Author's Note: This piece was inspired by a trip I took to the beach the other day; I stayed there for about three hours, watching the strangely red sun sink behind the clouds, and it struck me as an interesting setting for a Sherlock story.
I've tried to create a contrast here between John and Sherlock, placing them in the same setting at the same point in their lives and exploring the differences that arise therein. They're both having trouble moving on after the Fall, but in different ways. Sherlock is far more in the moment, focusing on physical sensations to keep himself from thinking until he can't hold it back any longer. His reaction is a flood after the dam has been breached, a sudden surge before it eases into a slower flow. When he does think, it's more of the "big picture". John, on the other hand, is rather stuck in the past, clinging to it because it holds something which the future does not. He copes in a different way, not really trying to bottle things up, but just letting them flow as they will with a few minor blockages along the way. His thoughts are trained on the specific rather than the general, fixing moments in his mind.
This being somewhat of a songfic, I strongly, strongly encourage you to listen to "From Where You Are" by Lifehouse before you read. It's not a lengthy song, and it really sets the mood for this story.
Anyway, enjoy!
From Where You Are
The sun is setting in Sherlock's eyes as he walks across the uneven ground. It is not the broad fire of grandeur at the end of a satisfied summer day, but a concentrated, muted glow, burning at a single point in his lowered gaze. Around the reddened orb, the indefinite edges of charcoal clouds twist sullenly, snaking out a tendril here and there to break the through the sun's crisp outline. Further away, the sky has already begun to succumb to darkness.
The smell of the sea fills his nostrils, and involuntarily, he draws in a deep, lingering breath as he walks. Each step slopes downward towards the shoreline. With every stride, he hears the sound of a thousand grains of sand as they break between his shoes and unyielding rock beneath.
He reaches the point at which the stone gives way to sand; soft and shifting here, but coarser down by the tideline where the water has flowed over and seeped under, melding the particles into some semblance of cohesion. A sudden rush of wind, cool and full, takes him by surprise, nearly putting him off balance, but he leans forward into it to compensate. The sensation of so much air, so much movement, is strangely fulfilling. He pauses for a moment as it swirls fiercely around him, entreating his clothing and hair and even his skin to join in its dance of pure unrestraint.
After half a minute or so, he sets off again. He is able to maintain his even pace and tall posture despite the shifting sand that spreads itself out beneath his weight. Turning his head, he takes in the expanse of the beach. A few people are still here, unwilling to leave even though dusk is rapidly approaching. Sherlock watches the small human clusters with careful eyes before avoiding all of them; he heads to a place on the shore where only a few easy footprints mark the presence of another person, and they are long gone.
Half a dozen feet from where the wavelets lap back and forth uncertainly, he stops. The wind is strong here and nearly constant, affording him a kind of invisible protection; the only sound is the muffled crash of surging water. In the gathering darkness, no one will pay much attention to just another figure on the beach.
Sherlock lets out a quavering breath, and with it, relaxes the mental walls that he has been struggling to hold up for days without end. For what seems like the first time since everything nearly fell apart, he lets himself think. He doesn't think about what happened, or why, or how he managed to somehow land on his feet. He doesn't think about what was salvaged from the ruins, or what will be gained in the future because of it.
Finally, he allows himself to think about what he lost.
So far away from where you are
These miles have torn us worlds apart
And I miss you
Yeah I miss you
Sherlock is immediately thankful for his foresight in coming here, to this place of relative seclusion. The sweeping rush of emotion actually makes him reel, forcing him to close his eyes, as though he is afraid that it will somehow escape. His lips try to compress into a hard line, but they're trembling too much to do so. A moment later, a harsh growl of a breath pushes past into the open air, only to be torn to shreds by the passing wind.
Ironic, he thinks for a moment, how he came here to be alone, so that he could try to cope with his loneliness. Because that's what it is, at its most basic. Sherlock is lonely – painfully, achingly, bitterly lonely, so much that he isn't even sure it was a good idea to release it into the open.
He hadn't expected that tearing himself from John like this would leave such a terrible hollow inside of him.
So far away from where you are
I'm standing underneath the stars
And I wish you
Were here
Desperately, he opens his eyes again to focus on the sinking sun. He stares at it as hard as he can, despite the fierce, ember-like glow that is quickly being consumed by the encroaching clouds. A bright circle flashes across his vision each time he blinks, and he focuses on that, too – anything to pull himself from the flash flood of thoughts that are suddenly more than he can stand.
