A/N: This one-shot is inspired by the song Help, I'm Alive by Metric. I didn't want to get in trouble by writing a true-to-heart songfic but there are some lyrics alluded to.

Listen to the song while you read? It's wonderful and inspiring. Love it. I was mostly influenced by the lyrics not the vibe of the song. It's a lot more upbeat than my writing turned out to be, but oh well.

Reviews put a smile on my face so if you really liked it, please let me know! You all keep me writing.

All my love and lots of virtual cookies,

Angie/V

0 Days After

There wasn't a day in Sherlock Holmes' life when he didn't know pain. Whether it was physical, mental or - in a time when he was capable of feelings – emotional in nature, there was never a time when he wasn't in some kind of pain. He had learned to never acknowledge it; it slowed him down, kept him from moving, and kept him from the work. That was the only thing that mattered, the only thing that he allowed to matter.

Pain was avoidable when you never put yourself on the losing side.

Hospitals left a sickly feeling in his stomach, made him suspicious. Perhaps it was a worn notion, a habit from the days he took the needled injections into his arm rather than the puzzles injected into his brain – a predisposition to doubt any good intention kept him ever aware, even in that place of healing. The cocaine and the casework… so different from one another yet not; both thrilling him and both deadly.

It was hard to say which would – or would have – killed him first.

Sherlock was no stranger to the sharp bite of pain. It had ripped holes into him before, microscopic but still weighty; it had broken his veins and bruised his pale skin with disintegrating blows of artificial stimulation; it had distorted his view on anything which couldn't be proven under a microscope. He was made of tattered embroidery; life had broken the weaving's down to corded strands tied into knots. He was sociopathic because he had to be. Defense mechanisms become reality when everyone assumes they're engraved into the being instead of penciled in. No one saw the faded scrawl was erasable, that he could be rewritten.

Sherlock was no stranger of pain. But now he trembled with it.

First came the adrenaline rush, and it - the repressed paroxysm - was truly like a high; his body was numb and yet hyper aware like there was stimulus in his blood stream and not the residue of a copper bullet. For a second, a quick moment of simplistic innocence, it felt friendly and inviting. "Let go; just sink. I'll help," it crooned. For a second, a quick moment of damning gullibility, he wanted to.

Then came the fire, and instead it growled, "Stumble… I'll eat you alive." He felt it boiling through his system, not a refreshing heat like that of gentle steam but a ravenous scorching like an angry fire. It was burning his nerves as his head pounded abusively. The world was black and the last thing Sherlock could hear echoing in those painfully white halls before he was taken completely submerged was his own name on a man's shuddering whisper, the sound of a strong man with dark sea-blue eyes.

He decided that was as good a thing as any to hear before the hammering in his heart, in his head, overwhelmed his awareness.

2 Days After

As Sherlock regained consciousness, for the first time since that day, it was an experience he decided to liken to his first – his only, as far as he was concerned - memory of childhood.

There comes a point when you can't remember anything before one specific moment and for Sherlock, it was waking up one random, unimportant day and going to school. Every time he remembered though, it grew hazier. Every time, it felt more and more like a dream than something he had lived. Waking up… He wondered when he'd simply forget it completely. He'd forgotten – deleted – more than enough.

When he woke up now, it was dizzyingly fast yet torturously slow, as if he truly had lost the memory of being aware to the world, it felt novel in the worst possible way. When had waking up become a puzzle? It terrified him to no end but he was being called back by that lovely, drugging voice of slumber.

The only thing he had time to notice before unconsciousness veiled him again was the smell; antiseptic, stale coffee, not the usual scents of ash and wood and John. Bloody hell, he thought loathingly, I do hate hospitals.

4 Days After

It had taken Sherlock nearly five minutes, an amount of time he thought infuriatingly large, to open his eyes. Or rather, his eye; singular.

One was covered by a scratchy bandage; one he wished would have been changed because it felt sticky and unpleasantly hot. Uncomfortable, but then again he wasn't comfortable anywhere. He could still feel his eye moving under the lid; he dared to hope that was a good sign.

His right eye worked slowly but surely like an ancient, gear-gutted clock. There was that feeling of dustiness that made him want to rub the sleep from his lashes but as he tried to lift his hand, he found it weighted down. Not by the normal weights one who is bedridden may expect – the weight of tubes and needles and wires hanging in, on, the skin – but something heavier like bone and muscles and… another hand.

Though it hurt like a lightning strike on his spinal cord, Sherlock titled his head to the right to look down at what he had expected, but still needed, to see; visible there was a strong, tanned hand lying atop his own. Which was connected to a strong, tanned body; he was certain it was there though he couldn't see it yet.

