savetheworldbutloseyou said: (I know I already did one, but since you asked for variety I'd thought I'd drop another one in. This can replace the other one if you'd like.) ""i'm a prince/ss from a small country nobody's heard of and i'm in college pretending not to be royal and you're another student who's always calling me out on my bs" au, Sherlolly, any rating is fine. Thanks!
A/N: So this took a long time for me to figure out, but I hope you like the result. Slightly tweaked the prompt. Rated K+. Loads of hugs and thank you's to everyone for reviewing, reading, etc. :)
"Oh please, no one's pronunciation is that precise, that clear and exact, unless they've had training beyond even what the poshest of posh public schools provide."
The words were scoffing; one could practically hear the rattle of rolling eyeballs underscoring every syllable. The speaker, entirely unaware of being overheard, continued blithely on, mobile resting between shoulder and ear, hands busy flipping through an anatomy textbook. "And the clothes! Those artfully ripped denims, the scruffy trainers, the oversized jumpers...it's a front, I'm telling you! If my lab partner is from Northamptonshire, I'm a monkey's uncle!"
"I must admit, I'm not familiar with that particular idiom."
With a squawk of surprise, dropping the mobile and textbook both, the speaker spun round to face the intruder. "Eavesdropping is rude, didn't your royal etiquette tutors teach you that?"
"Of course. And they also taught me that talking about someone behind their back was rude. If you have something to say, please, by all means - say it to my face."
"Fine." That huff of annoyance also served to move disheveled strands of hair back into place. "If that's what you want, then fine. I think it's ridiculous to think you can get away with pretending to be 'just one of the people' when it's so obvious a blind banker could see the truth. You're no more from Northamptonshire than I am. In fact, you're not even from the UK, but most likely from some small boring German-speaking country. A Principality, most likely."
A slight, crooked smile met this accusation. "Guilty as charged. My parents didn't want me to turn out as, shall we say, overly impressed with myself as my older brother has become, so they sent me to school here when I was fifteen. I go home every summer and holiday, but when they asked if I wished to continue my university studies here, I agreed on the condition that I needn't reveal my real name or rank." Shyly, the royal-in-disguise added, "I didn't want people fawning over me because of my status. I just came here to learn. I was hoping no one would figure it out. I should have known if anyone could, it would be you, William."
"Sherlock," he interrupted, reaching down and stuffing the dropped mobile into his back pocket. "Call me Sherlock, only my professors and my parents call me William. But," he added as she began to nod, "if it's discretion you're after, I suppose I'd better keep calling you Molly instead of Princess Margaret."
She glanced pointedly at the pocket into which he'd slipped his mobile. "There's at least one other person who must know, or at least suspect, no?"
Sherlock shrugged. "John's never going to figure it out, I can guarantee that. I didn't tell him who I was talking about this time, and frankly," he added with a sudden, charming grin that utterly lit up his normally dour features, "he's heard me ranting about so many of the other students here that he pretty much tunes me out when I call him."
Molly responded to his grin with a wry smile of her own. "Well, I hope you'll not be ranting about me again, at least not about my elocution."
He gave her a considering look. "On one condition."
The look she gave him in return was wary, but she nodded. "Name it."
"Coffee. You and me. And while we're drinking, you tell me how a princess decided to study medicine instead of, I dunno, 18th century French poetry or something equally boring."
She laughed, nodding her head in agreement. "Very well, Sherlock. Coffee it is."
After retrieving his dropped textbook they set off together for the campus coffeeshop. If anyone had to discover the truth of her identity, Molly reflected, at least it had been the boy she'd been nursing a crush on since the beginning of the fall term - and who, although neither of them knew it at the time, would one day become her husband and royal consort.