#if this isn’t the next Sherlock Holmes adaptation then I will throw hands

[lilartifex]

Somebody. Frickin'. Write this.

Sherlock Holmes modern adaptation but the main characters (Sherlock, Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Irene Adler, and maybe even Lestrade) are all vampires and they’ve just been doing their thing since the time period of the original books

Irene gets to be from New Jersey like she is in canon and she’ll occasionally show up and help Sherlock with a case but they don’t ever date or hook up or anything

[liunaticfringe]

(via Lucy Liu's Independent Woman - Interview Magazine)

There have been many great sidekick pairings in the history of modern literature. Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet…the list goes on. Yet, it seems there has never been a delightfully tumultuous relationship that comes close to echoing the one embodied by rogue detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful friend and assistant Dr. John Watson. Written in the form of short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the opium-den loving Holmes would terrorize London with his intellectual, astute, and stubborn prowess, with Dr. Watson providing medical expertise and chronicling their entertaining exploits along the way.

Doyle’s works have now long been entered into the public domain, with many film and television adaptions cropping up every few years. Still, when CBS announced in 2012 that it would be turning Doyle’s works into an hour-long crime-drama series titled Elementary, it elicited an unusually high response—this was mostly due to the news that a woman would, in fact, be portraying Watson. Her name would be Joan, not John. And she’s now a fallen from grace surgeon-turned-sober companion and private detective, forfeiting her “Dr.” title in the process. The woman chosen to take on this exciting, contemporary role of Joan Watson was none other than seasoned actress Lucy Liu.

Liu, who’s best known for her roles as a fierce and ill-mannered lawyer in Ally McBeal, an ass-kicking “angel” in the rebooted Charlie’s Angels, and an equally ass-kicking bad girl in the Kill Bill series, certainly provides the yin to the yang of Jonny Lee Miller’s gritty portrayal of Holmes. Elementary chronicles the duo’s relationship as they consult for the NYPD on various criminal cases while living in a shared brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. Initially starting off in Season One as a substance-free friend to the fresh-out-of-rehab Holmes with a keen interest in solving crimes, Watson quickly transformed into a sharp and observant right-hand woman who now clearly has the aptitude to work on her own. And it appears she’ll be doing just that—the end of Season Two left viewers witnessing Watson’s decision to move out of the brownstone and start a new career as a solo private detective, seemingly fed-up with Holmes’ erratic behavior.

The warm and delightful Liu recently called up Interview from her home in New York City to discuss Elementary’s upcoming third season.

DEVON IVIE: Were you on set today?

LUCY LIU: I was running around like a maniac, yeah. It’s beautiful today, it started getting a little bit cooler again. But of course I’ve been bitten by the two mosquitos that are still alive in New York City.

IVIE: I know you were recently at New York Comic Con. How was it?

LIU: It was amazing. It’s such a spectator place. Not only do you get super fans, but you also get people who are curious and inventive and imaginative. It’s fun.

IVIE: Did you run into any cosplayers dressed as Joan Watson?

LIU: Oh, no, I don’t know about that. That’s funny! We did a panel with a huge audience so I couldn’t really see if anyone was wearing anything specific, but it’s an excuse for kids and adults to get dressed up and just be crazy. You know you’ve made it when you have super-fans out there.

IVIE: When you first read the scripts for Elementary, what was it that attracted you to the role of Joan?

LIU: I liked the fact that it was going to be about [Joan and Sherlock’s] relationship and their friendship, and bringing that into modern times. And I thought it was wonderful to change up the gender.

IVIE: Did you immerse yourself in Arthur Conan Doyle’s work as preparation at all?

LIU: I did, I did! I started reading the short stories. I never read them before so it was a really great excuse to read them. I can’t believe it was written so long ago, because it’s so current. The characters are so colorful, which is why I think there are so many incarnations of Watson and Holmes.

IVIE: Do you have a favorite story? I love “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

LIU: There were some pretty amazing stories. The one that stood out to me, which was a Watson story that I got to know him a little more through, was “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” He really is on his own in that. Of course it turns out that Holmes has been there all along, but it’s interesting looking into his interior.

IVIE: Yeah, the entirety of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” is narrated just by Watson. And his diary and letters, too.

LIU: Yeah, I think it’s really cool. We started incorporating that into the show, too, the letters and journals.

IVIE: Has this detective genre always appealed to you? Did you grow up watching or reading detective whodunits?

LIU: I remember more of the old school Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys sort of thing. I also grew up with the Scooby-Doo mysteries. Remember when the villain would go, “I would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for you rascal-y kids!” Those were the kind of the things I immersed myself in. I have to say that my mother has always been a huge fan of Columbo and Murder, She Wrote, so this show was her dream come true. I don’t think she totally understood what was going on with Ally McBeal. [laughs]

IVIE: I’ve enjoyed witnessing Joan’s evolution throughout the course of the show, starting off as a sober companion and eventually ending up as a trusty sidekick and confidant to Sherlock. What can we expect from Joan in Season Three?

LIU: When you see them in the third season, you see some friction between the two characters. Joan is now on her own, she has her own detective agency, has a boyfriend, and has been without Sherlock for eight months. She’s got her own apartment, she’s settled, and he shows back up. I think she’s a little bit hurt by what happened and how their relationship and partnership ended, which was basically his decision and his choice, and he left it all in one little note for her. I think she felt that their relationship was much deeper than that, and that he was dismissive in the way that he handled that.

IVIE: How would you define the relationship between Joan and Sherlock?

LIU: I think that it’s a really positive and good relationship, overall. They really have a good chemistry together, work really hard together, and understand each other. They acknowledge each other and respect each other, which is a really important way to have a friendship. And they can learn from each other, you know? She’s very curious about him and I think he sees that she’s a very smart person—that’s vital for him in having respect for someone, having them be intelligent and thinking for themselves.

IVIE: Do you see any of Joan in yourself?

LIU: I do to a certain degree. She’s a lot more measured and patient, for sure. She’s a very curious person, which I think I am, and I think she isn’t afraid of change. She was a doctor, and then became a sober companion, and then jumped off and became a detective. I think sometimes it’s good to make big leaps.

IVIE: You’ve probably been asked this question many times, but do you think a romance between Joan and Sherlock could ever fittingly happen?

LIU: It’s a question that’s often asked and I think it’s really up to the executives. Rob Doherty, the creator [of Elementary] really feels incredibly strongly about keeping their relationship platonic. He has already taken great strides to keep the relationship as clean as possible according to the literature, but he has also changed so much of it by changing the gender of Watson. To have them have a romantic involvement would turn the whole thing upside-down in a way that might really jump the line. [Doherty] felt really strongly about it and I think that’s the one thing he really wants to stay true to.

IVIE: I totally agree. Even on the BBC’s Sherlock, there are campaigns to get Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and Martin Freeman’s Watson to become romantically involved. It’s like, enough already, no!

LIU: No way, that’s so weird! People do have that level of friendship oftentimes, but it doesn’t mean it’s physical. I think that everyone just assumes because there’s chemistry the next thing should be happening. I would vote “no” for a romance. I think for sure the creator would vote no on that, too.

IVIE: I’ve talked to both women and men who watch Elementary, and they all consistently mention how well dressed and fashionable Joan is. Do you collaborate with the wardrobe department on styling decisions at all?

LIU: That’s awesome. Yes, I collaborate with Rebecca [Hofherr], who’s the costume designer, who’s wonderful. She’s very easy to work with. One thing we try to maintain about Joan and her style is that she’s a bit wrinkled, you know what I mean? Sometimes it looks like things are really put together, but we always want to make sure things aren’t too tight and are comfortable, kind of like she throws things together. We don’t want it to seem so business-y, so we go away from suits. Chic, but not corporate. Also just to make her seem like her outfits aren’t so put-together all the time. But I’m glad that people really seem to like it, it’s a relief! We don’t splurge a lot on the show, we try to do cheaper things, like things Joan would wear a lot. She wears the same white jacket and shoes frequently.

IVIE: Will we be seeing more of the infamous Clyde the Turtle in the upcoming season?

LIU: Clyde will indeed be in it again. We have to share custody of Clyde.

IVIE: Is it true that Clyde is actually two tortoises? Pulling a Mary Kate and Ashley in Full House on us?

LIU: Yes. It’s just like having twins on a show. Just in case one is crying and screaming and passed out or something.

IVIE: You made your directorial debut for an episode of Elementary last season [“Paint It Black”]. Do you have plans to direct an episode again soon?

LIU: That was so exciting. I’ll be directing another episode again very shortly in December, so you’ll be seeing it in a month and a half.

IVIE: Where did your interest in directing come from?

LIU: I guess I was curious about it. Having been in this business for a while, you kind of see and get a glimpse of everything doing film and television. I think it seemed like a natural progression to go into directing, and I hope to explore more of it, because it’s very exciting and a really good way to collide all the things that you’ve known and experienced in the business and put them all into one.

IVIE: Is there an ideal guest star that you’d like to see on the show in the upcoming season?

LIU: I would love to see Mycroft come back. I really think there was a wonderful tension for Mycroft and Sherlock as well as the triangle that occurred when Joan became involved with him. There’s something very deep about that relationship, and I also think that Rhys Ifans is a fantastic actor. He commands the screen, but off-screen he’s incredibly lovely. A real treat to have on the show.

IVIE: I remember the first few episodes that I saw Rhys in, I was like, where have I seen this guy before? So I looked at his Wikipedia page and it became obvious: he was the crazy guy from Notting Hill!

LIU: Yes, the roommate! So good! Everything he does, he just kills it, no matter the role.

IVIE: And it’s always good to have some MI6 action on the show, which Mycroft provided. Some international flair.

LIU: [laughs] International flair, exactly, some added spice. Just throw some spy stuff in there to throw people off their game. You just don’t expect it, you know? It came out of nowhere.

IVIE: That whole three-episode arc at the end of the second season…

LIU: That was awesome. I was lucky enough to direct one of those episodes, which is more narrative in tone. It’s more fun in some ways, too.

IVIE: You’ve done a range of acting work for both television and film. Do you now find yourself preferring one to the other?

