substituteskull | (no subject)

Three years since the outbreak and John Watson still doesn't know what to make of it. Like all doctors, he'd heeded the call of city and country as England did what all smart island nations did the moment the moment WHO released a statement that the virus had spread outside of America through international travel. It shut down completely. He'd not paid attention to the politics of it, hadn't bothered so much with the news. John had his work to do, people to treat, safety and quarantine to enforce. His world because St. Barts'.

At first, isolation seemed to work. Patriots were forced to stay outside of the relative safety of Great Britain as the airports and the Eurostar stations shut down. Ferries between the islands were discontinued.

The problem was that no one could isolate whatever it was causing humanity to change. The virus didn't seem to kill the host's brain, just every other part of their systems. A day post infection, the victim would become feverish. Two days later, they'd succumb. And after that...nothing short of dismemberment could stop them. It wasn't airbourne. And not in the blood either. Just the saliva. John had never seen anything like it. The internet called it a zombie plague, but that wasn't quite right either.

It took six months for everyone worldwide to realize that quarantine wouldn't help. Infections sprouted up for no discernible reason. People turned in the Underground, in shopping centres, on the playground. London, and the country, didn't stand a chance. The government fell overnight. Society followed.

And John just stayed on at St Barts'. He stopped trying to do the most good. And just attempted to survive.

It's not easy, even for an ex-soldier. There's no heading down to Tesco's any more. Ammo is impossible to come by. But if John, and the others holed up in St. Barts' still want to eat, someone has to go out. And that someone is almost always John.

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From:

consulting_freak

Sherlock had been abroad when he first heard of the stories of the 'zombie plague'. He'd scoffed at it, of course. And, he hadn't taken it seriously until he'd had a first-hand encounter. A small Siberian base containing roughly a dozen of Moriarty's assassins. He'd gotten information that the sniper assigned to Mrs. Hudson had been hiding out there, but when he arrived he'd found the entire place off. He couldn't say everyone was dead, but it was something close. Bodies twitching and groping. Cannibalism. Autophagy. People with dead eyes reduced to nothing but an insatiable hunger for just about anything. He'd even seen one man attempting to consume a fluorescent light bulb.

He'd only found one man still himself. He'd been scared beyond the ability to speak and he was feverish. Without receiving any answers, he'd torched the compound and went on his way.

Keeping up with the news had posed a problem as most of the media distributors died from the plague. After a few months, mobile service stopped working. Within a year, 80% of the population had succumbed to the 'virus'.

He'd tried to go back to London, but found that there was no transport. It had taken him nearly two years to make his way on foot and through various stolen vehicles to France. Travel was slow and difficult, since he spent the majority of his time finding new and creative ways to hide from the turned 'survivors' of the plague. (Most of the infected simply died within a week of infection after their bodies shut down, but some 10% were unlucky enough to walk around as little more than animated corpses looking for a meal.)

It had taken another six months to find a way across the small stretch of ocean to the UK.

By the time he found himself in Dover, he'd become very efficient with killing the turned survivors. Amputating the head was the easiest method, though firearms were good in a pinch and burning was the only way to ensure the plague wouldn't spread further. He'd also become quite good at first aid, though he never stayed with other human survivors long enough to administer it to anyone besides himself.

He'd discovered along the way that there were certain quarantine areas and medical knots throughout the broken country. If John were a survivor, he knew he would find him in one of those cells. There was one located at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, so that was his destination.

Unfortunately, he met up with a little trouble on the final stretch of his journey. An altercation with a group of four turned survivors left him tending to a broken humerus, a sprained ankle, and a mild concussion. No bites, thank God. No way to suppress the pain left him limping and swaying as he approached the hospital. From a distance, he would easily be confused as one of the turned - covered head to toe in dirt, dried blood, and the mild fever from a histamine response leaving him slightly dazed.

To the trained eye, one may notice that he was armed with a sword he'd picked up on the way as well as an arsenal of small firearms and ammunition in his backpack as well as bottled water and some powdered 'health shakes'.

Just a few more metres. If John's not here, I'll pilfer the supplies I need and go on my way.

From:

substituteskull

Anyone under ten barely remembers the time before the world went to hell and have learned to survive accordingly. Child labour laws don't exist and every able set of eyes is important in the new regime of small bands of survivors. It doesn't matter how Sherlock looks. Alive or a host for the virus, anyone approaching the hospital is equally as dangerous and treated as such.

