Poor Bloody Tom Hiddleston. Part 5. The Crossover.

The fifth in my occasional series Poor Bloody Tom Hiddleston.  For the actor who is fast becoming one of the most fiction used on the ‘net.

I have been wanting to do this one for a while.  The fact that someone thought a RPF of Tom, crossed with Loki from Thor/Avengers and Sherlock Holmes would be good.  The epic logic fail.  It’s got it all.

Labyrinth of Fears by Ange de la Mort.

Yeah, Angel of Death.  Totally not pretentious sounding at all.

Link: There you go.

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Summary:
Tom has a stalker, Sherlock and John have a new case, and Loki has a lot of issues.

I had to purchase the BBC TV show ‘Sherlock’, and the Sherlock Holmes movie on DVD to see who won here.  Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law can now run up to the top of the hill and scream from sheer relief, whilst Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freemen collect their litre of WhyGodWhy vodka and head to join Tom over in the Poor Bloody muffled weeping corner.  Since Downey Jr. would have had to attend the muffled weeping corner without the help of alcohol, it’s probably just as well.

By the bye, both the TV show and the movie were good money well spent.  IMO, of course.

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Notes:
This is written for the “Softer Side of Loki” - contest held over at the Loki - Hiddleston group.  Even so, there might not a lot of “softness” involved. Also, the main character is not Loki, but Tom.

Don’t be fooled by this.  The main character changes all the time, from Tom, to Sherlock, to Loki, and back to Tom.  There’s even a chapter or two seen from Watson’s POV.  There ‘might not a lot’ of “focus” involved in this thing, either.

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Yes, this might seem like I’m missing the point of the contest, but bear with me, it will all work out in the end.

I did.  It didn’t.  Which is why we are here with the snark.

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Chapter One: Prologue

Look, author, it’s either chapter one, or the prologue.

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On the first day of the end of the world, a cold winter's morning, Tom awoke from an uneasy sleep.

You know, this is a really good opening line.   Sadly, it’s followed by this:-

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The sun hadn't gone up yet, which meant he was lying in the darkness with his eyes open, his gaze fixed at the wall, on which the shadows of the trees outside the window casted gruesome illusions and distorted images, reminding him of grotesque monsters and eerie beings, not unlike those he'd seen in his dreams.

Holy run-on sentence!   So, Tom has had a bad dream made of pure urple.

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Ice covered the seas and locked all the living beings underneath. He could still hear the screams - countless screams of countless creatures, full of agony and pain in their last, futile fight against an inescapable fate -, could still see things in the most subconsius corners of his mind that made tears come to his eyes.

Sounds bad.  Do I see a hyphen, followed by a comma? -wince- You know, if you can’t be arsed to spell check, a good way of remembering conscience is to think of it as ‘con’ and ‘science.’  Just a little pro tip there.  It makes it easier, if not perfectly so, to spell subconscious properly.  Both conscience and conscious come from the Latin ‘conscire’,  literally, ‘to know’.

Sounds like Tom really shouldn’t eat pizza just before bed, though, eh?

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With shaking fingers, he turned on the lights of his loyal bedside lamp to make his way across the dimly lit room to his bathroom.

Loyal?  A bedside lamp? (Takes large chug of drink). Oh, of course it’s loyal!  Every time he’s reached out for it, it’s never been an iron, or a box of fudge.  Hell, I’m sure it’s the veritable Sancho Panza of bedside lamps!

Oh jeez, this is only chapter one.  Of many.  Far too many.

I wonder if Tom demands loyalty from all his small electrical goods?  If that toaster doesn’t buck up its ideas and start browning the bread evenly, it’s for the skip.

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A long shower - not too cold, not too hot - shooed away even the last sad and frightening thoughts of nightmares and dystopiae and an Armageddon that could surely never happen like this.

Dystopias is the plural of dystopia.  Time of finding that out on Google, twelve seconds.

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Life's too wonderful for stupid dreams, he thought while slowly dressing himself and then putting the kettle on.

This is our first introduction to the fact that Tom, in this story, is going to be a little eccentric.  Most people tend to dry themselves before dressing, if they’ve showered, and to not keep the kettle in the bathroom.

Actually, we find out later that Tom has a two-bed house, so managed to get downstairs from his bathroom to the kitchen by apperating.  Which only goes to prove that Tom has been lying through his teeth to us all these years, telling us he went to Eton.  He did, in fact, attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!  Damn you, Tom Hiddleston!

So, Tom goes out in the snow to his post box, which is odd, but not impossible.  Most people in the UK have letter boxes in the door, but not all.

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He was humming a melody - some sort of jingle without any real meaning - while opening the postbox, saw the obligatory, unnecessary advertisments and pulled a face - he should really stick a 'No Ads!' note to his mail box -, when something cought his eyes: a small, white envelope; no recipient, no sender.

