AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hope you enjoyed the long ride and are satisfied with the ending.
Every single thing written in this story has been born because of my desire to share some things, to talk about subjects which doesn't really get that much attention in everyday life. The human mind is a fascinating and complicated thing, and nobody really can predicts all its outcomes.
I would love to hear what your thoughts are on the situations portrayed, the characters that are living them and the story itself.
Hope you liked it and thank you for investing time in reading.
-VesperL2
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 4040 40 40 40 40 40 40
CHAPTER 10: THE REVIVAL
It was the worst thing he had ever seen.
The detective lying sprawled on the floor, limbs surrendered in an unnaturally awkward position; looking up as if begging for salvation to be bestowed upon him and yet, at the same time, uninterested on whether he would obtain it. John found the sight frighteningly unnerving; it reminded him too much of a prey that had already been attacked; completely left for dead once the wolves had had their fill.
He hurriedly bent down and tried to lift his friend up, only managing to raise the upper part of his body in his emotionally compromised state, the wound on his own abdomen not even acknowledged in answer to the rush of worry and adrenaline. The nurses and other doctors caught up with them and were trying to pry him out of the soldier's arms. John refused to surrender his grip on him, and instead asked to be helped up so he could carry the half-alive detective back to the hospital himself. Having to part from his boffin now that he had finally found him would have been close to physically painful for the blogger.
He took stumbling but quick steps towards his destiny, staring down at his best friend's eyes. Eyes that held so much emotion and no small amount of confusion. Blinking up at him as if the light was somehow hurtful to look at. The blonde stubbornly held on to Sherlock with bloodied hands and did his best to drag him out of the consuming and clutching darkness. He had gone through so much, always so alone; and John was not willing to let him abnegate absolution when it might just save him. No matter what he had to do, or for how long, he promised to carry the heavy soul of his friend through the flood, to never let him drown again.
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 4040 40 40 40 40 40 40
The air felt cool on his skin, and it was a sensation close to bliss he had never expected to get from such a mundane thing; yet, in his near unconscious state, that tiny moment of euthymia was the only thing resembling emotion that he had the ability to conjure. He was being held up, almost as if floating underwater, watching the fragmented reality from above him move. Bewilderment wrapping around his aching body like a numbing wave, hesitatingly pulling him away from the misery he had endured, even if said imposed slumber of his senses was killing him. The dimming lights were mercifully sparing him the awful harm.
His eyes were unable to really focus on the images staring down at him, yet some part of him knew what it was; he was well acquainted with that faithful presence, enough to feel its absence slice him deeply. However, he felt that he had never really realised how weak he could be, how very breakable he was without it. Not even in those grey, awful days when he believed him to be dead did he truly understand; not until he saw his face again. Not until he got to experience that compassion after being deprived of it for too long. It is not to say that he felt like he deserved it in any way, his sins too great to be washed away by a single stream of kindness; but that grace-like sensation was enough to make him forget about the devil's imprisonment and his own corruption; if only for a moment.
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 4040 40 40 40 40 40 40
John found himself in the much hated situation of waiting again. He felt like that was all he had been doing these past weeks; and it was incredibly frustrating, as well as disheartening: how he was helpless to reassert his convictions about the whole situation. Sherlock had been shuttered off in the operating room for hours now, while the doctors inside tried to fix the injury he had mysteriously sustained.
They still hadn't been able to find out what had really happened, the seemingly lost video footage of the CCTV was enough to stump even Mycroft Holmes and all of his people. The circumstances being so close to ironic that they would have had John doubling with laughter if he weren't so numb inside —so very lost in what sort of action to take from then on. The detective was alive, if only just barely, by the miracle of some unknown cause; yet the soldier feared what would become of his friend if they failed to figure said root out.
The plastic device was digging its blunt edges into the soft skin covering his palm, but he just couldn't let it go. He needed to hold on to it as if it were somehow part of his friend, and to put down that blood-smeared box would mean losing what's left of him forever. Greg was sitting at his left, silently awaiting words from the surgeon. The blonde man could tell he had not been sleeping well since Sherlock was taken, specially by the poorly ironed shirt he wore. John felt a sudden pang of hurt when he remembered the detective was not there to witness his amateur deduction. Lestrade avoided conversation altogether, but he sometimes would turn his head to look at him in worry, the doctor supposed he must look as miserable as he felt.
Mycroft was standing next to him, intermittently talking on his phone; apparently running the investigation from afar, yet the blogger could tell he never even considered leaving the waiting room. He glanced around the plain room and occasionally twisted his umbrella in anxiousness, John vowed that whoever had put the detective through all this would pay a high price once they found him, and he was sure none of them would bat an eye at him for it.
The blogger was terrified to say the least. The maniac that had done this was still out there, and no matter the outcome that would transpire once they found him, he would continue to haunt them even once he was already gone. They all had grown so accustomed to this slogging tar-like reality that he doubted their apprehensions, grown so strongly in the cold, would thaw once spring came. If it came at all.
The blogger recalled that conversation they had, all those weeks ago: the night he was stabbed and Sherlock was taken. He remembered how scared the younger man had sounded when he thought no one believed what was happening to him. As if all of his reality was crashing down around him, and there was no one around to validate it. He was wrong, of course; because John had never believed for one single moment that what Sherlock was seeing was only in his mind. That night when both of them had thought it would be the last time they would get to see each other alive. John shuddered at the mere thought of what would have happened if he had really died that day in the alley, and Sherlock had been left like that for the rest of his days; without someone that really trusted him more than he probably should.
