[Sherlock BBCx2009] Echoes of a Distant Tide, Part 2
Title: Echoes of a Distant Tide
Author: devotfeige
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (BBC+2009)
Rating: PG-13/R (15)
Warning(s): None this chapter, save an incredibly unlikely depiction of events immediately post-S1E3
Pairing(s): Holmes/Watson, implied pre-Sherlock/John (+squint friendly permutations thereof); past Watson/Mary Morstan
Disclaimer: It's proven rather difficult for me to pin down if indoor plumbing was a thing in 1895, but if the film can have working taps, so can I. Oh, and the characters aren't mine.
Notes: Thank you everyone for all of your encouraging comments on chapter 1! I sincerely hope you continue to enjoy as events unfold (...however slowly).
---
There was a time, Watson recalls, when Sherlock Holmes had once mused aloud to him, while they sat companionably by the fire, the decidedly astute observation that "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
He is beginning to suspect―wrapped in an unfamiliar quilt beside an unfamiliar fire in an astonishingly familiar sitting room at the lodgings of a man who responds to the name Sherlock Holmes, at an address labelled 221b―that his old friend could never have fathomed the depth of the truth to be found in that innocuous statement.
In a span of time he had very quickly lost the presence of mind to keep track of, Watson had awoken to a shuttered but easily identifiable expression in eyes a great many shades too light to possibly belong to the man he was accustomed to associating the expression with, but who called him urgently by name in such a way that suggested the sense of familiarity was not entirely unfounded.
The man had clapped both hands around his arms with a shout of triumph the instant something resembling awareness returned to him, wrenching him to his feet in the dust and debris of a half-ruined natatorium and pulling him through the wreckage in search of open air. His disorientation only worsened as he was led through alien streets along increasingly recognizable paths while the man (who had indeed responded to the name Holmes as though it were his own, albeit not without offering an incredulous look in return) spoke hurriedly about not finding himself in the mood to entertain emergency services and quite remarkably found nothing at all noteworthy about the sheer number or outlandish design of the automobiles lining the streets, or of the numerous brilliant lights accompanied by tremendous feats of architectural design, or, in fact, any of the many otherworldly sights whose paths they crossed on their trek to the relative sanctuary of an only moderately altered Baker Street.
"Tea," his old acquaintance's strange doppelgänger announces with a flourish, drawing him back to the no less remarkable present. Whatever infinitely strange occurrences life has seen fit to overwhelm him with in the past evening, not to the exclusion of the existence of a man who is but clearly is not Sherlock Holmes, this is simply unprecedented.
"You never make tea."
"I make tea," the man retorts pithily, sounding for all the world a flawless imitation. "I made tea just now, in fact."
"So you did," Watson observes, his wry smile directed primarily at the drink placed before him. "Why?"
"Why indeed, John." The man throws himself emphatically into the chair opposite before he continues. "You are clearly in no small amount of shock and I cannot immediately dismiss the possibility of concussion; I hardly claim to have your medical expertise, at least in matters of live subjects. From experience, however, I happen to know that you've come to rely on the therapeutic effects of basic routine, and were you not otherwise indisposed I suspect tea would have been your first order of business. Hence: tea."
Certainly it can not be said that this is an incorrect evaluation of his habits, though its accuracy in no way lends it grace towards being any less disconcerting. It is a grand mystery indeed, how this individual can so well emulate the behaviour of his oldest friend, even so far as to answer to the same name, and without so much as the batting of an eye address him personally with such unerring familiarity. Disturbingly so, for that matter, as attested to by his tendency towards the strikingly informal. "Holmes―"
"John. I was under the impression we had dismissed such formalities months ago."
Watson blanches. Months? Surely not, after over a decade of established custom, and ignoring even then that he's never seen this so-called Sherlock Holmes before in all his life. "What― what happened 'months ago'?"
