acdholmesfest | The Fourth Time: Thank you ficlets in honor of our wonderful four timers (Reply)

We're winding down our fourth exchange here at

acd_holmesfest and your loyal mods

methylviolet10b want to thank you all: writers, artists, readers, and commenters alike. We'll have our grand reveal of all creators shortly, but first, we would like to recognize a special group of people who have been with us since the beginning with a few gifts of our own. These lovely seven* have contributed to all four of our exchange rounds, and we would not be the vibrant community we are without their creativity and reliable contributions.

A hearty round of applause, please, for our amazing four timers: capt_facepalm, mistyzeo, garonne, mainecoon76, sherlockholmes, thesmallhobbit, and fabelschwester!

In your honor, friends, we mods wanted to do something special, so below each of you will find an extra 221B fic from one of us based on your prompts and the theme "The Fourth Time". Thank you so much for your imagination and company. Here's to you, and here's to four times. May it be five!

*Special apology to

fabelschwester: Embarrassingly, we somehow missed your name in our original 4-timer list. Please accept our sincerest apologies for temporary mod-ular brain damage. We love you, and your gift is below -- sorry again!

Note to readers: These 221B ficlets come without summaries or warnings, and cover a wide range of subjects, themes, and pairings. Caveat emptor. Now on to the fic!

For capt_facepalm
By tweedisgood

Violet Hunter sought my friend’s aid four times in all. I have written only of the first and there is no record in England of the last. A man who spends his life following the tracks of others had better take good care to cover his own.

The Copper Beeches lay felled like her hair; the mystery revealed; the lovers reunited. Miss Hunter was on the market again – as a teacher, that is.

She wrote to him from the school at Walsall, the year after. He cleared up the matter of the twin daughters of Lord Aumerle and the fraudulent cheque without so much as looking up the journey north in a Bradshaw’s.

A telegram from an exclusive academy for young ladies in Lucerne in late April of 1891 went unanswered. Had she but known it, he was closer to her when she sent it than at any time since she was last in our Baker Street sitting room.

Three years later, somehow, she found him. Lest she become prey for the fourth time, he gave her - and her child, conceived on a broken promise - a dead man’s name for reputation, in a chapel at Montpelier.
To the world, he yet remains one of the most famous (though, given his published habits, perhaps not the most eligible) of bachelors.

For mistyzeo
By tweedisgood

“Mr Holmes, how many times have you kissed a woman?”

“As you have doubtless deduced from my clumsiness - but evidently forgiven it - this is the first, Mrs Watson.”

***************************************************

“And a man, Holmes?”

“Ah, Watson, there I must confess second time’s the charm. Victor, you know, could be very persuasive, and at more than getting me to spend the summer holidays with him.”

*******************************************************

“Mary, fetch me my Index, if you will. I believe this is the third occasion we have come across the Farandola gang this year. We must memorise their faces until we can penetrate the heaviest disguise their leaders can muster.”

“Holmes, are you capable of saying the word ‘penetrate’ without giving it a lascivious undertone?”

“Capable? Indeed. However, double meanings, like double pleasures, are so much more delicious, don’t you agree?”

“All the more when tripled, Sherlock.”

“Straight to the point as ever, dear girl. Come here. Our husband needs a lesson in inference.”

********************************************************************

“What do you think, my dear? Riding crop or birch? He is tiresomely right for the fourth time in as many days. Positively insufferably correct, and premature into the bargain: caught the villains whilst we were still sleeping.”

“Dear John, so true. Perhaps both in turn. Sherlock?”

“Please. If I get to choose who goes first.”

“Certainly not. Assume the position, boy.”

For garonne
By spacemutineer

Every time he was caught, Holmes thought Watson would never agree to his sarcastic prodding in response. It took only four attempts to be proven wrong.

"Yes, fine, let's see just what is so bloody wondrous you're willing to throw your mind and life away for it. Our life. No, I don't need help." He ripped the morocco case out of Holmes' grasp. "You're not the only one experienced in administering injections."

"Watson, don't."

"Now you don't wish me to try it? Worried I'll like it as much as you do?" He pulled back the plunger to fill a serious dose. "Or you worry you'll have to share? I wonder which you'll miss more having all to yourself, the drug or me?" The loop around his bicep brought a robust blue vein, pristine and untorn, to the fore.

"Stop. You don't want this."

"You do."

"No, I made a mistake."

"Asking me to share in your only joy anymore is the sole mistake you'll admit."

"I make many mistakes. Asking you to partake of my poison is but one. Believing my only joy is this chemical is yours. It's true I know of only one thing genuinely good in this world, only one thing worth living or dying for. But it isn't cocaine."

"Prove it," Watson said, and Holmes was bound.

