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mca-attack21 · 4 years ago

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Slowly

This is part one of a two part Sherlock x Reader imagine. It is full of angst and definitely something different. Fair warning it contains possible triggers involving a kidnapping. For more of my writing click here. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the emotional rollercoaster that is this fic.

The first time that Sherlock was semi-aware of himself, his mind was uncomprehending and imperceptive, which was a first. He was striving against everything to regain control and wake himself but instead, he found an unnerving nothingness. It was as if his mind was entirely blank. The second ‘awakening’, after an unknown amount of time, was not much different. Sherlock struggled to regain clarity, but was seemingly unequipped to do anything about it. His mind moved so slowly, that it might as well not have been moving at all. His sense of awareness and limited charge over consciousness once again faded.

“Sherlock? Sherlock are you okay? Wake up. Please wake up,” a voice pleaded.

But while it resonated as familiar, Sherlock simply could not connect the voice with a name or face. His mind was still moving too slow, at least now though he was aware of this fact. Something was wrong, very wrong. Sherlock was by all accounts locked out of his mind palace. He couldn’t remember anything or really register his surroundings. Something was interfering with the chemistry of his brain and prohibiting him from ‘Sherlocking’. He knew that it was likely some new hybrid of a sedative and a brain dampener. But how he knew that and what that meant, were completely lost on him.

“It’s no use,” another voice, this one raising a red flag with Sherlock for some unknown reason, beamed.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” the homely voice quipped.

“I already have though, haven’t I? Maybe if you weren’t so ordinary you’d understand that,” the villainous voice challenged.

Sherlock knew that voice, but who was it? And why couldn’t he wake up or remember anything?

“I may be ordinary, but at least I’m not a coward,” the first voice spat back.

“I am not a coward,” the man growled.

“Then why won’t you fight fair?” the girl questioned boldly. After waiting for an answer she added, “It’s because you know you wouldn’t stand a chance. You might be clever, but one on one, without your precious minions, your cheap tricks, and threats, you are nothing more than that, clever. And even on his worst day, Sherlock is more than you’ll ever be. And you know that, otherwise you wouldn’t be going through such great lengths to constrain him.”

“You have too much faith in him and that will be your downfall. I will show you, don’t worry,” he promised.

Sherlock could hear a door being closed. He knew both of those voices. He knew that something was very wrong, but he couldn’t sort it out. His mind was slowly beginning to function again, but it was agonizing for Sherlock to be cognizant of his deficits. He pushed himself to remember, to wake, to do something, but it was all happening in its own time.

He heard the door opening again, this time noting that there was no sound of it being unlocked. This must mean… it meant that…. Ugh! Why couldn’t he just think!

“What are you doing?” the girl’s voice asked, he could hear her physically struggling. “Where are you taking me?” she questioned, fear evident in her voice. “Stop, no, please don’t do this,” she pleaded, being forced out of the room.

Okay, so the girl. She was someone that he knew. His instincts told him that she was someone very dear to him. She was in danger. The two of them were captured by the man with the weird Irish accent. That man was the one holding them here. She knew him, so he and she had met him before. The door wasn’t locked which meant that they were bound. Otherwise, she would have been able to escape. As he was regaining more and more of his memory and brain power, he decided to redirect his attention.

He could not force himself to wake up, which meant he was most likely still sedated. His senses were very limited. His brain was foggy, but becoming less and less so. He was able to access his memories concerning his family and childhood, feeling somewhat reassured that Mycroft would have his people searching for him. He forced himself farther into his mind palace. He was going through places and people, starting to piece his life together until he saw a door for 221B. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He had never been locked out of his own mind palace before. Some part of him knew that “unlocking” this door was the key to everything he needed to know about the girl, the man, and their current arrangement. But he had absolutely no idea how to accomplish that task.

He resigned himself to focusing instead on regaining consciousness. He tried to start small, focusing on his breathing and then trying to move his fingers or toes. He just needed to reclaim control over his movements and then he’d be able to force himself awake.

Before he could make any progress, he heard the door open again. Someone, presumably a male carrying something substantial, based on breathing and time in between steps, had entered. The thing that he had been carrying was dropped roughly and then Sherlock had heard a click and the rustling of chains. Something was being hoisted up.

As the man left, Sherlock realized his mistake. It was not something being hoisted up, but rather someone. He speculated that it was his mystery girl. She was obviously unconscious and worse for wear. He felt an instinctual urge to make sure she was okay but was unable to act on it. He tried to focus, but it was becoming harder and harder as the exertion and exhaustion of fighting the drugs had taken over.

When he regained awareness, he was frustrated to realize he was still unconscious, though it was less and less present. He wondered how long this had been going on. Surely, someone had noticed and would come for him. He then remembered that he was not alone in this. However, as he listened to his surroundings it did seem that he was alone in the room again. He wondered how long the girl had been gone for this time. He hoped that she was okay. She was strong, that is what he loved about her.

Wait-

He loved her. He knew that now, it was consuming. She wasn’t just some girl that he knew. She was someone he loved. He needed to wake up, to remember, to protect her. He ran through the entire conversation he had heard between her and the man replaying it word by word.

“Maybe if you weren’t so ordinary you’d understand that” the man had said.

Ordinary. That word. It stuck out, but why?

“Aren’t ordinary people so adorable?”

“You’re ordinary. You’re on the side of the angels.”

“And now I’ve got to go back to playing with the ordinary people. And it turns out your ordinary just like all of them.”

“She is nothing Sherlock, she is ordinary, just another plaything for you to impress.”

Sherlock heard the pieces of conversations playing in the man’s voice. He was so close to remembering him and his name. It was there, he could feel it. Now he had a new goal. He replayed every word that the girl had said, hoping to spark a similar reaction, but it didn’t work.

The door opened, and this time there were three people who entered. One, the girl, was being chained up again, involuntarily whimpering. Her injuries were worse now, she was obviously being tortured. The man who had restrained her left the room leaving one other in the room.

“Aw look at him, isn’t he adorable when he’s sleeping, brain wearing away to nothing,” the irish man spoke.

“Leave him alone,” the girl tried.

“I really don’t think it is him you should worry about,” he said moving closer towards her. Sherlock heard her struggling away from him, “funny, all that blood really brings out your eyes.”

“What is that you really want?” she asked, her tough facade starting to falter.

“This. Exactly this. I want to watch your hope fade until you beg me to end you. I want to burn the heart out of Sherlock. Turning the hero into the villain. It’s as simple as that,” he informed leaving the room, calling out “I’m looking forward to our next little session, Y/n.”

And that was it. That was what Sherlock needed to unlock the door of his mind palace. And then it all came back to him. Mrs. Hudson, John, Moriarty, Lestrade, his cases, his violin, his flat, and above all else you. Y/f/n Y/l/n. His brilliant, kind-hearted, resilient, beautiful, girlfriend. The two of you were walking home from a date when you were both attacked and captured. He didn’t know how long ago that was now, but surely everyone was searching for you.

With that, he had full control of his mind, and he slowly brought himself back to consciousness, fighting the sedative. He managed to maneuver his arm to pull out the IV. He forced his eyes open, wincing at the harsh light. He laid still for a moment, allowing his body to process what it needed to do. As much as his mind was restored, physically he would still be affected. He worked on moving his muscles to speed up his circulation.

“Sherlock?” you all but whispered. You wanted to believe that you were seeing him move but knew that it very well could be your mind playing tricks on you. Tears streamed down your face.

But then he looked at you, and as your eyes met any doubt you had faded away.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, struggling to conceal his own emotion as he took in your form. You were chained up in nothing but a bra and your shorts. There were deep cuts littering your bruised and shaking body. You likely had multiple fractured if not broken ribs. You were held up by your wrists which were raw and also bleeding. Your hair was damp which led him to believe that waterboarding or forced intermittent drowning was involved. Beyond that, he could tell that you hadn’t slept, ate, or drank anything.

“How long have we been here?” he forced himself to ask.

“I think three days, it’s kind of hard to tell,” you answered.

“And do you have any idea where we are?”

“Not really, just that there are two levels and we never leave the basement.”

“Okay, okay, that’s fine,” Sherlock muttered, already starting to plan an escape.

“Sherlock? Are you okay?”

“Me? I should be asking you that,” he said forcing himself to sit up, groaning slightly at the numbness.

“It looks a lot worse than it is, I’m just glad you’re awake,” you tried to smile.

“I’m going to get us out of here,” Sherlock promised.

“Take your time,” you tried to joke. But the laugh turned into coughing which was extremely painful.

“Just try to conserve your energy,” he said trying to hide the worry in his voice.

“I love you,” you whispered, allowing the exhaustion to take over, knowing that you were safe now.

“I love you too,” he replied.

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Tags: @fanfictionsilove @delightfulheartdream - Let me know if you want to be added to my Sherlock tag list!

#Sherlock Holmes #Sherlock #sherlock fic #sherlock x reader #sherlock x you #sherlock x y/n #sherlock imagine #sherlock imagines #sherlock holmes imagine #sherlock holmes imagines #sherlock holmes x reader #sherlock BBC #bbc sherlock imagines #bbc sherlock imagine #bbc sherlock

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the-signs-of-two · 5 years ago

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Do you think there are still hopes for season 5? A lot of articles claim that there is no future for sherlock holmes and that we should give up our hopes of season 5. Thoughts?

Ouf.

Tough one. And a long one to answer. But I want to be truthful and thorough.

Based purely on advertising and how keen people are to keep audiences invested, I don’t think they’re allowing us much hope. It’s been almost four years and they’ve done very little to maintain any kind of hype or interest, perhaps with the exception of keeping the escape room going. The sad truth of it is that a show will rarely get picked up for a new series if the majority of viewers have moved on. And they’ve done very little to keep their viewers excited about the prospect of a series 5.

Then, of course, there’s the elephant in the room, whether you’re a hardcore TJLC’er or a casual viewer: the fact that series 4, on a surface level, was just... not very good. It looks and feels disjointed and very different from the previous series and casual viewers don’t want to spend hours and hours trying to figure out if it was actually better than its surface narrative. That sort of thing - taking a long hiatus, hyping a new series by saying it’ll be television history and then delivering a somewhat lukewarm product - drives viewers away. And like I said, if most viewers no longer care, chances are it won’t be picked up for a new series.

That’s one way to look at it. But what about the actual story?

The show is called Sherlock. And I think, putting my Johnlock-glasses to the side, you could actually argue that Sherlock does come full circle. In series 1, Sherlock is driven almost entirely by his logic. He’s arrogant, cocky and he makes a show of being disdainful and unfeeling, even if you get small glimpses showing that that isn’t actually who he is. With every series, Sherlock has moved further away from that and become a softer, more emphatic version of himself - a version of himself who cares more about making his close ones happy than about making himself look cool and mysterious. Series 4 does seem to complete that narrative. They made Eurus into the synthesis of everything Sherlock was and tried to be in the beginning of the show and turned that against Sherlock - and I actually really like that. I think it works. When Sherlock says that they’re “experiencing science from the perspective of lab rats”, we’re reminded of the time when he would do something similar: when he would pretend to be Ian Monkford’s friend to get information from his wife, when he would scare/traumatise the already traumatised headmistress to get information on two missing children, when he would compliment Molly’s hair to convince her to show him two bodies. In each instance, it was to do good, to get ahead in a case, but it was also a coldly calculated piece of manipulation, one which Sherlock showed zero regret for. The way he acted in first couple of series hurt other people - sometimes you wouldn’t feel any remorse for them, but sometimes it was Sherlock’s closest. Let’s take the most obvious example: locking John in a lab after (as far as he knew) drugging him, then providing him with sound effects and watching what would happen on the monitors. Don’t you think John experienced science from the perspective of a lab rat then? Sherlock is a different person now, but TFP also forces him to come to terms with the consequences of his previous behaviour. He has to confront logical problems - kill one man or three men, kill one man or two people will die, save Molly’s life etc. - but he has to face the emotional consequences of those logical decisions. He can’t just look away as he used to do. Seen in that way, I actually think TFP does provide a poignant culmination of Sherlock’s character arc. When Lestrade says that Sherlock is now a good man rather than a great man, it does feel earned.

However. Then there’s... well, everyone else. I’m pretty sure I could tell you what John’s character arc was all about in HLV. If this is the end, I no longer know what his character arc was. John makes horrible decision upon horrible decision in series 4. A cynical reading would be that he’s “stupid for the plot”. They needed to drive a wedge between Sherlock and John for TLD, so they didn’t care that John’s decision to blame Sherlock for Mary’s death in TST makes absolutely no sense. Then there’s the morgue scene, which... To be fair, it has actually been foreshadowed that John is a violent person. That he has very bad aggression issues and that he deals with a lot of anger in a physical manner. Sherlock isn’t perfect, but John certainly isn’t either. And I actually think the morgue scene could work in that light. Hear me out. Sherlock has done bad things to John, he really has, and all those things have been in line with his character and a reflection of his flaws. John beating Sherlock up could work in the same way. But it HAS TO BE ADDRESSED. When Sherlock does something morally reprehensible and psychologically scarring, it’s not presented as acceptable. When Sherlock locks John in the lab, you FEEL that what he did was unacceptable. John calls him out for it and it’s discussed. And this happens a number of times and each time, Sherlock shows more and more regret for his actions. He begins to apologise. He begins to try to change. If the morgue scene is going to work as a low point in John’s morality which prompts him to feel regret and try to change, it needs to be presented that way. It needs to be presented as bad (it is), it needs to be presented as a low point (it is), but it also needs to be presented as unjustified, unacceptable and inexcusable. No matter how you feel, beating up your best friend is never okay. Just as no matter how badly you need to solve a case, experimenting on your best friend by subjecting him to a terror-indusing drug and locking him up to examine the effects is never okay. But John isn’t called out for this and it’s never discussed. That leaves John with no incentive to change, no moment of remorse and regret, no need to make amends. So, in a way, the series leaves him at his absolute lowest. Which isn’t a character arc, friends.

Then there’s Molly. After the most heartbreaking betrayal of all time, the series just... ends. Like, she’s there at the end and it’s all fine. The part where the man she loved told her to tell him that she loved him FOR AN EXPERIMENT and then she took the opportunity to make him say it in return, clinging on to those three words like her life depended on it... yeah, that happened, but he presumably told her that he had to do it and it was all fine. No lasting emotional damage or mistrust there.

You could argue that Mycroft does come full circle too. In TAB, he decides to relinquish control over Sherlock and instead tells John to take care of him in his place. In TFP, he goes all the way and decides to die to let John live. In doing so, he acknowledges that Sherlock needs John more than he needs Mycroft, but also that John is better for Sherlock than Mycroft ever was. After a lifetime of controlling and watching over Sherlock against his will, he finally decides to let Sherlock go live his own life and make his own decisions. And he proves his love by being prepared to die to give Sherlock happiness with John.

So... yeah. I think some character arcs did actually come full circle, while others definitely didn’t. I just took the most obvious examples here.

As a background story for the Holmes family, I don’t really think it works. To me, it doesn’t explain why Sherlock and Mycroft are the way they are - and it certainly is weird that their parents seem so normal and unconcerned about the whole thing. Buried trauma is definitely a thing, but there doesn’t seem to be any obvious correlation between what happened with Eurus and who Sherlock was at the beginning of the series. As for Mycroft... I honestly don’t know how he feels about Eurus, apart from the fact that he’s scared of her.

Then there’s the part where John flat out tells Sherlock that a romantic relationship would complete him as a human being. This goes completely unresolved. Are we meant to assume that Sherlock called Irene after this conversation and they got together? 1) Why should we assume this? And 2) effing straight culture, let him be gay, because he is.

To summarise... I don’t think TFP works as a conclusion. Some things are resolved, some are not. I think there’s so much story and plot left unresolved that a series 5 would definitely have story points to work with. Also, once you’ve said that a character needs a romantic relationship, you need to go through with that or it turns into a major hole in said character arc.

Getting a little more tinfoil hat-y, I think the television history, gut-punch moment could be a recreation of the circumstances around The Final Problem. The Final Problem seemingly finished the Sherlock Holmes stories by having Sherlock die. People were outraged and deeply upset. It took ten years for ACD to undo it and reveal that Sherlock had actually survived. Trying to recreate the atmosphere surrounding a beloved piece of literature in 1893 - that sort of thing has never been attempted before and would be television history. And in that light, it would make sense that they aren’t encouraging the rumours surrounding series 5. They need to make people think that Sherlock is “dead” if they are going to resurrect him. That’s the tinfoil hat speaking, but I can’t help but find it an intriguing idea. And I would be DOWN.

Still, they didn’t need to make series 4 bad for this to work. They could have just made it end sadly. Series 4 being bad and difficult to understand lost them a lot of viewers. And sadly, viewers are what make shows happen. In that sense, I think it could backfire very severely if that is their plan.

So there you have it. I haven’t lost hope. I think there’s still story and plot and characters that would make series 5 worth making. And of course I’ve only discussed surface narratives in this post. If some of the theories proposed by us (EMP) should turn out to be correct, it could fix a lot of the problems with series 4 and make for a fantastic gut-punch moment in series 5. But I will admit that I’m concerned it won’t be greenlit because people have lost interest. If it’s no longer likely to have a large audience because series 4 was bad, they may not be able to make it even if that was their original intent. Or they may need to really amp up the hype when and if they make series 5.

I hope this long ramble answered your question.

#Sherlock #BBC Sherlock #S5 #my thoughts #anon asks

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aelaer · 5 years ago

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Uhh can I ask for BBC Sherlock fic recs? (Preferably friendship and/or familial fics, but romance is okay too)

Ooohh boy are you in for a list. I know you asked this like, at the start of quarantine or at sometime where I decided that I was no longer interested in communicating with the wider world, but hopefully this will still be of interest to you?

Throughout 2018 I did very little writing because I was busy consuming everything offered by the Sherlock fandom produced over 7-8 years. I definitely read well into the millions of words. A lot of them were from specific collections on both ff.net and AO3. I recommend looking in “collections” on ff.net in particular (as I still can’t really figure out how collections work on AO3 and how to find them easily... it’s really easy to find them on ff.net).

