Dedicated to the Sherlock Holmes movies by director Guy Ritchie, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.
FIC/FANART/PICSPAM PROMPT THURSDAY: "Gambling"
FILL #1: Calculations (Holmes, PG, 138 words
NEW RULE: Fanart and picspams are also welcome. Please put one fic/piece of fanart/picspam per comment. Any length/size, as many fills as you want, all Ritchieverse characters welcome! Today's prompt will be Gambling and you can interpret that way any way you like, for any character you please!
RULES (don't worry, they are not complicated):
-- Fanart of any quality is welcome. A funny doodle in Paint? YES! Your beautiful portrait sketch? Of course! You don't have to be Van Gogh, just have fun.
-- Picspams can be one photo to a batch of gifs. Please post one set per comment. (To post pictures, hit the Aa button on the bottom of the comment post, a Rich Text menu will show up on top. Hit the image button and you'll see !.[].(http://) -- minus the dots show up. Drag a picture before the ! or put the URL in the (http://) area. The URL works better than the drag and drop for me, but try both for yourself.)
You can post as many fills as you like in a prompt post. Put the fics in this post as a comment or multiple comments (label them with numbers if multiple parts, ie: 1/3, 2/3 etc) You may interpret the theme any way you like. Be as creative and loose in your interpretation as you please.
Label fics in the first line of your first comment with characters/ships, rating and warnings if applicable. (Please warn for non-con and major character death as a courtesy. No underage fic please, as it is illegal in certain countries.)
ALL lengths, pairings (RPF is welcome), gen and AUs are welcome. No minimum word count. I mean it. Three sentences? Great! Three hundred pages ... yessssss. If you need help with posting, message me. Dash something off and post it! Don't be shy, we're here to have fun.
Comments and hearts on fics are what keep the fires burning. Readers thoughts are just as welcome and important as fics! If you are shy, hit a heart. And most of all ENJOY YOURSELF.
(If I've forgotten anything here, let me know. It's early and I drink decaf now. Yeah, yeah ... I know.)





FIC: Calculations (Holmes, G, 138 words)
The plunge from a balustrade of that height into the falls would necessitate a precise angle of entry into the water below considering a depth of fifty feet, except for the likelihood of drowning in the rush of the falls themselves before one would be able to swim out of their reach. Therefore, survival could theoretically be possible, if a person could land in the water correctly and swim for four minutes beneath it until one is out of the falls' reach. Conversely, one cannot breathe underwater and four minutes is over a minute past the known ability of a human being to go without air and live. Unless ...
It would be a gamble, a huge one, but if it gained him the slightest chance of one day ...
Holmes placed his brother's oxygen mask in his pocket.
YES!!!!! Perfection in an economy of words!!! That had to be the thought process--Holmes having previously fully investigated all known information about the falls in his wideranging preparations for any eventuality!!
Cuz damn it, Guy, RDJ, Susan and whoever else thought the oxygen device answered ALL--was wrong...water from that height? Worse than concrete!
Thanks! There is cliff diving, but Holmes' form did look a little off, lol.
Indeed it did! After studying that scene of the fall into the falls, he goes in feet first, which seems likely to shatter a spine (well he goes into a fog bank that way), with one arm straight up in the air--the wounded one.. I think if I am not reversing the image in my memory. Unless he managed to shoot a grappling hook out of his sleeve--I don't know how anyone could survive that.
That's Holmes' jacket tucked under his head, which was already folded and waiting for him. (Note Holmes' wounded hand and how he couldn't care less because "Awww, my drunken compulsive gambler boyfriend. He's so cute!!"
Oh Holmes. You should move in with Raul. ;)
Yeah, folds up his jacket and puts it under the sloshed boyfriend's head--good grief, talk about indulgent. And YES from the way Holmes is rubbing his hand, it hurts like hell, but he just can't help but give over all his attention to his Doctor friend who is in no shape to attend a hangnail at that point. Sigh. Talk about unrequited love... YES, Holmes should move in with Raul---it would so much better for him! Sigh...
Fill #2 Wagers Made and Lost (Watson, G. 555 words) Gambling Prompt
He always expected me to be there, no matter the circumstance. Never mind if I was moving out, expecting a stag party, getting married, off on my honeymoon… little of what I wanted truly mattered to him. Oh, he always had good reasons; a killer to be caught, a tragedy to be prevented, a World War to be averted. Something larger and grander in the vast scheme of things than our individual wants and desires.
He always knew, even when I did not, that I would turn up to save the day. He counted on it, knew it like the sun rising in the east on any given morning. I was after all his “one fixed point in a changing world” as constant as the North Star.
Was I not?
And Providence help me, I always tried to be. Arriving in the nick of time to back his play; occasionally to pull his not always metaphorical chestnuts out of the fire, even if it took toppling a tower on him to do it.
In the early days I arrived like the wrath of God, sometimes well ahead of the any actual need for my talents—wading into the fray and smiting his enemies with a blow from the head of my cane or the heel of my boot. I gloried in his appreciative glances after the fact; no weakling himself, he always praised my superior martial skills, and I basked in it.
Years passed, his drug abuse worsened, our relationship became vexed. Sometimes I wasn’t always Johnny-On-The-Spot, figuring that his hubris had earned him a drubbing or two. Teach him a lesson, so I thought, not to take me for granted. I was tired. Tired of being expected and relied upon. I wanted more. A life of my own, a wife, the possibility of a family; some sense of capability beyond being his strong right arm.
Even so I somehow still managed to always arrive in the nick of time.
Until that night on a balcony above a frigid waterfall in Switzerland.
Oh, I arrived to be sure and almost in time; missing the exact moment that might have turned the tide and saved the day by mere moments. The point in time when my presence might have guaranteed that Holmes, grievously wounded though he was, might have been able to grapple with the Professor long enough to effect a momentary stalemate, wherein I would have come onto the scene and tossed the malevolent monster over the balustrade, ending his reign of terror once and for all.
But I gambled one final time, playing my part to subvert an assassination, to provide aid to the dying and comfort to the bereaved all before going to where I was expected and in so doing I lost.
I arrived in time yes, but only to see him with his arms already wrapped around the throat and upper body of his enemy, pulling them both backward; even as he looked at me…
… always good to see you Watson!
...closed his eyes and disappeared into the unforgiving void below.
A wager lost, an opportunity missed and nothing left to me but to walk away from this particular table, bereft and broken, my world, my life, my shining star, gone; vanished into the ether without a sound, not even a whispered farewell.
~cries~ This is so sad. Beautiful, but so sad. That Watson is always there to 'be thoroughly relied upon' but he gets tired and angry over time and can't help but wonder how things might or should have been. Bravo! So wonderful. You're amazing.
Thank you so much!! This one really struggled to get down on paper...sigh. Oh no--poor YOU and the kitty!! I am sorry you both haz a sad and I gave it to you!! Me too when I stop and think about that beautiful tragic scene in aGoS.
sniffle....
and no you are the amazing one!!! Proof? DBW fic!!!!
I dunno, there's a difference between your lovely and thoughtful piece and ... :D
LOL! Yeah, the hot sex!!!!!
LOL!!! Love that! Just filled your genderbend prompt by the way. Badly!