Cemetery Road - Chapters 1-6

[revwestwood]

Title: Cemetery Road
Author
revwestwood
Rating: Teen (Mild Violence, Medical Situations)
Status: WIP
Characters: Sherlock, John, Lestrade, Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson
Spoilers: Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Just having a bit of fun.

Summary: "You think that their dying is the worst thing that could happen. Then they stay dead."

Sherlock returns to 221B to take out the last strands of Moriarty's web with John's help, but Sherlock underestimates just how far that web stretched. This time, Sherlock won't fall alone.

Author's Notes: Thanks to my friends who encouraged this whole process. I. owe. you.



Part 1

Mrs. Hudson’s dismayed exclamation easily reaches the upstairs sitting room. “For heaven’s sake!” she says to no one in particular, “Shoving rubbish through a mail slot! What is the world coming to?”

John and Sherlock leap from the sofa with a simultaneous cry of “Mrs. Hudson!” John crashes to the floor in a cloud of obscenity, tangled in the laptop cord. Sherlock reaches their landlady before she manages to bend down to pick up the refuse.

“Please, Mrs. Hudson! Allow me.” Sherlock gently takes Mrs. Hudson by the shoulders and guides her away from the tiny pile of kabob sticks, crumpled tissues, and empty food wrappers.

Mrs. Hudson protests mildly, “Sherlock, it’s fine. For once this isn’t your mess; you really don’t have to...”

“Yes, he does,” says John, limping slightly down the stairs. “Remember about delivery people and packages? It’s really better if Sherlock or I handle them. At least for right now.”

“But it’s rubbish,” Mrs. Hudson gestures to the pile, flustered. “How is rubbish a package?”

“All the same, if it comes through the mail slot, best let us handle it,” John says stepping in front of Mrs. Hudson so they can make eye contact. “All right?”

“Yes, all right,” she sighs. “You boys handle the leavings of rude teenagers if you want. They interrupted my program anyway.” She looks at Sherlock crouching over the pile with confused concern then returns to her flat. Coronation Street gets louder then softer as she opens and shuts her door.

“So,” says John, turning back to Sherlock. “Is it one of yours?”

“Yes. I’ve been expecting this.” Sherlock picks through the pile with careful efficiency. “Here!” he shouts, standing, and presents a greasy bag that once held Prawn Cocktail flavored crisps with a triumphant flourish to John.

John’s eyes flick to the bag then to Sherlock. “I’m not touching that.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes and dumps the contents of the bag into his own palm. Orange flakes of crisp and a small scrap of paper fall into it. The paper is nearly translucent with vegetable oil, but it is still possible to read: “Ferrier Estates. Wixom House. 5F. Kitchen.”

Sherlock’s eyes gleam with excitement.

“This is it, John. The last one.”

He holds John’s gaze for a long moment, the hand with the crisp debris and paper scrap held out as if offering the contents to John. John stares back, wondering what sort of reaction Sherlock wants because clearly he is expecting John to do or say something.

The doorbell rings and John jumps. Sherlock tosses the crisp bag over his shoulder and stuffs the paper into his trouser pocket. With his foot he shoves the rest of the rubbish out of the way of the door so he can open it.

The man in the trench coat at the door opens his mouth to say something, but Sherlock is already speaking.

“Don’t bother. You’re too late. The gas has seeped in. The bomb’s gone off. The fire’s already reached the second floor. Tell my brother if he is going to have us spied on 24 hours a day it would behoove him to get someone at least slightly competent to do the job.”

He slams the door and turns back to John. “Fancy a Tube ride?”

Part 2

The Tube ride is long and crowded, necessitating a trip into the center of London before they can switch trains and head south. A heavier than usual April rain seems to have driven most of the city underground. Mercifully, the crushing press of humanity steadily thins with each stop as they approach their destination.

