I just realised that if I finish the next chapter of Volunteer Hours by Christmas, it’ll be less weird than it would have been if I’d finished it in July.

Which is when I started working on it.

Because it’s a Christmas chapter.

Sooo, looks like I have work to do!

TIME TO REWATCH THE EPISODESSSSS.

Volunteer Hours (Part 11) - Sherlock/John

(I’d like to apologise in advance for pinning this to the dash of anyone who is following me for non-fic purposes - particularly if you know me IRL. I know that that can be sort of annoying. Sorry!)

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Part 1 can be found here

Part 10 can be found here

This is a fill to the prompt of Sherlock being in a deep coma, to the point where he’s considered vegetative. John’s counsellor suggests that he might find some further purpose in volunteer work, if he hates the concept of a blog so much, and he begins to visit him on a regular basis. He speaks to him, expecting that he cannot hear him and knowing that it’s only for his own benefit. He has no idea that Sherlock can hear and understand every single word that he says- and that it’s keeping him sane.

Alternate Universe.

John-centric.

Fandom: BBC’s Sherlock
Pairing: eventual Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: PG

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{I just wanted to thank everybody for their support through the last several months, above everything else. This update has taken so long because of a lot of unfortunate personal circumstances, including but not limited to: finishing my undergraduate degree (I wrote 40,673 words for my degree alone between March and May), being accepted at my dream university for my MA and a lot of horrible/unexpected/emotionally exhausting immigration issues… It’s been a ridiculous, hellish year, to say the absolute least, and I’m so sorry that I had to put VH on the backburner for so long.

I really appreciate everybody’s patience, and I will do my best to keep up with constant updates until this beast is done with! I am finally settling down at my university and I should have more time to write and focus. The rest of the fic has been thoroughly planned out - it’s just a question of writing and finishing at this point.

I have also decided to slice this chapter in half. I took a small poll on tumblr about it and they seemed in favour of an update now, so here it is. This means that there will be 3 more chapters after this to wrap up the fic, and I am 900 words into Chapter 12 already.}

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People who are interested in ‘Volunteer Hours’: I need your opinions!

I was thinking about how long this chapter was taking me and I wanted to know if I ought to release the first half (which is completed) as Chapter 11 and the second half later as a separate chapter. It would make sense in relation to the chapters that I have already released.

I’m asking this because, as it currently stands, each chapter generally focuses on the events spanning over a single day at a time - this one would skip forward several weeks and the second part could probably stand on its own, as it is a different stage in Sherlock’s time in hospital.

The problem being that the first part is only 1,300 words long, and I’m worried that people might lynch me if I don’t give out a serious update with a lot of content.

So, uh, yeah.

What would you guys prefer?

Should I update now, but only with 1,300 words - or should I update later, when I finally finish this goddamn section, with over 2,000 words?

Yeah, so, I’m getting ill. Milady has been sick for a while and I’m getting the same thing she’s had, with the coughing and the phlegm and the dizziness and YAY. Which means that I can’t do the pirate reenactment on Saturday, probably. Being ill is dumb. I’m not really the sickly type, tbh - but I know that my throat is going to be totally shot by the weekend. Hnng.

This has vaguely put off the planned update of VH, but I have made progress and things are a bit faster with writing now. I literally just jotted down two pages of dialogue / bits of prose from a particular section that I’ve been struggling with (and by literally, I mean ‘within the last 10 minutes’), so that chapter will hopefully be finished in the near future.

IDEALLY I’ll have it done between today and Sunday-ish, depending on how it goes. So, uh, yeah. I’m just gonna lie in bed with my notebook and my leopard for a while.