The ambulance is stark white, lit in the flashing blue and white lights of the police car against the dark of night. Someone from St. Bart's drapes a hideous orange blanket over his shoulders. It's for the shock, he remembers, from that time when John shot the ridiculous cabbie.
He tries to pull the blanket off with his right arm. It won't lift. He looks down and sees that it's in a sling, bound against his ribs. He frowns. An odd way to bind a broken wrist, and by the feel of the bones, that's what he has. He must ask John when he gets back. He tries with his left hand, but it tingles oddly, all pins and needles, enough to hurt, and he puts it down again.
He glares at the blanket. As much of it as he can see, at least, with dark fringe handing in front of his eyes – and when had his hair grown out so long? He'd had a haircut just yesterday, hadn't he?
The medics pass by in blurs of white and blue, moving too fast to for Sherlock to register, too fast to be real. Except they are; the senses never lie. The headlights of the cab, crushed in the accident like Sherlock almost was, flicker and are gone. Somebody brings out some torches, and their beams cut through the darkness like the shards of glass in the cabbie's pale arms, leaving an afterimage of criss-crossing lines when he closes his eyes in a blink.
I'm not in shock, he wants to say, because he's not, and he really wants to get this blanket off him. It's ruining his reputation. So he does, opens his mouth and everything.
Nobody looks at him.
He tries again. I'm not in shock, he says, it's all right. You can take this blanket off now. And realizes his mouth is moving, but nothing is coming out of it.
The fear courses over him in a dizzying wave, so strong he sits down.
He frowns again. He's already sitting down, isn't he? On the pallet inside the ambulance. The oddity of the question makes him forget he can't speak for a moment.
He stands up. At least he can do that. He steps forward one step, two steps, three steps. Outside the ring of lights on the road made by the policecars and the ambulance.
The moment he leaves the circle, he's standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square in broad daylight.
Automatically, he looks around for John, and, realizing he can move both arms again, reaches into his pocket for his revolver. He finds neither. A ridiculous certainty comes over him, that John is gone. Something dark and heavy settles into the pit of his stomach, and try as he might, Sherlock can't shake the feeling.
A steaming cup appears in his peripheral vision. Sherlock darts a look at it from the corner of his eye. Odd. He hadn't noticed the person's approach. He looks back at his shoes.
"Honey and lemon," says a male voice. For a brief moment, Sherlock thinks it's John, because the way the voice says tea is so familiar, but, "for the shock," he continues, and Sherlock knows it's not.
Sherlock looks up at the word shock. For an instant, his lips quirk up, reminded of the time John shot a cabbie for him. Then he remembers a moment ago, after the cab he'd been in was crushed by a truck, and the half-smile falls off his face again.
The man, tall and dark-haired, with hipster glasses and a yellow-orange striped scarf, doesn't look like he's trying to poison Sherlock, so he accepts the cup; takes a tentative sip. There's too much honey in too little liquid, and drinking it leaves him thirstier than before. He misses John's tea, made black with two sugars the way he likes it.
He drops the blanket from his shoulders, sets the still half-full cup aside, stands, and leaves.
It tips over behind him, tea spilling out in a puddle that reflects the blurred lights of evening traffic.
The tea man calls after him, but he pretends he hasn't heard, and the man gives up after a while. Sherlock sweeps down the street in a whirl of black overcoat and blue knit scarf. He stomps up the fourteen stairs to 221b Baker Street, and sits down heavily in the armchair. Odd. He could have sworn there were seventeen steps to the landing of 221b.
There's a cup of tea on the windowsill, saucer-less.
Sherlock dumps his overcoat in the armchair unceremoniously and retreats into his bedroom, flopping onto the bed with his feet on the pillow and his left arm hanging off the side. He sighs, something prickling in the corner of his eyes, blurring his vision.
Nobody can make tea like John.
He wakes up alone, tangled in a pile of sheets on the sofa, disoriented and oddly speechless, mid-morning sunlight streaming into his eyes.
John's looking over at him from the armchair where he's reading the morning papers, striped mug of tea in his left hand, a plate of toast and jam balanced carefully on the arm of the couch. "You alright?"
Sherlock nods, shakily, and sits up.
"Want to talk about it?"
Sherlock shakes his head, then whispers, "No, it's fine."
"Want some tea?" asks John, not pressing the question as other would have, setting down the paper to pour two mugs.
Sherlock nods, because it it's the last time he's offered tea made by John, he's certainly going to accept.
He'd managed something like six hours of sleep during that one session, John tells him over the tea, so Sherlock knows he can go another three days at least, five if he pushes it. Which is good.
But Lestrade interrupts halfway through John's second slice of toast with a text that says, simply, "4 home, don't forget to lock the door." The left side of Sherlock's mouth curls upward involuntarily.
The game is on.
He leaps off the sofa, tossing his dressing gown onto the ground beside it in a crumpled heap, and yanks on his overcoat and scarf. John drops his toast.
