[Fanfic] The Excellent Adventures of Channel 221 Evening News [part 2/4]
Title: The Excellent Adventures of Channel 221 Evening News
Fandom: Sherlock BBCAuthor: plalligator
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Sherlock/John, with a side of Mycroft/Lestrade. Mostly gen and ensemble shenanagains, though.
Rating/Warnings: Still PG-13.
Notes: Deanon from sherlockbbc_fic for this prompt. Part 1 is here.
::
Episode 2
“So, aren’t you glad I introduced you to Sherlock?”
John looks at his sister, who’s sitting backward on her desk chair, leaning her head and arms on its back.
“Harry, you didn’t introduce me to Sherlock. He introduced himself.”
“I set you up for this job, and because of that, Sherlock introduced himself to you.”
“And are never going to let me forget it, apparently.”
“Got that right. You’re dodging the question, by the way.”
“Piss off, Harry. Don’t you have work to be doing?”
“Yep. But the tennis match I’m supposed to be covering isn’t done yet.”
“When did it start?”
“Fifteen hours ago.”
“Shouldn’t you be covering it anyway?”
“That’s what I have interns for. But really, Sherlock...” she lowers her voice and looks around. “...the man is luscious. I wouldn’t mind a piece of that, and this is coming from someone absolutely not attracted to the male form. Not gonna lie.”
Harry nods judiciously, apparently speaking in complete seriousness. John tilts his head, studying her.
“Yeah, okay. I have better stuff to do than listen to this.” He spots Sherlock in the main newsroom, and gets up, slinging his camera bag over his shoulder.
“Yeah, like trail around after your hot boyfriend.”
“Not my boyfriend, my boss. We’ve only known each other for a couple days.”
“That’s longer than any other cameraman of his has lasted, Johnny boy. Most of them don’t even make it through the first case. You did,” she points a pen at him. “and that serial murder story has been the top story ever since you two broke it!”
“Go watch your tennis match, Harry.”
He walks out of her office, shaking his head, and falls into step with Sherlock.
“Anything lined up for today?”
Sherlock looks straight ahead.
“John, I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work.”
“What-wait what?”
“I overheard you and Harriet talking.”
“Oh. Oh god.” John rubs a hand over his face. “No. No, no, no, it’s not like that. Harry’s always liked to tease me...god, no. I’m not-you know. Uh.”
“I see. That’s...good to hear.”
“I can’t believe I’m related to her.”
“Quite. Anyway, Greg has some people he wants me to interview.” He says the word ‘interview’ with an incredible amount of loathing, and John raises his eyebrows.
“Isn’t that what you normally do?”
“No, John. I don’t do people, I do stories. I don’t need to spend my time trying to find out what happened from some blubbering idiots when I can just as easily discover that on my own. We have a human interest reporter for people. There’s been a rather peculiar break-in at a bank which I believe may lead somewhere interesting. We’ll go there instead.”
::
“Hello, and welcome to Channel 221 Evening News here at the top of the hour! I’m Anderson Smith-”
“-and I’m Sally Donovan. We’ve got a whole lot to cover here tonight, so stay tuned.”
“And out! Play intro music, roll graphics. Back in 20 seconds!”
Mrs. Hudson bustles through the room, deftly straightening a tie here and a cuff there, touching up makeup and making sure hair stays perfectly styled.
“Sally, Anderson, you’re good until next commercial. Oh, Greg, dear, Mike says to tell you that none of the weather crew’s microphones are working.”
“Tell Mike to complain to the tech people-wait, what?”
“Yes. He says to say ‘I told you we should have got waterproof sound equipment.’”
Lestrade groans. “Tell him to take it up with the network, we don’t have a big enough budget to buy anything state-of-the-art. And get me a coffee, will you?”
“I’m not your housekeeper, Greg.”
::
“Sherlock, I am really not sure your journalistic pass is an acceptable excuse to try an enter that man’s apartment through the balcony. In most circles, that’s known as breaking and entering.”
“Ridiculous, John, I was investigating. Did you get it all on film?”
“The apartment, yes, your balcony stunt, no. Because, as you might recall, I didn’t get let in until you finished rummaging.”
“My apologies.”
“You know, if you need someone to lock out of buildings, there’s always Anderson. Or the skull.”
