Chapter Text
It was 1:30 a.m. when John woke up from feeling his bladder empty via the blasted urinary catheter. God he hated these things. They annoyed him, felt uncomfortable, and woke him up each time it emptied. He was absolutely going to dislike the next two weeks with having to constantly use them. John shifted a little, trying to get into a better position without irritating his side. A light breeze tickled his nose. It confused him because he swore the window was shut when he went to sleep. He scowled tiredly and knew it would take a while to go back to sleep now that he was up and coherent. John sneezed as the breeze blew by again, chilling him. He reached blindly for the call button to get a nurse to close it for him, but his hand instead came into contact with a heavy coat.
John immediately froze, sucking in a monstrous breath, readying himself to scream. He didn’t stand a chance if it came down to a fight, what him bedridden in the hospital and all. Before he could make a sound, a hand grabbed the one he had on the coat and another descended on his mouth. His heart monitor sky rocketed as he began to panic. John thrashed in his bed, pulling at all of his tubing, but luckily, nothing tore. Sunddenly, a mouth was pressed against his causing his eyes to fly open (when did he shut them) and stare. He went into shock as very familiar eyes, ones that belonged to a dead man, were staring right back at him. When the man pulled away, John’s eyes flashed in rage and he threw the hardest punch he possibly could in his position. The solid ‘thunk’ and pained groan quenched the pain flaring in his side at that moment.
“You Barmy Bastard! How dare you- You better be dead, you bleeding tosser, ‘cause I’ll kill you if you aren’t SherlllMmmphckf.”
Sherlock kissed the hell out John with his lips scorchingly desperate, blood pouring into John’s mouth from a cut made by Sherlock’s teeth. John’s hatred and love spilled over when his teeth clanked with Sherlock’s in equally as desperate love. Sherlock had John’s head in both his hands, holding onto him as if John would melt and slip through his fingers. John’s right hand was shoved in Sherlock’s hair grabbing and pulling painfully at his curls, his left clenching at Sherlock’s hip. Just a few seconds later, John sucked Sherlock’s bottom lip into his mouth and bit it hard. Even more blood poured from Sherlock into John’s mouth. Sherlock whipped back in pain.
“Jawn!” Sherlock stuffed some tissues around his bleeding lip and then by the cut made from the punch. John glared up at him, pointed to the chair next to his bed, and waited. Sherlock actually took the hint and sat, looking warily at John as adrenaline still flowed through both of their veins. John had to take several breaths before he was almost calm enough to not smash Sherlock’s overly large cranium to a pulp. Almost.
“What the bloody hell are you doing here Sherlock?” John hissed out, “You’re dead! Of all the daft things you could ruddy do, you had to off yourself by jumping of a bloody building and suddenly you show up as if I didn’t go through months of emotional trauma from watching my fiancé die?!”
John paused to let his words sink in and to take another breath. Sherlock squirmed a bit, but John could tell he wanted to say something. He put up a hand to stop him.
“You better have a damn good excuse for all of this. Don’t even try to lie to me right now. Tell me why - Why did you have to kill yourself in order to leave me?”
Sherlock’s eyes sparked in annoyance, “Nawt to Eave o’, oh bwoody,” he threw the tissues away and tried again.
“Not to leave you John. Never to leave you and never like that.”
Sherlock said the words in fierce reassurance.
“I sincerely doubt that,” John stared at Sherlock with an eyebrow raised, fingers tapping his leg in agitation.
“You were meant to stay safe,” Sherlock snapped, standing from the chair and pacing, the adrenaline in him too much to bear at the moment, “You weren’t supposed to end up in the hospital. Mycroft promised he’d keep you safe.’
“Wait, Mycroft knew you were alive?!” John gasped out.
“Like that’s surprising,” Sherlock waved off the remark, “Mycroft told me to wait until you were out of the hospital tomorrow, but I had to see you the moment after I killed the last one, I couldn’t wait.”
John wished he could throttle Mycroft as much as he wished he could Sherlock. At least the conversation between Mycroft and Doctor Quinton made sense now. John had a quick moment of revenge when he realized how pissed Mycroft would be at Sherlock now.
“-He told me you were doing fine,” Sherlock continued, knocking John out of his thoughts, “That you weren’t becoming emotionally off balanced or in need of mental rehab. He lied; obviously you aren’t fine since you needed surgery to get rid of Kidney stones. Kidney stones, John! From tea! You could have died from plants! I warned you about that you know, the day I gave you my ring. I should have known you would never give tea up.”
John’s hand had unconsciously moved to hold onto the ring, but the moment Sherlock mentioned it, he dropped his hand onto the bed.
“You weren’t supposed to keep the ring, you know,” Sherlock said sedately this time, “You should have flush it or sold it. You were supposed to get angry with me and have a normal life without me in it; maybe acquire a little, dull wife and a boring child or two. You should have had that. No, John, never would I have wanted you to be here, emotionally scarred and physically in pain, still pining after a dead man.”
“That’s great and all,” John’s eye twitched in vexation, “But what the hell does it have to do with the fall? You could have stayed with me. We could have run away, Moriarty be damned, but instead you just had to win at your stupid little game.”
“Do you not see it, John? He was going to kill you, to murder you, and leave me with nothing!” Sherlock yelled at him, eyes flaming in such anger and sorrow that John had to look away, “He had a sniper on you, on Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade! What the hell was I supposed to do? Let you die?!”
John sucked in a breath, not believing a word of what he was hearing, “I told you, Sherlock. Do not lie to me. Not about this.”
“John!” Sherlock grabbed John’s face between his hands, “Look at me! No, don’t turn your eyes away. Look. At. Me.”
John raised his eyes and looked – at Sherlock’s sunken checks. At his red-rimmed, blackened eyes. At the multitude of small scars now littering his face. At the still oozing cut of his lip. John stared and felt a little bit more of him crumble.
“John, I am not lying to you,” Sherlock hissed urgently, “I. Did. Not. Want. You. Dead.”
John let out one heart wrenching sob, just one, and continued to stare at Sherlock with blurry eyes. Sherlock didn’t seem to notice.
“You are my life, and I would be damned if Moriarty took you away from me as he did the entire world. I wanted you safe, here, where he couldn’t get to you and if that meant I had to leave you, I would do it without pause again and again until I knew you would always be safe... God, John… If you had-”
Sherlock cut off there, turning his head away. John could see his shoulders shaking; feel those cold hands tremble on his checks. John wrapped his right hand slowly around one and squeezed it before moving his mouth to kiss it gently.
“You daft git,” John whispered, tears of his own sliding gently down his cheeks, “If you had only told me…”
“I’m sorry – I – I – he targeted you, I didn’t – there was no time… I’m so sorry…”
John pulled at Sherlock gently, but firmly, waiting for Sherlock to finish laying his head on John’s chest. John wrapped his arms around him, IV be damned, and stroked his hair.
“It’s okay, Sherlock.”
John kissed Sherlock’s head.
“All’s forgiven as long as you promise never to leave me out of the loop again. Or go and kill yourself, for that matter.”
John kissed Sherlock’s head for a second time as Sherlock let out a disjointed laugh.
“And you must promise to cut back on the tea.”
John squeezed Sherlock’s body tightly, lip trembling.
“Deal.”
The End