Title Blood Rites

Category: Fan fiction

Fandom(s): SHERLOCK [BBC]

Pairing(s) none [maybe a small mention of SherTasha…]

Summary: "Let the world know. This man is my brother, first in bond…now in blood."


"O bright face of the Sun

Of this world and of all others

Hearken well to what is said here,

And burn our words

Across the bright skies"

Bonding of Brotherhood, The Rites of Odin, Ed Finch

On the first day, John cannot breathe. The kind nurses at Barts have scrubbed the blood off his hands, and taken care of his cuts- particularly the one on his leg-, and someone—he cannot remember exactly whom, but it must have been a friend, he thinks—has brought him clean clothes from home and changed him into them from the red soaked ones he had been wearing.

All around him is a rush of movement, people scurrying about desperately, but he finds that he cannot move or think for the redness of Sherlock's blood, rising to choke him in his throat.

The second day, John has cleared the blood from his throat and tongue, though he can still feel it drowning his mind. He sits on a hard wooden chair by a white hospital bed and watches the still body of his deeply, deeply asleep best friend.

Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade and Mycroft and even Sarah and many others have come to check on them, have stayed for a while, and he's told that word has been sent to Natasha—whoever that is—but eventually at some time or other they all leave him alone to keep the vigil at his friend's bedside, alone. And, oh, he just wishes that Sherlock would wake, just for a little while, to assure him that he is fine, not having bled out half his life on the cold stone floor of that burning building and to help him remember just what was going on before—

But he can't remember.

The third day, the doctor makes noises that John tries not to interpret as the man checks on Sherlock and makes notes on his chart, and John finds the worry and fear creeping up his throat to choke him just as he felt his friend's blood had. He sleeps with Sherlock's hand clasped between one of his own, two parallel cuts aligned on their palms, his forehead resting on top of them, praying silently in his dreams all night long that he will just wake up.

On the fourth day, He remembers.

"Did you know that certain ancients believed blood to be liquid soul?"


[This was going to be a one shot, but I am so off-kilter...I needed to post something.]

If convenient, please Review.

-'Lock

If inconvenient, review anyway.

-'Lock