Chapter Text
“Shit, why would she…” Although Philip stopped himself mid-sentence, his cursing was loud enough to be heard from halfway across the lawn. A few moments later, he plopped down gracelessly on the grass next to Greg and Joan.
“What happened to you, mate? Sally turn you down?” Greg asked, a wide grin on his face.
Philip’s eyes narrowed and he looked away. “So what if she did,” he grumbled.
Greg shrugged innocently. “It’s not like you’ve been mooning over her for months…”
At that point, Joan had to interrupt the exchange. “Would one of you mind telling me what’s going on? Who’s Sally?”
“She’s in one of our seminars,” Greg explained. “Philip here has had a crush on her for ages and today he apparently finally managed to ask her out.”
“And a fat lot of good that did me,” Philip said bitterly. “I just met her in the café by coincidence, so I took my chances and asked her out. I even offered to pay for her coffee! But no, not good enough for her, it seems. She’s probably still sitting there now, glad that the idiot who thought he stood a chance with her left.”
Joan patted him on the shoulder in an effort to be consoling, though she doubted it’d work.
“Let’s be real though,” Greg said. “Philip doesn’t have enough practice. Joan though… Joan would have managed to get a date with her. I mean, who’s ever turned you down?”
“It’s happened a few times,” Joan said, lips quirking. “Want me to give it a try? I could go over there right now and ask for a date.”
Philip’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t do that to me.”
Joan laughed. “If you want, I could spend the whole date just talking about how great you are. Would that be alright?”
Philip scoffed. “Just wonderful.”
“Okay, so what does this Sally look like?” Joan asked, and Philip’s eyes widened.
“You’re not really going to do that?” he asked incredulously.
“Oh come on, she’s already turned you down, how much worse can it get?” Greg said, winking at Joan, who rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “I actually think she’s in one of your lectures as well,” Greg added in her direction. “That Anatomy thing you’ve got on Mondays?”
Joan raised an eyebrow. “There are only 200 people in that lecture, but alright, go ahead and describe her.”
Philip sighed woefully. “Dark. Curly hair. Perfect skin. Cute nose. Smallish breasts, but they’re perfect nevertheless…” He sighed again.
Greg snorted. “Tell her what she was wearing. Might be more helpful.”
“Um.” Philip blinked. “I don’t remember the details. Some black jacket or trench coat or something, I think.”
“Very helpful,” Greg said with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s a small café, I’ll find her,” Joan said with a relaxed shrug.
“And what if you don’t find her attractive?” Philip asked in a last-ditch attempt to stop her from going.
Joan laughed as she got up and patted her butt and legs to get the grass and dirt off. “Then I’ll come straight back here, don’t worry.”
*~*~*
Joan entered the café, stealthily surveying its customers. There weren’t that many, but it wasn’t until after she had bought herself an alibi coffee and rounded the corner to where a row of tables for two was set up that she spotted her.
Joan really had seen her before in that Anatomy lecture. Who wouldn’t have noticed her, tall and mysterious, elegant and broody? Joan certainly wasn’t shy, but now that she was faced with the task ahead, she couldn’t help but feel a tad nervous. Philip had certainly been accurate in his description of Sally.
As casually as possible, Joan pretended to decide on a table before walking over to the one right next to Sally’s. She placed her coffee on it, sat down on the bench next to Sally, and sighed as if she had just come from a three hour lecture.
Sally, who had appeared to be deeply engrossed in something or other on her phone, looked up suddenly, torn out of her thoughts by Joan’s arrival. Her sharp blue eyes widened for just a moment when she saw Joan before she assumed an expression somewhere between neutral, bored, and annoyed, and looked down at her phone again.
Joan frowned for a second, but then she shrugged it off and just said, “Hey,” looking at her with a friendly smile.
This time when Sally looked up, her expression had tipped over into annoyed. Great.
“Aren’t we in the same anatomy lecture?” Joan asked, mostly undeterred.
Sally raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. “You, me, and 200 other people.”
