Art for saki101: Till the very fire touched them
Title: Till the very fire touched them
Recipient: saki101
Artist: camillo1978
Characters/Pairings: BBC John Watson/Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG
Warnings: Kissing, mention of bubonic plague and associated symptoms.
Summary: So this is the brief summary of the 150,000 word historical AU I would have written if I was capable of producing epic fic. The title is a quote from the Diaries of Samuel Pepys and the art is shown below.
William Sherlock Scott Holmes and his family left England in 1652 to quietly join the exiled King Charles II's retinue in the Netherlands. They left behind Sherlock's older brother, Mycroft, apparently disowned due to religious and political differences but secretly to serve as the King's most valuable spy in Oliver Cromwell's English Commonwealth.
By the summer of 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne, Sherlock Holmes was back in England and his brother had retired from spy-craft, preferring a more sedentary "advisory" role.
Sherlock rapidly discovered everything that London - newly released from severely Puritanical rule - had to offer. Exploring the reopened theatres, indulging in the renewed interest in art, science and literature and a lot of alcohol and violence followed. Sherlock was thrown out of the Royal Society of London and strongly advised not to attend the Royal Court in Whitehall.
However, in 1665, Sherlock became fascinated by the increasing number of deaths occurring in poor areas of London during the first four months of the year. His suspicions raised, he discovered the parish searchers of the dead were frequently receiving bribes to report non-suspicious symptoms relating to deaths when, in fact, more and more bodies displayed signs of high fever, swellings in the armpits, neck and groin, and vomiting of blood.
Sherlock went to see his brother in the Palace of Whitehall, persuading him (and thus the King) of the urgent need for household quarantines. A riot broke out in St Giles when the first house was sealed, rendering him extremely unpopular with the locals.
Alas, the Holmes brothers' attempts to stem the tide of the plague outbreak were not enough to save their beloved younger sister, Sherry, or the wife and child of professional soldier, John Watson, former member of Cromwell's New Model Army.
Previously a devout and studious member of the Presbyterian Church, John was left adrift and questioning his purpose in life following the Restoration of the King and hasty recruitment to the royally appointed army of redcoats. Following the deaths of his wife and daughter, John completely lost his faith and began drinking and gambling heavily, occasionally taking part in prize fights to pay off any awkwardly large debts.
It was during a fight, in March of 1666, that Sherlock and John first came face-to-face.
Reading the desperation in John's expression, Sherlock - for the first and only time in his career - threw the fight, got knocked out cold after a mere thirty seconds and invited John over for an early breakfast at his home in Westminster as soon as he came round.
They had very little in common beyond boredom, grief and restless energy. John's military duties were necessarily light as the King sought to maintain his fragile popularity with the general populace. But despite the filth and the stench and the crowds, both men loved London and formed their friendship as they wandered its tenements and alleys in search of new mysteries and delights during a long, hot summer.
On the morning of Monday September 3rd, Sherlock woke from an unusually long drinking binge to receive news of a fire burning hundreds of houses to the east of his home within the City of London walls. He promptly borrowed a boat off a man who owed him a favour and travelled downstream on the Thames to view the damage.
By the time Sherlock arrived, he discovered the east wind had whipped up the flames into a firestorm that was eating its way further and further into the heart of the City, destroying everything in its path.
John Watson had been one of a group of soldiers ordered by the King to demolish buildings on the western side of the fire in an attempt to halt its spread. It was obvious to Sherlock that any attempt would be futile and gravely dangerous.
He therefore abandoned his boat in Westminster and went in search of John via Fleet Street on foot. The chaos of people evacuating their homes with everything they could possibly carry made it impossible to navigate the roads and Sherlock searched in vain.
By Tuesday morning the fire was burning all the way from Blackfriars to London Bridge and right across the bridge's span. Sherlock finally found John working with a team of firefighters to create a northern firebreak, which held until the evening when the flames leaped the gap, burning Cheapside and, unbelievably, destroying the enormous St Paul's Cathedral.
The pair retreated to the north, sometimes literally running from the flames, until they reached the thick walls of the Priory of St Bartholomew the Great and took shelter beneath the entrance to the churchyard - a great remnant arch of stone left over from a long-destroyed nave and incorporated in some rich merchant's house...
