced in a different spot as there were two different tan lines. Also, the stitching of the button on his pants were looser than an normal man's, therefore, they had regularly been removed with vigour. This was a man ravaged by drink and regretful of the decisions made while he was ill-minded.

Sherlock's mind was off track. He needed to focus on the task on hand and not this bunk.

“Quite.” Sherlock snapped, obvious haste in his voice. “What are the point of these two buttons? And the tablet?” He inquired, his arms crossing, but remaining loose so that he could

“How rude! I've gone through all of this work to surprise you and you don't have the decency to say hello. I am- however- proud to have Sherlock Holmes puzzled. Allow me to explain.” The man lowered his gun and smirked before he began his explanation with amazing gusto for a man with a speech impediment. He found this thrilling- perhaps because he knew these were some of his last moments. “You see those two buttons before you? Each is connected to a trigger. Pressing the button will trigger a bomb to go off somewhere here in London. One of the buttons will detonate a bomb at the site where your partner is located at. Kaboom!”- He interjected, waving his fingers in the air and imitating debris with jazz fingers- “Your lover,” Sherlock stiffened slightly at that claim, but said nothing, neither approving or denying, “will have been scattered over all of Greater London- well, all of London that survives the explosion. Simple solution: press the other button, right?”

A sudden guilty thought came to Sherlock; he wanted a cigarette- a long, fulfilling drag off a cancer stick would calm his nerves, that was for sure. And John. John could do that too.

“If you press the other button, this building suffers the same fate as the other. Each building has fifteen seconds to detonation, so there is plenty of time for you to escape should you choose to blow up this place. So, Mr. Holmes, you must choose your button.”

“Why should I even press the button?” Sherlock inquired, cocking his head very slightly so that his curls shifted.

“Because,” the man brought his finger to his chin and his stormy grey eyes pierced those bright blue eyes of Sherlock like a storm cloud against a pure, otherwise cloudless blue sky, “on the tablet beneath this cloth is a code. This is just a piece of the code that is required to get into the building where Dr. Watson is. Without pressing the button, you won't get the code. No matter if you find the building, you won't be able to get to him, much less save him.” The man taunted and raised his gun once more. “You have one minute to choose.”

The detective was on fire, his brain working like a factory machine; a machine burning and overheating with no way to cool down, improperly maintained and badly designed. God, it burned and it set fire to his entire body, causing sweat to break out everywhere under the thick fabric of his coat and making his cheeks alight with fire red fury.

It took Sherlock less than thirty seconds to decide. He slammed his hand down on the button to the right and he snatched up the tablet. He bolted from the room, a mind numbing ringing consuming his ears.

Sherlock leaped down each set of steps, each set of steps appearing as an Olympic high jump of marble. Feeling a sickening crack as he fell short- he had landed on the step fourth to last- he tumbled down the rest. That crack had most definitely come from his ankle, but he couldn't afford to wait. He pushed himself up from the floor and he threw himself from the building (landing nearly a metre away from it, then dragging himself another metre), shielding his head from the oncoming blast.

Tails and tongues of fire spilled into the air and licked at the detective. The wisps succeeded in setting his coat ablaze, forcing him to roll through the rubble, injured and disoriented. The pain that scorched his back wasn't even noticed over that of his ankle. If it was not already, his ankle would be broken by now from all of his rolling and tumbling.

He had yet to kill John, unless the ordeal was a trick and both buildings had been reduced to fiery ashes. He hoped not, dearly and truly. He begged for the man's words to be truth and not debauchery. Once the flames had been smothered, he stopped on his stomach and searched through his pockets for his phone. Upon retrieving his phone and awakening it, he encountered a new text message, opened upon his screen. This time, the screen only displayed a number which he was to call. This, Sherlock tapped with his thumb and called, needing so desperately to hear John's voice once more. He pressed the phone to his ear and waited for the droning, dull ring-back in his ear.

“Sherlock! Are you all right?!” John cried into the phone the instant that the line connected. “They've been threatening me.”The tears were beginning to show in his voice and by the severity of his voice, he hadn't cried much. The sound of his speech mocked a crackle in the road, or like dried clay that lacks a varnish. It was most likely that he had let loose a few tears in pain or fear and was now attempting to hold them at bay; the army doctor was highly unlikely to let any emotional tears shed, though- he wouldn't admit this- he had before.

“I'm fine!” Sherlock replied quickly, nearly cradling the phone against his cheek, the sound of his voice so precious to his ears. At least nothing so horrendous was happening to John. He wasn't in too much pain, or else Sherlock was sure to know it. “Please tell me that they haven't hurt you.”

“No. They haven't touched me. I'm fine. I'm safe... for now.” John assured Sherlock. “What's going on?”

“I just caused an explosion.” He said, hearing the sharp intake of the doctor's breath. “That's beside the point. I need your help fast.” He said firmly. “My ankle is broken.”

“I can't help you, Sherlock. I'm sorry.” Now John's voice was staccato and bitter as if he were being forced from helping. The detective's eyes grew glossy, struggling to imagine the pain without John's encouragements. Maybe he could recall some of the encouragements and the pain would lessen. Sherlock could remember a time when he hadn't desired anyone. Then, he wouldn't have needed John's encouragements to get through the pain of setting his own broken bone. That was a time before John.

“Do you remember the first time that you couldn't trust your own senses, when you faced the H.O.U.N.D. Of Baskerville?” John asked, his voice painful and slow as if it were a large object, forced through a small strainer. “There is a laboratory on the outskirts of the city. Go there and there you must decide if you can trust your finely tuned senses.”

The call was ended and Sherlock's hand fell to the dirt with exhaustion, revealing the timer and it showed exactly one minute once more. This mastermind was very uniform in the way that he managed his phone calls. Within a few seconds after the call ended, an additional timer appeared- the same as had appeared only two hours before- showing 22 hours left in the game.