#fff311

[lisbeth-kk]

Sherlock fandom

In the Closet

The second I met him, my life changed for the better. At least, that’s what I thought until his landlady started meddling.

“There’s an extra bedroom upstairs. That is if you need it.”

My hackles rose, which they always did when an innuendo regarding my sexuality was brought out for scrutiny.

“Of course, we will need it!” I exclaimed exasperated.

“Oh, we have all sorts around here, dear. Mrs Turner next door even has married ones.”

Sherlock murmured something under his breath, and I prompted him to speak up, which he refused. My legendary stubbornness got the better of me – again – and I urged him not to be shy.

“Very well,” he said haughtily. “I do not understand why you are so determined to suppress your bisexuality. You are obviously in the closet, but like Hudders just said, we have all sorts around here. No need to hide like you apparently had to in your childhood home and in the army.”

If I thought his deductions from the day before were amazing, this unwelcome disclosure just made me nauseous, and my intestines clenched painfully.

“That way,” Sherlock pointed.

I ran to the loo; I must’ve looked quite green around the gills for him to notice and vomited violently. 

There was no way I could move in with him now; though I did contemplate to move into the bathroom on a permanent basis to avoid meeting that dazzling gaze ever again.

“She’s gone. You can come out,” Sherlock said calmly. “Tea?”

“Are you even real?” I wanted to ask.

I had never met anyone who took my deepest fear and transformed it into some trifle in just a couple of minutes. Maybe it was all fine.

“You’ve been a bloody soldier, Watson! Surely, you can cope having tea with the man.”

I had trouble lifting my gaze to his face when I finally emerged from the loo. A perfectly brewed mug of tea stood on the kitchen table. How he knew that I only took a splash of milk and no sugar, was beyond me, but apparently, Sherlock Holmes was some sort of weird magician who knew absolutely every tiny detail about me.

***

After I shot Jeff Hope to save Sherlock’s life, he took me to his favourite Chinese restaurant, and prattled on about the lower part of the door handle. I paid no attention to the actual words; too elated, giddy, and a tad bit frightened after I realised, he could’ve died if I hadn’t raced after him and brought the gun with me.

“Don’t do that again,” I said quietly after he had ordered for us.

“Do what?” he asked absentmindedly.

“Leave me behind like that. You couldn’t have known that I would follow you.”

“Oh, but I did know, John,” he said confidently.

“Whatever,” I sighed, knowing there was little use to argue with him. “Just…please, promise me.”

“Why?” he asked in a hushed tone.

The waiter brought our food and interrupted my speech. We were both famished and dug into the most delicious Chinese food I’d ever eaten.

***

Later, when the door to 221B closed behind us, Sherlock turned to me and asked again.

“Because now that I’ve found you, I can’t live without you,” I said softly.

The genuine smile I was rewarded with, sent electrical jolts down my spine, which only increased when his large hands cupped my face.

“Ditto,” he whispered and kissed me.

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[starwright]

Teaser Trailer - True Colors

Authors Note: Stay with me, this one is a little different, trust the process.

Summary: You watch a commercial for a TV show premiering Fall of 1999

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt FFF311

Word Count: 504

It's the summer of 1999. You sit, bored, on the couch, channel surfing while you wait for dinner to be ready. You happen to catch the next channel at just the right moment as a commercial for a new show begins.

The screen is black with a static hum.

A teenage boy's voice, off-screen, says, "Most people don't see the world for what it really is."

The plain black image is interrupted by a flickering street lamp, just briefly illuminating a cobblestone street and smooth sidewalk. A shadow passes by, almost too quickly to catch.

The boy's voice continues. "They have no idea what's hiding in plain sight."

The image cuts to thick, dark trees, and a pair of glowing eyes peers out at you from between the branches. In the distance, someone screams faintly. The image changes again, this time more dramatically, to a worn building with warm bricks. The mahogany brown door slowly opens with a creak.

"We call them Waystations. Homes for the lost, the hunted, and the just plain weird."

A montage of images flashes across the screen, showing different creatures. A person with bark for skin. A normal human head, except for the antlers sticking out of their hair. A girl cuts her eyes at you and then turns into mist. A teenage werewolf grins at you, fangs bared.

