Fic: Death Dealing
Hokay guys. You liked it, so here it is. You might change your minds, though. It's a lot less Pterry and a lot more...me. Anyway, this is the completed first draft of the first segment (discworld books that aren't Moist Von Lipwig or Tiffany Aching books don't have chapters) and it sets up the premise. I literally JUST got done writing this, so it's raw and rough and a bit horrible, but I kind of like letting you guys in on the formative process of writing. It'll be cool to see various drafts of the same story up here and sort of chart how they change rather than losing the first attempts to the ether with each new rewrite.
Title: Death Dealing
Fandom(s): Sherlock, Discworld
Characters: Sherlock, John, BBC Sherlock ensemble, Death, DW cameos from surviving characters.
Slash?: Oh GOD yes. BLATANTLY Sherlock/John. It's just a little embarrassing, really.
Summary: 150 years after Pterry's Discworld books, Sherlock Holmes is a consulting detective in Ankh-Morpork and John Watson is a soldier invalided home from a war in Klatch. Death is a meddling meddler who meddles.
Death Dealing
Heat. It began with heat. With the sun blazing and the sands baking and pellets of lead flying much faster than small, heavy things should be permitted to fly. Several of them collided with the bodies of living things, of trolls and dwarfs and goblins and humans and even a few vampires who were too pig-headed to burn in the daylight.
And in this sweltering heat, surrounded by bodies both vertical and horizontal, a man who was only young behind his back and from a safe distance had blood on his hands. He was in the process of trying desperately to stuff as much of it as he could back into the rapidly cooling body of a young dwarf.
The dwarf shuddered and blinked, his eyes cloudy and unfocussed, and the chronologically young man could only think that the dwarf's eyelashes were remarkably long and thick, laid out the way they were across the dwarf's lightly freckled cheeks.
More lead pellets zipped through the air, several of them much too close for comfort.
'Flint!' The young man shouted.
A very dark, very glossy troll lumbered around to face him.
'Cover!'
The troll nodded and hunkered down around the young man and the dying dwarf, absorbing several lead pellets which would have been, at the very least, incredibly painful to fleshier beings. To Flint, however, they were about as debilitating as mosquito bites.
That's right. Thought the young-ish man. Keep it simple. Just keep him in place till nightfall, then he can get us the hells out of here.
'Ouch.' Said the troll, absentmindedly.
'Stay.' The man replied, working furiously to put the dwarf back in one piece. 'Cover.'
The troll nodded again, and the young man prayed to any passing god for the sun to set. Flint was little more than a rocky outcropping in heat like this.
But the gods must have been busy with all the other praying soldiers, because it was at that moment an enterprising opponent got it in his, or possibly her, or possibly its, head to shoot from a different direction.
The sound was no different to that of any other gonne being fired. The young-but-not-really man didn't even notice it amidst all its fellows. It wasn't until the lead pellet ripped through his shoulder that he realised it was meant for him. His body, shocked and confused, tumbled forward and nearly on top of the dead dwarf, stopped only by his forehead colliding with Flint's immoble stone body.
'John?' Flint rumbled, his voice worried and confused.
Flint is very shiny. He thought as the dark spots dancing before his eyes grew larger. Then, Please gods. Let me live.
'John?'
When his eyes didn't open, he didn't find himself face-to-face with a grinning skull, its eye sockets glowing bright, icy blue.
He didn't blink. Then, when the skull refused to resolve itself into something else, he didn't blink again.
'I guess they were busy today.' He said, or didn't say, or imagined he said.
THEY ARE NEVER VERY BUSY. MERELY DISTRACTABLE. The voice boomed like the slamming of coffin lids inside of his head, apparently whilst his ears were otherwise occupied.
'I don't suppose you're hot in that.' He remarked, nodding to the skeleton's night-black robe.
I HAVE LITTLE USE FOR HEAT. UNLESS IT IS IN A CURRY. I RATHER LIKE A HOT CURRY.
He laughed, and it made his chest hurt. This, he decided, was a promising sign. 'I'm not dead?'
NOT PRESENTLY.
He slumped back against the sand, which was oddly cool under his back. 'So you're not going to use that on me?' He asked, his hand waving vaguely at the gleaming scythe in Death's hand.
THIS? The skeleton asked, as though just now noticing it. NO. I SHOULDN'T THINK I WOULD USE THIS ON YOU.
'Why not? I got shot. People who get shot die.' He pointed out, very reasonably he thought.
YOU OF ALL PEOPLE, JOHN WATSON AGED 36, SHOULD KNOW THAT IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE.
'No, not always. Not if I'm there to stop it. And I can hardly be there while I'm here, can I?'
Death paused and tilted his head. His skeletal face did not move, it couldn't, but he seemed…pensive.
I DISLIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE DIE. Said Death. IT'S WORK, YOU SEE. AND I WOULD MUCH PREFER TO BE HOME WITH MY CATS AND MY CURRY AND MY HORSE, DOING…HOUSE THINGS. BUT THEN THINGS LIKE WARS HAPPEN AND EVERYONE DECIDES IT'S A FINE IDEA TO DIE ALL AT ONCE. I'M ONLY ONE ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION, YOU SEE. EVEN I CAN ONLY STRETCH SO FAR. SO WARS LIKE THIS MEAN VERY LITTLE REST FOR ME.
'I can see how that would be upsetting.' The man who was not really young conceded.
YOU, JOHN WATSON AGED 36, HAVE CAUSE A NOT INCONSIDERABLE REDUCTION IN MY WORKLOAD OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS. FOR THAT, I SUSPECT I AM GRATEFUL.
John Watson, aged 36, sat up and eyed the skeleton. 'And what good does that do me? The gratitude of Death? I don't expect it's within your power to save lives.'
Death shook his head slowly. THAT, I AM AFRAID, IS SOMETHING ONLY THE LIVING CAN DO.
John Watson nodded. 'I thought as much.'
BUT I BELIEVE I CAN OFFER YOU SOME COMPENSATION.
'Oh?'
I KNOW YOU, JOHN WATSON AGED 36. I HAVE KNOWN MEN LIKE YOU. YOU ARE NOT MANY, AND WHEN YOU LIVE YOU MAKE A MARK ON THE WORLD. I KNEW A MAN LIKE YOU A TIME AGO. HIS PATH AND MINE CROSSED MORE TIMES THAN EITHER OF US SHOULD HAVE LIKED. AND SO I KNOW THE LIFE YOU WISH TO LIVE IS NOT THE LIFE YOU ARE TOLD YOU DESERVE. IT IS NOT WITHIN MY BOUNDS TO AFFECT YOU AS YOU LIVE, BUT I KNOW SOMEONE WHO CAN.