Sitting there, he felt restless. Impatient to fast-forward into a resolution. In a fit of impulsiveness, the doctor broke the careful silence. "Where's Moriarty?" He bravely asked Mycroft; and both of the others turned to look at him with equal levels of shock at his daring question.
"Pardon me?" The ginger man asked as if offended. But the blonde did not care in the least. He needed to know where exactly would he be able to carry out his revenge.
"Where's Moriarty?" He repeated. "They said there was a nurse with him, and now he's nowhere to be found." John explained, hiding his trembling hand from the sight of the two confused men. "It must be him. He must be the one who stabbed Sherlock." The soldier insisted, clenching and releasing his fists, never letting go of that stupid useless device. "It has to be him." He said, more to himself than the others.
"Doctor Watson, may I remind you that there is a big probability that the wound was self-inflicted?" Mycroft responded with a dangerous tone that would have made him back down if he weren't so sick of everyone ignoring the only word that really mattered. John shook his head in denial, almost wishing he could tune out those heretic words. "You need to give up this fantasy of yours that Moriarty has somehow risen from the dead and everything that has happened is anything more than my brother's fragile psyche playing tricks on him." He said, knowing it was far from the first time he had said such things to his brother's best friend. Yet he had never sounded as exasperated as he did then. "If my brother gets out of there," The government official said pointing to the doors leading to the operating room. "He will need us to keep our heads about us. He will not beneficiate from you indulging his childish beliefs."
"So you are going to allow me near him this time, then?" The younger man demanded in irony. Maybe it was a bit unfair of him, to reproach him a decision he had taken with the detective's wellbeing in mind, yet all the pent up emotion was coming forth at once; the frustration, the pain. He could not seem to do anything to stop it. "When Sherlock gets out of there," He said. "He will need someone who believes in him." John realised he had stood up from his hospital chair and he didn't recall doing it. Anger running through him like wild fire. "Who doesn't just dismiss what he says as madness."
"I knew you would behave like this." Mycroft countered with a sigh, gripping his umbrella hard enough to hurt.
"Like what?" The doctor questioned. "Like his friend? His family?" That last word was uttered in challenge, deliberately disapproving of the way the older man was handling the situation. He knew there was only so much the British Government could do for Sherlock, but believing he had hallucinated those horrors would only break him further. Make him loose his head even more. Specially since that wasn't the case at all.
He was taking sharp breaths and was quite sure that if he didn't calm down he would most likely plummet to the floor in hyperventilation. Mycroft looked like he might not be as sure at his own stance as he should anymore; that inkling of suspicion weaving its way to his eyes, while the rest of his face remained stoic. John could see that he didn't believe him, not completely anyway; but he may not be too opposed to the idea that it could just as well be possible his baby brother was not lying. Even if it wasn't about Moriarty, but someone else instead. But that was not enough for John; a 'maybe' will never be enough when it came to Sherlock. For him, it would always be certain truth. Maybe blindingly believing in his friend made him a stupid man, but he'd take that over the alternative any day.
Just when he was about to unleash all his rage over the frankly underserving man, a surgeon came through said doors to halt their accusations with news. News that Sherlock had pulled through, and was alive.
John felt like he was suspended in a void of nothingness. Unable to hear any details past the most important part. Recognising the fear inside his imagination of what would come next. Of what would the detective do once he woke up to a world so different: without the protection they had let him built. A world where John Watson was very much alive, and very much the reason Sherlock would probably lose his hold on reality once and for all.
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 4040 40 40 40 40 40 40
The first thing Sherlock felt was the rough hospital sheets beneath his body as he woke. Bringing forth hazy memories and half-reminisced reasons on why he was there in the first place. He remembered the shadow, the demon, and the pain. The horrible pain on his body, in his soul, after his meeting with that terrifying darkness. Still, he had lived; he had been given a continued existence, even after he managed to disregard the very same thing so completely, even after he had thought he would be a flatliner without question. How many times can one come back from that?
His brother was right in front of him. Talking and asking questions worriedly while still succeeding in an illusion of control. Saying his name and explaining a few things that he no longer had the ability, nor the current energy, to bother himself with. The beast had already creeped its way inside of his very bones, and his regard for the state of his transport had evolved from inconsequential to completely obsolete.
However, that was not the sole reason why he could not really seem to concentrate on what Mycroft was trying to convey. Across the room, standing next to the door, was something that threatened to obliterate the walls he had carefully created; every lie he had told himself to protect what could be left of his damaged psyche. He had desperately shut himself inside solipsism for so long, that he was no longer able to even question whether what he saw was real, or just another device snatched out of his own mind. He had become weary and untrusting of anything on the outside.
He watched the man he had so utterly trusted, standing there and looking at him as if he were every bit as afraid as he felt. The kind of look that leaves an almost physical mark behind. The unassuming apparition, that which its mere presence had to be a ruse, a trick of the light, because it was not possible. Never again. Not outside his own head. It was wrong, so very wrong.
Mycroft caught sight of the intensity of the other's gazes, and sensed a probable unraveling of fragile minds of which he had no business being a part. Even if he was hesitant of leaving the genius, he straightened and patted the hand of his little brother once more in goodbye. The boffin tore his eyes away from the doctor a moment to watch his brother leave in silent anguish. A couple of seconds later, the elder was gone and the both of them were alone in that room.
