Ch. 23: Dissolve
The next couple of seconds were a blur.
One. Everyone jumps at the sound of the unexpected voice.
Two. Valentina and Persephone begin to turn to face the newcomer.
Three. Sherlock begins to pivot on the ball of his left foot where he is crouched.
Four. John notices Sherlock's movement.
Five. Mycroft makes eye contact with Sherlock.
Six. Valentina and Persephone face Arthur.
Seven. Arthur shifts his weight between his feet.
Eight. Sherlock and Mycroft are on their feet.
Nine. John exhales sharply.
Ten. Valentina and Persephone aim their weapons.
Eleven. Arthur smiles.
Twelve. Sherlock and Mycroft seize Valentina and Persephone from behind.
Thirteen. Lestrade appears beside John with his weapon out and his mouth shouting words.
Fourteen. Sherlock sweeps his leg and Valentina lands hard on the ground.
Fifteen. Mycroft has wrenched the gun out of Persephone's hands but she's landed an elbow to his jaw.
Sixteen. Sherlock is on top of Valentina and they're wrestling for control and the gun.
Seventeen. Lestrade is yelling at Persephone and aiming his weapon at her. Mycroft attacks her knees and topples her over.
Eighteen. John is crawling towards Sherlock and Valentina. Valentina still has the gun. She's smiling.
Nineteen. Valentina sticks the gun in her mouth. John yells. Sherlock stares.
Twenty. A shot. Silence. Persephone's agonized sob. John's heavy breathing. Sherlock's stare. Mycroft's groan. Lestrade's curse. Arthur's sigh.
Twenty-one. Checkmate.
00000000000
John was a little bewildered at how fast the standoff had dissolved. Arthur had distracted the two women enough for Sherlock and Mycroft to grab them from behind and attempt to wrestle their weapons away. John's blood boiled at the memory of the two of them merely glancing at each other before making their move. It was deliberate, reckless, dangerous, dumb, and foolish. Hell, knowing them, they'd probably calculated their chances of failure in the .076 seconds before they decided to move! There was absolutely no way that could have worked…no…way…
John eyed his partner and Mycroft suspiciously from his perch on the litter on the ground beside the ambulance. The two men were talking to Arthur and Lestrade while John had been carted off to the medics. He was grateful for the attention his wound was receiving, but to be frank he was grumpy, tired, sore, confused, and right now he just wanted his bloody boyfriend to be standing beside him and playing with his hair while they went to the hospital. (He also wanted said boyfriend to explain what the hell had been going on. Clearly, they'd been up to something. John had a feeling in his gut and he'd learned to trust that gut.)
As if sensing John's telepathic messages, Sherlock ears fairly perked up and he swiveled his head to face John. John noticed that Sherlock's eyes were still a little vacant and his mouth (when not talking) was set into a default position of 'distressed thin line'. John knew they were going to eventually have to talk about the whole Valentina-blew-her-brains-out-in-front-of-everyone thing…but he didn't want to do it right now. Sherlock grew oddly possessive of John whenever John was injured or ill and that possessiveness (although admittedly adorable) also made the detective short and ill-tempered (more so than usual) around others. Besides…John was exhausted.
John noticed that Sherlock had excused himself from the little campfire chat and was making his way towards the ambulance, but John's attention had been turned to a point beyond them. A stern-looking policeman was escorting a handcuffed Anthea (Persephone?) to the waiting car. The look on Anthea's face made John shiver down to the very marrow of his bones. It was the look of a woman who had completely surrendered her will. There was no trace of the fire that had been Anthea…the enigmatic and quirky woman who had worked for Mycroft Holmes. There was no trace even of the woman who had been Persephone…the mysterious spy working for money and revenge. The look was of a woman who had lost her identity. She was no longer Anthea and she was no longer Persephone. She'd relied so heavily on Valentina and Mycroft for her sense of self-worth that when she lost them both…she had nowhere to go. She was a woman without herself and that was reflected in the deadness of her eyes and the slackness of her facial muscles. She looked…empty.
John jumped as Sherlock's rumbly baritone muttered in his ear. "I imagine Mycroft's background checks into his employees will be getting much more thorough."
John ground his ear into his shoulder trying to itch the tickle his voice produced. Sherlock only chuckled and knelt to come to John's eye level. They just stared at each other for a few seconds…brilliant grey-green meeting and holding pearly blue. Then, Sherlock gave John a small half-smile before placing an ungloved hand alongside his face, caressing the skin with a long thumb. John unconsciously sighed and leaned into his partner's touch.
"Can we go home now?" John asked fuzzily. The painkillers the medics had given him plus the exhaustion and the cold were starting to do funny things to his brain.
Sherlock gave John one of his rare, genuine smiles before leaning in to kiss John's forehead with the lightest of touches. "After we get you to the hospital, John," he whispered. "You do have a hole in your leg."
John looked down as if he'd forgotten that little detail. "Oh…yeah. Okay then." And with that he settled back into the litter, his eyes fluttering shut in exhaustion.
Sherlock moved to stand up and rejoin the others when he felt a hand on his sleeve. He looked down to see John grasping at the wool coat, but his eyes were still closed.
"Sherlock?" he questioned.
"Yes?" Sherlock replied.
John cracked one eye open and looked at him. "When I get this hole in my leg filled, I'm going to need for you to explain to me just what the hell you and Mycroft thought you were doing back there."
Sherlock frowned. "What ever do you mean, John?"
It was John's turn to frown and he wrenched his eyes open so it would be more effective. "I mean," he said, "the part where you and Mycroft went off half-cocked and pulled that foolhardy stunt against two clearly trained people with guns."
Sherlock grunted. "You make it sound as if we weren't trained, John. I can assure you that we both knew what we were doing." He touched John's nose with a pointer finger. "Besides…it worked…after a fashion."
John gave Sherlock an intentional look. "We're going to have to talk about that, too."
Sherlock made a tsking sound but John shushed him with a finger to his lips. "That's an order, Mr. Holmes," John muttered. He didn't even register Sherlock's half-amused, half-outraged stutter before he pulled the detective down by his coat lapels and kissed him into next Tuesday.
A/N: Hey there. So...I don't know how to write fight scenes. :) Not good ones, anyway. If aforementioned fight sequence is totally horrid, please let me know.