Fic: TGIO: Before My Helpless Sight
Sep. 1st, 2011 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gayalondiel_bakthegameison_sh Cycle Three, Challenge Four
Joint second :D
Title: Before My Helpless Sight
Character/Pairing: Sherlock/John
Genre: Angst (mild)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Discussion of war, brief but including current conflicts involving UK and NATO forces. (Yes, they are rather on my mind right now.)
Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only.
Prompt: Phantom touch
Summary: In his dreams, John walks abroad in war zones, a ghost observing the soldiers still there. After a while, he finds that he is not the only one.
AN: The title comes from one of the Wilfred Owen war canon I find most memorable, Dulce et Decorum Est.
Fic masterpost.
Crossposted to:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sherlockbbc, watsons_woes, johnsherlock, 221b_slash.
John sleeps, and wakes in Afghanistan.
The first time, he thinks it’s a dream, until he realises that it’s now, today, tomorrow. He sees a patrol in the distance, and feels the thrill of anticipation moments before the IED goes off and one of the trucks veers off the road.
He runs for them and gets there in time to see Withers, a friend of his from a lifetime ago, pushing himself painfully from the ground, blood spurting from his leg. John shouts his name and runs to help him, but when he gets there his hand seems to dissipate as he tries to grab Withers’ arm, and he feels only the ghost of body heat.
He is there, but cut off, and can only watch as they patch themselves together, all but one. He stays until help arrives and accompanies them back to base.
Just as he gets there he turns and sees a familiar silhouette watching him, and then he wakes.
He flicks on the radio and hears that one young soldier has been lost to a roadside bomb in Helmand.
~
Every night, John keeps unseen communion with his brother soldiers. He accompanies patrols, sits talking to sentries, and watches men hold back the tears at letters from home. Once he watches a patrol get jumped by insurgents, and remains behind with the youngest who has been hit and is bleeding profusely. He reaches out to stem the flow, remembers that he can’t - and then a pale hand is taking his, a cold touch that tingles, not real but more substantial than a ghost.
He looks up into Sherlock’s eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
John gestures to the young man. “I’m keeping people company.”
Sherlock smiles. “And I you.”
When John wakes, the MOD website tells him that a young man has been wounded on patrol but will survive.
Sherlock notices nothing.
~
After that Sherlock accompanies him. Normally Afghanistan, watching John’s friends fight the fight he can no longer be part of and rest a comforting hand on his shoulder with phantom pins-and-needles.
Once they are in the dark on a landing strip, figures scurrying back and forth to a small squadron of planes, panic in the warm night air. They remain all night, watching men John recognises but can’t name, and he slips a hand into Sherlock’s as a look of confusion and maybe fear clouds his features.
“Where are we?” he asks.
“The Falklands,” John replies. He’s never been but he knows. They stand shoulder to shoulder all night as the Army and RAF flitter about, and offshore a Royal Navy destroyer patrols relentlessly.
In the morning the news insists that everything is fine. Sherlock mentions that Mycroft has left the country unexpectedly, and John wonders how he will like Argentina.
~
Another time they are flying in an Apache over Libya, as Dave, his crush from the OTC, leads his Army Air Corps team through hostile skies, then back to the launching craft. They slip away discreetly as he returns to his bunk, but he seems for a second to see John from far away. John knows who will be in Dave’s mind tonight and hopes the younger, more arrogant and attractive memory of him might bring the man some comfort. Sherlock pulls him into the empty wardroom, all chintz and uncomfortable chairs, smiles at him and presses a cold tingling kiss on his lips, looking as though he’s been waiting for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place.
John wakes in a sweat and can’t bring himself to look Sherlock in the eye all day.
~
Tonight they are back in Afghanistan, under the stars, sitting leaning against each other after following a patrol all night, fingers entwined with an intimacy that doesn’t exist in the real world. John finally voices his confusion.
“I don’t get why you’re here.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. It’s my dream, my history. Why are you here?”
Sherlock sits up abruptly, and John only just catches himself before sprawling on the sandy road.
“John...” he says slowly. “This is my dream.”
John is about to reply when the world dissolves and he’s waking up, confused. He stares at the ceiling, wondering what his brain is playing at, and then the door creaks and Sherlock, wearing only pyjama bottoms against the oppressive summer night, slips into the room.
