Author's Note: Thanks so much for all the reviews/favs/alerts! I really appreciate your support for this story!
Still rated M for brief language right now – better, sexier things later.
And a reminder, this is AU – so relationships, characters, etc have been twisted to suit my purposes. Hope no one is OOC, but please let me know if they are so I can either adjust them or do better next chapter :)
Disclaimer: Yeah, obviously I own these people – syke! I don't, not even close. And I receive no money for this either.
King for a Day
Two
Eight am finds me in a new part of town I've only seen in photographs. I'm shown into a waiting room that could almost be mistaken for a doctor's office, decorated in minimalist. There is one, very uncomfortable chair for me to occupy.
Eight thirty-three finds me still sitting, still waiting for an interview, about which Lestrade conveniently neglected to warn me about.
My eyes are red and rather puffy from staying up half the night pouring through research. I feel like a student who spent the night studying for an exam, only to wake up and find that he's forgotten all the answers.
I can't decide whether Sherlock is a man or a shark, or was perhaps eaten by a shark. Or maybe he ate the shark.
My head is all mixed up and I was so busy rushing out the door that I neglected coffee. I would kill for even a whiff of it right now. I tap my pencil on the inside of my thigh to keep myself alert.
Just when I feel the sandman crawling over my shoulder, a woman stomps in at nine o' four. Tight curls fall around her slender shoulders and I can see that she would be very attractive if she would just smile.
She's holding a clipboard, her mouth drawn in a thin line, and she's wearing one of those looks that says "Do not fuck with me." She glances up at me finally.
"Sally Donovan," she tells me, as we exchange a brief but firm handshake. "Follow me." I stand up and find myself nearly running to keep up with her long, purposeful steps. She's explaining what is probably the strangest interview process I've ever heard. "I'm going to stick you in a room with him and if he doesn't immediately throw you out, then you're good. We're desperate at this point."
She pauses and gives me a good looking over. "You seem good for the job. Not the usual fan girls and boys we hire for him. Experience?"
"Er, not exactly."
"Better that way. Lestrade seemed confident enough that you were the man for the position. You'll learn on the job, provided he doesn't toss you immediately." She shoves me into a room and slams the door. I can't help but feel like a lamb to the slaughter.
The room seems comfortable enough, just a common room, with scattered furniture, and a lone man.
The man.
He's fiddling around with his phone, thumbs working overtime while lounging on a feinting couch. He doesn't seem to notice my entrance. I stand there for a few minutes, sweat rolling down my back, beneath my good shirt. I didn't own anything rock star enough to wear in public.
I clear my throat and wait.
Without looking up at me he snips, "Fetch me a coffee." My jaw falls open. "Now." Yeah, typical rock star behavior.
"How do you take it?"
"Hot and wet. How do you think? I've no time for your inane questions!" He snaps at me, only taking a brief look at my face. "Jesus Jim, do I have to do everything?" Dramatically, he drapes his long legs and arms over the sides of the couch in repose.
What is my hourly rate for this again? Surely, having my toenails ripped out with pliers and my fingers fed to lions would be a better job than putting up with this awful man all day, even for a story.
"Fine," I tell him, stalking out of the room, "hot and wet it is." From someone else. I would have to be insane to take this job. On my way out the door, I nearly crash into Sally, who has been waiting impatiently it would appear from her tapping foot and chewed fingernails.
"Well, what did he say?"
"He called me Jim, asked for coffee, and damn near had my head off with only words. I can't do this." She latches onto my arm, rough fingernails digging into the soft flesh.
"You can't leave," she tells me, her voice dropping any hint kindness – it's like something out of a horror film. "If you leave, I have to fill in." I don't know if it was the death grip on my arm or the fine wrinkles around her mouth that won me over – I figure my arm.
"Fine," I sigh, "I'll do it." And make just enough to check myself into the nut house afterwards, because I must be utterly insane to agree to this –even for journalism recognition.
"Good. Because otherwise, I was going to have to tie you to a chair and burn you with cigarettes until you agreed." I can't tell if she is joking.
"Alright, but what about the coffee?"
"Black." At least he isn't one of those frou-frou type guys that back the line up at Starbucks with things like Double mint macchiato with three shots of espresso and a sprig of holly or something.
"And why did he call me Jim?"
"That was his very first assistant, we're talking ages ago. Drove him actually, proper insane. Lock calls them all Jim." Oh good. All personal freedom is being removed; I'm being given a new name, and 'someone-else's-bitch' status.
We're now walking toward a kitchenette near a sound room.
Ah, recording studio I guess. I can hear strains of what I presume is someone working on her vocal parts for a song down the hallway – Irene I believe her name is from my research.
"Who do you usually work with?"
"Irene Adler, or Smoking Fox," Sally tells me. "She's at least manageable, with decent shoe sense." I roll my eyes -women.
Thankfully, there is a coffee maker. Sally grabs a Styrofoam cup, fills it to just an inch below the rim and hands it to me.
