~By the way, this is meant to be written Post-Reichenbach, Post-Reunion.~
This is a short, out-of-context one-shot based on the Doctor Who episode "The God Complex", but it's NOT a crossover and you don't need to know anything about DW to read this.
If you don't know the premise of "The God Complex", the basic plot is that there is a room in a hotel that holds every person's deepest fear. It's somehow able to see into your soul and find what you absolutely fear the most, basically, and when you find your room it draws you in and you're forced to confront your deepest fear. I think it's a very psychologically interesting idea and wanted to explore it as if Sherlock and John are in the same situation.
That's enough from me now, enjoy :)
~Phoenix
-oOo-
"John? John!" Sherlock huffed in frustration, running his fingers through his hair as he spun about in the narrow hallway. He had been stalking through the endless labyrinth of hallways for a while now, ranting his theories to John, who he had assumed was right behind him. Now, as he ran through it in his head, he realized John's affirmational grunts had ceased halfway through his rambling. He rubbed his face and groaned. These hallways had a tendency to blur together, and it would be ages before he could find his friend again.
Sherlock looked to the left and right before deciding on the latter direction, striding off with his hands shoved into his pockets. This case was confusing him, to say the least, and the fact that he couldn't find his way out of this hotel and that their phones had stopped working only made him more nervous.
He didn't quite believe what the strange woman who had sent them there had told him. The idea that every person's deepest fears could be contained in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere made little to no sense. He assumed it was the work of some twisted psychopath, someone who picked a target and found their fear by stalking before luring them to the hotel room. Every room he had looked in was filled, however, with varying forms of creatures that could frighten people; clowns and aliens and monsters-under-the-beds that did little to frighten Sherlock, but could do some serious damage to someone with a phobia.
Even with that in mind, Sherlock was still slightly anxious about the idea of his room. It was complete idiocy, he knew, and probably didn't exist in the first place, but the theory of facing his deepest fear - whatever that might be - chilled him.
It was probably something tedious, anyways, like Moriarty - and that made him chuckle, considering he knew Moriarty and his whole web of assassins had been killed months ago. But the thought still made him fidget uncomfortably.
"John?" he called again, bringing himself back into reality. "John, where did you go?"
His footsteps were the singular pair, however, as he strolled down the dimming hallway. Cheap flowered wallpaper hung, peeling, from the wall, only adding to the creep atmosphere in the corridor. "Jaaaaaawn."
Now this was getting tedious. Sherlock was bored. He shuffled, his stride getting less urgent, and yawned widely. "Jaaaww-"
He stopped, cold-still, and his whole world seemed to swim out of focus. His heartbeat pounded brutally in his ears as one door loomed into view, his vision focusing on the singular wooden frame.
Sherlock approached slowly, breathing quickly. His slender fingers fell lightly on the cold metal doorknob, gaze flickering over the number engraved in gold in the smooth oak wood.
221
His breath caught in his throat and he swallowed thickly.
His room.
And logic denied it and his brain screamed against it, but he knew it to be true.
His room.
Sherlock didn't want to open it, didn't want to see, but he knew he had to - had to put his mind to rest once and for all -
Before his better judgement could decide against it, a loud, piercing scream echoed from inside the room, and a bolt of pure, cold fear struck through his heart because he knew that voice and he swung the door open.
It was dark. Walls of black and a seemingly nonexistent ceiling, but he didn't notice that, didn't try to comprehend any of that, because the only thing he could see was him. The man in the middle of the room.
But unlike he had thought, it wasn't Moriarty or any number of his assassins staring him in the eye - it wasn't any of the enemies he had ever faced who was staring back at him.
It was John.
"John," Sherlock breathed, his mind racing, trying to understand, "John, what are you doing in h -"
"Sherlock," John interrupted him hoarsely, his chest rising and falling in a rapid panic, "Sherlock, please - help me -"
Sherlock tried to move forward but found himself paralyzed, unable to do anything but watch as John's eyes grew wider and frightened. "John, just - get out of there! What are y-"
"Sherlock, help! Help me!" John's voice was rising into a frenzied scream, and suddenly his body twisted, as if in great pain. "SHERLOCK! PLEASE!"
"John!" Sherlock felt pure fear ripping through his veins and he struggled fiercely to get free, trying to get to him -
A gunshot blasted through the air, and John's body jerked violently with impact. The doctor stopped moving, mouth open and tears streaming down his face, as a dark stain seeped through his shirt, leaking from his stomach. He gasped for air. "Sher-"
Another shot, and another, ripping through him violently each time, finally driving John to his knees. And even as he bled out onto the ground, his chest rattling with each desperate gasp, John kept his eyes fixed on Sherlock's. "Sh... Sherlock..."
"John," Sherlock whispered hoarsely, his heart stopping cold, "Please, no -"
One last roaring bullet and John finally crashed to the ground, his body stilled.
Now Sherlock found he could move, and he fell to his knees next to the body of his friend - his best, his only, dearest friend -
"John, please," he whispered, voice strangled, "Stay with me, I'm going to get you out of here -" He rolled John onto his back, horrified at the sickening amount of blood pouring from his shallowly gasping friend's chest. "I need to stop the bleeding -"
John's eyes opened, flickering about, unfocused. Sherlock grabbed his face and made John look at him. "Hey," he said, his voice cracking, "Stay with me, John, stay with me -"
John's eyes flashed with recognition, and then slowly began to smolder with deep, deep hatred. "You -" he whispered, "You - you didn't save -" he coughed raggedly, "- you - didn't save me. You didn't save me."
