Summary: More often than not, it's Sherlock rescuing John from being kidnapped by various nefarious criminals. Sherlock never expected it to work the other way round.
AN/ Part of a series of chronological oneshots that can all be read separately – the master list is on my profile page. Also, a thank you to bb1019 who sent me a lovely, kind PM and made me feel that much better a writer than I thought =]
Pairing: (BAMF!)John/Sherlock
Role Reversal
Sherlock is dizzy.
The gag reflex at the back of his throat is telling his body that he wants to expel something from his system, but he is aware that it's just nauseous shock coursing through his system, caused by adrenaline and the lack of food he has ingested over the last twenty four hours; both through his own personal habits of forgetting to eat when on a case – and John puts on his 'Doctor Voice' when he lectures Sherlock about the dangers of this – and due to the fact that his captors have neglected to give him any nourishment in what he estimates has been six hours in their care. He suspects dryly that they don't probably plan of having him alive that long for feeding him to be an issue.
He's been working on wriggling his hands free with an expert patience that comes from practice, manoeuvring the wrist and flexing his fingers to create more give in the rope that ties his hand around the back of the metal chair he's on, but the chafe he's receiving from the constant rubbing around his wrists is beginning to hurt with a dull throb, and it's sufficiently still tight enough to ensure that it might break the skin at some point and he still wont be out. His heart is beating hard, uncomfortable and making reading potential dangers harder when evolution has meant that animal instinct when in danger perceives everything irrationally as being a threat. Even in his increased state of anxiety however, Sherlock could explain exactly the scientific process behind the aching in his chest; how the hypothalamus sends electrical impulses to the adrenal glands, and how they then produce adrenaline and secrete it into the bloodstream, causing increased and irregular breathing patterns, dilated pupils and his heart rate pumping more blood to muscles rising to what he estimates his about 140 beats per minute.
God, he's desperate for a smoke. He hasn't smoked in – has it really been four years? (since he had his last cigarette, since John arrived) – but he's decided now he's going to treat himself to a victory smoke if he gets out of this unscathed.
Knowledge is what is helping keeping him calm at this present moment. Rational thought, clear decided logic. It is safe, it makes sense, and in his own way, returning to the basic processes of his mental faculties makes him feel safer. He knows that the pain he is feeling, harsh and sharp in spiking waves of sensation when he jostles any injury is as a result of the specialised pain receptors in his skin called nociceptors activating and sending impulses to his brain, knows that his legs are numb and useless to him even if he does get his hands free – damn the unreliability of transport – because of the plastic cord holding them to the legs of the chair restricting the blood circulation.
By his estimation, and from his extensive understanding of the human anatomy – although he could never claim to be as proficient as John when it came to such medical information – he has deduced that three of his ribs are cracked, and two on his right side broken by an earlier blow from steel-capped boots, judging from the heightened severity of the pain compared to the other side of his torso.
He concludes also, due to the reduction of sight in his left eye and the striking memory of a fist punching him there, that the soft tissue around his eyelid has engorged and swelled, quite possibly with an accompanying subconjunctival hemorrhage, into what John would refer to as 'a shiner' in his interesting colloquialisms– which he often points out to the doctor as being incorrect, as the wound is more likely to be a green yellow colour or a dark purple where the bruising is concentrated, not at all shiny, and generally rather unsightly.
But despite all this back up knowledge, despite how he can catalogue his injuries so rationally, Sherlock is still frightened. He may be in possession of several obvious symptoms that align him with being diagnosed with a degree of sociopathy – I'm not a psychopath, he once snarked at Anderson, I'm a highly functioning sociopath, do your research – , but he can still feel. He is still human. He may require an increased level of mental stimulation than his contemporaries, and as such has a higher threshold to frightening stimuli, but when it comes down to it, when he's tied to a chair in a darkened – albeit unoriginal, he has noted disdainfully – cellar, with a Walther PPK aimed at his head, Sherlock can feel fear pretty well for a guy who many believe is without emotion at all.
