Author's Note: This fic now has a brand-new cover image by XistentialAngst, because she's awesome.
Distraction(s)
I can honestly say that I am not spying on John's latest girlfriend on the day I catch her in the men's department at Debenham's.
I am spying on John.
Well, I say "spying"; it's reconnaissance, really. The girlfriend –Melanie, I think—has passed the two-week, three-date mark (not a punishing pace on the Track of Love, certainly, but John has been kept rather busy of late) and has met me, so it's high time for an evaluation. John can't be expected to contribute anything by way of objective observations and the girl has, as I've said, met me, so a personal interview there would be equally useless. I am therefore forced to loiter surreptitiously outside her workplace at lunchtime, waiting for John to collect her for Date #4. I plan to observe them as they meet. Will she be early, waiting for him? What expression will she wear as she waits, or when she sees him? How will they greet each other? Will John lean into her as they walk together; will she make him laugh; will he look away from her even for a moment? Will he put his hand on her arm, or against her cheek? And what of her reaction?
These are clues to the state of John's relationship and thus of his well-being; therefore, I feel perfectly justified in my endeavor.
By half-twelve I'm becoming annoyed, as both parties are making me wait. Finally Melanie (why not) emerges from her office building; as she steps into the sunlight I see her thumb down her mobile phone and slip it into her handbag with a smirk. The smirk persists as she heads for Oxford Street. I follow. Obviously she's no longer meeting John; good chance that was him on the phone with her just now, making his excuses. She doesn't seem upset, though. Interesting. She has a purpose to her walk that doesn't seem consistent with lunch. An errand? Why the smirk, then? She has made alternate plans, quite quickly. Perhaps that wasn't John on the phone, but someone else? Someone she's meeting instead?
She stops at Debenham's and heads for the men's department. I follow, pretending to shop first for shirts and then sleepwear and –oh.
She's led me to the underwear section. Any notion that she might be shopping for a relative is squelched when I see that the smirk on her face has graduated to a leer. She's holding something in her hand, some undergarment she's thinking of buying. Her eyes shift: up-left, back at her hand, up-right, right-center. She grins; she's made a decision. She lifts the article, smoothes it out, drapes it fondly over her arm and returns her attention to the display table. In my shock, I forget to feign interest in the socks in front of me.
Red pants. The woman is buying red underpants. For a man. They have the smoothness and muted shine of silk or a decent synthetic blend. They are red. My brain cannot properly assimilate this fact; it sticks in the processors and won't be decently filed. Not boxer shorts, pants; briefs, actually. But red.
I shake myself out of my stupor and leave. I have all the facts I need, and there is only one explanation that fits them.
"She's breaking up with you," I tell John that night at the flat.
"What?"
"She bought pants today, John. Red, silk, pants. For a man she knows and in whom she's interested, but whom she's never actually seen in his underwear or slept with, yet; though she means to soon and she believes that the red pants are her ticket in, as it were. So there's someone else, someone obviously not you, and she's so eager to shag him she was imagining it quite vividly in the middle of Debenham's. You're not the kind of man to stand for that sort of thing while the two of you are dating, so: clearly, she must end your relationship. Quite soon, possibly tonight. Go with her, and your conversation this evening will likely include the words 'we need to talk'."
Perhaps I should mention that Melanie is also present. They have just returned from dinner, and she is now attempting to coax John to hers for the night, which seems a bit cold-blooded even to me. I won't look at her; she doesn't deserve my attention –until she grabs it.
Comes up behind John and grabs him by the hip, that is.
"You mean these pants?" she asks, pulling down the waistband of John's trousers. John grunts in surprise. The swell of John's iliac crest is exposed and the first few centimeters of the crease dividing his groin from his right thigh, before Melanie's other hand reaches down his front and tugs his underwear up for me to see. The flash of red stuns me into silence. I blink stupidly. She must have given him the pants at the restaurant, and at some point he went to the restroom and put them on. But then where—? My eyes dart to John's coat pocket, in which his left fist is resting unnaturally. I look at John's face. His expression is like antifreeze poured into my skull.
