John was not entirely sure it was a good idea to give Sherlock a gun.
It wasn't that he couldn't fire it; he most definitely could.
It wasn't that he was worried that he might injure himself or someone else; after constant practise, he was a damn good shot. Of all the people gallivanting around with firearms in this place, Sherlock was one of the least likely to have a misfire or anything of the sort.
No, the reason why John thought that Sherlock shouldn't be carrying a gun was because of what he was doing right now.
"Would you stop wasting ammunition on those damn things?" John hissed, grip unintentionally tightening around his weapon. "The noise might draw them to us."
There was a sharp crack as Sherlock's gun was discharged. The poor subject: a rat. That was the third one he'd taken aim at tonight. The detective glared at its bloody carcass as if it had personally offended him. He did not say a word.
When they had first come to The Compound with the others, Sherlock had been confronted with an ordeal he had not yet been forced to experience. Grief, on such a grand scale. Not his own, though. Never his own. Even throughout the move, he'd never once seemed different than he would in the pursuit of a criminal. Excited.
That was the main problem, actually.
He'd gotten himself into a quarrel with one of the men who guarded the gate. He'd started trying to organize them into what he considered their only salvation. This was a vast mistake on his part. The man with whom he was debating had just lost a majority of his family. He and his daughter were the only ones left, and he wanted nothing more than to keep her safe.
Sherlock had called him a coward.
The only way, in his opinion, to stop these monsters was to go after them, in order to study them. If a cure was to be made, then what he needed was a subject. A living one. It would be more effective to use their manpower towards achieving something useful, instead of hiding behind a wall. In his exact words, "you are fooling yourselves if you believe that by doing nothing we are protecting ourselves. You may as well string everyone up by the wrists and lead them to the slaughter yourself. It would be doing them a favour." He hadn't specified to which 'them' he was referring, at the time. It didn't much matter.
Sherlock got a bruised jaw that effectively kept his mouth shut from then on. John just wished the altercation had not occurred before the front gates. Thankfully, Sherlock had since learned from the experience and had not tried to reproach any of the survivors for their tactics. That didn't mean he thought them better, just that he knew to keep his mouth shut around the others. No one wanted to listen to him here. His expertise meant nothing. And now he was ostracized form the majority—the survivors wanting nothing to do with him and his dangerous ideas. Everyone was just trying to live and keep what remained of their loved ones safe.
Sherlock was a threat to that.
How did he manage to get himself into these situations?
Luckily, John was another matter. A soldier and a doctor, his skills were greatly beneficial to The Compound. Not everyone injured was attacked. Many were victims of debris and misfires. For these he and others like him did the best they could. They had sterilized one of the rooms within The Compound to use as a sort of ward. Only the medical experts and patients were allowed through.
And beside the ward, the firearm storage.
The irony was not lost on John.
The real reason for its placement, though, was in fact for rather morbid practicality. Should The Compound somehow be overrun, those that were injured and immobile would be the first liability. There would be no time to move them, and their compromised state would mean that the virus would overcome them at a much faster rate than one who was healthy before being bit. For a normal person, there was about an hour, give or take, for the virus to set into their blood stream. After that, there would be a ten minute period of delirium that would signify the virus infecting the brain. It wouldn't be long before the madness would turn violent.
The reason the firearm storage was there was so that they could kill the wounded.
But the guard on constant patrol did their best to ensure that this would never happen. Everyone healthy and able on The Compound did their part to help protect their new home. In a way, the loss of their old way of life had broken down the barriers of the social hierarchy. Everyone was equal in their mutual grievances. There was no place for the stigmas that had defined them before. If they didn't all work together, then they were as good as dead. However, Sherlock, the exception to all, still managed to accomplish this feat. Though he did it as much to himself as they did to him. He wanted to be separate from them as it allowed him more freedom. What no one, save for John, knew was that he was still looking for a cure.
The Compound had once been a university. It didn't have all that Sherlock's old lab held by means of supplies, but it served its purpose well enough. The dorm that he and John had managed to acquire was close to the labs, as well as the library. More often than not Sherlock would hide away in there, scanning medical texts for anything that could help him. John would sometimes be of some use to him when he found the time, but he himself was more likely to be found in the ward than anywhere else.
The only time they would be in the same room for more than an hour was during the night, when Sherlock listened intently to a radio and John would try to close his eyes against the hellish visions his subconscious bestowed upon him. Sometimes the static of the radio and the murmured broadcasts (from so long ago, why were they still playing?) provided enough of a distraction that he could slip under. Sometimes he would just lay awake for hours listening to them as Sherlock did.
The government has declared Defcon Six. Military forces are establishing quarantines in the infected areas and will restore marshal law within the next seventy-two hours, in the meantime...
