prompting part XXIII
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Prompts from this post can be filled on the Overflow Post
IMPORTANT! Spoilers for aired episodes are now being allowed on this area of the meme, without warning. If you do not want to encounter spoilers, please prompt at our Spoiler-Free Prompt Post.
( Read more... )
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The first letter wasn’t even recognised for what it was until well after its arrival.
It had turned up with all the other post in a neat envelope, first class stamp and handwritten address. ‘Doctor John Watson’, it had said in a feminine scrawl. ‘221B Baker Street, NW1 6XE, London’. Curious John had opened it, read it, and then quickly put the pink, heart covered card back in its envelope with an expression warring between flattered and embarrassed (embarrassed was wining). He slid it onto the living room table between some books and a stack of railway timetables, not quite knowing what else to do with it.
That night, looking for a book he’d misplaced, he unknowingly shuffled the card in with what he generally labelled ‘Sherlock’s miscellaneous junk’. On remembering the next day and searching for it in the hope that he could hide or dispose of the thing so that no one else might find it - he didn’t even know if Mrs Hudson or Sherlock would be worse - he came away empty handed and stoically concluded that someone had already dealt with it. Probably Sherlock had taped to the outside of the house in an experiment on humidity and ink, or something.
Then he mostly forgot about it, hoping that whoever had sent it would as well. Ten days passed uneventfully.
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Arriving back home from the surgery John hung up his coat and toed off damp shoes, stretching his back with a gentle noise of ‘glad I’m home’. He reached over to grab his mug from the table, still with half a centimetre of tea left in from that morning, and faltered at the sight of his flatmate bunched up on the sofa. The missing card he’d almost but not quite forgotten was in Sherlock’s hands and under merciless scrutiny.
“Do you know this person?” Sherlock said, not looking up and saying the words as most people would say “oh god I just stepped in that dog shit”.
John shrugged and put down his mug, reaching instead to grab the card as he tried to swallow down the rising bubble of embarrassment. “It wasn’t signed,” he said, as amiably as possible. Sherlock waved the card out of his reach.
“Dear John,” he recited, tone laced to saturation point with incredulity. “There are so many things I want to tell you. I really admire you. Kiss kiss kiss.”
“Yes well,” John said, and didn’t quite know how to finish. Sherlock made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat.
“Pass me a knife,” he said, holding out one lazy hand, palm up.
“What?” By now he really shouldn’t be surprised but his tone was still coloured with alarm, he couldn’t help it. “No. I won’t let you knife it. Somebody’s put a lot of effort into that. It’s - I mean I’m not keeping it, but - no. Someone’s just trying to express their feelings and I’m not letting you cut it up.”
“Wrong!” Sherlock snapped, and lurched off the sofa to rummage around in the mess on the table. He tossed the card back at John, who caught it reflexively. “Look at it!”
John looked at it. It was a card, pastel pink and a cut out red heart on the front. Inside were the words written in black ballpoint pen. It was a nice card, John considered, turning it over in his hands - pretty and yet not overtly so, lacking any tacky glitter and ribbon. More objectively it was small, made from an A4 sheet of good quality, thick card folded in half twice, the first fold with the sides stuck neatly together. It was handmade with no label or print but professionally done, judging from the neatness of the gluing and the perfect folds, and the heart on the front was of some sort of lightly patterned paper with visible fibres. The writing was also immaculate in a curved, elegant hand, and the ink was smooth and dark.
“Well,” he said, then trailed off. It was a card. What else was he meant to be looking at?
Sherlock made another frustrated noise and snatched the paper from John’s hands, now brandishing one of the kitchen pairing knives. “Folded twice!” he said, and started worming the knife into a crack between the two glued together sides.
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“350 gsm paper, more - no one professional or familiar with handicrafts would fold that twice. And honestly John, she’s ruled in then erased pencil lines so her writing would be straight, the type of paper on the front for the heart is highly expensive, from the amount of handling its had it’s hardly likely she scribbled the thing down in half an hour. It’s handmade, she wants it to be personal, important. I highly doubt she couldn’t just pop down to the nearest WHSmith to get something the right size. That and the glue on the heart is a completely different type to the glue sticking the halves together. It’s stronger, much stronger. Someone wants this opened.”
He gave a wild grin of triumph as the knife slid in and the edges of the card were teased apart, revealing more handwriting. “A secret message, how fascinating. Not very secret of course but then they did send it to you and only assumed I’d be paying attention. That makes it personal, something for the both of us. They knew I wouldn’t leave it alone; reader of your blog, perhaps, must be someone who’s done at least a little homework.”
John sighed and gritted his teeth, but gritted them mostly against his rising smile. It was an absurd relief, somehow, to know that the anonymous love letter wasn’t in fact as plain as that - that it could be studied, that it was something else. He thought: it probably wasn’t even worth wondering what single blokes would think that. “Go on then, enough suspense,” John said. He watched as Sherlock finished slicing open the edges, tossing the knife back down and flipping the paper open to read.
