Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.
Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers.
Summary (Wit Beyond Measure): Luna had enough of chasing cryptozoological creatures and living out of a trunk, at least for a while. Maybe in a year or two, she'd go back to traveling the world. She could write up her findings! She's been meaning to do that for ages. Renting a flat in central London would be a change of pace from the wild reaches, certainly, but there'd be people around again. That would be nice.
Author's Note(s): For the record, writing characters who notice freaking everything is a pain in the patella. Also, as of right now, this project is not on my list of things to be thrown into my queue at some point.
Project Note: This was previously posted in Stories That Go Nowhere, due to time constraints. It is reposted on its own after being reviewed and formatting updated.
Competition/Challenge Block: (Houses Competition)
House: Hufflepuff
Category: Sherlock Holmes
Prompts: "If you say that once more, I am going to lose it,"; Waking up in the wrong bed
Word Count: 1937 (Story Only); xx (Story & Epigraph)
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Wit Beyond Measure
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"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding." – Albert Einstein
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It had been only a few weeks since Sherlock had returned to business as usual with better than an official pardon for shooting Magnussen. Waiting may have been his plan and perfectly logical, but god, he was bored. There had been plenty of cases, but none had broken a 5. Waiting was becoming utter agony. The longer he tried to note everything around him, the more things he noted. It was starting to slow his ability to process the sensory input.
"Sherlock, come meet Luna," Mrs. Hudson called as he tried to escape up to his flat the moment he had noted someone with the cartel bookkeeper cum landlady. He frowned but returned the two steps to the ground level. "And be nice!"
The woman standing beside her was surprisingly tan for someone so blond. Her hair was uncommonly long but the weight didn't appear to bother her, even coiled into a bun on her crown like it was. The hair stick she was using was oddly shaped—at least three times as thick as normal and longer as well. The handle had a patina that could only be born of habitual use—more than would be warranted by its current one. She was English but made no attempt to extend her hand in greeting. More importantly, every second he spent reading her instead of saying anything, her smile grew rather than faded. He was sorting out the possible questions he could use to test that response when she broke the silence.
"You really should find a better way of distracting yourself," she stated as calm and drifting as a breeze. Her voice was a balm to his ears. She rocked on the balls of her feet, a release of excited energy. She tilted her head, drawing his attention to the line of her throat. The scars there were an odd mixture—some were from knives of various sizes but others were at the wrong angle. Claws? Maybe fangs? She wiggled her fingers at him in a little wave—those calluses had to be from the hair stick and a small knife, double-sided, judging on the scar on the tip of her index finger from where she guided the blade despite always nicking herself. A splash of black ink stained the side of her thumb. "You'll tangle in the threads if you don't pull back from the weave occasionally. You're catching now."
"Am I?"
"Oh, yes," Luna confirmed as she brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear with the hand she hadn't waved at him. It had similar calluses as the other one but without the knife scar. The ink stain on that thumb was the characteristic blue of De Atramentis' Plum. Ambidextrous, then, with a preference for fountain pens. There was one of those not-fangs marks on her cheekbone fresh enough to disrupt the tan in the skin around its edges. "Who are you poking at with the knocker?"
"My archenemy," Sherlock said without the level of bite he would have given the term before his Fall. It had been very sentimental for Mycroft to have extracted him personally rather than send underlings. Luna made a noise of comprehension while Mrs. Hudson watched them in her typical anxious way. Honestly, he was perfectly capable of not upsetting guests—ah, that's it, wasn't it? This woman wasn't a guest.
"And there it is," Luna announced. Mrs. Hudson chewed her bottom lip, ruining her lipstick. Luna patted Mrs. Hudson's shoulder before rubbing down her arm as if the older woman was a cat needing stroked. "Tis fine, Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock's just realized that I'm moving into 221C. Slower than I expected from what you've told me, but he's a mite distracted at the moment."
"That's just Sherlock, dear, and he doesn't really have an archenemy."
"Oh, but he does!" Her eyes weren't strictly gray. There were actually streaks of a dusty violet; the odd color served to make the other shades of gray seem to shimmer like the carapace of a strange beetle. She grinned at him just like John would after they solved a thrilling case that brought them close to death. "He's talking about his brother."
"Oh, don't be—"
"It's sibling rivalry, dear Hudson," Luna declared, turning all of her attention to the hovering landlady. Her hair had multiple shades of blond, too many for the color to be anything but natural. She took care of it all but recently she cut the strand that kept escaping the ear-tuck. It had been bound together and cut with a blade above the binding, making the resulting end a mixture of lengths differing barely enough to be noticeable even to him when he's like this. Her ears were pierced multiple times (most in the cartilage zone but twice in the detached lobe), but the basic piercing was the longest one and judging by the lengthening of the hole's bottom rim, she was prone to wearing hooks with a modicum of weight to the decoration. "I don't have siblings myself, but there was a family near where I grew up that had seven children. They were always competing against each other. Since Sherlock here is the dramatic sort, of course he would announce his older brother is an archenemy. Of course, the elder Mr. Holmes encourages it."