What had happened inside Sherlock's mind was too difficult to erase, too real to dismiss even in the presence of proof. The string that had tethered him to existence had snapped and he doubted there was anything anyone could ever do to reverse that. Moriarty had used John as a perfect weapon to hurt him; he had smelled blood and injury, and rushed in. The world began to shake around him; crookedly twisting and transforming itself again, until he was left in an unfamiliar place once more. He was so exhausted of evolution.
No matter what he did; it didn't even mattered whether the figure of the doctor in front of him was really there. The curly-haired man knew he would end up losing the most important person in his life nonetheless. Self-destruction was such a beautiful thing now, and he was aware that if authentic, John would never condone it. Specially not now that he had been transformed into nothing more than ammunition.
They looked at each other, looking as if they had never really seen the other before. John frowned, but walked the few steps that separated him from his friend's bed. Once he was next to him, he stopped. Sherlock was lost, set adrift after so many different imprisonments, not really believing he would ever be free. He could feel as if someone were still grabbing his ankles from under the bed, and it terrified him. His brain, what was left of his extraordinary intellectual prowess, was yelling at him, warning him not to trust what he believed he saw. It had happened countless of times before, and he would not be healed by the appearance of yet another impersonator. Nothing that his mind could conjure up would be of any comfort.
The soldier must have sensed that, for his face turned from worried to devastated in a moment. Moisture gathered in the blonde's eyes, and the younger man despaired at the sight. Even if he was almost certain the whole scenario was a result of his psyche just before his demise, it would always be wrong to see John Watson cry. "I know I'm not coming home." He admitted to the vision, with a calmness he certainly didn't feel. "I know I died." He said. "That I'm dead."
The other looked at him in astonishment, his blue eyes spelling heart-ache in the deepest form. "But it's fine." He tried to reassure the soldier; feeling as his soul was still trying to hold on. "Don't cry." He pleaded, and the hallucination shook his head in denial, but the detective knew it to be true.
"Sherlock," He said, and it rang true and loud in the other's ears, making him doubt on the falseness once more. He couldn't believe it, but maybe it was true. That word was as much a promise as a kindness: hearing his name in a way that didn't make him want to crawl out of his skin. The detective had seldom ever been offered such a gift of unconditional support and a proof so inconclusive on whether he was actually conjuring all of it up.
He knew he should not, by any means, accept it. Even if there was nothing more that he wanted in the vast universe than to believe he was not broken and didn't need any fixing. He should allow his friend —if he was even his real friend— to escape now, while he could. Now that he had hell hanging from one of his legs on good days, and holding his hand on bad ones; the detective would no longer be able to protect him —or any of the others for that matter.
Still, sinner-men are weak, and he could feel himself not being able to resist the pull of the deluding happiness he was being presented. Regretful of what he was doing, he felt the familiar burning behind his eyelids begin, and with a choked sob he uttered his answer.
"John."
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 4040 40 40 40 40 40 40
There is a place, always a treacherous gap, that defies and shuns out any classification. Sherlock had been an avid enemy of that space his whole life. Always a paragon of the extremes. Always too loud or too quiet, too much or not enough. Never really doing anything by halves. But that was Sherlock before he was taken; now, he didn't quite know where he fitted, if he fitted at all. The detective was in a perpetual state of ambiguity, a stitch away from being healed, and yet it would only take one last wound to undo him completely. Painfully soaring between alive and deceased.
He no longer felt comfortable inside his old life. His skin was like an ill-fitted piece of clothing that used to belong to him. So far away he was of his former self that he seldom could recall a time when he didn't feel like that; where happiness could have been possible for him. He had forsaken all that inside his captivity, with no hope of finding it ever again. He had wandered too far away and now he didn't know how to come back.
The ever-present shadow figure next to his bed only served as a reminder of the hell in which he felt he was still trapped. Lingering silently at his side and never leaving him alone, no matter how much he wanted it to. Chasing away with its bright eyes both his fragile tranquility, and his almost non-existent will; up to the point where he didn't feel it was his own any more, and that it hadn't been in a long time.
Even in his dreams he was not able to smother those thoughts. They always seemed to find their way back in. They stubbornly refused to die, yet he was absolutely certain they would eventually kill him. He longed for an elusive reality where he was able to sleep and dream peacefully; unperturbed by vicious nightmares that woke him up sweating and which often frightened John to distraction.
His friends came to see him often —or rather what he thought were his friends, since he was still not convinced anything about the situation was legitimate— but he was hesitant of participating in anything past simple questions. The deep sorrow and fear he felt inside left him unable to talk, think, live past everything that happened. Still chokingly trapped inside the belly of the beast. The futility of his own existence seeping through his pores each second, with no respite until he had convinced himself he didn't deserve that freedom. The whispering darkness had become somewhat familiar; friendly faces were not.
Somehow, in some sort of twisted manner, the worst was when John was there. Not because he didn't appreciate his presence, —it was as close to divine as he would ever get— but because he felt as if the joke were cruelest when he looked at his supposed blogger's face. It fractured the floor beneath his feet and abruptly dropped him from oblivious bliss unto the hard wet real concrete. Juggled every thought in his brain, no matter how sacred or deranged.
He had fashioned his own death into such a flawless art-form that he didn't quite know how to do the living anymore. He had the notion that he had to be something, some thing of which he failed to recognise the nature. To by any means attempt perfecting himself in order to even reassemble what he used to be. Yet he found himself unable to achieve that on his own. He needed someone to break him out of that prison first; to remind him who he used to be before all that misery happened. But it was of no use, he felt like he would never gain back what he had lost, and he had to accept that. He just hoped they will remember him once he failed. Once he was already gone.
