Archive of Our Own

John steps out through the changing room door, and the ground drops out from beneath Sherlock's feet.

It's simple surprise that makes him lower the arm holding the gun. His mouth falls open but he can't seem to organise any of his jumbled thoughts into words.

He thinks, somewhat nonsensically, You shouldn't be here.

John is wrapped in a ridiculous green parka, the zip drawn all the way up to his chin. Its sleeves hang empty at his sides; from the stiff, awkward hunch of his shoulders, Sherlock can infer that John's hands are restrained behind his back beneath the thick material of the coat. His face is half-covered by a leather muzzle. A thick, rectangular panel covers his mouth and chin, held in place by straps running across his cheeks and crossing below his chin to wrap around his throat. Two more straps run vertically from its corners to meet in a V in the centre of his forehead, passing over his eyes. It's not quite enough to blind him, but the way he keeps twisting his head back and forth tells Sherlock that it impedes his vision well enough.

For the space of several long seconds, all Sherlock can do is blink at him.

A muzzle. A muzzle on an aphone.

It doesn't make any sense.

Against the dark leather, John's face is red, flushed dark with a combination of heat and shame and fury.

He turns his head again and Sherlock sees his eyes flashing with fire. It's enough to snap Sherlock out of his stupor; enough to tear his voice free of the tightness in his throat.

"John."

Sherlock is halfway to him when the far door bangs open. John freezes immediately, every inch of him screaming danger. He tilts his chin just enough to meet Sherlock's gaze from the corner of his eye, halting Sherlock's approach with a decisive half-shake of his head.

Sherlock draws himself up and raises the pistol to take aim at the slight, dark-haired man who enters.

"Really now, Sherlock, you didn't think it would be so easy." Sherlock takes a step back, but his hand is steady. "I don't know if I should give him back to you at all. Not when you've done such a poor job of taking care of him so far."

As he starts to circle the far end of the pool, Sherlock places him.

"Jim. From the hospital."

He laughs, high and mirthless. "Oh yes, well done. Really very well done, Sherlock, I'm impressed." He snaps his fingers. Sherlock's eyes dart around the room, but whomever Jim is signalling, it's someone Sherlock can't see.

"Don't be any slower than you are, Johnny boy," Jim sighs. He snaps his fingers again. "We talked about this."

John holds just a moment longer, then backs away from Sherlock until he's standing at Jim's side. The muscles at his temples work as he grinds his teeth against the gag in his mouth.

"Really, Sherlock, you have to manage these aphones, don't you? I don't think you put nearly enough care into his training." Jim sets a hand against one side of John's chest and strokes, a small, repetitive caricature of a soothing gesture. Even through the thick material of the parka, Sherlock can see the tension cording down John's neck into his shoulders. "Just like animals, aren't they? Aphones. Five senses and mute. Dumb."

John tips his chin up, defiance radiating from the set lines of his jaw. Sherlock has to force himself to meet his eye.

"Not quite as good as an animal, though. Even a dog would have a better understanding of his surroundings than Johnny boy here, and— speak, boy."

John's eyes slam closed, but he can't keep the red flush of shame from his cheeks. Sherlock's vision flares bright with white-hot fury.

"See? Even a dog could do that. Still, they make good enough pets if you train them up properly."

Jim strokes the edge of his thumb down John's cheek.

"This beast of yours, Sherlock. I had to put a muzzle on him to stop him biting, and even then—"

Sherlock speaks before he has a chance to think better of it. "You will get your hands off him," he hears himself say, his voice low and dark with fury, "or I will shoot."

Jim drops his hand away, his face twisting into a caricature of shock. "If only I'd thought of that earlier."

Then Jim swivels his head to look at John, leading with his chin, an exaggerated gesture that Sherlock can't help but follow. Three red lights appear on John's chest, and Sherlock stifles a growl of frustration.

"On you as well," Jim says, sounding bored. Sherlock's eyes flick down to his own body, where a similar array of lights is visible. "Pets can be so touchingly loyal, you know. And yours here is such a little scrapper."

Jim raises his palm to Sherlock, waggling his fingers in a mocking wave, then curls them around the back of John's neck. He brings his other hand up to the zip on the parka and tugs it down in one swift pull, then shoves the coat aside. It slides over his shoulders and falls heavily to the floor.

