In the opposite end of Liberty House, Sherlock swiftly rounded a corner, only to find himself face to face with a startlingly familiar looking face. It stunned him momentarily, and he stumbled to a halt, finding his eyes roaming the face in front of him with eager eyes. The man mirrored the action, impeding his sprint to exit the building, and instead sizing up the intruder he faced.
Oh, but of course.
"John Watson Senior." Sherlock voiced into the hollow corridor. In the distance, the roar of flames succumbs to the sound of splintering wood.
The man's flinch was almost unperceivable. Standing proud, he was dressed in combat trousers and a white top which held the Moriarty insignia, lit by a single bulb that hung forlorn from the coridoor ceiling. He stood but three metres from Sherlock, rolling onto the balls of his feet in an act that could be seen as nervous, but Sherlock knew otherwise.
The man was deciding whether or not to attack.
"I'm sorry"? The man snarled, wary now. His hands became balls at his sides.
In quick succession, Sherlock rattled off, "Your haircut, the way you hold yourself, says military. Your face is tanned, but no tan above the wrists - you've been abroad but not sunbathing. Just then you were nursing your hand, but you've curled it into a fist now, like you've forgotten about it, so it's at least partly psychosomatic. That suggests the original circumstances of the injury were probably traumatic - wounded in action, then. Wounded in action, suntan – Afghanistan or Iraq."
Eyes widening, the elder Watson glared, his military training that had long been burnt into him screaming at him to take down the intruder… and yet he couldn't. Not yet.
Nerves gave way to amazement, "How do you know my name from that?" He asked.
"Your tattoo, clearly visible at the wrist says 'John and Harriet'. It's not a romantic attachment, you don't wear a wedding ring, and haven't for a long time if the lack of whitened skin around your ring finger is anything to go by, but you haven't made any attempt to remove the tattoo so it has lasting value. Now, Harriet – who's Harriet? Not your wife – this is something for the younger generation. Could be a cousin, but as you're a war hero who works for Moriarty it's unlikely you've got an extended family, certainly not one you're close to, so daughter it is. You've got your daughter's name tattooed to your wrist - that says you have close ties with her, or at least you did. I think it's safe to assume the 'John' is your son, instead of you referring to yourself." John Senior did nothing to hamper the wince that arose at his son's name. "And then there's your marksmanship."
John broke from his amazing revere to choke out a, "How could you… possibly know about my marksmanship?"
"Shot in the dark. Good one, though." Sherlock couldn't resist a delighted grin. "Your hands are callused, quite badly I'm afraid. You train with a gun then, but not just once, over a long period of time, longer than your time in the army, so you do it in your spare time then. A hobby. But you don't have lasting powder stains on your fingers, so you're good at what you do. Simple. You're a war veteran with good marksmanship who has a son named John… I've read enough newspapers to know who that makes you."
Throughout Sherlock's speech, John Senior had been shaking his head, stunned into silence. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, his mind still processing the mass of information.
"Oh, fuck off," John chuckled despite himself, still half caught in his amazement, he checked over both his shoulders. They remained alone in the coridoor. "Alright, Derren Brown, who are you?" The man finally asked, his voice hushed – holding a slight tone of reverence. His kind blue eyes – so like his son's – caught Sherlock's in an unyielding gaze.
"I'm Sherlock Holmes," The detective informed with a certain air of pride, "Your son's boyfriend."
xxxxxx
As another intruder fell before him, Moran leered horribly, snapping the soldier's arm back in on it's self in an explosion of bone and blood. The man screeched, lashing out to drive a blow into Moran's shin, but the sniper was quicker. He thrashed and kicked the soldier in the side, and again, and again. Yes, he had a gun – brandished at his side like a trophy – but he did so love to feel his victim's life drain from their pathetic bodies. Soon, the man's feeble yells grew silent.
Perfect.
Turning away from the slack body, Moran surveyed the grounds of Liberty House in the light of the impeding dawn. A tactical retreat was being called; the soldiers whom had attacked now scurrying from the gardens and through the hole they had now blown through the electric fence. Bodies littered the space between fence and house – still and unmoving. Not many a man alive remained inside the grounds, most already fled or taken by the intruders.
How could everything have gone wrong so fast?
Moran snarled to himself, eyes flaring in his anger. Moriarty would not be terribly pleased to know the foremost of his recruitment centres was currently consuming itself in flames, alight like a warning beacon against the night sky. Nor would he be pleased with the number of recruits now captured, presently handcuffed and forced against their will into police vans that would ensure their permanent jail sentences.
