MERITRICIOUS! And a happy New Year!
Your present is an extra chapter, whoop!
It was cold; too cold for the desert, John thought. Really, how it could go from bone-sucking hot in the day to bone-chilling cold at night, John didn't know. He pulled on his kit, double-checking the pockets for plasters and his antibiotic dressing before heaving it onto his shoulders. It was going to be a long night of walking if Major Barton was right, and John could think of no reason why he wouldn't be right - at least, no reasons he wanted to think of.
A moment later he was realizing what he'd forgotten to pack; baby powder. He was chafing. Sand was everywhere in the desert, but it was hell when it got in your pants. His thighs were going to be on fire tonight. And not in a good way.
When he'd been a new recruit, young and naive, he'd thought joining the army would be exciting. Instead, all he seemed to get were poor boys about to die and lots of monotonous walking.
There were the sparse times when he felt, really felt, though. When the world turned Technicolour-vibrant and adrenaline pumped through his veins and his Browning seemed an extension of his hand. Those were the days he lived for; the days that had made him re-enlist despite himself, because going back to 'civilian life' sounded even worse than the sand in his pants.
He hitched up his pack and adjusted his trousers, and kept walking. It helped, sometimes, to count his steps, and John started counting now.
Two hundred and thirty six, two hundred and thirty seven, two hundred and thirty eight, two hundred and thirty -
Michael, the new kid with sandy hair who was constantly chewing cheap bubblegum whenever he could find it, fell in front of him with a cry of pain, and John felt something wet spray across his leg. John looked down, noting the red on his trousers, feeling the wet and thinking, for a split second, that the moisture would help the rubbing, and then realizing what the red was and knowing that he'd never forgive himself for that split second.
The next second he was on his knees, turning Michael over and tearing open what was left of the boy's trousers, applying pressure, going through his textbooks in his brain, trying to remember. He could hear the shouting around him, the hum of tension, the adrenaline, the rush, the whiz of bullets, the smack of ammunition hitting sand at high speed. It was the chaos of a spinning ride at a carnival, only the laughter was replaced with screaming, and instead of brightly coloured lights, it was the red of blood.
"John!" Murray called, and John felt it, then; the sting in his leg where the bullet had nicked him after it hit Michael, and then, the searing red fire in his shoulder as something ripped through, pulling and tearing through muscle and bone.
A choked noise made it past his lips, and he made it a point to try to breathe, to gulp in air despite the way it made his shoulder feel.
Murray was rushing over, then, and he put a hand on John's shoulder, as if it wasn't injured, as if he couldn't see the blood leaching out onto the sand underneath them, staining the desert red. Instead he put his hand on the injured shoulder and said, "Sherlock's going to take the pill."
John knew true terror, then, because suddenly he was on a boat, on the Thames, and it was still cold, so cold, and he could feel himself dying, bleeding out, there, on a boat, on the bloody Thames, and Sherlock was about to take the bloody pill, and suddenly everything broke in his brain and all he could think was Sod this.
And he reached for his gun, and damn me, damn my shoulder, and he shot, feeling the grip of the Browning in his hand, praying this would work, praying he was steady, praying Sherlock wouldn't get hit, praying -
Please, God, let her live.
The kickback of the pistol went into his shoulder. He could feel it like he'd been shot again, in the hard bone of his chest, and then -
dark
close
smothering
heat
pain