Sherlock Fic: John Doesn't Believe Sherlock
Title: John Doesn't Believe Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None (but we all know they're gay for each other)
Genre/Warnings: Angst, Reichenbach Fall-compliant, One-Shot
Summary: John's POV of Sherlock's fall/death. John has to get to Sherlock.
Author's Notes: First Sherlock fan fiction! I'm a little nervous, a little apprehensive, a little lost and a little disappointed (because I didn't write any slash in the end). But overall, I'm excited and curious about joining the Sherlock-verse of fan fic writing. I'd love to improve, so con crit is greatly encouraged and appreciated.
Thank you to 98ninetyeight as always. Always there for me, always very helpful, and always, always, always wonderful.
Sherlock.
John has to get to Sherlock.
Sherlock, just - don’t do anything stupid. Please.
The cab doesn’t go fast enough. The streets blur by in slow motion, colours blending and blurring into a commotion and all not quick enough. Not quick enough for John because he knows, right in his gut that he has to get to Sherlock.
Just wait. I’m almost there, Sherlock.
John’s left hand is a mess on his bouncing knee, clenching and unclenching in nervousness and impatience as if he could squeeze speed out from it and keep time from moving forward. His breath comes out rash and short as if he’s running down the cobbled streets of London and not sitting in this goddamned slow car, waiting and not knowing what’s happening and what will.
Sherlock. Just wait, just wait, just wait. Please, God, please.
John scrunches his eyes closed and kneads his forehead, feeling the wrinkles and praying that when he gets to Sherlock, everything will be fine - is still fine. That when he steps out of this godforsaken slow cab, that Sherlock is still sitting in that chair in Bart’s, fiddling with his phone. Maybe he’ll be leaning back in his seat when John barges in, door slamming against the wall on either side and Sherlock’s name on the edge of his tongue. Maybe Sherlock will quirk an eyebrow at John, silently taking in John’s rumpled exhaustion from running up two flights of stairs to the lab - maybe one flight down, too, because John might think Sherlock is in the morgue, poking at cadavers because he was bored alone.
Maybe.
Don’t - don’t do anything stupid, Sherlock.
And then John’s there and out of the cab, not quick enough. He doesn’t remember throwing money at the driver, but he must have because it speeds away just as his phone vibrates and rings in his pocket. The sight of Sherlock’s name on the screen emits waves of relief through John’s tense body.
“Hello?”
“John.” The baritone voice is like precious air rushing down John’s tense, constricted throat. He walks forward calmly, then quickly because he’s still desperate to put a face to the sound.
“Hey, Sherlock,” Breathe. Ask, “You okay?”
“Turn around and walk back the way you came.”
“No, I’m coming in.”
“Just. Do as I ask.” Sherlock sounds desperate, too. Voice shaky, unsteady, frantic, and - dare John say it - frightened? “Please.”
John turns around rapidly, retracing his steps and searching for Sherlock.
“Where?” he asks, seeing nothing he wants to see. Not a shadow, not a silhouette, not the flutter of a navy scarf or the flurry of a midnight coat. Nothing distinctly Sherlock.
“Stop there.”
“Sherlock-”
“Okay, look up. I’m on the rooftop.”
Then, there. “Oh, god.” Something inside John makes his chest shudder. It curls up inside of him and he’s surprised he can even keep his hold on the phone to his ear. The step John takes prevents him from falling back.
No.
Sherlock is there. He’s there, on the edge of Bart’s rooftop, just as he said he was. But it’s hard for John to comprehend. A hundred thoughts and images overwhelm John’s perception of reality and creates a sort of breathlessness that feels real - so real - but unreal at the same time. John is overthinking, overanalyzing, over-too-much-of-everything so much that it would be laughable to the genius standing four stories in the sky if he knew what John was thinking. So he stops. At least he tries to.
Sherlock.
“I- I- I can't come down so we'll just have to do it like this.”
He remembers his own voice and asks, breathing hard, “What’s going on?”
“An apology.” John can hardly make out Sherlock’s face so high in the distance. But he can hear Sherlock breathing, in and out, hard and loud in the phone, just like John is. Confusion laces with his breathlessness and John’s heart thunders in his chest at the thoughts that had raced through his mind seconds ago. “It’s all true.”