"On second thought," he says to Melanie, "I'll accept that offer of a nightcap."
As she steers him towards the stairs of 221B, she gives me a wink over her shoulder. John's hand exits his left coat pocket; it holds, as I suspected, the white cotton briefs he had put on that morning. Without looking back, he lets them drop right on the threshold to the sitting room.
Well. I certainly hope he doesn't expect me to pick those up.
Three hours later I'm still in the same position I was when John left. My body is conditioned to at least fool itself into thinking it's comfortable wherever it's been put. I can deal with things like hunger and muscle aches later. Right now, I've made a grievous error in judgment and I need all of my faculties to analyze it.
Where did I go wrong? Clearly, in assuming that Melanie knows John better than to try to seduce him with red underwear. Because I was right about John; he was set to refuse her invitation to a night of silk-loined passion at first. So why did he accept? Out of spite, because I had declared his relationship doomed? That's never swayed his course in the past. What was different this time?
…obviously not you…
I said that, when I thought it obvious that no girlfriend of John Watson's would buy him red silk pants to get him into bed. The look on his face… what did he think I meant?
Obviously she wants to shag someone and it isn't you.
Obviously she buys naughty underpants for men she likes, but not you.
Obviously you'd never wear anything but boring old white cotton Y-fronts.
That look: it most resembled the one he gets when I've done or said something he considers "not good" on his own moral scale. Disappointed, angry, and a bit sad. Over a misunderstanding about pants? Absurd. About the spying? Even John's girlfriends know me well enough not to waste energy fretting about that. About John himself, then?
People assume things about John. The mates he had before he went to Afghanistan assume that he's the same bloke he was when he left. His therapist assumes that Afghanistan left him traumatized. The people we encounter in the course of our Work assume that he's my date, or my sidekick, or some sort of lap-dog I keep around to tell me I'm amazing. His girlfriends assume that he's nice and docile and normal, really; just needs rescuing from his awful flatmate. What no one knows is why John stays with me. He stays because what I assume about John is this: that he can run; that he can follow my methods and apply them himself; that when I need him, he'll be exactly what I need; that he can be and often is, in his own way, brilliant.
Now, however, I seem to have fallen into the same trap as everyone else. I've succumbed to the illusion that John Watson is no more than what I've observed of him. And with that brain-chilling look of disappointment, he has gone away with a person who –though grossly mistaken in her assessment of his tastes—will at least entertain the idea of John doing something new or unexpected.
It takes me no time at all to realize that this situation must be remedied. Another three days pass before a solution presents itself.
At the end of the third day John comes home from the surgery to find a sleek black car idling in front of 221B Baker Street. There's no mistaking it for one of Mycroft's, though. For one thing, the top is down. For another, I'm standing next to it and smiling. John is too busy salivating over the car to notice this second detail. When he finally spots me, his eyebrows do that puzzled scrunching thing, but he looks from me to the car hopefully.
"Yes, John," I tell him. "Ours. Until tomorrow morning."
"How—"
"Case. We're going undercover." He's beaming already; this is perfect. "Which means you need to get upstairs and change. You have fifteen minutes."
John's tongue peeks over his bottom lip. "What's the dress code for going undercover in a Jag?"
I can't help grinning. "Go on up; I've hung your ensemble on your bedroom door."
He looks warily at me, longingly at the Jaguar. At last his curiosity wins out, and he takes the steps of 221B at a smooth and effortless trot.
I follow; as I reach the landing I hear John shouting my name. He doesn't sound pleased. I climb the stairs to his bedroom and peer inside. John is still in his work clothes and frowning at what he's just pulled out of the garment bag I've left him.
"A navy blue tuxedo? No, Sherlock."
"Problem?"
"Yeah, my dad wore a blue tuxedo to his wedding in 1971, that's the problem."
"Your father's admittedly hideous tuxedo was most likely powder blue, John; not the same thing. And this isn't navy, it's called 'midnight' blue, and it's becoming rather popular on red carpets and things. You'll be cutting-edge. Now put it on; we'll be late."
