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After that, it was all terribly boring. The carnage had ended just as quickly as it had escalated. Ambulances were called. Wounds tended to. All in all, he’d gotten off pretty lucky. No internal bleeding. Two broken ribs, a couple of scrapes and grazes, a sprained wrist from taking out an end table on the way to the floor, and a wicked bruise the size of a honeydew melon splashed across his chest that promised to dazzle every old school friend that still bothered to check Facebook these days. Man, if only the listeners could see.
Sherlock, in truth, had actually sustained more damage in the crossfire than he had. He’d sliced up both hands and knees crawling around in broken glass - first to John, and then to Abe - and a particularly nasty piece of broken pottery had lodged itself in his shoulder when he’d thrown his own body over John’s during the mayhem. John could still picture it now - the noise he’d made as the missile found its target, the way he’d tensed up around him. John had a recollection of being vaguely worried, amidst the million other immediate fears in that moment, that Sherlock had been shot, too. Sherlock hadn’t even noticed it himself until the Paramedics had wrestled him into an ambulance to give him a once over.
He’d sat, silent and obedient, whilst a particularly fussy doctor wrenched the thing from his shoulder, stitched up the gouge it left in him - his brown skin pallid and sweaty, either from shock (less likely) or blood loss (more likely) - and then turned her attention to his hands. John, laid beside him and being tended to by a much less fussy doctor (seriously, he was the one who got shot!), had admired the gnarled piece of white and blue now speckled with deep red and remarked in some giddy and garbled way or another that it looked suspiciously shaped like one of those stupid dancing men.
God, adrenaline does the weirdest things to your brain.
Once it was decided neither was on the immediate verge of keeling over in the Norfolk Hotel car park, they had been released, with express instructions to go straight home and rest. Like they’d planned to do little else. John had hoped, anyway, that Sherlock didn’t have some messed-up chaser in the form of another case planned. It hadn't occurred to him at the time that Sherlock hadn’t said a word since they were rescued from the hotel suite. All that was left was for Inspector Martin to collar them both at the police tape border and tell them thanks, and that their dressing-down, in light of all they’d been through, could be delivered by Lestrade tomorrow instead.
There had been no talking on the way home, either. They’d caught a taxi. Neither of them had wanted to brave the Tube in their condition.
Home was a flurry of raspy sobs and snotty kisses from Mariana, who in her feverish state had stayed up to follow on the police live feed, and heard everything as it happened. She had hugged them both so tightly John was certain that was another three ribs added to his veritable shopping list of injuries. She had then of course told them to never dare having so much fun again without her. She’d stayed up a while longer to make them both tea, and sat and watched to make sure they both drank it, and then carried a very befuddled Archie back downstairs into 221A.
Finally no longer at the behest of murderers or paramedics or contagious hysterical Spanish women, John allowed the weight of the whole day to settle on him. More specifically, hit him like a tonne of galvanised steel beams. Suddenly he felt more feeble than he ever had since those first awful weeks after Ukraine. The four-hour adrenaline rush had subsided, leaving his entire body wracked and shivering. The pain had kicked in almost instantaneously and he keened at the strangeness of it all. Pain was nothing new, but the specifics were unfamiliar, and the whole of it set his teeth chattering.
What did you do in this situation? How were you supposed to just kick your feet up and stick the TV on after being shot?
He turned shakily to Sherlock, expecting to see the same incredulous amusement reflected on his friend’s face.
He saw nothing.
John had seen a lot of things projected on Sherlock’s face in the eight months since they’d met. One of the things he’d found he loved almost immediately about his strange flatmate-turned-investigative partner: his face was an open book. For all the effort he’d go to to conceal his motives, to appear unamused, his expression would always give him away. John wasn’t even sure he’d known this, until he’d started pointing it out to him. He’d seemed incredibly upset by it, at first - John had chalked that up to Sherlock’s defiantly self-sufficient nature, a pathological need to always be the master of himself, to allow nothing to cloud the senses he’d spent a lifetime fine-tuning, and then, underneath that, a boyish shyness that only really came out when John complimented him or bought him gifts, or asked him to play the violin for him on nights he was feeling particularly fond. And then, eventually, either by result of his own private musings, or by the simple reassurance of John’s constancy, he’d relented. Sherlock had stopped seeing his one-man pantomime act as a weakness, something to be suppressed; and it became a measure of their trust in each other. That John could always tell what Sherlock was thinking, and that Sherlock wanted him to know. John had, since their partnership officially began, always prided himself on being so attuned to the orchestra that was Sherlock’s emotions, and being trusted to play alongside the symphony.
So why now did he look over to him and find only dead air?
John tried very hard to push back his gut instinct to panic.
He’d done enough of that today.
Plenty of reasons why Sherlock wouldn’t be feeling great.
He cleared his throat. Sherlock didn’t even glance in his direction.
“You alright, mate?” the old reliable ice breaker. A little nondescript for Sherlock’s preferred line of conversation, he knew, but he’d heard it a thousand times before. Perhaps familiarity was good.
“Yes,” Sherlock’s voice was hoarse, and as void of life as his face. “Thank you, Watson.”
Back to Watson, then.
“Right. Good. Glad to hear it,” John said. God, what was making him feel so awkward all of a sudden? They were both fine. They were safe, they were home. Just like any other case. It wasn’t even the first time either of them had been injured. Wasn’t the first time they’d seen someone-
Actually, best not to think about that.
He was probably just tired. He was definitely tired. Sherlock was too. He was human, after all.
“You hungry?”
“No.”
“Yeah, me neither,” John sighed. Did adrenaline suppress appetite? He searched back through the greyish haze of his medical training, and found nothing on the subject that satisfied. It was definitely unlike him, at any rate. Unlike Sherlock, in fact, to not gorge himself after closing a case.
Something definitely wasn’t right.
He yawned.
