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He awoke to the quiet bleep of machines and the dampened murmur of voices. Looking around, he could see he was lying in a hospital room, a private one walled off from other patients. There was a south-east window that was slid half open, flimsy curtains wafting in the flimsier breeze.
John was there, snoozing at the foot of his bed. He looked exhausted, the lines on his gentle face deeper than normal, the shade under his eyes darker. His hair, slightly outgrown, was mussed, and his clothes were crumpled and well-worn. He'd been waiting here a while.
Sherlock nudged him with a foot.
John startled awake with a quick intake of breath, staring at Sherlock with those delightfully expressive eyes, blinking rapidly. "Sherlock," he breathed, moving closer. "Oh thank Christ, you woke up!"
"Well, obviously," retorted Sherlock instantly. John started talking about doctors' orders, hospital procedures and recovery times, which Sherlock ignored because he wasn't going to listen to such debilitating rules anyway. He slumped his head back, eyes narrowed; trying to remember what it was that had him come here. Was it a case?
The blank spot in his memory is mildly worrying, but Sherlock doesn't fuss about it. If it was important, it would inevitably come back to him when he needed it. If it wasn't and he had deleted it, then what was done was done, and Sherlock trusted his own judgement over what memories were necessary and what weren't.
"Move," he said to John, and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and pulling out his IV port. "Fetch me my clothes."
John stood his ground in that stubborn way of his. Sometimes his obstinacy was sweetly quaint, but at times like this it grated Sherlock's nerves. John was still talking. "Have you listened to anything I just said?" he asked Sherlock angrily, getting emotional again.
Sherlock pinched his brow. "No, it's not important. Now fetch me my clothes. They are piled behind you in the cupboard."
"I know where they are," replied John, folding his arms. "And I'm not getting them for you. You can't leave, the -- Sherlock!"
Sherlock had leapt to his feet and pulled out his clothes himself. He tugged off his hospital gown (earning another outcry from John) and redressed. He ran a hand through his curls and wished he had a mirror. He felt ... weak. His limbs were watery.
"Come here," he said to John. When John walked over, muttering something about brain bleach, Sherlock slung an arm over his shoulder. "I need your support to walk out of here," he explained carefully, because John sometimes misunderstood him.
"You're not leaving," John argued, trying to push Sherlock off which was pointless because Sherlock had a powerful grip, even after being admitted to hospital.
"Yes I am," said Sherlock. "Now walk with me."
John complained loudly, but Sherlock filtered it out, taking in instead the horrifically dull hospital, the overworked staff, the decrepit patients, and the soft tuft of hair on the back of John's head that wouldn't lie flat.
Outside the hospital, the breeze that had seemed flimsy in a heated hospital room was uncomfortably cold and strong. Sherlock shuddered, and John clutched tighter around him. "Nearly there," he said kindly, huffing under Sherlock's weight.
They started down the stairs when a shot rang out.
John's head exploded in a burst of red, skull shattering, teeth splintering out, blood and brain spurting and splattering onto the pavement. His knees buckled and he fell facedown, body twisting on the awkward landing, flesh scraping off on the gritty concrete as he skidded a little down the stairs, leaving a short red trail. Blood quickly pooled under what was left of his face and dribbled down, carried by gravity.
There was a tendril of smoke spiralling out of the gaping hole in the back of his head, and Sherlock stumbled, tripped awkwardly to his knees. He couldn't breathe. His throat was constricted.
He remembered now, the reason for his admission to hospital. He'd gotten himself involved in a case involving a particularly vicious gang of drug dealers. With John's help, and with assistance from the police, he'd taken them down, his last unfortunate run-in leaving him with veins full of a hallucinogenic sedative.
There was one individual he hadn't been able to capture.
The young man stood in front of him now, large gun held steady in rough hands. He walked over from where he had shot John, and pressed the gun point blank to Sherlock's forehead.
"You," Sherlock started, mouth twisted with rage. "Bastard --"
And the world went black in pain and fury.