"I don't care what they call it, Sherlock. It's a blue suit. I will look like a security guard."
"You won't."
"A bank manager."
"John. You are not seriously having an argument with me about fashion."
"Yes, you toff bastard, I am. You may know all there is to know about dressing –you, but—"
"Are you suggesting that I would dress myself in this color? Don't be absurd, John; I'd look like a bruise."
"Oh, but it's all right for me, is it?"
Sighing, I move so that my reflection in the mirror is just behind his. "Look," I say, bringing my black-suited forearm up next to his cheek. "Look what that color does to your face, your complexion. You've gone all ashen. You've aged five years. You—"
"Yes, all right, Connie Prince," John mutters, looking at his shoes. "I get it."
"Exactly, John; you do get it," I tell him. "Connie Prince may have gotten ratings by mocking people for all the ways they make themselves look bad, but" –I lower my arm and raise the midnight-blue sleeve to John's face— "She sold millions of books and was adored by her fans for showing people what makes them look good." I grasp his thick skull in my other hand and make him face the mirror again.
John looks. His mouth twitches at the corners. I adopt my 'I'm waiting' expression. He must concede.
"Hateful man," he says at last. "I'll be down in ten."
He exits the flat precisely ten minutes later, moving somewhat stiffly. He's overly conscious of the tux. Perhaps light waves reflecting off the deep jewel tones of the fabric are causing phantom shimmers of color to appear in his peripheral vision, thus unsettling his usual equilibrium. It's been known to happen. Certainly between John and the Jaguar, I'm the shabby old maid.
I drive. John has a private moment in the Jaguar's passenger seat. There is wriggling. At last he sighs and looks curiously at my plain black suit, cheap cotton shirt and black tie. "Case," I say.
As ever, John is muddled, but he's game. "Okay, who's our client?"
"Carstairs, M. City boy. Still doing well despite the economy; still quite fond of his life as a hard-playing bachelor. At 33, however, he's a bit old for the club scene, so he's changed his persona to that of a hard player with mature tastes. He's converted a loft near Cheapside and hosts exclusive parties at least twice a week. Casino nights, usually. It was on one of these nights that his diamond cufflinks were stolen."
"Seriously."
"Quite serious. They were insured, of course; but even if we can't retrieve them, he'd still like to know how they got away. They were locked up, you see, and he has security cameras and everything."
John chuckles. "You're thinking a guest: tells Carstairs he needs the loo, steals the cufflinks, goes back to the table, finishes the game and walks out?"
"No," I answer. "Though any idiot could have stolen them, they'd have to be an idiot with these." I show him my wallet-sized lock pick set. "The guests are all searched as they enter –for weapons, in case tempers run high during a game."
"One of the staff, then?"
"The staff are all searched on their way out to make sure they haven't stolen anything."
"He doesn't search everyone both ways?"
"Carstairs's primary concern is image, John. While his guests may find it titillating to be invited to a party with potentially armed and dangerous characters, they'd be insulted at the suggestion that any guest would actually steal something."
"Whereas the staff presumably have no reason to carry concealed weapons, but of course they're all thieves by nature who'll steal whatever they can if they get a chance."
"Quite."
John thinks. "It'd have to be both, wouldn't it? One of the staff steals the cufflinks, hands them off to one of the players, who leaves with them."
"Full marks, John. Well done."
"But then, you've already solved it. Hell, I solved it. That makes this case a three at best."
"Oh, a two, I'd say."
"So what are we doing?"
"Our client refuses to accept deductions from an investigation conducted via text."
"He doesn't believe you."
"He requires a practical demonstration."
"And our job is to give him one," says John, and the devilment is in his eyes. Suddenly he frowns.
"Hang on," he says. "So if we're—and I'm"—he looks down his midnight-blue front—"then you're—"
"Just a bartender," I finish for him.
"Sherlock," he frets. "Don't you think we're a bit miscast, here?"
"Can you tend bar?"