Yeah,  because junk mail totally works like that.  As of May of 2013, Royal Mail made £1.1 billion in a year from delivering junk mail.  It’ll just all stop if we put post-it notes on the door.

Also, see under spellchecker for the real ‘advertisements’ and ‘caught‘.  And post box is two words.  And surely, if it’s in your post box, or through your letter box, you are the recipient.  I think the author meant, no addressee.

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He frowned and reached out for it, turned it in his hands. Nothing on the back, either. How unnecessarily secretice, he thought and opened the envelope, unfolded the piece of paper that was inside.

I hate it when the post is unnecessarily secretice, don’t you?  Blank, white envelopes are usually advertising circulars.  I find it odd that Tom wouldn’t know that.

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And immediately wished he'd never done so.

Oh, piss off Michael Parkinson, and take your life insurance ads with you.   I swear, every TV advert break, every newspaper and magazine, every puzzle book and staring up at you from the mat every other post, there he is. ‘Oh, by the way, you’re going to die soon.  So why not take out a policy to pay for your funeral? You get a free Parker Pen.’  Because I’m going to need one of those in the bloody afterlife.  Moron.

Where were we?  Oh yes, the story.  Sorry.

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In small, fine handwriting - not unlike his own -, there was a single sentence put on the marbled paper: Are you ready to perish, Thomas?

Is it just me that thinks, ‘Thomas, are you ready to perish?’ sounds better?  The sentence as it is just leaves you with the word, ‘Thomas,’ which you could have guessed was Tom’s full first name.  Unless you figured that his parents were raging Wombleophiles and named him Tomsk.  Ending the note with ‘perish’ leaves the threat, hanging in the air.  Just seems to carry more weight.

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This is Tom’s handwriting.  Myself, I wouldn’t call it small, or fine.

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The cold Tom suddenly felt had nothing at all to do with the winter.

Hardly surprising, since we have been given no indication that he’s in any way felt the cold of Winter.  In fact, since he didn’t take off his Postman Pat piggy jimjams before showering, it’s to be inferred that he even sleeps in the nude.

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-

Oh, hello, change of scene hyphen.  Nice to see you.

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On the third day of the end of the world, Sherlock Holmes got a phone call.

The end of the world takes a long time.

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Sadly, he was too busy to actually take it (he was currenctly sitting at the cramped, narrow space of his make-shift lab - also known as "the kitchen table" -, conducting one of his little experiments), but not too busy to tell John that "If it's Mycroft, tell him I'm not interested.”

This is one sentence.  Still, apart from the spelling errors, the lack of a new line for a new speaker and the piecemeal structuring and punctuation, it’s not that bad.

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“Also, it was his assistant. She has a fake right heel“, which could mean anything or nothing at all at the same time.

This bit is trying to be clever.  Trying just a little too hard.  John Watson gets the phone and it isn’t Mycroft.

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However, the relief he felt was short-lived, when all he could hear from the other end of the line was an eery silence, only broken by someone breathing heavily. John blinked once, twice, then said: "Hello?"

Eerie,  the word is eerie.  And the author got it right in the second line.

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"Is this Sherlock Holmes?" A man's voice. Deep, not unpleasant to listen to, though the words came out choked, like he was short of crying.

Hey, dude.  Nice voice, but you need to cry more.  I’m, like, hearing a lack of crying, right now?  You dig?  Never met you before, but four words in, I totally feel your weeping quota falls way short, man.  Waay short.

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"No. His colleague."

"I need to speak to him. Please." Urgent, now, drawing in shaky breaths.

Really, Tom had a death threat two days ago and he’s just now getting scared?

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"Are you a client? Wouldn't you like to come over and - "

"I fear for my life."

This meant, yes, he probably was a client.

No shit, Sher… er, Watson.

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Who couldn't leave his house for some reason.

Possibly because he fears for his life?  Or, maybe he’s waiting for the gas man?  Who knows?  The possibilities are near infinite in a near infinite universe.

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Very well. John told him to wait a second and put the phone on speaker, slid it onto the small free space on the table next to Sherlock and his microscope. "A client," he whispered.

Why would he whisper that?  And very well for whom?  For Sherlock?  Watson?  Tom?  The phone?

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Sherlock snorted. "You have as long as it takes for hydrochloric acid to burn through eye tissue, so be quick."

"It's not actually his eye," John stated, trying to be helpful.

Far as I can tell in a quick search, it all depends on the concentration of the acid.  The reference concentration for hydrochloric acid is 0.02 milligrams per cubic meter but that seems to be mist, or vapour.  We have no way to know if Sherlock is misting the acid or using an eye dropper.  Either way the burn, like any acid burn, would be almost instant. 

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There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line and Sherlock snorted again, impatiently this time.

Sherlock’s snorting a lot.  No new cases and back on the cocaine, huh?

