machshefa: (SherlockJohn fade)
[personal profile] machshefa
Title: Evidence
Author: Machshefa
Fandom verse: Sherlock (BBC)
Pairing/Characters: John/Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None (apart from spoilers for TGG)
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
Summary: One must always follow the evidence.



It’s the throbbing in his head that wakes him.

Disoriented, it seems to him as if his skin has been stretched taut across unfamiliar bones, limbs heavy between cool white sheets, his arms, empty.

Twinge in the right shoulder. Sharp pain in the left hip. Fell harder than I thought when I rolled, trying to get to—

John.


The pounding in his head intensifies with the gallop of his heart.

“Where is he?” His voice is rough, and the effort of speech brings on a spasm of coughing. Must bring paper masks when dealing with a madman favouring explosives. He levers his body upright until his lungs clear enough for him to breathe again.

“Where’s John?” His eyes are gritty, too. No wonder he’s out of sorts. He can’t be expected to function optimally when he can neither see nor breathe. He’ll just find John and they’ll go back to the flat. Some tea, or perhaps a shower first, and they’ll both be well sorted.

But Sherlock’s attempt to sit hasn’t gone well and now his head is swimming. Don’t recall a blow to the head. Perhaps dehydration?

“Let me go,” he hisses at the hands trying to push him back onto a mountain of pillows. “I must find John. I had him. He was—”

He’d been right here, the cuts in his skin bright with blood, scarlet liquid against the coating of dust even now choking Sherlock’s lungs. Clutched against his chest where Sherlock could at least feel him, the solid weight of his body reassuring, even though he didn’t know how to stop the bleeding and couldn’t understand why John wouldn’t open his eyes.

Wake up. John, wake up.

“Mr Holmes, I must insist.”

The hands are attached to a haggard looking nurse, though she has no call to look so exhausted; the room resembles a hotel more than a hospital. He clutches the sheets between his fingers. Four hundred thread count. Hardly hospital issue. Must be a VIP room.

“Get off me, you twit,” Sherlock mutters, batting her hands away as he attempts to launch himself from the bed.

“Sherlock.”

Mycroft. Finally. He might actually be useful for once. Even if he is assisting the nurse settling him back onto the bed.

“Where is he, Mycroft?”

His brother’s silence, his hand, heavy on his shoulder nearly stops Sherlock’s heart. This, more than anything, sends ice shooting through his veins. His silence, more than the austerity of the room with its subtle signs of technology hidden behind smooth wood veneer or the tube snaking into his hand or the one wrapped around his face (delivering what is undoubtedly superfluous oxygen).

Damn and blast.

“Tell me,” he whispers, eyes closed against whatever Mycroft is to relay.

It takes him too long to answer, and Sherlock feels the whoosh of blood in his head and the rise of bile in his throat that means he will be grateful for that mountain of pillows at his back.

Until, at last, his brother speaks.

“He’s alive.”

~~**~~



His hands are pressed against the glass. It may be the only thing holding him up now that he’s got that ridiculous wheelchair out of his way. But it’s John on the other side of the barrier and a nurse even more exasperating than the first is insisting he’s not permitted inside.

Mycroft will sort her out, but in the meantime, Sherlock’s sending every tendril of spare energy through the glass. To John. John, who looks terrifyingly small beneath monitor leads and looming equipment that Sherlock knows is supporting his body until it can sustain life on its own.

None of this stops him from wanting to rip every last tube and wire away and take care of it all himself.

Take care of John.

He hears Mycroft behind him. Breathing.

“It’s my fault,” says Sherlock. “Moriarty would never have gone after him if not for me.”

Mycroft’s soft huff of breath disagrees.

“You are not responsible for the actions of a madman, Sherlock.”

He sounds so certain. He always had, ever since they’d been children.

“Irrelevant,” Sherlock says, “when the outcome is the same.”

Mycroft’s face reflects in the glass and for a moment, Sherlock sees the two of them superimposed like a double-exposed image. His brother and John layered one on top of the other beneath Sherlock’s destructive hands.

Perhaps he’s better off with me behind the glass. Proximity to me has done him no favours.

“You can go in now, Sherlock. Do try not to antagonise the nurses.”

He hesitates, but he can no more stay away from John than he can stop the beating of his own heart.

