They were all growing tired after sprinting away from the abandoned cars but Sherlock finally caught up with their suspect on top of a beautiful stone bridge. He threw himself onto the man's back pulling him down but a sharp elbow connected with his throat and he tumbled to the side gasping for air as the suspect scrambled back to his feet.
"Sherlock?" he heard John shouting as he burst onto the bridge worry evident in his voice. "Get him." Sherlock croaked as he struggled back onto hands and knees and John burst past him evidently placated that Sherlock was in fact going to be fine.
The running man was limping now after his tousle with Sherlock and it took John mere moments to catch up with him. The man was surprisingly strong and John had to struggle to get the upper hand. He drove the man backwards to the edge of the bridge landing one well-placed blow after another and trying not to stumble when the man's fist connected with his chest and then his cheek in quick succession.
John pushed forward with all his might to pin the man to the stone rail but he had not calculated with the fact that the bridge was old and the railing not regulation height. The man toppled backwards over the edge and in one smooth movement brought John with him over the edge. There was no splash just a heavy thump and gasped curses from John as Sherlock looked over the edge of the bridge to see that they had landed on the edge of the river and were still punching and kicking at each other on the muddy ground. When John got in a perfect left hook to the suspects face he tumbled backward and slipped gracelessly into the water. He did not surface again and Sherlock could hear John curse as he ripped off his jacked and slipped after him into the freezing water.
He could not help but be confused by his flatmate's strange action. What on earth was he on about trying to save a man who had not only killed three people but who had only seconds ago been trying to beat him to a pulp. Sherlock made his way down to the waterfront, careful not to slip on the muddy bank. He watched as John surfaced breathed deeply and then disappeared under the surface again.
A few minutes later Sherlock could tell John was starting to tire but he would not give up. "Leave him." He yelled across the river but John only shook his head and went under again. Finally after ten minutes John broke the surface dragging a dark form with him and made his way toward the bank. Sherlock grabbed the coat of the criminal and pulled him out of the river before extending a hand to John who was breathing heavily as he scrambled out of the water.
"Heimlich manoeuvre Sherlock, now" John pointed to the limp body on the ground and Sherlock shook his head but did as he was told, several times in fact. Water trickled over the man's chin but otherwise there was no reaction. "Put him down here." John directed and struggled to his knees wincing as he did so. Sherlock dropped the limp body to the ground unceremoniously and John went to work giving him mouth to mouth. He worked methodically and Sherlock watched him, fascinated at the care John was showing for a man whom Sherlock could only describe as completely useless.
Ten minutes later he was utterly bored. "John!" he crouched down next to his flatmate "I think it's time to give up now." John nodded and let go of the now clearly dead man on the ground. He was panting heavily with the exertion of the CPR and slumped on the ground letting exhaustion claim him. "I didn't mean to kill him" John said to no one in particular.
"Of course you didn't, doesn't mean he's not dead though. Let's go back and report this to the locals and we can go back to London. I'm tired of the countryside." Sherlock extended a hand to John, thinking this was the socially acceptable thing to do but John shook his head. "I can't. My ankle's broken." He said wincing again as he placed a hand gingerly over his right ankle. Sherlock noted that his hands were shaking slightly but he couldn't deduce if it was from pain or from the cold.
"That's inconvenient." Sherlock stated his brows furrowing slightly. John sighed heavily looking up at Sherlock with tired eyes. "I didn't do it on purpose" he said as he started to strip out of his wet clothes, pulling his jumper and t-shirt over his head and replacing them with the jacket he had thankfully had the sense to remove before diving into the river.
"No, Sherlock returned, but you did dive into that river entirely of your own choice and now I have the choice between leaving you here to possibly catch your death sitting in the wet and cold or trying to drag you along on a broken ankle." There was no calculated cruelty in Sherlock's voice, just honest frustration but John was tired and hurting and he felt like screaming at him for being so callous.
"I couldn't just let him drown." He shouted at Sherlock who looked genuinely confused. "But he did drown." He returned and John buried his head in his hands willing himself not to shout at his flatmate. "Just go, get to the car and get help, bring the car or get the police, I don't care which but go." John was genuinely shaking, with a mixture of cold, anger, and pain that seemed to melt into each other. However it was all overlaid with a thick layer of frustration, a desire to scream at the top of his lungs just to let out all that pent up feeling and make his flatmate feel anything at all for a fellow human being.
"Not good?" Sherlock looked confused, wondering what he had just done that would make John snap at him. "No Sherlock, really not good, just go and get the fucking car." John's voice was dangerously close to breaking and he swiped his trembling hand over his face to wipe away the water that was dripping from his hair as he tried to figure out what else to say to make Sherlock understand.
Sherlock was back to deductions, attempts at sentiment now abandoned. He figured that since John had kept his phone in his back pocket, meaning that it was now utterly useless, and since his own was left in the car they were currently without means of contacting anyone. He should have been proud of John for also having made this deduction but the thought did not occur to him. Instead he pulled himself up and brushed at the mud covering the bottom of his coat. The dry-cleaning would be annoyingly expensive. "Right, I'll be back" he said and set off at a brisk walk toward their car.
John sat staring at the dead body in front of him, feeling his shivers get more pronounced as he was no longer fighting to keep the man alive. John couldn't explain the strange feeling of guilt at the man's death. He had shot enough people without feeling a thing but somehow this time it hurt. He hadn't meant for it to happen, it had been an accident, that was probably the explanation John rationalised as he sat there waiting for Sherlock to return.
