BBC Sherlock: In Over Our Heads (2/3) PG-13
Title: In Over Our Heads 2/3
Rating PG-13
Spoilers: For TRF (3rd part, only)
Disclaimer: Don’t own them :(
Word Count: 2105 this part (6140 total)
Summary: John and Sherlock have been kidnapped. Will they be able to keep their heads above water? Literally?
Thanks: To my lovely beta reader, daasgrrl, for kicking this, and me, into shape. Any mistakes to be found are mine alone.
Previous Part
John had to blink several times to bring Sherlock into focus through the thin layer of water. Sherlock seemed frozen, still gripping John’s hand and John imagined Sherlock holding that same position forever as the water rose to consume him as well. John squeezed Sherlock’s hand, hard, needing his best friend to snap out of it, trying to save Sherlock’s life once more. This time from himself.
Sherlock jumped into action as if John had found a secret power switch. He was down in the water in front of John so fast that John lost half his held breath in fright. Then Sherlock’s lips were on his own, covering them.
John opened his mouth, not able to refuse Sherlock anything, not even…air? There was no mistaking it; Sherlock had just forced a cautious breath of air into his mouth.
Sherlock pulled away, looking intently into John’s eyes, as though needing a confirmation that he was on the right track to solving one of his puzzles.
No sooner had John nodded than Sherlock stood to draw in another breath. So close, yet so far away. If John wanted, he could reach out his hand and touch the air. But Sherlock was bringing air to him, so he had no need to reach.
The second time Sherlock knelt in front of him, John stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. John then breathed out before motioning him close. Sherlock understood at once and the next time he waited for John to clear his lungs of the stale air.
The fit of their lips was clumsy at first, all wrong angles and leaked water. But they got better the seventh time. The tenth time. By the sixteenth time, Sherlock had to stretch to reach the surface, the next he finally had to swim.
John felt light-headed and he started to see black spots at somewhere around the twenty-fifth time. The mouthful of recycled air just wasn’t enough, and he could see Sherlock struggling as well. The man barely paused for his own lungful air before he swam back to John, his usual single-minded determination keeping him going, making up for his not-so-refined swimming technique.
John could no longer see the ceiling or even the surface of the water. His vision had been condensed and pinpointed to Sherlock, his whole world darkening with every litre of water that poured into the massive tank. He missed the light, craved it like a junkie. Sherlock’s small belt buckle shone with what light there was, and John watched it like a tracking device.
As Sherlock twisted, the light caught on the buckle, and the sharp flash hurt John’s eyes. But even when he closed them, the image burned. John felt his blood pressure rise, like his body was trying to tell him something held captive by his mind.
It wasn’t until Sherlock had returned and begun to swim off again that John realised it; the simple solution that had quite literally been staring him in the face for the last half hour. The next time Sherlock came back, John refused the air, instead tugging at Sherlock’s waistband.
Sherlock tried to brush the hand away, but John persisted, finally shoving Sherlock back so he could point to his trapped hand, then to the belt. Waiting for it to register felt like the longest wait of his life, but when Sherlock got it, he sprung into motion. Hastily, he passed the last breath of air to John, then darted for the surface, hands already wrestling with his belt, trying to pull it free from his sodden trousers.
John’s heart throbbed in his chest as he watched the struggle over his head between man and object before man won out and Sherlock swam back down, belt clutched in one hand, reaching for the lock with the other. John draped an arm over Sherlock’s back to hold him steady.
Sherlock’s hands shook as he separated the prong of the buckle away from the frame. The light barely reached them, and Sherlock missed the small hole in the lock several times.
John needed air, it was taking too bloody long. But he dared not move. Dared not beg for his next fix of air. He just closed his eyes, concentrating on not breathing. Then a strange feeling came over him, that falling feeling he sometimes got when in a state of half-sleep. He opened his eyes to see the surface of the water falling towards him. No, he was rising.
His lungs cried out for air, like they realised just how close they were to being finally filled. A split second too soon. His first breath came just as he breached the surface and contained more water than air. He coughed, not able to get a breath.
“John!”
Panic started to overtake him as he struggled to clear his lungs, his grip on Sherlock the only thing keeping him from sinking.
