A/N - This fic is a Xmas present for my fabulous friend and fellow fanficer Bethan (aka CrypticNymph) I've also posted this to her in the mail, but she wants to save it for Xmas so can no one reveal anything to her please! I hope you enjoy and if you could leave any comments at the end they would be much appreciated!)
Warnings: Thoughts of suicide, extremely mild mentions of gore and violence.
Mortal Coil
by
Blackcurrant Bonbons
Light and dark, love and hate, Heaven and Hell, night and day. The interplay of two extremes, two actors in an eternal play, two contrasting blocks of colour on a blank canvas.
As any being is certain of, life has a tendency to complicate matters and convolute the variables, to throw in the unexpected.
For between light and dark lies the gray, fraying edges of the twilight zone. A gaping crack of existence, the wretched loneliness and abandoned hope of humanity permeates the damp grey fog like treacle. The lost souls of the universe tread the worn path, haunted eyes dragging across the blurred landscape, running towards their nonexistent salvation.
For in all of us exists a twilight zone, the sheer precipice over which we fall when all hope is lost. It is a treacherous place, and a dangerous crossing when floating between the light and dark in our lives.
And when all you have to guide you is the fragile, golden life line of hope and love, it is all too easy to lose it, and let yourself fall to the murky depths below.
"Oi! Johnny boy!"
The sky was darkening, and the wind was sharp and unrepentant as the young boy continued to walk, gritting his teeth, seemingly heedless to the taunting voice.
"Johnny boy!"The sing song tone clashed with the gritty accent of the teenage youth.
The younger boy hitched up his rucksack and picked up his pace, morphing from a jog to a run as the pounding of the other boy's trainers reached his ears.
His hear pounded in rhythm with his shoes, and sweat trickled down his back, covered by his heavy coat.
Dread and fear scratched his insides like angry cats, and his stomach twisted into a double helix, nausea festering in the pit of his stomach.
He yowled as he was roughly grabbed by the scalp and swung around.
He curled in upon himself, as the kicks and punches rained down upon his fragile body, knees tucked under his chin and hands covering his unprotected head.
Tears leaked down his raw face as he held himself together in his foetal position, wishing with all his might that he could be reborn.
Gradually, the torment stopped, and the fading pounding of the shoes against the pavement was barely audible in the little boy's ringing ears.
Night had fallen like a smothering blanket as he slowly picked himself off the floor, wincing at the numbing pain. A shiver racked through him, and he hugged his thin frame. His coat was gone, along with his money and a tiny fragment of soul.
He scooped up the scattered contents of his rucksack with a practised efficiency, waddling stiffly through the cold night, returning to his house and the inevitable scolding his missing coat entailed.
In all the diversity of Mother Nature's gifts, it would appear that an onion is the most accurate analogy of the human condition. The thick, dull skin gives nothing away; to all appearances, it is perfectly pedestrian. Peel that off, and you have the raw, exposed flesh, riddled with intricate veins. Peel that away and you have another, and another, and another.
Layers of love, hate, self loathing, pain, bruises. Some are so deep that they never see the light of day, scattered deep within the filthy outskirts of our minds.
But as the knife slices into us, it peels away the layers, until there is nothing left but the core. So lost are we without the fragments of our soul, our layers, that we do not know how to continue living.
So we must find another soul to latch onto, to hide in their arms, to share their skin.
Otherwise, we are truly lost. So life will hand us the knife which first ripped us apart and we use it to rip the last of our soul to shreds.
The city was cold that night. The cacophony of traffic, music and voices swelled into the crisp night, and the alleys were riddled with a biting wind.
The darkness absorbed the life like a leech, draining away the bare essence of the city.
Detached from the scene, a young man stood alone on the bridge. He emanated an aura of profound loneliness and despair, and the night clung to him, craving his essence.
But even the darkness fled when it realised that the boy had become a leech, a black hole of all emotion, a blind spot in the darkness itself - a frightening anomaly.
He inhaled and exhaled, cold breath clouding in front of his numbed face.
He raises his foot.
"To be or not to be; that is the question. I also might add - your next step would be highly idiotic and utterly pointless." A sharp, biting tone echoed into the night. The boy on the ledge gasped, and turned in shock. He came face to face with a pair of piercing green eyes.
John startled. The darkness sucked in the life, the shocking, vital green life, and for a split moment John felt the darkness leave him, content with its fill. Then he blinked, and it was gone, the darkness returned.
"Probably reflective of you, I suppose. Get down. I don't think those lost sheep at Scotland Yard can cope with the extra work your suicide would entail."
The boy swayed.
"Your name?" The eyes asked sharply.
The boy paused for a moment. "John." He whispered, reddening in shame, his soul squirming under the searching light.
"Sherlock Holmes. But you may call me Sherlock, I suppose."
