A/N: I decide to focus solely on original fiction for once and fanfic continues to happen like a curse ffs why. Someone did ask me very nicely if I would do more PTSD Sherlock, though, and as I already had a half-assed draft sitting around I figured yeah okay might as well.
My unofficial theme song of this whole "S3 Sherlock is slowly losing his mind" concept is currently The Crooked Kind by Radical Face, by the way, for the folks who like music recs.
Chaotic shapes and the deafening roar of an explosion as he's lifted bodily from the ground, flung into a tree by the force of the blast wave.
He knows now, far away and long afterwards, that it had been a suicide bomber, but he'd not back then. All he'd had time for was a split-second of splintered thought, plans all ricocheting off each other in a jumbled mess, leaving him with nothing more clever than ducking behind a wall. Could have grabbed the young man next to him, the one who'd been walking past. Probably would have saved his life if he'd reacted in time.
But he doesn't think, doesn't reach out, doesn't even shout a warning. He just darts out of harm's way and protects his head. Doesn't even know quite why except that his brain saw something and deduced what would happen and now he's got to take cover. Because in the next split second the young man who'd been standing behind him gasps out a scream cut to sudden silence by shrapnel and Sherlock doesn't get a chance to make any noise at all before his body slams hard into unyielding wood and everything's black.
And then he wakes up.
Once upon a time he'd come round to find himself in a medical tent. Disoriented, surrounded by the dead or dying, no room for coherent thought besides knowing he had to get the hell out because he knew far, far too much about what had just happened and why.
Now, though, he just wakes up on the sofa. Familiar, safe. Surrounded not by overworked aid volunteers but by the quiet solitude of an empty flat. It's probably about midday. No serious danger to be found in a mile radius.
He stares wide-eyed at the ceiling for a dozen panicked beats of a racing heart, then closes his eyes again and huffs a harried sigh.
It isn't enough to just forget. To stop thinking about the past two years, things he's done and things he's seen, never to be spoken to anyone because he's not allowed to care. And he doesn't. Not really, not during the day when there's distraction and noise and the bright flame of life at the heart of London.
But at night... then the fire dies, the city's chaotic pulse dims down and in the quiet of sleep all the things he's queued up for deletion instead just etch themselves deeper. Like that bloody scream. Cut short. Hadn't even seen what by but he knows by a thousand instantaneous deductions that it was probably the sheared-off end of a road sign.
And of course he can picture that perfectly clearly. Doesn't even remember the faces of half the people he interacts with on a regular basis, much less any of their names, or ages, or anything moderately important unless it has to do with a case. But he can conjure up the perfect image of a teenager with a road sign embedded in his skull, just as sure as if it were yesterday. Right down to the mismatched sideburns. Because that's worth wasting brainpower on.
With a frustrated shake of his head he shoves himself upright and instates a firm internal goal of making tea. That's going to happen. He's not going to get sidetracked by some inane thought and he's not going to stop halfway there having mysteriously forgotten what the hell he was doing. Tea. All that matters.
It probably isn't quite necessary to put so much force into opening a few cupboards, but he's on a bloody mission. Sugar, milk, water. Done it a thousand times, doesn't need to think.
Soon enough he's accomplished his task. Mug of tea. Lovely. Now... damn it, now there's nothing.
Oh, but he has cases. There's work to be done. A wall covered in pins and paper. He glances over to that, but all he sees is so much nonsense. Nothing there he cares about. What on earth is the point, after all, in solving a few random homicides? Thousands of people die every day for no reason at all. Teenagers get their skulls split in two over some lunatic's idea of religious devotion. Little girls have their brains blown out and babies drown in the bathwater. Anyone with a scrap of compassion should be weeping round the clock.
Luckily he doesn't have compassion. He doesn't, because he's seen so much death, hurt so many people in incredibly gruesome ways and he never stopped to grieve for any of them. Deleted their faces and their stories, the things he deduced about their lives whilst he watched fresh blood drain from corpses. Gone, all of it. Gone forever.
Except in sleep, when it isn't. In sleep where he knows exactly how many senseless deaths he could have prevented, and how many times he chose his own life over the lives of innocents.
Once, on a mission, back when he'd been briefly roped into MI6 deployment under the promise of diplomatic immunity, he'd been tasked with recovering a series of photographs from a suspect's computer files. Before he could act, however, an error made by another spy led to their hyper-paranoid target erasing his drive and fleeing the country.
Wiped drive. Everything deleted. Gone without a trace.
Except it hadn't been a problem. The man had only erased the files, after all. Deleted their paths without bothering to rewrite over the spaces. Simplest thing in the world to recover them. And, even if he'd thought to do things properly, write junk code over the old files, a drive always retains ghosts of the data burned into it. Those photos couldn't be destroyed by something so banal as a quick del command.
