It is funny to be doing a Victorian!AU of a Modern!AU of a Victorian story ... Sherlock-ception !
If you think about that one took long your brain will hurt :)
I really cannot believe the response this silly little story has gotten. Seriously thanks guys you are wonderful!
Your support really inspires me to keep writing :) *throws heart confetti at you*
Story Notes:
Abydos is the name of a place in Egypt not a type of poppy I just made that up.
Limehouse is real though.
and Homicide and Serious Crimes Unit is a part of *New* Scotland Yard - like I said before Alternate History
Ch.3
-Mazes-
Scotland Yard is a rather unfortunate location for most people, full to the brim with mad men shrieking, whistles blowing, and a layer of grease on every surface. Sherlock finds it calming, there are too many things to focus on at once which forms a perfect investigative hum.
It is in this mess of squalled humanity and brass buttons that lives the Homicide and Serious Crimes Unit and its head, one Captain Gregson. Sherlock sent a message ahead with one of his irregulars to let him know he and Miss Watson were coming - the boys of Baker Street are quicker than the post by far, so they should be expected.
Joan floats at his side as they make their way through the maze; the curve of her brow is the only indication that she is uncomfortable. He assumes it is due to the obvious lingering stares of the officers and prisoners alike, which follow where ever she moves. It is even setting his hairs on end, how can she stand this on a daily basis? Does this occur on a daily basis for her? He must keep track.
Just as they reach the doors to Homicide a young constable steps in Sherlock's path looking somewhat embarrassed. The apple cheeks and round blue eyes sparks Sherlock's memory, Edison, the boy's name is Edison.
"I am sorry Mr. Holmes, Sir, but I can't let your girl in. Some professions the Cap'n doesn't allow." Edison tips his hat to Joan with a wink. "No matter how pretty."
Sherlock huffs in irritation opening his mouth to begin a tirade on how the man was clearly never going to succeed as an investigator if he actually thought his companion, with her clean skin and personally tailored clothing, could be a doxy. What an imbecile.
Or at least that is what he was going to say before Joan speaks first.
"What profession would that be?" She asks with false-innocence, her accent now a hundred percent Oxford British. "They do not let domestic ambassadors into police stations now days?"
The constable turns scarlet and makes a gagging sound. Sherlock raises his eyebrows in interest wondering for a moment if the man has managed to swallow his own tongue. He has never seen what that would do to a person and would find it a very informative experience. Yet, Edison continues breathing, if haltingly so. Pity.
"Of course they do Miss - ah - Ma'am. I - uh- I mean… Go right in."
"Thank you, constable." Joan smiles leading Sherlock passed him.
"That was remarkably well done, Watson." He bounces after her nodding his support of her passive aggressive tactics.
She shoots him a sideways look - the likes of which nearly makes lighting crash in the small precinct - to show how little she requires his approval in this matter. Sherlock likes that, though saying so would most likely irritate her further, most women he meets seemed to have to backbone bred out of them.
The Captain waves them into his office without further ado, standing up to offer Joan one of the two shabby visitors' chairs and assuming Sherlock can find the other one himself.
"I can ask Detective Bell to fetch us some tea if you like?" Gregson attempts to be a proper gentleman, looking somewhat unsure with the presence of a lady in his office.
Joan laughs lightly setting him at ease. "No thank you, Captain, I am quite alright."
"Apparently I do not warrant tea?" Sherlock mutters, slumping into the old chair beside her.
"You know where it is." Gregson says without bothering to look at him.
He pulls a face and slouches back into the chair, as Joan's mood obviously lightens.
"I was told you are helping Mr. Holmes on the case?" Gregson queries glancing between them with crease in his brow.
"Yes I came across this." She says pulling out the white bag from her ridicule and handing it over. "Abydos Poppy seeds, it is what poisoned Mr. King."
The Captain turns his steady gaze to Sherlock for conformation, slate-blue eyes serious.
He bobs his head in assent. "We tested."
"How common is this stuff?" Gregson pours the minuscule seeds out onto his palm and holds them up to the light for inspection.
"Abydos only grows in a small region of China, taken from two breeds of the Afghan Province. It is quite rare." Joan informs him with a tilt of her head.
"Which makes it easier to figure out who is buying the stuff."
The Captain sighs leaning back in his creaking chair. "In this city? Are you kidding? There are more opium addicts than Christians walking the streets."
He taps his fingers against his thigh. One. Two. Three. "Yes, but they cannot all be connected to our Mr. King, now can they?"
Gregson levels Sherlock with his best stare. "You better hope not."
