Chapter Text
The floorboards creak through the office carpeting. John opens a door and dust rises in the beam of his torch. Only a thin layer of dust, but no obvious tracks.
Which, hm, that might be one. Bit of a smudge, really. Something pulled across the floor? John turns the corner and eases open the stairwell door. Footsteps and dragging patterns are clearer on the stairs.
Nodding to himself, he fishes out his mobile and texts Sherlock, his torch tucked into his armpit. Found tracks on third floor. Maybe 4 people? Something dragged.
The response is nearly instant: Need moment. Will follow. SH
John pockets his mobile and tracks the marks down the hall. His ears strain for any sound beyond his own motions and the idiosyncrasies of the abandoned building. After the two other buildings tonight, all empty, his mind wants to play tricks on him. No squatters in this building, not yet, and the absence of Sherlock’s homeless network doesn’t reassure.
He sees the open door before he fully registers the sound. It’s a noise he recognises from his home life during secondary school, the sound of a teenage girl crying and trying to be quiet about it.
He mouths a curse and softens his steps. So much for finding the smuggler’s drop-off point. He keeps the torch aimed on the floor. Slowly, he approaches the door. A stink rises as he draws nearer.
“...Dad?” a wavering voice asks.
Oh, Jesus. “Sorry,” John says, keeping on his side of the door frame. “I’m not your dad, but I am a doctor. Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay,” the girl says, an absolute lie. He can hear the tears clinging to those words, ready to drip. A girl, but not a young girl: she sounds like Harry in her teens.
“What’s your name?” John asks. “I’m John.”
She shifts on the other side of the wall, a sound of cloth and muffled whimpering. She’s getting further away from the door. The stink worsens as she stirs the air. Faeces and urine, definitely. Below that, the cloying scent of infection. She’s been left here, but the door isn’t even latched. Psychological control or is she chained to something?
John swallows down a bit of bile and says, “I won’t come in if you don’t want me to. Are you waiting for your dad?”
“They’re coming back,” the girl says. “They have to, they need me.”
“They do,” John agrees, his voice soft against her desperation. Sherlock could play along better than this, but John simply wants to punch a hole in the wall. “Could be they’ve gotten lost. I’m doing a bit of walking in the area, maybe I could find them.”
“...We don’t want strangers.”
“They might need help finding you. What are their names?”
“There’s... there’s my dad. And my mum. Mr Zabrick should be with them, but we lost Joel. They’re taking Joel out.”
Is that what—who—was dragged out? “And who should I say is looking for them?” John asks.
“Alexis.”
“Thank you, Alexis.”
Alexis starts to cry, shaking sobs muffled against a blanket. She says something John can’t make out.
“What was that?” John asks as gently as he can.
“I need them back,” she cries. “They’re not supposed to leave, they’re supposed to be here, they’re supposed to love me.”
His stomach turns. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” John says, speaking to his circle of torchlight on the floor. “How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know...?”
“Do you know how long they’ve been gone?”
“Too long. I was asleep when they left.” Her fragile voice hardens. “It’s my turn, and they’re not supposed to leave when it’s my turn.”
“Your turn.”
“They can’t leave me alone when it’s my turn. It’s not fair.” She starts crying again and something thumps against the wall. “They’re supposed to love me, where are they?”
“Your turn at what?” John asks.
She sniffles.
John counts to thirty for an answer. Then he asks, “How about we go find your family together, eh? Take a look around with my torch, you and me.”
“I can last until they come home,” Alexis says. “I can, really, I’m good, I can do it.”
John closes his eyes. He takes as deep a breath as he can with the stink. He exhales and attempts to uncurl his tight fist. The torch ought to crack with the force he’s holding it. “If it’s your turn, I shouldn’t leave you alone, then, should I?”
She hesitates before asking, “Stay?”
“Okay. I’m right out here. I’m going to stay on my side of the door unless you want me to come in.”
When she doesn’t say anything, John sticks the torch into his mouth and texts Sherlock. Found abused girl on third floor. Sounds like bad condition, called this shithole “home.”Expects three adults to return, possibly four. He silences his mobile after sending the text. He doesn’t know what sounds might make her panic. As it is, she starts crying again.
“Is there’s something I can do to help?” John asks quietly.
“I need them to come back.” She hiccups a bit. “They can’t just leave me, they’re supposed to be here.” She blows her nose on something and whispers, “It hurts.”
