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l4long-winded · 8 months

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iv. the distraction of rising temperature

summary: now that you and sherlock are at a friendlier standing, it's time to explore more of your friendship. or whatever it is (cavill!sherlock x afab!reader)

reflection: i am terribly sorry that this took so long. i just wanted everything to be how i envisioned it and of course, i ended up overdoing it. i have that nasty habit of rereading and editing until i have a singular part. then, i do it all again with the next and the next until it becomes far too much. i intended this series to be shorter, but alas, some things are not meant to be. please enjoy and feedback is always appreciated and encouraged!

warnings: seamstress!reader, conflicted!sherlock, reader has a nickname, flirting, fluff, close proximity, mystery brewing, cursing, longwinded descriptions, overthinking, sherlock is in deep denial, suggestive language, alcohol consumption, enola makes an appearance, off screen character death, somewhat slowburn, enemies to lovers, sherlock observes reader, a fitting with far too many boundaries crossed, sexual tension, victorian era, eventual smut (please let me know if there are other warnings i need to add)

word count: 10,023

previously: mr. wright and jane austen

( this work has been cross posted on ao3 )

This is the second time you face the golden 221B in front of you and it’s definitely different than the first time, less animosity, about the same nerves, much more intrigue. After you received your book from Sherlock, he seemingly began to appear frequently around the building and around your shop. Only a couple of days passed by and you could recall seeing his recognizable frame through the window strolling by, through his voyages to and from his flat in which he would say nothing but give a slight nod of his head in acknowledgment. He certainly must know you found the book, but it’s clear he won’t approach unless you do so first out of respect for your boundaries. While his note conveyed his desire to restart fresh, it didn’t mean he would go out of his way to assume what you decided to do. Something about that sustained reverence is what pulled you to his door this afternoon, this being the sole amount of free time you’ve had in these troubling times. You’re steady as you breathe in and out for some extra confidence and to quite possibly shake some traveling nerves (it barely helps).

Once you dictate yourself as ready, you rap onto the door and take a single step backwards when you remember how much space Sherlock takes up on his lonesome. The last time, when he insulted you and disregarded your noise complaint, you felt rather small not just by his words, but by your stature compared to his. He loomed over you and narrowed his eyes in a way that caused you to lose hold of your convictions for just a moment, but the moment was enough for him to gain the upper hand, a shark smelling blood in the water. You’re convinced he’s not going to purposely agitate you this time around, but you also don’t want to accidentally toss him another opportunity. You’re hopeful he’ll be true to his word, not stupid enough to drop your guard. You still barely know anything about each other and strangers took advantage of people all the time.

The door comes open with a haste you’re not prepared for and you can’t help but take a half step back from it in reaction. Your hands capture themselves in front of your abdomen in efforts to balance yourself, as if the pull of the door would suction you inside and awkwardly leave you standing in Sherlock’s flat without invitation. It’s hardly a dramatized action since you feel the air surrounding whip around the rebellious strands of hair framing your face. Except, as you ground yourself and shuffle your feet, the person standing in front of you is very obviously not Sherlock, but a young woman with familiar features. Her eyes widen upon recognition of you, her head turning back to look into Sherlock’s flat for what appears to be answers.

“It’s a woman,” she calls back and it gives you the indication that you probably interrupted the two from some sort of discussion. It would explain her haste and why Sherlock’s marching over in what you surmise is in a mix of impatience and irritation. “Were you expecting a seamstress?” The girl asks as Sherlock gets closer and you can see him pause as he gains a better look at you, your eyes locking onto his despite the young woman sitting in between the two of you. From your peripheral vision, you could see her engaging in careful glances switching back and forth between you and Sherlock, an attempt present to decipher what the correlation to one another is since Sherlock’s offered silence. His gait’s suffered a stop enough for the girl to draw on her inspection and you’re not prepared for her scrutiny while seemingly under his.

“Give us a moment,” he finally utters, his eyebrows pinching together in the process of giving the young woman a simple, yet loaded, look. You may not know what’s going on here, but you’re aware of this look having been on the receiving end of one and having conjured it on your own. She seems to quickly catch on and she backs away with her hands up from the door and floats into the flat without further questions. Sherlock seems grateful for her lack of continued communication as he steps through the frame and shuts the door behind him.

“Excuse my sister… Enola’s fully prepared to insert herself into anyone’s business at any time if she becomes interested in any form.” Ah, his sister. That’s what looked so familiar about her. Well, you probably should have guessed it from how she quickly came to the conclusion that you were a seamstress. You suppose that such observational skills run in the family. That dynamic must be insufferable to be around, but you came from your own version of chaos in a family. There’s hardly room for judgment.

“She’s curious, huh? Sounds like she’s trying to mimic someone we both know.” You’re teasing, of course, teasing with an inkling of truth to your choice of words. To your amusement, you watch in real time as Sherlock exhales and musters a small smile.

“Trust me, she doesn’t want to be like me,” he replies and you ponder what he could possibly mean for a second since Enola’s enthusiasm proved to you in a shortened time frame of just how much she matches Sherlock. Your hesitation to ask about it warrants him to continue speaking. “You’re not at work at this hour?”

Somehow, he’s accounted for your schedule and you’re taken aback for an interlude. He doesn’t budge or comprehend how this information is not common knowledge so you have a feeling he’s not trying to be all knowing or superior. It’s perhaps something that just happens to him whether he’s in control of it or not. “No, I didn’t have too much to do today so I decided to take a break. I actually wanted to speak with you about something, but it seems as if I’ve arrived at a bad time.” You don’t want to interrupt him and his sister and could always return later, but Sherlock waves it off and crosses his arms.

“It’s not a bad time at all. Please,” he presses his arms forward into the air, “continue. I trust you received my informal letter?”

“That I did… Thank you for the book. I love it. I have my own copy back home, but I failed to bring it with me during the move. It’s already helped immensely.” You can’t stop yourself from beaming thinking about it. It’s been something to turn to when your brain’s overloaded or your hands are itching for relief from remaining in the same position for so long.

“I’m glad to hear it. Jane Austen’s work doesn’t get nearly enough attention. I assume it’s because people are too behind to understand.” He shrugs his shoulders because it really is an unfortunate circumstance. While she has some traction, much more than when she was alive, you and Sherlock both know why that traction isn’t grander or why she didn’t become acclaimed until later on. It’s a stark elephant in the hall, but you choose not to address it and shake your head to change the subject.

“Well, as much as I appreciate the gesture, I do hate how you’ve ruined the mystery of your name. I was going with Shoulders Holmes before you had to add your input.” Your hands come up to your hips in a mock scolding. It achieves the desired effect as Sherlock releases his arms from the hold against his chest and he stares at you with levity in his eyes. Him and his damn bluer-than-blue eyes.

“At least you had something to go off. I’ve referred to you as Lily for a while now.” The confession causes your hand to come up and grasp your charm out of habit and you want to release it the second you do, but you endure where you are as you try and study his face. It’s not the most terrible nickname since you enjoyed flowers, but it’s come out of left field.

“Not bad,” you exhale, “but my name is Y/N. Or… if you wish to call me Lily, I wouldn’t be opposed.” You grasp the charm tighter, though you’re not sure why you feel inclined to do so. You shouldn’t care so much what he would think of your name as even if he doesn’t, it’s not something you could change. His validation ought to mean nothing to you, and yet as you stare up at him, you feel relief flood your system as he repeats it to you. Warmth nuzzles across your back and shoulders and you could swear the same comes up to hug the apples of your cheeks, all because Sherlock saying your name is a new experience and sensation you didn’t know you could be so fond of. It eloquently rolls off his tongue and his tone is one of approval.

“So, we’re officially acquaintances, then? No longer mortal enemies who glare at each other from across the stairs?” You can’t help but laugh at the dramatics of the situation. But looking back, glaring at each other or refusing to acknowledge one another did seem to be the pattern you both fell into. You feel sheepish about how you acted, but from his body language, he also seems to be ashamed of his antics. His question was genuine as much as he intended it to sound as if he was joking.

“Correct, officially acquaintances. And I, your new acquaintance, have a proposal for you.” You watch as confusion flits over Sherlock’s face. The lines he does have are there from thinking, you can tell. “I want to help you with your investigation.”

This is not what Sherlock expects. His eyebrows raise in incredulity as he regards you. The movement in his shoulders tells you how he’s restraining himself, but you can’t tell if it’s from celebrating or expressing to you of his surprise. He persists in his stillness, quiet befalling the both of you as you look into the depths of his eyes and he traces them at different points of your facial structure and then different points of your body. Normally, a man gazing this intently at you would cause you to protect yourself and hide away, but you can almost see the cogs shifting inside of Sherlock’s head. He does what most don’t and that’s think before he speaks, analyze before jumping to conclusions that may be wrong. Considering how he’s done that before and it ended with you two disliking each other, you don’t say anything to properly give him his time of contemplation.

“I sense a condition of some sort incoming,” he decides on after a beat and you fidget with your hands because he’s right, you do have a condition. You didn’t come up here for just a friendly chat as you had days to mull over what you wanted to say to him and how you two could move forward from starting off on the wrong foot.

“Right,” you begin, and you know he hears that too often, “I want to help you with your investigation, but only if you come down to my shop and allow me to fit you for something. You don’t have to buy anything, I’m not trying to be bought,” you reassure him, “but I also could use some more business. What I’m implying here is that we could help each other out.”

Sherlock is still again. He doesn’t display to you much besides that recurring restraint. You don’t know how he could possibly read you and you could barely do the same to him, but it doesn’t stop you from trying. You stand taller to appear more confident in this and you wait for him to say something with bated breath. There are a number of ways he can respond and you lean more towards rejection than anything else. You wouldn’t be angry if he refused this altogether, there’s nothing obligating either of you to each other just because you’re now standing on common ground. He wants to say something, you can see it playing at his lips, but it’s difficult to dwell on because suddenly the both of you lightly startle hearing Enola’s voice through the door, “I have places to be, Sherlock!”

The impromptu rushing has you falter. You’re sure he’ll wave you away now, but he doesn’t create any rampant motions. He simply looks at you one last time before he speaks, “I’ll think about it.” That’s all you could ask of him since the task isn’t the most conventional of sorts. It came to fruition because of how you didn’t recognize his gift as a full reason to forgive him for his past behavior. There’s also something particularly sleazy about the idea of Sherlock presenting you with a gift of your liking solely to encourage your succor in his work, a light test behind asking him of this. By how he didn’t immediately leap at the opportunity, you’re guessing his heart was in the right place and cease those questions burdening you, the ones asking of his intentions and morals.

You depart thereafter with a polite dip of your head, one he mirrors before he watches you retreat to the stairs. It’s when you’re out of his sight that he enters his flat once more, his sister sitting comfortably in the chair at his desk. He needs to talk with her about areas being off limits because this is becoming ridiculous at this point.

“It’s about time,” Enola chimes, which in turn leads to Sherlock rolling his eyes. He resumes what he did before you knocked on his door and that’s tending to the map in front of him where Enola marked off new spots for him to travel to. They helped each other from time to time and she would soon be off embarking on another adventure he would wind up worrying over with the dangers of the world in his head. He’s examining the map with a comical magnifying glass, too busy immersing himself back into the work because he doesn’t want his mind to stray to you. Lately, it’s been doing that more than he could handle and such a detriment in focus must be tended to accordingly. While you hold the fabric he’s chased for ages now in your possession, he’s treading lightly since any interaction with you might further cloud his head. This is a phenomenon he’s not used to.

“You could use a new tie,” Enola says, breaking him free of his current task. He attempts to imagine she’s not sitting there to continue, at most shooting her an annoyed glare. Still, he can’t completely ignore her. There’s a reason she said what she said, why she chose those certain words, why she’s lying because she knows he has an impressive tie collection.

