Title: Stop

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: From Sherlock on a rooftop to Major Sholto in a hotel room, John's "stop it now" changed as much as he had. (TRF/TSoT scene/character study)

Warnings: References to canon suicide/near suicide.

Written: Idea: 2/16/14. Written: 2/26/14.

Notes: This story revolves around John's experience with two of his friends committing/nearly committing suicide in front of him. I noticed that John's "all right, stop it now" during the rooftop scene in TRF is similar to his word choice of "stop it right now" to Major Sholto through the hotel room door in TSoT. That, however, is where the similarities end. The way John delivers each of those lines is completely different – everything from tone, to body language, to facial expression. I was also intrigued by the expression on John's face when he turns away from the door in TSoT when Sholto starts to tell Sherlock how similar they are. He has a sort of sarcastic, pained smile that says so much and I couldn't resist exploring it in relation to his word choices and internal growth between these episodes. This short piece was the result. Many thanks to Ariane DeVere's transcripts on LJ; quoted dialogue from the episodes does not belong to me. As always, I hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading and for your continued support. I cherish every response.

"All right, stop it now."

Sherlock was on the roof, familiar silhouette overtaken by one even more well-known to John as the Angel of Death left the wards of St. Bart's and took to its roof, his dark robes churning behind Sherlock's coat in the wind, his impending grip cracking Sherlock's voice as it phoned down a last goodbye, the glint of his scythe in every lie – "nobody could be that clever", "it's a trick, just a magic trick" – that came from Sherlock's lips.

His best friend was standing on the roof of the hospital where John had trained, delivering a suicide note both poignant and puzzling; denouncing his highly prized cleverness amidst other jagged lies John didn't have time to decipher.

He couldn't listen anymore.

"All right, stop it now."

John's voice was cracking, eyes closed and head shaking with disbelief, pleading, and preemptive grief – 'I can't believe this is happening', 'why is this happening?', and the terrifyingly familiar drop in his gut that told him 'nothing is going to stop this from happening' all tightly packed into five strained words.

He had to get up to that roof.

Sherlock's reply was urgent, emotional, and wrong. "No, stay exactly where you are. Don't move."

John stopped - obeyed an order, heeded a friend's request. Listened to a final goodbye and echoed it with his own final plea – "no, don't -"

Stop it now.

But Sherlock didn't stop.

Not until he hit the pavement.

"Whatever you're doing in there, James, stop it, right now."

Major Sholto was about to kill himself; to let a murderer's skewer give him the death in uniform he felt he should have had years ago. Was delivering a suicide note through a hotel room door on John's wedding day while the last man to do so stood alive and whole at John's side.

Two men John considered friends. Two suicide notes – one via mobile, one through a door. One death he was forced to watch, one where he'd likely only see the aftermath.

He wasn't sure which was crueler.

Major Sholto was all shouldered calm and grave politeness. "When so many want you dead, it hardly seems good manners to argue."

John could hear him reaching for his belt. Knew the exact look on his face.

No.

"Whatever you're doing in there, James, stop it, right now."

Right now.

The change in phrasing was small, but significant; not only was John doing more than reliving and reapplying his words to a rooftop Sherlock with another friend on the precipice of suicide, he was making it clear that he was not the same man he had been the last time he'd uttered those words. With Major Sholto, there was no pleading, no cracked voice, no disbelief. Threatening tears, closed eyes, and shaking head were all absent – John had none of those left to give. There was only tightly controlled anger, a firm mix of order – 'stand down, soldier'- and warning – 'don't you dare', along with a hint of almost disappointed chiding – 'oh, not you too. Are you really going to do this to me too?'

Sholto pushed aside John's threat to kick the door down and addressed Sherlock instead. "Mr. Holmes, you and I are similar, I think."

John turned away from the door with a silent, disgusted scoff; a sarcastic, pained mockery of a smile twisting his features. Yeah, you're similar all right: two friends killing themselves in front of me, but with just enough of a barrier that I can't do a bloody thing about it.

It was Sherlock who made the truly impassioned plea: "We wouldn't do that, would we – you and me? We would never do that to John Watson."

The still-hurt part of John bristled with silent correction: you mean you would never do that again, right, Sherlock?

Silence.

John stepped closer, listening at the door for choices made in that thin breath between life and death. He was out of tears, out of grief; even his anger was an exhausted shadow of itself. But he still wasn't about to see this happen again. "I'm gonna break it down," he declared.

Sherlock had made him stop when he'd tried to get to the roof. He wasn't about to wait on the Major.

And if Sholto did use those unfortunate reflexes, if he did shoot…..

….well, it wouldn't be the first time John had died with a friend.

"Whatever you're doing in there, James, stop it, right now."

There was steel in John Watson's voice; a subordinate's unwavering bravery in calling out his superior mixed with a weary man's disappointed resignation in the face of another impending funeral.

This was the moment Sholto had been waiting for – death in uniform, payment for the families of the dead, penance for his failures, all without that clichéd last resort of putting his old service weapon to his head. He couldn't have asked for a better death.

But John Watson was on the other side of the door telling him to stop. The same John Watson who had phoned his old commanding officer in the wake of Sherlock's suicide, unconsciously desperate to talk to someone who wasn't a stranger to sudden, violent, helpless death.

And the man in the mirror, the man touching the belt buckle standing between this world and the next, was Major James Sholto, the soldier and friend who had answered the phone at 0200 and listened to the ragged breaths interspersed with disciplined grasps at control on the other end of the line, waiting in silent support for over an hour before John was able to utter a word.

Sholto took a breath and addressed Lazarus himself; heard John go silent and step away as Sherlock agreed with embracing death's proper timing before making an unexpectedly emotional plea for his best friend on his wedding day: "We wouldn't do that, would we – you and me? We would never do that to John Watson."

Sholto closed his eyes; ducked his head around a thick swallow and the threat of shameful tears.

Sherlock was right, of course – they wouldn't. It was why Sherlock Holmes, who had embraced death when it was called for - no matter how falsified it ended up being in the end – was struggling for balance, working to regain his full place in John's heart; putting his own deeply hidden heart on his sleeve as John's best man. It was why James Sholto, retired and often scorned Major, had left his self-imposed country exile, subjecting himself to the staring eyes and accusations of London in order to attend this wedding.

All out of respect for John Watson.

Stop it now.

Sherlock hadn't stopped two years ago.

But Sholto would now.

He opened the door.