Not Even Half Time by Lantean_Drift
Title: Not Even Half Time
Author: lantean_drift
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: Oh my god, I suppose technically this is pre-slash. Um, sorry.
Word count: 3000 words
Summary: Set straight after the fade-to-black at the end of The Great Game. Yeah, I couldn’t resist either.
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to the BBC...unfortunately.
God, they were blind. Blind deaf and dumb to everything around them. All of them. How did they even stay awake through such astounding levels of ignorance, surely they were just sleeping anyway? Sleep on, dream on, life is but a dream.
Not this one though. This one could see. This one had lifted his head, sniffed the air and had all of Sherlock’s attention. Moriarty. He was dangerous, Sherlock knew that, could see that, but by God, he was interesting. He looked over at him, looked at those eyes; there was something in those eyes for which insanity was the only explanation.
The phone in Sherlock’s pocket beeped; a text message, he ignored it. There were far too many laser sight spots dancing on his chest and head to worry about text messages right now. Sherlock thought about the things he should be concerned with at this precise moment and was momentarily confused by the fact that he was quite overwhelmed with worry for John. Brilliant John who was clearly not a genius but was brilliant all the same - and bright, he’d brought light into Sherlock’s world when it was so very dark, and now it seemed their lights were about to be extinguished for good.
His pocket beeped again and Sherlock rolled his eyes. It was probably Mycroft needing him to urgently solve the case of his missing tea kettle. Easy, it’s in a box in his wardrobe - Sherlock always liked to hide Mycroft’s possessions when he got really annoying, and unfortunately he’s never grown out of it. Or perhaps it was Molly at the lab asking something inane and pointless that she’d agonised over for hours before sending. Or Lestrade had finally caught up and was letting him know...of course. Lestrade.
“Someone wants you,” Moriarty said, his eyes alight with something truly terrifying.
“I’m a little busy at the moment,” Sherlock replied, the gun in his hand still steadily trained on the explosives on the floor. He allowed his eyes to slide to John, he was still crouched on the floor, leaning back against the cubicle, almost slumped in perceived defeat and still pinned by the dizzying red dots. Sherlock held his free hand out to him and John gave him a tight grin and grasped it, letting Sherlock pull him away from the wall and onto his feet properly. He was standing so close that Sherlock could tell John thought they were dead men already, just by the way he held his shoulders. He had so little faith. Sherlock absolutely refused to be labelled as dead until his heart had ceased to beat in his chest - and even then he’d argue it given half a chance. Even in death one can leave a lasting - no, that isn’t the point. He had to focus on the situation, they were not dead yet, after all. He turned his head slightly towards John, their faces close enough to touch.
“Ahh, that’s so sweet. I may cry,” Moriarty mocked them.
“Get to the door, John. Be ready,” he murmured quietly, John’s proximity a blessing.
“No,” John said, just as quietly. Moriarty was watching them with a look of patient amusement.
“No? Don’t be stupid, I have a plan. Get to the door on my mark,” Sherlock hissed.
“Is he telling you to run, John? Is he trying to convince you that he has an idea to save both your lives. He doesn’t. Those snipers that have their rifles trained on your chest will shoot at the slightest nod from me, perhaps our friend Sherlock, here, hopes that I’ll let you run because it’s him I’m truly after and then he can just blow us both up and be done - ”
“He’s no friend of yours and you’re no friend of his,” John interrupted him.
“John,” Sherlock said quietly, trying to warn him not to engage Moriarty’s attention any more than he had to.
“No, Sherlock, no. He’s no friend of yours,” John insisted. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
“Maybe you should run, Johnny Boy,” Moriarty called out. “Maybe I will let you leave. Yes, go on, go now.”
Moriarty’s grin widened grotesquely and Sherlock felt an overwhelming urge to punch him in the face. He closed his eyes and cursed soundly. John was never going to be emotionally calm enough to listen to him now, especially if he thought Moriarty was right and that was what Sherlock was planning - which it wasn’t, thank you very much , but an angry and wrong John Watson was not a logical thing.
“Get to the door, we’re both going,” he whispered.
“Are you lying to me?” John asked bluntly.
Sherlock looked at him. John was solid, he made a strangely calm target underneath the threatening red spots and he wasn’t shaking in the slightest.
“No.”
