BBC Sherlock: In Over Our Heads (3/3) PG-13 Complete
Title: In Over Our Heads 3/3 Complete
Rating PG-13
Spoilers: For TRF (3rd part, only)
Disclaimer: Don’t own them :(
Word Count: 2266 this part (6140 total)
Summary: John and Sherlock have been kidnapped. Will they be able to keep their heads above water? Literally?
Thanks: To my lovely beta reader, daasgrrl, for kicking this, and me, into shape. Any mistakes to be found are mine alone.
Part 1
Part 2
Mrs. Hudson was out. For that, John breathed a sigh of relief as he followed Sherlock upstairs to their flat. He really didn’t feel up to explaining how he had spent his afternoon, which included jumping the gates at the tube station. Well, Sherlock had jumped them and John had kissed his dignity goodbye and crawled underneath. “Not a word,” he had told an amused Sherlock.
Despite his newfound hatred of water, John took a quick shower, letting the water warm his chilled and chafed skin. When he entered the living room, feeling relaxed and ready to fall down and sleep for a week, he found Sherlock perched on his chair in front of the television.
Sherlock rested his chin on the tip of the remote. He had changed his clothes and had made some small attempt at running his fingers through his hair.
John joined Sherlock, wanting to see what had caught his undivided attention. A news reporter stood in front of the Chedwealth Community School. Behind him, windows were blown out and smoke was heavy in the air.
“No casualties.” John read the bottom of the screen with relief. “There’s a bit of good news, eh, Sherlock?”
Sherlock gave no reaction.
John recognized the far-off look on Sherlock’s face and didn’t bother with any further attempts at conversation. He needed time to process the last few hours himself. But before he could collapse on the couch, the doorbell rang. John groaned and changed directions, heading back downstairs to answer it.
A bored delivery person shoved a small box and a clipboard at him.
John signed for it, barely finishing the ‘n’ in his last name before the clipboard was snatched from his hands and the man was gone. John turned the box over in his hands. 221B Baker was written in ink across the top.
Sherlock was as he had left him and John tossed the box into his lap.
“Expecting a package?” John asked, finally getting to sit down in his chair and holding back a groan of contentment.
Sherlock looked down at the box, picking it up with more care than John had tossed it. He gave it a small shake, sniffed it, then brought it up to his ear. It rang. Sherlock jerked the box away from his face, startled. Then he smiled, as if amused by his gut reaction, and opened the box.
John caught the object Sherlock tossed his way. “My mobile?”
“Mine, too.” Sherlock’s fingers clicked away at the keys. “Text message. ‘Up for a bit of sport?’ ” he read. “ ’Meet me, 1hr. A. B.’ ” Sherlock stood.
“You’re going?”
“Of course. Stay if you’d like.”
He would very much like. Yet he still stood and followed Sherlock towards the stairs, grabbing some money off the table for cab fare. No unauthorized tube ride this time. He started to go for the drawer that held his gun, but remembered it had been on him that morning and whoever had drugged them still had it. He doubted it would be delivered to their door in a second package any time soon.
“Drop us as close to Chedwealth Community School as you can get,” Sherlock told the driver.
John didn’t argue with the directions, but he did argue the wisdom of not telling Lestrade, or anyone else, where they were going. “I don’t like this.”
Sherlock ignored his protest, watching out the window as the occasional emergency vehicle sped by.
The cab dropped them off about a block away from the school. John paid the man, then hurried to catch up with Sherlock as he made a large loop around the site of the bomb blast. John could hear Lestrade ordering his team about and the knowledge that he was close took the edge off his worry. He followed Sherlock towards another freestanding building. “Where are we?” He had to speak up to be heard over the sirens.
“The sports hall.” Sherlock stopped at the door, checking over his shoulder before opening it a crack and slipping through.
The door led directly to the gymnasium floor. A single bank of lights down the middle of the basketball court bisected the darkness with a strip of light.