It’s a short walk from Kidbrooke Station to the Ferrier Estate. The rain has settled into a misty drizzle, blanketing the six massive, empty council houses in a gray haze. It’s easy to imagine a lunatic social scientist masterminding an experiment to crush the souls of Britain’s working class using nothing but endless towers of utilitarian concrete. But no, these estates were designed by the great bureaucratic committees of the 1960s. Maybe that’s worse.

Rubble-strewn craters mark where several of the towers have been demolished in the last few years. One house is half gone, its top stories and much of its left half sheared off. John has the bizarre thought that the house is in pain-vulnerable with its interior rooms, prefabricated dry wall, and torn rebar exposed to the elements. Afghanistan is suddenly much closer than he wants. He shakes his head to dislodge these flashing memories, forcing his breath to be even and deep.

“Charming,” John says after several long minutes of silence. “You take me to the nicest places.” Sherlock doesn’t respond. He is surveying the grounds and the remaining towers, hands in pockets, coat collar turned up. They are standing on a broken asphalt road leading into the Estate and next to a giant sign with a map of the complex, which is almost unrecognizable due to all the graffiti covering it. It is oddly quiet. Besides the rain dripping softly, the wind rustling a few scraggly trees not quite budding, and the A2 in the distance, Ferrier Estate is silent, deserted.

“Well,” says John, used to being the only one participating in a conversation, “That’s not going to be much use.” He jerks his thumb toward the sign. “Which one’s Wixom, then?” He’s not sure if it would be good or bad for them if Wixom House is already a pile of dust and asbestos.

“This way,” Sherlock strides up the road, taking the first branch to the right, past the half-demolished building.

John trots to catch up, falling into step beside him and lengthening his own stride more than is strictly comfortable, but John is used to that too. “You really think this is the last one? How can you be sure?”

Sherlock had spent most of the last year systematically hunting down and destroying the many strands of the web Moriarty had left behind, the web meant to ensure Sherlock stayed dead and disgraced unless he wanted his friends to take his place.

Sherlock was efficient in taking down the network. Codes broken, computer systems hacked, mobiles stolen, contacts impersonated, decoys planted. It had all come tumbling down. Having Mycroft Holmes for a brother provided most of the necessary resources.

It was also Mycroft who convinced Sherlock it was time to come home, although John had not known that at the time. John had not been...coping...well. It had been months since the fall, but his PTSD was getting steadily worse. Days would pass without sleep, and when he did manage it, he always woke screaming. Battlefield nightmares merged with more recent events: every IED went off in London, every bullet lodged in his shoulder came from Moriarty’s gun, every mangled corpse had Sherlock’s bloody face. Sleeping pills, strong ones, were the only way he managed some respite.

Mycroft’s surveillance noticed that John was filling his prescription for Halcion at multiple chemists. Mycroft knew Sherlock’s progress. He knew that there could only possibly be a few tiny threads left of Moriarty’s web. Sherlock’s obsessiveness was such that Mycroft knew his brother would fight coming home until the crusade was complete, but he also knew Sherlock had not anticipated this particular danger. So Mycroft implied that perhaps John was hoarding pills. Sherlock came home.

John didn’t like to dwell on the cocoon of grief Sherlock had deemed vital to protect him. His relief at having him back outweighed the anger. Most of the time. They had had those arguments and probably would again every time Sherlock took reckless chances or made impulsive decisions without consulting John. “It’s not just you now, Sherlock,” John had told him at the end of that first row. “If we’re doing this together then it has to be together. No more shutting me out. No more lies to protect me. No more...leaving. I can’t do that again. Not ever again.”

Sherlock answers, nudging John back to the present moment. “It is the last because it’s the only drop point left with any chance of still being active, though I doubt that it still is. All signs point to this being the one phone Moriarty left ringing that no one has answered.”

“A ringing phone?” John’s brow furrows. “Sherlock, I find it hard to imagine any of these buildings still have electricity much less-”

“It’s a metaphor, John.” Sherlock interrupts with a sigh. “Obviously not an actual phone. I neutralized the last of those in October.”

“Ah. Right,” says John, as if this makes any sort of sense. “So...”

