Fic + Anne Hathaway!
So, this movie?
I can't really tell if it's going to be any good, but I can already tell I'm going to see it. Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal, cinematically reunited! This pleases me.
And now, some more fic I wrote for The Shiny, Happy Comment Ficathon. Shiny! Happy! Hooray!
Title: Less Than Clandestine
Rating: PG?
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Spoilers/Warnings: Nope!
Summary: For the prompt, "Sherlock uses everyone's tendency to assume he and John are a couple to his advantage. For purely case-related reasons, of course."
Disclaimer: Sherlock (BBC)-- or indeed, Sherlock Holmes in any and all of his many incarnations-- is absolutely not mine, nor is anything you recognize from it.
It all begins while Sherlock and John are tracking down a jewel thief named Julian Finn who is so monumentally, devastatingly dull that Sherlock is almost ready to send him a postcard with a few ideas, just to bring a bit of light into what is clearly one of the dimmer corners of the world.
But that isn't the point, of course. The point is that while they are asking Julian's employer-- a slightly plump older woman with a penchant for calling them handsome young gentleman-- about his daily routine, Sherlock notices that she is staring at John's bandage.
Admittedly that's become a habit of Sherlock's as well, lately. And while it does tend to summon the smell of chlorine and a sharp, panicked twist in his stomach, it also helps to remind him that neither of them died a fiery and unpleasant death in a swimming pool, which is useful.
Sherlock reaches out and tucks the edge of the gauze back underneath John's collar almost habitually (because only he gets to fret over John, it's a rule) and can see in an instant that he's given the woman Ideas.
They turn out to be surprisingly useful Ideas, because she begins to positively gush and in between offers of biscuits and assurances that she's always loved the music of Elton John, she spits out a few things which may actually prove useful. Sherlock hums thoughtfully under his breath and holds the door for John as they leave.
------
"Oy, what're you doing here?" A voice demands, and when Sherlock turns the voice is matched to a face. The voice is a baritone with a bit of forced gravel in it, and the face is playing along splendidly-- clearly upper-middle-class but not particularly pleased about the fact. This is a man who wakes up in the morning and almost moisturizes out of habit before he remembers the fact that he is supposed to be tough now. Sherlock heaves a sigh.
You work in a restaurant which specializes in generically pleasant French cuisine, he wants to say. Exactly how intimidating do you imagine yourself to be?
"We are investigating a murder," he says instead. "If that's quite alright with you?"
For good measure, he also curls his fingers around John's wrist and holds on, smoothing his thumb over warm skin.
"Investigating a what?" The man says. "I'll call the police, don't think I won't."
"At last count the police owe us-- how many favors was it, John?" Sherlock asks distractedly, his eyes flitting around the room. It's rather nice to have an anchor point as he does so, actually, to be able to feel John's heartbeat kicking against his fingers.
"Twenty-seven I think," John says calmly. "Twenty-eight if you're counting the thing with the--"
"We absolutely count that," Sherlock says, running an experimental finger under the cuff of John's jumper. "There were weasels. And on Valentine's Day, too. There were so many infinitely more pleasing things we could have been doing with our time."
"I'm, er. I'm just going to go and check with management," the man says, and disappears. John raises an eyebrow, and Sherlock shrugs.
"Well he'll be back any minute. It seems hazardous to drop the charade now," he says, and drags John over to examine the window sill.
And sure enough, the man does return-- with the blessings of "management," whoever they are, and instructions to keep an eye on the proceedings.
"Er, so. The two of you are--" the man says, and then makes a hand gesture which is so vague as to be utterly pointless.
"Absolutely," Sherlock says, "and we're wildly exhibitionist as well."
"Really?" John says after the man has fled back to the front of the store in what he probably thinks is an extremely manly fashion. "Really, Sherlock?"
"He's gone, isn't he?" Sherlock says, and goes back to sniffing the doorjamb.
------
"Lovely place you've got here," John says as they are ushered through the front door by Melanie, whose missing boyfriend also happens to be this week's favorite suspect. After a moment of awkward silence, John elbows Sherlock none-too-subtly in the ribs (something he is, aggravatingly, at an ideal height to do).
