112&114: Sherlock Holmes (ACD): Gen
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vocab_drabblesTitle: Anemone
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Length: 500
Characters/Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Prompt: febrile
Notes: Inspired by A Victorian Flower Dictionary: the Language of Flowers Companion by Mandy Kirby, references to "Come Harriet! Sweet is the Hour" by Percy Bysshe Shelley; William Holt Hunt's painting The Awakening Conscience; and the music "Oft in the Stilly Night" by Thomas Moore.
Summary: Watson is taken ill. Or is he?
“How is he?” asked Holmes. His words were as rushed as his person into the house where Watson had been taken.
“We sent for a doctor, Mister Holmes, and he’s here.”
As Holmes was led from entrance to hall and upstairs, his gaze naturally, almost involuntarily, danced about like a restless spider, making observations about the household and its lodgings and spinning such observations into threads of information before weaving those threads into webs of deduction.
A bespeckled, whiskered man in a white lab coat met him at the door.
“How is he?” repeated Holmes.
“Febrile. And delirious. I do not advise—”
But Holmes couldn’t care less about anyone’s advice but his own. He pushed into the sickroom.
“Watson.”
The figure in the bed groaned as it rose to sitting and reached for the new arrival. The skin was flush and damp. The pupils were pinpoint in size, and the eye creases and lips betraying crusts and cracks, much like the voice when it called out:
“Come Harriet! Sweet is the hour…The anemone’s night-boding flower…”
“Watson, my dear old man, what has come over you?” exclaimed Holmes in stilted tones.
“Oft, in the stilly night / Ere slumber’s chain has bound me / Fond memory brings the light / Of other days around me…”
“Yes, yes,” said Holmes. “Lie back, my dear man, all is well. Rest, and then you shall tell me what you saw from your place in the tower. For once you were right, and I was wrong, about the best vantage place to catch the killer covering up his own tracks. Down below, I saw nothing, but you, well, you saw all. It is a pity this fever has taken you so suddenly. Could it be a flare of your old army wound, I wonder?”
“Holmes!”
The cry was anticipated. Holmes was already ducking and pivoting before Watson’s voice rang out.
Holmes spun and caught his assailant in the stomach, then knocked the thin surgical blade from his hand.
“None of that, Doctor,” he growled. “One patient’s enough, don’t you think?”
“Mister Holmes!”
“Ah, there’s the rope I requested and not a moment too late. Thank you, Nurse. Watson. Throw it here.” He caught the coil. “Now, there’s a bowler for you. Please direct Inspector Hopkins and the constable. They should be here momentarily.”
Watson sprang from the sickbed and tackled the figure Holmes had pinned to the ground.
“I saw you, you blackguard!” Watson hissed. “I saw it all.”
“What an amazing recovery you’ve made, Doctor,” remarked Holmes dryly as he tied up the snarling, snapping man.
“My fever’s broken, but my rage is ready to boil. You sent that poor girl to a most hideous death. Wild boar. The gallows is too painless.”
“I loved her! I loved her!” cried the captive.
“The Shelley was a nice touch,” continued Holmes. “And the, oh, what was that painting?”
“The Awakening Conscience,” supplied Watson. “His, I fear, still sleeps.”
“Anemone,” mused Holmes, “for fleeting love.”
Title: After the Dance
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD) AU
Rating: Gen
Length: 500
Characters/Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Prompt: lucifugous
Notes: Watson is a werewolf. Holmes is a vampire.
Summary: Holmes & Watson avert a massacre.
“Well done, Holmes,” said Watson warmly. The soft thuds of his dress boots on the ballroom floor joined the quiet but contentious noises of a grand party being dismantled. Around them were sounds of brooms, bins, and other busy-ness.
“Thank you, Watson.” Holmes’s boots trod with cat-like silence, of course, just as, and for the same reason, that slivers of his reflection did not appear in the well-polished crystal chandelier of the ballroom.
“It might have been a massacre,” continued Watson, looking about the room.
“It might have,” agreed Holmes. “But it wasn’t.”
“Thanks to you.”
“And you. She was destroyed by your hand, by the stake in your hand, to be precise. I could only lead you to her.”