“It doesn’t have you be your turn anymore,” John says. “It’s all right. You can stop.” His mobile flashes in his hand.
On my way. SH
John breathes easier. “Alexis, I can get you help. Do you want help?”
“Yeah... You can come in.”
John shifts his weight slowly, pointing his torch at the base of the door before he takes so much as a step. Through the wall, he can hear her moving, wrapping a blanket tight about herself. He approaches delicately and pushes the door open farther. The reek of the room strikes him like a physical blow.
Alexis whimpers in the corner and John reflexively shines the torch at her rank pallet. Longer limbed than expected, she throws up her arms in front of her face. “It’s bright!”
“Jesus.” He lowers the torch, but the marks on her arms are plain as day. Laceration, abrasion, puncture, compression, his head lists as his heart goes cold. The gun at the small of his back abruptly grows heavy. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to blind you.” His words sound hollow.
She keeps her hands over her face, and she turns her head to the side. Christ, her neck. Who could maul their own kid like that? Alexis shies away from the light, warier of the glare than the damage her movements bring. “Turn it off.”
John aims the torch at the wall instead. All the light upon her is reflected off the mottled wallpaper. The stains on her nest of blankets overwhelm its indeterminate original colour. She’s not skinny and long of limb, as his first impression implied. No, this is a teenager near her last growth spurt, not after it. She’s emaciated and wasting away. “What hurts?” John asks. “I can help, I’m a doctor.”
“I need them to come back,” she explains. She folds in on herself, forehead against her knees, arms wrapped around her shins. Her t-shirt sleeve rises with motion, and the marks continue up under it. “I love them, they love me, where are they? It hurts, I need them.”
“I know,” John says gently. “What’s hurting you?” There might be restraints on her legs under the blanket, but she’s moving too easily for that. What is it?
Alexis shakes her head against her knees. The snarls of her unwashed hair change her silhouette into something damaged. In lieu of reply, she unclenches her hand from her bruised wrist and reaches out.
John takes her hand. Her fingernails are dirty, torn, but her knuckles aren’t scraped. She’s been clawing, not punching. “You’re safe now,” John promises. “It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be your turn now.”
She lifts her face. Her reddened eyes find John’s, and he mentally adjusts her age up to young twenties. Not an abused girl but a woman wounded back into a child.
The floorboards creak and Alexis flinches, tugging John’s hand close. “That’s not them,” she whispers.
“Sherlock?” John calls.
“John, come out here,” Sherlock says from the hall.
Alexis’ grip on John’s hand tightens. If she weren’t in such poor shape, it would have hurt. “Don’t go. You can’t leave now.”
“I’m not leaving,” John promises. “Can he come in too?”
Sherlock doesn’t wait for permission. He barges in, scans the entire room with a sweep of his torch, and stares at Alexis. Twisted in his kneel, John looks up at Sherlock with a frown. Sherlock takes a slow step forward. John’s fingers protest Alexis’ firm hold.
“It’s all right,” John tells her, looking back to her. The words die on his lips.
Alexis stares at Sherlock as if expecting him to kill her, as if expecting to kill him herself.
“He’s not a threat,” John promises, and Sherlock touches John’s back. Sherlock touches his back, low, and lifts the hem of John’s coat. John freezes as Sherlock draws John’s gun free of his waistband. “...Sherlock?” He glances over his shoulder, and in turning, he pulls his hand back the barest amount.
John sees Sherlock’s eyes widen an instant before pain floods his hand. “Jesus fuck!” John yells, but Alexis bites down harder, her teeth sharp in the flesh of John’s palm.
Sherlock fires into her chest. The blast rings out next to John’s ear. Alexis collapses. Sherlock fires a second shot. Sherlock grips John by the collar and hauls him back. John catches himself on the floor, sprawled on bum and elbows. Sherlock shoots Alexis’ corpse in the head. John’s hand stings. It feels wet.
John picks up his torch. He shines the light on his right hand. “Sherlock,” he says.
“You’re a doctor!” Sherlock bellows. “How could you not see she was infected? Did you even look at the rest of the room?” He crouches down, his torch aimed on John, the gun aimed on Alexis even now. “You’re bleeding.”
“I noticed.” The words fall from his lips as easily as blood from his hand.
“How could you not realise?”
“We’re hundreds of miles off from nearest quarantine zone,” John says. “We’re...”
