watsonshoneybee:

hey, john says, alarmed, hey, hey, hey, what’s this? 

sherlock shakes, hides his face beneath his hands, but john saw what he needed to see as he blinked awake after an unnatural sleep – anesthetic, surgery, a heavy, familiar bandage on his shoulder, the vague memory of a gunshot and sherlock’s shout of fear. john saw the tears, thick and unguarded on sherlock’s cheeks. 

john reaches, grasps sherlock’s wrists, and, with some effort, pries his hands away and cups his cheeks in his hands, steady with a calmness he does not feel. hey, he coos, come on now, you’re all right, we’re all right. 

it’s terrible, this, the sight of sherlock broken and still trying to hide it. john had thought, once, that sherlock was unbreakable: invincible. he had thought, once, that sherlock could not cry, and even when he’d realised he must be wrong he’d found it difficult to imagine. impossible to envision. sherlock wasn’t like that.

but here he is, sherlock, like that, trembling his tears down his cheeks through clenched eyes, gasping past the tightness in his chest. john feels his eyes well up with him, for him, wonders how many times sherlock has cried like this where there was no one to see, no one to hold him. 

john can’t change that. he can only do this, now: tug sherlock close, half onto his hospital bed, wrap his arms gingerly around sherlock’s shaking frame. he can’t go back in time and hold sherlock through every moment, but he can hold him in this one, and promise him to hold him in the future. 

i’m sorry, sherlock whispers thickly, i’m sorry, this is, and you’re the one that was hurt, i’m being ridiculous, i shouldn’t – 

no, john cuts off, pressing his lips against sherlock’s forehead, finding the nape of his neck with his uninjured arm, you’re allowed. i’m here, and i’m going to be here, and i’m not going to leave you, all right? but you’re allowed. i’ll be here.

sherlock sniffs, nods weakly against his neck, and stays.