Entry tags:
221B Drabble: Orpheus with a Violin
Title: Orpheus with a Violin
Pairing/Characters: John/Sherlock
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: Post-Reichenbach
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: John has the same dream again: the cave, the music, the lost soul.
Word Count: 221
The dream again (yet real, somehow): the bleak stone caves, the passage upward. There is music somewhere, a sweetly keening, desperate lament that calls him onward. The darkness is total, and yet he can see, walking in front of him--
His heart leaps and he leaps with it, but he cannot reach Sherlock for all his effort, he can only follow helplessly in his wake as they rise together.
John puts out his hand; the stones gleam through misty sinews. But it's all wrong, it's Sherlock who's dead, not him. Sherlock whose soul is lost and wandering, not his.
He calls Sherlock's name: his voice makes no sound, and yet the resolute shoulders before him stiffen, the steps falter. John sees Sherlock's hands shaking, and instead of hope, terror rises up to seize him; with a certainty cold as fangs sinking into his flesh, he knows that if Sherlock turns to look back he is lost forever.
Then the proud head lifts once more, and Sherlock strides into the dark without a backward glance, and John is saved.
When he wakes, John will remember that moment, the pain and the triumph of it together: as if Sherlock were alive and he the ghost, as if only the wild sweet music of Sherlock's mind could summon him from the empty world beyond.
Pairing/Characters: John/Sherlock
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: Post-Reichenbach
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: John has the same dream again: the cave, the music, the lost soul.
Word Count: 221
The dream again (yet real, somehow): the bleak stone caves, the passage upward. There is music somewhere, a sweetly keening, desperate lament that calls him onward. The darkness is total, and yet he can see, walking in front of him--
His heart leaps and he leaps with it, but he cannot reach Sherlock for all his effort, he can only follow helplessly in his wake as they rise together.
John puts out his hand; the stones gleam through misty sinews. But it's all wrong, it's Sherlock who's dead, not him. Sherlock whose soul is lost and wandering, not his.
He calls Sherlock's name: his voice makes no sound, and yet the resolute shoulders before him stiffen, the steps falter. John sees Sherlock's hands shaking, and instead of hope, terror rises up to seize him; with a certainty cold as fangs sinking into his flesh, he knows that if Sherlock turns to look back he is lost forever.
Then the proud head lifts once more, and Sherlock strides into the dark without a backward glance, and John is saved.
When he wakes, John will remember that moment, the pain and the triumph of it together: as if Sherlock were alive and he the ghost, as if only the wild sweet music of Sherlock's mind could summon him from the empty world beyond.
no subject
Oooooh this works on so many levels! Magnificent! (And the mood somehow fits the art I just posted)
All this role reversal, and myth and dream, and death and living like you're already dead, and music and Sherlock's mind as music, and Orpheus and Euridice, wonderful!
Appropriate icon is appropriate!
no subject
IT TOTALLY DOES OMG. *starry eyes in return*
I'm glad you didn't find this too bleak, I was a little worried about it after your Post-Reichenbach Fall! But I can't help but see it as hopeful, that it's John's subconscious telling him that Sherlock is still alive, and that he's done all this to save him...
no subject
And it seems there is some transatlantic/continental synchronizing going on ;-D
Btw, I never really looked at your icon, but GUH! Sexy sexy hands... (also a big part of why I chose the reference picture, the hands have a big role)
no subject
It would be hard to cop out of something like that! Even if they don't show it and only imply the reunion (which would be galling) it would only give us writers that much more to play with. *evil grin*
I probably shouldn't underestimate Moffett & Co's ability to cop out of things!