The Bang and the Clatter (36/36)
Sep. 19th, 2013 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
earlgreytea68Title - The Bang and the Clatter (36/36)
Author -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - John, Sherlock
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - Sherlock Holmes is a pitcher and John Watson is a catcher. No, no, no, it's a baseball AU.
Author's Notes - Many, many thanks to arctacuda, for helping with the writing and for uncomplainingly beta-ing when I whine. Including beta-ing while traveling around the world and having much more interesting things to worry about.
...How is this fic over? I don't understand. It seems like just the other day I was brainstorming what I could do with it, and now all of a sudden it's all done and out there in the world and it all belongs to you now. Which is actually my favorite place for a fic to be, because I love it when I'm writing it but I love most when I get to share it all with you and see it through your eyes and live it all over again, and again, and again. Because here's a little secret I'll let you in on about how I feel about being a writer: I love the act of writing, I love it more than anything else that I do, and I am happiest when I am in the middle of it. And then, when it's over and done, I'm like, "...Oh. But...But I loved them all, and now I'm done with them, and what am I going to do now?" And do you know what I get to do? I get to share it with you, and then my characters never stop living. That's the best part. You guys are the best readers in the world. Your passion and enthusiasm for words, for dialogue, for characters is so contagious. I love to see everything new through your comments, and you teach me so much about everything, and I am so incredibly grateful for each and every single one of you, more than I think a lot of you might realize. Writers talk about their characters being their kids a lot, and it is kind of, I think, like when you have a kid, and you think your kid is brilliant, and then you send him off to school, and someone says to you, "Hey, you know that kid of yours? He's brilliant!" And you know that's only partly because of you, but it doesn't matter, you're just so chuffed that someone else looked at something you love desperately and loved it just a bit, too. So thank you, to all of you who loved my baby after I sent it off into the world, especially those of you who don't at all care about baseball. It's yours now, really, and I leave it in good hands.
By design, I am wrapping up this fic just as the baseball season is ending. Today, in fact, the Boston Red Sox clinched a playoff berth and will be playing in October. There are lots of players just like John Watson full of emotion tonight over getting to live their childhood dreams, and there's a way in which this fic was for all of them. If you think of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes every time you see a baseball game now, well, enjoy that image, then. :-)
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Chapter Eleven - Chapter Twelve - Chapter Thirteen - Chapter Fourteen - Chapter Fifteen - Chapter Sixteen - Chapter Seventeen - Chapter Eighteen - Chapter Nineteen - Chapter Twenty - Chapter Twenty-One - Chapter Twenty-Two - Chapter Twenty-Three - Chapter Twenty-Four - Chapter Twenty-Five - Chapter Twenty-Six - Chapter Twenty-Seven - Chapter Twenty-Eight - Chapter Twenty-Nine - Chapter Thirty - Chapter Thirty-One - Chapter Thirty-Two - Chapter Thirty-Three - Chapter Thirty-Four - Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
They went to London, as planned. The police were convinced that John had acted in self-defense, with a little help from Mycroft and his recordings of the goings-on in the bedroom. (“I’m sorry, I know it was wrong, but I was worried about Moriarty and your safety and see it came in handy after all,” Sherlock explained in one huge rush of breath when John learned about the surveillance in the apartment.) When Sherlock asked John, in the early morning after the longest night John had ever experienced, what John wanted to do, John begged him to get on the plane with him and just go.
So Sherlock did.
John had always intended to skip the World Series parade for Sherlock’s benefit, sensing he would hate it, but it turned out that Austin decided to delay the parade indefinitely due to the scandal, so Sherlock didn’t need to convince John that they should at least go to the parade (which Sherlock had intended to do for John’s benefit, because he knew he would love the parade) and they went to London to escape all of it.
The scandal followed them to London, of course, and they spent the first few days there holed up in a hotel room with the curtains drawn against the paparazzi outside, until Sherlock said he was sick of hotel rooms and managed to get them away to an enormous manor house somewhere outside London that Sherlock called a “hunting lodge,” even though it was nothing like any hunting lodge John had ever seen. The grounds were expansive, and they were safe from paparazzi, and John uncoiled and relaxed, and if Sherlock treated him like he was a little more fragile than he normally was, John let him because he felt a little more fragile than he normally was.
