Thanks for all the suggestions guys! They've helped a lot!
This chapter is in response to Spades' and Raychaell Dionzeros' prompts (they were both similar so I clumped them together)
To those who want to see some Moriarty, I leave you with a lovely Bane (yes the Batman villain) quote:
"Calm down, Doctor! Now is not the time for fear...that comes later."
Hehehe...*insert evil face here*
This story was inspired by ausherlock's Little Companion story collection.
Disclaimer: I do not own doggy John. Or real John. Or any John. Nor do I own any Sherlocks.
John barked frantically as he stood on his hind legs to scratch at the closed door. His claws left splintering rivets in the wooden blockage. He had to get out! His Alpha was injured and the bad men had taken him!
John barked again, loudly. His throat was starting to hurt from all the effort, but he kept it up.
They were in the middle of a case. John didn't understand much about it, but he'd come to associate it with the smell of paint. Sherlock and he followed the trails of two murders, they (well...only Sherlock) had broken into a flat, and they'd tried desperately to save the young female at the building of old objects. His Alpha was so close to finding the bad men while he flitted about, going through the blocks of paper for clues back at their territory.
Unfortunately, they had found them first.
The door had opened and men entered the room. They stuck John with something cold and sharp, and it made the world move around. John had heard his Alpha fight and shout against the men, calling his name, but John could not get up no matter how hard he tried. His legs were heavy and the room felt as hot as the desert. It was all John could do not to fall asleep. There was the sound of someone hitting Sherlock, and John smelled blood when the bad men had dragged him into their sleeping room and closed the door.
They took Apha Sherlock with them, and as soon as John was able to move again he barked and howled and bit at the door. But it would not move for him.
John's barks turned into long-winded whines. John had to help his packmate!
"John?" there was a human voice and footsteps, but not Sherlock's. It was a friend though. They could let John out!
John barked up a storm, scratching harder at the door.
It was wretched open by not-packmate Dimmock, who looked at the mutt in confusion, "Why are you in here?"
John ran out, almost making the human fall as he pushed past him. John skidded to a halt near the entrance of his territory, and was pleased to find more humans who smelled like Beta Lestrade's territory. He barked at them.
Pack Alpha! Bad pack take! Hurt Alpha!
The good humans tried to calm him, they spoke gently and held out hands to him. John whined, they didn't understand him. He had to show them that they needed to find Sherlock.
John looked around the room and sniffed at different objects. He needed one that smelled like Sherlock so they could follow the scent and help him track.
There! On a chair laid Alpha's favorite fur, the blue one he puts around his neck. John snatched it up in his teeth and brought it to the other men.
Not-packmate Dimmock watched him closely, bending down to get a better look at the fur in John's mouth, "What about Sherlock, boy?"
John let loose a trilling growl and threw his head up and down, trying to show them.
Alpha fur. John find. Not-pack follow.
"Sir," John turned and saw one of the good humans holding up a paper, "It says 'black tramway'."
John wasn't sure what that was, or why it was important, but Dimmock clearly did. He started ordering the other men, and John found himself trotting down the stairs with them. They didn't make any objections and seemed to believe having John would be an advantage. John didn't care, just as long as he was able to defend his packmate, his leader, his friend.
XxxxxxSHxxxxxX
Sherlock Holmes was gettting increasingly irritated at the Black Lotus members surrounding him. They were inadequate when it came down to pulling up information on him. If they had done their job right, they' d know that he didn't have the bloody hair pin!
He shifted in his seat as much as he could. His ankles were tied to the chair legs, and each hand was individually secured against either side of the chair's back. He resisted to roll his eyes at the lot.
They were annoying, and dreadfully dull. Not at all what he thought the masterminds behind the murders of Van Coon and Lucas would be.
So, yes, he was disappointed in the case's ending. He was also furiously angry at how they barged into his flat.
But flooding over them all, he felt worry. Terrible, all-consuming worry for his dog. The gleam of the syringe's needle as the Lotus members grabbed at John and drugged him stayed at the forefront of his mind. He had yelled at the other men in fear when his pup went completely limp in their filthy, rough grasp. His anger surfaced when they had grabbed John by the scruff of his neck and locked him in the bedroom. He didn't know what they'd given him, and that was the worst part. He hadn't caught a glimpse of the liquid they injected. Sherlock tried to tell himself that it was just a tranquilizer, but he couldn't know for sure.
What if it was more? What if John was dying? What if he was already gone? Sherlock felt like his lungs were collapsing. The image of his dog taking his last breaths on the cold floor, alone and unable to move in an empty, locked room stuck in his mind. Oh please no. A dog like John didn't deserve such a heartless death. Not one devoid of human kindness. Not one without his owner there to reassure him and to let him know that everything would be okay.
Sherlock ground his teeth together, his emotions slipping past his usually reinforced mental wall.
