Fanfiction: Sherlock, BBC
Title: Fire Storm
Summary: "Do you regret it?" - A simple fall can change everything, but some things are always the same - and some are not quite what they seem. After all, no one said this would be easy. Sequel to my one shot 'Black Ice'.
Chapter Word Count: Approx 3,600
Rating: Teen
Notes: I do not own Sherlock. Also, a bit of a language warning again. I’m not particularly happy with this chapter, it was very difficult to write, but I hope you like it; as always, feedback is welcome regardless!
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Beckett regards John for a long moment in what John can’t help but feel is a very patronising manner. Then he nods and leaves without another word. John doesn’t look at Sherlock for over a minute. He stares instead at the spot Beckett just vacated, entirely unable to accept what he has heard.
Mr Holmes will not regain consciousness.
...Necessary decisions.
Decisions he is expected to make, but he can’t - how can they expect him to say -? Do they really think that he’ll just - just give up? On Sherlock? Not just now, but ever? What does it matter to him how long he has to wait for Sherlock to wake up? Because he will; John knows he will.
And the doctors...the doctors are one thing.
Mycroft is quite another. Mycroft knows Sherlock, he has to understand that things are different for him; he can’t be just...accepting this. Can he?
I have already spoken to Mr Holmes’s brother…medical decisions…through you.
Through him...everything is to go through him. Mycroft isn’t even getting involved? He isn’t even showing an interest in his own sibling? Suddenly John is furious. Anger coils itself in his chest like a snake as he fumes at what he can’t help but see as Mycroft’s treachery; his betrayal.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ John tells Sherlock quietly. He finally manages to settle his eyes momentarily on Sherlock’s still form, reluctantly letting go of his hand and swallowing, picking up his cane and limping from the room. He ignores the various glances from the nurses; tells himself he is imagining that they are full of pity, but he can’t help but feel angrier with every step. By the time he’s stood outside the hospital door, he rams his hand into his pocket for his phone with such force he almost tears the stitching. He punches in Mycroft’s number and paces as he listens to it ring.
‘Pick up, pick up, pick up...’ It rings and rings, and Mycroft does not answer. ‘Damnit, pick up your phone!’ He shouts into it, earning himself nervous looks from passers-by. He barely notices, doesn’t care, breathing as though he has just run a marathon. He quickens his step, wearing a line in the pavement as he pivots every few strides and walks back over the same spot, gripping the phone and staring at the ground, muttering under his breath.
The ringing stops; answer phone kicks in. John swears loudly, jams the hang up button so hard it hurts and redials.
‘Answer the phone Mycroft. Answer your fucking phone!’
There’s a click, and the ringing stops.
‘Doctor Watson,’ Mycroft says smoothly, ‘to what do I owe this pleasure? I’m sure it must be quite urgent, I’m afraid I’m rather busy at the moment.’ Mycroft’s indifferent tone only serves to infuriate John further, and he has difficulty keeping his anger in check.
‘I’m sure,’ he says through gritted teeth, ‘so busy you can’t even take the time off to realise that your brother is in a coma?’ Though his mind still offers the customary argument of no, he’s not, he’s not in a coma, he’s not…
‘I assure you, John, I had not forgotten.’ His tone is still polite, but there is a veiled danger to it now that John can’t help but recognise; it does nothing to calm him down, though.
‘You could have fooled me,’ he says, equally dangerously. There’s a brief silence on the other end of the line.
‘May I ask what you are talking about, John? I -’
‘I’m talking about you not giving a damn about it, that’s what I’m talking about! So much for your constant concern -’
People are definitely staring now, but John is impervious to it. All his energy and attention is on Mycroft, and his utter disbelief that the man could be so stunningly indifferent to his brother.
‘Stop there, Doctor Watson,’ the veil has gone; Mycroft is definitely angry now. John feels a savage pleasure at the thought of breaking the barriers of the elder Holmes, not intimidated in the slightest even though he knows he probably should be. ‘Do you think for a second that I am not concerned for Sherlock?’
‘Well, now you mention it; yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Yes.’
‘And why would that be?’ Again, he’s cool and calculating. The switch wrong-foots John for a split second but he quickly rights himself, determined to get his point across.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I just expected someone who actually cared to be here. Maybe I thought as his brother you might want to hear what the doctors have to say. I don’t know, I’m probably wrong, but I would have thought your concern extended to listening when they start talking about him not waking up. About making necessary decisions - and you aren’t even here to make them. You just bump them on to me - you’re far too busy to get involved...’