“Okay,” John said, taking a single step to ease the distance between them. Sherlock’s phone beeped a third time but John was more important right now and anyway, it’d be good for the British Constabulary to learn a little patience.
“But if you’re not on my heels the second I start running, I’m turning around.” John said as he took another step towards the door, and a then a third.
“I will be.”
“I’m serious, Sherlock. I’ll be straight back and the last thing you’ll ever see will be me cursing you into next week for being an idiot.”
“I’m never an idiot.”
“Prove it,” John challenged and stopped near the door. It was enough, enough distance that they could run without falling over each other, which was all they needed.
“I will. Well,” he said loudly, turning his full attention back to Moriarty and dropping his gun-hand back to his side. “This has been very interesting but it really is time we left.”
“You’re not going anywhere, boyo. Neither of you.”
“I’m afraid we are but I’ve no doubt we’ll meet again, Jim - if only when I catch you and hand you to the ‘Yard.”
“Don’t make me shoot you, Sherlock, it’s such a dull way of doing things.”
“Run,” Sherlock shouted and immediately followed his own directive. John, to his credit is already moving out of the door but he did slow down to look back over his shoulder at Sherlock.
“Why aren’t we dead? Why were no shots even fired?”
“Keep moving, he’ll have a remote detonator for that thing and once he’s clear he’ll set it off regardless of whether he believes we’ve escaped the building or not. We’re also at a distinct disadvantage; he’s much closer to an emergency exit at that end of the pool. Go. Out.”
As they reached the end of the corridor he pushed John out of the door ahead of him and they burst out onto the empty car park. The road at the far end was littered with police cars and vans, all washed in flashing blue lights and the white glare of headlights. There was a line of officers clutching riot shields to form a hastily assembled barricade and Sherlock and John were running for them full tilt when the building went up behind them. Sherlock felt like he was still running when his feet were taken out from under him, he was lifted and flung forward, knocked towards the concrete. Lightning fast intelligence and reflexes allowed him to protect his head and tense into a roll the moment before he hit the ground. It knocked all the air from his lungs and jarred his back and ribs painfully. When he finally came to a stop he was face up on the concrete and he couldn’t breathe. It felt like some great weight was sitting on his chest, stopping him from sucking in a much needed breath. His head lolled desperately to the side and he saw John quickly roll up onto his hands and knees and start crawling towards him.
He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t, it was like his windpipe had become solid and wouldn’t take any air down to his lungs, he arched his back, desperate to find a position that would get his chest moving again but nothing was working and he couldn’t pissing breathe.
Then there were hands on him and he was pushed flat on his back again and John pressed down sharp and hard just below his sternum and suddenly Sherlock gasped a great lungful of air, raw and rough and full of sweet bloody oxygen. He took another and another and coughed roughly.
“Easy, easy, Sherlock. Try and regulate your breaths a little more each time, nice and even. Easy.” John was talking nonsense, of course, but his hand was pushing the hair away from Sherlock’s eyes and his words and touch were most welcome.
“Get me some oxygen over here,” John shouted at the police line. “You’re okay, nice and steady, I’ve got you.”
Sherlock mused that he really did, didn’t he. Then rolled onto his side to cough some more. John let him and rubbed his back gently.
“You shouldn’t tense up in a blast, genius. You should have gone with it, let it carry you.”
“Will know better next time,” Sherlock said. He’d take the advice, John clearly had far more experience with being blown up than he did.
“Injured?” Sherlock managed to ask him between laboured breaths.
“You’ll be fine - some spectacularly bruised ribs, I’d imagine, and a few cuts and scratches but you just got the air knocked out of you.”
John’s hand moved away from his back and Sherlock silently mourned the loss until it reappeared in his hair, cupping the back of his head, fingertips sliding against his scalp.
“I meant you, you idiot,” Sherlock clarified, his breathing still painful but blessedly more regular with every second.
John smiled a genuine smile down at him and Sherlock, on a whim, pushed his head back against the warm hand.
“I’m fine. I landed on my shoulder and it hurts like hell but no real damage done. Ah, here they come. Can you sit?”
John helped him up into a sitting position as the paramedics ran towards them with their kits.
“I need oxygen and a - ”
“Sir, just let us do our job,” the big guy said firmly, and physically moved John out of their way.
“Careful,” Sherlock snapped, unable to stop himself. “He’s just been caught in a bomb blast, he doesn’t need manhandling.”
