A/N: Might not be to your liking, a little bit experimental.
Location: Snowdonia.
Still not British, a detective or a doctor. Oh, or a writer. Definitely not a writer. -csf
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John enters the shared room where he and the detective have been bunking up for a couple of days now. A small, modest double bedroom, in an inn by the rolling hills of a mountainside. He already expects some untidiness from the incredible, untamed genius detective, having left him early at dawn, as the morning's cold was still crisp underfoot. As he returns, he finds his own perfectly made bed by the door and parallel, further on in the small room, Sherlock laying across his own bed, tangled in his bed sheets and apparently stark naked underneath. A long leg, long spine and long arm below a mop of dark unruly hair showing uninterrupted pale skin. As much as the detective likes to spread out like a starfish in a bed, such close familiarity with the entangled bedsheets hints that he may have not left it at all today. Such is his devil may care attitude to the rest of the world, one elegant butt cheek is picking out, as perfectly formed as if an ancient Greece statue had been stolen from the National Gallery and stashed away in an inn located in Snowdonia.
As if alerted by a sixth sense that should befit any great detective, Sherlock stirs and lazily looks over his shoulder, taking in John with customary "return home" scrutiny.
John crosses his arms in front of him and asks curtly: 'Did you spook away the cleaning lady again? She complained of having an eye full of you already, Sherlock.'
'Yet her eyes lingered on me 1.7 seconds longer than usual.'
The impossible detective is smirking, shameless as ever.
For all the cover magazine stunning looks, Sherlock is much too detached from his transport to do more than manipulate another's reactions to it. John and Mrs Hudson, he expects, will tutt at him in a knowledgeable way.
The ex-army doctor keeps his straight face, impervious to the manipulation.
'What about my fresh towels?'
Sherlock's eyes narrow, evaluating the sweaty, dusty, yet full of coiled energy form of the man gone on a long wander. He reads 20 Km easily, through the hilly mountain paths. He reads the steely determination of a deadly soldier.
Sherlock opens his mouth – and decides instead to offer: 'I can procure you the fresh linen you want.'
John nods – Sherlocks thinks he hears him mutter "damn right" – and moves towards the small bag with his belongings from the van. He still sees Sherlock grab his own towel and hold it across his chest in a modicum of modesty, stepping out onto the corridor and yell: 'New towels for room two!'
The doctor shakes his head as Sherlock bypasses him and gets in the shower first.
Now, in 221B Baker Street, John would have muttered curses and sighed heavily to let Sherlock know that he was being an inconsiderate git. However, that was the old John. This new John is not quite so patient or long suffering.
John follows as soon as he gets the towels and starts undressing as Sherlock is behind the ugly translucent flowery curtain. 'My turn in 5 minutes!'
Sherlock hums, seemingly unaware of the proximity. And the lingering challenge.
As the time elapses, John pulls the curtain back and Sherlock jumps, turning to see a fully naked John drag him out of the shower. He forgets to breathe as he sees all of John – muscles, sinews, scars, pulsing veins and flushed skin. Dragged out, he looks away briskly, stumbling over his feet in the small bathroom. He notices John's awaiting towel, indicating where John spent the hiatus, this becoming as visible to Sherlock's mind as he himself would have been to John through the ugly plastic film as he showered. Exposed, vulnerable. Sherlock leans quickly over the sink, his mind coming to a halt, reacting to the brazen new John.
'I'll be out in 5 minutes, Sherlock.'
An estimation, a warning, or a free pass? Sherlock groans and ducks away very fast.
It's fair to say that he's never been met with challenge like for like by any of his previous flatmates. Heck, few of them lasted a full day.
This is strangely tantalising.
Five minutes later, John comes out of the bathroom fully dressed, accosting a dazed looking Sherlock leaning against the bedroom wall with a quick touch to the forehead and a check on pupil dilation. The doctor says kindly: 'You can't spend a day in bed doing lord knows what, you know?'
Sherlock's eyebrows join at the center of that intelligent forehead, and he tries to pierce his partner with that intense scrutiny he alone is impervious too. It very much fails into blank statics. John smiles freely at that, a boyish grin that can warm up a cold room by 5°C, finally looking satisfied and nodding to himself.
'Do I pass your inspection, captain?' Sherlock stammers in an impersonation of a much more in control individual than himself at that moment.
