Stars and Astral Cars
Just a little songfic on the Radiohead song, Pyramid Song. I know the song isn't meant to be taken as literally as I use it, but I just felt like writing something like this.
John sat quietly beside the bank of the river Thames. He was laid on his back with the cool, night chilled grass running through his fingers, the starry sky stretched out before him.
The river lapped up at his ankles, but it seemed as though he was plunging into it, engulfed in those dark waters. It was a sweet feeling really.
It had only been a week or so since Sherlock's death but it already felt like years and John had felt as though he was consumed in everlasting sorrow. When he closed his eyes and imagined the water swallowing him up, he could almost see him there beside himself, Sherlock, his black-eyed angel. If only he had those wings to keep him up from that cold cement.
John's eyes opened to the black, star streaked skies. The moon and the canvas it laid upon were full of these tiny messengers. One burst of light sped across the dark expanse of space like a tiny astral car to drive John away from this hell.
Suddenly, images of Sherlock flooded John's mind, all the figures dancing through his mind. They were things he'd seen before, memories of better times, side by side with his consulting detective where he belonged.
Sherlock was more than just his friend, his partner. Sherlock was so much more to John. He was the one thing that could lift John from the dull grays of a somber world. John could see it now as he sat up from his position on the damp grass, all the pasts and futures with Sherlock that never were. The lovers that the two of them never quite were, that John had always longed for.
John stood and looked out across the water before lifting himself to stand atop the railing around the edge of the river, clutching to a lamppost attached to the little fence railing.
He looked out across the water and saw a little one-man rowboat hugging the bank just a bit downstream, not seeming to go anywhere at all. In that tiny rowboat, John saw it all, everything that was and would have been. They were all there, sailing slowly off to heaven in that little rowboat.
"Nothing to fear and nothing to doubt," John whispered quietly to himself as he leaned slightly forward toward the churning black water.
John had full intentions of submerging himself in that river and leaving the dark world behind. Now that John's light had gone out, the world was bleak and useless. John jumped into the water, but he never quite made it.
A firm hand had grabbed the back of John's jacket and pulled John back into him. John suddenly found himself on solid ground again, being held tight from behind by an unknown man in a dark coat. His arms were tight around John's torso and his wind cooled, blushing cheeks were pressed into the skin at the base of John's bare neck, breathing him in.
"John," he whispered and all the world vanished.
The voice was rough and full of torn and rugged distress. It was John's black-eyed angel, swimming with him in this ocean of cold night air.
John turned to face him, not even beginning to comprehend, but overwhelmed with a sense of relief and pure light. He looked in those eyes he had missed for so long and saw in them bright moons of stars and astral cars, bursting with light. It was really him, it was Sherlock. All the figures he used to see, all those dead memories, were recalled to life in a moment. In those eyes was his Sherlock.
John pulled him close, his long lost angel, and brought his lips to those impossible ones before him. They clashed together in conflict, in a battle for existence. John had to prove he was real; he had to make sure this ethereal being before him was made of real flesh and blood, pure and solid Sherlock. When John was satisfied that he wasn't dreaming, he drew back slightly, lips twinging in war-weathered joy.
Finally, all the pasts and futures, the lovers that Sherlock could be and would be were there with John. They were present and real and standing before him in this man made of only what John could perceive as flesh and blood and moonlight.
He took John by the hand and led him down the stream. That tiny one-man rowboat was abandoned on the muddy bank. Sherlock pulled him inside with him, John never releasing his grip as if letting go might allow him to disappear again. In that tiny rowboat they sat, skin to skin, heartbeats pulsing through each other, drifting off again toward heaven and it was heaven. John knew it; heaven was anywhere Sherlock was.
John looked up into his dark angel's black eyes again and whispered, "Nothing to fear, nothing to doubt."
He looked back into the new light engrained in John's eyes and repeated the words, "Nothing to fear, nothing to doubt."
John clutched closer to his impossible love, burying his face in Sherlock's shoulder. Nothing to fear, nothing to doubt.