Darkling, I Listen - Sherlock/John (Part 2a)
Title: Darkling, I Listen
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: No one who enters old London ever comes out. They say that the beast devours them. When his sister disappears, John ventures into the dead zone beyond the wall, and finds a brilliant madman under a terrible curse...
Warnings: slash, alternate universe with superstition and magic, angst, swearing, blood
Notes: For siehn on livejournal, who inspired this with her five acts round six prompt. This story is loosely based off of beauty and the beast. The title is a line from the poem “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats.
Part 2
The Madman
It is always dark in his dreams, not that he would call them dreams anymore. They occur so often that he doesn’t recall what it is to have a normal dream, only nightmares of black and fog and screams.
He’s always back in Afghanistan, running, sometimes staying behind to heal the fallen, sometimes taking more bullets for Murray. But the end result is the same. Murray dies and John is lost in a spiral, unable to get up again.
They stare at him.
He can see their faces drawn in the air with wisps of smoke. His parents, his comrades, Murray, Harry, they all look at him in the darkness with accusing eyes. They’ve become one with the fog and they’re reaching out with skeletal hands, missing eyeballs and lacking bits of torso, clawing at his arms, pulling him towards the blackening background of nothing.
“You could have saved us with your power, why didn’t you save us, John?” They accuse, parts of their teeth and lips peeling away.
John can only plead with them and say, “I’m sorry,” infinite times over but it is never enough.
They begin to tear him to pieces and he doesn’t struggle, only yells himself so hoarse that his vocal chords feel like they are bleeding into his lungs. He can only see black, and smoke, and their hatred for him, hatred so well-deserved...
There is a howl in the night.
The last thing John sees is a pair of grey-blue eyes, shining brighter than any light he has ever seen.
Siraj, he calls it.
The screams come, but they are not his own. They continue for a long time, with the addition of snarls and vicious growls. When they stop he feels himself pressed against soft fur and begins to drift away into oblivion as the caresses shift into those of long fingertips...
-
His body is stiff against the cold hard pavement. John rolls to his side, pleased that his head is at least lying on his pack rather than cement, and mentally catalogues the damage. He keeps his eyes closed, using his gift to monitor the pain. Though he cannot heal himself, he can at least keep track of how bad off he is.
The slashes on his chest have been stitched up, John is surprised to note. He opens his eyes then and wonders who (or what) might have saved him. His muscles protest his movements but John sits up and surveys his environment. There is still fog (and it still whispers, and now caresses, his ears.) But the fog is slightly lighter. John can make out the haze of buildings on either side of him. He’s lying on the pavement of a street.
In the distance, there hangs an eerie orb that radiates soft light that is enough to lighten the fog to a tolerable shade of grey but not enough for John to make out the details of the street. The orb, John realizes, must be the picture of the moon that Mrs. Turner mentioned.
The rest of the street is half cast in shadow for the lamps do not work. The only source of light comes from the not-moon which seems to hover in the center of what must be Old London. The city is still engulfed in shadows. John wonders if one step in a dark alleyway could take him back to where he was before, the terrain of black fog and demons, of miles of nothing with a few brave trees alone with the mist.
The wolf must have dragged his body into Old London since these constructed dwellings hadn’t been there the last John checked. Before, he’d been running for his life from shadow demons in a sparse wasteland of black fog. Or maybe the dead zone had shifted landscapes, from sparse cement to the familiar buildings of a city. He isn’t sure. Witch magic is a tricky thing and John has never tried to understand it.
Where is the wolf? He realizes.
John slowly gets up and moves his head back and forth. There is no sign of the animal that saved him anywhere. The cemented roads prevent any tracks from being made. But John does see traces of fur on his clothes and, when he leans in close to it, the ground. The fog prevents him from being able to see anymore fur. Even if he did try and find the wolf, it would be a waste of what precious time he has.
He needs to find Harry.
Silently, John says a thank you and hopes that somewhere, his sentiments are known to the wolf he has decided to name Siraj.
Quickly, John puts on his pack and feels for his cane. When he finds it, he begins to limp as fast as he can down the blurred street. He feels for his gun and is content to know that it is safely in his gun hoister.
As John continues alone the line of buildings, he notices that he only needs to stand a metre from the side of the nearest shop to see the hazy door and indecipherable sign with his eyes. He is along one of the shopping areas, rows of shops parallel from one another. They are empty and John can’t tell if they are dusty from years of vacancy. The mist shades too much of his sight.
He walks right past the corner and doesn’t realize it for several long moments when he no longer sees the outline of buildings along his right. John doubles back, and in an instinctive decision, decides to turn left (the sinister way, in fairy lore) because it’s more likely he’ll run into more demons and maybe they have Harry (if they haven’t torn her apart, but John can’t think of that right now.)
Quickly, he tells himself, and goes further into the grey, trying to ignore the sensation that he’s being watched from all around.
He probably is, he reminds himself, but doesn’t let it bother him (much.)
-
The fog here is slightly different than it was when John first entered. It seems almost gentler and even cautious with him. The whispers are muted now, like subtle gushes of wind.
