#fff159

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#fff159

[helloliriels]

You Can't Say This Here (Not Now)

"It's my note ..." Sherlock's soft laugh was dripping with tears ...

"What??!" John was incredulous, he couldn't be hearing this!

"It's what people do, right ... ? Leave a note."

"No, Sherlock - don't -"

"Don't worry, John. It will all blow over. They won't associate anything with you. I've taken the blame. Richard Brook, Jim Moriarty. It was all my idea! My doing. I tricked you. I lied to you, to impress you ...

... And I've made sure all the papers know it."

.

"NoOo!" John stepped forward. Wanting nothing more than to climb up on that roof and to bring Sherlock back down to safety. Now!

"No, Sherlock! No one will convince me that you told a lie ... Not even you! Now please, please come down safely and let's talk about this?"

John made to move towards the building in hope that Sherlock would let him? Would give him this chance?

"Stay where you are, John! Stay! Right. Where. You are! Please? Do this for me?"

"Wait -? Sherlock -??" John had been struggling with wanting to say something all day ...

Wanting to show Sherlock that he was here. More here than ever before ...

And that he wasn't going away.

He was done with girlfriends.

Done with distractions ...

If he had been that oblivious to see what Sherlock was going through??!

.

He knew now, what he wanted.

And it was standing on a rooftop ...

. ... waiting ...

.

. ... for hope?

.

"I'm gay," John stated, laughing genuinely at his own stupidity for not saying it sooner!

Sherlock hadn't moved. Wasn't making a sound ... Maybe ... he was holding his breath? Waiting for John to explain ... ?

.

John, who so loudly, and vehemently said to anyone that had ever asked ... that he was 'NOT gay!' Now contradicting himself??!

Yes ... yes, he would need to explain ...

. And Sherlock would need to hear it.

.

"Well, I'm not exactly gay - I'm queer. Well - bi - really. Bisexual. That is. I - I never told anyone. It was ... well, something new to me. Suddenly 35 yrs old and ... it seems I liked guys!?

Well ... one guy ... and then ... after him ? Nothing ... and so I thought-? I thought I had it all wrong?

But then ... you, Sherlock? You came into my life, and I - I had never met anyone like you! You're brilliant and funny and sexy as hell ... and I knew I couldn't have you ... but I wanted to be near you. Anything. So long as you'd keep me near. I've got it so badly, you see? And ... sorry if I'm rambling I'm just - you can't! Please, you can't! I love you ..."

.

"John ... " Sherlock said his name like a hushed and reverential thing ... voice cut off by choked sob ...

John wanted to run to him. To hug him. To hold him.

"You can't say this to me? Not here ... not now!" Sherlock was choking on the words, and John was helpless to understand why???

Had he got it all wrong?

Had he just make it worse, somehow?

Oh, God ...

Sherlock looked like he was struggling.

.

But then ... Sherlock let out a soft laugh, and John could see him wiping his eyes from the rooftop. Chuckling with it. Euphoria. He was ...

Happy?

John held his breath, waiting ...

.

"You're bi?"

John huffed a laugh in reply. The warmth in Sherlock’s voice proving that his comment had made it's mark ... but ...

Sherlock still stepped up onto the ledge of the roof?!

"I'm bi - and I'm madly in love with you, please?? Sherlock?! Come DOWN??!"

Sherlock held the phone to his lips. His eyes focused on John's, even from this distance ...

"Kiss me when I live again?" He whispered into the receiver so quietly, John had to strain to hear him ... Followed by a loud, and confident, "Vatican Cameos".

John jolted to attention.

.

Sherlock’s arms spread like an eagle, his phone dropped to his side,

And he was falling ...

.

.

.

John dropped his own phone, now useless.

Helpless. In shock.

Mind racing with implications of the last words Sherlock had spoken?

.

So much,

John thought ...

For my pride.

.

.

But ...

.

. Wait ...

.

Vatican Cameos ... ?

. John had seconds to decide ...

Eyes cast carefully to the side without turning his head. Scanning ... he saw a glint of metal from the windowed building beside him. It turned his blood cold.

He didn't have to pretend when he froze. Being sure to move slowly, as if stunned by both grief and terror.

He could hear the crowd forming around Sherlock ...

The screaming.

And shuffled his feet ... one ... after the other ... forced footfalls towards the hubub.

.

Sherlock would live.

How ... ? John did not know ...

. He broke into a run ...

.

But Sherlock never lied to him before!

