#and i had to pick sybil and wedding cake where the first time i picked max and birthday cake???

[the-knife-consumer]

Am I going crazy or did the dialogue in the remastered version of save the world go back to the original dialogue

[sunken-standard]

Another Prompt Fill

Since both came in together...  Great minds, apparently.

*

"Your great-aunt Eudora died," Molly said, glancing over to Sherlock before going back to her slides.

"Oh good, when's the funeral?"

"Day after tomorrow, reading of the will to follow. I didn't know that was an actual thing people actually did. Like, do you lot just gather in mahogany-panelled libraries with your embroidered hankies and veils and mesh gloves and just faint dramatically when the surprise illegitimate child walks in?"

"I know they say television is a window to the world, but sometimes it would do you some good to actually go outside," Sherlock said, shouldering her aside to see what she was looking at. "Ooh, is that brain?"

"Colon polyp, actually, though in this bloke I don't think there was much difference. Real Darwin Award material, thought a curling iron was a vibrator with a warming feature."

"And that killed him?"

"He tried to cool it off by running it under the tap. While it was still plugged in."

"Which end?" Sherlock continued to look at the slide.

"Both."

"Hn." He finally moved away from the microscope. "So, fancy a trip to the Peak District?"

"Wait, you're actually going?"

"Of course I'm going, I want to see what she left me."

"You're not going to make a scene or anything? I mean, it is a funeral."

"You think so little of me. That hurts," Sherlock said too earnestly. He touched his chest. "Right here, in my heart."

"That's not your heart, you've got a raisin stuck to your shirt."

"Wondered where that went. Had a snack in the cab." He picked the raisin off his shirt and popped it in his mouth, then made a face. "That was not a raisin."

I don't even want to know, she thought.

*

"Just awful. Taken too soon," Cousin Sybil said, shaking her head sadly and staring into her wineglass.

"Wait, they're serving wine? In a church?"

"Oh no, I brought my own. If you thought the weddings were bad, the funerals will make you wonder how you ever ended up in this family in the first place."

"Not really in the family, but okay."

Cousin Sybil just looked at her, 'you poor, deluded fool' written across her face. Sherlock picked that moment to reappear; he'd been cornered by his parents, back from the Caribbean just in time. Their globe-trotting always seemed to coincide with family functions, but apparently the funeral was enough of a surprise that they couldn't beg off.

"They'll be seating soon, come on. Need a spot in the front row," he said before steering her toward the chapel doors.

*

"Would anyone like to say a few words?" the vicar said after concluding his sermon.

Sherlock shot up from the pew and dashed to the lectern. He pulled cards from his jacket pocket, fumbling them a bit as he took a steadying breath.

He truly missed his calling, she thought. Though, she'd never have met him if he'd ended up an actor, so there was that.

He started his eulogy and teared up convincingly as he reminisced about her fresh-baked scones and the dish of allsorts she kept by her chair in the study.

Molly leaned into Mycroft. "Really sounds like he was fond of her, that they had a good relationship," she remarked quietly.

"Oh no, the old bat hated him. She hated everyone, but especially him," he said.

Mummy Holmes leaned around Mycroft. "She really was a dreadful woman."

"...And so I've come to understand the fleeting fragility of our time on this Earth, and I realized we've not a moment to be wasted," Sherlock said, choking on his fake tears. "I probably don't have that much time left myself, so I'd like to make the most of it."

He moved out from behind the lectern and came to stand in front of her, pulling her up out of the pew. Her stomach lurched with foreboding.

He dropped to one knee.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" she hissed through gritted teeth as everyone in the church sucked in a breath in unison.

He pulled a little velvet box from inside his jacket pocket. "Molly Hooper. Will you marry me?" he asked, looking up at her with his eyes wide as he opened the box. He bit his lip while he waited for her to react.

I'm going to murder him. Two funerals at once, it'll save everybody time, she thought giddily.

He broke character for a split second to lift his eyebrows a hair and widen his eyes even more, play along and make it good.

She put her hand over her chest and heaved a breath. "Oh Sherlock," she gushed. "Yes, yes, of course!"

He grinned and it actually looked real; he made his hands shake visibly as he slipped the ring on her finger. A wave of gasps and murmurs rolled through the crowd.

He stood and pulled her into a hug, bending so his lips were next to her ear. "If I had a mic, I'd drop it right now and peace out," he said. "Is the coffin moving? She's probably spinning in it."

"You are such an arsehole," she said into his ear while she clung to his neck.

"I know," he said, sounding well-pleased.  "Never let it be said I don't know how to put the 'fun' in 'funeral.'"

