Work Text:
~
"The Moon"
The stars about the lovely moon
Fade back and vanish very soon,
When, round and full, her silver face
Swims into sight, and lights all space
-Sappho
~
The plants that slept on the kitchen counter began to grow when John had moved into the flat at 221B. They were no longer little buds stuck in their little pots, minding their own business like when Sherlock had lived there alone. Subtly, she realized that the plants tangled together now, even the ones that were once short and fat and stubborn in their planters.
John had easily claimed her place in Sherlock’s home and heart and cast such a spell of affection that left the witch aching.
O
“Work was brutal,” John grunted as she entered the flat.
Sherlock’s eyebrows lifted from glaring at the half-finished spell she had scribbled on yellow notepad.
“I’m no good at this drabble, John,” she mused, sighing loudly.
Sherlock threw the notepad onto the floor as she slouched down her armchair. Laughing tightly, as she crossed into the kitchen, John put down a bag of food onto the tabletop and turned to face her flat-mate.
“Can’t you just use a spell that’s already been known to work? There are books, you know.”
Sherlock frowned distastefully and flipped her wrist at John. “Ugh, they’re all written by men. I need to write my own.”
“I thought there are a lot of witches—and witch people that have written stuff.”
“But men appropriated it as per usuuual.”
Sherlock pouted and curled up on her side.
“Maybe I could give it a go?” John suggested.
“Why would you be qualified? You work with gemstones, Johnathon.”
“First off, stop calling me that. Secondly, I’m a woman and that seems to be you’re only criteria.”
“People that are systematically oppressed is my ‘criteria.’ Not merely your gender.”
“Or your lack of one,” John added softly.
“Sometimes,” Sherlock added to that, even softer. “And perhaps…” She tapped her fingers together. “Perhaps yes, you could be good. You have written some terrible lovey-dovey nonsense for your boyfriends.”
John scrunched her nose.
O
Sherlock rolled her eyes when she caught a fern waving haughtily on the ceiling, teasing the cat that swatted at its velvety leaves. Humming as she strolled through the kitchen, Sherlock tended to the shyer plants that hugged one another beside her beakers and cauldron. She liked to comb the vines sometimes, and sing to them, even if Mrs. Hudson caught her (too many times to count) in the middle of such a quirky act. The plants were not the only thing that grew smug after John had made her way into Sherlock’s life.
The spells seemed to work stronger (Sherlock at first, chalked this up to her own ability), and the cat that usually had ran away from her now clamored into Sherlock’s lap or licked John’s fingertips. It was all very strange, Sherlock had noted, but not something that could mean anything. Sherlock liked to brag about her senses, how in-tune she was to both the scientific and natural world. She did not, could not, listen to these signs this time.
“You’ve got a good start here, Sherlock,” John said behind her.
Ceasing her petting of the plants, Sherlock looked over her shoulder. John stood in the middle of the kitchen with Whitney rubbing at her legs. She gave a goofy grin, one of the ones that Sherlock ate up. Sherlock watched her bite the cap of a pen as she stared at her expectantly.
“It wasn’t that good,” she mumbled, her eyes hidden behind the curl of her bangs.
John’s eyes softened, leaning against the counter, her shirt tugging on the ledge. Sherlock’s eyes flitted across the curve of John’s breasts hidden under her button-up. She cleared her throat and waited for the rush of shame, but John didn’t seem to notice. John kept smiling.
“Let’s take a look then?”
Sherlock blinked, but leaned closer to John, hovering over the worn notepad that held Sherlock’s small writing: smudged and stained with the rim of a teacup. Sherlock blinked again when the light shifted in shape across the flat until she felt covered in shadow and John was bathed in golden light. She wished to lick the gold from her skin, to feel it swell in her chest like swallowing a star. Sherlock resisted.
Guide me to the internal,
Guide me to what I keep
Locked away. Guide its answer
Gently inside my palm.
Let the deduction rest
Behind my eyes.
Shall I know the things
I keep hidden away?
“It’s very pretty, Sherlock.”
“It’s too poetic.”
“It could use some rhymes,” John shrugged. “But other than that I think it’s brilliant.”
“You’re pulling my leg,” Sherlock smirked. “It’s not a nursery song, John. It is a serious spell and therefore needs no rhymes.”
“Mm, what are you trying to cast? I thought you always could figure out the answer to something with just a look.”
