Well this is my first go at a Sherlock fanfic. :)
This piece was originally going to be my first chapter for a longer Sherlock fanfiction which is underway but knowing me will never be done. I decided not to use this as it really just didn't fit so I'm just putting it up as a one-shot. Enjoy!
Though it was nearing mid-day Doctor John Watson was yet to leave the comforting warm sheets of his upstairs bed. He pondered on the frigid temperature of the night air yesterday and coinciding with the time of year he should have clued in on the conditions of today but never would he have expected a cold like this could be real. A cold that left him laying useless under the sanctuary of his covers and that was sending violent shivers through his whole body since the dawn. This January morning had never actually specifically dawned at any one point, but the grey swirling clouds and constant deluge of sharp rain had been slowly brought into focus over the past few hours, though John could not have pinpointed an exact time.
He had awoken abruptly a few hours after midnight as the silent cold stole into his small room and swept around, consuming everything. He silently cursed Sherlock as the temperature of the room plummeted for his roommate was the one responsible for damaging the heating system over a month ago and had yet to get it repaired.
Frost creeped up on the windows and he had distantly heard a low rolling rumble of thunder. And then the rain started.. And was yet to let up even for a second.
John could escape the cold in his cocoon of sheets, and even escape the horrid view of London if he simply turned his back from the window and get lost in his imaginations. But the rain.. The rain he could not ignore.
The constant tapping, thrumming tattoo that the rain played out on the exterior of his room was driving him crazy. However vaguely it might be related in noise it was still too much like the sound of the never ending gun fire he had experienced in the war. Blocking out the terrifying noise was deemed as impossible as blocking out the flood of painful memories it brought back, memories he thought he had finally manage to accept, or at least repress. John eventually gave up on fighting his own mind and let the horrible memories consume his conscious mind for the time being.
The fact that he was injured in the fighting was not what hurt him the most, it was not his own pain that he could not let go of but rather the pain he witnessed others experiencing. A naive John Watson had thought that being a war doctor would be such a noble job, he knew it would be difficult and dangerous but not to the extent that it proved to be. He had seen men, women and children who he had pitied solely for the fact that they had survived and would have to live with their crippling injuries. Not just the soldiers willing to put their lives in the live, but the harmless civilians who had merely been in the wrong place at the most wrong time possible.
When he had been sent home with cane and a limp he knew what other people would think. John had spent all of his time on the other side, feeling sorry for the crippled and he didn't want other people's pity..
His thoughts had continued on the same viscous and self destructive cycle for hours until finally he was brought out of his stupor by the scraping sound of a violin which he had come to both enjoy and detest depending on the time range it continued on for. But the instrument had done its unintended job of momentarily blocking out the sound of the thundering rain and gave John enough time to finally put away those memories away again. He clambered slowly out of bed, shook off the last of the overwhelming emotions and with his mind composed again he was ready to face the day.