My proposition for the trope that Authors could just as easily be serial killers. I do not own Sherlock.
Thunk. Slide. Plop.
The rain on the windows was hardly deafening, yet it still provided an odd sort of distraction as Sherlock poked at an empty case file with the tip of his violin's bow. Fifty-four days without anything more interesting than runaway children in London and the boredom had dulled to the point that he wasn't sure he was bored so much as he was numb. He plucked the a-string lazily. .78 millimeters thick, made of steel, and 59.28 cm long. Long enough to strangle a person – possibly himself if he got bored enough.
The doorbell rang downstairs. Sherlock's left eyebrow twitched. Mrs. Hudson must have finally replaced it. He wondered if he had any bullets lying around left to shoot the new one through. He'd used the last round on the wall on the second day of no new cases.
Mrs. Hudson opened the door downstairs. The murmuring of pleasantries drifted up the stairs and Sherlock almost threw up at how quaint it all was. Then he heard her step on the stairs and call: "Sherlock! You've got one!"
He almost jumped out of his seat. Finally! Something interesting! He slid to the door just as the person finished climbing the steps and almost slid right into them. It was a girl. Blond hair – probably Germanic or possibly Swedish, however, her mouth turned down naturally at the corners and so that pointed more towards German. She dressed American, however. Not just any American – religious and from the west. Long jeans with snags along the legs and the hems of the denim scuffed off. She came from the desert, then. Thick burs where she had to wear good shoes to protect her feet. She also wore a plaid shirt with blue, pink, and white. Interesting color combination – notably feminine – but she appeared to be trying to appear more masculine and hard-working with her sleeves rolled up and the buttons down up to her neck. In contrast, her makeup closely resembled Irene Adler's with shimmering powder brushed around her eyelids and curled eyelashes – she had put effort into her appearance. Not a client, then.
Sherlock frowned. "The answer is no," he said, turning around.
"No?" she asked. Her voice was low and smooth. A singer then, probably a church chorister going off the fact she was religious. And yes, of course, she was religious. Look at the way she covered herself.
"No, I'm not interested. Thank you for your time, but I'm rather married to my work at the moment." Sherlock picked up his violin and played the lowest note on it in an effort to begin further distracting himself.
"No," the young woman repeated. "That's not why I'm here."
Sherlock gave her a brief look. She seemed amused and that was rather irritating. She leaned against the doorframe, arms folded. Her left arm ended up on top – of course, it was the one that was painted. The other wasn't. She was right-handed and it was hard for her to paint the other hand. The threw a wrench in his earlier deduction – she hadn't dressed up for the occasion, rather she was dressed up. If she'd wanted to make a striking impression, a detail like her nails matching on either hand would have mattered.
Sherlock set down the violin.
"You don't have a case," he muttered softly. "The slant of your shoulders – you're relaxed. If something was wrong, you'd be tenser. However, your spine is set rather straight, but that's likely just your posture due to the fact you don't walk normally."
The woman's mouth crooked upwards. "I'm glad you picked up on that," she said. "Most people do, but I understand it's an odd habit." She invited herself in and Sherlock studied the way her feet fell against the carpet. She walked on her toes. Interesting.
"Dancer?" he asked.
"Oh, I wish," she laughed. "I did ballroom dancing, but no. This is just the way I walk."
"I see," She'd taken a seat in the interrogation chair – as if she'd known what the system was. He sat down in his own chair and studied her further.
"Do tell me why you're here. I'm a busy man and I haven't got all day."
"Dear me, Mr. Holmes. I was under the impression you didn't have a case." She propped her elbow on the armrest and set her hand under her chin. "I've come to be your personal mystery. Tell me, what do you see?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Goodness, I'm not a palm reader. What do you expect me to do?"
She waited.
Sherlock skimmed her. There was a moment of silence and then he rolled his eyes. "Your posture – it says you work hard but your hands are clean – not hard labor then, only hard work. The lines around your eyes say you read a lot and you seem to be up very late however you're never tired. That means you don't have anything in the mornings. I'd predict you're a thirty-year-old girl who works in a bookstore in the afternoons, enjoys baking her own bread and-" he paused.
Her hands were well moisturized and without any odd cuts. That meant a lack of books. "Actually, it appears you've made a transition to technology over the years but… no, that's not right." The way she held herself seemed to connotate age, as if she'd stepped out of a different era. The corner of her mouth spiked upwards as she straightened even more and suddenly the persona he had been reading fell away.
"You don't go to bookstores. You actually work with…" he trailed off, then leaned forward. It was so odd, this woman. She seemed to switch to a different person every time he looked at her.
He looked at her eyes again – focused. Perhaps the lines meant something else. "You squint," he said. "You work in the dark a lot. No, there's something about your eyes. You like to make them look lit up, full of passion. You're someone with a traumatic past who put it all behind her in the form of strength. Not very good at hiding and you don't like liars because you believe lying is a sure way to get killed. You're married – the marriage was arranged and you now live in a state of comfort despite-"
"Wrong," she cut him off. "Never married. No traumatic past. I don't squint to light my eyes up. You're thinking of someone… close to me."
Sherlock frowned. Now that she'd said it, it seemed obvious. "Well, you do have lines in your face… and there are imprints on your fingers, particularly your three middle ones on either side. I'd imagine then that you play an instrument – maybe a variety of instruments."
She tilted her head and he felt that that must mean he was on the right path. "You're in a band. The way you dress yourself up – you're trying to impress someone. The lines around your eyes mean you do this style of makeup regularly. That means it's someone close to you. Someone you see often. However, he seems to be rather unobservant – perhaps it's because there's someone else?"
"A cousin," the woman agreed. "You're thinking of her cousin. And again, it's not me that you're reading."
"How could it not be?" Sherlock asked. "I picked up on all the signs from you."
