Work Text:
Audio recording:
*running, John panting*
Ok, I see him...
*running faster*
HEY!
Come on, mate, give it up!
*more running*
What's he..?
*John gasps*
NO, NO-
*gunshot*
*bricks crumbling, hitting the pavement*
Shit!
*footsteps, almost drowned out by all the other sounds*
*John gasps*
AAAAGGH. FUCK!
*footsteps have stopped*
Shit... Ah, he's getting away...
*2-3 footsteps, accompanied by groans*
*footsteps stop*
Yeah, there he goes. Great.
*John panting*
Great.
***
The gunshot rings out - loud, clear, unmuffled by the traffic and people and his own hurried footsteps. He freezes. His blood turns cold. There is no way this is a coincidence. There is no way it wasn’t aimed at John.
He turns and runs back, towards the restaurant and towards the sound. Some bystanders who stopped to look around shout in indignation when he all but barrels through them. He barely registers them.
He runs.
It was a normal case. Some personal belongings missing from their client. A hired burglar, who had never met his employer, a Mrs Lillian Tracy. They caught her. Gregson took her into custody. She had already set up a meeting time and place for the exchange. And the burglar had never seen her. Perfect.
He and John sat a few tables away from Mariana. He didn’t worry too much. It was a public place - a restaurant. And the meeting time, 6pm.
The man showed up on time. Dark short hair, early 40s, old clothes.
She did everything right, but something must have tipped him off. He was about to give her the goods - he had his backpack open, in his lap. Then his eyes fell on him and John. They tried to appear inconspicuous, but the man scrambled out of his chair and made for the door.
They shot to their feet and after him. They had almost made it to the exit when one of the waiters blocked their way.
They hadn't paid.
Sherlock looked impatiently over the waiter's shoulder. The man was getting away.
"Watson!" he complained instead of saying, 'will you please deal with this so I can go catch the criminal?'
John pushed him slightly between the shoulder blades.
“Go, you go.”
He ran past the waiter, smiling at John’s quick understanding.
But those few seconds of delay had done it. The restaurant stood on a dead-end street, and he had to run a couple of meters before getting to the main one. He looked left and right. He couldn’t see him. Which way? Which way?
“What’s wrong?” John asked, running towards him. He must’ve been relieved by Mariana.
“Can’t see him! You go left-” He pointed, and ran to the right without finishing his sentence.
A minute later he heard the gunshot.
Now he runs, cursing himself for suggesting they split up. The logical part of him protests - he couldn’t have predicted this - it’s not his fault.
It doesn’t matter. If John gets hurt on one of their cases, he is automatically responsible for it.
Could he have guessed? Did he miss something? He didn’t see the outline of a gun in his coat. The backpack, it must’ve been in the backpack.
It was his idea, splitting up. Was it not the most rational decision? He didn’t know of the danger. Didn’t know, couldn’t have known. Should have known, still.
He almost collides with Mariana.
He keeps running, beckons her with one hand, to follow him.
“John...” is the only explanation he offers her.
She had the same thought, but wasn’t sure of the direction. She’s talking to him, voice worried, words reassuring. He’ll be fine, he’ll be fine, he’s fine. Sherlock’s barely paying attention. They’ve just passed the restaurant, now. How long until they find John? A minute? Two? Did he run straight ahead? Did he turn any corners? How long?
And how long does John have? Was he hit? There would’ve been a second gunshot if he wasn’t. Where? Head? Throat? Chest? No. He can’t think of that. Limbs. Arm, leg. No major arteries. Just grazed him. Please. Please, it’s too soon, it’s too soon-
“I’ll call him,” Mariana says.
It stops his train of thought.
How didn’t he think of that?
They hear the ringtone close enough.
They turn a corner, not five seconds later, and see John.
He’s standing, leaning on the wall for support, holding the phone in his hand, about to answer. Alive. No blood.
The words rip out of him instinctively.
“John!! John!”
He looks at him, slightly sluggishly. Confused? Tired. He’s panting. He looks alright. Uninjured.
Sherlock’s still running towards him at full speed. He forces himself to slow down, so he won’t knock John off his feet.
“He got away. I’m sorry. He got away.”
He reaches him, finally, and throws his arms around him.
“Oh,” John says, slightly surprised, and hugs him back.
