Prompt: Come and do your will. It's a musical prompt day. Use the title or the music (or any other aspect) as your inspiration today.
Music: Come and do Your will in me (voices & strings) (1997)
Bit less editing than usual, so sorry in advance for typos, but it's late and I need to sleep
Pulsing. Cloying. Sweltering. Heat. High temperatures pressed me into the cushions. I needed to cool down.
Except a wide open window did not find even the slightest breeze. Stagnant air only grew warmer with the heat of the day, and lukewarm water from the pitcher did nothing. Suffocating warmth turned our comfortable sitting room into a veritable oven, but I knew better than to leave the flat. Not when the heat brought other things.
Sand. Everywhere. In my shoes. Muddying our water. Blowing into my revolver. Even the tight packing of my medical kit could not keep the fine granules out. Some days I felt like I spent more time cleaning than doctoring.
Though only on days we did not go to battle. The hot, dry wind blew sand into every crevice and combined doctoring and cleaning into a single duty. No soldier could afford the infection of a dirty injury.
Metal clattered to the cobblestones outside, snapping me out of a past heat and into the present one. I shifted to avoid touching the settee beneath me as much as possible. Surely the temperature would drop soon? Maybe as the sun set?
Probably not. It certainly had not last night, nor the night before, and we would not see rain for at least two more days.
"Glad to see you among the living." Light ribbing drifted from behind me, then Alec claimed the patch of sand on my right. "What are you doing out here alone?"
Remembering. I made no reply, eyes on the ground rather than let him see my swirling thoughts. Harry would have enjoyed the sparseness here. Patience found many animals even Australia did not have, and twice I had heard a call I did not recognize. Alec did not need me to voice my homesickness. Not when he undoubtedly felt the same.
"Johnny?"
Though he would not agree with that decision, naturally. A gentle hand prodded my shoulder. I hummed just loudly enough to count as acknowledgement.
Those mountains in the distance would make a fine addition to my brother's sketchbook. Even last night's rare shower—more a drizzle and slight spike in humidity than a true rain—could not detract from the local charm.
Unless some tyrant put a war in it. The sea of blood of the day's battle flickered through my memory.
"John, say something before I find another doctor."
Gentle fingers grasped my hand, taking the pulse as they did so. I pulled myself out of my thoughts just enough to attempt a smirk.
"I'm fine. Just…thinking."
"Thinking deeply." He still studied me but decided not to press—for the moment. "Thought you left your novels at home."
I had, but I could not erase them from my memory at the same time. I had spent many nights last week recalling as much plot as I could for several stories. "Reading" to myself beat staring at canvas when sleep escaped me, but he did not need to know that either. I finally forced a low question.
"What are you doing out here?"
"Following you," he answered bluntly. "You don't usually leave camp to stare at the ground. You alright?"
No, but no one here was. War was not "alright," and I was not any worse off than the rest of our company.
"About the same as you, I imagine." I finally leaned back to watch the sky. A smile tried to form when Alec joined me.
"So, beyond homesick, burnt out, and wishing the captains would get their heads straight so we could quit killing people."
Faint amusement became a wry grin. "Something like that."
The memory faded beneath a wave of discomfort. A nearby folder became a makeshift fan, but even that merely moved the heat around—not to mention made me hotter for the effort. If only we had one of those electric fans.
We did not, however, and we could not, considering how rare the devices still were. Lethargy cast around the room, searching for anything that might help.
Papers on my desk would do no better than the folder I held. I knew better than to borrow Holmes' chemistry set. The water I had retrieved earlier had warmed in minutes. The fireplace would have the opposite effect. I quickly looked away from the painting above the mantle.
Though not quickly enough. Stifling heat instantly disappeared behind the chill of billowing mist.
"Holmes, answer me!"
Crashing. Roaring. The cry of an angry waterfall filled my ears, but I focused more on the chasm below.
"Holmes!"
Nothing, but a near crawl still checked every inch of path and the cliff beneath me. I had heard the scream. He was here. I knew he was here, and I would find him. I had to. I could not apologize for leaving him in danger until I found him. Did he cling to a rock?