Sherlock didn’t seem to be holding any of the fear that John did about stepping into the light, being on display for whatever lurked in the darkness.
“I really don’t like this,” John repeated, sensing eyes on him, his neck prickling. His fingers itched and he wished he had his gun. He didn’t want to play any more games.
There was movement to their right and a basketball came out from the shadows, making its way lazily towards them, part bounce, part roll. Sherlock sidestepped away from it, narrowing his eyes at the direction it had come from.
Footsteps to their left. Sherlock turned, while John was more reluctant to turn his back on whoever might have tossed the ball.
A man appeared from the darkness. He had on a business suit, padded at the elbows. Expensive, custom made. His tie was a matching steel grey. He seemed to take great pleasure in the noise his expensive shoes made with every step. John instantly recognized him as Braxley. “Boys enjoy your swim?” he asked.
“Not particularly,” Sherlock answered, as casual as though answering a question about the weather.
“Shame. Maybe you’ll enjoy the encore. But first, someone I’d like you to meet.”
From the opposite side of the court, where the ball had come from, another man stepped out into the light, just as immaculately dressed as Braxley.
Sherlock smiled without humour. “And the dead shall walk.”
“Hell was full.” Moriarty. “Hi.”
Against his better judgement, John turned his back on Braxley, and stared, mouth falling open, but words failing him. Sherlock had said he’d seen Moriarty die, had seen the blood spread across the concrete, had seen brain matter floating in it before he’d had to look away. Even though the body had vanished from the rooftop, leaving behind only a dried stain of blood, John had never doubted the maniac was dead. Until now.
“So it was you all along,” Sherlock said, jaw tense.
When Moriarty spoke, it was to Braxley, not Sherlock. “And you didn’t think they would notice the belt.” He tutted.
“You had a camera on us,” Sherlock commented.
“It was very touching. Award-worthy, even. But sequels are never as good as their predecessors.” Moriarty glanced over to Sherlock before addressing Braxley once more. “Shall we prove that wrong as well?”
“I’d love to,” Braxley answered as Sherlock and John quickly turned back towards him. He loosened his tie and removed his suit jacket. Then he reached into the pocket before tossing the jacket aside.
John tensed. But Sherlock remained calm and poised. Though that had also been Sherlock’s reaction to having a gun pointed at his head, so John couldn’t quite relax yet.
As the jacket fell, it revealed that Braxley now held a syringe, the needle glinting in the dim light.
Now Sherlock did tense, if only a fraction. “Do you plan to try and drug us again? Toss us in another tank?”
“I’m just a touch more imaginative than that. No offence,” he added with a slight bow toward Moriarty. “This is not your everyday sedative.” Braxley held up the syringe, looking at John even though he was speaking to Sherlock, “This here’s special. Something I’ve been working on for a while.” His grin was predatory, and John felt ice in his veins. “This will send hellfire running through you. Then you die.”
Moriarty clapped suddenly, the sound loud and echoing in the gymnasium.
John jumped, the sound so similar to gunfire that he almost dove to the ground. Even Sherlock appeared startled at the reminder there was a fourth person in the room.
Braxley picked that moment to charge not at Sherlock, but at John.
John recovered from the noise and braced himself, calling on what he remembered of his hand-to-hand combat training. But Sherlock side-tackled Braxley before John could do more than take a step backwards in preparation.
As soon as the men landed on the ground, Sherlock danced away from the wild swing of the syringe and he placed himself between Braxley and John.
“You’ve got yourself a guard dog,” Moriarty commented.
Braxley rose back to his feet and pulled the wrinkles out of his shirt. Then he charged again, this time at Sherlock.
Sherlock caught the man’s wrist with both hands, halting the downward plummet of the needle.
Braxley had the syringe gripped in his fist, the same way one would wield a knife, but he quickly opened his hand, dropping his grip to two fingers. The new position allowed a bit more movement, which he used to his advantage by scratching Sherlock across the back of his hand.
It all happened so fast. Too fast.