"No, but—"
"And I hadn't time to learn the various games on offer; whereas you, I believe, are familiar with at least one or two?" He nods. "Then I'd say we are perfectly cast. Besides, I know you secretly wish to play that fellow from those so-called 'spy' films you love so much."
"James Bond."
"That's the one. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time in casinos, for a government employee. Mycroft would have words."
"You want me to play James Bond."
"Hamish J. Wilson, actually. 'H', to your friends. Your driving license." I pass it over. "You're a major, a specialist, still on active duty, but spoiling yourself a bit in London while on leave. You were married once but let your work take over; she left you; you understand. Now that you're older and can appreciate what you've lost."
"Deep," says John. "And I'm to share all this between hands?"
"Everyone will be trying to find out how everyone else got invited, so be prepared to divulge at least that much. The rest is there for you if you need it or the mood strikes. Feel free to improvise, of course, within reason."
"Okay," says John. "Though I'm pretty sure if I ask them for a martini shaken not stirred, the staff are legally permitted to kick me in the teeth."
We're idling at a stoplight when I catch a thought from outside the car.
Awww...
I pinpoint the source: female, mid-twenties, crossing in front of us. Gazing at John.
Oh, he's cute. Nearer forty, coming the opposite way.
I grit my teeth. This is an irritating habit of John's. He looks at the world with that insouciant smile and just draws these snuggly little thoughts from everywhere. Now I've dressed him in a color that makes his eyes practically glow and put a bow around his neck. I should be shot. Our Jag and its contingent of high-functioning sociopath and cold-blooded killer is riding to Cheapside on a wave of cartoon hearts and kitten fluff.
"He wears red pants, you know," I shout at the general populace, hoping that will put them off.
John yelps, cringing into the seat cushions. "Jesus, Sherlock, what the hell—" I shrug.
"No sense acting squeamish, John; I've seen you in them."
"Will you keep your voice down?" His jaw acquires a slight tic just at the angle when he's tense. I look unconcerned. Our audience moves on without further disturbance.
"Seems like a lot of effort," says John after a moment. I look sharply at him. "I mean the Jag," he says, "–it's this year's model, isn't it?—and the tux and all. Just to prove a point to some City git. I'm surprised you didn't tell him to fuck off."
"Nonsense, John, I haven't paid for a thing. Our sole liability is you."
"Me?"
"Mm. I've been advanced the price of admission in cash, which you will convert into chips on your arrival. We are to return the price of admission at the end of the evening. If you win, we are allowed to pocket the difference."
"But if I lose, we have to make it up."
"Indeed. So don't lose. I don't have five grand to throw away."
John rolls his eyes. He gestures at himself and the convertible. "So what about—"
"One thing you should know about social-climbing City gits, John," I say. "They're very often the type of clients who think that no specialist is worth hiring if he doesn't include a bloody great expense account with his bill."
He laughs. We've stopped at another crossing.
Cute.
Cute.
Cute.
Adorable.
"Enough," I snarl. "John, give me your tie."
"What?"
"You heard me. It's not that formal an occasion and if I have to spend the evening mopping up socialite goo I will be sick into the champagne buckets. Your tie, please."
He rips it off his neck and thrusts it at me, muttering fiercely. I stuff it into my pocket. "Thank you."
One advantage to being considered a lunatic is that you're asked to explain yourself far less often than "normal" people.
I stop the car a couple of blocks from our destination. "I'll walk from here," I say. "We can't be seen arriving together." I give John the keys, the address, and his instructions.
"Got it?" I ask him.
"Yes," he says, "but Sherlock—"
"Mm?"
"Are you sure that I'm the one who should be providing the distraction? Isn't that more your area?"
"This isn't a momentary 'hey, look over here' kind of distraction, John. You've got to hold their attention for hours so that if asked, they won't remember anything about the bartender. I might be better at making an immediate impression, but how long could I sustain it?"
"Well, let's see: you'd be bored after about twenty minutes, then start picking apart everyone's dirty little secrets and pointing out their tells and –yeah, fair point. They'd be sprinting for the darkest corners to get away from you."