It was dark in the hospital room, the only illuminations being the machines which monitored his pulse, making sure to catch it before it left on a runaway train and never returned. They were eerie blues and pallid yellows, causing his skin to practically glow as it reflected both hues. He hated the translucency and the air of fragility which his all too skeletal, all too meager transport held. Now it seemed to be illuminated in a sickly spotlight, cast by things keeping it aware. He hated those machines even as they kept him alive. How ironic.

If his throat wasn't wallpapered in dryness he might have laughed; all that came out was a wheezing. It was Hell to look – to feel – this soft, this vulnerable.

Sherlock moved his eye up and away from his own arm, looking into the dimly lit darkness of the room. He saw the outline of a man at his bedside – the man who was always at his side – and as his eye worked to adjust he could see the hideously patterned jumper moving up and down ever so slightly. John was there, breathing beside him, asleep. Why had there even been a fear he wouldn't be?

The effort it took to simply turn his hand into the warmth of his friends was immensely taxing but the price paid was fair. He felt the wrinkles and callouses like they were lyrics to a song written in Braille. It was a lullaby, the hammering in his head was drowned out by it; Sherlock drifted softly off to sleep.

5 Days After

The next instant Sherlock awoke was blinding, causing him to blink rapidly. He heard muffled voices but couldn't distinguish the words; it was like his head was filled with cotton balls, filled with clouded whiteness and making his temples to ache. He tried to tell them, "shut up," but when he opened his mouth to try and push the order through his lungs it caught somewhere on his tongue, only to come up as a cough. This erupted into many coughs and painful ones at that; that was his all-encompassing word now, it seemed... pain.

He felt the hand – the one he had forgot he was holding – tighten slightly, felt another on the back of his neck. When it rubbed the area between hairline and spine it felt glorious, it felt vital; reminded Sherlock of who was beside him.

Eventually he could see the faces which the muffled voices were still erupting from. Eventually the temporal throbbing subsided.

There was Lestrade (Sherlock had gotten shot while on a case, he supposed this was only formality), his brother and Molly (obviously). The girl's voice was high and more aggravating than usual, pitched with both panic and relief. Sherlock had no idea why she would feel the need to be either, other than her annoying habit of fancying him. If physically possible, his eyes would be rolling. At least Lestrade and his brother had the decency to not talk.

They sat next to one-another, perhaps a bit too closely leaning inwards… Sherlock's eye narrowed inquisitively and, in retaliation, one neatly trimmed eyebrow raised challengingly. Sherlock decided to save that particular puzzle – Mycroft can actually stand someone? Or, better yet, someone can actually stand Mycroft? – for a time when he wasn't bedridden and half-blind. Though he was sure he could solve it anyways, if only he had a few minutes more.

Sherlock still felt that soft hand on his neck, massaging tenderly. It sent lovely tremors through the achingly stiff body, making it more aware of being, made the pain smooth over into a state of serenity. Sherlock drowned out Molly's voice, the others in the room faded from his awareness and finally he looked at his colleague, his friend, for the first time in what felt like months.

The first thing he noticed was the dark rings painted under John's eyes. Why hadn't he been sleeping? That dull activity was one of John's favorite pastimes, something he always reminded Sherlock of when they had been at a case for only a few days… the older man's eyes were also reddened and they looked raw, as if he'd been crying for a long time but trying to hide it; rubbing one's eyes with tissues for too long will cause an irritation of the skin, visible in a red tint of the eye lids. He hadn't shaved today and though it looked ruggedly attractive, those tiny ashen hairs shadowing his strong jaw; it was certainly out of the ordinary for the doctor. He also wore the same jumper Sherlock had some vague memory of seeing there, in that grossly painted hospital room… The disarming observations worried the detective.

Obviously something was wrong, which couldn't be allowed. He had to know, he had to solve it and help John; the man who had saved his life too many times to be forgotten or, though unthinkable and extraordinarily unlikely, deleted.

He tried grabbing hold of the word, only managing to push it out in the form of an all too needy, breathless whisper, "John…"

The blue eyes immediately moved from their joined hands to meet to Sherlock's face, leaning in as if he hung on every tremulous word. "Yeah, I'm here. Don't worry, I'm here."

For a quick second the younger man was confused. Why would he worry? Then he remembered it was John; it was idiotic to question the feeling even if it was alien. Of course he'd never cease to worry about his blogger.

Having been given a drink of water by said companion – whose hand still held his firmly – Sherlock was confident enough to start talking again. "Why're you… all here?"

John gave a small smile, obviously amused by the question, but it hinted sadness as well. Molly blinked confusedly before squeaking out timidly, "We were worried. You know, about you."

By now his brother and Lestrade (still too close; why're they so close; when did this happen) were standing at the foot of his bed. "You were shot at, brother dear, and very nearly killed," Mycroft's voice was steady but Sherlock could see through the façade oh so well; his brother had been concerned enough to put Queen and country on hold for now. Sherlock tried desperately not to feel gratitude. It was dull.

