A big thank you to Atlin Merrick for being my beta. A vodka and tonic is on its way to you xx
Love Me Do
Prologue.
Lestrade could only stand helplessly and watch as wires snaked round the broken body of John Watson. The bright, uncomfortable hospital lights shone down on him and the beeping of the heart monitor was the only indication that he was still alive. Lestrade felt so useless, there was nothing he could do but watch as doctors tried to put the pieces of his friend back together.
What had passed in a blur had now slowed down to an almost snail like pace. The phone call from Mrs Hudson, 221B, the ambulance, phoning Mycroft, everything had happened so quickly now it had stopped and he could only watch and wait. It was as if the hospital lived in its own separate universe, not obeying the laws of time.
He hoped and prayed that there was something in John Watson that would keep him alive. That despite all that had happened he would stay in this world. His injuries had been severe, he had been brutally raped, beaten and left for dead. Large cuts covered his skin, his face swollen and puffy, there was no part of his body that had been left untouched and all of it was covered in bruises and signs of his ordeal. He looked completely unrecognisable from the John Watson he had met, the John Watson he had liked, the John Watson he had seen Sherlock Holmes fall completely in love with.
He had never seen a love like it, not even with his own wife, he had seen plenty of crushes, brief Scotland Yard romances but John and Sherlock were completely different. It was an all consuming love, as if the only reason one of them breathed was for the other. He hoped that they could get past what had happened, what Mycroft had discovered and realise the depth of their feelings towards each other. Love could conquer all, couldn't it?
Mycroft and Sherlock would be here any minute, he didn't want to get in Sherlock's way so he decided to go outside and see if he could get a cigarette off one of the hospital staff. He'd been trying to give up but he needed something to calm his nerves, and he wanted something to do, some sort of distraction from the horror of the previous few hours.
...
Mycroft was handed a cup of coffee by an assistant of Lestrade's, and watched as his brother walked into the hospital room. He hovered outside knowing Sherlock would want some space.
Sherlock sat on the John's bed and took John's hand in his, not saying a word. Mycroft knew the silence was his brother's way of coping. He remembered watching all the blood drain from Sherlock's face when he ran into his room at the manor, relaying the panicked phone call he'd received from Lestrade telling him John Watson had been savagely beaten and his body dumped outside 221B.
Mycroft was still standing outside John's room when Lestrade came back holding an identical polystyrene cup. Mycroft smelt cigarette smoke on his breath, it didn't take a man of Sherlock's intellect to work out why, Mycroft couldn't blame him despite turning his nose up as he breathed in the evidence of a habit he had always though uncivilised. They nodded to each other as a way of greeting.
'Who found him?' Mycroft hoped Lestrade wouldn't mind his bluntness, this was hardly a time for small talk.
'Mrs Hudson, gave her quite a fright poor thing, rang me immediately, I called the ambulance' the words he spoke were short and ineloquent, he started shaking his head as if he couldn't quite believe what was happening 'Naked, wrapped in a blanket and dumped outside Baker Street. Beaten to within an inch of his life, he's been raped Mycroft.' He shook his head again and took a large swig from his coffee cup.
Mycroft stared into the hospital room, his eyes never leaving its two inhabitants, he felt his usual calm facade break, his face betraying the sadness he felt as he watched his brother stand over the broken body of his lover.
'We found this with him' Lestrade's voice broke Mycroft out of his dreamlike state, he pulled a crumpled piece of paper. 'It was addressed to Sherlock'
Do not touch my things again-M
'M, this is from Moriarty?' He asked, Lestrade nodded.
'Just goes to show what type of guy we are dealing with here, I mean what type of sick fuck rapes a man just because he fell in love with someone else?' The situation meant Lestrade felt no need to refrain from using course language, something he always held back from doing when in the presence of Sherlock's brother. Mycroft stood perfectly still, staring into the black liquid.
'You think John loves Sherlock?' He asked quietly, the word love had never been used in the same sentence as his brother, love and Sherlock were complete strangers, yet as soon as Lestrade said the word Mycrof immediately knew it to be true, love and Sherlock were no longer poles apart, they were uncomfortable bedfellows on a foreign shore.
'Yeah, everyone does, you just have to look at them to know that' They both stared through the open door into John's room.
'John. What is his condition? Will there be any lasting damage?' Mycroft continued, eager to break the uncomfortable silence that had now built up around them.
'Well the doctors told me they will only know for sure until he wakes up'
They walked over to a row of chairs and sat down to finish their coffee's. They drank in silence, each concentrating on their own thoughts.
...
Sherlock lay down beside John, his hand still clasped in John's. He whispered very, very quietly, so no one else would hear, as far as they were concerned he still hadn't spoken so much as a word.
'Please John. Please wake up. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. Come back to me John, please, come back' A single tear ran down his cheek, then another, leaving a small pool beside him on the hard hospital bed.