'Who?' John Watson asked.
A MAN FOR WHOM A CURSE IS A BLESSING.
John Watson arched an eyebrow. 'That's it?'
THAT IS ALL.
'Right. Okay. So… I'm definitely not dead?'
YOU ARE QUITE ALIVE.
'And I'm not dying any time soon?'
NOT THAT I KNOW OF.
He nodded. 'Okay. Then tell me this. Why are you here? It's not just to thank me.'
Death shook his head again. YOU HAVE HEARD, I IMAGINE, THAT AT SOME POINT IN HIS CAREER, A SOLDIER WILL STARE DEATH IN THE FACE?
'Of course.' John Watson said.
THIS IS MY FACE. YOU HAVE NOW STARED IN IT.
'…right.'
GOOD-BYE JOHN WATSON. AND MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES.
And Death was gone. And John Watson, aged 36, was not.
Across the Circle Sea, in the famous and infamous City of Ankh-Morpork, a pale and beautiful young man was arguing with an orangutan.
'Of course I don't have a degree! Why on the Disc would I ever want to bog my brain down with all the useless tripe they teach here?'
'Ook.' The Librarian crossed his arms, a feat which required no small amount of coordination, and glared at the youth.
'Oh, that's fine for you to say you great, lumbering carpet!' The man snapped. 'But what you fail to recall is precisely who located the Tome of Aberus Grunge after you misplaced it following a week-long binge on banana daqueries!'
'Eek!' The Librarian bared his teeth and waved his arms about.
'Oh don't get into a snit, you old buffoon. Just give me the book I want and I'll be out of your fur.'
'Ooka-oo.' The orangutan grumbled.
The man shrugged. 'Oh, I don't know. Until the Yard start tripping over their own feet again. Give it a week.'
'Ook.'
The man clenched his jaw and huffed. 'Fine. A fortnight. But no more imported plantains until you reinstate my access to the restricted sections.'
'OOK!' The Librarian shrieked.
The man snorted. 'Stibbons? Please. I'm trembling.'
The librarian huffed and scampered into the stacks, returning seconds later with a thick and very dusty book in his hand, which he handed to the youth with the kind of expression you can only get by beating a rubber mask with a mallet for twenty years, then leaving it out in the sun before sending it through the wash. That is to say, that of an orangutan conveying disdain.
'Ook.'
The young man frowned. 'I'm not avoiding anything. Once I've found a new flat the eviction won't be an issue. He need never know.'
'Ook.' Orangutans should never smirk. It's a horrifying sight.
'Yes, I know.' The young man sighed. 'He knew before I did.'
On his way out, the young man was nearly bowled over by the Reader in Recent Runes, who stammered an apology and, in attempting to scamper away, tripped over his own beard and spralwed face-first over the stone floor.
The young man rolled his eyes and, with a put-upon sigh, extended his arm for the Reader to take.
'Ap-ap-apologies, Master Holmes.' The Reader stammered. 'I d-d-didn't see you.'
'Clearly not.' The young man drawled. 'Perhaps you need new spectacles, Professor. If you had full use of your vision you would perhaps have noticed that I am not my brother, and thus am no one's "master". I'll thank you to remember that.'
'Oh.' The reader breathed. 'Oh, of course, mas--er, mister Holmes. Sir. Um, Sherlock. Mr Holmes.'
The man, presumably called Sherlock Holmes or some variation thereof, rolled his eyes again and turned away. 'If Arch Chancellor Stibbons wishes to wag his finger at me, tell him he'll find me in the morgue at the Lady Sybil. If you're not too busy trembling, that is.' He paused and passed his eyes over the cowering wizard. 'Presumably amongst all of these books there is one which contains a spell to return Unseen University's collective backbone.'
As he passed through the front gate to the university, the young Sherlock Holmes gasped and staggered, clutching at his chest. The ancient book very nearly tumbled from his fingers, but he managed to snatch it back in time. He rested his back against the nearest stone column and struggled to catch his breath.
His chest heaving, he raised his gaze to the (slightly) renovated Tower of Art, which hung, crumbling, over the sprawling mass of the city. A faint haze of light, a greenish, yellowish purple, shone from one dilapidated window, and black lightning crackled within.
'Well, well.' Sherlock said quietly to himself. 'Perhaps one of you has a spine, after all.'
He blinked his pale, slanted eyes and quirked his full, sculpted lips, then he spun on his heel and hailed a cab to the Lady Sybil Free Hospital.
John's gran used to talk about Ankh-Morpork when she was a girl, back when the cabs were still pulled by horses and Vetinari's Undertaking was just getting into its proper swing. It was astonishing, really, how much had changed in John's lifetime alone. You could still see some vestiges of the old Clacks towers, the last remnants of the once titanic Grand Trunk, long since overtaken by speaking lines, themselves rapidly merging with hand held Disorganisers and Far Speakers until the Disc was overrun with Mobile Thinking Engines and Personal HEXs, and so the world became a smaller place.
And yet, for all that things change, some things remain forever the same. And so John knew exactly how insane he was to have the toes of both feet aligned at the edge of The Shades. It was suicide, plain and simple. People who wandered into The Shades didn't tend to wander back out again.
Except, sometimes, they did.
'John? John Watson!' A voice called behind him.
Some facet of civilised behaviour still wedged deep in his brain made him turn to see a stout, jolly faced man approching from the next street, waving a hand. He thought perhaps he recognised him.
'John! It's me! Mike Stamford. We studied at the Sybil together.'
Memory sparked, and John felt a very nearly genuine smile pull at his mouth. 'Yes, Mike, of course!'
'Yeah, I got fat.' Mike acknowledged, taking John's hand and pumping it vigorously. He had, indeed, gotten fat. John said nothing in response, and Mike, for his part, didn't mention the precarious location where John was standing.
John gripped Mike's hand a little tighter and stepped away from the edge of the pavement, safely back in the city proper.
'You, er, fancy some lunch?' Mike asked.
John glanced back at Cockbill Street, the last bastion of respectability before the bleak, black hole of the Shades. 'Yeah.' He said. 'I suppose I do.'
'I think…Molly.' She tucked a stray whisp of hair behind one ear and looked up at him expectantly.
Sherlock glanced up from his book and arched an eyebrow. 'Molly?'