Once John had asked Sherlock why he kept listening to the same repeating messages. John had thought that perhaps he was trying to decipher some sort of code or pattern within them to help him in his pursuit of a cure. Maybe by listening to the broadcasts he could locate what areas were first infected and then implement that information into a geographical map to determine what in each location could be the source. And maybe he was doing that.
But when Sherlock had replied with a solemn 'I'm waiting', John learned he was not as unflappable as he had originally thought.
Because Sherlock wasn't just listening to old messages. He was waiting for new ones.
Messages that they both knew weren't coming.
The raid of infected came as a shock to the refugees a few days later. No one was lost during it, but their panic was enough to redouble their efforts of maintaining the boundary. It was for the best, actually. They should have never let it become lax to begin with. Too long they had become complacent with their new life on The Compound. It was best not to forget that they were still very much fighting for their lives.
Another sharp crack as the gun was discharged.
"Dammit, Sherlock! Be quiet!" John hissed.
The detective just shrugged and buried his nose a little further into his scarf. "Rats," he said, voice muffled by the fabric. "Trying to keep away the rats."
"Yeah, well, I don't really think they're our main problem right now, so would you stop fooling around and keep watch? People are relying on us, here."
"Correction: people rely on you." said Sherlock. "They never once relied on me. Had they—"
John ground his teeth. "Yes, yes. I know. But we can't afford to go off on one of your mad schemes, right now."
Sherlock's steely eyes set on him. "As I was about to say, before I was interrupted: Had they relied on me, there would not have been as many alive as there is now."
As close to an admission as he was going to get. 'People would have died.' But John also knew that he thought more would have been saved had he found the cure. Which he would have done, surely, had he been able to find a subject. Had he use of his original lab. But there was simply no way. And Sherlock was still bitter. At least he was admitting that he wasn't entirely in the right. It was a start.
It was night time and all the lights were muted or extinguished, leaving them in near darkness at their post. Like insects, the zombies were attracted to those flares of light. It was a beacon to them. The lights meant food. All the windows were boarded up tight, and no one was permitted to leave their rooms unless strictly necessary, and then only if the lights were out before opening the doors.
Moonlight wasn't enough to see by.
The two men were silent for a stretch of time. John was on constant surveillance, as was ingrained upon him in his time within the service. Sherlock was moping, but had thankfully stopped making a ruckus. He could be such a petulant child sometimes it was astounding. Their shift was drawing to a close—they couldn't have more than a half hour left on the watch. John tried not to be overly relieved as the seconds ticked by. Something was putting him on edge. The rotation couldn't happen soon enough.
"Did you hear that?" asked Sherlock, suddenly. Straining his ears, John listened. Nothing. "There it was again!" he cried. He was on his feet now, gun raised and eyes bright.
Exasperatedly, "I don't hear anything."
Sherlock shushed him and waited. A low growl breached the quiet. He definitely heard that. More? How many? Was it another raid? John savagely sought any movement in the darkness beyond. Seconds. They only had seconds.
Now.
The zombie barrelled across the rocky path with madness-induced urgency. Both men opened fire upon the grotesque body but it continued on. These things were worse than bloody cockroaches!
"Aim for the head!" shouted Sherlock, as though he didn't already know that. A moment to centre himself.
Breathe. Oxygen to his racing heart.
Aim. The rifle a steady weight in his hands.
Fire. Flesh splintering apart.
The zombie dropped.
Everything around them went quiet once more. Could that possibly have been all? Just the one? John severely hoped so.
Sherlock just looked put out.
"Another viable subject wasted," he bemoaned. With a long-suffering sigh, he turned to John. "Are you injured?"
He scoffed. "Oh please, don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm sure you're much more interested in the body, anyhow." John rolled his eyes when Sherlock immediately lost interest in him in lieu of doing just that. Typical. "Do you think that was the last of them?"
The other made an 'mmm' sound that meant he wasn't actually listening; too caught up in his own head. "What do you think is in the virus that keeps them from eating each other?" he instead replied. John just shrugged. The action made Sherlock scowl.
"You could try being a little more useful," he spat. Blue eyes gleamed like ice in the moonlight. He looked demonic. Every bit as insane as John knew he could be. "You—" he began, but stopped short. Now his eyes shone with an entirely different light. "John, move!"
Too late. An intense pain rioted through him as teeth dug into the meat of his forearm. There had been more than one. How could he let this happen? There was always more than one! A bright light temporarily blinded him as Sherlock's gun fired at the zombie latched into his arm. It howled in pain, opening its mouth just wide enough for John to wrench his arm free. Another shot and the creature went down. Another just for good measure. Not necessary, but it made John feel a little better.
Oh God, he'd been bit. By one of them. He was going to die. He was going to become one of—
Sherlock was just staring at him with those manic eyes.
With what he hoped were not his last words, he stated:
"You may not use my body for science."
