#there’s day 1 which is beginning and takes place when John actually meets sherlock in barts (hey and Mike!)

[paperleef]

LazyPigeonz on Twitter (formerly known as X) made prompts for a sherlock & co week and because I’m going to be very busy this week I’ll just be posting the first three days in advance

[angeli-marco-writes]

Sherlock Holmes - Kiss Me, Mr Detective

A/N - Season 1!Sherlock, the cutie. And friends to lovers. Two of my favourite things. I do not own Sherlock Holmes, the character, the universe, the adaptations or anything: this is a work of fiction set on the BBC adaptation of Sherlock. Did I still write 8.2k words (exactly) for it? Yes. I also don’t own the song or the lyrics used within, and if you fancy it, listen to ‘Kiss Me’ by Ed Sheeran while reading.

Warnings - Bad language. Mentions of murder and drug usage. Mild angst. Smut, loss of virginity, masturbation, oral m receiving, penetration, unprotected sex, so 18+.

Summary - After a fight with John leaves Sherlock feeling particularly down, he calls on the one person who is always there to support him. Only tonight, it’s different. Feelings come to a head, exploration ensues, but is this just a one time thing? That depends on whether she stays the night...

TO SHERLOCK, it’s just another normal day, whereas to John? He’d rather not admit how regularly these awful days roll around. Sure, the case didn’t go as well as it could’ve, and Sherlock admittedly could’ve made much more of an effort to comfort John after the apparent ‘heartbreak’ he endured. He just could not understand it. Why the hell was John so emotionally responsive to a case they’d been on for less than twenty four hours which turned out to be a bust anyway? 

“You are absolutely unbelievable!” 

“People die every day, John. You’ve killed people, as have I. It isn’t that great a surprise.” Sherlock deadpans, picking up his teacup, raising it to his lips, drawing a long sip from the warm liquid. 

“Oh, yeah, of course. The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone, that never mused on sorrow but its own.” John mocks. “Do you not even care that people are still dead despite the fact you solved the case?”

“They’d be dead either way,” he reiterates, “at least we got to them before they completely decomposed. Will me caring about them stop them from being dead? No, Dr Watson, it will not.”

“Sherlock!”

“John!” He mimics. 

John slams his hands down on the desk, shaking the wood and everything resting on it, surely sending the vibrations through the floor and notifying Mrs Hudson of their ‘domestic’ as she so likes to call them. The buffalo even begins to swing. John’s tea is long forgotten, but Sherlock’s is keeping him grounded, calm, as John waggles his fist in Sherlock’s passive, blank face. 

“You-” he pauses, gulping down breath. “You are a fucking machine, I can’t even deal with you right now. How dare you be so cold hearted and untroubled by this. You’re a disgrace.”

As if he hasn’t heard that one before, Sherlock scoffs. 

Placing his teacup back down with a clink, he stands, the darkness of the night, of the room, closing in on them both. Nights like these really are danger nights, any night John leaves him. That’s what's coming next, but there isn’t a thing he knows to say or do to prevent the inevitable. He’ll simply just text Her instead, she’ll keep him grounded. 

“Why? Emotional context? Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow, whether raised at a puppet show, a funeral, or a battle, is your grandest of levellers. The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic.” 

With a huff like a bull, John viciously turns on his heel, blaspheming under his breath, cursing Sherlock out. He reaches for his coat and snatches it off the stand, slamming the door open. 

“MACHINE.” John screams before pulling the door shut with a great slam, seething, the coat stand still rocking in his wake. 

John’s footsteps thunder down the stairs, but before he’s even gone, Sherlock’s phone is withdrawn, and he’s tapping out a message.

Can you come over? Please? SH

It wouldn’t usually bother him as much. The case didn’t phase him, at all, but John’s opinion did. It always does. But today was a particularly long day of being brutish and rude, cold and distant, his usual and true self, but John’s more and more impatient with him now. 

Being called a ‘machine’ is, again, nothing unusual, but this time it stings a little more than usual, especially after his recent arrest, and a fallout with Molly. He only has one person left, right now, who doesn’t hate him. His longest friend, the one he keeps away from it all so as to not tarnish her life with his misdeeds; Y/N, the one he can always rely on.

He knows she’s arrived by the sound of his window crashing open. Crawling up the bricks, skimming the drainpipe, latching onto the ivy; it’s her usual manner of entry. She never uses the door. 

Putting his cups and saucers into the sink, he makes his way through the house, opening his bedroom door to find her already sitting there on the bed, her coat hung up on the hook, her work clothes clinging to her body. 

“Hey there Mr Detective, you okay?” she asks as jovially as she can muster.

The way he ambles across the room, his dressing gown floating behind him, and slumps down onto the bed, instantly tells her he’s not okay at all. She can’t help but to look upon him sympathetically, edging a smidge closer to him, until he’s prompted enough to wrap his arms around her torso, finding his rightful place tangled around her. She knows him well enough - his past, and his current life - to realise she’s the only person he’s ever felt comfortable enough around to do this with, and that brings her a certain swelling pride in her bosom, one that doesn’t go unnoticed by Sherlock as he feels her skin heat up against his cheek. 

It doesn’t take long, either, for his head to follow suit, burying into her chest. He’s always, always had a thing for her boobs, ever since they were in uni together. 

That’s something so special about the two of them, he doesn’t have to say anything for her to know he’s not okay the way he does with everyone else. And naturally, he can read everything about her in a split second.

“I’m here, bud.”

Above all else, he just needs to know someone is there for him in moments like these. The world is cruel to him, and Y/N wishes more than anything that it wasn’t. Upon instinct, her hands stray, one to his back, pressing against the silk of his dressing gown, the other cradling his long neck, fingers knotting in the dark curls there. 

She isn’t sure how long she stays there, simply holding him, feeling every twitch of his muscles, every breath of his against her skin, but she likes it. Of course she does, every time she likes it. Sherlock brings her an inordinate amount of comfort at the best of times, today is no exception, especially with what the day has held. Even when she’s the one comforting him, he doesn’t realise how much he helps her too. 

His flat is so familiar, his bed as comfortable as her own. She knows his sock index, she’s studied his periodic table over his shoulder more times than she’d care to admit, and she even has her own toothbrush in the bathroom in case she has to pop over for an emergency freshen up. Sherlock has, and always will be, her first port of call, and that she remembers as she shifts further onto the quilted bedspread, her phone on his oak bedside locker. 

His head begins to stir against her chest, his curls tickling her collarbones, small hums escaping his lips as he pushes himself up, his elegant yet trembling hands still splayed on her waist.

“I could feel your heart beating weirdly, what’s wrong?” he asks, quirking his eyebrows. 

“Just the usual.” she vaguely replies.

Sherlock isn’t having it, though, and scans her a little more. “You’re still in your work clothes.”

“Great deduction. I was hoping you’d go a little deeper, though.”

“You hate wearing work clothes longer than necessary, which means you had plans straight after work, considering you finished… five hours ago? That’s your usual time for today. Counting overtime, forty five minutes, walk to your car, another ten, but your umbrella wasn’t working, round that up to an hour, leaving at 6. You arrived home, no, not home, at your boyfriend’s house for dinner. However, you’re not comfortable enough with one another yet for you to use his shower, or perhaps you are, but you elected not to, and stay in damp clothes that only had seventeen minutes to dry with the heater on in your car for the journey there. You ate dinner, Mexican, had a glass and a half of five percent wine, realised you couldn’t drive, but you didn’t particularly want to stay. Nonetheless you sat and watched the telly with him for hours, football, I can see the dreariness in your eyes. I know how much you hate it, and frankly, same. You stayed for almost all of the match, seeing as you’re now sober, but something else happened.” She lulls her head to the side, prompting him, her smile not meeting her eyes. “As soon as the match ended, he tried to make a move on you, he pressed his mouth to yours, he tried to push his hand up your skirt;” his throat bobs with a vicious gulp; despising the thought of anyone else laying a finger on her, “you swatted him away, rightfully so.” 

He pauses a minute, his harsh tone of voice and his sharp face softening. He can see the vulnerability in her eyes, her walls about to crumble. This woman he appreciates so much. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

Smiling melancholically up at him, she brings her hand back to his hair, her fingers carding through the soft curls. His face buries back into her chest just as her voice offers a broken whisper, “I broke it off. I was the one who couldn’t commit this time.” 

And as she lays her head on top of his, her breathing more shallow, resounding in her chest, he dwells over those very words. The way she said them, not to mention the words themselves, hold a myriad of meaning. What could she possibly-

Oh.

The subtext, yes, impeccable. She’s always had a way with implications and subtext, always knowing that the likelihood of him actually picking up on it is little to none. But now, now he’s become trained to her, her way of life, her way of thinking, her way of speaking. This is too good an opportunity to miss. If she means what he thinks she means, ever hopeful, then this is completely unfamiliar territory. 

Gathering all of his courage in one deep breath, he begins to pepper kisses on her skin. The faintest brush of his lips on the tops of her breasts, all that’s available to him with her shirt the way it is. He feels her heart flutter, her breathing stutter, but despite the chemical flush of her chest, he still isn’t quite sure she likes it. Not until he feels her grip on his hair increase, and he glances up to see her head thrown back. Her spine delicately arches against his hand, thrusting her chest further into his face. 

His nimble fingers reach for her buttons, undoing the top two, giving him space enough to find the valley between her breasts. Lathering kisses there, licking the swells of her boobs, his tongue pulsates with the increased thrumming of her heart. The sensation is new, so unbridled, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with the stirring in his loins right about now. That unknowing is only further amplified by the sound that rips from her chest when he involuntarily bites down on the supple flesh. It couldn’t be… a moan?

Sure, he understands the chemistry of it, the reactions that occur in the synapses of the brain, the pheromones and hormones released when one is aroused, but this is all new to him. And, from his embarrassingly basic level of theory, surely that doesn’t start until some more stimulation on other parts of the body commence? Nipples, perhaps something lower down… then again, what does Sherlock know?

Of course it’s an intimate moment, the closest he’s been to a woman before, and maybe that’s why he freezes, stops, and she tugs his head up by his hair, her gentle, pleasured smile with her lips softly parted deepening the look of bewilderment painted onto his face. Her eyes are twinkling, alight with an excitement he hasn’t seen for far too long. 

“What are you doing?” she whispers. 

He shrugs his shoulders with a sudden force, his dressing gown falling off a little. “I don’t know. But now I feel like I read your pining words all wrong.” 

She gasps, a wheezing sound, sucking the air from the room. She smacks his arm gently, muffled by his button-down and dressing gown. “I wasn’t pining! I was saying.”

“Hmm, same difference.” 

Everyone must acquiesce when it comes to Sherlock Holmes. “But no, you didn’t read them wrong at all, but I know you don’t see me that way, you don’t feel things that way.” 

He pauses, his beautiful plump lips pursed, fidgeting on the bed. Brushing her hair off her face reveals the pain she expressed. However, her eyes glued on his, sadness is betrayed in every line of his young, clean-shaven face. His entire bone structure is taking a nosedive. 

“For you, I’ve been feeling everything from hate to love to lust, and I guess that’s how I know I want to hold you close.”

“Sherlock...” she whispers, her singular word an inflection of surprise. 

Never tearing his eyes from her, his hand comes up to her cheek, rubbing his thumb over the slightly blushing skin, searching her face, with his big blue eyes, for a shred of reluctance. But, all he sees is her, so he elects to do what his heart is yelling at him to do for once, and kisses her breathless. His full lips holding hers, his one hand on her face, the other still wrapped around her back. Hers fly around his neck, clinging to him for dear life.

It doesn’t take long, their movements steadily heating, for their previously slow, intimate kiss to grow into something more, Y/N pulling herself up from the bed and making herself comfortable on Sherlock’s lap. His breath hitches in his throat, a cute little hiccupping sound escaping his lips in between embraces. 

As much as he loves just this, soft caressing and gentle petting, he just knows she wants more. He does too, that much is evident from the length prodding at Y/N’s inner thigh as she moves gently on his lap. She won’t make a move, though, he’s too inexperienced, and she’s too much of a sweetheart to corrupt him, so she thinks. Ever since he first saw her, she’s been corrupting him slowly. He didn’t realise at first, but over the years, he began to understand, and now he’s in too deep. 

For Y/N? It’s always been him. Every breakup she’s had, she’ll come to Sherlock’s flat, full well knowing the real reason she broke up with them, because she couldn’t commit, because she was too caught up on him. 

Skimming his hands beneath her shirt, he savours the press of his hands on her bare skin, warmth seeping from her body into his, his fingers dancing along her spine. Electricity shocks her in bursts, unlike anything else, from his touch alone. 

“May I take your shirt off?” he asks. 

“Fuck, yes.” she groans. “May I do yours?”

“Be my guest.”

In a tangle of limbs, a few buttons pop off, and eventually, two shirts make it out the other side, tossed from the bed and into the laundry pile. Aka Sherlock’s floor. He’s like that: sock indexes, yet he won’t get a hamper. A walking contrast.

His thumbs press beneath the band of her bra, savouring the pressure of the flesh that falls into his hands, but that’s as far as he gets. 

“Never undone a bra before?”

He shakes his head sheepishly. “I know the theory. Just… you always wear peculiar ones.”

“I wear relatively normal bras, and this one is certainly bog standard. Had I known you’d be undressing me Mr Detective, I’d have worn something nicer.”

“Just do it for me.” He requests, chuckling. 

She unfastens her bra, and allows her breasts to spill from the cups, into Sherlock’s awaiting hands. The gasp that erupts from him sends Y/N’s brain into overdrive. He’s cupped her chest through her shirt before, buried his nose into her cleavage countless times, but never before have they had such skin on skin contact. Her lips press to his neck, shifting her closer to him. Sucking on his pressure point, she receives a similar gasp in response, only this one is more guttural, more a sound of pleasure than surprise. He’s wilting from a single kiss to his neck. 

“Has no one ever given you a hickey?” She husks in his ear, her voice alone sending tremors down his spine. 

“N- fuck, no.”

“I’ll make it worth it. All of this.”

“I know you will.”

She fuses her lips onto his again, savouring the faint hesitations as he grapples with his breath, eager to get some control on his mind with all that’s happening. Never did she ever think Sherlock would be here beneath her, his rough fingertips brushing over her peaked buds, and his palms dancing over her waist. Never did she think she’d hear him whisper his next words, either, not in a million years. 

“More.” he pleads. “Can we do… more? Whatever that entails?”

“That depends what you want to do.”

“Get me out of these damn trousers. They're rather uncomfortable.”

She snorts lightly, a piggy like sound, the one they bonded over all those years ago. “I can feel why.”

“I imagine you want out of your work trousers, too.”

“God, yes; they’re ghastly.”

“I don’t think so.” he hums. “You look nice.”

Her cheeks begin to burn, blood rushing to colour them, betraying her true feelings, but as he tweaks her nose playfully, the little snort escapes again. 

They were in the dining hall, second week of university, almost ten years ago, and Y/N was sitting with her friends, downing enough coffee to sink a ship, eating her hangover away, when her friends decided to make her laugh with tales of last night's drunken events. Unbeknownst to her, one of the greatest minds of the twenty-first century was sitting just a few seats down on the half-empty bench, watching her perceptively in his periphery. That’s when he first heard the sound. The cutest thing, and it startled him into action, beginning his deductions almost instantly. Admittedly, her student ID on the table aided him a little. 

He shocked her from her haze, too, as soon as he spoke her name. 

“Y/N, eighteen, jurisprudence first year, freshers week over with. You left a boyfriend back home, but you’re more sad about leaving your dog, as I would be. You don’t particularly care about law but know it’s a good undergraduate to receive anyway. Dyed hair, extrovert, killer hangover, and apparently there’s a little piggy living inside your nose. Sherlock Holmes, would you like some aspirin?”

“That’s weird; what are you, some kind of detective?” She asked, sans malice, a playful bounce to her words. 

“Chemistry, going for a masters. But I do like the mystery, yes.”

“So you’re… bright. Nice to meet you, Sherlock, and it seems you know almost everything you need to know about me. But yes, I will take that aspirin, if you don’t mind. How was your weekend?”

He smiled at her, the first true smile he’d given in a long time. “It was nice, thank you.”

And thus a friendship was born, all because he heard her little piggy snort. 

Her slender fingers work wonders with the fastener and zip of his suit trousers, and even manage hers too, all within the space of a few seconds, but Sherlock is reluctant to let her go, even just to get her trousers off. 

“I need to sit up, just for a minute.”

“No.” Sherlock commands, insistent. “We can make this work.”

“Sure we can, but it won’t be very comfortable. Come on.”

She’s barely peeled away from him and wrestled hers off before he’s drawing her back in for a kiss, his trousers settled just above his knees. 

“Sherlock,” she protests, mumbling against his lips, her hands on his heavenly, broad, muscular shoulders. “Sher!”

Her squeal at his sudden tug on her panties disappears, captured by his eager mouth. And in fact, her panties seem to disappear along with it, thanks to Sherlock’s swift movements and nimble hands. Maybe he’s had some experience to be so good at this…

“You sure you wanna go this far?”

“More sure than I’ve ever been. I need you.” 

He takes a deep inhale, dropping his forehead against hers, his breathing coming out in bursts as he tries to get a grasp on the situation. “Kiss me.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice, instantly getting to work on the waistband of his boxers as his tongue lavishes her own. His hips rise briefly, just long enough for her to tug the elasticated material from around him, slipping past her, and then he kicks it into their growing pile of clothes. His length falls into her awaiting palm, and-

“Wow.” She exhales in amazement. “If I’d known you were packing this much, I’d have jumped you long ago.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Absolutely not, until tonight I thought you’d just laugh at me.”

He pecks her lips affectionately, “Never. You’re bloody beautiful, I’ll let you do anything to me.”

“Hmm, anything, you say?”

Stifling a chuckle against her neck, he recommences, “Maybe not anything.”

Yeah, that's definitely the right call. Still, she finds herself all but clawing at him, her breath hovering teasingly just over his lips, their noses touching, her hands clamped to his cheeks, feeling the building heat there. She must be making such a mess of his bed right about now, but for one night? It can’t matter.

This is a one time thing, it has to be. Sherlock just needs to release some tension, she just so happens to be there. Still, she can’t prevent the little glimmer of hope shining through at the possibility of this being a more-than-one-time thing. The moral compunctions of their friendship after this don’t matter anymore, because he’s leaving a fire in his wake, his delicious fingertips digging bruisingly into her bum before trailing lightly up her spine, skimming her shoulder, brushing her neck - arched for him to reach where he wants, able to mark her as his own - and finally slipping over her lips, taken obediently by her awaiting mouth. Christ, if there’s one thing she hopes for tonight, it’s that his actions never relent.

Whether it’s what he intends to happen or not, his fingers in her mouth give her an idea, one she prays he goes along with at least a little, so she pulls away. The dirty, telling smile on her face hints at what she’s about to do, lending Sherlock to shift a little more up the bed, his eyes following her every move. Hands splayed on his thighs, her small fingers gripping onto the fine hairs there, she begins to take his tip into her mouth, never once breaking eye contact with him. Yeah, this is what’ll drive him insane. 

Inch by inch, she takes him into the welcoming heat of her mouth, pulling off slowly, only to go down again. She adds her tongue into the mix at some point, too, and her hand, on what she can’t reach, tickling his balls, but further than that, his mind is blank. Hot white, washed with pleasure. The sounds he emits are other worldly, so much that he has to muffle himself with his own hand; what would Mrs Hudson say? He’s always had such control over his mind and body, but this… he’s slowly losing all semblance of control, and he’s not even mad about it. What he does know is that there’s a building heat in his abdomen, a coil about to spring, and his cock is beginning to twitch. If she keeps going this incredible way, her teeth grazing him ever so gently, adding another new sensation into the mix, he’s inexorably going to finish before he can help it.

“As much as I adore your torturous ministrations, I think I need to be inside you…” He husks, his voice deep.

A smirk gracing her lips, she looks up at him through half-lidded eyes, mischief glinting in her pretty little mesmerising eyes for a second, before she hollows her cheeks and takes him wholly, allowing his length to slip partially down her throat. Her moan reverberates around him, and Sherlock begins to thrash above her, scrunching the duvet in his hands, not caring if it creases. If there’s one thing Sherlock hates, it’s creases. And being called a machine by his best friend. Right now, though, it seems as though every misstep in his day has led him here, into the welcoming heat of Y/N’s mouth, taking him so eagerly, her tongue lapping at the vein on the underside of his dick, a string of saliva remaining as she pulls away. 

“I think you’ve got a couple of rounds in you, Mr Detective. Can you do that for me?”

“Y-yes.” He stammers, his head tossed back in pure ecstasy a moment later as she begins to work on the head with kitten licks. “But… can I s- fuck me, say something?”

“I plan on it.” she chuckles, “anything.”

She goes back to peppering kisses all over his member, tip to base, brushing his balls, working her way back up. 

“Touch yourself f- for me.”

“What? Why?” 

Her tone is more inquisitive than anything else, but upon that playfully rueful look in his lust-darkened baby blue eyes, she knows he’s going to get her back for this little display, and he’s just worked out how. It works both ways, she can prepare herself for what’s to come next while pleasuring him. And he gets to watch. It’s a win-win for him. Maybe he likes this sex thing a little more than he’s letting on. 

“Are you sure you want me to? I’ll just make a mess on your sheets, Sher.”

She swallows him again, bobbing her head up and down on his length a few times while he grapples with literal reality. He’s teetering on the edge. One more move, and he’s a goner. His head is already against the wall, lolled there. 

“I don’t care about the sheets, darling, I need you ready for me.”

She gulps, nods, and reaches one hand around her, skimming over her stomach, until it nestles between her thighs. She rubs her thumb over his tip, collecting the pre-come beading there, while she rubs over her throbbing pearl, pressing softly. Then, as she inches down on his cock, taking him in her mouth, she also collects the slick from between her thighs, and uses it as a lube to push a finger inside herself. Of all the times she’s touched herself, she never imagined, even in her wild Sherlock fantasies, that she’d be doing it with his dick down her throat. With every bob of her head, she scissors herself more, sinking back onto her fingers. 

“I think I’m-” Sherlock begins to say, his words cut off by an utterly obscene moan splitting the air. 

She hastily abandons her one post, and wraps both of her hands around his girth, working on what she can’t fit into her mouth with her increased speed, licking and suckling his head as he begins to fall apart, coming, with a scream, down her throat, his one hand clamped over his mouth, biting down harshly to silence his cries; the other buried in her hair. 

His whole body falls lax, completely spent, meanwhile, Y/N savours every drop she’s been able to draw from him. He softens in her mouth, allowing her change to slip away from him, grasping a tissue from the bedside to wipe away any excess. That’s certainly something she never thought would happen… 

He’s calm, though, smiling lazily through hooded eyes, his breathing regulated once more, making beckoning motions to her with his big hands. He’s placated, though, and sliding her hands into his, she’s allowed time enough to get into place, smiling softly at him, raking her fingers over his scalp in a comforting way. Even as she sits herself on his lap, she can feel him hardening beneath her ass, slowly but surely. She was right about him, he’s definitely got another round in him. 

“Do you have a condom?” he asks. 

“No, sweetheart, they’re in my other bag. I didn’t plan on getting any for a while… do you?”

“Not in here, that I’m aware of. John may have stashed some in my less favoured dressing gowns or socks, and he definitely has some upstairs, but I’m unawares.”

“I’m gonna sound crazy here, but do we need one?” She says hesitantly. His eyes widen, he cocks his head to the side. “I was tested after my last partner, I’m clean, and on birth control. You’re a virgin. There’s no point, is there?”

“You have a considerably good point.”

With that, energy rejuvenated a little, he wraps an arm around her body, flipping them over so he’s on top, shadowing her, looming over her, gazing down at every inch of her naked beauty.