What’s true, Sherlock? What are you talking about? What apology? Why are you up there? Don’t - No, I’m not even going to say it. Stop this. It’s not funny. But John is so out of breath; so afraid that all he says is, “What?” and hopes that it conveys everything.
“Everything they said about me,” Sherlock says evenly and John takes another step away, farther from Sherlock, yet still trying to figure out a way to get to him. Still trying to figure out Sherlock, as he stands up there, far and small against the grey canopy of the sky. Sherlock continues and it sounds forced to John, “I… invented Moriarty.”
Frozen. John is frozen. His hand feels weak as he strains his neck to look up at Sherlock. Disbelief bubbles up in the core of John’s body and those hundreds of suppressed thoughts earlier spring forth into thousands. Among them, doubt is the fastest feeling to appear and disappear, smothered by John’s adamant beliefs about Sherlock.
John doesn’t believe Sherlock.
“Why are you saying this?” John manages, swaying again because the sound of his own voice shocks him as much as Sherlock’s lie.
It’s a lie. Of course it is. Doubt is swept to the dark corners of his mind again.
He waits for Sherlock’s answer. Watches his friend look behind him and back again down at John. He hopes to God for understanding, for clarity, because whatever is happening at the moment makes absolutely no sense.
The other line is silent, save for the rush of air that blows where Sherlock stands. The height between Sherlock and John scares him, right in the back of John’s mind where those thoughts fight to surface but he pushes them back, trying his damned best to gather himself and not think of what all this senselessness means.
Finally, Sherlock’s voice, trembling and choked, uncharacteristic and so unlike Sherlock, says, “I’m a fake.”
It’s articulated so well and resounds so clearly in John’s ears that the last reverberation is like a sharp stab. It hurts. But John, again, doesn’t believe Sherlock.
No. You’re lying. “Sherlock -”
“The newspapers were right all along.” Sherlock interrupts and John refuses to believe the lying voice on the phone. “I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson and Molly. In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you.” Breathe. John can only breathe as he listens. Panic starts to well up inside of him. Sherlock continues, “That I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”
No. “Okay, shut up, Sherlock. Shut up.” No. Don’t lie to me. “The first time we met-the first time we met-you knew all about my sister, right?”
Right, Sherlock? You’re amazing. Brilliant. “No one could be that clever.”
“You could.”
Sherlock. You. Only you.
Laughter and John lets himself relax, a tentative smile tugging at his own lips. Sherlock. It could be okay, John thinks, even as he hears Sherlock sniff, even as he realizes that Sherlock is crying, breath shuddering as much as every nerve in John’s body is shaking with tension.
“I researched you,” Sherlock says. “Before we met, I discovered everything that I could to impress you.” Clenching his jaw, John repeats no, no, no like an attempt at a soothing mantra in his mind, hoping to block the lies Sherlock spews out. “It's just a trick. A magic trick.”
“No.” John closes his eyes because even saying it out loud doesn’t stop Sherlock. “All right, stop it now.”
I don’t believe you, Sherlock.
John walks forward, having had enough of Sherlock on the roof, determined to get to him and make everything make sense again.
“Stay exactly where you are. Don’t move.”
Something in Sherlock’s voice stops John. “All right,” he agrees and stretches out a hand to Sherlock’s raised one. He can hear Sherlock breathing harsh and fast.
What’s happening, Sherlock?
“Keep your eyes fixed on me!” Sherlock demands and John does so, not that he ever had the intention of doing otherwise. “Please, will you do this for me?”
“Do what?”
“This phone call, it's...um… it's my note.” No. “That's what people do, don't they?” No. “Leave a note.”
No, Sherlock. No.
No.
John shakes his head, feeling his breath enter and leave his body painfully - unwilling - like he is to believe Sherlock. He won’t. John will not.
No, Sherlock. Don’t do this.
“Leave a note when?” John asks, a last attempt at dissipating his fears and his assumptions. His thoughts that he doesn’t believe. Doesn’t want to believe.
“Good bye, John.”
No.
“Nope. Don’t.”
No. John doesn’t know what to do. He feels helpless.
No. Useless as he looks up at Sherlock, as he watches his friend’s distant figure being battled by the wind and as the arm that holds their voices together drops to his side and throws the phone down.
No. Sherlock teeters forward, dangerously close to the edge and John’s heart thrashes so hard against his ribs with panic, fear, terror, agony, it’s excruciating. He’s never yelled louder, never more desperate than now as he screams, “Sherlock!”
