[fic] Entropy
Title: Entropy
Words: 4700+
Rating: R for language
Summary: “Entropy: a lack of order, complete unpredictability, utter chaos.” Five ways things could’ve gone, and one way they did-but which one’s which?
Author’s Note: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 3. I thought it was high time I wrote something mind-fucky to return the favor to that goddamn episode. :D
*
ENTROPY
He’s good with a gun, he knows he could hit the bomb with no problem whatsoever, knows that when he does it’ll be over, for him, for Moriarty, for… for John, knows how much force is packed into that C4, knows exactly how the building will fall and the ground explode, he knows everything.
And that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it?
Knowing everything.
John’s staring at him with a look his eye that half says please and half says don’t, and for the first time Sherlock starts to think of human lives, real ones, ones bound together by things as fragile as muscle, bone, and blood.
Moriarty is laughing, lips peeling back to reveal a set of white teeth that mock Sherlock, dare you to do it, dare you, I dare you. The little laser dots flicker about, a danse macabre on his chest and John’s.
It’s a wordless decision, his always are; he turns from John the way he always has and pulls the trigger and watches.
In the nanoseconds between bullet fired and bullet struck, he fancies he hears Moriarty say something, something altogether familiar, beautiful, the nucleus of every atom in Sherlock Holmes’ little universe.
An invitation, the one invitation he can never refuse.
Come and see.
*
i
Then his knees are swept out from under him.
He and John land into the pool at the exact same moment in time, bodies sliding under the water just as the bomb goes off. Sherlock’s brain switches into survival mode, the sudden depiravation of oxygen from his lungs shocking and terrifying; his first instinct is to breathe, so he does, and gets chlorine in his mouth and windpipe.
Looking up through the painful, fuzzy haze that is the rapidly rippling pool water, he can see the fireball burning above them. Everything’s shaking, his head is shaking, his body is shaking, his lungs feel as if they’re red hot, his mind is starting to shut down, bit by bit, slowly, vision, auditory, air, he needs air-
The ensuing darkness reminds him of when he was a child, went exploring late at night in the woods surrounding the estate, got lost. Mycroft found him, of course Mycroft found him, and he pretended to fret all the way home when Sherlock knew he was just being smug. He was smug all through the rest of the evening, smug when he taught Sherlock the following night how to read constellations, (which was why Sherlock didn’t pay a moment’s attention,) smug always, today, tomorrow, forever.
But there’s not going to be a tomorrow for Sherlock, now is there?
Please wake up.
It’s maddening, how difficult it is for him to die, why can’t he just go away already, another puzzle to solve, isn’t it? Another mystery, another grand adventure.
Please, please, Sherlock, just don’t…
Bloody cold. Bloody hot. Bloody uncomfortable.
Oh, thank God.
Next thing he knows he’s vomiting pool water all over himself and John is choking-no, no, he’s laughing-no, good God, he’s crying, why the fuck is he crying? Sherlock makes an attempt at sitting up, only to find his spine’s turned to hot rubber. John reaches out, places a shaky hand on his shoulder, squeezes, of course, the scientific method, test every hypothesis.
If Sherlock Holmes is breathing, spluttering, blinking, solid, and his heart still beats, a frantic beat inside his chest, then one can infer that he is, in fact, alive.
Coherent is another matter altogether.
There’s a ringing in his ears that won’t go away, but he can just make out what John is saying-
Are you alright?
Yes, he’s fine, he’s… Although John’s not. He’s bleeding, all down the side of his face, he’s got a burn on his arm, the right one, how ironic, now he’s sort of balanced out, isn’t he. Only that’s not funny. It’s not.
There are flames licking up the sides of the walls, small ones, and one end of the pool has caved in. Flitting his eyes across the carnage, he can see a mangled, twisted shape in the distance, what’s left of Jim Moriarty, smoking and grotesque. There are sirens wailing in the distance.
John runs one trembling hand down the side of his own face, wincing when he sees his fingers coated with blood. Makes a brief diagnosis.
Must’ve been hit by some debris, he surmises.
Sherlock is too tired, the trembles coming too harsh, for him to roll his eyes and mutter what he’s trying so hard to think-Very intelligent, John, you’ve really hit the mark. Only he’s been reduced now to a spluttering idiot, only capable of lifting his hand and gently gripping John’s burnt arm.
Nothing happens; John simply blinks and lets out a tremulous breath.
Sherlock squeezes even harder, wants to make John grimace, yell, bark, wants to make him react. Object in motion and all that. John’s gaze is impossibly vacant.
It’s useless. The other man seems incapable of feeling pain at the moment, but after the shock wears off, it’ll slam into him like a brick wall, that much is certain.
For now, though. Now, this second, the only one exactly like it in all the moments in time-unique, special. The water is throwing rippling lights onto the broken sides of the building, making John’s wet, tired face look more wet and tired still.
Ringing has subsided. Sherlock makes the stupidest deduction in his entire career.
“We’ve alive,” he gasps, voice incredibly loud in his own head. John laughs, it’s wet, it’s spluttering, three parts ugly, a million parts beautiful, unbearably human.
“Yeah, yeah, we’re alive. I can’t say the same for, uh… Jimmy, over there. Oh God, can you believe it, we’re alive.”
Sherlock finally manages to sit up, press his damp forehead to John’s-another experiment, Sherlock’s good at those, this one’s meant to determine the reaction of a grown man’s system to a near death experience. Breathing, rapid, heartbeat, elevated, pupils, dilated, mouth-
Soft, pliant, desperate, one kiss, that’s all he wants, just to see. John gives him more. John always gives him more.
His hand is plastered to the side of John’s face by the blood, which is streaming down hot and warm, heat coiling from the tips of his still-damp fingers to his elbow, shoulder, chest.
Sherlock lets his eyes flutter shut. He’s yet to ask, but that’s alright. John already knows, and he’s already saying “Yes.”
It starts to rain.
*
ii.
The vest makes a little jerk as the bullet hits it, then moves a few inches, then stops.
Sits.
Fake, fake, how could he have been so blind, how…
Moriarty flips his head heavenward and laughs, a jarring, jilted, maniacal sound that rips through every nerve in Sherlock’s body like a red-hot butter knife, pain lacking blissful sharpness, instead coming in waves, dulled by disbelief.
“Sherlock. Sherlock, look,” John splutters.
He looks.