“Take your time. I’ll be your safety.”

“I know.” he whispers, a tearful smile making its way onto her face. “Thank you.”

He needn’t say more, because she already knows why she’s being thanked. For her kindness, for making him so comfortable, for accepting the fact he’s still a virgin in his late twenties and, if he’s being honest, has no damn clue what the practicality and reality of sex is. Sure, he’s seen porn. He’s also looked at John’s laptop. But that doesn’t prepare one for when the moment comes. It’s like all of that goes out the window, and he simply remembers the first time he opened a biology textbook at secondary school, pictures of flushed organs staring back at him, desperately waiting to be relieved. That’s what his own coock is like right now, already hard again, virtually pulsating with hunger in his palm. He strokes himself a couple of times, glancing down at Y/N’s wide eyes.

“Are you okay? Can I…”

“Yes, Sherlock,” she chuckles, “whenever you’re ready.”

Now, he thinks. He rubs two digits through her folds, gathering her wetness, enamoured with the way it glistens on his fingertips. Tentatively, he brings his fingers up to his mouth, swirling his tongue around them to get a taste. Eyes rolling into the back of his head, he moans. She’s better than any cup of tea he’s ever had. 

His cock slaps against his lower stomach pleadingly, so he grasps it in his hand, and begins to enter her, pushing gently, feeling every flutter of her walls. Her arms fly out, hands grasping his shoulders, nails leaving crescent moons in their wake at the delicious stretch. It’s nothing like they’ve ever felt before. 

“Can I move?” He asks, balls deep inside her, their pelvises flush against one another. 

“Please.” She all but begs. 

Before doing anything else, Sherlock hooks one strong arm around her body, malleable in his hands, and holds her chest against his. Her breasts push into his skin, her nipples gaining friction from the dusting of hair there. Her one hand cups his slender neck, the other, his sharp cheek. Their eyes meet in a fierce gaze of burning intensity, and he begins to move. Slow, calculated, sharp thrusts punctuate her core. With every heavenly stroke, he can feel the ridges in her velvet walls, squeezing around him unwittingly.

“Jesus,” she cries, her clutch increasing. 

“Hmm, not quite.”

The smirk in his words is quite literally audible. He’s so cocky, so full of himself, and fuck if she can’t feel another gush of arousal coursing through her, drenching his cock. How does he manage to be so attractive when he’s so dishevelled?

“Is that good?” He asks, unsure.

“So good.”

She brings her legs up, skimming the clenched backs of his thighs, until they wrap around him, drawing his hips into her at a new and improved angle. Heels digging into the base of his spine, he begins to move with a new purpose, his thrusts more passionate as his breath is drained from him by her kisses, his eyes alight with a new flame. 

“Oh my God, Sherlock.” She pants, pulling him in for a kiss he greedily returns. 

He drives his hips deeper, squeezing his fingertips into her supple waist bruisingly. It’ll be a mark that she belonged to him once, even just for one night. That’s when he reaches that special spongy spot that makes her entire body buckle. She all but screams, pressing into him wholly. 

The coil is building, ready to break. He seems to be nearing the edge, too, his member twitching inside her when he buries himself particularly deep. She’s oh so fucking close… She licks into his mouth filthily, desperately clashing her teeth with his, eager for his kisses to tide her over. Silence her. Shifting his supporting hand, he trails one dextrous finger around to circle her clit, adding the faintest pressure for a moment. She mewls as he groans into her hot skin, clawing at him, entirely at his whim. Now he knows where to press, he settled his grip back around her, and draws her in close. This time around, he bends his knees a little more to measure his movements more carefully, ensuring that he ruts up and brushes her sensitive bud with his pelvis, helped by the extra friction of his neatly trimmed pubic hair on every thrust within her, his tip just scraping her g-spot.

“I- Sherlock, please tell me you’re- oh sweet mercy- close.”

He grunts softly in her ear. “So close.”

Their lips meet tenderly, passionately, in what they acknowledge to be a final kiss, moans mixing between them, savoured by the other. 

His thighs clench, her legs tighten around his waist, and finally, her sweet walls flutter, squeezing him as she reaches her climax, his not following long after, spilling inside her, painting her soft walls white, marking her. 

“Y/N,” he cries in ecstasy as his orgasm reaches him. “Sher…” she repeats, her saving grace as pleasure washes over her entirely. 

Their whole bodies wind up pressed together, bound together as one, skin on skin completely, becoming one another. 

He lets her down gently, unravelling his grip, unsurprised when their sweaty skin sticks together. Her long legs unfurl, splaying in a butterfly. Sherlock tumbles ungracefully away, somehow landing with a certain gangly elegance on the space of mattress beside her, his arm instinctively flying over to place on her stomach, the skin hot and flushed red. Her chest moves hastily up and down with the thrumming of her heart, while his barely shifts despite his shallow breaths, his white skin glistening in the moonlight. 

“Are you okay?” He huffs, turning on his side. “You look pretty fucked out.”

His baby blue eyes train instantly on her nipples, hard in the open air. This is the first notifier, the first inkling she has to feel self conscious, so she draws the sheet up around her as best as she can. Sherlock’s not having any of it, taking a stronghold on her arms, and pulling her until she’s lying on him, naught to separate them. 

“I’ve never been this close to anyone physically and y'know.” He hums tiredly. She’s never heard him sound tired before… 

She smiles up at him as best she can, “Are you glad?” 

He begins to hold her ever closer, squeezing her tighter, feeling every ridge of her body. 

“I’m so glad that you were my first, in so many ways.” 

Praise from Sherlock is a rarity, and she’ll take it as and when she can, savouring every moment, this time by holding him like a koala, her grip not wavering. 

“I’m glad too, Mr Detective.”

He brushes a kiss to her cheek, “As much as I like this, we need to get you cleaned up.” 

A supporting arm beneath her bum, he picks her up, and unsteadily ambles into the bathroom. 

“I don’t know much about this, but I know you should probably use the toilet, should you want to avoid a UTI, so if you’d like me to leave…”

He sets her down on the loo seat, cupping his hands over his nether regions, and he hurries to grasp for things, until she puts her hand on his arm, squeezing in a conciliatory manner. 

“You do remember the camping trip, don’t you? You really don’t have to leave just because I have to pee, you never did before. In fact, you frequently annoyed me with it if you had a particular point to make, steadfastly refusing to leave the bathroom after following me in there when I went to pee. Why does this change anything?”

He shrugs, dropping whatever was in his arms, “It just doesn’t feel the same now, though.”

“Ooo, and now Mr Detective feels things.” She jokes, poking at his ribs. 

He recoils, chuckling with her, “Only for you.”

As Y/N washes her hand, Sherlock begins to wrangle with a floorboard, clattering about until he eventually pulls out a small lock box, from which he withdraws a packet of brand new marks-and-spencer's ladies briefs. 

“Why the fuck do you have these? Anything you wanna tell me?” she asks, eyes wide.

“John’s idea. He has plenty of girls over here who frequently stay the night, simply a precautionary error.” He takes a beat, gargling with some mouthwash, “they’re clean, new, I just don’t like the idea of you in dirty underwear, and I know how reluctant you are to go without them whenever you’re not in your own bed. I stayed with you enough nights in university to know that.”

Those nights were awfully painful. She’d take the floor, he’d take the bed, and every time she’d have to wash the sheets. He’d sweat and vomit, shake and cry, plead for the pain to be over. He wouldn’t go to hospital, he wouldn’t call his brother, he’d just turn up on her doorstep, high as a kite, almost in tears, knowing he’d gone a little too far. And each time, it was a little farther. 

“Thank you, Sherlock.” 

She takes them from him, and begins to shimmy them up her legs, only prevented by Sherlock moving to grab a handful of her arse. 

“Hmm, I like this. Fancy another round?” He smirks. 

“I’m too tired, babe. Give me a bit.” 

He can see the lazy smile on her face, the tiredness in her pretty eyes, so he wets a flannel, and begins to clean her up with gentle movements between tender kisses.

“How do you know how to do all of this?” She asks, inquisitive more than anything. 

“Instinct, I suppose. I never read or learned about it, seeing as I never thought it would happen.” 

She snaps the waistband before moving her hands to his waist, leaning up onto her toes to reach him, kissing her softly. 

“Look at you now.”

After brushing their teeth in an amicable silence, their pinky fingers overlapping on the porcelain of the sink, he aids her back to the bedroom, settling her on the bed. She has things here: deodorant, toothbrush, moisturiser, and yet somehow she doesn’t have underwear, even after all these years. Perhaps that's one too many things to explain… 

With superfluous extravagance, he throws her his shirt, offering her a wry wink. She finds a blush clawing its way onto her cheeks, dumbfounded. It smells like him, just like a forest glade if it was rained on by tea and cigarettes. Maybe he’ll let her keep it as a memory.

In such a short amount of time, she’s learnt that he has a very sensitive neck. Very. A single kiss there has him biting back a moan. A low one at that, considering his deep voice also drops almost an octave when he’s aroused. His nipples are almost as sensitive as his neck, and he rather likes it when she tugs on them unwittingly. 

His first orgasm comes quickly, but his refractory period is astonishing, and it takes longer to achieve a second high, long enough to make her come more than once, she assumes, though her first orgasm was mind blowing enough for two. Perhaps that’s just because it’s his first time, but it’s impressive nonetheless.

What’s the point in learning all of this if, once he comes around from his post-orgasmic haze, he’ll pretend like it never happened, in typical Sherlock style?

The shirt, though a small gesture, means a lot, and her vision begins to cloud as she looks down at the black cotton. 

“You mean you want me to stay?” She croaks.

Sherlock turns to her from his set of drawers, his face full of apparent obviousness, brows furrowed in that cute bewildered way. 

“Of course I want you to stay.” He states, like it’s the plainest thing in the world, like it’s stupid for her to even ask. But she’s silent, and when she says nothing in response, he launches into a long winded explanation: don’t show sentiment. “I- I just mean, i-it’s midnight, I’m not having you out in London alone. You stay with me. Only if you want to as well...” 

She nods eagerly, “Yes. Yeah, course I want to stay.”

He all but leaps access the room, jumping onto the bed, before planting a proper smooch on her lips, grinning down at her. He slips into his usual side of the bed, and she takes hers, rolling to look at him.

“Don’t get cold.” He warns, tucking the duvet up around her shoulders. She giggles like a child, that small snort sounding again, prompting Sherlock to press his thumb to her nose like a button. “How are you… feeling?”

“I’m fine bub, really. That bloke doesn’t matter to me at all. Bit of a scumbag if I’m honest. You’re the one I’m with, the one I wanna talk about. How are you feeling? Must’ve been a pretty big blow up with John for you to call me and be so... teary.”

He sighs, crestfallen, “He called me a machine.”

Her gasp pierces the air, her hand flying to his hair, stroking in consolation, cooing senseless reassurances to him. She’s done this innumerable times, but now it feels different, like there’s no barrier. 

“He’s done it so many times that it needn’t bother me anymore, but the way he looked at me, like I was this abhorrent monster, especially after the day and the disappointing case we had, it got to me. I hate having feelings.”

“You don’t have to hide them with me, though.”

He hums gently, burying into her chest. “I know. That’s why I treasure you so dearly.”

“That means you also have to trust me, and you’re not going to like what I have to say.” His chest heaves, shifting her whole body. That’s his way of giving in. “Please just talk to John. You know that whenever he leaves, he’ll come back, and try to pretend it never happened. He needs to know you’re human and that he upset you, but also that the case upset you as well. No one’s superhuman, and once you let John in on the fact that you’re not a machine, things between you will be so much easier, because you might agree for once.”

“I suppose you’re right.” He grumbles. 

He pulls her into his warmth, hooking her leg around his as he snakes his arms around her back, breathing deeply from the crook of her shoulder. She begins to pepper kisses on his salty skin, savouring the taste with every small swipe of her tongue.

“Your heart’s against my chest, your lips pressed to my neck,” he breaks off with a faint whimper when she sucks a little harder, “I’m falling for your eyes, but they don’t know me yet.”

“Of course they do,” she whispers brokenly, hoarsely, “they’ve always known you.” She swallows thickly, “Does that mean it’s a feeling you’ll forget?”

“No, I don’t think I ever can.”

The silent words that pass between them both are so special, too special to be spoken aloud. ‘Think I’m in love now.’

“Kiss me like you wanna be loved.” He begs. 

And really, who is Y/N to deny him? They just stay that way a little while, revelling in their lazy kisses, until she begins to fall asleep. It isn’t the first time she’s fallen asleep in his bed, not by any means, but it’s the first time she’s fallen asleep in his arms. She isn’t mad about it.

“Settle down with me, cover me up, cuddle me in. You were made to keep my body warm.” She smiles into her words, and embeds herself into him, entirely covered by the duvet, spattered in his kisses, safe in his arms. Sherlock feels safe with her legs around him, her fingers in his curls, holding himself against her. Amicable silence is how they drift off, Peaceful.

John re-enters 221B at a respectable hour. He got a fair amount of sleep on Greg’s sofa, having no girlfriend in the picture right now, but not enough to deal with Sherlock just yet. Not before his coffee. He expects to see Sherlock sitting in the exact same spot as when he left, perhaps just with a refill of tea, his fingers still steepled beneath his chin, eyes closed yet wide awake. Instead, he arrives at a seemingly empty, considerably clean flat, with no Sherlock in sight. Perhaps the unsleeping man must actually be asleep, he thinks, so he quietens down, and toes off his shoes before wandering farther into the flat. Even if the man does piss him off extraordinary amounts, perhaps he should just check he’s okay…

He gives the bedroom door a quiet rap, listening in momentarily before pushing it open. Frankly, he’d rather have found Sherlock with a cigarette in hand and the whole flat torn to shreds for the level of surprise he gets upon reaching the bed. His first idea is to scream bloody murder, but that might annoy Mrs Hudson, and upon stepping closer, even in the sliver of daylight through the curtains, he sees the duvet riding down a little. The last thing in the world he ever thought he’d see: Sherlock in naught but boxers pressed against a half naked woman, his palm splayed on her bare thigh. Sherlock? Spooning? It seems so, his entire body pressed to this woman. John feels himself go rigid, his feet glued to the floor, his gaze unmoving from shock. 

It takes his phone to buzz in his pocket to get him moving, and when he does, all he tries to do is balance precariously on his tip toes in a wry attempt to get a birds-eye view of the whole thing. He’s not disappointed, or disturbed, once he does, though, his army agility proving useful. Sherlock’s hand is holding her, fingers entwined, just next to her chest. He wonders how comfortable it is, but if they’re staying this way, it can’t be too bad. Maybe all Sherlock needed to loosen up was a good shag. 

She’s wearing his shirt, too; Sherlock’s black dress shirt from the previous day. And Sherlock? He never seeps in anything less than a full set of pyjamas, he’s weird like that . 

This girl begins to stir, her lips parting gently, small hums escaping. Next, her eyelids flutter, and her hair shifts on the pillow. He didn’t make any noise, did he? John was specifically careful not to, just in case. He doesn’t fancy Sherlock’s wrath just yet. 

One eye opens, and she whispers, almost incoherently, “Hi John.”

How she knows his name and who he is, he’s not at all sure, because he doesn’t think he’s ever seen this face in his life. The hair is familiar, and maybe, if she were more awake, he’d recognise her smile, but he’s never seen a woman in Sherlock’s company beside Molly Hooper. Speaking of… 

Before he can even say anything, though, before he can ask who she is or if she wants tea or if she date-raped his roommate, she’s mumbling, and detaching her hand from Sherlock’s, rolling over. Dumbfounded, John just stands there and watches her cuddle into Sherlock’s chest, her arms wrapping around his torso like second nature. Even in his sleep, not consciously thinking about his actions, he grips her back - one hand resting just above her bum, and buries his nose into her neck.

John can’t help but smile to himself. Maybe their fight was for the best if Sherlock now has a girlfriend, someone he turned to for solace. So, he grasps for the top of the duvet and pulls it up over both of their figures, reaching their shoulders, and leaves, staring wistfully for a brief moment at the seemingly happy couple. 

The weight of the duvet of what startles Sherlock, though, stirring him a little, inviting him to him against Y/N’s skin, smiling with eyes barely open. This is really nice, he thinks to himself, not waking up alone. 

She smiles back blearily, and in her morning voice, whispers to him, “Kiss me Mr Detective.”

[cupidford]

I’ve gone back into my archives and these are my fav all-things-Halloween fics from the past! (This is list is both too long but also probably missing great fics)

👻 👻 👻

The Haunting of 221B Baker Street by earlgreytea68

In which Sherlock Holmes is a ghost. ~10.5k

The Ichor of Talos by Nikoshinigami

Going to be published as a book, link unavailable now - I’m still going to rec it though! After being falsely convicted of the murder of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson is sentenced to confinement and the constant companionship of a hologram of his victim. ~60k

the shape of the shadows that detach from the walls by wendlaa

Sherlock hasn't met John yet and dies, becoming a ghost. One day in the After he meets John & realises he can see him. ~13.5k

💀 💀 💀

Slender: However Improbable by philalethea

Six months after The Fall, John is falling apart. A tall, thin man in a black suit begins follow him. Creepy. ~33.5k

The Halloween Party by XistentialAngst

Sherlock and John attend a Halloween party on the trail of a vampire killer -- Sexy costumes, bad puns, danger, sex in hidden places. ~19k

The Curious Wine by songlin

John is a werewolf, Sherlock is a vampire, Sherlock in 'charge' of making sure John behaves when he turns. ~15k

Johnloctober (Chapter 1: As You Wish) by prettysailorsoldier

Sherlock and John at a Halloween party, previously met at a coffee shop, they end up playing seven minutes in heaven  ~6.5k

Mary by kinklock

Based on Rebecca. John 'mourns wife meets and marries Sherlock & brings him back to mansion. ~136k

Johnloctober (Chapter 22: Go Get 'Em, Tiger) by prettysailorsoldier

Sherlock goes on a date with Victor to a Halloween party. John gets jealous, gets a costume, crashes the date, and confesses his feelings. ~9k

Into the Light by Besina

John is a ghost inhabiting Sherlock's fleshlight. ~1k

Shiloh by FinAmour

1969, Jacob meets Shiloh, a ghost, However, the two of them have always been in each other's lives, in every life. ~5k

Change by MoonBeams

Sherlock is bitten by a werewolf, Mycroft wants to lock him away, and he has to deal with feelings for John. ~54k

🕷 🕷 🕷

the napoleon by darcylindbergh

Halloween, 1989: John and Sherlock both have big plans for the night, but some serial killers have the worst possible timing. ~25k

Let's Say I Let You by Inkedgeree 

Halloween. Sherlock's vampire costume is turning John on, but Sherlock doesn't quite get the idea of a sexy vampire. At least…not at first. ~10k

In arms that terrify and calm me by Salambo06

Around Halloween John goes to Baker Street and finds out that Sherlock is engaged with a beautiful man, gets jealous. ~22.5k

The Master of Latham Hall by Kryptaria

John and Sherlock solve murders actually commited by a vengeful ghost suffering from unrequited love. ~47.5k

Upon Whom Shall You Call? by May_Shepard

~A TAB-verse AU. After Holmes dies, Watson tries to move on. His maid, Jane, reports noises in the attic. Female ghostbusters. ~33.5k

House of Grief by Calais_Reno

Holmes takes the case of a woman who claims her house is haunted. He asks Watson to accompany him. ACD, Victorianlock. Creepy! ~18.5k

The Detective and the Demon by oreganotea

Pre-Slash Urban Fantasy demon!John Magic Realism. ~2.5k

⚰️ ⚰️ ⚰️

An Acquired Taste by kinklock

Sherlock is a vampire and he starts to feed off John and also turns into a bat. The fluffy virgin kind of vampire. ~26k

Allhallows' Affair by MindYourOwnBismuth

An All Hallows’ Eve Party. Unilock. Halloween. ~21.5k

Sure Shot, Or, In Which Lestrade Wearing A Shepardless Outfit Is of No Consequence by redscudery

Sherlock storms into the Yard Halloween party to find John, but there are consequences- body shots and awkward kissing. ~1k

Diguises by OTP221B

Sherlock needs to infiltrate a Halloween party. John fits the bill, and the costume. teenlock. ~2.5k

Johnloctober (Chapter 29: Kindred Spirits) by prettysailorsoldier

Sherlock comes face-to-transparent-face with the ghost of a WWI soldier, a uniformed man calling himself Captain Watson. ~8k

Master of Disguise by earlgreytea68

Lestrade hosts a Halloween party. John makes Sherlock dress up as a pirate, and John dresses up as Sherlock. ~4k

The Red Dianthus by kinklock

The boys investigate a mysterious disappearance in a supposedly haunted house, and get more than they bargained for. ~11.5k

Johnloctober (Chapter 23: Subtexting) by prettysailorsoldier

John trying to return a lost notebook, but the owner turns out to be one Sherlock Holmes. Texting fic. ~4k

TBJ by cwb

Sherlock turns John into a bat, and batjohn gives him a blowjob. ~3.5k

The Light in the Heart by cassyl

John is murdered. Sherlock the ghost helps him realise he's dead and solves his murder. ~6.5k

Ghost in the Water by bittergreens

After Sherlock’s death, John Watson refuses to move on. Sherlock has to intervene, even if it means coming back as a ghost. ~21.5k

Johnloctober (Chapter 3: It's a Date) by prettysailorsoldier

Kidlock, scary movies. John stays the night to protect Sherlock. A teenlock follow up where John takes Sherlock to a scary movie on a date). ~3.5k

The Boy Who Drank Stars by kinklock

John is cursed and meets wizard Sherlock who might be able to fix him. ~36k

Ghost Stories by SwissMiss

Sherlock's parents think he and John are a couple. They might be onto something. ~22k

The Trouble With Upstairs by anactoria

John and Sherlock haunt 221B. ~500 words

How to Leave a Haunted House by May_Shepard

Sherlock is a zombie in a haunted house and John punches him, but goes back to make sure he's still okay. ~1k

On Sleeping with Sherlock Holmes by gaytectives

sharing a bed, haunted house. ~7k

🎃 🎃 🎃

Awkward Moments, Sexy Vampires, and a Halloween First Kiss by 221b_careful_what_you_wish_for

John and Sherlock are helping Molly decorate for a Halloween party. ~3.5k

Sanguineous Serendipity by CarmillaCarmine

AU. Vampire Sherlock meets a dying John in a field hospital in Afghanistan and gives him a whole new life. ~35k

Human Behaviour by toyhto

Vampire Sherlock wakes up after a nap and finds out that sixty-five years have passed. Also, there's a human living in his apartment. ~21.5k

Danger Nights by khorazir

An investigation of a series of strange occurrences leads John and Sherlock to the Welsh Marshes, to face ghosts weird and ancient as well as close and personal. ~23.5k

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph, got any good old (maybe new?) bedsharing fics for a fanfic obsessed lurker?

Thanks 😘

Hey Nonny!!

Hahha! I actually just did a list recently of my old ones, but I just double-checked my offline lists and I actually DO have some fics on my next Bed Sharing list, so GUESS WHAT? Your ask is the one to start the next Bed Sharing one, LOL.

As usual, if anyone has any they’d like to add, especially if they’re brand new fics, let us know! <3

BEDSHARING Pt. 5

See also:

The Speckled Blonde / BedSharing

BedSharing Pt. 2 and Insecure Sherlock

Bed Sharing Pt. 3

Bed Sharing Pt. 4

Bed Sharing “Just Happens”

Soft. Happy. Content. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 223 w., 1 Ch. || Sleepy Cuddles, Bed Sharing, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Spooning, Morning After, Sherlock POV) – Sherlock reflects on his state of mind.

And When The Night Is Over by Simply Isnt On (K, 329 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Platonic Bed Sharing / Not Slash) – Sherlock and John sleep together.

