Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Pairing: Vaguely Sherlock/John
Rating: G
Summary: "Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future and time present in time past." Sherlock and John contemplate their perception of time.
Time is forwards and time is backwards. He is with Sherlock. He is at St. Bart's. He is in Afghanistan. He slumbers. He rises. There is a ghost pain in his shoulder. There is no pain in his shoulder. There is unfathomable pain in his shoulder as the bullet tears through skin, flesh, and muscle. He is dreaming. He is awake. He is in a clinic. He is on a battlefield. His hands press to burnt and bloody flesh as the Afghanistan heat pours down his back. His hands press to a small button nose as cool air conditioning flows over him. He dreams. He awakens. His name is Watson. His name is John. He is dreaming. He is dreaming in time.
Sometimes, he is everything. Here, he is nothing. Disassembled to his essential being. Here, in his dream, he is not an army doctor. He is not in a clinic. There is no University. No war. No Sherlock. Except, there is. Sherlock is everywhere and nowhere, all at the same time. He is in his past, his present, his future.
John is with Harry as she pouts at him, ruddy faced with her arms crossed over his chest. There's a scrape on her elbow and a bruise on John's jaw. Sherlock is there, but not. His voice surrounds them, telling John his past with Harry.
Harry disappears as John shields his eyes from the bright Afghanistan sun. Voices are shouting, someone has fallen, and John's hands are steady, poised to heal or kill as he runs through the sand towards the writhing body. He knows what comes next, but he's unable to prevent it, to run from it, to stop the bullet from hitting him. The sounds of gunshots firing and voices shouting slowly slide away as John stumbles forward, his right leg threatening to collapse beneath him, but he makes it to the wounded man's side, and Sherlock's voice dominates around him, explaining his psychosomatic limp.
Then his childhood, the war, everything fades away and John is left alone in darkness. Yet, he's not. Sherlock is there, walking towards him, turning on the light as 221B emerges from the shadows around him. Here there is no sibling rivalry with Harry. There's no pressure from St. Bart's. No ghosts from the war. Here is it only John and Sherlock. Of course, they have cases and adventures, and John has stood face to face with death more times now than he had in the war. But none of those things mattered. All that mattered was Sherlock—the man who seamlessly slipped passed every separation of time; past, present, and future. The man whose mere presence spread into every aspect of his life.
"What do you think of time, Sherlock?"
He was silent for a few moments, but John sipped his tea and waited, shifting so he was sitting upright in his seat, poised to ask the question again before settling back down in his chair. Sherlock lounged on the couch, fingers steepled beneath his chin with his eyes closed. After nearly five minutes had passed, John set aside his cup as he reached for the remote.
"Time is a fickle thing." Sherlock's eyes had opened as he turned them towards the ceiling. "Depending on extraneous circumstances the brain can perceive time to pass slowly or quickly; however, this is untrue, but how it can be utilized is very important. Psychologically."
"Yes, all right, but what do you think of time? I don't want to know what you know about it." The remote sat abandoned on the coffee table as John focused on Sherlock. Silence stretched between them, and John found himself counting each inhale and exhale that passed through his flatmate's lungs.
"Just then you felt as though time passed slowly, did you not?" He didn't wait for John to answer. "So, you amused yourself by some miscellaneous past time you would not otherwise engage in. I find time to be crucial for this very reason. Each second you waste is equivalent to keeping useless information in your brain. I find the two concepts to be very similar. Just as your brain has a limited amount of space to store information in, you also have a limited amount of time in your life."
"You think it's precious then... in some sense? Then, what would you consider a waste of time?"
"Watching telly, social protocol and interaction with no beneficial outcome, this conversation."
"This conversation is a waste of time?"
"Considering I was previously reviewing all the possible cases presented to me by both Lestrade and Mycroft, yes, I do believe this is a waste of time. Contemplating topics which will not benefit me in any sense."
"Then why did you bother answering? You could have very easily ignored me; you do that a lot actually."
Sherlock's gaze shifted to John. "That is because, John, usually all your other questions or comments are entirely irrelevant and require no thought, or they delve into a subject that is utterly useless."
"What makes this different then?"
His gaze shifts back to the ceiling and his eyes slide shut, just like all his other senses. Blocking out any form of distraction so that he can think. John knows the conversation has ended. He would not be having his question answered tonight. So he stays awake a few more hours, watching telly, blogging, and reading, before finally retiring for the night and heading up the stairs to his bedroom.
When John leaves, Sherlock opens his eyes once more. "The reason I answered you, John, is because I never consider talking to you a waste of time." Granted, the topics may be, but never the act of conversation. For a moment, there is a pause in the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs, and Sherlock smiles to know that John stopped to listen to the answer.
That night Sherlock dreams of time. He stands as an observer and reviews everything he knows. How time is measured. By minutes and hours, or by people, or places. He doesn't enjoy reminiscing over the past unless the knowledge is valuable. Sometimes he finds that months of his childhood have been deleted from his memory. Though Sherlock does remember.
Memories of feuds with Mycroft, the glances from his mother, and absence of his father. He remembers every name he has ever been called. Sherlock. Sherly. Lock. Freak. He remembers their faces as they called him those things, the tone of their voice. He remembers the sensations of cocaine, of heroin, of nicotine. He remembers being told he would never amount to anything, that his ability to deduce made him a freak, that he would only act in selfishness.
But he brushes those aside to the recesses of his mind, only to be called upon when trying to make a point. An accusation.
And Sherlock is prompted to remember the conversation with John. To remember how John speaks to him, sometimes in wonder, sometimes in exasperation, sometimes in incredulity. He does not belittle Sherlock. Flashes of small disputes between them appear before Sherlock as he looks on, analyzing. Observing. Deducting. Then the instances where they get along, and Sherlock recognizes that there are far more moments where they simply exist together peacefully because John has a vague grasp on who Sherlock is and is willing to allow him to be Sherlock.
So he decides he will not measure time in conventional units of measure. He will not measure it by people, events, or memories. He will measure it in terms of John because he is the only constant in Sherlock's life that would have an impact should he be removed.