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(Around the age of 9 or 10, a young wizard will be expected to come across a creature —whether by fate or their parents' design— that they will bond with. Through this bond, the animal gains a degree of sentience, magical abilities, and a telepathic link to the wizard. From that point forward, that creature is a familiar.
Familiars develop distinguishing characteristics from the bond, in order that they be told apart from standard animals. A change in colouration and an increase in size are the most common. The ageing of the familiar will also scale to that of the wizard, with both parties maturing at the same rate.
There are three categories of familiar, based on the type of creature bonded. Each category has two power levels.
The categories are as follows:
Common (common, uncommon)
Rare (rare, ultra rare)
Legendary (legendary, mythical)
Familiars that are common come from the group of animals that are seen as commonplace in a given country or area. These animals are often already domesticated, and pet shops are a popular place for parents to bring their children on their ninth and tenth birthdays.
While a more unconventional way to acquire a familiar, it has happened that a mage's familiar was the family pet of a different household. On occasions such as this, familiar law goes into effect, and the newly bonded familiar and wizard are permitted to leave together, granted that they can prove their bond.
Familiars that are rare are any animals that are unlikely to be found in a mage's place of origin. For this reason, zoos are also a very popular birthday location.
In addition to unlikely animals, the rare category is also where the majority of inanimate object familiars are placed. Because these tend to be objects the wizard has a high emotional attachment to, this type of familiar is often a child's favourite toy, and is often discovered late.
Familiars that are legendary are highly prized. This category consists of creatures that are already of magical significance to begin with. Only the most powerful of wizards bond with legendary familiars, and the majority of them do.
While many legendary creatures start off already being able to take on the appearance of a human being, all legendary familiars —once a strong enough bond to their mage is formed— are able to develop a human form.
Excerpt taken from A Familiar Type of Friend, by H.C. Lance)
Lestrade was used to many weird things, being a detective would do that to you. And he thought he handled it pretty well, took it on the chin gracefully, kept getting back up and letting life beat the stuffing out of him again and again.
So when the solution to a difficult case came in the form of a slurring, coked out kid, he barely batted an eye. When that kid (who was actually a full, late twenties, adult) turned out to be one of the most intelligent, powerful, arsehole-ish mages he'd ever met, well, that seemed par for the course.
And when that not-quite-a-kid’s well dressed older brother had sidled up to him after the second time Greg had taken Sherlock into custody to ask for a favour, he wasn't as wary as he should've been.
He did notice it almost immediately. Despite what Sherlock Holmes said, he wasn't completely incompetent.
Then again, it was hard not to notice the fact that Sherlock moved through the world alone.
Not just friendless, though the man sure did his best to remain that way, but completely companionless.
Familiarless.
At first he suspected some kind of legendary familiar, something that would spend a lot of time away from its person. But Enoya, Lestrade's fox, doubted it. She said that he never smelled like a magical creature, just humans and the occasional whiff of fur, though he knew Mrs. Hudson's capybara, Bay, was quite fond of the man.
It wasn't unheard of, to be familiarless, just a bit strange to see. Off putting, if you believed the conspiracies his department came up with. Certainly wasn't helpful if one was trying to make friends.
(Though Lestrade suspected that that was never Sherlock's intention.)
Which is why the existence of one John Watson came as a surprise.
The first time Greg saw John was when he finally caved and went to ask Sherlock for help with the serial suicides.
(‘A Study in Pink,’ as John called it.)
He'd walked into the sitting room of 221B, doing a visual quick scan as he always did when entering a new space. Enoya had clocked Mrs. Hudson and that capybara of hers in the kitchen, but was expecting a quick exit and was staying by the door. He had a brief word with Sherlock, and then he was out of there.
It was only when he did his final sweep of the room that he actually saw the man at all.
As a police detective and frequent handler of Sherlock Holmes, Lestrade had taught himself to not spook when surprised. That's the only reason he managed to leave without doing a double take.
Because John was just… sitting there. Watching the exchange with a curious tilt of the head.
He wasn't hiding, but for some reason Lestrade had completely missed the whole other person in the room with them.
He just seemed to blend in with his surroundings. It wasn't that he was matching the chair or the wallpaper—in fact, John had been wearing a remarkably light coloured jumper, something that reminded Greg of morning porridge.