“So Moriarty’s communication network relied on computers, mobiles, encrypted databases, and files. It was global and instantaneous, which meant high tech. But he was smart. He knew that every bit of technology, no matter how sophisticated, is vulnerable. That’s one account on which I was only too happy to prove him right. So he had backup methods to send instructions. And backups for his backups. Every layer I’ve discovered and eliminated has revealed another, each progressively more primitive in nature but no less effective.”

They arrive at Wixom House, the faded painted letters still legible over the blue metal doors that lead to the lobby. Sherlock approaches the doors with his lock picking kit already in his hand. He frowns. The door handles are chained and padlocked. Sherlock looks disappointed and puts the kit back in his coat pocket, removing a set of keys instead. He pops open the padlock with a master key and lets the chain fall to the ground. He opens one of the doors with a flourish and a smile in John’s direction then enters the building.

John peers into the dark lobby, turns on his torch, and follows on Sherlock’s heels, wishing for the hundredth time that Lestrade had not confiscated his gun.

Part 3

In the lobby, the paint is peeling off the walls in jagged strips, giving the shadows cast by the torch a sinister asymmetry. A filthy mattress is blocking the stairway landing, held up by an overturned sofa that looks and smells like it has been set on fire and doused with urine. Often. John puts a hand over his mouth in an attempt to quell the stench. Sherlock crinkles his nose but makes his way toward the fetid furniture sculpture. He hesitates only briefly before pushing at the mattress. It doesn’t budge.

“John, put the torch down and help me.”

John sighs heavily and immediately regrets it. Seriously, how can anything smell this bad? He leaves the torch on, setting it on the disintegrating linoleum floor.

“Moriarty couldn’t have hidden the last drop point at the Ritz? Or maybe the Louvre? I hear lots of madmen hide world-altering secrets in the Louvre,” John says, grabbing the mattress in the least stained corner.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Pull!” Sherlock pushes the mattress with his shoulder while John tugs from the other side. “I cleared out the Louvre in July,” he grunts.

The mattress topples over into the lobby, followed by a dozen scurrying, squeaking shadows.

“Jesus!” shouts John, falling back onto the stairs. Sherlock helps him stand and continues up the staircase.

“Just rats, John.”

“Yeah, I know that. But did you see them? I’ve seen smaller Labradors.”

“No, you haven’t,” calls Sherlock from the second floor. A pause. “Dachshunds, maybe.”

John kicks at the sofa a few times to be certain the rodent exodus is complete before hurriedly fetching the torch and running up the stairs after Sherlock.

Sherlock gets to use his lock picking kit on the door to 5F, which seems to please him, releasing the tumbler in a matter of seconds and pushing the door open with a gentle but confident shove. The windows haven’t been boarded up this high, and murky light filters into the hallway.

“Well. That’s something then,” says John, switching off the torch.

Sherlock looks at John sharply, putting a shushing finger to his own lips. He side-steps into the flat, keeping flush with the wall.

“What? Really?” John whispers, “Now we’re being sneaky?”

The flat is tiny: sitting room, kitchen, loo, and two oversized cupboards that can almost pass for bedrooms. It takes less than a minute to be sure they are alone. There is nothing in the flat except stale air. In the kitchen stand a tiny refrigerator and oven that must have been installed when the building was new. Sherlock opens the refrigerator, the oven, the cabinet doors, peers down the sink drain using the torch. He does a circuit of the entire flat, then returns to the kitchen, repeating his previous steps faster, then slower, then fast again.

John stations himself in the sitting room, just outside the kitchen door where he can observe without becoming an obstacle. Sherlock is on his back, looking under the sink like a car mechanic. From the banging, John knows Sherlock is getting frustrated. Sherlock gets up with a grimace, his teeth on edge. He jumps onto the counter and removes the light fixture, dumping a disturbing amount of desiccated insect corpses into the sink. He paws through them, and then tosses the plastic dome into the sink with an exoskeletal crunch. Sherlock runs his hands through his hair, pacing in a smaller circle now.

