A/N: My thanks to The National for some inspiration, particularly "Think You Can Wait" and "England".
Clockwork's End
John Watson couldn't breathe.
He barely registered the crashes that resounded in his wake as he stumbled across the disorderly flat, toppling a stack of books here, tipping over a lamp there. One thought extinguished all others in his considerably panicked state: Get out. Now.
He cursed himself for ever thinking he could stand within these walls again, breathe the familiar air of 221B without falling quite to pieces. No, he amended mentally as he struggled for breath, wrong again. There is no sodding air in here. Redoubling his efforts to reach the door, he stumbled and fell.
"Shit," he muttered, over and over, his face against the carpet. A new panic seized him as his limbs refused his pleas of get up, get up, get up or, indeed, refused to move at all. Temporarily paralyzed by grief, John concentrated, forcing his breathing into a deep, slow rhythm. Time passed in a series of unfathomable tick, tick, ticks from somewhere above the mantelpiece, emanating from a clock which had no business possessing a pulse now that its owner no longer did.
John felt a brief but sharp stab of annoyance at the incessant noise, and for a moment the emotion might have been enough to prod his limbs into action. Tick, tick, tick went the clock on the wall, slightly out of rhythm with the muffled tap, tap, tap of his shoes as he envisioned himself crossing the room to smash the thing, throw it out the window, do something.
But it was not enough. His feet lay still and useless on the carpet, and his annoyance vanished as quickly as it had come. A moment later (or was it a year?) something began to settle on him. It took another age for him to realize that it was not dust, but a dull awareness of a painful nature, originating from his right leg.
Curiosity achieving what annoyance had not, John found the strength to shift himself slightly, to lift his head enough to view the limb in question. It was only when he noted the absence of blood that he realized he had been hoping to see it, realizing it would have given his mind something, anything to dwell on other than his immediate surroundings.
Tick, tick, tick.
Slowly but surely regaining the ability to move, he glanced around for the source of the noise, tearing his gaze from the insignificant tear in his jeans that was the only indication of whatever had caught his leg and made him fall. His eyes come to rest, not on the clock, but instead on a different object altogether: a ghostly white shape sitting atop the mantelpiece.
John was not ready. Not for the ghostly familiar voice that filled his head, unbidden, at the sight of the skull, nor for the clarity with which he recollected it.
"Friend of mine. When I say 'friend'…"
They stared at eachother, the living and the dead, more written in the former's eyes than he could ever hope to say if the latter had been capable of reading them. As it was, the skull stared back, hollow and unfeeling, unknowing and apathetic to the physical and emotional pain of the man lying helplessly before it.
"So I'm basically filling in for your skull, then."
"I don't have 'friends'…"
"Don't worry, you're doing fine."
"…I've just got one."
"Hullo," said John softly, to the skull, more to stem the flow of recollections that were rushing through his mind than anything. Predictably, he was met with silence. For a moment, the stupidity of talking to an inanimate object overwhelmed him. Then, another ghostly voice that was not his own said,
"Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don't you think?"
At that particular moment in time, sitting on the floor in the cluttered flat of a dead detective, jean leg torn, struggling to breathe normally and conversing with a skull, John Watson did not feel brave. He certainly felt stupid.
In most men, feeling stupid would elicit doubt or shame, causing them to seriously reconsider the actions that led them to be in their current position.
John Watson was not most men. He was an army doctor and, for a time, he had been a friend to the man who did not have friends. It just so happened that this friend taught him many things, not least of which being that sometimes being brave is the simple willingness to feel or appear stupid, because really, those who observed other men to be fools were often one themselves.
And in any case, John refused to be judged by a skull.
Tick, tick, tick said the clock on the wall, as the skull said nothing.
Feeling rather braver than a moment ago, John nevertheless did not think he could stand another second in the place. He opened his mouth to say a word of farewell to his silent companion (who managed to convey a disappointed air at his hasty retreat despite having not the face to express it with), but he found that the ability of speech had deserted him. His fingers dug into the carpet as he made to stand up. Little puffs of dust rose into the air at the movement, swirling and floating in the beams of sunlight that streamed through the window into the otherwise darkened room. He was out of the building before the dust had settled once more.
That is, until a few minutes later when it was again disturbed by a series of quick, purposeful footfalls.
They wound their way through the clutter in the half-dark with what might have been viewed as skill but was really a long since acquired familiarity with every nook and corner of the place. The footsteps stopped, only briefly, as they reached the mantelpiece. Then, the doctor and his skull turned and made their retreat out of the room, down the stairs, out the front door and into the street, where the sounds of life all around were heard by only one of them.