The Detective and the Doctor (No, Not That One), a Sherlock/Bones Crossover fic.

Prompt given by mattsmithappreciationlife.

“But why?!”

Sherlock’s pacing up and down the room, looking ready to tear his hair out, then some of Lestrade’s. The detective-inspector in question rubs his temples.

“I’ve told you, Sherlock, you can’t do any deductions with just bones. You can’t, alright? You didn’t get enough when we brought you in, so we’re calling in a favor.”

“An American favor,” Sherlock snorts. John knows full well that he’s only annoyed with the situation because yes, he hadn’t been able to get enough from the bones of the murder victim (for that was pretty much all that had been left of him) to solve the case. He hates being wrong, hates looking the fool.

“Yes, an American favor, and she’s a genius, like you, and she’s coming in five minutes, so could you please try to be civil?”

John laughs. Sherlock glares, then starts over to him. “What do you even know about this…Brennan, John?”

John shrugs. “Been in the papers a few times, hasn’t she? Solved some high-profile murder or whatnot in London…an Ian Wexler, along with that heiress, Portia Frampton. No clue who the bloke Wexler was, but she got a fair bit of publicity.”

“Worked with Pritchard, downstairs,” Lestrade unhelpfully supplies. Sherlock continues to glare at him, and he falls silent.

“Give her a chance,” John pleads with his flatmate, who’s looking livid. Sherlock shakes his head and sighs, but he doesn’t say no, so John reckons the tip might have at least got through to some part of his bloody mind palace.

“You know, I met her once, and she was weird,” says Anderson, who’s standing in a corner of the room. He hasn’t talked up to this point, an occurrence that at least Sherlock has no doubt been thankful for. “You two should get along just fine.”

“Go talk to the wall, Anderson, it cares exponentially more than I do.”

“Sherlock,” John warns softly, but the consulting detective makes no move to take back what he’s said.

Then there’s a knock on the door.

“Oh, bloody hell,” swears Sherlock, and there’s only time for one last sharp glance at him before Lestrade opens the door and two people walk in, a woman and a man.

“Detective-Inspector Lestrade,” Lestrade introduces himself, shaking the woman’s hand first, and then the man’s. John can see Sherlock sizing both of them up, no doubt weaving their entire life stories somewhere behind those fiery blue-green eyes. “This is Anderson, Doctor John Watson…and this is Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, John, Doctor Temperance Brennan and Agent Seely Booth, from the FBI.”

Sherlock actually snorts out loud. Both of the new people in the room turn to him.

“What’s your problem?” the man asks. John notices he’s armed under his standard-issue suit jacket, and resists the urge to drop his head into his hands. If the heavy feeling in his gut is anything to go by, this encounter is not going to end pleasantly.

“Oh, nothing,” says Sherlock, voice shaking with mirth. “It’s just…FBI, really…”

“What about the FBI?” The man has close-cropped brown hair, small eyes, and a steady jaw, which is currently clenched.

“Well, it’s ridiculous,” Sherlock chortles. “I mean, really…everything you’ve let slip…”

“Sherlock!” Lestrade admonishes, then begins hurriedly trying to patch up the situation. “I’m sorry about him. Really, just…don’t take offense, he’s always like this.”

“Yes, I am, and I can talk for myself.” The dagger glares between Sherlock and the agent Booth are ratcheting up with every passing second, and thankfully the woman, Temperance Brennan, intervenes, physically placing herself between the two of them.

“Booth, don’t shoot the detective,” she commands, and Booth squints one more time at Sherlock before turning in annoyance to look at the smug-faced Anderson.

“Doctor Temperance Brennan,” Doctor Temperance Brennan introduces herself again, putting a hand out for Sherlock to shake. He gazes at it for a moment, then extends his own, and they shake. She repeats the process with John, who takes her hand with a smile. “Where is the victim?”