‘John -’ he’s so angry he misses the sudden gentleness to Mycroft’s voice.
‘They’re talking about turning off the machines, Mycroft! And you told them to come to me. You expect me to deal with this and you can’t even be bothered to listen to the fact that your brother might be dying -’
Mycroft doesn’t interrupt, but John stops, horrified.
Dying.
That’s the first time he’s said that. The first time he’s even acknowledged it as a possibility; with that single word all the fury, all the energy, drains out of him completely and he stops pacing. He stands totally still with his heart pounding in his ears. The city roars around him, carrying on as ever and leaving him standing wide eyed with shock at his own words. He moves dazedly towards the wall and leans against it, his legs unable to support him properly, closing his eyes. He feels heavy and empty at the same time, reeling with the shock.
‘John,’ this time he doesn’t miss the genuine concern in Mycroft’s tone, and guilt settles itself on him, weighing him down even more on top of the force of his outburst. All the fight has gone. ‘I apologise. Do you imagine I suspected for an instant that you would make the decision to switch off the machines?’ He takes John’s complete silence for his answer, and continues, ‘really, I thought you would appreciate some measure of control, and I truly cannot be away from work for very long. I had complete faith that you would make the right decision.’
Still, silence.
‘John?’ Now, Mycroft sounds almost doubtful. John holds the phone weakly, unable to speak. ‘Did you consider it?’ He waits, this time, for John to reply.
‘No,’ John says, quietly but with complete conviction.
‘Then we are in agreement.’
00000
John doesn’t return to Sherlock once he has hung up. He stays leaning against the wall outside, people still giving him a wide berth and casting him concerned looks. He takes deep, calming breaths and tries to work up the energy to move, holding the mobile loosely by his side with his eyes closed.
He listens to the city around him; drinks it in without trying to unpick it...he doesn’t identify one noise from another, doesn’t even try to differentiate. He simply lets the rhythm wash over like a heartbeat. There are pounding footsteps, voices, shouting. He can hear cars, dogs, bikes; a slammed door…even the pigeons dodging between people’s feet as they rush across the pavement in front of him. It all rolls into one sound as it reaches his ears...
It lets him disconnect for a while, but he has to come back eventually and opens his eyes reluctantly to see the source of the noises. Everything moving so quickly past him; all entirely unaffected by Sherlock’s absence.
That’s the problem with this scene, though John doesn’t even have the energy to be angry about it anymore. These people, they don’t know; they don’t know how much they are affected by this - how much Sherlock Holmes has probably already changed their lives without them even noticing. All the crimes solved and criminals caught, and all those that won’t be if he doesn’t wake up. They don’t know, and worse, they don’t care...it makes John want to scream, to shout and make them see. It also makes him want to hide and just sleep until this is all over.
Every single one of them, the whole city, all of it has been influenced by Sherlock and hardly anyone even gives a damn, they just carry on while Sherlock stops - how can they?
A soldier; a police officer...when one is injured or killed it makes headlines, and people stand up and they notice. It might not change the way they live, it might not make them feel anything more than a passing sorrow or anger at the situation, but at least they know. It’s never enough, not to John, but it’s something. Sherlock should have that.
00000
Sometimes, the fog in Sherlock’s mind lifts itself a little. He still can’t make himself move. He still can’t make sense of his situation, but sometimes at least he is aware of something; something more than drifting, disconnected thoughts that aren’t even fully formed.
This heightened alertness is almost always accompanied by a sound. He can’t identify the sound, can’t manage to glean any sort of meaning from it whatsoever; it’s just there. He doesn’t know what it is or where it comes from, or why it sometimes goes away. He especially doesn’t know why it seems so inextricably linked to the ordering of his thoughts, like it focuses them somehow. But it’s...familiar. He knows the sound, which makes it all the more frustrating that he can’t work out what it is.
With as much self-awareness as he can muster, he dreads the moments when the sound goes away, because then things make even less sense. He hates being at a loss like this, but he’s beginning to forget there ever being a time when he wasn’t...things have always been this way, surely? Whatever this way is...what else is there?
Where does the sound come from? Why does he want it to come back? It’s here now, and Sherlock desperately tries to unravel it, recognise it; memorise it so that when it goes away he won’t be so lost again. If he can recall it into the silence then maybe he will be able to think then, too?
