BBCSH 'Promises, Promises'
Author: tigersilver
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Word Count: 2,000
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Summary: A moment of stark realization on Sherlock Holmes's part, done up in a AU ficlet set in the not too distant future, and inspired by Season Three's final episode, 'His Last Vow'. Loosely part of 'Comfort' series.
"John!"
Sherlock startles awake in the dead of the night, his hand entirely too hard where it's wrapped about John's bad shoulder. To say nothing of his respiration rate; irrationally rapid, almost a panting pace, as if he'd just run miles without ceasing instead of been sleeping peacefully in his own familiar bed with his partner.
'Partner'.
Sherlock's eyes open wide, unseeing of the near-pitch black—the curtains Mrs Hudson invested in for their bedroom are most efficacious, almost too much so—as he realizes what this horrible tension is, built up like a storm within the bounds of his heaving chest. Worse than that: lodged just under his ribcage, like a bullet, and spreading uncontrollably.
Panic, surely. For what else could it be? And Sherlock's experienced panic before, and entirely too often for his own comfort. He recognizes it but that does nothing to solve it: what if it hadn't happened? What if nothing had turned out as it had? What if he were not (in fact) where he presently was, staring at absolutely nothing but the blank folds of dark fabric brushing the sill of the window and contemplating his utter lack of control over the moment?
Patently untrue, a voice in Sherlock's head scoffs tinnily. You are where you physically are, according to all evidence, idiot who dares call yourself a detective!
Sherlock begs to differ; not an idiot, clearly. Nor humbly the slave of that spectre called 'Fate'. He, out of all of them—excepting perhaps his own brother—has a great deal of control over his environment; always has, always will. He is the master of seizing the moment, he does not slack when wresting control away from the far less competent. No, no, there's never been a problem with that aspect of his personality, not in the slightest. Excepting…excepting in regards to this, this strangely eerie sensation of unwieldy lack, of having no choice in the matter—any matter a'tall of importance—of having the proverbial sands beneath his frantically grasping toes sift and shift away and fall out from beneath him. Even as he lays at John's side, taking comfort in his partner's steady breathing, the little pound of pulse beneath his cold fingertips (still far too much pressure there; Sherlock knows he should ease off, but he can't just yet—he cannot.)
Yes, obviously he is where he is—safe, sound, with John in his grasp, and him still peacefully sleeping—and yet he is also abhorrently not. Or, worse yet, he might not be in his current circumstances but for a few twists of events here, a small number of occurrences there. Moriarty, Mary, Magnusson: all 'M's, that lot of liars, which is a coincidence of interest but only to that other bit of his brain which teases out coincidences and strings them together to form unassailable logics.
There is no logic to this one, though. No, there is not!
Intolerable. Absurd. Unfair! Not that anything is truly fair; this is real life, is it not? Not some crappy drama on the telly.
Real life, however, has proved pleasantly persistent in providing Sherlock Holmes all that he requires, desires and cannot do without. A bullet spent, a breath not taken, lives ended summarily, executioner-style; all these have been ultimately beneficial. Grief felt to the point of unendurable agony, a narcotics habit, an overly nosy elder brother: these, too, have contributed.
John, John, John: Sherlock has him, holds him—still can't bear to leave go—and will keep him fast and close and secure, till the rot of old age and certain death did them finally part.
It is the only fixed point in the universe, really. Not 'it'—him.
Sherlock blinks his dry eyes at the closed off window. He really wishes the drape wasn't quite as dense, furled so closely, that the weave were just a little looser? It would be very nice to be lent a little actual light to see by, to have real illumination readily available, guiding his flickering gaze to what he knows instinctively is but an unlikely ending point of a thousand, million, billion indescribably minute and obscure events and choices and actions and reactions. 'If—then' is a postulate the detective has always relied upon. 'If—then' amounts to an equation, a pure and perfect framework for slotting in facts and observations and deductions. And it is also the enemy, of a sort. Far more the 'arch-enemy' than Mycroft ever was, for 'if—then' can be read only with the unbiased eye of the true investigator and sentiment (no matter how desperate, how monumentally crucial) cannot be brought to interfere with its Platonic procedure.
Sherlock—in the dark—knows all too well that logos, lovely as it is, is not the whole of him.
He is part of John, now. And John part of him: the best portion, really, as Sherlock makes no bones about informing anyone and everyone who dares question. That there are few of those remaining is the by-product of all his meticulously delivered diatribes, presented to any number of fallible idiots, blinkered by fame and blinded by a ridiculous media, over the years—oh, yes, there was a point to this.
He is as helpless as babe, in actuality, before it all. Helpless before an unending line of cumulative 'if—then's'; of tiny alterations, right down to the cellular structure of every being, every material thing in the universe, and impossibly irrational changes—of heart, of mind, of motivation—that cannot and will not ever be predictable.
He has awoken panicked, and thus already on the knife-edge between action and non-action. Sherlock struggles, for at the same time he feels all the great lassitude of the inert. He's knackered, wrung dry as dust, and thinned to the nub; he wishes sincerely only to sleep once more. As he had been, before these staggering revelations appeared in the becalmed stairwells and corridors of his unconscious mind, taunting him mercilessly though the labyrinthine spaces with all that might not have been, all that might never have happened.
