A/N: I don't even know guys. I woke up this morning and thought 'Hey what if Sally found some Johnlock fanfiction and read it?'
Well, here have the result.
Inspired by all the brilliant AUs out there ;)
Sally Donovan stared at her computer screen in something that might have been horror.
"Why-" she exclaimed accusingly, "why would you even write something like that?" There were tears in her eyes -actual tears- now even making their way down her cheeks.
She should have read the Warnings. But how could she've known? She never would have expected anyone to write about Sherlock Holmes falling terminally ill and then dying of all things.
Seriously.
.
To blame for this entire situation was an email from Philip, which must have been sent to her by accident, since they were still not talking to each other. And sure enough, a glance at the receiver list revealed the entire office to have seen this.
The email contained nothing but a link to a YouTube video and an alluring 'watch me' as description.
Against her better judgement and a great deal of reluctance, she clicked on the video.
.
She was greeted by a blonde newsreader with a 'serious business' look on her face, who informed her about the 'Net Detective Duo' Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. The famous duo happened to jump into the Thames to save some sort of vital clue, leading to the immediate arrest of one Michael Zane; subordinate to Peter Ricolleti, who had been arrested two and a half years ago. Now thinking about it, Sally had heard about this involuntary bath in the Thames before, when Greg and Dimmock were talking in the DI's office.
She was still giving both Sherlock and John a wide berth, after the dilemma with the fake suicide and return, which was the reason she hadn't been there in the first place.
.
In the video the camera slid away to zoom in on the two men, both provided with blankets, sitting next to each other in the back of an ambulance. The Detective said something while gesturing with his hands, while John threw his head back in a barking laugh. Although it couldn't actually be heard in the report, since the woman was still explaining the situation in a voiceover, Sally found herself grinning stupidly at her computer screen.
The report zapped back to where the woman was now interviewing a professional looking DI Lestrade - for ten brief seconds.
Sally remembered her Boss complaining about the news report cutting him off during his speech and well... he had been right. So instead of him giving a drawn-out report of the events, the voiceover came back on with curt informations. There was a shot of the Thames and the Tower Bridge (although the men had jumped into the water from an entirely different location), before the camera zoomed back in on Sherlock and John.
Now though John was standing in front of Sherlock, hand resting on his shoulder; talking to a man outside the ambulance, while Sherlock gazed up at John with so much longing in his eyes, that Sally felt warm and indecent to witness the exchange.
.
The video had stopped then and Sally had found herself repeating the video and pausing on Sherlock's face watching John talk to the nurse.
Jesus. Had John seen this? Hadn't anyone shown him? Didn't he know?
She sighed in resignation for the two idiot men. And scrolled down to the comments under the video.
.
There was a disturbing amount of people, whining about the obvious love between Sherlock and John, while in almost every comment someone chipped in a 'disgusting' or 'Watson is married to a woman'. Nobody seemed to care though.
Sally got lost in the midst of a conversation between two teenage girls (they had to be with nicknames like 'sher1ockL0ver' and 'watsonmaniac'), talking about the possibility of a romantic relationship between the Detective and his Doctor, and wondering what would happen if they read their Fanfiction.
There had been the mention of a devastating fanfic and a link and Sally had found herself curious and clicked on it and- well here she was; crying about a made up story of the dying Detective.
.
She blew her nose loudly and shook her head at the screen, then closed the offending tab with a click. Now she felt ill herself.
God, Sally. Look what has come of you.
Her mother was right. She should get a life. Or a husband maybe. But her promotion was already so close in reach… She huffed and glanced at her guinea pigs, lounging in their cage and nibbling on a carrot.
"Do you even know how lucky you are?" She asked into the silence and watched them for a minute longer.
They declined to answer.
.
Sally turned back to her computer with another heartfelt sigh and stared some more at her screen.
"I can't believe I'm doing this…" she murmured, reopened the tab from before, bookmarked it, and closed it again. Then she turned to Google to find a story with a Happy End.
"You OK?" Greg asked her the next morning, when she walked into his office.
"Yeah, yeah." She said, offering him a cup of dark brown water commonly referred to as 'coffee', but not at all worth to be called such a thing.
He took it all the same and nodded what might have been a 'thank you' or a 'you don't look OK to me'.
