If Clothes Make The Man...
Apr. 7th, 2005 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prof_pangaeaTitle: If Clothes Make The Man...
Author: Professor Pangaea
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Mary Russell)
Spoilers: A bit for The Beekeeper's Apprentice, plus slight mentions of events in A Monstrous Regiment of Women and The Game
Discliamer: Though Mr. Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain, Miss Mary Russell is most assuredly not, and so I let it be known that I do this not for profit but for love. I'm sure Laurie R. King would be slightly confounded at my take on her characters.
Notes: This is incredibly not-betaed, and in fact I've taken much more time on it than I meant to. Still, it is rather off the cuff (for me), and mostly written because the idea randomly sprang into my head one day and I thought, Someone should write that. But then I realised I was the only one who would ever do such a thing. Mostly finished to see it it would make![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cesario's head explode. And maybe a little bit of an eruption from lizbee. Also, I'm really not sure why I've titled this thing as I have done, but ah well.
If Clothes Make The Man...
"The moment my short cropped, pomade-sleek, unquestionably masculine hair passed beneath his nose was the closest I've ever seen Holmes to fainting dead away."
-- The Game
"You know, I came quite close to having a fatal apoplectic seizure when you entered wearing that incredible haircut," Holmes said, regarding me with one raised eyebrow. Of course he would find it amusing.
"It was a calculated risk that, at the very sight of me, you would spontaneously combust and that the whole plan would be ruined. I put the probability at about seventeen percent, which I felt was reasonable. In the circumstances."
"Quite so. In the circumstances." He smiled crookedly at me and ran one hand softly over the short bristles at the nape of my neck. I scowled.
"Don't get too used to it, Holmes."
He almost succeeded in schooling his face into a more serious expression.
"Of course."
**********
Three Years Earlier
"Holmes," I said, my back turned to him, "It cannot be beneficial for a man even with a slight concussion to stare so." I did not have to be facing him to feel the weight of those eyes upon me. I wondered if someone had taught him that peculiarly penetrating gaze, or if it was merely an hereditary trait.
"I do hope that you are not regretting the events of earlier today. I certainly do not."
Damn the man.
I turned around to look him in the eye -- something I had been trying to avoid. I knew the sight of him stretched out on my horrible modern sofa, head and arms swathed in bandages, would do nothing to strengthen my resolve.
"Holmes, even you must admit that there are grave difficulties in the matter."
He shrugged, with just a hint of insouciance in the gesture.
"For God's sake, Holmes, this isn't simply a matter of social custom; there are serious legal issues involved --"
"Mycroft will deal with anything that comes up." He said it as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
"Mycroft? Even he cannot do everything, you know. And in any case..." I faltered. "Well, how do you know he will even wish to help?"
"I have done him a great number of services over the years, you know." At my sour expression Holmes laughed, and said, "Russell, he is my brother. And at this point in our lives at least, he won't begrudge me a little happiness. Besides, he's known about you for some years now."
"Yes, well, knowing something intellectually is one thing, but being face to face with the truth is quite another."
"Ah," he said. He could be quite infuriating at times. "Perhaps I can put your mind at ease regarding some of your concerns." He shifted a little on the sofa and patted the space he had made. I eyed him warily for a few moments, but in the end I sat. He did not put an arm around me, as I had expected. He did not even look me in the eye, but spoke in a quiet, but clear, voice.
"It might interest you to know that I was, for the greater part of my adult life, hopelessly in love with a certain Dr. John H. Watson."
I stared stupidly at him.
Before I could even think to form a question, he continued. "For several decades, in fact. But something extraordinary happened when we were in Palestine two years ago. It was when I was in the hands of... Karim Bey, and I was quite sure that I had only a few hours left to live, and terrible ones, at that. And I suddenly realised that for the first time in nearly forty years, it wasn't Watson who occupied my thoughts, but you."
I fear I continued to stare quite stupidly.
"Palestine. So that was before..." I trailed off.
He finally looked at me.
"Yes."
There was a long silence as I tried to think of some way to respond.