“I could’ve sworn I’ve talked with you about eavesdropping.” He doesn’t notice her stand until she reaches for the magnifying glass from him. He stands at his full height and looks down at her, again in agitation as he watches her continue on with his task. It’s like she knows he’s trying to corral his thoughts towards this subject to not stray away against his best wishes.

“I’m just making an observation. If you’re going to a fitting, why not?” Sherlock refrains from scoffing. He didn’t decide to attend yet and here Enola goes acting as if he has a plan set in stone to visit you at your shop. It confirms her eavesdropping, but he doesn’t want to give away any more information than that. Enola cannot know of how much you’re in his head, how he accidentally fell into a repetition of observing you from afar, how he wrote you a note and sent you his copy of Persuasion by Jane Austen. He knows his sister and she will just get the wrong idea. He knows what this may look like to her and that could be farther from the truth.

“... She’s pretty.”

It’s the last thing Sherlock anticipates for Enola to say. While she regularly institutes new ways to catch him off guard, this is not one he could have accounted for easily. His ego alerts him he could have prevented this had he just given more thought to what is lurking through her young mind, but alas, it’s too late for him. She’s said her piece and he now has no choice but to scrutinize it deeper than it needs to be. He doesn’t want to explore anything to do with that factor or anything relating, but Enola’s robbed him of his decorum and magnifying glass, left him a foreboding entity standing at his own desk with nothing to do but think back to how you stood before him just moments ago. You and your imperfect hair pinned to your head save for the defiant strands that love to dangle over your eyes, you and your fluttering lashes that you’re unaware almost whisp to your cheekbones from the length and fan, you and that cheeky smile adorning your lips when you say something teasing or sarcastic.

Enola’s observation is not unprecedented or incorrect. As much as he wants to declare to Enola that you’re indeed unpleasant to look at, he can’t bring himself to do so. You’re attractive, he’s known this already. He didn’t need Enola’s opinion on it. Especially not since such an opinion has led his head to recall the curves within your facial structure, the slope of your neck, how the lily of the valley rests right above your accentuated chest, how the corset cruelly punctuates your hips almost as if they’re beckoning in a pair of hands to rest upon them. These are the thoughts he wishes to avoid. They’re distractions to him and his work, they make his palms feel clammy, his fingers twitch on his desk as he imagines the pair of hands referred to on your hips as his own. This hasn’t happened to him before. He doesn’t know how to approach it or push the less than gentlemanly images beginning to flood his mind.

Thankfully, Enola passes him back his magnifying glass. “Earth to Sherlock,” she says and he’s centering himself back to this reality. He merely gives her a look before he returns to the map. He won’t dare say a thing. Enola’s too much like him and she would know something’s bothering him inside whether his comments were negative, agreeable, or neutral. It’s not worth fanning the flames of her active imagination.

You’re at the front desk busying yourself with checking off commissions and reworking invoices on parchment paper. Mrs. Thomas is there again at a nearby chair resting her feet before she goes home. She’s attended this shop often and you would regard her as a friend by how much you see her if it weren’t for how she’s a paying customer and how her closeness with your father wrote any of her actions off as mourning and pity in your eyes. You don’t want to necessarily see it this way, but it’s difficult not to with how she always seems to smile at you with sympathy lurking in her pupils. As much as you appreciate it, you’re tired of people looking at you with emotion rather than respect since you’re running this shop on your own. Even before, your father may have done a lot, but it’s you who’s created clothing under your former roof with your mother and sister. You don’t think that credit will ever be rightfully handed to you with how everyone cautiously addresses you.

The sad part is that each time it happens, you are hit with the painful reminder of how your father is gone. You’re already constantly thinking of that on your own and it follows you to your work since his last name is plastered on the building and sewed into the tags of the clothing you design. It’s bitter icing on top of the cake for your (his) remaining customers to come in here and talk to you about it or subconsciously bring the fact forth with how they maneuver their facial expressions towards you. Running on fumes is not easy at all and it’s harder with complex emotions involved.

The bell to your front door rings alerting you of a customer walking in. Their steps are heavy on your floorboards and there’s about three taken until you lift your head to view who’s entered your establishment. It’s those broad shoulders you’re sure you could recognize from kilometers away, his face a bit weary as he takes in the area of the shop for the first time inside instead of searching through the window. He walks to you slowly and instead of allowing this awkward gait to greet you at your desk, you round the obstruction and meet him halfway on the path. He pauses in front of you and you’re unable to suppress the grin forming on your features in surprise and disbelief that he came so soon. You thought he would take longer to think about what you offered, perhaps a few days, not mere hours.

“Pardon me,” he begins, “you wouldn’t happen to know where I could possibly be fitted for a tie around here, would you? My sister instructed me how I was in dire need of one.” Much like your own grin is growing by the second, as is his with his emboldened statement feigning cluelessness. You tap your chin in pretend thought as you look up at him, one arm tucking beneath your elbow across your chest.

“Ah, you have a wise sister. You’ve come to the right place. We have a large assortment of ties. Is there anything specific you’re searching for?”

“Whichever you deem best,” he responds almost instantly, his face leaning towards yours in the process for just you alone to hear. It’s a curious endeavor since there’s only you and him and Mrs. Thomas sitting in a chair. It’s then that Mrs. Thomas reminds you both of her presence, “I thought you wanted to commission more than that,” she booms out. She can be loud for an older woman.

You glance back and forth between Mrs. Thomas and Sherlock, then. You didn’t know that they knew each other and by the look on Sherlock’s face that crosses for a split second, he seems alarmed. It quickly passes through and then he’s impassive all over again.

“Yes, you’re right. I wanted to commission a, um…” his eyes scan momentarily, a sign that he’s trying to think fast that you know Mrs. Thomas won’t notice, but you do, “a vest” he decides. “A vest and a suit jacket.”

Not taking the hint that this is more than he’s bargained for, Mrs. Thomas laughs. “Might as well be fitted for the entire suit! Don’t you think so, Ms. Wright?”

Mrs. Thomas holds an unusual expression you haven’t seen before, a genuine and beaming smile that reaches her eyes and erases the sympathy from them that you consistently detect. You’re not sure what she’s doing, but instead of dwelling on her, you pivot to bring your full attention to Sherlock. It’s transparent to you that he’s hiding something, though you feel as if it’s more for Mrs. Thomas then it is for you. Still, you might as well have some fun with his visit. It’s not like you had a line of customers to dawdle on.

“Why, Mrs. Thomas, you are correct,” you can just see how Sherlock narrows his eyes at you in a warning, but despite this, you continue and hook one arm into his, now side by side, “Let’s do an entire fitting and then we can discuss that commission of yours, Mr. Shoulders.”

Sherlock fakes a smile at you, it’s tight lipped and you know this is not what he wanted, but he goes along and waves his goodbye to Mrs. Thomas who is finally standing from her chair to leave. She lingers watching you two disappear into a backroom.

“I did not agree to this,” Sherlock mutters, almost petulantly. It sounds foreign coming from such a deep voice.

“But here I am agreeing… Come on, it’ll be over before you know it. Remove the items on your torso besides the undershirt, please.” You half expect him not to listen, to put his foot down and ask for the tie again, but to your surprise, Sherlock blows a breath out through his nose and then he starts by ridding off his jacket sleeve by sleeve. You feel rather smug by his obedience, but you don’t wish to stop him through this, so you leave him to strip as you said as you go to retrieve your measuring tape and return with fresh paper for your pen and inkwell. When you return, you’re met with Sherlock undoing the current tie sitting at his neck. It slips free and the shirt is as poofy as a falling parachute through the sky.

“Erm… that shirt’s rather… large on you,” you don’t know if that’s the correct word. It seems as if it fits and yet it doesn’t, extra fabric bunching at his arms and waist. You tilt your head examining it and Sherlock takes a glance down to assess what you may mean.

“I’m aware,” he mutters. “I have trouble finding correct sizing and I don’t necessarily make the time to have actual appointments with tailors. Some things fit enough, nothing like a glove.” He shrugs his shoulders and it’s obvious to you he’s reserved himself to this way of dressing. For the most part, he didn’t do a bad job. He dressed elegantly and his other items seemed to fit him accordingly, but the bunched up fabric was for sure going to hinder you in taking his measurements. Because of this, you know what you have to do, and your fingers nervously wind the tape around your hands as you stare at him almost abashedly.

Noticing this, Sherlock looks at you quizzically. “What?”

“Sherlock, do you mind… removing your shirt? It’ll be easier to take your measurements that way, but if you don’t wish to, you aren’t obligated.” You’re already pushing him further out of his comfort zone and how he probably thought this would all go. You can see his hands flex at his sides, quiet as he stares forward and visibly ponders what he should do in this situation. You wouldn’t blame him if he rejected it entirely and put his tie and vest back on, strung his jacket along his arms and walked out of this invasive nature. It shouldn’t be this awkward, it never is with other male clients, but there’s a palpable energy between you that neither of you understand. Each step towards each other in any setting feels like a step too far, but always in the right direction.

He says nothing. You wish you could see past the flesh and skull in his head to truly capture what he may be thinking, but eventually, he whispers, “Very well, then,” and he starts at the cuffs. He unbuttons them gradually, and he glances at you once before he starts to tackle the buttons at his torso. One by one, they come undone, pectoral muscles displayed, a patch of hair on his chest that you had not expected to be there from how clean shaven he keeps his face. From every masculine element about him, it’s something you should’ve probably guessed. That and the swell of muscles in his arms that you didn’t regularly encounter on men around, such that bulge as he slips the white garment off of him completely. He turns away to discard the item with his other clothes, and then he’s left vulnerable standing in front of your full body mirror. He doesn’t look at himself. He keeps his eyes on you, waiting for another direction perhaps.

“Thank you. Let’s start with your arms.” You must carry this out as confidently as humanly possible even with the stature of Sherlock taking you a bit aback. Like a professional, you have him shift his arms out to measure his wingspan, the width of his back rather prominent to you at this moment since he is by no means a small man. You’re timorous as you measure around his biceps, as you catch the scent of his musk and tobacco standing this close by. You alternate between stretching your tape out at his limbs and then moving downward to write off the numbers each time. It’s an intimate affair as much as neither of you would like to admit it, and all that can be heard is the sound of each of your breathing. Not wanting this to be cumbersome, you try and find your voice literally kneeling before him while asking him to adjust his legs. Fortunately (and unfortunately) for you, his trousers are concealing him and it’s less inconvenient on you than when you tended to his torso.

“So, you spoke with Mrs. Thomas about a commission, hm?” You mark off the measurement with your thumbnail and then jot it down.

“Technically,” he admits. It bewilders you further. You stand so you can wrap the tape about his waist, one hand behind his back feeding it through. His warm skin touches your fingers. You’re face to face with his chest and neck here, but you ensure your eyes stay on the tape measure. You’re unaware of how he’s examining the top of your head.

“Technically? What’s technical about it?”

“Well, I wasn’t asking about a commission from you.” This is enough for your head to snap up. Your hands are still firmly on the tape measure around his waist, locking him in position to be this close to you, to be centimeters from this boulder of a man as he stares down at you with sincerity in his eyes. He’s literally so close that you can feel the heat radiating off of him. Those nerves from earlier are recollecting in your veins holding his steely gaze, but you don’t make any efforts to depart after his confession.

“You were asking… about my father? Why? Did you know him?” You should let go of the tape, but you don’t have the number yet to do so. Letting go just to wrap it back around him would be redundant. This isn’t any better since it’s trapping you practically against him, minimal distance between the two of you that any onlooker would confuse it as some kind of flirtatious bout, his naked torso feeding into the hypothetical guess. You stay where you are, blinking up at Sherlock who shakes his head back and forth.

