mors certissima

Watson, H John
COD: Exsanguination

Simple.

Destructive, deadly.

Boring.

He watched the carnage of bloodshed expressionlessly, seeing but unseen. The rift between worlds kept him hidden. The atmosphere was cool despite the humid, arid landscape of Afghanistan's terrain.

He breathed in, breathed out. The metallic rippling through the air meant that a new soul had entered the rift. This was his bounty. He stepped away from his post and strode forward purposefully. The landscape changed into nothing; a blank, wide open space reminiscent of Afghanistan itself, but devoid of the life and lives taken on the desert battlefield.

The man was short, with dusty blonde hair and indecipherable eyes. He thought that he ought to call them blue in this vast wasteland of bright nothingness. Blue, for detail's sake. Details were important, when he had so little to occupy himself in the first place.

The man was clearly a soldier: tan lines, but not above the wrists. He held himself like a soldier: shoulders back, spine straight, chin raised. The uniform did bring it together, though.

The identification tags around the man's neck glittered in the light.

He stepped forward, pulling his hood more firmly around his face. "You have entered the rift between worlds. Your time amongst the living realm has come to a close." His statement was flat. He felt nothing. He was here for John Watson, and John Watson was here because he was dead.

Simple as that.

John spun around, reaching for the weapon that he no longer had on his person. His eyes fell on his companion, and he hesitated. His hands fell back to his sides slowly, his gaze now analysing. He was very keen, that much could be deciphered. He was very dedicated.

Dediction meant nothing to the one waiting between worlds.

He reached forward, fingering John's glittering dog tags. "John Hamish Watson. Your time has arrived. Come." He removed his fingers from the cool metal, and held out his hand instead.

John stared at his hand, and then looked up at him. There was no way that he could see his face, he was shrouded in shadows beneath the heavy flowing fabric of his cloak, but there was something intense in John's eyes.

"My time has come," John repeated.

"Yes," he said flatly.

John squared his shoulders. "You're saying I died."

"Yes," he repeated.

"So this is..."

"The rift between worlds," he said.

"Between Life and Death."

"Yes."

"No."

He felt his eyebrows raise before he could process the reaction. "No?" he repeated. "You cannot argue with a harbringer of death. It's too late, John. It's time to go."

"No," John repeated, just as stubbornly.

He paused. Usually arguments regarding passing onto the next realm were filled with tears or frantic pleading. Bargaining was common. So was denial. Arguments weren't uncommon, but not with solid self-assurance.

"Yes," he said slowly, folding his fingers into his palm and letting his hand drop. "You were the recipient of ballistic trauma resulting in exsanguination." Sparing death details was not suggested, but helpful in some circumstances. "It's time to move on."

"To where?"

This was usual. The questions were never-ending, even if John had broken ideals regarding accepting death.

"Am I going to Heaven?" John continued determinedly.

"That's not for me to decide."

"Why are you here, then?"

"To assist you from your realm to the realm beyond."

"To take me to Heaven? Hell? Where exactly does this go?"

This was the bravery of the soldier. Some would call it stupidity. It almost elicited human emotion from him, the way John's determination was coming across in this conversation. Nonetheless, he did think it was admirable, and yet entirely useless to him.

"I take you to where you are to be judged," he said bluntly.

"So there is a Heaven or Hell," John replied.

The cloaked one remained stoically silent. The afterlife and where souls went once they had departed was not his place to discuss.

"Okay, you won't answer my questions, you're frankly an awful... thing to have to meet once you apparently die, and I don't care if you do say that I bled out, until I either see Heaven or Hell, I'm not buying it." John nodded to himself and turned on his heel, striding away from him.

He blew out a deep breath slowly. He closed his eyes momentarily, and spoke again. "Walk as far as you'd like, John Watson. Death delivers us all to the same end."

The words seemed to irk John. He spun around again, eyes blazing. "And you're Death?"

"I am Death's servant."

"Well, until Death comes to retrieve me personally, you can tell him I said "piss off"," John retorted, and turned back around to march away.

Expressionless aside, he laughed out loud. The sound was foreign, rarely used. Humour was a concept only distantly familiar. But John Watson was making him laugh. Curious.

He didn't move away from the spot he was in. Despite the world of Afghanistan that he had been viewing only moments ago, there was no escape from the void. Once John realised that, perhaps then he would go with him more willingly. He did not need to follow him, because John would not be leaving.

Theoretically, the rift was unbroken and unending. One could walk until the end of time and there would be nothing. He didn't need to move to keep his eye on John; he would never outwalk him, and he couldn't outrun him. Like a bird in a cage.

Something tingled at the back of his head, on the inside of his brain. He cocked his head, eyebrows furrowing. The dark fabric of his hood brushed against his eyelashes. John was still wandering in the distance.

And then he wasn't.

The cloaked one's head snapped up, eyes darting around the void. There was nothing except bright light and cool air, the usual ticking of a clock and his own breathing. He turned in a circle, something akin to adrenalin in his veins, and let his eyes sweep across the blank nothingness.

"John..." he growled, waving his hand for the scenary to melt back into that of Afghanistan. His being was now in tune with John Watson's soul; he found him without resistance. The medical tent, under the hands of army doctors similar to the one he had just been talking to, and-

"He's breathing, get that over here now!"

He stared at the scene before him, jaw clenched. He hadn't had a soul escape from him before. It didn't happen often in his realm, and it had never happened to him. John Watson was the exception.

He was almost as irritated as much as he was intrigued by it.

He swept the scene away, jerking the hood away from his face. The luminosity of the rift between worlds cast shadows onto his face, accentuating prominent cheekbones and ice chip eyes. Dark curls fell down around his ears, framing his pale face, set upon with the most grim of scowls.

John Watson had escaped Death.

Now it was Death's turn to pursue John Watson.

A/N: vita incerta, mors certissima - means 'The most certain thing in life is death', or 'Death is the one true certainty'.

So, in doing a replay of a favourite game of mine, I was reminded of this plot. One of the game characters is a grim reaper as such and I can never stop thinking about how Sherlock could pull off a reaper spectacularly, dark, hooded cloak, chains and all. (Though no chains in this verse.) I finally got around to writing it. I might add a small follow-up chapter, because I have an idea where I wanted this to go but didn't want to just put in the A/N, so look for that possibility.

As always, I do not own Sherlock. Thank you for reading!