The big, orange sun stood high on the sky and not as much as a breeze swept through the camp, making it the second hottest day in Afghanistan that month. Muffled cries could be heard from a large gathering of tents but the green-dressed men passing by didn't seem to notice – their tired, bloodstained eyes told us they were used to it.
Sherlock placed his hands on his back as he stood next to the wounded man, his blue eyes travelling over the doctors and nurses doing what they could do save his life. He'd been reckless, the young fool, refusing to return to the camp at the set time – he'd still been in the village when the other troupes arrived. He wouldn't survive and Sherlock put one of his boney hands on the soldier's shoulder, prepared to take him away.
"I won't let you die on me, not today – not on my watch", the doctor in charge swore as the young man got worse, his breathing coming more irregular. "Finley, I need a scalpel and some clean cloths"
"John-", a brunette woman placed her hand on the doctor's arm. "We can't save him."
"Sure as hell we can", John shouted, his face steadily growing redder. Sherlock tilted his head, captured by the fire in the other man's eyes. The message was clear: he would fight for him.
And then it happened, the impossible, the doctor locked his eyes with Sherlock's and the dark haired angel froze, his grip around the dying man tightening a bit. "Sure as hell", John echoed in a more gathered tone before he broke the eye contact in order to start the operation.
Sherlock was shell shocked. He stood there for half an hour, mesmerized by the fact that the doctor wouldn't give in even though everyone else had done so from the moment the wounded man returned to the camp. But his time had come and Sherlock was forced hear John's cry when he lost his patient, his very first in a long time.
"He did all he could", a voice said and Sherlock nodded, his gaze drifting to the man now standing next to him, looking down at his former body. "I was a fool"
"Indeed you were", Sherlock answered, returning his gaze to the doctor with a secret wish he'd look at him again. "Shot four times, one bullet damaging the right lung and another piercing your thigh, you were a lost case from the very beginning. You should have ignored that hunger of yours. Honestly, sneaking into a house to steal some bread? Foolish indeed"
The young man, barely twenty years old, hung his head in shame and Sherlock sighed.
"Are you ready to move on?" He asked without much feeling, the soldier had grown boring the moment he died. The army doctor stopped shouting, just as the spirit of his lost patient moved on, and fled the tent, his hands still covered in blood. Without hesitating, Sherlock followed.
He found the doctor on the other side of the camp, leaning hard against an empty barrack. His strong shoulders were shaking and the blood on his hands had already dried in the heat.
As if he'd just realized that John started scrubbing his hands with such intensity Sherlock was afraid he'd start bleeding himself. A look of utter disgust fell over his face and the next moment he was down on the ground, vomiting as tears streamed down his face.
Sherlock sank onto his knees so that his face was in level with the other man's and through his mind he tried to call for his attention, he wanted to gaze into those eyes so filled with heat and life just one more time. He wanted to feel alive. Only for another second.
"I should have tried harder, I should have-", John whispered between sobs and used his sleeve to clean traces of vomit from his face before he leant his back against the wall and closed his eyes, sweat trickling down his face. Sherlock closed his own eyes and he could soon feel how he left Afghanistan and the doctor behind.