The man―Sherlock, he thinks dumbfoundedly, and oh, how ridiculous that seems―fixes him with a most unnerving stare of nearly imperceptible perplexity and concern (one, he thinks with a black sense of levity, he quite remembers a time he would not have been able to identify). "You moved in," he replies, uncertainly.
At the dubious look that statement earns in return, Sherlock frowns. For an instant he appears to be weighing numerous options before at last he speaks again.
"Perhaps a trip to the hospital is in order, after all."
"No―! No," Watson objects hurriedly, confident that the refuge provided by 221b's relative persistence is a far cry better for his health than the London from beyond imagination outside its walls, "It's fine. You're right, I'm just... just a little disoriented, I think. Tea will help, thank you."
Sherlock eyes him suspiciously for a moment, clearly dissatisfied, but leaves the matter thankfully unchallenged.
He is given time enough to finish his cup (even as laboriously slowly as Watson intentionally goes about doing so, for want of a better method of maintaining some form of control over the situation, to give himself the much-needed breathing room he requires to make sense of any of what has happened) with only minimal distraction to his thoughts in the form of Sherlock's occasional quick glances stolen from across the room. It is very nearly laughable, the expression of complete befuddlement that is so expertly schooled into an impassive façade, or would be if not for the odd ache it sends straight to Watson's gut.
It has been a very long time indeed since Holmes last made any conscious attempt to conceal from him the play of his mind's inner workings upon his brow. His thoughts, sometimes; his plans, always; but what Watson had learned in time to read without elaboration he'd been free to take for the better part of their long acquaintance. It is somewhat surprising to find that he is still able to identify these tells behind Sherlock's deliberately isolated guise, though no less disconcerting that he should have to.
"Phone," Sherlock demands cryptically, the very instant that Watson's empty mug has touched the coffee table. When he receives nothing but a blank stare by way of response, he rifles through his own pockets to retrieve a palm-sized, black, rectangular device, which he holds aloft as though in demonstration, and Watson continues to be utterly lost.
Sherlock is looking at him expectantly, though, on edge the way Holmes has always had a tendency to be when he is in want of motion; waiting for an action to be taken upon this prompt, then, rather than a verbal reply. Clearly he is intended to recognise the object in question, and Sherlock has only just finished demonstrating that he thinks him incapable of performing simple tasks at present, so...
Watson tries each of his pockets in turn, encouraged when the other man does not immediately look at him with reproach or disdain for having so thoroughly misunderstood. He comes up empty-handed, shrugging uselessly before resettling the quilt around his shoulders.
"Can't be helped," Sherlock replies, making a disapproving sound as he glances at the device in his own hand, scrubbing his damp shirt sleeve across the face of it. His frown deepens into something just short of a scowl after he's done this, as though he's only just realised the terrible inconvenience inherent to his wet clothing. "Likely ruined if it made it into the water, anyway. I'll leave mine to dry, see if there's anything salvageable. You'll have to ask Harry for a loan of the next hand-me-down, I suppose."
There's a flicker of something like amusement in Sherlock's eyes as he speaks that Watson finds he can't help but smile in response to. Which is good, because it saves him having to try and disguise the look of absolute bewilderment that might have otherwise crossed his face at the flippant, offhand referral to an elder brother who has been deceased for a great many years as though he could simply―
Ah. Deceased. He'll have to think on this.
Sherlock mutters something before tossing his hand-held device onto the table and disappearing off into the flat somewhere. Watson pays him little mind.
---
Exhaustion must set itself upon him the very instant that he allows his mind to drift, because the next thing John is consciously aware of is a new presence bustling about in the sitting room, accompanied by the clinking of fine china and a woman's hushed but admonishing voice, punctuated occasionally by the terse rebukes and complaints of the room's third occupant, who is making some racket of his own.
For an instant, with his eyes closed, he can almost pretend that upon opening them things will have somehow righted themselves, the whole experience a strange but easily forgotten fantasy. In the space between sleep and wakefulness, he speaks the first words that come to mind, hoping that he can somehow shift reality back into the order it belongs through sheer force of will:
"Mrs Hudson, what was it your husband did, exactly?"
