Sherlock, Good Omens, reading, writing, hiking, singing, and polishing guillotines. Reblogging the wonderful world of tumblr: tagging me helps me reblog your art, fic, photos, etc. 🤍
Summary: John and Sherlock marry without witnesses, church, or state. [This continues Ch. 100, which is short enough to reread if you ... you know. Ch. 103 will be ]
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I grasp Sherlock’s elbows, not his hands, which I watch startle and then settle. In the millisecond before I open my mouth to speak, a hundred memories push in to stop time.
His hands on his violin, on the bow. His calluses, known by touch and by heart.
His hand cuffed to mine in the most terrifying chase of our whole, terror-rich career.
His hands gripping mine when we strain and thrust to melt the boundary between us.
His hands newly scoured by some caustic chemical or other, the small wounds a matter of indifference to him but not to me.
His hands, dexterous as a magician’s (illusionist, John, he’d say impatiently, magic isn’t real), quick and precise as a surgeon’s.
His hands, the unseeing version of those mercurial eyes: both are like no one else’s, hungry for data that they can shuttle to the sense-making organ faster than most people can even register its presence.
read the rest of Ch. 102 on AO3
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The @fluffbruary prompts for June were grove, arbor, and formal, and a glorious patch of crocuses. June blew past me so um here we are.
Thanks for reblogging--let me know if I should tag or untag you.
“It could be the queen for all I care. Don’t respond.”
“It might be a case.”
“It could be a hundred cases. Don’t even look at your phone.”
“It’s a locked room triple homicide!”
“I told you not to look. Put the phone down.”
“But it’s a ten, John!”
“I don’t care if it’s an eleven. Drop the phone.”
“The scale only goes up to ten.”
“Sherlock, I am not going to ask you again. Drop the phone or I’m pulling out.”
“Fine. But this fuck had better be a ten.”
The OTW invited folks to create drabbles incorporating the number 10 on February 15th to celebrate the 10th annual International Fanworks Day. I spent 10 minutes on this little tidbit for you. It’s inspired by a scene from The Only One in the World, I Invented the Job by @apliddell.
Yesterday, the incomparable @apliddell (@beloved-child-of-the-house) left a second comment on Playfully Planned Parenthood [plus podfic] — another work partially inspired by The Only One in the World, I Invented the Job — and after I finished squeeing I decided it was time to reblog this one.
For Sherlock and John to keep track
Of all of their jars, here’s a rack.
They both like it hot
So they’ll use it a lot —
Of this in their life there’s no lack.
'Tis a Gift is on AO3.
I wonder if you think you know
What gift that could be? Well, if so,
Please share it with me
And fill me with glee
By putting your guess down below!
"Because the irradiation destroys the bone marrow, marrow for transplant is acquired for reinfusion after the procedure. Unfortunately, it is more difficult to match the bone marrow of African Americans, who tend to have a richer compliment of antibodies than do most whites. This means that, like Marion Sims' enslaved vesicovaginal fistula patients, the Black [Total Body Irradiation] subjects' experiences eventually enabled cancer treatments from which Blacks are less likely to profit than are white.
Moreover, [Dr. Eugene L.] Saenger's patients did not have to die to provide such information: researchers had known at least since 1956 that TBI destroys the bone marrow, but now they could calibrate the lethal doses more precisely.
Saenger, who was still a professor emeritus at the University of Cincinnati Medical School as this book went to press, did not reply to my telephoned interview requests through the UC press-relations office or to emails in which I asked him to discuss his work. But in his public statements, he defends his research as therapeutic and consensual. The venerable American College of Radiology agreed, exonerating Saenger of wrongdoing on the basis of his denials and by ignoring the rules that govern experimentation during his tenure as a DOD researcher. The trajectory of Saenger's medical career did not falter and he never faced criminal charges.