They both stare at John’s hand, at the ring of teeth marks and the ring of welling blood.
“Do you suppose,” John says, “if I cut my arm off right now...”
“How could you not notice?” Sherlock berates him. He gestures wildly with his torch and the gun. “Look at the bloodstains. Look at the nesting. John, look at her! How could you not see those were consensual wounds?”
John holds out his left hand for his gun. “Stop waving it. Give it here.”
Sherlock very nearly does before snatching it back at the last instant. “No,” Sherlock says. “No. You are not doing that.”
“She was infected,” John says.
“Yes, and now she’s dead.”
John shows Sherlock his hand.
“We don’t know for certain,” Sherlock says. “It's possible she wasn't ready for a transferring bite. We need to run tests.”
They do. God, they do. John exhales a shaking breath before pulling out his mobile. He dials 999 but doesn’t manage to hit Send before Sherlock snatches up John’s mobile and drops his torch in the same motion.
“Don’t be an idiot. The new policy is in full effect now. They’ll sedate you and you’ll never wake up.”
“If I test positive--”
“If you test positive, I’ll buy you a muzzle,” Sherlock promises.
John giggles. He giggles into trembling laughter, and then he catches sight of Alexis again and starts to cry. When Sherlock pulls him up, John very nearly asks where his gun and mobile went, but Sherlock has pockets. Using his sleeve, John wipes the tears off his face. “Sorry.”
“We need to wash that out,” Sherlock tells him. “I’m taking you home.”
“But the case--”
“I’m taking you home.” Sherlock tugs on him until John stands. “I’ve sufficient equipment to run your tests. I’ll not risk an overexcited response team killing you.”
John can’t stop staring at his hand. It bleeds and stings and he needs stitches. “I need to call an ambulance.”
“No, we’re taking a cab.”
“Sherlock, if I go home, I could hurt you,” John says. “I could hurt Mrs Hudson.”
“If you test positive, I will buy you a muzzle,” Sherlock repeats. His words prick at each other as if made of bristles. “If I can no longer handle you, I’ll call an ambulance then.”
“What, for both of us?” John shakes his head. “All three of us? I’m not risking that.”
“The longer we argue, the worse condition you’ll be in when we get home.” He pulls a latex glove out of his pocket. “Put it on. We can’t have you dripping.”
John pulls the glove on as carefully as he can with his shaking hands. He has to pocket his torch. “Sherlock, we can’t contain this.”
“I can contain you,” Sherlock says. “You can’t enter the final stage unless it keeps passing host to host. That much is established.”
“It was hurting her.” He looks at the shadowy mess that was Alexis. “She didn’t even want me in here, she just... Oh, God.”
“She needed someone to bite, yes. And we need to leave before the vessels return. They’d try to keep you.”
“Vessels,” John repeats blankly. His mental dictionary summons up an image of boats before crumpling in on itself.
“The carrier.” Sherlock points at Alexis but his eyes remain on John. “The vessel holding the developing parasite is the carrier. The vessels alternate carrying it until it fully converts one of them. John, you know this.”
“You can stop talking now. The last thing I need right now is a biology lecture.” He takes a step and wobbles. Sherlock grabs his arm and John flinches away. “You really shouldn’t touch me.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “We’re not exchanging body fluids.” He wraps his arm around John’s back and pulls John into the hallway. The stink clings to them, but John breathes easier with every step. His dizziness grows worse.
“I don’t feel so well,” John confesses.
“Because you’re hyperventilating, yes.”
John tries not to. He stumbles as the world spins.
Sherlock tugs him tighter against his side. “Holding your breath won’t work either.”
“Right,” John gasps. “Sorry.”
They navigate far too many stairs. They emerge onto the pavement. John wants to stop and sit. Sherlock keeps him going. Streets later, Sherlock flags down a cab. John hides his hand in his pocket. The cabbie makes no comment on the stink that still fills John’s nose. For his part, John says nothing and tries not to think until they stop and climb out onto the familiar ground of Baker Street.
Sherlock pulls John’s wallet out of his back pocket, making him jump, and John’s money goes to the cabbie. Standing extremely close, even for him, Sherlock keeps John in front of him as he unlocks the front door.
“Upstairs,” Sherlock instructs, pushing on the door and John in equal measure. “Do whatever you can, I’ll order supplies.”
