Okay so this is the first Sherlock fanfic I'm writing. And the first Femlock. So please go easy. There's no way this is as good as some of the other awesome fics out there (check my recent favourites), but I gave it my best shot. Enjoy :)
"Sherlock?" Joan Watson called, as she struggled into the living room, hefting five bulging grocery bags, "Come help me unpack these!"
"Mmm," a throaty voice hummed absently from her right, and Joan turned to see Sherlock stretched out on the couch, her hands steepled under her chin, blue-grey eyes narrowed at the ceiling, obviously lost in thought. The younger woman's shirt sleeves were rolled up, exposing the three nicotine patches on her forearm, and her hair, a straggly mess of dark curls, was spread over the armrest. Joan stared at her for a second, eyes widening in panic as she noticed the dark maroon bloodstains spattered over Sherlock's white shirt and dark grey dress pants.
"Calm down. Not my blood," Sherlock muttered, eyes still on the ceiling.
Joan visibly relaxed, exhaling in relief. She shot an exasperated look at the brunette, running her hand through her boy-cut blonde hair, trying to calm her pounding heart. She turned to the kitchen, deciding she did not want to get into the details of whose blood it actually was.
"Sherlock. Help unpacking the bags?" she repeated, trying to manoeuvre her way towards the fridge without knocking over what looked like a bowl of water full of human fingers on the kitchen countertop. She paused for a second, staring it it in horror while repressing the urge to hurl before shaking her head and hurrying past. Over the last few months, she'd gotten accustomed to her flatmate's eccentricities, but there were certain things she'd not be able to take without complaint. Dropping the bags on the floor near the fridge, she walked over and gingerly picked up the bowlful of fingers, and placed it near the trash bin, this time, not able to hold back a shudder of revulsion.
There was a thump and footsteps from the living room, and Sherlock appeared in the doorway. There were dark circles under her eyes, indicating that she probably hadn't slept all night. Her black messy locks curled past her shoulders, some of it in the collar of her bloodied shirt which was hanging off her lanky frame, the top three buttons open, exposing pale, marble white skin, prominent collarbones and the tops of her black bra. Her eyes were slightly crazed, flicking to Joan's face, then rapidly around the kitchen, as though looking for something.
"I'm missing something."
"Yes. The opportunity to help me unpack the groceries."
"Something very obvious. It's staring me in the face, Joan. What IS it? WHAT?" Sherlock fumed, slamming her fist down on the kitchen table, and viciously pushing her hair out of her face. Joan winced at the noise and turned to the fridge to put away the tomatoes, moving aside a bottle of lethal-looking orange liquid to make space for them. Her fingers encountered a large petridish covered with cling-wrap and she frowned.
"Sherlock, we've discussed about the mould in the fridge."
"It's an experiment," her flatmate waved it off casually, muttering to herself under her breath. Joan caught the phrases 'balance of probability', 'witness credibility' and 'plain as the nose'.
"Okay, so why don't you tell me about it while you help me put away all of this?" The blonde waved at the bags, making another subtle attempt to get her to crazy best friend help her out.
"How is it possible that I've spent eight hours on this problem, and STILL NOT FIGURED IT OUT? HOW?" Sherlock growled furiously, fingers now clutching her unruly ebony curls in frustration, swiping a couple of the offending strands out of her eyes again.
"Is this still about the missing earrings then?" Joan enquired casually, pausing to turn to Sherlock.
"Oh heavens, no," Sherlock waved her hand dismissively, "Solved that one in minutes. It was the sister, obviously. Chalk dust on her fingers? The faint smell of turpentine? Dead giveaway.
The one I'm working on now involves a murder of a young man. Client turned up here at around 3 in the morning, but I didn't want to wake you. There are no external wounds on the man's body and no traces of poison or asphyxiation or the like. I'm pretty sure it's straightforward, but there's something I'm not seeing even, if the alibis of the gardener, cook and maids all check out."
"Maybe you're not seeing it because of all that hair in your eyes," Joan said absently, turning back to the fridge to put away the milk cartons, watching Sherlock twirl one dark strand around her finger at the edge of her peripheral vision, "You should REALLY get a haircut."
Sherlock froze, lips parting slightly as an expression of incredulous realization dawned on her face. Her wide eyes flashed pale jade in the kitchen light.
"Of course," she breathed, and Joan immediately turned to look at her. The older woman could almost see the wheels whirring in Sherlock's head, as the brunette jumped to her feet, whirling around and sprinting into the living room, " Of COURSE! Joan, you're incredible!"
