Work Text:
“I told you, I want my revenge!”
“And you’ll have it.”
“But I told you! He can’t be hurt, not truly, not significantly.”
“Oh, but he can.”
“How?”
*
It’s been exactly three hours since Victor left the basement. Sherlock knows, he’s been counting.
His thin wrists ache from the tight metal clasps while his head pounds from repeated electrocution. Unsurprisingly, the physical pain isn’t what’s truly bothering him.
For the first time in many years, Sherlock experiences true fear: his old enemy.
It’s neither the manic glow in Victor’s eyes nor the fact that he’s probably going to die in the musky, old basement that reintroduces Sherlock to the emotion, not at all.
The great Sherlock Holmes fears the things he has left unsaid. Like the sound of a faucet left dripping water or the tingling feeling of a forgotten memory, the fact that he doesn’t get the chance to say last parting words seems unfair, to say the least.
If Sherlock were to face the truth, which he hasn’t in quite a while, then he would admit that there’s really only one thing to say, and one person to say it to.
All of a sudden, Sherlock is pulled from his mind palace by the sound of a key turning in its lock.
Horror grips his heart in its unforgiving hands as he watches a body fall down the stairs.
“Look who I’ve found!” Victor exclaims in boorish glee.
The great Sherlock Holmes feels a noxious concoction of panic and sadness well up inside of him as he watches Victor tie up the unconscious body of John Watson to a chair right in front of him.
*
When John comes to, he’s strapped to a chair.
The smell of damp mold, dust, and dried sweat overwhelms him at first.
“You’re awake,” a deep, familiar voice murmurs softly.
John blinks through his drug-induced dizziness. “I’ve never known you to state the obvious.”
The voice laughs brokenly.
Once he’s sure he can lift his head without making the room spin John brings his gaze to Sherlock.
The tall, pale detective lies vertically on a metal stand holding him down with metal cuffs. Their captor has stripped him down to his purple button-up and silk trouser pants. With dark bangs hanging under his eyes and tousled hair shielding his gaze, Sherlock Holmes looks like a wreck.
“Your ropes are loose, looser than mine. Victor has left for an indefinite amount of time. You can still make a run for it-“ Sherlock begins.
“I’m not going to make a run for it,” John whispers firmly.
“Lestrade’s probably expecting you back with me in hand. Not possible. You’ll have to tell him-“
“Lestrade doesn’t know I’m here.”
Sherlock’s face twists in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“Sherlock,” John sighs as he straightens up in his chair. “Lestrade didn’t send me to come to your rescue, nor did you captor come after me.”
John stares into Sherlock’s nearly translucent grey ones. “I came on my own.”
Silence reigns for half a minute.
“No,” it begins as a whispered moan, so soft that at first, John questions whether or not Sherlock had actually said it at all.
“How could you?” Sherlock screams suddenly, thrashing wildly against his restraints.
“What-“ John asks.
“It would have been all find if you had just left the matter alone! But you wouldn’t, would you? You just had to be heroic old John Watson, trying to save the day!” His yells echo inside the small room and his eyes burn with something John recognizes as fury.
“I couldn’t leave you here-“ John says fiercely.
“Yes! Yes, you could. But you didn’t want to. Brave, loyal, John Watson didn’t want to admit defeat, he didn’t want to leave a comrade in the line of fire, and he didn’t want to be selfish. God, why can’t you just be selfish for once? Why can’t you just be selfish for once? Why can’t you just say no, I will not do this for you, I will do what I want?” Sherlock shrieks, his exclamations growing more and more pleading and less and less angry, until he finally runs out of steam.
“This is the most selfish thing I have ever done,” John enunciates slowly and surely, his eyes trained on the exhausted and upset man hanging before him.
Sherlock lifts his sad eyes up from the floor but remains silent.
“Do you honestly think I would waste any chance of seeing you one last time? No matter how much you complain that I’m risking myself needlessly, I will always come back for you. Not only for your sake. But you know why already, don’t you?” John whispers, eyes stinging at the emotions that flood him.
“No,” Sherlock shakes his head slowly, muttering regretfully as he recognizes the truth that’s been staring him in the face.
John Watson will never leave him be, not for his own sake and not for anyone else’s, because he’s in love (and has been for much longer than Sherlock had ever imagined).
“I love you,” John murmurs calmly, as if he isn’t bearing his soul for Sherlock to see.
