Sherlock Fic: The Principle's the Same - Chapter Four
Title: The Principle's the Same
Author: Narcoleptic_ll (Narkito)
Characters: Sherlock, John
Rating: Teen
Category: Gen, AU, World War II
Word Count: 17.000~~ this chapter: 3000~~
Summary: Sherlock gets wounded on the battle field and they leave him for dead. John, who's just escaped from captivity finds him. Together they start their journey out of enemy territory. Written for a prompt.
Chapter Four: You Have Nightmares
John’s heart beat rises up as soon as he sees the gleam of that fire weapon. Sherlock only has to tell the girl once and she bolts, tears racing down her cheeks. The woman hugs tightly both of her children, running her hands over them a few times, physically checking they’re alright. The man, who’s promptly pointing his gun at John -who, in turn, has his rifle (quite efficiently) aimed at the ground-, is asking something. To which Sherlock answers “non, nous sommes Anglais”, the man seems to relax a bit at that, but not by much.
The man shifts his look from Sherlock to John. “We don’t want trouble, get away.” He says in a good enough English.
“Yes…”, John begins, but Sherlock cuts him off.
“Of course we will, as soon as you give us some food for the road, we’ll wait here.”
John feels his eyes bulge out and can’t really believe what he just heard. The man can’t quite believe it either, going by the murderous look he’s sending Sherlock (although, unlike John, who has the urgent need to apologise profusely, he seems more annoyed than anything). Without lowering his gun, he shouts to her wife, who runs back into the house with both her children.
After a full minute, she comes back with a simple canvas bag, something you would use to put your shopping in. She hands it to her husband and quickly backs away. The man throws it in front of John and finally lowers his gun. John takes a big gulp of air and bends to pick it up.
“There, go now, you can get us all killed.”
“Thank you”, John says. Sherlock merely nods into the man’s direction.
Immediately after, they both walk opposite of the house, the man following them with his eyes until they’re well lost into the distance, behind a small cluster of trees.
They walk in silence. John trying to assimilate what just happened, Sherlock lost in thought. After they find some cover, they settle down. Walking in the middle of the day is far more dangerous than walking by night, especially if they can’t outrun the enemy. John wants to find some allies soon; this nut-job he’s decided to rescue on the side of the road is driving him crazy! Especially now, that he’s rummaging through the bag with glee on his eyes. This guy is completely off his rocker.
“Don’t you feel bad about it?”
“About?” He’s found a bottle of milk and is working on getting it open.
“Umm, scaring the lights out of that poor woman and her family.”
“Ah, that, well. Feeling bad, John, even though morally praise worthy, is highly unpractical. Especially given our circumstances.”
“That’s a ‘no’ then.”
“Hmm, you look upset.”
“That’s very good; yes, I am.”
“Why?”
“Because you just worked that poor man and his family; they were afraid and you didn’t care.”
“So what? I’ve disappointed you? Please, don’t make people into heroes, they don’t exist, and if they did I wouldn’t be one of them.”
“Yes, obviously!”
“Well you don’t have to eat it then, if it makes you feel better.” Sherlock’s done trying to open the bottle and is now resorting to his teeth as means to breaking the seal.
“Oh, for fffffff....”, John grabs the bottle from his hand and opens it in one swift motion, handing it right back. Sherlock stares at it, the smirk he had been sporting before, slowly disappearing. “What now?”
There’s lightning above and then the ear shattering noise of something hitting the ground. That was close. Too close. The sound of distant gun fire fills the silence. Not lighting then, but something else entirely. John’s still holding the bottle for Sherlock, but looking up, to the sky, trying to pinpoint where the battle was this time.
He couldn’t.
There’s a formation of planes getting closer now, but he can’t find them in the sky to know on whose side they are. Sherlock takes the bottle from John, startling him back to earth.
“It’s 88s John, relax, they’re not dropping their bombs here. They’re going west; they’re most probably after the 82nd, which in turn must be bombing another base close by.”
“Then I suppose we’re going to be here for a while.”
The 88s are impressive, it’s hard for John to actually think that and not reproach himself, but it’s true. Nine thousand kilograms of pure steel roaming the skies: versatile, powerful and glorious. It’s a secret of his, but if he’s going to die in here, at war, he wishes it’s by the deathly reach of an 88. Quick, almost painless and kind of poetic; simply perfect.
Sure enough their bombs hit their intended targets eventually, or at least close enough, sending trembles through the ground beneath his feet. Those 88s are pounding the earth, fabricating small earthquakes that travel through his body and reach the top of his head with a slight shiver. God, his shoulder hurts, his leg hurts, his head soars in pain, his entire body’s protesting. And on top of that, he’s in the middle of Fuck Me, France with a guy that can barely register other people’s feelings and doesn’t bat an eye at being held at gunpoint. He looks at him, at Sherlock, sitting at the bottom of a three, lightly snoring. The half-empty bottle still in his hand. Who was this guy anyway?
