Half Moon Investigations

Summary: So there's this book. It's about Half Moon and Red. Except not really. Their adventures have been idealized and romanticized and bastardized almost beyond recognition. Red thinks that it's hilarious. Fletcher's out on the war path.

A/N: This is not a 'let's make fun of the other fanfiction writers in this fandom'. This is a 'let's make fun of literature, film, and other media that misrepresents and oversimplifies the work of detectives, police, forensic scientists etc.' If you have any questions, please ask me to clarify.

Rating: K+

Title: Fairy Tales and Detective Stories

Words: 433

"Hey, Half Moon, I think you're going to want to see this."

An innocent enough comment, but it was the start of an embarrassing and uncomfortable debacle. I, in my naïve, unknowing way, walked over to Red to see what he had found. He gestured to a book, black binding, hardcover, with blue type, and handed it to me.

I looked at the title, and read aloud, "The Adventures of the Half Moon Investigators, by Douglas Doyle," a vague feeling of foreboding swept over me. I began to flip through the book, the feeling getting more and more intense as I skimmed each and every misrepresented, mangled, maligned, and muddled story of our work. They read more like legends or fairy tales than the actual, sweaty, back breaking, disappointing, work that private investigation actually is.

I flipped back to the beginning and read the first story, titled 'The First Case' all the way through. I think that I may have vomited a little bit in my mouth at one point. It was not so much that the stories in and of themselves where badly written, to be perfectly fair, they weren't, but the way that they represented Red and myself and our adventures was, frankly, nauseating. I was a Sherlock Holmesesque detective, solving cases from the comfort of my flat. All that he left out was the pipe and deer stalker hat. Red was the classic, handsome, muscle bound, idiotic side kick. To this day, I cannot tell you which representation was more laughably wrong. It was a pretty short book, and I'm a pretty quick reader and I finished the book standing there in the store, while Red read over my shoulder (unfortunately, I am still short enough that this is an easy feat for him).

We left the bookstore a few hours later, the clerk looking at us askance when we neglected to buy anything. I was too incensed to think of doing so, and Red was too busy trying not to laugh (likely a wise decision on his part – I was far too angry to think straight and would likely have found some way to unleash my anger on him).

Long story short, Red managed to convince me not to complain about the defamation of our characters. However, I have since decided that I will record our cases, as they actually happened, so as to let the public know how private investigation actually works. I hope that the public takes these cases to heart, and maybe thinks for a bit longer before complaining that their results are taking too long.