Chapter Text
The red lights are garish and dramatic, even by Sherlock's standards, fading and picking up again like a lighthouse. A klaxon alarm is blaring somewhere in the distance, or maybe that is just in his head. He squeezes his eyes shut against the invasive light, trying to reorder his thoughts. He settles books and picture frames in their place in his mind palace while he re-calibrated. They were in Sherrinford, his secret sister Eurus watching them with the high tech surveillance installed throughout the prison. The latest in a seemingly endless line of mind games, Sherlock had held a gun to the soft space under his chin, refusing to concede to Eurus' power, willing once more to sacrifice himself for the people he loves.
For John.
Eurus had stopped him before he could pull the trigger and everything had quickly faded to black. Which means he's somewhere else, who knows where, and John and Mycroft too, maybe scattered to the winds. He needs to open his eyes, to take in his surroundings. His usual observation skills, ones he has mastered even without sight, are failing him. He feels nothing but uncomfortable warm, his skin too tight to his body, he can hear nothing but klaxons and static silence. Come on, he urges himself, soldiers today. With one last, concerted effort, he flings his eyes open. The lights are dim, but he can make out the lit up screen which reveals Eurus' cold, curious eyes, watching him struggle to his feet. He should check the rest of the room, but he feels pulled by her gaze, like all of his nerves are caught on hooks with electrified wire, and every second she stares they are sending painful shocks. His muscles twitch, his breath hitches. He is, he has to admit, terrified. He wishes, fleetingly, that he had been able to pull that trigger. The way Eurus is staring at him, it speaks something worse than a bullet.
His skin is itchy still, even as he shakes off the forced sleep and the confusion. His shirts and pants, the highest quality silk and wool blend, irritate his skin and feels suffocatingly tight. Eurus watches him shift on his feet, unwilling to talk first. He's used this tactic in interrogations, when painful clients come to 221B sobbing and manic. Just wait, let them break the silence, they'll do anything to break the silence.
He breaks first.
"What now?" His voice is scratchy, like he's parched. He does feel parched, now that he thinks about it. His body aches for something, though he's not sure if its water. It would be a good start, nevertheless.
"You have a habit of doing that," she says blandly.
"What?" He asks, frustrated at himself for playing her game.
"Sacrificing yourself. Giving up everything that you are, everything you desire, for people you care about. For friends."
"I've been reliably informed selflessness and thoughtfulness is important for a friendship."
"Is it?" Eurus sounds genuinely curious, but detached. The tone of her voice reminds Sherlock of himself when he's playing a client's game, when he knows they're lying and wants to see what they'll do. Sherlock only shrugs in response, unwilling to give her what she wants. "And so does John Watson do the same?" She spits John's name and Sherlock flinches unconsciously, immediately berating himself for giving her an ounce of himself. When Sherlock honestly, objectively, looks at it, looks at their friendship over the four years, the answer is an empirical 'no'. Oh sure, John patches him up when he gets hurt, or he did before the Fall. He pays for taxis (then complains about it), he makes tea and dinner (and then complains about it), buys the groceries (and then— oh yes, alright, I get it.). He hadn't waited for Sherlock while he was away, had given up on Sherlock even if the doctor won't admit it. He'd married Mary, went back to her and blamed Sherlock for her death. All at Sherlock's urging, of course, but that didn't make it feel any better. It was completely irrational. Sentiment.
"John doesn't need to sacrifice anything for me. His friendship is enough. His respect."
"And does he respect you? I wonder about that scar above your brow, about the bruising at your ribs." Sherlock forces his hands to stay still by his side, instead of climbing up to his rib. They don't hurt as much anymore, but the force of John's rearing kicks had caused some intramuscular bruises in his oblique and dorsi muscles. John, of course, wasn't to know about the previous trauma of his torso from his time in Eastern Europe, the way compounded injury would increase the severity. He could hardly blame the man. "Have he ever paid penance for his transgressions, Sherlock?"
"He doesn't need to," Sherlock seethes, trying to shake the memories from his head. Clear the cobwebs. Something about his head isn't right. His transport is revolting, calling out for something... something is wrong. "John has nothing to pay for."