Sherlock twisted away, changing the direction of the needle’s path while kicking Braxley in the knee. John could hear the snap of a broken bone as Braxley went down. He didn’t get up again.
John approached cautiously, then gave him a kick over. The needle had stabbed him high in the chest, the plunger depressing in the fall. A trail of foamy spittle tinged with red fell from Braxley’s lips as he gasped and wheezed for air.
Braxley’s mouth twitched up in an attempt at a smile, then he lay still.
“They don’t make minions like they used to.”
John spun around. He had forgotten about Moriarty.
“Pity. He could have been someone great. Had his flaws, though.” Moriarty wrinkled his nose as he looked at Braxley. “But he served his purpose, didn’t he, Sherlock?”
As if on cue, Sherlock fell to his knees.
John rushed to crouch at Sherlock’s side. He heard Moriarty laugh, but when he looked up, the man was gone.
“What do you think, doctor?” Sherlock held up his hand for inspection.
The back of his hand had already started to swell, the angry red scratch becoming lost in puffy tissue. Sweat dotted Sherlock’s brow.
John swore. Thankful that their phones had been returned to them, John quickly dialled 999 for an ambulance. Sherlock was unsteady, even on his knees, and John pulled him to lean against his shoulder, needing to keep the hand lower than his heart. “Stay with me.” He wanted to wrap a tourniquet around Sherlock’s arm, but without knowing what type of poison ran through his veins, it could do more harm than good.
“My fault,” Sherlock chastised himself. “Got careless.”
“You saved my life. A few times, actually. Ta for that.”
“Pressure’s on you t’return the favour, then.” His words slurred.
John swallowed down his panic. “How do you feel?”
“Sick.”
John gave him a small nudge with his shoulder. “Speak to me as if I were an idiot.”
Sherlock huffed a little laugh. “Skin’s tight. Was throbbing, ’s stopped now. Heat everywhere. Feverish. Head...dull.” He leaned his head back against John’s shoulder and closed his eyes. “Muscles hurt.”
“Now tell me the good news.”
John caught the ghost of a smile before it slipped away.
Sherlock swallowed and cracked open his eyes, squinting like the lights hurt them. “Still breathing.”
John heard the sound of sirens.
“Ah, more good news,” Sherlock mumbled.
“Shall we try for a hat-trick and have a happy ending?”
Sherlock didn’t respond.
John shook him, while simultaneously calling out to the med team he could hear at the entrance.
Sherlock mumbled something that John couldn’t quite make out and then there were people and Sherlock was being moved to a stretcher.
John’s ears rang as Sherlock was pulled away from him. He thought he said something about poison and syringe and hurry and don’t die.
“Are you okay, sir?”
“Sod me, save Sherlock.”
“Your friend is already on the way to the hospital.”
John looked around. A sandy-haired man checked Braxley’s body, while the other man knelt by John’s side. John could still see red spittle shining against Braxley’s lips. His eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. John turned and vomited on the nice man’s shoes. He didn’t remember much after that, except that he got his own ride in a second ambulance.
***
When John came to, he could hear beeping from a heart monitor nearby. The rush of the last 24 hours hit him like a shot of adrenaline and he sat up so fast he got dizzy and fell back against the pillows with a groan. He rolled his head to the side. Another bed rested against the far wall, and John could just make out a shock of dark curly hair against the white sheets.
John sat up, carefully this time. He realised he was in a temporary cot. Had to have been the work of Lestrade to get him in the same room and for that he was grateful. He walked the short distance to Sherlock’s bedside and dropped into a chair.
Sherlock’s injured hand had a thick bandage wrapped around it. His usually pale face had even less colour than normal.
“Took you long enough to wake up.” His voice was no more than a whisper.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping.” John scolded.
“One hears interesting things when people don’t think you can hear them.”
“You can gossip about the nursing staff later.”
The conversation was obviously taking a lot out of Sherlock and he sighed, eyes drifting closed. He blinked them back open with a little difficulty. “John. Managed the hat-trick.”
