In this chapter:
"In a way, John and Sherlock were alike. When it came to his profession, John knew he was bloody good at it. He hadn't invented it, no. But he always tried to learn everything that was to know about the human body. He had been a trauma surgeon in a war zone. A random doctor could forget to mention – or be forced to do so – the striations on Sherlock's ulna and radius. But some signs would never go unnoticed to an army doctor.
When in service in Afghanistan, one got used to seeing those marks on other fellow soldiers' x-rays. Especially those who had been rescued from behind the enemy line, after enduring torture for weeks."
CHAPTER 10
Stop being an idiot, John. You have a key, use it. SH
John stared at his phone, trying to feel exasperated, but the truth was that he was relieved. He was looking forward to opening 221b's door himself.
Sherlock had told him he was busy with an experiment and couldn't possibly – his words – walk down the stairs to open the door. John hadn't believed him for a minute.
John smiled, looking ahead at the black door across the street. He glanced at the window, but Sherlock was probably too busy trying to blow up the whole damn neighbourhood to be standing there.
He took the key out of his pocket and listened to their tinkling sound. Small pleasure.
The moment was completely different from that one, months ago, when he had come here to talk to Mrs Hudson about Mary. It was different from walking into a half dead place. It didn't erase what had happened, but it surely left a much better taste in his mouth.
The click of the locker sent a familiar jolt through his arm. Excitement, but more, something tender and also bitter he couldn't quite name, he never could.
Closing the door behind him, he took a deep breath and remembered hearing his and Sherlock's voices coming from the walls. Those walls would always have their voices. Maybe even to Mrs Hudson.
"Bollocks!"
The curse startled John out of his reverie. He was definitely not used to hearing anything of the like.
It was shocking, but he was too amused to worry about what Sherlock might be destroying in the kitchen. If he rushed up the stairs, it was only because he was curious.
"Hell!"
John stepped into the kitchen and laughed at the ruinous image he was presented with. Sherlock was perched over his microscope, his hair in disarray. The table looked chaotic. He was trying to manoeuvre three glass slides with his broken hand and taking notes with his left one – because of course Sherlock Holmes could be ambidextrous whenever he felt like it.
John didn't want to irritate him, but the situation was too endearing to be left alone.
"I didn't know you could write with your left hand," he said, casually, as if he had been there all afternoon.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I had to teach myself, obviously."
"Obviously," John nodded, watching Sherlock try once again to balance the slides on his cast. It was like watching the rehearsals of a circus troupe or something equally ridiculous. John finally took pity on him and approached the scene with caution. He took two slides in his hand and stood there, changing the samples when Sherlock told him to. John didn't understand why he couldn't just leave everything on the table.
Scratch that, John thought. He could. Sherlock had always worked at a maddening speed.
"I hate this," Sherlock whined after John slid the wrong slide under the lens again.
John turned his head away so he could hide his smile. "I know," he said. "When are you due to take it off?"
Sherlock lifted his eyes from the microscope and stared at him blankly.
"What did your doctor say about it?" John asked again. It was strange to ask this, since he should have been the doctor, but John shook off the feeling, telling himself that he would never let this happen again.
"I don't have a doctor," Sherlock answered as if the very idea was a revelation. He stood up abruptly and started to go through the drawers like a hurricane.
John, though, had other preoccupations. "What do you mean you don't have a doctor? Are you mad? Who put this cast on you? And while we're at it, why?"
Sherlock opened and closed all the drawers in the kitchen, but didn't find what he was looking for – whatever the hell that was. He turned to John and frowned as if it had completely escaped his attention for a split of second that John was still there. John raised one eyebrow waiting for Sherlock to remember that he had been asked a question.
"Mycroft," the detective answered, and turned away, walking to his bedroom. He opened and closed all the drawers there too.
John accompanied him, but stayed at the door. He let himself think about Mycroft putting Sherlock in a cast just to provoke him and snorted.
Sherlock started rummaging through a wooden box that he had taken from under his bed. John remembered that box; it was full of things other people would find useless.
"Sherlock," John said. It was more than clear now that he was avoiding the subject. "Who is the doctor who put this cast on you?"
Sherlock groaned. "I don't know, John. One of my brother's minions," he said absently while moving the objects inside the box from one side to another. "He has doctors for minions too. It's incredible the things a minor position in the British Government can facilitate–"
"Sherlock," John interrupted firmly. He felt a familiar sense of dread curling at the pit of his stomach. "What the fuck happened? And what are you looking for, anyway? Can't this wait?"