LIU: I love both of them equally. The lack of predictability with television is something that’s constantly changing what your perception of who you think your character is. Suddenly I have a father that’s schizophrenic, or I discovered something else, or I have a relationship with Mycroft. The things that pop up and change the game for you and always keep you on your toes. The wonderful thing about film is that you have something that has a beginning, middle, and end, and you have a concrete amount of time to shoot it. And the process of that can be longer, like editing and advertising and testing the movie, so it’s very different. Television you just continue going, no matter what’s happening outside of your world. You get lost in that vortex a little bit.

IVIE: It’s interesting that America is now embracing the “mini-series” format that has already been so heavily utilized overseas, where there are a set amount of short episodes, and that’s it. In a way, it’s kind of like a cinematic experience.

LIU: I like that, too. It allows you to have a freedom of creativity and at the same time you don’t feel like you have to be contracted to something for that long; you’re really working on a piece of art. And then you’re done and you move on, or it comes back, like Downton Abbey. You don’t know. Those things become little masterpieces. The thing about television is that you see a range of actors now that you may not have seen five years ago even, 10 years ago absolutely not, and I think now there’s no wrong about doing television. There’s no definitive category for what kind of department you fall into anymore.

IVIE: What’s a fun, secret fact about your costar Jonny Lee Miller?

LIU: A fun fact about Jonny Lee Miller is that he oftentimes does handstands on a wall before he does a take, sometimes with pushups, to get blood to his brain and get him geared up for a long monologue that he may have. He stays there, hangs a little bit, and then turns around and does the scene. Most of the time in the brownstone more than anywhere else. He’s in full costume and everything. That’s trivia!

IVIE: I wish I could do wall-handstands by myself.

LIU: Oh my god, I need someone to push my legs up and then hold me there. I’m a cheat!

ELEMENTARY PREMIERES THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30 ON CBS.

[this-year-ive-read]

Books I’ve Read in 2019 (A List in Progress)

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes - David Grann (***)

“The course of human events is not permanently altered by the great deeds of history, nor by the great men but by the small daily doings of the little men.”

Killers of the Flower Moon - The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann (**)

“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.”

The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien (****)

“They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”

“I survived, but it's not a happy ending.”

“But this too is true: stories can save us.”

Every Word You Cannot Say - Lain S Thomas (***)

“There are days when everyone needs you to be strong, even if you're dying inside, and you can only cry when no one's looking because you're petrified of letting them down.”

“I don’t know if I’m ever, really, ‘Here’”

Everything I Never Told You - Celeste NG (***)

“Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.”

“You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it.”

Night - Elie Wiesel (****)

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

“Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow”

The Alice Network - Kate Quinn (**)

“Poetry is like passion--it should not be merely pretty; it should overwhelm and bruise.”

“What did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done”

Love her wild - Atticus (***)

“We are made of all those who have built and broken us”

“A sky

full

of stars

and he

was staring

at her.”

When we Left Cuba - Chanel Cleeton (****)

“For the dreams that slip through our fingers.

May we hold them in our arms one day.”

“You can love someone and still not lose your reason.”

“Not all of us have the luxury of setting the world on fire, simply because we’re angry.”

Crush - Richard Siken (***)

“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river

           but then he’s still leftwith the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away

           but then he’s still left with his hands.”

“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.”

“They want you to love the whole damn world but you won’t, you want it all narrowed down to one fleshy man in a bath who knows what to do with his body, with his hands.”

War of the Foxes - Richard Siken (**)

“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”

“I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.”

Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie (**)

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”

Fool Me Once - Harlan Coben (***)

“All love stories,” Maya’s father had told her many years ago, “end in tragedy.”

“There are moments in life when everything changes.”

Pirate Hunters - Robert Kurson (*****)

“They made a sound I’d never heard before but somehow had known my whole life, a waterfall of muted chimes, dense and deep and old”

“When John asked his grandfather about being heroic, Arison told him that he had not done anything special, just what he thought was right”

“The world came alive when a person got a chance to be good”

“Do it now. Tomorrow is promised to no one”

“And promised himself that no matter what, he wouldn’t put off until tomorrow what his heart told him to go for today.”

“He just looked out at the world knowing it was finally too late for his father to have an adventure, and nothing seemed in color anymore.”

The Lost City of the Monkey God - Douglas Preston (***)

“But then the teules [foreigners] arrived and everything fell apart. They brought fear, and they came to wither the flowers.”

Crashing Through - Robert Kurson (****)

“It wasn't who a person believed himself to be or what he pretended he would do in a given situation. It was what he did when he got there that defined him.”

“May opened his eyes. Electric dots of silver-white, as many as the sound of a rainstorm, ran to every space in the world, and when he tried to see where they led there was no world anymore, they led everywhere, across a blanket of night that had no edges, and for a moment May didn’t know where he was among these stars, if he was under them or around them or beyond them, they were everywhere and he was everywhere, he was where he wanted to be.”

Shadow Divers - Robert Kurson (*****)

“This is where the hangers on, and wannabes, and also rans, and once greats keep believing in the sea.”

“I love you and you’re not here for me.”

Ross Poldark - Winston Graham (***)

“The greatest thing is to have someone who loves you and—and to love in return”

“Autumn lingered on as if fond of its own perfection.”

Demelza - Winston Graham (***)

“Strange sometimes how easy bitter words came, how hard the kind ones.”

“Let me stay a little longer in the sun.”

Love Looks Pretty on You - Lang Leav (****)

“You turn him into poetry because you can’t have him any other way.”

“I have been quiet lately, I know. Not because I don’t have anything to say but because I have too much.”

“I struggle with things that are as easy to others as breathing.”

“Here is the story of my life. Hoping they would care about me or wishing they wouldn’t care so much.”

“When love swept in like the ocean

And left me in drops, like rain.”

Jeremy Poldark - Winston Graham (***)

“Resentment and bitterness and old grudges were dead things, which rotted the hands that grasped them.”

“It isn’t where you’re born in this world, it’s what you do.”

Edgar: an Autobiography - Edgar Martinez (***)

“I concentrate on the moment and Don’t let the past or the future overwhelm me.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the greatest mariner of all time.”

Warleggan - Winston Graham (***)

“Their lives had been the tragedy of one woman who could not make up her mind.”

“It was not the cold of the night that she felt but an inner cold that no coat would cure.”

“Remember this she thought. In times of jealousy and neglect, remember this. He said: “so you are not to be rid of me, my love.” “So I am not to be rid of you, my love.””

The Black Moon - Winston Graham (**)

“Blemishes on the beauty of a person one loves are like grace notes adding something to a piece of music.”

“We can’t alter the world, we can only adapt ourselves to it.”

The Lost Girls of Paris - Pam Jenoff (*)

“It is simply not enough to be as good as the men. They don’t believe we can do this and so we have to be better.”

Emma - Jane Austen (***)

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self control.”

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (****)

“Because he’s more myself than I am.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

“I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”

“The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!”

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë (****)

“beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men;”

“But smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.”

“If she gives you her heart,’ said I, ‘you must take it, thankfully, and use it well, and not pull it in pieces, and laugh in her face, because she cannot snatch it away.”

“This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it.  Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals.—Will you have it?”

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë (*****) {Reread}

“You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so”

“He made me love him without looking at me.”

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame.  And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will”

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?  You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!  And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.”

[septemberpoems]

Pact of the Shipper

You made a deal with a powerful entity way beyond your understanding. Blue eyes stare at you unblinking as you sign up for a life of servitude that could grant you immense power, but also mutually assured destruction. He gives you a Tumblr, the words Welcome to My Twisted Mind in purple letters on a black cover, the first page oddly listing all your interests and every page of the DSM-V remotely applicable to you.

His true name is David Karp, but you call him Daddy.

This is the Pact of the Shipper.

Cantrips:

Infestation Someone said something less-than-positive about your otp in the tag. They have anon asks enabled. Target has to make a con save or take 1d6 poison damage from your anon hate and, if it fails, is stunned for one round as they go on a short hiatus.

“Do you love the color of the sky?” (Lightning Lure) You throw out the aforementioned post at a creature you can see, forcing it to make a strength save to scroll through the entire thing. If it fails it’s forced to scroll all the way up again to click the old reblog, taking 1d8 psychic damage.

Create Dumpsterfire You conjure a dumpsterfire that fills a 5ft cube. Creatures must also make saving throws if they move into its space or end their turn there. The dumpsterfire will spread if the environment is susceptible.

Mutuals (Friends) Choose a creature you can see that isn’t hostile toward you. You gain advantage on charisma checks toward it for the duration. When the spell ends, the creature looks through your tumblr and discovers problematic discourse from two years ago, possibly attacking or getting other payback.

Spells

1st lvl Cause fear Target must succeed wis saving throw or become frightened of you. The target can repeat the saving throw at each end of its turn. The spell has no effect on deactivated accounts or pornbots.

Comprehend Keysmash You can understand any written language while the spell lasts. While you cannot discern the words of a spoken language, you understand the general gist of it and can respond in kind.

What colour is this dress? (Armor of Agathys) Blue and black? White and gold? Who knows. You gain 5 temporary hitpoints for the duration. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have them, it takes 5 cold or fire damage depending on what color you think it is.

2nd lvl Gpoy (Mirror image) Three posts appear, all of them of situations you’ve tagged with #Gpoy at some point. Each time a creature attacks you, roll a d20 to see if they hit the posts instead.

Mapcrunch (Misty Step) You teleport to the middle of a badly rendered forest. You have no sense of direction and have to rely on street signs to find your own way to the airport.

Suggestion You further a rumor you have no factual basis for to a creature of your choice that you can see and that can hear and understand you. You’re limited to 140 characters. Target makes a wisdom save. On failure, it spreads the rumor and goes on a rant.

3rd lvl All Hail the Glow Cloud (Gaseous Form) You turn a willing creature you touch and all it’s carrying into a mist for up to an hour.

The Ballpit (Hunger of Hadar) A 20-foot-radius void appears. All creatures in it get an extra hour in the ballpit. The void’s area is difficult terrain. Any creature that starts its turn in it takes 2d6 psychic damage. Any creature that ends its turn there must pass a dexterity save or take 2d6 poison damage from that one guy who peed in it.

Summon Lesser Demon You summon demons from the abyss. Roll to determine what appears: Clippy, Tumbeasts or a full copy of the script of Bee Movie in fanmail format.

