The bloody fight in the alley

The bloody way out

John moaned, slowly getting his shit together again and standing up carefully, not without swaying, though. Blood was slowly but surely running down his back and calf. As a doctor, John knew that his wounds would need stitches and better sooner than later, given by how bad they were bleeding. And going by how bad they started burning as he made the first step. His leg was trembling and nearly giving out under him, not being able to hold his weight. He just about stopped himself from toppling over by catching himself on the wall besides him.

Cursing and pressing his jaw together, he tried jumping on his left leg, but that made the pain in his back extremely worse so he had to lean sideways against the wall for support, breathing heavily. Only then he had the splendid idea to call for help just where he was instead of struggling his way out of the alley first, as he had planned.

Turning out his phone with new hope, he cursed again as he saw the huge crack. It must have been damaged during his fall earlier. He tried turning it on, but to no avail. So back to plan A again...

The pain in his back from the long gash was nearly killing him by now (apart from soaking his poor jumper in scarlet red) and walking was extremely difficult, so he decided to suck up his pride and just crawl to the nearest street instead. He felt like it took half an hour until he reached the end where the alley ended into a smallish street (at least for London standards) with moderate traffic and no people in the immediate vicinity. He crawled a little further out of the alleyway and then just laid there on the pedestrian walk, literally bloody and totally exhausted from the way there. His vision was slightly swaying now, which wasn't a good sign, he was losing too much blood. John closed his eyes for a moment, just breathing in and out and trying to get some of his strength back. As he was struggling to open them again, he heard the sound of a car screeching to a sudden stop.

"John!" he then heard a well-familiar voice shouting, with barely contained fear. He only managed a half-smiley as he more felt than saw Sherlock kneeling down beside him. A sudden gentle but inevitably painful pressure made him gasp for air, shuddering. "Shsh, shsh, shsh, it's all good now. Help is coming. Stay with me!" the voice of his very best friend was calming him down.

But he was tired, so tired... John could hardly keep his eyes open now. Sherlock carefully cupped his head with his long and smooth hands, turning it gently, making John face him. The sandy blonde noticed how deeply loving the fascinatingly greenish blue eyes of his companion looked onto him and would have blushed, if the blood rushing through his veins wasn't heading somewhere else already and that was out of his body.

Not much later, John's eyes began to close themselves of their own accounts, he just couldn't fight it anymore. The next thing Sherlock said, though, was effectively waking him up again:

"Keep your eyes fixed on me!"

It sounded exactly like fife years ago, on that dreaded day when he thought Sherlock was dying for good.

John's eyes snatched open, his body trembling not only from the aftershock of his injuries, but also from the reopening of an old, never healing wound. By the way Sherlock's voice broke on the end of the sentence, it seemed like it was just the same for him, though. John's heart felt like it clenched together painfully, but his eyes were wide open, staring at Sherlock again and not letting go. They remained like this when finally the ambulance was arriving, paramedics rushing out and approaching them.

Even when they laid him onto a stretcher, preparing him for transport, his eyes wouldn't leave the great detective's ones.

He would never ever let him go again.