Chapter Text
John had been eager to move out of the house he grew up in as soon as he was old enough, this was fairly common with young borrower men, the women usually stayed close to their parents settling with their new familys in a different area of the house, it was quite usual to have several families all living in the same house if it was sparse enough on beans and easy enough to borrow from. John had always known he wanted to see more of the world. From first leaving his parents’ house he had travelled around most of London meeting loads of different borrowers and learning the skills he would need to be a medic. Borrower families always welcomed a doctor and were happy to give him food and shelter for a few days until he moved on again. After turning 30 John thought it was time to settle down somewhere and set up a proper home, he had often visited 221 baker street as the elderly lady who lived in the downstairs flat was easy to borrow from and the old house had plenty of space behind the walls so it was a no brainer that this would be a good place to call home. After a new tenant moved in upstairs however John started venturing into 221b more often. The tall, thin crazy haired bean was fascinating to watch, he was clearly startlingly intelligent but prone to black moods that would consume him for days. It was during one of these dark moods that John was seen. Sherlock had barely emerged from his room for four days, Mrs Hudson the landlady had tried and failed several times to tempt him out with delicious food that just sat on the counter and turned cold. John saw this as a great chance to stock his pantry and would take as much as he could carry from every new dish that was left out.
It had been a lovely mince and onion pie that had been his undoing. Usually surefooted John lost his balance on the edge of the sink and fell in grazing his shoulder on an upturned knife and knocking himself unconscious as his head clattered off the bottom of a pan.
He awoke sometime later to a lot of pain and huge hands pawing at him, terrified he let out a startled yell and desperately tried to get away.
“Calm down” a deep booming voice told him. “You’re only going to make it worse for yourself”
John barked out a laugh of disbelief “how could it get any worse?”
“The burst of adrenaline from your fight or flight response is increasing your heart rate, which will in turn make your wound bleed more. I'm not equipped to give you a transfusion of any sort so I sincerely suggest you take some deep breaths and stay still.”
It was hard to argue with the logic so John lay back and tried to calm his breathing as the giant gently tended to the wound on his shoulder. He eventually managed to stave off his panic attack but was still shaking as Sherlock applied tiny slivers of steri-strips across his wound and then bandaged his shoulder and most of his chest.
“I'm afraid it will most likely scar as it would be impossible to apply sutures to someone so small.” Said Sherlock as he packed away the first aid kit.
“Thank you” said John struggling to sit up despite the pain in his shoulder.
“I'm Sherlock by the way” said the giant
“John. Nice to meet you I suppose.”
“What are you?” asked Sherlock, unable to contain his curiosity any longer
“Erm, I'm a borrower. I really shouldn't be talking to you though” said John
“A borrower? Fascinating, your species must share a common ancestor with Homo sapiens to have such a similarity to us but the smallest discovered was homo floresiensis which was of course much larger than you. You’re something new altogether, a ‘homo sapiens redactus’ so to speak. The possibilities this opens are fascinating, a whole new species of human!” the excitement clearly visible on Sherlock’s face.
“Yeah, look the thing is though we’re meant to be secret. Please, you can’t tell anyone about me the consequences for my whole race would be catastrophic”
“Don’t be an idiot John; of course I'm not going to tell anyone else. Mycroft would have you within half a day if not sooner. Besides I never share the results of my experiments and research with the scientific community they are solely to aid in my work.”
“Experiments?” John started to panic again “you mean like those body parts you have all over the flat? Look if you’re going to kill me just get it over with, patching me up first is just cruel.”
“Once again John, don’t be an idiot. Of course I’m not going to kill you, what would be the point?” Sherlock said as he reached behind John to grab the plate of pie Mrs Hudson had left. “Now then, are you hungry? Of course you are that’s why you were out here in the first place. Here have some pie and tell me all about yourself”
After their first meeting Sherlock went out of his way to make sure John had everything he needed while his shoulder healed. John would venture out more and more often to listen to Sherlock play his violin or discuss his cases, sometimes they would just sit in companionable silence as Sherlock went to his mind palace and John read books that were propped up against a cushion for him. They were an odd pair to say the least but they had both found in each other a great friend.