They stayed at the “hunting lodge” for a week, and at the end of it, as they were lying in front of the fire one night, John sitting up and Sherlock sprawled with his head in his lap, Sherlock finally asked the question John had been waiting for, which was, “Are you all right?”
John stroked his hand through Sherlock’s thick curls, growing even more unruly now, and looked into the fire and said, “I think so.”
“You did just kill a man,” said Sherlock.
“He wasn’t a very nice man,” John pointed out.
“True.” There was a moment of silence before Sherlock ventured, “What do you want to do next year?”
“Not commit murder at any point would be nice,” said John, dryly.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” replied Sherlock, but twisted on John’s lap to look up at him. “But I’m serious. Are you still going to retire?”
John looked down at him and pushed the tumbled curls off of his forehead. “Yes. I can’t imagine playing baseball again after the season I just had. I can’t imagine ever having a better season. I want that to be my last memory of baseball.”
“You could coach. You’d be good at it.”
John shook his head. “I don’t want us separated, and we would be, if we were on different teams, which we would probably be.”
Sherlock hesitated, and then said, “I don’t think I’m going to play next year.”
John had been looking back into the fire, but he looked down at Sherlock in surprise at that. “But you’re under contract.”
“I know, but I…I have the money to buy the contract out, and I don’t want to play anymore. I’ve done everything I meant to do with baseball, and more. I was only ever playing because I couldn’t think of anything better to do. But now I have something better to do.”
John lifted a wry eyebrow. “Me?”
“In the crude sense and the not-crude sense,” answered Sherlock. “I have you now, and I think I was only ever playing baseball in order to find you, so there’s no point to it for me now. I’ll find another hobby and follow you around next season, if you want.”
It was John’s turn to hesitate. He looked back into the fire. “I don’t know. You’d mentioned medical school, and I was thinking… Maybe it’s time for both of us to say good-bye to baseball. Maybe we can never top anything that happened this season, so maybe we shouldn’t try. Maybe we should just relegate it to games of catch when one of us is agitated. Maybe we should find a life for ourselves here.”
“At the hunting lodge?”
“For the last time, Sherlock, this is a bloody palace, not a hunting lodge. But no, not here, we’d both go mad here eventually. In London.”
“You would miss it,” said Sherlock. “It’s a part of you. You love it.”
“I love you more. I’ve always loved you more. And if I miss it, if I’m wrong, then we’ll revisit this topic at this time next year. We’ll come back here to this palace-slash-hunting-lodge and we’ll talk about all of this again. Deal?”
Sherlock considered. “Deal,” he said, and turned back into the fire and settled more comfortably. He was silent for a moment, but John could practically hear the thoughts flying through that busy head of his. “There’s a flat…” he said, finally.
Trust Sherlock to have never been entirely hypothetical in his talk about the London flat they could get. It turned out that he’d had one in mind for a while, that he’d staked it out years ago, when he’d first imagined living in London by himself, but that it was well-suited to two people, and John stood in the middle of 221B Baker Street and had to agree. It looked exactly the way he had pictured their flat to look, the way Sherlock had described it, with the busy wallpaper and the cozy fireplace and the bedroom big enough for a nice-sized bed.
“I never got you anything for your birthday,” said Sherlock, as they stood in the living room together, and he sounded almost shy.
“I told you not to worry about that,” said John.
“I know. But I could buy us this flat.”
John looked at him. “You’re going to buy us a flat as a birthday gift for me?”
“If you like it.” And then Sherlock seemed to backpedal. “Is that not right? I thought it would be… Maybe it wouldn’t… I don’t normally buy presents,” Sherlock admitted.
John felt his heart clench, the way it often did around Sherlock, the way it often did when love surged through him at too severe a rate for his system to process it. Sherlock didn’t normally buy presents, because Sherlock had never had anyone to buy presents for, and, of course, Sherlock was going to start gift-buying at the very top of the heap, with a flat. And who was John to turn him down, when all he was trying to say was I so-much-more-than-love you.
John looked around him and then turned back to Sherlock. “You know,” he smiled, “I think you’re right. I think the wallpaper’s going to grow on me.”
THE END.
