Chapter Text
Mycroft had stood there, had seen how much pain his brother was in as Sherlock slipped on his coat and asked his questions, stated his demands. John was of course the main topic, something Mycroft had seen coming, had anticipated and dreaded it.
“You know,” Sherlock accused, a pointed look on his face. “You always know.”
“Ah, yes and every Friday we meet for fish and chips,” Mycroft spewed, his tone dripping entirely with sarcasm.
He wanted to lie, was tempted to lie. Sherlock was so demanding, declaring Mycroft always knew. Of course Mycroft always knew. But he wasn’t about to admit that. Not this time. But he couldn’t lie either. Not to Sherlock. Not to his little brother. Not after all he had gone through.
“You might not be welcome, Sherlock,” Mycroft told him. He wanted to warn his younger brother. Things might not be as they once were.
Sherlock missed it all, though. Mycroft’s internal struggle. The truth covered by his attitude. He was too proud, too excited to care, to see, to observe. All he wanted was to see John again. Mycroft understood that want.
“I need to go out, see London,” Sherlock replied, haughty as ever since he had gotten what he needed from Mycroft. “I need to get to know it again.”
And he was gone.
Just like that. In a quick slew of words and a billowing coat, just like always.
Drama Queen.
Still, Mycroft felt the deep urge to call John, to ready him, warn him, really. This would be overwhelming for him, Mycroft knew. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t warn John, and he couldn’t protect Sherlock.
**
Sherlock stood proud, his head high, as he stared out at the skyline of London. He stood where that two year adventure from hell began; the one that carried him away from John in a body bag. His heart had been heavy then, torn, breaking, forever a hollow space filled by his lie.
Things were different now.
He wasn’t leaving John this time, would never leave him like that again. He promised himself that. It would be a promise he made to John as well.
Then things would go back to normal. Solve crimes. Blog. Just the two of them against the rest of the world. The way it was always meant to be. The way it should’ve always been.
One, maybe two things would have to change though. That mustache. That would have to go. It aged John. It wasn’t how Sherlock remembered him, wasn’t how he saw John in times of no hope. In times when he was being tortured, beaten, starved. In those times, Sherlock saw John as he had been before.
Pale sandy hair. Laugh lines around his lips and eyes. Standing as tall as he could for a short man, built up with military authority and confidence. Strong. Laughing- or rather giggling. Wearing those jumpers.
It was for those deep blue eyes that Sherlock did what he had to do to survive.
For John.
It was a diner, a small one. Perfect for something close and personal. For something meaningful.
Sherlock’s heart raced a million miles a minute, but he was finally ready. After preparing all day. He finally knew what he had to say. It was all planned out, word for word, what Sherlock wanted to say, how he would apologize, how he would say “I love you” to the man he had considered his only friend.
He could do this.
His body hurt. His thoughts were jumbled. Panic rising. Stomach twisting and chest tightening.
But he could do this.
In the back of the restaurant, Sherlock spotted John. So much the same, so much different. Sandy blonde hair streaked with grey. Frown lines. Weight loss. That blasted mustache.
Sherlock heart fluttered. What if John didn’t just accept him back into his life? What if John didn’t accept him at all anymore? What if Mycroft had been right? John had moved on with his life, and Sherlock might not be welcome.
The smile on his face faded and he could feel it.
He could do this.
He had to do this, waited two years for it. He just needed a new approach. Something funny.
The plan formed as he went. A man’s tie, women’s eyeliner, a menu. He took them all, drawing on a fake mustache, adding someone’s glasses, using the menu to cover the rest of his face.
John was alone. This would be easy.
Yet…
John was alone. This would be difficult.
This broke his heart. John was alone because of him. Because of Sherlock. Sherlock had left him, had lied to him. He left John to lonely nights and too quiet mornings. Breakfast alone. Dinner alone. Alone. So, so alone.
Guilt swooped in and slowed his step. A fast moving waiter with fish and chips nearly knocked into him. It blinded his line of sight to John.
