»»──────　SH　──────««

Mullins staggered, and her gaze followed the shot wound after the bullet that ran through her thigh. A second later, she cast a strange look at Sherlock and warped her lips into a mischievous, almost raving sneer.

Then she turned around and fled.

Sherlock took an unintentional step forward, ready to chase her down, as she couldn't run far with a shot leg, so he had a good chance of catching up to her.

He stopped when he noticed a sharp prick in his stomach and a trickle of something thick and slimy.

Blood.

Hot and viscous, it slid down his body like a glutinous tongue, licking his pale skin.

Surprised, almost in a daze, he bowed his head. His heart skipped a beat, and the last traces of colour drained from his face.

No one would ever dare say that Sherlock had a weak stomach, especially considering his passion for experiments of all sorts.

He hadn't expected to see a massive blade sticking out of his belly. Almost thirty centimetres long, the blade had such a razor-sharp edge that it slid into Sherlock's midriff as if he were made of wax. The only thing that peeped out of his flesh was a handle.

And that was a big pill to swallow, even for Sherlock Holmes.

The wave of adrenaline that had surged into his body after the stab and prepared him either for an attack or escape was abating, and the curtain separating Sherlock's mind from the pain dissolved.

A strange pressure built in his abdomen. It gradually increased its intensity and temperature, converting into a stinging, pulsating sensation. A piercing pain shot from his stomach to his entire body with each impulse, striking even the tiniest of nerve endings with a burning sensation.

The world spun with him, and an uncomfortable cold tingle crept its way down from his pelvis to his toes. Then he stopped feeling his legs completely. They seized up and ruthlessly sent him to the ground.

Sherlock flailed involuntarily, reaching for anything he could grab onto. His fingers, however, grasped only the thin air. He gasped, and a thorn of panic stabbed into his chest, but he could do nothing else but wait for a heavy landing...

... which, surprisingly, didn't come.

Instead of sprawling on the floor, he just slid down—thanks to the powerful arms that had appeared behind his back and gripped him under his armpits. He leaned against familiar limbs in trust, allowing them to support him and soften his fall.

Unfortunately, not even John's arms could slow Sherlock's fall entirely.

Sherlock couldn't stifle a yelp as the giant knife moved within him. The deep wound wept more streams of viscous red liquid.

Black spots clouded his vision, and not even intensive blinking could get rid of them. Panic clenched his chest, and he groped around himself, looking for those arms he had felt behind himself a moment ago.

"Hey, calm down, okay?" said a mellifluous, soothing voice just an inch from his earlobe.

John... His kind, loyal, amazing John would never let him down.

"I'm right here, with you..."

The air whirled around as John knelt right beside him.

And at that very moment, thanks to knowing that he was with his best friend, Sherlock calmed down. "It's okay, John, I'm fine," he rasped and truly meant it. As long as he ignored the pain in his core, he felt safe. John was holding him in his arms. What more could he wish for?

"I'm no expert, brother dear, but maybe for the bleeding to stop?" remarked an imaginary Mycroft, and Sherlock could almost hear him rolling his eyes. He had to admit that there might be something to it, but these kinds of things don't happen because you wish for them...

Unlike him, John was nowhere near as calm. "That you're o—Christ, how can you even say that?! She almost stabbed you through and through!" he scolded him.

"Yes, al-almost, that's the i-important word..." Sherlock joked, but his voice stumbled. He tried to keep John and himself calm. Panic would get them nowhere.

He flinched when John's "God, you're impossible" cut off the stream of his thoughts. A long, pained groan escaped his mouth, but he almost hadn't heard it through the deafening buzz in his ears.

John, on the other hand, heard him very well. His face crumpled into a troubled mask, and he gently laid his hand on Sherlock's chest, pushing him back to the horizontal position.

"Try to keep still. I'll call for help!"

Sherlock allowed himself to be pressed to the ground and watched his friend from behind his heavy lids.

"The right trouser pocket," he breathed out. Knowing John, he was certainly going to fumble frantically for his phone in all the pockets he possesses.

John obeyed, fished out the phone from the recommended pocket, and dialled the number.

"Hello, Greg. Immediately take your team and the ambulance and come to the address I'll send you... Sorry, I've got no time to explain... We've captured the killer, more or less, but Sherlock's injured. I have to take care of him... Come asap, please!"

With that, he hung up, tucked the phone in his trousers, and forced himself to face the ugly reality, attending to the needs of the injured detective.

"Sherlock?"

Despite gasping for air as an athlete after a long race, he felt like he was drowning—the air flowed into his lungs in tiny sips. A wave of panic billowed in his chest, facilitating the passage of hypovolemic shock.

"Sherlock, can you hear me? Stay with me!"

