Sherlock still hadn't turned up.
No reply to the message.
Not even a text.
No word.
For some reason John was beginning to feel uneasy-like always, but different, too. Sherlock often went off on his own, but it wasn't so often that he simply disappeared.
That usually seemed to be bad news.
And so John really couldn't help it that he jumped when the telephone rang. He couldn't help being so quick to answer it, or so letdown when the caller turned out to be Lestrade, and not Sherlock.
"John? Are you in your flat? Look, I just got a text. From Sherlock. I think you'll want to come with me."
"He texted you?" John couldn't hide the note of skepticism in his voice, but Lestrade seemed to understand, and nodded.
It just didn't seem like him.
"Yeah, I know. It's an address. Or most of one, really. But I recognise it." Lestrade held up his mobile to show him. "I'd been there a pretty long time ago. ...pretty bad experience, actually. That was... how I found out about... you know..." He awkwardly gestured toward his arms in a mime swiping action, which both got the point across and also started a hot feeling of displeasure roiling in John's stomach.
He couldn't explain why that pissed him off.
But it did.
It did...
"But I thought that must be where he is, or wants us to go, so I thought you'd better come along, yeah?"
John swallowed and nodded. "Yeah. Cab?"
"That's okay, we can take a car. I'm ready if you are."
"Ready."
John didn't speak most of the drive there.
He wouldn't have known what to say.
Lestrade tried once or twice to tell him about some past events, but John wasn't focussed enough to hear him or really pay attention.
When Sherlock Holmes disappeared out of the blue, remained out of contact for hours, and then suddenly just texted Lestrade an address... Something was wrong.
He could feel it.
It was the only thing that made sense.
Right?
And yet at the same time a little part of John's mind was bracing himself for a potential false alarm... A letdown, that shaky feeling from all the adrenaline and the worry pumping through his veins. Also all too familiar.
By the time the car had pulled up in front of a run-down looking row of flats it was already getting dark; most likely a perfect time for drug dealers and other assorted hoodlums to be out to greet them. John was really just following Lestrade as he parked and mounted the front steps of the dank apartment ahead.
There was graffiti on the front wall, and it lacked a postbox. The two of them found the door to be just slightly ajar, and carefully entered the building.
Somehow it seemed almost too quiet. As if there should be at least some noise aside from the dripping of a leak somewhere-but there was nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
"Oh Jesus-" John jumped as Lestrade stopped abruptly ahead of him on the staircase, taking a step back.
"Wha-"
Oh.
Oh god...
That drip was obviously no leak. Instead, he watched the steady drip, drip, drip of dark crimson blood pooling from underneath the doorway ahead and down onto the first step, soon to reach the second.
Sherlock.
Lestrade quickly turned the knob and pushed-and found a heavy resistance on the other side. The staircase was too narrow for both to approach the door at the same time, so John was forced to wait behind as Lestrade continued to push and shove at it, finally resorting to ramming at it with his shoulder, which seemed to help, as the door finally budged enough for them to squeeze through.
Despite it's pungency, the thing that struck them first was not the reek of old chemicals that filled the air.
It was the crimson.
It was everywhere.
It was streaked on the floor, in footprints on the carpet, and pooled around the deathly still body lying just in front of the door.
Without thinking John knelt in front of the body and turned it over-but even as he laid a hand on the shoulder he knew at once that he was dead. As if the bullet hole in the back of his head weren't evidence enough. He stared into Jim Moriarty's cold, white face, and instantly felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach.
Where was Sherlock?
"John-over here-" He raised his head at the sound of Lestrade's voice and found him kneeling a few feet away, pressing two fingers to the side of Sherlock's neck.
He was laying on his back on the carpet, still and pale and slack and stained in shades of scarlet. There were slices on his arms... random and rakish, right through the fabric of his shirt. And another little pool of blood was forming beneath him, by his ribs...
The sight of him like that, prone, eyes half closed and lips slightly parted, sent a jolt of something so much worse than fear through John.
What it was, he would never be able to explain.
It killed him.
Lestrade looked up at him, panicking. "I can't find a pulse-"
"NO." John wasted no time in pushing Lestrade aside and falling to his knees beside Sherlock's prostrate body, quickly placing two hands on his best friend's chest and starting compressions, desperately praying for a response, and stubbornly expecting one.
Milliseconds were eternities.
The slightest perceived movement was a mountain of hope that then fell like a skyscraper in an earthquake.
There was nothing else in the world but the tiny, fleeting breath that escaped from Sherlock's lips.
And then there was a world again.
The moment Sherlock jerked painfully, coughing and choking, to finally draw in at least one proper breath... It sent a chill through John's bones.
A good sort of chill.
It meant he was still there.
At least for now.
"Come on, Sherlock-hang on-please-" His voice shook, even as he tried to steel himself, to be calm for his fallen brother in arms.
Because that's what he was.
In this great war of London, Sherlock was a soldier fighting through every battle, whether it be against a criminal mind, or against himself.
John could recognize that.
Sherlock gasped for breath, and John's heart twisted in an unfamiliarly agonizing way.
Lestrade was already dialing for an ambulance, but John barely heard him. He continued to keep his best friend's hand clenched tightly in his own, trying to somehow wish strength into his body, to will him to hold on.
Help would arrive within a matter of minutes.
But John wasn't sure how many minutes really remained on the clock.
Sherlock treated this war like a game, and this time he may just have miscalculated.