Story: "Seeing Things" (Part 6 of 6)
Nov. 18th, 2012 01:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis story fills a square on my card for the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hc_bingo fest. This fest encourages the creation of boundary-pushing material that explores what happens when things go horribly wrong and people actually care about each other. I'm hoping to attract some new readers for my writing.
The following story belongs to Schrodinger's Heroes, featuring an apocryphal television show supported by an imaginary fandom. It's science fiction about quantum physics and saving the world from alternate dimensions. It features a very mixed cast in terms of ethnicity and sexual orientation. This project developed with input from multiple people, and it's open for everyone to play in. You can read more about the background, the characters, and a bunch of assorted content on the menu page.
Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. This is a crossover with BBC Sherlock. You can read how these characters found each other in "THE Woman," and the beginning of the morning after in "Texas Sunrise." Additional inspiration came from a thread withsiliconshaman, jeshyr, and thnidu.
Fandoms: BBC Sherlock / Original: Schrodinger's Heroes
H/C: Panic attacks
Medium: Fiction
Summary/Preview: Sherlock, who does not deal well with bizarre surprises, has moved into a place where those are ubiquitous. Also he is hungover. Won't this be fun?
Content Notes: Spoilers for BBC Sherlock Season 2. Home cooking. Friendship. Tentacles. Happy ending.
"Seeing Things" Part 6
John flinched at Quinn's words. They closed around his heart like claws, digging into the old wounds left by Reichenbach.
Moriarty is playing with your mind too. Can't you see what's going on?!
No, I know you're for real.
A hundred percent.
Nobody can fake being such an annoying dick all the time.
John had watched Sherlock fall. He had scrabbled at that broken body on the pavement. Not even that had shaken his faith.
Let me tell you this, you were the best man and the most human ... human being that I have ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie.
John had to look over again, just to make sure that Sherlock was still safe on the couch, desultorily swearing at the remote control. Their separation had worn on John, even though he could never ... quite ... make himself believe that Sherlock was truly gone. It had still wrecked his life and broadsided their relationship. Yet through it all he had known Moriarty's story was utter bollocks, even when Sherlock himself tried to sell it. There was something about John's awareness of Sherlock that ran deeper than mere evidence.
The thought that he might have to rely on that, in a crisis with other people's safety at stake, was nothing short of terrifying.
Equally unsettling was the realisation that Quinn's support of Sherlock in some ways exceeded John's own. However unorthodox, it also exceeded what he'd seen in other trained professionals; he'd had to pry people off of Sherlock more than once for making matters worse instead of better. What Quinn did was probably compiled by trial and error, but he seemed to have got it working smoothly now. John could learn it, he thought, but likely not all in one morning. He wanted that expansion of options, not just for Sherlock, but for himself too. One never knew when an unusual solution might come in handy. Besides ...
Back in England, if John was ruthlessly honest, there had been nobody he could trust with Sherlock. Mrs. Hudson cared, but she had no fighting skills and they had no right to go putting her in any danger. Lestrade could fight, but he valued what was lawful above what was good or what was necessary. Mycroft's decisions were so coldly calculating that dry ice wouldn't melt in his mouth. The most damning, though, was the fact that all their so-called "friends" had in various ways left Sherlock hanging when Moriarty's mudstorm rained down -- except for Molly Hooper, whom John damned for wholly different reasons that he would probably never forgive even if it cost him his hope of heaven. Nobody had stopped Sherlock from doing something so astoundingly self-destructive. Plus Sherlock wouldn't hesitate to run over all of those people in pursuit of whatever he wanted.
Somehow John thought none of that would apply the same way now. He could see things were different here. That was a bright little spark against the dark cloud of personal history.
"Are you all right?" Quinn murmured.
"I can't keep doing this," John said in a low tone. His voice was shaking, and his hand too, because there wasn't an emergency to hold him steady right now. Sherlock was right about bodily betrayals. "I can't do it. Not like this, not alone..."
"You don't have to, John," said Quinn. He laid a gentle hand on John's shoulder. "That's why we have a team -- so nobody has to work alone."
They could have this, John told himself. They could have help looking after Sherlock and even someone for John to lean on when he needed it, because while Sherlock was loyal unto death and beyond, he was no kind of good at comfort or caretaking.
"That's -- that's good," John said. He let himself press against the long warm line of Quinn's body, just a little.
Quinn draped an arm over John's shoulders and drew him closer. "Good," he said.
* * *
Notes:
Some of John's lines are reprised from "The Reichenbach Fall."
CASE CLOSED
hc_bingo fest. This fest encourages the creation of boundary-pushing material that explores what happens when things go horribly wrong and people actually care about each other. I'm hoping to attract some new readers for my writing.The following story belongs to Schrodinger's Heroes, featuring an apocryphal television show supported by an imaginary fandom. It's science fiction about quantum physics and saving the world from alternate dimensions. It features a very mixed cast in terms of ethnicity and sexual orientation. This project developed with input from multiple people, and it's open for everyone to play in. You can read more about the background, the characters, and a bunch of assorted content on the menu page.
Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. This is a crossover with BBC Sherlock. You can read how these characters found each other in "THE Woman," and the beginning of the morning after in "Texas Sunrise." Additional inspiration came from a thread with
siliconshaman, jeshyr, and thnidu.Fandoms: BBC Sherlock / Original: Schrodinger's Heroes
H/C: Panic attacks
Medium: Fiction
Summary/Preview: Sherlock, who does not deal well with bizarre surprises, has moved into a place where those are ubiquitous. Also he is hungover. Won't this be fun?
Content Notes: Spoilers for BBC Sherlock Season 2. Home cooking. Friendship. Tentacles. Happy ending.
"Seeing Things" Part 6
John flinched at Quinn's words. They closed around his heart like claws, digging into the old wounds left by Reichenbach.
Moriarty is playing with your mind too. Can't you see what's going on?!
No, I know you're for real.
A hundred percent.
Nobody can fake being such an annoying dick all the time.
John had watched Sherlock fall. He had scrabbled at that broken body on the pavement. Not even that had shaken his faith.
Let me tell you this, you were the best man and the most human ... human being that I have ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie.
John had to look over again, just to make sure that Sherlock was still safe on the couch, desultorily swearing at the remote control. Their separation had worn on John, even though he could never ... quite ... make himself believe that Sherlock was truly gone. It had still wrecked his life and broadsided their relationship. Yet through it all he had known Moriarty's story was utter bollocks, even when Sherlock himself tried to sell it. There was something about John's awareness of Sherlock that ran deeper than mere evidence.
The thought that he might have to rely on that, in a crisis with other people's safety at stake, was nothing short of terrifying.
Equally unsettling was the realisation that Quinn's support of Sherlock in some ways exceeded John's own. However unorthodox, it also exceeded what he'd seen in other trained professionals; he'd had to pry people off of Sherlock more than once for making matters worse instead of better. What Quinn did was probably compiled by trial and error, but he seemed to have got it working smoothly now. John could learn it, he thought, but likely not all in one morning. He wanted that expansion of options, not just for Sherlock, but for himself too. One never knew when an unusual solution might come in handy. Besides ...
Back in England, if John was ruthlessly honest, there had been nobody he could trust with Sherlock. Mrs. Hudson cared, but she had no fighting skills and they had no right to go putting her in any danger. Lestrade could fight, but he valued what was lawful above what was good or what was necessary. Mycroft's decisions were so coldly calculating that dry ice wouldn't melt in his mouth. The most damning, though, was the fact that all their so-called "friends" had in various ways left Sherlock hanging when Moriarty's mudstorm rained down -- except for Molly Hooper, whom John damned for wholly different reasons that he would probably never forgive even if it cost him his hope of heaven. Nobody had stopped Sherlock from doing something so astoundingly self-destructive. Plus Sherlock wouldn't hesitate to run over all of those people in pursuit of whatever he wanted.
Somehow John thought none of that would apply the same way now. He could see things were different here. That was a bright little spark against the dark cloud of personal history.
"Are you all right?" Quinn murmured.
"I can't keep doing this," John said in a low tone. His voice was shaking, and his hand too, because there wasn't an emergency to hold him steady right now. Sherlock was right about bodily betrayals. "I can't do it. Not like this, not alone..."
"You don't have to, John," said Quinn. He laid a gentle hand on John's shoulder. "That's why we have a team -- so nobody has to work alone."
They could have this, John told himself. They could have help looking after Sherlock and even someone for John to lean on when he needed it, because while Sherlock was loyal unto death and beyond, he was no kind of good at comfort or caretaking.
"That's -- that's good," John said. He let himself press against the long warm line of Quinn's body, just a little.
Quinn draped an arm over John's shoulders and drew him closer. "Good," he said.
* * *
Notes:
Some of John's lines are reprised from "The Reichenbach Fall."
CASE CLOSED
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-19 02:18 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2012-11-19 02:29 am (UTC)Yeah, "who takes care of the caregiver?" is something that applies all too much to John Watson. Sherlock and Mycroft treat him like a dog half the time. I think Mrs. Hudson was the only one who really tried to coddle him a bit when he needed it.
well-deserved moments of comfort
Date: 2017-03-09 04:46 am (UTC)Quinn draped an arm over John's shoulders and drew him closer. "Good," he said.<<
AWWWWWW! Yeah, this "happenstance" may be one of the *best* things to occur in John's life in a very long time. I hope that, if Sherlock and John can't base there for practical reasons, they at least can work out frequent visiting privileges. Plus, if Quinn has access to John's blog, there's the potential for a bit of remote troubleshooting help, belike?
Re: well-deserved moments of comfort
Date: 2017-03-09 04:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-10 12:56 am (UTC)Kudos,
DPD
Thank you!
Date: 2021-01-10 01:34 am (UTC)