She hunched her shoulders and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Sherlock could see the beginnings of an elegantly curving line of stitches poking out from under her sleeve as it slid up her arm. 'What's wrong with Molly?' She demanded.
Sherlock shrugged. 'I just don't see why you feel the need to don an affectation.'
She rolled her eyes and very nearly stamped her foot. 'It'th not an affectation, Sherlock!' She said with an agitated lisp. 'It's an identity!'
Sherlock sighed. 'It's an anonymity. What ever happened to clan pride?'
'Oh, come on, Therlock!' She said, then she paused and frowned. 'Sherlock.' She amended. 'This isn't Uberwald! This is Ankh-Morpork! City of new days!'
'And new smells.' Sherlock supplied. 'Look, far be it from me to tell you how to live your life, Molly, but it seems to me that if I could command immediate respect and unconditional trust with my name alone, I'd hold on to that.'
'You already do.' She pointed out, then she counted on her (presumably own) fingers. 'People immediately respect your connections to the city government, and they unconditionally trust you to be an overbearing prat the second you open your mouth. Really, the way you throw your weight around it's surprising you're not surrounded by Igors wherever you go. You've got "Marthter" written all over you.'
Sherlock glowered at her. 'I am nobody's master, Igorina. But if you insist on painting me as one, why don't you go fetch us a coffee. Black, two sugars. And I'll need iconographs of that corpse with the orange toes.'
Igorina, or possibly Molly, drew herself up to her full height and glared down her nose at Sherlock. She managed it, but only because he was sitting down.
'Yeth, thur.' She sneered, then she spun on her heel and vanished in the direction of the morgue.
Sherlock didn't watch her go, but he listened to the click of her shoes as it faded away. When she was far enough away, he spun out of his chair and snatched a small metal dish from a shelf. It was clean and smooth and shiny enough to show him his reflection. He scanned it anxiously.
There. Yes. Dammit. A whisp of paler brown, something close to blond, in the vicinity of his fringe. He cursed under his breath and tried to will the colour away. To his horror, it got paler for a moment, definitely blond and edging toward white, before it darkened again and he could breathe properly.
He let out the breath he'd been holding and ran a shaking hand through his hair. It shouldn't have happened, not after a tiny spat with Igorina. Molly. Whoever. But that magic from the tower…did they know?
Sherlock bit his lip and closed his eyes. It was no good. He couldn't be having with all this. He resolved to keep a closer eye on the wizards. No need to get the family involved in this. Not yet. Even so…
He slipped his phone from his pocket and was greeted with the distressed frown of an apologetic imp. It shook its head and shrugged its shoulders, pointing to a small picture of a wand without any sparks coming out of the top.
'Damn!'
He slumped over the desk and ruffled his hair with a sigh. He was just about to grab his coat, Igorina and orange toes be damned, to get his own sodding coffee when the sound of approaching voices halted him.
'It's all gone high-tech now.' Mike Stamford, unmistakeable. 'We've got non-sapient imps and demiscopes and there's whole rooms full of HEXs. Here's the lab I was telling you about.'
Mike walked in with another man in tow, slightly taller and a great deal thinner. Almost unhealthily so. He had ash blond hair and a stiff, regular military gait to match his haircut. 'Bit different from my day.' The man said.
His voice hit Sherlock like a mallet to the chest, so that it was a struggle to keep his face impassive. He knew it, in a way he'd known few things in his life. He Remembered it, intensely and intimately and in entirely the wrong order.
'Ah, Sherlock! Not surprised to find you here.' Mike grinned. He gestured to the man. 'Here's an old friend of mine, John Watson.'
Gods, if anything the name hit him harder than the voice had.
John. Watson.
John Watson, for one reason or another, was going to prove Important soon.
'Mike.' He said, surprised at the evenness of his own voice. 'Can I borrow your phone? There's no connection on mine.'
Mike glanced at the wall-mounted model behind his shoulder. 'What's wrong with the hospital line?'
Sherlock shook his head. 'I prefer to clicks.'
Mike patted himself down, then shook his head. 'Sorry, mate. Left it in my coat.'
'Uh, here.' John Watson said. 'Use mine.' He held out a smart red number, and after a brief mental and literal stammer, Sherlock took it, sent a brief clicks, and handed it back. He took in everything he could about John Watson. His stance, his clothing, his cane.
Why was he limping if his leg wasn't wounded?
'Where did you find rosewood in Klatch?' He asked.
John Watson blinked. '…it was a gift. Sorry, how did you--?'
The door opened with a hush and Igorina minced in. He very nearly rolled his eyes, but managed to hold back as she handed him both the coffee and the iconographs. 'Your coffee, thur.' She said with a deferential nod.
'Yes. Thank you Molly.' He replied, giving her his tightest smile. She bobbed an actual curtsy in response and darted back out before he could do anything else. Damn. He really should know better than to get into a battle of wills with an Igor of any sex. They'd built a culture out of manipulating people like him.
He took his coffee, perfect as usual, and began to slot the iconographs between various pages of the book.
'How do you feel about the violin?' Sherlock asked. The ideas had slotted into place a bit before the rest of his brain could catch up, and for a moment he honestly wasn't sure why he'd said that.
'Sorry?' John asked, looking bemusedly after Igorina/Molly's retreat. 'Was that…?
Sherlock resisted the urge to blink and went on, now he knew which direction he was heading. 'Yes, yes, that's not important. Now, I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you? It is best to avoid unpleasant surprises with flatmates.'
John Watson swivelled his head to look at Mike. 'Flatmates?'
Mike shrugged and shook his head.
'Who said anything about flatmates?'
'That was me.' Sherlock replied. 'I've been telling Mike for weeks I need a flat share lest I'm forced to resort to living off my brother's charity. Again. Now here he is, just after lunch in the spooky part of the hospital with an old friend, clearly home from military service in Klatch, and clearly doing poorly enough on his own that Mike took it upon himself to meddle for both our sakes. You've known him for a while, surely you aren't surprised.'
John Watson blinked again. His eyes were so blue. 'I don't know you.' He said, in the tone of an actor just now learning his lines. 'I don't know anything about you.'
But I know you. Sherlock thought. Or I will soon. We're meant, John Watson.
Aloud, he said: 'There's a place on Baker Street I've been hoping to rent. Together we should be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow, seven o' clock. If I'm not there the landlady will let you in, try not to look into her eyes if you can help it.' He slipped into his coat and wound his scarf round his neck, then made for the door.
'Wait!' John called, and Sherlock froze. That. Voice.