“I did not. I just noticed that you were here alone so often. It made me question who Mr. Wright was. And so I came up with a bit of deception to tell Mrs. Thomas on her way out one day. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant conversation.” While honesty is easy for him to undergo, he does seem ashamed of his actions. The corner of his lips quirks for a second and it clicks for you that he knew about your father’s passing. And if he knew about your father’s passing, then it had you questioning his motives again. You want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but you hate this kind of subject.

Slowly, you look down to mark the number and then write it onto the pad of paper below. Having that be his last measurement, you detach from him and sigh out in displeasure as you look over the other measurements you’ve taken thus far. “So you got me that book out of pity,” you note, the excitement in your voice drained out from yet another person giving you special treatment you never asked for. “You asked about him because you thought he would help with your investigation since I wouldn’t, didn’t you?” You’re disappointed and you don’t bother to hide it. His cold exterior melting away so abruptly suddenly makes sense now. For a moment, you feel like a fool.

But Sherlock doesn’t allow this to last long. “Yes and no,” he replies and it leaves you puzzled. You stare at him from the side. He’s grabbing his shirt and slipping it back over himself, but he’s still looking at you in the process. “I thought that Mr. Wright may help me with my investigation, yes, but I also wanted to know if you ran this establishment by yourself. I guess a part of me knew that already, but I’ve never been one to carry out without confirmation or evidence.” He leaves the shirt open, the hair on his chest trailing down still very much visible. He conceals more of what makes him a man underneath those professional clothes, the clothes of a proper gentleman and a proper detective, but it’s not any less distracting. “Now, I don’t wish to offend you, but I did not know your father. I had little reaction to the news that Mrs. Thomas broke to me. But I knew you. I didn’t get you that book out of pity. I did it because I misread you.”

He buttons his cuffs somehow without struggling. You’re used to watching men and women alike grapple with said buttons because of the transition between left hand and right hand. You don’t think he’s ambidextrous, but much like other things about him, he’s most likely perfected it in a way where there are less steps, where there is less of a scuffle. You pay attention to this because his words are different from what you’ve experienced during your time in the city with a plethora of people coming to and from your shop. They hold weight because they’re about you, not about anyone else, but you and how you feel. It’s strange to be so known in the eyes of someone you met more than three weeks ago, but it’s also paradoxically freeing to be seen in a light free of that shame that’s haunted you since your arrival.

“I’ll… I’ll bring you that tie.” You settle on, a bit overcome with emotion in this instance from your thoughts bouncing to your father, his passing, the overwhelming “support” everyone’s extended out to you, and how Sherlock has given you what you’ve been craving for a long while now, and that’s validation and transparency. You don’t want to face him with the sting of tears in your eyes so he does appear to be confused as you walk away from him, but in your movement, you take heavy breaths to pull yourself together. It’s only when you feel secure in your features that you move to pull a royal blue tie into your hands. You’re sure it’ll bring out his eyes and he hardly uses color from what you’ve seen in his attire.

Soon, you remerge into the room, and Sherlock’s hands are politely cupping one another behind the small of his back, his shirt now fully buttoned. He’s still not looking in the mirror, the floor his choice of perspective, but with your return, he shifts his eyes up to your face and a thoughtful expression forms. He extends a hand out to you, but you raise your own to stop him.

“May I?”

He falters. You can tell he’s juggling whether he should allow you to or not, but in due time, he lowers his hands back to where they were before behind his back. It’s the slight nod that permits you to walk to him, which you do and you upturn the collar of his now wrinkled shirt for the access necessary. His pupils follow your hands with every movement and they only shut when you lift the fabric over his head to lay it around his neck. You situate both ends and Sherlock involuntarily takes a single half step forward from the light tug, his abdomen brushing against yours. Both of you hear the hitches in your breaths, and you could swear his adam’s apple bobbed from a light gulp, but neither of you choose to comment on it. You busy yourself with maneuvering the tie into its correct loops. You try to ignore how awfully domestic it feels and how your heart thuds harder in your ribcage.

“Your heart’s beating fast,” he says, that matter-of-fact tone as present as the day you met him. You forgot that your chests are pressing together and you rectify it by stepping that half step backwards that Sherlock took forward. He’s sturdy this time and doesn’t budge.

“It’s the temperature here,” you lie. This seems to appease him since he doesn’t say anything else about it, to your relief. You slip the knot upwards, one hand holding the tail, the other not stopping until it reaches his neck. Normally, you’d pull away from the client and have them view themselves in the mirror. Since this is not a normal time, you stay there in that position, your fingers against the cloth against his neck. His pulse is resting right into them and by how his jaw sets, you know he’s aware of what you’ve discovered and what you’re about to say.

“Your pulse is—”

“It’s the temperature here,” he parrots and you can’t even fault him for it because you used the same line. His wit may just hold a candle to yours. The speeding pulse introducing itself with your digits remains this way as you gaze at Sherlock. He doesn’t make any efforts to push you away and you don’t stagger backwards even if you think you should. It’s obvious to the both of you that you’re riddled with nerves and this is not an ordinary encounter nor an ordinary fitting. Eventually, you release the tie and step off to the side to maneuver out of his way. His stare follows you, but he soon removes that to walk to the mirror and view how the tie looks on him.

“Not bad, Lily,” he says.

You hide your smile behind your hand as you meet his eyes in the mirror. You were right, the tie enhances his irises. “Blue’s your color, Shoulders.”

It’s late at night, Sherlock paces the length of his floor, cautious in each step since he did not wish to alert the tenants below of his confusion and distress. Or more so, he did not wish to alert you. He’s refrained from playing his violin at such late hours in consideration of you and it’s well past the time that you’ve arrived home from work. He chose not to discuss the fabric he needs for his investigation and opted for it to occur tomorrow. He didn’t want to put a dent in whatever it was that was going on between the two of you since he usually transformed into a different person in detective mode. He’s been told he’s a pain in the ass to work with and it all has to do with the fact that he’s not a team player whatsoever, but someone who does everything by himself. He plans to get that over with when the time comes in his efforts to not completely scare you off as he has done to others in the past. You’re new to getting along with each other and he would like to keep himself from ruining it, a prophecy he holds in his head as a possibility since he is the reason for his lack of approachability. For once, for reasons he doesn’t understand, he would prefer to maintain a friendly status with you rather than antagonistic, or worse, estranged. Don’t ask him why that would be worse, he won’t answer.

Although he will see you tomorrow and he will most likely receive another piece to aid him moving forward, it didn’t stop him from trying to think about the details of the murder. They’re swarming his head all over again and he’s reliving his arrival at the crime scene to see if there’s anything he missed. This would be easier on his brain if he could just return back to the area, but of course, the police force wouldn’t be too keen on letting him reenter. Many officers hold resentment towards him and his intellect because of spite and envy and they don’t appreciate the proud aspects of Sherlock’s personality. Details stand out to him, almost perfectly outlined in paintings of what others deem as muddled colors. A man like Lestrade may display his appreciation for Sherlock’s talents and inevitable solutions, but there’s always the matter of ego to contest. A man’s ego in the fit of the “game” is fragile, especially when another’s wit and ideas are involved, superiority pouncing on what already is insecurity and vulnerability. Men in positions of power such as these hold, in Sherlock’s eyes, the most amount of emotion because they allow their arrogance and pride to corrupt their performances. While they’re in competition with Sherlock, Sherlock is in competition with himself and therefore it ensures the progression of his self growth, a means to always expand on what is already extraordinary.

But the unnerving fact of all of this despite these truths is how Sherlock’s pride still gets in the way. He stubbornly avoids the veracity of his arrogance because even if he did accept the claims of others in terms of his self-conceit, it doesn’t erase the many accomplishments he’s done up to this point. There are more to be consummated, just like this case in particular that refuses to let him sleep and refuses to let him think about anything else in his life, the basic essentials to survival sometimes neglected as a result. Forgetting to eat and nourish himself is not the ideal way to go about everything and really, nutrients would surely help him think better, but it’s how his brain is wired. It will linger on a subject until he can carve a path to the answer, until he can properly close a case and contribute a difference to the world the best way he can. This is his benefaction. Where others still trace as their purpose, he knows he’s in the thick of his own and this slump will be hurdled over as he’s done to other slumps of yesterday.

A clumsy sort of sound disrupts his current brain’s thought cacophony, knocking out of rhythm drawing his focus to his door. He’s not expecting anyone at this hour, especially not this late, so he’s bewildered to say the least. He stares at the door with intrigue, hopeful he imagined the distorting noise as he did not wish to halt his growing examination and introspection, but soon enough, the knocking continues and he knows it won’t disappear unless he answers the door as the person behind intends the impromptu meeting. He sighs his displeasure, but ultimately adjusts his loosened tie for the sake of etiquette, saunters to the door and brings it open after counting to three in his head. Sherlock’s not sure what he expected or who he assumed would be standing across from him, but it certainly wasn’t your back covered in alabaster lace, soft knots of fabric at each arm dangling from where you’ve adjusted the ties accordingly. He swallows with difficulty, especially noticing how your hair isn’t in its usual condition shapened by various tools and pins. It’s loose and free and no longer haphazardly restrained, bold in movement as you turn your body towards him upon your recognition of the door being open. He swears there’s brilliance in your eyes as they widen at him, light up in a fashion he cannot fathom correctly from how they also appear to be bloodshot, almost as rosy as the tint currently coating your face and chest.

“Sherlock!” You beam, definitely with more excitement he’s ever been confronted with in your presence, “I thought I heard you pacing. I knew I wasn’t the only one in this building who couldn’t sleep.” As you lean towards him, your hands find the left and right sides of his door frame. Your cheek presses into your shoulder as you regard him with commendation in your glowing features, innocently acute joy settling in your smile and the crinkles around your eyes. He doesn’t understand how you could be so happy to see him nor why you’re even standing here before him this late, but he does catch how you’re swaying from one side to the next on his frame he feels an odd surge of resentment suddenly for.

“Pardon my asking, but what are you doing here at this time of night? Is something troubling you?” It would explain the time and lack of warning for this visit, and he almost furrows his brows in preparation for some kind of predicament to heed, but those inclinations soon fly out the window as your palm reaches out to lay on his chest in efforts to appease the situation and dull the severity he’s approximated. He’s aware of how his heart rate picks up at the contact, but it’s hardly a point of contention or even importance because it’s occurred to Sherlock how you’re leaning not for warmth or security, but because you’re off balance. The disturbance of your equilibrium leads him to watch your body language and hear your speech pattern which sounds oddly slurred now that he’s thinking on it.

“No, nothing, nothing is troubling me,” you reassure with a pregnant pause in the air. You knit your eyebrows together as your smile falls into a thin line. “I suppose the apparent absence of company is troubling, but other than that, everything else is swell. It’s just the loneliness.” Your hand comes off his chest to wave off the worry simultaneously as your other hand departs from Sherlock’s door frame. In doing so, you stumble forward and almost fall, but Sherlock’s stature does not allow for that to happen. Seeing that he’s a force in front of you, his arms piston out to hold underneath yours, and under another circumstance possibly coupled with deep embarrassment, you would most likely lean away and apologize. Instead, you linger into his touch, weight shifting into him that is both nothing to Sherlock and yet so critically eminent to him all the same. He can smell something florally sweet coming from you and something so distinct that his conclusion of your visit is strengthened and emboldened by it.

“You’re drunk,” he conjects aloud, having already deciphered it internally. It’s relevant and obvious and sure it took him little time to figure it out, much less than the average person would take, but there’s a small portion of him that feels foolish because for a split second, for a split second he believed you were overjoyed to see him simply because he was him. Your drunken stupor’s seeking another’s companionship and there’s nothing particularly special about it being Sherlock since he was clearly the closest nearby.

“It would seem that way, but nonetheless alone!” You protest and concurrently confirm his thoughts at the same time. “You’re aberrantly strong,” you continue, your hands grasping at his tight forearms without a hint of shame. He almost slips and grins, but he keeps his impassive nature and gestures towards the hall. If he takes a few steps out, he could see your flat’s door from here. There’s not much distance to cover to get you safely back into your home.