He wasn't lying now.

.

And John wouldn't give up hope.

.

He let the bike run into him. Collapsed to the ground as if muddled in his singular focus to get to Sherlock ...

One thought in his mind.

Above all else ...

.

How long would he have to wait ...

.

.

.

For that kiss? 💋

.

For @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt #159

#sherlock #bbc sherlock #johnlock #the reichenbach feels #pride #fff159 #pride before the fall

[enchanted-lightning-aes]

Price for Unwise Actions

A/N: a short about a spellcaster for this prompt for @flashfictionfridayofficial​. had been liking this introspection story and i’m pleased by the results.^^

Word Count: 732

TW: None

***

Twigs and sticks creaked and crunched as footsteps thudded over them. An owl hooted, flapping it's wings. It landed on a branch of a towering tree, looking at what meandered around.

A person jumped over a log, continuing on jogging towards a random direction. It seemed to be a secluded area with an open field and a lake.

Removing a cape, she inhaled stale and muggy air. She coughed, bowing her head.

A howl echoed across the forest as if wolves might arrive. She had to run and seek for any shelter. Somewhere in this forsaken location. She shuddered and crossed her arms while ambling forwards.

Dammit. She had been so focused on getting away that she didn't bother to check where she was going. She might be lost for all she knew.

If the spellcaster had a spell to cast a portal to get out of here, she would. Except her magic had been causing too much trouble for her liking. So, she needed to avoid it as much as she could.

Perhaps, a few spells to defend herself. Other than that, everything else would be off-limits.

She didn't want to cast a spell that might reveal her whereabouts. It was awful enough that she messed up back there, she didn't need to do this too.

If she hadn't been so rash, she wouldn't even be in this predicament.

These days the spellcaster could hide in a forest without getting found. Surrounded by trees and shadows as companions. She didn't trust any wanderer, lest they might lure her into a trap. To capture her and take her to those, who might be hunting her to earn a reward. She had her face printed across several wanted posters for committing an atrocity.

In this kingdom, mercy weren't bestowed upon those, who had done so much wrong. Even a small mistake could cost a person's freedom.

Not that, she had been exactly careful either. She had been careless, not aware of consequences involved in acting like a show-off. It still was a surprise that no one dared to remove her powers yet. To be honest, she had been irresponsible with it.

Thus, she didn't deserve to have this much immense powers. It had been a gift she accepted. Now it turned into a curse she wished to undo.

At first, she had been very proud or rather smug at her abilities. She didn't let any opportunity slip by on reminding others how. She did performances and spectacles for people to see.

Looking back, she felt a wave of mortification and shame wash over her. She wanted to wince at her actions and for what she had done. She had been such a fool.

Just when she had gotten at the height of it all, it suddenly started to topple in front of her.

Before her reputation went down, she had once been a renowned magician. Recognized as an individual, who had carried a magnificent potential. Winning people's admiration and high regard for her impressive abilities.

The spellcaster hadn't seen any harm in showing how skilled she was. She had learned a lot about magic, after all. It would only be fitting to let people know that too.

Until an accident that ruined what she valued. Her reputation, her home, and her position in society. She had been distraught and terrified by what it led to.

Due to a spell gone wrong, she had nothing except someone to blame. She had dismantled an important landmark with intentions of only turning it invisible. It had shocked her to watch how the results were different. That statue had changed into rubbles of marble instead.

She had volunteered to fix it, however, she had been criticized for her blunder. Witnesses had went against her, calling on authorities to throw her into prison. She had casted a spell to vanish from their sights.

Ever since then, the spellcaster had been fleeing from getting captured. She didn't want to rot in prison for a mistake.

Of course, she had a lot of pride before the fall. Before turning into an utter disgrace filled with shame and regret. A joke, who had been so imprudent and unwise.

What a bizarre thing to happen, she thought, blinking.

Continuing on her escape, she put her cape on again.

Due to previous actions, she would have to pay for consequences of her errors.

***

#writeblr #flash fiction friday #fff159 #creative writing #short story #enchant: original works

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Pride before the Fall

So, I've decided to try writing a short story a day through all of July. I'm really glad that FFF is today, because it makes finding that first prompt so much easier. Anyways, to the story:

I'd made my career living on a knife's edge. Each experiment I did would have had me ridiculed if I failed.

Instead, I grew more lauded with each.

In retrospect, that drove me at least as much as the work itself did. The feeling of being Prometheus, sharing the fire of knowledge, was just too tempting.