With that piece of jagged broken mirror, he had deliberated. He had chosen something. Now he had to live —as was never his purpose— with the previously unforeseen consequences of that choice. His own demolition had looked like a very small price to pay in exchange of denying the consulting criminal what he desired. What he wanted him to become. But now he found himself having to take the fall for it all. He had been prepared for anything and done it. He had won, yes; but in the process, his own cure had proven lethal to himself.
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 4040 40 40 40 40 40 40
Sherlock was far from okay. John was all too aware of it. When he would scream, and rage, and explode before; now he would only sit in that bed like a half-living corpse. Barely seeing what was happening around him, seemingly afraid of even uttering phrases of more than two words at a time. Refusing any help.
The doctor was sad to admit that the man they had pulled out from the debris was not Sherlock. He had passed from high-alert mania to a faded-out version of himself that lacked the fire and will to do anything other than be there; and even that often looked like a challenge to him. John never thought that a day would come when he would want to see the detective paranoid and delusional like he had been prior to learning he was alive; but anything was better than the hollow expression he currently had on his face. The doctor loathed to imagine what would become of him if the situation kept worsening. Slowly withering away in constant diminuendo.
John had vowed to him and to himself that he would do whatever it took to rescue his friend from that darkness. But he should have seen that the genius would deny or defuse any sort of approach. The detective seemed distressed every time he was in the room, eyeing him up in suspicion as if he were weary of his presence. All of his attempts were no good against the armour the younger man had built to protect his wounded self. It may have saved him from whatever it was he lived at the devil's claws, but it was presently isolating him; ruthlessly chocking him away from ever gaining that longed peace.
He found he was not able to compete with Sherlock's demons. Not for lack of care or skill, but because his friend refused to let him. He was half in love with them. Like morbid lovers, those thoughts had taken a firm hold of his soul and now the detective was adamant in not letting them go. Obsessively mulling them over and over inside his head. Thoughts so cunning and infections that they soon clouded and eradicated all other knowledge or sense of freedom from his brain, leaving him starving for their existence. Every day he conjured them up in his imagination; and every night he went to bed and made love to them. And there was nothing any of them could do but watch as the most incredible man they knew was torn apart by his own psyche. Sometimes in order to get to the heart, you could just tear through skin, and bone, and blood until you reached. John could do nothing but hold out faith that they could reach.
The doctors and psychiatrists kept trying: pushing, but Sherlock wouldn't budge. He refused to talk about his captivity or his attack, and anything revolving Moriarty was strictly off limits. The investigation had reached a dead end, and the only one with the required information to solve it was too far gone to help.
He had talked with Mycroft on the phone that morning. Yet the conversation had left him anything but reassured. "I don't even know if he remembers any of it," The doctor had insisted. Frustrated at his inability to do anything else to help. "As much as I want Moriarty, or whoever did this to him to rot in bleeding hell, I won't push him, Mycroft. He'll break forever." And it was true, he feared what all of their insistence could do to the boffin's fragile state.
"I'm aware my brother is a hero in your standards." He had said, after a few seconds of complete silence. His tone was unlike anything the soldier had ever heard from him. "But that doesn't mean that he is well, Dr. Watson; and unfortunately it doesn't mean he will ever be again." John hated the trueness of those words. No matter what they attempted, there was a possibility that all they could do for him at this point was the equivalent of palliative care. "Every since the day I met you I've been aware the impact you have on Sherlock has the ability to completely change him." The older man explained, and the doctor ran a hand through his hair in woe. "You would either be the making or the eventual destruction of my little brother." An echo of a past conversation rang on his ears, as he felt the metaphorical weight descend on his shoulders again. "It's time for you to prove which one."
Everyone knew that it was unfair to put that sort of pressure on him. Even the blonde himself was aware of how wrong it settled on his stomach: to have that power without ever requesting it; without knowing how to utilise it. But they could not deny that if John Watson was not able to save Sherlock Holmes, no one would.
"Do you really think he can be fixed?" The blogger asked in a childish attempt to salvage whatever was left of his hope. What could happen if he tried? Would the detective keep on putting up resistance? Would it make a difference?
"I don't know," The other replies. "But if someone has a chance, it's you." With that, the conversation was over. John took a couple of moments alone. Reassured that Mrs. Hudson was inside the room keeping an eye on Sherlock. He knew the detective would not liked it if he found out they were deciding about his future without consulting him. He clutched the device and breathed deeply. He would do this, he refused to take a 'no' for an answer anymore.
When he entered the hospital room he saw Mrs. Hudson sitting at the bedside, chatting away at an unmoving detective, at least this time he actually appeared to be listening. She had that effect on him. John sat on the bed, careful not to touch or crowd his friend in any way. He watched the both of them for a moment, and let himself be wrapped up in a fog of absentmindedness, which made it more of a surprise when he heard. "What's that?" Coming out from Sherlock's mouth. He turned to see Mrs. Hudson wearing the same expression of bewilderment as him.
"Oh, it's-" He replied, after schooling his face to avoid showing his shock. "I picked it up from where- where they found you." He knew it was such a vague answer, but he was weary of saying too much and losing this chance by spooking the younger man.
"Can I see it?" He tentatively requested, and it was the first time he had actually asked for something since he was placed on that restraining bed.