“It’s fine,” John reassured them, as he was gently pushed into sitting down next to Sherlock on the floor. “It’s fine, Sherlock,” he said just for him as they allowed the paramedics to push and prod them.
“It’s really not,” was all Sherlock managed to say before the female paramedic pushed an oxygen mask over his face and snapped the elastic around his head.
~*~
He had a bloody blanket around his shoulders again and John was hovering by his knee, fiddling with the oxygen canister the paramedics had allowed him to hold on to for Sherlock’s use. Both of them had refused point blank to go to the hospital for an overnight stay, claiming that John’s medical expertise would be sufficient enough to ensure they’d both survive the night. Now they were sitting between the open doors at the back of one of the riot vans waiting for Lestrade, who had ordered them not to leave the scene until he’d spoken to the pair of them, and Sherlock had decided to indulge him just this once. Well, Sherlock was sitting anyway, John was standing in front of him, scanning around them constantly, like he believed Moriarty was still here somewhere, watching from the side lines perhaps - or hidden under one of those flat police hats, getting himself in on the investigation. Sherlock himself was relatively certain that he was long gone by now...for now.
“I still don’t understand why there were no shots fired when we ran,” John said suddenly. “All those snipers, we should have been down before we took a step. Was it a bluff? Moriarty doesn’t seem the sort to bluff like that.”
“You’re right, he isn’t,” Sherlock reached into his pocket and handed his phone to John. The screen had a crack across it but it was still working. John looked at him, brow arched, waiting for more information.
“Look at the messages I received while we were by the pool.”
John accessed the messages and opened the earliest one first.
SNIPERS = NOW US
GET OUT
Sent: Lestrade
@ 21:19
John looked at him. “It was Lestrade and his men?”
“That first sniper that had his rifle trained on you, his hand was steady, very steady, he’d have done a great deal of damage had Moriarty given him the signal to fire - likewise the one that drew a target on me. Out of the subsequent snipers that had us trained in their sights, no two had a hand that steady - how reassuring then that they were members of our police force?” Sherlock said, enjoying the sarcasm. “It stood to reason that if the original snipers were no longer part of the group then the group had changed.”
John flicked to the next message.
BLOODY GET OUT. NOW.
Sent: Lestrade
@ 21:22
“I called Lestrade before I left and told him that I planned to draw Moriarty out,” Sherlock confessed.
“You didn’t think this was something I should know about?” John asked, his face pinched with annoyance.
“It was likely to be dangerous,” Sherlock shrugged.
“We’ve only known each other a short while, I understand that, but have you once seen me shy away from danger?” John asked, clearly angry now.
“No. And therein lay the problem.”
John breathed out a frustrated sigh and Sherlock hanged his head to look closely at his fingers for a moment.
“That stops right now,” John said into the silence. “Either you include me completely or I leave now - I won’t - I can’t - you don’t get to shelter me, Sherlock. You don’t get to walk into danger alone anymore. End of. Accept that - and promise me right now that you do, or lose your on-call medical expert.”
“John - ”
“No. Promise me, right now.”
“You’re a stubborn bastard,” Sherlock said, betrayed by the affection in his own voice.
John just grinned at him.
“Agreed,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I said so, didn’t I? I didn’t say ‘agreed’ thinking it meant ‘I’d like a cup of tea.’ Although, a cup of tea would be fantastic right now.”
“Want me to see if Donovan’s around, we could ask her for a cuppa and watch her explode with indignation?” John suggested.
Sherlock surprised himself with a laugh. “Oh, that’d be a treat but she’d probably seriously injure you and we’ve done well to survive this evening relatively unscathed.”
“True. Do you want any more of this, by the way?” John was still holding the oxygen mask. Sherlock shook his head and let John lean easily against him to slide it into the back of the van. As John went to straighten up Sherlock grabbed his uninjured shoulder on impulse and squeezed it beneath his fingers. John looked at him carefully, quietly. Then he gently returned the gesture and nodded, he understood. They had been lucky tonight.
“Will you two get a room, half the bloody force is out here tonight, anyone could see you,” Lestrade said brusquely as he appeared around the side of the van.
“You do know we could legally marry now?” Sherlock asked snidely, just as John was doing his usual job of denying everything.
“We weren’t - we’re not - Sherlock!”
Lestrade just shook his head at the pair of them and looked for all the world like he badly needed a smoke.