For some reason the blackness has receded, just a little, and there are little glowing spots of soft light around. He can’t touch them, can’t do anything more than look, because he isn’t entirely certain he’s actually a physical thing himself right now...but they look nice, he decides. They come from the sound, he’s sure of it, or the sound comes from them or something, he doesn’t know. But they are connected somehow...the same kind of familiarity is stirred by the lights as the sound...
Little round globes and little soft lights, almost like stars, and a distant, muffled, muddled noise. They are all that he has apart from darkness, and he clings to them; anything to tether himself in reality, in something that makes sense. The longer they stay, he is positive, the closer he will come to working out this mystery and finding a way out of wherever he is...
There’s another sound too, for a while. One he doesn’t recognise, and instantly doesn’t like...but as long as the first sound stays then it’s alright, he can still think, still try and identify them. His mind is still active and working, not falling into terrible stagnation...
Then they both go away. The glowing orbs fade and there’s just the murkiness of everything and nothing. There’s nothing to keep him focus; there’s no sound anymore to bring some small measure of clarity to him. He’s fading too; his sharpening senses are dulled again and he’s in silence, blind...he can’t concentrate, can’t think...and why is that familiar, too? He doesn’t know, because his brain isn’t working without the sound here...
00000
Forty-two days since the accident. Nine days since his conversation with Doctor Beckett.
It’s the rhythm, John decides.
Kick, pull, breathe.
Simple, practically instinctive; he’s not sure what made him try it really but it works, at least for a while, so he’s glad of whatever it was that made him make the decision to take up swimming.
Harry, he thinks. Maybe it was Harry. She said he needed a distraction, and this is as good as any.
He reaches out and brushes his hand against the tiled wall, flipping in the water and reversing direction smoothly, kicking back towards the other end without a pause. His muscles are just beginning to ache, and he pushes himself harder - he won’t stop yet, he’s not tired enough yet...
While he’s in the water, he doesn’t have to think. He concentrates on actions, on cutting through the water as quickly as he can, timing himself, counting, trying to out-do his own records; one length, two, ten, fifty, a hundred. How many seconds does it take him to reach the other side? Turn, kick, breathe; try again, faster this time - a hundred and fifty, two hundred - still more, come on; kick, pull, breathe, kick - hit the wall, turn - pull, breathe, kick.
Don’t let the thoughts in, not any of them, it doesn’t matter what they’re about. Just focus on swimming, focus on actions.
Ten lengths away from his record - he’ll beat it today, easily, he’s not that tired - not yet, not enough - he needs to do more, needs to wear himself out...
If he does enough, if he exhausts himself far enough with the swimming, he doesn’t dream, or at the very least he doesn’t remember them. If nothing else he is determined he should have that freedom. He should be able to have the escape of sleep still open to him.
He checks the large plastic clock hung high on the wall at the opposite side of the pool; only half an hour until closing - will that be enough? He swims faster, determined to deplete his energy before his time runs out. He didn’t swim for long enough yesterday...he won’t make that mistake again today, won’t let himself dream again...
The only downside to denying himself dreams is that when he does make that mistake - when he isn’t quite tired enough - they come back worse than ever. They’re so vivid he can barely distinguish them from his real memories when he wakes up, and has to check his hands to make sure they really aren’t covered in blood. He has to go straight to the hospital just to see, just to make sure, that Sherlock is there, and it was all in his head.
They aren’t even all about the accident - at least, not to start with. Sometimes they aren’t even about Sherlock. Sometimes he returns to his dreams of Afghanistan and wakes with gunfire in his ears. But they are all so loud, so real…he can hear the brakes and the explosions. He can see the sand and the twisted metal, he can smell the blood; even once his eyes are open, the images linger.
Kick, pull, breathe.
Twenty minutes left - come on, swim faster, kick harder, don’t dream again...
The weight on his chest is heavy - he doesn’t doubt that the explosives are real, and he really doesn’t doubt that Moriarty will gladly set them off at the slightest provocation -
No, don’t think; no memories, no dreams, no nightmares, not here. They aren’t allowed here. Here it’s just movement, it’s water and voices echoing off the ceiling, it’s the smell of chlorine and it’s sore muscles, it’s not thought -
But he’s trapped in them, there’s no way out for him...Sherlock, though, Sherlock could escape, he could run if only John could find a way to -
No, not that one, especially not that one - reaching the wall again, John kicks off and shoots forwards in the water, pulling ahead determinedly - fifteen minutes -
He shakes his head and dives, revelling in the quiet of the water pressing in around him, muffling the shouts from above. He closes his eyes, but not against the sting of the water. Complete darkness, distant sounds - no breath means no smell...isolation. Total isolation...
