Chapter Text
Of the myriad things that Sherlock had imagined might kill him – bombs, snipers, Bedouin assassins – he never dreamed that it might be a skinny twentysomething mugger with a hunting knife. And in Manhattan, of all places! He’s practically quivering with indignation.
“Wallet,” the aforementioned young man – born and raised in Long Island, no history of drug abuse, trained on the cello, left-handed – demands, brandishing the knife in a manner he probably thinks is menacing. Sherlock sighs.
“I would prefer not to.”
His mugger snorts. “Is that supposed to impress me? The world’s second most obvious Melville reference?”
“To be honest, I didn’t really expect you to…get it,” Sherlock shrugs.
“Clearly. Wallet, now!” Another brandish from the knife, which Sherlock now admits to himself is actually quite large and just a bit serrated.
But he has about four separate identities in his wallet right now, for people who, strictly speaking, do not actually exist outside of the various credit cards and drivers licenses he’s carrying. So Sherlock very much does not want to lose his wallet and have to call Mycroft for four new identities.
What is it they say about eggs and baskets, Sherlock?, he mourns to himself. He’s getting sloppy, and now he’s about to get stabbed for it. And below 23rd Street!
“I’m sorry, and I really am not trying to be difficult, but I can’t give you my wallet.” He inhales hugely and closes his eyes to brace himself for the next part. “You can have my coat if you like.”
He opens his eyes to a blank stare from his assailant. “It’s worth quite a lot,” he explains.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Not at all.”
“Oh my god, I really do not have time for this. And if you’re thinking I won’t stab you, you’re wrong,” says the mugger. Sherlock knows he’s not lying – his left pinkie finger makes that perfectly clear – but he’s still trying to figure out how he can walk away from this with both his wallet and his good health. And if he can’t, he has to decide which one he wants to relinquish.
“No, I’m sure you would.” He falls back on his favorite defense mechanism.
“The first time you stabbed someone, you were between the ages of 14 and 16, in an attempt to protect your mother from your alcoholic father.”
“What – ”
“When your mother, after your father’s death, took up with his brother, also an alcoholic, you ran away to live with a somewhat older gentleman whose name began with an – M?” Sherlock isn’t actually sure how his assailant is responding to this – his face is totally impassive – but he might as well finish.
“Since you left him, you’ve been living mostly on friends’ sofas and occasionally the odd subway station, and you’ve had occasion to assault at least 3 other people, though you’ve never actually been arrested. Now,” Sherlock continues, “you’ve never actually seen the inside of a jail cell, and I can assure you that if you abscond with my wallet tonight, you will be spending the foreseeable future inside of one. So,” time to wrap up, “now that we understand each other a bit better, we can both make informed decisions about what’s going to happen next.”
Speech concluded, Sherlock puts on his iciest expression and waits.
The mugger blinks at him for a few moments, then lowers the knife and chuckles. He shakes his head.
“That – that’s a neat trick, man.” Still laughing, he steps forward, as though to walk past Sherlock, who steps to the side. For a moment, he actually thinks this will work out, that his would-be thief is so taken aback that he’s just leaving.
Then there’s a sudden flash, an arm thrusting out so quickly Sherlock barely even registers what’s happening.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re really obnoxious?” the young man hisses into his ear. He shoves Sherlock back, and Sherlock crashes into a wall, frozen in place as footsteps race away down the street.
In the hysterical moment before the pain registers, he rejoices that he still has his wallet. Success! Then he realizes his legs are giving way beneath him and reevaluates.
Fuck. “Ow,” he says, stupidly, and then he can’t stop saying it. “Ow. Ow. Ow ow ow owowowowowow.” Stop it. He shuts up. Focus. Get help.
John.
No, no no no. Think. The pain beneath his ribs is coming into sharper relief now.
John.
“Okay!” Sherlock can feel himself starting to panic and deliberately forces it down. “Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.”
Shake head. Think. John isn’t here. Mycroft isn’t here. Hospital isn’t safe, never safe. This corner isn’t safe. (Still have my wallet hahahaha) Where is safe?
Oh. Okay.
It’s been in the back of his mind since he landed at J.F.K. five hours ago, and now it comes to him just as a red haze starts to cloud the edges of his vision.
Irene. Irene has an apartment in Gramercy Park. He knows because Irene told him this, in a text from an American number about four months before his leap from St. Barts. (“1 Lexington Avenue. Let’s have dinner.”)
He could get there. Maybe. He braces his knees and tries to push himself back up the wall, but collapses onto the sidewalk with a choked-off grunt.
No standing. No walking. With hands he can barely control, he works his cell phone out of his pocket, then has to pause and let his head stop swimming. He makes the mistake of looking down at his chest – no no no delete delete. Move your thumb, you know the number. You memorized it. Ow. Ow.