Sherlock swung him around, knocking his back against the side of the tank.
The move rattled his teeth and banged his head on the glass, but it made him able to cough up the rest of the water. The air hurt his throat when he could finally breathe again, but it was a good type of hurt.
“Your face was turning purple.” The tremor in Sherlock’s voice betrayed how scared he had been.
John felt Sherlock’s bruising grip on his arms loosen a second before Sherlock’s eyes rolled back and he started to sink. John caught him, the weight almost pulling them both under. “Sherlock?”
Sherlock was only out for a moment, eyes fluttering back open. “Sorry.”
John didn’t feel safe letting go of him. Sherlock had barely had time to take a full breath for himself in the last half hour. He looked exhausted.
They both looked up and John groaned at the impossibly large distance the water still had to rise. They spent the next few minutes in silence, breathing deeply as if to make up for lost time.
“Where did you learn to swim?” John finally asked, needing to hear something aside from the sounds of their breaths and the slight ringing in his ears.
“Mycroft threw me into the deep end of our neighbour’s pool when I was nine.”
John started to laugh, but caught himself when he saw the look in Sherlock’s eyes.
“Just after mother died. He became fed up with me. At the time, I don’t think he cared whether I sank or swam.”
“You can’t think that!”
“Mycroft was 16. I was annoying.”
“But you learned how to swim,” John pointed out.
Sherlock shrugged. “I would have learned eventually. There were two identification cards in your wallet, right?” Sherlock had changed subjects without pausing for breath.
Before John could catch up, Sherlock had already dived back under the water. “Here, hold this for me,” he said upon his return, pushing his sodden coat at John and rooting around in John’s wallet, which he had also retrieved from the floor of the tank. He pulled out the ID cards and discarded the wallet. “I know who did this. And his next target.” He looked upwards. The edge of the tank was closer now, but still way too far to escape from any time soon.
“Well?” John demanded.
“The identification cards. Two names. Clifford Cedars, and Richmond Kew. Cedars, Kew, Clifford, Richmond. All are streets that circle the Chedwealth Community School.”
John felt his stomach sink. “Someone’s targeting a school?” he said with growing horror.
Sherlock nodded gravely. “Remember our bomber from a few months ago?”
“Mr. ...Braxley?”
“He used to work there. As a chemistry teacher. He was fired after having one row too many with the other teachers.”
John was still stuck on the target being a school. “What if we’re too late?”
“We’ll have about half an hour. The final detail: Two different cards. Two different names. But the addresses are the same. 330 King’s Road. Three-thirty. My watch still works.” He showed John. “Just past two-thirty. We have an hour. And about thirty minutes until the water reaches high enough to get out.”
The water no longer felt warm and John shivered. I’m never setting foot in water again, he silently vowed to himself. Baths be damned!
“When we get out, we’ll need to find someone with a mobile. Call Lestrade. He’ll get through the needed…” Sherlock stopped.
It wasn’t like Sherlock to leave a thought unvoiced when he was on a roll, and John looked at him with concern.
Sherlock stared at the wall, his hand resting against it.
“Sherlock?” After getting no answer, John watched Sherlock’s hand, finally realising what he was seeing: The water level had stopped rising. And it had started falling.
Only about five feet separated them from the top of the tank, but it might as well have been fifty. John could feel the seconds they were wasting weighing down his body, threatening to pull him to the bottom of the tank.
Sherlock punched his fist into the water in a rare show of frustration. He turned to John. “Can I stand on your shoulders?”
John nodded. “Ready?” At Sherlock’s signal, John swam under Sherlock’s long legs. He felt a bit of panic, his previous close brush with drowning still fresh. The pressure on his shoulders hurt. With the added water weight, Sherlock felt like he weighed twenty stone. John wasn’t sure if he would be able to lift him out of the water. But desperation gave him strength.
Sherlock, for his part, stretched and grabbed hold of the edge as quick as he could, pulling himself up to straddle it. “My coat, John. Hurry.”
John wanted to argue, wanted to order Sherlock to leave. But that would be a waste of breath. He had learned long ago that arguing was never in his best interests. John grabbed the coat, which had started to slip under the surface, and tossed it up. The water made it heavy and it just slapped against the side of the tank a full foot from Sherlock’s reaching hand.