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"For Christ's sake, just tell me your name and your problem. And please be quick and not boring about it."

At least Sherlock’s in character.  For now.

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"... my name is Tom Hiddleston. And I fear I'm being stalked."

If I were getting death threats delivered, by hand, to my home, I’d be pretty damn certain I was being stalked.  What on Earth makes Tom uncertain on the subject?  Are we, the readers, supposed to be unsure if Tom has a stalker?  Because, if so, maybe the first line of the summary shouldn’t have been;

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Tom has a stalker.

This is the first of ten chapters.  Ten.  Chapters.

Before going on, I need more drink. 

To be continued…

Ah, alcohol! Sweet nectar of the fates themselves.  The only way to get through badfic reasonably sane.

Anyway.  Back to:-

Chapter 2

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This time, Sherlock gave a sigh and shook his head slightly. "Go to the police and don't bother me with such trivialites."

#Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
so that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the trivialites. Aah.#

Or, perhaps, trivialities.  Whichever.

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He hung up without giving the man any time to even think of an answer to defend himself and his case, before shifting his complete attention back to his experiment.

His unending quest to discover the meaning of ‘instant’ as it pertains to acid burns.

Sherlock, as in the BBC series, can often be this dismissive.  But, in the Hound of Baskerville, he took on a case because the word ‘hound’ was used.  I’d think he’d be intrigued if someone wasn’t sure of being stalked.  Some unfunny banter later the phone rings again.

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Recognizing the number, John smiled and raised his exebrows. Not giving up so easily, are you? he thought and pushed the speaker button again.

Exebrows!  Isn’t that what Wolverine has?  If you touch type properly, x and y are done by different fingers on different hands.  On different lines of the keyboard.  Oy.

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"In two days, I have received exactly two hundred letters describing in very elaborate and colourful language what will happen to me and how I will die. Included are some very personal tidbits of information nobody - who isn't me - can possibly know. Two hundred letters without any information about the sender. No stamps. No address - not even mine. He must have delivered them all by himself." He drew a deep breath and resumed talking. "And now, Mister Consulting Detective, comes the best thing: There are no signs of anybody walking by my house. The letters just appear. And the police can't help me. So, is this exciting enough for you or do I need to include a sticky note to my last will that says the famous Sherlock Holmes was too lazy to solve such a simple case?"

Really?  A hundred death threats a day?  That’s over four an hour!  If that isn’t overkill, it’s certainly over-preparing-to-kill.  Adding a post-it note to a Will could actually invalidate the whole document.  So, bad idea, Tom.

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The man sounded calm and collected, almost cold in his biting cynism (or rather gallows humour?), and John could see the left corner of Sherlock's mouth curl upwards, which could only mean one thing.

He’s having a seizure?  I’ve met cynicism spelled badly before, but cynism is just lazy.  Best it works at all as a word is a possible bigotry against swans.  Nah, that’d be cygnism.

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So, John picked up the mobile and said: "Mr. Hiddleston? State your address, please. We'll be with you in a minute."

-

Keeping busy, I see, change of scene hyphen?  Good for you.

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Westminster was not very far away. Ten, fifteen minutes at most if they took a cab.

The speed of London traffic that’s probably the same time it would take to walk. Actually, having looked at the distance on Google Earth, it looks a five minute walk at most.  Because Baker Street is in Marylebone, a district of the City of Westminster! Westminster is indeed, not far away, when you’re already there!  

I initially thought that the author happened to know that Westminster is in London, so chose it, but actually, Tom was born in Westminster.  I have no idea if he lives there now, but if he does, that kind of makes the author a teensy bit stalker-ish herself.   Sherlock Googles Tom and makes some wildly inaccurate statements about actors in general.

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"A bunch of liars and broken creatures, all of them. They come from shattered homes, had parents who didn't love them and can't cope with who they are, so they try to be someone else. Lying is in their blood, in their system, and you can never know when they tell a flat-out lie or one they believe to be the truth in their twisted selves. I can't say I like them very much."

Still, the important thing is he hides it well.

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-

The change of scene hyphen does double shift in this one, as John and Sherlock arrive at Tom’s house.

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"It's a nice house," John said and looked around. It really was. It resembled those houses one could see on TV advertisments. You want a house like this, those ads always teased, so just let us lend you a nice amount of money you'll never be able to pay back, and when we come to celloect your debts, we'll not only throw you into prison, but also receive this neat house to sell the next idiot. Or would you rather want to play the lottery? For an overcharged price, you'll get the chance to win a tenth of a home like this one. Just think of your children, will you? It's even got a garden for the little fellows to play in. Hiddleston's house had a garden as well, John would bet on it. "Though it's a bit ... big for just one man living here."