His mind is focusing on other things as well. It would be detrimental for him to just focus on the obvious fatal nature of his situation.
Strangely, one of the thoughts that crosses his mind is how it would be rather anticlimactic for London's greatest (and only) consulting detective to get shot in a clichéd run-down enclosed space previously used, deduced from the cool musty atmosphere, to most likely store wine or beer kegs by common gang-related thugs. The leader of whom – Gavin Abnett... five eleven, heterochromia causing discolouration of the pupil to a light blue compared to the other green shade, hereditary, passed down – recently broken up with his girlfriend; there is a speck of shaving foam near his earlobe, a partner would have pointed it out, also taking into account the way he is holding himself, like his back is stiff, so he's not been sleeping in his own bed, sofa, friends house – not family's because of the ginger cat hairs on his trouser cuffs, he's allergic by the way he's being wiped his nose with a tissue repeatedly over an elapsed time period and with the rash around his lower arm where he's been in contact, a family member would have been aware of this, close family wouldn't own a cat for the same reason, so it's got to be a friends house...– thinks he's some sort of James Bond character from the svelte clothing he's wearing to try and make himself look respectable and using the handgun of the fictional character in question (Sherlock blames John wholeheartedly for making him watch those films in a marathon session – a waste of several hours of his life, in light of the film's woeful inaccuracies and escapist pandering to action genre requirements – when the doctor invited Lestrade over for beer and a Chinese)
Sherlock's already heard all the frankly repetitive and predictable one liners while Gavin was hitting him, no ingenuity in his violence either, just plain old-fashioned brutality, like a playground bully; a lot about having bested Holmes, five utterances of making Sherlock pay for taking out the majority of his gang network (technically, the Yard took them down, but it was Sherlock's ministrations that made it happen), seven mentions of how Sherlock's going to die (he could have figured that one out by himself) and over twelve references to rising to become a name people will fear, blah, blah, blah.
It is hard for the detective not to give a sarcastic yawn – but considering he doesn't want to be punched in the face again, he deigns to sit silently and only occasionally cut in with something clever (that earns him a punch anyway, he can't really win)
It is also rather a disappointment that the man has gone to all the effort to kidnap him while stilling allowing him to be able to work out exactly where he is with very little difficulty. Not that the information is much good to him being tied to a chair, and it's times like this he really begins to miss his mobile, but it was a relatively simple process of finding where he was by gathering the relevant data – by the type of soil in his shoes; a rather wet, clay-like substance and the degrees of light in the large space from a chink of light through gaps in the brickwork and cross referenced this with the faint rumble of pedestrian footsteps he can hear from nearby streets – deducing ultimately that the warehouse is somewhere underground one of the buildings along the Victoria Embankment, along the Thames and infuriatingly close to Scotland Yard.
He supposes rather morbidly that the proximity to such a body of water would give them less distance to carry his corpse before they dispose of it. And the nearness of the Yard means they wont spend too much tax-payers money fishing him out of the Thames.
All the same, Sherlock would rather not die. He's never believed in any sort of afterlife, has never professed any inclining to any sort of Congregational faith, yet the idea of having nothing, nothing there when he dies is a disturbing concept to him. His head is swimming now, his vision blurring in and out as it attempts to focus properly, and he imagines he might have concussion from the blow to the back of the head when they subdued him long enough to strap him to the chair, a wound which he knows has bled because he could feel the sticky lines dripping down and knotting in his hair before natural congealing and clotting scabbed it over.
Yet he fights to remain conscious with a singular tenacity, as he has never bowed to anyone's will, refuses to succumb to something as mundane and dull as unconsciousness. He instead works on filtering out Gavin's gloating (he really has been going on for a long time, and Sherlock wonders idly whether he has drawn breath at all in the last fifteen minutes) in favour of withdrawing into his own mind; his whirring thought processes, ratio and probability, sizing up the height of the walls and the space in metres, then converts it into metric to keep himself sharp. Geometry, angles, mathematical estimations. He counts all the bricks he can see on the far right wall (fifty-six), tests again at the rope around his wrists before the bite of pain as the rough texture rips open skin, induces a quiet offended groan – damn transport, he thinks again – and forces him to stop.
