Sherlock's Adventures in Wonderland, 3/6
Dec. 17th, 2010 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackofknavesTitle: Sherlock's Adventures in Wonderland
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tripatch
Rating: R
Pairing: Gen
Summary: Kinkmeme prompt, Sherlock Through the Looking Glass. It can be literal, with Sherlock ending up in Wonderland and utterly annoyed by the fact that nothing makes sense, or you could take it in some creepy abstract philosophical sense, like he takes drugs and hallucinates.
Prologue
Chapter 1/6
Chapter 2/6
With little else to do, Sherlock hunched his shoulders against the cold and began walking in any direction, the skull’s remarks ringing in his head. It hardly mattered which way he went, he reasoned, as nothing about this made any sense at all. With only a vague direction, he set off along the streets, watching as people took one look at him and scurried the other way.
Around the corners he heard the snatches of children singing nonsense songs, snippets of illogical rhymes reaching his ears. Every time he turned a corner and looked for them, however, there was no one to be found except the vague outlines of chalk of some forgotten game drawn on the pavement. He stepped in one square and was surprised to hear a high-pitched voice shriek at him.
“No, you’re doing it wrong!” the voice declared. He looked to find a small child staring at him petulantly, her sharp elbows thrown out like bird’s wings against her side. She had a hawkish stare and a long beak of a nose that he imagined she would never fully grow into.
“Can I help you?” he said, fully expecting her to disappear with the others.
She ignored him. “Haven’t you ever played before?”
He looked at the ground, examining the pattern of numbers and squares under his feet. “I haven’t,” he admitted. When he was younger, none of the other children ever invited him, and he had better things to do than waste his time with childish games anyhow.
“You’re supposed to step in this square,” she said, standing in the box indicated. She took a step forward, then hopped one backward. “And then this one.”
“Why?” he asked, trying to follow the directions.
“Because that’s what you do,” she said. Her voice was reasonable, as if there were some understood logic to it that he had failed to ascertain. “You play the snake.”
“What are you then?”
“I’m the pigeon, of course,” she tossed her raven-coloured hair over one bony shoulder with a sniff. She wore a purple sweater with a grey design on the front. On her head was a green little knit cap, no doubt given to her by her mum before she went outside.
“Of course,” Sherlock nodded. It was no use arguing with children, he had found, as they seldom listened and even rarer still responded to logic.
“He’s not supposed to be playing at all,” said another voice. Sherlock and the girl turned to find a young boy standing off to the side. He had a pout on his face, lower lip stuck out, and two very large, rheumy eyes dominated his face. His trousers were too large, swamping him and giving him the appearance of a tail rather than two separate legs.
“Where am I supposed to be?” Sherlock asked.
“Not here,” the boy said. “You’re supposed to be at the Met.”
“Why there? Is someone looking for me?”
This strange world had offered no clues of what he was supposed to be doing, or where he was supposed to be, and Sherlock felt oddly obligated to the child for giving him some hint. His own brother had proven less than helpful in that respect, though Sherlock found his hands clutching the umbrella regardless, guarding it like a talisman against the absurdity thrust upon him. The children stared at each other, then giggled and ran off without answering him. He ran after them, but they turned a corner too fast and he found himself jogging along hopelessly. The buildings towered around him on each side, looming with leering faces and black windows for eyes.
Above, the sky finally broke, falling downward. Bits and pieces of clouds fell in a bizarre rainstorm. He held the umbrella aloft, pushing it outward until it expanded. Without warning, he felt the umbrella lifting him above the ground, though his legs stretched to cover the distance. Sherlock cried out in pain as his limbs stretched to accommodate the distance, lengthening impossibly with a faint grind as bones shifted and lengthened. The pain suddenly ceased, leaving him standing at a normal height again, even to the doorways of the buildings.
The first he tried was locked, and the second, and then the third. He eventually stopped trying until he reached the Met, where the door obligingly opened. He hesitated at the threshold, wondering if this was indeed where he was supposed to be, but nothing had stopped him yet, and he very much wanted to meet a familiar face.
Inside was a scattering of papers and files, the desks overturned and the chairs thrown into chaotic disarray. Sherlock picked his way through the debris until he reached Lestrade’s office near the back, where he heard the man shouting indiscernibly and tossing files out of the cabinet, throwing them over his shoulder without looking to see where they fell.
“Lestrade?” Sherlock asked, feeling his foot slip on one manila folder. He righted himself and tried again. “Lestrade?”
The man cursed, ignoring Sherlock entirely, and hurled his stapler against the wall, where it hit right beside Sherlock’s head. Sherlock ducked.
“What are you doing?” he called out, reaching out for the man. Lestrade shook off his arm, mumbling under his breath.
