Downtime
Disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC, Mr. Moffat, Mr. Gatiss or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made.
.
This a collection of scenes about what Sherlock endured during his hunt. Those were parts of other stories or chapters I had written and planned to add, but later on they didn't fit in or I decided not to risk overloading the story with too much H/C or 'hurt Sherlock'.
Which means I didn't write them to be standalone H/C things, therefore the background is missing. I hope you don't mind. For me it was a practise in empathy and working through some of my issues. Some of this might contain graphic hurting because I needed to work through bad memories in a way.
So for various reasons, those landed in a folder on my hard drive named 'fit nowhere' where I dumped all those parts. I considered adding them in an appendix with 'deleted chapters' for 'Define Vulnerability' but decided against it now I will post those in this extra story because I know there are some people out there who might like this. Therefore this is probably a H/C and 'whump-dump' without much background, but they all have a resolution, kind of.
.
.
The Lab
Part 1
It takes an enormous effort to open his eyes.
They hurt, the lids are ridiculously heavy and as soon as he tries to move he realises he is lying on cold concrete, on his side.
What happened?
…
He can't remember.
His head is pounding fiercely, he feels weak, tries to lick his lips and gulp, but his mouth is so parched he can't.
He tries to roll into a supine position and winces when more pain explodes in his back and all his joints.
Stay put and try to gather information about the surroundings.
He once more tries to open his eyes and to his surprise he isn't surrounded by dark.
He is lying in what must be a large warehouse, a quite clean and white warehouse.
It's odd, isn't it?
But his vision is disturbed and he can't even see the walls clearly.
Maybe it isn't a warehouse?
How did he get here?
He tries to blink away the liquid that additionally disturbs his eyesight. His eyes hurt from the light.
Once more he tries to roll to his back, this time it works but he moans in pain, the sound echoes ominously in the large cold room around him.
His trachea feels like sandpaper, every breath scratches it more raw.
Letting his eyes roam around his surroundings brings two rows of laboratory benches to his attention.
They are full of equipment, but he is too far away and his eyesight too disturbed to see exactly what they were used for.
Some unknown desperation creeps up his spine and he desperately tries to fight it.
This was not normal.
He had not just been knocked out by somebody, he felt too bad for just a bit of a concussion.
Had he been drugged?
Was this a meth lab?
No, those usually looked not like this, but there was no reason why they couldn't.
He rebukes his mind for wasting time.
His first priority should be to get out of here.
Get up!
Get out!
He tries, but fails even to lift his arm to push himself up, his body is trembling in quite an disconcerting way. He is extremely weak, something felt disturbingly wrong.
But he couldn't remember.
.
He must have blacked out because he woke again, the pain was intense, but at least this time he knew who he was.
He blinked in slow motion and wondered how much time he had before someone would come and…
He tried to remember…
He had left London - and John - to hunt down Moriarty's web, he was working on that task for some months now, but how had he come here…?
Where was here?
He tried to use his senses.
The large room smelled of chemicals, which meant it was regularly used for this purpose, which made no sense, no chemist would use a room this big as a lab, it was far too difficult to follow safety precautions and procedures in an area this large.
Which meant illegal lab.
Of course what other reason was there for him to be here?
Something like a bright jolt struck his tired mind, he flinched.
He was here as a lab assistant, had infiltrated whatever organisation this was. The memories were vague but slowly coming back.
Carefully he tried to roll back to his side, it was too much work to breathe in a supine position, but any movement at all proved to be still very difficult.
He managed finally, used his left hand to stabilise himself on the ground.
Where it touched the white painted concrete it felt odd… the ground was covered in a white powder.
That can't be good.
He sucked in air in horror, which was probably the most stupid thing he could do, inhaling more of the unknown substance.
What was it?
Was he feeling so sick because of this substance?
He tried to breathe as shallow as he could while simultaneously detecting any smells in the air, but his nose was clogged.
Was that why he had problems breathing?
He was now in a slightly different position than before and spotted a phone a few metres away from his head, it looked damaged or old.
He needed to reach it, it could be useful.
Was it his one?
He couldn't see enough to decide.
But before he could think of how to minimise his contact to the ground, a squeaking noise could be heard and he turned his head in the direction of what must be a heavy metal door opening.
In the distance something was moving, but his vision was so blurry he couldn't see what it was, logic dictates it must be a human being.
It moved closer, clad in yellow, but the movement pattern was off somehow, as was the form.
He tried to squeeze he eyes to see better, but it was no use.
It was also hopeless to try to escape, he couldn't even lift his head. He looked around for a weapon and down his body to see if he was carrying, to his surprise he found he was wearing a lab coat.
His body was too numb to search it by trying to sense a heavy weight somewhere that might indicate a gun.
What was he thinking?
Even if he had a gun, he couldn't even lift his arms to take aim, he felt so utterly helpless.
The figure now started to move faster towards him and with horror he realised it was wearing a hazmat suit.
This was bad.
The misshaped creature leaned down to him, and started to speak in odd muffled sounds, distorted by the additional breathing mask it wore under the large clear face shield and positive pressure hood.
Male, mid forties, looked educated.
Was he here to kill him?
The monstrosity started speaking, but he wasn't able to understand.
Which language was that?
With a rush of adrenaline he realised that this was probably his best chance of survival, but it also underlined the fact that whatever was spilled on the ground was not harmless.
"Ms'ome?"
Had that been his name?
He was undercover, why should someone know his name?
Panic rose and he tried to move, maybe they had found out who he was and had come back to kill him or to torture him, keep him alive until they had what they wanted?
"Stay calm, we have a contamination unit ready and your brother is outside. I'm with the MI5 decontamination unit… Sir, we found him, he's alive. Scene contaminated with unknown substance."
A massive wave of relief flooded Sherlock in such an overwhelming rush that his senses left him floating.
.
He didn't know how long he was out, but movement brought him back to reality, sickening, wobbling movement.
He was carried - and the bright daylight hurt his blinking eyes so much he tried to shield his eyes with his hands.
Someone deftly grabbed his arm before he could manage.
"Close your eyes, stay calm. We'll take care of it in a moment, Sir," a female voice informed him.
"Sir, do you know what chemical you were exposed to?"
He knew, or better, he knew he should know.
It was there, in the back of his mind, but he couldn't remember.
He blacked out once more.
.
.
A/N:
Please review.