It takes him a long time to make his way to John’s bedside.

~~**~~


Intensive care is loud (how can one possibly be expected to get well under such an assault?), but Sherlock is sure that his steady whisper trumps the incessant clicking and beeping of the life support equipment.

It’s stream of consciousness, mostly. Sharing the flow of his thoughts, tangled with eruptions of nonsense that wind their way into his otherwise relentlessly organised mind.

Stay with me, John. Don’t go.

He lays his head on the pillow next to John, his voice a whisper in his ear. He’s not sure if he says his thoughts out loud. Maybe John can hear them even if he doesn’t.

I’m sorry, John. I’m so sorry.

Only the hiss of the respirator answers him.

John’s face is too pale, and Sherlock wants to trace the dark hollows under his eyes with his fingertips. He settles for scowling at the nurse when she comes in to take his vitals and quizzing the doctor relentlessly when he comes in to report on John’s test results.

“The doctor says that your scans are clear, John,” Sherlock tells him later. It’s one of the oddities of this bubble they’re in. He can scarcely stop himself from saying the other man’s name, though they’re often the only two in the room.

John. His name. An unlikely prayer. Wake up, John.

“They say you just need to rest.” Sherlock’s hand encircles John’s. He’s sure he read that touch is essential for healing. He spares John nothing. “You’ll be all right. It simply takes time.” He’s not sure who he’s talking to, just then, can hardly avoid the evidence growing before his own eyes that it is he who needs reassurance. He, whose gut is in knots with the waiting.

His thumb traces circles along the translucent skin inside John’s wrist and with a quick glance to check they’re alone, he brings his lips to ghost over the silky surface. He imagines he can feel the thrum of John’s blood through his veins, wishes he could infuse his own lifeblood directly there, breathe vitality back into this man who—

“Change of shift, Mr Holmes,” interrupts the nurse whose care of John he has been closely supervising.

“Carry on,” he says, not lifting his eyes from John.

“That, I shall,” she says. “And you will vacate the premises until we are done with report.”

“I will not,” he replies, horrified. What if John should need him, and he, tossed from the room like so much rubbish.

“It’s an hour, Mr Holmes, and you look as if you could use a kip, yourself.”

Unthinkable, to sleep when John has not yet woken.

But Mycroft isn’t answering his texts (the prat), and so he sweeps from the room as best he can for a man with a mild concussion (perhaps there had been a glancing blow to the head after all) and bruised hip. The echoing corridors mock him with their windowless walls and their silence, and so he finds the elevator and the door out.

The night air is cool, bracing and cleaner than any he’s tasted in the last twelve hours. But street sounds can’t replace the cadence of the respirator that’s been burned into his heart, and he breathes in time with it, though he’s here on the sidewalk and John’s in a hospital bed, tethered and tangled and unaware that Sherlock is terrified that when he finally pushes his way back into that glass room, it will all be disconnected, and John, laying there, smaller yet beneath the sheets and too still.

He stops short at the sound that comes from his throat.

No No No No

There’s a bench at the edge of the walk and he sinks onto it, his head falling between his knees as he takes in long shuddering breaths. His face is wet, and his pulse is racing far too quickly for a man merely sitting on a bench, curled around himself as if he might protect his heart from breaking by hiding it beneath cloth and cleverness.

I will burn the heart out of you… Moriarty’s words echo now, the portent of a future that Sherlock now knows is untenable. How could either of them have known that the heart Moriarty would burn out of Sherlock would be John?

Does John know? Has he deduced it? In matters of the heart John is often faster and far more accurate than I.

How could it have taken so long to see what has been before his eyes all along? My blogger. My friend. My—

One must always, always follow the evidence.

Even—especially—the evidence of one’s own unruly heart.

~~**~~


Nothing and everything has changed in the hour since Sherlock was ejected from John’s room. More significant than the replacement of one harried looking nurse for another is the startling absence of the respirator.

“He’s breathing well on his own now,” says the nurse, and smiles a bit when Sherlock can only nod, the knot in his throat precluding a more articulate response.

Sherlock waits for her to go, meets her speculative glance with a steady one. Watches as she pulls the curtain just enough to shield him from the eyes observing them beyond the glass. He blinks back the sudden blur in his vision and reaches for John’s hand. He holds it between his own, as if he could anchor John to this world, tether him to Sherlock by sheer force of will and need.