Red dots increase, more and more and more, until he’s covered in them, like fire ants. John, too, one on his creased forehead, six on his chest, another on his stomach, yet another on his groin, three scattered across his legs. Total: twelve. A sublime number. How morbidly inappropriate.
“I reall did expect more from you, Sherlock Holmes,” Moriarty tsks. “Resorting to guns, now that’s not your typical modus operandi, is it? Any shooting to be done, you get the crippled veteran to do it for you.”
“Don’t,” Sherlock grinds, through gritted teeth.
Moriarty laughs again-to be honest, he never stopped. Every word that slides out of his mouth is another malicious chuckle at Sherlock’s expense, another hit to the gut, fist in the face. “Whoopsies! Getting a little touchy, aren’t we?”
Silence, but only because for once in his life, Sherlock can’t think up an appropriate response.
“See, I know all your buttons,” Moriarty says, hand flicking through the air. “I know what to push, and I know how hard I can push it before you, POP! …explode.”
John is planning again; Sherlock can sense it, can sense that sadly average brain ticking so fast, it’s liable to catch fire-friction, resistence. He raises the gun again, points it right at Moriarty’s head, but it doesn’t deter the bastard in the slightest.
“Take Dr. Watson here, for instance. Stupid, dull, couldn’t keep up with you intellectually in a million years. Not really good for anything except the occasional bang, am I right?” He leers.
Knelt on the ground, John visibly tenses. Muscles tightening, tendons jerking, all at the command of firing neurons.
“Oh, oh! Not that bang, you filthy minded, insignificant little person,” Moriarty guffaws, hands folded behind his back as he leans forward bringing his face down to John’s level. “My, my, we are a little pissed off, aren’t we? Eh!” He steps backwards as John makes to stand. “No sudden movements. Wouldn’t want Seb and his pals to get jumpy, would you?”
The poolwater throws eerie, flashing lights onto the walls. Sherlock can’t process much more than John’s rapid breathing and the bright dots scattered across his friend’s body.
What good is all his knowledge doing him, now?
“So! Where do you wanna start?” Moriarty says, pacing about, feet flying high with eah step. “Knees? Shoulders? Man, wouldn’t that be like, whoa! Déjà vu all over again!”
A strangled, “No!” springs out before he can stop himself. Sherlock lurches forward, gun clattering in his hands.
Moriarty lifts one finger to his chin, scratches thoughtfully. “Or…” he muses, eyebrows curved. “How ‘bout the stomach? Take a while for him to finally kick it, we’d have to wait for all that acid to-No? Not there? I could have Seb get him in the spine, too. Might not kill him. But wouldn’t it be fun-ny if he ended up in a wheelchair. I’d laugh. You’d laugh, too, Sherlock, wouldn’t you? You laugh at everyone.”
“I’ll kill you,” Sherlock seethes. There’s no science, no mathematics. It’s a statement, human and colder for it.
“Psht. No you won’t,” Moriarty scoffs, bits of spittle spraying from his lips. “Why would you? Why would you care? You’re Sherlock FUCKING Holmes!” he roars. The sound reverberates, bounces off the walls like a ricocheting bullet, goes haywire. “You don’t care!”
John’s resolve is beginning to fray, he’s starting to shiver. Maybe all the plans he came up with went to pieces, maybe he’s remembering Afghanistan. Normal evening, Sherlock would be able to read it all in his friend’s… colleague’s …face. But not tonight. Not now.
“Oh ho! Oh ho ho ho! Look. At. This. Look at this, world!” Moriarty bellows, arms raised towards the sky like he’s Atlas holding the Earth aloft on his shoulders. “Look at the brain that grew a real heart! Oh, ho ho, this is priceless. And!” He smirks and pulls out a cell phone. “It’s gonna be your downfall.”
No. No, no, no, no, no.
“I promised I’d burn the heart outta you, Sherlock.”
Please.
“Hey, Seb. Let’s start with the left kneecap,” Moriarty chirps into the mobile.
“STOP!” Sherlock drops the gun-flings it, more like, sends it skidding towards Moriarty’s feet. Moriarty looks at it with a bemused expression on his face.
“Now what do I want with that?” he says. “No, no, much rather see your boyfriend’s leg blow up, thanks. Count of three?”
Sherlock turns pale, freezes where he stands. John thrashes, starts to move again.
“Mn, noooope, can’t wait that long,” Moriarty snips. “Seb? Go.”
BANG.
John’s scream.
Is.
Indescribable.
Sherlock hurls himself towards his friend-friend, friend, a thousand times, his friend-a millisecond too late. John’s grabbing at his mangled knee with a grotesque expression on his face, twisted and wretched and ugly. Sherlock is on his knees, positioned like a man prostrating himself to God as he places one hand on either side of John’s head, cradles it as the other man shrieks his pain to high heaven, the blood streaming across the tiles and already spilling into the pool.
“Oh, God, no, no, please no, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
John grits his teeth, gasps, eyes starting to flip upwards and fold into the back of his head.
“Nice shot, Seb! Well done, well done!” Moriarty applauds grimly.
“You bastard! You son of a bitch!” Sherlock roars, already shedding his jacket and starting to wrap it tight around John’s thigh, eliciting another high-pitched shriek. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispers, pressing his lips to John’s browline, feeling the body underneath his hands quiver and shake.
“Hope you’ve got another jacket,” Moriarty says, voice flat and stiff. “Because I for one want a repeat performance. Seb!” A shout into the evening. “Seb, hows about an encore? Right shoulder this time! Give you a bit of a breather, how’s five seconds sound? Five!”
Sherlock folds himself around John’s body, hands underneath his head, fingers rubbing in small, gentle circles on his scalp. Smells of blood and gunpowder, chlorine, dust. Sherlock’s mind capable of pushing his own mouth to say only one phrase, over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
“Fouuuuuur…”
Come on, genius, let’s see, let’s see what you can do to save the one thing that matters to you.
“Three!”
A hand, frail, weak, bloody, comes up and touches him at the temple. He leans back to look John in his pained, weary eyes.
“Twosies.”
“S’ fine,” he whispers. “S’ all fine.”
Sherlock frowns, what does he mean-
“Wu-hu-hu-one. Uh-oh.”
A strong shove from John’s end later, and Sherlock goes flying backwards, head slamming against the edge of the pool, body smeared with blood. Time enough to watch John shift his torso to the right, time enough for one breath, oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, and then:
BANG.
Spray of thick arterial blood.
John goes limp like a rag doll; where’s the beauty in this, the poetry, the sublime, the clean?