Someone was with him now. Someone making him laugh and smile, causing those deep blue eyes to light up. Someone one not Sherlock. Watching John’s pupils dilate was like watching a terrible ending to a great movie. At least that’s how John would’ve described it. For Sherlock, it was closer to watching all the sentiment of his hopes, and even his dreams, burn up before his eyes. It was his heart burning in his chest.
It felt like Moriarty had won.
Sherlock wanted to crumple. The broken pieces of his body, mind, heart felt like they were sliding out of place.
John laughed.
The sound carried to Sherlock and he looked up. His eyes found John. It hurt to see that smile aimed at someone else. It was selfish and Sherlock knew it. He knew he should’ve been happy that John could still smile, but no. No. NO.
John was supposed to smile at him like that. He was supposed to love Sherlock. Not Mycroft.
What?
Mycroft?
Sherlock remembered. Looked. Saw. Observed.
Fish and chips every Friday. That umbrella. Those damn pointed shoes. Stupid tan suit. It was wrong. All of it. It as just so wrong.
Sherlock felt himself curling up in the inside, cringing away from the sight. His mind called to John, begged him to turn his head and look Sherlock’s way. He pleaded with the universe to allow him to unsee it all, to unmake this moment. To rid him of a reality where his brother could do this to him, one where he hadn’t had to lie to John.
Mycroft’s phone rang.
Date over.
Mycroft never ignored a phone call. Sherlock knew it. There was nothing more important than whatever problem sit on the other side of the phone line. Whatever problem it was, Mycroft was sure to rush off to. He would leave John behind, and Sherlock could claim his rightful place, he could pretend he hadn’t seen all of this.
John’s bright blue eyes dulled with disappointment at the sound of Mycroft’s phone, but he gave Sherlock’s brother a bemused smile anyways. Pretended he was going to be okay with being ignored and left behind. John wasn’t foolish, he knew what was going to happen. Mycroft was going to pick up that phone and leave him. Yes. That’s what was going to happen.
Mycroft didn’t pick up the phone. Didn’t answer it. He pressed ignore instead. Without even looking at it.
A wide smile consumed John’s face, surprise brightening his entire expression.
Whatever problem was on the other end of the phone, Mycroft ignored. For John. Mycroft cared about John.. They cared about each other. They had moved on and together.
Sherlock took in a shuttering breath that made his chest rattle with the shattered pieces of his heart and let his shoulders slump. His body hurt worse then before. He could feel it weighing him down, compressing him together as if trying to pulverize him. He felt like such a fool.
Mycroft had been so obvious.
Turning around, Sherlock slipped out of the diner without making a scene. He waited outside in the chilling weather against the wall of the building, watched as the sky grew darker and how the streets cleared of people. He abandoned his disguise, discarding carelessly the glasses and bowtie as he had been discarded. He wiped away his mustache, disappointed and hollow, his head bent low.
Sherlock waited, not knowing how much longer John and Mycroft were going to be, but still knowing that even if it were a few minutes, it would be the longest wait of his life. Longer, even, then the two years he spent away.
**
John laughed as he stood up, a container of leftovers in his hands, “You know, sometimes I swear, I don’t know what to do with you.” He shook his head, eyes looking up to Mycroft, who was standing now too. Umbrella in hand. Ready to give John a ride home even though John didn’t live far and didn’t mind walking. Mycroft, who had been thoughtful and insistent since… Sherlock.
Mycroft who had been hiding something from the second he walked into the diner. Since his spontaneous vacation that he refused to be anything but vague about it.
John could see it.
“Are you alright, Mycroft?” John asked, prompting him to be honest, his eyes burning into Mycroft’s.
They paid and made their way out. Mycroft left a larger than normal tip. John pretended not to notice, but his lips twitched to give him away.
“Exceptional,” Mycroft lied with practiced technique and a polite smile. There was something different about it, the way it’s been different for weeks. There was something more snide about it now. Him and Sherlock were much too alike sometimes. Especially in their expressions. In how they lied. The last time a Holmes brother lied to John, it broke him.
He wasn’t going to let it happen again.
