A/N: Written for shezzalovesmolly on tumblr, in honor of that lovely handle. Have some dystopian au sherlolly. Rated T for one bad word, mentions of drug use, and slang use of the word 'fag' meaning cigarette.
Like so many others, Shezza and his missus just showed up one day, drifting into the crowded homeless community, stories unknown and wariness in their eyes. Everyone knew within two hours that he was the reason they'd been driven out of the safety of whatever life they'd lived before, and they all agreed that his drug habit was likely to be the death of him before long. For her sake, Wiggins thought as he took a drag off one of his carefully hoarded cigarettes, he hoped it wouldn't take Shezza too long. Then maybe the pretty young brunette with the tired brown eyes wouldn't look so miserable and scared; maybe she'd be able to work her way back into the good graces of whatever employer she'd left to follow her man in his descent into the hellish life they faced now.
Once upon a time living rough on the streets of London hadn't been so bad, but with the new fascist government in control, with the wars raging nonstop round the entire fucked-up world, it was a grim battle for survival like none Wiggins had ever experienced before. There were the patrols to avoid, that swept the streets daily for people like him and Shezza and his missus, people they could force into work camps, brand as slaves and sell like so many cans of beans to the highest bidders.
Yeah, if she was lucky, Shezza's missus would soon be rid of him and maybe save herself; she wasn't nearly as far gone as so many of them were. Then someone started talking about a rumor of a new medication to combat the super-viruses that were devastating the UK's children, and Wiggins forgot about the newcomers.
Two days later he saw them again; Shezza if anything looked worse than before, in the temporary camp the two of them had set up against one cracked, stained concrete wall of the abutment where they'd coincidentally ended up for the night, their previous hideout having been raided the night before. Not only was the other man pale and shaky, but there was dried blood caked in his dark, greasy hair, dark circles under his eyes and a growing bruise on one cheek. Must've got caught up in the violence, Wiggins concluded, watching and smoking while the missus fussed over her lover. She was surprisingly strong for such a tiny little thing, her voice low but clearly speaking over Shezza's mumbled objections. Then Shezza looked up and caught Wiggins' eyes; he looked down, embarrassed at having been caught watching the two of them, and when he looked up again Shezza was curled in a tight ball, knees drawn up and facing away, with his missus sitting protectively over him.
The next time Wiggins saw them – it had been over two weeks, he calculated – he couldn't believe the difference; Shezza's face was fully healed, but more than that, there was a brightness to his eyes, a firmness to his mouth that hadn't been there before. At some point he'd found a place to shower and shave; the dark stubble was gone and the lank, greasy locks were revealed to be a headful of bountiful curls. The missus looked better too, happy almost – or as happy as anyone could under the circumstances. There was something else there, something Wiggins couldn't quite identify – resolve, maybe? Something about the set of her shoulders as she and Shezza spoke to one another in quiet murmurs, or the lift of her chin. Determination, that was it. Shezza had it as well, and Wiggins found himself feeling a vague sense of satisfaction at the sight. Oh, he would likely tumble right back off the wagon as soon as the first opportunity presented itself, but at least he wasn't so far gone as to not make the effort to clean himself up at all.
Once again Wiggins found himself caught out as he studied the two of them; this time, however, before he could turn away Shezza gestured for him to join them. Wiggins glanced around, saw that no one else was remotely interested in anything outside their own misery, and shuffled over to the brick wall the other two were leaning against. "Sup?" he asked, jerking his head in what passed for a greeting these days. "Fag?" he asked, not wondering at himself for making the offer of one of his precious cigarettes. There was just something about the pair of them, and the way their paths kept crossing; maybe it was fate, maybe it was coincidence, but either way he was curious to see what they had to say to him.
Even if it was just a filthy proposition for a threesome, he didn't think he'd mind too much. Sex could keep you warm, could stave off the despair and anger churning up your guts. And neither of the other two was anything close to bad-looking, specially now that they'd showered and changed clothes…
He frowned as he held out the cigarette, which Shezza took and lit with a lighter – an actual lighter, not a book of cheap matches. Now that he thought about it, Wiggins wondered at the quality of the clothes the other two were wearing – yes, simple jeans and t-shirts and hoodies, but the clothes were clean and fit them far too well to have been scavenged cast-offs.
"Who are you?" he blurted out, bewildered. "What do you want?" God, please don't let them be government agents gone undercover…but no, there would have been more raids, and there was no way in hell Shezza could have faked his coke addiction so well. Quarters were far too close and there were far too many prying eyes for him to have done the old soap-in-the-eyes routine or for his pallor and bruising to have been applied with make up or latex. Wiggins might have been the most observant of the two, but he wouldn't have been the only one watching them.
"My name is Sherlock Holmes," Shezza replied, speaking clearly and crisply, in an accent that marked exactly which class he'd come from. "And this is Molly Hooper, my…"
"Missus," Wiggins supplied. "Yeah, I get that. But who are you?" he asked again. The name stirred vague memories in the back of his mind, but he wanted to hear it from this man's lips.
Sherlock took a deliberate drag off the cigarette while the Missus – Molly, Wiggins corrected himself – hid a smile behind one small hand. "She's my pathologist," Sherlock corrected him, but Wiggins noted the way the other man's arm encircled her shoulder, holding her close, and he hid a smile of his own. "And with your help, Billy Wiggins, I believe we can find a cure for the so-called super viruses, which we all know are actually genetically modified pathogens deliberately set loose on the population as a method of government control."
"Oh, is that all," Wiggins replied, wondering how they knew his first name; no one here called him that, no one had called him that since uni, so how…
"Chemistry is your area of expertise, is it not?" Sherlock asked, passing the half-smoked fag over to Wiggins, who sucked the remainder down as if his lungs depended on the smoke more than air. "And no, of course that's not all." He offered a tight smile and added, "After that, we take down the corrupt government that did this to us. Don't we, Molly?"
"Yes, Sherlock," she replied, her voice light and sweet – and very, very determined. "And after that maybe we'll talk about the 'missus' thing, shall we?"
Wiggins laughed at the expression on Shezza's – Sherlock's – face; a hint of panic, a hint of resignation, and ultimately a sheepish smile as he mumbled, "Well, perhaps we needn't wait that long." Then he drew Molly to him for a kiss while sticking out his hand for Wiggins to shake.
Yeah, maybe he was a nutter, but he was a nutter Wiggins was willing to follow. If anyone could find a cure and take down the government, it was definitely Shezza and his Missus.