4th lvl None of You Are Free of Sin (Banishment) Blocked, blocked, blocked. A creature you see must make a charisma save or be banished to another plane of existence.

I am Forcibly Removed From the Premises (Dimension Door) You instantaneously teleport yourself to any spot in range.

Summon Greater Demon You summon a demon of your choosing from the abyss. Boneghazi, Loss.jpg, and that daddy kink-cumsicle post are level-appropriate examples.

5th lvl Spooky Scary Skeletons (Dance Macabre) Up to five small or medium corpses you can see become undead, drafted to fight in the Skeleton War under your command for an hour. 

Hold Monster When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it. Choose a creature you can see. It must pass a charisma save or be paralyzed. You tenderly hold the creature in your arms. At the end of its turn it can make another save, ending the embrace on a success. Or maintaining it, if the feelings are mutual.

London Calling (Infernal Calling) You summon Sherlock Holmes from the BBC adaptation. He appears in an unoccupied space that you can see, unfriendly toward you and your terribly dull companions. On your turn you can use a free action to attempt to issue a verbal command, your charisma check versus his insight. You have advantage if you know the actor’s real name as opposed to the Tumblrised versions.

Enervation You’re just that annoying. Choose a creature you see to make a dexterity save. On success it takes 2d8 psychic damage. On failure, the target takes 4d8 damage from bashing its own head against the wall to make your talking stop. Whenever the spell deals damage you regain hit points equal to half of the amount of damage taken.

6th lvl True Seeing You’re so far down the meta spiral you solved the Reichenbach Fall before it even aired. For the duration of the spell you have truesight, notice all hidden references implying Destiel and/or Johnlock and you can see into the writer’s room, all with a range of 120 ft.

Don’t Blink! One creature of your choosing has to make a constitution save. On a failed save it is restrained. After three saves, the spell fades. After three fails, the creature turns to stone.

Devil’s Trap (Circle of Death) You recreate Sam and Dean’s devil trap with black pearl powder. Each creature in a 60 ft radius sphere must make a constitution saving throw, taking 8d6 necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. Should’ve used the salt.

7th lvl AU (Plane Shift) You and up to eight willing mutuals who link hands in a circle around an open Ao3 page are transported to its alternate universe. You can use this spell to banish an unwilling creature within melee range to an AU of your choosing.

The Police Box (Forcecage) It’s smaller on the inside! An immobile, invisible, cube-shaped prison composed of magical force springs into existence around an area you choose within range.

Feels (Power Word Pain) Cas saying dying, John watching Sherlock fall, Bad Wolf Bay… You speak a quote that causes waves of intense pain to assail one creature you can see within range. If the target has 100 hit points or fewer, it is subject to crippling pain. Otherwise the spell has no effect on it.

8th lvl I Can’t Even (Feeblemind) A creature you can see takes 4d6 psychic damage and makes an intelligence save. On failure its intelligence and charisma become 1. It can’t spell, unlock its phone, understand language or communicate legibly by any means. However, it can identify other shippers, and follow and protect them. It can repeat the save once an hour, ending the spell on a success. Repeat exposure to the source of I Can’t Even will require additional saving throws.

Dominate Monster You knew exactly what you were looking for when you clicked that tag on Ao3. A creature you see must pass a wisdom save or be charmed. If you’re fighting the monster it rolls an automatic success because this isn’t 50 Shades and safe, sane and consensual is a must. If the spell succeeds, until the end of your next turn, the creature takes only the actions you decide and nothing you don’t allow it to unless it uses the agreed upon safeword. Using an 8th lvl spell slot the duration is 1 hour, using a 9th lvl spell slot extends it to up to 8 hours.

Mishapocalypse (Maddening Darkness) He is everywhere. Nobody can escape Him. Misha fills a 60-foot-radius sphere, spreading around themes, into posts and inboxes. Missing E, Xkit or similar addons can’t penetrate the onslaught of pictures of Misha. If a creature stays on their dash, it makes a wisdom save. On a failed save, its theme and icon also becomes Misha. On a success, only its icon becomes Misha.

9th lvl Canon Otp (Psychic Scream) Up to ten shippers of opposing otps of your choice must make an intelligence save. On a fail, a target takes 14d6 psychic damage and is stunned. On a success, it takes half damage and isn’t stunned. If a target is killed by this spell, its head explodes. 

I Was There For Yahoo Groups (Foresight) An old fandom veteran, nothing fazes you anymore. Fandom wars, sites falling into the sea, it’s all old news. For 8 hours you can’t be surprised and have advantage on attack rolls, ability checks and saves. In addition, other shippers have disadvantage on attack rolls against you.

Reaching lvl 20 you become a SuperWhoLock. An ancient creature everyone has heard of, seen traces of, but nobody has ever claimed to be one out loud. It is a branding as much as it is a title, striking the average population with both nausea and fear.

[imaginedilestrade]

Paradise

A/N: one more chapter left after this one! Thank you to everyone who's enjoying it so far! Today was my last full day in Milan😕 but I've had such an amazing time in this beautiful city! Everything should be back to normal this Friday when I post the next update of 'the midnight lovers' (I'll also get my butt in gear and make a playlist) and from then I'll open up requests again and work on/ post what's in my inbox! Thanks to everyone for your patience! 😁 (and I'm up at three tomorrow morning, I'm tired already...) ———————— Chapter 5 ———— Later on that evening just as dusk turned into night dinner was served and the five of you gathered around the large campfire and ate with the tribe. "What is this?" Molly asked whilst scoffing down the food in front of her "It's amazing!" The chief, who was sitting next to you, answered her but he spoke in Portuguese and she looked at you for a translation. You let out a small laugh and turned to face her "It's spider..." You watched as the four slowly stopped eating and sat there with shocked expressions before letting out a laugh with the chief and some of the tribe "We're joking!" The four let out a sigh of relief, they were adapting to jungle life but not that quickly. "It's chicken with some ground nuts and something called jewels of Opar which is a type of plant and sweet potato". Greg let out a small bewildered chuckle "A potato that's sweet?" "There's so much here that we don't have back home," you told him "The reddish-orange stuff that's mashed up is the sweet potato. You'd cook it like the ones back home" you told them and they nodded in unison, curious about all the new foods they were trying. You finished dinner and went to your hut for the night, you'd be up early to travel and jet lag was settling in. You lay on your bed and propped your elbow up to look at Sherlock who was sitting up with his nose deep in a book "You never told me your connection with the statue, Holmes." Sherlock's gaze slowly drifted away from the book as he turned to look at you "What is the death gift?" He asked avoiding the question. You remained in the same position as you explained to him, and the others, about the statue "'The Death Gift' was a present to a mans jealous brother. Legend states that the mans brother was jealous of his, and his wife's power over the land, they were well respected and well loved rulers. One day the jealous brother killed the mans wife to drive him mad and give up his power, therefore handing it over to the jealous brother. That never happened however, the man found out about his brothers plot and decided to gift him with a cursed statue that resembled his wife that was cast from gold. The jealous brother was delighted, he thought it was a handover of power but when he looked at the bright blue jewels that were her eyes, he died on the spot, his heart burned from inside his chest." Your tale sent shivers down the others spines and you smirked "Well that's according to prophets..." "Thats a bit macabre..." Molly grimaced at the mental imagine. You turned your head around to Molly "I know Miss Hooper, I know," you turned your head around to Sherlock "That's why I'm so curious as to why he wants to know so much about it and why he brought me here". "I was just curious too..." He nonchalantly trailed off and you narrowed his eyes at him tightly. "Curiosity killed the cat, Holmes. In this case it could well end that way. Especially if you've came halfway across the world to feed that curiosity" Your tone was snappish and to the point before you wrapped yourself in a blanket and went to sleep. Greg woke the next morning finding an empty bed beside him. Panic sunk in and he jumped out of bed to find you, he froze when he saw you with a large smile on your face talking to the chief before it fell suddenly and you looked at the chief with a serious demeanour as he placed something into your palm, then closing it over before placing the item in your pocket. Greg raised a brow at the interaction and looked away before you could notice him staring. An hour later you were making your way though the dense jungle with the words of the chief running though your mind. After what he said you almost wished Indy was here with you, he could at least help you out. But it felt like a part of him was with you though the hat and the whip that you were tightly gripping on to. "What's wrong?" Greg asked, snapping you from your thoughts. "What?" You asked, he clearly noticed the worried expression on your face. "You look a bit uneasy" his concerned face along with the unbearable humid heat almost made you melt. You shook off his worries...and his outfit that looked all to familiar to Indy's... "Just concerned about my house back home. I hope no air raids have destroyed it!" You nervously chuckled. "Who is looking after that museum you call a home?" John asked and you turned around to look at him. "A friend and neighbour, Mary Morsan, she'll be looking after my museum, Watson" you smirked at his reference and continued walking. "It's not that..." Greg just loud enough for you to hear. "Your house I mean," he clarified "It's what the chief said to you isn't it? I saw you his morning and-" He was cut off by you whipping out your knife and throwing it at the tree next to his face killing a deadly snake that was about to sink its teeth and drive it's venom into Greg's jugular vein. "There are things that can kill you in this jungle, Lestrade," you barged passed him and grabbed your knife in one hand and the dead snake in the other. You cut off its head, much to the disgust of the others as they watched the blood and venom pour out. Turning around you looked at a half shocked and half suspicious Greg and stormed passed him again, gritting the words "I'm one of them," as you did. "Wh-what are you doing with that snake?" Molly asked. "Dinner, Miss Hooper. Unless you'd like to starve." You told her and wiped the sweat off your forehead "We'll cook it by the river, this way" you motioned them to follow you and they did. You sat by the river and the cackling fire as night fell and the noise of the jungle echoed around you. They actually liked the snake. "Careful, Watson," you noticed John nearing the banks of the river "There's all sorts of predators in there". "Such as?" He asked sounded curious and petrified at the same time. You casually shrugged a shoulder and poked at the fire "Just the usual...river snakes, leaches that will suck the life out of you, piranhas, crocodiles...that sort of thing". John stepped well away from the waters edge and glanced up to the sky muttering 'Incredible' as he gazed up to the star engulfed heavens. You peered over and saw Molly and Sherlock peacefully sleeping after a tiring journey. Tomorrow you would arrive at the cave where the statue was rumoured to be. You looked up at Greg who was reading your journal, somehow it ended up back in his grip "I'm sorry about earlier..." You mumbled and Greg's eyes snapped up to you. He let out a small gasp seeing the fire and the sweat on you making your skin glow as if you were some ethereal goddess. "It's okay," he smiled "Just don't throw your knife at me without telling me first" he let out a nervous laugh and you smirked. "Hmm I don't know, I quite liked seeing your shocked face. It's cute," your eyes widened at your words and a blush creeped up your neck "I...uh-" Greg sent you a thin lipped smile and returned to reading your journal. You glanced over at John who had fallen asleep. You pulled out the bright green opal and held it in your hand for a moment, contemplating wether to tell Greg or not. You decided to. "This is what the chief gave me," you captured Greg's attention and he closed over the journal "It's a green opal...he told me it strengthens bonds between people and it's supposed to help to release fear and comfort someone. He knew I was fearful about this trip. Last time I came to South America I almost died..." Greg's heart felt heavy and he stood up to sit next to you. He placed a comforting hand on our knee "I'm sorry I pressed you so much earlier," you shook your head and insisted it was fine "If it's any consolation I think you've been doing such an incredible job". You looked out to the river and sighed "Why are the most beautiful places the most dangerous?" You thought aloud and Greg mulled over your words for a moment before finally speaking up. "I guess that statement could also apply to hearts..." You slowly turned your head around him with soft eyes. Your words had been twisted in such a beautifully bittersweet way that it shocked you. "Not yours..." You whispered "It's not dangerous". "Neither is yours. But it doesn't make it less beautiful". ——————— Tags: (Let me know if you'd like to be tagged/Untagged) @adorablebadger @musingsofophelia @damnitman-jamlocked-inthetardis @holmes-maev @rikkachloechan @lock-sherlock @katie27hp @wcsteland @daynaan @all-around-geek @littlet-holmes @rass133 @glitterslutt