Well, sleep ought to help, at any rate. He rose from the sofa, too quickly, and bit back a cry of pain from about ten different protesting wounds. Stretched, unwisely, and turned an involuntary yelp into another yawn. “I’m off to bed for a bit then,” he said as casually as he could manage. “Don’t stay up too late, ‘kay? You’ve had a big day.”
“Indeed,” Sherlock replied. He still wasn’t looking at John. “Goodnight, Watson.”
“Yep,” John started towards his bedroom. Man, he hurt. Was his leg playing up, too? He could have sworn it didn’t hurt this much this morning. He reached his bedroom door. Mariana had recently hung little wooden letters above his and Sherlock’s doors - ‘J’ and ‘S’ respectively. Definitely meant for kids’ bedrooms. He let her have her fun, though. Maybe if he got home really plastered one night, he’d be grateful for the reminder. He turned the handle and glanced back to Sherlock, still unmoving in his chair.
“Night, Sherlock.”
Sherlock didn’t respond.
It became clear after about twenty minutes - he was never going to be able to sleep.
He realised, he supposed - being exhausted doesn’t necessarily mean your body’s ready to switch off. Especially not when it’s got so much to process. Because, apropos of nothing, he fucking hurt. It was impossible to get comfortable. One thing about cracked ribs: no matter what you’re doing, you’re going to be doing it in pain. John half-laughed, half-sobbed at the ridiculousness of it all. Ironic, being so beat-up you could do nothing but rest, but being so beat-up you could never lie comfortably for long enough to do so. He’d forgotten what this felt like.
He put his hands over his face, tried to breathe through it.
Back in the army, he’d been through this a lot. After a particularly hard day, he’d always found sleep impossible. He’d lain awake in whatever passed for his bed that night, listening to the arhythmic breathing of those around him, willing himself to follow them into release, and found only a personal home theatre behind his eyelids replaying a highlight reel of every atrocity he’d ever witnessed - and there was no end of those, really it was more of a “greatest hits'' compilation, deluxe edition with never before seen remastered 4K quality - until laying in bed became unbearable, and then he’d get yelled at for waking everyone up by pacing back and forth.
He supposed tonight had brought some of that back, just a little bit.
Pacing was out of the option, of course. He’d be lucky if he could get out of bed ever again. So he breathed as even and steady through the gap in his hands as he could, and willed himself to think of something else.
Come back…
Baby, come back…
Great. Now he had that stuck in his head. War flashbacks were honestly preferable.
“This is the first time until today…” he murmured, moving his hands back until his fingers were threaded in his hair. It helped. Good song. Familiar.
“That you have run away…” this was doing something. Like a massage would work the knots out of his back. This was doing the same to his brain. Or something like that. The song trilled on in his head.
“I’m asking you for the first time…” he smiled vaguely as he remembered them all singing in the pub - god, was that really only two nights ago? - how good it had felt to have some really honest, stupid fun. He hadn’t even felt embarrassed about singing. Something in between the excitement of the free gig tickets and the whiskey and the camaraderie, he’d felt truly untouchable.
Untouchable was about the last thing he felt right now, all things considered.
“Love me enough to stay…”
He’d even got Sherlock - pop music-hating, loud noises-hating, big crowds-hating Sherlock - to come along. Of course he hadn’t been singing, but he’d been there.
No, wait. That wasn’t right.
He had been singing.
Suddenly, it was not his own voice singing the next line, or Derv Gordon’s, but Sherlock’s.
“Come back. Baby, come back.”
Jesus.
Sherlock.
John opened his eyes, sat up, ignoring his screaming ribs, in sudden, perfect clarity.
The memory resurfaced all at once. The carpet of glass, the stench of gunfire, every muscle in his body burning with the tension of fighting off a nervous breakdown. Crawling - no, dragging himself towards them, begging Sherlock with the little voice he had to stop. Sherlock himself a man transformed, furious and half-insane with it, streaked with ash and blood - whose, he still wasn't sure - those long, clever fingers of his clasped around Abe Slaney’s throat.
He was already dying. John tried to tell him. And Sherlock still wasn’t satisfied.
“You murdered an innocent man,” Sherlock, brilliant, lovely Sherlock - so enraged as he was by injustice, and yet John had never seen him lay his hands on anyone this way. “You try to kill my best friend!” His grip on the man’s neck tightened. “You bastard!”
And then John had managed to get him to release Abe with a shaky hand on his shoulder, voice unreliable as it was, to - he didn’t know, ground him, maybe, pull him back from whatever world he was in where this was something he’d ever do, and Sherlock had leaned down to Abe’s ear as blood and spittle and life poured out of his mouth, and he’d sung to him, voice lower and more filled with hate than John had ever thought him capable of.
It wasn’t enough that Abe died. Sherlock had needed to have a hand in it, somehow. For some reason, Sherlock had needed his own justice.
John curled in on himself. The moment played again and again in his mind.
“You murdered an innocent man. You try to kill my best friend!”
Was that why?
Christ, Sherlock.
No wonder he couldn’t look John in the eye.
They needed to talk about this, clearly. Right now, though, John was exhausted, and shaking, and dripping with sweat so badly he thought he might actually have a fever (damn you, Mariana, giving him your cold on top of everything else), and his mouth was so dry it felt like his tongue had been replaced with sandpaper. Holding his breath, he hoisted himself out of bed. This room was too stuffy, anyways.
The living room light was off. Good, Sherlock had actually gone to bed. He made straight for the bathroom and fumbled in the dark for the pull cord for about thirty seconds before he found it tangled around the extractor fan. He sighed and wrenched the cold tap handle. Leaning down as far as he could in his porcelain-doll state, he positioned his mouth under the icy cold stream and felt instant relief as some hydration returned to him. Then he splashed some onto his face, the back of his neck, cupped some in his hand and ran wet fingers through his hair. How he was going to shower like this, he had no idea. He gripped the sides of the sink and stared at himself in the mirror (the mirror that needed cleaning about two weeks ago, thanks, executive dysfunction).