“I’ll walk you back to your flat.” Sherlock’s willing to help you back and is fully prepared to do so, but you’re quick to rip your arms from his hold. The motion almost sends you flying backwards which then prompts him to shoot his arms out to further guide and protect, but fortunately, you find your footing and attempt to stand taller, squaring off your shoulders and raising your chin.

“You can’t make me go back there. If I see that damned sewing machine again, I’ll… I’ll put it out of its misery!”

A threat of this sort should not bother Sherlock whatsoever, especially not one threatening an inanimate object that not only he does not use, but one that couldn’t affect him directly no matter its livelihood or destruction. Yet, as he takes in your stance, your folded arms over your chest in your sincerity, drunk or not, he knows you’re not at all bluffing. You’ll break it and your sober-self will experience the consequences of such, your work no longer able to be attended to unless you replace the item. It’ll greatly inconvenience you and you have quotas to fill, clients to attend to, a business to run that he cannot authorize to be blundered due to one night of overindulgence. You work too hard and he couldn’t let you throw that away just because you drank a bit too much in one sitting.

“I suppose I could see what our other neighbors are up to. There’s bound to be someone awake, right? Maybe Mrs. Hudson is having a late night tea,” you ponder audibly with one finger coming up to thoughtfully caress your chin. You solely take one step to venture further into the hall, but Sherlock’s arm captures your waist this time, firmly planting you in your spot in front of his door frame. Before you could kick your feet out and push him away (you do neither, and make no efforts to do so, really), he levels you with his gaze and tilts his head to his flat. He feels your hands lightly grasp his arm in place at your waist. If he didn’t know the context of this situation, he would’ve guessed your arms would then wind about his neck for some kind of intimate dance. This does not happen, his mouth dry from how close this contact is nonetheless. It’s almost as overwhelming as how he had to hold still as you prodded him for measurements earlier in the day, except it’s you who’s in a vulnerable position with an inebriated dilemma and an insufficiency of clothing. Such insufficiency that others would deem improper, and worse, take advantage of, your reputation around bound to be soured due to everyone’s perception of what it meant to be a gentleman and what it meant to be a lady. This behavior is in defiance of that perception and he couldn’t enable you to make a fool of yourself, he wouldn’t forgive himself. He does not trust people.

“I have tea,” he clarifies after he realizes that there was too long of a bout of you two just locking eyes. His arm slowly snakes from where it’s encircled about your waist, but a helpful hand maneuvers to your back to further help you steady yourself. Your smile soon returns and your walking continues, this time into Sherlock’s flat.

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

One arm lays over Sherlock’s broad shoulder, the other reaching out to touch trinkets that Sherlock gingerly pulls you away from. From what he can tell, you’re in awe of what you see the more you two explore the length of his floor. He gently deposits you onto his loveseat to sit down.

“Here you are,” he says and then stands towering over you. You’re gazing up at him with the same admiration and astonishment that you did when you first entered his home and he chooses to ignore it. “Stay here and try not to touch anything. I’ll get the tea brewing.”

He’s reluctant to leave you behind seeing as his work is in disarray, his own form of organization that could easily be misshapen by your currently all-too-curious hands, but he also fears that you’ll do something worth regretting if he doesn’t entertain you and keep your attention in some way.

“Sir, yes, Sir,” you nod, one hand saluting him. “I won’t touch anything.” Normally, he wouldn’t believe someone with sticky fingers under the influence, but it’s different with you. He finds it easier to trust you when you smile at him like that and the amusement from how you then sit on your hands certainly skews his judgment.

Despite the slight nerves urging him to stay here with you, he soon finds his kitchen and pours water into a pot. He drank tea earlier so there’s not any that he can grab for you at this time at his disposal. It’s not much of a hassle placing the pot onto heat, his teapot checked for the proper leaves he would soon pour boiling water into. He wonders what preference you may have, if you favor lavender, or perhaps peppermint, or maybe something simple like black tea. He wonders if you drink some in the early hours of the morning to properly wake up, if you brew some for the sake of having something warm to drink with a fresh muffin for breakfast, if you rely on it to calm your rapidly beating heart in the plight of increasing stress. Sherlock wonders if this what you drink when you’re reading, if it’s what you nurse with cautious sips in the midst of stitching pieces together, if it’s what you turn to when you cannot sleep and you decide that you might as well find some kind of warmth in it with blankets that aren’t doing their job, and dreams that won’t make slumber any more appetizing. He wonders if it’s stopped assisting like it used to and instead of taking distance from it to rebuild its charm and tease tolerance, he wonders if it was easier to turn to wine. If it was easier to drink more and more than to sit with thoughts that won’t dare to leave you alone, if each gulp of the alcohol silenced them and buried them until the consciousness of being alive is nothing but a ghost of a whisper you cannot hear unless you’re left without hobby, task, or another human being. If you become painfully aware of how you have no one but yourself in moments like these. Oh, he wonders, he wonders. He wonders if you’re just like him.

It’s the distant sound of a door opening and closing that stops him from wondering. His head snaps up from staring at the surface of the water and immediately, he attends where he left you. When he sees you’re no longer sitting at his loveseat, he pivots to the front door and then marches over to it. Swinging it open, he glances back and forth to see if you left. Knowing that you’re drunk, you couldn’t have possibly gone far, but you’re nowhere in his sight and the thrill of panic sets into his back. It’s the creaking floorboards in his flat that drive him to step back inside, the door shut behind him as he tries to follow the muffled sound for as long as it carries, which isn’t long. Still, it leads him into his bedroom and he cautiously infiltrates the area only to find his made bed now in disorder with you settled underneath his comforter. Your hair fans out in a halo on his pillow as you bury your head into it, your eyes lazily coming open to meet his gaze.

“I told you not to touch anything,” he says, his voice quiet. It’s lacking sternness, but he can’t really be upset since he brought you into his flat with little control in your hands. He’s taking in your size in comparison to the size of his bed.

“I know, but,” you yawn, your eyes shutting in the process, nose wrinkling, a cushiony soft sigh falling from in between your lips that he equates to the hymns he’s heard inside of churches, “I got tired waiting for you. Your bed’s awfully comfortable. I think I might actually fall asleep.”

He didn’t take long in the kitchen, he knows that. However, he’s been drunk before, he understands how those minutes alone must’ve felt like centuries to your own devices. He should be shooing you out and getting you downstairs to sleep in your bed, but something in him can’t seem to do so. You look so… peaceful. It’s not like he was going to make any use of his bed himself since he planned to think all night, at most falling into his sofa for an hour or two of rest. With how much you’ve been through and how you’re constantly working yourself to the bone, Sherlock’s long acquiesced to having you spend the night here before he’s rationalized it.

“Go ahead. You deserve repose.” Sherlock comes closer to adjust your/his pillow. He doesn’t want you to wake with an uncomfortable kink in your neck or aggravate the impending migraine you’ll certainly wake with. He’s in the middle of fluffing, his wrists above your head, when he feels your hands grasp at them. Your hold is dainty, barely there, but he could feel it scorching him. He restrains himself, from doing what he doesn’t know, as he looks down into the depths of your pleading eyes, as your right thumb maddeningly strokes the sliver of skin unprotected by his shirt’s cuff. He confronts the drought in his mouth again and it travels to his throat the longer you keep your hold on him. An onlooker would surely be apprehensive to this image. His brother would absolutely lose his mind if he knew about Sherlock’s abandonment of propriety with an unmarried, unbetrothed woman laying in his bed. He would absolutely lose his mind if he knew of the thoughts mashing together in Sherlock’s head, one after the other, of how he could climb in and join you.

“Lay with me,” you breathe, almost as if you could hear those pesky fantasies clouding his mind. He grips the pillow tighter as he considers it. The prospect, as much as he wants to deny it, is tempting. Something… something in him wants to accept it. Something in him wants to settle in beside you. It’s that something, whatever the hell it is, that causes him to release the pillow from his tightening vise. He brings his hands to himself, your hold physically easy to depart from, but the willpower to pull away is what he had to muster. He feels out of breath.

“I… I-I have to go get your tea.” He points to the door and thankfully, you don’t say anything else. You just watch as he leaves the room.

What you don’t see is how his back leans into the door after he closes it, a large hand coming up to scrub down the length of his face. He’s not sure what came over him or why he even dared to consider laying with you in such a state. It’s wrong. For many reasons. The main being how you’re not sober and unaware of what you were asking for. This is not something he can do. It’s against everything he stands for. Whatever this is, whatever realm of feelings you’ve awakened within him, they have to stop. It’s unknown, thought manipulating—a distraction. Before you came in, he was busy with work. Work he has to get back to now that you’re taken care of and out of his sight. His hands clench into fists and then stretch out at his sides as he ventures back to the kitchen and pours the hot water into the teapot. He picks out the black tea leaves at the end and stares at the door to his bedroom with a tray in his hands.

He’s ready to tell you how there will be no funny business and how this is purely a friend looking out for a friend, nothing more or less, as he brings the door open… only to find you asleep, one of his pillows firmly in your arms, half of your face pressing into it. He sighs and eventually brings the tray to his bedside table. You’ll need it when you wake up.

Maybe he’ll tell you tomorrow morning.

#henry cavill #henry!sherlock #sherlock holmes #sherlock holmes x reader #enola holmes #l4l.writes #beyond answers #the distraction of rising temperature #henry cavill x reader

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ten-cent-sleuth · 7 months

Text

A Galling Yoke, Part 11

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for the Cathartic Shower or Sudden Realisation, Drowning or Drowning Your Sorrows, and Fingore or Electrocution squares on my July Break Bingo card

See this post for main info, including a masterlist and synopsis. See this post for warnings.

Word Count: 3.7k

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x f!Reader

Rating: Mature (for potential triggers, not for sexual content)

BEWARE THE CONTENT WARNINGS POSTED ABOVE. If you are not comfortable with them, you can read the first part of the chapter, stop at the line break, and skip to the author’s notes for more information.

Nobody bothered you for the coming days. Acquaintances steered clear of Voss House, though the Little Season was by now in full swing, and your staff steered clear of you, though you tried your best not to be too dull or ill tempered with them. Mrs Rogers still kept you company, but you could not entertain much conversation despite your yearning to confide in her all your devastation about William and all your doubts about what you’d gone through with Sherlock. The closest you had managed was a few minutes’ exchange—

“Sherlock knows about Edmund. He knows about me.”

“Oh… I am sorry, ma’am; I know you do not like to be reminded of it.”

“It was terrible, Mrs Rogers. It is terrible.”

“Did he react badly? He never did strike me as the sort to judge a lady for a cad’s behaviour.”

“No, I believe not that he… That is, I know not. I gave him not a chance to properly react, whether it would have been badly or not. But no, his core reaction seemed to be one of concern—and one of apology.”

“Then…he made you not feel pitied, or shameful?”

“Not the guilty sort of shame, merely…merely humiliated, the way one would feel if one made a fool of oneself in public and was laughed at. If… If that makes any sense…”

“It does, my dear. I understand.”

“Perhaps a little pitied, as well. Though I suppose I ought not to be surprised by that. If a battered wife is not blamed, she is to be pitied, is she not?”

“I do not pity you, and you know I do not blame you.”

“…It is only, he had such a sad look about him when he found out. His eyes…”

“There is nothing wrong with being sad about such a situation, is there, ma’am? I am sad some days, when I recall how the master treated you solely to feel better about himself. I am sad whenever I recall how he made you feel—whenever I see how he still makes you feel. Are you not?”

“Indeed, I suppose there are times… Sad, and angry also. I wish I never had to recall.”

“Of course, my lady. But there is nothing wrong with remembering and thinking about it either. Ignorance is a much graver failing than knowledge.”

