34Disclaimer: As mandatory with these things, I have to say upfront I do not own Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the characters therein nor the places or plot events spoken of. That all belongs to Guy Ritchie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, their benefactors, etc. etc.
A/N: Ah yes, another fic started by yours truly. I'd sweep a bow, but...then again, you all can't see me anyway. Still, it is I, PhantomProducer, with another little fic idea. This particular fic will remain open to a myriad of prompts and ideas, alternate story lines, and the like. And these prompts and ideas will include characters from the films, some nods to the original books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and my own characters from my other Holmes fanfiction. If you need clarification on the character Madeline or anyone unfamiliar, you can go to my fanfictions entitled Blood Bond and His Home for a frame of reference. If clarification of the prompt/idea needs to be done, it will be listed in future author notes.
If anyone has a prompt idea they would like to read about, just let me know in a review/PM. Thanks!
Ok, we all got that? Alright we can move ahead now...time to press on.
First Prompt: Playlist Prompt (when I didn't know the artist, I listed the show the song was from). Enjoy and review, please!
Rules:
1. Pick a character, fandom, pairing, friendship, whatever.
2. Put your music on shuffle/random and start playing songs.
3. For each song, write something inspired by the song related to the theme you chose earlier. No pre-planning and no writing after the song is over. No skipping songs, either.
4. Do 10 songs and post. Be sure to include the song/artist.
1. Anytime You Need a Friend – The Beu Sisters
Sherlock Holmes is his own man. Has been since the age of twelve, when his father left him and his mother behind and his mother exhibited the madness that accompanied emotion. Even before that, he has been alone, labeled as "the strange boy" or "Him". It never mattered that he has a brother seven years his senior. He never truly needed others, anyway, he has told himself. He had his logic and intelligence, his coolness and centered peace of mind. He kept himself company, freeing his mind trailing elusive facts and obvious clues, passing the time and driving away the licks of madness that at times would appear.
But at what cost is he his own man?
He asks himself this many times as he bends to work over the chemistry set at Cambridge, alone and avoided by his colleagues. A fledgling detective, a somewhat-off-kilter mind that depends on himself. He has barely any family, not that he minds, truly he doesn't…and friends…
A friend.
Someone who could be there in the most frightening situations, catch you when you've fallen, someone who would still be there, no matter the cost.
He snorts, tapping the beaker before him. He's never known the elusive comfort of a fellowship or camaraderie…no matter. He's his own man.
He hears a tapping at the door. Two stomping pairs of feet, one assisted by a cane and struggling to walk at all. Intriguing, he thinks. Holmes looks up…
"Sherlock Holmes, this is John Watson. He is looking for some rooms in the City, like you."
…And he sees a friend.
2. Shy Girl – O-Town
His heart beats rapidly in his chest as he looks across the room at the young lady pressed against the back wall of the cotillion. John Watson has never seen someone as…lovely as this woman. Golden red hair, sweet freckled face, angled chin and flushed skin. Her grey eyes flick over at him, and he cannot help himself. Rather than tarry to listen to Holmes backhandedly compliment the hosts, old clients who wished to thank him for his hard work, Watson moves fluidly over the floor, to her corner. Her mermaid beauty, her siren's song of the eyes, draw him in.
'Please don't run away,' he cries in his mind when she looked up again and shot him a glance of pure shock. Effectively he takes his final steps, the cane heavy in his hands and his tongue fumbling in his mouth.
"H-hullo," he manages, and she smiles, relieved to know she's not the only one who can be shy.
3. Stand – Rascal Flatts
A single candle flickered in the darkness, the last witness to Sherlock's hasty blood ritual performed in the Punch Bowl. The man in question was hunched on his makeshift bed of sheets and chairs, half-asleep and half not, nearly burned out himself. He'd been pushed to the limits because this case, enduring everything from personal humiliation to the near-death of his only friend. He'd been wrestled, arrested, pushed down and thrown aside, all to catch Blackwood. Driven to the brink of despair and back again, with Adler and her employer breathing proverbially down his neck, he felt split and torn, and he only felt it appropriate at this point in the juncture that he'd fallen so gracelessly so many times the past few days.
But for every time he'd fallen, he'd gotten back up, shaking it off and going on. It was his job, it was his life.
Mary said to solve this, whatever it took.
