Big Ben Strikes The Eleventh Hour (Wholock)

The Mysterious Melted Man

Over the next few days, Sherlock kept watching the Doctor. To say that he was interested by the strange man would be an understatement. The Doctor was fascinating to him. The Doctor knew about him, of course, so he put on quite the performance. Using the TARDIS as much as possible, walking through locked doors (with is sonic screwdriver, of course), eating fish fingers and custard once every day, then nothing else, not ever sleeping, the list goes on. It was rather fun. It was even more fun when John caught him spying.

"What are you doing?"

"It's for a case."

"Sherlock, get back to the flat."

"But, John-"

"It's midnight!"

"As I've already made clear, I don't need to sleep!"

"Just get back to the flat."

"....fine."

Absolutely hilarious. If he wasn't told otherwise, the Doctor would be sure they were married.  Unfortunately, he couldn't tease them longer. The Doctor had a nagging suspicion that the birds in the photograph were alien, and that they weren't good.

But the odd thing was: there was nothing. No strange deaths, no mysterious disappearing people, no people oddly going mad (unless you count Sherlock, but, according to John, he's always been like that), no nothing! Neither the Ponds nor the Doctor could find anything! And that was very worrying.

Sherlock was watching John Smith again. The man was planning something, no mistaking that, but what? He was so engrossed in his thoughts that when a text came through his phone he almost didn't hear it. When he noticed it though, he sighed, expecting it to be John. But when he opened it, he was mildly surprised to see it was Lestrade.

'We need your help' was all it said, but Sherlock already knew it would be something challenging, as it had not been on the news yet. He grinned and went to fetch John from their flat.

When he got there, John was talking to one of John Smith's friends. Rory Pond was his name.

"So, you go traveling with the Doctor every few months?" John was asking. "No questions asked?"

"Sort of, yeah," Rory replied. "But-"

"John," Sherlock interrupted. John looked up to glare at him.

"What?" he asked impatiently.

"A case," Sherlock answered. "You are coming, right?"

John groaned and looked apologetically at his visitor. "I'll be there in a moment."

"I'll wait outside," Sherlock told him. He left the two to finish their conversation. After a few minutes, John came out of the flat with Rory trailing behind him.

"He wanted to help," John explained. Sherlock frowned. He already knew Rory would be useless.

"How can he help?" he hissed at John.

"I'm, um, a nurse," Rory piped up. "If that, uh, counts for anything."

"Yes, I know," Sherlock snapped, refusing to feel out of his death. "You're also trying to grow your hair out but your wife won't let you, you go traveling every few months and you not very smart. Should I go on, or have I convinced you you're useless."

"Well, I've done this before," Rory said meekly. "Once."

Sherlock narrowed his eye's at him. "Your not surprised that I was able to learn all of that just by looking at you?"

"After the Doctor, I'm not surprised by much," Rory explained, looking wary. Maybe this man would be useful after all.

"Fine, then," Sherlock snapped. John glanced up at him in surprise. "Come along."

He hailed a taxi and they were off to the crime scene.

When they arrived at the crime scene, D.I Lestrade was waiting for them. His expression was troubled, but Sherlock payed no mind to it. He always had that expression on.

As they passed him to look at the body Lestrade muttered "Good luck." Again, Sherlock ignored him. But as they got to the scene they were met with a curious sight. Instead of the usual body with either a gunshot, a stab wound or poison there was a man, but where the face would be there was just mangled space. It wasn't even shredded or anything, it just looked like someone put it through Photoshop. Sherlock glanced at John and he stepped forward, examining the body. Rory started examining the body as well. Sherlock almost protested, but at the last second remembered that would be something John wouldn't appreciate. So he let the obvious buffoon examine the body with John.

"He's real," John told Sherlock after a few moments. Rory nodded. Sherlock waited.

"Anything else?" he asked when neither John nor Rory said anything. John shook his head. Rory shrugged.

"Well, he's dead," John stated. "But he seems to be in perfect health, despite the face."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Keep looking," he snapped. Then he left to look around the lawn. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lestrade coming over. Sherlock mentally sighed.

"Who's that?" Lestrade asked, nodding to Rory.

"No one important," Sherlock replied, trying to get away from Lestrade. But Lestrade pursued him.

"These are serious, Sherlock!" Lestrade yelled at him. "I can't just let you do whatever you want!"

Lestrade kept shouting at him, but Sherlock had already been ready to block him out. He kept ignoring Lestrade, and eventually Lestrade got the message. Shocking that he ever figured it out, given past experiences.

Unfortunately, Sherlock wasn't able to find any good clues. The man was apparently smart, as seen by his teaching degree, and he had a wife that had died two months ago. He also had very little friends. To be precise, he had three friends. Not exactly much to go on. Frustrated, he decided to check on John again. However, as he was making his way over to the body, he heard John yell in surprise.

"John!" Sherlock cried in panic. He ran the rest of the way to the body. But when he got there, John seemed perfectly alright. The body, though, seemed to have completely melted. All that was left of it was a puddle of red, glue-like goop.

"John, what happened?" Sherlock asked. "What happened to the body? Why were you yelling?"

John didn't answer him at first and Sherlock was almost ready to ask him again when John finally said something.

"Me and Rory were going to lift his head up to check to back of his head," John answered, looking shaken. "Then he.... melted."

Sherlock looked over the body again. John appeared to be telling the truth. The whole situation was unnatural and confusing. Sherlock grinned to himself. The game was on.