Of all things, Sherlock wishes John would waken. Of his own volition, preferably. Or, failing that, that he'd the ability to tighten his fingers just that little bit more on John's bare flesh, to deliberately create a bruise there upon the roughened-yet-oddly-smooth surface of that ancient scarring and inflict enough significant pain to peremptorily haul John to wakefulness. John would be angry, of course, of course he would. And he'd not understand it a'tall, at first, but then again—very probably, ninety percent chance—he would catch up, catch on; twig it, after a moment's drowsy pondering over why it was exactly his friend (his lover, his partner, his 'mate', in all the sentimental senses of the most primitive of words describing relationships) would seek to harm him, even the smallest amount.
John would sort it, Sherlock knows. He's certain John would. But he can't bring himself to do it; it goes against the grain, fiercely, and so he must endure the panic, the fear, all the ghoulish 'if—then's' all by his lonesome. He daren't, and it's an anathema to even consider what once he might've done (once, not all that long ago) without even the slightest qualm.
It's different now. It has been made 'different', and not entirely due to Sherlock's machinations. In fact, largely free of his influence to any amounting degree.
Really, it's nothing. He'd honestly tell John 'It's nothing' and not be lying, either. Nothing much on the scale of what Sherlock's already experienced: this pang, this excruciating twist to his intestines and resultant acid jolt to his systemic function. A merest pinprick and it's not as though this is an outlier or a rarity. There have been many such nights like this one, many such moments happening during the broad daylight, for that matter. No, Sherlock is no stranger to panic, no mythical god who rises triumphantly above fear or anxiety or even morbid fancies.
And John cannot save Sherlock from them, try as he may. Oh, he would try; often does, but there's no fighting a clean battle with a enemy such as this one.
Sherlock deliberately relaxes his grip, lifting his fingers one by one and flexing them stiffly before he returns them to rest upon the quietude of John's 'at-rest' shoulder. He inhales through his parted lips and then exhales, out through his nose, as he learnt to do, and thinks meaningful and strong orders towards his own organs. One by one they obey: his heart, slowing itself to more stable pace, for the first. His gut, easing itself back into a reasonable formation of self, the churn of acid subsiding. His lungs, unhitching themselves finally from the fear that held them hostage and unable to function.
From panic to clarity goes Sherlock, to his own intense relief.
There. Made it.
It's been but a moment; no, not even that. A fraction of a second, perhaps. If Sherlock shuts his heavy eyelids now, for this parse of a second, he'll no doubt glimpse sight of the latest spiral of a filthy-dirty stairwell, leading up from the pit of his worst imaginings. He'll spare a fond, grateful glance to the roughness of the ancient old wooden bannister he's gripped in agony, to the sandy grit glued on the treads, and thence onward and up to the great crystal-dripping chandelier that hangs so far above the staircase's grubby Stygian depths—a miniature sun high up in the near distance, his very own light.
"John."
Promises, promises, little brother, Mycroft would chide and also then assuredly smile, hearing every single silent intonation infusing that one most important noun falling from Sherlock's lips as he bends his neck sufficient to kiss John's skin, precisely between the gap between his sweating thumb and his yet-cramping forefinger. Best to keep them.
Sherlock kisses, lips sweet and wide on Jon's skin, breathing it all in. Oh, Mycroft would probably even have the bollocks to chuckle at Sherlock, eyes glimmering with amusement over what he'd no doubt term Sherlock's 'antics'. But not evilly, so much. No, Mycroft has taken the silly parable of Sherlock's goldfish to heart over the years and risen to the challenge: he's clued himself in by sheer dint and determination. The hows, whats, whens, whys and wherefores of it all mostly leave Sherlock shuddering; he doesn't need know any of the sordid details, it's the fact that he was, for once, the completely correct one. Not an idiot, then.
Helpless, mayhap, but never stupid about it. It's a matter of pride, actually. A bright spot, a little victory, and it's very helpful to Sherlock, knowing he's triumphed over his brother, having gotten there first. First! Has landed himself in glorious and honestly remarkable circumstance at the one best single place to be in Sherlock's concept of the known universe: kissing John's pliant skin in the dark of a morning, safe within the understanding that he has every right to be here, kissing.
Here, now. It may not—Sherlock allows this, albeit a spot fretfully—have been all of his own making. Indeed, much of it wasn't, a state that Sherlock usually cannot tolerate, but that's all botheration and largely pointless to consider, not when he's kissing and kissing and John's finally stirring under his lips, shifting in that delightful way he does when he's on the verge to rolling over, having begun the journey of waking fully into Sherlock's welcoming embrace.
As it's happening, even as John's sighing out the slurred syllables of Sherlock's name and scrunching up his nose at the hot-damp-hungry of Sherlock's mouth and slip-sliding tongue, Sherlock's aware he's arrived. At precisely where he is, right now; at this one brilliant instant, this miraculous 'if John, then snogging John', from which point-of-reference no one can ever, ever dare take away from him nor excise from his Palace nor obliterate from existence, even should the world end contrarily a moment after 'now'. Bugger the three 'M's and the countless vicissitudes of the illogical gods of 'chance' and 'happenstance'; Sherlock's arrived—and he's bloody ecstatic over it, actually.
That's honestly what is most important, to Sherlock's mind. He's gotten it, he's sorted it, he's solved the unsolvable and the feeling rising up and up in his centre is better than Christmas and his birthday combined.
He's here, is Sherlock, and it is so blasted and damnably good to be the winner, to rise ('O, Fortuna'!) to the highest heights of the Wheel—and to know, with profound reverence, that it's all due to a little help he's been handed….from a 'friend'.
Fin