Then - No - John blinks, takes his eyes away from Sherlock for less than a split second, and Sherlock’s in the air. Falling. Falling.
Down. Down. Down.
No!
Those thousands of thoughts turn into millions of pinpricks of feelings as John watches. His whole being freezes up, constricted by everything he’s seeing - the way Sherlock leans forward without a moment’s hesitation, the way his body slices through the air and John can almost hear the increasing velocity of it, and the thudding of his own heart, loud and ringing painfully in his ear. Unbelievable. Unimaginable. Unable to unsee.
John watches Sherlock fall.
His heart stops. “Sher-” No.
John’s confronted hard with something empty, hollow, and void - but so very, very solid at the same time as all breath is taken forcibly out of his body - just like the very solid resonating sound of Sherlock’s body against pavement.
It echoes like a siren in his mind.
Then, he’s running. John’s running but everything is silent now. He doesn’t hear the sound of his heavy footsteps, or the biker to his right. He doesn’t feel the damp cement as the side of his face slams into it and his skin is scraped open by the rocky surface. His palms slip as he heaves himself up, his vision dizzying as he looks upon the growing crowd a few feet in front of him. John doesn’t hear the people telling him to step back, to step away and to stop as he pushes them, pulls them and tries his hardest to make them go away as he catches the briefest glimpse of crimson liquid traveling from black fabric.
He fights the hands restraining him but doesn’t feel them touch him. He doesn’t feel anything except disbelief.
Disbelief at everything. At Sherlock on the roof. At Sherlock’s words on the phone. At Sherlock’s arms raised out like wings expanding and taking flight.
At Sherlock’s fall.
John doesn’t even believe when his fingers touch Sherlock’s limp wrist, no pulse detected. Not even when they turn him over and Sherlock’s pale, blue eyes are white against the raging red of blood bleeding over him.
No. No. No.
John will not believe, not even as his own body racks with anguish at the sight of everything. Of his everything splattered in red and black and white and confusion before him. Seemingly lifeless and dull.
He won’t say it. John will not say it.
No.
Sherlock.
No.
No, he’s not. Sherlock is not.
John doesn’t believe Sherlock.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None (but we all know they're gay for each other)
Genre/Warnings: Angst, Reichenbach Fall-compliant, One-Shot
Summary: John's POV of Sherlock's fall/death. John has to get to Sherlock.
Author's Notes: First Sherlock fan fiction! I'm a little nervous, a little apprehensive, a little lost and a little disappointed (because I didn't write any slash in the end). But overall, I'm excited and curious about joining the Sherlock-verse of fan fic writing. I'd love to improve, so con crit is greatly encouraged and appreciated.
Thank you to 98ninetyeight as always. Always there for me, always very helpful, and always, always, always wonderful.
Sherlock.
John has to get to Sherlock.
Sherlock, just - don’t do anything stupid. Please.
The cab doesn’t go fast enough. The streets blur by in slow motion, colours blending and blurring into a commotion and all not quick enough. Not quick enough for John because he knows, right in his gut that he has to get to Sherlock.
Just wait. I’m almost there, Sherlock.
John’s left hand is a mess on his bouncing knee, clenching and unclenching in nervousness and impatience as if he could squeeze speed out from it and keep time from moving forward. His breath comes out rash and short as if he’s running down the cobbled streets of London and not sitting in this goddamned slow car, waiting and not knowing what’s happening and what will.
Sherlock. Just wait, just wait, just wait. Please, God, please.
John scrunches his eyes closed and kneads his forehead, feeling the wrinkles and praying that when he gets to Sherlock, everything will be fine - is still fine. That when he steps out of this godforsaken slow cab, that Sherlock is still sitting in that chair in Bart’s, fiddling with his phone. Maybe he’ll be leaning back in his seat when John barges in, door slamming against the wall on either side and Sherlock’s name on the edge of his tongue. Maybe Sherlock will quirk an eyebrow at John, silently taking in John’s rumpled exhaustion from running up two flights of stairs to the lab - maybe one flight down, too, because John might think Sherlock is in the morgue, poking at cadavers because he was bored alone.
Maybe.
Don’t - don’t do anything stupid, Sherlock.
