Fourth story, third prompt. This one simply wanted some John H/C (exact wording was: John needs to be hurt damnit :))
Titel comes from a Led Zeppelin song, just like the whole title of the collection. What can I say, I'm a Rock'n Roller
Nobody's Fault But Mine
His footsteps fell heavy against the pavement, as he followed just a few feet behind Sherlock at full speed. They were chasing Martin Baxter, double murderer. Together with Lestrade and Donovan they had tried to confront Baxter in his apartment. But the man had thrown the door in their faces and had fled out of the window.
Sherlock was of coarse right behind him, having stopped the door from shutting with his foot. John followed closely, hearing Lestrade and Donovan running back the way they had come, as he climbed out of the window.
Baxter had led them through small alleys, past run down and abandoned buildings and further into uninhabited areas. His lungs were starting to burn at the exercise, but his gait was still even and he kept up with the longer legs of Sherlock. But then he had gotten a lot of practice in the past months chasing criminals through London. And someone had to keep up with Sherlock Holmes, because the man's sense of self-preservation was seriously malfunctioning.
Baxter's lead was closing and the man was aware of it. He ducked into another alley and ran up a flight of creaky stairs and into an abandoned house. Sherlock jumped the stairs two at a time, because half the steps were rotten or broken. They creaked dangerously as John ran them up, the weight of three grown men to much for the old wood.
The door had been barely hanging on it hinges when Baxter had stormed through, by the time John was through the piece of plywood fell down the stairs, breaking at least two steps on the way down.
The old house was dark, dust raising up with every footstep they made, and only weak rays of sun illuminated the rooms through the boarded up windows.
A cold shiver ran up John's spine and the hairs on the back of his neck raised, his instinct told him that something was up and it was not good. In one fluid motion he drew his old service gun from the back of his pants and, holding it tightly in both of his hands, he followed the crashing sounds into what could have been a living room once.
The sight that greeted him send his nerves down the drain. Baxter was standing in the back of the room, close to one of the boarded up windows. He had a gun in his hand, finger slowly pulling the trigger. Worst of all, the gun was aimed squarely at Sherlock.
The detective was standing stock still, staring at Baxter as if willing him to shot. John acted without thinking, not much thinking at least. He aimed at Baxter and jumped into Sherlock. So much for Sherlock having no sense of self-preservation, he wasn't a bit better.
The impact of the bullet send him crashing further into Sherlock and then he hit the ground. Of course his newly injured shoulder made first contact and the pain that flared up would have been enough to knock him out, but just a second after his shoulder hit the ground, his head too bounced off the ground and John slipped into unconsciousness.
He felt the impact before the crack of the shot echoed against the walls. As he was falling a second shot fell and after he had crashed on the ground, he heard another body hitting the ground across the room. The fall had pushed the air out of his lungs and he had automatically closed his eyes shortly before his impact. An eerie silence had settled over the room as the echoes of the shots slowly faded away.
He opened his eyes, had to blink a few times because of the settling dust and found that his vision was obscured by a black jacket. Sherlock's eyes widened in shock and he scrambled to his knees only to see his friend lying unmoving on his side.
"Oh god no." Sherlock whispered and carefully rolled John on his back. "John. Can you hear me?"
Sherlock's pleading was rewarded with a groan and fluttering lids. Soon blue eyes opened and started into his, "Sherlock? You okay?"
"Yes, yes, you bloody idiot. I am okay, but you're not." Sherlock replied and fumbled the jacket aside, then pressed both hands over the small hole high up in John's chest.
John groaned in pain and buckled against the pressure for a second, before relaxing slightly. "What about Baxter?"
"I don't care. Lestrade can." His voice was shaking slightly, he could feel the warm blood well up between his fingers, staining his hands and making his hold slippery.
"He doesn't know where we are." John's statement was contradicted by heavy footfalls and a yell of , "Sherlock," in Lestrade's baritone.
"Living room." Sherlock yelled back and seconds later the Inspector stumbled through the door, closely followed by Donovan.
"Oh god." Lestrade said when he took in the scene in front of him. "Sally call an ambulance now," he ordered and stepped over the assorted rumble.
"Check on Baxter." It was John's weak voice that brought his gaze to the crumbled body in the back of the room.
"Give me your jacket first." Sherlock held out his hand expectantly, trying to ignore the fact that it dripped blood. His hands had done little to stop the bleeding and he could see the effects of the blood loss in John's rapidly paling face.
He felt the material in his hand and immediately pressed it back into John's shoulder. This time there was just a weak groan at the renewed pressure.
"How are you feeling?" Sherlock asked, looked into glazed blue eyes and felt the panic rising in him.
"Gonna be okay." John's voice was slightly slurry and he needed to clench his teeth to stop them from rattling, but he was determined not to let them see how bad he was getting. He knew he was losing too much blood, could feel the shock worsening as the cold feeling settled in his limbs.
Donovan settled down opposite the detective and stared first at Sherlock's blood stained hands and Lestrade's coat, that was also turning red, before her eyes moved on to John's pale and sweaty face.
"Yeah, the other shoulder now too." John said, smirking through the pain. His lids were getting heavier and he felt more than tired by now. The signs of shocks were getting more serious and obvious now and he hoped that the ambulance would come soon.
"This is not funny," Sherlock said. His heart was beating against his chest as he felt the hot blood seeping through his fingers and dripping on the ground. It was too much and too fast and where was that bloody ambulance.
"Baxter is dead."Lestrade said and kneeled down beside Holmes, "How is he?"
"Slipping deeper into shock. Bullet probably it the subclavian." John answered and forced his eyes open again. The world around him was fuzzy and began to dim. He was not going to stay conscious much longer.