John does as he’s told. He fetches his medical kit from the loo and Sherlock clears off the kitchen table. Whenever John looks up from his hand, Sherlock’s gaze is on his own mobile. John nearly snaps at him before realising that Sherlock’s ordering online.
“What are you getting?” John asks.
“I told you. Supplies.”
“Right. We find out whether I’m playing biological hot potato and,” John swallows, “and then that’s that.”
Sherlock hums at his mobile in clear disagreement.
“Sherlock, we have to.” John keeps his eyes on his hand. Should he go through the bother of stitching it up if he has to die in a few hours?
“We can work something out. We still don’t know if she was ready to pass the parasite into a new host.”
“What are you going to do, lock me in the attic until I get bitey?”
“No, we don’t have one. Your room will suffice. I have handcuffs in case your self-control wanes. The muzzle will take two days for delivery, unfortunately.” Sherlock keeps tapping at his phone. “If we can prevent the parasite from jumping to a new host and enhancing, your immune system might be able to defeat it.”
“Right, because no one’s ever tried that before. Hospitals have never thought of that.” When Sherlock fails to respond, John starts stitching up his hand after all. Thank God it’s his right hand. He’d never be able to stitch himself up right-handed. “Mm, yes, definitely looking forward to the brain-frying fever.”
Sherlock pounds his fist on the table and John jumps, sticking himself with the needle where he doesn’t need any sticking. “John, we have two options. First, we call 999 and there ends any control we have of the situation. Second, we administer the test ourselves. If you’re fine, we bring you to hospital to treat anything else you might have picked up. If you’re not, we take our chances. You live or you die, but we don’t let anyone kill you.”
“This is a terrible plan.”
“Do you want to die?” Sherlock demands. He shoves his mobile into his inner jacket pocket.
“Can I have my mobile back?”
Sherlock’s mouth forms a tight line.
John watches him a moment before returning to the work on his hand. His stitches are neat and regular, his adrenaline keeping the pain down without making him shake. “If you can’t trust me with a phone, we should probably end this now.”
“We won’t learn anything until the morning,” Sherlock tells him. “Until then, you stay in your room.”
John shakes his head. “My door opens inward. It locks from the inside, too. We don’t know how long it will take for me to, well. You know what.”
“You’re going to handcuff yourself to your bed.”
Slowly, deliberately, John blinks. He replays that last sentence. It’s not any better the second time. “What’s a step worse than ‘terrible’? Abysmal. This is an abysmal plan, Sherlock.” He ties off his stitches and snips the ends. He packs away his kit. “I shouldn’t have come home. Jesus, what were we thinking?”
Sherlock takes hold of the medical kit. He grips it until John lets it go. He doesn’t speak until John looks him in the eyes. “There were three vessels returning to that building to find their carrier. Either their carrier is dead and they would have killed us for it, or that carrier is you and they would have forcibly kept you. I would then be in the position of calling emergency services down upon you before your ‘biological hot potato’ game ended and a full outbreak began.”
John’s stomach turns over. Excerpts from medical journals and news reports shove themselves to the forefront of his brain. They boil down into four stages.
Stage one: contamination of the individual by airborne strain. A single host, deemed the carrier.
Stage two: contamination of a group. The original carrier orally passes the parasite into the bloodstream of another. Former hosts, deemed vessels, wait to be bitten again. The parasite is passed among an increasingly tight group. With each new occupation of a body, it develops and further converts that body into a more suitable environment. It goes after the immune system and the nervous system first. The earliest known signs are sensations of localised heat, followed by jaw pain. Waiting vessels experience chills.
Stage three: the carrier becomes unable to transmit the parasite and becomes a permanent host. The parasite can now reproduce in its modified environment. The vessels wait nearby.
Stage four: outbreak. The permanent host kills all remaining vessels. Fresh parasites enter the corpses and continue reproduction. Each corpse produces a variation on the strain. When the corpses begin to burst, the strains become airborne until encountering a new carrier. The permanent host of the original parasite continues the killing spree until killed or dying of exhaustion.
“I can’t stay here,” John says.
“Why, do you want to bite me?” Sherlock asks.
John glares, but Sherlock’s expression remains one of unfeigned earnestness.
“Have you even thought about it?” Sherlock continues. “Picture me bleeding and—there, your face, that was revulsion.”
Though a scream fights his throat for escape, John forces his words below a shout. “I don’t want to kill you, you idiot.”