And when he has gained all he can from deductions regarding his well-being, his injuries and chances of survival (he'd rather be ignorant of them, if he was honest) he sinks instead into memory, his recall pitch perfect due to the eidetic and well honed nature of his observances. He recalls conversations with Mrs Hudson, how John asked him to buy some milk this morning when he left the house, spends a few idle minutes running through the notes of one of his more favoured violin pieces; Contradanza (John's favourite really, but it has become his own since the doctor admitted to liking it)
Sherlock thinks a lot about John in those last few moments. They are admittedly comforting thoughts to lose himself in.
Instead of thinking about the here and now, his mind travels back to treasured recollections that manifest in his thoughts unbidden. He thinks of how John gives a short snort of humour before he starts laughing, properly, lines drawing themselves around his eyes, how when he smiles with eyes lacquered in blue, it's like dawn, like he's seeing something in Sherlock that no one else ever has, and when it's just them and the world is locked outside, John brushes the pads of his fingers against the back of the detective's hands before his fingers knot over Sherlock's, and the action isn't poetic, romance reserved for the young, it feels so much more permanent than that.
The world lurches sickeningly, suddenly and the urge to vomit rises up along with bile at the back of his throat. Sherlock pressures it down, swallows, and his ribs flare, pushes himself back into his thoughts, the in-between peripheries between reality and the brittle walls of memory in a concentrated effort to stay conscious. Think, he tells himself. Not too hard, not about the things you don't want to find, but about the things that hide you from the dark.
"That was amazing"
"Do you think so?"
"Of course it was, it was extraordinary. It was quite extraordinary"
"That's not what people normally say"
"What do people normally say?"
"Piss off"
Sherlock smirks with a crooked smile at the memory; the admiration in John's eyes, something he'll selfishly admit he never gets tired of seeing, a subtle utterance of 'brilliant' that spurs him on to be better, to do better and see that smile lingering at the back of his eyes again. This memory is one of the special ones, sacred, locked up in the section of his mind protected from deleting. He would never want rid of it.
Gavin's talking halts mid sentence, the sudden silence, breaking of a roaring car, and from the smile on his defeated enemy's face assumes that Sherlock is laughing at him. The detective gets a backhand to the face for his trouble, and after his head has snapped back to its original position, the urge to vomit increasing as his balance perception is altering itself, he tastes the tang of the copper sheen of blood in his mouth from where he's bitten into the soft flesh of his tongue to stop from making any sound. It's a matter of pride, but he's being doing a remarkable job so far.
Gavin gives a satisfied nod to himself and unfortunately for Sherlock and his patience starts up talking again, waving his Walther around as he illustrates a point with the communicative of his hands, possessing not an ounce of gun safety knowledge, and Sherlock thinks by the tone of his voice he might be mocking him. He'd bother to make out words, but it just generally seemed to be the usual; how Gavin was smarter than him, how he was better than him, how Sherlock was a freak who was getting put out of his misery. The detective doesn't listen. He knows how this game goes, even if he doesn't know what happens when it ends.
John smiles, clumsier than usual, and the sun gives him a halo tinted into sandy blonde. Sherlock smiles back, catching the tip of his tongue with his teeth to hold in words that have tried to chase each other out, wanting to be heard.
"What are you thinking about, Sherlock?" he asks, like he doesn't know, and Sherlock thinks – John, you really can be an idiot sometimes. The doctor most likely is expecting a usual answer, is taking up his role of the sounding board, Sherlock bouncing off thoughts about a case off him and gaining inspiration just by saying the words aloud.
For a moment, he keeps biting the response back, something like denial starting through his mind, cold and calculating, the colour of logic, before he crumples and terminates it. He is too far gone, too far fallen into this to hold himself back, not when John's seen him, all of him, not when Sherlock's offered him everything, the good, and the grey where it dips into bad, and John has studied every facet before kissing Sherlock again, every time tingling like the first.
