Sherlock? What Sherlock?

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/829377.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: Gen, M/M
Fandoms: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Great Gatsby - F.
Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Relationship: Lestrade (Sherlock Holmes)/Sebastian Moran
Characters: John Watson, Irene Adler, Sherlock Holmes, Gregory Lestrade,
Sebastian Moran
Additional Tags: Gatsbylock, Crossover, Reinterpreting Famous Works, Infidelity, talk of
spousal abuse, nothing graphic
Language: English
Collections: Let's Draw (Write!) Sherlock: Reinterpreting Famous Works Challenge
Stats: Published: 2013-06-04 Words: 3,706 Chapters: 1/1
 Sherlock? What Sherlock?
by mydarlingbenedict (LiraDonne)

Summary

When John Watson moves to London after being invalided home from the war, he expects
he'll have to get used to boring civilian life.

He does not expect to find that his next-door neighbor is a rich madman shrouded in mystery.

Notes

1) This fic would not be readable without the guidance of my Beta, seiji. She has helped to
iron out Americanisms, unintentional deviations from the Sherlock canon, and vague
descriptions of important things. Thank you, seiji!

2) Gatsby fans might note that the original quote is, "Gatsby? What Gatsby?" Yes, I am aware
that Gatsby is a last name. Yes, I chose to use Sherlock's first name instead. I hope that
doesn't bother you, because it's one of about ten thousand things I changed in order to make
this crossover work. I hope to be respectful to both the Sherlock and Gatsby canons, but this
story is NOT a faithful adaptation of either one.

3) For now, please consider this fic a one-shot. I am working on continuing this, but I wanted
to post at least a little something while the Let's Draw/Write Sherlock "Famous Works"
challenge is still relevant. It will be a while before I have this fic finished. I hope that this tiny
bit, though clearly incomplete (so many open-ended plot things, I know), will make some of
you happy.

See the end of the work for more notes

He was nearly finished packing. What few possessions he had were loaded into boxes, which
he easily fit in the boot of the cab.

He said goodbye to his parents, thanking them for letting him stay in his old bedroom for the
fortnight between his return from overseas and the point in which he could move into his new
home.

He was all ready to go, and was about to climb into the cab when his mobile rang.

“John Watson,” he answered. The greeting was habitual. He was proud of himself for not
sticking ‘Captain’ at the beginning.

“John, hi. It’s Stamford. Mike Stamford.” As if John didn’t already have Mike’s number in
his contacts. “Listen, I have some big news. I’ve just gotten a call from Cambridge. They
want me to teach there in the fall.”

John’s stomach sank. “I thought you were going to teach the first-year medical students at
Bart’s.”

“I was, yeah. Didn’t expect to get a better offer. Hardly going to turn down Cambridge, am
I?”

“Right, of course. That’s great,” he said, with more enthusiasm than he felt. “But why are you
calling me? I’m just getting into the cab now. I’ll be in London in a couple of hours.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just--they want me to pop down a couple months early. Meet the staff,
get a feel for the campus, that sort of thing. I know you still need my half of the rent, so don’t
worry. I’ll send you cheques once a month with my share. Can’t leave you on you own
completely! But it is a bit too far to commute, John, so I’m afraid I won’t be able to actually
stay in the house with you.”

“Oh.” At least John wouldn’t have to worry about rent, even if it did seem odd to accept rent
cheques from a person he’d never see. He wanted to ask if Mike was sure about having to go
down right away; it was only June, and Easter term was just ending now. Michaelmas term
wouldn’t start until October. Mike didn’t have to go down right away. But saying that would
make John sound rather pathetic, so he kept his mouth shut.

“I’ll call you again later this week, okay? They’re on the other line.”

“Right, of course. Bye, Mike.”

“Good luck, John.”

It was a change in plans, but John had long ago learned to adapt quickly.