"Mycroft would never—"
"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Hudson," Luna said with gentle firmness, "but I must disagree. This Mycroft most definitely would. Otherwise Sherlock will look too closely—even closer than he is right now. He's just catching a little now. Whatever this hidden weft is would likely trap him. Sherlock's not going to stop tugging on his own, now is he? He's an addict."
"I'm clean!"
"Oh, please," Luna scoffed at his denial. She rolled her eyes as she twisted her body in a way that reminded Sherlock of how Mary sometimes did when she perceived a potential threat in a spot she deemed non-ideal. Luna gave him a soft smile, yet another similarity to the other woman. "Don't bother fibbing. Addicts are never clean."
"I am clean."
"Fibbing."
"I have detoxed completely."
"Fibbing."
"I haven't had a cigarette in ages."
"Fibbing."
"Not even a patch in weeks."
"Fibbing," she called out in a sing-song tone. It was a childish tease but a comfortable one. She had to spend time playing with children at their level, despite being neither a mother or an aunt, at least biologically. Odd; wasn't children a biological imperative of women in their late thirties? "Sherlock's fibbing."
"If you say that once more, I am going to lose it," he threatened, falling into the same childish churl. She smiled innocently at him, matching her previous childish actions.
"Then stop lying. You're high right now." Luna smoothed the fabric of her cobalt sundress. The style of it was simple, without belts or ribbons or buttons of any sort. The only embellishment of any sort was the bronze swirls embroidered on the handkerchief hem of the skirt and the facing of the boat neckline. There was a faded bruise on her right clavicle, almost completely covered by the way the fabric rested. "See? You can't stop. You're going to burn up if you don't find a better way to handle this."
"Sherlock Holmes! Do I need call John?" Already, Mrs. Hudson was pulling out her phone and moving back towards her personal doorway. He made a move to snatch the phone from her hand, but found himself ducking away from a finger jab aimed at his ribs before he could get farther than a step. He tried again only to be forced backwards lest the potentially disabling jab to the nerve cluster in his dominant shoulder connect. Luna just stared back at him when he glared at her after retreating. The bop on the nose was completely unexpected.
"Bad Sherlock. No biscuit."
"I'm not a dog."
"You certainly have the preservation instincts of one. You're clearly not sleeping. When was the last time you ate?"
"I don't eat while I'm on a case."
"Of course," Luna agreed, far easier than John had and without the sharp assessment of Mary. It was like she understood exactly why the decision was made. Completely impossible; not even Mycroft understood. She examined his face. When her slender hand touched his cheek, he couldn't stop the subtle press into her palm. His eyes slid closed as he felt tension begin to melt from his muscles. "Do you at least stay hydrated? With something other than tea, that is—terribly un-British of me, I know, but caffeine doesn't help sensory spikes."
"I like tea," he muttered as Mrs. Hudson's violet scent grew stronger. He wanted to open his eyes, but the pounding in his head had finally begun to fade, leaving what felt like weights upon his eyelids.
"John's on his way. He said to ask for the list?"
"Mm not high," Sherlock whined. Why didn't anyone believe him? He hadn't taken anything, not since the plane. He had been good. There was nothing for the stupid list. Sherlock wanted to rant but a hand to match the other one was on his other cheek and the effort to do more than disgruntledly grumble was beyond him. Dimly, he was aware of being guided somewhere but the growing lassitude prevented him from extrapolating where. The last thing he knew was the sickening swoop of pitching forward into free fall. He never felt the impact.
Arguing woke him some time later. For a moment, he couldn't understand why he was staring at a paisley pattern. Paisley wasn't right. All his bedding was shades of blue or cream. He hated patterns. They annoyed him. Solid colors were better. The texture had a nubby feel, like cotton that had been washed too many times. At least the smell was correct. He must be in Mrs. Hudson's guest room then. But that didn't explain the arguing, not when her voice wasn't one of them.
Sherlock forced himself out of the bed at the recognition of John's voice. Something was just as wrong as the bed if John was angry enough to roar. It took a lot to make him lose his temper. His legs didn't want to cooperate at first but it was nothing that the adrenaline flooding his system wasn't fixing. He still had to catch himself on the doorframe to avoid face-planting on the kitchen floor. The thud brought the quarrelers' attention to him.
"Will you please tell this overprotective badger-ass all the terrible secrets that I'm clearly hiding so that this conversation can finally end? I need to finish unpacking."
"She traveled extensively abroad but for business not pleasure. She is accustomed to combat with highly dangerous adversaries, not all of which are humanoid. Most likely a field scientist of some kind, quite possibly zoologist. Her knowledge of the body is extensive and she is capable of utilizing that knowledge to aid her fighting skills, without broadcasting her moves until that moment. She's fully capable with knives but favors a double-sided blade that is no longer than a handslength. She's financially secure but prefers to live modestly, possibly for the anonymity but more likely for the comfort of a close friend with children. She's going to be a horrible nag about boring things and terribly insistent on transport maintenance. And finally, she is not an idiot and Mrs. Hudson already trusts her."
"Well, I like her," Mary announced in the silence. "Another set of hands keeping you boys out of trouble is always appreciated. Welcome to Baker Street, Ms. Lovegood."
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An Ending
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