“Listen,” John began as he pushed his way through the doors of the diner. The cold air washed over him and he braced himself against the cold. “If there’s something you’re not telling me-”
“There will always be something,” a voice said, cutting John off. It was low and familiar and haunting.
The world spun. This wasn’t real. No, this couldn’t possibly be real. That voice. Those words. They washed over him like a dream. This was no dream. This was a nightmare. Those words. That voice. They weren’t real. Couldn’t be. They were just haunting him. Haunting John. Reminding him of everything he had cared so much about. Of what he lost. Of what left him alone.
John turned, heart unable to keep up and sputtering.
There he was.
Sherlock Holmes.
Face screwed up in pain, he wobbled, crumpling, reality falling apart around him. “How?” John croaked, his mind rattling. So many questions. But they all wove together. He couldn’t read them, couldn’t string them together, couldn’t fathom where to begin even if he could. “How?” It was the only way to begin all of them, all his questions. It was all he knew.
How did Sherlock do it? How did he survive? John had watched him drop, the memory invading his mind like an unwanted house guest. How could he not contact John? Tell him what was happening? How could Sherlock simply let John just continue believing he was dead? How could he even believe Sherlock was dead? John. How could John be so foolish? How could he not have dug further? How could he simply believe his own eyes when he had felt so much doubt? Sherlock hadn’t. Sherlock always pushed for more evidence, pushed until there was no room for doubt.
John had doubt. Had been unable to believe what Sherlock did. But he hadn’t pushed. Had let himself get left behind. Had allowed himself not to believe.
“It was all just a trick,” Sherlock said from his place against the wall, his voice unchanging. Like he was bored and disappointed. Didn’t matter that those words dragged John down towards his darkest memory, his own personal hell. “Just a magic trick.”
A flash of rage shot through John. It was like a fire consuming a parched forest, destroying everything in its path, every dry leaf, fragile twig, turning to ash every tree. The fresh anguish in his heart only fueled the flames. He didn’t realize he was moving until his knuckles collided with Sherlock’s face, those damn cheekbones. Sharp as ever.
“You let me think you were dead!” John howled as he lunged forward. He tried to wrap his hands around Sherlock’s neck. Not to kill him. No. No, it was so Sherlock could understand how life felt without Sherlock, without his best friend. How suffocating it had been, how difficult it was to breathe in such a miserable life. How hard it was to survive without his air supply.
Not to hear the violin at three in the morning.
Not to hear the clinking of beakers as Sherlock experimented in the kitchen.
Not to see Sherlock on the case, to see him break through everyone’s walls and the lies they were built up with.
Not to see Sherlock smile.
How could Sherlock think John could survive without any of that? How could Sherlock knowingly cut him off of life support?
“John, no!” Mycroft cried out, quickly wrapping his arms around John and hoisting him up.
His equilibrium was thrown off. His body readjusted. His anger redirected.
“You knew!” John hollered, pointing a finger at Mycroft, eyes narrowed and demanding the truth as harshly as his voice. “You knew didn’t you? Who else knew?”
“Molly,” Sherlock replied, disgruntled still as he lifted himself from the ground, refusing Mycroft’s help. After dusting himself off, he added as an after thought, “And about twenty-five other people.”
“OH! Oh, that’s just great,” John growled, his chest heaving. He could feel his heart ready to explode. It couldn’t take much more. He couldn’t take much more. “Mycroft, Molly, and about twenty-five other tramps.”
Sherlock tried to reach out to him.
Mycroft tried to reach out to him.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, putting up both of his hands as a barrier. “Either of you.” John shot his glare at both brother’s. “Don’t touch me. Don’t follow me. Don’t call me. Don’t even think about me.” He took a ragged breath. He was suffocating again. It was too much to bear. “I’m going home.”
John backed away, watching both brothers for a moment. His mind raced, so many images flashing about in his mind, so many thoughts screaming over it all. It was all too loud, to distracting. He needed to think. He needed to get away, reconfigure his fragmented heart.
He refused to look Mycroft in the eye as he turned away, refused to see Sherlock. He walked away without a word. Walked as fast as his legs would carry him, his hands balled into fists as he went.
