Sherlock Fic: The Shawl of Sherlock Holmes
Starting today, I'll be posting some of the meme fills I've done on the livejournal. Most of 'em are sherlockbbc_fic fills. They are only a tad bit edited, but OH WELL, GOOD ENOUGH FOR TODAY. ETA: Original postage is here! ktbean is a magical human being.
Title: The Shawl of Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG-ish.
Characters/Pairings: John, Sherlock, Harry, "Grandmother", Mycroft.
Warnings: Magical abilities, weaving and knitting written by someone who neither weaves nor knits, not Brit-picked. Mention of The Great Hiatus, spoilers for all of Sherlock.
Summary: John's a Weaver, capable of channeling the abstract into fabric. After meeting Sherlock, his abilities are put to the test more than ever.
Word Count: ~2000.
"You have a gift, John," Grandmother says. He is seven years old, and the fireplace they sit beside is crackling, casting strange shadows against her grizzled face.
John looks down at the small square of knitting he's finished. It is red and floppy and falling apart. Harry's yarn is already turning itself into a pair of vibrantly green mittens with streaks of brown in them. "I don't think I do," John says.
"That's because you're only seeing the yarn for the yarn," Grandmother says. "It's a gateway, John. It's a person, or an idea, or the seasons. It can be whatever you want, but it's never just thread."
"Mine's the oak tree in summer," Harry says proudly.
John frowns. "Why'd you make mittens, then? You're not going to be wearing mittens in summer, are you?"
"That's not the point, John," Grandmother says, not quite scolding. "The point is that inside those mittens it is summer." She looks over at Harry and smiles. "They're lovely, dear."
Harry grins, smug. "Thank you, Grandmother."
"You just have to watch out to not ruin them, else that oak tree will die," Grandmother adds. "Things like seasons and rain and fire and stone can be woven safely, but living things are tricky. It's a link to their life force if you do that. Be careful."
John and Harry nod. They ignore their parents shouting at each other in the kitchen, and instead begin knitting again.
John looks at his little square of red yarn, thinks, be happiness, and turns it into a scarf, long and orange, that he can wrap around his mother.
When she wears it, she smiles.
*
The minute John joins the army, Harry starts knitting him things. They're mostly jumpers - arguably the most potent Weaving they can do, since it covers the heart. She knits brown for a measure of safety and solidity better than plate mail, knits beige for steadfastness and simplicity of action that guarantees he'll never have a problem with making a difficult decision, and a very strange black and white jumper that is a blend of calm and night that she probably intends to keep away nightmares, but all it does is make him nocturnal.
John doesn't wear them for two reasons.
The first and most obvious is that he has a uniform he has to wear. The second is that her addiction is woven into every bit of thread, and it's dangerously contagious.
He knits himself a simple green and blue scarf for health and protection. More often than not, he puts it on other people.
*
A few weeks after John meets Sherlock Holmes, he adds a simple blue fringe to the man’s much-beloved scarf that is willed into the same shade.
Protection, he roars into the fabric, and it's the most potent Weaving he's ever done. Sherlock doesn't notice, and he also doesn't die, so John considers it his best work yet. Even better than those socks that saved a man from dying of hypothermia.
Sherlock doesn't wear the scarf to the pool, and John decides when they get out of here alive - if they get out of here alive - he's going to find a way to surgically implant some protection/safety into the stupid, stupid man.
*
The pool explodes, and John jerks awake to screaming heart monitors and hands trying to hold him down, telling him he needs to calm down, that he's aggravating his wounds, that he's only making things worse.
He can see threads of their lives in their hair and scrubs, can see threads of wounds and deaths and life in the bed, and can't see a thing about Sherlock or Moriarty (and he would Weave death for that man, if only he knew enough about his soul to capture and kill him).
"He's alive, John," someone tells him, and John slowly starts to calm down. "He's injured and still unconscious, but he's alive."
"I need to knit," John manages to say, but the nurses are injecting a sedative into his IV. He grabs onto consciousness as best he can, trying to find that voice again. "Please. Please, I need to Weave, I need to."
