Chapter Text
Sherlock definitely took advantage of Joan’s issues with physical aggression.
He could wind her up and point her at a problem and as long as he’d done all his calculations right, she would take care of that problem for him quickly and with brutal efficiency. She rarely needed her gun, although she did bring it along just in case she needed something heavy and solid to his someone with. She’d spent a lot of time, with and without Sherlock, getting used to taking assailants down fast and hard, and she’d become very good at beating people bloody while still being able to claim self-defense.
The three years Sherlock had been dead had been especially full of that last one.
Today, though, while they had planned on thumping quite a few people in the face, Sherlock had miscalculated. They’d both ended up getting the shit beat out of them instead until the police finally showed up, and only then because Joan had seen it coming and had texted Greg before everything went south. They finished the night sitting in the back of an ambulance, listening to him bawl them out and trying not to giggle through swollen, bloody noses and split lips.
A medic tried to give them both orange blankets. They sniggered. “Don’t bother,” Greg barked, “they’re not in shock, they’re just bloody stupid.” The girl scurried off, and he turned on them.
“Is getting your arse kicked fun for you?” he asked incredulously, spreading his hands in bewilderment.
“No,” Joan lied.
“Yes,” Sherlock snickered.
Greg shot him a glare that did not one bit of good. “What is it going to take to scare the two of you straight on this?” he bit out, exasperated. “You have both almost died more times than I can count. Not ‘oh hey that was close,’ but actual, serious death.” His voice went pleading. “You need to be more careful.”
Joan made a face. “Sherlock’s died once already,” she muttered, not quietly enough, and set off Sherlock, which set her off, and they were both cackling like loons as Greg scrubbed at his face, exhausted.
“Look.” Greg leaned forward to put a hand over hers, and she looked up, startled. “Do you want to get old, Joan? Because I want you to live long enough to get old. I want this idiot to do it with you.” Sherlock didn’t look at him, and instead stared at the hand touching Joan like he could incinerate it with his mind. Greg sighed and removed it. “You two are not going to if you keep this up.”
“Lestrade,” Sherlock said coldly, “if you think you are better suited to keeping Joan safely tucked away in cotton wool—“
“Sherlock, quit being a jealous berk and shut it,” Greg snapped, clearly giving up, and Joan rolled her eyes at the both of them. “And don’t you roll your eyes at me, Christ, you’re a pair of teenagers. I deal with this shit enough at home, I don’t need you two on top of it.”
Joan tried to look guilty. “Sorry Greg. We’ll be more careful.”
“You,” Greg replied sharply, pointing a finger at her, “are a liar. Quit egging Sherlock on. And you,” he turned to Sherlock, ignoring Joan’s outraged protests, “just because Joan thinks it’s a good idea does not mean it’s a good idea. Use your damn head and consider things just a little bit more before you let her push you in headfirst.”
“You’re blaming me here?” Joan blurted, incredulous.
“You’re blaming Joan?” Sherlock echoed, sounding equal parts thrilled and confused.
“I’ve seen you both without the other,” Greg growled, “and Joan definitely takes the cake for self-destructive behavior.”
“I do not!”
“I was a drug addict,” Sherlock persisted, gleefully horrified.
“And Joan was worse. Have your brother look up her arrest record.” Greg looked like he’d had a headache since he’d first met the two of them. He probably had.
Joan turned to Sherlock. “Don’t you dare ask your brother for anything.”
“What did you do,” he breathed, looking at her delightedly, “no, don’t tell me, let me figure it out. Urban bungee jumping without measuring your ropes?”
Joan scowled. “Now you’re just making fun of me.”
“This isn’t funny,” Greg bellowed, ready to bang their heads together, “Get home, the two of you, and don’t get into any trouble for at least twenty-four hours, please. The city is sick of cleaning your blood off the pavement!”
They snickered, wincing and leaning on each other, until they got far enough away that Greg could pretend he didn’t hear them laughing maniacally up the road. They made out like teenagers in the cab Sherlock miraculously hailed, and didn’t even make it through the front door before their first clothing casualty.
“That shirt was bespoke!” Sherlock sulked, lifting the torn halves to inspect them.
“Don’t pretend you don’t love it when I rip your clothes off,” Joan countered, grabbing it and tossing it behind them. Sherlock stopped complaining quickly, and they went through two condoms before they made it all the way up the stairs (although to be fair the first one wasn’t usable after it was torn along with the packet when Sherlock got overenthusiastic ripping it open with his teeth). The railing on the stairs would have to be screwed back in again, too.