As the last vestiges of the sun's direct light are masked over, Sherlock realises that it's not going to work. He drops his head again, letting the wind buffet at him without really caring. Half-heartedly, he tries to pretend that the moisture in his eyes is only due to his stupid staring contest with the sun. But that doesn't really work either.
I miss the years that were erased
I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face
I miss all the little things
I never thought that they'd mean everything to me
It almost tears him apart, when he thinks about it, when he really stops and considers what John means to him. It's something that still startles him; he has been forced to admit to himself on any number of occasions that he really doesn't understand his relationship with John. It goes far beyond friendship, even beyond brotherhood, and yet as someone who doesn't really believe in that sort of thing he can hardly call the two of them soulmates. But whatever it is, this bond that defies proper definition, it's meant more to him in its two or so years of existence than anything he can recall from before. And he had, in essence, been forced to sever it almost to the point of breaking.
Now it feels as though there is one strand left, the one tiny thread that he holds in his hand, and its other end is wrapped around the hand of John Watson without the doctor even knowing it. Sherlock is terribly afraid that something, something, will happen to John – though he has no idea what – and then that end of the thread will be lost forever. And so he grips it tighter, and hopes that, somehow, John will feel it go taut, and know that his best friend is still alive.
Yeah I miss you
And I wish you
Were here
Sherlock pulls himself from his thoughts to note that thin darkness has fallen over most of the beach now, with only a faint glow showing in the distance where the sun has disappeared below the horizon of the ocean. To one side, he sees the figure of a woman standing at the water's edge, beckoning forcefully with a towel at two small children who are still at play in the waves. At the very edge of his peripheral vision, on the opposite side, he watches as a man bends down to pick up something from the sand.
He turns his face forward again, breathing slowly. It takes astonishing effort not to fight back the powerful waves of sentiment. But at the same time, he can't hold it in anymore.
John. That strangely unordinary man who, in spite of all odds against it, not only stayed with him, put up with him, but through some extraordinary method, managed to reach through his defences and touch him profoundly. Sherlock recognises the cliché, but it doesn't feel like one, in reality. His gaze falls to the sand, where the water is now swirling close to his shoes, and then his eyes go blank as he turns his concentration inward. He figures that as long as he's putting all this emotion out in the open, he might as well do the thing properly. He lets the wind and the ocean do what they will, and allows recollection to take control, losing himself in memories of laughter that echoes so bittersweet through his hollowed core. Salt water streaks his shadowed face.
He misses John so much.
The beach is haven of solitude for those who need it to be, surrounded only by sky and sand and sea. No one questions why someone comes to the beach, and stands there for minutes on end without speaking, without moving, only breathing in time with the pulse of the waves. It is a place of meditation, of reflection, of eternal stillness and constant change all at once.
John comes here often, using it as both an escape and a starting point. The sense of calm that permeates the air here is something he hasn't been able to create for himself since he suddenly became alone again; but when he ambles slowly along the shoreline, he has a short time in which to wrap himself in that calm. It's something he desperately needs, when everything else simply becomes too much and threatens to overwhelm him.
The distant sun is already well on its way down when he arrives, but to John, that's okay. It seems to help more, somehow, if his visits to the beach takes place during the hours of transition – sunrise and sunset. It gives him the sense, illusionary or not, of making progress, of moving forward, even though he knows that most of the time he's just tricking himself into believing it. Maybe he just likes the view.
Hands deep in his pockets, John wanders slowly across the sand. His eyes are fixed near his feet, scanning the ground absently for interesting rocks. He's made it a habit to take one home with him from every visit, a momento of sorts, though of what, specifically, he hasn't the faintest idea. Again, maybe one day he'll look over the unmoving parade of stones lined up on the mantelpiece and realise that, with the latest addition, he's doing much better than he was when he placed the second or third rock up there.
He isn't surprised when no particular rock immediately catches his attention. He never finds the right one without at least a good half hour of walking up and down, but he doesn't mind looking. Looking keeps him moving, and it's staying still that reminds him of the real reason why he's here. All the same, he can't avoid thinking about that reason entirely.
Sherlock.
