Currant Berries

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: T
Setting: Twisted Sinews universe
Characters: Molly Hooper
Primary Pairings: Molly Hooper/Jim Moriarty
Warnings: Implied strangulation
Word Count: 324

General Summary: Molly has a problem that she has to hide from her coworkers.

Author’s Note: I originally posted this to Tumblr on 16 August 2011.


Currant berries. That’s what they look like. These words flashed briefly through Molly Hooper’s mind as she carefully examined the deep red marks on the sides of her neck. Ten of them. Ten, evenly-spaced ovals, two of the set larger and set just under her jaw. They’ll darken by noon probably. Shouldn’t take long at all.

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Coffee Table Books

Fandom: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy / The Smiley Series
Rating: G
Characters: Peter Guillam, George Smiley
Word Count: 188

General Summary: A short prompt fill for the prompt: "These old books"

Author’s Note: I originally posted this to Tumblr on 3 September 2011.


"How many of these have you actually read, George?" Running his thumb over the dusty spines of a pile of large coffee table books, Peter Guillam glanced up at the other man from where he was stretched out on the sofa, his brown suede shoes carefully folded over each other.

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Trespassers

Fandom: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy / The Smiley Series
Rating: G
Setting: The Fish Pond Tapes (a domestic retirement AU)
Characters: Peter Guillam, George Smiley
Primary Pairings: Peter Guillam/George Smiley (implied)
Word Count: 868

General Summary: Despite himself, Peter is secretly protective of the fish pond George keeps in the back garden.

Author’s Note: I originally posted this piece - the first of a handful belonging to this AU - on 6 September 2011, at the request of someone who was at the time very close to me. We are no longer on speaking terms, but I still like the piece, and am pleased that it was...rehabilitated in a lot of ways by someone else close to me.


George knew Peter would never admit it, but the fish had become akin to his children. In the beginning, he was ambivalent towards the little fish pond that Smiley had insisted on installing in the back garden, even going so far as to say that it seemed silly to have pets that couldn’t be interacted with directly. Patiently, George had simply told him that if he thought the fish were silly, then he didn’t have to deal with them.

That ended any potential for argument.

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'Darling'

Fandom: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy / The Smiley Series
Rating: G
Characters: Bill Haydon, Jim Prideaux
Primary Pairings: Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux
Warnings: Major Character Death
Word Count: 755

General Summary: A take on the final moments of Bill Haydon.

Author’s Note: This piece was originally posted on the 23 of September 2011, and then posted to Tumblr. Later it was also translated to German with my permission, and now it's here. I still very much like it and feel pretty deeply about it.


"Darling.“

"Don’t call me that.”

The man’s head snapped up at the harshness in the other’s voice, and shivering, drew his overcoat closer around his pyjamas in a futile attempt to ward off the cold night air. "Darling, please. You’re be-”

"I said don’t call me that.” Jim Prideaux’s voice crackled with the kind of muted energy that hummed around fully charged electrodes.

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Of Men and Horses

Fandom: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy / Smiley Series
Rating: G
Characters: Bill Haydon, Jim Prideaux
Primary Pairings: Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux
Word Count: 449

General Summary: Bill Haydon was never known for his love of horses, but Jim Prideaux was.

Author’s Note: This is another piece I wrote and posted to Tumblr towards the end of September 2011, and I still like this one a lot as well.


Bill Haydon didn’t always like horses. They spooked him with their long, spindly, powerful legs and large, soulful eyes. He had avoided them for years, had refused to go near them in his youth, and had planned to never so much as touch a horse if he could help it.

But then there was Jim Prideaux, and he loved horses.

Suddenly, Bill Haydon was no longer able to help it.

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Autumn in London

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: G
Setting: Dark Dog Days universe
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Word Count: 428

General Summary: When Sherlock Holmes goes from the agonisingly pale days of lethargy and boredom back into himself, before he is able to throw himself back into his work, he faces a single obstacle in the form of a full week of agonising hypersensitivity.

Author’s Note: I originally posted this piece to Tumblr on 10 October 2011, during the advent of a manic swing, during which my chronic migraines went into hyper-drive. As someone who reads most Holmeses as being bipolar, this was pretty cathartic in a way.
 

John Watson watches from the kitchen as his flatmate stares fixedly at the curtained window. He thinks during this time that Sherlock is thinking. That the gears are turning on some intricate problem that involves hundreds of individual factors, none of which are the solar system.

John Watson is wrong.

Sherlock Holmes is staring fixedly at the window, willing the bare branch on the other side to somehow curve itself so that it stops scratching against the glass. Sherlock Holmes is wondering why John can’t hear the wretched noise, and if he can, why isn’t he reacting?