Er… what?  I mean, I don’t really disagree a lot with the sentiments, other than being able to spell ‘advertisements’ and ‘collect’ of course, but what the hell is this diatribe doing here?  It doesn’t seem to represent John Watson’s point of view, just the author’s.  Is Tom supposed to have bought a house for which he can’t afford the mortgage?  What is it, Kensington Palace?  Why is a two-bed house too big for one man?  Most people would prefer to have a guest room, if they could afford it.

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"He inherited it." Sherlock folded his arms behind his back, waiting impatiently for the door to open.

"... oh. How do you ... oh, forget it." There was no point in asking, he knew this himself.

I’ll say.  I don’t give a damn what Sherlock Holmes can or cannot do.  You can’t tell if a house is purchased or inherited by looking at it.

Tom’s parents are, as far as I know, still on this Earth, which means that he inherited this house from, apparently, some random ancestor.  A quick search on a property website says that this random ancestor left Tom a place - a two-bed house with a rear garden in Westminster - which, by current values, would be worth a minimum of £379,950 and a maximum of £1,995,000.  I wish I had a random ancestor like that.  What a nice random ancestor.

Moreover, if Tom inherited this house, he didn’t need a mortgage to purchase it, making the above diatribe even more pointless.  Especially as this weeks Lotto is £5 million and Euromillions £20 million.  I admit, both are rollovers and the chances of winning are microscopic, but the claim that winning a lottery would only get you a tenth of a house like this is frankly wrong.  Tom answers the door to Watson.

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"May we come in?" he asked instead.

"Oh. Yes, of course." Shaking fingers worked on the chain that held the door half-closed, and as soon as the door swung open, Hiddleston stammered an apology. "I'm not really myself these days."

Yeah, the point of the chain on a door is that it only comes loose when you nearly close it.  You notice here that Tom didn’t ask for any ID before letting these two total strangers into the house?   Get used to it.  Tom, in this story, has the survival instinct of a clinically depressed lemming.

Sherlock snaps at Tom to tell his story, even though he just heard it on the phone twenty or so minutes back.

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"Take your time," John sai  d at the same time, seeing the fleeting look of distress crossing Hiddleston's features. "Please."

John sai d?  Is this Watson’s Fremen name?

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The house was even nicer on the inside, John noticed as they entered the living-room. Large windows framed the view to a small garden - Ha! he tought.

…he taw a puddy tat?

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Knew it! -, letting in enough sunlight to brightly illuminate the room.

Which is the traditional job of windows.  That’s another comma following a hyphen.

Grrr.

We get to know of Tom’s ‘friendly beige’ sofa and his ‘scenery painting’.  I’d forgive that the author doesn’t know what a landscape is, but the room is so barren and stark that I’m willing to think that Tom simply nicked a bit of scenery from every production he’s been in and nailed it to the wall before putting a frame round it.

Tom shows the detectives the death threats piled on the table.

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To say that Sherlock leaped on the letters like a predator on its prey would be an exaggeration, albeit only a slight one. He snatched one of the envelopes, regarded it from all angles. "This one hasn't been opened."

"Most of them haven't," Hiddleston admitted und sat on the sofa, crossing one leg over the other. "After about ten, twenty, fifty of those I couldn't bear to look at the others."

Was ist das with the und in German here, bitten?  Tom has only these letters to help him find out who is threatening him and why.  So, naturally, he’s not read most of them.  And he told the crime-fighting duo that none of the letters had any clue to the sender.  But, maximum, he’s only read a quarter of them.  One of the remaining could have the guy’s name and address.

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Unlike Sherlock, obviously. He opened one letter after another, read the few lines over and over again.

Because it would be too funny if no-one bothered to read the death threats whilst trying to solve this mystery.

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John could see him frown and reached out for one of those blasted things as well to satisfy the bizarre and morbid curiosity that had grabbed his mind with forceful claws.

TMI alert!  Sometimes, when I’m on the loo, and it’s… er, taking time, I reach for the loo cleaner and read the blurb on the back.  I’ve never before regarded this as a bizarre and morbid curiosity that is grabbing my mind with forceful claws.  Just something to do to kill time.  I’ve seen myself in a new light.

Our first real glimpse of these threats since the first one.

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I will lay my fingers around your throat and choke every breath of life out of you.

Well, that’s definitely disturbing.  I’ll give you that.

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John shivered, laying the paper aside. For a moment, he hesitated and reached out for another envelope. And another. And another.

Ulp!

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You will be mine soon.

Meh.  I’ve seen ‘U R mine’ on a candy love heart. 

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I already imagine your eyes closing forever.

Weird, more than scary.

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Maybe I am right behind you. Can you feel my breath tickling the back of your neck?

John shivered again und swallowed audibly, looked over his shoulder, half expecting someone to stare down at him and flash a toothy, creepy grin.