"I am?" The blond asked, stymied, "Why?"
"The HAIR!" Sherlock cried, making no sense at all. She threw open the laptop and started typing into it frantically, "I should have thought of this before."
Joan just watched wordlessly, still holding the milk carton and not understanding what it was that she had said. Her flatmate's eyes scanned laptop screen, the intent look on her sharp-featured face almost bordering on maniacal. Sherlock then read some gibberish off it, her fingers buttoning up her shirt with quick precision. With another exclamation of triumph, the younger woman grabbed her coat off the stand, threw it on and ran out the door, but not before calling out a quick goodbye.
"Thanks, Joan! I'll be back in time for dinner!"
"Wait! I'll come too!"
"No, you're going to the surgery for that appointment you made yesterday. I'll handle this!" Sherlock's voice sounded from the bottom of the landing, followed by the sound of the front door slamming shut.
Joan sighed, not bothering to ask HOW Sherlock had known about the appointment, when she hadn't mentioned it, nor written it down anywhere. Resignedly, she resumed putting away the shopping, realizing she was stuck doing it by herself. Again.
She would never understand the madness that was Sherlock Holmes.
Joan was sitting in her chair, dressed in a black tank top and her flannel pajama pants, idly flicking through channels on the TV. It was getting late and Sherlock STILL hadn't returned. The doctor checked the time for the sixth time in the past fifteen minutes, then picked her phone up off her lap and checked for any texts. There had been none since her best friend had left and that hadn't changed yet. Her texts had gone unanswered as well. Calls to Lestrade had revealed that the Detective Inspector was down with the flu and not at work today. She was just considering popping over to the police station when the door to their flat flew open, and Sherlock stepped in, looking disheveled and utterly furious.
"Sherlock. Thank God! Where've you been? What happened?" Joan asked, exhaling in relief, as she muted the old rerun of Eastenders she'd been watching, then paused as she saw the stormy expression on the detective's face.
"ANDERSON," Sherlock snarled, ripping off her jacket and flinging it at the coat stand. Joan gaped as the irate woman walked over and picked up her violin, all the while muttering obscenities.
"What?" Joan managed, falling silent as Sherlock turned her eyes, now a burning quicksilver, on her. After a moment of deafening silence, the detective put the bow to the strings of her precious instrument, and began playing an angry, fast piece.
"I. Am. Never. Helping. Out. On. A. Case. Again," she said slowly, punctuating each word with a musical note.
"Want to tell me what happened?" Joan asked, raising her voice over the cacophony. Sherlock's only response was to play even louder, the tune turning tempestuous. Her eyes were squeezed shut, narrow brows drawn together in anger.
Joan gave up. Switching of the television, she got out of her chair and tossed the remote onto the sofa, "Fine, then. Have it your way. I'm off to bed. Dinner's on the table."
The brunette showed no sign of having heard, but the older woman didn't have the energy to put up with an angry Sherlock right then. The appointment earlier that evening had brought to light the patient's deteriorating gall bladder condition, which had needed immediate surgery. Staff had been short and Joan had to carry it out with only her colleague, Sam, to assist her. All she wanted to do now was sleep.
Trudging into her room, Joan got into bed and lay there, hoping that Sherlock would stop playing soon. She wrapped her pillow around her ears, and closed her eyes, willing herself to fall asleep, trying to block out Sherlock's musical rant.
The violin had continued to screech from the hall for the next fifteen minutes, melody getting faster and more hateful by the second. Joan had given up trying to get to sleep and was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. The old bullet wound in her shoulder was throbbing, matching pace to the throbbing in her head. There was no way she was going to be able to sleep.
Just when she thought she would get up and do some productive paperwork for her next day at the surgery, the violin stopped.
Joan had little time to thank the Lord, as the ceasing of the notes had been accompanied by a frustrated shriek. The blonde bolted upright as crashes and the sound of havoc reverberated from the living room. And almost immediately, there was more quiet.
Swinging her legs off the bed, she crossed the room in three strides, heart sinking at the sudden silence that had ensued.
"Sherlock?" she called firmly, stepping out and making her way to the hall, "What the bloody hell are you doing?"
The sight that met her eyes would have been funny, if she hadn't been worrying for her friend's sanity.