Sherlock drew another breath to answer, but couldn't utter a single word. It felt as if someone pressed their palms on both sides of his head and covered his ears with all their might. His entire body ached as if someone were jabbing pins into his flesh; his forehead sparkled with cold sweat, and the sensation in his limbs began to fade.

Each laboured inhale cost him a burning sting in his belly, and more and more blood spurted out of the wound. Its metallic smell prickled in his nose so piercingly that his stomach churned. A sour taste exploded in his mouth, and he knew something was wrong.

He barely pushed John away before he curled to his side and began to retch. His stomach responded immediately. A stream of bright red liquid spilt out of his mouth, staining the linoleum and his clothing.

His temples throbbed in pain so sharp he was afraid his head would burst, and tears of pain rolled down his cheeks.

Chills climbed his now almost-numb limbs, spreading from his fingertips to the core of his body. He shook uncontrollably, and goosebumps sprouted on his skin.

His hair stuck to his wet forehead and clammy cheeks, and the sweat poured down his temples in thin rivulets. He was taking shallow, irregular breaths, trying to ignore the piercing pain in his right hypochondriac region each breath earned him. Losing the vitalizing liquid made his head spin. Black flecks resembling tiny confetti danced before his eyes.

Sherlock guessed he had ten minutes at most before he lost consciousness.

But now it was far too late to cry over the spilt milk. Or blood, to be precise. The blood that was relentlessly filling his abdominal cavity, taking his life little by little. And there was nothing he could do about it except wait for medical help.

But what if the ambulance doesn't arrive in time?!

His insides clenched in anxiety at the thought. Ironic, wasn't it? He meets corpses at every corner of his profession, and he fears dying?

If Sherlock were honest, the death didn't alarm him. Death is like a dreamless sleep, painless and peaceful. Many times, he wasn't far from doping himself to death with cocaine or bleeding out on the street after a case messed up. He knew that feeling.

No, Sherlock wasn't worried about himself. Once he's dead, he will not be the one to miss life after all. But what about the others? His parents and Mycroft? And Mrs Hudson, Molly, Greg?

Something told him it would hurt John the most. From what he had found out by the hearsay, as well as from his deductions, he knew John had gone through tough times, incomparably worse than after he departed from Afghanistan.

For some peculiar reason, John seemed to have grown fond of him, and it probably would have destroyed him if he died (again), for real this time, without magic tricks and lies.

The last thing Sherlock wanted to be responsible for was ruining John's life. He needed to be strong, for John, for everything and everyone that mattered to him!

Which is easier said than done...

He couldn't get rid of the irrational anxiety. Although he knew that his fear made everything worse, his body simply couldn't think rationally as it reacted to the fluid loss and yielded to its natural reflexes.

No matter how hard he tried, he was losing miserably.

Apparently, it must have shown on him because John bowed down to him and began to soothe him. His warm, erratic breath blew into his face, and his voice, which was telling him something, trembled faintly—as it seemed, John wasn't as composed as he pretended to be.

Sherlock could only manage a slight nod.

The words merged into an unintelligible something that his brain wasn't able to grasp anymore, and he didn't know what he'd just agreed to. But he had undivided trust in John; Sherlock knew for sure that John would never hurt him.

That was why he didn't even protest when John unbuttoned his top. Actually, he rather embraced the retrieved comfort. Now that he thought about it, he shouldn't have taken the effort to imitate Hughes' style so seriously. He could have refrained from wearing so very restrictive clothing that only caused him more pain as it squeezed his belly. Rodgers wouldn't have told the difference anyway...

Something covered him up—John's jacket, judging by the weight and rustling material—but it didn't provide much warmth. Not even the warmest fur coat could bring back the heat lost because of such massive bleeding.

"J-John..." he let out a faint whine through his chattering teeth.

The calloused fingers caught the lonely curl that found its way into Sherlock's forehead and tucked it behind the shell of Sherlock's ear, then ran down his neck. His palms becoming a small bowl, they supported the back of his skull, and before Sherlock could even think of asking about John's intentions, his head ended up in John's lap.

"Just hold on a little longer, Lock..." John pleaded and stroked Sherlock's wet, sweaty hair.

He did his best, really. He was fighting tooth and nail to concentrate on John's voice and touch instead of his dwindling energy.

And maybe he would have succeeded, hadn't it been for his eyes that were closing spontaneously, as if each eyelid weighed at least two pounds.

He was hanging on the edge of an imaginary cliff of consciousness, holding to it with all his might, but it was no use. He was slipping. His hands were sliding, with only tiny stones of hope remaining between his fingers.

Sherlock suspected he wouldn't last long.

'I'm sorry, John,' he thought as he fell into deep coal-black darkness.

»»──────　JW　──────««

"Just hold on a little longer, Lock..." John encouraged his weakening friend with a heavy heart.

