Sadly, this year everyone will be missing 221B Con.

So now more than ever, we need to brush the dust off and get busy here at 221B-Consolation.

This year, I’ve received suggestions to give the fest some charity-fundraising channels to help people affected by COVID-19 - but to do this without excluding people who might be in too precarious a position to donate themselves.

Let’s brainstorm this! We can do it!

Hi Nonny!

No! It’s for everybody!! It was essentially unofficially established as a “weekend for people who can’t make it to 221B Con in Atlanta”. It’s basically a time when people create fandom content to make people who can’t make it to Con feel loved and welcome and happy. And because NO ONE can make it this year, @221b-consolation is definitely needed this weekend!! <3 

Written for the @221b-consolation fest. This one’s for @khorazir, who prompted: Johnlock at some kind of weird convention for a case.

This one’s set some time in S1, I’d say, or maybe early S2.

There was a particular odour to aged paper—a brittle, musty smell—and it hung heavy in the cramped little room.

 Several rows of folding tables had been arranged into makeshift aisles, each topped with odd little displays. There were piles of sports memorabilia and crates of old records, dusty comic books with brittle yellowed pages encased in plastic sleeves.

 It had been billed as a memorabilia and collectible convention, although John thought calling it a convention was being particularly generous.

 Some of the vendors had taken more care with appearances than others, he noted. They'd arranged their collections in pleasing displays, noted prices on colourful signs. It was a sharp contrast to the other tables, which teemed with intimidating and poorly-defined piles.

You want something? Dig for it, the proprietor's expression—at once smug and disinterested—seemed to say.

 And people were digging. Crowded close together in the aisles, perusing boxes and crates and piles. A self-contained treasure hunt, albeit one without any kind of map.

 "Don't stare," Sherlock said, looking vibrant and magnetic and entirely out of place in the musty room with its air of stale cigarette smoke and clinging dust. "I need to get close. Act busy."

 Sherlock brushed past him in the narrow aisle, heading towards a table groaning under the weight of several crates of records.

 John, obligingly, turned to the nearest table and began riffling through the first box he saw. Which turned out to be American baseball cards.

 Great.

 Well, he'd committed to it now. Had to act interested.

 He squared his shoulders, settled in, continued flipping through the cards. The vendor watched him with mild interest, shifting to lean forward. His aging chair creaked.

 Out of the corner of his eye, John noted Sherlock circling around the tables against the far wall.

 Card after card after card, bland smiling faces in baseball caps, strangers to him. He kept his expression carefully neutral, hoped he gave off the air of a man on the hunt for something valuable and rare.

 And then—

 And then he wasn't breathing. He was no longer idly browsing in a dingy basement somewhere in London—a dingy basement he'd paid five quid to enter—he was in Afghanistan, squinting in the sunlight and laughing at something one of his mates had said.

 It had been deceptively calm, the day he'd been shot. The sun had been bright.  There had been a slight breeze coming out of the east. There had been laughter, and then there had been chaos. Just like that.

 "Friend of yours?" Sherlock asked, his voice close and quiet.

 John jumped, regardless. He was pinching the edge of the baseball card between his fingers. His knuckles had gone white.

 The man on the card was a stranger to him, but his face was familiar. And the name.

 "No," John said, and cleared his throat. "Well. Not exactly."

 Sherlock looked at him, said nothing. He stood far too close, made no attempt to move away.

 "Just. In Afghanistan. There was an American soldier. A kid, really. Got to know him a bit." He glanced at Sherlock, read neither interest nor disinterest in his mild expression. "He told us his dad had played pro ball, a few years back. Never got famous or—just—not one of those names you read in the papers. Just. Played ball, until he blew out his knee."

 John tapped the card. Shrugged.

 "Just. Didn't expect to ever—" he cleared his throat again. "This is him, obviously."

 "What happened to his son?" Sherlock asked.

 John resisted the urge to reach up and touch his shoulder, to run his fingers along the ruined skin there, to soothe a phantom ache. He saw Sherlock notice, regardless.

 "Ah," Sherlock said. He looked uncertain, for a moment. His brow furrowed.