***
He woke up with his eyes embarrassingly wet, sitting up bolt upright on the couch where he had dozed off six hours ago.
When he had fallen asleep, John had been at the table, pecking away at the keys with his old-man typing technique that made it take forever for him to finish everything. Sherlock wanted to be irritated by the incompetence, but he found John's concentrated expression while hunched over the keyboard impossibly endearing.
The room was dark now, and empty. Sherlock had a blanket tucked around him that wasn't there when he had shut his eyes. Poor, caring John. Sherlock tensed at the memory of the dream, of John's head ripped to pieces by the disintegrating bullet.
John.
He got to his feet and padded upstairs. John's door was unlocked and swung open without a squeak. The man was sleeping on his back, in his flannel pyjamas, one small hand clenched into the fabric on his chest.
He was having a nightmare.
Sherlock watched for a moment, cataloguing the expressions that danced across his features, and then shook him awake. John yelped and panicked, nearly hyperventilating, still halfway between dream and reality. He stared at Sherlock, eyes wild, lips lax and open. He was embarrassed. If the light wasn't so dim, there'd be a creeping blush over his cheeks and the sides of his nose.
He turned on the light and smiled as his prediction was proven correct. John grew redder, embarrassment evolving into anger.
"Sherlock, you can't just burst in here. I've told you before. Why do you never remember?"
Sherlock always remembered. He just ignored rules he didn't want to apply to himself. He reached out and touched John's cheek, which burned hot with shame at his weakness.
But he was easily swayed by Sherlock's affection. The anger quickly faded to an amused smile, and he shook his head. "Oh, Sherlock."
Then he leant forward and kissed Sherlock, mouth pliant and warm.
Sherlock grunted in surprise, but this all seemed strangely familiar.
Ah yes. He remembered. He and John had been tentatively dating ever since the incident at the pool with Moriarty. John still insisted on keeping his own room, though. A man needed his privacy, apparently. Sherlock planned to convince him otherwise.
He guided John backwards, slipping in between his thighs, mouths still sucking, lips and now tongues with their hot, intimate caress. Sherlock fluttered his tongue against John's, and John moaned happily around him.
Sherlock moved his hands up John's irritatingly modest pyjama shirt. Why couldn't he sleep naked? It would be much more convenient. Sherlock would have this conversation with John later. He'd learnt very quickly that pissing John off during foreplay meant no sex that night. Possibly the next night too, if Sherlock had said something John took particular offence to.
He was soft and small under Sherlock's hands, so very warm. His pulse beat strongly in his chest, and with each breath his ribs brushed against Sherlock's hand.
Sherlock was achingly hard. He broke off the kiss, panting, and ground their groins together. The fabric on fabric was irritating. Sherlock decided he would hide all of John's clothes tomorrow. That would show him.
"I'm going to fuck you," he murmured in John's ear, voice low. He stripped John, impatient, and then stripped himself.
"Lights on, then?" John said, reaching up to pull Sherlock down. Sherlock resisted, wanting a closer look. John wasn't embarrassed by the intensity of Sherlock's scrutiny. He never was. It was one of the many reasons Sherlock kept him around.
"Why do you wear clothes?" he said eventually, succumbing to John's tugs downwards. He kissed John's mouth, his neck, his sternum. He licked John's nipples while he slipped a lubed finger into John's arse, then two.
"Sloooowly," hissed John, jerking against Sherlock's hold.
Sherlock gave the nipple an apologetic kiss, and moved slower.
When he was in John, the heat was incredible. The tight ring of his sphincter muscle rolled against the length of his cock, and the velvet heat inside him was almost pulsating, muscles contracting and relaxing involuntarily around Sherlock. It was delicious, wonderful, to be able to derive so much pleasure from John's willing body.
John's eyes were open, his mouth slightly gaping, and he let out little gasps on Sherlock's thrusts. His legs were wide, held up and open by Sherlock, who wanted to see everything.