I Knew You Loved Me by inevitably_johnlocked (T, 743 w., 1 Ch. || Morning Cuddles, Fluff, Clingy Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slice of Life, Morning After, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Declarations of Love, Pet Name, Bed Sharing, Snuggles) – John and Sherlock share a lie-in the morning after their first time. So fluffy and gross your teeth will fall out. Part 4 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

Sleep Tonight by Jenn1984 (T, 1,220 w, 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Bed Sharing, Worried Sherlock, Sick John, Hugs/Cuddles, Touch Neediness) – Fingers begin prying open his jacket looking for a wound and John would really like to swat at them. No, he's not hit anywhere, he's just damn sick.- John Watson has a fever.

Loved. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 1,231 w., 1 Ch. || First Sherlock POV, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Nose Kisses, Morning After, Love Confessions, Morning Cuddles, Emotional Sherlock, Sentiment, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock reflects on his relationship with John. Part 5 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

Here to Stay by MockJayPhoenix12 (K, 1,574 w., 1 Ch. || Post Reunion, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Headache, Bed Sharing, Care Taker Sherlock, Hand Holding, Fluff) – On Sherlock's first day home, John wakes with a migraine.

The Perfect Place by SilverSmile (K+, 1,955 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Romance, 5 and Ones, Fluff, Experiments, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock attempts to find the perfect place to sleep, but his little experiment proves to be far more difficult than expected.

Insomnia by TheSingingGirl (K+, 2,635 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Humour, Bed Sharing, Sleepy Sherlock) – Sleep is merely the next frontier in what has become the battle to keep Sherlock alive. It's because of this that John ends up in bed with a sociopath.

Human Body Pillow by Lunavere (K, 4,122 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Five and Ones, Sleepy Johnlock, Bed Sharing) – A story about the five times John fell asleep on Sherlock, and the one time Sherlock fell asleep on him.

The Myth by AGirloftheSouth (M, 4,329 w., 1 Ch || Sex Toys / Anal Beads, PWP, Romance, Bottom John, Prostate Stimulation) – Sherlock believes something to be a myth. John proves him wrong.

When We Sleep by PrincessNala (K+, 6,660 w., 1 Ch || Post-TGG,  Alternating POV, Bed Sharing, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Hurt/Comfort, Hugs) – Sherlock needed to feel every beat of his heart, every rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. It was the only way to completely assure himself that John was alive and right there next to him, and not dead, no, never dead…

To be loved by Strange_johnlock (E, 12,436 w., 8 Ch. || Post S3, Established Relationship, First Person POV Sherlock, Pet Names, Soft Sherlock, Mild ADHD, Protective John, Captain Watson, Body Appreciation, Bottomlock, Rough Sex, Travelling for Holidays, Introspection, Sherlock Loves John So Much It Hurts) – John is so deeply integrated into the work, both as my conductor of light, and as a great shot with a vicious right hook who tackles men -and women- no matter their size all in my defense. He protects me with all he can without question, and this loyalty is surely more than I deserve. Or: Sherlock is counting his blessings.

There's So Much Labour Just in Breathing Lately by Susan (E, 12,708 w., 1 Ch. || Post-TRF / Mentions of S3 Events, Romance, Angst, Grief/Mourning, Grieving John, Mutual Pining, Meddling Mycroft, Therapy, Ambiguous Hopeful Ending, Infidelity) – The dreams he hated most – the ones that left him a sweating, shaking mess when he woke – were the ones in which Sherlock was just Sherlock. Laughing or drinking tea. Sitting across the table from him at Angelo’s eating pasta. Trailing his open hand behind him on the way to the bedroom. “C’mon, John. I’m about to have my way with you.”

Kintsugi by distantstarlight (E, 14,772 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Regret / Remorse, Loneliness, Separation, Drug Use, Healing, Protective John, Sad Sherlock, Dev. Rel., Complicated Relationships, Love, Angst With Happy Ending, Sherlock is Called Freak, John’s Penance, Voyeurism, Doctor/Caretaker John, Guilty John, Detox, Fingering, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Slight Non-Con Turns Enthusiastic Consent, Virgin Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes becomes estranged from the man he had once considered his best friend after John lets him down horribly in public. It seems that the world's only consulting detective will be on his own once again...or will he?

The Burning of the Leaves by blueink3 (M, 15,915 w., 3 Ch. || Post S4, Angst, Reichenbach, Parentlock, Past Jolto, Idiot John, Sherlock’s a Mess, Puppies, Fluff, Possessive / Jealous Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock POV, Matchmaker Sholto, Melancholic Feelings, Emotional Sherlock, Domesticity, Love Confessions in the Rain, Kissing in the Rain, Pet Names, Panic Attack) – After the events of series 4, Major Sholto invites John and Sherlock to lunch one day. It nearly proves to be too much for their tenuous relationship as the past haunts the present, putting the future that Sherlock so desperately wants at risk.

A Silver Sixpence by _doodle (NC-17, 16,400 w., 2 Ch. || LJ Fic || For a Case / Case Fic, Fake Relationship, Humour, Romance, Marriage Proposal, Awkward Idiots, Cuddling, Touching, Kissing, Love Confessions, Bed Sharing, Friends to Lovers, Fake Until It’s Not, Schmoop and Fluff, Bottomlock) – “John, we need to get married. It’s for a case, not any romantic notions on my part pertaining to our partnership,” Sherlock said, with brutal honesty, and without even looking up.

Division by MrsNoggin (E, 19,542 w., 11 Ch. || Coffee Shop AU || First Kiss/Time, Fluff, Barista Sherlock, Clingy Sherlock, POV John, John’s Limp, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Sleepy Cuddles, Sensuality, Touching, Virgin Sherlock, Insecure John) – John likes mysteries. And every morning he dips into the local independent coffee bar with his newspaper and ponders another... one Sherlock Holmes.

Out of the Woods by SilentAuror (E, 20,471 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Romance, Slow Burn, Flirting, Drunk Sex, Practical Jokes, POV Sherlock, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Pining Sherlock, Frustrated Wanking, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Virgin Sherlock, Love Confessions, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Bum Appreciation, Hanging out with the Yard) – Sherlock is fairly certain that John has taken to flirting with him of late, but can't be entirely certain of it. At least, not until a case takes them into a forest, along with Lestrade's team and something happens that will change everything about their lives...

Insanity in the Middle by DotyTakeThisDown (E, 28,010 w., 8 Ch. || Equestrian Sports AU || Alternate First Meeting, POV John, Pining John, Bottomlock, Clueless Sherlock, First Kiss/Time, Passionate Kisses, Hand Holding, Caught Making Out, Bed Sharing, Spooning, Blow Job) – John is a world-class eventing rider with a gold medal and several four-star wins to his credit, but he's never won at Rolex. Sherlock is an up-and-coming rider taking the sport by storm.

A Home for Us by sussexbound (M, 30,581 w., 12 Ch. || Scars, Bedsharing, Grief, Doctor John, Hurt/Comfort, Post-TRF, Implied/Referenced Torture, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation, Heavy Emotions, Clingy Sherlock, Hallucinations, Disassociation, Emotional Turmoil) – He has been on the road for two years, and he is exhausted. He’s almost accepted that he will never see London (John) again—almost. But then there are nights like tonight, where he is weak, and all he can think of is the warmth of the flat they once shared, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the teasing smile playing at the corner of John’s lips, the boxes of half-eaten Chinese takeaway balanced precariously in their laps. He aches at the memory of it, at the realisation that it is something he may never experience again.

Anchor Point by trickybonmot (E, 49,856 w., 80 Ch. || Truman Show AU || Psychological Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Dark Characters / Fic, Alternating First/Third Person, Protective John, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Tender Moments, Love Confessions, Hand/Blow Jobs, Cuddling, Jealous John, First Kiss/Time) – The world tunes in nightly for Sherlock, the ultimate in reality TV: Sherlock Holmes, a real person with a legendary name, unknowingly lives out his life in a staged setting contrived by his brother. Things get complicated when a retired army doctor joins the show to play the part of Sherlock's closest friend. This fic borrows its concept from the 1998 film, the Truman Show. However, you don't need to have any knowledge of the movie to enjoy this story.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

A Goose Quill Dipped in Venom by Polyphony (M, 52,748 w., 16 Ch. || Celebrity John AU || Alternate First Meeting, TV Host John, Supermodel Mary, Character Death, Mystery, Romance, Case Fic, First Kiss/Time, Meddling Mycroft, Drug Abuse, Doctor John, PDA, Deductions, POV Sherlock, Toplock, Sexual Tension, Angry/Rough Sex, Hopeful Ending, Asperger’s Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, is called in to a very ordinary although brutal murder. Something is badly out of tune with the whole scenario and Sherlock finds himself becoming more and more obsessed with the crime - and also with the victim.

Isosceles by SilentAuror (E, 56,609 w., 7 Ch. || Post-S4, POV John, Original Male Character / Sherlock Dates Another Man, Love Triangle, Jealous John, Virgin Sherlock, Sexual Coaching, Angst, Romance, Domesticity, Unrequited Feelings, Miscommunication, First Kiss/Time, For a Case, Friends With Benefits, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Spooning) – After solving a case for a major celebrity, Sherlock gets himself asked out. When John asks, he discovers that Sherlock has no intention of going, at least not until John agrees to coach him through whatever he might need to know for his date...

Lunar Landscapes by J_Baillier (M, 57,046 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || S3/TAB Fix-It, Slow Burn Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Drugs, Pain, Medical, Injury, Sherlock Whump, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Secrets, Tragedy, Trauma, BAMF John, Doctor!John, Drug Addict Sherlock, Injured Sherlock, Grieving John, Idiots In Love,  Protective John, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Sherlock is a Mess, Medical Realism) – An accident forces John to face the fact that Sherlock's downward spiral had started long before his flight to exile even left the tarmac.

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

Gold Rush by ShirleyCarlton (E, 71,783 w., 17 Ch. || Post S3 / No Mary, Friends to Lovers, Mentions of Past Sexual Abuse, First Kiss, Case Fic, Slow Burn, Alternating POV, Switchlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Marriage Proposal, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abduction, Anxious/Insecure Sherlock, Miscommunication, Emotional Lovemaking) – John has divorced Mary and pops round to 221B one evening to find Sherlock in the middle of a case. As Sherlock tries to find the identity of a young woman’s stalker, John realises he can no longer deny his feelings for Sherlock – which then, to their befuddlement, turn out to be mutual. Shy kisses and tentative embraces ensue. But will Sherlock be able to cast off a shadow from his past that he thinks might prevent John from wanting to stay?

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater /  Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

Kintsukuroi by sussexbound (E, 91,823 w., 20 Ch. || S4 Compliant / Post-TLD, Grief / Mourning, PTSD, Internalized Homophobia, Therapy, Past Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Anxiety, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Suicidal Ideation, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Sexting, Frottage, Inexperienced Sherlock, Rimming / Anal / BJ’s, Emotional Turmoil, Finding Each Other) – “I love you.” Sherlock sees the words hit John with almost physical force. He reels back a little, jaw twitching and eyes filling. “I love you,” he repeats, a little softer, a little more gentle, as earnest as he possibly can. Because they’ve been teetering on the brink of this thing for years, and it had become painfully obvious over the last few months that they were at a tipping point. This had to happen. Now it has. Now they can see where they end up. The tears in John’s eyes spill over, and he wipes at them angrily. “Do you even know what that means?”  

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Sussex, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Background Case Fic) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU ||  BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

The Bang and the Clatter by earlgreytea68 (M, 137,049 w., 37 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Baseball AU || Slow Burn / Dev. Rel., Possessive/Obsessive Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Mutual Pining, Body Appreciation, Depression, Closeted Sexuality, Family, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Ogling Each Other, Anxious Sherlock, Panic Attack, Drunkenness, Talk of Forever, Big Feelings™) – Sherlock Holmes is a pitcher and John Watson is a catcher. No, no, no, it's a baseball AU. Part 1 of Baseball

Against the Rest of the World by SilentAuror (E, 151,714 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Hiatus Fic, POV First Person Sherlock, Present Tense, First Kiss/Time, Big Brother Mycroft, Escaping from Capture, Soft Sherlock, Toplock, Insecurity, Infidelity, Travelling, Introspection, Pining Sherlock, Depression, Fantasies, Yearning for the Past, PTSD Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation) – Sherlock has been away from London for nine hundred and twelve days and counting, and has no idea what sort of reception to expect when he finally returns.

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

[therealsaintscully]

Mary and butterflies - the inevitability of death, murderous calling cards and collectors

Some ramblings with links to other people’s excellent meta, in which I suggest that butterflies (and/or moths) symbolize Mary as Moriarty’s reincarnation and or calling card, while also hint at her inevitable death.

Disclaimers: credits are below the cut. I’m not an expert in any of these topics. Thank you, @thewatsonbeekeepers​​ for the beta. In this post I’ll be using moths and butterflies interchangeably, apologies to any entomologists.

Mary’s appearance in the show brings with it new imagery we haven’t seen prior to The Empty Hearse - butterflies. Once Mary’s in the picture, there are butterflies in some very strategic locations, all are either visually or subtextually leading to her. The show has done that previous to season 3; Moriarty is connected to some well established symbols like magpies, apples and IOUs. 

When I first started reading meta I used to think these themes were a bit of a stretch, but I’ve since accepted  that this is a show that puts barely noticeable phoenixes in a restaurant scene that shows us Sherlock rising from his death.

Here are some of the butterflies I spotted so far:

Butterflies (and in the case of this piece of meta, moth) symbolize most commonly resurrection, change and renewal. Behind the symbolism stands the transformation of a small, ungainly creature into something full-grown and unbound. In that case, in the simplest way, one could argue that butterflies were chosen to symbolize her because the ‘Mary Morstan’ persona was a stillborn’s identity that was stolen and used ‘reborn’ to create a new person.

But more than this simplistic idea; butterflies carry multiple symbolisms. When it comes to Sherlock, I and many others tend to look at Victorian symbolism, considering the detective’s Victorian roots. 

I find the appearance of butterflies interesting in Mary’s context, much like I find the skull interesting in Sherlock’s. The skulls, in Sherlock’s case, serve plenty of purposes, but one of them is the idea of memento mori.

Memento mori (Latin for 'remember that you [have to] die') is an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. These are representations that can appear in any form of art such as paintings, literature, poetry etc. It’s a concept that existed in many ancient cultures but is also deeply rooted in early Christianity. It serves to remind people of the inevitable; that even if we choose to ignore it, not think about it, it’s always there lurking, and the purpose is not to scare us but to encourage us to make good use of our time when we’re alive. Memento mori was the philosophy of reflecting on your own death as a form of spiritual improvement, and rejecting earthly vanities.

Victorians were obsessed with the concept (weren’t Victorians obsessed with everything?). They would take photographs of the dead and keep locks of hair of those who died in mourning brooches. It is said that they found these practices comforting. 

Another expression of the ‘remember that you must die’ concept was vanitas art;  vanitas is a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. The Latin noun vanitas (from the Latin adjective vanus 'empty') means 'emptiness', 'futility', or 'worthlessness', the traditional Christian view being that earthly goods and pursuits are transient and worthless. It alludes to Ecclesiastes 1:2; 12:8, where vanitas translates the Hebrew word hevel (הבל), which also includes the concept of transitoriness. 

This concept reminds me, most especially, of the skull used in The Abominable Bride, which is actually Charles Allen Gilbert's 'All is Vanity' Illusion art.

Back to butterflies - butterflies are a staple component of vanitas art - paintings executed in the vanitas style were meant to remind viewers of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. They also provided a moral justification for painting attractive objects - in a way, it’s a justification for the vanity, or the human need of enjoyment of beautiful things.  Below is a vanitas by Jan Sanders van Hemessen:

But butterflies are also considered an omen of death: 

“Butterflies and moths were associated with death, sometimes merely as omens, sometimes as the soul or ghost.” These butterfly omens came in many ways.  For example, in the nineteenth century United States, some people thought that a trio of butterflies was an omen of death.” [x]

Oh.

But I also think there’s more to the butterfly symbolism than Mary’s imminent death; I suggest that, in keeping with @loudest-subtext-in-tv​ M-Theory (suggesting that Mary was planted in John’s life by Moriarty), they symbolize Mary as Moriarty reincarnated following his death in TRF. That Moriarty had indeed not disappointed Sherlock - there was a posthumous game after all! That Sherlock was supposed to understand that while one form of Moriarty died on that roof, another had emerged, continuing the mission of burning Sherlock’s heart. Mary is Moriarty’s calling card, left behind in the crime scene. They’re different, but not separate, which is why Sherlock is so obsessed with Moriarty between HLV-T6T; he’s both wrong and correct at the same time.

So far, what I’ve suggested is that in Sherlock, skulls are Sherlock’s symbolic memento mori - the skulls are associated with Sherlock in some very significant ways. 

However, Mary’s character was doomed from the start - she dies during Sherlock’s hiatus in ACD canon. I believe many fans assumed Sherlock’s Mary expected the same fate when she was introduced to the show. Although the story of Samarra is told by Sherlock, who expects his own death in T6T, Mary is the one who ends up dying. 

Butterflies in ACD canon

Searching for the significance of butterflies in the ACD and BBC canon led me to a number of interesting directions in meta written by others. 

The first and probably the best place to start is this meta post by @tendergingergirl​​, which I strongly suggest you read in full: Butterflies, Sexual Deviancy & The Bloodline Theory in The Hound of The Baskervilles. 

Stapleton also has a hobby. He collects bugs…Butterflies, to be exact. This can often be seen as purely academic, but depending on the actions of the hobbyist, they can indicate more disturbing things. That of holding something vulnerable captive, treating it as your hostage, pinning it down. The torture of animals has come to be a good indicator of someone who would do this to a human. He had already shown callousness by laughing as he recounts to Holmes of ponies wandering onto the Moor, becoming trapped, and dying. In 1974, there was a release of a new edition of Sherlock Holmes stories, with the forward of The Hound of The Baskervilles written by British author, John Fowles. He is responsible for several well-known works, including The French Lieutenant’s Wife. Another, was a novel that Mason finds himself wondering why Fowles doesn’t mention in his introduction, since the villain is such a close parallel to Stapleton.(but as we have learned through the study of ACD, most writers will not come right out and say where they got their inspiration. They like for you to guess!)

A lonely young man, works as a clerk, and collects butterflies, becomes obsessed with a pretty young girl, Miranda, an art student. He chloroforms, and kidnaps her, taking her to his cellar basement, to add Miranda to his collection. That book was called The Collector. But what else does it sound like?

“So yes, I googled. From an article on the release of the movie’s Documentary. "The docu proves a poor reference point for anyone who wants to understand the literary and movie links for “Lambs.” There’s no mention, for example, of how Harris partly based the butterfly-loving Bill on John Fowles’ kidnapper in “The Collector” …And here I thought Mofftiss added allusions to Silence of The Lambs into Sherlock just for fun. SMH.”

@tendergingergirl​ also added this photo to their post:

So what we have here is a chain of metatextualities/inspiration, starting with ACD’s THOB, where Jack Stapelton inspires a book about a disturbed butterfly collector (The Collector by John Fowles), which inspires a the author of Silence of the Lambs in creation of his character Buffalo Bill, a serial murderer who inserts a death's head moth into the victim's throat because he is fascinated by the insect's metamorphosis. Silence of the Lambs served as inspiration for Sherlock  as analyzed by @garkgatiss​ in Bond, Hannibal, and Holmes (I suggest you read the whole Hannibal section) . 

Let’s look again at some imagery from His Last Vow. Mary shoots Sherlock’s heart, essentially burning his heart out, and who does Sherlock meet in his Mind Palace in a very cocoon-like straightjacket? Yes, the dead dude who encourages him to die already (“one more push, and off you pop”).

What’s the next thing we as an audience see once Sherlock opens his eyes? Mary coming to the hospital to hear that Sherlock had, in fact, survived. And what is she wearing? Her butterfly scarf, one which will another appearance later in the episode, during the tarmac scene.

I also find it interesting that in the context of Sherlock and Silence of the Lamb, there’s an element of gender-switching between Moriarty and Mary. Buffalo Bill, the murderer from Silence of the Lambs, skins bodies of women to create himself a woman’s 'suit’; in Sherlock, Moriarty is a man-villain who transforms into a female-villain in the form of a bride and/or Mary. 

By the way, who else is obsessed with his suits?

Also, let’s not forget the worms, maggots and other such crawlers in the grave scene:

Now, let’s go over some of the photos I included in the beginning of this post a bit further.

Mrs. Hudson’s butterfly tea set is first shown in TEH - she uses it to serve John tea when he comes visiting her and tellis her about Mary. We also see it near John’s chair on the day of the wedding. This isn’t Sherlock’s set - his set is different, featuring the British Isles. Moriarty drinks from it in TRF. The next tea set we see, now that Moriarty is dead, is the butterflies one. In TLD, Mrs. Hudson uses Sherlock’s tea set - the butterflies are gone.

Mary’s bedroom wallpaper is very feminine, with flowers and butterflies, both complementing symbols while also very common in vanitas art. Much like Mrs. Hudson’s wallpaper in Baker Street, Mary’s wallpaper is supposed to show the contrast between Mary’s flat/Mary and Sherlock’s flat/Sherlock.

There’s an interesting moth reference in The Empty Hearse, which in my opinion, is Mary & Moriarty related. In short, in a previous piece of meta I wrote, I suggested that the Jack the Ripper case in TEH is subtext alluding to Mary’s skeletons, which Sherlock ignores because he’s upset by his reception by John. And what’s one of the first things Sherlock notices about the skeleton? New mothballs smell, hinting at an attempt to get rid of moth/butterflies - maybe a hint to  the fact that Sherlock has a chance to discover the truth about Mary but misses it. Also, in the context of Mary and the Jack the Ripper case, notice this transition:

Transitions are important on Sherlock - they’re nearly always there to draw our attention.

This, I think, is perhaps the most telling about a possible connection between Mary and Moriarty: we have both magpies (a Moriarty hint) and butterflies together here. This isn’t the only hint of Mary’s past we get in the wedding; there is, after all, the telegram from CAM.

Mary’s scarf is colorful, and it appears by the time Sherlock’s subconscious suspects Mary. Mary’s black butterfly dress - an ominous dress, I’d say - is the one she wears during the labour scene in the car. The third photo is a behind the scenes photo uploaded by Amanda Abbington, although I’m unsure whether this necklace is AA’s or Mary’s (but I couldn’t pass on including this).

Interestingly, the butterflies do not appear in Rosie’s context - either because it’s a telling sign that Mary won’t be with us much longer, or because Rosie is spared being considered a part of the ‘burning Sherlock’s heart’ plan. Sherlock, on the surface, seems to love Rosie and accepts her.

Also, another BTS photograph I came across during my research which I’ve never seen before and ties nicely to the vanity topic is this one (found here):

The Death's-head hawkmoth and ‘Death with Interruptions’

You’ll recall that I referenced The Collector and Silence of the Lambs, both featuring butterflies on their cover art. 

The Silence of the Lambs cover features Acherontia atropos, otherwise known as the death's-head hawkmoth. It gets its name from the sinister-looking skull shape on its back. In many cultures it is thought to be an omen of death. In a bit of another coincidental but stunning piece of symbolism, all three species of the Death's-head hawkmoth are commonly observed raiding beehives of different species of honey bee; A. atropos only invades colonies of the well-known western honey bee, Apis mellifera, and feeds on both nectar and honey. They can move about in hives without being disturbed because they mimic the scent of the bees and are not recognised as intruders.

