Title: London Calling
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Genre: Romance, Fluff, with a side of BAMF!John
Wordcount: ~2,300
Warnings: None, besides some mild language
Summary: Riots and looting run rampant in the streets of London, and Sherlock Holmes is nowhere to be found.
Author's Notes: Written for the prompt "Riot(s)". This is un-beta'd and un-Brit picked so please let me know if there are any glaring errors.
If someone had told John Watson a year ago that the worst day of his life would take place on the familiar streets of London and not the desert of Afghanistan, he would have laughed. He would have laughed, because after all what could be worse than being shot and left to die in the burning sun thousands of miles from home?
That was before Sherlock. Everything seemed to come down to that, John thought to himself with more hysteria than he cared to admit. Before Sherlock, and after Sherlock. Before Sherlock, John would never have considered leaving the flat in the middle of riots that were tearing London apart. After Sherlock, he had no choice.
How the hell did this even happen?
How this all happened was actually quite simple.
In fact, John should really have seen this coming. Combine a bored Sherlock Holmes with three days of forced confinement due to the riots and looting that had started over in Tottenham, and something was bound to snap. Lestrade and the rest of Scotland Yard were far too busy trying to deal with the mobs of angry looters to even answer Sherlock's phone calls, and the labs at Barts were shut down for the duration of the riots. Sherlock had been growing progressively more irritable as the days without a case or any form of entertainment had passed, and this evening he had finally moved from simply bored into antsy. The kind of antsy that left the flat with bullet-riddled walls and John's favorite mugs being smashed out of pure spite.
"Sherlock Holmes so help me god if you break one more mug, the next thing that's going on the floor is the skull." Sherlock paused mid-throw and whipped his head around to glare at John.
"You wouldn't dare." His voice was a dangerous hiss, but John was past the point of caring. Three days of this nonsense had pushed him to the edge.
"Want to try me?" John knew that this was the wrong course of action, that he should just let Sherlock have his tantrum and hope that it would blow over, but he was furious. He was sick of living with a man who acted like a giant toddler, and he was sick of having his possessions and his sanity pay the price. With almost frightening clarity, he saw the direction of Sherlock's gaze and knew what was going to happen. "Sherlock, don't you dare –"
The good teapot crashed against the wall and shattered.
John went deadly still. He wanted nothing more than to storm over and punch the smirk off of Sherlock's fucking face, but years of army training stayed his hand. As furious as he was, he did not want to get into a fistfight with Sherlock when he was in this kind of mood, and retaliation would only escalate things further. So he simply turned on his heel and marched up the stairs with all the wounded dignity he could muster.
It wasn't until 20 minutes later when John realized that no sounds had come from downstairs in far too long that he realized that this had probably been the wrong thing to do.
"Pick up the phone you wanker, just pick up your damn phone!" John knew that shouting at his phone wouldn't actually cause Sherlock to pick it up, but what else could he do? The city was falling to pieces and Sherlock was nowhere to be found.
Oh god he probably got mixed up with some fucking kids looting a fucking store and deduced their whole lives and they had knives oh god oh god oh god I can't even take my eyes off of him for two seconds this is all my fault shit shit shit.
The sound of a shattering plate glass window snapped John out of the downward spiral that his thoughts had taken. He ducked behind a car as a mob of young men in hoodies ran by brandishing pipes and baseball bats.
Pull yourself together John Watson. You are a soldier, you served in an actual war zone, you killed people. A bunch of kids breaking things is nothing.
The mob finally passed, yelling and throwing rocks as they went, and John breathed a sigh of relief. Panic may be coursing through him but he could feel that his leg was firm and his hand was steady. He could do this.
Think. Where would Sherlock go?
The sudden realization hit John like a bus. Of course. He could only pray that he would get there before something terrible happened.
An hour and four groups of police later, John was starting to lose hope. He had thought that finding Sherlock would be simple – just follow the police to the worst crimes being committed and Sherlock would be there. But the police trying to stop the mobs were nearly as disjointed as the mobs themselves, and John had still seen no sign of his flatmate. Things were getting more and more chaotic as he moved towards the center of the violence, and John felt panic beginning to creep back around the edges of his consciousness. Keep it together. Sherlock can take care of himself, he's probably fine. I mean, what's a bunch of kids compared to what we normally face?
The sound of more breaking glass and yelling did nothing to convince John of the truth of his words. Sherlock or no Sherlock, he wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to stay out in this mess alone. The crowds were only getting worse, and John really didn't want a stab wound to add another scar to his already impressive collection.
Later, John would never be able to say why the sudden rush of people into a nearby alley caught his attention. There was little to differentiate this crowd from the dozens of others in the vicinity, but John had learned on the battlefield to trust his hunches. With a quick check of the gun tucked firmly into his waistband, John ducked over to the alley and quietly followed the group of young men. What he saw once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness nearly stopped his heart.
Sherlock was backed up against a wall surrounded by at least ten young men in hoodies and masks. While this normally would not have concerned John overmuch thanks to the more than proficient fighting skills he had seen from Sherlock, the baseball bats, pipes, and knives on display were certainly a cause for alarm. Sherlock of course simply looked bored, the git.