"Sherlock," groaned John, and Sherlock nearly folded him in two to get closer to that face, beautiful in pleasure. He bit at John's chin, then at his lips, and his thrusts sped up, smacking noisily into John.
John threw his head back. "Ohh ... ah! Sherlock, god, yeesss ..."
A hand scraped down Sherlock's back, unmistakably needy.
"You slut," gasped Sherlock fondly, leaning back away from the grip so he could fuck John faster, the angle better for deeper penetration.
John tensed around him, back arching. "Ohhh ..." He was completely absorbed in his own pleasure now, one hand grasping the headboard, the other swiftly jerking himself off. Sherlock catalogued every facial tic, every hint of expression. "Oh, ah! Sherlock!"
There was a sudden clattering sound, loud, metal on tiles.
Sherlock woke with an aching hard-on, slumped over the kitchen table. John cursed behind him, picking up the frying pan he'd dropped.
John.
"Oh, you're awake. I thought you'd died," joked John, with a gentle grin. "Just making some scrambled eggs. Interested?"
Sherlock was still dazed from that fantastic dream. He was quite glad John had woken him, or it could very quickly have become a wet dream.
John took his silence for a yes, apparently, because he broke enough eggs for the both of them into the pan and started stirring, adding milk and a bit of grated cheese.
Sherlock's eyes played over him, soaking in the details. He wished he'd had time to fuck dream John on his hands and knees, to see the muscles of his back dance under his skin. It wasn't like the real John was going to let him.
His eyes narrowed.
This John was wrong. His hair was cropped neatly, like it had been when they'd first met. He hadn't worn it short since then, preferring his hair slightly longer now that he was out of the army, like a luxury.
Sherlock was still dreaming.
How odd, he pondered. He'd been convinced that he'd woken up three times now.
"John," he said, standing and reaching around him to turn off the stove. John startled at the sudden voice in his ear, and jumped around. He looked up at Sherlock, patient but not amused.
"What is it?" he asked, blue-grey eyes flicking over Sherlock's ice pale stare. "Could you ... not stand so close, please?"
"You look so real," hushed Sherlock, running the back of his hand down John's warm cheek. John's eyebrows creased, and he pulled away from the touch.
"No," he said. "Wait, what?"
"I want you, John," Sherlock said, unmoving.
John grew visibly nervous, upset and embarrassed. How dull. "Sherlock, I'm straight."
"It's an experiment," said Sherlock silkily, eager to fuck this John over the kitchen table. Of course, he realised, it had to be a dream. This place was far too tidy, and none of the chemical equipment was set up, leaving a perfect place to screw this John on. Sherlock loved his brain, sometimes.
"Well, I don't want to be involved," argued John, pushing at Sherlock's chest.
That little moment of pressure told Sherlock a lot about John's strength and capabilities. He took that into consideration when he gripped John by the shoulders and pushed him towards the kitchen table. A quick thump to the kidney had him crouching over it, gasping in pain.
This John wasn't real, Sherlock reasoned. So this wasn't rape.
Not that it would be rape anyway. Sherlock knew John, and he knew deep down that John wanted this as much as Sherlock did. Society's petty conventions and John's fear of coming out after witnessing how people treated Harry, stopped him from taking that final step. Sherlock was generous enough to take it for him.
He held John down, and tugged down his pyjama trousers. They pooled at his ankles and Sherlock kicked them away. He pushed up John's top to see that writhing back, the knobs of his spine counting down at the top, then the delightful crease at the small of his back that Sherlock wanted to lick.
John was talking, tense and begging. "Sherlock, please."
"Please what?" said Sherlock, pinning him down easily. "Please use you? Please fuck you? Please tie you down and leave you here, for easy access whenever I feel the need?"
Now that was a delicious image. John shook under his hands. "Please don't do this!" he gasped out, flailing uselessly.
"I'm going to," said Sherlock. "So you may as well stop struggling. I can make it nice for you, that way."
