@ununpredictableme asked:
For the emoji drabble prompt, can I ask these for John and Harold?
🤒 Needing to be looked after
For some peculiar reason I can't post the ask.
So, this part was written when D. sent me the prompt along, long time ago, but I really thought I could continue it with amnesia + platonic... well, marriage tbh (due to amnesia & John misinterpreting the case and Harold lying to keep him safe... yeah in my mind the angst and pain continued in the form of a Shekespearean comedy of errors). I may still write it at some point so I can work around the first part of the ask. Sorry for the delay...
"John, don't let this..."
Harold cannot listen, he can only stand and watch. He watches John holding her in his arms, cradling her head, rocking her body gently on the concrete, white shirt getting red from the blood of them both. He sees the tears, the subdued sobbing.
There is nothing he can do. His machine cannot help. John's eyes shatter again. After everything, it breaks his heart to see it. He limps towards them, and it is too late for her, it is too late for the strong woman who has graced their lives, mostly John's. John is the better character judge of the two. Harold just can't do that. He makes the wrong choices. He falls down by John's side, helpless, undecided. "John." He raises his hand, a few inches away from his friend. "John." He reaches over and touches.
Wide, lost eyes turn on him, looking up. John's breathing is hard and Harold searches with his hands if some of the blood is his and not Joss’. He saw the flinch at the first bullet shot while he was standing there lacking the ability to help. John is losing blood and by the look of it, a lot of blood. He groans painfully as he tries to remove his coat and then unbuttons John’s shirt. John still clings to Joss’ unbreathing body making Harold’s attempts at caring for his wounds more difficult. Harold’s eyes itch, his body and heart ache and he can’t think of both of the people in front of him. He can’t care for Joss as he’d liked to, John is still alive and all his thoughts go to him, to his continued ability to breathe.
What if John dies? What if Harold looks away for one single second and John’s heart stops pumping blood? Fear grips his heart, a sudden pain, emotional as strong as the one shattering his body, attacks him and it’s not about his mission.
It’s not about what the future will bring if John isn’t there to support Harold. It’s a soul wrenching ache over the loss of his partner. What will he do without John? It’s strange how Grace’s face comes behind his closed eyes. He can’t understand it and he doesn’t want to. The material of his suit jacket is not the best to treat wounds, but needs must.
Harold makes noises of calmness. “Please, John, don’t move.” And the green eyes close and Harold sits and waits for help to arrive. Time passes, hand pushing against John’s wound, help called and Harold finds his brain occupied. How to remove them from this, he and John should not be here, should not give their statements. He has to make them disappear. Shaw and Fusco come and take them away. Harold cannot deal with more emotions, with Lionel’s despair, with Shaw’s silent outrage and John not opening his eyes.
Lionel takes over in the crime scene and Sameen takes over John. Harold stands aside and watches her removing the bullet and cleaning, operating on John. He wonders if she’s any good, but he’s not sure. He feels as if he’s under water, ears buzzing, watching, making sure John still breathes, hooked up in machines and medicine.
“He’ll live,” Sameen says and leaves him alone. It's crowded in his loneliness, John’s breathing, and thoughts, a lot of thoughts keeping him company, dark, bleak thoughts.
He sits and waits for John to wake up. Bear finds his way close to John and puts his head down next to his hand. Waiting as well. He and Bear are waiting for their human to wake up.
John doesn't and Harold has a funeral to attend. The world is moving beneath his feet and he doesn't have the power to stop it moving. He's losing control of all of it.
And he has to find John again. Any means necessary. Including Root. The fear seizes him again, huge tendrils wrap around him... Root, it is.
The emotional fallout of these kinds of traumas can be extensive. Grief. Losing his best friend again. Strange how he didn’t think John like that before, not always. He tries not to think of him like that, but thoughts and feelings, rarely are the same, are they?
He remembers things he should have done differently. Different doesn't mean better. Not for him, not for those he gets to care about. John's trauma is life threatening. John's trauma was always death threatening and Harold, mind sound and somber, chose to overlook it, dismiss the death wish and focus on the man's integrity. He needs to find John alive, as he needs oxygen to keep breathing.
Responsibility. Survivors' responsibility... no matter what he does, how much he tries. It just isn't enough. He always loses.
Will he get John back? His John, not a shadow of the man he knows. Running in the city trying to find him, Harold sees that Lionel cares, and, strangely enough, Shaw cares too. In her own way. She knows John in a way Harold will never do. He looks at her and he likes it. It's not the same as Joss. The thought disturbs him. The comparison disturbs him.
It doesn’t matter. John will need him and Harold will be there for him.
