Part 3 Silent Auror: Pattern Behaviour - a fic I really enjoyed

Sherlock shows that he cares

He gets it but isn’t sure that he has got it right, after all. “You hired some sort of ninja assassin to – to attack me in my bedroom – to entertain me?”
“Yes!” I say, pleased by his accurate deduction.
He stares at me as though I’ve finally gone completely around whatever bend he’s always thought I was headed toward, mouth still open. “You did,” he repeats. Disbelieving.
I shrug modestly, nod, one corner of my mouth twitching downward into a well-what-did-you-expect-me-to-do expression.
Suddenly he starts to laugh. Hard. “Jesus Christ, Sherlock,” he says, one arm across his chest while the other goes to his temple, shoulders shaking with laughter. “What on earth did I do to deserve you for a friend?”
(Am not precisely sure how to interpret this reaction. Is he… happy? Furious?)
He comes over to me, grinning. “No one else in the world would ever think of hiring an assassin to save me from being bored between cases. That is a fact.”
(Cautious relief.) “It worked,” I point out, starting to smile.
“You are amazing. Completely insane, bizarre, and utterly amazing.” His face still full of that openness and warmth, John impulsively hugs me.

Sherlock cares even more

Return to thinking about John, being attracted to John. He is the sort of person whose features have never made me think terms like spectacular, dazzling, phenomenal, yet since the first, the very first impression, I was somehow struck by him. He is compact, powerfully-built (though he does love to hide it under those God-awful jumpers), strong without being horridly bulky, firmly and pleasingly built. He jogs (has done ever since I cured him of his ridiculous limp) and his slim thighs and well-muscled calves bear witness to that. His jaw has not collected fat beneath the chin as on most men his age. Even his face – entirely pleasing in its composition somehow. He is perfect. He lacks my wit (everyone does), but has a solid, if occasionally inflexible intelligence. (He is a doctor, after all.) He reads, enjoys the theatre (unless it crosses some invisible line and becomes too “arty”, as he would put it), has an ear for classical music. He is square and masculine and strong in every respect. His size, his profession, his humour – all of it complement mine. We would fit together, I cannot help but think. (Envision my long, gangly limbs folding around his shorter frame and know without proof that it would fit perfectly.)
(At this point in my thoughts, I also realise that I am hard again.)
This is a problem.
(Or is it?)

Doubts

(Are there grounds for an attempt? Is he attracted, or is it merely that he yearns for a woman’s body – literally any woman’s body, Mrs Hudson would probably do in a pinch – and if so, could he possibly be persuaded to accept mine instead?) I consider: my body is distinctly non-feminine. I am all angles and lengths and I am taller than John by thirteen centimetres. Considerably taller. He could never close his eyes and pretend. (No, then: he would need to be genuinely attracted.)

Right, why???

Cannot imagine why on earth I have not contemplated kissing John since the moment I was first vaguely pleased by his trim, compact form walking through the door at St. Bart’s.

Sherlock finally doesn't care 

He draws back for breath for a moment, his breath coming warm and hard on my mouth.
“You,” he says accusingly. “I thought – ”
“Don’t think,” I pant. “Not really your area. Kiss me.”

Last edited by Harriet (August 21, 2014 9:19 am)

Part 1 of a true classic - The Progress of Sherlock Holmes, by ivyblossom.
I've read it only now. Could be one of my favourites ever 

What I particularly enjoyed is her portrait of Mary. Written in 2011 already, I can so see AA in this role.
Also all the poetry, humour and those lovely plot ideas.
(Well, the idea how Mary finally left wasn't that great, but I don't care much.)

Ok, here we go. Sherlock POV. Sherlock injured in bed:

He taps on the door, like a polite flatmate. Grunt in response. A creak as the door opens. I love that he doesn’t care what I think about it; he comes in because he needs to, because he wants to. Wants to see that I’m all right, cares whether I’m all right.
John: he’s like the sunshine pouring in. He feels like warmth sneaking into a cold place. His hair, dishevelled, his face full of sleep, I want to kiss him, I want to wrap myself around him and never let him go. Morning is not so grey when he’s here. He is my colours.

“Shit,” John says under his breath. “You didn’t mention a cracked rib, Sherlock.” A note of reproach in his voice. His hands lift up the t-shirt. The pain of the rib is nothing compared to the pleasure of John’s warm hands pressing lightly against me. Like smoke rings. Like imaginary love.
“I’ll get you something for the pain,” John says.
“Mmm.” No point in arguing. An opiate would soothe all of the various wounds, physical and emotional.
But likely John only means to give me paracetamol. Bastard.

