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holmesticeTitle: The Final Problem (Seriously)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
who_is_small
Recipient:tencinoir
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John, Steven Moffat
Rating: PG
Warnings: BBC Sherlock/RL AU. Contains SPOILERS! for the ending of the BBC series.
Summary: "When the screenwriters are out of their depth - which is always - they consult me."
Writer's block is annoyingly fancy name for getting bloody stuck.
Steven Moffat, writer and producer, paced the floor of his BBC office and cursed like a drunken sailor.
Consider, for example, Dr. Who. The series have a status of a sodding national treasure nearing some sort of a cult, followed by masses of rabid worshippers in Dalek costumes and monitored by vicious internet forums packed with nerds, nitpicking every single flaw in the production with their home-made sonic screwdrivers.
Yet for one particular reason, writing scripts for Dr. Who was a bloody breeze compared to writing Sherlock.
The BBC adaptation was a raging success. Second series got commissioned in a record time. Which was great, it really was. Except for one tiny problem.
Steven was quite pleased with the way A Study in Pink shaped up. Final edit of The Blind Banker made him crow with glee. And The Great Game, written by Mark Gatiss, had all the marks of a BBC classic and Steven felt pretty cheerful until he realised that he would be the one who needed to write the next story after The Cliffhanger.
His colleague left the heroes stuck with snipers aiming at their necks, a pile of semtex ready to blow up at their feet and an arch-enemy loaded with deadly one-liners a few yards away. By a bloody pool, no less. The Reichenbach Falls of 21st century. I bet he imagined he was being subtle, thought Steven, hitting the delete key harder than necessary.
He briefly entertained the possibility of driving to Mark's home and slapping him with the rolled-up script. It would of course have to be the script of The Great Game because Steven's script for the new series contained only three words so far:
FADE IN: INT.
so, it wouldn´t hurt. Unless he wrapped a brick in it. Mmm.
He mentally reviewed a list of possible solutions.
1. Bulletproof vests? The way Sherlock's shirt and slim-cut jacket were clinging to his body, no one would swallow that.
2. Blowing up the bomb and then elegantly fade in to a hospital, where the heroes would wake up severely bruised, yet not permanently crippled, while baddie escapes? Hell, when the granny blew up, 11 people went with her. This would require some seriously short memory from the viewers. No.
3. Mycroft coming to help? How pathetically deux ex machina. Quiet Days in Cliché.
4. Moriarty cannot do it. Oh, yes, he motherfucking can.
5. John reveals that Moriarty and Sherlock are brothers. Oh my actual Jesus Christ on a biscuit I need someone to fix me a drink.
All in all, as far as he was concerned, Holmes was as dead as dust. There was simply no way he could escape. Steven clicked his remote to watch the final scene of The Great Game again and counted the red dots, dancing on Sherlock´s suit and throat.
Five.
Five highly trained professional hitmen - Moriarty would take only the best of them on a mission like this, when putting his own sodding skin at risk.
The producer threw the remote on a table and groaned, covering his face with his hands.
"Oh my, what a conundrum. How about me ripping John's clothes off in a darkened swimming pool?" drawled a familiar voice behind his back. "That would surely be an efficient way how to… divert our enemy's attention?"
Steven froze for a moment. Oh no, he thought. Not again. Then he took a deep breath and turned around.
Sherlock Holmes was sitting in the most comfortable armchair in the office, legs crossed, hands in the pockets of his coat, his eyes cold.
Now, some people want to meet their heroes in their lives. Steven Moffat was not one of those people. Yet, Sherlock Holmes in the flesh, bearing just the slightest resemblance to Benedict Cumberbatch (but also to Jeremy Brett and illustrations by Sidney Paget at the same time), started to materialize shortly after the writing of the first episode began. He spent his visits sneering, insulting the quality of the script and generally bullying. A small consolation was that the other two writers had it just as bad.
"I see that the level of your incompetence remains, as ever, swinging deep below the usual standard," said Holmes conversationally.
Steven winced and waited for a quarter of a second.
AH and heeere it was. The familiar wave of defensive feeling rolled over him, tinged by sense of inadequacy and general irritation. He squeezed his eyelids shut, pulling himself together.
I am an internationally acclaimed, successful author and producer, he thought firmly. I lead a team of the best writers in the country. I have won two BAFTAs and four Hugo Awards. I am kind to children and small animals. Last week, I helped an old lady to cross the Bayswater Road. I definitely, definitely deserve to be here. Maybe he got bored and buggered off. Oh God, please let him get bored and bugger off.
He opened his eyes.
Sherlock Holmes was sneering at him from his favourite armchair.
"Look," said Steven Moffat, "You really have to stop doing that."
He got silence for his trouble.
