Authors Note: I've decided to use the boy's relationship as the guide for this story, it seems less choppy than using the cases. So, look forward to that and happy reading!
John's P.O.V
There was nothing in the sky.
John stared up at it and was filled with an instantaneous hatred for all the molecules up there that were mocking him down below.
There was nothing in the sky. It was a clear, pale blue. A vast expanse of smooth nothingness. It gave the whole landscape a fuzzy, not quite real feeling. Because he thought that sky was rather too nice for a day like this.
The universe ought to have known that his situation called for hurricane force winds and tidal waves crashing down to wipe out everything familiar to the good doctor. He wanted the rest of the world to acknowledge that there was no use for the sun anymore, that it was hateful to keep up the charade of warmth he was meant to feel as the rays pierced his skin.
Instead, John Watson allowed himself to be consumed by hatred. He focused on that as the people around him became nothing but a murmur in the back of his mind.
He fancied that the sky looked dead. Everything did. Dead skies, dead trees, dead ground and no birds singing around the procession of people.
Dead.
"John?"
Ah, right. That was him.
Some unknown hand connected to an unknown body was giving him a handful of dirt.
What a strange thing to do he thought, but accepted what was offered automatically. Holding on to the moist bit of earth and stared down at it without moving.
"You've got to drop it down," one of the hovering figures reminded him.
John gave a curt nod, and helplessly observed each of his fingers uncurling to watch the clumps of soil fall with tiny soft thumps against incredibly expensive looking polished wood.
He didn't make another sound while more words and passages were washed over him as if they were the balm to heal his wounds. John didn't make a sound and he didn't shed a tear. Trying to look around and see if any of the other blobs were crying was pointless. They were all faded and far away. He focused down on his hands again. Noted the bit of dirt caked under his finger nails. Did not note that the crowd of blurry maybe-people was starting to disperse.
There had been more of them than John had anticipated. Perhaps all the good they'd done over the precious little time given to them was enough of a reason for people to turn up. Paying respects did not always mean you were obligated to care. It did not mean you were forced to let the rest of your world go muddled and smeared. Most people could show up, tut a little about the whole situation, and then turn to leave. Happy to head back home and continue on. John Watson was not one of those people. He could not turn and go. His feet were cemented to this very specific patch of grass. Here would be where he'd stay until things made sense again.
It didn't seem possible to shake the thought that a bit of rain would have done the trick, would be all he needed to wrap his mind around the sight in front of him. Polished, beautiful grey stone. Impressive without looking like it was trying to be. John hated it too. Hated it for looking like it belonged there, like it was meant to be plucked down amoung all the others. The idea of smashing the carefully crafted bit of rock slipped into his head and John found it rather lingered. It was the first thing he'd felt like doing in days.
"Don't you think it's time to be getting back," came an insufferably calm, overly posh voice from somewhere behind John.
No he thought but didn't bother to say.
"You can't stay here John, surely you've realized how fool hardy that idea is."
I do not care. I'm staying his mind screamed.
"There's nothing else you could have done," the voice told him in what John felt was too reasonable a tone, too practiced an indifference. The voice sounded almost unaffected by what lay before them, to the image that had a vice grip on the air in John's lungs.
"You're wrong," the doctored stated icily, never looking back to see how the voice reacted to the break in his silence. It was just a voice after all, John did not care how it felt.
"Very well then."
And he was finally left alone.
"You're wrong," he repeated to the freshly emptied space. Predictably, John received no response.
"I could have done more," added in a softer voice, barely above a whisper. Still, the universe ignored him.
"I could have been braver, for you. I could have told you that first night how dazzling I thought you were. That it was like watching someone made of those popping candies I liked when I was younger. I could have done that for you."
John briefly thought that he was rather getting use to overlooking the obvious gaps in his conversations which served to remind him that there was simply no one there to fill them.
"I could have gone with you, I could have helped. Told you to slow down for god's sake. I should have," he continued, voice breaking for the first time that day on the end of his sentence.
John corrected himself quickly. There was no getting use to those gaps.
"I could have loved you…" felt the beginnings of tears prick behind his eyes and was fast to cover his face with his hands.
"Someone should have. God, someone should have. You needed it so desperately and no one ever noticed. You were so wonderful and amazing and unbelievable. Someone should have loved you to bits every day for it," John said with absolute certainty in his words.
