2/3 "What?" Sherlock did not open his eyes, his voice roughened by sleep already. Perhaps that was the only thing that gave her the courage to continue, brazen where she would rather have lied. "You asked if I'd cry if I thought you were dead. I did." Not in his hospital room, but before. The long weeks after his purported suicide where the silence preyed upon her better judgment until her conviction had faded into a profound, indescribable sense of loss.
This excerpt is from my Sherlock/Irene fic: Life among the dead.
Writer DVD Commentary:
This snippet actually comes before the previous ask, though the two are pretty related as far as Irene’s overall emotions are concerned.
As far as commentary, I think Irene only offers this much honesty because 1) he’s so out of it she’s half hoping he won’t remember, 2) he was honest earlier (under the influence of morphine) and their relationship requires reciprocity and 3) him lying there, wounded and exhausted and out of it, really does remind her of the times she’s been afraid he was dead.
She gave him a glib remark earlier in the day, when tensions were less fraught and he’d asked her (unintentionally, thanks to the drugs) if she’d cry if she thought he were dead. He’d been referencing his Mind Palace and that the Moriarty in his head had suggested she’d cry. But it’s been bothering her, the fact that he’d asked as though he hadn’t known - the fact that she had.
I do think that Sherlock eventually told her he was alive during his time away from London, but I also think there was a window before he could tell her and all she had to go on was the news. And she must’ve seen how genuine John Watson’s heartbreak was and decided it had to be real, when Sherlock hadn’t turned up immediately on her doorstep (I’ve written a few of those too).
I’m actually extremely proud of that final sentence. I very purposefully used “preyed”, and I really enjoy the effect (though perhaps I’m the only one)? It makes the silence - the sentiment - such a hostile, violent, visceral thing, IMO. Conviction - she’d believed in him (the way she once accused him of only believing in himself: deified), and she berates herself for letting that falter - and then attempting to find the words for the loss when that conviction faltered. Yeah, I just really like how that turned out.
(Sorry to barge in uninvited - I saw your reply to the bone post and) actually, on being Connected™.. Your DNA is around 99.5% identical to Benedict's, related via an ancestor that lived a few hundred/thousand years ago! And your bones are of exactly the same basic composition as his, but they are NOT ('recycled' from) your mother's/grandmother's: your current bones aren't even what you had at birth, because they are continuously being dissolved and rebuilt, from e.g. Ca and P in your food [1/2]
[2/2] So yeah, only the genetic (and epigenetic) information gets passed on; the cells and body structures are in comparison only 'transient'. The original post wasn't entirely accurate, and the scientist in me could not just scroll past and leave it be..
ahh i see, thanks for letting me know the more accurate explanation!! :D
randombiochemist replied to your post “apparently, “”an adlocker”” has been sending anons (a lot of them,...”
"He was thinking of irene when he said ily" Erm? Sounds like someone mocking/insulting the Sherlock/Irene ship tbh :/ I've joked before that I've got adl*ck engraved to my lens and see it *everywhere*, but even with the thickest shipping goggles I can't imagine any fellow yacht crew thinking *that* 0.0
randombiochemist
replied to your post
“sea-and-thestars replied to your post “apparently, “”an adlocker””...”
Mysogynistic, precisely! If this is really an anon sending hate, whatever ship they're actually on, wow how very.. not-nice and uneducated, it's sad :( (Admittedly I myself don't like Molly either, though I probably *would* like 'Molly the shy pathologist and trustworthy friend played by the beautiful Louise Brealey' if there wasn't also the 'has an eternal crush on the brilliant male protagonist' trope forming a major part of her character..
yesss, i mean, i have seen posts like ‘what would have happened if it had been irene’, but no one ever claimed the canon scene was about adl*ck in any way
and yeah, that anon, whoever they are, is straight up ridiculous and mean! their argument of ‘irene is beautiful and molly is ugly!!!!‘ is what told me it wasn’t an adlocker, bc a) those adl*ckers who dislike molly often have more profound reasoning than something like that, and b) i have yet to see a shipper who bases sherlock’s attraction to irene in the fact that she’s beautiful??? it’s kind of a point in our ship that even if he does thinks she’s attractive, it’s her that attracts him in the end, her cleverness and such
sherlock’s attraction to irene is a direct by-product of irene being amazing and outsmarting him, and while someone could argue that she didn’t win in the end of asib (something i disagree with. she might have lost the whole passcode game, but she got sherlock running to her even after she trampled over him so ruthlessly that he was willing to let her die. she didn’t manipulate him into chopping up a bunch of terrorists for her and that was irene is mostly about, having people do things for her, sometimes against their own interest i imagine, via manipulation or blackmail, but sherlock? nah, he ran after her on his own, no manipulation necessary, and tbh??? iconic), she did outsmart him right at the beginning, then faked her death, then played him sooo nicely in that lovely ‘you’re rather good‘ scene
anyway, sorry for the rant!