[ZOMG.THE. END.] <-- This was a beta comment, but I had to leave it in for you guys.
Author -
earlgreytea68Rating - Teen
Characters - John, Sherlock
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - Sherlock Holmes is a pitcher and John Watson is a catcher. No, no, no, it's a baseball AU.
Author's Notes - Many, many thanks to arctacuda, for helping with the writing and for uncomplainingly beta-ing when I whine. Including beta-ing while traveling around the world and having much more interesting things to worry about.
...How is this fic over? I don't understand. It seems like just the other day I was brainstorming what I could do with it, and now all of a sudden it's all done and out there in the world and it all belongs to you now. Which is actually my favorite place for a fic to be, because I love it when I'm writing it but I love most when I get to share it all with you and see it through your eyes and live it all over again, and again, and again. Because here's a little secret I'll let you in on about how I feel about being a writer: I love the act of writing, I love it more than anything else that I do, and I am happiest when I am in the middle of it. And then, when it's over and done, I'm like, "...Oh. But...But I loved them all, and now I'm done with them, and what am I going to do now?" And do you know what I get to do? I get to share it with you, and then my characters never stop living. That's the best part. You guys are the best readers in the world. Your passion and enthusiasm for words, for dialogue, for characters is so contagious. I love to see everything new through your comments, and you teach me so much about everything, and I am so incredibly grateful for each and every single one of you, more than I think a lot of you might realize. Writers talk about their characters being their kids a lot, and it is kind of, I think, like when you have a kid, and you think your kid is brilliant, and then you send him off to school, and someone says to you, "Hey, you know that kid of yours? He's brilliant!" And you know that's only partly because of you, but it doesn't matter, you're just so chuffed that someone else looked at something you love desperately and loved it just a bit, too. So thank you, to all of you who loved my baby after I sent it off into the world, especially those of you who don't at all care about baseball. It's yours now, really, and I leave it in good hands.
By design, I am wrapping up this fic just as the baseball season is ending. Today, in fact, the Boston Red Sox clinched a playoff berth and will be playing in October. There are lots of players just like John Watson full of emotion tonight over getting to live their childhood dreams, and there's a way in which this fic was for all of them. If you think of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes every time you see a baseball game now, well, enjoy that image, then. :-)
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Chapter Eleven - Chapter Twelve - Chapter Thirteen - Chapter Fourteen - Chapter Fifteen - Chapter Sixteen - Chapter Seventeen - Chapter Eighteen - Chapter Nineteen - Chapter Twenty - Chapter Twenty-One - Chapter Twenty-Two - Chapter Twenty-Three - Chapter Twenty-Four - Chapter Twenty-Five - Chapter Twenty-Six - Chapter Twenty-Seven - Chapter Twenty-Eight - Chapter Twenty-Nine - Chapter Thirty - Chapter Thirty-One - Chapter Thirty-Two - Chapter Thirty-Three - Chapter Thirty-Four - Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
They went to London, as planned. The police were convinced that John had acted in self-defense, with a little help from Mycroft and his recordings of the goings-on in the bedroom. (“I’m sorry, I know it was wrong, but I was worried about Moriarty and your safety and see it came in handy after all,” Sherlock explained in one huge rush of breath when John learned about the surveillance in the apartment.) When Sherlock asked John, in the early morning after the longest night John had ever experienced, what John wanted to do, John begged him to get on the plane with him and just go.
So Sherlock did.
John had always intended to skip the World Series parade for Sherlock’s benefit, sensing he would hate it, but it turned out that Austin decided to delay the parade indefinitely due to the scandal, so Sherlock didn’t need to convince John that they should at least go to the parade (which Sherlock had intended to do for John’s benefit, because he knew he would love the parade) and they went to London to escape all of it.
The scandal followed them to London, of course, and they spent the first few days there holed up in a hotel room with the curtains drawn against the paparazzi outside, until Sherlock said he was sick of hotel rooms and managed to get them away to an enormous manor house somewhere outside London that Sherlock called a “hunting lodge,” even though it was nothing like any hunting lodge John had ever seen. The grounds were expansive, and they were safe from paparazzi, and John uncoiled and relaxed, and if Sherlock treated him like he was a little more fragile than he normally was, John let him because he felt a little more fragile than he normally was.
