Fic Post: Sherlock/DM: Sidekick
Mar. 20th, 2011 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gayalondiel_bakFandom: Sherlock (BBC), Danger Mouse
Title: Sidekick
Character/Pairing: John Watson, Ernest Penfold
Length: c.2000
Rating: G
Genre: Crack. Crack crack crack crack crack. Fluff. Crossover.
Warnings: I have nothing to declare but my insanity.
Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. Danger Mouse was created by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall for Thames Television. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only. Also Douglas Adams wrote a couple of the sentences.
Summary: John discovers that he and Sherlock are not the only crime-fighting duo on Baker Street.
A/N: Crack. Crack crack crack crack crack crackity crack. Also, this is a present for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rabidsamfan. Unbeta’d because... well, look at it.
.
The day John found himself sat in the kitchen sympathising with a well-dressed hamster was the day he realised his life could no longer be construed in any way, shape or form as “normal”.
It had been a long day at the surgery, followed by a trip to Tesco for a variety of items that Sherlock simply had to have but couldn’t possibly spare the time to fetch for himself. John was beyond the point of either arguing or asking why. Just when he had been wrestling with the self-checkout, Sherlock had sent him a series of cryptic texts demanding his presence without any form of explanation why. Wanting nothing more than a cup of tea and a rest in his armchair, and feeling utterly put upon, he shuffled through to the kitchen, dropped the bags on the table and picked up the kettle.
“John?” Sherlock called from the living room. “Come and meet our guests.”
The last thing John wanted was for there to be a new case right now. Nevertheless he put down the kettle and walked through to the living room where Sherlock was sat alone on the sofa, wearing a bemused expression.
“Guests?” said John. “What guests? I don’t see any...”
“Good afternoon!” piped up a new voice.
John glanced around and suddenly yelped.
“Ugh!” he said. “There are mice on the table!”
Sherlock looked at him pointedly. “A mouse and a hamster,” he corrected. John looked closer. True enough, one of the creatures was a brown hamster, snuffling away in its paws and looking as though it were searching for an escape route. He saw with something between amusement and concern that Sherlock seemed to have dressed it in a blue suit and glasses. Goodness only knew where he had got them. The mouse was white, still and had a vague air of pride, and it too was dressed in a white outfit and, of all things, an eyepatch. John rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Sherlock, I’m sure you have a good reason for having rodents in the flat,” he said, without really believing his own words, “but you really should keep them in a cage, Mrs Hudson won’t be happy with them running around the place. And I’m not sure but I think dressing them like that might be animal cruelty...”
“I said good afternoon!” said the voice, which John had forgotten in his surprise. He looked around the flat. Definitely no-one else here, the TV was off, the laptop screens were both dark... He looked back to the table. The mouse was very still, regarding him with a piercing gaze and John could have sworn he was tapping his foot. The hamster scurried up to the mouse.
“Oh crumbs, I think you’ve frightened him, chief,” he said in high but distinct tones.
John felt his jaw hanging open as the rodents observed him. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and opened them again. They were still there, staring. There was only one thing he could think of. He turned to Sherlock.
“I’m, ah, I think I’m coming down with something,” he said. “I’m just going to head off to bed and...”
Sherlock grinned and grabbed his arm, steering him to sit with him on the sofa. “Relax, John, I hear them too.”
“And that makes it better? Have you put a hallucinogen in the milk or something?”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Sherlock with an aggrieved sniff. “These two agents simply turned up on the doorstep wanting to see us. They seem to know rather a lot about both us and the workings of Scotland Yard and the MOD. I got this from Mycroft a few minutes ago.” He passed John his phone, displaying a short text message.
I understand you are being visited by representatives of the Secret Service. I trust you will pay them every courtesy.
Mycroft Holmes
John passed the phone back, shaking his head. “So this is Mycroft,” he said. “Having us on? A practical joke?”
Sherlock’s eyebrows arched. “Mycroft?” he repeated.
“I admit his having a sense of humour is unlikely, but...”
“If you don’t mind,” piped up the mouse from the table. “Our time is limited. If the good doctor will just accept the circumstances we can get down to business.”
John could feel the walls of reality crumbling around him. Part of him really, really wanted to go to bed and stay there until the mouse and the hamster and preferably Sherlock had gone. Sherlock, however, was smirking at him.
“Of course,” he said. “Doctor John Watson, may I introduce Danger Mouse, of the British Secret Service, and his assistant, Ernest Penfold.”