"You" he says honestly, and John's smile pauses, halts, cracking halfway before it is warm again, shining with a golden gilt, the sort of look that takes someone apart with dexterous fingers or puts them back together with similar care. John smiles, and again it's clumsier than usual, self-conscious and doubting, like he's not sure what Sherlock's seeing in him is even there, and the sun through the curtains lights up the whole of him, makes him glow and for a moment, everything is illuminated and makes complete and utter sense.
Sherlock is brought back unwillingly to the present with a violent dousing jolt, as something connects hard with the side of his face to grab his attention, a slap, a sensation which over the course of his dealings with this man has become irksome and unoriginal very fast.
"I'm going to kill you now, Mr Holmes" Gavin standing next to him is almost beside himself with some form of twisted glee, smiling like it's the funniest joke that only he knows the punchline to and Sherlock doesn't doubt his words to any degree as he hears the click of the safety flicked off. The barrel is cold and unyielding, flush against his head."Any last words?"
Sherlock recognises with an embarrassing certainty that he is most likely going to die now; die from a mere bullet from a jumped up idiot specimen for humanity, whose vocabulary seems to work on a loop of insults and mocking followed by punching then more insults, who outside of these restraints Sherlock could probably beat both mentally and physically with no real exertion. But beneath the fear that he senses in a roiling wave that washes over him, all he can feel, apart from the automatic defence mechanism that creeps in regardless of flinty logic (I can't die now, not by this man's hand, not in so mundane a manner), is sadness. Spiralling upwards like fumes, tendrils snaking through his thoughts, his mind, clear in its clarity. He does not want to die.
His heart hurts, thumps, beats painfully, and it has nothing to do with the pain receptors in his body or the increased adrenaline sprinting down veins and arteries; it is purely a psychological reaction, psychosomatic, an emotional response at the that hits him hard like a tumbling wall of bricks that he's barricaded himself with.
The idea of never seeing John, his John, ever again hurts, and in the darkened musky cellar and a gun to his temple that's all he can think about.
Normal, bland John, who goes on about the price of milk going up, or how the lock sticks on the downstairs closet. John who at the same time is the most unique, interesting person Sherlock has ever had the fortune to meet, to be part of his life. John who he can't figure out, who he never thinks he will, John who tells Sherlock he loves him in a code all of his own, build up from shared glances, faint touches, a smirk when nothing is funny. John who laughs at old slapstick comedy on the TV, who rewatchs films that he must know all the words to, has marathons of Lord of the Rings and the first three Star Wars movies even though Sherlock doesn't understand how he can want to see them again when he already knows what's going to happen. John who is comfortably predictable in his jumpers and comfy clothes, but who can still surprise Sherlock, does so every day. John who shot a stranger to aid a man he barely knew, who was loyal to Sherlock when Mycroft tried to bribe him after only a few days.
John. John who is an imperfect half of an imperfect whole. John who is Sherlock's. John who is John.
There are many things that Sherlock wants to say to John before that man yanks on the trigger and ends it all, so many that he cannot order them in terms of importance or priority. Some are big things, over-arching truths told in the language of one man's fragile stupid human heart, others that are foolish little things that shouldn't be in his head but are.
He wants to tell John he loves him one last time, wants to tell him he's sorry that he didn't listen to John's advice about not going out to meet an informant he knew might be dodgy, regardless of how importance the data might be on the case. Wishes he'd taken the time to kiss John softly on the cheek as the man slept next to him before departing. Wishes he'd said more, wishes he'd done more, wishes he didn't miss that dinner that John had planned three nights previous at that posh Italian place in Soho, never mind that they'd been wrapped up in a case. Wishes he hadn't come here, hadn't made such a... an idiotic elementary mistake that will not only prove fatal for him but will also hurt John.