He swims until his lungs ache and his muscles burn for oxygen and he can’t stand it any longer, bursting through the surface of the water with a splash and gulping in the air with great, heaving gasps.
He beats his record and then some before the lifeguard calls that the pool is closing and he’s forced to climb out and head towards the changing rooms. He hopes he has done enough to avoid the dreams tonight.
00000
John can’t breathe.
His chest is bursting, his head spinning, and he can’t breathe. He claws instinctively at the water but forgets everything he’s ever known about swimming, relying on pure desperate instinct and his choking need for oxygen, for air, for light. He’s sinking deeper or else falling unconscious; the blackness at the edge of his vision is growing. Everything is blurry and his eyes sting from the water. There’s so much of it...
One moment like treacle, so thick he can barely move, the next thin as air and nothing to push against. He can’t get any purchase on it, reaching for something, anything to hold on to…he kicks and pulls and he’d be screaming if he just had the breath or the energy. No energy left to fight it; there’s light above him. Light and beautiful, wonderful, essential oxygen…but he can’t reach it. He’ll never reach it...his muscles are weak and giving up. No matter how hard he pushes them, his kicks are slowing down, losing their strength...
But no - he just needs air, that’s all, one breath, one lungful. He fights the urge to inhale, the water pressing, suffocating around him; it has never felt so wet and that’s all he can think of. It’s so wet and he needs something dry and clear, but there’s nothing. Nothing to grab onto, to pull himself to the surface, and he must have been down here hours...
He’s falling now, definitely falling deeper. His arms and legs aren’t heeding his commands anymore, they won’t move, and it’s getting dark...
There is something, something far, far above him, too far. A hand, a pale hand is reaching for him, and he tells his arm to move, to reach back, but it won’t. He hears distantly a shout, and it’s familiar, but he can’t hear what it’s saying. Don’t they know he can’t hear them? The water, how is he supposed to listen when he’s underwater?
He should have hit the bottom by now, but there is no bottom. He just keeps sinking, further and further from the air and he wonders vaguely if he really is going to drown, but he can’t really feel anything about it. Somehow it doesn’t scare him...
The hand is so close, inches away...and then so far, he can hardly see it anymore, much too far...he swipes half-heartedly at the water in front of him but his fingers meet nothing but liquid...
The shouting is dimming now, fading to nothing - and then loud again, loud and close and -
00000
‘You are dreaming, Doctor Watson, wake up.’
John wakes up gasping for air, gulping it in frantically and forcing the quilt away, its weight suddenly suffocating.
He doesn’t recognise the voice, and doesn’t turn his head to see its owner. He doesn’t even notice that whoever it is, is standing uninvited in the middle of his room at two o’clock in the morning and telling him to wake up as though it’s noon.
He only knows that he didn’t swim enough.
He’s more tired now than when he went to sleep, but forces himself to take slower, deeper breaths and blink away the image of the pale hand reaching for him, ignoring the panicked shouts he couldn’t answer. Finally he looks at the intruder.
It’s Mycroft.
‘What are you - is it Sherlock?’ Instantly wide awake, John stares at Mycroft urgently as he awaits the answer, panic coiling nauseatingly inside him, ‘is something wrong? Has something happened? What’s -?’
Mycroft holds up a hand to silence him, his face expressionless.
‘Mycroft, tell me -’
A soft, genuine smile begins to tug at the corners of Mycroft’s mouth.
‘He’s awake.’
John’s eyes widen. His heart skips a beat, then doubles pace to make up for it. His ears are ringing; he didn’t hear right, he can’t have -
‘He - what? He’s - are you -?’
‘Please don’t ask me if I am serious, John, it would be most insulting. Yes,’ he says, the warmest John has ever seen him, ‘Sherlock is awake. And asking very specifically for you.’
‘He’s - asking for me?’ It won’t sink in. He can’t believe it, can’t process the thought. It pounds in his head repetitively but doesn’t connect with anything enough to make him feel it properly. Something like relief is beginning to seep through, making him lightheaded. Something like joy, like jubilation, but so much stronger -
‘Yes. He is most insistent. Shall we?’