John's expression is amused, and innocent in a far too contrived manner.
'Follow my lead and you'll be alright,' he says, shiny eyes never leaving his friend.
However, he quickly breaks contact and the room feels cold again.
'I'll have you here for a couple of days on your own. You looked to have a touch of fever the day before yesterday, remember? Can't take the risk of it getting worse, or we won't get back on the road anytime soon.'
Sherlock did, and he remembers, but finds his outcome unacceptable.
'No,' he breathes out before his brain fully engages that arrogant mask.
Metaphorical alarm bells are ringing in the Mind Palace.
John has learnt a trick or two from his time spent with the detective. The unusual behaviour of the last fifteen minutes is but a string of careful machinations to keep the consulting detective's focus engaged elsewhere. It's manipulative and deceitful, but no matter how brilliantly out of the taller man's playbook, it hits a stone wall determination in Sherlock.
'I'm not opposed to following you, John. I have thus far.' The detective's answer is wrapped in wounded loyalty. How the tables have turned. Next to this unpredictable new John he is tentative, afraid to spook him away too easily. It hits him. John is looking to creating deceptions, the obstacles in Sherlock's path, and each one Sherlock takes down carefully and refuses to let go. Now for the star of the show...
'I…' John looks out of the window at the rocky mountain and sterile ground. The room feels suddenly even colder to Sherlock, as if John had already left in his mind. 'I'm going off-grid, mate. Just me and the elements.'
'I can come,' Sherlock insists, determined. John reads the meaning:
I won't leave you, John. I'm here to protect you. I won't back down.
The ex-army doctor sighs, frustrated, but he catches sight of something in the oter man's eyes and the fight in him lessens by a few degrees.
John gets loyalty, of course he does; it's his finest attribute.
'I'll get us some gear,' he promises, as his whole scheme comes crashing down. A dent in the armour that does not suit him. A fraction of the real John is exposed. A concession.
I won't push you away right now, Sherlock. I don't know who I am, but I trust you always do.
'Of course. Survival gear.'
The way the doctor avoids Sherlock's gaze tells the detective John might have planned to go without any gear to the inhospitable mountains. A foolish act from a man at the end of his rope, desperate to feel something. Anything. Danger. The key to anchor the soldier in him, draws in John to the here and now, as he's spinning out of control again.
Sherlock is John's loadstone in a squall. Any squall. Even those within.
The detective has inched so closely in his attempt to read those usually expressive eyes that their foreheads nearly touch for a moment. Sherlock's is cool and blessedly fever-free, and John's still tense. The doctor blinks repeatedly as a result.
John cannot adequately express the disquiet filling his soul. It leaks out of him with every dangerous step, every challenge he takes on, every tease of his mate. In ways the older, more homely John wouldn't dare.
Sherlock won't be dissuaded by this. Much to the contrary, he's mesmerized by the open window to the dark, perilous waters that hide deep inside John. He has always been fully aware of their existence. He now sees them constantly surfacing over John's expressive eyes into John's new ways.
Survival gear. We will survive this storm, John. You and I, together.
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'Grab on tight, don't let go. I've got you, Sherlock.'
'How can you possibly pull me up? I'm heavier than you!'
More words harshly spoken follow this brief interaction, possibly curses in a foreign dialect if Sherlock had to guess. John's face is turning purple as he holds on to the rope, holding Sherlock from the deep fall down a ravine with sharp edged rock jutting out at odd angles.
They are high in the mountain and not another soul is in sight. Even if they called for help, any help would inevitably take too long.
It's been a few miles since John insisted the two men's destiny be interlinked by a sturdy neon rope. Perhaps he thought the detective might walk off after a sulphurous lichen or a bird's porous skeleton without his noticing. Perhaps he dramatically foresaw this unpleasant development; a slip over a mossy rock and a loss of balance from the tall, gangly detective.
John immediately grabbed hold of his end of the rope and the closest protrusion on the terrain, counterbalancing the detective's weight and the pull dragging him the same way. Those instinctive actions were barely the start, steadying the fallen friend, having him hang from a neon rope over a sizeable drop.
An abyss, John's writer's mind supplies, to which he shivers. Now here he finds himself in a predicament, refusing to let go, desperately trying to pull Sherlock up, back to safety, by his side.