[hawksmoor17]

Physically Impossible Scenes in S4: Flashbacks + POV Changes

Guess who’s ascended to a whole new layer of confusion? It’s me.

At first I was absolutely convinced of EMP due to the fact that most of season four appears to be partially/wholly constructed. However, some scenes are impossible. Which makes me wonder if we are witnessing a collaborative retelling of events the perspectives of Sherlock, John, and Mycroft. An alibi. Or perhaps a version of John’s blog. Also, maybe there are drugs involved. It’s all very strange.

NOTE: I try to provide explanations for these scenes, however, the main thing is having them all laid out in a list. Whenever I’m coming up with theories these are always the moments I end up coming back to.

Additionally, an incredible amount of of dialogue, settings, characters, and plot lines within season four are all recycled from previous series. To keep track, downloadable PDF flowcharts with these interconnected memories can be found here along with an editable file to add relevant missing parallels.

1) Sherlock has a flashback in TST ...

... to John throwing the AGRA data stick in the fire at Christmas — an event he was never present for because he wasn’t even in the room; he was outside eating mince pies with Wiggins (or something.)

(Left: HLV. Right: Sherlock’s TST flashback).

Explanation 1: Sherlock constructed the Holmes family Christmas scene where John forgives Mary in his mind palace as an alternate reality/test scenario. Explanation 2: John and Sherlock have constructed this memory together as part of an alibi. Explanation 3: Although The Six Thatchers seems deeply rooted in Sherlock’s POV, it’s actually filtered through John’s. Explanation 4: Mary plants this scene in Sherlock’s memory through use of HOUND/TD-12. Explanation 5: ???

Considering the other weird POV scenes in S4/HLV I’m still not sure where I stand on this. But within TST when Sherlock has this flashback the lighting flickers exactly like it does when Mary is in Sherlock’s hospital room and says:

“You don’t tell John. Look at me and tell me you’re not going to tell him.”

Which leads me to believe that Explanation 4 may be correct and Mary has convinced Sherlock that John forgives her through drugging him with "TD-12″/a derivative of HOUND that renders the recipient extremely suggestible.

2) Sherlock has a flashback in TLD ...

... after seeing Faith!Eurus, to John walking off into the night with his cane — an event he was never present for because he was off dumpster diving for the pink suitcase. This scene is odd because John is seen from behind, from an outsider’s POV. In the next shot John gets the phone-booth call from Mycroft, who has been watching him through security cameras.

(Left: Mycroft watching John in ASiP. Right: Sherlock’s TLD flashback)

Explanation 1: This scene is from John’s POV and he’s imagining how he used to be before Sherlock from an outside perspective. In a flashback from Sherlock’s perspective. (?) Explanation 2: TLD has been filtered through Mycroft’s perspective as well and he’s working collaboratively to devise an alibi for John and Sherlock. Explanation 3: Sherlock had a flashback to something he didn’t see because it represent’s John in ASiP generally and it isn’t supposed to matter about where the shot is from itself. Explanation 4: Sherlock was secretly watching John leave somehow, hiding in an alleyway. Explanation 5: Season 4 is John’s blog/Sherlock collaborating with John in writing the blog. Explanation 6: ???

At the moment I’m quite interested in Explanation 2, just because it has relevant metaphorical implications considering how Mycroft represents the writers/writers of Holmes adaptations in general.

But to be honest, at this point I’m not sure how lenient this show is with it’s logic/suspension of belief. Explanation 3 does seem possible. It could be that the more simple answer is correct and that this really is Sherlock’s flashback.

Especially considering the fact that there aren’t that many good shots of John walking alone with the cane in ASiP that would fit the tone of this scene. This is a moment in which John feels isolated/alone, so it could just be representational.

Explanation 5 is also pretty interesting, considering how we haven’t seen the blog updating this season while it’s had a lot of attention drawn to it. It could be that the show has become the blog or some other variation of this.

3) “He’s better than a great man ...”

In one of the final scenes of TFP Lestrade says that Sherlock isn’t merely a great man, “he’s a good one”, which references what Lestrade told John in ASiP when they first met. A conversation Sherlock wasn’t present for. He was in the cab with Jefferson Hope.

(Left: ASiP scene with only John present. Right: TFP scene)

Explanation 1: TFP is Sherlock’s recurring dream from TST and/or he is unconscious/in a coma after overdosing. Lestrade/John says this at his bedside, the real-world dialogue bleeding into his dream. Explanation 2: Sherlock and John are collaborating by formulating an alibi which involves explaining Sherlock’s dream and they add this line in. (?) Explanation 3: TFP is from John’s perspective and Sherlock explained to him that Moriarty’s “final problem” was to kill him. Also the TAB waterfall scene was beamed into his brain somehow. (?) Explanation 4: It’s in-universe fanfiction/a movie/a TV series about Sherlock and John’s lives. Explanation 5: Sherlock’s dream is being recounted on the blog for whatever reason. Explanation 6: Sherlock and John are coming up with a ridiculous explanation of events on the blog as part of an alibi, because they think the mainstream audience will think it’s the truth. Explanation 7: ???

4) “That wasn’t the final problem.”

In TFP Moriarty introduces the episode with: “Hi! I’m Jim Moriarty. Welcome to the Final Problem!” John has never heard Moriarty say the phrase “the final problem” before. Only Sherlock hears this multiple times during Reichenbach — once at 221B over tea, again in the story of Sir Boast-A-Lot, and again on the rooftop of St Bart’s.

Considering TFP as primarily existing rooted within Sherlock’s POV, the whole episode seems very much like a lead in to the “Inmost Cave” portion of Archplot Story Structure in which the protagonist goes through the most emotional growth/has revelations about who they and how their flaws are influencing their choices.

(Left: TRF with only Sherlock present. Right: TFP)

“Deep water, Sherlock, all your life, in your dreams. Deep waters ...”

While Sherlock has flashbacks to his “past” we get a shot of the waterfall scene from TAB. If TFP were John’s dream, he would be unable to form a perfect visual recreation of a scene that occurred within Sherlock’s mind palace.

However, within TFP we also get these:

(Left: MHR, only John and Lestrade present. Right: TFP)

(Left: ASiP, only Sherlock. Right: ASiP, only John) (Both are shown during Mary’s final TFP speech)

(See #3) and additionally: Explanation 1: TFP is from Sherlock’s perspective and the ending references to ASiP and MHR are metaphorical/parallels. Explanation 2: TFP is from Sherlock’s perspective and he is telling it to John / it is being retold by John somewhere like the blog. Explanation 3: TFP is a fan-theory. Like Anderson’s in TEH or a movie/tv series/book/fanfic.

5) TAB is definitely from Sherlock’s POV ...

... because, again, narratively it wouldn’t make much sense any other way. A concrete link is that Moriarty tells Sherlock “Because it's not the fall that kills you, Sherlock. Of all people, you should know that. It's not the fall. It's never the fall. It's the landing” in reference to "I want to solve problems... our problem. The Final Problem. It's gonna start very soon, Sherlock... the Fall. But don't worry: falling's just like flying, except there's a more permanent destination” from TRF as well as “I-O-U a fall” — conversations John was not present for.

(Left: TRF. Right: TAB)

6) Gunshot flashbacks.

Within TLD both Sherlock and John have flashbacks to gunshots that look exactly the same. Which makes me wonder what the exact logic of this show is. Can two characters have the same memory of a gun going off? We already know that within this episode Sherlock has a flashback to something it’s likely that only Mycroft has seen — so perhaps these gunshots are also metaphorical, or part of a retelling of events by Mycroft/John/Sherlock?

Gun #1: Norbury’s gun. (Or Mary’s. They’re the same model.) Gun #2: Likely John’s gun. Appears after “Taking your own life” speech to Faith!Eurus.

The fact that when Sherlock is on the bridge with hallucination!Faith!Eurus, the shot of the smoking gun is superimposed over him means that Sherlock is the one who got shot at in this memory.

This matches up with the flashback. Ungloved, right handed, with a Walther PPK without a silencer. (As opposed to gloved, left handed, with a silenced Walther PPK like Mary in CAM tower.)

But TST is presented so it seems like John did not see Norbury’s gun go off at the aquarium.

