Chapter Text
John Watson, a newly discharged army doctor of the British army had found it difficult to adjust to civilian life. He was neither a part of the army nor a part of everyday life. He simply existed to exist. His life had no structure to it. Every day he woke up and there was a hollow feeling in his body, as though something was missing. He was free to do anything whenever he wanted, but that wasn’t what he wanted and definitely not what he needed.
John sat one day in the flat he could only just afford with his army pension (with a hush-hush lowered flat rate from one of his mother’s old friends Mrs Hudson) and after days of debating over his own personal pride over whether or not to, he picked up his phone to call one of his old friends, Mycroft Holmes. After all, he owed him a favour for lending ten quid from when they were sixteen.
Nothing ever happened to John Watson, but it was time to do something about it.
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After speaking at length with Mycroft over the phone prior to having bumped into him in the street the first day he ventured out into the world after the discharge, John asked him whether he’d be able to get him a simple job. Just to put some sort of daily routine back into his life. He was glad at that point that Mycroft managed to climb so high up the rankings in terms of all that politics lark that he never quite understood.
“And how does retail sound to you, John?” Mycroft questioned with thought on the other end of the phone.
“Uh…sounds good. Anything at this point would do me, Myc.” John replied, rubbing his temples. The sooner he had a job, the better. He was wasting away in that flat what with all the mismatched wallpaper and far too many empty seats for comfort.
After the phone call he was left with a sense of fulfilment, which was daft because he hadn’t even gotten a job yet. At least he knew he was going to finally do something and not become a useless sod needing to live on the dole.
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That evening he received a call from Mycroft telling him he had managed to find a job for him and even personally hired a taxi for him tomorrow for his first day at work.
“No, no. I’ll get there on the tube-”
“I must insist, John. The tube is unreliable. Efficiency and promptness are important to an employer on the first day.” John grumbled in half agreement and before he could say anything else Mycroft cut him off again.
“But I’m sorry John, I’ve got to dash now. “Duty calls”, as they say. I shall be checking up on your progress. Goodbye.” Before John could reply, Mycroft had hung up the phone.
John sighed and shook his head with a bemused expression on his face. It wasn’t until a few moments of gathering himself together that he realised he didn’t even ask Mycroft what shop he was working at. He sighed and shrugged, at this point he couldn’t care less whether it was Debenhams or a Poundland. Come to think of it, he still wouldn’t have cared if he told him anyway. And with that John headed off to bed, thankful in the knowledge that when he awoke at seven in the morning it would be with purpose and not just because he couldn’t get back to sleep because of the nightmares.
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Next morning he woke up feeling much better than he had for the past month and a half since returning from Afghanistan. He rushed through his morning routine and just before his last sip of tea Mrs Hudson called from downstairs about a taxi cab waiting for him outside. He headed down and left a kiss on the woman’s cheek before saying farewell and getting into the cab.
He watched London speed past before his eyes; it was odd to think life went on here without him. It was surreal to think that while he was in Afghanistan all these years children were growing up, buildings were being built, technology being developed. It was even stranger to think that while he himself had changed during the army, he’d technically now gone back to square one again. Before enlisting into the army as a doctor he was fresh out of university not knowing what to do, he’d spend a couple of years wandering about in life with a significant lack of excitement in his life when he saw an advert on TV for joining. Training was hard work, getting out into Afghanistan was hard work, and being on the battlefield was hard work. But it was exciting, so wonderfully exciting that he felt a spark practically running through his spine every time he got out there onto the battlefield. All that was gone now. No surge of electricity through his veins anymore, no excitement.
With that last bleak thought the taxi pulled up and John snapped out of his self-pitying daydream. He looked up out of the window and he looked up at the stylised ‘Selfridges’ logo, he pushed his head out to look further down and asked the driver, “Was this taxi for Marks and Spencers?”
“No, mate. Selfridges.” He pointed to the long, well-recognised building. “The guy on the phone said for me to tell you that someone’ll be there to meet you inside.”
The look of bewilderment on John’s face was worth a thousand words. “O…kay…” He muttered as he reached into his trouser pocket for his wallet.
“Oh no! Already paid for. I was just told to drop you off. Have a good day, mate. Try not to get lost or anything.” He added with a chuckle at the sight of John’s face.
John mumbled a “thanks” without taking his eyes off the building and got out of the car, shutting the door behind him. He exhaled deeply and shook his head to himself as he berated himself for failing to remember Mycroft’s knack for being overly dramatic with everything he did. Suddenly he felt a bit underdressed for work in his Primark shirt and trousers and Matalan tie and shoes.
---
Once inside he talked to a girl on of the many perfume desks and she rang someone for him at the head office. After loitering and flirting meaninglessly with one of the customers a very evidently gay man strode up to him, extending his hand.
“James Moriarty! Nice to meet you.” He spoke with an Irish twang, voice wavering up and down as John took his hand and James shook it with great enthusiasm. “I’m head of employment here. Now usually we have to do vigorous checks since we are such a prestigious company but it seems you know some people in high places.”
“Yeah, an old friend of mine managed to help me secure this job.” John replied, not letting anything else known, after all this wasn’t exactly the fairest way of getting a job.
“Our secret. Don’t worry.” James grinned strangely widely at him before looking down at his clipboard, mumbling to himself. “Ah! We’ve got a place we can allocate you. Marsha at Westwood is off on maternity leave so we could squeeze you there for now and see how you get on there, alright?”
“Yes, that sounds good, sir.” John nodded, making a note of how potentially maniacal a character James could be.