Summary: "Do you regret it?" - A simple fall can change everything, but some things are always the same - and some are not quite what they seem. After all, no one said this would be easy. Sequel to my one shot 'Black Ice'.
Chapter Word Count: Approx 3,600
Rating: Teen
Notes: I do not own Sherlock. Also, a bit of a language warning again. I’m not particularly happy with this chapter, it was very difficult to write, but I hope you like it; as always, feedback is welcome regardless!
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Beckett regards John for a long moment in what John can’t help but feel is a very patronising manner. Then he nods and leaves without another word. John doesn’t look at Sherlock for over a minute. He stares instead at the spot Beckett just vacated, entirely unable to accept what he has heard.
Mr Holmes will not regain consciousness.
...Necessary decisions.
Decisions he is expected to make, but he can’t - how can they expect him to say -? Do they really think that he’ll just - just give up? On Sherlock? Not just now, but ever? What does it matter to him how long he has to wait for Sherlock to wake up? Because he will; John knows he will.
And the doctors...the doctors are one thing.
Mycroft is quite another. Mycroft knows Sherlock, he has to understand that things are different for him; he can’t be just...accepting this. Can he?
I have already spoken to Mr Holmes’s brother…medical decisions…through you.
Through him...everything is to go through him. Mycroft isn’t even getting involved? He isn’t even showing an interest in his own sibling? Suddenly John is furious. Anger coils itself in his chest like a snake as he fumes at what he can’t help but see as Mycroft’s treachery; his betrayal.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ John tells Sherlock quietly. He finally manages to settle his eyes momentarily on Sherlock’s still form, reluctantly letting go of his hand and swallowing, picking up his cane and limping from the room. He ignores the various glances from the nurses; tells himself he is imagining that they are full of pity, but he can’t help but feel angrier with every step. By the time he’s stood outside the hospital door, he rams his hand into his pocket for his phone with such force he almost tears the stitching. He punches in Mycroft’s number and paces as he listens to it ring.
‘Pick up, pick up, pick up...’ It rings and rings, and Mycroft does not answer. ‘Damnit, pick up your phone!’ He shouts into it, earning himself nervous looks from passers-by. He barely notices, doesn’t care, breathing as though he has just run a marathon. He quickens his step, wearing a line in the pavement as he pivots every few strides and walks back over the same spot, gripping the phone and staring at the ground, muttering under his breath.
The ringing stops; answer phone kicks in. John swears loudly, jams the hang up button so hard it hurts and redials.
‘Answer the phone Mycroft. Answer your fucking phone!’
There’s a click, and the ringing stops.
‘Doctor Watson,’ Mycroft says smoothly, ‘to what do I owe this pleasure? I’m sure it must be quite urgent, I’m afraid I’m rather busy at the moment.’ Mycroft’s indifferent tone only serves to infuriate John further, and he has difficulty keeping his anger in check.
‘I’m sure,’ he says through gritted teeth, ‘so busy you can’t even take the time off to realise that your brother is in a coma?’ Though his mind still offers the customary argument of no, he’s not, he’s not in a coma, he’s not…
‘I assure you, John, I had not forgotten.’ His tone is still polite, but there is a veiled danger to it now that John can’t help but recognise; it does nothing to calm him down, though.
‘You could have fooled me,’ he says, equally dangerously. There’s a brief silence on the other end of the line.
‘May I ask what you are talking about, John? I -’
‘I’m talking about you not giving a damn about it, that’s what I’m talking about! So much for your constant concern -’
People are definitely staring now, but John is impervious to it. All his energy and attention is on Mycroft, and his utter disbelief that the man could be so stunningly indifferent to his brother.
‘Stop there, Doctor Watson,’ the veil has gone; Mycroft is definitely angry now. John feels a savage pleasure at the thought of breaking the barriers of the elder Holmes, not intimidated in the slightest even though he knows he probably should be. ‘Do you think for a second that I am not concerned for Sherlock?’
‘Well, now you mention it; yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Yes.’
‘And why would that be?’ Again, he’s cool and calculating. The switch wrong-foots John for a split second but he quickly rights himself, determined to get his point across.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I just expected someone who actually cared to be here. Maybe I thought as his brother you might want to hear what the doctors have to say. I don’t know, I’m probably wrong, but I would have thought your concern extended to listening when they start talking about him not waking up. About making necessary decisions - and you aren’t even here to make them. You just bump them on to me - you’re far too busy to get involved...’
