Ficlet Dump (BBC Sherlock, Firefly, Doctor Who, Animorphs) + 1 Art (Doctor Who/BBC Sherlock)
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Characters: John, Sherlock
Rating: PG
Prompt: A picture prompt from the Mythbuster's set here on the kinkmeme.
"John?"
"Hm?"
"What is this?"
"What's what?"
"This sign."
"The one on the fridge or the one on the microwave?"
"The fridge, obviously."
"That's a sign."
"I had worked that part out for myself, actually. But what's it for?"
"To remind you to keep your toxic substances out of the peanut butter--"
"I only did that once."
"--and leave rancid pig snouts away from the cheese--"
"That was to determine the reason behind Jewish dietary laws."
"--and to not put my takeout inside a severed head's mouth."
"As I said at the time, John, a woman's alibi depended on the amount of time it takes ramen to decompose inside a deceased mouth at low temperatures."
"Honestly, Sherlock, I don't care. Follow the sign and I might be able to resist strangling you next time you put a fatal virus in the milk. Add that on the sign too, will you?"
*
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock, Mycroft, Mummy Holmes, Molly, Lestrade, Sally, Anderson, Mrs. Hudson, John
Notes: I changed ACD canon a bit.
Rating: PG-13 for one or two f-bombs
Prompt: Five people who hugged Sherlock when he came back after those three years, and one who smacked him right across the face ( here on the kinkmeme).
i.
When Mycroft returns from his meeting with the Prime Minister, he isn't surprised to find Sherlock slouched in a chair to one side of his office, looking like he's aged twenty years instead of three. His face is haggard and grimy, his hair longer than it's been since his teens, and his clothes look like they haven't been changed since the Falls.
"It's over, then." It isn't a question. The traces of blood spatter on the back of his neck and the dark stain on his sleeve behind the elbow tell everything Mycroft needs to know.
"I expect you've already got teams clearing it up."
"Of course." Mycroft studies his brother's appearance again. It's more than three years on the run; the weariness goes bone deep. Suddenly he breaks the biggest rule in their brotherly feud: he strides across the room and embraces the leaner man, abandoning all pretense of the immaculate, detached government official. Sherlock goes rigid in his arms, but Mycroft is anything but stupid and knows his brother better than just about anyone. Neither says a word as Mycroft drops his arms and takes several steps back, picking the grime off his tie with manicured fingers.
"I had to tell Mummy," he says, turning away to gaze out the window. "She's been ever so worried."
He can almost see the grimace in Sherlock's face without turning around. He hasn't changed so much.
ii.
"Mummy," he says, shifting from foot to foot like a small child who knows he's about to get a scolding. He's showered recently, at Mycroft's by the shampoo; his clothes are new and pressed but fitted for the old Sherlock. This new one is smaller somehow and the clothes hang off him like a ten year old in his father's wardrobe.
She takes all this in in a split second before her arms loop around his skinny beanpole of a body, her hands stroking at his damp curls as she coos meaningless words of comfort to her baby who has seen too much. She leads him inside and sits him down on the couch, nearly force-feeding him tea and toast while she reheats last night's stew.
"Never again, Sherlock," she says firmly, pressing the steaming bowl into his hands. She waggles a stern finger, putting on the angry-mother face that hasn't worked on him since he was three. "Do you hear me? Never again."
"Yes, Mummy," he says dully, obediently, and he looks so lost that she breaks down and hugs him again.
iii.
He sweeps into St. Bart's like he's never been away, ignores the questioning looks from the new employees and the mixed reactions of terror, incredulousness, and disappointment from the old ones. He goes straight down to the morgue and stands outside the autopsy room, watching with grim detachment as Molly's scalpel carves a Y-shaped scar into her ex-boyfriend's chest. Jim's face has been shifted, his expression altered from the last shock of a dying man to a calm, neutral tone. He could be sleeping, save for his surroundings and the ugly red hole between his eyes.
Molly takes meticulous notes, the scientist in her winning out over the mixed emotions boiling in her gut. She sews him back up, covers him with a sheet and stores him back in the freezer. She's glad to be rid of him. She turns to collect her instruments for sterilization, and freezes at the sight of a tall, dark haired man in a black coat looking down at her from the window.