They stayed at the “hunting lodge” for a week, and at the end of it, as they were lying in front of the fire one night, John sitting up and Sherlock sprawled with his head in his lap, Sherlock finally asked the question John had been waiting for, which was, “Are you all right?”
John stroked his hand through Sherlock’s thick curls, growing even more unruly now, and looked into the fire and said, “I think so.”
“You did just kill a man,” said Sherlock.
“He wasn’t a very nice man,” John pointed out.
“True.” There was a moment of silence before Sherlock ventured, “What do you want to do next year?”
“Not commit murder at any point would be nice,” said John, dryly.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” replied Sherlock, but twisted on John’s lap to look up at him. “But I’m serious. Are you still going to retire?”
John looked down at him and pushed the tumbled curls off of his forehead. “Yes. I can’t imagine playing baseball again after the season I just had. I can’t imagine ever having a better season. I want that to be my last memory of baseball.”
“You could coach. You’d be good at it.”
John shook his head. “I don’t want us separated, and we would be, if we were on different teams, which we would probably be.”
Sherlock hesitated, and then said, “I don’t think I’m going to play next year.”
John had been looking back into the fire, but he looked down at Sherlock in surprise at that. “But you’re under contract.”
“I know, but I…I have the money to buy the contract out, and I don’t want to play anymore. I’ve done everything I meant to do with baseball, and more. I was only ever playing because I couldn’t think of anything better to do. But now I have something better to do.”
John lifted a wry eyebrow. “Me?”
“In the crude sense and the not-crude sense,” answered Sherlock. “I have you now, and I think I was only ever playing baseball in order to find you, so there’s no point to it for me now. I’ll find another hobby and follow you around next season, if you want.”
It was John’s turn to hesitate. He looked back into the fire. “I don’t know. You’d mentioned medical school, and I was thinking… Maybe it’s time for both of us to say good-bye to baseball. Maybe we can never top anything that happened this season, so maybe we shouldn’t try. Maybe we should just relegate it to games of catch when one of us is agitated. Maybe we should find a life for ourselves here.”
“At the hunting lodge?”
“For the last time, Sherlock, this is a bloody palace, not a hunting lodge. But no, not here, we’d both go mad here eventually. In London.”
“You would miss it,” said Sherlock. “It’s a part of you. You love it.”
“I love you more. I’ve always loved you more. And if I miss it, if I’m wrong, then we’ll revisit this topic at this time next year. We’ll come back here to this palace-slash-hunting-lodge and we’ll talk about all of this again. Deal?”
Sherlock considered. “Deal,” he said, and turned back into the fire and settled more comfortably. He was silent for a moment, but John could practically hear the thoughts flying through that busy head of his. “There’s a flat…” he said, finally.
Trust Sherlock to have never been entirely hypothetical in his talk about the London flat they could get. It turned out that he’d had one in mind for a while, that he’d staked it out years ago, when he’d first imagined living in London by himself, but that it was well-suited to two people, and John stood in the middle of 221B Baker Street and had to agree. It looked exactly the way he had pictured their flat to look, the way Sherlock had described it, with the busy wallpaper and the cozy fireplace and the bedroom big enough for a nice-sized bed.
“I never got you anything for your birthday,” said Sherlock, as they stood in the living room together, and he sounded almost shy.
“I told you not to worry about that,” said John.
“I know. But I could buy us this flat.”
John looked at him. “You’re going to buy us a flat as a birthday gift for me?”
“If you like it.” And then Sherlock seemed to backpedal. “Is that not right? I thought it would be… Maybe it wouldn’t… I don’t normally buy presents,” Sherlock admitted.
John felt his heart clench, the way it often did around Sherlock, the way it often did when love surged through him at too severe a rate for his system to process it. Sherlock didn’t normally buy presents, because Sherlock had never had anyone to buy presents for, and, of course, Sherlock was going to start gift-buying at the very top of the heap, with a flat. And who was John to turn him down, when all he was trying to say was I so-much-more-than-love you.
John looked around him and then turned back to Sherlock. “You know,” he smiled, “I think you’re right. I think the wallpaper’s going to grow on me.”
THE END.
[ZOMG.THE. END.] <-- This was a beta comment, but I had to leave it in for you guys.