It’s been almost thirty minutes since the air raid began. The bombing is more spread out now, which is dangerous, and every now and then he can hear the faint echoes of machine guns up in the sky. The wind is blowing east, bringing them the smell and taste of powder. It’s dazzling and oddly exciting at the same time, as if it’s somehow leading to a slow, steady release of adrenaline to his blood stream. Sherlock’s been nodding on and off for a while now, the full effect of the morphine finally hitting him. Thank god, he definitely needed some time for himself. Sherlock is a very interesting person, clearly, and as much as he would deny it if asked directly, he’s fascinated by him, he’s like no one he’s met before, but the intensity of his character burns like the sun and he’s afraid he might become the moth of this metaphor. Sherlock stirs in his semi-conscious sleep and John feels a bit sorry he blew up on the guy. The hunger, pain and fatigue are definitely getting to him. There’s nothing he can do about the pain right now, but the fatigue and hunger he can work on.
He’s so hungry he’s pretty sure he could eat dirt right now, but thanks to Sherlock here, he doesn’t have to. He still feels bad, though, but that doesn’t stop him from being hungry, nor satisfied after he’s devoured half the bread and drank what was left of the milk. There’s another plane formation going right over their heads and he looks up, just in case he can make out the shapes. His mind starts to wander again, this time it leads him back to the smelly cell he and his pals had been in, his shoulder throbbing, tears barely held back, the maximum dosage of morphine in his system, the pain still too raw to be fully subdued by the medicine. Every now and then he blinks tears back. Time is punctuated by the coming and going of their custodians, dragging each one of them out, but never coming back. He’s the last one to leave the room, the krauts left him last so he could recover enough to talk. By the time he’s interrogated, it doesn’t take him much to start spilling the beans. It’s all useless information anyway, he knows nothing of importance, all of his information is outdated, but he’ll do anything to stay away from the pain.
After an hour or two of rattling off positions and past operations, they bring him cigarettes, and he’s too afraid of the pain that might come to say he doesn’t smoke. He takes a long draw of his fag and coughs rather spectacularly, smoke coming out from his nostrils and mouth in dense clouds. His interrogators laugh a sincere laugh and comment amongst each other. They’re still laughing when a captain enters the room. They salute and straighten in front of their leader. The captain tells them something, spares one look at John and leaves. All the soldiers put their cigarettes out and John just knows something’s coming.
He’s thrown to the ground, hands on his back and held in there by a heavy foot clad in leather. They cuff him with something that scrapes his wrists, which is a nice distraction from the throbbing pain that irradiates from his shoulder, and a fourth soldier puts a black bag over his head. They take him from under his arms and by the fabric of his jacket and put him on his feet. He’s lead outside by two soldiers that don’t exchange a word the entire walk, they’re practically carrying him, their strides too long and fast; he can barely keep up. Outside there’s a flurry of movement and anticipation.
He can tell they’re outside because of the chill. It must be the middle of the night since the breeze is so cold it actually helps him with the swelling of his shoulder. His mind’s foggy, the morphine clouding the full extent of his situation. A part of him is thinking he should put on a warmer jacket before his mother scolds him about it, and another, more distant, blurrier part, is laughing it’s arse off at the thought of him being more afraid of a reproaching mother, than the entire regiment of Germans around him that will, most certainly, milk him for information until they realise he’s only feeding them rubbish (once that happens, he’s toast).
They put him on the back of a truck at the same time the bombs begin to drop, about two kilometres away by the sound of it. He flails and fights his restraints. The fact that no one’s kicking him on the chest for him to stay still, tells him he’s alone. It’s a chance, the only chance he’ll get, so he takes it. After passing his tied hands under his feet, he takes out the hood, and there, right in front of him, staring him with such intensity it actually hurts, a pair of the most intriguing blue eyes he’s ever seen.
There’s a hand on his chest, pushing him back to the ground. He tries to fight it, but he’s still too disoriented to inflict any real damage. After resisting for a couple of seconds, reality catches up with him and he’s left panting and embarrassed under the clinical stare of one Sherlock Holmes.
There’s a whole war going on in the outskirts of the town, thankfully it’s still far enough to leave them in a relatively safe position.
“You have nightmares.” Sherlock declares, triumphant, a previously unseen -for John- delight on his eyes.
“Yes, bravo, it takes a genius to notice”. He deadpans.
“Yes, I understand it’s quite obvious, I was just pointing it because it’s interesting.”
“Really?” Is he actually having this conversation? Shouldn’t his survival training be kicking in by now? Shouldn’t they be on the move? Take advantage of the distraction and get the hell away from there? Find cover? Find the 82nd, the 11th, hell even the French resistance would do by now!
“Yes.”
“Why?” He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to hear it, but saying no to him seems impossible at the moment. He’s still too lost in his memories, trying to figure out the future, if there is a future for him, for them.
“Because you also have a limp that goes away.” Sherlock’s absolutely glowing when he says this, there’s a determination in his voice that entices John and scares him to the core. Don’t be a moth, John, don’t go into the light, fight it, John, fight it.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, John, you must’ve noticed, even someone of no extraordinary intelligence like you…”
“To the point, please.”
“I’m getting there! Your limp goes away. It shouldn’t but it does. It’s only when you become aware of yourself that you limp…”
“Stop…” No, not this, this he cannot bear…
“… your gait is very pronounced, nevertheless, I have yet to hear you complain about it…”
“Stop…” Of course he knows, he’s a doctor for Christ sake’s…
“And now; nightmares… as a man of medicine, you must’ve heard of this phenomenon from the great war, it’s called…”
“Sherlock, please, stop. Yes, I’ve heard of it, alright? Yes, I know, I don’t need you to spell it out for me. Just stop.”
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Notes: 88s refer to a type of german plane, the Junkers Ju 88. Go check them out on Wikipedia