#I'm beginning to doubt if it was a good idea to join this challenge XD

[i-dont-talk-for-days-on-end]

@febuwhump Day 4: Knife to the Throat

You can now find my contributions to Febuwump on Ao3!

„Sherlock!“

„Don’t move, don’t move, I swear, one step and I’ll …!”

Sherlock said nothing. At the moment, it was hard enough to swallow without injuring himself. He could feel the cold metal of the blade against his throat, the faint itching warmth that told him his skin had been cut. The warmth radiating from the body of his capturer where he pressed against Sherlock’s back mixed with both their frantic heartbeats.

Of course, Sherlock wasn’t in panic. Williams was, though, and that wasn’t a great condition for someone pressing a knife to your throat. Williams was small fry, not cut out for a murderer, but that wouldn’t save Sherlock if the man currently threatening to cut his throat lost his head.

He tried to tilt his head, just half a centimetre, so he could watch John from the corner of his eye. John hadn’t moved, but he hadn’t lowered the gun either. It wasn’t of much use though because at the moment Sherlock served as a rather solid human shield for Williams. Unfortunately, getting shot was at the top of the list of things Sherlock wanted to avoid tonight, second just to getting his throat cut.

“Drop the gun.” Williams’s breath was hot and damp at Sherlock’s cheek and he had to grit his teeth to fight the urge to pull away.

Their eyes met, John’s lips a thin white line. Sherlock stared at him without blinking, hoping to convey the notion that John absolutely shouldn’t do as he was told.

“I said drop the gun!”

There was a sharp sting to his skin which made Sherlock hiss in surprise and then the familiar clatter of a gun on concrete and nothing but William’s heavy breathing. Sherlock, who had raised his chin in and involuntary movement of trying to withdraw, could feel the warm trickle of blood running down the exposed skin of his throat and disappearing somewhere into the wool of his scarf.

Splendid. It would be ruined now. He had quite liked that one.

Blinking, he reassessed the situation. He wasn’t gravely wounded, otherwise he would already have begun to feel the blood loss. He couldn’t see John anymore, but it was obvious that he was unarmed now. Sherlock had to rely on his intuition.

He was fairly sure that if he managed to grab William’s arm just so, he would be able to surprise him and turn around. However, there was a decided chance that he would cut an artery in the process which was not a good starting point to not getting one’s throat cut. And John was unarmed now, so –

“Sherlock. Are you okay?”

John’s voice sounded perfectly calm to an outsider, but Sherlock could tell he was worried. The continuous perception of warmth at his throat in combination with the worry in his voice told Sherlock that the cut must be a bit deeper than first anticipated. Which was …

… oh, which was brilliant.

“Sherlock?”

He felt a bit sorry for John, but he would thank him later.

“ ’m fine,”, he mumbled, letting his shoulders slump and shifting some of his weight so it rested against Williams, just enough to be noticeable. “Just … a bit …” He swallowed, blinking rapidly as if trying to regain focus. He could feel Williams adjusting his grip, supporting his body with his own from behind.

“Stop that nonsense”, he hissed but Sherlock could hear the panic returning to his voice. “This is barely a scratch, you cannot possibly …”

“Yes, yes”, Sherlock muttered, at the same time letting his eyes drift shut and leaning back a little more, forcing his capturer to hold him upright.

“Sherlock”, he heard John say again, now sounding seriously worried. He couldn’t do much about it, though, because Williams had begun to mumble of consistent string of profanities into his ear, obviously buying his ruse.

“Put that knife away”, John said, a certain commanding tone to his voice he only employed during a situation of crisis. “Put it– Jesus, Sherlock!”

Sherlock, who had felt the hand holding the knife begin to tremble and giving him some leeway, had let his head loll to the side with a little whimpering sound that was sure to spike the other men’s worry.

“This – this is impossible”, he heard Williams stammer, “he didn’t lose much blood, I –“

“For god’s sake, he can barely stand!”, John roared. “Put that knife away or he’s going to collapse right into the blade, and this will be murder!” Sherlock appreciated John’s words with a shaky exhale through half-opened lips. It was quick-thinking to bring to mind William’s criminal record. He certainly didn’t want to quadruple his it by accidentally cutting a consulting detective’s throat.

It worked. “I didn’t do anything! Fuck, fuck, that’s impossible!”, Williams whined while pulling his hand away, his voice actually shaking. “Oh god, is he …?!” But the suddenly absent support of his arm around his shoulders made it necessary for Sherlock to slump forward if he didn’t want to give away his game, and in the next second Williams suddenly yanked away his hands like someone who had accidentally touched a very hot surface.

Sherlock crashed to the ground and the impact actually hurt, sparing him to fake another groan. Half a second later, John was at his side, grabbing his shoulder and turning him around, eyes wide with a fear that sent a peculiar bolt of guilt through Sherlock’s nervous system. John was a doctor, for Christ’s sake, he should have been able to realise Sherlock was only simulating.

“Sherlock!”, he gasped, “can you hear me?”

“Of course I can!”, Sherlock replied, already leaping up to his feet, “what are you waiting for? We are losing him!”

He had the uncomfortable feeling that there was a stern talk waiting for him some time in the future, but for the moment they were bolting out of the door in hot pursuit of Williams.