PART TWO: JOHN
Chapter 4: Ruin
TWO WEEKS EARLIER
Since living with Sherlock Holmes isn't exactly a peaceful endeavour, John relishes every chance he gets to have a quiet night in. A quiet night in, like any normal Englishman in their late thirties might occasionally indulge in.
John sits in his usual armchair, newspaper in hand. Sherlock is out of the apartment, having disappeared hours earlier after declining tea and announcing that he was going out to do some research.
John has had a Tesco ready-meal after sunset and has opted to have the television turned on and curtains shut to instill a feeling of homeliness in the flat. Without Sherlock's presence things are sorely quiet.
John is not worried about Sherlock hitting the streets of London after sunset on a Saturday. The man can take care of himself, and not all of his 'research' entails chasing down axe murderers down darkened alleyways. On occasion Sherlock even goes to the library.
At least that's what he claims to do. Maybe he just needs to get out of the flat lest he go stir-crazy.
John does know better than to get his hopes up about Sherlock's restless energy ever winding down. The man's level of restlessness seems to fluctuate wildly, and it's not always the amount of interesting casework that dictates whether the man is practically trying to tear down the walls. John is certain there are factors at play which have yet eluded him.
Unlike Mycroft, John would get no satisfaction from constantly monitoring the whereabouts of the younger Holmes brother. To John it seems like Mycroft may have begun to loosen his reins during the past year that John and Sherlock have been living together.
Living together. Flatmate. Friend. No single word precisely conveys all the nuances of their duet, and John has given up trying to find one that could.
Piercing, multicoloured irises homing in on John, lids narrowed. The world shrinking down to just the two of them. Sherlock looking at him as though he's the most fascinating thing in the universe. The way in which Sherlock's smile turns timid when John compliments him, the contrast between the epic showoff that Sherlock usually is and the insecurity that roils just beneath the surface. The insecurity that only John is allowed to bear witness to.
John shakes himself out of the sudden reverie. It's uncanny how much space Sherlock takes up in his head.
He finds solace in the thought that there will be plenty of time to figure out the unspoken entity between them later. Later, when John is ready and Sherlock is... what?
Yes, plenty of time to figure it all out.
John leans back in his armchair and shifts his gaze to the television. The news is on. John folds the newspaper into his lap.
Twenty minutes later, as John is paying a moderate amount of attention to a news report about Syria, he hears the front door open and then bang shut downstairs.
Footsteps on the stairs.
Frantic footsteps.
They're not the sorts of bouncy, excited footsteps Sherlock employs where there's a new case or a breakthrough in an old one.
John cranes his neck towards the door.
Sherlock barges in, hair rain-matted, eyes wide and breathing laboured. He closes the door to their apartment after glancing downstairs as though expecting someone to be following him.
Without even thinking, John stands up next to his chair. He's battle-ready, suspecting Sherlock has meddled with something dangerous and now requires his assistance. John is not even disappointed at the sudden end to his peaceful Saturday evening.
Sherlock is not stripping off his greatcoat like he usually does. He looks as though he's trying to decide on a game plan of some sorts; biting his lip and gasping as though upset or in pain.
John realizes Sherlock has draped his left arm around his waist as though trying to support his midriff.
Before John gets a chance to ask a question, Sherlock's eyes dart past him to the television screen. He looks taken aback and John instinctively turns to see what has suddenly piqued his interest in such a alarming manner.
It's a news report about a homicide in the western parts of Greater London. The body of a thirtysomething man discovered near a train station, brutally stabbed to death.
John is about to ask if this is a new case they've got on, but Sherlock suddenly raises his arm in a strange gesture. He holds out his open palm, fingers outstretched as though he's telekinetically trying to force John to comply. "John, please don't-"
"Don't what?" John asks, utterly confounded.
'Tonight's attack signifies the third deadly assault of non-gang related male individuals in the suburbs of greater London in recent years,' the newscaster is reading from her teleprompter.
"Shut it off," Sherlock tells him with a stern tone. It's not a request, it's an order. Sherlock never uses this tone with John. Never. This tone is reserved for Moriarty, for Anderson and other idiots. Idiots trying to keep Sherlock from a puzzle. Idiots trying to harm John.
John draws in a breath. Nothing makes sense.