"Hmm? Oh, yes, a nice flat," Sherlock agrees.
"A good deal nicer than ours, anyway," John says, "providing there aren't any body parts in the toaster."
Melanie blinks, and then rallies with a whispered, "Oh, are the two of you...?" in Sherlock's direction.
Sherlock considers this for a split second and then, taking in the pink wallpaper and the romance novel splayed open on the kitchen table, says, over John's halfhearted protests, "Yes, actually. How'd you guess?"
Instead of answering, the girl begins to wax poetic about her "darling" Max who is, in all likelihood, the architect of a stunningly gruesome double murder. Sherlock makes distantly impressed noises and examines the mantle with his magnifying glass until he registers that silence has fallen over the room. John coughs.
Sherlock rises from his crouch near the fireplace. Evidently the vapid Melanie requires conversational reciprocation. He may or may not take the opportunity to describe his doctor in rather glowing terms (brave and loyal and a good deal less stupid than I had every right to expect all make an appearance). John is considerably pinker by the end of it, which Sherlock decides is just fine.
-----
By Sherlock's unfailingly precise count, over the next four months their Grand Love Affair (as John has taken to calling it) gains them invaluable information in three cases, and useful information in no less than twelve. It causes young women to giggle at John and mutter about "all the lovely ones being taken or, you know," and stern old ladies to harangue Sherlock with impromptu lectures about the care and feeding of John Watson. It inspires four looks from Lestrade which Sherlock might go so far as to term fond, it is responsible for Anderson choking on his coffee, and it moves Donovan to lay a sympathetic hand on John's shoulder and shake her head. It also accrues for them two free bottles of wine at two separate restaurants, which is a rather nice perk.
Things probably would've carried on in much the same fashion except that one Thursday evening as they consume a celebratory, case-closed meal of takeout Chinese, John mutters something which sounds suspiciously like, "You don't always need an excuse you know."
It is just barely possible that five minutes later their hands brush across the table and do not move apart.
Click to viewI can't really tell if it's going to be any good, but I can already tell I'm going to see it. Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal, cinematically reunited! This pleases me.
And now, some more fic I wrote for The Shiny, Happy Comment Ficathon. Shiny! Happy! Hooray!
Title: Less Than Clandestine
Rating: PG?
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Spoilers/Warnings: Nope!
Summary: For the prompt, "Sherlock uses everyone's tendency to assume he and John are a couple to his advantage. For purely case-related reasons, of course."
Disclaimer: Sherlock (BBC)-- or indeed, Sherlock Holmes in any and all of his many incarnations-- is absolutely not mine, nor is anything you recognize from it.
It all begins while Sherlock and John are tracking down a jewel thief named Julian Finn who is so monumentally, devastatingly dull that Sherlock is almost ready to send him a postcard with a few ideas, just to bring a bit of light into what is clearly one of the dimmer corners of the world.
But that isn't the point, of course. The point is that while they are asking Julian's employer-- a slightly plump older woman with a penchant for calling them handsome young gentleman-- about his daily routine, Sherlock notices that she is staring at John's bandage.
Admittedly that's become a habit of Sherlock's as well, lately. And while it does tend to summon the smell of chlorine and a sharp, panicked twist in his stomach, it also helps to remind him that neither of them died a fiery and unpleasant death in a swimming pool, which is useful.
Sherlock reaches out and tucks the edge of the gauze back underneath John's collar almost habitually (because only he gets to fret over John, it's a rule) and can see in an instant that he's given the woman Ideas.
They turn out to be surprisingly useful Ideas, because she begins to positively gush and in between offers of biscuits and assurances that she's always loved the music of Elton John, she spits out a few things which may actually prove useful. Sherlock hums thoughtfully under his breath and holds the door for John as they leave.
------
"Oy, what're you doing here?" A voice demands, and when Sherlock turns the voice is matched to a face. The voice is a baritone with a bit of forced gravel in it, and the face is playing along splendidly-- clearly upper-middle-class but not particularly pleased about the fact. This is a man who wakes up in the morning and almost moisturizes out of habit before he remembers the fact that he is supposed to be tough now. Sherlock heaves a sigh.