To my knowledge, these are all complete.

If there is any romance tagged here, it’s because it’s really, really fucking good as romance is my least favorite genre. I cannot remember all of them, but there’s a lot of angst, definitely humour, and definitely some great canonical bits. Also whumpy ones that are either really really good or a bit ridiculous but there you go.

It’s long, so under a cut. If the cut doesn’t work, I have tagged it as well.

From ff.net (alphabetical order) - NOTE: I did NOT include anything from the authors I recommended because the list was already too freaking long! But be sure to check out the authors, you can sort by “category” on ff.net on their author page and then go down to “Sherlock” to find their works:

Anything by A Wandering Minstrel (sooooo many genres)

Most anything by chappysmom (tons of genres, some are excellent, some I could take or leave, overall good stuff)

Most anything by Dayja (she writes in a ton of genres, so some I *adore* while others aren’t my cup of tea, but overall good stuff)

Anything by Gwen's Blue Box if you want angst up the wazoo.

Anything by ivywatcher for fantastic character studies.

Most anything by Jennistar1 (another multi-genre writer, both friendship and slashfic)

Anything by Radon65 - a mix of stuff. Canon IIRC.

Anything by Richefic for good, canon-friendly gap-fillers

Anything by StillWaters1 for good, canon-friendly gap-fillers

A Brief Account Of Life With Zombies by Silver Pard Sherlock thinks it's all a bit of a nuisance, John is having the time of his life, and Mycroft is Not Impressed. With anything, but mostly his minions' inability to provide a good cup of tea. Rated: T - English - Humor - Chapters: 1 - Words: 2,384 - Complete

A House is not a Home by selenityshiroi This is a prompt fill from the LJ Fic Meme. John and Sherlock got a flat share because they needed to split the rent. But when John comes into money, people wonder 'why hasn't he found a place of his own' The actual prompt is inside the story Rated: T - English - Friendship - Chapters: 1 - Words: 8,190 - John W., Sherlock H. - Complete

Annie's Song by Berouge She has a second engagement with a man and his violin, in the park, at night. Sherlock's not going for it! ONESHOT! Rated: K - English - Romance - Chapters: 1 - Words: 8,869 - Sherlock H., Molly Hooper - Complete

Basic Training by chai4anne Summary: A death at a boys' school leads to conflict and revelations among Lestrade's team, Sherlock, and John. Set between "The Hounds of Baskerville" and "The Reichenbach Fall." No slash. Rated: T - English - Mystery/Friendship - Chapters: 1 - Words: 10,851 - Sherlock H., John W., DI Lestrade, Sgt. S. Donavan - Complete

Breaking Point by Haelia When Sherlock and Donovan are abducted and Sherlock is grievously wounded, it is up to Donovan to get them both out. "First things first, Freak. You do not give me orders. You are going to do everything I tell you to," Sally said sharply, "because we are getting out of here." Can they both escape with their lives from the most dangerous gang in London? Rated: T - English - Mystery/Hurt/Comfort - Chapters: 3 - Words: 14,401 - Sgt. S. Donavan, Sherlock H. - Complete

Firestorm by Dustbunny13 Sherlock returns, but his friendship with John is damaged. Nevertheless, they embark on their final hunt to finish off Moriarty's net, but it ends in a catastrophe: Sherlock is shot and lapses into a coma. As John keeps vigil, he reads Sherlock's diary written during the hiatus. Slowly, he begins to understand and finds himself wishing for another miracle. Completed. Rated: T - English - Hurt/Comfort/Adventure - Chapters: 53 - Words: 133,754 - Complete NOTE: Probably my favorite novel-length multi-chapter you find only on ff.net for this fandom.

How To Accidentally Summon a Demon by patster223 Sherlock is possessed by a demon. A damned, wicked soul that uses the kitchen table for blood rituals and experiments. John doesn't even notice the difference. Rated: K+ - English - Supernatural/Humor - Chapters: 1 - Words: 1,411 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

Kidnapped! A Comedy by scuttlesworth Poor kidnappers. Kidnapping John Watson is like pulling on a thread tied to all sorts of crazy. It's enough to make a bloke get a job and go straight. Rated: T - English - Humor/Friendship - Chapters: 2 - Words: 10,758 - John W. - Complete

Mobile Phones, Rubble and Shock by prettybirdy979 In the aftermath of the explosion, Lestrade must work to keep Sherlock Holmes alive and make sense of his communications... with only a mobile phone and Sherlock buried under the rubble of the pool. Rated: T - English - Hurt/Comfort/Angst - Chapters: 1 - Words: 2,679 - Sherlock H., DI Lestrade - Complete

Mouth of Babes by Morgan Stuart Several weeks after the explosion at the pool following "The Great Game" episode, Lestrade visits the recuperating Sherlock and John at 221B Baker Street. He brings case files and food... and a visitor in tow. Rated: K - English - Friendship - Chapters: 1 - Words: 2,495 - Sherlock H., DI Lestrade - Complete NOTE: This is a whole series. If you like it, look up the rest under the author. It’s super cute.

Of Surgeons and Soldiers by EmRose92 Being a doctor has its advantages. He knows how to put people back together, and he knows how to take them apart. 221B is forced into a hostage situation, and John seems to be the only one who has the power to get them out of it. Includes BAMF John, protective Sherlock, and several unfortunate criminals who mess with the wrong army doctor. No slash. Rated: K+ - English - Adventure/Family - Chapters: 2 - Words: 9,695 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

The Empty Home by chai4anne Sherlock would always be haunted by memories of one particular case. The first body, its once-so-familiar features blurred by the passing of time and death, moved him more than he would ever have expected. But the worst was the skeleton he uncovered later, bits of hair and clothes still clinging to it—which had no effect on him whatever, until he looked up and saw John's face. Rated: T - English - Mystery/Suspense - Chapters: 28 - Words: 150,773 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

The frigid trench by Nova-chan Sherlock is badly hurt. And alone. And incapacitated. Rated: T - English - Drama/Hurt/Comfort - Chapters: 15 - Words: 13,118 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

The Hand You're Dealt by Lady Sam Mallory Sherlock, John and several others are trapped in a building when an explosion disrupts the crime scene they are working. COMPLETE. Rated: T - English - Hurt/Comfort/Angst - Chapters: 1 - Words: 12,092 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

The Secret Identity of John Watson by scifigrl47 Taken out of context, John Watson leads a terrifying life. You have to wonder what those poor women he dates thinks of it, especially if John decides to try keeping one away from Sherlock, and Sherlock decides that it'd be best if he could get rid of her Rated: T - English - Humor - Chapters: 3 - Words: 29,251 - John W., Sherlock H. - Complete

This Is What He Does For Fun by nyssa123 Sherlock and John go to the pub after a long day and Sherlock realizes that the man sitting next to them is a serial killer. He then proceeds to tell everyone how he knows. Written for a prompt on the LJ kinkmeme.

Rated: K+ - English - Humor/Mystery - Chapters: 1 - Words: 1,147 - John W., Sherlock H. - Complete

Totem by IshkabibbleScribble Rescuing Sherlock from the clutches of a violent terrorist cell forces John to rely on a long-unused, lethal skill. Rated: T - English - Friendship/Drama - Chapters: 2 - Words: 8,752 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

War Wound by SoulfireInc Set sometime after Sherlock's return, before John's wedding to Mary Mortsan. An old comrade of John's arrives at 221B Baker St, scared and desperate for the consulting detective's help. Perhaps, had Sherlock known the consequences he and John would suffer as a result of this surprise encounter, he never would have accepted the case ... [Written before season three aired.] Rated: K+ - English - Drama/Friendship - Chapters: 1 - Words: 21,319 - Sherlock H., John W., DI Lestrade, OC - Complete

From AO3 (alphabetical order) - NOTE: Just like the ff.net list, I did NOT include anything from the authors I recommended because these lists are just ginormous.

NOTE: I did *not* include warnings, pairings, etc in these summaries (too many tags to try and organize in the messy copy/pastes). Read the tags if you have any sensitivities/squicks/etc for all links!

Most anything by CaffieneKitty (over 100 shorts, so some I really love, others I can pass. Well worth checking out)

Anything by dragonnan if you want a huge wallop of angst. Also illustrations. Also writes in the MCU.

Anything by Jolie_Black (You thought stories written in script could only be bad? You thought WRONG. Very very canon-compliant goodness).

Anything by sgam76 (another multi-genre writer)

A Freak Adventure by dioscureantwins Words: 13,719 Chapters: 1/1 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes Sally Donovan John Watson Mrs. Hudson Oh Christ, the Freak will be like a dog with two tails if she turns to him for assistance. Sally can feel her hands curling into fists ready to punch the condescending smirk off his face as she glares at the lift panel, willing the lift to go faster. But this is about Susy, Sally tells herself, not about him or Sally’s abhorrence of the atrocious git. She’s still convinced he gets off on it but he can wank himself into a stupor over Susy’s disappearance for all she cares as long as he finds her.

A Smelly Affair by dioscureantwins Words: 13,756 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mrs Hudson Greg Lestrade Molly Hooper Anthea Mycroft Holmes Sherlock had published an interesting thesis on the splintering of various woods on his website. As well as an equally fascinating treatise on different types of ropes and knots and the best techniques for securing someone. Obviously, his captors had followed those instructions to the letter; thereby disproving John’s theory nobody took notice of Sherlock’s website. A victory, perhaps, but one Sherlock felt he could have done without. Trust his readership to turn the tables on the author. Morons.

Constantly by thesignsofserbia Words: 4,530 Chapters: 1/1 Mature Sherlock Holmes Mycroft Holmes Mycroft and Sherlock have a tenuous relationship at best, but with Sherlock taking down Moriarty's web, they might need each other more than they'd care to admit.

Croatia-Water-Blue by hollyesque Words: 12,117 Chapters: 1/1 Not Rated Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mycroft Holmes “I…” John licks his lips, twitches his fingers as though he wants to reach out, “I’m here, Sherlock,” he says; “I know I haven’t been, but…but I am now.” Sherlock wrinkles his nose. Haven’t been—? “What on earth do you mean, you haven’t been here?” he asks, “You’ve been living here.”

Getting to Know You by Dimity Blue (Arnie) Words: 4,605 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mycroft Holmes John picked up the kettle. "Nothing from Lestrade?"Sherlock flipped himself over on the sofa and presented John with his back; John sometimes felt he was living with a cat.Clicking the switch on the kettle, John grinned to himself and, keeping his tone casual, said, "Maybe you could send him an owl."There was silence for a few seconds, then Sherlock asked, "Why would I send him an owl?"

Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus by CaitlinFairchild Words: 4,572 Chapters: 1/1 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes Mycroft Holmes John Watson Closing his eyes, Sherlock allows himself a brief swell of feeling--let’s not put a name on it, just call it a feeling--for his big brother. He knows that when Mycroft opens that steel door again, every man now inside will be a fresh corpse.The East Wind will take them all, Sherlock thinks fuzzily, before the curtain of sleep descends.

London Orbital by merripestin Words: 13,642 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Greg Lestrade Sally Donovan Sherlock Holmes John Watson "I'm driving first," Sally said. "Guv can take over after me. If we're all still mad enough to be at this after that, John can drive third shift. Then the freak, if we decide we can risk it.""John doesn't drive," said Sherlock."Then what's John along for?" Sally protested. Which Greg reckoned had to be just Sally trying to wind Sherlock up. She knew better. All night in a car with Sherlock was bad enough. All night driving round and round the M25 looking for a killer, with Sherlock deprived of John Watson, sounded like a new circle of hell.

Official Recruiter by Captain_Author Words: 49,469 Chapters: 21/21 General Audiences Clint Barton Phil Coulson Sherlock Holmes John Watson Stephen Strange Crimes were so simple before aliens, gods, and supernatural abilities made themselves known. But Sherlock Holmes never enjoyed simple and these inhumans and mutants provided quite a challenge. SHIELD needed someone to find the superpowered. Funny how both their needs can be met.

Rigging screws, size 1 3/8 inch, galvanised by AJHall Words: 15,250 Chapters: 6/6 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson "How's a woman supposed to prove her husband's a murderer, dammit?" On the eve of a planned voyage to Brittany, Marjorie Jameson starts her day with no problems more pressing than forcing a boatyard to do an emergency repair to the family yacht. A chance encounter at the Cowes hi-speed ferry terminal begins to unravel a web of conspiracy and murder, with her charming, untrustworthy husband Julian right at the centre and Marjorie as the next intended victim.But no-one's going to trust the word of an aging housewife whose complaints of abuse the police have previously dismissed as delusions.

Somewhere in the Dinaric Alps by drpepperdiva91 Words: 1,735 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Sherlock is caught off-guard by a flashback to his time in Serbia, just before John arrives home from work. Sweet, but still semi-realistic, hurt/comfort.

The Case of the Missing Bus Ticket by Unsentimentalf Words: 10,543 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Dirk Gently Sherlock Holmes Richard MacDuff John Watson Mycroft Holmes When Dirk and Richard's new client inexplicably fails to stay alive long enough to pay them, their ailing finances mean that a certain amount of subterfuge is required to get them back to London. The sudden death of their client has, however, attracted the attention of another rather more famous (if less holistic) detective and the stage is set for a long distance bus ride of suspense…

The Green Blade by verityburns Words: 72,929 Chapters: 15/15 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Lestrade (Inspector) Mycroft Holmes Sally Donovan Anderson (Sherlock) Mrs. Hudson As a serial killer hits the headlines, the police are out of their depth and the next victim is out of time. With faith in Sherlock Holmes at an all time low, this is a case which will push loyalties to the limit... WARNING: COMMENTS CONTAIN SPOILERS!

The Holiday by Scriblit Words: 18,962 Chapters: 9/9 Mature Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mycroft Holmes Mrs. Hudson Greg Lestrade Molly Hooper Mary Morstan ACD Canon Characters A month following an horrific, sadistic attack during a case, Sherlock is still physically incapacitated and emotionally damaged. A holiday is suggested, but even stuck out in the middle of nowhere, he and John happen upon a case that could make Sherlock begin to feel like his old self again - or could kill him.BBC Sherlock Reworking of ACD's Devil's Foot, with Illustrious Client in flashbacks. Scenes of violence and implied "off screen" sexual violence/sexual assault.

The Shallow End by hollyesque Words: 6,923 Chapters: 1/1 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mycroft Holmes "I told you once that I don't have friends," he says to John's back, "Now you know why."

The Silence of the Bees by trappedinathoughtbubble Words: 14,169 Chapters: 7/? Mature Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mary Morstan Mary Watson Greg Lestrade Mycroft Holmes A kidnapped teenage girl. A political conspiracy. Bees. And somehow in the midst of it all, John learns a few things Sherlock forgot to mention about those two years. Note: Not completed, but the author's around and one of the sweetest people ever if you want to give encouragement to take a look again at this story!

The Triple Bluff by SarahKnight Words: 28,331 Chapters: 8/8 Mature Sherlock Holmes Greg Lestrade Mycroft Holmes Sally Donovan Philip Anderson Sherlock annoys his landlord at Montague street, grows to hate Donovan and gets into trouble a lot on a kidnapping case involving a woman who bullied him as a child.The events leading up to A Study In Pink. A case fic that answers questions from the first episode such as why Sherlock had to leave Montague Street and find a new flatmate, why he and Lestrade both quit smoking but didn't know the other had, why there's so much animosity between Sherlock and Donovan, and why Sherlock hates traveling in a police car.

Welcome Home by thesignsofserbia Words: 3,435 Chapters: 1/1 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mrs. Hudson Mycroft Holmes "All my nightmares escaped my head. Bar the door, please don’t let them in. You were never supposed to leave. Now my head's splitting at the seams."

And of course I have my own Sherlock/Doctor Strange crossover up on AO3 if that tickles your fancy, illustrations and all. :D

But if you haven’t delved deep into the fandom, this should tide you over for some time.

This list is by no means an exhaustive list of recs. I didn’t really include anything that concentrated on a romantic pairing, for instance. I left off anything explicit as well. But yeah, here’s a small amount of the overall goodness produced by the BBC Sherlock fandom over the last 10 years.

#neutronstardust13 #long post #bbc sherlock #fic rec #sherlock holmes #john watson #gen fic #genre: humor #genre: angst #genre: fluff #crossover #greg lestrade #mycroft holmes #martha hudson #ask #answered

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thebeethathums · 6 years ago

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Observers - 37

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x Reader

Warnings: Almost nudity?

After John had thoroughly cooled off and started to feel bad for leaving you with what had to be the most irritating sick person he’d ever encountered, he decided it was time to go home. He was surprised to find the two of you asleep on the couch, Sherlock’s upper half completely exposed and the sheet hanging only loosely around his hips. He’d rolled face down in his sleep when you’d shifted to a slouch, burying his nose in your stomach, and one of your hands had found its way to his back while the other remained meshed in his hair. John took a long moment to process the scene before his mind managed to formulate a full thought, slowly repeating, ‘There’s a naked man sleeping on my sister,’ a few times in his head. He shook his head, reminding himself that you both needed your rest before he completely flew off the handle when you suddenly stirred, obviously uncomfortable in your slouched position. You hummed softly, rubbing at Sherlock’s shoulder, “Sherly, my back hurts.” He gave a low whine as he nuzzled further into you and the arm thrown over his head to hug your waist tightened around you, not actually waking but still protesting the attempt. “Sherlock,” you pouted, squirming and giving him a weak shove, which did nothing, before letting out a resigned sigh. Opening your eyes to find your brother just sort of staring off into space, you gave him a small smile, “Johnny, you're back. Feeling better?”

He opened his mouth only to shut it before letting out a heavy huff of air as he shot Sherlock a glare, working his hands open and closed. You tilted your head in confusion and then followed his gaze to Sherlock’s nearly naked form, going wide-eyed for a moment as your face grew warm before clapping a hand over your eyes with a giggle. You patted Sherlock’s head to wake him, “Sherlock. Your sheet.”

