Boomer Vanguard

This is for @someone187 who requested me John giving Sherlock a piggyback ride! But the two end up falling over, on top of each other! Sweet❤️ Yes, the boys are quite tipsy!!

..Hope you like it, dear!;)

And the way each one of them responds is just perfect.  John laughs, genuinely, the tension completely gone from around his eyes and forehead for the first time since he came back to London.  

Sherlock laughs too but then he bites his lip, hesitates for a moment, because this is something new, because friends aren’t his area and he hasn’t asked someone to spend time with him for the simple sake of spending time together, no ulterior motive, no strategy, just wanting to be together, in the most straightforward, literal, sense of the phrase, since probably before adolescence.  

Cover Reveal: Ravenfall by Narrelle M Harris

My lesbian short story Near Miss is due out in July, but even before that’s hit the digital stands, here I come with a new cover reveal!

Ravenfall is a queer, paranormal, erotic romance thriller, set in contemporary London, and published by Clan Destine Press. It’s due out in mid August 2017.

(For those who follow me on AO3, this book is a rewritten adaptation of the Ravenfall fic there, which was written as Epic Besties. This adaptation is a M/M romance, with some explicit scenes.)

Ravenfall

In London, war veteran James Sharpe struggles to come to terms with what he’s become: a vampire. His new lodger, artist Gabriel Dare, is best thing that’s happened to James since his discharge. Or he would be, if James knew whether he was still capable of love. He knows he’s capable of much worse things; the things he fights within himself every day.

Is James a danger to those he cares for? What will happen if Gabriel finds out what James is?

Gabriel, however, has a secret history of his own. And when some of his friends, the subjects of his art, go missing from the streets, a whole nest of secrets and a dangerous plot are revealed: involving a clairvoyant cop, Gabriel’s brother and a host of London’s monsters.

Cover art by Willson Rowe

*

FIC: BANG! Oops.

There are things one should know about the 221B household and perhaps it’s wise to learn them before the explosions, the cackling child, or the shouting.

Yes, that would probably be best.

My medical talents no longer impressed Sherlock Holmes. I had washed the blood of his skin, iced his bruises, and sewn up the gash in his arm, and yet it was my promise to mend the shirt off his back that had him eyeing me with interest.

“You know, I could just… buy another shirt, John,” said he, from beneath the cold compress.

“Yes, certainly,” said I, sitting down in my armchair with the shirt and my sewing kitin hand. “But I forbid you to buy a new shirt for a dockside disguise. You might as well use this one, with my repairs.”

He hummed in agreement, and then asked, “Would you wait to do it?”

“Wait for what?”

“Me,” he said. “To teach me.” He had his hand over his face, keeping the compress in place, but I could tell he was more than casually interested.

“All right,” I said. “Tomorrow, then, when you’re upright.”

“I didn’t know you could sew,” he said, the next night, as I lay the shirt across my knee.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “I gave you stitches two days ago.”

“Yes, but surely this is different,” he protested, covering the bandaged wound with his hand. “What is the extra fabric for?”

“I’m going to patch it,” I said, “not just sew up the cut. The fabric is stronger with something behind it, and this way any tension on the seam won’t rip it open again.”

“Hm,” said he, and put both elbows on the table.

I laid the shirt out and slid the patch inside the sleeve. He was lucky he’d been in his shirtsleeves at the time, for only the shirt had been cut, but perhaps if he’d been wearing a jacket or a coat he might not have been cut down to the skin. I lined up the patch with my fingers. “Now it’s best for the grain of the fabric to match, or when it pulls the fabric will pull in different directions.”

“The grain is the direction the fabric is woven?”

“Yes.” I straightened the cut again and began to pin the patch in place behind the cut. “I’m going to baste it, which means sewing a temporary seam to hold things in place, and then seam the cut to the patch, so that the thread goes through two layers of fabric. Then I’ll sew the patch to the shirt, remove the basting, and then I’ll be done.”

