bakerstreet | (no subject)

(no subject)

ANGST MEME

Sometimes we all want to play some angst and see just how far our characters will fall.

- Post your characters, name and series in the subject along with any preferences.

- Go to random.org and roll.

- Play!

1. just depressed.

Things are tough, you're feeling worn out, or whatever the case, you're depressed. You need help or someone else thinks you do anyway.

2. abandoned.

You were left behind by everyone you hold dear and now you're forced to see how well they've adjusted, how happy they all are while you're screaming inside.

3. sick.

Cold, flu, or something even worse, all you can do is lay back and let someone take care of you.

4. fight.

You've been fighting nonstop with the other person and it just keep escalating.

5. break up.

You're being broken up with and they won't reconsider... Damn.

6. separated.

For some reason, you've been separated from the other person for a long time.

7. kidnapped.

You've been held captive for how long now? Maybe they've been torturing you even, using your blood to write ransom notes, threatening to cut off fingers to send next, etc. Rescue is on the way though, right?

8. beaten up.

Just because someone didn't like you or maybe they wanted something you had, whatever the case is, you're coming home sporting some nasty wounds and bruises.

9. jealousy.

You just have this undeniable jealousy suddenly and you need to let it out.

10. cheated on.This goes beyond just suspicion and you have full on proof of what your lover has done. How do you handle it?

11. apathetic.

You're not sad, you're not happy, you just... don't feel much anymore. The sparkle of life has gone right out of you and you're just going through the motions now.

12. addicted.

Drugs, alcohol, whatever your drug of choice is, you can't fight the draw and you can't draw yourself out of the hole, but the other person is going to try.

13. bad romance.

You know this isn't good for either of you, but you can't stop now.

14. fear.

Nightmares, the feeling someone is following you, etc. You can't shake the feeling.

15. insanity.

You're seeing things and hearing them, waking up only to realize you've done things you don't remember or you're in a place you weren't before. You're losing it and you don't know what to do.

16. guilt.

It's eating you up inside and you have to tell someone about it now. You want to be punished and you won't take no for an answer.

17. loss

You've lost something dear to you.

18. wild card.

Combine some options or make your own!

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[Sherlock stays on the bed until he's certain that Joan is sleeping. Then, he crosses the room to use the phone. It's almost an hour and a half since their discussion before Sherlock climbs into the bed next to Joan. He sleeps with his back facing her, closer to the centre of the bed instead of trying to keep his distance.]

[He's warm and close, and she turns toward him, settles closer. She doesn't snuggle by any means, she just lies close enough to feel his warmth, smell his scent.]

[Sherlock feels Joan shift closer to him. He doesn't move away from her, even when he can almost feel her breath against his back. Physical closeness. Warmth. Things like this are things he typically avoids, mostly because he's very much aware that letting someone (Joan) get so close to him on a physical level will only create a chemical cocktail in his brain that will make him feel even more compromised and conflicted.

'All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage'

'But sentiment, sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side.'

'I've always assumed love was a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.'

Those and about a hundred other warnings coming in the form of various quotes he's either heard or said go through his mind.

Move. Move away.

But, he doesn't. He stays perfectly still, training his breathing. Feigning sleep. But for what? Joan's too tired to notice anything amiss. She's barely awake enough to seek the warmth, isn't she? He's pretending so he can savour this moment. This close almost affection, because it could be the last time. Tomorrow will be dangerous. The next six months could be dangerous.

And, maybe he's missed her more than he's allowed himself to realise.]

[Joan had nightmares about Sherlock even before he "died" in front of her. Afterwards there were nights that she didn't sleep for fear of what awaited her in her dreams. Not wanting to watch him fall again, and again.

Now, though, she's walking into that warehouse, the clicks of her heels echoing off the walls. There's a chair there, in the sole pool of light in the darkness, and Sherlock is slumped in it. She runs to him in the slow, painfully slow, motion of dreams, and kneels in front of him, looking up at his face.

But he's not beaten and bloody. No. He's smashed. Blood on his face. Eyes open and sightless. He's in the coat, the coat he jumped in, in the purple shirt and blue scarf and he's dead he's really dead he's a corpse tied to a chair because she's been chasing a shadow chasing a dead man and they know they know they've found her they're here...

She jolts awake with a gasping cry.]

[He'd managed a quarter hour resisting sleep that had been calling to him in order to have a moment with his thoughts on Joan and their plans. Bad timing. His body had still been too exhausted for it.

He sleeps through the first part of Joan's dream. And why wouldn't he? Sufferers of nightmares are often still before the fear and terror seizes them.

His own dreams are less distressing. Sandy paths in Baghdad, the crowded streets of Morocco. Just glimpses and moments flashing by in his mind. As the scenery changes, so does he. One moment blond, the next in a turban. A life that's not his, but also not too bad. Looking, searching, hunting.

And then motion. An earthquake? No. Tremors of another kind. The bed.

A cry. A woman's cry.

His eyes go wide at that and he sits up quickly, reaching without a second thought under his pillow where he would normally hide his pistol. Nothing there. Joan. Something's wrong with Joan.]

Joan?

[Sherlock tries to will the groggy haze out of his mind. He reaches toward his sole friend and touches her forearm.]

It's fine. Just a nightmare.

[Doesn't keep him from looking around the room, just in case.]

[She's confused for a moment, not knowing where she is or what's going on, groggy and still anxious from the dream. Her eyes are wide, her heart pounding, her breathing quick. He touches her, and she blinks at him for a moment. Then the fog clears, and she sighs, rubbing at her eyes.]

