This is the moment you've all been waiting for! Not only the announcement of the winning fics of Round 4 but the Team that wins CYCLE 1... drum-roll if you please!
THE RESULTS!
First place for 3 Canes: Entry 23 (
cj_ludd18 for Team Mycroft)
The flat looks as if it’s been subjected to years’ worth of abuse instead of just a day’s-there are stains on the carpet and burn marks covering the tabletops and good God in heaven, is that a skull-
“Here to admire the upholstery?”
Sherlock stands in the partition between kitchen and living room, a victory smile plastered across his face.
“There’s been another,” Lestrade tells him quietly.
“Excellent,” he replies. “Be right down.”
His hunger for puzzles to solve is insatiable and overflowing. Five minutes of enthusiastic investigation later and Sherlock knows Jennifer Wilson-all her sins, her sadness.
Lestrade watches as an eager and starving face tilts up, eyes burning bright.
“Found anything?” he asks, pointlessly.
Sherlock rises, and sharpens his smile.
He launches forth.
“You could get yourself a flatmate,” Mrs. Hudson tells him, watching him stare concentratedly at a pink suitcase. “Someone to keep you company. Help with the rent.”
“Who’d want to share a flat with me?” Sherlock drones, rifling through Jennifer Wilson’s belongings with gusto.
“Or a girlfriend, that’d do you some good.” Mrs. Hudson pushes forward as if he’d said nothing, setting down a cup of tea by his elbow. “Do try to drink that, dear.”
“Not really my area,” he mutters, ignoring her.
The pill goes down with difficulty.
It sticks in the back of his throat, catches, makes him cough a little, before he finally forces it down with a swallow.
Opposite him, with a rat-like sneer on his face, the cab driver places his own pill onto his tongue and slowly lets it dissolve.
Sherlock’s heartbeat is racing ridiculously fast, pounding in his temples, behind his eyes, up in his sternum.
Winner, winner, winner…
“So?” the cab driver says. “Who do you think it’s gonna be? You? Or me?”
The minutes dribble by, silent and swollen. When Sherlock still feels nothing-no tightness in his windpipe, no labor in his breathing-he straightens, lets the adrenaline crawl down his veins and a smile sweep over his mouth.
“You,” he says.
The cab driver is wheezing-no. The cab driver is laughing.
“Well… Well… done…”
He falls to the ground with a clatter of bumped chairs. Sherlock springs over the table, lands next to the little man, and fixes his hands around his swollen neck.
“Who was it?” he demands. “Who put you up to this? Who’s my… fan?”
The cab driver peels his lips back and smiles a yellow-toothed smile.
“S-secret.”
“I can still hurt you,” Sherlock hisses, bringing his face down, so close their noses almost touch. “I can find your children. Your family. I can and I will.”
The cabbie is going pale, eyes beginning to roll. He shudders and twitches and gasps for breath. “C-can’t… c-can’t s-s-say…”
“The name. Give me the name!” Sherlock’s fingers tighten. “Now!!”
A final squirm. “M…Mor…”
“Yes. Yes, tell me, yes…”
“…Mori…Moriartychhhhhhhhhhh...”
The body beneath Sherlock’s shudders, twitches, then is still.
In the distance, the wailing of sirens.
Lestrade is livid with anger. He marches to the ambulance where Sherlock is sat, blanket draped over his shoulders, head held high.
“What the hell were you thinking, going with that lunatic?” Lestrade shouts. “Couldn’t wait for back-up? Couldn’t even call us?! If it hadn’t been for your landlady-”
“I’d have gone down tomorrow and told you everything.”
The gurney with the cabbie’s body rattles in the background.
Lestrade marches up to Sherlock, grips his collar, and gives him a good, firm shake.. “You listen to me,” he hisses. “One day, you’re going to go too bloody far, and there won’t be anyone there to stop you.”
Sherlock tilts his head to one side.
“Until then,” he says, “I suppose I’ll just have to keep going.”
He’s searching through the flat of one Eddie Van Coon when a stack of old newspapers comes crashing down onto his head.
“Watch it!” someone snarls.
Sherlock ignores them, starts flipping through the old papers. Not quite sure why. But it must be important.
He stops. It’s an obituary. Three months old.
John Hamish Watson, 34… killed in action… Afghanistan…
“Sherlock? Find something?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
Later, on his way out, he can’t help but feel that he’s left something behind.