“Hello,” said John faintly. Danger Mouse nodded and Penfold gave a sort of chirrup in his direction. He slumped back on the sofa as Sherlock leaned forward.
“You were about to tell me what brought you here,” he said.
“Right,” said Danger Mouse briskly. “We understand that you have information on one of Baron Greenback’s contacts in the criminal underworld. We’ve had you under observation for some time but Colonel K feels that the time has come for us to pool our resources to bring in these criminal masterminds.”
“Baron Greenback?”
“Baron Greenback? He’s a monster! A nightmare! A monster in a nightmare! And he’s not very nice...” exclaimed the hamster.
“Penfold, shush,” snapped the mouse. Penfold rubbed his front paws together, his expression almost penitent, if a hamster could be penitent. “You’ve never heard of him, Mr Holmes?” continued Danger Mouse. “I’m surprised. He has been called the Napoleon of crime. He concocts plans to take over or destroy the world on an alarmingly regular basis.”
“And he’s a human?” asked John.
“Oh no!” Danger Mouse laughed. “He’s a toad.”
“Oh.” John blinked. “Toad. Right.”
“Who is this contact you’re after?” asked Sherlock, leaning forward and looking nothing but serious as he held the mouse’s gaze.
“His name is James Moriarty,” said Danger Mouse. “Our agent tells us you have been in contact with him and now are trying to uncover his ongoing activities.”
“Your agent?”
“Oh yes. You’ve been under surveillance for weeks.”
“There’s no mouse here,” interrupted John, absolutely certain.
“Of course not,” replied Danger Mouse. “Agent 57 was assigned your case. He’s a master of disguise.”
Sherlock’s eyes sparkled and he looked around the room, assessing, considering. Finally his eyes rested on the mantelpiece.
“Mrs Hudson took my skull,” he said slowly. “It took a while to get it back...”
“At your service, Mr Holmes!” crowed the skull. John leapt to his feet, finally having had enough.
“Tea,” he said, desperate for an anchor of normality. Sherlock and Danger Mouse ignored him as they began discussing something called a molecular fragmenter that allowed Agent 57 to change form. Penfold trotted over to the edge of the table.
“I’ll help!” he offered cheerfully. Given that it really couldn’t get much more bizarre at this point, John reached out, allowed the hamster to climb into his hand and carried him through to the kitchen, where he put him down on the side and prayed Mrs Hudson wouldn’t come in.
For a few minutes he busied himself in the nice, normal process of boiling water. Penfold chattered away about how nice it was to get out of the pillar box and meet new people. John blinked.
“Pillar box?”
“The MOD Mark V simulated letterbox,” Penfold explained. “That’s where we live, on the corner of the street.”
“On the corner... what, here? Baker Street?”
“Oh yes, we can show you later. If the chief doesn’t mind.”
Shaking his head, John pulled two mugs from the cupboard.
“What will you and Danger Mouse have?” he asked Penfold.
“DM likes tea, and so does 57,” squeaked Penfold. “I like a nice glass of milk myself.”
John frowned. He considered a dish of tea but that might well be a terrible insult. After some searching he found a couple of small bottles from which he unscrewed and washed out the caps. They would be a bit big and ungainly, but honestly, who had mouse-sized crockery just lying around the flat. Penfold took one of the lids, testing it.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Can I ask you something?”
John had found the rarely used teapot - better than making a third mug and trying to pour from that - and set the tea to brewing. “Sure,” he said.
“Are you Mr Holmes’ assistant?”
A firm “no” hung on John’s lips, but he found himself having to think about it. “Not exactly,” he said at length. “I do help him with cases and stuff, but I have my own work as well. I’m a doctor.”
“A doctor?” repeated Penfold. “Cor, that must be nice. I just work for DM.” He sounded almost doleful, and John caught himself as he pulled biscuits and crackers from the Tesco bag. Gingerly he picked Penfold up and took him over to the table, where he sat while Penfold settled among the detritus and carrier bags.
“You don’t sound completely happy about that,” he said enquiringly.
“Oh, I am!” said Penfold determinedly. “The chief is a genius, he’s brilliant! I love working with him.”
“Okay,” said John. “Sherlock’s a genius too, you know. He can be a terrible pain at times, though.”
“Really?” Penfold’s nose twitched. “DM’s great, but I’m not very clever and I tend to get kidnapped a lot.”
