Prompt: Change something fundamental about the Sherlock show and write about it. Can be long, short, poetry - you choose!
Examples/Ideas:
- inhuman!Characters
- John and Sherlock don't investigate murders, they ...
Roll with it guys!
My second thought: ALL the sentient London fic! Well thank God I'm not predictable. /blatant lies.
...by the time I put this on AO3 it'll have grown chapters.
Necessary Magics
London is sitting on the edge of the bed when John wakes up.
It's wearing the shape of a five year old girl, which is slightly better than last time, when John woke up to something with pigeon wings instead of arms and what he half-suspected was a rat tail poking out from its jeans. Slightly, because London never gets the eyes right and John suspects Lovecraft would write odes to bottomless abyss that is London's fondest glance.
"Yuneehnsmthin?" John slurs, filing London's presence under 'threat, but likes me' and resolving to go back to sleep.
London tilts its head and nods once, decisively, kicking its heels. It's wearing knee-high socks and neat black shoes polished to mirror shine John's drill sergeant would burst into tears to see. It may or may not also be wearing a dress, John's not sure and doesn't want to look.
"Glatuhel," John says, rolling over and pressing his face into his pillow, secretly resolving to carve warding sigils on every doorframe in the place. Not that that would do anything to help, of course. Even if he wasn't in the city, it would still be exercise in futility trying to keep it out. "Wuhdyanee?"
London whispers its request. Unfortunately, a London whisper is the clap of a hundred pigeon wings opening at once, the honking of a thousand car horns, a hundred thousand fox screams and the sound of a million feet hitting the pavement – suffice to say, loud.
There is no sleeping through that. "Ow," John says, and, "We've talked about this," because human ears are delicate business and he can't hear himself speak right now, what with the ringing in his ears – Big Ben is especially loud.
London looks vaguely apologetic, in the sense that it has no idea what an apology is and therefore its look can be taken to mean anything.
"Yeah, I know I'm a little late," John says, or thinks he does, because he can feel his mouth move but still can't hear yet. This is not, he thinks resignedly as he pulls his socks on, what he signed up for. He's pretty sure he signed something though, so at least he knows who has his contract and that life isn't just pissing on him for the fun of it.
London smiles a wide gap-toothed grin at the sight of a curious rat, drawn by London's scent. It promptly scoops the rodent up with impossibly quick hands and eats it.
"Swallow your food," John says, annoyed that despite the fact he knows his hearing hasn't returned yet, he's still convinced he can hear the slurping noise London makes as it sucks the rat's tail into its mouth like a piece of spaghetti.
After a long moment in which John just knows London is considering spitting the rat back out, it starts chewing.
"This is my actual life," John tells the tea stain on his desk. The tea stain, by virtue of being tea, does actually provide a little comfort. Being a stain, that comfort is woefully inadequate to the task.
John decides to fortify himself and puts the kettle on. Behind him, London makes a very quiet garbled noise that sounds suspiciously like 'omnomnom'.
The reason for John's rude awakening is the Alderman Walk, which is neither a guided tour nor a job-specific way of walking but a sacred task and awesome responsibility – and completely without perks. Properly, it's The Walk of the Twenty-Sixth Alderman, but that's a bit pretentious for a bloke currently wearing a woolly jumper, never mind the odd socks.
The Twenty-Sixth Alderman is London's own chosen, and his or her purpose, as far as John can tell, is to be London's spiritual dogsbody. Whatever London needs, if it's magical in some way, it's the job of the Twenty-Sixth Alderman to do something about it.
Which is not to say he doesn't take care of London in more mundane ways – currently London is skipping next to him swathed in his coat because he's still not sure whether or not it's wearing the requisite amount of clothes to be out in public. Given enough time, he's pretty sure he'll be able to convince it that clothing isn't optional when it's human shaped, but until then it's just another part of the service.
The Walk of the Twenty-Sixth Alderman occurs quarterly every year (alternating between the four festivals and the solstices and equinoxes) and has been done exactly the same way for centuries, before many of the physical trappings of it actually existed.
First, because the Walk is traditional and Tradition sticks its middle finger up at Common Sense every chance it gets, he checks the Seven Gates, starting at Aldgate, ending with Ludgate and zig-zagging between the other five as he pleases.
Second, because the Walk is traditional and Tradition likes to bugger Common Sense every chance it gets, he walks the Wall, over and between the Gates he's checked and refortified.
