Sherlock Holmes AU of Legend of Korra, with Sherlock!Asami and Watson!Bolin. Cases they solve are either concurrent with the show, Conan Doyle's original ones, or my own. May contain triggering content.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Cover Credits go to Hopiamanipopcorn from deviantART.
Illogically Logical by boasamishipper
Prologue
His hands were streaked with crimson, splashing scarlet droplets onto his uniform. A horrible pain shot through his heart as he caught a glimpse of the gaping wound in his commanding officer's chest. The blood was dark and glistening, soaking the fabric of the man's uniform and was beginning to turn the sand a sick shade of red underneath him.
Bolin fell to his knees next to the lieutenant, pressing as hard as he could on the wound. The man flinched and groaned beneath him. "Sir?" he asked, his voice loud over the sound of gunfire. "Lieutenant Chouko, can you hear me?"
Chouko's eyes opened the merest fraction of a centimeter. "D-Doc?" he croaked, his voice so quiet that Bolin had to strain to hear him. "H-how…how bad—"
"Stay still," Bolin ordered, pressing harder. "Corporal, get me my bag…Sir, we're going to get you out of here, alright? Just stay still and let me treat your wound."
The corporal tossed Bolin his medical bag, and Bolin immediately set to work, ripping the lieutenant's shirt open and wrapped the wound carefully, feeling safe knowing that the men were watching his back. Besides, the wound had missed the vital organs and arteries, and had even gone straight through the lieutenant's body.
Ironically, this had been the most luck they'd had all day.
"Save…the other men," the lieutenant slurred. "Let me die—I'm…n-not worth it—"
"All due respect, sir, shut the fuck up," he said sternly. "You're not dying, not on my watch."
Chouko nodded, and Bolin nodded too, continuing to treat the wound. The lieutenant couldn't die. They'd already lost Hiroshu and Yuhan and Raia and Kimiri and Riya, who had barely gotten out of commando training when a sniper had gunned her down.
Bolin had lost good men and women, but he wasn't about to lose the lieutenant.
Suddenly, the corporal yelled from behind right as Bolin felt a stabbing pain in his left shoulder. Bullet wound, he knew immediately. Damn. It hit the collarbone. Shit, shit…
"Doc," groaned Chouko, and Bolin looked up, his heart thudding in his chest as more blood was welling from the wound, but how could that be?
And then realization struck Bolin like a bolt of lightning. The first bullet had ended up hitting an artery after all. Chouko was bleeding out.
No. No, it couldn't be happening.
"S'okay," the lieutenant murmured, his face grey. Bolin frantically shook his head in denial as blood trickled from his shoulder and from Chouko's chest wound. "Don't…worry…about me, D-Doc…"
"No…you aren't dying on me, Lieutenant, you aren't dying on me, damnit!"
"It's okay," the lieutenant said softly, taking a rattling breath and closing his eyes.
Bolin held his breath, hoping, praying that he was just dreaming. This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't…
"S-sir?" The corporal's voice trembled. "Is…is he?"
Bolin pressed two fingers to the lieutenant's throat. No pulse. He rested his head on the man's chest, already knowing that there wasn't a heartbeat.
Lieutenant Chouko was dead.
He moved into place without thinking and started compressions, counting under his breath and trying desperately to keep a steady rhythm. After a moment, Bolin leaned down and pinched Chouko's nose shut, tilting his head to open his airway and breathing for him. He gave him another breath, his head spinning, and checked the lieutenant's pulse.
Nothing.
And he kept pressing.
What felt like an hour later, Bolin's shoulders ached and his arms were numb. He didn't know where he had the strength to keep doing CPR. He wasn't about to give up, after all. He never had before, and wouldn't now.
Maybe they'd even have a good laugh about this later, because Chouko was going to start goddamn breathing right fucking now…
"Doc..." The corporal. Bolin didn't dare stop. "Sir, he's gone. You—you need to stop. You n-need to get your shoulder medical attention—"
"I'm not gonna let him die!" Bolin snarled, and he would've whacked the corporal over the head if he had any strength left and if his shoulder didn't hurt so much.