No, nor did I see him on the path. The area behind the falls held only a collection of tracks that I refused to follow again. He could not be dead. Not when I had heard the scream.
"Holmes, where are you?!"
Screaming water. Crying mists. The abyss returned my calls to the path, adding a haunting quality that made my heart clench.
But my friend did not respond. Repeated calls received nothing but howling ghosts. My friend was not here. He was dead. Because of me. I had killed him.
Murderer. I was a murderer. I no longer fought the grief overwhelming me.
"Watson!"
Pressure abruptly caught my elbow and pulled. Panic surged through me. If I died here, I would do it on my terms, not after being thrown off a cliff by Moriarty's second in command. Eliminating Moran might partially make up for failing Holmes.
"You are safe, Watson, and so am I. I swear. Stop fighting me!"
A familiar sitting room overlaid the falls, then the voice registered as Holmes'. I blinked to find my friend kneeling in front of me. Shock forced me to still.
No. Not possible. I had heard the scream. He was dead. I had killed him.
"I am here." Pain in his eyes announced my thoughts far too easy to read. Cautious movements used my surprise to take my hand in his. "I am here," he said again, ignoring the quickly building heat. "Whatever you saw was not real. You need to slow your breathing."
My…breathing? What about my breathing?
The floor tried to lurch beneath me, and only then did I realize I had somehow timed each inhale to my racing heartbeat. Gasping breaths found no oxygen.
Which proved this more real than that waterfall, at any rate. The spraying water had held a facsimile of cold, not this choking heat, but the knowledge did nothing for my ability to focus.
"Breathe, Watson. Match your breaths to mine. You are in the sitting room, five feet from the settee. It is the end of July. You are in London. Mrs. Hudson joined her sister at the shore this week. The Irregulars mentioned playing in the canal. You wanted—"
A burst of pain shot down my leg, tinging my vision red as a gasp caught in my throat. However I had ended up on the floor, my leg did not appreciate it.
"Watson!"
Nor did Holmes. I understood the worry in his voice only when I realized I had clenched my jaw and ducked my head against the pain. Concentrated effort let me move my other hand to his wrist.
He relaxed—slightly—but low murmurs continued providing an anchor as I fought to calm the ragged inhales now trying to stop altogether. Minutes passed before I managed anything like eye contact.
Relief flickered into view, nearly overshadowed by the lingering pain and sorrow. His grip tightened.
"How can I help?"
Burn that confounded painting. That view of Reichenbach had caused more than one regression since Switzerland, but I refused to say as much. I would never ask him to remove one of the few items he had brought with him so many years ago. For all I knew, the image constituted a priceless heirloom of the great-uncle he had mentioned a few times.
"Make the temperature decrease," I answered instead, gingerly releasing his hand to crawl to the settee. "It is entirely too hot in here."
Silence answered me, though he remained within reach. I finally glanced up to find deductions racing in steely grey.
"When were you going to tell me about the painting?"
The day he quit reading my every thought. Shrugged nonchalance tried to throw him off track.
"What about it?"
"Watson."
"What about it?" I stubbornly repeated. "It's a painting, Holmes, and it's not even mine. Why would I tell you anything about it?"
His murmur ignored my feigned irritation. "I should have noticed years ago. How many times has that waterfall caused a problem?"
Crashing water. Cold spray. Painful realization.
"Right." Holmes stood, the sudden movement shoving the image aside. I probably flinched, but concentrated effort blinked the room into focus just in time to see him pull the painting from the wall.
"You don't need to do that."
He ignored me, hiding the image against the wall on the landing before claiming his chair to stare at me. Leaning back into the cushion changed my feigned protest regarding the picture to a much more genuine one referencing him "sitting vigil" for a regression.
Thankfully, his response became a less than serious argument about how to best cool off. Wandering from a pitcher of water to an unplanned dunk in the canal, the bickering provided a distraction that grounded me better than he knew.
Or perhaps he did, considering he renewed the argument several times when my focus slipped.
Hope you enjoyed! And thank you to those who reviewed last chapter! :)