It wasn’t too bad. There was a bruise on his cheek where he’d smacked his face into the sofa falling down, a couple of scratches he doesn’t remember how he got. It was stupid, he knew, but part of him was relieved he looked almost unaffected to the casual onlooker.
He hadn’t dared to look yet. Even just thinking about that now sent a jolt of prickly panic through him. It wasn’t that he was squeamish, just. Looking at it would make it all real, wouldn’t it.
God, get it together.
He’d seen worse. He’d treated worse.
But it was a bit different seeing it on yourself, wasn’t it.
Capturing some momentary spark of courage, he grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and whipped it over his head. He took two steps back - any more and he’d be in the shower - and stood on his tiptoes, then looked back in the mirror.
It was horrific. It was sickening. It was - kind of incredible. His entire chest was a fantastic deep purple, fading to crimson and spots of pink as the bruise had bloomed downwards towards his stomach. There was a grape-sized spot, so dark red it was almost black, where the impact of the actual bullet was centred. Right over his heart. Abe Slaney, apropos of nothing, was an excellent shot. The whole picture of it - the spot, the colours, his own blonde (and yes, some grey, he could admit that) chest hairs and smattering of strawberry blonde freckles, old scar tissue inflamed - made him think of some fucked-up nebula, with a black hole right in the centre. The medical-minded part of him couldn’t help probing at it, despite the pain, despite his rising panic. To think this could have killed him. It seemed such a silly idea, standing in the warmth and the rosy, incandescent glow of his own bathroom.
Then he heard someone gasp.
He whipped his head around to the right so fast it left him dizzy. One foot in Afghanistan, the other in the Norfolk.
It was Sherlock. Standing in the dark of their living room, face illuminated by the bathroom light. Looking like a fucking ghost. Looking like he’d seen a ghost. Or been shot.
He hadn’t gone to bed. He’d been sitting there the whole time, in the dark. In deathly silence. Jesus.
“Jesus Christ, mate!” John said, instinctively going to cover his chest before realising how stupid that was. “What have we said about sneaking up on me? Y’know - ex-soldier, PTSD, the whole shebang! At least, like, cough or something, let me know you’re there? Or a simple ‘hello’ would do!”
Sherlock didn’t respond. He didn’t even move. He just stared, eyes flickering between John’s face and his chest.
“O-or is it a nonverbal night? That’s alright,” John knew Sherlock got like this sometimes, after a particularly taxing case, or too much socialising in one day, or Sainsbury’s had run out of his favourite dessert (currently Basque cheesecake, much to Mariana’s chagrin and insistence that the store-bought stuff was nothing like what her mother made). “Just- how about you stop staring at me like you’re about to shoot me again, and I’ll make you some pasta, ‘kay? Sherlock?”
Sherlock shook his head, and turned on his heel. He disappeared out of the shaft of bathroom light. John heard the door to his left slam.
“Sherlock! What-” John darted out of the bathroom, immediately regretted it, and opted for a more urgent hobbling instead. “Sherlock!” he rapped on Sherlock’s bedroom door. Silence. “Sherlock, I’m sorry for shouting. You just startled me, that’s all! Still a bit jumpy after today, I think. Sherlock?” This was bad. At the very least, if Sherlock ever wanted to be alone, he’d simply say so. Not saying anything was definitely bad. But then, if he was nonverbal.
“Sherlock, just - alright, you might not want to talk. W-which is fine, by the way, don’t feel bad, but I just-” John sighed. “I need to know, okay? Otherwise I won’t be able to leave, you know I won’t. I’m going to be stood outside this door all night worrying about you. Which in my condition, isn’t ideal! S-so. Can you just- just, I don’t know, give me a signal, throw something at the door, tell me to go away? Please?”
God, he didn’t even want to talk about - that. He just wanted to know Sherlock wasn't on the verge of some meltdown.
He listened. There was nothing. He tried the door handle. Unlocked. He opened the door just enough to be able to look inside. He couldn’t see Sherlock.
“I just want to make sure you’re alright, Sherlock. Can I come in?”
“You’re already in.”
He could speak. Relief flooded John’s heart. That was progress. “Well, not really. I just opened the door. I can - whoop - step right back out if you’d prefer.”
“You might as well come in.”
“Alrighty,” John pushed the door open all the way, and peered into the gloom. It took a whole five seconds to find Sherlock, hunched over on himself, sitting in the far corner of his room, head buried in his arms. Turned away from the door. John’s heart dropped.
“Jesus, mate. Bit Blair Witch Project, innit?” he laughed.
“I d-”
“Yeah, you don’t know what that means, I know,” John crossed to him. Sherlock didn’t move to acknowledge him. “Shit horror film. I’ll show you it sometime.” He shifted on his feet. “Can I turn the light on?”
“You can do what you like.”
In the soft light of Sherlock’s bedroom, with the comparisons to various icons of his childhood nightmares thwarted, John remarked possibly for the first time how ordinary Sherlock looked. He’d gotten so used to, in a way, thinking of Sherlock as this huge, borderline omnipotent presence, a being who transcended the corporeal boundaries of most mortals. His aura was so blinding at times, John often wondered if he was actually human. Now, John saw that all stripped away, leaving only a slightly tall, albeit wiry man with a tuft of dark brown curls and a cacophony of scars from his years around laboratories and home chemistry kits. No trace of the being he’d seen squeezing the life out of a dying man just hours earlier.
He took a deep breath. “Look, Sherlock. I totally, totally get it if you don’t want to talk right now. I don’t either, really. But, this-” he gestured at all of Sherlock’s crumpled form. “-this is really worrying me. I just need to know, if there’s anything - anything at all, honestly, that I can do to help. And then I’ll leave you be. Promise.”
Silence stretched on for long enough that John just about gave up hope of any response, and then, in the most defeated voice John had ever heard, came, “Why haven’t you said it yet?”
