Part Three: Heed No Nightly Noises
John Watson took the apple and the riding crop – tangible things that he could see and hold and smell (and probably taste too, if he fancied it, though he didn't find that idea very appealing) – as proof that he wasn't completely losing his mind, and that maybe, just maybe, the dreams were amounting to something more than a weekly disturbance. Of course, if he thought about it in another way, they could be taken as a sign that he'dalreadylost his mind, and was just two steps and a jig away from being institutionalized. Nobody else had seen them after all, and he half suspected that he'd have nothing to show if he suddenly felt like sharing.
Whatever the case actually was, he faced the prospect of the next Thursday's dreams with considerably less trepidation. And that, in turn, helped him keep his composure when someone walked up to him outside a restaurant, spat in his face, and stalked off without a word. John didn't know her. She could have been anyone – an earlier client of Sherlock's, a relative of somebody who'd been convicted on Sherlock's evidence, a disgruntled ex-fan – and going after her, he felt, just wasn't worth the trouble. Greg, who he'd met for dinner to discuss the murder of a painter's wife and her supposed lover (the D.I. was only just getting back into good graces at New Scotland Yard and thus could not be seen toting John to crime scenes), was shocked and affronted, not least because John did nothing more than swear a bit and reach for his pocket handkerchief. He'd have gone after to her to issue a sharp rebuke at the very least if the doctor hadn't stopped him.
"It's all right," said John, wiping his face and weighing the merits of ducking back into the restaurant for a quick wash in the restroom. Then he realized what he'd said, and corrected himself, "Well, no, it's not. But it happens, and it could have been worse. Much worse. You probably get it too."
"Yeah," said Greg darkly, "but I'm a copper. I've hadto learn not to let shit like that turn my head."
"And I was a soldier in Afghanistan. We weren't exactly popular with everyone." John smiled to make light of it, and started to walk. "Anyway," he continued as Greg fell in beside him, "it's not all bad. Have you seen that graffiti they still do? The 'I believe in Sherlock Holmes' stuff? That's nice."
"Illegal too, but not my division anymore, thank God." Greg gave John a close look and put a hand on his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go for a pint. You look like you could use one."
On any other day of the week, John would have welcomed the invitation, with buckets (or perhaps glasses or mugs or even tankards) of enthusiasm. But as it was, he checked his watch, though there was no real need to, and said, "No, I can't, sorry. I, er, need to get some sleep."
"Sleep in tomorrow then. Isn't Thursday your day off?"
"Yes, but this is important." John realized as he said it that it didn't sound right. In fact, it fell very much in the realm of feeble excuses.
And, indeed, Greg looked at him askance. "Suddenly getting the full eight hours is important?"
"Well, it's supposed to be. And it's not that. It's—" He hesitated, pressed his lips together. The last thing, the very last thing he wanted was for the D.I. to think he was pushing him away, but telling him the whole truth might do as much harm as not saying anything. He sighed. "I get these dreams," he said. "Not ofSherlock, but about him. Sort of. Every Thursday morning, like clockwork." And he stopped there, unsure of how much explaining would be too much. "They're important," he said weakly.
"Christ," said Greg. He was quiet for a little while, as if he was trying to decide which part of John's statement to latch on to. "EveryThursday?" he said at last.
"Clockwork," repeated John with a slightly strained grin. "Ever since." He didn't have to elaborate on that.
"Christ," said Greg again. There wasn't much else he could add to that. He knew John was already seeing a therapist (though God knew how effective that really was), and, frankly, he knew that sometimes you just had to get by in whatever way you could. Still, he had to ask, "It's been three years, John. Doesn't that scare you?"
The doctor didn't even need to think about it. "I'm not afraid," he said, and it was true.
It was still true as he got ready for bed in his empty flat (a worried-looking Greg had dropped him home), and it was true when he found himself following the bouncing ball. It was small and blue and rubber, and he was almost certain that he'd seen it before. The thing was also going so fast that he almost had to jog to keep up until it finally stopped at the foot of a mountain where there was a path leading upwards, weaving this way and that through vast heaps of big black stones on each side. There was something he needed at the end of it, more than a source of great knowledge or any number of home improvements. The way was steep and difficult, but John figured it couldn't possibly be as difficult as the glass hill.
But he hadn't counted on the voices. There were a thousand of them or more, and they started the instant he set foot on the path. They began as a murmur, low and undeniably nasty, and their insults grew closer and clearer with every step he took until they drowned out the wind blustering through the stones.
There are rules, and there are rules. John had been through this before, or, rather, something similar, and he knew that turning his head would be an incredibly bad idea. He tried to think of the long empty corridor of an earlier dream, of what Lestrade had said the previous evening, of what he told himself about not listening to what people said, and grit his teeth. It wasn't, he thought, as though he hadn't heard any of it before.