"Yeah, sure. 'Course." John couldn't deny him this, so he passed the plastic device to him and tucked his hands back in his pockets. Feeling oddly bereft without it. "I don't really know what it is, and it's okay if you don't remem-" He started babbling reassuringly but he dwindled down once he caught sight of the other's devastated eyes. "What's wrong?" He asked, the adrenaline surging to his body in fear again.
"I know where he is." The brunette said, on such small a voice that it took a moment for John to recognise what he was saying.
"What?" He questioned, as the landlady stood up and grabbed the detective's prone hand in support.
"I know where he is." The younger man insisted. Gripping the older woman's hand viciously. The both of them in a strange connection of determination.
"Who?" John asked, trying to get his friend to share something, any bit of information that could help them solve this.
"Moriarty." He conspiratorially whispered, as if the name would taint the very air around them. That was definitely not what John was expecting.
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 4040 40 40 40 40 40 40
Turns out the device was an instrument that Moriarty had used on Sherlock repeated times. Shocking him with mild voltage every time it made contact with his skin. According to Mycroft's people the voltage was not high enough to leave any discernible trace behind, yet it was extremely uncomfortable and distressing if exposed to it constantly. John could only imagine how terrible being treated like this would have been to his friend; none of them knew anything about what the detective had gone through yet, but the soldier could recognise a pattern emerging. Moriarty had not only mistreated him, but the evidence suggested something closer to torture, both physical and psychological. John longed to get his hands on the bastard, teach him a thing or two about pain.
Sherlock, in one of his bouts of actual presence of mind, had hinted that the origin of said device would be where his captor was hiding. Of course, that was not a lot, but apparently for the secret professionals at the employment of the British Government who were extremely efficient was enough, and they managed to trace it back to the only Russian criminal technology development facility in the city. Mycroft looked more at ease when purpose was returned to him, a real way to help his brother proved to be an adequate balm to his worry. John would never again be so quick in trusting what appeared to be luck.
A sweep of the place showed an array of hostages and slaves recovered but no Moriarty on sight; just a message on the walls. The words "The sinner-man ran to the devil. He was waiting." followed by an address the only thing they had to prove it really was the consulting criminal. And they now found themselves facing the biggest dilemma.
It was needless to say that Moriarty would have consequences planned if they did not manage to deliver that for which he was asking so explicitly on his request. To rush a direct attack of the building could risk losing a large amount of innocent civilians and not to mention trigger any other trick the maniac could had up his sleeve. The only way to come out of the situation at the winning side was playing by the criminal's rules and draw him out, enough to be apprehended or neutralise without many casualties. The only problem was they needed a very specific person for this task, one to whom going in there alone would mean catastrophe.
John did not care about anything else, in his eyes James Moriarty on the streets was a small price to pay for having Sherlock safe with them, and he was not ready to surrender him to that hell once more. Never again. He turned to watch his friend from the chair at the corner of the hospital room. Lately they had him sometimes unrestrained, able to move freely inside the room without his wound acting up too much for a while each day. But the detective never took that chance, he remained curled up on the bed and watched life's proceedings from the safety of the shelter he had created for himself in that bed. With the only addition that now he asked about Moriarty's whereabouts every time someone walked into the room. To say that it was unnerving to John would be a gross understatement.
It had been only a matter of time before he came to know about the house and the message on the wall. They just couldn't keep lying to him, not if they wanted him to recover his firm grasp in reality. John came to regret that decision the second he heard the unexpected, stubborn demand coming from inside the hospital room where Mycroft was debriefing him. "Take me to him." Came the surprisingly loud voice from the man that had been an spectator, if nothing else, of his own life for the last weeks.
His older brother had halted his explanation. Clearly taken aback by the request as well. "That's not an option." He heard him respond firmly and let out a lungful breath in relief. He was terribly afraid of what could have happen if they had decided Sherlock was actually fit for the task.
Still, that obviously did not deter the detective from his demand. Only made him more sneaky about it. Trying to confuse and criss-cross information until one of them would be stupid or oblivious enough to help him get out or obtain the address. Needless to say, his psychiatrist was not happy about that. It looked like a big step back from his recovery, even if he did look like he had a bit more life inside of him.
The situation finally came to a head the day when Lestrade came back to an empty hospital room from having stepped out less than two minutes to grab a cup of coffee. The restrains they had attached to him once more were open, and the lock appeared to have been forced. "Bollocks!" The cup he was holding fell to the ground and spilled its contents while the other took out his phone and started running after him.
Thankfully, Sherlock was still fairly weak and Greg caught him seven blocks away. John and Mycroft arrived a few seconds later to the detective struggling inside the other's grip, and manically talking in circles; Babbling things about penitence and completion. The doctor grabbed his shoulders to stop the trashing, while his brother stood back in astonishment. John shook off his own jacket to cover his friend's frame with it. It broke the soldier's heart to see his body look so thin, and his expression so lost. Hoping they will someday be able to figure out what it would take to undo what had been done to him, to make him feel well again.
"He thought he could run for it." The DI said and John stared at him as he buttoned up the coat. "As if we would simply let him." He scoffed and Sherlock seemed to slump in defeat against his friend at the words.
"Maybe we should." Mycroft, who until then had been silent as a tomb, commented; to the surprise of the other three men. "This won't stop otherwise." The ginger continued. "He will try again." John could not believe what he was experiencing, specially not the grateful look that the younger man gave his older sibling.