No, it was more like he fit in where he was. Like his presence was a detail so matching the scene that Lestrade's brain just skipped over him.
Of course John Watson would be sitting there in that flat, watching him beg Sherlock Holmes to join the case. Where else would he be?
Except that Lestrade had never seen this man in his life. And Sherlock didn't have friends and didn't invite people into his space. And Enoya hadn't mentioned anything about another person being in the flat.
Unfortunately, by the time he thought to ask any of these questions, he was already halfway down the stairs.
So imagine Lestrade's surprise when Sherlock showed up to Lauriston Gardens with the other man in tow. Not only sharing his flat, but the ‘Work’ as well.
They'd walked right into the foyer where Lestrade was getting himself and Enoya kitted up. No word from his team about a Holmes tag-a-long. No warning, no intervention.
(Yeah, he'd missed the bloke the first time round, but surely at least one of his officers must have noticed him? Or did he have to run crime scene protection protocol all over again?)
He'd only been able to get a “He’s with me,” out of Sherlock, which was massively unhelpful.
But, four people were dead, and this was his last resort. So he waved the man through and just hoped that this case would be over with sooner rather than later.
Still, the ‘where did he come from?’ question stayed hovering in the back of Lestrade's mind.
The short answer was that a mutual friend of theirs reintroduced them, and they were now flatmates.
The longer answer involved the fact that John had recently come home from Afghanistan, and that they had been friends for a number of years before. Previously living together even, but had lost touch.
Which… well, all of it seemed to be true.
(Sally has run a background check on the man after he'd first come through, and Greg would have reprimanded her more if he hadn't been just as curious. Everything surfaced clean and the right side up. John H. Watson, doctor, retired military personnel. Nothing related to drugs, or vandalism, or breaking and enterings. Not even any disorderly conducts, drunken or otherwise.)
John could keep up with Sherlock's ideas and words, more often than not saying the thing that helped Sherlock crack a case wide open. He had an almost eerie sense of the other man, moving with and around him fluidly no matter the size of the space they were in, and could track and follow him no matter where he went.
And Sherlock was in top form with John around. If Lestrade thought he'd been brilliant before, it was nothing compared to now. It was like someone had upped the contrast, focused the lens, increased the saturation. It wasn't exactly that Sherlock was more or complete, but like he was concentrated. It certainly helped that, now that John was here, he wouldn't let the detective forget his body and its poor mortal needs.
(There was the physical closeness too. Standing next to each other, a hand on the shoulder, the arm, the back or chest, futzing with collars, or scarves, or a few times even pockets.)
Him and Sherlock were close. Closer than Sherlock was with anyone else, certainly, but also closer than Greg thought ‘old friends' warranted.
Sally bet that they were secretly dating. They weren't, according to John, but it's not like Lestrade didn't get where Sally was coming from. He's seen the way they look at each other.
The whole thing was strange, was the thought Greg kept coming back to. He kept coming back to it over and over again because for some reason, he kept forgetting about it.
It was that same thing that happened, that first time he ever saw John Watson. Like his brain just skipped over him. It wasn’t just Greg either. Except for Donovan —and her raven, Kira, whose general awareness of her surroundings was higher than normal— the officers and PCs that interacted with Sherlock Holmes had to be reminded that John even existed in the first place.
Which was weird itself, but especially because the man was so... helpful. Not just in handling Sherlock, but in general.
For one thing, John was fast. He could out speed Lestrade, though that wasn't too hard, but he'd also been seen flying passed Sherlock when need be, and the lanky bastard was already incredibly quick. Most people didn't stand a chance against him in a footrace, and those who did were souped up on speed charms. Even then, it was close.
(Made the rest of them look like lazy, magic-over-reliant bastards, but if the perp got caught then he wasn't complaining. Much.)
And having a doctor on scene was never not a good idea. Everyone on his team, including himself, was trained in first aid, but with recertification only coming up every few years, it was rare for anything more than the very basics to be remembered during emergencies. John thrived during emergencies, in a different way than he did when he was following after the detective. Something in him seemed to change, and it was equally as impressive as it was slightly terrifying to watch him take command of a situation.
(Plus, it was easier to convince forensics to believe the word of a man with a medical degree and extensive experience with violent and traumatic wounds, than the consulting detective that most of them hated.)