'Yes?'
'Why me?' Sherlock wanted so badly to turn, to see if that pleasant face had hardened to match the steel in his voice, but he could almost feel the tingling under his scalp and no power on the Disc could have made him look at John Watson then.
He swallowed past something in his throat. 'Why not?' He managed, then he swept out of the room, waiting for the door to click closed behind him before he all but ran down the corridor, his eyes avoiding every reflective surface he passed along the way.
John blinked after the man.
'Yeah.' Said Mike with a smile. 'He's always like that. I think he likes you, though.'
John tilted his head. 'He's…really pale.' He said.
'Yeah, well. He spends his time down here, you see. With the Igors and such. He likes it.'
'His eyes. They're not quite blue. They're like ice.'
'Yeah. Unsettling when he's got 'em fixed on you. Family trait from what I gather.'
John saw the bait and ignored it. 'He has…really a very deep voice.' He said. 'Sort of…booming. Sort of dark.'
'That Igorina you saw goes a bit fluttery when he says "hello". John, are you all right? Only you're getting sort of…poetical.'
John wasn't listening. He was thinking of the only cheekbones he'd ever seen which were sharper than the ones he'd seen today. He was thinking of the only voice he'd heard which was deeper, and the only eyes he'd looked into which were more piercing. He was thinking of a dark desert with cool sands, and a curse which was a blessing.
'I think I've been waiting for him.' John said, or thought he said, or just thought. 'Or he's been waiting for me.'
'Eh?' Mike said.
John shook his head. 'Nothing. Nothing. Only…is it just me or d'you think he looks a bit elvish?'
Sherlock let out a long puff of air and tossed his coat aside, collapsing onto his sofa with a soft groan.
THAT'S NO WAY TO TREAT A GIFT. Boomed a voice inside his head. Sherlock groaned louder and trew a dramatic arm over the sofa back.
'You're here. Of course you're here. Why wouldn't you be here?'
IT'S A VERY NICE COAT. EXPENSIVE. WE SEARCHED AGES BEFORE WE FOUND IT.
'Yes, yes, it's lovely. Please go away.'
IT REALLY DOESN'T DESERVE THE KIND OF TREATMENT IT GETS FROM YOU. MAYBE NEXT HOGSWATCH I'LL GET YOU SOCKS. WOOLY ONES. THE KIND THAT ITCH.
Sherlock snarled and catapulted himself upright. He managed to jab himself in the leg with one of the dozen or so packed boxes strewn about the place in the process. 'Fine! Do as you like.'
The skull on his mantlepiece said nothing, but the blue lights in its eye sockets dulled into a sullen glow. YOU'RE ANGRY WITH ME.
Sherlock sighed. 'I'm…no. I'm not angry. Just frustrated.'
I THOUGHT YOU'D BE HAPPIER. BUT IF THIS IS HOW YOU SHOW GRATITUDE FOR YOUR GIFTS…
Sherlock waved him off. 'No, no, it's nothing to do with that. It's the wizards. Surely you felt it. They're up to something, something big and I'm--' he broke off and looked at the skull with sharp, wary eyes. 'Hold on a minute. What do you mean "gifts"?' He leaned forward, as menacing as he could be considering he was the only one in the room with skin. 'It was you, wasn't it?! John Watson, you sent him!'
If skulls could blush, this one would do. IS HE TO YOUR LIKING? I MET HIM IN KLATCH, AND YOU HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR A FLATMATE.
Sherlock groaned and dropped his head into his hands. 'Grandfather!'
WHAT? The skull pouted. I'M ONLY LOOKING OUT FOR MY GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANDSON. YOU HAVE VERY EXACTING TASTES. I HOPE YOU DON'T TOSS HIM ASIDE AS CARELESSLY AS YOU DO THAT COAT. YOUR BROTHER AND I SPENT A LOT OF TIME AND MONEY ON THAT COAT.
Sherlock whimpered into his fingers. 'Grandfather, you can't just…just send men at me!'
I DIDN'T. Death protested. I SIMPLY GAVE YOU TO HIM.
'What?' Sherlock demanded.
I PROMISED HIM A REWARD ON THE BATTLEFIELD. YOU DID SAY YOU WERE LOOKING FOR A FLATMATE, SHERLOCK.
Sherlock laughed. He couldn't help it. 'I'm a reward? Me? Even the Igors think I'm morbid!'
YOU EXAGGERATE. YOU'RE A VERY ATTRACTIVE YOUNG MAN, WITH QUALITIES JOHN WATSON WOULD APPRECIATE IN A COMPANION.
'A companion.' Sherlock deadpanned. 'You didn't. You didn't actually set me up on a blind date with one of your projects!'
YOU LIKE HIM, THOUGH. I REMEMBER. I REMEMBERED AS SOON AS I DECIDED TO INTRODUCE YOU. IT ONLY HAPPENED TOMORROW, GRANDSON. I'M NOT SENILE.
Sherlock groaned and collapsed back against the sofa. 'I'm not going to fall in love with him.' He groused. 'I refuse. Just on principle. I don't allow Mycroft to dictate my life, and I won't let you do it either.'
MYCROFT DICTATES THIS CITY. Death pointed out. SO IN A SENSE HE DOES CONTROL SEVERAL PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF HOW YOU LIVE.
'But not my sodding love life!' Sherlock shouted. He picked up a pillow and hurled it at Death's proxy, nearly knocking it to the floor.
WELL. THAT'S GRATITUDE FOR YOU. I'LL BE GETTING YOU ASSORTED SAUSAGES FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY, SEE IF I DON'T.
'I don't care.' Sherlock rolled his body away from the skull and curled up like a foetus. 'Try not to open a rift in time and space on your way out.'
FINE. I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR PRESENT.
'I'm not falling in love with him.'
SUIT YOURSELF.
'I will.'
YOUR GRANDMOTHER WAS NEVER THIS DIFFICULT.
'Sorry to disappoint.'
Death huffed and the lights in the eyesockets dimmed.
A moment later, they flared up again. OH, AND YOUR MOTHER EXPECTS YOU AND MYCROFT FOR TEA ON SATURDAY. I'M BRINGING FUFFLES ALONG.
Sherlock relaxed his body with a resigned sigh. 'That's a terrible name for a cat.'
HE LIKES IT.
'I'll be there. Shall I bring something?'
JUST WINE, I THINK. SOMETHING WITH LOTS OF BUBBLES IN.
'Done.'
GOOD EVENING, SHERLOCK.
