Chapter Text
“Love is a science. A formula. A collection of variables we can plug into equations to calculate your perfect match. We give you two personality tests, run algorithms on your social media—all confidential, of course—and conduct a series of personal interviews to get a complete picture of who you are: your interests, values, likes and dislikes. Then we enter that profile into our system and evaluate each match personally, further narrowing it down. At that point, you can come in, take a look at your options, and choose which ones you would like to pursue on individual dates, or we can include you and a handful of your matches in one of our bi-monthly mixers, if you’d be more comfortable in a group setting. After that”—Sherlock leaned forward over his desk, folding his fingers atop the red application packet opened and scattered across the surface—“I’m afraid it’s a matter of patience. But I believe our success speaks for itself.” He turned to the dark wooden bookshelves flanking the wide window on the side wall of his corner office, floor-to-ceiling photographs of weddings, proposals, and inaugural dogs or children interspersed amongst pointless trinkets and decorations Molly had insisted upon.
“It humanizes you,” she had said as she’d tucked sprigs of fake holly around the gilded picture frames last weekend. “If you want people to trust you with their hearts, you have to show them you have one.”
“With plastic holly?” he’d mocked, but Molly had just rolled her eyes, accustomed as she was to his cynicism, and continued her work, sneaking a miniature silver Christmas tree onto the corner of his desk when he’d gone to lunch.
He was allowing it to stay. For now.
“Wow,” the woman in front of him—Sarah? Sandra? He’d check the paperwork later—said, chuckling nervously, wringing her black leather gloves in her hands, “it all sounds so…thorough.”
Sherlock tipped his head. “It can seem overwhelming, looking at it like this.” He waved a hand over the scattering of forms. “But it only takes a couple hours. The personality tests are online so you can complete them at your leisure, and we sign all the social media consents now. We could schedule your in-person interview with myself or my partner as early as”—he paused, leaning back to check the calendar open on his desktop—“this coming Monday. Our mixer on the 14th is already full, but I could get you set up for the 28th, if you’d like. Individual dates even earlier.”
“No, I-I’d prefer the mixer,” she murmured, that much already obvious to Sherlock, of course, but he’d learned to waste time offering them the options over the years, people tending to find it unnerving when he told them what they wanted, even if he was always right. “Probably easier, aren’t they?”
“Most people prefer them. At least until they get comfortable with the process.”
The woman—Sandra, he saw, glancing down when she dropped her head—huffed a short laugh, her bright pink lips lifting in a fragile smile. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable,” she said, and Sherlock took a breath, steeling himself for the inevitable hand-holding portion of the meeting. “After the divorce, I threw myself into my work. Trying to get this account or that office or the next big promotion. Then, earlier this year, I made partner, and I realized…there was nowhere else to go.” She shrugged, her youthful face weary with regret. “I’d run out of room to climb, but it still wasn’t high enough.”
Sherlock nodded, placing his elbows on the desk as he leaned into the conversation. “Almost all of our clients have the same story. Minus the lawyer part, of course.”
She chuckled, and Sherlock smiled, grateful to have escaped the waterworks this time around.
“It’s not the uphill battle it seems. And we’ve got a great team here to help you every step of the way.”
“I know,” Sandra said, and then sighed, rattling her head. “I know,” she echoed, more firmly this time, as if confirming it to herself. “It’s just-”
“Hard to give up control,” Sherlock interjected, nodding his understanding. “Of course. But you’re in very good hands. They don’t interview just anyone for The Guardian, you know,” he joked, and Sandra laughed, bobbing her head as she pulled the strap of her purse onto her shoulder and stood, Sherlock following her lead.
“No, I suppose they don’t. Thank you, Mr. Holmes.”
“Sherlock, please,” he insisted, walking around his desk to take her offered hand. “Let me walk you out,” he said, waving a hand toward the door, and Sandra dipped her chin in thanks, starting out ahead of him. “Molly will have those tests in your inbox within the hour”—Molly looked up from her computer, smiling in confirmation as they passed—“and you can work out an interview time with her later this week.”
“Alright.” Sandra stopped in the doorway, turning around to look at him, her smiled frayed with worry at the edges.