"Get some rest, John," the voice says. It's a man, John thinks, and he's some shade of deep rich purple, and John passes out.
*
When he next wakes up, there's nothing to knit.
He grabs the bedsheets and starts grabbing at the already-fraying edge of it, pulling thread out until he has enough to work with. It's not much, but he's desperate.
His fingers ache as he ties and braids and loops. His hands are stiff and shaking, but he still manages to make a small patch of a Weave. It's a pale pink rectangle of healing, and it's one of the weakest Weavings he's done since Grandmother taught them.
He presses it to his heart and lets his body fall asleep under the ruined blanket.
*
"You're recovering at a remarkable pace," the doctor says over his chart. They still haven't brought him any yarn. They did bring him a new blanket, though, one that his still-weak hands can't rip at so easily. His little Weave is already drained back to the white of the bedsheets, but it served its purpose. "You'll be able to get out of that bed in no time."
"I need to see my friend," John says, and the doctor frowns. "Please. I need to know how he's doing."
"I'll accompany him," the voice says - deep royal purple, sleek fabric, probably a small silk handkerchief. Mycroft Holmes. He stands in the doorway and looks at John, and John knows that Mycroft knows what he is, and what he intends to do.
The doctor hesitates, but nods, and a man in a black suit comes in with a wheelchair. He helps John out of bed and into the chair, and they move through the halls.
When he enters Sherlock's room, a part of him wishes he hadn't. There are burns bandaged on his side and he's on a breathing tube. The rest of him is glad he's there, because not only is Sherlock alive, there's almost an entire wall of yarn waiting for him.
There is also a loom.
John remembers Grandmother on her loom, creating true Weavings, complex Weaves of wishes and spellwork that he once saw her put on a bare patch of dirt and, when she lifted it, a brand new bed of lush green grass was beneath. He's never used a loom - doesn't even really know how exactly to work one - but he knows it adds details and complexities that he'll never be able to manage with just knitting.
"I don't entirely understand Weavers and how their craft works," Mycroft says quietly. "But if there's anything I can do, don't hesitate to ask."
John nods, and wheels himself over to where the pink yarn is. He pulls out a soft baby-pink, takes a set of needles from the nearby table, and sets to work making a small, quick scarf. He's so concentrated on pushing as much health into the work that he doesn't even hear Mycroft and the other man leave.
*
When they send him back to his room, he takes as much pink yarn as they'll let him.
Sherlock gets a scarf, and the breathing tube goes away.
Sherlock gets a jumper, and the burn bandages go away.
John heals his entire body, from pink hat with a comically puffy pom-pom on the top down to long pink socks to keep his calves warm and healthy, and the man still won't wake up.
*
Grandmother never taught them how to use the loom, but he remembers watching her. He follows the memory.
It's memory that guides him. He barely looks at his hands. He concentrates on Sherlock Holmes, on his Sherlock-ness, and weaves him. He weaves his brilliance and boredom and macabre obsessions and his violin and his beauty and his beastly behavior and his brother and everything he can think of. John weaves himself in too, subtly altering one simple thing.
This is Sherlock Holmes, the Weaving says, and he's going to be just fine.
The real world vanishes into a blur of memory and movement. He weaves his hands bloody, and doesn't even feel it.
*
When John wakes up, he can't remember falling asleep. His hands are wrapped up enough that he can barely grab onto the rails of the hospital bed to hoist himself up. He's hooked up to an IV, Sherlock Holmes is wrapped in a very strange-looking shawl and asleep on the couch, and Grandmother is standing next to the bed, looking down at him with a disapproving frown.
"Try that again and I'll chop your fingers off and leave you soulless," she says.
"He's okay," John breathes out.
"He's also physically twenty-nine thanks to you," Grandmother states, and outright glares at him. "If you touch a loom again, you'll have me to answer to. And you'll be answering for a very, very long time."
John's tempted to point out that it was more or less Mycroft's idea, but doesn't. He sighs, and lowers his head in deference. "Yes, Grandmother."
