Fic: No Fixed Point - 1/5 (BBC Sherlock, immense AU of AUs)

[bendingsignpost]

Title: No Fixed Point
Rating: R
Wordcount: 9.2k/44.2k
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: The AU of AU's: First, he is shot in Afghanistan (again). Second, he wakes on a boat. Third is pain, fourth is normalcy, fifth is agony and sixth is confusion. By the tenth, he's lost hope.

(Original prompt: "ECM!John gets hurt again, and ends up with a few more lives. By overwriting Stranger at the Gate!John and Behavioral Modification!John." Thus, Watches 'Verse with Behavioural Modification and Stranger at the Gate. Prompted and filled here on livejournal. NOT an official continuation of any of these 'verses.)

Warnings: Partial character death, separation, vampire, blood, hypnotism


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Purple and Gold
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They're pinned down and a part of John's mind is laughing manically. It's this mad little laugh is more than a Bit Not Good, but this can't be happening. It's his last day. This is his last active day in Afghanistan for the next two (eight) years, and now it happens. Now it happens.

Matthews is trying, is holding onto him and trying to apply pressure to the wound, to where the bullet ricocheted into John's body, but the angle is wrong. Across the artery, not straight across, no, oh God. Femoral arteries go wrong quickly.

His head falls back against the wall. The strap of his helmet digs into his chin. Matthews is saying something, but John is too busy dying to pay attention. "I'm going to Chelmsford," he tries to explain. "Essex."

He looks down at his leg, Matthews' red hands. God, his leg. It hurts. It hurts wet.

He tries to look up, away. He can't seem to. The last he sees of Afghanistan is his own bleeding leg.

He wakes up in stinking humidity and there are feet in his face. It should be alarming, but even with the bare minimum of light, he recognizes the feet. What he doesn't understand is why the bed is rocking, why the walls are groaning, and why candlelight is flickering through the boards above his head. He's on a ship. An old ship.

Sitting up, dropping the sheet from his very much clothed chest, John checks his wrists. Nothing. He doesn't even recognize the make of his shirt, let alone the shirt. But he still recognizes the mop of hair at the other end of the bunk.

"Sherlock?"

The legs at his side jerk and Sherlock sits up with a cough. He supports himself on one arm, the other hand fisted before his face. He startles again at the touch of John's hand on his knee. John quickly removes it.

Sherlock asks him something, a once-sharp syllable dulled by sleep and a worn throat.

"Where are we?" John asks. He can't quite make out Sherlock's expression in the limited light, but the resulting silence is a question in itself.

"Sorry, um." Another reality, he knows this is another reality. They're here together, travelling together in bizarre conditions, so obviously John is meant to know where they are. "Strange dreams. I'd like the... reassurance, I suppose."

Sherlock replies. It's his voice, somewhere beneath the roughness, half-hidden in strange syllables. John hears wariness, confusion. Concern.

"You have no idea what I'm saying, do you?" Because the reverse certainly applies.

Sherlock takes a breath, coughs with it. "John," he begins, or says something that certainly sounds like John's name. As he speaks, he doesn't gesture. Instead, he maintains eye contact and begins to edge forward, pulling his legs beneath himself. There are questions here, statements, and John might be able to learn something if only he could see. At last, Sherlock points. John looks, sees a small table set into the wall. Dim shapes sit upon it.

"Those?"

"Sa," Sherlock confirms.

John reaches for them, has to move a bit on the bunk to get them. The board the thin mattress rests on hits the side of the wall with his movements. It's like a wooden hammock. The items on the tiny table are a candle and a matchbox. John takes the obvious course of action.

He shakes out the match and holds the lit candle between them.

Sherlock is... young. Devastatingly young. Conscious effort puts John's guess at twenty-six, but his face is even younger than that. His eyes are open, a far cry from the one-way mirror they'll become.

Then there's the clothing. John's fairly certain he's wearing everything but a coat and boots, and Sherlock even has the coat on. Strange, it being so hot in here, humid and muggy. John feels filthy and not in the way being in bed with Sherlock typically brings about.

The walls creak, the waves murmur, and every breath Sherlock takes turns into a wheeze.

"Are you all right?" they ask each other in unison. Not that John understands Sherlock's words, but he knows that tone, that face. They've asked the same thing, and Sherlock recognises it.

"Are you all right?" Sherlock repeats, his voice carefully shifting around the English words. A certain distracted observer in John's lap takes an interest in this. The accent is as incredible as it is bizarre.

What had Sherlock said before?

"Sa," John confirms.

Sherlock frowns at him, the way he only does when bewildered by idiocy.

"Sa?" he tries again. Does that not mean yes?

Sherlock begins to frown the way he only does when John is bleeding.

"I'm all right," John says, nodding. "Are you all right?"

"I'm all right," Sherlock repeats. The words are broken cups, the meaning once within them drained away. Sherlock continues speaking, slow and low. John nods along, keeps nodding along as Sherlock gestures to John's head and his own throat. The gestures increase, repeat, and Sherlock begins to stress the significant details. John listens as sentence structure breaks down, but he can't make any sense out of any of this beyond there something being wrong with John's head, similar to Sherlock's throat. Sherlock's tense, immensely so, and it begins to sink in that John may have overwritten someone-has overwritten someone who-will be sorely missed.

Then there's a word John does know.

"Moriarty?" John repeats. It comes out sharp, comes with a recoil, and Sherlock's hand grips John’s knee through the blanket.

Sherlock says something involving Moriarty's name and a confident tone. There's a bite in it that turns his young face so much older, that much more familiar.

"Dead?" John asks. "Moriarty, dead?" He supplies a one-handed gesture, the other keeping the candle holder steady on his other knee.

Sherlock nods. He counters with a gesture of his own, two fingers walking across the flat of his other hand before flicking the walker off. There's something immensely satisfying in it. "Moriarty dead."

John grins and, a bit hesitantly, Sherlock grins back. His hand returns to John's knee.

Good to have one piece of good news.

