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John was bored. Yes, bored; possibly bored enough to shoot the wall Sherlock-style. The fact that he’d even considered it was telling.
Sherlock had left him for several days, taking a case out of the country while John was working at the clinic. John had returned home from work to find the flat empty and a cryptic note on the fridge about a serial killer in Moscow.
At first, John was relieved that he was going to have a few days off from work and Sherlock. What a nice, relaxing, break. The perfect time to catch up on his favourite shows…
It took all of 52 hours of Sherlock-lessness before John started to crack.
He thought about calling someone, going out, or even doing a bit of reading, yet nothing sounded interesting. He could actually hear Sherlock’s voice in his head yelling “bored” at every suggestion John’s mind unhelpfully produced.
Finally he settled on writing on his blog. It was still boring, but at least he was accomplishing something he’d put off for a few weeks. He started writing up one of Sherlock’s old cases, from before John was around, using Sherlock’s own notes, and the memories of what his friend had told him about the incident; there wasn’t much to go on, but it was one of the few that Sherlock had never cracked, and John knew his readers would find it fascinating, if only for the purple spots.
John poured over the notes and typed up the evidence. He relayed the scenario of a University student’s death after taking an odd dosage of several, different medications. Born with a hole in his heart, he had always been concerned with his health, and was quick to take any pill he was given. Upon starting University, he had developed an ulcer and, soon after, a slew of psychological problems. At the time of his death, his skin had broken out in purple spots, leaving everyone baffled.
Sherlock was convinced that it was murder, but the police had ruled it an accidental death by overdose, aggravated by his mysterious illness.
John found that his boredom was alleviated when he noticed something in the mixture of the chemicals, the body’s reaction, and the bottles of medication found in the victim’s room. It wasn’t much to go on, and he’d have to do a little experimenting to be sure, but he was finally feeling the rush of excitement he’d gone too long without.
Rushing to the local pharmacy, he procured the needed prescriptions from the pharmacist (luckily, he was a doctor) before heading back to Baker Street and setting up his experiment.
He set to mixing said drugs in various ways, trying to check his theory. He should have been worried about the gasses that mixing and burning said chemicals in acid was producing, or the way one of his mixtures was bubbling, but he was too engrossed to care.
It took many hours, but he was stumbling on the perfect combination when his flatmate returned home.
“John!” Sherlock began, in an oddly exasperated tone, “you could have suffocated! What if you had killed yourself!? And what on Earth--? Are you using MY lab equipment?” His arms flailed as he ranted angrily. “Are those MY test tubes? JOHN! They were filled with the contents of three cadavers’ stomachs and could have been the alibi for…JOHN! Are you even—“
“HaHA! Sherlock, I’ve done it! Oh, it’s clever! Really clever! Someone knew a little something about pharmaceuticals! He was taking something like Cimetidine for his ulcer but it was causing him to hallucinate; a rare side effect, but a known one nonetheless. Rather than take him off the medication and give him something less severe, he started taking very high doses of what appears to be Clozapine; used to treat schizophrenia. This, however, caused him to have seizures: quite a common side effect. This time he began taking a drug like Depekene! Of all the epilepsy drugs, it’s one of the harshest and has the most side-effects!”
Here John paused to take a breath, having forgotten to do so for some time, “this caused a slew of issues for the young man, including, but not limited to, the hair-loss and the tiny, purple spots on his skin! It also most likely caused his strange behavior. The physical and psychological effects of all of these drugs taken on top of the Quinidine he’d been on since his early teens for his Arrhythmia caused by the Atrial Septal Defect from his birth, almost certainly killed him! This mixture could not be an accident!” John gasped for air. “Now!” He clapped his hands in glee, “I checked your notes on the pill bottles in his room, but while those particular drugs do contain the same chemicals, they are in the wrong dosages and would not have contained the same chemical levels as the ones I’ve been using. Your notes also mentioned the doctor who prescribed him the medication and, sure enough, you found her suspicious at the time. You said that she spoke too freely of the young man’s psychological problems and claimed him to be ‘insane’. Not very professional, I agree. But I wondered what motive would she have had to kill the student?” John paused, mostly for dramatic effect, “Her sister. I found in your notes that she had a sister who had shown up to the funeral. I called the University to check and, sure enough, the young woman had shared a class with the victim, but dropped out of school after getting pregnant. Her child…get ready for this Sherlock…was born with an Atrial Septal Defect! The doctor wrote all about it in a medical journal! She even mentions how it is hereditary and was probably passed down from the father’s side of the family. It was HER Sherlock! She’s the murderer! Oh, it’s genius!”
John was still bouncing with glee, scribbling his findings messily on a note pad so he could deliver the information personally to Lestrade.
“That’s…brilliant John,” Sherlock spoke breathily. His heart was beating rapidly and he could feel himself sweating. With each word John had spoken, Sherlock could feel his body react more and more. Now, found himself with a very visible problem, but he hoped John was too wrapped up in his discovery to notice.
“Sherlock, no wonder you love this so much! The rush of it all! My God…I…” John’s had moved nearer to his flatmate, and in the light of the sitting room he caught notice of Sherlock’s growing problem. “Sherlock…you…” he looked up at his friend with a note of confusion before his face suddenly changed into a grin. “Well I guess brainy really is the new sexy.” His grin widened.
“John,” Sherlock stuttered and began to back away, “I’m so sorry, I…I don’t know what…”
“Shh…” John muttered, placing a gentle hand on the side of Sherlock’s face, “No need for excuses. But since I seem to be so good at solving your problems today, perhaps I could lend you a hand with another.”
Sherlock’s eyes widened, but he did not move away when John held him tight to kiss him.
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“OK, so you said that the doctor did it, right?” Lestrade sighed. Why was he dealing with an 8-year-old mystery? This was most certainly not his department.
“No. John did. I’m telling you that there’s no possible way that the doctor wrote fake prescriptions or switched out the medications. The culprit was the pharmacist. He was the sister’s new boyfriend and wanted revenge against the man who’d gotten her pregnant. The doctor wasn’t very good at her job, which can be seen in the fact that she no longer holds a license, but the pharmacist is, and he knew that her recommendations for medications was wrong, but he decided to make it even worse by upping the dosages. He’s your murderer.”
“Fine, fine.” Lestrade nodded while writing as much of it as he could down, “are you going to correct John?”
“No.”
“But you love telling people that they’re wrong.”
“True, but…” Sherlock actually blushed.
“Could it be that you love him more?”
“Apparently.”
“Never thought I’d see the day.”
“It’s a week for oddities, I can assure you.”