No, no, no, no, no.
He’s taking in the evidence: chest not rising, chest not falling, bullet-hole just above his heart, eyes open but vacant, and Sherlock Holmes always trusts the evidence, except for now. And Moriarty may or may not be saying something, may or may not be whispering, “Whoops! Looks like he missed.”
Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter.
It starts to rain.
*
iii.
The vest makes a little jerk as the bullet hits it, then moves a few inches, then stops.
Sits.
“Take more than that to set it off.”
Sherlock exhales sharply. The bomb lays there, a messy tangle of wires, explosives, blinking lights.
“You’ve gotta know the sweet spot. Can’t just fire willy nilly, you know.” Moriarty laughs and laughs and laughs, like he’ll never stop until the day the sun implodes. He walks up to the vest, pokes it gingerly with the tip of his foot. “You wanna kill me, you’re gonna have to try a wee bit harder than that.”
Brain running, running, running, faster, faster, faster…
“Well?” Moriarty lifts his arms up high, stretches his lithe, lean body. “Come on, darling, surprise me! Because lemme tell you, this fairytale’s already got an ending planned out. Either way, you die.”
Glancing down, Sherlock can see the resolute quality to John’s gaze, the conviction, the willingness to sacrifice. Queen and country, all that nonsense, but at least he believes in something bigger than himself.
All Sherlock believes in are petty, selfish goals.
And the goal, here, is to win. The goal has always been to win. It’s a game, so Sherlock must win; simple as that. Moriarty has a point.
No matter what happens, this is the end of the road.
Been a good run, though, hasn’t it?
With a click of metal parts, he redicrects the gun and presses the cold barrel to his own temple.
John breathes in sharply, reaches out and grips Sherlock’s calf forcefully. “What are you doing? What… What are you doing?”
“I won’t give you the satisfaction!” Sherlock shouts at Moriarty’s surprised little smirk. “I won’t let you win!”
“Sherlock, this isn’t a game anymore!” John’s voice is frantic and high-pitched, it doesn’t become him.
But he’s wrong. Good old John, tries his hardest, means well always, but he’s wrong.
It is a game.
And most people will spend their lives in wasted bliss, they’ll eat, sleep, fuck, breed, and then they’ll die, because-
Because that’s what people do.
Moriarty is smiling, bright like a child on Christmas Day.
“Promise me this,” Sherlock croaks to Moriarty-and it’s stupid, it really is, but it’s his only chance, and Moriarty… seems like the sort who’d keep his eyes on one target and one target only. “John-”
“Yes, yes,” Moriarty says, rolling his eyes. “I’ll let your little puppy go. Yeesh, come on, already, this is the most fun I’ve had in ages.” He seems rife with anticipation. Sherlock realizes, a little too late, that it doesn’t matter who pulls the trigger, it’s a victory for Moriarty either way.
But at least, this way, he dies in control, on his own terms.
In a round-about, self-serving way, he comes out on top.
He tells himself it’s all he’s ever wanted.
Sherlock can’t bring himself to look John in the eye, but he feels the hand on his leg give one more feeble squeeze, hears a frail, shocked whisper dissipate into the air.
“Please don’t do this.”
Hurry, hurry, before he loses his nerve.
“See you around, John,” he says, voice flat and void of emotion.
Eyes. Close.
The moment his forefinger squeezes the trigger, which pushes the hammer back, which compresses the spring-
It starts to rain.
*
iv.
The vest makes a little jerk as the bullet hits it, then moves a few inches, then stops.
Sits.
Fake, fake, how could he have been so blind, how…
“My, my,” Moriarty says, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. “Looka that. Whoops! Must’ve grabbed the wrong bomb on my way out.”
Sherlock slowly lets out a long breath, glancing down at John to see he’s doing the exact same thing.
Entropy: a lack of order, complete unpredictability, utter chaos.
Moriarty is smiling, doing little else. The red dots pile up, more, more, tens, hundreds, thousands, coating Sherlock’s body, and he keeps on swatting at them like they’re flies of some sort or another. The gun feels like a dead weight in his hand all of a sudden.
Suddenly, there’s a loud clack, and Moriarty’s got a revolver now, although Sherlock can’t quite make out what kind it is. But the barrel is pointed at his own head.
“This is unoriginal,” he gripes.
“No! No! Don’t judge the magician until you’ve seen the whole act! Don’t judge the game by its rules alone! Watch!” There’s a barely audible pop of sorts, and now Moriarty’s holding, not a revolver, but a musket. Eighteenth century, flintlock, bayonet attached.
Wait.
Entropy: a lack of order.
“Sherlock.”
He looks down to see John with his face covered in blood.
“Oh, God, what happened?” he says.
Wait. Wait.
Another pop. Now John’s got a gun.
It’s pointed at Sherlock, too. John has a dark frown on his crimson face. The gun is unbelievably steady.
“You promised you’d get the milk,” he says.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
He wakes up with a long, shuddering gasp. There’s no bolting upright, no sitting up, just his eyes snapping open and his chest squeezing out a lungful of stagnant air. He feels a throb in his arms and looks down to see his fingers are gripping the sheets in so tightly, his knuckles are standing out, livid and white.
It’s cold, it’s freezing. He shivers and reaches out to feel the empty stretch of bed beside him.
John, where’s John.
Stumble outside. Up the stairs. Rub at eyes blearily. Enter John’s room, screw knocking.
He’s not there.
Oh, right. Sarah’s place.
Sofa? Bed? Bed, probably bed, probably naked, panting, sweating, ejaculating.
Sherlock sprawls out atop the sheets of John’s mattress and turns his head so that his nose is buried in the pillow. He can smell traces of John’s shampoo and aftershave and sweat, but the fabric is cool and stiff..
The dream is still burning bright inside his head.
Wait.
Wait.
It starts to rain.
*
v.
Now:
Boom.
The fireball seems to expand in slow motion, growing and swallowing everything in its path, a thousand deadly maws opening up wide to devour oxygen, literally suck the air from the room.
It’s odd, however, very odd-the flames are engulfing him, but he’s not feeling any heat, he’s not feeling any pain. Rather, there’s a cool, tingling sensaton that is not altogether unpleasant. He starts to melt into it, eyes fluttering shut, is it nice not being him, it must be so… relaxing…
John.
A blast of pain hits him, sharp and all-consuming, like his skin is being peeled from his muscles bit by agonizing bit, and the heat begins to worm its way into his body, boiling his organs, cooking him from the inside out, like his heart is being incinerated, but despite it all, his brain manages to latch onto one thing, one thing only-
John, where’s John?
