Warnings: Violence, graphic descriptions of injuries, bad language.
John was late.
He was often late on the mornings he ended up staying at 221b – a combination of creeping age and Sherlock's endless enthusiasm for late-night criminal chasing – but he usually took it well. It was rare that a case ran over and prevented him from returning to Mary, but the surgery wasn't far, and if he missed the bus, then he could run it. His running skills were kept in fine shape.
Today, he wasn't taking it well. He was angry. Sherlock had left a god-awful mess in the kitchen, and cleaning it up had eaten into most of his morning. If he'd been braver he would have left it, but it had looked like it was rapidly fermenting, and the smell was far from healthy. Even if Sherlock deserved to get a lungful of poisonous smog, hospital trips were at the bottom of John's priorities today.
Getting to work was currently number one. Toast in one hand, key in the other, and his mouth full of scalding tea, John couldn't give Sherlock an instant reply when an indignant shout came from the kitchen.
"My experiment!"
John swallowed. The boiling tea made his chest hurt as he grabbed his jacket, shoving the toast in his mouth as he put his arms through the sleeves. He took the toast out again.
"It was polluting the flat."
"My experiment!"
"Forget your bloody experiment! It was a health hazard!"
Key in the lock. Wrong key. Try again.
"John!"
"I'm late, thanks to you. Go do something else today! And remember you've got dinner at mine and Mary's tonight."
Right key. The door closed, Sherlock's voice faded, and John raced down the stairs, stuffing toast into his mouth as he battled with the porch steps and the crowded pavements. He missed the bus by about ten seconds. The run, in combination with his hasty breakfast, gave him indigestion.
The morning had started badly, and it only got worse. John, although he hadn't exactly expected it to improve, had held out some hope that it might not make him want to tear his hair out in chunks. He was disappointed; two cancer scares, four screaming children and a vomiting teenager later, and his hair was practically begging to be wrenched loose. He was itching with irritation, and his office stank.
His mobile had been ringing for the past five minutes, but he wasn't going to answer it. He was going to have his lunch break, every minute of it, even if he did have to sit in the reception whilst his office aired, and Sherlock wasn't going to stop him.
The sandwich looked reasonable, which was something.
"Office problems?"
Sarah sat and balanced a Tupperware box of salad expertly on her knees. John nodded. "You?"
"Kid wet his pants when I tried to give him an injection."
"Nice."
"I need to eat; I'll clean it in a minute. You?"
"That stomach bug that's been going around. Girl didn't even have time to get to the bin."
Sarah pulled a face, and then smiled. "Glamorous job, isn't it?"
"Oh, fantastic. I had to stay the night at 221b because there wasn't time to get home, so I spent the unearthly hours of the morning cleaning up Sherlock's latest enterprise, and then the more earthly ones scrubbing some student's late-night curry."
Sarah speared a tomato and John flinched as he got peppered with tiny, slimy seeds. "Can't believe you still put up with Sherlock. Not after what he did to you for two years."
John stiffened, then sighed. "I have to. God knows he can be a pain, but I'm used to him."
Another buzz in his pocket. A text. Without looking, John reached down and switched the mobile off. Fuck Sherlock, and fuck his bloody experiment.
"Although, I wish he'd stop ringing me at work."
Sarah laughed. "Shame Mary's on maternity – she could have got him to shut up. How is she, by the-"
There was a sound like a battering ram being forced through glass; a car alarm started before the banging had faded out, rising in waves that caused John's sandwich slide, untouched, to his feet. Sarah had dropped her salad over her lap and had her hands clamped over her ears. Someone screamed.
"What the hell…"
John was on his feet, dragging Sarah after him. "Might be a car accident." He pointed at the nearest receptionist. "Get ready to ring and ambulance, we'll go see…"
Before he could make it halfway to the exit, the door had opened, affording him a glimpse of a road stained with black tyre skids and broken glass. A car had swerved to the left and hit a bollard. A mass of people surged forward and blocked the surgery doorway, walking in a haphazard, drunken formation with something supported on their many hands.
Sarah was forward before John, already shouting. "Don't move them, don't move him, Jesus Christ!"
John snapped to attention. Damage assessment. Warzone. Control.
"Put him down!" he shouted, elbowing someone out of the way to get a hold of the man's feet; Sarah was supporting the neck. Blood was tricking through her fingers. "Get him flat before you do any more damage."
The man twitched. John wondered how much irreversible harm had already been caused.