"A man like you is too dangerous to have on a loom," she says, and pats him on the head. "I made you and your young man bracelets. They're on your bedside table. Wear them."
John nods and says, "Yes, Grandmother." There's no point in arguing with her; she's always known the story of John's life, usually with more detail than even John can remember.
Grandmother leaves without saying another word. John spends the rest of what little time he's conscious watching Sherlock's REM cycle make his eyelashes slash against each other, fighting whatever his mind is challenging him with.
*
John has Mycroft destroy the loom, and has Mycroft place the rather hideous shawl (the designs of human lives are complex, Sherlock Holmes even moreso, and the occasional Weaving inside it - long life or healing usually - add streaks into the Shawl of Sherlock Holmes that make it something only a mother, brother, or Weaver could really appreciate or love) in the safest place he knows.
"If that shawl gets messed with in any way, the corresponding part of Sherlock gets messed with too," John tells him, and Mycroft's fingers tighten on the fabric.
The man understands. The last that John sees of it is the shawl being folded almost reverently and placed in a metal case John's fairly sure a runaway train or hundred foot drop couldn't bash open.
*
Sherlock looks younger and healthier than John's ever seen him. He also looks like he's considering strangling John.
"When I woke up," Sherlock says carefully, obviously trying to restrain his temper, "I thought you'd died."
John can't help but laugh. "Why? I'd just been waiting around for you to wake up."
"Because when I woke up, you were covered in blood and looked empty," Sherlock says, and sighs dramatically as he stretches back on their couch, toying idly with Grandmother's bracelet. "Don't look like that again."
"I'll promise if you'll promise," John says, and tries to ignore the warm contentment sneaking into him. He still can't tell what Grandmother wove into them - she willed them black, and John's never been able to completely read Grandmother's work - but he'll figure it out eventually.
*
There will come a day when he'll be tempted to use a loom again, will be tempted to Weave Sherlock Holmes back into the world, Grandmother's warning be damned.
Instead, he will read a text from Mycroft.
The shawl is still intact
and protected.
MH
And then he'll make Mrs. Hudson a nice set of tea cozies, and set himself to waiting.
Title: The Shawl of Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG-ish.
Characters/Pairings: John, Sherlock, Harry, "Grandmother", Mycroft.
Warnings: Magical abilities, weaving and knitting written by someone who neither weaves nor knits, not Brit-picked. Mention of The Great Hiatus, spoilers for all of Sherlock.
Summary: John's a Weaver, capable of channeling the abstract into fabric. After meeting Sherlock, his abilities are put to the test more than ever.
Word Count: ~2000.
"You have a gift, John," Grandmother says. He is seven years old, and the fireplace they sit beside is crackling, casting strange shadows against her grizzled face.
John looks down at the small square of knitting he's finished. It is red and floppy and falling apart. Harry's yarn is already turning itself into a pair of vibrantly green mittens with streaks of brown in them. "I don't think I do," John says.
"That's because you're only seeing the yarn for the yarn," Grandmother says. "It's a gateway, John. It's a person, or an idea, or the seasons. It can be whatever you want, but it's never just thread."
"Mine's the oak tree in summer," Harry says proudly.
John frowns. "Why'd you make mittens, then? You're not going to be wearing mittens in summer, are you?"
"That's not the point, John," Grandmother says, not quite scolding. "The point is that inside those mittens it is summer." She looks over at Harry and smiles. "They're lovely, dear."
Harry grins, smug. "Thank you, Grandmother."
"You just have to watch out to not ruin them, else that oak tree will die," Grandmother adds. "Things like seasons and rain and fire and stone can be woven safely, but living things are tricky. It's a link to their life force if you do that. Be careful."
John and Harry nod. They ignore their parents shouting at each other in the kitchen, and instead begin knitting again.
John looks at his little square of red yarn, thinks, be happiness, and turns it into a scarf, long and orange, that he can wrap around his mother.
When she wears it, she smiles.
