Disclaimer: As cool as it would be to own Sherlock and all characters there in, I don't own them. I'm pretty sure I am not the only one who wishes they did.
Author Notes: This story is loosely set between a Study in Pink and The Blind Banker because it bothered me how fast John had earned the title of 'friend' to Sherlock. Just something I squashed together to help make sense to me that I figured was worthy enough for sharing.
Also, I've only dreamed of a chance to go to Britain (specifically London) but I did do some digging around online to try and make this as realistic as possible. I'm pretty sure that I've made mistakes so please don't be mad at me if I get something wrong which is why I have that little rant/explanation at the end of this story. Enjoy.
A Friend Indeed
He glared at the seemingly innocent coffee in front of him as if it had personally arranged this fiasco. He mentally reviewed the pasted twelve hours. Something had gone terribly wrong with this supposedly simple case.
Sherlock had only taken the case from the elderly woman because he was a tad bit curious as to why someone would have repeatedly broken into a seemingly normal flat several times but not to take anything. Mrs. Monroe was a widowed clarinetist that spent most of her time watching telly and knitting mittens for a local charity. The most exciting thing that she did was travel down the street once a week to have coffee at the little café on the corner and pick up her groceries on the way back. She had no family remaining and positively smothered both John and himself in gratitude for coming to help her all because she and John happened to frequent the same coffee shop that morning.
It only one quick look around the rather small flat -that positively reeked of a rose perfume to the point that his eyes were all but watering- to locate the faint grooves in the wooden floor where someone had been shifting a rather heavy oak secretary away from the wall. There was no way Mrs. Monroe could move it on her own so it had immediately caught his attention. Moving the oak monstrosity was an annoying and tedious endeavor but proved to be the key to piecing together the mysterious break ins.
On the floor behind the secretary was plaster dust. It took him only a few more minutes to locate the panel that had been cut out of the wall to reveal a little cubby that was hidden behind the secretary's bulk and the small sack within. The sack held several million in semi-precious stones and jewelry.
What better place for a jewel theft to hide his stash than in the flat of a clueless old woman?
Of course, this led to a stake out to catch the individual responsible. Mrs. Monroe had noticed the break ins only after repeatedly having to relock the door that led out onto the small Juliet balcony that she had. John and he made themselves as comfortable as possible in an alley opposite the street that had a clear view of the second floor flat's Juliet balcony. Sherlock was still trying to piece together how their thief was reaching that door, there were no handholds on the wall or any sign of him using climbing gear to reach it so how was he getting in and out of Mrs. Monroe's flat?
The solution had been simple and very well coordinated. There were two of them. The jewel thieves were some form of circus performers or acrobatics of some kind. They appeared shortly after two in the morning, each carrying a pole roughly seven feet long and proceeded to screw the ends together to make one long pole. After that all it took was for the larger of the two to brace the pole so that the smaller thief could scale it and break into Mrs. Monroe's flat.
After they had deposited their most recent haul in the wall behind the secretary the two thieves separated the pole again and went their separate directions. He had John follow after the smaller of the two thieves as he started after the larger one. They had planned on following them to their hideout and then meet later on at the coffee shop at the end of the street so that they could compare notes and John could get a bite to eat.
Sherlock glared into the cup of coffee he had been nursing for several hours now. It was pushing eight in the morning, he had arrived at the coffee shop just after they had opened at five and there was still no sign no John. He huffed and sent out another text, it wasn't that he was worried about the army doctor, he just wasn't used to being ignored for so long.
The larger of the two thieves had traipsed about the city for the better part of two hours before returning to a flat on the far side of town. Sherlock had waited an hour to see if the thief would emerge but finally assumed that he had gone to bed for the day. He had then started for the coffee shop and here he was still waiting for his errant partner.
As the hour dragged on with still no word or sign of John Watson, Sherlock began to feel more and more uncomfortable with the situation. He still wasn't worried. John could handle himself and was quite capable with his handgun which Sherlock knew that he had brought with him the previous night. Of course, if he didn't have time to draw it or was hit from behind unexpectedly, there was really no point in having such a weapon.
