Sherlock Fanfic - The Adventure of the Clumsy Waiter
Title: The Adventure of the Clumsy Waiter
Fandom: Sherlock
Warnings: No beta, and I'm not British. Feel free to point out any mistakes.
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to any of this. I'm just borrowing the toys. I promise to put them back when I'm done with them, good as new.
Summary: Jen gave me the prompt "Sherlock crossdressing for the sake of a case. John doesn't recognize him at first."
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John was going to kill Sherlock.
Not that there was anything new about that. He'd threatened to do it several times already since he'd moved in with the man. This time he really meant it though.
They were supposed to be gathering information about a missing woman. For some reason that wasn't entirely clear to John, this involved Sherlock crashing a fancy dress party at the woman's exclusive club, and John posing as a waiter. Luckily all he had to do was walk around the room with a drinks tray. It was still bloody boring though.
In between trips around the room, he chatted with the regular staff. They all knew the woman, but most of them only knew her by sight and didn't know much more than what had been in the papers when she'd disappeared. One or two had actually spoken with her, or helped her with some minor task at the club. He had a few bits of information that might be useful to Sherlock.
Assuming he could ever find the man.
They hadn't arrived together, since John had to go in through the staff entrance. His questions about how Sherlock was planning to get in had been brushed off. Sherlock would be attending the party so he could talk to the other guests. John shouldn't worry about how.
Unfortunately the party was half over now, and John hadn't seen any sign of him. He could only assume that somehow Sherlock's plan to crash the party had failed. He was probably outside, fuming.
Well, nothing to be done about it now. It wasn't like John could strike up a conversation with the guests while he was handing them their flutes of champagne. He might be able to overhear something, if he was lucky. The missing woman was news. Surely someone who knew her would be talking about it.
John picked up his tray and returned to his rounds.
~*~*~*~
Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock saw John leave the bar with a full tray. Hopefully the doctor was having better luck gathering information than he was. So far most of what Sherlock had been told was either something he knew to be false, or gossip that was ridiculously unlikely.
He'd also had plenty of time to remember why he hated dressing in drag for a case. His feet hurt from the heels, his long, blonde wig was too warm, and he was afraid he'd smeared his mascara when he'd unthinkingly rubbed at his eye.
Unfortunately it had been the best option for this case. There was obviously some well-hidden secret involved in this disappearance, and he was much more likely to find out about it from gossiping with the woman's female friends. They wouldn't be nearly as forthcoming with a man as they would be with another woman.
Not telling John about his disguise had been an impulse. Sherlock was curious to see how well his disguise would hold up with someone who knew him. It was also a good test of John's observational skills.
So far he'd failed miserably. Sherlock had accepted a drink from John twice, and he hadn't even noticed Sherlock standing right in front of him.
An arm suddenly slipped around his waist and Sherlock mentally flinched. His "date" hadn't quite gotten the message that this charade ended when the party was over. Louis had a thing for taking crossdressing men to parties like this. Apparently it annoyed his uncle, which was what passed for a hobby with Louis. Whatever usually happened after the party was none of Sherlock's business, and he intended to keep it that way.
"Do you know how many men have checked you out since we got here?" Louis breathed in Sherlock's ear.
"Twenty-seven," Sherlock replied, in a bored voice. "And two women." The fact that one of those twenty-seven men was John was going to make for an amusing conversation later.
"You're fantastic. The best date I've ever had for one of these things. I want you to come to every party with me from now on."
God, didn't the man ever shut up? Sherlock twisted away from the hand that had slid down from his waist with the obvious intent of groping his arse. "I told you, this is a one time only deal."
"Come on, beautiful, don't be like that." He was breathing drunkenly in Sherlock's ear again, and Sherlock had about had enough. If this didn't stop, he was going to end up making a scene, and that would probably blow his cover.
~*~*~*~
As John made his way around the room, he noticed that the leggy blonde he'd admired earlier seemed to be having a little trouble with her date. Not too surprising, considering the bloke had been at the bar almost as much as he'd been with her. It was obvious that he was refusing to keep his hands to himself, and she was trying to get him to stop without calling too much attention to them.
Well maybe he could do something about that. It might get him fired, but since the party was almost over anyway, it didn't really matter to him. (He supposed Anderson might have a hard time explaining it if he ever tried to get a job as a waiter, but that wasn't very likely.)
John made his way over towards the couple, weaving carefully through the crowd. When he was nearly in front of them, he deliberately walked too close to someone heading the other way. They collided, and John's drinks tray went flying. The trajectory was perfect, and Mr. Grabby Hands was showered with three glasses of champagne.
In the chaos that followed, John was apologizing, Grabby Hands was shouting, and his date managed to get away with the excuse of cleaning up, even though only a few errant drops of champagne had splashed on her long skirt.
Once the mess was cleaned up, "Anderson" was indeed sacked to appease Lord Grabby Hands. Bloody aristocrats. There wasn't any sign of the blonde, so hopefully she had made good her escape.
John made his way down the hallway from the kitchen to the back door. He idly wondered if Sherlock would be outside waiting for him, frustrated and impatient by his inability to get the information he wanted.
John was almost at the door when he noticed the blonde woman from before. She was standing in an alcove near the exit, and from the way she glanced around until she saw him, she was probably waiting for him. Well, at least this probably wasn't another dressing down, since she was waiting out here to do it.
He stopped in front of her and was about to apologize again when a very familiar voice suddenly said "Once again, John, you turn out to be a lifesaver."
~*~*~*~
The look on John's face almost made three hours of standing in high-heels and occasionally being groped worth it.
They were halfway home, and John was still staring at him from the other side of the cab. Sherlock wasn't sure if he was awestruck by the brilliance of the disguise or in a panic because he had inadvertently checked out his male flatmate.
"But your voice," he suddenly protested. "There's no way..."
"Honestly, John," Sherlock said, raising the pitch of his voice slightly. "I even said thank you the second time you handed me a drink. You really are totally unobservant."
John stared some more, and Sherlock just raised an eyebrow. "You could have told me," John protested. "Were you afraid I'd give you away somehow?"
"Not at all. It was just more fun this way," Sherlock smirked. "Any other questions?"
There was obviously something else his flatmate wanted to ask, but he was hesitating. Finally he just blurted it out. "Did you shave your legs?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Yes. With your razor."
That shut John up for the rest of the cab ride home.