Do You Observe? (221B Baker Towers)
DO YOU OBSERVE?
Fandom: 221B Baker Towers
Summary:
Life with Holmes is nonstop.
Characters: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson
Words: 1,600
Notes:
For
sanguinity, for Holmestice.
A million thanks to
grrlpup for such a detailed and enthusiastic beta, and to
smallhobbit for fast and knowledgeable britpicking.
About this ‘verse:
221B Baker Towers is a fan-created universe, in which Sherlock Holmes is a young, black British man on a London council estate. As concept originator sophistry put it:
“…if Sherlock Holmes didn’t employ street kids and homeless people like trained animals to do his bidding, but instead was part of that invisible underclass; if instead of having his eccentricities tolerated by Scotland Yard on account of being the Great White Genius, Sherlock Holmes, BME, school dropout, and sometime addict, was regarded by the police as practically a criminal already, one more thug, one more junkie, one more dealer in the making. […] If the greatest threat to his safety were police brutality, or the prospect of being done for a snitch; if his arch enemy weren’t Moriarty, but the systemic poverty and inequality that has him helping out his oppressors just to get by…”
I’ve also drawn from various additional headcanons that can be found on the 221B Baker Towers tumblr, most notably that Watson is from Afghanistan.
About this fic:
Inspired by
rachelindeed’s ACD Holmes story “Literary Shortcomings”, which is where I first came across the “1 sentence” format. Credit for the format and the prompts belongs to 1sentenceorder, theme set delta. Where I have strayed a bit from the format, it’s my fault, not theirs. :-)
Read on AO3, or here below:
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Beginning
He gave me this big grin and said, “You’re from Afghanistan, yeah? Look, I’ve just landed a flat here in the Towers with a spare room going to waste, want it?”
Strange
It was Mike who introduced us, this bloke I know from back when we first started secondary school. He just stood there laughing and saying, “Better you than me, mate.”
Doors
Only about a week after we’d moved in and already Holmes had made every surface in the flat into his murder wall.
Metal
“How many post boxes on each side of the hallway downstairs, Watson?”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe twenty?”
“Seventeen. You walk past them every day, but you don’t really look.”
Ugly
“Get off my crime scene, thug,” the cop said. That’s what they say most of the time.
Secret
Even before he dropped out, the schools thought Holmes was stupid anyway, because he had trouble reading. Joke’s on them though. When he was eight, he figured out his friend Viktor’s dad was a crooked cop who still had ties to the gang he used to run with, just by looking at him. Something about a tattoo he’d tried to cover over.
Poison
It was sick: somebody forcing people to OD, then leaving them to look like an accident. When Holmes finally got access to the scene, third time it happened, he showed the cop that they couldn’t have done it to themselves, the angle of the needle marks was wrong. And the fucker looked at him like he was just another junkie.
Hope
Holmes did OD once, a long time before I met him. He told me he woke up from that, and he’d never seen so clearly all the puzzles in the world he still wanted to solve.
New
Really my name’s Jahid, but in primary school somebody started calling me Watson after some old footballer, and it stuck.
Old
My mum was a doctor back in Afghanistan, but if you think they were ever going to recognise her degree here, you live in a different Britain than I do, mate.
Head
Mum and my little brother still live in the Towers, too, and I give most of what I earn to them. Since Dad died, it’s kind of up to me, you know?
Light
Most of the time I’m not sure I’m doing him any good - I just follow him around and take notes - but he talks out loud to me and says it helps him think.
Roses
Mrs Hudson, next to us in 221A, grows flowers in her window boxes. From outside you can tell in a second which is her flat, this big splotch of colour in all the grey.
Regret
She still talks about Jamaica and how green it is there.
Food
I didn’t even tell Holmes what date Eid was; I just came home and found a feast.
Duty
Look, to anyone who thinks we’re all freeloaders here? I work two jobs and still let Holmes drag me out of bed at half past who the fuck knows in the morning, because he’s suddenly decided he needs me to take notes as he compares the residue left by vinyl stickers on every type of surface on the estate.
Welcome
Anyway, there’s pretty much no time when there aren’t random people walking into our flat, day or night, wanting Holmes’ help.
Lost
This dude who called himself “The King” and thought he owned the whole estate because he dealt small-time drugs and had a few cousins who liked to beat people up, he came to Holmes in a panic when his ex stole his phone. We never did find out what was so bad about the videos he had on there, but even now whenever I mention Irene’s name, Holmes grins.
Winter
“I bet I can name at least fifteen facts about whoever dropped this hat here.”
Luckily, I don’t bet.
Snow
There was one night we had proper cold weather and Holmes dragged me out of bed to show me how part of the boating lake in Regent’s Park had frozen, and we walked right across it, no one else around. There were these crazy big flakes coming down everywhere, blocking everything out, like the whole city had disappeared.
Green
“The parsley in the butter, Watson!” Holmes was already running out the door, and left me to explain whatever that was supposed to mean to the poor baffled lady whose flat we were in.