For mainecoon76
By spacemutineer

===================
Earl Grey

Mrs. Hudson – she's still adjusting to the name – knocks quietly. "Tea?"

A groan behind the door. The Battle of Trafalgar must not be going well. Trouble with the masts again.

Charles opens his studio's door and steals his cup along with her kiss.

"When I finish this canvas, we are traveling, darling. Inland."

===================
Darjeeling

Heavens, but she is beautiful. The wicked heat even at this hour in Bombay blesses a glow to her toffee skin. He is struck by the focus in her eyes, even when she is only serving tea.

"Doctor?" She leans closer to pour. Much closer. "You are working late again."

"It seems so are you, Fahima."

She is even more beautiful when she blushes.

===================
Cha Süma

Holmes should have known. What else could it be?

It wouldn't be a problem if he didn't have to drink so much of it. But the Tibetan custom of refilling a guest's cup after every sip left him little option.

Butter tea was one thing to get used to, but yak butter tea was rather another.

==================
Chamomile

Chamomile is calming, so Mrs. Hudson brewed a pot before broaching the subject she'd held her tongue on for so many years.

"Don't let him go to Sussex alone, John. You are all of love he will ever know. You've always been."

For thesmallhobbit
By methylviolet10b

Forewarned is forearmed, the other Inspectors told me, and to a certain extent they were right. When I first encountered Mr. Holmes, I was prepared for his abrupt behaviour, even the way he flung himself to his knees to examine a bit of woodwork.

I did not expect the way his pale eyes fixed on me when I spoke, or the faint hint of approval I saw on his face. “Astutely observed,” he said at last. “What did you say your name was, Inspector?”

“Hopkins,” I stammered, aware that Mr. Holmes rarely asked. “Stanley Hopkins.”

He called me Hopkins thereafter. That was the second sign of approval. Lestrade, Gregson; those were two of the few he called by name instead of merely Inspector. A third hint followed swiftly; he invited me to call with ‘any particularly interesting puzzles of the police-court.’ A rare invitation, one I eagerly accepted.

The fourth was harder to decipher. I felt crushed when I saw disappointment on Mr. Holmes’ face, heard his scorn as he pointed out details I’d missed. It was only afterwards, with the help of a few kind words from Doctor Watson, that I realized that in order to disappoint Mr. Holmes, he must expect better from me in the first place.

I resolved then and there to be worthy of his belief.

For sherlockholmes
By methylviolet10b

Once is chance.

“Holmes, have you seen my pen? I can’t find it.” I’d looked in every drawer, rifled through all my papers, and even checked the floor.

Holmes remained buried in his newspapers. “No.”

He’d been in a brown study since the end of his last case. I’d hoped to spend the afternoon writing, but now, between the missing pen and his mood, I needed other plans.

“Care to take a stroll?” I asked impulsively.

Holmes looked startled, and then smiled for the first time in three days.

Twice is coincidence.

“I thought I set it next to the inkwell when Mrs. Hudson brought in luncheon,” I muttered, frustrated.

“Never mind your pen, Watson; it’s a mild afternoon, and I believe the first daffodils might be in bloom. Shall we walk out to the park and investigate the matter for ourselves?”

Three times is conspiracy.

It had been a foul month; sleet and snow and torrential rains. Aside from cases, we had scarcely ventured outdoors. We had used every resource to keep ourselves amused: Holmes with chemistry, commonplace-books, and music; I with yellow-backed novels and writing.

On the first clement morning, my pen was missing from its stand. “Fancy a morning constitutional, Holmes?”

Four times is ridiculous.

“We’re going to walk to the stationers,” I told Holmes, exasperated. “You’ll buy.”

For fabelschwester
By tweedisgood

“My father thought the study of the Classics the only fit occupation for a gentleman, Victor. Science? Science smacked too much of the mechanic. He sent me up to Cambridge without the least idea what was really in my head.”

“No-one has the least idea what is in your head, dear one. Not even you, sometimes. My father knew mine. He feared it, but he knew, or suspected. It was exactly the Classics that worried him – a straightforward man, without learning himself. All that talk of perfect forms, of noble love, of warrior and comrades. All those foreigners with their language like a secret code. ‘I’ve been to sea, lad’, he’d say. ‘A lot of unnatural goings-on under the cloak of shipmates true and bad luck to have a woman on board. Never trust someone who doesn’t speak to you straight in plain English.’"

“You mustn’t trust me, then, not with your life nor your virtue. I make it a point of honour to speak in riddles and have queer ideas, you know.”

“Drat, too late to save my virtue. Budge over, Holmes. This bed is damned narrow and I’ve an interesting novelty in mind tonight. I found this gem in London at the weekend. Look at the fourth illustration.”

“I say. Now there’s a plain English word for you: buggery.”