You work in a restaurant which specializes in generically pleasant French cuisine, he wants to say. Exactly how intimidating do you imagine yourself to be?
"We are investigating a murder," he says instead. "If that's quite alright with you?"
For good measure, he also curls his fingers around John's wrist and holds on, smoothing his thumb over warm skin.
"Investigating a what?" The man says. "I'll call the police, don't think I won't."
"At last count the police owe us-- how many favors was it, John?" Sherlock asks distractedly, his eyes flitting around the room. It's rather nice to have an anchor point as he does so, actually, to be able to feel John's heartbeat kicking against his fingers.
"Twenty-seven I think," John says calmly. "Twenty-eight if you're counting the thing with the--"
"We absolutely count that," Sherlock says, running an experimental finger under the cuff of John's jumper. "There were weasels. And on Valentine's Day, too. There were so many infinitely more pleasing things we could have been doing with our time."
"I'm, er. I'm just going to go and check with management," the man says, and disappears. John raises an eyebrow, and Sherlock shrugs.
"Well he'll be back any minute. It seems hazardous to drop the charade now," he says, and drags John over to examine the window sill.
And sure enough, the man does return-- with the blessings of "management," whoever they are, and instructions to keep an eye on the proceedings.
"Er, so. The two of you are--" the man says, and then makes a hand gesture which is so vague as to be utterly pointless.
"Absolutely," Sherlock says, "and we're wildly exhibitionist as well."
"Really?" John says after the man has fled back to the front of the store in what he probably thinks is an extremely manly fashion. "Really, Sherlock?"
"He's gone, isn't he?" Sherlock says, and goes back to sniffing the doorjamb.
------
"Lovely place you've got here," John says as they are ushered through the front door by Melanie, whose missing boyfriend also happens to be this week's favorite suspect. After a moment of awkward silence, John elbows Sherlock none-too-subtly in the ribs (something he is, aggravatingly, at an ideal height to do).
"Hmm? Oh, yes, a nice flat," Sherlock agrees.
"A good deal nicer than ours, anyway," John says, "providing there aren't any body parts in the toaster."
Melanie blinks, and then rallies with a whispered, "Oh, are the two of you...?" in Sherlock's direction.
Sherlock considers this for a split second and then, taking in the pink wallpaper and the romance novel splayed open on the kitchen table, says, over John's halfhearted protests, "Yes, actually. How'd you guess?"
Instead of answering, the girl begins to wax poetic about her "darling" Max who is, in all likelihood, the architect of a stunningly gruesome double murder. Sherlock makes distantly impressed noises and examines the mantle with his magnifying glass until he registers that silence has fallen over the room. John coughs.
Sherlock rises from his crouch near the fireplace. Evidently the vapid Melanie requires conversational reciprocation. He may or may not take the opportunity to describe his doctor in rather glowing terms (brave and loyal and a good deal less stupid than I had every right to expect all make an appearance). John is considerably pinker by the end of it, which Sherlock decides is just fine.
-----
By Sherlock's unfailingly precise count, over the next four months their Grand Love Affair (as John has taken to calling it) gains them invaluable information in three cases, and useful information in no less than twelve. It causes young women to giggle at John and mutter about "all the lovely ones being taken or, you know," and stern old ladies to harangue Sherlock with impromptu lectures about the care and feeding of John Watson. It inspires four looks from Lestrade which Sherlock might go so far as to term fond, it is responsible for Anderson choking on his coffee, and it moves Donovan to lay a sympathetic hand on John's shoulder and shake her head. It also accrues for them two free bottles of wine at two separate restaurants, which is a rather nice perk.
Things probably would've carried on in much the same fashion except that one Thursday evening as they consume a celebratory, case-closed meal of takeout Chinese, John mutters something which sounds suspiciously like, "You don't always need an excuse you know."
It is just barely possible that five minutes later their hands brush across the table and do not move apart.