my-dear-nancy
replied to your chat
“sherlock: don't say a word irene: fergalicious sherlock: i said no...”
i wake up everyday just to see another one adlock crack. because it's so perfect
(Please feel free to ignore but in case you wouldn't mind -) F, N, and P? Thanks x
(Answering primarily for Sherlock fics because I know that’s rBioch’s fandom.)
F. What stories are you planning for the future?
Oh, so, so many. As I admitted earlier: I always keep an appalling number of WIPs at any given time.
Without giving too much away, three Sherlock WIPs would be:
1) A chance (?) meeting pre-Serbia / Sherlock’s return to London
2) A very deliberate (ongoing) meeting in Serbia.
3) She’sin Greece when he confronts Moriarty on St. Bart’s roof. …
(So basically: a whole bunch of fics during Sherlock’s time away from London. But I promise they’re actually different fics???)
(For DW, I have oodles. There’s a sequel to light the fuse and burn mostly done, a bunch more Darillium feels fics, my first attempt at an actual AU, another Mels fic, and my re-write of Planet of the Dead, which remains WIP.)
N. Anything you were planning to write that never got written?
That’s hard to answer because I generally intend to write everything I’ve ever thought of…. eventually.
Probably the thing I most planned to write that definitely hasn’t gotten fully written yet was a prequel to A Most Murderous Case / my version of their Karachi escape.
I also had another version of the pre-series timeline that Services Rendered used, where Sherlock enlists Irene to help on a case. (I ended up doing SR instead because I realized how much case plot the other would require, which is in no way my strong suit.)
(For DW, again, oodles. At least two fics from AGMGTW. Something from the Doctor’s perspective at the end of FaS. TIA feels from the Doctor’s perspective. A whole bunch of “shagging their way through royal beds” fics that never materialized after And all my dreams are of you.)
Your second most recent post. ..May I please? His eyes were closed again, though he wasn't quite asleep. It reminded her uncomfortably of the long night in hospital before he woke. She'd sneaked in after visiting hours were over, between the nightshift nurses' rounds. She'd felt curiously helpless, watching him lying there, reading the doctor's report and unsure if he was going to wake up. Irene Adler was not prepared to imagine a world without Sherlock Holmes.
This excerpt is from my Sherlock/Irene fic: Life among the dead.
Writer DVD Commentary:
So the full commentary on this is probably a fic all of its own: Irene’s perspective when she sneaked into Sherlock’s hospital room after he’d been shot, he didn’t wake, she couldn’t stay, and she left a rose as her calling card so he’d know she’d cared worried been there.
But let’s see what I can manage, eh?
First off, I’m ridiculously proud of the usage of “sneaked” in that sentence because I tend to use the colloquial/American “snuck” for the past tense of “sneak” and I’ve only semi-recently considered/started shifting that for my writing (dragged/drug feels easier to justify/correct - so I’m extra proud of this wording for some reason).
I think the interesting implication here is that she read and understood his doctor’s report. That she arrived before most others would’ve made it, from wherever she was, so she was keeping an eye on Sherlock or else spectacularly well-informed. That she sat there, at his hospital bed, and was afraid that he wouldn’t wake, but she’d stayed, and then had to leave before she knew for certain that he would wake anyway. And yet, she pushed that fear to the background the entire time she saw him (because he was awake and of course he was fine)… until he closes his eyes again and there’s some vestige of panic or sentiment that remind her of that moment - of that fear that hasn’t really dissipated.
There’s not much to say from Sherlock’s perspective - he’s in pretty considerable pain and mental disarray and probably thisclose to actually passing out. Of course, he’s fighting it because he doesn’t want to worry Irene miss a moment with her show weakness in front of her.
