Spoilers: Hounds of Baskerville
Ch 32 in which our hero John is trusting his friend's judgement.
John entered the forest descending into the hollow still shaken, still feeling that dread on the bottom of his stomach. He marched on despite it because he had to, he was a soldier, he knew how to withstand fear and fight despite it.
Henry was in the hollow trying to kill himself. John shouted at him to stop but his voice was far too loud and alarming.
Sherlock started to talk calmly and rationally and Henry listened to him. John slowly approached Henry and disarmed him. Henry was far too affected by the drug to be rational for a very long time.
Then the dog came and it was more vicious and horrible than John saw him in the lab.
Still, John held his ground. If Sherlock says that it's all the drug, then it had to be. Nevertheless, the beast looked so real.
"Do you see it?" John turned to Lestrade and could see the fear on his face.
"How can he see it, he's not been drugged," John asked for Sherlock to make the sense of it.
"The dog is still here, but it's just an ordinary dog," Sherlock insisted.
John looked at the dog petrified but refused to run.
"It's the fog, the drug is in the fog," he said and John looked around, that meant Lestrade was affected too.
Lestrade shot at the dog but he was too scared to shoot properly, he missed it even though it was just a few feet away. John decided that he has to shoot, the risk was there, and that his drugged mind is seeing something else. John shot the dog but it still looked beastly.
"Look at it," Sherlock dragged Henry near. "It's just a dog."
Henry then attacked his dad's killer and John and Lestrade restrained him. As John held Henry he was still dealing with the drug just trying to stand upright. At the same time, Sherlock was at his hype enjoying the reveal of the case.
"It's been brilliant," John heard him say.
"Sherlock," John warned him.
"What?" Sherlock looked at him confused as he always was about proper things to say.
"Timing," John has developed a short and precise way of transmitting where Sherlock's got it wrong.
"No, it's ok," Henry said releasing his anxiety and anger.
The dog growled again and John shot it in an instant. He wasn't ready to risk with that beast.
The mad scientist ran and rather than facing consequences entered into the mind field and got himself blown up.
After that, there was nothing much to do. John escorted Henry home along with Lestrade as Sherlock pranced away in his own direction. At Henry's home, there was an ambulance and his therapist talking to medics.
John gave a sleeping pill to Henry.
"Just to sleep through the night, in the morning you'll feel better," he said to him trying to sound calm.
"Thank you," Louise Mortimer, Henry's therapist, said to him. "If I didn't have you to call I don't know how would I explain it to anyone else."
"Don't worry, that's what we do," John smiled.
"You and your partner," Louise looked at Lestrade who was talking to the local police that finally came around. "He's handsome I must admit."
John looked at Lestrade and just decided to let it slide. Maybe if it was Sherlock behind him he would find a will to argue but now it just seemed unimportant. He was tired and still jumpy all he wanted to do was to sleep it off.
"Get some rest, doctor's orders," he smiled at her and went to their pub.
There Sherlock was pacing their room already in his pyjamas. John was used in seeing him that way so he wasn't in the slightest bothered. He just took off his shirt and trousers ending up in his white t-shirt and boxers and slid in the bed.
"Don't bother me unless it's an end of the world," he said to Sherlock.
"How can you sleep?" Sherlock frowned angrily. "I'm still pumped up with adrenaline. I was just slightly dosed last night and I haven't slept all night."
"That's because you're all nerves and muscles," John said already feeling how the sleep is taking over. "I live under adrenaline all the time. It's just annoying noise in the background most of the time. This level of fear is very tiring. I never feared anything like that, except my father. You get used to it. It's best to just sleep it off and forget."
With that his dreams took over, sadly in them, Sherlock was running again as his coat swished behind him and John had no choice but to run after him. Who will save him if John stays behind? That fool just never thinks of himself.
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