"A-ha," Sherlock let out triumphantly. He turned hastily to the door and walked past John, out of his bedroom, and back to the kitchen in a split of second. John had no idea what the hell he had taken from the box.
When he finally followed Sherlock back to the kitchen, his jaw dropped. Apparently Sherlock had been looking for a small saw that looked more like a tool one would use at a slaughterhouse.
And he was deciding how to cut out his own cast with it.
That wasn't happening in John's watch, not in a million years. Without thinking twice, he intercepted with his left hand, before Sherlock could start sawing.
"Are you mad?" Sherlock yelled at him. "I could have cut your hand!" He said, staring at John's hand. It was ridiculous, it hadn't come even close to hurting him. John blamed it on Sherlock's usual dramatics.
"Put that down right now," John told him, staring hard back at Sherlock's vexed expression. "Now you will tell me what happened very slowly since you know I'm an idiot. And you will leavethe cast alone."
Sherlock huffed, indignant. He let go of the saw anyway. "I was knocked unconscious–"
John snorted. He had figured out that much, thanks. "I want to know how."
"Oh, now you do?" Sherlock scowled. Trust him to say the wrong thing and still sound as if he had the right to say it.
And the truth was that John did feel guilty about that. He had the feeling he could have prevented this if he had really taken an interest in Sherlock's return before.
"John," Sherlock said, carefully-oh-so-carefully like he would have never done before.
John felt Sherlock's hand come on top of his. He hadn't even noticed he was still holding the cast.
He squeezed Sherlock's hand and let go of the cast, ignoring the tingling in his fingers. "What?" He asked, in lieu of something better to say and because Sherlock had never finished the sentence. Not that he would. He had the strange power of conveying the most complex things in the way he said John's ordinary name. It would always be a mystery to John how he did that.
"You couldn't have done anything," Sherlock said, and shrugged, as if him getting hurt weren't that serious. "I was knocked unconscious," he repeated, looking pointedly at John. "My brother rescued me and I woke up in some secret medical facility or other, delighted by the morphine, but in this damn thing," he made a face at the cast as if it had been sticking its tongue right back at him.
John sighed deeply. He had to fight the urge to punch something. Having a matching cast wouldn't help them in any way. He didn't know exactly what to feel. Fury, yes. But also the terrible helplessness that he hated so much. He walked around the kitchen to give himself something to do. Without even noticing at first, he put the kettle on and washed two mugs.
When John turned back to him, Sherlock had a faint smile on his lips.
John cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. Sherlock was fucking mad, but John had to do the little he could to protect him – even from himself.
"I don't suppose you have your x-rays, do you?"
Sherlock's smile grew. "I do," he said simply. He hopped out of the kitchen and back quickly, holding an envelope.
John was flat out speechless. He suspected Sherlock had never kept a medical document of his own in his damn life. John used to keep all his medical files. He took the envelope and held it with his two hands, looking at Sherlock questioningly.
"I thought– Well, I hoped, actually, that you might want to take a look," Sherlock said, making it sound like a question.
Oh.
That was... Thoughtful.
In a certain way, John received it as a present. Maybe a license to take care of Sherlock again.
He forced himself out of the soppy feeling. Surprisingly, Sherlock was preparing the two mugs of tea himself, so John sat and opened the envelope.
He barely registered the sound of Sherlock letting his mug near him and walking around to sit in his chair. John put his hand inside the envelope and took the x-ray. He was surprised to see that there wasn't just one, but several test results in that envelope. He looked at Sherlock, but the other man had his eyes intent on the eyepiece.
"Have you opened these at all when you received them?"
"Hm?" Sherlock let out, clearly not registering anything. His mind had already wandered somewhere else. Somewhere with those damn things he was analysing.
John shushed the internal voice that was telling him he had no right to intrude upon his friend's medical files like this. Inside that envelope were years of blood tests, x-rays and other exams, and John had absolutely no idea why Sherlock would have had them done. MRI, x-rays of legs and chest and a dozen other test results from the time Sherlock had been away. John asked himself if Sherlock had any idea those were there.
On one hand, he was Sherlock Holmes, he was likely to know everything. On the other, he was Sherlock Holmes, the worst person at taking care of himself in the whole world. Mycroft had probably let those there.
John didn't know which one of the Holmes brothers was playing him, but he would take the bait anyway.
He returned the other results to the envelope, taking three x-rays of Sherlock's right hand and forearm. They weren't from the same time and John asked himself again why the hell had Sherlock taken so many.