Eventually (time passing, blood being lost), Sherlock manages to dial and lift the phone to his ear. It rings.
It rings again.
Again.
Panic fights its way up his throat.
“Hello?”
Okay. Okay.
“Irene.”
A pause.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
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The call from Sherlock comes at 12:31 AM. When the clock turns 12:32, Irene is thrusting her feet into the heels she kicked off earlier by the front door, pulling on her trench coat with one arm and punching the number for her personal doctor – every dominatrix should have a discreet physician on speed dial – with her other hand. She answers as Irene is slamming the door to her apartment and shaking her other arm into its sleeve.
“I need you to be at my apartment in ten minutes. Someone’s been stabbed,” Irene says, not even bothering to lock her door.
“Wha – did you do this?”
“No.”
“And the hospital isn’t an option…” Dr. Chandra – Mishri, to Irene – says. She’s waiting to hear a reason why not, but Irene ignores that.
“I don’t know how bad it is yet, but he sounded terrible.” Irene’s heels make an unholy racket on the stairs as she bounds down them. “Can you just get here?”
“You should really take him to a hospital, I don’t even know what all I need to bring,” Mishri says, but in the background, Irene can hear her moving, her keys jingling.
“Just bring everything!”
“That’s really not how this wor- ” Irene hangs up.
Her driver has gone for the evening and her car is half a block away. She runs to it as fast as her shoes will allow, and when she gets to it, she lapses and starts to unlock the passenger-side door before remembering where she is. “Fuck!” She can feel herself starting to panic, the tight grip of her anxiety working its way up her throat, threatening to strangle her. She doesn’t fight it, lets the fear push her as she twists the key in the ignition and peels out toward 2nd Avenue.
Go go go go go go.
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After Irene says “I’m coming” and hangs up, Sherlock feels himself relax more completely into the pain. He lets himself groan aloud, and wraps both arms around his stomach.
It hurts, but more than the pain, he’s feeling exhausted and more disoriented by the second. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, and when he opens them, he’s lying on his side on the pavement, knees drawn up and arms still around himself. The word “fetal” crosses his mind.
Opposite of fetal, he thinks. Mortal?
No, Irene is coming. The thought of seeing her again –and like this, curled up on the pavement – sends a bolt of pain through his stomach. The last time he saw her, she was bailing out of a moving truck in Jaisalmer; he’d stayed hidden in the truck bed beneath a burlap tarp for another hour before leaping out himself.
Sherlock mourns, a touch hysterically, that he cut a much more imposing figure the last time she saw him – that scimitar! Not quite so impressive now.
John.
He’s going into shock, and realizing that it’s happening only makes him panic more, breath wheezing hard in and out of him. Irene is coming. Irene. Irene. Irene.
He shivers –why is he so cold, he’s so cold. This is shock. This is what shock blankets are for. Should have asked Irene to bring a blanket. No. That does not make sense.
As headlights swerve around the corner, he thinks. Anyway, I’m sure she has a blanket at home.
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Irene leaves the car idling and scrambles out of it, terrified by the sight of Sherlock Holmes curled up on the pavement. Even more than knowing he’s hurt, more than the pool of blood coiling out from under him, it’s the fact that he’s lying down that has cold fingers of dread tightening around her stomach. For a few seconds, she’s so scared, she swears her heart doesn’t beat at all.
Then her hands are pulling him (Sherlock), to lie on his back and he’s moaning so loudly that it actually reassures her. He’s alive. He’s alive and he’s awake and he’s breathing enough to make that much noise, and then he’s opening his eyes and saying “ow.”
For an instant, Irene freezes, strangely close to laughing, but it passes at the sight of Sherlock’s face. (Sherlock, touching Sherlock.)
“Let me see,” she says, but when she tries to move his arms, he clenches his eyes shut and actually whimpers. The sound almost sends Irene into hand-flapping hysterics, but again she pushes that impulse down. “Okay, all right, let’s get you home, okay?”
Sherlock doesn’t respond, but Irene keeps going – don’t freeze up, move fast. “I have a doctor coming, sweetie, you’ll be okay, but we have to stand up now.” She burrows an arm under his shoulders and heaves him upright. He groans and he’s so heavy, Irene wonders if she can really do this.
“Just to the car, Sherlock. We just have to get to the car, okay?” Irene kisses his temple and tries to calm down.
Mentally, she breaks down what she has to do: get Sherlock in the car, drive home, get Sherlock out of the car, get Sherlock upstairs. And then Mishri will be there and everything will be okay. She doesn’t let herself think that everything might not be okay. She doesn’t let herself think about time passing. If she can just do each little step, it will be fine.
And the next step is to get Sherlock in the car.
“I can’t, I – ” Sherlock pants, and Irene braces herself.