She only gave him a sly smile.
Sherlock furrowed his brow and began firing off rapid deductions. Where she came from, what she was doing here. He managed to wrangle out the date and time of her plane ride only for her to dispute him on how many times she'd flown and thus what sort of family she came from. None of the applications he'd expected her to commonly use on her cell phone were the correct ones and none of his deductions on her family scratched more than a few inches below the surface. And it was fascinating, how she'd shift in her seat, cross one leg over the other, and suddenly it was as if she was a different person. Different deductions and possibilities that were gone the moment she flinched.
"How are you doing this?" he asked.
"I think it's about time you began asking questions instead of making assumptions, Mr. Holmes."
"You are… nearing your thirties, correct?"
"I am."
"What do you do?"
She lifted her right hand in response. Sherlock glanced over it. Her palms were flat. She often had them lying against something. And the indents on her fingers all lined up with each other. Not an instrumentalist, then. Someone who worked with a pen. She had colorful ink smudges beside her wrists. And speaking of her wrists, the sleeves were rolled up clear of the skin and she wore no bracelets or watches. "Someone who works in an office," Sherlock supposed. "You work on both a computer and in pen. And you do often because you've developed carpal tunnel from it. That's why you keep things clear of your wrists – to prevent irritation."
"Now we're getting somewhere," she agreed. "Tell me, Sherlock, What do you think I do? How do I know all these people?"
Sherlock squinted. "You're… a nurse. A nurse who works behind a desk, taking blood and information. And…" he trailed off. She'd changed her persona again and the deduction was no longer valid. "How are you doing this?" he muttered.
"I'm not doing anything," she told him. "You're just not reading me correctly."
He stayed silent. There were so many clues… so much information and yet nothing useful and all of it subjective.
She leaned back with a smile. "The woman you first began describing is a powerful mage, the daughter of a fairy and a god who was forced into an arrange marriage at seventeen to a king and ended up rising to become a hero of four nations."
Sherlock sneered. "That's a lie," he spat. "You lie with your body. Actor?"
"Story-teller," she shrugged. "That's all I am."
Ah. That made sense. He pondered the other persona he'd seen. "And the girl in the bookstore – she doesn't exist either. She comes from a different era – historical. Probably the 1900's given that she can read but's it's possible she came from-"
"1942," the woman nodded. "That's what threw you off. She would have had no knowledge of technology nowadays."
"And the girl in the band is Canadian, not American. She doesn't exist either. You invent these people somehow."
The personas were falling away now. He could see lingering results of magic that didn't actually exist – she favored her left leg as if it'd been hurt for a moment before it was fine. A soldier – she'd created a solider. And now he was coming up on something more solid, something-
"Murder," he announced. "You've murdered someone. No, the bookstore girl person. She died – dies."
The woman seemed amused now more than ever. "Yes," she agreed. "She dies."
"Hydrogen Cyanide in the 1940s, how obvious. She was Jewish. Homosexual? No, Jewish. And German too, how interesting. That's why I thought you were religious when you walked in." He clapped his hands together. This was all coming together so fast. "And the other girl with the fairies… she died too. Buried alive – that's why I picked up on the desert. You're not from the west. You're from the north!"
"No, I am from the West," the woman scolded. "We established my plane tickets, remember? But she – the fairy girl – died in the north. How did you figure the direction out?"
"Compass application on your phone," Sherlock pointed. "Used commonly. You have a map drawn up for a world that doesn't exist where she is. The compass helps you keep things aligned. I noticed when you pulled it out you automatically found north. It's become a habit."
"And so who am I?" the woman asked, standing up now. "What am I?"
"You're someone who has to know an awful lot about murder," Sherlock mumbled. "All these deaths you've created… you're able to play the part of the deceased perfectly. Yet you're never concerned about it – possibly because of the amount of research but more likely because you disconnect reality from fiction. I imagine you're an author, writing stories, and these are the people you created to lead your plots onwards. None of them exist and therefore you are still not worth my time." He took a hard seat in his chair.
"Very good, Mr. Sherlock," the woman hummed. It occurred to him that she was no longer using his last name. He glanced back over at her. "You've correctly deduced the author and her characters correctly. Now, tell me, what happens if you're wrong again?"
The author. Her characters. Not her. He frowned. "You're not her, then. You're playing her part – you know her well but if the characters aren't yours then why would their stories matter so much to you?"
"Perhaps I use them?" The woman hummed. "You know, there's a joke among internet writers. Would you happen to know it?"
"I don't waste my time on the-"
"The joke goes: 'I'm not pregnant, I just need to name a character. I'm not going to hurt anyone, I just need to know how to hurt someone." She paused, stood up, and brushed herself off. "I'm not a murderer – I'm just a writer."
"But you're not her," Sherlock mumbled. "You're the reverse."
She brushed her hands off. "You haven't deduced one of the characters," she said. "The Canadian. What happened to her?"
"Nothing," Sherlock whispered. "She lived. However…" he studied her frame. She favored the right side. What did that mean? He closed his eyes. "Her friend. It was her friend. Her friend died. Gunshot to the head."
The cold barrel of a gun pressed against his head. Oh. The friend.
He didn't even have time to deduce the bang.
The best criminals never waited.
Twenty minutes later, Greg Lestrade, who happened to have Germanic roots, arrived with John Watson, whose extended family now lived in Canada, on scene.
This is basically a crap fic I thought would be fun to tie a bunch of stories I've written together. Also, I like Sherlock and wanted to write something with him.
Her Royal Highness is the story with the 'Girl and the Fairies."
Laney Penn, a Canadian musician, is part of the story My Life In Music.
Lydia Martha Mamrot is a Jewish German in a novel I'm writing.
And no, I'm not a murderer. Just a writer.