Anyway, the use of Acherontia atropos reminded me of the book ‘Death with Interruptions’ by Jose Saramago. Interestingly, this is another book about a deathly collector with a butterfly on the cover:

In Death with Interruptions death is a woman, and she falls in love with one of her future victims. She decides to spare his life: Every time death sends him his letter [notifying him of his imminent death], it gets returned. death discovers that, without reason, this man has mistakenly not been killed. Although originally intending merely to analyse this man and discover why he is unique, death eventually becomes infatuated with him, so much so that she takes on human form to meet him. Upon visiting the cellist, she plans to personally give him the letter; instead, she falls in love with him, and, by doing so, she becomes even more human-like.

It’s pretty common to read theories about Mary who maybe was one of the assassins due to kill John both at the pool and in front of Barts. So we have a death harbinger trying to kill someone twice and failing. She then falls in love with him.

But how does the butterfly fit in?

Well, at some point in the story, death (that’s her name, sans a capital d), contemplates that using the death head butterfly, instead of a violet piece of paper, would have sent a much stronger message to those whose death is coming for.

And here’s another last bit of coincidental reference to Sherlock: I’d argue shades of purple, among them shades of violet, are associated with Mary and her secrets. There’s the purple dress she wears in TEH, her bridesmaids’ dresses include various shades of purple (including what I would argue was a violet sash) and let’s not forget:

Oh and, by the way, remember the song Donde Estas, Yolanda from TEH, about a woman called Yolanda? Always thought it was a bit of an odd choice for a song?

Yolanda is a female given name, of Greek origin, meaning Violet.

:)

Thoughts?

Credits: thank you @lukessense​ for directing me to @tendergingergirl​ meta about butterflies. Episode screenshots are from kissthemgoodbye.net.

@sarahthecoat​  @tjlcisthenewsexy​ @devoursjohnlock​ @inevitably-johnlocked​ @shylockgnomes​ @possiblyimbiassed​ @raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @gosherlocked​ @waitedforgarridebs​ @helloliriels​ 

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

Chapter 4 – It is always 1895 [TAB 1/1]

TAB is my favourite episode of Sherlock. It is a masterpiece that investigates queerness, the canon and the psyche all within an hour and a half. Huge amounts of work has been done on this episode, however, so I’m not going to do a line by line breakdown – that could fill a small book. A great starting point for understanding the myriad of references in TAB is Rebekah’s three part video series on the episode, of which the first instalment can be found here X. I broadly agree with this analysis; what I’m going to do here, though, is place that analysis within the framework of EMP theory. As a result, as much as it pains me, this chapter won’t give a breakdown of carnation wallpaper or glass houses or any of those quietly woven references – we’re simply going in to how it plays into EMP theory.

Before digging into the episode, I want to take a brief diversion to talk about one of my favourite films, Mulholland Drive (2001).

If you haven’t seen Mulholland Drive, I really recommend it – it’s often cited as the best film of the last 20 years, and watching it really helps to see where TAB came from and the genre it’s operating in. David Lynch is one of the only directors to do the dream-exploration-of-the-psyche well, and I maintain that a lot of the fuckiness in the fourth series draws on Lynch. However, what I actually want to point out about Mulholland Drive is the structure of it, because I think it will help us understand TAB a little better. [If you don’t want spoilers for Mulholland Drive, skip the next paragraph.]

The similarities between these two are pretty straightforward; the most common reading of Mulholland Drive is that an actress commits suicide by overdose after causing the death of her ex-girlfriend, who has left her for a man, and that the first two-thirds of the film are her dream of an alternate scenario in which her girlfriend is saved. The last third of the film zooms in and out of ‘real life’, but at the end we see a surreal version of the actual overdose which suggests that this ‘real life’, too, has just been in her psyche. Sherlock dying and recognising that this may kill John is an integral part of TAB, and the relationships have clear parallels, but what is most interesting here is the structural similarity; two-thirds of the way through TAB, give or take, we have the jolt into reality, zoom in and out of it for a while and then have a fucky scene to finish with that suggests that everything is, in fact, still in our dying protagonist’s brain. Mulholland Drive’s ending is a lot sadder than TAB’s – the fact that, unlike Sherlock, there is no sequel can lead us to assume that Diane dies – and it’s also a lot more confusing; it’s often cited as one of the most complicated films ever made even just in terms of surface level plot, before getting into anything else, and it certainly took me a huge amount of time on Google before I could approach anything like a resolution on it!

Mulholland Drive is the defining film in terms of the navigating-the-surreal-psyche subgenre, and so the structural parallels between the two are significant – and definitely point to the idea that Sherlock hasn’t woken up at the end of TAB, which is important. But we don’t need to take this parallel as evidence; there’s plenty of that in the episode itself. Let’s jump in.

Emelia as Eurus

When we first meet Eurus in TST, she calls herself E; this initialism is a link to Moriarty, but it’s also a convenient link to other ‘E’ names. Lots of people have already commented on the aural echo of ‘Eros’ in ‘Eurus’, which is undeniable; the idea that there is something sexual hidden inside her name chimes beautifully with her representation of a sexual repression. The other important character to begin with E, however, is Emelia Ricoletti. The name ‘Emelia’ doesn’t come from ACD canon, and it’s an unorthodox spelling (Amelia would be far more common), suggesting that starting with an ‘E’ is a considered choice.

When TAB aired, we were preoccupied with Emelia as a Sherlock mirror, and it’s easy to see why; the visual parallels (curly black hair, pale skin) plus the parallel faked death down to the replacement body, which Mofftiss explicitly acknowledge in the episode. However, I don’t think that this reading is complete; rather, she foreshadows the Eurus that we meet in s4. The theme of ghosts links TAB with s4 very cleanly; TAB is about Emelia, but there is also a suggestion of the ghosts of one’s past with Sir Eustace as well as Sherlock’s own claims (‘the shadows that define our every sunny day’). Compare this to s4 – ‘ghosts from the past’ appears on pretty much every promotional blurb, and the word is used several times in relation to Eurus. If Eurus is the ghost from Sherlock’s past, the repressive part of his psyche that keeps popping back, Emelia is a lovely metaphor for this; she is quite literally the ghost version of Sherlock who won’t die.

What does it mean, then, when Jim and Emelia become one and the same in the scene where Jim wears the bride’s dress? We initially read this as Jim being the foil to Sherlock, his dark side, but I think it’s more complicated than this. Sherlock’s brain is using Emelia as a means of understanding Jim, but when we watch the episode it seems that they’ve actually merged. Jim wearing the veil of the bride is a good example of this, but I also invite you to rewatch the moment when John is spooked by the bride the night that Eustace dies; the do not forget me song has an undeniable South Dublin accent.* This is quite possibly Yasmine Akram [Janine] rather than Andrew Scott, of course, but let’s not forget that these characters are resolutely similar, and hearing Jim’s accent in a genderless whisper is a pretty clear way of inflecting him into the image of the bride. In addition to this, Eustace then has ‘Miss Me?’ written on his corpse, cementing the link to Moriarty.

[*the South Dublin accent is my accent, so although we hear a half-whispered song for all of five seconds, I’m pretty certain about this]

Jim’s merging with Emelia calls to mind for me what I think might be the most important visual of all of series 4 – Eurus and Jim’s Christmas meeting, where they dance in circles with the glass between them and seem to merge into each other. I do talk about this in a later chapter, but TLDR – if Jim represents John being in danger and Eurus represents decades of repressed gay trauma, this merging is what draws the trauma to the surface just as Jim’s help is what suddenly makes Eurus a problem. It is John’s being in danger which makes Sherlock’s trauma suddenly spike and rise – he has to confront this for the first time – just like Emelia Ricoletti’s case from 1895 only needs solving for the first time now that Jim is back.

At some point I want to do a drag in Sherlock meta, because I think there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye, but Jim in a bride’s dress does draw one obvious drag parallel for me.

If you haven’t seen the music video for I Want to Break Free, it’s 3 minutes long and glorious – and also, I think, reaps dividends when seen in terms of Sherlock. You can watch it here: X

Not only is it a great video, but for British people of Mofftiss’s age, it’s culturally iconic and not something that would be forgotten when choosing that song for Jim. Queen were intending to lampoon Coronation Street, a British soap, and already on the wrong side of America for Freddie Mercury’s unapologetic queerness, found themselves under fire from the American censors. Brian May says that no matter how many times he tried to explain Coronation Street to the Americans, they just didn’t get it. This was huge controversy at the time, but the video and the controversy around it also managed to cement I Want to Break Free as Queen’s most iconic queer number – despite not even being one of Mercury’s songs. There is no way that Steven Moffat, and even more so Mark Gatiss would not have an awareness of this in choosing this song for Moriarty. Applying any visual to this song is going to invite comparisons to the video – and inflecting a sense of drag here is far from inappropriate. Moriarty has been subsumed into Eurus in Sherlock’s brain – the male and the female are fused into an androgynous and implicitly therefore all-encompassing being. I’m not necessarily comfortable with the gendered aspect of this – genderbending is something we really only see in our villains here – but given this is about queer trauma, deliberately queering its form in this way is making what we’re seeing much more explicit.

Nothing new under the sun

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes)

"Read it up -- you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before." (A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes)

“Hasn’t this all happened before? There’s nothing new under the sun.” (The Abominable Bride, Jim Moriarty)

This is arguably the key to spotting that TAB is a dream long before they tell us – when TAB’s case is early revealed to be a mixture between TRF (Emelia’s suicide) and TGG (the five pips), and we see the opening of ASiP repeated, we should be questioning what on earth is going on. This can also help us to recognise s4 as being EMP as well though – old motifs from the previous series keep repeating through the cases, like alarm bells ringing. Moriarty telling Sherlock that there is nothing new under the sun is his key to understanding that the Emelia case is meant to help him understand what happened to Jim, that it’s a mental allegory or mirror to help him parse it. This doesn’t go away when TAB ends! Moving into TST, one of the striking things is that cases are still repeating! The Six Thatchers appeared on John’s blog way back, before the fall – you can read it here: X. It’s about a gay love affair that ends in one participant killing the other. Take from that what you will, when John’s extramarital affection is making him suicidal and Sherlock comatose. Meanwhile, the title of The Final Problem refers to the story that was already covered in TRF and the phone situation with the girl on the plane references both ASiB and TGG, and the ending of TST is close to a rerun of HLV. It’s pretty much impossible to escape echoes of previous series in a way that is almost creepy, but we’ve already had this explained to us in TAB – none of this is real. It’s supposed to be explaining what is happening in the real world – and Mofftiss realised that this was going to be difficult to stomach, and so they included TAB as a kind of key to the rest of the EMP, which becomes much more complex.

However, if we want to go deeper we should look at where that quote comes from. I’ve given a few epigraphs to this section to show where the quote comes from – first the book of Ecclesiastes, then A Study in Scarlet. It’s one of the first things Holmes says and it is during his first deduction in Lauriston Gardens. This is where I’m going to dive pretty deep into the metatextual side of things, so bear with the weirdness.

[we’re going deeper]

Holmes’s first deduction from A Study in Scarlet shows that he’s no great innovator – he simply notices things and spots patterns from things he has seen before. This is highlighted by the fact that he even makes this claim by quoting someone before him. If our Sherlock also makes deductions based on patterns from the past, extensive dream sequences where he works through past cases as mirrors for present ones makes perfect sense and draws very cleverly on canon. However, I think his spotting of patterns goes deeper than that. Sherlock Holmes has been repressed since the publication of A Study in Scarlet, through countless adaptations in literature and film. Plenty of these adaptations as well as the original stories are referenced in the EMP, not least by going back to 1895, the year that symbolises the era in which most of these adaptations are set. (If you don’t already know it, check out the poem 221B by Vincent Starrett, one of the myriad of reasons why the year 1895 is so significant.) My feeling is that these adaptations, which have layered on top of each other in the public consciousness to cement the image of Sherlock Holmes the deductive machine [which he’s not, sorry Conan Doyle estate] come to symbolise the 100+ years of repression that Sherlock himself has to fight through to come out of the EMP as his queer self.

This is one of the reasons that the year 1895 is so important; it was the year of Oscar Wilde’s trial and imprisonment for gross indecency, and this is clearly a preoccupation of Sherlock’s consciousness in TFP with its constant Wilde references, suggesting that his MP’s choice of 1895 wasn’t coincidental. Much was made during TAB setlock of a newspaper that said ‘Heimish The Ideal Husband’, Hamish being John’s middle name and An Ideal Husband being one of Wilde’s plays. But the Vincent Starrett poem, although nostalgic and ostensibly lovely, for tjlcers and it seems for Sherlock himself symbolises something much more troubling. Do search up the full poem, but for now let’s look at the final couplet.

Here, though the world explode, these two survive

And it is always 1895

‘Though the world explode’ is a reference to WW1, which is coming in the final Sherlock Holmes story, and which is symbolised by Eurus – in other chapters, I explain why Eurus and WW1 are united under the concept of ‘winds of change’ in this show. Sherlock and John survive the winds of change – except they don’t move with them. Instead, they stay stuck in 1895, the year of ultimate repression. 2014!Sherlock going back in his head to 1895 and repeating how he met John suggests exactly that, that nothing has changed but the superficial, and that emotionally, he is still stuck in 1895.

Others have pulled out similar references to Holmes adaptations he has to push through in TAB – look at the way he talks in sign language to Wilder, which can only be a reference to Billy Wilder, director of TPLoSH, the only queer Holmes film, and a film which was forced to speak through coding because of the Conan Doyle estate. That film is also referenced by Eurus giving Sherlock a Stradivarius, which is a gift given to him in TPLoSH in exchange for feigning heterosexuality. Eurus is coded as Sherlock’s repression, and citing a repressive moment in a queer film as her first action when she meets Sherlock is another engagement by Sherlock’s psyche with his own cinematic history. My favourite metatextual moment of this nature, however, is the final scene of TFP which sees John and Sherlock running out of a building called Rathbone Place.

Basil Rathbone is one of the most iconic Sherlock Holmes actors on film, and Benedict’s costume in TAB and in particular the big overcoat look are very reminiscent of Rathbone.

Others have discussed (X) how the Victorian costume and the continued use of the deerstalker in the present day are images of Sherlock’s public façade and exclusion of queerness from his identity. It’s true that pretty much every Holmes adaptation has used the deerstalker, but the strong Rathbone vibes that come from Ben’s TAB costume ties the 1895 vibe very strongly into Rathbone. To have the final scene – and hopefully exit from the EMP – tie in with Sherlock and John running out of Rathbone Place tells us that, just as Sherlock cast off the deerstalker at the end of TAB (!), he has also cast off the iconic filmic Holmes persona which has never been true to his actual identity.

Waterfall scene

The symbol of water runs through TAB as well as s4 – others have written fantastic meta on why water represents Sherlock’s subconscious (X), but I want to give a brief outline. It first appears with the word ‘deeper’ which keeps reappearing, which then reaches a climax in the waterfall scene. The idea that Sherlock could drown in the waters of his mind is something that Moriarty explicitly references, suggesting that Sherlock could be ‘buried in his own Mind Palace’. The ‘deep waters’ line keeps repeating through series 4, and I just want to give the notorious promo photo from s4 which confirms the significance of the motif.

This is purely symbolic – it never happens in the show. Water increases in significance throughout – think of Sherlock thinking he’s going mad in his mind as he is suspended over the Thames, or the utterly nonsensical placement of Sherrinford in the middle of the ocean – the deepest waters of Sherlock’s mind. Much like the repetition of cases hinting that EMP continues, the use of water is something that appears in the MP, and it sticks around from TAB onwards, a real sign that we’re going deeper and deeper. I talk about this more in the bit on TFP, but the good news is that Sherrinford is the most remote place they could find in the ocean – that’s the deepest we’re going. After that, we’re coming out (of the mind).

Shortly after TAB aired, I wrote a meta about the waterfall scene, some of which I now disagree with, but the core framework still stands – it did not, of course, bank on EMP theory. You can find it here (X), but I want to reiterate the basic framework, because it still makes a lot of sense. Jim represents the fear of John’s suicide, and Jim can only be defeated by Sherlock and John together, not one alone – and crucially, calling each other by first names, which would have been very intimate in the Victorian era. After Jim is “killed”, we have Sherlock’s fall. The concept of a fall (as in IOU a fall) has long been linked with falling in love in tjlc. Sherlock tells John that it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing, something that Jim has been suggesting to him for a while. What is the landing, then? Well, Sherlock Holmes fell in love back in the Victorian era, symbolised by the ultra repressive 1895, and that’s where he jumps from – but he lands in the 21st century. Falling in love won’t kill him in the modern day. What I missed that time around, of course, was that despite breaking through the initial Victorian layers of repression, he still dives into more water, and when the plane lands, it still lands in his MP, just in a mental state where the punishment his psyche deals him for homosexuality is less severe. This also sets up s4 as specifically dealing with the problem of the fall – Sherlock jumps to the 21st century specifically to deal with the consequences of his romantic and sexual feelings. There’s a parallel here with Mofftiss time jumping; back when they made A Study in Twink in 2009, there was a reason they made the time jump. Having Sherlock’s psyche have that touch of self-awareness helps to illustrate why they made a similar jump, also dealing with the weight of previous adaptations.

Women

I preface this by saying how incredibly uncomfortable I find the positioning of women as the KKK in TAB. It’s a parallel which is unforgivable; frankly, invoking the KKK without interrogating the whiteness of the show or even mentioning race is unacceptable. Steven Moffat’s ability to write women has consistently been proven to be nil, but this is a new low. However, the presence of women in TAB is vital, so on we go.

TAB specifically deals with the question of those excluded from a Victorian narrative. This is specifically tied into to those who are excluded from the stories, such as Jane and Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Hudson’s complaint is in the same scene as John telling her and Sherlock to blame the problems on the illustrator. This ties back to the deerstalker metaphor which is so prevalent in this episode; something that’s not in the stories at all, but a façade by which Holmes is universally recognised and which as previously referenced masks his queerness. Women, then, are not the only people being excluded from the narrative. When Mycroft tells us that the women have to win, he’s also talking about queer people. This is a war that we must lose.

I don’t think the importance of Molly in particular here has been mentioned before, but forgive me if I’m retreading old ground. However, Molly always has importance in Sherlock as a John mirror, and just because she is dressed as a man here doesn’t mean we should disregard this. If anything, her ridiculous moustache is as silly as John’s here! Molly, although really a member of the resistance, is able to pass in the world she moves in in 1895, but only by masking her own identity. This is exactly what happens to John in the Victorian era – as a bisexual man married to a woman, he is able to pass, but it is not his true identity. More than that, Molly is a member of the resistance, suggesting not just that John is queer but that he’s aware of it and actively looking for it to change.

I know I was joking about Molly and John’s moustaches, but putting such a silly moustache on Molly links to the silliness of John’s moustaches, which only appear when he’s engaged to a woman and in the Victorian era. He has also grown the moustache just so the illustrator will recognise him, and Molly has grown her moustache so that she will be recognised as a man. In this case, Molly is here to demonstrate the fact that John is passing, but only ever passing. Furthermore, Molly, who is normally the kindest person in the whole show, is bitter and angry throughout TAB – it’s not difficult to see then how hiding one’s identity can affect one’s mental health. I really do think that John is a lot more abrasive in TAB than he is in the rest of the show, but that’s not the whole story. Showing how repression can completely impair one’s personality also points to the suicidal impulses that are lurking just out of sight throughout TAB – this is what Sherlock is terrified of, and again his brain is warning him just what it is that is causing John this much pain and uncharacteristic distress.

This is just about the loosest sketch of TAB that could exist! But TAB meta has been so extensive that going over it seems futile, or else too grand a project within a short chapter. Certain theories are still formulating, and may appear at a later date! But what this chapter (I hope) has achieved has set up the patterns that we’re going to see play out in s4 – between the metatextuality, the waters of the mind and the role of Moriarty in the psyche, we can use TAB as a key with which to read s4. I like to think of it as a gift from Mofftiss, knowing just how cryptic s4 would be – and these are the basic clues with which to solve it.

That’s it for TAB, at least in this series – next up we’re going ever deeper, to find out exactly who is Eurus. See you then?

[afteriwake]

Back To The Beginning Of It All (1/?)

So I had this ridonkulous dream last night in my body’s attempt to recooperate from doing too much the days before, but the actual dream itself, while I loved it, would not make a good fic. the premise, however, would, and it was what if Sherlock and Molly got sent back in time a year or so after the events of S3 with all that knowledge? After talking with @strangelock221b, I changed the starting point to post-S4, with an established Sherlolly, and the date they got sent back to being the day Sherlock meets John at Barts. I also wrote this in part for @greenskyoverme, who has been a huge help, and I hope you all enjoy it.

Back To The Beginning Of It All - Mycroft sent Sherlock, and Molly as well, on an assignment he thought was not much more than the delusions of a madman. It turned out to be so much more than that, as the three of them as sent back to 2010, with all the knowledge of the last eight years ahead of them...but only two of them are aware they were not meant to go back as well.  

READ CHAPTER 1 | BUY ME A COFFEE?

“He really said that this man was perfecting time travel?” Molly asked as she followed Sherlock through what seemed to be an endless maze of sewers underneath Paris. Why this was the concern of Mycroft or his division of the government he hadn’t explained yet, but they had used it as an excuse to spend time alone in a lovely city before Mycroft insisted they actually work on the case.

Sherlock nodded. “And he scoffed, which means he believes the missive as much as one might believe The Daily Mail has a pertinent place in London’s newspapers.”

Molly gave a slightly undignified snort. “You’re just upset they splashed our pictures on the cover when you forgot to lock the door to the flat.”

“Yes, well, you didn’t deserve that,” he said, slightly mollified. The adventures of being the live-in girlfriend of Sherlock Holmes. Never an ounce of privacy when they wanted it. But still. John had moved in again with Rosie and she supposed having most of her found family in one place wasn’t a bad thing.

And here I am, sounding like a besotted fanfic writer, she thought as she kept up with Sherlock leading the way. But still. There were many many perks to it, but it was not as though there were still some dangers. Not Eurus; she still wasn’t speaking, but visits with her family had helped. Moriarty was six feet under, just where he deserved to be and for the most part, his organization was in tatters. Magnussen was...well, the less said about that incident the better. But there were others. There would always be others, but between everyone, she felt safe enough.

She saw the faint glow up ahead and was about to mention it when there was a crackle of sound. They picked up the speed and made it to the entryway of a catacomb when there was a bright explosion and then...nothing.

---

“Black, two sugars.”

And then he felt what must have been the percussive sound of an explosion in the back of his head, and things...changed. Not where he was, exactly, but the last memories he had was an explosion and--

“Molly.”

“You too?” she said weakly, shutting her eyes, as though they were damaged by the bright light. She had seen it too. She had heard the explosion.

She knew.

He dropped the riding crop and went over to her, gently cradling her head. Moriarty, Magnusson, his sister, all the dangers flooded through as he realized exactly where they were, when they were. The day he met John. The experiment with the riding crop. The failed attempt to ask him out for coffee.

And yet…

“The bastard did it,” he said softly. At least they were together though, he realized as Molly gently cradled his hands on her head as much as he was being gentle with her. “Open your eyes, Molly.”

“I don’t want to,” she said, shaking her head.

“We’re safe, or safe enough for the moment. We’re at Barts, the day I met John,” he said. “Whatever happened in the catacomb, we got caught up in it. But we’re together.”

She opened her eyes slowly, looking at him, and then pulling away to look down at her clothing, to look around. “You were telling me how you take your coffee, and then…”

“Here we are,” he said.

“It was that madman? We’ve gone back in time?”

Sherlock nodded. “With seemingly all the knowledge we’ve gathered from the last several years.”

“But that means we…”

He pulled her into his embrace. “No. I’m not going to do it all the way I did before. If I have this knowledge, I should use it. We both should. But I’m not about to let you go again.”

He could feel relief flood through her as she embraced him back tightly. “Oh, Sherlock.”