He groggily groped for it, waking up fully when he found more bare skin than he had anticipated, and then froze, “Is it gone?” You gasped for air as you laughed, “Are you sure you want me to look?” John finally lost it, shouting, “No, he doesn’t want you to bloody look!” before yanking Sherlock off you as he seethed, “Go put some bloody clothes on, you twat. She’s my little sister for Christ’s sake.” Sherlock stumbled off in his sheet as you flopped sideways on the couch, laughing so hard it hurt while John started to angrily pace in front of you, barking, “It’s not funny, (F/n).” You sat up to smirk at your brother, barely holding in more laughter, “Oh come on, Johnny… it was a little funny.”

He tried to keep a straight face as he thought about it but ended up cracking a smile and giving a little laugh, “Ok it maybe it was a little funny,” which made you grin and let loose another round of laughter. He came to sit with you, the two of you quickly in absolute stitches over Sherlock losing his sheet, laughing even harder when Sherlock came back in fully clothed with a light blush across his cheeks and his arms crossed over his chest. You flopped down in your brother’s lap and gasped for air, slowly calming down until you only let out occasional little giggles as you looked up at him, “I haven’t laughed like that in a long time… It feels good.” John brushed some hair out of your face, letting go of his anger because it was really good to see you this happy, and Sherlock plopped down in his chair to sulk, “You are both such children. It’s unbecoming.” Coming from someone who acted like far more of child than either you or your brother on a regular basis, that statement was hilarious. You stifled a giggle and exchanged an amused glance with your brother who was grinning widely at his flatmate’s displeasure, finding it satisfying after the frustrating day that he’d had. Wanting to get up, John gently pushed you off his lap and you stood up to stretch with a yawn before scooping up Sherlock’s mug from the coffee table and taking it into the kitchen, “Are you feeling better at least, Sherlock?” “Much,” he responded flatly and John got up to follow you, “What about you, Squeak? How are you feeling?” “Fine. Good actually.” John joined you at the stove and you gave him a little hip bump before handing him a mug of tea and then swishing out to give Sherlock his with a little grin. He took it from you without looking up and you puffed out your cheeks, “Come on, Sherly, don’t be angry. It was cute… a little rude but cute.” He sipped at his tea after unhappily grumbling, “I’m not cute,” and you sighed, “Fine… John’s back and you’re feeling better, so I’m going downstairs to change and turn in for the night.” You gave your brother a quick kiss on the cheek and said good night before slipping out of the flat as John sat down across from Sherlock and very casually offered, “You ever do anything like that again and I’ll break your nose.” Sherlock mumbled, “Understood,” before settling in with his thoughts. There was the matter of his newly discovered sleep clinging to ponder as well as both the fact that your eyes had lingered a bit longer than necessary on his nearly naked form and that John had not exactly reacted preferably… that may have been due to the nearly nakedness but he had a feeling that the same reaction would apply to any intimate interaction between you and him. He stored it away in his file labeled John before opening his file devoted to you. At this point, it was becoming a little cramped with information which made him briefly consider moving it into his mind palace. He decided to think more on that later as he added his sleep clinging and theories as to its cause along with your physical attraction to him to the folder and then just sort of roamed through it. It wasn’t until he was interrupted by his phone ringing that he realized he’d been in there the entire night and it was now morning. He ignored the phone, closing his eyes again, but immediately after it stopped ringing it buzzed with a text and he scrunched up his face before reaching for it. It was Lestrade- a triple murder across town and the killer had left a note. Sherlock was out of his chair in a flash, shooting you a text to be ready in five, “JOHN! Case!” They were out the door and halfway down the stairs when he got a response, ‘At work. Have fun. -(F/I)W’ He stopped dead in his tracks, John almost tumbling into him as he was caught off guard by the abrupt action, and texted you again, ‘Come anyways- SH’ The response was almost instantaneous, 'It’s not up for debate, Sherlock- (F/I)W’ He pursed his lips in annoyance and then continued down the stairs, bypassing your door without a second glance as John trotted to catch up with him, “Are we not bringing, (F/n)?” “She’s informed me that she’s too busy. So obviously not,” he snapped coldly. John shut up after that, curiously studying Sherlock in the cab as he wondered why your refusal had affected him in such a way and then why you had even refused since you were normally bouncing off the walls at the mention of adventure or potential trouble. Sherlock’s expression was flat as he looked out the window, this job thing was going to have to go. It was making you dull and he needed you with him not doing whatever it was you did at that place. He was going to have to get you painting again so you could define your work hours and make them so they didn’t conflict with cases. It was the only way. Even with the fact that you weren’t with them, he felt a sense of excitement overwhelm him as they grew closer to the crime scene- something told him this one was going to be a challenging one for a change and he absolutely reveled in that fact, a smile making its way to his lips as the cab came to a stop.

Tags <3:

@team-free-sherlock @multifandom-ramblings @madshelily @severusminerva @yes-but-theyre-my-dorks @smitemewiththysherlock @not-fandom-addicted @unknownwonder @deducingdevil @aviien @mrsfrankensteinsworld @lolamurphy @bakerstreethound @musical-doll-x @protectteamfreewill @delightful-pirate

#sherlock x reader #Sherlock Holmes x Reader #BBC Sherlock #reader insert #Watson!Reader #Sherlock #Sherlock Holmes #John Watson #sibling!reader #reader #artist reader #THE SHEET #slow burn #x reader #fanfic #fan fiction #thebeethathums #Observers

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sherlockxreader · 8 years ago

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A Fear of Losing Love (SherlockxFem!Reader)

Title: A Fear of Losing Love

Author: Nyla (@i-had-a-halo-once)

Pairings: SherlockxFem!Reader, mentions of SherlockxMolly and SherlockxIrene

Request: Hey love, my name is Nyla as well, but anyways i was wondering if you could do a scene where sherlock tells her he loves her based off the song “Suicide by James Arthur” much love xx — anonymous

Warnings: Angst, mentions of cheating, a song mentioning suicide, and a little cursing

A/N: So I really got into this request, and it became pretty long XD So, I hope you enjoy, and I’m sorry for the delay in posting it! Enjoy! -Nyla

Words: 5,295

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Sherlock Holmes hated waiting. It was boring, and took up time he could use for doing something else that was useful. He hated the dullness of sitting in his chair, fingertips steepled and hovering close to his mouth, his expression at first glance calm. A second glance would reveal his eyes to be hard — cold and unforgiving for the person he was waiting on.

John had left hours ago after extracting a promise from a tight-lipped Sherlock that the detective would let him know when she finally came home, if she did at all that night.

She. Y/N.

A young woman whose name always followed Sherlock’s when his was uttered in conversation. Y/N. A young woman who was equal in nearly every way to the genius detective now waiting on her, anger radiating off of him that would be instantly discernible to anyone who really knew him.

The clock ticked one a.m. Sherlock didn’t move, but his eyes grew fractionally colder with each hour that most called ungodly ticking by.

“You didn’t have to wait up.”

Her voice followed the shutting of the flat’s front door, and her footsteps were muffled on the carpet. She unwound her scarf and tossed it haphazardly over her chair, the one that used to be John’s before he moved in with Mary.

“Did you have fun?” Sherlock’s tone was sharp, and hinted at mocking.

She chose to ignore him, knowing he wouldn’t listen to her like this. It was a mark of her status in his eyes, and her confidence and familiarity with the abrasive detective, that she was unintimidated by his tone and felt comfortable with blatantly ignoring him.

Her coat was already coming off and being hung on the coat hanger she brought with her when she moved in with him.

“You know some people would call it cheating,” Sherlock spoke again, and his tone was sharper with annoyance at her refusal to be provoked by him.

“We’re not exactly the definition of a couple,” you replied evenly with a tone that implied you didn’t care about his opinion, but your vivid (E/C) eyes glinted with annoyance.

There was nothing he could say to that, and he knew it. You were absolutely correct, and he hated that. You had practically waltzed into Sherlock’s life one day, looking for a flat mate, and had beaten the detective at his own game of deduction. Of course, that caught his attention, which rarely happened. And one day he found you at a crime scene Lestrade had called him to. Sensing his unasked demand of what you were doing there, you had smirked at him and simply said, “I was bored.” From then on, he had viewed you with a more than casual interest, and you two had wordlessly agreed to become a team.

Eventually, a relationship grew between you two. And while the public thought it was a match made in heaven with their typical eagerness to have a celebrity couple to adore, you two were anything but perfect. In the public spotlight, you presented a unified front. In private, you fought constantly.

You were ruthless when it came to criminals, and now Sherlock realized you could be just as heartless with dating. If he could even call this relationship dating. You weren’t an official couple in your own words, and you saw that as an excuse to do whatever the hell you wanted.

Even meeting up with other men.

(One, two, ready Here we go)

It ain’t the gun It’s the man behind the trigger Gets blood on his fingers And runs It ain’t the lie It’s the way that the truth is denied

Sherlock regarded you coldly over his fingertips. “Clearly.” His response was clipped, and finally elicited a heated reaction he had wanted from you.

“And what exactly does that mean?” You shot back, turning to glare at him. “It wasn’t anything meaningful, either, just so you know. A couple of drinks. One kiss. That’s all.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Sherlock snapped back, anger heating his tone. “It went further than that, and you know it, Y/N. Of everything you could have said, I thought you knew better than to lie to me.”

“So what? It’s not like you don’t keep secrets either,” you retorted. “One minute you’re telling me we’re not a couple, the next you’re jealous of something that didn’t go further than a couple of kisses in a dark alleyway.”

“Oh, so it was only a couple of kisses. That makes it so much better, Y/N.” His tone was carried heavy sarcasm, and you rolled your eyes with a huff.

“Get over it, Sherlock. You’re being a brat about this, and you know it.” You turned on your heel, fuming, and reached for your coat. You had no intentions of staying here if Sherlock was going to be so bloody annoying and childish. Besides, it had never bothered him before, so you saw no reason for it to now.

“Going out again, then?” Came his angry retort. “Going to find someone you can sleep the night away with? Should I expect you back for tea in the morning, or will you be too busy with a stranger?”

“Bloody hell, Sherlock!” Your tone was rising, and you whirled to face him. He had come to a standing position, and was glaring at you. You returned the glare with equal passion. “I refuse to be around you when you’re so blinded with your hate of me! I suppose you have a list, then? Of all my sins? Of everything I’ve done to offend you? Go on, then, read it! Tell me exactly why I make you so angry constantly.”

Sherlock went to answer, then stopped, gauging your expression. He knew you better than anyone, of course. He knew almost everything about you, from the tiny movements that denoted your amusement to the slight twitch of your hand that indicted tears. And yes, there it was, a twitch in your left hand.

In that instance, he realized he had gone too far. Yes, you had been rude and hurtful, but his comments had been uncalled for.

So instead of making yet another one, he simply stood and stared at you, uncharacteristically silent. With a shake of your head, you turned and left for the second time that night, slamming the door behind you.

He made no move to follow you.

But if there is one thing that I’m guilty of It’s loving and giving when you take too much If somebody asked how we died Please look them straight in the eye

Sherlock remained frozen in his spot after you stormed out in a whirl of hurt and anger, resisting the urge to go after you. You had no right to go treating him like that, after all that you had put him through.

Evening after evening, you walked out early on only to return in the early morning hours when the city found a brief respite from the business of diurnal normality. Each of those mornings he heard you come in, your footstep light despite your exhaustion, and each of those mornings he heard you slip into your bedroom quietly. Each morning found him lying awake, listening for the sound of your return, different emotions playing across his face as he once again listened to you find your way into your bed and collapsed, tired from your night out and hoping to catch a few hours of sleep before you were supposed to rise and start a new day.

Sometimes, once he knew you were asleep, he rose from his own bed and quietly opened your door to look in at your sleeping form, knowing he needed to confront you but not wanting to disturb the tense relationship you two had shared, hyper aware that it could easily shatter should anything upset it.

Tonight, he was too tired and angry with your late night outings to care about what such a confrontation would mean for the future of your relationship. He had planned his words carefully, knowing you would fight with him. Ultimately, however, he had believed you would see his side and apologize.

He hadn’t counted on the extent of your own anger towards him.

And he wasn’t sure what had caused it.

This, he thought with a cold disappointment, was exactly why he had always avoided any sort of serious romantic relationship. Love. Love was a poison. It often did the exact opposite of what one expected it to, or seemingly on a whim forced one of its victims to do something completely out of character.

Say, for example, let someone endure the suffering caused by the one they were supposed to love and who was supposed to love them back.

Because despite it all, all the fights and the raised voices and the silent but cold looks you exchanged with him on a more common daily basis than either of you would have liked, Sherlock was wise enough to admit the truth.

He loved you.

Call it suicide Don’t fabricate Just tell them babe It was suicide Don’t sugarcoat it Just let them know

He wasn’t sure when he had realized it, but one day, during a crime scene preliminary survey where you were checking out a blood splatter across the brick wall nearby, he had looked up and his eyes had landed you, your expression a mask of concentration. And he had realized, with breathtaking clarity, his feelings for you.

Never, never, had Sherlock Holmes imagined the day where he could lay eyes on someone and feel something other than grudging acceptance of their presence. Well, except for John, but he had trouble sometimes there, too. But you…

How had he not realized it before? He, Sherlock Holmes, who was in control of his emotions and his mind, had been deceived into falling in love. Maybe it was the glint of excitement in your eyes that appeared whenever a new case was brought to your attention. Maybe it was the way you fearlessly ran into danger to pursue the truth no matter the cost. Maybe it was the way you stood up to him, unafraid of anything he could say or do to you in retaliation. Maybe it was the way you stood up to everyone who snapped at him to defend him with a crushing sentence.

No, he had never admitted his feelings for you, because he had been so sure it would pass. Eventually, this feeling would pass and everything would go back to normal. His mind wouldn’t become instantly obsessed with you every time you walked in a room, and his heart wouldn’t seem to skip beats when you looked or talked to him. He needed everything to go back to normal. He needed to rid himself of this dangerous emotion that seemed to hold unimaginable sway over him, a man of rationale and science.

His hand clenched and he threw his glass at the wall, not bothered by the crack of shattering glass against wallpaper that did nothing to soften the blow.

It ain’t the knife It’s the way that you use it How you abuse it in fights It ain’t about the life You feel you were given As long as you’re living it right

You waited until the door of the flat was slammed close and you were exiting the front door downstairs to hesitate. Your head turned almost of its own accord to allow you to see the window of your flat. Your gaze caught the dark figure standing in full view staring down at you with an unreadable expression, and you hesitated just another second before you shook your head, turning at the same time, an almost overwhelming urge to escape Sherlock’s judgment tugging you away from the flat and your confusing life within its walls.

You kept yourself together, afraid for anyone to see the tumultuous emotions raging within you and recognize your face. Sherlock’s words had cut you deeper than you had let on, and you cursed yourself quietly as the cold night air hit your face in a chilling wind.

You knew he was right, of course, no matter what the typical definition of a couple looked like. Even atypical couples usually tended to avoid meeting up with other people with the intention of what was basically cheating.

You hadn’t meant to cheat— No, you knew better and so did Sherlock, which made all excuses useless in your defense. You were brilliant, and you weren’t shy about that fact, so he knew that you had known exactly what you were doing when you allowed another man to kiss you and hold your hand in a public street. If you hadn’t wanted it, it wouldn’t have happened and that was a simple fact. And Sherlock knew it just as well as you did, which made it cheating. There was no other word for it.

Yes, you had chosen it, but you didn’t simply chose to go out and cheat for no reason. You did everything for a reason, and you were positive Sherlock was aware there was a reason behind your actions. You were angry and bitter, and you had wanted to teach him a lesson. Which had clearly backfired, but you weren’t surprised. You hadn’t been expecting it to really work anyway.

Still, some foolish part of your mind had been holding out for him to realize that you were angry with him.

A muffled ringtone sent your thoughts scattering away, and you glanced at the ID after pulling the phone out of your pocket. Why? Why the hell had he called you now?

“What?” You snapped by way of greeting as soon as you answered.

“Come back.” Sherlock stated, his tone still sharp but less frosty.

“Knock off, Sherlock. You’re angry, and all my return will do is invite more arguing. We both know that. So you either called me to argue with me further, or say something else. Which one is it?”

“Will you just talk this out with me without getting irrational about my intentions, Y/N?” He retorted.

“Look, Sherlock. When we met, we both agreed a professional relationship was the best we could manage, and then we both went and made a stupid mistake. So why don’t we just admit we were right the first time and part with the resemblance of friendship?” You spat. Hatred of him, of everything you had gone through with him, poisoned your tone.

“Y/N—”

“Goodbye, Sherlock.”

If there is one thing that I’m guilty of It’s loving and giving when you take too much If somebody asked how we died Oh, you look them straight in the eye

Sherlock hated many things. Idiots, Anderson, people who insulted or hurt you or John, his brother in general, and boredom. And on this occasion, he hated himself above all else, but more than anything, he hated losing you. And he knew that now. He couldn’t stand losing the only person who truly understood what it was like to be him, what it was like to be so bright and yet so insecure. And he knew he was going to get you back no matter what it took. Whatever happened between you two, he would fight for you and win because he was Sherlock Holmes and he didn’t lose.

Only he had no idea how to get you back.

So he called the only person he could.

He paced the flat anxiously, silently pleading for his other best friend to pick up despite the hour. The clock ticked the hour of one a.m. away while he waited and waited and waited.

And finally, there was an answer.

“Sherlock?” Came John’s sleepy, albeit worried, voice.

“John, I need your help.” Sherlock responded instantly, his voice upset. That in itself was enough to cause worry — Sherlock never let his emotions take over, and this tone was uncontrolled, unlike the times when the detective would call about a case, excited but controlled.

“What is it? Did something happen to Y/N?” Sherlock could hear the sounds of John sitting up and flipping on a light, and the resultant sleepy murmurs of Mary.

“I lost her, John, and I don’t know how to get her back,” Sherlock said, but his tone was pleading. Desperate. Completely uncharacteristic.

“You lost her?”

“Yes, John, understand! I lost Y/N. She broke up with me, and I need her back. I don’t know how to do that. How do I get her back, John?”