"The bullet skimmed against your right temple, bit more than a graze but it didn't go in. 'pose your lucky there," Lestrade looked as ruffled as ever but his concern was sincere. He was impatient though, as always. "We caught the bastard though. I still need you to-"

"Gregory, let us leave the case work for another time, perhaps when Sherlock isn't bedridden?" The British government's head tilted as a hand landed reassuringly on the inspectors shoulder, far too familiarly. With a passing sound of agreement and a nod Lestrade subsided. Sherlock was utterly baffled.

"Will you give us a few minutes?" This request came from John. Everyone looked at him knowingly but Sherlock. He had questions, wanted to know more about the case, the one which he had missed the ending of. Endings were always his favorite part, when he had all the pieces neatly put together, all his answers swimming in the mind nicely. Now all he had was insufficient data, unanswered questions and bloody feelings chaotically running about.

Molly's mouth opened and closed like a fish, ready to both protest or, more likely, submit but it was Mycroft who spoke for all: "Of course, John… Sherlock." With a nod to his brother, the taller man took the inspectors hand and they left the room, the nervous young woman following behind them. Now there was only John.

"What… happened?"

John gave a tired sigh and got up from his post, letting go of the pale hand. Sherlock made a whimpering noise as his friend began gingerly touching the bandages on the right-hand side of his face. "You were chasing that killer through the park but he hid behind a tree. Got the jump on you, apparently. You're lucky…" anger had begun to creep into the voice, raising it. John took a deep breath before continuing, "You're lucky he was a bad shot."

Sherlock gave a small smile as he moved his head into the inviting touch of calloused hands. "Or perhaps he was a rather good one… seeing as how I'm not dead."

Giving a small laugh as he sat back down, John moved closer. "Well, your blood's still pumping and your hearts still beating…" the blue eyes looked back down again, almost guiltily.

"John… what's wrong?"

With a sigh, the shorter man's hand went back to holding Sherlock's. It was tight and the detective could see the hard line of John's brow drawn tight. His voice was grated as if it truly took effort to let the words flow, "You could have died, Sherlock. Just another centimeter in and the bullet could have…" He let out a heaving breath before continuing, "Christ, Sherlock, I should have been there. I should have been there for you, I'm sorry…"

The younger man didn't know what to say. "John… I…" he stumbled for words, to build a coherent sentence out of the disarray of feelings in his- Oh… something inside him clicked. Oh.

Though it took great effort, Sherlock lifted his hand out of the tight grasp, bringing it up to hold the scratchy cheek before him. Letting his thumb run slowly over the untrimmed cheek, he watched as John's eyes closed tightly. He felt his friend leaning into the touch and he let himself indulge in a thankful exhalation of breath.

"John," blue eyes met the single silver one as the detective whispered factually, "I'm alive."

"Well, yeah, I know but if I had just been there you wouldn't be here, you wouldn't be-"the rambling apology was cut short as John felt Sherlock's hand pulling him forward weakly. It wasn't like Sherlock was in any condition to be grabby, but he also knew John wouldn't pull away. He needed to believe John wouldn't pull away.

Dry full lips met chapped thin ones and while it was merely a soft, chaste meeting, Sherlock felt heady. Like he had just woken up again for the first time; he wanted this to be his new first memory.

He held John's head firmly in place as he experimentally captured the man's bottom lip between his own, sucking lightly and extracting a stifled moan. One of John's hands tried to grasp Sherlock's right shoulder but a jolt of pain had the still-injured man hissing and pulling back. Ready with an apology, John was interrupted yet again as Sherlock kissed him. And again, both men were utterly lost in sensation.

Perhaps it was a sudden rush of adrenaline, perhaps it was just a second-wind but either way Sherlock was thankful; he had never felt more…

"John," the detective moaned it between small, exploring kisses.

"John… I'm alive," Sherlock kissed the man's top lip, then the bottom before he pulled away. John let out a heavy breath, as if he had been holding it for the whole 5 days his friend had been slipping in and out of unconsciousness. Tanned fingers fell into matted curly-hair and ran through it, reveling in the softness which juxtaposed the hard angled face.

Pushing his own hand to hold the back of his blogger, his doctor, his friend, his whatever's neck, Sherlock pulled John in once more. John never failed to follow, licking at the full bottom lip teasingly.

With a gasp and a tremble, Sherlock pulled out of the kiss. They still touched but gently. John could now not only feel the words but hear them whispered on his own lips, could taste them on the sensation of exhaled breath, could see the truth of them in Sherlock's bright eyes. There was no pain in those silvery-green irises. Not anymore.

John closed his own as the words he had longed to hear not only graced his ears and his lips but ran down his spine in the form of shivers. Finally, the extraordinarily ignorant detective could ask, could admit:

"Teach me to feel, John. Help me, I'm alive."