The Hound of Baker Street
Part 1/? from ryahlii on achive of our own
John Watson got a therapy dog for Sherlock. In secret.
A secret fucking therapy dog.
Standing in front of the apartment’s chipping door, John is clenching the leash and a shiny plastic bag trailing a crinkly reciept, his fingers slick with sweat and his heart beating fast, too fast. It’s like a little hummingbird trapped in the cage of his ribs and as he winds the ridged fabric around and around his palm, he hesitates. Doubt is like a spider creeping up the nape of his neck and his thoughts are suddening a thousand tiny bugs buzzing pinging inside his skull.
What if he doesn’t like dogs? Why didn’t he ask? Oh god, he should’ve asked!
You’ve reached a new kind of idiocy, John. A bloody new kind of stupid.
Because this— This was stupid. He crosses his arms over his body in a sort of self-hug, feeling the contents of the bag knock together in a little chime of discomfort. Goddammit, it's too late to go back now. And looking at the floppy brown dog standing next to him, he's not even sure he wants to.
Open the door for Christ sakes. Explain yourself!
John pushes the door, watching as it swings open to reveal the room, empty save for the remnants of some sort experiment that had been left to stew in the compacted kitchen. The smell wafts over like some sort of unwelcome moth, and he groans, running a hand through his hair.
Sherlock’s not even there.
The dog looks at him, tail wagging hopefully and he pats the top of its fuzzy head, trying to calm his exasperation. Of course, he’s not here. Why did he think he’d even be here? Now he had to wait there for who-knows-how-long, with the horrible anticipation festering in his gut as Sherlock pranced around in who-knows-where, doing who-knows-what. Maybe that's a little unfair, but John isn't really feeling fair anyway.
“Mrs. Hudson?”, He calls down the stairs.
There’s a beat and he had just begun to suspect that she wasn’t home either but then a delicate tinkle sounds from the kitchen. Startled, his heart jumps into his throat and he rushes in, the dog padding alongside him. In the messy room, he finds Mrs. Hudson standing over a broken teacup, dismay painted over her face, her hand poised in astonishment. She takes several steps, backing into the overwhelmed cupboards before meeting John’s eyes. She smiles, looking sheepish.
“What…” He looks at her, nonplussed. “What are you doing in our kitchen?”
“Ah well, Sherlock just left. You know how he is, always dashing about! But he was in a bit of a state—” , She ignores John’s expression and rambles on. “So I decided to just pop on in and have a look, see if he was back up on his habits, you know.”
“Christ. Did you find anything?”
“Couple of needles, but it wasn’t much. I reckon he just got bored again. I was going to fix him a cuppa, for when he gets back but…” She trails off and looks at the porcelain shards scattered on the floor. A severed finger is just visible, peeking out from the white powder. “There was already something in it.”
John frowns, worry creasing his brow. He wanted to go out to find Sherlock and make sure he was alright. Despite the lack of drugs in the kitchen, there were sure to be more stashed away in the crevices of the apartment. Once he had found a syringe, already fitted with its sharp counterpart, tucked away in the folds of the couch. He had nearly sat on it.
However, a small sense of reason tugged on his sleeve. If Sherlock was, in fact, far gone to the junky limbo of morphine or cocaine, Mycroft would have been sure to tell him, already immersed by shiny screens and fingers tap-tap-tapping at keys. Sherlock had been getting better, too. Slowly, painstakingly, and littered manic highs and lows, he had actually begun to try.
Sighing John ran a tired hand over his eyes. He gestured meekly towards the shattered pieces and sighs. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean it up.”
John jams his hand into his pocket so fast that a thread pops loose, hooking under his nail. Shaking it free, he opens the message, hoping for news about Sherlock. The message fills his screen but brings forth nothing but disappointment in the tense room.
Hospital.
Emergency, come now.
“Oh no, no, no. Bugger off will you?”, John yanks his coat off a chair, mumbling. “I am so so sorry, Mrs. Hudson. Can you watch the dog till I get back?”
He hardly notices as she twitches slightly, giving a stiff nod that seemed to tell the opposite of what a nod should, instead hiding the fact that she would much rather leave the dog to its own doings, in the upstairs flat. John thrusts the leash into her hands and hastens for the door, apologetically. Nodding at the dirty finger of which the dog was looking a little too keen on, he shudders. “You don’t have to clean that. Just keep the dog away from it.”
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