Prompting Part XXIV
Please check the Sticky Post to find the newest active part and post your prompts there.
Prompts from this post can be filled on the Overflow Post
IMPORTANT! Spoilers for aired episodes are now being allowed on this area of the meme, without warning. If you do not want to encounter spoilers, please prompt at our Spoiler-Free Prompt Post.
( Read more... )
Prompts from this post can be filled on the Overflow Post
IMPORTANT! Spoilers for aired episodes are now being allowed on this area of the meme, without warning. If you do not want to encounter spoilers, please prompt at our Spoiler-Free Prompt Post.
( Read more... )
“Mrs Hudson, where is my phone?” He says loudly, and her voice carries from the kitchen.
“I haven’t seen it dear.” A lie. He swings his legs over and sits up.
“Mrs Hudson, where is the PASIV?” His voice is low.
Mrs Hudson is quiet, then, “Mycroft has them.”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
He scrambles up and runs into the kitchen, and she’s standing there wringing her hands together, a guilty but defiant expression on her face, the usual look for a moron who thinks they’ve done the right thing.
“Where is John?” He demands, and his fingers are hurting terribly with the grip he has on the doorframe. Mrs Hudson lifts her chin a little.
“You have to let him go, Sherlock.” Her voice wavers, and her eyes fill with tears. “Please, Sherlock. You can’t keep doing this. I can’t come up here and find you dead, not you too, please.” She’s crying softly, but Sherlock doesn’t see it. He’s too busy observing, analysing, deducing. He gets nowhere. Without John physically present, his subconscious wages a constant war with him over what’s real and he can’t tell if Mrs Hudson is merely a projection or flesh and blood. He needs John. He closes his eyes and he wills John to be there, every fibre of his being straining to remember John, to summon him. Nothing. The landline, of course! He can’t call or text John from any other phones except with his in dreams, but if this was reality it would at least tell him the phone was not in use.
He runs to the landline, almost rips it off the cradle as he tries to dial through his shaking hands. But there is no dial tone, just blank silence. Mycroft has cut off his phone line. He throws the device against the wall, and it shatters with a crack like gunshot into a thousand pieces. Mrs Hudson gives a jump and a little cry, and she’s pressing herself against the wall while stretching a hand out to him.
“P-please, Sherlock.” She says with a choking sob, but he whirls away from her.
This doesn’t mean anything, he thinks to himself almost savagely, this could be another person’s dream. He tries to move the architecture, to change anything, but with the doubt niggling in his mind he can’t be sure he’s in reality or a dream, and the structure around him refuses to comply. The doubt cripples him, renders him useless. He shrugs on his coat and runs out of the flat, ignoring Mrs Hudson’s weeping as he slams the door shut.
He stares around him, wild-eyed. Nothing. Nothing on this godforsaken street looks unfamiliar. Everything is perfect. All the people - or his projections tell the various mundane stories of their lives, if they are even his and not Mycroft’s, because who else could have the brilliance to craft a London replica good enough to fool Sherlock Holmes? Sherlock grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches.
If he’s the subject, then as long as Mycroft doesn’t do anything drastic his projections won’t harm the fat bastard. He snarls, and pushes his way through the people - projections - people - he shakes his head and focuses on moving forward. The first payphone he comes across is out of service. So are the next three.
He is about to do violence to one of the people - projections - when a sleek and familiar car pulls up to the sidewalk. Sherlock gets in with no complaint and finds himself next to Mycroft’s assistant. He glances at her - still the same story, except she’s slightly nervous. That could be a tell or it might not, because he doesn’t have to see it in the reflection of his window to know that he’s a hairsbreadth from killing someone. Sherlock closes his eyes, and feels his hands start to shake. He refuses to compare this to a cocaine withdrawal.
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The fat fuck is sitting at a table, legs folded primly and his umbrella resting at his side. Two cups of tea with a fresh pot are steaming, and Sherlock sneers at Mycroft’s fetish with tradition and etiquette. He sits down and presses his fingertips together hard to hide their trembling.
“This is what it comes down to, is it? Force me to realise I can no longer tell dream from reality?” He says, venom curdling his words.
“Can you?” Mycroft asks quietly, and gives him that irritating head tilt, Sherlock hates that head tilt.
“If I had my phone I could make sure.” Sherlock replies meaningfully.
“Somehow I doubt that.” Mycroft says evenly.
“You never reacted this way to the cocaine.” Sherlock accuses.
“The cocaine was but a distraction, dear brother.” Mycroft arranges the crease of his trousers meticulously. “But grief… is a war. A war between living and dying, remembering and forgetting. I am simply helping you win.”
“Do you expect me to suddenly realise the error of my ways and repent?” Sherlock laughs nastily. “Even you cannot be so optimistic.”
“No.” Mycroft says slowly, heavily. “But I can make you choose.” He places a handgun - John’s gun - between them, the grip towards Sherlock, and the barrel towards Mycroft himself. Sherlock’s eyes flicker from the gun to his older brother. “Reality or dream?” Mycroft asks quietly.