It made him compliant. With John there to back up Sherlock, he'd stopped thinking about the type of hijinx the man usually found himself in. And because he stopped thinking about it, he was unfortunately surprised when he was the one backing up Sherlock instead.
Lestrade leaned heavily against the bars of the cage. He was thinking about after this case. When —if— they got out, he was going to handcuff Sherlock to the radiator in his flat, and take a two week vacation. Enoya chittered disapprovingly at him.
“Yeah well, it's not like there's anything else to do now, besides wait for them to come back and kill us,” he said to his fox familiar.
He couldn't see her face, but he could feel the equivalent of an eye roll through their bond. He watched as she curled up on the floor of her own limiting cage, and almost winced as she thought very strong thoughts about taking a nap.
(At least someone was relaxed)
Lestrade looked behind himself at the cellmate he'd ended up with. One Sherlock Holmes, pacing back and forth like a — well — caged tiger.
(This was his punishment for abandoning protocol and chasing after the man without letting anyone know what they were doing. Next time he'd just leave it to John.)
As if sensing eyes on him, Sherlock whipped around, glaring daggers at Lestrade. If they'd still had access to their magic, Greg was sure his hair would be on fire.
(Though, if they had access to their magic they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place, but c’est la vie)
“This was supposed to be a short case,” the other man gritted out.
Lestrade took a moment to hate him for still looking so posh and uppity. They were both covered in bruises and cuts from when they were jumped earlier that day. (It seemed that the criminal classes had decided that the only way to get them caged was through physical violence.)
He was ruffled and rumpled, shirt and trousers ripped in several places, and with a wicked split on his cheek and lip.
Lestrade couldn't be looking much better, but between the two of them it seemed like he was the only one feeling it.
“I apologize that the case got more interesting. Next time I'll make sure to bring you the extra boring ones.”
Sherlock nearly snarled at him, but didn't say anything. He went back to pacing.
“Seriously, I was surprised you even took this case, I was going to give it to one of my officers because even I found it boring. I thought you'd be thrilled,”
“Yes, do remember not to do that in the future,”
“What?”
“Think.”
Lestrade crossed his arms. The insult was easy to ignore; he'd been around Sherlock long enough that the nonspecific taunts barely left a mark. And if Sherlock was rattled enough to be using nonspecific insults, then something else was going on.
“You're really bothered by this, aren't you?”
“I'm locked in a cage, in an empty room, magicless, alongside an idiotic detective who has a useless familiar that doesn't know what being a lookout means,” Sherlock snapped.
Okay, starting to get a bit more personal now. But it wasn't like there was much Enoya’s hearing could do against a silence enchantment, even if it was magically enhanced.
He was onto something.
He hesitated. “You’re not—”
“My god, I am CLEAN!” Sherlock practically yelled at him. He pushed his sleeves up past his elbows, showing off pale white and vivid blue, but no new puncture wounds.
Lestrade nodded. He believed him.
“An appointment then? Something happening tonight that a short, few hours long case would take your mind off until then.”
Sherlock's sneer became a full glare. (Hey, Lestrade wasn't a Detective Inspector for nothing.)
Sherlock opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off by the door slamming open. A large burly man, a guard, but different from the ones that threw them in in the first place, walked in.
Immediately, both detectives shut up, turning towards their captor. Enoya got into a defensive crouch.
“Shut it, the both of you or I'll do it for you,” the man threatened.
Greg could practically feel the eye roll coming from behind him, and hung his head internally in defeat.
“Will you?” Sherlock asked, and it sounded genuinely curious for some reason.
“What?”
“Will you shut us up?”
“Sherlock,” Lestrade whispered, but was summarily ignored.
Sherlock walked forward, until he was very nearly pressed against the bars of the cage.
“Hard to see how you'd manage. This cage limits all magic in or entering, there's nothing you can do from out there, and seeing as you're hardly trusted enough to be told who we are, you won't risk using that gun on your belt. So I ask again: will you shut us up?”
The guard's hand flew to his pocket at the same time he stepped forward. It was in that moment that Lestrade caught on to what Sherlock was trying to do, and he was half-convinced it was going to work. The guard made it all the way to grabbing the cage’s door, before he stopped.
