The Address is 221B Baker Street - April
It was unusual for the strains of Sherlock’s violin to wake John in the early hours of the morning now. This wasn’t because Sherlock played more often during the more appropriate hours when Apollo graced London with his light; it was because John had long since grown used to his playing when Diana reigned ascendant. Generally, this no longer woke him.
When he was pulled from a particularly deep sea of dreams in the small hours of an April dawn, though, he could not identify any other reason why he might be awake rather than still asleep.
Sherlock was likely meditating upon their latest case. Or perhaps he had that bottle out again. His flatmate certainly did enough thinking; enough, in fact, to account for the entire population of London (and possibly the entirety of Britain with certain other smallish European countries thrown in) doing incredibly stupid things because Sherlock was using up all the rational thought which had been chucked into the communal pool and leaving none for anyone else.
That, John thought, was the sort of wandering and irrational thought that hit you when you’d woken from some really strange dreams and your brain was still buzzing with sleep. A communal pool of thought energy with the rational bits all being hogged by Sherlock? He vaguely wondered if he should turn around on the stairs and go back to bed; that might be safer. But he’d already spent long minutes lying there, trying to sort out the strange visions which had invaded his sleeping consciousness. The feeling that he still mightn’t actually be awake as he made the attempt hadn’t been helping at all. A cup of tea was definitely what was wanted.
He stumbled, and almost fell, but caught himself. I do not know, Says the great bell of Bow. There had been bells, so many bells; London’s church bells, and their rhymes over and over in his head.
And it was strange, because everyone always harped so much on the end with the head chopping bit, but all John had got in his dream were the bells and the monkeys throwing lemons at each other. You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin's. Lots and lots of bells, granted, but he hadn’t felt threatened, just confused by all the damn bells; and the rhymes hadn’t come in the right order, as he knew they should do, and that had confused him too. Plus the zombies.
Also angels, but that had made a little more sense because of the churches and the bells, he supposed. The angels had been playing crazy golf and wearing roller skates. When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney. It had been nothing at all like the dreams from which he awoke sweating and swearing and wanting to weep, because he knew very well that zombies were dispatched by a simple headshot with a lemon. There had been plenty of lemons.
He had begun knee-deep in oranges and he’d had to wade through them to get to the church from which the bells were calling to him. When I grow rich, Say the bells of Shoreditch. When he had reached his goal he had found solid stone surrounding him, but an enormous emptiness above.
A thick, soft rope had been before him and he had wrapped both hands around it; he had pulled firmly, and there were more bells. Always more bells. When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney. Also more monkeys. He had suddenly found himself back outside the church, this time standing on top of the oranges and watching the monkeys play cricket using a lemon as a ball on a field of peppermint bark.
A couple of the zombies had been recruited to be the bowlers and John had joined an existing audience consisting of about a dozen penguins who clapped politely when the batter got a six. John applauded as well. When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey. Some of the penguins were grumbling about the fact that they weren’t able to join in the game because they had flippers rather than proper hands. Wings? They were birds, perhaps flippers wasn’t considered a polite term.
Penguins? London bells, the churches of London, and penguins? Monkeys, lemons, zombies, penguins, oranges and bells; always the bells.
Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement's.
Blearily, John registered that he’d reached the kitchen. The tune Sherlock was playing was familiar and it itched at the back of his brain insistently. Annoyed, John told it to fuck off while he made some tea.
When he brought the tea into the sitting room, he waved the mugs about dramatically before deliberately placing one of them on the stable surface closest to Sherlock. He then retreated to the couch and cupped the mug with his hands; the ceramic was too hot to be strictly comfortable and he let the unpleasant sensation pull him a bit further from the zombies and lemons and bells. He inhaled the warm, steamy scent of the rich brown liquid.
After a moment, he realised he was humming under his breath Oranges and Lemons, and it was (quite strangely to his mind) harmonising rather nicely with the piece Sherlock was playing. His humming was pulled along by the violin, and after a while he further realised that Sherlock’s piece was circling round and round but not including the head-chopping bit of the rhyme; otherwise it was definitely Oranges and Lemons. He could feel a goofy sort of grin on his face. Sherlock’s violin had invaded his sleep and essentially sent him on a musical trip.