Sherlock hitched up his most reassuring smile. “We’ve got it all under control,” he said, and the tension eased from her shoulders as she sighed around a nod.
“Thank you.” She leaned around him, waving a hand to include Molly in her farewell, and then started away down the corridor, Sherlock waiting the socially required amount of time before closing the door behind her.
He leaned into the wood, listening to her heels clicking away, the faint chime of the lift door, releasing a groaning sigh only when he heard the hum of the lift cables carrying Sandra to the lobby below.
“Oh, please,” Molly muttered, rolling her eyes as she pushed back in her rolling chair, folding her arms over her chest and shaking her head at him. “You haven’t done a client interview in months. And I threw you an easy one!”
“A divorced workaholic?”
“A 32-year-old, attractive workaholic; no kids; no overactive tear ducts.” Molly shrugged, lifting her festive paper coffee cup to her lips. “You should be kissing my 60%-off designer heels.”
A door clicked open behind her, swinging in as the occupant stepped out to lean against the doorjamb. “I’ve created a monster,” Irene Adler said, a fond smile curling her scarlet lips, silver nails perched on the hip of her tailored black dress. “This must be what having children feels like.”
“And where were you?” Sherlock blustered, glaring across the room at his business partner and headache-inducer.
Irene flicked her nails in the air, clicking across the room on her red heels to grab a hard sweet from the candy-cane-striped bowl on Molly’s desk. “I was having brunch with our newest client.” She lifted an imperious brow, crinkling open the wrapper and dropping the golden plastic into the bin. “A Mr. James Ellsworth Jr.”
“As in Ellsworth Construction?”
Irene perched on the edge of Molly’s desk, winking down at her. “The very same. Looks like someone’s getting a Christmas bonus.”
Sherlock huffed, moving to snag a peppermint from the bowl himself. “Does he know you’re not…masculine-inclined?” he asked, and Irene twitched a shoulder, popping the sweet in her mouth.
“Didn’t come up,” she mumbled around the sugary orb, Sherlock rolling his eyes while Molly laughed. “We’ll find someone better for him anyway.”
“Like someone who likes men?”
“I have been reliably informed they still exist.” Irene patted Molly’s head in demonstration, Molly swatting her fingers away with a good-natured huff before clicking at her mouse.
“Irene, you’ve got a 2:30 and a 4. I’ve got the packet for the 2:30 on your desk. His personality tests came back a little low on assertive and high on trusting.”
“Great,” Irene muttered, standing up and heading for the office coffee maker, “a broken heart.”
“That we will mend!” Molly chimed, bobbing her head cheerily as she continued navigating through he computer. “Sherlock, you have-”
“The rest of the day off?” he wished, and Molly lifted a smirk up through her lashes.
“Not quite. You’ve got a 1:30. Sounds like an exploratory meeting, he was kinda squirrelly on the phone”—she wrinkled her nose, peeling the top sheet of a notepad off her desk—“but he asked for you personally.”
“Really?” He checked his watch, less than half an hour left to choke down some semblance of lunch. “Why?”
“Didn’t say,” Molly shrugged. “Just told me he needed The Chemist.” She giggled at his feigned wretch, and then shooed him into his office with a wave of her hands. “Go, I’ve already got Speedy’s bringing up your sandwich.”
Sherlock chuckled, glancing down at the brief notation on the sheet of paper as he shuffled toward his office. “What would I do without you?” he mused, and Molly sniffed a scoff through her nose.
“Starve,” she muttered, Irene cackling into her coffee, and Sherlock turned to shake his head at the pair of them before closing the door in their smirking faces, placing Molly’s note on his dark cherry desk—a splurge he had allowed himself when they moved into the new office—for now as he moved to one of the windows, folding his arms and staring out over the bustling street below.