Where it all went wrong would be obvious to my competition, though they'd have said the same about each of my accomplishments. I'd been tying magic to science for years, which is where my advancements tended to come from. Truthfully, I was helping both fields. Mortal medicine gained new cures and elixers, and magic gained more efficient and reproducible flower spells.

That was the issue though, wasn't it. I had been working solely in flower spells.

I grew tired of the restrictions of flower magic. Any cure I made with them had to come from natural sources, which made industrializing so much harder. Too, what great genius was limited to working in a single small sub-field like that?

I reasoned that blood magic should be more efficient for healing, since it was focused entirely on the body, and it was infamously easy to scale up.

Being a well-known scholar has its perks. I was granted access to the section where blood magic tomes were kept. I wasn't going to use any of the spells, I assured the librarians, I was just curious how they were able to scale spells so efficiently.

I didn't find out how to apply that knowledge to flower magic, of course, but inside of a book I'm sure was written in blood on human skin I found a spell that claimed be able to bring back the dead.

It worked, of course, but I could feel the inefficiencies in the spell. That simply wouldn't do for my purposes.

So, I cut the spell down. Instead of resurrecting a full body, it would treat a small piece of necrosis.

It did nothing to treat the underlying illness, but we had antibiotics for a reason.

I've never been so glad that I had a breeding line of mice and a snake as I was for those months.

By the end, there was nothing overtly magical about the preparation for the salve, so I was able to get it through the government testing phases. The Mage's Council saw what appeared to be an industrialized flower magic and urged me to share a generalizable solution.

Within a few years, it was one of the best selling magics I'd made. Doctors everywhere were prescribing it as we learned how much more than skin necrosis it could heal. Anything the doctor or patient considered "dead" was an option.

It's obvious to me now that I'd forgotten I wasn't working with flower magic. There, the price you pay is the effort to make the spell and the materials themselves. Blood magic takes its costs elsewhere.

The patent was just expiring when the bill finally came due.

If I hadn't killed that first thing I raised immediately after, I might have learned that the spell only lasts about a month. When the month is over, the creature doesn't just keel over, but it erodes anything it worked with while brought back.

The modifications I made to the spell certainly changed both those factors. I still don't know what math the spell used shift the timescale or effects, but all of the miraculously cured people suddenly grew sick. The spell had shifted now to returning each ailment to the stage it would have been if never treated in the first place.

The first lawsuits came in within days, and the Mage's Council called me in for an inquisition.

As I watched my empire crumble around me, I knew that I could fix it. The librarians must not have heard anything yet, because they let me into the blood magic section again.

I know I can find the right spell if I keep searching.

--Final entry in the Journal of (Redacted). After being found guilty of use of blood magics, (Redacted)'s magics were bound and he was sent to (Redacted).

@flashfictionfridayofficial

#fff159

[polizwrites]

Salvaging Icarus

This is a double drabble fill for today’s @flashfictionfridayofficial​ prompt [#FFF159 Pride Before The Fall]  as well as my @starkbucksbingo square   "I'll catch you."

Fandom: MCU/Marvel  -- Pairing:  Tony Stark & Bucky Barnes -- Rating: General -- Word Count: 200 

“I’ll catch you.”  A promise Tony hadn’t asked for and one he didn’t deserve.   The fall was coming; he’d flown too close to the sun once again.  After all, pride was his most-committed sin.

“I’ll catch you.”   Bucky spoke those words with absolute certainty,  as if Tony were too precious to let slip through his hands.   He wouldn’t step aside, wouldn’t shy away from the burden. Surely it was self-inflicted punishment - reparation for his sins against Howard and Maria.  

“I’ll catch you.”  Bucky had no idea how deep he would have to go, to reach rock bottom before Tony did.  

---

“I’ll catch you.”  A promise Bucky had no right to offer, but he did anyway.    He knew what it meant to fall, the utter helplessness, reaching out desperately and finding nothing but the empty air.  He wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy, and Tony was far from that. 

“I’ll catch you.”  It would not be easy to save a plummeting Tony from the sea of self-destruction, waters that Bucky knew all too well. 

“I’ll catch you.”    This was his choice, to stand between Tony and the dark ocean of despair.  The impact might be brutal, but they would survive. 

#writing stuff #fanficlet #mcu/marvel #SBB2022 #flash fiction friday #WinterIron #Tony x Bucky #Shameless Self Promo

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#fff159