Sherlock leaned back in his seat, staring at his phone as if will alone would make it tell him what happened to his partner. The stare down continued for another few minutes before, with an aggravating huff, Sherlock snatched it up and called John's mobile. He quickly compiled a rant as to how much he utterly hated to call someone, ready to unleash as soon as John picked up, after the phone stopped ringing…
…and went to voicemail.
It felt like his heart had leapt up into his throat which he knew was impossible but this strange new feeling not something he was used to. John wasn't answering his phone; he always answered his phone, even if he didn't recognize the number. Hastily he ended the call only to start another, willing John to pick up as he rose quickly from his chair and left the cafe. He was out on the curb by the time it went to voicemail again and from there he proceeded to run.
His long stride took him back to the alley where the stakeout had happened hours before. He paused long enough to send a quick text off, asking his informants in his network of homeless contacts to send the word out that he was searching for John Watson and his description. Sherlock knew that it was impossible for someone to completely vanish without someone seeing or hearing something.
Still, it would take time for the network to get back to him, and he wasn't about to stand around idle waiting. It wasn't his style to begin with and he couldn't seem to get his heart out of his throat. He took a deep breath and started in the direction he last saw John heading. He could try and trace John's path after the other thief. It had a low chance of success but he was filled with such a desperate feeling that he was felt like he was slowly spiraling out of control.
He had to find John.
As he started down the street he remembered the last time he saw John. He colleague had nodded his head in understanding after he had pointed at the smaller of the two. He barely remember John slipping out of the shadows of the alley and following his quarry keeping his head down and hands shoved in his pocket, looking like any other chilled bloke heading for someplace warm. Sherlock had given him points for looking so natural as he started down the street after his own quarry.
Sherlock's eyes kept darting back and forth across the sidewalk, searching for any clues as to where John could have gone. It was impossible to tell, he was good but so many people had already passed through here contaminating it. The ground was also hard so it wasn't as though he could follow John's footprints. He growled to himself as he took several more steps and before throwing his hands in his air and yelling, "Bloody hell!" He turned in one complete circle and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, ignoring the stares of the idiotic people around him. They were too dimwitted to understand.
Perhaps that was it, John was a step above normal people in terms of smarts. He wasn't anywhere close to himself but John was smarter than most. Maybe it would be easier to track down the thief than it would be John.
He opened his eyes, barely aware that he had even closed them as he glanced around the street again. If he were a thief heading away from his stash where would he go. His own quarry had ducked in and out of alleys, doubling back on his path and occasionally sprinting down side streets for no reasons at all. The smaller of the two had been heading towards more populated parts of the city -even at that hour- there was a good chance that he wasn't actually heading into town but into one of the next alleys over.
He was very athletic, no reason why a few fences would be an obstacle for him.
He turned and ran down the street to the alley he had just passed. Seeing no fence he turned back around and promptly ran into someone but it was unimportant. He yelled out and absent minded apology as he hurried onto the next alley despite the indignant yells from the man he had run into. He had more important things to worry about. Still no fence.
It wasn't until the fifth alley down that he finally found a fence spanning the width of the alley. There was a large trash receptacle nearby that would easily have given him the height needed to climb over the fence. Or he could have just vaulted it with the pole he had been carrying.
Sherlock began searching through the alley for anything that could point him in the right direction. Nothing. He huffed in frustration and checked his phone. Nothing conclusive yet from his information network. He tried calling John again as he moved on. There was always the chance that John still had his phone and would answer. He was disappointed again when it went through to voicemail.
It was the last alley on the street where he finally picked up John's trail in the form of a crumpled receipt that had fallen out of his pocket, probably when he had pulled his hands out of them to scale the fence. It was the receipt from the Tesco from around the corner where John had picked up their groceries for the next few days. Sherlock recognized the last four numbers of his debit card and the list of supplies he had bought that day.
He was up and over the fence a moment later, scouring the other side of the fence looking for any more evidence that he was on the right track. His phone started vibrating in his pocket and scrambled to answer it. It could be John! Seeing Lestrade's number however, doused that sudden surge of hope that he had. He didn't want to deal with Lestrade. He needed to find John!