“So, what exactly are we looking for?” John asks, knowing that speaking right now might not be the best choice he could make.

“A message in a bottle,” Sherlock answers distractedly.

John nods, willing to accept the brush off, then stops. “Really? That’s not a metaphor?”

Sherlock stops pacing and looks at John for the first time since entering the flat. “No, John, not a metaphor. A literal message in a literal bottle.”

John pictures pirates and treasure and lost maidens on desert islands. Moriarty’s network really did have some primitive backup.

Sherlock is on his hands and knees, face pressed to the floor, straining to see under the refrigerator, then the oven, with the torch. “John!” He is excited now. “There’s something here!” He jumps up and hands the torch to John. “Reach under and get it!”

“Sherlock, my hands aren’t really that much smaller than yours, you know,” John protests, but Sherlock is pushing him down.

“You reach under and get it. I will lift the oven. Mine is the more difficult task.” Sherlock takes a wide stance over John, preparing to lift the oven.

John wants to say that it is only more difficult until the ancient appliance crushes his arm, but he knows it would do no good. He gets on his stomach and peers under the oven. It’s possible there is something hanging down, flush with the underside of the oven.

“Do you see it?” Sherlock demands.

“Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock strains and manages to tip the oven back against the wall, raising the front of it off the floor by about two inches. It’s enough. John grabs the object and snatches his hand back. Sherlock drops the oven the instant John’s hand is clear.

John is holding the tiniest chemist’s bottle he has ever seen. He can’t imagine it could hold more than a few pills. A magnet has been glued to the outside. Inside there is a roll of paper.

“Message in a bottle,” John says softly, stands, and hands it to Sherlock.

Sherlock hesitates, suddenly wary of the implications of the tiny plastic bottle, the likes of which he hasn’t seen since the night his new flatmate killed a man for him. He takes it from John gingerly, picking it up vertically between thumb and forefinger. He holds it up to the light of the window, his head at an angle as he studies it. He finally uncaps the bottle and shakes the paper into his palm, unrolling the tiny scroll.

It’s a photograph of a pudgy middle-aged man in a wool cap. On the bottom is written a name and what Sherlock immediately recognizes as a hackney license number.

John looks at the picture over Sherlock’s arm. “Wait... that’s... That’s the cabbie! Isn’t it? That’s the cabbie who tried to kill you!”

“The same,” murmurs Sherlock, his gaze lost out the kitchen window.

“But this means...” says John, eyebrows knit as he contemplates the photo. He looks up at Sherlock. “What does this mean?”

“This was Moriarty’s insurance policy, in case he needed the cabbie removed early from the equation.” Sherlock stays facing the window, eyes flicking side to side. “But you ended that scenario for him.”

John swallows thickly, looking down at the picture again. He imagines photos of Sherlock’s face, Mrs. Hudson’s face, Lestrade’s face, his face rolled up and stuffed into tiny hidden bottles across London.

“So Moriarty wanted the cabbie dead?”

“No,” answers Sherlock. “At least, not when you shot him. If he had wanted him dead, this bottle would be empty. Its message would have been retrieved ages ago.”

“So...” John continues, still confused. “This is a dead end.”

Sherlock stiffens then whirls to face him, grabbing John by the shoulders. “Yes! It is! A dead end!”

John is baffled by Sherlock’s excitement. This man despises dead ends. He should be working himself into a proper snit now, not shouting with glee.

“I’m...glad you are taking this so well,” John manages.

“Of course! Don’t you see? It’s a dead end! The dead end! No more paths to follow! No more strings to cut! The web is finally gone! Finished! It’s over, John!”

Sherlock is spinning them both now, and John can’t help but grin at the display and what this means for Sherlock. For both of them. No more Moriarty’s ghost. No more guards. No more fear at every strange sound and shadow. They can have their lives back. Sherlock can solve cases, and John can blog about them, and everything can go back to normal. Whatever normal means for them. John can’t wait to find out.