“Yes, you can, get ready,” Irene says and Sherlock lets out a close-lipped wine. With what feels like a superhuman effort, Irene hauls him on to his feet and then immediately has to catch him when he starts to collapse again.
“Come on, come on, come on,” she mutters, forcing him to walk forward. With a few ungainly lurches, she guides him to the wrong side of the car (“Fuck!”) and has to drag Sherlock around to the passenger’s door. Just before her arms give out, she manages to pile him into the seat, where he arches up and groans.
For the first time, Irene sees the deep red stain on his white shirt.
Same colour as my nail varnish, she thinks and immediately reprimands herself: God, Irene, keep it together.
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Sherlock is aware of what’s happening only in the most general sense. Irene is here. Irene wants me to stand up. I can’t stand up. Then he is standing somehow and all he can do is focus on breathing and then he’s in a car. Ow.
He dimly regrets not being in any position to process being with Irene again, but he’s too out of it, only aware of her peripherally – her arm holding him up, her shouted curse at one point.
He whines. Making noise helps, so he does it again.
From a thousand kilometres away, “Hold on, sweetie.”
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Irene normally considers herself both a good driver and someone who stays cool under pressure, but when she parks the car, she manages to get both right tires almost entirely on the curb and barely notices.
From the steps of her building, Mishri shouts, “Nice parking, English driver!”
Since when are there stereotypes about English driving? Irene thinks. She keeps finding herself having profoundly irrelevant thoughts.
“You’ll have to help me, he’s practically unconscious,” Irene says, climbing out of the car.
“Irene, this is really not smart. Let’s call an ambulance,” Mishri says, but she steps forward to watch Irene open the car door.
Sherlock barely responds as Mishri sucks air through her teeth at the sight of him, but when Irene leans him over to ease him out of the car, he moans weakly.
“You’re okay, we’re almost there,” Irene murmurs, but she doesn’t stop. She hauls him out of the car more efficiently than gently, grimacing at Sherlock’s little noises of protest. Both she and Mishri drag one of Sherlock’s arms over their shoulders and haul him into the building, and then into the elevator.
As they wait to reach Irene’s floor, there is an anticlimactic silence broken only by Sherlock’s labored breathing. Mishri clears her throat.
“Are you going to explain any of this?”
“Probably not.”
“Because he looks really familiar to me.”
Their eyes meet over Sherlock’s dangling head and Irene says, firmly, “No, I don’t think he does.”
“Mmm-hmm, that’s what I figured.”
They shuffle Sherlock into Irene’s unlocked apartment, where Mishri lets out a low whistle. “Did you redecorate?”
“Uh, yes, last month,” Irene grunts. (She’d been trying to make it more like her old place in London, which she still misses every day. She’d found the same wallpaper, but the overall effect is still a bit off.)
One of her favorite new pieces is the long rosewood dining table across the living room from the entrance, and the two of them walk the now-unconscious Sherlock toward it.
He rouses when they have him lying flat on his back on the table, as Irene is snapping shut the thick white drapes over the bay windows. She turns and sees his tired eyes are open and watching her. Without thinking, she drops to her knees by the table and presses a kiss to his sweaty forehead.
“Hello, sweetie,” she whispers. He doesn’t speak, but bumps his nose forward to brush hers, and she nuzzles at it gently. There’s a cluck from the end of the table.
“He is pretty handsome,” Mishri chirps. She’s unpacking things from her bag – gauze, a suture kit, disposable syringes – with a raised eyebrow.
Irene looks at Sherlock, whom she’s never seen looking worse. His eyes have closed and he’s panting shallowly. “Yes,” Irene agrees, “he is.”
One of his hands is hanging off the edge of the table and Irene holds it in both of hers, stomach clenching at how cold he feels.
“I really wish you would let me call the hospital,” Mishri says, and Irene actually considers it. She feels exhausted all of a sudden, in this quiet moment between frantic activity. She imagines handing Sherlock over to EMTs, the painkillers, the stretcher, the gloves and sterilization and how safe it would be. For a long moment, she lets herself think about it.
But Sherlock looks at her with exhausted, pleading eyes and she shakes her head. “No, we can’t. I want to, but it’s just not an option.” Sherlock’s shoulders relax a little.
You can trust me, she thinks. I’ll show you.
“Okay, but seriously, I’ve never done something like this. I’m not an army doctor or something,” Mishri says as she cuts away Sherlock’s bloody shirt with blunt-tipped scissors.
She doesn’t notice how the words make Sherlock grimace, his eyes slamming shut. Irene kisses his hand.
“Help me get his coat off.”
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Sherlock tries desperately not to think about John, as he’s been doing for five months. If he thinks about John, he’ll totally fall apart.