"Sherlock, you're my best friend. Please don't."
John was on the verge of tears. Sherlock stared, amazed. The emotions were incredibly real and visceral. Then again, so was sex with the other John, and the bullet to the brain with the one before that.
"You're good like this," Sherlock said, pinning John to the table and leaning over him, pressing his chest to John's naked back. He smelt of salt and toast, clean and with a hint of soap after his morning shower. Sherlock decided he liked the shorter cut. John had an exquisitely shaped skull, and a lovely biteable neck. His face was pressed side on into the table, and he could just about see Sherlock through the side of his eyes. He was breathing fast through his mouth, lips wet.
Sherlock gently kissed the shell of his ear, and leant to grab vegetable oil from the cooking bench. John thrashed at that moment, but Sherlock was back on him in a second, smiling benevolently and dribbling the oil down the crack of John's arse.
He pushed in a finger, slowly, as this John was a virgin when it came to penetration and he didn't know how to relax himself yet.
John was still begging. "Please …"
Their unmade breakfast lay cooling in the pan. John could finish it later, maybe after this.
Sherlock slicked himself up, bored with foreplay and just wanting to fuck. He pressed John firmly to the table with one hand, and lined himself up, smoothing the head of his cock over John's hole. He wanted to watch this, wanted to see himself enter, split John open for the first time and fuck him ragged.
"Ohhh, yesss …" Sherlock hissed, pushing in, and John was far too tight but it didn't matter, he wasn't real. He couldn't feel pain.
He fucked his way into John, moving deeper with each thrust, and John had stopped struggling. He lay limp against the table, jaw set, eyes screwed shut. His hole was hot and greedy, and he trembled under Sherlock's restraining hands.
"Uh, John, yes," grunted Sherlock, speeding up his thrusts. John moaned in pain, reflex tensing his muscles in the flight-or-fight response, and the pressure was so incredible that Sherlock cried out at the strong flash of pleasure arcing through his body.
John's skin started to get oddly sticky under his fingers.
Sherlock pulled his hand off of his back, and trails of skin came with it, as if John was made of wet, uncooked bread dough. His body started to lose its shape, flattening out onto the flat surface. Sherlock tried to mould him back, but it never stayed for long.
His face was unrecognisable, his features having sunk back into the doughy skin, his hair falling out and either tumbling in strands to the wood or sticking to him.
When Sherlock pulled out, it was like he's removed a plug. The pile of skin that used to be John softened and melted away, spilling off the table into flesh coloured puddles on the floor.
Sherlock woke up screaming.
"John!" he yelled, leaping to his feet. He stopped, staggered back, taking in his surroundings.
He wasn't in 221B anymore.
The room was six by ten feet, with a metal door at one end and the bed he'd woken up in at the other. The wall was painted a sickly puke green colour and was covered in scratches and graffiti. A tiny window, more of a narrow hole in the wall than anything, let in the weak sunlight. Added to the fact that he was wearing a grey prison jumpsuit, and his hair had been shorn, Sherlock had a fairly good idea of where he was.
There were footsteps, and then a panel in the door slid open. The face in the hole was sneering.
"You gotta visitor, Holmes," he said, and slammed the panel shut. Sherlock drew himself to his full height, still nervous as the locks on the door clanked and clicked into place. It swung open, and Lestrade walked in, gesturing to the guard, placating.
"It's okay, I'll be fine," he said, eyes slipping over to Sherlock, who slumped back into his bed.
"Why am I here, Lestrade?" he demanded, sulking. "I haven't done anything."
At least, he didn't remember doing anything. Sherlock would know if he'd committed a crime or not, those sorts of things are not what he'd delete from his hard drive. One has to have the facts to lie convincingly, after all.
Lestrade looked at him, weary. "You've got to stop this, Sherlock."
"Stop what?"
"Pretending …" Lestrade was tense. He hadn't moved since he came in. "Pretending it hasn't happened."
