Rustle. Crack. Snap.
The soft, percussive sounds wormed its way into his brain, clawing at the dark haze of his unconsciousness.
Snick…creak.
He only had strange sensory memories: being thrust to the ground, carried, and positioned just so. His mouth opened to let out a groan, a cry, anything; but he felt no sound pass through his vocal cords, only a quick rush of cool air moved harshly past chapped lips. He could feel his head move from side to side, an uncoordinated motion, his cheeks brushing against something papery and thin, maybe grass? A leaf? His eyes could have been closed or open, he wasn't sure. The haziness persisted.
The sound of many voices cut through the fogginess, and when he opened his eyes, only slivers of muted light greeted his unfocused gaze.
Like an orchestra warming up, each instrument softly playing one note. Until, in unison the sounds grew louder and louder, and every nerve in his body started to come alive. They tingled in a wave that worked its way inwards, dragging consciousness with it.
He managed to list his head uselessly to the left, cheek resting on the crunchy ground. Vision came back to him in short, blurry spurts. Everything began to hurt, and the strange sounds continued. Where the hell was he? Blinking harshly, he grimaced and tried to think of the last thing he could remember. He was standing on the pavement outside of 221 Baker Street, trying to convince himself it was wise to see Sherlock again. Maybe it was too soon, the hurt too deep. It would serve Sherlock right if he never visited the mad bastard again, for all the pain and anguish he'd caused John over these two long years.
But that wasn't really the pressing issue right now. He inhaled and recognized the loamy taste of the Earth, twigs, and leaves. Where the hell was he? Again, he tried to cry out, but his vocal cords were paralyzed. He tried to move, but found his legs and arms were heavy, too heavy to manipulate in any useful way. John was never one for inaction, and he twitched futilely, trying to move or make a sound – anything. Nothing happened.
Outside of his makeshift enclosure (if one could call it that) he still heard voices; deep voices that could belong to a man, and higher pitched voices as well. Was he outside? From the cold seeping through his jacket and into his back, he assumed he was lying on the ground. It was soft, however, not stony; and the canopy above him seemed to be made of long, thick logs of wood.
His breath came to him in desperate jagged inhalations. He gulped in air, his mouth working open and closed much like a dying fish on a riverbank, for all the good it did him.
A deep voice moved closer, muttering something about it being too 'wet.' It moved away. John closed his eyes, a hot tear of fear and frustration slowly slid its way downwards across his temple. He was useless, as he had been since Sherlock's death; just a pathetic shell of a man. Doesn't it just serve him right that as soon as his 'friend' returned from his grave, he got himself kidnapped. He couldn't stop the anguish that latched onto his chest and sat there looming, like some kind of nebulous thing, suffocating.
As his vision cleared, it became apparent that he was indeed stuffed inside of some makeshift wooden pile (haphazard teepee?), with his entire body situated ever so nicely at the bottom. What the hell was going on? Who could have possibly put him here? What was their game?
Then it hit him…smoke. A thin tendril drifted towards his senses, and he jerked his head up off the floor. He managed a groan, maybe even a dignified squeak, but his tongue could make no words. It came together slowly. He was lying at the bottom of a pile of wood, earth underneath him; smoke curled about his person and seeped into his clothing. Someone had lit this rickety structure on fire.
Oh bloody buggering fuck! It was on fire. His throat constricted painfully, working desperately to yell, or scream, anything.Anything to alert the people he could hear outside that he was in here, trapped.
The smoke began to billow through the small wooden crevices, great gusts of white vapour feeding and wafting its way towards him, working from the outside in. His nostrils flared as the scent of something chemical assaulted his senses – gasoline!
Oh god, ohgodohgod. No. no no no no no…
He was going to die here.
The panic hit him hard, squeezing his heart in a vice that screamed "Get up soldier! Get moving, you pathetic excuse for a man!" He gulped in air and smoke and forced the sounds out, never let it be said that John Watson was going to die easily.
"H-Help...!"He managed weakly. It sounded loud to his ears, but he had no idea if anyone heard him. Outside of his sweltering confines he heard the high pitched scream of a child before the sounds of fire and snapping and cracking and burningoverwhelmed his senses.