"What now, Sherlock?"
Sherlock wings the phone in his direction, and dashes down the stairs – seventeen, he double-checks just in case, and flags down a taxi. The phone-throwing probably isn't a good idea, but it takes too long to walk over and hand it to John, and besides, it's got a case.
Sherlock slides into the taxi, not bothering to check if John is there or not – he always is, after all – and barks, "Scotland Yard."
"Please," adds John with a slight twist to his lips as he attempts to buckle up. Sherlock watches him fumble with the phone password – the seventeenth through twenty-third digits of pi with the obvious letter substitutions in the nineteenth and twenty-first places – before snatching it out of John's hands irritably and unlocking it himself.
Sherlock watches John read the message on the phone, John's hand hovering just above Sherlock's own, as If he isn't sure whether to take the phone from him or not. He can tell when John finishes reading the message, because his head lifts up just a fraction before he scans through it again. John's chin tilts up.
Sherlock stuffs the phone back into his pocket and answers John's unspoken question without looking at the man, "It's Lestrade trying to speak in code. '4 home', that means four homicides, and also means Scotland Yard, though why Lestrade would call the Yard 'home' is beyond me. Too many idiots there. 'Don't forget to lock the door' means they were found behind a locked door. Or that he's mother-henning me." He frowns, pauses, then adds, "Obviously."
He sees the wry twist of John's lips before he turns away
Sherlock gets mild pneumonia that day, jumping into the river after a gun, and John sits with him the whole night he's forced to spend at Bart's.
The nightmares don't stop after that. Instead, as if making them spend a night in Sherlock's head in the hospital has gotten them irked, they return more in number and in strength. Now, Sherlock's afraid of sleep.
Sherlock shoves John away because he doesn't want John to worry, which works less than well.
"Come on," says John after Sherlock's ninety-second sleepless hour, "you need to go—"
"Go what?" spits Sherlock with perhaps more venom than necessary, slapping John's hand away, "Go see that idiot you call a psychiatrist, whom you pay for doodling hearts in the corners of her notepad?"
He regrets it afterwards, but he's focused too much on staying awake to apologize.
.o0o.
"John Watson," the man says, extending his right hand – tanned, but only to the edge of his sleeve, not from vacation then, military – and, fumbling slightly, shifting his cane – shiny, metal, fitted to his grip; new then, he's still unused to it: old injury, perhaps, a gift, initials JW on the handle – to his left.
Sherlock doesn't look up, and pours three drops of barium chlorinate into a beaker filled with 347.6 ml of hydrochloric acid before answering. "I know."
The man – John – looks a bit wrongfooted, but recovers well. He tucks the cane back under his right arm. Sherlock watches this from the corner of his left eye, while pretending to take notes on the green bubbles forming in the beaker.
.o0o.
John's away but alive, something to do with his doctoring stuff? Sherlock is feeling his absence, and gets distracted and shot during a chase. Lestrade and Anderson and Donovan show up.
A cup appears in his peripheral vision. Sherlock darts a look at it from the corner of his eye – steaming, newly made, somebody who cares about the victims; cup cylindrical but tapers slightly to an end: thermos lid possibly from REI. He looks back at his shoes.
"Honey and lemon tea," says a male voice – low, somewhat rough, the man is tall, wide about the shoulders, hint of a German accent, owner immigrated from Germany or was raised in a German-speaking family. "For the shock," he continues.
Sherlock looks up at the word shock. The owner of the voice is, in fact, tall and broad-shouldered, and has a vague German look about him. But it's not as fun doing all the deducting when there's nobody to explain it to. For a brief instant, Sherlock misses John.
Or he realizes he misses John.
It's the same idea, really, emotions.
He accepts the cup; takes a tentative sip. There's too much honey in too little liquid, and drinking it leaves him more thirsty than before. He misses John's tea, made with two sugars the way he likes it.
He drops the blanket – the same horrendous orange as that other time he'd nearly gotten shot, except the last time it was John that had fired the shot, and he wouldn't have hit Sherlock - from his shoulders, sets the cup aside, stands, and leaves.
Lestrade calls after him, but he pretends he hasn't heard, and the Detective Inspector gives up. Sherlock sweeps down the street in a whirl of black overcoat and blue knit scarf. He nearly stomps up the seventeen stairs to 221b Baker Street, and sits down heavily in the armchair.
There's a cup of tea on the windowsill, lonely and forlorn without a saucer.
Sherlock dumps his overcoat in the armchair unceremoniously and retreats into his bedroom, flopping onto the bed with his feet on the pillow and his left arm hanging off the side.
Nobody can make tea like John.
He wakes up tangled in a pile of sheets on the sofa, disoriented and oddly speechless, having slept the rest of the night after his sudden realization in a relative absence of dreams.
John's looking over at him from the armchair where he's reading the morning papers. "You alright?"
Sherlock nods, shakily.
"Want to talk about it?"
Sherlock shakes his head, then whispers, "No, it's alright."