***

Sherlock wonders how long he’s been trapped. He can’t even recall why he entered in the first place. Was it to search for something, or was it to escape his own living room? He never leaves - at least unnecessarily - to his Mind Palace if John is present, but perhaps he went out on a date again. If Sherlock isn't playing the violin or performing an experiment to stave off the tedium of John's absence, he tends to walk through this place for a while. The fact that he can’t remember the reason for coming here, is unsettling.

Mycroft has of course taught him everything about the comings and goings, but Sherlock can’t remember if he ever mentioned how to escape his own head if he got stuck. Most likely, it didn’t occur to his brother that it was an option. Mycroft has always had better control of his emotions than Sherlock. He will obviously deny this to his dying day, but inside his mind he can afford to be gracious.

“Are you still here? I’m waiting for you, you know. There’s tea and biscuits.”

John has returned, but he disappears faster than Sherlock can respond.

***

At the end of the corridor is a green sign, which Sherlock supposes is the one he’s been searching for, but when he walks toward it, the sign transforms into a painting. 

The Reichenbach Falls.

It had been a gift from… a client? Or was it some politician? An insignificant detail at this point, obviously. 

The painting gives him the shills; an expression John would use. It is ominous and if he concentrates, he can hear the sound of the grand waterfall.

“John? Where are you?”

Why hasn’t he thought of calling out for the man earlier?

Sherlock contemplates that he might be drugged. Perhaps he isn’t –

“You called,” John says calmly, suddenly standing beside him.

“I did. Thank you for coming. I… I can’t…”

Sherlock is slightly embarrassed to admit that he’s adrift in his own head. 

“Lost, are you?”

“Yes,” Sherlock whispers.

To his horror, he feels a burning sensation in his eyes.

A warm hand slides into his, and the words “come on” are uttered. 

Is John holding his hand? 

Sherlock looks down and sees that they are indeed holding hands. However, this is Mind Palace John, a fictional version of his friend, not the real one.

“Here we are,” John says softly.

They stand before a door which opens a crack. Scents of tea, gingernuts, leather, books, and dust invade Sherlock’s nostrils. There’s also the unmistakable and unique smell that belongs to the man who’s sitting in his chair sipping tea from his RAMC mug – John. The real John. His John.

***

“You’re back,” John says with evident relief and warmth.

Sherlock blinks and nods; his voice seems to be out of order at the moment.

“Come sit. There’s tea and your favourite biscuits,” John coaxes.

Sherlock stands from the sofa and walks over to his chair.

“Did you finish cataloguing?” John asks.

The look on his face is different somehow. More open, fond, and… something else Sherlock is unable to deduce.

Tea first, then – 

“You don’t remember, do you?”

John’s voice is sad all of a sudden.

“What?”

“Why you retreated to your Mind Palace,” John explains.

His voice is still – 

“Oh!”

Images of John cupping his face, kissing him softly on the lips, telling Sherlock that he… loves him.

“Oh,” he repeats.

“Right,” John sighs, “that didn’t go according to plan, I see.”

“John.”

His words elude him, and John seems unable to decipher what Sherlock is trying to convey. 

Action, Holmes.

He steps closer to John’s chair, pries the mug out of his hands, and curls up in John’s lap, mirroring the army doctor’s ministrations from earlier.

“I love you too,” Sherlock whispers after glorious minutes of kissing.

“Thank God! I thought I’d scared you away,” John exclaims, so relieved it nearly breaks Sherlock’s heart.

“Never!” Sherlock says emphatically.

“What took you so long, then?”

“I couldn’t find the correct sign, but then I called out for you. The other you, and he led me back.”

“Clever guy that one.”

“Most definitely no idiot.”

“High praise, love.”

Sherlock hides his blushing face in the crook of John’s neck and wonders if he will ever get used to being called ‘love’. 

He doesn’t say it out loud, but apparently John knows him too well.

“I will repeat it until you believe it, but I will never stop,” John assures him, and that is the best answer Sherlock has ever got in his life.

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Google Ngram Viewer scans thousands of books by publication date to give you a word's popularity across time. You can request information for a range of years, and what corpus you'd like to use (e.g. British or American English). From this you'll learn when a word came into use, when it was most popular, and when the usage fell off. If you're trying to compare synonyms, separate the words by comments in the search box.

For idioms, which are not always dated in a dictionary reference, I often just google it: double down idiom origin. From this search, I learn that it's primarily an American idiom, first noted in 1949, and its original context was the game blackjack. (It's also good to check what the sources are. AI makes too many mistakes; do your own checking.)

My favorite online word reference is Online Etymology Dictionary. It didn't give me any help on double down, but I learned that double trouble dates from 1520, double dip is first attested in 1936, and double-jointed was in use by 1828.

Wiktionary also gives usage information, and contains quite a lot of non-English words.

As for names, my favourite source is Behind the Name. It has sites for first names and surnames that will tell you a name's origin, other people who have that name, variations of it across regions. You can look up names by gender and nationality. There's even a Name Generator, and the beginnings of a Place Names reference.

In addition, it's useful to know what names were popular in what year, so you don't give a character a name that's inappropriate in a given time period. In Behind the Name, click on any name to get popularity graphs by country. Then you won't give an 1895 character a name that wasn't popular until 1985, e.g. Tiffany. Other sites list popular names by era.

I do not deny being a word nerd (1951, U.S. student slang, probably an alteration of 1940s slang nert "stupid or crazy person," itself an alteration of nut).

You may not care of characters in an historical romance are using words that weren't yet in use. I do care. It bugs me when I read a story set in a past era where the characters all talk like American adolescents in 2026.

Unless the characters are all time travellers, of course. Even so, learning the idioms of the era you're travelling to ought to be part of a time traveller's education. That's what authors are, you know. We travel through time.

If you find this helpful, please reblog! 💕 And if you have other resources, please share!