Notes: Written for the first prompt on the "Let's Write Sherlock!" tumblr blog.
After a nearly disastrous case, Sherlock and John share a tense taxi ride back to Baker Street. With emotions running high, they finally arrive back at 221B, and then . . .
Enjoy!
The ride home was tense. The case wasn't going to be a case; Sherlock hadn't had what he considered a good one of those in over a month, and it weighed on him. He snapped something unflattering to the woman driver who pulled up several feet away from the curb—she was obviously new; Sherlock was probably right as always about it being her very first night behind the wheel of a taxi—and John, who typically felt compelled to smooth things over for the people his flatmate insulted, didn't this time.
He'd been offended and verbally spit on by the World's Only Consulting Detective enough recently that he didn't really want much to do with him or his exceedingly poor human interaction skills right now.
Once home and up the stairs, John pointedly ignored any attempts Sherlock made to engage him in conversation—he probably didn't register even abusing John at the crime scene—and stomped up the stairs to his bedroom.
He kicked off his shoes and collapsed on his bed to stare at the cracked plaster in the ceiling.
Sherlock was suddenly surprised to find himself sans companion. He'd asked John for his phone and didn't get a response. That wasn't unusual, but the heavy silence that permeated the place was. It wasn't as if John hadn't come home with him, in the cab . . .
Several experiments called to him. Nothing, however, was quite as vital at the moment as Why John Had Left Him.
It was laughingly obvious, wasn't it?
John was a good man, a good friend. Sherlock, contrariwise, was a twat.
He had nothing to contribute. He had no grounding, no proper skills, no care for propriety. Despite evidence to the contrary, he knew all this. Mostly it didn't matter, mostly he didn't care, but after six weeks of tedium, self-doubt crept from the deeper corners of his brain and started staking claim closer to the surface. Settling in.
John's frustration with him was a glaring sign of his worthlessness.
It had been six weeks since boredom crippled him. In the throes of a case he barely ate or slept; in the clutches of boredom the same thing happened. He hated it. When his mind had nothing to work on, no new information to entertain it; he could feel it atrophying, shriveling up when it wasn't firing off insults at the dull people who surrounded him—they were ghosts, less solid figures than vapor and noise—but those bouts of mental mania came less frequently and that worried him, it panicked him, the idea his power of thought would decay so much that he wouldn't be able to think properly again when he needed to and then where would he be, spiraling spiraling spiraling down a deep well—
Sleep was boring, sleep was not productive, but the flat was so quiet even Sherlock Holmes couldn't fend off exhaustion. He dropped to the sofa, fully clothed, and was asleep.
Sherlock doesn't dream. He'd always told John that, even when the doctor countered that he had to dream, it was just that he didn't remember dreaming upon waking.
No, Sherlock insisted. I don't dream.
Which meant this is real.
—darkened streets. Slick from rain. Pools of light from the streetlights made the asphalt shiny too. Sherlock walks the silent streets aimlessly, an unknown force driving him to continue a search. For what, exactly, he doesn't know, but he has confidence he will find it.
There were no other people. The houses lining the streets were brightly lit, and eventually he realizes that there are no people on the streets because the houses are filled with them.
Is what he looking for inside? Sherlock peeks in windows but the scenes before him are banal: children watching telly; families eating dinner; couples engaging in foreplay. Not what he's looking for. None of it interests him; none of it is right. But he goes from window to window because maybe in the next he will find the object of his search, or in the next, or the next—
—what's contained in the brightly lit houses changes. Here is a house with bones strung up on strings like wind chimes. Here is a house in which the sitting room does not contain a sofa and chairs, but open crypts. This one is a slaughter house. This one is completely black inside, and Sherlock is not brave enough to approach it.
Slowly he realizes sound is filtering back into the environment. Breathy little whispers assault his ears. He thinks he should be able to understand the words, but no matter how hard he tries, no matter how he turns his head to try and locate where the whispers are coming from, he cannot.
Now he is running. It is imperative that he runs; there is something after him. He mustn't let whatever is chasing him catch him. He knows this in his core. The bright windows of the houses he passes become smeary blurs in his peripheral vision. It still wasn't fast enough, he can hear it gaining on him, he can sense it closing in, he knows it will overcome him and rend him open and fill the spaces between his cells with itself and he will be lost and lost—
Up ahead, his eyes seize on something, a broad swath of light in the darkness. An open door.
The only open door he has seen here. It is safety. He must reach it, even with the beast at his back, its breath hot on his ear, ready to puncture his skull with razor-sharp teeth—
—just as he reaches his sanctuary, just as he automatically puts his hand out to be bathed in the blinding light, the door slams shut. The immediate dark blinds him. Worse, no solid door meets his outstretched fingertips.
Everything is gone.
There is no light now, from anywhere. The beast is behind him. He is sightless. He is crippled and directionless.
He is alone. The beast's needle-tipped fingers take hold of him, spinning him to face it, face his failure, face himself—
He cries out, and the world shatters around him.
"Sherlock—Sherlock!"
John tightened his grip, willing physical pain to reach his flatmate since quiet words weren't working.
He'd heard odd noises drifting up from the sitting room and even though he was still angry, he investigated. He never expected to find Sherlock in the throes of a night terror.
The detective thrashed on the sofa. At several points he actually spoke, describing scenes only he could see in a horrified whisper: children with bloody hands working a butcher's counter; a couple having sex in an ossuary. His words gradually devolved to gasps and moans. He sweated and defied all John's attempts to rouse him.
The first time John took his shoulder Sherlock whipped violently around and tried to fend him off. Military training helped the doctor avoid the clumsy punch, and made him more determined to keep hold of his friend to prevent injury to either of them.
He tried talking to him. He tried waiting. Finally, he shifted his grip to both shoulders and shook him—gently, at first, then with more force—and demanded he wake up.
In a sudden jerk, with a last, forlorn cry, Sherlock did.
It was a surprise to both of them. John could hardly believe it was done; he'd worked enough overnight shifts in clinics to worry this was just another stage of the terror and didn't let go. Sherlock, usually so collected and unflustered in any situation, was nonplussed to find himself on the sofa fully-clothed but disheveled and sweaty, with John holding onto him.
"Are you okay?" John asked quietly.
Sherlock found himself shaking. He opened his mouth to answer, and no words came out. Unexpected, unbidden tears filled his eyes.
John eased down onto the cushions with him, and very gradually released his shoulders.
Sherlock, however, clutched at him.
"I was looking for you, John! I was looking for you—" he gasped out, before breaking into quiet sobs.
John hugged him. His personal experience with nightmares didn't quite prepare him for Sherlock breaking down, but he did his best to soothe his friend. Eventually he helped Sherlock up and into bed, and, at Sherlock's insistence, sat with him until he dropped off again into a more natural, less fright-filled sleep.
fin.