Except that the letter was for Tom and he’s standing in front of Watson, so that he can see there’s no-one behind Tom.  And Watson is seated on the sofa, so he’s got his back to the wall.  Maybe Watson’s unlucky with his chosen four threats, but none of them contain information that only Tom would know.  In fact, they seem a bit generic.  But we do get another ‘und’.  Warum?

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Honestly, with things like these it was awfully easy to become paranoid.

Until now, Watson thought hand-delivered death threats were shrug-offable?

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"Ridiculous."

Except if one was Sherlock Holmes with his non-existing sense of tact or self preservation.

Hey, Sherlock has common ground with Tom!  Not the tact thing, but certainly the self preservation thing.

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"Those threats are ridiculous and not to be taken seriously. Please tell me this is not the reason you're avoiding the rest of your house, including your bedroom."

Hiddleston's eyes grew wide and he leaned forward, looking at Sherlock with confusion shining in his eyes. "How do you know?"

Turns out subtle clues like Tom smelling like a tramp, having the texture of the sofa cushions on his face, a blanket on the sofa and crumpled, stained clothes gives Sherlock a reason to believe that Tom has stayed downstairs for a couple of days.  And Holmes wants to know why.

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Then Hiddleston nodded and lookepd up. "It was like this ..."

Lookepd?  Author, at least read the damn thing back through once before you hit send.

And we all go wobbly as we head into a flashback… back… back…

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Again and again he caught himself staring at the written words, forming them with his mouth, tasting them on his tongue. They tasted like death and terror and he shivered, bit his lower lip.

Are we back at Michael Parkinson again?

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A threat. A promise. Was he ready to perish? Of course not.

Ah, we’re back at the bit where Tom stands in the snow to read his mail, just the way nobody does.

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How could he be? Who had written this?

Someone who wants to kill you.

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And why?

Have a guess, son.

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Somewhere in a part of his mind that wasn't overcome by fear, he could hear the kettle whistle for attention. With slow, unsure steps he returned to his house and made a face.

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I have nothing but admiration for someone whose go-to therapy for stress involves Mr. Potato Head.

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Somehow, he didn't really care for a cup of tea anymore.

He remained seated at the kitchen table for a long time, the cup still in his hand, even though the tea had gone cold some time ago.

So, Tom decided that he didn’t want a cup of tea.  Then he made one, just so he could let it go cold.  Why did he make one if he didn’t want it? 

After an hour or so of looking at his one-line death threat he decides, for no accountable reason, that it’s a joke and he tears it up.

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He threw the paper snippets into his rubbish bin and stood up, leaving the cup on the sink. All he needed, Tom told himself as he walked up the stairs to his bedroom, as he opened the window to let in the fresh and cold air, was sleep.

For snow to lay in central London, the air temperature must be well below freezing.  Tom has mentioned in interviews that he prefers the cold to it being too hot, but there’s a limit to everything.

So far - as far as the flashback and first chapter go - Tom has got out of bed, showered, gone downstairs, put the kettle on, got his mail, read a death threat, made tea he didn’t drink and is now going back to bed.

Our feisty, dynamic hero, folks.

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And sleep did come. Not as much as he had hoped for, but when did he ever get enough sleep?

In this story he seems to spend half his life asleep.  Has he taken his clothes off again?  I suppose he’s just gone back to bed, fully dressed.  Eccentric, there’s no other word for it.

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He smiled to himself and rubbed his neck, opening his eyes to ... see the window closed. He frowned. But ... hadn't he left it open?

Depends a lot on the kind of window, which we aren’t told here.  Some windows can close with the wind, or just gravity.

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He jerked upright at once, rushed to the window.

I wish the author wouldn't keep using the term 'jerked upright'.  I have a very dirty mind and it conjours up quite the image.

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There was a letter on the window sill.

Windowsill.  It’s one word.

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No, he thought as he picked it up and opened it. No, no, no.

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'You should not leave the window open, Thomas. I wish not for you to get a cold, so I closed it. Be more thoughtful in the future, yes?'

Well, we‘ve reached a new low in our death threats.  My spine remain unchilled.

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"That guy," John remarked as soon as Hiddleston had finished, "is not only fifty, but a million shades of fucked up."

Watson, in the ‘Sherlock’ TV show, doesn’t swear much.  ‘Damn’, is about his limit.

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"Remarkably said, John," Sherlock commented, obviously missing the reference, and tapped a fingernail to his cheek. "I should take a look at the first floor."

Reference?  Oh, that was a Fifty Shades reference?  How random is that?

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"Feel free to do whatever necessary," Hiddleston said and shrugged, "but I'm not coming with you. Nothing can ever make me go there again."

At this point, I’m just going to point out two things:  

One: Tom doesn’t go upstairs now, because he had one message of concern for his wellbeing on his windowsill.  He will, however, go out the front of his house to pick up his death threats from the post box.  