Therefore, either: a) John was there to see the gun go off and he, Mycroft, and possibly Sherlock are crafting an alibi. b) The whole of TLD is from Sherlock’s perspective, including John thinking about the smoking gun, and he subconsciously knows that John was present to see it be fired in TST but his memory manipulated through drugs. c) The whole of TLD is from Sherlock’s perspective, and he imagines John dreaming about the gun going off metaphorically. d) John’s dreaming of the smoking gun is from his POV and the shot is completely metaphorical.

Summary of Main Points:

- Sherlock has a flashback in TST to Christmas HLV. Therefore the burning AGRA data stick scene is fabricated, the flashback is metaphorical, or TST has been filtered through John’s POV.

- The lighting in Sherock’s TST flashback matches the lighting when Mary snuck into Sherlock’s hospital room in HLV. (Possibly indicating that Mary has drugged Sherlock with HOUND/TD-12 at least once to manipulate his memories.)

- Sherlock has a flashback in TLD to John with his cane. This could be metaphorical, an indicator that TLD is filtered through Mycroft’s POV as part of an alibi, or an indicator that TLD is filtered through John’s POV.

- John and Sherlock both have the same flashbacks to gunshots. This could be metaphorical, or an indicator that TLD is filtered through multiple POVs. - TAB is definitely from Sherlock’s POV. (Thank God for this one concrete episode.)

- TFP has reference to TAB, meaning it has to be primarily based in Sherlock’s POV. There are dialogue references back to ASiP, meaning that either Sherlock is unconscious and in a coma with Lestrade’s words filtering in, or that TFP is breaking the fourth wall and is an in-universe fanfic/book/movie that Sherlock has somehow influenced along with John — or TFP is a collaboration between Sherlock and John on the blog.

@worriesconstantly @jenna221b @my-relaxation @drugsbust @the-7-percent-solution @inevitably-johnlocked  @ti-ori-se @toxicsemicolon @teapotsubtext @misanthropic-acedia 

[harrisonkitteridge-blog]

Sherlock Holmes was a thing of the shadows. He was also the bearer of the light that drove out the darkness.

Before Holmes Met Watson by Harrison Kitteridge

Prologue

Sherlock Holmes was a thing of the shadows. He was also the bearer of the light that drove out the darkness. Living out this paradox could be quite stressful. Obfuscation. Lies. Deceit. He had always been fascinated by people’s attempts to subvert the truth while living in a world in which there were cameras everywhere, constantly recording, sending everything back to The Archive, where anything governments or other powerful entities hadn’t obscured was searchable. Everyone could see everything, know everything about everyone else. “The Age of Transparency” was how the headlines had heralded The Archive coming online. Mendacity now took careful planning. Saying you were working late when you were really at a seedy motel rolling around on the bed with a colleague was a nearly impossible sell now. As were most forms of impersonation. The ubiquity of biometric readers employed to do everything from unlock doors to sign for packages meant most impostors quickly set off alarms when The Archive recognised someone was in two places at once. It had become so difficult to hide, and detective work was about uncovering concealment. The spotlights The Archive shone into people’s lives made Sherlock’s illuminating insights seem like a flickering candle, and he feared he was obsolete.

As a boy, Sherlock would spend hours upon hours neglecting his school assignments to browse the Personal Archive Files of strangers. He watched in fascination as the chain reactions of their ill deeds accelerated towards their explosive finales. All the evidence was there. The outcomes were predictable, yet the affairs, the embezzling, the betrayals always seemed to blindside the victims. They see, but they do not observe, Sherlock often thought. More damningly, they thought The Archive could do the observing for them. Everyone was watching everyone else all the time, so the misapprehension wasn’t wholly unreasonable. Nevertheless, it didn’t erase the simple consequence: Sherlock Holmes was a detective who almost never had any cases to solve. If you are what you do, what did it mean that he was constantly doing nothing?

#

John Watson was a doctor and a soldier. He lived and worked in a war zone. He saved the dying and on rare occasions had to pick up a gun and kill the living. He’d been trained well to do both. He preferred the former. There were moments when John was alone that it seemed to him his life was some sort of dream or even a simulation. War was terrible and chaotic and hellish. It was also thoroughly ludicrous. There was always something to do, though, and that left you with little time to realise that nothing made sense. The why of the fight was impossible to appreciate when you were in the valley of death. And when you stepped away far enough to look in at the mass slaughter, you realised the why was never good enough, and the true insanity was anyone thinking the depth of the suffering was justified. John struggled with the contradiction in himself: he was a healer and a killer. There was something he enjoyed about the risk of standing next to that yawning, dark abyss. He tried to ignore that part of himself and focus on the bit that spent exhausting hours in the operating theatre patching up the wounded. He thought of himself as a surgeon first, but his title belied that. Everyone called him Captain Watson.

Day One: Shopping

Adaptation. It is the driving force behind evolution. The species that is better adapted to its environment is more likely to survive. Humans are incredibly adaptable. We can adjust to almost any circumstance, survive nearly anything. John Watson pondered these things as he broke into a clammy sweat and hid behind one of the large potted plants lining the gleaming hallways of the mall. He’d adjusted to life in Afghanistan, to the gunfire, the bombs, the blood, the death. Calm in the face of chaos had become his default setting, and all this… peacefulness had his nerves singing and his pulse racing. He wished he’d thought to spend his leave in his hotel room and just have everything he needed delivered: food, spirits, companionship, but especially the items he’d promised to pick up for his mates stuck back in Kabul. He’d thought the novelty of going to one of the few remaining shopping centres would be a bit of a lark, but he hadn’t realised just how much he had changed. He’d always managed to take leave with friends he’d been deployed with, and without that familiar buffer he was flailing wildly and on the brink of a panic attack all because he was in a shopping mall that was too brightly lit and filled with civilians whose situational awareness rivalled that of a thick plank. He was beginning to get strange looks.

In another part of London, Sherlock Holmes was doing shopping of his own.

They claimed the stigma had been removed, but it hadn’t. He could see it in the eyes of the pedestrians who saw him make the left turn into the building; he could see it in the eyes of the staff. There was always a measure of contempt chased with a sharp spike of moral superiority. It was the pity that rankled him the most, though. But he kept coming to the Controlled Substances Dispensary because he knew the molar concentration of what he was getting down to four decimal places. The precision of it all provided a sort of comfort, although he found the blankness of the stark, unadorned white walls sinister – their cool inhospitality was quite deliberate.  He provided a retinal scan and was assigned a number. He’d long realised that no one liked to sit by the vents on the north side of the room, which blew arctic blasts in the summer and seemed to ooze positively equatorial humidity in the winter. It was early spring, so predicting the temperature was a bit chancier, but he took his usual seat directly under the openings and was shocked to find the problem seemed to have been repaired. A pleasant, gentle breeze wafted over him, and, as he watched a young man (early twenties, art student, hooked on some variant of methamphetamines) shamble towards him, he knew his day would go poorly.

“Nice day for it,” the art student said, smiling as he took the seat right next to Sherlock.

“Is it?” Sherlock replied, giving him a scathing look.

“I suppose not,” the young man said, recoiling slightly. At least he had the decency to take the hint and move a few seats away. Sherlock sighed in relief. He abhorred familiarity.

Back in the shopping centre, John had abandoned his cover and made his way into a supermarket. He’d picked up some chocolates and biscuits for his colleagues at the hospital and was consulting his list for what to buy next when he came to the fresh fruit section. He paused in front of what seemed like acres of bananas and stared. The sheer abundance of it all seemed preposterous to him. It’s all that unblemished yellow, he thought. He picked up a hand of seven and added it to his basket. He consulted his list again and headed off to find some authentic hot pepper sauce for his Jamaican anaesthetist.

Sherlock’s number was called, and he was ushered into the back room to receive his standing order. He’d never seen the woman manning the inventory before. She had brassy red hair and a nosy demeanour. He braced himself.

“Mr Holmes?” she asked, and her nasal inquiry made him want to throw things. Of course he was Mr Holmes. Hadn’t his number just been called? Hadn’t he just been escorted in?

“Yes,” he replied. He could hear the faint whir of the machinery retrieving his medicine and felt the blood in his veins pulse a bit faster. The vials popped up from beneath the counter.

“A bit strong, isn’t it?” the clerk said, examining one of the labels.

“I prepare the final solution myself,” he replied, reaching for the vials. She withheld them.

“And you’re allowed?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock responded, clenching his fist. “I’m allowed.” He stared at her without blinking, and after several moments she handed him the vials.

“Would you like some syringes?” she asked.

“I have my own, and I don’t share,” he replied, tucking the vials into his coat pocket. Part of him didn’t like the profound sense of relief he received from feeling their slight weight set him ever so marginally off balance. But hearing them clink together, knowing he had them if he needed them set his mind at ease in a way nothing else could.

As Sherlock left the dispensary, he witnessed a strange phenomenon. In the distance, dark objects were falling from the sky. At first, he thought they might be delivery drones that had been clumsily hacked and were part of an inept terrorist attack, but they were the wrong size and shape. In addition, there were no wailing warning sirens, no people running, no screams. There was only an ominous silence that seemed to have swallowed the noise of the city.

John heard them smack into the pavement wetly before he saw them out of the corner of his eye. It took every ounce of his self-control not to yell “Incoming!” and dive into an improvised foxhole. But they weren’t bombs; they were birds, plummeting from the sky like giant black hailstones, already dead before they hit the ground.

“It’s raining crows,” a woman wearing a mauve dress stated as their small crowd stood and watched disbelievingly as the avian projectiles exploded as they hit the pavement, splattering blood and entrails astonishing distances. “It’s raining a flock of crows.”

“A murder,” John said mostly to himself. “That’s what you call a flock of crows.”

“I think they’re ravens,” a man said, grimacing at the carnage and flinching at each thudding splat. “They roost in the bell towers of some of the cathedrals and in the Tower of London.”

“What are they called?” a boy asked, pulling at John’s sleeve. “If crows are a murder, what are ravens?”

John looked down at the boy. He was slender to the point of breaking, white as milk, and something about the seriousness in his pale eyes and the wildness of his dark curls set John on edge. He reminded John of the stories of the Daoine Sith his grandmother had told him. The strange boy standing there looking like one of the faie, the dead birds, the constant prickle down his spine – it all seemed to augur ill, and suddenly he wished to be back in Edinburgh starting his medical studies. That’s when he’d been happiest. Hadn’t he? “An unkindness,” John finally answered, feeling compelled by the child’s unwavering stare. “They’re called an unkindness.”

