I am stuck on the Doctor Who crossover. So I started a Sherlock BBC crossover! excellent plan, self! *highfives*
“Sherlock Holmes.”
“I don’t get many Americans. Nor do I get many Luddites. Even fewer are welcomed to Mycroft’s offices. Why are you here?”
“I need a favor. And your brother owes me one. Several, in fact. He said to tell you that the time with the petunias would be considered even.”
“Ah, how tiresome. What is the nature of this favor?”
The American (2.75 meters, black hair, Caucasian, 70-80 kilograms. A runner by habit, recently come into some money but far from wealthy, perhaps superstitious or Wiccan by his pentacle. Accustomed to violence by the scarring and quite firm of heart if he could cash in Mycroft’s favor without even a hint of nerves.) held out a small wooden chest. It was hand made, of white oak (common to the American Midwest which fit his Chicago accent, crafted by a Master carpenter) and the brass hinges were inlaid with silver (more evidence in favor of occult leanings - the inlay was a pattern of ancient Norse runes). “I need you to keep this safe until I come back for it. It may be some time. And in addition to your brother’s forgiveness over the matter of the petunias, I am offering a return favor of my own. You may call upon me at your discretion, at any time after I have retrieved the box. Contacting me before then would be dangerous.”
Sherlock considered the man before him over steepled fingers. He didn’t appear to be a criminal - none of the obvious clues that Sherlock had observed pointed to a life of crime. And as favors went, the “petunia incident” was a good one to have wiped clean.
“What is your name?” he asked, “And is there anybody you wish to designate as your proxy?”
The American smiled. “Harry Dresden. And yes - if Margaret Mendoza comes to you, and she is over 15, you may give her the box. But she’s only 7 this year, and I plan to be back sooner than that.” He placed the box on the coffee table. “Thank you,” Dresden said, and he walked away.
Sherlock waited for Dresden’s footsteps to fade, and the door to slam behind him, before springing up to open the box. Curiosity, he knew, would always win in the end. Better by far to have all the data from the start.
There was a wrapped bundle inside, and a letter on top of the cloth addressed to Sherlock himself.
From everything Mycroft has said - which isn’t much - I knew you wouldn’t be able to leave it entirely alone. He is very old, and a little fragile, but if you’re bold enough to open the box you’re welcome to keep him on your mantle. Some company for your deductions?
Delicately opening the cloth, Sherlock found an ancient, dry skull and, strangely, a sensationalist romance novel. The skull seemed to fit Dresden - tall, dark, deliberately mysterious. The novel was completely unexpected.
“Well. Perhaps Dresden is more interesting than he appeared. And you... I shall call you Victor. You have precisely his zygomatic arch.”
I have no idea what the Petunia Incident was. *ponders*
Victor was, as Dresden’s letter had jokingly suggested, excellent company. Sherlock left him on the mantel, mostly, as holding him felt rather too Shakespearean. It was useful for his deductions to have something to talk at - and yes, he might have talked at a lamp or the ceiling just as effectively. Nonetheless, it felt more natural to speak to the skull - something that had once possessed intelligence - than to an inanimate object. He had entirely stopped thinking of it as strange, when John Watson came into his life and his apartment, and called his attention to the oddities of his existence.
Nonetheless, while John objected to more recent human remains - such as eyeballs in the olive jar or fingers in the tea kettle - he seemed perfectly comfortable with ones that had been reduced to bone long ago. Sherlock liked him all the better for it.
I think Dresden is a LBD of a fandom - Dresden can get literally anywhere he wants without that much effort via the Ways. Why wouldn't accidentally run into Mycroft and earn several favors? *handwaves*
*headdesk* Math skills: CAN NOT HAZ I did mean 2.1 meters! My head went "9 inches is 3/4 of a foot! 3 feet is a meter! 2 and 3/4 meters, ahoy!" but clearly i had the dumb at that moment. Thanks!
Sometimes John thought their flat might be haunted.
John was not, by nature, superstitious or gullible. He had spent years happily disbelieving the existence of the supernatural. That changed in Afghanistan.
John’s company had been staying in the burned out wreck of an Afghani village, just overnight on their way from Kandahar to Kabul. The soldiers had gone in first to make sure the buildings were as deserted as they appeared from a distance, before the noncombat personnel were allowed in to set up temporary bunks. When he woke to the sound of a crying child, he had thought for a brief moment that one of them had missed something.