**
Sherlock paced his flat, paced 221 B Baker street like he used to, like it was home. But it wasn’t home. John wasn’t there, wasn’t talking to him. He wasn’t talking to Mycroft either, which Sherlock had so desperately wanted to take as a small victory, but he couldn’t. There was only guilt. Fear. Hopelessness.
John just left him. Torturing him. It was brutal, no mercy. Leaving him alone with no one to argue with but himself.
He shouldn’t have lied to John in the first place.
But it had been for John’s safety.
John would’ve wanted to know anyways. He always wants to know.
But John’s alive because he didn’t know.
John had been miserable though, suffered the entire time like Sherlock had.
Sherlock’s phone buzzed and never before had he prayed, but in that moment he had. Prayed to see John’s name staring back at him, bright, a call wanting to be answered, a person waiting to be spoken to.
But it wasn’t John.
It was Mycroft.
“Have you spoken with him?” Mycroft asked, his tone as lonely as Sherlock felt.
The answer is simple, but so impossible to get out. No. One word. Easy to say. But refused to form on Sherlock’s lips.
Of course Sherlock hadn’t heard from John. Why would John contact Sherlock first? Sherlock wasn’t the one John was dating. Sherlock wasn’t the one John loved. It was a cruel question to ask. It broke Sherlock a little more.
He hung up without responding, a frown on his face as his screen darkened.
Bitterness bubbled in his gut and he tired to push away all of his thoughts about John and Mycroft. He ignored his thoughts about the unfair things in life, of how alone his days were since he’d been back.
Tears might not have ever been Sherlock’s thing, not real tears at least, but he still knew hurt. He knew what it was, what it did to people, how it was caused. Sherlock still knew how it felt. Hurt. He recognized it as it cracked all of his barriers and rusted away his heart. It left him open. Raw and wounded.
This was ridiculous.
Sherlock shook his head.
This was not how things were supposed to be damn it.
John was overreacting and it was high time they spoke. Time they acted like adults. Face to face. Man to man. They needed to talk without fists flying or childish games. No lies. Just the truth. It was time to come clean about everything.
He grabbed his coat from the couch and fled. Outside in the cold, the sidewalk was more crowded than usual. But Sherlock stayed strong, pushed up his collar and tried to hail a cab. He tried and tried and tried.
Perhaps it was a sign. Perhaps the universe telling him not to go to John, but to wait for John to come to him. If he ever did go to Sherlock.
It was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
Sherlock walked to John’s instead.
For years, John had always been brave for Sherlock, protecting him. Now it was Sherlock’s turn to be brave for John. The real kind of bravery. The kind that doesn’t involve taking the easy way out. The kind that didn’t involve pretending or lying. The kind that made one face reality and the truth and all the consequences that came with it.
When he reached John’s flat, he slowed down. He studied it. It was a place John had chosen it live here. It spoke of what John’s life had become, of what John himself had become.
It was smaller than 221B, Sherlock observed, his judgment based off window spacing- it was minimal. Took a remedial job at a surgery, then. One that doesn’t pay too much. One that was far from Baker Street. One far away from anything that would remind John of Sherlock.
It took a great deal of effort, but Sherlock managed to detach the roots that kept him planted where he stood and made his way to the front door John’s building. His eyes found buzzer 21 labeled ‘Watson’. Coincidence, Sherlock was sure, but his heart still flinched.
He pressed the button.
Time ticked by slowly.
He pressed the button again.
Sherlock was done waiting. He buzzed another number and lied. It was easy, he had done it before. Will probably do it again. A little breaking and entering never hurt anyone when it was a matter this important. And without question, Sherlock was let in.
He charged towards the twenty-first flat on the second floor, charged towards an open door.
His heart slowed as he paused outside the door, the detective in him going to work immediately. Sherlock felt his sense rising to the occasion taking in every detail, every smell and sight, tagging them, cataloguing them. Deducing them.
The door was open. Kicked open judging by the boot print on the door. There was fist sized hole in the wall. Not John’s. Another hole. Someone’s back. Also not John’s. A mirror lay shattered on the ground, a piece of an old jumper caught on a shard. Definitely John’s.
