This story is for Thehauntedboy, published as part of the Johnlock Challenges September 2012 Gift Exchange, in response to this prompt: Hurt/Comfort: Sherlock gets seriously injured on a case (like brain damage, memory loss, or any loss of function/control), and it is slowly starting to drive him mad. John is there through the ups and downs and then I dunno they get together at the end. Sex is always a plus. Any rating.

Here is my best shot, hope it's what you wanted!

Author's note: I was having so much fun with this prompt that the story got a little out of hand, so sorry about the length. It is neither Beta-ed nor Brit-picked, and everything I know about the specific type of injuries detailed here I learned from internet searches (including one truly horrific Google image search, the specific content of which I will leave as an exercise to the reader), so if you spot any glaring grammar, content, or cultural errors, do please let me know.

Standard disclaimer: I do not own these characters, nor do I profit from the writing of this lovely stuff in any way. (This disclaimer will also apply to all subsequent chapters, in case you weren't sure.)

Trigger warnings: Very minor and extremely nonspecific passing mention of drug use, self-harm, and suicide. Honestly, this warning is probably more graphic than the story, but I wanted to mention it just to be safe.

Now then, on with the story. Have fun!

Dry cold air. White halls, white sheets, white lights. Muffled footsteps, quiet voices. Awful scratchy sterile-smelling blankets. Thin curtains hanging from plastic loops on elevated metal tracks. Wires and tubes, twisting together and around each other, running everywhere. The monotonous repetitive beep beep beep of heartless machines, the constant reassuring drip drip drip of life-giving fluids, the steady horrible hiss hiss hiss of pumped air. The form on the bed, just a long, narrow, nearly unidentifiable lump beneath the blankets and bandages, lying with disturbing stillness in the middle of the impersonal room.

Sitting in an uncomfortable hospital chair along one wall, John Watson leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, drops his head into his hands, and scrapes his fingers through his hair. He is dirty, disheveled, exhausted, his soiled clothes hanging stretched out and loose on his frame after so many days unchanged. He draws a long, shuddering breath and releases it in a soft sigh, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Raising his head, he opens his eyes and focuses his gaze on the form in the bed, steadfastly ignoring the equipment surrounding the cloth-swaddled body and focusing instead on the single dark curl of hair he can see peeking out of the tightly wrapped bandages.

Sighing again, John leans back in the chair, trying without success to find a comfortable position in which to rest. He tips his head back against the wall behind him and allows his eyes to drift upward to the inset fluorescent lights, dimmed now, above the bed. His mind drifts in his exhaustion, turning yet again to the event that had brought his world to its knees; reviewing everything that happened, holding each action up to the light and examining it for flaws, for alternatives, for any choices that he could have made differently that would have spared all this. Despite promising himself over and over that he will stop, telling himself it is pointless, he keeps finding himself going through it again. Better that, he knows, than thinking about what came after.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

They were working on a case that had started out fairly simply, a basic missing child situation. John had not even been sure why Sherlock had accepted it, at first, as it seemed well below his usual standards for what constituted "interesting," although John was grateful that he had. Cases involving children always hit him hardest, and he was pleased that Sherlock took it on. However, the case had evolved quickly into "interesting" territory as several more children came up missing.

Sherlock had deduced fairly quickly that the children were being sold into prostitution, but was not initially able to figure out who and where, which frustrated everyone. Days passed with no progress, and John, Sherlock, and seemingly all of New Scotland Yard were increasingly on edge, waiting for a break. John was anxious to rescue the children, Lestrade was anxious to finish the case, and Sherlock was anxious to find the answer to the puzzle. And maybe that was why they had been so incautious later.

Finally, one day, in the middle of the night – or very early in the morning, to be completely accurate – Sherlock had burst into John's room shouting, the door swinging wide and banging hard into the wall. John leapt up, adrenaline slamming through him, and barely stopped himself from dropping and rolling for cover as he scrabbled at the waistband of his pajamas for a gun that was not there. Several deep breaths later, John was throwing on clothes while Sherlock heckled and harassed him to move faster, and minutes after that they were out the door, on the way to some warehouse on the Thames that Sherlock was certain housed the headquarters of a child prostitution ring.

John managed to dash off a quick text to Lestrade as they rode in the cab, but like Sherlock he had no intention of waiting for the police. Not for this, not when confronting men who sold children as sex objects. John ground his teeth impatiently in the cab, willing it to move faster, to bring them to the warehouse right now. His gun was a reassuring weight nestled in the small of his back. Beside him, Sherlock twitched his leg in impatience, equally desperate to reach their destination, to know whether he had solved the puzzle correctly.

