The Daughter and the Detective: II
They had the grace to get relatively out of earshot before they burst out laughing. Sherlock came to a halt, a hand on his goddaughter's shoulder, and they laughed till Lucy had tears of mirth in her eyes.
"Which did you like the most?" she asked after a moment, still chuckling. "The look of self-righteous annoyance at first or the complete shock when you banged the door shut?"
"Oh the shock definitely," he replied. "'How dare we do something without her approval!?' Almost adorable, wasn't it?"
"Hm," she agreed, following him as he began to make his way down the corridor.
"Thank you, by the way," she said as they turned a corner. "I was just about to get in trouble."
"Oh? What did you say this time?"
"Nothing, surprisingly. I just wasn't paying attention in Royal We's class."
"My, my. I can't imagine."
"Exactly—I was working on those pictures you gave me. The spot the difference ones."
"Oh?"
"Yeah." Lucy waited a moment to see if he was interested enough to press her for details.
"And?" he said, drawing a semi-triumphant smile from her. "Did you make any progress?"
"I swear they're the same," she said, remembering her exasperation and groaning. "There's nothing different."
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
"If that's what you think...?"
"It is, I can't find the difference anywhere."
He glanced back away and minute shifting of his coat indicated that his shoulders had slumped slightly: she read that as his disappointment, no longer piqued enough to observe her, enough (unsatisfactory) information taken in already. Her heart sank.
"I see," he said. "Keep working on it, then—Oh hold on now, stop." She turned back to see that he had pulled up next an adjoining corridor and was peering down it with mischief in his eyes again.
"What?"
"Grace is down this hall in Physics class, yes?"
"Of course she is. You know her schedule."
"Come here." He started down the hall.
"What are we doing?" Lucy said, following slowly. "Since when are you interested in my sister's science courses?"
"Just come here!"
She scurried after him.
Sherlock was leaning against a doorframe, peering into a classroom through the narrow window in the door. Lucy wriggled underneath his chin to peek in herself.
Her older sister, Grace, was sitting in the back row between two other girls, hunched over her papers and writing rapidly. Lucy snorted.
"She isn't taking notes," she muttered.
"Course she isn't, no one writes notes like that." Sherlock replied. He angled his head to see further into the room. "And her idiot of a teacher bloody well can't tell—drop out of school when you can, alright? It's not worth your time to deal with teachers like this."
Lucy rolled her eyes. She was used to his kind of advice.
"Perhaps he just doesn't care that she's not paying attention."
"Of course he cares," Sherlock scoffed. "Just look at all the posters on the wall—he loves his subject. Simply doesn't realize that she couldn't give a damn."
"Do you think she's working on another Dirk Lawrence story?"
They considered her for a moment and as they watched, Grace paused, creasing her forehead to look uncannily like her father when he was bemused, and glared at the page for a moment before her eyebrows popped up, she smirked, and began scribbling again.
"Lawrence," they decided together.
"She doesn't get nearly as intense about anything else," Lucy said.
"Hm," agreed Sherlock. "Treats Dirk like he's her own child."
"Well you know writers—they're so obsessive over their characters."
Sherlock let out a chortle.
"Never live with one," he said. "They're alarmingly boring. All the action goes on in their heads and that's the very foil of fun."
Lucy snickered.
"I'll keep it in mind."
They observed Grace for a moment more before Sherlock pushed off from the wall and turned back to the main corridor they'd come from.
"She's very good though," Lucy said, tagging along behind him.
"Hm." Sherlock said distractedly. "...There're just enough plot twists."
Lucy stopped dead in her tracks. Sherlock continued for a few steps before realizing that she had frozen. He pivoted to look at her.
"D-did you-you just—" she stammered. "Did you just admit that you...enjoy a seventeen-year-old girl's writings?"
Sherlock's jaw clenched.
"No," he said tightly, turning his back to her with a swirl of the coat and striking off.
"You did too!" Lucy said doggedly, scrambling to reach his side.
"I?" he said in a dry voice, "I, partial to the ongoing serial of a treasure hunter, with a name as idiotic as Dirk Lawrence, written by a seventeen-year-old?"
"And a Watson at that!" Lucy affirmed, giving him her cheekiest grin. Sherlock pressed his lips into a firm line.
"...Don't tell anyone?" he said finally. Lucy just barely managed to keep from laughing at him.
"Promise," she said. "...Now what did you kidnap me from class for?"
The car pulled to a stop next to a decrepit old warehouse on the outskirts of London. It was a dismal sight with more than a few windows broken and re-covered with tape; 'Warning' and 'No Trespassing' signs posted on all the doors; strands of barbed wire, long-since sawed through and pulled away, littering the ground; and John Watson, waiting outside with his arms crossed, next to his car parked fifty meters from the building, and looking very, very unhappy.
