The War in You
The noise was deafening. Civilians were screaming, swearing, fleeing. Police officials swarmed, heading off the fearful crowd with riot gear, fresh from the box. Lestrade had got the call 15 minutes ago: a gunman in the city, apparently shooting at random. It seemed the entire of London had been roused from their beds to panic and assist the madness, and God help you if emergency services featured anywhere in your job description.
"We don't want you anywhere near the nutter," a rather stressed superior officer shouted down the phone, "I need you standing by, and your entire team needs to be ready for a crime scene. I expect they'll be plenty for everyone," he said, and Lestrade could almost see the specks of spit flying into the receiver.
"We'll be there," he said, calmly, as the phone went dead.
He didn't think to call in John. Sherlock crossed his mind, (always an asset, if an extremely volatile one) but there was no mystery here; just a tragedy and a hell of a lot of paper work. So he pulled on his jacket and set out for a long night.
Two days ago, Greg Lestrade saw something in the long-suffering John Watson that left him deeply unsettled. It wasn't the friendly, conversational tone he spoke with, or even the way he paused afterwards, as though he had made a slightly embarrassing faux pas. It was the complete lack of surprise on Sherlock's face.
A Friday night, post-case, pre-pub; Lestrade had found himself in Baker Street once again, sitting back on the cool black settee and utterly lost at the back-and-forth that was occurring between the two flatmates.
"You know what, Sherlock," John was saying as he stomped around the kitchen, kettle in hand, "as much as I love waking up to your dulcet tones, it does tend to freak out the girlfriend a bit."
Sherlock coughed, and it sounded rather like the word 'ex-girlfriend!'. John glared.
"Her?" The detective snorted, "Really, John, she wouldn't have lasted more than two weeks anyway."
"Maybe if you didn't start experimental kitchen fires –"
"How was I to know she didn't like fire?" Sherlock yawned, obviously enjoying himself.
"Oh, and the bathroom door situation doesn't exactly help with the ladies, either,"
Sherlock started laughing his deep, baritone laugh, causing John to stop still and flex his knuckles angrily for a moment. "What?" he grumbled.
"You kicked that door down; remember, when you thought –"
"Shut up – you bastard," he poured the tea with a little more vigour than was necessary, and Lestrade could swear he swore a smile on the man's face, "It's not my fault you're such a bloody drama queen."
"Oh, am I?" Sherlock leered. "I've never punched a man out cold for drinking my tea."
"Oi, stop right there! A, that was one time, B, that stuff is gold dust is Afghanistan."
"Oh I'm sure," Sherlock drawled.
"You can laugh," John said, as his companion laughed, "but I've seen kids fight to the death over less than that."
"Hm...I wonder?"
"What?"
"About killing. I'm curious,"
"Go on,"
"If you came across a man who was obviously the enemy, but he's injured, he's dying. What would you do?"
"What do you think?"
"Well, I think you are a doctor, first and foremost. You wouldn't want to let him suffer."
"You're right, as usual."
Lestrade leaned forward, his interest peaked. "You'd save him."
"Oh no," John said, laughing, "I'd put him out of his misery."
Sherlock sipped daintily at his china cup.
John felt the uncomfortable silence and pursed his lips. "Tea, Greg?"
It was past 2am when Lestrade saw him, crouched down over an unresponsive gunshot victim, no more than a few feet away. The Saturday night party crowd and the apparently oblivious night-tourist collection had mostly dispersed. A woman cried by an ambulance crew, and there was John, shadowed by the great coated presence of the surly detective himself.
As promised, Lestrade had pulled a team together, consisting of the best professionals who were paid little enough to agree to the ungodly-hour-back-up gig, and Anderson, who didn't seem to have anywhere better to be.
"Wait," Anderson frowned at the figure whose authority had apparently overridden that of almost 15 paramedics and doctors, "is that...what the hell are they doing here?" He glared at Lestrade as though it was somehow his fault, and promptly looked defensive. "I'm just...Sherlock?"
"Wait here," he commanded, ignoring the grumbling that followed in his wake.
