Anderson

Anderson was angry, frustrated with the lanky detective and his medical sidekick who seemed to constantly invade his crime scenes and make him look stupid. He wasn't stupid, he was sure of that, it was just the way that Sherlock kept stepping on his toes that made him look ridiculous and it didn't help to have someone as experienced in medicine as John trailing behind him.

That was why on this particular day he snapped, rather more forcefully than he had intended as he stepped in front of the two pushing the smaller man backward, not daring to touch the tall detective for fear that he might retaliate.

Sherlock slips easily past him but John has no room to move out of the way and the angry shove has just sent him stepping backward. Only behind him was the stairs and he fell handlessly backwards down the narrow stairs.

'Oh I didn't mean to. Are you alright?' Anderson asked running down the stairs after John.

John lay still, panting for a moment blinking up at the man above him. Then he tried to move and gasped in pain. 'No, I think I hurt my leg again, damn I think it might be broken.' He said between gritted teeth at which Anderson laughed.

'Don't give me that, you and your bloody leg, I know it was never really hurt.' Anderson quipped giving John a slight kick to the shin and instantly regretting it as John's leg bent, but not at the knee. John cried out as his already broken leg was manhandled and blood started to stain his jeans leg just below his knee. 'Oh God, sorry.' Anderson gasped at the sight and bent to roll John's trousers up to inspect the injury.

'God, definitely broken.' John observed and then let out a strangled scream as Anderson started to roll the trouser leg up accidentally brushing against the injured flesh.

Sherlock heard his friend's cries and was onto the stairs and pounding down them within seconds. 'Anderson what the hell did you do?' he snapped cupping John's face gently in his hand. 'Leave him alone, call and ambulance and find some scissors.' He directs with some force, pushing Anderson away from John.

'John are you hurt anywhere other than your leg? Did you hit your head?' Sherlock asked gently holding John in place in case he had injured his back or neck.

'Of course I did, I just fell down a flight of stairs, I think I hit pretty much everything there was to hit, but the leg is the worst, it's definitely broken.' John explains and Sherlock lets out a frustrated giggle.

'Yes John I can tell, it's an open fracture at that, you're bleeding quite a lot. Do I need to try to create a tourniquet or something.' He asks fearfully as Anderson returns with a pair of kitchen scissors.

'The ambulance is on it's way. It should be no more than ten minutes at the most.' He informs as he hands Sherlock the scissors and watch him start to cut John's trousers.

'Unless you are recreating a scene from an action movie tourniquets are not really used, not in real life.' Anderson explains and then winces slightly as the bone protruding out of John's leg is revealed showing a ragged wound that bled rather enthusiastically. 'You might want to put pressure on that though, stop the bleeding.' He mused but as Sherlock started to pull his scarf out John quickly reached a hand out to stop him.

'You'll make me pass out. It already hurts so much I'm seeing spots. I want to be able to speak to the medics. I won't bleed out, I can spare a pint or two.' John instructed with a deep frown on his face.

'What do I do then?' Sherlock asks. Dealing with the wounded is not his area of expertise, he much prefer the dead, although not John of course.

'Nothing, I should lie down properly, elevate the leg, but I think right now that might have the same effect.' Anderson and Sherlock both frowned at him.

'What the hell happened here?' Lestrade was approaching them from above.'

'Anderson pushed John down the stairs. ' Sherlock fills in.

'I did not, it was an accident.' Anderson hissed at him but he was clearly going a little bit pink.

'You didn't have to kick me when I told you I broke my leg.' John mumbled and then in a tight whisper he added 'Sherlock, I don't feel well.' And put a hand up to his mouth.

Lestrade looked at them in utter bewilderment and then his brain clicked and a stern gaze fell on Anderson who shrank slightly under it. 'You kicked a man who had already fallen down the stairs and broken his leg? God, what were you thinking?' Lestrade growled at Anderson shoving him aside to take his place next to Sherlock and John.

'I thought he was just being silly, you know that it was still all in his head, I never…' Anderson trails off, no one is paying him any heed. 'Stupid man to cry wolf so many times, how was I to know it was real this time?'

Somehow John even in his daze can still hear his jumbled excuses. 'Didn't mean to cry wolf, it did hurt. Hurts more now.' He whispers with his eyes screwed shut as Sherlock carefully runs his hands over his arms looking for further injury.

'Of course it hurts, you have a concussion and a badly broken leg, oh and a sprained wrist, and I suspect that you are going to be unconscious in about thirty seconds.' Sherlock explained and John smiled weakly and murmured 'You deduced me again.' And then his eyes slipped shut much as Sherlock had predicted. Sherlock proceeded to move John into recovery position ignoring the instructions about elevating his leg. He really didn't want his friend choking should he end up vomiting.

'It definitely isn't all in his head any more.' Lestrade said sympathetically. 'Will he be alright?'

'I suspect so, he has a fantastic ability to heal.' Sherlock pays his unconscious friend an unexpected compliment. 'It hasn't been in his head for years though, people are just too stupid to see it, even I have been known to make that mistake.'