It comes out something of a hoarse mumble, trailing off unintelligibly towards the end, but the chatter stops and the woman turns to him before she sighs; "Oh, but he disappeared off to the Americas some years ago. Never to be heard from again, I'm afraid."
John's eyes snap open to find himself faced with a kindly but mildly put-upon expression to match the woman's voice, all but the very picture of his own landlady. Similar enough for an immediate thrum of striking familiarity, just as he'd experienced with the man who calls himself Sherlock Holmes, but still not quite right. "But never mind that now," she smiles at him as she offers a cup of tea, which he accepts graciously partly out of respect for proper English etiquette and largely because he can feel his mind reeling all over again in response to the odd predicament he's found himself in, and tea does sound rather stabilising by comparison. He'd been hoping to either break the odd illusion of symmetry or dismiss this not-quite reality entirely, and having failed spectacularly at accomplishing either, the continuing resemblances are proving deeply unsettling.
"It is certainly good to have you back, doctor. Though I must admit I wish it were under less dreadful circumstances," she confides quietly, resting a gentle hand upon his arm as she speaks. From somewhere in the room he can hear Holmes drop whatever it is he's doing, as though in direct response. John, for his part, simply blinks at her dumbfoundedly, unsure of what she may or may not be referring to.
"Yeah," he settles on vaguely, half-obscuring the words behind his cup of tea, "...me too."
"By all means, stay as long as you like."
Something about that particular offer doesn't sit quite right with him for a long moment, and John drains half his cup of tea before he realises it sounds suspiciously like Holmes' early insistence that he return to Baker Street, as though he had some other option. "Sorry," he tries, sifting through his words deliberately and slowly, "I suppose this is going to sound a bit daft, but... how long have I been gone?"
"The very thought of it," Mrs Hudson answers indistinctly, evidently to herself, before turning upon where Holmes has intruded upon their conversation, though she interrupts before he has so much as had a chance to take a breath to speak, "How long do you intend on hanging him here by the fire to dry? Go on then, draw up a warm bath before the doctor catches ill himself. It simply wouldn't do."
Something in Holmes' expression darkens in response before his gaze strays and settles over John, still wrapped in the other man's coat and pressed as closely to the fireplace as he can manage without leaving his seat. It must say something that he'd hardly noticed his clothes are still mostly damp, though between the comfort of the fire and his bone-deep exhaustion, frankly, he isn't certain it would have mattered either way.
"I assure you that is hardly necessary," the other man snaps before John can voice an opinion of his own, waving off their company irritably, "Dry clothes and an evening by the fire will do just as well, and I do believe us entirely capable of managing ourselves from here; good evening, nanny."
For all his vehemence (Holmes grits out the word 'nanny' with the sort of violent distaste ordinary folk might have reserved for 'murderer', though the disparity itself doesn't strike John as particularly out of character), Mrs Hudson only tuts with all the grace and patience of someone who has suffered this behaviour long enough not to notice it any longer. "Do let me know if there's anything I can get for you," she tells John with a reassuring smile, "Anything at all, don't hesitate to ask."
"I will, thanks," he replies uncertainly, pulling the coat wrapped around his shoulders a little further in on himself as she leaves and studying the flash of irritation that crosses Holmes' face in her wake.
After a brief moment of bristling silence, John clears his throat, causing the other man to return his attention to him at once, his expression falling instantly into something partly apprehensive but mostly unreadable. Given his consistent transparency throughout the rest of the evening, it is surprisingly startling to find an expression that looks as though it would fit Sherlock perfectly, rather than only circumstantially.
"Clothes?" he prompts, hesitantly. He'd much prefer the previously suggested bath, in all honesty, but the ferocity in Holmes' earlier dismissal of the very idea quells his desire to ask.