‘John -’ he’s so angry he misses the sudden gentleness to Mycroft’s voice.
‘They’re talking about turning off the machines, Mycroft! And you told them to come to me. You expect me to deal with this and you can’t even be bothered to listen to the fact that your brother might be dying -’
Mycroft doesn’t interrupt, but John stops, horrified.
Dying.
That’s the first time he’s said that. The first time he’s even acknowledged it as a possibility; with that single word all the fury, all the energy, drains out of him completely and he stops pacing. He stands totally still with his heart pounding in his ears. The city roars around him, carrying on as ever and leaving him standing wide eyed with shock at his own words. He moves dazedly towards the wall and leans against it, his legs unable to support him properly, closing his eyes. He feels heavy and empty at the same time, reeling with the shock.
‘John,’ this time he doesn’t miss the genuine concern in Mycroft’s tone, and guilt settles itself on him, weighing him down even more on top of the force of his outburst. All the fight has gone. ‘I apologise. Do you imagine I suspected for an instant that you would make the decision to switch off the machines?’ He takes John’s complete silence for his answer, and continues, ‘really, I thought you would appreciate some measure of control, and I truly cannot be away from work for very long. I had complete faith that you would make the right decision.’
Still, silence.
‘John?’ Now, Mycroft sounds almost doubtful. John holds the phone weakly, unable to speak. ‘Did you consider it?’ He waits, this time, for John to reply.
‘No,’ John says, quietly but with complete conviction.
‘Then we are in agreement.’
00000
John doesn’t return to Sherlock once he has hung up. He stays leaning against the wall outside, people still giving him a wide berth and casting him concerned looks. He takes deep, calming breaths and tries to work up the energy to move, holding the mobile loosely by his side with his eyes closed.
He listens to the city around him; drinks it in without trying to unpick it...he doesn’t identify one noise from another, doesn’t even try to differentiate. He simply lets the rhythm wash over like a heartbeat. There are pounding footsteps, voices, shouting. He can hear cars, dogs, bikes; a slammed door…even the pigeons dodging between people’s feet as they rush across the pavement in front of him. It all rolls into one sound as it reaches his ears...
It lets him disconnect for a while, but he has to come back eventually and opens his eyes reluctantly to see the source of the noises. Everything moving so quickly past him; all entirely unaffected by Sherlock’s absence.
That’s the problem with this scene, though John doesn’t even have the energy to be angry about it anymore. These people, they don’t know; they don’t know how much they are affected by this - how much Sherlock Holmes has probably already changed their lives without them even noticing. All the crimes solved and criminals caught, and all those that won’t be if he doesn’t wake up. They don’t know, and worse, they don’t care...it makes John want to scream, to shout and make them see. It also makes him want to hide and just sleep until this is all over.
Every single one of them, the whole city, all of it has been influenced by Sherlock and hardly anyone even gives a damn, they just carry on while Sherlock stops - how can they?
A soldier; a police officer...when one is injured or killed it makes headlines, and people stand up and they notice. It might not change the way they live, it might not make them feel anything more than a passing sorrow or anger at the situation, but at least they know. It’s never enough, not to John, but it’s something. Sherlock should have that.
00000
Sometimes, the fog in Sherlock’s mind lifts itself a little. He still can’t make himself move. He still can’t make sense of his situation, but sometimes at least he is aware of something; something more than drifting, disconnected thoughts that aren’t even fully formed.
This heightened alertness is almost always accompanied by a sound. He can’t identify the sound, can’t manage to glean any sort of meaning from it whatsoever; it’s just there. He doesn’t know what it is or where it comes from, or why it sometimes goes away. He especially doesn’t know why it seems so inextricably linked to the ordering of his thoughts, like it focuses them somehow. But it’s...familiar. He knows the sound, which makes it all the more frustrating that he can’t work out what it is.
With as much self-awareness as he can muster, he dreads the moments when the sound goes away, because then things make even less sense. He hates being at a loss like this, but he’s beginning to forget there ever being a time when he wasn’t...things have always been this way, surely? Whatever this way is...what else is there?
Where does the sound come from? Why does he want it to come back? It’s here now, and Sherlock desperately tries to unravel it, recognise it; memorise it so that when it goes away he won’t be so lost again. If he can recall it into the silence then maybe he will be able to think then, too?