He was sitting on the floor with a black mop of hair, pricking his ears to hear at least an echo of the incoming ambulance. He hoped the paramedics would arrive as soon as possible, as Sherlock wasn't bleeding only out of the exit wound but almost certainly internally as well. With a knife so long, Abbey must have struck one of the vital inner organs. Most probably the liver.

At first, Sherlock had been doing well as he struggled to remain calm, refusing to acknowledge the pain, but as he gradually lost blood, his body betrayed him. The poor man probably hadn't even realised he was panting heavily, making sounds that cut into John's ears and tore at his heart.

It wasn't supposed to end like this, goddammit! Sherlock wasn't supposed to get hurt! John could have prevented it from happening. He had a gun, for God's sake! Had he acted a millisecond sooner, Sherlock might have dodged her weapon.

And how come he hadn't noticed she had two knives? The knife Sherlock had knocked out of her hand wasn't the weapon that killed Luke Williams. John should have known. He had examined Luke's body and seen the damage the blade had made. The knife she had used tonight to set John free from the ropes wouldn't inflict wounds so deep.

He should have been more observant! He should have –

A loud wail of a police siren and a horn of an incoming ambulance pierced the silent night.

Finally! He was getting worried they wouldn't arrive in time! The relief that filled his chest seemed to take at least twenty kilogrammes off him.

"Do you hear that? "They're here; they're going to help you," he said triumphantly, caressing Sherlock's brow. But the smile faded from his face when he received no response, and he broke out in a cold sweat when he realised the room had sunk into an unsettling silence. When did Sherlock's laboured wheezing and moaning stop?

"Sherlock, can you hear me?" John raised his voice and gave Sherlock's cheek a light slap. As he received no reaction for a second time, his insides tightened into a knot. If Sherlock responds neither to the noise nor physical stimuli...

"Holy shit!"

Sherlock's chest wasn't rising.

John bowed down and tilted his head so his cheek could approach Sherlock's face. No tingle of breath.

'Damn it, damn it, damn it!'

With his heart throbbing somewhere in his throat, he carefully slid Sherlock's head off his lap and laid him on the ground. He exposed the already unbuttoned shirt as much as he could without moving the blade that had caused this mess and pressed his fingers to the side of Sherlock's neck. The blood was still flowing, but only faintly. Sherlock's heart will stop soon if he doesn't do something.

Right, one thing after another. Breathing was the top priority right now.

John knelt next to him, tilted Sherlock's head back, and opened his mouth to ensure his tongue wasn't blocking his airway. The passage seemed clear, with no signs of vomit. Sherlock must have lost too much blood. That was why he had stopped breathing.

Without further ado, he bent down and pinched Sherlock's nostrils with his thumb and index finger. Then he covered Sherlock's open mouth with his, lending him a life-giving gulp of oxygen—neither too much nor too little—just enough to make Sherlock's chest rise as in a regular inhale.

He took a breath and sent another kiss of life into the detective's limp body.

And again.

And again.

And many times more.

His eyes stung from the tears welling up in them, and the hands he used to hold Sherlock's nose and open his mouth trembled.

'Come on, treat him like any other patient! You've done this countless times; concentrate. Don't panic! With this attitude, you're not going to be much help!'

No matter how hard he tried to calm down, it didn't work. He didn't see a patient, couldn't see him that way. He saw a man he cared about so much that he would do anything for him, anything at all. A man to whom he would forgive everything in the world except for the real and irreversible death. A man he couldn't imagine his further existence without.

Suddenly he fathomed out why Sherlock avoided the sentiment at all costs–to make sure it didn't end up this way. Emotions paralysed him, squeezed his diaphragm, and enveloped him in panic. Obscured his serenity, concentration, and detached view he needed to do his job correctly. Left him drowning in uncertainty and horror.

He paused the artificial respiration routine and checked on his pulse again.

"Sherlock, don't do this to me, you little git! Don't you dare die on me, because I will not forgive you this time! You can't leave me here all alone! And your family, Mrs Hudson, the entire London! What are we going to do without you, hm?!"

John felt as if he had gone back in time. Once again, he was bending over the lifeless frame of his best friend, covered with blood, if only a fake red colour, taking his pulse in vain effort. With the difference that although Sherlock still had a pulse, he was dying. And it wasn't just for a show this time; if the paramedics don't help Sherlock quickly and get him to the nearest hospital, he will lose him for good.

And this time, not even Sherlock, the brilliant Consulting Detective, will outwit death again.

No!

Ne, he won't let that happen! Sherlock will live! With his decision made, he pressed a kiss onto Sherlock's forehead and continued the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Suddenly, he heard the sliding door open, along with a loud tramp of solid medical shoes and wheels squeaking against the linoleum, which told him that a group of paramedics had rushed into the hall, bringing the wheeled emergency stretcher.

The relief left John almost lightheaded. Of course, he knew that didn't necessarily mean that they had won. But it's known that hope dies last. He only hoped Sherlock wouldn't die first.