John?
John?
He wakes up from the dream screaming his throat raw, clawing at himself, fingernails drawing blood as they rake across his thin, pale skin. He thrashes about in bed, hips lifting as his shoulders ram back, a full-body convulsion taking control.
Then it passes, quick as it had come.
Sherlock lays amongst the sweat-soaked sheets, stares at the ceiling, for one, two, three, four, five seconds.
Then lunges out of bed and grabs his mobile from the bedside table, ramming down the button that is Lestrade’s speed-dial.
“Come on, come on, pick up,” he mutters, dragging on his trousers and shirt. “Pick up, pick up, you bloody idiot-”
“HngsmunSherlock?”
“John’s going to die.”
Lestrade yawns loudly on the other end. “Wha?” he groans, groggy.
“John’s going to die, now hurry up, come on, hurry, I’ll text you the address, just-”
“Sherlock, please, go back to bed. I’m sure John’s going to be fine.”
“No, he’s not, I know, I just know…” He’s starting to get frantic, voice speeding up, tongue not quick enough to keep up with his racing thoughts. “Lestrade, hurry.”
He hangs up and quickly types out Sarah’s address, sends it with a quiet blip of the mobile, then runs. Runs like he’s never run before. The city has not quieted outside, it never does, and he’s little difficulty chasing down a cab-well, sprinting in front of it, more like, and shoving the back-seat occupants out to take their place before screaming the address to the cabbie, and will he just hurry up, it’s life or death here, do you know who I am?
They arrive, Sherlock springs out without paying, the cabbie’s getting out, too, and he’s shouting-but never mind that.
Sherlock enters the building, finds the door, and pounds on it with all his might, shouting John’s name.
It opens.
It’s not John’s face that greets him.
He pushes past Sarah, gives her the cold shoulder. “Where is he?” he asks. “Where’s John?”
“What are you doing here?” she asks, pulling her robe tighter about her. “Why are you in my house?”
He marches up to her, pushes his face impossibly close to hers. “I swear,” he seethes, “If you’ve done something to him-”
“Sherlock.”
Sherlock swings around to see John standing behind the sofa-yes, still the sofa. He’s frowning. That’s fine, though. Dead people can’t frown. Sherlock darts towards him, places a trembling hand on his shoulder only to have it swatted away moments later.
“Go home, Sherlock,” John snaps.
“No, I had to make sure-” Sherlock’s voice is shaky, won’t stop trembling.
“Sherlock. Go home. Please.” John’s tone is cold and irritated. His whole posture speaks of annoyance, of being fed up. Sherlock suddenly feels more bare than if he were standing naked in the middle of London. He casts one last glance at John’s angry face, then leaves, carefully avoiding any contact with Sarah on the way out.
There’s an old man poking his head through his door in the hallway-“What’s all the ruckus about?” he growls.
Deep breath. “Nothing. Absolutely… nothing… at… all.”
He’s so preoccupied stewing in his own brain that he crashes into someone just as he exits onto the street. A familiar, “Jesus Christ, Sherlock!” rips through the fog that has settled in Sherlock’s brain. He looks up.
“Oh, there you are. Late, as usual.”
Lestrade splutters. He’s spilled his coffee. He lets out an irritated sigh.
“Well? He alive then? All limbs intact and everything?”
Sherlock stares at the empty patch of road before the building. The cab’s gone. Now he’ll have to get another one. He raises his arm high into the air.
“He’s fine,” he says, after a long pause.
“But you’re not,” Lestrade surmises. He looks very, very tired, the bags under his eyes distorted by the flickering lights of late-night London. Haphazardly dressed, socks don’t match and his shirt is mis-buttoned.
“I’m fine, too,” Sherlock replies, his tone stiff and empty.
Lestrade’s incredulous gaze says all.
“It’s just…” Sherlock takes another deep breath and turns to stare at the detective. “He doesn’t care,” he says, forcing a smile onto his own lips. “All that… All those… before… It… He really doesn’t. That’s all.”
Lestrade blinks and nods.
It starts to rain.
*
vi.
The recoil tears through the muscles of Sherlock’s arm, causing him to stumble backwards, feet slipping on the tiles. John has folded in on himself, hands over his ears, bracing for the explosion that…
Doesn’t…
Come.
Funny.
Sherlock frowns and stares and stares at the bomb. Then down at John, who’s just as confused as he is, because… wasn’t there suppoesed to be, like, a boom, just, maybe? And then suddenly-the sort of suddenly that creeps instead of smacks, like an unannounced thread of cold wind on a boiling day-suddenly, Moriarty starts to shiver, and waver, like a mirage, until he’s just: gone. Just like that.
“No, no, this doesn’t make any sense,” Sherlock says. “John?”
The air is still and unbent; Sherlock looks to see that the other man’s gone, too. Just him now, alone, with a gun and a pool of quietly lapping water. The bomb is still blinking, but the laser points of disappeared.
Alone. Alone. His breathing slows and his eyes drift shut, why the fucking hell is he so tired…
He wakes up quietly.
John is shaking him, a steady hand on his shoulder, gentle, soft sways. “Sherlock, are you alright? Hey, hey.”
As he turns, the mattress creaks and the sheets whisper. Sherlock looks at John for three long, intense seconds-he counts them-before propping himself up on one elbow and saying, “Do you know what entropy is?”
“Um. Something that’s not really important to us getting back to sleep?”
“It’s a measure of the distribution of heat through a thermodynamic system.”
“Fascinating, now can we go-”
“John, promise me you’re not going anywhere.”
“What?” John frowns, the charming way he does, with his brow all wrinkled and his eyes squinted, and his head leaned ever so slightly forward. “Go, where would I go?”
Sherlock simply continues to stare. John rolls his eyes, places his hand on Sherlocks’ shoulder again, and says, “I’m not leaving you. Now. Sleep.”
They sag back down onto the mattress. Sherlock blinks, watching John rearrange himself into a comfortable position-then swings one of his own legs around John’s lower body and pulls him close, close enough for Sherlock to bury his lips in the nape of the other man’s neck.
“We got out, didn’t we?” he whispers. “This isn’t some terrible concoction of my grief-addled mind, this isn’t some fucking torturous dream. We lived.”
John shudders a little, to hear Sherlock so uncertain.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes.”
The body beside him relaxes at long last.