"Holmes," I finally said. "You are a most extraordinary man."
"And you, Russell, are a most extraordinary woman."
I smiled.
**********
Five Years Earlier
When I woke again I found Holmes just as he had been, sitting in a chair next to my hard hospital bed. His head was turned away; I think he may have been looking out the window. I studied his fuzzy profile and tried to come to terms with where I was and what must have happened. What everyone must now know.
Hospitals. I sighed.
At this sign of consciousness Holmes turned back round toward me. Without my spectacles I could not read his expression. My thoughts must have shown upon my face in some fashion for he picked my spectacles up off of the bedside table and gently set them upon my face. The room evidenced itself in almost dizzying detail, but at least Holmes was in focus.
"You needn't be concerned," he said, and I would have laughed if I hadn't been so nauseous.
"Wouldn't you be?" I managed to croak. Almost immediately a glass of water was held for me, the straw at my lips. I drank gratefully.
"Of course I would be. I am saying 'you needn't be concerned' because everything has been taken care of."
I choked a little on the water.
My brain, sluggish as it was, had quite a few responses to this enormous statement, but all my throat could manage was a feeble, "...What?"
"I sent Will for the doctor, but you were bleeding so badly, I had to do something. When I cut open your shirt to get to the bullet wound... I could not help but notice." He paused then, an apology for seeing what he ought not, for knowing what he ought not. For discovering simultaneously my shame and my terrible lie.
"It must have been a shock," I found myself saying. His mouth quirked up in an involuntary reaction.
"It was, at that. Though of course I was amazed more by my own blindness than by any action of yours, I may add." This, somehow, did not surprise me. "However," he continued, "as I see you are still very tired, I will come to the point. I realised at that moment that quick action was required if your secret was to remain so. I gathered you up and ran you to your devilish automobile -- no need to look so alarmed, Russell, Donleavy was quite dead at that point -- and somehow got you, myself, and the machine into the city all in one piece; and more importantly, to this very establishment. In most respects it is a normal civilian hospital," he said, gesturing vaguely with his hand, 'but it is also used by Mycroft and his ilk when one of their people need good treatment and no questions. I did have to tell Mycroft," he added, with another slight apologetic pause. "But only he, the doctor, and myself know. And it shall stay that way."
I don't think I could have been more astonished had Holmes detailed that he, and not my mathematics tutor, had been the one to shoot me through the chest in his laboratory. Thankfully I was too weak to gape at him as was my inclination.
"But...." I could not understand. "Such risk...." Holmes made a dismissive noise. For some reason, this made me unaccountably angry, when moments before I had been flooded with relief, confusion, and gratitude. Of course he would simply dismiss my closest secret, the most intimate of facts -- what did it matter to him? Just another bit of information to index, just another little mystery solved. I turned away with a bitter expression on my face.
"Russell." He sighed, very lightly. "Melodrama does not become you. What do you want from me? Some sort of ridiculous emotional episode about how I never really knew you? You must realise that that is quite beyond my capability. Besides, it is hardly as if I have never come across such things before in my life; I am a fairly broad-minded man. In any case, such an outburst would hardly be truthful. I have known you; I do know you. Mere physical detail can hardly change those facts."
"Mere physical detail --" I would have exploded if I had possessed the strength.
"I do admit it is a rather large detail," he added, wryly. "But it is hardly the overriding aspect of your character, is it? You are still the same Mary Russell whom I knew a week ago." He looked at me quite seriously. "I promise, I still regard you as just as feminine now as I did then."
It was a distinctly backhanded comment, but I understood his meaning. I searched his face.
"Truly?"
"When have I ever spoken false to you?"
I think that I would have swept the man into a crushing embrace, if only I had been able. As it was, I contented myself with a no doubt pathetically weak squeeze of his hand. His mouth twitched again.
"I must say, however, that I do feel a certain vindication in regards to my first analysis of you on the downs...."
I groaned. I knew he would never let me live that down.
