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Sherlock knows what’s going to happen before it does. Lestrade is trying to negotiate but, with their suspect-turned-kidnapper as frightened as he is, it’s just not going to work.
‘Come on, mate,’ Lestrade is saying, as Sherlock despairs silently next to him. ‘This isn’t going to help anything. Do you want to be up on a murder charge as well as everything else?’
‘I ain’t no murderer,’ the man spits, plainly terrified. ‘I never killed anyone.’
‘You haven’t yet,’ Lestrade agrees calmly, and Sherlock wants to hit him for his mild manner. He would hit him if he was able. ‘But if you pull that trigger, you will have done.’
‘Well I won’t have to pull the trigger if you don’t make me!’
Sherlock struggles harder against the bounds around his wrists. Even in his desperation, he’s annoyed to have to admit that the knots are secure. From his position in the middle of the room, John catches Sherlock’s eye and shakes his head minutely. Sherlock looks back at him, wide-eyed. What is John expecting him to do?
‘Put the gun down,’ Lestrade encourages.
‘What are you gonna do about it?’
‘Do you for murder if you kill my friend,’ replies Lestrade grimly, betraying for the first time some of the pounding fear that Sherlock has been feeling for the past hour.
He never knew that fear could feel like this, could make you feel like you’re about to throw up even if there’s nothing in your stomach to bring back, but he knows now. He has done ever since about ten minutes after he entered the warehouse with John and Lestrade, whereupon they were all struck over the head with the same plank of wood, wielded by their desperate suspect. The blows had been solid enough although not enough to knock any of them out, but the man is quick and nimble-fingered - as shown by his crimes - and Sherlock and Lestrade had had their wrists, upper legs and ankles bound skilfully before they’d known anything about it. The gun he had had to John’s head when they’d manoeuvred themselves up unsteadily had been enough to induce acquiescence.
The man picked John because he’s the smallest, that much is obvious, but what quickly became apparent was that he had also underestimated John. Their captor’s black eye and John’s bleeding nose attest to that, but the suspect eventually triumphed.
‘And where’s your stupid back-up?’ Sherlock snarls into Lestrade’s ear now, as the wavering gun continues to be pointed in the direction of John’s head.
‘I didn’t exactly have time to radio, did I Sherlock?’ Lestrade replies softly, trying to placate him.
He’s used to situations like this - more so than Sherlock is - and it’s obvious that he sees it very much as his role to get them all out of this in one piece. Unfortunately, Sherlock feels like that to and, as is evident from his expression, so does John.
Sherlock knows that set of John’s jaw, and his compliant behaviour is also a dead giveaway. He knows that for the last fifteen minutes or so, as their captor has been growing steadily both more complacent and more panicked, John has been watching. He has been cataloguing and evaluating strengths and weaknesses. Sherlock frantically tries to catch John’s eye. John is not allowed to do this. Their suspect has a gun. Sherlock will think of something. It’s his job.
‘Are you not going to tell us about your accomplice then, Edwards?’ Sherlock asks, firmly telling himself not to focus on the wobbling firearm. ‘I know you’re trying to protect him - and how admirable of you - but we both know that you’ll crack under police interrogation so you may as well save yourself the trouble of some truly appalling lying and admit it now? Is it because you know how angry your sister will be with you if you tell the police about her son’s involvement in your criminal activity?’
John, Lestrade and Edwards all look at Sherlock in astonishment and Sherlock dimly recalls that he never mentioned the nephew to John and Lestrade.
‘Put the gun down, mate,’ says Lestrade again.
He’s still speaking calmly but Sherlock can feel the tension radiating from him.
‘I won’t,’ Edwards says desperately. ‘You’ll arrest me.’
‘And what is your plan?’ Sherlock enquires sneeringly. ‘You’re just going to hold us hostage until what, exactly? You haven’t contacted anyone although you are thinking about it.’
‘I’ve texted my mate, actually,’ snaps Edwards. ‘From inside my pocket. He’ll be along soon.’
‘Rubbish,’ snorts Sherlock. ‘You’ve been fiddling with your phone, yes, but your fingers haven’t done anything nearly as organised as texting. You haven’t got the brain capacity to text without looking, anyway. So, what’s your plan? I’m just dying to hear the ingenuity of it.’
The gun, safety catch conspicuously clicked off, begins wobbling at a faster frequency.
‘Sherlock,’ says Lestrade warningly, speaking under his breath. ‘Don’t aggravate him.’
Sherlock doesn’t listen, because he has more important things to worry about. He sees John shift his weight minutely from where he’s knelt on the floor at the Edwards’ feet. He wants to shout out to John not to, but that will betray John’s intentions to Edwards and lose John the split-second advantage that is surprise.