Two squirrel-like children peek from the top of the very roof that Sherlock toppled himself over three years before, visible from the direction Sherlock travels even though the St. Barts' band have set up a volley of parked cars, long drained of petrol, to act as a choke point along the street and sidewalks. The hospital has been otherwise boarded up, crude metal portcullis doors covering the glass A&E entry way. As first one child and then the other dart away, eyes from across the road settle on Sherlock. Through his pain, he might not realize it, but that's just as well. Determining that he is alive only takes a glance -- infected do not use tools, let alone swords. Aligning the blow dart up to the back of his neck takes only a few seconds more.

By the time John gets back from a decent haul -- and the knowledge of an emptied out underground station where several small shops are still well stocked in canned goods -- and lays his bag down for Gracie to set away in the guarded larder, he's already been filled in on their guest. "No bites. We have him in the morgue."

John nods. "I'd really like a shower--"

"I'm sure he'll keep for a few more minutes," a dark skinned man with soft brown eyes tells him and John goes to get cleaned up. Cup of weak coffee in hand, John heads to the morgue three hours after Sherlock's capture and peeks through the glass into the ill lit room. All he sees is a dark haired, blood soaked man, bandaged up, bound to a table. He lightly knocks on the door, just so he won't startle the captive if he's awake by barging in.

"Hello. I'm Doctor Watson. I know you've been skimmed over but I thought I'd take a look. Do you mind?"

From:

consulting_freak

Sherlock had come across several bands of survivors through his journey. Some were paranoid - those would have a good chance of further survival - and some were relieved to see a human face and human mind. Even his lack of typical social skills seemed to go unnoticed. He'd traded some food items or ammunition for information and a safe place to sleep and he'd always left before dawn.

This particular group is different from the others. Paranoid would be an understatement. A militaristic feel with the sort of anarchy only a post-apocalyptic world could run by.

He'd seen the children on the roof, but he'd missed one important detail. The dart. Even through his drug tolerance, he found himself brought to his knees just seconds after feeling the sting on the back of his neck.

Voices surrounded him. Adults mostly and he was jerked to his feet with the support of two men's shoulders after being stripped of all of his weapons and supplies. He tried to speak with them, but they didn't listen or talk to him. Duty performers. They were the two that had lied him down in the morgue on the autopsy table. It was there that he drifted off into a short nap.

Even drugged, his instincts are that of a soldier in enemy territory, so the sound of the knock has his eyes open wide. Where..? He doesn't need to ask. One look around the room, even with the odd lighting and angle, tells him exactly where he is. He almost expects to see Molly Hooper standing over him with a scalpel and her scrunched up apologetic face 'Sorry, but can you hold still a bit?'

It's not Molly's voice he hears, though.

"John," Sherlock mutters, trying to sit up against the restraints. He doesn't get very far before collapsing down onto his back once more. The room twists around in an odd sort of way from the movement. Either a side effect of the drug or possible ear damage. His fever shouldn't be high enough to make him dizzy.

From:

substituteskull

Molly Hooper is a person that John hasn't seen in two years. Her death had been pointless. Then again, so had everyone's these days. John shut himself off after that, though. He smiled, he talked. He was a calming presence to many. But like most of the dangers outside of their last home on Earth, he knew himself to be dead. Dead and still walking.

He sets the clip board down before he hears his name. The voice is no longer familiar. Voices fade quickly from memories after all, long before visual stimuli. It's why John's nightmares tend to lack sound. And sometimes colours.

He immediately misunderstands the word spoken to. 'John,' he assumes, is the man's name. It makes him smirk. "Still quite the popular name. It's mine too," John says as he sits down lightly on the wheeled stool. There are tape marks on the floor and John knows not to go past them. The reach zone. He's not put on gloves or his armoured arm and neck guard yet. "You'll feel dizzy for another hour or so before you fully metabolize the sedative. Apologies. We use more than we likely ought to but judging body size at a distance is difficult at best and not all of us are...or were...physicians. Care to tell me what happened to you?"

From:

consulting_freak

It's funny in a way. How Sherlock had grown so much more humanity through this plague and everyone he's met had lost so much of theirs. He'd been hoping John would be different, but the way he doesn't respond to his voice - the way he doesn't even look over at his 'patient' - tells Sherlock that he'd been mistaken to put so much faith in his friend's resistance.

Everyone has a different way of surviving and coping.