John finished glaring daggers at Sherlock and thanked Lestrade for his part saving them that evening.
“Well,” Lestrade explained. “We moved into position just after Sherlock went in. When James Moriarty came out the first time and made no move to call his lads off we realised he wasn’t quite done. I gave the signal and our lot moved in, took out his snipers and took their place until we knew the extent of what he had planned. They had radios that he used to signal them just before he went back in. We played along, trained our sights on you the way he was obviously expecting, then when you boys ran, so did we. Game over.”
“It’s not even half time,” Sherlock snapped. “We’ll see more of him. Much more, I’m afraid.”
“Great,” Lestrade sighed. “I’ll look forward to it. What a bloody night, eh?”
“No one hurt?” John asked.
“None any worse than Sherlock anyway. Couple of the men we took into custody have bumps on the back of their heads but I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he sniffed and shrugged casually, as if taking down a number of highly talented snipers was all in a night’s work. Sherlock suddenly felt surprisingly weary.
“Can we go now, Lestrade? I need to get home and add this blanket to my collection.”
“I suppose so. Go on, get out of here. And good work tonight, both of you.”
“He got away,” Sherlock reminded him darkly.
“Yes, but I dare say he won’t escape you for long. Now, try and get some rest before you go haring around London scaring my officers again, will you?”
“Certainly,” Sherlock agreed. “Back to Baker Street, John?”
“God yes.”
He moved into Sherlock’s space as soon as he stood and pressed closely against him like he was scared Sherlock might fall if he didn’t. John’s hand was warm and reassuring against his back and he knew he should mind, but he really didn’t.
“One thing?” John broke the easy silence as they limped towards the main road to find a taxi.
“Hmm?”
“You didn’t read the text messages,” he pointed out.
“Ah. No. But it was obvious what they were,” Sherlock sniffed.
“No it wasn’t,” John argued.
“No, it wasn’t” he agreed. “But it was a good guess. What did the last one say, by the way?”
John still had Sherlock’s phone and he found the message, laughing at it briefly before he held it out for Sherlock to see.
DID YOU HIDE MY KETTLE, SHERLOCK?
Sent: Mycroft
@ 21:27
.xx.
Author: lantean_drift
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: Oh my god, I suppose technically this is pre-slash. Um, sorry.
Word count: 3000 words
Summary: Set straight after the fade-to-black at the end of The Great Game. Yeah, I couldn’t resist either.
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to the BBC...unfortunately.
God, they were blind. Blind deaf and dumb to everything around them. All of them. How did they even stay awake through such astounding levels of ignorance, surely they were just sleeping anyway? Sleep on, dream on, life is but a dream.
Not this one though. This one could see. This one had lifted his head, sniffed the air and had all of Sherlock’s attention. Moriarty. He was dangerous, Sherlock knew that, could see that, but by God, he was interesting. He looked over at him, looked at those eyes; there was something in those eyes for which insanity was the only explanation.
The phone in Sherlock’s pocket beeped; a text message, he ignored it. There were far too many laser sight spots dancing on his chest and head to worry about text messages right now. Sherlock thought about the things he should be concerned with at this precise moment and was momentarily confused by the fact that he was quite overwhelmed with worry for John. Brilliant John who was clearly not a genius but was brilliant all the same - and bright, he’d brought light into Sherlock’s world when it was so very dark, and now it seemed their lights were about to be extinguished for good.
His pocket beeped again and Sherlock rolled his eyes. It was probably Mycroft needing him to urgently solve the case of his missing tea kettle. Easy, it’s in a box in his wardrobe - Sherlock always liked to hide Mycroft’s possessions when he got really annoying, and unfortunately he’s never grown out of it. Or perhaps it was Molly at the lab asking something inane and pointless that she’d agonised over for hours before sending. Or Lestrade had finally caught up and was letting him know...of course. Lestrade.
“Someone wants you,” Moriarty said, his eyes alight with something truly terrifying.
