Cold Day in London
watsonofagun:
John nearly dropped the phone.
Only held it in place because the voice was far from the singsong tone he was more familiar with, not to mention the reminder of a much larger coat that surely didn’t fit on who he was thinking. But how many Moriartys did he really know? How many Moriartys were there? He hadn’t thought of checking the phone book, now that he thought about it.
As if he could find the consulting criminal’s whereabouts via the phone book. But this was beside the point. This couldn’t be that Moriarty.
“Er, hello, I, er—”
He glanced to Sherlock. The detective wasn’t paying him any attention, and John almost wished he did. He pressed his lips together. Let’s just play dumb for now.
“Sorry, I got this number—–by accident, maybe. It was inside a coat that I got today, somewhere near St. John’s Wood?”
God, his heart needed to quiet down. He wasn’t that good at hiding real nerves.
People tend to be nervous when they make a phone call, especially to a stranger, and he was well aware that a decent look had been taken of himself - he was hardly short and harmless-looking. No, he carried himself too proudly and his shoulders were too broad to cast an image of pure innocence.
“Ah, yes. The shivering fellow.”
He gave a soft laugh, though his amusement came more from the fact that this stranger was a little more nervous than he had expected. His name had garnered plenty of traction in the media, if not for his own doing, but that of an imposter. Quiet was allowed for another moment, primarily for John’s benefit so that he could control himself.
“I hope you did not mind the imposition, but you seemed a bit chilled. I left my number so that you may return the coat once you have acquired decent winter coverings of your own. Do you need assistance with such a task, sir...?”