The other man gives him a calculating stare that can only be described as searching for a long instant before at last he breaks away, speaking in hushed but hurried tones; "Yes, of course." With no more proclamation than that, he disappears off into one of the rooms.
John takes this opportunity to survey his surroundings without the immediate scrutiny of not-Sherlock's piercing gaze. Baker Street is mostly in line with the flat back home (ridiculous, he files the thought away for later bereavement of his mental faculties, now he's treating the situation as though he's gone on bloody holiday) but for its minor incongruities of design and layout. It is evocative but not exact, in much the same way as everything he has seen thus far, and John presses both his palms to his face in an attempt to stem the overwhelming swell of desolation that threatens to overtake him in response to the upheaval of his entire perception of reality. He screws his eyes shut further in response to the unfamiliar planes of his own face beneath his palms, setting his jaw to exhale sharply between his teeth in frustration and agony. He spares himself the time to hope desperately that he'll be able to put off having to look at himself for as long as possible, knowing that any confirmation of his present suspicions would only prove itself to be the line where his admittedly fragile hold upon his own composure fractured irreparably.
Sherlock, London, Baker Street, Mrs Hudson, and now himself; all of it an exceptionally detailed but imperfect recreation of his own life, set against historic 1895. Complete and utter madness, the lot of it.
He's wrenched himself up from the sofa before he is even consciously aware of having thought to do so, reaching for the scattered papers and letters that litter the table in front of him and shuffling through them out of an unbidden desire to find out just how deeply the similarities run. It occurs to him distantly as he realises he is sorting through the 19th century equivalent of Sherlock's e-mails that he really has no particular frame of reference with which to make that sort of evaluation. He throws the papers back down in defeat, falling back into the sofa with a long, exasperated sigh.
When at last Holmes returns with a fresh set of clothes (chemically stained in places and poorly repaired in others but still, oddly enough, a perfect fit), John changes resignedly before retaking his seat by the hearth and allowing his chaotic thoughts to be lulled into silence by the steady lick of the flames.
---
Chapter: [1] [2] >> [3]
Author: devotfeige
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (BBC+2009)
Rating: PG-13/R (15)
Warning(s): None this chapter, save an incredibly unlikely depiction of events immediately post-S1E3
Pairing(s): Holmes/Watson, implied pre-Sherlock/John (+squint friendly permutations thereof); past Watson/Mary Morstan
Disclaimer: It's proven rather difficult for me to pin down if indoor plumbing was a thing in 1895, but if the film can have working taps, so can I. Oh, and the characters aren't mine.
Notes: Thank you everyone for all of your encouraging comments on chapter 1! I sincerely hope you continue to enjoy as events unfold (...however slowly).
---
There was a time, Watson recalls, when Sherlock Holmes had once mused aloud to him, while they sat companionably by the fire, the decidedly astute observation that "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
He is beginning to suspect―wrapped in an unfamiliar quilt beside an unfamiliar fire in an astonishingly familiar sitting room at the lodgings of a man who responds to the name Sherlock Holmes, at an address labelled 221b―that his old friend could never have fathomed the depth of the truth to be found in that innocuous statement.
In a span of time he had very quickly lost the presence of mind to keep track of, Watson had awoken to a shuttered but easily identifiable expression in eyes a great many shades too light to possibly belong to the man he was accustomed to associating the expression with, but who called him urgently by name in such a way that suggested the sense of familiarity was not entirely unfounded.
The man had clapped both hands around his arms with a shout of triumph the instant something resembling awareness returned to him, wrenching him to his feet in the dust and debris of a half-ruined natatorium and pulling him through the wreckage in search of open air. His disorientation only worsened as he was led through alien streets along increasingly recognizable paths while the man (who had indeed responded to the name Holmes as though it were his own, albeit not without offering an incredulous look in return) spoke hurriedly about not finding himself in the mood to entertain emergency services and quite remarkably found nothing at all noteworthy about the sheer number or outlandish design of the automobiles lining the streets, or of the numerous brilliant lights accompanied by tremendous feats of architectural design, or, in fact, any of the many otherworldly sights whose paths they crossed on their trek to the relative sanctuary of an only moderately altered Baker Street.