You had thought of Sherlock then, of how much he prized knowledge, of how much he was discomfited by lack of it, of how much he had wanted knowledge of you.

“Was Mr Holmes’s failing making you feel exposed and embarrassed, or making you think about what you have not spoken of in a very long time?” she had asked, and the answer you felt in your breast had been too tumultuous and nebulous to verbalise.

Mrs Rogers had given you much to think about, but you tried to not have time to think. You busied yourself with catching up on the household affairs you had neglected for the investigation, and then getting as far ahead as you could with them; who knew if Lord Coltidge would have the time to ensure Voss House was running smoothly when things inevitably got hectic once you turned yourself into Scotland Yard?

Then that got you thinking: once you were convicted, your widow’s portion would revert to its original owners, wouldn’t it? Which meant your father would get the house back—it had been bestowed to Edmund as part of your dowry and only became yours upon his demise—and you could not leave your servants vulnerable to him, so you prepared protections for their jobs and arranged for alternate incomes if they had to leave.

You sent the Sulyards an invitation to come by Voss House at any time and at long last clear out Edmund’s effects. You finished up needlework projects lying around and said your goodbyes to your book collection. You went through your chambers and chose what could be given away. You did everything you could to ensure you would slip away from this world, this life, with as few ripples as possible. No unfinished business, no loose ends—

Blinking, you set down the ledger you’d been reviewing and stared out the study window. As you drifted over to the glass pane, the thoughts whirled faster and faster around your head until the tornado sucked the breath out of you: Sherlock had said professional killers didn’t leave loose ends—yet Miss Algar, a trackable witness who had seen the entire murder, remained breathing and even comfortable—so William must have gotten involved—how?—not sure, but somehow he kept the hitman from getting to Miss Algar—so William must have hired Mrs Kinley too—makes sense, who else but Viscount of Pashbroke would expend such liabilities—but it would be equally in character for Viscount of Pashbroke to hand over the reins of everything to the Earl of Coltidge once he broke about the murder—when it rains, it pours—but if your father hadn’t gotten rid of her, he approved of her, which meant she was the talebearing sort of employee—goodness, remember when Mrs Tattershall promised not to tell Father about the frog incident but then she did?—goodness, remember how he knew about your visit to Miss Algar before anyone in London had?—but if Mrs Kinley had always been indiscreet, might she be in contact with the hitman?—no loose ends—yes, ’tis possible she was not even aware, ’tis possible the hitman had snuck into her circle of acquaintances—she had called her charge’s attack an “accident”!—oh yes, ’tis entirely possible she blissfully did not realise the danger she was in, the danger of being a loose end.

By the time you pressed a steadying palm to the window, you were resolved to make sure Mrs Kinley and Miss Algar were safe. Even if it were a long shot, verification that they were prepared should your arrest upset whatever precarious balance with which the hitman had gotten comfortable was not a task you could leave for someone after the fact.

In the hackney to Cable Street, you couldn’t help but think that Sherlock would have come to this conclusion sooner, if only you had kept him apprised of all that you had learnt. If you had told him about Lord Coltidge’s uncommonly familiar knowledge of London on dit… If you had told him William was responsible for Edmund’s death but you felt responsible regardless…

You shook your head. Stop. You could not forget the very valid reason you had not told him: these were your burdens to bear, and he would be better off not learning of them, just as he would have been better off not learning how much pain you carried in you.

Mrs Rogers’s recent words popped into your imagination, and you stewed in them for the rest of the carriage ride.

As you alighted from it in front of Miss Algar’s building, wincing at the aching stiffness in your right leg, you regretted not having spent your time planning what to say instead, but that did not turn out to be so great a problem.

The conversation with Mrs Kinley did not last very long.

The landlord had once again happily led you to the correct flat, but this time, the nurse did not even let you past the threshold. Dogged, you had pleaded your case to her on her doorstep, you whispering furtively your concerns and she exclaiming unreservedly her indignation.

“I have no doubt that you know of whom I speak,” you had thrown out as a last-ditch effort.

“Oh, the impudence! Always a-comin’ hereabouts and a-tellin’ me what to do, just because you’re a great lady and I’m a lowly worker! A noble or not, I think I’d well know if a man I knew had bloody hands!”

“If you would merely tell me if my description sounds like anybody you—”

“Out with you! Out, out, else I scream for the peelers!”

You flinched as the door slammed in your face.

Massaging your vindictive knee—it still had not quite forgiven you for forcing it to run from 221b Baker Street; a part of you couldn’t help but agree—you thought once again of Sherlock. Ignorance is the curse of God indeed. He would have had no patience for Mrs Kinley’s pride getting in the way of the case. Gracious, was this even within the purview of an investigation anymore?

With a sigh, you walked haltingly to the side of the building, leaned against it, and looked up at the sky. What to do? What to do, what to do? You had not planned—or particularly wished, though you did paradoxically long—to see Sherlock, at least not outside of Whitehall Place, but perhaps his assistance would be necessary to protect Miss Algar…

Deliberating over your options, you let quite some time pass. You had not come to a conclusion when movement in your periphery caught your attention. You started to turn, but something else in the air caught your eye: Was it flurrying? Could these really be the first snowflakes?

Before you could confirm, something struck you in the side of the head and—

—cold. Hmm. What? Your thoughts were sluggish—treacle dripping through your fingers. What had you just been thinking? What had been the first half of…?

A shiver wracked through you. Oh, right. It was too cold. You hated the cold. Why was it so cold?

You shivered again, and this time you noticed something strange: your arms were held down. Held…or tied? And your legs. Your legs too. Tied down.

Now that you were really waking up, you could also tell something was on your face—rough, musty, but light and not completely opaque. That wasn’t so bad, though you endeavoured to keep your breaths shallow so you didn’t inhale too much of the material or whatever dirt it might carry. The real discomfort was under you, a stiff board that was brutal on your shoulders, not to mention the cramps sure to come with your right leg being unable to stretch or relax properly. All in all, you had no clue how you had ended up in this situation.

Clue. Heavens, if Sherlock were here, he’d have probably deduced which sector of London you found yourself in and how much time had passed.

But Sherlock wasn’t here—and he wasn’t coming.

You shuddered, this time not only from the cold.

“Oh, apologies, m’lady—oughtay get a fire goin’?”

You squirmed at the unfamiliar voice. Had the speaker been there this whole time, watching you? If he had just arrived, how had you not heard a door creak?

“Who are you?” Foolish; he would never answer that. “Why did you take me? What are you going to do?”

Now that you were listening to yourself, you realised your voice had a peculiar echo. You must be in a large chamber of some sort—at least as wide and as tall as a ballroom, but where in London could he have taken you that was like that yet secluded enough for nefarious activities?

“Y’sure y’wish fo’ me to answer tha’?” mused your abductor.

You gulped. If he were the hitman—and, really, who else would he be?—you were now a loose end.

“It won’t be so bad, m’lady, if y’just tells me wha’ oi wanna know.” His pause was as menacing as his words. “Why’s ’olmes lookin’ into the ole nemmo on Cable? He know ’bout me?”

“Does he know what about you?” you huffed wryly. “I do not know who you are, you—”

The frigidity hit you first—it was acute, stinging, and miserable. It pierced your skin, freezing you right to the bone all across your body. You didn’t realise it was really only touching your face until it stopped.

“Now that weren’t a very prudent answer, m’lady. You gots a be’ah one?”

“What do you mean? What do you mean?” This time, you were entirely sincere in your confusion: you were so breathless and so cold you couldn’t quite remember what he’d asked you, much less figure out how to answer. And you didn’t know what he had done to you—your senses were too restricted and disoriented for that—but you knew you didn’t want him to do it again, ever.

But then he heaved a sigh, and your heart seizing with realisation, you tensed for—

A thick, heavy paw clamped over your mouth and nose, the now smothering cloth across your face tight against your nostrils. And it was damp, now. It was then that you realised what exactly was happening: he was pouring water on you, right onto you, and you couldn’t breathe.

For minutes—or perhaps seconds, instants, but for a long time, you clawed at your restraints and jerked around on the board, all in vain, all the while flailing to tell whether you were inhaling or exhaling. Filthy water cascading down your nose, muddy panic flooding up your airway, you begged, you sobbed, for it to stop.

Could he hear? Could he understand?

“Anything, I shall tell you anything,” you screamed—your drowning mind screamed—your drowned mouth tried to scream.

Would you drown? Would you die here?

And then it stopped. The water stopped. The pleading and the pain did not.

You heaved as much as you could while still strapped to the board, your lungs shrieking for air.

Air, air, air—

Please, please, please—

“Bleedin’ toffah,” scoffed your tormentor. “Y’need a minute t’stop bla’erin’ nonsense, does you? Blasted no-abilities can’t ’andle nuffin’, not even a bi’ ov fisherman’s dau’er wivout all the box ov toys…”

Quivering with panic and hiccuped tears, you listened to him walk away and sluggishly understood that you indeed hadn’t spoken aloud. A quiet, drenched part of you was grateful—and ashamed that you had tried to—but largely you were horrified that this meant he would return and that meant the water would return and—

The suffocating material, with your shaking, falls, falls to the floor but more importantly falls off. You gasp with relief, even if you still can’t see or breathe clearly from the force of your sobs. Through blurry vision, however, you actually managed to see where you were: a warehouse, dusty and empty, nothing of note, nothing of use… But it’s so bare that your darting eyes notice holes in the wall with wires sticking out—wires not entirely covered in rubber. Naked wires.

And you started to properly calm down as a plan took shape…

“Awite, m’lady, I ’ope you— Wo’ the—!”

Your gaze shot to the man approaching you, walking out of the shadows, and your brow jumped up. That nose, that jawline, that forehead—those were memorable features that you had seen before, that you had seen on Miss Algar’s nurse. You had a rapid stream of thoughts then—of course, of course, William would have accepted a recommendation from his murderous employee about whom to hire for their witness!—but it was dammed by the stony look on your present company as he stormed over to you. Close up, he was a veritable boulder, large and robust, strong- and angry-looking.

“You seen me face!”

You blinked up at him. It had escaped you that anyone knowing his identity would be a big deal to him, but yes, you had seen his face, and you weren’t likely to forget it.

“Dratted Barney Rubble,” he snarled as his calloused hand grabbed at the board you were lying on.

You went rigid in anticipation as he dragged the board—and, you realised now, it was more of a worktable with wheels—in the direction whence he’d come. But when you saw where he was taking you, a rusting basin double the volume of a clawfoot slipper tub, your rising fear went the way of your previous panic. The plan was solidifying.

Chest tightening, you steeled yourself to do just one last little thing…

“Y’re gonna give me the answers oi want,” he muttered, “’cause y’re a ’ole lotta wo’k, m’lady. Take my lump of ice and make this wurf my while, eh?”

His sinister chuckle was the last thing you heard before he threw cloth once more over your head and your ears greyed out with a dull pounding. You knew what was coming. And you had just enough time to hold your breath; then the water started pouring.

For as long as you could, you resisted, determined not to feel that tidal wave of wild terror and compromise your honour again. And you made it over the first swell. You even fought down some of the second surge of rolling nausea and desperate fright! But confound it, how did the water keep coming, simply water and water and—

“Gaugh!”

Exhale—

No, no, no—

Inhale—

Water, constant, splashing, filling—

You gagged as it invaded what should have only had air.

Water, crisp, biting, freezing—

And you kept gagging, unable to find equilibrium now that your defence had crumbled.

Water, mucky, churning, nauseating—

You panted for oxygen, but in its stead your mouth sucked in liquid and moistened cloth. Your only recourse was this: The plan. The plan, the plan, the plan. Remember the plan.

And after some eternity, the tide receded, the pounding quieted, and the sinister chuckle repeated.

“Well, yer maiden-crypt?” he questioned. “’Ow much’s ’olmes know ’bout me an’ the ole Draylus—whatsit—Mistuh ’onourable E’mund?”