'Bye, granddad.'
The lights dimmed again.
'And granddad?'
The lights returned. YES?
Sherlock frowned and fixed his eyes on the ceiling. 'Thank you.'
Death chuckled lightly. YOU'RE WELCOME, SHERLOCK.
Title: Death Dealing
Fandom(s): Sherlock, Discworld
Characters: Sherlock, John, BBC Sherlock ensemble, Death, DW cameos from surviving characters.
Slash?: Oh GOD yes. BLATANTLY Sherlock/John. It's just a little embarrassing, really.
Summary: 150 years after Pterry's Discworld books, Sherlock Holmes is a consulting detective in Ankh-Morpork and John Watson is a soldier invalided home from a war in Klatch. Death is a meddling meddler who meddles.
Death Dealing
Heat. It began with heat. With the sun blazing and the sands baking and pellets of lead flying much faster than small, heavy things should be permitted to fly. Several of them collided with the bodies of living things, of trolls and dwarfs and goblins and humans and even a few vampires who were too pig-headed to burn in the daylight.
And in this sweltering heat, surrounded by bodies both vertical and horizontal, a man who was only young behind his back and from a safe distance had blood on his hands. He was in the process of trying desperately to stuff as much of it as he could back into the rapidly cooling body of a young dwarf.
The dwarf shuddered and blinked, his eyes cloudy and unfocussed, and the chronologically young man could only think that the dwarf's eyelashes were remarkably long and thick, laid out the way they were across the dwarf's lightly freckled cheeks.
More lead pellets zipped through the air, several of them much too close for comfort.
'Flint!' The young man shouted.
A very dark, very glossy troll lumbered around to face him.
'Cover!'
The troll nodded and hunkered down around the young man and the dying dwarf, absorbing several lead pellets which would have been, at the very least, incredibly painful to fleshier beings. To Flint, however, they were about as debilitating as mosquito bites.
That's right. Thought the young-ish man. Keep it simple. Just keep him in place till nightfall, then he can get us the hells out of here.
'Ouch.' Said the troll, absentmindedly.
'Stay.' The man replied, working furiously to put the dwarf back in one piece. 'Cover.'
The troll nodded again, and the young man prayed to any passing god for the sun to set. Flint was little more than a rocky outcropping in heat like this.
But the gods must have been busy with all the other praying soldiers, because it was at that moment an enterprising opponent got it in his, or possibly her, or possibly its, head to shoot from a different direction.
The sound was no different to that of any other gonne being fired. The young-but-not-really man didn't even notice it amidst all its fellows. It wasn't until the lead pellet ripped through his shoulder that he realised it was meant for him. His body, shocked and confused, tumbled forward and nearly on top of the dead dwarf, stopped only by his forehead colliding with Flint's immoble stone body.
'John?' Flint rumbled, his voice worried and confused.
Flint is very shiny. He thought as the dark spots dancing before his eyes grew larger. Then, Please gods. Let me live.
'John?'
When his eyes didn't open, he didn't find himself face-to-face with a grinning skull, its eye sockets glowing bright, icy blue.
He didn't blink. Then, when the skull refused to resolve itself into something else, he didn't blink again.
'I guess they were busy today.' He said, or didn't say, or imagined he said.
THEY ARE NEVER VERY BUSY. MERELY DISTRACTABLE. The voice boomed like the slamming of coffin lids inside of his head, apparently whilst his ears were otherwise occupied.
'I don't suppose you're hot in that.' He remarked, nodding to the skeleton's night-black robe.
I HAVE LITTLE USE FOR HEAT. UNLESS IT IS IN A CURRY. I RATHER LIKE A HOT CURRY.
He laughed, and it made his chest hurt. This, he decided, was a promising sign. 'I'm not dead?'
NOT PRESENTLY.
He slumped back against the sand, which was oddly cool under his back. 'So you're not going to use that on me?' He asked, his hand waving vaguely at the gleaming scythe in Death's hand.
THIS? The skeleton asked, as though just now noticing it. NO. I SHOULDN'T THINK I WOULD USE THIS ON YOU.
'Why not? I got shot. People who get shot die.' He pointed out, very reasonably he thought.
YOU OF ALL PEOPLE, JOHN WATSON AGED 36, SHOULD KNOW THAT IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE.
'No, not always. Not if I'm there to stop it. And I can hardly be there while I'm here, can I?'
Death paused and tilted his head. His skeletal face did not move, it couldn't, but he seemed…pensive.
I DISLIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE DIE. Said Death. IT'S WORK, YOU SEE. AND I WOULD MUCH PREFER TO BE HOME WITH MY CATS AND MY CURRY AND MY HORSE, DOING…HOUSE THINGS. BUT THEN THINGS LIKE WARS HAPPEN AND EVERYONE DECIDES IT'S A FINE IDEA TO DIE ALL AT ONCE. I'M ONLY ONE ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION, YOU SEE. EVEN I CAN ONLY STRETCH SO FAR. SO WARS LIKE THIS MEAN VERY LITTLE REST FOR ME.
'I can see how that would be upsetting.' The man who was not really young conceded.
YOU, JOHN WATSON AGED 36, HAVE CAUSE A NOT INCONSIDERABLE REDUCTION IN MY WORKLOAD OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS. FOR THAT, I SUSPECT I AM GRATEFUL.
John Watson, aged 36, sat up and eyed the skeleton. 'And what good does that do me? The gratitude of Death? I don't expect it's within your power to save lives.'
Death shook his head slowly. THAT, I AM AFRAID, IS SOMETHING ONLY THE LIVING CAN DO.
John Watson nodded. 'I thought as much.'
BUT I BELIEVE I CAN OFFER YOU SOME COMPENSATION.
'Oh?'
I KNOW YOU, JOHN WATSON AGED 36. I HAVE KNOWN MEN LIKE YOU. YOU ARE NOT MANY, AND WHEN YOU LIVE YOU MAKE A MARK ON THE WORLD. I KNEW A MAN LIKE YOU A TIME AGO. HIS PATH AND MINE CROSSED MORE TIMES THAN EITHER OF US SHOULD HAVE LIKED. AND SO I KNOW THE LIFE YOU WISH TO LIVE IS NOT THE LIFE YOU ARE TOLD YOU DESERVE. IT IS NOT WITHIN MY BOUNDS TO AFFECT YOU AS YOU LIVE, BUT I KNOW SOMEONE WHO CAN.
'Who?' John Watson asked.