"Shapeshifters. Banshees. Werewolves. You name it, we've probably patched them up and given them a bed."

The images begin to take on an ominous tone again. Someone screaming, appearing to be trapped behind a foggy mirror. A book pulses with the light of a foreign glowing sigil. A raven flies across the full moon.

"Most people walk through life never seeing what's right in front of them."

The soft, haunting melody you barely noticed playing over the background begins to swell.

"But not me."

You finally see Devon, the boy who has been speaking, sitting on the roof of the Waystation. It's night, the wind sweeps through his dark hair, and his sharp eyes watch the town spread out around him.

"When you grow up surrounded by the things that aren't supposed to exist, you get used to seeing through to people's true colors."

The image cuts again, this time to a moss-covered archway in the forest. Inside the archway, the image begins to warble and distort, showing not the forest, but a glimpse into an entirely different world of rolling hills and lavender skies. It vanishes.

"Some of them are beautiful. Some of them would burn the world down."

Back in the forest, a flashlight cuts across the screen, then illuminates the title "Avalon". The background fades until only the title is showing on a black background. Smaller words swipe across the bottom of the title in a ghostly font.

The first set reads "Not everything that's hidden wants to stay that way."

The words are swept away and replaced by the second set, simply "Coming this fall."

Devon speaks one last time as the commercial closes. "Sleep tight."

Tagging my production team as well (aka the taglist): @kingragnarok-writes @aalinaaaaaa @annetilney @ark-inkweaving

Let me know if you want to join the production team ;)

[leighrobertsreads]

Las solteronas jóvenes

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Fandom: Encanto

Rating: G

Relationships: Isabela/Juana (OC) - super illegal in Colombia before 1981, able to marry since 2016; Bruno/Mirabel - legal in Colombia as long as the Church agreed to allow them to marry before the 1970s, completely legal after that

Words: 520

Spanish terms:

soltero: unmarried man, bachelor

solterona: “old maid”, never-married woman over about 30

pasionaria: Passionflower - here, Passiflora antioquiensis, native to Antioquia, Colombia

proclamas: banns - announcement on three Sundays and/or feast days that a couple was planning to marry soon, giving the community the chance to state possible objections, like an unknown cousin (or closer) relationship, or that one of them might already be married.

Her uncle Bruno proposed to her sister Mirabel after dinner the night before - mere ceremony before the real business of the evening: the signing of their betrothal contract, witnessed by Padre Flores.

Isabela decided to be happy for them, despite her lingering negative feelings, the chief of which was not disgust or skepticism… but envy. Not envy to have Bruno for herself - Mirabel was more than welcome to him or any other soltero in the Encanto - but for the acceptance they had managed to carve out. The Church allegedly prohibited their marital relationship due to their familial relationship, but was in enough of the habit of making allowances for that particular situation (even their very particular situation) that the bishop’s permission to marry came on a pre-printed form.

No such permission would be forthcoming for her and Juana, even if Isabela agreed to tell the family.

But there was one lie she could quit living. Isabela glared at the simple, white dress that she had worn on feast days since her quinceañera; the white dress that proclaimed that she wasn’t married, but was praying to be. She started praying not to be married when Abuela began negotiating her betrothal contract with Mariano. She picked it back up again once Abuela had started taking her and her sisters to “introduce” them to men they had grown up with as potential brides.

Juana dyed her dress with indigo shortly after her twentieth birthday; Abuela hastily hushed Mirabel when she had exclaimed how much she liked the color. Later at lunch, when Mirabel asked if she could have a colorful feast day dress when she was older, too, Abuela snapped that she could after she married or ended up a solterona of thirty, and that there was to be no further talk of Juana Duarte or prematurely dyed dresses.

Isabela was ready to declare herself a solterona, except for one thing: what color for her feast day dress? She loved the dress that was stained that night and morning when Mirabel pushed her to truly discover her powers, before the Madrigals’ world came crashing down around them to be rebuilt far better, far more honestly, but wearing it wouldn’t send the right message - she didn’t want to look like she has forgotten it was a holy feast day! She gazed around at her current experiments, until her eyes settled on the one plant which had not sprung from her will.

