caffienekitty: (introspection)
caffienekitty ([personal profile] caffienekitty) wrote2012-09-24 10:31 pm

Sherlock Fanfic: Blackout Days

Title: Blackout Days
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Rating/Warning: PG13. Spoilers for the end of Series 2. Depiction of grief and depression.
Word Count: 221B
Disclaimer: I do not own this world or these characters.
A/N: Not what I intended to write tonight, but that's the way it goes some days. [LJ-only]

Summary: Sometimes the only way to cope with something is not to cope with it at all.



Blackout Days
by CaffieneKitty



Early on, there were too many. A voice, a moment, something discovered in a hastily packed box ambushed him as he tried to move on, away from the pain, and his mind refused it.

Blackout days weren't because John drank himself to oblivion; he drank, but never that far. Memories waited for him to sink deep enough. He couldn't risk that. Far enough down and they'd pull him the rest of the way. No.

When he opened a blank text document (full disclosure in text, edited disclosure in a new locked blog) to record the aching bland of the day, he found blank patches his mind would not revisit. Lacunae. Elisions. Monolithic black gulfs his mind slid past, veering away like a flock of pigeons circumnavigating Nelson's Column.

Brain says: Not thinking about that. Nope. Redacted.

It wasn't good. It just was.

With time, the blackout days diminished. A scarf that particular shade of blue in a shop window would be seen. A work crew on a rooftop became something to walk past rather than turn away from. A man's voice at a certain pitch on an advert would not send him out of the room.

It could be called an improvement. Incrementally the world filled in with the things that are, and John left the things that were and might have been behind, falling into blackness.

- - -
(that's all)

[identity profile] ciaranbochna.livejournal.com 2012-09-25 05:48 am (UTC)(link)
Yes. Never seems to feel like improvement.

Wrote something unintended myself tonight. *shrugs*

[identity profile] ciaranbochna.livejournal.com 2012-09-25 02:57 pm (UTC)(link)
*hugs* Needless to say, I think it is brilliant:)
(deleted comment)

[identity profile] newlyorange.livejournal.com 2012-12-04 07:51 am (UTC)(link)
I love this bit: "the world filled in with the things that are." The sentiment seems right, that after a while it's just time to accept things and keep going, without sounding harsh. Plus the monosyllables just emphasized the inevitability of it. (Also, I just like the sound of the whole thing being said aloud!)

[identity profile] newlyorange.livejournal.com 2013-01-09 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I think I found some of your fic after S1. I really enjoyed it, so I pop back in once in a while to see what else you've written. I hope that isn't creepy!