John took a final glance at Sherlock and stepped aside to talk to the government official without the other listening in. "Mycroft, no." He said, more worried and scared than forceful. "I won't- I won't lose him, not again." His fists trembled and he fought hard not to double over in fear.
Mycroft swallowed as if trying to prepare himself for his next words. "Maybe we won't have to." The sadness in his eyes was rivaled only by his determination, as if what his brother needed was a chance to dust away his demons for himself a final time. Perhaps he was right, but the doctor didn't want to risk it.
"Moriarty implied no back-up." He insisted, trying to convince him against throwing Sherlock back into wolves. "He will hurt him if we bring in the calvary." Whispered John. His breathing was rapidly becoming suffocating by the mere prospect.
"Then we bring no back-up." Easily answered the older man.
John shuddered and switched his gaze from one Holmes to the other. He was pinned under the sight of Sherlock struggling inside the crushing grip Greg had on him, clearly ready to make a run for it again. Mycroft was accurate in his description of the situation, it was inevitable that Sherlock would attempt to find Moriarty on his own if they looked the other way; for guilt or revenge, he failed to determine, but he believed if they did not lend their assistance, then any chance that his friend had of coming out of this in one piece would be null. "We can't- just let him go." He acquiesced.
Mycroft's face morphed into respect and approval, possibly at being on the same page about the next action to take; they may not like what had to be done, but they both agreed they would do it if that is what it took in order to protect Sherlock as much as they could. They may be two completely different people, but they cared too much about the detective to give in. "Don't worry, Dr. Watson," The brother assured. "He won't be going in there alone."
That's how the doctor found himself bundling his friend up in his brown jacket —his coat had been lost in the abduction, John had readily given his— and putting the earpiece in place. After being told that he would get what he desired, Sherlock seemed unable to do anything else by himself, so the soldier was left with the task of preparing the detective to go in and negotiate with a psychopath that probably wanted nothing else than to kill him. At last, they were outside the address where Moriarty said to meet him, and the team they had prepared were already on their posts. Even if Sherlock was supposed to enter alone, they all agreed it would be foolish not to prepare for the possibility of a bigger attack, and the inevitable struggle there would be if everything went their way and they had to apprehend him.
The genius appeared anxious and scared at the same time, which made the blonde wonder if they weren't making the biggest mistake at letting him do exactly as Moriarty wanted. Well, in reality, John was very sure they were making a mistake, but stopping the curly-haired man from going would be a bigger one, so they would have to try, do their best and hope it turned out in their favour. Even if he felt sick at the mere idea of it.
The blogger finished up with the younger man and leaned back, as to check twice that he hadn't missed anything. His friend was relentlessly staring at the floor, as if gravity were pulling his gaze downwards. It was so very wrong: looking at him in a constant state of helplessness. Standing there in the wrong coat, shaking and placing so much concentration in the simple act of not breaking away at the seams. He did not look like Sherlock at all; and that terrified the soldier more than the consulting criminal ever did. The doctor stepped closer again and enveloped his best friend in a fierce hug, trying to show the little comfort he knew he could provide to him in the situation. Maybe all of this would turn out alright. Maybe they weren't condemned to capsize just yet; he thought. Still, Sherlock never raised his arms to embrace him.
After a few moments, the blogger stepped back once more and with a nod sent him off. Feeling like he was letting him go in many more ways than one. As he watched the retreating back of the detective make its way inside the house, he exhaled. Fighting the tears gathering in his eyes and trying not to show how much this was breaking him again. Seeing him as mirage, like he were already dead.
Sherlock was not really around to play his role anymore, he probably would never be again; not in the same way. So the task fell to him, then: a final effort. An eulogy. In imitation of his friend's thinking pose, he folded his hands below his chin and prayed.
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 4040 40 40 40 40 40 40
The house did not look overtly abandoned, but Sherlock's eyes —even when mildly incapacitated— could notice that it hadn't been inhabited in a long time. The paint was scratched in some places and the dust that settled on the surfaces was begging to tell him a thousand stories; except he didn't want to think about them right now, he had one purpose in mind and he was adamant in fulfilling it.
He had to really push himself in order to keep going and not turn around and flee. Every tiny and great flame of fear he felt had to be kept on the edge outside, at least barely at the border where it could not hinder his attempt of fixing himself. Protecting his own psyche with a thin glass where he could gaze at the phobias, keep them within his sight but not able to penetrate his thinly veiled resolve. He felt the subtlest of hesitation would strike the match, and he was not ready to risk it. This had to work; otherwise, there was nothing else he could do. It was his last try. The last of his resources; and if it failed, he would end up with the pain himself.
He approached the sitting room where he believed the criminal to be hiding, and once he saw him, he halted. Standing with his arms stretched at his sides in surrender and offering. This was him now, the sacrificial lamb that wanted nothing more than to be spared from the feast. Making an effort to ignore the voices inside his own brain that begged him not to make a sound, and maybe then he wouldn't find them at all. Caught inside a frozen nightmare.
The Irish maniac lifted himself before him from the armchair in a graceful and controlled manner. Grinning and leaning back in an act of power excerption and confidence. Sherlock had no doubts about who was in control here. No delusions of who it was that would win; but still, he hoped he could somehow find absolution in another's devotion. Did someone ever thought about imploring for someone like him? To intervene for the sinner who needs it the most? He found he didn't know, and did not have time to ponder the answer either. Hope for him had always just been a fleeting thing. Some fever that had ran away from him and wreaked havoc at his expenses. Bending the meaning of the word would not save him now, nor would it exonerate all his mistakes. He would have to save himself.
