He's awake and asking questions, we need to tell him. - JW

"John," Sherlock's voice rocked and his hand reached out to grab John's.

"It's alright," John took the outstretched fingers in his tightly, "It's alright."

Sherlock shook his head, curls rustling against the pillow, "No, it's not." The Detective's voice croaked in the back of his throat. John shushed him quickly, watching the tears prickling in the blue eyes before him. Raising his left hand to his face, the drip line dragging with it, Sherlock pushed the humiliating tears from his eyes with the heel of his palm. "What's happening to me?" he asked slowly. "Facts, John." He demanded, "Tell me!" John smoothed his thumb across Sherlock's hand in his own and waited impatiently for his phone to vibrate with a response from Mycroft. He didn't know what to say, he didn't want to cause any upset for anyone but seeing Sherlock this way was breaking him in two.

"It's alright; just try to calm down." John said carefully, pushing his phone back into his pocket and gave Sherlock his complete attention. "We'll talk through it, alright, but I need you to calm down or there is going to be a tonne of doctors and nurses in here who'll take over. Take it easy," he gripped Sherlock's tightly-gripping hand in both of his own.

"No," Sherlock gritted his teeth, frustration thrumming through him, "Tell me properly!" he winced, pain in his head worsening as his blood-pressure rose.

Extracting one hand from Sherlock's grip, John swiped it gently across Sherlock's unwashed curls, "I'll tell you everything, I promise, but you need to take it easy. You've been shot, Sherlock. If you're not careful, you'll tear your wounds and bleed out and that's a horrific way to die." John's voice firmed and Sherlock became slightly more pliant. "Breath calmly or you'll hyperventilate. I text your brother, he's coming I promise, and when he gets here we'll talk about it together."

Sherlock inhaled steadily, blowing air through his pursed lips and gritted teeth. John could see the tears in Sherlock's glassy blue eyes and knew that the Detective would never let them fall unless all control was lost. He hated to see Sherlock so painfully upset, had from the moment he met him, and that feeling was magnified with the helplessness of his current situation. "That's it," John soothed, his hand back on Sherlock's forehead, "Steady." He could feel the tremble through Sherlock's entire body and hated it. "I'm sorry," he whispered, leaning over the bed to press his forehead to Sherlock's temple. "I'm so sorry."

It was this way that Mycroft found them a few moments later as he stepped into the ICU with bile bubbling at the back of his throat. Silently, he removed his coat and hung it over the chair it had occupied earlier. He inhaled deeply and stepped closer to the bed, his footsteps rousing John.

"Have you told him yet?" Mycroft asked, examining Sherlock's red-eyes and pursed lips, reading him in an instant. It said in many, many words 'I'm terrified'.

"No," John sniffed and it was clear he'd been crying. "I was waiting for you, trying to calm him down." He cleared his throat.

Mycroft nodded minutely and moved around to the other side of the bed. He reached out his hand almost nervously and touched the crook of Sherlock's arm. The white pock marks of his past were silver and evident against his blue veins and pale flesh and made Mycroft's throat constrict and stomach drop. He let his fingers curl a little, gripping lightly against his brother's arm.

"He's here," Sherlock breathed in and it looked painful, "So now you can tell me." His wet eyes flicked over John, and then his brother and he drew his bottom lip between his teeth to still his chin as it bobbed.

John took an unsteady breath in and eyed Mycroft with expectancy. He wanted the man to take over, to lead the conversation and break the news that had already shattered his own world yet, at the same time, he didn't. He needed to do this, for his own sake as well as Sherlock's. He sniffed, emotions high, and wet his lips.

"John!" Sherlock's face creased deeply, "Please?"

John nodded, "OK. OK – you were shot. Three bullets." He blurted, not sure that sugar coating it would make a difference but not wanting to be blunt and make it harder, either. "Your spinal cord is beyond repair, Sherlock; there's nothing the surgeons could do. The damage was so great that it has caused paralysis from here," he reached down and placed his hand on Sherlock's hip over the blankets.

"No," Sherlock blinked, "I can feel that. Your hand, I can – I can feel your hand."

John's eyes flicked up to Mycroft and then, slowly, he moved his hand a little further down Sherlock's waist, still atop the blankets, no more than a centimetre and then another and then he saw the flash on Sherlock's face when the weight of John's hand was no longer felt against his limbs. The space of three finger-widths from his sharp hipbones was where the numbness began. John closed his eyes in sympathy as Sherlock drew in a breath quickly and then exhaled it rapidly, breathing ragged, tears falling at last.

Mycroft's breath hitched, "Sherlock-," his milky tones were ignored as Sherlock's head tipped back, his jaw stretched wide, and a painful sob escaped his open mouth. Mycroft hadn't seen his brother cry since he was in his teens – very early in his teens at that – and the sight wasn't a fond memory, making his chest ache and his palms sweat. He tightened his fingers on Sherlock's arm as the Detective's face screwed up and he turned his head toward John, tears flooding the corner of his eye before dripping across the scrunched bridge of his nose and into the opposite eye. Sherlock tugged his arms sharply from Mycroft's grasp, the IV line rattling against the bed at the swift movement, "Sherlock, please," Mycroft's voice edged closer to unease at being denied the ability to comfort the younger man and sighed to stem his emotions off quickly.

