#fallen through time

[esta-elavaris]

Okay, I just mapped out everything that remains of Fallen Through Time, and my rough map suggests there'll be about twenty chapters all in all in terms of the way I'm covering the story now. But for the people who've been here a while, you'll know that I tend to underestimate that number - all in all, though, I can't see there being 30 chapters total up until I have to shuffle my way of doing things, so however you slice it, we're roughly around the halfway mark of the linear part of the story.

Those chapters will be action packed, there's a lot that happens between now and here, but I'm basically intending to mostly end the conventional storytelling around the mark where the action really kicks off in movie one (post-Elizabeth's kidnapping) because then it starts to really merge with the original story.

The problem there being that there will be some changes significant enough that it'd be cheating to just end the story there, but not enough to write a proper long-form story of? So I think I'll write the chapters that would be very different properly, but otherwise you can more or less just assume that whatever isn't discussed is the same as what happens in CTW. So once the action really kicks off, we diverge from long-form storytelling to the kind of "best bits". So we'll just be losing the bits that don't focus around Norrington/Theo, because those are the bits that wouldn't change.

I recognise that this makes it difficult for the people who haven't read CTW, but so far I think pretty much everybody reading Fallen Through Time found it via CTW? (And if that's not the case for you, you really should read CTW because it's the best thing I've ever written honestly, I look back in a daze with 0 memory of how I managed it).

But then, once DMC hits, everything really will mostly be the same, save for one or two conversations, so I won't be covering anything from DMC-onwards.

I'm gonna find a way to make the transition work as best I can, but it just makes no sense to write it all out the way I did for CTW when so much of it would be similar.

[susandwrites]

Fallen Through Time - Chapter 39

February brought an unusual amount of snow, which led to a heretofore unprecedented amount of cozy, holed-up-in-the-flat, fireside sex. John still went to the clinic every day that he was able, but he kept much shorter hours, preferring to make the walk to and from the surgery in daylight. Of course, John could always be relied upon to make a housecall, even if the journey would otherwise be hazardous to himself, but Sherlock had the benefit of his warm presence in the flat far more often than usual. And on days when neither of them had been called to any sort of work, they slept late, lounged about in their pajamas until noon, read the newspaper together, lazily sucked one another off on the sofa, and bickered about what to have for supper before going to bed at an unreasonably early hour so that they would have time to shag into the wee hours and do it all again the next day. 

All in all, it was glorious.

And, much to Sherlock’s delight, crime had not necessarily taken a holiday. A few times a week, Gregson would slog through the snow to 221B with a few sheafs of paper bearing the meagre evidence his police farce (as Sherlock privately referred to them) had been able to gather. In the month of February alone, Sherlock solved three murders (all rated under a six), eight burglaries, two cases of arson, and even one kidnapping. It was altogether a very satisfying month in more ways than one.

The cream on top of the whole jam roly-poly (a treat John was an expert in making) that was February was that Sherlock noticed connections between several of the crimes. The first murderer had, himself, been the victim of the second murder ‒ a sloppy assassination executed by a man called James Roman who refused to speak in his own defense. Two of the burglaries had been in the same street near River Court in South Bank, which seemed too coincidental to truly be a coincidence. And finally, the kidnapper had in his possession a business card for Open Doors Building Company. That was when Sherlock gasped and clapped his hands together and began pacing circles about the flat.

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[thefangirlsoul]

FALLEN THROUGH TIME

For those who are still around and for those who have found my fanfic recently I want to say that I’m sorry, I apologize for not uploading for literally a year and for basically abandoning this blog. 

I wrote a couple of posts during this year saying that I would upload and that I was writing new chapters, I’m sorry for that too because in the end I didn’t upload any of those chapters. I couldn’t write I had many ideas bu none of them could be written down on a way that honored them, my writing was awful, dull and lacked the emotion I used to write with so I stopped writing.

I’m working on new chapters, this time for real ad I’m liking the way I’ve been writing them so that’s a relief (at least for me) there will be more chapters and moodboards in the future and even a video I’ve been working on (but I’m no good at editing so please overlook the lack of talent on my side) related to a future episode.

I hope I still have some readers out there, it doesn’t matter if I only have one reader left, it will be my honor to be writing again for you.

[susandwrites]

Fallen Through Time - Chapter 38

Their breathing escalated in tandem, as though they had been running rather than staring silently at one another for a long, quiet moment. But in a way, they had. They had been running with and around and from one another for months, neither one quite prepared to come to a halt and say what needed saying. The running was over ‒ for now, anyway. No doubt they would soon be flying down the pavement again in hot pursuit of some criminal or another.

But for the moment, they were still. 