He still feels watched. It’s an instinct that is yelling itself hoarse at him that he needs to triple check all areas. But every time John darts his eyes nonchalantly he only sees the grey and nothing to indicate that his suspicions are true.
John walks along the seventh turn. His internal map notes how far he must be from his original spot. He is heading towards the barely glowing orb in the air. The mist doesn’t let up; despite how closer John is progressing. In fact, the orb seems fixed in the same place, as if John hasn’t moved from his former place.
When he almost walks into another stop sign, John lets out a string of profanities under his breath. He wants to call out for his sister, but it would be a stupid move. Not only would it draw attention to his position but John might attract something worse than demons… a witch.
The last thing he needs right now is to be cursed to be blind or immobilized in a dead zone.
So he stumbles forward, utterly lost in a city he doesn’t know anymore.
There are shadows in the distance, moving towards each other. John tenses and gets out his gun, pointing it straight ahead but he doesn’t shoot… Not yet. The silhouettes are not nearly as large as the monsters that had tried to eat him before. In fact, they appear human sized. Yes… as John squints he can make out the unmistakable shape of a man’s head and torso.
There are people here in the dead zone, still miraculously alive and (hopefully) sane enough to help him.
John dashes towards them and then slows down, doubts entering his mind. They could be witches, rather than fellow victims. But he needs to take the risk. Wandering around, lost in the dark, will not help him find Harry. If he doesn’t act, he’ll be stuck here until the demons come back for him.
“Hello?” John calls out.
The ‘hello’ echoes down the street like a ghostly wail. John keeps that in mind for the next time he hears something like it. It might be another person, shouting for help.
The hazy outlines of the two men don’t stop. In fact, they are standing on the side of the street, where the pavement would be, as if they’re just… chatting.
John feels so bewildered by this possibility that he nearly drops his cane. It hits his knee hard in retaliation but John can barely care for it.
He rushes closer to two figures, and is surprised, when he gets close enough to see through the mist, that he recognizes one of them.
“Mike,” John blurts out, taking in the sight.
It’s difficult to see, but Mike is dressed casually, as if for a walk. He is wider than he was in their days at St. Bart’s and he has two chins. He has his hands shoved in to his pockets and has a checkered shirt tucked in neatly to a pair of dark trousers (John can’t tell the colour, blasted fog.) His companion is another man that John doesn’t know, shorter than Mike with a long beard. He’s wearing a lab coat which is easier to see in the dark, perhaps a professor or scientist of some sort.
They’re both grinning at each other with no care in the world, like the fog is not there and nothing strange has happened.
“Mike?” John waves a hand and shifts closer. “Hello?”
His old acquaintance continues asking the other man, a Professor Doyle, about his day.
“Lovely weather, isn’t it?” Mike is saying, making John question his sanity.
“Oh yes,” the professor replies, “almost sunny.” It’s an expression that is used to describe grey days that are so much lighter than usual that they could be sunny. John has never used it. His mother used to throw things at her children when they tried to use that slang and so the words have been taboo to him ever since. He has no idea what possesses the professor to use it now of all times.
After all, it is almost pitch black in the city.
“Hello?” John attempts again, stepping so that he is almost between them. “Can you hear me or not?”
“Did you hear about those serial suicides? Awful, isn’t it? Waste of every body’s time to off yourself like that,” Mike continues.
“Oh yes… I have a newspaper here.” The professor pulls it from under his arm, showing Mike (and John) the headlines.
Five Deaths. No Notable Pattern. Police Claim Serial Suicides?
There is a distasteful picture of five different bodies that are self-mutilated along the wrists and torso. John supresses his shivers as the Doyle puts the paper away. Whatever that photo shows, it is not suicides. A careful doctor would be able to tell.
He thinks, for a moment, that it might be the demons. This is Dead London. No one knows what happens here save for the ones who live in it (if they are alive at all.)
But before he can put much thought to the issue, Mike and Doyle are off, saying something about dinner. John walks after them and waves his hands in front of their eyes. To his dismay, they keep going as if he is the ghost invading their reality.
(And perhaps he is.)
“You really can’t see me…” He breathes with dawning horror, watching as they sit down at a vacant café and begin using utensils to dig into a plate of… nothing.
John has an urge to throw up and a panicked moment of am I dead or alive? Is this a dream or reality? Have I become a ghost or am I real?
But he sees something as he stands closer to look properly at Mike and Doyle, abandoning the pretenses of personal space altogether.
Though their facial expressions and movements illustrate a casual and happy air, their eyes are wide, moving back and forth at John pleadingly. Their eyes are alive still and John has the disturbing realization that these men are trapped in the daily routines of their own bodies, unable to say or do anything else.
He remembers what Mrs. Turner said.
(… Then I was here, on the other side of the fog, along with hundreds of others. The fog didn’t want us. It said we were too boring for its game…)
What had happened to the people who were still in the fog?
John is looking at the answer.
They are stuck, repeating the same day, over and over, while still aware in their own minds, yet incapable of commanding their bodies to do anything else…
“Oh god, Mike…” He puts a hand on his old acquaintance’s shoulder and bites back a sob. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wish I could do more.”