She's out of the morgue before he even registers consciously, barreling into him and throwing her arms about his shoulders. She's half-aware that she's still wearing the gloves from the autopsy and holds them carefully away from his body. (Jim's blood will never touch Sherlock Holmes again.)
"Er, hello, Molly." He seems flustered, unsure how to respond to the sudden show of affection.
"D'you realize," she demands, stepping back with significantly warmer cheeks as she strips off the gloves and throws them in the bin, "how utterly boring this place has been without you around?"
iv.
When Lestrade returns from his lunch break, the Yard is in a state of total chaos, or at least in the general vicinity of his office. Considering all was perfectly calm when he left twenty-five minutes ago, this is quite an achievement. He hasn't seen havoc wreaked quite this quickly since--
He runs his eyes over the scene again. Sally is slumped in the plastic chair near his office door, looking like she's seen a ghost. Anderson is nearly apoplectic, sputtering half-coherently as he attempts to explain the situation to the DI. "He just-- out of nowhere-- he's back, he's fucking-- in your office. In your office," is all Lestrade is able to make out, so he bravely steps forward to discover just what all the fuss is about.
The door to his office is ajar (he left it locked, didn't he? Didn't he?) and he pushes it cautiously inward, as if it might explode any moment. Somehow he feels like what he sees inside is a bit of a letdown, really.
"Oh thank God," Lestrade sighs, entering the office fully. "From the fit Anderson is throwing I was worried it would be nearer to a pending apocalypse."
Sherlock's mouth twists into something resembling a wry smile from where he's draped over the couch in the corner of the room. "He's been absolutely insufferable since I left, hasn't he?"
"Oh, you've no idea," Lestrade sighs, settling himself into the office chair and propping his loafers up on the desktop. "I assume there was a reason behind letting us think you were dead for three years, or was it all just to take Anderson down a peg?"
"I caught Jim." Three years ago Sherlock would be crowing those words, gloating in the faces of half the Yard and blaring his victory to the hills. Today he only sounds tired.
"I was wondering why it had been so suspiciously quiet."
There's a faint rustle of cloth rearranging itself as Sherlock stands and Lestrade does too, but the detective inspector stays put while the consulting detective moves towards the door.
"Oh, and Sherlock?" Lestrade calls after him. Sherlock stops and turns halfway, to be startled by a sudden hug from the sturdy silver-haired man. "It's good to have you back, mate."
v.
He stands on the street outside 221B, his face blank as he looks up at the faded paint on the door (peeling on the edges, too; John will have it fixed as soon as he notices), the tarnished brass lettering that announces the address to passerby. He's Sherlock Holmes; he's faced down murderers and serial killers and James fucking Moriarty and still he needs several deep breaths before he can find the courage to ring the doorbell of that house.
It's answered by Mrs. Hudson - decidedly aged and slightly more stooped, but mainly the same nevertheless.
When she recognizes him, she stumbles a little and leans against the doorframe, one wrinkled hand pressed over her heart. "Oh," she says, her voice wavering. "Oh, Sherlock, dear . . ." And before he knows what's hit him she's pulled him into a bone crushing hug. For a harmless old lady she's really quite strong.
"Dr. Watson is out at the moment, I'm afraid," she says, pulling him inside and into her sitting room. "But he'll be so pleased to see you've returned; he was quite distraught when you were dead."
He looks at her blankly as she begins to ply him with tea and biscuits in that classic British-old-lady manner. John was distraught? Just how distraught is distraught? But before he can even open his mouth, she insists, "Now Sherlock, you drink up that tea and tell me everything."
Sherlock is never quite sure what he's about to say, but it's probably rather lucky that John chooses just that moment to return to the house. There's the distinct sound of a cane in the hallway - the limp again; hadn't he lost that years ago? - and Mrs. Hudson bustles out to the common area.
+1
"You'll never guess who's in my sitting room at this very moment," she says, probably a bit more excited than is good for her at this age.
"Dunno," John says, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it up on the coathook near the door. A tousled dark head appears in the doorway of 221A, and if John were holding anything he would have dropped it in shock.
Sherlock slips out into the hallway, looking at a loss for words, as Mrs. Hudson disappears back inside her flat with a mysterious look for Sherlock and a not-so-mysterious wink for John.