Sherlock scoffed and folded her arms. “I can. This is different. It’s not a puzzle or a case from Scotland Yard, or the crossword. I can’t deduce it as it protests to be seen.”
“Are you sure about that?”
O
As Sherlock slipped her coat on, flipping the collar up against her cheeks, John bustled by her side, slipping something into her pocket.
“Agate or Amethyst?” Sherlock pondered.
“Agate,” John said. “Might need Bloodstone if we’re chasing someone tonight.”
Sherlock rolled her eyes. “We can handle ourselves without silly Bloodstone.”
“Should I leave my gun then too?” John asked sarcastically.
Biting her cheek, Sherlock sniffed and then grabbed John’s coat from the stand. “Goddess’s sake, we’re dilly-dallying.”
John snorted amusedly before Sherlock devolved into a deep chuckle herself.
“Bring the gun.”
O
“Haven’t you gotten depressed yet?” Anderson asked off-handedly.
Sherlock whipped her head around, her magnifying glass pressed against her left eye. Placing it on the ground gingerly, she turned to face him, eyes narrowed.
“Why in the world would I be depressed?”
Anderson, instead of replying, smirked and raised his hand as if showing off a ring. “Don’t have anything, do you?”
“No one’s going to marry the freak,” Sally admonished.
“What I said—sad.”
Sally crossed her arms. “Nothing’s sad about the freak not marrying so you can fuck right off.”
As Sally said this, D.I. Lestrade came bustling onto the crime scene.
“What’s with the rough language, Donovan?”
Sally opened her mouth and then closed it reluctantly. “Sorry sir.”
Sherlock felt the gemstone rough against her finger as she caressed it in her pocket. John was still talking to a witness in the other room. Usually John handled anything Anderson-related for her, but she realized she’ll do it on her own.
“The only language that should be punished right now should be Anderson’s.”
Lestrade tilted his head and looked between the two women. Sherlock had always respected Sally’s dedication to the force, and was all too aware of the microaggresions she had to brush off each day. John entered the room with a spiral notebook open, her lip curled to the side. Sherlock knew she must have got some useful information.
“What’s going on then?” she asked, breathless and hopeful.
Sherlock shrugged as she exited the room. “Sexism. Come along, John.”
O
The record was obviously warped, but the sound was good enough. Sherlock had an iPod, but John was adamant that they play some folk tunes on the weekend. The jangly chorus wobbled throughout the flat, but Sherlock focused on the sounds of John rather than the song itself. Her flat-mate was currently swaying her hips as she worked, singing along.
Laid out on the table were different sorts of crystals and gems, so many types and shapes. Sherlock knew little about gemstones or amulets other than what John told her. It was much the same with the solar system. Watching John work was entrancing, especially when she moved with a distant drum beat and tilted her head when she forgot a piece of the lyrics.
“Full moon tonight.”
Sherlock nodded, turning back around so John didn’t catch her staring.
“I added to your spell, Sherlock, but I don’t know if it’ll be good or not.”
“The details are irrelevant. Let me see it.”
John raised her eyebrows, which brought Sherlock’s attention to her eyes, to the bags underneath them, her thin lips and the sandy hair always a bit tousled, contrary to her past militaristic hairstyle.
“Eager aren’t we? All right, come here you.”
Sherlock shivered at John’s gentle tone, and sauntered to lean over her, her hands behind her back, neck held high in a mask of aloofness.
Show me the way
Take my hand
Show me the way
Where do I stand?
Show me the way
To find a man
Sherlock opened her mouth, utterly shocked.
“Well?” John urged.
“It’s…well.”
“You’re not the only one who can deduce.”
Sherlock sucked on her lip and tried her hardest to say something, but she felt her chest constrict and her stomach curdle.
“What do you think this spell is about?”
“You,” John laughed, insistent. “You know…finding someone. It was pretty obvious in what you had written beforehand.”
Sherlock paced, her fingers combing through her hair, to pull at the longer curls that bounced on her shoulders. No. No. No. This was all wrong. She could feel Whitney purring at her legs in distress, but Sherlock could not be comforted at the moment, not even by her cat. She pulled out her wand, which was just an ordinary soup spoon, and twiddled with it between her fingers as was her custom.
“Did I upset you, Sherlock?”
“It’s quite fine,” she squeaked. “I’m just, ah, thinking.”
Any moment now John might discover the truth because Sherlock could not continue with that spell. No way would she desire the affections of a man, or desire to know what man had affections for her presently. She could not just tell John that because then she would…
“Sherlock?”