"I could have…I think I might have already. I'm not sure, I think I might have. But I definitely could have. If you had let me. I'd have loved you to bits and then loved those bits to bits. If you'd given me the chance, I'd…" no, he did not want to finish that thought. It only hurt to think about that future which no longer existed.
"You never gave me the chance," he finished plainly, wiping the few tears from his cheeks before removing his hands to look resolutely at what stood on the ground in front of him. The stance of a soldier.
"I hate you."
Nothing.
"I hate you."
Silence.
"I hate you!"
A sharp pain in the back of his throat from the sudden force. Then silence and nothing together.
And he was overwhelmed. Hating and loving with every fibre in his body. Hating being left with this. Loving everything he no longer had. Hating that he would not get to love. Hating that he loved at all.
All the while the writing on the lovely and terrible stone screamed back at him, demanding that it no longer be ignored as had been John's plan all day.
Sherlock Holmes written in simple bold black letters that seared into the back of his eyes.
John was jerked awake, shaken harshly, by Lestrade's rough hands. He'd been screaming and his whole body was drenched in sweat. If anyone had asked him what the D.I had said, he would not have been able to say with any certainty that the man had so much as used a noun let alone give anything of meaning or importance.
Two days later, Sherlock had the good grace to twitch a single baby finger.
Sherlock's P.O.V
Everything felt like pudding.
It might have been the most ridiculous thought to ever be formed by the great mind of Sherlock Holmes but it was the first which popped up once that great mind was capable of such a thing again.
Instant vanilla he thought.
"Sherlock! Did you- did you just say something? What's vanilla?" came that beautiful, warm, foolish voice from somewhere in the thick cloud that the detectives body was floating in.
Then the strange almost-familiar exhaustion collapsed on him again, making Sherlock forget all about the monologue on why he preferred butterscotch actually.
Oh, John.
The next time his brain clicked back online, Sherlock became aware again of all his parts. Of the too long limbs he'd learned to control to the point of shamming effortlessness, of the itchy fabric covering his lean chest, of the crusty eyelids which felt glued together when the detective realized with a start how badly he wished to observe hiss surroundings. To see his John again.
He attempted to blink but was met with nothing but a blinding flash of white. It hurt. This seeing things again, it hurt. Perhaps this was what other people felt when he pointed out the details they'd missed. Sherlock could almost understand. Was almost empathetic. But then he tried to blink again because he was not one of those other people. Sherlock Holmes was not scared of things that hurt.. He would let the hurt do what it was meant to but it would not stop him.
The room came into semi-focus. Blank walls, blank white blankets swaddling him, dreary florescent lights overhead.
Dull.
Except for the shape of what simply had to be an ex-army doctor. Had to be His John. Sitting in one of those chairs which never seemed to have been made with the idea of whoever was currently sitting in them in mind. A strange sort of changing discomfort. John should not be sitting in it. The stupid man. Sherlock felt a flush of fury at the good doctor, wanting for a moment to find a suitable punishment for ignoring things as precious to Sherlock as the bullet wound in the other man's shoulder. Perhaps throwing away the flat's entire supply of jam would be sufficient. Serves John right.
"God your eyes. I can tell you're up to no good, but you've no idea how much I've wanted to see you looking completely mad with your eyes again," John told him, in a slightly shakey voice.
Sherlock blinked several times to try and see John more clearly, feeling his eyes water from all the sudden movement. The good doctor looked worn out. Like that hideous oatmeal jumper, all rumpled lines and washed out colour. Just waiting for some kind, caring, considerate citizen to accidentally drop a bit of hydrochloric acid on him to put John out of his misery too.
"Stop looking like jumpers!," he tried his best to demand, but it came out in hoarse voice which more resembled a kitten trying to convince someone that it was in fact a lion did they not just hear that roar? It was undignified and the detective resolved to delete the memory at the next opportunity. The whole experience left Sherlock's throat feeling as if he'd lined the whole thing with thorns sometime in his sleep and forgotten about it until just then.
He tried to glare at John but even that hurt his face.
"Right, yeah sorry. Here, ice chips- nice and slow. Hard to remember that some who can go around telling me not to look like my clothes needs something as boring as water."
Had he had the energy, Sherlock would have protested to being treated like an exotic house plant.
