Author's Note: I honestly didn't know what to think of this idea either when it first took root in my head, but the longer I thought about it, it grew and grew to be a better idea. A genderbent Sherlock Holmes? Okay, but what else could I tell about the story without being dull, boring, and predictable? Then I realized... with the right amount of tinkering and a few new twists, I knew that this idea could make for a good story.

And so, hello there! You're looking at my first Sherlock fic! I think it's best if we started on familiar ground though, don't you think? That said, this story begins with A Study in Pink — but with a few tweaks of my own added here and there. After this, the departures from canon will become more and more obvious as time goes on because, hey, where's the fun in knowing what happens next? And the changes will be glaringly obvious, mind you. I'm talking about rearrangement of events, major character changes (I'm not just talking about Sherlock), maybe a few unfamiliar cases just to throw you guys off the loop... well, you'll just have to wait and see!

Without further ado, read on — and I hope you guys enjoy the ride!

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction using characters, settings, etc. from BBC's Sherlock and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I do not claim any ownership over any publicly recognizable figures and articles used here — they all belong to their respective creators. I only own the plot and the original characters of my own invention.

REPUTATION

{ Part One }
- Outlast -

A Study in Ruby

01: [ Wanted: Flatmate, Preferably Ordinary ]

14th December

Nothing

Nothing

15th December

Pointless

Nothing happens to me.

20th January

How?

How do I delete this?

21st January

Happy now?

Look Ella. I'm writing my blog.

25th January

Drinks

Met up with some of the rugby lads from Blackheath last night. They haven't changed. Still downing pints like they're in the twenties. Still all taking the mick out of each other. None of them mentioned my leg.

28th January

Serial suicides

There's been another of those 'serial suicides'. It's weird. There doesn't seem to be any connection between... Read More

Wrong!

"If you've all got texts, please ignore them," Sergeant Sally Donovan advised the group of reporters upon seeing the text on her phone.

"It just says 'wrong,'" a reporter remarked among the low murmurs of confusion that arose from the room.

"Yeah, well..." Not this again. As Donovan answered the reporter, Detective Inspector Lestrade could already sense a new storm brewing in the distance, a new headache blooming between his eyes. A quiet sigh slipped from his parted lips as he wearily watched Donovan attempt to bring the session to an end.

Another reporter piped up. "But if they're suicides, what are you investigating?"

Lestrade licked his lips. "As I say, these suicides are clearly linked," he replied, stressing his words. "Um... it's an — it's an unusual situation. We've got our best people investigating—"

Lestrade realized the mistake in his words too late until the room stirred once more when a chorus of phones rang out. He glanced at his phone only to see the same word from before glowing on his screen, a well-placed taunt. It was as if the person texting was just waiting for Lestrade to say the wrong words.

Wrong!

Our best people — Fine, alright. A lie. "Says 'wrong' again," a reporter pointed out. Lestrade simply pinched his nose as he began to prepare himself for the long day ahead. He glanced at Donovan, casting her a silent plea to help him out.

Donovan caught his despairing look. "One more question," she announced.

"Is there any chance that these are murders?" a reporter with glasses began. "And if they are, is this the work of a serial killer?"

There we go. Somewhere, Lestrade knew that someone was probably screaming at their television. God, give me strength. "I... I know that you like writing about these, but these do appear to be suicides," he replied. "We know the difference. The, um, the poison was clearly self-administered."

"Yes, but if they are murders, how do people keep themselves safe?" the reporter shot back.

"Well, don't commit suicide," Lestrade retorted. Shocked whispers emanated from the crowd, much to his confusion, until Donovan muttered to him, "Daily Mail."

Damn it. Well, he couldn't take that back now, could he? Instead, he spoke, "Obviously, this is a frightening time for people but all anyone has to do is exercise reasonable precautions. We are all as safe as we want to be."

As soon as the last word left his mouth, message alerts scattered all over the room again.

Wrong!

As the reporters glanced down at their screens, Lestrade realized that his phone hadn't rang... until a second later. This time, the text read differently.