“...I. What?”
“Just say it. I deserve- no. I need to hear it.”
“...Sherlock, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Genuinely.”
Sherlock’s head shot up so fast and so furiously it made John jump. His dark brown eyes were burning with what could only be indignation. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Not obvious to me, mate,” John laughed. “Don’t make me feel stupid, now. Don’t need that on top of everything tonight.”
To John’s utter shock, and then immediately after, despair, tears sprang in Sherlock’s eyes. He’d never seen Sherlock cry. He honestly didn’t think it was something Sherlock could do.
“For goodness’ sake, Watson!” Sherlock snapped. “Tell me it’s my fault you got shot! Tell me that you no longer trust me! That our partnership - is over!” his voice caught on the final few words, and John could swear he actually felt his heart snap in two.
Oh.
Is that what he thought this was?
Is that why he’d been silent the whole way home, refused to look him in the eye, run away when he’d seen John’s wounds?
Did he think - oh, God.
“Sherlock,” John breathed. “I-I don’t… mate, where is this all coming from?” he gripped the bedpost of Sherlock’s bed, and used it to help himself down to the floor. He sat across from Sherlock on the worn beige carpet, leaning back against his bed. Sherlock had turned away from him again. “Can you look at me? Please.”
Slowly, Sherlock shuffled himself around enough that he was now parallel with John. He didn’t relax, though. And he couldn’t seem to meet John’s eyes again.
John sighed. Ran a hand through his hair. “Sherlock, please help me understand. I don’t want to see you like this.”
Sherlock’s gaze flickered back to him for a split second. “It’s- just. As I said, it’s obvious. Severing our partnership now is the only logical reaction to what you have been subjected to tonight. To what I have subjected you to. You’d be a fool to continue working with me- that is, to say, to continue associating with me - in light of all this.”
“Now, I gotta stop you there, buddy,” John said. “You keep talking about this like it’s a done deal, and I don’t get why. What makes you think I’ve decided to walk out on you all of a sudden?”
“Like I keep telling you, Watson - it’s obvious-”
“Yeah, and like I keep telling you, it’s not obvious to me!” John was raising his voice now, he knew it, and yet he couldn’t seem to control it. The fact Sherlock thought he’d just… he couldn’t believe it. He was so bewildered it made him furious.
Just where had they gone wrong here?
“I’m sorry. Sorry. Christ,” John breathed deeply. “I don’t want to get mad at you, I just- I really am so fucking confused right now, Sherlock.”
“The very fact you cannot even control your anger towards me is proof of my findings,” Sherlock said wretchedly.
“Yeah, alright- what we’re not gonna do. Is that,” John pointed at him. “Stop that, right now. Just for once, turn that massive bloody detective brain off. Stop trying to psychoanalyse me. I don’t know what you think you’ve observed-”
“I’m just doing things the only way I know how, Watson.”
“Yeah, well, don’t, alright? Just don’t!” God, why was he so angry? “Fucking hell. I’m sorry. I really don’t want an argument. This isn’t- going- how I wanted it to,” He pressed the backs of his thumbs into his eye sockets, until he saw strange black figures dancing around his vision. “I only meant- I’m not your client, Sherlock. I don’t need you to present some batshit hypothesis to me and then- I’m your friend. Your friend, alright?” Sherlock didn’t respond. “Alright?”
“I don’t deserve to call you that, after tonight.”
John groaned into his hands. “Oh, for-” he caught himself. “I’m calling myself that, aren’t I? I’m saying I’m your friend. Because it’s the truth,” if that was Sherlock’s only concern though, he wouldn’t still be avoiding John’s gaze. He wouldn’t still look so fucking miserable. It always came down to this, in the end, with Sherlock. Something John had learned over the course of their relationship: you couldn’t strongarm Sherlock into believing something. You had to let him turn it over in his mind, consider the possibilities, wade upstream through unfamiliar waters against currents driven by his own uncertainties, clamber over boulders that diverted and twisted the river’s path, until he came to the top and could finally comprehend its course, watch it run through valleys and fields all the way down to the sea.
In other words, he was going to have to out-detective Sherlock. He was going to have to let Sherlock present his findings, and somehow prove him wrong.
First, he supposed, he’d better clear one thing up. Because he couldn’t stand it if it were true. “Was it something I said?”
Pain. Flashing across Sherlock’s face. “No. Not as such.”
“What, then?”
“It’s more- what you didn’t say. You’ve barely said a word since we left that hotel room.” Sherlock’s eyes were laser-focused on what, if you had taken his expression for it, was an extremely fascinating loose thread on the hem of his t-shirt sleeve.
“Well, neither have you.”
“That’s perfectly in line with my behaviour, especially after a stressful case such as this one. Your silence, however - only ever means one thing. You are angry.”
John cringed. He wasn’t wrong, that was the thing. Sherlock had made a perfectly logical leap there.
And- was he? He definitely had been, earlier, when Sherlock dragged them directly into the line of fire of about ten armed officers and secret service agents. But of all that had faded once, as usual, he’d realised Sherlock had made the right call. No, no, he was pretty certain. He wasn’t angry.
“Okay,” John said. “And… you’re convinced I’m angry… at you?”
“What else is there for you to be angry at?”
“A lot, mate! A lot!” John laughed incredulously. “Our plan going wrong, Martin not listening to us, fucking Abe Slaney murdering our client- and, oh, I don’t know, the fact I got fucking shot? I’d say that’s a pretty good reason to be a bit incensed!”
“Exactly!” Sherlock unfolded his arms and leaned forward suddenly, eyes dark and urgent like they always were when he’d hit upon a particularly stark point of revelation. “That’s exactly my point! You were shot, and it’s entirely my fault. It’s unforgivable, Watson.”
“Now, hang on-” John interrupted. “-I need you to slow down a sec, mate. What do you mean, it’s your fault? My memory’s pretty hazy, in all honesty, but I don’t remember you being the one to pull a gun on me.”