It was hard to follow the path through the back alleys of London. They were rather clean and John did not have an endless supply of old receipts in his pockets. The thief however, had started to use his section of pole like a walking stick but he was dragging the one end, probably due to its much larger size proportionate to himself. He had to assume himself safe and had allowed his arm to rest a bit after having carried the pole about and not letting it drag. This was leaving faintly visible scuff marks that would have vanished had this been a high traffic area.
He got several more calls from Lestrade all of which he ignored as well as several texts from Molly. He didn't need anything so he didn't bother returning any of her affections and Lestrade could go jump off a bloody bridge. Sherlock knew that it was pointless to file a missing person's report. John hadn't been missing long enough and he would be able to find John before he police had even figured out where the their badges were!
That's when he got the text from Smarnee, a vagabond that had a tendency of stealing cats for obvious reasons. He treated them as a delicacy because they were so hard for him to catch with only one leg and confined to his rather battered wheelchair. He had seen John only a few blocks from where Sherlock was, sprinting after a man carrying a long pole.
The thief had realized he was being followed and bolted. Sherlock practically flew to the address Smarnee had sent him. There was no telling how desperate these men were or how decent their fighting skills were. There was a good chance that John had been attacked and kidnapped and the rate was increasing with even moment. The thought of the thieves having John chilled him more than the late November breeze that had blown up.
The alley that Smarnee had sent him too was rather filthy compared to the other alleys he had been searching through. Judging by how some of the debris had been scattered about, John had fallen over himself jumping the fence, probably from the damaged muscles in his left shoulder acting up. The thief would have heard the ruckus and realized John was at a disadvantage for a few moments as he tried to rise and knocked him over the head with his pole. It wasn't that far to the main street, it would have been easier to drag John there and put him in the back of a car.
Sherlock stood from his crouch where he had been examining the debris that had been strewn about the alley. It was official, his flat mate, his colleague, his… friend? Had been kidnapped.
Was John a friend? It was hard to believe that he was already counting him as a friend. Sherlock was still trying to think of Lestrade as a friend and they had known each other for almost five years now. Even Mrs. Hudson wasn't so much a friend as a nice old lady that owned the building he lived in and took care of his flat even though she insisted she wasn't his housekeeper but then continually contradicted herself by continuing to clean up after him and make his meals when John was unavailable to do so.
He knew the definition of friend. It was someone who was emotionally close to another, an emotional attachment that was trusted and one was fond of. He didn't do attachments. He didn't do relationships in general. They were boring and predictable, packed with melodrama and the general business that seemed to amuse the masses so but bored him to death. Everyone always got fed up with his attitude, his habits, and storm off in a huff eventually.
But not John.
John was still around, putting up with his antics with the occasional rolling of eyes and sarcastic comment. He did get angry and upset with Sherlock but that was to be expected if someone found a severed head in the fridge or the remains of a dissected cat in the trash he supposed. However, John was always there, always offering his aid whether it was just listening to Sherlock piece together the clues of their latest case to shooting a man threatening his life. He was always there as a confidant, listening and praising him, which seemed to keep his mind in a steady sense of motion rather than bring it to a stuttering halt or winding it up into a rampaging pace of self-destruction.
John was special to him.
Possibly he would admit to calling him a friend.
A stiff breeze stirred his long coat and Sherlock realized that night was beginning to fall. He turned away from the fence, his sudden epiphany making him feel like he was walking about in a daze. He kicked something as he stumbled about, out from underneath a piece of old newspaper that had hidden it from a cursory view. The small clatter caught his attention and he stooped to pick the small object up. He knew even before he saw the engraving on the back what it was.
It was John Watson's mobile.
Sherlock picked the mobile up slowly, turning it over in his hands that he absentmindedly noticed were shaking ever so slightly. John's phone, John never would have left his phone on his own violation. He unlocked it -the password barely a challenge, he had memorized it weeks ago and John still hadn't realized it- and saw that amount of texts and missed calls he had sent trying to get John to respond to him when it was now so blatantly obvious why he couldn't.
Sherlock's gripped tightened around the phone for a moment before relocking it and burying it in the depths of his pocket. Someone had taken John from him. He never did like sharing with anyone, not with Mycroft, and especially not a stranger.
John was his.