And he’d been too optimistic, hadn’t he? John pressed his lips together, felt the all too familiar sinking feeling as Sherlock’s smile dropped abruptly and his eyes narrowed, scanning the writing. “Well?” he prompted, because he could already see Sherlock retreating back into that unfathomable mind of his. “You just said it has to do with the both of us.”
Sherlock’s eyes refocused, flicked over to John. His lips moved minutely, silently. “Look,” John said, starting to feel anxious. “Just hand it over.” He made to take it, grabbed it even as Sherlock was pulling it out of reach.
Dearest John, he read, before Sherlock spoke. “Moriarty,” he murmured, making no move to take the thing back. “It’s Moriarty’s hand.”
Somehow John didn’t quite register that, kept reading despite for his eyes telling him: stop, stop.
I want to skin your hands and make you crawl to me over sandpaper, John, and when you reach me I’ll give you a cuddle and let you chose between getting me off with your hands and getting me off with your mouth. You’ll be so brave and I know you won’t cry or beg, though your face will crumple when you realise what I’m asking. You’ll try to use your hands at first but even though I’ll be so turned on it will be so painful you’ll have to finish me with your mouth. Then when it’s over you’ll have your own blood and my come in your mouth and over your lips, John, and that’ll be the most beautiful sight in the world.
I’ll send you home after making sure you know not to clean yourself up before you get back. I might even give you a camera so you can take a picture to send to me of Sherlock’s face when he first sees you. If you do I’ll keep it forever.
Lovingly yours,
xxx
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It had to be harassment. Moriarty was twisted but he’d shown no interest in him the last time they’d come face to face.
“I’ll start with dinner, then?” he said, the first thing that came to mind. Sherlock didn’t even look up from the card, but he wasn’t reading it. His eyes were out of focus. “Sherlock, don’t -” don’t worry, he’d meant to say, but really? “Look, if it doesn’t mean anything, if he’s just being a sick fuck, then ignore it. He probably just wants a reaction, it’s not actually hurting anyone. Give it to Lestrade. Let it go.”
“These things never come on their own,” Sherlock said quietly, even as he carefully refolded the card and tucked it away in his jacket pocket. He stared at John as if he were in the far distance, then lay back down across the sofa and refused to talk for the rest of the night.
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Very creative with the letter, both that the creepy part is hidden in a way that only Sherlock would figure out, and the creativity of Jim's imagination.
Looking forward to the rest!
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I especially love the detail you put into the make of the letter; it really felt like I was watching the show, having Sherlock point out all the 'important' bits. It was quite fascinating. Even though you haven't written much yet, both John and Sherlock seem perfectly in character too; you've done a fabulous job so far.
Hope to see more of this soon, anon! ♥
As for the ending? I'm pretty open to whatever you want, though I would prefer both John and Sherlock live. Everyone else...and whatever you want to do to them...is up to you, I suppose. I didn't think that far ahead tbh, so it'll be a pleasant (or unpleasant) surprise!
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He’d been on guard, of course he had, but as the days had worn on like a badly paced film John had stopped dreading the arrival of the post so much. There was still the nervous twitch in his gut when he saw handwritten envelopes, but those were inevitably for Sherlock from the myriad of his clients. Certainly most of that dull anxiety was now reserved more for the change in his flatmate riffling through anything with John’s name on it that he could get his hands on - now in not so much a belligerent, overt curiosity that somehow wound up being charming but in a sullen, secretive bout of jealous well meaning. Mrs Hudson appeared to be in on it too, though she smiled innocently and waved off any accusation John had managed to even glance in her direction.
The only letters he got that weren’t spam were from banks anyway and it wasn’t like Moriarty - though god forbid he ever got to recognise that psychopath well enough to really know - to play the same trick twice. Hopefully.
“Will you show it to Lestrade?” he’d asked on the afternoon after receiving the card as he’d caught Sherlock turning the thing over and over with deft fingers.
Sherlock had sneered. “What’ll Lestrade do?” he’d said. “Issue a restraining order?”
There wasn’t anything that they could do and that was the worst thing. What if it was something Moriarty would eventually carry out and the only thing they could do was sit tight and hope that he wouldn’t? Until something actually happened, something more than sick messages, they could do bugger all.
But no. There was no point in dwelling on it. If all that it was was a short letter that almost anyone could write if they put their mind to it, it shouldn’t bother him. He was an adult. He’d dealt with worse than childish harassment before.
He was going out with Mike and a couple of blokes from his university days who, he had the vague feeling, he should probably remember but didn’t quite. Sherlock of course had thrown a strop but whether he’d actually follow them in disguise was debatable. And until Moriarty did something that actually had something that they could do about he’d just have to live life normally, whatever normal consisted of here.