Sherlock Holmes wants to be trite and predictable in his wishes for once in his life; what he wants is to kiss John's lips like it'll stop time, to hold him close so that there is no gap between them and they're breathing the same air, lie through his teeth and promise him everything will be ok even though it wont be, not now.
"No last words?" Gavin seems rather disappointed, expecting more from this whole charade, and in a speedy jabbing motion, he harshly connects his fist to Sherlock's gut, his laugh full of vicious pride, wanting to add insult to injury, to drag this out. His laugh is high, cruel and Sherlock doesn't want to hear it again.
The impact knocks the breath out of him, and the detective would bend over winded if not for the ropes holding him tightly in place. Gavin tuts, and there is a savage chuckle in his throat as he forces the gun hard against Sherlock's skin again. Taunting him, making this last, while Sherlock's sucking in air and panting and he doesn't want to die, but if he is he wants to die with some bloody dignity.
"I've got to admit, Mr Holmes" Gavin shakes his head "I'm a little disappointed. Thought you'd put up more than a fight than this"
Sherlock's initial thought is to respond with a smart comeback – not wise, given the circumstances, but the miniature ounce of power it will give him reflected in Gavin's affronted face will be worth it – but the words that actually come out of his mouth do so in a tumble of stuck together syllables that appear to be no word in the English Language. He surrenders that idea, just works on trying to force air back into his lungs. There are the beginnings of wetness in the corners of his eyes, pain sparking them into place, yet he forces them back, and after a moment, raises his head, proudly, arrogantly, looking straight into the eyes of the man who is going to kill him and giving him nothing. No emotion. No fear. A small smirk in the corner of his mouth testament to a private victory.
"I'm sorry?" he says finally, in a cool voice like a breezy room, dripping with disdain "I wasn't quite listening. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was incredibly dull and boring, much like most of the tirade you've made me endure today. I'd imagine that your small pretty-minded ideals are probably why your girlfriend left you. And it's definitely you calling her, trying to get her back – you've been checking your phone regularly for a text. And she's not responding, clever girl, she'll go far. Harsh break-up was it?"
Gavin's face twists, brutal, feral, and Sherlock thinks for a moment the man is going to hit him again, harder than before because anger does that, before a phone call, the trilling ring of the pre-set Nokia ringtone suddenly cuts through the gloomy silence.
Gavin drags a mobile from out of a denim pocket, an angered look on his face, not helped by Sherlock's recent comments. Really, Sherlock thinks, with a temper like that he's not going last long in this business for very long before that recklessness gets him killed.
"I told you I was not to be interrupted" Gavin hisses down the phone lines.
The line crackles, warps in a sound like white noise, and then a fumbling sound, distorting the jolting thump of a collision, and Gavin frowns, speaks again only less assured of himself this time round; "Toby?"
"Toby isn't here right now" a calm voice sounds out. Male, Sherlock can make out."I just wanted to let you know that you have about three minutes until I come in there to find you. And if I find you've hurt him in any way, I will put a bullet in your brain" The words are low. Dangerous, flavoured with unspoken threats of guns and broken bones, spat out like a bullet, the voice itself quiet, but with edges of steel, of war.
"Who is this?" Gavin doesn't know whether to give a nervous laugh or whimper, so opts for the sort of predictable bravado used only by men like him of limited intelligence "You wont get through. I've got guards at every corner, you'll never get in"
"Three minutes" the voice repeats. And then the dull continuous sound as the connection is cut.
"Who did you call?" Gavin rounds back to Sherlock, fear and concern creating a potent near-violent mix, screeches in a tone too many decibels above what is natural "Who the fuck did you get in touch with?"
Sherlock doesn't answer. He didn't call anybody, but he'd rather gain the satisfaction of seeing Gavin squirm than tell him that.
"I'm gonna kill you, you freak" Gavin growls, and he pulls his gun up to aim again "I'm going to fuckin' kill you"
Sherlock doesn't doubt it.