Oh.
Sherlock gulped and stopped her pacing. She looked around, realizing that she had been lifting the furniture up with swift gestures with her hand as she had been thinking. She tended to do that sometimes, but mostly when she resided in her mind palace.
“Sherlock,” John repeated when the furniture made a heavy clunk back to the ground.
“Hm?”
“I am going to ask something that I asked you the first day we met,” she warned.
“Very well.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No,” Sherlock said, accepting that John will know. She decided to play up on that infamous line of hers. “Boyfriends…aren’t. My. Area.”
“Oh. Right.”
“This is where you ask if girlfriends are, John,” Sherlock murmured.
“Ah, okay. Do you have a girlfriend, which is f—” John closed her eyes, shaking her head softly at her ridiculousness.
“No, John, I do not,” Sherlock said proudly. “But it is something I think about from time to time.”
Always, in any case, Sherlock thought.
“W-What about all that bollocks of you married to your craft?”
“I’m ready now.”
It was a vague statement, but Sherlock meant it. She felt the plants whistle around her softly, felt the gust of wind through the open window.
“Guide me…” John whispered, moving determinedly toward Sherlock.
“John?”
“Guide me to what you keep locked away.”
“Guide me,” Sherlock said, bewildered. “Guide me, John. In the moonlight.”
They stood close, and John lifted her hand, touching Sherlock’s wrist, felt the vein along her skin with her thumb. It reminded Sherlock of ridges on the moon, and how astronomers thought it was just a smooth piece of jewelry, no craters or bumps until they took a closer look at it. John took a closer look and felt her imperfect skin in the moonlight.
“Guide me to your answer, gently…” John opened up her hand like coaxing a flower. “…inside your palm.”
Sherlock felt sparks of sensation tingle up her spine, making her head feeling fuzzy. She let John flex the curl of her fingers, and felt as if she was dreaming in this hesitant affection. She could feel the persistence of John’s touch. Felt the rough pads of John’s fingers trace the lines on her hand like a palm reading, felt her middle finger moving over the life line, down Juniper’s mound, over her pink fingernails. Blinking slowly, Sherlock continued to stare at John and the hand that caressed her, surprised by this onslaught of gentle touch. She gasped lightly when John stopped and placed their hands together, interlacing their fingers.
“Let the deduction rest behind,” Sherlock inhaled sharply, shakily, and let her eyes grow heavy. “Behind my eyes.”
“Show me the way, Sherlock,” John said.
She felt a noise louder than their record, like the music was massively distorted, that the wind could scream, that the cars down below were rolling in gravel inside Sherlock’s ears.
“I’ve got you, Sherlock.”
The noise sped up, deduction style, words whirring by her, plants seeming to whisper in her ears. She knew retrospectively this was due to the power of her and John’s spell, that the moon was full and that the universe was talking to her softly.
She loves you loves you loves you loves you lov e s y o u l o v e s y o u
She felt John’s hand vividly in her palm for the first time, chills running through her veins, into each follicle of her hair, curling her toes, and shivering up her thighs. Grasping John’s hand tightly, she realized that the spell had worked. She wasn’t even trying and the spell had worked.
Mouth shaped into a little “o,” Sherlock closed it suddenly, her orgasmic state dispelling into something of frenetic energy.
“John, it worked, it worked.”
“It did?”
Sherlock held John’s elbow while her knees buckled. She slipped and John caught her arms, pulling her up with a grunt and a cautious hand to her lower back.
“Let’s get you sitting, yeah?”
“Right, right,” Sherlock said, her heart flipping and feeling lighter and lighter with her deduction.
John placed her on the couch with a blanket over her lap, padding around the flat for her medicinal herbs and some tea.
“Unintended spell-casting can take a lot out of you,” John stated, blotting at Sherlock’s forehead with a cold tea-cloth.
She placed a cup of ginger tea to Sherlock’s lips, which she drank slowly. She kept her eyes on John, deductions that she had never seen before rushing over the line of her eyes, her nose, curving over her chest, flowing from the hand John used to hold the tea steady. Sherlock gave a tiny smile.
Whitney curled into Sherlock’s side at the corner of the couch, rubbing her back against Sherlock’s nightshirt. The thought of all the living things that breathed and lived inside her home overtook her, and Sherlock grasped the reality that she was not alone.
While John dabbed Chamomile and Withania unto Sherlock’s neck, Sherlock leaned back, enjoying being taken care of.