“It is interesting. Between your intelligence and your undead gifts, I can be forgiven for thinking of you as omniscient and omnipotent. More wizard than nightwalker.”
“Your chronicles do nothing to mitigate the image, I’m afraid, Watson. You never mention my weakness, my mistakes, my limitations, my foibles.”
“You aren’t entirely human. Why should I pretend you are?”
Holmes smiled. “Touche. But neither am I all-seeing nor all-powerful. I couldn’t have eliminated her though I greatly desired to do so. She was clever enough to see to that. But she didn’t count on my not being alone.”
“Most of us think the way we are is the way others are. Nightwalkers are, ah, forgive me, quintessential lone wolves.”
“You’re forgiven. It will make a good story, I think.”
“Oh, yes. My reading public will love this one, as do I.”
“But you love it mostly, or dare I say it, only for the pun.”
“Mostly for the pun. A nightwalker named Lucy Fugous. Lucifugous, meaning shunning the light, embracing the darkness. Ah, if she hadn’t been so bent on bleeding the season dry, slaking her vengeful thirst, I would’ve like to have had a chat. She might have had a sense of humour.”
“Doubtful,” argued Holmes with a chuckle. He bent down as a maid pushed a broom across the floor and rescued a pair of white flowers from the remnants of the evening’s festivities. “My only lament about the evening is we didn’t get to have a dance.”
“Nothing’s stopping us now.”
Holmes bowed and presented Watson with one of the white flowers.
“Camilla. It means ‘my destiny is in your hands,’” said Holmes.
“Thank you,” replied Watson returning the bow as he took the proffered flower, “but, it is only fair that you have one as well. Our destinies are intertwined, Holmes.”
Holmes nodded and, after fixing one of the blooms in Watson’s buttonhole, but the second in his own. “Now, since you were the one to vanquish the terrible nightwalker Lucy Fugous, I think it is only fitting that you should lead.”
“As you wish.”
Watson held up his hands. “A waltz?”
“A waltz.”
And so they glided across the floor, humming part and counterpart, as the vestiges of the great ball were quietly laid to rest.
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: Gen
Length: 500
Characters/Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Prompt: febrile
Notes: Inspired by A Victorian Flower Dictionary: the Language of Flowers Companion by Mandy Kirby, references to "Come Harriet! Sweet is the Hour" by Percy Bysshe Shelley; William Holt Hunt's painting The Awakening Conscience; and the music "Oft in the Stilly Night" by Thomas Moore.
Summary: Watson is taken ill. Or is he?
“How is he?” asked Holmes. His words were as rushed as his person into the house where Watson had been taken.
“We sent for a doctor, Mister Holmes, and he’s here.”
As Holmes was led from entrance to hall and upstairs, his gaze naturally, almost involuntarily, danced about like a restless spider, making observations about the household and its lodgings and spinning such observations into threads of information before weaving those threads into webs of deduction.
A bespeckled, whiskered man in a white lab coat met him at the door.
“How is he?” repeated Holmes.
“Febrile. And delirious. I do not advise—”
But Holmes couldn’t care less about anyone’s advice but his own. He pushed into the sickroom.
“Watson.”
The figure in the bed groaned as it rose to sitting and reached for the new arrival. The skin was flush and damp. The pupils were pinpoint in size, and the eye creases and lips betraying crusts and cracks, much like the voice when it called out:
“Come Harriet! Sweet is the hour…The anemone’s night-boding flower…”
“Watson, my dear old man, what has come over you?” exclaimed Holmes in stilted tones.
“Oft, in the stilly night / Ere slumber’s chain has bound me / Fond memory brings the light / Of other days around me…”
“Yes, yes,” said Holmes. “Lie back, my dear man, all is well. Rest, and then you shall tell me what you saw from your place in the tower. For once you were right, and I was wrong, about the best vantage place to catch the killer covering up his own tracks. Down below, I saw nothing, but you, well, you saw all. It is a pity this fever has taken you so suddenly. Could it be a flare of your old army wound, I wonder?”
“Holmes!”
The cry was anticipated. Holmes was already ducking and pivoting before Watson’s voice rang out.