Instead he focuses on Irene, lovely Irene, brilliant Irene, who is holding his hand and kissing it and won’t let anyone find him.
“This is lidocaine,” the unfamiliar doctor says from somewhere far away. He barely registers the prick of the needle in his stomach.
“…hold him down for me,” he hears and then Irene is hovering above him, face serious.
Hi there.
The pain of the suture needle is manageable if he lets himself groan and tremble and occasionally thrash against Irene’s hands.
And when he does, Irene presses her forehead to his and makes soothing noises and that feels nice so he says, “Keep – ow – keep doing that,” and she does and she says “Sweetheart, baby, baby,” and normally that would be dull but it’s not dull tonight.
He thinks, as he shakes, Over soon.
Then Irene whispers, “Precious thing,” and he thinks maybe he can take a little more.
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Irene thinks she’s never been more in love with Sherlock than when he whimpers and asks her to keep talking.
Neither of them looks down at what Mishri is doing; in fact for most of it, they keep their eyes closed, and Irene murmurs encouragement while Sherlock sweats and keens.
A few times he gasps “John,” but she doesn’t think he even knows he’s saying it.
When it’s over and Mishri is taping gauze over the stitches, Irene gentles her grip but doesn’t let go immediately, keeping a soft stream of reassurance and praise: “All over, you’re okay now, sweet thing, poor baby.”
Sherlock nods weakly and starts to fall asleep as Irene presses a kiss to his cheek. When he stills and his breathing deepens, she lets go and stands up. As though she’s absorbed it from Sherlock, she’s completely exhausted, and her hands shake as she runs them over her face.
“Maybe you should go sit down,” Mishri suggests, gently. Irene whips her head toward her, having completely forgotten she was there.
“In a minute. I want to clean him up a little. And put him in bed.”
“Whoa, you’ve got a little…” Mishri lifts a hand to indicate her face. Irene looks at her own hands and sees that they’re smeared with blood, and without thinking, she brings her fingers to her mouth and licks them. Coppery.
“Okay, wow. There are like a dozen reasons not to do that,” Mishri shakes her head. “What is the deal with you two? I thought you were gay.”
Irene looks at Sherlock’s face. Asleep, his curls haloed out around his head, he looks almost beatific. She sucks a bit more blood off her fingers and nods.
“Then…what?”
Irene stops cleaning her fingers and shakes her head. “It’s nothing. He has…someone waiting for him, somewhere else.”
I’ll come after you if you don’t.
“This is all just bizarre,” Mishri says, and her words break Irene out of her reverie.
“Yes, well. Bizarre is kind of my specialty.” She goes to the bathroom for a flannel and then to the kitchen to fill a shallow bowl with water.
She cleans the blood and sweat off Sherlock as gently as she can, delicate on the pale skin she’s never seen before. He doesn’t even stir when she wipes the cloth over his neck, water trickling into the hollow of his throat.
Her work finished for the moment, Mishri goes to the kitchen and pours herself a glass of Irene’s shiraz without asking. She leans in the doorway with it and watches Irene, how careful she is, how she looks at Sherlock’s face.
He is pretty handsome, she thinks, and decides maybe that’s explanation enough.
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Sherlock, asleep on the table, doesn’t dream at all.
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The two women – one at his shoulders and one between his knees – carry him to Irene’s bedroom and tuck him beneath the duvet. (There is a guest bedroom, but the thought doesn’t cross Irene’s mind.)
Against the dark sheets and drifts of pillows, he looks painfully small and pale. Poor thing.
“It looks like a vampire bordello in here,” Mishri laughs. (She’s right, but that’s more or less what Irene was aiming for.)
“I’ll stay here for the night, okay?” she says, and Irene is grateful she doesn’t to ask. Along with the desperate relief that it’s over for now and Sherlock is stitched up and in bed – her bed – she’s feeling a new, less urgent fear. Somehow the sight of Sherlock still and unconscious is even more disconcerting than the thrashing and moaning had been. She’ll sleep a little easier knowing someone who can help is only a shout away.
She just says, “Thank you.”
“And now I’m going to go soak in that claw-foot tub until I’m pruney.” With a decisive spin on her heel, Mishri leaves, closing the door behind her.
Irene’s exhaustion has finally caught up with her, so she kicks off her heels and shrugs off her coat. It feels like she put them on days ago, but the clock says it’s only 1:46.
Now she crawls into bed and lies on her side, looking at him. A single errant curl has fallen over his forehead, and she brushes it away before cupping his face in her palm. At the press of her hand, he makes a heart-breaking little noise and nuzzles his face toward her. Irene’s heart, not for the first time that evening, melts. She shuffles herself closer, flings an arm over Sherlock’s chest, and buries her face in his neck.
He rubs his face into her hair.
I love you so much, Irene thinks, as she falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.