His hand moved from his pocket to pull out the nightstick he had strapped to his waist. Lestrade could only brace himself as the guard brought the stick down against the side of the cage, the resulting clang! rattling around his skull.
“Quiet.”
Sherlock glared, and the guard glared back. Then he smirked, striding smugly back to the room's door.
He stayed smug all the way up until he opened the door, and was immediately tackled to the ground.
The guard hit the deck with a low oof. Before he could yell out, the figure over him —a dog, what the hell was a dog doing in here?— clamped its jaws around his throat.
The guard stayed silent.
“Oh god , ” Greg managed to whisper. There had to be other guards nearby, so yelling was far from a good idea, but Jesus Christ.
(A pulse of distress came through his familiar bond. Seemed like Enoya’s perspective was just as upsetting.)
“Relax,” said Sherlock. He was fully pressed against the front of the cage now. “He'll survive.”
He watched as the dog used its teeth to pull at one of the pieces of fabric tied around its leg. It tossed the it over the man, which immediately split into three pieces that tied themselves around the man's mouth, wrists and ankles.
This dog was using a binding spell.
(‘Dog’ mostly because he couldn't recognize the breed. It was medium sized, had shaggy light brown fur, a shorter snout, and ears that pointed straight up. If Lestrade had to guess, it was a mutt.)
“Sherlock,”
“His medical degree has to be good for something,”
The dog yipped at him from where it was sniffing around the guard, but Lestrade couldn't focus on that right now.
“The—the guard?”
Sherlock just looked at him with that ‘my faith in the Metropolitan police diminishes with every word coming out of your mouth’ look.
“Honestly Lestrade,” he shook his head and turned back to the dog. “Knew you'd show up. Now, his right trouser pocket, the key, hurry!”
The dog scampered over to the aforementioned pocket, and with a surprising amount of dexterity, pulled out a key.
At that moment, Enoya barked urgently. Her ears were pricked up, and through their bond he could tell what she heard.
The dog dropped the keys, immediately rushing out into the hallway.
“Where are you —?!” Sherlock started to yell, before Lestrade clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Shhhhhhh,” he shushed the man. Of course the wanker struggled, but even if he had put on several pounds since John moved in, he was still skinny. Greg kept him still as both him and his fox listened.
Footsteps.
He wasn't sure if that was coming from Enoya or himself, but either way that could spell trouble. Especially with the tied up guard on the floor. (Who was just now starting to regain consciousness.)
The dog slinked back in, taking a moment to touch noses with his fox, before unclipping the guard's gun from his belt. It was clear that the dog intended to dash out again.
Sherlock —who had calmed slightly— started kicking up another fuss, but Lestrade didn't need to release him to understand what it was about.
“Don't just leave us here!” He whisper-yelled at the gun-toting, magic-casting dog. (Greg sometimes wondered if he'd live a sensible, reasonable life if he'd never met Sherlock Holmes. Part of him doubted he'd like it.)
Pausing in the doorway, the dog turned back to them, sheepishly lowering the gun to the floor before tossing the keys into the cage.
Sherlock ducked out of his grip, catching them before they hit the floor.
“And you complain about me leaving you behind,”
The dog woofed in response, and did its own version of an eye roll.
Lestrade himself got a very stern finger in his face. “And don't do that again.”
Lestrade put his hands up in surrender. He'd absolutely be doing that again, if necessary.
Sherlock turned to the cage door and started to work on it. The dog barked at the man, flicking its nose to the right.
“Please, there are at least twelve other people in this building, you can't possibly be planning to take them on all by yourself.”
The dog growled.
“They're superficial, I'm fine,”
The dog shook its head before looking pointedly at Lestrade and barking one more time. To Greg, it sounded suspiciously like ‘go’.
Then it picked up the gun again, and disappeared.
It took a moment to sink in.
“Shit, we could have used that,” Lestrade said.
“Better it goes with him,” Sherlock replied. He was still working away at the cage lock. The guard's keyring must’ve had over thirty keys on it.
“Why?”
“Because between the three of us, he's the better shot.”
Before Lestrade could ask what the hell that meant, the lock click-ed, and the cage door swung open in front of them.
They heard the first gunshots after Enoya was freed and the guard was stripped of everything of worth. Lestrade turned to Sherlock.