"He's already dead, Bolin!" the corporal shouted at him. "He's dead..." The man took a long, ragged breath, reminding Bolin of Chouko's last breath—but that was impossible, because the lieutenant wasn't…he wasn't…
Bolin finally looked down, stopping the compressions. His commanding officer was gray and motionless. There was no more blood trickling out of his wound.
Because Chouko was gone.
He could deny it and he could fight it and he could delude himself, but it didn't change the truth.
The truth was that Lieutenant Chouko was lying dead on the ground in the middle of an Earth Kingdom war zone and there was no medical help, no measures that could bring him back. It was too late.
It was too late.
"Dr. Lieng."
Bolin's head shot up, his hand flying to his belt where his service pistol would usually be before remembering that he was home. He was safe. He was having a recommended session with his therapist. His heart still pounded heavily, his mind still lost in the horrible memory.
He'd seen it a thousand times before. So many times that Bolin could recite the day by heart, recall every heartbeat and every gunshot he'd heard. He could recall too much and not enough at the same time. He remembered a nurse treating his shoulder wound, and how Corporal Takumi had had to pry him away from Chouko's body.
"You have suffered a terrible tragedy, it's true," his therapist said gently. His therapist was a young woman, barely into her thirties. He knew that she was just trying to help, but she couldn't help him. No one could. "But you survived. You have your whole life ahead of you to forget that one day, Dr. Lieng."
There was silence. "The problem with surviving, Doctor," Bolin stated quietly, "is that you end up with the ghosts of everyone you'd ever left behind riding on your shoulders." He remembered Riya, and Yuhan, and Hiroshu, and Chouko—he'd let down all of them. "I lied to my commanding officer and told him that we were going to get him out of here."
"Would you have?"
"Of course," Bolin snapped, almost offended at the insinuation. "Of course we would have. His wound was fatal from the beginning. The bullet penetrated the chest wall and damaged his right lung, along with hitting an artery. Chouko died, choking on his own blood from two bullets to the chest—and the worst part, Doctor, was that I had the nerve to tell a dying man who knew that he was dying, that he was going to be okay." His hands automatically clenched into fists.
"You're not dying, not on my watch."
He'd lied.
"You're an army doctor," his therapist was saying calmly. Apparently she'd changed the subject. Bolin made an effort to listen—he was paying fifty yuans for this session, after all. "It's going to take you time to adjust to civilian life. But you can't adjust to it if you keep brooding on the past. What happened then…it isn't going to change what happens to you now. You can choose what happens to you now—you can be anyone you want to be, Dr. Lieng."
Bolin shook his head slowly, a pained chuckle erupting from his throat. "Doctor," he said, "I lost who I was when I let my commanding officer die three months ago. His wife was six months pregnant—how do you think that she felt when I had to tell her that I let her husband die?" He exhaled heavily, wanting to bury his face in his hands. "She hates me." He paused. "I hate myself."
She sighed. Woman's obviously used to self-deprecation, Bolin noted. She is a therapist after all. "Well, Dr. Lieng," she said, standing up, "I believe our session is up. I'll see you next week."
Bolin had joined the United Forces about four months after his eighteenth birthday, wanting to help out his country and feeling that becoming a part of the military was the only way to do so. Unfortunately, his older brother Mako hadn't seen joining the army as a benefit—he'd seen it as a suicide wish, and still did. Deep down, he understood his brother's reluctance to accept his lifestyle: Bolin and Mako were orphans and had looked out for one another ever since the two were six and eight, respectively.
After three years of taking the courses (medical and military alike) offered at the University of Republic City, Bolin had been recommended for commando training. After his promotion to second lieutenant, he had joined Lieutenant Chouko's six-person convoy—himself, the lieutenant, a sergeant (Hiroshu), one private first class (Riya), and two corporals (one being Yuhan, and the other having had a dishonorable discharge after a peace mission gone awry in the Southern Water Tribe). He'd liked his line of work, especially being a doctor, because short of being a waterbender (Riya had been one, but she wasn't a healer), he was the only source of medical help that the ailing recruits could get during a crisis.
