Chapter Text
Prelude.
I want to be still.
I want to walk into your grave,
where I can shelter in peace
'til all our cares have blown away.
Let the whole world fall away,
and fall into my arms
stay with me.
I don't know how long we've got left,
and so I'm asking you
to forgive me.
Can I stay,
and say nothing
at all?
-- Lyrics to Nothing At All, All Rights Reserved Rob Dougan: Listen to NOTHING AT ALL HERE:
Dreams were where it was all at.
Definitely.
Such dreams as he’d never had before, and if he prayed for anything at all anymore – since his most desperate prayer went unanswered, would always go unanswered – it was for more dreams: longer, clearer, brighter, better. Where anything could happen, and usually did.
The first ones were the least satisfying: him, peppering Sherlock with questions that he either could not or would not answer, regarding him with something like a Mona Lisa smile. Infuriating.
The next dreams were violent but so so good: sometimes Afghanistan, sometimes London, sometimes vague surreal dreamscapes in which they were always hunting, side by side – enemies, criminals, monsters whose faces were always a blank, except one face. In these dreams his gun was always in his hand, he never missed; they always won in the end. Then there were the golden ones, back together again in 221b, these were too glorious and fantastic to bear, he couldn’t bear them at all, actually; even though he thought his heart would burst from their painful beauty he never tried to end them at all, resisting waking with everything he had, rising sick and dizzy. Even so, he would take any of these, any one of them at all, and stay there forever rather than waken and face things - the flat, the clinic, his friends. Himself.
Lately, though, the dreams were ones he never wanted, always tried to escape if he could but perversely, these were the ones that seemed here to stay. The others he tried his hardest to live in, crawl inside each and every one of them and stay forever, but the harder he pursued them the further they floated out of reach. The new dreams were about something he could never have, would never be and when he had them he always knew he was dreaming, which was of the very few feelings he had left, possibly the very worst. In these dreams all dangers were long past, nothing more needed doing. They were older, actually old, amazingly: settled, tranquil, not faded but glowing rather than burning bright. Sherlock’s dear face looked just the same as always to him; but there were lines there, he was even thinner if that was possible, his hair was grey. This face, too, had a sort of haughty smile and while Sherlock didn’t speak in these dreams, either, his eyes always seemed to be trying to communicate something and he hated knowing that he would never know what it was.
"Just tell me," he would say in these dreams, over and over, and sometimes he would reach out; maybe in his sleep, his lips moved too – he couldn’t know that.
* * *
“John.”
He squinted through his eyelashes. This, of course, wasn’t Sherlock. He was so empty that he felt his body was no more than dried tissue, dead even, mummified, maybe: he would blow away in the wind, if he ever went outside again. Mycroft was looking down, frowning at the bottle of prescription sleeping tablets at his bedside. Strong, long-lasting, state-of-the-art. He had become a connoisseur of sleep.
“I thought we discussed this. No more. I can have your license revoked, you know. And that of anyone who writes you another scrip for this poison.”
John looked up and opened his eyes bit wider. He was always grateful, now, that Mycroft didn’t look anything like Sherlock. Not really. The height didn’t count.
“Why does it matter.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We aren’t having this conversation any more, John. Get up. Get dressed. Clean yourself up. I’m opening the curtains. I have a project for you.” Mycroft’s voice was steely and his eyes were cold but that didn’t fool John any more.
* * *
Mycroft gave John what he thought of as pity assignments to make him feel like he still mattered. Like he still had a purpose. Generally John went along, mechanically, going through the motions because it shut Mycroft up, it shut Lestrade up, and it passed the time until he could sleep again.
Lately, though, he had started to form the clear idea that waking up was a bad thing altogether, and he might as well stop pretending he wasn’t doing dress rehearsals for the real thing.
He had an extra bottle of pills hidden in the flat and there were still bullets in the gun. He knew Mycroft knew about the bullets and it was only this, this one little fact, that kept him wondering if something might be coming for him. He would welcome it. A clean death, one with honor.
But in the end, nothing and no one ever came. Except in dreams.
* * *
Mycroft was droning on about interviewing some Army men who might be recruited into intelligence work. Mycroft gave John to understand that his opinion of their characters, their strengths and weaknesses, would be invaluable. There would be reports. Recommendations. John looked at Mycroft steadily and Mycroft looked steadily back. Would he, or wouldn’t he, go along, play the game for one more day? He didn’t care enough to even keep Mycroft guessing.
“I’m not stupid, you know. I guess you know that by now.”
Mycroft sat straighter in his chair and looked keenly interested in this mild display of spirit. “Of course, John. Can we please leave the topic of your intellect permanently off the table. Unnecessary, I assure you,” he said somewhat uncomfortably. “I even brought the files.” He laid three plain files on the table and stood up. They both looked at the files and were both thinking, John knew, of the same moment in time: four plain folders. Four assassins. Mycroft looked away. “I’ve a meeting, I’m afraid. But I need those reports by Friday. I can count on you?”
“No.”
Mycroft’s lips pressed together. Possibly he was reaching the end of his truly formidable patience with John. John realized with mild surprise that this felt. . . good. And he filed this away for later consideration. Then he realized that even by making such a tenuous plan as making plans to think, later, about how pleasant it was to discompose Mycroft Holmes was the most ambition he had felt in weeks, months even. The flow of blood in his veins still felt cold and sluggish but he thought perhaps that might change soon.
If he thought harder about it, maybe if he let the accumulated doses of pills wore off, he might know why that was.
“I want something else.” These words came unbidden and it felt odd to be saying any sentence at all that started with, “I want.” He realized also that today, for some reason, he was finally hating the fuzzy, furry feeling on his tongue, from the pills, from his long sleep.
“What do you want, John?” Mycroft said, too fast, too eager, before he could stop and the words just hung there in the too-cold air of 221b.
“If you’ve found out a single solitary fact that would explain any of it, you wouldn’t keep that from me, would you?”
Now Mycroft’s face was serious, concerned, even strangely tender.
“John. No. I wouldn’t. You have my word.”
“Right. Then it doesn’t matter then, does it? I want everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought we agreed that questions about my intellect were off the table. Everything. The file. The video. The photos. Audio. Everything. Anything. If it all leads to nothing, if everything means nothing, which makes perfect sense to me, then it can’t matter.”
“Don’t imagine for a second that it’s a cold case. But you must understand, John, I can’t just turn over the files --"
“Shut. Up. Mycroft. Don’t bother coming back here if you don't. I suppose I’ll just have to trust you. That you’ll bring the real thing.”
“What is this about? Has something happened?”
John smiled. And although Mycroft had never truly feared for John before, not really, he had always believed the core of this man to be ultimately indomitable, when he saw John smile, what he felt in that moment was a shiver of fear.
“Happened? Nothing ever happens to me. Not any more,” he said.
To be continued. . .