Day Two: Gardening

It was dark, dank, and everything smelled of shit. But that was how you grew magic mushrooms, Sherlock mused to himself. Psilocybe Stantonia to be precise – powerfully hallucinogenic and highly in demand. They were the fungal equivalent of precious gems – more valuable than truffles even – and, while not strictly illegal, trading in them was a dodgy business. But dodgy businesses were Shinwell’s speciality, weren’t they? That and bare-knuckle boxing.

Sherlock Holmes had met Shinwell Johnson at The Ludus, an underground club dedicated to the pugilistic arts. It was a dark, cave-like, medieval sort of place with sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood and sweat. In the pits of The Ludus there were only two rules: no weapons, and you couldn’t kill anyone – it was too much bother to clear up the bodies. Oh, and there were no rounds; the bout ended only after one of the fighters couldn’t get up any more. Shinwell had grown up there, taking on his first fight at the age of sixteen. Twenty-five years later, he had seen every combination, every dirty trick, and the vastness of his experience more than made up for the slight slowing of his reflexes. He also still had a right hook that could drop a mule.

Sherlock’s first night at The Ludus had become the stuff of legend. According to Shinwell, he had “fooking swanned in like His Majesty, the King” and stunned the onlookers by requesting to fight in the open category. To keep the fights fair and the bets coming in, there were rough weight classes, and the organisers tried to match fighters by skill. In keeping with the spirit of the founding of the club, however, there remained the open category where you could fight any and all comers. Over time, it had supplanted the heavyweight class, but every now and then some arrogant sod swaggered in and received a spectacular thrashing. There were a flurry of bets on Sherlock’s fight, and when he stripped to the waist and revealed the track marks on his left arm, the odds against him surviving more than three minutes soared to 50-to-1.

Shinwell had objected on principle – an addict wasn’t in the proper state of mind to appreciate the consequences of the suicidal decision he was making. That, and he was obviously a toff. If he died, it would bring the filth. Shinwell had nearly come to blows with the bookmakers, and only his long history prevented him from being thrown out and barred. He looks made of marble, Shinwell thought as he observed the swathe of pale skin stretched over Sherlock’s thin frame. He’ll shatter at the first blow. Shinwell had watched in concern as Sherlock meticulously wrapped and taped his hands. At least he knows to do that much, Shinwell thought, some of his worry easing. As he watched Sherlock warm up and stretch, he began to wonder if he’d jumped to a parlously mistaken conclusion. Yes, the man needed feeding up, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, and Shinwell recognised the camouflaged strength in his muscles and tendons that practitioners of kung fu called “iron wires”. But more than that, it was his economy of movement; there was a precision there that could only be the product of a disciplined mind. He began to shadow box, beginning with some simple combinations, and Shinwell choked on his chips. God, but his hands were fast. His strange, almost translucent eyes were clear and focussed, and there was something distinctly lethal lurking behind them. Shinwell had seen enough of them in his time to know: The man was a killer. Shinwell downed his pint, headed back over to the bookies and placed all of his night’s winnings on Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock’s opponent went by the moniker The Butcher, and he was a literal giant – enormous, thick-necked and notoriously able to absorb punishing blows. But he had grossly underestimated Sherlock’s speed, skill and strength. The quick combination that had The Butcher stunned then out cold before he hit the ground came after only thirty-five seconds. Shinwell had never heard The Ludus so quiet. Sherlock asked to fight again, and Shinwell let his substantial winnings ride.

The next bout remained one of the most beautiful fights Shinwell had ever witnessed. Sherlock’s adversary, a skilled mixed martial artist who called himself The Sword, was much more careful than The Butcher had been, circling Sherlock warily, trying to get the measure of the new phenomenon. Sherlock waited patiently until he had no choice but to attack, and Sherlock seemed to melt away only to surge back towards him, raining exquisitely placed blows to his vital organs. Shinwell almost wept at the elegance of the execution. Wherever The Sword went, Sherlock was there first. Can he read minds? Shinwell thought as he watched Sherlock sidestep a blow that would have at least glanced anyone else and viciously box his opponent’s ears. Shinwell knew how disorienting that ringing inside your head could be and was unsurprised when The Sword met his end.

Sherlock retreated to his corner seeming deaf to the cheers at his triumph. He was glistening with sweat and flushed, his dark curls nearly sopping wet. Shinwell was straight enough to calibrate a level, but he realised the enigmatic stranger could have nearly anyone in the room if he thought to ask, but he seemed uninterested in making any acquaintances. He had come alone and wasn’t celebrating what were thrilling victories that would be talked about for ages. He quickly cut the tape from his hands, towelled off and dressed. When he left, ignoring the many offers to buy him a pint, Shinwell followed.

Too many egos had been bruised and too much money lost for there not to be an attempt at retaliation. Sure enough, a group of The Butcher’s mates already had Sherlock cornered when Shinwell exited the building.

“Now, now, lads,” Shinwell warned. “No one likes poor losers.” There were enough of them to subdue someone of even Sherlock’s prodigious skill, but with Shinwell added to the mix, the odds had shifted out of their favour, and they wandered off muttering threats.

“I could have managed,” Sherlock said.

“Of course you could,” Shinwell replied. “There’s nothing like a good street brawl, though, is there?”

“I suppose not,” Sherlock said, something approaching humour entering his expression. At that moment, Shinwell Johnson decided to adopt Sherlock Holmes. He was an absentee parent, but Sherlock found he could count on him whenever another pair of fists were needed, and Shinwell actually had someone clever to consult about his schemes. That’s how they’d ended up covered in shit, harvesting mushrooms in a derelict greenhouse.

“How long will it take you to test them, then?” Shinwell asked.

“Most of the night,” Sherlock replied, looking at Shinwell’s thrice broken nose and scarred knuckles. All the abuse he had taken would soon tilt him towards a dilapidation that matched the disrepair of the greenhouse they had just been picking through. Sherlock turned away, wondering if he had caught a glimpse of his future.

#

Approximately 40,000 feet above, a military transport plane had just reached cruising altitude. One of its passengers was John Watson. He hated flying. He wasn’t frightened of it or anything; he just found it depressing. Shouldn’t there be some sort of teleporter that beamed you thousands of miles away in seconds? Or at the very least a hyperdrive that could complete the journey from London to Kabul in minutes not hours. What on earth were they doing on an aeroplane in this day and age? He sometimes wondered if they were part of the problem – he and his colleagues. Ready bodies to throw in front of the canons and pull the triggers made the decision to fight more palatable than it should have been, and violence and war thrived on fear. Fear is a powerful motivator, but it is also the destroyer of dreams. They’d stopped dreaming, hadn’t they? They lived perpetually crouched in a defensive position, their minds crippled by the uncertainty wrought by decades of instability.

Not liking the direction his thoughts were taking, John rifled through his bag in search of something to eat. He was slightly overwhelmed by the variety of snacks he’d crammed into his baggage, but he managed to decide on some savoury crackers and a paradoxically firm but creamy new variant of White Stilton. He offered some of his meal to his neighbours, who gladly accepted in lieu of army rations. The crackers were crisp but not hard and flaked pleasantly on the tongue. The seasoning was well balanced if just the tiniest bit over-salted, and the cheese complemented it well. Some wine was in order, John thought in disappointment. Curious about the ingredients, he read the label as he bit into another cracker. Rosemary, thyme, and (yes!) that was a bit of dill. He didn’t have a sophisticated palate, but he grew up with a father who was an excellent cook, and his mother had kept a small herb garden in the back yard. John was often called to help with the weeding and harvesting. As light as the work had been, he had always complained.

“Johnny,” his mother would say. “I want you to always remember that we are connected to the soil. We have to respect it.” And she would plunge his hands into the wet earth and laugh as he grimaced.

He’d made her stop calling him Johnny when he was a teenager. It had seemed so important then. When his parents had left him at his dormitory that first day at medical college, their eyes had been shimmering, and his mother had embraced him. “I’m so proud of you, Johnny,” she’d said, ruffling his hair. He’d blushed and smoothed his hair down, embarrassed for his roommate to see him being coddled. The insane idiocy of youth: making people ashamed of being loved.

“I told you to stop calling me Johnny,” he’d said, not wanting her to leave but desperately needing to be out on his own.

“She’ll call you whatever she likes,” his father had said gruffly, pulling him into a tight hug. “Work hard,” he’d admonished.

“I will,” John had promised.

That was the last time he’d seen them. The accident had been so bad they’d had to close the caskets. Everyone told him he should have sued the automobile manufacturer and the company that had made the self-piloting software, but that would have meant reliving it all, thinking about them like that. He couldn’t have borne it. Someone else had brought the court case, and he’d eventually received part of the settlement. He gambled the money away over the course of a single weekend.

John had started an herb garden many times over the years, and each time neglect had caused the plants to wither and die. He lived a soldier’s life, and it censured the delicacy required to make things grow.

Day Three: Gifts

Besides the quaintness of the mode of transport, the thing John hated the most about flying was how shattered he always felt after a long trip. It didn’t matter if he’d had a good kip and drank his weight in fluids; he always got off the plane feeling disorientated, dehydrated and in the mood to punch things. It’s all that recycled air, John thought, blinking to try and moisten his arid corneas. Kabul was parched, and so was he.

John was taken aback by the immense relief he felt when he entered his stark quarters. The tightness in his chest had eased with each second he got closer to the base, and the sight of his cot, camp stove and canteen almost brought him to his knees. This temporary structure in the middle of a war zone, these humble necessities created more of a feeling of home than the country of his birth. Part of it was his comrades-in-arms. The smiles and warm greetings of “Captain Watson” provided succour he hadn’t quite realised he’d needed. There were people here who knew him, who valued him. There was also a bracing sort of comfort in how unequivocal the mortal threats that surrounded them were. Death comes to us all, but for most it was an abstraction. Its proximity removed some of the fear. John found there was a certain purity in living in purgatory. Afghanistan was filled with friends and foes bent on destruction; England was filled with strangers. John strongly preferred the former.

