casebook | (no subject)

Hi, Sherlock!
Been thinking about you, and I'd love to get together!
Got this really weird job offer, and since I've been following your friend's blog, I thought you might like to hear about it!
If you're not busy Friday, let's get lunch!!
Love,
Vi

Sherlock contemplated the email.

Under any other circumstances, he would have ignored it immediately. Violet Hunter was prone to exaggeration, and that was being kind. She also had far too much of a penchant for smiling and optimism, to the point of being an irritant. Still, she had gotten him through a very, very dull university literature course for which attendance was mandatory and he could not manage to test out of, bribing him with free coffee after every class he attended. Her promise of something to interest him offered some slight appeal. At the very least, it might pacify John. He wanted to see Sherlock take more cases, so he might as well sit down with Violet and hear her out.

Besides, it might be a welcome break. Even the prospect of something to vaguely interest him for even an hour would be better than the appeals of strangers about their mundane little problems. Affairs they desperately did not want confirmed, "stolen" credit cards their son or daughter had charged that they did not want to pay for, business partners hiding assets in preparation for a severance: all terribly, painfully dull. The answers were all too obvious. Even Lestrade had failed to turn anything up of interest. Sherlock was, of course, always concerned with Jim Moriarty, but the consulting detective knew he had to be patient to unravel the web his spider had made.

"John," Sherlock called. "We're going to lunch on Friday. A," 'friend' was not a word the man used lightly, "woman I went to university with is coming up to see us." That she might really only intend to see him did not even begin to occur to him. "She saw your blog and seems to think she has something to interest us."

He paused. Knowing Violet, she has already made reservations at a restaurant. He would still have a suggestion or two for where they could eat. Or, rather.

"Good places for lunch. What are some?"

Threaded | Flat

John wanted Sherlock to take more cases for several reasons. First, they were always interesting; exhilarating, if often macabre. John enjoyed them, of course, almost enough to forsake his responsibility to be an active contributor to his community (although not quite - he needed the money and there was the issue of conscience, self-worth, his pull on women, other concepts Sherlock chose not to grasp, etc etc). At this point as well, he did have a sort of... readership to entertain. The thought of having anyone perusing any of his opinions of their own volition was strangely satisfying, despite the fact that that John knew, of course, that most of the attention was due to the scintillating work of Sherlock (who deserved the publicity, no matter what he said). The commenters were ever hungry for more information, almost as implacable as Sherlock's own will to solve singular cases.

And finally, most importantly, Sherlock was an absolute terror when he was bored. John was in the kitchen now, actually, washing dishes and eying the collection of insidious implements in the nearby tray. The sooner the detective got back on a case, the better, because they were at the point where the flat actually didn't smell so much like smoke anymore and John was considering the potential consequences of confiscating the stash he knew the man hid.

When his name was called, John didn't respond right off, knowing that the other man's habit was to continue talking whether or not he was actually present. He blinked, however, at the proceeding statement, echoed it in his mind, and leaned back just enough to peer out of the kitchen to where Sherlock was in the living room. John didn't know what he was expecting to see there, but... a woman? A schoolmate? John was curious. The last person they'd met from Sherlock's university days had been Sebastian the Banker, hadn't it? And, well, from the way Sebastian was speaking, it didn't seem like there had been much beyond him in the way of friends.

"A good place or a good place?" John inquired, then remembered this was Sherlock he was speaking to and-- "Well, we happen to live next to a cafe. It's alright. That Indian place we get carry-out from serves lunch; that's just a couple blocks down. There's a few Italian places..."

And here it was, the polite yet oh-so obvious indication of his curiosity.

"So you took classes together, then?"