There were tears in Sherlock’s eyes again. “No. But I did drag you into that situation. Into confronting Abe Slaney. I forced you headlong into danger, against your wishes.”
John smiled a bit, then. He stretched out his leg and nudged Sherlock’s bony ankle with his toe. “Well, that’s nothing new.”
John really wanted to believe Sherlock was holding back a smile. He continued. “Only the more reason to end your association with me. I’ve been neglecting your safety for too long, Watson. And this time, I nearly paid the ultimate price for such foolishness. And you’ve realised it too, I know. You’ve reached the conclusion that you can no longer continue this- what we have.”
Bewilderment. It was the only word for it. That Sherlock could think that John would blame him for what happened, that he would end this based on that blame - he could feel his anger rising again. Only the sight of Sherlock’s face, twisted in despair at him, in disgust at himself, could force him to breathe instead of immediately calling Sherlock an idiot. Did he really think so little of John’s friendship?
“Sherlock,” he began, slowly, carefully. “I get feeling bad. I really do. I even get blaming yourself. That’s- that’s normal. Fine. I’m not going to try to argue with you on that. But I just- I can’t understand where you’re getting the rest of this from. Why are you so convinced I’d blame you, too?”
“Abe Slaney turned the gun on you because of me. He wanted me distracted, too worried about you, to take action. If you were hurt, I would give up my pursuit of him. And he was right.”
John could remember it clearly now, Sherlock dropping his own weapon, kicking it over to Abe, John begging him not to. It was a cheap ploy to get Sherlock to stand down, and they both knew it. John just hadn’t expected Sherlock to be baited so easily.
“That’s what this is about, then? You won’t let me work with you anymore-”
“I didn’t say that. I said you won’t work with me anymore-”
“-because some- some…” John fumbled for the right word. “...unstable man used me as bait when he was cornered? Is that what you’re saying?” Sherlock’s mouth contorted in a way that said he was dangerously close to the centre of things. John’s chest hurt. This wasn’t fair. He wasn’t about to be scapegoated like this. “God’s sake- look, I don’t know what goes on in that big brain of yours, but caring about someone isn’t a weakness, Sherlock.”
Sherlock’s voice was hollow. “It is, when you are driven to violence because of it.”
That was the crux of it, then.
John was worried that might be the case.
All of this postulating about putting John in danger, John blaming Sherlock for what happened, making the executive decision to end their partnership. It was all because of this, in the end.
All of a sudden, John couldn’t find a single word to say.
“See,” Sherlock said. “You can’t refute it. Further proof that what I’ve done is unforgivable,” he patted John’s foot, which was still pressed against his ankle. “It’s perfectly alright, Watson. I’d be scared of me, too, in your position.”
“What? What?” John breathed. “N-no, Sherlock, what- hang on. That’s not-”
“Don’t trouble yourself any more trying to exonerate me, Watson. It’s really not necessary.”
“For God’s sake, Sherlock!” John said. “Just stop for a second, would you? Stop jumping a million miles ahead of me!” He took another breath. “I’m sorry, just- after everything, do you not rate even a bit of understanding from me? Do you really think I’d just- that I wouldn’t even hear you out?” his arms dropped to his sides. “You didn’t even think we’d talk about it, did you?”
“You showed no desire to discuss anything with me, either in the immediate aftermath, or after we returned home.”
“What, so that meant I was gonna pack my bags and be out of here by morning? Christ, Sherlock,” John couldn’t help laughing. It was just all so silly. For someone John considered to be the most brilliant man he’d ever met, it was incredible how wrong Sherlock could be about some things.
“Why are you laughing?” Sherlock looked positively wretched.
“Because,” John said. “Oh, man. Sherlock, I was exhausted. I am exhausted. I know you never bloody switch off, but some of us get a bit- I don’t know-” he waved his hands around, hoping to no avail that would demonstrate what he was driving at. “I don’t even know what I’m saying. My point is, I’m fucking tired. Can you blame me for not wanting to talk?”
Sherlock blinked. “But. You always want to talk. That is- you always check. You always ask if I want to talk about things. You didn’t tonight. I thought- that must mean-”
“Mate, I was trying not to have a meltdown!” John laughed shakily. “All of that - the gunfire, getting shot, watching Abe die- you- doing that… It was so much. It was so much, Sherlock. And I just wanted to not think about it, if I could. Alright? I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I was mad at you. That’s- I wouldn’t do that.”
A beat. Sherlock was taking it all in.
“I could never be scared of you. You’re not intimidating enough, mate. Even in that big coat. You kind of just look like you stole your dad’s clothes.”
His eyes had lost that dark, insane glazed-over look. They were still fixed on an invisible point somewhere far away, but there was clarity now.
“Don’t apologise,” his voice was barely a whisper. “I’ve been a fool, clearly. I think, perhaps, I had been projecting my own assessment of my actions onto you. A graceless lapse in judgement on my part.”
He was thinking now, openly, and out loud. That was always a good sign, in John’s books. He was untangling the weeds snagged around his ankles, head finally above the surface. Oxygen flowing freely. Without John’s voice to guide him into safer waters, he’d swum further and further out until land had become nothing but a distant and uncertain memory. Now though, John was certain he’d found a sandbar to rest upon for a while.
“I’m sorry, Watson.”
“‘s alright, mate.”
“Do… you want to talk about it, then? About tonight?”
John smiled. “Depends. Do you?”
“If you think it’d help.”
“Yeah. I think it might,” John said. “Maybe you can make sense of it all. Of what you did, I mean.”
Sherlock looked unsure.
“It’s just me, Sherlock.”
For the first time, Sherlock held his gaze. His entire face had softened into something completely new to John. Sherlock may give away his emotions involuntarily, but this - was something else. It was like he was inviting John to read his soul. It was intentional. It was downright vulnerable.