During his first tour in the Earth Kingdom, he, Yuhan and Chouko had been sitting in a bar, toasting to Riya and Hiroshu's memories when the corporal had suddenly (albeit being slightly drunk at the time) stated to every patron that since Bolin hailed from the Fire Nation on his mother's side, the Earth Kingdom on his father's side and currently lived in Republic City, the only suitable nickname for him had to be 'Three Continents'. Bolin had tried to dissuade it, of course, but Yuhan had been the type of man that exuded a certain charisma, making everyone believe his word was law.
Near the end of the tour, Yuhan had died when one of their armored vehicles had hit a land mine, along with two others. Bolin and Chouko had miraculously come through relatively unharmed, although with three more men to bury.
The next few years had passed smoothly, and then Bolin turned twenty-eight right in the middle of his fourth tour, his second in the Earth Kingdom, which was the one where everything had gone to hell and had sent him home with an honorable discharge, a heavy dollop of survivor's guilt, a seriously scarred left shoulder, and no means to provide himself with other than his meager army pension.
Spirits, did the universe hate him.
After he'd been released from the hospital, the United Forces had provided him with a small room in an inn on the outskirts of the city, which he'd been living in for the last few weeks, doing dishes in exchange for food and applying for jobs at every hospital in a fifty mile radius.
Bolin knew, of course, for a fact that Mako would drop everything at a tip of a hat and help him, but refused to even entertain the notion, knowing that only one thing would come out of it. He would be forced to listen to an endless array of "I told you so's" from his older brother, and would be smothered in love and guilt and probably would end up working a desk job just like Mako, which would lead to him getting married and having a house in the suburbs with two kids—the white picket fence, puppy and apple pie dream.
This, as happy and pleasant as it sounded, was definitely not for him.
Definitely not.
So Bolin created a routine for himself—he'd wake up early each morning and sweep the inn, which would earn him a hearty breakfast from the elderly couple who owned it. He would then look carefully through the wanted ads in the newspapers and constantly had the radio turned to a station where the announcer, Shiro Shinobi, always listed job opportunities at the end of every hour. The few job opportunities he'd had were miserable, and definitely weren't appropriate for an "ex-squaddie with a messed up shoulder", which one of his bosses had said to him outright. He'd see his therapist, who despite her nagging was interesting to talk to, but had run out of money for her long ago. He went to sleep at ten o'clock each night, no matter what.
It wasn't much, but it was a schedule, and he loved schedules. They made him feel organized, like he had a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
He realized a long time ago that while his earthbending skills might've gotten him a job pro-bending in a minor circuit (or even a major one, if he was lucky), Bolin Lieng was, first and foremost, a doctor and a soldier—he didn't know how to be anything else, and it seemed as of late that he couldn't do either.
The elderly lady had sent Bolin on an errand one morning to a coffee shop, needing some of the grounds for her customers and had given him twenty-five yuans, five of which he spent on an excellent cup of coffee, which he gratefully drank at a small table near the door, still preferring even now to be able to make a quick exit if necessary.
Bolin felt eyes burning into the back of his head, and the hairs on his neck stood up while he tried to finish his drink, but was unable to do so. Aggravated, he whirled around on his stool, coming face to face with a young man, possibly in his early twenties, with a faded cap on his shaggy dark hair, which framed a narrow face with brown eyes and a wide smile. He was drinking an espresso, and for some reason this aggravated Bolin further. "What?" he snapped. "Is there a particular reason you're trying to burn holes into the back of my head?"
Instead of backing off, the stranger grinned. "I knew it!" The young man shook his head, grinning wider. "Lieng, right? Bolin Lieng?"
It'd been so long since anyone had called him something other than his rank or title that he almost told the stranger that he was mistaken. Bolin scrunched his eyebrows together, because he knew the man in front of him, he did…what was his name? Saki? Satoshi? "Skoochy?"
"Right-o!" Shun Nakamura, better known as Skoochy, nodded, gesturing at Bolin excitedly and grinning. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
Bolin gave his old friend a small, although genuine, smile. "Yeah. Haven't seen you last since—"
"Since college, right?" When Bolin nodded, Skoochy continued, talking animatedly while taking sips of his drink in between sentences. "You look like shit, man."
