Author: Regency

Title: Soldier, Doctor, Imposter, Pretender

Crossover: The Pretender x Sherlock

Summary: John Watson is normal. Ridiculously normal. Average. Boring. In fact, the people who raised him are disappointed at how he turned out. They shouldn't be. After all, Pretenders have the ability to become anything they want to be, and all John's ever wanted to be was normal.

Author's Notes: Written for a kink meme prompt asking for John to be a Pretender. I think it might have been my prompt, so, yeah.

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from The Pretender and Sherlock. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

~!~

"What can someone as brilliant as Sherlock Holmes possibly see in him?" Jim pressed his face nearly flush with his flatscreen as though the view would improve with proximity. "He's average, boring, mundane. He's normal." That last word may as well have been four letters long for all his distaste.

"Sodding aggressive about it, though," said his right hand, Seb, lounging at his side.

"What?"

"You ever met anyone else who projected normal like that? That's not what he's like, but that's what he wants people to think, so he projects normal every minute of the day."

Jim turned back to the screen and saw the man in the lumpy jumper with fresh eyes. "Aggressively average. He plays dumb for anyone who looks at him for too long. He even plays dumb for his master." Jim clapped and bounced in sudden realization. "He even plays dumb with Sherlock. Master doesn't know that his pet's a great big fake. I suppose we'll have to let him know, won't we?" He grinned sinisterly and wasn't above rubbing his hands together with malicious glee.

Seb didn't burst his bubble, but he did bring it into perspective. "We should find out what we're dealing with first."

Jim straightened up, his thoughts racing ahead of Seb's words. He makes a good point. "Yes, it wouldn't do to make an enemy where we could have made a friend. After all, you'd have to be terribly clever to fool all of the people all of the time."

"Yes, sir."

Jim patted his associate's shoulder, absently reminded of silly, simple Carl Powers, who had never quite known who he was dealing with. Seb always knew.

…

...

"' The worth of his life in gold is my gift to you, John. Regards, Jim.'"

John frowned, not so much confused as terribly uneasy. Jim Moriarty had shifted his attention and John was its new recipient.

"You know this man, Doctor Watson?" Lestrade looked about as grim as grim could be.

"Afraid not," he replied slowly. The body of the Centre's own Mr. Parker was staring at him from a pool of blood. He'd been the boogeyman in John's nightmares, beaten only by Dr. Raines. The man's heavy breathing would follow him longer than the scarring heat of the Kabul sun. These two men had destroyed his childhood and now one of them was dead. He couldn't even rejoice.

"Moriarty wants your attention. Why?" Sherlock might have been speaking in John's direction, but the doctor was hardly who he meant to ask. John was only too glad to step out of the way and let the man think.

"No idea." John huddled down inside his coat, feeling a touch colder than he had before. Jim Moriarty had done him a favour and he couldn't deny that he was grateful. Moriarty didn't do good deeds out of the kindness of his heart. There'd be a price levied yet.

"Who was that man to you, John?" Sherlock had come back from that mental space he occasionally disappeared to. John knew it already, though; he'd been there, too.

"Never met him." Not strictly a lie. The elder Mr. Parker hadn't ever seen fit to get his hands dirty with the Pretenders. It was enough that he should see them put to ruin from afar. John wondered if that had helped him sleep well at night.

"That hardly means you don't know him."

"Touché." He still didn't answer. Lately, he'd decided the less said about the victims, the better. Moriarty was determined to do him favours. John nodded apologetically to the Yarders as he led Sherlock from the scene. For once, the man seemed content to depart in less than a flounce. There was little Sherlock could do with the evidence they had-a mean feat in and of itself-and he seemingly had decided John was his new quarry.

They walked down the busy street to reach an intersection where it'd be easy to grab a cab. John felt like he was being watched by every copper and not a few civilians. Mycroft would know soon if he didn't already. John's cover had held up for twenty years, but it could never hope to hold up under Holmesian focus. Not Mycroft's, anyway. Sherlock was arguably blinded by their friendship. Mycroft wasn't nearly so fond of John.

"Lestrade is preparing to bar you from future crime scenes."

"Because I don't have anything to say about Moriarty's crimes?"

"Because you do have something to say, but you refuse. Lestrade gives no quarter to those who withhold evidence."

"You would know."

Sherlock sniffed. "Moriarty finds you interesting, more than interesting, actually; after all, he's committing murder to impress you. This is the second one and the first note. The question is why and why now and why you are refusing to explain it to me." He threw up an arm to hail a cab to take them back to Baker Street.

"There's nothing to explain. He's a psychopath with a schoolboy crush. Instead of flowers, he gave me dead bodies." John paused. "I'm not entirely certain those weren't intended for you."

"Clearly not. He's writing to you, addressing you directly. He wants to recruit you. What's he found out?"

They climbed into the cab without John's answering. There wasn't a thing he could say that wouldn't require days of explanation. He'd run away partly to avoid ever discussing his life at the Centre again.

