[log] Imaginary Time [open]

[snowblindmods]

Characters: anyone
Location: in dreams
Date: nighttime during the event
Summary: A place to post your character's dreams.
Warnings: general horror warnings; please include more specific warnings in subject lines as necessary!

Comments

CW: Drug overdose resulting in death, nuclear war, suicidal ideation

[holmesice]

He was too late.

The alley seemed to darken as he dashed through the puddles, the air-raid sirens going off overhead.

A crumpled form, a few needles rolling away. A coat and scarf stretch on the ground, as if the cloth was the blood spilled this night.

Despite everything telling him otherwise, he took Sherlock in his arms anyway, crashing to the ground to scoop him up like he did when they were children, hoping that somehow, he was not too late.

Familiar eyes stared into the distance, but they were without a spark. Without the clever intelligence that spoke of a quick wit and inevitable jab about his appearance. No. He'd never insult him again. He'd never hear that familiar laugh again, the same laugh he'd heard as a child yet overlaid with the baritone of his adult voice.

Overdose.

He'd only just gotten back from that blasted place, Norfinbury, and for one small moment he'd hoped to leave all its horrors behind. And yet what he'd come back to was worse.

The sounds of explosions far away. It wouldn't be long now.

He'd meant to find Sherlock and John (and his daughter) himself to take them to the government shelter. They'd be able to survive there, a whole underground complex. No one knew that Eurus was behind this all--that in Mycroft's absence she started World War III for fun, as an exercise of her considerable talents. She didn't even bother leaving Sherrinford, she'd been able to do it from the comfort of the island's computers.

Sherlock didn't know about the war, no one did, till minutes ago. Mycroft had discovered that Sherlock had somehow arrived earlier than he had--how long? What if he'd never actually left? He couldn't say, but it was ong enough to drive him back to drugs. Mycroft didn't know what set him off. Was it another fight with John? Boredom? No cases? It was one of his biggest fears--being unable to find what set Sherlock off and prevent him from...from doing this. Without Mycroft to send people to look after him, to use surveillance to monitor him, to give him cases when things were slow...was it not inevitable?

With shaking hands, he reached in his pockets to find the list.

There was a piece of paper, but no list.

No, not a paper at all.

It was a picture, crumpled and worn, of them. Mycroft in his early teens, grinning at the camera, and Sherlock as a child, with a pirate hat askew on his head.

What was left of Mycroft's self control drained away, his shoulders shaking as he clutched Sherlock's cold form, rocking back and forth.

"Forgive me, brother mine."

He failed him.

He failed everyone.

The explosions grew louder and nearer, and the sky lit up with an eerie light.