Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock.
Several hours prior
It wasn't a danger night.
It wasn't a high-risk evening.
It wasn't a problem day.
It was a grocery run.
It was standard, really; there was never any damn food in the house, and John was hungry. Mrs. Hudson was away for the better part of the week, visiting her remaining family or something of the sort. So John called, "Be back eventually!" grabbed his coat, and was on his way. Sherlock barely grunted in response, but he had responded.
John didn't take a cab. The man on the telly said the next day or so would be the last for a little bit of nice weather; then, rain. So, John walked. It was a mostly clear night, with a sliver of moon in the corner of the sky. He had gotten a few items, paid, and walked back.
Uneventful. Painfully so. He took less than an hour, dawdling only slightly.
So when there was no response at 221b, he thought nothing of it.
He realized why when he walked through the door.
On account of the fact that John Watson hadn't yet lived with Sherlock Holmes for quite that long, he hadn't had the (dis)pleasure of finding his flatmate unconscious on the floor.
The doctor cursed himself, cursed Sherlock, cursed his friend who recommended each other to live together.
The groceries fell to the scuffed floor with a muffled crash, and John bolted. he was an army doctor after all; this was his job.
John knelt beside his flatmate. "Sherlock," he called. "Sherlock, can you hear me?"
He rolled the him onto his back, keen eyes searching. They saw a gash on his forehead, still bleeding, and observed no splash of blood on the corner of a table or the arm of a chair. They followed from a shoulder to a rolled up sleeve and bare forearm.
No.
John's breath caught in his throat and he allowed himself half a moment. No, god damn it, he's clean!
But the evidence proves otherwise.
Sherlock's chest did not move. It did not rise and fall with the expel and intake of air.
No.
John's hands went over wrists and a neck, desperately searching. Expert fingers pressed against the jugular, seeking desperately.
Ah!
There it is!
Faint, but present.
John gasped in relief and pulled out his phone, dialing numbers quick. ""I need an ambulance, 221b, Baker Street," He was shouting. "Hurry."
There was no time to stop the bleeding head wound, breathing was a bit more important. John remembered the CPR lessons from his early days in medical school, where being an army doctor didn't even cross his mind. He had expectations of saving lives in a neat little hospital, bandaging up broken arms, cutting out appendixes, the occasional restart of a heart.
Nothing ever does go according to plan.
Three minutes without air, the body starts to shut down. Organs die. Brain damage.
But-how long had it been?
He leaned over his friend, hands together, compressing his chest in short bursts.
Goddamn you, Sherlock Holmes.
He told Mycroft it hadn't been a danger night.
"It never is," he had answered dryly.
John didn't know what to say to that. He gaped for a minute at the elder Holmes, who adjusted his cuffs like it was as common as rain that his younger brother had to be rushed to the hospital. "He was doing so well, too." He let out a gust of air. "Pity."
"Mycroft." John finally found his words. "Something is different this time, something is wrong. I was only gone for an hour, at most-"
"John, I've had Sherlock shoot up whilst I was in the next room over." He looked so annoyed, the hand clutching his omnipresent umbrella tensed. "Please try not to beat yourself up too much about this. Had he been eating?"
"Sorry?"
"Sherlock. He looked a bit thin. Had he been eating anything?"
John blinked. "I believe so." He wracked his memory for a shot of Sherlock taking a bite of something over the previous week or so. He came up empty, however. "Actually..."
Mycroft sighed. "I know we didn't have an official agreement, Dr Watson, but I at least hoped the well being of your friend was of somewhat importance."
"Hang on. Mycroft, you just told me not to worry about this."
"Well, assuming there weren't any signs, of course."
Something inside broke, just a little. "I told him to eat, but I was not going to force food down his throat."
"Well, maybe when you told him to ingest something, you should have specified not to ingest narcotics."
"Well excuse me, Mycroft, monitoring your little brother isn't my job. Actually, it's yours, isn't it?" John turned on his heel and headed toward the sliding doors of the hospital.
"Where are you going?"
John shot him a piercing look. "At least one of us cares about Sherlock Holmes."
A/N: Hi! As a bit of a note, I've rewritten parts of chapter one, so if you would go back and reread it, that would be lovely. Since this began as a one-shot, I'm kind of writing this backwards, but I know what's going to happen! Finding the words, however, is hard.
If you have any questions, comments, or complaints, don't even think about hesitating to voice them. I'm always listening.
Thank you so much for reading! It means a lot.