A/N: 16/5/12: I haven't made any changes to the story. I've just taken out most of the Author notes and proofread a bit - published, if you like.

Anyone new to the story, this is a stereotypical melodrama AU in which John is your superhero and Sherlock, your super-villain. Enjoy. Please review.

-for you!

People go to costume parties as Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. They usually go together, which some people find strange. What's stranger, though, is that on the odd occasion where one goes alone, it's always as Holmes. No-one ever dresses up as Doctor Watson without Sherlock Holmes. It's an interesting statement on today's society, really.

Maybe it's because Doctor John H. Watson, M.D., is a normal sort of guy and there isn't much that distinguishes him from your average Joe Bloggs. Maybe it's because it's fun to be bad once in a while. Maybe it's because like it or not, and most people really don't, Sherlock Holmes is a lot better-looking than Doctor Watson. Or maybe it's because John Watson gets that look on his face when people idolise him, whereas Sherlock Holmes – if he's ever around, and you'd better hope he isn't – doesn't seem at all averse to it.

People generally expect Watson to be more… well, heroic. I mean, sure, there's the flying and the super strength and the lazer-beam eyes and all, and sure, he does use them from time to time (at least once a week) to save the lives of innocent Londoners, but he doesn't really seem the hero type. He doesn't stand in a melodramatic pose while adoring fans crowd around him; as soon as the day's been saved he slips off, and of course nobody sees him go.

People write stories about their battles. Sherlock Holmes is a genius – everyone knows it, even him – and while avid fans scribe elaborate, wild and clever plots and schemes for him the real thing is always more horrible and somehow more fantastic. But the fictions have their merit: sometimes Doctor Watson won't arrive on time and the brilliant villain will finally get his victory; sometimes Holmes will suffer a last-minute change of heart and set his hostages free, weeping; sometimes the famous pair will even down weapons and suddenly reach for each other in a convoluted, clumsy embrace.

Ludicrous and improbable as these scenarios are, even Sarah Sawyer, Watson's long-suffering girlfriend, has to admit there's something between the so-called superhero and his celebrated nemesis. Something in the way they're so attuned to each other that the good doctor always knows when Holmes is doing something especially devious, and that the self-professed detective has an impressive knack for guessing exactly when to crash the party or knock down Big Ben – usually when Watson's in the middle of an important part of his day job at the local medical clinic, just about to vaccinate a baby or test someone for prostate cancer. Yes; the odd fanatic shippers that write horribly explicit scenes between the two in Holmes' darkened lair definitely have reason to be adored. John Watson despises the fandom; Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, often plays with it in the middle of their confrontations, suddenly spouting lines from some of the more celebrated pieces that make Watson blush an angry red.

Today, though, neither man's heart was really in it. They were sort of just going through the motions; Holmes had kidnapped Sarah and tied her to a gargoyle on the roof of Westminster Abbey and Watson was on his way, dodging confused pigeons and street lamps as he wove his way to the heart of London.

Sherlock Holmes was making a big deal of rubbing his hands together in a villainous sort of way and Watson was looking his most heroic with a cardigan slung around his shoulders billowing out behind him like a cape, one fist raised as if to rent the air as he sped towards the Abbey. People rushed out into the street to watch their hero zoom by, cheering. Sherlock watched from where he'd rerouted the CCTV cameras to his laptop, waving the images teasingly in front of Sarah's face.

"He's coming for you, Miss Sawyer," he said teasingly, stroking a long white finger down her cheek. Sarah Sawyer shuddered slightly at his touch, but looked up at him with steely green eyes.

"Of course he is," she said determinedly. "He's coming to kick your skinny little butt, like always."

Sherlock Holmes chuckled and gazed keenly into the distance, but John Watson wasn't within his line of sight yet. "Not this time, Sarah," he spat, casting a disgusted look at her before resuming his former pose. "Not this time."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Ooh, deja-vu," she said brightly, faking a shiver. "Is it me, or have I heard you say that a hundred times?"