"It's not my name," Sherlock tells him, letting his head roll to the side.

He's shut himself out so much that he doesn't recognise my voice, he decides. Reading people is one of the skills he'd had to learn and make room for in the rubble of his former Mind Palace. Forensic science had been pushed aside and stored in rooms further back where skills he could use for survival had taken over the prime locations. One specific area had been left unaltered, though. Sentimental as it is, the place where he stores information on John, Mrs. Hudson, and the other few people he'd been wanting to come back to is still in tact and unchanged over time.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock asks rhetorically. "I approached Bart's and got shot in the neck with a poisoned dart. Barbiturate of some sort, possible traces of narcotic. Not particularly good for my history, but I'll forgive the transgression due to the circumstance."

From:

substituteskull

It's not the voice that does it. Not is it the face. Blood covered and pale, John would never recognize a man he'd seen most often pristine (minus the small issue with the harpoon, and John still tells that story for morbid laughs). The normal cues get no notice but the way Sherlock talks-- now that is ingrained in the deepest parts of John's mind, locked away with all of the little things he wanted to never forget.

Hats. Small magnifying glasses. Eye balls in a microwave safe contain used specifically for eyes. Strains of bacteria next to the milk. Gas masks over the paper.

John's head whips around so fast it's a wonder it doesn't fall off and roll under the examination table for some sorry soul to collect later. He stands, quickly. The stool clatters over.

He's finally gone mad-- Madder than he'd been at Sherlock's grave begging a dead man for a resurrection. "Sherlock. Dear God."

From:

consulting_freak

Sherlock waits for it. The moment of recognition when John will look at him and know who he is. He'd long since determined that predicting his best friend's - no, his only friend's - behaviour, so he doesn't know what to expect. Anger? Fear? Happiness? Disbelief?

Disbelief, it is.

"About time," he says, expression softening at the way John looks at him. "Sorry I'm late. Got a bit hung up in Siberia."

Sherlock's mobility is severely limited by the restraints put around his wrists, ankles (ouch, thanks a lot for that one), neck, and torso. It doesn't keep his hand from twitching over toward the recoiling doctor. "Oh, and I should mention. You're not insane. It's me and I'll explain everything once the room's stopped spinning."

From:

substituteskull

John can't remember when he last cried but the sting in the corners of his eyes is ghostly and familiar as he holds back the lump in his throat, likely a sob, from turning into anything more than something to be swallowed down. Feverishly, John's hands tug on the restraints before he finds the buckles, most of the padding done away with. He's not shaking, his fingers as skilled as ever as he works open each and every one down the line.

Hurry. Hurry for what? Sherlock won't likely turn to sand or water and slip away from him again. The world isn't that cruel.

"Good. Yes. Right. Good. Fine. Stop talking. No. No. Keep talking but don't or else you'll further dehydrate yourself--". The moment the last restraint is off, John just stands. Waiting. "Three years late! Welcome home."

From:

consulting_freak

Sherlock watches John carefully to take in how he responds to the news. It's the same look he'd always gotten when observing a crime scene, even if it's masked behind dirt and caked on blood. Relief. I'd think he'd be angry with me.

Only when the majority of the restraints are opened he averts his eyes away from John's face. John might notice the swelling in his upper left arm from the simple fracture. If they get his shirt off, he'll see the skin dark and inflamed around the break. He'd been lucky that it had been a simple fracture and not a compound one.

"You're rambling, John," Sherlock tells him, but there's a softness in his voice as he speaks. Three years since the plague, and just a month longer than that since he'd jumped.

Using his right hand, he pushes himself into an unsteady sitting position. "Tea would be good, I think. A shower even better," he tells his friend in an attempt to dissipate some of the charged energy between them.

From:

substituteskull

Rambling? Bloody hell, of course he's rambling! There's so much to tell Sherlock. They've been apart for so long that yes, he's rambling. And it feels so good too, just to talk to someone that he knows knows him! He's known, lost, and lived with the men and women at St. Barts' but no one has ever, or could ever, be Sherlock.

He feels a bit giddy. Still prone to those creeping tears, too, which likely is the start of some sort of mania. The moment he finds himself alone, John already knows that the leaking facade he is putting up will rupture and his heart will give out. But first--

"You're not having tea. It will just dehydrate you further." And they've been without tea for almost four months. Life is difficult sometimes. "But I'll get you water," he promises. And then just stands there. Oh right. He'll need to actually leave. "And after you've a drink, I'm going to set your arm. Try to lay still, please. Not everyone here will understand why I don't have you under lock as it is."