The cab had dropped them a few blocks from the warehouse, and they proceeded on foot. When they reached the building, they circled it, Sherlock looking for evidence of the crimes they were investigating, John taking note of exits, windows, and vantage points, and both looking for signs of life within. From outside, all was quiet. So in they went.

Inside, the warehouse opened into a cavernous space, dark and cluttered with the cast-off detritus of expired commerce. At the far end the space had been divided and subdivided into a warren of small rooms stretching up three stories, and the two men crept carefully toward that area, still alert for signs of the men they were pursuing.

As they entered the cramped hallways twisting between the smaller rooms, John heard muffled voices coming from deeper in the building. He glanced briefly at Sherlock to confirm that he heard them too, and then both men moved forward, following the sounds. Eventually they found themselves outside a splintery wooden door, shut tight but ill-fitting, framed in light from the room beyond.

Just as John was drawing his gun, bracing himself for whatever assault Sherlock might be planning, he heard a startled shout from behind him in a language he did not recognize. He spun and leveled his weapon at the man in the hall, but already he knew it was too late. The sudden chaotic burst of sounds from the other side of the door confirmed that they had been heard. And then Sherlock, evidently deciding they had nothing to lose, kicked the door open. And that was when all hell had broken loose.

From that point on, John retains only fragmented memories. When he thinks about it, much later, he realizes that they reminded him of the types of memories he still carries with him from his time in combat during the war, just snippets and frozen images accompanied by intensely jolting blasts of emotion.

He remembers spinning back around in time to see the end of Sherlock's coat disappearing into the brightly lit room. The room itself swimming into focus as he jumps forward through the door, trying to catch up with his friend. The sight of complicated equipment atop the rickety wooden tables lining the walls, several people jumping up, jumping back and turning to face them. He remembers thinking lab first, because after all his time with Sherlock the sight of chemicals and Bunsen burners and vials and beakers causes him to think experiment when he should be thinking dangerous. And then it clicks – this is a drug lab. These people are making drugs here in this room, apparently in addition to kidnapping children and selling them into prostitution. He remembers feeling his rage crank up another notch, and he is delighted that they have caught the bastards.

He remembers Sherlock, standing tall, surveying the room in his supercilious way. He remembers the woman – or girl, really – standing directly across the room from him, the way that she jerks backward when Sherlock's gazes sweeps across her. The Bunsen burner, flame still ignited, tipping backward as she bumps it with her elbow. The immediate conflagration that bursts out as the flame comes into contact with some of the other materials on the table.

He remembers Sherlock's face, frozen in his mind, as he spins away from the fire, coat flaring out wide behind him. He is yelling something, but John cannot remember what it was now, throwing himself toward the doorway where John still stands. He remembers the jugs on the counter exploding, the air filled with glittering shards of broken glass and the acrid smell of chemicals.

And he remembers being knocked backward by the force of the explosion as he watches the shimmering cloud of glass fragments, chemical mist, and flame engulf his best friend.

Between there and the hospital, John does not remember much. He knows, because he has been told, that Lestrade's team was already arriving when the fire broke out. That they were pulled out of the wreckage, himself more or less unharmed and Sherlock very nearly dead. That they were rushed to the hospital, where Sherlock was immediately placed on life-support while John was examined, bandaged up, and permitted to leave. And where he has remained ever since, still wearing his soot-stained clothes, waiting for Sherlock to wake up.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

In his uncomfortable hospital chair John shifts around, still searching for a comfortable position as he rakes his thoughts once again over the jagged memories of that night. He berates himself for the hundredth time for not waiting for Lestrade, for rushing in like a goddamned vigilante, for not holding Sherlock back just a little bit. He knows it is futile, but he cannot seem to stop himself. If only, if only, if only.

John lowers his eyes again to Sherlock's still form on the bed in front of him, his gaze stuttering back and forth across the heavy bandages wrapping his features as his mind jumps forward to the meeting with Sherlock's doctor. Mycroft, as Sherlock's only available family member, had allowed him to attend the meeting, for which he feels equal parts grateful and distraught.

Squeezing his eyes tightly closed, John allows his thoughts to turn to that horrible meeting. He had known, of course, that Sherlock's situation was bad. As a doctor, he was aware of the severity of the injuries he sustained. But as a friend, he had hoped that he was wrong, that he had misunderstood the situation, that Sherlock was really going to be fine. The hospital doctor, with his kind eyes and his soft smile, had thoroughly and efficiently dashed all of John's hopes with a few carefully chosen phrases.