**********
"You know, the haircut was one thing, Russell, but I must say," and at this Holmes fixed me with a most serious gaze, "it was really the moustache that almost proved my undoing."
I threw my pillow at him.
Tell me what you think, peoples.
Author: Professor Pangaea
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Mary Russell)
Spoilers: A bit for The Beekeeper's Apprentice, plus slight mentions of events in A Monstrous Regiment of Women and The Game
Discliamer: Though Mr. Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain, Miss Mary Russell is most assuredly not, and so I let it be known that I do this not for profit but for love. I'm sure Laurie R. King would be slightly confounded at my take on her characters.
Notes: This is incredibly not-betaed, and in fact I've taken much more time on it than I meant to. Still, it is rather off the cuff (for me), and mostly written because the idea randomly sprang into my head one day and I thought, Someone should write that. But then I realised I was the only one who would ever do such a thing. Mostly finished to see it it would make
cesario's head explode. And maybe a little bit of an eruption from lizbee. Also, I'm really not sure why I've titled this thing as I have done, but ah well. If Clothes Make The Man...
"The moment my short cropped, pomade-sleek, unquestionably masculine hair passed beneath his nose was the closest I've ever seen Holmes to fainting dead away."
-- The Game
"You know, I came quite close to having a fatal apoplectic seizure when you entered wearing that incredible haircut," Holmes said, regarding me with one raised eyebrow. Of course he would find it amusing.
"It was a calculated risk that, at the very sight of me, you would spontaneously combust and that the whole plan would be ruined. I put the probability at about seventeen percent, which I felt was reasonable. In the circumstances."
"Quite so. In the circumstances." He smiled crookedly at me and ran one hand softly over the short bristles at the nape of my neck. I scowled.
"Don't get too used to it, Holmes."
He almost succeeded in schooling his face into a more serious expression.
"Of course."
**********
Three Years Earlier
"Holmes," I said, my back turned to him, "It cannot be beneficial for a man even with a slight concussion to stare so." I did not have to be facing him to feel the weight of those eyes upon me. I wondered if someone had taught him that peculiarly penetrating gaze, or if it was merely an hereditary trait.
"I do hope that you are not regretting the events of earlier today. I certainly do not."
Damn the man.
I turned around to look him in the eye -- something I had been trying to avoid. I knew the sight of him stretched out on my horrible modern sofa, head and arms swathed in bandages, would do nothing to strengthen my resolve.
"Holmes, even you must admit that there are grave difficulties in the matter."
He shrugged, with just a hint of insouciance in the gesture.
"For God's sake, Holmes, this isn't simply a matter of social custom; there are serious legal issues involved --"
"Mycroft will deal with anything that comes up." He said it as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
"Mycroft? Even he cannot do everything, you know. And in any case..." I faltered. "Well, how do you know he will even wish to help?"
"I have done him a great number of services over the years, you know." At my sour expression Holmes laughed, and said, "Russell, he is my brother. And at this point in our lives at least, he won't begrudge me a little happiness. Besides, he's known about you for some years now."
"Yes, well, knowing something intellectually is one thing, but being face to face with the truth is quite another."
"Ah," he said. He could be quite infuriating at times. "Perhaps I can put your mind at ease regarding some of your concerns." He shifted a little on the sofa and patted the space he had made. I eyed him warily for a few moments, but in the end I sat. He did not put an arm around me, as I had expected. He did not even look me in the eye, but spoke in a quiet, but clear, voice.
"It might interest you to know that I was, for the greater part of my adult life, hopelessly in love with a certain Dr. John H. Watson."
I stared stupidly at him.
Before I could even think to form a question, he continued. "For several decades, in fact. But something extraordinary happened when we were in Palestine two years ago. It was when I was in the hands of... Karim Bey, and I was quite sure that I had only a few hours left to live, and terrible ones, at that. And I suddenly realised that for the first time in nearly forty years, it wasn't Watson who occupied my thoughts, but you."
I fear I continued to stare quite stupidly.
"Palestine. So that was before..." I trailed off.
He finally looked at me.
"Yes."