Sherlock resumes speaking, clearly trying to explain something to John. Something involving his own chest. The illness there? He reaches for John after, a cautious gesture that doesn't land a touch. Something about John's head. Believing John confused or crazy, possibly the victim of a stroke. Whatever the John of this world had spoken, it was a language he'd had in common with this Sherlock.

Eventually, John interrupts him, squeezing his hand. Sherlock falls silent immediately.

"I'm sorry," John says. "I just don't know what you're saying."

The gears in Sherlock's mind visibly turn. God, his eyes are so open.

"I'm," Sherlock says. He lifts his chin, clearly indicating himself. "You are," he says, squeezing John's knee.

"Right." Vocabulary required.

"All-" Sherlock coughs. "All right?"

John blinks. "Your memory is amazing."

Though Sherlock clearly recognizes this as a compliment, it makes him squirm rather than preen. "All right?" Sherlock insists.

"All right." John nods. Do nods translate? He makes sure to smile and nods again. "Yes. Good."

It's surprisingly short work to lay the foundations for yes or no questions. The challenge comes in asking them.

By the time Sherlock's voice wears out, they make little progress. Sherlock seems to think John's lost his ability to speak normally because of Moriarty. Or not Moriarty, but something or someone related to Moriarty. John's fairly sure this is a failure of translation-Sherlock can't actually think that.

What is clear is that Sherlock thinks John needs reassuring. Every inch of him is overly careful, not muffled or muted but silenced. When John lets him hold his hand, Sherlock's grip is tense but not hard. John feels as if his hand is loosely held by stone.

Sherlock is saying something about Moriarty and Moriarty speaking when the coughing grows alarming and his already hoarse words fail. John sets the candle on the small table and reaches for him. Fingers on the throat, checking for swollen glands. Sherlock twitches under his hands.

"Not good," John tells him, indicating the cough, the back of his curled fingers against Sherlock's clammy skin.

"Not good. Bad?"

"Bad." John nods.

Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"You already knew that," John acknowledges. "Now shush. Shush." He puts his finger before his lips, then against Sherlock's as the man is about to protest.

Sherlock freezes immediately.

"Can I...?" John gestures, tapping his own ear, pointing to Sherlock's chest.

Looking away, face turned toward shadow, Sherlock seems caught in indecision. Why, John has no idea. Well, maybe he does. If a friend of his had suddenly gone mad and lost his language, John doubts he would be willing to accept help, too bent on giving it.

When Sherlock doesn't protest, John unbuttons his coat and shirt. He keeps his eyes on his hands rather than Sherlock's face. One thing at a time. Language, this Sherlock's health, anything but the fact that John just died. No more Afghanistan, never again don't think about it.

Ear against Sherlock's chest, John takes a deep breath. "Breathe," he says, then demonstrates again.

Sherlock tries.

John shifts his position, hunched where he sits. "Again. Breathe again."

Sherlock tries.

"Not good," John murmurs.

"Bad," Sherlock agrees.

"Shush."

"No." Petulant, Sherlock through and through.

John doesn't mean to grin. Sherlock has that effect on him. He sobers quickly all the same. God, where is this? If Sherlock is younger, is John younger as well? This isn't a world that's different merely because John caused something to change. The boat and the language are proof enough of that.

"I'm going to take care of you," John tells him. The one thing worth focusing on. He tries to imagine waking up here without Sherlock-any Sherlock-present and that's not a train of thought he wants to follow. He buttons Sherlock back up, and it's too tender, it's much too needful the way John touches him. Insanity and stability at once, that's Sherlock all over.

"I'm going to take care of you," Sherlock rasps in reply. It almost sounds as if he knows what he's saying.

They settle back down and John's habits betray him. They've been sitting up too long. This body doesn't remember which way it was lying down before. It isn't until he registers the extreme amount of tension under his arm that it occurs to him this was a bad idea. That, possibly, this is not a Sherlock to be spooned.

"Sorry. Sorry, I'll...."

Sherlock's hand tightens around his wrist, securing John's arm around his waist.

"...I'll stay?"

"Stay?" A quiet question for clarity.

"Stay," John repeats, not moving. "Go," he adds, sitting up.

Sherlock rolls onto his back. The candlelight turns him into a child. Stay, he mouths.

"I'll stay," John says.

He brushes Sherlock's hair back from his forehead. Frowns. Touches it again. It feels different. Softer, finer. It makes him think of chinchillas, oddly.

Sherlock's breathing worsens, ragged, wheezing. His eyes screw shut. His mouth twists.

John pulls his hand away. "Bad?"

Sherlock shakes his head. His mouth is proud, his closed eyes pained.

"Stop or go?"

Stay, Sherlock mouths again, and John has clearly stumbled into something bigger than he understands.

"Yes, I'll stay." Until he falls asleep. He might want to do that soon, if only for some processing time. God, where will he wake up next? Is this the replacement for Afghanistan? He can't possibly be stuck here.

A light touch on his shirt, not even a tug. Sherlock's hand is so tentative. He's peering at John, honestly peering with one eye open and the other shut tight.

"Christ," John swears. He lies down, propping himself up on one arm, and resumes petting Sherlock's hair. "It's all right. It's all right. You're going to be okay." The other John, the one this Sherlock clearly thought he was dealing with....

The less said about him, the better.

"We were having one hell of a fight, weren't we?" John asks softly. Sherlock's features twist and relax in turns, terror and euphoria rising and falling as they will. John ought to stop, tries to stop, but the only compromise between heartbreak and guilt is to rest his hand there, fingers curled in soft black. "God, I'm sorry. I am."

Slowly, almost as if he thinks he's being sneaky about it, Sherlock slips his arm around John's back. Play along? Pull away?

John lets himself lie down, lets himself be pulled down. He'll pay for this later. He knows he'll pay for this later. For now, he tucks his face against Sherlock's neck and tries to forget how it felt to die.

He jerks awake in Chelmsford. He rolls over, arms around his pillow, face buried, and the less said about the following twenty minutes, the better.

