A/N: Hi all. I just watched Sherlock for the first time after my sister got my hooked. Still fairly new to the fandom, but I couldn't resist writing about it, so if I get anything wrong, please tell me so. For the bit about Mary, I'm going off the SH books, where Mary eventually dies and John moves back to Baker Street. Everything after is just silliness. Inspired, needless to say, by Mycroft's comment that as a child, Sherlock wanted to be a pirate, and ended up being a detective instead.
For everyone who followed me over here from Dark Knight, fists raised, I swear I haven't forgotten about Complete Me. I know exactly what will happen with it, but I've been stuck on that fun little rollercoaster of depression and writer's block for the last two years, and Sherlock is the first thing in two years that's actually made me want to write. Baby steps. In the meantime, enjoy!
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"Dear Mom and Dad: I've been kidnapped by a bunch of seafaring gypsies. And when I say 'kidnapped,' I mean that I put on my own blindfold, bound my own wrists, and stood wailing on the shore until they agreed to take me in." ~Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind
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Moriarty is dead; so is Mary. No one is quite sure if he's dead for good this time, or if it's just another of his endless charades, but he isn't threatening Sherlock and he isn't stealing the crown and he isn't chewing gum, or doing much of anything, really, so they put it out of their minds for now. Mary certainly seems to be gone for good though, and John's return to Baker Street from the suburbs does very little to help his moping. Even the cases they're getting lack any luster. Things are dull. Things are depressing. Things are boring. And that won't do for Sherlock Holmes.
The consulting detective sits cross-legged on the arm of the couch, staring out the window. His long, bony fingertips are together, pressed to his lips, and whatever it is that his pale eyes are seeing, it isn't the grey English rain that's falling past the glass.
""John," he asks abruptly, "have you ever thought of being a pirate?"
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Acquiring both the money and the ship turns out to be surprisingly easy. Wiggins comes with them; so does Molly. They're preparing to leave when Sherlock gets a pensive look and wanders off for a few hours, returning with a vacant-eyed Anderson leaning on his arm. The forensics technician has never been really the same since Holmes's return from the dead, has not spoken a word to anyone since his interview with Sherlock, though he'll solve any problem that's put in front of him.
"He's coming too?" John asks quietly, and Sherlock replies with a curt, "Yes." And that's that.
They anchor off the Devon coast, within sight of a tiny coastal village just northeast of East Prawle. The ship is a small sloop, an old-fashioned sailing ship, and they almost sink before they realize they need to 'swab the deck' to keep the wooden planks swollen and watertight. They would not have made it there without Anderson. For all the man's apparent apathy, he turns out to a genius at gauging the wind and adjusting the riggings, and seems to be really alive only when swinging from line to line. Even Sherlock neglects to criticize and belittle him - from the detective, high praise indeed.
The little crew brings two weeks' worth of food, figuring they can fish and buy more supplies as needed and hopefully mostly just fish, but none of them, not even Sherlock, figured on how many more calories it would take to run a ship than it does to work a London job. By the fifth day their stockpile of food is half gone, and it's two more days before they manage to catch anything.
Bit by bit, they learn, through trial and error, how to adapt to their new lives. When their supply of water starts to run low, John and Sherlock rig a tarp to funnel the abundant rainwater, and figure out a system for purifying it. Molly still tests it thoroughly before declaring it safe to drink. After the third night of badly-cooked fish, they find a way of focusing the heat in the little ship's galley stove, making it efficient enough to cook properly, even if the diet of fruits de mer is still pretty boring. Everyone's ripening clothes necessitates finding a means of washing then, and when the emergency radio and everyone's laptops and iPods start to run down, Wiggins rigs a crude solar panel to a USB cable, though it's still faster to just row across to the village and charge it at the coffee shop.
Every day is a battle and a joy and a discovery, and watching their lives take on an order tied to the sea and the new demands and little victories it brings, John can't help but feel that they're rediscovering civilization on their own terms.
"No we're not," Sherlock tells him with noticeable scorn when he voices this at dinner. "Civilization is still right there, you can't discover what never stopped existing."
"But we are," Molly insists, coming to John's defense. "That civilization is still there, but we're making our own, rebuilding a new one from the ground up."
Sherlock snorts, but in a rare display of fine good humor, declines to argue the point.