He started off down the alley intent on returning to the flat that his quarry had gone into the night before. It was probable to assume that the man's night time activities would draw him out of his flat and Sherlock would have ample time to sneak in there and search for clues as to where they could have taken John. Perhaps John was there, tied to a chair and with a knot on his head but otherwise alright. It was a tiny flicker of hope but Sherlock realized that he was clinging to it with all his worth. He knew hope was a finicky thing to begin with but right now it was the warmth he needed to drive the despair out of his mind for a time and allow him to focus unhindered.
His phone rang again as he strolled at a quickened pace that was not quite a run through town. He barely gave it more than a glance. It was just Lestrade again. Whatever had gotten his knickers in a twist this time wasn't half as important as finding John.
Sherlock was relieved to find that the thief had already left his flat and apparently lived alone. He was doubtful that the thieves would rob again tonight as he spied the pole was set in the corner of the rather barren and unremarkable flat that contained no evidence of John having even been there. Sherlock had gone all over the small three room flat with a fine tooth comb and about the only things of interest he was able to gleam about the thief was the he was middle aged, had worked in a circus and was now working as a security guard at an art gallery. Having a knowledge of security systems was surely only adding to his ability to steal jewels. He was also addicted to cakes and homemade spirits that he was brewing himself. There was a fresh batch currently taking up most of his bathtub.
Even though he had all the proof he needed to call Lestrade and have him order an arrest -for more than just kidnapping and theft- Sherlock decided to wait and have a word with the thief himself. He was bound to know what happened to John and despite what many people thought of him, Sherlock could be rather persuasive when he wanted to be, especially when the stakes were high. He wasn't a police detective for a number of reasons. The forces-that-be frowned on his methods of interrogations for some of those reason. It garnered the same results and much faster than what the police was allowed to do.
Miles Turner, the larger of the two thieves, was much easier to take down then Sherlock had thought. Granted he had waited in his darkened flat and clocked him over the head with a cast iron frying pan he had found in the kitchen but Sherlock had still been expecting a little more of a fight. After tying him to a chair and shocking him awake with a bucket of cold water, Sherlock proceeded to question the thief on John's whereabouts.
After four broken and summarily dislocated fingers, Miles had fainted and Sherlock had come to the opinion that his choked screams were legitimately the truth no matter how disappointing it was. Miles didn't know who John Watson was and had no idea what Sherlock had been demanding from him in the first place. If Miles hadn't been involved with his abduction, what on earth had happened to John.
He entered his Mind Palace, rushing through the overly ornate halls he was accustomed to before entering the one of the smaller store rooms on the first floor. It was one of the locations where he stored memories before he decided to delete them or not. As he stepped through the doorway, he stepped into the alley where he had found John's phone. He had missed something while he was there, something important, the key to what had happened to his John.
The alley seemed just as devoid of clues as it had been in real life. He growled to himself as he stormed about in a circle in his mind. What was he missing? There had to be something that he was-
His eyes fell on the manhole cover.
Stupid.
Stupid!
He sprinted from the room and through his Mind Palace, leaving doors ajar in his haste as he came to the real world stumbling slightly from the whiplash. He left Miles bound to the chair and barely had the presence of mind to close the door behind him as he left the flat. He was outside on the sidewalk flagging a cabbie that had just been coming up the street less than a minute later and gave out the address nearly breathlessly with worry.
What better way to dispose of someone than to drop them into the sewers?
The cabbie couldn't seem to drive fast enough for him and Sherlock nearly chucked his mobile out the window when it rang and he saw that it was just Lestrade calling him again. Didn't the stupid git have something else to do rather than bother him? He was busy.
Nearly a full day had passed since he had left the coffee shop when he arrived again in the alley. He was breathing heavily from the half a block sprint from where he had had the cabbie drop him off and to this particular alley. Shining with determination, his steel blue eyes landed on the manhole cover and he let out a slight sniff of distain at his own stupidity. He should have realized this sooner. It would have been so much easier to dump John down there then taking him hostage.
The manhole cover was a lot heavier than Sherlock could have thought and he had to reposition himself to lift it more easily several times. Even then he was grunting with effort as he slid it off to the side. Taking his pen light from his pocket, he shined it down into the darkness below. "John?" he called. "John, can you hear me? Are you alright?"