‘He got away.’ Yes, he assumed that. Why did he feel the need to say that, when it’s not at all important at the moment? He’s alright, that’s important. He didn’t lose him, won't lose him, not today. ‘Not today’? No, he won’t lose him at all. He won’t allow it.
Mariana explains that they heard the gunshot, that they thought...
“Oh, no. No, I’m alright, he didn’t even aim at me.” He holds on tight to Sherlock’s shoulder with one hand and strokes his back a few times with the other. “I’m ok, mate. I’m alright.”
He chuckles incredulously, just once, as he says that. As if he’s surprised he was worried. As if he doesn’t know. As if Sherlock didn’t almost kill a man for hurting him.
“It’s ok,” John repeats. He’s putting too much pressure on Sherlock’s shoulder. Like he might lose his balance without holding on. And before - he was leaning on the wall. Something’s wrong.
Sherlock pulls back.
“You’re injured. Are you injured?”
He looks at him more carefully. Yes, he's putting most of his weight on his left leg.
“No, not. You know, not like that. Just twisted my ankle. Sprained, maybe. I don’t know, I haven’t looked.”
He’s still holding on to Sherlock's shoulders, for support. He looks behind him.
“Ah, there’s no way we can still catch him, he’s got like, two minutes headstart.”
He’s right.
“We will find him again. At the very least, we now know who Mrs Tracy was going to meet. It’s just a matter of catching him.”
John nods. He doesn’t seem very convinced.
“We should get you home,” Mariana says.
She calls a cab while Sherlock texts Gregson an update.
He sits next to John, in the cab. Their arms touch. It calms him down.
It’s not a long ride, but John leans his head on Sherlock’s shoulder after a minute. ‘Tired?’ he almost asks. But acknowledging it might cause John to feel self-conscious, and straighten up. Maybe not. Probably not. But it feels nice, and he doesn’t want to risk it.
He leans his own head to rest on John’s.
***
They don’t go up the stairs. She sees the look of dread on John’s face when he realises he’d have to climb up there. He probably would have asked anyway, but she hurries to her own door and ushers them inside.
He sits down on her sofa and inspects his injury. It’s swollen already.
“Ah,” she says. “That’s… Ouch.”
He feels at it.
“Yeah. Sprained it.”
He looks up, and she realises she’d been staring.
“It’s not that bad,” he says, and smiles. She smiles back, but he’s already looking to her left, at Sherlock. “Honestly, could’ve been a lot worse.”
Sherlock doesn’t look back at him. She can’t tell if he’s looking at something in particular, or just… Away.
John’s eyes still linger on him.
“Sherlock,” he calls, and their friend immediately looks at him. “Could you..? Uh. I need one of those ankle braces, could you see…?”
“Of course,” Sherlock answers, and immediately leaves. She wonders if he knows exactly what kind John needs. Probably. Yeah, it’s Sherlock. He knows.
She looks at his leg again.
Ice.
She grabs some from the freezer - well, some frozen peas, but they’ll do the job. He sighs while pressing the pack to his ankle.
“Better?”
“Mhmm.”
“I’ll find you some painkillers?” she half-asks, half-states. He doesn’t say ‘Nah, I’m fine, Mari, thanks.’ Doesn’t say anything, actually. She rummages through her medicine cabinet and finds the last two. Yeah, she should buy some more. Soon.
She gives them to John, and he takes one. He mutters, “thanks”. He looks sad. Frustrated, maybe.
She turns the tv on so she can hear something. She plops down on her couch, next to him, and crosses her feet on the coffee table. He hesitates, then points at the table.
“Can I..?”
“Yeah.”
He lifts his injured leg and carefully places it on the table.
There’s nothing on tv, just ads, for now. She would check what’s next if she could reach the remote, but she left it on the table. Whatever. She just needed the noise.
John is quiet. Weird. Unsettling, even.
“You’re quiet.”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
She looks at him for a few seconds, awaiting a continuation. Nothing. She turns her attention back to the tv, and wonders if they’ll still do movie night.
“I’m just thinking,” he says after a minute or so. “If I hadn't...” He gestures towards the ankle. “I could've caught him, I think. He wasn't that far away.”
She shakes her head, almost instinctively.
“He had a gun.”
“Yeah, I know. I know what you’re saying.”
“Do you?”
“He could've shot me for real if I kept following him. I know. I don’t think he would have-”
“John.”
“-but yeah, I’m aware.”
He smiles sadly. He’s quiet for a few seconds, and she wonders if he could have followed the guy safely after he’d shot at him.