Eurus watches him for a few long moments, as his skin seems to tighten and become more uncomfortable. He wants, he wants... something! "Don't you want to take it anyway? What you want. What we both know you're owed?"
"No," Sherlock groans, unable to stop his hands from climbing up his body. He grips his opposite elbows and leans forward, feeling something low in his belly tug. What is wrong with me? He starts going through symptoms of various diseases, injuries and disorders he'd stored in his mind palace. "I want nothing." I want, I want...
"We both know that's not true. Sherlock, you can't lie to me. Look at yourself." The screen cuts to camera footage and Sherlock looks at himself, the vivid experience of catching his own eye. There's a floodlight focused on him, shrouding the rest of the room in dusty darkness. He should investigate the depth and size of the room, he should ask about John and Mycroft, but his eyes are stuck on the image of himself on the camera. He knows what this is now, this wantwantwant. It's clearly visible in the blown pupils shrouding the coloured iris of his eyes, his skin flushed red and somehow pale, his shaking hands and there, shamefully, a bulge in his trousers. As soon as his brain recognises it, the ache ignites. He feels suddenly, whole-bodily desperate. He wants to take off his clothes, free himself from its confines, touch himself, release. His face flushes darker, this time arousal and shame. His bloody sister has drugged him, spiked him with some extra-potent viagra.
What does she expect me to do? He almost asks the question out loud but bites his tongue. It doesn't seem to matter, as Eurus' eyes come back into focus of the camera. She flicks her eyes over him in the way he knows he does himself, assessing, deducing, picking apart, then answers his un-asked question. "Take what you want, Sherlock." Sherlock opens his mouth to protest, to deny a need for anything, but the floodlight expands, basking the room in neon light and a groan sounds from the corner. Sherlock recognises the groan and is by the man's side in four short strides.
John's eyes are half lidded, his hair mussed and his face pale and sweaty. He is laying on a portable cot, on top of the hospital corner sheets. He's still wearing the clothes from when Sherlock had seen him last and there's no obvious sign of injury, but that's only a small comfort. His hands and feet are bound in metal clamps, similar to the ones Sherlock was shackled into in Serbia. In his left arm is an intravenous drip, clamped tight to the back of his hand with the manacles. Sherlock doesn't know what's in the drip, he can only follow the cord to a pinprick hole in the wall where it travels out of sight. With shaking fingers, Sherlock tries to undo the manacles, tries to find a way to remove the drip, but it does not work. John's bound hands prevent it from being pulled out, like metal gloves.
Desperately, Sherlock looks around the room but there's nothing, nothing to block the flow or cut the cord. Even the glass of their cage is bulletproof, unable to be shattered and definitely not by Sherlock's slim, exhausted body. Sherlock gives up and decides to check on the groaning man, hoping John can provide him with more information. He taps lightly on John's cheek,
"John? John, can you wake up?" The doctor only groans and shifts, like trying to avoid Sherlock's touch. Sherlock doesn't let John go far, cupping the other side of his face gently with his hand. "John? I need you to wake up, I need you to tell me what she's drugged you with?" Because it's obvious that she's drugged him with something. John's skin is feverish too and when Sherlock lifts his eyelids, the man's pupils are pin drops. His pathetic attempt at speech is slurred and indistinct. They were not drugged with the same thing, Sherlock knows, because with a guilty glance to John's crotch, he sees nothing amiss. He successfully ignores the growing throb in his own pants as he tries to wake John again. The plan is going well, his worry for John overriding the explosion of androgens, oestrogen, dopamine and norepinephrine in his brain, until John finds his voice with a groan.
"Sherlock?" The word is moaned, breathy and slurred. Sherlock rationally knows it is as a result of the drugs, a chemical overload short-circuiting his Broca's, but his body doesn't care. It sounds... deep, desperate. Sherlock hates himself for the way his body twitches in response. The way it aches. Eurus must have seen it, tracked it, or bloody read his mind (impossible) because she speaks again.
"Doctor Watson is currently experiencing the fascinating effects of a funny little derivative called barbiturate. It was used, once, to treat all kinds of nasty, silly little human disorders, until someone decided it was too bad. Or too good, depending on who you asked. It's been replaced, naturally, as all things are, by something tamer, something far less dangerous. I'm sure you'd know all about that, right Sherlock?”