"Deliver that to him and come right back. I'll fill you in then." I stalk back down the hallway, managing to spill the piping hot coffee on my hand, and use all my choice curse words in response to my own stupidity.
My subject still doesn't look at me as I thrust the coffee out to him. He takes it, almost without looking, still thoroughly involved with his phone. I suppose I'm off the hook, as I stomp back to the door.
"Jim! You've spilled it all down the side! I can't drink this." I am fairly sure I growl as I spin around. He's holding the coffee between his forefinger and thumb, as if it's a dirty pair of knickers he's just discovered on his breakfast plate.
I don't know how I grab the cup without crumbling the foam or throwing the remainder of the drink down the front of his pressed shirt, which is a lovely deep plum.
I stalk out of the room once more, to join Sally in the kitchenette, where she seems expectant. I wonder if that's just her default expression when she's not interviewing new trainees.
"Ready for-"
"No. I've bloody spilled coffee down the side of this bloody cup and he can't bloody drink it."
"Oh yeah. That's on the list I think," she tells me very calmly, consulting her clipboard.
"L-List?" I sputter, grabbing another cup from the stack and filling it once more.
"Yes, there's a list of all the do's and don'ts previous assistants have cobbled together."
"Oh, a whole list should make working for that psychopath easier," I mutter. This cup is, thankfully, spill free.
"Sociopath actually," Sherlock tells us from the doorway. I watch, my mouth hanging open and loose like a caught fish with a hook, as he comes and takes the cup from me, disappearing once again. "Faster next time Jim. Do something about him, Sally?"
"That part is actually true," Sally tells me with a sigh, placing her hands on her hips, once he's out of earshot. "A doctor confirmed it once for us."
I sit down in a nearby chair, taking a gulp of the discarded coffee. It's bitter but helps. Sally sits beside me, her 'bitch' façade crumbling a miniscule piece at a time.
"Are you sure you can't live without me?" I am not relishing the thought of days and nights with this man. "I mean, surely, someone else would be better qualified."
"We've tried those. So far you've lasted longer than the last one. At least, he didn't throw the coffee at your head. You don't want to know what we had to pay the last one to keep from suing us."
I tell her that I can imagine.
"He does realize that I'm a different person, right? I mean, he's not completely bonkers."
"Yes. Look, in your resume," she tells me, pulling a couple of sheets of paper from her ledger, "you said you had a brief experience with the army?"
"Very brief. I went to report and was injured nearly right away." It's not an experience I care to recall right then.
"But you must have done research, or picked something up over there, correct?" I nod. "Then you, of all people, should know that it's just a tactic." Well, she did have a point. "Just try it, for a week?"
"Alright."
"He does this to everyone you know. Even his own brother." Just as I work up enough sympathy for anyone related to my new boss, Sally continues. "Of course, Mycroft gives back as good as he gets. They're rather alike."
Oh great, as if one wasn't enough. I didn't discover much about Mycroft during my research. I hadn't realized they were two peas in a very ill fitting pod.
"I won't be held responsible for him too will I?"
She chuckles, darkly. "No. Anderson watches him. You'll meet him later. Anyway, I've got things to fill you in on, since Sherlock is taken care of right now."
She's fond of paper and printouts the way Lestrade is. I have a small forest in my hands to read over, sign, and file away.
I do have an office-which I will probably never see Sally informs me. A PDA to keep up with his schedule, a car service that will always pick me up first, and access to all areas I please.
"I don't have to live with him, do I?" I ask, wondering when I am going to have time to sleep in between everything.
"Not this first week."
"Oh go-wait."
"Well, that's the catch with Sherlock. The label is threatening a roommate if he can't keep himself under control. Or it's house arrest next time."
"Under control?"
"You know…" She mimes excessive drinking and pill popping.
"So that's not just for show."
"No, I'm afraid not. So far, he's been better…after this last rehab." Which I recall was about a month or two ago. "But, that might not happen," she tells me hopefully, clapping me on the shoulder hard enough to knock me forward.
Being around him for hours every day or night seems bad enough, I can't imagine living with him.
Filling in the paperwork takes hours; it's things like 'I won't sue them if he tries to kill me,' 'I won't try to steal ideas,' etc. All in legal jargon. I almost expect the pen to be filled with blood instead of ink by the time I'm done signing my life away.
"Go home. Get a good night's rest. You'll need it, trust me. George will be 'round at seven thirty, bright and early to get you. Program Lock's schedule into your phone. He has a photo shoot tomorrow I believe."
She hands me more paper.
"And be sure to read over the list." She hands me what looks like an appliance manual that has been literally cobbled together, written on napkins, bits of spare paper, even a piece of what looks like a bit of light leather trousers.
Read over the list, huh? No, I'll be typing it up properly if I am going to be doing this job.
If I survive this, I'll be a fitter, more organized journalist with a passion for conservation.
X
