How has this reached 100 story alert lists? I… how? I love you all so much.
I had to do a lot of rejigging because the word length was either going to be ridiculously long or weirdly short (as it is, it's of the standard marathon length), so apologies if anything seems weird.
Of all the plans Sherlock had ever made for his future, not one had contained another person.
Sherlock didn't like- wasn't like- other people. He didn't want to make idle small talk or pay false compliments or listen to rants about what he perceived as petty problems. There wasn't one human being whose company he could stand for more than ten minutes. He couldn't imagine being 'with' anyone; he simply wasn't that kind of person.
And then John came along.
It was a phenomenon, something very new and not yet understood. The electricity that arced through his body whenever John touched him was stronger than ever. The image of the gun pressed to John's head was finally fading, being pushed out by quickly yet meticulously made recordings of the feel of skin under fingers and eyelashes close enough to count and lips smiling under mine.
Yet it wasn't the intensity of feeling that stuck out to Sherlock; in fact, it was the opposite. It was how natural it felt at times. He hated the forced courtesy, and the carefully premeditated conversations designed to cater to the audience- but when that dropped away, it was something completely different.
It was that he could spend five, six hours in John's company and not mind. John seemed to improve the way he worked rather than hinder it; seemed to spark ideas within him. It was when he saw that John was cold or tired or upset, and they didn't seem like petty problems. The very fact that John wasn't happy got under Sherlock's skin, kept him from feeling comfortable in himself, drove him to do anything to fix things.
It was that it was easy to be around John. It wasn't that Sherlock forgot he was there; it was that he forgot there had been a time when he wasn't. It was definitely a curious thing, especially when Sherlock considered he hadn't even known John for two weeks. Then again, I never was one for waiting around.
After the kiss they had received the predictable parachute, and Sherlock had completely and totally ignored it. John, following his lead, did the same. The audience had taken it as a sign that they were too absorbed with each other to notice anything else, and kept sending them. Even after the third had landed, Sherlock carried on stubbornly pretending not to notice. John really hoped he wasn't reading too much into things, because what he thought that signified made him positively glow.
It was hard to wrap his head around how much one announcement had changed things. They might as well have picked his world up and turned everything in it upside down. There was so much to try and internalise. There was the possibility of Sherlock liking him, the suggestion of a future scaled in months and years rather than hours and days- and, above all, there was the freedom of getting to feel like an average seventeen year old; simply happy that the boy he wanted wanted him back.
(As for the parachutes, they had given up sending them after the fourth. Molly and Greg, having no subtext or pretence to try and deal with, had collected the food and blankets and wondered if being around Sherlock was going to turn John 'weird'.)
"He didn't think you liked him, you know," Greg said. Sherlock glanced around, but John and Molly were still at the river collecting water. Greg was definitely addressing Sherlock, then. Damn.
"What?"
"John. He didn't think you felt the way you do."
"Which is?"
The question was meant to exasperate, but there was still a filament of truth in it. As natural as it felt to be around John, it was still altering Sherlock's brain, his body. He had never experienced anything like it. His pulse sped whenever he was near John, and anxiety began to flutter the second the other boy was out of sight. Even now, when he had only been gone minutes, Sherlock was- for lack of a better word- pining. He recoiled at the thought.
"Are you always this difficult?"
"I believe as much, yes."
"Fair enough," Greg said. "But Molly likes John, and he seems like a great guy."
"So…?"
"So, don't hurt him."
"Who said I was going to do that?"
"Nobody, but-"
"Is this some repulsive attempt at a 'heart-to-heart'? If so, I'd prefer it if you stabbed me. I really would."
"Whatever," Greg said, defeated. His face lit up as Molly came slipping through the trees, John following. He hastily made his way over.
"Save me," he muttered. She giggled.
"That bad?"
"Worse."
"You managed not to kill him," John greeted Sherlock, as Molly steered Greg away. "I'm impressed."
"It was a very close thing," Sherlock murmured. He leant down and kissed John roughly on the corner of his mouth before he even realised what he was doing.