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The tiny village next to which they've chosen to set up camp accepts their presence with curiosity, but with little wariness or reservation. The few dozen families are more than happy to let them live offshore and shop at the cinderblock general store in return for John's medical experience, or money, or the occasional saleable interview. They're treated more or less as mascots, or perhaps more as rather curious guests. Every now and then, one of the 'pirate crew' will find a loaf of bread or a steaming pie left on a conveniently large rock within sight of the ship. And within a few months, the nearest doctor, two towns over, has given up his practice and moved to Plymouth, and John finds himself being called out for everything from childhood colds to minor industrial accidents.
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John had expected to be dogged by reporters and gossipmongers all the way from London, but it's close to six weeks before they're found. When they are, the newsfiends arrive en masse. The pirates wake up one morning to find a half a dozen sleek motor boats and catamarans have pulled up alongside their ship's rickety wooden hull, and more than a score of reporters are trying to scramble aboard. Threats, please, exhortations to get off their damn ship are all useless. It's Wiggins who has the idea of the old ten-pounder on the middeck.
The cannon goes off with a report that echoes like the apocalypse in the enclosed space, and a recoil that knocks Sherlock clean off his feet, laughing and exuberant. The cannonball flies harmlessly over everyone's heads to splash into the water.
Unsurprisingly, the reporters are not happy to be fired on by the mad detective and his cult of brainwashed devotees, and things are starting to get ugly when Anderson comes to himself long enough to inform the intruders that they are trespassing in a registered private residence, and that firing the cannon is allowable under the law in defense of self and home. They're left alone after that.
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The days begin to lengthen as the dripping English spring gives way to a mild summer, and their basic needs met - food, water, internet access - the motley crew settles into a routine. In the morning, the deck has to be sluiced down with seawater, the lines and traps set to catch fish, the stove cleaned out and relighted, the riggings adjusted, new cases passed on to Sherlock, breakfast made. Wiggins proves a decent cook, and the rest of them are content enough to pitch in for dishes as long as he makes the meals, though Sherlock always vanishes after washing only a few plates. After breakfast, John goes on his rounds in the village and the few outlying houses, checking up on any recent patients, and the rest of the crew might laze around on deck reading, or go for a swim, or go into the village. If there are things like batteries or coffee or, always, milk, to be purchased, they'll take the ship's other rowboat. If not, they'll simply jump overboard and swim the few hundred yards to the little rock and sand beach.
During these times, Sherlock can usually be found curled up in the bows or perched atop one of the masts, plucking absently at his violin. Every now and then, Anderson will silently slip up and join him.
"Was it a dummy corpse that went over the roof? Was that how you did it?"
"No."
"Was it the Tardis?"
"No."
"Did bungee cords come into it at all?"
"Don't be absurd."
"Did Moriarty help you?"
"Nope."
"Damn it!" And he'll stalk off again to slide through the riggings, adjusting knots and lines to his own satisfaction, reading the ropes and breeze as easily as he used to read bloodstains.
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Mrs. Hudson sends regular care packages, addressed optimistically, if vaguely, to 'Sherlock and John, the pirate ship, the English Channel.' Somehow Sherlock has managed to get ahold of all of them though, and when they arrive, everyone feasts on her lovingly made scones and biscuits.
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As the weather warms, John and Molly happily abandon their jumpers and heavy jeans for shorts and T-shirts and bare feet, and Anderson and Wiggins follow soon after. Even Sherlock gives up his immaculate leather loafers for a pair of lightweight black trainers. That, more than anything else, tell John that his friend and flatmate is content enough for now, exchanging the pitting of his wits against London murders and blackmailings for the puzzles and problems of his new life.
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Mycroft comes to visit, once. So does Lestrade. The former stands uncomfortably on the deck, legs akimbo, reeling a little from the motion of the ship. They've all long since gotten used to it. His hands are planted on his habitual umbrella as he talks at his little brother, who ignores him, eyes closed in a rare expression of bliss, bow sawing back and forth at his violin, and the sound he draws from the strings almost, but not quite, drowns out his big brother. It's the usual round of things - duty, being childish, what will Mummy think. Mycroft leaves after a few hours. With a quietly desperate feeling of obligation, Molly invites him to stay for dinner. To everyone's quiet relief, he politely refuses.
