Fic: When You Come to London Town
Title: When you Come to London Town
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: G
Length: 495 words
Alternate Link: AO3
Author's Notes: Written for the watsons_woes JWP 2016 Prompt #4: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This might be a magical realism AU. I'm not entirely sure. It might be the result of bit too much Neil Gaiman in my reading diet. Title from London Stone by Rudyard Kipling. Unbeta'd, so please feel free to point out any errors.
Summary: It wasn't Sherlock Holmes who brought the battlefield to London.
The statuesque woman who entered the night club would never be described as beautiful. Her short-cropped white-blond hair only accentuated the patrician nose, large colorless eyes, and sharp cheekbones that made her resemble a bird of prey. She glanced around the dimly lit interior, pulsing with trance music, and spotted what she was looking for at the bar.
She stalked across the dance floor. People half out their minds on their drug of choice stumbled out of her path based on her scowl and a deeply buried survival instinct.
"Dos cortos de tequila," she said to the bartender, settling onto a bar stool and holding up two fingers.
"You're in a mood," commented the busty, dark-skinned woman sitting on the next stool. Her hair was caught up in dozens of tiny black braids that just brushed the top of her tightly laced red leather top, showing off the muscled arms and shoulders of a blacksmith.
The pale woman muttered something that was lost under the music as the bartender delivered a plate of salt, limes, and two shot glasses brimming with alcohol.
"What's that?" The woman in red asked, amused.
The pale woman eyed the plate with a grimace. She lifted a shot glass to her mouth, tipped it back, and swallowed before placing the shot glass upside down on the bar.
She licked her lips and turned to her companion. "I had to take Jefferson Hope," she snarled.
"Isn't he that cabbie you liked so much? What happened?"
"Hope almost brought me Sherlock Holmes. I've been waiting for him for years - he's been obsessed with murder, decay and death since he was a boy. Flirts with me at every opportunity. Sherlock was so close, tonight; he actually put the poison pill to his lips, and then …"
The woman in red leaned closer.
" … John Watson shot Hope."
The red woman's full-bellied laugh echoed oddly around the club. "Good on him. He's always snatching people away from you at the last minute, Death. What was that statistic for his surgical unit in Helmand - 12 saved for every fatality?" she asked innocently.
"15," Death corrected glumly, downing her second shot of tequila.
The woman in red grinned, her white teeth glinting like exposed bone. "John's one of my favorites. Excellent shot, killer instinct, pays me proper homage in his dreams even after he was shot."
"I nearly had him then," Death reminisced. "You stopped me."
"I had to! I could tell, the moment that shot rang out, that we needed him. Even as his blood soaked the parched ground, it was like a thunder storm building on the horizon. And now he's taken up with one of yours? Oh, this will be fun," the woman in red purred.
War stood up, executed a mocking bow, and held out a hand inviting her sister to join her on the dance floor. "Can't you feel it, Death? The East Wind's a-blowing, and War's come to London Town again."
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: G
Length: 495 words
Alternate Link: AO3
Author's Notes: Written for the watsons_woes JWP 2016 Prompt #4: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This might be a magical realism AU. I'm not entirely sure. It might be the result of bit too much Neil Gaiman in my reading diet. Title from London Stone by Rudyard Kipling. Unbeta'd, so please feel free to point out any errors.
Summary: It wasn't Sherlock Holmes who brought the battlefield to London.
The statuesque woman who entered the night club would never be described as beautiful. Her short-cropped white-blond hair only accentuated the patrician nose, large colorless eyes, and sharp cheekbones that made her resemble a bird of prey. She glanced around the dimly lit interior, pulsing with trance music, and spotted what she was looking for at the bar.
She stalked across the dance floor. People half out their minds on their drug of choice stumbled out of her path based on her scowl and a deeply buried survival instinct.
"Dos cortos de tequila," she said to the bartender, settling onto a bar stool and holding up two fingers.
"You're in a mood," commented the busty, dark-skinned woman sitting on the next stool. Her hair was caught up in dozens of tiny black braids that just brushed the top of her tightly laced red leather top, showing off the muscled arms and shoulders of a blacksmith.
The pale woman muttered something that was lost under the music as the bartender delivered a plate of salt, limes, and two shot glasses brimming with alcohol.
"What's that?" The woman in red asked, amused.
The pale woman eyed the plate with a grimace. She lifted a shot glass to her mouth, tipped it back, and swallowed before placing the shot glass upside down on the bar.
She licked her lips and turned to her companion. "I had to take Jefferson Hope," she snarled.
"Isn't he that cabbie you liked so much? What happened?"
"Hope almost brought me Sherlock Holmes. I've been waiting for him for years - he's been obsessed with murder, decay and death since he was a boy. Flirts with me at every opportunity. Sherlock was so close, tonight; he actually put the poison pill to his lips, and then …"
The woman in red leaned closer.
" … John Watson shot Hope."
The red woman's full-bellied laugh echoed oddly around the club. "Good on him. He's always snatching people away from you at the last minute, Death. What was that statistic for his surgical unit in Helmand - 12 saved for every fatality?" she asked innocently.
"15," Death corrected glumly, downing her second shot of tequila.
The woman in red grinned, her white teeth glinting like exposed bone. "John's one of my favorites. Excellent shot, killer instinct, pays me proper homage in his dreams even after he was shot."
"I nearly had him then," Death reminisced. "You stopped me."
"I had to! I could tell, the moment that shot rang out, that we needed him. Even as his blood soaked the parched ground, it was like a thunder storm building on the horizon. And now he's taken up with one of yours? Oh, this will be fun," the woman in red purred.
War stood up, executed a mocking bow, and held out a hand inviting her sister to join her on the dance floor. "Can't you feel it, Death? The East Wind's a-blowing, and War's come to London Town again."