CHAPTER 9: THE BURYING (Part 6)
John limped a bit as he walked, making sure not to disturb the wound on his side. He roamed for a few minutes, and then came to sit on the bench near the front entrance. Like always. He absently admired the vegetation around him and switched to his right hand the machine coffee he was holding which did nothing to cure the bitter taste in his mouth. The days were getting longer again, and the anxious feeling about what the future would hold made the knot in his stomach swell. He was undeniably grateful his friend was alive, but this half-hearted resolution was eating away at his insides; not only was the detective sequestered in that room, the doctor could do absolutely nothing to change the situation. Net even as much as talking to the other man. The passive role was the worst thing into which to thrust a soldier, and it was threatening to leave him hollow inside.
He was brought out of his musings by a familiar figure arriving at his side. He looked up to see Molly as she seated herself next to him on the bench. He was thankful for her taking the time to visit, as she oft to do.
"How is he?" She asked as she fidgeted with the hem of her jumper. Knowing fully well that the answer coming was not going to be a pleasant one, if not unchanged since the last time she was here.
"He's still unresponsive to the treatment." The soldier replies, with a tone of voice that sounded highly detached even to his own ears, finally comprehending his friend's preferred stoicism against the sentimentality that makes the pain that much more real, more yours. Molly put a hand on his upper arm in support and silently encouraged him to continue. "He's... not himself." He says finally; completely aware of the gross understatement that was. His friend was actually still trapped in that world of fiction, one which the doctor suspected was more real than any of them thought. Never mind what the others may believe, John was certain the detective was somehow living a slight variation of the true world, maybe it was just that they did not understand it.
"So that's a No in telling him." She stated carefully, clearly also disappointed with the situation; John stared at her in mild confusion, too caught up inside his own reflections to follow what his friend was implying. "That you're alive." She clarified slowly. The soldier knew that everyone had been considerably careful with him since the news about Sherlock being "lost" reached him, but he had no time to dwell on that frustration at the moment, the detective's condition swallowing up the entirety of his headspace.
"Yes." He answers truthfully, trying not to let the apprehension in his face betray him. He was aware that everyone around him knew he was hurting with guilt of not being able to let Sherlock know he hadn't died, but he did not wish for them to know how much it was actually affecting him. Preferring instead to preserve the fallacy. "Not until the symptoms start to recede." He adds and watches as Molly twists the end of her ponytail nervously, choosing to concentrate on that mundane habit to gather courage to utter the next destructive words. "He had another episode."
Molly whirls her body towards him in surprise, anxiously waiting for an answer. Not quite knowing how to act. "What happened?" She was worried, John could tell as much, and he dreaded having to lay these news on her, or at all. "One of the nurses found him half-asphyxiated with his pillow. He was apparently trying to silence something." He sighs. "They believe it's actually getting worse."
The distinction in pronouns is not lost on the pathologist, so she asks what she suspects is a very crucial question. "They?"
John looks affronted for a second, not expecting Molly to pick up on that, yet she was clearly more observant than he gave her credit for. "You know what I think, Molly." He says solemnly.
"John-" She starts, knowing fully well where this conversation was headed, but gets interrupted. "He's not lying." The blonde deadpans, his mood changing drastically, as it often did when someone questioned that fact.
"Not intentionally, but..." The brunet argued, hoping to avoid a confrontation, many had already been had at expenses of this subject and she did not wish to watch her friend naively stick to a stubborn belief; no matter how comforting the notion may be.
"I don't believe this is all in his head," He says with belligerence. "I don't care what everyone else thinks, if he says he sees something, it's there; and I believe him." He had to rely on that, since he knew if the detective spiralled down into madness, he would soon follow. As always.
"John..." Molly says softly, trying to placate him, as if he were blindingly pursuing an invisible clue and making up patterns where there were none. "I went back there." He supplies quickly, attempting to let her see that his trust in Sherlock's visions was not unfounded, pulled out of grief like they thought.
"Back where?" The brunet looks confused by the apparent non-sequitur. Narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to understand.
"Back to where they found him," The soldier explains quickly. "And I got around looking-" Molly interrupts abruptly. "How did you get in?" She looks upset now, as if knowing exactly how he accomplished it and disapproving completely.
"I broke in." He adds dismissively, not wanting to dwell on the unimportant details.
"John, I don't think..." The doctor could see the talk coming, of how he should not put his hopes too high, and that he had to think rationally about this, and how they all understood. "What you're doing is not healthy." She says, and it was all the blonde could do not to shout, he saw concern painted all over her face but it made him mad with rage to be questioned about the decisions he took in order to save Sherlock; from anything. To find something that could fix him.
