HI ALL! Just a shortish precursor chapter to get back in the swing of things! We're back with Sherlock for the first time in what feels like a long, long time- which is technically is since we haven't heard from him in like three months wow
- anyways, thanks for waiting! we're more than halfway done now, with about fifteen chapters left!
In four seconds, he will open his eyes. For now, though, he's comfortable. He's on the sofa, his head cradled on the lap of a union jack pillow, his two hands steeples under his chin. He is thinking. He is solving. There is nothing better than that.
In three seconds, he will open his eyes. For now, though, he's feeling all right, definitely all right enough to keep lying down. He thinks, maybe, he's actually in bed; yes, he feels the soft fabric of his sheets pulled across his body. He's decided to sleep in his suit, he thinks- he'd been up for so long, he didn't have the time to change or even take his shoes off. Strange.
In two seconds, he will open his eyes. For now, though, he's feeling a bit peculiar. He thinks, perhaps, there might be something crawling on his arm; a spider, or a small fly. He wills himself to keep from swatting it off— he thinks, maybe, he is not at home at all, and it would seem rude to swat at someone else's spiders. He forgets why he thinks that.
In one second, he will open his eyes. He's looking forward to that moment, but he must exercise his restraint— he feels someone's eyes looking at him, and he's pretty sure he can hear them laughing. He doesn't feel safe here. He realises for the first time that he has no idea where he is.
It's almost one second past, but he does not open his eyes. He feels hairy legs crawling on his face, insects in his jacket, a snake slithering past his arm, but he does not move an inch to swat them off. He does not scream as he places a face to the laughter— soft, slightly crumpled, tanned from years of service. He deserves this.
Before the fifth second is up, his eyes burst wide.
Sherlock gasps, then proceeds to breathe deeply for several long, legato moments. He hears his heart beat. He sees stars. He jumps to his feet to swat the bugs and snakes and spiders off of him, even though he knows that nothing will be there.
He surveys his surroundings.
He had been home— thankfully. Not on the bed, nor on the sofa— it seems that in his sleep he had fallen onto the floor, wedged in between the coffee table.
All of the furniture had been pushed to the sides, all the walls covered with tape and information— and nothing led him anywhere. Months of leads and it led him to more dead ends than in all of Crete, more thread than Ariadne. Moriarty was good, and Sherlock was better, he knew he was better, but he just needed time. He needed more resources.
He needed to stop falling asleep.
He had fallen asleep again and had had a nightmare.
No, he hadn't.
When he stands up, he kicks something under the sofa, where it had been collecting dust for some months beforehand. Let it collect dust. He'd always come back to brush it off in the end.
He finds nothing in the cupboards. Nothing in the fridge. Someone's taken the table and the chairs that go with it— maybe Mrs. Hudson has been rescuing her furniture.
Maybe's he's sold them.
He tries to remember.
John Watson died today.
It's all over the news— it always is. Every week, another John Watson dies. They've— Moriarty's lackeys— stopped looking for people who look like John. Now they're just killing any bloke unfortunate enough to be named John Watson. It's a sniper who's killing them; they're shooting them through windows from other buildings.
Imagine that.
That's seven Watsons, dead. And they still think that Sherlock has something to do with it.
Well, it's not Sherlock's fault that everyone's an idiot who doesn't want the truth, only the most interesting climax. No one can distinguish the 10 o'clock news from the movies anymore. No one wants to. If Sherlock lives or dies, who cares? He's just another character.
He never quite liked fiction. Couldn't bring himself to care.
Anyways, he already had a method of escapism that worked just well enough for him, thank you.
Speaking of—
Later. Always later. There was no fun in indulgence.
He grabbed his laptop from the floor and sat on the kitchen floor, feeling the coolness of the tile seep through the fabric of his trousers. He had been wearing his suit. It felt odd, ill-fitting.
He stretched his fingers before typing in the search bar; flexing lithe digits stiff from disuse. Where was his violin? When was the last time he played it?
He didn't feel like looking for it. He didn't feel like playing it.
He felt like something, though.
No. No, not that again. You were doing so well. Cold Turkey, remember?
Cold Turkey. Uncertain etymology, surfacing around 1910-1920s. American Origin, possibly from the phrase 'to talk turkey,' meaning to discuss something seriously. Possibly because of the little preparation that goes into meals involving cold turkey after holiday dinners.
This is useless.
He checks the news online, which mostly includes opening a new tab, browsing through it for four seconds, and closing it in tedium. He changes his sitting position— sitting up, laying down, on his side, crossed-legged— but can't seem to get comfortable.
He thinks he might be hungry. He can't figure it out. Instead, he decides to forget about that and the cold on his skin, the way his hair knotted at the ends.
He keeps falling into these pits.
He keeps letting himself.
His one weakness is himself, he knows this— he prided himself upon it, once upon a time when it was still true. His only weakness was his selfishness. He would do exactly what he needed to do for himself. Nothing more, nothing less. Why would he?
He used to like to think of John Watson as a sort of extension of himself, so as to not break his well-tried model above— caring, defined here as a desire to ensure wellbeing, is only necessary when one speaks of one's self. He cared for Sherlock, who cared only for Sherlock, and who was the only person who cared for Sherlock— that made him Sherlock, for the purposes of this exercise.
He doesn't think of John Watson anymore.
Not without the blood seeping through all of his jumpers, his blog turned red and dried brown. Not without seeing him, not very far away and about a storey higher. Not without hearing his voice, just within earshot.
Not without wanting to tear his hair from his roots.