“Well, I can sympathise with that,” said John. “When you say you’re his assistant, what do you do?”
“Whatever he needs. I make tea, and food, and I look after the house, and when he goes on cases I go with him. I just would like to be more useful.”
It was, John decided, like looking in a mirror. A very small, furry mirror with overly large front teeth, but a mirror nonetheless. He sighed.
“There’s nothing wrong with what you do,” he said. “I spend most of my time outside work looking after Sherlock, making sure he eats something and gets some rest and doesn’t generally let life fall down around himself because he’s too busy being brilliant. It’s all very well being a genius but someone has to be practical. That’s where you and I come in. Sherlock only started talking to me before he needed a replacement for his skull - I guess he does now, too - but he keep talking to me because it helps him work things out. He doesn’t tend to say so, but he does appreciate it, and I’m sure Danger Mouse appreciates you just as much. They may be a pain, but they’re definitely worth it.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Really really?
John smiled. He supposed he should really remember his own advice. “Really really. Do you want biscuits with your tea?”
“I will,” said Penfold. “DM might, although he’s terribly picky. Do you have any of those biscuits with jam on?” He glanced at the bags hopefully. John dug out a jar.
“No,” he admitted, “but we can put jam on the crackers if you like.” He pulled a few from the packet and started snapping them into small pieces on a plate. Penfold clambered up to the jar of jam and sniffed at it.
“What flavour?” he asked.
“Strawberry.”
“Ooh! Strawberry, my favourite.”
John reached over and snapped the jar open. A quick glance into the living room told him that Sherlock, Danger Mouse and the skull were still in heavy discussions about criminal mastermind gangs. Somehow the idea of Moriarty throwing in his lot with a toad version of the Godfather seemed very appropriate. He would have loved to have seen that introduction. He glanced back down at Penfold who was daubing liberal quantities of jam on pieces of crackers.
“I suppose we should go and help,” he suggested. Penfold grinned up at him as he set the tray with cups and bottle caps.
“That’s what we do,” he said. Smiling, John picked up the tray and allowed Penfold to scurry up to his shoulder as they headed back through to look after their respective geniuses. Penfold curled up and clung onto his jumper with small claws, whuffling happily.
.
Cross-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sherlockbbc, gayas_world
Title: Sidekick
Character/Pairing: John Watson, Ernest Penfold
Length: c.2000
Rating: G
Genre: Crack. Crack crack crack crack crack. Fluff. Crossover.
Warnings: I have nothing to declare but my insanity.
Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. Danger Mouse was created by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall for Thames Television. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only. Also Douglas Adams wrote a couple of the sentences.
Summary: John discovers that he and Sherlock are not the only crime-fighting duo on Baker Street.
A/N: Crack. Crack crack crack crack crack crackity crack. Also, this is a present for
rabidsamfan. Unbeta’d because... well, look at it..
The day John found himself sat in the kitchen sympathising with a well-dressed hamster was the day he realised his life could no longer be construed in any way, shape or form as “normal”.
It had been a long day at the surgery, followed by a trip to Tesco for a variety of items that Sherlock simply had to have but couldn’t possibly spare the time to fetch for himself. John was beyond the point of either arguing or asking why. Just when he had been wrestling with the self-checkout, Sherlock had sent him a series of cryptic texts demanding his presence without any form of explanation why. Wanting nothing more than a cup of tea and a rest in his armchair, and feeling utterly put upon, he shuffled through to the kitchen, dropped the bags on the table and picked up the kettle.
“John?” Sherlock called from the living room. “Come and meet our guests.”
The last thing John wanted was for there to be a new case right now. Nevertheless he put down the kettle and walked through to the living room where Sherlock was sat alone on the sofa, wearing a bemused expression.
“Guests?” said John. “What guests? I don’t see any...”
“Good afternoon!” piped up a new voice.
John glanced around and suddenly yelped.
“Ugh!” he said. “There are mice on the table!”
Sherlock looked at him pointedly. “A mouse and a hamster,” he corrected. John looked closer. True enough, one of the creatures was a brown hamster, snuffling away in its paws and looking as though it were searching for an escape route. He saw with something between amusement and concern that Sherlock seemed to have dressed it in a blue suit and glasses. Goodness only knew where he had got them. The mouse was white, still and had a vague air of pride, and it too was dressed in a white outfit and, of all things, an eyepatch. John rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Sherlock, I’m sure you have a good reason for having rodents in the flat,” he said, without really believing his own words, “but you really should keep them in a cage, Mrs Hudson won’t be happy with them running around the place. And I’m not sure but I think dressing them like that might be animal cruelty...”