We make our separate entrances. I tend bar and feed John watered-down drinks so he can keep alert. His main function tonight is to misdirect, to keep everyone's focus away from the bar and the back rooms, where Carstairs has planted fake cufflinks in his locked box for purposes of this demonstration.
John plays, and John shines. Without the bow tie, he stands less chance of being clubbed over the head and dragged home to Mummy. He looks like a bone knife in a sapphire sheath: hard enough to earn the respect of the supposed Alpha males, but not aggressive enough to seem a threat. He's a mate, a flirt, a big brother, a commanding officer, a romantic stranger. They can't take their eyes off him.
Two hours in, I break for a cigarette and steal the cufflinks. Child's play. Hardly worth mentioning. I tuck them into my lock-pick set, slip the whole thing between the folds of the bottommost of the bathroom's two folded bath towels, and text John. His phone's on vibrate so only he will notice; all anyone sees is their favorite taking a break for the loo while I resume my place behind the bar. As he comes back I see him shutting off his phone; that's our signal to let me know he's got the package. An hour later, I receive a text from a number I don't recognize.
Where is he?
Melanie. So good to know you can make use of an Internet search engine. Of whom are you texting? -SH
Don't be coy. Where's John? I know you have him. He always responds to texts unless he's working, or you've wrangled him into something.
He's working right now, in fact. -SH
I mean at his REAL job, not playing silly cloaks-and-daggers. Why isn't he answering? What have you got him doing now?
Right now? Riding on five to come, with another 100 on a hard eight. -SH
What?
Craps, dear. Though I understand your surprise; I would have pegged him for a blackjack man. –SH
Give him your phone.
Can't, I'm afraid. Would blow his cover. And I can tell from here that security missed at least two knives, a pistol and a shuriken when they frisked the guests. –SH
WHAT?
'Chinese throwing star.' Do keep up. -SH
Sherlock, let me talk to John RIGHT NOW.
Oops, shutting down. Mustn't get sacked for loafing; John would have to steal the cufflinks on his own, and you know he's hopeless at lock-picking. Or perhaps you don't. I'm sure he'll be in touch soon. Byeee –SH
The best thing about the evening is watching John's face. He's playing the game –his game, anyway—and loving it. Chance and sleight of hand and himself as the dashing spy. The games end and we meet Carstairs on the street outside, where John drops the fake cufflinks into his hand with a flourish. Carstairs makes a face.
"Fine," he says, glaring at me. I start telling him which bartender from the service he uses to track down and press for details about his accomplice in the original theft. John pulls out his mobile and turns it on. It immediately begins to make message-warning noises indicating Ignored Girlfriend Having a Strop.
He grimaces. "I should probably—"
I nod. "I'll meet you at the car." He goes, phone already to his ear. I settle things with Carstairs, to whom I apparently owe 50 pounds. I remember John's face at the craps table. It was worth it.
As I approach the Jaguar, I see John in the passenger seat putting his phone to sleep with a vehemence that is becoming somewhat familiar.
"Yes," he says before I can utter a word, "we broke up. Yes, it was for the usual reasons. And yes, not that you would ask, but I'm fine. That is, unless you have something particularly inappropriate to say about it. Which would be pretty much anything you could think of right now, by the way."
I chew my lip a bit on that. He knows I love a challenge.
"Dinner?"
He sighs. I win. "Are we expensing it?"
"Naturally. A working detective's assistant must eat, I'm told. Where to?"
John looks down at his lapels, then cocks his chin.
"Somewhere that's fit to be seen with this suit," he says.
I smile, and drop the Jag into gear.
I'm barely inside 221B when I get a text from Lestrade. John is a few paces behind me, having said a protracted farewell to the convertible.
"Crime scene, John!" I shout at him. "Bloodletting at Abney Park. Need your expertise."
"Oh, for—What could they possibly need from me, out there? Here, I'll give you my diagnosis: 'Victim died from blood loss.' Good night, Sherlock. Thank you for a lovely evening."
"Oh, John, don't be tiresome."
"Sherlock, I'm tired and I don't feel like scrambling around a bloody cemetery in the middle of the night."