The second time, Sherlock caught the sleeve. He adjusted his grip to hold the end of the coat. “Grab the sleeves. Hurry, while you can still reach.”
John gave the coat a dubious look, but reached for it anyways. He almost lost the grip as his arm muscles protested and his old war wound ached at the new strain. John gritted his teeth. With Sherlock’s help, managed to reach the edge and pull himself on it to join his friend. “I need new friends,” he gasped.
The edge was about a foot wide and John straddled it carefully, feeling more than a little tipsy, and looked around. There were other similar tanks in the room, five in total. They were permanently set into the floor, so the ground was only about ten feet below them. Underneath must be an viewing room of sorts.
Sherlock tossed his coat down first, then dropped easily to the ground, landing in a crouch, then straightened. He looked up expectantly at John.
School. Explosion. Right. John’s landing wasn’t so graceful. The shock of the hard floor on his stockinged feet made him stumble into Sherlock, almost knocking them both to the ground.
Sherlock pushed dripping hair from his eyes. He ran towards the nearest door, leaving his sodden coat behind. John hurried to catch up. The door opened into a hallway, which the two followed to a pair of double doors that led outside. Here, Sherlock stopped. He gave the doors a suspicious look, then carefully pushed one open.
Nothing blew up and John followed Sherlock out into the street.
What a sight the two of them must have made; clothes dripping puddles all over the walk, shoeless, squinting against the sun. But no one paid any attention to them.
John was about to politely ask someone for their mobile when Sherlock pushed past him, snatching a phone right from an older woman’s hand. The woman didn’t notice at first that her phone had vanished; then she stared at her hand in surprise.
“She’ll call you back later,” Sherlock said into the phone, ending the call and starting one of his own. “Lestrade. Evacuate the Chedwealth Community School. There’s a bomb. No time to call a disposal team. Twenty minutes. Never mind, just do it!” He handed the mobile back to the lady, who seemed equally surprised by its reappearance as she had by its disappearance.
Sherlock started to walk away.
“Now what?” John asked.
“We go home.”
“Home? What about the bomber?”
“In good time, John. In good time.”
Part 3
Rating PG-13
Spoilers: For TRF (3rd part, only)
Disclaimer: Don’t own them :(
Word Count: 2105 this part (6140 total)
Summary: John and Sherlock have been kidnapped. Will they be able to keep their heads above water? Literally?
Thanks: To my lovely beta reader, daasgrrl, for kicking this, and me, into shape. Any mistakes to be found are mine alone.
Previous Part
John had to blink several times to bring Sherlock into focus through the thin layer of water. Sherlock seemed frozen, still gripping John’s hand and John imagined Sherlock holding that same position forever as the water rose to consume him as well. John squeezed Sherlock’s hand, hard, needing his best friend to snap out of it, trying to save Sherlock’s life once more. This time from himself.
Sherlock jumped into action as if John had found a secret power switch. He was down in the water in front of John so fast that John lost half his held breath in fright. Then Sherlock’s lips were on his own, covering them.
John opened his mouth, not able to refuse Sherlock anything, not even…air? There was no mistaking it; Sherlock had just forced a cautious breath of air into his mouth.
Sherlock pulled away, looking intently into John’s eyes, as though needing a confirmation that he was on the right track to solving one of his puzzles.
No sooner had John nodded than Sherlock stood to draw in another breath. So close, yet so far away. If John wanted, he could reach out his hand and touch the air. But Sherlock was bringing air to him, so he had no need to reach.
The second time Sherlock knelt in front of him, John stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. John then breathed out before motioning him close. Sherlock understood at once and the next time he waited for John to clear his lungs of the stale air.
The fit of their lips was clumsy at first, all wrong angles and leaked water. But they got better the seventh time. The tenth time. By the sixteenth time, Sherlock had to stretch to reach the surface, the next he finally had to swim.
John felt light-headed and he started to see black spots at somewhere around the twenty-fifth time. The mouthful of recycled air just wasn’t enough, and he could see Sherlock struggling as well. The man barely paused for his own lungful air before he swam back to John, his usual single-minded determination keeping him going, making up for his not-so-refined swimming technique.