Less than a minute after hanging up, John had waved again to his parents, worked himself
and his cane into the backseat, cursed his leg for hurting, and headed off to London.
~

The house was huge, frankly. Not a palace or anything--having come from a modest
upbringing, John could never feel entirely comfortable living somewhere so posh. But there
were three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a private sitting room, a salon (with attached
dining area) for guests, a very large kitchen (with a smaller, but equally functional dining
area), a staircase with a landing mid-way up its length, and a foyer extending all the way up
through the second storey, with an authentic-looking glass-and-bronze chandelier that looked
very much like it had once held actual candles where now there were candle-shaped electric
lights. It was significantly larger than his parents’ cottage, and it made his army bunk look
like a home fit for mice.

Mike had a connection to the owner of the property, so they got a very affordable deal on the
place. Splitting the rent between them meant that John’s meagre army pension would be
enough to hold him over for a little while, until he could find work in the city.

The house wasn’t in London, strictly speaking. It was east of the city and sat on an acre of
land, just north of the Thames. He could go swimming in his own backyard, if he were brave
enough to trust the water. (He wasn’t.)

John didn’t know a lot about the area, other than the fact that he could easily drive into
London. John’s house was not the only one with a fair bit of land, but there were smaller
properties, too--single-storey houses on just enough land to park a few cars and grow a
garden. If the community had built up any sort of reputation, John wasn’t yet aware of it.

He did notice, though, the fact that if he ignored the skyline, John could almost convince
himself that he was living in the country.

Except that his neighbour was not at all concerned about avoiding a posh image. The
extraordinarily large house sat on closer to four or five acres, John guessed, and was exactly
the sort of thing you saw in American films--a swimming pool, and marble pillars framing
the ornate wooden door framed in stone, and lights artfully strung up around every tree on the
property.

There was a line of expensive sports cars in the driveway, but they didn’t seem to be one
specific type; John saw a Porsche, a Jaguar, a Ferrari, and a Corvette, all of which were from
different countries. Most car enthusiasts preferred a certain country of origin, but John’s
neighbor didn’t seem to have a preference--almost as though he were more concerned with
impressing his guests than pleasing himself.

At night, the neighbor’s presence was even more difficult to bear. The bastard liked to host
huge, extravagant parties. Hundreds of people would invade, swooping down with
immaculately-tailored tuxedos, long shimmering dresses and excessive amounts of booze.
The music and laughter stretched across the grass and through John’s closed windows.

Some nights, it was annoying.

Most of the time, John wondered why his mysterious neighbor was so fond of parties, how he
managed to afford them, how he convinced so many people to attend them on a weekly basis,
and whether John might be allowed to pop in on one.

After living in his house for three days, John took a cab into London and went to Bart’s
hospital, where Mike had originally intended to work. There, John interviewed for a part-time
job doing locum work, for which his medical school experience combined with his time in
RAMC made him overqualified.

He was hired immediately, though not in the position he’d interviewed for. They wanted him
working in the A&E.

As that was closer to what John was used to doing in the army, he hastily agreed. He’d
thought that moving here would offer a much-welcome change of pace, away from gunshots
and dying friends. Instead, the quiet here bored him. He was going mad by himself in a house
that offered such a tantalizing view of the weekly excitement next-door. It wasn’t even that
John liked parties; he just wanted stimulation. The hectic A&E position, once offered, was
impossible to turn down.

Instead of working a handful of hours every day, John signed on for twelve-hour shifts on
Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The work would be more difficult as the days wore on and
he grew tired. He wanted that.

Besides, working three days a week instead of five would save quite a lot in cab fare.

As it happened, John had two acquaintances in the area.

One was his distant cousin, Gregory Lestrade, who happened to work as a Detective
Inspector at Scotland Yard. They’d only met two or three times in John’s memory, but the
familial bond was enough that John felt obligated to make a visit, now that they lived in the
same area.

The other acquaintance was Lestrade’s husband, Colonel Sebastian Moran, who John knew
from their shared time in the army. Moran had been one of the commanding officers when
John went through his basic training. The last he heard, Moran had come back to England
around the same time that John officially went into RAMC.

Moran was the one to formally issue the invitation. He said he wanted to introduce John to
the city.