There's a piece of chain wrapped around John's throat, the links gleaming in the overhead light. All Sherlock can do for the space of several long seconds is stare, trying to understand what he's seeing.

When he does, it's enough to steal the air from his lungs.

A choke collar. A bloody choke collar, as one would use for training a dog. A ring of bruises is already blooming around John's throat, darkest where the inward-facing points press cruelly against the skin.

"He's an old dog, of course, so it takes him a bit longer, but it seems I've managed to teach him a trick after all." Jim pats him affectionately on the hip. "Turn around, then, Johnny boy."

Even with the harness in the way, Sherlock can't miss the narrowing of John's eyes, but he does as he's told.

Sherlock hears his own voice shape itself into a growl.

John's wrists are bound together and wrenched up so that his hands rest between his shoulder blades, palm to palm. The position is obviously extremely uncomfortable; the lines of John's back are wrenched by the strain on his shoulders. But hold it he does, because his bound wrists are tied to the choke collar so that every twitch of discomfort constricts his breathing, driving the dull points into his neck and compressing the delicate architecture of his throat.

"Good boy, Johnny," Jim says. He strokes his fingers down the back of John's neck, then wraps them in the chain. "Perhaps later you'll get a treat. Show's over now."

John barely has time to brace his shoulders before Jim tugs, forcing John to turn around, his eyes watering as his air is cut off.

"Take your hands off him right now," Sherlock says, forcing his voice into a semblance of evenness, "and I let you walk away from this."

"And hunt me down later? Do you think that'll work?" Jim compresses his mouth as though actually considering it. "Don't be hasty, Sherlock. Let's consider the alternatives."

Jim wraps his free hand around the underside of John's jaw. When John moves as though to pull himself away, the hand on the back of his neck slides down to grip the chain tethering his wrists to the collar. John's whole body jerks as he chokes, his face flushing purple.

A moment later, Jim's grip eases. John's nostrils flare wide as he sucks great gusts of air in through his nose. His eyes are flashing defiance but when Jim uses the strap to forcibly turn John's face toward him, John puts up no more than a token resistance. Jim takes a step closer, then another, until he's nearly pressed up against the side of John's body.

Sherlock is moving before he even finishes formulating the thought.

"Stop." The shout contorts Jim's face into something completely alien, startling in its suddenness.

Before the echoes of it have faded from the tiles, Jim's features have once again settled into a placid expression. Sherlock clenches his hand into a fist against the urge to smash it off his face with the butt of the pistol.

Jim takes in Sherlock's reaction with a sardonic quirk of one eyebrow, then turns his attention back to John, running his thumb along the lowest of the straps pressed against John's cheek.

Look at me, Sherlock thinks savagely.

"You wanted to talk to me. I'm here." Sherlock's chest feels oddly tight; he hopes his voice sounds steadier than it feels.

Even when Jim speaks to him his eyes don't leave John's face.

"If all I wanted to do was talk, I'd have done it ages ago."

Jim's finger drifts across the front of the panel covering John's mouth and chin in a parody of a caress. John squeezes his eyes tightly shut; Sherlock, for his part, can't look away, pressing his lips together to avoid giving voice to any of the litany of curses crowding behind his teeth.

"He isn't necessary." It's a fight to keep his voice even; he can do nothing about how strained it sounds. "I brought what you wanted."

"What I wanted." Jim's head swivels around until his eyes lock on Sherlock's, bright and eager. Better; yes, that's better. Keep your eyes on me. "You have the plans?"

Sherlock retrieves the flash drive from his pocket and holds it out, taking the opportunity to move forward a few steps. Just that little bit closer to John; maybe it will matter. Maybe he'll be able to do something. Those blasted red dots are still dancing across John's torso, but Sherlock still has the gun. He'll find a way to get them out of this.

Jim takes two strides forward with his arm outstretched. His face breaks into a wide grin as he takes the flash drive, cradling it in his palm like a precious object.

"Oh," he says. "Oh, Sherlock my dear, this is lovely." He moves back to John's side and Sherlock's stomach threatens to lurch up his throat. "Really lovely, you have no idea."