John and three others had watched, jaws dropped, as an Afghani girl had flickered in and out of visibility. She was clearly only about six, and she ran, sobbing, from room to room. She didn’t see the soldiers or acknowledge them in any way - it was more like a staticky recording. The cycle was only about a minute long, and it repeated five times before she vanished. The company had left the next night, and the other three had dismissed the girl as the product of stress, or sleeplessness, or nightmares.
John hadn’t. And John saw more of them, everywhere he went. Mothers crying out for children, a girl who had been stoned, children with guns they could hardly carry. When John had returned to London, he had been afraid that he would keep seeing ghosts, but it stopped almost entirely. There was the occasional flicker, usually at a crime scene, but they didn’t interact with the living so they weren’t exactly useful to him.
And sometimes he heard a voice in their flat. Never when Sherlock was awake, never when Mycroft came to visit. But at 3 in the morning when when he was couldn’t sleep and though a cup of tea might help, he would hear an unintelligible murmuring in the living room. Once, he thought he saw a faint glow - but that time he had been up for 72 hours chasing after Sherlock, who had been ridiculously brilliant but also ridiculously insane. When he had gone to make sure Sherlock hadn’t gotten up again, there had been nothing in the living room that didn’t belong there.
I don't supposed I could ask if you'd take the Re: out of the subject line when you reply to yourself with a new part? I keep thinking your new pieces are discussion and almost deleting them from my inbox when I don't catch the new part number.
that is a good suggestion! I've been replying to part one because otherwise I don't like the way the width of comment boxes steadily decreases, but for the ease of those tracking this...
Sherlock had kept the skull for three years when he received word from Dresden again. John had just gotten out of the hospital (a two day stay after Moriarty had pulled the swimming pool down around their ears, recovering from a concussion and preventing the onset of pneumonia invited by John’s cracked ribs and dive into the swimming pool) when he received a letter. Dresden was requesting that Sherlock bring Victor to Chicago, as he did not trust the post and could not come to London personally at present. Sherlock considered the angles.
He had investigated Dresden, of course. He had lived in Chicago for several years, before which he had lived in a number of places, including Missouri, a small Illinois town a few hours from Chicago, and several orphanages. His parents had both died early, as had his first adoptive parent. His years with the Ragged Angel Investigations had been very standard PI work, though there were a few occasions when he seemed to have demonstrated a touch of brilliance in locating missing persons.
It was after Dresden left Ragged Angel that things got a bit stranger. He had an entry in the phone book - the paper phone book - under the category of “wizard” and the Chicago police had occasionally requested his advice. Sherlock wished he had been present for these events - the second hand reports were uniformly useless. Sherlock would have thought Dresden either a madman or a fraud, but he knew that neither option would have put Dresden in the position to demand favors from Mycroft - and moreover, the man Sherlock had met did not fit either category.
There were a few pieces that stood out. A video of Dresden on a talk show, weirdly fuzzy in video quality for something he had obtained directly from the television station. A cell phone camera, even more blurred, that showed Dresden and something, which Sherlock would have dismissed as cheap special effects had the video file not been found under several layers of security in Dresden’s confidential FBI file. But Sherlock didn’t have enough data to put together a real picture, and he hated to make hypotheses without facts.
If Dresden had the time to wait on a physical letter rather than the more immediate phone call or email, Sherlock could wait another few days for John to improve. He couldn’t be certain that Moriarty was truly out of the city - or that he would stay out if Sherlock left John vulnerable.
Can I just say that I really and truly and thoroughly enjoy all of this, everything, especially John's supernatural experiences in Afghanistan and Britain? And poor Sherlock, I wonder how he'd do at magic-logic as opposed to science-logic, and how badly that'll fuck with his head when he realizes it's going to open up a whole world of possibilities for every weird crime scene he ever investigates again. Your writing is excellent; I love that you made Bob hide properly, not being much more than an occasional note of 'huh, odd' in the apartment.
You guys are awesome! I'm so glad you like this idea! Also, sorry about the delay. I got sucked into the Inception kinkmeme (just reading, thank goodness!) and had to dig my way out via massive Arthur/Eames viking AUs.