When he’d started setting up his lovelorn friends in colleges—mostly to spare himself their whining—he had never thought he would use his strange curse of deductive reasoning to start a business, let alone a successful one. Molly, his roommate at the time, had suggested setting up just a small service in a corner of their living room, more a designated desk than an office, meeting busy students and haggard professors wearing sunglasses they thought made them incognito Captain America in coffee shops and cafes around Central London, compiling a small database from which to pick and pluck. He’d thought he would use it as a starting point, a diving board, bouncing from here into a more lucrative position that better suited the chemistry masters he was working toward, but, as it turned out—and as he should have expected, looking back—there is nothing more lucrative than romance. Sex may sell, but love was winning the lottery, and, when a small London newspaper ran a feature on his startup as he was entering his last year of grad school, a corner of their drafty two-bedroom apartment would no longer suffice, and so The Science of Attraction was born, his unconventional background earning him the title “The Chemist”.
With Molly and him both working towards advanced degrees, however, they needed help. Enter Irene Adler, fresh from Barts with a masters in clinical psychology and a professional interest in their numbers-first approach, though she would later admit to starting to enjoy the job after half a bottle of tequila at the first office Christmas party—a forgiving name for the three of them breaking in their new office with a tiny TV and nonstop cheesy Christmas movies.
“It’s love, ya know?” she had slurred, one arm slung around Sherlock’s shoulder as she threatened to pull him off the folding chair they were using for temporary furniture. “It’s not rainbows and-and roses…and whiskers on kittens”—she’d stopped to giggle at herself—“but it’s still real. It still makes people happy. It’s still love, man, LOVE IS LOVE!” she’d cried, attempting to toss her hands in the air but only chopping Sherlock in the throat, and then they were all on the floor, pissed and laughing at the sheer dumb luck of it all.
Sherlock had bought the desk at the start of that new year, the first of many changes to follow in the next few months. Molly and him had moved out of their apartment, finding their own small studios closer to the office and within two kilometers of one another.
“You might not be across the hall, but you’re gonna stay within walking distance,” she had said, and he had rolled his eyes in tame and token protest.
Irene was brought on as a full partner, bringing in a small mountain of a contract Sherlock had blindly thumped to the last page of and signed. “Are you mad?” she’d railed, watching him, her mouth hanging open. “You should be having a lawyer look over all your contracts. I could be taking your shirt in there!”
“You’ve been fairly vocal about your opinion of my shirts,” Sherlock had replied, capping the pen and dropping it back into his desk organizer. “Besides, I trust you,” he’d added, Irene staring dumbly at him for a long moment before turning away, her voice definitely not watery as she called over her shoulder.
“I get everything if you die.”
It had been five years since then, Sherlock now 28 and on everyone’s top-whatever under-whatever lists, but Irene was 31, so he thought that ought to have dragged their average up. He wasn’t allowed to say that in interviews anymore though, for whatever reason.
The door rattled with a knock, and Sherlock turned to find Molly’s sheepish smile poking in. “I just buzzed in your 1:30,” she said, pushing open the door to reveal the brown paper bag swinging from her hand. “He’s eager, I guess. You want me to keep him out here for a bit or-”
Sherlock cut her off with a shake of his head. “No, it’s fine. I’m not that hungry anyway.”
“More like you’ve ruined your appetite with a pot of coffee,” Molly muttered, walking back into the main office, Sherlock tracking after her as she tucked his sandwich into the fridge.
“So what can you tell me about this guy before he gets to the door?”
“You didn’t read my notes?”
“I…skimmed,” Sherlock murmured, Molly—ever patient—just shaking her head as she walked back to her desk.
“There wasn’t much to read anyway. Said his name was Greg and he needed to meet with you personally. And that it was ‘a difficult situation to explain over the phone.’” She curled her fingers around the words, shaking her head as she slid open a file drawer. “Very formal. Kept calling me ‘miss’.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“Not really,” Molly muttered, shrugging a shoulder. “He sounded nice enough.”
“How can you tell?” Sherlock chuckled, and Molly turned up a withering glare.
“I answer your phones all day,” she snipped, clanging the file drawer shut for emphasis. “You think I don’t know a creep when I hear one?”
Sherlock considered a moment, then tipped his head, conceding the point. “Fair enough,” he answered as the elevator chimed down the corridor, quick footsteps closing in on their office door, and Sherlock went to pour himself a cup of coffee, feeling Molly’s eyes burning into the back of his neck.
