Warning: Mentions of violence/torture ahead.
Interlude: Sands of Afghanistan
John ducked instinctively as a blast expanded outwards, shredding the air with chunks of rock, metal, and cascades of hot sand. The concussive boom thundered inside his chest and rattled his brain inside his head. He blinked his eyes and shook his head, looking around for the rest of his company. John frowned as no one appeared around the short walls made of dried clay. He could clearly hear the chatter of gunfire and the muffled explosions all around him, but there was no one in sight. Fear clung to his insides like an oil slick. Where was everyone?
"John!" He heard his name being called, but it was a new voice…a voice he hadn't placed in his company. Also…no one ever called him John. His men called him Captain or Captain Watson. His equals called him Watson. His patients called him Doctor. No one here called him John. He squinted in the bright sunlight, looking around for the source of the call.
Then… he frowned as he saw a man in a dark suit and a tan trenchcoat jogging towards him. The man was tall and tanned, his head covered in silvery hair that was definitely not military regulation. He didn't seem to care that his shiny shoes were being filled with sand as he came up to John. John gripped his rifle tighter in his hands.
"John!" the man said as he came closer. "John."
"Who are you?" John yelled.
"John!" the man called again, John's question apparently unheard.
John opened his mouth to respond, but instead he let out a gasp as a searing pain cut across his chest. He looked down to see that his fatigues had been sliced open right below his left nipple and a thin line of blood was welling up and spilling over on to his chest. He gaped at the wound and his brain reeled at the impossibility. He let out another cry as another sharp pain ripped up the right side of his abdomen from his ribs to his hip. This one was deeper and the blood oozing out was a darker crimson. John dropped his rifle and sunk into the sand, one hand clasped to his side and one reaching for his medkit.
"John!" John tore his gaze upwards as another slash appeared under his collarbone. The man with silver hair was rippling like a mirage, but he was slowly morphing into someone else. John blinked harder in an effort to make himself focus. Another slash to the other collarbone.
The mirage settled and a name slipped from John's lips. "Sherlock…" John's hallucination of the tall, pale man just blinked at him. John whimpered as another deep slash opened, this time on his thigh. John just watched the red liquid seep from his body and stain the yellow sand around him. He looked back up at the Sherlock-mirage. "Please, Sherlock," he begged. "Make it stop."
The mirage sneered at him. "The soldier begs," it said, the baritone voice hazy and echoing slightly, like it was coming out of a speaker. The illusion swirled as it turned away and walked off into the horizon, eventually becoming one with the yellow of the sand and the blue of the sky. John felt tiny slices open up on the palm of his hand but he just sank back into the soft sand, not caring for once that the hot, gritty particles were seeping into his uniform. He felt more and more pain shooting into every nerve ending, but John Watson was beginning to find that he really didn't care.