"Stop it," Sherlock says. It was meant to be confident, calm, maybe even bored. Instead he sounds desperate, afraid. Which he is.
"Oh don't worry," Eurus says dismissively, "with his current dosage, he'll just be feeling some of the more common side effects. A suppressed nervous system, an influx of GABA to the brain. He'll feel calm, relaxed and oh, what's that other word...? oh yes, susceptible. Look at him, Sherlock, so relaxed, so ready for anything." Sherlock turns away from Eurus, at John. He tells himself it's because he's worried, because he can't manage to look at Eurus for another second, but as he looks down at John, he can see what she's talking about. John's chapped, pink lips are open, a hazy smile tugging at his lips. John isn't tensing or fighting against the invasion of his body. He's mumbling something, slurred and stumbling, but he doesn't sound distressed. Every so often, a giggle burst out of his lips. Sherlock turns back to Eurus, frowning.
"So then..."
"Of course," she interrupts, "half of the danger is overdose. It's so easy to overdose, isn't it Sherlock? when something makes you feel like this," John lets out a well-timed giggle and instead of the fluttery feeling that Sherlock usually gets in his chest at the sound, his heart clenches with anxiety. Of course, stupid. "The sedative effects are too much for the brain, signals getting lost somewhere along the way. The heart forgets to beat, the lungs to breathe. You know what happens, Sherlock, you're a scientist."
The anxiety is battling the throbs of need running through his system, the latter is putting up a good fight, but the nausea is spreading all over his body, making him feel like he's lost his land legs. "What do you want from me?" he finally asks.
"I want you to get what you want, my dear brother."
"Where's Mycroft?" Sherlock asks, suddenly remembering his older brother. Some part of him hopes that Mycroft has escaped right now, that he's going to stumble in here very shortly and save him, like he had his whole life. His brain refuses to connect the threads between his state, John's and what Eurus is saying. He won't even think it.
"Oh don't you worry, dear brother, he's preoccupied. Well out of the way. There's nothing to stop you."
"And the girl? The girl on the plane?" Don't think it, don't think it, don't think it.
"She's fine," Eurus says dismissively, but Sherlock notices a faint hint of light blink on in her eyes at the question. "She can wait, the whole world can wait."
"For what?"
"For you to get what you want. For you to take it."
Sherlock refuses to turn to John when he asks, "and what is it you think I want?"
"Oh please," she chuckles dryly, "I spent a whole evening with you, remember? And you were high as a kite, inhibitions down, just like now. I saw you, every head of dirty blonde hair, every square shoulder and pair of dark blue eyes. It's so very easy to know what you want. You just need to take it."
Sherlock squares his shoulders, trying to block out the sound of John's babbling, his breath that is slowly becoming more laboured. He tries to focus his senses on the IV drip, wondering how fast the drug is entering John's system, how much he's already taken, how much is a fatal dose. "I won't."
"Why?" Eurus demands.
"Because it's wrong. He's... he's compromised, and if he weren't, he wouldn't want—" Sherlock's breath catches, me, "that."
"Since when have you cared about what's wrong?" she prods, "I thought you were Sherlock Holmes."
"I won't do that to John Watson," Sherlock says, "never."
"But you admit, it is what you want?"
"I—" Sherlock groans in frustration, his brain fogged with lust and fear, confusion and ache. His skin is getting hotter by the second, flushed up his neck and tinting his cheeks. His trousers are uncomfortable tight, his lower belly on fire. He would give anything, nearly anything, to relieve the tension. But not that, no matter how much he wants it. "Why does it matter? What do you want from me?"
"I want to see," she says, the lilt in her voice reminding him unerringly of Moriarty, "how much a good man can take before he snaps. How much your selflessness can last, when your self-sacrifice will run out." Never, Sherlock thinks, never. "I'm also curious," she continues, "where the line is drawn. What makes a good man, Sherlock? How much sacrifice does it take? You're willing to give yourself up, that we know, but are you willing to give up John Watson?" The end of her sentence in punctuated by a distant beeping and a groan from John. Sherlock spins around to face him, seeing the solution in the IV line rushing faster than before. He kinks the line with his fingers, pinches it between them, but drops still move through it. John is getting restless, twitching and threatening to pull the line from Sherlock. His own hands are shaking with distracted arousal. Everything is working against them. "If you do what I tell you, Sherlock, the dosage will stop."