Ha. Screwed.
“Okay. Twenty-four hours,” Joan wheezed ninety minutes later, laid out on their parlor rug. “We can do twenty-four hours without getting in trouble, no problem. We only have twenty two and a half left, anyway.”
***
They lasted fourteen.
Joan had meant to keep Sherlock inside, really, but there were men to be chased through a darkened office building and who could say no to that?
“So your time with Lestrade,” Sherlock whispered over his shoulder, moving quickly and silently down a dim corridor, “You are covered in new scars, so I assumed you’d gotten into several bar fights, but what could you have been doing that was worse than what he’s caught me at?” Sherlock glanced around the corner of a stairwell and dashed up it, taking the stairs two at a time.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Joan told him, bounding after. “Greg shouldn’t have brought it up. Anyway you’re covered in new scars, too.”
“Yes, but you know where all my scars come from. You won’t lick them unless I tell you the full history.” Sherlock was not handling the rifle he’d snagged from the gunman downstairs correctly and was likely to take his own head off. Joan tsked and he ignored her.
“’I got it knife fighting in Dubai’ and ‘rabid vole tooth’ are not full histories, Sherlock.” She snatched the rifle from him and handed him the handgun, which he at least had more experience shooting. “They don’t do anything but alarm me.”
“They cover the essentials.”
“Anyway you know all mine too, you can tell better than I do what caused them and I’m a trained doctor.”
There was a loud report and a bullet hit the guardrail. “This is our floor,” Joan said cheerfully, and Sherlock grinned as he cracked the door and scanned the room. Joan kept her eyes on the stairs and leaned back into him, and his shoulders relaxed against her. She risked a quick look back at him and he was leering.
“It will take the useless waste of air on the stairs at least two minutes to make it to a spot with an actual shot at us.” He purred. “Want to put your hands down my trousers?”
“What is past that door, Sherlock,” Joan laughed, elbowing him. He considered.
“Judging from the footprints on the carpet, three separate people have been here tonight. They’re probably not all here now. Might be, though. Next level?”
Joan bared her teeth. “We can take three,” she decided, taking out her phone. Greg had bullied her into downloading Circle of Six and had hacked one of the options to auto-send “I’m an idiot and about to die, please bring the squad to my location.”
“Much faster than surreptitiously typing out a regular text, Joan, but you’re right next to me, I can see you doing it.”
“They won’t get here fast enough to stop the fun,” Joan countered, tapping it once and tucking her phone away, “stop complaining. Let’s go.”
***
“…Who ever heard of a one hardened criminal wiping his shoes on the mat before breaking in, much less two of them?”
“You didn’t think to look for any corroborating evidence to back up your assumption that there were only three people there?”
Joan woke up to the beep of machines and Greg yelling at Sherlock. She felt muzzy, drugged to the teeth, and would probably hurt a lot when the painkillers wore off. It shouldn’t have been as familiar a scene as it was.
“Did you just shift all your intellect from deduction over to the shagging section of your brain?” Greg continued. “You should probably even them out a bit more, and maybe just a smidgen in the basic self preservation corner.”
“You’ve spoken to Joan about our sexual practices?” Sherlock didn’t sound sure whether to be offended, jealous, or smug.
“No, your whole damn BUILDING has spoken to me about your sexual practices. Your brother has been keeping us from bothering you with noise complaints. Sherlock focus, Joan was shot.”
“It nicked her ear.” Joan could hear the eyeroll in his voice, and she tried not to smile.
“Her ear is attached to her head.”
“Lestrade, let me be clear so you are sure to understand.” Sherlock’s voice went icy. He tended towards strong mood swings around Greg, a symptom of his inability to reconcile his honest regard for the D.I. and his desire to scratch his eyes out for having temerity to sleep with Joan in the past. It was usually highly entertaining to watch. “Your advice is not useful; from what you imply, you had three years to influence Joan’s behavior and not only did you fail, you failed spectacularly. The last time I made decisions for Joan’s safety without her, she threw the majority of our kitchen as close to my head as her moral code would allow and chucked me out after screaming in my face for twenty minutes.”
“Jumping off a hospital and not telling her you were only joking was a little different,” Greg replied, unimpressed.