"I'm not helping you fake your own death again." She was sure he had that planned after his little 'not having time left' thing; she wondered how long he'd been sitting on the idea.

"Spoilsport," he said, rocking them back and forth a little bit. "You could stand to cry a little. Pull out a nose-hair if you have to, I'll cover you."

"Words cannot begin to describe the world of hurt you're in for when this is over," she said.

He pulled back and gave her a quick kiss right on the lips. "Do you promise?" he said, eyes sparkling.

"Oh, I promise," she said darkly.

She spent the rest of the funeral fondly recalling dismembering the chocolate Sherlock with a wire saw and a blowtorch, only substituting the real one in the memory.

*

Molly walked with Sherlock's parents in the procession from the chapel to the churchyard, as both Sherlock and Mycroft were pallbearers; she hoped to God Sherlock didn't do something to make them drop the coffin. She could just imagine the body rolling out and down the hillside to the motorway below, causing a ten-car pile-up when a lorry swerved to avoid it...

"I'd like at least two grandchildren, three if you can manage it. Identical twins run on my side, you might get lucky," Mummy Holmes said. Apart from their introduction, it was the first thing she'd said to her. Ever.

"I'll, ah, see what I can do," Molly said.

"You should honeymoon in Jamaica. The resort we stayed at was Hedonism II, cannot recommend it highly enough. The food was amazing and the view of the beach was simply spectacular."

"The view inside the room was too," Daddy Holmes said, his face innocent as he gave his wife's bum a firm squeeze.

Molly stopped wondering how Sherlock had turned out the way he did.

*

"Welcome to the Hotel California," Cousin Sybil said as soon as they stepped into the entryway of the actual mansion where the wake and will-reading was being held. Molly was 98% certain it was Aunt Eudora's house. Well, one of them.

"I mean 'the Family,'" she added, pressing a glass into Molly's hand.

"What is this?" Molly asked, sniffing the glass.

"Scotch that they found in an iceberg or something. Trying to drink it all because Billy's set to inherit it. He's coveted it his entire life because he's got a hard-on for adventure and it's some historical... explorer... thing. Ha! Can't wait to hear what he tells the lads on the polo team. He'll probably just dump a bottle of Glengoolie in the decanter and add a few drops of Dettol and pass it off as the real thing. Those idiots would drink horse piss if someone told them it was single malt and stuck a £750 pricetag on it." She drained her glass and wandered away.

*

"I swear to everything that is holy, if you put your fingers in or even near my mouth again I will bite them off."

"I'm feeding you, it's romantic. Have some more cake," he said, breaking off a piece of the very plain, very dry slice of poundcake on her plate. Apparently even the food was meant to inspire a suitable state of misery.

"Really not. Have you even washed your hands since you carried that coffin?"

"Why does that matter? You touch dead people all day at work."

"I wear gloves."

"Stupid NHS rules. Imagine the budget savings if they did away with that policy. Maybe I'll mention that to Cousin Fred, he's an MP."

"Please don't."

*

The reading of the will really was in a library with leather furniture and wood panelling. There were stag heads and swords, too.

She ended up on an ancient sofa obviously made of irregularly-shaped rocks and corners of bricks, squashed between Sherlock and some elderly Aunt whose name she hadn't caught who smelled vaguely of mothballs, sour milk, and old money.

The solicitor shuffled a stack of papers and blah-blah-blahed on about his contact information and legally binding whatever-whatever until finally he jumped right into the who-gets-what. "To the worst daughter God has ever seen fit to burden a mother with, I leave the house and all associated properties. Do try not to lose it in your next divorce, you simple tart," he read in a monotone.

"To my idiot son Rudy, I leave my entire wardrobe and a sum of fifty thousand pounds so you can finally get the operation. You did a piss-poor job of hiding it. I never should have let you have that teddy bear when you were six because I knew it would turn you into a nancy-boy, but you begged and begged, what was a mother to do? I hope you find yourself a nice man to settle down with."

"Ha, joke's on her, he's not actually a woman or gay, he's just a cross-dresser," Sherlock said, leaning into Molly and putting his hand on her leg. "Going to have a bit of a kip until they get to me, wake me when it's my turn." He settled back against the sofa, but left his hand on her thigh.

*

"...And to that little prick William Sherlock," the solicitor droned. Sherlock's elbow slid off the arm of the sofa and he woke with a start when he heard his name. "I leave my departed husband's collection of coprolites."

"Oh-ho, yes!" Sherlock clenched his fists and wiggled in his seat. "I love fossils."

"Eat shit and die, you little arsehole," the solicitor finished in his monotone.

*

She found herself pressed up against the door of a froufrou parlour this time; she'd excused herself to go to the toilet shortly after they'd got to Sherlock in the reading when it became apparent there was no end in sight and of course he followed her.

