Watch Over You
Title: Watch Over You
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Rating: T
Characters/Pairing: Gen, but there's some Johnlock if you squint
Summary: Short snippet I wrote pre-S2 and then promptly forgot about. In the moments before Sherlock enters the pool, John thinks.
Irresponsible. That's what it was. Irresponsible and pitiful and weak. And later, (if there even is a later) in the darkest moments of John's nights, the ones that are filled with blood and gore and gunshots, he knows that he will look back on this moment and realize that Sherlock is right;
There are no heroes.
None at all.
John had hoped to be a hero, once. But those dreams were shattered like silence by the screams of his comrades. Like bone by the bullets of an AK-47. And Sherlock-
God, Sherlock-
Who's going to take care of him?
John had tried, really he had, from the moment he met the bloody nuisance right up to this, and clearly he's done a shite job if this is where it ends.
And this, God this. The fucking pool, Moriarty and his mad schemes, whispering to John, crooning in his ear while he adjusts the parka until it sits just so on John's shoulders. "You're going to be the best sort of surprise, Johnny-boy." and, lips just brushing the doctor's ear, "People do so love their pets."
And John knows that he's going to die. He'd been fairly certain, before. In the back of the unmarked van, with the drugs still clouding his mind. But there'd been a chance. There had still been hope that John was like all of the others. That Sherlock would solve the puzzle and they would go home together and laugh about another near-miss and everything would be okay.
But he knows that isn't the case now. Has done since the moment Moriarty touched him.
John wants to apologize, wants to make certain that Sherlock knows how sorry he is. He wants to scream for Sherlock not to come, that it's different this time. That it's personal. That he should just leave John and damn the consequences. Because the loss of John Watson is just a loss, and the loss of Sherlock Holmes is a tragedy.
He remains silent only because he knows that Sherlock, wherever he is, cannot hear him, and he'll be damned before he wastes something so heartfelt with no-one but Moriarty to hear.
There's a banging coming from somewhere, and he knows, fucking knows that it's Sherlock, even though he can't hear his voice, not ye-
"Go on out there, Johnny-boy. Time to shine."