Constantly discovering the new, amazing things which happened to him because he was Sherlock’s flatmate would never, ever grow old.
John took advantage of a pause in the music for notations to be set down on the sheet music. “Sherlock, what is this? What are you playing?”
His flatmate reached absently for the mug of tea and sipped before replying, “It’s my sonata.”
John blinked. “The one we found in the attic?”
“Mm hmm.”
“Oranges and Lemons?”
“Variations on the tune, yes. That’s what a sonata is.”
“All right, but, Oranges and Lemons?”
“I was only six, John. I’m expanding it now though, adding to it.”
John thought for a moment. “Were you partial to monkeys when you were young?”
***Later, after John has climbed the stairs and fallen back to sleep…***
John had a bright orange balloon.
Sherlock had a huge bunch of balloons, a mix of orange and yellow.
Suddenly, he thrust his handful of strings at John and exclaimed, “You go by air! I’ll go by sea!” He dove into the ocean which had just obligingly turned up.
As the balloons began to tug him into the air, John shouted, “Where are we going?”
“I’ll meet you at the British Museum where we can pick up our ostrich!”
Right, then. John turned his attention to the important task of managing the balloons. He was gaining altitude swiftly, and gaining speed as he rose. Once he got high enough he could see he was headed the wrong way almost entirely; northish instead of west.
‘When will that be?’ called out the bells.
He had to figure out some way to turn or he was going to end up in Hackney, and that wouldn’t be helpful in the least. Though he supposed he could switch to the rail line there, but Sherlock hadn’t said anything about travelling overland.
No, he’d stick with the balloons, he decided.
Experimentally, he divided the huge bunch as equally as he could and separated them so that he held one in each hand. He then pulled to his left.
This shifted his course immediately; he was going northwest now, which was an improvement, but he was going even faster and he still needed to eliminate the north part of this equation completely.
“Oi!” he yelled up at the balloons, “Take the speed down a notch, won’t you?”
There was a bit of a stutter in their movement, then his speed slowed considerably.
“Much obliged!”
‘When I grow rich,’ answered the bells.
Thinking quickly, John realised that if he could manage to travel due south, he could then follow the river into the City. He tried pulling to the left again, harder this time, more insistently. It worked splendidly and he was soon headed in the correct direction. He smiled broadly because this was quite fun. Trust Sherlock to find a whole new way to travel. John was just lucky he hadn’t hogged this for himself and sent John off into the water.
He and the balloons hummed along for a bit and they soon came to the river.
‘Oranges and lemons,’ said the bells.
There was a giggle to his right, and he looked over to find a cloud floating near him on which was seated a very well-endowed young woman wearing some sort of shepherdess outfit complete with bonnet. Next to her was a fuzzy white lamb and a bushel basket full of oranges and lemons.
“Do you need any oranges or lemons, kind sir?”
“Mehhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
“I don’t, actually.”
‘You owe me five farthings,’ accused the bells.
There didn’t seem to be any hard feelings, though, as the young woman giggled again and waved cheerily as they drifted apart.
‘I do not know,’ insisted the bells.
The balloons were doing some swooping now and John was having a fantastic time. It felt like the best part of being on a swing: all the almost scary but still exciting fluttery feelings in his stomach, with none of the work of pumping himself into the air.
‘When will you pay me?’ enquired the bells.
After a bit more navigation and a little bit of fancy flying which put a goofy grin onto John’s face they arrived. The balloons set him down gently on the roof of the Museum.
“Thank you,” he said to the balloons. “I’m going to tether you in case Sherlock still needs you for something.” He tied up their strings and patted at them fondly.
“John!”
‘Pokers and tongs, Say the bells of St. John's.’
He looked over to see Sherlock, at rooftop level and looking like he was floating in mid-air. He was juggling three oranges and three lemons around in a blur of colour. John frowned. Surely that couldn’t be right. No one, not even Sherlock, could float in mid-air. He moved toward the edge of the roof, and after a few steps he realised that his friend was riding an elephant.
“Come along, we’re travelling on.”