John never went down without a fight.
John had to be okay.
John was probably sitting in the living room, reading the papers, waiting for the police to show up. Calm and collected, he would be sitting there, waiting to explain what happened and maybe even why. Safe, he would be sitting there, waiting.
Sherlock stepped in a little further. “John,” he called, his voice a low rumble, an attempt to not sound alarmed. But he flat beyond remained silent. “John!” he tried again, his heart starting up, pounding fast. His palms began to sweat. His pulse pounded in his ears.
He searched the flat. It wasn’t hard. Sherlock had been right. It was a small place. One bedroom, bathroom attached. Kitchen opening up to the living room. Clean and neat. Just like John.
He found no one.
With shaking fingers, Sherlock dug his phone from his pocket, fumble as he tried to dial for Mycroft. His throat dried and his world continued to tilt.
“Sherlock,” Mycroft said by way of greeting after barely one ring. There was a pause, a moment where Sherlock could practically hear Mycroft deducing him. The sound of his panicked breathing, the fact that it was a call and not a text. “What’s going on?” his voice dropped, became more serious. Sherlock could feel the concern through the receiver, even though the voice on the other end was still steady. After all these years, Mycroft thought he could fool Sherlock. But he couldn’t. They were the same, the two of them.
It was the reason they couldn’t stand each other.
It was the reason they helped each other.
“John’s gone,” Sherlock replied, straight to the point, avoiding dramatic flare. “He’s been kidnapped. He’s hurt.” He eyed blood on the carpet, swallowed. His throat felt thick with fear and guilt.
“What? How-” but Mycroft’s wavering voice was cut off as the phone dropped from Sherlock’s hands. Someone grabbed him from behind. He hadn’t closed the door behind him. He’d left his back vulnerable.
His head smacked against the wall, smacked against an old photo of John and Sherlock in the earlier time of their relationship. A time when they both smiled.
Pain rippled through Sherlock’s head and he slid to the ground, the wall as his guide. The world spun and blurred. There was a black clad figure in the doorway, but there was no face. It was too fuzzy. His eyelids were too heavy and his gaze dropped.
There was a needle in his arm.
Mycroft’s muffled voice called his name from somewhere far way.
“John,” Sherlock called with a huff of air, a breath before the darkness swooped in on him. Before he was carried away from it all.
**
Mycroft stood from his chair, calling for Anthea as he did. John was gone. Sherlock was gone. His mind turned, heart thundered. Time was ticking too fast and he was moving too slow.
Anthea came around the corner looking more alert than usual, her phone down at her side and not in her face. Even she knew there was something wrong, could tell by the tone of Mycroft’s voice. Urgent. Panicked. On the verge of losing control and grasping desperately at the seams of sanity.
“Who was last monitoring Sherlock and John?” he demanded. “I need to know where they are, what they saw. I need to debrief them now!”
On the double, Anthea jumped into action. Her fingers dialed away. She contacted everyone who knew anything. She forwarded it all to Mycroft’s mobile as he headed out. Two of his men followed him. He hated field work, getting dirty or personally involved. He hated noise. He hated people. But he loved Sherlock. His little brother. And he loved John, too. The good doctor.
**
Sherlock’s head felt heavy, his limbs weighted down, almost like he was drifted under water. Everything was shrouded in shadows and blurred. His head was warm, fuzzy. There was a figure moving beside him, hunched over, sitting. A voice was mumbling, familiar, but Sherlock couldn’t make out what he was saying. For a moment, he didn’t care what he was saying. It was John.
John was alive and that’s what mattered.
“John?” Sherlock croaked, eyes half shut. He tried to lift his head, to see John’s face more clearly. But John was quick, attention snapping straight to Sherlock, moving to his knees. His hands roamed over Sherlock, his face, chest, arms. Checking vitals.