He pressed a kiss into her hair, thankful it wasn’t until they were upstairs that Stamford found him and she joined him later with the horrible coffee that he drank anyway. For the moment, they had peace and time to themselves. But he had meant what he’d said. Nothing was going to cause him to let her go again.

Even if they’d change time itself in the process.

[shrlxcked-a]

sherlock’s  heroin  addiction. 

sherlock  has  used  many  different  types  of  drugs  since  the  age  of  17.   he  started  with  cocaine  and  over  time  ended  up  in  the  very  dangerous  territory  of  heroin.   now,   the  main  reason  i’ve  pinned  down  this  drug  as  being  his  primary  enemy,  is  canon:   classically  in  the  ACD  setting  he  was  a  morphine  user.   this  doesn’t  translate  over  to  modern  day  as  well,  particularly  if  you  consider  sherlock’s  lifestyle.  in  that  time  period,  morphine  was  the  primary  target  for  opiate - addicts  (  heroin  didn’t  even  exist  at  that  point  in  time  )  but  translated  into  the  modern  day,   it’s  far  more  likely that  he  is  using  heroin,  not  morphine.  we  can  also  make  these  inferences  from  mrs. hudson’s  use  of  the  term  ‘smack’,   along  with  sherlock’s  actual  behavior  while  apparently  high  --  particularly  in  hlv  we  see  him  asleep  on  a  mattress,  zoned  out,  and  similar  lethargic  behavior  in  tld  when  he  is  with  ‘faith’  -  these  are  characteristics  of  heroin.   there  are  also  scenes  where  he  was  obviously  on  cocaine,  such  as  the  ‘ginger nuts’  scene.  it  is  also  very  common  (  but  very  dangerous  )  for  these  two  drugs  to  be  used  to  counter  each  other,  so  it’s  likely  that  sherlock  uses  one  to  counter  the  effects  of  the  other  on  an  as - needed  basis. 

the  other  reason  that  i’ve  pinned  this  down  to  my  muse  is  his  history.  my  muse  has  a  canon  divergent  backstory  from  bbc,  and  while  it  is  very  similar,   there  are  notable  differences  which  contribute  to  sherlock’s  drug  use.   it  is  also  important  to  remember  that  the  entire  s4  backstory  with  his  ptsd / addiction / invented  redbeard  memory  was  an  after  thought  --  had  these  aspects  of  his  character  been  planned  from  the  start,  there  should  have  been  major  differences  in  his  behavior  and  characterisation  from  what  we  saw   in  series 1 - 3.   i’ve  decided  to  account  for  these  writing  flaws  with  my  muse  and  thus  his  characterisation  and  the  way  he  behaves  in  certain  situations  is  not  necessarily  in  line  with  the  show,  but  rather  in  line  with  the  idea  that  he  does  have  ptsd  and  an  aggressive  drug  addiction.   this  includes  threads  that  happen  in  any  timeline  from  his  teens  up  to  s4. 

his  addiction  started  very  early,  and  heroin  is  the  most  dangerous  and  addictive  drug  known  to  man.  sherlock  being  intelligent  and  strong  does  not  make  him  immune  to  this  fact,  unfortunately.  most  heroin  addicts  remain  addicted  for  the  rest  of  their  life,  many  are  lost  to  overdose,  and  managing  sobriety  is  extraordinarily  difficult.   there  are  permanent  mental  and  physical  effects  and  damage.  therefore,  it  is  outrageous  to  expect  that  sherlock  could  ‘just  get  clean’,  or  ‘just  get  his  act  together’,  and  be  fine  and  dandy  from  then  on,   as  portrayed  in  the  show.   this  portrayal  is  honestly  just  very  offensive  to  everyone  who  has  dealt  with  addiction  personally  or  second  hand,   and  one  of  my  goals  with  my  muse  has  been  to  portray  a  more  realistic  view  of  addiction,  particularly  heroin  addiction. 

there  are  many  clear  signs  throughout  the  series  that  he  is  resisting  cravings  for  something.   my  own  headcanon  is  that  he  managed  to  stay  clean  from  a  point  shortly  before  meeting  john  up  till  the  wedding,  and  likely  relapsed  that  night  after  leaving  early.  i  further  headcanon  that  he  is  continuing  to  use  relatively  ‘lightly’  from  then  up  to  the  events  in  tld.   however,   my  muse  diverges  canon  after  mary’s  death,  and  none  of  the  events  with  eurus  take  place.  instead,  his  aggressive  spiral  back  into  heroin  begins,  and  he  more  or  less  destroys  himself  for  the  course  of  2 - 3  years  ( verse  dependent  )   until  he  finally  ends  up  in  rehab  and  therapy  for  his  ptsd.   

[pipperandpeggy]

221B and Me - Chapter 3

Sherlock x Reader

Reader meets John and Mary and finds out more about the mysterious Sherlock.

________________________________________________________________

“You must be Y/N, I assume?”

I stared blankly at the blonde lady who had opened the door at the address of John Watson. She smiled happily at me, gesturing for me to come in. 

“Yes, thank you,” I replied slightly confused, “Sorry, how did you know my name?”

“Sherlocks told us all about you,” The woman explained as she lead me into the living room, “Looking at moving into the apartment? I must say I’m surprised to see you here, Sherlock normally turns people away. It’s rare they ever manage to get this far.” She laughed softly.

 “Oh actually, he told me about the apartment himself,” I said shyly.

“Well, that is a surprise, I must say.” 

“Mary, has Y/N arrived-” A short man walked into the living room,  pausing mid-sentence as a smile spread across his face, “Oh great, you’re here. Sherlock’s told us all about you.”

“Your wife was just telling me.” I said. 

“Cup of tea?” Mary asked politely. 

“Yes please.”

“So,” John took a seat opposite me, “What do you want to know about Sherlock?”

“What is he like as a flatmate?” I presumed this was a good place to start.

“An absolute nightmare,” John responded without hesitation, “But it was one of the best experiences of my life. I promise you will never have a dull moment with that man.”

 “Interesting…Is he always that pretentious?” I blurted out. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m pretentious, would you John?” A familiar voice sounded from the kitchen. 

I jumped at the sound of the voice, whipping my head around to find Sherlock standing in the door, leaning against the frame in his long dark coat. 

“What on earth are you doing here?” I stammered.  

“Is a man not permitted to see his oldest and most trusted friends?” He said strolling over to the sofa, sitting uncomfortably close to me. His eyes stared challengingly down at me as he awaited a reply. 

“Bloody hell Sherlock, who let you in?” John sighed.

“I have a key,” Sherlock said matter-of-factly. 

“Oh great, of course you do,” John muttered sarcastically. 

Mary strolled into the living room, a tray balanced hazardously in her arms. She handed me my tea with an amused look on her face. 

“Could you get any closer to the poor girl Sherlock?” Mary smirked as she took in his proximity to you. 

He shifted uncomfortably and moved away from me slightly before crossing his arms. I sipped my tea and tried not to laugh. 

“So what else do you want to know about me?” Sherlock questioned. 

“Shouldn’t I be asking John these questions?” I responded, raising an eyebrow. 

“Why ask John when you can ask the real thing.” He smiled smugly.

“If I wanted to ask the real thing, I wouldn’t have wasted the cab fare coming here,” I said, I glanced at John and Mary, “No offence.”.

“None taken,” John responded kindly. 

“Even so I am here now, so why not waste any more time and just ask me?” Sherlock said getting rather impatient. 

“How often do you do your laundry? How do we pay for food? Do we pay for our own food? Do you snore? Do you have lots of people over? Are you in often? How often will I see you? How-”

“Once a week, you can buy your own food as I don't’ really eat, digestion slows me down, I have been known to snore but not very loud, only when I have idiotic clients, depending on how many cases I’m solving and as often as you would like.” He answered smoothly. 

“Right well, that’s all good then.” I said taken aback by his onslaught of replies.

 “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to intrude, but Mary and I do have things we need to attend to, and as we are obviously not needed, would you mind flirting elsewhere and not in my living room,” John interjected.

“Flirting?!” I say almost choking on my tea. 

“This is how Sherlock flirts,” Mary said, smiling softly.

“Excuse me Mary, but I do not flirt,” He snapped, giving her a disapproving glare. 

“Oh, of course not Sherlock,” Mary said giving me a cheeky wink.

“Well, as we are obviously no longer wanted here, why don’t you come with me back to Bakers street, you could ask Mrs Hudson some questions if you like,” Sherlock said giving me a forced smile. 

I watched as he quickly stood, striding swiftly out the room. I put the now empty mug down on the table next to me, uttering my thanks and apologies to Mary and John on my way out, who seemed unfazed by Sherlocks coming and goings. I found him stood waiting outside for me, looking impatient. 

“That was so rude Sherlock!” I said giving him a disbelieving look. “You can’t treat people like that.” 

“Wrong, I can treat people how I like, it’s no problem of mine if they take what I say or do the wrong way.” He said walking off.I hurried after him hastily.

 “No wonder you only have two friends,” I said catching up to him.

“I have more than two friends.” He said as he spotted a taxi.

“Name one.” I challenged as we climbed in.

He muttered the address and the taxi began to drive away.

“Molly.” He said flatly.

Molly hadn’t even crossed my mind as one of his friends, but it made sense to think that he thought of her that way. I felt bad for Molly, I could see how easy it would be to be swept up by Sherlock, he’s the tall, quiet, the mysterious type. It’s difficult not to find him somewhat attractive. We sat in comfortable silence on the journey to Bakers Street. We pulled up and I clambered out of the taxi thanking the driver as I went, Sherlock swooped into Backer street with me following closely behind him.

“Oh you’re back love,” Mrs Hudson said as Sherlock sailed by. 

“Yes good observation Mrs Hudosn,” He muttered flatly. 

“Oh, Y/N dear, good to see you again.” Mrs Hudson said, obviously pleased to see me. 

“Hello Mrs Hudson,” I said happily.  “It’s nice to see you again too.”

“Tea Mrs. Hudson.” Sherlock demanded from somewhere upstairs. 

Mrs. Hudson began to move towards the kettle but I stopped her by placing my hand on her arm gently. 

“You sit down, I’ll make it.” I felt like the poor woman ran after Sherlock a lot.

 I busied myself with boiling the kettle and placed tea bags into three mugs. I chatted to Mrs. Hudson and told her a bit more about myself. She seemed happy to have someone to talk to. I turned around and saw Sherlock leaning against the doorframe once again. I noticed a flash of warmth cross his blue eyes as I placed the hot cup of tea in front of Mrs. Hudson. 

I passed Sherlock his mug, my fingers brushing his slightly in the process. He seemed to notice this and our eyes locked for a moment before I turned away to grab my own drink, feeling slightly uncomfortable under his intense gaze. 

“She’s a good one this one, you should keep her Sherlock.” Mrs. Hudson smiled gratefully after sipping her tea. 

“Oh I intend to.” Sherlock said matter-of-factly.

 I turned to him in shock, my eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”

“So then Mrs. Hudson, Y/N has some questions for you,” He sighed impatiently, “She is very indecisive apparently and can’t make a simple decision regarding where she lives.”

“Well she is considering moving in with you Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson said, “These sort of things take time.”

“Too much time.” Sherlock muttered.

 “Actually Mr. Holmes, I’ve made up my mind.” I declared, hoping to shock the unshockable Sherlock Holmes. 

“Oh?” Sherlock held my gaze challengingly. 

“Yes. I will move in with you,” I told him, “On one condition.”

“And what is that?” Sherlock frowned.

 “You start making Mrs. Hudson tea.”

Mrs. Hudson laughed joyfully, “Sherlock doesn’t know how to use a kettle.” 

*      *

After a day of moving all of my things into 221B I needed time to relax. Sherlock was out on a case which meant I could lounge on my bed and mindlessly scroll on my phone. 

Any luck? M

I quickly replied to the text flashing on my screen. 

Just finished unpacking my boxes actually. Thanks for asking. 

The reply was almost instant. 

Looking forward to seeing it. M

Its 221B Baker Street, come around whenever you want.

I waited for a response but oddly was left with a blank screen. I shrugged it off, coming to the conclusion that he was busy. I pulled out my laptop and started to watch Netflix. I heard the front door open and close. 

“Sherlock?” I called. 

“Who else would it be?” He replied sassily from the other room. I rolled my eyes and chose not to answer. 

A knock sounded at the front door.

 “Do you want me to get that?” I said, beginning to get out of bed.

 “No, I’ll get it.” Sherlock replied chirpily. 

Too chirpily…

I got up to investigate as I heard the front door open. I smoothed down my hair and walked into the living room. 

“Mycroft?” I gasped in surprise.

 He was stood in the doorway, dressed in a suit as usual however his expression was thunderous. Sherlock was grinning beside him. 

“Out of all the people in London, you move in with him?” He spat furiously.

 I blinked in surprise, “Excuse me?” I glanced between both men, “Do you two know each other?”

“Well of course,” Sherlock smirked, “He’s my brother.” 

@germansarechill @rozzeguerrero (sorry we just saw that you asked, well tag you properly in the next one)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

[afishlearningpoetry]

Looking Closer at How The Abominable Bride Foreshadowed and Can Be Used to Chronologically Decode Series 4:

In the opening sequence of TAB, Sherlock imagines a recreation of John returning to England after being dispatched by the army and the two of them meeting for the first time. As this is his dream, everything about the sequence and the comparison and contrast with the unfiltered scene in ASIP informs of his own biases and desires. Sherlock imagines coming off weirder but suaver and John being less frustrated about it than he actually was, telling us both about his knowledge of John’s love for him and his wish to smooth out the dents in their relationship.

In TLD, John writes a sequence recreating his first night meeting Sherlock using his self-insert Eurus as Faith Smith as an outlet. As this is John’s story, everything about the sequence and the comparison and contrast with their first night together in ASIP informs of his own biases, desires, and in this case especially, deeply-held fears and insecurities. John imagines Eurus and Sherlock being more open and honest about their feelings and their night together, telling us about John’s own memory of the event and his history.

Of course, more important than the differences between Sherlock’s dream and John’s story compared to reality, is the even more massive gap between their own points of view.

[Continue below the cut for more ➤]

See also: Shout out to @shinka for “Something Borrowed, Something Blue”... 10 Revealing Things From The Six Thatchers That Haunt You Late At Night, 10 Revealing Things From The Lying Detective That Haunt You Late At Night, and 10 Revealing Things From The Final Problem That Haunt You Late At Night. (#tw suicide #tw self harm #tw depression)

Bonus: Substitute, point of view, insecurities, emotional context.

Right off the bat in Sherlock’s dream, his goal with the opening war montage is clear –– to objectify John and his bright blue eyes as much as possible, while in John’s nightmare of his army experiences, everything is dangerous and happening incredibly fast. Throughout the entire comparison of all these different scenes together, this will be a constant theme –– Sherlock will constantly express how much he wants to be with John and that he’s aware John loves him, while John will continue to deny himself his love for Sherlock, thinking Sherlock does not love him back. “I spent a whole evening with her. We had chips. I think she liked me.”

In TAB, Sherlock then imagines their first meeting as him completely nailing his deduction of John and and sweeping him off of his feet. John hardly says anything back and looks more starstruck than speaks dialog, while Sherlock imagines their exchange happening much faster than it actually did. Sherlock gets all the details right –– mentioning the violin, having an “eye” on a loft, John looking down at his leg, Stamford reassuring John that he’s always been “like that,” but misses, or perhaps brushes over the emotional context of what John was going through in this scene. But John was more frustrated than anything, and angry that Sherlock was able to see through him right away, while John has been hiding himself from the world for a substantial period of time. John expresses this a lot in series 4, representing his own insecurities through subtextual means. Sherlock isn’t without his own insecurities, however, and there is gloom beneath the romanticism –– Sherlock imagines whipping a corpse with a riding crop when John walks in, while John actually meets him shortly after in the lab, and throughout the episode Sherlock frequently lashes out at John in various ways over John not understanding his feelings. This is often shown through John’s stories of Sherlock, in comparison to real John’s blog in the present day and John clearly is not picking up on how Sherlock cares for him, so it’s fitting that Sherlock’s feelings in this sequence are actually clear as day, and that John’s own recreation of their meeting in TLD is much darker (and filtered through another character and story, which in its own way, also makes his own feelings clear as day).

What’s also missing in Sherlock’s iteration of their meeting is the vast depth of loneliness and self-loathing that John is depicted with in the opening scene of the entire show, which wasn’t recreated in his dream. John’s story in TLD is set after Mary’s death –– as series 4 with TST and TLD is about the coverup and fallout of Mary’s murder at the hands of John and Sherlock, who was working with Moriarty and isn’t really dead –– and so the grief, darkness, and haunting ghosts in it are easy to assume being for that, which is the purpose of John covering up what really happened with this story, but one of the thing that’s really going on behind the true events of this episode is John approaching his own crisis point. In John Yorke’s Into the Woods, a book about stories and the five act structure, he describes virtually all stories as being able to be broken down into five acts. Act four is the darkest point of the story, the act where things continue to get worse and worse before the final confrontation, and is defined at the end by the “crisis” point where circumstances could not possibly get any worse. John is approaching his crisis point in TLD and finally reaches it in TFP, after he’s shown being shot at the end (in this episode, the gun goes off less then halfway through and at the end of the episode fades to red).

In TLD, John is also back to the point he was at the beginning of ASIP, or act one –– he’s deeply miserable and lonely, and is isolating himself from the world with presumably as little human contact as possible. John has not solved his own problem yet, which means he’s approaching his darkest point before that change can happen –– and that change will be represented by Sherlock telling him that he loves him back. But before he gets there, it’s fitting that John’s construction of this episode revolves around John being unsure whether or not Sherlock is really is a sociopath and capable of romantic sentiment (“You lie all the time, it’s like your mission.” “He’s not a monster.” “Yeah he is,” and the text from Irene), John reimagines their first night together, when John both first fell in love with him, and when he was warned about Sherlock being a psycopath. “One day we’ll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there,” Sally Donovan says in ASIP. “Not long ago he shot Charles Magnussen in the face, we did see it coming,” John reiterates in TLD.

John’s self-insert in this episode is represented by Eurus. Eurus is one of John’s dark mirrors, is at the heart of everything of the lie of series 4, and is John’s own primary, totally invented plot device. While John was writing the coverup and fallout of Mary’s murder, the story was mostly done and complete, but when something happened to John at the end of TLD, he suddenly had to invent a third episode that had nothing to do with the character arcs of the first two episodes –– TFP is a false catharsis of character arcs, plot points, and thematic threads, and is completely contrary to everything the show has done up to this point. It’s totally imagined by John –– so in a butcher job, in a rush to fit in Eurus where she doesn’t belong to make a third story happen and cover up what actually happened at the end of TLD, John had to use her as a plot device and slip her in somehow in TST and TLD to make sure she was there all along, all along. In TST, John writes Eurus in place of his invented cheating storyline, which was 1) covering up his communication with Sherlock, working together to take Mary down at the end of the episode, 2) sublimating his emotional cheating on Mary with Sherlock, because John tried to fuck Sherlock in every episode of series 3, and 3) done to make John look like the middle age crisis husband who took his perfect wife for granted before her tragic death, which he obviously had no involvement in, how dare you say that. In TLD, Eurus somehow obtains Faith Smith’s private note, which she hid in her bookshelf from her own father for years, deciphered what it meant, obtained it from a third party, and then added some “deductions” of her own onto the letter in order for Sherlock to find. If you didn’t have fun reading that sentence, please know I didn’t have fun typing that sentence. She also controls everyone in the prison so she was able to just leave and disappear for enough time to both impersonate John’s therapist and Faith Smith before returning to set her magical psychic trap. Eurus’s additions to the letter are also telling in and of themselves –– they’re hidden, subtextual clues on a surface layer text that was planted for someone to find.

In TLD, one of Eurus’s primary functions is to act as John’s self-insert for his first night with Sherlock. One of the ways we can tell this is by her outfit design –– while everything in series 4 is filtered through the color blue, the color representing the false narrative at work and John’s authorship, the color red represents John’s “me-substitute,” as John tells Sherlock in TST.

As @shinka explains in “Something Borrowed, Something Blue”:

The red balloon. Striking touch of red in a season full of cold and blue tones. John the Writer tells the audience that Red is a Me substitute. In others words, if Blue is the color of John’s Fiction, Red is the color of John’s Truth. Which means we can have both blue and red in one scene; as John the writer presents a scene, John as himself appears through the subtext and the narrative.

Eurus is wearing bright red as the bus lady and as Faith Smith. Eurus is John’s own subtextual substitute for himself, appearing in places where his authorship is to be questioned. Of course, also keep in mind throughout looking at the rest of this comparison and contrast, that Sherlock realizes in TLD that Eurus as Faith Smith wasn’t actually there. Bill Wiggins and Mrs. Hudson both point out that nobody’s there. So how do they remark on this and how does Sherlock realize it only to have Eurus appear again at the end of the episode and in TFP, as if she really had been there the entire time? Eurus isn’t there. Eurus is John. Eurus as John as the author, placing a substitute for himself.

John spells it out as he writes Sherlock deducing Eurus as Faith.

“Oh, of course you don’t own a car, you don’t own one, do you, living in isolation, no human contact, no visitors.”

This is something Sherlock doesn’t picture in his recreation of their meeting in TAB. In TLD, John states it in their first conversation to establish where Eurus as Faith is coming from. This is also where John himself is at the beginning of TLD on the surface layer text, and as we continue the comparison, it becomes even more obvious.

Next, Sherlock imagines John asking how Sherlock could know about his army history. John in TAB is less angry about this, as Sherlock immediately proceeds to sharing rooms instead of questioning him. In ASIP, John is frustrated someone was able to see through him right away. In TLD, Eurus angrily replies back at Sherlock, “You can’t know that.” In TAB and ASIP, Stamford didn’t say anything to him in either versions, reinforcing that Sherlock claiming he researched John in TRF was a lie meant to trick John into seeing him as a fraud so he would really think Sherlock is dead be safe from Moriarty’s clutches. This also feeds into John’s own self-loathing, as he thinks that if someone sees him for who he thinks he really is, they wouldn’t like him. If Sherlock is a genius, he must eventually notice that John loves him, and if he doesn’t say anything about it, then Sherlock must not feel the same way back. Even though in TLD, John classifies his relationship with Sherlock as a romantic one, through his self-insert Eurus as Faith.

John as Eurus as Faith is talking about two different things when it comes to Sherlock deducing her failed romantic relationship, something Sherlock doesn’t do in ASIP and has no clue about until TSOT (where he’s surprised at and jealous of John’s history with Sholto). Since this is a recreation of their first night together, John is partially talking about Sholto, but since John is writing this story now and specifically after TRF and Sherlock’s 2 year disappearance, he’s also partially talking about Sherlock. In TLD, Sherlock deduces that “Presumably you downsized” when you left your job and “maybe” when you ended your relationship. John did indeed move (and downsize) after being discharged from the army, and he moved out from the loft after TRF. In both situations, he also left his previous line of work, the army and investigating with Sherlock. The “maybe” on Sherlock’s part, written by John, means a couple of things here; first, that John thinks Sherlock doesn’t consider their own relationship to be romantic, and that Sherlock doesn’t consider himself responsible for ending it, whatever exactly it was, by faking his own death, which is what really happened in reality. Instead, as we later find out through Eurus as Faith’s marks of self harm later, John blames himself for his relationship with Sherlock being a failed one, because he was afraid to be vulnerable with Sherlock and open about himself and what he wants. This is also a remark on his relationship with Sholto, reiterating that John is back where he was in act one, now in act four. He feels he repeated his mistakes with Sholto with Sherlock and hasn’t changed as a person, that nothing will change, and that he feels utterly lost, isolated, and completely hopeless. “There wasn’t anything physical going on, was there?” “For quite some time, in fact.”