You know where to find me.
SH

Damn me. There it was, the text he'd been waiting for. Lestrade didn't even bother to hide his exasperation as he slid his phone into his pocket. "Thank you," he announced as he stood up from his seat, effectively ending the conference.

The moment he stepped back into the office of Scotland Yard with Donovan behind him, his sergeant didn't hesitate in voicing out her thoughts.

"You've got to stop her doing that. She's making us look like idiots."

Lestrade let his irritation creep into his voice. "If you can tell me how she does it, I'll stop her."

Nothing happens to me.

John Watson had decided that the day was too beautiful to waste. So instead of taking a taxi back to his flat, he took a route that went through Russell Square Gardens. The green of the grass and the pigeons that scattered about was a welcome change from the four drab walls of his flat. But as he walked through the park, he quite hurriedly did so, making his limp all the more obvious to any pair of eyes that happened upon him. Like the ones that belonged to the plump man sitting on the bench.

An alarm went off in John's head as he passed by the man on the bench. Didn't he look familiar? John shoved the thought away until he heard his name being called.

"John!"

I knew he looked familiar...

"John Watson!" He finally turned back at the mention of his full name only to see the plump man rushing towards him. Fortunately, the man saved John from any embarrassment of having to apologize because he didn't recognize the man in time as he introduced himself with a growing smile.

"Stamford. Mike Stamford. We were at Bart's together."

"Yes, sorry, yes, Mike," John answered as he reached his hand out to shake Mike's. "Hello, hi."

"Yeah, I know. I got fat," Mike said lightheartedly as he gave a grin.

"No, no," John denied, unconvincingly. He was never that good at lying and Mike had indeed grown fat.

"I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at," Mike began. John prepared himself for the million-dollar question that he knew would come next. "What happened?"

"I got shot," John simply replied, and neither were able to do a thing about the awkward air that suddenly surrounded them.

John pretended he couldn't see the worried glances his old friend was shooting him as he took another satisfying sip from his take-away coffee.

"Are you still at Bart's, then?" he offered Mike.

"Teaching now." John nodded for Mike to continue. "Yeah. Bright young things like we used to be. God, I hate them."

They both chuckled at the last statement before Mike asked, "What about you? Just staying in town 'til you get yourself sorted?"

John groaned softly. "I can't afford London on an Army pension."

"Ah, couldn't bear to be anywhere else." Amusement tinged Mike's tone. "That's not the John Watson I know."

"Yeah," John began, shifting uncomfortably on the bench. "I'm not the John Watson..."

As he struggled to find the words to say next, he shifted the coffee cup he held in his left hand to his right one. He felt a tremor take a hold of his left hand and he clenched it into a fist once, twice, to get rid of it.

"Couldn't Harry help?"

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen," John answered, the mere thought of Harry helping... Maybe in the next life.

"I don't know." Mike gave a shrug. "Get a flatshare or something?"

"Come on — who'd want me for a flatmate?" Nobody with a sane mind, that's who.

A chuckle escaped Mike, making John look back at him. Was there something funny that he'd said? "What?" he questioned, arching a brow.

"You're the second person to say that to me today," Mike replied, and John caught the glimmer of delight in his glass-covered eyes.

John's gaze darted away from Mike. The second person? Well, then... "Who was the first?"

Her breathing came in ragged pants as she straightened up, the riding crop in her grasp swinging back and forth in the air. Doctor Molly Hooper approached the breathless woman with a small smile as she placed her riding crop down and plucked out a pen and a small notepad from the inside of her jacket.

"So, bad day, was it?" the pathologist attempted to joke.

"Hm," Sherlock Holmes hummed as she jotted down notes on her pad, casting Molly a second-long glance. "Let me know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes. A man's alibi depends on it. Text me."

"Listen, I was wondering," Molly said. "Maybe later, when you're finished—"

Wait. Sherlock's eyes went back to Molly and she saw it, a shade of red coating the pathologist's thin lips. Oh. Her hand stopped scribbling on paper and she pointed her pen at Molly.