“I know you'll want to go back to the crime scene,” John says, and sighs. He shifts a little on the bed, his hands still pressed against me, his warm hands.
His fingers; they pull triggers and kill, they are so gentle on me. “I’ll have to tape that up first, though.”
Oh, my John. My blogger, my helpmeet. Tape me up and take me out. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Grunt, mumble out, “Fine,” turn head away. “Pass me my tea.” Not a question, a demand. An anchorite, finally, finally trying to talk. Heart beats sideways.
Warm mug in my hand, warm fingers on mine. “Thank you.” Uncharacteristic: that will confuse him.
He stops, I open my eyes and watch him. He smiles. He looks concerned. I must look worse even than I feel.

Last edited by Harriet (August 25, 2014 9:11 pm)

Part 2 - The Progress of Sherlock Holmes

John's bed and sleeping habits

Sometimes: lie there in his bed and stare up at the ceiling. Watch the pattern of lights from the window, following the cracks in the ceiling to their logical ends. Perfectly straight, perfectly smooth bed. Lie on the side John doesn’t sleep on, the right side. (John is left handed.) Lie there as if John is sleeping on the other side, perfectly occupying the space left there for a bed partner.
(Do all left handed people sleep on the left side of the bed? Why would they?)

John never notices the bedspread sprung free at the corners when he comes home. The slightly disturbed lines of it. He’s never, as far as I am able to deduce (substantially far), managed to see that his bed has sprung apart a bit at the seams. That it’s been sat upon. Never made any appearance of recognising the telltale indentation my head leaves on the pillow.
(So obvious. You can smell a person on cotton pillow cases. I know. I’ve done it. Repeatedly.)

Maybe he does notice. Underestimating him? Maybe he knows and approves, appreciates my small battles against the remains of his military habits. Though my original, far more likely, deduction is surely correct; he is an idiot. Simply doesn’t observe the signs that someone else, obviously his flatmate (who else would it be?), curls up in a foetal position on his outrageously neat bed in the afternoons (as a proxy for curling up next to object of his pathetic, adolescent, ridiculous, unrequited lust). For the best.
Interpersonal relationships: really not my area. (Obviously.)

At night John undoes a single corner of his perfectly folded and tucked creation and crawls into bed, leaving most of the bedclothes undisturbed. So as he falls asleep he looks as though he’s wrapped in some sort of bed-shaped pastry, the form of his body beneath the surface perfectly obvious to the casual observer. His feet, his calves. The spot on his lower back where it curves. His shoulders, rising up to obscure his face from me. His bed clings to him, holds him, soothes him. (I could do that.)

And thus during the night the carefully-constructed order of John’s bedclothes is utterly eradicated; from perfect symmetry (the sheets, the blanket, and the bedspread are always laid perfectly evenly on the bed, each side matching the other with mathematical precision) to varying degrees of chaos by morning.
Sometimes he pulls all the sheets off his bed, leaving the shiny fabric of the mattress visible.

Once he woke up, wrapped in his sheets, inside the cupboard - the mattress pushed off the bed frame, the pillows slumped against the wall. That was early on, not long after Moriarty and the pool. He’d been spooked, triggered, reminded of things he didn’t want to be reminded of, pushed into an awkward and likely terrifying place. All that could be seen of him was a bit of sheet sticking out from under the cupboard door. He would have had to wrap his arms around his legs tightly and stay that way, asleep, tense, alert to the sounds of nightmarish feet against the floor, a rusty bayonet stabbed into the wall. I left him there. What else could I do? His limp was pronounced the following morning, his sheets smelled vaguely of shoe polish and moth balls.

Every morning he observes the evidence of his nightly struggles and he smooths it all out again; remakes the bed, enforces order, straightens the pillows. It’s incongruous, these military ways against the softness of the bedclothes, the plaited rug on the floor, the gingham curtains Mrs. Hudson (so lovingly) strung over the window. Hospital corners on a (soft, deep double) bed. Incongruous.

You would think the hospital corner ritual comes from John’s time in the military, and of course you would be right.
But that’s not all: it is a ritual in which John undoes the chaos of his night terrors. Erasing the violence he does in his sleep. Fighting back. Creating a new reality.
I’m not sure he likes the reality he creates. In fact I’m fairly certain he doesn’t, not entirely.
And so I disturb it for him. Isn’t that how a person demonstrates affection? Giving him what he wants, what he secretly wants? Disorder, but not his own?

For some reason I chose that one, Solar, don't know why 

Last edited by Harriet (August 28, 2014 9:17 am)

Just a quick one from "The Slashman" by engazed

"Sherlock had such presence that his absence had just as much force."  

 

Yes, and it really fits Sherlock. 

I haven't finished it quite yet.

Aw, the rooftop scene is wonderful as a whole.

Ok.  I haven't read "Progress" yet.  Obviously I must do something about this.