Sherlock stares. “It’s a fifty-fifty chance.” He enunciates slowly, feeling the old memories stir like hungry beasts.
“No, it’s not.” Mycroft says with a sad smile.
“Why are you doing this?” Sherlock hisses, leaning forward suddenly, quick as a snake.
“Because I sang you to sleep when you were five.” Sherlock recoils, and Mycroft presses his lips together into a thin line. Mycroft didn’t mean to say it, and that makes it true.
Sherlock narrows his eyes. “This has to be a dream. You would never put your own life at risk. Too much depends on you. You’d never do this to mummy, you’d never break her heart like I broke hers.”
“You were the one she loved, Sherlock. And so the only one who could break her heart.” Mycroft doesn’t move.
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“Alright, say I choose. What are you trying to accomplish?”
“You don’t shoot me, and choose reality over dream. You shoot me… well it depends on whether we’re dreaming, doesn’t it?” Mycroft’s smile is lukewarm.
“What if I don’t choose.” Sherlock demands, speaking through clenched teeth. “What if I remain here?”
“Without your phone? Without John, without a PASIV?”
Sherlock grabs the gun and points it under his chin. “What if I kill myself?” He’s trying to gauge Mycroft’s reaction, but he’s still as stone. “It’s the same conclusion whatever I choose: I end up alone.”
Mycroft regards him with an unreadable look. “You would rather die, or fall to Limbo and brain death than choose a reality without John.” He sounds unaccountably sad, like he’s aged a hundred years.
Sherlock freezes. The trigger is ice cold and burns his finger. Every inch of the gun feels real. But so did John. He closes his eyes.
Reality
Dream
Third level
Limbo
Forever
John.
“I.” Sherlock stops. Something is stuck in his throat, and he cannot get it out.
The two brothers stare across at each other, locked in a battle of wills. Sherlock swallows, feels his Adam’s apple ride the barrel of the gun. The tight twist in his chest that started so long ago reaches an exquisite peak of pain - or relief? - and this time the fall seems to have a more permanent destination in mind.
Sherlock smiles, and eases the word past the shameapologiesguiltdoubtangersorrowachegriefgriefgrief in his throat. “Yes.”
[Shutdown]
Or:
[Restart]
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(Warnings: Character death by suicide, too much angst and all the creys)
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Sherlock pulls the trigger.
Mycroft wakes up, and there are tears running down his face. Today she is Eurydice, and she hands him a handkerchief with sorrow in her eyes. He wipes at his face, but the tears do not stop. They sit together in silence for long moments, too long to count in the spaces between heartbeats. Sherlock is lying on the bed next to him, and he is breathing peacefully, asleep. Mycroft does not think he needs to sing this time, he is no Orpheus.
He stares at his baby brother. Thinks about their mother, their father. He thinks about their childhood, when Sherlock used to adore him, and when that turned to hate and resentment when Mycroft wanted more from him than he could give. He thinks about the years he spent trying to mend broken promises and watching his brother try not to break. He thinks about John. He turns his head slightly to Eurydice.
“Brain death in 9 hours, sir.” She says quietly.
Centuries then, with the shade of John. He wonders if he's happy. He sits beside Sherlock’s bed and takes his cold hand. Eurydice closes the door behind her.
Hundreds of years go by in hours. Mycroft ages with all of them.
Eventually, Sherlock stills. Mycroft brushes his hand over his curls, then leaves. He does not look back.
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(Character resurrection, because I am the world’s biggest schmoop)
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Sherlock’s finger is slipping on the trigger.
“Sherlock.” Mycroft says. Sherlock waits for him to finish, because at the end, he owes his brother this much. “John is alive.”
[Error]
[Error]
[Error]
[Refresh]
He lowers the gun and points it at the ground, because his hands are shaking so hard he doesn’t trust himself.
[Query]
“What?” He says, and his voice sounds nothing like himself. His chest feels like a shipwreck. He feels like he would be screaming if he could breathe at all.
“He and I have been working to bring down the rest of Moriarty’s criminal empire this past year. It was necessary.” Mycroft isn’t looking at him, focused instead on the cold teacup in front of him. Sherlock isn’t saying a word. He’s staring through Mycroft, trying to make sense of the shrapnel in his chest. “I am sorry you were deceived so. It is entirely my doing. But you will forgive me if I acted in your best interests. You are not… discrete, nor do you have the luxury of anonymity. But John does, and he is insignificant to Moriarty’s men. They have not given him a second thought since his death; but they should have. John is a very competent soldier indeed.” Mycroft nods like he approves.
“If you had any knowledge of John’s survival, you would have ruined plans crucial to both you and John’s continued survival. You may be unaware, in your condition, that you have been watched by Moriarty’s right hand man since John’s faked death.” Mycroft tapped his umbrella once. “But he has been content in your… lethargy. He has dropped his guard. And as we speak, John has probably already dispatched him.” Mycroft glances at his watch, then falls silent. The umbrella twirls to and fro between his fingers.
