A Case of Identity

When Lestrade heard that an American heiress had disappeared during her wedding reception in London, his first thought was a publicity stunt. Once he'd met Lord St. Simon, though, he was pretty certain that Hatty Doran had got cold feet just too late. Easier ways of picking up a title nowadays than marrying a moralising twerp.

He had to have the Serpentine dragged, of course, once they found the wedding dress, even though it was probably a decoy. If you wanted to drown someone in London, everyone knew that you used the Thames. Nothing conclusive in the text message left on Hatty's phone from "FHM". Hatty would surely know all about Flora Millar from the tabloids; unlikely she'd go off to meet St. Simon's former mistress only after she'd married him.

Next stop was tracing where the text had come from: mobile last used in a posh hotel in Northumberland Avenue. Bit more digging and Lestrade was playing a call on Francis H. Moulton. Only surprise was that he was Hatty's first husband, who'd supposedly been killed by guerrillas while mining gold in Colombia.

"Get back to the States as quick as you can," he told the pair, "before I have to arrest you for something. I can hold St. Simon for a few days, tell him Scotland Yard are baffled."

Irene guesses Sherlock's secret as soon as she spots the rumpled sheets in the Karachi hotel room.

"You're an insomniac," she announces. "Explains a lot."

"Does it?" Sherlock says dismissively.

"The pallor, the irritability. Why you stare into the fire for hours on end. You don't dream, so you use other techniques to unfocus your mind. Till you can spot the patterns that your conscious brain can't deduce."

"Sleeping is boring," Sherlock retorts. She smiles and yawns luxuriously, and his jaw twitches as he fights not to follow suit.

"You'd sleep well after sex," she says softly.

"Your solution to every problem," he sneers.

"Don't knock it till you've tried it."

It takes two hours before he's willing to get undressed, but she can be very persistent.

"Think of me as a distraction technique," she tells him. "Occupying just enough of your brain for it to relax." Her mouth and hands are slow, but relentless, trickling sensations into him.

"No hurry," she adds, when his body finally starts to strain after fulfilment, realises the possibilities it had missed. He gasps when he comes and then lies still, his eyes closed to avoid her gaze. Fine by her.  She wakes him up the next morning from a deep sleep, and smiles her most dangerous smile.

"That was fun. Now let's have breakfast."

BBC Sherlock

Rating: 15 (swearing, slash, femslash, het)

Spoilers: for Scandal in Belgravia.

For Bloom84's Laud Lestrade prompt: Choosing a P.E. teacher over Greg Lestrade? That's just utterly implausible. There must be some really complicated backstory to explain that fantasy plotline. Unless the P.E. teacher is Michael Fassbender--and then I still have my doubts. Please give me a fic that sorts this out.

Note: NFB (Normal For Bridgwater) is an abbreviation allegedly used by medical staff in Somerset for patients with non-specific mental confusion.

Betaed by the wonderful Fengirl88

BBC Sherlock fanfic
Rating 12 (het)
Spoilers: The Blind Banker
Written for a prompt I now can't trace about this blog post in which John attempts to stop people confusing himself and Sherlock.
2100 words