It's not been for the lack of trying. The angle is not kind, and John is pulling with all his might, yet he is not making headway. For his part, Sherlock is trying to grab a foothold in the vertical rock surface but he cannot really reach, and he's left to balance precariously in the rarefied air near the top of the mountain.
'Call for help, John!'
'There's no time,' he strains to say. Sherlock's grey eyes widen in fear. John is being pulled over too, by Sherlock's weight, and that of his backpack. He's the one holding both their weights. Soon they will both fall to their deaths below, if nothing else is done. Just the logical conclusion to the evidence at hand.
John could let go of Sherlock to save his own life. It's the logical thing to do. Sherlock would never hold a grudge to the rational solution to a fatal problem.
Although he'd rather find a better answer, if less rational, and live.
He can tell the thought has occurred to John, and much like John would always do, he has turned it away with prejudice. He won't ever abandon Sherlock to his death, thank you very much.
There must be another way.
There is no St Bart's trickery and illusion to play here, there's nothing up the detective's sleeves.
Sherlock blinks and he sees what he must do. It won't save him yet, other dangers will lurk, but it gives him – them – a fighting chance.
Sherlock shrugs off his backpack before John loses much more of his core strengths being used to keep himself from going overboard, pulled down by his friend's weight.
Damn John's lack of height; even as he is, he's muscular enough for his height and some of Sherlock's.
The released backpack falls down, bouncing over angles and releasing a small avalanche of rocks, dust and dry twigs. It could look harmless, if it weren't for the strewn items on the way further down, the backpack slashed to pieces over jagged rock edges. A human body would be equally shred to bits.
This isn't looking good, Sherlock admits to himself.
'Hold on, Sherl—'
John might have used a diminutive, or he might have clenched his teeth hard to find the reserve of energy in the deeper recesses of his soldier's core, but he chooses not to dawdle, and hoists Sherlock's rope with superhuman effort.
The rope inches upwards.
The rock surface is still unreachable.
Small tremors intensify as the waves spread over the rope between the two friends. John's muscles are spasming with the desperate effort.
There is nothing much else that Sherlock can let go of, to make himself lighter.
If he must, he will release John from this obligation to bring him back to safe ground. John's quiet and desperate loyalty does not deserve Sherlock's claim to hope.
A torn scream erupts from the deep furnace of the soldier's chest and a few more inches of rope are collected in, dragging a dangling detective with them.
And Sherlock allows himself to both marvel and hope at the same time.
John's indomitable spirit is contradicting the very laws of classic physics, Isaac Newton be damned, for John will never let Sherlock go down for a foolish misstep over a mossy stone.
What irrelevant reason had made Sherlock wander off to the cliff edge is another matter altogether, and one that John will not drop anytime soon, should both of them survive this.
John, you had seriously wanted to do this all on your own?
Another shout and the pain clawing through it is palpable all around. Birds in the further mountainside take flight. John is shredding every muscle in his arms and abs to pull up his friend, and the rope is pulled in another couple of inches.
Sherlock desperately reaches out, almost touching a rocky ledge, something to help John survive the tearing of his muscles to perform the most important task of his life.
Reichenbach Falls, the painting from one of their cases, comes to his mind. The powerful waterfalls sucking Sherlock into a vortex of death, and John clawing him back to the top. Yet, it's but a painting, and Sherlock has no idea why his mind is playing allegories of waterfalls at a moment when his life hangs so perilously at a balance. Maybe he's losing his mind already.
Sherlock would never have chosen a more honourable and kind person to hold him in the last moments before the imminent drop to his death than John H. Watson.
'John—' he starts to say. He needs to tell John that it is okay, even if it will never be okay, never be enough, surely it is now time for the kind white lie?
One last scream and John's vocal chords may end up permanently damaged as he channels all the hurt, pain and revenge inside him to hone in on one task alone, taking from his vital energy, and the rope is pulled in a three or four miraculous inches more, and Sherlock's foot touches a rocky ledge, and his fingertips hold on to a hold in a rock fissure, and just like that Sherlock gains control in his own rescue.
Some control, after all he's still in the underside of a cliff edge, trying to make it to the top again, to John's side.
The former army soldier is himself perhaps too busy, dry retching over the mossy rock by his other side, his body still rebelling over the strain endured. He's taking in drunkenly deep breaths, that are ragged and uneven. But even through the haze of pain and utter exhaustion he gets that his role has now changed. The rope is now so much lighter, as Sherlock can hold himself up. He must now back up Sherlock's ascent. Be prepared for another possible fall, for the nightmare to replay all over again.