After it became apparent the boy would make no movement, a black gloved hand emerges from the darkness.
"Come down John. Or must I lift you?"
After a hesitation, John reached out, grasping the hand tightly. He jumped down, landing shakily. He was surprised to see that the boy with the green eyes was his age, the fluff of a beard just beginning to form on his smooth, pale skin.
Sherlock retracted his hand stiffly, and John jumped back, mortified. He straightened; body shaking.
"You are going to report me."
Sherlock snorted haughtily. "Walk with me John."
John followed numbly. He is over.
"What a ridiculous notion," Sherlock continued. "Your words again confirm my hypothesis."
"And what's that?" The boy asked apprehensively.
"You're an idiot."
The boy stiffened.
"Oh, don't worry, everyone is. But there is something..." Sherlock gesticulated wildly. "-different, about you John. I can't quite put my finger on it. Fascinating."
A pale blush tinged John's cheeks. He returns his eyes to his fleeting companion, entranced.
Sherlock coughed discretely, and John looked away with a start, realising he was at the end of his street.
"I'd rather not have to pick your rotting corpse from the river." A fleeting smile graced the boy's angelic face and John grinned impulsively, looking down at his battered shoes as his eyes fill.
"Goodbye John," the green eyes whispered. John looked up, startled. His saviour is gone. All he caught was the fleeting swish of a black coat as the boy vaults over the nearby wall.
"Goodbye, Sherlock," the boy whispered. He turned around slowly, and began the long walk home, head bowed.
The urgent beeping of the machines startled the army doctor awake, and he jumped up, automatically reaching for his gun.
"John." Another doctor stated calmly. "You're safe."
John shuddered and raised his hands to his tired face, wiping gritty sand and sleep from his eyes.
"You let me sleep." John stated accusingly.
"Letting you continue as you were wasn't doing anyone any good. Speaking of doing good, you can give me a hand now you're up."
John nodded stiffly, moving briskly around the hastily erected medical tent. Small beads of perspiration were forming on his brow as the midday heat of the Afghan sun beat down upon the army base.
Simon Evans was an ordinary chap. Liked by his friends and teachers, never really remembered. He had a wife and child, another soon on the way.
His life and blood were now spilling from a gaping wound in his side, red liquid spilling over John's hands in innumerable amounts. The wound was gaping, an awning gap in Simon's soft belly.
The crimson blood soaked into John's skin, the blackness of the impending death tugging him, enticing him.
Suddenly, he was swaying in the chill wind, so close, one step away from the welcoming abyss.
"John." The voice murmured.
The doctor's eyes snapped open, flashing a sharp, incomparable green.
The Afghan heat embraced him, and he cursed, the frantic beeping of the machine matching his heartbeat.
"Dammit Simon, you will not die!" John swore vehemently. "You will not die..."
"Watson."
An encompassing blackness swallowed the frozen wasteland, alone upon which stood a shivering little boy, naked and covered in ice. If only he could reach that little further, he could retrieve the shaking child...
"Watson, he's dead. There was nothing more you could have done."
The white sheet is pulled over, and John stepped outside the tent hastily. He looked fearlessly into the sun. His eyes flicker frantically across the landscape, searching for the corresponding green.
"Sherlock..." he whispered, the biting desert wind whipping his words far away into the white distance.
"Nothing happens to me."
Yesterday, he retrieved the pills. It had been pathetically easy - a few minute changes to the database, then borrowing the keys off Sarah's desk – and he had his death tucked safely in a locked drawer, nestled by his gun.
His therapist raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Things will get better, I'm sure of it."
John laughed bitterly. The statement wasn't even worthy of a response.
His therapist considered him thoughtfully for a moment. "Why don't you try writing a blog? It will honestly help you."
"But if nothing happens to me – what the hell am I supposed to write about?"
Hovering his fingers over the keypads, John frowned. Writing a blog couldn't be that hard, surely? In a moment of inspiration, he began to type.
When I was sixteen, I met a boy called Sherlock Holmes. He was my age, and had green eyes – the greenest eyes I've ever seen, or seen since, for that matter.
Once, he offered me his hand and walked me home. Then like a bird, he flew away over a wall, that long coat of his flapping in the wind. I haven't seen him since.
Life, as I'm sure everyone knows, is a strange commodity. For most of it we are hidden in darkness, and we spend our time blindly searching around for someone, anything to anchor ourselves to.
Then, life gives us moments of such joyous light that we want to spend the rest of our existence basking in its glory. But, like all good things, it doesn't last.
Some people spend more time in the darkness than others. So much time in fact, that we wonder if there is any point to our bland existence. And then life turns us on our heads, and offers us a moment of such piercing clarity that we realise that there is hope left.
Saviours come in many forms, but mine came in the form of piercing green eyes.
John abruptly stopped typing, bringing his hands up to fiercely wipe his eyes.