Two:  It snowed the night this started.  Tom crunched through the snow to get his mail.  We are told that it remains very cold, so we have no reason to believe this snow has melted.  None of them, not Tom, not John, not Sherlock bloody Holmes, has thought to so much as glance out the window to see if there are any footprints which might tell them where the guy who left the ‘death threat’ on the windowsill gained entry.

 

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"Good. Then you're not standing in my way when I perform the fine science of dactyloscopy."

Hiddleston frowned. "You're going to do what in my bedroom?"

"Taking fingerprints. Honestly, with your upbringing I'd expected more general knowledge from you."

Perhaps it would be that Tom actually knows that the science of taking fingerprints is dactylography.  The subsequent study of those fingerprints, for identification purposes, is dactyloscopy.  And it’s anyone’s guess why Tom’s double first honours degree in Classics would have covered either word.  Are these words general knowledge?

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Sherlock got up and made his way to the staircase while John and Hiddleston exchanged looks and John tried to telepathically tell him that yes, Sherlock was always like this, and yes, one had to get used to it, and oh yes, he would solve the case in no time.

Martin Freeman is a damn good actor, but even he would flail at trying to get that lot across in one look.

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"By the way," Sherlock said and looked at both of them. "When your stalker is able to get into your room while you sleep, what on earth makes you think you're save in the living-room?"

Thank you, Sherlock.  The idea that Tom, or indeed anyone, would be so stupid as to boycott half their house because someone has been in there, but wouldn’t imagine that other parts of their home would also be accessible is stupid beyond belief.   Although that would be, ‘you’re safe’, not, ‘you’re save.’

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And with that, he disappeared from view, leaving a very mortified Tom Hiddleston all alone.

"I'm never going to sleep again," he whispered, sinking down on the sofa in shock, and John could do nothing but lay a gentle hand on his shoulder.

In the previous line Tom is ‘all alone’  Now he’s with John.  Simple to fix, but the author hasn’t bothered.

Sorry, liver.  There’s more of this to come.  The impression left of chapter two is that one existing person and two adapted characters have caught stupid disease and that it’s a damn good thing that Tom has a downstairs loo.  It’s not hygienic to piss in the kitchen sink and I dread to think what would be in the kitchen bin, by now.

To be continued...

Because, even if no-one else cares about this, I do!  

Chapter 3

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Upstairs, Sherlock found a few doors leading to various rooms. The first one was a small broom cabinet.

Because, while the hoi polloi might keep their brooms in a common cupboard, the more discerning connoisseur of the broom has a bespoke cabinet in which to keep their quality sweepwear.

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Nothing of importance.

This finely wrought, hand-made broom cabinet?  Sir, you jest.

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Then a guest bedroom with a comfortable-looking bed, a small wardrobe and two bookshelves. When Sherlock took a closer look, he identified various copies of Shakespeare's works. How cliché. But somehow expected from an actor.

Certainly an actor who is classically trained and done many Shakespearian roles, yes.

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The next door led to a second bathroom, larger than the one he'd seen downstairs.

The trend for calling shower rooms and lavatories ’bathrooms’ is really annoying.  It’s not a bathroom if there’s no bath in it.

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This one had a tub and some shelves stacked with more personal hygiene articles than any human being could use in five lifetimes, as well as an electric razor - which Hiddleston could really need right now, he looked like he hadn't shaved in days, which - of course - he hadn't, and a small box containing green contact lenses.

Another eye-searing run-on sentence.

I don’t know why Tom has green contact lenses.  He was supposed to wear them for his role as Loki, but, like many people, he found wearing them too painful, so they just went with Tom’s natural blue eyes.  This was done in costume testing, so it’s unlikely he’d have kept the lenses.  The green eyes in the Thor poster were simply added to the picture.  Moreover, in Avengers and Thor: The Dark World, they went with Tom’s blue eyes in the publicity blurb.

Oh, and remember the razor for later, readers.

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Finally. Hiddleston's bedroom. Most likely the content of every teenage girls' wet dreams, if a glance at the man's IMDB page was to be believed. It looked completely ordinary.

Apart from the loyal bedside lamp.

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Still, Sherlock took the time to open every drawer, just because a) he could and b) he had to get to know his client as well as possible in order to make sure he was able to see through every lie the man might throw at him.

So far, we have seem nothing for Tom to lie about.

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Nothing special in his wardrobe (normal people would maybe wonder why on earth a man needed four different leather jackets, but Sherlock wasn't normal people).

Indeed not, if he’s failed to notice the designer clothes in there.  Tom’s quite the clothes horse.

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Alarm clock set to 6.30 am. Early riser, even on the weekend.

Of course, that’s how film actors work.  Monday to Friday, nine to five.  Regular as clockwork.  

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The content of one of the drawers made him raise his eyebrows and think that the poor fangirls would be very disappointed if they found out, but Sherlock was not one to judge or care.

