sherlockbbc_fic | Prompting Part XXXIV

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Prompting Part XXXIV

S3 SPOILER POLICY
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GUIDELINES

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WARNINGS/OFFENSIVE WORDING IN PROMPTS
Please consider warning for prompts that may trigger people (and also for fills, because some people read in flat view) and phrasing prompts in a manner that strives to be respectful.

Things which you might want to consider warning for include: Rape/Non-Con, Death, Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Harm, Underage Relationships, among others.

That being said, this is a kink meme. As such, there will be prompts that could offend you in a number of different ways. Not every prompt will have a trigger warning, and not every prompt will rub you the right way. If you have an issue with a specific prompt, feel free to bring it up in a discussion that takes place off the meme. However, flaming will not be tolerated regardless of origin.

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Please nest your fills. Doing so will make it easier for archivists to save your fills to the Delicious archive. Using subject lines will also help people reading the meme in flatview keep track of what’s happening. Finally, titling your fills (even if it’s something silly) will be helpful to those tracking a lot of prompts or scrolling through the meme.

PROMPT FREEZES
Depending on the rate of activity, there may or may not be a prompt freeze when a part reaches 2000 and 4500 comments. However, there will be one when it reaches 7000. After the 7000 comments freeze, a new part will be posted, and all prompting should happen on the new part.

CONTACTING MODS
Your mods for this meme are

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MEME LINKS
Pinboard Archive - Delicious Archive - Guide to the Archive
Filled Prompts Posts: Parts 1-23 - Parts 24+ - Spoiler Free
The Glorious FAQ - Page-A-Mod

Flat View of This Page - Newest Page in Flatview - Newest Page of the Meme

Love Post - Chatter Post - Searching Post
Concrit Post - Story Announcement Post - Orphan Post
Spoiler Free Prompt Post - Overflow Post

Links to previous prompting parts

OTHER LINKS AND AFFILIATES

sherlock_rant: A place to rant about or discuss anything with few to no restrictions.

sherlock_rpf: This is a kinkmeme for RPF about the show.

sherlockcrit: A multi-fandom betaing/concrit community, with a focus on BBC Sherlock.

sherlockbbc: A community dedicated to the BBC adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.
Useful resources for Sherlock and LiveJournal.
Sherlock screencaps.

NOTICE: All links on the meme are now being screened because of spambot issues. When you submit a comment containing a link, it will be marked as spam. Please don't worry, the mods will unscreen it as soon as they can.