Same annoyingly cheerful attitude and boyish behavior with the charming childlike grin that had had most of the females in their classes swooning. Skoochy really hadn't changed a bit. He shrugged, not taking offense because it was true and he knew it—he did look like shit. "Yeah, I know what you mean," he said tightly.
"So, last I heard of you," Skoochy said, jabbing his pointer finger at Bolin while holding his coffee cup in another hand, "you were in the Earth Kingdom wearing a fancy uniform and getting shot at. What went wrong?"
Bolin chuckled dryly, fighting the urge to expose his shoulder but decided not to scare the other patrons of the shop. "Use your imagination, Skooch," he said sarcastically before coughing. "I got shot." Reflexively, his hand shot up to his shoulder and he scratched it awkwardly, and Skoochy gave him an understanding nod, leaning back in his chair.
"I guess your situation's all screwy then, huh?" Skoochy muttered and continued before Bolin could answer his rhetorical question. "Can't Mako help out?"
Bolin, who had been taking a sip of his coffee, choked and spluttered, causing Skoochy to leap around him and whack him on the back several times. By the time Bolin could breathe normally again, nearly everyone in the shop was staring at them.
So much for not wanting to attract attention.
"Judging from that reaction, I'd say your darling brother hasn't offered—but I'm not an idiot," Skoochy quickly said, "so the obvious answer is that you, Bolin Lieng, are being a stubborn bastard as usual and have probably refused all aspects of help from the outside world."
"Not nearly as dramatic, Skoochy, but yeah." Bolin paused. "Spirits knows I can't afford Republic City on an army pension—maybe I can move out to the countryside or something."
Skoochy snorted. "Sure, Bolin. And you'll spend the rest of your life fulfilling your secret ambition of herding goats in the mountains. That'll happen."
"Well, what do you suggest?"
The young man shrugged and nonchalantly tossed the now-empty cup of espresso towards a trash can but accidentally hit a barista, who gave Skoochy the finger before picking up the cup and throwing it away. Snickering, Skoochy continued as if the conversation hadn't been interrupted. "Get a roommate. You know, rent an apartment with someone, just like back in college with me."
Bolin scoffed. "Get real, Skooch," he stated. "Who in their right mind would want someone like me as a roommate?"
Skoochy shook his head and chuckled thoughtfully, tapping his finger on his chin. "Well, what do you know?"
"What?" Bolin asked defensively, expecting Skoochy to make a comment about his wellbeing and not wanting to rely on someone, which was true. After all, the last person who'd relied on him had bled out in the middle of the desert…
"Nothing personal, Lieng," Skoochy assured him. "It's just that you're the second person who's said that to me today."
Well, that was unexpected. "Really?" Bolin asked suspiciously, wondering if Skoochy was playing a joke on him. "Who? Where can I meet him?"
Skoochy laughed. "Hold your horses, Lieng. First off, it's not a he, it's a she, and second of all, I don't think that you'll like her very much."
"Wait, why not?" Bolin inquired with a frown. "Skooch, I don't care if this woman is a serial killer—I've been living in a room smaller than a closet for the last few months and banging my head on the ceiling every time I sit up in bed. I need a place!"
"Let's just say that you might prefer a serial killer after meeting her." Skoochy shook his head again. "She's the type of gal that would test a poison compound on herself to see what happens. Not that she's suicidal or anything," he hastily amended. "What I mean is that she'd test it on herself so she could write a paper on it while heaving her guts up."
"She certainly sounds suicidal," Bolin muttered under his breath. "Actually, Skooch, never mind. I don't care, man. Can you introduce me to her? I'll draw my own conclusions."
Skoochy snickered, taking Bolin's half-empty cup and draining it with a sigh, smacking his lips together. Bolin shot him the bird. "Draw your own conclusions," Skoochy repeated. "Lieng, you're just the same as I remember you—impulsive, crazy, and one of a kind." The young man craned his neck to see a clock on the adjacent wall of the shop before clucking his tongue. "You're in luck today, old chum. If I know her schedule by now, she's probably still in the morgue."