"You're back," John hears himself say.
"I'm back." Sherlock's hands slip into his coat pockets. Well, he always was one to state the obvious - obvious to him, anyway.
"From the grave, apparently." Suddenly the numb feeling in John's brain is replaced with rage and he strides forward, forgetting the cane leaning against the wall, and punches Sherlock right in the jaw. After all, if he's a ghost or apparition it'll go right through, and if he's not, well, he needs it.
Apparently he's neither a ghost nor an apparition, because he reels in surprise, stumbling a few steps backwards and nearly tripping over the bottom of the stairs.
"I guess I deserved that," he mumbles, a hand over his cheek.
"You did," John agrees, the anger gone as quickly as it had come, only to be replaced with an irritated sort of fondness. "You bloody idiot."
*
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: Simon/Kaylee
Rating: PG
Prompt: Heart: Firefly, any/any, he takes great comfort in lying there listening to her heart beat
In school, they taught him everything he's supposed to know about the human heart. He knows how fast it's supposed to beat, how much blood it pumps in a minute, and how long it takes for that blood to circulate the body and return. He knows how large it is, how much it weighs, and exactly where one would stab or shoot to puncture it. (That last one wasn't on the exam, but he's had experience with it just the same.) He knows how many different ways there are of stopping it, how to get it started again once it's still, and how long you have before both of those things are pointless anyhow.
But somehow whenever he can feel her pulse - in her fingers when they hold hands, in her throat when they kiss, thundering in her chest when they lie there in silence - whenever he feels that beating, pounding proof that she is undoubtedly and so vitally alive, all that knowledge gets thrown out the window and he forgets how to be Dr. Tam, only Simon.
Somehow in medical school, they forgot to teach the students just how amazing the human heart can be.
*
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: River, pre-Simon/Kaylee
Rating: G
Summary: She fixes him when River disappoints him and she loves him when River doesn't remember how.
She's good for him, heart and spunk and grit pressed against soul and formalities and the impulsive sanitizing that comes with years of medical training. He gets lost, sometimes, in the chaos of Serenity, and it's easy for River to forget that when she can always find her way, but Kaylee never forgets. She's not a fighter like the others, not really, but she's braver than River is, because River was built to fight and endure but Kaylee's purpose is to fix and love. And she does: she fixes Simon when River disappoints him and she loves him when River doesn't remember how. She doesn't know that she's loving him and he isn't mindful enough to tell, but River can see it, pulsing brighter than the stars outside the ship - just there, it's just below the surface. It's more obvious than anything, but no one can see it but her.
*
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Rory/Amy
Notes: Sequel to this previous ficlet
Rating: PG
Prompt: Heart: Doctor Who, timelord!Rory/timelord!Amy(/)The Doctor. Two hearts takes a bit of getting used to.
Nothing's changed, really. It's easier to keep up with the Doctor when he goes off on his long technobabble spiels, but otherwise everything is more or less the same as it used to be. There's a reassurance in the fact that it's harder for either of them to die (it's really very tiring, dying) and they can get by on less sleep. Old habits are hard to break, though (and the sex is even better when you're a Time Lord, but we won't go into that) so when the TARDIS's single linear clock says that twenty hours have passed, Amy and Rory return to their room.
Bunk beds can get cramped with two people on one level. Neither really minds, though, and though there's the usual minor adjustments to be made ("Ouch, Amy, your elbow--!" "Move your cold feet and I'll move my elbow!") it's really rather nice, spending a few hours not sleeping or running or trying to stop aliens from taking over Leadworth. (Why are aliens always so interested in Leadworth, anyway?)
The best part, though, has to be the hearts. Before, Rory thought nothing could beat the feeling of Amy's pulse under his fingers, reminding him that she's very much here and very much alive (because even though he doesn't remember the two thousand years he spent without her unless he wants to, they're always there, lingering). But now, with double the heart and double the life, it's like a lifeline, tethering him to her, like he's a balloon and the sky is a minefield of needles.
(At least he knows now where the Doctor comes up with all those weird analogies. It must be a Time Lord thing.)
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Peter, briefly Marco
Notes: Possibly leading to an AU
Rating: PG
Prompt: Heart: Any, any, he doesn't have the heart to tell him...