In TAB, Sherlock continues his deduction of John without interruption, as John continues staring at him starstruck. In ASIP, John continues to push back against what Sherlock is doing. Soon after in ASIP however, Sherlock recruits John on his case investigating the four serial suicides. Sherlock ironically imagines the lab meeting as the one where he came off seductive, while the one where he John agrees to join him was actually where John plunged in head over heels. It does however, contain the same truth; that Sherlock was right about him, which leaves John scratching his head how Sherlock doesn’t pick up on John loving him, which must mean it isn’t returned. And while Sherlock is aware of that, how John misses the war, and that he enjoys being with Sherlock on his work, he isn’t quite aware of just how much he saved John’s life that night.

In TLD, John writes Eurus as Faith being suicidal. Sherlock deduces that Eurus as Faith is carrying a gun in her bag with no way home, meaning she was planning on killing herself if her meeting with Sherlock didn’t go well. In ASIP, this isn’t quite as obvious, particularly from Sherlock’s own point of view, which is why it isn’t depicted in TAB. That’s why Sherlock literally remembering John walking down the street in ASIP after leaving the crime scene is so completely contradictory; Sherlock had already long left that location. John was on his own. Sherlock has absolutely no way of flashing back to that moment, and its especially obvious because it happens while Sherlock is talking about how Faith as Eurus is suicidal... John is talking about himself. John himself kept a gun in his desk drawer and was considering killing himself, before he met Sherlock and Sherlock completely changed his life, giving him a purpose and a reason to live again, as John ended up instead using the gun on Jeff Hope to save Sherlock’s life, and John no longer needed the cane. Eurus is also carrying a cane here, which Sherlock looks closer at before flashing back to his memory of John he can’t possibly have.

The flashbacks in TST and TLD are indicative of all of this being written from John’s point of view. In TST, after Sherlock discovered the A.G.R.A. stick being hidden in one of the Thatcher statues, he kneels down and picks it up in his hand, as a projector light visual effect appears over the scene and the shot cuts to the stick being held in John’s hand. In the opening scene of TST, a projector with flickering light was used to display doctored footage of a trigger-happy fall-man meant to blame the death on, showing how Norbury was a random person blamed for Mary’s death. There’s no light effect with the flashback in TLD, since the fallman has already been chosen, but instead a distorted moving of the image of John walking down the street alone. Eurus is practically ablaze on screen in her red dress, in Sherlock’s loft and walking throughout central London, carrying a cane of her own. She is John. John is talking about himself through Eurus and Sherlock, having Sherlock pick up on something about John that he didn’t realize in ASIP, as is displayed in absence in TAB.

Continuing in TAB, Sherlock starts to leave the room like he did in ASIP, but John doesn’t push back. In ASIP, John is abrasive with Sherlock about what just happened. This is another display of Sherlock not realizing how cold he can come off, but it’s also a connection to TLD in that John is not willing to let the issue drop, since Eurus continues to ask him about how he deduced her as the night continues. Also in TAB and ASIP, Sherlock talks about the rooms they can share, and judging from how Sherlock immediately brings it up in TAB, compared to how it takes longer in ASIP, we can tell he was intending to seduce John. John was also trying to seduce Sherlock in ASIP –– as he asks him whether or not he has a girlfriend or boyfriend, John remarks that Sherlock is “unattached, like me.” Sherlock panics and shoots him down, saying he’s not interested, even though he very much is. In TLD, John states this rather more obviously, with “Sex” being Eurus’s starting point of conversation. “How did you know I wasn’t getting any?” Sherlock says that he’s not an expert, but assumes that her partner had “failed to notice” her marks of self-harm, indicating that their relationship was no longer intimate. John is talking about Sholto here, or “the most unsociable man he’s ever met”, failing to notice that John was hurting, but still is ultimately placing the blame on himself for not being vulnerable, but also about Sherlock. John writes that Sherlock deducing it came down to how her partner “failed to notice” what was going on. “How do you know he didn’t notice?” Eurus as Faith asks. John thinks Sholto and John didn’t care enough about him to notice.

“Oh, well, ‘cause he would have done something about it.”

“Would he?”

“Wouldn't he? Isn't that what you people do?”

“Well, that's interesting.”

“What is?”

“The way you think.”

“Superbly?”

“Sweetly.”

John is questioning himself a little bit here, partially over how much Sholto and Sherlock returned John’s feelings. Would he? Wouldn’t he? He’s questioning whether they would have even done anything if they’d noticed John’s feelings at all. Would he? Wouldn’t he?

Sherlock arrives at this conclusion through logical means, beating around the bush of the human element, but John as Eurus as Faith loves it, which is how he fell in love with Sherlock their first night together, by learning to see the great heart behind the brain. John will go back and forth on whether or not Sherlock is a sociopath throughout the rest of the episode, and while John concludes that Sherlock is flawed like any human, he’s never able to fully answer the question of whether or not Sherlock is capable of romantic feeling.

We know that John is still unsure of this the next episode, because TFP is structured around John interrogating the possibility of how Sherlock ended up the way that he did (similar to inserting Eurus into these stories last minute where it doesn’t make sense –– why was Eurus flirting with John important to her plan? And how did she get the note from Faith to begin with? –– John also hastily inserts Sherlock having recurring dreams about Redbeard in the middle of both episodes). This is where John, through his substitute, poses the question: would he? Wouldn’t he?

In TAB vs. ASIP again, dream John is compliant (while ignorant of Sherock’s true feelings and intent), while John pushes against Sherlock one last time (also, ironically, ignorant of Sherlock’s true feelings and intent). How could he know everything about him? How could he see through him so clearly? “We don't know a thing about each other; I don't know where we're meeting; I don't even know your name.” But even though they’d just met, both John and Sherlock saved each other from killing themselves that night. John was considering shooting himself, while Sherlock, in the midst of a drug bust at his loft while feeling utterly embarassed and exposed in front of John (“This guy? A junkie? Have you met him?”), willingly took a ride with the cabbie, knowing he was heading to his own suicide. Both ASIP and TFP contain multiple references to suicide, and John’s gun in his desk drawer is shown in an episode with a case about suicide.

But John doesn’t let that happen. By using his own gun he was going to use later, John is able to save both of their lives, and John recreates this in the episode again by having him save Sherlock from Culverton –– but as he’s approaching his crisis point in act four, John is feeling suicidal again. 

“Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.”

“You were gonna take that damned pill, weren’t you?”

As Sherlock is repeating to John as Eurus, keep your hands off it, Sherlock experiences an image of a gun going off, the gun in the opening, at the beginning of the episode hovering over John, and the gun that Eurus shoots John with at the end of the episode before fading to red. Eurus is John’s substitute (including a shot of the London Aquarium, where Mary’s death was covered up). The gun goes off, with a bright flash and loud bang as Sherlock is talking about John as Eurus being suicidal.

John shot himself at the end of TLD.

Somehow behind the true events of series 4, John is trying to communicate to us that he committed suicide. John’s authorial substitute, the subtextual red herring that was laced throughout series 4, shot him. John is telling the audience that he’s tried to kill himself. Unlike ASIP, he was not able to escape his own Samarra. It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing. We need to decide which way you’re going to fall. Would he? Wouldn’t he? The same scenario is repeated as John approaches his crisis point.

Though John is committing suicide through the subtextual narrative of series 4, and thus bringing about the death of the show, it isn’t a real death –– it was a faked one. 

In TFP, John writes a scene with the three Garridebs brothers being hung from a couple of ropes, making it look like a suicide when it was a murder attempt (see here for context on what “Garridebs” is about). In an episode that was titled “The Final Problem” precisely because it was not the real final problem, the Garridebs moment in TFP is not the real one. John shooting himself is the third Garridebs moment –– the Garridebs wound was self-inflicted. Sherlock is utterly oblivious to this in TAB. John thinks he failed to notice. John thinks he failed to notice “the big one” deduction on Eurus as Faith’s note. That’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note. Would he have done something? Wouldn’t he have?

“Taking our own life –– interesting expression. Taking it from who?”

Yes, he would have... but John doesn’t know the answer. He doesn’t know how much Sherlock loves him –– and he’s finally going to know in series 5.

Before John is shot by his substitute, he wonders again if his love for Sherlock is one-sided, and whether or not Sherlock fell in love with him too, that first night when they met and saved each other’s lives, sitting under the pink glow of Angelo’s restaurant. Or, if Sherlock even noticed John liked him at all.

“I spent a whole evening with her. We had chips. I think she liked me.”

“We spent a whole night together. It was lovely. We had chips.”

But the reality is that Sherlock does love him –– if he’s failed to notice anything, it’s because of his emotional repression and fears of vulnerability, and the two of them both failing (especially on Sherlock’s end, given he’s aware of John’s feelings) to communicate with each other openly about how they feel. It’s not about either of them being solely responsible for ending the relationship, like John is so eager to assign blame to himself. They’re both idiots.

In TAB, Sherlock leaves his meeting John with a wink and a smile. “Shall I, um ...? Smile and wink. I do that sometimes. I’ve no idea why. People seem to like it –– humanizes me,” Sherlock says in MHR. Sherlock thought he was being obvious about his seduction in ASIP, and was even more blatant about it in reconstructing it in TAB.

John, however, remains unsure, and continues to deny himself.

[yeah-oh-shit]

so im still trying to figure out wtf dracula was all about and if there is a deeper meaning at all. i compiled a list of all my observations - especially places where it might relate to sherlock, things that seem odd/out of place, important thematic moments, anything that is unexplained. idk if i will come back to this to try to piece it together more, but i needed to get it all down so i could look at it in its wholeness. in case you are interested, here is my commentary, any “points of interest,” i found, below the cut. 

episode 1:

vampirism is a contagion, sister agatha asks harker if he had “sexual intercourse” with dracula right away - aids

flies everywhere, on windows, the camera lens, one flies into harker’s eye

why did dracula let himself become such an old man? no one good to eat? (i’ve been telling everyone for years that you are what you eat)

story told by harker w/sister agatha interviewing him, almost leading him on

harker’s written account is unreliable

woman in disguise - mina (reminds me of mary)

rainbow lighting

spiral candles match spiral bedpost

sister agatha mentions a “point of interest”

dracula calls jonathan johnny (john mirror?)

inconsistencies: picture of mina changes from right to left, harker says no one calls him johnny (but mina later shows that she does - johnny blue eyes)

THERE IS NO BABY

dates - 12th, 19th, and 29th (!!)

scene very similar to the fall - “you are me,” dracula tries to get harker on his side but harker refuses

dracula says he will “destroy everyone and everything you love” in england

harker is found by sailors and said to be a drowned man walking/talking after he falls from castle dracula

lots of queer coding and it’s during the parts where dracula is shown as the most monstrous and coercive

sister agatha taunts dracula, calls him a beast (rules of the beast), he is indeed shown as beastly

dracula licks a knife in a suggestive way (moriarty)

inviting dracula in leads to death

harker doesn’t remember what happened to him (doesn’t know he is dead)

harker doesn’t know what mina’s face looks like

mina says a line much like mary’s (“i decide who you are”)

sister agatha mentions having a detective acquaintance in london (!!)

dracula is an old man for most of the episode, doesn’t come off as flirty or sexy to me, just seems coercive, controlling, and creepy. we barely get any time w/harker and dracula together, doesn’t seem like they have much chemistry

jonathan in and out of dream, weakened, coerced

he keeps going deeper into the castle and eventually discovers dracula’s undead and even dracula’s crypt itself but can’t find the person who wrote him a note

castle is a maze but jonathan discovers the map (hiding behind a portrait, deduces this in a way that makes pretty much no sense)

sun is equated to lover’s face

dracula never seems to lie, just says things in a truthful way that is obfuscated (except for when he knocks the mirror over and claims to being clumsy)

dracula wants to go to england bc he thinks the most cultured and rich people live there (aristocratic bullshit) but it is reinforced so many times that somehow him being choosy has helped him to live a long time .. confusing

episode 2:

starts w/dracula and agatha talking in his castle. dracula talks about how a story has to be interesting from the beginning, the contract between author and reader, “quality of time”

“there’s a game in progress” “a knight is menacing a queen” “whose knight, whose queen?” “Who’s black, who’s white”

ship in a bottle

whole episode takes place on a big ship

sokolov (anderson) is captain (steering the ship)

mind palace/dreaming (sr. agatha and dracula) in castle but actually in room 9 on ship

mr balaur (dragon - dracula) brought all these people together

7 passengers on the ship (unusual, stated multiple times, i don’t think we are ever told significance?)

one sick - captain is only one allowed in

piotr isn’t who he says he is

dracula kills dorabella (very flirty with her) talks about mirrors showing the truth - “one can always find a mirror if one tries” “mirrors are a deeper and more dangerous magic than most people understand. mirrors can give us space to imagine or worse, show us the truth”

“this marriage is a necessary evil”

confirmed gay couple (lord ruthven and adisa) - lord ruthven talks about sleeping with his wife in front of adisa constantly (cruel), adisa is disguised as a servant, adisa seems to really love ruthven

many people jump ship when everyone starts dying

lord ruthven is both very gay and very mean - and into dracula

dracula and agatha play chess

“the purpose of an alias seems to have alluded you” (mr. balaur means dragon means dracula, a disguise is “always a self portrait”)

dracula says he is choosy (so does agatha) but also recognizes that he is an addict (agatha’s word)  - claims to be choosy and to be like everything in same breath

dracula called a beast, acts very animal around blood - can’t control himself

agatha loses time during chess, notices dracula is winning now, is also drinking blood out of a glass

he tells her to “forget about the chess and concentrate on the game”

dracula frames agatha, almost kills her via hanging (despite trying to “savor” her)

sister agatha claims she is a vampire and then tries to prove dracula is one

lord ruthven wants to be “partners” with dracula

somehow dracula appears out of nowhere in the cabin of dr. sharma

vampire’s kiss is an opiate - makes people dream

emphasis on the fact that the daughter can see (eyes!), her father has a scar over his right eye

dracula flirts with everyone

no one suspects dracula even though its really obvious it is him?? he is being hella suspicious?

daughter (who sees dracula killing) doesn’t tell anyone, later kills herself by drinking a potion to avoid becoming infected

sister agatha is infected/dying, losing fingernails (like harker)

dracula will die without his soil

captain sokolov stays behind in ship w/agatha, piotr and cook escape

agatha discovers extra soil in dracula’s bed, realizes the fire didn’t kill him

dracula attacks sokolov but somehow he doesn’t die and can’t walk even though his wound is in his neck but still is able to DRAG himself?

dracula explains fear of cross as fear of oppression that he has inherited from eating peasants (but he is very choosy with his diet?)

ship sinks, sister agatha dies (implied, which is confusing bc harker also goes into the sea and doesn’t die.. maybe it has to do with the fact that she doesn’t have any soil? but neither did harker? vampire lore seems convoluted and confusing) dracula finds his soil (in the water)

dracula wakes up, goes ashore, its modern day and helicopters, a spot light, police cars, and modern day sister agatha greet him

episode 3:

weird vibe generally.. almost reminds me of tfp w/lighting and how it feels so off from the rest

dracula shows us that what he sees in the mirror is who he truly is (at least that is what is implied) an old ugly man

dracula is weird and kinda cute when he is amazed by modern times

we learn that agatha apparently died even though she was just in water and harker survived and was a “drowned man walking and talking” ?

jack (another john mirror?) is in love with lucy, there are a lot of scenes in a club ?, lucy gets engaged to a texan named quincy (who was apparently a main character in the original book and is an asshole in this). all these characters kind of suck

jonathan harker keeps calling jack, we are supposed to think he saved the jonathan harker foundation’s phone number in his phone as just “jonathan harker”? seems weird

jonathan harker  foundation was started by mina, supported by agatha’s family

lots of allusions to jonathan harker foundation getting money from a “bad” source - too much money to just be about science

mercenaries - one has a tattoo like assassin in sherlock

there is a moving clock on the floor of dracula’s cell/cage

dracula asks why he has a toilet when he is a vampire and we never get an answer

dracula’s cage looks like silence of the lambs (like A LOT)

blood is LIVES, dracula helps zoe get a sample of his blood by cutting his wrist with his fingernail - tells her “you have everything you need to know” when she takes his blood (dracula tells zoe, she drinks his blood)

“women don’t have rights, no one has rights” “dracula has rights” ???

zoe starts hallucinating/communicating w/agatha

zoe is agatha’s great niece apparently

dracula does a weird deduction thing about people from smelling or tasting their blood

dracula can’t drink zoe’s blood bc she has cancer and he can’t drink blood of the dying (which seems weird but ok)

renfield (mark) is dracula’s lawyer and seems to become obsessed with him

dracula identifies as a “warlord”

renfield is helping dracula w/“world domination”

dracula is on dating apps, renfield tries to find him people to eat, but he seems dissatisfied

dracula works out (like mycroft)

dracula (d) texts lucy uses vampire emoji

lots of gay/bi/purple lighting

dracula becomes obsessed w/lucy bc she is not afraid of him (or anything) and seems “almost in love with death”

lucy is shown as shallow and obsessed with her looks, but also seems to not like always being seen/watched bc she is beautiful

dracula and lucy are meeting up and she is letting him drink her blood

they meet up and he talks about liking having her “consent” because no one has ever given it before, but also says that it doesn’t really matter and that he doesn’t love her and will never love her

lucy likes the dreams dracula gives her - no one can see her

9 graves of undead

dracula tells lucy not to be cremated because its painful

“boofer lady”- beautiful lady - undead child follows lucy home

renfield sits in a car during their meeting and eats a fly

dracula kills lucy so she can become a vampire, she can’t move but the mirror shows that she is still alive?

we see dracula’s old man face in the mirror multiple times

lucy is burned, and for some reason keeps seeing herself as beautiful in mirrors

agatha (in zoe’s head) talks about the money coming from a bad place again but says she “can’t see it” because zoe doesn’t like to think about it

lucy, jack, zoe, and dracula all meet in dracula’s house

lucy flirts w/jack and he seems disgusted, they force her to take a selfie and see herself as she really is

lucy freaks the fuck out about being ugly and burned and seems to be more obsessed with her beauty after dying which is weird because she seemed to be almost bitter about it when she was alive (didn’t care about or fear anything)

dracula says she will always be burned (why? jonathan survived being drowned, etc. dracula survived fire?) and that he doesn’t care

jack says he will always want to kiss her (even though he was just freaked out by her like 20 seconds ago) kisses her and kills her (at her request)

dracula seems unfazed? even though she was his “greatest bride” ?

zoe has been taken over by agatha? and realizes what the one thing is that dracula fears (the thing that ties together the sun, cross, and needing an invitation - apparently the soil thing doesn’t matter anymore..)

“only one thing in this world you are truly afraid of” - she knows, he doesn’t

he cannot bear to look in a mirror, won’t stand revealed in the sun, needs an invitation to come in - not real things, he has internalized the legends

zoe/agatha says that he was a warrior and so was his entire family (all his relatives, father, brothers, sons, were war heroes who died on the battlefield but not him)

he is the warlord who “skulks in the shadows and steals the lives of others”  and is “unwelcome everywhere” “sleeps in a box of dirt but dreams of a warriors grave”

he fears death the most - the cross represents going willingly to death to him, somehow the sun represents this too? (possibly he is afraid to seeing himself/the truth, same as the mirror)

it is never explained how the invitation thing is tied in.. assuming its because he feels “unwelcome everywhere” ?

she pulls the curtain and he doesn’t burn in the sun, shows him it was his fear of death and his shame all along

can’t conquer death until you face it without fear - “the game is over, you lose, you will live forever in shame”

dracula steps into sun, faces his shame

he faces his fear of death by drinking agatha’s blood, thus dying by suicide (which we were already told vampires can’t do)

gross fiery sex scene with agatha and dracula, he gives her a dream so she will have a nice death

“after all this time did you think I’d let it hurt?” ???

they are in a burning sun and are naked together in a circle, we see dracula’s butt again

it ends with the sun

[ebaeschnbliah]

SCANDINAVIAN  REFERENCES

________________________________________________________________

In Sherlock BBC - and also a little bit outside of it 

While writing on DISTRACTION & CONSEQUENCES and CABIN ON THE MEADOW, involving Phil with his ‘explosive’ car and the Hiker with the bashed-in head, I couldn’t fail to notice that Phil’s unmoving car is a SAAB … which is a Swedish brand. 

According to the informations given during the promotion campaingn for the Escapre Room, TheGameIsNow, Sherlock lives currently in Sweden. Since these aren’t the only occasions where Scandinavian regions are mentioned in Sherlock BBC, the suspicion inevitably arose that those references could be of some importance. Reason enough to make another little list. :)

TBC below the cut ….

Short definition of Scandinavia

The term Scandinavia in local usage covers the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. 

In English usage, Scandinavia also sometimes refers to the Scandinavian Peninsula, or to the broader region including Finland and Iceland.  x

A Scandal in Belgravia

As mentioned above, Phil’s immobile car, which ‘explodes’ and thus distracts the Hiker who, as a consequence, is killed by his own boomerang, is of the Swedish brand SAAB. 

The Empty Hearse

Mr. Howard Shilcott, the ‘train guy (and mirror for Sherlock), possesses important informations about the Underground station at Sumatra Road, which once was built but then closed before it ever opened. He wears a ‘funny hat with earflaps’ made of Islandic sheep wool. That hat becomes an object of significance when Sherlock invites his brother to play deductions with him, just like in the old days.

MYCROFT: The earlier patches are extensively sun-bleached, so he’s worn it abroad – in Peru. SHERLOCK: Peru? MYCROFT: This is a chullo – the classic headgear of the Andes. It’s made of alpaca. SHERLOCK: No. MYCROFT: No? SHERLOCK: Icelandic sheep wool. Similar, but very distinctive if you know what you’re looking for. I’ve written a blog on the varying tensile strengths of different natural fibres.

His Last Vow

The main villain of this episode is designed after Doyle’s British character Charles Augustus Milverton. For some reason, in this adaptation, name and origin of the man have been changed into Charles Augustus Magnussen, who is now from Denmark. The fact that he is ‘foreign’ is driven home explicitly right at the beginning of the episode by the dialogue as well as the accent of the man, who is played by Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen.

GARVIE: Do you think it right that a newspaper proprietor, a private individual and, in fact, a foreign national should have such regular access to our Prime Minister? MAGNUSSEN: I don’t think it’s wrong that a private individual should accept an invitation. However, you have my sincere apologies for being foreign.

The Six Thatchers

Mr. Kingsley, a client, thinks that Sherlock’s deductions, once explained, are actually dead simple. Highly annoyed, Sherlock spontaneously invents a ludicrous story and tells the shocked man that his wife is actually Greta Bengtsdotter, Swedish by birth and the most dangerous spy in the world. She secretly works for none other than James Moriarty and uses her unsuspecting husband as cover to hide her true intentions which will finally precipitate in World War III. 

The first location Mary visits on her hiatus is Norddal in Norway. That’s a small place (ca. 1660 inhabitants) deep inside the Storfjord. Here she picks up a fake passport hidden inside the stonewall of a coastal watchtower. Her new name, Gabrielle Ashdown, is taken from TPLOSH, where Holmes chooses the pseudonym ‘Mr. and Mrs. Ashdown’ for himself and Gabrielle Valladon, the woman who consulted him in the case of her missing husband but is actually Ilse von Hofmannsthal, a German spy who pretends to be Mrs. Valladon. 

The Final Problem

One of the very last scenes of this episode shows a man dressed as Viking, including the (cliched) horned helmet. He lies motionless on the floor in the livingroom of 221b Baker Street (played by Paul Weller). John bends over him and examines his left eye. 

Vikings were highly skilled Norse seafarers who raided and pillaged (like pirates) with their infamous longboats (also well known as dragonboats). They acted as mercenaries but also as merchants, who traded goods across wide areas of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, European Russia and the North Atlantic islands. Some of them even reached the North-Eastern coast of North America. (X)

That Viking is not the only character in this story who ‘wears horns’. Furthermore, cow horns are also connected to the eye-goddess Hathor, whose other, dangerous side is represented by lioness goddess Sekhmet.