Ten minutes after that, dehydrated and shaking a bit, he takes a shower, Army quick. He sits down on the toilet and tries to stop thinking. Deep breaths.

He makes himself breakfast. A far greater challenge, he makes himself eat it. He's sitting at the table when Marta rings the doorbell. He should move, should get that. Go to work. He'll never be a soldier again, but he's still a surgeon here.

He looks at his hands. They're steady.

Marta rings the bell again.

Deep breath.

John gets up and goes to work.

By the end of the day, John is exhausted beyond belief. He already misses the calm of the operating room, the focus. By himself, no distractions can hold.

He goes to bed as soon as he can.

This time when he wakes, Sherlock is curled up against his back. Sherlock, in his bedroom, at Baker Street.

"Oh thank God."

He rolls over immediately, waking Sherlock and not caring. Sherlock holds him reflexively. His grip is tight and concerned, and John can't blame him. Too long holding back, his grief breaks out. Self-mourning feels strange.

"Sorry," he mumbles against Sherlock's chest. He thinks he cried on Sherlock. No, he did, right against his skin, and even a normal person would notice that.

Sherlock tugs him close, holds him secure. He's a creature of tension, a cage of sharp bone around John, as if John might vanish.

Given time to breathe, time to calm, John pulls his damp cheek from Sherlock's chest. Sherlock doesn't let him ease back very far.

"Afghanistan?" Sherlock asks.

"Yeah." He coughs, clears his throat. "Yeah."

They settle next to each other, Sherlock's eyes on his face, Sherlock's hand on his side. John closes his eyes.

Sherlock's hand begins to glide up and down his ribcage, smooth strokes of warmth that keep John from dropping off to sleep. It's nice. Mortifying, of course, but nice.

"I was shot," John tells him eventually.

The warm touch moves to his shoulder, settles there.

"In the leg," he adds.

"Psychosomatic."

John doesn't mean to, but he laughs. A little giggle that turns into a silent chuckle, his forehead pressed against Sherlock's shoulder. He shakes his head a bit, knowing how the scrape of his hair there annoys Sherlock. Sherlock doesn't respond, but John starts giggling again anyway.

This is probably a bit not good.

Sherlock grows tense against him. It's impossible to miss.

"Sorry," John mumbles. "I'm just a bit...."

There is a very large pause.

"Off," Sherlock supplies.

"Mm."

This pause is better. More relaxed. Almost. Sherlock is still thinking too much.

"I died," John explains. "From the leg wound. It was... upsetting."

Sherlock resumes the stroking, now over John's back. The rhythm is very deliberate, as if Sherlock has worked out the correct rate for the optimum comfort-effort ratio.

"It was quick, though," he adds. "The confusing part was after. I woke up on a boat. An old one. It stank in there. And-this is the odd bit, this is going to be a problem-there was another you there who spoke... I don't know, actually. I have no idea what language that was, but he was catching on to English fairly quickly." John leaves out the part about waking up in bed with him. Sherlock's already jealous enough of his counterpart in Digital London without throwing in the man on the ship.

"He was sick," he continues. "And young. Really open. It was a bit weird. I mean, it was all a bit weird. More than a bit. I think the language barrier scared him."

"I'd dislike that," Sherlock allows, the motions of his hand steady. The touch is pleasantly absentminded, his mind too much occupied to be full of pity. Too many thoughts in his head. Not enough evidence yet, needs more facts to make theories.

"He was quick enough on the uptake for being sick." John thinks a bit more. "It was humid in there. Stunk to high heaven, too. Suppose that wasn't much of a help. I didn't get much of a look around. It was the middle of the night. Or dark in there, I suppose. No lights, only a candle. I went back to sleep as soon as I could. After that, it was Chelmsford, then here.

"But it's strange. That was the most different it's ever been. No electricity, you at least a decade younger-those can't be my fault. The differences have always been my fault before."

Once John finishes, Sherlock kisses his forehead. There is a brief shuffling of their bodies, the sort that happens when John doesn't want to be comforted and Sherlock doesn't want to be comforted either, but they're both bent on comforting each other. Oddly grudging, this, for naked cuddling. Well, almost naked. Sherlock has his pants on. Must have wandered off in the night.

Sherlock sets his cheek against John's brow. It's nice.

"I'll make you tea," Sherlock tells him.

"Will you really?"

"No," Sherlock deadpans. "I was lying for no discernible reason."

"Oh. Pity."

"Mm." One last kiss to John's forehead and Sherlock pulls away, gets up. He plucks his dressing gown from the bedpost and shakes it into place on his way out the door.

A few moments later, John hears the kitchen tap running, filling up their electric kettle. He grins into the pillow, then climbs out of bed himself.

Tea in the morning means he needs the toilet first. Gives everything time to cool, lets the taste of toothpaste fade; efficient all around. He takes his piss, cock in hand, same as any other morning.

Except, not quite.

Something is off.

He looks around the loo, wondering what in the world Sherlock has done to the loo that is subtle enough to avoid immediate detection. Things have been moved around a bit. Not much, but moved. An experiment in itself, or a result of Sherlock cleaning up after himself? It's an infrequent but plausible option.

Frowning a bit, he gives himself two shakes and draws his bathrobe closed. Down go the seat and the lid-bit ridiculous, how well Derek has housetrained him-and John washes his hands. For once, he doesn't take any care over the leather band about his wrist.

Because his watch isn't there.

John blinks a bit at his arm.

He could have sworn he.... Did he take it off? Put it down. He can't imagine he did, but he must have. The sink counter is clear of all timepieces.

He backtracks to Sherlock's bedroom. His watch is on the floor, next to his socks and trousers. John puts all of them on.

"John?"

Controlling his voice, he calls back, "Coming!"

When he reaches the kitchen, Sherlock's latest experiment is gone. Which doesn't have to mean anything. Sherlock's experiments tend to come and go without warning.