"And if I don't?"
"John Watson has less than ten minutes until his body shuts down. Overdose. We will dump his body somewhere, somewhere someone important will stumble upon it. 'Respected community doctor found overdosed.'" The threat reeks of Moriarty and Sherlock clenches his jaw against the anger and panic.
"What do you expect from me?" Sherlock asks desperately. "What do you assume I want, Eurus?"
"Hmm," she thinks for a moment, "everything, I expect. But right now, just enough. Enough to take the edge off." Anything, any of it would end their friendship forever. Not just that, it would ruin John forever. Sherlock knows what that feels like, not quite in these circumstances of course, but behind a club, in a dirty alley. On his knees in exchange for a hit. A shaking, sweaty hand down someone's pants for a little baggie which will tide him over for the day next, maybe two. This is different, it is infinitely worse.
It would destroy Sherlock. What left of him there was to destroy, anyway. His love for John has been weaponised against him so many times already: Moriarty, Mary, Magnussen and now Eurus. That was fine, before, when it was a sharp weapon aimed at him. This is about John. He wouldn't, he won't—
"Ssshhhh.... lock," John slurs. John had said his name like that one other time before. He had been out late one night with Lestrade, had come back after twilight, drunk and smelling terribly of beer. Sherlock had picked him up from the cab outside and lead him up the stairs. John had tucked his face into Sherlock's neck, breathed warm air right above his pulse point. Sherlock had smelled all of John then, hopps and sticky syrup of cheap beer, salt and starch of chips at the bar, but John, too. Sweat, wool, supermarket shea butter body wash. Sherlock had gotten John up the stairs and into his bed, then retreated to his own room to have a sad, frustrated wank. This would be nothing like that. Sherlock forces himself to focus on John's eyes, instead of his lips which, spit soaked and open, a tongue absently probing at the corners, is extremely distracting.
"John? Can you understand me?"
"'Lock," John tries again, "S'okay."
"What?" Sherlock tries to control his shock and, blast it, his hope. The man is off his face, Holmes, Sherlock tells himself, he doesn't even know what he's talking about. Sherlock wonders if he's even cognisant enough to understand the conversation happening around him.
John smiles sloppily and jolts his arm, like he's trying to raise his hand, maybe to cup Sherlock's cheek, to— stop it. "S' fucked up," John says, "Ssss— okay, though. Yes."
"John, you don't even know what you're agreeing to," Sherlock whines and oh yes, it's a whine. The devolved, animal part of his brain has latched onto every word, the permission that's not really being given. It's all fine, every part of him is screaming, rut, bite, fuck, slide, release, wantwantwant.
John blinks a few times, like trying to clear his vision, his mind. Sherlock understands what he's doing, what he's aiming for. When John opens his eyes again they're clear, not fully, but John's pupils adjust appropriately to the light. A smile tugs at his lips and some of the doctor's natural mischievousness can be seen there. Sherlock almost sobs in relief at it. "You, Sherlock," John says. He closes his eyes like the effort to be lucid drained him.
"John Watson will die," Eurus reminds him.
"He'll never forgive me," Sherlock whispers, more for John than for Eurus. She, of course, hears him.
"But he'll live. He may hate you forever, but you've survived that once before, haven't you? Something that wasn't your fault, and yet he blamed you, abused you. Do it again, Sherlock, do it one last time, but this time get what you want."
"'Lock," John mutters, eyes still closed. The veins under his eyelids are becoming more visible, bluer. It's likely his breathing is becoming more compressed as the drugs overflow the signals in his brain. He's barely cognisant enough to give any kind of real consent, but Sherlock is a scientist. He’s a chemist and a drug addict, too. John Watson's clock is ticking.
"The trick with the line is clever, Sherlock," Eurus admits, "it's brought you time, and I've let you get away with it, but I won't for much longer. His time is running out. Act now."
