A/N: Yeah. I should probably wrap this up and make room for other stories. Please note that neither my description of London nor the medical facts in this fic are based on profound knowledge. Also English isn't my first language. If you still find this acceptable (or, like, want to sue me for this), please leave a review. Thanks.
Edit: Rewrote this a bit. It's still the same, just better. Thanks so much to those who already reviewed and read this regardless. It means the world to me.
He Who Waits Behind A Wall
By the time an ambulance arrives, things have changed.
After John remembered that he is indeed a doctor, and a good one at that, and that he has seen more blood and gore and destruction on a person without completely losing it before, he calmed down considerably. He managed to move a shaking Sherlock to a nearby wall to have them out of the open. He removed the unresponding man's coat and spent a good ten seconds not freaking out again when he found tell-tale track marks under pasty white skin. He helped Sherlock back into his coat, lay him down on John's own jacket, propped his knees up and went to find water.
After his return, victoriously holding a scarf drenched at a nearby drinking fountain, he wrung some of the water into Sherlock's mouth who coughed and spit and finally threw up a considerable amount of blood while John held his head and ran soothing fingers through his tousled hair. Then he wiped Sherlock's eyes and chin clean and soaked the scarf again. When he brought the water to Sherlock's mouth this time, the detective sucked it out greedily. This time it stayed down.
The rest of the time John tried to keep a convulsing, whimpering and violently shaking Sherlock from falling asleep in his lap.
He doesn't know who called the ambulance in the end. It could have been Lestrade, tracking his phone upon recieving his screwed-up text message. Mycroft is more likely to be the caller as he has his security cameras everywhere and has probably followed John on his way to Regent's anyway. Maybe John made the call, after all. He can't really remember now and he doesn't care much either. He knows one of the nurses in the ambulance though; they are from Bart's. It calms him considerably to know that this is the real deal, that it isn't just another abduction.
Sherlock's heart stops beating twice this night. The second time he's in hospital, where they hook him up to all kinds of devices and IV bags to get the drugs out of his system. He is promptly transferred to OP, throughoutly examined and patched up white John has to stay put in the waiting room. The detective's brain takes no damage from it, as far as staff can tell. They plan to keep him in an artificial coma until he is stable. Sherlock is out of it for the worst twentyone hours of John Watson's life.
The first time it gives out on the cold paving stones of Regent's Street and it is John who breathes for him, John who massages life back into his body, breaking two ribs in the process. He'll never tell Sherlock how he came to that injury, and no one else will either.
The private hospital room Mycroft organized is bright and friendly, very expensive, and smells of desinfectant just like every other hospital room in the world. A sunny day passes the shutters without any acknowledgement from the inhabitants of the room. Sherlock is very still on the stiff bleached sheets of the bed, white on white, and his hair is impossibly dark against the pillow. A machine is breathing for him while another measures his heartbeats, and his eyes are taped over with cotton balls. He looks incredibly vulnerable and so broken that it is painful to lay eyes on him. But he is alive. That should count for something, shouldn't it?
John doesn't leave the chair next to the bed even once. And during the whole time, he never lets go of Sherlock's hand.
Mycroft makes his appearance several times, always carrying something with him. A sandwich that John doesn't eat. A steaming cup of tea that he doesn't touch. A blanket that John only notices hours later, draped over his slumped form with his head on the bed and a crick in his neck.
Eventually, with news.
The doctor in John listens to the reports and files them away for later. As far as one can tell up to this point, someone lured Sherlock out of the house via a comment on his website mere seconds after John left. That's why the man had his coat and scarf on him. After everyone was out, they spilled huge amounts of cow blood in the living room and wrote the messages on the windows.
There was a struggle, most likely, but Sherlock doesn't show any serious outer injuries so one can safely say that it was brief and he was outnumbered. They, whoever they are, injected something in his right arm, and that was that.
The drug is new, unfamiliar, and apparently based on an online rumour. That has John perk up.