St Bart's with John as a participant rather than a spectator; with agency and power over the end result.
Sherlock takes his sweet time, determined to protect John, who may not have it in him to go through another holding session, let alone any other hoisting. Heart beating in his throat, breathing shallow and perspiration in his cold clammy hands making it harder to hold onto the irregular rock, Sherlock pulls himself steadily up the rock profile, and onto John's side, where John grabs him and pulls him away from the edge, and holds him, and simply refuses to let go in an irrational way, foreheads touching and eyes trying to gaze into each other.
'Don't ever do that again, Sherlock,' John rasps, his voice a wreck after all the anguished shouts.
If he gets already that this could have easily been himself while on his desired solo expedition, he doesn't comment. That his best friend was the proxy for the horror. And witnessing it from the outside hits home the harder for the lost soldier.
'I will endeavour to not repeat it. That's an easy promise,' Sherlock says, smirking in that impossibly teasing way of his.
John pulls him closer in an uncomfortably tight hug. Sherlock finds he doesn't really mind.
"I'm sorry", Sherlock hears him say between them, "it's all my fault".
Sherlock hugs him back, in a tight and protective way. He's been wishing to do this for a while now. He's known John's been needing it.
'It's going to be alright.'
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The van's motor proudly purrs when the key turns in the ignition. Behind John, Sherlock is still pulling in the last of their bag of belongings. With a quick shuddering look over to the mountain towering above them, Sherlock strains his eyes to try to find the spot where his backpack landed, and the rock protrusion from which he glided over into the abyss. But for John, it wouldn't be just a backpack full of survival gear being left behind in those dangerous mountains.
Even the descent, as fast as the both of them could overcome the distance in their shared exhaustion, was a tiresome affair, where the friends had to share one sleeping bag, one tent, one of everything. As they made it back to the van and the bottom of the mountain, they were themselves very much one, as well. One grateful, alive, entity of detective-doctor.
'John, can we lay off the mountains for a while?' Sherlock asks simply. No smirk, no clever edge to the question, no gimmicks of any kind. Just one question, levelled at John as an absolute equal, or truthfully, even in admiration of the man beside him.
'Sounds good to me,' John acquiesces, with a calm spilling from within, one that Sherlock had not seen in a long time, one that usually overflows from a protective John Watson every time he saves Sherlock's life, thus giving a special meaning and direction to his own life.
It's but a temporary fix for John. The Holmes brothers were wrong; John doesn't crave danger for danger's sake. He craves the meaning that comes with it, from his own bravery, loyalty and a cause. Danger is just a means to the objective.
Over the last few years, their position with the Scotland Yard and London's criminal scene has been cemented. Cautious of each other, they have risked less. Fewer rooftop chases too, they are both quite fit but not getting any younger. John's gun has featured as a mysterious anonymous shooter's far less. Even Mrs Hudson's flat has been the cause of fewer speed diles to the fire and rescue services. Sherlock has found some stability, John has dedicated himself to being a doctor and Sherlock's associate in the spare time. Somehow, it's not been enough for John. The quiet year they had has driven John to the brink of his own internal war.
Baker Van's door is shut firmly, Sherlock hops into the passenger's seat and John floors the pedal, heading out, back on the road.
'Really? You slipped on the rare moss you bent down to observe? What are you, three years old?' the doctor scoffs. Of course he would. They are safe now, it's fair game.
'At least one of us was enjoying the landscape and not just marching over the ground right to the end, John. What is the point of being on a mountain if you are not paying attention?'
Time beats silently by, as the road's white intermitent markings disappear under the van.
'Was it nice moss then?
'It was brilliant, John! The Smithsonian is sending an expert to investigate the possibility of an undiscovered species. I already told them it should be named with you in mind, John!'
A few more road markings vanish under the van.
'Sherlock, one of these days I'm going to insist you take my hand as we go anywhere.'
'Just drop it, John. Such an elaborate plot, when all you had to do was ask.'
'What, no, I-' John's face goes all red as he tries to justify himself.
Sherlock smirks and takes a satisfying breath. This works too. There's some return to the normal way of things, and for that he is grateful.
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