The only other commentary I can think of is that this fic came together remarkably quickly for me. I wrote it primarily in one or two sittings, and then was just fiddling with some of the wording near the end for a bit.
This fic is probably a pretty exact representation of my headcanon for how Sherlock got mobile from his hospital bed, although I’ve also written other versions of this scenario. I was really just quite chuffed with how this came out, as egotistical as that may sound.
Okay if I may ask (and if you'd like to answer any one or more of the following) - 3 and 4 for any/all of your Sherlock/Irene stories; 7 for SR; 9 for SR and/or Disguises? Thank you and have a lovely weekend <3
For all of them!? I’ll try! Some of these were hard to pick, especially my older fics - it’s been a while since I wrote them, so my favourite bits may have changed.
3: What’s your favorite line of narration?
4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?
7: Where did the title come from?
9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?
The Uneventful Afternoon:
3. As far as battle tactics go, becoming a statue to avoid seduction iscertainly a unique one.
4. “Don’t mind him. He’s just grumpy that he’s losing.”
“I do not get grumpy,” comes the decidedly grumpy reply fromher left.
A remembered kiss in the dark of night:
3. Eyes still closed and breathing even, his arms shot out tograb the intruder by their wrists (bare), yank them behind the person’s back(also bare), and he quickly tugged down and rolled, so that he was pressing theintruder against the bed, (her) arms immobilized beneath her.
Ah, stupid. Sherlockopened his eyes, 99.95% certain of whom he would see.
Irene Adler lay pinned beneath him, smirking,looking for all the world like she was enjoying lying there with her armswrenched behind her back. Perhaps she was.
4. Sherlock shrugged, but there was a twist at the corner ofhis mouth. “Always be prepared.”
Irene’s light laugh was genuine and surprised, but her voicewas seductive as she leaned closer, “Such a boy scout.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. His voice was stilllow. “Hardly.”
Not with a whimper, but with a bang:
3. There’s something inhis eyes but she can’t place it, and she doesn’t dare linger to draw out hissecrets when she’s too afraid he’ll deduce all of hers.
4. “My work is all that matters to me. Sherlock Holmes:consulting detective. Everything else is just a distraction.” He pausesmeaningfully, wry. “But today, Sherlock Holmes is dead.”
Pressure Points:
3 / 4. “You trust me not to stab you in the back then?”
“I’ve hardly turned my back on you, have I?” Sherlockscoffed, sitting ramrod straight on her worktop, voice matter-of-fact.
“No,” Irene mused, making quick work of the tomatoes andabandoning them in favor of leaning her hands against the worktop on eitherside of Sherlock’s knees, one still holding the knife. “But then, you’ve notbeen able to take your eyes off of me.”
Sherlock’s hands came down to cup hers, quickly pinning herpalm and the knife against the worktop. Irene let her gaze linger on his handover hers for a long moment before raising questioning eyes to meet his. Whenshe finally did, she was glad to have his hands grounding hers. The intensitywas overwhelming - his gaze scorching through her and leaving nothing but ashin its wake.
The moment burned between them. Irene was stood between hislegs, leaning forward into him. They were only touching where his hands coveredhers, but palpable heat came crackling across the centimeters separating therest of them. Irene’s hand twitched, loosening her grip over the knife to layflat under his.
It was Sherlock who broke eye contact, shifting his gaze towardtheir hands as he slowly released hers, lingering in what might have been atender caress before he extracted the knife and set it aside. His posture wastoo perfect, highlighting the fact that even the slightest twitch forward wouldbring them into intimately close contact. “Shall I?”
Irene blinked, but even Sherlock Holmes couldn’tread her mind. The moment was broken. “By all means.”
A Most Murderous Case:
3. Clearly her briskpace (cause) had slightly elevated her resting pulse and respiration, leavingboth her cheeks slightly flushed and her bosom heaving (effect). Given herpenchant for attention, he calculated that 21% of the effect was manufactured.
4. “Sorry about that lot, Miss Adler. We’re not used tohaving a lady of your caliber at the Yard.” He shot a pointed, scoldinglook to Sally and she snapped her mouth shut.
Irene smiled decorously, a smirk hidden under her politemask. “I’m sure Doctor Watson will be disappointed to hear your review ofhim.”