"Hello, Sherl!" The other excitedly exclaimed. The false endearment falling easily from his forked tongue, so used already to the taunts. The detective fought the basic urge to cringe. Feeling dirty and wanting to scrape his skin raw.
"Moriarty," He managed to grunt out in acknowledge. The criminal must not see his weakness; if he showed any fragility, he would latch on like a sucking leach and never let go again. He strained not to let his voice break.
"I'm so glad you decided to come back to me." Moriarty sing-songed. He grinned and took a step closer. One of his hands was inside his pocket, and the spidery fingers on the other were drumming a consuming and entrancing melody that distracted the boffin's worried mind.
"Yes, well." He replied with false nonchalance. "The hospital was becoming a bit… dull." He lied and stashed both his hands inside John's warm jacket to hide his shaking from sight. He knew he was spiraling out of control already, he could recognise it rising over his limbs.
The demon in front of him regarded him with a careful gaze, probably sizing him up and determining whether his new fall would be easy to orchestrate. Roving his eyes slowly over his whole vulnerable body. "What did big brother say when you told him you wanted to meet with me?" He softly delivered. A delicate voice scrambling what was real inside his brain. A flash of uniforms came to him, barely there enough to remember correctly, despite the fact that it would have been merely minutes prior. The element of surprise was his brother's sole strategy. It was good that the detective did not intend to apprehend or attack him. His only objective was of a different nature.
"He-" Sherlock started, but found he could not finish. It was too much to take, he was already too poisoned to endure the amount of pressure the situation demanded. The exact reason why it was so important to do this. "He…" The younger man said lamely while he felt the frozen claws closing in around his throat.
The villain chuckled in amusement. "Is that why he put up a team of his minions to get me?" He asked. Sherlock knew James could see the surprise in his face. The boffin's breathing rate started picking up, silently panicking and wondering how in the world could his enemy already know that. "Oh, silly Sherlock." He commented and ran one of his hands through the other's disheveled curls. "Remember that you can't hide anything from me." Sherlock flinched back and created a distance between them. Trying to hide his distress.
"I know you," The criminal continued. "Each and every single part of your soul." James' comfortable attitude made a stark contrast against Sherlock's pale face. Trembling and sweating in fear, so much he had to lean against the wall beside him to prevent himself from falling over. "I know every one of the secrets you keep, and the crevices where you hide them." The devilish smile breaks something inside the sleuth's skin. He can't do anything but nod at the truth of that statement. Who, in the end, knew him more than the man who had made him?
Moriarty seemed to enjoy the teardrops being released from the other's eyes, but made a disgusted grimace when his gaze fell on the brown jacket he was wearing. Quickly recognising it as a Watson banner."Tell me, did your pet cry when he let you go?" He cruelly poured salt on the younger man's lacerations. Sherlock shrugged and closed his eyes in agony. It was such an easy thing, falling back into the pattern of marionette to the puppeteer. Letting him hold all the strings and do with him what he wished.
"They just wanted to watch what would happen, didn't they? What would the broken man would do next?" That sentence made the curly-haired man halt. No matter how much he had changed, his friends would never act like that. However, Moriarty may be right when he said none of them could unring the metaphorical bell. Where they even real? He couldn't get distracted now, not by the pain the other was inflicting, he had to follow his own plan. "I bet they are just laughing and not caring what happened to you." Insecurity was seeping through the protective wall. Something inside him that made him doubt whether he really was so sure they could ever feel anything towards him but pity. He knew that was not a good thought, but he didn't seem to be able to help himself. "And why would they, right?" The criminal went on, laughing and just stepping back to watch the whole devastation that was now Sherlock Holmes. "Why would they care for the useless excuse of a person who killed poor precious John Wa-"
He never got to finish his sentence since a swift projectile flew its way through the air and made a home directly in the centre of James' forehead. The detective jumped back startled, as the body of the other started limply falling backwards unto the floor. Descending as if in slow motion. Sherlock was still reeling, not really knowing what had happened until he saw the dead, unblinking eyes of the criminal staring at the emptiness above; grin still on his thin lips. He had not been sure of it until he looked the finality of death in the face. That's when the hysteria began.
"No!" He cried out in dismay as the officers flooded the place after hearing the shot. He rushed to the criminal's side and knelt beside the lifeless form, lowering his knees on a pool of crimson blood. He started frantically pounding on his chest in a futile attempt to bring him back. Pleading with the criminal to come back. He could not allow him to go without telling him what he needed to know.
"Sherlock!" The detective heard a voice cry out for him, gaining volume as it got closer. Yet, he could not get sidetracked now, it was imperative that he brought Moriarty back to life. "You can't die!" He desperately demanded while his fists bruised the already deceased flesh. "You can't!"
He felt arms surrounding his waist, trying to pull him away from his only salvation. In the distance there were faint, quiet voices of commands to get him out, but he ignored them. His hands and the majority of his front were now covered in blood. The strong limbs around him pulled harder and he flailed his legs in order to return to his task. Fighting the hold that wanted to rob him of everything. "You made me like this!" He exclaimed to the corpse. Shaking him by the shoulders and making a last attempt to revive him.
Bit by bit, he was separated from Moriarty, with a few tries in between to get back next to him. "He can make me Sherlock Holmes again." He said in lieu of an explanation. Still weakly fighting against the grip John had on him. Feeling more manic than he ever had. He knew his only chance to feel well once more wasn't gone, it couldn't be gone.