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The Third Time

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The Eucharist

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Untitled 'Cabin Pressure' Piece

Fandom: Cabin Pressure
Rating: G
Characters: Martin Crieff, Douglas Richardson, Arthur Shappey
Warnings: Really, really bad puns
Word Count: 337

General Summary: Gerty has a strange and unusual cargo. Things do not go as planned.

Author’s Note: Listen, back in December 2011, a buddy asked me to write a fic that incorporated a terrible pun. This was that fic. I'm sorry.


"What is in the hold, anyway?"

"Nothing!"

Arthur blinked. Never before had one of his inquiries provoked quite such a violent reaction in Martin. Even Douglas appeared slightly alarmed by his fellow pilot’s outburst.

"You see, Arthur," the older man began, "what’s in the hold is—"

"Shut up, Douglas." Martin snapped, and the older pilot shot him a look of mild irritation.

"What ever for, Martin?"

His jaw tensing, Martin spoke slowly and carefully. "Carolyn said explicitly that we are not to talk about what’s in the hold."

( Read more... )

Tease

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: T
Setting: Dark Dog Days universe
Characters: Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes
Primary Pairings: Implied Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes
Warnings: Drug use
Word Count: 688

General Summary: Sherlock discovers yet another one of Mycroft's hidden cameras and decides to punish his brother for the invasion of privacy.

Author’s Note: I wrote this piece in December 2011, and I don't know, it's an odd piece.


It was coming up on seventy-two hours and Sherlock still hadn’t moved except perhaps to blink once or twice as he stared directly into the hidden camera lens. Idly, Mycroft imagined that if he were to zoom in, he would probably be able to watch the fine, barely-there follicles of his brother’s facial hair inch out from their burrows in his skin in a barely-visible dusting of stubble. He had not attempted to do this just yet, of course, but the thought was there. The important thing to be garnered from all of this, from the statue act, Mycroft observed quietly to himself, was that Sherlock knew he was being watched, and was making that perfectly clear to the man on the other side of the camera lens.

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All You Need is a Girl and a Gun

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: M
Characters: Molly Hooper, Jim Moriarty
Primary Pairings: Molly Hooper/Jim Moriarty
Secondary Pairings: Implied Sebastian Moran/Jim Moriarty, Implied Molly/Jim/Sebastian
Warnings: If deep-throating a firearm bothers you, probably walk away from this one, chief
Word Count: 315

General Summary: In which Jim gets a girl and a gun and more than he bargained for.

Author’s Note: Yanno what? I wrote this in 2011 in a fit of self-indulgence and fuck it, I stand by that.


Dry, slightly chapped lips work their way over what suddenly felt like an impossible distance. A sharp intake of breath through the nostrils as slender fingers with carefully manicured nails clench a fistful of hair.

"Keep going."


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The Accusation of Sherlock Holmes

Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (book canon, but also heavily Granada-influenced)
Rating: G
Characters: Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Word Count: 1098.

General Summary: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are summoned to the Diogenes Club, where Mycroft makes a startling accusation.

Author’s Note: This was done as a commission piece back in 2011 for a friend of mine. I'm still fond of it.


Sherlock Holmes perched, not unlike a gargoyle, upon his favourite wicker armchair, long, slender limbs folded in on themselves in a posture that was more feline than anything else. This contradiction in appearances was something that John Watson had become used to since he began living with the detective. Today, however, Holmes seemed unusually agitated, his usually cool hazel eyes ablaze with activity. When asked, however, the detective merely gestured to a half-folded sheet of paper on the table. Flinching, as even his friend’s swift, irate gestures could be wielded as weapons, Watson carefully took the note into his hands and read over it.

My dear brother, it began, and Watson had to stifle a groan - no wonder Holmes was so agitated. Contact from Mycroft generally had that effect on the detective. Sighing, he skimmed the rest of the letter, which requested Holmes’ presence, not at Whitehall, but at the Diogenes Club, as soon as possible.

"Unofficial business." Holmes pronounced drily, making his friend keenly aware of how closely he had been watching him read.

"A personal matter, then?" Watson folded the letter carefully before setting it on the table and looking at the other man expectantly.

Holmes shrugged and rose to his feet in a single fluid movement. "Or a highly sensitive one."
 

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The Hunting of Gregory Lestrade

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: M
Setting: Dark Dog Days universe
Characters: Mycroft Holmes, Greg Lestrade
Primary Pairings: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Word Count: 2407

General Summary: Mycroft had only planned to go out hunting; taking a lover was certainly not on his agenda.

Author’s Note: This piece was written for my collaborator after we had discussion about something we thought Mycroft did when he was bored as a young man at university. It was originally posted to Tumblr on 17 January 2012.


Mycroft was on the hunt. He had slipped away, as he was wont to do, and had taken the night for himself. The deceptively inexpensive and currently jacketless suit that he wore in place of his usual expensively tailored one made for an appearance that would have unsettled anyone who knew him. However, he added mentally, carefully rolling his shirt cuffs over his forearms, the small of his back pressed uncomfortably against the edge of the bar, they’ll never know, will they?