"It's okay, Molly. Just-" He replied absentmindedly, he needed to compartmentalise. To put everything that was not his friend out of his mind in order to be able to confuse despair with courage, otherwise he was certain he would crack under the pressure. He frantically reached for something inside his pocket."I found something." He explains, searching for the item that had become the resolution of his faith. "I went back there to see if there was something they had missed, just like Sher-" He stopped mid-sentence, still not sure on being able to say his name without breaking. "Like he always says, and I found this." He retrieved his evidence, and brought it close to Molly so she could see.
"What is it?" The brunet asked, her frustration swiftly replaced with interest, looking at the black plastic rectangle, small circle in the middle. She ran her finger through the surface and pressed lightly on the button, but nothing happened.
"Not sure, doesn't seem to work." John stated, clearly having exhausted his options. "But why would something like this be there if Sherlock were just hiding?" He asked cryptically, his jaw set and his eyes challenging, daring her to find any other explanation for it other than their friend's word.
"I don't know, John." She sighed, confusingly turning the device as suspicion dawned on her honest face. "I honestly don't know."
It was coming for him. That was all the detective knew.
It was coming for him and he had no idea what to do about it. Sitting alone in the far side of the bed, hearing the walls groan and suffocate every other thought inside his head, he could feel the threat in his bones. A devil's hand wrapping tighter and tighter around his wrists, with nothing he could do to get it off. The time was approaching, he knew it, and he felt terrified. It was almost there, the wraiths had already showed up in morbid omen, and there was nothing more he could do. No attempt to hide away his soul was going to salvage him. Heaven couldn't help him now. He was coming, and he was sure he would not survive the day once that happened.
He was desperate in simple certainty; afraid that with mere proximity, any false move could awaken the beast now, and then all would be reduced to ashes. There was no word in any language to describe this fear; the way it scared him.
The forceful knocks in the door did not take long to arrive. Pounding violently at the door. He wrapped his sickly thin arms around his frame and trembled. He shut his eyes tightly, refusing to open them to a horrible reality. The banging outside became stronger every time, until it ate up the air around him completely. There was only a fickle and fragile door between him and his reaper, and once that was gone, so will be everything else.
It was coming for him. The never-ending deafening noise was becoming a dull throbbing, and soon the fumes were crawling from under the barricade. Climbing and twisting around his legs. Rushing inside and consuming him.
He stood up, defiant to the end against his relentless attacker. He flung his mattress aside, and managed to totally wreck the whole room in terror. Hoping to be able to exorcise those venomous feelings from the world; to harm it until it bled out all of its malice.
A couple of forms entered the room in a hurry, but he could not recognise what they were inside his haze. They enveloped his arms with their vines, and soon enough he was trapped in a soft white prison that engulfed him mercilessly, unable to move much of his upper limbs. They were stirring him to perch on something, whispering a word into his ears. A name, though he could not remember to whom it belonged. "I'm not who you think I am." He would say, but the figures were stubborn, whirling him out of the room and turning around to return back inside.
For a second he is left alone, and the long corridor before him stretches out and advances until he is no longer sure if it really has an ending. The staccato noise inside the room keeps on going, while he is outside confined with bizarre chains. The air entering his lungs does a poor job of maintaining him alive; making it seem instead like reanimating an already dead body into action. Stilted, unnatural, and not slightly 'living'.
Suddenly, a strange wheeling motion starts, and he realises he is moving. Advancing forwards with mild velocity; fanning his already unnerved state. He sees the doors pass beside him in confusion, and starts to ponder if he was at last being taken to his true final destination. Wondering, not for the first time, if he had finally died, and if there would be no climbing out from the pine box this time.
It was coming for him. In one way or the other, the angels would eventually deliver him in definite scorn; would throw him to the wolves and let the blemish from the world be devoured from his bones. Ice cold claws spearing their way through his arteries, eating out his heart, if he even had one left. The shadowy, eye-less form chasing him will ultimately catch up.
No form of fear would help his situation in any way; but when a man is on his way to meet the devil, he is allowed a tiny respite from bravery. The movement became faster and he knew the time was almost up. It was coming for him in giant strides, and his jaw trembled with despair. Diseased with all the venom he had been fed during his entrapment, acquainted with such darkness, he was helpless to stop it from boiling over inside him. After that, only bad things could follow.
"I did warn you that one day you'd wear one of these." A strong voice said behind him, and it was like a beacon swiftly taking him back into unforgiving, garish light. Like a sword pushing through cartilage and arteries, waking him up in alarm. Rendering him paralysed.
"But don't worry," The phantom voice intoned, and he could feel it breathing on his neck. He recognised that pollution. He had heard it a million times before; sometimes he thought he would never rid himself of it. Catatonic with foreboding, he remained sitting. "Crazy is a good look on you."