He doubts anyone here would really welcome Sherlock at all. Most people want to punch him. Actually. John would very much like to punch him now too.

Edited (Phone tags suck. ) Date: 2013-10-31 12:09 am (UTC)

From:

consulting_freak

Sherlock's slightly baffled at all the mixed signals John's projecting through his actions. The tears. The look on his face. The almost anxious note in his voice. The way he moves, looks at him, speaks. Everything. It's almost like John's dropped whatever emotional response he feels like giving against the table without a care to where each individual droplet will find itself.

Like my mind gets when I have nothing to focus on.

"Water then," Sherlock agrees, giving John a confused look when he doesn't leave immediately to get the water despite saying he will. It's somewhat concerning that his friend has taken on some oddly eccentric behaviours since they'd last spoken. But the times have changed.

He won't lie still as John asked him to, but he won't get up and wander, either. It had taken a lot of effort for him to sit in the first place, so he should make the best of it. In this case, he can start the agonising work of shedding his clothes from the waist up so John can set the bone like he'd offered. If he'd been on his own, he could think of several less pleasant ways of getting the bone back into place.

From:

substituteskull

John himself is baffled himself and after letting the door to the morgue close behind him, he catches himself stealing a glance at Sherlock as the man immediate does the exact opposite of what he'd requested. Panic attacks are not something he's dealt with save for waking up from a nightmare and even those have more or less fallen by the wayside, their repeated, horror laden content simply thickening his skin or leaving him listless for a few moments before he would force himself to get up and live another day keeping his own brand of status quo. The way his heart races as he backs down the hallway is something nearly forgotten and John bears down until his head begins to throb. Sometimes it pays to be able to diagnose the signs properly. There's a reason John has survived this long when so few have not.

In the hallway upstairs, he runs into one of old hospital administrators, a really lovely bloke named Clyde, who is missing a few fingers, his entire family, and still keeps smiling. "I heard they caught a live one."

John nearly puts him in a headlock. All of his muscles tighten before he tells himself to calm down and put on his own sham. "I'm seeing him. Just getting some water and bandages. Don't let the kids down there, all right?"

"Absolutely."

They part ways and John quickens his step.

He's not at all surprised to find Sherlock the way he is when he returns. The posture. The bruising-- That unnatural smile is still on his face but it's his eyes that matter the most and they shine with relief to see Sherlock still here. "They told me you had a sword. A sword, Sherlock, really? Drink all of this, but slowly. When's the last time you've properly eaten?"

From:

consulting_freak

Sherlock keeps his eyes trained on John as the other man turns his back on him and goes out into the hallway. A lot had happened to both of them in the last three years and it would take time for them to get used to the changes they've gone through. Sherlock hadn't allowed himself to think much on how things would change while he had been making his way halfway across the world to get back home. He'd been too busy focusing on what would be the same.

John. The ever-steady soldier, doctor, and blogger. The man who'd somehow gotten under his skin in a way that he hadn't really minded.

While John's away, Sherlock somehow manages to get his coat off. A heavy duty trench coat he'd gotten from an abandoned military surplus store before others came up with the same idea. It was where he'd gotten a lot of his arsenal as well.

After that comes his button down shirt. The thing that hurts the most in removing is the under shirt, since it requires lifting his arm up over his head. Luckily, John's not in there with him to hear him hiss and grunt with the effort.

Sherlock looks up warily when he hears the door start to open. John might notice the distrust and guarded expression that paints his face for a second before recognition settles in and he realises that it's just John coming back. His features relax again, but his eyes are still as intense as they've ever been as he once again takes in his friend's appearance.

"Swords don't need to be reloaded," Sherlock points out with a slight smirk. "And, I don't think I've ever told you, but I'm an expert in fencing and several styles of Judo, some of which include sword-wielding." He takes the cup of water and takes a moment to smell the contents. John wouldn't drug me. He could have left me restrained. A hesitant first sip, then he takes the rest in greedy gulps.

"I've been sure to regulate my caloric intake as well as maintain my body's need for essential vitamins and minerals," he explains. One doesn't live this long by forgetting to eat - he'd had two close calls because of it. "But I haven't had much in terms of solid food outside processed sweets in almost a year."

Doctor. Blogger. Substitute Skull.

(no subject)