Sherlock was standing over the kitchen table, sawing at her rebellious curls with a serrated kitchen knife. A few raven locks littered the tabletop, and some the floor around her feet. Around her, there were several kitchen cabinets thrown open, two broken plates on the floor. A bag of frozen peas sat by the microwave, split down the middle with another smaller knife sticking out of the gaping wound, spilling its contents all over the counter-top. Apart from that, there wasn't any more obvious damage done, though Joan resolved to give the kitchen a quick once over once this was cleared up.
"What ARE you DOING?" Joan spluttered, gaping at her flatmate.
"Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock bit out, with another vicious slice at her hair, "I'm giving myself a haircut."
"Out of the blue? And couldn't you have thought of using a pair of scissors?"
"Couldn't find them," Sherlock's eyes met Joan's then slid away, followed by a resigned shrug, before turning her attention back to her hair.
"I've mentioned that they're kept in the drawer below the fruit bowl," Joan sighed, walking over and pulling out the object in question. She turned to Sherlock who stretched her hand out for it, putting the kitchen knife down.
"Yes, well, the fact didn't seem important at the time, so I deleted it," Sherlock said in clipped tones, then wiggled her fingers for emphasis, "Give me the scissors."
"Not on your life," Joan narrowed her eyes at her friend, "Sit down. I'll cut your hair for you. God only knows what you'll end up doing if I let you cut it yourself."
"I was managing fine with the knife before you showed up," Sherlock said coldly.
"No, you had just started AND had almost lost an eye in the twenty seconds I was standing there. If I'd let you continue, you'd have sliced off your ear eventually. Now SIT."
A moment passed as Sherlock stared at the shorter woman. Despite what people thought, under all of Joan Watson's relatively cute exterior was a seasoned war veteran with nerves of steel and a will of fire. Soldier Joan was someone Sherlock was well acquainted with and NOT someone Sherlock wanted to cross.
Shooting her one last reproachful glare, Sherlock pulled out a chair and plonked herself down in it, one arm thrown over the back. Joan walked up to the brunette whose long legs were stretched out as she slouched in her chair, vaguely resembling a spider. She pulled free a tendril from Sherlock's jet black mop and began to cut.
For a few moments, the kitchen was silent, except for the quiet snipping of the scissors and the muffled patter of Sherlock's hair falling onto the kitchen floor.
"So... what happened today?"
Sherlock was silent for a moment, then sighed, rubbing a hand over her face, "I got brought in for interrogation as a murder suspect."
"Again?" Joan asked amusedly.
Sherlock shot her a dirty look, "Yes. AGAIN. But then, it was Anderson on forensics and I would expect that level of asininity from no one else. Donovan was there too, so that made worse. Honestly, those two are insufferable when Lestrade isn't around to keep them in line.
It started with you giving me that idea about the hair. I-"
"I didn't realise it would be important."
"Of course, you didn't," Sherlock smirked up at her, "But however unintentional, that was a great lead. I went to Barts and took hair samples from the victim. There's a poison called Ampiroxin, extracted from the rare Pink Raspail flower, which coincidentally were grown in the victim's garden. Virtually undetectable, no traces in the blood or anywhere else. It kills and is excreted from the body as residue in keratin filaments of the nails and hair, mostly, and a bit on the skin too. This poison is taken by ingesting it, and can kill only in large quantities. To find this, the tests to be done are different, and vary from person to person, depending on various physical factors."
"So you solved it then?" Joan interrupted, carefully arranging the ends of Sherlock's hair together, then cutting off a handful of curls in one fluid motion.
"Of course. Then got thrown in a cell for a couple of hours for my trouble," Sherlock huffed, examining her manicured hand, "It was the gardener, naturally. He also conveniently happened to have a degree in Bio-Technology, which would make him experienced with extraction and distillation of plant oils and chemicals. And he had a motive- The victim was holding the fact that he was an illegal immigrant over his head, and had made him work for free for over two years. I guess he finally snapped."
Joan hmmed, indicating Sherlock should continue.
"So before I tested the hair for poison, I decided to use myself as a lab rat-"
"You WHAT?" Joan snapped, hands pausing in their work.
"Well, I took a small dose of the poison, naturally," Sherlock shrugged, looking puzzled at the horrified look on Joan's face.
"Sherlock! That's dangerous!" Joan yelled, fist clenching around the scissors.
"Oh don't be silly," Sherlock scoffed, turning away from the other woman and crossing her arms over her chest obstinately, "Of COURSE, I wouldn't have died. I measured the quantity very precisely. It was just enough to cause some mild nausea and dizziness. I only wanted to confirm what I already knew, by performing similar tests on my own hair. And it's all out of my system now, so keep your knickers on."