John watched Sherlock fall asleep, a smile on his face.
Rating PG-13
Spoilers: For TRF (3rd part, only)
Disclaimer: Don’t own them :(
Word Count: 2266 this part (6140 total)
Summary: John and Sherlock have been kidnapped. Will they be able to keep their heads above water? Literally?
Thanks: To my lovely beta reader, daasgrrl, for kicking this, and me, into shape. Any mistakes to be found are mine alone.
Part 1
Part 2
Mrs. Hudson was out. For that, John breathed a sigh of relief as he followed Sherlock upstairs to their flat. He really didn’t feel up to explaining how he had spent his afternoon, which included jumping the gates at the tube station. Well, Sherlock had jumped them and John had kissed his dignity goodbye and crawled underneath. “Not a word,” he had told an amused Sherlock.
Despite his newfound hatred of water, John took a quick shower, letting the water warm his chilled and chafed skin. When he entered the living room, feeling relaxed and ready to fall down and sleep for a week, he found Sherlock perched on his chair in front of the television.
Sherlock rested his chin on the tip of the remote. He had changed his clothes and had made some small attempt at running his fingers through his hair.
John joined Sherlock, wanting to see what had caught his undivided attention. A news reporter stood in front of the Chedwealth Community School. Behind him, windows were blown out and smoke was heavy in the air.
“No casualties.” John read the bottom of the screen with relief. “There’s a bit of good news, eh, Sherlock?”
Sherlock gave no reaction.
John recognized the far-off look on Sherlock’s face and didn’t bother with any further attempts at conversation. He needed time to process the last few hours himself. But before he could collapse on the couch, the doorbell rang. John groaned and changed directions, heading back downstairs to answer it.
A bored delivery person shoved a small box and a clipboard at him.
John signed for it, barely finishing the ‘n’ in his last name before the clipboard was snatched from his hands and the man was gone. John turned the box over in his hands. 221B Baker was written in ink across the top.
Sherlock was as he had left him and John tossed the box into his lap.
“Expecting a package?” John asked, finally getting to sit down in his chair and holding back a groan of contentment.
Sherlock looked down at the box, picking it up with more care than John had tossed it. He gave it a small shake, sniffed it, then brought it up to his ear. It rang. Sherlock jerked the box away from his face, startled. Then he smiled, as if amused by his gut reaction, and opened the box.
John caught the object Sherlock tossed his way. “My mobile?”
“Mine, too.” Sherlock’s fingers clicked away at the keys. “Text message. ‘Up for a bit of sport?’ ” he read. “ ’Meet me, 1hr. A. B.’ ” Sherlock stood.
“You’re going?”
“Of course. Stay if you’d like.”
He would very much like. Yet he still stood and followed Sherlock towards the stairs, grabbing some money off the table for cab fare. No unauthorized tube ride this time. He started to go for the drawer that held his gun, but remembered it had been on him that morning and whoever had drugged them still had it. He doubted it would be delivered to their door in a second package any time soon.
“Drop us as close to Chedwealth Community School as you can get,” Sherlock told the driver.
John didn’t argue with the directions, but he did argue the wisdom of not telling Lestrade, or anyone else, where they were going. “I don’t like this.”
Sherlock ignored his protest, watching out the window as the occasional emergency vehicle sped by.
The cab dropped them off about a block away from the school. John paid the man, then hurried to catch up with Sherlock as he made a large loop around the site of the bomb blast. John could hear Lestrade ordering his team about and the knowledge that he was close took the edge off his worry. He followed Sherlock towards another freestanding building. “Where are we?” He had to speak up to be heard over the sirens.
“The sports hall.” Sherlock stopped at the door, checking over his shoulder before opening it a crack and slipping through.
The door led directly to the gymnasium floor. A single bank of lights down the middle of the basketball court bisected the darkness with a strip of light.
Sherlock didn’t seem to be holding any of the fear that John did about stepping into the light, being on display for whatever lurked in the darkness.