It's his own fault, really. He'd scheduled half a dozen doctor's appointments over the last two and a half years and missed every one, too drunk or too depressed or too damn tired to care. If he'd gone, just once, they might have caught it in time.
Six months to a year, the doctor says. We can try the chemotherapy but there isn't much hope, the second opinion says.
He goes for a third.
The chances are low. So low that he refuses the chemo. He doesn't want Marco to know, doesn't have the heart to tell him that soon he'll be halfway across the country in the legal custody of a second cousin once removed that he barely knows. No kid should know that his father is dying. Especially when it's the father's own damn fault.
The doctor doesn't say, but he knows. It was the drinking that did it, and it's not even liver failure. He remembers the time Marco came home from school with a handout from health class explaining all the ways drinking can damage the body. He has a vague recollection that for a week, his eleven-year-old son hid every drop of alcohol in the house from him. It hurt to be sober, hurt like the blunt knife driven into his chest had suddenly been honed to a lethal point, so he went out and bought more. Marco hadn't interfered with the drinking after that.
He has one year left with his son, at most. So he sobers up, gets a job - a real job, not some crappy janitor night shift - tries to be the father he's supposed to be. Marco is distracted, always out with friends, or doing school projects at someone else's house. It's been happening more and more lately, and he'll come home past curfew in spandex and bike shorts with this look in his eyes, like he's been thrown every horror known to man and then some. And as the six month deadline draws closer Peter still can't bring himself to add one more burden to his son's heavy heart.
*
Title: A Story For Another Day
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Peter/Eva, Marco
Spoilers: #5
Rating: PG
Summary: Peter and Eva tell their son the story of how they met.
It's not a very romantic tale; there's no eyes meeting across a crowded room or love at first sight. It's not particularly exciting either; no damsels in distress or handsome princes swooping in to save the day. (He thinks she'll probably slap him if she ever hears him calling her a damsel in distress, anyway. Then she'll laugh and say he's still handsome, though, and lean in and kiss him. Marco will make a face, so she'll kiss Peter again.)
It isn't even a chance meeting, either, no intervention of fate or destiny required. It's a blind date set up by a pair of mutual friends (who Eva will later push and prod until they get together as well, but that's a story for another day). No sparks fly as she meets him on the sidewalk in front of her apartment and they shake hands, exchange pleasantries. They go to the movies - some banal chick flick that neither is interested in - and they've just bought the tickets when Eva sees the sign.
"Let's do that instead," she says, gesturing towards the ice rink next door, so he pockets the movie tickets (they've got half an hour anyway, plenty of time) and rent two pairs of skates. Eva hasn't skated in years, and Peter's never gone at all, and they trip all over themselves just trying to get from the bench to the ice before he realizes he's tied his skates wrong and they have to go back. They skate around the rink, struggling to stay upright and laughing every time one of them falls, and don't even realize that they've missed the start of the movie.
(At this point Marco will interrupt and point out that there's always previews before the actual movie, and the credits, so wouldn't they not have missed anything yet? Eva will laugh and ruffle his hair and tell him that's not the point.)
When they finish skating, their faces are flushed from laughing and the cold, and Peter thinks she's probably the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Their fingers have gone numb, since they didn't think to bring gloves, so they hold hands on the way back to his car. (Marco will grimace and wonder why he wanted to hear this story in the first place, if it's going to be this mushy.) When he takes her home, he makes as if to kiss her goodnight outside her apartment, but she smiles and says "Maybe next time" before she shuts the door in his face. He stands there disappointed for several moments, until he realizes that implies the existence of a next time, and returns to his own apartment whistling, where his roommate throws a sofa cushion at his head from where he fell asleep watching TV.
("Okay," Marco will say after the story is finished, his eyes wide and full of childish innocence. "So how did I get made?" Peter and Eva will exchange a look and burst out laughing. "Maybe when you're older," Peter will say fondly, and they'll leave it at that.
The next evening Eva will go out and find herself thrust into the control of a Yeerk named Edriss 562. But that, too, is a story for another day.)
***
Title: Flappy Coats Are Cool
Fandom: Doctor Who/BBC Sherlock
Characters: Eleven, Sherlock, John, The CoatRating: PG for censored cartoon nudity
Summary: Someone has stolen The Coat. Sherlock is determined to find the culprit.