Third, because the Walk is traditional and Tradition likes to make Common Sense scream for mercy and sob like a baby every chance it gets, he visits and feeds the Boundary Guardians, some of which he's passed twice already while checking the Gates and walking the Wall.
Tradition, John thinks darkly, can go drown itself in the Fleet. After the sewer conversion.
"I'm an invalided soldier, you know," he tells London when they (or he does, at least) stop for a rest after the London Bridge rite. London nods patiently and pats him on the leg. John hopes the red stain at the corner of its mouth will be taken for ketchup.
"I mean, I know I'm not limping any more but this is still an act of wanton cruelty. What have you got against straight lines anyway?"
London rolls its eyes. John can tell, despite the fact that he's facing the opposite direction, because normally, well-dressed bankers don't suddenly stop, drop to the pavement and start frothing at the mouth.
"I love you," John tells London, watching the man scream, "But you really are a bit hard to like."
London burbles something in the language of rivers. It means either 'love you too' or 'fuck off and die'; it depends which one the Thames has said more.
John heaves a great woe-is-me sigh and continues the Alderman Walk. "You could at least pay me in sterling," he says reproachfully. "Not that I don't appreciate the brownie housekeeping service or the green lights or the 'happy work life' charm you've put on me – which would be more useful if I actually had a mundane job, by the way – but is it really too much to ask that I be able to pay my rent? I check your fortifications, I renew the magic, I guard the borders – you could be a little more grateful."
John is immune to London's 'you adorable moron' look – when you've seen it performed by something with duck feet, it's just impossible to ever take seriously again.
"How about a better title, then? I mean, if my ward is all the wards, shouldn't I be mayor or something instead of an alderman?"
The 'you adorable moron' acquires a shade more exasperation and a tad less affection.
"Fine," John says fondly. "Whatever. At your service."
London nods proudly and shows its now pointed teeth in a wide grin, which John takes to mean 'well, yes. Yes, you are.'
With the Imbolc Walk completed, the wards are all renewed, the boundary stones and guardians all fed, and the great web of defensive and offensive magic layering the Wall and Gates rewoven into a different pattern. (That's John's personal contribution to the office of Twenty-Sixth Alderman, because how can you expect to keep the City protected if the magic remains exactly the same and therefore possible for someone to unravel and neutralise, given enough years of study?
Aldermen are going to curse his name for at least a century, but they deserve it, the bunch of slackers.)
John's just thankful that the City is his only responsibility as far as the grand rites go (Westminster too, at a push – which is quite often, actually). If he had to do all the boroughs himself it would probably take him a year to do one Walk.
London purrs like a well-fed cat, a noise that it shouldn't be able to make in a human body, although the impossibility doesn't seem to bother it any. John realises after a minute that it's actually making the noise of an idling car engine, which makes much more sense.
"You okay?" He asks, a little suspicious, because it's never purred after a Walk before. Looked a little smug, maybe, and once, drunk on an exceptionally powerful rite performed every seven years on the Winter or Summer solstice, floated a foot above the ground for the rest of the day, but purring is new. And worrying.
London opens its mouth and breathes out the smell of a fish and chip shop.
"Oh," John says, relaxing a little. "Well, if that's all, we can go to The Rock and Sole Plaice? Or if you're just hungry and don't really mind, there's always – London – London, don't eat out of bins!"
He chases after it, determined to catch up before it caught a fox (again) and then left the still-warm and slightly sticky skin on his bed in a mistaken attempt at a fur coverlet (again).
He follows London's giggles (which sound like every Hollywood movie's idea of a Victorian insane asylum) for quite a way before he suddenly realises where London is leading him and stops short. He tries to hold back a scream, not because it frightens him but because London has taken his hand, and, being London, may have inadvertently crushed the bones to powder. "No," John tells it firmly, the exasperated voice of a pet owner faced with an exuberant puppy. "No. Bad London."
London looks up at him, too fast for him to look away, and John's mind goes somewhere far away to dance with a pretty girl with multicoloured hair as the only preferable alternative to snapping like a dry twig.
When his mind comes back, a little woozy but still intact, London has dragged him to the door that John is always aware of and can feel from halfway across the city.
"This is ridiculous," John tells London in what he hopes is a firm and believable sort of voice. "Stop matchmaking."
London gives him a look only achievable by the very old or the very young, calling into doubt his mental faculties, sexual proclivities, genetic heritage and future offspring. It's remarkably cowing coming from what looks like a five year old, even if said child does have a mouth full of inhumanly pointy teeth.