“Hold this for me, Sherlock. I’m going to do a charm,” John instructed, which sent Sherlock reeling into a faint blush at her stern words.
She loved when John used her stones to do magic.
Whilst Sherlock held a smooth stone with both palms, John murmured some soft words under her breath. The purple gems began to glow, and Sherlock watched in amazement as they seemed to leave behind flakey bits of themselves, like a goddess’s natural glitter. Sherlock watched as it pooled in her palms, her eyes teary at the pretty spectacle.
Continuing her protection spell, John rubbed her thumbs in circles on Sherlock’s wrists. A visual display of the enchantment took place, exploding in the space between them. John knelt on the floor in front of the couch, still touching Sherlock while shades of purple light sparked and crackled in their auras.
It looked like someone had scooped up a piece of the galaxy and let it dance in front of them. Sherlock was beginning to appreciate space after all, as the colors bounced off one another like shooting stars. Soon, pinks and whites, onyxes and blues mingled together.
John lifted her hands, making a small, doctor-like movement with her gesture, and suddenly Sherlock felt relaxed, clear-headed, and perceptive. The largest feeling, which buried itself deep within her heart, was of safety.
“Are you better now?”
Smiling, Sherlock leaned forward and touched her lips to John’s delicately.
O
Sherlock liked how she moved an older model of her microscope inside her bedroom. The newer working one resided in the kitchen along with her other witch-y things, like her blood samples and her broomstick. But Sherlock could not possibly get rid of the old microscope from before Scotland Yard, from before sobriety, and from before she had found her callings. It sat next to her alarm clock on a shelf with an unusual cactus growing around it like a dragon in a tower. Sometimes, because Sherlock had cast a spell on it, it would rattle and fume if an unexpected guest entered the bedroom.
They kissed and pushed and pulled each other through the door, grappling for proper functioning even if they could hypothetically open the door with a swish of a finger or spoon. Their magic was within them now, being sucked and licked back into each other like a continuous circuit. When they collided into the white sheets of the bed, the microscope shouted angrily. The sound made John stop, her hands resting on Sherlock’s waist, rough thumb rubbing at her hipbones. John laughed suddenly, falling over to her side, covering her face. That was why Sherlock adored the microscope-plant even more when it hissed like a tea kettle.
“Shh, silly thing,” Sherlock reprimanded, chuckling deeply.
“Me or your contraption?” John rasped.
Feeling warmth bloom across her neck, Sherlock tried to have her answer come out witty and snappish. Instead, it melted into a,
“Loud is good.”
That declaration made John smirk, pulling her leg over Sherlock’s thigh. She ran her hand up and down Sherlock’s stomach, her hand reaching under her shirt.
“Loud, huh? Can you be loud?”
Sherlock gasped, her legs spreading as John encompassed her, her heat and body pressing just the right ways beside the crevices of her skin. She hooked her leg around John, pulling them so now her flat-mate was fully on top of her with Sherlock feeling swallowed whole and utterly safe.
“Did you end up liking the spell?” John asked lightly, her fingers ghosting over her skin.
“I liked to what it led to, yes.”
John grinned and licked her lips. “Would you like me to try another enchantment?”
“Of what sort?” questioned Sherlock, her voice inhaling as John slid her body tighter against her, just pressing Sherlock into the mattress.
“It’s not,” John kissed Sherlock’s neck, sucking her collarbone. “An ordinary spell,” she skimmed her nose over Sherlock’s jawline. “In fact it’s not considered magic.”
“Then what sort of enchantment…” Sherlock sighed.
“It’s more,” John’s mouth moved upward, kissing the corners of Sherlock’s eyes. “Pleasurable than enchanting.”
Sherlock squirmed and braced her hands on John’s back, pulling her weight forward. She felt John’s breasts against her, pressing hotly against her own. John’s stomach touched her too, and even this made Sherlock preen.
“They sound very similar, John.”
When Sherlock lifted her head up, and caught the hesitant look on John’s face, she knew. Pleasure. John wanted to pleasure her.
“Oh. Why yes.”
“May I?” John whispered. “Are you sure?”
“I want you,” she growled.
John’s hand pulled Sherlock’s nightshirt up and up, revealing her swollen breasts, the peak of her nipples, how pale she looked then. Her hand slowly caressed, fingers tapping at the curve of Sherlock’s breast before skidding her coarse thumb over her nipple. Sherlock gasped, arching her back, pulling John closer and closer to her.
