Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Title: Double Date
Author: Cupcake-999
Sherlock/John. Rated T as I don't really understand the ratings.
Summary: This was in answer to my own prompt at sherlockbbc_fic. I can't figure out how to post it there. If anyone could help me, brilliant.
Prompt: John is sick and tired of Sherlock 'showing up' / ruining his dates (with Sarah?) and tells him he can only come along if he brings a date of his own. So Sherlock has to find a date (Molly?) to take. What happens? Trying to 'out-date' each other?
Disclaimer: I own nothing. These characters do not belong to me. This has run away from me. I bless the stress of A level results.
Chapter Four
Yes, he'd choose this workspace again, Sherlock decided. It was much better than any public or medical library he'd worked at, for instance. Here white-coated minions brought him a supply of iced water, tea, coffee, blackcurrant vodka and a wide selection of upmarket glossy mags in various European languages. He had a comfy recliner chair with a swinging round tray attachment big enough to spread his work out, as much privacy as he wanted and a lot to observe and deduce. There weren't as many chemical supplies available if he had to perform analysis, but never mind. Yes, he would definitely recommend it here.
Lucky he'd made such a timely perusal of Molly's wardrobe. Both it and her personal grooming had been lacking; hence this world-famous department store with its personal stylists and shoppers and accommodating day spa. Even luckier, Mother was a member. He hadn't known Mycroft came here! He was half-tempted to tap into the software and see what treatments his brother had. His roots touched up, that was for sure. But Sherlock was too settled to move and his partner-in-spa was in the neighbouring chair.
"So you see Molls, correlating these photos of Sarah's, erm," he trawled his newly acquired lexis, "shagrags in her wardrobe with stills from this CCTV footage from her building foyer showing how she rotates the outfits, and cross-referencing it with the weather forecast for Friday evening tells us she'll be wearing this one. You don't want her to outshine you, so all we have to do is get you something in the same style but slightly better. Result."
Molly squinted an eye down. "We could do that, if that's the way you want to go. Or..."
"Or?"
"Why let her lead? We could throw down first and hard."
Sherlock felt ashamed at the jolt of arousal he experienced at hearing the mild Molly use the language of gambling inside such a pristine place.
"Go on. Follow that line through."
"I'm thinking classic Hepburn revisited. I'm tall and thin enough now, what with losing weight after Jim—to pull off retro cavalry twill pants and shearling-lined boots. Twinned with some sort of structured jacket top in a dark colour I'd be bang on-trend for the Amelia Earhart look. With that new film coming out?"
A startled Sherlock quickly cross-checked this with runway trends and new season predictions from the magazines in front of him. Molly's eyebrow thread woman nodded in agreement, as did their personal liaison minion hovering nearby.
"Teamed with an oversized chunky gold square-cut necklace and bracelet to suggest that it's not all work and no play, you mean?"
"Duh," replied Molly. "And you could get a fitted anthracite grey shirt. Then we'd match and your eyes would really pop. Oh, not like your microwave experiment! Don't look so shocked. I'm not just about draining bodily fluids and unravelling choke ligatures. I'm a woman as well."
"I see that now. Especially with you wearing clothes."
Their personal assistant coughed and asked if Molly was ready for her manicure and eyelash tinting. She was. Sherlock scanned the range of treatments available for men.
"I have Karen available…"
"Or me!"
Sherlock eyed the petite brunette and the spiky haired man and examined his hands then his face in a mirror. "Perhaps both," he decided. That way he could observe twice as much at the same time. "Molly, about tonight's dry run…"
It was early evening when Sherlock arrived home. John, dressed in his shirt-and-tie work clothes was pacing, rehearsing speeches and ultimatums. He watched his flatmate wrestle an armful of department store carrier bags through the living room at light speed, too quick for John to halt his progress, managing to throw John a complex hand salute-greeting-thing before he slinked into his room. Was he checking his live web feed to the chimpanzee house at the zoo and making notes, the doctor wondered.
"Sherlock! We have to talk. It's srs – I mean serious. Come out." He swung around quickly, averting his eyes as Sherlock emerged halfway through changing his clothes.
"Chillax, John. Spill."
John blocked that out and spilt. "Your brother is phoning me. Lestrade is texting me. Do people assume I morph into you when you're not around? I don't understand. How have I become the problem solver, the detective, by default? It doesn't work like that. This must be how Nicky Hilton feels when she has to cover for Paris when she flakes."
"Or Dina Lohan having to show up when Lindsey's 'indisposed'."
Both men turned to glare at the pile of horrifically addictive gossip magazines and wished the other would burn them.
"Sherlock, are you wearing mascara?"
"As if. Emo is well dead. Can't stay; new chick-lit book launch then after-party at Mahiki."
"How can you even—"
"Don't sweat. I'm on the guest list. 8tz."
John gave it all he'd got. He hadn't wanted to do this, but he'd activated a pre-arranged signal. "Mycroft is on his way right now to collect you for a briefing on the Ministry case. He'll be at the door any second."
"Cheers for the heads-up. You're solid. I'm bailing out the back."
"It wasn't a warning. Wait, we don't have a back—aghh! Careful!"
Sherlock was squeezing his lean frame out of the tiny kitchen window. "Don't wait up," reached John's ears, followed by a woman's scream. John heard: "Mrs Hudson, you're hallucinating. Too many herbal soothers." Huh. Sherlock wasn't in too much of a rush not to try some hypnotism on his way out.
The doorbell rang and John groaned long and loud. He lied to himself that maybe tonight was the night Anthea would accept his invitation to go out on a date. She'd almost remembered his name last time, so…
That fiction would prevent him thinking about the uncomfortable stint booked after that at the Yard, where he'd have to pretend to be calling an ill-in-bed Sherlock for his opinions and instructions as he himself was forced to sit in on the latest updating and brainstorming for the murder case. Anderson would just love it, he thought savagely. Yet he'd decided to go this route after his previous stratagem of pretending Sherlock was on his way and simply sitting around waiting had fallen flat. This pretend illness was a way to stop Lestrade sending squad cars out to look for the missing consulting detective.
It would work, this faux phone-a-friend tactic, he told himself. All he had to do was think What Would Sherlock Do? John kind of hoped the answer would be 'connect right fist to Anderson's over-long nose with brute force'. There, that image would see him through. Wouldn't it?