Instead he opened his mouth in what he had hoped was a give me sustenance, I can't be bothered to move my limbs sort of way. John rolled his eyes rather obscenely, in the detective's opinion, so the message must have been received.
"Do not get use to this, I'm not feeding you grapes when we get back to the flat," the doctor muttered in an annoyed tone but was smiling the whole time he said it while plunking one cold cube into Sherlock's mouth.
The relief was indescribable, the taller man hadn't even realized how desperately he needed the cool trickle of water until he'd been given it.
As if on cue, the rest of his long lean body took the opportunity to ache all over. Stiff muscles, sensitive skin and a particularly persistent twinge of sharper pain rooted just below his chest. A quick trip to the Mind Palace served to remind him of a flash of steel and all the things John would have been left not knowing if Sherlock wasn't laying in pain in a hospital bed now. There wasn't much data on how the detective had managed to end up there, in fact there wasn't much data after John had shown up in the alley at all.
"How?," he asked in a gentle whisper waving a hand vaguely around the room for a second before giving up the action as too much effort. Choosing not to elaborate or shout again in hopes of avoiding the barbed wire inside his neck. Sherlock decided to hold on to his belief that John would understand. Should the man take a few extra minutes to work out the details, Sherlock would simply gaze fondly at the good doctor who he would definitely not trade in for the skull. Of course not.
"You lost a lot of blood, it was a rather deep wound and Hallohan jerked the blade a bit when he pulled it out," John explained in a more steady voice, listing off details the way Sherlock preferred. Other people might have tried to avoid describing the scene or saying the man's name in front of the victim. John Watson knew better. The last time he had tried to shy away from using the name of a serial killer, Sherlock had nearly bit his head off while informing John that he wasn't an eleven year old orphan going off to learn magic so would he please stop acting as if the murderer's name mattered.
John had been so startled by the cultural reference he had two and a half extra cups of tea that day before deciding to never sugar coat something for the world's only consulting detective ever again.
"So we had to deal with that, he nicked your stomach which made a mess of everything in surgery I'm told. Infectious materials in the abdominal cavity so you'll be on some pretty strong antibiotics for a while, and so help me you'll take everything last one without even thinking about complaining," the tone was stern but the shorter man's eyes were filled with a fondness which made Sherlock remember that he still needed to complete that experiment to find the antidote to that funny feeling John looking at him like that made in his stomach.
It wasn't as if Sherlock couldn't see plain as day the lingering sadness in John's features. He must have been unconscious for a number of days for John to look that distraught. He found he didn't have the heart to ask.
I wanted to go first, not leave you behind the detective thought solemnly, weak fingers brushing up against warm warm warm tanned ones. Just a bit of starlight for today, he had missed it so. That was fair.
"Oh, and they took out your appendix. Figures the only way we'd find out it was inflamed was having you operated on for something else. Ah well, we'll have to have a funeral for it later," John finished with the most genuine smile he had managed so far, grasping on to Sherlock's hand as if it was the last carton of milk in the flat. If the detective had been made of weaker stuff, his heart would have melted as that was surely one of the nicest sentiments John had ever given him.
"You wanted to have a funeral for my appendix?" Sherlock asked in a curious voice, silently thrilled with His John. How lucky he was to have found someone made of stars who had a proper appreciation for body parts under the right circumstances.
"Well yeah, it's a piece of you isn't it? Bit rude of you to expect me to just let it go like that," the good doctor explained with a mock pout. Mock pouts were up there with Watson sighs, they both deserved a hearty scowl.
"I've had my tonsils out too, shall we just dig one mass grave?"
"God, look at you. Trying to ruin today for me. Won't work you know."
"A for effort perhaps?" Sherlock croaked out.
"I'll give you that I suppose."
"Thank you John, your pity knows no bounds."
John's P.O.V
The following week became the single hardest one of John Watson's entire life. Okay, second hardest since the days spent waiting for Sherlock to wake up had been only a couple less than a week so that time ought to be in the running. But still, the week beat out getting shot in Afghanistan for god sake. Which probably should have concerned John more than it did. Watching the great Sherlock Holmes hobbling around in a hospital gown just ate at him though. Like a bunch of termites lost in his right atrium and left ventricle. The other man was meant to be swooping around dramatically and sneaking up on people like a deranged cat. John would have preferred getting shot all over again or taking the blade of that knife himself to watching the detective struggle. So yes, perhaps such lack of self-preservation should concern him more. It didn't but only because the good doctor was studiously ignoring that fact.