Sherlock releases John and leaves the flat with a bounce in his step. John follows him, still grinning. Sherlock practically skips down the stairs, vaulting over that horrid sofa and mattress. He opens the lobby door and gallantly gestures that John should go first.

John laughs and exits the council house with Sherlock right behind him. The rain has stopped, and the sky is on fire with sunset.

“This calls for a celebration,” Sherlock announces. “Hungry?”

“Starving, actually.” John looks over his shoulder, grinning even wider. “Angelo’s?”

Sherlock returns the grin. “In that case, I really should call us a-”

Sherlock’s sudden silence is the only warning John has.

He turns just in time to face the dark figure as he steps around the corner and strikes.

Part 4

The blow knocks John hard onto his back, causing his head to hit the pavement and his vision to dim to near blackness before fuzzily brightening again.

Jesus. Had he just been punched? By whom?

He tries to take a breath and sit up but can’t. He must have had his wind knocked out.

Who attacked them? Sherlock! Where was Sherlock?

John gasps for air and struggles to move his head, searching for Sherlock with frantic eyes.

There’s a hollow ringing in his ears and everything is muffled, as if he is at the bottom of a well, but he can make out the sounds of a scuffle somewhere close by. Shoes scraping on asphalt. Grunts, short cries, and a dull clattering. A slamming sound and a hoarse yell. A wet cracking followed by a definitive thud of a body collapsing to the ground.

Then just blood thundering in John’s ears.

“Sherlock!” John shouts but it comes out more like a cough.

Sherlock appears, crouching above John’s head. His bottom lip is swelling, and his scarf is gone. Raw, red welts stand out on his pale neck. “John! Come on! We can’t stay here. There may be more. Get up!”

“Are you all right?” John asks. Or tries to. His voice barely comes out at a whisper.

A succession of emotions ripple across Sherlock’s face in an instant as his gray eyes scan John. Mouth tightening in annoyance. Head tilting ever so slightly in confusion. Brow furrowing in concern. Eyes narrowing in assessment and then widening in fear.

Understanding floods through John as he watches Sherlock’s face. He tries again for air and finds it is getting harder, not easier.

Of course. Not punched. Stabbed.

He’s been stabbed.

Funny, being shot felt like fire. This feels like thick water, far heavier than water has any right to be. John lifts his head, his chin disappearing into his neck as he cranes to see his chest. Ah. There. Red blossoming asymmetrically on the front of John’s cream cable-knit jumper several inches below his heart. Well, at least the knife missed his heart. His lung on the other hand...

Even though he knows what will happen, or what won’t happen, John gasps for more air and gets nothing but a wet wheeze for his efforts. His chest feels like it might explode. His left lung has been punctured. Collapsed. The air it once held has escaped into his chest cavity and is in the process of collapsing his right lung as well with every breath he takes. He flashes back to an operating theater at St. Bart’s. He and a dozen other medical students standing around the body of a young man killed in a car wreck, watching as the teaching physician cracks open the rib cage to show them deflated gray lungs, crushed impossibly flat against the man’s spine. “A perfect example of pneumothorax,” the doctor had told them.

John’s self-diagnosis is interrupted in a blinding wave of pain as Sherlock hoists him from beneath his armpits and drags him between a dead hulk of a Volkswagen and the cement wall of the council house, providing them both with a bit more cover

John would have screamed if that had been physically possible. There is the fire! The water is on fire now.

Sherlock is tearing at the wool jumper, roughly pulling it over John’s head. John’s back arches in agony, which only makes everything worse. He pants uselessly.

No air being exchanged. Nothing.

“Can’t breathe,” John mouths. Sherlock glances at him briefly but says nothing.

Oh God. Sherlock didn’t insult him for pointing out the obvious. This is bad. Sherlock’s long fingers fight to open John’s brown plaid shirt, finally ripping it in frustration, the buttons popping off into the dark alley and beneath the car. Blood seeps with startling speed from the wound on his bare chest. John looks at it but then puts his head back down again, his eyes shutting tightly then opening wide. This is very bad.

