I could feel the knobs jutting into the palms of my hands and the crooks of my knuckles. I could feel the way it would toy with my hope with the small jiggle I could force out of it. It's all I wanted to feel. All I wanted, was for these knobs to turn and the doors to shut it all out.
I could catch the faintest line of light splitting the doors apart. I moved my face towards it and breathed in like I was drowning and this little divide was my only source of air.
"Turn around."
I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the cool, hard metal.
My body jumped at the sound of a deliberate step.
"Face me."
"I..I don't think I can," I whispered through the crack.
"Can't?" Another step. "Or won't?"
"Oh god," I whimpered, my throat closing up in the all too familiar way. I couldn't break down now. Not now. "Please, open the doors."
"They're watching."
I could see the gesture even with my back turned. I could just sense it. I followed it to the ceiling. Tucked away in a corner with a solid, red dot, a camera stared back at me.
"They're standing right outside that door, but they're not coming to rescue you."
My stare flitted to the narrow split, straining to see anything beyond. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," the words barely made a sound.
"Do you know why, John?"
"Please-"
"Because I haven't given them permission. And they won't get it unless you show me your face!"
The utter intensity of the outburst pulled a sob from my throat. I didn't want to turn around, God I didn't want to, but I couldn't run either.
I loosened my grip on the handles slowly, pain spidering through the joints in my hands, and even more slowly, I turned my body but kept my eyes to the ground.
I hoped they were watching this now; I needed to know someone was watching. I needed to know I wasn't entirely alone with him.
"Look at me."
I started to shake my head but I stopped, petrified to know what would happen should I refuse-but it was too late. His quick eyes had already seen it.
"Look at me!" Spittle flew out from his parched lips and he rushed forward like an animal.
I flinched like he breathed fire. My back slammed against the door, almost losing my balance despite the contraption holding me up. "Alright!" I practically screamed.
He was close enough now I could see both his feet were encased in cheap slippers. A dingy dullness was crusted around the toes almost as if he had been dragging his feet, or someone else had been for him.
The sweatpants they gave him were too short for his lanky build and his bare ankles peeked out from under the hems. The right one looked swollen and purple.
The rest of him was covered in a thin, ragged robe, loosely cinched around his almost emaciated waist. The white t-shirt drowned him with no flesh to cling to.
Scratchy patches of hair started to appear up his neck. Dark, curly hair hung just above his shoulders and framed the face of a skeleton.
A crown of gauze.
And in those sunken sockets, two piercing eyes stared fixedly at my face, gleaming at every inkling of terror I struggled to hold back.
"Sherlock…" my voice broke.
He sneered and the light in his eyes grew malevolent. "John," his lips curled. He cocked his head to one side, "you seem scared."
I wasn't going to grant him an answer because I knew I couldn't lie and get away with it. Every molecule in my body told me I was terrified.
My heart banged against my chest like bullets from the chamber. Every hair stood on end. Every breath had to be taken sparingly-and quickly-because every scenario my mind raced through was more horrifying than the last.
"No answer?" Sherlock pouted his lips, pushing his high-arched brows together. "No matter. I know you are."
His slippers smacked against the ground as he began to approach. Each step was small, considering how long his strides could be, but the distance between us closed too rapidly for me regardless. I was going to be trapped.
As he came forward, I shuffled to the side. My back never left the solid wall and my eyes matched his unblinking gaze.
I rounded the corner and knew he had caught on to my plan.
Something blurred across my vision and pushed the air right beside my ear. A hard smack deafened me for an instant. I saw the slipper drop to the floor.
He tutted and waggled a finger. "I heard the squeak as soon as you came in. Take it off."
I could taste my humility. "I won't be able to stand-"
"I don't mind. Really."
I felt the hot swell of anger and embarrassment flare in my stomach. If this was all meant to humiliate me, it was working, and I hated it. I couldn't stop the defiance I felt towards him, towards this all, but I knew I had to push it down.
Even if I could run, where would I go? There was no way out except for the pair of doors I couldn't open.
"And take off that bloody hat while you're at it, too. It isn't serving any purpose, even for amusement."