Life among the dead:
3. There now - they’d both acquiesced to sentiment under theduress of Sherlock’s injuries. That wasn’t weakness but recompense, surely.
4. “I did.”
((It was too hard to pick. I not so secretly love how this fic came out. In context of the fic, that’s my favourite line. I have others that I enjoy for the humour or repartee, but that one always wins.))
Exceptions:
3. Sherlock’s temper wasnot improved by convalescence, withdrawals or his brother’s presence.
4. “Don’t you daremention America. I had to tell you something. And, considering I didn’t knowyou were alive for two years, we’renot about to quibble over it.”
Disguises:
3. The heat and her presence leave him light-headed; he feelsas though he’s high, but The Woman has proved far more addictive than any drug.
4.John looks like, were his wife and child not present, hemight punch Sherlock again. “Seriously? Why am I always the last toknow?”
Irene smirks. “I don’t know, wasn’t it your idea, Dr.Watson? Hamish, was it?”
Mary glances between the other occupants of the room with aknowing, delighted grin, before settling her attention on her husband andSherlock, still standing at odds. “Hamish, really? Look at the two of you,sharing baby names like a couple of old hens.”
Sherlock scoffs. “We are not naming our childHamish.” He blinks, and then frowns, turning to Irene. “Is it even aboy?”
9. No alternate versions - it just took me forever to decide on the details.
A piece of my memory:
3. This close, he inhales The Woman - boldand unfettered. She still favors Casmir fragrance, and the strong sandalwoodhits his nostrils like a familiar caress, coming on the tails of fruits andjasmine. After she’d borrowed his coat, he’d catalogued each individualcomponent of her perfume in detail. Her scent had lingered there for weeks -Casmir and The Woman and mystery. He can smell the slight salt of her sweat now- too long in heat of the wedding reception - a scent that brings back vividmemories of sticky hot nights in Islamabad and Morocco - Jordan, Cuba, Greece,more.
4. “Well, the wedding is over now. Allyour best man duties duly discharged.”
“Not quiteall of them. Something about shagging a wedding guest? I believe it istradition.”
Services Rendered:
3. Irenefinishes her cigarette, though it doesn’t take away the dark, smoky taste ofhim invading her mouth.
4.“You smoke mybrand. It tastes different on you. That possibility hadn’t occurred to mebefore.”
((It was really difficult to pick - it’s a very long story. I probably have one for each chapter, but these are both from one of my favourite sections.))
7. The title came to me along with the initial idea for this fic. The idea was to take the most straightforward words and situation (rendering of paid services) and then really dissect what that might look like for Sherlock and Irene if they’d met in such a situation. I hope the fic turns both words on their heads, both individually and in combination.
9. No, there were never any alternate versions.
((For what it’s worth, the only two Sherlock fics I’ve written with (partial) alternate versions are Exceptions and A remembered kiss in the dark of night.))
randombiochemist replied to your post “randombiochemist replied to your post “apparently, “”an adlocker””...”
Thank you for the bonus 'rant' I'm 100% with you : ] Aside from the fact that using the U-word to describe the appearance of any living being is shallow and meaningless, as you have very well said the attraction between Sherlock and Irene was fundamentally intellectually-driven (the pathologist has got to be very intelligent as well, with admirable dedication to her work, and her own qualities and intrigue, but canonically the challenges-and-chess-of-wits element wasn't there with Sherlock, and I realise I'm getting off-topic and I apologise and now I've forgot what other points I'd meant to make which is unsurprising given the current time and the (nonexistent) amount of sleep I've had this week and why am I sill typing I'm sorry I shall just conclude with a "yes dinnerxx what you said" and wish you a good..evening?
exactly! there’s no doubt that molly is smart, she’s a pathologist after all, but i think irene’s love for games and challenges are what makes the sherlock/irene dynamic so attractive to me, and maybe even for sherlock (come on, the way he said ‘She loves to play games’ in asib y’all). it doesn’t necessarily translate to romantic attraction for them, but i believe it’s the base were the adl*ck ship stands plus all the other canon things we have! we’re lucky in that sense, which is what makes the anon sound more and more like a fake. adl*ck has enough canon material as it is, why would we feel the need to twist the ily scene? in my experience in the yacht i have never seen an adl*cker be insecure about our ship to feel threatened by that scene
well, you should go to sleep! i hope u rest well. have a good night!