So now John sits, and stews, and watches as a respirator breaths for his friend. He looks at the bandages that conceal the burns that cover the once-beautiful face and listens to the sound of the heart monitor confirming that his friend will survive. He thinks and thinks and thinks about what happened, berating himself for his behavior, his eagerness. He very carefully does not consider what will happen when Sherlock wakes.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Sherlock has been taken off the respirator, and he is breathing steadily and comfortably on his own. His face is wrapped, now, with lighter bandages, which are changed several times per day to clean and apply salve to his damaged skin. His hair is growing back. He is again identifiable, at first glance, as a human being, rather than a heap of blankets and gauze.

Mycroft had eventually convinced John to go home and rest, to change his clothes and clean himself up. Sherlock was going to be in the hospital for weeks, after all, and John could only get so much rest sleeping sitting up in a chair. John had done so, twisted with guilt the entire time, and rushed back to the hospital as soon as he had showered and grabbed a snack. Being in the flat without Sherlock, surrounded with his things, practically steeped in his personality, was like torture for John. He needed to be with him, needed to, with an intensity that he could not entirely explain to himself.

Now, after several weeks and several more visits to the flat, John waits beside Sherlock's bed, his heart in his throat. Sherlock is healing nicely, and the burns and lung damage have recovered to the point that the doctors have decided to allow him to wake from the medically induced coma in which he has been resting up until now. And of course John knows that patients do not wake up instantly when the medication is discontinued, but Sherlock consistently defies expectations, and so he waits, nervous and joyous and terrified, beside his friend.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Hours later, John's head has slipped down until it is resting on the bed beside Sherlock's arm. His eyes are closed, his breathing deep and even. On the bed, Sherlock stirs. The uptick in his waking heart rate is announced by the beeping of the monitor, but John slumbers on peacefully beside him, unaware.

Sherlock twitches, first, as his consciousness comes creeping back. He rolls his head from side to side. The first thing he is aware of is pain, deep terrible burning pain in his face. He draws a sharp, wincing breath, and feels a similar burning ache in his lungs. He exhales with a groan, which comes out scratchy and breathy and almost inaudible. He tries to bring a hand to his face, to touch and test the pain there, but the effort is too much and his hand falls back to the bed after moving only a short distance.

He tilts his head, intending to survey the room, although the sounds and smells have already told him that he is in a hospital, and suddenly becomes aware that he cannot see. He makes a deliberate effort to open his eyes. Nothing happens. A slight feeling of concern starts to swell in his chest, and he again makes an effort to bring his hand to his face. This time he is able to do so, and his fingers contact thick gauze which gives a little with a sliding squish as he presses it with his fingertips. Salve, he thinks. Burns, then. The pain in his face flares up briefly at the soft pressure.

Sherlock carefully drops his hand, remaining as still as possible. Unable to see due to the bandages, he takes a moment to deduce as much as he can about his environment using the senses at his disposal. He is clearly in a hospital bed. The sound of the heart monitor, the rough linens, and that unpleasantly antiseptic smell somehow shared by all hospitals make it obvious, never mind his bandages.

He listens harder, focusing intently on the more subtle, muffled sounds within and outside of the room. He can hear long, slow, steady breathing nearby. Not a roommate, he is sure, as it sounds much too close. A little snort, a huff, and the breathing resumes its even pace. Sherlock remains still, but in his head he is smiling. John, of course. Fallen asleep waiting for me to wake. Leaning on the bed. How long have I been here?

Outside the door of his room, he can hear hospital staff moving around, talking at full volume. There is a clatter of wheels, a rattle of trays. So, it is not too late, and a meal is being served. Which one? He listens more intently, straining to hear more. The timbre of the voices outside the room, the nature of the conversations. He can make out occasional words, "… wife will kill me if I'm late again tonight…", "… going out for drinks after…", and he then knows that it is dinner time.

He turns his attention to the sounds from outside the hospital, the rumble of motors and other city noises filtering in softly through the window he can detect in the wall behind the bed. As he sets his mind to identifying the location of the hospital, the sound of the door opening intrudes into his thoughts.

Holding perfectly still, Sherlock listens carefully to the sound of footsteps entering the room. Not a doctor or a nurse, he thinks. Medical staff would not attempt to walk softly. And with John already in the room, the remaining options are limited. Mycroft, then. Sherlock shifts a bit, already composing a scathing remark in his head, something about Mycroft bothering to come in the room when food is available outside, when Mycroft clears his throat.

