![(Okay, I got more prompts than I expected I would, so not all of these are going to be posted tonight since my net goes off at around 10:20 and it took me half an hour to write this one. Also, quality not guaranteed.)
[[MORE]]Sherlock watches the bees hovering outside the window. They’re heavy with thick, yellow pollen. It clings to their tiny little legs and makes them fly lopsided. Some of them tap against the window as they move from flower to flower. There are thousands of different types of bees. If he were a bee, he’d be a drone bee – they’re male. His mother would be the Queen. Sherlock has a book on bees tucked away up in his room on the shelf. He reads it before bed or when he can’t sleep, sometimes. It was a gift from Mycroft. “Sherlock, you’re not playing,” Nadia says. Nadia would be a worker bee, Sherlock thinks. She buzzes after him, tidies up his messes, scolds him when he’s not doing his chores or when he tracks mud through the house. She’s small and tanned and pretty, with dark hair and big, dark eyes, and his mother doesn’t know his father is sleeping with her. Sherlock isn’t supposed to know, either. “There are bees outside,” he says. He points to the window with his bow. “You can play outside after,” Nadia says. She puts her hands on her hips and says, “You need to practise.” Sherlock sighs. Nadia shuts the curtains. “Bach,” Nadia tells him. She taps the paper on his music stand. She says, “From the top.” ▪ ▪ ▪ August, Sherlock thinks, is a dreadful month. It’s either hot and sticky or rainy and gloomy, the thunderstorms keeping him awake at night, his thin blanket doing nothing to block out the flashes of lightning and the loud rumble. Sherlock counts to ten, under his breath, but the panic doesn’t go away. He wishes Mycroft were here. ▪ ▪ ▪ His mother finds out. Or, rather, she forces Sherlock to tell her. He doesn’t want to, because he doesn’t want anyone to be angry. His mother fires Nadia, screams at her, throws her things onto the lawn, and somehow Sherlock feels it’s his fault. His mother demands a divorce, and demands Mycroft comes home until things are sorted out, and demands Sherlock to behave, for once, please, and Sherlock goes outside in the rain to wait for Mycroft’s car to pull into the drive. ▪ ▪ ▪ When Mycroft steps out of the car, two hours later, Sherlock is soaked to the bone and sniffling. Mycroft sighs, standing over him with a black umbrella. Pointless, Sherlock thinks. “What did you do now?” Mycroft asks. ▪ ▪ ▪ His mother hires another maid. A grumpy, middle-aged woman with three kids and an alcoholic husband who ignores her. She, in turn, ignores Sherlock completely, except when he’s in the way, which seems to be always. “You’re always hovering around me, child!” she snaps at him. “Go away, go do something!” Sherlock scrapes his bow across his violin strings until Mycroft snatches it away from him. “I’ll break this damn thing in half if you don’t stop that,” he snaps. “Fat lard,” Sherlock calls him. Mycroft breaks the bow in half. It snaps like a twig between his hands, still stuck together with the strings. Sherlock feels his stomach sink into his knees, his brain screech to a halt. Then he shouts, kicks Mycroft in the shin, and runs up the stairs. Mycroft doesn’t follow. ▪ ▪ ▪ “I miss father,” Sherlock makes the mistake of saying over dinner one night. His mother sets down her glass of wine and fixes him with a cold, hard stare. Even Mycroft has stopped stuffing his face to glare at him from across the table. “You care too much,” his mother says. “It will only hurt you in the end. Distract you. You’re far too smart for that, Sherlock. Too smart for anyone else. You don’t need him, none of us do. A boy like you doesn’t need anyone else.” Sherlock looks at his plate, at his half-eaten piece of chicken and his mushed green peas. His mother takes another drink, drains the glass, and pours herself another. Holding it in one hand, she lets out a loud sigh and shakes her head. “Caring, my dear, is not an advantage.” ▪ ▪ ▪ 1992, Sherlock decides, is an absolutely awful year. ▪ ▪ ▪ Mycroft doesn’t apologise. Not with words. He takes Sherlock to London and buys him a Cornetto and a new bow for his violin. “I want to live here, one day,” Sherlock says, his face pressed against the window of the car. “I want to live somewhere busy, where there are people always awake, even during the middle of the night.” He wants to press his hand against the brick of the buildings. He wants to feel the pavement under his feet, smell the exhaust and the rubbish and the people, living, breathing, moving together in waves. Somewhere big and vast and full, where there’s always noise, where he won’t feel so lonely when he’s awake at two, at three, at four in the morning. “And may she welcome you with open arms,” Mycroft says.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/8db5c068302e0fef42687a33179f93fd/tumblr_mna48pckS21ratyfvo1_500.png)
(Okay, I got more prompts than I expected I would, so not all of these are going to be posted tonight since my net goes off at around 10:20 and it took me half an hour to write this one. Also, quality not guaranteed.)