John had put up very little fight at the prospect of a trip to Chicago. Sherlock had tidily wrapped up Victor in his old box, including the tawdry romance novel that had been packaged with him. He had used Mycroft’s credit card to purchase business class tickets to Chicago. He hated to fly coach. (Sherlock completely ignored Mycrofts texts to be careful. Mycroft always sent texts like that, and they were uniformly useless and boring.)
They arrived at O’Hare in midafternoon, and made quick work of customs. Dresden had probably expected a return letter before Sherlock’s arrival, but Dresden was completely lacking in email or texting capability. As Sherlock hated talking on the phone, he hadn’t bothered to call. But he knew where Dresden’s office was - the ad had gone missing from the phone book for as long as Sherlock had been keeping Victor, but it had recently been republished in the online version of this year’s business pages with a new address. The taxi took them to a slightly seedy area of town, but the walk up to Dresden’s office was clean and mostly free of graffiti. The door was unprepossessing, but the lettering was shiny and new. Harry Dresden, Wizard.
“Is he serious?” John asked behind Sherlock. The long flight had left John more vulnerable than usual to his psychosomatic limp, and he was leaning a little heavily on his cane.
“Yes, he is entirely serious. And yet, when I met him he was certainly not a madman,” Sherlock was focused on the door itself. He had not made the exhaustive study of Chicago that he had of London, of course, and he could not deduce much from traces of mud on the carpets or the threshold. There were fresh heel gouges, of the kind made by a woman in stilettos. Bending down, he could see a glimpse of tarnished silver underneath the door, and from the new vantage point he could see the frame had been scratched in a regular pattern - not the runes that decorated the box he was holding, but a sigil that Sherlock couldn’t identify. He took a snapshot of one of them with his camera for later.
“Sherlock. Stop investigating and give the wizard back his skull,” John interrupted, and leaned around him to push open the office door.
There was one desk in the room, and Dresden was slouched behind it. He had jerked up at the sound of the door, but was still holding onto a cheap paperback. He was understandably shocked to see them.
“Sherlock Holmes? I mean, uh, I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon,” Dresden rose to greet them. “And you have Bob?”
“You named it Bob?” Sherlock graciously repressed the sneer that wanted to come out, but he needn’t have bothered.
“None of that, Sherlock. You named it Victor, after all.” John stepped forward into the office behind Sherlock. “Have you put a ring of silver around the walls of your office?” He peered at Dresden curiously.
“Safety precaution,” Dresden said nonsensically. He took the box from Sherlock, and opened it to unwrap the skull. He smiled to see it, and as he held his hand over it, the skull changed. Sherlock’s eyes widened involuntarily as the skull went from the delicate ivory of the recently dead to a darker, yellowed tone with intricate carvings in a darker brown. Victor was considerably older than Sherlock had thought, and though Sherlock could think of several ways to hide the indicators of age he certainly could not have removed the camouflage so smoothly and thoroughly. And Sherlock had held the skull, knew precisely the feel and heft of it - it had not been coated in wax, or putty, or coloring of any kind. (Even if it had, there should have been no way for Dresden to remove them without even touching the skull!)
“Boss! Thank goodness. This one has even less sex than you do, and I honestly hadn’t thought that was possible. And the murders were mostly boring, and he didn’t even give me any new reading material!”
Sherlock was having A Moment. Once in a great while, Sherlock would discover or observe something huge, something world changing. Something that required incorporating into his previous experiences, that made him look at the world from a new angle. Previous moments had included the moment he solved his first mystery (age four), the moment he realized Mycroft was not infallible (age seven) and the moment he realized he would never fit properly into regular society without stifling himself and promptly decided not to try (age 18). He had thought, when John walked out of the pool house shadows speaking Moriarty’s words, that he would have another - and he did, though it did not end up concerning John’s sideline as a criminal mastermind but instead that John’s continued well-being was essential to Sherlock’s own happiness.
And now he was having another. Harry Dresden claimed to be a wizard, and Dresden was neither mad nor fraudulent. Dresden had changed the appearance of an object beyond the ability of Sherlock’s chemistry to imitate. Said object appeared to have an immaterial inhabitant that allowed it slight motion and some kind of phosphorescence. It would have looked like a cheap Hollywood special effect, if Sherlock had not known with absolute certainty that the skull contained no hidden tricks. Sherlock could see it firsthand: magic was real. Which meant the shadowy monster on the FBI's grainy video was also likely real, and there might be a rather unusual explanation for how Dresden had solved a few of his particularly clever cases.