“No.” Sherlock says.
“No?” Mycroft raises an eyebrow.
“No, I won’t forgive you.” Sherlock lifts the gun and he’s pointing it at Mycroft, his brother a hazy blur in his vision. His hand is shaking still but even at this range he won’t miss. “You - you had no right - no idea - I - what I -” Sherlock’s grip is punishing, the grooves of the gun he knows so well etching themselves permanently into his skin. He feels punch drunk, the world whirling by him in a screaming cacophony of details and deductions and colours. He can’t think at all, and the only thing he can do is to hold on to that one shred of hope. John is alive.
“I do have an idea, Sherlock. I witnessed it first hand for a year. But I would rather have you alive and hating me than dead.” He’s not even looking at the gun, focused instead on Sherlock who is shaking apart.
“Is this a dream?” Sherlock asks in a small voice. There is a yawning gap within his chest, and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt so lost, not since John died.
“What do you think?” Mycroft tilts his head again. “What do you believe?”
“I want to believe John’s alive.” Sherlock mutters, cradling his head in one hand as he looked down at the tabletop. “I can’t do it otherwise, Mycroft. Everything I do reminds me of his absence.” Sherlock’s voice is a harsh whisper, his eyes squeezed shut. He hates that he’s like this, that he’s breaking down in front of someone. But this is Mycroft, and he’s seen him at his lowest, high as a kite lying in the gutter of some alley way, listening to his big brother telling him their mother just died and laughing. “So I dream. But I can’t imagine all of his complexity or his spontaneity, the way he responds or all the ways he makes me glad to be me.” Sherlock drops the gun. “Tell me this is real, Mycroft. Please.” He closes his eyes because he can’t look at his brother anymore. Maybe this will be easier to delete if there are no visual stimuli.
“I brought you here to try to stop you from dreaming. I was afraid you’d lost yourself too deep. But dreaming was never the problem, it seems.” Mycroft says softly, wearily. “And it turns out the cure is the cause afterall.” Mycroft is silent for a long moment, then with a drawn-out sigh, he turns his phone on and sends a message.
Sherlock looks up at him. Mycroft smiles back.
“Sherlock?”
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“Christ Sherlock, you’re like a giraffe on skates.”
Sherlock laughs a little at that, because the John in his mind would never have said that. He wraps himself around John and breathes quiet and broken into John’s hair. His doctor has wrapped his arms around Sherlock firmly, and it is far better than anything Sherlock has ever imagined. Could ever have imagined. Sherlock struggles not to cry.
“Your brother tells me you’ve been dreaming some rather dodgy dreams about me. Didn’t know you were that kind of bloke.” John’s voice is amused and muffled. Sherlock turns to glare at Mycroft, but he’s disappeared. “I thought you were married to your work.”
“You are part of my work now, John.” It feels wonderful to say his name to him again.
John is laughing. “Oh and now we’re married! We haven’t even gone on a proper date.” Sherlock’s shirt is getting wet. John’s crying too.
“Yes we have.” Sherlock whispers to John.
“Crime scenes don’t count.”
“They do for us.”
“God, well yes I suppose. No snogging at crime scenes though.” They’re giggling together, and if either hugs each other just a bit too hard, they don’t mention it. A year separated their bodies and their minds but they’ve joined back together now like they were never parted.
Outside, Mycroft taps his umbrella twice, and he looks out over the meadow besides the abandoned building. He thinks about what it means to love and what it takes to forgive oneself. Today she is Psyche, and she smiles at him over her phone.
“Shall we go sir?”
“Yes.” He smiles back.
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My captcha was "Nothing, corndog" what? Also upcoming is a massive bit of toothache-inducing fluff. I'm a bit unhappy with this, and I might clean it up later properly on my 'anon' account.
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(Schmoop woop de boop)
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Sherlock is lying on the couch as he looks over John’s blog and loudly scoffs at certain parts. “Moran killed man-eating tigers and that makes him intimidating? Please, this is ridiculous. Man-eating tigers are usually the ones who are too old to hunt anything else; they’d hardly present a challenge to even the most amateur of hunters.”
“Overestimating mortals again, Sherlock.” John quips from the kitchen table, eating jam on toast while reading his newspaper. “And don’t think I can’t see you smiling at my posts either. Admit it, you like them.”
“I do not. They are sensationalised, overdramatic and contain no scientific analysis whatsoever.” Sherlock sniffs.
“Remember how your analyses get you punched, almost killed, and thrown in jail? Yeah. Also, you realise you live in the largest glass house when it comes to overdramatic yes? Mr. Flappy Coat and Sharp Cheekbones?”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, John.”
There is a grin in John’s voice. “I love you too, you daft, maddening git.”
Sherlock smiles helplessly up at the ceiling, and closes his eyes.
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IDEK but IDGAF
Here is the whole story in one proper form: http://aestheticmuse.livejournal.com/4993.html
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