Overflow Post
This post is for responding to prompts from prompt posts that are full, or continuing WIPs that have already been started but the prompt post is now full or near to full.
PLEASE POST ALL NEW FILLS TO THE NEW OVERFLOW POST!( Read more... )
PLEASE POST ALL NEW FILLS TO THE NEW OVERFLOW POST!( Read more... )
0-0-0
He wakes lying in the sitting room floor. Twisted awkwardly on his side and his head aches worse than it was before, but the pain now seems distant, dull. Like a smashed and swollen finger… Yes, his head feels swollen and every so often it throbs in time with his heart.
It doesn’t feel like he’s breathing, but if he concentrates he is aware of the rise and fall of his chest. Strange, he’d always found breathing boring, the same two actions-inhale exhale-repeated from birth until death, over and over and over incessantly. Mundane. Boring. Stupid.
John has mild sleep apnoea. Some evenings when the flat is quiet and John’s asleep upstairs Sherlock can hear him snoring quietly. Gentle, soft sounds-can barely consider it snoring actually-and sometimes the sounds stop and Sherlock counts the seconds.
One…
Two…
Three…
Four…
Fi-
And John’s body will jumpstart with a loud snort or a cough and he’ll roll over in bed to a more comfortable position.
It’s rare that it happens and usually only does when he’s particularly tired or not generally feeling well. Every so often he’ll have a bad episode, more than twice in a night and Sherlock will creep upstairs and wait, knowing that the little seizures will grow continually worse as the night wears on. He’ll stand by John’s bedside or sit there until he stops breathing then count the seconds.
If John hasn’t started breathing again by five seconds Sherlock will prod him enough that he starts again with a gasp or a snort or a jolt as he comes awake and asks just what the hell Sherlock thinks he’s doing looming over him like that! Jesus, you’ll give me a heart attack! Even more rare John will jerk awake and take a swing at him before he realizes there is no danger here, and Sherlock will stand there through the mumbled sleepy apologies as John rubs his face and takes deep breaths, asking what’s the matter.
On nights like that, when he’s caught, Sherlock will usually bring up a case, or blurt out a deduction of some kind, or allude to an experiment he’s been contemplating.
John will be annoyed, but annoyed in such a way that when he falls asleep again it is only a light sleep, and therefore unlikely that he’ll have another episode. Sherlock leaves then without worry.
He wonders now, lying there in the floor aware of his breath but not aware of breathing, if this is what John feels like all the time, afraid that if he doesn’t completely focus on his respiration that it could suddenly and inexplicably stop and he would fade away into death without notice.
John’s not here to prod him, or give him a shake to inspire breath again. If he doesn’t concentrate on it, could it be possible that his lungs would simply stop?
It’s terrifying and for a while he lies there utterly absorbed with each inhale and exhale. His heart loud and pounding in his head and ears.
He lies there most of the day, twice he hears movement in the flat and flicks his eyes upward to see a shadow moving about in the kitchen. Slow as if though water. He can almost feel who it is, just like normally the flat just FEELS of John so much it’s hard to tell if the man himself has left or not.
Reply
He wonders a few times if conversing with the man’s lingering presence in the room is a sign of dementia, so he says nothing as the shadow of John moves around the flat.
He’s speaking softly to himself, words that don’t really make much sense. Listing things… As if he’s packing for something.
Spending a weekend holiday in the country with Daphney, or Mathilda or whatever her name is this week... It's such a bother to keep up with all of them, he really wishes John would just pick one so he wouldn't have to keep memorizing names and birth dates and allergies or topics not to bring up at the dinner table. People are so stupid... But after a weekend of HER, will John still be able to tolerate him when he returns? Will he still be able to look at his flatmate, sprawled so on the rug and be able to talk to him? Crouch down so they can converse on the same level? Perhaps lie himself down on the rug as well and spend a while asking; ‘I have a puzzle for you, if you want it… I saw a man today-a patient- with a bald head, wide pores, squinty pale eyes. He has a viral infection and a rash on his genitals. He’s just returned from a week long Holiday in Japan, he says… But I know for a fact it was raining in the part of Japan he says he visited because you mentioned it earlier for one of your cases and he’s got a new tan- has lines on his temples where he’s been wearing sunglasses and the top of his head is still red from sunburn… What do you make of it?’