“RATS!” he suddenly shouted, catching Sherlock off-guard. Sherlock backed away, letting the man reach past him for his coat. “All of them! You can scarcely go anywhere without them being there. Scum of the earth and it’s my job to clean them. Detective Inspector, but all I inspect is the sewage of the city.”
“What are you talking about?” Sherlock demanded. The man had never before given any indication he was unhappy with his job or title, seeming to relish in the mysteries handed to him. Though he showed none of the outward excitement Sherlock felt bubbling up within him every time a puzzle called for his expertise, Lestrade showed the same relish of catching a criminal that Sherlock did.
The man brushed past him, running down the stairs and out onto the street, stalking along the pavement while ranting about the crimes committed with alarming regularity. The two children Sherlock had been talking to earlier appeared, joining them as they stalked down the streets in a little parade.
“Lock them all up and throw away the key,
Does no good, they’re out the very next day,
So why waste time in futility?
Kill them all, that’s the only way.”
Sherlock listened to the grotesque little poem with a dim sense of alarm. They passed a young woman pressed against the side of the bridge overlooking the river Thames, oily and slick below them like a running body of ink. The girl was crying helplessly, a runaway by the state of her clothes, and Lestrade reached out, grabbing her by her coat and whirling her around to face him. He shook her roughly, ignoring as she began to cry harder, loud hiccoughing gasping sobs that nearly drowned out the sound of Lestrade’s voice entirely. The two children sat on the ground, playing patty-cake with each other and seemingly unaware of Lestrade's violent outburst above them.
“Lock them all up and throw away the key,
Justice is served, that’s what they say,
So’s the manner of civility,
Kill them all, and throw them all away.”
Pieces of the girl’s attire began falling off under the vigorous shaking, her scarf floating to the ground, her hat falling discarded beside it. Her face was red and wet from her crying, and Lestrade’s grip was tight enough to leave bruises on her arms. Behind him, Sherlock could hear the children giggling and reciting in sing-song to the rhythmic slap of their palms.
“Stop!” Sherlock said, feeling a bit nauseous. He reached forward, pulling Lestrade away from the girl.
“You take her, then,” Lestrade said, pushing the girl forward into Sherlock’s arm with a sneer. He left, calling over his shoulder, “I have some place to be. No time for this nonsense!”
The two children sprang up, following him and escorting him off into the distance someplace.
Sherlock put his hands around the girl’s shoulders, only to find that he was holding only her coat. He dropped it and took a step back, watching the small pile of clothing move until a greasy black face stuck its head out, followed by two beady eyes and a fat little body, then a naked pink tail swishing angrily back and forth. The rat shook off the clothing and ran alongside the bridge, disappearing underneath with an awful chittering noise that sounded like the laughter of a madhouse.
Lestrade had gone, presumably to get ready to wherever it was he was supposed to be, and Sherlock was left alone standing on the edge of the bridge. He heard a cough and looked up to find his skull looking at him from the braces above. Sherlock tilted his head and stared at the thing smiling at him good-naturedly.
“Where am I supposed to go now, then?” he asked it.
The skull grinned at him. “Oh, anywhere you’d like.”
“Well, who else is here?”
The skull turned and nodded its ivory bones to the South. “In that direction,” the skull indicated, “lives a Hatter. And in that direction,” he nodded to the North, “is an October Hare. It doesn’t matter which you visit. They’re both quite insane.”
"I don’t want to visit any more insane people,” Sherlock complained.
The skull tilted its eyeless sockets back and laughed. “That can’t be helped.”
“Why not?”
“I told you already, we’re all mad here. Even you.”
“I’m not insane,” Sherlock protested. “I’m the only sane person in this crazy place!”
The skull head tilted and stared at him as best it could without eyes. “Are you quite sure?”
“Yes,” Sherlock replied, though his voice was less certain than he meant it to be.
“Then whatever are you doing here?” The skull suddenly fell down into the river, hitting the water without even a splash. Sherlock leaned over the railing, watching it fall, but was surprised to hear its voice again above him a moment later. He looked up to find it sitting among the braces once again.
“What happened to the little girl?”
“She turned into a rat,” Sherlock answered truthfully.
The skull nodded. “I thought she might.”
It began to fade quite slowly and disconcertingly, fading into the background like a mirage shimmering in the desert, until all that was left of it was its awful human grin of yellow teeth. Sherlock, who had never felt anything but affection toward the skull, shuddered, feeling as though its sightless eyes were still staring at him from somewhere he could not see.
“I’ve seen a skull with a grin before,” he remarked to nobody in particular, “but this is the first time I have seen a grin without a skull.”
He looked to both directions his ersatz guide had indicated, finally deciding on the South.