 John looked away. He did not know why he'd shared any of that. He set the card down on the table.

 "John," Sherlock said.

 He sniffed, looked up.

 "You'll want to stand near the door."

 "Right," John said, grateful for the chance to escape with his dignity intact.

 He went towards the exit, leaned against the wall. Waited.

 Sherlock wound through the aisles, back over to the display of records and music memorabilia. Spoke quietly to the vendor, who nodded, stooped to fetch something from beneath the table.

 Sherlock leaned over to examine it.

 And then—his entire demeanor changed. He was no longer an interested customer, but the cool, aloof consulting detective.

 "A word of advice," Sherlock said, his voice loud enough to carry clear across the room. "If you are seeking to sell off valuable records stolen from your ex-wife's collection, you might want to consider using a middleman. You were shockingly easy to track down."

 Predictably, the man bolted. John caught him easily at the door, impressed—as ever—to see police coming down the stairs with near perfect timing.

 He turned to grin over his shoulder at Sherlock, received an answering smile.

 It was only much later, when the laughter and adrenaline had faded and Sherlock had retired to bed leaving John in front of the telly in a too-quiet flat that he remembered the baseball card.

 "Shit," he said, softly, to himself. He'd have liked to have it. It had felt strangely fated, that card pinched between trembling fingers. The smiling, sun-worn face of a man whose son John had once tried, and failed, to save.

 He turned off the telly, went up the stairs to his room. Flipped on the lamp next to his bed, started to turn down the duvet, stopped.

 There, on the bedside table, was the card.

 John reached out, picked it up. Thought of that fleeting, uncertain look on Sherlock's face as they'd stood near the table. He must have circled back, purchased it while John had been speaking with the police.

 John set the card back on the table, sat down on the bed. He brought his right hand up to his left shoulder, squeezed. Thought again of Sherlock, who so liked to let those around him believe him heartless, who in actuality was anything but.

 "Thank you," he said, out loud, to his empty room. He looked at his door.

 There was a creak on the stairs. A furtive sound. It might have just been the sound of an old building settling, but he didn't think so.

We had so much fun last year: https://221b-consolation.tumblr.com/

This is a quick-and-dirty fic and art fest to console people who cannot attend 221B Con. Last year’s was a big success, keeping people entertained and distracted during Con weekend, and continuing to produce works throughout April.

Last year’s AO3 Collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/221B_Consolation_2018

Here’s my offering for @221bconsolation! A Podfic of the lovely @chriscalledmesweetie‘s The Big BAMF John!

This ended up being sort of a Flash Podfic… so I hope you all enjoy!

(also real drabbles are surprisingly hard?)

Prompt: trying on each other's clothes  

“I look like a git.”

“Quite right.”

“Hey,” protested John. Sherlock wasn't supposed to agree so readily.

Sherlock growled absentmindedly, still studying himself in the mirror.

His arms extended for miles past John's cuffs, his narrow chest swimming in the excess room. His abdomen peaked rebelliously from where the short shirt exposed his porcelain skin.

John, on the other hand, was far too short to fit the length of Sherlock's clothes yet to stocky for anything to be comfortable.

“We both look ridiculous,” Sherlock said finally.

“Yes, we do.”

“Go to our bedroom and remove it all?”

“Oh God, yes.”

Prompt: stealing a kiss on a case 

The breeze rifles between them, a gentle pressure, nudging pressure to take one step closer toward Sherlock. John is seconds away from succumbing, his entirety craving his touch.

Sherlock stops and whirls to face John. His brilliant eyes are focused with an intensity that stirs John's insides. Oh, to be the subject of that focus.

He can't take it anymore. His beauty, his incredible mind- How could he be expected to continue resisting?

I’ll be participating in 221B-Consolation as an artist this year. For more information on what that is, click here or visit @221b-consolation.

I’m offering three slots for art prompts for quick b/w sketches. If there are more than three prompts, I’ll choose the ones I like best. You can send me ideas and suggestions until Thursday 4th April, and I’ll create the artworks Friday and Saturday.

The topic is going to be:

Johnlock goes to Con