The plan. The plan. The plan.

You nodded rapidly under the cloth and rasped out, “Yes, I—I shall tell— He— Mr Holmes, he knows that— Oh, oh goodness— But he still cannot be certain whether—”

There was a rattling slam, and you didn’t have to pretend to flinch. “Ge’ i’ togever!” he shouted. “Oi don’t understa’ nuffin’ y’re sayin’!”

Pushing past your dread, you yanked at your restraints and cried, “Forgive me. Please, forgive me—I shall tell you anything, but no more water, please, please, I cannot—”

You allowed a bit of the hysteria you were feeling deep within your ribcage to spill out in gasping breaths and incoherent pleas. It was cathartic, but above all, it worked.

“Damnation,” he hissed through clenched teeth as he threw away the rag on your head and untied the straps around your arms and legs. “Wou’ja calm it now, m’lady? Oi promise you, no mo’ wa’er iv you tell me—”

Sitting up and scanning the room to reorient yourself, you let his aggravated appeasements wash over you, and when you were ready, with a deep breath, you leapt off the table and shoved him into the basin.

It was deep enough that his head actually went underwater, his shoulders banging into the bottom. You didn’t wait for him to regain his senses and scramble back to the surface.

“Please, God, let this work,” you whispered, grabbing the closest wire exposed in the wall. You shoved it into the water, as close to the man thrashing for purchase in the basin as you dared—but nothing happened.

Sherlock’s face flashed in your head, animated as he explained open and closed circuits. Open: no current. You glanced back at the hole in the wall and saw more heads of copper. Need current. Grinding your jaw, you snatched one with your free hand and had your hard-earned breath knocked right out of you.

Electric agony jumped out of the wires and punched straight through you. Your body felt crumpled from top to bottom with the force of it.

But through the contractions violently commanding your muscles, Sherlock’s voice rang out between your ears: “Electricity shall move more easily through the pump water…” Well, this water was dirtier than any pump water, certainly more so than Sherlock’s fancy deionised stuff.

“…but it always takes the most direct path.”

Move, you ordered yourself, struggling to eye the “most direct path” through the sweaty haze of sheer hurt. Move. Move. MOVE.

Just as your captor pushed his head out of the water, you threw your spasming fists open and watched the wires fall on opposite sides of the man. He screamed. He screamed, and you stumbled back, not so much because the volume deafened as because the despair punctured.

Between pushing him into the water and dropping the wires beside him passed mere seconds—seven, maybe eight—but your mind was hurtling at such breakneck speed with all the ways the plan could go wrong that it felt like you were waiting before you could finally leave him behind and run.

You did not run very well.

Your right leg was taut, the knee barely creaking along; your arms were dead weight at your sides, your entire torso felt weak and fuzzy, and the nerves throughout your body were quite literally fried.

But you did very efficiently drag yourself out of that crumbling building, onto the street, and down many sidewalks of the City in search of an area of London you recognised.

Dear Lord, is it snowing? was your first lucid thought. And it was. You hobbled along, pressing a palm to walls and fences to keep yourself upright and awake, and watched the flakes drift to the ground. The thought that now you would die, watered down as you were in freezing temperatures, entered your mind and was met with much less perturbation as the thought that you would die there had been. Perhaps because you would not be as ashamed to lose your life to nature as you would be to lose it to a hired killer. Or perhaps simply because you were in shock.

Yet your brain did not feel muddled, but rather cleared of many troubles, of thoughts as large and as weighted as pennies. Indeed, when the first person to approach you among all those giving you strange looks asked, “Madam, are you in need of assistance?”, you had an answer ready—

“I am. Please, know you the way to Baker Street?”

For with a mind newly cleared, you knew that you—even if it meant feeling exposed and embarrassed, even if it meant speaking of things you didn’t want to think about, even if it meant letting him in—would only ever want to go to one person for help, for safety: Sherlock Holmes.

Thank you for reading. If you stopped at the line break (provided by @firefly-graphics, whose graphics are very cool), you can DM me (or send an ask, but you’ll have to be off anon) and I’ll give you a summary. This is not necessary though; the skipped section has some character development and meaningful parallels, but nothing plot-wise that you can’t figure out in the next chapter. Everyone else, I hope you enjoyed the warehouse scene (which I am Quite dissatisfied with and will be revising the heck out of for AO3). I have no doubt that I screwed up some facts; to a certain extent, I did so knowingly for the plot, but still feel free to point out errors or inaccuracies with the science or the Cockney and I’ll hope to rectify them. Feedback is always welcome!

Taglist [comment below if you’d like to be added!]: @theyaremorethanjustfictional

#sherlock holmes x reader #sherlock holmes x you #henry cavill sherlock x reader #enola holmes #a galling yoke #the dimensions of fandom

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wearebackbagels · 28 days

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"Whether or not it’s conscious, we recognize our own flaws and deficiencies, and that in turn makes it easier to identify those traits in others."

At their core I think Tom and Freddie are very much alike: smarter than what is seen on the surface, observant and caughgaycaugh.

They both see right through each other from the get go and they are both aware of this. But where Tom is quiet and always on his toes to not get his constant cover blown, Freddie is a leaking cauldron of confidence that is not afraid to show off his deductions( sidetrack but I feel like Freddie basically is a less jittery slightly gayer Sherlock).

Sure he is smart enough to pose as a potential threat to Tom's entire cover but that on its own isn't enough to hate someone on a personal level.

I'd like to think there was a time when Tom was more openly confident and used to show off his skills a lot more, much like the 1999s Tom Ripley does, but that he learned to tone it down to not draw attention to himself( something many neurodivergent people can probably relate to). Freddie on the other hand is not ashamed to show off and take up space, he comes off as confident both in who he is and his sexual orientation, as in he doesn't flaunt it but he doesn't actively hide it either.

Option one: Tom sees Freddie as someone he could have been, confident and outgoing, someone people like, which in and of itself could make you dislike a person, or....

Option two: he sees himself and all the things he has to hide represented in Freddie (and that really says so much more about Tom than anything else.)

So, with these thoughts fresh in mind, let's take a look at the Caravaggio once more....

-and mull over the fact that Caravaggio is both David and Goliath, both the killer and the victim, both the hater and the hated.

(Credit to @poorlittlevampirebaby who provided the last three stills)

#the amateur psychiatrist strikes again #ripley #tom ripley #freddie miles #andrew scott #eliot sumner #ripley 2024 #ripley netflix #character study #caravaggio #david and goliath #I will keep talking about this show until all my thoughts about it run wild and free

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whispersfrom221b · 1 year

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John: Hello. Can I help you?

Victor: Hey, I'm Victor Trevor. I was supposed to meet with Sherlock.

John: John Watson, his partner. Sherlock's still out on an urgent matter, but he should be back soon. Do you want to wait or come back later?

Victor: I'll wait, thanks.

John: Can I offer you something? Tea or coffee?

Victor: Coffee would be nice. Is the urgent matter another of his obscure experiments?

John: chuckles Probably. He didn't tell much, just suddenly stormed out and shouted it's urgent.

Victor: chuckles Yeah, that's the Sherlock I remember.

John: Oh, you know him?

Victor: We went to uni together. Actually dated for some months at the beginning, but that didn't work out.

John: You … dated?

Victor: Yeah. Guess Sherlock didn't tell you anything about me. I'm so sorry, it must be awkward to have the ex of your boyfriend suddenly in your flat.

John: Oh no, we aren't. I see where you come from, but I meant work partner when I said partner. Colleagues, friends and flatmates. That's all.

Victor: No need to hide it. I'm totally fine with that, no bad feelings. Besides, Sherlock already told me everything.

John: What did he tell you?

Victor: How you met, your first dates, how he tried to kiss you in that case in Dartmoor, but was to afraid. Those things. And of course how you took the initiative and confessed in that she'd when you were snowed in and all that. Very romantic, by the way. I'm happy he found you.

John: I think you must have misunderstood some of the things Sherlock told you. We honestly aren't dating.

Victor: No, I'm sure about that. Every time we call he tells me about you.

John: You call?

Victor: Once in a while. Not that often as we used to.

John: And he tells you that he's in a relationship with me?

Victor: Yes, he does.

John: Why would he do that?

Victor: Oh no, you really aren't dating, are you? Shit. Hey, don't be mad at him. I'm sure there's a good explanation for that.

John: He better has. Otherwise I don't know what I'll do.

Victor: John, mate, please calm down. Just because he might have some feelings for you, that doesn't mean he would ever do anything to you, okay? That's possibly just his mechanism to cope with his feelings. And that's good, yeah? Let's pretend I've never said anything.

John: Yeah, sorry, you're right. It's just … why would he make up a relationship with me when he could have a real one?

Victor: Wait a second, you want to be in a relationship with him?

John: Yes, of course.

Victor: Wow, that's a turn of events. For a second I thought you are homophobic or such shite.

John: I'm pretty confident in my sexuality, no need for unhealthy coping mechanism, ta.

Victor: I'm sorry, mate. I just don't want to get my friend hurt.

John: It's all fine. I know how it feels to be protective about Sherlock. So, uhm, you think he likes me?

Victor: He's made up a relationship with you and until now successfully prevented us both from finding out. Knowing Sherlock, it must be something serious.

John: It's definitely a very Sherlock thing to do.

Victor: chuckles I could tell you stories.

Sherlock: John? You won't believe what you've missed. The liver Molly had for me was … continues talking about the liver

Victor: whispers When he comes in, act if you know nothing about what I told you. I have an idea.

#johnlock fic prompts #free for adoption #incorrect sherlock quotes #johnlock #bbc sherlock #whispersfrom221b dialogues

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celiaelise · 7 days

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I just finished s2 of Elementary!! It's really good and I've really been enjoying it 😊

I do have a couple complaints about how Joan is portrayed... my main one is her attraction to Mycroft... maybe I'm just a lesbian, but that man is So Ugly. I get wanting to portray that she is normal and has desires and such, but. Goodness. I also don't think the weight of their friendship or her sympathy for him would be diminished if the sexual component was removed. Though i will admit it's very funny that all the times she is most attracted to him are when he is expressing concern for Sherlock. I think they should've kept him evil and let Joan go on distrusting him, personally, but at least maybe now he'll leave them alone.

My other question is WHO is styling her?? Why does she dress like a sexy teen? Perhaps that isn't the most accurate description but you have to admit her wardrobe choices are odd...i guess it could PARTLY be that the show is a decade old at this point, but I also just think that someone who is in their late thirties-mid forties(?) and is a former surgeon and whose other careers have been equally demanding would be a little more practical??? Like why does she never wear pants? Or heels lower than five inches?? Or even slightly longer skirts?

Anyway those are my biggest complaints but I am really enjoying it. I think Joan and Sherlock's friendship is incredibly sweet, and the addiction storyline has been interesting to me, as that's not a topic I have a lot of knowledge about. I think Joan should stay in the brownstone!! (But maybe that's just because I, like Sherlock, am also an autistic who Hates Change.) But i have to assume she's going to? Just based on how TV shows work?

I like how all of Sherlock's bullshit about not having feelings or caring about other people is very clearly demonstrated to be bullshit, lol. Especially how they adapted the part from the books about his brain being an attic! Like that just doesn't work for the 21st century, sorry... Sherlock would absolutely see the value in obtaining as much information as possible, even about seemingly irrelevant things, and would have the confidence in his own ability to process that information.

Some of the cases get a LITTLE too fantastical for my taste, (the mosquito drone?) and Sherlock's (and Joan's) "deductions" are often subjective, but the stories are well-told, which is what matters most to me.

I'm frustrated I can't go into the tag for fear of spoilers, but I'm also grateful that there's still so much of the show to watch!

