Work Text:
Nothing is ever going to be right again. There is no fixing his world. John is painfully sober for the first time in a long time, and he knows what he’s going to do. His fingers curl around handle of his gun like finding an old friend. It goes against his training, against the basic rules of gun safety. ”Never point a gun at someone unless you’re prepared to kill them,” he’d been taught.
He is prepared. Thumbing off the safety, he sends a silent apology to those that mattered. He didn’t think it would surprise anyone.
The metal is cool against his temple. For the first time in too longer his fingers don’t shake. John draws a deep breath, and his finger tightens against the trigger. One more breath and—
“John!”
Jerking in shock at the voice that can’t possibility be real, the only thing that keeps the gun from going off is the finger shoved behind the trigger. As his hand is forced down to his side, John keeps his eyes squeezed shut because he’s not sure if it will be worse to find out if the voice is real or if he’s finally gone nutters.
Fingers dig into his arm as the other hand pulls the gun from John’s nerveless fingers. He can’t think, he can’t feel, he can’t—
Fingers are on his face. There’s wetness and words, frantic and alarmed.
“—mind! John! Open your eyes, John.”
John has no protection against the order, no willpower to do anything but obey.
It’s Sherlock. Alive. Breathing. Not dead. Not bleeding out on the concrete. John doesn’t think as he moves, his hands suddenly on Sherlock, grasping, trying to reassure himself that this is real, not a drunken illusion, a dream that he’ll wake up from, leaving him trapt once again in hell.
And finally convinced that this can’t be anything but real, John throws his arms around Sherlock, burying his face in Sherlock’s neck, breathing in his scent, wetting his skin with tears that just won’t stop.
Sherlock’s arm rise slowly, hesitantly as though he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do with them, until finally they wrap around John, grasping him close just as tightly as John was him, dropping his cheek to rest against the John’s unruly hair.
The anger, the pain, and even the hate weren’t gone, but they didn’t matter now, not in this moment. The questions could wait, but not this. John needed this more than anything, and some part of him knew that Sherlock needed it too.