"Wait, what—"
After dropping off the coffee grounds to the elderly woman at the inn—who was glad to have it, albeit about an hour late—Skoochy hailed a taxi for the both of them, graciously allowing Bolin to enter before him. He was about to thank his friend when Skoochy mock-curtsied and took off his cap in a chivalrous gesture. Not caring that the cabbie and several passerby were staring at them, Bolin politely suggested for the young man to go to hell, along with flipping him off.
"Already been," was his response as Skoochy sat in the passenger seat of the cab. Bolin rolled his eyes, remembering that that had always been Skoochy's response when someone told him to go to hell. "Hello, sir," Skoochy stated, his tone much more polite. "Take us to St. Hokkaido hospital, please."
"Right away, sir," the cabbie replied, sounding eager to get rid of them. Bolin couldn't blame him, not after overhearing their antics.
So…this woman…I wonder what she's like? Surely she can't be as bad as Skoochy described her—RCPD would've arrested her by now, wouldn't they? Apparently she works in a morgue—maybe a mortician? Or a medical examiner? That might work, actually…but would a medical examiner really try to experiment on herself? Would anyone?
Spirits, this woman must be insane.
Wonder what she looks like…
Bolin still hadn't made up his mind by the time the taxi had slid to a halt outside of the fairly large hospital. He couldn't help but smile up at it—he'd trained there for a few years back in college, along with Skoochy before the young man had dropped out. Talk about déjà vu, he thought, grinning, as Skoochy paid the driver a handful of yuans. "Have a great day, sir," Skoochy said before tilting his head at Bolin. "Hey, Lieng, you daydreaming over there? Let's get movin', she's not going to be there all day."
Bolin nodded, a bit embarrassed. "Right, sorry," he said apologetically, before exiting the taxi. Skoochy walked around the front doors, leading Bolin to the side of the brick building where a few surgeons were smoking cigarettes next to a faded red door. They nodded hello to Skoochy, but Bolin could feel them staring at him, judging him—maybe I even knew a few of them back in medical school, he assumed before blanching. Oh, Spirits, what if one of them knows Mako? Shit…
"Just remember, Bolin," Skoochy told him as they rounded a corner in the dark, dimly lit hallway, "she's very…unconventional."
"Right, right, serial killer material," Bolin said offhandedly, not really paying attention—he was still stuck on the fact that one of the surgeons might know his brother. Boy, that'd be some lecture. "I get it, Skooch."
Reaching the end of a hallway, the young man put his hand on the doorknob and looked over at Bolin. "Don't say I didn't warn you, buddy," he said as he opened the door. Bolin rolled his eyes as they entered the room.
The morgue was a moderately sized, badly lit room with six slabs on it, all of which were occupied by naked, pale bodies, male and female alike. A plastic box full of rubber gloves rested on a shelf directly below a light switch. The large metal handle of the mortuary refrigerator was plainly visible from Bolin's position right by the door. Desks of all sizes were scattered all over the room, each holding a plethora of embalming tools, hairdryers, petri dishes, Bunsen burners, and several scalpels and other tools—including, Bolin noticed with surprise, a riding crop dangling from the handle of the mortuary refrigerator.
Skoochy was looking around also. "Hey!" he called, cupping his hands over his mouth. "You in here?"
The breath nearly left his lungs as the door to the mortuary refrigerator swung open, and a pale young woman with long, dark hair walked briskly out of it wearing a lab coat and protective goggles, holding a carton of test tubes and almost absolutely drenched in blood.
"Spirits, are you okay?" Bolin asked incredulously, fighting the urge to examine the woman for any internal or external injuries. What the hell had transpired inside of that refrigerator? He glanced at Skoochy, who seemed unperturbed. Was Bolin hallucinating the blood? What was going on here?
"In answer to your question," the woman said curtly, "the blood isn't mine. It's a collaboration of the blood of Mr. Lee, slab two, and from old Mrs. Jiao, over on slab four. I'm using it to see how many different species and subspecies of germs have taken root since time of death. Using a syringe was too dull, and I need blood from all over the body, so I whacked the bodies until they caved in with my riding crop."