"John," he calls, his voice neutral, emotionless, neither loud nor quiet. At his side, Sherlock feels John's head shift and roll a bit. "John," Mycroft calls again. There is a slight feeling of pressure lifted at his side as the mattress decompresses where John's head was resting.

"Erh… Mycroft?" John's voice is thick, hazy with sleep. He clears his throat.

"Sherlock, I know you're awake," Mycroft says, ignoring John. Sherlock hears John's sharp intake of breath at this comment.

He opens his mouth to answer "how astute", but his voice comes out as a rough unintelligible croak. He chokes, involuntarily curling forward with the force of it, and sharp ripping pains tear through his lungs. The pain makes him cough harder, which just hurts more.

After a few horrible moments, he is able to get ahold of his breathing and the coughing dies down. He becomes aware of John's voice, beside his head, murmuring softly.

"It's ok, it's ok, shh. Don't try to talk yet. You're ok. We're here, shh, calm down…"

Sherlock wants to make a harsh statement to John about how he is not a child in need of soothing, but he is not willing to try to talk again just yet. Also, although he would never admit it, John's soft tone, his presence and proximity, do help Sherlock feel a little bit calmer. Just a bit. Slowly, his breathing calms and he relaxes back into the bed.

"I'll call the nurse for some ice chips. You should be able to talk again once you've wet your throat," John says, his voice sounding strained to Sherlock, artificially cheerful. "Would you like to sit up? I can raise the bed for you."

Sherlock carefully composes himself, braced for the pain, before opening his mouth and croaking out a whispered "yes" in response to John's question. He waits, calmly, as he is raised into a sitting position by the bed's motion.

"God, Sherlock, I'm so glad you're awake…" John's voice breaks a little here, and Sherlock wonders again exactly how long he has been here. Quite a while, based on the deep fatigue in his limbs, the sticky sensitivity of his skin where it touches the bed. I must have been badly injured.

He hears Mycroft clear his throat from a few feet away.

"I, too, am pleased to see you awake," Mycroft says. Sherlock automatically stiffens, trying to keep his surprise at the sentiment from showing, before remembering that his face is covered in bandages. Very badly injured, then. "And I'm sure you would like to know what is going on, so let us begin."

Sherlock hears John draw in a deep, shaking breath. Afraid to talk about it. Inside, his feeling of concern kicks up a few notches.

"Do you remember what happened? With the child kidnapping case? Just shake your head, ok?" John adds quickly when Sherlock opens his mouth to try to speak again.

Child kidnapping. In a moment, memories fill his head. The warehouse, the drug lab. Seeing the burner tip over, blue flames licking across an open jar of liquid, turning to run. Then, nothing.

He nods his head, slowly. At that moment, the door opens again. Listening to the footsteps, he thinks doctor just as John says "Doctor, he's awake" in a professional voice.

"Excellent," an unfamiliar voice responds. "And how are you feeling, Mr. Holmes?" Sherlock tries to exhale an exasperated huff, but the searing pain in his lungs reduces it to a barely audible breath instead. Why do doctors always feel the need to ask stupid questions?

"Can we get him some ice? He keeps trying to talk, but his throat is too dry," John interjects, before he has a chance to try to answer the asinine question.

"You can try ice," the doctor answers after a pause, "but that probably won't be sufficient, after the lung damage he sustained. It will just take a while before he can speak clearly again."

Dimly, Sherlock hears John mumble some type of assent, but he is not paying attention, too focused on the doctor's last comment. Lung damage… from what? The chemicals? Burns and lung damage; there must have been an explosion, then. He has to restrain himself from trying to touch his face again. How badly was I injured? Am I injured?

"Doctor, I'm glad you're here," Mycroft says, his voice suddenly urbane and pleasant now that he has an audience. "We were just about to explain to him his condition, as well as the situation that lead to his injuries."

"Are you sure that's wise, so soon?" the doctor asks, concern lacing his tone.

Sherlock decides that he has had enough of being ignored, spoken about as if he is not in the room, and throws an elbow out sharply to the side. It collides with the roll guard on the bed and makes a loud rattling noise, startling in the hush of the hospital room.

"Quite," Mycroft answers, after the sound has faded. His tone is amused.

"Ahem… right then. Mr. Holmes," and here Sherlock can tell that the doctor has turned to face him, is addressing him directly, "my name is Dr. Kehoe. I'll be your primary doctor during your recovery here." He pauses, then continues, his voice fainter as he turned to face someone else in the room. "Maybe you had better tell him what happened, before we discuss his injuries."