A MAN FOR WHOM A CURSE IS A BLESSING.
John Watson arched an eyebrow. 'That's it?'
THAT IS ALL.
'Right. Okay. So… I'm definitely not dead?'
YOU ARE QUITE ALIVE.
'And I'm not dying any time soon?'
NOT THAT I KNOW OF.
He nodded. 'Okay. Then tell me this. Why are you here? It's not just to thank me.'
Death shook his head again. YOU HAVE HEARD, I IMAGINE, THAT AT SOME POINT IN HIS CAREER, A SOLDIER WILL STARE DEATH IN THE FACE?
'Of course.' John Watson said.
THIS IS MY FACE. YOU HAVE NOW STARED IN IT.
'…right.'
GOOD-BYE JOHN WATSON. AND MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES.
And Death was gone. And John Watson, aged 36, was not.
Across the Circle Sea, in the famous and infamous City of Ankh-Morpork, a pale and beautiful young man was arguing with an orangutan.
'Of course I don't have a degree! Why on the Disc would I ever want to bog my brain down with all the useless tripe they teach here?'
'Ook.' The Librarian crossed his arms, a feat which required no small amount of coordination, and glared at the youth.
'Oh, that's fine for you to say you great, lumbering carpet!' The man snapped. 'But what you fail to recall is precisely who located the Tome of Aberus Grunge after you misplaced it following a week-long binge on banana daqueries!'
'Eek!' The Librarian bared his teeth and waved his arms about.
'Oh don't get into a snit, you old buffoon. Just give me the book I want and I'll be out of your fur.'
'Ooka-oo.' The orangutan grumbled.
The man shrugged. 'Oh, I don't know. Until the Yard start tripping over their own feet again. Give it a week.'
'Ook.'
The man clenched his jaw and huffed. 'Fine. A fortnight. But no more imported plantains until you reinstate my access to the restricted sections.'
'OOK!' The Librarian shrieked.
The man snorted. 'Stibbons? Please. I'm trembling.'
The librarian huffed and scampered into the stacks, returning seconds later with a thick and very dusty book in his hand, which he handed to the youth with the kind of expression you can only get by beating a rubber mask with a mallet for twenty years, then leaving it out in the sun before sending it through the wash. That is to say, that of an orangutan conveying disdain.
'Ook.'
The young man frowned. 'I'm not avoiding anything. Once I've found a new flat the eviction won't be an issue. He need never know.'
'Ook.' Orangutans should never smirk. It's a horrifying sight.
'Yes, I know.' The young man sighed. 'He knew before I did.'
On his way out, the young man was nearly bowled over by the Reader in Recent Runes, who stammered an apology and, in attempting to scamper away, tripped over his own beard and spralwed face-first over the stone floor.
The young man rolled his eyes and, with a put-upon sigh, extended his arm for the Reader to take.
'Ap-ap-apologies, Master Holmes.' The Reader stammered. 'I d-d-didn't see you.'
'Clearly not.' The young man drawled. 'Perhaps you need new spectacles, Professor. If you had full use of your vision you would perhaps have noticed that I am not my brother, and thus am no one's "master". I'll thank you to remember that.'
'Oh.' The reader breathed. 'Oh, of course, mas--er, mister Holmes. Sir. Um, Sherlock. Mr Holmes.'
The man, presumably called Sherlock Holmes or some variation thereof, rolled his eyes again and turned away. 'If Arch Chancellor Stibbons wishes to wag his finger at me, tell him he'll find me in the morgue at the Lady Sybil. If you're not too busy trembling, that is.' He paused and passed his eyes over the cowering wizard. 'Presumably amongst all of these books there is one which contains a spell to return Unseen University's collective backbone.'
As he passed through the front gate to the university, the young Sherlock Holmes gasped and staggered, clutching at his chest. The ancient book very nearly tumbled from his fingers, but he managed to snatch it back in time. He rested his back against the nearest stone column and struggled to catch his breath.
His chest heaving, he raised his gaze to the (slightly) renovated Tower of Art, which hung, crumbling, over the sprawling mass of the city. A faint haze of light, a greenish, yellowish purple, shone from one dilapidated window, and black lightning crackled within.
'Well, well.' Sherlock said quietly to himself. 'Perhaps one of you has a spine, after all.'
He blinked his pale, slanted eyes and quirked his full, sculpted lips, then he spun on his heel and hailed a cab to the Lady Sybil Free Hospital.
John's gran used to talk about Ankh-Morpork when she was a girl, back when the cabs were still pulled by horses and Vetinari's Undertaking was just getting into its proper swing. It was astonishing, really, how much had changed in John's lifetime alone. You could still see some vestiges of the old Clacks towers, the last remnants of the once titanic Grand Trunk, long since overtaken by speaking lines, themselves rapidly merging with hand held Disorganisers and Far Speakers until the Disc was overrun with Mobile Thinking Engines and Personal HEXs, and so the world became a smaller place.
And yet, for all that things change, some things remain forever the same. And so John knew exactly how insane he was to have the toes of both feet aligned at the edge of The Shades. It was suicide, plain and simple. People who wandered into The Shades didn't tend to wander back out again.
Except, sometimes, they did.
'John? John Watson!' A voice called behind him.
Some facet of civilised behaviour still wedged deep in his brain made him turn to see a stout, jolly faced man approching from the next street, waving a hand. He thought perhaps he recognised him.
'John! It's me! Mike Stamford. We studied at the Sybil together.'
Memory sparked, and John felt a very nearly genuine smile pull at his mouth. 'Yes, Mike, of course!'
'Yeah, I got fat.' Mike acknowledged, taking John's hand and pumping it vigorously. He had, indeed, gotten fat. John said nothing in response, and Mike, for his part, didn't mention the precarious location where John was standing.
John gripped Mike's hand a little tighter and stepped away from the edge of the pavement, safely back in the city proper.
'You, er, fancy some lunch?' Mike asked.
John glanced back at Cockbill Street, the last bastion of respectability before the bleak, black hole of the Shades. 'Yeah.' He said. 'I suppose I do.'
'I think…Molly.' She tucked a stray whisp of hair behind one ear and looked up at him expectantly.
Sherlock glanced up from his book and arched an eyebrow. 'Molly?'
She hunched her shoulders and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Sherlock could see the beginnings of an elegantly curving line of stitches poking out from under her sleeve as it slid up her arm. 'What's wrong with Molly?' She demanded.
Sherlock shrugged. 'I just don't see why you feel the need to don an affectation.'