Edwards, the idiot, is surprised when John suddenly jumps to his feet in one smooth motion and rapidly swings his forearm up into Edwards’ face. He reels backwards in surprise, gun still clutched in his hand. Sherlock would feel a lot better about the whole thing if that gun would just get kicked off into a dark corner of the room.
Their captor is no trained fighter like John, but he is big and brawny and has obviously brawled enough in his younger years to know just where to punch John to send him sprawling onto the floor against the wall opposite Sherlock and Lestrade. Watching, Sherlock struggles with renewed enthusiasm against his bounds, but Edwards has done a good job and they only tighten around his wrists.
‘Lestrade,’ he snarls. ‘You are not helping.’
‘My leg is tied to yours Sherlock, there’s only so much I can do,’ the DI points out, far more calmly than the situation merits in Sherlock’s opinion.
Sherlock hisses in displeasure before shouting out in an attempt to catch Edwards’ attention. When playing the scene over in his head at a later date, Sherlock will not forgive himself for the unpardonable oversight that is the fact that it is John who is in tune with Sherlock’s voice and therefore John who looks over, distracted, when he shouts out.
‘John!’
The voice is Lestrade’s, because Sherlock’s has suddenly stopped working, frozen as he is in horror as Edwards takes advantage of John’s slight pause in his efforts to scramble to his feet, takes aim and fires.
As John collapses backwards in a suddenly blooming pool of red, Sherlock could swear that his heart stops in his chest. He hears Lestrade’s sharp intake of breath and feels the DI’s leg trembling next to his own. He turns viciously to tell Lestrade to stop being distracting because he needs to think, before realising that it’s his own body which is vibrating with uncontrollable tremors.
John is not moving.
‘John!’
It takes Sherlock a second to realise that, this time, the anguished voice is his.
John is still not moving. Neither is Edwards.
Sherlock switches his attention to Edwards faster than blinking. The man is standing angled away from them, so that only a small portion of his face his visible. Even so, Sherlock is aware of the shock radiating from him in trembling waves.
‘Sherlock.’
Lestrade is looking at him intently. Sherlock ignores him in favour of sweeping his eyes up and down Edwards’ frozen body calculatingly.
‘Sherlock.’
‘You will pay for this,’ Sherlock says in a low voice, determinedly keeping his gaze away from John. John. ‘You can run now but I will make sure you pay for this if it’s the last thing I do. Do you think your wife would enjoy receiving parts of your body in the post? That’s if she’s not too busy with her new, much younger lover, I suppose, but maybe she’ll be able to spare the time to piece your corpse back together. She might even be relieved to see you go. Your sister certainly won’t miss you; corrupting her son like you are. You’d better start running, because I know a lot of places outside of the reach of the police and I’ve solved enough crimes to know the especially brutal ways of killing someone.’
Beside him, Lestrade is barely breathing. Across the room, John is - No. The only response Sherlock gets is the clatter of Edwards’ gun as it slips from his limp fingers and onto the hard floor. Thankfully, although the safety catch is still very much off, it does not discharge.
‘Go on then,’ Sherlock continues, voice still admirably even. ‘Run. And although I highly doubt that you have the intelligence for it, at least try and make it a little interesting for me. I do so enjoy the chase and I would hate for this to turn out to be a disappointment, or I’ll have to get extra creative when I do find you in order to make up for it.’
There is still complete and utter silence. Sherlock can hear Edwards’ breaths heaving and the faint creaking of twisted rope as Lestrade fights once more against his bonds.
‘And don’t even think about going to your mistress’ house,’ Sherlock threatens. ‘If you thought I didn’t know about her then you were much mistaken. I. Know. Everything. Maybe I’ll send her a bit of you as well, as a memento. Do you think she’d have any preference as to which part of you she’d like to receive?’
At this, Edwards finally moves. He turns slowly towards Sherlock and Lestrade, and his struggle to pull a look of outrage onto his face to cover the horror would be almost comical under any other circumstances. He looks poised on the edge of flight, trying to summon up the nerve to turn his back completely on Sherlock and Lestrade and flee, leaving a body behind on the floor.
Sherlock has opened his mouth to continue his threats and Lestrade has finally gathered his composure enough to open his mouth to try and dissuade Sherlock when it happens. Behind Edwards there is a sudden blur of movement and then Edwards is crumpling to the floor, yelling in agony and clutching his knee. Sherlock is so uncertain of what he is seeing that he has to blink twice and even shake his head to be sure that he’s not hallucinating.
John is on his feet, clutching at both his right arm and Edwards’ gun with the same hand.
‘Stay there,’ he rasps at Edwards, as if the man has any choice in the matter.
Lestrade gapes at John. Sherlock, if his brain were working, would be fairly sure that he has frozen to the spot and is not capable of making any facial expression whatsoever.
Wincing with every step and subsequent jerk of his arm, John makes his way across the room to Sherlock and Lestrade, still holding onto the gun.