Lestrade's visit is rather more welcome. He comes to talk over a few of cases he and Sherlock have been consulting about over email, and brings them a large bag full of takeout curry and samosas, and another bag of books Sherlock and Molly had requested. He agrees to spend the night at John and Molly's urging, and though he's clearly not entirely at home on their pirate ship - the lonely creak of the wooden spars, the gentle roll and buck of the ocean underfoot - he does enjoy his stay. He's amazed at the change in Anderson; the former forensics technician still looks half wild, but far calmer. It's the most serene he's looked since Sherlock went over the ledge.
With a few hints and nudges from Sherlock on the Abnetty family matter and the Milverton murder, he leaves, promising to visit again in a few months if he can. John thinks he means it.
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Molly begins dating a boy from the village, a young electrician named Cyril Morton. John finds out after two weeks. Sherlock reads it in his face. They insist on having him onto the ship for dinner, and both men interrogate him mercilessly, despite Molly's warning glares. In the end, even Sherlock acknowledges that he seems moderately acceptable and probably isn't a sociopath, although he does warn her, after Cyril's left, that the young man has a nervous twitch and self-esteem issues, and probably has some anxiety problems to boot. Molly's just glad he waited till Cyril was gone. After that, it's a rare night that she's not at his place or he's not on the ship.
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Their first real challenge comes with the storm. They'd been riding at anchor, living on a ship rather than being sailors, and when the weather shifts, Anderson is the only one to notice. He darts frantically over the ship, trying to reef in the sails, and by the time he can make anyone else see what's going on, there's only time to drag up the anchor and close every door and hatch they can.
A strong east wind drags them far out into the Channel, the waves towering over their little sloop and tossing them from trough to wavetop like a child's boat in a bathtub. The storm lasts into the day, and by the time the blackness lightens to a grim, surly grey, they've sprung a leak. They get a bucket chain going, bailing water frantically while Sherlock and Wiggins struggle to patch the break in the wood. It's only when that's done that they can begin to think about getting home.
It's too dark that morning to see the sun rise, and when the sky clears it's already noon, and the sun is dead overhead. They have to wait until it begins to sink over the horizon to tell which way is west, and it takes them so long to get the ship into sailing order that the sun's been and gone and they get lost again. John and Sherlock get into an argument about which star is the north star, and the entire crew finally decides to wait for the dawn rather than risk heading in the wrong direction.
It takes them a day and a night to make it back to the British coast, and another day and a half to find their way back to the village. Everyone agrees that they need to actually practice sailing, in case this happens again. As soon as they limp into the little bay they'd made their anchor in, Cyril, pacing pale and anxious on the shore, swims out to make sure Molly is okay.
Two days later John finds Sherlock below decks reading a book on astronomical theory, with several more stacked beside him. Tilting his head, John can see titles like Navigating by the Stars: the Sailor's Way, and Learning the Constellations. Sherlock looks up, and his ocean-colored eyes narrow.
"New profession, new set of necessary skills. Not a word," the bony detective growls, and John shakes his head and walks off, smiling.
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The ragged crew adopts a cat, a skinny, moon-colored creature they find wandering the village. Molly names her Violet, and no one argues. Within a day she has the run of the ship, and within a week she's a sleek and rounded little thing, purring extravagantly. Sherlock turns his aquiline nose up at the scrawny creature, sniffing disdainfully that pets are a useless attempt on the part of the utterly hopeless at forming meaningful emotional attachments. When John climbs up on deck to douse the lanterns two nights later though, he finds Sherlock curled up asleep, eyes hidden under his untidy dark hair and drooling just a little bit. Lying next to him is his violin, its curves mirrored in the pirate detective's narrow stomach, and cradled against his chest in the crook of one arm is Violet, purring contentedly. John smiles, and drapes a blanket over his friend.
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Within a few months, Sherlock has all but replaced the local courts of law. Problems and puzzles and disputes from the village are brought to him, he passes judgment, and his decisions are usually abided by with reasonably good grace. Everyone seems to find it preferable to the tedious messiness of lawyers and prosecutions. When there is a real murder ("Finally," Sherlock mutters) he solves it within three hours (the husband, with the rat poison, in her tea. He'd found out about his wife's lover. The lover is subsequently shunned by one and all until he gives in and leaves town.)
John is given the task of escorting the husband to London. They take the first train, and while the handcuffed murderer sits beside him, sniffling occasionally, John can't help staring out the window at the English countryside rushing past. After four (almost five now, god) months of living on the ship, the train ride into the heart of a city of eight point three million souls seems as unnatural as anything he and Sherlock have ever encountered in their cases. It's a relief to turn the man over to Lestrade, and after a quick stop at Baker Street to see Mrs. Hudson, he can't wait to get on the train back home.