John raises a hand to knock, only for the door to 221B Baker Street to be flung open with an impatient "Finally!"
"Hhnh," John says, because he didn't become the Twenty-Sixth Alderman on dumb luck alone and is actually quite good at sensing magic.
"Do you know how long I've been waiting for you?" demands the man. "What kept – oh right, yes, of course – enter of your own free will, I give my permission, etcetera, etcetera and so on and so forth."
"Wha?" John says with all the coherence of the recently sledge-hammered.
The man – and if he's actually one hundred percent pure human, John is a postbox, that face is just not natural – rolls his eyes and drags him inside, London one pleased step behind them.
"I was expecting you three days ago! What if it had been the Solstice and Equinox Year?"
"Sorry," John says automatically, and continues to stare. "You're a Necessary," he says before he can stop himself, with something like wonder in his voice.
It's John's job to know the magic of London. Nobody would blame him if he took after his predecessors and only learned the basics of the other boroughs, content to confine himself solely to his domain and place of power, but that's not John's way, and even if it was – well, they're called the Necessary Magics for a reason.
Despite its importance, the Walk of the Twenty-Sixth Alderman is not a Necessary magic, although some of its creatures and places are. It is human in origin and perpetuation – the Necessary magics are London-made and maintained, created to fill an absence or need only London knew ever existed. They slip into the city's magical landscape as if they have always been there, and it is almost impossible to imagine the city without them.
The Tower is a place of Necessary magic, for instance, as are many others – the spirits of magic users who attempted harm against the city hang forever upon the Tyburn Tree as if it was never dismantled three centuries before; if you know how to look, their heads can be seen rotting upon stakes on the shadow-shape of old London Bridge as a warning. (And that's London's idea of mercy; sometimes it gives them to Bedlam.)
There are the Guardians, the Patrons and the Guides, and some of the roles and offices a magician of London might take are Necessary – but that doesn't mean London won't destroy them if they start thinking of themselves as more important than the average hedgewitch. Performing a Necessary function doesn't make the office-bearer in themselves Necessary, it just makes them useful. And occasionally dead, but that isn't something John really wants to think about.
Necessary magic that is human-shaped is rare; one that isn't bound to a place or form of transport is rarer still, and there is only one John can think of off the top of his head that is so young its first appearance is still within (wizardly) living memory.
"Do you hate me?" John asks London pitifully. "The Great Detective? Really?"
London beams at him, stroking a human skull like a Bond villain with a cat. John determinedly does not ask where it came from.
"I said I didn't need any help finding a flatmate."
"Obviously you do or you would have been here three days ago," the Detective says acerbically.
"I don't know, did you make an appointment?" John says.
The Detective gives London a pointed look.
"You made an appointment with London? The last time it spoke to me before today it was stark naked and wearing neon lipstick! I thought it was trying to tell me I needed to get laid, and the reason it kept pointing at your door was because you were up for a good time!"
"It was a Friday night, wasn't it? London was up for a good time. You shouldn't conflate the messenger with the message."
"When the city is the messenger, it is the message!"
"Well, if your definition of 'good time' involves corpses, moral ambiguity, or danger in any shape or form, then I am, as you say, 'up for it'."
"London wept," John mutters, earning himself a quizzical glance from the city in question, which then rubs at its face and holds up its fingers to prove it is not in fact crying.
Ignoring him completely, the Detective says, "The name's Sherlock Holmes."
"Of course it is," John says blankly, because he's pretty sure that if London gets its way this awkward first meeting that any sane man would run away from is going to turn into epic partnership of legend in which he will rarely if ever get the chance to use the 'duh' tone of voice.
You get the feel for that kind of thing when you're one of London's keepers.
John bows to the inevitable and completes the contract. "I'm John H Watson," he says, and tries not to flinch because the sensation of name magic has always bothered him a little, never mind true name exchange. It tastes a bit like liquorice, which John can't stand. Maybe Harry's actually right and they've got some fey blood somewhere. Except Harry's never actually had this problem, and anyway, they're pretty obviously city magicians – John has London's pleased hum in the back of his head as proof of that.
(holmes mydearwatson deathlesswords afghanistaniperceive bestandwisest mine oohdestinyandcorpses)
He almost has it, the reason for the liquorice taste of name magic – as if looking at the Detective has some sort of influence on his own ability to grasp wispy bits of logic – when he's distracted by a different elephant, this one in a tutu. "Wait," he says, hit by an moment of blinding epiphany, "you're Westminster's Custodian!" He whirls on London, only momentarily put off by the fact that it now looks like it could pass for (Holmes, Sherlock, Sherlock) the Detective's twin, if said twin was Victorian in dress and manners. "What were you thinking?" John demands, bewildered. "You know he can't do a lot of the rites!"