He squeezed out the tears gathering in his eyes, taking shaky breaths. There could not be anything more distressing for him than a finger savagely prodding at his wounds. A joker smile ridiculing that which he could not help. His fragmented mind not able to conjure anything past chocking-fear. "Don't you think," The cruel voice asked, slowly placing both of its hands over his shoulders, finger by finger. "Sinner-man?"
He felt himself being physically shoved out of the chair, landing harshly on the floor. He was sprawled, looking up into the monster's eyes. Helpless to do anything but stare as his haunter laughed joyously. The words still whirling inside his mind were tearing pieces off him like deadly leaches, chipping away his fear and replacing it with something more to suit their fancy; they brought out something unrecognisable inside him. He knew it was coming for him, but suddenly accepting his fate did not feel like an option anymore. And right then he made himself a promise, that he wouldn't allow death to take him without retribution for all that corpse had done to him. For all that he had made him become.
He shook his limbs around, until he was kneeling, gathering any strength that he could have left. A few paces away, the other man watched amusedly; clearly having expected him to make one last attempt. Whatever curse he had planned to carry out, the younger man vowed to take him down with him.
Once he came to know what was trapping his arms, it was not that difficult to work his way out of it. He tossed the offending garment aside and stood up. A stark, revenant figure against the light at the end of the hall. Climbing out of the pit in which the other had attempted to bury him. Grown out of the darkness, having found inside that against his disease, no cold hole would ever be deep enough.
It was coming for him, and it honestly frightened him; but scared animals are a dangerous thing. He took some steps before realising he was doing it, unsuspectingly approaching him to the man that still had him captured despite being free of reins. His battered body moving only with one sole purpose, a vindictive force driving him forward until he found that despite how consumed he was, it was easier to keep going than to stop.
"What will you do now, then?" The other said. Spreading his arms in a faux attempt to make himself look vulnerable. Taunting anything that could be left of the adversary he once challenged. In his eyes, the figure before him somehow lacking after all; independently from how joyful it had been for the spectre to break him, the detective had gone pernicious like rotten food. His whole essence erased from memory like the ephemerality of breath on a mirror.
The victim had no concrete recollection of his former self, yet he missed it. Viciously blaming his captor for snatching it away from him so mercilessly. Killing everything he used to be, and turning him into that beast; angry and desperate. Condemned to pay Lazarus' debts for eternity, yet with no desire of resurrection. Over him, had already been casted the the worst punishment he could conjure. Because at the end of the day, what greater sentence could be dealt than life for those who have no desire of living it?
Coming back from his dissociation, at least in a small level, he noticed in his hand the final proof that he had foreseen this, and had somehow managed a way to unknowingly prepare himself for it. He knew it was coming for him, he could feel it getting closer, and all he could do was keep going. Stop looking back to the thing chasing him and just charge onwards, until all was done or he was taken down by this death that he was dying. It was already too late to put himself together again.
The other figure must have seen the shard of broken mirror in his grip, digging its sharps edges into the skin on his hand and dripping a crimson trail on the linoleum just like it had when the detective had first hidden it inside his pillow. The other laughed. "Is that what you plan to do?" He queried, with a confident calm that spoke only of the hollowness inside him. "You are going to kill me?" The demon smirked and took a step closer in provocation, urging the other to act, to finally do what he had set out to do.
The silver-gazed man left the question unanswered, but kept hurling his carcass in his direction. "You made me who I am." He demanded with his eyes portraying a height of hysteria previously unknown to the both men present. Volatile in unrestraint.
"See," The criminal uttered in disappointment. "That's where you are wrong, Sherly." He stuffed his hands in the stolen nurse ensemble he was wearing. Grinning in a way that left no doubt in the detective's mind about his intentions. "You've always been like this." He declared, and for the first time in his whole life, the curly-haired man believed it completely. Whether it was a lie or a fable did not matter, the grief had just made the feeling stronger, despite his state of total weakness.
He advanced one last time, letting the earthquake he felt beneath them shake the world around him; not caring if after all this was over everything would be converted into rubble. Since survival was no longer a viable option for him, he cared little for consequences and ramifications. He had been afraid for so long, agonising about what his universe would be like following the floods, and the wild fires, and heaven's abandonment. But there would be no more running, except towards that which had left him as a model of demolition. It was coming for him, and nothing would stop it now. He was as good as dead; and had been since he saw that blade go through his friend's abdomen.
"Yes, I am." He admitted truthfully. And he could feel it, going out from inside him: It was no longer coming for him. It was already here.