As calmly as I could manage, I took of Lestrade's cap and dropped it to the floor. I was still fearful under the manic stare, but my own stubbornness and fury began to complicate any sense I had left in me.
I yanked up the pant leg, almost making a show of it despite everything. I had to appear calm. I couldn't afford to let him manipulate me so easily. I had to retain some control back.
As my fingers jerked the leather bindings through the clasps, I glared back at him. Yet, as each strap came undone, I could feel my resolve breaking. I couldn't stand without this, much less walk or run if I had to. I was leaving myself totally vulnerable to whatever Sherlock came up with next.
My only defense was to play this game and hope I didn't lose everything.
The brace fell to the floor with a clang and I hopped back against the wall, pushing myself up to stand on both feet. My knee was already shaking.
"Now that I have your full, undivided attention we can begin," his tone was sinister and rumbled like thunder.
I swallowed. "What are you going to do to me?"
His rumbling laugh echoed in the giant cement block we stood in. It was joyless and dry. "I should be the one asking you."
I blanked.
He took another step. His bare foot quiet in comparison to the scrape of his slipper. "You're the one that brought you here. You've come of your own accord. You tried a pass at a pathetic attempt to bluff your way in through some foolish scheme, and you think it worked." He snickered at that last part.
"I should hope it has crossed your mind that the only reason you got away with it was because I let you. So tell me, doctor. Why did you come here if you were so quick to leave?"
"I wanted…" my voice failed me. I couldn't bear to look at him any longer. "I wanted to talk to you."
"No. You didn't."
The air turned cold and I felt my control slipping away from me.
Sherlock stalked forward. "Why are you lying, John?"
My name sounded venomous as his looming figure came closer and closer. I tried to move away and only succeeded in losing my footing as another lance of pain ripped through my leg. I jammed my foot into the ground and stopped my descent, shoving myself into the corner and wishing I could just disappear.
"I-I'm not!"
"Stop lying!" He hissed. The brace screeched across the floor as he kicked it aside with a single blow.
"I'm not bloody lying!" I screamed as he closed in and crouched until he was eye level. His arms acted like fences, attaching themselves to the wall on either side of me and barricading me in.
"Anyone can see that you are. Look into a mirror, John, and see the despicable thing you are. You're not only lying, you're living a lie. You wake up still believing in the past, dwelling on it, stirring it up. You surround yourself with objects, things that reassure you that you're doing the right thing. Echoes from a day long since gone.
"You're mind is filled, infected with lies. And you spread them like viruses to anybody that will listen, and once they've figured out that you're just as much a fraud as the things you tell them they stop listening. But when it comes for them to open your eyes, it is you that refuses to listen. You still can't bear to see the truth, even when you are utterly, laughably alone. You won't see it in the pity of another's gaze. You won't acknowledge it in the emptiness of your life. You won't recognize it when it's looking you in the eyes at this very moment.
"No…" his ice-cold eyes leered at me with disgust. "You didn't come here to talk. You came here to torment me."
I shook my head, tears slipping down my face. "No."
"Don't deny it. You came here to tell me that the lies have all been mine. That I am Sherlock Holmes, the world's first consulting detective. That everything that has happened to you has been my fault."
"No!" I cried, but part of me was terrified that that wasn't entirely true. Hadn't I come here to tell him who I believed he was? That I would never stop believing?
That he was Sherlock Holmes?
"I can see the conflict in your eyes. You know you're just spewing words out but they mean nothing."
"No, Sherlock, please believe me-"
"No, I believe in truths. I believe that you are just realizing that this was all a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. I believe you can't stand to be this close to me because you're finally seeing me for what I truly am."
My stomach tipped with a sudden sick twist, like a switch had been flipped and made my skin burn and my muscles tense. His words were infectious and I could hear the voice in my head scream that the man before me was nothing but a stranger with dark intentions.
"You can't run. You can't hide from me. There is no where on this Earth that you can go to that will save you from this reality, John."
"Please, stop this," my body racked with the onslaught of sobs I was desperately fighting.
"Look at me."
I could feel my legs tremble.
"Look at the face of truth."
He laughed again. Something sick and terrible. Something so nonchalant, it seemed detached from him entirely. Like a skip in the disc.