It starts to rain.
Words: 4700+
Rating: R for language
Summary: “Entropy: a lack of order, complete unpredictability, utter chaos.” Five ways things could’ve gone, and one way they did-but which one’s which?
Author’s Note: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 3. I thought it was high time I wrote something mind-fucky to return the favor to that goddamn episode. :D
*
ENTROPY
He’s good with a gun, he knows he could hit the bomb with no problem whatsoever, knows that when he does it’ll be over, for him, for Moriarty, for… for John, knows how much force is packed into that C4, knows exactly how the building will fall and the ground explode, he knows everything.
And that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it?
Knowing everything.
John’s staring at him with a look his eye that half says please and half says don’t, and for the first time Sherlock starts to think of human lives, real ones, ones bound together by things as fragile as muscle, bone, and blood.
Moriarty is laughing, lips peeling back to reveal a set of white teeth that mock Sherlock, dare you to do it, dare you, I dare you. The little laser dots flicker about, a danse macabre on his chest and John’s.
It’s a wordless decision, his always are; he turns from John the way he always has and pulls the trigger and watches.
In the nanoseconds between bullet fired and bullet struck, he fancies he hears Moriarty say something, something altogether familiar, beautiful, the nucleus of every atom in Sherlock Holmes’ little universe.
An invitation, the one invitation he can never refuse.
Come and see.
*
i
Then his knees are swept out from under him.
He and John land into the pool at the exact same moment in time, bodies sliding under the water just as the bomb goes off. Sherlock’s brain switches into survival mode, the sudden depiravation of oxygen from his lungs shocking and terrifying; his first instinct is to breathe, so he does, and gets chlorine in his mouth and windpipe.
Looking up through the painful, fuzzy haze that is the rapidly rippling pool water, he can see the fireball burning above them. Everything’s shaking, his head is shaking, his body is shaking, his lungs feel as if they’re red hot, his mind is starting to shut down, bit by bit, slowly, vision, auditory, air, he needs air-
The ensuing darkness reminds him of when he was a child, went exploring late at night in the woods surrounding the estate, got lost. Mycroft found him, of course Mycroft found him, and he pretended to fret all the way home when Sherlock knew he was just being smug. He was smug all through the rest of the evening, smug when he taught Sherlock the following night how to read constellations, (which was why Sherlock didn’t pay a moment’s attention,) smug always, today, tomorrow, forever.
But there’s not going to be a tomorrow for Sherlock, now is there?
Please wake up.
It’s maddening, how difficult it is for him to die, why can’t he just go away already, another puzzle to solve, isn’t it? Another mystery, another grand adventure.
Please, please, Sherlock, just don’t…
Bloody cold. Bloody hot. Bloody uncomfortable.
Oh, thank God.
Next thing he knows he’s vomiting pool water all over himself and John is choking-no, no, he’s laughing-no, good God, he’s crying, why the fuck is he crying? Sherlock makes an attempt at sitting up, only to find his spine’s turned to hot rubber. John reaches out, places a shaky hand on his shoulder, squeezes, of course, the scientific method, test every hypothesis.
If Sherlock Holmes is breathing, spluttering, blinking, solid, and his heart still beats, a frantic beat inside his chest, then one can infer that he is, in fact, alive.
Coherent is another matter altogether.
There’s a ringing in his ears that won’t go away, but he can just make out what John is saying-
Are you alright?
Yes, he’s fine, he’s… Although John’s not. He’s bleeding, all down the side of his face, he’s got a burn on his arm, the right one, how ironic, now he’s sort of balanced out, isn’t he. Only that’s not funny. It’s not.
There are flames licking up the sides of the walls, small ones, and one end of the pool has caved in. Flitting his eyes across the carnage, he can see a mangled, twisted shape in the distance, what’s left of Jim Moriarty, smoking and grotesque. There are sirens wailing in the distance.
John runs one trembling hand down the side of his own face, wincing when he sees his fingers coated with blood. Makes a brief diagnosis.
Must’ve been hit by some debris, he surmises.
Sherlock is too tired, the trembles coming too harsh, for him to roll his eyes and mutter what he’s trying so hard to think-Very intelligent, John, you’ve really hit the mark. Only he’s been reduced now to a spluttering idiot, only capable of lifting his hand and gently gripping John’s burnt arm.
Nothing happens; John simply blinks and lets out a tremulous breath.
Sherlock squeezes even harder, wants to make John grimace, yell, bark, wants to make him react. Object in motion and all that. John’s gaze is impossibly vacant.
It’s useless. The other man seems incapable of feeling pain at the moment, but after the shock wears off, it’ll slam into him like a brick wall, that much is certain.
For now, though. Now, this second, the only one exactly like it in all the moments in time-unique, special. The water is throwing rippling lights onto the broken sides of the building, making John’s wet, tired face look more wet and tired still.
Ringing has subsided. Sherlock makes the stupidest deduction in his entire career.
“We’ve alive,” he gasps, voice incredibly loud in his own head. John laughs, it’s wet, it’s spluttering, three parts ugly, a million parts beautiful, unbearably human.
“Yeah, yeah, we’re alive. I can’t say the same for, uh… Jimmy, over there. Oh God, can you believe it, we’re alive.”
Sherlock finally manages to sit up, press his damp forehead to John’s-another experiment, Sherlock’s good at those, this one’s meant to determine the reaction of a grown man’s system to a near death experience. Breathing, rapid, heartbeat, elevated, pupils, dilated, mouth-
Soft, pliant, desperate, one kiss, that’s all he wants, just to see. John gives him more. John always gives him more.
His hand is plastered to the side of John’s face by the blood, which is streaming down hot and warm, heat coiling from the tips of his still-damp fingers to his elbow, shoulder, chest.
Sherlock lets his eyes flutter shut. He’s yet to ask, but that’s alright. John already knows, and he’s already saying “Yes.”
It starts to rain.
*
ii.
The vest makes a little jerk as the bullet hits it, then moves a few inches, then stops.
Sits.
Fake, fake, how could he have been so blind, how…
Moriarty flips his head heavenward and laughs, a jarring, jilted, maniacal sound that rips through every nerve in Sherlock’s body like a red-hot butter knife, pain lacking blissful sharpness, instead coming in waves, dulled by disbelief.
“Sherlock. Sherlock, look,” John splutters.
He looks.