“Please! Call me Jim.” He began walking and gestured for John to follow him.
Jim led him through the large department store past women’s catwalk clothing, perfume, make up, up the lifts, across the hall, through Narnia and finally they reached the men’s section of the store. John saw the Vivienne Westwood logo hung above its own checkout desk and a young woman stood behind it stood neatly prepared for any customers to approach.
“John, this is Molly Hooper, Molly, John Watson.” He introduced them, gesturing to each person in turn. “Molly’s only a sales assistant herself but she’s worked here for quite some time now and she’ll show you the ropes around here.” Jim then left in a flourish, claiming he had a lot to do before he made himself scarce not before saying quite a high pitched, “Bye!”
“Is he always like that?” John asked with a grin to himself.
“Well, it’s a bit odd. He used to be straight, or well I thought he was and I dated him for a while until someone pointed out to me that he wasn’t and that he was using me and ever since all I’ve seen him become is gradually more and more…gay.” Molly’s brows furrowed in thought alongside a small pout until she shrugged and settled back into a more professional state. “So, I’ll just show you a couple of basic things, I assume you’re alright with people so I don’t need to tell you to be polite to customers and stuff like that.” John nodded to confirm. “Since you’re new, I’m sure you don’t seem to be the type to be knowledgeable with Westwood?”
“To be fair I’m not knowledgeable with clothes in general. I wear it.” He joked as Molly bit her lip with a half laugh.
“Right so I’ll um, well you could just work at tidying the clothes up and making our section look nice and presentable. I’m sure you’d be alright with that? The lint rollers are in this cupboard and…oh! Today is when the new stock’s coming in so maybe you’d like a go at dressing the mannequins? There are only three of them so they won’t take too long, though that’s going to have to be done after closing time obviously.”
“Yes, that’d be great. Thanks Molly. I’ll get on with it then, eh?” John gave a thankful smile at the girl and went behind the counter to retrieve the suitable materials to begin his job.
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John’s first day was quite alright, whenever a customer approached him he would refer them to Molly for assistance and became her right hand man in the event of retrieving stock at the back for men to try on. It was menial stuff really but the setting gave the whole thing an entirely new light upon his job, just wait until he told Mrs Hudson. Finally it got to closing time and Molly looked at her watch anxiously as she bit her bottom lip.
“Something the matter?” John asked as he noticed her.
“Well, I’ve actually got a date in an hour…would it be terrible of me to leave you to do the mannequins? It’s just that my boyfriend’s on the police force, he’s a Detective Inspector so he doesn’t get that much time off.” Molly played with her fingernails a little with a desperate look on her face and John chuckled.
“It’s fine, Molly. Go on, you can head off. I’ll dress them. It won’t take long. It’s the new stock at the back, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes! Thank you, thank you!” Molly beamed as she nodded, reaching for her handbag already. “The sizes are here in the book so you know and here are the keys to lock up the store room. Thank you so much again.”
John nodded with a smile and away she went. He was glad to be of help, Molly seemed like a nice girl and deserved to have that bit of happiness in her life. John was momentarily reminded of his own love life, or lack of it. He didn’t even have any exceptionally close friends, never mind somebody to share his life with. He shook his head and began moving each of the mannequins to the store room.
Thankfully the mannequins weren’t too heavy to lift and his arm only hurt slightly from the movement, he placed them all before him and sifted through the new stock to find the correct sizes as stated for the mannequins. He removed the old clothes from the first and then replaced it with the new suits which he had to admit quite frankly looked almost exactly the same as the old suit. Fashion would always be a mystery to the normally jumper and plaid shirt wearing John Watson. He quickly moved onto the second mannequin, this one being a larger size than the first averagely sized mannequin so putting the clothes on proved to be slightly more of a challenge as he accidentally popped off its arm in the process. He heaved a sigh of relief when the second one was done and finally he could move onto the third one.
He manoeuvred the mannequin in front of him and found it to be quite a tall and thin figure. He began unbuttoning the suit jacket and looked up at its face taking in the artistry of how its face was shaped. It was odd to see so much detail worked into the face of a store mannequin. It had a long face, wide eyes, a sloped yet shaped nose and its lips seemed to be the most interesting characteristic. They were shaped very finely and the top lip met almost like an ‘M’ below his nose. Unlike the other mannequins, it seemed like whoever made this had took time and effort to give it character. It almost seemed like the maker wanted it to be different from all the other generic-looking mannequins. Even the eyes which were simply shaped into the plaster the face was made of seemed to have much more substance to them than the others. John found himself mesmerised by the face of the mannequin, he reached up from the suit jacket to touch the smoothness of its face, running his fingers across its forehead, its eyes, its nose and down to the mouth he was so intrigued by. He smiled faintly at it and he spoke in a whisper.
“Hello…”
It wasn’t until he heard himself aloud that he took a step back and was able to look back at how weird he was being. “Jesus, John.” He muttered to himself. “Speaking to bloody mannequins, whatever next…”
He finished the job, declothing and reclothing the third mannequin in the ‘new season’s just in’ and carried them all one by one to place back on each respective stand. He clapped his hands together at a job well finished and locked up the store room before going to leave.
He walked steadily down the corridor and zoned out momentarily, without another thought he looked back and saw the character-filled mannequin facing his direction. It was almost like it was looking him. Before he could stop himself, he lifted his hand up and waved at it to say goodbye. Again he snapped his head back and muttered about how he was getting delusional as reached the lift and it opened to take him out of the building to finish his first day of work.