"Lipstick. You weren't wearing that before," she observed, letting her question ring out in her words. "That shade suits you," she added after a beat, another observation.

"Oh, er, thank you. I mean — I refreshed it a bit," Molly answered, a smile growing on her lips.

No, she didn't. But Sherlock simply gave a nod before she returned her attention to her notes. "Sorry, you were saying?"

"I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee."

"Yes, please," was Sherlock's swift reply as she put her pen and notebook away. "Black, two sugars. Thank you, I'll be upstairs."

As she walked away, Molly's quiet answer still reached her ears. "Okay."

"Well," John remarked upon entering one of the laboratories of St. Bartholomew's. "Bit different from my day," he honestly said as the smell of chemicals and the collection of scientific apparatus swarmed his senses.

Mike chuckled. "Oh, you've no idea."

A reply sat on John's tongue, waiting to be spoken, when someone else beat him. A husky but feminine tone emanated from one side of the laboratory as John's gaze went to the source of the voice and lingered on the figure sitting down before the cluttered table.

"Mike, may I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine."

"And what's wrong with the landline?" Mike answered, taking a few steps forward.

"I prefer to text," the woman retorted.

The woman, John saw, was bathed in the laboratory's dim light, emphasizing her fine-boned features and her pale skin. Her hair was black and hung loose a few inches above her shoulder blades, cascading in large, thick curls. She wore a white dress shirt, a black suit jacket, and black trousers to match, and they all clung tightly to her slender frame.

John blinked. A creature as darkly appealing as she was had been the last thing he'd expected to see in a lab. Not that she looked out of place, but—

"Sorry. It's in my coat," Mike's voice disrupted John's train of thought. He gave the plump man a glance, trying to recall whether Mike had indeed left his phone in his pocket. John could've sworn he saw Mike place his phone in his pants' pocket earlier...

Speaking of which, John remembered that he had his own phone sitting in his pocket. He took it out and offered it to the woman, whose eyes were glued to the laptop before her while a Petri dish sat beside it.

"Er, here. Use mine." John raised his phone and effectively caught the woman's attention.

"Oh." Her gaze flickered towards him, back to the Petri dish, then back to him. "Thank you."

A small smile formed on John's lips as the woman stood up and approached him. She moved as gracefully as John expected her to be. "This is an old friend of mine, John Watson," Mike introduced from the other side of the table, pointing at the pepper-haired man.

As the woman neared John, he watched her intently and found himself staring into her eyes, a bright blue that pierced through him. They were clear as glass and unwavering in their intensity. John's breath caught in his throat — he could practically sense the gears in motion behind them as she took his phone and flipped open the keypad. She began to text.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

A second passed. John's heart skipped a beat. He blinked. "Sorry?"

The woman briefly glanced up at him. "Afghanistan or Iraq? Which was it?"

He was hearing her correctly, wasn't he? Afghanistan or Iraq? How— John's lips parted in silent surprise as he looked at Mike, who was smiling smugly. He simply gave John a shrug, nothing more.

John swallowed, confusion brewing in his mind. "Afghanistan? Sorry, how did you—"

The door to the laboratory then swung open and a redheaded woman entered. "Ah, Molly, coffee. Thank you," the woman cut off John before handing him back his phone. She turned to the other woman — presumably a doctor, given the white coat she was wearing — who handed her a mug.

"The lipstick. What happened to it?" John looked at the woman as she spoke to the doctor.

"It wasn't working for me," the redhead replied.

"Really? I thought you looked better with it. Now your mouth's too..."

John watched as the woman gestured to her own lips before she paused to take a sip from her coffee. Both he and the doctor waited for her to continue her words but were taken aback when she instead turned her back to them and began walking back to her spot before her laptop.

"...Okay," the redhead remarked before she walked away, leaving the lab. Okay, indeed. John sucked in a breath as he felt his train of thought returning in action. With each moment he spent longer in the lab with the woman, more questions began to sprout in his head. Who was this woman? And how did she—

"How do you feel about the violin?"