The small bush of pasionaria which Juana had given her was the perfect inspiration. Juana sheepishly babbled about how ridiculous giving flowers to la princesa de las flores was, but Isabela was delighted. The men who had attempted to court her after Mariano had publicly switched his attention to Dolores had sometimes proudly handed her bouquets of dying flowers, but Juana’s gift showed effort and understanding.

It took a couple rounds of mixing, but she finally hit upon a palette of greens, reds and fuchsia that would show her true colors on a feast day that the first proclamas would be read for a couple who had been allowed to declare themselves with far less subtlety.

[starkraivennemad]

Seeing True

The doors to A&E slid open automatically, revealing a scene of controlled chaos.

Victims of a multiple-car accident had arrived minutes before. And Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade gave not one single fuck.

“Stay with me! You hear me!”

Lestrade ran into the A&E, screaming at the limp body in his arms.

“Your brother needs you, Sherlock! The world needs you!”

Despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins, he was careful to support the man's head and neck as he rushed inside.

“I need assistance! Overdose! Suspected heroin. Male. 32. Name’s Holmes!”

A nurse, spotting them, immediately rushed over, a stretcher magically appearing from out of nowhere. The nurse nodded, already checking for pulse and breathing, her expression a mask of professional urgency and kindness. “You did good; we got it from here, sir.”

He stepped back as other medical personnel surrounded him and wheeled him into an empty bay.

All he could do now was pray.

So, he did.

“God, save him. Please! I know they fight, but his brother will crumble without him. Christ! I’ve got to call him!”

Those who didn’t know the men thought the Holmes brothers hated each other. But Greg had seen their true colors and knew better.  He reached for his phone to make the dreaded call.

Unfortunately, the expression of someone else in the waiting area was not as kind as that of the hospital staff.

“He’s a just another dirty junkie. Look at him. Let him die…”

Lestrade saw RED!!!

The courtesy, professionalism, and respect of his job flew out the proverbial window as he spun on the woman.

“That junkie is SHERLOCK HOLMES! And even if he were not, he is a human being whose life is currently more worthy than yours you utterly Fucking! Heartless! Bitch!” the enraged cop screamed at the woman who shrank as much from the heat of his rage as his spittle flying.

A strong hand grabbed at his arm. Lestrade was about to turn when he heard the sounds no one wants to hear coming from the bay.

Someone flatlining.

“Sherlock!” a familiar voice yelled in extremis.

Greg turned then.

“Oh God! Mycroft!”

------------------------

@flashfictionfridayofficial

[renee-writer]

First Date

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial #311 prompt True Colours

WC 149

TW: Bombing

Original Work

“What are your true colors? What part of you do you hide from everyone?” 

She chuckles. What a question for a first date.

“You don't believe in small talk, do you?” 

He smiles and shakes his head. “No, I don't. We don't have time for it, do we?”

A fair point. “No, I guess we don't. I am a bit insecure and have trouble trusting people. My childhood was traumatic.”

He nods. “Thank you. That is a bit hard right now, I imagine.”

“Just a bit. What about you?”

“I show myself as tough but deep inside I am terrified.”

“Understandable. Will you see to me if I can trust you?”

“Absolutely.” 

They look beyond the bombed out diner they are sitting in. “Good. We should probably get out of here.”

He takes her hand and they carefully move past the rubble as the bombs start to fall again.

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

Mask

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial using the prompt #FFF311 ~ true colours. The first part is already out on AO3 and I am still weaving the second, which I already started a while ago. I love that the prompt has given me an idea to continue. So thank you. This is a conversation that has taken place in this universe. An alternate universe, yet canon related.

—

Fandom : Yatagarasu/The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

Characters: Lord Natsuka, Lord Tōru, mention of Yukiya, Wakamiya (a.k.a. Nazukihiko and the Crown Prince), Rokon and Atsufusa

Word count: 879

"I HEARD a rumour."

The tone was tinged of malice, of something sinister, as Lord Tōru opened his greetings to his nephew, Lord Natsuka, the Meikyo-in shrine director. The latter was on a visit to ensure that there was no disagreement between them concerning their goals when it came to ruling Yamauchi in the near future.