“I said good afternoon!” said the voice, which John had forgotten in his surprise. He looked around the flat. Definitely no-one else here, the TV was off, the laptop screens were both dark... He looked back to the table. The mouse was very still, regarding him with a piercing gaze and John could have sworn he was tapping his foot. The hamster scurried up to the mouse.
“Oh crumbs, I think you’ve frightened him, chief,” he said in high but distinct tones.
John felt his jaw hanging open as the rodents observed him. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and opened them again. They were still there, staring. There was only one thing he could think of. He turned to Sherlock.
“I’m, ah, I think I’m coming down with something,” he said. “I’m just going to head off to bed and...”
Sherlock grinned and grabbed his arm, steering him to sit with him on the sofa. “Relax, John, I hear them too.”
“And that makes it better? Have you put a hallucinogen in the milk or something?”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Sherlock with an aggrieved sniff. “These two agents simply turned up on the doorstep wanting to see us. They seem to know rather a lot about both us and the workings of Scotland Yard and the MOD. I got this from Mycroft a few minutes ago.” He passed John his phone, displaying a short text message.
I understand you are being visited by representatives of the Secret Service. I trust you will pay them every courtesy.
Mycroft Holmes
John passed the phone back, shaking his head. “So this is Mycroft,” he said. “Having us on? A practical joke?”
Sherlock’s eyebrows arched. “Mycroft?” he repeated.
“I admit his having a sense of humour is unlikely, but...”
“If you don’t mind,” piped up the mouse from the table. “Our time is limited. If the good doctor will just accept the circumstances we can get down to business.”
John could feel the walls of reality crumbling around him. Part of him really, really wanted to go to bed and stay there until the mouse and the hamster and preferably Sherlock had gone. Sherlock, however, was smirking at him.
“Of course,” he said. “Doctor John Watson, may I introduce Danger Mouse, of the British Secret Service, and his assistant, Ernest Penfold.”
“Hello,” said John faintly. Danger Mouse nodded and Penfold gave a sort of chirrup in his direction. He slumped back on the sofa as Sherlock leaned forward.
“You were about to tell me what brought you here,” he said.
“Right,” said Danger Mouse briskly. “We understand that you have information on one of Baron Greenback’s contacts in the criminal underworld. We’ve had you under observation for some time but Colonel K feels that the time has come for us to pool our resources to bring in these criminal masterminds.”
“Baron Greenback?”
“Baron Greenback? He’s a monster! A nightmare! A monster in a nightmare! And he’s not very nice...” exclaimed the hamster.
“Penfold, shush,” snapped the mouse. Penfold rubbed his front paws together, his expression almost penitent, if a hamster could be penitent. “You’ve never heard of him, Mr Holmes?” continued Danger Mouse. “I’m surprised. He has been called the Napoleon of crime. He concocts plans to take over or destroy the world on an alarmingly regular basis.”
“And he’s a human?” asked John.
“Oh no!” Danger Mouse laughed. “He’s a toad.”
“Oh.” John blinked. “Toad. Right.”
“Who is this contact you’re after?” asked Sherlock, leaning forward and looking nothing but serious as he held the mouse’s gaze.
“His name is James Moriarty,” said Danger Mouse. “Our agent tells us you have been in contact with him and now are trying to uncover his ongoing activities.”
“Your agent?”
“Oh yes. You’ve been under surveillance for weeks.”
“There’s no mouse here,” interrupted John, absolutely certain.
“Of course not,” replied Danger Mouse. “Agent 57 was assigned your case. He’s a master of disguise.”
Sherlock’s eyes sparkled and he looked around the room, assessing, considering. Finally his eyes rested on the mantelpiece.
“Mrs Hudson took my skull,” he said slowly. “It took a while to get it back...”
“At your service, Mr Holmes!” crowed the skull. John leapt to his feet, finally having had enough.
“Tea,” he said, desperate for an anchor of normality. Sherlock and Danger Mouse ignored him as they began discussing something called a molecular fragmenter that allowed Agent 57 to change form. Penfold trotted over to the edge of the table.
