Never Mind Me

Um… Ok. This ficcy became something of a monster and I’m kinda stuck. So I’ll just post the foreplay first, and hopefully I’ll have the second half up by Monday. Happy Penis Friday.

Sherlock Mini-Fic: Advantage Part 1

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There  were some lines that Sherlock wouldn’t cross, couldn’t cross. John was one of them. Had been since the very beginning when Sherlock had rejected the advance that was not an advance at Angelo’s that first night.

He didn’t deserve him. John was too good for him. John deserved better than Sherlock.

But one thing Sherlock knew was his flaws, and Sherlock was a selfish man.

He didn’t deserve John, and there were many people who deserved John far more than an eccentric,  antisocial genius. But Sherlock knew a good thing when he saw it, and if anyone wanted John, Sherlock wouldn’t give him up without a fight.

Unless John chose to leave. If John left, Sherlock would let him go. Or at least, Sherlock hoped he could.

He wouldn’t hold his breath on the matter though.

John Watson belonged to Sherlock, and Sherlock Holmes did not easily give up what belonged to him.

~*~

End

Of all the forms she as ever worn, the Soldier was most familiar to Lavender Athelasri. But what did soldiery matter here? Her current form was of a Healer, and so to Healing did her skill turn. It didn’t prevent her from learning other forms of Magic, though she stayed away from overt attack spells on principle. So long as the attack spells she knew did no obvious damage, others would turn a blind eye. After all, just because civilized people avoided attacking Healers, it didn’t mean the Barbarians would do the same.

“Evoking Snow in the height of summer, Healer Athelasri?” Knight Tazo asked, his green eyes sparkling with amusement, “And in the lower branches of Ydrassil also.”

“Shut up,” she snapped irritably, “Axons cannot abide cold and it’s practically an oven on this level.”

“But snow, Healer?”

“What were you expecting? A Monster Summons?” Lavender demanded, “I am a Healer, not a Mage!”

“You’ve certainly studied enough Magic to change your status,” the Knight teased, “And look, is that a stiletto sewn into the undersides of your skirts? You could certainly pass for a Mage if you chose.”

“I am a Healer, Knight Eriaden Tazo, and you had best stop distracting me and kill those damned Axons or Rogue Clementium of Lazarus will bleed out if the Axons don’t kill us first!”

“All right, all right,” the Knight chuckled, drawing his broadsword from its sheath on his back. “Salve my wounds with a kiss when I return, Healer?”

“You’ll get a kiss from my dagger, alright,” Lavender groused, “And avoid another head wound! You’ve had three this past week already!”

She ignored the screaming of the Axons as the Knight’s blade cleaved through their ranks. Lavender was far too busy working to heal the Rogue’s injuries to worry about nostalgia. She had been a Knight before she had become a Healer, and she missed the heady atmosphere of all out battle. But since she had died three Stellar Cycles ago and Respawned as a Healer, she had a new battlefield to think about.

And frankly, wresting Heros, Knights, Rogues, and Mages from grasp of the Dead Reapers was much more satisfying than the old swing and bash routine. She also saw much more in the way of chiseled physiques as a Healer than a Warrior Maiden anyway.

~*~

End

Three years after he last saw John in the graveyard, having locked away John’s heartfelt words into his own heart, Sherlock returned to 221B. His heart pounds wildly in his chest as he mounts seventeen stairs, a distance made vast by trepidation and anticipation. What will he find when he opens the door?

The answer, when he finally musters up the courage to turn the doorknob and push the door open breaks his heart. For the flat is empty of John. things are exactly where he left them, that fateful last day three years ago, but the refrigerator is empty and his chemistry things are in a clear plastic bin on the table. His room is untouched. Everything was exactly where they had last been, everything but the things that mattered.

John’s belongings were gone. There was an empty space on the bookshelves where John’s medical texts had been kept. The table where they’d spent nights working on their respective websites or research for a case was half occupied. John’s laptop was missing.

Sherlock’s heart is in his throat as he goes upstairs to the room that once belonged to John. He has no doubt of what he’ll find if the common area of the flat was any indication, but he has to know, has to see it with his own eyes first before he’ll believe it.