"Liar," was frequent, a sort of foul beat setting the tempo. "How can you be sure he's even a doctor? Isn't he just some kind of mascot?" scoffed a voice to his left. "He just wanted his fifteen seconds of fame and couldn't get it on his own, the great bleeding dupe," said another to his right. And on and on they went, with the insults becoming worse and worse until John found it a struggle to go on.
"Sticks and stones," he told himself, doggedly putting one foot in front of the other, and didn't finish, having decided in mid-sentence that whoever had come up with that saying was an idiot.
He tried swearing right back at the voices (he lost count of how many times he did this, but if the other saying was true, the air around him should have turned a vivid, unmistakable blue), but that only worked for so long. The voices began to take his words and hurl them back at him, all twisted yet still recognizable as his, which, if anything, made their jeering and taunting even worse. He was about to see what they'd make of his sticking his fingers in his ears and humming when one voice, right next to his ear said, "Leave him. The poor man thinks he knows what he's doing. Let him find out that he's wrong on his own."
It was as sardonic and supercilious as Mycroft at his worst, and, come to think of it, it sounded a bit like Mycroft too – no, wait, it sounded exactlylike Mycroft, and John, harassed and harried, forgot himself and turned to tell the British government just what he thought of a man who as good as set a psychopath on his own brother.
John awoke unable to move. He was pins and needles all over, from his toes to his neck, and it hurt excruciatingly when he finally managed to crook an elbow. Heart pounding, he glanced at his clock and saw that it was only fourteen minutes past one.
A weak kind of relief washed over him as he dropped his head back on his pillow. Dawn was some way off yet, so it stood to (wild, hopeful) reason that he could get into the dream again. Not that he'd ever tried it before and after so decisive a failure at that, but he was closer than he'd even been in three years worth of Thursdays, and, while the dreaming itself didn't scare him, there was no way to describe how endlessly frightened he was the he wouldn't get another chance if he couldn't get things right this week. He had to at least try. Thus resolved, John turned on his side and closed his eyes.
Almost immediately, he found himself following the little ball again. John didn't have time to be thankful for that, as this time it was going so fast that he needed to break into a run to keep up, and run he did until it led him back to the mountain and its veritable army of black stones. The trick, thought John, hovering at the foot of the path, was to pay no attention to the voices. He could do that. It wasn't easy, but he knew what was coming now, and, Hell, didn't he put up with a lot of it in real life?
"I can take you," he told the black stones and the empty air, and he started on his way up.
As before, the voices started up when he set foot on the path, and they quickly swelled from a vicious murmur to a loud chorus of yells that the wind could do nothing to dull. Though it seemed to be trying its best, all its soughing managed to do was parch John's throat and chap his lips.
"Liar" was there again, though there was a venom to it that sounded distinctly ex-girlfriend. "Queer," hissed an angry group to his right. "…and fucking him in the bargain," conjectured a withering voice to his left. "Good job that, being a live-in PR man." "He didn't even know he was being had," said another one, and its syrupy condescension made it even worse. "In more ways than one," added yet another, dirtily. And they laughed and jeered as John Watson trundled on.
It was hurtful, and John didn't know which were worse: the bits that were definitely not true, despite what everyone seemed to think, or the bits that he wished were true, in the deepest, darkest corners of his heart, and hadn't been given the chance to find if they could be or not. The suggestions and conjectures became filthier and more lewd until John felt his face turn red from shame and he could hear the thudding of his pulse in his ears. The going was harder this time, and he had barely gotten half as far as he had the first time when a taunting voice so close that he ought to have felt its breath on the back of his neck said, "What do you want me to make them say next, Johnny-boy?"
John had only heard that voice four times before, but he knew that lilt and those cadences, even if their owner tended to disregard him in favor of a brighter luminary. And, having recognized the voice, he forgot himself and turned, fully expecting to come face to face with James Moriarty.
What happened instead was that he fell out of bed, tangled in his sheets and numb all over. For several long, dreadful seconds, he couldn't move an inch or even call for help (not that there was anyone to call, but he thought that the people in the next flat might be persuaded to call 999 if he made enough of a ruckus). Eventually, he was able to wiggle his fingers, and after a longer while, he managed to sit up and kick himself free of the sheets. It was thirty-seven minutes past three, and John, shaking and sweating, decided he would be much better for a drink of water.
The thought soon became the deed, and John was pouring himself a glass of cold water from the fridge. He gulped down the first half and that calmed him down; and he sipped at the rest of it and that cleared his head. Dawn wasn't all that far away, but he had some time yet, and he was going to get back into that dream if it killed him.
Perhaps, he thought, considering it carefully, the trick wasn't not letting the voices make you turn your head. Perhaps the trick was finding a way to ignore them entirely.
On the strength of that idea, John stopped in the bathroom and stuffed his ears with cotton from the medicine cabinet, hoping he'd done a good enough job to block out sound, but not so good a job as to necessitate a visit to another doctor to get the cotton plugs out afterwards (that would be unnecessarily embarrassing). Satisfied that he couldn't hear a thing, he went back to bed.
