Chapter 13: On Wings of Truth~
Sherlock woke without opening his eyes, feeling like his eyelids were ceiled with slabs of stone, like ancient tombs.
The shadow of the Major loomed over him. His rescuer. He felt that he should be grateful, and yet somehow he almost wished he hadn't saved him.
Sherlock was ready to go back to Sleep.
That would be over John Watson's dead body.
He felt John's tender hands on either side of his face.
"Open your eyes ,mate...Let me see your eyes..." he was saying ,softly.
The world began to ebb and flow back to him like the tide. Whether he was ready for it or not, he was awake. The winter breathed into his face, and the sun kissed him like his mother would when he was an infant and he woke. He blinked, as his eyes adjusted to the light that seemed to emanate from John.
"Hey..." John laughed, drawing a hand over his brow.
"Sinead." Sherlock breathed.
The Major turned, a lead pipe with blood smeared on it in his one hand. The other hand held a pair of wings he'd ripped off the man's costume.
"I've given him a fair warning, Sherlock..."
"By which he means he gave him a sound beating. Nothing like what he's done to you though..." John hissed, a gentle hand on Sherlock's chest keeping him from sitting up.
"...He was Mr. Yeats best friend...A love triangle, or more like a love square, really...Didn't know people had those?" Sherlock muttered, grinning at how clever this all was.
"Usually they don't. Oi, lie still!"
"So, he was in love with the Baroness, the Baroness was in love with Yeats, Yeats wasn't really in love with either of the two sisters, and the Mistress went mad over Yeats, which set this whole carousel into motion? And this is the reason why I have come to the conclusion not to fall in love...Least I did,...but a different kind."Sherlock muttered.
John swallowed, and reached and gingerly began to pull Sherlock's long dark coat off.
"Your coat is ruined..."
Just then Mycroft, Hansel and Gretel came running to the scene.
"Oh my God!" Gretel sobbed, standing on shaking knees.
"Well, I have lots of coats...It's alright."
"We're spending the winter in Finland, and possibly Chernobyl. Tell me you brought another coat." John demanded, and Sherlock nodded ,wishing he wasn't being so fussy. His head was hurting, with all the glare of light about him. Sometimes he didn't like the light...he wanted darkness...it felt safer, somehow warmer...Than all this daylight. This being awake.
There was one light that felt warm, one light that felt safe. Rather than being a sun ,ablaze and glaring through the day, exposing his broken soul, he was more like a North Star, a soft light,a guiding light, a healing light, a wishing light. One you could safely entrust your heart with...
John.
Sherlock shivered, and his hand swept through the air. Why was that girl crying so much? What exactly was Hansel shouting about, and clutching at his mouth for? Why was Mycroft leaning against the wall, panting like that? Why were they all so UPSET? This was what he did. He bled, he got hurt. He got up and closed his veins, and got back to work again. All of this...fussing...his stomach was twisting, like a viper in the snow...all of it too cold...too bright...He felt wet and sticky on his stomach too...oh right...he'd bled out on himself. The wind blew over the hooks turned to rings that were digging into him, twisting his ribs. He felt pain howl through his body like a wolf dying from hunger pangs, lonely and familiar, and still seeking for relief where he wasn't going to find it. Sherlock wished the old Pain-Wolf would stop prowling through his bones. Just go back to Sleep...
"If you all would just stop crying for a second, we could CONCENTRATE!" Sherlock growled, head thumping against the snow.
John's gentle hands stilled him again. His voice reached him like some mist released drug...There was only one person alive that could make him feel so...human. Make that be ok.
John very gently cupped his hand around the nape of Sherlock's neck, and tilted his head to looking at him.
"Listen. We'll get back to work in a little while. That bloke confessed to everything anyway, before you blacked out, so you really don't have any work to do at the moment ,mate. Major gave him a good beating, so he won't be back for Round 3 anytime soon. You're job now is not dying on us, though you may have to take it as easy as you can, for a bit. You've bled too much, Your ribs are twisted; if you move the wrong way before I get rid of these hooks, they could snap. And pulling these hooks out, the way that they are shaped,...it will hurt."
Sherlock sniffed, like he doubted it would be all that bad. John really couldn't believe it. He'd been hard on his body before...but...
He had told him about his torment ,though. Had told them there was a lot of it that his memory wasn't perfectly clear on, from blood loss and what not. Believe it or not, this was actually being let down easy for Sherlock Holmes.
Shaking his head, John opened his medical bag. He had a pair of forceps in there...for cases of partial impalation from shrapnel that he'd dealt with in the pass. He'd never used them for anything as big as these hooks before though. Then he looked at the surgical saw.
"Sherlock...this is really going to hurt ..."
Sherlock just lay there, looking up at John trustingly.
John had Mycroft press Sherlock down by the shoulders, so he could run the saw back and forth on the hooks turned rings, so he could cut them in half and pull them out again.
The others were bracing themselves for the worse. Tortured facial expressions, screams, possible blows, and curses, and weeping, and shaking, and begging, ...things they usually associated with a person in the sort of traumatic pain Sherlock had to be in ,whether he would admit it or not. But he did none of those things. He just closed his eyes, and drew rattling breaths, sometimes his breathing turning very shallow, or stopping altogether, if the saw slipped a bit, and John jerked the hooks too hard.
John and Mycroft exchanged nervous glances whenever their eyes met. Not afraid that Sherlock would take a turn for the worse, not afraid what his reaction would be to so much pain. Deeply disturbed that he was taking it so well. Wondering what sort of hell Moriarty's world really had been like...
Very carefully John eased the hooks out, letting the slack on his ribs go slowly, so they wouldn't break. He had known men, soldiers, that would be crying like babies right about now. Sherlock just laid there, occasionally looking up at the sky with glassy eyes...as if impatient for this to be over.
Suddenly, Mycroft did something John didn't expect. He started running his hands through Sherlock's jet curls, smoothing them back, looking down into his face from right side up, and Sherlock looked up at him from upside down.
"You...you are in pain...aren't you? You aren't so numb that you don't feel anything?" asked Mycroft, for once in his life sounding not so sure of himself.
"Oh God ,yes..." Sherlock said, voice slightly more shaky than before. "Just not reacting to it...Problem?"
"Oh no...just concerned you may be damaged more than the good doctor was telling me."
"When it comes to Sherlock's life, I coöperate with you 100 percent." John was quick to correct him.
"Of course someone will need to relate the whole confession to me...after the part where I blacked out...so that I can scan it for holes; he could have been lying."Sherlock interrupted them.
"True...and of course we will! I will..." John was suddenly babbling..."We can talk about it all day long if you like...all week even..."
He wasn't really sure what he was saying next, just kept talking, just needed to talk to him, because he still could. Cleaned off his blood, bandaged him tightly.
Suddenly wishing this wretched case was over. Wanting to take him home. It really wasn't about the thrill of the hunt for him anymore...even if it used to be. Now it was just about getting Sherlock, his Sherlock, not this mentally unwell version, back.
God, how he loved him! How he wanted him to know, how he wished he didn't hurt anymore. Was hoping, was praying to God in heaven, that something would just happen that would bring his Sherlock back to him, blowing off a windy Baker Street, hair a mess, eyes lit up like a maniac, raving about something he solved and "what a brilliant murder".
Almost missed it when that something did ,at last, happen.
"The wings of truth?" asked Gretel, looking at what Major was holding.
Everybody turned to her...
"He didn't tell you that part?" she asked.
Mycroft swallowed..."It sounds like we are in need of a chat. John, do take him upstairs. We 'll all be up shortly."