No!  It can’t be!  Tom… does Sudoku?  Or Rubik’s Cube?  I’m shattered.

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Instead, he focused his attention towards the window and pondered. It could only be opened and closed from the inside.

What a clever design feature.  That’s in all windows.

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Could the stalker have climbed the wall and gotten through the window? Could he have closed it, written the letter and placed it on the window sill, then left through the front door? That was a possibility. But Hiddleston would have told him if the front door had been unlocked.

I’m uncertain as to the layout of this house.  That there are two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs is fairly clear.  But Tom seemed to get out of bed and walk into the bathroom, which initially made it seem like an en-suite.  Apparently he got there via the landing.  Downstairs there is a kitchen at the front of the house, a lavatory, presumably under the stairs, and a living room at the back.  We are told there are large windows, but unless the author meant patio doors, or French windows, there isn’t a way into the garden.  I suppose the house could be L-shaped and the back door be in the kitchen, but for now, it seems the when Tom needs a to do a bit of gardening, mow the lawn, or just chillax alfresco, he needs to climb out of the living room window.   I find that amusing.

Sherlock puts some aluminium powder on the windowsill, takes some pictures of the prints and then uses some clear sticky tape he finds on Tom’s desk to put the prints into a notebook.  Why Tom would keep a desk in his bedroom and his reference books in the spare room, I have no idea.

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Change of scene hyphen.  ‘Sup?

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When he came back downstairs, he could hear the two men talking while sitting at the kitchen table.

"So," John said, "why did you check your post box at five-thirty on a Saturday? Seems a bit early, don't you think?"

Especially as, almost any time of year it would snow in London, it would be dark at that time.

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"Well ... " The clinking sound of a teacup being put on a table. "I'd just come back from a promotional tour the night before and I'd been too tired - and not sober enough, to be honest - to check right away."

Oh, actually, that does make sense.  I can now see why Tom might go back to bed, if he was hung over.

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Sherlock stepped into the kitchen. "I guess you haven't emptied your trash bin since Saturday, have you? Oh, don't give me that confused look, it's annoying. Just answer my question."

No British person says ‘trash bin’.  Sherlock would just say ‘bin’.  They find the bits of letter.

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"Thanks to science and reasonable thinking, I can find out when the letter had been written. If you were so kind to go and fetch me a dozen or so more of your stalker's love letters, I can compare the handwriting and ink to see if we have to deal with one single person or with a group of people."

Hiddlestons face fell and his brows raised in uncertainty. "You mean ... there could be more than one person doing all this?"

This really hadn’t occurred to Tom?  That it might be a couple, or a communal prank?  And he still opened the door to two total strangers?  I think I’ll coin the phrase, ‘Eccentric Lemming,’ to describe this.

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"That's what I just said!" Sherlock snapped, voice thick with impatience. "So would you please do as I told you?" He waited until the man got up and left the room, then muttered a hushed "Finally!" and quickly took his fingerprints from the teacup.

So Sherlock is being a rude dickhead to get Tom out the way, so he could take fingerprints.  Fingerprints that must be all over the house.  The house Sherlock has been alone in for quite a while.  Doesn’t make sense, but whatever.

Tom returns with the letters and Sherlock and John leave.

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"What?" The man looked crestfallen. "But what should I do in the meantime?"

"Well, hiding under a blanket and pretending that as long as you can't see them, they can't see you either, has been a good strategy so far, why change it? See you soon, Mr. Hiddleston."

That line made me laugh.  There’s hope for this author yet.

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Change of scene hyphen.  You’re looking well.  Lost weight have you?

They go back to 221B, and Sherlock gets John to find out all he can about Tom online.  This only takes him about an hour.  Results for ‘Tom Hiddleston’ on Google are over twenty million.  Youtube results are over one and a half million.  All in an hour.  Impressive.  Going through his Twitter account alone would take most people as long.

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And while Sherlock himself spent the next hour seated at the kitchen table, analysing the ink and handwriting and fingerprints (with the help of his trusty combination of a microscope, three different kinds of chemicals, a syringe, a glass of water and his overly brilliant mind), John got the most intenste headache of his lifetime.

What kind of headache, now?  Maybe the kind that comes with yet another awful, run-on sentence.

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"I don't get this guy," he said, rubbing his temples, when Sherlock came over to him, looking over his shoulder. "One minute he's sophisticated and talking about Shakespeare and acting, the next minute he's throwing up gang signs and running around screaming 'LOKI'D' and telling everyone he's a prankster and the actual God of Mischief."

Golly, Tom is a fully rounded human being?  Who knew?  Don’t tell me John Watson went through medical school and his time in the army, without meeting people who could be lunatics one second, then deadly professional the next.