Sherlock stood back from the scene slightly, watching John with a level fascination and regard on his still features, the like of which Lestrade would never have believed him capable of. Any pretence of aloofness fell untouched by the self-proclaimed sociopath.
"Sherlock," he started.
"Shh..." the man actually pressed a finger to his lips, without so much as a look in the DI's direction.
"What are you both doing here?" he insisted.
Sherlock rolled his eyes viciously and looked at him, "John has been called upon to help with relief effort. I am accompanying him. Now, do be quiet."
Lestrade folded his arms, determined that the younger man would not get the satisfaction of his surrender. "Now, Sherlock, I have a right to ask these things," he said, gesturing his badge.
"You are back-up," Sherlock replied easily, "I've no doubt you'll be sent home soon. The public fuss has already faltered; you won't be needed any longer."
It was Lestrade's turn to roll his eyes. "Alright, this really isn't my area," he agreed, and then he stared at the doctor on the ground, who was now giving hard, monotone instruction to men in florescent jackets, "it looks like it might be John's though."
Sherlock looked at him quickly. Then he smiled, knowing. "You were shocked the other day. You don't know him as well as you thought you did."
"John? Probably not; do you?"
Sherlock continued to smile tightly and Lestrade remembered his ease as John had said...what had he said? He would kill a man, no issue. Then he'd sleep easy, probably. Should that have been such a revelation? The man had been a soldier for God knows how many years. He could have killed hundreds of people for all Lestrade knew. Still, why was he so thrown? It was something to do with those woolly jumpers, probably...
Lestrade nodded. Sherlock had seen it in John long ago, of course he had.
A shout echoed along the road, more florescent people where running, laden with a stretcher. Lestrade watched as John straightened up, and the man on the ground trembled as he was taken to the waiting ambulance – blooded, and alive.
"Dr Watson," called a florescent man, "we've got another one. Young woman identified as Billie Herron, gunshot to the lower neck, minimal impact; patient bleeding heavily."
They lay the body down before him and they fell silent as he set to work.
The woman looked close to death, even in Lestrade's uninformed opinion. She was white pale, her breaths fell shallow, and as John uncovered the wound on her neck, an oil slick of dark blood slithered grotesquely to the fabric she lay on.
Even as John tended to her the very life seemed to leave her body.
"Minimum impact," John muttered, cynically, "get me a haemostatic and occlusive."
"Oh, my..." Anderson had appeared behind them, staring at the blood-soaked victim and equally blood-soaked doctor "they should get her to hospital, shouldn't they?"
"They will," Lestrade said, almost whispering, glaring with some disapproval at the crass way his associate demanded the scene.
Anderson stippled quietly. "Isn't that Sherlock's...person?"
Sherlock could contain himself no longer; turning around he took Anderson sharp by the collar and pulled him fast, his lips white with anger.
"That person of mine is trying to save a woman's life, do you think you could possibly find it in you shut up!" Said Sherlock, looking slightly surprised even has he said the words.
Anderson rubbed his neck, leaning away. "I'd have thought you would be all for her dying," he sniped, "You're quite a fan of dead people, aren't you?"
"Oi!" hissed Lestrade, "both of you need to calm down, or leave!"
Sherlock opened his mouth, red-hot fury on his tongue, but then he heard it.
"Look! Look at me!"
John.
Sherlock dropped his anger immediately, caring only for the desperate, snarling Dr Watson, folded over the victim, hands at the throat. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong; John's hands had a visible tremor, and his expression had lost all seat of calm.
"Look at me, Billie! Open your eyes and look at me, or I'll send you to your mother in a Goddamn casket, do you understand!" He shook her, deliberately or as a result of his increasingly unstable hands, it was hard for Lestrade to tell. "Godammit, Baz?"
"John," Sherlock's voice was soft, softer than he had ever heard it. He stood close to him, although Lestrade had not seen him approach.
"John Watson," he quietened, and a peculiar expression crossed his face. It could have been doubt, or even fear.
"Sherlock," John said, and he stared at the dead-pale face of Billie Heron.
That was when the paramedics stepped in. John fell behind them easily, allowing the bandaged victim to be taken away from him. He stood up on unsteady legs and blinked. "Sherlock?" he asked.
"Yes."