There was a pause, which found Sherlock pacing more furiously and close to another outburst, before he replied. “Fight for her, Sherlock. Where is she now?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Find her. Go after her. That’s what she wants, to know that you really do care about her.”

“She should know that already!”

“Sherlock,” John’s voice became a little stricter, “how is she supposed to know when you place everything before her? You cancel dates to work on cases. You brush her off when she comes to you. And, more recently, you constantly criticize her. And she’s tired of it. She’s probably going to find someone who doesn’t take her for granted.”

Sherlock was silent, the surprise of discovering how you truly felt from John of all people taking any response he could have given away from him. Did you really feel this way? Did he really take you for granted? He knew he could act like that towards others around him, but you… He had really thought he had acted differently towards you. And you never tended to show your emotions openly, but he had been able to read you easily. At least, he had thought so.

But then, maybe you had hidden your true feelings away too well and he had always been to busy to realize you were never really around anymore, that your heart had found a different place to be and it wasn’t with him anymore.

John was right. He needed to go after you, and explain why he needed you to come back.

There was only one way to do that, he realized as he swung his coat on and finally opened the door to chase down the woman he loved and had lost.

Call it suicide Don’t fabricate Just tell them babe It was suicide Don’t sugarcoat it Just let them know

Your hands were shoved deep into your pockets as you trudged along, reluctance dogging your every step while doubt and uncertainty plagued your mind, your anger cooling off in the frozen night air drifting invisibly around you. With each warm breath of air you released, a small area of cold air in front of you was lit up in small, misty clouds painted white by the street lamps guarding you nearby. Should you have stayed? Should you have heeded Sherlock’s words and returned to talk it out? You knew Sherlock was trying to be reasonable, and you had brushed him off with nothing more than a thinly-veiled breakup and hostility.

Still, you didn’t want to talk. Your anger with his treatment of you had gone beyond the talking point months ago. How did he not get that? Then again, Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant scientist and crime detective, wasn’t quite so smart when it came to his own relationships, and yours and his in particular.

You knew the best thing for you was to escape him and the unhealthy relationship that had developed, yet a small part of your heart was holding out for his arrival to announce something you had been waiting for ever since you had started dating him.

Unlike him, you knew you were in love with him. It had become obvious to you soon after you met him, but you had never told him, patiently waiting for him to ask you out. And then he did, but in all the months of your romantic relationship, three simple words you had longed to hear had never passed his lips and now it looked like they never would.

Your hand was already rising to brush the tears away when you first became aware of them, and you forced yourself to straighten up. You didn’t need Sherlock Holmes; it would hurt like hell, but you would walk away once and for all.

At least, that was the plan.

Except plans, even ones by world-famous geniuses, tended to upend themselves and never quite work out the way they were wanted to.

Some tiny part of you knew that.

You’ve been killing me softly And finally the pain is too much And I’m all out of whisky To soak up the damage you’ve done

Sherlock tracked your phone, correctly guessing you would still have it on you even after his call. You were too smart to go throwing phones away simply so he wouldn’t have your number right now. You could always quite easily get a new one, and he had doubt that if he let you go forever, you would do exactly that.

So he followed the directions coming from his phone to get to yours and to you. His step was hurried and full of anxiety, and it was clear to anyone watching. Absently, people wondered what the detective was worked up about as he brushed past them without even a cursory glance at their anonymous faces before returning to the pressing matters of their own busy lives.

He saw your phone was moving steadily, but slowly, away from him just a couple of streets away. His urgency increased, prompting his pace to do the same, and Sherlock shoved his phone into his pocket roughly, his mind flooded with the possibilities of words he could string together to convince you why this should have just been a minor argument and nothing to leave over. Hadn’t you once said angry arguments were just excuses that people to get worked up over for no reason? And he agreed. Reasonable discussion of differing opinions was one thing; actual arguments filled with emotional defenses and rising voices were another.

Oh, God, he hoped John was right and he could win you back. Sherlock had always prided himself on his independence from everyone else and the ability to detach himself from his emotions, but you were a different matter. No matter how he put it, Sherlock was faced with the truth.

He needed you.

And he knew you needed him just as much.

So he continued on, and finally turned a corner to step onto the street you were on. His eyes found your form almost immediately, moving away from another figure following you. As he drew closer, his eyes narrowing, your voice drifted back to him quite clearly.

“Stop following me, for God’s sake!” You snapped at the man, for Sherlock could now quite easily see it was a man now, dogging you.

“C’mon, darlin’, one kiss wouldn’t hurt,” the man slurred his words heavily and that alone was enough to make Sherlock’s opinion go from annoyance at his existence to downright hatred. His hand slipped inside his coat and he continued walking towards you as his fingers grasped the cold handle of the gun he had taken to carrying.

The sound of you slapping the man and your following curses, a string of language that would have made a Royal Navy sailor blush, followed the drunk’s imploring. The drunk fired back with his own curses, and a quest to grab your arm and drag you into a dark alleyway.

“She said no,” Sherlock’s voice rang out after he decided to make himself known. You and the man both turned instantly, and while his eyes widened at the sight of the handheld firearm pointing at him, disbelief and anger flickered across your features. Your mouth tightened into a thin line as your eyes met Sherlock’s as he continued. “So I suggest you leave before you pay for your actions.”

The man looked ready to pee himself with fear as he stumbled away, but you simply muttered a curse and turned away, angry with Sherlock for rescuing you and angry with yourself for providing a situation where he could. You didn’t need him, you were perfectly fine on your own.

“Y/N—” Sherlock started, his simultaneous action being to step forward and almost reaching for you with his free hand. Your automatic step back was enough to make him draw back, something flashing in his eyes.

“Don’t!” You snapped at him. “Please, just leave me alone. Just…” Your tone was exhausted more than anything at this point, and it hurt Sherlock to know he was the cause.

If there’s anything I’m guilty of It’s loving you too much If anybody asks how we died

“You don’t get to make a decision for the both of us, Y/N,” he stated, a little sharpness finding its way into his voice again. “Not when they affect both of us. You’re wrong. I was wrong. Can we both admit that and move on?” He pleaded a little.

“What exactly were we wrong about, Sherlock? You’re going to have to be specific, because it seems like we’ve both been wrong a lot lately.” You didn’t bother trying to hide the tears glittering in your eyes now. He would have been able to tell your emotional state even if you had looked completely calm. As it was, you looked like you were barely holding yourself together and felt like falling apart.

“We were wrong about each other,” he answered quietly, and that sentence stopped your lips as they were forming another angry response. Your eyes widened slightly, and he let that statement hang in the air above you two as your gazes locked. He continued just as softly a minute later. “We were wrong about each other, Y/N. I thought I didn’t need you. You thought I didn’t care about you after all. We both acted in ways we shouldn’t have.”

“I…” Your voice trailed off, swallowed by the pressing night air surrounding you two as you remained locked in your own little world where no one but Y/N L/N and Sherlock Holmes existed. Your tone wavered with the weight of your confusion and hesitancy.

“You know I’m right, Y/N. And you’re right — as far as your actions are concerned, tonight seemed to be no different. You followed your normal routine, and yes, I know all about it.” He smiled slightly after forestalling your question. You had been so sure he was oblivious to your nightly routine. Maybe he hadn’t been so occupied after all. “What I didn’t know is why you did it. I would lay awake at night, listening to your footsteps, and I would wonder, Y/N. I wondered why you of all people went out to find someone else to talk to, to be close to, to hang out with, instead of me. I doubted myself. Was I not good enough? Were you not sure you wanted to continue our relationship? Was I simply awful at all romantic relationships like I had always believed I was?” He shook his head at himself, but his gaze remained on yours, holding you in place, forcing you to listen to him.

“Sherlock…” You began again, but once again your voice was taken by both Sherlock holding up a gloved hand and the wind snatching away your words and any defense you might have thrown up.

“Y/N, please. Let me finish.” He took a staggering deep breath, seemingly steadying himself for what was coming next. “Most of all, I wondered why it bothered me. Never before had any such occurrence bothered me if it was completely separate from a case. What did romance, what did a serious relationship, mean to me? Nothing. Not if it couldn’t think for itself and help me solve a case. You know what happened with Molly. With Irene. With Janine.” He allowed a faint, bitter smile to twist his lips.

You did know what had happened to the women who had previously dated Sherlock. The one with Molly hadn’t ended pretty. She had left, crying and accusing Sherlock of being less than human in his priorities — when she had forced him to choose between her and a case involving another woman, he had picked the case, effectively ending their relationship. And Irene’s past with Sherlock was a complicated matter that one didn’t lightly approach with the intent of delving into. It had also ended with his priorities being mere cases over human beings interested in being around him. As for Janine... That relationship hadn’t even been real.

“So why, exactly, did your comings and goings and nights out with other men bother me so much I would lay awake, half hoping you wouldn’t dare walk through the front door again and half afraid that you wouldn’t, that something had happened. After spending so much time with you, somehow, I had begun to place you above mere cases. I began letting you have value in my life independent from crimes and mysteries. And then… Then I realized.”

He paused, and you felt your breath catching in your throat because of anticipated excitement chasing it, and your heart fluttering lightly like a million butterflies hovering together in one spot. Was he going to say it? Would he… He was so damn close, and your heart ached to hear the words fall from his lips.

Hell, if he said it, you knew you wouldn’t be able to stop your own words.

[Chorus x2:] Call it suicide Don’t fabricate Just tell them babe It was suicide Don’t sugarcoat it Just let them know

“Maybe it was the first day I saw you and I was too blind to my own emotions. Maybe it was after that that I realized what I hadn’t dared to think about. I don’t know when the hell I realized it, Y/N, and I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before. All I know is that I’ve realized it tonight,” he breathed, his body seeming to move of its own accord closer to you. You remained rooted to your spot, helpless as the man you loved drew closer and closer to you in a memorizing way.

“Realized what?” You whispered, the words barely audible with the strength and weakness of the hope they contained.

“That I love you, Y/N L/N. I love you so much it hurts, Y/N, and I can’t lose you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and you are the one thing that I cannot be without anymore. I love you. I love you, so don’t you dare leave me. Please.” His voice was quiet, almost pleading and desperate, but his eyes shone strangely, almost watery, in the light of the streetlight a few meters away.

“Goddamnit, Sherlock Holmes, I love you too.” Your hand reached up before you realized it, brushing Sherlock’s cheek.

“We’re going to find a way through this, I promise. You’re everything, Y/N, and I will protect you. Just stay with me. Please.” His hands found yours, holding yours firmly in a grip that conveyed everything he couldn’t find the words to explain to you. You gave him a faint smile of your own.

“I would be a bloody fool to walk away from the man I love more than anything, Sherlock. Remember that. I love you, too, and that will never change.”

He laughed softly, and the next thing you knew was his warm lips against yours in a kiss that promised everything to you, and you returned it quite eagerly.

Oh baby Just let them know Just…

#sherlock x reader #nyla writes #request #sherlockxreader #i-had-a-halo-once

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theartone · 7 years ago

Text

Spellbound

<<Chapter 1 <Chapter 4

Chapter 5

That’s How You Know

Mrs Hudson climbed to the top of a statue for a better view. Lestrade climbed up too, hoping to catch a glimpse of dark curly hair.

"I wonder if we might cover more ground separately sire," Sally said. "You by yourself and me with," she waved her hand at the rodent, "it."

"An inspired plan, Donovan." Lestrade climbed down wearily. He hadn't realized towns could get so big, it was slightly overwhelming.

Mrs Hudson started shouting, "Look, over there! It's him, it's Sherlock!" She jumped up and down trying to catch Lestrade's attention.

Her high pitched squeaks went unnoticed by the prince but not his footman. Sally looked out and saw Sherlock being led by the hand by a short blond man. Sally jumped, catching Mrs Hudson and squeezing so she quieted. The pair was coming this way; Sally needed to do something quick. "Look, sire! Over there!" She pointed to a lanky brunette walking away from them into Elder Gardens Park.

"Sherlock!" Lestrade shouted in joyous rapture and took off running.

Sally stepped out of the light and furtively kept watch on the twosome. She heard the blond man say, "I can't help you anymore. When we get to the flat I can give you some money and after that, you're on your own." And she heard Sherlock reply, "I don't need money, what I need is a wizard." Sally followed closely enough that she could hear, "Well, there aren't wizards here, or if there are I don't know any. Don't you have any friends or relatives here?" Sherlock snorted and said, "I don't have friends.” The way he said the last word made it sound dirty. Sally wasn't fooled, she knew Sherlock wanted friends, he just couldn't get any. He was a freak.

John stopped and Sherlock walked into the back of him. "You don't- right. Fine." He let go of Sherlock and curled his hand into a fist.

Sherlock realized his error, "John, I didn't mean-"

"No," John cut him off. "It's fine." He took out his wallet and took out all the cash in it. "Here." He held the wad at Sherlock.

"I just meant: I don't have friends, I've only got one." Sherlock begged John with his eyes not to make him say anymore. He wasn't good at talking about his emotions, even singing about them was hard. It was one of the things that made him strange in Andalasia. Sherlock made no move to take the money.

That took the wind out of John's sails. He put the money back in his wallet and the wallet back in his pocket.

The two bickered back and forth but to Sally it sounded friendly. Sally noted that the blond man took Sherlock's hand again. The pair finally agreed that John would get some money then leave Sherlock in Regent's Park. Sally dashed off; if she was lucky she'd have everything ready when Sherlock was alone.

----

John went into 221B and walked into his room to change out of the stuffy uncomfortable clothing he wore to Harry’s office. Sherlock followed behind him and peered through John’s closet making pained faces at some of John’s clothing but wisely keeping his mouth shut. John ushered Sherlock out of his room and shut the door for privacy.

Sherlock was stunned. He’d seen the officer’s uniform in John’s closet, it was the one from his visions. Lestrade’s uniform was red and Sherlock had assumed that the colour of the clothing didn’t matter, that it was just an odd representation of the spell since everyone knew that all officer’s uniforms were red. But not here, here they were dark navy.

After John was done changing he took the emergency stash of cash he had from its hiding place and started counting notes. He couldn’t decide how much to give Sherlock. Sherlock’s admission when they were walking back had startled John. John didn’t have many friends either but seeing Sherlock so distressed made John wonder if Sherlock had ever had any friends.

John’s hands had stopped their motions while he was thinking. He wondered if Sherlock was lonely. It would explain things. John looked down and put the money back. Sure, Sherlock had effortlessly destroyed almost all his relationships but John knew he didn’t mean to. John pursed his lips and made a decision, he’d accompany Sherlock to Regent’s Park and wherever else the madman wanted to go. Once Molly was calmed down she’d understand and Harry told John that she’d never talk to him again at least once a month. John was just being dramatic and he knew he shouldn’t take it out on his new friend.

Sherlock paced in the living room. He didn’t want to leave John, especially now that he knew that John was his soulmate. He could feel the truth of it deep, down to his bones. But John already had a love, Molly. Was it possible for your one true love to love another? Not in Andalasia, but here… Things were different here. He wished he could summon an animal to talk to but he thought John would be upset.

Not that he really needed to talk. He knew that John loved Molly, he was going to propose. So Sherlock had to step aside. John wanted Molly and Sherlock knew he needed to respect that.

When John came out of his room dressed in an oatmeal jumper and jeans Sherlock followed John out of the flat quietly.

They made it to an entrance to Regents and Sherlock’s heart warmed at seeing so much green. But his chest still felt tight and he didn’t want to go in, it would mean it was the last he’d see of John.

“Why’d you want to go to a park again?” John asked.

“Since no people know where to find a wizard I’d thought I’d ask the trees or some animals,” Sherlock explained.

“Right,” John willed his eye not to twitch.

“Don’t give me that look, John. I’m a druid.” Sherlock waved his hand at the green space, “This is where I belong.” Only Sherlock didn’t feel at home looking at the trees. The more he stood here the less comfortable he felt. He didn’t want to think about why.

He’d turned John’s life upside down, it was no wonder John wanted to get rid of him. Sherlock wasn’t one to apologize often, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d admitted fault. But, in this case he made an exception. “John, I’m sorry. All I’ve done is cause you trouble since you met me so I understand that you can’t help anymore. I’ll go, just, thank you. For everything.” Sherlock tried to smile but his face felt rather numb. He didn’t wait for John to hand him money, Sherlock didn’t feel he could take even more from John. His feet felt like lead when he turned and walked away.

John was still trying to process the fact that Sherlock thought himself a druid. It was absurd, but it made sense in an odd sort of way. Sherlock did seem like he was able to get pigeons to do his bidding. John knew that if a patient walked into his clinic with this talk of magic and wizards and druids and talking to trees he’d have them sectioned. But Sherlock wasn’t a danger to himself or others and crazily enough he might actually be a druid. John wondered for his own sanity for a moment that he was entertaining this nonsense before realizing that Sherlock was gone.

“Sherlock?” John spun around, looking for the man.

Sherlock had found an old woman, feeding the pigeons. He sat down on the bench next to her. He thought she was another druid as the pigeons had said that most people hated them. “I like your friends,” Sherlock said, trying his best to be nice.

“Thank you,” the woman said and patted the seat next to her for Sherlock to sit.

“By any chance, have you seen my prince?” Sherlock asked that because he didn’t want to ask about wizards. Even if the woman was a druid she wouldn’t speak so openly about magic. Apparently, it was taboo here.

“He was here,” the woman wheezed, “He tried to kill me.”

Sherlock was alarmed. “Tried to kill you?” He’d never noticed any murderous intent in his fiancé. He wondered what type of evil this woman harboured. He eyed her critically but he didn’t have any useful deductions. He didn’t understand this world so he couldn’t deduce properly. Another reason to just go home, Sherlock thought glumly.

“Sherlock? What are you doing?” John asked when he came to the park bench.

“John?” Sherlock blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected to ever see John again.

John took Sherlock’s hand and pulled him up and away from the woman. From the look of her, John thought she was homeless.

“Wait, she said she saw Prince Lestrade,” Sherlock said.

