Notes and Spoiler Warning: This story is set in season 7 of Supernatural, just after to episode 7:15, Repo-Man, and in the theoretical season 3 of Sherlock, which at this time has not yet aired. Rated T for violence and language.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I don't make any money off of this.

The Roman Inquisition

My Marz1

Chapter 1

Catching Sam Winchester should have been a challenge. According to police records and video surveillance, his quarry was in near perfect physical condition, intellectually brilliant and highly trained in combat and espionage. The reports said he was also hansom, charming, amoral, and unpredictably violent. The consultant knew police reports were usually wishful thinking and always biased, but rarely were they this far from the truth.

They did get a few of the basic characteristics right. His target was physically imposing, well over six feet tall with broad shoulders and a thick neck. The consultant could tell Winchester was armed from the bulges under his jacket and the way his fingers unconsciously brushed at various pockets. He did have a strong jaw line, an expressive brow, clear skin, and unusually exact facial symmetry; attractive by the standards of western culture.

His target was in a dank alley having an argument with a compost bin, and based on the half of the conversation he could overhear, losing.

The consultant could not fathom how the Roman Enterprises could be so vexed by so damaged and adversary. Giving up on the bin, Sam Winchester stumbled across the alley, waving his hands before him as if he were blind. The consultant followed along a few steps behind.

When Winchester's flaying arms encountered nothing he took a few shuffling steps forward. He paused to dig his fingers into a scar on the palm of his other hand. Apparently the self injury did not have the desired effect. He went back to feeling his way along until he reached the corner of a building, where he froze.

The consultant froze as well. He did not think he had done anything to give himself away, but Winchester's head was tilted towards him. A few hundred heartbeats later, Winchester's shoulders slumped and his hands went to rub at his swollen red rimmed eyes. The consultant darted forward on soundless feet. His long fingers flipped the cap off the syringe he had prepared. The dripping needle was centimeters from the taller man's neck when Winchester lunged away, lashing backwards with a knife the consultant had not seen him pull.

The consultant stumbled back. The tip of the blade caught his coat, snagging for a moment on the thick wool above his collar bone, but not reaching his skin. Winchester jabbed the blade at his chest, but the consultant side stepped the strike and caught his wrist, pulling Winchester off balance. He jammed the needle into the captured arm, and then hopped away, intending to stay out of reach until the drugs felled the larger man.

Winchester should have dropped within seconds, even if the consultant had injected muscle instead of the vein he'd aimed for. The dosage he had chosen risked sending Winchester into a coma, but the man kept moving, albeit with less coordination, advancing with his knife raised.

"What are you? Who are you?" he asked in a voice that was nearly a sob. "I know you're there. It's you not him, I felt you stab me!"

The knife slashed through the air two feet to the consultant's right. Winchester hissed and flinched away from some unseen thing, moving even farther away from the only real threat in the alley.

The consultant took another syringe form his pocket. This dose was just as strong as the first, a backup in case one was broken in a struggle.

With one hand, Winchester took a mobile phone from his jacket pocket, keeping the knife raised in the other. The consultant did not try to stop him, knowing this would probably work out in his favor. He was close enough to hear the phone ring and gruff male voice say "leave a message". Winchester's body slumped, but he did not lower his knife. He stabbed the air a few more times, perhaps in frustration.

"Dean, I'm sorry. I was going to get coffee and I got lost. Please come get me. I'm not sure where. I can't…I can't…I think someone's here and I can't…please come get me," he begged.

If the consultant were prone to defects like sympathy and pity he might have felt them then. These few minutes of close study showed him Sam Winchester was suffering from severe sleep deprivation. He wondered if it was Fatal Familial Insomnia. That disease affected fewer than 50 families on the entire planet, but it might explain the Winchesters' psychosis. Then again, no one lived for more than three months after symptoms started, and the Winchesters had been on a delusional rampage for at least seven years.

The consultant circled, trying to get around behind his target, but Winchester kept moving. Though apparently unable to see past his hallucinations, his hearing was somewhat intact. It took a few minutes to creep close enough, but he was patient.

This time, the consultant managed jabbed the needle into the taller man's jugular. He avoided the lashing knife entirely. It fell from Winchester's hand and clattered away across the pavement. The disoriented man got down on one knee and felt around for it. A few moments later he toppled over completely, landing on his face. The consultant rolled him over and saw his eyes were open. They seemed focused on him now, though it was too late to do him any good.