Sherlock had smirked over that, at the time. That someone could be so stupid as to think they could erase data that easily. What a moron.
Now he stands and stares at nothing, unable to really focus because there's a phantom stab of pain in his ribcage and the screams of a dead woman distracting him.
In a flash of desperation the thought of a cigarette jumps first and foremost to his mind. His hand even goes for his pocket, where he used to store his pack and lighter, but of course nothing's there. He's in his dressing gown, for one, and for another he binned the last of his fags the other day in yet another bout of being determined to break his dependence on them.
There's a half-empty pack in the bedroom, though. Left them there ages ago.
Nicotine will fix this. Smooth the jagged edges of cognizance into a featureless void so he'll be able to work without distraction, unhindered by his own scattered mind. Just a spark and a breath, easiest thing in the world.
Without conscious thought his legs begin to move him toward the abandoned pack tossed haphazardly onto the top shelf of the closet. Christ, he even knows precisely where they are, right down to the orientation.
But then he stops short. No, no... doesn't need it. He can damned well handle his own internal conflict. Keep himself occupied, ignore the spectres, choose to think of something else. Marinating his brain in a chemical cocktail isn't a permanent solution – been trying that tack for decades now and not gotten anywhere. Slid the scale down for the worse, in fact, considering all the hell he's put himself through over the years as a consequence of his habits. Have to find another way.
Staring in the direction of his cigs isn't going to help, nor is passively standing about. There's beakers and flasks all over the counter, experiment with something. What's he been wanting to research? Can't remember. Not sure if there even is anything. He grabs a gas burner anyway and flicks the spark, watches the flame dance to life and doesn't think about charred corpses stacked like cordwood in the back of a flatbed truck.
Speaking of, though, regardless of his not thinking about it... do eyes catch fire? He knows (all too well) how flesh catches a flame off one's clothes like the wick of a candle, stored fat acting as wax until the rest all burns away. Presumably the eyes would boil, then, and burst. How long does that take? A quick process, so the victim's forced to feel their own eyes sublimating to steam? Or does it take some time?
Easy enough to find out.
A sudden cackling, squawking sort of noise makes him pause just as he's retrieved a disembodied eyeball from the refrigerator. For a few seconds he honestly thinks it's another hallucination - phantom memory of some sort of dying animal. But with a puzzled tilt of his head he realises it's just Mrs Hudson. Laughing, if one were to guess, or perhaps torturing an owl. Never mind, just ignore her. Better things to do.
Well, for a given value of 'better', anyway. In retrospect attempting to set fire to a body part mightn't have been the smartest tactic in trying to distract himself from gory images of terror attacks. It's certainly taking his mind off smoking, however, and he supposes that's what counts.
In a vague attempt to actually pretend like he's doing some sort of science he glances around for a stopwatch - time how long it takes to boil, or pop, or whatever he thinks should happen. But then he notices how the strands of tissue off the optic nerve shrivel and blacken under the flame. Mercifully his oft-inconvenient tendency to hyperfocus at the exclusion of all else kicks in, and for a few blessed minutes he's perfectly content to just stand there trying to melt the flesh off the end of a severed eyeball.
The spell gets broken, of course, as it always does, and suddenly he finds himself back in his own head with the looming disjointed massifs of thought and memory, smiling blandly at John for the absurdity of what he's been caught doing.
Could make up an excuse. That would be best, probably. Invent some sort of ridiculous experiment for which he very definitely needs to light an eyeball on fire. John wouldn't question it.
But fast as his brain tries to spin a lie it all unravels again. No mental energy left to keep up the façade - all he can manage for the moment, all he's been managing to do for months, really, is to pretend he isn't struggling to breathe under the weight of his own mind. That old act of the aloof eccentric genius wore away ages ago, nothing much left now to smooth the cracks but pale varnish.
So instead of saving face he just shrugs and admits the truth. Injects a bit of silly drama to it, though, sarcasm. A safe shield to dampen the edges of a confession. Because he can't admit, not to John nor anyone else, quite how defeating it's been to fail continuously at a decades-long battle that should've been so easily won at the start. Ordinary people do it every day, don't they? Quit cold-turkey. He can't even seem to manage a week these days. Joke about it, then, diminish the problem. No one will notice.
Sometimes it's so hard not smoking.
And sure enough the conversation strides right on past, as if he hadn't said a word.
The eyeball's slipped, somehow. He blinks down at his ruined tea for a moment and has a flash of confusion as to what on earth's happened to his coordination. Used to be able to duck a gunshot, take out the assailant and steal their weapon all in one smooth motion. Now he drops things into tea.
It's like he's slowly transforming into a completely different person. Bumbling awkwardness replacing all the poised danger of the man who'd once had the wherewithal to remain stoic in a Serbian interrogation chamber. Is this a temporary problem? Gradual transition out of two years packed too closely with danger? Or is he going to find himself permanently reduced to a succession of thoughtless mistakes?