“God, Sherlock,” relief oozed from John, from his voice, but it was quickly followed by his doctor-ly concern. “How’s your head? Are you getting enough air?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Sherlock replied, his words slow forming, but he managed not to slur. John’s face sharpened as Sherlock’s vision cleared. There were circles under his eyes. Bruises on his face. Cuts. His lip was bleeding. “Are you alright? What happened to you?” Sherlock struggled to sit up, fumbled. John was there, cradling him, holding Sherlock’s head in his lap.
“Stop trying to move,” John demanded, his voice wobbling. “I’m fine. I’ve been through worse. Remember? Soldier?”
There was blood on his shirt, a stiffness in how he sat. He was in pain. A lot of it. And he was trying to hide it. Trying to hide the fact that he had been beaten, tortured. Why? Why would John try to hide this?
Sherlock pushed himself out of John’s warm embrace. He tried to adjust himself, to shake away the heaviness. There was a clanking sound. Metal sliding against metal.
A chain shackled his ankle to John’s, held them both to the ground.
“What do they want?” Sherlock asked, his eyes forcing their way to meet John’s. Forcing himself to wonder what dragged John into a violent mess.
John ran his hands over his face and groaned. Guilt pulled his lips into a frown. “I’m not sure entirely. I only caught bits of what they were saying. Something about Mycroft. I think.”
Sherlock looked around, his eyes trying to take everything in, his mind trying to work everything out. They were in a padded cell, dimly lit by a yellowing light above them both. No windows. Only one door. They were underground on the outskirts of London. Just outside any populated city, outside any sound barriers their screams could break through. Outside any of Mycroft’s security cameras and away from his spies. Away from help.
**
John couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe Sherlock was right there, right by his side. It was as if things hadn’t changed. As if the last two years didn’t happen. Like Sherlock hadn’t left John behind. It was as though Sherlock was the same Sherlock that never failed to appear when John needed him most.
His Sherlock was still alive, still unchanged. Still there for him. Giving him another miracle.
“You know,” John began casually, “the day I buried you, I asked you for one thing, Sherlock.” He remembered that dreary day as if it where yesterday. He had been cold, feeling alone and lost. No one at the funeral seemed to understand what John was going through, what was happening in his head, his heart. They hadn’t even tried. They kept their distance. They had always kept their distance and he had let him. Then, he had Sherlock and he hadn’t needed anyone else. He hadn’t needed anyone but Sherlock.
John still needed Sherlock.
“I know,” Sherlock said in that low voice of his, and for a moment, John thought he had spoken out loud. “I heard you.”
Swallowing, John forced out, “I asked you to not be dead.” Sherlock knew. Sherlock had been there. Even without being seen, Sherlock had been there for John at his most vulnerable points.
Sherlock scoffed, “Be careful what you wish for.” His tone was laced with bitterness and a rattling noise much to close to the sound of a broken heart. It stirred things in John.
“Sherlock Holmes,” the name rolled off of John’s tongue, fierce and sharp. “You-” he started and nearly laughed, “you are the biggest pain in my arse, have been since the moment I met you. That’s what you’ve been. A pain in my arse and the best and wisest man I have ever met. Sherlock, you are my best friend,” he grew serious now, eyes pulling Sherlock full attention. “I am perfectly happy that you are alive, so don’t think for one second that I could ever regret my words or wishes.” Without Sherlock, John had been so purposeless. So lifeless. For Sherlock to so much as think John regretted their meeting, their life together, their second chance was offensive. Wrong. Almost silly.
Sherlock blinked, expression and body frozen in shock. It was like watching an error screen appear. Only funnier.
“Wh-” Sherlock had started and stopped that same fragmented word over and over as though his mind wasn’t functioning anymore. His expression never faltered or moved. It was becoming a bit disturbing.
“Sherlock, that’s getting a bit creepy now,” John said, concerned he broke his best friend. Was he even breathing anymore? “Sherlock?”
“So,” Sherlock began, his face finally moving, his voice light, confused as his mind worked out some unseen problem. “What your saying is… that… I’m… your-” he broke off, the last piece of the puzzle in his head not making sense, “best friend?”
Sherlock hadn’t known.
The realization was like taking a hit to the chest. John felt like the wind and words had been knocked right out of him. After all those days and nights. After all of those cases and close calls. After just bloody everything, how could Sherlock not know?
