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"Sherlock...”
The whispers of consciousness rouse him, briefly.
“Sherlock.”
His eyes flutter open to harsh lights and the face that now features in his nightmares.
“You don't tell John.”
Well, that just won't do. How could he not? It's hardly even a question that needs being asked.
And he drifts away again.
When he next comes to a brief moment of consciousness, it's to a hand tightly gripping his own.
"Sherlock..."
This voice is warmer, this voice is golden. This voice brings to mind fire-lit nights at Baker Street and fingers tap-tap-tapping away at a laptop. This voice brings the comfort of a friendship he'd only guessed at before now.
John...
This voice does not break into his thoughts and explode into his mind, the word LIAR flying in the air alongside the fragments of trust he had misplaced. This voice, well. He would do anything for this voice.
Like get shot apparently.
He makes an effort, and it is a great effort, to turn his head and flutter his eyes in welcome relief that John is his visitor instead of, well, anyone else really. Never mind the shark that still circles the blood-let waters and the two-faced assassin that lingers on the edges of the kill. Right now, John is here and that’s all he’s ever really needed lately.
He feels John squeeze his hand in acknowledgement, and the squeak of a chair being pulled closer.
“There we are now. You’ve been drifting in and out, you know. Keep giving me scares, why don’t you?”
The voice is obviously teasing, but there’s an unmistakable note of relief absolutely saturating it, practically brimming over the sides to drip onto Sherlock and all the betrayal he feels right now. It’s almost enough to start healing the hurt and the shock.
It’s obvious proof that John is still on his side. He squeezes John’s hand back, as best he can. He’s practically floating on morphine still, though, so at best he assumes it’s more like a flutter of his fingers. Hateful, to not be in more control of himself.
“Oh, Sherlock,” John sighs, “what are we going to do?”
And Sherlock almost stops breathing. He knows he breathed her name into the air when he came to, in desperation and in revelation. He had hopped nobody would hear, too amazed by his recovery, by coming back to life, to remember.
And then Sherlock feels something peculiar. A slight grazing up from his hand to his inner elbow, like a finger tracing veins. He shivers and his breath catches in a sense of bewilderment. This is new.
“My very best friend, Sherlock.”
Sherlock flutters his eyes again in acknowledgment. Such a curse and a blessing, this best friend business. It’s been the most painful relationship he’s ever experienced; and he has Mycroft for an older brother. But it has also been the most rewarding, something Sherlock finds he can’t really live without, in at least some shape or form.
A flash of memory, pale eyes in a drawn face.
“I’m sorry Sherlock, truly I am.”
Anything, he’d do anything.
“Shhhh, Sherlock, yes. Shhhh, I know.”
Oh god, had he said any of that out loud? The finger gently tracing has now become a hand rubbing up and down his arm, to soothe and comfort the sudden attack of nerves and the racing of the heart monitor.
“Just like any other case, hmm? Sherlock? We’ll solve it together, yes? Just you and me, like before. Just you and me against the world. All the world Sherlock, do you hear that? Anyone.”
Sherlock trembles in agreement, too tired and shaky for any other form of acknowledgment by now. The previous visits by the two people he now has to plot against anew have been dulled and faded from his mind. Their sharpness, the bitterness of their regard and their remorselessness has nothing on the warmth of John’s hand against his, his voice carrying Sherlock into a less relentless oblivion.
The two of them, yes, against anyone.
But John, he doesn’t yet know that it’s hardly just anyone.
Barely, at the edge of his consciousness, he feels the warm heat of a golden voice against his ear.
“It’s all fine, Sherlock.”
And a tiny hope is sparked deep within the palace he keeps bordered up like a stronghold. A spark hopefully strong enough to withstand the shatter of bullets and the teeth of a hungry shark.