Chapter 4/6
Chapter 5/6
Chapter 6/6
Author:
tripatchRating: R
Pairing: Gen
Summary: Kinkmeme prompt, Sherlock Through the Looking Glass. It can be literal, with Sherlock ending up in Wonderland and utterly annoyed by the fact that nothing makes sense, or you could take it in some creepy abstract philosophical sense, like he takes drugs and hallucinates.
Prologue
Chapter 1/6
Chapter 2/6
With little else to do, Sherlock hunched his shoulders against the cold and began walking in any direction, the skull’s remarks ringing in his head. It hardly mattered which way he went, he reasoned, as nothing about this made any sense at all. With only a vague direction, he set off along the streets, watching as people took one look at him and scurried the other way.
Around the corners he heard the snatches of children singing nonsense songs, snippets of illogical rhymes reaching his ears. Every time he turned a corner and looked for them, however, there was no one to be found except the vague outlines of chalk of some forgotten game drawn on the pavement. He stepped in one square and was surprised to hear a high-pitched voice shriek at him.
“No, you’re doing it wrong!” the voice declared. He looked to find a small child staring at him petulantly, her sharp elbows thrown out like bird’s wings against her side. She had a hawkish stare and a long beak of a nose that he imagined she would never fully grow into.
“Can I help you?” he said, fully expecting her to disappear with the others.
She ignored him. “Haven’t you ever played before?”
He looked at the ground, examining the pattern of numbers and squares under his feet. “I haven’t,” he admitted. When he was younger, none of the other children ever invited him, and he had better things to do than waste his time with childish games anyhow.
“You’re supposed to step in this square,” she said, standing in the box indicated. She took a step forward, then hopped one backward. “And then this one.”
“Why?” he asked, trying to follow the directions.
“Because that’s what you do,” she said. Her voice was reasonable, as if there were some understood logic to it that he had failed to ascertain. “You play the snake.”
“What are you then?”
“I’m the pigeon, of course,” she tossed her raven-coloured hair over one bony shoulder with a sniff. She wore a purple sweater with a grey design on the front. On her head was a green little knit cap, no doubt given to her by her mum before she went outside.
“Of course,” Sherlock nodded. It was no use arguing with children, he had found, as they seldom listened and even rarer still responded to logic.
“He’s not supposed to be playing at all,” said another voice. Sherlock and the girl turned to find a young boy standing off to the side. He had a pout on his face, lower lip stuck out, and two very large, rheumy eyes dominated his face. His trousers were too large, swamping him and giving him the appearance of a tail rather than two separate legs.
“Where am I supposed to be?” Sherlock asked.
“Not here,” the boy said. “You’re supposed to be at the Met.”
“Why there? Is someone looking for me?”
This strange world had offered no clues of what he was supposed to be doing, or where he was supposed to be, and Sherlock felt oddly obligated to the child for giving him some hint. His own brother had proven less than helpful in that respect, though Sherlock found his hands clutching the umbrella regardless, guarding it like a talisman against the absurdity thrust upon him. The children stared at each other, then giggled and ran off without answering him. He ran after them, but they turned a corner too fast and he found himself jogging along hopelessly. The buildings towered around him on each side, looming with leering faces and black windows for eyes.
Above, the sky finally broke, falling downward. Bits and pieces of clouds fell in a bizarre rainstorm. He held the umbrella aloft, pushing it outward until it expanded. Without warning, he felt the umbrella lifting him above the ground, though his legs stretched to cover the distance. Sherlock cried out in pain as his limbs stretched to accommodate the distance, lengthening impossibly with a faint grind as bones shifted and lengthened. The pain suddenly ceased, leaving him standing at a normal height again, even to the doorways of the buildings.
The first he tried was locked, and the second, and then the third. He eventually stopped trying until he reached the Met, where the door obligingly opened. He hesitated at the threshold, wondering if this was indeed where he was supposed to be, but nothing had stopped him yet, and he very much wanted to meet a familiar face.
Inside was a scattering of papers and files, the desks overturned and the chairs thrown into chaotic disarray. Sherlock picked his way through the debris until he reached Lestrade’s office near the back, where he heard the man shouting indiscernibly and tossing files out of the cabinet, throwing them over his shoulder without looking to see where they fell.
“Lestrade?” Sherlock asked, feeling his foot slip on one manila folder. He righted himself and tried again. “Lestrade?”
The man cursed, ignoring Sherlock entirely, and hurled his stapler against the wall, where it hit right beside Sherlock’s head. Sherlock ducked.
“What are you doing?” he called out, reaching out for the man. Lestrade shook off his arm, mumbling under his breath.
