Authors Note: This is a concept I have always loved and thought fit wonderfully with this fandom. I will try to update as frequently as possible, so please let me know what you think
"Do you want it straight or do you want a touch of sugar coating John?"
"Just get on with it Harry."
"They don't want to go ahead with the North American dates."
John Hamish Watson, at the age of 31, was no longer surprised by news like this. He could barely remember the time when he might have been. In fact, there was hardly any impulse at all to remind Harriet that there was nothing else on the schedule besides the North American dates all summer.
"What's that mean then, what's the new plan?" because Harry always had a plan, his little career would be even more non-existent if she hadn't taken over management of it four years ago. It was a bit startling to realize the amount of dependency he had started to put on his recovering alcoholic of a sister. Granted, he'd made worse decisions.
Dropping out of medical school six years ago was definitely starting to look like one of them.
At the time, it had seemed like the logical thing to do. As much as he loved helping people, there was no spark there. Half way through his degree, John just hadn't been interested anymore. Wasn't that what people were meant to do? Pursue what their hearts told them was right? Couldn't that be true even if all you wanted was for a few people to like the words you'd written, maybe hum along to the tune?
"Well we have a few options, I'm not sure how much you're going to like them though," Harry said with her best apologetic looking grimace and John almost wanted to explain that there was really no need to feel bad about the news. It was what everyone had told him would happen after all. He hadn't even bothered to pack a suitcase.
"Start with the worst one then, give me something to look forward to," he told her with what he thought was a surprisingly good nonchalant calm voice. As if it was someone else's career headed for the toilet faster than it had started.
"Okay, you can obviously just never mention that America had been a possibility to the press. Let the whole thing slide, maybe we put out a message on your website that you're working on new material this summer."
"Except I'm not working on new material that anyone's going to see," John pointed out, leaving the silent because the label won't pay for another album to hang in the space around them.
"That option just buys us some time, work with the reps to negotiate something better."
"What else is there Harry?"
She seemed to hesitate, which meant that doing nothing for a few months (at the very least) had truthfully been her best suggestion. Leave it to Harry to ignore him when he asked for bad news.
"You do the same venues as last year. England, France, Germany probably. I'm sure I can get the owners to put you up again, everyone loved you last time. We can give everything time to pick up but stay connected to the fans. Drum up some support and get you back in the bigger venues."
"I haven't played any big arenas in two years and you know it."
All he played these days were small clubs in random cities.
Even if she did know exactly that, Harry would never say as much. As a rule, no one brought up "Indecent" in front of him. John assumed it was meant to comfort him but there was no need. The song didn't haunt him, didn't keep him up at night. Sure, he had no idea what made people go crazy for only one of the pieces he'd written but he wasn't ungrateful. It had gained him a loyal, if somewhat small, fanbase. If anyone had asked him, John would have said that being a one hit wonder wasn't as bad as everyone had made it out to be. No one ever asked exactly that though. People asked if he thought his new record would live up to that moment in the spotlight, asked who the song was written about, if he ever got tired of playing it. The answer he gave to those questions was to just smile blandly. The honest answers were probably not, none of your business and god yes it just doesn't matter to you.
"Yes… that is true. Then the only other option I can think of John is to tell the label to put you down as an available supporting act."
"An available what?" there was no pretending that the tone of his voice gave away how undignified his brain found that idea.
A supporting act? Play for half an hour to the people who got there early for good seats? Nobody did that, nobody went from sold out arenas to having their name in tiny print at the bottom of the poster. The way Harry increased her fidgeting let John know there was something she wasn't telling him.
"Spit it out, what else is there?," he asked harshly, trying to remind himself that it was not surprising that his life had reached this point.
"I….may or may not have already asked around the label, you know- to see what was out there," she admitted sheepishly, looking down at her twisting fingers in her lap.
"And what? You found something? I swear if you've signed me up to open for some pre-teen boy band I will never speak to you again Harry, you understand?," John half mocked, though the cutting edge in his voice did not waver.
"It's nothing like that! It's, well, it's Sherlock Holmes," his sister finally confessed.
John had the fleeting thought that the look on his face would have been the dictionary definition of shocked, and it was a shame no one had a camera to document it for all of time.
Sherlock Holmes. Jesus Christ, Harry really had well and truly lost her marbles.
The man was infamous. Period. For the songs he wrote which seemed to defy all logic when it came to composition yet topped every chart. For the on stage performances with hoards of girls tearing down blockades in attempts to grab a handful of too tight black clothing. For the off-stage secrecy formed from a lack of interviews and a reputation for being a little more than difficult to work with.
"You've got to be joking," he said in a voice that matched his stupid looking shocked face.
"It's a great opportunity," Harry protested loudly.
"No, a great opportunity would be being offered a free lobotomy right about now, a tour with Sherlock Holmes is out of the question," John yelled back.
"Look, it's the big time every night, nothing but arenas full of young girls who hey- might buy a t-shirt or cd off you. It's a guarantee," she argued, crossing her arms in a way that reminded John painfully of their mother when she use to insist it was bath time.
"If it's a guarantee, why do they need me?"
"You know why, no one's willing to work with him."
"Gee, I wonder why," was his sarcastic reply.
"No one else, so they're desperate which is the only reason they are even willing to consider the guy who doesn't have enough backing for a new album so can we please get our heads out of our arses and be realistic about this. You need to do it John, if you do a tour then it has to be this one," Harry explained with a sigh.
"How am I going to be any different from anyone else whose tried before?"
"Because no one on the face of the Earth is half as stubborn as you fucking are, you aren't going to let some bloke with pretty eyes push you around."
This might have been true but it didn't sound like a good enough reason to argue to months of torture on the whim of his older sibling. John simply glared back.
"Look, he's doing a surprise performance tonight downtown, middle of Adler's set."
Ah, Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. One of the biggest mysteries in the business. The music industry's answer to Brad and Angelina, if you were one to believe the rumours.
"And if I hate everything about it?"
"Then bail, no one has to know you even went. And if you agree to the tour, it starts here in London so you can always back out of that too."
John did not point out that backing out was an option simply because no one cared that much about opening acts.
"What do people even wear to concerts these days?," he asked with a sigh similar to his sisters, but Harry just squealed with delight as she often did when she got her way.
John contented himself with remembering he didn't have a suitcase packed yet.