Firecrackers explode in a series of teeth rattling pops down the alley as their cab arrives in the Limehouse District, the Chinatown - and almost every other kind of town - of London. The smells of curry powder and rot lay thick upon the air in equal measure. There is beauty and horror here, greatest sorrow and genius hidden behind each dilapidated doorway and watchful stone dragon's eye.
"My mother would have an aneurism if she knew where I was. I had a runner fetch the Abydos the first time." Joan remarks, her eyes on the painted ladies whose hollow gazes follow them across the street.
"She sounds an interesting woman." Sherlock mutters looking over her head. Joan and her mother could not be as dissimilar as he and his father could they? Perhaps so.
Joan quiets a moment, prompting him to glance in her direction. The crease which says she is troubled is between her brows again. "She does not approve of my choices." She says softly.
They weave their way in between bodies and street merchants, Sherlock's arm awkwardly stiff in hers to keep them from being separated by the throng.
"Ah? Your new foray into detective work." It is not a question. From Ms. Hudson's reaction this morning he can only assume what her family's would be.
"Well, yes that. But it is more my spinsterhood which she cannot understand. Every other woman of 22 at my station is married with at least two children - something she reminds me of constantly - and not helping their fathers with government work."
The sudden thought of Joan Watson cooking and cleaning for a faceless and personality-less man who bed her every night so she could produce his equally personality-less children is so shocking and disturbing that Sherlock freezes. The woman, who he has inadvertently also jerked to a halt beside him, could never be reconciled with that particular mental image.
"What?!" Joan gasps, falling into him as the sudden loss of momentum pulls her heels out from under her.
Her ebony, braided-silk hair in now directly under his nose. She smells like tea cakes with the faintest hint of cinnamon. Sherlock turns to marble only relaxing as she rights herself and steps away, ignoring the group of laughing children watching from a tenement doorway.
"Nothing Miss Watson, I simply cannot fathom the waste of investigative talent - even the small amount of talent you have shown thus far."
She makes an irritated catlike noise at the back of her throat and rolls her dark hers eyes in response. Straightening her coat, she mutters. "Thank you, I suppose."
Joan is not entirely sure if Sherlock is insulting her or complementing her - not matter what comes out of his mouth. He is abrasive and irritating and somehow charming for it, which makes no logical sense. About as much sense as her gallivanting around Limehouse unchaperoned. So all things in perspective…
Merchants, vagrants, and hecklers call out them in Cantonese, mandarin, English, and all variations therein, trying to sell them jewelry, potions, clothes, house wares, even a cure for baldness - which makes Sherlock glare intensely while she laughs. Eventually though they fight their way through to the small herbalist shop they need, nestled between a fruit stand and a shabby import dealer.
It looks no different from the dozen or so others around - which is to say questionable. Joan can hardly make out the characters hand painted in red above the door proclaiming the place to be, 'Dr. Lee's'. Looking past the mounds of dried herbs and other more unusual substances to the reedy man behind the counter, Joan seriously doubts the 'Dr.' part of the statement. Honestly, the 'Lee' is pretty questionable as well.
Thousands of years of professional medical practice being reduced to the back alley of a dockland slum is all Joan can see as they step inside the cramped space. The contents of these soups and poultices have been curing aliments for as long as there have been aliments, yet in the western world using them is considered superstitious nonsense. She finds it rather depressing.
"Can I help you?" Lee asks Joan nervously in Cantonese, his gaze darting towards Sherlock over her shoulder. His voice is as thin as his body, his lips twitching.
"You are the only shop that sells Abydos Poppy Seeds, yes?" Sherlock jumps to the point stepping up to the stained, cluttered counter. His use of the Chinese dialect surprises Joan.
Lee shrinks back in response, nearly vanishing into the shadows cast by the dried ragweed hanging overhead, though there is no threat in Sherlock's tone. The man nods repeatedly. Intimidation is clearly something the local shop owners are accustomed to expect.
She steps in hoping to reassure Lee that they mean him no harm. Smiling with a slight, respectful inclination of her head, Joan says. "We are looking for anyone who has bought the seeds recently, most likely in a large batch. Can you recall anyone like that?"
Lee's watery gaze focuses on her face as if to discern her character. Whatever he sees there must be good because his face brightens and he nods again, this time more slowly.
Joan blinks, noticing Sherlock stand straighter in equal surprise. She did not actually expect the shop owner to remember anything of value, nor did it seemed did Sherlock.
"You are looking for the Man in the Suit." Dr. Lee says in English.