But, then, John knows that. How often had he been in Sherlock’s position, staring down at some terrified 19-year-old kid who just left two of his limbs and most of his guts on the battlefield? At least John had had a med kit in Afghanistan. There were tourniquets and thoracostomy tubes and lovely morphine in a med kit. All they had now was a filthy alley and a rusty Volkswagen Polo.

No. This can’t be happening. This isn’t fair. After everything they’d been through, everything they had managed to overcome, after everything he had survived, why now? Why now when he had just gotten Sherlock back? When everything was finally going to be all right again?

Sherlock is pressing the jumper sleeve onto the wound, kneeling next to John and looking about frantically. With one hand squashing John’s chest with sodden wool and pressure, he reaches into his coat pocket with the other and retrieves his mobile phone, hurriedly pressing a series of buttons with his thumb. His eyes continue their manic scan of the empty road as he shouts into the phone, “Mycroft! We’re at the Ferrier Estate, by Wixom House. We’ve been attacked.” The briefest of pauses. “No, I...John’s been injured. He’s... What? No! Send everything! ... Everything! Just get here! Now!”

He tosses the phone aside and moves up onto the balls of his feet, looking as though he’s about to spring up and run.

John grabs Sherlock’s wrist without consciously deciding to, keeping him there. Fear is taking him now, worse than Afghanistan, worse than the tunnel or the pool, worse even than Baskerville. The initial shock is wearing off. Every cell in his body screams for the oxygen it cannot get.

John knows this is finally happening and there is no way to stop it.

John locks eyes with Sherlock, and Sherlock freezes in mid-rise.

John wants to say so much, but speaking is impossible now. He wants to tell him that he doesn’t want this. That he is sorry that Sherlock has to watch because he knows what that will do to him. That he is sorry for what Sherlock will go through next because he knows that hell all too well. He wants Sherlock to promise to eat and to sleep and to keep...going. He wants to at least say goodbye.

Sherlock holds John’s gaze for a long moment, eyebrows knitting. He exhales raggedly.

“Shut up, John,” he says and bolts away.

Part 5

John listens as Sherlock’s footfalls recede around the corner, pause, then come back toward him. John lifts his head, but the effort is almost too much. Still, keeping Sherlock in sight feels like the single most important thing he can do right now.

Looking past the undercarriage of the Volkswagen, he can make out Sherlock’s shoes on the other side. Glass shatters and the car door is pried open. Sherlock reaches in, pulls something, and then raises the bonnet with a metallic protest.

“Yes!” Sherlock shouts at the engine block. He dives into it, ripping and pulling.

John’s head is too heavy. It falls painfully back onto the asphalt. Blackness is chewing away the edges of his vision

Sherlock is kneeling beside him again, rolling his wool coat and gently placing it beneath John’s head. He’s speaking rapidly, and John struggles to listen, to hear what Sherlock is telling him.

“...We can do this, John. There’s no reason why this won’t work. It will work. It’s simple, really. Show me how.”

Sherlock is holding something and looking at him.

What the hell?

John can’t make his brain work. Everything is moving too slowly and too quickly at the same time. The aching fire in his chest is spreading, radiating out. He feels like he is falling. His hands scrabble on the asphalt and clutch at nothing.

“John!” Sherlock sets the object aside and grabs John’s head in both hands. “I can do this, but I need you to help me! I need you to focus!”

Sherlock picks up the object again and holds it in front of John’s face. John blinks. It’s a long stiletto blade, wet with blood. His blood, John realizes dimly.

Sherlock lifts a nest of coolant tubes he has torn from the Volkswagen so John can see those as well.

Oh.

Oh, my God.

John understands what Sherlock means to do.

It might work.

Sherlock takes John’s left hand and fits it around his own.

“Show me, John. Show me where.”

John’s vision is narrowing into a gray tunnel, but he doesn’t need to see. With Sherlock’s help, he brings their hands to the side of his chest, probing weakly with his thumb as he finds the space between his fourth and fifth rib. He stops, leaving his thumb in the spot. He looks at Sherlock at the other end of the tunnel and gives him the slightest of nods.