Sherlock's coat has fallen slightly open, and in the dim light John notices a dark, expanding blotch of blood underneath where Sherlock is pressing his left palm against his midriff.
"John, if you value your life and mine, you will shut that off right now."
John stands frozen, alarm in his eyes, uncomprehending of why shutting out the television is suddenly more important than his best friend bleeding onto the carpeting.
Sherlock now looks more desperate than John has ever seen him, his eyes fixed on John's hand that's holding onto the remote control. He must've grabbed it without realizing, when Sherlock had barged in.
"John, please!" Sherlock pleads loudly.
John understands little except for this - whatever is going on, he needs to know. If there's something that's important enough that Sherlock would try to hide it from him, of all people, he has to know, he can't not know, whatever it is it can't be that bad. It can never be that bad. Because is something is wrong, then Sherlock needs him and how can he be of any use without knowing?
'This information is unconfirmed by official channels, but an anonymous source in the Metropolitan police has told the BBC that these may have been committed by the same individual or individuals-'
John looks at Sherlock, who is shaking his head as though chastising John.
'After passers-by heard screams, the body of a man was discovered in an underpass in West Ealing, defensive wounds in his arms and nearly decapitated by the cuts to his throat. The victim had likely managed to stab his assailant with a bloody Mont Blanc pen found on site and his yelling for help had alerted the station guards. This seems likely to have forced the killer to flee. The police are disclosing this information in the hopes that any individual coming into contact with someone with a similar injury might get in touch. These details have also been dispatched to all local hospitals' Accidents and Emergency departments.'
Without a word John drops the remote and hurries to Sherlock. Neither of them is looking at the TV screen anymore.
John grabs hold of Sherlock's coat and opens it wider, pulls the hem of the blood-soakef dress shirt from underneath the trousers and pries the man's fingers from pressing onto his side below the ribs. Underneath, a round small burrhole-like wound is trickling dark venous blood.
It does not resemble any wound John has seen on Sherlock before - it's not a bullet wound or a stab wound.
This was caused by something very specific. Something small and round.
John digs out a clean handkerchief from his trouser pocket and after wrapping it around his palm he presses it onto the trickling wound.
Their eyes meet. Sherlock's expression is hard to read; his gaze is slightly panicked and worried and he is pale, likely from blood loss.
"Sherlock," John gasps, "What-"
Sherlock, increasingly paler and swaying slightly on his feet, averts his gaze.
John makes a strangled noise, letting off some of the pressure from the wound and then pressing down again when he sees a steady weeping of blood still exuding from the hole. "Sherlock, this is not-"
"I told you not to watch. You did, and I can't protect you anymore," Sherlock says quietly and closes his eyes momentarily. His hands are shaking as he sheds his coat and follows John into the kitchen.
Why would Sherlock tell him not to watch the news?
John has never frozen on the battlefield. He never had any trouble springing into action during crucial moments.
This, however, is different because why would Sherlock have told him not to watch if it wasn't-
"John!" Sherlock's exasperated exclamation finally tears through his frantic internal monologue. "Some assistance?" Sherlock pleads and swallows, looking nauseated. Beads of sweat are gathering on his pale forehead. He has taken a seat by the kitchen table, unbuttoning his now utterly ruined shirt.
John blinks and then springs into action. He jogs to his room upstairs to find his medical bag. On his way back to the kitchen he grabs the TV remote to kill the flickering barrage of images on the screen.
John doesn't utter a single word during the fifteen minutes he spends cleaning, exploring, suturing and taping the small, round wound in Sherlock's left side.
Sherlock hisses when John explores the wound with his sterile glove-dressed fingers. The hole barely fits John's little finger.
Mont Blanc.
'Shut it off, John, if you value your life and mine.'
Whatever has caused the wound hasn't pierced the peritoneum. It's likely the wound will heal without a risk of a life-threatening infection even if John treats it at home.
A pregnant silence continues while Sherlock, nursing his side, picks up his coat from the floor and hangs it onto the backrest of John's usual chair. He is still pale, but no longer looks like he's about to faint.
John carefully packs away his supplies, making sure everything is tucked neatly into their right places in his medical bag.
He needs his things to be in order, because the rest of the world now feels unhinged and chaotic.
Sherlock's heavy, dark coat betrays no sign of blood. It still looks reassuringly normal, spread on the armchair backrest.