"Had a late one?"
So probably option two. She flopped down in the seat opposite him and took a sip of her 'coffee', before she grimaced and put it down on his desk instead. "One could say that, yeah."
.
She had spent a good three hours of her night reading about the freak's love life and wondering how she would ever be able to look him in the eyes again. She rubbed her hands over her face and when she looked up once more, Greg held out a carton with Doughnuts to her. She took one gratefully.
"D'you want to talk ab-"
"No." She interrupted him curtly. Hell, no.
"OK," he retreated instantly, shrugging his shoulders. "If you change-"
"I won't. But, uh, thanks. Sir."
He sent her a small grin in response.
.
They ate their respective Doughnuts in silence to her relief, until Greg cleared his throat to speak.
"So," he ventured, "what's on for today?"
Sally shrugged. "Not much at the moment. Only paperwork, which you will have to ask him to come over and fill out."
Greg winced. "He'll swing by soon enough, demanding a case or something- So I'll just wait for him to seek me out."
If he's not too busy having hot gaysex with his 'doctor'... Sally snorted involuntarily.
.
Greg raised an eyebrow at her and she waved a hand in dismissal. "Sorry. I'm not quite myself today."
"So I figured." He said, narrowing his eyes at her.
"OK," she said hurriedly, almost jumping to her feet, "I'll get to it then, Boss."
She didn't dare to look back at him, just reached for her still half full cup of horrible coffee, and fled the office.
It got worse: For the fourth night in a row, she searched the internet for more.
Sally was now not only reading the standard Real Person Fiction, which would have been bad enough, but instead she was deliberately seeking out so called Alternative Universe fics. While 'Omegaverse' had weirded her out a bit, as had the one's where she was part of the story and, apparently, happily involved with DI Lestrade (however that could have happened), she marveled at the many different ideas people had come up with.
There were fics about Sherlock and John being actors, tennis players, magicians, teenagers, werewolf and vampire, student and teacher, dancer and rugby player, prince and servant, robot and human, cook and photographer, restaurant owner and award-winning chef, stripper and observer… and so on and so on. Not to mention the one's where someone had set them as they were into a Jane Austen Novel, space, future, past…
.
If asked, Sally wouldn't admit to it, but she grew quite fond of some of those stories, even with all their typos and grammar mistakes. She liked the way these stories were constructed, loved the way they made her smile and even laugh aloud at times. And that some of these fics managed to make her blush at the explicit description or feel hot from head to toes, she would never tell anyone. Ever.
.
There was one story she held especially dear, in which the author (who named himself 'ACD'), had placed the men in the late 19th to early 20th century, solving cases and being in love.
And even without any mentions of kisses or sex in there, it was still achingly obvious how deeply in love they were. Sally lived in awe of the brilliant way of taking the stories from John's blog and rewriting them to fit into their new timeline: Watson writing stories for the paper instead of a blog and Holmes identifying gardeners and maids as murderer or thieves, without the help of a mobile or fingerprints.
.
How could all these people, male and female; young and middle aged, think up stories with hundreds of thousands of words, with only some brief appearances of the duo in television, papers and, presumably, John's blog?
True, the detective and his loyal blogger had always raised some suspicions in most of the yarders, and this new video won't cut the rumors short for a while. But Sally never would've thought so many other people, so many strangers, would pick up on the tension, without knowing them for real.
.
Sally sighed, closing another tab on her computer. As far as she knew all those love stories were made up, but… But. Maybe Greg did know more about them? He had burst into their shared flat more times than anyone else. Maybe caught them shagging on their kitchen table? Or-
.
God Sally, what is wrong with you?
She shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the mental picture, but failed. She didn't even make an effort to imagine it, it was just right there - so obvious: Sherlock sprawled out on the table, naked and not as pale anymore; gasping and shuddering, while John plunged into him. His trousers still around his thighs, because he couldn't possibly have waited one second longer to be inside the infuriating man, and was encouraging Sherlock to just let go and come- until the man did just that, shouting the doctor's name repeatedly...
.
Sally swallowed, hard. She shut down her computer and crawled into bed. She needed to stop this and get a life. And some sex.
Yes, definitely.
Maybe not quite in that order, though...