The door is open.

Sherlock looks inside.

The room is empty. He flings open the wardrobe and the dressers. Empty.

John is gone.

Sherlock has returned to an empty house.

Sherlock drops to his knees, head bowed. He screws his eyes shut to hold back tears even as his heart breaks.

Because 221B is not home without John.

~*~

End

They were two broken men, ragged and with sharp edges, each with their own virtues and foibles. An army doctor haunted by lives lost with a taste for danger. A lonely genius with a sharp tongue and a history of substance abuse.

Somehow, despite their sharp edges and the gaps in their understanding of each other, they fit. 

“When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield.”

It was something that he kept close to his heart throughout the time that he’d lived with Sherlock. It was something he remembered in the days and months and years after Sherlock had jumped.

There was no longer Sherlock to chase after and protect while tracking a suspect through London, but it didn’t stop John from wandering the dark places of the city. There were always people who needed a discreet doctor who didn’t ask for much in the way of pay in the poor parts of London. In return, he got his adventure. There were always muggers and murderers in the shadows, and John had his pick of dangerous situations to wander into.

He didn’t know what he would do when wandering the shadows of London got boring, but for now, he had his battlefield. He would enjoy it while it lasted.

After all, he was John Watson and regardless of his profession as a doctor, he was, first and foremost, a soldier.

~*~

End

It wasn’t supposed to end this way. It mustn’t end this way.

They were supposed to grow old together in some quiet countryside, with John working as a country physician and Sherlock keeping bees. They would live in a quaint little cottage with a bull dog called Gladstone and entertain the occasional visit from old colleagues and friends and their respective siblings, if Harry lived that long or if Mycroft could ever find the time. Sherlock might occasionally take a case, and John would follow, as he always had.

It could still happen, if John would only wake up.

“Wake up, John,” he whispered into sunbleached hair.

John was still and limp in his arms, head tucked under Sherlock’s chin, mouth slack and eyes closed. The tension in that wiry, compact body had bled out long ago. His blood was trickling out of the wound on his back, saturating his scarf and trickling over and through Sherlock’s fingers like the finest, most precious claret.

“Wake up. John,” Sherlock murmured again, “John.”

There was a scrape and a scuffle. Sherlock looked up, glaring at the suspect who was trying to escape. The man stilled, eyes wide and frightened above his scarf, which had been stuffed into his mouth as an impromptu gag, his hands and feet zip tied together.

“Don’t move,” Sherlock growled, “Don’t even think about trying to get away, or I’ll hunt you down like the trash that you are.”

The sound of distant sirens cut the air, drawing gradually closer.

Sherlock lowered his head and eyes again, and murmured into John’s ears, “Hear that, John? It’s Lestrade. He’ll be here soon with an ambulance. You’ll be just fine. Just… Just don’t fall asleep, John. Open your eyes. John…”

“Sherlock!” Lestrade called from what seemed like an eternity away. “John?”

“Here, Lestrade,” Sherlock called, and murmured into John’s hair, “It’s Lestrade, John. You’ll be alright now. Lestrade is here… John. Wake up, John. John…”

“Sherl-Oh, Christ,” there were heavy, rushed footsteps and Lestrade barked into a radio for an ambulance.

“Come on, Sherlock,” Lestrade said gently, “Let John go, now. The ambulance will be here soon.”

“Piss off!” Sherlock snarled, glaring at the hands trying to take John away. “John will bleed out if I let go.”

“He’s not breathing, Sherlock,” Lestrade said gently, “There’s nothing more we can do. Donovan’s taken the suspect into custody, there’s only you and John left. Let John go, Sherlock.”

“No,” Sherlock tightened his arms around the bodyJohn, and glared, “No.”

They could still have it, a nice, quiet retirement in the countryside. With a bulldog and bees. John could putter around in the garden all he liked when he wasn’t working as a country physician or writing up soppy, romanticized versions of their cases. They could have it all.

All John had to do was wake up.

“Wake up, John,” Sherlock whispered into sunbleached hair. “Wake up. John, please. Wake up.”