The hunt, as he had come to affectionately call it, was something that he had begun to do while at university, at least partially out of boredom. He would dress up, catch a cab to a bar that he had scoped out weeks in advance, and don the mask of a bored barfly. From there it was simply a matter of choosing a target and playing the game. Rather than make the first move, the game required that he slip inside his target’s brain and figure out what would induce them to make a move on him.

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Night Flights

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: G
Characters: Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Word Count: 406

General Summary: It's been a week since Sherlock Holmes was buried in a closed casket funeral, and Molly Hooper would like him to just get a bit of rest before leaving the country.

Author’s Note: 1Just a short piece I wrote in January 2012 after series two aired in the UK.


“Those will kill you, you know.” Molly watched from her end of the sofa as Sherlock Holmes lit a cigarette and took a long, needy drag. ”I thought you quit.”

“Don’t make jokes Molly.” Sherlock exhaled appreciatively and gave her a dead-eyed stare, then reproachfully, “I can’t have any cases. I’m bored.”

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Afterthought

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: G
Characters: Sally Donovan, Greg Lestrade, John Watson, the Scotland Yard gang
Word Count: 488

General Summary: Hours after the death of Sherlock Holmes, Sally Donovan has time to think.

Author’s Note: This was just a little piece I wrote after the airing of Series 2 back in January 2012.


A heavy silence weighed over the section of the bar claimed years ago by Scotland Yard, and no one, if seemed, dared to speak or even move unless Gregory Lestrade did so first. But the detective inspector did neither of these and so neither did they.

Sally Donovan stared into her glass and tried not to think, but all the same, a thought drifted to the surface.

Sherlock Holmes is dead.

Sherlock Holmes is dead. Head cracked on the pavement in front of St. Bart’s, cold on a morgue slab. Dead. Gone.

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The Final Fig Leaf

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: G-T (ymmv)
Characters: Jim Moriarty, John Watson
Primary Pairings: Implied Jim Moriarty/John Watson
Word Count: 168 

General Summary: John Watson has tried very hard not to think about the events from the night that he first came face to face with Jim Moriarty, but a single backwards glance was all it took to undo months of self-deception.

Author’s Note: lmao this is 100% self-indulgent fun from February 2012.


One backwards glance.

That’s all it takes.

Just one backwards glance and the casual batting of an eyelid.

A wink that no one sees.

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Words Over Breakfast

Fandom: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy / Smiley Series
Rating: G
Setting: The Fish Pond Tapes (a domestic retirement AU)
Characters: Peter Guillam, George Smiley
Primary Pairings: Implied Peter Guillam/George Smiley
Warnings: Major Character Death
Word Count: 432

General Summary: Peter begins sending George messages burned onto his toast in the morning.

Author’s Note: Wow okay so this is one of the few other major pieces in this AU, and it's the one people get the most heated over in a way. But it was written 23 February 2012, and continues to hurt people despite coming from a light-hearted prompt regarding a toaster that burns messages on bread.


George Smiley was halfway through his breakfast the first time he noticed the messages on his toast. By the time he caught it, all that was left was a single G, half covered by egg.

Glancing up at Peter’s turned back, George carefully scraped the egg from the second slice of toast to expose a single word:

Morning.


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Extraneous Costs

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: G-T
Setting: The Grit in the Lens universe/series
Characters: Sebastian Moran, Jim Moriarty
Word Count: 1432

General Summary: The trouble with playing favourites, Jim long ago acknowledged, is that sometimes even they fuck up.

An alternate point-of-view companion piece to TheGhostofEurope's "Too Much to Swallow."

Author’s Note: The Grit in the Lens universe was begun as a dual story-telling project in which my friend Seb, who started the project, wrote from the point of view of Sebastian, and I from the point of view of Jim. The general idea of this project being to examine the flawed (or not-so-flawed) ways in which each character views the other. I confess to having been the weak link and only having written this one piece because I'm a piece of shit basically. Anyway, this was written 6 March 2012.


On the way back to the hotel, I cracked the passenger side window, the tang of coastal Argentina mingling with the sourly metallic odour of rapidly clotting blood. The smell persisted as we crossed the hotel lobby; Sebastian was already light-headed and struggling to keep up with my pace as I hurried into the nearest elevator before the sight and scent of crusted blood could be detected by bystanders. Once inside, Sebastian slumped against the wall as the numbers slowly ticked off towards our floor.

Ground
1
2
3
4

The doors slid open, and hounded by Sebastian’s increasingly shuffling footsteps, I made the journey down the hall and into the room, slipping inside before locking it securely again.
 