The way this Viking lays there … one leg sharply angled at the knee, the foot shoved beneath the other, outstretched leg and both arms straight beside his torso … it’s a bit odd and strangely reminds me of the ‘dancing men’ drawn on the blackboard in the shot displayed immediately before this one. It almost looks like the way this man lies there could have some meaning. 

And something else comes to mind: the way John bends over the Viking stunningly resembles the scene from Magnussen’s office in HLV, when Sherlock got shot by Mary. One could even say, there are three potential ‘pirates’ gathered in Magnusson’s bedroom in that scene ... Sherlock, John and ‘Viking descendent’ Magnussen. Interesting ...

The Game is Now - Escape Room Promotion

With the cliffhanger of The Final Problem in mind and still no official announcement regarding a fifth series on the horizon, one could come to the assumption that the ‘TheGameIsNow- EscapeRoom’ event serves as a sort of interlude and somehow resembles a ‘SherlockBBC-Hiatus’ (hopefully). Isn’t it interesting that here too, Scandinavia seems to play a role?

During the conversation with Mycroft, in the intercepted message Nr 1, Sherlock mentions that he currently is in Sweden. 

During the intercepted message Nr 2 a map of Scandinavia is shown in the background with informations regarding its natural recources: iron ore, copper, zinc, gold, IKEA and uranium. 

Additionally Mycroft confirms a second time where his brother might be found at the moment: ‘Missing, rumoured to be in Sweden’ is written below a picture of Sherlock, kept in black and white, but temporarily overlaid with pink and green  (Study in Pink and Green)

Scandinavian canon reference regarding the ‘hiatus’

In Doyle’s original story The Empty House, Sherlock Holmes tells Dr. Watson after their reunion that, for some time during his hiatus, he had stayed in Norway under a fake identity. 

“You may have read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend.” (ACD, The Empty House)

Using Sherlock’s own words from The Great Game, one could say that, by now, the story told in Sherlock BBC as well as the EscapeRoom event have a …  ‘distinctly Scandinavian feeling about it’.  :)

Some Scandinavian side notes outside Sherlock BBC

Not Sherlock related. Should be taken with caution and humor: 

Radio Times, November 2018:  Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss reveale that Danish actor Claes Bang will be playing Dracula in their new series. ‘Hell has a new boss’ says the headline. Strictly speaking, the boss in Hell is generally considered to be the Devil (maybe also his grandma :) but surely not Dracula, who is after all just a human who desired immortal strength to protect and revenge the ones whom he loved. At least, that’s the story told in ….

Dracula Untold  (2014) -  some quotes:

"One day I will call on you to serve me in an immortal game of revenge … to unleash my wrath against the one who betrayed me."

“This is not a game!”

"Oh, what better way to endure eternity. For this, is the ultimate game. Light versus dark, hope versus despair. And all the world's fate hangs into the balance." 

Vlad Dracula meets his creator         Let the games begin

“You want me to shake hands with you in Hell? I shall not disappoint you.“  (Sherlock at Jim Moriarty, TRF)

How Dracula BBC came into being

“It came about several years ago,” Gatiss said. “We were filming  — we’d just started the third series of Sherlock, where he comes back from the dead, and we had to break off after two days to go to the RTS Awards (March, 2013) and I had a picture on my phone of Benedict silhouetted against the door of Mrs Hudson’s room. I showed it to Ben Stephenson, who was then the Head of Drama [at the BBC], and I said, ‘Looks like Dracula’. And he said, ‘Do you want to do it?'”  (RadioTimes, April 2019)

“We’re gonna go all Dane“

The same article from RadioTimes, contains an interview with Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. When asked about their upcomming mini-series ‘Dracula’, if there will be more ‘homegrown talents’ among the cast, the producers answered the question in their most familiar way - with lots of laughter and giggling - obviously taking much pleasure in the announcement of their new ‘informations’.

“No, no ..., it’s strictly Dane from now on. We're only casting over Denmark. I don’t think Denmark’s being sufficiently represented and so we’re gonna go all Dane.”  

Strictly Danes …. well, well …. I’m more curious than ever ... and extremely exited!  :))))  

On Scandinavian name-giving tradition

It is a well known custom in Scandinavian regions to create personal names based on the given name of one’s father, grandfather or male ancestor by adding the ending -son/-sen/-søn or -dotter/-dottir/-dattir. This is called a patronymic (while the same method based on the mother’s name is called matronymic). A good example for this in Sherlock BBC is the character Charles Augustus Magnussen …. Magnus-sen = son of Magnus. 

This kind of Scandinavian name-giving tradition is based entirely on first names. Just assuming though, this method would also be applied to last names, then ... a female descendent of someone with the family name ‘Bang’ could be named ... ‘Bangsdotter’. :)))

A last funny detail:  the subtitles for Sherlock BBC, Series 4 (British Edition), display the name of the famous Swedish spy, Sherlock invents in TST, as Greta Bengsdotter. The correct spelling of the first name of Greta’s father (used here as patronymic) isn’t Beng though …. but Bengt.

Bengt (female, Bengta) is the Swedish equivalent of … Benedict.   :)))

As I said above ... to be taken with caution and humor.  :)))))

Thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts.    Related post by @tendergingergirl

Mai 2019

[inevitably-johnlocked]

TOP 25 BOOKMARKS of 2019

See also: Top 20 Bookmarks of 2018

Hey guys! 

Since this is the last Fic Rec Sunday of the year, I’m going to give y’all the list of my favourite fics that I’ve read this year! I think this is a great way to end off the year, by letting y’all know what I thoroughly enjoyed reading while on my seemingly-never-ending quest to rec you guys the stuff y’all should read! <3 

And of course, I am reducing it to a small list or I will NEVER finish reccing fics because everything I’ve read this year have been fantastic, but these are the ones I’ve found myself going back to a couple times already :)

Hope y’all enjoy! 

------

JOHNLOCK BOOKMARKS

The Burning of the Leaves by blueink3 (M, 15,915 w., 3 Ch. || Post S4, Angst, Reichenbach, Parentlock, Past Jolto, Idiot John, Sherlock’s a Mess, Puppies, Fluff, Possessive / Jealous Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock POV, Matchmaker Sholto, Melancholic Feelings, Emotional Sherlock, Domesticity, Love Confessions in the Rain, Kissing in the Rain, Pet Names, Panic Attack) – After the events of series 4, Major Sholto invites John and Sherlock to lunch one day. It nearly proves to be too much for their tenuous relationship as the past haunts the present, putting the future that Sherlock so desperately wants at risk.

The Palmyra Atoll by elwinglyre (E, 16,609 w., 3 Ch. || TSo3 Divergence / Episode Fix-It, Stockholm Syndrome, Kidnapped John Watson, John Whump, Evil Mary, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Toplock, Limited 3rd John POV) – As John's preparing for the wedding, Sherlock is preparing to have his heart broken, and Mary is prepared to do the unthinkable. Intervention required. Enter Sherlock. Set before Sign of Three with a far different outcome. John is drugged, kidnapped, and left on an island, but not just any old island.

Wonderful, Etcetera. by VictoryCandescence (T, 16,955 w., 3 Ch. || Wonderful Life AU || Alternate Timelines, Brotherhood, Homophobia, Suicidal Ideations, Mentions of Drug Use, Friendship, Different TRF, Sherlock’s Past, Victor Trevor is Past Boyfriend, Depression, Hallucination?, Love Confessions, Christmas, First Kiss) – Sherlock thinks everyone would be better off if he had never existed, including and especially himself. When he finds himself in a world in which his wish has been granted, he begins to think perhaps even he could be wrong – but it takes an unlikely chaperone to make him not only observe, but understand.

The Kepler Problem by kinklock (E, 24,270 w., 1 Ch. || Sci-Fi AU, Alien Sherlock, Space Repairman John, Alien Biology, Horny John) – Working in uncharted space exploration was not as exciting as John had hoped, especially when it turned out to be mostly bot maintenance on uninhabited planets. However, the mystery of the repeated, unexplained malfunctions on planet BAK 2212 might turn out to be exactly the kind of adventure he'd been craving.

A Home for Us by sussexbound (M, 30,581 w., 12 Ch. || Scars, Bedsharing, Grief, Doctor John, Hurt/Comfort, Post-TRF, Implied/Referenced Torture, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation, Heavy Emotions, Clingy Sherlock, Hallucinations, Disassociation, Emotional Turmoil) – He has been on the road for two years, and he is exhausted. He’s almost accepted that he will never see London (John) again—almost. But then there are nights like tonight, where he is weak, and all he can think of is the warmth of the flat they once shared, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the teasing smile playing at the corner of John’s lips, the boxes of half-eaten Chinese takeaway balanced precariously in their laps. He aches at the memory of it, at the realisation that it is something he may never experience again.

Chaperones by MissDavis (T, 34,114 w., 7 Ch. || 11 Years Post-S4, Fake Relationship, Parentlock, Disney World, Bed / Room Sharing, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, First Kiss, Obsessive Sherlock, Insecure John) – Right. Of course. Everyone assumed they were a couple and no one would question it. John put his elbows up on the table so he could rest his head in his hands. "You want to pretend to be a couple so we can chaperone a trip to Disney World with Rosie's class and you won't have to share a room with a stranger?" "Exactly." Sherlock beamed at him. "Don't worry about the cost. The Birmingham case last month paid more than enough to cover expenses for all three of us."

Only To Be With You by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John (M, 40,768 w., 4 Ch. || Black Mirror / Future AU || Character Death, Future Technology, Sickness/Cancer/Illness, Heavy Angst with Happy Ending, First Person POV John, Pining John, Heart-Wrenching Angst) – I tell myself that next time I’ll come near this same place again. Wait around for the mysterious stranger in his coat to dash past me, hot on the heels of a new criminal in black. I think this all the way back to my Exit, planning where I’ll wait and what I’ll say when I see him. Scheming on how to get his name. It’s only once I reach the Exit Point door that I realize two hours and forty-five minutes have passed, and I realize that this won’t be the last time I Visit. It won’t be the last time at all.

A Hundred Crimson Sols by elldotsee (E, 55,536 w., 16 Ch. || Astronauts AU || Mars Exploration / Space Travel, Slow Burn, Shy Sherlock, Scientist Sherlock / Biomed Engineer John, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, UST, Angst with Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injuries, Suicidal Ideation, Zero-G Sex) – Will Holmes is a chemical researcher recognized widely for his contributions to the new Mars exploration program. Thanks to his ground-breaking developments, the IMMC (International Mars Mission Corporation) is one step closer to Martian colonization. Will and his team of scientists are headed out on the first of three manned missions before the first group of settlers arrive. Three days before launch, one of the crew has to be replaced. Will panics because...new people. The replacement is of course one John Watson, biomedical engineer and space hottie who was pretty sure he had retired from actual space exploration and was now content to work in the nice, quiet research lab. Can the crew survive this TOTALLY ROUTINE trip? Will they be able to endure each other for the looooooong trip in close quarters? Gonna be a wild ride... prepare for blast off. Part 1 of SpaceBois go to Space

White Knight by DiscordantWords (M, 69,840 w., 13 Ch. || S4 Compliant/Post S4, Marriage For a Case, Jealous John, Pining John, Janine / Sherlock Fake Relationship, Serial Killers, Case Fic, Undercover as a Couple, Weddings, John is a Mess, Misunderstandings, Wedding Planning, Jealousy, Drunkenness, Love Confessions, Angst with Happy Ending) – Green. The word green was used to convey a great many things. Illness. Envy. Inexperience. Standing there amidst Janine's chattering bridesmaids, watching Sherlock furrow his brow and study fabric swatches, watching him smile and simper and flirt, John thought it a remarkably apt colour choice. Because he felt quite sick to his stomach, he feared the source of said sickness might very well be jealousy, and he had absolutely no idea at all what to do about it. Or: Sherlock needs to fake a relationship for a case. He doesn't ask John.

Being John Watson-ish by elwinglyre (E, 69,902 w., 17 Ch. || Bodysnatcher AU || Author John, Cranky Sherlock, Angst, Sexual Tension, First Kiss / Time, Falling in Love, BAMF John, Past Soldier John, Feelings, Inside Someone’s Brain, Shy Sherlock, Sherlock Loves John, POV Sherlock, Switchlock, Slow Burn, Internal Dialogue, Mental Turmoil) – When consulting detective Sherlock Holmes steps on one toe too many at a crime scene, he's consigned to a desk job in an archaic office on the seventh-and-a-half floor of the New Scotland Yard. It’s in this bleak office that Sherlock discovers a portal into the mind of renowned author John Watson. Grander than his mind palace, this new wonderland affords Sherlock new vistas of experimentation. To learn more about the mystery behind the portal, Sherlock seeks out and befriends Watson. But then it all goes wrong when others find the secret portal door—including the man whose brain he visits.

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal, Autistic Sherlock) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (CanadaHolm) (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him

A Further Sea by i_ship_an_armada & ShinySherlock (E, 125,492 w., 23 Ch. || Historical Pirates AU || Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Doctor John / Pirate Captain Sherlock, Sailing, UST / RST, Masturbation, Action / Adventure, Mild Angst & Peril, Romance, Shaving, Molly/Janine, Bottomlock, Hand / Blow Jobs, Past Drug Use, Slow Burn, Mild Violence, Happy Ending) – Here be a tale of adventure for both body and soul, but beware if ye be not of stout heart, for this be piratelock, ya savvy? Luckless ship's surgeon John Watson takes a chance, and finds himself eye to eye with The Ghost, the scourge of the seven seas and a definite thorn in the side of the blaggard, James Moriarty. But when John finds there's more to this most cunning pirate than be meetin' the eye, he has to choose... is it a pirate's life for him?

The Adventure of the Silver Scars by tangledblue (NR [M], 142,458 w., 41 Ch. || S3 Fix-It, Post-HLV/ Post-TAB / Canon Compliant, Case Fic, No Baby, Angst, Humour, UST, Slow Burn, Angry John, Reconciliation, Not Nice Mary / Leaving Mary, Dependent Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Caretaker John, Fist Fights, It’s An Experiment, Virgin Sherlock, Dancing, Drugging, John Whump, Pet Names, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Scars) – It’s been thirteen months since Mary shot Sherlock and John finds he’s still pissed off about it. Sherlock had thought everything was settled: John and Mary, domestic bliss. But when John turns up at Baker Street with suitcases, the world’s only consulting detective might not be prepared for the consequences. A new case. Some old scores to settle. Certain danger. Concertos, waltzes, and whisky.

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

GOOD OMENS

you can dance in a hurricane, but only if you're standing in the eye by be_brave13 (G, 1,456 w., 1 Ch. || Non-Linear Narrative, Light Angst, 6000 Years of Pining / Slow Burn, POV Crowley, 5 and Ones, Idiots in Love, Song Fic) – 5 times Crowley knew he loved Aziraphale and the 1 time he knew Aziraphale loved him back (romantically).

Where Heaven Begins by sussexbound (M, 2,515 w., 1 Ch. || Pining Crowley, Soft Idiots, Emotional Love Making, Hurt/Comfort, Crowley Has Healing Powers, Kissing, Bed Sharing, Crowley POV) – Aziraphale bleeds. Is bleeding. He’s wearing human skin, after all.

In the (Second) Beginning by cherryfeather (M, 2,661 w., 1 Ch. || Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Confessions, Soft Crowley, POV Aziraphale, Post-Canon, First Kiss, Wings) – Aziraphale realizes that Crowley's been saying something rather loudly for a week.

The Picnic; or, the Drawbacks of Loving an Angel by sorrowfulcheese (G, 3,776 w., 1 Ch. || Post-Apocalypse/Canon, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Misunderstandings, Moving On, Picnicking, Idiots in Love, Crowley POV, Cranky Crowley, Mutual Pining, Light Angst with Happy Ending) – Aziraphale lures Crowley out for a picnic. It doesn't go remarkably well.

The slowest moving object in the universe by chamyl (G, 4,996 w., 1 Ch. || God POV, Mutual Pining, Idiots in Love, Beach Day, Games, Light Humour, Tenderness, Embarassed Crowley, Soft Idiots, First Kiss, Love Confessions) – Crowley and Aziraphale have had feelings for each other for a very long time. It takes a date at the lake and a round of 36 Questions That Lead To Love to give them the final push.

a garden all their own by leaveanote (T, 5,436 w., 1 Ch. || Post Canon, POV Crowley, Emotional Turmoil, Aziraphale Takes Care of Crowley, Crying, Nightmares, Love Confessions, First Kiss, Heart Wrenching Pining, Pining Crowley, Wings, Tired Crowley, Romance, Healing, Massage, Light Angst with Happy Ending) – The aftermath. An exhaustion deeper than body. A secret too heavy to carry when when grief burned so close. Crowley has to tell him. "What am I to you?" A saving thing, an agony, a binary star, tenderness, an unhealed wound, a home, a home, a garden. Come to me, we'll heal together.

i want to hold your hand (goddammit) by PersephonesReign (E, 7,695 w., 5 Ch. || Crowley POV, Pining Crowley, Emotional Turmoil, Slow Burn, Soft Crowley, Angst and Fluff, Love Confessions, Nervous / Anxious Crowley, First Kiss/Time, URT, Wing Kink, Anal, Top Aziraphale / Bottom Crowley, Hand Holding) – Crowley just wants to hold Aziraphale's hand. What's so difficult about that?

A Brief History of Touch by chamyl (E, 11,849 w., 1 Ch. || Moments in Time, First Kiss/Time, Heavy Mutual Pining, Romance, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Masturbation, Almost Kiss, Touch-Starved Crowley, Angst With Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Blow Jobs, Emotional Love Making, Friends to Lovers, Body Worship, Promise of Forever With a Ring) – Six thousand years of pining, stolen glances, almost-touches, plummeting towards the inevitable end.

The Nice and Accurate Love Story of A. J. Crowley and A. Z. Fell by SealandRocks (E, 16,353 w., 1 Ch. || Pining Crowley, Implied Mutual Pining, Emotional Love Making, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, POV Crowley, Jealous Crowley, Crowley’s Plants, Kissing as Healing, Moments in Time, The Arrangement, Love Confessions, Bottom Crowley, Gentle Aziraphale, Slow Burn, Falling in Love, Crowley is Bad at Feelings, First Kiss/Time, Anal Sex / Fingering, Wings / Wing Kink, Porn With Plot, Praise Kink, Kissing in the Rain, Symbolism, Historical References) – Crowley and Aziraphale have been dancing around each other since the beginning. From Eden to London, it eventually becomes very hard to avoid the only other immortal around. And after so many centuries, having a physically body becomes a bit uncomfortable. Crowley is left to wonder what it is about Aziraphale that helps ease the ache in his soul. It would only take him 6000 years to figure out that it was rooted in something deeper all along. Part 1 of Love Stories for the Oblivious

Any Way You Want It by LieutenantLiv (M, 27,585 w., 5 Ch. || Holidays, Slow Burn, Fluff, First Time, Eventual Smut, Swimming, Dreams of Dancing, Kissing in the Rain, Self-Esteem Issues, Misunderstandings, Crying Love Confessions, Soft Crowley, Clingy Crowley, Virgin Aziraphale, Romance) – Saving the world is exhausting work. With Heaven and Hell off their backs, it seems as good a time as any for Crowley and Aziraphale to take a proper break. Neither one of them predicts the direction their holiday takes.Who'd have thought that sharing a cottage in Scotland would be quite so romantic?

[juniper-and-lamplight]

Recent Reads - May 19, 2018

Multifandom--Dirk Gently, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, a bit of Star Trek--and a mix of old and new, as usual. I've already recced some of these fics individually, but life's too short not to be effusive about the things you love, so I'm including them here too <3  Recs under the cut...

The Answer to a Question - @a-candle-for-sherlock​ - 22k, T, Holmes/Watson

"These are the stories behind the story we know: what really happened to Watson's marriage, and what made him follow Holmes to Reichenbach; what secrets were hidden in the mountains, and what a dead man wrote to the man he left behind." This fic made me Feel Feelings and also made me (almost) late for work.

To Join These Men in Holy Matrimony - A_Candle_For_Sherlock - 10k, T, Holmes/Watson

"Sherlock Holmes is a contradiction, an enigma, a force; at once the most generous spirit and the most self-contained man I have ever known. I've known more of him, I think, than anyone on earth. Yet for years I'd learned nothing about his boyhood, nor his fears, nor his future hopes, nor his father’s name. I never felt it as a lack until I knew he loved me." A moving story about family, forgiveness, self-acceptance, and historical queer marriages.

The Narrator - candle_beck - 8k, M, Holmes/Watson

"Watson is a degenerate gambler, a reluctant romantic, and the least reliable narrator in the history of the written word." A brief, gritty glimpse of my favorite Victorian disasters.

where the falling angels meet the rising apes - @cosmicoceanfic​ - 26k, T, AU (crossover, Dirk Gently & Discworld)

"A story of Death and the boy who could see him, through the years." In my sadness over finally finishing the Tiffany Aching books, I allowed myself to indulge in Discworld/Dirk Gently fics, and this one was an especially satisfying blend of the two universes. Highlights include Dirk & Bart's friendship, and Farah having a stare-off with Death.

you could bring my healing - cosmicocean - 38k, T, Dirk/Todd, AU (fantasy)

"Where the whole thing takes place in a fantasy world that is not unlike but not quite mostly for legal reasons Ankh-Morpork, Dirk is generally an existential dragon, Todd is a washed up electrical lute player, everyone is kind of awkward and useless except maybe for Amanda, and there is a boatload of fantasy references, plus one (1) Star Wars one." Sheer escapist delight.

Start at the Beginning - @dont-offend-the-bees - 61k, T, Dirk/Todd (AU, fake relationship)

”Y’know, make it up. Pretend to be in a relationship with someone. Can’t be that hard to fake, right?” it was still a stupid idea, but Todd was actually pretty invested in it now. He leaned forward, folding his arms. “C’mon, think about it- you got any other desperate homeless friends?” Takes a wacky ensemble piece and transforms it into a different sort of wacky ensemble piece. Sparing use of fake dating tropes makes this fic all the more enjoyable.

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder: A Lovely Sentiment, But Rarely Applies To Anniversary Gifts - DontOffendTheBees - 7k, M, Dirk/Todd

"In which Dirk and Todd celebrate three years together- but forgot they were supposed to be doing that." Featuring: Todd Brotzman's "funhouse of self-loathing," Dirk & Todd's mutual uselessness, Amanda & Farah's mutual exasperation, winks to Douglas Adams canon, and a clever meta twist.

How We Go Together - ekb112 - 3k, E, Kirk/Spock

"'Have you ever been in love, Spock?' A series of moments in Jim and Spock's relationship." I like a semi-annual spot of K/S. It's a classic ship for a reason, and this fic scratched the itch just right.

Easy As Breathing - electricteatime | @kieren-fucking-walker - 1k, G, Dirk/Todd

"Their days start together. Warm and close, but all elbows and knees, tangled in covers and noses buried into hair. It takes time to swim up through the pull of sleep to break the surface, but when they come to they wake up to each other." A lovely soft distillation of a relationship.

Dress You Up in My Love - electricteatime - 3k, T, Dirk/Todd

“'So, what? Your solution is a pair of skin tight leopard print pants? How is that better than anything I’ve worn?'

Dirk just grins wildly at him, it’s the most like himself he’s looked in days. 'Put them on.'” A fluffy missing scene fic with a wonderful sense of interiority. (How is electricteatime is so good at characterization?!?)