And then John’s there and out of the cab, not quick enough. He doesn’t remember throwing money at the driver, but he must have because it speeds away just as his phone vibrates and rings in his pocket. The sight of Sherlock’s name on the screen emits waves of relief through John’s tense body.
“Hello?”
“John.” The baritone voice is like precious air rushing down John’s tense, constricted throat. He walks forward calmly, then quickly because he’s still desperate to put a face to the sound.
“Hey, Sherlock,” Breathe. Ask, “You okay?”
“Turn around and walk back the way you came.”
“No, I’m coming in.”
“Just. Do as I ask.” Sherlock sounds desperate, too. Voice shaky, unsteady, frantic, and - dare John say it - frightened? “Please.”
John turns around rapidly, retracing his steps and searching for Sherlock.
“Where?” he asks, seeing nothing he wants to see. Not a shadow, not a silhouette, not the flutter of a navy scarf or the flurry of a midnight coat. Nothing distinctly Sherlock.
“Stop there.”
“Sherlock-”
“Okay, look up. I’m on the rooftop.”
Then, there. “Oh, god.” Something inside John makes his chest shudder. It curls up inside of him and he’s surprised he can even keep his hold on the phone to his ear. The step John takes prevents him from falling back.
No.
Sherlock is there. He’s there, on the edge of Bart’s rooftop, just as he said he was. But it’s hard for John to comprehend. A hundred thoughts and images overwhelm John’s perception of reality and creates a sort of breathlessness that feels real - so real - but unreal at the same time. John is overthinking, overanalyzing, over-too-much-of-everything so much that it would be laughable to the genius standing four stories in the sky if he knew what John was thinking. So he stops. At least he tries to.
Sherlock.
“I- I- I can't come down so we'll just have to do it like this.”
He remembers his own voice and asks, breathing hard, “What’s going on?”
“An apology.” John can hardly make out Sherlock’s face so high in the distance. But he can hear Sherlock breathing, in and out, hard and loud in the phone, just like John is. Confusion laces with his breathlessness and John’s heart thunders in his chest at the thoughts that had raced through his mind seconds ago. “It’s all true.”
What’s true, Sherlock? What are you talking about? What apology? Why are you up there? Don’t - No, I’m not even going to say it. Stop this. It’s not funny. But John is so out of breath; so afraid that all he says is, “What?” and hopes that it conveys everything.
“Everything they said about me,” Sherlock says evenly and John takes another step away, farther from Sherlock, yet still trying to figure out a way to get to him. Still trying to figure out Sherlock, as he stands up there, far and small against the grey canopy of the sky. Sherlock continues and it sounds forced to John, “I… invented Moriarty.”
Frozen. John is frozen. His hand feels weak as he strains his neck to look up at Sherlock. Disbelief bubbles up in the core of John’s body and those hundreds of suppressed thoughts earlier spring forth into thousands. Among them, doubt is the fastest feeling to appear and disappear, smothered by John’s adamant beliefs about Sherlock.
John doesn’t believe Sherlock.
“Why are you saying this?” John manages, swaying again because the sound of his own voice shocks him as much as Sherlock’s lie.
It’s a lie. Of course it is. Doubt is swept to the dark corners of his mind again.
He waits for Sherlock’s answer. Watches his friend look behind him and back again down at John. He hopes to God for understanding, for clarity, because whatever is happening at the moment makes absolutely no sense.
The other line is silent, save for the rush of air that blows where Sherlock stands. The height between Sherlock and John scares him, right in the back of John’s mind where those thoughts fight to surface but he pushes them back, trying his damned best to gather himself and not think of what all this senselessness means.
Finally, Sherlock’s voice, trembling and choked, uncharacteristic and so unlike Sherlock, says, “I’m a fake.”
It’s articulated so well and resounds so clearly in John’s ears that the last reverberation is like a sharp stab. It hurts. But John, again, doesn’t believe Sherlock.
No. You’re lying. “Sherlock -”
“The newspapers were right all along.” Sherlock interrupts and John refuses to believe the lying voice on the phone. “I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson and Molly. In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you.” Breathe. John can only breathe as he listens. Panic starts to well up inside of him. Sherlock continues, “That I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”
No. “Okay, shut up, Sherlock. Shut up.” No. Don’t lie to me. “The first time we met-the first time we met-you knew all about my sister, right?”
Right, Sherlock? You’re amazing. Brilliant. “No one could be that clever.”