“Out back,” Lestrade says, gesturing with his head to the back door of the house. “Tech team’s gathering data right now, but we figured you could give us some sort of…”

“Get them away from the remains,” Brennan commands, already striding towards the door, pulling on latex gloves. Lestrade follows, calling instructions to everyone he sees, closely tailed by Anderson, and then by the FBI agent, who pushes past all of them to step up next to the woman. “All right, Bones?” he asks, and she brushes the question off as easily as a fly.

John turns to look at Sherlock. One of his eyebrows is raised, and he’s looking after the woman doctor with an interest John hadn’t expected to see.

“What’s that look?” he asks, and Sherlock turns to him.

“She’s intriguing,” says Sherlock. “Intelligent. Ordinary…but intelligent. Her boyfriend, on the other hand…”

“I can still hear you,” the agent’s voice pipes in through the open window.

“…is frightfully dull.” And without another word, Sherlock’s off, and John only catches up with him when Sherlock stops next to Brennan, who’s kneeling by the remains, squinting at the skull.

“Chewed,” Sherlock points out.

“Yes,” Brennan says. “Coyotes, most likely, along with the usual rats and such.” Sherlock looks thus far unimpressed.

The doctor pulls back, examining the whole of the body. “Occupational markers of a dancer,” she says, turning to whoever happens to be next to her, which of course is Sherlock, because he’s shadowing her closely as she works.

“Ah…” Sherlock says slowly, and only someone who knows him as well as John does can tell that the noise is being made because Sherlock hadn’t previously been aware of the victim’s profession. This American doctor knows something he doesn’t, and it’s both interesting and infuriating him. “Would have been strong, then, strong enough to lift. So why was he killed by someone with such a weak arm?”

“What?” Brennan says, turning to Sherlock, confused. “You can’t know that. We haven’t analyzed anything yet.”

A smile, playing on the corner of Sherlock’s lips. An oh-aren’t-you-all-so-adorable, I-know-something-you-most-definitely-do-not smile. “It’s plain to see, isn’t it?” he says, sweeping his coat out of the way as he kneels. “The wound, the trauma, to the skull…it’s not deep. Accidental? Or lack of passion? More likely lack of strength; look, there, where the weapon track wavers. Hands, shaking from the effort of holding up the heavy object that crushed his skull…” Sherlock’s getting into it now, reenacting for no one but himself, holding an invisible weapon over his head. “Conclusion, weak arms, weak person. Our victim was a dancer; strong. He should have been able to fend off any attack that wasn’t with a gun, which this, clearly, did not utilize firearms.”

“What the hell’s he talking about, Bones?” Agent Booth asks, staring down at the corpse at his feet.

“No, tell me more,” Brennan says, examining Sherlock from head to toe. “What else?”

“Not much,” Sherlock says. “I usually have a bit more…flesh to work from.”

“There’s some on this hand.”

“Is there? Excellent. Uncover it, Lestrade wouldn’t let me.”

She does, and Sherlock examines it with his magnifying glass, lifting it up, searching under the fingers and to where the wrist degrades into ragged pieces of skin and then finally is only bone.

“Kept roses in his backyard, rosebushes,” Sherlock says, dropping the hand and standing back up. “Spent a lot of time on the internet, possibly for pornography or simple entertainment, but more likely for online gaming, role-playing games and such. Wasn’t married, obviously, that ring’s on the wrong finger, but had a steady girlfriend…ah, two steady girlfriends, interesting.”

“Pure conjecture,” Doctor Brennan laughs, and Sherlock straightens, regarding her quizzically. “You’re making all of that up as you stand. You can’t possibly know any of it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t—“ John tries to intervene, but too late. The glint’s already back in Sherlock’s eye.

“Making it all up, am I?” he says, his voice speeding up as it does when he’s about to explain, rapid-fire, his deductions. He does not disappoint. “Tiny scratches on the fingers; could possibly have been from a cat but look at the pattern, the way they drag, shuddering over the hand. Flowers, and he gardens them; look how many there are, some healed, a particularly bad one on the little finger. As for the internet, that’s easy, you know part of it already.”