Click for full size @ my dA.
Characters: John, Sherlock
Rating: PG
Prompt: A picture prompt from the Mythbuster's set here on the kinkmeme.
"John?"
"Hm?"
"What is this?"
"What's what?"
"This sign."
"The one on the fridge or the one on the microwave?"
"The fridge, obviously."
"That's a sign."
"I had worked that part out for myself, actually. But what's it for?"
"To remind you to keep your toxic substances out of the peanut butter--"
"I only did that once."
"--and leave rancid pig snouts away from the cheese--"
"That was to determine the reason behind Jewish dietary laws."
"--and to not put my takeout inside a severed head's mouth."
"As I said at the time, John, a woman's alibi depended on the amount of time it takes ramen to decompose inside a deceased mouth at low temperatures."
"Honestly, Sherlock, I don't care. Follow the sign and I might be able to resist strangling you next time you put a fatal virus in the milk. Add that on the sign too, will you?"
*
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock, Mycroft, Mummy Holmes, Molly, Lestrade, Sally, Anderson, Mrs. Hudson, John
Notes: I changed ACD canon a bit.
Rating: PG-13 for one or two f-bombs
Prompt: Five people who hugged Sherlock when he came back after those three years, and one who smacked him right across the face ( here on the kinkmeme).
i.
When Mycroft returns from his meeting with the Prime Minister, he isn't surprised to find Sherlock slouched in a chair to one side of his office, looking like he's aged twenty years instead of three. His face is haggard and grimy, his hair longer than it's been since his teens, and his clothes look like they haven't been changed since the Falls.
"It's over, then." It isn't a question. The traces of blood spatter on the back of his neck and the dark stain on his sleeve behind the elbow tell everything Mycroft needs to know.
"I expect you've already got teams clearing it up."
"Of course." Mycroft studies his brother's appearance again. It's more than three years on the run; the weariness goes bone deep. Suddenly he breaks the biggest rule in their brotherly feud: he strides across the room and embraces the leaner man, abandoning all pretense of the immaculate, detached government official. Sherlock goes rigid in his arms, but Mycroft is anything but stupid and knows his brother better than just about anyone. Neither says a word as Mycroft drops his arms and takes several steps back, picking the grime off his tie with manicured fingers.
"I had to tell Mummy," he says, turning away to gaze out the window. "She's been ever so worried."
He can almost see the grimace in Sherlock's face without turning around. He hasn't changed so much.
ii.
"Mummy," he says, shifting from foot to foot like a small child who knows he's about to get a scolding. He's showered recently, at Mycroft's by the shampoo; his clothes are new and pressed but fitted for the old Sherlock. This new one is smaller somehow and the clothes hang off him like a ten year old in his father's wardrobe.
She takes all this in in a split second before her arms loop around his skinny beanpole of a body, her hands stroking at his damp curls as she coos meaningless words of comfort to her baby who has seen too much. She leads him inside and sits him down on the couch, nearly force-feeding him tea and toast while she reheats last night's stew.
"Never again, Sherlock," she says firmly, pressing the steaming bowl into his hands. She waggles a stern finger, putting on the angry-mother face that hasn't worked on him since he was three. "Do you hear me? Never again."
"Yes, Mummy," he says dully, obediently, and he looks so lost that she breaks down and hugs him again.
iii.
He sweeps into St. Bart's like he's never been away, ignores the questioning looks from the new employees and the mixed reactions of terror, incredulousness, and disappointment from the old ones. He goes straight down to the morgue and stands outside the autopsy room, watching with grim detachment as Molly's scalpel carves a Y-shaped scar into her ex-boyfriend's chest. Jim's face has been shifted, his expression altered from the last shock of a dying man to a calm, neutral tone. He could be sleeping, save for his surroundings and the ugly red hole between his eyes.
Molly takes meticulous notes, the scientist in her winning out over the mixed emotions boiling in her gut. She sews him back up, covers him with a sheet and stores him back in the freezer. She's glad to be rid of him. She turns to collect her instruments for sterilization, and freezes at the sight of a tall, dark haired man in a black coat looking down at her from the window.