"Tea," Sherlock says. He points at the cup on the table.

John looks. "So it is."

"Drink."

"You know," John muses, heart pounding in his ears, "caffeine isn't good for bad dreams."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "This far before noon, I'd say you're safe."

John should laugh now. No, not laugh. Grin a little? Maybe just smile? Be appreciative. Do something. Anything.

"Actually," John says.

Sherlock's full focus hits him like the high beams of a Humvee.

"I think I'll take a nap."

Sherlock says nothing.

"Sorry," John adds. "You did say you weren't making tea."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm tired, that's all."

Sherlock leans back against the washing machine, arms folded. He nearly looks like he's hugging himself. "It's more than that. And you're a terrible liar, John. You need to stop doing that."

"I need some sleep," John corrects. "I just need some sleep."

"And you'll tell me after?" It's less concern in Sherlock's eyes than the unending need to know, but they do look similar when Sherlock focuses on him like this.

John nods. Maybe he just won't wake up here again. God, he can hope.

"Are you eating breakfast today?" he's sure to ask before he goes. Normalcy, try for that.

"I'm having tea, apparently."

John's smile is purely reflexive. It lasts until Sherlock moves forward, clearly intending to kiss him. John ducks his head, trying to keep up the grin, and it works well enough that Sherlock sets his chin atop John's bowed skull. John leans forward a bit, headbutting Sherlock lightly in the throat, and Sherlock gives him a bit of a shove to the right shoulder.

"Unless you'd rather me with you?" Sherlock asks.

"I'd rather you eat breakfast," John counters, and when Sherlock glares at him, John manages to escape into the hallway unkissed.

Almost immediately: "John?"

John keeps going, climbing the stairs more quickly than perhaps necessary.

Concerned now, blatantly so: "John?"

At the top of the stairs, John opens the door to his bedroom and finds himself looking into a study. A pair of desks, practically an office, and a sofa between bookshelves. He turns around and finds Sherlock on the stairs behind him, at the base of the stairs, hand outstretched toward the railing without touching.

"John?" Sherlock asks again, a third time.

"I'd thought I'd left something up here." God, the lie sounds terrible. That wouldn't convince his sister stone drunk.

"You're not all right." Sherlock climbs up the stairs after him, corners him against the open doorway to a strange room. He peers into John's eyes as if to drill out hidden truths like buried diamonds. "What is it?"

John closes his eyes. "I just need to sleep."

"What's wrong?" Hands on John's shoulders now, the grip strong.

The instinct to pull back doesn't so much as rear its head. This is Sherlock, his body knows. This body knows this Sherlock even more than his mind does. His shoulders feel the force of Sherlock's palms, his fingers, and they report fear and helplessness.

His legs step forward. His head ducks itself, his face tucks itself against Sherlock's collarbone. His hands know Sherlock's sides, the curve of ribs, and Sherlock holds him immediately, arms close, hands tight.

"I'm tired," John tells the neck of a non-stranger. "I need some sleep, and maybe that will sort my head out right."

"You're afraid it won't," Sherlock informs him. "Not merely concerned-you are legitimately frightened. Why?"

"Are you trying to make me explain an irrational fear?"

A pause, Sherlock's cheek warm against his temple. "An irrational request, I know."

John reaches behind himself, takes Sherlock's hands from his back, and opens the cage of those long arms. He holds onto one hand, the right, and guides Sherlock into the study. John lies down on the sofa that isn't even where his bed ought to be. It's too small for him, just barely, and he curls on it only slightly. Sherlock sits with him, his weight pressing the cushions before John's stomach. John rolls forward, just a little leaning roll, and this helps him hide his face in his arms. Sherlock keeps a hand on his side.

"Thank you," John mumbles. Because if Sherlock knows he's giving John a gift, he's much less likely to take it back.

"Of course."

It's a close thing, being able to fall asleep. Too frightened, too eager. Analogue will be tomorrow, time for talking, theorizing, mourning his last life as a soldier. Thinking of it with another man rubbing soothing circles into his skin is guilt-inducing, but he manages, so slowly, to sleep.

Derek's singing in the shower again. On key, very nice, well done, but the sound of it fires off immediate resentment. Sod this, he needs his other London.

He goes back to sleep.

The coughing wakes him. It's the pained sound as much as the motion of it, Sherlock's body just shy of convulsing next to him. There's something resigned about it, so incredibly tired. Concern immediately pushes back the irritation. How long has the man been down here in the reeking darkness?

Sitting up, John sees the candle, sees how little it's burned. Not very long asleep, then. He can feel it.

"John," Sherlock rasps when John moves.

"Why are our names the same?" John wonders. "Come here, budge up." He moves so he's leaning against the wall a bit, pulls Sherlock toward him. "This will help, maybe. Better than doing nothing, c'mon."

Sherlock complies, sluggish but surprisingly obedient. The blind trust of the exhausted. How much of his earlier energy had been out of adrenaline from John's change of language?

A good deal of it, John concludes as Sherlock lies back against him. The movement is hesitant, uncertain. John frames him with his legs and lets that ridiculously long torso recline against his own. Once Sherlock's head is against his shoulder, John sets his hand on Sherlock's stomach. "Breathe," he says.

Sherlock does. It sounds a bit better. Not much.

"Fluids. Now would be an excellent time for tea."

Sherlock turns his face, the top of his head against John's jaw.

"This isn't where I should be, you know,” John tells him. “I was going home today."

Gradually, John's back begins to ache. Gradually, Sherlock turns limp in his arms.

"Hope we're near land, for your sake. Get you some fresh air." He listens to Sherlock breathe. He holds still as Sherlock sneaks his hands around John's. "This is very strange."

"Are you all right?" Sherlock asks. The words are low and accented, reminding John somewhat of Marta doing an impression of her father.

"I'm all right," John says. With his free hand, he brushes Sherlock's hair away from his mouth. "Not where I thought I'd be, but I'm all right. Are you all right?"

Sherlock practically melts into him.