"I mean it," insisted the producer. "You are freaking me out."
"I am wounded," said Sherlock Holmes, sprawled in his seat. "After I gave so many lines of script to you and your colleagues. I practically wrote the thing for you. Yet, who will be hoovering up all the awards? Tsk, tsk."
"Ha!" the producer replied, "I know these lines of yours. Don't talk out loud, Moffat, you lower the IQ of the entire street. Shut up with your 'thinking' Gatiss, it's annoying. Stop inflicting your opinions on the world, Thompson, what must it be like to live in this tiny little mind of yours? Rubbish, every single one of them."
"Why did they all end up in the script then?" asked Sherlock pleasantly. "When the screenwriters are out of their depth - which is always - they consult me. And so today I am once again coming to your aid."
"Piss off."
There was a prolonged silence, which Moffat really enjoyed. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.
"But of course," said Sherlock, clapping his hands, and jumped up, "as you wish. Good luck with your script, my dear friend." He produced a shark-like smile and nodded towards the laptop on the desk, "for it looks like you will need it."
Steven looked at the monitor, which replied:
FADE IN: INT.
"Considering the state of your cuff-links," said the voice behind him, "I deduce that the deadline for your script is in four weeks." Footsteps, click. "Good day."
"Sherlock, wait!"
Silence.
"...please?"
Footsteps and a smell of fine wool.
"You need me to help you with the stalemate," said Sherlock, leaning on the desk beside Steven. The producer looked up at him.
"I propose to you," Sherlock said in intense, quiet voice, "a deal. A mutually beneficial exchange. I will tell you how I got me and John out of that place. And you, my little script scribbling friend," he leaned a bit closer, almost growling "will get me what I want in return. A solution to my... Final Problem."
Steven blinked. "Your Final Problem," he repeated. "Seriously?"
"The world I am currently operating in, the 'movie' world, if you wish, is bound by the laws of canon." said Sherlock. "As you can see, I have managed to... modify... some of the rules. I can not, however, break all of them. It is probably clear even to you that I am not pleased with this situation."
"What- what is it then?"
"Elementary, my dear Moffat," drawled the detective, smirking in a way which made Steven feel simultaneously mesmerised and irritated. "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
Steven stared at him. Then he felt his facial muscles breaking into a smile.
"All emotions," he quoted, "and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind."
A pause.
"What a shock, mate," the producer could hardly contain his mirth now, "I mean to say-"
"I see," said Sherlock coldly, "and I should not be surprised, really, though I would have hoped that a writer" - the last word was flicked away with distaste like a dead fly - "who had won so many prestigious awards would have at least some imagination. I wonder, aside from writing and watching the thing, have you actually OBSERVED IT?"
Another silence, but this one was different.
"Clearly, that would be too much to hope for," said Sherlock Holmes.
Steven stirred.
"No," he said quietly, "No, it wouldn't."
He stood up and they were measuring each other, two old enemies.
"Just so that we understand the fundamental principle," said Steven. "The actual… act does not have to be-"
"Acts." corrected Sherlock lightly. "Plural."
"Oh. Er. Right. The, the actual acts don´t have to be in any way… explicit? I presume?"
"Goodness, no. Heavily implied is more than sufficient." Sherlock tapped his lips. "I am given to understand," he added after a moment of thought, "that there are a few internet communities which will gladly take thorough care of any necessary details."
"Oh."
"Indeed. So." Sherlock stepped close to the producer and whispered in his ear.
Stephen´s eyes widened.
"Genius," he said. "It- Sherlock, you are-" he added, "Genius," he concluded.
Holmes was already half way to the door. "Do not tell them how you got out in the opening scene," he shouted over his shoulder, "leave the first scene to something important. You can combine the escape revelation with the ending of the second act. You can always use all the help you can get with the second act, Moffat."
"Sherlock, I, I - thank you."
The consulting detective turned around quickly and smiled.
"Not at all," he said, "I would be lost without my scriptwriter!"
The door slammed and he was gone.
Steven Moffat looked for a while in the direction of the closed door with glazed eyes. Then he slowly turned to his laptop and started to write the opening scene:
FADE IN: INT.
WATSON'S BEDROOM, EARLY MORNING - SUBJECTIVE CAMERA - John Watson's POV. He opens his eyes, blinks. Just woke up. He looks around the room.
The place is a mess. A chair is tipped over, papers from the writing desk thrown on the carpet. Items of male clothing lie crumpled on the floor. Light spilling in through the window.
CLOSE-UP of John´s face, CAMERA SLOWLY MOVING AWAY. He is in bed, dishevelled. He turns around to see
SHERLOCK HOLMES, lying next to him, watching John intently. His bare shoulders are visible above the sheets.
