The Wretch.
Title: The Wretch.
Word-count: 857.
Characters: John, Sherlock.
Rating: PG.
Spoilers: Yes! For the finale 2x03: The Reichenbach Fall.
Summary: oneshot, this is a brief, intense stream-of-consciousness inside John's head during The Event.
Author's Notes: The title is a verbal pun on the verb and the S.W.S poem which acts as a mini-epigraph.
The Wretch.
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung...
There is a ringing in his ears as he pushes himself up, on palms mottled red with an impression of the asphalt. It’s the military training that gets him to his feet, but it’s something else that powers his stride, forces him to take one pounding step after another across the street.
Breathlessly, he offers up a prayer - ‘Sherlock…’ - and is not aware of having spoken. ‘Sherlock…’
Something has gone wrong with gravity. The floor is tilting violently under him, pitching forwards like the deck of a floundering ship. It rolls up under foot and John steadies a street-light with one hand.
He staggers on, and slurs: ‘I’m a doctor… Let me come through… lemme come through, please...’
London’s maddening pedestrians are everywhere, underfoot and in the way - treading on him, pulling at him. His voice betrays him. It breaks, and a pleading desperation wrenches through as they try to hold him back. He is reaching for the tangle of once-elegant limbs, now thrown into disarray, the spidery form somehow diminished by its ignominy.
‘No, he’s my friend… he’s my friend!’
I’m supposed to be his friend.
Too late; the still-warm wrist is pried from his useless fingers. A hot lump of anguish forces its way into the muscles of his jaw, and he aches from keeping it in. He goes weak when Sherlock’s hand falls limply to the the floor, and then-
‘Please let me just-’
-and then someone rolls Sherlock onto his side, and John sees the path of blood, and it’s as if someone has cut the string holding him up. The shock hits him like a hammer blow; he faints almost dead away. The ringing in his ears is become a thunder; all other sounds now slow and fluted, like whale-song, reaching him as if from a great distance. He is faintly aware of a cold settling deep into his bones, from the pavement. Seeping up through his jeans - must sitting down. Trying to see through the forest of legs.
The earth is no longer tilting; it is plummeting.
There are moments of brief, dazzling brilliancy, as reality slides in and out.
The intrusive sight of a stranger’s hand on Sherlock’s head. His crown held up in an unfamiliar palm. It lolls, as smooth and round as a stone. How his mop of beautiful black hair moves, as it soaks up the blood in sopping fronds. The audible crackle as his skull peels apart from the pavement. How stark the white of his skin shows, under the wine-dark strings of gore.
John is making grovelling noises in the back of his throat, the terrible keening sounds of a wounded animal. He cannot stop. Each word tastes like iron on his tongue, grainy and stretched and metallic.
‘Mmm Je…sus….no….G-od, no….’
The eyes (it strikes John, now, how extraordinarily long they are) as pale and translucent as insect-wings; as frail. Stomach cramping he peers forwards, desperate to see. Their open stare is… impossible. Not- no. Everything in him says there must be a flicker of the lashes. But they are fixed, and stare only at the sky.
Everything swims as they push Sherlock onto a trolley and take him away - too soon, too soon - he cannot breathe. John shakes his head, but he cannot get it clear- clear of this- the incomprehension, a lead-weight dragging him down into dark waters. He must be standing, now, because the plucking hands are gone, the muscles of his face must have arranged themselves satisfactorily, and Sherlock is being wheeled out of sight.
Mostly what John is aware of is a gut-sick feeling of… nothing. Utter, groaning, unspeakable emptiness. The indignity of it. That this, of all moments, should be attended by irrelevancies, the distant sounds of traffic interrupted their goodbyes, the onset of a rain that will not wait.
And the rain begins in earnest, icy needles which creep down the back of John’s collar.
Life - messy, relentless Life - pools into his silent hell, no respecter of his distress.
Soon there is traffic. Buses pull into the stop, mistaking him for another passenger, and people are walking past him, under umbrellas. None of them stop to ask if he’s alright, or even seem to register the puddle at their feet. To him they are dim indifferent smudges passing beyond a grey veil.
There is no fracture in the clouds, no crack of lightning, no wailing cry. The sun has not dimmed, nor fallen from the sky; because this is the end of a private world.
Inscrutability…
It’s- really, it’s a terrible thing.
Nobody here can sense the iron gates slamming down behind his eyes, cutting him off inexorably from all future happiness.
His hands have started to shake from the cold and, ever-sensible, John thrusts them into his pockets.
When he sets off, blindly, it is in the direction of home, allowing his feet do the thinking.
In his shoes his socks squelch and slide, but he does not pause to wonder whether it is the dampness of rainwater or blood.
On the way back to Baker Street he notices his leg has started to hurt again.
first and only thing I've ever written in the Sherlock fandom, so (as ever) please be gentle with me! >_<
♥ comments / reviews will stop me throwing myself off buildings, probably ♥
Toodlepip,
-CC.
