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The Tide Approaches
Apr. 29th, 2011 09:50 pmFandom: Sherlock
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock, John
Genre: Drama, Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: None
Complete: Yes
Summary: John wasn't entirely certain what he would succumb to first, drowning or hypothermia.
A/N: For tunes84 and patster223, the whores who demand all of this fic and nonsense. The drowning/hypothermia was for me though. London has piers!
Disclaimer: I'm nowhere near British enough to own these guys. *tragic sigh*
John wasn't entirely certain what he would succumb to first, drowning or hypothermia.
Upon being dragged into the knee-high water lapping at the support struts halfway down the length of the pier, John had discovered how little he appreciated just how utterly frigid the water of the Thames was.
His teeth had begun chattering before they'd even finished lashing him to one of the tree-trunk width supports.
So naturally he'd believed that it would be the hypothermia that would do him in first.
But now, twenty minutes later, the water was lapping at his chin and he was less certain. He couldn't feel his limbs distinctly, just a deep, aching numbness where his body was, but the water was rising much more quickly than he had anticipated. Hypothermia was still certainly a threat, especially considering the fact that it had become a struggle to think clearly. A very bad sign, that.
John wondered if Sherlock was even looking for him yet.
Between the rows of silhouetted pylons he could see the lights of the other bank reflected in the water, glimmering in and out of existence.
The last two months with Sherlock had seen him through an existential crises of sorts and he thought it was a bit of a shame if it all had to wink out after such a short time. It felt as though this partnership, this friendship, were what he had been blundering around in search of all his life. That it should all be over because of his truly abominable luck, well that just seemed unfair.
Not that he was unfamiliar with unfairness.
Briny water lapped at John's lower lip and he blinked, startled into tipping his head back; he tasted salt on his tongue. Fear prickled along the back of his neck. How had the water gotten so high without him noticing?
“P-p-pay at-tention, J-John,” he told himself and hit his head against the pylon with a thunk. “S-s-stay awake.”
His chest ached as his heart staggered into a faster beat. He felt wrong, all wrong. Maybe it wouldn't be one or the other, maybe hypothermia and the water would get him together. It would be like him and Sherlock, each an integral part, but one more directly responsible than the other.
He closed his eyes, shudders ripping through his body. “P-please, God, n-n-not n-now,” he whispered.
When he pried his eyes open again, the lights of the shore had blurred and he couldn't discern where water became land. Exhaustion dragged at him and he found satisfaction in the fact that he almost felt warm after such a small effort. Another bad sign, a voice whispered at the back of his mind.
Water splashed over his ears and the smacking of the waves around him was broken by moments of fuzzy silence that John drifted on, letting them take him miles away.
Perhaps he had fulfilled his purpose. Maybe was still fulfilling it. Sherlock would find his killer, because that was what Sherlock did after all. John didn't regret anything. Not a single minute. For awhile everything had been so vivid. He had been doing more than just existing, he had been really living.
The sound switched back on momentarily and he flinched at the sudden sharpness of it. A brokenly shouted, “On!” much too close, much too loud. Water licked at his chin and he closed his eyes as it smothered the noisy world once more.
Something caught on his left side, shaking the water out of his ears, and the silence shattered. “JOHN!”
He flinched away, his eyes blinking open, and found a dark shape bobbing in front of him, blocking the shimmering London lights. “Move,” he tried to demand and nearly choked as water flooded into his open mouth. Coughs tore at his throat until his lungs burned and his numb body ached. A flood of adrenaline washed through him, dragging him back to himself. His heart skipped a few painful beats as light glided along the contours of a familiar face. Sherlock.
Thick, numb lips refused to cooperate as he spoke, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. Sherlock's name came out mangled.
Now that the shape had gathered some distinction—namely Sherlock's high cheekbones and his glittering eyes—a sluggish sort of hope bubbled inside him. His mouth was moving so John grasped onto that, struggling to listen and understand. “—es, it's me, John. Can you understand me?”