The admission is a surprise to Lestrade who has to ask in some confusion. 'But he keeps limping, and then he's fine and then he's limping again… it's like a constant cycle, he clearly isn't quite well yet.'

'Yes because ignorant people keep hurting him. I probably should take some of the blame. I left acid in the bathtub. That took quite a while to heal.' Lestrade groans and Anderson stares at him with wide eyes.

'Then there was the sadistic officer who broke his ankle playing soccer. He's been demoted, Mycroft had some other dirt on him, quite satisfying.'

'You had someone demoted over a soccer accident.' Anderson asks and if possible his eyes go even wider. He does not want to know what will happen to him if Sherlock gets his hands on him after this little incident.

'Not an accident. The pattern of the bruising and the angle of the fractures made it quite clear it was deliberate. Besides John admitted as much.' Sherlock sounds like he is talking about the weather and not someone intentionally breaking his best friend's foot and Lestrade finds it a little disconcerting.

'Then there was Melvile, the thief with the crowbar.' Sherlock absentmindedly pulls out his phone and flips through pictures of crime scenes until he finds the one he wants. It's a man's hip, presumably, Lestrade muses John's. His boxers are pulled down to the point of almost being indecent, Lestrade tries to ignore the little tuft of pubic hair poking out of the lining and focuses instead on the black welt running across his hip.

'Does he know you have that?' Anderson asks with a giggle.

'Of course not, he was asleep, after Melvile there was…' Sherlock continues as he pockets the phone again.

'The woman with the stiletto, yes I remember, that was only two months ago. We did all know about that one.' Lestrade fills in and despite having laughed at the time he doesn't find it all that amusing any longer. Poor John, and now this.

'It never really was in his head either.' Sherlock continues and using the scissors continues to cut John's jeans a few inches higher revealing a thin white scar just above the knee. It's been neatly stitched.

'That doesn't look too bad, not enough to go all addled in the head over.' Anderson comments and Lestrade shakes his head thinking that sometimes Anderson and Sherlock can be as bad as each other when it comes to being callous.

'Do you know what happened?' Lestrade asks, he can hear sirens in the far distance now.

'His drunk uncle stabbed him because John told him he didn't like it when he was drinking. He was twelve. The uncle left him there to bleed out but John managed to crawl to the phone and call himself an ambulance. He was born brave I think, just like I was born smart.' Anderson and Lestrade gape at Sherlock who is carefully rubbing circles over John's shoulder. None of them speak again until the EMT's rush in and Sherlock starts to relay his deductions about John's injuries.

When they are gone Anderson and Lestrade stand below the stairs with a pool of John's blood spread out between them.

'Bloody hell, I think I owe him an apology.' Anderson mumbles and Lestrade agrees, 'Yes Philip, me too.' They return to the crime scene and continue working with a slightly more sombre mood as they wait for Sherlock to call with news of John's condition.

It is late evening before Lestrade's phone beeps.

He'll be okay. We can't take the case. In hospital for now, then going away.

There is no signature but Lestrade knows who's sent it, he is also of a far too curious disposition to accept that short explanation. He calls Sherlock.

'I told you we can't take the case.' Is the first thing Sherlock says as he answers.

'Well, I wanted a bit more detail on how John is doing. So I know just how much to torture Anderson over this. And well, I was wondering where on earth you're going what with John injured. You're not going to abandon him and go off on some quest?' Lestrade specifies. At the comment about Anderson he can practically hear Sherlock's satisfied grin.

'John has a compound fracture to his lower leg which has been set with plates and as long as the wound does not get infected it should heal fine. The concussion is annoying, he keeps falling asleep on me and when he's awake he does more throwing up than talking but I'm assured that his CT scans look good so he should recover with just a large dose of inconvenience and boredom. Hence I'm taking him to my parents place. He'll be in a wheelchair for the first couple of weeks and that won't work in Baker Street. Also my mummy loves taking care of the sickly and wounded, I don't care for it, it's a perfect solution. 'Sherlock seems to manage the whole description in more or less one breath and Lestrade is absolutely fascinated. He had somehow had a feeling that Sherlock and Mycroft must have hatched from a pod or were maybe genetically engineered in a lab.

'You're taking him to your parents?' It comes out sounding rather silly even to Lestrade.

'That's what I said, now go torture Anderson. John will be hobbling around in pain for months and I expect Anderson to suffer at least that long.' And with that Sherlock has hung up.

Lestrade sits down in his chair with a thump. Well, wonders never seize, Sherlock and John still very much have the chance to surprise him. He had always thought that Sherlock was the adrenaline chasing daredevil who gets into trouble and John was the one with a caring heart who would sort the mess out afterwards. Today clearly showed him that it can be quite the other way around.

Am so very tempted to add an extra chapter at the end of this with Sherlock taking revenge on Anderson, and maybe one where John's limp actually seems to be psychosomatic again... but that would rather get away from the actual plot. This was supposed to be the end of the story.