It was a silly thing- a very small thing- but on top of everything else, it threw him completely. It hadn't been premeditated. It hadn't been thought through, not at all. He had acted on impulse, on desire, and Sherlock didn't do that. He deduced, he manipulated, but he did most certainly not do things because his body/heart/whatever urged him to.
"You okay?" John frowned as Sherlock's eyes glossed over.
"Fine," Sherlock said, from somewhere far away.
"No, you aren't. What's wrong?"
"I don't know what I'm doing." The words, which Sherlock had not intended to say, came out in a flurry. What's happening to me?
"Now or in general?"
"Both," he said honestly. "This… I don't know. I think- well, I never thought- eugh, words, words are hard." Sherlock brushed past John and walked a few steps away. John rolled his eyes and followed.
"Stop being such a drama queen. Sit," he ordered, and Sherlock obeyed. John settled down by him, uncomfortable and somewhat anxious.
"Is it-"
"No, it isn't about you, I don't regret it and I don't want to change anything. Don't be an idiot."
"Well, don't be a dick," John said, though he was unable to repress a small smile. "But this is about… us, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't worry yourself over it. This is unfamiliar territory, that's all," Sherlock said, trying to brush it off.
"Have you ever had any kind of girlfriend, boyfriend- a relationship- ever?" John asked. Greg and Molly, overhearing, suddenly became very engrossed with checking the supplies.
"Obviously not, no."
"Christ. Then of course you're confused," John said. "This kind of thing is never easy- and that's without taking into account where we are and what's going on."
"What's 'going on' is that this conversation is causing me physical pain."
John snorted. "You know, for somebody so excellent at reading people, you really are awful at interacting with them."
"You can be an expert in botany yet kill anything you try and grow."
"We're going to search for more numbers," Greg announced, too loudly and rather awkwardly. "In, um, a place that isn't here. We'll be back soon."
"Stunningly put," Sherlock muttered.
"Sherlock," John said sternly. "See you soon, guys. Take care."
The 'CLX' plant had grown berries- tiny blue things that nobody trusted. The number had faded as promised, and Sherlock had divided his time equally between being with John and probing at the ground agitatedly. His delight at understanding what the numbers signified had been short-lived. He wanted to know how the Gamemakers were doing it, the process by which fruit could instantaneously grow or shrivel or transform into something deadly.
Sherlock had advised them all to keep searching for other marks, and asked them to let him know if they found anything. Nobody but Sherlock really cared about the mechanics of the thing- they had worked out how to use it to help them stay alive. What else mattered? But Sherlock did care, and so whilst they all knew Molly and Greg were using it as an excuse to get away, it was still a sweet gesture.
John waved goodbye to them both then turned back to Sherlock, who still looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Sherlock Holmes: officially the only person in the world to find battles to the death easier to handle than relationships. If John was a different person, he would take that personally.
"I can't believe it's been about two hours and you're already having an existential crisis."
Sherlock had to laugh at that. "Nobody ever said a relationship with me was going to be simple."
John's stomach flipped. "So that's what we're calling this? A relationship, I mean?"
"If you want," Sherlock shrugged. There were many, many things that concerned him about being with John, but 'labels' wasn't one of them.
"Yeah, okay," John said, working very hard to remain calm and collected.
"Are you entirely sure?" Sherlock asked. "I am not an easy person to be with."
"I don't give up easily."
"I don't really eat or sleep- sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you?"
"I already told you, no."
"I-"
"Sherlock, you've overthinking this," John said, ignoring mental references to black kettles and pots. "I mean, you've dealt with knives and guns and dehydration, for God's sake. Surely you can cope with whatever this is," John said, waving his hand in Sherlock's general direction.
He doesn't understand, Sherlock thought with a vague pang of sadness. It was understandable; John was a normal person with a normal mind. Presumably he had met people before that he had liked and had liked him back, and they had started relationships that were good then less good then bad then over. He had been raised to expect this as normal; as an intrinsic part of his life. Sherlock hadn't.
Sherlock had thought he understood the basics of attraction, but it was like understanding what happens when you're caught in a fire. Knowing logically what was happening did nothing to prepare you for what it felt like. It didn't help.