There.

Sherlock places John’s hand back on the asphalt and puts the knife tip on the spot John indicated. Without hesitation, he plunges the blade in several inches.

John’s back arches again, and Sherlock firmly presses him back down, removing the blade. “Try to be still. This next part might be challenging.”

Sherlock uses the knife to cut a foot-long section of the coolant tube, quickly boring three holes into one end. He inserts the blade back into the incision he’s made and glances at John. “This is probably going to hurt.”

Sherlock lifts up on the blade, opening the incision wider and shoving the mouth of the tube into the wound.

John doesn’t pass out, but he wishes to God he would. He didn’t know it was possible to feel pain like this, and he considers himself an expert on the subject. Sherlock is twisting the tube. Just leave it, John wants to scream. There’s a tugging sensation on the far side of the pain and quite suddenly the exploding pressure in his chest is diminished.

John gasps with the sudden relief but there is still no oxygen.

Sherlock is above him now, his face hovering just over John’s. His lips close over John’s mouth, and he forces a steady breath into John’s lungs.

Air.

The inside of John’s chest feels like it was hollowed out with a Brillo pad, and his puncture wounds burn as though made of acid, but he has never felt anything so wonderful as this.

Air.

Breathing.

Definitely not boring.

Part 6

John wallows in the magnificence of breathing, his vision clearing with each swallow of air. After a few gulps he looks over at Sherlock, who has removed his suit jacket and is shredding one of the sleeves with the help of the knife. “You’re all right. You’re all right,” he mutters just under his breath, ripping the sleeve into long strips. Sherlock’s tone makes it a statement, not a question.

“Sherlock,” John says and starts coughing. “Ow,” he manages when the fit subsides. He tries shallower breaths. That seems to help. “Sherlock,” he starts again, “It worked. It’s OK.”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock says, working one of the fabric strips around the tube sticking from John’s chest in an attempt to lessen the bleeding. He moves to John’s first puncture wound next, removing the soggy jumper sleeve and baring his teeth as blood continues to seep steadily from the hole. He repacks the wound with more strips, pressing down as hard as he dares.

Sherlock is surprisingly gentle in his ministrations, John muses. He would have made a good doctor. Then John starts to giggle, which leads to another coughing fit.

When it stops, Sherlock is staring at him with a mixture of bafflement and horror. John shakes his head weakly. “Sorry.”

Sherlock swallows. “Don’t be. I look forward to hearing what is so amusing later.” He lifts the bandage compress quickly and then immediately replaces it.

Still looking at his hands he says, “John...”

“Yeah,” John interrupts, “I know.”

“Tell me what to do.”

John’s eyes flick to the Volkswagen. “I don’t suppose there might be a few pints of O negative in the boot?” he asks and attempts a smile.

“John,” Sherlock says again. “What do I do? Tell me. What do I do?”

His voice is so vulnerable that John is actually stunned. Sherlock never sounds like this. He’s never heard him without at least a modicum of arrogance, a hint of confidence. This is frightening.

John looks into Sherlock’s waiting eyes, eager for his answer, and he wishes more than anything that he knew how to lie to this man.

There was a time when he thought he could. Sherlock had let him know as only Sherlock could that John was perhaps the world’s worst liar. It was not long after his return, and Sherlock had said something callous about trust issues, which sent John off on a pacing rant about being lied to by everyone he cared about.

Sherlock brought John up short by simply saying, “Irene Adler is alive.”

John had frozen, his mouth opening and closing slowly. “What?” he had managed. And then, “I mean...of course. Yes. I know that. She’s...in America.”

Sherlock had stood then, looking down at John and bringing their height difference into stark relief. “Irene. Adler. Is. Alive,” he bit out.

John tried to hold his gaze but couldn’t. He looked down and said, “Why are you telling me this?”

“You know why.” Sherlock’s eyes were boring into the top of John’s head.