There is the sound of far away gunshots from outside the cellar, from upstairs, and Gavin stills even as Sherlock is listening intently, sifting though the sound, distinctly noticing two patterns; the first he assumes are the guards Gavin put in place, their slap-dash bullets pelted out of semi automatics, a frantic quavering of sound, and then another, more foreboding sound, a thump, thump, thump of one round being clicked off after another, like the owner is just aiming and firing and hitting every time. There is the background noise of shouting, and even after the bullets have stopped they continue, a rhythm of grunts and groans, a back-in-track to the fight going on up there. It is clear who is winning.
"Go do something about him, before he gets here!" Gavin shouts over to the two other men in the cellar who have been standing out of Sherlock's sight line. All tall and stocky, apparently ex-Marines or something else as militarily weighed in their favour. Not the sort of men you want to tangle with, and they both nod, move towards the locked door directly in front of Sherlock, and one of them scrabbles for the key in their pocket, eager to get to the fight. Sherlock watches them climb up the immediate stairwell, counts out ten seconds in his head and doesn't even get to his final number before bullets are being fired again, the pounding cracking sound that comes from misplaced air as the pellets travel along their trajectory. A strangled squawk as one is taken down, and then there is a boom as the other returns to the room in the unsavoury manner of being pushed down the stairs. A shadowed figure follows him down.
The guard is up, surprisingly steady on his feet, and must have misplaced his gun for he resorts to brute strength, swinging out with his fists. But the shadow has already reacted, blocks every punch like this is a game he already knows the tactics for, slamming his fist against the man's face, his chest, pushing him further into the room. The guard reaches out with a sinewy muscled arm, and Sherlock hears the pop and smothered scream as the shoulder bone is forced sharply, harshly out of place. A final blow to the temple with something metal, and the man goes down hard onto unyielding ground and does not move again.
"I'm afraid I lied somewhat about my timing"
The voice sounds familiar to Sherlock, contorted by clipped tones that underneath are laced with a controlled anger. Although it is logically impossible, the voice sounds like home, like safety, and Sherlock smiles to himself as the pieces fit before the man walks out of the shadows into the faint light.
Sherlock only has to look up and see John Watson know he shouldn't have been surprised. Standing at all of his 5'7 and dressed in his usual black coat over a woollen jumper and jeans, he is still managing to be the most dangerous looking man in this room. There is something sharp in his eyes, blood in his hair that does not belong to him. There is a small cut on his lip but he ignores it like he hasn't even acknowledged his presence. John Watson looks for all the world like he's killed people today and has rationalised every murder, so will not hesitate for one moment to do it again.
"You have something of mine." he says, and every syllable is deadly "I want it back. Now"
A hand clenches in Sherlock's hair, painful, and stars burst under his eyelids, a soft grunt passing the detective's lips, the grasp yanking it up hard at the roots, tilting the head back so that his neck is exposed. The sleek oily muzzle of the gun trails down the path of the vertebral artery, jabbing the stylohyoid muscle. He can feel his pulse jumping in the side of his neck, and swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"Y-you wont shoot me!" There is a stammer in Gavin's voice, the tinge of blatant fear in his tone, bordering on hysterics, a far cry from the gloating not five minutes before. He pulls on Sherlock's locks harder, adjusting his grip to pull his head back further, and the gun is sweaty in his palm as it sticks further into Sherlock's neck "You wont shoot me because I'll kill him first ! I'll kill him...!"
There is a final gunshot. The hand in Sherlock's hair goes lax, the pressure on his roots is released. And there is a choked disbelieving whimper from the man's body, more surprise than pain, and then a dull thump as a heavy body impacts on the ground and lies still.
Gavin Abnett does not get up.
"I don't think so" John mutters, and his manner is smooth and icy and all too sure of himself, and then abruptly, his face changes, expression melts away from the furious wrath it was, and then, it's John standing before him, looking oh so pedestrian if it wasn't for the gun in his hand and the murder that was in his heart not moments before. John is tucking the gun away, makes his way over frantically to Sherlock like he can't get to his side fact enough.
Sherlock has the sensation of warm hands on either side of his face, and his head is titled up, looks into wide worried blue eyes, flicking over Sherlock like he's a stranger he's never seen before, cataloguing everything.