Red dots increase, more and more and more, until he’s covered in them, like fire ants. John, too, one on his creased forehead, six on his chest, another on his stomach, yet another on his groin, three scattered across his legs. Total: twelve. A sublime number. How morbidly inappropriate.
“I reall did expect more from you, Sherlock Holmes,” Moriarty tsks. “Resorting to guns, now that’s not your typical modus operandi, is it? Any shooting to be done, you get the crippled veteran to do it for you.”
“Don’t,” Sherlock grinds, through gritted teeth.
Moriarty laughs again-to be honest, he never stopped. Every word that slides out of his mouth is another malicious chuckle at Sherlock’s expense, another hit to the gut, fist in the face. “Whoopsies! Getting a little touchy, aren’t we?”
Silence, but only because for once in his life, Sherlock can’t think up an appropriate response.
“See, I know all your buttons,” Moriarty says, hand flicking through the air. “I know what to push, and I know how hard I can push it before you, POP! …explode.”
John is planning again; Sherlock can sense it, can sense that sadly average brain ticking so fast, it’s liable to catch fire-friction, resistence. He raises the gun again, points it right at Moriarty’s head, but it doesn’t deter the bastard in the slightest.
“Take Dr. Watson here, for instance. Stupid, dull, couldn’t keep up with you intellectually in a million years. Not really good for anything except the occasional bang, am I right?” He leers.
Knelt on the ground, John visibly tenses. Muscles tightening, tendons jerking, all at the command of firing neurons.
“Oh, oh! Not that bang, you filthy minded, insignificant little person,” Moriarty guffaws, hands folded behind his back as he leans forward bringing his face down to John’s level. “My, my, we are a little pissed off, aren’t we? Eh!” He steps backwards as John makes to stand. “No sudden movements. Wouldn’t want Seb and his pals to get jumpy, would you?”
The poolwater throws eerie, flashing lights onto the walls. Sherlock can’t process much more than John’s rapid breathing and the bright dots scattered across his friend’s body.
What good is all his knowledge doing him, now?
“So! Where do you wanna start?” Moriarty says, pacing about, feet flying high with eah step. “Knees? Shoulders? Man, wouldn’t that be like, whoa! Déjà vu all over again!”
A strangled, “No!” springs out before he can stop himself. Sherlock lurches forward, gun clattering in his hands.
Moriarty lifts one finger to his chin, scratches thoughtfully. “Or…” he muses, eyebrows curved. “How ‘bout the stomach? Take a while for him to finally kick it, we’d have to wait for all that acid to-No? Not there? I could have Seb get him in the spine, too. Might not kill him. But wouldn’t it be fun-ny if he ended up in a wheelchair. I’d laugh. You’d laugh, too, Sherlock, wouldn’t you? You laugh at everyone.”
“I’ll kill you,” Sherlock seethes. There’s no science, no mathematics. It’s a statement, human and colder for it.
“Psht. No you won’t,” Moriarty scoffs, bits of spittle spraying from his lips. “Why would you? Why would you care? You’re Sherlock FUCKING Holmes!” he roars. The sound reverberates, bounces off the walls like a ricocheting bullet, goes haywire. “You don’t care!”
John’s resolve is beginning to fray, he’s starting to shiver. Maybe all the plans he came up with went to pieces, maybe he’s remembering Afghanistan. Normal evening, Sherlock would be able to read it all in his friend’s… colleague’s …face. But not tonight. Not now.
“Oh ho! Oh ho ho ho! Look. At. This. Look at this, world!” Moriarty bellows, arms raised towards the sky like he’s Atlas holding the Earth aloft on his shoulders. “Look at the brain that grew a real heart! Oh, ho ho, this is priceless. And!” He smirks and pulls out a cell phone. “It’s gonna be your downfall.”
No. No, no, no, no, no.
“I promised I’d burn the heart outta you, Sherlock.”
Please.
“Hey, Seb. Let’s start with the left kneecap,” Moriarty chirps into the mobile.
“STOP!” Sherlock drops the gun-flings it, more like, sends it skidding towards Moriarty’s feet. Moriarty looks at it with a bemused expression on his face.
“Now what do I want with that?” he says. “No, no, much rather see your boyfriend’s leg blow up, thanks. Count of three?”
Sherlock turns pale, freezes where he stands. John thrashes, starts to move again.
“Mn, noooope, can’t wait that long,” Moriarty snips. “Seb? Go.”
BANG.
John’s scream.
Is.
Indescribable.
Sherlock hurls himself towards his friend-friend, friend, a thousand times, his friend-a millisecond too late. John’s grabbing at his mangled knee with a grotesque expression on his face, twisted and wretched and ugly. Sherlock is on his knees, positioned like a man prostrating himself to God as he places one hand on either side of John’s head, cradles it as the other man shrieks his pain to high heaven, the blood streaming across the tiles and already spilling into the pool.
“Oh, God, no, no, please no, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
John grits his teeth, gasps, eyes starting to flip upwards and fold into the back of his head.
“Nice shot, Seb! Well done, well done!” Moriarty applauds grimly.
“You bastard! You son of a bitch!” Sherlock roars, already shedding his jacket and starting to wrap it tight around John’s thigh, eliciting another high-pitched shriek. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispers, pressing his lips to John’s browline, feeling the body underneath his hands quiver and shake.
“Hope you’ve got another jacket,” Moriarty says, voice flat and stiff. “Because I for one want a repeat performance. Seb!” A shout into the evening. “Seb, hows about an encore? Right shoulder this time! Give you a bit of a breather, how’s five seconds sound? Five!”
Sherlock folds himself around John’s body, hands underneath his head, fingers rubbing in small, gentle circles on his scalp. Smells of blood and gunpowder, chlorine, dust. Sherlock’s mind capable of pushing his own mouth to say only one phrase, over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
“Fouuuuuur…”
Come on, genius, let’s see, let’s see what you can do to save the one thing that matters to you.
“Three!”
A hand, frail, weak, bloody, comes up and touches him at the temple. He leans back to look John in his pained, weary eyes.
“Twosies.”
“S’ fine,” he whispers. “S’ all fine.”
Sherlock frowns, what does he mean-
“Wu-hu-hu-one. Uh-oh.”
A strong shove from John’s end later, and Sherlock goes flying backwards, head slamming against the edge of the pool, body smeared with blood. Time enough to watch John shift his torso to the right, time enough for one breath, oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, and then:
BANG.
Spray of thick arterial blood.
John goes limp like a rag doll; where’s the beauty in this, the poetry, the sublime, the clean?
