Author's Note: I switch POV a couple times in this one, but its easy to tell whose point of view it's in. Maybe an epilogue after this? Thanks to all who have followed/favorited/ and reviewed this story! I own nothing but my head canons and fluffy plot-bunnies. Sherlock and John belong to someone else…
Sherlock was there when John got adopted. He lurked in the background invisibly when the nice family called the Watsons went to the orphanage with intent to adopt.
The adoption process was long and tedious, and Sherlock had missed most of it.
As he hid in the corners of rooms Sherlock heard phrases like "Replacement Birth Certificate" and "biological parents". He didn't understand what the Watsons and Mrs. Hudson we're discussing, but their long talks had apparently been John's ticket to a home. A real home.
John was eight years old when he became part of a family for the first time. Sherlock tried not to notice the bitter ache of longing in his chest as he watched John walk away from the orphanage forever hand in hand with Mr. Watson. The little hand that Sherlock used to hold.
Sherlock saw the watching eyes of a monster out of the corner of his own eye. Sherlock had quickly found out that the red-eyed fiend had put the word out to his monster friends.
They didn't touch John, but they followed Sherlock around, making sure Sherlock never got to close to John.
Sherlock saw them as a necessary hindrance. The monsters, in keeping Sherlock away, were protecting John. John's scent was barely noticeable now.
When John was ten, Sherlock found himself wandering to the new home John inhabited with the three Watsons.
As always, Sherlock was aware of the consequences of being close to John. However, that day—a cloudless Thursday—he was feeling particularly foolhardy.
He sat outside John's first-floor bedroom window for the better part of the day, listening to John and his adoptive sister bicker while playing a game.
"Harriet, you moved your piece wrong. You were supposed to move three spaces and you moved four."
Sherlock, his eyes closed, smiled at John's need for fairness.
Harriet was two years older than John, but Sherlock could tell John knew a lot more about the world than his adoptive sister.
"Johnny..." Harriet whined. "We've played three times and I still haven't won! It's just one space more..." Harriet beseeched her brother.
"Don't call me Johnny. I don't like that name." John said.
Sherlock remembered the red-eyed monster's moniker for the boy, and silently agreed with John's plea not to refer to him as thus.
"Yeah, okay, John."
The argument over the game seemed to be forgotten and Sherlock contentedly listened to the two children finish playing.
The sun began to sink and Sherlock was still seated outside John's window. The boy's voice alone calmed him and banished any negative feelings. Soon, the Watson house became quiet as the moon replaced the sun and the night's darkness was absolute.
Of course, Sherlock's presence there had not gone unnoticed. Several monsters had flocked around John's house to make sure Sherlock didn't renege on his promise.
The fiend's minions weren't completely watchful though, and when John began whimpering in the middle of the night, Sherlock was up and through the window before he or the other monsters had any time to think.
John was lying in bed with his covers kicked down to the foot of the mattress. His cheeks were flushed red and his blonde hair was messy from frequently tossing and turning.
Sherlock, realizing his hasty action, looked out of the open window into the night: the monsters lurking around hadn't seen Sherlock's entry into John's house. He had time.
Sherlock walked to John's bed without making a sound. John was still whimpering in his sleep; his face had tear tracks on it.
Sherlock, though he'd had no previous experience with the phenomenon, knew John was having a nightmare. A particular strong nightmare that the boy was physically terrified of.
"No... no... I don't..." John mumbled in his sleep.
Sherlock stared down at John helplessly—why was he always so helpless to react around John in distress?
"Please..." John continued quite quietly. "Sherlock...please..."
Hearing his name, Sherlock needed no more prompting. He stooped and pulled the boy into his arms, holding him close as if protecting him from his dreams.
Sherlock didn't know if John had said his name because he sensed the monster's presence, or because Sherlock was a factor in the nightmare. He didn't care much for the reason of John's calling out though, as it gave him an excuse to hold John tightly in his arms again.
John trembled and put a fisted hand on Sherlock's chest; he was still in the throes of the nightmare and sleeping fitfully.
Sherlock swayed back and forth with the whimpering boy ensconced in his embrace.
"Shh, little one." Sherlock said into John's ear. "Everything is fine."
Sherlock didn't know where he was finding this innate ability to comfort. He continued rocking and hushing until John's whimpers began to subside.
John's hair—still tousled from restless sleep—was darker than Sherlock remembered it. His blonde locks, previously almost white, were now sandy in color.
It was while Sherlock was carding his hand through John's soft hair that the boy spoke up again, his voice soft.
"What're you doing here?" John asked, quiet as a mouse.
Sherlock looked down to find John's brown eyes on his. The boy looked disoriented and still half asleep.
Sherlock stroked the boy's cheek with his finger and smiled.
"I was summoned by your cry." Sherlock said, somewhat truthfully.
"Oh." John said, followed by a big yawn.
Sherlock knew John was unlikely to remember much in this state, so he held the boy in his arms for a while longer, rocking him and whispering comforting words.
Soon, John was drifting to sleep again. Before he slipped into slumber, John had one last thing to say: "I'll keep being brave, Sherlock..."
Sherlock smiled down at the boy. "I know." He replied and planted a kiss on the boy's head.
Once John was sound asleep, no longer plagued by his nightmare, Sherlock gently settled him back on his bed. Though he was loath to let the boy go, Sherlock knew the fiend's monster minions would make their appearance soon and force Sherlock to leave.
Sherlock hated being under the dominion of these monsters, but he hated the idea of any harm coming to John more.
Carding his hand through John's hair one last time, Sherlock finally stepped away from the boy.
He didn't see John again for seven years.
John woke up in his bed abruptly from a vivid dream.