“T-touch me, please.”
“Guide me?” John whispered hotly, pressed her lips to Sherlock’s neck.
“T-take my hand.”
Sherlock held the back of her wrist and led it southward, spreading her legs as John’s fingers curled in anticipation.
When John moaned, “Oh, love,” Sherlock closed her eyes and smiled through a gasping mouth.
She was grateful she was such a lucky witch.
O
“We need another cat, John,” Sherlock stated over her toast.
“What’s wrong with the one we have?” John flipped a page in the newspaper, disgruntled at what the stories were, as was her nature.
“Whitney is lonely and needs a friend.”
Sherlock leaned into her girlfriend and scooted closer so John would have to pay attention to her. As was suspected, John put down the newspaper and looked expectantly at Sherlock.
“You’re a lot like a bloody cat.”
“Ha-ha,” Sherlock snorted, pressing her head in John’s lap.
Naturally, John curled her fingers in Sherlock’s hair and traced the lobe of her ear with her other hand.
“What about a dog?” asked Sherlock quietly.
“A dog?”
“Y-yes…” Sherlock’s eyes flitted for a couple seconds, but she closed them, repeating what she had said. “We should get a dog. What other witches do you know have a dog?”
John laughed dryly. “The only witches I know are you and me.”
“Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock added.
John’s eyebrows shot upward. “What?!”
Waving her hand in dismissal, Sherlock plowed on. “Donavan, Mrs. Turner, oh, and Billy has magic too.”
John sighed, but continued scratching lightly at Sherlock’s scalp.
“A dog huh?”
Sherlock nodded.
“Whatever you like, Sherlock. I won’t keep you from it.”
Lips curling to the side in victory, Sherlock said, “Two more cats, a dog, and some pigeons for undercover work?”
“Sherlock.”
“I’m kidding, of course,” she smiled, leaning back in her lap. “John?”
“Yes love?”
“I was thinking of going by they/them in addition to she/her.”
John leaned down and kissed her lightly on the forehead, on the cheek, brushing their noses together.
“That’s a lovely idea.”
O
The plants loved to grow up on the ceiling and the cats played hide-and-seek among them. The dog Anne, rescued from a crime scene, liked to bark at the floating dishes whenever John or Sherlock washed them. The pigeons stayed mostly outside, luckily.
Sherlock looked up when John had made her presence known, dropping a bag of groceries on the tabletop.
“Sherlock, what are you doing?”
“Damn, John,” she replied, falsely exasperated. “Important things.”
“Looks like you’re singing to the fern.”
Sherlock scoffed. “They like my voice. It soothes them.”
“It is a nice voice.”
“Oh, John, you card you.”
Smirking, John leaned forward and kissed her lightly.
“Did you check the moon phases for next week?” she asked.
“Did you get eggs like I asked?” Sherlock countered.
“Yes.”
“Then Yes I checked. Perfect night for a relaxation spell.”
John rubbed her hands down Sherlock’s arm. “If you’d like to cuddle, you can just ask if you like.”
Sherlock blushed and her mouth quirked. “One cuddle please.”
“Coming right up,” John replied, giving a wink that made Sherlock’s stomach twist.
O
“Did you meet my girlfriend? They are very pretty. I saw them today. Their eyes are so soft and beautiful.”
“Again, but less romantic John.”
Combing her fingers through Sherlock’s hair, John patted her girlfriend’s head lightly as her nose twitched.
“Whenever you say less romantic you end up meaning more.”
“Stop analyzing me,” Sherlock giggled. “Again?”
“Did you see my drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend? They are the most brilliant person I know. When I kiss them, my heart beats fast. Their kisses are so sexy.”
“John,” Sherlock chuckled again, pressing her body closer to her. “Again, please.”
O
John had easily claimed her place in Sherlock’s home and heart and cast such a spell of affection that left the witch aching for more. Sherlock woke up every day, wondering what sort of magic they would brew up, whether through a cauldron or by the heat of their bodies. Whether with a wave of their wand or of a swaying of two hips to an old, warped record.
Sherlock was a witch and a detective, but she was not very good at fortune-telling. It didn’t seem to matter because Sherlock already knew that her future was wrapped in John’s pleasant embrace, like the full moon blankets by the light of a faraway star.
~
"Awed By Her Splendor"
Awed by her splendor
stars near the lovely
moon cover their own
bright faces
when she
is roundest and lights
earth with her silver
-Sappho