‘Sorry I scared you,’ he says conversationally, somehow able to talk normally with pain etched on his features.
He reaches them and sets to cutting Sherlock and Lestrade free with his one good hand.
‘Put your hand on my arm,’ he gasps at Lestrade, once he has freed the man’s hands. ‘I’m not keen on losing any more blood if I can help it.’
Lestrade does as he’s bid.
‘It went through your side,’ he says weakly, holding still while John cuts the bonds tying him to Sherlock.
‘Grazed,’ John corrects him, hand steady even under these circumstances. ‘I got my arm in the way. Seemed like the best choice in the split second I had to decide.’
Sherlock, ignoring the moaning coming from the floor, is still busy trying to catch up. He saw the bullet penetrate John’s side, he did. He saw John collapse, unmoving. Playing dead is a clever tactic but he could at least have let Sherlock know.
As soon as Lestrade is free, he takes the knife from John’s hand and begins cutting Sherlock free himself, trying to work circulation back into his arms and legs as he goes.
‘Hold still,’ he says, unnecessarily.
John, holding firmly onto his arm once more, slides down the wall with a groan of relief.
‘I’ll need an ambulance,’ he says.
‘Obvious.’
Sherlock is a little startled to hear his own voice. John looks over to him, concern suddenly the overriding feature of his face.
‘I’m so sorry, Sherlock,’ he says, his gaze steady. ‘I really am. I didn’t trust myself to be able to give you a signal without giving myself away. If I had moved at all, I think I would have rolled around in agony. I’m sorry. But I’m okay. You can see for yourself in a minute if you want to.’
Sherlock does want to. The moment he is free he is at John’s side, regardless of his dead legs.
‘See,’ John says soothingly. ‘I’m fine. Absolutely fine. It’s a flesh wound.’
‘You’ve broken your arm,’ Sherlock frowns.
‘I’ve had worse,’ John winces. ‘But I’m fine, Sherlock, really. Trust me, I’m a doctor.’
Sherlock registers that John is using his Vulnerable Patient Voice. This makes no sense. John is the one who needs taking care of, not Sherlock.
‘You will never do that again,’ Sherlock commands, unaware that those words are going to come out of his mouth until they do.
‘If I can help it,’ John agrees, as Sherlock presses his scarf firmly but oh so gently to John’s wound.
‘Is it displaced? Does it need manipulating?’
‘I’ve got a radial pulse,’ John reassures him.
Sherlock frowns again. John was shot - Sherlock should be the one doing the reassuring. He decides to puzzle over this later, and instead settles for snapping ‘Ambulance’ at Lestrade.
‘Already on it,’ Lestrade replies from where he’s standing over Edwards, his phone held up to his ear.
Sherlock looks back to John and suddenly realises that John is looking behind himself and Lestrade with some trepidation.
‘What?’ Sherlock asks. ‘Are you okay? Do you need blood? I can give you some of mine if you like. Our blood groups are compatible.’
‘How..?’ John frowns weakly. ‘Oh, never mind. I don’t need blood.’
‘Then what’s the matter?’
Through the pain, John looks a little bemused and looks pointedly down at his blood soaked arm.
‘Not that,’ says Sherlock impatiently. ‘You’re worried. You’re not worried about being prosecuted for shooting Edwards are you?’
‘No,’ John says firmly. ‘It’s just…’
John grimaces as he shifts slightly against the wall, gesturing to Sherlock with his intact arm. Sherlock moves a little closer.
‘What you were saying,’ John whispers. ‘Lestrade, he heard. Will he..?’
Oh.
‘Don’t worry,’ he replies swiftly. ‘Lestrade has heard worse from me before - just once, when I was younger and not as good at, ah, keeping my emotions in check. He is under the impression that I say such things under stress and that I don’t mean them and am repentant upon reflection.’
John looks at him.
‘You meant every word, didn’t you?’
Sherlock just holds his gaze.
‘Not that I’m not flattered,’ John says slowly. ‘But I’d rather you didn’t spend the rest of your days in prison on my behalf, Sherlock. I doubt even Mycroft could get you out of something like that.’
‘You’re delirious with pain,’ Sherlock tells him severely. ‘Of course he could.’
It’s a lie, of course, but one told to amuse John. It has the desired effect.
‘You should scare me, Sherlock,’ John sighs. ‘But if I were easily scared off I supposed I’d never have moved in.’
‘You’d do the same for me,’ Sherlock says confidently. ‘Maybe in not such an imaginative way, but you would.’
John looks over at Lestrade, still occupied with both his phone conversation and his injured suspect and studiously ignoring the two of them.
‘Well,’ he says lightly, putting his hand over the one that Sherlock has clamped on his arm. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, eh? We don’t want Mycroft to have to deal with too much paperwork.’