A/N: Found this start in an old notebook.
I've been away for a while, because I'm exhausted by work these days, and have no words left. It should get better as I find my rhythm. Might post slower though. -csf
1.
The softest, most careful and tentative touch on my shoulder rouses me from deep slumber. Given my personal history as a soldier in an active warfront, it's not much surprise to any of the two of us that I come back to with a start and halfway through a raised fist. Then I blink and the rest of Sherlock's familiar contours come though the thick haze in my mind, reassuring me instantly. My tight fist melts and my arm lowers before I can gather words to speak out loud.
It's only my mad friend, waking me up in the middle of the night, gently guarding himself against my explosive reflexes.
He doesn't seem at all troubled by my reaction. In fact, he expected it, as proven by his reasonable precautions. No, if anything I sense he is guarded, but not as someone would predictably steal themselves from danger or the volatile outbursts of a disoriented soldier. My friend keeps his movements contained and close to his body, making himself small, trying not to startle me, worrying about the toll it takes on me.
It's an instant and perilous journey back from the Afghan war to the familiar London and Sherlock always waits tensely for that spark of recognition in my eyes, followed closely by a hint of confusion and subsequent shame, proof beyond doubt that I made it back once again. That I'm the John Watson he knows once again.
Complicit, as if reading my mind's inner works, Sherlock finally lowers a calm hand on the duvet over my leg, in his instinctive familiarity that never feels wrong when it comes from Sherlock, and he leans forward, raptured expression and wide eyes stuck on mine.
'Good night, John', he tells me, very serious.
'Wha— What?' I blink, tiredly. Why am I so foggy? Have I not slept at all? Or have I overslept too much?
Has he put something in my coffee again?
'I'd say "good morning" to you', Sherlock elaborates, 'but it'd hardly be accurate. It's the middle of the night, John, you were fast asleep, and I'm willing to pretend I did not see you drooling slightly over your pillow', he adds magnanimously. 'Most of all, know that we are safe and no immediate harm should befall on us.'
I blink again. Good to know.
Sounds a bit fake, when laid out like that though.
'Are you hurt, Sherlock?'
Did one of Sherlock's science experiments go horribly wrong? Is he in need of medical attention? Is that it?
I raise myself on my elbows, breathing shallow and fast.
'I am well, John. Why would you ask me that?' he grimaces in distaste.
'I don't know. Force of habit?' I say, sheepishly. Then, raising myself some more from my creased bedsheets, I conclude: 'So, huh, case then?'
He came to collect me, he needs me at a particularly gruesome crime scene, the type that usually cannot wait.
Sherlock shakes his head briefly.
'None that cannot wait for a more civilised time of day.'
'Hmm... Is there a fire?' I don't know what to think here.
Sherlock looks outraged. 'Obviously not, John! I had the fire extinguisher at hand the whole time!'
I sigh. Good to know.
'Sherlock, why did you wake me up?' I ask patiently to the inordinately shy detective, being cagey. Why are we playing twenty questions?
He clears his throat and focuses those green honest eyes on mine. I gulp dry at their intensity.
'I wanted you awake...'
'Go on', I incentivise, like one would to a small, stuttering child.
'Because the world is going funny.' And he looks around us significantly. But there is only dusk in the familiar room, and I don't get it. I reach out to the bedside table lamp and click it on.
'What do you mean the world is going funny?'
'Time has come to a standstill, John. Come and see for yourself if you don't believe me! I woke up in the middle of the night and everything had stopped. I... I woke you up to make sure you were alright, John. I didn't like seeing you frozen too.'
I can just about make out the genuine shudder that ripples through his thin frame.
'Sherlock, that makes little sense', I warm him. 'Maybe you had a bad dream. Then often feel real enough', I try to parent the adult at my bedside, who has woken me up in search for comfort after "the world stopped".
'John', he calls my name passionately. 'Whenever you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Have I not repeated it times enough?'
I shrug. 'Yeah, I guess, but what does that even mean?'
He smirks. 'It means I don't get it either, but it can't be rebuked as a fact. Come and see for yourself, John. Our reality is under attack. The time continuum has frozen and we must restart it somehow.'
I push the remainders of my bed covers away.
'Maybe we're still asleep, Sherlock? This could be your dream, or mine.'
He nods, not overtly confident, and I step out of the bed and into his odd, fascinating, standstill world.
.
After a first glimpse out of the window onto the quiet street outside – a couple of cars stopped in the middle of the road, absolute silence as London never really knows, and one solitary passer by playing statue mid step – I insisted on getting dressed for an investigation.
Sherlock found my societal instincts amusing for, as he describes it, there is no proof that anyone else apart from him or those he awakes (he has that power as demonstrated in me) are really living the moment like we are. Seize the day. Carpe diem.
Seize the infinitesimal second, more like it. We are cramming minutes, on our way to hours, in this one glitch of time.
Can't really get over it myself.
Not even as we stand outside, in the freezing middle of the night, staring at a strange man playing statue of himself.
'I say he was drunk', Sherlock cuts my abstractions and shock with the sanctimonious deduction. 'Judging by his clothes, the direction he came from and the drifting whiff of a mix of rums, he came from his 30th birthday celebration at the Zombie Club, after a short and unsatisfying sexual encounter on a side alley with his long life partner.'
'Faithful, huh? That makes a change on your usual grim deductions, mate.'
'Not my fault, humanity can be flawed at times. It is not infrequent to find vices in those who are criminals or who fall victims of serious crimes. But if it helps you restore your cynical faith in society he lied; he's turned 32.'
I smirk at that. Then lose my smirk quickly.
'Sherlock, what if he's trapped like that but he can hear and see all around him?'
'Firstly, John, he's really drunk, I doubt he'd make much sense of our words. Secondly, he can't hear or see us, or interact in any way.'
'How do you know that?' I face him. He faces me.
'It's happened to me before, this time freeze. I guess I'm a bit prone to these glitches', he admits. 'Having your company, John, is a first, though. One I'm enjoying immensely.'
.
TBC
