Second set of dream ficlets!
It's always a fucking mountain, so high up his breath comes harder, the sweat soaking his robes cooling into a chill.
Sanzo hates mountains.
Another twenty feet and he sees the mouth of the cave, fuda coming loose at the edges and flapping in the wind.
When he reaches the door, the fuda break at his touch, fluttering into ribbons of blood.
A woman's voice in his ear: "You really want to know?"
"Shut up," he says, and pushes the bars aside.
He reaches in. For a moment, the cell is empty, and then the blood flows in, an ocean washing across his hands and soaking his robes to the skin. There are ghosts below the surface. They have stories; he can almost hear their voices, as close as he is now.
"Keep going, then," the voice in his ear says. "Don't stop."
"No," he agrees. "Even if we drown."
Crawford stepped out onto the stage and realized it was empty. He shrugged. He'd had this dream enough times before; it was no real surprise any more. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and wondered if he should wake himself up. Sometimes he could push the boundaries of the dream and learn something interesting.
He squinted past the stage lights, out into the audience. Normally by this point they were screaming, anxious and angry. But things were oddly calm. He focused, and managed to will a microphone into existence.
"Who's out there tonight?"
The audience screamed, but there was something odd about it; it wasn't a thousand discordant souls. It sounded more like thousands of identical voices speaking at once.
He squinted further. "Come on," he said, like it was a normal performance and not a dream that was spiraling quickly into the bizarre. "Let's see you. Get a spotlight out there!"
The light swung out on command, and thousands of Schuldigs stood up, clapping their hands, chanting his name.
Crawford woke with a start and stared at his companion, who was still asleep, smiling like the Cheshire cat.
The police are tearing the flat apart. They say they're looking for evidence. John doesn't believe them any more.
Lestrade hands him back his gun. "If you need it," he said, and John knows what he means. He has the bullets in his pocket. Just in case.
"What's that smell?" John asks. It's not gunpowder. Not blood.
"It's curry powder, dear," Mrs. Hudson says, handing him a steaming cup. "From the takeaway down the street."
John drinks. It's good; hot and spicy. "What if I don't want to use it?" he asks Lestrade.
"Well that's on you, isn't it?" he says, and turns away. He takes Sally Donovan's hand, and together they leave the flat.
"I wear the cheese," a man in a uniform says, walking by. "It does not wear me."
"Would you like another cup?" Mrs. Hudson asks.
"I don't think I want to die," he tells her.
She smiles at him, a comfort. "I don't want you to, John Watson."
He takes the bullets out of his pocket. They're filled with curry powder. He presses his fingers together, and they dissolve to ash in his hand.
There's only one mirror at the temple and the monks get all squirrely if you look at yourself too long, so Goku has always spent far too much time in the bathroom at Gojyo and Hakkai's looking at himself.
His face looks different now. His hair's longer, there's a scar on his cheek.
He blinks, and he's younger; much younger. He has to stand on tiptoes to see his whole face.
He shakes his head. This isn't right. He reaches his hand out, into the mirror, which parts as easily as the surface of a pond.
"What are you doing?" Sanzo asks from behind him.
"The answer's here," Goku says. "Isn't it?"
"Does it matter?"
"Don't you think it should?"
He can hear Sanzo shrug behind him.
"I just want to know who I am."
"You're you," Sanzo says. "That's all. Who the fuck did you think you were?"
And now Goku looks like he did this morning, when he was brushing his teeth at the hotel, and Sanzo looks tired behind his shoulder. "Yeah," he says, to himself as much as to Sanzo. "Okay."
The thunder began just as Sherlock was looking under the microscope at the skin samples. He glanced at his phone; twelve twenty-seven, usually when John was dropping back into NREM stage 1. He shook his head.
Sherlock rose and went to the cupboard. Mycroft had always chosen chamomile after nightmares; Sherlock looked over the tins and selected lemon balm. As he filled the kettle, he timed the strikes; quite close, now.
By the time John was making his way slowly down the stairs, the lighting and thunder were within a few moments of one another, and the pot was ready to pour.
John looked at the two cups with suspicion. "Everything...all right?"
"Hn," Sherlock said, making notes on the second set of samples. The preservative effects of the garlic were not as pronounced as the folklore suggested; not particularly surprising, but useful knowledge, nonetheless. "Lestrade said he might be dropping by."
"And so you made him...." John lifted the pot and poured, slowly. "Tea."
"I'm not a complete monster, John. And I fancied a cup."
"Fair enough," John said, and shuffled over to his chair, crading the mug in his hands. "D'you think he'll be by, then?"
"Not likely," Sherlock said. "That's my second pot."
"Ah," John said, and his shoulders relaxed, just slightly; he was always so needlessly concerned with others' opinions of him. Foolish. "Well, I don't suppose he'd mind my nicking his cup."
"It's my cup anyway," Sherlock noted, as the thunder, now fading, rumbled once more.
If you haven't requested one, there's still time! (Link is to LJ 'cause I'm lazy but I don't care where you ask.) I might do a few of the 'extras' too.
...also right now I'm only posting this to LJ because DW isn't letting me post. IDEK.