"Now, Sherlock Holmes," the woman he'd identified as General Shan continued, "tell us where the jade pin-"
"Oh would you shut it?" he growled out past the disorientation of his...concussion? Yes, concussion. Brilliant.
"Mister Holmes, you understand your life is the cost for holding your tongue, yes?" General Shan gestured to a wooden contraption with a loaded arrow.
"Obviously. Although it doesn't take someone like me to realize that."
"Then it would be best for you to talk. Where is the-"
"Jade pin. Yes, you've said it about a hundred times now."
Someone at his side lashed out and struck his head. Sherlock grunted as it hit the same area that was already injured. The throbbing headache now tripled in scale. Sherlock shook his head as he tried to shake off the bright spots floating in his vision.
"Answer now, Mister Holmes. This is your last warning."
Sherlock closed his eyes, a reflex to try and keep blood from his injuries from irritating them, "I don't have it."
It was quiet in the tramway for a moment. Sherlock tried to gather his bearings during the silence. He heard the shifting of rocks along the ground as General Shan moved away from him.
"You have tried my patience. I do not have time for your silly games."
A soft shink fluttered across the air as someone withdrew a knife. There was the tearing of fabric. The soft sighs of sand being poured onto the ground.
"You have until that weight hits the scale. Tell us or die."
Sherlock opened his eyes, but his surroundings blurred around him, and he felt nauseous. He tried to rotate his hands about and realized one hand was tied looser than the other. A possible way out.
Sherlock pushed past the pounding in his head as he tried to jerk his hand free from the restraints. The pouring sand and General Shan's questions were loud as they echoed through the tunnel.
Then, intermixed with the threats and questions, there came other sounds.
Voices giving orders to surrender. The sound of gunshots tearing through the air.
The familiar scrape of claws against concrete.
"John?" agonizing seconds without an answer were swept away as he heard a familiar growling bark ahead of him.
Sherlock let out a shaky breath. His dog, where was his dog? He had to find him.
Sherlock wiggled his hand more viciously against the rope. He was almost there, he just needed to get it past his knuckles. A final twist, the rope burned his skin as he forced past it, and his left hand was free.
He forced himself to focus past the dizzying mist in his head. John was running towards him, heedless of the bullets flying past him from the criminals and the coppers that lay behind him.
"John!" he shouted.
And then he remembered the sand, the weight slowly lowering, the arrow.
Sherlock shifted his weight, making the chair fall onto it's side. The arrow whizzed past his head and hit the wall of the tramway with a resonating clang.
Sherlock grunted as he landed on his shoulder onto the rocky ground, but he tossed any thought of pain aside when he saw a flash of yellow and brown fun stop in front of him.
Despite the chaos in the tramway, past the gunshots and the yelling and the too loud movements from the other people, Sherlock let himself relax.
John was alive. John was here. His mutt had come for him and wouldn't leave.
Sherlock threw his freed arm out and grasped at the thick fur. John let himself be pulled against his owner, growling lowly and snapping at anyone who dared to get too close.
Sherlock pressed his face into the soft fur. It was comforting and warm and John smelled like a dog but Sherlock didn't care because he was here.
He thought the fighting might have stopped, but Sherlock couldn't concentrate enough to know for sure. He was tired. And John would keep him safe.
Sherlock's vision went dark, and the last thing he registered was his dog licking the blood off his face.
XxxxxxSHxxxxxX
The air was hot. Sherlock could feel the sun beating down relentlessly against his pale skin. He groaned. Sunburn was not something the detective wanted to fight against for the next week.
He squinted his eyes open, anticipating a glaring sun, but was surprised to see tree branches. The light above silhouetted the shifting boughs, making shadows dance across his face. Light and dark, light and dark. It was oddly soothing.
His head pounded, but when Sherlock reached up to find an injury there was none.
He sat up, feeling the soft scrape of sand under his hands.
As he took in his surroundings, his eyes widened in surprise. He was in a temperate desert of some sort. Large hills hid the horizon, their sides marred with jagged, dry rocks and leafless bushes. It was sweltering and dusty, and he could hear the distant thumping of helicopter blades nearby.
"It's about time you woke up. I was starting to think I would have to go without you."
Sherlock spun around. How could he have not known someone was beside him?
A blonde man (late thirties, grew up north of London, doctor) gazed at him with kind eyes. He was leaning against the tree, his legs out before him and crossed at the ankles, and a rifle lounged in his lap.
Sherlock took in the military garb the man was wearing, and said, "Hm, Afghanistan?"
The man raised an eyebrow before smiling and letting out a breathy laugh, "How'd you know that then?"
"There's too much vegetation for it to be Iraq."
The man smiled again, "Brilliant!"
Sherlock frowned, unused to the praise, "That's not what most people say. Most people tell me to-"
"Piss off. I know, you've said it before Sherlock."
The detective froze. His raked his eyes over the man again. Had they met before? Sherlock didn't remember, "Who are you?"
The blonde soldier just sighed and leaned back more fully against the tree, "You have to wake up now."