He wasn't that surprised when he didn't get an answer or saw anything immediately. It had been almost a day since he had been dropped down there, there was a good change that John had woken up and had tried to find his way out of the sewers. If he had even realized that he was in the sewers. Between the hit on the head and then being dropped onto the concrete walk of the sewer tunnels themselves, John most definitely had a concussion. He was most likely wandering through the tunnels trying to find a way out. The mental image of his injured flatmate trying to navigate the tunnels alone was all the incentive Sherlock needed to twist himself around and descend into the sewers.
He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the putrid smell of mold and decomposition that assault his sensitive nose and adjusted his scarf accordingly to act as somewhat of a buffer. This was going to be a long and arduous journey to say the least but Sherlock merely squared his shoulders and started to look around for any sign of which way John could have gone. It could only be right or left but the concrete hid any signs of his passage. At least there didn't seem to be any traces of blood which he chalked up as a very good thing.
Time seemed to slip away as he searched throughout the tunnel he found himself in, going about thirty feet in either direction looking for anything that would point to which way John could have gone. Sherlock doubted that John would have gone out the manhole. He was most likely too weak to lift it and shift it back into its proper position on his own, especially considering the amount of effort that Sherlock had to put into moving it. However, even Sherlock finally came to stop, leaning heavily back against the wall, looking forlornly one way than the other.
He couldn't find John.
A sense of utter failure seemed to descend on him then, like a heavy woolen cloak that seemed intent of suffocated him. Sherlock was barely aware that he had slid down the wall to land in a less than dignified heap at the base of it. He wiped a hand down his face, barely remembering at the last second to remove his now grimy gloves, before pinching the bridge of his nose. He mind was going in thirty different directions at once and it was near impossible for him to sort out the various trains of thoughts as one kept drawing his attention from the others. It was a small one, moving in a looping circle as it repeated itself over and over again and disrupted the normal tranquility that was his Mind Palace as it seemed to smash through walls, windows and doors leaving a devastating trail of destruction in its wake.
WhereisJohn?
WhereisJohn?!
WhereisJohn?!
He leaned his head back against the wall and forced himself to take several deep, calming breaths which really didn't seem to do anything to actually help. He wasn't sure what to do, the investigation was shot full of holes now, locating John had taken priority over that without him even realizing it. He needed to think.
He needed nicotine.
He stood on wobbly legs and had to use the wall to help him keep his suddenly failing balance. He felt exhausted. Sherlock contributed to his sudden realization of how important John really was to him and the fact he was missing, most likely seriously injured. That combined with the heavy feeling of failure seemed to be eating away at his energy reserves. At this rate he was going to have to take a nap or at least eat something a little more substantial than toast or biscuits to keep going. Over all, it would slow him down, but he had to keep going until he found John.
He tried not to think that John might already be beyond his help. He wouldn't be able to cope with that, not as emotionally and mentally weak as he was now. He gritted his teeth in annoyance at the weakness of his own human flesh. He had more important things to do than deal with the fragility of his own body!
…Like finding John…
It took more effort than he remembered to climb out of the sewer tunnel and shifted the manhole cover back into position. He knew John wouldn't have left it open less someone came along and fell into it on accident. That little thought –that did sound suspiciously like his missing blogger in his mind- caused a weak smile to spread across his face. "Hold on John," he whispered to himself as he straightened and started back towards Baker's Street. "Just hold on, I will find you."
He walked all the way back to Baker Street which was a bit of a feat in itself considering how tired and hollow he felt as he made the trek from Southwark. Time seemed to slip away as he walked and he barely took notice as he focused on just putting one foot in front of the other. He knew that he could take a cab or the tube which would expedite his arrival to the semi normality of his flat despite the missing flatmate but he knew that it would be hard to flag an empty cabbie down and the tube was likely packed. It was just approaching the morning rush and he didn't feel the desire to wait for ages on the curb for an empty cab or to rub elbows with the strangers on the tube.
All he wanted was to know that John was safe.
He wasn't used to feeling worried about another or fearing for their safety. John had once said that Sherlock had to stop looking out for himself all the time, that there were other people out there who cared for him and he should return the favor and stop being so caught up in himself. However, if this was what it was like to care, Sherlock wished that he didn't care at all. He's never felt so helpless before, so useless. He never wanted to have a repeat of these feelings ever again. After this is all done and John is back safe and sound, Sherlock decides that he is going to delete the realization that John is so painfully special to him.