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Monsters

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: G
Setting: Dark Dog Days universe, Pre-Canon
Characters: Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes
Word Count: 1146

General Summary: Even at thirteen, Sherlock has the ability to draw Mycroft back to the Holmes estate from school at the drop of a hat, and what Mycroft finds often worries him.

Author’s Note: This was another commission piece, written 8 April 2012.


If it were not for Sherlock, Mycroft Holmes thought to himself as he leaned against the window, I doubt I would ever come back. Certainly not at the drop of a hat like this. But there he was, on the train, watching the scenery roll by in a series of lazy hills as he sped towards the Holmes estate. It had been nearly three in the morning when he had received the call from Eliza – his brother’s Latin tutor and Mycroft’s most reliable pair of eyes and ears in the household.

Her panicked voice across the line, broken by short sobs and whimpers in between words – “Sherlock!...the new maid…oh dear heavens…please do come!” – was all it took to bring Mycroft running back to the old Holmes manor; to Sherlock and, he could not suppress a shudder at the thought, their mother.

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Wrong Name

Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie!verse)
Rating: T
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Primary Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Secondary Pairings: Mycroft Holmes/John Watson
Word Count: 462

General Summary: During a rendezvous, Watson lets slip the name of the wrong Holmes brother and things go south very quickly.

Author’s Note: This was a funny little prompt from back in April 2012, and I swear I uploaded it to AO3 but apparently not. Anyway, it's still hilarious so here it is.

"When?"

Watson blinked rapidly, whether at the unexpected vehemence in the other man’s voice, or the way Holmes’ teeth clicked together millimetres from his face, he wasn’t sure. "When, what?"

"You. My brother. When." ( Read more... )

"Sometimes it feels good just to hold it."

Fandom: MCU
Rating: T
Characters: Bruce Banner, Tony Stark
Warnings: Suicidal Ideation
Word Count: 366 

General Summary: A late-night conversation between Tony and Bruce.

Inspired by this piece of fanart.

Author’s Note: This is a pretty short piece but it was one I just sort of...idk I still really like it after like six years. It was originally posted on 29 May 2012.


It’s midnight when Tony Stark awakens to the sound of tuneless humming and the profound sense that something is very wrong. Almost instinctively, he slips from his bed and follows the noise.

It takes several minutes for Bruce to notice Tony standing in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest. Exhaling soundlessly, he glances up. "You’re up late."

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Frostburn

Fandom: MCU
Rating: M
Characters: Loki Laufeyson, Tony Stark
Primary Pairings: Loki Laufeyson/Tony Stark
Word Count: 461

General Summary: A one night stand with unusual side-effects.

Inspired by this piece of fanart.

Author’s Note: Another self-indulgent art-inspired piece. I got no excuse. Written on 1 June 2012.


He never noticed it.

Never noticed the blanketing of deep blue, no longer merely the effect of the soft glow of the arc reactor, sweeping over the other man’s skin, leaving still darker lines of cobalt across the smooth planes of skin.

Never noticed the slow, creeping chill that seeped into his flesh wherever their bodies touched, which left his thighs numb and tingling where slender fingers dug into his muscles.

Nor, had the thin blue lids fluttered open, would he have noticed the shifting of sea-green eyes to a dark red colour.


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Some Other Time

Fandom: MCU
Rating: G
Characters: Pepper Potts, Tony Stark
Primary Pairings: Implied Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Word Count: 254

General Summary: Pepper Potts has had more than her share of experience dealing with Tony wandering into her room at night after drinking too much or working too hard.

Piece inspired by this piece of fanart. 

Author’s Note: This is just a cute Pepper and Tony piece okay? I just love them :(((  Originally posted to Tumblr on 19 June 2012.


It comes as no surprise when Tony staggers into her room at four in the morning.

He’s done this before - several times, actually - in the many years that she’s worked for him, hell in the years since they’ve known each other even.

Sighing inwardly, she holds still, eyes closed, waiting for the inevitable, slightly slurred, “Pepper?”

Only this time it doesn’t come
 

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The Anatomy of Fear

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: G
Setting: Twisted Sinews universe
Characters: Sebastian Moran, Jim Moriarty
Word Count: 344

General Summary: At some point or another, Sebastian Moran realises that Jim Moriarty is a terrifying man, but not for the reasons that everyone thinks he is.

Author’s Note: This was just a little piece I wrote about Moriarty from Moran's perspective in July 2012. I'm not as good at writing him as Seb (my mate, not Moran) was.


Jim Moriarty was a terrifying man, Sebastian Moran realised one day.

Not because of anything specific he did. He wasn’t physically intimidating either - for god’s sake, the man was well under six feet in height and of a slender build. He could have been a schoolteacher.

If he weren’t so much like a shark that had learned to wear human skin.

No, the horror that was Jim Moriarty came from the little things, he had learned.


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