Word-count: 857.
Characters: John, Sherlock.
Rating: PG.
Spoilers: Yes! For the finale 2x03: The Reichenbach Fall.
Summary: oneshot, this is a brief, intense stream-of-consciousness inside John's head during The Event.
Author's Notes: The title is a verbal pun on the verb and the S.W.S poem which acts as a mini-epigraph.
The Wretch.
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung...
There is a ringing in his ears as he pushes himself up, on palms mottled red with an impression of the asphalt. It’s the military training that gets him to his feet, but it’s something else that powers his stride, forces him to take one pounding step after another across the street.
Breathlessly, he offers up a prayer - ‘Sherlock…’ - and is not aware of having spoken. ‘Sherlock…’
Something has gone wrong with gravity. The floor is tilting violently under him, pitching forwards like the deck of a floundering ship. It rolls up under foot and John steadies a street-light with one hand.
He staggers on, and slurs: ‘I’m a doctor… Let me come through… lemme come through, please...’
London’s maddening pedestrians are everywhere, underfoot and in the way - treading on him, pulling at him. His voice betrays him. It breaks, and a pleading desperation wrenches through as they try to hold him back. He is reaching for the tangle of once-elegant limbs, now thrown into disarray, the spidery form somehow diminished by its ignominy.
‘No, he’s my friend… he’s my friend!’
I’m supposed to be his friend.
Too late; the still-warm wrist is pried from his useless fingers. A hot lump of anguish forces its way into the muscles of his jaw, and he aches from keeping it in. He goes weak when Sherlock’s hand falls limply to the the floor, and then-
‘Please let me just-’
-and then someone rolls Sherlock onto his side, and John sees the path of blood, and it’s as if someone has cut the string holding him up. The shock hits him like a hammer blow; he faints almost dead away. The ringing in his ears is become a thunder; all other sounds now slow and fluted, like whale-song, reaching him as if from a great distance. He is faintly aware of a cold settling deep into his bones, from the pavement. Seeping up through his jeans - must sitting down. Trying to see through the forest of legs.
The earth is no longer tilting; it is plummeting.
There are moments of brief, dazzling brilliancy, as reality slides in and out.
The intrusive sight of a stranger’s hand on Sherlock’s head. His crown held up in an unfamiliar palm. It lolls, as smooth and round as a stone. How his mop of beautiful black hair moves, as it soaks up the blood in sopping fronds. The audible crackle as his skull peels apart from the pavement. How stark the white of his skin shows, under the wine-dark strings of gore.
John is making grovelling noises in the back of his throat, the terrible keening sounds of a wounded animal. He cannot stop. Each word tastes like iron on his tongue, grainy and stretched and metallic.
‘Mmm Je…sus….no….G-od, no….’
The eyes (it strikes John, now, how extraordinarily long they are) as pale and translucent as insect-wings; as frail. Stomach cramping he peers forwards, desperate to see. Their open stare is… impossible. Not- no. Everything in him says there must be a flicker of the lashes. But they are fixed, and stare only at the sky.
Everything swims as they push Sherlock onto a trolley and take him away - too soon, too soon - he cannot breathe. John shakes his head, but he cannot get it clear- clear of this- the incomprehension, a lead-weight dragging him down into dark waters. He must be standing, now, because the plucking hands are gone, the muscles of his face must have arranged themselves satisfactorily, and Sherlock is being wheeled out of sight.
Mostly what John is aware of is a gut-sick feeling of… nothing. Utter, groaning, unspeakable emptiness. The indignity of it. That this, of all moments, should be attended by irrelevancies, the distant sounds of traffic interrupted their goodbyes, the onset of a rain that will not wait.
And the rain begins in earnest, icy needles which creep down the back of John’s collar.
Life - messy, relentless Life - pools into his silent hell, no respecter of his distress.
Soon there is traffic. Buses pull into the stop, mistaking him for another passenger, and people are walking past him, under umbrellas. None of them stop to ask if he’s alright, or even seem to register the puddle at their feet. To him they are dim indifferent smudges passing beyond a grey veil.
There is no fracture in the clouds, no crack of lightning, no wailing cry. The sun has not dimmed, nor fallen from the sky; because this is the end of a private world.
Inscrutability…
It’s- really, it’s a terrible thing.
Nobody here can sense the iron gates slamming down behind his eyes, cutting him off inexorably from all future happiness.
His hands have started to shake from the cold and, ever-sensible, John thrusts them into his pockets.
When he sets off, blindly, it is in the direction of home, allowing his feet do the thinking.
In his shoes his socks squelch and slide, but he does not pause to wonder whether it is the dampness of rainwater or blood.
On the way back to Baker Street he notices his leg has started to hurt again.
first and only thing I've ever written in the Sherlock fandom, so (as ever) please be gentle with me! >_<
♥ comments / reviews will stop me throwing myself off buildings, probably ♥
Toodlepip,
-CC.