Soon he was pelting after the little blue ball once more, and this time it was bouncing along at a speed that would have let John win the London Marathon if he could keep it up for that long. Fortunately, it led him back to the path before he was completely winded, and he stood at the foot of the mountain, looking up at all those large, black rocks. Now that he was paying attention, they all looked to be about human size, but that wasn't a thought he wanted to dwell on.
John began to climb, and he almost laughed out loud when he realized how well the cotton was working. He heard none of the vitriolic muttering, and what echoes he did hear as the voices got louder were as distant and inconsequential as the sea-sound in a shell. The voices could tell how little they were affecting him, and it made them angrier than ever. They raged and screamed, and John might have heard them yet if the hot South Wind hadn't blown so hard amongst the stones as to drown the voices out.
"Don't you lot have bodies to go home to? Or have they all asked for a divorce?" John asked, when he was halfway up and so far from letting the noise vex him that he was nearly jovial. "Not that I'd blame them for not wanting you around. Unless you're all nicer at home?"
At this, the voices shouted all the louder until John could feel the air vibrating against his skin with their curses. The very rocks seemed to be shaking along with it, and the doctor began to worry about the likelihood of an avalanche. Keeping himself from turning his head would be the least of his worries if he was caught in a tumbling cascade of those black rocks with their hard faces and jagged edges.
"Look here," he demanded, three quarters of the way from the peak, "and I think this is a perfectly reasonable question, given the circumstances: what have I ever done to you?"
Something howled raucously against his ear in response, and a high, thin yowling followed on his other side, and the ill-natured din went on and on without pause for breath or thought (John had to admit a grudging admiration for their apparently boundless, if gravely misplaced, creativity). But the cotton held and the wind roared, and it wasn't much longer before the doctor reached the end of the path at the top of the mountain and the noise about him died down in a whirring and a humming.
In the sudden silence, which in itself was something of a shock, John Watson straightened up and peered about him. The area was clear of black rocks, rather as if none of them had been able to make it so far, and at the center of the otherwise empty space was what looked like – and John had to blink a couple of times to be sure – a proper lab bench. It had shelves for reagents, and gas fixtures, and electric sockets, and a deep sink with a high, arched faucet at one end, and its black surface had been wiped clean with what smelled like ethanol alternated with Lysol. In the middle of that disinfected surface was a cushion of white silk (and John knew that material very well indeed), and resting on that, creating a rather deep depression, was a golden microscope.
"Oh, for God's sake!" exclaimed John, and he would have said a good deal more if he hadn't been so flabbergasted. Shaking his head, he picked up the microscope with both hands, and turned to go before things got any weirder.
The third time he awoke, the sky above London was starting to lighten. John was stiff, but not overly so, and as he stretched to get rid of the worst of it, he barked his shins on something hard hidden beneath his blankets. Grumbling muzzily, he threw the covers back and found a microscope on his bed.
It was a fairly old one, with three objectives (low power, high power, and oil immersion), the sort of eyepiece that only lets you look with one eye at a time, and a mirror at the bottom instead of a light. And as if a mysterious microscope appearing in his bed wasn't strange enough, every metal surface of it was gold plated, from the adjustment knobs to the stage clips.
It had to be one of the most impractical objects John had ever seen.
He made space for it on the bedside table by putting his lamp on the floor, and, after checking to see if his bedclothes were hiding anything else – a jeweled pipettor perhaps, or a diamond stirring rod – he curled up to get a bit more sleep in before the sun came all the way up.
"You're positively hot," clacked the dry voice.
"Sod off," said John, squeezing his eyes shut. "And if you don't let me sleep, I swear to God I will jump on you until I get blisters or," he finished feebly for this week had been more trying than most, "until I think of anything even more unpleasant to do."
Notes:
This chapter is mostly based on The Story of Two Sisters Who Were Jealous of Their Younger Sister from Andrew Lang's Arabian Nights Entertainments (Though, actually, those two jealous sisters didn't come into the story much - it was mostly about their niece and two nephews who loved each other very much and weren't envious of each other at all. Though they did make things happen, those two sisters. I'll stop now, sorry.) Other references include the following:
1. The chapter title is from Tom Bombadil in The Fellowship of the Ring: "Fear nothing! Have peace until the morning! Heed no nightly noises!"
2. Some lines (and the concept of a body filing for divorce from its mind) have been borrowed from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
3. And because I started to run out of words for sounds, I cannibalized a lot of them from the djinns in Eleanor Hoffmann's Mischief in Fez. It's a wonderful story, not least because of the vivid picture it paints of Morocco. I dreamed about hot mint tea, pigeon stews, and jasmine blossoms for ages - though it also warns you of the dangers of eating in the dark and carelessly abandoning the clothes you change out of.
4. And this has been a very self-indulgent set of notes.