“I’m. Unsure where to start,” he said. “I know what I did was despicable. And I really believe I might have killed him if you hadn’t succeeded in making me stop. He was dying, yes, but. It didn’t seem enough, in the moment. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to hurt him. God, even just hearing myself say that-”
“It’s alright,” John reassured him. “I know.”
“I hated him. I hated him more than anything in the world. Anything I’d encountered before. It wasn’t just what he’d done to Elsie, or Hilton Cubitt. I’m sure I would have been satisfied with the measures taken against him, in any case. That alone would not have caused me to lose control like that. And yet, lose control I did.”
“Yeah,” John said quietly. “You did.”
“I have seen many things- atrocities, in myriad cases - despicable, deplorable things. Things that would make you sick to your stomach, Watson. Things I would not even speak of aloud. But I have always remained detached. It’s the only way one can do the kind of work I do. To approach every splatter of blood, every severed limb, every- unfortunate person, with the same cold, unfeeling focus. I have always found it easy, to remain objective, keep my mind clear of bias, of sympathy. People do not come to me for sympathy.”
“Well, thank God for that,” John rolled his eyes. “Sorry.”
“I have always found it easy,” Sherlock continued, seemingly no longer listening to John. Now no longer afraid of foundling, he had become totally determined to lay everything out before himself. “That was, until recently.”
John didn’t speak.
“At the hotel, again, I was so certain of everything. I never doubt my actions in the heat of the moment, Watson, and despite your protestations, I was confident I’d made the right decision confronting Slaney myself- ourselves. And then- it all happened so quickly. The gunshot. You cried out- I think I said your name- I looked over, and you were on the floor, and I- God!” Sherlock brought a hand to his face.
It felt like all the air had been suddenly sucked out of the room. John’s chest felt tighter than when that bullet hit him. He felt it again now, the dull, sickening impact, the vague awareness of losing his balance, of crashing to the floor.
“After that, I don’t have any explanation for myself. Not one that satisfies me, at any rate,” Sherlock said, mouth covered.
“You mean you don’t remember what you did?”
“No,” he said. “I remember everything perfectly. I was aware of my body moving, I remember what I did, how I-” he dug his nails into his cheek. “-how I attacked him. What I said to him. But that makes it all the worse, does it not? I knew what I was doing, and yet I kept going. As I say, it was important to me, I think, that I be the one to cause him pain. It had to be me. Because… well. Because.”
“Because?”
Sherlock drew in a breath, and then, like holding the words in any longer was literally burning him, got out, “Because seeing what he’d done to you, even knowing he hadn’t killed you, was unbearable. And he had to pay for it. I had to make him pay.”
Christ, there it was. The truth of it all, finally undressed.
John felt like he’d been shot a second time.
“Even just thinking about it now, I’m furious. The way he used you like that- the way he- exploited my care for you. That my feelings could be manipulated like that-” Sherlock stopped, seemed to be puzzling something out. Thinking about how to put whatever he was driving at.
“Sherlock-”
“I’ve never felt like this before, Watson. I do not claim to understand why, but I feel… responsible for you. Somehow. I care for you a great deal. And to think that you might be hurt, in spite of that- no, because of that… it terrifies me. I can’t stand it, John. If anything happened to you on my account, I would never forgive myself.”
John blinked.
What on earth was he supposed to say to that?
Of course, he knew Sherlock wasn’t unfeeling. Quite the opposite - Sherlock was about the most sensitive person he knew. Every little thing affected him. But usually, he managed it with so much rigid self-discipline, unless you really knew him - and John did - you wouldn’t even notice. So, yes, John knew Sherlock cared about him. He’d need to have something seriously wrong with him to not care a little about someone that had been steadfast at his side for eight months. But this - this plain, open admission of feeling like he had to take care of John - John was wholly unprepared for that.
He spoke of loyalty. He spoke of wanting to protect him. Devotion. Love.
And it had driven him to-
God. Sherlock.
“So, let me get this straight,” John began as steadily as he could, because he was starting to feel really unmoored, and he needed to make sure he hadn’t grossly misunderstood every word of this. “You wanted to kill Abe Slaney yourself, because you were so angry he’d used me to get to you, that you felt like it was your responsibility to- to end it?”
Sherlock stretched his legs out on the floor in front of him and rocked his head back. “Yes, I think so. That’s the only explanation I can come up with that is a satisfactory assessment of all the facts,” John could see him chewing the inside of his lip, like he always did when he was beating himself up over something.
John drew in a breath. “Okay. That’s- I mean- okay. Wow.”
“Indeed.” John’s foot brushed against Sherlock’s bandaged knee. His exposed calf was peppered with tiny scratches, where the glass had nicked him. It had taken the doctor ten minutes to pick out all the shards.
“I mean- I won’t lie, Sherlock, that’s. Yeah. That’s a lot. And I get why you’d be freaking out a bit, if you-”
“I’m not ‘freaking out’, Watson. I thought you might be freaking out.”
“You are so freaking out, dude,” John deliberately nudged at his leg. “And, yeah, I guess I am, a little bit. But not for the reason you might think.”
Sherlock swung his head back down, looking back at John. His silence indicated he wanted John to continue.
“You keep going on about how what you did was insane, like it makes you evil or something. But- Sherlock- you did it because you cared about someone. That’s not- it’s not like- ugh,” John ran his hands through his hair. Sherlock’s expression was hilariously confused. “That’s normal, okay? Alright, maybe it’s not- maybe your average guy wouldn’t choke someone out like that. But what you’re feeling? That anger? When someone you- y’know- is hurt? Everyone gets that. You can trust me on that one, mate.”
A beat. “They do?”
John’s heart constricted. He really thought there was something wrong with him, didn’t he? He’d never considered the alternative. He was so used to being a singular phenomenon, so bizarre and so deviant in everyone else's eyes, that it had never occurred to him that what he was feeling could be so universal. Somewhere along the line, he'd learned, or been taught, that no one could truly empathise with him - and was now using that as a basis for automatic self-flagellation.