John didn’t wake up.

“John,” his voice was cracking, breaking. Why?

“Please, John. Don’t make me beg.”

Where was Mycroft? Mycroft would fix it. Mycroft always did, whether he liked it or not.

“John. Wake up.”

Right. It just figured that the one time Sherlock wanted his brother to interfere, he wouldn’t.

“John. Please. I’m lost without my blogger. John.”

~*~

End

Jim Moriarty had his Criminal Empire.

Mycroft Holmes had his Government Resources.

Sherlock Holmes had his Homeless Network.

Molly Hooper had her Colleagues in Medicine.

Gregory Lestrade had his Resources as an Officer of the Law.

They remembered only in passing that John shared Colleagues in Medicine with Molly Hooper. They all forgot that John had his Military Network. They never remembered that veterans kept up with each other, introduced one another to newcomers that took their places in the war zones, went into different positions when retired, and could recognize each other in a myriad of subtle ways and passed information through one another. John had friends in New Scotland Yard who were fellow veterans. John had old school friends in the medical field in addition to the retired soldiers who worked in the field or volunteered in clinics and hospitals. John knew officers who ended up in government positions and veterans who worked for government officials and were privy to state secrets and political dramas. John helped, in what ways he could, the veterans who ended up in the streets, and many of these former soldiers interacted with other homeless folk. John knew veterans who worked on the other side of the law, looking the other way, because he knew what it was like to be so desperate that you would do anything to survive.

After the Fall, Lestrade kept his job through a combination of factors, Mycroft for one, John asking fellow veterans, obliquely, to protect the man, being another.

After the Fall, John kept an eye on Molly, who he knew would be hit hard because of her crush on Sherlock, through contacts in St. Barts. A factor that allowed him to realize that there was something fishy about the death of Sherlock Holmes, and led to the realization that Molly Hooper had been in the thick of the man’s leap.

After the Fall, a former comrade who owed John a favor joined Mycroft Holmes’ protection detail, which was how John learned that Sherlock was still alive, since the genius had gone straight to his brother’s office and had gotten spotted in passing.

After the Fall, John often had lunch with fellow veteran, Colonel Sebastian Moran, who had taught John how to shoot, and had been the one to warn John when ever Moriarty’s attention turned toward him rather than Sherlock, after all, Sherlock had the brainpower to counter Moriarty, and John didn’t. They often commiserated over the quirks of their respective geniuses, both of who had loved their precious soldiers in their own unique ways, whom both soldiers loved in turn in their separate ways.

After the Fall, it was a homeless veteran who warned John that Sherlock was returning to Baker Street. It was a homeless veteran that John sent to Sebastian Moran that Sherlock was in London and gunning for him. It was a homeless veteran who carried back Moran’s reply, “Watson, old boy, I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

After the Return of Sherlock Holmes, John would go out and visit Moran in prison, because let’s face it, veterans stick together, and John and Moran were former soldiers who had the ill luckgood fortune to fall in with geniuses. That one came out better than the other didn’t matter. And if John could get favors out of people to help Sherlock on his cases, Sherlock certainly didn’t complain. He most certainly didn’t complain if John came back from the pubs with gossip about goings on in Mycroft’s office and with details about Mycroft’s budding relationship with Lestrade, though in fact, he deleted the latter information almost as soon as it hit his mental hard drive.

After four consecutive incidents of itching powders in his underthings and bedclothes, an incident of chili paste in his toothpaste, and two incidents of laxatives in his tea and food after upsetting Sherlock, Mycroft trod carefully around John Watson and eyed the veterans who had, over time, made up the lion’s share of his staff warily.

If Sherlock reacted to the discovery that his faithful blogger had taken his brother’s place as the most dangerous man in London with a damn good shag, well that was no one’s business, now was it?

~*~

End

Sherlock Holmes is a difficult person to live with on the best of days, but on days like this, when the man sinks into one of his black moods, it’s nearly unbearable. In this particular case, Sherlock was not simply depressed or bored, he was grieving, grieving for a woman who he barely knew, a woman who pushed him and challenged him in ways ordinary crimes did not. And John, as ever, tries to make the best of a difficult situation. At any other time, John would have lost his patience by now, but for Sherlock’s sake, he tries to make his patience stretch a few more days.