No, no, no, no, no.
He’s taking in the evidence: chest not rising, chest not falling, bullet-hole just above his heart, eyes open but vacant, and Sherlock Holmes always trusts the evidence, except for now. And Moriarty may or may not be saying something, may or may not be whispering, “Whoops! Looks like he missed.”
Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter.
It starts to rain.
*
iii.
The vest makes a little jerk as the bullet hits it, then moves a few inches, then stops.
Sits.
“Take more than that to set it off.”
Sherlock exhales sharply. The bomb lays there, a messy tangle of wires, explosives, blinking lights.
“You’ve gotta know the sweet spot. Can’t just fire willy nilly, you know.” Moriarty laughs and laughs and laughs, like he’ll never stop until the day the sun implodes. He walks up to the vest, pokes it gingerly with the tip of his foot. “You wanna kill me, you’re gonna have to try a wee bit harder than that.”
Brain running, running, running, faster, faster, faster…
“Well?” Moriarty lifts his arms up high, stretches his lithe, lean body. “Come on, darling, surprise me! Because lemme tell you, this fairytale’s already got an ending planned out. Either way, you die.”
Glancing down, Sherlock can see the resolute quality to John’s gaze, the conviction, the willingness to sacrifice. Queen and country, all that nonsense, but at least he believes in something bigger than himself.
All Sherlock believes in are petty, selfish goals.
And the goal, here, is to win. The goal has always been to win. It’s a game, so Sherlock must win; simple as that. Moriarty has a point.
No matter what happens, this is the end of the road.
Been a good run, though, hasn’t it?
With a click of metal parts, he redicrects the gun and presses the cold barrel to his own temple.
John breathes in sharply, reaches out and grips Sherlock’s calf forcefully. “What are you doing? What… What are you doing?”
“I won’t give you the satisfaction!” Sherlock shouts at Moriarty’s surprised little smirk. “I won’t let you win!”
“Sherlock, this isn’t a game anymore!” John’s voice is frantic and high-pitched, it doesn’t become him.
But he’s wrong. Good old John, tries his hardest, means well always, but he’s wrong.
It is a game.
And most people will spend their lives in wasted bliss, they’ll eat, sleep, fuck, breed, and then they’ll die, because-
Because that’s what people do.
Moriarty is smiling, bright like a child on Christmas Day.
“Promise me this,” Sherlock croaks to Moriarty-and it’s stupid, it really is, but it’s his only chance, and Moriarty… seems like the sort who’d keep his eyes on one target and one target only. “John-”
“Yes, yes,” Moriarty says, rolling his eyes. “I’ll let your little puppy go. Yeesh, come on, already, this is the most fun I’ve had in ages.” He seems rife with anticipation. Sherlock realizes, a little too late, that it doesn’t matter who pulls the trigger, it’s a victory for Moriarty either way.
But at least, this way, he dies in control, on his own terms.
In a round-about, self-serving way, he comes out on top.
He tells himself it’s all he’s ever wanted.
Sherlock can’t bring himself to look John in the eye, but he feels the hand on his leg give one more feeble squeeze, hears a frail, shocked whisper dissipate into the air.
“Please don’t do this.”
Hurry, hurry, before he loses his nerve.
“See you around, John,” he says, voice flat and void of emotion.
Eyes. Close.
The moment his forefinger squeezes the trigger, which pushes the hammer back, which compresses the spring-
It starts to rain.
*
iv.
The vest makes a little jerk as the bullet hits it, then moves a few inches, then stops.
Sits.
Fake, fake, how could he have been so blind, how…
“My, my,” Moriarty says, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. “Looka that. Whoops! Must’ve grabbed the wrong bomb on my way out.”
Sherlock slowly lets out a long breath, glancing down at John to see he’s doing the exact same thing.
Entropy: a lack of order, complete unpredictability, utter chaos.
Moriarty is smiling, doing little else. The red dots pile up, more, more, tens, hundreds, thousands, coating Sherlock’s body, and he keeps on swatting at them like they’re flies of some sort or another. The gun feels like a dead weight in his hand all of a sudden.
Suddenly, there’s a loud clack, and Moriarty’s got a revolver now, although Sherlock can’t quite make out what kind it is. But the barrel is pointed at his own head.
“This is unoriginal,” he gripes.
“No! No! Don’t judge the magician until you’ve seen the whole act! Don’t judge the game by its rules alone! Watch!” There’s a barely audible pop of sorts, and now Moriarty’s holding, not a revolver, but a musket. Eighteenth century, flintlock, bayonet attached.
Wait.
Entropy: a lack of order.
“Sherlock.”
He looks down to see John with his face covered in blood.
“Oh, God, what happened?” he says.
Wait. Wait.
Another pop. Now John’s got a gun.
It’s pointed at Sherlock, too. John has a dark frown on his crimson face. The gun is unbelievably steady.
“You promised you’d get the milk,” he says.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
He wakes up with a long, shuddering gasp. There’s no bolting upright, no sitting up, just his eyes snapping open and his chest squeezing out a lungful of stagnant air. He feels a throb in his arms and looks down to see his fingers are gripping the sheets in so tightly, his knuckles are standing out, livid and white.
It’s cold, it’s freezing. He shivers and reaches out to feel the empty stretch of bed beside him.
John, where’s John.
Stumble outside. Up the stairs. Rub at eyes blearily. Enter John’s room, screw knocking.
He’s not there.
Oh, right. Sarah’s place.
Sofa? Bed? Bed, probably bed, probably naked, panting, sweating, ejaculating.
Sherlock sprawls out atop the sheets of John’s mattress and turns his head so that his nose is buried in the pillow. He can smell traces of John’s shampoo and aftershave and sweat, but the fabric is cool and stiff..
The dream is still burning bright inside his head.
Wait.
Wait.
It starts to rain.
*
v.
Now:
Boom.
The fireball seems to expand in slow motion, growing and swallowing everything in its path, a thousand deadly maws opening up wide to devour oxygen, literally suck the air from the room.
It’s odd, however, very odd-the flames are engulfing him, but he’s not feeling any heat, he’s not feeling any pain. Rather, there’s a cool, tingling sensaton that is not altogether unpleasant. He starts to melt into it, eyes fluttering shut, is it nice not being him, it must be so… relaxing…
John.
A blast of pain hits him, sharp and all-consuming, like his skin is being peeled from his muscles bit by agonizing bit, and the heat begins to worm its way into his body, boiling his organs, cooking him from the inside out, like his heart is being incinerated, but despite it all, his brain manages to latch onto one thing, one thing only-
John, where’s John?