His own brain is a mess of chemicals and hormones. Epinephrine, phosphodiesterase and nitric oxide, dopamine. Fear and arousal, attraction, attachment and high flight or fight reflexes all kicking in. He's struggling to catch a thread of thought and, when he does, keep a grasp on it. There is one thing singing in his blood, one thing racing circles around his brain, wreaking havoc on his mind palace: want. He looks down at John one last time, trying to find something — maybe fear, resignation, disgust — all he sees is John's half-lidded eyes and a lopsided smile.
Sherlock takes a deep breath, trying to order his brain, trying to order logistics. It's hopeless. He switches over to instinct, slipping off his shoes and climbing onto the bed with John. He slides one leg over the other side of John's thighs and sits near his hips. His arms twitch like he's trying to move them, but his arms are still bound. Sherlock shuffles closer until his crotch lines up with the other man’s. Sherlock closes his eyes, trying to block out the feeling of John below him: not hard, not even a little bit. Sherlock wants to cry, wants to shout and breakdown like he hasn't been able to for years. He wants to turn to Eurus see? This is pointless. He doesn't— he doesn't want me. He feels John's hips tilt minutely and opens his eyes, ashamed of the watery vision. He can't do this. He can't assault John and cry like he's the victim. He takes a shuddering breath and focuses on John. His breathing is at the same shallow level it was before, but Sherlock recognises that the drug is still being administered through the IV, that they're running out of time. John says something and Sherlock leans forward to hear him better, holding back a groan at the friction of the movement. It takes every ounce of his self control to not grind against the softness of John's belly.
"Kiss me," John is saying, "kiss me, 'Lock, kiss me—" Sherlock cuts off the litany and meets the man’s demands. He presses his own full lips against John's thin ones, expecting to feel cold, unyielding flesh underneath. Instead, he feels the warm slick give way, mould against his lips. They're kissing, properly, really kissing. John Watson is kissing him. It's sloppy and uncoordinated. John is high off his mind, after all, but it's enough to getting on with. It's enough to pretend.
Sherlock holds back a sob, biting down on John's lips instead of his own and hears a groan in response. It's not a groan of pain, it's a groan of... something else, something reflected in the growing hardness under Sherlock's arse. John is getting hard, for him. Because of him. It pulls an equally desperate groan from Sherlock's throat. He begins rutting against John's stomach, reaching back on the downswing to rub against the growing hardness of John. The lust and need has officially eclipsed every over thought and feeling that had been crowding Sherlock's brain. The effect of whatever drug Eurus had dosed him with, the feeling of John underneath him, the smell, the friction, the—
"Sh'lock," John is muttering under his lips, "stop, 'Lock." Sherlock immediately freezes, every part of him clamped in shock.
"No," John groans, "just... want." He jerks his hips, "off. Clothes." Sherlock's mouth opens with an 'o' at the realisation of what John is asking. He brings shaking fingers to John's fly, looking up one more time at the man. There's nothing on John's face to indicate he should stop, nothing than what was there five minutes earlier, anyway. He undoes the button and the zip of John's jeans, tugging them off just low enough for his pants to follow. Sherlock's mouth floods with saliva at the sight of John's cock, flushed dark and shining with precome. The smell permeates the room, the salty, bitter, musky scent of his arousal. Sherlock wants to taste it, wants to lean down and feel the heat of the other man's swollen glans on his tongue, memorise the taste and texture of his pre-ejaculate. He's of two minds about it. On the one hand, this might be the only time he could ever have the opportunity. Once this is over, John could never want to see him again. Anyone would go to jail for this kind of thing, but Sherlock believes John wouldn't go that far, that John would, while not accept it, understand the circumstances. There would be no legal retribution, but there would be no more John. If this is the only chance he gets to fulfil one of his greatest fantasies, why not take it? On the other hand, that is exactly what Eurus wants from him. Exactly what she expects of him. Maybe John expects that, too. Maybe through the haze of drugs and confusion, John is resigned to the reality of this situation. Maybe he trusts Sherlock to not violate him more than he already has to. Sherlock doesn't want to violate John's trust, not again. Maybe not disregarding this boundary is the one thing that will save the last dregs of their friendship.