Sherlock who knew everything.
How could the great Sherlock Holmes not know that simple John Watson was in love with him? How could he just leap off of a building for someone he thought didn’t care enough to consider him a best friend?
John stared at Sherlock.
Maybe that was why Sherlock never said anything about any plan. Because he thought John didn’t care. About him or if he lived. If he just disappeared out of John’s life.
“Yes- yes of course you are,” John confirmed, giving Sherlock an earnest look, promising himself that if they survived this, he would spend the rest of his life making it up to Sherlock. Unless Sherlock was being a prat. Words would be exchanged then. Lots of them too because they would have the time. They would be together.
The door to their cell opened before Sherlock could respond. John could feel a spark of fear flare up and shoot through his nerves, but he was quick to tromp it back down. He refused to let his fear show and stood taller. Staring at the men who walked in, John memorized them, their every detail, the way they looked, how they sounded.
First one in was bald, a tattoo on the top of his head and going all the way back, dark lettering that John couldn’t make out. His eyes were set deep into his skull, but not far enough back to cover the malice that danced in the dark irises. He wore a sneer on his face that sent shivers over John’s spine.
Not even in war had he seen an expression like that.
He was tall- well, taller than John, not Sherlock. He was at eye level with Sherlock, dressed in all black. Bulkier build though, making him wider then Sherlock, taking up more space in the small room and making it feel more crowded.
The other two weren’t dressed much differently than the first, dressed in black. Bullet proof vests. Utility belts for knives. Holsters for guns.
Had they expected to be ambushed while kidnapping John?
To the left stood one with short hair, slicked back with too much product. His eyes were dark, wicked, matching his smile. He wasn’t much taller than John, probably had a bit more weight on him than John. The other, the one on the right, seemed normal enough looking. Blond hair tussled, bright eyes focused. He wasn’t smiling or sneering. He look… bored.
“So,” began their bald, caveman-like captor as he looked over Sherlock, “You’re Sherlock Holmes.”
They were like vultures waiting for their prey to give up and die, but they kept their distance, refusing to circle them. The tallest one still bore bruises on his face from where John hit him, cuts on his knuckles from where his fist went though John’s wall.
John knew the man hadn’t forgotten their last close encounter then. Probably knew John wanted to dish out a bit of revenge for the wall and mirror, things that were certainly going to be fun to fix and replace once this was over.
“I am,” Sherlock replied, his tone confident as ever, unfazed. “And just like I’m not the one you’re looking for, you’re not the one I’m looking to speak with.”
John shot him a confused glance. It was quick enough that no one else seemed to notice, but Sherlock did, shot back with the face. That face that promised they both knew what was going on. The one John had no clue why it even existed because Sherlock always seemed to be on his own page, one where he could see all of the invisible threads that connected all the facts, wrapping them up in a neat little conclusion that only Sherlock could understand.
And apparently the last two years did absolutely nothing to diminish that expression or that attitude of his.
Sherlock’s eyes swept over the blonde man to the right, “But you are,” he continued.
The blonde man smiled, wiping away that bored face and warping it into something hideous. “You don’t disappoint, even if you are the wrong brother.”
Sherlock smiled, cocky and proud because some things really never do change. “And what is it you need from him if I may ask?”
“Oh, you may,” the blonde man replied, still smiling, “but that doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
“Then what is it you’re looking to get from us?” Sherlock rephrased. “What could you possibly get from John that you couldn’t get from me?”
The men shifted and John felt the need to step in front of Sherlock as they all shared a look. It was dark, twisted. It was triumphant. Victorious. And John didn’t like it. Nothing had happened yet, but they were smiling as though they had already won their prize.
The blonde man spoke again, his tone light, casual as if speaking to old friends. “Two hostages are far better than one. Two hostages that Mr. Holmes cares deeply for. His heart and his blood. With only one, we can only promise to kill. With two, we can kill. With two people he cares equally for, we can kill one to prove more than promise to break him. And when we break him, he will give us what he wants to save the other.”