Redbeard

AN: John was shot, while on a case. It's not looking good.

As the ambulances pulled away, from the scene, sirens wailing, Sherlock could feel his world coming crashing down around his ears. John. John. His John, his rock, was dying. He was going. Sherlock would never see him again. Ever. He wasn't ever going to speak to him again. He could never tell him what he wanted to, what he'd been meaning to for so long, what he'd been dying to tell him ever since he realised, that night, so long ago. His John. Dying. Dead.
When they finally reached the hospital John was wheeled away, by grim looking doctors with masks and long, blue cloaks, like death himself. The nurse came and took Sherlock, babbling about waiting rooms and shock and tea. He couldn't hear her. A terrible rushing had filled his head, like when you stick your head under the tap and the water is hitting you hard, filling your eyes and nose and ears and mouth. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. He couldn't feel anything.

He was in a soft, warm bed, covered in a white, clean sheet, in a room he hadn't been in for 17 years. He slipped out of the bed as sunlight streamed in through a window, and he pulled back the curtains, looking out on green, rolling hills, dotted with tiny white sheep. He turned back to the room, and saw a dog, a beautiful red setter he hadn't seen since he was 11, but still remembered as clear as day. There wasn't a day that went past without him seeing some random dog in the street, and feeling that familiar, aching pang. He dropped to his knees and the dog came running, claws skittering on the hard wooden floor, tail wagging.

He was running through the fields with Redbeard, throwing sticks and pebbles for the dog to catch, splashing in streams, climbing trees. He was running, jumping, playing, laughing until his ribs ached. He climbed the steep hill, and together they sat, boy and dog, looking down upon the bright downs, beautiful, and very much alive. The evening drew, the grew cool, and shadows lengthened. The two young souls left their perch, and flew down the hills like eagles from their eyrie.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge van came roaring in like a big, black dragon, a smell of petrol, a squeal of rubber, a horrible, final, crunch, of flesh, and bone.

Redbeard, broken, eyes misted and tail limp, lay on the vets table as a needle was put in him, injecting his blood stream with a fatal dose.

It rained, that day, on the way back from the vets. It didn't stop raining when they buried him, under the tree, in a hole which filled with muddy water. It pitter-pattered hatefully for days on end, until he had no more tears to cry, no more pain to feel. It hurt so much. So, so much. He decided that week, that he couldn't ever feel like that again. He couldn't. So, he distanced himself. Didn't invest emotionally in anything, anything at all, preventing anything like this from ever happening again. That was the week he started training himself not to feel.
It worked, too. For years after that, he lived alone, and safe. Protected by his aloneness. Free from feelings, and other hurtful things.

And then John had come. Wonderful, caring, dangerous John. He had burst into his life like a shoot coming up through the frosty ground, bright, and beautiful, and so, so fragile. He couldn't feel. It was dangerous, even letting him into his life, even more dangerous feeling these things, and incredibly dangerous to invest any emotion in the man whatsoever. Unfortunately for his heart, it had never cared about danger. It lived off the stuff. And he had thought, for a brief, perfect moment, that he could keep John safe.
But he was wrong. He had failed. He had failed himself, and he had failed John, just as he has failed Redbeard, and both were dead. Both were dead, and gone, and never, ever coming back. And it was his fault. All his fault.