Having been a doctor (and a damn good one) for some time now, John was familiar with the stories people often told about brushes with death. He even remembered one old woman, way back in his Uni days, who reclined in her hospital bed and spoke of seeing her late husband standing by her side. She said she had seen him for days now, until she finally passed that evening. John supposed it could have been dementia, or hallucinations brought on by the purposeful malnutrition and dehydration that often accompanied those who were actively dying. In the end, he supposed she felt comforted, as the arms of her beloved were stretched before her, ready to claim her old soul and ferry it into the unknown. It's difficult to be frightened in the arms of the one you love.
But there was no one here for John Watson, he was alone.
The first sting of heat hit his face in a great whoosh of smoke and sparks. Though he continued to struggle weakly, his drugged state slowly wearing off, he knew he would never be able to make it out of this by himself, and not alive. With each lungful of searing, acrid air he cursed his luck, and wished things could have been different. He wished everything could have been different. He wished he had had the courage to say the things he had wanted to say so many times. The only person he had every truly loved was somewhere out there, ignorant to John's impending death, and would never know the depth of feeling and love this small unassuming man held for him. It didn't matter that Sherlock thought these things weren't 'his area,' nor did it matter that he considered 'love to be a chemical defect found only on the losing side,' John should have told him. Maybe it would have broken his heart to do so, but if he died now, it would be his greatest regret.
The consciousness he fought so hard to regain began to slowly slip away from him again. His body jerked with a few futile attempts to cough out the poisoned air. Another hot, unwanted tear slipped down his temple, settling in the cup of his ear. Blackness encroached, and there was naught he could do to stop it.
John Watson was a fool. He was a fool, and he was going to die alone.
He couldn't see anymore, he couldn't smell the smoke, his chest burned like agony with every minute movement he could still manage. All of his senses began to dim, except sound. As a medical man, John knew sound was almost always the last sense to go. He heard muffled shouts, someone repeating a name, over and over. He didn't listen, he couldn't be bothered. Death was here with its beatific grin and hungry fingers and so he gave in to it, accepting his fate, relaxing and letting it take him. His epitaph would read: Here lies John Watson. Soldier. Doctor. World's greatest fool. The End.
Something grabbed his leg tightly. Its grip was not gentle but firm and harsh, panicked. The muted sound of burning and fire, pieces of wood crashing to the ground surrounded John, but new sensations were now clawing their way into his brain.
He was tugged quickly, forcefully away from the comforting cocoon of heat and ash. His jacket rode up his back, dislodging his shirt and jumper to painfully scrape sensitive skin along the grass and muddy ground.
He was aware of shadows moving above him, flitting back and forth. Someone was touching his face, calling his name. He didn't care; he just wanted to go back. He was so warm and senseless there, the aching pain in his heart had gone away, and he had been ready. But they didn't stop, and so John gasped and inhaled his first breath of fresh clean air in what seemed like an eternity It was an eternity wasn't it? He was in there for so long, it had to have been.
The cloudy figures above him continued to hover and touch, the one closest to his face repeating his name over and over again. A soft hand brushed reverently across his stubbled cheek. It didn't feel like human skin; maybe a glove. John opened his eyes and blinked back the soot and smoke that resided there, stuck to his eyeballs in a grotesque filmy layer.
…and Oh.There he was. He came. There was no mistaking the dark, curly locks – the mercurial eyes, sometimes green, sometimes blue, and always beautiful. There was no mistaking the fine cut of his face, a face that had haunted John's dreams for since the beginning, a beguiling spectre that stepped out of his reach every time John tried to move closer.
It had happened then. His consciousness had moved on, expanded outwards past the stars and in between the neutrons that held together this useless mortal coil. Here at the end of the end, the man he loved had come to his side to accompany him. There were so many things he wished to say, but his mouth would not move. Maybe he didn't need to say them after all. Maybe Sherlock already understood. As the darkness encroached once more, John exhaled into the night sky a changed man, one who had accepted his fate and didn't dwell upon the past any longer. He was ready.
"JOHN!"
"John!" A higher pitched, more strident voice echoed Sherlock's words. Mary leaned over her husband, one hand over his chest, shaking him harshly. "Wake up John! You have to wake up!"