“Then you are, for the moment, fine. If we monitor you, there’s no reason you can’t stay here, at least for tonight.”
With that, Sherlock hugs the medical kit against his chest. His hands grip his sleeves at the elbows. The contrast between the black fabric and his pale skin gives the illusion of a freezing man. It’s enough to pull John out of his own head and back into the room.
Sherlock looks like he’s dying. No, he looks like his best friend is dying, his only friend, and John supposes that’s an accurate summary.
“Okay,” John says. “Fine. I cuff myself to my bed tonight and we’ll know what to do in the morning. But I want my phone. If I dislocate my shoulder in the middle of the night, I’m calling you.” He holds out his hand, his left hand.
Sherlock shifts the medical kit in his arm and pulls John’s mobile out of his pocket. He puts it in John’s hand without flinching, without pulling away from him in the slightest.
“Where’s my gun?” John asks. “In your coat?”
“You don’t need it for anything tonight.”
“True. I just want to know where it is.”
“Why?” Sherlock narrows his eyes. His grip on the medical kit tightens, as if it’s a teddy bear full of bandages and antiseptic.
“Because it’s a loaded gun.” He doesn’t snap or yell. He states this through gritted teeth and points in the direction of the sitting room wall.
“I’ll empty it.” Sherlock’s eyes drop to some vague middle distance through their kitchen table. “You’re right, it shouldn’t be loaded.”
“What if— ” John stops and forces himself to complete the question. “What if I attack you?”
“Are you likely to?”
“You’re starting to piss me off, so maybe.”
Sherlock’s mouth twitches. “Let’s put you upstairs.”
They climb with John in front, Sherlock behind. His presence comforts John almost as much as it worries him. In John’s bedroom, they sort out what can be done to John’s door and which part of John’s headboard he ought to be cuffed to. They plan and they plan, and beyond John’s nerves and fear, he feels fine. He might be fine. God, let him be fine.
When he’s as ready for bed as he’ll ever be, Sherlock hands him the cuffs. John takes them with his undamaged hand. “You do have a key for these, right?” John asks.
Sherlock nods. His eyes are strange, not in colour, but in sheen.
“Right.” John clears his throat. “So. I should...” He points over his shoulder.
Sherlock nods a second time. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, as if a foreign object trapped there.
John doesn’t move. Neither does Sherlock.
“Well,” John says. “Just in case this is my last night sane.” He holds out his hand only to recall the stitches, the contaminated area, and he pulls back before Sherlock can touch his palm.
Rolling his eyes, Sherlock pops first his shirt collar, then his jacket collar. When John blinks up at him, Sherlock steps forward, and John’s face fits against that freshly raised barrier of cloth. Sherlock’s arms are slim but firm, his chest solid and stable with his overly controlled breaths.
John nearly jerks away. He should. He doesn’t. Instead, he presses his eyes against Sherlock’s shoulder until the blurring stops. It’s a bit like being inside a cage, which is where John ought to properly be.
“I can solve this,” Sherlock promises.
John lifts his face from a wet patch on Sherlock’s jacket and clears his throat. “You’ll wake me up when you’ve made the test?”
“The earliest delivery is at five.”
“Okay.” John pulls back his duvet and slips underneath. He spends a moment sorting out which hand he wants to cuff and chooses the injured, right one. It’s very much a hand which ought to be locked up. Once settled, he asks, “Could you get the light?”
Sherlock turns off the lights. “I’ll be in the hall.” With that, he closes the door and leaves John in the darkness.
“I have it,” Sherlock announces, entering John’s room before John can do more than let out a groggy groan.
Startled into it, John sits up and nearly wrenches his arm. “You have what?”
“The test.” Sherlock flicks on the lights, blinding John, a small tray in his other hand.
John rubs his eyes with his good hand, his free hand. Otherwise, he sits still until his heart stops pounding so hard.
“John?” Sherlock stops mid-step to pause outside of John’s reach. “How are you feeling?”
“I thought you meant you had the infection,” John says. “So, you know, terrified for no reason, but otherwise fine.” He eyes the tray and the tubing. “Do you know how to take blood?”
“Of course I do.”
John breathes out a shaking sigh. “Okay. Okay, yeah, go ahead. With gloves on.”
Sherlock carries over the chair from John’s desk to sit beside John’s bed. They don’t touch until Sherlock puts the gloves on. John holds his left arm out while Sherlock gets him ready. It’s embarrassing for a doctor, but John looks away from the needle just before he feels the pinch.