She's out of the morgue before he even registers consciously, barreling into him and throwing her arms about his shoulders. She's half-aware that she's still wearing the gloves from the autopsy and holds them carefully away from his body. (Jim's blood will never touch Sherlock Holmes again.)
"Er, hello, Molly." He seems flustered, unsure how to respond to the sudden show of affection.
"D'you realize," she demands, stepping back with significantly warmer cheeks as she strips off the gloves and throws them in the bin, "how utterly boring this place has been without you around?"
iv.
When Lestrade returns from his lunch break, the Yard is in a state of total chaos, or at least in the general vicinity of his office. Considering all was perfectly calm when he left twenty-five minutes ago, this is quite an achievement. He hasn't seen havoc wreaked quite this quickly since--
He runs his eyes over the scene again. Sally is slumped in the plastic chair near his office door, looking like she's seen a ghost. Anderson is nearly apoplectic, sputtering half-coherently as he attempts to explain the situation to the DI. "He just-- out of nowhere-- he's back, he's fucking-- in your office. In your office," is all Lestrade is able to make out, so he bravely steps forward to discover just what all the fuss is about.
The door to his office is ajar (he left it locked, didn't he? Didn't he?) and he pushes it cautiously inward, as if it might explode any moment. Somehow he feels like what he sees inside is a bit of a letdown, really.
"Oh thank God," Lestrade sighs, entering the office fully. "From the fit Anderson is throwing I was worried it would be nearer to a pending apocalypse."
Sherlock's mouth twists into something resembling a wry smile from where he's draped over the couch in the corner of the room. "He's been absolutely insufferable since I left, hasn't he?"
"Oh, you've no idea," Lestrade sighs, settling himself into the office chair and propping his loafers up on the desktop. "I assume there was a reason behind letting us think you were dead for three years, or was it all just to take Anderson down a peg?"
"I caught Jim." Three years ago Sherlock would be crowing those words, gloating in the faces of half the Yard and blaring his victory to the hills. Today he only sounds tired.
"I was wondering why it had been so suspiciously quiet."
There's a faint rustle of cloth rearranging itself as Sherlock stands and Lestrade does too, but the detective inspector stays put while the consulting detective moves towards the door.
"Oh, and Sherlock?" Lestrade calls after him. Sherlock stops and turns halfway, to be startled by a sudden hug from the sturdy silver-haired man. "It's good to have you back, mate."
v.
He stands on the street outside 221B, his face blank as he looks up at the faded paint on the door (peeling on the edges, too; John will have it fixed as soon as he notices), the tarnished brass lettering that announces the address to passerby. He's Sherlock Holmes; he's faced down murderers and serial killers and James fucking Moriarty and still he needs several deep breaths before he can find the courage to ring the doorbell of that house.
It's answered by Mrs. Hudson - decidedly aged and slightly more stooped, but mainly the same nevertheless.
When she recognizes him, she stumbles a little and leans against the doorframe, one wrinkled hand pressed over her heart. "Oh," she says, her voice wavering. "Oh, Sherlock, dear . . ." And before he knows what's hit him she's pulled him into a bone crushing hug. For a harmless old lady she's really quite strong.
"Dr. Watson is out at the moment, I'm afraid," she says, pulling him inside and into her sitting room. "But he'll be so pleased to see you've returned; he was quite distraught when you were dead."
He looks at her blankly as she begins to ply him with tea and biscuits in that classic British-old-lady manner. John was distraught? Just how distraught is distraught? But before he can even open his mouth, she insists, "Now Sherlock, you drink up that tea and tell me everything."
Sherlock is never quite sure what he's about to say, but it's probably rather lucky that John chooses just that moment to return to the house. There's the distinct sound of a cane in the hallway - the limp again; hadn't he lost that years ago? - and Mrs. Hudson bustles out to the common area.
+1
"You'll never guess who's in my sitting room at this very moment," she says, probably a bit more excited than is good for her at this age.
"Dunno," John says, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it up on the coathook near the door. A tousled dark head appears in the doorway of 221A, and if John were holding anything he would have dropped it in shock.
Sherlock slips out into the hallway, looking at a loss for words, as Mrs. Hudson disappears back inside her flat with a mysterious look for Sherlock and a not-so-mysterious wink for John.
"You're back," John hears himself say.