They stood together, facing away into the distance. Sherlock did not touch John, or prop him up as Lestrade was beginning to suspect he needed. He just stood close beside him in silence. That seemed to be enough.
"Let's go," one of them said.
As they walked away, neither spoke again, and John's face bore the unmistakable pallor of one who had just seen something both horrific, and impossible.
The next time Lestrade saw Sherlock, he had Sally Donovan at his side. The uncomfortable truth was that they needed a statement, from John.
Upon entering 221B, the smooth cry of violin music crashed to a halt. The angry tune seemed to have followed them up the stairs, becoming ever more infuriated as they drew near.
"Sherlock," he greeted.
"Inspector," Sherlock didn't look at them, the formal word falling noncommittally from his lips. "You needn't have bothered coming."
"We're not here for you," Sally said brusquely. "Where's John?"
The violin flew down and Sherlock swooped to loom over his visitors, blue silk flowing out behind him like a ridiculously classy cape. "I am, aware," he said, each word slower than the last. "But you are wasting your time," he straightened up and flounced down onto his leather armchair. "John is not available."
Lestrade checked his watch, "he's not working is he? After...yesterday..." he trailed off, unsure whether yesterday was a topic for conversation.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "No."
Sally put her hands on her hips. It was idiotic, she thought, the amount of crap they were expected to take from his arrogant man. Genius or not, she had no intention of letting him win this.
"Just tell us where he is, f-Sherlock."
"Hm, well done, Sally, you have discovered self-control."
"You should try it," she retorted.
"Come on, Sherlock," Lestrade pressed, "this won't take long."
"If you must know, John is asleep."
"What?" Lestrade asked, checking his watch, "at 3 in the afternoon? Is he ill?"
"Didn't he kill someone at a crime scene yesterday?" Sally said vaguely, half-joking.
"No," said Lestrade firmly. "Actually, John needs to know that. Billie Herron is alive and stable. He didn't hurt her. Saved her, actually,"
"Scared her into breathing, from what I heard."
"Do shut up, Donovan," Sherlock snapped.
"Well, it worked, didn't it? No harm done." Lestrade smiled, "tell him, yeah?"
He went to make his leave.
Upstairs, John screamed. It wasn't afraid, or pained, or anything Lestrade could pin down. It just was, and it sent ugly chills down his spine.
Nobody made a sound for a long moment.
"What, the bloody hell was that?" Sally asked, staring at the ceiling in horror.
"You need to leave," was all Sherlock said.
"Jesus, Sherlock, is he ok?"
"I thought I told you to leave."
Nobody moved.
Something crashed above them.
"Go," said Sherlock. "Go now."
"What the hell is happening?" Sally demanded.
"Mother FU –" A cry from the attic, quickly drowned by the unmistakable scream of gunshots. Once, twice, silence.
The old house groaned in pain.
Sherlock was on his feet, his hand out as if feeling for atmosphere itself. It was so tense in the room that Lestrade imagined he could have done the same.
"For God's sake," Sherlock said, finally, as the footfalls began. "Get out of here!"
Upstairs, a door creaked. That was what set Sally into action. Taking his arm, they fled from the room with trained quiet.
Lestrade hastened to follow procedure, numb.
His phone is in his hand, and the number is dialled. But Sally is the one who stops him.
"Sir," she whispered. "We can't call them, not yet. It's...John. Just John, right," she reassured him, nodding.
He closed the call. Sally was not the poster child of mercy, or understanding, but her instinct was sharp as a knife, and one look at her told him to relax. Calm down and wait it out.
"I hope you're right."
John was facing Sherlock; Lestrade could see his dark, solid frame, panting, awake or asleep, still armed.
"Shit," he spat, fumbling with the mobile phone in his hand. "Sally, maybe I should –"
"Wait!" she told him, frozen in a position of readiness beside him. "Just, wait."
"John," Sherlock had his arms out, showing his empty hands, innocent hands. Lowering his gaze, he made himself as non-threatening as an eccentric 6 foot tall detective can be. "You are dreaming," he said.
"There's no honour in it!" John shouted, hoarse and breaking.