It was nearly half an hour before Sherlock came back to find John curled in on himself trousers half pulled down from where he had tried to get out of his wet clothing but given up when the pain had got the better of him. "I've called for police and an ambulance" Sherlock sounded satisfied with himself and his attention was focused on the dead body on the ground, documenting facts when for once he got to the body before the police.
John struggled to sit up feeling awkward to let Sherlock see him in this kind of state. "I don't think an ambulance is strictly necessary. He is beyond rescue…" John indicated the dead man on the ground "… and all I need is a lift to A&E."
Sherlock looked up from his examination of the body and fixed John with a stern gaze. "John, you're shaking so hard I could use you as a metronome, your left hand is bleeding and you are unable to stand up because your ankle is turned at an unnatural angle and you tried to use it to swim with which is in fact the reason why you are shaking so hard right now. I think an ambulance is called for, and it will be less hassle than having you in the car all the way into town complaining." John couldn't deny the veracity of Sherlock's analysis but the last sentence stung a little and he stuffed his hands in his pockets to hide their trembling.
He could already hear sirens in the distance and he was impressed with the speed that the emergency vehicles had reached them considering they were out in the middle of the countryside. Still it was a relief when the scene flooded with policemen and then a minute later the medics from the ambulance. They made a futile attempt at resuscitating the dead man and helped John onto a gurney bringing him up to the ambulance and into the back with surprisingly little pain.
Sherlock was nowhere to be seen as the doors closed and they took off. John knew that there was no reason to feel angry at his flatmate, after all he was perfectly fine, but if it had been Sherlock incapacitated and being driven off to the hospital John would have been at his side and a part of him wished that Sherlock would be able to show the same level of care.
Four hours later Sherlock turned up at the hospital and the first words out of his mouth were "Are you ready to go?" and at that John finally snapped. They had not yet given him any pain medication and he felt like crap. "Lift that blanket and deduce for yourself" he snapped at Sherlock and pointed toward the bottom of the bed. He had seen his foot when it had been x-rayed and he knew that it looked horrible. Twisted to the side and swollen to double its normal size it was growing increasingly discoloured. He had been promised that they would be turning up soon to set it and fix him with a cast but at the moment he felt terribly sorry for himself and the wait seemed much longer than warranted, even though he had worked in A&E and knew how hectic it was and how people with simple ailments like broken bones or non-threatening infections were low on the priority list.
"Oh.." Sherlock said as he followed instructions and lifted the blanket. "Does it hurt? Can I see the x-rays?" he said with curiosity as his fingers skimmed over John's foot noting the swelling and trying to figure out the exact reason for the unnatural angle of the foot. "Of course it bloody does" John groaned and tried to reach down to swat Sherlock's hands away. However his reach was limited and Sherlock was more dexterous so he stepped back avoiding John's hands but not quite as perfectly as he had intended as his hand bumped against John's foot as he withdrew.
John gasped in pain and bit his lower lip to stop from crying out. Now that he was no longer cold and had no adrenaline running through his system it seemed like his whole leg had turned into one frustrating length of damaged nerve endings. He grabbed onto the guard rails on the bed and squeezed tight holding back tears of pain.
Luckily at that point the doctor re-entered and with a look of slight concern told John that they were ready to set his foot and put a cast on it. "I can get you something to hold onto or you can hold your friends hand if it helps, it is going to hurt rather badly even with the anaesthetic I'm afraid" the doctor said gesturing to Sherlock.
John shook his head wrapping his hands around the bed railings while Sherlock stood up fixing the doctor with a stern glare. "I'm okay" John mumbled through gritted teeth as the doctor injected him with a local anaesthetic.
Despite his assurances his knuckles grew white as the doctor pulled on his injured leg but he didn't cry out and the doctor was experienced and made swift work on John's ankle wrestling it into a more natural angle. "Sorry, I know it hurts but we're done now" the doctor soothed as he wrapped John's foot in soft padding before applying the hard exterior cast.
"Can we go now?" Sherlock asked once John's foot was firmly encased by the cast ignoring the look of pain on John's face and the white knuckles squeezed tight against the rail of the cot.
The doctor gave Sherlock a disapproving glance and then went back to John, starting to explain the need for rest and what he could take for the pain, asking him if he had ever used crutches before. John assured him that he would be perfectly fine, being a doctor he was well aware of how to deal with a broken foot and he had used crutches before when he had been injured in the army so it would not be a problem.
The doctor looked mildly impressed at John's service record but Sherlock only looked impatient and John wished for nothing more than to be home. Not that this was likely, it was far too late to drive back now, they would have to wait for the morning and Sherlock would hate that.
Finally he was released even though the doctor grumbled that it was most unusual and John really should stay the night what with how much he was still shivering from the cold of the river and the fact that the cut on his hand from God knows where was going to make work with the crutches much harder than John remembered.
John just shook his head knowing that he did not have the energy to deal with a bored Sherlock any longer than necessary.
Neither of them got much sleep that night. With the suspect caught Sherlock was bored again and pacing the room, and despite the painkillers John was twisting and turning in discomfort as he curled up under the covers trying to get warm and ignore the ache in his broken foot. Sharing a room had been the worst idea ever, even if it did cut down on their expenses.
At four in the morning, after having asked Sherlock to please go and be restless somewhere else five times John gave up, he got up and hobbled out of their room on his newly acquired crutches. He found a sofa in the lounge of the hotel where he curled up and got two hours sleep before he was woken by a confused cleaner. At this point he vowed never to take a case away from London with Sherlock again. Never again would he be fooled into thinking that spending a few nights in a country hotel with a sociopathic crime fighter might count as a holiday.