Note: determined to finish these off before July. 3 to go!
~~~
John opened and unlocked his laptop. He hesitated only a moment when he saw the empty blog that had been left open the last time he used it, then he clicked to a new tab and went to his browser.
Fingers hovered over the keyboard. With an uncertain huff, he typed ‘tiny person’ into the search bar.
As soon as he hit return, he knew that his keywords were flawed. Immediate results were mostly to do with dwarfism, and that wasn't at all what he was looking for.
He really should have been job hunting. He'd put a few feelers out to some old contacts, people he knew at St. Bart's, and was waiting to hear back. Couldn't hurt to cast a few more lines.
Having an inches-tall man continuously appearing in his flat was an incredible distraction from that task.
He'd shown up in John's sight several more times over the past few days and, John had just begun to notice, did so a little closer to him each time. He didn't do anything but stand there staring John down, since he most often chose to have some sort of high ground. Since their first encounter was so tense, the doctor didn't want to approach him and appear aggressive like before. So the tiny man just watched him for a while, and disappeared when John wasn't looking.
All that simply baffled John, and didn't give him any insight into what exactly he was and what he was doing.
John clucked his tongue as he reached absently for the chips left over from his takeaway lunch. Cheap and convenient, just something to fill him up. He could think about how to narrow his search as he chewed and cleaned the grease from his fingers on a nearby paper napkin.
Once his fingers were clean, he added the word ‘folklore’ to the end of his previous search. He gave it a second thought before inserting ‘English’ in front of it.
This brought up expected results as well. Pixies, fairies, gnomes, leprechauns… It all seemed a little too fantastical based on John's (admittedly limited) experiences. The tiny man didn't have wings, didn't seem able to fly or in possession of magic powers. The closest things John witnessed were those bursts of speed while he was trying to get away. Surely if he had more tricks up his sleeve than that, John would have seen them.
One term among them stood out as something he couldn't immediately associate with some fairy tale or cartoon. ‘Brownie’. John's brow furrowed, interest piqued as he clicked on the first link featuring the unfamiliar creature.
Brownies certainly seemed a more low-key sort compared to fairies and whatnot. Little people living in walls, trying not to be seen and quietly carrying out small household tasks in exchange for food. John thought back to the scones Mrs. Hudson had left out…
One point against brownies as an option was that every depiction and description of them was significantly more impish or animalistic than what John saw. Seemed very much like any human he might see around, just one who happened to be inches high.
Then again, as John read on, brownies were not to be trifled with, if the folklore was to be believed. Though they mostly operated in the shadows, they were known to be mischievous as well. Playing tricks on people when they least expected it, and if they got pissed off, they became more hostile and took on the form of ‘boggarts’.
He had to blink away the memory of trapping the guy under a mug. Suddenly he was really hoping that he wasn't on the right track.
John sat back in his chair to try and reset his thoughts to come up with something else he could try. He gave a sigh, once again going for a few chips when something gave him pause. A small yet sudden shift in his peripheral vision.
Glancing over, John was surprised to find the tiny man on the far edge of the kitchen table. He stood there as straight and tall as he could make himself, arms crossed and eyes sharply fixed on John.
John in turn froze; this had happened a good handful of times now, but he'd never appeared this close.
An even bigger shock was that the man began marching toward John. All he could do was stare as his eyebrows jumped up, clueless about what brought this on. Did something change to make him behave this way?
The determined march slowed as the little man came within inches of John's hand, still stuck outstretched and hovering near the chips. He broke eye contact with the human to glare at the hand, just about twice as large as he was tall, and then cut those sharp blue eyes right back to John.
John broke out of his trance to awkwardly move his hand back, feeling like he was intruding all of a sudden. Unsure of what else to do with it, he let it come to rest near his keyboard.
He could swear he saw those tiny eyes narrow as the man all but stomped forward to close the distance with the chips and snatch a small one up. When all John did was blink dumbfoundedly, he huffed and turned on his heel to go back the way he came.
From that spot right next to the chips, the screen of John's laptop was in full view of the man as he turned. He spared it a glance and scoffed.
“Dull…” John thought he heard the man mutter.
Before John could even think about how to take that, let alone respond to it, the tiny figure turned into an impossibly fast blur and vanished over the edge of the table.
John sat there for a long time, mouth agape as his chips went stone cold beside him. When it all caught up to him, he glanced at his idle computer and closed it.