Joan grinned cheekily. “And yet there’s only one person there I want to get to know better.”
Sally pressed her lips together, forcing herself to look cross, but Joan could see the colour creeping up her pale cheeks. Then, for just a moment, Sally’s eyes seemed to be roaming over Joan, moving rapidly to take in every detail, before she was staring straight at her again.
“You,” Sally began, her deep voice intent. “Are the captain of the rugby team; I’d be able to see it in your musculature and the way you walk even if I had not seen it in the university newspaper. You read medicine, obvious; you stay behind after the anatomy lecture because you also take the class after that in the same lecture hall, and that class is for students of medicine only. You spent the last hour or so lying on the lawn behind the chemistry building over there, before then it would have been too windy for someone wearing such a thin jacket, but there is still some grass sticking to your trousers, so you definitely lay there. Need I go on?”
Joan shrugged. “Is there more?”
Sally let out a laugh. “There’s always more. Just twenty minutes ago, a young man by the name of Anderson left this café after being turned down. Now you’re here, obviously coming on to me. Coincidence? I think not.”
Joan narrowed her eyes. “Is that an accusation?”
“Oh, spare me that. Why else would you talk to me, if not to prove you’re better at getting dates than he is?” Sally spit out the word as if it left a sour taste in her mouth, then turned toward her own table again. “I don’t get asked out. Period.”
Joan gave her a look. “Anderson does count, you know.”
Sally turned toward Joan again, face uncomprehending. “Anderson asked Sally out. What does that have to do with me?”
Joan just looked at her for a long moment. “So you’re not Sally,” she finally stated.
Not-Sally blinked. “No.”
“But you… Who are you then?”
“I’m Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes,” Not-Sally said, and Joan’s eyes widened.
“You’re Sherlock? The one who works with the police and goes around offending everyone?” Joan laughed. “I can’t believe it. We go to the same lecture this whole semester and this is how I meet you.”
Sherlock’s mouth tightened. “It’s not like it’s my fault you thought I was Sally.”
“Oh, no!” Joan held up her hands. “I’m glad about it! You’ve got to be the most interesting person on campus.”
“Interesting doesn’t equal nice,” Sherlock pointed out, voice terse.
Joan’s lips quirked. “Certainly nice to look at though.”
Sherlock blushed and folded her arms over her chest. “There was a misunderstanding and we cleared it up. No need to keep flirting with me.”
“But I want to. Unless it bothers you?” Joan was half-turned toward Sherlock, one arm on the backrest of the bench, her head leaning against her hand.
Sherlock sighed, sounding put-upon. “I’ll survive.”
“Good. Because I’d hate to stop before I got the chance to ask you out.”
There was a beat of silence. “I don’t date,” Sherlock said, voice not exactly quiet, but lacking the surety it had held when she had deduced Joan.
Joan’s gaze slid down to where Sherlock was grasping her phone with both hands. “Have you ever tried it?”
“I don’t see the point in it,” Sherlock said, eyes flicking up to Joan’s and away again.
“It’ll be fun, I promise.” Joan inched closer to Sherlock, pressing her knee against Sherlock’s thigh. “We could go to the cinema. Watch a movie and whisper to each other in the dark.”
Sherlock looked down to where their legs were touching, and for a moment Joan thought she’d convinced her. Sherlock’s hand slid up to Joan’s knee, her fingers flitting over it with feathery touches – then she shoved Joan’s leg away forcefully.
“You must think I’m really stupid,” Sherlock hissed as she got up and put her mug away. Joan jumped up and followed her to the door.
“Wait!”
By some miracle, Sherlock actually stopped in the doorway.
Joan scrambled to pull a pen and a piece of paper out of her bag. She scribbled down her number, the paper pressed against the wall, and handed it to Sherlock.
Sherlock just looked at it, perplexed.
Joan smiled. “Call me sometime, yeah? Even just to hang out. Doesn’t have to be a date.”
For a moment Sherlock stared at her, face impassive, before turning and quickly walking away.