Johnlock Oneshots

7 - A Study in Scarlet

The heart is never safe, not even for a high-functioning sociopath.

Warnings: Character death, descriptions of blood and mutilation, mention of drugs- stay safe and don't read if it will affect you my dudes

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All that was left of the blood that once flowed thick and warm in his veins was now splattered over his calloused fingers, once desperately trying to seal the wound but now drawn low in defeat. Scarlet tinted his vision, his clothes, the floor, the cold skin, the lifeless eyes, the fallen soldier. Patches of brown were permanently stained into his newly bought jumper, removable but never in the mind that twisted and writhed in the agony no man nor woman could contain.

Many described death as peaceful, a passing from one end to another beginning, a life cycle that can't be stopped or controlled or even predicted, however those who knew different walked with the weight on their shoulders that they were different. They knew what others refused to accept. Death wasn't peaceful, not for those whose life was stolen in a fallen heartbeat, crushed by the power of time combined with nature. Death stole from the virtuous and the poor, the guilty and the saviours. It didn't care what it left behind as long as the deed was done and the life that once shone radiantly with health and fortune was lost.

John was a soldier. A soldier who fought for the freedom of his country and his name, fought for their sons and daughters who he would never meet but never had to. He risked his own health and fortune for the idea of a what if, the idea of a better life for the blank faces that opened him doors or carried his shopping when his shoulder failed him. Sherlock was usually the blank face, but not in the way others were. Emotions were a weakness, hope was for the hopeless and sentimentality was a gun to his head, but John was the bullet. John was warm hands and soft voices and lights twinkling in the sky at night, eruptions of gold and silver on a diamond plate or leaves crinkling beneath your feet. He was everything that ever was and nothing at all at the same time.

Sherlock was nothing now, not that he was ever a something to begin with. John made him something, made him the man Mother's scolded their children to be and hopeless souls ran to for help. A man with a brain which would cure the universe but could not cure himself, no matter how many drugs he pumped into his veins or how many times he shut out the world. The drugs didn't make him numb, they made him more aware of his own mentality and overall weakness in the grand scheme of his existence, but he longed for them now to just shut out the real world for just one moment.

John was the world and all that was in it. But no more.

To Sherlock blood was no more interesting than any other experiment or mess that needed cleaning. It speckled on his dressing gown when his petri dish came to life, it dusted his sterile gloved fingertips when his cases did not. Every time he was in it's presence he neither noticed nor cared for its smell, it was so ubiquitous and to him no more significant than the smell of the car fumes down the hectic streets or the undertone of tea that was ever-present. However this time was different, the metallic scent was in his mouth and on his clothes and polluting his mind, it was not where it should be and far from doing its job.

Instead it seeped through the cracks of the pavement and lined the patterns of his hands, like a scarlet map pointing him towards the unavoidable scene lay before him. Broken skin, shattered bones, open and exposed for any prying eyes or looting hands to explore. A mouth still frozen in fear, eyes glassy with what once would have been tears, hands lay bruised and bent on the cobble from countless acts of defiance and useless self defence, a last stand against what was now the inevitable. Time seemed frozen yet it never truly was, despite being only a concept it still seemed to tease with its nonexistent fingers and twirled the clock hands round when it didn't even matter. The blood was cold and drying, the outside world still bustling as if there wasn't a body lying just out of sight and a detective slumped on the wall, heart pounding and shoulders heaving and throat seizing up.