Something important.
A pool.
Midnight.
Moriarty’s arms are outstretched and his smile is warm.
Join me, he’s said. Join me and never be bored again.
With nothing and no one to hold him back, Sherlock lowers his gun and calmly says yes.
Second place for 2 Canes: Entry 13 (by
emmyangua for Team Watson)
1918
John Watson remembered the woman, though he hadn’t known her name at the time. Back then, before the war, she’d been Prisoner 02184F.
Anthea, as he now knew her name to be, had been rushed to him when a force-feeding tube had punctured her lung. Today she sat drinking tea in his parlour and bore no resemblance to the gaunt young protester she had once been.
“Even Suffragettes are helping the war effort,” she explained. “I’m a secretary.”
John congratulated her and she smiled prettily. “My employer is a forward thinking man. It’s on his behalf I’m here. I believe you are out of work?”
John swallowed. Losing a foot in No Mans Land may make you a hero but trembling hands make for a poor surgeon when you get home. He was volunteering, but that didn’t provide food for him and Harry.
“My employer holds a specific interest in Wormwood Scrubs. He wants a good doctor to be employed there,” she explained cautiously. “I… remembered you.”
--
The job was often unpleasant, but easy. Most of it was spent patching up attacked prisoners; frequently the Conscientious Objectors. They were the lowest of the low in the prison hierarchy and the wardens had no desire protect them.
“Makes me sick,” Murray had written from the front, “to think of you having to patch up bloody Conchies. They should lick your boots in gratitude.”
John didn't hate them, hard to believe as it was. Though he’d never wholly agree with their beliefs he understood the need to do what you thought right.
Sometimes it was harder having nothing to fight for.
There were eleven of them at Wormwood; the ones who had fought the loudest and made the biggest fuss. Wormwood was a place for criminals and only those who had annoyed the war tribunal most were sent there.
John got the impression that the judge would have pushed for hanging in the case of Prisoner 6221B if the verdict was based on how annoying he’d been. In prison he’d caused more chaos than the all of the murderers combined.
“It’s his own fault,” a warder explained. “He can’t keep his mouth shut. Will say his piece.”
He was standing over the battered body of Holmes. John set about patching him up.
“Quaker are you? Like Howards?” he asked conversationally.
The prisoner looked at him through two black eyes and huskily replied. “No. Not religious.”
John stared. It seemed impossible that a man would go through all that without even God to comfort him. He would have asked more, but the warden dragged Holmes away.
He learned more about Holmes. He was the youngest of the COs; educated and brilliant. Often his wounds sent him there daily, other times he required days of recovery. Their brief conversations fascinated John.
“So if you aren’t here on religious grounds, why are you here?” he asked one day.
It appeared to be a question Sherlock hadn’t been asked. His reply was thoughtful.
“I suppose I’m here on intellectual grounds. I believe this war is wrong.”
“That can’t be all.”
Sherlock shrugged. “All I have is my intellect and I must follow it. We defend the martyred Belgium from German attack yet we didn’t defend the people of the African Congo from Belgium’s brutal attack in 1908. It offends my sense of logic.”
The warden arrived for Sherlock, and John was silent.
--
“And I suppose you think we're stupid for doing our bit?” John asked the next time. He couldn’t hide the hurt in his tone, he felt foolish for imagining a connection with a man who was so opposed to his beliefs.
Sherlock’s eyes flickered to John’s crutches.
“No,” he said warmly “I don’t think that. People will always fight for their country. Unfortunately ours has lied to its people.”
His gaze was like burning and John’s hand stilled over his. He wasn’t imagining a connection; Sherlock liked his company and wanted to be liked back.
“Well,” swallowed John, “I suppose it’s my job to see that you make it out of here alive. Perhaps you might win me over by then.”
“Perhaps,” said Sherlock.
“Besides, I really think you need a friend,” he smiled.
The effect was stunning. It made Sherlock smile for the first time John had ever known. It was brilliant and genuine and made John wonder at how much this man might have achieved in another time, another place.
Third place for 1 Cane: Entry 27 (
crocodile_eat_u for Team Watson)
CAMERA
John can feel fingers in his hair, tugging, carding softly before they twitch and grip just a little too hard. The soft skin against his cheek trembles and vibrates against him. Gently, ever so gently, he turns his head, the fingers twisting in his hair and presses a kiss on the soft skin of her thigh-
“And cut!”