John settled himself behind Sherlock on the elephant’s back. He enquired, “Why is your elephant orange with yellow stripes?”
Sherlock snorted in derision. “Someone thought it would make him look faster. Idiot.”
John contemplated the elephant seriously. “He should have made them horizontal then. These do make him look slimmer.” He patted the elephant fondly. “But I thought we were after an ostrich.”
‘Bull's eyes and targets, Say the bells of St. Margret's.’
“We were, but this is faster.”
Riding the elephant turned out to be fun. Not quite as fun as the flying, but definitely a good time. After a few minutes they were joined by a troop of monkeys who darted all round them; clambering over and climbing on the elephant, through the trees that lined the street, playing catch with oranges all the while. One of the monkeys kept cheekily pulling Sherlock’s curls as he darted past him, causing his friend to curse imaginatively and making John giggle.
“Whoops!”
John had never heard Sherlock say ‘whoops’ before, and if he’d had time to think about it he would have expected that to herald trouble. It did, in fact, as was proved by the elephant abruptly disappearing from underneath them.
‘Pancakes and fritters, Say the bells of St. Peter's.’
Strangely, the fall wasn’t abrupt, they simply drifted to the ground and ended up landing in the midst of a chattering clump of the monkeys on a patch of soft grass. “Must have been a local,” remarked Sherlock. Looking around, John saw they were in Bloomsbury Square, and the elephant had popped back into existence a short distance away; he was getting a drink from the fountain. This was where he’d run into Mike on that fateful day.
‘Two sticks and an apple, Say the bells of Whitechapel.’
“There, we’ll take those!”
John looked over in the direction Sherlock was pointing and saw the oddest little cars; they weren’t really proper cars at all, more like go-karts partly encased in plastic bubbles. One was orange, and the other yellow, the second a bit smaller than the first.
Sherlock took both of John’s hands and pulled him to standing. He smiled broadly then dashed over and leapt into the orange car. He started it up and looked over at John impatiently. “Come on! Do keep up! We have criminals to catch!”
‘Old Father Baldpate, Say the slow bells of Aldgate.’
John hastily ran over, got into the yellow car, and punched the single button on its dash. The vehicle sputtered to life and he was soon hot on Sherlock’s heels as their little citrus cars zoomed through the streets of London.
When he was pulled from a particularly deep sea of dreams in the small hours of an April dawn, though, he could not identify any other reason why he might be awake rather than still asleep.
Sherlock was likely meditating upon their latest case. Or perhaps he had that bottle out again. His flatmate certainly did enough thinking; enough, in fact, to account for the entire population of London (and possibly the entirety of Britain with certain other smallish European countries thrown in) doing incredibly stupid things because Sherlock was using up all the rational thought which had been chucked into the communal pool and leaving none for anyone else.
That, John thought, was the sort of wandering and irrational thought that hit you when you’d woken from some really strange dreams and your brain was still buzzing with sleep. A communal pool of thought energy with the rational bits all being hogged by Sherlock? He vaguely wondered if he should turn around on the stairs and go back to bed; that might be safer. But he’d already spent long minutes lying there, trying to sort out the strange visions which had invaded his sleeping consciousness. The feeling that he still mightn’t actually be awake as he made the attempt hadn’t been helping at all. A cup of tea was definitely what was wanted.
He stumbled, and almost fell, but caught himself. I do not know, Says the great bell of Bow. There had been bells, so many bells; London’s church bells, and their rhymes over and over in his head.
And it was strange, because everyone always harped so much on the end with the head chopping bit, but all John had got in his dream were the bells and the monkeys throwing lemons at each other. You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin's. Lots and lots of bells, granted, but he hadn’t felt threatened, just confused by all the damn bells; and the rhymes hadn’t come in the right order, as he knew they should do, and that had confused him too. Plus the zombies.
Also angels, but that had made a little more sense because of the churches and the bells, he supposed. The angels had been playing crazy golf and wearing roller skates. When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney. It had been nothing at all like the dreams from which he awoke sweating and swearing and wanting to weep, because he knew very well that zombies were dispatched by a simple headshot with a lemon. There had been plenty of lemons.