His bank statement was on the table, where it had been left - even though he’d opened and looked through everything, John thought with mild, fond irritation, Sherlock still couldn’t be bothered to actually put anything away. Long ago, a few months after they’d moved in, banking and everything else admin and boring had become John’s job and now Sherlock would have none of it if he was paid to.
John picked up the statement and glanced over it, then stopped as he was halfway to the stairs. The total was less than it ought to be, he was fairly sure. Sherlock never used his cards, though he knew the PINs to all of them. There didn’t seem to be anything on the statement that he didn’t remember spending, though - and then there was that anxiety again. The stupid anxiety that had been kicking up since he’d realised what that bloody message had actually read.
It would be easy enough for Moriarty to intercept the post, make an incorrect copy of his statement and then get that delivered that instead. But why? To make John look at his bank account online, to check the older and very latest transactions? And a freaky message would somehow pop up from the bank website?
John snorted and ran an hand none too gently through his hair. This was getting too much. He was going to be jumping at nothing soon, he was nearing getting past jumping at shadows. When cars slowed parallel to him walking on the street he oughtn’t feel hyperaware that he didn’t have his gun on him. He shouldn’t feel like accusing every single piece of mail he received of hiding a secret, perverted message. Personal pep talks for normality were all well and good until the actual doing and believing them were included.
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That night, at the pub with Mike, Simon and Bilau (he didn’t really remembered them but pretended he did, though the situation seemed to be likewise for Simon at least), he tried to alternatively spot anyone who might be Sherlock in disguise and anyone who might be working for Moriarty. Both attempts turned out to be futile; as he realised distantly that he was probably drinking more than he really ought to he found himself struggling around the logic that Sherlock in disguise would definitely find Moriarty’s people even if they were in disguise too, so he oughtn’t worry in any case.
When he arrived back home, grabbing a glass of water or two before bed, Sherlock shot him a filthy look from where he was perched on his chair, plucking away at his violin in a bizarre and appallingly fast pizzicato. John only grinned at him before he went upstairs to bed.
He fell asleep quickly and woke with half memories of his dream - Sherlock having a hysterically catty argument with one of his old lecturers - mixed with the shrill beeping of his phone alarm, sounding criminally loud in the quiet. John stumbled out of sleep and his bed, fumbling with his trousers on the back of his chair where he’d left the damn phone in their pockets, cursing as he flipped it open. Why the hell was a reminder set for bloody four in the morning?
Dearest John, the reminder said. Look at your phone notes xxx
John closed his eyes tight shut for a long moment, feeling suddenly very awake. He stood and switched on his bedroom light, calling downstairs Sherlock’s name even as he managed to find the appropriate application on his phone.
He didn’t bother to wait before opening the note - it was the only one, written while he’d been at the pub. Sherlock was pushing his way obstinately into the room and John ignored him.
Dearest John,
I want to starve you. I’ll lock you in a tiny room with no human contact whatsoever and feed you on only a little salty water; maybe if I’m feeling generous every few days I’ll add a pinch of sugar. You’ll be so strong but after a week you’ll be so hungry as well. After two or three weeks, John, you’ll be desperate enough that you’ll beg to the empty room because you’ll realise that I’ll have cameras in the walls to see and hear you by. Don’t worry - I’ll ignore both your demands and Sherlock’s, since he’ll be tearing down London to find you, but I’ll watch the footage of you every night to masturbate to.
Some time in the fourth week I’ll let myself into your room. You’ll hate me but you’ll be too weak to do anything but paw at my trousers. Please do, John; I’ll be so unbelievably turned on if you do. But I’ll try to restrain myself. I’ll give you a lit cigarette, only one, and for every time you use it to scar your face I’ll throw you a biscuit. I think the first time I do this you’ll refuse but I’ll come back every day with the same offer. You’ll do it eventually, I know, because you’re practical and you really appreciate life. I guess that’s just part of why I love you so much.
xxx
P.S. I’ll remember what time I had this alarm set so now you can know that I’m thinking of you right at this moment.
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Seriously, he's deliciously evil and spectacularly gross and I want him to send John letters forever. I'm an awful person.
Still, I DO feel sorry for John, how he's looking left and right, constantly aware that Moriarty could strike at any moment. Being that anxious and aware all the time must be unbearable.
Please do, John; I’ll be so unbelievably turned on if you do.
This sentence sounds a bit similar to something he said on the show before, you know? And I love that. I can hear the entire thing in his voice, but that line I particularly liked.
I guess that’s just part of why I love you so much.
SO. DAMN. CREEPY.
Moriarty's torture scenarios are brutal, but I like how psychological they are as well. Looking forward to how they 'progress'.
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Jim's pretty Irish voice. Mmmmm. I almost don't want the last episode...
Thank you again!
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