Who: Sherlock and John What: Masquerade aftermath Where: 221B Baker Street, London When: Morning after the Masquerade, before this. Warnings/Rating: Some talk of blood and injuries. Sherlock has some mild emotions.
Time passed strangely. John couldn’t gauge the space between breaths, between blinks, had no idea how long it had been since he’d tried to write a message for help. He was wrapped in a grey shroud of shock, and mostly thankful for it. If he stayed still and quiet, his mind and body were able to drift along with only a low underlying throb of agony.
He knew how much blood a body could lose before it was too much, and by the way he felt, he figured he was riding that line. All he could think was that he hoped he didn’t die on the floor of their kitchen. That wouldn’t look very good for Sherlock at all. Not after everything else that had happened.
His mind drifted again, and the sun’s angle through the windows kept progressing.
Sherlock swept into the flat like a new easterly, the door to the street slamming against the entryway, the open flat door a herald to Sherlock’s sharp demand for information. “John?” And then, as he strode through the sitting room with long strides on bare feet, sharper: “John.” When he got to the kitchen, he stopped to assess the sight there, taking in details as only he could, as he must, with no option for casual glances even in the face of growing emotion he had difficulty controlling. He didn’t have a shirt on, the coat open and his slacks unkempt, but his eyes and senses were sharp as ever.
Quiet. No smell of cordite from recently fired firearms. No sign of forced entry. Cold tea on the table; at least three days old, from when he was last here. No coat discarded on the familiar seat facing his. Quieter this time, a low hiss of breath: “John.”
Sherlock pushed through the kitchen, aware from the blood pattern that the assailant was not present, and from the amount of bleeding how long John had been there. In a sweep of black cloth, he crouched by John’s side and, with exacting care, attempted to turn him over.
The ruckus hadn’t pulled John from the fog, though it filtered in faintly, sounds and a familiar voice and a word he knew to be his name. He fought to claw his way back toward the sharp world, but the fog held him back until the world rolled and brought bright pain along with it. He didn’t have much coordination of his body, and when he attempted to turn himself back over to stop the pressure on his injured back, all he could manage was a brief flail of one arm below the elbow. The weight of his own body caused one of the only closed cuts on his back to reopen in a flush of warmth laced with pain. It was accompanied by a low sound that escaped his throat, something sounding barely human, the new blood quickly making its way through the button-down shirt and dark sweater he wore. He tried to speak, to say ‘No’ and avoid the pain and the familiar, unidentified voice, but his tongue stuck in his gummy mouth, preventing words from forming.
Every move awoke renewed pain, and another sound pushed its way from his lungs. He tried to peel his eyes open to see who was abusing him this time, but his eyelids seemed heavier than they had any right to be, and when he finally did manage to open them for a split second, the world was blurry and too bright.
At the sudden sound of agony, Sherlock immediately disengaged white fingers chapped red from John’s body, replacing him on his stomach. An adrenaline surge that Sherlock equated with anger abruptly honed his senses into unnatural speed, and Sherlock took in new details, injuries that somehow existed under undamaged clothing, a thread on the cuff of his trousers unique to the flat carpeting that should have been dislodged if he’d gone a great distance. Sherlock slid one knee back, propped up his weight, and dug his mobile out of one deep coat pocket. He dialed 999 and ordered the operator to send an ambulance to 221B Baker Street, and then he casually tossed the phone aside, operator still asking pointless questions.
Sherlock rose to the soles of his feet, the kitchen floor cold against the bottom of his toes. He started hauling drawers open to find a pair of kitchen scissors. “Where are my things, John?” he wasn’t really asking, he was talking out loud, the way he always did. “Oh, Sherlock, they’re in storage, just when you need them...” He found a pair of red-handled scissors and dropped back down to John’s side. He started cutting the material away from the center of his back, wary of more injuries and turning colder and whiter as the damage to the vulnerable flesh there became more and more evident.
John tried to follow the flow of conversation, the voice still familiar but unidentified, and his mind began to match it up with the man at the party, who had continued to whisper things to him even as he’d worked. The connection was solidified when he felt the cooler air of the flat against his back, the fabric of his shirt peeled away from the skin, sticky and heavy and wet. His body felt heavy, disconnected from his mind, but he fought for the strength to gather his arms under himself. He was a soldier, he had to fight, he couldn’t just give up. But no matter how much he focused, he couldn’t move himself more than a few inches, and he closed his eyes, breathing shallow and quick.
Please God, let me live.
No verbal reassurances from Sherlock. It simply didn't occur to him that his voice would do a bloody bit of good, and if he spoke it was only because he couldn't hear himself. John was semi-conscious, which was a good sign, and now with the sweater flayed open like a cadaver, Sherlock could see the source of the bleeding. There didn't appear to be a head injury, but if there was, he wouldn't have been able to do anything about it anyway. He determined the tool used to make the many, many cuts, both deep and shallow. He wondered what could have kept John down long enough to make them. Too much blood and too early to see bruises, but the bite marks were interesting. He'd need a cleaner wound to measure and theorize male or female. Deep, about the same time as the cuts, implied a very intimate assault, possibly sexual. Statistically, sexual assault made a male assailant more likely. Who? Why? Sherlock pulled a tea towel from the sink and pressed it against the largest, deepest cuts. Where was that damned ambulance? "John, who did this?"
The pressure on his back made the world go grey for a bit, taking along with it consciousness and the ability to move. When the world came rushing back again, the pressure and pain, so reminiscent of what had held him down, made his thready heartrate spike and breathing go even quicker. His body was caught fighting his mind, and he finally, finally managed to form a plea for help, the whisper jagged and barely sounding like his own voice. “...Sherlock. ...Help.”
Sirens had finally stopped on the street outside, and any further words were drowned out by the tramp of official feet on the stairs to the flat, coming through both doors that had helpfully been left open. They barely paused when entering, taking just enough time to survey the situation (which was still longer than Sherlock had needed), and rushed into the kitchen, pushing Sherlock aside to get to John. All manner of medical protocols were started, questions asked, and while the foreign touches to his skin still made his heart race and skip, John recognized the sounds of medicine and of help, and he allowed himself to stop fighting to get away, instead slipping back into the shocky grey fog that had held him before.