"What did you hear, Uncle?" Lord Natsuka furrowed his brows, but he was all ears.

"The Crown Prince's aide is not a male Yatagarasu from a provincial nobility, but a princess and a granddaughter of His Serene Prince Gen'ya, masquerading as a knave. His mother was the late Lady Fuyuki. I hadn't met her but I heard from the military top brass that she was an intelligent young woman who was highly opinionated regarding military strategies and excelled in board games when she was alive."

"Was she? Well, as for your question I cannot confirm that, Uncle. As far as I know, Yukiya has been convalescing at the palace. I don’t know the exact reason. Anyway, where did you hear this idle talk?"

"Idle?" He turned to look at Lord Natsuka's left side where his nephew's adviser, Atsufusa, was seated. The head of the Southern Family contemplated to drink the cup of sake he was holding in his hand. The aide lifted his head and nodded. The monk caught the brief exchange. Slowly, the true colours of his adviser unravelled before his very eyes. Who was his real master? Whose side was he on? According to Rokon, his loyalty to Lord Natsuka was shaky at best.

“Yes, idle chatter. Not only because His Highness Wakamiya is satisfied with him. But he’s a normal teenage Yatagarasu that gets sick from time to time. Often he has to deal with the Crown Prince’s peccadilloes alone by himself. He’s still learning the ropes." The priest smirked for good measure and then quickly added, “at least that’s what I have heard.”

The imperial court was full of shadows, no secret was safe, and the rampant perpetration of lies was a typical order of the day, especially if the Golden Raven substitute, who happened to be their father, was the ruler. He had weak constitution and a puppet of the Empress.

"I have witnesses say that the child went to the Valley. What was his business there?"

Lord Natsuka shook his cup, his food left untouched. He glanced at his close relative, who his mother, the Purple Empress, truly loved. It was an open secret that she was negotiating with the authorities to install her little brother as the head of the One Hundred Officials of the country, the position of the venerated Yellow Raven, next to the Golden Raven. Curious now: how did his uncle find out about the Valley and Yukiya’s background? His lips were sealed, neither confirming nor denying, but his uncle's determined eyes urged him to say something. Lord Natsuka noticed that he was again watching behind him. Atsufusa’s eyes were close.

“I haven't the faintest."

“Wakamiya hasn't visited the consort candidates at the Sakura Blossom Palace, has he?” Lord Tōru swiftly changed the topic and eyed him, as if gauging his reply.

“As far as I know he has the plans to do so in the coming days, just in time for the Tanabata.”

“Hmmm…" The older aristocrat finally swallowed his sake. At the moment it seemed it was the end of the discussion. The monk stared back at his relative. Lord Tōru and Lord Natsuka’s mother shared the strong jaw of the clan, and the high, well-defined cheekbones that he also inherited. He thought of his mother whose love for his uncle was unmatched, yet knew very well that his uncle did not reciprocate that affection. In fact, he found her quite meddlesome. What the Purple Empress felt for her sibling was bordering on indecency. The priest shook his head in annoyance. To think this was his own mother.

“I am glad that you granted my request. You know very well that I dote on you, my dear nephew, confirming once again that there is trust between us.”

“I am a member of the main family and my task is the check and balance of the four houses’ power and authority. It is a tale as old as maintaining good relationships with every faction, with every house.”

Lord Natsuka showed him a winning smile, but he resolved to inform his younger brother Wakamiya about Lord Tōru’s declarations as soon as he had the chance to meet him in secret. Truth be told, he knew a few things. He even raised this topic to Nazukihiko the first time the Crown Prince met the Taruhi children many moons ago. But there was nothing could stop his younger brother once he decided to do something. For now, he must keep his feelings under wraps so as not to add more fuel to his uncle’s supposition. He must retain this façade until Wakamiya’s ascension to the throne. Later he would order Rokon to doubly watch Atsufusa’s dealings with his uncle behind his back. Or it would be the source of their trouble in the future. Alas, he took a sip of his wine, sweet and dry at the same time, like he always wanted. A moment of relief.

~fin~