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"I'm an army captain!" John bellows, standing almost head to head with the skinny detective, not giving an inch.
"It's my ship!" Sherlock screams back, light eyes wide and nostrils flaring.
"I'm a real captain!"
"You're retired, and I'm smarter!" Molly and Anderson and the rest ignore them. Their argument is routine, although it rarely comes to shouting like this. When John sneers and tells Sherlock that he would never survive armed forces training though, and Sherlock takes the bet, Molly steps in, locking them both in the hold and refusing to let them up until they've apologized to each other and the rest of the crew. She relents in good time, fortunately; the two men had put aside their argument in favor of plotting a mutiny against her. The arrival of another package from Mrs. Hudson, though, puts an end to anything but lazy swims and the eating of biscuits for the rest of the day.
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The self-proclaimed pirates are being monitored, it's certain, but since the incident with the journalists, no one has tried to interfere. Three times now, helicopters have buzzed overhead, and turned at the last moment. Molly and John suspect Sherlock's influence. Sherlock suspects Mycroft.
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John still hasn't seen Harry since his first Christmas back, but it doesn't come as too much of a surprise when Clara texts asking if she can come visit; he's always been close to his sister's wife, and when the slim, clear-eyed woman arrives two days later, he's delighted to see her again, to show her around and introduce her to his 'crew.' She takes to it immediately, and even Sherlock pronounces her 'tolerable.' Molly in particular seems to enjoy having another woman around, and when two weeks have passed, Clara doesn't need terribly much convincing to stay oh, just a few more days. A few more days turns into another week, another week turns into well, work can get by without me. Everyone knows Clara is here to stay.
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John lies out on the deck in the mid-afternoon sun, dozing occasionally. Sherlock is balanced on the yardarms plinking away at his violin, Wiggins is showing Clara how to dive from the bow of the ship, Molly is playing with Violet the cat, all is well. He just wishes it could last.
He knows perfectly well that what they have here is impossible to maintain. The reporters will come back, or Moriarty will, or Sherlock will get a case he can't resist, or another storm will sink them for good, or Mycroft will decide his baby brother has further debts to society that need to be repaid. They can't be pirates forever.
Even if they do dodge all of that, the impermanent English summer will not last forever. They hit the solstice a few weeks ago, and John fancies he can already feel the days shortening. And what will happen when winter comes? he wonders. Will they give up the life they've built here and hightail it back to London? Will they stick it out, and shiver in the ship's drafty cabins?
Or maybe there's another alternative, he thinks, turning over to have the sun on his back. They have a ship, after all. Maybe they'll haul up anchor and take off for the winter, follow the seasons south like the birds. Nothing ever has to be so black and white.
Whatever happens, he decides, watching his friends, his crew, his...family, playing on deck, we'll deal with it. Because that's what they do. Murders, arrests, storms, pirates, brothers, east winds - they handle it. Always have, always will. That's their lot in life. John closes his eyes and leans back, a faint smile playing with the water-dappled sun across his lips.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me...
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A/N: Cyril Morton is borrowed from the Sherlock Holmes story The Solitary Cyclist, as is the name Violet. Milverton is the name Magnussen goes under in the original stories, and the Abnetty family affair is mentioned in the story Six Napoleons.
If you look at the scene where Anderson's trying to figure out how Sherlock survived the fall, there's a picture of a Tardis on his board. As for East Prawle, I picked it off a map of the British coast. I know next to nothing about it. My rather limited knowledge of sailing ships comes mostly from my sister, who served as a ship's cook on an old-fashioned wooden schooner in the Caribbean. I know nothing at all about British home defense laws; I'm just going off American laws for that bit, though I would not recommend firing a cannon at anyone.
I figured that, genius though Sherlock Holmes is, there would be things about sailing and day-to-day survival that he would know next to nothing about for the simple reason that, living in a twenty-first century city, he wouldn't ever have a need to know about them. You don't need to know how to navigate by the stars when you can call a cab, or know how to rig a fish trap out a few sticks and an old jacket when fish come from the glass counter at the market. I grew up in a family of die-hard backpackers and survivalists, so I thought it would be interesting to see how Sherlock and company handled something along those lines.
Reviews are highly appreciated.
Hope you enjoyed!