#elementary #cbs elementary #elementary sherlock #by elise #joan watson #i haven't actually read the books but i did read the attic part in an ap exam once #for anyone not aware i love murder mystery series and especially Sherlock adaptation characters #i feel like there are significant similarities between my own autism and the way his is often portrayed #though unfortunately i don't solve murders 😢

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sloshed-cinema · 2 years

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The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)

Decades before the Internet was even a thing, Patricia Highsmith created perhaps the Urtext for the Tumblr Husbando. A pale, twinky, damaged sociopath, Tom Ripley fits the same mould that would later spawn the likes of Loki, Sherlock Holmes (only the Benedict Cumberbatch version, of course), and Abner Krill. But Ripley was developed and featured during a time when so-called “alternate lifestyles” were much more dangerous. Let it be clear, Ripley’s murderous and antisocial tendencies are wrong and abhorrent. But in these terrible events, the film captures a portrait of queer self-annihilation. Love is so deprived and refused for Ripley that his only response to moments of heightened emotion is extreme negative action, and the only way he can find a place for himself is through a web of deceit. He’s separated by class and by sexual openness, and destroys everything he cares about in trying to hang onto what he has. The film finds a close parallel in a staging of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin at perhaps the linchpin moment of the whole drama. Especially in the context of the scene, the duel between the romantic rivals at the opera’s core becomes homoerotic, mirroring the earlier crime of rage and misplaced frustration on the boat in San Remo. Tom shares Pyotr’s extreme sexual self-loathing, finding a moment in the music he so loves. Sometimes he can catch glimpses of authenticity, but they are fleeting and swiftly robbed by the next necessary layer of deceit. The only option seems to be violence, as Tom has so thoroughly Othered himself, destroying his only chances at a relationship just as he does his alibi threats.

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character Freddie Miles sees through the scrim set out by Tom like none other than Marge. He’s Tom’s perfect foil: a classist prick, he’s derisive of this up-and-coming hanger-on rather than intrigued. Yet despite his pedigree, he’s perhaps the most honest of the bunch. Introduced in Rome, he strides confidently into the scene, declaring passively “Oh god, don’t you just want to fuck everyone you see just once?” Such openness is never seen until Tom finally meets Peter, and even Peter must die.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says ‘Greenleaf’.

Ripley plays piano.

Tom imitates someone.

Princeton gets mentioned.

BIG DRINK

A city in Italy gets name-dropped.

Bar fragment transition.

Blunt force head trauma.

#talented mr ripley #drama #crime #queer cinema #anthony minghella #matt damon #jude law #gwyneth paltrow #film noir #patricia highsmith

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sevilemar · 6 months

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A friend of mine says Clara Oswald is not a real character so much as a function or catalyst for the Doctor's arc, and that it's sexist because it perpetuates a stereotype where the woman is there only to help the guy.

And my friend is right. I spent all day yesterday thinking about why I love Clara, and apart from her wit and confidence, I could only come up with things that relate her to the Doctor. If that is not the definition of exactly this stereotype, then I don't know what is.

I also know the harm this stereotype has done in the world, to men and women and multiforms alike. I'm living it, and seeing it around me wherever I go. And yet I still love Clara, and the relationship between Clara and Twelve. I guess this is what 'problematic fave' means.

But I think there is more to it for me, and I don't really know how to categorise it yet. Because we have the exact same dynamic between John and Sherlock in 'Sherlock', which is also a Moffat thing, and I loved that one as well.

So let's take a look at why I love it so much, and maybe how it can be done better.

- There is not a shred of romantic or sexual attraction between Clara and Twelve, and yet their relationship is as focused on each other and as intense as a romance, maybe even more so. And that is such a rare find that my asexual little brain soaks it up like a dried-out sponge.

And yes, that is different from all the same-sex relationships that should have been romances but weren't because asshole execs said no. If you don't know the difference, I can't help you.

- None of their attraction is based on physical appearances whatsoever. Clara has difficulties accepting Twelve's old looking face at first, and Twelve cannot even tell how old Clara looks, let alone finds her physically attractive in any way. Their relationship is not based on looks at all, and it soothes fears I didn't know I still had.

- They change each other in fundamental ways. Whatever you might say about Clara, you cannot deny that she becomes more like the Doctor with every episode. It is made very explicit in the show itself, in 'Flatline' and 'Death in Heaven', where even the intro is changed to reflect it. She even gets her own TARDIS and companion in the end. And I think we already covered how Clara's function is to change the Doctor.

I don't care if the change is for the better or not. I enjoy a toxic codependency in fiction probably even more than a healthy one (and one day I probably get into that). I care about the scope and intensity of the change, and that it is mutual. When you change each other on a fundamental level, you have the strongest bond I can imagine, and it gets me every time. The more fundamental the change, the more I love the dynamic, whatever it looks like. Which is also why I love Twelve and Missy so much, or John and Sherlock.

If there are 'Hannibal' fans reading this, you might recognize the pattern, and indeed, I was and still am a rabid 'Hannibal' fan. And what I said earlier about finding better examples of this dynamic, Will and Hannibal are it. They are both distinct characters in their own right, their arcs are equally important in the show, they are treated as two equal characters by TPTB instead of genius and companion, and they have all the things I love in a fictional relationship. (Though the Hannigram shippers may deny the romantic/sexual attraction thing, but I will die on that hill). To actively combat sexism and not just passively avoid it, make them female next time, yeah?

And yet, there are so few relationships out there that fit my id criteria, that I will gladly take my problematic faves and run with them, knowing full well what it means. Sue me for liking what I like, I guess.

#doctor who #clara oswald #twelfth doctor

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thebrokengate · 2 years

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Ok. I know we are afraid of queerbaiting regarding Byler but I really do not think it is queerbait, it's not like Destiel, Supercorp, Klance, Sterek etc. There's whole discourse and there's tons of stuff to consider. Aside from Castiel, none of the characters involving those ships were confirmed to be queer. And even Castiel's sexuality was confirmed at the last second when he literally dies right after confessing his love. And that's... it. It's malicious, and it's queerbaiting. What about the other ones? They are also queerbaiting, but the difference is that none of the characters were explicitly confirmed to be in love with one another (be it one sided or not) or were confirmed to be queer. Kara and Lena were never confirmed to be queer on the show. The show was just maliciously queerbaiting fans through implications but it never went far beyond that. With Sterek and Klance it's the same.

Byler isn't like that. We literally have a canon confirmation on the show that Will is gay and in love with Mike. And it's not Destiel style where Will's sexuality is confirmed on screen right before his death or something. The approach is clearly different here. Whereas I think that using Will's feelings to further Melvin was shit, at least they'll have to follow up and fix this mess in S5. Then we can talk about it. Aside from that, Byler isn't exactly a traditional queerbait.

Another thing is that ships like Destiel, Sterek and Supercorp were always mocked by the writers and showrunners themselves... literally. Not joking. The writers and showrunners of those shows made comments about the ships which were really problematic. They acted like fans were delusional for thinking about the possibility of those ships becoming canon. Supercorp was literally mocked by the entire cast of Supergirl. Destiel fans were treated like crazy by the writers, constantly denying the possibility of Castiel or Dean being queer. Sterek was the same as well.

Have we ever seen this sort of treatment of Byler from the writers or the cast of the show (aside from... idk, Millie's rather hilarious comments)?

I'm not saying we should trust the Duffers 100% but I also believe there is a difference between Byler and other queerbaited ships on other shows.

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. We can't necessarily claim queerbait until season 5 if the Duffers don't follow through. I've only been through a couple of queerbaits myself - J*hnlock (BBC Sherlock) and Nygm*bblepot (Gotham), namely - so this was an interesting read having not known what happened with those other ships. Stranger Things has treated Byler with a lot more care than most other shows I've seen, and I do have to commend them for that. The only real concerns I have are the Duffers backing out at the last second out of fear (which would be dumb now that they're getting more general audience rooting for Will's happiness), and Netflix turning Byler down like FOX did with Nygm*bblepot, but considering this is the last season and Netflix also has queer movies and shows, I don't really see them doing that either. Thank you for explaining to me the other queerbait ships that I've seen people mention a lot in this fandom that I knew nothing about, and comparing them to Byler, this is definitely a confidence booster. So.. this, for anyone doubting today. <3

#ask styx #byler

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denimbex1986 · 3 months

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'Andrew Scott is an incredible actor with some serious credits in his career, but in all of his performances, he put in an enormous effort to create convincing and emotionally rich characters. Scott was born in Dublin, Ireland, and developed a passion for acting from an early age. At 6 years old, he appeared in a TV commercial for a popular porridge brand in Ireland. He then pursued his passion for acting by joining a theater group where he continued to perform in increasingly larger productions before working in Ireland's most famous playhouse, the Abbey Theater.

After that, Scott moved to London to pursue his career onscreen and in theater. Having been an actor for decades already, Scott's big break came when he landed the role of Moriarty in the BBC drama series, Sherlock. This role changed the trajectory of Scott's career and saw him playing in bigger and more prominent roles, as a seasoned actor with a wealth of talent who had finally earned the recognition he deserved. Since then, he has been cast in more than 50 credited roles, as opposed to less than 20 in the first 15 years of his career.

10. Catherine Called Birdy

Lord Rollo

Starting strong, Scott's role in the medieval comedy film, Catherine Called Birdy, highlights a side of his acting that he is profoundly talented at; comedy. The film stars Bella Ramsey as young Birdy, who seeks to be free from her father's control in her life, as he intends to marry her off to the wealthiest suitor to improve his finances. Scott plays Lord Rollo, Birdy's father, and he is well-suited to the role. His comic timing and ability to portray an awkward and struggling father is entertaining and a side of Scott that is not seen enough.

9. Black Mirror

Chris Gillhaney

Black Mirror is an anthology series by Charlie Brooker that explores the harmful and dangerous spread of technology and its rapid advancement, which has received widespread praise. Each episode features a new cast and a brand new story highlighting another disturbing side of possible future technologies, and Scott appeared as the lead in Black Mirror season 5, episode 2, "Smithereens." Scott plays a grieving rideshare driver who lost his child in an accident caused by his social media addiction, which everyone using the platform similarly experiences. It's dark and emotional, and perfectly done by the talented Andrew Scott.

8. 1917

Lieutenant Leslie

Scott appears in the groundbreaking war film that is presented as a single continuous moment on the frontlines of war. His role is limited, with him appearing for a total of about five minutes, but in that small time, he makes an impression. He serves to help the young soldiers, Schofield and Blake by directing them onward on their important mission. Scott is convincing as a wearied Lieutenant who has been beaten down by terrible war and suffering and stands out in a film full of perfectly executed moments.

7. Handsome Devil

Dan Sherry

Handsome Devil is an Irish movie that explores themes of private school snobbery, sports fanaticism, and how homosexuality fits into that world. Considering Scott is himself a gay Irish man, this movie likely holds some personal significance for him. Scott plays a homosexual teacher who helps the boys at the center of the story to accept themselves without shame, as he grows confident enough to make his sexuality publicly known to the headmaster of the school as well. The film is emotional and heartwarming, and Scott delivers an incredible performance which was certainly made better by his experiences.

6. Modern Love

Tobin

Modern Love is an Amazon Original series based on a New York Times weekly column of the same name. Each episode explores a different side of love in all of its many forms, from familial and platonic, to romantic and intimate. Scott appears in episodes 7 and 8 of season 1 as Tobin, a gay man, who, with his partner, is hoping to adopt a baby. Olivia Cooke plays a young pregnant woman who appears to be the answer to the couple's prayers and the episode explores the relationships that follow.

5. Pride

Gethin Roberts

While many of Scott's roles see him adopt a bravado and confidence that he exudes throughout, the role of Gethin Roberts in 2014's Pride was a very different case. Gethin, along with his partner, Jonathan, are among the first to support the miners during a political strike. Gethin is very quiet but maintains strong beliefs about right and wrong, but unfortunately, the community he lives in is strongly opposed to him and his lifestyle. Gethin is beaten up and hospitalized, but throughout, Scott delivers a moving performance through quiet confidence.