“Evidence of carpal-tunnel syndrome.”

“Yes, but the gaming, oh, the gaming…” Sherlock picks up the victim’s hand and points at the back. “Ink, look at the ink…remnants of an attendance stamp from a gaming convention that came here a few months back, which, of course, fits with the time of death.”

“And the girlfriends?”

“Ring,” Sherlock points out, sliding it off the skeletal finger. “It’s cheap, the stone’s not a real sapphire. Good replica, but unfortunately not quite good enough…still, the sentiment’s there, and it’s not a type of ring a man would buy for himself. Gift then, and something like that? Screams girlfriend.”

“Two girlfriends?”

“Nail polish,” Sherlock says, pointing out a small stain on the inside of a finger.

“That could be from the same girlfriend,” John says.

“Of course it couldn’t. I recognize this polish…it’s infused with gold. Quite spendy. An unnecessary luxury, one someone who bought their significant other fake jewels wouldn’t dream of going for. Placement suggests she was painting her nails while next to him in bed. Conclusion; two girlfriends, each rather serious. So, Ms. Brennan,” Sherlock says, abruptly turning to her, “I would very much appreciate it if you refrained from wasting both of our time with pointless protestations, for I can assure you with all due respect that I have never made up anything to do with cases in my life.”

“It’s Doctor Brennan, Mister Holmes,” says the woman, but she looks impressed instead of annoyed or skeptical, a reaction that John knows that Sherlock will find much more favorable than the disdain directed at him by most of the Scotland Yarders. “And that was impressive.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, of course.” A smile plays around Dr. Brennan’s mouth. “But I’m here for bones, and you’re a flesh man, I can tell. You don’t play around with the important bits.” Before Sherlock can speak, she cuts him off. “I don’t suppose you can tell me the sport he participated in while in college, nor the four separate injuries he sustained while playing that sport, I don’t believe you can inform me who his dance teacher was, and I don’t think you can work out, at least not without my help, who killed this man.”

Sherlock says nothing, only examines the remains. A good three minutes pass before he turns to Doctor Brennan. “Enlighten me.”

“Rugby,” says the doctor. “Played rugby. Broke his clavicle, two ribs, and his left distal radius. The injuries are old, the remodeling sound, so, college it is.”

“Makes sense. Dance teacher, then.”

She smiles. “You’re not the only one that’s done research. I did an anthropological study of modern dance and how it’s evolved from its beginnings. His hip, look, it’s been worked on extensively. Dislocated for more freedom of movement. Arcane, barbaric, the long-term effects would have been devastating, but there’s only one school in all of Europe that utilizes that technique, and it just so happens I know exactly which one it is. Right here in London. Now, isn’t that convenient?”

By now, all of the techs that had been working on the area around the body have paused, electing to stare instead at the pair of geniuses working over a poor dead dancer, duking it out in a battle of the wits. Lestrade looks as though he could use some popcorn.

“Attagirl, Bones,” Agent Booth says, clapping her on the shoulder and grinning.

“Don’t call me Bones,” she says, turning to smile sweetly at the consulting detective.

Lestrade, privately, thinks that this is going to be the quickest-solved case in the history of Scotland Yard, with these two madpeople working on it. John, quietly, thinks the same. Sherlock, verbally, invites the female doctor to dinner with himself and John. “Oh, and bring the dull boyfriend too, I suppose,” he calls over his shoulder. “Coming, John?”

“Are you his boyfriend, then?” Brennan asks John, as Booth sputters a protest. “He seems taken with you.”

“Don’t think so,” John shrugs. “Never know with him. But no, he’s not my boyfriend.”

“Heading that way,” calls Lestrade. John shoots him a murderous look, and Lestrade is suddenly the picture of innocent grins.

“Coming, John?” Sherlock calls from the house again, and John hurries inside, tailed by Doctor Brennan and Agent Booth.

This is going to be a very long dinner.