*
The minute John joins the army, Harry starts knitting him things. They're mostly jumpers - arguably the most potent Weaving they can do, since it covers the heart. She knits brown for a measure of safety and solidity better than plate mail, knits beige for steadfastness and simplicity of action that guarantees he'll never have a problem with making a difficult decision, and a very strange black and white jumper that is a blend of calm and night that she probably intends to keep away nightmares, but all it does is make him nocturnal.
John doesn't wear them for two reasons.
The first and most obvious is that he has a uniform he has to wear. The second is that her addiction is woven into every bit of thread, and it's dangerously contagious.
He knits himself a simple green and blue scarf for health and protection. More often than not, he puts it on other people.
*
A few weeks after John meets Sherlock Holmes, he adds a simple blue fringe to the man’s much-beloved scarf that is willed into the same shade.
Protection, he roars into the fabric, and it's the most potent Weaving he's ever done. Sherlock doesn't notice, and he also doesn't die, so John considers it his best work yet. Even better than those socks that saved a man from dying of hypothermia.
Sherlock doesn't wear the scarf to the pool, and John decides when they get out of here alive - if they get out of here alive - he's going to find a way to surgically implant some protection/safety into the stupid, stupid man.
*
The pool explodes, and John jerks awake to screaming heart monitors and hands trying to hold him down, telling him he needs to calm down, that he's aggravating his wounds, that he's only making things worse.
He can see threads of their lives in their hair and scrubs, can see threads of wounds and deaths and life in the bed, and can't see a thing about Sherlock or Moriarty (and he would Weave death for that man, if only he knew enough about his soul to capture and kill him).
"He's alive, John," someone tells him, and John slowly starts to calm down. "He's injured and still unconscious, but he's alive."
"I need to knit," John manages to say, but the nurses are injecting a sedative into his IV. He grabs onto consciousness as best he can, trying to find that voice again. "Please. Please, I need to Weave, I need to."
"Get some rest, John," the voice says. It's a man, John thinks, and he's some shade of deep rich purple, and John passes out.
*
When he next wakes up, there's nothing to knit.
He grabs the bedsheets and starts grabbing at the already-fraying edge of it, pulling thread out until he has enough to work with. It's not much, but he's desperate.
His fingers ache as he ties and braids and loops. His hands are stiff and shaking, but he still manages to make a small patch of a Weave. It's a pale pink rectangle of healing, and it's one of the weakest Weavings he's done since Grandmother taught them.
He presses it to his heart and lets his body fall asleep under the ruined blanket.
*
"You're recovering at a remarkable pace," the doctor says over his chart. They still haven't brought him any yarn. They did bring him a new blanket, though, one that his still-weak hands can't rip at so easily. His little Weave is already drained back to the white of the bedsheets, but it served its purpose. "You'll be able to get out of that bed in no time."
"I need to see my friend," John says, and the doctor frowns. "Please. I need to know how he's doing."
"I'll accompany him," the voice says - deep royal purple, sleek fabric, probably a small silk handkerchief. Mycroft Holmes. He stands in the doorway and looks at John, and John knows that Mycroft knows what he is, and what he intends to do.
The doctor hesitates, but nods, and a man in a black suit comes in with a wheelchair. He helps John out of bed and into the chair, and they move through the halls.
When he enters Sherlock's room, a part of him wishes he hadn't. There are burns bandaged on his side and he's on a breathing tube. The rest of him is glad he's there, because not only is Sherlock alive, there's almost an entire wall of yarn waiting for him.
There is also a loom.
John remembers Grandmother on her loom, creating true Weavings, complex Weaves of wishes and spellwork that he once saw her put on a bare patch of dirt and, when she lifted it, a brand new bed of lush green grass was beneath. He's never used a loom - doesn't even really know how exactly to work one - but he knows it adds details and complexities that he'll never be able to manage with just knitting.
"I don't entirely understand Weavers and how their craft works," Mycroft says quietly. "But if there's anything I can do, don't hesitate to ask."