The blogger enfolded the other against his chest while the younger man's tears soaked through his shirt. Crying disconsolately in heaving sobs. "I want to be Sherlock Holmes again." He said, in a thin voice which revealed he was close to complete colapse.
"I know, Sherlock." John reassured him and rubbed his back with one of his palms in comfort. "I know."
40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 4040 40 40 40 40 40 40
He knew it was wrong to run. To escape the confinement they had tried to pass up as liberty. It wasn't always he felt like that; in fact, the majority of the time he felt incredibly thankful for the protective structure around him. Because no matter how haunted he felt, the conclusion would always be the same in the end: He found himself unable to inhabit anywhere else and that, in itself, was another sort of prison. One he paradoxically enjoyed and cherished up to the point of desperation.
He was completely aware that himself was not the only person he was hurting when he did this. The panic would be severe, as it usually was, and it would leave them to wonder whether they would reach him in time every occasion he chose to do it. Yet he found the yearning undeniable. The suffocating air swirled around him until he had no other choice but to bow down and let himself be dragged to where he always went. Not always to the same place, but of the same kind.
Soft snowflakes trickled down from the sky and stuck where they landed. Too few to really matter yet, but there nonetheless to enhance the lavender hue of the sky where nighttime was still clinging to its surface. He placed his barefoot feet over the freezing cold grass, his thin pijamas the only thing to shield him from the brutal condition, but he never minded. He reveled in it.
He had climbed the fence, moving his way through the semidarkness swiftly, aimlessly. He just knew he wanted to get away and the only places of real comfort for those moments were solitude and a cemetery. Protection, solace, support, they would all come later, once they found him. But for now, there was the silence of death, and it was disarming. No footsteps, or anything else to distract him from his train of thought. The one that he needed to experience in order to cleanse his brain, his soul. The silhouettes of the gravestones were soothing somehow. As if they were the ones that possessed all those regrets. As if they reminded him that somewhere there was one just like this for the figure of deep shadows. The demon that he later found out was shot by none other than his best friend. And if John was not an angel for scaring the monsters away, he failed to determine what he was.
Mycroft had persuaded —ordered— the hospital to release him into his and his physician's care. And so, he had been returned to 221B, with a list of preventive and cautious actions to which he had to be subjected. It was needless to say that the pale yellow pills they were still giving him were not entirely encouraging. But he endured all of their cares, because he was lost and they were the only ones trying to find him, to get him back home. Even if they ignored the fact that with the criminal gone, that would probably never be possible, not in the same way. The tightrope had broken, and he was floating endlessly; and he had to accept that.
The life he had carved out for himself was decaying in front of his eyes, the fantasy withering away, and it would not change its course unless he managed to shake himself out of the obsessive rut. John had promised that he would stay with him, that he would see this through, all without inquiring whether he was fine. He had said that he would instead wait for him to say it, to feel it, to mean it. And that he would trust him and his word, just like he had since the beginning. Because no matter how insane or impossible, he would always believe in him. Sherlock cherished the loyalty immensely.
His steps on the paths among the tombs and trees were hurried but not really swift. He chose instead to wander patiently through the last minutes of the night. Letting all his phantoms give him chase; all his fears and apprehensions following him in a sickening parade that he found himself getting used to leading. They had become a part of him, and he now understood what a naive fool he had been when he thought he could erase the past. There was no room for panacea. No matter how much he acted like it never happened, it had, and it would stay with him forever.
He berated himself for letting all of this happen to him, and wondered why he ever allowed it. He did not like to think that it had somehow been his fault, yet the alternative of believing the maniac had been just impossible to overpower was more distressing. He was still learning to live inside a world without the strange spectre, he was in no need of analysing the height of his power.
The delicate movements he made while he watched the leaves on the trees turn colours were enchanting. Yet he never let anyone see them. Privacy and isolation had become once again a companion. A necessity that he acknowledged would eat him alive if unfed. Whatever he needed, he had to see to it by himself. The quiet, soft whispers of the wind hitting the branches felt like a caress on his skin. He ran his fingertips on the edges of the jade seas and felt as if they removed some of his pollution. That permanent red blemish he possessed on his hands.
He failed to conclude the reason why he had to do this, but maybe those locations where the only places where he could hope that the things he buried would stay that way forever. That when he finally laid the shadow to sleep, it would never rise again. Or perhaps it was the undeniable win that nature made over them. Growing above something so dead and reshaping the world as they went. It didn't really matter why he did it. He just let his feet go were they pleased.
The lilac sky was giving way to the first light of the cold day, and he walked and ran until he found he could go on no longer. Falling to his knees like a domino setting something in motion. Even if his brittle self felt more as a light feather. Fragile in its influence, but peaceful. Quiet. Soaring by himself.
He let his back hit the ground, sinking into the thin layer of snow and water puddled there. He was aware of the possibility of getting hypothermia. He really could cause his body some damage, but the freezing cold seeping through his bones felt like heaven, every spike of ice on his sensitive skin was like forgiveness.
He couldn't really hear anything, not here. Everything was empty, clear. His hands and feet tentatively experienced the smooth but rough textures beneath him and he slowly descended into calmness for the first time in God knows how long.
He closed his eyes and he was not able to see a thing. Not pleasant nor terrible. Just emptiness. The big black void of silence and nothingness.
Missed, cherished, blessed darkness.