As news of his return filtered through the base, his surgical team, poker and rugby mates all dropped by to welcome him home with warm hugs and claps to his back. And this was his home. He could see that now. He swallowed over something tight in his throat and emptied his luggage onto his cot. He sorted through the gifts he’d brought back, feeling a bit like Father Christmas. Nearly all of them had asked him to see if he could find the sweets and biscuits that had been their favourites when they were children. John supposed it lessened the sense of insecurity somehow, brought them back to a simpler time, made massive problems seem solvable. A few bottles of spirits also made the rounds. Those were for a bit of fun over a game of cards or to obliterate even temporarily the memories of the particularly bad days when it seemed they’d wandered into hell itself and the Devil had everything turned up to eleven.

John could spin a good yarn when he was in the mood, and his recounting of his sojourn to the mall had his visitors in stitches. He left out the bit about the ravens, because it seemed like too ill an omen. None of the gathered were religious or superstitious, but imagery had the power to lower morale, and, as an officer, it was his duty to keep their spirits up, even if he had to sacrifice a bit of his pride and admit he’d been overwhelmed enough by his shopping expedition to take cover behind indoor shrubbery.

They all shared a bit of scotch, and John listened as they recounted what he’d missed. Thankfully, there’d been only a few minor skirmishes, and, while any single death was keenly felt, the days when the bodies (or what was left of them) had to be stacked like cords of wood were nearly impossible to manage.

A few hours later, John was on his own again. There was one gift left in his bag. Once he’d stumbled across the snow globe with the single, blazing red poppy inside it, he couldn’t leave it behind. He’d even taken the time to have it wrapped at the store. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the gift’s intended beneficiary to come and welcome him home.

#

Back in London, Sherlock had managed to wash most of the stink of excrement from him and was in one of the laboratories at St Bartholomew’s Hospital testing the potency of the mushrooms he and Shinwell had collected. Shinwell had a mate of a mate of a bloke who was flatmates with a mycologist. It was a convoluted history to which Sherlock had paid scant attention then routed away from his long-term memory. At the centre of the labyrinth was the claim that this particular variant of Psilocybe had been bred to produce enhanced psychedelic effects. Sherlock’s preliminary tests confirmed that the mushrooms consistently contained much higher levels of the psychoactive compounds than would be expected – enough to defeat the purpose of their creation. The dosage of psilocybin was well above what was ordinarily consumed and would almost certainly poison anyone who consumed them.

Sherlock thought of the greenhouse Shinwell had shovelled full of shit and where he had devoted hours to meticulously minding the spores he’d spent nearly his entire savings on to ensure they sprouted. He called the fruit his “gold nuggets” – they were meant to fund his retirement. There had to be hundreds of pounds of the things.

Shinwell was a good sort for a degenerate, Sherlock thought. They weren’t exactly friends, but there was a measure of trust and loyalty in their relationship that Sherlock felt bound to respect. If the mushrooms had to be scrapped, Shinwell would get spectacularly drunk and instigate a pub brawl, but the next day he would bounce back and find some other get-rich-quick scheme. He always did. But the mushrooms could be salvaged, Sherlock pondered, if instead of drying them and selling them as edibles, the psilocybin were extracted into some sort of tincture that would administer the correct dosage. A new delivery method would set Shinwell apart from his competitors and perhaps even allow him to charge a premium.

Sherlock sketched out some ideas for the extraction and began a rough first attempt at the procedure. In the lab next door, an exhausted graduate student had fallen asleep standing up and missed a crucial step in her experiment, which exploded. It was nothing catastrophic, but it was enough to startle Sherlock into knocking over his equipment and breaking some of his glassware. He cut his hand rather badly and sucked at the gash while he reached for paper towels to staunch the bleeding. He tamped down on the wound and looked for the first aid kit. He spent longer than he’d care to admit awkwardly using tweezers he’d hastily sterilised to remove the splinters himself. He was minutes away from the casualty ward of a major hospital, but he didn’t want to wait for hours to be seen for a laceration, which, while nasty, didn’t appear to need stitches.

After he cleared all the debris from the wound, he cleaned it thoroughly and bandaged his hand. As he replaced the first aid kit, he heard the sound of bees buzzing. How on earth had they found a way in? He turned around and saw an enormous swarm across the room, and his usual fondness for the creatures was supplanted by a deep fear. They were too large, he realised. They were the size of sparrows. They weren’t real.

“I’m hallucinating,” he said.

He was suddenly and violently ill, turning himself inside out vomiting. The extraction. When he’d cut his hand, some of the concentrated extract must have got into the wound. It was being delivered through his blood, and he’d ingested some of it when he’d sucked the injury.

The bees were coming.

There was someone laughing maniacally.

Was it him?

His heart.

He could feel it slowing down.

It would stop.

He would die.

He needed to speed it up.

The cocaine. It was still in his coat pocket. He needed a syringe. He managed to pry the first aid kit back open, sending its contents flying.

Everything was tinted hot pink, and the sound of the bees tasted like burnt roast.

What was he looking for?

He picked up some ointment and some tablets. No, that wasn’t right.

His heart. It was dying. That’s it: a syringe for the cocaine. He rifled through the mess on the floor until he found one. He crawled back over to his work station and pulled his coat down from the stool where he’d laid it. His hands were too big to fit in the pockets, which were filled with tiny crabs. He shook the coat upside down, emptying everything in his pockets onto the floor. The crabs scurried away, and he slithered on his belly on the floor, following the rolling vials across the room.

He ripped the syringe from its packaging with his teeth. His hands were too small to hold it properly. It told him to go away, that men with small hands weren’t to be trusted. He roared at it to be quiet and shoved its pointy mouth into the vial of cocaine, pulling up the plunger to fill its throat and choke it with the solution.

A vein. He had to find a vein.

He injected himself, felt his heart begin to race, stumbled out of the lab into the hallway and collapsed.

KEEP READING

[mousedetective]

To Throw Away The Map (4/?)

And finally, four hours later, I am finished uploading fanfiction to AO3 and Tumblr (Livejournal is another story). I have finally gotten around to updating this fic (yay!) and Sherlock has a project in front of him to settle him, hopefully, until he sees if he can get the chance to work on cases again. Will it work? One hopes so...

Anyway, everyone (especially @ceeyajh) please enjoy the new chapter!

To Throw Away The Map - Six months after the events on the plane, Sherlock is trying to make a fresh start. He has to renew friendships, rebuild his career and try his best to keep his life together when the first case he’s allowed to work again ties directly into the Moriarty conspiracy. But with those he holds close near and willing to support him, with one person in particular being extremely supportive, perhaps he will be able to make it after all.

Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, Mary Morstan/John Watson

Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft Holmes, John Watson, Mary Morstan, Greg Lestrade, Sally Donovan, Molly Hooper, Anthea (Sherlock)

Additional Tags: Eventual Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, Case Fic, Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Past Drug Addiction, Rehabilitation, Slow Romance, First Kiss, Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Male-Female Friendship, Best Friends, Male Friendship, Sherlock-centric, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes & Mary Morstan Friendship, Sherlock Holmes & Greg Lestrade Friendship, Holmes Brothers, Family Feels, Brother Feels, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Kissing, Pre-Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Fluff, Molly Is Patient, Kind Molly, Reconciliation, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Questioning Molly, Sherlock's at a loss, Projects, serious conversations, Awkwardness, Sherlock's Past

Read Chapter 1 | Read Chapter 4 | Buy Me A Coffee? | Send Me A Prompt

He found he woke up at seven, the same as he had at rehab, and for a moment he was at a loss. There was no routine here at Baker Street, and he knew that was, for at least until such a time as he could formulate one of his own, hard to deal with. He had been surprised that he had adapted to the schedule eventually; initially, he had fought it with all his might, enduring the consequences for breaking the rules with all the sullenness of a child. But, eventually, he found a sort of peace in having a routine.

A peace he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to find without some purpose, and seeing as how cases were not an option…

He went to the back of his door and got his dressing gown. He hadn’t bothered to unpack the night before and so he was left using clothing that had been left behind in his absence. It was the tartan one, which smelled faintly of something he couldn’t quite place. His whole room had the smell, but he supposed it was something lingering from when the place had been swept for drugs. The rest of the flat must have been aired out better than his room had. He supposed everything that hadn’t been sent to rehab would need to be laundered.

It was with surprise that he saw Molly up and moving in the kitchen when he entered. She gave him a smile as she began to make coffee. “I know you never really liked my coffee before but I swear, I got better,” she said.

He gave her a small smile. “I still drank it, didn’t I?” he said.

“That is true,” she said with a soft laugh. “Mycroft told me you had been on a schedule and you were usually awake this early. I thought maybe you’d want company. I mean, if you don’t, I can take my coffee to my room.”

Sherlock frowned. It was past time for her to be getting ready for her post, normally. Any time he had used her flat as a bolt hole and stayed later than seven she was bustling around much earlier than that, using the washroom and making breakfast and having coffee and taking care of her cat. “Don’t you have to go into Barts?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I am on an extended sabbatical, of sorts,” she said. “Post-mortems isn’t the only thing I do for the hospital, so when I volunteered to do this Mycroft threw a bit of his weight around and I have time to work on papers I’ve been putting off for a long while.” She tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear as she moved to begin making toast. “When you think you’re ready to go to the hospital for any lab work I need to do, you’re welcome to help me. I’ll even add your name to the papers.”

Sherlock blinked. “You’ll include me in your published papers?” he asked.

“Well, yes. I mean, a lot of things can be done here at Baker Street. There are at least ten different papers I have planned to write, so we can put off going to Barts for at least a few months. If you help me now, of course, I’ll add your name. Fair is fair, after all.” She turned and looked at him. “And maybe it will give you something to do where you can use your mind and not stagnate.”

“That would be nice,” he said, moving to the refrigerator. “What about the others?”

“You mean John and Mary and Greg?” she asked. Sherlock nodded. “For now, they’re keeping their distance, at least until you get settled. To be honest, Mycroft wasn’t sure you’d want to even see me, but...I insisted, I suppose, because I care and I wanted you to know that.”

“And they do as well?” he asked quietly. She remained silent. “It’s alright if you can’t answer for them, you know.”

“I know John was conflicted, about a lot of things,” Molly said quietly, slipping the bread into the toaster. “He went back to therapy, both on his own and with Mary. A special therapist, mind you. One Mycroft vetted, who had the clearance to touch on Mary’s past. And so John knows more and they’re working things out. But they’re happy, and they do miss you. I think you’ll find John’s different. He’s not so...” She groped for the word. “In search of an adrenaline fix, I suppose?”