Tangled up in the desire to get sponsors and to stay alive was the basic, ever growing desire to be near John, to be with John. He couldn't always peel things apart and work out which feeling or action belonged to which category. It was all so out of control, and beyond reason, and that scared him. Sherlock could imagine it, whatever 'it' was, blocking off his brainwaves and slowing down his thinking. John made him vulnerable. John made him human.
"We're holding it together, aren't we?" John continued when Sherlock didn't reply.
"You had nightmares last night," Sherlock answered quietly. "At least four separate ones."
"I woke you up?" John asked, knocked off guard.
"That's not the point."
"Right. Okay." It took John a few seconds to get back to what he was saying. "Well, if there's one thing I learned from Harry, there's a difference between being good and being okay. Us, we're doing okay. Maybe one day we'll even do good. For now, put up with the okay and… trust me, yeah?"
"Trust you?"
"Yeah. Trust me that it'll all work out in the end. That we can make this work, even if it's all a bit chaotic and jumbled."
"You really are excruciatingly optimistic."
"Ahh, that's because you're so negative. I have to stick around to balance it out."
"You were going to leave," Sherlock stated in what he intended to be a casual manner. "Before Jupiter attacked. You had come back to tell me you were going."
"That's true," John said, knowing here was no point in hiding it. "And you can trust me that that's not going to happen. Not again. Okay?"
Another parachute dropped nearby and Sherlock rolled his eyes. John leant forwards and kissed Sherlock gently, who replied in a similar fashion.
"Crisis over?"
"Postponed."
"You're still a dick."
"And you're still an idiot."
"Glad that's settled." He kissed him again.
"Let me know if you-"
"- find anything," Molly finished. "Or if I need help, or if I get hurt. I know."
"Sorry," Greg apologised.
"No, I'm sorry, that was rude. This is just frustrating. It's too dark to see properly, even with the torch."
"At least Sherlock and John aren't in there with you."
"That… doesn't really bear thinking about."
"I wonder how long it will take them to notice we've gone."
"What do you mean? We told them."
"Yes, but I'm not sure that Sherlock registers when anyone other than John says anything."
"There's definitely an element of that. Have you seen the way they look at each other?"
"Why did you think I wanted to leave?"
"No! They're cute!"
"Seriously? I feel like I'm interrupting some deep moment every time I talk to one of them. I'm always half convinced they're about to start… you know."
"Who knows? If you hang around them long enough, maybe they'll let you watch."
"Surprisingly enough, I think I'd turn that one down."
"Shocking," Molly laughed. "Okay, there's nothing here. I'm going to go further in."
"I'm not sure that that's a good idea."
"Do you trust me?"
"Of course."
"Then stop worrying. I know what I'm doing."
"Sorry, sorry. I just don't want you to get hurt."
"You- ew!"
"What?"
"I touched something sticky. I don't know what it is, though. Eugh, that's gross."
"Moll, maybe you'd better come out."
"What happened to trusting me?"
"I do trust you, but I don't like the sound of things in there."
"It's only cave, Greg," Molly said crossly, her voice echoing off the walls. "Nothing bad's going to happen."
"All the same, maybe-"
"Shh!" The whisper hissed out of the rocky gap.
"Molly?"
"Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"The- there! Again!"
"Okay, Molly, come out. Seriously, come out now."
"Okay, I'm coming now- I just wish I knew what-"
Every drop of water and blood in Greg's body turned to ice as a bloodcurdling shriek pierced the air.
"Molly? Molly!" he shouted, tearing at the stones with his hands. The gap was too small for him to fit through- that had been why Mollyhad gone through in the first place. He hadn't wanted her to and he shouldn't have let her, but she was annoyed at him for overprotecting her as it was and-
The scream came again, and every other thought but reaching her left his mind. Something unidentifiable yelped and then snarled, and he pressed his face to the gap. In the darkness of the cavern he could just about make out a huge, black shape throwing itself at her.
The gap was still too narrow, and he could see in and reach his arms through, but his shoulders wouldn't fit. He was stuck on the outside, helplessly watching the shadows and listening to Molly's screams and wails and the grunting and scratching and snapping of something he couldn't stop or even recognise.
He fumbled for a rock and pushed his arm back through, but moving was difficult. He threw the hunk of stone but it clattered uselessly to the floor. The shape turned, head snapping towards the noise, and then an unearthly howl filled the air.