Had been since that dream. Or maybe before that. Since waking up contentedly beside a lunatic. Since pinning said mad man to the floor to get him to simply listen. Since the eccentric detective had said stay and all John Watson's brain had done was think oh bloody hell before once again doing exactly as Sherlock Holmes had asked. Really, John would be hard pressed to figure out exactly when he had become so dreadfully in love with the taller brunette. But he had had the decency to do it quietly, so thank god for small miracles.
As soon as they were away from this hospital, with all the cheeriness of a funeral home, John would sort out what he would do. What he ought to tell the world's only consulting detective. Would a simple heads up suffice? A good ole fashion Hey, I'm in love with you by the way. Pass the jam please- no that's marmalade again do the trick? Would it send Sherlock into another tizzy trying to wade through another ocean of feelings? John couldn't know, the reactions from the other man were never predictable.
It made sense that that thought occurred to him at the exact moment an ice chip gracefully smacked him in the forehead.
"If you make that face one more time, I'll be forced to murder you in your sleep as soon as I get my strength back."
"Ta, that would save me the trouble of killing you for throwing ice at me. What face?" John shot back. He didn't sound nearly as angry as he might have been had Sherlock not been laying on those white sheets he deemed completely plebeian and beneath him.
"The one where you look like you've swallowed a mouthful of bees and someone hit you on the head with a lead pipe at the same time. It's rather off putting. I am rather busy recovering you know"
"Sorry, I was just thinking."
"Oh, is that what that looks like?"
"Shut it you git."
"Why do you need to speak with John? He's busy, I'm teaching him proper bedside manner Lestrade."
"And I keep telling you that bedside manner does not mean I need to be lying beside you in a rickety hospital bed 24/7," John pointed out with an amused smile before getting up to follow the D.I out into the hall.
"Fine then John, far be it for me to try and shape you up into a decent doctor. I'll try to keep my wasting away to a dull roar shall I?"
"Please see that you do," John mock agreed with a nod, trying not to look too pleased with Sherlock's clinginess. He was crediting boredom from confinement as the source.
Still, he felt a twinge of guilt when he closed the room's door behind him.
"Look John, I know this is the last thing you want to talk about right now but I'm running out of options," Greg told him in a urgent whispered voice, in case the hospital walls were thinner than imagined.
"You know how he'll get if I tell him. He needs to rest, he almost died Lestrade," John reminded him tersely, crossing his arms over his chest. Bristling like a dog would to a stranger getting too close to his master. Best not to connect thoughts like that with Sherlock in the future.
"Yeah, yeah I know he'll bloody well tear himself apart," Greg conceded as he slumped his shoulders in disappointment. This did nothing to dampen John's spirits of having forced the D.I away again.
"Will you tell him? When you think it'll be okay? I honestly don't know what we're dealing with," the other man admitted in the same quiet voice but the good doctor suspected this had less to do with sound carrying than with the D.I's pride.
"Of course, even I won't be able to keep him at bay forever."
"If anyone could, it'd be you John."
That may or may not have been the best compliment John had ever received. It would certainly be hard to top.
"I will hack that nurse to pieces with nothing but this plastic spoon and bendy straw if she brings one more cup of that rubbish."
"People like Jell-o Sherlock, all the patients get it."
"I am not people John, I will not be subjected to lemon-lime gelatin cubes any longer."
"I'll tell them you'd prefer biscuits but you aren't going to get discharged for another week."
"Fine, remember how difficult you're being when I'm incarcerated for murdering hospital staff."
"Please, if you were going to kill any of them I'm sure you'd be interesting enough not to get caught."
"Right you are John."
"There's something you're not telling me."
"It'll be at least three more weeks, bed rest without leaping off a single roof."
"Yes, I heard you the first time. God, I hate repetition."
"How is it possible I even missed you griping like that?"
"Witchcraft, now tell me what it really is already."
"Promise to listen to doctor's orders."
"Yes, alright fine. Spill."
"There's been another one."
Authors Note: Reviews/comments are always welcome! There will be another update in about a week, though I was wondering whether people liked the shorter update in between?