For some reason the blackness has receded, just a little, and there are little glowing spots of soft light around. He can’t touch them, can’t do anything more than look, because he isn’t entirely certain he’s actually a physical thing himself right now...but they look nice, he decides. They come from the sound, he’s sure of it, or the sound comes from them or something, he doesn’t know. But they are connected somehow...the same kind of familiarity is stirred by the lights as the sound...
Little round globes and little soft lights, almost like stars, and a distant, muffled, muddled noise. They are all that he has apart from darkness, and he clings to them; anything to tether himself in reality, in something that makes sense. The longer they stay, he is positive, the closer he will come to working out this mystery and finding a way out of wherever he is...
There’s another sound too, for a while. One he doesn’t recognise, and instantly doesn’t like...but as long as the first sound stays then it’s alright, he can still think, still try and identify them. His mind is still active and working, not falling into terrible stagnation...
Then they both go away. The glowing orbs fade and there’s just the murkiness of everything and nothing. There’s nothing to keep him focus; there’s no sound anymore to bring some small measure of clarity to him. He’s fading too; his sharpening senses are dulled again and he’s in silence, blind...he can’t concentrate, can’t think...and why is that familiar, too? He doesn’t know, because his brain isn’t working without the sound here...
00000
Forty-two days since the accident. Nine days since his conversation with Doctor Beckett.
It’s the rhythm, John decides.
Kick, pull, breathe.
Simple, practically instinctive; he’s not sure what made him try it really but it works, at least for a while, so he’s glad of whatever it was that made him make the decision to take up swimming.
Harry, he thinks. Maybe it was Harry. She said he needed a distraction, and this is as good as any.
He reaches out and brushes his hand against the tiled wall, flipping in the water and reversing direction smoothly, kicking back towards the other end without a pause. His muscles are just beginning to ache, and he pushes himself harder - he won’t stop yet, he’s not tired enough yet...
While he’s in the water, he doesn’t have to think. He concentrates on actions, on cutting through the water as quickly as he can, timing himself, counting, trying to out-do his own records; one length, two, ten, fifty, a hundred. How many seconds does it take him to reach the other side? Turn, kick, breathe; try again, faster this time - a hundred and fifty, two hundred - still more, come on; kick, pull, breathe, kick - hit the wall, turn - pull, breathe, kick.
Don’t let the thoughts in, not any of them, it doesn’t matter what they’re about. Just focus on swimming, focus on actions.
Ten lengths away from his record - he’ll beat it today, easily, he’s not that tired - not yet, not enough - he needs to do more, needs to wear himself out...
If he does enough, if he exhausts himself far enough with the swimming, he doesn’t dream, or at the very least he doesn’t remember them. If nothing else he is determined he should have that freedom. He should be able to have the escape of sleep still open to him.
He checks the large plastic clock hung high on the wall at the opposite side of the pool; only half an hour until closing - will that be enough? He swims faster, determined to deplete his energy before his time runs out. He didn’t swim for long enough yesterday...he won’t make that mistake again today, won’t let himself dream again...
The only downside to denying himself dreams is that when he does make that mistake - when he isn’t quite tired enough - they come back worse than ever. They’re so vivid he can barely distinguish them from his real memories when he wakes up, and has to check his hands to make sure they really aren’t covered in blood. He has to go straight to the hospital just to see, just to make sure, that Sherlock is there, and it was all in his head.
They aren’t even all about the accident - at least, not to start with. Sometimes they aren’t even about Sherlock. Sometimes he returns to his dreams of Afghanistan and wakes with gunfire in his ears. But they are all so loud, so real…he can hear the brakes and the explosions. He can see the sand and the twisted metal, he can smell the blood; even once his eyes are open, the images linger.
Kick, pull, breathe.
Twenty minutes left - come on, swim faster, kick harder, don’t dream again...
The weight on his chest is heavy - he doesn’t doubt that the explosives are real, and he really doesn’t doubt that Moriarty will gladly set them off at the slightest provocation -
No, don’t think; no memories, no dreams, no nightmares, not here. They aren’t allowed here. Here it’s just movement, it’s water and voices echoing off the ceiling, it’s the smell of chlorine and it’s sore muscles, it’s not thought -
But he’s trapped in them, there’s no way out for him...Sherlock, though, Sherlock could escape, he could run if only John could find a way to -
No, not that one, especially not that one - reaching the wall again, John kicks off and shoots forwards in the water, pulling ahead determinedly - fifteen minutes -
He shakes his head and dives, revelling in the quiet of the water pressing in around him, muffling the shouts from above. He closes his eyes, but not against the sting of the water. Complete darkness, distant sounds - no breath means no smell...isolation. Total isolation...