"I know, I know. John, it's me, Sherlock!" frustration was having an effect on his own voice, and he found himself finally comprehending of the phrase pulling your hair out. If it was up to him to talk John down...well.
"You're going to die, and what?" John demanded, "Am I supposed to mourn you? I'm not going to do that."
"You don't have to,"
"Stop, don't do that! Jesus –" John coughed, possibly sobbed, then he pointed the gun at the man he'd come to call his best friend. "Do you think I forget you? I don't."
"You are dreaming!"
"I'm bleeding."
"You're not bleeding, John."
"I did that, did I?"
"Stop this! John...please,"
"Don't you fucking touch me," venom spat from John, who stood like a caged animal ready to fight, rabidly frothing threats from his confused state.
Sally's hand was firm over her mouth, but her breaths where ragged beneath it. Lestrade fell between his unmoving thoughts: trust Sally, trust his fear? Or listen to his intuition, which above anything, below shock, told him that Sally was right. John would not hurt Sherlock.
"It's all over me," John was saying, "your blood; Union, bloody earl Jack, ALL OVER ME!"
"Please," Sherlock said again. And he meant it; Lestrade could feel it in the tired, lost voice of him, and that sorry word. He can't do anything more, it's not really his area. Poor kid, look at him trying.
"I won't be sorry," John said, "when you die. I don't walk like that anymore."
Sherlock moved to his friend, he reached out for him. "John?"
Bang!
Sally screamed a small, trapped scream. As the gun fired, a mobile phone clattered to the floor.
"That's – oh s–Christ. I'm calling back-up,"
When John kneeled, he wasn't in London. Eyes closed, he remembered.
A blood red sky turned black, carpet fell to dust and crawled. Two by two, breathing. He was only young...
Billy Baz was younger.
"I wonder when they'll find us."
"I don't mean to be negative, but..." John stopped cold, "could be on their way."
"Yeah," smiled Baz, "probably."
The next day John stared at the slate-grey wall for five hours listening to Baz cry. He didn't say a word.
On the third day, even the walls held no moisture –none at all, and the hard floor dusted with the sand from John's pacing boots. Up, down, up, down, up.
"Do you think...?"
John furrowed his eyebrows and clenched his fist tightly. "Don't say it, don't do that."
They lapsed into quiet. Up, down, up, down, this can't be the end.
Can it?
Day four and John heard...footsteps, sometimes voices, or his sister's disapproval. She was right to say so, he thought. And Baz lay dead to the world, vomit in his hair. The air was so thickly rank that John didn't dare exert himself to push against it. His heart stuttered, and his dry eyes wouldn't close. Or maybe they did, who would have known.
Somebody somewhere sang. They sang like an angel, so John slept.
Maybe he woke in the night, it could have been the next day, or five minutes later after life, but he woke. A hand lay on his arm. Baz shook him, plain faced.
"We should bury the dead," he said. "Yeah, shouldn't we?"
Then he scraped at the ground until his fingertips bled and John held him, restraining him in his weak arms. "Listen to me, Baz. Listen!" he hissed, his voice barely scratching at their reality. "It's ok."
"Is it?"
"I...I can't think. Just..." John heaved, but he had so little life left to spill. He collapsed back to the floor, deep rumbling thunder in his ears, water pressure, black dots on his eyes pulling...one, one...one –
"We...we die here."
Suppose we do.
More once: he had done his job. Tend the wounded, water the waterless, do no harm: A mess, of blood and bullets or waterless talk. Think harder, did you let them die; did you feed them and clean them? Something hurts.
"Doc... can you see?"
But can he feel?
"I...I don't want to...you, will you please? B- b-bury me, after, I need..."
What you need? Baz, Baz, Baz Billy Baz. Does the pulse go? Wash up, air dry. Carry on.
"I have a gun."
John notices, his eyes are open. A poor shrunken-faced man with yellow eyes and white-brown-fear face, one of his own, crying out from hollows. To him (me?) tend the wounded; something, something, she said it.
"I'm here."
"G-Good, good, but Cap...I got, I just got a bullet. One," Baz, crackled eyed.
One by one, by blood, for blood and flags, vital dilated poppy vein, air dried? Was that how it went?