Sherlock moved with determined quickness as he pulled off his gloves and checked the John's carotid pulse. It was slow but strong. The crowd of people who had started the bonfire stood back in abject horror, how where they to know a man had been at the bottom of the pyre? There was one little girl that was crying uncontrollably, only being partially comforted by a man that appeared to her father.
Sherlock turned on the crowd and bellowed, "How did this happen?! What is wrong with you people? Didn't anyonesee this man when preparing for the celebration? Stupid. Stupid!" He was answered with awestruck silence from all who stared at him.
"ANSWER ME!" The command was enough to startle one or two people at the front of the crowd. A woman stepped forward, vapour forming in the cold air as she spoke. "No…no one saw him. We didn't know, I swear! We would have never…never-"
"Yes, fine." Sherlock twirled and cut her off, he wasn't in the mood for inane outbursts laced with unimportant and emotionally tainted sentiment. He needed the facts. John Watson was here, and he was hurt, and this was unacceptable. He swept his eyes quickly over the huddled group; they would be of no help to him.
"Sherlock," Mary began, still kneeling over the dirt smudged body of her fiancé, "The Ambulance is on its way. Do you know who did this?" Her face looked hopeful; her right hand gripped John's left, offering a small modicum of comfort for herself.
With a sharp wave of his hand, Sherlock turned and purposefully didn't answer her question. He had work to do; work that did not involve Mary, or John. He would figure this out. He had to. He had to.
He swung one long leg over the motorbike as he revved the engine, "Go with him to hospital Mary, and don't leave his side for a moment." Mary's face contorted in a mask of confusion and maybe even disappointment as Sherlock donned the helmet and raced away in a concussive burst of noise and squealing tires.
When John awoke in hospital, to say he was disoriented would be quite the understatement. He didn't remember much about the night before, only flashes, dream-like sounds and noises that occasionally bubbled up from his subconscious.
Mary sat at his side, her lovely face unreadable, but assuredly concerned. She clutched at his hand ardently, only leaving his side for a cup or two of god-awful hospital coffee. When she saw his eyes flutter open, she leaned forward, brushing a soft, cool hand across his brow.
"You're awake then?" She whispered, her light tone belying the depth of feeling behind her words.
"It…appears so." John's voice croaked inelegantly. He sounded like a cross between Joan Rivers and a bullfrog, neither of which were very aurally attractive. To be fair, he supposed he looked a little worse for wear himself.
"Do you remember anything?" Mary sipped her coffee, pulled a face, and then sat it down on the bedside table with undisguised disgust. "Ugh. The coffee here is terrible."
John shifted in the bed, pulling himself up a little more, meeting Mary on her own level. He inhaled deeply, only to be rewarded with a coughing fit that tore at his lungs and made his eyes water uncontrollably.
Mary waited patiently for the fit to pass before looking at John expectantly.
"No…I-only sounds, flashes of light maybe. I think at some point I was delirious, yeah. I can't be sure. I had no idea where I was and…I didn't know if anyone else knew where I was either."
"We found you but only just. If Sherlock hadn't…" She paused there, biting her bottom lip. Mary seemed reluctant to go on. John did not feel like pressing the point.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. The whole thing seemed like some kind of strange, horrible dream. He did remember thinking about death, old ladies and University, but not much else; nothing else that seemed very important anyway. He didn't want to dwell on it overmuch. It seemed the simple act of thinking was excruciatingly painful, at this point.
In any case, once he got the all clear, the first thing he wanted to do was have a nice long shower followed by a bit of a lie-in. He had survived the return of Sherlock Holmes and he would survive could not allow Sherlock any more leeway, any more pull than he already had. He was with Mary now and she was his future. He had to come to terms with this.
Yet, there was something during the night. Something he didn't quite remember but it floated nebulously at the edges of his dreams. A face…someone he knew but couldn't place. He couldn't see it clearly now but, he knew it meant something to him somehow.
No, it didn't matter now; he would get through this, move on.
With a small, frustrated sigh, he enveloped Mary's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She hesitated, and then smiled back, the small gesture not quite reaching her eyes.