He's also viscerally aware of his sister's prying eyes. He shudders at the thought, of exposing more of John, of himself, to the empty woman than he needs to. Sherlock deftly undoes his own zip and pushes aside the plackets of his wool blend trousers. He pushes down his pants just enough for his cock to rest free of its confines. His own cock is similar to John's, longer and thicker, but flushed nearly painfully purple and soaked with pre-come. It's because of the drug, he tells himself. Because he's been dosed with stimulant drugs and John hasn’t, and not because John wants him less (both things can be true). His cotton pants are damp from the copious moisture he'd been collecting for the past 20 minutes, but he ignores it even as it gets tacky against his ballsack. He focuses on John's face, looking for traces of panic or discomfort, as he lowers himself to align with John. The combined heat of their stiff cocks sends a delirious groan through him, and he can feel the rumble of a matching one from John. He aligns their cocks properly, wraps one of his large, warm hand around them both and begins the process of manual stimulation. he tries to copy his usual routine, the one he had devised when he was first inundated with teenage hormones. Perfunctory, quick and easy. John moans from below him, his mouth open to Sherlock.
"Kiss me," John says, as demanding as his weak, drug addled brain can allow, "love." The last word is slurred and Sherlock isn't sure if he heard it right. He ignores it nonetheless, leaning down to claim John's mouth again. He gets distracted kissing John, his touches becoming sloppier, less co-ordinated and distinct touches. Lust, relief and adoration are collecting like ferocious waves in his brain, growing and growing until they crest and break. "I love you," Sherlock whispers, wretchedly, in the last approaching seconds. "John, I love you." He's sobbing, still kissing John when his climax comes, visceral and full-bodied. He seizes as he comes, feeling stripes of warm ejaculate land on his shirt and John's. He'd forgotten to remove them, to get them out of the way, so focused on retaining any minuscule amount of their privacy, but not considering the consequences. John will probably throw out that shirt, maybe burn it, which is such a shame. It looks good on him. His legs buckle where he'd been holding himself parallel to John's prone body, his hands shaking as he releases them. John whines, a high desperate sound, and Sherlock realises his selfishness. Regardless of John's mental state, his body is calling out for climax and it's an uncomfortable situation to be left in. It is awful — wrong — for him to have put John in this situation. The least he could do is... He collects his faculties enough to return to manual stimulation, making sure to swirl his thumb over the swollen head of John's cock, which makes John's hips jerk and a groan rip from his throat. He squeezes on the upstroke and, in a move more cerebral than he was expecting from himself, uses his other hand to fondle John's balls, tugging and squeezing in gentle alternatives. The few times he'd truly allowed himself to enjoy masturbation, this is what he'd done to himself. That and more, lower, which is something he is not allowed to do to John. Never. John's cock is slick from pre-come, some of Sherlock's leaking ejaculate and sweat and it only takes another minute or so of concentration from Sherlock to bring John to climax. Sherlock watches, nearly awestruck, as John's body freezes, convulses and then relaxes.
Whatever medicine Eurus had spiked Sherlock with did not wear easily. All kinds of aphrodisiac stimulant medications like prescription Viagra can reduce the refractory period of participants, depending on a dozen other factors. Eurus could have taken any pharmaceutical drug and done anything to it, meaning Sherlock has no idea what impact it will have on his physiology during and afterwards. One thing is clear, it only takes hearing the breathy, moaning sounds of John’s orgasm to release a new flood of chemicals and re-ignite the signals in his brain. He's painfully hard again in a matter of minutes, but he pushes it aside. Whatever Eurus wanted, she got it. I love you, I love you. Shame, regret and anger flush inside Sherlock alongside the newest bout of lust, and he climbs inelegantly off of John, nearly falling to his knees when he gets to the floor. He finds his land legs again, zipping up his trousers and spinning towards the screen which had last housed Eurus' steel-sharp curiosity. That is when he notices the screens are all black. Even the red klaxon lights are gone, leaving John and Sherlock in an empty, echoey room with only a single, white light to spotlight their shame.