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Sherlock sat down and leaned forward, a small wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows. "There might indeed be a lot of pranking involved. But not against Hiddleston." When John looked at him questioningly, he hummed and said. "No fingerprints, except for his own. Of course, the stalker might have worn gloves, but that doesn't explain Hiddleston's fingerprints on letters he - allegedly - hasn't opened."

This could be a really interesting premise.  That Tom, himself, wittingly or otherwise, is stalking himself.  Unfortunately, since we know that Loki is involved, it hasn’t any punch.

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"This is where it gets interesting. All of the letters must have been written between Friday and Saturday. Same handwriting, same brand of ink. Seems to be a designer brand, high iron-content. Even a bit of sulfur. We need to check later which manufactues use sulfur in their ink, if they sell their products in London and if someone there can identify Hiddleston as their customer."

As far as I can discover, the only ink that uses iron in it’s manufacture is blue-black, not green.  We were told the ink is green.  Sulphur, to give the proper spelling, seems to be only used in tattoo inks.

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He paused for a moment. "You remember him saying he woke up and found a letter on his window sill?" John nodded and Sherlock gave a sigh. "He wants us to believe a stalker climbed the trees in front of his house without making a sound, climbed through the window, closed it and then stood next to a sleeping Hiddleston only to write a letter about it - which means he must have had paper, pen, envelope and ink with him. And then our stalker vanished from sight? How? That's ... that's simply impossible."

Of course, if the stalker has access to Tom’s house, duplicate key or the like, then he would be able to enter the house, climb the stairs, write the note, place it on the sill, close the window and leave.  We have been given no indication that Tom’s house has a burglar alarm. I'd remark upon a famous quote about eliminating the impossible and, whatever remaining, that being the truth, however improbable, but what would that have to do with Sherlock Holmes?

Sherlock and John decide to go back to Tom’s house.

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…oh, I know, change of scene hyphen.  What with one thing and another, it’s hard to see a way forward.

So, Sherlock goes to a café that is open twenty four hours a day and John has to crouch in Tom’s garden.  How John get’s into the garden we aren’t told, as, apparently, Tom is being kept in the dark about all this.  I’m not getting Tom’s house here.  A café, open all the time would see traffic, or it wouldn’t be open long.  But Tom said that no-one had come up his road when he was waiting for the stalker to leave a sheaf of death threats.

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This change of scene hyphen is being overworked.  Poor thing.

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The night turned out to be absolutely uneventful. Sherlock called him every other hour on his mobile to ask if something had happened, which both of them had to decline. Nothin had happened. Nothing was happening. And at dawn, Sherlock called again to say that probably nothing was going to happen at all.

Sadly, a quality it’s beginning to share with this story.

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His joints were aching and he was cold and tired and maybe a bit unhappy about having had to spend a night uselessly observing a house (especially since he had to go to work soon).

So Watson is back to being a general practitioner.  One who nearly got sacked for falling asleep on the job before.  Wise, then, to stay awake in the snow all night.  He goes to Sherlock and they order breakfast when Sherlock’s phone rings

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This change of scene hyphen needs a rest, dammit!

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On the fourth day of the end of the world, Tom Hiddleston awoke to a strange and unfamiliar sound. He groaned, turning over and snuggling deeper under his blanket, frowning in his half-sleep when the sound - and smell - did not stop, but instead grew in intensity. It was a crackling, sizzling noise and smelled not unlike a campfire licking over wood and paper and ashes.

If I heard what sounded like the room on fire, I think I’d be awake pretty damn sharpish!  Tom’s couch must be huge!  Not only does it, apparently, accommodate his six-foot-two frame without a problem, but it’s wide enough to turn over!

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... wait. That should not be possible. He didn't even have a fireplace.

So the sound of a fire should be quite frightening, then.

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Slowly, Tom opened his eyes and blinkes.

How do you open blinkes?  

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His eyes widened in disbelief und he jerked upright.

Oh, not again!  I’ve got a dirty mind!  Stop using that phrase!

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With shaking fingers, he grasped his…

Well, this is only making bad, worse.

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…mobile phone to redial a certain number.

Phew.

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"Mr. Holmes?" he said, his voice breaking, quivering. "Could you please come over? I ... " Words failed him and the only sound coming out of his mouth was a choked sob as his eyes were still fixed on the wall.

One word, one single word was burnt into the concrete.

Today.

This is our moment, our cliffhanger.  All I can think of is how Tom has bare concrete in his living room and how that must clash horribly with his beige sofa.

To be continued.

[quote=]"Still, Sherlock took the time to open every drawer, just because a) he could and b) he had to get to know his client as well as possible in order to make sure he was able to see through every lie the man might throw at him."[/quote]

He can tell someone is lying after rummaging through their underpants? That's cool. Do you have to go to school to learn how to do that?

Hahaha, a concrete floor, huh? Sounds posh.