Waking You Up

Wake You Up II

He lunges, before he's even done speaking, so quickly that the hesitation must have been faked. And Sherlock missed it, he missed it, his eyes had been flicking back and forth from the man's face to the knife. Sherlock barely has enough time to know to expect pain from the knife before something slams into him. He crashes to the ground, bruised, but – no stabbing pain. And he's been stabbed before; he knows what it feels like. 

Sherlock twists around to see John and the thief fighting each other, where Sherlock had been standing moments ago. He stands, ready to assist, but John lands a sharp left hook under Henrickson's chin, and the thief goes down. 

"Well done," Sherlock says with a smile. Another criminal caught, although now comes the boring part where they have to wait for the police. The part he'd take out, were his life a movie, and cut directly to them arriving. He hopes they don't take too long. 

John staggers slightly, and Sherlock stops smiling. 

"John?" he asks. 

"He's out," John replies, voice shaking. "Should be for long enough, until they get here, but I'm not sure, I can't-" He takes a few steps towards Sherlock, stumbles on the last one, but Sherlock's there to keep him upright. 

"Thanks," John says, then glances down. "I think I need to lie down, actually." 

Sherlock follows his gaze, and has to stave off panic. The hilt of the thief's knife is sticking out from John's chest, just under his right pectoral, blood leaking sluggishly from the wound, staining John's jumper. The hilt's trapped between John's hands, bunches of John's jumper caught in his fingers as he presses the fabric hard around the knife. 

"He was going to stab me," Sherlock says quietly. 

"Yes, but he didn't, did he?" John replies. "I can't – can you help me down?" 

Sherlock sinks to the ground, slowly, then, when John tries to sit up a bit, shifts to lay John's upper body in his lap. 

"Thanks," John says again, and Sherlock fights the absurd urge to tell him, 'wrong.' Wrong, John was the one who saved him, John should be the one being thanked. 

"You need to go to the hospital," Sherlock says, pulling his phone from his pocket. 

"Yeah," John agrees. "But it's deep, Sherlock, I can feel it, it's – moving stimulates blood flow, I need to stay still, I need to-" He pauses, takes a few shaky breaths. His face has gone white, Sherlock notes. 

Sherlock's fingers fly across his phone's keypad as he texts Lestrade. 

John's been stabbed. Being help. Hurry. SH

Then he drops his phone, unwinds the scarf from his neck, and reaches for the knife. 

"Don't take it out," John warns. "It's too deep, it'll lose blood faster."

Sherlock looks affronted. "I'm not an idiot, John. I do pay attention to you." 

He pries John's fingers out of his jumper, and presses the scarf around the knife, trying hard to ignore that the person the knife is stuck in is John. 

"A little more pressure," John says, covering Sherlock's hands with his own and pressing them harder. "Don't be afraid to hurt me, it's fine."

Fine. That's easy for John to say, John isn't the one applying pressure to a knife in his best friend's chest. 

"What else can I do?" Sherlock asks. 

"Nothing," John says. "You told Lestrade to bring help, right? Then just stay there. It's deep, and I think-" He pauses to take a breath, and it sounds wet and ragged. "Never mind. I'll stay still, keep elevated, keep pressure, it'll-" Another breath. "It'll be fine."

Sherlock forces himself to pay attention to John's hands over his, to ignore the slide of blood – blood, John's blood – to concentrate on applying pressure, not to listen to John's difficulties with breathing. 

"This is my fault," Sherlock murmurs. 

"Probably," John agrees easily. 

Sherlock's startled away from staring at John's wound, and looks at his face. John is smiling at him, though since his lips are pressed together so tightly they've all but disappeared, it's more of a pulling the corners of his mouth in a vaguely upwards direction.