“I’m a little busy at the moment,” Sherlock replied, the gun in his hand still steadily trained on the explosives on the floor. He allowed his eyes to slide to John, he was still crouched on the floor, leaning back against the cubicle, almost slumped in perceived defeat and still pinned by the dizzying red dots. Sherlock held his free hand out to him and John gave him a tight grin and grasped it, letting Sherlock pull him away from the wall and onto his feet properly. He was standing so close that Sherlock could tell John thought they were dead men already, just by the way he held his shoulders. He had so little faith. Sherlock absolutely refused to be labelled as dead until his heart had ceased to beat in his chest - and even then he’d argue it given half a chance. Even in death one can leave a lasting - no, that isn’t the point. He had to focus on the situation, they were not dead yet, after all. He turned his head slightly towards John, their faces close enough to touch.
“Ahh, that’s so sweet. I may cry,” Moriarty mocked them.
“Get to the door, John. Be ready,” he murmured quietly, John’s proximity a blessing.
“No,” John said, just as quietly. Moriarty was watching them with a look of patient amusement.
“No? Don’t be stupid, I have a plan. Get to the door on my mark,” Sherlock hissed.
“Is he telling you to run, John? Is he trying to convince you that he has an idea to save both your lives. He doesn’t. Those snipers that have their rifles trained on your chest will shoot at the slightest nod from me, perhaps our friend Sherlock, here, hopes that I’ll let you run because it’s him I’m truly after and then he can just blow us both up and be done - ”
“He’s no friend of yours and you’re no friend of his,” John interrupted him.
“John,” Sherlock said quietly, trying to warn him not to engage Moriarty’s attention any more than he had to.
“No, Sherlock, no. He’s no friend of yours,” John insisted. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
“Maybe you should run, Johnny Boy,” Moriarty called out. “Maybe I will let you leave. Yes, go on, go now.”
Moriarty’s grin widened grotesquely and Sherlock felt an overwhelming urge to punch him in the face. He closed his eyes and cursed soundly. John was never going to be emotionally calm enough to listen to him now, especially if he thought Moriarty was right and that was what Sherlock was planning - which it wasn’t, thank you very much , but an angry and wrong John Watson was not a logical thing.
“Get to the door, we’re both going,” he whispered.
“Are you lying to me?” John asked bluntly.
Sherlock looked at him. John was solid, he made a strangely calm target underneath the threatening red spots and he wasn’t shaking in the slightest.
“No.”
“Okay,” John said, taking a single step to ease the distance between them. Sherlock’s phone beeped a third time but John was more important right now and anyway, it’d be good for the British Constabulary to learn a little patience.
“But if you’re not on my heels the second I start running, I’m turning around.” John said as he took another step towards the door, and a then a third.
“I will be.”
“I’m serious, Sherlock. I’ll be straight back and the last thing you’ll ever see will be me cursing you into next week for being an idiot.”
“I’m never an idiot.”
“Prove it,” John challenged and stopped near the door. It was enough, enough distance that they could run without falling over each other, which was all they needed.
“I will. Well,” he said loudly, turning his full attention back to Moriarty and dropping his gun-hand back to his side. “This has been very interesting but it really is time we left.”
“You’re not going anywhere, boyo. Neither of you.”
“I’m afraid we are but I’ve no doubt we’ll meet again, Jim - if only when I catch you and hand you to the ‘Yard.”
“Don’t make me shoot you, Sherlock, it’s such a dull way of doing things.”
“Run,” Sherlock shouted and immediately followed his own directive. John, to his credit is already moving out of the door but he did slow down to look back over his shoulder at Sherlock.
“Why aren’t we dead? Why were no shots even fired?”
“Keep moving, he’ll have a remote detonator for that thing and once he’s clear he’ll set it off regardless of whether he believes we’ve escaped the building or not. We’re also at a distinct disadvantage; he’s much closer to an emergency exit at that end of the pool. Go. Out.”
As they reached the end of the corridor he pushed John out of the door ahead of him and they burst out onto the empty car park. The road at the far end was littered with police cars and vans, all washed in flashing blue lights and the white glare of headlights. There was a line of officers clutching riot shields to form a hastily assembled barricade and Sherlock and John were running for them full tilt when the building went up behind them. Sherlock felt like he was still running when his feet were taken out from under him, he was lifted and flung forward, knocked towards the concrete. Lightning fast intelligence and reflexes allowed him to protect his head and tense into a roll the moment before he hit the ground. It knocked all the air from his lungs and jarred his back and ribs painfully. When he finally came to a stop he was face up on the concrete and he couldn’t breathe. It felt like some great weight was sitting on his chest, stopping him from sucking in a much needed breath. His head lolled desperately to the side and he saw John quickly roll up onto his hands and knees and start crawling towards him.
