CHAPTER FIVE
°⋆∴☽°:۵≼

i. craft glue and stitches !

— DANIEL EVANS HAD NEVER BEEN TO A CRIME SCENE. Which, when he thought about it, was probably a very good thing.

They trio of men stepped out of the taxi. Directly in front of them, lights of red and blue flashed against their faces and lit the world around them.

John dealt with the taxi while Danny became adjusted to the brightness and noise, the disorientation hitting him so hard he didn't even notice when Sherlock wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him towards the lights, John picking up the pace and joining them.

"Did I get anything wrong?" Sherlock spoke over Danny's head to reach John's ears.

"Harry and me don't get on, never have." John confirmed. "Clara and Harry split up three months ago and they're getting a divorce, and Harry is a drinker." He continued.

Sherlock looked mildly surprised, "Spot on, then. I didn't expect to be right about everything."

John interrupted him, "Harry's short for Harriet."

Danny was somewhat curious to see how Sherlock would react to the mention of a gay couple and was pleased when Sherlock didn't seem at all that phased.

"Harry's your sister." He said, in disappointed fashion.

"Look, what exactly am I supposed to be doing here-"

"Sister!" Sherlock exclaimed.

"No, seriously, what am I doing here-"

"There's always something." Sherlock said, before looking at Danny, somehow not noticing that his arm was still over the man's shoulders.

The lights weren't as bright to Danny now, and he could see properly and walk properly by himself- but Sherlock was warm so he didn't say anything.

"What about you, Danny, did I get anything wrong with you?" Sherlock asked.

"Yeah." Danny said, finally shrugging away from Sherlock's warm presence. "That friend in America isn't going to die." He stated stubbornly.

He wasn't mad at Sherlock- in any way- he was more mad that his statement was true. He just didn't want to believe it.

"Hello, freak!" A woman's voice caught his ears, and Danny looked up to see the source standing at the bright yellow police tape.

Danny quickly realized she was talking about Sherlock.

Daniel Evans had been living in a room with some of the best people he had ever met- and some people had the audacity to also call them freaks. He even knew first hand what it felt like- and wouldn't stand for Sherlock to be treated the same way.

"Hello." Danny muttered under his breath in a rather passive aggressive manner after he glanced behind her at the entrance to the building.

Danny was, for the most part, a pacifist, but freak is a word he didn't take lightly from anyone.

"I'm here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade." Sherlock announces.

"Why?" She asked.

"I was invited."

"Why?" The woman stressed.

"Do you want a list of reasons- or will one excuse be enough to let us in?" Daniel spoke quietly, deadpanning and looking at the woman.

She sneered at him.

"I think he wants me to take a look." Sherlock stated sarcastically, only sparing a fond glance for Danny's retort.

"Well, you know what I think, don't you?" She said.

"Always, Sally." Sherlock spat, ducking under the police tape. "I even know you didn't make it home last night."

Danny whistled for effect, also sliding under the bright yellow line as Sherlock held it up for him, John going to follow.

"I don't... who are these?" She spoke up again, trying to stop the other two men from entering.

"Colleagues of mine, Daniel Evans and Dr. Watson." Sherlock introduces. "Men, Sergeant Sally Donovan." He finished.

"A colleague?" Sally looked him up and down. "And how do you get a colleague? What, did he follow the two of you home?" She mocked.

"I'm more a friend than a colleague." Danny stated coldly, defending Sherlock against this seemingly nasty woman. "Y'know, I actually want to be around him. You, however, make for a particularly unpleasant conversation."

Sally rolled her eyes, bringing her lips to her walkie talkie, "Freak's here. Bringing him in."

Danny similarly rolled his eyes the way she did, and followed after Sherlock as he observed the crime scene.

"Ah, Anderson. Here we are again." Danny's eyesight shot up to Sherlock as his voice cut through the slowly developing silence.

"It's a crime scene. I don't want it contaminated. Are we clear on that?" 'Anderson' spoke, his voice a pitched, annoying nasally sound.

"Quite clear." The genius agreed stoically, "And is your wife away for long?"

"Oh don't pretend you worked that out. Somebody told you that."

"Your deodorant." Danny said, surprising himself.

"What about my deodorant?" Anderson looked slightly curious.

"It's for men!" Sherlock stepped in.

Anderson looked offended, "Well of course it's for men, I'm wearing it!"

"So's Sergeant Donovan." Daniel looked around Sherlock to nod at the woman, who stood closer to the door they were supposed to have entered two minutes ago.

"Oh- I think it just vaporized, may we go in?" Sherlock added, silently praising Danny now that he finally had someone with half a brain to team up against the worst that law enforcement had to offer.

Anderson adjusted his stance almost instantly, becoming defensive, "Now- Whatever you're trying to imply-"

"We're not implying anything." Sherlock mocked, "I'm sure Sally came around for a nice little chat and just happened to stay over." He said, moving forward towards the door, dragging Danny behind him. "And I assume she scrubbed your floors, going by the state of her knees."