But, no, no. Don't think about that. It's fine. Doesn't matter. Hardly any use dwelling on questions he can't answer, is there? Problems with no solution. Especially not whilst John's sitting right here. Makes a joke instead, plays it off. Act the fool again.
No one's questioned Sherlock's shifts in mannerism so far, his frequent failure to remain his old self. Perhaps they don't remember how he used to be, or perhaps he's skilled enough at hiding it. Either way it's best for him to just pretend it isn't happening. Nothing's wrong. He's fine. With enough repetition a lie becomes truth, doesn't it? Fine, fine, fine.
Without quite knowing what they're talking about he finds himself going along with John's conversation. Best man? What, as in ever, in history? Strange question. Though oddly enough a topic he's thought over of late - whether a murderer can be described as a net force of good. Can a garrotter's violence be offset by his charitable contributions and a desire to help the community? It's the intent, he thinks, that really matters. If you're garrotting people who deserve it... well, not that it's okay, but perhaps with enough karmic balance one might equal out the darker actions.
Ah, but John's not actually talking about that. Right. Best man for a wedding, obviously. And maybe not a garrotter. Well that neatly rules out Sherlock - not that he'd ever be considered in the first place. Lestrade, then? Really has no idea why John should feel a need to speak to him about this when the clear choice is... oh, not Lestrade? Mike, then, that's the only other... ah... he's just said he loves and cares about two people, Mary and someone else, so who of all his acquaintances could-
You.
Everything freezes.
Later he'll pretend he'd been composing a response. Penning some eloquent reply, simply failing to speak aloud all the things a normal and gracious friend would say, which of course he'd have articulated if not flattered into speechlessness. It'll be a perfect narrative which neatly cuts out any trace of a frayed mind gone into panicked overdrive, paints the picture they'd all rather see.
Now, though, there's a flash of a teenager with a road sign in his head, dead only because Sherlock hadn't thought to drag him out of harm's way, a girl with her brains blown out, an innocent man tortured for information, countless civilians caught in the war between a crime syndicate and a corrupt military, spies betrayed by their own countries simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time... and all of it traceable, in some way, back to him.
John has no idea. None. He's putting his trust, his... affection... towards a hollow pantomime. Just the fool Sherlock's been playing since forever. And now the act's gone and established itself well enough for John to consider it his friend. His... best... friend? Even after the past two...? And before? Christ, has the man learnt nothing?
Too many ways this could turn out and very few of them favourable, impossible to find the least awful outcome because they're near all equally bound for ruin. Object and offend John, agree and offend him even more when Sherlock inevitably falls short of expectation, continue to hesitate and prolong this awkward staring match indefinitely...
On autopilot his body decides, for whatever deranged reason, to take a sip of tea.
He nearly panics when he tastes blood.
Ah, but it's only the eyeball. Known it was there, obviously, or at least his lower brain did. It's saved him the trouble of finding a reply, sparked a perfect transition to redirect what might otherwise have become a dangerously candid discussion. Thank goodness some part of him still knows how to manipulate a dialogue.
And it hadn't even tasted all that different from regular tea, surprisingly enough, aside from the coppery tang. So that's... okay.
It's all okay, really.
Only it's not.
It will be.
It'll work out. It's a disaster. It's an honour. It's a mistake. It's fine. It's the end of the world. Stop thinking.
He'll have to make a speech, of course.
... absolutely stop thinking.
A few more beats of stilted silence stutter past until John has to leave. Just come by to formally ask in person, apparently, wedding plans to attend to. The truth of course being that he doesn't want to remain in the vicinity of a question so loaded with emotional baggage, politely giving space for the both of them to re-establish distance. Sherlock finds himself saying goodbye, and then without knowing quite how he's in the bedroom, then the kitchen, by the window.
He slides down the wall to a slouched seat on the cold floor, lights a cig and listens as the ghosts in his head sublimate one by one into the soft emptiness of nicotine. So frustratingly easy to mute them this way. Mocking the impossibility of doing it sober.
Best man, though... best friend. By flawed estimation, clearly. Worst in truth by a long shot. He'll have to mask it somehow.
Obligations begin to file out ahead like a minefield. Greetings, speech, stag night, the telegrams... oh god, no, he'll never make it. The act's going to crack halfway through and everyone's going to see the dark chaos leaking through a thin veneer of sanity. He'll have totally lost himself.
It's very nearly hilarious, though, isn't it? That this should be the straw that breaks him for good. All these years he's managed to keep hold of his wits, in the face of such impossible odds, and it's all going to topple to pieces over, of all things, a wedding.
Just a stupid, simple, ridiculous wedding.
John's wedding.
... he's doomed.