John could no longer see the ceiling or even the surface of the water. His vision had been condensed and pinpointed to Sherlock, his whole world darkening with every litre of water that poured into the massive tank. He missed the light, craved it like a junkie. Sherlock’s small belt buckle shone with what light there was, and John watched it like a tracking device.
As Sherlock twisted, the light caught on the buckle, and the sharp flash hurt John’s eyes. But even when he closed them, the image burned. John felt his blood pressure rise, like his body was trying to tell him something held captive by his mind.
It wasn’t until Sherlock had returned and begun to swim off again that John realised it; the simple solution that had quite literally been staring him in the face for the last half hour. The next time Sherlock came back, John refused the air, instead tugging at Sherlock’s waistband.
Sherlock tried to brush the hand away, but John persisted, finally shoving Sherlock back so he could point to his trapped hand, then to the belt. Waiting for it to register felt like the longest wait of his life, but when Sherlock got it, he sprung into motion. Hastily, he passed the last breath of air to John, then darted for the surface, hands already wrestling with his belt, trying to pull it free from his sodden trousers.
John’s heart throbbed in his chest as he watched the struggle over his head between man and object before man won out and Sherlock swam back down, belt clutched in one hand, reaching for the lock with the other. John draped an arm over Sherlock’s back to hold him steady.
Sherlock’s hands shook as he separated the prong of the buckle away from the frame. The light barely reached them, and Sherlock missed the small hole in the lock several times.
John needed air, it was taking too bloody long. But he dared not move. Dared not beg for his next fix of air. He just closed his eyes, concentrating on not breathing. Then a strange feeling came over him, that falling feeling he sometimes got when in a state of half-sleep. He opened his eyes to see the surface of the water falling towards him. No, he was rising.
His lungs cried out for air, like they realised just how close they were to being finally filled. A split second too soon. His first breath came just as he breached the surface and contained more water than air. He coughed, not able to get a breath.
“John!”
Panic started to overtake him as he struggled to clear his lungs, his grip on Sherlock the only thing keeping him from sinking.
Sherlock swung him around, knocking his back against the side of the tank.
The move rattled his teeth and banged his head on the glass, but it made him able to cough up the rest of the water. The air hurt his throat when he could finally breathe again, but it was a good type of hurt.
“Your face was turning purple.” The tremor in Sherlock’s voice betrayed how scared he had been.
John felt Sherlock’s bruising grip on his arms loosen a second before Sherlock’s eyes rolled back and he started to sink. John caught him, the weight almost pulling them both under. “Sherlock?”
Sherlock was only out for a moment, eyes fluttering back open. “Sorry.”
John didn’t feel safe letting go of him. Sherlock had barely had time to take a full breath for himself in the last half hour. He looked exhausted.
They both looked up and John groaned at the impossibly large distance the water still had to rise. They spent the next few minutes in silence, breathing deeply as if to make up for lost time.
“Where did you learn to swim?” John finally asked, needing to hear something aside from the sounds of their breaths and the slight ringing in his ears.
“Mycroft threw me into the deep end of our neighbour’s pool when I was nine.”
John started to laugh, but caught himself when he saw the look in Sherlock’s eyes.
“Just after mother died. He became fed up with me. At the time, I don’t think he cared whether I sank or swam.”
“You can’t think that!”
“Mycroft was 16. I was annoying.”
“But you learned how to swim,” John pointed out.
Sherlock shrugged. “I would have learned eventually. There were two identification cards in your wallet, right?” Sherlock had changed subjects without pausing for breath.
Before John could catch up, Sherlock had already dived back under the water. “Here, hold this for me,” he said upon his return, pushing his sodden coat at John and rooting around in John’s wallet, which he had also retrieved from the floor of the tank. He pulled out the ID cards and discarded the wallet. “I know who did this. And his next target.” He looked upwards. The edge of the tank was closer now, but still way too far to escape from any time soon.
“Well?” John demanded.
“The identification cards. Two names. Clifford Cedars, and Richmond Kew. Cedars, Kew, Clifford, Richmond. All are streets that circle the Chedwealth Community School.”
John felt his stomach sink. “Someone’s targeting a school?” he said with growing horror.
