docwithablog | storyline one.

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When -- it's premeditated assault?

[ Now that he thinks about it, it's peculiar the paper would even touch down on a brawl with no arrests, what, nothing of greater importance takes place in Liverpool? It's a big city. You can't make him believe that, except they almost did and joke's on him, presumably. Good thing he managed to remember the article in due time -- and good thing Sherlock's so damn clever.

Frowning, John watches as Overstowe is most definitely quickening the pace up front and if she hasn't clocked them at this point, she's a very speed-enthusiastic old lady which fits with exactly nothing else they've discovered about her so far. Sherlock seems to have picked up on it as well, obviously, what did you expect, and turns down a parallel road all but inching down towards the crossroads where they're supposedly going to intercept her again. Sherlock catches on to her once more as she makes a left before spotting them, her taillights showing the way.

Really, John's mystery novel is cheap in every conceivable definition of the word compared to this, shit. Staunton got attacked which may have led to his sudden disappearance and Sherlock's pretty much going full-out MI6 on their escaping witness. Beats anything you can think up for kicks. ]

[ He smiles. John always catches up, doesn't he, sooner rather than later. The same, however, can't be said for them in terms of this stupid little car chase. Overstowe turns left, turns right, disappears and - did she park the car somewhere? Yes, in someone else's drive, really! He goes past, doesn't pause, doesn't look, simply aims for a left turn further up the road. Most likely, she'll turn back the way she came. He runs through the route they've driven so far and tries to figure out when exactly she began derailing.

With how fast she's caught on to them, she definitely isn't all that surprised at being followed. Goes well with all that paranoid body language.

He drives around the blocks of houses, keeping an eye out for the back of her car. At this point, though, he's mostly curious as to whether she'll want to keep pursuing her original destination (implying that she's quite desperate to get there, regardless of circumstance) or turn back home (implying that she's got different priorities). Moments later, her car re-appears as she crosses the street, driving up a small sidestreet. A blind end, he realises, and follows along, just to see what she'll do. At this point, he'll take whatever data she'll inadvertently give away.

Or well, he would it if weren't - oh God! As the BMW rolls along the street, a front door bursts open a few houses up and an old lady - similarly tiny but angry-looking - comes rushing at them from inside with a rolling pin clutched in one hand, held over her head like a sword of ancient times and he stares for half a second before reversing, quickly, noting the parked Fiat Panda right next to the kerb. She called in a friend? A friend who's now... chasing them down the street... with a... ]

[ When Sherlock smiles, there's a smaller one tugging at the corner of John's mouth as well, seeing as he's feeling rather stupidly pleased that he's only a two-figured number of steps behind the other man now rather than, say, a hundred. Talk about making leeway. Watching the small side street shrouded in darkness and cones of streetlight, with its not quite picturesque houses passing by at an amenable pace, he looks out the window, Overstowe's Fiat Panda parked near the kerb and he has exactly five seconds to register the way she's clutching her phone in one hand, staring at them, before another old lady bursts through the nearby front door with a -- fucking -- rolling pin swinging over her head. Sherlock freezes for all of two seconds, then he starts reversing, quickly, very quickly and John goes into battle mode automatically too, turning his head and staring out the rear window at whatever takes place behind their vehicle right now. Whatever it might be, it better move, that's all he can really say. ]

Yeah, just go, go, go, coast's clear, no one's -- [ The woman's pretty fast for an elderly person, John can't remember having ever seen anyone over the age of 60 make such swift work about anything, but then again, they've survived the Blitz, you just can't faze them with anything, can you. They're moving up to the crossroads behind them and a young bloke's crossing the street without paying attention, noticing them too late and all but jumping for his life, John muttering a sorry underneath his breath before they turn out onto the main road. ] -- no one's there, I think we lost her.

[ Damn it - more well-connected than he'd thought and more resourceful, too. Backing up quickly, gaze firmly on the rearview mirror now (the alternative - watching the charging Fury wielding a potential murder weapon - is a lot less enticing), he hits the breaks only as they burst out onto the main road. From there, he turns left and sets off, away, trying to maintain a sensible pace.

For a long moment, he doesn't speak.

A miscalculation. That's all this is, just - it would have been fine if she hadn't been so ridiculously suspicious of them. Teeth grinding audibly, he breaks hard for a red light, stares straight ahead and snaps: ]

Whatever you're currently thinking, stop it.

[ Because naturally, the other man must be thinking something and no matter what it is, Sherlock doesn't want to hear it, he doesn't even want to imagine it. Hands clutching the wheel, he keeps his eyes on the road, thinking about all the time they've just wasted on nothing, on gaining data on her, yes, but that's useless in itself. He can see why Staunton would choose her for his confidante, yes, so what, then, he's not a complete and total idiot? He's still missing, though. The case, unsolved.

Some of this comes out as angry mutterings as the light turns green and he speeds up again. ]

[ They continue down the main road mostly as if nothing's happened, John's palms feeling sweaty and his heart rate only slowly returning to something resembling normal (110 bpm, 100 bpm, 90 bpm) while Sherlock is audibly grinding his teeth and looking one wrong word from losing it. Observing him out the corner of his eye, quietly, John wonders what the hell went wrong -- didn't the other man anticipate that Overstowe would have any network to draw upon, come on, she's an old lady, living alone, they don't have anything else. Look at Mrs Hudson! Earlier in the day it was the neighbour, now, apparently, came the time for the rolling pin monstrosity which has its own kind of humour, if he's honest.

Stop it, snaps Sherlock, breaking hard for a red light and making John slam forward in his seatbelt. John, in turn, raises both eyebrows slightly, pursing his lips and inclining his head just a tad argumentatively to the side. ]

I'm not thinking anything.

[ A big fat lie, sounding exactly as big and fat as it is, but what can you do. He's not going to fault the man for one little slip, that would be pretty hypocritical of him. Sherlock's got amazing skill in this regard, but all great talents come with a margin for error, they quite simply got to. He knows it from his own work, too. If he had to stop operating on people every time a surgery went wrong -- well, shit, he'd have to retire many times over from the Army before his time actually came, yeah.

Leaving Sherlock to mutter his angry observations all to himself, John proceeds to look out the window, Liverpool gritty and raw in the semi-darkness covering the streets outside. ]

storyline one.

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