He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t, it was like his windpipe had become solid and wouldn’t take any air down to his lungs, he arched his back, desperate to find a position that would get his chest moving again but nothing was working and he couldn’t pissing breathe.
Then there were hands on him and he was pushed flat on his back again and John pressed down sharp and hard just below his sternum and suddenly Sherlock gasped a great lungful of air, raw and rough and full of sweet bloody oxygen. He took another and another and coughed roughly.
“Easy, easy, Sherlock. Try and regulate your breaths a little more each time, nice and even. Easy.” John was talking nonsense, of course, but his hand was pushing the hair away from Sherlock’s eyes and his words and touch were most welcome.
“Get me some oxygen over here,” John shouted at the police line. “You’re okay, nice and steady, I’ve got you.”
Sherlock mused that he really did, didn’t he. Then rolled onto his side to cough some more. John let him and rubbed his back gently.
“You shouldn’t tense up in a blast, genius. You should have gone with it, let it carry you.”
“Will know better next time,” Sherlock said. He’d take the advice, John clearly had far more experience with being blown up than he did.
“Injured?” Sherlock managed to ask him between laboured breaths.
“You’ll be fine - some spectacularly bruised ribs, I’d imagine, and a few cuts and scratches but you just got the air knocked out of you.”
John’s hand moved away from his back and Sherlock silently mourned the loss until it reappeared in his hair, cupping the back of his head, fingertips sliding against his scalp.
“I meant you, you idiot,” Sherlock clarified, his breathing still painful but blessedly more regular with every second.
John smiled a genuine smile down at him and Sherlock, on a whim, pushed his head back against the warm hand.
“I’m fine. I landed on my shoulder and it hurts like hell but no real damage done. Ah, here they come. Can you sit?”
John helped him up into a sitting position as the paramedics ran towards them with their kits.
“I need oxygen and a - ”
“Sir, just let us do our job,” the big guy said firmly, and physically moved John out of their way.
“Careful,” Sherlock snapped, unable to stop himself. “He’s just been caught in a bomb blast, he doesn’t need manhandling.”
“It’s fine,” John reassured them, as he was gently pushed into sitting down next to Sherlock on the floor. “It’s fine, Sherlock,” he said just for him as they allowed the paramedics to push and prod them.
“It’s really not,” was all Sherlock managed to say before the female paramedic pushed an oxygen mask over his face and snapped the elastic around his head.
~*~
He had a bloody blanket around his shoulders again and John was hovering by his knee, fiddling with the oxygen canister the paramedics had allowed him to hold on to for Sherlock’s use. Both of them had refused point blank to go to the hospital for an overnight stay, claiming that John’s medical expertise would be sufficient enough to ensure they’d both survive the night. Now they were sitting between the open doors at the back of one of the riot vans waiting for Lestrade, who had ordered them not to leave the scene until he’d spoken to the pair of them, and Sherlock had decided to indulge him just this once. Well, Sherlock was sitting anyway, John was standing in front of him, scanning around them constantly, like he believed Moriarty was still here somewhere, watching from the side lines perhaps - or hidden under one of those flat police hats, getting himself in on the investigation. Sherlock himself was relatively certain that he was long gone by now...for now.
“I still don’t understand why there were no shots fired when we ran,” John said suddenly. “All those snipers, we should have been down before we took a step. Was it a bluff? Moriarty doesn’t seem the sort to bluff like that.”
“You’re right, he isn’t,” Sherlock reached into his pocket and handed his phone to John. The screen had a crack across it but it was still working. John looked at him, brow arched, waiting for more information.
“Look at the messages I received while we were by the pool.”
John accessed the messages and opened the earliest one first.
SNIPERS = NOW US
GET OUT
Sent: Lestrade
@ 21:19
John looked at him. “It was Lestrade and his men?”
“That first sniper that had his rifle trained on you, his hand was steady, very steady, he’d have done a great deal of damage had Moriarty given him the signal to fire - likewise the one that drew a target on me. Out of the subsequent snipers that had us trained in their sights, no two had a hand that steady - how reassuring then that they were members of our police force?” Sherlock said, enjoying the sarcasm. “It stood to reason that if the original snipers were no longer part of the group then the group had changed.”
John flicked to the next message.
BLOODY GET OUT. NOW.
