Rules on the Fridge [A BBC Sherlock Holmes Fanfiction] (Completed)

TRIGGER WARNING: Scenes with minor detail of self harm in the italic section.

--------

♪ The Trouble is, You Think You Have Time ♪

John awoke the next morning with a happy feeling – he wasn't sure why, but he did. Sherlock knew why, though. Sherlock'd been up most of the night playing that song again – he found that the slower and softer he played it the happier John was in his sleep.

Sherlock, however, was in a foul mood. He had read over the rules on the fridge – every time he did so he got disgruntled. He did try to follow them a little bit for John's ease of mind, but he hated them. John sat in his chair, his hair still stringy and damp from having freshened up, and opened the newspaper that was nicely placed on the table beside him.

"Anything new?" John asked, not bothering to glance at Sherlock.

"Painfully. Lestrade called – Jordan was found in the same state of his friend this morning after having received a panicked call from him – he said he had a very upset stomach and he knew it wasn't from something he'd eaten. He had the puncture wounds all over him as well – a much less irritated one on his stomach. Hardly noticeable if you weren't looking for it."

"Did you go take a look this morning?" John asked, raising an eyebrow at him over the newspaper.

"No, not worth it. I just had Lestrade give me the details. I need to be here. Something else is stirring – something strange."

"What?" John questioned, but got no answer as Sherlock promptly got up and left the room. John was then left to sit in his confused silence. He continued reading the paper; eyes wandering down to a headline; "Rapid Serial Murdering". John put down the paper and ran towards the window to see Sherlock getting into a taxi. Wonderful – now he was left to look up the details, as he was sure Sherlock would've asked him to if he wasn't in such a hurry.

♫ ♫ ♫

Sherlock returned two hours later with his eye considerably more swollen once more – the bruising had gone down, but the swelling had returned. John just stared at him, then got up to get some frozen peas. He handed them to Sherlock, who was busy looking through a microscope and wouldn't take them. John rolled his eyes, holding the frozen peas to Sherlock's swollen face.

"Aren't you going to tell me about what you saw? I looked it up – three more men were killed. But this time not with that acid stuff – so different guy, right? Must've been. No one would be that rash – to just kill more people without using the same tactic – especially if it's for testing."

"They were each missing various organs – liver, left lung, appendix, and shockingly the frontal lobe. None of which were damaged by the acid." Sherlock said. John now took the time to look at what was in the Petri dish under the microscope – it was a lump of some kind of flesh it seemed.

"So... different guy with an organ fetish then?" John jokingly concluded, making Sherlock hum his amusement.

"Quite the contrary, John. Same man, taking the organs that were unaffected to see how he could affect them with the acid – and then how to maneuver the acid to those areas for a more confusing, less pinpointed murder."

"Why doesn't he just inject oxygen between the big toe and the second toe? Disguise it as a heart attack?" John asks, not understanding why someone would go to these lengths.

"Same reason he went to three different people for the organs instead of taking them all from one. This is a serial killer. They were large organs we'd notice went missing, so why get them from three different people? No reason really, the killer just wants excitement."