And Sherlock would ask a few questions. The man’s age, his weight. 'What he was wearing. Is he married? Oh, yes… Of course-He didn’t go to Japan, he went to Korea… South Korea Most likely, and has come home with a nasty case of syphilis from the under-aged prostitute he hired.’
John would smile and chuckle in a darkly amused fashion. ‘He wasn’t too happy when I told him it was Syphilis… Called me a bloody quack and left in a fit.’
‘Not your fault if he’s in denial… He shouldn’t want to have unprotected sex with fifteen-year-old boys.’
John would be quiet then turn with scrunched brows; ‘How do you know it was a boy?’
Sherlock would snort and turn back to the ceiling; ‘You said yourself he was fat and wearing silk pants.’
‘What does that have to do-“
‘Any man with a rash on his genitals is NOT going to wear silk pants to see the doctor… unless they’re the only kind he owns and there are only three types of men who own all silk pants. And seeing that your patient was neither young-nor physically fit, and thankfully he was not my brother, I can only conclude that-‘
‘You’re making this up… you guessed. You can’t know that-Wait, did you say your broth-no, never mind, I don’t want to know,’ John would be laughing by that point and Sherlock would join him just for the absurdity of the situation.
Reply
Sherlock is smiling at himself when the shadow of John moves through the sitting room.
John sits down in his chair, head leaned into his hands, he rubs at his brow, then at his leg and the next second Sherlock blinks and John isn’t in his chair, isn’t even in the flat and the whole space feels cold and empty.
I’m sick. He thinks, I’ve caught some incurable disease. He heaves himself up and crawls drunkenly to the sofa then flattens himself across it like a pilgrim on the floor of a saint’s tomb.
He squints about but can’t find his phone. It’s not where he left it last, there’s a naked place in the thin sheet of dust over everything where the phone was supposed to be. Where it had been for days now… Weeks maybe.
His head aches even harder.
“John, where’s my phone!” A weekly occurrence at the best. He’d have it over there by the desk one day tapping away in the sun, and lay it aside. It would wind up covered over in the usual fashion, just like everything important did. His cigarettes, his rosin. Scraps of sheet music he’s torn to shreds in anger when he can’t articulate well enough to compose.
Then he’d spend a frantic fifteen minutes searching madly for it, tripping over things as he displaces them, and John-brilliant John-would pull his own from his pocket and dial Sherlock’s number and-
AH! There it was, under the bookshelf.
“John, I NEED my phone!” He called out, then shook his head because the whole reason he needed his phone was to call John and tell him to come home and tell him he wasn’t going to die.
So he closed his eyes and tried to think like John… God what a headache.
John always kept his phone in his pocket… His hip pocket, or the inside pocket of his coat.
Phone. Phonephonephone.
He fishes in his pocket and grins triumphantly to himself when he can feel it there, next to his heart. He has to squint at it to bring the screen into focus. He would rather text, simply because it’s less expensive but he doesn’t think he has the strength to articulate words with his thumbs, so he calls.
It rings for ages and he becomes terribly aware of his breathing again, focused entirely on drawing each gasp, and each tone in his ear. Each dull ring until he feels so very thin and wraith like he can barely stay conscious- and then as the last of his strength is bleeding through his fingers the call connects.
The line is naught but static and low unearthly groaning noises. Like an old cassette being eaten by the recorder. Yet the more he focuses the clearer the voice is;
“’llo-Yes? I-I can’t hear you you’ll have to speak up?”
He feels something in him break because the sound, is so loud, so solid and real and so utterly JOHN he can’t do anything but breathe into the phone.
“Listen, I can’t-you… You’ll ha-call ba-“
“John?” He can barely hear his own voice, just a wheeze; “John, I’m sick… I… Please, I need you.”
0-0-0
0-0-0
Thank You for the comments, you've made my day!
Reply
Eeee, so interesting! :)
Reply
Reply
Y'know, I'm sure I'll be kicking myself for this later, but I like the suspense. :) One part a day, please?
Reply
Reply
Yes, Sherlock, you've caught the incurable disease called death D:
D: D: D:
Am so looking forward to more parts!
Reply
Leave a comment