"I'm back." Sherlock's hands slip into his coat pockets. Well, he always was one to state the obvious - obvious to him, anyway.
"From the grave, apparently." Suddenly the numb feeling in John's brain is replaced with rage and he strides forward, forgetting the cane leaning against the wall, and punches Sherlock right in the jaw. After all, if he's a ghost or apparition it'll go right through, and if he's not, well, he needs it.
Apparently he's neither a ghost nor an apparition, because he reels in surprise, stumbling a few steps backwards and nearly tripping over the bottom of the stairs.
"I guess I deserved that," he mumbles, a hand over his cheek.
"You did," John agrees, the anger gone as quickly as it had come, only to be replaced with an irritated sort of fondness. "You bloody idiot."
*
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: Simon/Kaylee
Rating: PG
Prompt: Heart: Firefly, any/any, he takes great comfort in lying there listening to her heart beat
In school, they taught him everything he's supposed to know about the human heart. He knows how fast it's supposed to beat, how much blood it pumps in a minute, and how long it takes for that blood to circulate the body and return. He knows how large it is, how much it weighs, and exactly where one would stab or shoot to puncture it. (That last one wasn't on the exam, but he's had experience with it just the same.) He knows how many different ways there are of stopping it, how to get it started again once it's still, and how long you have before both of those things are pointless anyhow.
But somehow whenever he can feel her pulse - in her fingers when they hold hands, in her throat when they kiss, thundering in her chest when they lie there in silence - whenever he feels that beating, pounding proof that she is undoubtedly and so vitally alive, all that knowledge gets thrown out the window and he forgets how to be Dr. Tam, only Simon.
Somehow in medical school, they forgot to teach the students just how amazing the human heart can be.
*
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: River, pre-Simon/Kaylee
Rating: G
Summary: She fixes him when River disappoints him and she loves him when River doesn't remember how.
She's good for him, heart and spunk and grit pressed against soul and formalities and the impulsive sanitizing that comes with years of medical training. He gets lost, sometimes, in the chaos of Serenity, and it's easy for River to forget that when she can always find her way, but Kaylee never forgets. She's not a fighter like the others, not really, but she's braver than River is, because River was built to fight and endure but Kaylee's purpose is to fix and love. And she does: she fixes Simon when River disappoints him and she loves him when River doesn't remember how. She doesn't know that she's loving him and he isn't mindful enough to tell, but River can see it, pulsing brighter than the stars outside the ship - just there, it's just below the surface. It's more obvious than anything, but no one can see it but her.
*
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Rory/Amy
Notes: Sequel to this previous ficlet
Rating: PG
Prompt: Heart: Doctor Who, timelord!Rory/timelord!Amy(/)The Doctor. Two hearts takes a bit of getting used to.
Nothing's changed, really. It's easier to keep up with the Doctor when he goes off on his long technobabble spiels, but otherwise everything is more or less the same as it used to be. There's a reassurance in the fact that it's harder for either of them to die (it's really very tiring, dying) and they can get by on less sleep. Old habits are hard to break, though (and the sex is even better when you're a Time Lord, but we won't go into that) so when the TARDIS's single linear clock says that twenty hours have passed, Amy and Rory return to their room.
Bunk beds can get cramped with two people on one level. Neither really minds, though, and though there's the usual minor adjustments to be made ("Ouch, Amy, your elbow--!" "Move your cold feet and I'll move my elbow!") it's really rather nice, spending a few hours not sleeping or running or trying to stop aliens from taking over Leadworth. (Why are aliens always so interested in Leadworth, anyway?)
The best part, though, has to be the hearts. Before, Rory thought nothing could beat the feeling of Amy's pulse under his fingers, reminding him that she's very much here and very much alive (because even though he doesn't remember the two thousand years he spent without her unless he wants to, they're always there, lingering). But now, with double the heart and double the life, it's like a lifeline, tethering him to her, like he's a balloon and the sky is a minefield of needles.
(At least he knows now where the Doctor comes up with all those weird analogies. It must be a Time Lord thing.)
*
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Peter, briefly Marco
Notes: Possibly leading to an AU
Rating: PG
Prompt: Heart: Any, any, he doesn't have the heart to tell him...