There was a long silence as I tried to think of some way to respond.
"Holmes," I finally said. "You are a most extraordinary man."
"And you, Russell, are a most extraordinary woman."
I smiled.
**********
Five Years Earlier
When I woke again I found Holmes just as he had been, sitting in a chair next to my hard hospital bed. His head was turned away; I think he may have been looking out the window. I studied his fuzzy profile and tried to come to terms with where I was and what must have happened. What everyone must now know.
Hospitals. I sighed.
At this sign of consciousness Holmes turned back round toward me. Without my spectacles I could not read his expression. My thoughts must have shown upon my face in some fashion for he picked my spectacles up off of the bedside table and gently set them upon my face. The room evidenced itself in almost dizzying detail, but at least Holmes was in focus.
"You needn't be concerned," he said, and I would have laughed if I hadn't been so nauseous.
"Wouldn't you be?" I managed to croak. Almost immediately a glass of water was held for me, the straw at my lips. I drank gratefully.
"Of course I would be. I am saying 'you needn't be concerned' because everything has been taken care of."
I choked a little on the water.
My brain, sluggish as it was, had quite a few responses to this enormous statement, but all my throat could manage was a feeble, "...What?"
"I sent Will for the doctor, but you were bleeding so badly, I had to do something. When I cut open your shirt to get to the bullet wound... I could not help but notice." He paused then, an apology for seeing what he ought not, for knowing what he ought not. For discovering simultaneously my shame and my terrible lie.
"It must have been a shock," I found myself saying. His mouth quirked up in an involuntary reaction.
"It was, at that. Though of course I was amazed more by my own blindness than by any action of yours, I may add." This, somehow, did not surprise me. "However," he continued, "as I see you are still very tired, I will come to the point. I realised at that moment that quick action was required if your secret was to remain so. I gathered you up and ran you to your devilish automobile -- no need to look so alarmed, Russell, Donleavy was quite dead at that point -- and somehow got you, myself, and the machine into the city all in one piece; and more importantly, to this very establishment. In most respects it is a normal civilian hospital," he said, gesturing vaguely with his hand, 'but it is also used by Mycroft and his ilk when one of their people need good treatment and no questions. I did have to tell Mycroft," he added, with another slight apologetic pause. "But only he, the doctor, and myself know. And it shall stay that way."
I don't think I could have been more astonished had Holmes detailed that he, and not my mathematics tutor, had been the one to shoot me through the chest in his laboratory. Thankfully I was too weak to gape at him as was my inclination.
"But...." I could not understand. "Such risk...." Holmes made a dismissive noise. For some reason, this made me unaccountably angry, when moments before I had been flooded with relief, confusion, and gratitude. Of course he would simply dismiss my closest secret, the most intimate of facts -- what did it matter to him? Just another bit of information to index, just another little mystery solved. I turned away with a bitter expression on my face.
"Russell." He sighed, very lightly. "Melodrama does not become you. What do you want from me? Some sort of ridiculous emotional episode about how I never really knew you? You must realise that that is quite beyond my capability. Besides, it is hardly as if I have never come across such things before in my life; I am a fairly broad-minded man. In any case, such an outburst would hardly be truthful. I have known you; I do know you. Mere physical detail can hardly change those facts."
"Mere physical detail --" I would have exploded if I had possessed the strength.
"I do admit it is a rather large detail," he added, wryly. "But it is hardly the overriding aspect of your character, is it? You are still the same Mary Russell whom I knew a week ago." He looked at me quite seriously. "I promise, I still regard you as just as feminine now as I did then."
It was a distinctly backhanded comment, but I understood his meaning. I searched his face.
"Truly?"
"When have I ever spoken false to you?"
I think that I would have swept the man into a crushing embrace, if only I had been able. As it was, I contented myself with a no doubt pathetically weak squeeze of his hand. His mouth twitched again.
"I must say, however, that I do feel a certain vindication in regards to my first analysis of you on the downs...."
I groaned. I knew he would never let me live that down.