"Well, not in that suit, certainly. You'll need to change. Put your red pants on; perhaps that'll buck you up."
The silence stretches for so long that I look up from where I've been texting Lestrade. John is frozen in the doorway. I frown and try to recall what I've said.
Oh.
That might have been a bit Not Good.
My reference to the red pants which must remind him of the recently departed girlfriend was perhaps a bit Too Soon (Timing: a subdivision of all things Not Good).
I notice that I get a strange feeling at moments like this, only with John; as if the melting point of my spine has been lowered by some ten degrees.
Then John bursts into laughter.
"Thank you," he sputters after a moment. "I was just thinking I'd probably have to get rid of those, but you've just given me an association with them I can keep. Are they what, my superhero disguise now? Don the Red Pants of Justice and I can leap tall buildings in a single bound?"
"Or just look at a corpse; that's all I'll require of you and the pants tonight."
"Oh good. Wouldn't want to overtax their powers on their first day."
I'm still somewhat uncomfortable about my timing. John observes me looking at the floor.
"Forget it," he tells me. "I knew it wouldn't last, after the whole gift-of-supposedly-sexy-underpants thing. Still, I would have been pleased to make it through Christmas. I hate having to do the family rounds on my own."
I'm confused. "But –if you wanted to keep—"
"The red pants? I don't mind those," John answers. "I mean, I wouldn't have bought them myself, but they're fine. No, she" –he lowers his voice— "she also bought me leopard print ones."
"Ugh." Now I'm appalled. "Oh, John, that's just—"
"I know. Do you know anyone who actually wears those? And who'd think that I—?" He shakes his head.
"You don't still—"
"Binned," says John. "Immediately."
"Oh, thank goodness."
"Though I did think briefly of sending them to Mycroft."
I grimace. "Amusement factor radically lessened by being thus forced to imagine him in them."
"That was the deciding argument for me, too," says John. "Anyway: can't fight crime without my costume. Back in a tick."
He trots upstairs to his room to change. In my head, I say goodbye. I have practiced saying goodbye to John for months. At first, I simply wanted to have the swiftest and most brutal words to hand, tailored to John's particular weaknesses, should I ever feel the need to expel him from the flat and my life on short notice. After several weeks of cohabitation, it occurred to me that either my behavior or John's romantic needs might cause him to leave my company before I am quite ready for him to do so. Such a development would require a different kind of goodbye –one of several possible kinds, in fact, all rehearsed: ranging from righteous scorn to indifference to emotional manipulation (not begging, I never beg; but perhaps an appeal to John's good sense –for he knows, he must know, that it is really best for everyone concerned that he stays). Since the pool, I have been forced to accept the possibility that one of us might be killed; and John has made it quite clear which of us that is to be, if he has anything to say about it. And then I –I will need to have practiced. John.
He returns, costume intact: warm, modest jumper; plain, easy-fitting denim; sensible shoes. And underneath, red silk underpants. I know he's wearing them, his superhero disguise. They're trying to draw my eyes downward, but I know John wouldn't appreciate me staring.
"Sherlock?" he asks, curious, concerned. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I tell him. "Let's go." I let John lock up. I remind myself to walk in front of my flatmate for a while, until I forget why I thought it necessary.
John's red pants are a distraction, and I should delete them, but at the last minute I archive them instead. They are also a useful reminder: trust John, but never take him for granted.
Some days later I'm walking through my mind palace when I see a flash of color from outside one of the upper windows. Looking out, I see that a banner of red silk has attached itself to a spire atop one of the highest turrets. Suddenly a breeze picks it up; it lifts its brave little tail into the stream. I wave goodbye, expecting it to snap off at any moment and sail away. But it just clings on merrily and waves back, as if to say 'Hello there; isn't this fun!' The spire sits on a high conical roof and is too far away for me to reach, either to set the banner free or pull it inside. For hours I just stare at it, and I haven't the faintest idea what to do.
Note:
For the record, Debenham's department store sells both red and leopard print silk... boxer shorts. Okay, so some artistic license was taken.