Keeping up eye contact with Sherlock, John lifted his hand, found Sherlock's forearm and held on as tight as he could. "'s gonna be okay." His eyes slid shut completely and refused to open again. The grip on Sherlock's arm became lax and Sherlock's voice was getting more muted until John didn't hear anything anymore and slipped into unconsciousness.
The second he saw John's eyes close, Sherlock began to panic. He laid trembling fingers on John's neck and felt his heart beat in his throat, when he didn't felt anything.
"I can't find his pulse. Lestrade I can't find his pulse." Wide scared eyes turned on the Inspector, who needed to take a few deep breaths to calm himself, before he replaced his fingers with Sherlock's. A sight of relief escaped him as he felt the weak throb. "He's still alive, Sherlock. His pulse is just weak. Look, he's still breathing."
Sherlock still didn't look convinced and watched John's chest closely for a few breaths, before turning back to Lestrade, "Then where is the ambulance? Where is the damn ambulance?" he was near shouting now. Scared for his friend, scared of own unknown feelings of panic.
"Sherlock!" Lestrades voice level matched the detectives, "Calm down. Keep the pressure up. The ambulance will be here soon."
The Inspector had never seen Sherlock so distressed and it was disturbing to see him this way. But seeing John lying in a puddle of his own blood must not be easy, hell he was affected and he was not sharing a flat with the doctor.
He too was slightly distressed by the situation. If the bullet really had hit the subclavian like John had said then they needed to hurry. And by the amount of blood that had already left the doctors body, Lestrade knew John was right.
Being a professional, even if Sherlock didn't acknowledged that most of the time, Lestrade was able to keep his calm. That didn't stop him from checking the pulse every few minutes and sighting in relief when he heard the siren and a minute later the steps of the medics.
It was a small fight to get Sherlock away from John. The detective was literally clinging to his friend and scared that he would bleed out the second he let go of the pressure. It didn't matter that the medics were there and had better equipment to deal with the bleeding than one ruined jacked and a pair of shaking hands.
In the end he had grabbed Sherlock from behind and had to physically pull the tall man away. "Sherlock, damnit calm down. The medics are here now. They'll take good care of John." Lestrade nearly yelled into Sherlock's ear.
Sherlock calmed down when he saw John strapped to the stretcher. His heart was still beating frantically, but hearing the steady, if a bit slow, heartbeat from John coming from the monitor helped.
He wanted to drive with John in the ambulance, but the medics stopped him. Sherlock looked perplexed at the two men, when they told him he couldn't come with them.
"Why not?"
"We need the room to work, sir."
"But I'm thin. I don't need much room."
The medic looked helplessly at Lestrade, who was still standing a step behind Sherlock, ready to step in when needed. "C'mon I'll drive you. The longer you discuss this, the longer it takes until John is at the hospital." Which was absolutely the wrong thing to say, because that set Sherlock of again.
"Then go. Go. Go. Go" He pushed the medic back into the back of the ambulance, caught one last glance of John's face, half hidden behind an oxygen mask and slammed the door close.
Lestrade pulled him back a few paces as the ambulance took off with a wailing siren. Sherlock shook his arm to lose the Inspector's grip on his elbow and stalked into the alley, back to Baxter's apartment and Lestrade's car.
Doctor's, in Sherlock's eyes, were all hell's minions. Except for one and he didn't count right now.
After three hours of surgery all the doctor told him was that John was alive and expected to make a full recovery, barring any complications.
"Can I see him?"
"We're keeping him in ICU overnight for observation. Only family members are allowed in ICU."
"I'm his brother." Sherlock replied without hesitation.
The doctor eyes him suspiciously for a moment before saying, "I'm going to need ID for that."
Hell's mininons, all of them, Sherlock thought and let his shoulders fall. He just wanted to see John, needed to see with his own eyes that his friend was still alive.
"He's my partner. I brought him here." Sherlock pleaded and when had he been reduced to pleading? That should be below him, but by now his nerves are so strung out that he would do anything. And it was a good thing no one saw him, he would never be able to live that down.
"You're his fiancé? Why didn't you say so from the beginning?"
Sherlock was lucky that he was a quick and smart thinker or else he would have been stunned at the sudden turn of events.
"Yes, I'm his fiancé, but we have not told many people yet. You know, prejudice in our line of work." He put on an embarrassed expression and it worked.
With an understanding look on her face, the doctor nodded. "Come with me, I'll show you to his room."
Only when the doctor had turned around Sherlock started to smile. Sometimes it was too easy to manipulate people.
It was quiet in the ICU, something Sherlock was not prepared for. From the few tv-series he had watched on TV, or John had watched and Sherlock had commented, he thought that it would be much busier.
He also wasn't prepared to see John in the hospital bed. He was still too pale and an IV dripped new blood steadily in John's veins. But the beeping of the heart monitor was stronger, more regular than before and the oxygen mask had been replaced with a nasal canula.
"He's doing really well, considering the amount of blood he lost." The doctor reassured him, after seeing his slight hesitation.
Sherlock simply nodded and sat down in the chair beside John's bed. Staring at the slack face of his friend he started to wonder how he managed to get a friend like that. Someone who was willing took a bullet for him. Sherlock knew that he wasn't the easiest man to life with, knew from Donovan's and Anderson's comments that he was a freak that didn't deserve a friend like that. Even he had started to think like that and wondered why John hadn't turned tail long ago.
He would have to ask John that, as soon as the man was awake, because he had no experience in friendship. But then somewhere deep inside he knew that he would have done the exact same thing. Would give his live if it meant that John would live.
"A three patch problem, John." Sherlock whispered and leaned back in the chair, waited for John to wake up and smirked. He was already anticipating the face John was going to make when Sherlock told him that they were engaged.
End