He had begun knee-deep in oranges and he’d had to wade through them to get to the church from which the bells were calling to him. When I grow rich, Say the bells of Shoreditch. When he had reached his goal he had found solid stone surrounding him, but an enormous emptiness above.
A thick, soft rope had been before him and he had wrapped both hands around it; he had pulled firmly, and there were more bells. Always more bells. When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney. Also more monkeys. He had suddenly found himself back outside the church, this time standing on top of the oranges and watching the monkeys play cricket using a lemon as a ball on a field of peppermint bark.
A couple of the zombies had been recruited to be the bowlers and John had joined an existing audience consisting of about a dozen penguins who clapped politely when the batter got a six. John applauded as well. When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey. Some of the penguins were grumbling about the fact that they weren’t able to join in the game because they had flippers rather than proper hands. Wings? They were birds, perhaps flippers wasn’t considered a polite term.
Penguins? London bells, the churches of London, and penguins? Monkeys, lemons, zombies, penguins, oranges and bells; always the bells.
Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement's.
Blearily, John registered that he’d reached the kitchen. The tune Sherlock was playing was familiar and it itched at the back of his brain insistently. Annoyed, John told it to fuck off while he made some tea.
When he brought the tea into the sitting room, he waved the mugs about dramatically before deliberately placing one of them on the stable surface closest to Sherlock. He then retreated to the couch and cupped the mug with his hands; the ceramic was too hot to be strictly comfortable and he let the unpleasant sensation pull him a bit further from the zombies and lemons and bells. He inhaled the warm, steamy scent of the rich brown liquid.
After a moment, he realised he was humming under his breath Oranges and Lemons, and it was (quite strangely to his mind) harmonising rather nicely with the piece Sherlock was playing. His humming was pulled along by the violin, and after a while he further realised that Sherlock’s piece was circling round and round but not including the head-chopping bit of the rhyme; otherwise it was definitely Oranges and Lemons. He could feel a goofy sort of grin on his face. Sherlock’s violin had invaded his sleep and essentially sent him on a musical trip.
Constantly discovering the new, amazing things which happened to him because he was Sherlock’s flatmate would never, ever grow old.
John took advantage of a pause in the music for notations to be set down on the sheet music. “Sherlock, what is this? What are you playing?”
His flatmate reached absently for the mug of tea and sipped before replying, “It’s my sonata.”
John blinked. “The one we found in the attic?”
“Mm hmm.”
“Oranges and Lemons?”
“Variations on the tune, yes. That’s what a sonata is.”
“All right, but, Oranges and Lemons?”
“I was only six, John. I’m expanding it now though, adding to it.”
John thought for a moment. “Were you partial to monkeys when you were young?”
***Later, after John has climbed the stairs and fallen back to sleep…***
John had a bright orange balloon.
Sherlock had a huge bunch of balloons, a mix of orange and yellow.
Suddenly, he thrust his handful of strings at John and exclaimed, “You go by air! I’ll go by sea!” He dove into the ocean which had just obligingly turned up.
As the balloons began to tug him into the air, John shouted, “Where are we going?”
“I’ll meet you at the British Museum where we can pick up our ostrich!”
Right, then. John turned his attention to the important task of managing the balloons. He was gaining altitude swiftly, and gaining speed as he rose. Once he got high enough he could see he was headed the wrong way almost entirely; northish instead of west.
‘When will that be?’ called out the bells.
He had to figure out some way to turn or he was going to end up in Hackney, and that wouldn’t be helpful in the least. Though he supposed he could switch to the rail line there, but Sherlock hadn’t said anything about travelling overland.
No, he’d stick with the balloons, he decided.
Experimentally, he divided the huge bunch as equally as he could and separated them so that he held one in each hand. He then pulled to his left.
This shifted his course immediately; he was going northwest now, which was an improvement, but he was going even faster and he still needed to eliminate the north part of this equation completely.
“Oi!” he yelled up at the balloons, “Take the speed down a notch, won’t you?”
There was a bit of a stutter in their movement, then his speed slowed considerably.
“Much obliged!”
‘When I grow rich,’ answered the bells.