“We have to go,”
Sherlock straightened from his position hunched over the prone man, and the ribbon bindings tightened. He tossed Greg the guard's nightstick, then, with more brute force than finesse, telekinetically shoved the guard into the limiting cage. He pushed the door shut and the lock engaged automatically.
“Let's go, then.”
When they exited the room, Lestrade caught Sherlock by the collar of his shirt before the man could turn left.
“Exit’s this way, remember?” He used a thumb to point over his shoulder. “Let's not go towards the sounds of gunfire.”
“You can go if you want. I'm not leaving him to handle this on his own.”
He was talking about the dog. Sherlock had always had a particular soft spot for dogs, but Lestrade wasn't nearly as fond. He shifted his grip so it was wrapped around the other man's shoulder.
"He'll be fine. He got himself in there by himself, didn't he?" He said. “Besides, I saw you get kicked in the ribs hard enough to break something. We're going.”
Sherlock looked back down the left corridor, but now that they were closer, Lestrade could see how shallow of breaths the consulting detective was taking. Thankfully, Sherlock didn't choose to argue further, letting himself be directed out towards the exit.
They made it outside to the sight of emergency vehicles lining the street and a temporary, semi-circular barricade. There was also a row of gun barrels and held spells leveled at them. Immediately, Lestrade raised his hands in supplication. Well, one hand. The other was busy grabbing Sherlock by the back of the shirt so that he didn’t walk directly into the firing line.
"Identify yourselves."
“I’m Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, and this is Sherlock Holmes, we were just being held hostage by the gang here!”
Someone must have called their disappearance in, because near instantly the offensive line broke. That was good, because Sherlock was already pulling out of his grip and approaching the barricade.
He started interrogating the nearest officer on what exactly they were doing, and why haven’t they sent anyone in yet, and what are you waiting for? Before Lestrade was able to catch up to him again and drag him past the barrier.
He had a brief moment to interface with someone in a position of power, before medical personnel descended on them. They were led off to the side towards an ambulance, EMTs asking after their injuries. According to Enoya, there was a grasshopper assessing her as well, and very loudly not wondering about Sherlock's familiar.
They were seated on a nearby bench, and after an initial assessment and treatment of superficial wounds, a blanket was placed around his shoulders. (His coat had been taken when they'd been jumped, so he was grateful for the warmth.) One was placed around Sherlock's shoulders as well, and he accepted it distractedly, though he wouldn't let any of the paramedics examine him. He just waved them off anytime they came near, eyes fixed pointedly at the building they just came from.
“Sherlock!”
The voice was coming from behind them. Both him and the man in question looked over. Jogging towards them, barefoot, ruffled, and dressed in scrubs, was John Watson.
“You're okay,” John said. His eyes flicked to look at Greg as well, probably in an attempt to make him feel included in the statement.
“Yeah,” Greg said, at the same time as Sherlock's “You already knew that.”
“Are you alright?” Sherlock asked. He stood to greet the doctor, hands reaching up to hover over the other man. The movements caused the shock blanket to slip off his shoulder, and John tugged the edge of it up, pulling it snug around Sherlock again.
A medical technician—one had been hovering around them just in case Sherlock changed his mind he supposed— jerked forward as if to insist Sherlock not stand, but John waved them off.
“Yes, of course I'm alright, I wasn't the one getting kidnapped.” He used the hold he had on the blanket to push the detective back to sitting.
“Because starting a fire fight is much safer.”
John rolled his eyes. “You needed a distraction. They barely saw me.”
Wait.
“Wait,” Lestrade said. “Wait, hang on, you weren't in the building with us.”
John tilted his head in confusion at him. “Yes I was.”
“Of course he was,” Sherlock added.
“I let you out of the cage,”
“You nearly didn't.”
John raised an eyebrow at Sherlock. “You're not in the cage now, are you?”
They might have said something else, but Lestrade wasn't really listening. He had been hit in the head during the initial ambush, but didn't think it was hard enough to make thinking this… hard.
“You're not…” he interrupted, though he wasn't sure exactly how to finish that sentence. Seemed awfully rude to accuse someone of being a dog.
Sherlock sighed in the way he always did when he was forced to let people come to conclusions by themselves. “Of course he is.”
Greg looked at John, who just smiled kind of apologetically.
“...you can't be,”
“I am. Why do you think I never had a familiar of my own?”