Sherlock's heart was ripping in half and he vaguely realized that tears were flowing openly down his cheeks. "John, I'm sorry, I tried - John, I tried so hard -"
"You - didn't - save - me," John punctuated. He gasped one last time, gathering enough strength to hiss one last word.
"Freak."
Then his head thudded with dead weight against the floor and his breath stilled, his face still frozen in an expression of hatred.
Sherlock didn't move for a second before his whole body was overcome with crippling anguish. He curled into a tight ball as guilt and anger and unimaginable grief ripped through him, feeling a scream tear itself from his throat as John lay dead before him -
He needed to get out -
He felt himself staggering away from the bloody body into that blasted, evil hallway, heaving air into unwilling lungs, his back impacting with the cursed flowering wallpaper, everything quiet and normal and not acknowledging the fact that the most important person had just died -
- and he thought Sherlock was a freak -
Another wail ripped from his throat and he fell to his knees, sobbing openly, but John was still there - and John was still dead - and -
"No... please... God, no..." He sobbed brokenly, his mind rapidly failing, shutting down, unable to deduce anything other than the broken body on the ground - the broken body who was his only, best friend - the broken body he had loved so dearly -
- the broken body who had hated him -
"John," he choked wretchedly, head held in his heads, "John, I'm sorry - I'm so, so sorry -"
And there was a hand on his shoulder, a face leaning down to look at him, and - "Sherlock, what's wrong? What's going on?"
Sherlock pulled away in fear, crying out, because someone else was here, someone else to kill him, someone who -
"Sherlock, dear God, what happened?"
But he knew that voice.
And he blinked away the tears, forcing his gaze to focus on the man kneeling in front of him, with that stupid oatmeal jumper on, with a stupid concerned look on his face and
it was John
and nothing else mattered and he was alive
Sherlock threw himself on John, holding onto him desperately, clinging to him like a lifeline. His tears were still flowing freely as he sobbed into John's shoulder, who was obviously taken aback; after a second, however, he felt the older man's arms enclose him gently, pulling him closer. Sherlock gasped for breath through John's shoulder.
"I thought - the room - I thought you were-"
"Shh, it's okay," John whispered into Sherlock's ear soothingly, "It's okay, I'm here. Everything's fine."
Sherlock's breathing slowly started to calm, his heart returning to its regular rhythm, but he didn't let John go for an instant. He breathed him in, memorizing everything about him over and over again, and decided he was never, ever going to let him go.
"Tell me what happened," John was saying, taking Sherlock's chin gently in his hand and moving his face so they were looking at each other, faces very close together. Sherlock took a shaky breath.
"The - the room." He coughed weakly, struggling to maintain his composure even as his world had just crumbled around him seconds ago. "It was..." He trailed off, looking away - but he was far from feeling embarrassed, still too relieved that John was here, and living, and breathing, and he didn't hate him -
He felt John move, so he slumped backwards so he was against the wall again, rubbing his face as he felt himself slowly return to normalcy. His mind was still racing, though, imprinted with John bleeding - John dying - John hating him -
Sherlock heard John move the slightly opened door further, the doctor's breath catching slightly in his throat; he closed the door firmly and moved back next to Sherlock, who was still hiccuping, tears still leaking from his eyes. John sat next to Sherlock, taking a deep breath. Sherlock looked down.
"So, it was your room," John started gently.
Sherlock nodded silently.
"...and in it, I died."
Sherlock looked away because now John would laugh at him, call him a freak again, didn't he have anything else in the world that he would be so upset over -
But instead he felt a pair of arms wrap around him and pull him close, and Sherlock laid his head across John's chest as the the doctor stroked his hair soothingly. The movement was so touching that Sherlock felt tears spring to his eyes again, and he closed them, taking a shuddering breath.
"You didn't just die, you were murdered, and I couldn't save you; I tried, but I couldn't, and - and then -" Sherlock knew he was rambling, but he couldn't stop, "You were dying and I couldn't save you, and you told me you hated me - you said I was a freak and you hated me and - I couldn't, John, I just couldn't bring myself to -"
"Shh," John said again, quieting him, his fingers still running through the younger man's hair. He was obviously affected by Sherlock's words. "It's okay. I'm not going anywhere, Sherlock. I don't plan on dying anytime soon. And one thing's for certain, Sherlock." He paused.
Sherlock waited. He turned his head so that he was looking John straight in the face. "What's for certain?" he mumbled.
John looked down at him, and in his eyes Sherlock saw the exact opposite of everything he had seen in fake-John's dying eyes. "I will never, ever hate you," he murmured softly, resting his hand against Sherlock's cheek.
Sherlock was overcome for a moment, and when he opened his mouth he heard himself say, "I love you, John."
John chuckled softly. He leaned closer and they were just a breath away - "I know."
He closed the distance between their lips and every memory of fake-John melted away, every worry about anything in the world was now a thing of the past, and all that mattered to Sherlock was that John was here, and John was alive, and
John loved him.
-oOo-
Sorry if Sherlock seemed OOC. In all the situations John's ever been in danger in the past, however, he's always acted a little OOC, and it's interesting to think how he'd act if John actually died; as you can see, I lean towards to extreme side of things, especially in the scenario of when John rejects him at the last moment. If that doesn't do anything to explain it, I'm sorry. :)
Please review and tell me what you think. Feedback makes my day. :D
~Phoenix