-the end-
Author:
who_is_smallRecipient:
tencinoirCharacters/Pairings: Sherlock/John, Steven Moffat
Rating: PG
Warnings: BBC Sherlock/RL AU. Contains SPOILERS! for the ending of the BBC series.
Summary: "When the screenwriters are out of their depth - which is always - they consult me."
Writer's block is annoyingly fancy name for getting bloody stuck.
Steven Moffat, writer and producer, paced the floor of his BBC office and cursed like a drunken sailor.
Consider, for example, Dr. Who. The series have a status of a sodding national treasure nearing some sort of a cult, followed by masses of rabid worshippers in Dalek costumes and monitored by vicious internet forums packed with nerds, nitpicking every single flaw in the production with their home-made sonic screwdrivers.
Yet for one particular reason, writing scripts for Dr. Who was a bloody breeze compared to writing Sherlock.
The BBC adaptation was a raging success. Second series got commissioned in a record time. Which was great, it really was. Except for one tiny problem.
Steven was quite pleased with the way A Study in Pink shaped up. Final edit of The Blind Banker made him crow with glee. And The Great Game, written by Mark Gatiss, had all the marks of a BBC classic and Steven felt pretty cheerful until he realised that he would be the one who needed to write the next story after The Cliffhanger.
His colleague left the heroes stuck with snipers aiming at their necks, a pile of semtex ready to blow up at their feet and an arch-enemy loaded with deadly one-liners a few yards away. By a bloody pool, no less. The Reichenbach Falls of 21st century. I bet he imagined he was being subtle, thought Steven, hitting the delete key harder than necessary.
He briefly entertained the possibility of driving to Mark's home and slapping him with the rolled-up script. It would of course have to be the script of The Great Game because Steven's script for the new series contained only three words so far:
FADE IN: INT.
so, it wouldn´t hurt. Unless he wrapped a brick in it. Mmm.
He mentally reviewed a list of possible solutions.
1. Bulletproof vests? The way Sherlock's shirt and slim-cut jacket were clinging to his body, no one would swallow that.
2. Blowing up the bomb and then elegantly fade in to a hospital, where the heroes would wake up severely bruised, yet not permanently crippled, while baddie escapes? Hell, when the granny blew up, 11 people went with her. This would require some seriously short memory from the viewers. No.
3. Mycroft coming to help? How pathetically deux ex machina. Quiet Days in Cliché.
4. Moriarty cannot do it. Oh, yes, he motherfucking can.
5. John reveals that Moriarty and Sherlock are brothers. Oh my actual Jesus Christ on a biscuit I need someone to fix me a drink.
All in all, as far as he was concerned, Holmes was as dead as dust. There was simply no way he could escape. Steven clicked his remote to watch the final scene of The Great Game again and counted the red dots, dancing on Sherlock´s suit and throat.
Five.
Five highly trained professional hitmen - Moriarty would take only the best of them on a mission like this, when putting his own sodding skin at risk.
The producer threw the remote on a table and groaned, covering his face with his hands.
"Oh my, what a conundrum. How about me ripping John's clothes off in a darkened swimming pool?" drawled a familiar voice behind his back. "That would surely be an efficient way how to… divert our enemy's attention?"
Steven froze for a moment. Oh no, he thought. Not again. Then he took a deep breath and turned around.
Sherlock Holmes was sitting in the most comfortable armchair in the office, legs crossed, hands in the pockets of his coat, his eyes cold.
Now, some people want to meet their heroes in their lives. Steven Moffat was not one of those people. Yet, Sherlock Holmes in the flesh, bearing just the slightest resemblance to Benedict Cumberbatch (but also to Jeremy Brett and illustrations by Sidney Paget at the same time), started to materialize shortly after the writing of the first episode began. He spent his visits sneering, insulting the quality of the script and generally bullying. A small consolation was that the other two writers had it just as bad.
"I see that the level of your incompetence remains, as ever, swinging deep below the usual standard," said Holmes conversationally.
Steven winced and waited for a quarter of a second.
AH and heeere it was. The familiar wave of defensive feeling rolled over him, tinged by sense of inadequacy and general irritation. He squeezed his eyelids shut, pulling himself together.
I am an internationally acclaimed, successful author and producer, he thought firmly. I lead a team of the best writers in the country. I have won two BAFTAs and four Hugo Awards. I am kind to children and small animals. Last week, I helped an old lady to cross the Bayswater Road. I definitely, definitely deserve to be here. Maybe he got bored and buggered off. Oh God, please let him get bored and bugger off.
He opened his eyes.
Sherlock Holmes was sneering at him from his favourite armchair.
"Look," said Steven Moffat, "You really have to stop doing that."
He got silence for his trouble.
"I mean it," insisted the producer. "You are freaking me out."