Well that put him on pause. John never did have a familiar of his own, but no one ever mentioned it. Just Sherlock's lack thereof.
It was at this point that Enoya made her own presence known, circling around the doctor's legs. She hopped up onto the bench beside them and tapped her nose against John's outstretched hand. Then she turned to Lestrade and shrugged.
“Oh my god.”
John laughed. “Don't worry too hard about it, Lestrade. Most people don't notice.”
“Most people are idiots,” Sherlock said.
“Speaking of which, why are you bleeding?”
There was a cut, about two centimetres across, on the back of his head behind his left ear. It must have reopened at some point, and had been slowly leaking blood down the back of his neck.
If Sherlock's doctor had been anyone but his familiar, it would have required stitches. Small mercies.
“How did you find us?" he asked into his chest. John was standing behind him, and he could feel their shared magic pulling the edges of the wound closed.
“‘Scuse me?”
“You're the one who called in our disappearance, no?”
“Ah. Neither of you were answering my calls, so I went down to New Scotland Yard. Found the notes on Lestrade's desk.” John said.
"Took a bit to figure out where you'd gone from the dropoff point, but luckily a few of your homeless network saw two men get shoved into the back of a car."
Sherlock hmmed and nodded in understanding, and was lightly reprimanded for moving.
There was a tap at his ankle. It was Lestrade's fox.
Enoya was holding shoelaces between her teeth, a grip which she had used to drag the corresponding shoes with her from god knows where. They were roughly John's size and not too terribly dirty, so he gave her a quiet ‘thank you,’ and watched as she trotted back to her person.
Lestrade had walked off a little while ago, linking up with the officer in charge in order to give a statement — hopefully on behalf of the both of them.
Behind him, John dragged a thumb down the line of the cut, causing Sherlock to shiver. It was fully sealed now, though he'd have to manage most of the internal healing on his own.
“Right, now that that's done.” John rounded the bench, and adjusted the glowlight he had been using to light the area. It floated in tighter circles above them, rather than it's typical meandering arc.
Sherlock looked up at him. He was dressed in a pair of ill-fitting green scrubs that he must have borrowed from someone, hair dried to his forehead from sweat, and grime smudged across his face. He was obviously tired and there was a yellow-green bruise starting on the corner of his jaw. Sherlock had seen him objectively look better a thousand times before, but here and now, all he could do was stare.
John felt through the rest of his hair for any other injuries, murmuring quiet apologizes as he brushed over bumps and bruises. His right hand cupped the side of Sherlock's head while the left grabbed the glowlight again, and the doctor leaned down to get a closer look at his face.
There were remnants of product in John's hair. Likely that pomade he'd bought for him, as gel never seemed to last through his familiar’s transformations.
(John was looking into his eyes now. Well, one of them.)
“I missed our date.” Sherlock said.
John closed his eyes. He let the glowlight drift above their heads once again, and took a seat on the bench with a small sigh.
“Yeah, well, should have expected it.” He looked out at the still-gathered police cars. Officers were now escorting individuals out of the building. “I can't say I don't prefer this to a fancy restaurant and suits.”
“No, that's never been our style,”
“A heads up would have been nice. Could have cancelled our reservation.”
“A last minute case. It wasn't supposed to take this long, but you know how the Yard is. The bigger picture is wasted on them because they insist that the best way to solve a puzzle is by testing every single piece to see if it fits.”
Sherlock pointed to the pair of shoes still lying in front of them. “Those are for you.”
“Mm.” John ignored them. “Why didn't you call me?”
“My things were taken. Hopefully my coat wasn't ruined and hasn't been seized as evidence.”
“When you first got the case?”
Sherlock felt his mouth twist into a moue of distaste. “You were at work.”
(His abhorrence was not enough to cover up how very small those words sounded. Not to his ears, certainly not to John's.)
John sighed, much heavier this time and finally turned away from the building, back towards Sherlock. “Let's not do this now, okay?”
He went back to his examination of Sherlock, down his neck, shoulders and arms.
(It had been better between them now; it'd been getting better everyday that they're back in each other's orbits. They're relearning each other, relearning their relationship, and the familiar bond that has been shut between them for so many years. Today was supposed to be another step towards that, a proper date.)