Sherlock sat up straight. "Pretending what hasn't happened?" he demanded.
"Jesus, Sherlock!" yelled Lestrade, at the end of his tether. Sherlock flinched back. "You killed John! You cut him into pieces and did experiments on … on the bits that were left behind!"
He kept John alive for days, cutting off little extremities first, and moving in to the truck of his body. He had a medical base set up in his bedroom, so he could keep John alive by replacing his lost blood, keep him filled with drugs so he could still function and not feel pain at Sherlock's amputations. John had died, his body freezing up from shock and irreversible damage, 70 hours in.
Sherlock gasped, mind spinning. "John," he murmured. "Not John …"
Lestrade got in his face. "You killed him! Admit it, Sherlock. Stop locking yourself away in your head and just … let yourself deal with it!"
"How …" Sherlock mumbled, lips loose, jaw trembling. "How long am I going to be here for?"
Lestrade seemed to calm somewhat. He drew a trembling hand through his hair, and paced the short distance of the room. "You got life, Sherlock. Don't you remember?"
Sherlock shook his head, curling his knees to his chest, rocking on the thin mattress.
"John," he whimpered. "Not John. I love John."
"Sherlock?"
Sherlock blinked awake, wincing as the glancing sun from the window got in his eyes. John sat up beside him in bed, in partial silhouette with the yellow light behind him. They lay in bed, naked, close.
John drew a hand over Sherlock's forehead. "Are you okay? You were … upset."
"I'm perfectly fine," Sherlock said, slumping back onto the wonderfully lush pillows, gazing up at John's worried face.
He reached up, brushed the back of his hand over the soft cheek, and the creases in John's face shifted and changed as the frown turned into a smile. So expressive.
"You're lovely," Sherlock whispered, and John grinned, teeth white.
Teeth.
John's grinning mouth took over his entire face, fangs gnashing, and he leapt at Sherlock. Roaring. Ripping him to pieces.
Sherlock woke silently, in John's bed, in 221B.
He lay on top of the covers, curled on his side. In front of his eyes was John, lying on his back under the covers with his hands crossed over his chest, breathing silently. Peacefully. No sand filled dreamscapes swept across his face this was pure, quiet sleeping.
He was so sweet. Sherlock could never kill him.
He ran his fingers through the soft blond strands of John's hair, mussing his fringe. John woke, blinking up at Sherlock, confused but not complaining.
"Are you okay?" he asked, voice tired. "Are the nightmares gone?"
"What?" Sherlock asked, pulling back his hand. He regarded John warily.
"You were having trouble sleeping downstairs," John explained patiently. "And you said you wanted to kip here, next to me."
"Oh," said Sherlock, lying back. "I don't remember that."
John sighed softly and flicked on his bedside lamp. "Come here," he said, moving over Sherlock. "Let me look at your eyes."
Sherlock obeyed, and John peered down at him, charming in his concentration, his eyes narrowed. "Yup," he said eventually, pulling away. "I think that's the last of the drug out of your system."
"What?"
"You were hospitalised," John said, sitting back next to Sherlock, a hint of concern on his brow. "That gang you were chasing, they shot you up with a nasty hallucinogen. You've been pretty out of it for days."
Sherlock stared at him. "You've been looking after me." he stated, observing John again. He was small and crumpled in a grey t-shirt and boxer shorts, and he looked drained.
Sherlock had made a careful analysis of John, of what how he appeared under different conditions, and his emotional state. Drawing off that data for comparison, it was clear that John hadn't been sleeping well. He'd probably been up all night looking after Sherlock.
"Look," Sherlock said, tentative. "Did I … when I was drugged. Did I hurt you?"
John looked at him cautiously. "No ..."
Sherlock fell back onto his pillow, frowning, twisting onto his side. "Never mind," he said, waving his hand. "They were just dreams."
"Alright," John muttered, and he turned out the light, and shuffled back to sleep. Sherlock watched him breathe until the sun came up, hands clasped under his chin.