Sherlock hadn't noticed the changes, curses himself for falling once more to the whims of his transport, a prisoner of sentiment, but hopes that Eurus left far, far earlier in the proceedings. He hears a quiet click, and turns back to John. The doctor is still mumbling something, talking insistently, maybe at Sherlock, but he's not listening. His ears are buzzing with shame and anger as he quickly tucks John back in and zips up his jeans. He removes the metal manacles, which had been released by someone somewhere in this hellhole. He resists the urge to lean down and kiss the red, raw skin around the bounds and instead gently removes the IV from the back of John's hand. He takes off his suit jacket, an Armani piece that he's had since before the Fall. He presses the sleeve firmly but kindly against the wound and holds it there, using the other pieces of the jacket to hold John's hand steady. No part of his skin is touching John. No part ever will, again.
They sit together in awkward silence, John's ramblings going ignored by Sherlock as Sherlock focuses on keeping the pressure right to staunch the bleeding. After a few minutes, Sherlock checks and notices the blood clotting appropriately. There is no way to know if whatever drug Eurus had dosed him with included blood thinners or something more sinister. Sherlock will have to keep an eye on John for other, permanent, damage. He'll have to watch him for the next 24 hours to make sure. No, someone will. Someone that's not Sherlock. Anyone but you.
Sherlock prowls the border of the room, trying to find a door, a way out. He takes two laps of the room, checking each time that John is still breathing, though he dodges an outstretched hand when John tries to reach for him. On his third circuit, the pain, grief and shame overwhelms him and he screams, slamming balled fists against the glass. Excess saliva and hot breath fogs up the glass as he curses, shouting at Eurus, at Moriarty, at Mycroft, himself. He screams until his throat hurts and after one last, pathetic effort with his fists, slides down the glass and sobs into his lap. He ignores John's calls for his name, comforted by the fact that the man is still too high and jelly-legged to come for him.
When the high wears off, John will not want to come to him, will not want to comfort him. John will never speak his name again, he will just turn his back and walk away. There won't even be bloodying fists to his cheek to connect them this time. After an interminable amount of time, during which Sherlock suffocates on tears and regret and the smell of sex on wool, the whoosh of a door draws his attention. He lifts his head to see Mycroft and three guards dressed in black at the door. Mycroft is in front, bruised but not contained. In charge, by all accounts. The relief runs through Sherlock's body like cocaine.
Sherlock doesn't listen to anything Mycroft is saying, does not care about how Mycroft escaped, how he re-established power, where Eurus is. He tells Mycroft John needs medical attention and stands, as stern as a soldier, awaiting orders. He follows when Mycroft leads them out of the horrible building, keeps his head down as they move towards the helipad. He only turns his face up at a gust of sea wind, tasting salty water that blends with his drying tears.
At some points there's a helicopter ride and someone gets Sherlock to swallow some kind of tablet, perhaps something to counteract the still obvious effects of Eurus' dope. He doesn't look at John, not once, and even the thought sends creepy crawlies over his skin. The past three hours is playing on fractured repeat in Sherlock's mind, the feeling of John's warm, solid body underneath him, the sound of John's guttural moans, the words I love you, I love you pushing past his lips. Traitorous. Hateful.
At one point, Mycroft's voice filters through the noise in Sherlock's brain, "give him some time, Doctor Watson, let these doctors look after you. You're still very ill."
They land some time later, somewhere Sherlock could recognise, if he bothered to look around. Instead, he watches the shine of his shoes, ones that Mycroft had forced him to put back on in that room before they'd left. Mycroft had handed him his Belstaff, too, from wherever he managed to procure it, but the familiar wool doesn't stop the shivers that wrack Sherlock's body. I might be dying, he thinks vaguely, an unaccounted for side effect of Eurus' medication. That would be fine. Or maybe it's coming from inside, an arctic implosion, starting in the broken shards of his heart.
He recognises it, the old sand brick cottage. It's grand-mère's cottage. Mycroft had plucked him from the worst prison cell of his life and set his shattered being softly down in the fields of Provence. Sherlock pushes past the dusty pink painted door and barely makes it past the threshold before he falls to his knees and, for the third time today, cries.