Judging by the man's response, John could only assume that he was not a brownie.
kajensen07 replied to your post: So enhanced speed is Sherlock’s knack… Is that what you are hinting? Or did I get my signals crossed?
myimaginedairybeard replied to your post: Yeah! I mean, at least that’s what I meant to say. We’ve cracked the code!
Does it make him more speedy or just more of fast runner? Like, I’m guessing it includes his entire body and not just the legs…
Awesome! You guys got close enough that I can now officially announced what his knack is as a borrower!
It isn’t exactly enhanced speed, but it’ll look that way to an outside observer. Sherlock is actually one of our stronger knack users.
He just needs that flair!
Time Distortion: The ability to slow down or stop time. A very strong knack that requires training to sustain for longer than a few seconds. In Sherlock’s case, he is able to slow down time around him, enabling him to escape with a speed that can’t be matched, and make observations that no one else would ever notice. When he stretches his ability, he can include others in this. He can’t stop time like an angel; it will always move forward
@borrowedtimeandspace: I like to imagine it like a Sherlock-shaped bubble, separating him into his own little time zone that happens to be different to everything around him. To include others, he needs to concentrate harder and expand that bubble. Though, Sherlock being Sherlock, he tends to prefer going it alone. Here’s a little peek into how it works for him!
He concentrated, and everything around him fell slightly out of focus. All noises were muffled far into the background, and when he looked back at John, he was moving so slowly that he might as well be still.
Sherlock let out a relieved breath, but kept going, knowing this wouldn’t last long.
For just a moment, Sherlock was faster than the entire world.
Sherlock spent the next few days observing John Watson from a distance. Excursions for food and supplies were limited to the dead of night, long after the human had gone to sleep. During the day, the flat was silent. Sherlock spent his time thinking, either completely motionless or pacing restlessly whilst talking to a small rodent skull tucked in the corner of his main room, for hours on end in each case.
John returned to the flat from work in the evenings during the week, and Sherlock watched his every move from various hiding places and holes in the walls. Days passed, and not once did the doctor go looking for the borrower he’d caught.
Caught and released, Sherlock pondered, still struggling to understand that decision. John had Sherlock at his mercy. Completely trapped. He didn’t have to listen to Sherlock at all; Sherlock suspected at first that he was being predictably ignored by the human.
Then again, if John was listening to him, why had he taken so long to respond?
Questions like that haunted Sherlock, and he regretted being unable to get a read on John’s reactions until the very end. He needed to connect the dots, and by the end of the week he was through with his current method of doing so. He couldn’t just stare at John from hiding and expect answers to come.
~~~
John made a point of sleeping in on his days off. He was decidedly not a morning person, barely functional before he got some caffeine in his system.
Even after he’d had his tea and made his breakfast, he didn’t notice the tiny figure standing on the top shelf in the kitchen.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the doctor as he milled about the kitchen below, heavily relying on his cane. He stood at the very edge of the highest point in the room, stiff as a board with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. If John had thought to look up, there’d be no missing Sherlock. But he didn’t, and Sherlock was left watching John move to distract himself from how exposed he was up there.
Specifically, he watched how John behaved with his cane. He seemed to need it when he walked, leaning it against his hip when he needed his hands free while standing. Once John got into what he was doing, however, he seemed to forget about it, standing almost freely. Sherlock absently recalled a moment during the chase earlier in the week.
John hurrying around the table to catch up to Sherlock almost completely without the aid of his cane. The implement clattering to the floor as he crouched over Sherlock.
Sherlock had already discovered that John's limp was psychosomatic, no surprise there. What piqued his interest this time was the fact that it was no mindless menial task that caused John to forget about it that time. It was a chase.
Interesting.
After that observation, it became clear that John wasn’t going to notice him. Sherlock’s plan to test how John would react to seeing the smaller man a second time would clearly have to be postponed. Sherlock turned to leave with a huff, storming off to wait a few hours to try again.
Back in the kitchen, John’s ears perked up. Such small sounds as the frustrated breath caught John’s attention more easily after his encounter the other day. For a second, John thought it was the same person he’d found, but he seriously doubted it. He hardly expected the man to stick around after John chased him and trapped him. That was the entire reason why whenever something caught John’s attention, and quite a few things did recently, he never responded. Never looked, never spoke, never investigated.
For all he knew, he was simply hearing things.