John found himself at the Lestrade-Moran flat on a Friday evening in mid-June. It was only
one floor, but the building was so expansive that it still had multiple bedrooms and the largest
kitchen John had ever seen, furnished with stainless steel appliances and modern art. John
was quick to compliment the decor. He was a polite guest.

Moran was not a polite host. He kept John in the kitchen, monopolizing the conversation. He
bragged about the flat, ranted about the importance of discipline in the army, and glared at
John’s cane as if it had personally offended him.

John hadn’t even gotten to say hello to Lestrade yet.

“How’s the shoulder?” Moran asked, slapping a beefy hand directly to the back of John’s
bullet wound. “I heard you got shot.”

“Healing,” said John, forcing a smile to his face to hide his wince. The skin was healed over
and the shattered bones had been reconstructed, but it was still red and oversensitive. “They
say it’ll be a few more months before I can expect it to function normally. I have to stretch it
every day.”

“You know what I always say: discipline. If you press on despite the injury, it’ll heal faster.”

John happened to know, as a doctor himself, that Moran wasn’t making sense. But he didn’t
want to provoke any more shoulder-slapping, so he smiled and nodded.

It was during that momentary silence that John heard laughter coming from the sitting room.
“Is Greg here?”

Moran tightened his jaw. “Of course.” He led John out of the kitchen and over to his husband.

To John’s surprise, Lestrade was not the only person present. There was a beautiful woman
draped across the sofa, one long leg peeking out beneath the thigh-high slit in her deep blue
dress. It seemed oddly intimate somehow, and John cleared his throat to make his presence
known, in case the woman wanted to adjust herself into a more modest position.

She didn’t.

Lestrade, oblivious to John’s distraction, got up and hugged him. Unlike Moran, Lestrade
was gentle--wary of hurting either the shoulder or John’s leg. “How are you, John? It’s been a
while.”

“I’m alright, thanks. Good to see you.” He didn’t mean to, but his eyes flicked to the woman
on the sofa.

“That’s Irene Adler,” said Lestrade. “Bit of a drama queen. She has a job coming up that
she’s excited about.”

“Don’t listen to a word he says.” Irene sat up, and John caught his first proper look at her
face. She was beautiful, with her lipstick-reddened lips and piercing blue eyes. John thought,
for a moment, that he recognized her sharp cheekbones. “Dominating is my job. Of course I
like it. Wouldn’t do it, otherwise.”

John coughed. “You--?”

“I’m not a prostitute. I just happen to know what people want, and I give it to them. Don’t get
any ideas, love. You couldn’t afford me.”

“No, I wasn’t--”
Irene smiled. “Joke.”

John’s cheeks stubbornly remained warm. “Right.”

Lestrade grinned. “I’ve never seen you so excited about a client, Irene. Is this one more kinky
than usual? Does he have a big cock?”

“Don’t be an idiot. She doesn’t have a cock at all, and you’re forgetting that I rarely sleep
with clients.”

Irene hadn’t actually answered the main question, and it seemed, for a moment, that Lestrade
was going to ask for clarification--not to be rude, but because he liked teasing his friend. His
strained silence suggested that he’d asked questions about Irene’s clients before, and was
rebuffed for doing so.

John assumed that Irene’s work required a certain level of confidentiality.

The conversation soon settled into something vaguely normal. John listened to Lestrade talk
about having a recent dip into the Thames to retrieve a dead body. Nasty business, but
Lestrade was happy to have been able to collect and identify the body. No family wanted to
hear that their loved one had died, but it was better to have that closure than to wonder what
happened to a person.

When asked how he was liking his new home, John spoke with genuine satisfaction. He
described his accommodations, his new job at the clinic, and his ostentatious neighbor.

They asked for his address, and when he gave it to them, Irene grinned. “You live next-door
to Sherlock!”

“Sherlock?” said Lestrade. “What Sherlock?”

Irene happily explained that Sherlock Holmes was incredibly well-known in the area for his
wild parties, which John admitted to witnessing from a distance.

“You must come to one, sometime,” she insisted. “Everyone has such a great time. If you’re
lucky, you might even get to meet the host.”

“If I’m lucky?”