Sent: Lestrade
@ 21:22
“I called Lestrade before I left and told him that I planned to draw Moriarty out,” Sherlock confessed.
“You didn’t think this was something I should know about?” John asked, his face pinched with annoyance.
“It was likely to be dangerous,” Sherlock shrugged.
“We’ve only known each other a short while, I understand that, but have you once seen me shy away from danger?” John asked, clearly angry now.
“No. And therein lay the problem.”
John breathed out a frustrated sigh and Sherlock hanged his head to look closely at his fingers for a moment.
“That stops right now,” John said into the silence. “Either you include me completely or I leave now - I won’t - I can’t - you don’t get to shelter me, Sherlock. You don’t get to walk into danger alone anymore. End of. Accept that - and promise me right now that you do, or lose your on-call medical expert.”
“John - ”
“No. Promise me, right now.”
“You’re a stubborn bastard,” Sherlock said, betrayed by the affection in his own voice.
John just grinned at him.
“Agreed,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I said so, didn’t I? I didn’t say ‘agreed’ thinking it meant ‘I’d like a cup of tea.’ Although, a cup of tea would be fantastic right now.”
“Want me to see if Donovan’s around, we could ask her for a cuppa and watch her explode with indignation?” John suggested.
Sherlock surprised himself with a laugh. “Oh, that’d be a treat but she’d probably seriously injure you and we’ve done well to survive this evening relatively unscathed.”
“True. Do you want any more of this, by the way?” John was still holding the oxygen mask. Sherlock shook his head and let John lean easily against him to slide it into the back of the van. As John went to straighten up Sherlock grabbed his uninjured shoulder on impulse and squeezed it beneath his fingers. John looked at him carefully, quietly. Then he gently returned the gesture and nodded, he understood. They had been lucky tonight.
“Will you two get a room, half the bloody force is out here tonight, anyone could see you,” Lestrade said brusquely as he appeared around the side of the van.
“You do know we could legally marry now?” Sherlock asked snidely, just as John was doing his usual job of denying everything.
“We weren’t - we’re not - Sherlock!”
Lestrade just shook his head at the pair of them and looked for all the world like he badly needed a smoke.
John finished glaring daggers at Sherlock and thanked Lestrade for his part saving them that evening.
“Well,” Lestrade explained. “We moved into position just after Sherlock went in. When James Moriarty came out the first time and made no move to call his lads off we realised he wasn’t quite done. I gave the signal and our lot moved in, took out his snipers and took their place until we knew the extent of what he had planned. They had radios that he used to signal them just before he went back in. We played along, trained our sights on you the way he was obviously expecting, then when you boys ran, so did we. Game over.”
“It’s not even half time,” Sherlock snapped. “We’ll see more of him. Much more, I’m afraid.”
“Great,” Lestrade sighed. “I’ll look forward to it. What a bloody night, eh?”
“No one hurt?” John asked.
“None any worse than Sherlock anyway. Couple of the men we took into custody have bumps on the back of their heads but I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he sniffed and shrugged casually, as if taking down a number of highly talented snipers was all in a night’s work. Sherlock suddenly felt surprisingly weary.
“Can we go now, Lestrade? I need to get home and add this blanket to my collection.”
“I suppose so. Go on, get out of here. And good work tonight, both of you.”
“He got away,” Sherlock reminded him darkly.
“Yes, but I dare say he won’t escape you for long. Now, try and get some rest before you go haring around London scaring my officers again, will you?”
“Certainly,” Sherlock agreed. “Back to Baker Street, John?”
“God yes.”
He moved into Sherlock’s space as soon as he stood and pressed closely against him like he was scared Sherlock might fall if he didn’t. John’s hand was warm and reassuring against his back and he knew he should mind, but he really didn’t.
“One thing?” John broke the easy silence as they limped towards the main road to find a taxi.
“Hmm?”
“You didn’t read the text messages,” he pointed out.
“Ah. No. But it was obvious what they were,” Sherlock sniffed.
“No it wasn’t,” John argued.
“No, it wasn’t” he agreed. “But it was a good guess. What did the last one say, by the way?”
John still had Sherlock’s phone and he found the message, laughing at it briefly before he held it out for Sherlock to see.
DID YOU HIDE MY KETTLE, SHERLOCK?
Sent: Mycroft
@ 21:27
.xx.