It is extremely disturbing. He can’t recall the last time he lost himself in here. In his own Mind Palace, no less. How did this happen? And where is the exit sign? The one reading: 221B Baker Street.
He finds many signs on his walk through the corridors but they’re all wrong. They are pointing at the rooms, the nooks, the cabinets, the books, the floorboards; in short, everything. But not the exit to his physical home.
Sherlock is rarely frightened. Not anymore. Not since John moved into his flat. The feeling of fear courses through his body now, though. His claustrophobia – the mania he hasn’t felt in years – has made a dramatic appearance, making his skin crawl uncomfortably.
“I need to find the exit,” he mutters to himself over and over, like a mantra.
Sherlock almost weeps with relief when Mind Palace John magically appears in the hallway outside the library.
“John,” he whispers reverently.
“Fancy meeting you here,” John quips, mirth visible in all his features.
Sherlock wants to kiss him but that’s not allowed. John is his friend, nothing else. He is as heterosexual as Sherlock is homosexual. Not a great match, that.
When Sherlock decides to ask John for the way out, John has vanished. The space he recently occupied still radiates a warm glow.
***
Sherlock wonders how long he’s been trapped. He can’t even recall why he entered in the first place. Was it to search for something, or was it to escape his own living room? He never leaves - at least unnecessarily - to his Mind Palace if John is present, but perhaps he went out on a date again. If Sherlock isn't playing the violin or performing an experiment to stave off the tedium of John's absence, he tends to walk through this place for a while. The fact that he can’t remember the reason for coming here, is unsettling.
Mycroft has of course taught him everything about the comings and goings, but Sherlock can’t remember if he ever mentioned how to escape his own head if he got stuck. Most likely, it didn’t occur to his brother that it was an option. Mycroft has always had better control of his emotions than Sherlock. He will obviously deny this to his dying day, but inside his mind he can afford to be gracious.
“Are you still here? I’m waiting for you, you know. There’s tea and biscuits.”
John has returned, but he disappears faster than Sherlock can respond.
***
At the end of the corridor is a green sign, which Sherlock supposes is the one he’s been searching for, but when he walks toward it, the sign transforms into a painting.
The Reichenbach Falls.
It had been a gift from… a client? Or was it some politician? An insignificant detail at this point, obviously.
The painting gives him the shills; an expression John would use. It is ominous and if he concentrates, he can hear the sound of the grand waterfall.
“John? Where are you?”
Why hasn’t he thought of calling out for the man earlier?
Sherlock contemplates that he might be drugged. Perhaps he isn’t –
“You called,” John says calmly, suddenly standing beside him.
“I did. Thank you for coming. I… I can’t…”
Sherlock is slightly embarrassed to admit that he’s adrift in his own head.
“Lost, are you?”
“Yes,” Sherlock whispers.
To his horror, he feels a burning sensation in his eyes.
A warm hand slides into his, and the words “come on” are uttered.
Is John holding his hand?
Sherlock looks down and sees that they are indeed holding hands. However, this is Mind Palace John, a fictional version of his friend, not the real one.
“Here we are,” John says softly.
They stand before a door which opens a crack. Scents of tea, gingernuts, leather, books, and dust invade Sherlock’s nostrils. There’s also the unmistakable and unique smell that belongs to the man who’s sitting in his chair sipping tea from his RAMC mug – John. The real John. His John.
***
“You’re back,” John says with evident relief and warmth.
Sherlock blinks and nods; his voice seems to be out of order at the moment.
“Come sit. There’s tea and your favourite biscuits,” John coaxes.
Sherlock stands from the sofa and walks over to his chair.
“Did you finish cataloguing?” John asks.
The look on his face is different somehow. More open, fond, and… something else Sherlock is unable to deduce.
Tea first, then –
“You don’t remember, do you?”
John’s voice is sad all of a sudden.
“What?”
“Why you retreated to your Mind Palace,” John explains.
His voice is still –
“Oh!”
Images of John cupping his face, kissing him softly on the lips, telling Sherlock that he… loves him.
“Oh,” he repeats.
“Right,” John sighs, “that didn’t go according to plan, I see.”
