Written for tumblr prompt
Brilliant. Simply brilliant. John glanced up at Sherlock, a proud look in his warm eyes. How on earth Sherlock had solved such a complicated case from a single scuff mark he couldn't even begin to understand…
"Come along John. Lestrade has sent a text. There is a decapitation in Westminster. It must be my birthday" Sherlock smiled wryly, eyes alight with excitement. Oh god when the detective got that glint in his eye John couldn't help but follow him, the adrenaline firing through every single fibre of his body. This was his life now, the cases.
It was quite different to what he'd expected when he'd been invalided home, a dull life as a clinic doctor in a stuffy surgery. What he'd ended up with was….well quite the opposite. A life of excitement, of action, of…dare he say, fun.
Short legs slipped into action as the tail of Sherlock's great coat disappeared around the corner of the alleyway, John having to run to catch up with the detective. "The heads not going to go missing if we take an extra couple of minutes Sherlock!" he chuckled, the smile lasting only seconds as a thought struck him. "You are not putting the head in our fridge!"
Even with Sherlock's back facing him John knew the detective was smirking, despite how unpredictable others found the brunette, when it came to experiments John knew to expect the worse. The time he'd found two corpses lay in his bed had been evidence of that.
"John you disappoint me…I've already experimented on a head in the fridge." He rolled his eyes as he slipped into the back of a cab, as always somehow managing to make one appear from nothingness. "The bath however…"
"No Sherlock!" John slipped in beside him, a stern look growing upon his face. "Nothing in the bathtub. It is unhygienic and quite frankly….". Whatever the blonde was going to say slipped away as he heard his own name echoing curiously in his head, both hands rising to rub his temples.
"John? John? John?" A shove from his right hand side had him snapping to attention. "Are you alright John? You seemed to be suffering from a headache?" Sherlock queried, genuine concern in his eyes.
"Yeah...yeah. I'm fine. I just thought…." He exhaled heavily and moved his fingertips from where they had been massaging his temples. "I thought I heard Mrs Hudson…strange". For a moment he looked puzzled, it taking several long seconds before he was able to shove the confusion to the back of his mind.
Sherlock pursed his lips as he stared at his seemingly distracted flatmate as though deciding whether to push the matter. Quietly he turned his gaze away, deciding against the interrogation for the time being. "Apparently the cut to the throat is smooth, as though done in a swift motion. I can't be sure till I see the wound but it sounds like a sword to me. A sword John!"
John blinked several times, whiteness assaulting his vision despite the darkened interior of the cab. Strange. Perhaps the cold weather had brought on an illness?. "Sword? That's new. Haven't had one of those before. Someone trained in martial arts maybe?"
"Likely yes. To sever a head completely off with such precision means it only took one strike, the strength and training requi-Aha! We are here" Sherlock leapt out of the cab without hesitation, as always leaving John to pay the cabbie his fee.
John withdrew his wallet in a trance, barely able to focus upon the money he handed through, judging by the look on the Cabbie's face he'd certainly overpaid, but at the moment he could seem to care. Catching sight of Sherlock bent over a headless body not too far away gave him just enough focus to slip out of the cab, though he couldn't deny the wall beside him were blurring strangely.
Sherlock. Focus on Sherlock. He rubbed at his eyes and slipped under the tape, ignoring the usual barbs from Sally as he passed. "Any idea on who did this then?" He asked, kneeling down to glance at his flatmate.
"Yes. Judging by the angle of the cut….almost catatonic." John's eyebrows furrowed, that sentence didn't make sense. He must have misheard. He focused upon Sherlock's lips trying to read them as a series of other seemingly incorrect words settled in his head. "Not responding to treatment…..grieving…imagination"
"Hold on a second" John stood quickly and took several steps away from Sherlock. That wasn't Sherlock's voice. What the hell was he imagining? Who was almost catatonic? Grieving over who? What treatment? What was who imagining?"
He closed his eyes and tried to lock upon the strange echoing voices, trying to decipher what exactly was going on. The next words sent ice flooding his veins, his stomach lurching violently as he heard Mrs Hudson's gentle voice. "Is a sedative necessary? He's just a little stressed, Sherlock's death affected him greatly...". No. Impossible. Sherlock wasn't dead. He was here. They were together. Stupid imagination. Everything is fine. It's all fine.
"John?" Sherlock called out, irritation evident in his voice, annoyed that John wasn't listening to his deductions, craving the praise the blonde reserved for his deductions. He stood slowly and began to walk towards John, face paling further with every movement. Red rose upon the crown of the detectives head, pouring down his face and matting his mahogany curls. His bright blue eyes turned ice cold as he reached John, placing a hand on his shoulder. "John, are you okay?"
"I'm fine Sherlock" John assured him, taking a second to compose himself before he started to turn. "Complet-oh God Sherlock! What happened to you?! Oh god!" he raised his hand to reach up towards the detectives bloody cranium, but simply passed through, feeling nothing but air.
Around him objects and people dissolved into nothingness. The lights surrounding began to blink out of existence, a sheet of darkness falling upon the scene. Until all that remained was Sherlock Holmes, the lively detective now bereft of any signs of life but staring at John all the same
All the while John's eyes never tore from his friend. "Sherlock…what's going on…I don't understand" . A sudden swell of tiredness had him slipping to his knees, eyes barely able to keep awake. "Sherlock? Talk to me! Help me!" he grew more frantic as his body began to slump onto its side without a single word from the detective.
It was only as his eyes finally fell shut that John finally heard Sherlock speak. Three soft syllables, two quiet words as the blackness pulled him under. "Goodbye John".