“He was on the bus this morning,” the woman said.

“Right,” John pulled on Sherlock’s hand again.

Sherlock allowed himself to be pulled further into the park. When Sherlock was far enough away from the woman John dropped his hand. John realized he missed the feel of Sherlock’s long fingers against his own and decided he needed to remind himself that they both had significant others.

“So, what’s the deal with this prince of yours? How long have you known each other?” John asked.

Sherlock looked up at the sky and thought for a moment. “About a day,” he answered.

“You mean it feels like a day because you’re so in love.”

“No, we spoke a few words to each other at a ball once but we’ve really only known each other a day.”

“You’re kidding me. A day, one day?!”

Sherlock scowled. John was giving him the look again.

“You’re going to marry somebody after a day? That’s not even enough time to fall in love with them,” John argued.

Sherlock ignored the comment. He’d known John a day and he’d fallen in love with him. It wasn’t impossible. Of course, he wasn’t going to marry John. Or Lestrade, for that matter.

“I don’t get it. How can you talk about loving someone you don’t even know?” John pressed.

Sherlock opened his mouth to explain about magic and singing how it could show you someone’s heart but he closed it quickly. Magic hadn’t shown him what was inside Lestrade’s heart. It had shown him John’s. But, he’d managed to fall in love with John not even knowing what was in John’s heart. He’d sung with Lestrade but not with John.

“What about you? How long have you known your Molly?” Sherlock asked to avoid answering John’s questions.

“About five years,” John said.

“And you haven’t proposed?!”

John frowned. He didn’t like how Sherlock had said that or wide Sherlock’s eyes were.

“No wonder she’s angry.” Sherlock felt better knowing it wasn’t his fault that Molly was mad. He’d be furious.

John opened his mouth to defend himself. But before he could Sally interrupted. She had on a disguise but hid her face under a cap just in case. “Hello, nice man. Would you like a juicy, sweet, caramel apple maybe?” She used a thick fake accent so Sherlock wouldn’t recognize her voice.

Sherlock stopped, he was rather hungry. He didn’t like eating but his transport still made him do so every now and then.

“No charge for the beautiful young man,” Sally said. She felt rather sick saying such nice things to the freak.

“Oh really? It’s free?” John asked, eyeing the woman. John didn’t trust her.

“Of course. It’s free caramel apple day. Tomorrow is free…” Sally hesitated, trying to come up with a reasonable food item, “…popcorn.”

Sherlock took the treat.

“Well, thank you,” John said to the vendor and pulled Sherlock away.

Mrs Hudson couldn’t hear Sherlock but she knew Sally could only be handing out apples to one person. She tried to get out from underneath Sally’s bulky hat but Sherlock didn’t hear her squeaks, muffled as they were by the fabric. By the time she’d freed herself Sherlock had already walked away. Mrs Hudson tried to follow but Sally caught her.

Sally followed the pair from the shadows, her grip around the chipmunk tight so she didn’t escape or alert Sherlock to their presence.

“Don’t eat that,” John said quietly. He could feel the woman’s eyes on them and he looked around, spying her in the distance.

Sherlock looked at the apple, then at John, then back at the apple. “You think it’s poisoned?” Sherlock couldn’t believe it, he wasn’t anyone important in this world, who’d want to hurt him?

“I don’t know, something just feels off. People don’t just give people free food,” John said.

Shrugging Sherlock tossed the apple in a bin.

Sally cursed. She’d failed and now she’d have to report to Moriarty. She couldn’t even follow them to try again because the blond man kept looking at her. Sally knew it was his fault Sherlock didn’t take a bite. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, Sally thought acerbically.

“You know, most normal people get to know each other before they get married,” John said. He couldn’t let the subject drop even though he wanted to. He was right and even though he didn’t know why he needed to make Sherlock understand. “They date.”

“Date?” Sherlock had never heard this word. “What’s that?”

“You go someplace special, you know, like a restaurant, a movie, a museum, or you just hang out and talk,” John said, not believing that Sherlock had never dated let alone heard of dating. He figured wherever Sherlock was from they had a different word for it.

“What do you talk about?” Sherlock asked. This topic wasn’t as interesting as some of the others he’d wondered about but it was nice that John finally knew something, even if it was something ridiculous.

“About each other. About yourself.” Sherlock was giving him that look again. John hated that look. “About your interests, your likes, your dislikes, you know, you talk.”

By the time John was done with his little rant Sherlock was holding in laughter. “You have strange ideas about love,” was the nicest thing he could think to say. How was it in this entire world no one knew anything about anything. No one knew about magic or how to talk to animals or anything about love. It was a wonder anyone here got anything done.

“Maybe we should all do what you would do. You meet, you have lunch then you get married.” John said sullenly.

“You forgot about happily ever after,” Sherlock pointed out.

“Happily ever after doesn’t exist,” John said sharply.

Sherlock looked down at his companion in amazement. It was clear John wasn’t joking. “Does everyone who gets married here separate?” Sherlock asked. He suddenly wondered what had happened with Hamish’s other parent. In his world you needed two people for the storks to bring you a child. Did it not work the same way here?

“Most marriages are considered a success if they manage not to end. Forget about happiness,” John said darkly.

Sherlock decided it was time to try and salvage the conversation. “Well, what about you and Molly. You’ll know you’ll live happily ever after, right?”

“I don’t know if we’ll make it through today.” John knew Molly was a reasonable, rational person but he still didn’t know how to explain this morning to her so she’d listen. “Let alone a lifetime. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Sherlock. It’s complicated.”

This again, Sherlock thought darkly. He didn’t know who had cursed this world with such twisted notions but he felt he needed to put a stop to it. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“Yeah, well…” John trailed off. He realized they’d stopped walking at some point and he looked up at Sherlock, squinting against the sun.

“Does she know?”

“Know what?” John thought of all the things Molly didn’t know and all the things she should. Maybe he should open up more.

“How much you really love her,” Sherlock said patiently.

“Of course she does. We just don’t talk about it every minute of the day.” John knew he didn’t say the words that often, or near as often as he should but he wasn’t raised that way. He found emotions messy and hard. “She knows.”

“How?” Sherlock demanded. It was obvious to him that John wasn’t going to be able to fix his relationship on his own and Sherlock felt compelled to do it for him. Even though it wasn’t his fault the relationship was in shambles, it was his fault that the couple was fighting now.

“What do you mean how?”

Sherlock could feel the music building. He hadn’t heard other people breaking into song on the streets and he would have suppressed the urge to sing in public if he’d been back in Andalasia. But, he was realizing that John was stubborn and a bit repressed so the magic of song would be necessary.

“How does she know you love her,” Sherlock sang.

“Shh! No, don’t—” John looked around wildly praying no one noticed them.

Sherlock sang undeterred, “How does she know she’s yours?”

“People are looking, Sherlock,” John hissed quietly. John grabbed Sherlock’s hand and pulled Sherlock out of the song. “Let’s just walk, ok?”

“Fine,” Sherlock said, disappointed. “Does she though?”

A few musicians playing in the park took up Sherlock’s song. “How does she know that you love her?”

John kept trying to walk past but Sherlock stopped, pulling John to a halt too.

“How do you show her you love her?” Sherlock sang.

“They know this song too?” John asked, bewildered.

“How does she know that you really, really, truly love her,” Sherlock and the random musician sang together.

“I’ve never heard this song,” John stood to the side, trying to fade into the background.

“How does she know that you love her?” Sherlock took control of the song, forcing the musician to harmonize with him. “How do you show her you love her?”

John wanted to die, now Sherlock was dancing with the musicians. He threw a pound note into the guitar case. “Alright, very good. Sherlock, let’s go.”

Sherlock, meanwhile, was still singing, “How does she know that you really, really truly love her?”

John pulled Sherlock’s arm, but the musicians just picked up their things and followed. Sherlock didn’t stop singing and John didn’t know what to do without making more of a scene.

“It’s not enough to take the one you love for granted,” Sherlock sang. He’d never sung this song before and he was excited to see where the music took him. He danced around John, “You must remind her or she’ll be inclined to say… How do I know he loves me? How do I know he’s mine?”

John held his head in his hands. He didn’t want to walk off and he found himself enjoying the beat. He refrained from showing he was starting to enjoy himself though and gave a long-suffering sigh.

“Well does he leave a little note to tell you that you are on his mind? Send you yellow flowers when the sky is grey-aay?” It seemed that John had no idea how to be romantic and needed a lot of help. All the things Sherlock was singing about were so basic.

“He’ll find a new way to show you a little bit every day,” Sherlock sang. He’d hit a more populated area of the park and people were starting to stand and dance with him.

John’s jaw fell open. He’d never seen anything like it. It was like one of those flash mobs only he knew Sherlock hadn’t planned this.

“That’s how you know, that’s how you know, he’s your love.”

John found himself smiling. There was something ridiculous about a six-foot-tall man dancing and singing in the middle of the park in a suit but it was the good sort of ridiculous.

Sherlock saw a sign advertising a ball and pointed it out to John during the interlude.

One of the musicians took up the vocals and sang, “You’ve got to show her you need her, don’t treat her like a mind reader. Each day you need to leave her something to believe you love her.”

Sherlock grabbed John’s hand and spun him around. “Everybody wants to live happily ever after. Everybody wants to know their true love is true.”

John laughed once Sherlock let him go.

Sherlock sang, “How do you know he loves you? How do you know he’s yours?” Sherlock took John’s hands and tried to lead in a dance but John withdrew and shook his head. “Well does he take you out dancing just so he can hold you close?”

“I don’t dance,” John said.

Sherlock shrugged and danced with some of the other people. “Does he dedicate a song with words meant just for you-oo-oo-ou?”

“I really don’t sing,” John said.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, “He’ll find his own way to tell you, with the little things he’ll do.”

Their group made it to the open-air theatre and Sherlock climbed on stage to sing, “That’s how you’ll know…”

The actors joined in, “That’s how you’ll know…”

Everybody together sang, “That’s how you’ll know…”

Sherlock alone sang, “He’s your love.” He’d been exhilarated throughout the song and was having a lot of fun but at that line his heart ached. “He’s your love,” he sang again more sedately while he looked at John. He couldn’t help but notice John never joined in.

John shook his head at Sherlock’s antics. He clapped along with the crowd now that the song was finished. He waited for Sherlock to come down off the stage. That was insane, John thought with a wide grin.

End A/N: Yes, I know I cut the song short. It just works this way.

Chapter 6>

Tags will resume in the new chapters. Let me know if you want to be tagged.

#spellbound #enchanted au #sherlock holmes/john watson #moved from ao3 #chapter 5

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darnedchild · 8 years ago

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Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2017 - Day Three

A/N: Unbeta’d. I have shamelessly borrowed heavily from the Christmas Party scene in “A Scandal in Belgravia”.

Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2017 – Day Thre (Canon Compliant – Season 2 / Non-Canon – First Kiss)

Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper

The Christmas thing was not his idea.

Sherlock routinely saw everyone in attendance (other than John’s girlfriend, but there was a very high probability that she would be gone before the new year so Sherlock had already dismissed her as unimportant), he simply did not understand why John insisted they needed to loiter around Baker Street for several hours. Yes, John had blathered on about holiday spirit and spending time with loved ones and blah blah (he’d tuned John out at that point); but surely, they could have done all that in a pub somewhere? Someplace that didn’t involve him?

If it had just been John insisting on his participation, he could have easily found a way out of the whole thing; but Mrs Hudson had pulled the “sad old woman who had no family of her own” charade that he absolutely knew was utter garbage, and yet he capitulated anyway.

Which is how he found himself playing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” for her amusement while John flitted around playing hostess. There was a small smattering of accolades when he finished, which he graciously accepted.

“I wish you could have worn the antlers,” Mrs Hudson giggled.

That would be a cold day in Hell. “Some things are best left to the imagination, Mrs Hudson.

The girlfriend swung by with a plate nibbles, and Sherlock politely (he thought) said no. Although, judging by her and John’s reaction, he must have called her by the wrong name. Considering the revolving door policy John maintained with women, he was lucky Sherlock made an effort to remember any of their names.

“No, no, no, I can get this.” Sherlock thought back, putting together a timeline in his mind. “No, Sarah was the doctor, and then there was the one with the spots, and then the one with the nose, and then . . . Who was after the boring teacher?”

John’s face answered the question even before the girlfriend replied with “Nobody”.

“Jeanette!” This was why he avoided social interactions. He faked a smile. “Ah, process of elimination.”

Thankfully John herded the girlfriend off. Unfortunately, that left Sherlock with a clear view of Molly Hooper joining their little holiday torture session. “Oh, dear lord.”

“Hello, everyone. Sorry, hello.” She kept looking at him with that shy, approval seeking glance he had grown used to at Barts.

Why was she at Baker Street? John must have invited her, obviously. Unless . . . Surely I didn’t . . . No, of course not. There was a tiny memory of mentioning the affair to her at some point, but there was no possibility that Sherlock would have inadvertently asked her to come. None.

Molly Hooper was a helpful asset at Barts, a fixture much like his favourite microscope in the lab, nothing more. To see her outside of the hospital in any capacity other than the very brief moments when she brought a specimen to Baker Street for a particularly urgent experiment made him uneasy, made him remember that she was a person and not just a resource or an intelligent sounding board to bounce ideas and theories off of.

And she was greeting everyone as if they were old friends. When had that happened? Molly was his . . . person. He waved his bow around in agitation. “Everybody’s saying hello to each other, how wonderful!”

Everyone ignored him. He turned his back and sat at his desk to do something that was most definitely not sulking.

He saw her take off her coat—having already deduced from her hair, makeup, and out-of-character red heels that she had overdressed for the occasion, trying to impress someone—and the way Lestrade and John drooled over her. John should be ashamed of himself, his soon-to-be-ex girlfriend was sitting right there.

Molly didn’t seem to be comfortable with either of their reactions, judging from the way she fidgeted and fussed with the way her dress conformed to her small waist and hips, so the extra effort was clearly not for either of them. The thought that it could have been meant for him briefly fluttered through his mind, but she was aware that—a few minor flirtations in the past none withstanding—he didn’t indulge in relationships so that couldn’t have been the case. No, much more likely, she was dressed up for whomever she was going to meet after she left Baker Street. The man who would end up unwrapping the present peeking out of the top of her garish gift bag.

He didn’t know why she bothered to stop in at Baker Street if she was just going to flit off at the first opportunity to spend the rest of the evening with someone else.

“So we’re having a Christmas drinkies, then?” Molly asked, as if it weren’t perfectly obvious.

“No stopping them, apparently.” He ignored Mrs Hudson’s answer and the way Molly nervously giggled and looked at him.

There were more important things to focus on, such as the counter on John’s blog and that ridiculous photo with the hat!

“How’s the hip?”

Why would Molly be asking his landlady about her hip? How did Molly even know about Mrs Hudson’s hip? It occurred to him that he might have mentioned her hip troubles in passing, might have complained about Mrs Hudson’s herbal soothers giving him a headache once or twice.

“Oh, it’s atrocious, but thanks for asking.” Mrs Hudson seemed pleased to have her ask. When was the last time he’d asked Mrs Hudson about her hip? Had he ever asked about it?

“I’ve seen much worse, but then I do post-mortems.” The room went silent and Molly rushed to apologize.

“Don’t make jokes, Molly.” The words slipped out without thought. He told himself he was only trying to keep her from embarrassing herself again.

Surely there was something useful in the comments of John’s blog. A case. A taunt from Moriarty. Anything to save him from the tediousness of the evening.

He registered that Molly had moved on from Mrs Hudson and had now turned her awkward attentions to Lestrade.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you. I thought you were going to be in Dorset for Christmas?”

Sherlock definitely remembered telling Molly that while they were analysing paint samples for the O’Connelly case the week before. He frowned, beginning to feel uncomfortable as he realized how many non-work related conversations he had been having with Molly at Barts.

“That’s first thing in the morning, me and the wife, we’re back together. It’s all sorted.”

Might as well nip that in the bud, for Lestrade’s sake. The sooner he got over his wife’s continued infidelity, the sooner he’d be back in top form and useful again. Lestrade always got so . . . mopey when he was in mid-separation, best to get it over with during Lestrade’s holiday vacation when it was least likely to inconvenience Sherlock. “No, she’s sleeping with a PE teacher.”

Molly continued to spread her own particular brand of holiday cheer. “And John, I hear you’re off to your sister’s, is that right?”

Sherlock tensed, already sensing that he wasn’t going to like where this was going.

“Yeah,” John confirmed.

“Sherlock was complaining.” He didn’t have to say anything, just meeting of her eyes was all it took for Molly to correct herself. “. . . Saying.”

Really woman, how many more things was she planning to blurt out to all and sundry?

How many more things had he told her while they worked in the lab? That thought disturbed him.

“First time ever, she’s cleaned-up her act, she’s off the booze.” John raised his beer bottle in a toast.

“Nope.”

John turned on him with a sharp, “Shut up, Sherlock!” as if it were somehow his fault that Harry was still drinking.

Right then, time to deflect attention away from him and perhaps hurry Molly’s departure on its way before she could stir up anything else. He leaned back from John’s laptop and turned his attention to what he did best, observation and deduction. “I see you’ve got a new boyfriend, Molly, and you’re serious about him.” He didn’t think anyone would be able to tell that his smile was completely without humour.

“What? Sorry, what?” She actually tried to act as if she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.

“In fact, you’re seeing him this very night and giving him a gift.”

He heard John’s “Take a day off,” but he was already on a roll. For some reason, Lestrade’s urging to shut up only made him more determined to continue.

“Oh, come on, surely you’ve all seen the present at the top of the bag. Perfectly wrapped with a bow.” He got up, intent on illustrating his observations by pointing out the evidence under their noses. “All the others are slapdash at best.”

As he buttoned his jacked and reached for the gift, he noted that she was beginning to look panicked. Clearly, he was on the right track. “It’s for someone special, then.”

Sherlock lifted the package and automatically estimated the weight and size of the box. Surprisingly heavy, not a scarf or handkerchief, box is too big to for cufflinks or a tie tack, relationship would be too new for a more intimate piece of jewellery, no shifting inside the box implies the gift is well packaged, possibly fragile.