"I am wounded," said Sherlock Holmes, sprawled in his seat. "After I gave so many lines of script to you and your colleagues. I practically wrote the thing for you. Yet, who will be hoovering up all the awards? Tsk, tsk."
"Ha!" the producer replied, "I know these lines of yours. Don't talk out loud, Moffat, you lower the IQ of the entire street. Shut up with your 'thinking' Gatiss, it's annoying. Stop inflicting your opinions on the world, Thompson, what must it be like to live in this tiny little mind of yours? Rubbish, every single one of them."
"Why did they all end up in the script then?" asked Sherlock pleasantly. "When the screenwriters are out of their depth - which is always - they consult me. And so today I am once again coming to your aid."
"Piss off."
There was a prolonged silence, which Moffat really enjoyed. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.
"But of course," said Sherlock, clapping his hands, and jumped up, "as you wish. Good luck with your script, my dear friend." He produced a shark-like smile and nodded towards the laptop on the desk, "for it looks like you will need it."
Steven looked at the monitor, which replied:
FADE IN: INT.
"Considering the state of your cuff-links," said the voice behind him, "I deduce that the deadline for your script is in four weeks." Footsteps, click. "Good day."
"Sherlock, wait!"
Silence.
"...please?"
Footsteps and a smell of fine wool.
"You need me to help you with the stalemate," said Sherlock, leaning on the desk beside Steven. The producer looked up at him.
"I propose to you," Sherlock said in intense, quiet voice, "a deal. A mutually beneficial exchange. I will tell you how I got me and John out of that place. And you, my little script scribbling friend," he leaned a bit closer, almost growling "will get me what I want in return. A solution to my... Final Problem."
Steven blinked. "Your Final Problem," he repeated. "Seriously?"
"The world I am currently operating in, the 'movie' world, if you wish, is bound by the laws of canon." said Sherlock. "As you can see, I have managed to... modify... some of the rules. I can not, however, break all of them. It is probably clear even to you that I am not pleased with this situation."
"What- what is it then?"
"Elementary, my dear Moffat," drawled the detective, smirking in a way which made Steven feel simultaneously mesmerised and irritated. "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
Steven stared at him. Then he felt his facial muscles breaking into a smile.
"All emotions," he quoted, "and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind."
A pause.
"What a shock, mate," the producer could hardly contain his mirth now, "I mean to say-"
"I see," said Sherlock coldly, "and I should not be surprised, really, though I would have hoped that a writer" - the last word was flicked away with distaste like a dead fly - "who had won so many prestigious awards would have at least some imagination. I wonder, aside from writing and watching the thing, have you actually OBSERVED IT?"
Another silence, but this one was different.
"Clearly, that would be too much to hope for," said Sherlock Holmes.
Steven stirred.
"No," he said quietly, "No, it wouldn't."
He stood up and they were measuring each other, two old enemies.
"Just so that we understand the fundamental principle," said Steven. "The actual… act does not have to be-"
"Acts." corrected Sherlock lightly. "Plural."
"Oh. Er. Right. The, the actual acts don´t have to be in any way… explicit? I presume?"
"Goodness, no. Heavily implied is more than sufficient." Sherlock tapped his lips. "I am given to understand," he added after a moment of thought, "that there are a few internet communities which will gladly take thorough care of any necessary details."
"Oh."
"Indeed. So." Sherlock stepped close to the producer and whispered in his ear.
Stephen´s eyes widened.
"Genius," he said. "It- Sherlock, you are-" he added, "Genius," he concluded.
Holmes was already half way to the door. "Do not tell them how you got out in the opening scene," he shouted over his shoulder, "leave the first scene to something important. You can combine the escape revelation with the ending of the second act. You can always use all the help you can get with the second act, Moffat."
"Sherlock, I, I - thank you."
The consulting detective turned around quickly and smiled.
"Not at all," he said, "I would be lost without my scriptwriter!"
The door slammed and he was gone.
Steven Moffat looked for a while in the direction of the closed door with glazed eyes. Then he slowly turned to his laptop and started to write the opening scene:
FADE IN: INT.
WATSON'S BEDROOM, EARLY MORNING - SUBJECTIVE CAMERA - John Watson's POV. He opens his eyes, blinks. Just woke up. He looks around the room.
The place is a mess. A chair is tipped over, papers from the writing desk thrown on the carpet. Items of male clothing lie crumpled on the floor. Light spilling in through the window.
CLOSE-UP of John´s face, CAMERA SLOWLY MOVING AWAY. He is in bed, dishevelled. He turns around to see
SHERLOCK HOLMES, lying next to him, watching John intently. His bare shoulders are visible above the sheets.
SHERLOCK
"Good morning, John."
"Good morning, John."
-the end-
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