But his patience was stretched thin to begin with. Almost from the instant the case began, starting with driving out to the middle of nowhere with a laptop so Sherlock can consult via webcam, to being picked up and flown to Buckingham Palace, then to the home of Irene Adler, John’s patience and self control had been stretched to the limit and then some. Little barbs and jabs and double edged sentences have been swallowed and locked away in his throat, forbidden from being spoken out loud at a time when Sherlock would not take it with the usual grace. They fuel the storm rumbling behind his breastbone.

It’s been building for a while, storm clouds roiling and thundering in his chest. The sense of being penned in, of being useless, of having utterly nothing to do, of having what he desired and hungered for so close but unable to take it.

John can’t stand the melancholy of 221B, can’t stand the sentimentality (which Sherlock will vehemently deny) of the music his erratic flatmate has been composing, can’t stand the mournful beauty of the man as he mopes and sulks throughout the common area of the flat.

He has no doubt that if he stays in for a single moment longer, he’ll snatch the Stradivarius out of Sherlock’s hands and throw the mad, infuriating, beautiful, breathtaking, amazing, brilliant man onto the sofa and attempt to ravish the melancholy out of him. He doesn’t though. More like than not, John suspects, that particular course of action would just make an unbearable situation worse. So he posts three words on his blog, “Constant Spotter,” and “20:00hrs,” and goes out.

If Mycroft Holmes’ men were watching, and they usually are, they could map out a path through London, one that takes John first through a long meandering course through Regent’s Park, then to a cozy family run restaurant, then to the upscale neighborhood where Irene Adler had made her residence. John has spent almost eight hours just wandering through London, and he is now only two houses away from Irene Adler’s former residence. John climbs up the steps of a house with a lit candle with the crest of the RAMC stamped in the wax in the window.

No one hears the cries of a former army surgeon as a flogger cuts the air and bites into tender flesh. If the tall, pale soldier hears his former Captain moan a name into the sheets that is not his, he doesn’t say a word.

The storm spends itself in red welts on a too thin back only just regaining a healthy weight marred with a jagged scar on the right shoulder.

—-

End

“I. Said. Drop it!”

John Watson will never forget the sharp edges in those words as they were thrown, lightening quick, at Sherlock Holmes. Never forget how each word was punctuated by a whistle of the riding crop slashing through the air and the sharp, succulent sound of fiberglass and leather meeting flesh.

Let no one notice the lust that burned swift and sharp through him as he stood outside the door, out of sight, out of mind, hearing every sound as Irene Adler fought Sherlock Holmes for her property, and picturing in his mind’s eye what his flatmate must look like. Were red welts appearing, bright and beautiful on alabaster skin? Were the pupils of those pale, icy eyes blown wide with pain and hunger?

Inside the room, Sherlock groaned, and John swallowed back his answering moan. God, what he wouldn’t give to be there, to be the one drawing those sounds from his friend.

“Thank you.”

He could hear shuffling as Irene scooped up the dropped phone and moved away. John clamped down iron control learned in the military and checked himself quickly. Good, no sign of his previous hunger. He strode into the room, his eyes only briefly taking in the form of his friend, sprawled out over the floor, before moving toward The Woman, seated on the windowsill in the washroom.

She smiled at him, dark and knowing.

——

End

I have been spending a lot of time in the Sherlock_BBC Kink Meme Journal at LJ of late, and as a result, I’ve picked up several plot bunnies, some of which started combining.

Basically, this is a Fem!John fic, where Fem!John or Joan, is an Angel. Well, not really. She has divine favor though. And Moriarty is a demon. He targets Sherlock because he thinks Sherlock is clever, but he’s actually after Joan. Moriarty and Joan have a long history together, and in a previous life, Moriarty got Joan burned at the stake in the sixteenth century.

Here’s a bit of the conversation between Moriarty and Joan, which, in my head, was conducted in French.

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