John blinks and retreats, grinning at Sarah as he rises from his position on the floor and cracks his neck. Sarah flashes him a dreamy post-coital smile and waves him off with a flick of her fingers.
“See you around Sarah,” he says, waving at her as he turns away, the busy chatter suddenly filling the room oddly refreshing. The glare of cameras has heated the room to an uncomfortable temperature but he wants his shirt which has somehow disappeared-
“Johnny boy I knew you were good but come on darling, not that good!”
John turns to see Jim grinning like a Cheshire cat from his seat in the director’s chair. Jim peers at the other over his black sunglasses and fans himself with the script rolled tightly in his hand. John walks over to him, gulping slightly as Jim grins and brings the script down against his other palm with a loud smack. Oh the things I want to do with you, it said and John wants to leave as soon as possible.
“Was that a real orgasm?,” Jim asks and John shrugs in reply, smiling sheepishly as Sarah nods in affirmative from her sprawled position and walks away quickly.
He leaves the set rubbing his bare neck roughly and chewing on his lips. He needs to find Greg who said he’d be in the changing room. Apparently Mycroft asked for another job, although Greg didn’t say what. It doesn’t matter though, Mycroft’s jobs usually consist of;
a) looking pretty
b) Staying pretty
c) Having sex with either male or female participants (occasionally both at the same time)
d) Allowing yourself to be recorded during said sex (refer to above point)
But other than those four points, the adult film industry is pretty tame. Being a porn star isn’t all that bad. Although John doesn’t know, he’s only been working for Mycroft for a week. And Mycroft only deals with select clients so it’s more along the lines of an elite, completely legal, private establishment of some sort. John doesn’t know. He’s only in it for;
a) the money (and by god, is it good money)
b) The sex
c) Greg
d) And Sherlock Holmes (although that would including talking to the guy which is something John hasn’t quite mastered yet.)
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock fucking Holmes.
John doesn’t know what attracts him to Sherlock. Perhaps it’s the man’s looks, his willowy frame and pale, pale skin. Perhaps it’s the intellect? John doesn’t have to exchange two words with Sherlock to know the man’s a fucking genius. Or maybe it was the raw attraction he felt the moment Sherlock caught his eye. It’s definitely one of them.
He steers himself into the changing rooms-
“What the fuck?”
“Hello to you too John,” Greg Lestrade greets him, pulling his lower lid down and peering into the mirror to apply his eye liner.
“You’re dressed as a woman,” John states, staring at Lestrade. And he really is, fishnets and all which amuses, arouses and scares John at the same time.
“Yep. Remember that job Mycroft gave me? It’s a vid for that fucker Sebastian. Tosser gets off on stuff like this.”
John nods incredulously, lost but unwilling to admit it. However he can feel a pair of eyes boring into his skin and he looks past Lestrade’s leather clad arse to meet the eyes of Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock fucking Holmes.
And suddenly John cannot speak. He can’t breathe either. Nor think, which doesn’t help much.
Sherlock however smiles at him, a small smile; barely a smirk and John can feel the blush warming his cheeks.
Lestrade notices much to John’s embarrassment and rolls his eyes.
“Get a fucking room, the eye sex really is too much.”
Sherlock grins and for the first time since John has worked there, speaks. “Wonderful idea. Lestrade piss off. John, if you don’t mind, would you remove your trousers.”
John blinks momentarily before grinning. “No cameras?” And it’s nice to know he can keep up with the man. Sherlock smiles and John knows somehow that the smile is meant solely for him and no other.
“No cameras.”
So! At the end of Round 4 and Cycle 1, the Team scores are as follows:
FIRST PLACE with 21 Canes and 3 patches is... TEAM WATSON!
SECOND PLACE with 13 Canes is... TEAM MYCROFT!
THIRD PLACE with 9 Canes and 2 patches is... TEAM SHERLOCK!
FOURTH PLACE with 8 Canes is... TEAM LESTRADE!
CONGRATULATIONS TO TEAM WATSON FOR WINNING CYCLE 1!
SHOW THEM SOME LOVE!
FROM ALL THE MODS AT
thegameison_sh -- WE WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY 2011!