John finally blinked as though waking and managed to get his key in the lock of the door to 221B. Sherlock followed him in and they were silent as they removed their coats, dropped them on the pegs by the door, and made their way into the sitting room. Turning toward Sherlock, John braced himself for an unbearable measure of awkwardness. What now? We just… start living together? I make supper and Sherlock forgets to eat it and we go back to sharing a room?

That all sounded rather wonderful, actually.

When John looked up and met Sherlock’s eye, he decided that supper would have to wait. There was a distinct gleam which darkened his otherworldly gaze and the corner of his mouth was pulling slowly up into a smile. John felt his own cheek lifting and soon they were both grinning at each other like a pair of cats who had gotten the cream.

Finally, John breathed out, “Oh, fuck it all,” and grasped Sherlock by the lapels. He crushed their lips together and could not help the sigh that poured into Sherlock’s mouth. Instantly, Sherlock’s arms were around his waist, pulling him close, and John revelled in the feeling of their warm bodies pressed together after far too long. 

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Read the rest on AO3.

[susandwrites]

Fallen Through Time - Chapter 37

Things were mostly quiet, though a general malaise hung over the flat, casting every thought and simple action with a tinge of grey. They reached a new sort of balance. Occasionally, while Sherlock was sitting in his chair, John would deliver a cup of tea with the smallest of touches to the back of his wrist. Or he would gently place his hands on Sherlock’s waist to move him aside as John passed close by in the kitchen. It seemed that he was less hesitant to be near to Sherlock, as he had been in weeks past. But the extra wrinkle between his brows did not go away.

He slept upstairs.

It was an odd sort of torture. No, not torture, because it was bearable. Sherlock could feel somehow that their new normal was less painful. He was less compelled to do something… rash. Dangerous. Harmful.

He had to focus. He had to put his mind to use.

“I need to speak with Moriarty.”

John started a little at Sherlock’s abrupt declaration, looking up from the newspaper in his hand. “Alright…” he said slowly, waiting for Sherlock to elaborate.

“Would you… come with me?” Going to Bart’s to try and find Moriarty would be the first activity either of them had proposed in the nine days since returning from the cemetery. Largely, they had remained in the flat, with the exception of John’s clinic shifts. Sherlock had papered the wall above their sofa with notes and sketches, trying to find the connection ‒ any connection ‒ between Moriarty’s time travel and his own. Down the center of the wall, he had tacked a wide red ribbon to divide the space into two sections. The area that was not consumed with notes on the mechanics of time travel was plastered with articles and newspaper etchings of the murders that had occurred since he’d come to this time. He was missing a connection there, too. But staring at the wall had produced no result, and so the time had come to try another tactic.

“Oh, erm, sure,” John said. “Wasn’t he in Ireland?”

“The last I heard, yes,” Sherlock said, his words picking up speed. It was a relief for John to have agreed to go with him. “He was meant to be visiting family. But the only way to know if he’s back is to go and see. I don’t know where he lives ‒ Miss Hooper is the only person I can think of who might have any idea as to his location.”

“Alright. Let me just… get my coat.” John’s tone was one of surprise, as though he had absolutely not expected Sherlock to want his company with anything other than moping around the flat. But the doctor stood from his chair and slipped into his winter coat before looking at Sherlock expectantly.

And off they went.

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Read the rest on AO3.

[susandwrites]

Fallen Through Time - Chapter 35

He was right. He was always right eventually. And, Sherlock begrudgingly admitted to himself, he was right with John’s help.

“Here it is,” he said without trying to hide the smugness in his voice. Sherlock flicked the bank record in John’s direction and he took it without looking up. John had been behaving strangely. For the past fourteen hours, ever since he had awoken so suddenly from his accidental nap on the couch, John had barely made eye-contact with Sherlock. He had been curt and quick to anger and his brow had gained an extra furrow. Odd, Sherlock thought, glancing at the other man from the corner of his eye. Perhaps it has something to do with the obviously erotic dream he was having. Sherlock had the presence of mind to pretend to be deep inside his Mind Palace when John went up to his own bedroom, presumably to take care of his obvious erection and sleep some more. Sherlock fastidiously ignored the pang in his chest at the thought of John alone upstairs.

“So Janus Enterprises is completely false,” John’s voice pulled Sherlock out of his thoughts. Blinking rapidly as he came back to the present, Sherlock listened as John continued to think aloud. “It looks as if it didn’t even exist until about a month ago.” Papers were shifted and stacked as John confirmed the theory for himself.

“Yes, in my time it’s referred to as a shell corporation,” he confirmed. “It only exists on paper ‒ no employees, no office ‒ used only to move money from one person or enterprise to another without any direct contact between the two. The name Janus should have been a dead giveaway, honestly.”

“Roman god with two faces,” came John’s nonplussed reply. Sherlock drew his head back in wonderment.

“Quite right.” A constant surprise. “God of beginnings, endings, and transitions. Appropriate, given that it seems that Mr. St. Clair is moving on to a new life in America.” John nodded and continued to sift through the paperwork in front of them.

