Fic: Sherlock: WWJ: Brighten the Stars

[gayalondiel_bak]

Fandom/’Verse: Holmes/Sherlock BBC
Challenge: watsons_woes July prompts challenge
Title: Brighten the Stars
Character: Lestrade, Sherlock, John
Length: Triple drabble
Rating: G
Spoilers: n/a
Warnings: n/a

Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only.

Summary: The night before John goes to Russell Square, three men walk the streets of London.
AN: It’s a triple drabble, but to be more accurate it’s three drabbles, one exactly for each of the boys.

Master prompt post

July 21: Acquainted with the Night - Robert Frost



Three serial suicides.

Lestrade trekked home through the rapidly falling dusk, the press conference playing over and over in his mind. It was nothing short of a nightmare, and Sherlock, damned Sherlock was making things worse. He must be bored. Just a game...

He glanced around, looking at groups laughing, drinking. Couples, small clusters, men and women on their own, slipping in and out of shadows, ducking down alleys to take shortcuts. He felt like yelling at them to have some sense, stay in the light, stay safe.

He turned his collar against the lightly falling rain and trudged on.

***

Sherlock stalked the streets at speed, walking out his frustration at being thrown out of Barts. Tomorrow the mortuary and the riding crop. Tonight he dipped in and out of the pools of light, watching the stars trying to slip past the clouds and sparkle down on the city. Tonight he observed, watching, waiting, looking for the clue that resolved serial suicides into something more insidious and delicious.

He should give thought to the necessity of a flatmate, and maybe around his time at Barts he could spare a moment for that. Tonight he watched the twilit city, and waited.

***

John paced the streets in the midnight black, unwilling to return to his bedsit and his nightmares. He glanced up, wishing there were more stars. Afghanistan had had clear skies, studded with hundreds upon thousands of glittering points. Here in London the stars were veiled, and where they did peek around the clouds there were fewer than he remembered. The whole world was a little duller, a little blunter than it should be.

Tomorrow would be more of the same, and the day after, and after that, in a world where nothing ever happened. Nothing left to brighten the stars.

Comments

[sally_maria]

Oh, this is very good. Three very evocative slices of life which convey their characters as well as their thoughts.

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[methylviolet10b]

Love this. Such a nicely specific slice of time and character for all three of them.

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[ancalime8301]

Ooh, lovely!

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Oh, very nice! Very nice, indeed!

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Oh, very nicely done! I love that you've got all three of them.

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Also, snap!

[scotlandyarder.livejournal.com]

Beautiful, and I especially love your closing lines. Really lovely.

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I learned from the best - rabidsamfan always has killer last lines.

[antesqueluz.livejournal.com]

Really sets the stage. Great snapshots of these characters.

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[irisbleufic.livejournal.com]

That's a fantastic ending line. Lovely trio of scenes!

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm rather proud of these ones.

[marysutherland.livejournal.com]

Now catching up on some of your ones I missed last month. This is very evocative of the three characters. I particularly liked Lestrade's hopeless urge to protect people, and John's last thought.