gayalondiel_bak | Fic: TGIO 3.2: Two gunshots

thegameison_sh Cycle Three, Challenge Two
Joint third :D

Title: Two Gunshots
Character/Pairing: Sherlock and John, or Sherlock/John if you like
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character death

Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only.

Prompt: Change one thing from canon
Beta:

moony (Who doesn’t like deathfic, so I feel very guilty. There may be apology porn.)

Two shots echoed through the museum. Not nearby, not in the shadows Sherlock had been ducking through trying to track his target, but from the direction of Soo Lin’s hiding place. Where he had left her, John by her side.

Two gunshots.

An unfamiliar and intense chill of fear filled him and he sprinted towards the sounds. On the edge of his vision a dark figure vanished through a window; later he would be surprised to realise that he had completely ignored it. He rounded the corner and saw two bodies collapsed together on the floor, oily fluid pooled around them and spreading. One was panting harsh, pained breaths. The other was silent and still.

Disregarding all thoughts of preserving evidence, Sherlock dropped to his knees in the pool of blood and pulled the breathing form into his arms. It gave a low moan and panted harder. One arm moved to clutch convulsively at the gaping wound in the side of its torso, from which more blood was pulsing in torrents.

“John?” he whispered, desperate. He cradled him with one arm across his lap, and pressed his other hand over John’s, trying in vain to stem the flow. John rolled his head back and their eyes met.

“Soo Lin?” John’s voice was weak. He coughed, and blood flecked his lips. Sherlock looked over at her still form. Her eyes were open and dull. Lifeless.

“She’s dead,” he said.

John’s eyes flickered and he moaned again. Sherlock recalled how he had found them, realised John must have interposed himself between her and the first bullet.

“Not your fault, John,” he said. “Hold on now. Hold on.” Shifting so he could support John against his knees, he tugged his phone from his pocket and dialled in the security code, but his thumb shook and hit the wrong keys. John raised a hand, halting him. He was waving a book at Sherlock, his arm shaking uncontrollably. Sherlock snatched the book from him without looking at it.

“Why...?” he asked, confused.

“The key.” John’s breath was coming faster and more shallow now. “It’s the key. The code.” His eyes drifted closed.

“It doesn’t matter!” Sherlock could hear the frantic tone in his own voice. He dropped the book to the floor and returned to the phone, getting the code right this time. John was fading. “It’ll wait. Hold on, I’m calling an ambulance, you’re going to be fine, just hang on. Look at me. John. John! Look at me!”

John’s eyes fluttered open again and met his. He smiled weakly.

“It’s been fun,” he said.

Sherlock blanched. “Don’t you dare...”

“I wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Hold on, damn it!”

“...being useful again.”

“John...”

And now it was his own voice that was weak, broken. John’s head lolled back, his eyes closed once more. His tongue drifted across his lower lip and smeared the scarlet blood across his paling skin.

“Sherlock,” he breathed, and was still.

Sherlock held his own breath waiting for John to inhale, frozen in disbelief for what seemed like hours. John did not move.

Finally, numbly, Sherlock raised his phone. Somehow he managed to unlock the screen again and dial Lestrade’s direct line. Not Dimmock. John liked Lestrade.

Had liked him.

Numbly he explained: murder, two bodies in the basement of the museum. He requested a forensics team. Lestrade was asking questions and he ignored him, hanging up just as he heard him ask to speak to John instead.

And then there was nothing left but to wait. Wait, clinging to John, like he could somehow impart life to him by sheer force of will. Like he could somehow stop him from slipping away, even though he was already gone.

And there, alone in the dark, Sherlock was finally free to whisper words he had never dared say, which his friend would now never hear.

Fic: TGIO 3.2: Two gunshots

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