It would take more than a madman to stop him from standing, especially since he was so close to the answer. Now all he had to do was wake up from the stupor he put himself in…
4. If I Can't Love Her – Beauty and the Beast
Holmes winced as he recognized the biting truth of the words Irene had half mumbled when he cast her out. When he refused her a second time. When he was leaving to check on Madeline and discover why she ran from him and everyone at the fencing demonstration.
"You'll never love."
It was true that he was cold as a block of ice and turned away from emotion as one would turn his or her back on a plague victim. But it was not an aversion of women as an entirety…it was a form of fear, a fear of letting down the defenses and allowing another to see him as he truly was.
It was why Irene failed in convincing him to chasing after her, why his pain was his and his alone.
But then he met Madeline. Stubborn, loving, strong-willed, block-headed Madeline. A true friend, a mothering figure, a good, strong light in a dark world, his dark world. Oh dear, he was waxing lyrical again, that would never do.
Fear gripped him again, but this time he could not ignore the emotions roiling under the surface. He pretended they weren't there, that his feelings would remain unresolved for both their sakes.
After all, he could not love her, he thought.
'But if I can't love her,' he pondered, throwing on his overcoat and stepping out into the blistering cold December night, 'then who?'
5. Trainwreck – Demi Lovato
"Odds are, my dear, that inevitably we may separate and therefore no longer be friends after this…endeavor." His mouth forms the words, but his brown eyes glint with hidden humor and hope that he is wrong.
"Is that so?" She laughs, shaking her head and tossing her light brown locks. Running a hand along the sideboard, she picks up a small bottle. "What medication is this now?"
"None that I take, and do not attempt to change the subject." He plucks it out her hand, but does not leave her side.
"Just curious, and I never said I was changing the subject. I simply am not inclined to agree with you at the moment."
"But…I must posit that we may not…perhaps…"
"And why wouldn't we?"
Sherlock lists his bad habits: the cocaine, the addiction to solving puzzles, the thrill of the macabre, the danger of his work, and his bad habit of hurting those he cared for because he (shockingly) cared about them. He cites that the facts stack up against him. After his speech, he is, for once, surprised to find her pressing a kiss against a corner of his mouth.
"You're one of a kind, a mad, pig-headed, train wreck of a man." Madeline winks at him, her green eyes flashing with something deeper than plain affection as she does so. Unfortunately (for his logical mind, at least), he feels his heart and hope swell.
"I wouldn't love you if you changed. If you change, then…perhaps, your theory may be fact."
6. At This Moment – Michael Bublé
At her heart-breaking news (or so she thought at least, given how attached he'd gotten to her over the course of the past few months), Irene Adler was somewhat surprised to see nothing of grief or anger in Sherlock Holmes' face. He continued righting his clothing, maneuvering off the bed and away from her, with the blankest face she'd ever seen.
"Sherlock, did you not hear me? I am to be married in the fall. October."
He inclined his head, blinking and shrugging as he adjusted his trousers. "I heard you well, madam. I also have read the society pages and knew of this fact three days ago. I would certainly be remiss if I stopped reading the paper, no matter how I occupy the majority of my time."
"But, I thought-"
"What?" He buttoned his shirt, retrieving his waistcoat. "What did you think I would do at this moment?"
His brown eyes locked onto Irene, her body wrapped in a sheet and her mouth gaping unbecomingly.
"Did you think I would hate you, raise my hands to you? Hmm, I thought you knew me better than that," Sherlock remarked bitterly. "I would never harm an innocent person…"
The corners of his eyes crinkled in a flash of temper, the only indication of his feelings on the matter.
"Intentionally. You've made your decision; I will…respect it."
The barb went straight into her heart, but Irene would not admit to feeling it anymore than Holmes would.
"Very well. This is to be the last time we will meet in this capacity."
"Agreed."
Once he was fully dressed and out the door, Holmes felt the kick to his heart and had to press himself against the wall to not lose his footing.
"I will miss you…" he croaked, his throat constricting for the smallest moment, before he swallowed and somehow found his way out of the Grand Hotel, back home to Baker Street, Watson…and his loneliness.
