Hello, all! If you've been reading my other fanfictions, you'll notice that I don't have a pattern as to what I read. I go from HP to Tintin, and now to Sherlock Holmes. I've started writing a dual-perspective modern fic combining a couple of premises from Elementary (Watson is female, Holmes lives in the states) and Sherlock (Holmes and Watson are both British, Holmes needs a flatmate, and the captain is Lestrade).
Disclaimer: All characters except for Detective Clifford belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The murder is entirely mine, though.
Chapter 1: A New Flatmate
HOLMES
It was quite an ordinary and boring day. I had been offered three cases by post this morning and had solved all of them within half an hour. Now I had a breakfast to worry about, and a rent situation to take care of. Specifically, the fact that my landlade, or "super" as these ridiculous Americans called them, was going to turn me out of my loft if I couldn't make good on the last two months of rent. It was quite ironic, really, because I had solved several cases, however trivial, on her request, that should have accounted for the money I owed her. Breakfast could bloody well wait. I needed a flat mate last week.
I had taken out an ad on that odd website – Craigslist, I believe it's called. Who was Craig? Why was it his list? I made a mental note to search it up later, if only to add a bit of new information to my otherwise mundade day.
As if someone had read my mind, I received a textual transmission out of the blue that read – "Potential flat mate, St. Vincent's Mem. Hsptl, 30 min, Dr. B." Why on earth did people wish to save time by omitting letters of vital importance from ordinary words? It was frustrating and cumbersome, but I realized that trying to solve these trivial problems would only attract annoyance from those I was trying to correct. I had also come to realize that the things I found bothersome seldom mattered to the rest of the world. Very difficult to understand why that was, really.
And so I made my way over to my car to travel to the mentioned hospital, hoping that my potential flatmate wouldn't turn out to be either a patient or a corpse.
"Oi, Sherlock! Over here!" I heard a familiar and very slightly tolerated voice call from somewhere behind me. It was Dr. Bartholomew, one of my fellow Englishmen who had shifted his practice to the States. The only reason I spoke regularly to him was because he would let me sneak into his morgue to track down suspicious deaths on the days where my life was boring me.
What took me by surprise (which was strange, because such things rarely happened) was that the person accompanying him was a young woman.
I supposed that her features were pleasing, if I was the type to be pleased by the feminine features on a regular basis. The last (and perhaps the only) person who I'd found attractive was one Irene Adler-Norton. And that too for a fraction of a fleeting moment.
This young woman surveying me from behind Dr. B was on the shorter side of average, with dark wavy hair and light brown eyes. Her skin was pale and quite flawless, giving her the overall appearance of a china doll. Wonderful. I was eager to find out if she cracked just as easily.
WATSON
I was quite taken aback at the sight of my potetnial flatmate. He was a remarkable-looking young man, but not in the way that one would expect. Tall, slender, and imposing, he had the distinctly odd air of being preoccupied by everything around him and yet completely focused on the situation at hand. I could tell that he was observing every detail about every person who happened to be walking past. Not something that people normally did. As I wondered if he was scrutinizing me similarly, I supposed that he was some sort of investigator.
"Sherlock!" Jay exclaimed upon spotting him. I followed him a little way behind, equally nervous and eager, but trying not to appear so.
"Dr. B," the strange young man with the odd name returned with a curt nod. "You've actually managed to pull one over my head this time."
"What, because I'm a girl?" I blurted out before I could stop myself.
"I would say that's the only surprising thing," Sherlock responded lightly. "Doctor, I'd say. Surgeon, probably pediatric, and recently returned from somewhere overseas. Not a holiday, though. Let me guess. MSF or military physician. Iraq or Afghanistan?"
"Afghanistan, military surgeon," I said, quite shocked. "How-how did you guess all that?"
"It's a trick he does," Jay explained. "He can tell you your bloody life story after half a minute."
"It's not a trick," Sherlock snapped, looking momentarily offended. "And probably ten seconds. Half a minute and I can tell you your horoscope."
"Are you a detective?" I asked, still not fully over my surprise.
"Of sorts, yes," he replied in a clupped tone. "Sherlock Holmes, pleased to meet you." He stuck out his hand stiffly.
"No you're not, but I'll return the false sentiment. And the handshake," I said, with a small smile. This man was going to be an interesting acquaintance. If, of course, he accepted me as a flatmate.
"How could you tell?" he demanded, apparently nonplussed.
"You don't seem the type to be pleased to meet many people," I explained. "But I'm Jane Watson and I'd like to be your flatmate."
"Perfect," he said. "I like you. You're strange. Let's be flatmates."
"That's it?" I asked, blinking. "No follow-up questions about my financial history?"
"Your posh schooling tells me that you're doing quite all right for yourself," he answered. "And no time for that. Another week and I'd be turned out on my ear."