Water
Some genius decided the best place to hide his stash was on an island in Regent’s Park, the part that’s all fenced off for the birds. I’m happy to tell you Holmes found it before some goose could eat it.
Bugs
He reprogrammed my phone. Something about malware on it, or that’s what he said, but I think he just likes knowing he can hack anything I make the mistake of leaving alone with him in a room for five minutes.
Coffee
The dude lives on nothing but caffeine when he’s working, I swear.
Stable
I’m a half-orphan refugee with shrapnel in my leg and PTSD, but a nice side effect of running with Holmes is that most days I seem like the normal one.
Earth
“There are nine of them. Or, okay, eight now with the Pluto thing. Seriously, how do you not know that?”
Apples
Sometimes when he’s deep in a case I’ll slap something to eat down on the table in front of him, just to see him blink like he can’t remember what this foreign object is.
Rain
Of course it was bucketing down when Holmes decided we had to go find some contact of his who hangs out in Hyde Park, it couldn’t wait even another minute.
Snakes
A guy keeping exotic animals in a London flat is an idiot. A guy keeping exotic animals in a London flat where his two stepdaughters live is maybe something worse than that.
Solid
Lestrade’s better than most of the officers on this beat. She grew up around here, so she’ll make frustrated faces but she’ll still let Holmes on the scene for five minutes while her boss’ back is turned.
Wood
The time Holmes solved a robbery without even seeing any of the evidence, just by hearing that the victim’s crutches weren’t made out of metal, I think I actually saw Lestrade smile.
Flexible
Nothing’s more important to Holmes than the truth. But when it comes to the police? He tells them whatever he decides they need to know.
Honour
And he always makes sure he gets something out of helping the police. But when people from the Towers come to us, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him ask for money.
Peace
I was glad when he got over that phase of practising his knife throwing on our wall.
Pretty
“Sunset? Why would I care what the sunset looks like?”
But when he thought I wasn’t looking, he looked anyway.
War
When I first met Holmes, I remember he called London a warzone. He doesn’t do that anymore, now he’s heard what I remember from being a little kid in Kabul.
Flying
Sometimes, running after Holmes as fast as I can go is the only time I can forget absolutely everything.
Spring
It’s not a lot of the time we get happy endings. This time, at least, with the girl who was being followed by a creep on a moped, it turned out it was just a friend of hers, worried about her getting to work safely when she had the early shift.
Taboo
There’s only one thing we never talk about, and that’s Holmes’ family, where he comes from. I think he’s got a brother, but he never talks about him either.
Grave
He did take me this one time to see where his mum’s buried, though. We didn’t talk for like three days after that, but it was an okay kind of not talking, if that doesn’t sound weird.
Drink
We’ve got different reasons for it, but neither of us ever touches alcohol.
Dark
He goes out wandering, sometimes the whole night, and says he thinks better that way. Anybody else might be afraid of getting jumped, but Holmes? For better or worse, everybody here knows him.
Fire
You’d think he’d never heard of Grenfell Tower: I came back to the flat and he was testing chemicals on the hob, finding their burning point or some shit. Would have killed himself from the fumes and probably lit the whole building up, if I hadn’t got there in time.
Hollow
So he figured out how the boy poisoned his little sister, but knowing didn’t change the facts, didn’t bring her back.
Air
We’ve got a secret spot, up on the roof. The door to get out there is hidden behind a room full of electrical stuff, and from up there it feels like you look over all of London.
Despair
When he’s in the worst of his moods, I don’t like to let Holmes go up there alone.
Fall
“Inevitable destruction,” he said one time, staring out over the estate. And even though I wasn’t sure what he meant, how he said it gave me chills.
Summer
The knife flashed in the streetlight. It only caught me enough to tear my shirt before the guy was sprinting away, but Holmes was there in an instant, yelling in my face, “Are you okay, Watson? Say you’re okay!”
Foot
Holmes never walks, he either slouches along or he’s running flat out. Most of the time, I’d say, he’s running.
End
And then he’ll burst through the door, grin that grin at me like he always does, and shout, “Watson! Game time!”
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End notes:
Watson’s name, Jahid, comes from Arabic and means “diligent” or “hard worker” - I wanted to pick something fitting for a Watson!
And the “old footballer” referred to as the source of the “Watson” nickname here is Andrew Watson, born 1856, a Scottish footballer “widely considered to be the world's first black person to play association football at international level.” I was looking for someone who seemed a deserving model to name my Watson after, and was so pleased to find Andrew Watson!
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Also, I made an image to go with this fic; I didn't manage to post it to AO3 (the coding was beyond me, as usual) and I don't even know if I like it...but I was awfully proud of myself for managing a photo manip at all, since it's not something I'm skilled it, so I'll put it here anyway. :-)
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(Crossposted from this post on Dreamwidth, which is now my primary journal. Comments are fine in either place.)