The drugs had paralyzed Winchester, but he was still conscious. The consultant was not certain how much information his prisoner was actually taking in, given what should be a lethal dose of sedative, but he knew it could ruin the rest of his plan. He considered just ending Sam Winchester's part in this. He could snap his neck, or just cover the prone man's mouth and nose. It might even be merciful.

The consultant took off his scarf and wound it over his prisoner's eyes and then set about binding his wrists and ankles. He frisked him and found a few more knives, lock picks, and two other phones, which he left in the alley. He also found a motel room key, and recognized the pine tree stamped fob from his research earlier in the day. It was likely Dean Winchester would be in room 14 as well. When his prisoner was secure, he walked the five blocks to his rental car and drove it around to the alley. The hardest part of the night thus far was lifting the 120 kilogram man into the back seat.

When he had caught his breath, the consultant took the phone he had been given from the glove box and dialed the only number in the contacts list.

"Mr. Roman's office, how may I direct your call?" answered a chipper female voice.

"This is Sherlock. Tell Mr. Roman I have the younger one."

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Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective, had initially given himself 12 minutes to make observations, as that was the minimum amount of time it would take for Dean Winchester to drive to and from the alley where Sherlock had left Sam Winchester's phones. He knew it was unlikely that the man would find the phones and give up there, but he was prepared for that.

He was actually less prepared for a longer wait, given that the drugs he had injected the younger Winchester with were not as effective as they should have been. There was also the risk that Sam would smother or choke on his own vomit while bound up in the back seat of the rental car.

He began his observations at the door. There were numerous arcane symbols scratched into the paint, but he did not find a single sign of electronic surveillance. He picked the lock and stepped across the threshold, lined with salt. He found more charms and symbols strewn about inside, over the doors, above the beds. Only slightly less numerous than the charms, were the weapons. He found two knives, a shotgun, two pistols, and a machete, and then he went to check the other bed. He also found two bottles of water with "holy" written on the side in permanent marker and several bottles of some sort of detergent solution, though he was not sure of the exact mix. There was also copious amounts of alcohol, mostly in the form of medium to low quality whisky.

He spent the next hour and 45 minutes collecting personal data on the two men, and preparing. When Dean Winchester returned to the room everything was in place.

Sherlock watched the elder Winchester brother storm back into his rented room, slamming the door behind him. He then pulled a mobile phone from his jacket and made a series of calls. From the tone of his voice as he spoke to the police, and then the hospitals, it was apparent that Dean Winchester was genuinely terrified for his missing sibling.

The man was not the sociopath the files claimed. Sociopaths did not bother with the act when they were unobserved, or at least when they thought they were. As he hung up his phone, various shades of grief and guilt colored Winchester's features.

From his hiding place in the motel bathroom, Sherlock watched Winchester take a dented flask from his pocket, and drink the entire contents in one long gulp. He then knelt and dragged a green duffle from under his bed, digging out a half empty bottle of Jack Daniel's to refill it.

Not a sociopath, but definitely an alcoholic.

Winchester took a drink from the bottle and then began to fill the flask. The smaller silver container seemed almost to leap from his hands, and he cursed as whiskey spilled over his legs and the carpet. He picked up the flask and tried to fill it again, but his hand shook as if the flask were fighting him. He cursed, took another drink straight from the bottle, and then returned the flask to his pocket, empty.

Winchester took a gun from the waist band of his pants, checked the clip and then put it back, patting his pockets for gear before getting up and moving towards the door, ready to go out and search again. Half way there he staggered and fell against the beds. He tried to get up and this time fell all the way to the floor. He was out of Sherlock's visual field, so he waited until the sound of thrashing weakened and finally stopped before moving to bind his second captive.

The motel room was cold, at least 6 degrees colder than it had been when he entered. Sherlock saw his breath as white fog as he knelt and searched the elder Winchester brother, removing myriads of weapons and three phones. He was about to relieve the man of the flask when the Jack Daniel's bottle struck him between the shoulder blades with a dull thud.

Sherlock whirled, but no one was there. He scanned the room but the only movement was the drugged whiskey dribbling out onto the carpet. He pushed the bottle with his toe, but it did not react. He waited, all senses alert. The room warmed. The bottle lay still.

The blow from the bottle was barely enough to hurt, but it was impossible, and that was far more disturbing. He knew from the reports that the Winchesters believed in ghosts and telekinesis and all other sorts of supernatural nonsense. He knew they were right about at least one kind of monster. That did not mean they were right about it all.

The world did not work that way.

It did not.

He knew it did not.

He bound up Dean Winchester, as he had Sam, and went to get his car.