“The shade of red echoes her lipstick, either an unconscious association or one that she’s deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper has love on her mind.” The others, especially John, didn’t seem impressed by his deductions, but Sherlock had more to say. “The fact that she’s serious about him is clear from the fact she’s giving him a gift at all. That always suggests long-term hopes, however forlorn, and that she’s seeing him tonight is evident from her make-up and what she’s wearing.”

He had everyone’s rapt attention. Time for the big reveal, he thought, rather smugly. He reached for the tag, preparing to open it up and share the name of Molly’s new beau to the room. “Obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and breasts . . .”

His voice trailed off into nothing as he read the words on the card.

Dearest Sherlock

Love Molly xxx

For a split-second, his mind stilled. All the ambient noise of the flat whited out. His vision focused down to the sentiment on the card, carefully written in Molly’s familiar handwriting. His mouth went dry, forcing him to swallow. He felt a momentary wave of nausea.

Three kisses says it’s a romantic attachment.

He had ripped her feelings apart, emotionally eviscerated her in front of their mutual acquaintances, and for what? Because he was bored? Uncomfortable? Jealous?

Molly looked to be seconds away from crying. And it was his fault. “You always say such horrible things. Every time. Always. Always.”

He wanted to leave, wanted to get away from the devastated look on her face and the tremble in her voice. He actually turned and took a step to do just that, but something screamed out at him to fix it. Repair the damage he had done.

Sherlock could feel the weight of the other’s censoring gaze on him, but he didn’t care. This wasn’t about them, it wasn’t about making himself look better in their eyes.

“I am sorry. Forgive me.” He could see the way her hand holding the wine glass trembled, the hurt and confusion in her eyes, the cautious way she held herself still as he stepped forward. “Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper.”

He leaned down to press a kiss against her cheek. Her skin was soft and warm against his lips, and if he were another man . . . But he wasn’t.

#sherlollyweek2017

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engazed · 8 years ago

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Hi engazed :-) Do you have any tips to pace a novel? I love the way you have developed your stories so I would like to learn from you.

Oh dear. Here I go. Get ready for a TL:DR.

Pacing is largely intuitive. There’s no clear definition, and no formula to follow to ensure ‘good’ pacing. In that way, it’s very much akin to ‘flow’. I once had a professor who complimented my easy style and the rhythm of my sentences and asked how I had learnt to put a sentence together (not in the grammatical sense, but in the aesthetic sense). At a loss for a more sophisticated explanation, I simply replied, ‘It sounds right.’ But when I say intuitive, I don’t mean instinctual, necessarily. I believe that with enough practise, we fine-tune our intuitions until it becomes more and more natural and just ‘sounds right.’

So it is with pacing. As a writer, it is sometimes difficult to be sensitive to the actual pacing of the novel. A scene that takes you two weeks to write--and therefore feels like it may be long and involved--may take a reader mere minutes to blow through and barely be impacted by. This is why it is critical to read one’s own work, top to bottom, beginning to end, while adopting the perspective of a fresh reader who has never encountered the work before. This is hard to do, but one gets better with time.

I have three ‘rules of thumb’ when I’m writing that, I believe, help me with pacing. The first can be stated succinctly:

1. If I’m bored, my reader is bored.

This applies at virtually every stage of drafting and revising, but I think it is most critical when revising. Before you call something ‘finished’, read it again, like you’re a new reader. If there are paragraphs, scenes, or even whole chapters of your own work that you tend to slog through, skim, or skip altogether, just to get to the good stuff, don’t expect that your reader will feel like it’s fresh and interesting. Moments like that slow things down. So if you’re bored, use that as a rule of thumb that something isn’t working with respect to pacing.

But when it’s working, you feel the energy of the scene as you read it. Even the less critical moments should be significant in some way to justify its existence, by providing new information pertinent to the plot or texture that fleshes out a character. If you can honestly say that it does neither of these things, have the guts to delete it. If it’s doing something important, but not doing it well, rewrite. Keep yourself interested. Delight yourself first, and the right readers will find you.

So how do you make something not boring?

2. Balance texture with dialogue.

What I mean by texture is the internal and external features of a scene. Sometimes less experienced writers prove their inexperience by ignoring the internal thoughts of a character, or forget to paint the scene, or leave us with nothing but talking heads. What I mean by ‘talking heads’ is all dialogue and no action.

Don’t get me wrong; dialogue can be a lot of fun to write. It’s actually one of my favourite things to write, because it comes most easily to me. But if you have straight dialogue and little else, you run the risk of committing another pacing error. Instead of slowing things down with unnecessary stuff, you speed it along too quickly for the reader to really take in. You start writing as if for a screenplay, not a novel (two very different mediums when it comes to the craft of writing).

If I may shamelessly pull an example of this from my own work, Blackbird, Fly, chapter 1, I can illustrate what I mean. Here’s the scene: Mary has arrived at St E’s for a ‘consultation’ with John Watson, intending to seek his assistance as a private detective. Without texture, here is how the scene reads:

‘Good morning, Ms Morstan,’ he said. ‘How are we today? You told the nurse you were experiencing some discomfort—?’

‘Chest pains,’ she blurted out. ‘Trouble breathing.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘‘Let’s have a listen, then, shall we?’

This is literally the conversation, the words passed back and forth between Mary and John. But we’re missing three crucial things that will help the pacing of this scene work: Mary’s internal self and thoughts, brief exposition, and the actions of the two characters.

With those things in place, here’s the actual scene. [I will use italics to indicate Mary’s thoughts, underlining for exposition and description/details, and bolding for actions.]

‘Good morning, Ms Morstan,’ he said, drawing up a swivel chair. ‘How are we today?’

His voice was warm, his smile soft, and when he lifted his dark blue eyes from the clipboard to meet hers, there flickered a moment in which she saw him mirroring her expression, and he knew her, too. But no—she had imagined it, because he recovered himself quickly, cleared his throat, and returned his attention to the clipboard. But a slight flush remained behind to colour his cheeks.

Consulting her chart, he began with a practised air of professionalism, ‘You told the nurse you were experiencing some discomfort—?’

‘Chest pains,’ she blurted out. Yes. That wasn’t a lie. She was definitely feeling some sort of ache in her chest now, a little to the left. ‘Trouble breathing.’

‘Oh.’ He flipped a page, eyes narrowing, and she realised her mistake. Dr Watson was a general surgeon, for whom the abdominal pains she had invented over the phone got her an appointment. In his line of work, he would have little to do with chest pains.

Before she could flounder and fluster in correcting herself, Dr Watson rose from the stool and took out a stethoscope, settling the tips in his ears. He wasn’t questioning her. He wasn’t calling her out on her obvious deceit. Instead, he just smiled, a close-lipped and kind smile, and said, ‘Let’s have a listen, then, shall we?’

Mary wondered if she was being indulged in the lies of a hypochondriac.

Clearly, many of these moves can happen simultaneously, and they should feel seamless upon reading/re-reading. But they add richness to the scene and set an appropriate pace. Different scenes will call for different kinds of pacing. Short paragraphs are great for action sequences, rapid lines of dialogue are great for arguments, etc. But getting a feel for what’s ‘right’ or what ‘works’ takes practice while you’re fine-tuning your intuitions.

3. Rule of 3

Finally, I want to talk about my own inclinations to plot things in three stages. As any of my readers know by now, I am writing a trilogy, but each book in that trilogy is divided into three parts, and each part has a three-point arc, and each chapter in that arc also follows a three-part model. This isn’t painstaking plotting on my part; it sort of naturally evolved because that’s how I ‘feel’ a story is told. Remember what I said about making sure your reader doesn’t get bored? And how you shouldn’t allow yourself to get bored? Well, one of the ways I make sure that I don’t get bored is by working toward mini climaxes, as it were, well before we reach the big one at the end.

Let me use Ten Days as an example. This book has three parts. The first one ends at the end of chapter 9, the second at the end of chapter 22, and end of chapter 30. Each of those parts had an arc including an ‘inciting incident,’ ‘complications,’ and ‘turning point.’ Let me use Part 1 of Ten Days to explain.

Stories begin with a moment of crisis. It’s exactly why there’s any story at all to tell. If your first chapter doesn’t contain it, you haven’t started the story yet. You’re lips are just flapping in the wind. For Ten Days (and, incidentally, for the whole of The Fallen), the moment of crisis is when John Watson is abducted off the streets of London after buying a wedding ring. If that doesn’t happen, there is no story. That’s why it’s the inciting incident, and the reason a reader will keep on going. A crisis has been introduced, and it is in want of a resolution. In this case, the resolution we are seeking is rescuing John.

Complications keep the plot moving forward. They come in the form of obstacles that keep characters from reaching the sought-after resolution. Complications are introduced in Part 1 in the following manner: Lestrade isn’t allowed to work on John’s case and must do so secretly; John’s abductors turn out to be torturers, and his life is now at risk; Sherlock returns but continues to play a dead man; Anderson and Donovan suspect something is afoot; Sherlock deduces a mole in the Yard; Mary is abducted.

Complications are where the plot actually happens. It’s not merely this event occurred, then this one, then this one. It’s more purposeful, and it’s what distinguishes stories from others of like ilk. There are a lot of stories where John is kidnapped out there. What makes them different? The complications that follow after the moment of abduction, the events that seek resolution but are thwarted. And thus, story is born.

We finish Part 1 with one of the major turning points in the novel: the death of Mary Morstan. This is a mini climax itself, a point of great tension, and thereafter things are not, and cannot, be the same. These are game changing moments that precede the final resolution. Before this point in the novel, John was tortured and afraid, but he was still fighting and hopeful of rescue. After Mary dies, he stops talking and longs for death; the abuse hadn’t broken him, but losing her does, and now we, the reader, are left to wonder how a resolution is even possible. The stakes become clear, but the solution does not, and this kind of tension can motivate a reader to keep going.

Part 2 ends with John’s rescue, but through the series of complications and character developments, we have come to realise that saving ‘John Watson’, the resolution we’ve been seeking, isn’t quite so simple. It’s not just saving him from Moran. It’s saving him from himself, and that’s why Part 3 is needed. You can take the man out of the torture chamber, but you can’t take the torture chamber out of the man, as it were. Hell, that’s why Books 2 and 3 are needed. We’re still on a mission to resolve the kidnapping in chapter 1. We still need to save John Watson.

(As a side note, ‘saving John Watson’ is exactly the point the whole of the BBC Sherlock as well, start to finish. I have many thoughts on that subject as well.)

What does this have to do with pacing? Everything. These three-point arcs can happen on a macro and micro level, but they must happen, because it’s the roller-coaster that keeps your reader interested. If gives the writer a series of destinations to reach, not just one. If you’re thinking large-scale, that is, if you are hoping to write a novel-length work, pacing becomes a critical factor, and thinking in terms of three (three acts, three-point arcs, etc.) can help facilitate an easier, more natural story-telling rhythm.

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autumn-grace · 8 years ago

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A Life Measured out in Coffee Spoons (4/?)

Disclaimer: I rearranged the words of the great T.S. Eliot for this title, as I have borrowed some lines of the same poem: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” to introduce the sentiment of this story. It might just be one of my favorite poems of all time. Also I took the liberty of using the characters of the BBC Sherlock to work through some feelings.

#sherlolly #angst #sherlollyparents #cancer #well…I might add to that later

Part 1, 2, 3

Ao3 Link

[[IT HAS OFFICIALLY STARTED. I JUMPED BACK IN TIME: DON’T BE CONFUSED.]]

---

4) September, before the diagnosis

Sherlock woke up disorientated. It took him a second to realize that he was at home, on the sofa. It could also not be later than shortly after midday based on the light falling into the room. It didn't make sense.

“You slept for nearly three hours.” Sherlock looked to the side. Molly was sitting in the recliner, her notebook balanced on her lap, papers and reports strategically placed around her. A stack of magazines was placed neatly beside his head.

“Did I?” That sounded stupid even to his own ears.

With a look of rightfulness Molly turned her head to the clock in the kitchen, he followed her line of sign and was confirmed in his assumption that it was just past one.

“You might just be getting too old for a three-nighter.” Molly mumbled, she was looking at a report at her side while she was tipping.

Sherlock reconstructed the morning. He had come home at about half two, took a shower and fell into bed. He had slept till at least seven. That was enough sleep! For a moment he considered Molly's words. Then, however, he remembered the headache that quite literally brought him to his knees. It was just a moment but he had let himself sink to the sofa. He remembered closing his eyes, the children playing - or fighting considering the noise they were making.

“Why is it so quite in here?”

For a moment Sherlock had thought about telling Molly about the headache in order to condemn himself of her believe that he was getting too old for his job. What a ridiculous thing to think. The way she was absorbed by her work in this moment though, made a chance of winning an argument relatively small.

“Henry was picked up by Mary an hour ago. I put Soph down for her nap half an hour ago and Elli, again, is laying on the bathroom floor, for at least as long as Henry is gone.” That last part of her sentence made Molly look up from her work. The seriousness of her expression made Sherlock sit up. All evidence of a previous headache gone.

“Can you please check on her?”

He got to his feet and passing Molly, he rested his hand on her head for a moment, letting it caressing her hair in passing. It was his way of saying he would try. Again.

He knocked on the door, it was closed. He didn't get an answer. He opened the door and let it swing open.

“Daddy, I am thinking! Get out.” Sherlock looked at her with raised eyebrows. She looked back. He walked into the room, her eyes following him. He sat down on the side of the bathtub, still looking down at her. For a moment they starred at each other. Elli, in a way of expressing her annoyance, pulled her arms in from her sides and crossed them over her chest, looking away from him and starred up at the ceiling.

“When you're thinking, we are not allowed to disturb you.”

“That is right. But I am doing it because it is my job.”

“Maybe thinking can be my job, too!”

“Well. I think you can do whichever job you like, when you are not a child anymore. However, I feel that there is still a lot of time until then.”

“Why don't children have a job, Daddy?” Her head had fallen back to the side, she looked up at him waiting for an answer.

“Children don't have a job because they are children.”

“DADDY! That is not an answer...”

There was a very long right answer to this and there was a very easy distraction. Sherlock decided to shortcut his way into getting more information on her thought process during her bathfloor sessions. He slipped down to his knees, threw himself beside Elli and started tickling her. Within seconds, she was screaming and laughing, begging, kicking and fighting.

It was not until both were breathless that Sherlock let himself fall beside her and they were laying beside each other. Elli had a face wet from crying, both had red spots all over their skin, their hair was a mess. Occasionally, Sherlock had a small outburst of laughter which resulted in him poking her side.

After a while, when they were both calm again, the only sound was the ventilation lulling them into the white noise of the small room.

He didn't particularly know how to approach her and this new thing of hers. She was up to all sorts of things. They had soon learned that Elli, in her development, worked quite differently to Henry. They were both clever and fast witted, both happy and loud and kind. Molly and him had decided to not let them be tested unless there was an acute need to. That also meant that they had a very close eye on them, and Elli especially. She had instances where she spend more time in her head than Henry ever did or does. In so far, it wasn't particularly worrying that she spend some time on the bathroom floor. The frequency recently however slowly developed into a concern in Molly's mind, not so much in his. He was much more curious.

He looked around the room, by now, Elli had again started to observe the ceiling very closely, her eyes flickering from one spot to the other and that was the moment he realized. It was so easy that he laughed out loud for a moment and sat back up, looking down at his clever, clever child. She didn't pay him any notice. So back to the floor it was. He shuffled himself into such a position that he was on head-level with her. Which also meant that his legs were basically hugging the toilet.

What Sherlock saw above him now was no longer a ceiling. It was a mind-board. There were nine ceiling panels, three times three and four of them had lights built into them. The one in the middle was plank.

“Explain to me, what panel fulfills which task!”

When father and daughter now locked eyes, they both smiled and Elli, in excitement started to spill all her secrets, talking faster than he had ever heard her speak.

“And in the middle you keep the problem you are working on right now?”

“Yes! It keeps all the other thoughts away in the other panels around the middle one and it is much quieter in my head.”

That felt like a punch to the stomach and Sherlock's grinning face froze.

“Why did you never tell Mummy or me that your head is too full of... filled with noise?”

Elli shrugged her little shoulders.

“Because when I am here, it is not.”

“And when we asked you why you spend so much time recently in here, that would have been a very good answer.”

“But I didn't know you would understand! I thought you would say I am weird that way...”

Sherlock's eyes opened wide in shock. He took Ellis hand in his and pushed himself closer to her, giving her the chance to crawl into his arms if she wanted.

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“When Henry is out with Uncle Lestrade, John and Rosie to the football ground you say that he is doing his weird stuff. And Mummy said you were only saying that because you don't understand the rules of the game!”

While she was telling him that, she was indeed crawling into his open arms.

“Oh Love.” He wanted to punch himself. Really hard. Maybe he needed to ask Molly to do that for him instead.

“I am going to stop saying that. I promise. Your Mum is right, I don't get the sport. That is no reason for me to say it is weird. I will never say it again. Okay? And I need you to promise me that whenever it is getting too loud in your head you tell me or Mummy! Okay?”

She nodded.

“Not just nodding. Promise me. Use your words! When your head is loud and it is upsetting you, you tell Mummy or me, please?”

Sherlock softly took her head in his hands and made her look up at him.

“Yes. I promise.”

“Okay. Now, close your eyes for me!”

“Why?”

“Do it for me. I am telling you in a moment.” She did. Still in an embrace with her father.

“Can you see the ceiling?” She wanted to lift her head, Sherlock softly stopped her.

“No. Eyes stay closed. Picture the ceiling in you head. Tell me when you can see it.”

It took a while. She wanted to look up once or twice. Sherlock assumed that her problem was in wanting to imagine it accurately.

“Don't worry if it is not absolutely right. As long as you see the pattern.” Another moment later she nodded again. Her face was full of concertration, her tongue linking her lips.

“Okay. Then I think I can see it.”

“Can you memorize it?”

“I think.”

“Very good.”