A Flame Undamped - Frayach, read by wench_fics - 5k, 40min, M, Harry/Draco

"A happy ending. Because I can finally imagine one." Hurt/comfort doesn't even BEGIN to cover this sequel to The Price We Pay for Wings. No one does pain and poignancy--and sometimes, healing--like Frayach.

Saturn in Retrograde - gooseflesh - WIP series, M, Dirk/Todd

"As with most things in Dirk Gently's life, things are fine until they're not. A mystery and minor inconvenience for Todd Brotzman takes a terrifying turn when Dirk insists on investigating, and it'll take more than a hunch for them to hold onto to all that they've built." I'm not typically an angst gremlin, but I can't stop reading this WIP, even as the characters' situation worsens exponentially.

Death by Kittenshark - howldax - 1k, G, Dirk/Todd

"'You know,' Dirk says sternly, 'if you murder me, there will be nobody around to feed you.'" Cats (even cats who are also sharks) are gonna cat. Charming and fluffy.

i was born in a summer storm (i live there still) - janeseyre - 10k, G, Farah & Todd & Dirk

"Farah confronts the vestiges of her past as she, Dirk, and Todd travel east to visit her mother. It turns out Farah isn’t as over her father’s death as she thought she was." A deeper look into Farah’s families, both biological and chosen; full of lovely little smile moments and Farah getting the closure she deserves.

The Burning Heart - @may-shepard​ - 119k, M, John/Sherlock, AU (post s3 fix-it)

"Although he’s certain he’ll never get over Sherlock, John plans to move on, and build a new life with Mark, unaware that Sherlock is not quite as dead as he appears, and that Mark is hiding secrets of his own." As is my habit with zeitgeist-y fics, I didn't get around to this one until well after the rest of the fandom, but I'm glad I did. Here's to an assassin plot that's actually plausible and compelling!

The Easiest Way - nntkiwff - WIP, T, Dirk/Todd, Farah/Todd (“basically OT3”)

"'Is that everything?'

'Yes, essentially,' Dirk says, as Todd is saying, 'I don't have magic powers.'"  A slow burn WIP, set immediately after the return from Wendimoor, featuring multiple perspectives (including Ken!), in-depth characterization, and some excellent lines, like this one about Farah: “She says all of this as though she is ashamed of being cursed, instead of proud that she blew up an evil warlock.”

Blood Magic and Rebirth (or, The One Where They Are All Feminist Academics) - @notcaycepollard​ - 1k, G, gen (Harry Potter)

"Moon cups, Luna thinks. Moon cups and blood magic. And she remembers the old itch under her skin, and a music box fluttering into a flock of birds, and wonders just how powerful it could be." This is 1000% headcanon for me now.

A Little Bit Scandalous - @oneprotagonistshort - 1k, E, Dirk/Todd

"Dirk Gently was self-aware enough to admit that he had… a thing. A quirk. One of those idiosyncratic little peculiarities that made up a tiny part of his personality. A kink. He just liked that extra edge; the need to be quiet or someone might hear, the blood pounding in his ears while he stayed hyper-alert for footsteps, the way Todd kissed him so urgently that he lost his breath." I especially appreciated the characterization behind the kink in this one.

Relative Distance - Quesarasara | @itsnotgonnareaditselfpeople, read by @lockedinjohnlock-podfics - 45k, 5hrs, E, John/Sherlock

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." One of the author's tags on this fic is "What if everyone just acted like a damn adult for a change?", which really clarifies how the fic differs from the later seasons of the show.

it's an institute you can't disparage - @shortcrust - 19k, T, Dirk/Todd

"Todd wakes up beside Dirk Gently four years to the day after having met him realises - abruptly and with categoric certainty - that he wants to do so every day for the rest of his life. What the fuck, he thinks."  Hilarious, insightful, and absolutely nails a) the ridiculousness and pathos of Todd Brotzman mired in needless self-doubt, and b) my favorite Ship Dynamic: compatible disasters.

there's cell reception on this widow's walk - strix_alba - 2k, T, Farah/Tina

"In which Tina sort-of-kind-of asks Farah to stay with her in Bergsberg, and Farah kind-of-sort-of wants to say yes." Awkward flirting, Farina styles! Tina mentally describes Dirk & Todd & Farah as a “bunch of hot, uptight weirdos,” which is p e r f e c t.

Just Like That - @sussexbound (SamanthaLenore) - 8k, E, John/Sherlock

"For the first time in what feels like years he WANTS." The perfect combination of unf and feeeels.

Further fic recs | Fic Bookmarks

[marta-bee]

A Scandal in East Anglia

(in which Marta tries to read "DANC" without shipper's goggles firmly in place, and only half succeeds)

Let's talk about Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" (DANC). It's... quaint. By all measures it really shouldn't' work for this modern reader; its conflict relies too much on a sense of reputation and honor that's just not that accessible to me. The victim Elsie Cubbit is what the kids today would call "problematic" (when she's not entirely out of control over her own life, she's not exactly acting in a way that encourages my sympathy). There's not much of a mystery for the reader to solve because we don't have the evidence Holmes does until rather late in the story, and we don't even get the fun tension between Holmes and "official" detectives (a favorite part for me).

And yet, and yet. Somehow DANC manages to be charming. I love it.

Spoilers...

(If you’d like to read the original without being spoiled, you can read it here first. I’ll wait. But as I said, the things I love most about this story aren’t so plot-based.)

I'm going to basically give away the ending here: DANC ends with Hilton Cubbit, dead on his parlor floor with a bullet through his chest, and his wife Elsie suspected of putting him there.

A little context: About a year before his murder, Hilton Cubitt, a "simple Norfolk squire," had come to London to celebrate the Jubilee. He'd married and fallen deeply in love with an American woman, Elsie, had married her and taken her home to Norfolk. Shortly before their wedding, she confessed to him that she "[had] had some very disagreeable associations in [her] life" though she "had nothing that she need be personally ashamed of", and she insisted that before Hilton marry her he promise never to ask her about her past. He promised, so they were married and lived happily until the dancing men began to appear around their estate.

Hilton would be content not to pursue the matter for his own sake; he thinks the drawings are odd but unimportant (Holmes agrees at first). But Elsie is unnerved by them, and Hilton believes they're connected to her past. He can't question her directly about it; as he says, "A promise is a promise, Mr. Holmes. [...] But I am justified in taking my own line—and I will.”  

(Yes, this bothers me, too. By modern sensibilities, clearly it would have been better to break a promise than what comes after; and in any case, he's only adhering to the letter of the law here, if that.) 

But enter Holmes, stage right, pursued by bear. Hilton brings the drawings to Holmes who after some delay cracks the code and concludes they're connected those "very disagreeable associations" of Elsie's, confirmed by a telegram from some of those official detectives I mentioned above. But in the meantime, Hilton's own nerves are fraying at being kept in the dark, and where he at first seemed to trust her completely, more and more he pushes her about her past and tries to discover it on her own. He even suspects she might be meeting up with the mysterious picture-drawer, for all he unnerves her. Holmes figures out the truth behind the code too late, and though he races to Norfolk, by the time he's arrived he's left with Hilton Cubbit, dead on his parlor floor with a bullet through his chest, etc.

The Deduction Seduction

As I mentioned, this story really isn't about the mystery. The dancing men are a cypher, one figure for each letter, and the Chicago police should be embarrassed they weren't able to crack it years before. (Elsie is from America, and those disagreeable associates are Chicago criminals). The evidence Holmes uses to connect the code to the Chicago mobsters isn't presented to us until the denouement, so there's not much for the reader to solve; at most we could have the fun of working out the code. But if you know your Doyle story, you'll know they usually begin with a domestic moment, where Holmes deduces something about Watson. DANC is no exception.

“So, Watson,” said he, suddenly, “you do not propose to invest in South African securities?”

I gave a start of astonishment. Accustomed as I was to Holmes’ curious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate thoughts was utterly inexplicable.

“How on earth do you know that?” I asked.

He wheeled round upon his stool, with a steaming test-tube in his hand, and a gleam of amusement in his deep-set eyes.

“Now, Watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback,” said he.

“I am.”

“I ought to make you sign a paper to that effect.”

“Why?”

“Because in five minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly simple.”

“I am sure that I shall say nothing of the kind.”

“You see, my dear Watson”—he propped his test-tube in the rack, and began to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his class—“it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one’s audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. Now, it was not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did not propose to invest your small capital in the goldfields.”

“I see no connection.”

“Very likely not; but I can quickly show you a close connection. Here are the missing links of the very simple chain: 1. You had chalk between your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club last night. 2. You put chalk there when you play billiards to steady the cue. 3. You never play billiards except with Thurston. 4. You told me, four weeks ago, that Thurston had an option on some South African property which would expire in a month, and which he desired you to share with him. 5. Your cheque-book is locked in my drawer, and you have not asked for the key. 6. You do not propose to invest your money in this manner.”“How absurdly simple!” I cried.

“Quite so!” said he, a little nettled. “Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you."

.... at which point he hands Watson a copy of the dancing men, sent by Hilton Cubitt in advance of his first consultation with Holmes, and the proper story begins.

This particular deduction is fascinating on its own, though. Not because Holmes is being particularly clever (as Holmes points out the logic is plain once you see the intermediate steps), but because the details are so intimate. Holmes keeps Watson's checkbook in his desk drawer. Holmes knows Watson; he knows how he chalks up his billiards-cue and that he only shoots pool with Thurston. Maybe this is my own bias playing into it, but I'm really struggling to imagine Holmes actually going round to the pool-halls with Watson. More likely he's just observed all this, maybe asked a key question here and there, but put it all together because Watson matters.

Which gives that same frisson as BBC-Sherlock's side comment in A Scandal in Belgravia, that John is wrong to think he doesn't understand the biochemical processes of love, which of course means they've discussed it, and....

Yeah.

Holmes has been studying Watson so intently he just knows all this, and he's laying that bare to Watson, either because he wants Watson to know or he doesn't even think to stop himself, and I'm honestly not sure which tickles my fancy more.

I also can't quite get past the fact that Watson is keeping his checkbook in Holmes's desk-drawer. Remember that Watson is a published writer, and (depending on the timeline, which depends on which Jubilee you think this story is based around) quite possibly managing a successful medical practice. He certainly has a desk at Baker Street, and there's no real reason for its not to have its own locked drawer. It seems odd that a desk wouldn't have that. So either Watson has given up all pretense of keeping anything locked away from Holmes, or else Holmes is keeping the checkbook not so it can be locked up but so Watson himself doesn't have as easy access, because he's actively helping Watson manage his (their?) finances.

I did warn you at the top of this post: This is me trying not to let my shipper's goggles rule the day here, and failing.

Holmes & Watson vs Hilton & Elsie: The Parallels Continue

I'm actually hoping (a bit) that Watson has just given up the ghost on holding things back from Holmes because it feeds into a much larger point. There are a lot of parallels going on between Holmes and Watson (Holmes/Watson?) and that Cubitts, and even if without getting into the shipping questions, I think it helps to appreciate where and why the Cubitt relationship went wrong. Also why Holmes was able to both avenge Hilton and save Elsie from her own execution when the local constabulary was so ready to hang her. (Again, spoilers: it's not a brute application of reason.)

And really, there are a lot of parallels here. Hilton is a Norfolk squire, and Holmes (in "The Greek Interpreter") describes his own family as descending from country squires. And Holmes takes up rooms with Watson without knowing much about him. The Watsons are hardly as scandalous as Elsie's family, but they were hardly above reproach. Watson was living around layabout soldiers known for hard living and, if Holmes's deductions about his father's pocket watch in The Sign of Four are to be trusted, his brother wasted the family fortunes and was a drunkard beside. 

If Holmes was at all concerned about the "conventional" life of the country squire his ancestors enjoyed (he isn't), taking up with Watson is hardly prudent. In fact, I'd argue it's a move not unlike Hilton's marrying Elsie -something he fully admits is shocking: "You’ll think it very mad, Mr. Holmes, that a man of a good old family should marry a wife in this fashion, knowing nothing of her past or of her people, but if you saw her and knew her, it would help you to understand."

The parallel ends here, though. Elsie has a real history of scandal in her history; she begs Hilton not to pry and he promises not to. With Watson's lesser scandal, Holmes can't help but see, and he really doesn't need to ask him for the details. But it's worth noting that while Hilton chafes against the restrictions Elsie put on him and does everything he can to find a loophole, eventually comes to question her faithfulness, Holmes recognizes there's such a thing as knowing too much. He treated Watson's pocket watch like a purely academic problem. He tries (not entirely successfully) to respect Watson's boundaries. 

Hilton and Elsie are both very aware of the Cubitt family. When Hilton tries to push Elsie for details about the mysterious message-drawer, she seems preoccupied with not bringing scandal down on his house. She's given up her past for the future she thinks he can provide. She tries to pay the message-writer off if he'll just leave using £1,000 of Hilton's money. (That’s a huge amount of money for the period!) Hilton, for his part, thinks about their relationship as a mad thing for someone in his situation, and when Elsie wants to leave Norfolk, he refuses. A wiser man might have trusted his wife understood the real dangers and taken some sort of trip, without pressing to know exactly why.

Holmes, on the other hand, is pointedly not living the conventional life of his country-squire ancestors. He is urbane, one might even add bohemian (without necessarily importing the sexual connotations that term implies, though equally without necessarily excluding them). Watson's less well-off and established background isn't a challenge precisely because he has little interest in a life Watson would not fit well with. That's not who he is, so he and Watson are allowed to just be.

Que Saber, Saber...

Reading DANC, I was strangely reminded of a vocabulary lesson from high school Spanish. If someone asked me where my roommate was, I might say something like No se exactamente, pero yo se que ella fue a la supermercado antes. (I don't know exactly, but I know she went to the supermarket earlier.) "Se" (the conjugated form of "saber") means know, as in how we know facts. It's tied to the Latin verb scire, from which we get science, scientific, etc. But if you asked me if I knew her well, I wouldn't say solo se un poco (I only  know a little, as in I only know a few things) - you're really asking if I'm familiar with her, which requires an entirely different word, something like solo la conozco un poco. That’s conocer, implying a familiarity more than factual knowledge.

When Holmes makes his deductions about Watson's finances, he's not just relying about observed facts about Watson; he's also pulling from his familiarity, the fact he knows him.

And the same thing happens with the Cubitts.

"Two [bullets] have been fired and two wounds inflicted, so that each bullet can be accounted for."

“So it would seem,” said Holmes. “Perhaps you can account also for the bullet which has so obviously struck the edge of the window?”

He had turned suddenly, and his long, thin finger was pointing to a hole which had been drilled right through the lower window-sash, about an inch above the bottom.

“By George!” cried the inspector. “How ever did you see that?”

“Because I looked for it.”

“Wonderful!” said the country doctor. “You are certainly right, sir. Then a third shot has been fired, and therefore a third person must have been present. But who could that have been, and how could he have got away?”

“That is the problem which we are now about to solve,” said Sherlock Holmes. “You remember, Inspector Martin, when the servants said that on leaving their room they were at once conscious of a smell of powder, I remarked that the point was an extremely important one?”

“Yes, sir; but I confess I did not quite follow you.”

“It suggested that at the time of the firing, the window as well as the door of the room had been open. Otherwise the fumes of powder could not have been blown so rapidly through the house. A draught in the room was necessary for that. Both door and window were only open for a very short time, however.”

“How do you prove that?”

“Because the candle was not guttered.”

“Capital!” cried the inspector. “Capital!”

“Feeling sure that the window had been open at the time of the tragedy, I conceived that there might have been a third person in the affair, who stood outside this opening and fired through it. Any shot directed at this person might hit the sash. I looked, and there, sure enough, was the bullet mark!”

Taken out of context, this reads like saber-knowledge. Holmes observes that the candle was not guttered. He suspects based on the fact that the household staff smelt gunpowder almost immediately (from an earlier discussion of the crimescene) that a draft blew it throughout the house. Ergo: a window was opened, but not for long. Elsie probably wouldn't have closed it just after her husband was shot, so a third person was probably present; and so forth. 

But this is Elsie. Holmes knows, conocer, her reasonably well. He's seen Hilton's devotion to her, and his trust. (Yes, a modern might go further, but most Victorian men would probably have been much less indulgent!) And he knows that strangers with relatively unknown pasts aren't necessarily tainted by them and that they have a right to keep some things to themselves without that making them suspicious. The Norfolk constabulary has identified two possible interpretations of the crime scene: either Hilton tried to murder Elsie then committed suicide, or Elsie successfully shot Hilton before turning the gun on herself. Neither fit the people Holmes has come to know so he finds a third option. He sees the bullet because he was looking.

Granted, Holmes has connected the cipher of the dancing men to a Chicago street gang and he knows a lot more about Elsie's past than Hilton does. But we the readers aren't privy to all that, and even with that, Holmes equally knows that Elsie has been sneaking around, that he husband suspected she was being unfaithful, that both of them had nearly reached the end of their emotional endurance between all the secrets and the strange events. Again, he knows this better than the local investigators. Logically, it's not such a great leap that one might have shot the other. Sometimes clients aren't unbiased even when they're not outright culpable; look at how the King of Bohemia presented his dealings with Irene Adler, for instance.

So there's a leap of faith, to borrow Kierkegaard's concept, an act of will more than knowledge, in believing that neither Hilton nor Elsie would act the way Inspector Martin thinks they did. When I first encountered Doyle's stories decades ago I tended to accept Holmes as more or less a cold reasoning machine, something I'm unlearning as a more adult reader, and this story seems to require that revised understanding. Because the Holmes who was so reticent to theorize before facts in A Study in Scarlet, who Watson famously described as a scientific instrument without grit on the lens in "A Scandal in Bohemia," might well investigate all the options but he wouldn't be looking to confirm a hypothesis based on emotional impression. 

But the Holmes I've come to love more deeply would, I think, particularly a Holmes growing more comfortable with his emotional intelligence in addition to his facility with actual facts. Here's hoping that's not my own act of will laying its thumb on the scales here.

~*~*~*~*~

I'll close by sharing a favorite scene, not from Doyle but from the Granada adaptation. Not because it's relevant, but because it's too endearing not to. Having arrested the true criminal, Watson asks Holmes how he drew him back to the scene of the crime, and Holmes shows him the note he used as bait, written out in the code of the dancing men -- giving them (and us) their own lovely moment of conocer, starting around the 2:15 mark. Enjoy!

[guardmesherlock-rowan]

Hello! I'm a little new to playing GMS - I've been following it before but was disappointed to hear that it was getting canceled, but apparently not anymore. I just heard that Sebastian is getting a route which made me download the game. For someone who's just starting, do you have any tips? I typically don't spend money in these games so I was wondering if it will still be playable in that case... Thank you!

Hello and welcome!

Okay so I’ve actually been considering putting this information out there so I guess this is a perfect opportunity!

😳That or you were reading my mind.😳 

First things first:I get you not spending money on the game, it took over a month before I gave in to it myself.  But I must remind all players that the reason (that we know of) that the game was discontinued in the first place was due to it not making enough money.  So I really must promote the idea of those who can afford it and really love the game to spend a little to show their support. 

That said? You don’t have to spend money to enjoy the game. At least not the main story lines.  What it does take is patience and a schedule to get the most out of the game. 

So you’re most likely going to have a little stumble near the end of the route as a new player.  It’s going to require you to have a lot of Sweetie Points to pass the checkpoint, and it might take a day or so to get it.  But then you’re good.

Sure you’re not going to get the premium scenes, but honestly the non-premium are good too!  They can be hilarious watching the guys play off each other, or cheesy, or cute, but still a delight in their own ways.  

Now for the beginners and people just plain new to “Guard Me Sherlock!”

[undercut link for mobile users]

So you’ve found your way here; either by being a fan of Sherlock Holmes, being a fan of other games done by @shallwedateapps, or by being a  fan of dating games in general, but you’re here.  

You may be sharing the same thought I did when I first read the game’s title: “that’s a silly name”, and yeah maybe, but the game is more than that.

The Story!

Okay so we have MC and she is:

clever

kind

strangely accepting

naive at the most inopportune times

an actress

and a bit snarky sometimes

So the prologue is her meeting the guys, the male characters in the story:

Sherlock Holmes

John Watson

George Lestrade

Mikah Hudson (child)

Mycroft Holmes

Hercule Poirot

Jeremy Cassel

James Moriarty 

Sebastian Moran (his route is up next!)

and Jack Stillman

Though not in that order per say.  From there MC works her way to the point of asking Sherlock for help, and the problem is determined by the story you’re starting. 

During which there are quizzes throughout the season one stories and getting them correct can result in winning small prizes like extra energy points for Hide & Kiss.

The Characters/Main storylines!

So once you finish the prologue you have to decide which route you’re going to play.  Just talking about the season ones we have:

Sherlock Holmes

It’s a sweet story of Sherlock coming to terms with these strange new emotions he’s feeling all the while assisting MC in dealing with threats and sudden attempts at harming her person.  All which seems to circle over the fact that she took her current role over after a passing of a dear friend.

John Watson

Sweet and funny story as MC has John’s help in trying to figure out what happened to her uncle.  He seems to have gone missing but has left a small trial for his niece to follow. Course being worried for her safety John seems like the best candidate as a bodyguard, though to not arose suspicion they need a reason for him to be with her everywhere… fake engagement anyone? 

James Moriarty

While there is not a lot of diversity in scenes, there are some breath taking background drops.  MC wanted Sherlock’s help in finding out if everything is on the up and up for the next play she is in.  He told her to go through with it unless she heard otherwise from him.  Day comes and she is goes to get ready for the play, which will take place in a few days, on a train. With Moriarty as the benefactor.  It’s a whirlwind of flirtation and ‘what ifs’. 

Mycroft Holmes

Not really one for fake engagements?  How about a fake marriage?  Mycroft is subtle throughout his story, and there are times MC can be… *flashbacks and kill bill sirens* but this is thought to be one of the most romantic stories within Guard Me Sherlock though the mystery doesn’t come into play until the later act.

Mikah Hudson

~let’s do the time warp again~ Jumping into the future, MC has been living at 221B and seems to have missed the point where Mikah became a man.  While helping Mikah’s friend they open up their feelings towards each other. 

My schedule to get the most out of my game:

I wake up and use 2 tickets before 7 am

Clear my energy points, and then go to work

At lunch I clear the hide & kiss points out (you get 1 point per 3 minutes, 20 points per hour)

This is also usually when I use my one free slot spin a day

When I get home I decompress and either wait till after the game updates (7pm cst) or before it is there is a biscuit boost, and I spend all the tickets I have (which is either 3 - 4)

This way I keep my tickets at specific intervals throughout the day to make sure I get 6 tickets a day as there is 4 hour wait in between each and it stops counting once you hit 5. 

So I asked @cinnamonteaandbiscuits what she would give as advice to a new player:

“You can exit out of the story if you think you’ve picked the wrong choice.” (you just hit on the arrow in the upper right corner, and select home, that will let you do that chapter from the beginning as long as you don’t go all the way to the end)

“Don’t skip the previews. They’re hilarious!” (So true. Also areas where you can learn more about the other guys in between or during times they’re picking on each other.)

Be aware of your room situation when it comes to points. 

Hide & Kiss

When it comes to hide and kiss there are a few things to be aware of. 

When you start a session and pick a guy your style in your room should reflect their taste.

Sherlock & Mycroft: elegant

John & Mikah: Sexy

James: Cute

The more points you have in that style the more sweetie points you can earn.  Up to a point.  If you’re hitting 58 - 70 points per magnifying glass in the last room you’ve hit max.

In biscuit collections each tap in Hide & Kiss is one point.  So if you’re trying to earn those biscuits you’re better off using the room that takes the least amount of energy points.

Alright so I hope that was helpful!

If you’re looking for a brief history as to what’s going on with the game  I did a brief little catch up with releasing routes back on January 5th before we found who out it would be. 

And if you’re interested in my headcanons and/or fanfictions please feel free to check out my Masterlist