"Tea," his old acquaintance's strange doppelgänger announces with a flourish, drawing him back to the no less remarkable present. Whatever infinitely strange occurrences life has seen fit to overwhelm him with in the past evening, not to the exclusion of the existence of a man who is but clearly is not Sherlock Holmes, this is simply unprecedented.
"You never make tea."
"I make tea," the man retorts pithily, sounding for all the world a flawless imitation. "I made tea just now, in fact."
"So you did," Watson observes, his wry smile directed primarily at the drink placed before him. "Why?"
"Why indeed, John." The man throws himself emphatically into the chair opposite before he continues. "You are clearly in no small amount of shock and I cannot immediately dismiss the possibility of concussion; I hardly claim to have your medical expertise, at least in matters of live subjects. From experience, however, I happen to know that you've come to rely on the therapeutic effects of basic routine, and were you not otherwise indisposed I suspect tea would have been your first order of business. Hence: tea."
Certainly it can not be said that this is an incorrect evaluation of his habits, though its accuracy in no way lends it grace towards being any less disconcerting. It is a grand mystery indeed, how this individual can so well emulate the behaviour of his oldest friend, even so far as to answer to the same name, and without so much as the batting of an eye address him personally with such unerring familiarity. Disturbingly so, for that matter, as attested to by his tendency towards the strikingly informal. "Holmes―"
"John. I was under the impression we had dismissed such formalities months ago."
Watson blanches. Months? Surely not, after over a decade of established custom, and ignoring even then that he's never seen this so-called Sherlock Holmes before in all his life. "What― what happened 'months ago'?"
The man―Sherlock, he thinks dumbfoundedly, and oh, how ridiculous that seems―fixes him with a most unnerving stare of nearly imperceptible perplexity and concern (one, he thinks with a black sense of levity, he quite remembers a time he would not have been able to identify). "You moved in," he replies, uncertainly.
At the dubious look that statement earns in return, Sherlock frowns. For an instant he appears to be weighing numerous options before at last he speaks again.
"Perhaps a trip to the hospital is in order, after all."
"No―! No," Watson objects hurriedly, confident that the refuge provided by 221b's relative persistence is a far cry better for his health than the London from beyond imagination outside its walls, "It's fine. You're right, I'm just... just a little disoriented, I think. Tea will help, thank you."
Sherlock eyes him suspiciously for a moment, clearly dissatisfied, but leaves the matter thankfully unchallenged.
He is given time enough to finish his cup (even as laboriously slowly as Watson intentionally goes about doing so, for want of a better method of maintaining some form of control over the situation, to give himself the much-needed breathing room he requires to make sense of any of what has happened) with only minimal distraction to his thoughts in the form of Sherlock's occasional quick glances stolen from across the room. It is very nearly laughable, the expression of complete befuddlement that is so expertly schooled into an impassive façade, or would be if not for the odd ache it sends straight to Watson's gut.
It has been a very long time indeed since Holmes last made any conscious attempt to conceal from him the play of his mind's inner workings upon his brow. His thoughts, sometimes; his plans, always; but what Watson had learned in time to read without elaboration he'd been free to take for the better part of their long acquaintance. It is somewhat surprising to find that he is still able to identify these tells behind Sherlock's deliberately isolated guise, though no less disconcerting that he should have to.
"Phone," Sherlock demands cryptically, the very instant that Watson's empty mug has touched the coffee table. When he receives nothing but a blank stare by way of response, he rifles through his own pockets to retrieve a palm-sized, black, rectangular device, which he holds aloft as though in demonstration, and Watson continues to be utterly lost.
