Dodging Bullets - Sherlock Holmes x Reader

There was something about a gunshot that you found much less personal than any other form of attack. Knives required being up close and either surprising or overpowering your victim. Poison required sleight of hand or blind trust. Barehanded attacks required passion. Bombs required premeditation. But guns. Guns were easy. Long range, rapid fire, not impossible to get your hands on.  Impersonal.

Ironically, your love life had begun to center around getting shot. Or avoiding it, as it were.

When you met Sherlock Holmes for the first time, you were running. Not literally, at least not at the time, but running nonetheless. Three months earlier, your fiance had been dragged out of your apartment in America at 3 AM. You had been dating for 3 years, at the time, and engaged for 7 months. In all of that time, he had murdered no fewer than 6 women.

You watched the court proceedings stony-faced. The media wanted to know how you didn’t catch on. You were trained you should have known. You could have stopped this after the first woman if only you’d picked up on the clues. Your family wanted to know what your plans were. If he wasn’t convicted, were you still getting married? Would you ever find another man who would be as sweet to you as he was?

Something had to change.

You left the country completely and were now in an interview to rent out 221C Baker Street. The man in front of you called himself a consulting detective. You called him an asshole.

“What is an American doing renting out a flat in London?” He asked. It was the sixth way he’d rephrased this same question, and still he did not seem satisfied with your answer. His paranoia was not deserved.

“Oh let her be, Sherlock. I know that look anywhere. Is he in jail, darling, are you safe?” The landlady Mrs. Hudson pressed a warm cup of tea into your hands and stroked your hair, and for a moment your stress melted away. Suddenly, escaping the shitstorm caused by your ex-fiance didn’t seem so lonely.

“Of course. I should have picked up on it faster. Barely faded tan line on the ring finger, teared up eyes, light packing. You’re not just renting a flat. You’re running.”

Mrs. Hudson smacked his hand with the spoon she used to stir your tea. She saw that his analysis was upsetting you.

“Now, Sherlock, that is no way to treat your new neighbor. You’ll have to play nicely.” You perked up and grinned at Mrs. Hudson.

“Neighbors, you mean it? Oh thank you so very much!”

--

“Sherlock Holmes, if I find another of your experiments in my refrigerator, I will drop it and you out of a window.” Sherlock looked up at you from his seat on the couch and sighed.

“Impossible, [First Name], I am more than 40 pounds heavier than you.” He responded dryly.

“Your experiments are not.” John heard the argument from his room and walked out to see you standing at the door with what looked to be an eyeball in a mason jar. His eyes immediately fell on Sherlock.

“Really, Sherlock?” The detective sighed and stood, crossing the room in two strides to gather his experiment from your hands.

The real experiment was seeing what it would take to get you back to their flat. He’d left 17 total experiments in your refrigerator over the past two weeks, and this was the one that set you over the edge. His next plan was a severed head, so it was a good thing that you came now. You sat down in John’s chair and tucked your feet under you.

You had been living above Sherlock and John for 5 months now and tried not to make a habit of bothering them. Sherlock was constantly busy and John was working. It didn’t seem right to intrude on them as often as you did, but you always had a reason. Sherlock would leave something in your apartment or Mrs. Hudson would ask you to run the mail up to them, or mysterious laser points would appear around your pillow at 3 AM.

Sometimes you thought that Sherlock hired the sniper himself, just to bother you.

“Since you’re down here, you may as well come along to get groceries.

“You’re getting the groceries, Sherlock?” John asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Of course I am.”

John eyed the man suspiciously but did not say what was on his mind as you followed Sherlock out the door. John thought he may have seen the ghost of a smile on the man’s face.

---

It was a normal Tuesday on Baker street. That was to say that Sherlock and John were nowhere to be found, Mrs. Hudson was watching trash telly, and you were tied to a chair in 221B locked in a staring contest with a pistol.

“Where is he?” You glared at the criminal in front of you. You thought that perhaps this method of questioning might be slightly more effective if your mouth weren’t duct-taped shut. You kept this sentiment to yourself. You were not in the business of educating criminals, and had no way to indicate this to him anyway. His finger moved to the trigger of the gun and you squeezed your eyes shut.

This was normally the part where you woke up. The nightmare ended before the gunshot and you were left in your bed, cold and fighting to catch your breath. This was no nightmare.

The gun was cold metal against your skin. Real.

He slammed the gun into the side of your face and it discharged. The pain of your jaw was overshadowed by the fire inside of your shoulder as the bullet ripped through flesh and muscle.

“Where is he?”

This time when you didn’t answer, it was because you were losing consciousness.

You woke up to the smell of morphine and the slow but steady beating of a heart monitor. John Watson stood next to your bed, watching you.

“Sherlock, Sherlock, she’s awake!” His voice was distorted and loud, but welcome. The pain in your shoulder was a dull, burning ache at the back of your mind. Whatever painkillers they were pumping into you were definitely working.

“You got shot.” Sherlock stated, the corner of his mouth turning down in what you assumed was a frown.

“They were looking for you.”

“I’m well aware, but you got shot.” You laughed at his statement of the obvious. You were well aware that you got shot. The IV running into your arm was enough evidence of that.

He pressed something metal into your hand along with a piece of paper and then left.

Sherlock Holmes was not a man who could be accused of Sentiment. He was cold and calculating, never sentimental.