Well, not at him. He told them what happened while they were waiting for the cab. The man shot at the wall, above him. It wasn’t the best maintained building, so some bricks crumbled and fell. He scrambled to get out of their way and… Misstepped. Twisted his ankle.
“I still feel bad.”
Yeah. He shouldn’t, he did nothing wrong. But she’d feel bad too, if she were in his shoes.
“You heard Sherlock. We’ll catch him.”
And sooner than expected, she thinks ten minutes later. Sherlock came back and informed them that somehow, the man had already been arrested, minutes before Gregson sent out his description. It was stupid, really. He didn’t hide the gun quickly enough. They got him on unlawful possession of a firearm.
She looks at John and raises her eyebrows at him, as if to say, ‘See? Nothing to feel bad about after all!’
He looks relieved.
“Oh, mate, that's… That's lucky,” he tells Sherlock, and chuckles, maybe a bit self-consciously.
“Do you… Need help? Putting this on?” Sherlock asks, raising the ankle brace he just bought. He still avoids looking at John’s leg.
Sherlock is the least squeamish person she knows. And yet…
She wonders if it's a close-friends thing or just a John thing. If she was injured, would he look at it?
“Nah, it's ok, mate.”
John looks at Sherlock for a bit too long as he takes the brace from him. Maybe he noticed too. Maybe he noticed before her.
They decide they will do movie night - why not? It’ll help take John’s mind off the pain. They stay in 221a, this time. Putting off having to help John up the stairs.
She goes to make the popcorn while they settle on the couch. The kitchen door closes, though not all the way. She hears them talk, after a short while. She doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but…
“We shouldn’t have split up.”
“No, don’t be stupid. It was our best shot.”
A pause. The popcorn is, well, popping, and she can’t hear anything but their words.
“It took me almost two minutes to get to you.”
“You counted?”
“If he had shot you, those two minutes…”
She can’t tell if he stopped talking or he’s just speaking more quietly. She doesn’t hear anything for a few seconds. Maybe they’re whispering. Maybe they’re just sitting, in silence. Maybe they're hugging.
“It was the right call,” John finally says. “Splitting up.”
That’s the last she hears of their conversation.
She's not surprised to hear Sherlock’s still turning it over in his mind.
When they bumped into each other, after the gunshot… When they were hurrying towards John…
He seemed really scared. He seemed like he had trouble breathing. She'd never seen him run so fast.
She worried too. Of course she did. Her chest hurt. But she didn’t allow herself to think of the worst.
He was shot a few weeks ago, too, she thought. What are the odds of that happening again? He survived a bomb - even if he did get shot, he would be fine, it would be ridiculous to survive a war and a bomb and be killed by a random thief. A thief. He wasn’t violent before, why would he start now?
Still, when they rounded that corner, and saw he was alright… Phew. She slowed down, to catch her breath. Sherlock nearly crashed into John. He hugged him so closely, with such desperation, she felt the need to look away.
She wondered if they had something to tell her. She’s still wondering, now. They’d tell her, wouldn’t they? Yeahh, they would. If not Sherlock, John.
Well, then. She’ll wait patiently until one of them comes to her to confess that ‘Hey, don’t tell anyone but… I might… I think I’m in love with…” Oh, that was John’s voice, just then. Yeah, Sherlock would keep it to himself, wouldn't he? John, then. Any day now.
She smiles to herself, and brings the popcorn to the living room. It’s her turn to pick the movie, but she asks John if he wants to pick, given the evening's events. He refuses. She was planning on picking a rom-com, something kinda old, maybe a bit cringe, but fun. She chooses something she knows he’ll like, after all. An exception. Next time, it’s back to her making them watch whatever she wanted and them more or less jokingly complaining about her choice. Oh yeah. That’s the stuff.
She settles next to John, so he would be in the middle. She leans on him, hugs his arm.
“What?” he asks, amused.
It’s definitely not the first time they sit like that, though, to be fair, it usually happens later in the movie, when she gets tired.
“You worried me,” she replies. “Tonto.”
John does his gasp of mock-offence.
“If you’re gonna call an injured man names-” She rolls her eyes. “-could you at least make sure he understands them?”
“Fine, then. Idiota.”
He can't keep the bit going. He smiles.
“Better?”
“Yup. Thank you very much.”
“Any time.”