Sherlock is looking at him expectantly, though, on edge the way Holmes has always had a tendency to be when he is in want of motion; waiting for an action to be taken upon this prompt, then, rather than a verbal reply. Clearly he is intended to recognise the object in question, and Sherlock has only just finished demonstrating that he thinks him incapable of performing simple tasks at present, so...
Watson tries each of his pockets in turn, encouraged when the other man does not immediately look at him with reproach or disdain for having so thoroughly misunderstood. He comes up empty-handed, shrugging uselessly before resettling the quilt around his shoulders.
"Can't be helped," Sherlock replies, making a disapproving sound as he glances at the device in his own hand, scrubbing his damp shirt sleeve across the face of it. His frown deepens into something just short of a scowl after he's done this, as though he's only just realised the terrible inconvenience inherent to his wet clothing. "Likely ruined if it made it into the water, anyway. I'll leave mine to dry, see if there's anything salvageable. You'll have to ask Harry for a loan of the next hand-me-down, I suppose."
There's a flicker of something like amusement in Sherlock's eyes as he speaks that Watson finds he can't help but smile in response to. Which is good, because it saves him having to try and disguise the look of absolute bewilderment that might have otherwise crossed his face at the flippant, offhand referral to an elder brother who has been deceased for a great many years as though he could simply―
Ah. Deceased. He'll have to think on this.
Sherlock mutters something before tossing his hand-held device onto the table and disappearing off into the flat somewhere. Watson pays him little mind.
---
Exhaustion must set itself upon him the very instant that he allows his mind to drift, because the next thing John is consciously aware of is a new presence bustling about in the sitting room, accompanied by the clinking of fine china and a woman's hushed but admonishing voice, punctuated occasionally by the terse rebukes and complaints of the room's third occupant, who is making some racket of his own.
For an instant, with his eyes closed, he can almost pretend that upon opening them things will have somehow righted themselves, the whole experience a strange but easily forgotten fantasy. In the space between sleep and wakefulness, he speaks the first words that come to mind, hoping that he can somehow shift reality back into the order it belongs through sheer force of will:
"Mrs Hudson, what was it your husband did, exactly?"
It comes out something of a hoarse mumble, trailing off unintelligibly towards the end, but the chatter stops and the woman turns to him before she sighs; "Oh, but he disappeared off to the Americas some years ago. Never to be heard from again, I'm afraid."
John's eyes snap open to find himself faced with a kindly but mildly put-upon expression to match the woman's voice, all but the very picture of his own landlady. Similar enough for an immediate thrum of striking familiarity, just as he'd experienced with the man who calls himself Sherlock Holmes, but still not quite right. "But never mind that now," she smiles at him as she offers a cup of tea, which he accepts graciously partly out of respect for proper English etiquette and largely because he can feel his mind reeling all over again in response to the odd predicament he's found himself in, and tea does sound rather stabilising by comparison. He'd been hoping to either break the odd illusion of symmetry or dismiss this not-quite reality entirely, and having failed spectacularly at accomplishing either, the continuing resemblances are proving deeply unsettling.
"It is certainly good to have you back, doctor. Though I must admit I wish it were under less dreadful circumstances," she confides quietly, resting a gentle hand upon his arm as she speaks. From somewhere in the room he can hear Holmes drop whatever it is he's doing, as though in direct response. John, for his part, simply blinks at her dumbfoundedly, unsure of what she may or may not be referring to.
"Yeah," he settles on vaguely, half-obscuring the words behind his cup of tea, "...me too."
"By all means, stay as long as you like."
Something about that particular offer doesn't sit quite right with him for a long moment, and John drains half his cup of tea before he realises it sounds suspiciously like Holmes' early insistence that he return to Baker Street, as though he had some other option. "Sorry," he tries, sifting through his words deliberately and slowly, "I suppose this is going to sound a bit daft, but... how long have I been gone?"