“RATS!” he suddenly shouted, catching Sherlock off-guard. Sherlock backed away, letting the man reach past him for his coat. “All of them! You can scarcely go anywhere without them being there. Scum of the earth and it’s my job to clean them. Detective Inspector, but all I inspect is the sewage of the city.”
“What are you talking about?” Sherlock demanded. The man had never before given any indication he was unhappy with his job or title, seeming to relish in the mysteries handed to him. Though he showed none of the outward excitement Sherlock felt bubbling up within him every time a puzzle called for his expertise, Lestrade showed the same relish of catching a criminal that Sherlock did.
The man brushed past him, running down the stairs and out onto the street, stalking along the pavement while ranting about the crimes committed with alarming regularity. The two children Sherlock had been talking to earlier appeared, joining them as they stalked down the streets in a little parade.
“Lock them all up and throw away the key,
Does no good, they’re out the very next day,
So why waste time in futility?
Kill them all, that’s the only way.”
Sherlock listened to the grotesque little poem with a dim sense of alarm. They passed a young woman pressed against the side of the bridge overlooking the river Thames, oily and slick below them like a running body of ink. The girl was crying helplessly, a runaway by the state of her clothes, and Lestrade reached out, grabbing her by her coat and whirling her around to face him. He shook her roughly, ignoring as she began to cry harder, loud hiccoughing gasping sobs that nearly drowned out the sound of Lestrade’s voice entirely. The two children sat on the ground, playing patty-cake with each other and seemingly unaware of Lestrade's violent outburst above them.
“Lock them all up and throw away the key,
Justice is served, that’s what they say,
So’s the manner of civility,
Kill them all, and throw them all away.”
Pieces of the girl’s attire began falling off under the vigorous shaking, her scarf floating to the ground, her hat falling discarded beside it. Her face was red and wet from her crying, and Lestrade’s grip was tight enough to leave bruises on her arms. Behind him, Sherlock could hear the children giggling and reciting in sing-song to the rhythmic slap of their palms.
“Stop!” Sherlock said, feeling a bit nauseous. He reached forward, pulling Lestrade away from the girl.
“You take her, then,” Lestrade said, pushing the girl forward into Sherlock’s arm with a sneer. He left, calling over his shoulder, “I have some place to be. No time for this nonsense!”
The two children sprang up, following him and escorting him off into the distance someplace.
Sherlock put his hands around the girl’s shoulders, only to find that he was holding only her coat. He dropped it and took a step back, watching the small pile of clothing move until a greasy black face stuck its head out, followed by two beady eyes and a fat little body, then a naked pink tail swishing angrily back and forth. The rat shook off the clothing and ran alongside the bridge, disappearing underneath with an awful chittering noise that sounded like the laughter of a madhouse.
Lestrade had gone, presumably to get ready to wherever it was he was supposed to be, and Sherlock was left alone standing on the edge of the bridge. He heard a cough and looked up to find his skull looking at him from the braces above. Sherlock tilted his head and stared at the thing smiling at him good-naturedly.
“Where am I supposed to go now, then?” he asked it.
The skull grinned at him. “Oh, anywhere you’d like.”
“Well, who else is here?”
The skull turned and nodded its ivory bones to the South. “In that direction,” the skull indicated, “lives a Hatter. And in that direction,” he nodded to the North, “is an October Hare. It doesn’t matter which you visit. They’re both quite insane.”
"I don’t want to visit any more insane people,” Sherlock complained.
The skull tilted its eyeless sockets back and laughed. “That can’t be helped.”
“Why not?”
“I told you already, we’re all mad here. Even you.”
“I’m not insane,” Sherlock protested. “I’m the only sane person in this crazy place!”
The skull head tilted and stared at him as best it could without eyes. “Are you quite sure?”
“Yes,” Sherlock replied, though his voice was less certain than he meant it to be.
“Then whatever are you doing here?” The skull suddenly fell down into the river, hitting the water without even a splash. Sherlock leaned over the railing, watching it fall, but was surprised to hear its voice again above him a moment later. He looked up to find it sitting among the braces once again.
“What happened to the little girl?”
“She turned into a rat,” Sherlock answered truthfully.
The skull nodded. “I thought she might.”
It began to fade quite slowly and disconcertingly, fading into the background like a mirage shimmering in the desert, until all that was left of it was its awful human grin of yellow teeth. Sherlock, who had never felt anything but affection toward the skull, shuddered, feeling as though its sightless eyes were still staring at him from somewhere he could not see.
“I’ve seen a skull with a grin before,” he remarked to nobody in particular, “but this is the first time I have seen a grin without a skull.”
He looked to both directions his ersatz guide had indicated, finally deciding on the South.
Chapter 4/6
Chapter 5/6
Chapter 6/6