“Do you honestly think any attempt I make to curb her enthusiasms will end better?”
“I am right. Here,” Joan croaked.
Greg snorted. “And at least you’re stuck right here for a little while and unlikely to sneak off to taunt another smuggler.”
Joan cracked a smile. “They were only exotic bird smugglers. Who worries about getting hurt by a bloke with finches down his pants?”
Greg looked pointedly at her leg.
“Broken legs are kid stuff, I can get that from a tumble down the stairs.”
Greg threw his hands in the air. “Which is what happens when a pack of bird smugglers toss you off a landing.”
Joan turned to Sherlock. “Is that what happened? I must have been unconscious by that point.”
He gave a pained smile. “That is likely for the best, it left you relaxed enough to avoid further injury. They did seem to focus on you for some reason once they had us immobilized.”
Joan shrugged. “Men usually do, once they realize I can hurt them,” she laughed. No one else joined her.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Joan looked stubbornly away and pretended to fall asleep.
After a while, she did.
***
Greg sent out a mass email warning the yard when Joan got her cast off. Apparently it was hilarious. She got text messages from various officers all week.
She was replying scathingly to Sally when Sherlock stood and pulled his coat on.
“Found them?” she asked, getting to her feet. Sherlock pressed his lips together.
“Perhaps you should stay in tonight,” he tried. Joan raised her eyebrows.
“If I do, are you going to go alone?” When he didn’t reply, she got her coat.
***
To say it didn’t go well was a massive understatement.
Joan ended up with her cast back after three days without it, and a few new head wounds to go with, along with a pair of cracked ribs.
Sherlock ended up with worse.
Joan sat parked in a wheelchair, head in her hands. Her hair was still sticky with blood, scalp cold where some of it had been shaved for the stitches. She thought, distantly, that it was lucky she had such short hair to start with, and barely looked up when Greg came in quietly, closing the door behind him. He dropped into the seat next to her and set a bag of clean clothes at her feet.
“If those are yours, Sherlock doesn’t need the apoplexy he’ll get seeing me wearing them when he wakes up,” she joked weakly.
“That’s why I broke into your flat and got some of yours.” Greg leaned back against the chair and spread out to take up as much room as possible.
Joan stared at the floor. Neither spoke.
“You should probably clean up and change,” Greg said finally. “You’re making me nervous.” Joan pulled at her jumper. It stuck to her skin.
“Yeah.” She really should, but she wanted to be ready if Sherlock needed her. “You’re not yelling at me,” she whispered.
“Nope.”
“You were right,” she admitted, staring at the tile.
“Yep.” Greg pointed at the bag. “There are two sets in there for you, so if something happens we can towel you off and toss a set on without worrying about any extra blood or soap. Sherlock won’t want to see you like this.”
She sighed and gathered her things to go wash off what she could. There was only so much she would be able to do in a wheelchair with a plaster cast and, she was suspecting, a psychosomatic limp to go with.
“What’s different about this time?” Greg asked softly. Joan turned; he was sitting forward now, hands clasped at his mouth. “I can tell it is, but… Sherlock’s caught hits before. We’re not worried if he’ll get through this one. We’re not even worried if he’ll get through this one intact.”
She smiled, faintly. “This time when we got there, he said we shouldn’t go. He said we should call you instead. I went in anyway, and he got shot because he was pushing me on the ground.”
“You’ve both done the martyr thing before.” Greg reasoned, “You’re like every stupid action film mashed together on fast forward. And he probably called off because of you, not because he didn’t want to risk himself.”
“Yeah, and it’s a lot of fun to look this kind of shit in the eye and jump,” Joan rubbed her neck. “But we always just jump together. This time I pulled him over with me.” She gave a strained laugh and rubbed her eyes. They stung. She blinked and glanced over at Greg. “It was definitely a bit not good.”
Greg didn’t say anything.
“You didn’t actually break into our flat, did you?” she asked.
“Nah, Mrs. Hudson let me in. But I would have for you, sweetheart.” He grinned and gave an exaggerated leer, standing to take the handles of her wheelchair.
Joan snorted. “Don’t let Sherlock hear you, he would drag himself from his deathbed to punch your teeth in.”
“He does get jealous,” Greg agreed blithely. “It’s lucky I’m not actually in the running. Lets get you as close to human as we can before the twerp gets out of surgery.”