“Now. Assign each panel its problem.”

“OHH! Daddy!” She opened her eyes in excitement, looking up and not a second later jumping to her feet. She flew out of the bathroom and into the lounge. With all the excitement of a three and a-half year old, she explained to her mother that she would no longer need to spent extra time in the bathroom. She didn't like it in there anyway.

Sherlock stayed on the floor a moment longer. Pushed the soft rug Elli had used for comfort back in front of the bathtub and then, with a hand pressed to his mouth, took a deep breath in and out through his nose. This might just have been a disaster prevented.

#Sherlolly #Sherlolly fanfiction #Mollock

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astudyinimagination · 8 years ago

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The Heir: Chapter 1

“More Questions than Answers”

Chapter one of my WIP fic The Heir. Prologue can be found here; description here. Will probably soon make a tags page specifically for this and other fics for easier reading. :)

A rare glimpse of unimpeded London sunlight streamed into the sitting room of 221B, Baker Street, through the slits in the curtains. To a certain doctor lying on the settee, however, the sight was less than welcome. Groaning, John Watson sat up and massaged his temples. He ached all over from the five or six hours of sleep on the settee; he should have made himself walk the fourteen steps up to his old room.

The bedroom door opened, and Sherlock Holmes appeared, looking aggravatingly fresh and cheery. “Good morning, old chap!” he beamed as he moved over to the window to peer outside. “I thought you were going to sleep upstairs.”

“That’s what I should have done,” Watson grumbled. “Do you think Mrs. Hudson’s made the coffee yet?”

“I’ll check.” Holmes strode over to the main door and shouted, “Mrs. Hudson!” Watson jumped and winced. “Is there any coffee to be had?”

Watson groaned. “Holmes.”

The detective had the decency to give him a sheepish look as he took a seat at the table. “Apologies, Watson.”

Watson limped after him, his leg aching furiously from several hours in a position it should not have endured. “You said you were expecting a telegram from Jones this morning?”

Holmes nodded. “I got the address for Clay’s flat from Mr. Jabez Wilson, and Lestrade was willing to keep watch on the flat all night. We will shall see whether or not—ah, Mrs. Hudson!”

Watson turned to smile weakly at his former landlady, sweeping into the room with the coffee pot and breakfast tray. “Mrs. Hudson, good morning!”

“Good morning, Doctor—always so wonderful to see you,” the woman smiled. Her smile turned to a glare as she turned to Holmes, however, and he shrank in his seat. “Mr. Holmes! How many times must I tell you that I will not be shouted for in my own home?”

“A thousand apologies, dear lady,” Holmes said meekly. “It shall not happen again.”

The landlady raised one queenly eyebrow. “Oh, if only that would be the truth.”

Watson decided it was time to rescue his friend. “Mrs. Hudson, breakfast smells delicious. What have you cooked?”

“Oh, nothing very special, Doctor.” But Watson was gratified to see the woman flushing with pleasure. He had found that a few kind words would usually smooth any feathers ruffled by Holmes. Holmes had deduced this fact too late, so that when he tried the same tactic, Mrs. Hudson was instantly on her guard.

As she left the room, Watson shook his head and turned back to his friend. “Honestly, Holmes, it never ceases to amaze me how she puts up with you year after year. Or day after day…”

“The fact that you were always her favorite does not necessitate that she has no affection for me at all,” the detective said primly.

Watson had to hide his smile behind his coffee cup. “So, Lestrade was watching Clay’s flat last night? In case he had unwanted visitors?”

“Indeed. I cannot rule out the possibility of Clay being linked to the Professor, given the complexity of the job, so I could not take for granted that whatever Clay has in flat would be safe until we could visit.”

“I suppose not,” Watson said softly. He knew by now not to ask further questions regarding Professor James Moriarty. Holmes would never say very much about the man he regarded as the most dangerous in London, even though many of his cases over the past few years had traced tentatively back to the Professor. Whenever things seemed to point towards the man, Holmes would grow quiet and pensive. Sometimes, Watson had caught traces of sadness and even anger—in Holmes’s voice, in his grey eyes.

Mrs. Hudson interrupted his musings. “Mr. Holmes!” she called, ascending the stairs again from the sound of it. “Your telegram has arrived!”

“Excellent!” Holmes bolted out of his chair and towards the stairs. He came back with the paper, eyes wide with excitement. “Ah-ha! Watson, we certainly have netted ourselves a big fish this time! Read this!” He thrust the paper into Watson’s hand, and moved to shed his dressing gown in favor of a frock coat.

ARSON ATTEMPTED STOP ARREST MADE STOP PLEASE COME DOWN AT EARLIEST CONVENIENCE FULL STOP PETER ATHELNEY JONES

“Good heavens, arson! Someone was going to set fire to the place?”

“And burn down several innocent people in the process,” Holmes said grimly. “He lived in a boardinghouse. Yes, I do see Moriarty’s hand in this one.” He strode for the main door. “Come, Watson!”

“But, Holmes!” Watson had hardly had two bites to eat yet.

“Grab yourself some toast, and come! We can have brunch later!”

Watson sighed—Holmes wouldn’t rest until they were out the door, he knew from long experience. “Oh, very well.” He took two pieces of toast, wrapped them in a napkin, and followed after the detective.

The sooner they reached some sort of conclusion, the sooner Watson could have a decent meal.

Sherlock Holmes was all but vibrating in place throughout the cab ride to the boarding house, and he had to fight down the urge to bound up the stairs to Clay’s room. “Hallo, hallo, Jones,” he said in a rush, hurrying past the Inspector into the room. “Nothing’s been touched?”

“Except for the chairs our men sat on last night, not a blessed thing has been moved.”

“Good, good.” There were some papers and notebooks strewn about the floor, hopefully part of what the would-be arsonist had been sent to retrieve. As Watson entered the room, Holmes pivoted slowly on his left foot, getting a sense for the room and for Clay. What he saw did not make him optimistic. The room was very minimal, uncluttered, spare—the living space of the frequent traveller, as he knew Clay was. He was getting the sense of a pragmatic man, a far cry from the narcissistic fop they had arrested the night before.

“How is Clay faring this morning?” Watson asked as Holmes began to pick up the papers.

Jones smirked. “Oh, His Highness has been behaving pretty well. Complained about his breakfast this morning, but that was all.”

Holmes hummed absently as he set the papers down on the small writing desk, and opened the drawers to search their contents. After a few minutes, he had done a thorough sweep of the room and found little more of value than what had already been so conveniently laid out for them by the would-be arsonist. Clay has more belongings elsewhere. In storage, perhaps? Or another flat or bolthole, elsewhere.

The only odd thing he’d noted was one of his own monographs on the bookshelf, the one he’d written on codes. None other of his monographs were present. Curious.

“I can tell you nothing of importance as yet about our friend, Jones,” Holmes said at last. “He has been living very frugally these past few months, but that is all. I shall need to take these—” he held up the papers and notebooks—“to study them, and see if I cannot tell you more.”

“As you like,” Jones said affably, obviously pleased to have finally caught John Clay in the act, an opportunity many inspectors had been chasing after for the past few years. “If you’re done with the room, I’ll close it up and send my men off.”

“By all means. Good morning, Inspector. Come, Watson.”

Outside in the brisk air, Watson rubbed his gloved hands together and shivered. “Holmes, what was I here for? You didn’t need me.”

Long practice kept Holmes’s first response in his head: I always need you. “My apologies, my dear Watson—I had hoped for a more enlightening search. Instead, I turned up very little. You may return to your practice now; I doubt I shall have any new information for you before dinnertime.”

Watson looked uncertain. “If you’re sure.”

Holmes knew that look—Watson would be anxiously awaiting news. “Quite. Go and give my regards to your lovely wife.”

The mention of Mary had its desired effect: the doctor’s face softened, and he nodded. “Very well. Though you should come give them her yourself, sometime; she has been missing you.”

Holmes smiled. “I shall.”

Watson hailed an approaching cab, and glanced again at Holmes. “Do you want to share a ride?”

Holmes shook his head. “I rather fancy a walk right now.”

Watson shrugged and got into the cab. “Suit yourself. Good luck with those documents.” To the cabbie: “Paddington Street.”

Holmes nodded his thanks, smiling faintly. “Farewell.”

Watson waved, and the cab set off. Holmes watched for a moment before turning towards Baker Street.

Clay was almost certainly connected to Moriarty—who else would he turn to for the resources to set up the scheme of the Red-headed League? For that matter, why else would Clay enter into such a scheme if not for Moriarty’s influence? Long-term crimes were not Clay’s style.

Long games were James Moriarty’s.

Don’t do this, not now. Don’t dwell on the past. But ten years had not been long enough for the sting to fade, not all the time. Not when he was alone.

You’re not alone; you’re in the center of London. London, busy and bustling and alive, never sleeping, always forging ahead, strong and defiant against every obstacle thrown her way.

Mood lifted slightly, he let his mind drift, idly deducing details about the people he passed in his trek home. The widow with three children and one more on the way, the young bank clerk on an errand, the older gentleman on his way to a liaison with his lover, the pair of nuns leading a group of schoolchildren… All the good and the bad.

You are a part of this. London’s best and worst. Cherish it.

Somehow, placing himself into the bigger picture and thereby making himself smaller comforted him. No matter what happened in the weeks to come, London would go on. He was only one of the many actors on the stage, and the weight of the world did not rest on his shoulders.

He whistled his way home from there.

Mary Watson was sewing in the sitting room when she heard her husband’s voice in the hall, calling for her. “John!” She set her work down and shot to her feet, hurrying to the door. Her husband was hanging up his hat and coat, and when he turned to her, he looked tired and disheveled.

His face brightened at the sight of her. “Mary, love!” He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “And how are you today, my darling?”

“Considerably better-rested than you appear to be, husband mine,” Mary replied archly, grinning. “Have you had breakfast?”

“Barely. When is lunch?”

“Not for a little while.”

John groaned.

Mary tugged at his good arm. “Oh, I’ll have a something made up for you. Only come to the sitting room and tell me about this case!” She didn’t mind when Sherlock Holmes called her husband away on cases, but she did insist upon hearing the details afterwards, if discretion permitted.

John laughed. “Well, it’s an odd one, certainly. I was out with Holmes last night to catch a bank robber.”

Mary’s eyes widened as they sat together on the sofa. “Did you catch him?”

John wound his arm around her shoulders. “Shh, no, that would be telling the story backwards, and Holmes is very much against that.”

“John Hamish, you’re an insufferable tease.”

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. “Yes, we caught him. But it really started in the oddest way—Holmes was called upon by a pawnbroker, a Mr. Jabez Wilson, to puzzle out what had happened to him. He had entered quite an extraordinary league—for the purpose of taking care of red-headed men!—and then after months of working for this league, he came to the office one morning to find it closed and the league apparently dissolved, as if it had never been.”

Mary frowned. “How very extraordinary! But how did that lead to a bank robbery?”

“It was the pawnbroker’s assistant. He had set up the league, so that while his employer was away, he and a confederate could dig a tunnel in the cellar, to a nearby bank which held—well, shall we say: a rather important sum of money?”

Mary’s eyes widened. “My goodness! So Sherlock… deduced this robbery and then set up a trap for the thieves?”

John nodded. “He’s studying the papers of the principal thief right now to see what he can learn about the man. And now, my love, you know almost all there is to know, while your husband is positively fading away from hunger.”

Mary gave an unladylike snort, smacked his chest lightly, and stood. “My husband is likelier to be booed off the stage than die of starvation right now.”

John put a hand to his chest as if struck, and she shook her head. “I’ll have something ready in a few minutes. Meanwhile, you should freshen up; you look positively rumpled.”

“Yes, indeed.” He stood, stretched, and kissed her cheek.

She smiled after him as he went upstairs. She rarely minded John being off on a case, when it was so important to who he and his dearest friend were as people, but she was always glad to see him come home.

There were letters among Clay’s papers. Letters in numerical code. Holmes sighed, and called for another pot of coffee. This would take time; he needed to see if he could find a key for the code. Not even the letters themselves could provide much insight into the sender: they were all typed, which only told Holmes that the sender was thoroughly careful and did not wish his identity to be traced. Indicative of Moriarty, but he couldn’t assume.

You’re obsessing.

I know.

He started to flip through the notebooks, scanning them for any sign of a key for the code.

“Compose yourself. Deep breaths. Slowly. Unclench your shoulders; stretch your legs. Relax, wait a minute, then try again.”

Holmes gritted his teeth. Leave me alone.

“Mr. Holmes?”

He jumped and looked up to find Mrs. Hudson bearing the coffee pot and watching him worriedly. “Is anything the matter?”

He smiled faintly and shook his head. “It’s nothing, Mrs. Hudson. Just a matter of breaking a code.”

“Ah.” Her face cleared. “Well, don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ve always been very good with codes; I’m sure you’ll break it in no time.” She gave his shoulder a motherly pat and bustled back out of the room.

Bless the woman. He was very aware that he was a difficult tenant, and yet she put up with him with all his flaws and foibles anyway…

“You’ve always been very good with codes...” Clay had possessed one of his monographs, the one about code. Why?

“Perhaps he’d used it to study codes,” said the voice in his head that sounded like Watson.

“Yes, but he could have easily done the same with other, less legal sources,” Holmes said aloud.

“Perhaps he was studying you.”

“Perhaps, but then why only the one? I’ve written a dozen monographs, some of which would given him far better insight into my process of thought… Oh.” A pamphlet on coding… how neat would it be to use that pamphlet as a source for one’s one code? Very neat.

Very ironic. And he knew someone who bore a deep appreciation for irony. He would do that. He really would do that.

He pulled out his blackboard, set up the first of the letters, and scrounged up his own copy of his work. Then he studied the letter again. He would try to use the numbers the way that he had when decoding that Birlstone message from Porlock, and see what he got from that.

After a few minutes, he decided that the numbers in the letter couldn’t possibly refer to words in the pamphlet. There was a veritable host of numbers—it would make for a very long letter—and in any case, none of the words made sense with each other. Therefore, if the pamphlet was still the cipher, the numbers must be referring to individual letters, rather than words.

And when—past the numbers designating the page, the column, and the line—the first six letters produced the words “my” and “dear,” he knew he was on the right track.

The next word was “boy.” He froze. “My dear boy, of course you are special. You are unique. You have such a brilliant mind… and such a large heart…”

My dear boy,

I am glad to hear that all is proceeding according to plan. It is a rather odd invention, this red-headed league of yours, and yet given all that you have told me about our Mr. Wilson, I have no doubt it will suffice. Many men of more sense than he are easily duped when it comes to an extra, easy chance of money.

I look forward to the conclusion and to your visit to France. I expect nothing but brilliant results from you.

Very sincerely,

Your Professor

“Oh, dear God,” Holmes breathed as he finished, staring at the results on the board, the conclusion ringing in his mind with breathtaking clarity.

John Clay is his heir.

#The Heir #Sherlock Holmes #John Watson #REDH #Dr. Watson #Sky writes stuff #Mrs. Hudson #Professor Moriarty #Athelney Jones

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space-sapphik · 8 years ago

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Sherlock season 4. Theory.

This is just a bit of rambling about season four episode two. there are spoilers to season four episode one and references to drugs, drug overdoses, and shootings if these affect you in any way please do not read. This also pulls together a lot of theories that I have read online if I mention one of yours and you want me to put you in the reference bit please tell me as I can’t find any of them. The cut isn’t working for me at the moment so we will see.

So Mary’s death doesn’t make any sense in the show, not the fact of her death as a concept but rather the way she died.

She is shot directly in the chest, I’m assuming the bullet is close to the place Sherlock got shot and she is at least as smart, she would have tried to stabilise herself and she would have done the same thing that Sherlock did. There was also a splattering of blood, I don’t know how much that was affected by her movement, but when she shot Sherlock there was no splatter and he was shot in the same spot.

There was something amazing pointed out in HLV I believe when Sherlock is in the hospital with Janine his heart monitor starts to run backwards and the next few scenes are very strange.

I’m not sure if they are related but in one of the trailers, John is standing in a hospital room. I think that either; it is Mary being saved or something similar although that doesn’t make sense with her only being listed as being in five episodes in total; the other option is that it is Sherlock, this is only based on the scene where Sherlock’s heart monitor runs backwards.

Although that scene could also have been foreshadowing to tell the audience that he may retract or his heart will go backwards when John and him become ‘estranged’.

I believe that this could be a form of EMP(Extended Mind Palace), and there are yet again two possibilities; the first being that Sherlock dreamt up everything past the scene with Janine in the hospital; the second more plausible theories says that Sherlock either went back into his mind palace or never came out of it at the end of TAB. I think that he may have in fact have had an overdose, this would make sense with the scene in the trailer. John could have been talking to him while he was in a coma, we know that the voice of people talking to coma patients can help them.

He may be running the information through his head and making connections even when he is in a coma. The would make sense seeing as the episode is set up rather strangely. Sherlock could be getting mixed up fragments of a story that are floating into his head while he is out.

This could also explain the blindness theory as cocaine can lead to a numbness in the eyes meaning any damage done ay not be felt, but we can assume that cocaine is not the only drug that he is on. We also know that he injects it, intravenously injected drugs can cause blindness very easily. These drugs often cause a build up of residue in the retina. I don’t know if this can be removed or not if you do know please tell me. This could all relate to ‘The Lying Detective’ in the novel Watson believes that Holmes is dying when in fact he is lying about his condition, this could be the other way around. Sherlock could be lying about his vision or other side effects of drugs.

If you go into a coma from a drug overdose you can wake up if you are lucky so let's assume that Sherlock does wake up, then he would almost definitely have suffered brain damage meaning that he could have mild to severe impairments of; movement, balance and co-ordination; senses such as hearing or vision; spoken and written communication; thinking, concentration and memory. I highly doubt that he will end up having his thinking and concentration to badly damaged as it would draw away drastically from his character although I wouldn’t put it past Mofftiss. The loss of vision fits with other theories, there are two good ones one by @skulls-and-tea and one by @detectivesinsuits I will put links to them at the end of this. The main thing is that Sherlock looks really blank in a lot of the promo and that they keep saying that this is the ‘darkest season yet’. impairments of his movement and communication, seem less likely because of the trailers and promo stuff that we have gotten so far. I would still keep my eyes out for that if I were you.