Thinking quickly, John realised that if he could manage to travel due south, he could then follow the river into the City. He tried pulling to the left again, harder this time, more insistently. It worked splendidly and he was soon headed in the correct direction. He smiled broadly because this was quite fun. Trust Sherlock to find a whole new way to travel. John was just lucky he hadn’t hogged this for himself and sent John off into the water.
He and the balloons hummed along for a bit and they soon came to the river.
‘Oranges and lemons,’ said the bells.
There was a giggle to his right, and he looked over to find a cloud floating near him on which was seated a very well-endowed young woman wearing some sort of shepherdess outfit complete with bonnet. Next to her was a fuzzy white lamb and a bushel basket full of oranges and lemons.
“Do you need any oranges or lemons, kind sir?”
“Mehhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
“I don’t, actually.”
‘You owe me five farthings,’ accused the bells.
There didn’t seem to be any hard feelings, though, as the young woman giggled again and waved cheerily as they drifted apart.
‘I do not know,’ insisted the bells.
The balloons were doing some swooping now and John was having a fantastic time. It felt like the best part of being on a swing: all the almost scary but still exciting fluttery feelings in his stomach, with none of the work of pumping himself into the air.
‘When will you pay me?’ enquired the bells.
After a bit more navigation and a little bit of fancy flying which put a goofy grin onto John’s face they arrived. The balloons set him down gently on the roof of the Museum.
“Thank you,” he said to the balloons. “I’m going to tether you in case Sherlock still needs you for something.” He tied up their strings and patted at them fondly.
“John!”
‘Pokers and tongs, Say the bells of St. John's.’
He looked over to see Sherlock, at rooftop level and looking like he was floating in mid-air. He was juggling three oranges and three lemons around in a blur of colour. John frowned. Surely that couldn’t be right. No one, not even Sherlock, could float in mid-air. He moved toward the edge of the roof, and after a few steps he realised that his friend was riding an elephant.
“Come along, we’re travelling on.”
John settled himself behind Sherlock on the elephant’s back. He enquired, “Why is your elephant orange with yellow stripes?”
Sherlock snorted in derision. “Someone thought it would make him look faster. Idiot.”
John contemplated the elephant seriously. “He should have made them horizontal then. These do make him look slimmer.” He patted the elephant fondly. “But I thought we were after an ostrich.”
‘Bull's eyes and targets, Say the bells of St. Margret's.’
“We were, but this is faster.”
Riding the elephant turned out to be fun. Not quite as fun as the flying, but definitely a good time. After a few minutes they were joined by a troop of monkeys who darted all round them; clambering over and climbing on the elephant, through the trees that lined the street, playing catch with oranges all the while. One of the monkeys kept cheekily pulling Sherlock’s curls as he darted past him, causing his friend to curse imaginatively and making John giggle.
“Whoops!”
John had never heard Sherlock say ‘whoops’ before, and if he’d had time to think about it he would have expected that to herald trouble. It did, in fact, as was proved by the elephant abruptly disappearing from underneath them.
‘Pancakes and fritters, Say the bells of St. Peter's.’
Strangely, the fall wasn’t abrupt, they simply drifted to the ground and ended up landing in the midst of a chattering clump of the monkeys on a patch of soft grass. “Must have been a local,” remarked Sherlock. Looking around, John saw they were in Bloomsbury Square, and the elephant had popped back into existence a short distance away; he was getting a drink from the fountain. This was where he’d run into Mike on that fateful day.
‘Two sticks and an apple, Say the bells of Whitechapel.’
“There, we’ll take those!”
John looked over in the direction Sherlock was pointing and saw the oddest little cars; they weren’t really proper cars at all, more like go-karts partly encased in plastic bubbles. One was orange, and the other yellow, the second a bit smaller than the first.
Sherlock took both of John’s hands and pulled him to standing. He smiled broadly then dashed over and leapt into the orange car. He started it up and looked over at John impatiently. “Come on! Do keep up! We have criminals to catch!”
‘Old Father Baldpate, Say the slow bells of Aldgate.’
John hastily ran over, got into the yellow car, and punched the single button on its dash. The vehicle sputtered to life and he was soon hot on Sherlock’s heels as their little citrus cars zoomed through the streets of London.