Prompt 117: Lost in Translation

[faithburke.livejournal.com]

Title: Translation Filters
Author: paburke
Cross: BBC Sherlock
Prompt 117: Lost in Translation
Part of the same ‘verse as Stepping on Toes & 221B Baker Street
Word Count: 200

People never said what they meant.

So John Watson worked around this by having different filters for different groups or individuals. The filter would help him translate peoples’ true intentions. People sometimes said the most horrible things without malice. He had a filter for Harry and one for Harry drunk, similar to the filter for drunks. He had a filter for patients, one for doctors and another one for tourists. He was quickly developing a filter for the MET.

His Sherlock-Filter was the one John used most for obvious reasons.

But now, as John saw the corpse displayed in a too familiar pattern, he realized that part of the Afghanistan filter –the supernatural part that he had purposefully forgotten in the desert- was going to be needed. He compared his supernatural filter against his Sherlock filter and realized Sherlock was unaware of the supernatural.

On one hand, if John told Sherlock about the supernatural, the genius would never be bored again.

On the other hand, John shuddered to imagine Sherlock’s experiments concerning the supernatural. Heavens, what would Sherlock store in the fridge?

For his own health and well-being, John decided that his Sherlock filter need not overlap his supernatural filter.



Title: Translation Filters II
Author: paburke
Cross: BBC Sherlock
Prompt 117: Lost in Translation
Part of the same ‘verse as Stepping on Toes & 221B Baker Street
Word Count: 200



The second dismembered body appeared on London streets and John was having flashbacks to Afghanistan. He was getting sloppy with his filters, starting to use the war filter instead of the MET filter. At least he wasn’t using the supernatural filter.

He wasn’t sure Sherlock was tearing enough of his attention away from his ‘fascinating’ case to realize that his roommate was going bonkers.

Then Oz and his blonde girlfriend showed up at the crime scene and took over. They made the cops pack up and leave but Sherlock was being stubborn. John just watched. Oz made a lot more sense through a supernatural filter. John remembered Oz’s innate gentleness and quiet humor and decided the supernatural didn’t matter. Oz was interesting and a potential friend, even if he was connected to the supernatural. Now he watched the girlfriend manipulate Sherlock with some degree of surprise.

“She’s got a psychology degree,” Oz informed him from the sidelines. “And she raised her younger sister.”

“She take patients?” John blurted out. The blonde would be a shrink with whom John could be totally honest and one that wouldn’t let Mycroft at her notes.

“Why not?”

John wasn’t sure how to interpret that.

Comments

[kerravonsen]

The blonde would be a shrink with whom John could be totally honest and one that wouldn’t let Mycroft at her notes.

Oh, I like that idea!

[tvashti.livejournal.com]

Ditto! I was going to say the same thing.

[jerseyfabulous.livejournal.com]

These just made me do a happy dance. Buffy manipulating Sherlock is awesome, but Buffy becoming John's shrink is more awesome still. :)

[rhi]

Oh, man. I can just see Buffy if Mycroft tried to *get* her notes. Thank you, these were great.

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

These are a lot of fun. And Buffy would probably irritate both Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft Holmes if she became John's shrink: her being good at it would likely irritate Sherlock and her having excellent security would likely irritate Mycroft. Wonderful.