The door swung open a moment later, however, so she couldn’t do anything about it, her cheery voice bouncing around the room behind him. “Hello, welcome to Science of Attraction! I’m Molly; we spoke on the phone. You must be Greg.”
“Er, yes,” a man’s voice muttered. “It’s…lovely to meet you, Molly. Properly.”
Molly giggled, and Sherlock rolled his eyes down at his steaming coffee, sneaking a glance over his shoulder as he slid the pot back into place.
Greg was tall, mid-to-late thirties, at a guess, but his hair had jumped a few years ahead of him, streaks of silver-gray glinting in the light. He was wearing a long black coat, obscuring the bulk of his body, but his wide shoulders and slim face hinted at an athletic build. A days’ growth wreathed his bright smile, the grin stretching to light his brown eyes as he stared intently at Molly, though his listening could use some work. “Sorry, what?” he muttered, blinking and rattling his head, and Molly ducked her head with a chuckle, cheeks darkening as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I asked if you’d like something to drink,” she repeated, waving a hand toward Sherlock and the caffeine. “We have coffee, tea, bottles of water.”
“Oh, er, no, thank you,” Greg said, nodding to Sherlock. “Mr. Holmes, I assume.” He stepped around Molly, Sherlock meeting him halfway.
“Sherlock is fine,” he said, taking the offered hand, and Greg smiled, bobbing his head as they broke apart.
“Greg. I’m sorry to rush in like this”—he turned to include Molly in his apology—“but I’m afraid time is of the essence.”
Sherlock frowned, glancing over Greg’s shoulder to Molly’s shrug, but there was a first time for everything, he supposed. “Of course. Let’s head into my office and we’ll get started right away.” He gestured to the open door, and Greg started toward it, Sherlock dropping a hidden flick of his brows to Molly behind the man’s back.
“Please,” he said, waving down at the chair in front of his desk as he closed the door behind them, “have a seat.”
“Thank you,” Greg replied, taking off his coat to reveal a tailored gray suit, blue pinstripe shirt open at the collar.
Sherlock took his seat at the desk, planting his elbows on the surface and steepling his fingers as he waited for Greg to get settled. “So, Molly tells me your situation is…complex,” he began, and Greg chuckled, shifting in his seat.
“Something like that. I’m afraid I wasn’t…entirely honest with her on the phone.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the door, a guilty flush in his cheeks. “I’m not here…for me. Exactly.”
“That’s alright,” Sherlock said. “We get people coming in for reluctant friends and loved ones all the time.”
“I’m sure,” Greg chuckled, and then bit at his lip, wringing his hands in his lap, “but that’s not quite the situation either.”
Sherlock frowned, lifting a brow. “Oh?”
Greg ran a hand through his hair with a sigh, shaking his head down at the front of Sherlock’s desk. “It’s- I’m not sure how to-” He paused, dropping his face to his knees and taking a long, slow breath before lifting his chin, sitting up straight and resolute. “I’m here on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen of Galerre.”
Sherlock’s hands fell away from his chin, thumping to his desk as his lips dropped apart. “What?”
“Not for her, of course,” Greg continued, shuffling to the edge of his seat. “I’m hoping to obtain your services for her son, the crown prince. Or, well, he will be. If he’s engaged by Christmas.”
Sherlock blinked, rattling his head in an attempt to shake the ringing from his ears. “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered, lifting a palm to hold the assault of information at bay. “You’re saying you want me to find someone for a prince to propose to…before Christmas?”
“Well, on Christmas Eve,” Greg amended with a flick of his head. “It’s tradition that engagements are announced at the Christmas Eve ball.”
“Naturally,” Sherlock muttered, carding his fingers through his hair as he leaned back in his chair, looking out the window a moment to ground himself back in reality. “Mr. …?”
“Lestrade.”
“Mr. Lestrade,” he added, folding his hands on the edge of his desk, “I can appreciate your…predicament, but this is…far outside our area of expertise, and, with less than a month-”
“Look, Sherlock, I-I understand this sounds…completely mad,” Greg said, leaning forward to stretch his hand onto the desk, “but…I’m afraid we’re out of options. If the prince is not engaged by Christmas Eve, he forfeits the throne. The queen and I have been encouraging him to pursue the multiple suitable options we’ve amassed, but the prince has been…reluctant to accept our advice. Or, perhaps, too eager.”