And then I realized, that was all he was. Fragments. Parts of Sherlock, but not all the right ones. Parts, like his arms that should be at his sides-but they weren't. He should be standing up straight, but he wasn't. His eyes should be kinder, or at least impassive. Yet they were cold, hard orbs that contained nothing behind the facade but a shining insanity that corrupted his smile, turning it into something malicious and strange.
"Do you see it?" His voice hardly sounded the same. "Do you still see a friend?"
I looked away as he leaned even closer, a stale musk burning in my nose. I could feel his anger smoldering in his chest. Then he growled.
I felt long, skinny fingers dig into my scalp and I cried out in discomfort as he pulled my head back and caught my horrified expression.
"Answer me!" his hot stinking breath gusted across my face. I couldn't breathe.
"I don't know!" I frantically gushed out. What was I supposed to say? Sherlock was, will always be, my friend. But the man I saw before my eyes, I didn't know what he was.
"'Come along, John! The game is afoot!'" he said the words in perfect impersonation, giggling hysterically at the terror contorting my countenance.
"Shall we solve a mystery then?" his voice was mocking, but I still was unable to tell if he was serious or not.
His fingers remained where they were, tearing into my scalp. His other hand moved up to his own forehead where he began to unwrap the gauze.
I was caught between the pain searing into my head and in my leg as my knees began to buckle. I was losing strength and had to use my hands to help hold me up as Sherlock continued to undress his wound.
"Why did I do this?" He jabbed a finger to his stitches, blood caking onto the tip.
"You...you fell-"
"Wrong. I jumped. And I didn't ask how, I asked why."
I was shocked into silence. I couldn't find words. I couldn't find my voice. My eyes couldn't decide whether to linger on the red stain of Sherlock's gash or the depraved stare he bore into me unendingly.
I didn't want to answer. I didn't want any of this. I didn't want this. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.
I yelped as his hand slammed hard against the wall next to my head. "Time is wasting, doctor!" Spit flecked across my face.
"I-I don't know!"
"Wrong!" His hand slammed against the wall again, this time fisted. His knuckles started to scrape raw and bleed.
"Sherlock-"
"Wrong again!"
I flinched my head to the side as the fist connected to the cement closer than before.
Blood was pounding in my ears and I couldn't stop shaking. "I don't know! You jumped!"
"Wrong!" he bellowed like a wild man. He was so close, I felt like I couldn't breathe.
"You jumped! I don't know why, Sherlock! Why did you jump? Why!?" I screamed at the top of my lungs, the sheer amount of force grating my throat and squeezing more tears from my bloodshot eyes.
"Why did you jump? No explanations, no signs!" My voice cracked and each word felt as if it etched itself into my larynx but I couldn't stop. Everything I had wanted to scream at his tombstone, at his distant form on the rooftop. Everything came spilling out.
"I thought I was your friend, Sherlock! I thought that I was the one person you could always depend on, the one you could always talk to! I thought we understood each other," I was running out of breath but I still could not stop myself. "Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped you! I could have helped! Why did you do it? Why did you leave me!"
"Shush." Sherlock's eyes panned to the back of his bashed hand. He suddenly seemed disinterested in interrogating me any further. I didn't know whether to feel relieved or anxious for what else was in store for me. Yet, I didn't dare distract him with a single word. A single twitch. Not even a breath.
He flipped his hand over and I could see with immense clarity the damage he had inflicted upon himself.
Each knuckle was torn. The skin was shredded to pieces and blood trickled out to form a single stream of scarlet. His hand looked frail and skeletal and I wondered if I wiped the blood aside if I could see his bones.
He watched the blood travel along his skin with morbid fascination. There did not appear to be pain in his eyes, not even when he released my hair from his iron grip and used that hand to jab at the open wounds.
He grinned at his blood-dipped finger tip.
"I'll tell you why," he continued eerily, not even giving me a glance as he watched his finger move slowly out towards me.
I was frozen in place, but my eyes were watching only him. The way his eyebrows knitted together in the faintest degree as his concentration mounted into absolute focus. The way the corner of his lips twitched and his eyes twinkled when success what right at his fingertips-
Cold and slippery. My forehead was swathed in something akin to that. The feeling increased as his finger dragged its way down between my upturned brows to the tip of my nose. Then I could smell it.