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“Good afternoon, Mary,” Sherlock smiled as the blonde woman opened the door.
“Hello Sherlock,” she said, her face flickering into a smile. Faked.
John stepped up behind her in the doorway.
“Ah, Sherlock, you’re late. Do come in.”
Sherlock stepped through the doorway, noticing that even though John stood right behind his wife, his position didn’t allow them to touch one another. Odd.
“Hello John, how have you been?”
“Fine. Lovely, thanks for asking.” A lie. “How are things at 221B?”
“Boring,” he muttered, eyes scanning the house. The flat was spotless, and not in a I’m-cleaning-for-guests way, in a I’m-bored-out-of-my mind-so-I’ll-deep-clean-everything-I-see kind of way. “Lestrade is incapable of finding me an interesting case, Molly’s out of town for some reason I’ve yet to figure out, and Mrs Hudson is becoming infuriatingly interested in my ‘nasty experiments’ as she calls them.” Lunch was waiting on the table, or at least the first part of it. If the smell lingering in the apartment was anything to go by, they were having shepherd’s pie, and the meal was to be served in courses. Three places had been set, one on either end of the table and on in between the two, on the side. The one in the middle was most likely meant for him, because one of John’s favored teacups was sitting at the far end and the chair at the close end had a cushion on it for pregnant Mary to sit on. He was being placed between the two, like a buffer. But more than that. As Sherlock pulled off his scarf and coat, he noticed that the floor beneath both of the ends of the table was slightly more worn than on the sides – normally not an important detail, save for the fact that both ends were worn in even patterns, meaning that John and Mary sat quite far apart for meals even when he was not here to visit. Yes, something was very wrong here.
Which, if he was honest, was the only reason that he’d come over. Lestrade had actually managed to find him a relatively interesting case, but as soon as Mrs. Hudson had called to tell him that the Watsons were asking him over to lunch and expressed worry over Mary’s “sounding upset about something, like something was the matter”, he knew where he would be spending his afternoon.
“Food’s just about ready,” Mary said cheerfully, mostly faked, “I’ve got shepherd’s pie in the oven, and it should be ready soon. We have crackers and tea to start with.”
“Sounds lovely,” Sherlock smiled down at her, placing a gentle kiss on her cheek as John hung up his coat for him.
As he had suspected, Mary’s reaction to his simple gesture told him everything he needed to know. Her slight flinch of surprise – she wasn’t used to being touched, especially not in a way that implied closeness. Her shaky breath – indicating a stranglehold on her emotions and how close they really were to showing. Closed eyes – wishing it was John kissing her instead of Sherlock.
She looked up at him, eyes filled with apology, and he smiled gently, hand never leaving her shoulder. She knew what he’d read off her.
“I know you’ve been working hard, Mary.” Double connotation, but she caught it. She was sharp as a tack, after all. “Must have taken you a while to do up the place just for me,” he added as he strode into the flat – insurance to throw John off the trail for now. He would bring up the real reason behind his visit at a more opportune moment.
“What makes you think I’ve gone out of my way for the likes of you?” John joked.
Sherlock returned his smile.
“True, I suppose. I’m used to clutter, but Mary must be taking good care of you nowadays.”
“Ah. Y-yes. Yes she is. Tea?” John stumbled through the sentence quickly, turning his back on Sherlock and heading for the teapot on the table, pouring three cups.
Mary’s gaze was focused on the ground when Sherlock glanced in her direction.
“Here you go, Sherlock,” John said, pulling out the middle chair, “You can sit here, next to both of us.”
“How kind of you,” he smiled, offering an arm for Mary and leading her over to the table once her tentative hand had wound its way around his elbow.

He pulled out Mary’s chair for her as John prepared the tea in the way that each of them liked it. Sherlock’s – black, two sugars, Mary’s – cream and two sugars, and his own – cream and no sugar. Handing out the cups, John sat down and addressed Sherlock with a smile that was too broad not to be a little bit forced.
“Any interesting cases as of late?”
“Not particularly, only the usual. Murders, suicides, affairs, kidnappings. Boring,” he intoned, spreading a bit of jam on a cracker and taking a bite as he nodded his head toward John.
“How’s the job going?”
“Good. Ah, good. Yes. There’s some right interesting people that come in.”
John took a quick sip of tea, burning his tongue but trying ever so hard not to show it as he instead focused on the crackers. Sherlock smiled. He should really know better.
A small beeping came from the kitchen and Mary set her teacup down.
“That’ll be the pie. Be back in a moment.”
“Don’t rush on my account,” Sherlock said politely, catching her eye as she stood. Take your time. I need a moment with John, alone.
Mary nodded once, her eyes darting to John briefly, and edged around the corner of the table. Sherlock watched Mary out of the corner of his eye until she had left the room, and then he straightened, turning sharply to John.
“Why are you ignoring her?” he demanded, keeping his voice quiet. John almost choked on his tea, coughing once as he placed the cup down.
“Come again?”
“Mary. Your wife. You are ignoring her. Why.”
“Sherlock, her name isn’t Mary…”
“Does that really matter, Wats-”
“YES, Sherlock, it most certainly DOES matter,” the Doctor cut him off, his words hissed through gritted teeth so the woman in the other room wouldn’t hear.
Not that it would do much good, as Sherlock’s ears caught the slightly higher-pitched squeak of the floorboard near the kitchen doorway. Mary was listening in.
“You don’t seem to grasp the fact that she lied to me, and on top of that she shot you-“
“Don’t be absurd, John, it was a calculated shot.”
“Still! She-” John paused, taking a gulping breath and ducking his head as he realized how much he’d raised the volume of his voice. “She wasn’t supposed to be like that…”
“Yes, how unfortunate,” he drolled, eyes doing another quick visual sweep of the room, “You have managed to find another incredibly intelligent and capable being that wishes only for your protection and happiness. What an inconvenience for you. It is still desperately unfair of you to keep her on like this, though.”