John nods, and wheels himself over to where the pink yarn is. He pulls out a soft baby-pink, takes a set of needles from the nearby table, and sets to work making a small, quick scarf. He's so concentrated on pushing as much health into the work that he doesn't even hear Mycroft and the other man leave.
*
When they send him back to his room, he takes as much pink yarn as they'll let him.
Sherlock gets a scarf, and the breathing tube goes away.
Sherlock gets a jumper, and the burn bandages go away.
John heals his entire body, from pink hat with a comically puffy pom-pom on the top down to long pink socks to keep his calves warm and healthy, and the man still won't wake up.
*
Grandmother never taught them how to use the loom, but he remembers watching her. He follows the memory.
It's memory that guides him. He barely looks at his hands. He concentrates on Sherlock Holmes, on his Sherlock-ness, and weaves him. He weaves his brilliance and boredom and macabre obsessions and his violin and his beauty and his beastly behavior and his brother and everything he can think of. John weaves himself in too, subtly altering one simple thing.
This is Sherlock Holmes, the Weaving says, and he's going to be just fine.
The real world vanishes into a blur of memory and movement. He weaves his hands bloody, and doesn't even feel it.
*
When John wakes up, he can't remember falling asleep. His hands are wrapped up enough that he can barely grab onto the rails of the hospital bed to hoist himself up. He's hooked up to an IV, Sherlock Holmes is wrapped in a very strange-looking shawl and asleep on the couch, and Grandmother is standing next to the bed, looking down at him with a disapproving frown.
"Try that again and I'll chop your fingers off and leave you soulless," she says.
"He's okay," John breathes out.
"He's also physically twenty-nine thanks to you," Grandmother states, and outright glares at him. "If you touch a loom again, you'll have me to answer to. And you'll be answering for a very, very long time."
John's tempted to point out that it was more or less Mycroft's idea, but doesn't. He sighs, and lowers his head in deference. "Yes, Grandmother."
"A man like you is too dangerous to have on a loom," she says, and pats him on the head. "I made you and your young man bracelets. They're on your bedside table. Wear them."
John nods and says, "Yes, Grandmother." There's no point in arguing with her; she's always known the story of John's life, usually with more detail than even John can remember.
Grandmother leaves without saying another word. John spends the rest of what little time he's conscious watching Sherlock's REM cycle make his eyelashes slash against each other, fighting whatever his mind is challenging him with.
*
John has Mycroft destroy the loom, and has Mycroft place the rather hideous shawl (the designs of human lives are complex, Sherlock Holmes even moreso, and the occasional Weaving inside it - long life or healing usually - add streaks into the Shawl of Sherlock Holmes that make it something only a mother, brother, or Weaver could really appreciate or love) in the safest place he knows.
"If that shawl gets messed with in any way, the corresponding part of Sherlock gets messed with too," John tells him, and Mycroft's fingers tighten on the fabric.
The man understands. The last that John sees of it is the shawl being folded almost reverently and placed in a metal case John's fairly sure a runaway train or hundred foot drop couldn't bash open.
*
Sherlock looks younger and healthier than John's ever seen him. He also looks like he's considering strangling John.
"When I woke up," Sherlock says carefully, obviously trying to restrain his temper, "I thought you'd died."
John can't help but laugh. "Why? I'd just been waiting around for you to wake up."
"Because when I woke up, you were covered in blood and looked empty," Sherlock says, and sighs dramatically as he stretches back on their couch, toying idly with Grandmother's bracelet. "Don't look like that again."
"I'll promise if you'll promise," John says, and tries to ignore the warm contentment sneaking into him. He still can't tell what Grandmother wove into them - she willed them black, and John's never been able to completely read Grandmother's work - but he'll figure it out eventually.
*
There will come a day when he'll be tempted to use a loom again, will be tempted to Weave Sherlock Holmes back into the world, Grandmother's warning be damned.
Instead, he will read a text from Mycroft.
The shawl is still intact
and protected.
MH
And then he'll make Mrs. Hudson a nice set of tea cozies, and set himself to waiting.