"I said, give us your fucking wallet and coat!" The apparent leader of the gang stepped closer and waved a rather impressively large knife in Sherlock's direction. John could tell from one look that the man had no real experience using the thing, but that only made him more nervous. There was almost nothing more dangerous than an excited amateur with a weapon.
"Oh, please. It's obvious that you've never actually used that knife, and that you're all just a bunch of unemployed morons taking out your anger in the least efficient way possible." A rumble of anger passed through the group, and John knew that this was not going to end well. "So why don't you all run back to your senseless violence and let the grownups actually do something with their lives."
In the moment's calm before the storm, John could only sigh to himself. Knew it.
The man with the knife yelled and lunged forward, followed by his friends. Sherlock might be able to take care of himself in a fight, but even he would soon be overwhelmed by these odds. Panic seized John, but his instincts in combat situations were even stronger than the fear. He knew that wading into the fray would only result in them both being hurt, so he did the only thing he could in the situation; he pulled out his gun and fired two shots straight into the air.
The crowd of young men froze. John was gratified to see that in the brief scuffle Sherlock had managed to knock two of his assailants to the ground, and had a third by the collar with a bloody nose. Sherlock glanced over at John and grinned like the damn maniac he was.
"Ah, John. About time you turned up."
I'm going to kill him. I am going to rescue him from this mob of idiots, take him home, and bloody kill him.
The group of young men was still staring at John, but he could tell that their calm would not last for long. So he summoned up his best Officer Voice and aimed the gun levelly at the person closest to him.
"Evening, lads. Now if none of you want the next bullet to be in your kneecap, I suggest you run along and get back to stealing televisions." No one moved. When will anyone ever take me seriously?
John lowered the gun and shot the pavement six inches away from the leader's foot.
"I said, run." They ran.
When the last man had finished scrambling out of the alley, John finally put the safety back on his gun and tucked it back into his jeans. His heart was hammering in his ears, but it was most definitely not caused by fear from their close encounter. It was rage. He spun on his heel and stalked over to where his bloody stupid, arrogant, impossible flatmate was calmly brushing dust off his idiotic, flappy coat.
"Sherlock, what the hell were you thinking?"
"Ah, perfect timing John. I'm sure I could have handled them myself, but the help is appreciated." The bored disinterest in his voice only incensed John further.
"Sherlock, I'm fucking serious! I left the room for five minutes and you disappeared on me – it's the middle of a fucking riot! You can't just do that to me." Sherlock looked down, and if John didn't know better he would have said that Sherlock looked guilty. Guilty? I don't think Sherlock even knows how to look guilty.
"I needed to leave the flat. I'd been stuck in there for days, John, with nothing to do but feel my brain rotting. You know I can't stand that." John sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair. As it so often did with Sherlock, his anger had abruptly vanished and had been replaced by a sense of weary resignation.
"I know, Sherlock. I know you've been crawling up the walls for the past few days, but please, just promise me you won't disappear like that again? I thought…I thought I'd find you dead in the middle of the street or something." Sherlock whipped his head up and he fixed John with his most piercing glare. John swallowed around the sudden tightness of his throat and finished hurriedly, "I don't know what I would do if anything happened to you Sherlock." He felt the blood rush to his face as Sherlock continued to stare, and he quickly looked down at the ground. It was pointless to try and hide his feelings from the world's only consulting detective, but at least it made him feel a bit less awkward. A bit.
"I'm sorry." Now it was John's turn to snap his head up and stare at his friend. Sherlock's apologies were few and far between, and this one had sounded more genuine that John had thought possible. "I promise it won't happen again." For all the surprises and shocks he had suffered tonight, the look on Sherlock's face startled John the most. In place of the usually condescension and arrogance that Sherlock wore like a cloak, there was instead a look that was…pleading? John could scarcely believe that Sherlock would ever look so vulnerable, but here he was looking at John like his world might shatter if John did not accept his apology.
And so for the second time that night, John listened to his instincts and did the only thing he could do. He reached out, grabbed his impossibly mad and brilliant flatmate by the scarf, and pulled him down into a kiss.
Technically speaking, the kiss was far from ideal. The height difference meant that John had to stand on his toes, adrenaline had made them both shaky, and London was in flames around them.
It was perfect.
When they finally broke apart, John was almost afraid to look at Sherlock. Oh shit, what have I done? What if I just ruined everything? But John Watson had never run from danger in his life, and now was certainly not the time to start. When he finally looked Sherlock in the eyes, what he saw there nearly made his heart stop again. The mania that had been building for the last three days was gone, replaced with something John had never seen before – a wicked gleam matched only by the grin that was spreading slowly across Sherlock's face.
"Well, Doctor Watson." Sherlock's impossibly smooth baritone had somehow shifted down an octave, and the low rumble of his words sent the blood that had rushed to John's face southward with a speed that nearly knocked him flat. "I do believe that I'm tired of these riots. However I have an important experiment at home that requires your…assistance. Shall we?"
Bloody hell, London should fall apart more often.
Half an hour ago, if someone had told John Watson that the worst day of his life would also be the best, he would have laughed. Which really just goes to show how little John knew about his own life.