***
He’s on his phone, some hours after the movie ended. Doomscrolling. He's tired, but if he does actually try to sleep he'll just feel the pain better. Well. Worse.
There's a knock on his door. Soft. Unsure.
“Yeah.”
Sherlock opens it. He doesn't say anything.
He doesn't have to.
“Can't sleep?”
He nods.
John leaves the phone on the nightstand. He shuffles closer to the edge, to make some room, and pats the space beside him.
They both lay down - Sherlock on his back, John facing him. He looks at Sherlock for a few seconds. He doesn't move, doesn't speak, just stares at the ceiling. John closes his eyes.
“Do you think… I do enough?” he finally asks.
John opens his eyes in an instant.
“What- What?”
“To keep you safe.”
Oh.
Of course.
Sweet, caring, self-flagellating Sherlock.
He sighs, but can’t help a fond smile.
“I’m not a kid, Sherlock.”
He expects one of his withering looks. He doesn’t get it.
“You know what I mean.” Sherlock twists his neck to look at him. “Am I too reckless?”
“Absolutely, you are.” There’s some quiet mixture of shock, sadness and resignation on Sherlock’s face, so he hurries to add, “With yourself.”
Because he is. He’s known this since Thor Bridge. Maybe even before. Sometimes, secretly, he worries that one day he’ll miscalculate something, and… And it won’t be a criminal that robs him of his best friend.
“But you didn't do anything reckless today. We split up. It was the right decision.”
Sherlock gives him a quick smile. Not a real one. Just acknowledging that he heard him.
“He didn't even try to shoot me,” John reminds him. “And it's not like we were chasing a murderer.”
You did nothing wrong. You idiot.
He’s touched that Sherlock cares so much. He’s touched- he’s honoured to be someone Sherlock wants so badly to protect. But he can’t stand the look of guilt in his eyes.
“You need to stop this. I understand why you blamed yourself with - y’know - with Slaney. But this? He didn't even intend to harm me. Nothing happened.”
Something of that withering look he’s been expecting crosses Sherlock’s face.
“You sprained your ankle.”
“Yeah, and I'll be fine in a couple days.
“Will you?”
He huffs in frustration.
“Sherlock…”
Fine, more than a few days. Details. Not the point.
He takes his hand. It's a bit of an awkward position, with him on his side and Sherlock still on his back, but he doesn't let go.
“Everything is fine.”
He squeezes his hand, and though he's nowhere around the wrist, he can feel his pulse.
It does the trick, he thinks.
Sherlock whispers, “Ok.” He turns his head to look at the ceiling again. The guilty expression slowly fades away. For a moment, John can read nothing on his face. Just a moment. Then, again, worry.
“I won't-”
The rest of the sentence seems to remain lodged in his throat. He breathes out, frustrated.
“…won't?”
His voice is soft as he asks this. Whatever Sherlock was about to say, it seemed important.
His friend looks at him for a second or two, studies his face. Looks away again.
“...I. Appreciate your friendship and... I don't… If you were hurt, if you-”
He stops again. He can’t say it.
John spares him.
“You don't wanna lose me.”
Sherlock presses his lips together and nods.
He knew that.
So why can he feel his stomach? Why does he feel like crying?
He answers with the only thing he could possibly say in that moment.
“I don't wanna lose you either.”
And Sherlock smiles. A real smile, even as tears build up in his eyes.
“So,” John continues, “we'll just. Be careful. With ourselves and each other. Yeah?”
His friend nods.
“...you heard the part with ourselves, right?”
Sherlock lets out a small laugh.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Sherlock breathes out, decisively, trying to pull himself together. He wipes at his eyes, quickly, with one hand. John lets go of his other hand to extend his arm, expectingly.
“C’mere.”
His friend rolls towards him and hugs him, careful not to hit his leg. John wraps his arms around him, keeping a palm pressed to his back and slowly moving his thumb up and down.
You big softie, he thinks. He doesn't say it. He did before, and he knows exactly what the answer would be - ‘Watson,’ (Watson.) ‘I thought you were dying. Of course I'll be rattled.’
And he'd say, ‘I'm joking Sherlock, I know. If I had been in your place…’
Oh and, there you go, didn't even have to say it out loud…
He tightens the hug a little bit and steals a quick kiss to Sherlock’s temple.
He’ll be alright, won’t he?
Of course he will. They’ll both be fine. He can feel it.
They won't lose each other.