The Other Side of the Coin
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC 2010) [S2]
Rating: Gen
Characters: Sherlock Holmes
Warning: Speculation for The Reichenbach Fall.
A/N: The flip side of "in this white wave."
It is cold. It is cold and dark and frightening and he wanders around in a haze of barely-grey mist. He’s not quite sure where he’s going, but he knows that he can’t go home. Home, where it’s warm and bright and clear, but that doesn’t exist now, only as a construct, a concept in his head. He’s not sure what he remembers, which is disturbing, seeing as he always remembers what he wants to remember. He’s hiding, he knows, and waiting. Waiting for what, he’s not really sure. He just feels the fear and remarks, oddly, in some distant part of himself that he never used to feel fear, and fear didn’t used to have a face until it did.
His brother (and he only remembers this because this is the face of annoyance) picks him up, takes him to somewhere that’s white and sterile and colourless, makes him sleep, pretends the new lines on his face don’t exist, calls him “silly” when he insists he has to go home. There are days and times and they pass, until one day he wakes up and notices the sun, notices everything again. And while his rational mind is there, in some ways it’s just like they’re back on the moors. The fear lurks around every corner, and he knows why he can’t go home, home to light and warmth and clarity.
His brother buries him, tells him that his funeral was decently attended, and that he has to be gone. He nods, turns, and stares out the window, not seeing anything but the reflection of himself, but as seen through a mirror darkly, the image of his fear.
He gives himself just once, just one chance to see it, to glimpse what he can never know again. As the cab drives by a crime scene, he sees, as if from underwater, a short figure in a brown jacket, standing strong against the wind. It’s so hard to keep silent, to keep from flinging himself out into the street and running, running like a child, towards it. But he can’t. He bites his lip, and the cab moves on, into the summer sunshine.
Rating: Gen
Characters: Sherlock Holmes
Warning: Speculation for The Reichenbach Fall.
A/N: The flip side of "in this white wave."
It is cold. It is cold and dark and frightening and he wanders around in a haze of barely-grey mist. He’s not quite sure where he’s going, but he knows that he can’t go home. Home, where it’s warm and bright and clear, but that doesn’t exist now, only as a construct, a concept in his head. He’s not sure what he remembers, which is disturbing, seeing as he always remembers what he wants to remember. He’s hiding, he knows, and waiting. Waiting for what, he’s not really sure. He just feels the fear and remarks, oddly, in some distant part of himself that he never used to feel fear, and fear didn’t used to have a face until it did.
His brother (and he only remembers this because this is the face of annoyance) picks him up, takes him to somewhere that’s white and sterile and colourless, makes him sleep, pretends the new lines on his face don’t exist, calls him “silly” when he insists he has to go home. There are days and times and they pass, until one day he wakes up and notices the sun, notices everything again. And while his rational mind is there, in some ways it’s just like they’re back on the moors. The fear lurks around every corner, and he knows why he can’t go home, home to light and warmth and clarity.
His brother buries him, tells him that his funeral was decently attended, and that he has to be gone. He nods, turns, and stares out the window, not seeing anything but the reflection of himself, but as seen through a mirror darkly, the image of his fear.
He gives himself just once, just one chance to see it, to glimpse what he can never know again. As the cab drives by a crime scene, he sees, as if from underwater, a short figure in a brown jacket, standing strong against the wind. It’s so hard to keep silent, to keep from flinging himself out into the street and running, running like a child, towards it. But he can’t. He bites his lip, and the cab moves on, into the summer sunshine.