“Oh, yes. Sherlock hardly comes out to visit. Rumour has it that his staff hang around groups
of people and listen for information, which they feed back to him at the end of the night. A
lot of people claim to have been blackmailed by information Sherlock gathered from his
drunken guests.”

“Blackmailed?” asked John, incredulous.

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “She’s being dramatic again. I’ve heard stories of people drunkenly
confessing to crimes, and it is possible that the news spreads to Sherlock’s staff. We tend to
get more anonymous tips than usual at NSY the morning after a Sherlock party. Not murders
or anything--usually tips about robberies or adultery.
“Without actual evidence, we have trouble indicting anyone. While the tips are enough
reason for us to investigate the summary offences, we can’t do much without more proof, and
things die down. The worst that happens is that word gets out, and people get embarrassed.

“But no one can ever remember admitting to things, since they’re so drunk when it happens,
and the tips are always anonymous, so it can’t be definitely tied back to Sherlock.”

John was shocked. “People still come back to his house, just to party? Even though they
know they could get themselves into trouble?”

“No one ever thinks it’ll happen to them,” said Lestrade.

“They’re very good parties,” said Irene.

John didn’t have anything to hide, and he was growing more curious about his odd neighbor.
He told Irene that, despite the oddness of the situation, he’d try to go to one of Sherlock’s
parties this summer.

Irene grinned, looking very much like she was hiding something.

Dinner was more of the same. Moran talked in depth about his opinions on all sorts of
inflammatory matters like politics, religion, and the “dangers” of immigration. When anyone
disagreed with him, he brushed them off with belligerent rants about no one but him being
able to see the “truth.”

Hoping to avoid fighting, everyone else tried (in vain) to change the subject. When that didn’t
work, they settled for rolling their eyes at each other when Moran wasn’t looking.

Irene seemed to take to John quickly. She sat next to him, and whenever Moran said
something particularly insulting, she casually leaned over and whispered gently-insulting
comments about Moran’s intelligence into John’s ear.

Lestrade mostly stayed quiet, but ground his teeth in frustration at his husband’s bad behavior
and shot John apologetic glances to reassure him of the fact that Lestrade didn’t condone
Moran’s way of speaking to his guests. John wished that Lestrade would speak up about it,
but Lestrade seemed to be exasperated with the idea of confronting Moran, as though he
knew from experience that it wouldn’t change anything.

John tried very hard not to think of his Sig (illegally nicked from the army; now sitting in his
desk drawer) pointing and firing “accidentally” at Moran’s leg.

They were in the middle of pudding when the phone rang, and Moran excused himself to
answer it.

Irene’s eyes went wide. Lestrade fisted his hands around his napkin. John looked between
them, confused.

After a few minutes, Lestrade went off to fetch his husband.

“Honestly. Answering the phone at dinner. Terribly rude,” said Irene, shaking her head in
disappointment.

John shrugged. “Maybe it’s a business call.” He didn’t actually know what ‘business’ Moran
might be in, now that he was done with the army, but he assumed that the phone call
wouldn’t have been answered if it weren’t important.

Irene lifted an eyebrow. “You mean you don’t know? Everybody knows.”

“Knows what?”

She leaned in very close, checked the doorway to make sure no one was coming back in, and
softly whispered, “Moran has a paramour, here in London.”

“You mean he’s having an affair?”

“Yes. It’s common knowledge in this area. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

John didn’t know what to say to that. They sat in silence, listening to the sound of Moran and
Lestrade arguing. It got loud enough at one point that John could nearly make out the words.
He even considered calling the police, but Lestrade was the police. If there were a serious
issue, he knew how to defend himself, and John didn’t doubt that Lestrade would phone for
help if he needed it. John was wary of interfering.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Lestrade came back into the dining room and sat
down, acting for all the world as if nothing had happened. “Would you like more wine?” he
asked.

Irene and John both indicated that they would.

His tongue loosened by alcohol, John gently brought up the subject of Moran.

“Where do you spend your time? The kitchen seems more his taste than yours. All of this
place, really. It’s sort of clinical, isn’t it? I mean it’s nice. It’s fine. I just see you as more of a
. . .”