Greg stumbled backwards as a figure, hunched and ungainly, began to lunge forwards. It was only when he made out the gleam of familiar eyes that it clicked that it was Molly and he reached in. He managed to close his arms around her and haul her out.
"What happened?" he shouted, cradling her against his chest and getting to his feet. He didn't know why he was shouting when she was in his arms, far too limp and far too still but with him all the same. He couldn't seem to stay calm. "Where's the thing gone?"
"I stabbed it," she said, her voice as quiet as his was loud. "With an arrow. I think I slowed it down a bit."
"Fuck," he breathed. He was trying to run with her, but he wasn't strong enough or tall enough: whilst Molly was light, he couldn't hold her properly. For once he didn't want to look at her, didn't want to see the extent of the damage. So he kept on lumbering and moving and never glancing down, and it wasn't long before she spoke.
"Greg…"
"Yeah?"
"Stop," she whimpered. Something was wrong; very wrong. He forced himself to look down and only just caught his heart before it jumped out of his throat.
There was blood. There was so much blood, all over her and all over him and he didn't even know where it was all coming from, let alone how to stop it. He hated himself for not realising sooner, for not thinking, for assuming that just because she was breathing she was okay. He hated himself for not having the common sense to at least check, but all he had wanted to do was get her away. To shield her from anything and everything he could and figure the rest out later.
"What happened?" he asked urgently, setting her down on the limp grass.
"There was a dog, or a hound, or a, a something," she said, and she was starting to hyperventilate.
"Shh, it's okay, it's okay," he told her. He saw now that her sleeves were destroyed. They had been torn away and had pushed into her skin, dissolving into a mangled mess of flesh and fabric and- in one place that made him feel dizzy to even glimpse at- bone.
"It-," she said, and now she was gasping for air, trembling from head to foot and he still didn't know how to stop the blood from coming out, where to even start. "It tried to bite me and I put my arms up to protect myself and I wouldn't put them down and it, it bit me and it scratched me and it bit me and it didn't let go, but then you called and distracted it and I managed to get an arrow and stab it and crawl out but-"
"It's okay," he told her again. "It's only your arms, yeah? Arms are nothing. It didn't get at your heart or your lungs or anything like that, so you'll be fine, okay? People get cuts on their arms all the time, it doesn't make any difference."
"Cuts like these?" she said, and Greg faltered because he still couldn't focus on her wounds for more than a few seconds at a time. It made it much easier to think it would all be okay when he didn't have to look.
"Sure," he said. "Sure, worse than that, way worse. We can treat them- that's what you are, a Healer, right? You know that we can treat them."
"No…" she said, but he shook his head.
"No, don't you 'no' me. We can fix this, it's easy. A tourniquet or something, right? I can do that. I know I can do that."
But he didn't even know what a tourniquet was, not really. He knew you had to have material so he started trying to tear at his shirt, but the material held fast. The arrows would have been ideal, but Molly had left both the quiver and the bow in the cave, along with the torch. He felt around for a sharp rock, a twig, anything, but there was nothing.
"Greg…" she said, but he wouldn't listen.
"No! No, there's something we can do- there has to be something we can do-" His eyes lit up with a kind of madness. "The sponsors! They can send something, they can send anything."
He lurched to his feet and tilted his head to the sky. "Help!" he shouted. "Help, please!" He looked around eagerly, expectantly, but nothing fell. "Help!" he shouted again. Nothing.
"No, no, no," he moaned, head in his hands, pacing, and all the while Molly still lay crumpled nearby- a sad scar on the landscape, blood turning the grass red. He turned around and screamed at the sky.
"Come ON!" he roared. "Come on, you fucking bastards!"
"Greg!" Molly begged. "Please, don't." She was crying.
"Hey, hey, it's okay!" he reassured her frantically, dropping back to her side. "Tell you what, I'll get John. You like John, and they're not far away- oh, we never should have left, Moll. I'm so fucking sorry and we never should have left, but I can get John. He'll know what to do."
"You wouldn't make it in time."
"You don't know that," he said.
"Yes, I do," she said. "Stop pretending."