Formulating a plan in his mind, Moran took the path around Liberty House. He would find John and then together they would escape. Ah, John. Moran gave into the parsimonious urge to grin joyfully as he remembered his own advances the other night – how he had crushed young Watson's slim, delicious frame against his own and traced the line of his lips with his tongue. But there would be plenty more times to do that, certainly after their escape, when he would request Moriarty to allow John as his understudy. Then, John would never leave his side. John would never want to leave his side.
Moran smiled into the darkness, breaching Liberty House and entering the Second Wing where the older recruits were housed. The Second Wing was yet to succumb to the flames, and so he infiltrated it smoothly, without fault.
He stalked through the corridors mutely, his soft soles making no impact on the wood of the floors. But, then… Voices. He could hear voices, not far from where he stood – their words unhidden by the cacophony of fragmenting building.
"You mean he's here?" A rough voice was questioning. He sounded broken. "My son is here?"
"Yes, which is why I need your help."
"I can't see how I can-"
"Moriarty is using John as leverage to make him his slave; as long as you are in Moriarty's power, John is also. I have contacts who can free you from Moriarty's endowment. You just need to come with me."
"I see." The first voice shuddered out a deflated, "Fucking hell…"
A beat of silence.
"So, will you come?"
"Of course I will, you stupid bastard, this is my son we're talking about here. I'm just wondering how the hell my son's wound up with you as his boyfriend-"
And all of a sudden Moran knew exactly who that second voice was. Anger and surprise burning vehemently inside his chest, Moran forwent protocol and in quick succession flipped the gun from his belt, held it out at arm's length and turned the corner, putting him at the other end of the corridor to the infuriating man that was supposed to be dead.
Of course he's not dead, a harsh whisper chasted, John lied to you.
Sherlock Holmes was still alive. Still! Moran would have to correct that, of course.
"-didn't even know he was gay." The first voice finished. Moran could see now it was Captain Watson who spoke, the older man running a hand through his greying hair. "How did I miss that?"
"Hm. Because he's a lying bastard…?" Moran offered, stepping from the shadows and immersing himself in the light of the near-dawn. He enjoyed it immensely as both Sherlock and Captain Watson swivelled to see him with identical looks of shock. How he would enjoy their faces submerged in their own crimson blood.
Watson was the first to speak, "Stand down, Moran." He ordered cautiously, hands twitching to reach for the gun hooked across his belt.
"I'll stand down when Holmes here is dead at my feet." Moran snarled.
Distantly, he remembered his previous comradeship with the detective, offering help to insure John's rescue. But now that was all but a bad memory. That was before he wanted John for himself. John was his now; his pet, his own and Sherlock was simply a spare part made eliminated. With John in Moriarty's power, he could keep John for himself – so why should he aid in his recovery?
"I said, stand down." Watson barked, voice ringing across the empty corridor, unnerved by the hollow, dead look Moran's eyes held. He tore his own handgun from his belt and held it aloft. Watson's eyes blazed. "Don't make me choose between my son's safety and you, Moran, because let me tell you this. You. Will. Not. Win."
Moran hissed. Captain Watson was blocking Holmes; making a clear shot all but impossible. "Your son is safe with us, not with this prick," Moran argued, shifting from side to side as he tried to glean a way past the Captain. "I can't believe this!"
"Well, believe it." Watson spat.
Tired now of entertaining Moran, he lowered his gun and, without even pausing to think it through, fired a solid shot to Moran's knee. The bullet hit home – shattering Moran's kneecap and bending his leg inwards, so his knee went back on itself grotesquely.
Squealing in agony, Moran fell, blood spurting from his wound, and collided with the ground with a heavy thud. His gun skitted away from him.
"Let's just go," The elder Watson murmured to Sherlock, who was gaping incessantly behind him. John grimaced at the sight of Moran writhing in a pool of his own blood. He may have been a military man, but he wasn't a monster, and it saddened him that it had come to his; split blood and tears on cheeks.
Distancing himself, he grasped Sherlock's forearm in a comforting gesture, "We should find John first. Radio your men and let them know I'm on your side, I don't want my arse shot at the last hurdle."
Sherlock nodded distantly, his mind busy cataloguing John's mannerisms and comparing them to that of his son's. It was fascinating, and he couldn't help but hold high regards for them both. John's dad was a good man, and with his son's help, Sherlock believed he could become a great one.
"You know where you'll find your little cock sucker John, don't yoooou?" A garbled voice giggled horrifically, Moran was delusional in pain. He glared at the two men with empty eyes that were long dead. "Bouncing that pretty ass of his up and down on my-"
An ear-shattering second gunshot ricocheted through the air, this time finding place in the deep recesses of Moran's skull. The sniper was forced backwards by the force of the bullet, head connecting with the floor with a sickening crack. His dead eyes remained unblinking, fixating the ceiling with his stare. Blood in thick rivulets cascaded from his skull.