"Call the ambulance!" Sarah pointed at the receptionist, and then to the crowd. "Get out of here, all of you."
"Not you!" John reached out a bloody hand and grabbed the nearest person from the bunch. "What happened?"
"I-I-he…" The man was young, fair-haired and stuttering. His fingernails were brown with blood and grime.
"Breathe."
The man did. John nodded. "Now tell me."
"He was on his phone, he just ran out without looking. The car tried to move but it sort of…caught him."
"Did he go under or over?"
"Over. I think. I think o-over, it all happened so fast…this said doctor's, we thought…"
"You shouldn't have moved him – you should never move someone in-"
"John."
John ignored Sarah. "He could have a broken neck, he could-"
"John."
John turned, nostrils flaring. Sherlock wasn't wearing his coat, or John would have recognised him straight away; he'd seen him bloody and dirt-smeared enough times to be able to identify him even through layers of the stuff. But this time, recognition had somehow escaped him. Sherlock's hair was plastered to his skull, eyes closed, and he was only in his trousers and no-longer-white shirt.
He still had his phone clasped in his right hand.
"God no."
Not again. John's teeth were vibrating with the need to scream it – not another time, not this time, not today. He knelt, not because he needed to get a better look, but because his knees couldn't support him.
"John, I'll see to him, you don't need to-"
He pushed Sarah to one side, forcing himself to touch Sherlock's head, his face, his eyelids, leaving white fingerprints in the blood. "Jesus." He wasn't sure whether he was talking out loud or not, whether he was whispering or screaming. "What the hell were you playing at Sherlock, what the hell…?"
Sherlock flickered. Not just his eyes – his whole face flickered, skin twitching, shedding broken glass as his neck moved. It was only when he looked like he was trying to speak, when his eyes were open, that John realised that Sherlock's jaw was broken. Not broken. Hanging off. Literally, smashed completely out of his skull at the left side. The car windscreen or mirrors, something must have caught it at the wrong angle and torn it. Sherlock's tongue was visible through the gap. His teeth were a mess. His whole face was grotesque and limp, like a dehydrated leaf.
John had seen worse on the battlefield, but never on the face of someone he knew so well. His hand went for Sherlock's, even as he forced himself not to vomit.
"I'm not losing you, am I?" he murmured. Sarah had staggered to her feet and was slumped against the wall, shaking. She had one of Sherlock's teeth tangled in her cardigan. "I'm not losing you again."
Sherlock still looked like he wanted to say something.
"You can't speak," John explained; people didn't always realise that they'd lost body parts; they convinced themselves they could still feel it. "You've…broken your jaw. Just nod. Or blink, if you can hear."
A blink.
"You'll be fine. They can fix it."
He knew they wouldn't be able to. He knew Sherlock wouldn't be the same; he'd be lucky if he could speak again. He was bleeding too fast for John to think about that. He was dying. Again. Jesus. Jesus Christ. The phone scraped against John's knuckles. Sherlock grunted, making a low, hopeless moan of a sound at the back of his throat.
"You can't speak," John repeated. His lips were heavy with slack disbelief. "You can't-"
Sherlock raised his left hand. The effort required must have been phenomenal; his face, what was left of it, twisted in exhaustion. For a second, John thought Sherlock was going to touch his cheek, and then the hand went past his neck and rested on his shoulder, one finger outstretched.
Sherlock was pointing. John turned to look.
It was just the ceiling, with its customary light, always switched on, always flickering every twenty seconds or so, blinking at him. John squinted. It seemed larger than usual. There was something next to it, something blurred by his teary eyes and gut-churning shock. Something…
He scrubbed his eyes on his shoulder, sending Sherlock's left arm thudding loosely onto his chest, and the thing came into focus. It was black and tiny, with a flashing LED, red, on, off, on, off. The light was tiny. John frowned. Something clicked.
"It's a bomb!" he screamed. "Sarah, get out, it's a bomb."
She was looking at him like he was mad. John heard it before he saw it, even as he turned toward Sherlock and tried to cover him, still gripping his hand so tightly he felt bones, already broken, splinter. He had a bizarre, frame-by-frame moment that spanned two or three racing heartbeats. The fair man raising a hand. Sarah's hair. The yellow sticker on the window declaring the area was neighbourhood watch. Sherlock's left eye rolled into the back of his skull.
Suddenly, everything was very bright.
Not the end, surprisingly enough. Bear with me!
The title is taken from Andrew Marvell's poem 'To his Coy Mistress'.
Thanks for reading, feedback welcome!
To be continued.