John stood up and went to the bathroom. He had the perfect excuse for it – he needed the artificial light to see the results properly. Well, he could have given the perfect excuse if Sherlock had been paying any attention to him, which he hadn't. John was glad for it.
He glanced over the most recent x-ray. John suspected Sherlock's hand was fine by now. He would never tell Sherlock, of course. He didn't want to encourage his butchery tendencies. John already suspected he had fractured his schaphoid. It was a relief to see that it had been a minor lesion. They could expect a full recovery – violin and all.
Sherlock had probably fallen on his hand.
Running from someone?
Pushed by someone?
Knocked out by someone?
John moved on to the results he was more interested in. He didn't know when Sherlock had taken the other x-rays, but he knew those bones well enough to know that they had been taken after... Well, after. John held the first exam against the bathroom light for a moment and then read the doctor's report – not dated or signed. The doctor didn't write anything John couldn't see for himself. What called John's attention was what the doctor did not write.
In a way, John and Sherlock were alike. When it came to his profession, John knew he was bloody good at it. He hadn't invented it, no. But he always tried to learn everything that was to know about the human body. He had been a trauma surgeon in a war zone. A random doctor could forget to mention – or be forced to do so – the striations on Sherlock's ulna and radius. But some signs would never go unnoticed to an army doctor.
When in service in Afghanistan, one got used to seeing those marks on other fellow soldiers' x-rays. Especially those who had been rescued from behind the enemy line, after enduring torture for weeks.
John swallowed hard and held his left hand in a fist. It wasn't shaking. It was itching. Itching to pull the trigger and shoot every last one of the people responsible for that.
John took a deep breath and willed himself to face the x-rays again.
Sherlock's marks weren't that deep. The striations imprinted on the bone didn't show weeks of abuse, but they sure as hell showed more than what John wanted to see.
John was suddenly aware that he was clutching the x-ray for dear life. He was still holding it up, but he stared blankly at the ceiling, deciding what to do. He could tell Sherlock, yell at him, beg him to talk about what had happened. But what good would that do? John was sure Sherlock wouldn't tell him the truth, and even if he did, John would feel caged by the impossibility of doing anything about it.
He wanted to kill Mycroft slowly because he was the only culprit John saw clearly. Maybe he hadn't been the one to put Sherlock in danger, but he hadn't taken Sherlock out of there fast enough.
John swallowed again down the bitterness that was threatening to climb up his throat. He set the results aside and washed his face, looking himself in the mirror and trying to calm down. He didn't want Sherlock to read everything on his face as soon as he stepped into the kitchen. He dried his face and breathed deeply, grabbing the results and going out of the bathroom.
Sherlock tried to drill holes in his skull with his green-grey eyes. John relaxed his features and told himself to get a grip. It wouldn't do them any good to spook Sherlock with a thousand questions now.
"So? How long do I still have?" Sherlock inquired. He sounded annoyed that it was taking John so long to tell him what he already knew.
Maybe Sherlock knew perfectly well what John had just seen. Maybe it had been his own idea to put all those medical files together.
John wanted to smile, but he knew his eyes were dead serious when he replied. "Very long."
As long as I can keep you alive.
Sherlock looked at him and his eyes lit up. John could not help now, he smiled back, his head swimming in an ocean of gladness for Sherlock being there. John would never know what he had gone through to come back to London, but he appreciated so fucking much him being there.
John curled his hands in fists and to stop himself from the sudden urge to take Sherlock's hands. He was being ridiculous.
Sherlock was looking back at him with a Sherlock-y mischief in his eyes. John knew that wanker well enough to know exactly what he was thinking.
"No," John said. He stood up and took the saw away from him. "Out of the question."
"But John," Sherlock scoffed. "This is slowing me down! I'm perfectly fine, you said it yourself."
"I didn't. I said you're going to live, which you are. But you're gonna keep the cast one more week."
Sherlock was looking outraged. It made John want to giggle.
What a great pair of lunatics.
"And you will come to the surgery and I will take it off properly, with an orthopedic saw. I'm not an orthopedist, but it'll be better than this," John said, pointing at the offending saw on the table. "Leatherface called and asked for his toy back, by the way," he frowned at it.
Sherlock did a comical double take at him and then frowned. "Who?"
John groaned. "Never mind. Then – and only then – we'll take it out and take another x-ray to see if you can really be without it."