But that just seems so wrong and he knows that he's not going to be able to go through with it.
The door to his flat finally stood mockingly before him. Usually when he came to see this door during or after a case there was always a feeling of elation and security knowing that he was again home and that whatever the criminal element had thrown at him this time was either solved or soon to be solved once he had his thoughts pieced together in a more organized fashion. He had always felt that it was like what a pirate would feel, returning to their hideout after a successful raid on an ocean going vessel.
Now though, the black door with its brass numbers that stood before him did not engage any of those emotions in him. He knew that the flat was going to be missing a key piece now, an unwavering presence of loyalty and comradely that helped to center and ground the racing engine that was his mind better than any illegal drug or solo violin concerto ever could. John wasn't there and unless he could figure out what had happened, he would never be there again.
That thought chilled him to the core and he couldn't help but shiver in the feeble early afternoon warmth as he unlocked the door and stepped into the foyer. He went through the motions of unbuttoning his coat and loosening his scarf as he tried to get his mind to slow down a bit and reorganize his thoughts better. This was going to be a five patch problem easily.
There were voices coming down the stairwell and Sherlock froze for a minute until he recognized them. He didn't paying attention to what was being said but rather the tone on what was being said. Mrs Hudson and Lestrade were both worried about something –most likely him and John- but his slow gait halted so abruptly when a third voice joined in that he stumbled and nearly fell in surprise going up the stairs. The lit was unmistakable and the familiar voice that floated down the stairwell had his adrenaline surging through him again. He knew who that was.
John Watson.
He practically flew up the stairwell to their flat, coat billowing behind him and the loosened scarf nearly falling from around his neck, as a feeling of disbelief and elation coursed through him. He was sure that the ruckus he made as he went was partially responsible for the sudden lack of sound in the flat and his appearance was the other part but it was of little concern at the moment. Standing next to the coffee table was the object of his three day search -entirely whole and uninjured if a slight bit shocked at his rambunctious entry- was John.
Lestrade said something that was equal parts angry and annoyed but again it was just as unimportant as always. John looked alright but he could only see one half of him with the way he was standing. Without another thought, Sherlock half lunged at his startled flatmate grabbing him and turning him this way and that despite the rather indignant squawk of protest that John uttered to being manhandled. Seeing nothing wrong with John, Sherlock found himself still unconvinced and turned his rather bewildered flatmate back to face him. "John," he snapped which caused whatever John had been about to say to get caught in his throat. "Are you alright?"
"What," John said obviously still reeling from Sherlock's sudden inspection.
To help ground him, Sherlock gave him a slight shake. "I said, are you alright?"
John looked down at the hands gripping his upper arms and then back up at his distraught looking flatmate. "Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, of course." Sherlock's hands slipped off his partner as a profound sense of relief filled him.
John was alright.
John was safe.
His… friend was alright.
It sounded right at least. John was special to him, more so than anyone else he knew. Remembering the desperation that filled him and the fear that something appalling had happened to him only help to solidify that thought within his mind. He was emotionally attached to John. He did trust John, with his life and in all other respects. John was always there for him even if he was in the middle of a date or on the other side of London. If he asked, John would come to do whatever he wanted, and Sherlock realized that he would do the exact same thing for John if ever asked. If possible he would move the world for John. His friend.
He had never had a friend before.
"Sherlock," John said as a frowned appeared on his face. "Are you alright?"
It was then that consulting detective realized that he had staring into space over his flatmate's shoulder the entire time he had experienced his moment of introspection. It was a bit awkward as was this unorthodox show of him being worried. Hastily he took a step back, clearing his throat as he glanced off to the side to see both Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade looking at him with concern as well.
"Yes," Sherlock said as he reached up to the dangling scarf around his neck and tried in vain to fix it. He looked back at John. The sudden relief of seeing him alright, if a might bit confused, seemed to act as a reminder of those fruitless hours of fearful searching expecting to come across John's body the longer it took to look for him. "Yes, of course," he fell back into his normal persona of cold and indifferent but it seemed to be cracked and forced even to him.