“My life would be intolerable without you, John,” he whispers. He can’t hear him anyway, Sherlock tells himself. He won’t remember these words he cannot help but say out loud. “I need you. Please.”

His only answer, the steady cadence of the monitors.

He’s so tired, and the steady blip blip blip is like a hammer to his head. Can I be sure they are doing their job properly? What if they miss an arrhythmia or another ominous sign?

Unacceptable.

There’s nothing for it. He scoots closer to the bed and lays his head on John’s chest. He’s careful not to hurt him, not to impede his newly liberated breath. Just, he has to be sure. Has to check for himself that John’s heart is beating, that its steady thrumthrumthrum never, ever stops.

It’s here, with John’s heart and breath and life surging beneath him that Sherlock finally falls asleep.

Later, when he wakes, he will wonder at John’s fingers threaded through his hair.

Later, still, alone together at last in the very private hospital room Mycroft has secured for them after far too many days of blood draws and intravenous drips, and maddening interruptions. Yes, all right, it’s possible I antagonised one of the nurses, but she had it coming, Sherlock climbs into bed with John, his arms wrapped around him, asleep the moment he lays his ear against John’s chest. This time, John’s voice, still rough from injury and the toll of recovery, wakes him.

“Took you long enough,” he rasps, and Sherlock looks up, surprised. But John’s expression is soft, his eyes, warm. Sherlock’s chest tightens and his vision blurs (must ask the nurse about that).

“The evidence was obscure,” he says, but John is smiling and he knows it’s hopeless.

“I thought it was quite evident, actually,” says John.

The doctors have said the broken bones and contusions will heal but John is still weak. Too weak to move much, and certainly not quickly. Even so, he shifts his body so that he can press his ear against Sherlock’s chest. He slips his arms around Sherlock’s narrow torso and lets out a contented sigh.

“All I have to do is listen,” he says. “All the evidence you could possibly need is here. It’s all right here.”

~fin

~~**~~

The series continues with Resonance.

a/n: Kudos to the alpha/beta/cheerleading team (aka: the village) of dreams: [livejournal.com profile] annietalbot , [livejournal.com profile] bluestocking79 , [livejournal.com profile] pyjamapants , [livejournal.com profile] sc010f , and [livejournal.com profile] subvers . Your touch always makes my writing and storytelling better.  This is my first story in the Sherlock fandom. Since I had no plans to write in this fandom to begin with, it's clear that I have no idea whether this will be my last. ;)  *covers the eyes of those who fear I've abandoned Severus*  I couldn't help it, guys.  Sherlock wouldn't stop talking.
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Date: 2011-02-16 06:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kellen-lee.livejournal.com
Sherlock's emotion here... I could feel it. Beautiful fic, gripping. Thank you. <3

Date: 2011-02-16 10:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] machshefa.livejournal.com
*beams

Thank you so much. I'm just delighted you felt Sherlock's emotion so palpably. Thanks for friending! I've friended back. :)
Edited Date: 2011-02-16 10:32 pm (UTC)

Date: 2011-02-28 03:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] morganstuart.livejournal.com
This is elegant and gorgeous.

Date: 2011-02-28 03:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] machshefa.livejournal.com
*beams

Thank you! I'm working on the continuation, actually, so there will hopefully be more soon.

I appreciate you taking time to comment. I'm so happy you enjoyed it!

Date: 2011-03-01 03:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quirkies.livejournal.com
This is gorgeous. Full of emotion, reluctant and nuanced. *happy sigh*
Though the hesitation before Mycroft said John was alive was painful. *rereads to comfort self*
:D

Date: 2011-03-02 03:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] machshefa.livejournal.com
*beams

Thank you so much. I know it's a painful piece, and I'm so glad that you read (and took time to comment). I may torture them, but I aim to give them some happiness, too. :)

Date: 2011-03-01 11:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] madannoying.livejournal.com
-sniffles- Dear god. You've got me in an undertow.

This is *so* beautiful. -grabs box of tissues and blows nose-

Honestly, it is so bittersweet. I love it. Leaves me with a heavy feel in my chest that I revel in. (Call me masochistic.)