The doctor had gotten to his hands. The first touch made him flinch, pulling them out of his grip on instinct.
Sherlock never took good care of his hands. They were tools, transport, and pain could be compartmentalized and stiffness pushed through. But they were essential in ways that he often took for granted. Essential for his spellcraft, his violin, his work, his life. Letting John touch them now felt vulnerable, which was ridiculous, as he'd touched them many times before.
John had his own hands raised, not reaching for him again.
“Sherlock,” he said, “you have to let me help you.”
(It was stern, mostly. He'd heard a variation of them from this man time and time again. But there was a tiredness in them. An expectation of rejection perhaps older than his own words’ smallness.)
There was a knock at the door bisecting their familiar bond.
A beat of silence.
Slowly, Sherlock placed his left hand in John's.
He knocked back.
There was a warmth coming through the familiar bond that he hadn't felt in a long time. It wasn't very strong, like a breeze through a keyhole or through the crack at the bottom of the door, but it was there nonetheless.
John was dressing his split knuckles, and rubbing warmth back into his fingers. He was still clearly agitated —from their previous conversation, and likely because of Sherlock's general dismissal of self— but he handled him so carefully.
They fell into a lull in their little secluded cornerunder the glowlight. Adrenaline fading, tension relaxing as he watched John work. (He liked watching John work. He always liked watching John do anything, really. The man had a hyper expressive face, and a thousand interesting little mannerisms.)
It was one of those things that he hadn't realized he'd missed during their years apart. Not until it was staring him right in the face. Then he ached for it.
His hand was wrapped quickly, and John used a finger to draw a quick rune onto the back of it. Immediately, the stinging and prickling that had started on his skin soothed. It was a rune for quieting, diminishing. Sherlock had never seen it used in that way.
John switched to his right hand. His movements were practiced in a way that was still unfamiliar to Sherlock, hours, years, over a decade of experience that would always be a mystery.
But then John's nose twitched, and he scrunched it in that way he'd been doing since he was a pup, and Sherlock camouflaged his sigh of relief as a hiss of pain.
(How silly of him to think that his familiar could ever become strange to him)
John rubbed an apology into his skin, tracing that rune again. He secured the ends of the bandage and went to drop his hand, already moving on to the next part of his examination, but Sherlock caught his wrist.
John glanced down confused as Sherlock laced their fingers. He looked up, and the detective didn't realize until that moment just how close their faces had gotten.
John tilted his head curiously, and there was another tap at their bond.
Sherlock couldn't stand it any longer. He kissed him.
It went well for the first handful of seconds.
After a moment of surprise, John leaned into it, kissing him back. But then, Sherlock leaned forward as well so he could wrap an arm around John's back, and it all went downhill from there.
Because he had forgotten that he'd been kicked in the ribs. Several times.
The movement caused a sharp pain to spark along the left side of his body, and and he pulled away, sucking in a lungful of air on instinct. This however only jostled his ribs even more, and all he could do was groan and try not to double over.
“Sherlock? You alright?” There was a hand on his shoulder helping to keep him upright.
Now that the pain had started, it seemed like the floodgates were fully open. Every breath sent a little frisson of hurt through his body. He'd been blocking these sensations out the entire time, but it seemed his transport had had enough of being ignored.
He shallowed his breathing, using John's help to lean back on the bench in a more comfortable position.
“Sherlock?”
John was sounding more concerned. He attempted to wave off the concern, but his newly bandaged hands were quite set on resting protectively around his ribcage.
“Did you get hit in the chest? Is that why you're wincing everytime you breathe?”
He was starting to sound more annoyed, now.
Sherlock nodded, as he suspected talking would hurt. John shook his head, moving Sherlock's arms to the side and starting to unbutton his shirt.
He revealed skin mottled red and yellow and purple, outlining the traction designs on the sole of a boot. He cursed under his breath and began tracing runes over the area. It was different than the ones John had used on the backs of his hands; these ones were larger and more elaborate, but the basic elements were the same. Diminishing, quieting, soothing.
As soon as he finished, Sherlock felt the cool relief wash through him, and he took a calming breath.
“I think I sent one of their sisters to jail,” he said. “I heard something about a ‘Stephanie' before I was kicked the fifth time.”
“And you didn't think to tell me?”
Sherlock shrugged. “I forgot.”