The man in front of him was a doctor and he knew when something was wrong with one of his patients. As John frowned at him, Sherlock knew that the game was up before it had even begun. John was able to look through those cracks easily and it was apparent that his weak façade wasn't fooling him. "Right," was all John said as he stepped forward and caught Sherlock's elbow before he could even try to avoid it. "That's why you've been missing for three days and just now show up looking and smelling like you've been crawling through London's sewer system!" Despite his harsh words, Doctor Watson was gently guiding Sherlock to sit on the couch, "What happened to you?"
"I..I…" Sherlock felt dizzy suddenly. It was as if everything he had left just seemed to rush out of him and left him drained. The world tilted and he felt John's other hand come up to catch him as the shorter man took his weight and Mrs. Hudson gasped out, "Oh!" He heard John swear lightly under his breath as his head collided with John's shoulder and then everything just faded away.
He came back to himself what must have been only a few moments later. He was on the sofa. John must've finished manhandling him onto it after he blacked out. The doctor was leaning over him, fingers pressed lightly to the artery in his neck, studying his face with a clinical intensity that Sherlock had never seen before. John clearly meant business. He must've seen some kind of recognition in Sherlock's face because the furrows on his forehead eased slightly and he leaned back a bit. Now that he had moved, Sherlock could see that Lestrade had one knee on the couch and both of Sherlock's feet were up on his one shoulder.
Mrs. Hudson came bustling in from the kitchen, a damp tea towel in one hand which she handed over to John looking even more worried than Sherlock had ever seen her before, and that included the time she thought her abusive husband might actually be acquitted in Florida. John ran the blissfully cool cloth about his face before tucking it behind his neck and it helped Sherlock to realize that his scarf was missing and the top few buttons of his shirt had been undone. John was not kidding when he had said that he was a very good doctor. Sherlock had half the mind to sign him up as his primary physician.
"Are you back with us again?" John asked calmly still watching him critically.
"I believe so," he half mumbled and tried to sit up. John barely let him raise his shoulders up more than half an inch before he was gently pushing him back down on the sofa.
"Don't even think of it just yet, Sherlock," the doctor said seemingly immune to the glare that Sherlock sent his way. "You're still white as a sheet and I bet my certification that your blood pressure is still in the loo." He glanced back at Lestrade, "Thank you for holding up his feet, you can go ahead and set them on the couch." He then turned back to his patient, "When you get a bit of color back, we'll try sitting you up."
"And while we are waiting," The Detective Inspector had stepped around to the other side of the coffee table now that he was done helping equalize the blood pressure in Sherlock's core. "You can start explaining where the bloody hell you've been. I've been trying to reach you for the past two days. We thought for sure that you had been kidnapped or lying injured in a ditch somewhere!" he snapped.
That wasn't at all what Sherlock had been expecting, John had been the one missing hadn't he? The confusion must've been clearly written across his face because John began to fill him in on what had happened. "The thief I was chasing caught me following him and bolted. I managed to follow him through the alleys for a bit before I tripped going over a fence and knocked myself for a loop," John had a half smirk on his face. No doubt it hadn't been one of his finer moments as Sherlock remembered the signs of his landing and it appeared that he had been incorrect in his assumption that the thief had hit him at all. He must've just kept running, assuming later that he managed to lose John. "Anyway, I came around and managed to get to the coffee shop but I didn't see you," they had probably missed each other by no more than an hour or so. The shifts would have changed that late in the day so had John asked around no one would have seen him. "And I had lost my phone at some point in the chase. Lastrade happened into the coffee shop and I told him what had happened and that you were missing."
"You didn't answer any of my texts or calls," Lestrade said, picking up the conversation as he put his hands on his hips and subsequently pushing his open coat back. "Even got Molly to try and send a few. You didn't respond to any of them so I put out an APW at all city tube and train stations on you. After twenty four hours and still no sign or word from you I stepped it up to a missing person."
"And that brings us right back to the question of where the bloody hell have you been Sherlock." The doctor in John had slipped back and a look of anger was starting to twist his face up. "We've been looking for and worried about you for three days while you apparently have been crawling around in the sewers. What were you thinking or did you even think to pause for a moment and think about something other than the case?"