She wasn't even sure how it happened. One minute she was walking along, opening doors in the labyrinthine corridors hoping to find the library again, or at least a room with a liquor cabinet, and the next she was inside a lady's sitting room with Sherlock's tongue down her throat and his thigh snug between hers. She really hoped this sudden display of affection had nothing to do with his inheritance. She supposed maybe it was just the fact that it was a funeral; they always made her a little randy, too. Some kind of pushback against mortality, she thought to herself as Sherlock wedged his hand behind her to unzip her dress. Whatever. She was in the sweet spot between bored and drunk and pretty much anything short of arson would seem like a good idea.

"Maybe try to make it last the full minute this time," she said, hiking up her skirt.

"Should be good for longer than that, had a wank this morning before we left."

Her lips pursed into a question, even though it took her a few seconds to figure out what to ask. "Wh— Where was I?"

"In the shower," he answered against the crook of her neck like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Where were you?"

"Kitchen."

"You had a wank in my kitchen at four in the morning. Before a funeral."

"I was nervous. It helps."

"Oh. my. God."

"I haven't even put it in yet, must be doing something right," Sherlock quipped before kissing her again.

*

Molly leaned against the door of the car watching the family members file out of the house with cardboard boxes and paintings and lamps like it was a fire sale. Sherlock had already loaded his boxes in the boot; it was indeed a sizeable collection of shit.

Sherlock flopped against the side of the car next to her, his head lolling back against the roof. "Really hope this is the last one for a while. I don't want to see any of these people again ever."

"Well, at least til the wedding," Molly said, a teasing lilt to her voice that was only half-teasing.

"Oh God, which one's getting married now?"

She held her left hand in front of his face.

His face did a thing where it crumpled in on itself in confusion before smoothing out again with new and different wrinkles; he looked at her askance. "You really would?"

"You're highly educated, quite fit, and rich. I mean, maybe you're not great in bed, but a girl can't have everything," she said lightly.

"That last bit is invalid because we weren't actually in a bed. I lasted the full minute and even gave you an extra thirty seconds this time. Sorry about your dress, though."

"At least it's machine washable. Wouldn't want to take that to the dry cleaners."

"Mine know not to ask questions, it's better for everyone. And I tip well."

"Mm," Molly acknowledged. She knew all too well the kinds of things he ended up covered in. At least he was considerate enough to clean out her shower drain, after. Even snaked the pipes after an incident with tarmac and another with rubber cement. He'd posed as a plumber once on a case, he'd told her. The joke she made about laying pipe had gone completely over his head. Good times.

Sherlock didn't say anything else, but he slipped his hand into hers and interlaced their fingers, leaning against her side.

"You realize we're going to have to invite every single person that was here today, right?" she said, smirking.

"Bugger. How would you feel about a destination wedding? Somewhere far away. With no waiting period."

"Like the Caribbean? Your parents seemed to really like the resort they stayed at. Right up your alley, too, it was clothing-optional."

"...And there goes my ability to ever have an erection again."

Molly opened her mouth to make some kind of joke about size or staying power, then closed it again. Really shouldn't cut off her own nose to spite her face.

"You know, I'm a doctor, I can probably do something about that," she said instead.

Sherlock shifted against the side of the car and cleared his throat. "...Aaand you just did," he said.

"Really?"

"It's a thing," he said defensively.

"This is going to be fun," she said, her lips curling into a smile. If she looked in a mirror she'd probably have devil horns and flames dancing in her pupils.

"Yes," Sherlock said simply.

[cassiemortmain]

domestic bliss

It’s been quite a while since I wrote something new, but this prompt inspired me!

Here’s a new drabble from my Erin go Bragh! AU, which is also published on ff.net.

***

You are my home

The key turned smoothly in the lock. Sybil pushed the door open and stepped through it, into a small hallway.

“Tom? Where are you?”

“In here, sweetheart.”

She followed the sound of his voice through to the largest room in the flat. The table over by the open window was set for a meal – embroidered linen cloth laid, mismatched plates and glasses waiting, fresh flowers in a china vase moving slightly with the breeze.

“There you are at last, Sybil. Look, it’s all ready for us.”

She felt Tom’s arms come around her from behind, his lips pressing against the place where her neck and shoulder met, her skin tingling at his touch.

Turning in his embrace, she stroked her fingers along his jawline, resting them on his chin as she leaned in kiss him.

“Thanks to you. Everything looks perfect.”

“Nothing but the best for your ladyship,” he said, smiling into her eyes. “Come on, let’s eat. I’m starving.”