The younger man reached the other, grabbing him by the shirt with a loathing so strong it menaced to consume him. Jostling him and finding little resistance until he sent both of them tumbling to the ground. They struggled in the altercation, the detective wrapping a shaky hand over the other's throat and squeezing. The lunatic below him grinned still, not fazed in the slightless at seeing this honest display of violence, much less about having it inflicted in his person. Almost admiring the thing he had created from the remains of a self-consumed corpse. The satisfaction in his expression was almost enough to send Sherlock reeling; it repulsed him nearly as much as he was sickened by his own self.
His hand on the other's neck slackened a bit, while another twisted possibility whispered dark things in his ear. He dropped his gaze to his other hand, and watched the piece of mirror blinking back at him. He could do it; by any means he should do it.
There was not a thing he could loose anymore, and he longed for that revenge. To take the scary monster under his bed and frighten him in return.
His arm brought the shard closer and he placed it near the other's stomach. His enemy reached out and stopped his force, with only a token opposition. If the boffin kept pushing he would have no problem in overcoming the obstacle and slicing open his opponent's transport. The temptation was great, and he knew he would probably give in at the end. The figure beneath him did not deserve any less. He had taken everything. Yet no attempt he could make would return them now. Not even in exchange for himself. No bargain would ever work out on his favour again.
The two men stay locked like that a moment, alone in that secluded area of the psychiatric clinic. Just the two of them, both holding tightly with bloodied hands to that broken piece of mirror between them. Frozen as if time had suddenly stopped breathing, waiting to see which monster devoured the other.
It's true that no one in the world is able to completely choose what cards are dealt to them by life, yet anyone can decide how to play; even choose not to play at all. There was no way he could win now, victory would in reality be a defeat either way, the boffin wasn't sure he wanted to keep fighting anymore. Moriarty wanted him to be this, he wanted to be this. And there was only one thing to do in a scenario like that.
"Do it." The criminal in the floor whispered. Smiling and inviting him, ready to sacrifice himself for this captivating transformation. No matter how many times the detective had envisioned this moment, the suspended motion and silence were very far from comforting. Like a string tensed and poised, just awaiting to be struck.
In the end, there was never any other option.
He surrendered, with shortness of breath he chose defeat. He let the inevitability of the situation sweep him away in its current. Because if there was one thing he could still do, was deciding to stop attempting to win. To kill just to save someone. The other wanted him to burn in hell, so he embraced it; covered himself in gasoline and let the immolation begin. He did what any other sinner-man would do: Sin.
Summoning the last strength he possessed, he grabbed one of the criminal's shoulders for leverage and held tightly the sharpness between their fingers. With a swift motion, Sherlock reversed their positions, with him now on the floor, and pushed the broken mirror into his own flesh, stabbing himself in the abdomen.
There seemed to be a commotion coming from the ground level of the clinic. People rushing about and yelling things to each other. Molly gave John a very worried and clearly puzzled look as both of them jumped out of the bench and hurried near the building.
The trees in the garden obstructed most of the view, yet John could see some figures clearly trying to locate something. Someone was barking out directions for the others to follow, in order to accomplish the still unknown purpose of the staff. Molly squeezed his arm in support, then started running towards the front gates, apparently wanting to be aware of what the crisis was.
As the soldier started moving after her, he felt an eerie emptiness inside his left hand. It was then when he realised he must have dropped the device: His only clue of what could be happening to his best friend. John wanted to know the situation, but he had a priority now -the same priority as always, really- and he would not discard something that could help Sherlock in any way. He charged back to the bench were they had been seated moments before and crouched down to pick up the black plastic gadget.
He heard voices in the distance, saying something along the lines of 'Catch him,' or 'Stabbed' and 'nurse'; But he couldn't really discern their meaning. He heard loud, uncoordinated footfalls behind him, growing closer; yet he was very much preoccupied with not losing sight of the only thing that mattered. It wasn't until he heard his own name being called to his back, in that voice, that he spun around frightened. The other's name a gasp leaving his mouth.
He had ran as far as his weak legs could carry him, out into the garden and close to some trees. Even inside his haze he could recognise there, in his path, was the back of a head that represented something that couldn't possibly be true.
He stumbled towards it, bleeding and wrecked. Taking short steps and uttering a soft name, like the only prayer he had ever said. The figure turned around, just as he collapsed to the ground, only to lock the blue eyes of his best friend down with his at the floor.
And just like that, without even justification, he was in heaven.
Author's note: I know it has been almost as much as it has been for the real canon Sherlock.
This chapter has been the hardest thing that I've ever set out to write, yet it has been the best I have made so far and frankly, it's the piece of writing of which I am most proud of.
I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it's worth the wait. Let me know what you think.