“Yeah,” John said. “It’s natural, I think. To want to fight for the people you love.” The word was out before he’d realised what he was saying.
Sherlock’s expression only became more troubled. “But that’s- in that case, that’s even worse. Because then, how am I any better than him?”
“Who?”
“Abe Slaney,” Sherlock said, practically spitting out the name. “How can I condemn his actions, when that same violence is so present, and evidently so virile, within myself? If it’s love that drove us both, how is the murder of Hilton Cubitt truly any more abhorrent than my own attempt on his murderer’s life, John? Why am I forgivable, whilst he is not?”
“Sherlock, I-I don’t-” John couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was this what Sherlock had been so distraught over, underneath it all? “Is that really what you think, that you’re like him? Seriously?”
“Yes, John!” he was manic now, desperate, devastated. “Obviously! I was afraid you’d confirm my suspicions, that I had acted out of love. At least if it had been hatred, or even cold, straightforward murderous intent- I would at least be able to rationalise that. There is merit in psychopathy, Watson. Psychopaths, at least, are certain of their actions, as they serve no one but themselves. They are completely unaffected by the whims, the sympathies, of those around them. That is a comfort to me, as someone who hopes to understand, and anticipate them. But Abe Slaney was not a psychopath. He genuinely believed he was protecting Elsie when he murdered Hilton, when he tried to kill us. If my motivations align with his, how can you defend me, how are you not terrified of what I might do- John?!”
John had been totally unaware of his body moving. He didn’t even know how he’d managed it in his state. But he was there now, knees positioned either side of Sherlock’s body, leaning over him. Sherlock’s face clamped between his hands. Sherlock breathed in short, shallow gasps, brown eyes wide and uncomprehending.
“Sherlock, shut up! Just- just shut up, alright?” John shouted. “Know that I’m speaking as your best friend here, when I say you’re talking absolute bollocks, mate. Absolute shite. God, what is wrong with you?!” Sherlock’s breath hitched. “No, I didn’t mean it like that, fuck- I’m sorry for startling you. Just. Stop talking like that, please. Right now.”
“John, I-”
“You’re nothing like him, Sherlock. Nothing like him at all,” John continued. He found his thumb tracing little circles on Sherlock’s warm cheek, like he was trying to massage the tension out of his friend’s suddenly rigid body. “You’re kind, and caring, and- so, so fucking gentle- you’d never- what you did tonight doesn’t make you evil, Sherlock okay? Don’t even think it. Don’t you dare.”
“I am like him, though,” Sherlock insisted. “You said it yourself. I acted out of the same emotions he did-”
John groaned. “I said, stop that! Don’t twist my words like that. Don’t you dare make out like loving me is a mistake, you idiot. I can take a lot of your asshole-ery, believe me, but not that!”
Sherlock winced.
John’s heart was beating so fast he could feel it in his throat.
“John, I would never. I only meant-”
“I know what you meant. But think about how it makes me feel, to hear you say all this. How do you think it makes me feel when you say you’d do anything to protect me, and then turn around and say that makes you a monster? That you think so little of me I’d agree with you? That I don’t want that from you? Who do you think you’re fooling, Sherlock? What have I done to make you expect that of me?”
Sherlock’s face contorted in pain. “Nothing! No, Watson- John. You have done nothing. I only thought, because you were so horrified by Slaney’s actions- you would think the same of me. Do you see?”
“Yeah, yeah, I see,” John said. It all made so much sense once Sherlock explained it. He’d just been doing the same as he always did, gathering data, coming to conclusions. Extrapolating. Applying his understanding. It was all he knew how to do. God, John loved him so much it hurt. Sherlock was always Sherlock, no matter what. “But I mean, the two scenarios aren’t exactly parallel, are they, mate? You can’t really compare your situation to his.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because your feelings aren’t one-sided, for one,” he laughed. “It. Um. It means a lot, actually. Like, I’m kinda blushing here, mate.”
“You’re not blushing.”
“Figuratively, I mean. No one’s ever cared that much about me,” hearing his own words out loud, John felt a pang at how sad they were. It wasn’t something he tried to think about much, but in saying it, he knew it was true. Maybe that’s why he’d gotten so angry at Sherlock for thinking he’d hate him for what he did. Sherlock had shown him more concern than he’d ever received in his life, and he’d acted like it made him degenerate.
He never wanted Sherlock to doubt how important all of this was to him.
“And, for what it’s worth,” John found he couldn’t hold Sherlock’s gaze as he said it. “I’d have done the same for you. If you’d been the one who got shot.”
John watched it hit him.
“...Really?”
“Yes,” John said. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Sherlock. You’re fine. I’m fine.”
Something in the air seemed to have relaxed. The tension abated. Like they’d been choking on exhaust fumes the whole time, and someone had finally come in and opened the window for them.
“Even so,” Sherlock said, and John rolled his eyes. He really was the hardest person to convince of anything. “It doesn’t change the fact I behaved abominably. That you were hurt on account of my recklessness. That’s not something I’ll forgive myself for easily.”
“You can be mad at yourself all you want. I can’t stop you- God knows I can’t make you do anything. But, you should know,” John smiled. “That it’s an honour to stand by you. Even if it’s dangerous. I’m so lucky that you ever invited me to be a part of it.”
Sherlock’s eyes were shiny. “Even if you get hurt?”
By some way of answering it, and with some insane spark of fondness - or temporary moment of insanity - John reached for Sherlock’s hands, took them in both of his. He felt the jagged lines of sutures on his palms, his pulse underneath them. Slowly, he brought them up, pressed Sherlock’s bony fingers against his own chest. Against where the bullet had found its mark. Sherlock stared at him. His fingertips ghosted over his skin, gentle as moths’ wings.
“It’s just a bruise, Sherlock,” John said.
Sherlock stared at him. For the third time that night, his eyes were glossy with tears.