She rolled her eyes and very nearly stamped her foot. 'It'th not an affectation, Sherlock!' She said with an agitated lisp. 'It's an identity!'
Sherlock sighed. 'It's an anonymity. What ever happened to clan pride?'
'Oh, come on, Therlock!' She said, then she paused and frowned. 'Sherlock.' She amended. 'This isn't Uberwald! This is Ankh-Morpork! City of new days!'
'And new smells.' Sherlock supplied. 'Look, far be it from me to tell you how to live your life, Molly, but it seems to me that if I could command immediate respect and unconditional trust with my name alone, I'd hold on to that.'
'You already do.' She pointed out, then she counted on her (presumably own) fingers. 'People immediately respect your connections to the city government, and they unconditionally trust you to be an overbearing prat the second you open your mouth. Really, the way you throw your weight around it's surprising you're not surrounded by Igors wherever you go. You've got "Marthter" written all over you.'
Sherlock glowered at her. 'I am nobody's master, Igorina. But if you insist on painting me as one, why don't you go fetch us a coffee. Black, two sugars. And I'll need iconographs of that corpse with the orange toes.'
Igorina, or possibly Molly, drew herself up to her full height and glared down her nose at Sherlock. She managed it, but only because he was sitting down.
'Yeth, thur.' She sneered, then she spun on her heel and vanished in the direction of the morgue.
Sherlock didn't watch her go, but he listened to the click of her shoes as it faded away. When she was far enough away, he spun out of his chair and snatched a small metal dish from a shelf. It was clean and smooth and shiny enough to show him his reflection. He scanned it anxiously.
There. Yes. Dammit. A whisp of paler brown, something close to blond, in the vicinity of his fringe. He cursed under his breath and tried to will the colour away. To his horror, it got paler for a moment, definitely blond and edging toward white, before it darkened again and he could breathe properly.
He let out the breath he'd been holding and ran a shaking hand through his hair. It shouldn't have happened, not after a tiny spat with Igorina. Molly. Whoever. But that magic from the tower…did they know?
Sherlock bit his lip and closed his eyes. It was no good. He couldn't be having with all this. He resolved to keep a closer eye on the wizards. No need to get the family involved in this. Not yet. Even so…
He slipped his phone from his pocket and was greeted with the distressed frown of an apologetic imp. It shook its head and shrugged its shoulders, pointing to a small picture of a wand without any sparks coming out of the top.
'Damn!'
He slumped over the desk and ruffled his hair with a sigh. He was just about to grab his coat, Igorina and orange toes be damned, to get his own sodding coffee when the sound of approaching voices halted him.
'It's all gone high-tech now.' Mike Stamford, unmistakeable. 'We've got non-sapient imps and demiscopes and there's whole rooms full of HEXs. Here's the lab I was telling you about.'
Mike walked in with another man in tow, slightly taller and a great deal thinner. Almost unhealthily so. He had ash blond hair and a stiff, regular military gait to match his haircut. 'Bit different from my day.' The man said.
His voice hit Sherlock like a mallet to the chest, so that it was a struggle to keep his face impassive. He knew it, in a way he'd known few things in his life. He Remembered it, intensely and intimately and in entirely the wrong order.
'Ah, Sherlock! Not surprised to find you here.' Mike grinned. He gestured to the man. 'Here's an old friend of mine, John Watson.'
Gods, if anything the name hit him harder than the voice had.
John. Watson.
John Watson, for one reason or another, was going to prove Important soon.
'Mike.' He said, surprised at the evenness of his own voice. 'Can I borrow your phone? There's no connection on mine.'
Mike glanced at the wall-mounted model behind his shoulder. 'What's wrong with the hospital line?'
Sherlock shook his head. 'I prefer to clicks.'
Mike patted himself down, then shook his head. 'Sorry, mate. Left it in my coat.'
'Uh, here.' John Watson said. 'Use mine.' He held out a smart red number, and after a brief mental and literal stammer, Sherlock took it, sent a brief clicks, and handed it back. He took in everything he could about John Watson. His stance, his clothing, his cane.
Why was he limping if his leg wasn't wounded?
'Where did you find rosewood in Klatch?' He asked.
John Watson blinked. '…it was a gift. Sorry, how did you--?'
The door opened with a hush and Igorina minced in. He very nearly rolled his eyes, but managed to hold back as she handed him both the coffee and the iconographs. 'Your coffee, thur.' She said with a deferential nod.
'Yes. Thank you Molly.' He replied, giving her his tightest smile. She bobbed an actual curtsy in response and darted back out before he could do anything else. Damn. He really should know better than to get into a battle of wills with an Igor of any sex. They'd built a culture out of manipulating people like him.
He took his coffee, perfect as usual, and began to slot the iconographs between various pages of the book.
'How do you feel about the violin?' Sherlock asked. The ideas had slotted into place a bit before the rest of his brain could catch up, and for a moment he honestly wasn't sure why he'd said that.
'Sorry?' John asked, looking bemusedly after Igorina/Molly's retreat. 'Was that…?
Sherlock resisted the urge to blink and went on, now he knew which direction he was heading. 'Yes, yes, that's not important. Now, I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you? It is best to avoid unpleasant surprises with flatmates.'
John Watson swivelled his head to look at Mike. 'Flatmates?'
Mike shrugged and shook his head.
'Who said anything about flatmates?'
'That was me.' Sherlock replied. 'I've been telling Mike for weeks I need a flat share lest I'm forced to resort to living off my brother's charity. Again. Now here he is, just after lunch in the spooky part of the hospital with an old friend, clearly home from military service in Klatch, and clearly doing poorly enough on his own that Mike took it upon himself to meddle for both our sakes. You've known him for a while, surely you aren't surprised.'
John Watson blinked again. His eyes were so blue. 'I don't know you.' He said, in the tone of an actor just now learning his lines. 'I don't know anything about you.'
But I know you. Sherlock thought. Or I will soon. We're meant, John Watson.
Aloud, he said: 'There's a place on Baker Street I've been hoping to rent. Together we should be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow, seven o' clock. If I'm not there the landlady will let you in, try not to look into her eyes if you can help it.' He slipped into his coat and wound his scarf round his neck, then made for the door.
'Wait!' John called, and Sherlock froze. That. Voice.
'Yes?'
'Why me?' Sherlock wanted so badly to turn, to see if that pleasant face had hardened to match the steel in his voice, but he could almost feel the tingling under his scalp and no power on the Disc could have made him look at John Watson then.