"Sherlock?"

"Stay."

"I'll stay." John pets his hair a bit more. Whatever makes the man relax. "We have the same names here, but not the same languages. That's a bit weird. Maybe your name is common here and I'm the unusual one."

Sherlock mumbles some sort of response. John has no idea what it means. After, they're both silent for a long while. He thinks Sherlock might doze.

"I'm meant to be home today," John whispers to him. Soothing sounds, pet his head. No pity, everything is normal, just give the man lots of sentence structure to decode and vocabulary to absorb. "I was going to wake up in my bed at Baker Street. Well, his bed. We don’t do it so often, you know. Sharing a bed doesn't work out too well between us. He's too disruptive. I'll talk to him tomorrow about you. Bet he'll be confused too." He grins a little. "Nice surprise for him, in a way. Not that I'm not, y'know, having a great time wondering if you're about to die and all-you're not, by the way. But he likes surprises. My him, not yesterday's him. God, that's going to end terribly if I wake up there again. I've never had a one-off reality before, but that might be the one I'd pick. That one's too close. How's that for insanity: I'd rather this stinking boat over Baker Street."

Eventually, the sounds of the ship include those of human movement. Footsteps, some speech.

John nearly gets up before he realises Sherlock is asleep. He stays. He tries to sleep himself, but his back aches far too much. His stomach begins to growl. It's unlikely that Sherlock can feel the vibration through all their layers of clothing, but he wakes all the same.

"Breakfast?" John asks.

Sherlock shifts a bit, cranes his neck to look up at John.

"Breakfast," John repeats, miming taking a bite of something. "Food? We should eat food. Eat food. Eat breakfast."

Sherlock blinks at him slowly, then closes his eyes.

John pokes him.

"John eat food, eat breakfast," Sherlock mumbles, not budging.

"Sherlock and John," John corrects.

Sherlock doesn't respond.

"Sherlock and John eat food, eat breakfast."

Again, no response.

"Are you asleep again?"

"John? Shush."

John laughs. Doesn't mean to, does anyway. Gentle about it, he cuffs Sherlock upside the head. Sherlock laughs too, but his eyes are large and wondering, as if John has somehow become a magical creature.

Given time, John manages to get out of the bunk and attempt to stand in their closet of a cabin. It takes a bit more prodding and a good amount of being glared at, but he manages to get Sherlock to come with him as well. John has no idea where the galley is and needs Sherlock to do the talking.

Talking, not eating. Not only does Sherlock make no attempt to eat, no one seems to expect it of him either. It's worrying. Very worrying. Almost as worrying as being given a strip of salted pork, more salt than pork, and a shoddy mug of beer. For breakfast. John tries to choke the pork down without the beer, but it nearly shrivels his tongue off. On second thought, it's a good idea Sherlock's had, not eating.

After, they go up onto the deck and Sherlock brings them to a place beneath the stairs to the upper deck. It's a good place for sitting, for staring at what ought to be a historical re-enactment, and John lets himself doze off in the sunlight, shoulder to shoulder with a foreign version of his best friend.

He wakes up in Chelmsford, swears, and sets his alarm to go off again in five minutes.

He wakes up on a sofa in a study that should be his bedroom. Keeping his eyes closed, steadfastly ignoring the gaze burning into the side of his face, John forces himself unconscious yet again.

Derek is still singing.

His back hurts, everything smells like salt and body odour, and there's a hand in his none-too-clean hair. He jerks away, the motion involuntary, and wastes precious time trying to apologize before he can get to another nap.

Sod this. Sod this. He'll just be late for work. He rolls over with determination, wide awake, and wastes even more time trying to relax enough to sleep. In the end, he goes to work, scaring Marta once again, and uses his lunch break as nap time.

He's back on the sofa.

"John?"

"Could I have that tea now?" he asks, no, begs. A moment alone, that's all he needs, just a moment alone to try again.

Hesitation, Sherlock's hand on his side.

"All right," Sherlock allows.

John manages to drop off again while he's gone.

"John, I'm done with the shower!" Derek calls through the door.

"Fuck you!" And: "Oh, God, sorry! Sorry, I didn't mean that! Sleeping in, just- Try and keep it down, will you?"

He wakes up on the boat. Ship. Whatever it is. He's Army, not Navy.

Sherlock's head has wound up in his lap, somehow. John's leaning against a crate and Sherlock has his back set against a barrel where he lies on the deck, curled foetal. He has his collar turned up. They're out of the way, but it still feels extremely conspicuous. And it is. Sailors stare at them.

John stares back until they look away.

...Hang on.

Female sailors. More than one, there are at least three.

They're not back in time, then. It's a re-enactment of some sort, has to be.

But then, why isn't there any medical intervention for Sherlock?

Nothing makes sense.

He sits there, thinking about that.

He looks down at the youthful face pressed against his thigh. He thinks about that too.

How many cycles was that?

He thinks he might be starting the fourth go-around, the fourth since Afghanistan. Here first, then two naps on the deck. It's his fourth time here, three everywhere else.

Ten times switching reality, ten times waking somewhere that isn't Analogue London. Ten times in a row.

Breathing is difficult once he realizes that.

This has never happened before.

This can't happen.

He goes back to looking at the sailors. He looks at the sails and the build of the ship and he realises he's been fisting his hand in Sherlock's jacket only once the man stirs. The jarringly young man. God, look at him.

"John, are you all right?"

"Yes," John lies, but he lies very poorly.

Sherlock is watching for body language as it is. There's no chance of Sherlock accepting the lie, not for an instant, and Sherlock sits up to look at him with those devastatingly open eyes. They turn his familiar features into a stranger's face, a stranger who adores John, who fears for him, who loves him more than he wants to show.

John looks away.

Sherlock nearly reaches for him. Ultimately, he refrains.

"Sherlock and John stay?" Sherlock asks. "John stay?" Options, his body language says.

"John stay," he replies.