“I really don’t like this,” John repeated, sensing eyes on him, his neck prickling. His fingers itched and he wished he had his gun. He didn’t want to play any more games.
There was movement to their right and a basketball came out from the shadows, making its way lazily towards them, part bounce, part roll. Sherlock sidestepped away from it, narrowing his eyes at the direction it had come from.
Footsteps to their left. Sherlock turned, while John was more reluctant to turn his back on whoever might have tossed the ball.
A man appeared from the darkness. He had on a business suit, padded at the elbows. Expensive, custom made. His tie was a matching steel grey. He seemed to take great pleasure in the noise his expensive shoes made with every step. John instantly recognized him as Braxley. “Boys enjoy your swim?” he asked.
“Not particularly,” Sherlock answered, as casual as though answering a question about the weather.
“Shame. Maybe you’ll enjoy the encore. But first, someone I’d like you to meet.”
From the opposite side of the court, where the ball had come from, another man stepped out into the light, just as immaculately dressed as Braxley.
Sherlock smiled without humour. “And the dead shall walk.”
“Hell was full.” Moriarty. “Hi.”
Against his better judgement, John turned his back on Braxley, and stared, mouth falling open, but words failing him. Sherlock had said he’d seen Moriarty die, had seen the blood spread across the concrete, had seen brain matter floating in it before he’d had to look away. Even though the body had vanished from the rooftop, leaving behind only a dried stain of blood, John had never doubted the maniac was dead. Until now.
“So it was you all along,” Sherlock said, jaw tense.
When Moriarty spoke, it was to Braxley, not Sherlock. “And you didn’t think they would notice the belt.” He tutted.
“You had a camera on us,” Sherlock commented.
“It was very touching. Award-worthy, even. But sequels are never as good as their predecessors.” Moriarty glanced over to Sherlock before addressing Braxley once more. “Shall we prove that wrong as well?”
“I’d love to,” Braxley answered as Sherlock and John quickly turned back towards him. He loosened his tie and removed his suit jacket. Then he reached into the pocket before tossing the jacket aside.
John tensed. But Sherlock remained calm and poised. Though that had also been Sherlock’s reaction to having a gun pointed at his head, so John couldn’t quite relax yet.
As the jacket fell, it revealed that Braxley now held a syringe, the needle glinting in the dim light.
Now Sherlock did tense, if only a fraction. “Do you plan to try and drug us again? Toss us in another tank?”
“I’m just a touch more imaginative than that. No offence,” he added with a slight bow toward Moriarty. “This is not your everyday sedative.” Braxley held up the syringe, looking at John even though he was speaking to Sherlock, “This here’s special. Something I’ve been working on for a while.” His grin was predatory, and John felt ice in his veins. “This will send hellfire running through you. Then you die.”
Moriarty clapped suddenly, the sound loud and echoing in the gymnasium.
John jumped, the sound so similar to gunfire that he almost dove to the ground. Even Sherlock appeared startled at the reminder there was a fourth person in the room.
Braxley picked that moment to charge not at Sherlock, but at John.
John recovered from the noise and braced himself, calling on what he remembered of his hand-to-hand combat training. But Sherlock side-tackled Braxley before John could do more than take a step backwards in preparation.
As soon as the men landed on the ground, Sherlock danced away from the wild swing of the syringe and he placed himself between Braxley and John.
“You’ve got yourself a guard dog,” Moriarty commented.
Braxley rose back to his feet and pulled the wrinkles out of his shirt. Then he charged again, this time at Sherlock.
Sherlock caught the man’s wrist with both hands, halting the downward plummet of the needle.
Braxley had the syringe gripped in his fist, the same way one would wield a knife, but he quickly opened his hand, dropping his grip to two fingers. The new position allowed a bit more movement, which he used to his advantage by scratching Sherlock across the back of his hand.
It all happened so fast. Too fast.
Sherlock twisted away, changing the direction of the needle’s path while kicking Braxley in the knee. John could hear the snap of a broken bone as Braxley went down. He didn’t get up again.