"The very thought of it," Mrs Hudson answers indistinctly, evidently to herself, before turning upon where Holmes has intruded upon their conversation, though she interrupts before he has so much as had a chance to take a breath to speak, "How long do you intend on hanging him here by the fire to dry? Go on then, draw up a warm bath before the doctor catches ill himself. It simply wouldn't do."
Something in Holmes' expression darkens in response before his gaze strays and settles over John, still wrapped in the other man's coat and pressed as closely to the fireplace as he can manage without leaving his seat. It must say something that he'd hardly noticed his clothes are still mostly damp, though between the comfort of the fire and his bone-deep exhaustion, frankly, he isn't certain it would have mattered either way.
"I assure you that is hardly necessary," the other man snaps before John can voice an opinion of his own, waving off their company irritably, "Dry clothes and an evening by the fire will do just as well, and I do believe us entirely capable of managing ourselves from here; good evening, nanny."
For all his vehemence (Holmes grits out the word 'nanny' with the sort of violent distaste ordinary folk might have reserved for 'murderer', though the disparity itself doesn't strike John as particularly out of character), Mrs Hudson only tuts with all the grace and patience of someone who has suffered this behaviour long enough not to notice it any longer. "Do let me know if there's anything I can get for you," she tells John with a reassuring smile, "Anything at all, don't hesitate to ask."
"I will, thanks," he replies uncertainly, pulling the coat wrapped around his shoulders a little further in on himself as she leaves and studying the flash of irritation that crosses Holmes' face in her wake.
After a brief moment of bristling silence, John clears his throat, causing the other man to return his attention to him at once, his expression falling instantly into something partly apprehensive but mostly unreadable. Given his consistent transparency throughout the rest of the evening, it is surprisingly startling to find an expression that looks as though it would fit Sherlock perfectly, rather than only circumstantially.
"Clothes?" he prompts, hesitantly. He'd much prefer the previously suggested bath, in all honesty, but the ferocity in Holmes' earlier dismissal of the very idea quells his desire to ask.
The other man gives him a calculating stare that can only be described as searching for a long instant before at last he breaks away, speaking in hushed but hurried tones; "Yes, of course." With no more proclamation than that, he disappears off into one of the rooms.
John takes this opportunity to survey his surroundings without the immediate scrutiny of not-Sherlock's piercing gaze. Baker Street is mostly in line with the flat back home (ridiculous, he files the thought away for later bereavement of his mental faculties, now he's treating the situation as though he's gone on bloody holiday) but for its minor incongruities of design and layout. It is evocative but not exact, in much the same way as everything he has seen thus far, and John presses both his palms to his face in an attempt to stem the overwhelming swell of desolation that threatens to overtake him in response to the upheaval of his entire perception of reality. He screws his eyes shut further in response to the unfamiliar planes of his own face beneath his palms, setting his jaw to exhale sharply between his teeth in frustration and agony. He spares himself the time to hope desperately that he'll be able to put off having to look at himself for as long as possible, knowing that any confirmation of his present suspicions would only prove itself to be the line where his admittedly fragile hold upon his own composure fractured irreparably.
Sherlock, London, Baker Street, Mrs Hudson, and now himself; all of it an exceptionally detailed but imperfect recreation of his own life, set against historic 1895. Complete and utter madness, the lot of it.
He's wrenched himself up from the sofa before he is even consciously aware of having thought to do so, reaching for the scattered papers and letters that litter the table in front of him and shuffling through them out of an unbidden desire to find out just how deeply the similarities run. It occurs to him distantly as he realises he is sorting through the 19th century equivalent of Sherlock's e-mails that he really has no particular frame of reference with which to make that sort of evaluation. He throws the papers back down in defeat, falling back into the sofa with a long, exasperated sigh.
When at last Holmes returns with a fresh set of clothes (chemically stained in places and poorly repaired in others but still, oddly enough, a perfect fit), John changes resignedly before retaking his seat by the hearth and allowing his chaotic thoughts to be lulled into silence by the steady lick of the flames.
---
Chapter: [1] [2] >> [3]