Sherlock looks at him intently for a moment, then nods. Carefully, he stands, hands on barrels securing him upright. He says something that obviously means, "I'll be back soon."

John nods. "I'll stay," he says again, patting the floor beside him.

Sherlock nods. "You'll stay."

John's not sure if these are huge strides in communication or the echoes of a head hitting itself against a metaphorical wall. He sits there by himself for a while. It's no good. He needs something to think about, something that won't drive him around the bend.

After a few of the male sailors do it, John pisses off the side of the ship as well. The fastenings of his trousers are strange. It's all buttons. Wooden buttons. When he looks at his clothing in more detail, it's all handmade. Old, too. If this is some sort of re-enactment, it's an extremely long-term, particularly mental one.

When John gets thirsty, the only thing around is yet more beer. This is insane. He manages to nod along to the few people who engage him in conversation, but the trial of it quickly has him back up on deck.

He goes back to where Sherlock left him and sits down. Too much beer for so little food. At this point, the beer is becoming food.

Before he can take advantage of the alcohol and drop off to sleep yet again, Sherlock reappears. His colour looks better, much better. Some of the hunger in him is gone. John knows what it looks like from back in London, at his flat. It's important to know. He can recognize the little moments where Sherlock will steal his food if John leaves it near him. He'd begin piling his plate just a little higher, taking another biscuit or two.

As this Sherlock sits down next to him, John wrinkles his nose. "What's that smell?"

"What?" Sherlock asks.

John touches his own nose, touches Sherlock's coat. "Smell."

"Smell," Sherlock confirms, touching his own nose. He gives another word, one that might mean the same thing or might be what he now smells like. John repeats it all the same, and Sherlock smiles at him for it. John forgets what it was immediately after.

Sherlock adds some sort of a gesture, one that reminds John of Monty Python and rabbits with nasty little pointy teeth. Two fingers making a hooking motion in front of his mouth.

Some sort of animal, then? Animals in the hold?

"Okay," John says with a shrug.

Sherlock continues to look at him intently.

John raises his eyebrows.

Sherlock asks him something that John entirely fails to understand. Then he coughs a bit more. It doesn't sound quite as bad as before.

They sit together, Sherlock prodding ever more vocabulary out of John. It's strange and oddly fascinating. They attract a few strange looks, but that's the least of John's worries. This eats up enough time that John might not go out of his mind before going to sleep tonight.

He manages to choke down lunch, spends the afternoon trying to get their basic situation out of Sherlock, and fails to get Sherlock to eat dinner. He's fairly certain Sherlock calls him an idiot at that point. Sherlock definitely becomes more concerned from then on, which is saying something. Or, possibly, it's the beer. This body has a surprising alcohol tolerance, but it's still left him wobbling a bit.

As the sun sets and the air turns cold, Sherlock takes his hand and leads him back to their closet of a cabin. It's a surprisingly sweet form of condescension, but that's Sherlock all over.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make climbing into bed with him any less awkward. John's precedent of turning around has apparently established the expectation that they'll sleep in the same direction now. When John tenses, feelings are obviously hurt, and not like Sherlock's usual tantrums.

Sherlock shies away from him. He becomes smaller. It shouldn't be possible, Sherlock Holmes being so young and guilty.

Rather than climb in the bunk after John, Sherlock regulates himself to the small chair at the tiny table.

What ensues is the same argument John has had with another man countless times. It's a stupid argument, a pointless argument. Having Sherlock in bed with him is only going to wake John up more. If John keeps being conscious in these new realities for short periods of time, he'll never be awake long enough to give these realities a lower priority in his dimensional shuffling. He won't get back to Analogue London. Keeping this Sherlock out of his bed is the right thing to do.

Excepting the fact that this Sherlock is ill and there is only one bed.

John sighs. Gets up.

He hauls Sherlock from the chair and is pleasantly surprised by his own strength. Sherlock makes a squawking sound.

John shucks his coat, bundles it up, and sets it behind Sherlock on the bunk. He pulls at Sherlock's coat as well. Really, it's much too warm and humid down here to be wearing any of that.

Hesitant about it, Sherlock complies. They get a decent pile behind Sherlock for him to lean back against.

"Stay," John instructs. "Breathe."

Sherlock takes a deep breath, demonstrating his understanding, and nearly sets himself off into another coughing fit.

"Port?" John asks, mostly to remind him. They discussed it on deck. Well, mostly.

"Two days," Sherlock confirms.

John holds up two fingers.

"Two."

"You're an amazingly fast learner. Can't say it surprises me."

They go through numbers again, mostly for John's sake. While Sherlock has English numbers up to, well, probably just before the thousands-John hasn't taught him the word for "thousand", but Sherlock has taken and run with the structure for everything else-John can't remember all the new words.

After long enough of this, John reciting numbers over and over, Sherlock begins to drop off. Christ, he must be sick, sleeping twice in a row. He looks exhausted.

Once John's sure Sherlock is asleep, he blows out the candle, puts his head down on the table, and lets the ship rock him to sleep.

He wakes up in the staff room, the one with the bunks for the night-shift surgeons. He blinks at the bunk above him for a bit, then turns on the lights. Electric lights. Not something he's missed until recently.

He doesn't want to, but he gets up. Quick lunch, then it's time to prep for surgery. Nothing too out of the ordinary. God, he's glad he's not facing the emergency room today. That's going to be terrible on Friday.

Clarity comes in the operating room. It always does. Step by step by step by step. Here is the incision, here is the procedure, and everything he asks for is set into his hands.

He completes the operation with zero complications.

Driving home with Marta riding shotgun, he's not unhappy. Worried as all hell, yes, but for the moment, not unhappy. Small victories are worth holding onto with both hands.

But that night, he wonders. No more Afghanistan because he died. That's obvious enough. Why the trouble with Analogue London? His only analogue now, he supposes.

It's not like they were actually linked, his analogue lives. The watch choice was entirely arbitrary. The loss of one shouldn't mean the loss of the other. It makes as little sense as foreign languages on a 17th century boat.