He swims until his lungs ache and his muscles burn for oxygen and he can’t stand it any longer, bursting through the surface of the water with a splash and gulping in the air with great, heaving gasps.
He beats his record and then some before the lifeguard calls that the pool is closing and he’s forced to climb out and head towards the changing rooms. He hopes he has done enough to avoid the dreams tonight.
00000
John can’t breathe.
His chest is bursting, his head spinning, and he can’t breathe. He claws instinctively at the water but forgets everything he’s ever known about swimming, relying on pure desperate instinct and his choking need for oxygen, for air, for light. He’s sinking deeper or else falling unconscious; the blackness at the edge of his vision is growing. Everything is blurry and his eyes sting from the water. There’s so much of it...
One moment like treacle, so thick he can barely move, the next thin as air and nothing to push against. He can’t get any purchase on it, reaching for something, anything to hold on to…he kicks and pulls and he’d be screaming if he just had the breath or the energy. No energy left to fight it; there’s light above him. Light and beautiful, wonderful, essential oxygen…but he can’t reach it. He’ll never reach it...his muscles are weak and giving up. No matter how hard he pushes them, his kicks are slowing down, losing their strength...
But no - he just needs air, that’s all, one breath, one lungful. He fights the urge to inhale, the water pressing, suffocating around him; it has never felt so wet and that’s all he can think of. It’s so wet and he needs something dry and clear, but there’s nothing. Nothing to grab onto, to pull himself to the surface, and he must have been down here hours...
He’s falling now, definitely falling deeper. His arms and legs aren’t heeding his commands anymore, they won’t move, and it’s getting dark...
There is something, something far, far above him, too far. A hand, a pale hand is reaching for him, and he tells his arm to move, to reach back, but it won’t. He hears distantly a shout, and it’s familiar, but he can’t hear what it’s saying. Don’t they know he can’t hear them? The water, how is he supposed to listen when he’s underwater?
He should have hit the bottom by now, but there is no bottom. He just keeps sinking, further and further from the air and he wonders vaguely if he really is going to drown, but he can’t really feel anything about it. Somehow it doesn’t scare him...
The hand is so close, inches away...and then so far, he can hardly see it anymore, much too far...he swipes half-heartedly at the water in front of him but his fingers meet nothing but liquid...
The shouting is dimming now, fading to nothing - and then loud again, loud and close and -
00000
‘You are dreaming, Doctor Watson, wake up.’
John wakes up gasping for air, gulping it in frantically and forcing the quilt away, its weight suddenly suffocating.
He doesn’t recognise the voice, and doesn’t turn his head to see its owner. He doesn’t even notice that whoever it is, is standing uninvited in the middle of his room at two o’clock in the morning and telling him to wake up as though it’s noon.
He only knows that he didn’t swim enough.
He’s more tired now than when he went to sleep, but forces himself to take slower, deeper breaths and blink away the image of the pale hand reaching for him, ignoring the panicked shouts he couldn’t answer. Finally he looks at the intruder.
It’s Mycroft.
‘What are you - is it Sherlock?’ Instantly wide awake, John stares at Mycroft urgently as he awaits the answer, panic coiling nauseatingly inside him, ‘is something wrong? Has something happened? What’s -?’
Mycroft holds up a hand to silence him, his face expressionless.
‘Mycroft, tell me -’
A soft, genuine smile begins to tug at the corners of Mycroft’s mouth.
‘He’s awake.’
John’s eyes widen. His heart skips a beat, then doubles pace to make up for it. His ears are ringing; he didn’t hear right, he can’t have -
‘He - what? He’s - are you -?’
‘Please don’t ask me if I am serious, John, it would be most insulting. Yes,’ he says, the warmest John has ever seen him, ‘Sherlock is awake. And asking very specifically for you.’
‘He’s - asking for me?’ It won’t sink in. He can’t believe it, can’t process the thought. It pounds in his head repetitively but doesn’t connect with anything enough to make him feel it properly. Something like relief is beginning to seep through, making him lightheaded. Something like joy, like jubilation, but so much stronger -
‘Yes. He is most insistent. Shall we?’