Martha Stephens, a University of Cincinnati English professor, has written The Treatment, a comprehensive and unflinching history of the TBI test. Its chapters describe the long, bitter fight for justice that finally culminated in a five million dollar 1999 settlement between thirteen researchers and the subjects' survivors. The agreement also stipulated that the university would erect a permanent memorial naming the victims, and in June 2000, it complied by installing a small, curiously dated plaque labeled DEDICATED TO THE PATIENTS OF THE RADIATION EXPERIMENTATION, 1973-1974 and listing the names of over 170 patients.
The plaque was placed on the medical school grounds, behind a Dumpster and nestled between the kitchen and a parking garage."
Chapter 9- Medical Apartheid, Harriet A. Washington
Sherlock stands at the window, watching John and Mary below.
It's before the wedding, and John is giving Mary a kiss goodbye before heading back into the flat with him to finish up a case report and have dinner.
Sherlock stares pensively. Glumly. He sees the way John's smile loosens and expands when he isn't around.
He knows he should feel happy that he has more time with John today. That they're going to eat together, even- an event Sherlock never looked forward to until meeting John.
But he knows. After the meal is done John will go home to be with Mary, leaving him here to pick at his violin strings while sitting in his armchair in a tangled heap of limbs.
How is it that solitude used to be his safety and now felt like punishment?
He knew how. He wouldn't say it.
John's footsteps got louder as he approached and entered the flat with a little smile. "Alright, mate- report or dinner first?"
He seemed chipper. He knew Sherlock would say report, as the detective would starve his bodily needs at any given opportunity whether case related or not. This was just John's polite way of saying he was hungry.
"Actually, I'm not sure I'd like either just now," Sherlock told him, still looking out the window.
"No?"
"No. Feeling ... unwell. You should see if you can catch Mary before she gets a cab. She's flagging one down now."
"Well, I..." John started, confused, but by the time Sherlock turned he was gone. Why did that sting so badly?
Sherlock blinked and sat on the couch, trying and failing to ignore John's empty seat.
It was better this way, he told himself. Better for all parties involved. Including his rotting, aching heart.
Sean woke me up this morning to to let me know that work had texted him to let him know they have masks if anyone needs them. He then sent me a photo of him masked up.
I don't know if I've expressed this but part of the thing that has been making me bugfuck insane about discussions around AI image generation is knowing people who have worked with computer vision for decades.
No joke you guys NEED to get more comfortable blocking people. No more insulting people in public over different blorbo opinions no more making 2k long posts on how whatever ship you don't like shouldn't exist we've grown past that shit. Consistent posts about shit that make you uncomfortable? Block. Rancid blorbo opinions? Block. Is mildly annoying in your replies? Block. Pisses you off for reasons so petty you could never admit it publicly? Block. YOUR mental health will improve from not being upset 24/7, THEIR mental health will not be at risk of you lashing out because you happened to catch their posts on a bad day, and EVERYONE ELSE will benefit from not seeing the most embarrassing arguments known to man on their dash. "Oooh but they didn't deserve it-" dude you're presumably running a personal blog as a hobby not a public service. Who fucking cares.
Just a reminder about settings best turned off over at Instagram
To keep your stuff from being scraped by / remixed with AI.
…ETA, for those wondering: it’s possible that if your account is private, you won’t have these. Mine’s public and needed to have them turned off, so at least some folks will still be seeing them.
Sherlock fandom. TW: canonical suicide, blood, depression.
It Was My Fault
Somehow, I can’t shake the feeling that I was to blame for Sherlock’s suicide. I should have observed more carefully. When I think about our last encounter – before the roof incident – God, I was so angry with him! But now, I’m able to peel away his obnoxious behaviour and to see how anxious he was. He already knew what he was about to do next - once he got me to leave - and it must have terrified him. Even the great Sherlock Holmes couldn’t have been indifferent to jumping from a building to his inevitable death.
“You have blood on your hands, Watson. His blood.”
