Work Text:
Beneath a sky the colour of slate, you stand in the shadow of the noose at Execution Dock, the Thames shining like black obsidian behind you, the only real colour in the scene in the vivid green of the dripping weed and slimy algae clinging to the walls. There are gallows all along the shoreline, some with dead men hanging from them, others with empty ropes with the fraying ends trailing in the water. You look down the line of bodies and you see him hanging there, all true life extinguished, his only movement some parody of life caused by the wash of the rising water as it laps around his feet. Too late. You're always too late.
Your attention is caught by more vigorous movement further down the line, your gaze snapping towards the man hanging from a gibbet at the end of the row. He seems to be missing a leg, the limb crudely amputated, and the way he moves is not the slow turning of a hanged corpse being shifted by the changing tide but that of a man actively struggling while he is dying in front of your eyes, and you know who that is too. You call out for him but he can't hear you, and you reach for him but the river is rising still, the current pulling at your feet, and as you try to force your way onwards the trailing ropes of the empty gallows coil around you, and the more you try to struggle on, somehow the more ropes there seem to be, coarse and abrading your skin as you try to wade closer to the man on the gibbet, and the closer you get the more tightly they seem to entangle you too, twining around your legs, your wrists, one snaking around your throat, as if you're caught in a giant spiderweb. Your progress is agonisingly slow, every movement hampered by the efforts of the water and the ropes, yet somehow you still do progress towards him.
You try to call for him again but your foot slips on the stones beneath you and as you stumble a wave crashes over your face, reducing the name to no more than a coughing splutter. Still he looks at you abruptly, blue eyes fixing on yours. His mouth is open but if he speaks you can't hear him over the sound of rushing water in your ears, but you can still see the terror and the confusion and the sense of betrayal in his eyes as he looks at you whilst he struggles valiantly against the confines of the cage that holds him. Still you try to touch him, frantically, and despite everything you're so close, your fingertips just inches away from him as you try to reach him.
And then more ropes tangle around you, encircling your arms, your neck, biting into your flesh and yanking you back and down into the dark and icy depths of the river, all light disappearing as the water closes over your face, your last desperate cry rising towards the surface in one silvery bubble of air.
“John!”
And you wake up.