“No.” Sherlock repeats, eyes pleading. “You can’t.”
“I can, and I do. And no matter how you may feel about me, I will never leave you behind.” John finishes as he gaze adoringly at the other.
Sherlock can’t believe that it’s love, the cursed emotion that will lead to John’s downfall. Forget the toxic chemicals that he had threatened both their lives with by experimenting with or the mentally unstable criminals they risked their health to capture. No, emotional reliance will end his life.
“You came for a dead man,” Sherlock announces quietly, leering down at John through his wild curls.
“You are not dying today,” John says, voice steely and determined.
Sherlock almost believes him.
Before he can reply though, the basement door clicks, signaling Victor’s arrival.
“Who wants to play?” He calls out in a gleeful tone, disturbingly reminiscent of Moriarty.
John’s eyes cloud up with anger, “Why are you doing this?”
“Oh, Sherlock didn’t tell you? I would have thought that he’d catch you up to speed while I was gone!”
John seethes with fury in his seat.
“You see, Sherlock killed my brother,” Victor murmurs, leaning towards John’s reddening face. “Sent him to prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit.”
Before Sherlock can point out that Anthony had been entirely too guilty to avoid death row, John head-butts him.
“Ugh!” Victor shrieks, clutching his skull as John hurriedly wrenches his left wrist from its restraint.
“You little-“ Victor reaches for a bat on the far wall as he attempts to stand without swaying.
“Don’t touch him!” Sherlock yells, yanking uselessly at his sweat-dampened cuffs.
John is pulling at the ropes strangling his right hand as Victor approaches him angrily, when a gunshot rings out.
“Lestrade!” Sherlock gasps, head spinning as he gazes into the light from the basement door.
“Oh god,” John watches in relief as Victor’s body fall to the ground in a bloody mess.
“Get him in the Emergency van,” Lestrade tells the paramedics behind him as he pockets his gun and makes his way to the two captives.
Sherlock stays awake long enough to watch him free John, but succumbs to the sharp pain attacking his body as soon as the worried Inspector turns to him.
*
Sherlock wakes up to the irritating beep of the heart monitor at his side and a crushing grip on his hand.
Opening his eyes slowly, he finds that it’s only him and John in the cool, sterilized room.
John may be conscious and gripping Sherlock’s hand in a vise-like grip, but his eyes tell him that he’s not fully there.
“John,” Sherlock croaks, blinking repeatedly as he registers the pain of his injuries beneath the thin layer of drugs in his system.
John snaps out of his trance and reaches for the water at his bedside. “Drink.”
Sherlock follows the command without complaint.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes immediately after he’s gulped down the whole glass.
“It’s not your fault that sick bastard kidnapped you,” John consoles.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Sherlock shakes his head. “I’m ashamed of what I said in that basement, John.”
John sets the glass on the table and sits back in his chair, signaling for him to continue.
“I said some unforgivable things. But you have to understand that you-“ he pauses, conflicted as to whether or not he should say it, “you can’t die. You aren’t allowed to.”
“You can’t dictate my decisions.” John comments, annoyance entering his tone. “You have no right-“
“And if I said ‘I love you’?”
John closes his eyes, hands coming up to cover his face. “You can’t expect me to believe-“
“Open your eyes, John!” Sherlock says exasperatedly. “You’ve seen the evidence; you can’t say you hadn’t noticed.”
“I hadn’t!” John yells, dropping his hands from his face. “What evidence? You mean the yelling I received in response to confessing my goddamn feelings?”
“No, you idiot.” Sherlock roars, “I mean the labels on the experiments, the extra milk in the fridge, the takeaway bought beforehand, and the tidied up flat!”
John pauses in confusion. “You mean your newfound interest in being a good flat mate?”
Sherlock sags on his bed, exhausted. “If that’s how you chose to interpret my romantic gestures, then fine, be ignorant.”
A grin pulls at John’s mouth. “So you’re saying…”
“I’m saying that I’m in love with you, John Watson, I’ve been showing it for quite some time, and I’d rather you not sacrifice yourself for me because I’m not worth that much.” Sherlock pouts, turning away from the other in embarrassment.
He turns at the sound of soft laughter behind him, “John?”
“You’re worth much more than you think, Sherlock. And I’m extremely glad you feel that way about me, because I’d hate to be on the devotional side of an unrequited love.”
Sherlock offers a small smile as they entangle their fingers above the hospital bed sheets.