The scent of iron.
My stomach churned and I could taste the bile rising.
Sherlock's attention did not break as he continued to dab more fingers into his own blood.
"Sherlock, stop," I breathed through my nose, trying to control the nausea that began to coat my forehead in a sheen of sweat. No more. Please, god, no more.
He shushed me with a calmness I found disturbing. "I haven't told you why yet."
"Then just tell me!" I snapped as his blood-covered hand returned once again.
"Oh, but that would ruin the surprise."
With that, he scraped his hand across my face. Fingers drew over my eyes, my mouth, and down my neck. I could taste the bitter metal.
I opened my eyes and was revolted at the way the lids stuck to my skin. He was looking back at me, nodding in approval and letting the blood continue to seep out of his flesh.
"Ask me why."
I couldn't remove the taste of his blood from my mouth and I felt as if I were going to pass out at any moment. My voice was a whisper. "Why?"
"For the fun of it."
My knees gave way and my body collapsed to the ground. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't feel the cold, hard floor beneath me. Nothing, but the overpowering pressure in my chest as I felt all the air escape me and my powerlessness to recover any of it. I was suffocating. My heart felt as if it were tearing through my bones and skin, growing with every uncontainable beat until it filled every inch of me with its relentless, ceaseless hammering.
My vision was going. With every gasp for air I tried to make I felt my energy fading. It was as if the life was literally being sucked from my veins.
I wondered for a moment if I was going to die. I couldn't breathe. I was going to black out. There was no one to save me but myself, and I was pondering if it was even worth it.
As I blinked my eyes and saw the stars in blinding dots on the dusty, grimy cement floor, I heard him. Howling with laughter. His footsteps were dull in my head, but I could see his feet dancing around my collapsed form. He was just watching me.
Silent tears crept out from my closing eyes and I begged for the voice of reason. The voice that had helped me before. The voice that had been my companion for these long months. His voice.
I wanted him to tell me to breathe. Just keep breathing.
To tell me it was going to be alright. That this would pass.
I longed for any memory of my friend. Of Sherlock.
I tried to picture his face. His cocky smile. The roll of his eyes when I said something too obvious.
I tried.
I really did.
All I can picture, is a broken thing. A cracked reflection in the mirror that holds no semblance of what it should.
I can see eyes. They're pale and blue like they should be, but I see no familiarity within. I see someone else, something else, beneath Sherlock's skin screeching out at me with what was once his voice.
I twisted my body away when I felt skinny fingers press into my shoulder.
"Close your eyes, John."
I shuddered at the sound of my name uttered from his lips.
"Close your eyes." he repeated, his voice much lower, like this hiss of a snake. His breath swirled in my ear and I could feel the tip of his nose graze against my scalp.
So I closed my eyes.
I concentrated on the ache of my lungs and the weight in my chest. I could still taste his blood and feel it drip down my face, mixing with my tears. I could feel it all. All of it going away.
"And when I tell you to open them," I felt his face turn away for a moment before the sound of an electric lock deactivating brought him back.
Skin slipped across my hair in a sudden twitch. A grin.
"Run."
My heart stopped.
"Look alive, John," he rose to his feet. Panic started to overtake me. "Open them."
The doors flew open and guards filed in. I staggered to my feet, hopping back and watching him beam with pure, sadistic joy.
I did not linger. There was no point.
Someone grabbed my arm and I saw the expensive suit before the contemptuous sneer under that distinguished nose.
"I assure you," Mycroft dragged me back. "You will never set foot here again."
"Don't worry," I rasped. The last thing I saw of that man was his toothy grin paired with those gleaming eyes.
A tear rolled off my cheek and stained the collar of my shirt. It was red.
"I have no reason to come back."
He was gone.
AN: It has been a long time since I have updated and I apologize for the delay! Hopefully this chapter makes up for it.
Characters are owned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and BBC Sherlock's modern adaptation.
The pain I cause them is inflicted by me, unfortunately.
Enjoy!
-CJ&J
