James Moriarty - Tempestuous Tides

Chapter 18

Falling into a place where you think someone is there, but they are not, makes you closer to the realisation that they are gone, coming to an understanding. Leaving you alone, leaving you so broke, leaving you lost without a heading to where you might go next. Throughout your mind, you find yourself begging the idea you will be okay without needing to reassure yourself through every second of every day. Streets become lonely, the lights going from red to orange, to green, daggers stabbing your eyes, pricking the tear duct to perform its duty in making you cry. Pricking it over and over and over. You fall down, you grab the thing nearest to you, trying to, but you are no longer landing on the ground. You fall incessantly, screaming as you fall, calling out their name to save you. 

A million pieces of glass catch your fall, your entire body shaken, stabbed, jabbed and mocked for thinking you would be okay. You had failed in letting your brain understand your body would not be okay. The strain leaves you so depleted that no one ever seems to understand the pain you are under. Each of those miniature pieces of glass protruding out of the gaping wounds in your flesh, others are hidden away beneath the surface, meaning no one can completely see your inner injuries. 

You hope to unleash the feelings from your body, but the lights carry on flashing, you never see them coming. But, eventually, you become buried six feet under the ground, suffocating in the ground, no longer giving yourself the ability to breathe. And then, your hand tries to move, you think it is, but all you can see is the dirt encasing your corpse. No one knows your trying to breathe, no one knows your screaming, no one knows how much you are trying to keep living. You know you need to, you know you have to. No one is listening, and no one cares about how you are doing, they just care about all you can do for them. For once, you want to know what it would like to be cared about, to be loved, to be thought of. 

Sherlock had never shown his brother any real love, or care, yet he somehow knew that his brother knew he loved him. Even in their ridiculous fights, bickers, and ridiculous arguments of stupid things that no one would ever even care about. They had thought about the day Mycroft would die, they had spoken about it. Still, even after preparing themselves, nothing was to prepare Sherlock for the day he left his world. Sometimes he would make his brothers live a living hell. Now, who would he call if he needed help with Moriarty? No one was there. Yes, he had John, but he never understood the things he did, even if he tried harder than he had ever seen anyone try. This was his life, this was the way he wanted to live, and it was how he wanted things to be: with his brother alive. He thought that he didn't need his brother when he really did. Time and time again, Mycroft pulled through for Sherlock, and Sherlock was unable to pull through for him. If he died for his brother, would his brother die for Sherlock, and their lives would end and begin continually?

Becoming used to the hell of a world you are living in can take some time. You can train your mind to block out what you want to until something that was hiding in a dark corner, buried away in your sub-conscience comes up from behind you and takes you by surprise. You never let your feet touch the solid ground until you know you are safe. Until you know that it's okay for you to return to how you were before. 

"Sherlock! Sherlock!" John called, snapping him out of his daydream. "We are here."

After all the time he had spent in his mind, looking out to the sea, contemplating what would happen if he let himself go. What was it about the sea that made death seem so much more peaceful? Still, even when he was snapped out of his mind, his feet were unable to move.

"Are you coming?" John asked again, coming to his side, looking out to the sea. "There was nothing you could have done, or could do."

"Yes. Yes, there is," Sherlock rolled his eyes, rubbing his thumb underneath each of his eyes. "If I was to jump overboard, Mycroft would come back. I have been standing here, wondering what would happen. I would just be drawn to the conclusion that he would die for me, and then I would die for him. It would be a recurring cycle."

"You shouldn't think about jumping, I mean, that is what she wants. I saw what it was like down there, she is not the only one who can apparently resurrect the dead," John gestured with his eyes toward Camilla, but his tone sounded as though he was far from believing this was all some reality. 

"When you were in Afghanistan, did you ever lose someone you were close to?"

"I lost many people, you know that. Why do you ask?" John was puzzled by the questions he was asking, Sherlock was never this inquisitive in John's life because he had already deduced it long ago. 

"How do you cope? How do you live with it? How do you sleep at night? Do you hear them talking to you, and walking around you, and doing everything you remember them doing? Speaking how they used to? Telling you not to do things and to carry on?"

"All the time. I know Mycroft, and he would have told you that emotions are pointless, they are ridiculous and time-consuming," John made a joke of his Mycroft used to be, making Sherlock smile a little. "Now, I know as a normal person, they are not pointless or ridiculous. They are worth time. But, he would also say that you should mourn after you have done everything you can, without becoming a human sacrifice for him."

Sherlock nodded, walking away from the edge of the boat, his hands in his long, wool, jacket. 

"Have you seen, Lucas?"

"Who is Lucas?" John didn't know who he was, he had not been told who Lucas was. He was not alive when his name was revealed.

"Aella's younger brother,"

"The last I saw of him was when I was raised from the dead, someone took him from the boat, I think,"

"What?" Sherlock snapped, facing John, angered, blazed and fired up. "Who took him?"

"I don't know."

Sherlock walked away, moving toward the lighthouse, a million things entrancing his mind, too many things trying to stop him from achieving what he needed to achieve for his good, and everyone else. He needed his mind to come back to earth and help him to sort these issues out around them. 

"Sherlock!" Moriarty called from inside of the lighthouse, to which Sherlock responded by climbing the stairs rapidly, running up three steps at a time. 

John was pacing himself at a walk, one step at a time, Camilla staying behind to make sure no one came to hurt him at any point. After the miracle she had performed, she never wanted to let her miracle die on her again. 

"What is it?" Sherlock asked as he reached the top, holding onto the staircase pole for support as he looked to the ground, seeing a number of bodies stretched across the floor, their blood everywhere around them, Moriarty's shoes becoming covered in the blood. 

"They have been dead for only a few hours, who were they, and what were they doing here?" Moran said, kicking one of them with his shoes, his gun training onto the stairwell, someone was down there.

"What is it?" Moriarty looked at him, pulling his gun, taking a position at the far back where he could see them, and no one would see him. 

"It's only John," he said before a bullet flew and hit him in his ankle, making him fall to the ground. "Not John." 

Blood was coming out of Sherlock's ankle, spreading across the floor with the other bodies. "It's a death trap!" Sherlock shouted clutching his near.

From the bottom of the lighthouse outside, Camilla called up to them. "JUMP! TAKE COVER! BOMB!" 

Sherlock crawled along the floor, before Moran and Moriarty grabbed hold of his hands and feet, careful of his injury, throwing him outside for Camilla to catch, she was strong enough to handle the weight. She caught him followed suit by Moran and Moriarty, diving down into the sea as the bomb ticked, blowing up the lighthouse, all of their supplies ruined. 

Who was it who fired? 

Who blew it up?

Why?