"No one speaks about my son like that." Watson said simply, as if answering an unsaid question. He refastened his gun onto his belt, face solemn and set. Sherlock regarded him silently as he did so, new respect for the older man forming and growing in his mind.
Before he could speak, Sherlock's walkie-talkie crackled and hissed, a distorted voice ringing out from it. "Sherlock, this is Alpha Team One, we have Watson in our possession; return to Base, over."
Nothing could stop the smile of jubilation smothering Sherlock's face, until the tops of his cheeks appeared in his vision.
"I guess we should go then." Watson grinned, his boyish eyes lighting up.
Sherlock held the walkie-talkie to his lips, "Alpha Team One, this is Sherlock. Retreating now, over." He replaced the device and turned to face Watson, the smile on his face near ridiculous.
"Just to warn you, Sherlock," The radio crackled, "He isn't in the best of shape; you might wanna get here fast, over."
The walkie talkie hit the floor and smashed. Neither Sherlock nor John knew who starting running first.
xxxxxx
John lay on the crisp sheets of the stretcher, rattling out horrid little breaths that burned their way to and from his throat viciously. The plastic of the oxygen mask dug into his face, providing a welcome sense of discomfort from the numbness that held his entire body in its lucid grip. Morphine, the ambulance crew had informed him, for his burns.
Burns? He remembered thinking, what burns? He'd struggled weakly, trying desperately to ask how Jones was only to be forced back onto the stretcher. Jones was fine, they said. Now rest.
Rest.
How could he rest? The entire building had been burning down around him, a torrent of wood and sparks, when he'd dragged himself out. He had landed well, rolled, but then speared his head on a white hot rod of metal which lay sticking from the ground obscenely. When the spasms of pain subsided, he'd found himself outside – the entire side of Liberty House had fallen away, leaving him free to call for help, voice cracking with his ragged gasps of pain. And boy, did he need help. The skin of his back was mottled and charred; one ambulance crew member had placed his hand on John's back to help him up, only to pull away and find John's skin still attached to his fingers. The stitches that had held his whip-wounds together were burnt away, leaving his wounds sore, open and weeping.
John found himself chuckling with near hysteria at how awful he probably looked. If the looks the doctor's were giving him were anything to go by, he was not a pretty sight. He comforted himself with the fact Sherlock wouldn't see him as such.
Except…
Through the ringing and mist in his head, the dulcet tones of his lover's voice were seeping through, calling him, begging him. Crying for him.
John's heart tightened dangerously in his chest and for a moment the words, "heart attack" flashed hazardously in front of his eyes. No, no, why was Sherlock crying? The haze that covered his eyes cleared in a jolt, and he was met with the sigh of his sweetheart in tears above him.
Oh, but it was worth a wound; it was worth many wounds to know the depth of loyalty and love which laid behind that once cold mask. The clear, hard eyes of his lover were dimmed, and his full, firm lips were shaking. Therein, John caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain, and in that moment he knew that there would never be anyone else for him.
Because he loved him.
"You big dope," John managed to croak, breath harsh and echoing against the oxygen mask, "What are you crying for?"
Sherlock chuckled minutely as he sobbed, his shoulders rolling and shaking. Bending, he pressed the softest of kisses on John's forehead, muttering against it. "I am crying at just how immensely stupid you are, John."
"O-OK, that makes sense." The army doctor slurred, heart thrumming in his chest at the affectionate gesture. "…Remind me again why I'm stupid?"
His grey eyes rimmed with red, Sherlock peered down at John with a condescending a look as he could muster in his current position.
"Because yet again, you fail to see just how deep my feelings for you lie," He informed, combing John's sandy fringe from his eyes, "If you did, you would refrain from hurting yourself quite so much."
"Hurting myself?" John echoed incredulously, an aching bark of laughter falling from his lips. "It wasn't my fault the floor caved in, Sherlock."
"Nonetheless, I expect you in top form for my next case." Sherlock continued, undeterred; a soft smile formed at the thought. "Our next case."
"Oh God. You and your bloody cases," John choked out, an eyebrow raised. "Anyone would think you were married to your work or something."
"Shut up and sleep." The detective scolded, but the gentle smile remained.
The ambulance crew soon started the engine, and Sherlock slipped his hand into John's. When John was well, he would tell him about his dad, and how he was now free from Moriarty's power. When he was well, Sherlock would tell John he loved him.
But for now, he was perfectly content with the rise and fall of John's chest and the smile that lit up his eyes. For now, everything was perfect. Just like his John.
xxxxxx
A/N: I think that's it, actually apart from the epilogue. Hurray! Would you guys like one more chapter before the epilogue or would that just drag it out more? Thank you for all the reviews by the way, the amount I love you guys is indescribable, and of course - thank you for reading!