“John.”
His words elude him, and John seems unable to decipher what Sherlock is trying to convey.
Action, Holmes.
He steps closer to John’s chair, pries the mug out of his hands, and curls up in John’s lap, mirroring the army doctor’s ministrations from earlier.
“I love you too,” Sherlock whispers after glorious minutes of kissing.
“Thank God! I thought I’d scared you away,” John exclaims, so relieved it nearly breaks Sherlock’s heart.
“Never!” Sherlock says emphatically.
“What took you so long, then?”
“I couldn’t find the correct sign, but then I called out for you. The other you, and he led me back.”
“Clever guy that one.”
“Most definitely no idiot.”
“High praise, love.”
Sherlock hides his blushing face in the crook of John’s neck and wonders if he will ever get used to being called ‘love’.
He doesn’t say it out loud, but apparently John knows him too well.
“I will repeat it until you believe it, but I will never stop,” John assures him, and that is the best answer Sherlock has ever got in his life.
notes: this prompt worked perfectly for the idea I'd had for the prophecy in this story for a while.
---
“Zehua, a moment please.”
Zehua turned in the hallway to see the Temple Mother—Mitera Antitian Malahadinn—moving toward her. The Mitera’s dark blue temple robes billowed around her as she approached, like a violently spraying fountain.
Antitian gripped Zehua’s arm once she was within reach, holding onto her with a religious fervor.
There was something wrong, something deeply wrong.
“Hatah has spoken again.”
“You received a sign from it?” Zehua questioned. Antitian had come to her nine years ago, deeply troubled by a sign from Hatah, the holy one within the Origin. Now she came again, with the same ground-shaking look in her eyes; a terror at beholding the future.
“No,” Antitian said. She pulled Zehua by the arm into an alcove, speaking quickly and quietly. “It has shown me I misunderstood.”
Zehua’s brows drew together, a scowl of concern creasing her youthful face. Surely the Mitera was mistaken. Hatah only spoke to the Mitera, and those of such status were trained in all manner of prophetic scholarship to understand the signs they were given.
“You’re never wrong, it must be a new sign. Some sort of change of the path. Hatah does not make mistakes, and neither do you.”
Antitian’s grasp tightened around Zehua’s arm, then released her. The older woman turned aside, distressed. “I thought– you remember what I thought. The war, the man who would kill the Origin…” she trailed off, fidgeting with her hands. Zehua had never seen her so upset.
“Yes, I remember. Mitera, we are prepared for the war. What did Hatah say now?”
“We are doomed, Zehua!” Antitian hissed at her. She spoke with such venom that Zehua took a fearful step back and bumped against the cool alcove wall.
“The thing that’s coming, the beast to rip the Temple from Jhasa? It is coming because we are prepared for war. I did not understand Hatah before, when it showed me the terrible things to come. I thought I was meant to stop it, to prepare the acolytes for a threat from without. To crush whatever schemes the land-council was enacting against us. I thought that was its plan!
“I did not see that the threat came from within, Zehua. Within our own walls, the Temple’s destruction is already here, already rotting the foundations of the house! The Sun is coming, and he will scorch the waters of the Origin as punishment for our fault against him! He will turn the Temple inside out, he will destroy all we have built!”
“Who is the threat, Mitera? Do you know?”
“One of the slaves,” Antitian said. “I do not know which one. Perhaps that was withheld from me as discipline for my misunderstanding.”
She looked miserably resigned, her great age showing as the weight of this horrible mistake rested hard upon her shoulders. This was no way for a proper Mitera to act, and if any of the other priestesses saw her like this, Zehua knew there would be a coup in the Temple; the Mitera’s status was already rather delicately balanced.
“Then we kill them all,” Zehua replied, taking charge. Someone had to, else they all fall to chaos. She stepped closer to Antitian, standing tall over the older woman despite their differences in status. “I will give the order, let their blood fall on me.”
Antitian considered it for a moment, then nodded faintly. “Take care of it, Zehua, I trust you.”
“We won’t tell any of the others, it will remain our secret. You will act like nothing has changed, you will keep your seat as Mitera. We will keep the Temple safe.”