Sherlock thought about this. Sarah had started dating Watson about three years ago… yes, a hundred times was a fairly safe bet. He ignored it; John Watson's silhouette had become visible over the rooftops of London. "Here he comes." Sarah laughed triumphantly, but Sherlock's villainous chuckle drowned her out. Before she could wonder what he had to laugh about, he was gone, jumped off the roof of Westminster Abbey on the opposite side to where her gargoyle was facing.

Sarah would have panicked if it was possible to panic with Doctor Watson in your line of sight. She couldn't see Holmes – had he really just jumped off the roof? – and he'd seemed far too smug. A smug Sherlock Holmes was bad news, she knew that from three years of ruined dates and forgotten birthdays.

Doctor John H. Watson landed on the roof of the London landmark perhaps a little harder than necessary for dramatic effect; the whole Abbey shook and little chips of limestone jumped around his feet as he held the pose, catlike, on one knee with the other fist on the ground, for a few seconds to let the dust of his arrival settle. Then he got up and looked around, his gaze taking in Sarah, tied with Duct tape to a gargoyle, and the emptiness of the rest of the roof.

"Are you okay?" he asked his girlfriend, not moving towards her in case she was booby-trapped; he'd almost fallen for that trick once before.

"I'm fine," the woman replied calmly. She'd been kidnapped by Holmes perhaps too many times to still be frightened by it. And it was difficult to be frightened around John, with his aura of almost military safeness and his blue-green eyes like the sea after a storm. "Holmes went that way – he saw you coming and just jumped off like a lunatic."

John Watson smiled kindly at her. "He's finally learnt that I can kick his arse from here to Cornwall," he remarked softly.

"I'm not booby-trapped or anything," she supplied, shifting uncomfortably around the cold limestone of the gargoyle. "You can untie me."

Watson could have disposed with the Duct tape with his eyes, but he knew Sarah liked to be touched, so he stepped towards her, letting his hero-face fall and showing her the John Watson he became when the cameras stopped flashing, kind and soft, and reached out to the end of the silver tape.

As soon as he was within arms' reach, the gargoyle stood up and closed its arms around the two of them, trapping John and Sarah in its stony embrace like something out of Ghostbusters. A laugh became audible over the wind, a deep rolling chuckle that both of them knew terribly well. Pressed up against the stone and Sarah's chest, Doctor Watson could see the joins in the stone – a well-constructed robot, then. He hadn't seen the lines before.

Sherlock Holmes stepped back onto the roof, his leather boots making the tiniest of tapping noises, his black high-collar cape flapping dramatically in the wind, still laughing his deep-throated laugh, as smoke began to pour from somewhere and paint the sky dark colours, obscuring the sun and sending flashes of blue lightning spinning around the two of them.

Sarah coughed; it was that sort of smoke they used in stage productions, and it smelled awful. Why did they both always have to be so dramatic? She turned her head slightly until her nose was pressed against John's cheek. "Get us out of here," she whispered.

Had the gargoyle-robot been holding them slightly looser, she would have seen an odd expression take hold of her boyfriend's face, clouding his brave eyes and twisting that strong mouth. Even if she had seen it, she wouldn't have recognised it; that sort of look never appeared on that sort of face. But she couldn't see the face, and didn't see the look. All she saw was the muscles rippling in her doctor's bare arms as he pushed outwards, a move that would send a stronger stone than the lime of the Abbey flying in a million pieces.

But nothing happened. Sarah heard a grunt of exertion and felt rather than saw the frown crease the other man's face as he redoubled his efforts: still nothing. Sherlock Holmes kept laughing. "Why don't you set your girlfriend free, Doctor?"