It kills him inside to walk away.
-
John remembers the first time he saw someone who was cursed.
His mother had been coherent enough to take him to the clinic for a check-up. John always liked talking to the doctors that were working there, especially Doctor Hardwicke who always explained everything he was doing in a way that was easy for John to understand.
He had been reading a magazine for medicine, lent to him by one of the secretaries, and reading out the words he had problems pronouncing. Other children’s mothers cooed over him, saying that he was adorable when all he wanted was to know how to say “diarrhea” and “osteoporosis.” His own mum had just smiled politely, trying to tune out the emotions of everyone else.
Then a distressed father nearly broken down the door, holding his child and shouting, “Someone help me! My boy’s been cursed by a witch, please cure him!”
All the other parents in the waiting room recoiled from him. The secretary picked up the phone to call the police. Security guards (all clinics need them for this type of situation) came from the doors and the hallways to restrain the man who was screaming for someone to help his son.
John had tried to speak up, ask someone to listen to the man, because couldn’t they see how much he was hurting? And didn’t they know that the man’s distress was making his mother hurt too?
But his mum, using all her self-control, wrapped her arms around him, “No, sweetie, we can’t help. Doctors can’t help the cursed... only witches can...”
“Then find another witch! Ask one of them to fix his baby!” John said amidst the chaos and screams.
One of the security guards had grabbed the infant and nearly dropped him in shock, once the swaddling cloth had been removed from the boy’s face.
The baby had no skin, only raw red muscle protected his little organs from being exposed to bacteria and air. Even worse, John remembered, was seeing the baby’s eyes... there were none. Only empty raw red sockets that seemed to stare at everything and everyone with empty accusation.
Helen Watson covered John’s eyes and hugged him close.
“Witches don’t take back their curses, not until the proper terms are filled, not without a bargain.”
-
Whenever John is brought another patient, in Afghanistan, one who is cursed, he tries to heal them anyways.
His energy, his life force, is depleted.
But it never works.
-
He barely knows where he’s going anymore. He emptied the contents of his stomach (not that he’s eaten, he just can’t when he thinks of Mike and Doyle eating... nothing) into an alley way. He’s sporting many bruises from tripping into postage boxes and phone booths. He barely knows what to think or do. All he can see in his mind is the picture of Mike and Doyle’s eyes, looking at him pleadingly in the prison of their own bodies, asking him to do something… and yet all he could do was walk away.
If I find that witch... John entertains the thought and lets it go. If he found the witch what could he do against him or her? He’d be cursed like the rest of this city and he wouldn’t be able to save Harry.
(But, oh, how he wishes it…)
Now that he is deeper in the city, he runs into more people, all going about their errands, shopping or going on dates, all looking at him with their pleading eyes and John being able to do nothing. He wants to hang his head down in shame but it would dishonour their suffering. So he walks with his head up and forces himself to look each one in the eye, to remember their face.
(He’ll never forget.)
John feels cold against his neck and his cheeks and realizes that he’s been crying since he left Mike and Doyle behind in the dark.
(And when John turns his head, he misses the eyes that seem to flicker in the fog, eyes that haven’t left his form since he woke.
John, he thinks something whispers again.
He doesn’t care who or what is talking to him anymore. He just wants to cry.)
-
God, where are you, Harriet Emily Watson? Answer me, damn it! He wants to yell.
But he doesn’t.
He keeps going.
The orb in the sky is in the same position as before, and he keeps going.
-
Eventually he really does fall flat on his face, his foot slipping on something soft and his cane flying down until it hits him in the stomach. John groans and tries to feel for his cane. Instead, he touches something cold and angular... something that feels like human fingers... only the arm that they belong to is missing an entire body.
John does what any normal bloke would do, he cries out in shock but he does not let go of the body part. Instead, he stares at it with mute fascination and racing thoughts. When he tries to get up, his hands find another missing piece, this time, a person’s foot.
It is only because he has already thrown up once that he doesn’t this time.
There is liquid by his thigh and John realizes that this must be blood.
-
The day that the dead zone first appeared in London was the day before John was sent to war. He had watched the aftermath of the disaster on the telly, gaping like the rest of his colleagues at the hospital. Back then, John’s only experience with the fog had been the stories told by ear or the warnings his dead parents had given.
It had seemed so alien and otherworldly, watching the one and only city he wanted to live in since childhood, swallowed up by a black dome. He’d watched the interviews of those cast out of the dome dubbed Dead London with vigour.
Even when he was in Afghanistan, John listened to any news that his commanding officers could give about Old London. He bought newspapers and listened to the radio eagerly for more news about the strange fog that had eaten parts of the world.
There were rumours passed on from soldier to soldier.
They said that those trapped in Old London had turned into cannibals, monsters. They said that those trapped in Old London had become stone. Or they said that those trapped in Old London were cursed with something so horrible that to speak it would mean that you would be cursed too.
Yet one story persisted above the rest.
In Old London, they said that a beast wandered.
And this beast, worse than any demon that a witch could conjure, devoured everything in its path.
Part 2 contd