"I just got one bullet," dry-tear said.
John has shut off again. What else is?
"Doctor Watson I need an order!"
The cry echoed around John's throbbing, bloodless skin-body. Bid it; bleed it, thawed out concerto. A roll call, he heard what?
"B-b," John coughed, pain bursts his bruised Once mind, "Baz, Billy, what?"
"Will you shoot me? Will you? I can't –" he broke off, his face a mask of human life, tortured wrong. There's no light in the tunnel he speaks.
"We'll be found."
"No. I know we won't. This is, I don't...I need it."
"Do no harm," John mumbles, no trace of tomorrow. Will it matter? He shot down once, twice, sometimes it must. It's war not poetry.
They killed the village: the enemy (the black hats?) the others. They took his blood, the ones he ate with and laughed with, the ones he couldn't stand to listen. Did he mourn it (no?), didn't he kill them back? They bled him dry but for valour, and the song he remembered. The one from the radio, university night, once,
God it hurt.
"I kept this," said Baz. John knows adrenaline is power; Billy Baz uses his adrenaline to breathe his last and bow, forever, maybe; wherever he goes. "I kept it safe, in case. But, I-I don't want to kill myself."
"I...understand."
"I need to know I'm gonna be ok. I don't know, what matters, does it...Captain?"
John leaned out a bone-dry hand to the other mans shoulder, and gentle-like says, "You rest easy. I'll take it for us, alright. You'll be alright."
The last salt in Billy Baz fell and his threadbare body relaxed at last, alright after all, he'll sleep away.
John prays that he will die in his sleep.
Another waking stutter-cry, foul, rancid, ribbed caged, what the hell happened here?
I loaded the gun, I swore I'd never.
"When I go home," said Baz, "my parents might be proud."
Click, click.
"Maybe, maybe there'll be honour in it, I don't know. You might meet your God. Billy?" John shook his head, unashamed and almost gone.
"Anything, what is it?" Eagerly said, adrenaline-lit curtain fall.
"Will you...will you tell him I'm sorry?"
Bang!
I was only young.
Did you ever find that you are not where you thought you were? Like one moment you are enjoying a heated argument on the ethics of tea stealing, and the next you've fallen from earth. No? Ok, you wake up in London, then your bare feet leave a trail of sand, and there he is: the man you killed. The time you felt it like a shot to your own heart, do you remember that?
"I'll look after him."
"Is that really a good idea?"
"I will look after him."
Did it happen in a day or several? The dehydration, the starvation and singing, trapped like rats. He wasn't ready then, God knows he tried. And maybe he saved some lives; at first.
She thanked him once. She told him she was proud, while he was in the fits of illness. She would never say it again.
"I still think we should call an ambulance."
"No," said Sherlock Holmes. "Leave John to me," he told them firmly, and when the outside forces were gone he touched the place the bullet hit. The wall,
It had never smiled back at John before. Thanked him. Those grey walls must have fell as they found him, John and a rigid body of a man called Billy Baz; he wasn't supposed to stay long. He certainly never meant to die there.
Did he save him now? It didn't matter, he could sleep easy.
"Sherlock," John breathed. He made a noise of discomfort as a painful ache racked his brain.
"I'm here."
"Sherlock, I'm sorry."
Sherlock smiled, properly, honestly, and he sat on the floor beside his friend, his best friend. "I know that."
"I'm still sorry."
Sherlock shrugged, and then he peered up at John who lay in Sherlock's, bed fully clothed, tremor less. With an uncertain hand, he touched John's forehead.
"You know...you saved Billie's life."
John smiled. "I think I did."
"Are...are you alright now?"
John thought. His head, apart from the burst of tired pain, was clear. It was heavenly, and he could not suppress the sigh he felt ripple through his relieved body. It was good to feel again; to see real life around him...Sherlock's hand against his skin, cautious and concerned, for him. That was new. Not unheard of, but all the same, to be allowed the trust of him, the solitary Sherlock Holmes, it warmed John more than he cared to admit.
Memories toppled through him, the good, the ones that left him gasping for air at 3 in the morning in a cold sweat, the beautiful, and the terrible, and John smiled.
"I'm getting there."