“Just a bruise. I’m okay. I really am okay. We’re okay.”
“John,” Sherlock started, and then words evidently failed him. And then, as if he were a small child, he let his head fall forward, and hid his face in the crook of John’s neck, hands still pressed to his bare chest.
It hurt, but John sighed, relieved, and gathered Sherlock in towards him. He put his arms around his neck, one hair in his short, curly hair. “It’s okay. It’s alright.”
They stayed like that for a while, neither feeling the need to let go.
Just about as John’s legs were starting to go dead from kneeling, Sherlock’s muffled voice asked, “Will you stay?”
John made a noise. “Oh, for- Sherlock, I already said, I’m not going anywhere-”
“No,” Sherlock clarified, starting to sound more like his sardonic self. “I mean. Will you stay here? Tonight? Please.”
“Oh,” it wouldn’t be the first time they’d done that. It was a rarity, to be sure, but at some point down the line - after Victor Trevor, if John remembered rightly - they’d discovered they both slept better together on occasion. Nights where John had woken screaming from a nightmare he could barely remember, and Sherlock had come to check on him and ended up sitting motionless on the floor beside his bed, until John had found rest again, anchored by the knowledge he wasn’t alone, or Sherlock had gone a week without lying down for more than five minutes, too manic and too frustrated and utterly wrung out, until he’d mentioned offhandedly that he needed ‘something to weigh him down’ and John had been more than happy to provide that, if it meant getting Sherlock to wind down for a few hours. This, though, John had a feeling was different. It wasn’t just a matter of one watching over the other as they slept. There was something in the way Sherlock was unable to lift his head from the safety of John’s neck as he said it - this time, he was asking for him.
“Of course.”
If getting comfortable in bed whilst injured alone was impossible, trying to get comfortable in bed whilst injured with another equally injured person was roughly similar to trying to achieve interdimensional space travel in a spaceship made of cardboard boxes. The impossibility of it was comical. The list of wounds between the two of them was so holistic, there wasn’t a single position either of them could lie in without aggravating something or another. And Sherlock was fidgety. Really fucking fidgety. Eventually, John gave a growl of exasperation and pulled Sherlock into his side, trapping him with arms that hadn’t quite yet lost their military qualities, and had him rest his head on the soft part of his shoulder. Sherlock snaked a spindly arm around John’s stomach, making a show of being deliberately careful not to put any pressure on his bruise.
It was alright. This way, John could lie perfectly still, and Sherlock wasn’t lying on his bad shoulder. They were quiet for a while, just taking in the steady eb and flow of each other’s breathing.
John’s thoughts were always more clear in the dark, and unfortunately more morbid. Even though he wasn’t worried anymore, he found himself running over the events at the Norfolk in his head, until he reached the moment Sherlock had his hands around Abe Slaney’s throat again. His arm around Sherlock tightened.
“Sherlock?”
Sherlock made a noncommittal noise that told John he was awake, but only just. He’d crashed, finally, and rest didn’t come easily to him on the best of days. “What?”
“I just remembered something,” John murmured. “When you were- y’know.”
“Oh, really, Watson,” Sherlock groaned. “Can we leave it?”
“No, it’s not- not that,” John reassured him. “I just remembered. You called me your best friend.”
There was a pause. Then, perhaps cautiously, he lifted his head from John’s shoulder and steadied himself with a hand on his arm. In the grey gloom of a dawn fast approaching, John could make out his face, studying him. “Yes,” he said. “Was that- was I wrong to do that?”
Even now, he was still so unsure. John wanted to hug him again. “No, of course not. You’ve just never said it before.”
“Well, you said it first,” Sherlock said. “In the Volunteer. Six weeks ago. Have- have you changed your mind?”
“What? No. No, Sherlock, that’s- that’s not what I was getting at. It just caught me off guard just now, thinking about it. I guess- maybe I wasn’t sure if you agreed at the time.”
“Well,” Sherlock was smiling a little now. Almost mischievously. “I haven’t got much first-hand knowledge on the subject of ‘best friends’, but I think what I did for you tonight might fall somewhere in the ballpark of ‘best friend behaviour’. I’ll need your confirmation on that one, though.”
John laughed, then winced as his ribs protested. “Yeah, yeah - fair enough, okay.”
Sherlock was thinking himself, now. “What you said earlier-”
“Said a lot of things earlier, mate.”
“-about doing the same for me, in my position. You weren’t just saying that?”
John reached up and brushed a stray lock of hair out of Sherlock’s eye. “No. I meant it. I don’t think I would’ve acted any different, in your position.”
Sherlock’s mouth twisted in thought. “Well, it would have been a bit different, if I were the one who was shot. After all, unlike you, I wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest.”
“You-” John stuttered. “You didn’t put one on?! After I specifically told you- Sherlock- oh my fucking god!” Sherlock was laughing now, which only made John all the more frustrated. “It’s not fucking funny, Sherlock! You- okay, fine, yeah. Whatever. Whatever! In that case, then - yeah, I would’ve killed that guy extra dead. How’s that?” He put his hands over his eyes, barely stifling his own laughter. Sherlock was always Sherlock, at the end of the day.
He felt the weight of Sherlock’s head settle back onto him. “Well, that’s very heartwarming to hear. Thank you, John. I shall sleep peacefully knowing the next person to shoot me will end up extra dead for his troubles.”
John leaned his cheek into the top of Sherlock’s hair and sighed.
“Well, there’s a moral in all of this after all, then, isn’t there,” John said.
“Is there?”
“When your best friend tells you to put a bulletproof vest on, you fucking listen to them. You prick.”
He felt Sherlock’s laugh vibrate gently against his bruise. Then a sigh as he snuggled further into him, at last finally content. Within minutes he went limp in John’s arms, his breathing evened out, hard and gentle all at once.
It was all John could do to hold him, breathe in the scent of gunpowder in his hair, and follow him, finally, into sleep.