John?
John?
He wakes up from the dream screaming his throat raw, clawing at himself, fingernails drawing blood as they rake across his thin, pale skin. He thrashes about in bed, hips lifting as his shoulders ram back, a full-body convulsion taking control.
Then it passes, quick as it had come.
Sherlock lays amongst the sweat-soaked sheets, stares at the ceiling, for one, two, three, four, five seconds.
Then lunges out of bed and grabs his mobile from the bedside table, ramming down the button that is Lestrade’s speed-dial.
“Come on, come on, pick up,” he mutters, dragging on his trousers and shirt. “Pick up, pick up, you bloody idiot-”
“HngsmunSherlock?”
“John’s going to die.”
Lestrade yawns loudly on the other end. “Wha?” he groans, groggy.
“John’s going to die, now hurry up, come on, hurry, I’ll text you the address, just-”
“Sherlock, please, go back to bed. I’m sure John’s going to be fine.”
“No, he’s not, I know, I just know…” He’s starting to get frantic, voice speeding up, tongue not quick enough to keep up with his racing thoughts. “Lestrade, hurry.”
He hangs up and quickly types out Sarah’s address, sends it with a quiet blip of the mobile, then runs. Runs like he’s never run before. The city has not quieted outside, it never does, and he’s little difficulty chasing down a cab-well, sprinting in front of it, more like, and shoving the back-seat occupants out to take their place before screaming the address to the cabbie, and will he just hurry up, it’s life or death here, do you know who I am?
They arrive, Sherlock springs out without paying, the cabbie’s getting out, too, and he’s shouting-but never mind that.
Sherlock enters the building, finds the door, and pounds on it with all his might, shouting John’s name.
It opens.
It’s not John’s face that greets him.
He pushes past Sarah, gives her the cold shoulder. “Where is he?” he asks. “Where’s John?”
“What are you doing here?” she asks, pulling her robe tighter about her. “Why are you in my house?”
He marches up to her, pushes his face impossibly close to hers. “I swear,” he seethes, “If you’ve done something to him-”
“Sherlock.”
Sherlock swings around to see John standing behind the sofa-yes, still the sofa. He’s frowning. That’s fine, though. Dead people can’t frown. Sherlock darts towards him, places a trembling hand on his shoulder only to have it swatted away moments later.
“Go home, Sherlock,” John snaps.
“No, I had to make sure-” Sherlock’s voice is shaky, won’t stop trembling.
“Sherlock. Go home. Please.” John’s tone is cold and irritated. His whole posture speaks of annoyance, of being fed up. Sherlock suddenly feels more bare than if he were standing naked in the middle of London. He casts one last glance at John’s angry face, then leaves, carefully avoiding any contact with Sarah on the way out.
There’s an old man poking his head through his door in the hallway-“What’s all the ruckus about?” he growls.
Deep breath. “Nothing. Absolutely… nothing… at… all.”
He’s so preoccupied stewing in his own brain that he crashes into someone just as he exits onto the street. A familiar, “Jesus Christ, Sherlock!” rips through the fog that has settled in Sherlock’s brain. He looks up.
“Oh, there you are. Late, as usual.”
Lestrade splutters. He’s spilled his coffee. He lets out an irritated sigh.
“Well? He alive then? All limbs intact and everything?”
Sherlock stares at the empty patch of road before the building. The cab’s gone. Now he’ll have to get another one. He raises his arm high into the air.
“He’s fine,” he says, after a long pause.
“But you’re not,” Lestrade surmises. He looks very, very tired, the bags under his eyes distorted by the flickering lights of late-night London. Haphazardly dressed, socks don’t match and his shirt is mis-buttoned.
“I’m fine, too,” Sherlock replies, his tone stiff and empty.
Lestrade’s incredulous gaze says all.
“It’s just…” Sherlock takes another deep breath and turns to stare at the detective. “He doesn’t care,” he says, forcing a smile onto his own lips. “All that… All those… before… It… He really doesn’t. That’s all.”
Lestrade blinks and nods.
It starts to rain.
*
vi.
The recoil tears through the muscles of Sherlock’s arm, causing him to stumble backwards, feet slipping on the tiles. John has folded in on himself, hands over his ears, bracing for the explosion that…
Doesn’t…
Come.
Funny.
Sherlock frowns and stares and stares at the bomb. Then down at John, who’s just as confused as he is, because… wasn’t there suppoesed to be, like, a boom, just, maybe? And then suddenly-the sort of suddenly that creeps instead of smacks, like an unannounced thread of cold wind on a boiling day-suddenly, Moriarty starts to shiver, and waver, like a mirage, until he’s just: gone. Just like that.
“No, no, this doesn’t make any sense,” Sherlock says. “John?”
The air is still and unbent; Sherlock looks to see that the other man’s gone, too. Just him now, alone, with a gun and a pool of quietly lapping water. The bomb is still blinking, but the laser points of disappeared.
Alone. Alone. His breathing slows and his eyes drift shut, why the fucking hell is he so tired…
He wakes up quietly.
John is shaking him, a steady hand on his shoulder, gentle, soft sways. “Sherlock, are you alright? Hey, hey.”
As he turns, the mattress creaks and the sheets whisper. Sherlock looks at John for three long, intense seconds-he counts them-before propping himself up on one elbow and saying, “Do you know what entropy is?”
“Um. Something that’s not really important to us getting back to sleep?”
“It’s a measure of the distribution of heat through a thermodynamic system.”
“Fascinating, now can we go-”
“John, promise me you’re not going anywhere.”
“What?” John frowns, the charming way he does, with his brow all wrinkled and his eyes squinted, and his head leaned ever so slightly forward. “Go, where would I go?”
Sherlock simply continues to stare. John rolls his eyes, places his hand on Sherlocks’ shoulder again, and says, “I’m not leaving you. Now. Sleep.”
They sag back down onto the mattress. Sherlock blinks, watching John rearrange himself into a comfortable position-then swings one of his own legs around John’s lower body and pulls him close, close enough for Sherlock to bury his lips in the nape of the other man’s neck.
“We got out, didn’t we?” he whispers. “This isn’t some terrible concoction of my grief-addled mind, this isn’t some fucking torturous dream. We lived.”
John shudders a little, to hear Sherlock so uncertain.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes.”
The body beside him relaxes at long last.
It starts to rain.