This is a mantra I tend to torment myself with when I wake from a nightmare; a horrible dream where I see him fall in slow motion to prolong my agony. When I finally reach him - no one stops me this time - I place my palms on his beautiful face, wipes away the blood, closes his eyes, and pecks his lips.
“Sleep tight, Sherlock. I love you. I’m sorry.” I whisper in his ear.
The dream always ends with people appearing to take him away. I fight them like a tiger, but to no avail.
I wake with his name on my lips, tears streaming down my cheeks, and my heart shatters once more.
***
He looked like twelve that day – his last day on Earth. Just like he did the first time I met him. Seen in hindsight, something was different, though.
There was a bone deep sadness in his features when he played with the stress ball as if he’d realised how I and his other friends would react once they realised that he was dead. And yes, he did have more than one friend; I was just one of many.
Mrs Hudson, for starters. In fact, she was more like a mother to him. She grieves as if she were, for sure.
Then there’s Greg, Molly, Angelo, Wiggins, Mike; his entire homeless network, for goodness’ sake! Not to mention everyone who owed him a favour; there must be dozens, if not hundreds.
And still, he was dead (pardon the pun) serious when he declared that I was his only friend after we’d solved the Baskerville case. I could tell that he wasn’t shamming; trying to get into my good grazes again. It was pure honesty. By then, I had learned to discern the difference.
I can’t spend too much time thinking about that, or I’ll break down.
Why did he feel the need to take his own life when…
***
I’ve stopped bringing Mrs Hudson when I visit his grave. She’s so fragile. It’s as if her sassy personality died that day too.
In the beginning, I always stood in front of his elegant gravestone like a soldier keeping watch, but now – if the weather allows it – I sit cross-legged on the grass instead. It’s oddly comforting to talk to the black stone as if it is actually him.
“Hi, Sherlock. I miss you. The flat is so quiet. Even when you were lying supine on the sofa, lost in your head, you filled the room with life. You were the most animated person I’ve ever known, even when you barely moved a muscle. I’m considering moving out, finding my own place. Too many memories and ghosts in 221B nowadays.
“There’s a new nurse at work. Mary. She tries to flirt with me. It doesn’t work, but she’s quite persistent, I’ll give her that. Soon enough, she’ll realise that it’s a futile endeavour. I’ve even said so, but she just shrugged and winked at me. It was unsettling. Nobody has winked at me since you did it before you walked out of the lab that January day in 2010. I guess I should be flattered. Once, I would have been. Not after meeting you, though.”
***
My nightmares are always worse after I’ve visited his grave. In this particular dream, I have blood smeared on my palms. I realise this too late.
Like I usually do, I place my hands on his cheeks, but instead of wiping bloody off his face, I add more. In desperation, I try do clean my hands by rubbing them on my jeans, but it keeps pouring out of my palms like small fountains. We both drown in it.
When I finally wake, the bed is damp. My t-shirt and pants are soaked. For one horrible moment, I thought I’d peed myself, but it is only malodorous sweat.
***
“It was my fault,” I tell Mrs Hudson when we have tea together the day after I thought I’d drowned in my own and Sherlock’s blood.
“Nonsense, dear. You know there was no stopping him when he had made up his mind. Silly boy.”
She cries a little and I hold her gently until she manages to gather herself.
We watch the last Bond film, which she takes great delight in. Strangely enough, this makes me miss Sherlock even more.
Despite that I chided him for ridiculing the plot and the insane stunts, I secretly loved it. I guess he knew that, because he never stopped commenting, and he had this smug expression on his face while doing it.
If I concentrate, I can hear his voiceover.
“That stunt is impossible to survive, John. He doesn’t even have a scratch, for God’s sake! This inanity kills your brain cells, you know.”
I smile when Daniel Craig – against all odds - survives yet again, regardless of Sherlock predictions.
***
To my surprise, I sleep well that night, and I wake more rested than I have in a long time. Perhaps this is a sign that things are about to change for the better.