Joan put down the scissors, and grabbed Sherlock's narrow jaw, forcing the detective to look at her. Her warm brown eyes met Sherlock's cloudy ones and very firmly, Joan spoke, "You will never do something like that again. I'm not having it. Understand?"
Sherlock's eyes flickered, "I don't see what the problem is. I wasn't going to poison myself. There was no danger."
"Something could have gone wrong, Sherlock!"
"Nonsense. I never make mistakes. Nothing would have-"
"Never again, Sherlock. Do I make myself clear?"
Sherlock's eyes slid away. "Yes, fine," She grumbled.
"Good," Joan released her jaw and turned her attention back to Sherlock's hair, half of which was grazing her neck, while the other half hung in limp coils over the left side of her face, "Now why were you detained again?"
"Well, after I carried out the test on myself, I left to the crime scene to confirm the other facts. I thought that would be best since the police hadn't arrived there yet, to damage all the evidence with their loutish methods of 'investigation'. After that, I went to report to Lestrade at the station. Sadly, I found out he wasn't in, and so I was put through to Lestrade's colleague, D.I Morris or something like that. He kept me there for almost two hours, asking pointless questions, berating me for tampering with the crime scene and completely ignoring the fact that I had solved the case for him.
And that was when Donovan and Anderson showed up. They mentioned that they had found hair in the crime scene that matched mine, and were over the moon when Morris insisted I be held back for questioning. And when I refused, they detained me with force."
"Oh Sherlock," Joan sighed in exasperation, trying to stop her lips from twitching in amusement, "So is that why you took a knife to your hair?"
"It's been bothering me for a while now. It impedes my thought process," Sherlock said loftily, nodding in affirmation.
Joan kept silent, swallowing her laughter.
"You shouldn't mouth off to them you know," The doctor added after a moment, trying not to think of all the horribly personal things Sherlock would have announced out loud. Something she tended to do when she was angry.
"I was just stating the facts," Sherlock argued irritably, "It was quite obvious that Morris suffers from cholesterol, and is a cat person despite his allergy claims. And his wife is leaving him for the reasons that he drinks to much and has horrible table manners."
Joan snickered, unable to help herself, "Please tell me you didn't tell him that."
"I most certainly did."
"And you wonder why people don't like you," Joan shook her head, the look on her face affectionate, "You need lessons on tact, Sherlock."
"Tact is for amateurs."
"I don't blame them at all, honestly."
"You wouldn't, would you? You and your sense of consideration."
"Thank you?"
"It was an insult."
"Hardly."
"There. All done," Joan put down the scissors, brushing her hands lightly over Sherlock's bony shoulders, dusting the last hairs from her shirt. She then walked around the detective, head cocked as she observed her handiwork.
"Not bad," Joan finally pronounced, with a one-shouldered shrug, a light smile playing around her lips, "It suits you. Makes you look more... You."
"You're not making any sense," Sherlock replied as she stood up and walked to the mirror in the hall.
The woman in her reflection stared back, blinking surprisedly.
"Well?" Joan was leaning against the kitchen door-frame, looking pleased with herself.
"I look like a flapper," Sherlock turned her head from side to observe the back. Her hair now was a messy pixie-cut of jet black curls, which, when coupled with her pearly eyes and crooked smile, made her look positively impish. She could see what Joan meant whens she said it suited her.
Sherlock couldn't help but agree.
"You look like a right keen dame," Joan joked from where she was standing.
"I do," Sherlock agreed, running her fingers through her short curls, lips curling up in her trademark smirk, "I can hit on all sixes with this hair."
Needless to say, Joan had to put up with Sherlock spouting twenties' slang all over the place for the next week or so, demanding for 'gaspers' and dealing with 'capers'. She also had to put up with Lestrade and a bunch of other people complaining about how she'd made Sherlock even harder to understand, as impossible as it had seemed before the haircut.
Despite it all, Joan couldn't help but grin.
Sherlock was one dotty Shamus.
Okay, so I'm crap with twenties' slang, and I hope I used it right. From what I read,
Keen - Attractive or appealing
Dame - a female
Hit on all sixes - to perform 100 per cent; as "hitting on all six cyclinders"
Gaspers - Cigarettes
Capers - Crimes
Dotty - Crazy
Shamus - Private Detective.
I've drawn fanart for this fic, just a shot of Sherlock after her hair is cut :) The links are on my profile :)
You guys know the drill. R&R :)
No flaming please!