He swallowed past something in his throat. 'Why not?' He managed, then he swept out of the room, waiting for the door to click closed behind him before he all but ran down the corridor, his eyes avoiding every reflective surface he passed along the way.
John blinked after the man.
'Yeah.' Said Mike with a smile. 'He's always like that. I think he likes you, though.'
John tilted his head. 'He's…really pale.' He said.
'Yeah, well. He spends his time down here, you see. With the Igors and such. He likes it.'
'His eyes. They're not quite blue. They're like ice.'
'Yeah. Unsettling when he's got 'em fixed on you. Family trait from what I gather.'
John saw the bait and ignored it. 'He has…really a very deep voice.' He said. 'Sort of…booming. Sort of dark.'
'That Igorina you saw goes a bit fluttery when he says "hello". John, are you all right? Only you're getting sort of…poetical.'
John wasn't listening. He was thinking of the only cheekbones he'd ever seen which were sharper than the ones he'd seen today. He was thinking of the only voice he'd heard which was deeper, and the only eyes he'd looked into which were more piercing. He was thinking of a dark desert with cool sands, and a curse which was a blessing.
'I think I've been waiting for him.' John said, or thought he said, or just thought. 'Or he's been waiting for me.'
'Eh?' Mike said.
John shook his head. 'Nothing. Nothing. Only…is it just me or d'you think he looks a bit elvish?'
Sherlock let out a long puff of air and tossed his coat aside, collapsing onto his sofa with a soft groan.
THAT'S NO WAY TO TREAT A GIFT. Boomed a voice inside his head. Sherlock groaned louder and trew a dramatic arm over the sofa back.
'You're here. Of course you're here. Why wouldn't you be here?'
IT'S A VERY NICE COAT. EXPENSIVE. WE SEARCHED AGES BEFORE WE FOUND IT.
'Yes, yes, it's lovely. Please go away.'
IT REALLY DOESN'T DESERVE THE KIND OF TREATMENT IT GETS FROM YOU. MAYBE NEXT HOGSWATCH I'LL GET YOU SOCKS. WOOLY ONES. THE KIND THAT ITCH.
Sherlock snarled and catapulted himself upright. He managed to jab himself in the leg with one of the dozen or so packed boxes strewn about the place in the process. 'Fine! Do as you like.'
The skull on his mantlepiece said nothing, but the blue lights in its eye sockets dulled into a sullen glow. YOU'RE ANGRY WITH ME.
Sherlock sighed. 'I'm…no. I'm not angry. Just frustrated.'
I THOUGHT YOU'D BE HAPPIER. BUT IF THIS IS HOW YOU SHOW GRATITUDE FOR YOUR GIFTS…
Sherlock waved him off. 'No, no, it's nothing to do with that. It's the wizards. Surely you felt it. They're up to something, something big and I'm--' he broke off and looked at the skull with sharp, wary eyes. 'Hold on a minute. What do you mean "gifts"?' He leaned forward, as menacing as he could be considering he was the only one in the room with skin. 'It was you, wasn't it?! John Watson, you sent him!'
If skulls could blush, this one would do. IS HE TO YOUR LIKING? I MET HIM IN KLATCH, AND YOU HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR A FLATMATE.
Sherlock groaned and dropped his head into his hands. 'Grandfather!'
WHAT? The skull pouted. I'M ONLY LOOKING OUT FOR MY GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANDSON. YOU HAVE VERY EXACTING TASTES. I HOPE YOU DON'T TOSS HIM ASIDE AS CARELESSLY AS YOU DO THAT COAT. YOUR BROTHER AND I SPENT A LOT OF TIME AND MONEY ON THAT COAT.
Sherlock whimpered into his fingers. 'Grandfather, you can't just…just send men at me!'
I DIDN'T. Death protested. I SIMPLY GAVE YOU TO HIM.
'What?' Sherlock demanded.
I PROMISED HIM A REWARD ON THE BATTLEFIELD. YOU DID SAY YOU WERE LOOKING FOR A FLATMATE, SHERLOCK.
Sherlock laughed. He couldn't help it. 'I'm a reward? Me? Even the Igors think I'm morbid!'
YOU EXAGGERATE. YOU'RE A VERY ATTRACTIVE YOUNG MAN, WITH QUALITIES JOHN WATSON WOULD APPRECIATE IN A COMPANION.
'A companion.' Sherlock deadpanned. 'You didn't. You didn't actually set me up on a blind date with one of your projects!'
YOU LIKE HIM, THOUGH. I REMEMBER. I REMEMBERED AS SOON AS I DECIDED TO INTRODUCE YOU. IT ONLY HAPPENED TOMORROW, GRANDSON. I'M NOT SENILE.
Sherlock groaned and collapsed back against the sofa. 'I'm not going to fall in love with him.' He groused. 'I refuse. Just on principle. I don't allow Mycroft to dictate my life, and I won't let you do it either.'
MYCROFT DICTATES THIS CITY. Death pointed out. SO IN A SENSE HE DOES CONTROL SEVERAL PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF HOW YOU LIVE.
'But not my sodding love life!' Sherlock shouted. He picked up a pillow and hurled it at Death's proxy, nearly knocking it to the floor.
WELL. THAT'S GRATITUDE FOR YOU. I'LL BE GETTING YOU ASSORTED SAUSAGES FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY, SEE IF I DON'T.
'I don't care.' Sherlock rolled his body away from the skull and curled up like a foetus. 'Try not to open a rift in time and space on your way out.'
FINE. I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR PRESENT.
'I'm not falling in love with him.'
SUIT YOURSELF.
'I will.'
YOUR GRANDMOTHER WAS NEVER THIS DIFFICULT.
'Sorry to disappoint.'
Death huffed and the lights in the eyesockets dimmed.
A moment later, they flared up again. OH, AND YOUR MOTHER EXPECTS YOU AND MYCROFT FOR TEA ON SATURDAY. I'M BRINGING FUFFLES ALONG.
Sherlock relaxed his body with a resigned sigh. 'That's a terrible name for a cat.'
HE LIKES IT.
'I'll be there. Shall I bring something?'
JUST WINE, I THINK. SOMETHING WITH LOTS OF BUBBLES IN.
'Done.'
GOOD EVENING, SHERLOCK.
'Bye, granddad.'
The lights dimmed again.
'And granddad?'
The lights returned. YES?
Sherlock frowned and fixed his eyes on the ceiling. 'Thank you.'
Death chuckled lightly. YOU'RE WELCOME, SHERLOCK.