It's his own fault, really. He'd scheduled half a dozen doctor's appointments over the last two and a half years and missed every one, too drunk or too depressed or too damn tired to care. If he'd gone, just once, they might have caught it in time.
Six months to a year, the doctor says. We can try the chemotherapy but there isn't much hope, the second opinion says.
He goes for a third.
The chances are low. So low that he refuses the chemo. He doesn't want Marco to know, doesn't have the heart to tell him that soon he'll be halfway across the country in the legal custody of a second cousin once removed that he barely knows. No kid should know that his father is dying. Especially when it's the father's own damn fault.
The doctor doesn't say, but he knows. It was the drinking that did it, and it's not even liver failure. He remembers the time Marco came home from school with a handout from health class explaining all the ways drinking can damage the body. He has a vague recollection that for a week, his eleven-year-old son hid every drop of alcohol in the house from him. It hurt to be sober, hurt like the blunt knife driven into his chest had suddenly been honed to a lethal point, so he went out and bought more. Marco hadn't interfered with the drinking after that.
He has one year left with his son, at most. So he sobers up, gets a job - a real job, not some crappy janitor night shift - tries to be the father he's supposed to be. Marco is distracted, always out with friends, or doing school projects at someone else's house. It's been happening more and more lately, and he'll come home past curfew in spandex and bike shorts with this look in his eyes, like he's been thrown every horror known to man and then some. And as the six month deadline draws closer Peter still can't bring himself to add one more burden to his son's heavy heart.
*
Title: A Story For Another Day
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters: Peter/Eva, Marco
Spoilers: #5
Rating: PG
Summary: Peter and Eva tell their son the story of how they met.
It's not a very romantic tale; there's no eyes meeting across a crowded room or love at first sight. It's not particularly exciting either; no damsels in distress or handsome princes swooping in to save the day. (He thinks she'll probably slap him if she ever hears him calling her a damsel in distress, anyway. Then she'll laugh and say he's still handsome, though, and lean in and kiss him. Marco will make a face, so she'll kiss Peter again.)
It isn't even a chance meeting, either, no intervention of fate or destiny required. It's a blind date set up by a pair of mutual friends (who Eva will later push and prod until they get together as well, but that's a story for another day). No sparks fly as she meets him on the sidewalk in front of her apartment and they shake hands, exchange pleasantries. They go to the movies - some banal chick flick that neither is interested in - and they've just bought the tickets when Eva sees the sign.
"Let's do that instead," she says, gesturing towards the ice rink next door, so he pockets the movie tickets (they've got half an hour anyway, plenty of time) and rent two pairs of skates. Eva hasn't skated in years, and Peter's never gone at all, and they trip all over themselves just trying to get from the bench to the ice before he realizes he's tied his skates wrong and they have to go back. They skate around the rink, struggling to stay upright and laughing every time one of them falls, and don't even realize that they've missed the start of the movie.
(At this point Marco will interrupt and point out that there's always previews before the actual movie, and the credits, so wouldn't they not have missed anything yet? Eva will laugh and ruffle his hair and tell him that's not the point.)
When they finish skating, their faces are flushed from laughing and the cold, and Peter thinks she's probably the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Their fingers have gone numb, since they didn't think to bring gloves, so they hold hands on the way back to his car. (Marco will grimace and wonder why he wanted to hear this story in the first place, if it's going to be this mushy.) When he takes her home, he makes as if to kiss her goodnight outside her apartment, but she smiles and says "Maybe next time" before she shuts the door in his face. He stands there disappointed for several moments, until he realizes that implies the existence of a next time, and returns to his own apartment whistling, where his roommate throws a sofa cushion at his head from where he fell asleep watching TV.
("Okay," Marco will say after the story is finished, his eyes wide and full of childish innocence. "So how did I get made?" Peter and Eva will exchange a look and burst out laughing. "Maybe when you're older," Peter will say fondly, and they'll leave it at that.
The next evening Eva will go out and find herself thrust into the control of a Yeerk named Edriss 562. But that, too, is a story for another day.)
***
Title: Flappy Coats Are Cool
Fandom: Doctor Who/BBC Sherlock
Characters: Eleven, Sherlock, John, The CoatRating: PG for censored cartoon nudity
Summary: Someone has stolen The Coat. Sherlock is determined to find the culprit.
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