Sherlock nodded. That was good to hear. He knew there were problems with the type of friendship he and John had, that they had not had a healthy relationship. He had done his own work on things, and it was nice to hear that John had done the same. “And Lestrade?”

“He was a bit disappointed about the whole affair when your brother told him the truth, which Mary insisted he do, but he understood. He knew that there was no way that Mary was safe as long as that bastard was alive. And I think he knows that you were backed into a corner.” Sherlock noticed she avoided looking at him. It was true, in one way, he’d been backed into a corner, but he had admitted to himself in the past months he had put himself in that corner to begin with, and John as well. Even if Lestrade understood what he had been told, he wanted all of a sudden to make sure she understood that everything that had happened on Christmas was his plan and therefore his fault, and things could have gone so much more differently if he had not been so brash and foolish.

He was about to speak when her toast came up and she busied herself with preparing it, so he opened the refrigerator and looked inside, finally deciding on orange juice. He still didn’t have much of an appetite, even though there were no cases on the horizon, though he supposed if Molly offered to feed him he would accept. He had rather gotten used to regular meals but he still didn’t quite trust his skills in the culinary department beyond the basics. And to be honest, if they began work on the papers soon, he might forget to eat altogether.

After a moment he poured himself some juice and then leaned against the worktop, looking at Molly. “I regret taking a life,” he said. “I don’t regret it was specifically his in that instance.”

Molly stilled in eating, and then swallowed the toast she had been chewing. “We...never talked about what happened while you were gone,” she asked quietly. “Did you kill people then?”

“Only in self-defense,” he said.

She set the toast back on the plate. “Did you start doing drugs again while you were gone?”

“Occasionally. I needed my wits about me so it was never heroin. Usually something much less potent, and usually only for the sake of a cover. It wasn’t until the planning for John and Mary’s wedding it became more than recreational. I was having trouble coping,” he said. “When I boarded the plane, part of it was to dig deep into my mind palace for the Emilia Ricoletti case, because I suspected I would get a last minute reprieve and be taken to hospital in time. But if I wasn’t...”

“If you weren’t, it wouldn’t matter,” she said quietly.

“Yes,” he said. He moved closer to her, setting his glass on the worktop next to her plate. “If I didn’t get that reprieve, I knew there was no chance I was coming home. I would rather have arrived dead in Russia than had to go through anything else like what I had gone through taking down Moriarty’s network.”

“Have you talked to anyone about it?” she asked, looking up at him.

Sherlock nodded. “Mycroft arranged for me to have a special therapist unaffiliated with the rehab program with the clearance level needed to talk about the Moriarty mess and Magnussen. That was most likely one of the few signs I’ve seen that my brother has cared. But it has helped. I was adamant about keeping it to myself, stuffing it into locked rooms in my mind palace at first, but slowly I opened up, and it was for the best.”

She looked at him for a long moment and then tore her gaze away, shaking her head. “I...I don’t expect you to tell me anything,” she said. “I mean, it’s not my place to ask and those memories are painful and really, it’s best just to--”

“Perhaps later, after I have a sponsor and have sessions with my therapist again,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing. “I may tell John, someday, but we’ll see how telling you goes first.”

She nodded, giving him a small smile in return before stepping forward and wrapping her arms around his waist and standing there for a few seconds before speaking. “Do you want breakfast?” she asked, her voice muffled because her mouth was buried in his chest.

“I would,” he said, lightly embracing her back.

“Alright,” she said. She stood there with him a few moments more before she pulled away. “We really need to wash your clothes, Sherlock. They smell...off.”

Sherlock gave her a wider grin at that and then nodded. “Later. I think we have the whole day ahead of us.”

[sora-the-soulless-blog]

My Ranking of Each Sherlock Episode

1. The Reichenbach Fall- The peak of the series, I think. Emotions, suspense, intellectual warfare between our hero and an amazing villain, impactful ending; there’s nothing they could've done to make it better

2. The Great Game- Remember when this show was actually about solving crimes? When it was actually a mystery, when him being a detective meant something? Not only do we get three cases in one to try to figure out alongside Sherlock, but the overarching mystery of Moriarty’s identity is dangled in front of our faces and we have the pleasure of feeling like idiots when we missed it.

3. Scandal In Belgravia- Granted they completely exaggerate Irene Adler’s role in Sherlock Holmes’ life, as many adaptations often do, but it was still interesting seeing this Holmes be confronted with romantic/sexual feelings for probably the first time in his life. Not much of a case, unfortunately but they do throw in a mystery with the boomerang to make up for it.

4. A Study In Pink- The episode that kicked it all off, quite possibly the greatest pilot in TV history. It was fast paced, flaunted its unique style for the first time, and set these characters on a journey for the next 7 years.

^All of the above are among the best television episodes over made, and I challenge anyone to tell me I’m wrong.

5. The Lying Detective- The Dreamlord as Jimmy Saville? Let’s go! Also featuring some of the sharpest deductions of the series and an underlying mystery of Sherlock’s sister. However, Sherlock’s drug use is starting to wear on me by this point. It hasn't advanced anything story-wise since its introduction, it just makes you sit through flashy hallucination scenes to pad out the 90 minute runtime. Inconsequential deductions are fun to listen to, but can we solve a mystery please?

6. The Final Problem- Absolutely brilliant and absolutely horrible at the same time. Brilliant: Inventive story full of twists and turns, genius use of symbolism and recurring motifs (pirates, wells, etc.), some of the most thrilling suspense the show has ever done, some of the best character moments the show has ever produced, a stellar performance by Sian as Eurus. Horrible- Eurus’ existence; this whole episode being so far removed from Doyle’s canon in a way no episode before has been, a story that requires an insane amount of disbelief to be suspended, a lot of little plot details that don't make sense or get glossed over, spectacular mistreatment of Molly and anyone who likes that character and wanted to see more of her, unnecessary inclusion of Moriarty just to bait and switch fans, a powerful ending sequence that’s great out of context but incredibly out of place following the story we just watched (I honestly feel like they wrote that for another episode but thought this might be their last so they just tacked it on).

7. The Blind Banker- This one’s often overlooked and a lot of people dislike it but I can't really tell why. Praise the lord, there’s an actual mystery in this one! The opening is fantastic and the lead in to the actual case, solving the cipher is fascinating. Granted, this is one of the episodes where the obligation to reach 90 minute runtime starts to show; plenty of scenes feel unnecessary, as if just added for the purpose of filling time. But hey, they're solving a case! How I miss you, season one.

8. The Six Thatchers- A mixed bag; Tons of wit, fast paced storytelling, suspense, reveals, one of the most inventive explorations of the show’s visual style, I think, but on the other hand there’s a story that relies too heavily on coincidences and the universe aligning perfectly (Sherlock just so happens to be solving some random case in which the clients are the target of another case, which just so happens to not only start at the same time of his own unrelated investigation but also just so happens to be about his friend Mary. What are the odds?) The best part for me was (Go figure) the mystery, this one surrounding the dead boy in the car, though short it was great! Too bad the rest of the episode is a disjointed story that seems to be in separate parts

9. Hound of the Baskervilles- Whats this? A whole episode dedicated to just solving a mystery? You’d think that would be common practice for a detective show, but not BBC’s Sherlock. Too bad the mystery is about 45 minutes worth of an episode stretched to reach those 90 minutes we need, resulting in a mostly forgettable little story. Again, this one’s hated by a lot of the fandoms but I like it.

Sigh... And now THOSE episodes...

10. The Empty Hearse- If season 2′s halfway departure from the mysteries being the focus didn't shake you, this season is hellbent on outdoing itself. All the mysteries and actual engaging crime-solving are montaged through, and to fill out the actual episode we get a bunch of comedy that thinks it’s funnier than it actually is, and a random plot with terrorists and a bomb on a train or something? I didn’t care much about how Sherlock faked his death after series 2′s finale, but this episode keeps interrupting the show to shove these possible theories in my face and then has the audacity to not even answer what really happened! Not a terrible episode, but not one I ever feel compelled to sit through again. Can we just solve one mystery? C’mon guys.

11. His Last Vow- Welp, no mystery in sight here, y’all. A kind of inventive plot twist, Mary being an assassin, but drowned in 90 minutes of melodramatic boredom with Magnussen, the most un-charismatic, uninteresting villain Sherlock’s ever met and a resolution that completely gives up on representing what made Sherlock work in the fist place; why have the genius detective partake in intellectual warfare and defeat his enemy with his mind when he can just pull out a glock and shoot the guy in the face? And then close out with a shamelessly pandering cliffhanger that shows the writers desperately clinging to the past after this mediocre season.

12. The Abominable Bride- One of the only straight unwatchable episodes of the series. It’s just a mess. The plot can't decide if it wants to be a a tribute to the original Doyle stories or a clever modern day story, and each detail of the story just makes less and less sense the more you think about it. There is absolutely no character development and instead the supposed character moments just retread things we already know; John tells Sherlock he shouldn't be so disconnected from people AGAIN, how many times will this show make us sit through that conversation? Moriarty is 100% dead... Well no shit he blew his brains out in front of Sherlock Holmes. There was absolutely nothing in this episode that was needed, and I will never, ever, ever watch it again.

13. Sign of Three- *sighs* this is one of the worst episodes of any show I’ve ever seen. Everything about it is just horrible. The pacing is all over the place, the drama is thrown out the window in favor of a mostly comedy episode that isn't funny in the slightest, and the plot is an incoherent stream of nonsense that relies not only on straight up misinformation about the human body, but a series of EXTREME coincidences and contrivances to the point of it still seeming like a farce comedy sketch when it switches over to an actual case. This is not an episode you watch to be intellectually stimulated, to feel suspense or to get engaged in any plot; it’s one you watch to make gifs for tumblr, to feed your fan ships, and to watch all 3 writers of the show sit down in a room and compete to out-plothole each other. I don't understand for the life of me why anyone likes this, or especially how people can make fun of series 4 or the final problem yet be totally cool with this. I don't even like thinking about it because its so depressing, so if somebody wants me to go more into detail to explain what I mean, tell me and I will, but otherwise I’ll end it here.