“A softie?” Lestrade joked.

John nodded. That wasn’t what he had meant to say, but it was close enough.

“I work a lot,” Lestrade said dismissively. “Not home enough for it to matter. The clinical
feel is fine.”

“Right, but surely you had some say in the decor. Does the bathroom have a print of a
Matisse? Is there a table somewhere with pictures of you, or a grandfather clock that’s been
in your family for generations? Anything?”

“Oh, look,” said Irene, reaching for John’s oatmeal jumper. She pinched a bit of the fabric
between her fingers and coaxed John’s arm up to his face. “This colour makes your eyes look
a lovely shade of blue.”
By the time John had finished expressing his gratitude at the odd compliment, Moran’s
footsteps had started to approach. They schooled their faces, and John’s question remained
unanswered.

Everyone steadfastly ignored the fact that Moran had been absent for a half hour.

Dinner came to a close, Irene left (she had work early the next morning, which John tried
very hard not to think about in too much detail), and John used her departure as an excuse to
bid his farewells, too.

As he was leaving, he heard a scuffle, followed by a few indignant words from Lestrade to
his husband.

“Let go of me, Seb. . . . Fuck, you bruised my finger! That’s visible! People will see! . . . No,
don’t follow me.” A few footsteps and the slam of a door indicated that Lestrade then
removed himself from Moran’s presence.

John was wary of interfering. He hardly knew these people. As long as Lestrade remained out
of immediate danger (if Moran had indeed let Lestrade go when asked, doing no more harm
than a small bruise, then Lestrade’s life didn’t seem to be in jeopardy), John thought it was
probably none of his business.

But why the hell would Lestrade--an intelligent, handsome, competent Detective Inspector--
tolerate rudeness and physical abuse from a husband whose harshness and infidelity were
common knowledge? It didn’t make any sense.

Lestrade was clearly capable of leaving. Why wasn’t he willing?

John was unfortunately very used to seeing people get hurt. That was part of his job
description, both in the army and now at Bart’s. John was not used to standing by while bad
things happened to good people.

He would talk to Lestrade, he decided. He would ask Lestrade to lunch, get him away from
Moran for a while, and figure out how to fix things. Maybe there was nothing John could do,
but he would try.

That evening, John was sitting in his own yard, surrounded by starry summer darkness and
the sound of crickets, when a movement caught his eye from Sherlock’s property.

The figure was too far away to make out in any detail. It appeared tall, slim, and (if the sleek
outline of the silhouette was any indication) formally dressed. Seeing no other footmen in the
area, and having previously noticed that Sherlock’s workers tended to operate in groups, John
guessed that the lone shape was Sherlock.

Without warning, the man who might’ve been Sherlock reached a hand out toward the orange
glow of London’s foggy heart.
John looked toward the skyline, hoping to see whatever the man saw, but there was nothing
other than buildings and murky light pollution. When John looked back where the figure had
been standing, he had disappeared.

The next day, John’s doorbell rang. A man in a suit--one of Sherlock’s innumerable footmen-
-was at the door. He bowed in greeting, rather than introducing himself.

“Hello,” John said.

The man, still bowing, held out a silver platter with an envelope. He straightened when John
took it, then stood, apparently waiting for John to read it.

Doctor Watson, it read.

The honour would be entirely mine if you would come to my little party at eight o’clock
tonight. I trust you know the address.

I’ve been watching you for a while, and would very much like the chance to meet you.

Yours,

Sherlock Holmes

“Er,” said John to the footman, who John now assumed was one of Sherlock’s rumored spies.
“Sure. I’ll come.” He’d been looking for an excuse to come to one anyway, if for no other
reason than to see what all the fuss was about. Now that he’d gotten a personal and overly-
formal direct invitation, he was hardly going to turn down the opportunity.

Oddly, he wasn’t even alarmed by the fact that Sherlock had apparently been spying on him.
He only wondered whether it was Sherlock’s staff who had spied, or whether Sherlock had
been watching John himself.

Having gotten his answer, the footman bowed, wordlessly, and walked back to Sherlock’s
house.
End Notes

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