southwark.

[docwithablog]

Title: Southwark
Canon Point: Post-TBB, pre-TGG. PSL canon.
___________

Southwark has never been the best part of town. Well past midnight with police cars hurling down the nearby main street, standing in some back alley full of containers and rubbish, it’s definitely not very nice at all.

John looks at Danny who’s watching him right back with his beady, little eyes, obviously calculating how easiest to extort more money out of him than the 1200 grand John’s just given him, in exchange for a guarantee that neither him, nor any of his boys will sell anything whatsoever to Sherlock Holmes the next six months. More deals to be made after that, of course, of one kind or the other.

“1200 don’t cover it at all. Try with 2000,” Danny says. He’s hardly more than a kid, at least a decade and a half younger than John is and decked in a hoodie and trousers that show most of his arse crack, because apparently there’s a parallel universe where that’s fashionable.

“Sorry, 1200’s the only offer I’ve got,” John replies, resting his hands on his hips, feet apart, at ease, at ease, soldier. He can’t bloody believe that Sherlock’s made him do this. That Mycroft has, he’s the government, doesn’t he have access to the whole MI6 or something, Christ.

“Well, then,” says Danny and steps forward, far into John’s personal sphere. The kid’s, like, twice his height and towers over him like a particularly Hugo Boss-drenched maypole. John tilts his head back, eyebrows going up, unimpressed. “I guess until you pay up, we’re just gonna continue helping Mr Holmes whenever he’s got a pesky craving, right?”

“Trust me, you won’t,” John tells him, voice neutral, tone dangerously level.

“What, you gonna stop me?” Danny scoffs, turns around.

John reaches inside his coat, pulling out his gun and aiming it at the back of Danny’s greasy head. “I can shoot you at a distance of 100 yards, so don’t get too comfortable, Danny.”

The kid comes to a halt, turns his head and stares at John’s gun, his hands steady, steady, steady. The last tremor he had was months ago. It’s been quiet after that, well, as quiet as anything ever gets when you live at Baker Street with the world’s only consulting detective who also happens to be a cock. As well as having one.

Not that he’s going to think about that right now, come on. Focus.

He inclines his head to one side, jaw clenching, eyes narrowing slightly. Danny’s the last one in the long line of dealers he’s had very similar conversations with to this. Those are his last 1200 pounds, there’s just nothing else left. Besides a bullet to the brain, supposedly, if you think that’s to prefer.

“Okay, okay, geez.” Danny holds up his hands, shaking the one holding the envelope of cash a little. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, old man. We won’t sell him anything, all right.”

John keeps still for another couple of seconds, then he lowers his weapon slowly, letting it hang by his side, finger still hovering over the trigger. “Lovely chat, this, wasn’t it,” he asks, wholly rhetorically, waiting for Danny to scurry.

He does, disappearing into the shadows so effortlessly that you’d think Southwark was nothing but ghosts and gun incidents.