"Moll…" he began, though he had no idea what he wanted to say. What could he do? He was nothing. He was useless, and he was nothing.
"Please- stop," she said, and he did. He stopped. He stopped moving, he stopped talking, he stopped thinking about what would be right for her or what was best or what he needed to do to make it okay. He just sat. He looked at her properly- saw the blood soaking her, saturating her, and he just sat.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked quietly.
"Stay with me," she said, looking up at him with huge and imploring eyes.
"Like you could ever get rid of me." She laughed weakly. He sat down properly and pulled her head into his lap. She sobbed, a sudden hiccup, and then again.
His first impulse was to hush her, to tell her to quieten down, to beg her to stop crying. But before he could get the words out, a thought struck him: no. What gave him the right? What gave him and the Capitol the right to tell her how to spend her last few minutes? To force her to be quiet because her distress distressed them? Neither of them had that right to demand that of her; she didn't owe a thing to either of them.
Molly had spent her life holding things back, being strong for other people, repressing anything she felt wasn't appropriate or okay. As far as he knew (and, though nobody would ever tell him, he was correct), there had been one night in her entire life where she had actually told somebody that she didn't feel okay- and that had been curled up on the dirt, with the cold rain seeping in around them. It had been dipped in guilt and soaked in shame, and she had burned it from her memory and tried to do the same from his.
So, no. He wasn't asking anything of her, and he was determined that the Capitol wouldn't either. He wouldn't let them. Neither of them deserved a damned thing to make it easier on themselves.
Greg let Molly talk.
"I'm going to die," she said.
"Don't think about that," he advised gently, wiping away a tear with his thumb.
"H-how can I not? I don't want to, Greg," she said, and her words were being swallowed by her sobs and her whole body was shaking. "I don't want to die."
"I know," he said pointlessly, uselessly.
"I don't want to," she said again. "Not like this, not now."
"I know." Every word was a scalpel cutting at his heart, but he didn't tell her to stop saying them.
"I wanted more time. We were going to have more time, together. They promised us, Greg."
And he hated himself for saying "I know" yet again, but what else was there to say?
He wanted to tell her he loved her, but he didn't. Five days certainly wasn't enough time to fall in love. Molly was going to die, and the Capitol weren't just killing a seventeen year old: they were killing a twenty-one year old, a thirty-five year old, a sixty year old. Anything she might have been- anything any victim might have ever been- would be lost, nothing more than ghosts of memory and speculation.
So no, he didn't love her. Not yet. But he thought that, in time, he would have. Fuck, he would have.
"I'm gonna miss you," he said through tears. "Lots of people are."
"They won't. I'm nothing."
"No," he said.
"Yes. I'll be forgotten."
"No," he said, and it was the surest he'd been of anything all day. "No. Not once, not ever." He paused. "Not by me." She rolled her eyes to look at him and despite everything, they were still clear, still shining, still beautiful.
"Stay with me," she said again.
"I told you I would."
"Until the end?"
He swallowed hard. "Until the end."
She nodded, and the tears slowed a little for both of them. Her fingers moved blindly for his, and he closed both hands around one of her slim, pale ones.
She didn't talk much after that. Her breathing grew slower and began to rattle in her chest. She let out gurgles or moans, noises she didn't mean to make, but he didn't think that she heard any of them.
Her eyes had closed, and just when he thought it was all over, she opened them again with obvious effort. She looked at him and he looked at her, and he cradled her head in his hands and bent down to kiss her softly. She weakly kissed him back. She didn't have the energy to move her arms, but she kissed him back. He stayed close to her, one hand covering hers, the other brushing her hair loosely away from her face. The sun bleaches it. It goes darker in the winter.
He didn't realise, at first, when she was gone. There was no clear instant of passing, no feeling that something had left. It wasn't a clean-cut transition but a slow gradient- fully here to not really here to not here at all. He knew she was breathing and then, later, he knew that she wasn't. He closed her eyelids with his fingertips.
Greg didn't lie down next to the body, or kiss her again, or do anything that melodramatic. But for a short while, he stayed where he was. He kept her head in his lap and her hand in his, and the setting sun lit them like an exhibition; the sum of two nothings that had somehow made something.
