A/N And finally onto the chapters that I'm actually HAPPY with, and which have more than faint glitters of romance. (Chapter 9, guys. I'm telling you. Just hang in there.) Anyways, onwards!
Thanks to No reviewers last chapter. This time? Please?
Disclaimer I don't own Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc.
[6/10]
A violent, bitter taste was starting to creep through his mouth, around his tongue, down his throat. Churning in his stomach. To hear those words in such an innocent voice... the tablecloth, dark red, seemed to be burning into his eyes. It had blood on it. Really yucky.
Really yucky.
Out of nowhere, he felt a hand squeezing his forearm, painfully tight, and yet he hardly seemed to feel it. The words were slicing through his mind over and over. Really yucky, really yucky, really yucky...
Sherlock's voice managed to find its way into his hearing, dark and quick and insistent. "We have to go. John-" His arm was being pulled on, but he wasn't there, not really. He was in the freezer again, with the cold, the ice, turning a corner, seeing it all over again... it... the it which had, at one point, been a her...
It had blood on it. Really yucky.
At some point, through the unbearable cacophony of the words and images suffocating him, he realized that they were outside, the he was stumbling along a sidewalk, that his whole body was shaking. We can't leave them behind, he thought vaguely, can't just... I'll be fine... but he wasn't fine, wasn't fine at all. It was like the girl, the poor, naive little girl's words had been some sort of trigger for this... what was this? He couldn't think clearly, and kept flickering before the present- dark pavement, a chill to the air, Sherlock still gripping his arm insanely hard- and the freezer- the horrible, garish bloodstains against the pristine perfection of the cold, hard, glittering floor... a mass of frozen, icy hair and a stiff body, cold and dead... the pain, the awful, insanely wicked pain of a hot, sharp bullet tearing through the flesh of his shoulder...
At some point, he felt himself sitting down and realized that they were in a cab, that he was being taken home. Thank you, he thought weakly to Sherlock through the mist of agonized memories, thank you for not making me stay there...
There was a muttered question from someone who must have been the driver, a growled response that came from where he assumed Sherlock to be, right next to him... the detective didn't sound as though he was in the best of moods, and John felt a twinge of worry that had nothing to do with the recollections flooding his skull. I don't want to make you upset. Don't be upset for me...
Then they were out again, outside with the wind whispering past, inside, in the flat, on the stairs, the door was opening and then he could see the familiar living area of 221B through the hazy images of the freezer that seemed permanently superimposed over his eyes.
Now there were two hands gripping his arms, one on each, and he was being forced into a chair, his chair. But even its familiar contours couldn't come anywhere near soothing him. He felt trapped, trapped in something that wasn't even happening.
Help me.
"John." Sherlock's voice, cutting through the pain like a sleek knife, getting straight to him, so that, for a moment, reality seemed much more vivid. For a moment, he was able to concentrate on his surroundings, on the man standing before him, staring with a chilling intensity into his eyes, fingers now secured tightly around John's own wrists. "Are you okay? Can you hear me?"
He tried to nod, but wasn't sure whether or not the command went all the way through to his nerves, to his muscles, whether or not the action was actually executed.
Why can't I stop thinking about it? It feels like it's happening all over again.
Almost like a response to his thoughts, Sherlock began talking lowly, rapidly. "I haven't seen anything exactly like this before, but I'm sure it's some sort of panic attack. Just- just concentrate on me, all right? Concentrate on my voice. I'm talking to you. You're here, you're in 221B, and whatever you think you're seeing- it's over, now, okay? It's all over. You're imagining it. Just imagining it. That's not happening. It's not real. This is here, this is real. Are you listening to me?"
The words were drifting by, and John couldn't quite bring himself to pay all that much attention to them. There were too many, too fast, and the echoes of the part were too strong to resist. His stomach was churning violently, and he realized that he was shaking, shaking rather hard.
"Just relax. Relax. It's not happening. Lean back. Breathe."
"I can't," he gasped out. It was the first time that he was actually aware of his own talking, and it was reassuring, somehow, to know that he still had some meager measure of control over himself.
"Yes, you can. Just... slow down. Slow down. Focus. I'm here, I'm right here- focus!" The hands were even tighter now, and it suddenly occurred to John that Sherlock actually seemed to be, well, worried, almost alarmed... almost... frightened. But, no, that was ridiculous. He was just... but he was. The oh-so-cool consulting detective seemed, unbelievably, to be losing control in his... desperation.
Desperate? Why should he be desperate?
"Please just focus."
Please? The present and the past were already twisted up an absurd amount- maybe he was hearing things now. Because there was no way, no way that Sherlock would even sink low enough to beg, especially not to him.
"Are you listening to me?" Now the voice was growing angry. "I said that you need to focus! Don't just- you're ignoring me, you idiot-"
He was focusing, through. The words that he heard were clear, the clearest thing that he was aware of at the moment. Clearer than the memories that were obscuring his senses. Clearer than the wobbly images that were all he processed of his actual surroundings.
"I'm not ignoring you," he rasped, breath catching in his throat. His stomach really did feel awful, and he made sure to clamp his mouth shut tightly.
"Then why aren't you-" Sherlock cut himself off, breathing slowly, heavily. "Just... you have to do this. Just relax. Relax for me."
Some sort of panic attack, indeed. It was probably the most frightening thing Sherlock had ever seen, though, of course, that could have come from the fact that it was happening to John. The blonde doctor was completely rigid, his lungs moving in small, convulsive movements, his eyes distant and his whole body shaking. It was... disconcerting to know that these demons were attacking John from the inside, that there was no way for he, Sherlock, to physically stop them... the only weapons he had were the weak ones that were his words, and that clearly wasn't getting him anywhere.