Tucking her arm under his, he led her to a chair, which he pulled out and set ready for her with a flourish. She sat down, looking back up at him and returning his smile. Then, he walked behind her, sliding her chair in to settle her at the table, resting the back of his hand against her cheek for a moment before moving to take his own seat.

Lifting the covers off the plates, he revealed a summer picnic – slices of ham and tomato, crusty bread still warm from the oven, a wedge of cheese. Nearby stood a saucer with a pat of fresh butter, and a bottle of cider to wash it all down, its sides filmed with dew.

“Good enough for the daughter of an Earl?” he winked.

She picked up a knife and began making sandwiches as he poured the drinks. “Good enough for anyone, I’d say, Mr Branson.” They exchanged grins and began to eat. “How was your day, darling?”

“Oh, the usual – my editor cut my latest story to ribbons. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever going to be good enough for him.”

Sybil reached out across the table, resting her hand on top of Tom’s.

“Of course you will be. Your editor wouldn’t take that much time with your work if he didn’t think you had potential. He wouldn’t have offered you the job at all!”

He nodded. “Thanks, love. Sometimes I need to be reminded of that!” They kept on eating for a couple more moments before he spoke again. “How about you? How did you spend the day?”

She dropped her gaze, then looked back at him, smiling. “The hospital was really busy today, I hardly had a moment to myself. But I really love it – I’m learning so much.”

He nodded. “You’re a wonderful nurse, I’m sure of it.”

They stared into each other’s eyes. Then, he raised his glass to her in a gesture of congratulations. “Here’s to the beautiful Mrs Branson – the finest nurse in all of Dublin.”

She lifted her own glass to clink it with his. “Perhaps one day, Mr Branson.” She was blushing as she spoke, her face warm not only from the cider.

They finished eating, and he lifted a napkin to wipe his mouth, then quirked an eyebrow at her. “Would you like me to run you a bath?” He reached his hand across the table. “Come on.”

Sybil took it, and together they walked across the room towards the bathroom door. When they got there, she stopped, turning towards him. “Do you really think I can do it? Be a proper nurse, I mean?”

“Of course you can. Whenever you set your mind to something, Sybil, you can accomplish it. I really believe that.” Tom lifted their joined hands up, kissing the back of hers, before sliding his arm around her waist.

She looked into the bathroom, saw the carefully folded towels, the cake of soap resting on the corner of the tub, the razor on the sink.

“You did such a beautiful job, unpacking everything, surprising me with all this. I can’t believe this is really going to be our home in just one more day.” Then she looked back at him. “Only one more day until I really am Mrs Branson.”

“The day I’ve been waiting for, dreaming of, hoping for since I first laid eyes on you,” he said. “I wondered if this day would ever come, but at last, it’s almost here.”

Sybil blushed again as she spoke. “There is still one room you haven’t shown me.”

“I wonder what you mean by that, milady?” Tom, his arm still around her, was already leading her towards another door, which opened into the bedroom.

Her gaze was immediately drawn to the low double bed, covered with a patchwork quilt made for them by his mother and sisters as a wedding gift. She saw the two down pillows set at its head, the knitted blanket laid over the chest at its foot – all complete. Waiting for them.

They looked at the bed, then at each other. No need to speak. She knew they were both thinking the same thing.

This time tomorrow…

She walked over to the bed and sat down, then patted the covers, looking back up at him through her eyelashes. When he sat down beside her, she moved closer to him, pressing her face into his shoulder and breathing him in. He kissed the top of her head, then turned her face up to his. Their eyes met, and she put her arms around his neck.

As they kissed, Sybil felt a tightening in her belly, a rush of heat to her face. She realised that, soon, she’d be able to explore the source of those sensations more deeply… in this room, in this bed, in these arms.

By the time they broke apart, they were both flushed and breathless. When Tom spoke again, his voice was hoarse and his eyes were glittering.

“Until everything is settled…” he teased her.

“It will be, soon. Not soon enough for me.”

“I can see I’m going to have a minx as a wife!”

“You are, so be ready!”

“I’ve been ready for years, Sybil. Just you wait and see…” He smiled at her, then gestured around the room. “It’s not much. Not compared to Downton Abbey, anyway.”

“Who wants Downton Abbey, when I can have this? When I can have you, I mean.”

“You do have me, you always will.”

“I know, and you have me, too. I mean it, Tom – I can’t wait to live here with you, to be your wife, to build the life we’ve dreamed of, together.”

“Oh, my darling…I do love you so much.” He stood up, taking her with him. “Come on, I’d better take you back home. Mam will be worrying where you are.”

“As long as I am with you, I’m already home.”

This time their kiss was a blessing, a promise, a hope for the future. Their future, together, as husband and wife.