Sherlock needs more information. He needs to know how this will effect his own cases, what to look for when he is searching for clues. There's a whole subset of data that he may have been misinterpreting or ignoring completely, he needs to pick over Dresden's entire brain right now. But before he could demand that Dresden provide this, they were joined by another American.
"Mr. Dresden. Now that your offices are once again open for business," the stranger cut himself off. "Captain Watson?" The newcomer was shocked beyond his clearly-not-inconsiderable ability to disguise. (Shorter than Dresden, and a bit older; greying at his temples. Part of his left ear has been ripped brutally away. There is a concealed pistol under his very expensive suit jacket and a knife at his ankle. These defenses are secondary to the burly redhead behind him wearing a surprisingly well tailored suit for someone who is clearly - to Sherlock - a criminal enforcer. He had dismissed the rumors that Dresden was affiliated with Chicago's criminal element. Now, caught between Dresden's expression - as though he is smelling something foul unexpectedly - and this upper level mob boss' casual tone of address, Sherlock needs more data.)
John was as startled as the stranger, his eyes widening a fraction, "Sergeant -" but he was cut off by Dresden.
"John," Dresden's tone was deliberately insolent, "I do believe I told you never to darken my doorstep again."
"I. John?" John looked from Dresden to the stranger, the question clear in his voice.
"Allow me to introduce Gentleman Johnny Marcone. Now, scumbag, get out of my office."
"Gentleman Johnny?" John's voice was strangled. Sherlock glanced between John and Marcone. Marcone was dodging John’s eyes, and slowly, he blushed. His skin was a touch olive - most people who weren’t Sherlock would never notice. John was not so fortunate, and the bright pink flush that rose on his cheeks was obvious to even the casual observer.
But yes, so much awesome crammed in here. And was that a deliberate interruption I see here, Harry? What? What? :D Harry, you sneaky devil you.
And Sherlock's brain turnover is so much fun. There's a whole subset of data that he may have been misinterpreting or ignoring completely, he needs to pick over Dresden's entire brain right now. HAHAHA Sherlock, you poor put-upon genius NOT.
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timeasmymeasure
Venture wants ALL the crossovers.
Date: 2011-03-17 08:28 pm (UTC)“Sherlock Holmes.”
“I don’t get many Americans. Nor do I get many Luddites. Even fewer are welcomed to Mycroft’s offices. Why are you here?”
“I need a favor. And your brother owes me one. Several, in fact. He said to tell you that the time with the petunias would be considered even.”
“Ah, how tiresome. What is the nature of this favor?”
The American (2.75 meters, black hair, Caucasian, 70-80 kilograms. A runner by habit, recently come into some money but far from wealthy, perhaps superstitious or Wiccan by his pentacle. Accustomed to violence by the scarring and quite firm of heart if he could cash in Mycroft’s favor without even a hint of nerves.) held out a small wooden chest. It was hand made, of white oak (common to the American Midwest which fit his Chicago accent, crafted by a Master carpenter) and the brass hinges were inlaid with silver (more evidence in favor of occult leanings - the inlay was a pattern of ancient Norse runes). “I need you to keep this safe until I come back for it. It may be some time. And in addition to your brother’s forgiveness over the matter of the petunias, I am offering a return favor of my own. You may call upon me at your discretion, at any time after I have retrieved the box. Contacting me before then would be dangerous.”
Sherlock considered the man before him over steepled fingers. He didn’t appear to be a criminal - none of the obvious clues that Sherlock had observed pointed to a life of crime. And as favors went, the “petunia incident” was a good one to have wiped clean.
“What is your name?” he asked, “And is there anybody you wish to designate as your proxy?”
The American smiled. “Harry Dresden. And yes - if Margaret Mendoza comes to you, and she is over 15, you may give her the box. But she’s only 7 this year, and I plan to be back sooner than that.” He placed the box on the coffee table. “Thank you,” Dresden said, and he walked away.