"I'm not a child, you know," Sherlock argued, but it was half-hearted.
John mocked him. "Whatever gave you that idea?"
Unexpectedly, Sherlock started to laugh. A rich laughter that seemed to have been bubbling inside him for a long time. John joined him without bothering to know exactly what were they laughing about. They were together at Baker Street among Sherlock's experiments and cups of tea. That was reason enough.
Sherlock's laughter died down slowly. "You could just cut it off now," he said, as if they hadn't just had this conversation.
John rolled his eyes. Toddler. "No."
"Oh for God's sake!"
"Watch it, or I'll just let you in it for another month." And okay, maybe he did enjoy antagonizing Sherlock a bit too much. Maybe.
"Why do I even keep you around?" Sherlock feigned exasperation, already looking through the eyepiece of his microscope again. John could hear the smirk in his voice; it made something warm and fuzzy explode in his chest.
"Well, your tea is bloody awful," John said, honestly. He giggled at the face Sherlock was making and lifted his hands in a defensive gesture even though Sherlock wasn't looking at him. "Hey, I can teach you if you want."
Sherlock didn't look up. "What for? I have Mrs Hudson and you for that, don't I?"
The blind trust is his voice took John completely by surprise. Sherlock really had come back thinking his old life would be waiting for him. It seemed as if nothing had happened.
It made John feel hysterically happy, but also wrong all over at the same time. Things weren't the same, they would never be like that again. John had to deal with this aftermath every day. It seemed incredibly unfair that to Sherlock things would just feel the same. Not because John didn't want him to have it, but because he wanted to have it too.
Sherlock lifted his eyes. Glassy eyes looked at John searchingly.
And hell, he thought. He would take whatever scraps he could just to hear that amount of confidence in Sherlock's voice again and again.
He cleared his throat. "Yes," he smiled. "Yes, you do".
Mary arrived later that day bringing fresh samples of pastries for Sherlock's benefit.
He and John had already discussed the crime scene photos John had come for, at first, and Sherlock had even accepted to take a break to have another cup of tea – one made by John this time – and a slice of toast. He had showered and changed into his normal attire.
Currently he was back over his microscope, dead to the world, so John walked down the stairs to open the door for Mary.
He gave her a peck on the lips and hugged her tightly, sinking his head on her shoulder.
Mary made a content noise. "Good," she said, apropos of nothing.
John made a noise expecting her to understand that it was a question. He was too comfortable to lift his head at that moment.
Mary disentangled herself from him and looked at him with a sunny smile. "I haven't seen you this happy for a while, love," she said, caressing his cheek with her smooth hand. John leaned into the touch instinctively.
He made an agreeable noise, deciding not to deny it. It would have been useless anyway. He felt happier and lighter than he had in a long time.
"Oh, hullo, you two!" Mrs Hudson was coming out of her flat. She hugged Mary and John as if he hadn't seen them just the day before.
"You weren't home when I arrived," John told her. He held Mary's hand.
"Oh, I was out doing the shopping. Are you still going to be here for a while?"
"Oh, yes," Mary answered her. "I brought the samples I told you about."
Mrs Hudson seemed delighted. "Oh, I'm going to put the kettle on. Who knows, maybe we can make Sherlock eat something."
"I suspect he only had a toast today," John said.
Mrs Hudson seemed impressed. "Well, that's more than the usual. You forced him to eat it, don't you?" Mrs Hudson asked, knowingly.
"A bit," John shrugged.
"Perfect," she said. She lowered her voice as if telling them a secret. "What was that terrible noise he was making earlier? By god, I thought he was trying to excavate the wall with a pickaxe!"
John giggled. "Close enough. He is getting sick of that cast, it's slowing him down, etc. You know how it goes."
"Good god, the kitchen must be a mess."
"I tried to tidy it up a bit, but it still looks like a war zone," John concurred.
"I can hear you talking about me, you know!" Sherlock shouted from up the stairs. "I have very sensitive hearing!"
John rolled his eyes, but smiled. "So, Mrs Hudson, we'll wait for you with the tea."
"I'll help," Mary volunteered herself. "We can put this on a tray," she said, lifting the bag of pastries.
"Oh, John!" Mrs Hudson called him when he was already walking up the stairs. "I got Sherlock's mail today cause if I left it to him, he'd never pay a bill in his life. Can you take it upstairs?"
"Of course," John said, waiting for her to get it.
After, he walked up the stairs perusing through the envelopes. He had done it so many times – to run up the seventeen steps while checking the mail – that it didn't even registered to him until he saw something that made his spine almost instantly freeze with a sudden arctic cold.