7. Story of Chess – Chess
He'd retired from the ballroom, determined to make his last stand against Moriarty away from the public eye. Wincing, he adjusted the decorative strap across his shoulder to lessen the pain from his injury. Idly his hand brushed across the chess table set out before him, taking in the colors of the pieces.
Each time one played the game of chess, the variations changed, mistakes from the last were rectified in the next. Moves over time had changed, the pieces changed names, but the story of chess remained as ever it had.
Holmes picked up a queen. One woman came between two men, one mother between two sons if the original myth of chess was true. Two ambitious men, set on taking back the world they kept stealing from one another. Once one son died, the queen was outraged at the winner. Grieved, the son used the game of chess to explain how the final battle took place.
And throughout the hundreds of years since its introduction, the game had come to explain thousands of other battles. Every final battle, every move by rook, knight, and pawn would explain how the rival king had brought the other to his knees in checkmate.
Holmes set the queen back on her square, and waited in the bitter cold. The simplest and most complicated pleasure of the game came in showing how you have bested your opponent. White king against black king. Dark against light. Right against wrong.
Game on.
8. Diva's Lament – Spamalot
Irene looked up from her script, annoyed. When she'd agreed to take the role, she wasn't exactly aware how little she apparently was on stage. Her frown deepened as she read on. Damn those producers, giving her bit roles!
And people wondered why she was driven to theft and seduction as a way sustaining herself.
She noticed she was in quite a bit of the first act, which was in her favor, but oh the second act…atrocious! This would not do…she bit her lip, frowning. Perhaps she could take it up with the producers, speak and flatter her way into a better role. She couldn't believe this insult, this slight. Or perhaps Sherlock could give her some evidence to use against them into finagling a greater role.
No, she reminded herself he and Watson were off on some escapade or another. Said something about topiary or whatever…if he wanted some bushes, far be it from her to tell the great Sherlock Holmes couldn't have his bushes.
She may not have been the most popular actress around, but she knew she was better than what they were offering. Sighing, she set down the script.
It was time to talk with Davies, her acting agent, into finding her truly good parts from now on.
9. All I Do is Dream of You – Michael Bublé
John Watson, doctor and friend of Sherlock Holmes, was slowly becoming intolerable.
Holmes began to notice first the tiny smile that cropped up on his mustachioed friend's lips at odds moments of the day. His blue eyes became unfocused and distant, indicating his having entered his daydreams momentarily. Sherlock could only surmise that Watson was caught up morning, noon, and night thinking about his new lady-love…what was her name? Mary, that was right.
And he was right. John was dreaming of pretty, vivacious, quick Mary. So much so that his attention to everything else was slipping. He envisioned her coming to him, tell him she loved him, and he thought of what he'd say back to her…just as his hand let his cane drop and Sherlock Holmes stumbled over it.
Yes, his constant dreaming of her was verging on ridiculous, and needed to be remedied. Immediately.
"Just court the lady already, for God's sake," Holmes told him brusquely as he rose. And unwittingly he set Watson's secret plans into motion. And thus, he realized later, it was his fault that it had all happened at all.
10. Til I Hear You Sing – Andrew Lloyd Webber
Madeline feels her soul cracking this night, as she looks upon the violin and plucks it absently in the darkness.
It has been four months since the death of Holmes, her good friend, her…love.
Hazily she counts the days on her calendar, in a weak attempt to keep herself awake. For when she sleeps, she sees his face. She sees him, the brooding, calculating, devious man. A man with a good heart buried under layers of cynicism and harshness. She dreams of their brief times together, of a dear future they would never have. She always wakes reaching out to him, her fingers slipping through him and into the dark.
Her heart has never stopped aching since she's learned the truth of his death at Reichenbech Falls. He'd gone over the edge with Moriarty…into crashing oblivion.
She hits a sour note on the strings, and recalls how beautifully he used to play. Granted, he played mostly when stuck trying to think of solutions to solving a crime, but he was so very good on the violin. She misses his music, his determination…just him entirely.
She does not want to retain her hopes and dreams of him and with him. What use are they really? They are preventing her, in a very small way, from moving on and getting over what could never be. He is gone, gone forever. The hopes and dreams are useless without him to be there for them.
Resolutely she sets the instrument down and turns away, wrestling her emotions down deep into her body. She would forget, she would get on, has already taken steps to continue her survival and life.
This night, though, she still wishes she could hear him once more.