“About a year ago, St. Clair lost most of his money in what seems to be a railroad scheme and had to mortgage the family home in Essex.” He paused and looked down at the papers in confusion. “But how did Janus Enterprises come into it? He didn’t start it up, did he?”

“I suppose that’s when our friend Brook got involved,” Sherlock said. “The fireman said it was Brook who paid him to move the dead body and ‒” he paused for dramatic effect as he reached across the table to grab an official-looking packet of papers, “Brook is on the list of founding members of Janus Enterprises.” He plopped the business formation paperwork in front of John with a satisfied grin.”

“So… what? People need crime doing and they drop a line to Brook to see if he’s available?”

“So it would seem.”

“A consulting criminal.” John finally met Sherlock’s eye with a wry expression.

“The only one in the world.”

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[susandwrites]

Fallen Through Time - Chapter 33

"D'you think there's any way to get in touch with him?" Greg's right leg was jumping with anxious energy. "I mean, to send a message backward?"

"To be perfectly frank, Detective Inspector, I can't see how," Mycroft replied, his fingers drumming against the surface of his desk as he thought. Greg sighed in frustration. There had to be some way, hadn’t there?

“Well, I mean,” he started, “an open door goes both ways, dunnit? If he can go back, then he must be able to come forward. And if he can go back, why not you or me?”

“You are speaking of travelling backward in time?” Mycroft raised a patronizing eyebrow.

“Don’t give me that look, we’ve already come to the bizarre conclusion that that’s exactly what Sherlock’s done.” Greg shifted in the slick leather chair, trying to regain some of the authority he usually carried as a D.I. of New Scotland Yard. This pompous bugger wasn't going to condescend to him. Not when the man’s own brother was stuck almost two-hundred years in the past. “What are you doing to get him back, exactly?”

Mycroft heaved a put-upon sigh before saying, “Believe you me, Detective Insp‒”

“Greg,” he interrupted. That put the self-important prig off his game. Mycroft sat back in his chair and regarded Greg with an expression of irritated surprise. “Just… put all that Detective Inspector business away, alright? Greg will do.”

It seemed to take Mycroft some effort to start again. He pursed his lips and took a long breath through his nose before finally continuing. “Believe you me, Greg, I have some of the best minds in the world parsing through this predicament and they have made no progress. Scientists, philosophers, engineers, anyone you can imagine might have some input has been consulted and we have gotten no closer to finding my brother than to discovering another universe.” Something tingled in the back of Greg’s mind at that and a thought occurred to him.

“You haven’t been asking the right people,” he said in a low tone.

“Excuse me?” Incredulity claimed Mycroft’s face and Greg was secretly a little satisfied. He’d thought of something this smarmy bastard hadn’t.

“I said,” he stood from his chair and made for the door, “that you haven’t been asking the right people.”

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Read the rest on AO3.

[susandwrites]

Fallen Through Time - Chapter 34

John’s eyes flew open with the sudden, intense feeling that he was being watched. He hissed in a sharp breath and held back his instinctively curled fist. “Sherlock,” he said with a stressed huff. “What in God’s name‒”

“John,” Sherlock breathed out softly. He was unbearably close, leaning over John where he had apparently fallen asleep on the sofa. The bright blue-green of his eyes was dancing with some emotion John was reluctant to name. It was too much. He was too close. He smelled too good.

“Sherlock, I think you need some rest,” he said lamely. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

“But that’s just it.” His voice was still little more than a whisper and the long fingers of his right hand splayed out over John’s chest, rising and falling with his rapid breath. “I thought you were clouding my mind ‒ distracting me, keeping me from the Work.” Sherlock swallowed, licked his lips, closed his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, minuscule tears rimmed his unearthly gaze. “As it would turn out, I can’t think without you.”

John swallowed thickly. Sherlock looked absolutely shattered, clearly unable to handle the notion of a clouded mind. And, John acknowledged hesitantly, he looked sad. He looked like he missed John. 

“God, Sherlock, I…” John started, his heart absolutely breaking at the sight before him.

“Don’t,” he cut John off. “Just… I need you.” His voice was so plaintiff and John felt a rush through his chest, a burning need to protect and be near so powerful that he wasn’t surprised to feel the backs of his own eyes prickling. He barely had time to nod before Sherlock was crushing his mouth in a desperate kiss, pulling the breath from his lungs as though all either of them needed to live was the other.

Sherlock climbed onto the sofa, his legs sliding to either side of John’s hips and his hands holding on to John’s face for dear life. God, but he had missed this. The solid weight of Sherlock on top of him, the feel of his ungodly mouth against his own, the breathy moans that slipped between their frantic lips. It was glorious and John resolved to never let Sherlock be such an idiot again.

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