A cacophony of traffic, music and screaming children swelled in John's ears, and he soaked it up, hurling the life surrounding him into the growing abyss.
He leant heavily on his cane as he walked, wounded leg dragging along the pavement. He resolutely ignored the stares of sympathy and started to count his steps.
He barely registered the collision in the corner of his eyes, so focused was he on counting.
One, two, three, four, five.
Then he dropped his cane and began to jog, and then run.
There was a man lying on the cold tarmac, red blood spilling out of a nasty head wound.
John dropped to his knees, checking his vitals. The man was in a bad way.
"Call an ambulance! Now!" He barked at the panicking taxi driver, who readily obeyed.
"John-W-Watson..." The man rasped, smiling painfully.
"Yes?" John answered automatically.
"S'me. Mike-" He coughed, blood pooling in his mouth and dribbling down his chin. John propped him upright against his lap, clearing his airway.
"Stamford." The man finished.
"Mike Stamford?" John asked, confused.
"From Barts." Mike coughed again.
John gasped, blinking. "Mike!" He cried, and then froze as Mike coughed again.
"I'm dying John."
"Not on my watch you aren't!" John swore vehemently. Mike grinned, wincing.
"You always took death badly. Let it go John."
The wail of an ambulance hit his ears, and John let out a sigh of relief.
"Well, you're not dying today Mike...-Mike? MIKE!" Mike's body had gone lifeless in his arms, and John frantically checked his pulse.
Nothing,
"Dammit Mike!" He yelled.
And then paramedics were taking Mike away, tearing him from his arms. John was left sitting in a slowly spreading pool of blood.
He swatted off the paramedics, barely registering his abandoned cane, lying forgotten on the cold pavement.
He collapsed on a bark bench, just as rain began to pour from the greying skies.
John closed his eyes, letting the rain wash the blood off his hands.
"My answer is no."
The man with the umbrella sighed. "A pity, you would have made the most excellent...professional."
"Mercenary, you mean." John replied bitterly.
The man chuckled. "Such a crude term. Very well Doctor Watson, if that is your final answer. Anthea will escort you back."
John stumbled into the limo, head spinning. His mind was filled with the thought of the chase, of the cold metal in his hands. Looking down, he released they had ceased their tremors. He had been so close to accepting.
Mike had stopped him. Or the memory of him, at least.
There was no longer the white of Afghanistan, but the blackness of London. The black cab, the black car, the black pain, the blackness of the water below.
To be part of the shadows, a part of the blackness. To slide, to take the slow descent into the abyss.
No.
He would fall straight into the black. No need to drag himself down the sides first.
The car deposited him on an anonymous street curb, and John pulled his jacket closer as the biting London wind buffeted him.
It was drizzling rain as he began the slow walk back to his bedsit. 'Home' was a monstrous exaggeration.
He stopped momentarily outside a building circumference in police tape. Not an unusual sight in London, but his aching leg was cramping and he needed to stop, dizzy with the pain.
And then he was falling. He yelled involuntarily in pain as he impacted with the wet pavement. His cane, rolled across from him, stopping at a pair of expensive leather shoes.
John looked up, and froze. For looking straight into him was a pair of very familiar ice cold green eyes.
"Are you alright?" The cold voice asked, so very different from the last time.
"-Fine. A hand would be n-"He stopped, turning cold, as Sherlock walked away from him.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry! He had a tendency to knock people over. Well, not really, he's just not very polite. Are you alright?"
John barely noticed the curly haired woman in front of him, eyes following the retreating figure of the man with the cold green eyes.
"Excuse me, are you alright? Do you need a hand up?"
John looked up at the woman, blinking several times.
"I'll be fine, thank you." He gritted his teeth and slowly stood up, clenching his eyes shut. Taking the cane from her outstretched hand, he muttered a thank you, before turning around and walking off into the night.
He ran his fingers over the rough bumps of the bridge, inhaling deeply.
The night was dark, and the streets were filled with the cacophony of life.
John stood apart from the crowd, the darkness welcoming him like an old friend.
"Time to go, I guess," he murmured to no one in particular.
He opened the drawer, pulling out his laptop.
He left a final message on his empty blog, and it merely read –
A message to Sherlock Holmes – I have to thank you, I guess. Although I don't think you'll need to pull my corpse out of any rivers anytime soon. And I suppose I am an idiot, but isn't everyone?
He opens the jar, emptying the deadly contents onto his palm.
"John." the voice whispered.
He swallowed.
"You're an idiot," The voice was urgent.
He lay down on the bed.
"John!"
He curled his hands into fists, and then released them again.
It was almost over now. A few more minutes left.
"Take my hand, John." The golden voice murmured.
John opened his mouth to reply, but merely closed his eyes.
The piercing green eyes beckoned him, and John stepped out of the shroud of darkness, into the light...
Finis