**********
"You know, the haircut was one thing, Russell, but I must say," and at this Holmes fixed me with a most serious gaze, "it was really the moustache that almost proved my undoing."
I threw my pillow at him.
Tell me what you think, peoples.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 01:57 am (UTC)...
Oh, very well. I'm swinging between amusement and horror, leaning further towards amusement as common sense intervenes. Audacious and kind of horrifying, as the ground was briefly yanked from beneath my feet and I had to stop and regain my equilibrium. Don't do that!
(No, wait. Keep doing it.)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 05:14 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for the comment though -- by the time I finally finished this thing I didn't know if it was explodable or just sort of mediocre. Yay for explodable. As for amusement, I think this is definitely the most amusing story I've written -- which is rather sad actually. I should rectify that.
(And I shall certainly try).
no subject
Date: 2005-04-09 03:58 am (UTC)(And I shall certainly try).
You most definitely should.
The funny thing is that this fic appeared, without warning, just a few hours after I was thinking about the difference between HP fandom and the Russell/Holmes fandomlet. If the Russellian side of fandom was anything like HP, this idea would have been executed frequently enough to be derided as cliche, and there'd be multiple comms dedicated to Russell/Holmes genderfuck fic. And of course, I got home from work and this was waiting for me...
no subject
Date: 2005-04-10 07:07 pm (UTC)Genderfuck fic is usually either really boring to me or wildly implausible to the point that I can't enjoy the story, so I have very rarely read it -- in fact, the only two stories I haven't read on the H/W site, Sacrilege! are the two in a series that make Holmes a woman. Just... no. And I have read some pretty terrible badfic in my quest for Holmes stories. But that I have always loved that on line from The Game...
That's one thing about HP fandom that I actually eally dislike, is the whole weird fetishisation of EVERYTHING -- as if the writing doesn't matter, a long as the kinks are in there. And they're all so specific!
Fandomlet. Hee hee.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 01:24 am (UTC)I know exactly what you mean. It's one of the reasons I don't write or read much slash in HP anymore. Not only has it all been done, but so much feels prurient rather than plotty. It's downright depressing.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 02:00 am (UTC)I've never *not* enjoyed a story you've written. This one is no exception.
Having read this, I am now also waiting to see if Branwyn's head will explode!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 05:18 pm (UTC)Thanks, and also thanks for the typo point -- it is fixed!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 09:33 pm (UTC)I actually copied and pasted the whole thing into Word and did a spell-check, and of course it thought that words like "realise" were misspelled. I swear, Word should have a British English option or something...
...and a minor typo correction
Date: 2005-04-08 02:03 am (UTC)I'm assuming you meant for that bolded word to be "It".
no subject
Date: 2005-04-10 02:06 am (UTC)You're bent. You're so bent that your bendiness has bent back round on itself and is straight again.
...in a *good* way.
I cannot tell you how honored I am that you would write a story just to fuck with my brain. My brain gets no action. It enjoyed this.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-10 07:14 pm (UTC)Although you have the advantage of knowing certain things about my brain. I do very much enjoy being called bent. Not just because it makes me think of Ian McKellan.
You should give your brain some actions *waves tiny flag with the letters "pgy" embroidered delicately onto it*
no subject
Date: 2005-04-10 02:34 pm (UTC)Yes, I saw where this was going during the three years ago episode. I blame it on too much HP fandom. Very amusing and well-written.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 10:08 pm (UTC)Yes, HP fandom is a terribly warping experience, isn't it? To the credit of the Holmes fandom (discredit?) Rex Stout presented his essay "Watson was a Woman" to a BSI gathering in 1941 -- so the gender-bending begain before J.K. Rowling was even born!
no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 04:56 am (UTC)"I must say, however, that I do feel a certain vindication in regards to my first analysis of you on the downs...."
That line got me. ^_^ It's so...HOLMES.
Great work!
no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 06:12 am (UTC)I saw it coming
Obviously HP fandom has forever corrupted your brain! Mine as well, but that's beside the point.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-18 11:36 pm (UTC)