Lying awake that night, staring at the ceiling until the small hours of the morning, he wonders if he died in his sleep. Maybe Sherlock blew up the flat. Might have been Moriarty. Could have been a heart attack-unlikely, but possible.

If Moriarty blew up the flat again, John hopes Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson got out all right. And the neighbours.

But no, John dozed off in Sherlock's bed again. Any sort of explosion that killed John would have taken Sherlock too. That's not okay.

Something else, then.

John wonders.

"I'll get back," he whispers to his ceiling. He's written as much in his daylist, but saying it aloud doesn't hurt. It feels more like a promise.

He lies there, thinking of what he'll do when he gets back. Wondering if Sherlock will have noticed. Or if Sherlock will simply be pleasantly surprised when John pounces on him, snogging him breathless. He has a nice bit of a wank, planning out what he'll do to the man. Too many options, but they're all so good to consider.

It's possibly the tensest, least satisfying wank of his life, but it's the sleepy boost he needs to drop off once again.

"John."

There's a knock. Knuckle rap. But not Mrs. Hudson.

John rubs at his eyes and sits up on the sofa.

Sherlock-this Sherlock-doesn't sit with him. Instead, Sherlock stands in front of him and hands him the tea.

"Thank you," John says. He looks down at the tea.

Sherlock studies him.

Though Sherlock can only see the top of his head, John closes his eyes anyway.

"Your body language is different."

"Sorry?" John looks up.

Sherlock's eyebrows pull together, his eyes burning into John's face.

John waits.

"You are," Sherlock realises.

"I'm what?"

"Sorry," Sherlock supplies. "You're guilty. It isn't your fault, but you accept the blame for it."

"Could you not do that please?"

"You want to apologise, but you're not sure how."

"No, really, could you not do that for five minutes?"

"No." Sherlock glares down at him. It's ridiculous how tall the man is. "I've waited all morning."

John laughs.

He shouldn't. God, he really shouldn't.

But he laughs anyway. Cannot help himself. He laughs and laughs and Sherlock takes the mug out of John's hands before John spills it.

Sherlock sets the mug on the floor.

Sherlock catches John's shoulders between his hands.

Sherlock looks absolutely terrified.

John's not entirely sure how, but somehow this leads to Sherlock on the sofa as well, John bundled up in long arms, his face against a crisp purple shirt. Once secured, he shakes a bit.

"I want to do a thought exercise," John says after a moment.

Sherlock lets out a breath. "All right." His hand secures the back of John's head, as if convinced John's brain will fall out any second now.

"You know that theory of multiple realities? Everything happening somewhere and all that? Parallel dimensions, comic book stuff."

Sherlock scoffs. It's nice to hear. "I was present for 'the Geek Interpreter', John."

"Right, yeah." So that had happened here too. "Suppose you knew someone who travelled through different realities. Realities that were the same before one distinct point in time, that is. And you knew that this someone might end up depending on another version of yourself. What would you tell them that could make other you trust them?"

For once in the life of Sherlock Holmes, the man has absolutely no response.

John waits for it anyway.

Eventually, John pushes himself up and looks at another man's flatmate. "I'm being serious."

"That's what worries me."

A flicker of a smile there, a flicker of an answering one from Sherlock.

"Really, though," John prompts. "What sort of code word would you give him?"

Sherlock stares down at him, through him.

"A memory," John continues. "Something that only you were present for, something significant that you've never told anyone."

Sherlock's gaze refocuses on John's eyes.

"Something like that time when you were eleven, staying at your grandmother's in France during August. You went out into the garden, laid down in the shade with a book, and when you stretched out, you were on page one hundred fifteen. You stretched out, felt something prick your elbow, and when you looked, you'd forced a bee to sting you by accident. It was trying to crawl out of your arm, but it was stuck. You stared at it until it died because you knew it was going to die anyway. It was your first bee sting."

Sherlock's mouth does not fall open. His eyes, however, are very wide.

"Once it died," John continues, "you pulled it out with your fingers. You tried to be careful, but it still ended up a bit crushed. That afternoon, you went home and checked the windows for dead bees until you found a few you could really look at. Then you picked the lock to your grandfather's study and took the magnifying glass out. It was the second time you'd ever been in there. Then you sat upstairs by the half-window near the attic. You dissected one with a pair of tweezers. It was near sunset, so the colours were a bit tinted. You took the magnifying glass back to your room but left the bees. When you went back in the morning, someone had cleaned them off the windowsill."

By now, Sherlock has let go of him entirely.

Finished, John sits quietly. He gives a flick of a smile, sorry and sad and as encouraging as he can be.

"...What are you talking about?" Sherlock asks, voice soft. "What are you-How do you...."

John folds his hands and sets them over his knees. "I did say."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Sorry," John says. "Bit of a default state."

"No," Sherlock says, as if that will do anything. "That's not an explanation for anything. Comic book stuff, John. Oh, sorry. Graphic novels." Complete with the sarcastic hand wave. "Don't be so stupid. What's actually-"

"Was I right?" John challenges. "I was, wasn't I?"

"That's not-"

"I am." No question to it. Whatever made the boat world so different hasn't touched this reality. This one is still close, still familiar. "Three bees, wasn't it? On the windowsill?"

"Stop it."

"How can I know that?"

"I'm thinking," Sherlock snaps.

"I can wait," John assures him. It's clearly been a bit much. There's no good way of breaking the news, but that doesn't stop the guilt from rising.

Sherlock stands up. He crosses to the other side of the study, to the desk which is clearly his. It's smaller of the pair, but taller, angled more prominently toward the sofa. Clients must sit on the sofa.

Sherlock sets his hands on the desk. He taps and fidgets.

John waits.

"Tell me what else you're claiming." Sherlock doesn't look over his shoulder, merely looks at the wall to his right, over John's desk. His profile is stern, focused. John must only be a figure in his periphery. "Tell me the entirety of it, and if you cannot prove it, I'm taking you to hospital. No fever, no sign of stroke, no head wound-I don't have the equipment here to find what's wrong with you."