~~~
John noticed Sherlock later on that night. He was shuffling around the main room in search of the television remote, and his gaze happened to sweep around the room once he found it.
Then he saw the tiny shape standing on the edge of an empty bookshelf, as tall as a man under four inches in height could manage to make himself.
John froze, and was surprised to find the man standing his ground. He expected that if he ever laid eyes on the little fellow again, it would be short-lived. Surely he’d run away the second John saw him.
Yet there he was, in what appeared to be a long wool coat, arms crossed and staring intently back at John.
At first, John hadn’t a clue what to do. He had no idea why Sherlock was still around after the other day, and couldn’t imagine why he was there watching him.
John decided to carry on with his planned evening of vegging in front of the telly. If the little fellow wasn’t going to do anything, then it must be best if John didn’t make an advance. He wasn’t trying to chase him off, after all.
Sherlock’s brow furrowed as he stared down at the doctor, who collected a laptop and settled himself comfortably in an armchair. After the prolonged, unmistakable eye contact with the human, Sherlock had been prepared for nearly any reaction.
Of course it was entirely possible the human would do nothing, but many Sherlock’s size would consider it less than likely.
With the human’s eyes off him, Sherlock’s shoulders slumped of their own accord. He knew better than to let his guard down just yet, however. Just because Dr. Watson was showing restraint now didn’t mean he would keep it up. A curious human might lose patience if the temptation remained.
So Sherlock pointedly made himself comfortable, pushing back his coat with his usual dramatic flair as he sat down at the edge of the shelf. The movement was caught in the corner of John’s eye, causing the man to glance up and lift his brow in surprise and confusion. Sherlock scowled right back, and John’s gaze slid away. He simply opened his laptop and opened up his browser.
It was almost a battle of wits at this point, in Sherlock’s mind. Some silent back-and-forth between the two men to see which gave in first.
For about an hour this continued, John occasionally glancing up to see if Sherlock was still there, and Sherlock doing his best to stay on task and not get sucked into whatever was on the TV. John didn’t seem overly invested, perhaps using the telly as white noise as he attempted to do something on his computer. ‘Attempted’ being the operative word, as he seemed to have a blank page pulled up to apparently stare at in quiet contemplation.
Sherlock quickly grew bored of watching John not type, and couldn’t help getting twitchy when the idiots on screen came to all the wrong conclusions.
“No, no, NO!” Sherlock found himself shouting in frustration. “Look at the--!”
He stopped short and tensed up all over again, gaze falling on John who was properly staring this time. Sherlock shuffled to his feet, prepared to make a run for it in case he’d finally piqued John’s interest in earnest.
When John still remained seated, Sherlock decided he might have taken this too far for the moment. He clenched his jaw, gave his coat a brushdown with a bit of unnecessary flair, and turned on his heel to vanish toward the back of the shelf. Not running away, but definitely walking off.
John was left dumbfounded, unsure of how to handle any of this.
I can’t stop imagining a smoll Doctor Strange! One of his manny powers is time manipulation, which includes being able to slow down time. I gotta ask, did you get Sherlock’s knack idea from there? Either way, his ability fits him well, I love it!
Lol! While it is true that borrower Sherlock shares a lot in common with Dr. Strange, his knack actually comes right from the BBC Sherlock TV show, and how Sherlock is shown.
His ‘deduction thing’ often shows him racing ahead of the rest of the world while he figures everything out, and this is an extension of that! It took an integral part of how he thinks and allows him to project it on the rest of the world, so now he’s even faster.
Chances are, John gets slowed down a lot.
kajensen07 replied to your post:
It kind of works with the way the show is too! When Sherlock concentrates on a crime scene, he sees everything in a short amount of time. I like it! Cool!
Exactly the effect we were going for with Sherlock! He’s one of the borrowers who’s knack builds off of his own character, much like Dean and tracking.
I don't know why, but when looking at Brothers Chosen I started wondering how things would unfold if Sherlock was one of the small folk instead (maybe Watson too, but mostly Sherlock)
Tiny Sherlock would be a lot like tiny Dean in so many respects. So much attitude and bravado and bristle all packed into an itty bitty body, practically overflowing. Of course he’s still cleverer than all those humans, even if he is forced to stay in hiding most of the time, which he would be very grumpy about. Borrower Sherlock has a chip on his shoulder and a lot to prove.