If this is the case then Sherlock could be trying to work cases with minimal vision, especially seeing as John is not there and that will most likely be the main conflict for ‘The Lying Detective’ then he may be hiding it from John. Sherlock is prone to do this sort of thing and to hide facts from John when he thinks he doesn’t care or when he thinks that it will protect him, I think that the later is far more likely in this case although the former will have something to do with it.

I think that John will be at first angry, and then he will feel responsible as he often does and will look after Sherlock. When he is looking after Sherlock he and Sherlock will become closer as John will have to help him with a lot of things.

I do believe that Mary died, but I also think that John is mad at Sherlock, he is mad at him and it is because he is scared. He is mad because he is scared that Sherlock will never wake up. Mary did die, John did learn about her past and he told Sherlock. He talked to Sherlock as he lay there motionless. Sherlock took those ideas and those words and he put himself into the story. He solved the case with John as John and Lestrade worked together, maybe John could think back to how Sherlock deduces like in the end of ‘alone on the water’. That’s why Sherlock is a bit ooc throughout the whole episode, he isn’t really himself he is mimicking John, that also explains why John wasn’t there for a lot of it. Mary really did take a bullet but it wasn’t for Sherlock, the gun was just pointed at her, or she could have potentially taken the bullet for john although that seems unlikely with the proximity of the gun to its’ victim. John now blames Sherlock because he wasn’t there and he feels that he has to take it out on someone. So John knew about A.G.R.A. first hand then told Sherlock so we could be missing some of the information.

This may not be correct but it makes sense to my sleep deprived Johnlocked brain so this is what’s happening.

Update:

@inevitably-johnlocked mad a post asking why ther was a blog post about the baby before it was born and I think it could have been Sherlocks brain trying to make sense of everything. he also may have been getting information jumbled when John was talking to him, if my predictions are correct.

Sources:

1. Drug overdose info, https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/drug-overdose

2. Communications through comas, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2924342/Why-talking-loved-one-coma-helps-recover-Hearing-stories-exercises-circuits-brain-trigger-glimpses-awareness.html

3. can coma patients hear loved ones, http://www.medicaldaily.com/can-coma-patients-hear-you-families-should-tell-stories-loved-ones-coma-319148

4. a story of a man hearing things whilst in a coma, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/6638155/Locked-in-a-coma-I-could-hear-people-talking-around-me.html

5. overdose info, http://www.muirwoodteen.com/teen-substance-abuse/overdose/

6. overdose info, http://www.destinationstorecovery.com/overdose-gross-happens-body-o-d/

7. overdose info, http://www.overdoseday.com/resources/overdose-basics/

8. @skulls-and-tea sherlock blindness theoryhttp://skulls-and-tea.tumblr.com/post/154396689681/queenofstarkness-skulls-and-tea

9. @detectivesinsuits and currently-in-my-mind-palace addition to the original theory, http://currently-in-my-mind-palace.tumblr.com/post/154432690807/detectivesinsuits-skulls-and-tea-i-know-yall

#tjlc #johnlock #john watson #sherlock holmes #sherlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock season 4 #sherlock s4 #sherlock season four

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nellie-elizabeth · 8 years ago

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Sherlock: The Six Thatchers (4x01)

Rarely have I been so conflicted about an episode of a TV show. I feel like a mixed reaction is inevitable when you wait three years for something. This show has the problem that while it was busy hiatus-ing and making all of its key players into superstars, another modern-day Sherlock Holmes adaption came along that is arguably better in almost every way. But we're not here to talk about Elementary, or about living in Sherlock's prolonged hiatus hell. We're here to talk about "The Six Thatchers," an episode with some great moments and phenomenal acting, but some off-putting developments to say the least.

Cons:

Okay, so let's start with the big one: Mary dies. On the one hand, this isn't a surprise, for many reasons. Mary dies in ACD's canon, and the story of Sherlock Holmes is, at its core, a story about Holmes and Watson. There's also the fact that Moffat has never successfully pulled off a character arc for a female character, or at least not that I'm aware of. So yeah, I guess I'm not surprised. But I'm still disappointed. The shifting dynamics between Mary, John, and Sherlock were really, really interesting. I think Mary got let off the hook for shooting Sherlock just a little too quickly last season, but that could have been explored here. We have John ostensibly engaging in an affair, which is despicable, but is this a manifestation of lingering resentment because Mary lied to him? Or, even more interestingly, a manifestation of his jealousy, since Sherlock openly remarks that Mary is better at working cases than John is? He should be thrilled that his best friend and his wife get along so well, but is he really? Or is John being forced to choose between a life of thrill and a life of convention, represented by two people he really loves? Or is Sherlock forced to learn to share his best friend, the only person he's ever really let in, with somebody just as clever and engaging as himself?

I could go on. All of those elements made for this trio being a really compelling one to explore. But what did we get? Mary is killed off as the result of a standard revenge plot. Mary's past catches up with her, she tries to run, Sherlock brings her back to London, Sherlock mouths off to the secret baddie, Mary jumps in front of a bullet meant for Sherlock, and dies in John's arms. What I think is so frustrating about this is that, on its surface, this could have been a fulfilling arc for Mary. And yet somehow, even in the instant of her death, this becomes about Sherlock and John. Why did Mary die for Sherlock? Well, they're friends, and I get the sense that she felt like a violent end was inevitable for her. All great things that could have been explored more. Instead, we get John blaming Sherlock, and pushing him away.

All of this, by the way, is excellent angst-fodder for those of us (myself included) who want to see Sherlock and John at odds so we can watch their emotional bond regrow. But that doesn't change the fact that Mary was actually an interesting, intelligent, dynamic character who really added something to the show as a whole, and she's just been fridged for the development of male angst. That's never not going to piss me off, and it's particularly hard to stomach from Moffat, a man pretty much infamous for fridging the ladies.

Also, let's talk about John for a hot second. Above, I mentioned that John is having an affair in this episode. All may not be as it seems, of course, but I think we can safely assume that he at least has been having an emotional affair of sorts with a woman he met on a bus. As I mentioned above, there could be something interesting going on here - John resenting Mary for the lies, John feeling insecure in his marriage because of how close Sherlock and Mary are becoming, John feeling restless with his normal happy little family... but that's not what we get. We get John Watson, a guy who lords his moral superiority over everybody, cheating on his wife. His wife who just had a baby. Like... what? Ew. I don't want to rage about this for too long, because there's this part of me that thinks I'm missing information, and that there will be a twist in here somewhere wherein we get a better explanation for John's behavior. But as is? Yikes.

So, John's initial reaction of anger and grief over Mary's death is perfectly acceptable. He is furious at Sherlock because he "made a vow" to protect them, and now Mary is dead. Okay, yeah. I can get that. But you would think that after some time passed, John would realize that Sherlock is not actually a mythical being capable of planning for every contingency. You would think that John would come to accept that Mary's past caught up with her, and that even if Sherlock might have been able to do something to prevent this, it wasn't his fault. The fact that John told Molly to send Sherlock away just breaks my heart. Like I said earlier, this is great angst-fodder. But is it realistic behavior from John Watson, the man who forgave Sherlock for lying to him about being dead for two years, in a matter of days? Riddle me this one: what if Mary hadn't jumped in front of Sherlock? What if Sherlock had taken that bullet and died? Would John have blamed Mary for getting Sherlock entangled in her past, leading to his death? I'm not blaming Mary for her own death, here. But I'm just saying - there's just as much reason to point the finger at her as there is to point it at Sherlock. This is another situation where I think I need to wait and see how it plays out. What's in that letter that John wrote to Sherlock? Maybe he will come around and stop blaming Sherlock for things that aren't his fault. The jury is out, folks.

Pros:

Despite everything I just wrote, this episode was still worth the wait. Even if the biggest plot development of the night left me with a really sour taste in my mouth, I still have so much to say in praise of this collective effort. There are acting kudos to give out, there are script moments to praise, and I won't let a couple of big things overshadow all of the awesomeness this episode truly did have to offer.

I've basically already told the plot, insofar as this episode even had a standard plot. Mary's past comes back to haunt her as one of her fellow assassins believes that she betrayed their group six years ago. The mastermind behind the betrayal is eventually revealed to be a secretary, who then shoots at Sherlock for mouthing off, while Lestrade, Mycroft, and a whole host of law enforcement look on. Mary takes the bullet. John shows up just in time to hold her in his arms as she dies. One of the weird things about this episode that I actually quite enjoyed was how all over the place it seemed in the beginning. We're seeing Sherlock working manically on cases, we're seeing John and Mary welcoming baby Rosamund into their lives (Rosamond is Mary's real name, by the way), we see Mycroft and his fellow government-running secret agent people pardoning Sherlock for killing Magnussen, we see worry about what Moriarty might be up to, and then somebody starts smashing Margaret Thatcher busts and things start to coalesce into an A-plot. It's weird and it's messy and for whatever reason, it actually works for me.

I like seeing the chaos of these character's lives. I liked the moment when Sherlock and John were off on a case, and John realizes he's got like 50 missed calls from Mary, as she's gone into labor. Sherlock remarks "we're in trouble." I like that Sherlock is made Rosie's godfather, despite his ineptitude for ordinary social interaction. I liked seeing Sherlock babysitting Rosie. I liked the hints we got here of Lestrade, Molly, and Mrs. Hudson, even if they were mostly background characters. It felt sort of like we were just seeing the whirlwind of these characters' lives, without the need for structure until things started to narrow to a focus. For whatever reason, and I'm sorry I'm having such a hard time articulating that reason, the pacing of this episode really worked for me.

Best character of the week? Mycroft Holmes. I'm more convinced than ever that Mycroft is going to die, if not this season, then definitely by the end of the show. Although we don't see this stated explicitly, there's an implication here that Mycroft's predictions from last season's "The Sign of Three" are coming true: he and Sherlock seem to be spending more and more time together. There seems to be less animosity and more trust between them than ever before, as Sherlock depends on his brother to believe his word and investigate one of his colleagues, and Sherlock goes to Mycroft to get help in keeping his vow of protecting Mary, John, and their child. If I were writing this show, I'd be setting Mycroft up as more and more of a true support system for Sherlock, so that his death would pack an appropriately big punch. I'm dreading being right about this.

Continuing a theme from last season's finale, we see that Sherlock is embracing his humanity more and more, while Mycroft remains aloof. Sherlock shows Mycroft a picture of baby Rosie on his phone, and Mycroft has nothing to say other than that the child looks "fully functioning." Sherlock seems disappointed, asking Mycroft "is that really the best you can do?" I love that we see Sherlock making a real effort for John and his family, even though this sort of human connection doesn't come naturally to him. Mycroft, on the other hand, doesn't appear to have made any effort whatsoever. An interesting thread to pull!

As I mentioned before, some of our other characters didn't really get a lot of screen time, but I still admired the characterization they did receive. Molly was gently chastising of Sherlock when he was texting during Rosie's baptism. She was named a godparent, along with both Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock. Not sure why they were allowed three godparents, but whatever! I love that Molly was included! Mrs. Hudson was given a great deal of respect, especially when Sherlock told her to keep him in check if he seemed too arrogant or sure of himself. The fact that Sherlock would ask Mrs. Hudson to police him in this way shows how much he trusts her. Lestrade spent the episode quietly annoyed at his difficult work situation. See, Sherlock insists on not taking credit for every case he solves, meaning that Lestrade gets the official credit. But then, of course, John blogs about it, so everybody who follows this sort of thing knows that Sherlock was actually the brains behind the operation. It makes Lestrade look like an egomaniac who insists on getting credit even when he doesn't deserve it. I liked this comedic little thread, because it raised some more serious questions about Sherlock's work. Does he like getting the credit? I mean, he certainly likes showing off, right? Poor Lestrade, that's all I can say!

Let's talk about Mary. For all that her death feels like a letdown, Amanda Abbington gave a truly incredible performance, and that deserves to be talked about. Her love for John feels genuine, but so does her past as an assassin. Her connection to her fellow assassins feels real, even though we're just learning about them for the first time. Her decision to jump in front of a bullet feels right for her character. She both acted on emotional instinct and made a calculated decision. It was a very... Sherlockian thing for her to do, and does go a long way towards redeeming her for her betrayal in the last season. As sad as I am to lose the dynamic between Mary and the two leads, I guess if she had to be killed off, this was about as good as it was going to get.

John's character took a bit of an ethical beating this week, as I've discussed, what with his cruelty towards his best friend even after the initial grief has worn off, and his infidelity, and all of that. But Martin Freeman still deserves all the props for his incredibly delicate portrayal of John Watson. He balances the comedy with the drama as seamlessly as ever. Highlights include John asking Sherlock to be the godfather of baby Rosie, John substituting himself with a balloon to act as a stand-in for Sherlock to talk to, and John's flummoxed expression upon hearing that Sherlock considers Mary better at case work than John. And, of course, on the drama side of things, his reaction to Mary's death was just as heart-rending as you would expect. It was hard to watch, honestly.

This episode, more-so perhaps than any other single episode this show has ever done, acted as a character study of Sherlock Holmes. As I'll discuss during these last few paragraphs of the review, it's this that saves the episode from too harsh of a critique. I'm super salty about Mary's death, but if you look at this episode for what it does for its main character, it's... well, it's stunning. If you think back to Series One or even Series Two, the show really featured John Watson as the protagonist, and Sherlock as the center of the A-plot, if that makes sense. Series Three began to mix things up in this regard, and now, Series Four contains this episode, which takes a comprehensive look at Sherlock Holmes. His flaws, his strengths, what he values, and what he cares about. We see him try to make a change, try and fail to keep promises, and, at the end, begin to examine his choices and his behavior in a way we've yet to see from him.

First of all, we see that he's making a real effort to be there for his friend and his new family. He texts rudely during the christening, of course, but this takes on a much more melancholy edge when you consider what Sherlock tells Mrs. Hudson at the end of the episode, about work being the best antidote to grief. He's keeping himself busy. Why? Because he's afraid of Moriarty? Because he's bored? Well, sure, both of those things to some extent. But I think he's also keeping himself busy to avoid thinking about all the changes going on. The fact that John and Sherlock carried on, business as usual, while Mary was pregnant doesn't mean that things can keep going indefinitely. Sherlock is visibly trying to adjust to his new reality, taking care of baby Rosie and even showing her off to his brother.

He's also being more open and honest with John than ever before. We saw in last season's wedding episode that Sherlock was willing to express his love and deep affection for John. But that was at a wedding. In the everyday chaos of life, it would probably be all too easy for Sherlock to slip back into old and indifferent habits. There's lots of evidence to suggest that making John feel important is a real priority to Sherlock. He tells him that he values his contributions. He compares John to the dog Toby, saying he's "slow but steady" and knows what he wants. John remarks: "you just like this dog, don't you?" and Sherlock says: "well, I like you." There's just something so sincere and honest about that. I saw real effort on Sherlock's part to soften the edges of his harsh personality, solely for the sake of growing the affection between himself and John. And it's not just John, either! He actually makes an effort to learn Lestrade's first name, even if he does forget it a few more times. This active effort is really endearing.

But, of course, Sherlock still has a big problem. He gets too focused on his cases. He gets too caught up in his own brilliance, and he can fail to be compassionate because of that. It's what leads him to be dismissive of the family that loses their son, in favor of the more interesting mystery of the smashed Thatcher bust. It's what leads him to show off with deductions to such an extent that our bad guy of the evening ends up shooting at him, costing Mary her life.

And here's where we get the incredible, remarkable thing that makes this episode such a gift. Benedict Cumberbatch's acting is always a treat to watch, but that moment when Mary was dying, that look on his face... oh boy. We then learn that he's been having a recurring nightmare. How do we know this? Well, he talks about it with his therapist. That's right. Sherlock Holmes is talking to a therapist. He expressly informs said therapist that he's there because he needs to know what to do about John. He asks Mrs. Hudson to help keep him in check if he gets too cocky in the future. John has just told him that he's at fault for Mary's death. He believes that to be true, and takes immediate steps to learn how to change himself so that nothing like this will ever happen again. It's... I mean... wow. These last few scenes are just so gut-wrenching and complicated and everything else in between. All of Series Three and all of this episode showed me that Sherlock Holmes will do anything, anything for John Watson. He'd die for him, become a criminal for him, even write a best man speech and throw him a stag party. And he made a vow to protect the Watsons. The fact that he broke that vow, however unintentionally, has fundamentally changed him as a person, and I think we're really going to see the ramifications of that.

I'll end with Mary, again. She leaves a video message for Sherlock, to be delivered to him in the event of her death. She tells him to "Save John Watson." She also says, in a brief moment after the credits: "Go to Hell, Sherlock." It's an odd message, to say the least. Does she mean "Save John Watson" just in the generic sense, as in save him from his grief over losing Mary? Or is there a specific threat at work here? And what's with the "Go to Hell?" My guess is that she's referring to a place - a town or a city or something called "Hell." It was just too weird and pointed not to mean something else. Mary is clever, and she's not cruel, and she likes Sherlock. In her final moments, she did not blame Sherlock at all for what had happened. She wouldn't just be randomly telling him to go to Hell.

I guess I should wrap up this review. It's always impossible to talk about this show with any kind of brevity, but since it comes around so rarely, that's alright. My thoughts are difficult to articulate, as you might be able to guess by all my rambling on. I am annoyed, on principle, with Mary's death. In execution, it was done about as well as I could have hoped. I am frustrated with John Watson's behavior, but I'm holding out hope that there's more to this than I currently understand. I'm delighted with Sherlock's character development, but annoyed that Mary had to die to get us there. I'm happy with Mycroft's expanding role in events, but wish we could have had more Molly, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade. As I prepare to boil down my thoughts into a rating out of ten, I'm forced to admit that I enjoyed watching this episode quite a lot. The good does outweigh the bad.

8/10

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