Sorry I woke you...

I never get why people do that.

[Sherlock sits up completely and removes his hand from Joan, using it instead to rub at his eyes.]

Apologise for something they don't have control over, I mean. Your reaction to the nightmare is involuntary, yet you feel the need to apologise to me for it.

Okay, could you just...

[She's snapping at him. She catches herself, and sighs.]

Don't give me a lecture right now, okay?

[Sherlock just gives her a shrug when she says that. This kind of emotional reaction he can read clear as day. He's not offended by it, but he doesn't have anything to apologise for, either.]

Would you like a moment to yourself?

[She sighs.]

No. I'm fine.

[She doesn't want him to go, and there's a part of her that would like him to comfort her more. She's not going to say either of those things, though.]

[Her wanting to stay is better for Sherlock, too. He's feeling stiff and groggy and he'd rather avoid making an arse of himself by falling on his face on his way to the toilet.]

Good.

[Sherlock would comfort her if he knew she wanted him to, but he doesn't. He assumes his presence is beneficial to her in some way otherwise she'd have sent him away by now.]

Going to try to go back to sleep?

[Because if she isn't, he can take the effort to wake himself up more thoroughly so he can take over driving for a while.]

I should.

[She moves a little, trying to settle again. She's tense still, the dream still echoing in her head. Seeing Sherlock dead. He had come close the day he jumped. He must have. And if she hadn't found him in that warehouse, he would have died there.]

Sherlock...

[She frowns for a moment, trying to coalesce what she wants to say to him.]

Tell me you'll be careful.

[She fears losing him again.]

[Sherlock stays in his sitting position. He'd like to get more sleep, but he doubts it will come to him knowing that Joan's awake and terrified behind him. He'll stay up, he decides. Until she falls asleep again, and then he will sleep more.

He looks over toward her when he hears her say his name.]

Careful?

[Another dream about him, then. That makes him recall the last nightmare he'd witnessed and stayed up with her through. He's not the sort to believe in precognition, but Joan has shown him some surprisingly spiritual sides of herself. (Like that awful herbal concoction she'd called tea when he'd been ill.)]

I'm always... [Not the answer she wants.] Fine, I promise. I'll be more careful. [He has to be, since now he needs to plan for both of them.]

Thank you.

[She settles again. Closes her eyes. Tries to relax. A few minutes later she sighs, reaches over, takes his hand.]

[Sherlock doesn't say 'you're welcome'. It's implied, or he thinks it is. He's 'killed' himself for her, so it's not a very difficult thing to assume he'd protect himself for her, too.

He glances down at their hands when Joan does that. He turns his hand over and laces their fingers together, then looks forward.]

Mmm, if only I had my violin.

I kept it. I kept all your things.

[Her voice is soft. It had been difficult, living in their apartment, surrounded by his things. But she could no more dispose of them than she could give up on the chance that he was alive.]

[She kept his possessions. The important ones and unimportant ones alike?]

Even my shampoo?

[It's touching in a way, that she'd clung to what was left of him. That and her tireless search for him leads him to the one conclusion that she'd been looking for him. She'd been convinced he'd be alive and well at the end of the day. So touching, but also very worrying.

What would happen to her if something really were to happen to him?

It brings him back to the promise she'd had him make. To be careful. He won't let 'careful' interfere with functional, but he will try to be a little less reckless.]

I think there's still half a bottle under the sink somewhere, yes.

[If Sherlock had voiced those concerns, she would have rejected them. It was sentiment at first, of course, when she couldn't bear to let go of him, but it became practical in its own way, a constant reminder of him that insisted she could not give up on him. It didn't mean she would not be able to let go and move on were he to actually die.

It just made it more likely,]

You could have used it.

[Sherlock won't bring those things to light. It would take the conversation into an area he's not comfortable with. Joan's done wonders to teach him how to be more human and to accept his flaws (read: emotions) as a part of himself. But, he'd just as soon not talk about them. So much easier to repress and deal with them all at once down the line.]

When I said I wished I had my violin, I meant presently. I would use it to put you back to sleep.

I figured that. It would be nice. I miss hearing you play.

[She squeezes his hand. Having himhere is already calming her noticeably.]

[After sitting there, simply holding onto Joan's hand for a few quiet minutes, Sherlock starts to sing in a soft baritone to the tune of Over the Hills and Far Away.]

Hark now the drums beat up again
For all true soldier gentlemen.
So, let us list and march I say
And go over the hills and far away...

[It's so sweet that her heart aches, just a little. She shifts closer to rest her head on his arm, and listens to him sing.]

[It's a lullaby that his mother had sung to him as a child. He's actually surprised that he remembers all the lyrics.]

Over the hills, and o'er the main
To Flanders, Portugal and Spain.
Queen Anne commands and we'll obey
And go over the hills and far away.

[Sherlock doesn't move his arm away from her. She can use it as a pillow and he'll slip it out of her grasp as soon as her sleep's deep enough.]

There's twenty shillings on the drum
For him that with us freely comes.
'Tis volunteers shall win the day
Over the hills and far away.

You have a beautiful voice.

[It's a murmur, very soft. She's still mostly awake, but very relaxed, the anxiety of the dream almost completely soothed away.]

[Sherlock, unlike Johann Sebastian Bach and James Moriarty, does not mind an interrupted melody, so he pauses his singing to shrug at the compliment.]

Absolute pitch.

[He's got as much of a gift with music as he does with deduction.]

Would you like me to continue?