Holmes spun and caught his assailant in the stomach, then knocked the thin surgical blade from his hand.
“None of that, Doctor,” he growled. “One patient’s enough, don’t you think?”
“Mister Holmes!”
“Ah, there’s the rope I requested and not a moment too late. Thank you, Nurse. Watson. Throw it here.” He caught the coil. “Now, there’s a bowler for you. Please direct Inspector Hopkins and the constable. They should be here momentarily.”
Watson sprang from the sickbed and tackled the figure Holmes had pinned to the ground.
“I saw you, you blackguard!” Watson hissed. “I saw it all.”
“What an amazing recovery you’ve made, Doctor,” remarked Holmes dryly as he tied up the snarling, snapping man.
“My fever’s broken, but my rage is ready to boil. You sent that poor girl to a most hideous death. Wild boar. The gallows is too painless.”
“I loved her! I loved her!” cried the captive.
“The Shelley was a nice touch,” continued Holmes. “And the, oh, what was that painting?”
“The Awakening Conscience,” supplied Watson. “His, I fear, still sleeps.”
“Anemone,” mused Holmes, “for fleeting love.”
Title: After the Dance
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD) AU
Rating: Gen
Length: 500
Characters/Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Prompt: lucifugous
Notes: Watson is a werewolf. Holmes is a vampire.
Summary: Holmes & Watson avert a massacre.
“Well done, Holmes,” said Watson warmly. The soft thuds of his dress boots on the ballroom floor joined the quiet but contentious noises of a grand party being dismantled. Around them were sounds of brooms, bins, and other busy-ness.
“Thank you, Watson.” Holmes’s boots trod with cat-like silence, of course, just as, and for the same reason, that slivers of his reflection did not appear in the well-polished crystal chandelier of the ballroom.
“It might have been a massacre,” continued Watson, looking about the room.
“It might have,” agreed Holmes. “But it wasn’t.”
“Thanks to you.”
“And you. She was destroyed by your hand, by the stake in your hand, to be precise. I could only lead you to her.”
“It is interesting. Between your intelligence and your undead gifts, I can be forgiven for thinking of you as omniscient and omnipotent. More wizard than nightwalker.”
“Your chronicles do nothing to mitigate the image, I’m afraid, Watson. You never mention my weakness, my mistakes, my limitations, my foibles.”
“You aren’t entirely human. Why should I pretend you are?”
Holmes smiled. “Touche. But neither am I all-seeing nor all-powerful. I couldn’t have eliminated her though I greatly desired to do so. She was clever enough to see to that. But she didn’t count on my not being alone.”
“Most of us think the way we are is the way others are. Nightwalkers are, ah, forgive me, quintessential lone wolves.”
“You’re forgiven. It will make a good story, I think.”
“Oh, yes. My reading public will love this one, as do I.”
“But you love it mostly, or dare I say it, only for the pun.”
“Mostly for the pun. A nightwalker named Lucy Fugous. Lucifugous, meaning shunning the light, embracing the darkness. Ah, if she hadn’t been so bent on bleeding the season dry, slaking her vengeful thirst, I would’ve like to have had a chat. She might have had a sense of humour.”
“Doubtful,” argued Holmes with a chuckle. He bent down as a maid pushed a broom across the floor and rescued a pair of white flowers from the remnants of the evening’s festivities. “My only lament about the evening is we didn’t get to have a dance.”
“Nothing’s stopping us now.”
Holmes bowed and presented Watson with one of the white flowers.
“Camilla. It means ‘my destiny is in your hands,’” said Holmes.
“Thank you,” replied Watson returning the bow as he took the proffered flower, “but, it is only fair that you have one as well. Our destinies are intertwined, Holmes.”
Holmes nodded and, after fixing one of the blooms in Watson’s buttonhole, but the second in his own. “Now, since you were the one to vanquish the terrible nightwalker Lucy Fugous, I think it is only fitting that you should lead.”
“As you wish.”
Watson held up his hands. “A waltz?”
“A waltz.”
And so they glided across the floor, humming part and counterpart, as the vestiges of the great ball were quietly laid to rest.