"Is that right?" I questioned. "Well, give me a day to pack a few things and I'll be at your flat with the next six months' rent ready."
"You have three hours, and meet me at the tenth precinct of the San Francisco Police Department," he said in a tone that made it clear I wasn't to argue.
"All-all right," I responded, quite confused. "But why on earth?"
Because I have a good feeling about today," Sherlock stated. "Feels like…a nice confusing murder."
"He's a consultant," Jay supplied by way of explanation.
"Consulting detective," Sherlock corrected sharply. "The worldn't one and only. Now I'll be off. Meet me at noon at the tenth. Good day to you both."
And with that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes turned abruptly on his heel and stalked off.
"He's…" I began, trailing off as I searched for the right word.
"Peculiar?" Jason filled in helpfully.
"Interesting," I said, feeling a small smile tug at my lips. This relationship was going to be quite interesting, wherever it would go.
HOLMES
I tapped my foot impatiently, glancing at the clock every few seconds to observe the punctuality of my new flatmate. If she kept me waiting for more than two minutes, it wouldn't be done.
Surprisingly, I saw her step out of the lift just as the clock struck noon.
"Twelve o'clock sharp," I remarked. "Well done, Watson. And I see you had time to visit the flat and pay the rent before you arrived."
"I'm a doctor," Watson explained. "Or I was, anyway. Punctuality is a necessity. And how did you know?"
"Your things are not with you, and there is a bank teller's receipt sticking out of your purse," I answered, wondering how people didn't know they made it very easy for me to glean things from them. "I find it quite odd that you don't use the machines," I added.
"I tried, but they weren't working," she replied. "So, this is the police station, eh?"
"Astutely observed, Watson," I said. "Come along, then. I hope you aren't queasy in the presence of corpses. Though I can't imagine why you would be, having served in a war zone."
"Scary, that trick of yours," she retorted. "What hospital's the morgue at, then?"
I found myself unable to restrain the slightest smile. Dr. Watson was proving to be a more suitable companion than I'd originally thought. Silently, I led her to the parking lot, from where we made our way to St. Vincent's Memorial Hospital.
"Why didn't you just ask me to come back here?" she asked, apparently confused.
"Because I was due at the station," I explained simply. "And I didn't know how long it was going to take."
We made our way to the elevators, and down to the basement where, quite fittingly, most morgues were located. Perhaps hospitals were where all the cliches of horror films were created. I made a mental note to write down this observation and study it further.
As a situation of equal luck and misfortune, Dr. B was no longer in the morgue. Luck, because I wouldn't have to listen to his endless drivel and misfortune because if this murder turned out to be easy, then I wouldn't have anything with which to occupy the rest of my day.
The captain, whom I repeatedly referred to as "Inspector" (because his face would turn a lovely shade of purple), was waiting in the morgue with one of his insufferable lackeys – Clark or Clifton or some ridiculous name like that – and the unfortunate victim.
"Stabbed," I observed, taking note of the deep wound in the man's abdomen. "Not with a knife, but with a metal spike of some sort. The kind that you'd find on the tip of an iron gate." Right next to the slab was a small table on which an evidence back rested. There were a few objects that a magpie would have lifted from the ground quite eagerly.
"Who's your new friend?" Clark/Clifton asked in a tone that seemed to me as though he was addressing Watson and not me.
"Where are my manners?" I replied. "Clark, meet Watson. Watson, meet Clifton. She's my new flatmate, and he's quite an inept detective."
"It's Clifford," the man corrected, sounding irritated. "And pleased to meet you, Miss Watson. This is Captain Gregory Lestrade, head of the tenth precinct."
"Very nice to meet you both," Watson responded pleasantly.
"Actually, Watson here is a doctor, Clark," I informed the policemen, deliberately misnaming the detective. His face went quite blue. He and the captain made quite a pretty pair. "And now that we've gotten the pleasantries out of the way, who is this man and when did he die, Inspector?" Purple, lovely.
"We don't know who he is," Lestrade said. "All forms of identification were removed from his person. We can tell you, though, that he died between the hours of twelve and two this morning."
"He's had surgery," Watson spoke up out of the blue. The rest of us turned to her in surprise. "Within the last two weeks, I'd say," she went on, stepping closer to the slab and observing the body closely. "It looks like an appendectomy. Perhaps if you asked around nearby hospitals with a description of him and his recent surgery, you'd determine his identity."
"Marvelous, gentlemen," I declared, pleasantly surprised. "It seems like half your job's been done for you. Now, if you'll excuse us, Dr. Watson and I have some paperwork to take care of. Call us when you find out who this man is. Or was, to be precise. Good afternoon, Inspector, Clifton." Purple and blue. It really was quite a sight.