"If you're going to actively hinder the investigation, John, you're of no use to me."

John wouldn't be admitting how much that stung.

"I'm not keeping anything important from you."

"Clearly Moriarty disagrees with your definition of 'important,' as do I. This is ridiculous, John. There's nothing you could be hiding that would shake my trust in you. He's trying to drive a wedge between us and you are giving him more than ample opportunity to succeed."

John sighed, rubbing his face. "Look, I just had a weird upbringing, all right? It wasn't posh or anything, just a bit unusual. He thinks it makes me 'interesting.'" John shrugged at Sherlock's perplexed expression. "I don't understand it, either."

"Where did you grow up?"

"Hmm?" John pretended ably that he wasn't bothered.

"You said your upbringing was unusual. That means not London and not the surrounding towns. Your accent bears that out. You never mention home or your parents. I've never met your sister, but she's obviously quite successful professionally, lack of sobriety aside. I know you attended Bart's but the years before that are something of a mystery."

"You've never asked."

"It never seemed relevant to our work."

"It isn't now, either." John would defend his current life until he was forced to abandon it, even from Sherlock. "He's trying to use me to get to you again."

"No, John, he's using me. He's discovered something that makes you of unique interest to him. I need to know what that is if I'm going to stop him killing someone else to attract your attention."

John sighed. It was all he did anymore, it seemed. "I'm adopted. Lived in a group home until I was fifteen. My sister's from the same place; my parents adopted her some years before me. We're not biologically related."

"Perhaps the victims have some connection to your biological parents." Sherlock had taken on his signature pensive expression.

John shrugged. "I wouldn't know," but he seriously doubted it. He hoped Sherlock didn't manage to find his natural parents, if only to keep them from being drawn into Moriarty's nonsense. He was John Watson, not their son anymore. The child they'd raised was long since lost.

"He believes you know, and he has reason to believe you'd happily see these people dead." Sherlock paused, fixing John with a skewering stare. "You don't seem particularly bothered by all this."

"Of course, I'm bothered. He's killing them to get to me." Almost as though Moriarty was courting him for attention. Moriarty's motivations for attempting to court favor with a Pretender were frightening to contemplate.

"Yes, terrible. You don't seem upset." There wasn't much he could hide from his flat mate, no less a complete lack of remorse. Sherlock considered him out of the corner of his eye.

"I am."

"Lying."

"I don't really care whether you believe me."

"Good. I don't."

"Brilliant. Let's get out of the cab."

They'd arrived at Baker Street. John desperately needed space to breathe. He needed backup.

…

...

"Who was Pierce Mitchell?" Sherlock asked as he threw himself dramatically onto the sofa.

John pulled his computer into his lap. "No idea, really." Mr. Parker had taken a new name in his later years. At least they were his last.He'd lost too much not to feel any bitterness toward the man.

"You're stilllying. Why is that? What did he do to you? Why do you persist in keeping things from when I only want to help?" Sherlock ruthlessly ruffled his hair in frustration.

John tried for a strained smile, hoping to lighten the mood. "Telling the truth is boring?"

Sherlock's mouth yield grudgingly in a smile. "I'm being mocked, aren't I?"

"As often as I can manage it."

Sherlock scoffed. It was a fond yet worried sound. He had the expression to match.

"Do you plan to take Moriarty's offer?"

"What? No! Wait, offer?"

"He's trying to garner your loyalty and he thinks these killings will accomplish that. He wouldn't risk detection unless you had something he wanted."

John scraped his jaw and tried not to act as nervous as he felt. Christ, I'm being headhunted by the world's foremost criminal. That wasn't how he'd been expecting his time at Baker Street to end.

"He's putting his best foot forward, and it's serial murder. Great."

"Not boring," Sherlock countered.

"I wouldn't say so, no."

John began to type up another case. Sherlock began to obsess. John didn't want any part of it, though he logically knew it couldn't be helped. In a second browser tab, John opened the email account he used aside from the one related to his blog. He checked this one daily but regularly deleted all record of its existence. John had friends out in the world, fellow escapees who sometimes still ran and needed his help. They couldn't bear to wait a day most often. It was John's turn not to wait.

Jarod, he wrote, brother of mine, I have a problem. New and old, living and dead. See me where I work, not where I live. Avoid the scarecrow and the Emerald City.

Cheers,

John

He sent the message off before doing his standard cache-cleaning and disk cleanup. Sherlock may have believed John's technophobic charade, but he had to wonder how John remained free of technical catches on a laptop broaching four years old. It wasn't even a Mac. Relieved if not relaxed, John went on to finish his blog post. He doubted he'd have the chance to make another one soon.

'Once again,Sherlock Holmes solved another one that no one else could. He's going to be insufferable. Brilliant, but impossible.'

He had a feeling Sherlock's prodding was about to get much, much worse.

And he was going to deserve it.