"Sherlock?"
It's soft, low enough to scrape a plea, and Sherlock realises that John is waiting for him to say something.
"It was nice for you to show up" There is a lazy smile on his face and he doesn't know where it came from. Perhaps it arrived when John did.
John laughed, and it's a breathless thing of shattered tension "Just came to see if you'd got the milk I asked you for this morning"
"I'm afraid it rather slipped my mind" Sherlock smirks again, even though John can't see, the doctor have moved around the back of the chair, on his kneels to untie the rope that binds his hands. John's touch is gentle, undemanding, and Sherlock can feel the frozen blade of a small pocket knife fit snugly under the twine, uncomfortably cold against burning skin. Sherlock knows John is trying to be considerate, to not damage the skin any further, and he's grateful – grateful that John doesn't try to examine what he can't fix here, that John doesn't mention it except for what Sherlock knows will be a tightening around the eyes – but it doesn't stop a hiss of breath as the rope peels away where it's been stuck to bloody skin.
"I can see that." John says, and his voice is deliberately non-committal, his tone kept light because for the moment it is easier. Words will come later. But not here. "What trouble you get yourself in this time?"
"Nothing I couldn't handle"
John laughs softly, vaguely with a pause like it's an afterthought, but he doesn't reply, just finishes cutting Sherlock's legs loose, and there is another groaned sound of agony as he feels blood rush back into starved extremities. The doctor hooks his arms under the man's armpits, pulls him up, and the world tilts dangerously for a moment as he stands on legs he can barely feel, waiting for his brain to start processing the signals from there. "I can stand John." he complains with a spark of irritation "I am not a child"
John raises an eyebrow, flashes a look that bodes little argument "Who's got the medical degree here?"
"I remember. Only a fool argues with his doctor" Sherlock smirks, and takes an unsteady step forward, leaning over with his whole body so he nearly loses his balance if John were not there to catch him. His ribs jar, force him to suck air from his teeth, and John hears it and assesses him with firm eyes that seem for a moment to be in possession of a certain brand of deductive powers different to Sherlock's; and the detective has no doubt that John has classified every obvious injury and suspected injury, is already figuring out methods of healing, how long it'll take, etc. And as he does so, his eyes darken as he takes in it all, and Sherlock is pretty sure that if Gavin wasn't already dead, John would be searching for some sort of retribution.
"Jesus, Sherlock" He growls, "They really did a number on you." For the moment, there is a shade in his expression something like guilt, a tendency of John's Sherlock has found, to blame himself to a certain degree for something when he clearly could have done little about it. Sherlock knows that John will most likely be thinking along the obvious lines of 'if only I'd been faster', 'if only I'd realised sooner', because this has played out before to the same tune, and Sherlock cuts it right off there, not wanting John to feel responsible like he has been the last couple of times Sherlock has been injured on a case. He seems to think it's his job to protect Sherlock, considers it some form of failure when he doesn't manage it. But then again, Sherlock thinks to himself, John can be an idiot sometimes too.
"I am glad therefore that you were able to stop them before the result was decidedly more fatal" Sherlock pauses as he leans heavily on John, the smaller man taking most of the weight "Thank you" he murmurs "For... for coming after me"
John flicks a smile at Sherlock, the guilty sheen evaporating from his face "Don't be silly" he chides, like Sherlock is the idiot for imaging he'd do anything different. There is other things mixed in with that tone too, affection and love, pouring out of him so it's obvious to anyone watching, a protective manner that says mine to anyone who would dare try and take him away. Mine John's body says, and the way Sherlock leans into the touch, replies, agreeing, yours "Besides," John continues, smirks "it'd be boring without you around"
Sherlock grins fully then, a real proper flash of a smile transcendent from the aching in his body, and doesn't say anything at all, doesn't need to – words will come later, touch and reassurance when night trials in – just grasps all the tighter around John so there is barely a gap between the two of them.
He is safe.