"I take it you didn't tell him you were roping me into this?" Lucy asked, surveying her father's stance. Sherlock, turning the car off, offered John a cursory glance.
"Oh of course not," he said, sounding distracted again, "But that's not what he's angry about. Not yet anyway. The sun's glaring off the windshield from this angle, he can't see you at all. No, no, he's just annoyed that I'm late."
"Ah," Lucy muttered. "Then this'll be a lovely bit of new information, won't it?"
She caught Sherlock grinning to himself as he reached into the back to grab a parcel.
"There," he said, dumping it into her lap. "Equip yourself."
She sifted through sunglasses; a flimsy, decorative purse; a notepad; a pen; and a tube of mascara.
"Not wearing this," she muttered, setting the makeup aside.
"Give it a rest," Sherlock replied, forcing it back into her hands. "You're not comprising your integrity if you wear a bit of paint every once in a while. ...Besides, it's for your cover."
"Right, right; my cover," she said, mulling the last word over, enjoying the sound of it. It made her sound awfully professional, like she was officially part of the famous Holmes & Watson duo. She had a secret cover... Lucy sighed, smiled to herself, pulled down the mirror above her, and began applying the sticky makeup.
A crunching sound signaled John's approach from outside as he made his way across the gravel.
"An hour and a half," he called, sounding extremely disgruntled. "A bloody hour and a half I've been waiting here alone, right where you told me to be, right when you told me to be. I've got a real job you know—there were multiple appointments I had to cancel for this."
Sherlock glanced to Lucy and rolled his eyes over John.
"Sorry," he said (not sounding very sorry at all,) as he got out of the car. "Had to do a bit of research and then pick up a friend."
Lucy noted the term he used for her with pride but didn't get out from the car yet as she calmly started on her second eye.
"Oh great!" Said John, rolling his head around his neck in exasperation. "Lovely. Really wonderful, Sherlock. Which tramp is it that's going to join us today?"
"Tramp?" Sherlock asked innocently, glancing inside at Lucy.
"Is it one of your homeless drug experts this time? ...Or maybe the new 'Napoleon of Petty Theft' here to enlighten us in the subtleties of his art? ...Oh, or perhaps it's a homeless who know about a set of secret tunnels that begin underneath this building, recently commissioned as an international gang's headquarters? Do tell which one, I'm all ears."
"Not at all," Sherlock replied, with a gentle nod of the head to Lucy. "Just an intended actress."
"Oh please," John scoffed. "Just what—" But he cut off as Lucy got out of the car.
Father and daughter stood looking at each other for a moment, John's posture slumped with anger and exhaustion, Lucy fighting the urge to shuffle her feet out of guilt.
John turned to his best friend.
"I hate you," he deadpanned. "I really do. You've done this three times already!" the facade broke and he lashed out with a finger directly in Sherlock's face. "You take her out of school to go on who-knows-what-kind-of escapades and now you blatantly do it in front of me—do you really think I'm okay with this!?"
"Four other times," Lucy coughed.
"Four other times!" John corrected himself, never breaking eye contact with Sherlock. "It's only March! This is the fifth absence from school!"
"There was also the fire drill he set off in January, but I was only gone two minutes for that one."
"Lucy, dearest, I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to incriminate me." Sherlock said out of the corner of his mouth.
"Sorry," she muttered.
"No, no, it's quite alright, loyalty's apparently not her strong-suit anyhow," said John, still fuming.
"Oh John please," Sherlock said, rolling his eyes. "You knew this would happen when you let me start teaching her."
"Don't!" John cried. "Don't make this my fault again—you always do this!"
Neither friend nor child showed any sign of backing down or remorse and John pursed his lips.
"Right. Right. I'm taking her back now."
"Dad," Lucy whined, unable to help herself.
"John, be reasonable. Her alibi is a dentist's appointment; she has plenty of time as far as school is concerned. And besides, we need her."
"Need her?"
"Yes, need her. Send her back now and your staying here for two hours will have been entirely in vain."
John's nostrils flared.
"And I'll bet that's why you ordered me into the middle of nowhere so early in the first place." He muttered bitterly. Sherlock didn't respond. John puffed air out of his cheeks.
"Right," he said, his posture akimbo, mouthset grim. "I'm not allowing this—I'm not, don't give me that look—but if I was...what would you have her doing?"
Lucy bit the insides of her cheek to keep from smirking.
Sherlock limited himself to curling his lips into a smile.
"Finally," he said. "The right question."
A/N: Do we consider this a drabble fic (not a Royal We, it's a genuine question) or a four-shot fic? A drabble's definition being that it does not necessarily have a plot other than being a situation in which the characters interact and a four-shot implying that the storyline is structured within that? Or does that just count as a character-driven story, rather than plotline-driven and drabbles are more like fluffy word-burblings? … Ah, sorry. The nuances of writing, my friends, the nuances of writing!