Chapter Text
Greg is looking at his team members, unhappy with the dismissive look they are giving him. Then, no one was looking in his direction, all suddenly distracted by their electronic devices. “I need someone!” Playing impatiently with his pen, he waits. And waits. “We need someone on site! It’s not the fucking mafia, it’s only a bloody college! If nobody volunteer to do it... I will FORCE someone. I will, don’t make any mistake –”
Exchanging one last glance with her colleagues, Donovan says, “Sir?”
“Donovan! Great, thank you, you are not as –”
“No, no...” she clears her voice, not believing what she was about to say, “we can’t do it, I’m sorry but we need the –” she knows how her boss didn’t like it when they call him The Freak. “We need Holmes.”
“Sherlock?” Lestrade’s eyes survey the room slowly, perusing the men and women around the table. Objectively, they are all looking a bit too old, a bit too stiff, a bit too ‘copper’. And most of them wouldn’t be able to follow a College science class without making a fool of themselves. It’s not that they were idiots, it just that chemistry isn’t that useful in their line of work. Except maybe for Anderson, but we certainly don’t talk about Anderson! And anyway, he’s not a cop. “Really? Sherlock?”
“Who else, Sir?” Donovan replies, clearly not happy about the only option they have, “Christine in Vice is young enough, but she’s a bit... you know. And Michael would have been perfect but he’s out on paternity leave.”
“Okay, I’m going to check with the boss, but I’m not happy about this...” and I have the feeling that his brother going to be less than please, shit.
2 hours later
“So, if I understand well, you want me to do undercover work for you, as an official special member of your team?” he stops talking, a smug smile on his face. That is really a first as he’s not even an official consultant and wasn’t paid at all by the Met. “Is this because, I don’t want to get this wrong you know, it is because your detectives are incompetents?” The joy in having an opportunity to shame Scotland Yard is evident in Sherlock’s oversweet tone.
Of course, the git is going to rub in it! “No, it’s because none of them has the right profile and nobody is –”
“Intelligent, brilliant, able to follow a college course without looking like overgrown brainless teenagers?”
“Nobody still looks like a bloody brooding schoolboy!” Exasperated, Greg drinks the last drop of his cold coffee. God, I need a break! “Come on, isn’t what you wanted all along? To be taken seriously? Being paid as a real consultant? Don’t make me beg Sherlock, but we really need you!”
Removing his coat, the detective finally sits in front of the DI’s desk. “Okay, explain everything...”
“As you know, a new drug appeared on the street a few months ago named B/O. At first, it was only a few doses, a few vendors, but the rhythm is going faster and faster since the beginning of the month.”
Before Greg is able to add more, Sherlock interrupts him impatiently, “I know, give me something new!”
“Last week, we caught a vendor in Shoreditch, two days ago it was in –”
“Camden! I know! What’s NEW?”
“That one talked!” The DI replies, happy to finally have something that Sherlock wasn’t aware of. They’ve been discreet about this affair, not wanting the gangs or the lab behind the drug to be aware that they have found something. “His contact said that the drug comes from King’s College and –” The young detective, suddenly agitated, isn’t listening anymore. Of course, from the two dozen universities in London, it’s going to be at King’s. Pushing away a flashback of his years in another posh university, Oxford, he refocuses on Greg’s words. “The leader is in Life Science and Medicine but he’s probably got the help from someone in the Chemistry department.”
He pauses, looking at Sherlock seriously, not liking the way he seems lost to the world around him. Talking softly, in an almost fatherly tone, he asks, “Are you up for it, Sunshine?” The nickname he gave him when he met him years ago, a bright young junkie who was in dire need of a purpose in life, escapes his lips before he was able to stop it. “Sorry, Sherlock, I know that you always found it childish.” He smiles, thinking how insulted the genius had been when he first called him ‘Sunshine’. Sherlock was in the drunk tank, waiting for someone to pick him up, and Lestrade used the nickname just to get a reaction from the dark sulking kid. It certainly worked, the man silently chuckles.
“I’ll do it.”He rises and shrugs into his Belstaff before heading for the door.
“SHERLOCK! We need to talk about details, about aliases and everything!”
Already out of the DI’s office, the detective barely slows down as he shouts, “send me the details by email.”
That night, at Baker Street
“And why did they didn’t place you as a TA or don?” Mycroft questions as he pours out two drinks.
“Something about students being the usual clients...” Sherlock catches his brother flinch at the thought of Sherlock being used as bait to catch a drug’s dealer, and he shakes his head. “Don’t worry! I will not test the drugs or do anything broadly ‘recreational’. I’m just going to go to class and talk with fellow students. Nothing more.”
Frowning, as he has a bad feeling about the case, Mycroft argues, “are you sure, brother mine? You weren't that successful the first time around.”
“I have a diploma with mention written on it somewhere that prove that it wasn’t a total failure.” Where is it? I think it may be at the cottage, in my old room. Or maybe at the bank with other papers...
“Yes, I know and stop fussing, your diploma is at my place with your other important papers.” He stays silent a little, admiring the colour of the whisky he brought, and shakes his head with a little sigh. “Still don’t know how you were able to finish your Master with all the other... distractions .” The small disgust in Mycroft’s voice when he said Master wasn’t lost to the younger Holmes.
“Get over it, so I don’t have a post-doc! So what, I don’t want to be a teacher or a researcher,” It was true that he really doesn’t care about that, the most intelligent people he knew have never been to college! “Anyway, you may have a doctorate in international politics, but it’s nothing of importance. It’s not science .”
Not wanting to start an argument about the usefulness of Political Science and the merits of ‘soft’ sciences versus ‘real’ sciences, he simply continues, “it’s not the academic work that worries me, it’s... the students, the teachers, the people, do you think you'll be able to cope?”
Laughing lightly, Sherlock sits in his chair savouring his drink, “Yes, of course! This is only a role after all. And I have changed, I am not the same that I was back then.”
“Maybe... but, be careful brother mine, be careful. You may have changed, but people are still morons.” With this absolute truth – even Sherlock didn’t argue about that! Mycroft left his brother to read the files that Lestrade had sent over.