"Some years ago, an online cartoonist introduced a higher entity named 'Zalgo' in one of his or her comic strips. For no apparent reason, this entity struck a cord with some readers who spread word about it online. Every time someone would ask what exactly Zalgo is, they would indulge in in allusions and enigmas about bleeding eyes and mass destruction. Zalgo sings the song that destroys the earth. Zalgo holds the candle whose light is shadow. The bee-hive mind of chaos, without order. Zalgo who waits behind a wall." Mycroft pauses there and his nose twitches. It is likely the first involuntary facial expression John has ever seen on a Holmes, and he forgets about it as soon as it passed. "He comes."
The hours pass in a mindless haze, splintered into fragments of nightmares and blurred vision and numbness. Lestrade looks in on them later that day. He brings biscuits that John knows without looking are from Mrs Hudson. He had forgotten all about his landlady up to this point and that leaves him feeling guilty. He doesn't let go of Sherlock's hand, but he shares the biscuits with Lestrade, and they sit in comforting silence for an hour before the D.I. has to go back to the Yard. He promises to come back later and asks John to give him a call if anything new comes up. John doesn't say anything.
When Sherlock comes out of coma, it is fast and harsh and so much like Sherlock that John almost starts crying again. It is really nothing but a gradual tensing of the fingers that are wrapped around John's at first. The doctor immediately returns the soft squeeze and his friend takes a sudden, violent breath of his own. Keeps on breathing. Gropes at John's hand like it is some kind of anchor, and as if John's thumb gently rubbing his knuckles is the only thing that is keeping him alive.
They stay still like that for a long time. Then John goes and takes a shower in the adjacent bathroom, and when he returns, Sherlock is still waiting for him.
The doctors take off the cotton pads the next day. Sherlock's pupils react to light quite the way they ought to and he likely won't experience any lasting damage. He can't directly look into light yet and the room is kept dark for his sake, but he will be fine. They are both immensely grateful for the news. Lestrade presents to the consulting detective shades with pink-stained glasses. "It's a present from the Yard, to improve your view of the world or something", he mutters awkwardly and is rewarded with startled laughter from Sherlock. John hugs the inspector very, very tightly when he finally sees him out.
On day three in hospital, Sherlock is bored enough to solve cold cases in bed and demand to go home around his cracked ribs. John flees the room in favour of a shower before anyone can see the tears that once again threaten to spill from his eyes. He has set up camp in the spare bed in the room, not even bothering to leave except for the most basic needs, and he too wants to leave as quickly as possible. He also knows that some things just take time, and that he will not risk anything. They stay.
The report on the drugs comes in on day four. Aparently they cause a sudden breaking of certain blood vessels, leading to violent bleeding of mouth, nose and eyes of the victim. They dilate the pupils and cause a sudden contraction of the muscles, leading to spasms and immobility. For all it was worth, Sherlock shouldn't have been able to move at all down in the tube station. As the drugs make progress in the bloodstream, the victim experiences violent hallucinations, painful and dark and atrocious. It killed several lab rats simply out of fear, the report reads. John doesn't ask Sherlock about this part, and Sherlock never speaks about it.
Eventually, the poison reaches the heart and stops it.
Ironically enough, Sherlock's past as a drug addict seems to have saved his life in this occasion. Before anyone can say anything, John announces that no, this fact doesn't change anything. At all. Ever. Sherlock spends the day sulking over Lestrade's files.
On day seven, they return to Baker Street against advice from medical personnell. Mycroft lets them go because he knows that John is the better doctor, and John agrees because Sherlock is tearing himself apart in the confined space of the hospital room and it's painful to look at. The living room at home is just as they left it a week ago- a chaotic mess of books and papers and things that excite Sherlock and that John never looks at. The carpet is back to its old faded red and the walls are covered in brown wallpaper and yellow spray paint and bullet holes.
John writes a Thank you-message to Mycroft and conscientiously deletes it before Sherlock can see it.
They never hear a word about the attackers again from any official source, though they both suspect Moriarty to be behind it all. Gloating anonymous comments on both the Science of Deduction-website and the blog are investigated, the trails leading nowhere. One day, though, John recieves a photo in the mail. It shows a pile of bodies. Above them, red letters on the wall spell a short message.
Rest Assured.
The package also holds his army gun that he lost somewhere that night, cleaned and loaded. John locks it back in the desk drawer in their living room with a grim smile and the feeling of relief. No one ever loses a word about it.
All things considered, life goes on.