One too many chances. Burst through one door too many. Race around one too many blind corners. It was inevitable.
And the men they were chasing got away, just to add insult to injury. Lestrade knows who they were after. Sherlock had identified the bomb-making terrorists two days ago in one of his usual bursts of genius, but he'd only come up with the location an hour ago. Not the specific spot, but close. Within a mile of this warehouse. His uncanny instinct had brought them the rest of the way. But John knows that Greg won't find them without more information, and they're no longer able to send it to him. It would only have been a matter of hours before the men were caught. Sherlock didn't need to act on his instincts against all reason. John didn't have to follow him into the empty warehouse in the middle of the night. But of course he had. There was no possibility that he would let Sherlock come here alone.
And of course, the warehouse wasn't entirely empty. Dark, cold, and cavernous, but not empty. They're lying up against the three tier high group of shipping crates that had provided cover for the men who shot them both.
John didn't see where they went, but it doesn't matter. Both men were there, armed and waiting for them. The taller one had come over to look at them after they were down. He'd searched them roughly and taken away John's gun and both mobile phones, then left without a word.
Sherlock can make it, if he uses his head, but John knows too well what's going on inside his own body. The location of the wound would be enough to tell him, but his symptoms back it up. He can feel his blood pressure dropping. The dimming vision, breathlessness, heart rate, all point to the same prognosis. The bullet has damaged the pericardium, and it's slowly filling with blood. It won't be long before the pressure is too much for his heart to work against, and it will simply stop. There's nothing anyone could do now, not unless he was being wheeled into surgery in the next five minutes. Maybe not even then.
But Sherlock has a chance. The bullet struck him in the upper right quadrant, but low enough that it may have missed the liver. It's serious, but not necessarily fatal. He can make it, if he can stay still and focus until help arrives. Lestrade is going to figure out where they went, and he'll come for them. It will be too late for John, but Sherlock has a chance.
He would, at least, if he'd sit back and breathe instead of frantically pressing his scarf against John's chest and hyperventilating as he's doing now.
"Sherlock, you need to be calm. Slow your heart rate. Breathe." It's hard to talk above a whisper, but he knows Sherlock can hear him. He never listens, but he can hear.
You see, but you don't observe.
The memory makes him smile, but it probably looks like a grimace, and that makes Sherlock pause.
"Am I hurting you?"
He won't believe that there's no hope. John knows it would be the same if their positions were reversed. He wouldn't give up on Sherlock, either. But not giving up is going to cost him his chance to survive.
"Sherlock, you have to sit quietly and wait for help. You'll bleed to death if you don't sit still."
Sherlock's breath hitches, and he shakes his head. "You're not giving up. Don't even think about it." The statement ends on a choked sound that means he knows the truth.
John reaches up and touches Sherlock's tear stained cheek, turns him to face John's calm eyes. "Sherlock, it's okay. I need to know that you're not going to give up. Lestrade will find you."
Sherlock holds his gaze for a moment, then looks down at John's chest and shakes his head. "No."
"Sherlock, listen to me. That isn't going to help." And it hurts like hell. "There isn't anything you can do. There's nothing anyone could do."
"This is my fault." Sherlock's voice is a strangled whisper, choked with tears. "I can't-"
"Yes, you can. You can settle down and wait for help, and you can make sure they don't get away with this." He has to give him a reason to stay alive, and revenge is the only thing he can come up with. "Tell Lestrade who shot us."
"It doesn't matter." Sherlock's head is bowed, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
"Sherlock, please. For me." John knows he won't be conscious more than a few more seconds, but that may be the only way to make Sherlock stay still. If John lets go, Sherlock will stop trying to save him. He needs to stop fighting. "Stay alive. For me."
Sherlock has been kneeling next to him, but now he sits down with his back against the crates. He shifts their bodies a bit so that John is leaning up against his chest between Sherlock's long outstretched legs. Sherlock wraps his arms around John's chest and lowers his head, nuzzling John's hair.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Sherlock keeps whispering the words, lips moving softly against John's temple.
"I'm not." John smiles, and closes his eyes.
Greg Lestrade's men find the warehouse two hours later, after the men who shot John and Sherlock trade the location of the warehouse for promised favors that will never be granted. Not if Greg has anything to say about it.
Lestrade is one of the first on the scene, and one of the first into the warehouse, ahead of the medics who hold back until the area is pronounced secure. Inside, he sees the advance team standing with their weapons down at their sides, facing a bank of crates at the far end of the warehouse, and Greg slows to a trot. Their body language tells him there's no further need to run, and his heart clenches. The terrorists had admitted that John and Sherlock were probably dead, but Greg refused to believe it. They always managed to surprise him. It seems now that the surprise is not going to be the good kind.
"Did you call in the medics?" He calls to them before he's close enough to see for himself.
The men turn to look at him, and then part ranks so he can see.
Greg kneels next to them. Touches the cooling skin. Searches for a pulse, first in Sherlock's throat, then in John's, but it's clear that they're gone, and he bows his head. "Bring the medics in."
Sherlock is sitting upright with his back to the crates, and he has John hugged against his chest. John's head is tipped back, eyes closed, smiling. Not a sign of pain on his face. Sherlock's head is down, as if he's still whispering to his friend, words to take away the pain and make him smile. John's hands are clasped together over his heart, and Sherlock's hands are wrapped around them.
Greg hears the rattle of the trolleys being brought up to carry away his friends, and he holds up a hand to stop them, just for a moment. He's finding it overwhelmingly sad, the thought of separating them. It's irrational and he knows it, but the tears clogging his throat won't let him explain that he just needs another moment to adjust to this new world. But then he realizes that's never going to happen, and he stands up.
"You can take them," he says in a voice that vibrates with grief.
He stands back, and turns his attention to the crime scene technicians who are approaching now. He can hear the medics talking to one another, and he tries not to listen to the details. Almost instantly fatal, they say of John's wound. No more than a few seconds of consciousness. But they don't know this man. How he would have fought to his last breath to give his friend a reason to hang on. Greg knows it would have been a losing battle, but he thinks John would have known that, too. It wouldn't have stopped him from trying with everything he had to keep Sherlock alive, just as he always did. And he knows that when Sherlock finally realized John was gone, he simply shut down and let go.
As the medics place the bodies on the stretchers, they comment on how Sherlock's wound doesn't seem to be fatal at all, and wondering what weird ricochet the bullet must have taken internally to cause him to die from it.
Greg knows what Molly Hooper will say. She will want to do the autopsies, no matter how hard it will be for her, because they are her friends. She knows them as well as Greg does, and she will know the truth, no matter what the evidence shows clinically. She will know that Sherlock's bullet wound didn't kill him. John's did.
Author's notes: I don't normally do character death, let alone the main characters, but this got in my head and wouldn't leave. Purging a nightmare, maybe. My apologies. ~GW