I feel the beating of your heart
I see the shadows of your face
Just know that wherever you are
Yeah I miss you
And I wish you
Were here
As always, he expects the ache that comes when his thoughts inevitably turn to the detective, but expecting doesn't mean that he's used to it, because he's not. He doubts he'll ever get used to it, because Sherlock is still so tangible, so real, that John almost thinks he'll turn around and see him there. Rationally, of course, he knows that he'll see no such thing. In an ironic twist, logic denies the continued existence of Sherlock Holmes. But emotion keeps him alive, and emotion is far more real to John right now than the logical part of his life that seems to have died on the pavement below St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
Despite his vague aversion to remaining stationary, John pauses in his slow pacing, and takes in the darkening scenery. The small, red sun is unusually bright against the contrast of the thin clouds, but he finds himself not really liking it that much. Sometimes, in some weird sense that he can't put into words, he feels as though coming here is like paying homage to Sherlock's memory; and a fiery, breath-taking sunset seems far more appropriate to that. A dull, obscure farewell just doesn't work.
Though he's never been one for spirituality or religion, John likes to think that, from wherever he is, Sherlock can see that same sunset.
I miss the years that were erased
I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face
I miss all the little things
I never thought that they'd mean everything to me
He realises then that he and Sherlock had only ever been to the beach once together, and for some reason, that fact strikes a bitterly deep note inside him. John finds that his face is suddenly wet with tears. He doesn't understand why – it's only a stupid beach, after all. Maybe it's because that single incident is so memorable now. Sherlock hadn't wanted to go in the first place, and it was only after two hours of on and off cajoling that John had gotten him to relent. It had started off as just a walk; but then John, almost miraculously, had persuaded Sherlock that they should take off their shoes and socks and go wading. Within minutes, both of them had been soaked, and Sherlock, to John's utter astonishment, had not only participated enthusiastically in the splashing bits, but had also succeeded in thoroughly dunking his flatmate.
John lets out a watery chuckle at the memory. The image that has stayed with him since that incident is that of Sherlock advancing towards him, his stance menacing, but with his face alight with something exceedingly rare – pure enjoyment of something utterly ridiculous. As he stands there, John can still hear his friend's low, rich laugh.
Yeah I miss you
And I wish you
Were here
He is roused from the recollection by faint cries from down by the waterline, and he glances over. Though dusk has nearly fallen, he can guess from the tone that it's a mother, apparently trying to chivy her two young children out of the water; he watches with a faint smile as she brandishes a towel in front of the continued splashing. Further along, almost as close to the waves as the mother, there is the indistinct outline of another man standing there, unmoving.
In an attempt to distract himself from his still-wet face, John drops his gaze to continue his search for rocks. He spots a good one almost instantly, showing smooth and white against the darkened sand. He stoops down to retrieve it, brushing the granules from its surface before dropping the object into his pocket.
Still crouching, he picks up a thin piece of driftwood from nearby, and though he can hardly see what he's doing, he gouges into the damp sand the message that he leaves every time he comes here:
I BELIEVE IN YOU, SHERLOCK
With a somewhat shaky exhaling of breath, he stands again, tossing the wood back onto the ground. He doesn't attempt to stop the flow of tears down his face now – he can't.
He misses Sherlock so much.
It is a long while, it seems, before Sherlock finally manages to curb the worst of what he's feeling. He focuses on breathing, on the tang of salt air that is hardly distinguishable anymore because he has been drawing it in for so long. He brushes one arm roughly across his face, wiping away the moisture, and in the darkness no one can see the palour of his skin around red-rimmed eyes. Straightening, he turns his back on the still-loud ocean.
So far away from where you are
These miles have torn us worlds apart
The muted glow of the sun has all but disappeared. The woman and her two children are long gone, as is the man who had been standing behind Sherlock. He scans the shadowed beach, but the only movement is his own. Glancing up, he notes that the cloud cover has moved westward in pursuit of the sun, and the sky above is now scattered with stars.
And I miss you
Yeah I miss you
Sherlock eases his hands into his coat pockets and, after a brief moment of indecision, sets off across the beach. The loneliness is still there, aching softly, but it feels muffled now, as though release has rendered it less potent. He knows that he'll be able to cope with it now; but, given the choice, he would much rather not need to.
More than anything right now, he wishes that John could be here with him.
And I wish you
Were here
With only the faint starlight illuminating the beach, he does not notice the words "I believe in you, Sherlock" scratched into the sand a few feet away.
This is my first time writing anything from John's perspective, so I hope I did him justice. Please review and let me know what you think! May the Force be with you.