John's heart was thumping, his pulse in his ears so loud he didn't hear the shouts from behind him when he entered an ally way by the side of the pub, a short cut to the main road so he could stop a cab before he forgot where he lived, then came the louder voices.

"Oh! Am talking to you. OI!" When John finally lifted his head he saw 6 tall thin boys, about 18/19 years old heading to him, John rolled his eyes and carried on walking, ignoring the calls of two of the taller kids, a dark lanky boy then came from behind him and took a swing, John moved out of the way lazily then stood still, just stood as the other 5 boys got angry by the fact John had avoided the first blow and now was standing, mocking them.

With the next blow John wasn't o lucky, when he stepped to move out of the way he tripped over his own feet and stumbled into one of the bigger lads, small and plum and stinking of fags. "Come to dance pretty boy?" He asked in a heavy cockney accent then he pushed John up and off him and into the first lad who hit him in the stomach then came the rest of the boys, hitting and slapping John and all he could do was bump and fall into them, his vision getting worse as the pain of the rest of his body made him dizzy and sick in addition to the alcohol so what he heard next was ignorable due to the fact he was pissed, broken and falling to the floor as he heard a rough Londoner accent come heavy with panting and gasping, the voice was angry. But not with him, with them. The last thing he saw was a blurred image of a dark-haired pale bearded man kneeling beside him as he cradled the soldier's head.

Meanwhile

"You shouldn't have BEEN there, Sherlock. You know you shouldn't have and yet you went. WHY?!" Was the stretched voice of Mycroft Holmes when Sherlock had been brought into the Diogenes Club to be yelled at by his older brother, he didn't have time for arguments, but he sat there all the while Mycroft yelled, making points about how everything was at stake, how he was the one putting John in danger by being in London. Sherlock's brain was buzzing and he would have argued and walked on his brother, he would have told him how selfish he was being and run to St Bart's to see John for himself, he was alive when he'd got there and he was only knocked out but he lost a lot of blood and John was all Sherlock could think of, his bleeding head and bruises, his grunts of pain and slurred whispers.

So instead Sherlock stayed, he stared at the floor and completely ignored Mycroft's presents. F or a short while the room matched the silence of the rest of building and Mycroft just starred at his brother. Or the broken remains of him anyway. Sherlock had added to his facial features, scars and hair alike yet it was his eyes that Mycroft couldn't bare to look at. The pure tiredness of going good while Sherlock's only emotions existent slowly destroyed him. After when seemed like forever to the older Holmes brother, Sherlock stood, nodded and left the Club in silence and headed straight for the hospital.