“How do you mean?” John demanded, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.
“Living with you, sharing a bed, sharing your name… If you truly want to divorce her, you should really stop acting like you plan on keeping her around.”
A soft noise of movement from the other room – Mary had backed up a pace. Bad choice of words, Sherlock…
John’s expression flickered, and Sherlock caught his eyes flick in the direction that Mary had just left.
Had he heard her…? No, it was only guilt.
“Sherlock, I am not div-“ his voice cracked, and he closed his eyes as he pushed through the rest of the sentence, “I am not divorcing my wife.”
“Then you should forgive her and be done with it, because what you’re doing to the poor thing right now is cruel.”
“You don’t seem to be getting the point… She lied to me about EVERYTHING. This isn’t the Mary I know, this is some other woman and I know NOTHING about her.”
“Wrong. You do know her. You know she loves you deeply, and that you love her as well, no matter how upset you are,” he made sure these words were spoken at normal volume, so Mary could easily hear them from her post. “You know her personality, what she looks like, who she considers her friends – really, John, what else is there to know?”
“Sherlock, you don’t understand-“
“No, I understand. It is you, John Watson, who does not understand. John, don’t be a fool,” he said more softly, leaning across the table. “Mary loves you, probably more than anything else on this earth, including her own life. She is carrying your CHILD, damnit. Yes, she lied to you but it was to protect you. I’ve done that enough times and you’ve never been mad at me for this long. Show the poor woman some pity, would you? “
John sighed, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.
“Since when are you one to lecture on pity and sentiment?”
Sherlock couldn’t help a small smile.
“Since you started acting like an arse. At least give her some attention, John. She’s convinced that you despise her.”
“What? No! I could never-… Are you just saying that or did you read it off of her?”
“What do you think.”
John pushed his chair back sharply, and Sherlock heard Mary scamper away from the door in the other room. His best friend gave him a glance – apprehensive? confused? Worried. – and then walked sharply toward the kitchen, calling out “Mary, a word with you, please?”
Sherlock waited until John was out of sight, and he could hear the soft mumbling of his voice as he spoke to his wife, before hopping to his feet and darting to the doorway to listen. He caught the end of Mary’s trembling sentence.
“-anted me to leave…”
“Wh- no! No, no, of course not! For God’s sake, Mary I’m not going to send you away…”
Sherlock couldn’t hear what she said next, the words soft and mumbled. There was the sound of ruffling clothes, then John’s voice again.
“Mary, I don’t hate you, I promise...”
A strange, soft sound - given the situation and Mary’s current condition, Sherlock could only assume she was crying.
“Yes, I’m upset that you lied to me, and no, I won’t be able to fully forgive you for quite some time,” John said softly, “but I assure you that I don’t hate you, and I certainly don’t want you to leave.”
His best friend’s voice was slightly muffled, sounding distant, and Sherlock risked a peek around the corner, assured that John was facing away from the door.
The doctor stood on the other side of the room, holding Mary tightly against his chest. Mary had her face buried in his collar, body shaking with each quiet sob that escaped her throat. John’s hand was gently stroking her blonde hair and he was murmuring to her as he rocked her back and forth.

(Previous numbering messed up, this is overflow)
_____________________________________________________________

Allowing a devious smile to cross his features, Sherlock returned to the table, refilling his teacup and firing off a text to Mrs. Hudson:
‘Everything’s fine, problem solved. Now stop fiddling with those test tubes and put my skull back on the mantle. Try not to leave it crooked like last time.’
He turned his phone off so she wouldn’t get the chance to reply until later and focused on spreading jam on another cracker.
It was almost twenty minutes before John came out of the kitchen, carrying a beautifully cooked Shepherd’s pie, and Sherlock saw Mary retreat into the lavatory to wash her face before she came back to the table.
“The pie’s probably gone cold.” John muttered, settling back into his chair and wiping a bit of excess moisture from the brim of his eye in a way that he probably thought was sneaky.
“Well,” Sherlock said, reaching for the knife and shooting John a smile, “As long as it’s the only thing that’s gone cold, I’ll consider my trip a success.”

OMG POOR MARY!!!
Glad to see that Sherlock isn't afraid to nudge John and Mari together the way that she nudges him and Sherlock together. XD

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