Sherlock waited for Dresden’s footsteps to fade, and the door to slam behind him, before springing up to open the box. Curiosity, he knew, would always win in the end. Better by far to have all the data from the start.
There was a wrapped bundle inside, and a letter on top of the cloth addressed to Sherlock himself.
From everything Mycroft has said - which isn’t much - I knew you wouldn’t be able to leave it entirely alone. He is very old, and a little fragile, but if you’re bold enough to open the box you’re welcome to keep him on your mantle. Some company for your deductions?
Delicately opening the cloth, Sherlock found an ancient, dry skull and, strangely, a sensationalist romance novel. The skull seemed to fit Dresden - tall, dark, deliberately mysterious. The novel was completely unexpected.
“Well. Perhaps Dresden is more interesting than he appeared. And you... I shall call you Victor. You have precisely his zygomatic arch.”
I have no idea what the Petunia Incident was. *ponders*
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
Date: 2011-03-17 08:29 pm (UTC)Nonetheless, while John objected to more recent human remains - such as eyeballs in the olive jar or fingers in the tea kettle - he seemed perfectly comfortable with ones that had been reduced to bone long ago. Sherlock liked him all the better for it.
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
Date: 2011-03-17 10:22 pm (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
Date: 2011-03-17 10:25 pm (UTC)I think Dresden is a LBD of a fandom - Dresden can get literally anywhere he wants without that much effort via the Ways. Why wouldn't accidentally run into Mycroft and earn several favors? *handwaves*
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
From:Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
From:Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
Date: 2011-03-17 10:42 pm (UTC)Good thing, Bob hasn't decided to talk with them yet. :p
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
Date: 2011-03-17 10:48 pm (UTC)also: yay! \o/
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
From:Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
Date: 2011-03-18 06:46 am (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
Date: 2011-03-18 08:40 am (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
From:Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
Date: 2011-03-18 01:30 pm (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
From:Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
From:Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 2/??
Date: 2011-03-18 07:40 am (UTC)(CAPSLOCK SADLY DOES NOT FULLY ESPRESS MY FANGIRL GLEE OVER THIS.)
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers.
Date: 2011-03-17 09:52 pm (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 3/??: John Interlude
Date: 2011-03-21 07:23 pm (UTC)John was not, by nature, superstitious or gullible. He had spent years happily disbelieving the existence of the supernatural. That changed in Afghanistan.
John’s company had been staying in the burned out wreck of an Afghani village, just overnight on their way from Kandahar to Kabul. The soldiers had gone in first to make sure the buildings were as deserted as they appeared from a distance, before the noncombat personnel were allowed in to set up temporary bunks. When he woke to the sound of a crying child, he had thought for a brief moment that one of them had missed something.
John and three others had watched, jaws dropped, as an Afghani girl had flickered in and out of visibility. She was clearly only about six, and she ran, sobbing, from room to room. She didn’t see the soldiers or acknowledge them in any way - it was more like a staticky recording. The cycle was only about a minute long, and it repeated five times before she vanished. The company had left the next night, and the other three had dismissed the girl as the product of stress, or sleeplessness, or nightmares.
John hadn’t. And John saw more of them, everywhere he went. Mothers crying out for children, a girl who had been stoned, children with guns they could hardly carry. When John had returned to London, he had been afraid that he would keep seeing ghosts, but it stopped almost entirely. There was the occasional flicker, usually at a crime scene, but they didn’t interact with the living so they weren’t exactly useful to him.
And sometimes he heard a voice in their flat. Never when Sherlock was awake, never when Mycroft came to visit. But at 3 in the morning when when he was couldn’t sleep and though a cup of tea might help, he would hear an unintelligible murmuring in the living room. Once, he thought he saw a faint glow - but that time he had been up for 72 hours chasing after Sherlock, who had been ridiculously brilliant but also ridiculously insane. When he had gone to make sure Sherlock hadn’t gotten up again, there had been nothing in the living room that didn’t belong there.
He never told Sherlock.
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 3/??: John Interlude
Date: 2011-03-21 07:28 pm (UTC)I don't supposed I could ask if you'd take the Re: out of the subject line when you reply to yourself with a new part? I keep thinking your new pieces are discussion and almost deleting them from my inbox when I don't catch the new part number.
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 3/??: John Interlude
Date: 2011-03-21 07:38 pm (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 4/??