"Oh boy." Danny muttered, blowing hot air out of his mouth in surprise before Sherlock again, tugged him inside.

The grey haired Inspector was there again, with a furrowed brow as he saw John enter.

"You'll need to wear one of these." Sherlock gestured vaguely to the table, which mildly confused Danny until he saw what sat on top of the table itself. Quite simply, they had to wear items that made them look like a Smurf because they didn't want to risk 'contamination' as Anderson said.

Danny could barely feel himself move- the bright lights that had been set up in the building, the odd material he wore, he couldn't focus on the voices that carried right in front of him, as he watched the group walk ahead.

But when they got up to the room, one thing was undeniably certain.

The dead, today, wore pink.

The bright, bubblegum shade was pain to Danny's eyes, nearly giving him a headache. Pastel pinks, sure they were calm and nice, but anything darker or lighter was sure to give his brain a hard time.

He could practically hear Tony's voice in his head, praising the colour because it was the colour of breast cancer campaigns, friendship and affection and anti bullying ads.

He could also hear Liv Marigold, calling him an old man for getting a headache from looking at the colour of a woman's clothes.

Either way, Danny decided to tuck himself into a corner and let Sherlock do most of the deducing work, only pitching in with random, surely useless things he noticed every once in a while.

Liv had taught him how to notice certain things, but he was still two spoonfuls of dumbass and never knew how to actually use what he noticed.

Either way, Sherlock observed the body lying face down in the centre of the room with certainty in his eyes.

Danny noticed every flinch of his face, and squint of his eye as he did so. It was odd to see him so in his element- so at ease with his work, calm and calculated. But there was a certain air of chaos in his step, each time he moved felt like he was running, every time he flipped his coat felt like he was sending a hurricane in every direction

He was so beautifully disordered, in the way that he was dangerous but entrancing to watch.

Danny felt himself relax his shoulders, and let out a breath. Perhaps it was the passion he saw in Sherlock that made him slacken, but watching the curious man was a pleasant past time, Danny found almost instantly.

"-Intended to stay one night only, judging by the size of her suitcase." Danny tuned back in only slightly, catching wind of the topic and noticing the muddily painted splash marks on the woman's heel- present on one but not the other. Suitcase wasn't such a difficult leap, Danny supposed.

Sherlock acted like it was a great discovery- which it very well could have been, but Danny hadn't been following along so he wasn't entirely sure- he began searching the building left and right, ducking under doorways yelling 'Suitcase? Has anyone found a suitcase, was there a suitcase in this house?'

Danny looked back at the woman. It seemed so odd to him, before he was part of the military, sure he had to see thing like this everyday.

But after experiencing war, he stood there over the pink woman and wondered just how someone could do something like this. Are they not thankful that they live free? Has there not been enough violence in the world to last our lifetime.

It was bitter memories and sour thoughts, but Danny couldn't help himself.

He was in a mood. Murder would tend to do that to a person.

But he followed after John, who stood at the top of the steps and looked down on the genius madman bustling about, yelling about the suitcase.

Danny glanced at the woman again, thinking about her appearance and, apparently, the suitcase she would have been carrying.

"Sherlock." He called out, down the stairs, sending a quick glance to John who nodded for him to continue down the stairs. Once Danny was a few steps above Sherlock, he spoke again. "Pink."

Sherlock looked up from the stairs with wide eyes and a proud smirk, "Pink." He agreed. "Oh, serial killers are always tricky, got to wait for them to mess up." The man ranted.

"We can't just wait!" The Inspector yelled from the top of the stairs.

"No- we're done waiting, can't you see?" Sherlock muttered wildly, grabbing Danny's arm and tugging him along again.

"This is getting really old really fast." Danny chuckled, looking down at Sherlock's grip on his sleeve, but letting the man drag him around like a rag doll.

Sherlock let go of him instantly, as if the words had physically scalded him. Like he was a puppy who'd been kicked.

Danny hesitated, as he noticed the way Sherlock so casually withdrew from him. He was a broken boy, his passion was an obsession because people never encouraged his inquisitive nature and instead bigoted him for it.

Danny realized very quickly that this man needed him just as much as John did.

Thats what Danny was good at. The one thing he always tried to do. Fix people.

He just wondered how much craft glue and stitches it would take for Sherlock to be fixed as well.

author's note

uhhh short by a bit but I'm in class right now

I'm really sorry if I screwed up anything, I had to do all this by memory

On another note: I've been talking about this a lot on my board but my consulting authors and i have made a discord server for writing help and creative sharing,, basically to get feedback from other people, you can ask questions about sentence structure, share graphics and trailers to get opinions

It's just meant to be a safe, inclusive, constructive community for creators on wattpad

Soooo join us if you're interested? ♥️

https://discord.gg/Ej6YfWS