Title: #01
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes, sort of (with a Star Trek [TOS] twist)
Characters: Holmes, Watson
Word Count: 1251
Warnings/Spoilers: See below. Basically, you need to know that Holmes is a Vulcan hiding out in Victorian London due to technology malfunction which stranded him far from home, and Watson is a fully functioning empath who was invalided out of Afghanistan because he didn't have the sense to not take on a man's life-threatening injury. Yes, you read correctly. Yes, I am insane. Moving on.
Summary: For the prompt of Original Character POV of Holmes and Watson, of a situation which should be mundane but, for whatever reason, isn't
A/N: You'll want to have read Whatever Remains and my Alternate SPEC, probably, or at least be familiar with the concepts behind them. Written as first in a series of ficlets for the July Writing Prompts at LiveJournal's watsons_woes, in an effort to yank my muse back onto its TrekAU leash. Also, Cummings is an OC created by me long ago.
Police Constable Randall Cummings is, by his own honest admission, perhaps not the brightest star in the sky, but he prides himself upon possessing, if nothing else, a good deal of patience and tact. One must possess both attributes, if one is to be attached to Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard for the duration of one's sergeant-ship. (What deity he has offended to be subjected to such a punishment, he is not certain; but serve his sentence he must, and does.)
One must also employ both attributes of patience and tact, when one is forced to accompany said less-than-long-suffering inspector in an effort to convince a somewhat infuriating consulting detective and his somewhat less infuriating doctor to take on a case. Cummings would like to go home sometime today with his sanity mostly intact, and so he spends the better part of his morning coaxing, cajoling, and not-exactly-bribing his superior into calling in the amateurs.
He is rewarded, in the early hours just after noon. Mr. Sherlock Holmes is currently striding around the crime scene in all his condescending glory, shadowed closely by his intriguing choice for a tag-along. Cummings quite likes the patient physician, mostly because he can tell even before being told the doctor was in Afghanistan, that Watson is not a bloke to be trifled with. He has the look of someone who would cheerfully break your arm for hurting a child, and then stabilise you until medical aid arrived…the kind that knows his greatest weapon is being underestimated, and is well aware of how to use that weapon.
The doctor also, apparently, is the only person Sherlock Holmes deigns to make conversation with while he's working (or otherwise, for that matter, if you are counting civilised conversation), which makes him an anomaly and therefore a chink in the armour. Cummings wisely watches to make sure he never gets on Watson's bad side; because everyone knows by now that if you get on Watson's bad side then you'll find it easier to talk your local vicar into dancing naked through the streets than to get Holmes to examine your case.
But now, Cummings is wet and cold and altogether cursing his lowly status as a mere constable, because Inspector Lestrade and the sergeants are all inside, snug and warm, whilst he waits in a puddle of mucky leaves for their unofficial reinforcements. A house on Hampstead Heath was burgled expertly last night, despite the three prowling watchdogs and a high stone wall surrounding dense shrubbery which encircles the entire property. Cummings has already scoured the grounds this morning (along with its many painful thorn-bushes) for indications of the intruder's entry, without much luck due to heavy rains. He is more than happy to turn such activities over to Mr. Holmes, and he will be much impressed if the amateur makes anything out of the swamp which is the grounds.
He is about to head back to the house - ostensibly to report to Inspector Lestrade, but in reality to sneak a nip out of Jacobson's flask because it is cold as a January dawn, thank you very much! - when they arrive. Mr. Holmes looks about at the dense shrubbery and muddy earth with an almost catlike apprehension.
"Enjoy, gents," he says with a grin, tipping his hat to both of them as he passes. "Good luck finding anything in this muck."
Mr. Holmes looks properly horrified at the waterlogged state of the ground, but the Doctor returns his gesture kindly enough.
"Best watch those bushes," Cummings adds as an additional courtesy, as he flips the lapels of his coat up as protection against the misty drizzle. "Thorns are right nasty, they are. Tore Jacobson's sleeve clean off when he was crawling about looking for footprints."
"Lovely," Holmes mutters, crouching down with a pocket magnifier. He examines the ground, cocks his head to one side, sniffs the shrubbery, and then promptly sticks his head under one of the bushes, heedless of his cap being knocked to the wet ground.
Odd bloke. But then who is he to criticise; he has a maiden aunt who believes she is an angel, and goes about groping her coiffure for an imaginary halo.
"Holmes," the doctor sighs tolerantly as Cummings shakes his head (better off not asking, he has learnt from experience) and begins the soggy trek back to the house. "Must you?"
"I can hardly expect to find traces of our quarry in the trampled mess those idiots left me, Doctor," the irritated reply floats from under the bush, somewhat muffled in a bird's nest. "Something metallic, however, has been kicked or rolled under here…"
"And what, precisely, am I supposed to tell Lestrade if you get yourself torn up on those thorns and start bleeding green onto his crime scene?"
Cummings stops, one foot poised mid-step, because he really is not a man to imagine things of that weird calibre - but he would swear he has just heard something that definitely belongs to the should-not-be-heard-in-real-life-unless-I-got-roaring-drunk-last-night set of conversation. And as he was forced to do Lestrade's paperwork until well after midnight last night, much to his mates' disappointment, he was fairly certain that did not constitute near enough pleasure to justify such eccentricity today.
Mr. Holmes's reply is scarcely more enlightening than the doctor's. "Hmmf. Pass me an envelope, there's a good chap. You could always tell him the truth, Watson."
The doctor snorts, but somehow is able to remain dignified while doing so. Cummings makes a note of it, curiously; perhaps it is an acquired skill. "Yes, quite, that would be utterly charming. 'You see, Inspector, Mr. Holmes is in reality an alien from another planet, and has been living in England for several years after being stranded here by faulty flight technology."
Jacobson had better have that flask full, is all he can think of at the moment.
Watson is continuing, mostly to himself as he methodically takes notes over Holmes's oblivious mutterings. "Oh, and by the by, Inspector, he can read your mind. So don't let his hands near your face if you want to keep your love of cuddly baby animals a secret from the rest of the world.'"
Right, and that last is far more disturbing than the first, because there's this faint possibility that it might actually be true...
"Alien from another planet is, by definition, redundant. Really, Doctor, and you a man of letters."
Perhaps he will skip going back to the house (he does not think he can look Lestrade in the face without wondering if he sleeps with a stuffed toy kitten) and go back to the Yard to finish his reports in relative peace and sanity.
"And our esteemed inspector does not have a secret love of 'cuddly baby animals', Watson," Holmes is still nattering on behind him, and he resists the urge to cover his poor innocent ears.
"Of course not, I was just making that -"
"He does, however, still harbour a rather disturbing childhood fantasy involving what I can only presume are a five-year-old's conceptions of alien spacecraft and men from Mars. Bit of irony, that, do you not agree, Watson?"
Cummings has moved out of earshot before hearing the reply, not that it would have mattered much to him; he is well and truly convinced that there are some things (many things) better left unspeculated-upon.
If he finds it disturbing to discover, a week later, that Lestrade is hopelessly enamoured with Jules Verne's novels, well…