Holmes’s gaze was fixed to my hands. He often turned his attention on me, for the purpose of deduction, but to have it focused on something I was teaching him was quite unusual. I used a red thread to baste, sewing the patch roughly in place, and removed the pins. Then I threaded the needle with white thread and began to work on the cut itself. Holmes watched, rapt, as I pushed the needle through the fabric again and again, drawing the thread taut, and closing the gap.

“Your stitches are so small,” he murmured.

“Holds the fabric tighter,” I replied.

“May I try?”

I handed it over. He held the project awkwardly at first, getting the feel for it, but soon he was emulating my posture and leaning over the stitches to get a close look at them. He mimicked my stitches admirably.

“I was right,” said he, frowning at the work. “This is nothing like sewing up skin.”

“There are similarities,” I said.

“Well, perhaps,” he admitted. The tip of his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth. “There, done.”

“Very nice,” I said.

“Watson, I hope it never goes unsaid that I appreciate your many talents, but this one in particular has me very impressed.”

I grinned at him. “Does it indeed?“

“Very impressed,” he repeated, taking my hand in his and turning it over. His eyes were intent as his fingers skimmed over the callouses on my fingers and the lines on my palm. “I wonder if you’d be willing to delay the second part of the lesson perhaps half an hour, and demonstrate the other things these hands can do.”

“If you insist,” I said.

and john pushes off the wall and goes to sherlock, stands in front of him. you need to calm down, sherlock, he says. he sounds like his doctor self. his soldier self. the way he sounded just inside 221b’s door before Moriarty’s trial all those years before, the quiet authority, ready? before he lead sherlock through the crowd. the quiet authority of just a few weeks ago on the floor of a barracks bathroom, of steven, can you hear me? stay with me. sherlock says, i didn’t know, john, i’m sorry i didn’t see it. and john reaches out one hand, puts it on sherlock’s arm. they don’t touch much in real life but sherlock knows the size of john’s hand, the warmth of his palm. he knows it now. he knows it always.

don’t apologise, john says. i just need for you to be all right sherlock. i know it hurts, i know it does. i got shot too, remember? but i need for you to be all right. and it does hurt, it really hurts, and john is saying breathe, breathe, helping sherlock to his knees so he doesn’t fall down, helping him carefully to the floor. how did you survive it? sherlock asks him. how did you survive the pain? sherlock knows now how it is to be hugged by john, and john hugs him here, too, holds sherlock close to his body, shelters him. he smells like aftershave. his eyes are deep dark blue. i had to, john says, he takes off his cardigan and presses it to the wound in sherlock’s chest. it’s not bleeding, here in the mind palace, but the pressure hurts. i had to survive it so that we could find each other. and you have already left me once, sherlock, and i can’t do it again. do you understand? you do not get to die under my hands again, all right? john takes his face in his hands as sherlock’s heart starts to fail. softer now. we’re losing you, sherlock, and i need you to survive this, okay, i need you to do this with me. are you ready? so breathe. and john kisses his forehead. breathe. john kisses one cheekbone, breathe, and the other. sherlock, right now, okay? right now. are you ready? 

All right, so, first you should probably read this thread here, in which numerous fans have assembled a nearly-comprehensive collection of images and GIFs of either Sherlock Holmes or John Watson or an actor (or animated character) who plays Sherlock Holmes or John Watson wearing the same (or more or less the same) red jacket. This all started with @educatedinyellow and I am so pleased to have this diversion from the utterly repugnant state of my country on the eve of our national independence day, so thank you to everyone who contributed to it.

But of course I cannot just ENJOY the transhistorical persistence of the red jacket, I must ANALYZE it. But since I’m on vacation, I will analyze it in a really sloppy and speculative and not very rigorous way in order to support the conclusions I want. So. What explains the extensive recurrence within the broader Sherlock Holmesosphere of the Red Smoking Jacket?

Robin - Nathan Barley 2005