John chooses to ignore that last part. "It's a bit of a long story, but there's a chance it's not settled yet."

Sherlock practically growls at him. "Just tell me the story."

"I'm saying there's a chance things might still go back to normal."

"Then you're saying there are many more chances things will not 'go back' to normal," Sherlock spits, wheeling around, hostile as any wounded creature.

John holds up his hands, unmoved.

"Go on." Impatient gestures combine poorly with disdainful words but suit the urgent strain of his voice. "The rest of this little prank of yours, tell me."

"Prank? A minute ago, you were ruling out stroke."

"I theorize as the facts arrive-you know this. Now tell me!" Sherlock yells.

John doesn't flinch. He flexes his hands instead. Sherlock and insecurity lead to shouting. John knows this.

"The bee memory makes sense as a code word because it's a central room in your mind palace," John says. "You even call it a palace after your grandmum's house. You always thought of it that way when you were a kid, but you never told anyone after the time you mentioned it to Mycroft and he laughed at you. You were three."

Sherlock turns himself into a statue. His chest rises and falls, his face is a mask of intensity, but the man himself no longer moves.

"You've never told any of this to anyone. It's not something you felt comfortable saying aloud either. Too personal. Which is why it's effective.

"The point is," John says, "the only way I could have learned any of this is from you. That is literally the only way. You are the only person who knows any of that, and if I didn't learn this from you, then I learned this from someone else who is also you. Well. Ish. Pretty close.

"Because multiple realities mean multiple versions of the same people, again and again and again. There's a point where the realities start to drift apart, the splitting point, and before this, they're basically the same reality. So any information from before that point is valid in all realities coming from that split. That's what this is. That's how I know about the bees."

There is a very long pause wherein Sherlock leans back against the desk. He sets his hands together, fingertips pointing at John.

"John," he says.

"Yes."

"I'm taking you to hospital."

"That's, yeah, that's what I'd thought."

John is taken to hospital.

John is released from hospital.

They have a very late second lunch. Rather, John has a second lunch to join that sandwich from the hospital canteen. Sherlock stares at him in a fit of exacerbated terror.

"Can we talk about this rationally now?" John asks. "I need you to stay calm."

"I am calm," says the man with a white knuckle grip on his mobile.

John reaches out and sets his hand over Sherlock's.

Sherlock looks down at their hands. "That's different. Why is that different?"

"Hospital bracelet?" John suggests. It gets him a scowl.

"It makes no sense."

"Sherlock," John says as gently as he can, "it's not going to make sense for a while."

"Because you're a John Watson from another reality and not actually the man I know."

"Pretty much, yeah."

"I don't believe you."

John eats his pasty.

Sherlock watches him.

"Am I lying?" John asks.

"You believe you're telling the truth."

"So that would be no, not lying, then."

"Perhaps, but it can't be true."

"Why not?"

"Because you're clearly delusional." For such a condescending statement, it's an oddly affectionate, Sherlock through and through.

John chews his pasty.

"When you pretended to be normal at the hospital, that's when it sounded like lying," Sherlock continues. "Ergo, delusional."

"Or," John prompts.

"There isn't an 'or'."

"Of course there's an 'or'. It's just so shit an 'or' you don't want to look at it." John crosses his arms on the table and leans forward. "Because if what I say is true, it's not just that I've gone a bit mad. Mad is fine, we do mad just fine, the two of us. If I'm right, then I'm someone else, and you can't fix that." He holds Sherlock's gaze for as long as he can without his eyes watering, then returns to his meal.

"The switch is only mental," Sherlock prompts eventually.

John nods, nearly finished. He swallows. "Only mental. What's in one reality stays in one reality, except for my consciousness. That switches when I sleep."

"So this morning."

"I've had about a week today alone-you're going to have to be more specific."

Sherlock treats him to a nice long stare, a particular staple of his facial expressions today.

"When you first woke up this morning," Sherlock clarifies. "You said you'd been shot in Afghanistan. In the leg."

John nods.

"You said you'd died."

"Yeah. Usually I wake up in Essex from that. No, sorry, I mean. That's what happened the first time. I was shot, I woke up in Essex. Shot in the shoulder. I was back at the hospital I used to work at in Chelmsford. That was the strange one. The other three continued from the split point, but Chelmsford had split off from my life a while back. I'd never joined the army there."

As John speaks, Sherlock begins, for the first time today, to listen. "And the other three?"

"Two being shot, one staying normal. Where I was shot, I moved back to London. In one of those, I moved in with you. The life where I wasn't shot, I stayed in Afghanistan. Almost finished my tour before that leg wound." It feels like such a failure. He can't call it a real failure-getting shot like that wasn't his fault, there was nothing he could have done-but, Christ, it feels like one.

"You said you'd woken up on a boat. One with a different language where I'm in my twenties."

"Yeah, that one, I have no idea," John admits. "Half of it's a period re-enactment, the rest of it makes no sense."

"I thought nothing was going to make sense."

John rolls his eyes. "Not like that. Look, if something is strange enough to break my standards of 'normal'? That is damn strange, Sherlock."

"Are you finished?"

"Not close."

"Not explaining," Sherlock corrects. "Your meal."

"Oh, right. Yeah."

"Good. Let's go."

"Mind walking?" John asks. "I know I won't be able to see if anything is blatantly different, but I want to give it a try. Baker Street still get blown up by Moriarty here?"

"Mm."

"And he's still alive here."

"Mm, yes." A sharp look. "And elsewhere?"

John laughs a little, not a happy sound. " Let's just say... it's amazing what you can do when you know what's going to happen. After having the bomb strapped on, I was a bit peeved. Second time was the charm, though. Probably confused the shit out of him-I wasn't on his radar, that go around."

Holding the restaurant door open, Sherlock stops, truly stops and looks at him.

As they walk home, the distance between them is greater than when they arrived, the unconscious gap of strangers.

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