"Mycroft," John blinked the dampness from his lashes, his hands captured tightly in Sherlock's, "Maybe just…, maybe don't touch him?" his mouth bobbed, searching for words. "It's shock, he's in shock." He stammered out, finally.

"Get out." Sherlock's voice was hoarse but firm and he pulled away from John's hands.

"I just want to be sure that you're alright, Sherlock." Mycroft stood strongly, his jaw setting firm.

Sherlock sniffed, wiping his arm across his damp, red face, "No – I'm not. I'm not OK. Not even close. Get. Out." The words fired in this throat, growing at John and Mycroft. "Get out!" John startled, jumping back at the ferocity of Sherlock's voice. "Get out! Get out, just leave me alone…" his face sharpened, desperate to cry but refusing to do it and he glared up to the ceiling with venom.

Glancing at Mycroft, John puffed out his chest and granted Sherlock his wish. He turned, leaving the room with an authoritative march; he didn't want to be angry, he didn't want to come across as though he didn't understand Sherlock's emotion, but he hadn't planned on Sherlock's reaction being so deeply horrific. Then again, how else was one to accept the news? What had he expected, anyway - a nod, a 'not to worry'?

Mycroft followed him, moving only a short distance from the room before he spoke. "Coffee, Doctor Watson?" he asked, "There is an ill-equipped but adequate coffee shot a small walk away; Sherlock is going to need a considerable amount of time to himself so it would be best to occupy ourselves rather than linger in the corridor when we're not wanted."

John stared at him, angered and awed equally, and nodded, "Yes." He finally sighed, pushing his hands into the pockets of his trousers, "Yes, coffee would be…fine." If he didn't walk, if he didn't agree, then he would stand and stew and mostly likely sob and where would that get him? Where would it get Sherlock? Nowhere.

"Suffice to say, Doctor Watson, Sherlock is not quite as hard to understand as he would have you believe." Mycroft muttered, walking with his hands behind his back and his shoulders rolled. John sniffed a laugh through his nose. "Emotion shows itself more readily on his features then he would care to accept and he is easy to read if you were to look. Sherlock is neither deaf nor stupid, either. But, he is hopeful – he is infinitely hopeful."

"I'm not sure what you're getting at?" John frowned, confused, and pulled open the large door before them, preceding Mycroft through into the corridor.

Mycroft smiled – falsely – and tilted his head slightly as he followed John, stepping in beside him. "The first thing that would have crossed Sherlock's mind in any moments of lucidity would have been the distinct lack of feeling in his extremities. Dazed as the medication has made him, I doubt he has been so artificially high that he had failed to notice he was unable to move or read the cues of his body. But I am certain that he had the hope, the faith if you will that things might improve. Your confirmation – as that is exactly what it was; you telling him was not news, it was confirmation of something he already knew – only served to fracture that hope. He had hoped, Doctor Watson, and knowing that you didn't share that same hope, offering him the news, quashed it. That is why he is upset, that is why he is grieving."

John's frowned deepened, his mouth drawing down. "What?"

Mycroft took a deep breath and gave John a withering look of condescension. "He is crying out of lost hope that things could improve, not out of shock." He simplified. "He had hoped that you would make it all OK, telling him of his injuries and fate extinguished that hope – he is helpless, hopeless, and so he is emotional." His shoulders rose up a little before settling back down again firmly.

John supposed that Mycroft was right; Sherlock was not a fool and if there was anything Mycroft completely knew – without falter – it was his brother. He didn't doubt that Sherlock had been in possession of at least some knowledge of his condition but he hadn't really thought about it much and so when Mycroft's words finally registered, they both stung and made perfect sense at the same time. "Just another thing I can't off then," he said, dryly.

"In line with?" Mycroft asked.

"I can't fix him and I can't allow him the hope that he can be fixed." John stopped, just shy of the coffee shop's entrance; it was bustling with people, mostly parents of children dotted around the wards and operating rooms across the hospital but there were more hopeful faces in there, too, smattered with the odd off-duty doctor or nurse. He scanned them, wondering what kinds of blows they had received today, remembering that he used to be one of those delivering it, not receiving it.

"Sherlock has had a lifetime of disappointment; it wouldn't do to break the habit." Mycroft dropped his brows.

"That's not funny," John sniffed.

"It was not intended to be, Doctor Watson." Mycroft exhaled, "Sherlock is stronger than you give him credit for – once he comes to terms with the reality, determination will return. It will just take a bit of time and that is why," he nodded toward the café, "You and I are here for an awfully common cup of coffee, to undoubtedly stare at one another with the inability to find the right words."

John eyed him; he was as peculiar was his brother and just as charming, too, but twice as manipulative and – John didn't wonder – vindictive in his intelligence. Keener than Sherlock in his ability to read people, he knew Mycroft saw through him as though he were as transparent as a whiskey tumbler. "Yes," he said simply on an exhale of stifled breath and turned into the café.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 543