Sarah felt something hot brush her sleeve and the Duct tape trapping her to the statue fell away. She wriggled a few times until she managed to slip out between her boyfriend's legs and stagger free. Sherlock ignored her, and the arms of the gargoyle clamped down harder around the doctor's relatively small form. "Easy, Molly, we don't want to hurt the good doctor, now, do we?" he purred to the statue. Watson looked around in alarm; Molly Hooper was Holmes' depressingly loyal assistant. Was she controlling the robot?

"Holmes, the day you manage to hurt me is a sad day for London," Watson remarked coolly. Holmes gave one of his infamous little half-smiles.

"D-day for London, I daresay," he parried back. The super-villain looked around in mock contemplation. "Could be today, you know."

Watson snorted in derision. "Sorry to bust your bubble, but I think you'll have to wait."

Sherlock Holmes took an involuntary step back in case the doctor was about to make a miraculous escape – that would be rather in keeping with the norm – but John Watson made a few half-hearted wriggles before desisting. Holmes chuckled. "So confident, Doctor Watson," he crooned, stepping right in close again, lowering his voice and his face until he was close enough to kiss the smaller man. "And yet you're trapped – why, a word from me could blow you to smithereens. If I can't hurt you, then why don't you just fly away with your girlfriend?"

John Watson lifted his storm-tossed eyes to meet Sarah's. Her eyes were asking the same question: why hadn't he broken free? "Run, Sarah," he said clearly.

Sarah Sawyer was a brave woman. It was hard not to be, really, the number of times she'd been kidnapped, tossed off skyscrapers, covered in explosives, left in basements and all manner of other foul things at the hands of the man in front of her, paying no more attention to her than he would a spider. But there was a look in those eyes that said it was better to be alive and a little bit scared than stubbornly brave and dead, so she took a hesitant step back, and then another. Then she heard a mumbling from the doctor and couldn't help but stop to catch the rest of the action.

"I didn't quite catch that, Doctor Watson," Sherlock breathed, his mouth almost touching the trapped man's ear, his own pink shell a hair's breadth from Watson's lips. The doctor leaned his head back, that expression back on his face – but again, Sarah couldn't see it, because this time Sherlock was in the way.

"I said there must be silver in your gargoyle," Watson repeated, loud enough for Sarah to hear it too.

Sherlock Holmes stepped back. "Well, yeah," he said, puzzled. "There's silver wiring for the microphones. Why?"

The so-called hero closed his eyes in something akin to resignation. Sarah took another step back – what was going on? "Silver… weakens me," he explained wearily, struggling desperately again. Sherlock Holmes blinked like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Wait, what?" Sarah Sawyer had heard enough – she wasn't sure what kind of game John was playing, but she didn't think it was funny anymore, and so she turned and ran across the roof to the side Holmes had jumped off. "You mean you're actually trapped, and you can't get free?"

John Watson grunted in exertion again as he pushed fruitlessly against the arms of the gargoyle. Then he went limp, and nodded. Sherlock Holmes laughed in disbelieving triumph. "Well, then," he said silkily, the childlike excitement trembling in his voice, "I think it's time to say goodnight, Doctor Watson." And just like that, the villain turned on his heel and strode determinedly away. "Molly? Fire."

Sarah had almost reached the edge of the roof when the deafening explosion stopped her in her tracks and blew her off her feet. Sherlock, too, had fallen with his black cape over his face; he pushed it back in time to see a limestone hand hit the ground amid the peppery rattle of debris hitting the roof. A deep black scorch mark had been left on the pale stone, fingers of soot reaching out in all directions. Sherlock watched, stunned, as charred fragments of black-and-red-striped cardigan floated gently to rest.

Sarah Sawyer clambered to her feet, waiting, holding her breath – this was the part when John landed, laughing, pointing a mocking finger at how easily his nemesis had been fooled. But what landed with a sickening crack at the fancied detective's feet was not laughing. Sarah screamed as she recognised it; even Sherlock, still blank-faced with shock, scrambled away from it hurriedly as it rolled to rest in front of him. It was scorched and cracked and broken in places, but it was still recognisably a skull.

The skull of Doctor John H. Watson.