There was something entirely ironic about this situation but Sherlock was too busy cursing his own stupidity. He had over reacted, plain and simple. His imagination had painted a picture out of one of the possibilities that could have happened and -instead of examining all the facts like he should have- he had… panicked. He automatically assumed the worse when the worse had never accorded in the first place.
Stupid.
"Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson said timidly and it was then that he realized that he had closed his eyes again. "Are you alright, dear?" John was slipping back into his profession and even Lestrade was looking a bit worried again. He knew he had to say something quickly to prevent himself from being whisked away in an ambulance by the three people hovering over him.
He fumbled for a moment to reach his pocket and calmly pulled out John's missing phone, handing it to him as he fixed his gazed up at the ceiling. He didn't want to look at any them in the face for some reason. He couldn't believe that he had been so blind as to not see what was happening and just jumped to conclusions. The last time he had felt this way was when Mummy had caught him nicking a piece of his grandfather's pie she had just finished making which was almost twenty years ago.
The weight of the phone left his hand as he started in with his normal detached voice, "I followed my mark to his apartment and then went to the coffee shop as planned for our rendezvous. After you failed to show up in a reasonable amount of time I went looking for you and managed to follow your trial to the alley where you apparently fell over the fence. I found your phone. Coupled with the evidence that I managed to find there, it appeared as though you had been kidnapped, John.
"I returned to Miles Turner's flat and questioned him on what might have happened to you," he glanced over at Lestrade and rattled off the address. "You might want to send a car and have him arrested before his cohort finds and frees him. He'll need a trip to a hospital too." Lestrade rolled his eyes to the ceiling as Sherlock returned his eyes to the ceiling. "After a bit, I was positive that he didn't know anything about you. I realize that it was possible that the other thief had dumped you down the manhole instead of taking you anywhere. However, despite an extensive search within the vicinity of that manhole I found no traces of anyone having been down there recently. I knew I was missing something, something obvious, so I returned here to center myself before continuing what now is apparent a completely misguided search."
The room was silent for a moment before John murmured more to himself than anyone else, "You thought I was kidnapped?"
"Bloody hell, Sherlock," Lestrade snapped as he tore his phone from his pocket. "Had you just answered your phone this whole mix up could have been avoided!" the rather irate DI took his exit out onto the landing, presumably to make several phone calls regarding Sherlock status and the injured culprit hopefully still tied up in his flat.
"I'll go make you a cuppa dear," Mrs. Hudson had the maternal look about her as she smiled softly at him and headed for the door. "And I believe that I still have some of those blackberry scones that you love so much too."
That left Sherlock and John in the living room with the drone of Lastrade talking on the phone drifting in from the landing. Sherlock watched John out of the corner of his eyes as his flatmate checked over the missed messages with an unreadable look on his face. To Sherlock it felt like he had sent those texts weeks ago.
John stayed silent for another moment as he saw the two rapid fire phone calls that were sent after the last text before removing the cloth from where he had folded it on Sherlock's forehead after he had taken his phone. He didn't say anything, just gave Sherlock's arm a slight squeeze as he stood that seemed to tell Sherlock everything John wanted to say better than words ever could. "I'm going to put this back and then we'll see how well you can take being vertical again," John said softly as he stepped away.
Sherlock noticed that the tension that he had previously just glossed over as unimportant had left the doctor. Probably because he knew that the man he lived with -someone he undoubtedly counted as a friend and not a colleague- was safe and sound despite the scare he had given him. Sherlock found a smile gently pulling at his lips as he focused on his in depth study of the ceiling again.
A friend indeed.
He actually kind of liked the thought of having a friend.
Additional Author Notes: An APW (All Ports Warning) is the British version is similar to an APB (All Points Bulletin) we have here in America. They use it more to circulate descriptions of suspects to various international transportation locations to intercept criminals before they can board planes or trains or what have you. In America an APB can be put on a person of interest, like a private detective or someone else helping on a case, so I kinda jumped a bit of a gap because I couldn't verify that an APW could be put on a person of interest over there. However, it worked for my story so I decided to take the chance of being completely wrong. If someone from Britain reads this and knows if this is correct terminology or not can you let me know either in the reviews or through a private message? Not being able to confirm a real world fact I've used in a story bothers me to no end.