John tried to nod his head only to discover that the water covered his nose if he dropped his chin. Panic surged up his throat.
“Stay calm, John,” Sherlock ordered severely, gripping John's jaw from beneath and pressing it upward. “I have to cut you loose.” John sucked in a shaky breath through his nose.
He concentrated on watching as Sherlock produced his pocket model torch from beneath the water. He flicked it on with his thumb and put it between his teeth. “John,” he said around its barrel, gaze fierce, “Head back. Please do not assist the ocean in drowning you.” The beam hit the water somewhere between them, but the reflected light was more than enough to allow John to make out his face.
His hair was plastered to his forehead in curly tendrils, water droplets dangling from his nose and lips, which were red from the icy water forming small peaks at his throat. Dimly, John felt a pang of jealousy. If he were as tall as Sherlock...
“John,” Sherlock said, his voice thick with impatience, “Listen to me. Can you tell me if you're tied or handcuffed?”
John blinked, his forehead wrinkling as he thought about that. Above them he could hear the soft groans of the pier shifting in response to the incoming tide.
Then something knocked him hard in the chin and he spluttered as salty water got into his mouth, making a go for his lungs. Sherlock glared at him, so close his nose could have been brushing John's numbed lips. “Focus, John!” he growled.
“S-sorry,” John said. He swallowed, feeling the water kiss along the corners of his mouth. “Hyp-poth-thermia,” he explained. “'S b-bad.” Still shivering though.
“I know,” Sherlock replied, and there was a darkness in his tone that sent a chill down John's spine. He was struggling to identify it when he realized that there was a warm pressure against his chest and pressure on his arms. “I'm trying to determine how I am going to get your bindings undone,” Sherlock told him before he could form the question. A pause and then, “Ah. Good. Very good.” John could feel his satisfaction.
Then Sherlock vanished beneath the waves.
The light of his torch caused a green glow in the water for a moment and then it, too, was gone. Panic seized John round the throat and he brought his head forward, shouting for Sherlock. He regretted it immediately, as water forced its way into his mouth and nose and eyes, burning like liquid fire. He yanked his head back, thunking it painfully on the post and his vision blurred and wavered as he coughed. No, he was going to die and Sherlock—
The tightness around his chest suddenly wasn't there any-more and John's head slipped beneath the surface, against his control. He tried to swim for a moment, but he was too tired, his limbs too stiff.
Darkness surrounded him, pulsing silence pressing in on his ears. His eyes drifted shut.
And snapped open as something jerked at his shoulders. There was light, murky and green to his left, a new pressure under his arms.
Then Sherlock was there, just in front of him. John sighed; bubbles tumbled upwards, obscuring his view.
He tried to focus, but Sherlock's face was inky with shadows that blended into the dark water.
Everything was okay. He felt warm, and Sherlock had come.
Fingers touched his face, burning his skin. That was enough. He could let it all go, fall away. Ice would become fire and then nothing, nothing at all.
But Sherlock's touch beckoned. Heat that wouldn't consume, heat that would glow long and fierce and comfortable.
He grasped it, used it to anchor drifting thoughts.
~ * ~
Something hot and knobby pressed up against John's side. It was...comfortably uncomfortable. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the low light, but he knew as soon as he took a breath where he was. In a private room, no less.
“Welcome back,” a voice drawled from the corner. Heavy drapes had been drawn over the window and it was impossible to tell if it was night or day.
“Mycroft,” John replied, his voice coming out far softer and rougher than he expected. Then as an afterthought: “Thanks for the room.”
It was difficult to make out more than just the impression of Mycroft's features in the dark corner, but John saw his tight smile nonetheless. “My darling brother was adamant.” The smile fell away. “How could I deny his wishes after the scare you gave him?”
John's breaths grew slow, measured, responding to the menace in Mycroft's gaze with calm. “Sherlock doesn't scare easily.”