John clears his throat and then started to speak. He is interrupted by the arrival of a nurse, bearing ice chips. She brings them to Sherlock, taking care to place the cup in his hand, and quickly leaves the room. Sherlock scoops out a few ice chips with his fingers and puts them in his mouth as John clears his throat again.

"You remember the case, the child kidnappings. We went to that warehouse? And we found the drug lab. Something got knocked over, I guess, and there was an explosion." John pauses, collecting his thoughts. Sherlock sucks on his ice chips, the cool slide of liquid down his throat at once soothing and painful. If he could speak, he would make a sarcastic remark about John's lack of eloquence and suggest that he rephrase before putting this in his blog.

"I was knocked back by the blast, so I didn't see much, but I guess there were a lot of caustic chemicals in that room. Muriatic acid, in particular. They tell me that there wasn't really that much fire, you know, relatively speaking, but the chemicals were all blown up, along with a whole bunch of glass. You were out in the middle of the room when it hit, so you got it pretty bad." John's voice breaks.

Sherlock attempts an experimental throat clearing into the silence that follows John's brief speech. It hurts, but not as bad as before, so he attempts to talk. His first attempt comes out as a painful croak, but he swallows and tries again.

"How… how long?"

After a pause, it is Dr. Kehoe that answers. "Just shy of three weeks."

Worse than I expected, then. "Tell me." Sherlock waits, the little knot of fear in his chest twisting tighter. He hears John sit back down in the chair beside his bed. He feels a soft pressure on the mattress beside his hand, and realizes that John has placed his own hand beside Sherlock's, not quite touching but close enough that he can take it if he wants to. Inside, his fear ticks up a notch.

"You had acute respiratory distress, which is healing nicely now and should not result in lasting damage. You were on a respirator for several weeks. You suffered severe burns to the face and neck, a nasty combination of chemical and heat damage. We had to do a skin graft. You will heal, but you will have permanent scarring." Sherlock feels himself start to relax. Facial scarring is not wonderful, certainly, but he does not really care. His appearance is low on his list of priorities, after all. And then the doctor continues. "You caught a large piece of glass in your left eye. It lacerated your optic nerve, and you will never have vision on that side again. Your right eye was damaged by the burns, mainly from the acid, we believe. It is theoretically possible that you may regain some sight on that side in time, but it is more likely that you will not. I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes, but you are blind."

Sherlock holds himself perfectly still. His breath stops, and his hands are completely relaxed against his blankets. His first thought is a denial. He did not just say blind. He must have meant something else, someone else. I can't be blind. He waits for someone to say that it is a joke, a mistake, that he will be able to see as soon as the bandages are removed. No one does.

Slowly, he draws a breath. The action seems to trigger something, and suddenly he can hear the other occupants of the room shifting, breathing, moving slightly where they stand. In his head, a small voice is steadily rising in volume, screaming over and over again blind blind blind permanent and total loss of vision blind permanent blind total blind loss of vision blind until he cannot hear anything else but that.

With an effort, he wrenches his mind back to the hospital room. He becomes aware that he is clutching the sheet tightly in his right hand, and John's hand tightly in his left. Carefully, he relaxes his hold on both, releasing them and laying his hands flat on the sheet over his legs instead. He swallows.

"What about… case?" he manages to ask, his voice broken and whispery.

"What?" John sounds baffled.

"… found them?"

"You mean the kidnappers? Jesus, Sherlock, really? Yes, Lestrade was able to get the location of the kids out of one of the people they caught at the warehouse. Most of the people in the room with you were… killed, though." John's voice, which had started out strong and angry, is breaking again by the end.

Sherlock nods. The silence stretches out, and he feels tired. His mind is still screaming at him, and he does not have the energy to fight it back anymore.

"Tired," he rasps out. "Go away, want… sleep." He hears two sets of footsteps move toward the door. John again. He wants to roll his eyes, but thinking that fills him with a fresh swell of panic. "You too, John."

"Oh, OK," John's voice is soft as he scrapes his chair back and shuffles toward the door after Mycroft and Dr. Kehoe. When he reaches the far side of the room, he pauses. "I'm just… I'm really glad you're back with us. Good night, Sherlock."

Sherlock gropes for the bed controls and, after some fumbling, lowers the bed back to the flat position. Then he rolls on his side, curls up as much as he is able amongst the blankets, wires, and tubes, and lets his mind scream into the silence.