“I’ll help!” he offered cheerfully. Given that it really couldn’t get much more bizarre at this point, John reached out, allowed the hamster to climb into his hand and carried him through to the kitchen, where he put him down on the side and prayed Mrs Hudson wouldn’t come in.
For a few minutes he busied himself in the nice, normal process of boiling water. Penfold chattered away about how nice it was to get out of the pillar box and meet new people. John blinked.
“Pillar box?”
“The MOD Mark V simulated letterbox,” Penfold explained. “That’s where we live, on the corner of the street.”
“On the corner... what, here? Baker Street?”
“Oh yes, we can show you later. If the chief doesn’t mind.”
Shaking his head, John pulled two mugs from the cupboard.
“What will you and Danger Mouse have?” he asked Penfold.
“DM likes tea, and so does 57,” squeaked Penfold. “I like a nice glass of milk myself.”
John frowned. He considered a dish of tea but that might well be a terrible insult. After some searching he found a couple of small bottles from which he unscrewed and washed out the caps. They would be a bit big and ungainly, but honestly, who had mouse-sized crockery just lying around the flat. Penfold took one of the lids, testing it.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Can I ask you something?”
John had found the rarely used teapot - better than making a third mug and trying to pour from that - and set the tea to brewing. “Sure,” he said.
“Are you Mr Holmes’ assistant?”
A firm “no” hung on John’s lips, but he found himself having to think about it. “Not exactly,” he said at length. “I do help him with cases and stuff, but I have my own work as well. I’m a doctor.”
“A doctor?” repeated Penfold. “Cor, that must be nice. I just work for DM.” He sounded almost doleful, and John caught himself as he pulled biscuits and crackers from the Tesco bag. Gingerly he picked Penfold up and took him over to the table, where he sat while Penfold settled among the detritus and carrier bags.
“You don’t sound completely happy about that,” he said enquiringly.
“Oh, I am!” said Penfold determinedly. “The chief is a genius, he’s brilliant! I love working with him.”
“Okay,” said John. “Sherlock’s a genius too, you know. He can be a terrible pain at times, though.”
“Really?” Penfold’s nose twitched. “DM’s great, but I’m not very clever and I tend to get kidnapped a lot.”
“Well, I can sympathise with that,” said John. “When you say you’re his assistant, what do you do?”
“Whatever he needs. I make tea, and food, and I look after the house, and when he goes on cases I go with him. I just would like to be more useful.”
It was, John decided, like looking in a mirror. A very small, furry mirror with overly large front teeth, but a mirror nonetheless. He sighed.
“There’s nothing wrong with what you do,” he said. “I spend most of my time outside work looking after Sherlock, making sure he eats something and gets some rest and doesn’t generally let life fall down around himself because he’s too busy being brilliant. It’s all very well being a genius but someone has to be practical. That’s where you and I come in. Sherlock only started talking to me before he needed a replacement for his skull - I guess he does now, too - but he keep talking to me because it helps him work things out. He doesn’t tend to say so, but he does appreciate it, and I’m sure Danger Mouse appreciates you just as much. They may be a pain, but they’re definitely worth it.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Really really?
John smiled. He supposed he should really remember his own advice. “Really really. Do you want biscuits with your tea?”
“I will,” said Penfold. “DM might, although he’s terribly picky. Do you have any of those biscuits with jam on?” He glanced at the bags hopefully. John dug out a jar.
“No,” he admitted, “but we can put jam on the crackers if you like.” He pulled a few from the packet and started snapping them into small pieces on a plate. Penfold clambered up to the jar of jam and sniffed at it.
“What flavour?” he asked.
“Strawberry.”
“Ooh! Strawberry, my favourite.”
John reached over and snapped the jar open. A quick glance into the living room told him that Sherlock, Danger Mouse and the skull were still in heavy discussions about criminal mastermind gangs. Somehow the idea of Moriarty throwing in his lot with a toad version of the Godfather seemed very appropriate. He would have loved to have seen that introduction. He glanced back down at Penfold who was daubing liberal quantities of jam on pieces of crackers.
“I suppose we should go and help,” he suggested. Penfold grinned up at him as he set the tray with cups and bottle caps.
“That’s what we do,” he said. Smiling, John picked up the tray and allowed Penfold to scurry up to his shoulder as they headed back through to look after their respective geniuses. Penfold curled up and clung onto his jumper with small claws, whuffling happily.
.
Cross-posted to
sherlockbbc, gayas_world