“You could.”
Sherlock. You. Only you.
Laughter and John lets himself relax, a tentative smile tugging at his own lips. Sherlock. It could be okay, John thinks, even as he hears Sherlock sniff, even as he realizes that Sherlock is crying, breath shuddering as much as every nerve in John’s body is shaking with tension.
“I researched you,” Sherlock says. “Before we met, I discovered everything that I could to impress you.” Clenching his jaw, John repeats no, no, no like an attempt at a soothing mantra in his mind, hoping to block the lies Sherlock spews out. “It's just a trick. A magic trick.”
“No.” John closes his eyes because even saying it out loud doesn’t stop Sherlock. “All right, stop it now.”
I don’t believe you, Sherlock.
John walks forward, having had enough of Sherlock on the roof, determined to get to him and make everything make sense again.
“Stay exactly where you are. Don’t move.”
Something in Sherlock’s voice stops John. “All right,” he agrees and stretches out a hand to Sherlock’s raised one. He can hear Sherlock breathing harsh and fast.
What’s happening, Sherlock?
“Keep your eyes fixed on me!” Sherlock demands and John does so, not that he ever had the intention of doing otherwise. “Please, will you do this for me?”
“Do what?”
“This phone call, it's...um… it's my note.” No. “That's what people do, don't they?” No. “Leave a note.”
No, Sherlock. No.
No.
John shakes his head, feeling his breath enter and leave his body painfully - unwilling - like he is to believe Sherlock. He won’t. John will not.
No, Sherlock. Don’t do this.
“Leave a note when?” John asks, a last attempt at dissipating his fears and his assumptions. His thoughts that he doesn’t believe. Doesn’t want to believe.
“Good bye, John.”
No.
“Nope. Don’t.”
No. John doesn’t know what to do. He feels helpless.
No. Useless as he looks up at Sherlock, as he watches his friend’s distant figure being battled by the wind and as the arm that holds their voices together drops to his side and throws the phone down.
No. Sherlock teeters forward, dangerously close to the edge and John’s heart thrashes so hard against his ribs with panic, fear, terror, agony, it’s excruciating. He’s never yelled louder, never more desperate than now as he screams, “Sherlock!”
Then - No - John blinks, takes his eyes away from Sherlock for less than a split second, and Sherlock’s in the air. Falling. Falling.
Down. Down. Down.
No!
Those thousands of thoughts turn into millions of pinpricks of feelings as John watches. His whole being freezes up, constricted by everything he’s seeing - the way Sherlock leans forward without a moment’s hesitation, the way his body slices through the air and John can almost hear the increasing velocity of it, and the thudding of his own heart, loud and ringing painfully in his ear. Unbelievable. Unimaginable. Unable to unsee.
John watches Sherlock fall.
His heart stops. “Sher-” No.
John’s confronted hard with something empty, hollow, and void - but so very, very solid at the same time as all breath is taken forcibly out of his body - just like the very solid resonating sound of Sherlock’s body against pavement.
It echoes like a siren in his mind.
Then, he’s running. John’s running but everything is silent now. He doesn’t hear the sound of his heavy footsteps, or the biker to his right. He doesn’t feel the damp cement as the side of his face slams into it and his skin is scraped open by the rocky surface. His palms slip as he heaves himself up, his vision dizzying as he looks upon the growing crowd a few feet in front of him. John doesn’t hear the people telling him to step back, to step away and to stop as he pushes them, pulls them and tries his hardest to make them go away as he catches the briefest glimpse of crimson liquid traveling from black fabric.
He fights the hands restraining him but doesn’t feel them touch him. He doesn’t feel anything except disbelief.
Disbelief at everything. At Sherlock on the roof. At Sherlock’s words on the phone. At Sherlock’s arms raised out like wings expanding and taking flight.
At Sherlock’s fall.
John doesn’t even believe when his fingers touch Sherlock’s limp wrist, no pulse detected. Not even when they turn him over and Sherlock’s pale, blue eyes are white against the raging red of blood bleeding over him.
No. No. No.
John will not believe, not even as his own body racks with anguish at the sight of everything. Of his everything splattered in red and black and white and confusion before him. Seemingly lifeless and dull.
He won’t say it. John will not say it.
No.
Sherlock.
No.
No, he’s not. Sherlock is not.
John doesn’t believe Sherlock.