“Don’t be petty, John, you are far superior to either Anderson or the skull.”
“Huh.”
::
Liking Sherlock is like a pleasant tingle hovering about his body-it’s not unpleasant and hardly painful. The man is attractive and his type, but John isn’t a bloody fool enough to pine over something he’ll never have. Detached, that’s the way to put it.
::
Lestrade sits down in a chair, briefly closing his eyes. When he opens them, the scene hasn’t changed. He’s still in the conference room, and the man sitting in front of him is still Mycroft Holmes.
“Listen, I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to have this meeting, Mr. Holmes-”
The man beams. “Please, call me Mycroft.”
Lestrade flounders for a second here, and forges onward. The man is a holy terror in a refined, Count Dracula sort of way. Lestrade’s positive he can feel his hair going grey for every minute he spends in these meetings, and he never gets any more money for the show out of it.
“-and I know you, uh, the network, that is, doesn’t want to waste money on this sort of thing, but it sounds like this tech problem is really quite serious. Half our microphones are shot, we had to borrow some from next door’s studio. Frankly, and with all due respect Mr. Hol-uh, Mycroft-I’m not paid to deal with this.”
Mycroft taps his umbrella on the floor thoughtfully, nods to his assistant, who’s standing in the corner, texting. She snaps her phone shut and leaves the conference room.
“Well, that sounds like a very serious problem. I’m sure something can be worked out.”
Not really sure what to make of this remark-“does it mean we’ll get the budget to replace anything, or not?”-Lestrade stays silent. Mycroft folds his hands on his lap.
“On a more personal note, how is my brother doing? I here he’s getting along quite nicely with his new cameraman.”
“How do you-oh, never mind. Yes, yes, he seems to be doing fine. His methods are a bit...” here he struggles for the right word, because on the one hand, this man pretty much is the network, on the other, Lestrade is a pretty honest guy, “...unorthodox,” he finishes lamely. “All his stories are real winners, though.”
“I thought so.”
There is an awkward silence. Why, why is the man staring at him so? Lestrade shifts in his chair, aware that his face is growing red, and tries to look anywhere but at Mycroft.
::
Sally Donovan backs hurriedly out of the room, banging the door behind her with a garbled “sorry, sorry, I’ll come back later, sorry,” and all but dashes to the newsroom, where she slams her hands down on the main desk, effectively attracting the attention of everyone in the room.
“You will never guess,” she says breathlessly, “what I just saw.” Without waiting for anyone to answer, she plunges on. “In-in the conference room. I walked in on Greg and that bloke from the network, you know, freak’s brother. Walked in on them! They were making out! Practically eating each other’s face off! I think Greg had his hand up the other guy’s shirt!”
In the echoing silence-after a while, people working at 221 News learn to respond to shocking news with absolute silence, rather than yelling, because that would mean yelling rather a lot-Sherlock, looking incredibly smug, puts a hand out, palm-up and John grudgingly fishes a few coins out of his pocket, handing them over.
“Remind me never to bet against you.”
“You should have known that already. Really, it’s obvious. Mycroft has always been a pigtail-puller. He seems to take it upon himself to tease the object of his affections. Really a very strange way of showing any attraction to people.”
Mrs. Hudson sidles over to Harry and says in a stage whisper “Guess it must run in the family, eh?” Both women collapse in giggles.
Sherlock stares around at general bewilderment and sighs.
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you actually thought the network was withholding money? We’re one of the most highly-rated news shows in the nation, are you daft? Mycroft was just playing silly games, fooling around with Greg.”
John shakes his head.
“Well, how was I supposed to know anything about your brother? I don’t even know him that well. Understanding one Holmes is hard enough, thanks.”
Harry squeals.
“Oh, you two! You are so married.”
Sherlock looks up, studying her.
“Hmm. That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?”
“I can’t believe I didn’t notice before...shape of the nose, height of the forehead...why, you’re not actually related to John! He must be adopted, that would explain it.”
John and Harry at the exactly same time, say, “Would explain what?”
Sherlock flashes a smile. “How he escaped the apparent family psychosis.”
There’s an uneasy silence. Harry sputters, and John gapes at Sherlock. Then he shuts his mouth.
“Wait a minute...Sherlock...are you...did you just make a joke?”
“Yes, why? I thought it was rather good, didn’t you?”