Welcome to Baker Street

45. When the smile fades away

The next day

"I can no longer bear this wait!" Sherlock shouts, springing to his feet from his armchair and pacing the empty flat. He stops in front of a wall in the living room, takes aim with his British Army Browning L9A1 and shoots twice at the yellow smiley face painted on the wallpaper.

A few seconds later, he hears frantic footsteps coming from the staircase, and Giulia bursts into the room, her hand wrapped around her phone already calling 999.

"Dear Lord, I've heard gunshots. What happened?" she yells, anguished.

"I was bored," Sherlock laconically replies, hinting at the smiley face.

She frowns at him in confusion, lowers her eyes on the gun that he is still holding, and gapes. Before she could even form a question, he lazily nods at the holes in the wall. She follows his gaze and immediately walks to the wall to inspect his unconventional 'redecoration'. She brushes her fingertips on the mangled wallpaper, dumbstruck.

"So, you chose the wall as your target?"

He shrugs, puts his index in the trigger hole of his weapon, and nonchalantly swings it around in the air.

"999, what's your emergency?" A voice echoes from the phone in Giulia's hand: she forgot to end the call.

She feels like she has just woken up from a dream and quickly apologises, "I'm sorry, everything's alright, apparently."

She hangs up but keeps the phone next to her ear and gives him a challenging look while ironically pronouncing what she wishes she had said, "By the way, I'd like to report a murder."

Sherlock rolls his eyes at her over-dramatic demeanour.

"Why do you even have a gun?" She asks, feeling the need to start somewhere—somewhere rational.

"Recreation. And protection, of course. I have enemies."

"I wonder why," she rebuts sarcastically. "Can I see it?" She stretches out her hand like a demanding kid.

"It isn't a toy."

"You've just called it recreational," she underlines.

"Good point. Here, you can have a look at it." He hands her the gun with the same carelessness as someone passing the salt.

She weighs it in her hands and grips it, roaming theatrically around the living room as if she were in a spy movie.

"My name is Bond, James Bond."

"Hey, 007, tone it down," Sherlock warns; she looks like she slipped into character a bit too enthusiastically.

She turns towards him, grasping the barrel with both hands and pointing it at his chest. He turns pale but tries to maintain a poker face.

"What are you doing? Put – it – down," he commands, slowly raising his hands in the air, and he couldn't really say if he is playing along with her act, or it's just the survival instinct kicking in.

She cocks a brow smugly. "Does it make you nervous?"

"Weapons never scared me," he replies unperturbed, but narrows his eyes, trying to read her. Does she really intend on shooting him point-blank?

"And what about death?"

"Nope," he pops the 'p' with a loud click of his lips, lowering his hands. He won't let her inside his head that easily.

"Wouldn't you be sad to leave this world behind?" She philosophically asks.

"Isn't it the good part of dying?" He jokes, studying her movements. Her muscles are relaxed, which would be highly unlikely for someone on the verge of killing another human being. Unless she was accustomed to it, his mind quickly adds, and that eerie thought makes shivers run down his spine. He forces his brain to remain lucid and analyse the situation. Her finger isn't even on the trigger, but she keeps it placed on the barrel, in a resting position. This shows that she is not about to shoot, not in the next seconds, at least. There is no tension in her shoulders; she is simply holding up the gun as she would do with any other object. There is literally nothing in her attitude that would classify her as a threat. Nothing except the loaded gun she keeps pointing at his chest.