"Actually," Sherlock corrects, "my brother is Westminster's Custodian. However, he doesn't see why he should limit himself and spreads his influence wide. There's certainly enough of him to cover London," he adds under his breath.
John doesn't want to be rude, but he really can't think of a polite way to ask 'can anthropomorphic constructs of thought-based city magic have siblings?'
"Right," he says blankly. London strokes its waistcoat and croons to itself in birdsong. No help there and why is John even a little surprised? "And your... brother – he's a Necessary too?"
"Yes. In his darker aspect he's the secret service, but most typically you'll meet him in his function as the British government. Hence, he's the older brother."
John slides imperceptibly back towards the door as London abandons its contemplation of a rather battered pocket watch to snigger quietly.
"Yes, yes," Sherlock says with a long-suffering nod, "we were very amused by Nineteen Eighty-Four. The jokes have yet to get old."
London hums the Big Brother theme unrepentantly. Looking at it – skull in one hand, pipe in the other, cravat moving restlessly around its neck like a snake – John is reminded of his occasional urge to spend a day filming it and then put the resulting piece of surrealist cinema on YouTube.
Sherlock ignores it to tell John 'not to worry' about his brother – "You've been a good soldier, haven't you? He'd give you some leeway for that, even if you weren't my flatmate."
John has a sudden, chilling suspicion of the sort of things that could happen to him if this brother – British government, what has John done to deserve this? – wasn't inclined to give him some leeway. He gives London a wild-eyed look. London obviously knows about his thoughts of YouTube fame because it starts juggling.
"I'm not your flatmate," John says frantically. "I don't recall agreeing to live with you, or signing anyth– fuck."
London doesn't even have the decency to pause in its juggling to produce a very long roll of parchment, an entire section of dense legalese (section 14, articles 1-18g, Living Arrangements) highlighted in hot pink.
'...having sworn service unto the metropolis of London until such a time as I am released, and having said oath been Witnessed, consecrated and bound by blood and True Name, I do agree to dwell wheresoever the City finds itself desirous of my services...'
It's definitely John's signature on the far end of the parchment, his blood and oath.
The contracts are looked over by fairies, City's sake, John should have seen this coming, it's just – nobody reads section 14. 'London will provide' is what section 14 says.
John still makes a futile attempt at free will. "...I shoot people."
"Excellent, you can defend yourself. It's very likely that you'll need to at some point, and magical attackers very rarely take mundane methods into account."
John stares at him.
"Oh, you meant it as a deterrent? Justice is my sphere, you'll find – the Law is another matter entirely. How do you feel about the violin? I dabble in the tradition sometimes."
John chokes back a horrified groan. Dabble. In Orpheus' sphere, one of the oldest, most potent forms of magecraft – as casually as he can manage, which isn't much, he asks, "Any good?"
"Music is subjective," Sherlock shrugs easily, eyes glittering with some secret amusement. London gives John a thumbs-up behind his back. "How good are you with necromancy and its associated wardings?"
"Um." John says. "Good. ...Sorry, why would you need necromantic wards in particular? Are you talking defense, protection, repulsion, welcome...? Really not getting this."
"I like to have all bases covered. And flatmates should know enough about each other to judge adequately whether or not their coexistence will be worth the trouble, don't you think? Are you likely to dreamwalk?"
"...I don't think so. Are you?"
"I may do so during an investigation, if I have no other recourse – but in over a hundred and thirty years I've never had cause to, so no. Let's see, what else... Sometimes I don't speak for days – not as part of any silence vow, I just won't. Will that bother you?"
John heroically refrained from saying anything along the lines of how it looked like it would be a relief. "Uh, no." He thought about the sort of things that meant no previous attempts at flatsharing had worked out. "I keep London's hours, and I'll try to be considerate and everything, but I hope you're not very attached to sleep-"
"I'm not."
"—and sometimes, my job... well, I'll try not to open any gates to other realms of existence or anything. Unless I have to."
"I promise the same, then."
London beams at them both, twisting ribbons of bloody life magic between its fingers into a tangled Gordian loop without end or beginning.
"Well then," Sherlock Holmes says, lets London fold one loop around his wrist, "Welcome at last, John H Watson, to 221B Baker Street."