John cleared his throat. “OK. Right. Sherlock, I’m sorry. I thought that it would be easier for you if... How long have you known?”

Sherlock turned away suddenly and said flippantly, “Known what?”

John sighed heavily. “That Irene is dead.”

Sherlock flopped onto the sofa. “I’ve never known that.”

John pursed his lips together and took several deep breaths through his nose. When he felt like he wouldn’t just start yelling he said, “Sherlock, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but-”

“You cannot lie, John,” Sherlock stated frankly. “At least not to me. Although it’s difficult for me to imagine how you could effectively lie to anyone. Your voice. Your face. It’s all wrong.”

John’s brows were properly knit now. “My face?”

“You know that Irene is dead. I know that she is alive,” Sherlock continued. “I know that because she is alive, not because you told me she is alive. When you told me she was alive, you told me she was dead even though you could not have known you were telling me the truth because you most certainly were not. Except you were.”

“What?” John asked, very flustered now. This must be what going mad felt like.

Sherlock sat up on the sofa and looked at John again. “Irene was never dead. I helped her fake her beheading, but that’s not important.”

“Not important,” John mumbled.

“No! What’s important is that you are a terrible liar, and you should never do it! Your only chance of success in this arena, a slight chance at that, is omitting truth. Lying...is just not your area, John.”

John nodded slowly, sinking into his armchair. “Right. Well then.”

“Now,” said Sherlock, “I suggest you stop thinking about all of this immediately. I’d rather Mycroft didn’t find out.”

The conversation comes back to John as he looks at Sherlock. He couldn’t lie. As much as he might like to try the omitting the truth gamble, just to make Sherlock stop looking at him like this, it doesn’t seem like the time for that. No lies. Not now.

“You’re already doing it, Sherlock. You’ve already done it,” John says gently. “The pressure will slow some of the bleeding.” He takes a few shallow breaths and continues, “The lung is going to keep bleeding into the chest cavity. The tube will give the blood a way to escape so the other one shouldn’t collapse again, so don’t block the tube.”

“But...” Sherlock says softly.

John nods slightly. “But surgery is the only way to stop it.”

Sherlock’s eyes flit over the empty street again, then look upward, scanning the rooftops and overcast night sky. “Mycroft’s people are coming, John. You will be in hospital soon. You can wait.” Another command.

“Yeah,” says John. “Yeah, I can wait. I’m good at waiting. Lots of practice, me.”

Sherlock looks back at John, unsure of what to make of that.

John smiles to be reassuring, but it takes a lot of effort. So does talking. And breathing. He is so tired now. It’s not the crushing sleepiness of 36-hour field unit shifts or the heavy fatigue of depression. It’s light. He feels as though he could just float away. Wouldn’t it be lovely to just rest his eyes for a moment?

“Sherlock, I want to tell you something.”

Sherlock shakes his head. “No.”

John squints at him. “No?”

“No,” Sherlock repeats. “You’re not saying goodbye. I won’t let you.”

“I wasn’t...” John starts, then stops. He begins again. “I want to say thank you.”

Sherlock looks startled. “You don’t need to thank me. You would have done the same for me.” He looks down at the tube leading from John’s chest, now leaking blood freely. He swallows hard.

“Not the tube, Sherlock,” John says, “Although ta for that. And yes, I would have done that for you. I’m rather good at them...” John’s voice trails off.

Another few shallow breaths before he can start again. “What I mean is...thank you for letting me into your world. Being a part of it... A part of...us...it’s the only thing, really. The only thing that has ever mattered. So, thank you.”

John can’t keep his eyes open any longer. He will just rest them for a tic. That will be fine.

“John, don’t.” Sherlock’s voice is thick. “Open your eyes.”

“OK,” John murmurs agreeably, but his eyes remain shut.

“John, stay here,” Sherlock pleads, “Stay here with me.”

“I will,” he murmurs, softer now.

“Please, John. Don’t go. Please.”

“Where would I go?” John asks and floats away into the blackness.