4. His Dark Materials

Colonel John (Jopari) Parry

The TV adaptation of the books, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, was a runaway success for HBO. In the series, Scott had a fairly prominent role as a recurring cast member, John Parry. Parry served in the military before accidentally traveling to Lyra's world and developing his skills as a talented Shaman. Scott brilliantly conveys real grit and importance to a role that is likely the most unrealistic thing he has appeared in to date. The role may be supernatural, but it is also one of the most captivating performances of Scott's on TV.

3. Fleabag

The Priest

Scott features prominently in the second season of the hit Amazon Original comedy series Fleabag as the Priest. Unlike regular priests around the UK, Scott's character is prone to swearing and making inappropriate jokes. He is a charismatic and charming character who often enjoys his own company and declares that he has no real friends of his own. Once again, featuring Scott as a comedy actor, he has a clear talent and disposition for delivering these lines and performing in a more lighthearted role. While his character is a figure of authority, much of that is disarmed by Scott's performance.

2. Sherlock

Jim Moriarty

The role that skyrocketed Scott's career remains one of his very best roles and performances today. As the incredibly intelligent villain, Jim Moriarty in Sherlock, Scott provided the perfect contrast to the tortured genius that is Sherlock Holmes. Not only do Scott's Moriarty and Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock have a wonderful chemistry and rhythm whenever they appear together, but Scott also puts everything into this role. From his uniquely high voice to his physical acting, and his line delivery and facial expressions, Scott was perfectly cast and completely owned the role.

1. All Of Us Strangers

Adam

One of Scott's most recent projects, All of Us Strangers, was nominated for six BAFTAs and has received incredible praise from many film critics. The movie explores themes of loss and love, as Adam struggles to resolve memories of his youth and his parents who passed away when he was young, and build a life for himself. However, that all changes when Adam forms a relationship with his neighbor, Harry. Andrew Scott is magnificent, expertly creating a layered character who is putting the pieces of his life together in an incredible and unique film, and proving his incredible talents.'

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catsvrsdogscatswin · 11 months

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Someone asked me to do a part two of my vampire history infodump that covered more modern stuff like Blade and Anne Rice, so here’s an updated version of my reblog in its own separate post:

(Warning: my confident historical coverage of vampiric lore pretty much hits the curb and faceplants right around the time of Dracula.)

That warning being duly given... with the collation of stories spanning the 1800s (such as The Vampyre [1819], Varney the Vampire [1845-47], Carmilla [1872], and Dracula [1897]), the vampire was spring-launched into popular literature with all of the deliciously mental tropes that the Victorians so loved to create. As mentioned, these vampires created the power sets and archetypes that were the initial blueprints for our modern concept of a vampire.

One of the tropes that got baked into the genre was... sensuality, I guess is how you’d phrase it. I know we all joke about sexy vampires, but the physicality (and moral questions built into it) were a part of the vampire concept ever since it got absorbed by the Sturm und Drang crowd and vampires were no longer (solely) the gross corpse of your asshole neighbor.

As I mentioned earlier, part of the lure for Sturm und Drang artists was how inherently unholy and blasphemous vampires were. I won’t divert this into a lecture on Christianity and Catholicism’s more batshit practices, but to cut a very long alternate post short: sex and sexual pleasure were considered immoral. Lust was inherently worse than love.

You’ll see this in period novels a lot: loving something or someone in a spiritual/emotional way makes a character inherently purer and better than someone tied to earthly/mundane/physical pleasures and attachments. Off the top of my head, I can think of examples in Tarzan (the original 1912 novels, not Disney), a number of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Dracula. The novel goes out of its way to indicate how a character (usually a woman) has a loftier, purer, and just generally better soul because they love spiritually. In modern terms, it’s a bit like the book has her walking around with a punk jacket’s worth of pride/ally pins and charity awards and “every spiritual leader ever says you’re just the bestest” medals.

Because vampires were supposed to be the inverse of goodness, however, much of their actions were tied to physicality, specifically in the crude and sensual way of wanting someone bodily. A lot of the post-Sturm und Drang, pre-modern material uses the eroticism the vampire brings or carries as a threat.

It’s in several poems, including Lenore: the titular Lenore is lured away onto her fatal midnight ride because her dead fiance told her that he was bringing her to their bridal/marriage bed -which, if he wasn’t dead and obliquely describing a coffin, would traditionally be the bed where he would deflower her to consummate their marriage. In The Vampyre, Lord Ruthven is constantly attracting women and killing them soon after. The horror of the book is heavily founded on how the protagonist is helpless to do anything but watch as Lord Ruthven seduces the women he cares about and then murders them, one after another.

We see this same sensuality-is-a-threat in Carmilla, where she is predatorily obsessed with the female lead, and in Dracula, when Jonathan is almost fed upon by the vampire ladies. There’s more examples in Dracula, but in consideration of how good an example it is (and where we are in DD), I’ll leave it at that one. There’s sexual tension between Jonathan and the three vampire ladies in that scene: it’s erotic, and it’s scary. This scene is meant to show us how horrible and unnatural they are, that they can evoke this primal interest from both us, the readers, and Jon, when we know they will try to hurt him.

(We can also argue that there’s much of the same tension with Jonathan and the Count, with Jon caught between feeling attraction and simultaneously feeling fear, but that’s a post for another time.)

Essentially, early vampires were spooky and threatening because they carried undertones of overt sexual pleasure and carnality, which was taboo according to the conventions of the time. As the pop culture interpretation became fully fleshed out and they became infectious rather than fatal, the horror and threat shifted to how they would make you enjoy these things, whether you initially wanted to or not.

And (as I creep out to the very end of my shaky little branch of knowledge) as the vampire solidified as an idea, this intwined sense of danger and arousal was carried with it. As the vampire became less and less an actual creature people commonly believed in and more and more just another literary device, people started doing what they always do: use said horror device as a metaphor for the current neurosis, fears, and struggles of the time.

(And repressed desire, because humans are horny and that’s how we do. Sometimes there’s both horror and repressed desire simultaneously.)

There’s a lovely (and true) post going around that explains how you can use trends in horror movies to tell you about what people are afraid of at a certain period in time. And this holds true for vampires!

One of the big landmarks after Dracula itself was the black and white film Nosferatu, made in Germany in 1922. Although this is a matter of debate due to the director knowing and being friendly with a number of Jewish people, both the film and the vampire within it, Count Orlok, have been stated to hold significant anti-Semitic overtones. Count Orlok has features that mimic caricature-esque depictions of Jewish people and brings plague-carrying rats to the innocent German town he invades, which reflects the rising anti-Semitic sentiments of the era and the location.

I Am Legend, which was originally a novel written in 1954, also reflected the horror of the day, which was concern over what nukes would do and what they would leave behind. A pandemic has turned every human on earth into vampiric creatures, and one man is left to stand against them. This got adapted into film not once, not twice, but three times, the most recent of which is I am Legend (2007) starring Will Smith.

I admit that I have very little knowledge beyond the surface of the Interview with a Vampire series (the first book of which was published in 1976), but if said knowledge is correct, vampirism partially serves as a metaphor for both homosexuality and the changing attitudes around it. They live among us, indistinguishable from us until they make one specific action to out themselves, and then they aren’t recognizably us anymore. They’re frightening, but there’s a curiosity about them, and a growing (perhaps fatal) urge to find out more. The vampire serves as a vehicle for the horror of “maybe this will be fine, maybe this will damn you forever, and there’s no way to tell which one it’ll be until it’s too late.”

We can also thank/blame Interview with a Vampire for being one of the stories that first began to nudge vampire media towards the dark/paranormal/tragic romance. The other major contributor was the original run of Dark Shadows in 1966-71.

There are also doubtless a number of other examples of vampire media from 1900-1998. Off the top of my head, I do not remember any of them, or know enough about those that I do remember to talk about them (i.e. Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

In regard to Blade, however; I will, first of all, admit that my knowledge is limited solely to the three Wesley Snipes movies; Blade (1998), Blade II (2002), and Blade: Trinity (2004), which I believe deviate significantly from the comics. However, vampirism-as-a-metaphor for the contemporary horror/fears of the day still tracks!

In the movies, at least, vampirism is treated as a metaphor for the risks of modern society, particularly viruses and viral carriers. In each movie, vampires hunt for -and find- prey at nightclubs and other slightly-seedy locations, and they tend to feed on the young and uninhibited --the subtext being our fear of catching STDs.

Vampirism is explicitly viral: Blade “catches” it in the womb after his mother is bitten and gives birth prematurely (paralleling birth defects created by parents carrying a virus), and the strain that causes vampirism is compared to cancer in the second movie onscreen. Blade II’s main conflict also comes from him having to deal with a mutant strain of vampirism that infects even other vampires, removing their weakness to silver and garlic at the cost of their intelligence and functioning metabolism. (Invoking the horror of evolving viruses.) Blade: Trinity has him dealing with Dracula, the patient zero who has a super-strain of vampirism.

While I’m sure there’s a whole lot more I’m missing due to knowing sweet-jolly-fuckall about the Blade comics (and superhero stuff in general), in the Blade movies, vampirism in general is partially used as a vehicle/metaphor for our fear of viral infection and disease: this being one of the few things we, as modern humans, are still largely as helpless against as our ancestors were.

(This particular fear is also why there’s been an uptick in zombie movies within the past few decades. Fun fact!)

I am contractually obligated to mention the Twilight (2005-2008) series. While it certainly wasn’t the first vampire romance designed for teenagers, Twilight is notable for basically nailing the target audience of teenage girls and encapsulating a lot of their feelings and struggles. The way it was written gave said girls a sense of new power and embraced vampiric sensuality full-heartedly, which was what made it a landmark in vampiric literature history.

That isn’t to say modern vampires aren’t still used for full-on villains and horror. Vampireology (2010) and the Vampire Plagues series (2004-2006) are the only two examples I can really think of off the top of my head, but in both cases, vampirism is an unholy metamorphosis that strips away your very soul. In Vampireology, faint echoes of the human personality remain, but in Vampire Plagues, the memories and knowledge are really the only thing that’s left: everything else is lost as the new vampire becomes an undyingly loyal puppet for the evil god that is their master. In both cases, vampirism is explicitly a curse and an act of evil, and vampires are unequivocally the enemy.

However, the 2000-2010 decade was basically the last nail in the coffin (heh) that had the majority of modern vampire depictions shifting over from “evil undying spawn of Hell” to “personable, if not outright sympathetic.” Nowadays, vampires tend to be neutral creatures, antiheroes, or even sometimes just plain good guys. Vampires are used outside of horror to explain superhero-esque power sets or scifi tropes. There’s supernatural vampire romances without even a hint of horror in the classic sense. Quite a shift from Dracula!

In summation, thanks to its incredibly long pedigree and wide folkloric spread, the modern vampire is a literary device that content creators can use pretty much however they damn well like. There are so many traits that vampires have been given over the decades that you can basically just cherry-pick want you want and go, blending it with other genres and literary conventions as you feel necessary (or interesting). The history is already right there, which also what makes it rather difficult to put a truly new spin on any vampire media: usually, someone, somewhere, has already done it before.

Vampires are an inverse of what’s good, a parasite, a blood-born pathogen, an unholy creature from beyond the grave, a tragic victim, a spreader of disease, a mystic/exotic threat, a dark fantasy, a hidden minority, etc. etc. You can use them for horror, religious symbolism, sociocultural ideas, romance, superhero origin stories, an additional monster in your bestiary, an aesthetic filter over your fantasy species, even more etc. etc.

In conclusion:

#Dracula Daily #Dracula #Carmilla #Lenore #Interview with a Vampire #Blade #Twilight #The Vampyre #vampires

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