Oh, so it wasn't only him who had questions then. But that seemed rather out of the blue, didn't it? The violin? What? John turned once more to Mike for answers but he only grew peeved when he saw a shit-eating grin on Mike's face. Good God. What did the man know? Just what exactly did he bring him into?

"I'm sorry, what?" John asked as turned back to the woman. Her fingers were swiftly tapping on the keys.

"I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end." She turned to John and her fingers went still. "Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other," she finished, shooting John a smile, a hugely false one.

Potential flat— Oh. John looked at Mike. "Oh, you... you told her about me?"

The plump man shook his head. "Not a word."

John doubted it. "Then who said anything about flatmates?"

"I did," the woman answered, and John turned back to her only to see her facing away from him. She picked up a dark coat on the counter behind her and deftly began to put it on as she spoke. "Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult person to find a flatmate for. Alas, here he is — just after lunch with an old friend, one who just came home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't that difficult a leap."

"How did you know about Afghanistan?" John pressed on. By that time, it was safe to say that he was more than adequately intrigued... and perhaps a tad alarmed. He patiently waited for a reply as the woman put on a blue scarf next before she scooped out her curly locks and threw them behind her.

"I know a nice little place in central London," she said as she took her phone from the table, ignoring his question. "Under one roof, we should be able to afford it." She began to walk towards John with her eyes were still glued to the small device she held. John stared at her in growing bewilderment, struggling to keep on the poker face he held. "We'll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o'clock. Sorry, gotta dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary."

John's mouth fell open. He blinked several times. Why would anyone bring their riding crop to the mortuary in the first place and leave it there? He stood still, stunned into silence, as the woman headed for the door. But before she could leave, John found his voice and turned towards her direction.

"Is that it?" he asked.

The woman's hand froze, just above the door handle, and she met John's eyes. "Is that what?"

"We've only just met and we're gonna go and look at a flat?"

"Problem?"

Well, yes! A smile of disbelief crossed John's face as he stared at the woman. The impassive expression she had on her face didn't vanish, however, and John realized that she was not joking. Lord, she was completely serious. He looked at Mike only to see the same stupid smile on the arse's face.

John returned his gaze to the woman and began to list off his problems. "We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting. I don't even know your name."

He thought he saw a smirk tug at the corner of her lips for the shortest of seconds as her hand dropped to her side and she backtracked in her steps. John straightened up as she walked towards him and he saw that she stood a few inches taller than him. Her eyes stared at him intently and John felt that he could melt there and then under her bright, clear blues.

"I know you're an Army doctor," the woman began, "and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan." She spoke with cutting precision, but the way her words fell from her lips in her husky voice made her almost sound sensual. "I know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him — possibly because he's an alcoholic but more likely because he recently walked out on his wife." Her eyes traveled down to John's leg. "And I know that your therapist thinks your limp's psychosomatic. She's quite correct, I'm afraid."

John shuffled his feet at the mention of his leg and his gaze fell to the floor. Now there were a thousand alarms ringing in his head and his thoughts began to grow incoherent as he felt shock wash over him. It was as if a bucket of ice-cold water had been dumped at him, yet something about the sensation flipped a switch back to life inside him. John wasn't quite sure what that was, and he felt his heart stutter.

"That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?" the woman finished, sounding quite proud of herself, before she walked back towards the door and opened it.

John pressed his lips into a thin line, not knowing what to say or to think. All he could think about was the way his heart was now beating erratically and everything that the woman had just said. The woman... God, he didn't even know her name—

"Oh." But as if she had heard his thoughts, she paused in the doorway and her eyes found John's once more. "And the name's Sherlock Holmes. The address is 221B Baker Street."

As John's mind rushed to memorize the address, the woman — Sherlock Holmes, wasn't it? — winked at him with a click of her tongue before she glanced at Mike.

"Afternoon," she bade them before she left the room.

Quest Search

"Sherlock Holmes"