Words:
Goal for Year: 150,000
Goal for March: 12,493
Words written in March: About 41,176
Minimum goal for YTD: 37,500
My total for YTD so far: About 61,176.
Stories worked on:
No Rest for the Wicked
There’s Something Living in These Lines
All the Darkest Parts of Us
Untilted collaboration
Stories complete:
There’s Something Living in These Lines
All the Darkest Parts of Us
I’m not including the drabble stories, or my homework assignments - just fic, be it fan or original, since that’s the stuff I enjoy writing. I imagine together with all my assignments I’d probably be closer to 80 - 100,000 words or so. I actually don’t know how many words I’ve written for the collab, but I guessed around 1000. Gdocs isn’t working for me at the moment, of course, so I can’t check for sure. 150,000 this year doesn’t seem unreasonable now.
I wrote “For a Mycroft moment” instead of “For a moment, Mycroft”. I almost don’t want to fix it because it’s making me laugh. (Not as bad as when I wrote a line about Sherlock touching an OC’s shit, when what I meant was “shirt”.)
Finished the first draft. Trying desperately hard to not hate every single one of those 34k+ words. Urgh. But at least it’s done?
![Warning: Banter, no shagging (sorry.)
[[MORE]]“This is dull,” Sherlock says. John snorts. “You’re only saying that because you’re losing.” “I’m not losing,” Sherlock says. “Off with the trousers,” John nods towards Sherlock’s legs. “Ridiculous,” Sherlock grumbles. “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have called me.” Sherlock unzips his trousers and stands up, wriggling them down and stepping out of them, pushing them away as he sits down again. He’s only got his pants and his shirt left, now. John is, of course, completely covered, save for his hideous jumper. “Whose idea was this?” Sherlock asks. “Yours,” John says. “God knows why. For someone who can read people as well as you do, you’re bloody rubbish at poker.” “I am not,” Sherlock says. John smirks and deals. A two and a nine, not suited. Damnit. Sherlock would be good at this if he could just get some bloody decent cards, he thinks. Something, or someone, out there must want him to make a fool of himself. Or possibly get him naked. He pouts. “Oh, what now?” John asks. “I fold,” Sherlock tosses his cards into the center. “You can’t fold!” “I believe I just did,” Sherlock says. John sighs and shakes his head. Then he smiles and glances up at him. Sherlock doesn’t trust that look. “What?” He asks. “I’ll make you a deal,” John says. Sherlock eyes him skeptically. “What?” he asks. “All or nothing,” John says. “You lose, that’s just your shirt and your pants. I lose, all of it has to come off.” “Hmm,” Sherlock says. “Or,” John continues. “You take it all off now, and I’ll tell everyone at the Yard you won.” Sherlock glares at him. “So, either way I end up naked and you sit around the flat feeling smug,” he says. “Something like that.” “You just want me naked,” Sherlock says. John shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.” Sherlock stares at him. John doesn’t even have the decency to blush. Or look away, for that matter. Fascinating, Sherlock thinks. And more than a little bit annoying. The man has no shame what-so-ever. Refreshing, that. “No,” Sherlock says. “I want to play.” “All right,” John says. “You’re going to lose.” Sherlock shuffles the cards and grins. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/d82245cba752412791728b8b2b52be35/tumblr_mna5bcXXR81ratyfvo1_500.png)