All the deets for this AU should be historically accurate but I'm not a historian by profession so do correct me if need be. You can read more about the surviving fragment of pre-Great Fire of London that adjoins Barts Hospital here:
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/St-Bartholomews-Gatehouse/
Recipient: saki101
Artist: camillo1978
Characters/Pairings: BBC John Watson/Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG
Warnings: Kissing, mention of bubonic plague and associated symptoms.
Summary: So this is the brief summary of the 150,000 word historical AU I would have written if I was capable of producing epic fic. The title is a quote from the Diaries of Samuel Pepys and the art is shown below.
William Sherlock Scott Holmes and his family left England in 1652 to quietly join the exiled King Charles II's retinue in the Netherlands. They left behind Sherlock's older brother, Mycroft, apparently disowned due to religious and political differences but secretly to serve as the King's most valuable spy in Oliver Cromwell's English Commonwealth.
By the summer of 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne, Sherlock Holmes was back in England and his brother had retired from spy-craft, preferring a more sedentary "advisory" role.
Sherlock rapidly discovered everything that London - newly released from severely Puritanical rule - had to offer. Exploring the reopened theatres, indulging in the renewed interest in art, science and literature and a lot of alcohol and violence followed. Sherlock was thrown out of the Royal Society of London and strongly advised not to attend the Royal Court in Whitehall.
However, in 1665, Sherlock became fascinated by the increasing number of deaths occurring in poor areas of London during the first four months of the year. His suspicions raised, he discovered the parish searchers of the dead were frequently receiving bribes to report non-suspicious symptoms relating to deaths when, in fact, more and more bodies displayed signs of high fever, swellings in the armpits, neck and groin, and vomiting of blood.
Sherlock went to see his brother in the Palace of Whitehall, persuading him (and thus the King) of the urgent need for household quarantines. A riot broke out in St Giles when the first house was sealed, rendering him extremely unpopular with the locals.
Alas, the Holmes brothers' attempts to stem the tide of the plague outbreak were not enough to save their beloved younger sister, Sherry, or the wife and child of professional soldier, John Watson, former member of Cromwell's New Model Army.
Previously a devout and studious member of the Presbyterian Church, John was left adrift and questioning his purpose in life following the Restoration of the King and hasty recruitment to the royally appointed army of redcoats. Following the deaths of his wife and daughter, John completely lost his faith and began drinking and gambling heavily, occasionally taking part in prize fights to pay off any awkwardly large debts.
It was during a fight, in March of 1666, that Sherlock and John first came face-to-face.
Reading the desperation in John's expression, Sherlock - for the first and only time in his career - threw the fight, got knocked out cold after a mere thirty seconds and invited John over for an early breakfast at his home in Westminster as soon as he came round.
They had very little in common beyond boredom, grief and restless energy. John's military duties were necessarily light as the King sought to maintain his fragile popularity with the general populace. But despite the filth and the stench and the crowds, both men loved London and formed their friendship as they wandered its tenements and alleys in search of new mysteries and delights during a long, hot summer.
On the morning of Monday September 3rd, Sherlock woke from an unusually long drinking binge to receive news of a fire burning hundreds of houses to the east of his home within the City of London walls. He promptly borrowed a boat off a man who owed him a favour and travelled downstream on the Thames to view the damage.
By the time Sherlock arrived, he discovered the east wind had whipped up the flames into a firestorm that was eating its way further and further into the heart of the City, destroying everything in its path.
John Watson had been one of a group of soldiers ordered by the King to demolish buildings on the western side of the fire in an attempt to halt its spread. It was obvious to Sherlock that any attempt would be futile and gravely dangerous.
He therefore abandoned his boat in Westminster and went in search of John via Fleet Street on foot. The chaos of people evacuating their homes with everything they could possibly carry made it impossible to navigate the roads and Sherlock searched in vain.
By Tuesday morning the fire was burning all the way from Blackfriars to London Bridge and right across the bridge's span. Sherlock finally found John working with a team of firefighters to create a northern firebreak, which held until the evening when the flames leaped the gap, burning Cheapside and, unbelievably, destroying the enormous St Paul's Cathedral.
The pair retreated to the north, sometimes literally running from the flames, until they reached the thick walls of the Priory of St Bartholomew the Great and took shelter beneath the entrance to the churchyard - a great remnant arch of stone left over from a long-destroyed nave and incorporated in some rich merchant's house...
All the deets for this AU should be historically accurate but I'm not a historian by profession so do correct me if need be. You can read more about the surviving fragment of pre-Great Fire of London that adjoins Barts Hospital here:
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/St-Bartholomews-Gatehouse/