In the dream he was being cradled by a tall shadow. The shadow had large, pale eyes and he whispered comforting things in John's ear.
John was somewhat confident this was a dream and not a memory, but there was a nagging doubt in his mind that told him this experience was not a dream—it had happened.
John sat up and rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes. He tried to recall all of the elements of his dream. Or was it a memory? John searched for the details of the...memory the way you search for a missing puzzle piece that's just driving you insane with its continued absence.
Nothing came. No further memories of the pale-eyed shadow surfaced. John banished his frustration and got up.
That day was rife with activity and after an argument with Harriet, a long day at school, and rugby practice, John had forgotten all about the strange dream in which he was being cradled by a shadow.
John was walking home after rugby practice because cabs were expensive and so was college. He was getting a bit crazed about saving money and Harriet was forever exasperated by John's thrift.
Yawning, John adjusted his backpack straps and kept walking the familiar path back to his house in downtown London.
Halfway home, John got the feeling that someone was following him. The feeling became valid when John heard rapid footsteps closing in on him.
Turning around quickly, John was met with the sight of a stocky man in a dark hoodie running straight for him.
Before John knew what was happening, the stocky man barreled him over. John landed hard on his shoulder and groaned in pain. He didn't allow himself to bemoan his most likely dislocated shoulder too long; John kicked blindly upward and the stocky man grunted. In retaliation the man gave John a couple hard kicks to the stomach with his heavy boots.
John continued to struggle as the man rummaged through John's pockets in search of his wallet.
John thought vaguely that this was his first mugging, and reflected that the man's effort wasn't worth it: John only had about two dollars in his wallet, the rest was stored safely in John's bank account.
His stomach ached from the kicks, and his shoulder was the epitome of agony, but with his good arm, John aimed a punch at his attacker.
John's wallet now in his hands, the man was too distracted to dodge John's punch and John landed a strong hook on his lower jaw.
"Now, you're gonna get it." The man growled.
John closed his eyes in preparation for the blow, he was utterly spent and in awful pain.
"This'll teach you." The man drew his fist back deliberately.
John, panting, his eyes half-open, responded, "How many...brain cells did it take you... to come up with that... s-statement?" His sarcasm earned John no favors other than a disoriented feeling of hysteria: he was mocking his attacker.
And then the blow came and John's head slammed into the pavement and pain eclipsed everything else.
John woke up in the hospital four hours later with a mild concussion and bruised ribs.
Witnesses off the mugging claimed to have seen a tall, dark shadow pulling the mugger away from John.
John didn't know what to make of that news, but after he was told of his savior, he remembered his dream again.
A tall shadow... Why couldn't he remember?
Of, course Sherlock stepped in to save John from that vicious attacker, what else was he going to do?
He had happened upon John purely by chance as he had been wandering the thoroughfares of London for something to do.
The fact that he was wandering a very specific area of London, an area in which Sherlock knew at least one resident, was irrelevant.
Sherlock had no trouble recognizing John, even after the seven-year separation. He didn't even pause to think—Sherlock did that a lot around John—before pulling the man who had dared to mess with John in Sherlock's presence away and breaking several of his limbs for good measure.
In his hasty act of rescue, Sherlock had neglected continuing the concentration necessary to remain invisible and he knew he was seen by several humans as well as some curious monsters.
Whatever the consequences saving John had been worth it. He would do it again and again with no thoughts of himself.
Then came Afghanistan. A country far away from London, England. Far enough away that no monsters there were part of the fiend's inner circle.
Sherlock followed John there because even after all of these years he was still indebted to his first friend.
John was an adult now, but as Sherlock looked down at John's crumpled form in the heat of the Afghanistan desert, bleeding from the shoulder and surely in a tremendous amount of pain, he saw the little boy of the past, lying in a hospital bed with a broken arm.
Sherlock knelt by John's side, disbanding his invisibility, and placing a hand on John's sweaty forehead.
John was losing a lot of blood and Sherlock felt panic bubble up in his very soul.
The war zone was full of people dying. John, as he had foreseen he would be since the age of seven, was their doctor, and yet he couldn't help any of them. He needed help himself.
"Please, God, let me live." The delirious John muttered, barely audible over the sounds of chaotic war all around them.
Seeing speech as a good sign, Sherlock carded a hand through John's sweaty hair and spoke to him for the first time in almost two decades.
"John, John you'll be alright. I will not let anything happen to you."
Amazingly, John huffed a laugh. "A little late f-for that, aren't you... Sherlock."
Sherlock felt an absurd surge of joy: John remembered him! John knew he was there.
"Yes, John. I am a tad late." Sherlock said.
John forced his eyes open. His brown eyes were filled with pain. "You came back, though. T-that's go-good."
"Always, John."
"Good... that's good... D'you think you could h-help me, Sherlock?"
No further prompting needed, Sherlock picked John up effortlessly and with the amazed eyes of soldiers on him, Sherlock carried his friend to safety.
"Seriously, John, I think you have a Guardian Angel!" John's friend Bill Murray said to John almost a week after John was shot with an Afghani bullet. "Half the battlefield saw the thing carrying you serenely to the hospital! Dark as night, and tall as hell and all!"
John smiled at Bill, rubbing his bandages absentmindedly. "I think you were delirious." He responded, knowing who his "Guardian Angel" actually was and wishing he could say thank-you to his oldest friend.
Bill laughed, "I thought I was too! But the thing was crystal clear, plain as day, stalking through the battlefield." Bill shook his head and looked at the ceiling. "Man… I saw that tall, black thing carrying you like a baby, and I somehow started believing in a God."
John looked at Bill with some surprise until Bill met his eyes once more. "Someone really wants to make sure you're safe, John."
John nodded at that, because Bill had gotten that right.