John turns one of the kitchen chairs towards the living room, towards Sherlock, who is now leaning onto John's armchair.
Sherlock bites his lip and narrows his gaze. John realizes the man doesn't know what to say. That is more alarming than anything else. Sherlock always knows what to say, always capable of picking just the perfect sharp words to tear others to pieces. Always.
John sits down and wipes his sweat-damp palms onto his knees. "Where did you go tonight?" he inquires, trying to sound like nothing is wrong but his voice has a higher pitch than usual.
Sherlock looks slightly surprised.
Sherlock isn't one for subtlety, for verbal foreplay of any sort, for easing into things but John needs this, needs to be walked through this gradually to lessen the shock that something in his knows is coming.
John still understands very little, but somehow the thought appears in his head that it's strange how this might be how the world ends, with the reassuring sound of BBC News in the background.
"West-" Sherlock swallows to soften his raspy voice which sounds as though his throat is very dry, "Ealing. I was in West Ealing, John."
John holds his breath and closes his eyes momentarily. His own dissonant pulse sings in his ears. "Were you attacked by someone?"
Sherlock regards him with a dismissive look. He seems to have regained his composure. "Not per se."
"Did you hurt someone tonight?" John asks.
Sherlock seems to recoil. John doesn't move his eyes from the man.
'You see but you don't observe.'
John is observing now. He doesn't want to, but he does.
"A bit," Sherlock says without any warmth to his voice. It sounds like a summary for a more complex explanation instead of his usual brand of dry humour.
"Did you mean to? Was it an accident?" John is surprised at the lack of emotion in his own voice.
He needs information, exactly like Sherlock always insist he needs all the necessary data.
John needs facts until he can believe.
Until he agrees to watch his world fall to pieces. There's still a margin of error here, a plausible deniability to be grasped at. Sherlock will have a perfectly innocent explanation for everything. He will. He will. He will because he's Johns brilliant and silly friend who doesn't understand human emotion but still manages to be the so loyal and devoted it hurts John's heart. Sherlock with a kindness that the man just hides exceptionally well.
'One day we'll be standing by a body that he put there.'
Fuck you, Sally Donovan, John thinks. It's not true. Not true.
"No." Sherlock says. "Not an accident," he sighs, sounding almost relieved, as though he's letting go of something troubling that he has been holding onto for a long time.
'That's why he does it, you know. He gets off on it.'
John wants to wipe that fucking smile off Sally Donovan's face. They don't understand. They don't fucking observe.
'Not an accident.'
John needs to ask the next question burning in his mind.
Sherlock needs to answer it.
It will bring ruin and pain and destruction but it needs to be said, because not saying it will not make any of this disappear.
"Did you kill someone?" John asks, and Sherlock looks at him as though still trying to discourage him, still trying to make him turn away.
Sherlock doesn't say anything, but to John a quiet Sherlock practically screams the answer.
"Do you kill people?" John asks incredulously, hoping with all his heart that this is just conjecture that his own stupidity has boiled up. Any minute Sherlock will huff with indignation and then laugh, because John is stupid, stupid, stupid, Sherlock always tells him so, jumping into ungrounded conclusions, elaborating from too little data.
This is not the most precise way to go about it, not the most descriptive and articulate manner is which to approach the subject, but John forgives himself for not being very eloquent at the moment.
Sherlock isn't looking at John anymore. Considering the implications of what they are discussing, outsiders might be surprised that Sherlock Holmes doesn't confess such things with his head held arrogantly high, his tone superior and full of hubris.
John knows better because he knows Sherlock. He is relieved but not surprised at the undistilled shame in Sherlock's tone when Sherlock finally answers.
"Yes, I do."
John stands up onto shaky feet.
Suddenly there is too much in his head, he needs to wreck something, get it out, tear it out the way it's all now tearing him apart.
He still doesn't have all the information but he has enough. He has enough for it tear him apart.
He screams.
It is not the yell of a soldier but the agonized, rage-filled howl of desperation. He bangs his fist on the table so hard that Sherlock finches and the kitchen cabinets rattle in their frames. John loves, adores, relishes the way in which his metacarpals crack as they hit the table and the blinding pain of them fracturing gives him a second's respite from the realization.
Still, the truth comes to him eventually.
Sherlock Holmes, consulting serial killer.
