Chapter Text
“Je...sus… Sher- Fuck, slow down!” John carried on jogging lightly whilst clutching at his side, causing Sherlock to crane his head around and shout.
“Come on John! He’s getting away!” With a sad, limp whip of his sodden Belstaff, Sherlock continued on. “Look! Open field! He… Won’t be able… to get...away?” His breathless confidence ended with uncertainty as he broke through the tree line into sparse country side, stopping abruptly. There was no one to be seen, the mystery man seeming to have disappeared without a trace. Or at least a trace that John could see. But he was blind, stupid and uncommonly dense at times for a doctor. Apparently.
Once the duo looked up and around at their surroundings, following several minutes of being bent double and panting, John realised a few things. One, he had absolutely no clue where they were, and doubted Sherlock did either, even though he would probably pretend he knew the longitude and latitude to the decimal. Two, he was absolutely covered in mud, bracken and shit. Cow shit, sheep shit, dog shit, he didn’t know what kind. Just that he smelt. Like shit. And three: he should never have believed that he and Sherlock could have a quiet time at a country pub after the harrowing events at Baskerville. Seriously, what had he been thinking?
They had come to a stop in a quagmire of a field, as the British weather had blessed the country with perpetual rain for two days. The field was large and relatively barren, luckily a nicer field then he had been spending time in recently, what with it being free of landmines and toxic hallucinogenic gas. John might still be a little bit pissed off about that. There was a wooden hut of some sort, and bar a few cows led down beside the hedgerows opposite them there was a fat lot of nothing.
Of course they were led down, It’s raining; John thought dazedly, his mind floating along as he prepared to get in what Sherlock termed: A Right Huff. With Capitals. Not that cows could predict the weather- he had once got a scathing dressing down for even mentioning the old wives tale. John was initially surprised that old wives tales had survived the Great Mind Palace Purge of 2010, but apparently they had a surprisingly large effect in several cases they had worked on. The more you know, huh?
Anyway.
There was a small rickety structure, almost a shepherds hut with no windows 10 metres or so from their spot, and behind them the woods they had trampled through, as well as an old gate that had been luckily unlocked- John did not want to be climbing over any gates right now, thank you very much. His bloody leg was still acting a little dodgy after the lab incident. There was not a soul in sight.
“Where in the hell could he have run to?! We were right behind him!” John, pissed off after their unprompted adventure, threw his hands up, pacing unevenly through the mud. It might have looked more impressive if his shoe didn’t keep getting stuck, and a nearby cow hadn’t sharted throughout his tirade.
“He must have doubled back into the woods some how.” Sherlock gestured with a hand, seemingly waving off the man to be inconsequential. He now had his laser focus on the scenery.
“What about the hut? He could of gone to hide in there!” Sherlock gave his trademark ‘you’re an idiot’ glare.
“Look, John! He would have left footprints in the ground. Not to mention the old rusted slide-bolt is still intact on the door. No, he must have doubled back. With the rain and darkness of the trees it would be easy to miss him. Well, I wouldn’t have missed him, but you stupidly felt the need to block my line of-”
“Not one more bloody word or I will punch you. I can’t believe I thought that we would be able to have a mini holiday and for once -JUST ONCE-not have to end up chasing some- some- knob-head! I still don’t know who the bloody hell we are chasing! I didn’t even get a look at the guy! All because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut whilst I went to the loo. For two minutes I leave you. Serves you right, getting your wallet nicked.” John had now stopped his unsuccessful pacing and was glaring at Sherlock with pointed finger.
“Oh come on, John! you know you love chasing people, don’t be petty and pretend you don’t. I owed you a good chase after... you know. Besides, it’s not my fault his funny little caveman brain took offense. I merely pointed out that his wife was shagging his- well, he’s gone now, we’ll have to do some more legwork at a future date. Or, better, pass it to Mycroft! You know how he detests legwork.” Either not caring that the wild landscape would not have any kind of surveillance or believing so fully in Mycroft’s all seeing eye (John was unsure which), Sherlock, with a gleeful grin at the thought of annoying his brother, turned to look at John.
He did not look nearly so happy.
“I swear to god Sherlock, you don’t even seem to bloody care about your wallet. How much cash were you carrying you posh twat?! You’ll have to cancel all your cards. But wait! The great Sherlock Holmes doesn’t need to worry about frivolous things such as these! Why, he can have his live in PA sort it out!”
Sherlock opened his mouth and John knew, just knew the detective was about to send him off the deep end.
“Trust me John, if I had a live in PA he would be a lot better at his job then you are.” Sherlock widened his eyes faux innocently at him.
“Right. Right. That’s enough.”