“Precisely,” Mycroft said, and John felt his voice like a razor-blade. “You nearly died. Both of you. You were far worse off than he, but that would have been little consolation if you had succumbed without him.”
John's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. “I—”
“Do try to be a little more careful,” Mycroft said, narrowing his eyes.
The knob pressed into John's ribs shifted and the intensity in Mycroft's eyes faded as they darted downward.
“My time is up.”
He pinned John with one more look and then rose gracefully to his feet. He was across the room and out the door a moment later, making hardly a sound as he closed it behind him.
John looked down himself and realized that the lumpy heater was, in fact, Sherlock.
He was blinking drowsily, still out of focus from sleep. Warmth bloomed in an arc over John's shoulder as Sherlock murmured his name. Then his gaze cleared and he shot up; the whole bed shook as he twisted his body, clambering onto his knees to face John. “How do you feel?” he demanded, raking his eyes over John's figure.
“Achy,” John told him, not bothering to protest when Sherlock took each of his hands in turn, running his fingers over them and peering at them closely. “Tired. Hot and cold. The usual after effects of hypothermia.”
“No pain?” He placed his palm in the centre of John's chest.
John lifted his brows, watching curiously. “None. You?”
He received a dismissive snort in reply.
“Why are you in bed with me?” John asked mildly, leaning back into the pillows. He was starting to feel drowsy again, but there were still some things he wanted clarified and Sherlock didn't seem to be finished inspecting him.
“Tell me your name,” Sherlock replied, not asking, ordering, and the long fingers of one hand curled around John's elbow, against his pulse.
John rolled his eyes. “John Watson.”
“The year?”
“Two-thousand eleven,” he replied and countered with, “Why are you in my bed, Sherlock?”
The look he received was scathing. “You needed warming. As a doctor, you should know that body heat is—”
“I do know that, and they've likely had me on a warm saline IV since I arrived, which seems to have done the trick. And body heat is more effective with a person on each side. Also, when the patient is still hypothermic.”
“Yes, well, I didn't fancy Mycroft getting that close to you and I certainly didn't trust these idiots to treat you properly.”
And finally John's brain seemed to catch up, cottoning on to what wasn't being said. He nudged Sherlock in the ribs with his elbow. “For someone so scrawny, you take up an awful lot of room.”
Sherlock stopped what he was doing to give John a withering look. “Scrawny implies underfed and lacking in muscle. I am lean.”
John couldn't stifle a snort of laughter. “You are underfed. Regardless, I'm still exhausted and I'd like to go back to sleep if you don't mind. So if you could just—lie down.”
The sigh that Sherlock produced in response was melodramatic and annoyed, but he did as asked and readjusted the blanket, lying down and plastering himself against John's side. His unruly hair tickled the side of John's neck. “Are you content?” he asked nastily.
John considered. Sherlock's body was exceptionally warm and a bit knobby, but the heat felt good and Sherlock wasn't pointy enough to be unpleasant. He let his cheek rest on Sherlock's head. “Yes, actually, I am.”
“Wonderful,” Sherlock drawled.
John ignored him and let his eyes close, breathing slow as he relished the warmth and dryness. “Thank you,” he murmured, “For finding me.”
Sherlock's head shifted slightly beneath his chin. He moved his arm so that it wrapped around John's. “I will always find you.”
It was an impossible promise, but it had been kept three times now. He would have at least one more day living with Sherlock Holmes. And for now, that was enough.
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Date: 2011-04-30 08:42 am (UTC)That being said, I love the scenario - you really captured the many reasons John had to panic. Well done.
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Date: 2011-04-30 05:57 pm (UTC)I love you. And this story, so much it makes my heart burst. And Sherlock's "I will always find you." just KILLS ME.
You know what I love. *smothers you*
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Date: 2011-06-18 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-04-30 10:46 pm (UTC)Beautiful and well-done. This makes me happy. Thanks for writing!
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Date: 2011-06-18 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 01:18 am (UTC)Just what I needed. Thank you thank you thank you.
And guh! "I will always find you."
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