Date: 2011-03-21 07:26 pm (UTC)He had investigated Dresden, of course. He had lived in Chicago for several years, before which he had lived in a number of places, including Missouri, a small Illinois town a few hours from Chicago, and several orphanages. His parents had both died early, as had his first adoptive parent. His years with the Ragged Angel Investigations had been very standard PI work, though there were a few occasions when he seemed to have demonstrated a touch of brilliance in locating missing persons.
It was after Dresden left Ragged Angel that things got a bit stranger. He had an entry in the phone book - the paper phone book - under the category of “wizard” and the Chicago police had occasionally requested his advice. Sherlock wished he had been present for these events - the second hand reports were uniformly useless. Sherlock would have thought Dresden either a madman or a fraud, but he knew that neither option would have put Dresden in the position to demand favors from Mycroft - and moreover, the man Sherlock had met did not fit either category.
There were a few pieces that stood out. A video of Dresden on a talk show, weirdly fuzzy in video quality for something he had obtained directly from the television station. A cell phone camera, even more blurred, that showed Dresden and something, which Sherlock would have dismissed as cheap special effects had the video file not been found under several layers of security in Dresden’s confidential FBI file. But Sherlock didn’t have enough data to put together a real picture, and he hated to make hypotheses without facts.
If Dresden had the time to wait on a physical letter rather than the more immediate phone call or email, Sherlock could wait another few days for John to improve. He couldn’t be certain that Moriarty was truly out of the city - or that he would stay out if Sherlock left John vulnerable.
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 4/??
Date: 2011-03-22 06:37 am (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 4/??
From:Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 4/??
Date: 2011-03-28 06:33 am (UTC)F5F5F5F5F5F5F5
Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 5/??
Date: 2011-03-28 10:48 pm (UTC)John had put up very little fight at the prospect of a trip to Chicago. Sherlock had tidily wrapped up Victor in his old box, including the tawdry romance novel that had been packaged with him. He had used Mycroft’s credit card to purchase business class tickets to Chicago. He hated to fly coach. (Sherlock completely ignored Mycrofts texts to be careful. Mycroft always sent texts like that, and they were uniformly useless and boring.)
They arrived at O’Hare in midafternoon, and made quick work of customs. Dresden had probably expected a return letter before Sherlock’s arrival, but Dresden was completely lacking in email or texting capability. As Sherlock hated talking on the phone, he hadn’t bothered to call. But he knew where Dresden’s office was - the ad had gone missing from the phone book for as long as Sherlock had been keeping Victor, but it had recently been republished in the online version of this year’s business pages with a new address. The taxi took them to a slightly seedy area of town, but the walk up to Dresden’s office was clean and mostly free of graffiti. The door was unprepossessing, but the lettering was shiny and new. Harry Dresden, Wizard.
“Is he serious?” John asked behind Sherlock. The long flight had left John more vulnerable than usual to his psychosomatic limp, and he was leaning a little heavily on his cane.
“Yes, he is entirely serious. And yet, when I met him he was certainly not a madman,” Sherlock was focused on the door itself. He had not made the exhaustive study of Chicago that he had of London, of course, and he could not deduce much from traces of mud on the carpets or the threshold. There were fresh heel gouges, of the kind made by a woman in stilettos. Bending down, he could see a glimpse of tarnished silver underneath the door, and from the new vantage point he could see the frame had been scratched in a regular pattern - not the runes that decorated the box he was holding, but a sigil that Sherlock couldn’t identify. He took a snapshot of one of them with his camera for later.
“Sherlock. Stop investigating and give the wizard back his skull,” John interrupted, and leaned around him to push open the office door.
There was one desk in the room, and Dresden was slouched behind it. He had jerked up at the sound of the door, but was still holding onto a cheap paperback. He was understandably shocked to see them.
“Sherlock Holmes? I mean, uh, I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon,” Dresden rose to greet them. “And you have Bob?”
“You named it Bob?” Sherlock graciously repressed the sneer that wanted to come out, but he needn’t have bothered.
“None of that, Sherlock. You named it Victor, after all.” John stepped forward into the office behind Sherlock. “Have you put a ring of silver around the walls of your office?” He peered at Dresden curiously.
