Sherlock had never thought of what Jim might have meant when he said that he would burn his heart out. It had seemed like such a classical threat that he hadn't paid it much attention. Not until he received a frantic call from his flatmate.
"Yes John, what do you want, I'm busy" He snapped before noting his flatmate's rapid breathing.
"The flat's on fire." John's words were clipped and there was a hint of panic in his voice that was not natural to the normally very calm man.
"Are you alright? Is Mrs Hudson Alright?" Sherlock inquired as he threw himself out of the door of the shop he had been recently perusing making his way toward their shared home.
"I don't know. Christ Sherlock I don't know, I can't make it out." John panted a strained note in his voice. Panic started to rise in Sherlock's throat as he noted the fear and pain in his flatmates voice.
"What happened John?" he asked hoping for a useful answer. "I could smell smoke and I went to get out but the handle burned me. I tried twice but I can't touch it, not even with the aid of a sheet, it's to hot."
John coughed and Sherlock felt panic start to rise along his spine. "How bad is it?" he asked as he heard John cough again at the other end of the phone. "I have no idea but the door is starting to smoke and there is smoke leaking from underneath it" John forced out through strangled gasps.
"I didn't mean the fire, I meant the burns" Sherlock yelled hoping that John would hear him. "Oh" John sounded tired and a little confused "Left hand is bad, it doesn't hurt so probably second or third degree, right hand is fine, it hurts like all hell so that's good." He stated with a far too detached voice.
"Sherlock I think, I think I'm going to pass out" Johns voice grew strained and Sherlock tensed "Don't. John stay with me" he yelled into the phone but to no avail. John's voice did not return as Sherlock raised toward Bakerstreet the smell of the fire gradually making itself known to him. He could see it billowing out of the slightly open windows and cursed himself for having left them that way facilitating the spread of the flames.
The firebrigade were already present when Sherlock reached their flat and a man wearing an alarmingly bright yellow helmet excited their front door with the very still form of Dr John Watson slung over his shoulder. "John?" Sherlock yelled and within seconds he was at the fireman's side wrapping his arms around the unmoving form of his unconscious flatmate.
"John, John speak to me, John please come back to me" John's body shivered in his grasp and his eyes fluttered open to reveal unfocused eyes. He moaned and shivered again and Sherlock placed a gentle hand against his brow. "It's okay John, I'm sorry if it hurts" he stroked gently across John's face hoping that in some small way he may be helping. John was gasping, his breath coming out in pained bursts.
"Hurts!" John repeated, whether in confirmation or as a direct order Sherlock couldn't tell but it nonetheless made his insides crawl with discontent at his friends discomfort. John coughed and curled up ignoring Sherlock's attempts to sooth him. "John, John what hurts, tell me" Sherlock demanded as he was joined by a medic who's hands moved swiftly over John checking for a pulse as his colleague arrived pushing a wheeled stretcher.
"Hand" John gasped and tears welled up in his eyes. The medic lifted his hands up onto the stretcher and John whimpered slightly at the movement. The right hand was red and slightly swollen but the left made Sherlock's breath hitch in his throat. The palm was burned away, Sherlock noted with fascination that John was likely to be left without proper fingerprints but yelled internally at such an inappropriate thought.
He knew that the burn was bad the second that he saw it but it was treatable. John would survive that but the moment John curled in on himself and threw up Sherlock tried not to panic. He knew that the majority of deaths due to fire were from smoke inhalation and John was looking terribly pale. Roughly the same moment that the worry registered in Sherlock's mind the medic produced an oxygen mask and placed it over Johns face holding him gently as he heaved and then placing him carefully back onto the stretcher.
"We're going to UCH, you can join us there but we need room to move" the medic pushed Sherlock back as he tried to get into the ambulance and he was surprised at his own willingness to cooperate. Watching the ambulance pull away he found his own knees giving out and someone was carefully lifting him back to his feet. "Sherlock, It's ok, let's get in the car, we can follow the ambulance, it's ok." Mycrofts voice was surprisingly gentle as he pushed Sherlock toward the unmarked black car.
Sherlock didn't think to ask how Mycroft knew that the flat was on fire. He was in fact rather grateful at his brother's appearance since it allowed him to follow John's ambulance at a much faster pace than would have otherwise been possible.
When they arrived John was nowhere to be seen. The staff told them that his injuries were being cared for and they would be given news as soon as possible but this did not placate Sherlock who paced angrily up and down the corridor. "Shut up Mycroft, I'm fine" he snapped as he heard his brother telling a worried doctor that he was almost certainly in shock but wouldn't accept any help until he knew that John was alright. The fact that Mycroft was right did not in the slightest make the statement any more welcome. The only thing that would be welcome at this stage was someone telling him that John would be alright.
An hour later a doctor walked up to them and grabed Mycroft by the arm in a gentle but rather frustrating way. "You can see him now" the doctor said with a small smile. "We've replaced the oxygen mask with a cannula so you can speak to him but he's still quite weak" the doctor explained but Sherlock was already pushing past him desperate to get into the room that the doctor had just evacuated.
John was lying on his side, face pale and hands heavily bandaged but looking much better than he had back at the flat. "John, can you hear me" Sherlock said and he could hear his own voice breaking. "Mmm of course I can" John mumbled though the weakness of his voice belied the sternness of the words. "Christ, John you scared me" Sherlock admitted as he placed a hand on John's shoulder noting the slight tremble in his friends injured frame.
"Sorry" John stated as Sherlock grabbed for his wrist quickly checking for his pulse only to find that John's hand's were heavily bandaged and he had to turn to his neck to find a pulse. "You're still in pain, why didn't you tell them?" he asked accusingly but John firmly shook his head making Sherlock release his hold on his neck. "I did tell them, nothing more they can do" he stated calmly. "They've given me morphine, it will take effect any minute, don't worry" John already sounded calmer, his breathing less laboured and Sherlock relaxed a little. He reached out, wishing he could hold his flatmates hand but prevented by the heavy bandaging he grasped onto his arm instead.
"Does it hurt?" he asked brushing a hand gently over his flatmate's forehead."Not any more." John's response spoke volumes about the amount of pain he had been in not long ago and Sherlock felt a, by now familiar, pang of guilt well up in the pit of his stomach.
"This is all my fault" he said and watched as surprise appeared in John's eyes. "It was a fire, you weren't even home, how could it possibly be your fault… Oh, did you leave an experiment?" John's voice sounded calm and then suddenly worried as he considered the multitude of strange experiments that Sherlock had left unattended in their kitchen.
"He said he would burn my heart out" Sherlock stated and felt like an idiot when he heard his own voice break and a small sob escape him. John still looked confused as he reached up brushing tears away from Sherlock's face, soaking them up in the bandages. "But you weren't there" he stated matter-of-factly and struggled to sit up coughing enthusiastically as he did so. "But my heart was" Sherlock whispered as he gently wrapped his arms around his flatmate's chest.
John slowly relaxed into the embrace accepting the words that rang through his confused mind. He was going to have to ask Sherlock about this once he was no longer quite so strung out on the drugs coursing through his system. He had a strange feeling his flatmate may have just admitted that he loved him but that just made no sense what so ever, as much as John wanted it to be true he knew it really could not be so he was going to ignore it all.
However it did feel very nice to be hugged by Sherlock's long slender arms and so he relaxed into the embrace allowing it to tighten as tears started to trickle down his cheeks and an involuntary sob escaped from his lips. A perfectly natural reaction to trauma and drugs he told himself as he allowed himself to be held by his flatmate. Then he heard the unexpected sound of Sherlock's breath hitching and felt wet drops hitting his temple and he realised that he was no longer the only one crying.