<3

Date: 2011-03-02 03:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] machshefa.livejournal.com
*hands you tissues and hugs

I'm so, so happy that this story moved you so deeply. That's the tone I aim for, and it makes me so happy to hear that it resonated! Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. :)

Date: 2011-03-02 08:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cathedralcarver.livejournal.com
Ok...I kinda hate you now, because after reading this glorious piece, I went and tracked down the damn show...found it online and watched all three eps in quick succession (as the deplorable state of my house can attest to). And whambam I am entrenched in yet another fandom. Guh. This is poignant and quiet and, after watching the actual eps, I have a much better sense of their relationship and boyohboy is it just begging for fanfics, is it not? I don't hate you, of course...and I love your writing :)

Date: 2011-03-02 09:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] machshefa.livejournal.com
Oooh, I hear you. Do I ever. I had wondered whether you'd read this piece since Resonance actually follows it and makes more sense having read this one first, I think. And now you know what happened to land them in hospital. :)

I never thought I'd fall into another fandom. Wasn't looking. Wasn't interested.

Yeah, anyway.

Just call me your friendly fandom crack dealer. Scoffy was mine. Yep, we can blame her, right?

And now, there are THREE bunnies nibbling at me. Two are in the Evidence universe, and one is a HP crossover.

*sigh

Isn't the series glorious? And addictive? And their relationship -- GAH. So, not only did I fall into a new fandom, but I'm shipping a slash pairing that is all but canon. Now, really. LOL

I'm so glad you enjoyed this piece and Resonance. They probably will make more sense reading them in that order straight through now that you've seen the series. :)

Long comment is long. Welcome to Sherlock! We have cookies! Really, we do. ;)

Date: 2011-03-04 03:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cathedralcarver.livejournal.com
Oh dear.

I am in such big giant trouble. I have done little else but read Sherlock fanfic for, oh, two days now? And rewatch the eps? And...done little else? And I'm really not joking, not even a little. And I hate Slash. Have I ever mentioned this? So what the hell am I doing? What have you done to me? What have these two characters done to me?

And what is it about their "relationship" anyway? I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT.

Cookies, indeed. You failed to mention they were Crack Cocaine Cookies.

Date: 2011-03-04 03:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] machshefa.livejournal.com
I know. God, I know. It's total crack, and it only wraps its tentacles more and more around... I can't explain it, either. They're fantastic characters and the actors are superb (just wait until you start watching them on YouTube... crack, yeah), and the dynamics evoke some of the same elements that draws us to SSHG, I think. *contemplates

Email me, k? We'll talk. :)

*smooches

machshefa1 at gmail.

Date: 2011-03-09 10:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 7magpies.livejournal.com
Just discovered this through last Sunday's recs on sherlockbbc, and I'm so glad I followed the link! This is definitely one of the best post TGG pieces I've read!

I love Sherlock's vulnerability & his desperation for John to be better. Such telling stillness when John finally wakes up & calms Sherlock. Particularly loved the line "the evidence was obscure" - it's 100% Sherlock yet also sounds so very lyrical.

Anyhow, thanks so much! Off to read the next part :-)

Date: 2011-03-11 05:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] machshefa.livejournal.com
I'm so glad you followed the link! :)

Thanks for pointing out which lines and rhythms especially stood out for you. I always appreciate that -- it's so interesting and rewarding to hear. :)

Thanks, also for taking time to review!

Date: 2011-05-24 04:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lady-rhian.livejournal.com
Oh, this was wonderful. You captured his voice so well. When I can imagine the actor thinking and saying and doing those things, well, there you go.

And that first scene when Sherlock wakes up and Mycroft is there? Perfect. Love that brotherly interaction.

Date: 2011-05-24 12:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] machshefa.livejournal.com
Oh, hai! *grins

I love that you can imagine BC saying these words -- can imagine Sherlock saying them... fantastic. :)

I do love Mycroft. I re-watched episode 1 last night and was struck again by how finely honed he is as a character. Those two (both sets) are a joy together. Mycroft and Sherlock. Sherlock and John.

I'm so glad you read this and enjoyed it! I hope you enjoy the rest of the "Evidence" series.

This fandom isn't crack cocaine, honest. No, really.
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