“Relax,” Sherlock instructs, voice vibrating with tension.
“You’re a great help, aren’t you.”
“I am.” He jostles John’s arm while taking the second blood sample.
A moment later, John feels the needle slide out and Sherlock presses a cotton swab to the inside of John’s elbow. In an awkward motion, Sherlock manages to tape it down without spilling John’s blood onto the bed.
“How long?” John asks.
“Half an hour for the short test, six hours for the long test.”
“If either is positive, that’s it.”
“Mm. I’ll run it in the kitchen.” Sherlock stands, all materials and wrappers in his gloved hands.
“Use my desk.” John doesn’t mean to beg. He looks down at his lap. “I mean.” He swallows. “Look, it’s going to be an agonising half hour in any case--”
“Six hours, John.”
“—and I want to see it.”
Sherlock looks at him, weighing. “Is that kinder?”
“For me, it is,” John says.
Sherlock nods. He strips off the gloves, deposits them in hazardous waste bag, and clears off John’s desk before snapping a second pair of gloves on. The efficiency of it, the competence, helps John breathe.
He lies back down and closes his eyes. Exhaustion pulls at his tense body, but the need for the loo keeps him awake. He wiggles the fingers of his right hand, keeping it awake as well.
An indeterminate time later, Sherlock snaps off the second pair of gloves. John opens his eyes and turns his head. “Half an hour from now? To be sure.”
“Six hours,” Sherlock says, as if he really expects the first test to come out negative. “We’ll know for certain by half noon.”
“I am definitely going to need the loo before then.”
Sherlock eyes John’s handcuffed arm. “After the first test is finished.”
Careful not to hurt himself, John sits up. He tries to adjust his arm into a comfortable position. “You can stop staring at me now.”
“Do you feel any changes?” Sherlock asks.
“Nothing that stress and terrible sleep couldn’t cause. I don’t know.”
Sherlock twists in the desk chair, shifting his legs so his knees point to John. He sets his elbows atop his knees and fits his hands together, fingertip to fingertip. “Do you want to bite me?”
The laugh jumps out of John’s throat. Sherlock’s eyes widen and John starts giggling. “Oh, thank fucking God,” John says.
Sherlock rises from the chair, his gaze flicking to the handcuffs. “What?”
“I really don’t want to bite you,” John explains. “Sherlock, I don’t even want to punch you.” He sighs, so much tension leaving his body. “Oh my God, it’s actually that simple.”
“Do you want to bite anyone?” Sherlock asks. He draws closer at a cautious pace, as if reeled in by his own line of sight. “Don’t just say ‘no,’ John. Think about it.”
John thinks about it. He looks down at his bandaged hand and imagines putting his teeth against another person’s skin. His mind fills in the details with scenes from horror films. If he tries to picture himself in that role, his stomach turns over.
“You don’t,” Sherlock says for him.
John sags back against his headboard. His head thunks lightly on the wall. He closes his eyes and breathes. Oh, thank God. He could nearly pass out from relief, except he might piss the bed.
Sherlock inhales sharply.
“Sherlock? Oh, Jesus. What the hell are you doing?”
Scalpel in his right hand, blood welling up on the back of his left, Sherlock regards him calmly. “It’s not a deep cut.” Holding his left hand out toward John, Sherlock steps forward.
“Are you mental?” John demands. “Sherlock, what the hell are you doing?”
Sherlock grins. He holds his hand at the limit of John’s reach. “Are you looking?”
“I swear to God, if you bleed on my floor--”
“Still no desire for oral transmission?” Sherlock asks. “You wouldn’t need to puncture my skin now.”
“No, I’m just going to punch you,” John snaps. “Bandage that, you idiot.”
Sherlock’s grin becomes terrifying, otherwise known as his usual grin. “Brilliant. I’m sure you’ll be fine on your own while I take care of that.”
John blinks though the exhaustion, the anger, through everything, and he sees Sherlock’s point. It’s a stupid point, but still a valid one. “We could have waited for the test to finish. No dramatics necessary.”
Sherlock pulls a face. “Dull. Besides, it would have been an agonizing wait.”
“Just take care of that before you start dripping,” John says.
With a roll of his eyes, Sherlock flounces away, one hand bleeding, the other holding a scalpel.