Sherlock frowned, intrigued in spite of himself and common sense. “What do you mean, ‘too eager’?”
Greg sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Twelve years ago…the king died. Unexpectedly,” he began, staring out the window, his brow heavy with thought. “The prince was only 18, just starting at university here in London and in no position to take the throne, and the queen was perfectly capable, so…” He trailed away, rolling a hand in the air to indicate the rest being history. “But, recently, a…cousin of the king,” he continued, stressing the relation with pointed disdain, “has come forward to remind the legislature of an archaic clause in Galerrean law that states any prospective heir to the throne must be married by the age of thirty or forfeit their spot in the line of succession. Some nonsense about producing heirs,” he added in a mutter, his distaste palpable. “Her Majesty has managed to convince them to give the prince until his thirty-first birthday in July to be married, on the condition that he is engaged by Christmas Eve, but they refuse to offer an extension. The prince is willing to marry whomever his mother deems most appropriate for the sake of the crown, but we—that is, the queen and myself—also want him to find someone he’s…compatible with. And then I came across an article about you and your agency, and, given our time constraints, your…unique approach seemed like the perfect solution.”
Sherlock swallowed, blinking at the twinkling silver Christmas tree at the corner of his desk, the red plastic baubles swaying with the vibrations as his foot bounced against the carpet.
With all the publicity The Guardian article had brought in, they weren’t exactly struggling for clients, but one never knew when their fifteen minutes were up, and having royalty on their resume would open the door to a whole different level of clientele.
Then again, if he failed…
“We would, of course, cover all the expenses,” Greg continued in a rush, as if sensing his crumbling resolve. “Air fare for yourself and your staff, and you’d be staying at the castle, so meals would-.”
“Wait,” Sherlock interrupted, his train of thought derailed, “you want me to come to…”
“Galerre,” Greg supplied. “Small country buried in the jigsaw puzzle part of Europe.”
“And you want me to…go there?” Sherlock murmured, pointing from his chest to Greg.
“Well…yes,” Greg replied, shrugging a shoulder. “I assume you’d need to conduct interviews and the like. And meet the prince, of course.”
“I- Well, yes, normally, but I couldn’t possibly leave Irene to-”
“Yes, you could.” The door swung inward, Molly stepping in with a bright smile. “I already asked her.” She then turned to Greg, shrinking into her shoulders as her cheeks darkened. “I was just walking by and heard something about a queen. And then shamelessly eavesdropped,” she muttered, and Greg laughed, lifting a hand and shaking his head.
“It’s alright. You would’ve found out eventually anyway. Saves me telling the story twice.” He smiled, and Molly ventured closer, hands folded over her burgundy pencil skirt.
“We don’t have any new clients scheduled before Christmas, and everything’s pretty much planned for the holiday mixers. Irene can handle anything else that comes up.”
“What about you?”
Molly scoffed, shy demeanor disappearing as she turned to him, planting a hand on her hip. “I’m coming with you.”
Sherlock quirked a brow. “You are?”
“Of course,” she chirped, a brilliant grin blossoming across her face. “You’d be lost without me.”
Sherlock huffed, but couldn’t argue, shaking his head instead at his desk. “I-I don’t know, it’s…it’s so close to the holidays, and there’s always a rush in December.”
“I can handle the lonely hearts club.” Irene stepped into the doorway, waggling her fingers at Greg. “Hi, I’m Irene Adler, Sherlock’s partner.”
“Oh,” Greg murmured, frowning between them, and Irene laughed, throwing her head back as she moved farther into the room.
“Business partner,” she added, extending a hand down toward him, and Greg smiled, standing up to greet her. “We’re both very, very gay.”
“Irene.”
“What?” she crooned as Greg laughed, and Sherlock rolled his eyes, pushing back his chair to stand as well.
“Well, Mr. Lestrade,” he sighed, moving around his desk, “it seems I am overruled.” He smiled, extending a hand, Greg’s eyes lighting up like Carnaby Street. “You have yourself a matchmaker.”