"You beat dead bodies with a riding crop, just for a blood test?" Bolin asked, his eyes wide and his tone unbelieving.
"Yes, well, it isn't as if they'll be needing their blood anymore, is it?" she replied. Bolin's mouth opened and closed. "Thought so." She quickly took off her lab coat and protective goggles and tossed them on one of the naked bodies on slab number three. The woman walked over to a table and placed the carton on a desk while using an eyedropper to squeeze a few drops of the blood—arterial, Bolin noticed, taking note of the dark, nearly black hue—onto a petri dish. She glanced across at them briefly before walking over to the two, stopping a foot in front of them. "Skoochy, you're back again, I see."
"Yep. This is an old friend of mine, Dr. Bolin Lieng," Skoochy introduced, and Bolin nodded politely, still wondering what the hell was wrong with this woman.
"Good to meet you," she said, sticking her hand out and shaking Bolin's in a surprisingly strong grip before releasing it. From this close, Bolin could see her bright green eyes, a few shades lighter than his own. "Hmm. Which was it, Earth Kingdom or Northern Water Tribe?"
Bolin frowned, glancing at Skoochy, who was smiling knowingly. "I'm…I'm sorry, what?"
"You heard me." She sounded like she was speaking to a child—and certainly not a very bright one. "Where did you just come from? Earth Kingdom or Northern Water Tribe. It's a simple question, Dr. Lieng, do try and keep up."
Bolin hesitated, looking over again at Skoochy, who continued to grin. "Er…the Earth Kingdom. How did you k—"
"I play the violin occasionally," the woman interrupted, now with her back to them as she continued to analyze the blood and took furious notes with her left hand. "And I usually have chemicals about, would that bother you? Potential roommates do need to know the quirks about one another. So, Dr. Lieng, what do you have to confess?"
"I—wait, what?" Bolin asked, now completely confused. "Skoochy, you, uh, told her about me?"
Much to his surprise, the young man shook his head, still smiling. "Nope, not a thing."
"Then who said anything about roommates?"
"I did. Told Skoochy this morning quote-unquote that I wondered if anyone in their right mind would rent an apartment with me, and now here he is with an old friend from college who clearly just returned from…just under ten years of military service for the United Forces, and was last stationed in the Earth Kingdom, most definitely the Si Wong Desert."
"How do you know about the Earth Kingdom?" Bolin demanded. It wasn't as if he was dressed in uniform or carrying his service pistol—how in the world had she guessed that he'd come from the Si Wong Desert?
She ignored the question, walking towards a coat rack near the back of the room and put on a trench coat, turning up the collar of it. "I've been considering a nice place near central Republic City. Together we can afford it. Meet me there tomorrow at five o'clock."
Bolin smiled tightly, looking at Skoochy for help, but the young man looked like he was watching the premiere of his favorite mover or the first pro-bending game of the season. "We don't know anything about each other," he said evenly. "I don't know where we're meeting, I don't know your age, what you do for a living—hell, I don't even know your name, and we're just going to rent an apartment together?"
The woman studied him closely before beginning to speak, her words fast but concise. "I know that you're an army doctor, honorably discharged from about seven or eight years of service in the United Forces. I know that you haven't been sleeping well, had a strong bout of pneumonia when you were younger and have survivor's guilt—and I know quite obviously that we have a mutual acquaintance in Skoochy Nakamura." She paused. "That's enough to get along on for now, isn't it?"
She walked to the door, opened it and suddenly looked back. "The name's Asami Sato and we're meeting up at two twenty-one B as in barium Baker Street," she stated with a wink as she nodded a goodbye to Skoochy. "Afternoon, gentlemen."
Skoochy waved nonchalantly as the woman—Asami—swept from the room like a leaf in the wind. Bolin stared, dumbfounded, at his acquaintance, who crossed his arms across his chest. "I warned you," the young man said, clucking his tongue.
In response, Bolin collapsed onto an empty chair.
To be continued…
-Boa :)