He stopped on the last step holding the manila envelope and breathing hard. He flipped it and sure enough, there was the red seal he was already waiting for. John leaned on the wall and squeezed his eyes shut.
Moriarty was dead, he repeated internally.
Dead.
Sherlock had worked for years to dismantle his network. They were safe – most of all, Sherlock was safe. They didn't need to worry about that anymore.
"John?" Sherlock came out of the living room.
John knew he had to hide the envelope, but he still couldn't begin to move and Sherlock was already there.
He looked at John for about three seconds before yanking the mail for his hands. "This is private, do you know that?"
John wanted to yell right back at him that he was the last person on Earth who had any right of giving anyone a lecture about privacy. And John would, as soon as his lungs could work properly.
Sherlock stood right beside him, looking agitated. He thrusted all the envelopes in the pockets of trousers. John could see that he was looking for something to say – probably a credible lie to placate him. John would have squeezed the truth out of his throat if he could.
A million theories started to pop in his head. Maybe Moriarty wasn't dead, after all. Maybe he and Sherlock had become mates and exchanged clever letters. Maybe there was some sick fan's idea of tribute. Maybe they were old letters, maybe they were just envelopes without content.
Maybe they were reminders that Sherlock's efforts had been useless and that he was in danger again.
Maybe something was happening and of course, of course, Sherlock was leaving John out of it.
"Could you stop?" Sherlock shook him out of it. "It's... nothing. They are nothing."
Ah. They. So there were others.
John asked himself for how long had Sherlock been receiving them without telling him.
"Weeks," he said, simply. He cleared his throat and looked at his own feet. "They are nothing, can you ignore that you saw this?"
John snorted, humourlessly. As if that was going to happen. John wouldn't be able to forget anything Sherlock-related, not ever.
Sherlock was out of his side and in front of him in a heartbeat. He pinned John with his mercurial eyes.
John's heart hammered in his chest, too big and too heavy for its cavity. He could almost hear the blood running through his own veins.
Sherlock stared at him with pleading eyes. It was a ridiculous adjective, but John's brain couldn't come up with anything different.
"They really are nothing," Sherlock said. John could feel the puff of his breaths faintly on the tip of his nose. He asked himself if that was really necessary.
"John," Sherlock groaned. "Pay attention," he said.
John looked up from the expanse of Sherlock's neck to his eyes. He had absolutely no memory of letting his eyes wander like that. He braced himself on the wall, as if waiting to be attacked by a supernatural force.
"Trust me," the detective said, so gently that his tone was at odds with his sharp figure.
John looked at his feet and tried to steady his breathing. He told himself to relax. Sherlock stayed in front of him, but gave him more space. He was still agitated, John could see his fingers twitching.
"Will you show me?" John asked when he could speak again. He already knew the answer. He knew Sherlock would have already shown him if he wanted to. He knew he would have already opened it if it was really nothing serious. He didn't need to look to know that Sherlock was shaking his head.
It was like being tricked all over again, like being shoved aside again. Like being useful for tea, but not for what he did best.
"Stop that," Sherlock said, low and heartfelt. At least it seemed so. John hated not knowing.
They were side by side again. Sherlock had walked down one step, what left them almost at the same level.
Lanky bastard.
"I'm not tricking you," the detective said. John continued to look ahead, because he didn't want to look at those eyes and notice that once again he didn't know if they were telling the truth.
"I am not tricking you," Sherlock insisted. "I'm asking you to trust me. Isn't that what friends do?"
"Don't you fucking dare play this card with me," John said, stepping away from the wall and turning fully to Sherlock. He wanted to tell Sherlock that he had absolutely no idea of what friends did, that he had been a selfish bastard for most of his life and he had no right to ask that.
He swallowed down the words and willed himself watch his temper. It wouldn't do them any good either. He would shout, Sherlock would shout back and John would walk down the stairs and out of the building in seconds. He would be even more distant from the truth than he was now.
John looked hard at Sherlock and pointed at his chest firmly. He let his index finger brush slightly Sherlock's shirt right over his fully beating heart. "If anything happens to you because you didn't count on me when you should have...," he trailed off, his voice thick with everything he wasn't saying.
"It won't–"
"If anything happens... I will kill you."
It will kill me.
Thanks to Archie and thanks to you people who are following this story. Let me know what you think and come talk to me on tumblr! (sureaintmebabe)