“Safety precaution,” Dresden said nonsensically. He took the box from Sherlock, and opened it to unwrap the skull. He smiled to see it, and as he held his hand over it, the skull changed. Sherlock’s eyes widened involuntarily as the skull went from the delicate ivory of the recently dead to a darker, yellowed tone with intricate carvings in a darker brown. Victor was considerably older than Sherlock had thought, and though Sherlock could think of several ways to hide the indicators of age he certainly could not have removed the camouflage so smoothly and thoroughly. And Sherlock had held the skull, knew precisely the feel and heft of it - it had not been coated in wax, or putty, or coloring of any kind. (Even if it had, there should have been no way for Dresden to remove them without even touching the skull!)
“Boss! Thank goodness. This one has even less sex than you do, and I honestly hadn’t thought that was possible. And the murders were mostly boring, and he didn’t even give me any new reading material!”
Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 6/??
Date: 2011-03-28 11:46 pm (UTC)And now he was having another. Harry Dresden claimed to be a wizard, and Dresden was neither mad nor fraudulent. Dresden had changed the appearance of an object beyond the ability of Sherlock’s chemistry to imitate. Said object appeared to have an immaterial inhabitant that allowed it slight motion and some kind of phosphorescence. It would have looked like a cheap Hollywood special effect, if Sherlock had not known with absolute certainty that the skull contained no hidden tricks. Sherlock could see it firsthand: magic was real. Which meant the shadowy monster on the FBI's grainy video was also likely real, and there might be a rather unusual explanation for how Dresden had solved a few of his particularly clever cases.
Sherlock needs more information. He needs to know how this will effect his own cases, what to look for when he is searching for clues. There's a whole subset of data that he may have been misinterpreting or ignoring completely, he needs to pick over Dresden's entire brain right now. But before he could demand that Dresden provide this, they were joined by another American.
"Mr. Dresden. Now that your offices are once again open for business," the stranger cut himself off. "Captain Watson?" The newcomer was shocked beyond his clearly-not-inconsiderable ability to disguise. (Shorter than Dresden, and a bit older; greying at his temples. Part of his left ear has been ripped brutally away. There is a concealed pistol under his very expensive suit jacket and a knife at his ankle. These defenses are secondary to the burly redhead behind him wearing a surprisingly well tailored suit for someone who is clearly - to Sherlock - a criminal enforcer. He had dismissed the rumors that Dresden was affiliated with Chicago's criminal element. Now, caught between Dresden's expression - as though he is smelling something foul unexpectedly - and this upper level mob boss' casual tone of address, Sherlock needs more data.)
John was as startled as the stranger, his eyes widening a fraction, "Sergeant -" but he was cut off by Dresden.
"John," Dresden's tone was deliberately insolent, "I do believe I told you never to darken my doorstep again."
"I. John?" John looked from Dresden to the stranger, the question clear in his voice.
"Allow me to introduce Gentleman Johnny Marcone. Now, scumbag, get out of my office."
"Gentleman Johnny?" John's voice was strangled. Sherlock glanced between John and Marcone. Marcone was dodging John’s eyes, and slowly, he blushed. His skin was a touch olive - most people who weren’t Sherlock would never notice. John was not so fortunate, and the bright pink flush that rose on his cheeks was obvious to even the casual observer.
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 6/??
Date: 2011-03-28 11:51 pm (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 6/??
Date: 2011-03-29 02:26 am (UTC)But yes, so much awesome crammed in here. And was that a deliberate interruption I see here, Harry? What? What? :D Harry, you sneaky devil you.
And Sherlock's brain turnover is so much fun. There's a whole subset of data that he may have been misinterpreting or ignoring completely, he needs to pick over Dresden's entire brain right now. HAHAHA Sherlock, you poor put-upon genius NOT.
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 6/??
From:DA
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2011-03-29 01:37 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: DA
From:Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 6/??
Date: 2011-03-29 05:03 am (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 6/??
Date: 2011-03-29 05:57 am (UTC)...AHAHAHAHA MARCONE IS A WATSON FANBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY. that is amazing and made of win.
Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 6/??
From:Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 6/??
Date: 2011-04-07 01:55 pm (UTC)Re: Venture wants ALL the crossovers. 6/??
Date: 2011-11-24 01:36 pm (UTC)If you write more, I will read...