"Wake up?"
"That's right, wake up," The man let his eyes drift closed, hiding the blue irises from the world.
Sherloc stood up. The man was right, he felt something pulling him towards the cloudless sky. He turned to the soldier, "Come with me."
The man shook his head, "I can't."
Sherlock blinked, looked again at the man, and finally caught the raging red river that flowed out of the ruin that was his left shoulder.
The man sighed, "I'm already dead."
XxxxxxSHxxxxxX
Two days ago. The dream happened two days ago, and still they wouldn't let Sherlock out of the hospital.
He was bloody fine! He didn't feel dizzy anymore so his concussion had cleared up. Of course, his brother had been kind enough to persuade the doctors into keeping him another night for "observation".
Sherlock sulked in his hospital bed, tapping away at the search engine on his laptop for anything interesting. He almost threw it across the room when he typed in "How to" and the search suggestions automatically came up with "How to get pregnant".
Christ! The people of the world were idiots and he was BORED!
A distraction finally came in the form of a graying detective inspector entering his room.
"Finally decided to grace us with your presence, Lestrade? I suggest firing Dimmock, he's been useless."
The DI sighed, "And here I was bringing you a present. I guess I'll take him back home."
Sherlock moved his laptop to the bedside stand, "No need. Let him in."
Lestrade tugged on the red leash in his hands. John, tail lashing back and forth in the air, scrambled happily into the hospital room.
He whined happily when he saw Sherlock, and the mutt hopped up on the bed when Lestrade unclasped the leash.
Sherlock smiled as the dog wedged himself against Sherlock's side happily. The dog licked at his arms when Sherlock reached over to scratch his neck.
Lestrade leaned against the doorway, "I wish I had an animal with John's sense of loyalty. Did they tell you he wouldn't leave your side until Mycroft came to pick him up? Bloody brilliant dog. He knew where we were going the moment I picked him up from Baker Street. He was worried about you, you know."
Sherlock tried to hid his smile, but failed miserably, "Mrs. Hudson tells me he paces when he's alone in the flat sometimes."
"Yeah, well he already lost one owner. I'm sure he'd hate to lose another."
Sherlock nodded, "He'll be staying here tonight."
Lestrade shifted, "I...don't think the doctors will allow that."
"Then I'll leave it up to you to convince them."
The graying inspector squared his shoulders, "I will not! That's your own bloody problem."
"And bring some cold cases over from the Yard while you're at it. I may have to deduce more nurses if I don't find something to focus my brain on."
Lestrade opened his mouth to argue back, but decided it wasn't worth it. He knocked his head back against the door frame, "Fine. Don't be surprised when the doctor comes in to argue thought."
Sherlock ignored him as he left, muttering something about being ordered around by too many Holmes's, and let his mind wander as he rhythmically ran his hand over John's head and down his back.
John gave another curt whine and relaxed against Sherlock's side.
Sherlock ran his hand over the dog's head, scratching under the harness in the way John Watson loved.
Hm...John Watson. Sherlock turned the name around in his mind. Such a strange name for a pet. Dogs surely do not have surnames, it doesn't make sense. SO why did John come with one?
Something sparked in the detective's mind. He looked over and brought his laptop into his lap again.
With a new tab open, Sherlock typed in the name one handed. He clicked on the first link.
The detective paused as the new page opened.
Right at the top was a picture of the man from his dream. It was him no doubt at all, the same hair, the same eyes, the same smile. Sherlock looked at the image in shock before turning his eyes to the text of the news article.
"Captain John Watson, medical doctor for the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, was given numerous medals and crosses for his heroic efforts in saving his unit during an ambush in Afghanistan. He single-handedly saved multiple lives on April 19th of 2009, despite having been shot in the leg by enemy fire. In the end, Captain Watson was able to save the lives of every soldier in his unit.
"Sadly, Captain Watson was not as lucky and was critically hit in the shoulder while saving the life of one of his comrades. He was rushed to the nearest base for medical treatment after the attack, but lost the fight for his life before they reached their destination. His gallantry and courage were recognized upon his death by many and his actions..."
Sherlock moved his hand off the tracking pad on the laptop.
Captain John Watson. Shot in the shoulder. Army-doctor.
Captain John Watson died the day before his John was born.
Sherlock looked over at his dog. The mutt felt his owner's gaze upon him and lifted his head. The dog's blue eyes looked into Sherlock's grey ones, just gazing or trying to say something, Sherlock didn't know. The dog blinked and scooted closer to the detective to lay his head in Sherlock's lap. The dog didn't spare the tiniest glace at the screen of the laptop.
Sherlock rested his hand on the dog's neck. He looked back at the laptop, and scrolled back up to the photograph of Captain Watson.
Sherlock sighed and closed the tab, even though the face had been committed to memory.
Although he usually believed the universe to be rarely so lazy, Sherlock left the subject as just a coincidence. Nothing more.