John had said, though, just now, that he wasn't ignoring him. That was something. "Try," Sherlock demanded. His voice remained firm, but he felt as though his insides were crafted of too-thin glass, shaking under the pressure and ready to shatter at any moment. Make him- get him to... how? How do I do this?
"Keep... talking," John whispered.
"What?"
"Your voice- it... helps."
Well, anything that helped was amazing. So he instantly began to speak- about anything, everything, really, that didn't have to do with the freezer, that didn't have to do with Sarah or Moriarty. Instead, he went on about how little he'd had to do lately, and how he'd been managing to occupy his time otherwise. About all the little experiments he'd been carrying out, many of which had let loose quite a stench through the house- he teetered on the brink of actually apologizing for that, then decided not to. That would be such a bizarre thing, coming from him, that it would probably just confuse John yet further. This thought struck him as vaguely amusing, but he shoved down the hint of laughter that tickled his throat, knowing that this was hardly the time for it.
"Lestrade actually told me that he had a case of some sort he'd tell me about if I agreed to take you to that absurd imitation of a dinner party," he continued without skipping a beat, his mind having plotted out any number of subjects that could keep him talking for as long as necessary. "Of course, as you saw, he didn't even approach bringing that up. Might have, I suppose, if we'd stayed longer, but honestly? I was going mad with that place."
"It was nice," John protested, and to Sherlock's relief, his words were a little clearer, his voice a little stronger.
"To you, maybe. But the cats, not to mention the children- absolutely ludicrous. Almost like they were putting on some sort of show for us."
"But they weren't," John murmured. His gaze had shifted down, aiming at the floor rather straight into the air, and his muscles seemed slightly less stiff. "That's how they live. That's... what it's like for them."
Sherlock wasn't sure how to respond to this, but when silence began to fill the flat again dangerously, he blurted out the first thing on his mind.
"Do you wish it was like that for you?"
The silence here was much longer, at least a full minute, but all the time, John seemed to be calming down more and more. His breathing was almost normal now. Finally, he spoke, the words sounding small in the hollowness of the empty room.
"I think... I would've liked it... if it had ended up that way."
He's putting sentences together, full sentences, Sherlock noted in the back of his mind. Good, that's good. Shows that he's regaining more control. But, even as these positive thoughts came through, he felt a vague unhappiness at the words themselves.
"And it probably would've, with Sarah and me. Honestly, I... thought we had something for a while there. Of course it would be ruined, though."
Sherlock glanced up swiftly at him, concerned about what effect the mention of her might have. But he still seemed quite composed.
"Still, I... I never would've been able to leave this life. This absolutely mad life." He shook his head, and gave a small laugh that sounded more like a choked cough. "And I'm... well... as horrible as I feel about her... I think I'm glad that I didn't leave this. I think I'm glad that..." His eyes suddenly met Sherlock's, and the detective couldn't help the elevation of his heart rate when confronted with the beautiful blue-tinted hazel, staring straight at him. "I think I'm glad that I didn't leave you."
Sherlock truly had nothing to say to that. He looked sideways, in the general direction of the ground, and realized that his breath had stopped completely. Even if he had words to say, he doubted his voice would come. He could hear the pounding of his own heart in his ears, and clenched his hands into loose fists in an attempt to calm himself down. He couldn't handle getting worked up, not now, not when he still had to help John.
But the doctor actually seemed to be handling himself fairly well. He slowly settled back into the chair, letting out a low sigh. "Thank you. For that. I'm sorry that I... lost control there."
"It's not your fault," Sherlock replied automatically.
"Don't be stupid, of course it was my fault." He raised a hand, no longer shaking, and slowly ran it through his own hair. "My bloody fault that I can't even handle a poor kid talking about bacon..."
"It's normal," Sherlock replied automatically, even though, from what he'd seen, it was anything but. "She triggered a painful and shocking memory. Nothing you could've done about that."
"Do you really think so?"
"I do."
"Well, then. Thanks for that, I suppose," John muttered. "I'm tired, though, really tired. S'pose this is goodnight."
"Are you sure you're okay?" Sherlock checked warily.
"Yeah, I'm fine now. I'm fine."
"If you're sure," he insisted, backing away from the chair so that his flat mate had room to stand. He was reluctant to let John out of his sight, even in knowing that he could hardly not.
"Positive," the doctor half-yawned, already traipsing out the door. "You should try to sleep, too. That would be good for you, God knows it doesn't happen enough." Then it was shut behind him, and the flat was silent save the hollow, creaking sounds of the stairs as he moved up them, leaving Sherlock behind- the opposite of how things usually worked.
The detective sighed quietly, a short sound that he cut off almost instantly when its volume was magnified by the empty room. He didn't want to hear anything reflecting how he felt internally. It was too painful. Well, not painful, exactly, just... exhausting.
Extremely exhausting.
Might as well sleep while you can.
Still, it took a long time for him to move from where he stood. John's departure had been... too abrupt, and now he was left feeling as though something was missing, like there was an invisible object he was tied to, keeping him in position, stopping him from moving.
There was nothing, though, of course. Nothing but his own, overly burdened thoughts, which had grown yet heavier and harder to carry over the course of the night. One would think that own confusion might diminish, leaving room for this newly expanded worry, but things weren't as kind as that. Instead, he somehow managed to feel a whole new tangle of upset on top of everything else, even though he was sure that he'd previously been at his maximum.
It wasn't fair, caring about people, or even one person. He couldn't control it, couldn't hold it at bay, and that was driving him absolutely mad.
Would I stop it if I could, though?
As alarming as it was, he couldn't be sure that he had an answer to that.