Sherlock nodded gravely. “Remember our bomber from a few months ago?”
“Mr. ...Braxley?”
“He used to work there. As a chemistry teacher. He was fired after having one row too many with the other teachers.”
John was still stuck on the target being a school. “What if we’re too late?”
“We’ll have about half an hour. The final detail: Two different cards. Two different names. But the addresses are the same. 330 King’s Road. Three-thirty. My watch still works.” He showed John. “Just past two-thirty. We have an hour. And about thirty minutes until the water reaches high enough to get out.”
The water no longer felt warm and John shivered. I’m never setting foot in water again, he silently vowed to himself. Baths be damned!
“When we get out, we’ll need to find someone with a mobile. Call Lestrade. He’ll get through the needed…” Sherlock stopped.
It wasn’t like Sherlock to leave a thought unvoiced when he was on a roll, and John looked at him with concern.
Sherlock stared at the wall, his hand resting against it.
“Sherlock?” After getting no answer, John watched Sherlock’s hand, finally realising what he was seeing: The water level had stopped rising. And it had started falling.
Only about five feet separated them from the top of the tank, but it might as well have been fifty. John could feel the seconds they were wasting weighing down his body, threatening to pull him to the bottom of the tank.
Sherlock punched his fist into the water in a rare show of frustration. He turned to John. “Can I stand on your shoulders?”
John nodded. “Ready?” At Sherlock’s signal, John swam under Sherlock’s long legs. He felt a bit of panic, his previous close brush with drowning still fresh. The pressure on his shoulders hurt. With the added water weight, Sherlock felt like he weighed twenty stone. John wasn’t sure if he would be able to lift him out of the water. But desperation gave him strength.
Sherlock, for his part, stretched and grabbed hold of the edge as quick as he could, pulling himself up to straddle it. “My coat, John. Hurry.”
John wanted to argue, wanted to order Sherlock to leave. But that would be a waste of breath. He had learned long ago that arguing was never in his best interests. John grabbed the coat, which had started to slip under the surface, and tossed it up. The water made it heavy and it just slapped against the side of the tank a full foot from Sherlock’s reaching hand.
The second time, Sherlock caught the sleeve. He adjusted his grip to hold the end of the coat. “Grab the sleeves. Hurry, while you can still reach.”
John gave the coat a dubious look, but reached for it anyways. He almost lost the grip as his arm muscles protested and his old war wound ached at the new strain. John gritted his teeth. With Sherlock’s help, managed to reach the edge and pull himself on it to join his friend. “I need new friends,” he gasped.
The edge was about a foot wide and John straddled it carefully, feeling more than a little tipsy, and looked around. There were other similar tanks in the room, five in total. They were permanently set into the floor, so the ground was only about ten feet below them. Underneath must be an viewing room of sorts.
Sherlock tossed his coat down first, then dropped easily to the ground, landing in a crouch, then straightened. He looked up expectantly at John.
School. Explosion. Right. John’s landing wasn’t so graceful. The shock of the hard floor on his stockinged feet made him stumble into Sherlock, almost knocking them both to the ground.
Sherlock pushed dripping hair from his eyes. He ran towards the nearest door, leaving his sodden coat behind. John hurried to catch up. The door opened into a hallway, which the two followed to a pair of double doors that led outside. Here, Sherlock stopped. He gave the doors a suspicious look, then carefully pushed one open.
Nothing blew up and John followed Sherlock out into the street.
What a sight the two of them must have made; clothes dripping puddles all over the walk, shoeless, squinting against the sun. But no one paid any attention to them.
John was about to politely ask someone for their mobile when Sherlock pushed past him, snatching a phone right from an older woman’s hand. The woman didn’t notice at first that her phone had vanished; then she stared at her hand in surprise.
“She’ll call you back later,” Sherlock said into the phone, ending the call and starting one of his own. “Lestrade. Evacuate the Chedwealth Community School. There’s a bomb. No time to call a disposal team. Twenty minutes. Never mind, just do it!” He handed the mobile back to the lady, who seemed equally surprised by its reappearance as she had by its disappearance.
Sherlock started to walk away.
“Now what?” John asked.
“We go home.”
“Home? What about the bomber?”
“In good time, John. In good time.”
Part 3