John approached cautiously, then gave him a kick over. The needle had stabbed him high in the chest, the plunger depressing in the fall. A trail of foamy spittle tinged with red fell from Braxley’s lips as he gasped and wheezed for air.
Braxley’s mouth twitched up in an attempt at a smile, then he lay still.
“They don’t make minions like they used to.”
John spun around. He had forgotten about Moriarty.
“Pity. He could have been someone great. Had his flaws, though.” Moriarty wrinkled his nose as he looked at Braxley. “But he served his purpose, didn’t he, Sherlock?”
As if on cue, Sherlock fell to his knees.
John rushed to crouch at Sherlock’s side. He heard Moriarty laugh, but when he looked up, the man was gone.
“What do you think, doctor?” Sherlock held up his hand for inspection.
The back of his hand had already started to swell, the angry red scratch becoming lost in puffy tissue. Sweat dotted Sherlock’s brow.
John swore. Thankful that their phones had been returned to them, John quickly dialled 999 for an ambulance. Sherlock was unsteady, even on his knees, and John pulled him to lean against his shoulder, needing to keep the hand lower than his heart. “Stay with me.” He wanted to wrap a tourniquet around Sherlock’s arm, but without knowing what type of poison ran through his veins, it could do more harm than good.
“My fault,” Sherlock chastised himself. “Got careless.”
“You saved my life. A few times, actually. Ta for that.”
“Pressure’s on you t’return the favour, then.” His words slurred.
John swallowed down his panic. “How do you feel?”
“Sick.”
John gave him a small nudge with his shoulder. “Speak to me as if I were an idiot.”
Sherlock huffed a little laugh. “Skin’s tight. Was throbbing, ’s stopped now. Heat everywhere. Feverish. Head...dull.” He leaned his head back against John’s shoulder and closed his eyes. “Muscles hurt.”
“Now tell me the good news.”
John caught the ghost of a smile before it slipped away.
Sherlock swallowed and cracked open his eyes, squinting like the lights hurt them. “Still breathing.”
John heard the sound of sirens.
“Ah, more good news,” Sherlock mumbled.
“Shall we try for a hat-trick and have a happy ending?”
Sherlock didn’t respond.
John shook him, while simultaneously calling out to the med team he could hear at the entrance.
Sherlock mumbled something that John couldn’t quite make out and then there were people and Sherlock was being moved to a stretcher.
John’s ears rang as Sherlock was pulled away from him. He thought he said something about poison and syringe and hurry and don’t die.
“Are you okay, sir?”
“Sod me, save Sherlock.”
“Your friend is already on the way to the hospital.”
John looked around. A sandy-haired man checked Braxley’s body, while the other man knelt by John’s side. John could still see red spittle shining against Braxley’s lips. His eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. John turned and vomited on the nice man’s shoes. He didn’t remember much after that, except that he got his own ride in a second ambulance.
***
When John came to, he could hear beeping from a heart monitor nearby. The rush of the last 24 hours hit him like a shot of adrenaline and he sat up so fast he got dizzy and fell back against the pillows with a groan. He rolled his head to the side. Another bed rested against the far wall, and John could just make out a shock of dark curly hair against the white sheets.
John sat up, carefully this time. He realised he was in a temporary cot. Had to have been the work of Lestrade to get him in the same room and for that he was grateful. He walked the short distance to Sherlock’s bedside and dropped into a chair.
Sherlock’s injured hand had a thick bandage wrapped around it. His usually pale face had even less colour than normal.
“Took you long enough to wake up.” His voice was no more than a whisper.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping.” John scolded.
“One hears interesting things when people don’t think you can hear them.”
“You can gossip about the nursing staff later.”
The conversation was obviously taking a lot out of Sherlock and he sighed, eyes drifting closed. He blinked them back open with a little difficulty. “John. Managed the hat-trick.”
John watched Sherlock fall asleep, a smile on his face.