“I was dreaming about you,” John says.
Sherlock smiles. “And I you.”
Joint second :D
Title: Before My Helpless Sight
Character/Pairing: Sherlock/John
Genre: Angst (mild)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Discussion of war, brief but including current conflicts involving UK and NATO forces. (Yes, they are rather on my mind right now.)
Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only.
Prompt: Phantom touch
Summary: In his dreams, John walks abroad in war zones, a ghost observing the soldiers still there. After a while, he finds that he is not the only one.
AN: The title comes from one of the Wilfred Owen war canon I find most memorable, Dulce et Decorum Est.
Fic masterpost.
Crossposted to:
sherlockbbc, watsons_woes, johnsherlock, 221b_slash.John sleeps, and wakes in Afghanistan.
The first time, he thinks it’s a dream, until he realises that it’s now, today, tomorrow. He sees a patrol in the distance, and feels the thrill of anticipation moments before the IED goes off and one of the trucks veers off the road.
He runs for them and gets there in time to see Withers, a friend of his from a lifetime ago, pushing himself painfully from the ground, blood spurting from his leg. John shouts his name and runs to help him, but when he gets there his hand seems to dissipate as he tries to grab Withers’ arm, and he feels only the ghost of body heat.
He is there, but cut off, and can only watch as they patch themselves together, all but one. He stays until help arrives and accompanies them back to base.
Just as he gets there he turns and sees a familiar silhouette watching him, and then he wakes.
He flicks on the radio and hears that one young soldier has been lost to a roadside bomb in Helmand.
~
Every night, John keeps unseen communion with his brother soldiers. He accompanies patrols, sits talking to sentries, and watches men hold back the tears at letters from home. Once he watches a patrol get jumped by insurgents, and remains behind with the youngest who has been hit and is bleeding profusely. He reaches out to stem the flow, remembers that he can’t - and then a pale hand is taking his, a cold touch that tingles, not real but more substantial than a ghost.
He looks up into Sherlock’s eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
John gestures to the young man. “I’m keeping people company.”
Sherlock smiles. “And I you.”
When John wakes, the MOD website tells him that a young man has been wounded on patrol but will survive.
Sherlock notices nothing.
~
After that Sherlock accompanies him. Normally Afghanistan, watching John’s friends fight the fight he can no longer be part of and rest a comforting hand on his shoulder with phantom pins-and-needles.
Once they are in the dark on a landing strip, figures scurrying back and forth to a small squadron of planes, panic in the warm night air. They remain all night, watching men John recognises but can’t name, and he slips a hand into Sherlock’s as a look of confusion and maybe fear clouds his features.
“Where are we?” he asks.
“The Falklands,” John replies. He’s never been but he knows. They stand shoulder to shoulder all night as the Army and RAF flitter about, and offshore a Royal Navy destroyer patrols relentlessly.
In the morning the news insists that everything is fine. Sherlock mentions that Mycroft has left the country unexpectedly, and John wonders how he will like Argentina.
~
Another time they are flying in an Apache over Libya, as Dave, his crush from the OTC, leads his Army Air Corps team through hostile skies, then back to the launching craft. They slip away discreetly as he returns to his bunk, but he seems for a second to see John from far away. John knows who will be in Dave’s mind tonight and hopes the younger, more arrogant and attractive memory of him might bring the man some comfort. Sherlock pulls him into the empty wardroom, all chintz and uncomfortable chairs, smiles at him and presses a cold tingling kiss on his lips, looking as though he’s been waiting for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place.
John wakes in a sweat and can’t bring himself to look Sherlock in the eye all day.
~
Tonight they are back in Afghanistan, under the stars, sitting leaning against each other after following a patrol all night, fingers entwined with an intimacy that doesn’t exist in the real world. John finally voices his confusion.
“I don’t get why you’re here.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. It’s my dream, my history. Why are you here?”
Sherlock sits up abruptly, and John only just catches himself before sprawling on the sandy road.
“John...” he says slowly. “This is my dream.”
John is about to reply when the world dissolves and he’s waking up, confused. He stares at the ceiling, wondering what his brain is playing at, and then the door creaks and Sherlock, wearing only pyjama bottoms against the oppressive summer night, slips into the room.
“I was dreaming about you,” John says.
Sherlock smiles. “And I you.”
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-04 08:45 am (UTC)