A/N - The was originally a response to a prompt from the kink meme (and I've lost the link, I'm a horrible fan) stating '5 times Sherlock faked his death, and once when he very nearly died, but everyone thought he was faking,' but I haven't decided if I'm going to continue or just leave it as a one shot? (Also, it's my first fic and I'm not going to plague the internet with six chapters of horrible if it doesn't work.) Either way, here it is. So enjoy? And maybe review so I know if it's worth continuing?

The first time it happened they had been working the case for the past two days. John had been conveying the newest leads to Lestrade at New Scotland Yard when the text from Sherlock had come through with nothing but an address. They had jumped into a police car and sped across London, although it had taken them a good fifteen minutes to reach their destination, which apparently was a tiny bar in the middle of the block.

Five minutes later they had determined that Sherlock was not, in fact, in the bar and they split up on the street, hoping maybe he had ducked into another restaurant. All of John's texts had gone unanswered, and John was beginning to worry, trying desperately to steer his mind away from thoughts of bombs and pools and a certain consulting criminal. Donovan was not amused, chalking it all up to Sherlock simply being Sherlock and predicting that he had gotten bored and left. But Lestrade, seeing the worry starting to gather on John's face, made the decision to search for a little bit longer.

John had been walking for probably about fifteen minutes now, ducking in the surrounding alleys and checking all the establishments that were still open this late on a weekday. Part of him figured Sherlock had just gone home, moving on to chase after a new lead without telling John. That part of him was angry that Sherlock would continue to do such things after what had happened before. But part of him, a small part he was trying to ignore, was tapping away at his brain, flashing horrible images across his mind of all the situations Sherlock might have gotten himself into. He sighed, running his hand over his face, and his phone beeped, the noise piercing through the silence of the evening.

One glance at his phone and John had never run faster.

What seemed like an eternity but really equated to about five minutes later, John sprinted around the corner to the location Lestrade had instructed and almost came to a stop as he saw an ambulance screech to a halt in front of the harried detective inspector. John ran the last few steps over to him as the paramedics took off down a small alleyway behind Lestrade. The look on his face was enough to stop John's heart. He turned towards the alley and saw the paramedics huddled over a still man, his dark curly hair drenched by the puddles on the ground. John made to go over to them, but Lestrade grabbed his arm.

"Let them do their job," Lestrade commented quietly, and John looked frantically from Lestrade back to the immobile figure of his flatmate sprawled partially out of his view.

"I'm a doctor, I can help..." Lestrade looked back at him and John felt himself swaying under the inspector's gaze.

"John, we...we tried. I'm so sorry."

Later, John wouldn't remember the inspector catching him as he collapsed.

John came to with a nagging sensation that something was very, very wrong. He took a breath and suddenly the world crashed in on him and he couldn't breathe. After a moment there were hands on his face and a naggingly familiar voice at his ear.

"John. Open your eyes."

John kept his eyes shut - opening them would be acknowledging the events that had just occurred, something John's mind was both refusing and attempting to do. Sherlock Holmes, his flatmate, his best friend, was dead. 221B would no longer be teeming with experiments, with violin music, with case files, with warm silence. Instead it would be filled with a cold silence, and now he was back where he started - just John Watson, war veteran, alone.

"He's hyperventilating." Another voice, this one belonging to another familiar voice, cut across his mind, and John felt two cold hands on either side of his face.

"John, please."

Something about that please felt so inherently wrong that John automatically forced his eyes open. The face he was greeted with was not the one he was expecting.

"You're dead."

Sherlock huffed. "As you can clearly see, John, I am not. No need to get over emotional."

John looked frantically around, noticing now that he was in the back of an ambulance. Lestrade was sitting behind Sherlock on John's right, his eyes clouded with worry, but Sherlock simply looked bored. John stared up at Sherlock, almost not believing his eyes.

"We needed the suspect to think I was dead." Sherlock continued, still staring at John in what could have been taken as a disinterested glance but John could see the carefully concealed concern in his pale blue eyes. "The only way to do that was to convince you, which was a lot easier than I expected. If he thought I might be dead, he'd definitely come back to the scene to check, and we needed him to let his guard down long enough for Lestrade to arrest him. We didn't expect you to fai-"

And abruptly, Sherlock was falling backwards, clutching his jaw as Lestrade caught him. John sat up, grabbing Sherlock's shirt and pulling him forward.

"You punched me." For once, Sherlock seemed surprised, and John heard that voice that had grown in his head from all his time with Sherlock chastising him for stating the obvious.

"Don't you dare pull that again."

"It was necess-"

"I don't care what you think was necessary," John accentuated his words with a violent shake to Sherlock's shirt. Sherlock had locked his hands around John's wrists, gently trying to pry his hands off of his shirt by now, but John just grabbed tighter. "That was so far out of line it's almost impossible for me to believe you thought it was OK!"

"We got him, John, it worked, and no one got hurt - there's no need to get all riled up-"

"No need?" John's voice escalated to an almost deafening roar. "I thought you were dead! That's plenty worth getting riled up for." Suddenly the reality of the situation hit him and he loosened his grip on Sherlock shirt, falling back on the gurney as all his energy left him. Everything was going to be ok. Sherlock wasn't dead. John dropped his hands from Sherlock's shirt, but Sherlock's hands stayed over John's wrists. John ducked his head.

"I thought he'd gotten to you."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Sherlock, and John felt him lean forward so his shoulder was right next to John's head, which John took advantage of. They sat there for a moment, Sherlock's hands loosely on John's wrists and John's head on Sherlock's shoulder before Sherlock finally spoke.

"Never again."