“And disinfect that before you put it back in my kit!” John shouts after him. Then he simply sits and waits. He keeps looking at the test on his desk, the small petri dishes positioned in a way that John can’t actually see their contents. When he finally gives in and checks the clock, there’s still the better part of twenty minutes left.
Sherlock returns with nine minutes remaining. He keeps his distance with a stance of condescension, as if merely humouring John’s fears. He behaves as if there is no possibility of John being put down like a rabid animal. Sherlock’s confidence acts as a sealant on John’s and prevents his remaining hope from leaking out of the room.
They talk about the case, about where else the smugglers might be hiding their wares, and John has to tell Sherlock when the half hour has passed. Thirty-two minutes, actually. His back to John’s desk, Sherlock doesn’t immediately respond.
“I need to piss,” John reminds him. His voice remains remarkably steady.
Arms folded, Sherlock glances over his shoulder. His expression never varies. He looks, and an eternity passes in a heartbeat. His arms fall to his side and he turns to pick up the test instructions.
“Sherlock?”
“I followed the protocol exactly,” Sherlock states. “This is the wrong colour. You don’t want to bite me. This is the wrong colour.”
“Oh, Jesus.” His stomach churns on itself, but there’s nothing left to vomit. “It’s still incubating. Of course I don’t want to bite you.” Yet.
Sherlock picks up the quick test and stares at it as if his eyes can rewrite reality. He turns his head sharply to stare at John in exactly the same manner.
For fuck's sake. “If you want me to comfort you over my imminent death, I will be kicking you in the head,” John warns.
“We’ll wait for the second test,” Sherlock says.
“If the quick one is positive, they’re both--”
“We’ll wait.”
“No we fucking won’t,” John says. “We’ll call emergency services, that’s what we’ll bloody well do.”
“They’ll kill you,” Sherlock says.
“Alexis killed me,” John corrects.
Sherlock shakes his head. “We can sort this out.”
“We really can’t.”
“John--”
“We can’t.” John swallows. “I’m a biological time bomb.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Sherlock says, no trace of irony in his voice.
“Would you shut up?”
“Never,” Sherlock says. “There’s another option. I’ll think of one.”
“Emergency services is a clean death,” John insists.
“No such thing.”
“Cleaner than attacking you and Mrs Hudson. Or baking with fever from not biting either of you. My corpse would still burst open and infect everyone in half a block, but at least I wouldn’t be making other corpses. Oh, here’s an idea: how about we track down Alexis’ family and see how well they’re doing in withdrawal? Maybe one of them will actually survive it. I mean, it’s not technically impossible--”
“John, be quiet. I’m thinking.”
“I’m going to kill you,” John says flatly. “And unintentionally, too, which is not the way I planned it. Call emergency services.”
“Fine. I’ll summon the execution squad, shall I?” Feet planted, stance bold, Sherlock’s entire body forms a challenge.
“Yes, please,” John says.
Sherlock slams the quick test down on the desk. He closes his eyes. He fists his hands. His face contorts in a way John would rather not look at, and so John looks at his handcuffed wrist instead. Bruised a bit. Not so bad. It doesn’t actually matter anymore, but it’s something to pay attention to.
Without another word, Sherlock storms out of John’s room and down the stairs. John listens, ears straining, bladder painful. He watches his clock, wondering when Sherlock will make the call, wondering when he made it, wondering why it’s taking so long for emergency services to get here.
The pounding footsteps on the stairs are obviously Sherlock’s. John doesn’t hear sirens outside yet. Sherlock stops in John’s doorway, chest heaving. He tosses a plastic bucket onto John’s bed.
“There,” Sherlock says. When John doesn’t move, Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Piss in that.”
“You didn’t call, did you?”
“Give me time.”
“No,” John says. “Hell no.”
“I’ll get Mrs Hudson out of the house,” Sherlock promises. “She’ll be safe.”
“Right, and are you leaving too? Evacuating the neighbourhood? Because it’s a definite flaw in the plan if you aren’t.”
“Give me time,” Sherlock repeats. “Not that you have much of an option, obviously, but if I’m going to save your life, it would be helpful to have your cooperation.”
“Sherlock, you’re going to get both of us killed!”
Sherlock merely winks at him and closes the door. “Give me time!” he shouts as he thunders down the stairs.
John swears and he curses, and, ultimately, he pisses in the bucket.