Day 4 (Team July)

[kerravonsen]

Yes, I'm butting in here to post, because it's evening of the 4th here, and there is no post! So join me in the boasting progress reports and encouragement for this day's creative work!

Comments

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Very close to the conclusion now...

***

“They weren’t dreams,” John says quietly, his fingers flexing. “You promised not to drug me again.” John curls forward. “No. You promised not to be wrong again. I knew it.” John shifts his knees apart, drops the couple inches to the floor, slowly straightens his legs and presses in with them from either side. “I know I’ve threatened to kill you.” John takes a deep breath. “Don’t let me have done it.” He frees his left hand, begins rubbing circles again. “Don’t.” John hunches his right shoulder and rocks more to the left as he leans forward. “I don’t care what you’ve done. To me, to anyone. I don’t care. I forgive it all, everything. Just don’t be dead.”

There’s a vibration under his hand, against his cheek. John’s fingers dig in.

“Ev’rything?” The sound is more croak than word, but John understands it.

“Everything,” John repeats and pauses to breath. “So far,” he adds, lifting his head slightly. “It’s not carte blanche for the future,” John clarifies. His whole body clenches to keep his voice even, but he fails on the last word, the final syllable scraping over his lips. He had almost relegated that concept to fantasy. Future.

He can feel the muscles work against his cheek.

“Oh.”

John knows that tone, disappointment. “What? You want me to forgive you in advance?” He breathes, but it isn't easy. His hands move, scrabbling a little ways, clutching wherever they stop, moving again. John pulls his head back a bit and turns to look into an eye whose colours are brighter than he remembered, the white tinged with pink, the iris iridescent.

There’s a cramp in John's chest. His eyes squeeze shut as it twists. It makes him gasp.

[kerravonsen]

Intense.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Jesus, this is frightening!

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow is the end of this scene. Really and truly.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

It's really clear how overwhelming all of this is for John, how hard it is for him to hold himself together. In a way, I want to tell him to just run.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

The catalyst for this whole series was The Hounds of Baskerville generally and in particular the experiment scene in the lab where Sherlock suceeds in deeply frightening John and for which John forgives him. That dynamic seems to still be running through the story and whether John would be better off running from the whole relationship continues to be a question.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

whether John would be better off running from the whole relationship continues to be a question.

It feels like there's still a power differential and I can't help but wonder if Sherlock is ready to give that up.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Great scene - very emotional :)

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Hoping not to overdo that aspect.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Oh poor John! He is enthralled by Sherlock and is in such pain over it.

A small quibble: being a medic, would he not have detected a pulse first before hearing Sherlock speak? (I love the way you describe Sherlock speaking, btw)

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Yes, this was an issue. I was depending (stretching) the idea of a very slow pulse due to the hypothermia (http://www.hypothermia.org/protocol.htm) and that Lestrade and John didn't wait for a long time to find a pulse, John concentrating on warming just in case. He thought he felt a pulse when he was removing the sleeve, but then couldn't find it again. That seems moderately plausible. Once Sherlock is leaning on him, he doesn't take the pulse again, he's drying the hair and rubbing the chest through the towel which is thick. I thought the questions of whether he would feel a heartbeat or respiration through the back was more an issue, but John hasn't taken his jacket off although the sitting room was hot, he quickly joined the others in the kitchen by the open freezer, so I thought a few layers of clothing would be enough to mask a very slow/low pulse and respiration rate. The time John has Sherlock leaning against him is also short. It only takes Lestrade a couple minutes to fetch the towels and then there is the distraction of him realising that the body is Sherlock's. So I had the first obvious respiration and the sound coming simultaneously to John's attention.

So...unconsciousness, hypothermia, impatience (with the pulse taking), short time lapse, layers of clothing and distraction are my main excuses and a disinclination on John's part to eliminate the hope that Sherlock might still be alive.

Too big a stretch?

Would rearranging this bit improve the situation?

There’s a vibration under his hand. John’s fingers dig in. A movement against his cheek.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, you have handled that exception well :) I'm wondering if John's fingers are near Sherlock's neck where there are oodles of big arteries and the like, then Sherlock's reviving pulse (because his heart will have stopped when he was frozen, I presume) would be detectable around the same time as his attempt to speak.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Since John was back to rubbing circles around the chest again just before that word, he could certainly be brushing past the neck at that point. Thank you for pointing that out. It's terrible to get the science completely wrong!

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is coming along so beautifully. The emotion is enough to put a cramp in my own chest.

I have watched the first two episodes so far, and am impatient to find time for more. No drugging yet:)

[saki101.livejournal.com]

I understand the urge.

I love all sorts of scenes, but the whole final scene of A Study in Pink, especially the bit where Sherlock is deducing to Lestrade and realises that it's John and stops talking and tells Lestrade to ignore everything he said, is one of my favourite favourites.

And then, of course, there's the part where Sherlock comes along on John and Sarah's first date in TBB. :-D

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Very intense and also very John.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

That made me smile. It's been hard trying to catch that combination of assertiveness and acquiescence, temper and calm.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Very powerful.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Thank you :-D (Down to the last little bit now.)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I like the way you're taking time to go through the emotions here. Keep at it!

[saki101.livejournal.com]

This is reassuring. I can get bogged down in too much detail attempting to catch nuances and not finding sufficiently concise words for it.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

You can always prune later, if you feel the urge.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, poor John! This is really intense.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Sherlock's return has to be one of the most challenging scenes for any fic writer, and I had to tackle it at some point! Not that it can be a matter of just one scene, but there had to be the moment.