"He doesn't need to be here. This— all this—" Sherlock gestures at John with one hand, indicating the muzzle, the coat, all of it. "It's not necessary. You're better than this."

Jim twists his mouth into something that might almost have been a smile, if not for the way the skin tightens at the corners of his eyes. Then he turns and throws the flash drive into the centre of the pool. There's hardly a ripple as it disappears beneath the surface of the water.

"No no no, Sherlock. Wrong." Jim throws his arms up and begins to pace back and forth along the edge of the pool.

Sherlock's eyes dart back to John's face. John is staring back at him with desperate intensity. The obstruction of his face is infuriating; they've never needed words between them but Sherlock can't see John's face clearly enough, obscured as it is, to read what he needs to there.

There's an almost imperceptible coiling of tension in John's body, the tiniest shift as he angles his right shoulder downward, and Sherlock understands, abruptly, what John means to do: he's going to throw himself at Jim and knock him into the pool. To drown him or just cause enough of a disturbance for Sherlock to get away, Sherlock doesn't know. What he does know is that with his hands bound John won't be able to swim, and there are still the snipers to contend with. Even if it works, Sherlock won't be able to get him out in time.

"He'll be dead before I even hit the water, Johnny boy," Jim drawls. He taps two fingers to the centre of his own forehead, and Sherlock's eyes slip closed at the realisation of what that must indicate. "Stay."

John's exhale is audibly harsh, but he doesn't move from his spot. Jim flashes a grin in Sherlock's direction.

"There, don't you see? You haven't trained him at all. But no matter. He's biddable enough; it just takes the hand of someone who knows how to handle him properly. A good little pet. They all are."

Sherlock forces what he hopes is an appropriately disdainful tone into his voice. "What is it, precisely, that you want?"

"I wanted to see the look on your face. And thank you for that, Sherlock. It's perfect, it really is."

"And now you've seen it," Sherlock snaps, "you can just go on and—"

"But now that I've had a taste of what your pet can do," Jim breaks in, "I want to see what a proper master can make of him."

Sherlock's breath catches in his chest. His eyes meet John's, and the grim resignation he reads there terrifies him.

"You can't be too sentimental about your pets, Sherlock. I know it's tempting to let them eat at the table, but ultimately it isn't good for them." Jim's fingers are stroking the top of John's head. Petting him.

Sherlock could rip Jim apart with his bare hands, snipers or no.

Jim's smile is a blinding flash of white teeth. "But no matter. We'll soon get him put to rights." Jim flattens his palm on the top of John's head and shoves hard. John overbalances, his knees hitting the tile with an audible crack. A moment later he falls forward on his chest, helpless to catch himself with his hands pinioned.

Oh yes, Sherlock is going to rip Jim apart. He's going to do it very, very slowly, with a very small blade. He's going to peel every last tendon away from the bone, he's—

Jim drops down into a crouch at John's side. Sherlock keeps the pistol trained on him, following him down. Jim's smile twists into something that could almost be called affectionate as he begins running his hand down John's spine, pinning him to the tile. John squirms, the veins standing along his forehead and temple as he drags harsh, desperate breaths through his nose.

"Here's what you're going to do for me, Sherlock, in return for me taking good care of Johnny boy." He's still petting John's back as John's head twists back and forth, the tendons in his neck standing sharp with strain. "You're going to go home, and you're going to watch for me."

"Watch for you." Sherlock's voice doesn't sound like his, even to his own ears.

"Don't be an idiot," Jim snaps, his fingers clenching tight in the back of John's neck. John jerks his shoulder up and Jim just leans his other arm across John's hips, pinning him by two points. "There's something I'll want you to see. For your eyes only, Sherlock. I know you'll want to get the police involved again, but it won't work this time. Something so personal really ought to be kept at home, don't you agree?"

Sherlock opens and closes his mouth before he manages to speak. "I don't understand."

"You will. If you do decide to leave your flat, I'm going to assume things with Johnny here aren't so private after all. Everyone will be able to see what a successful job I'll do with him. The BBC homepage will do rather nicely."

Sherlock's rage is blinding. He can't quite seem to catch his breath. He swallows hard against the lump in his throat and takes a step forward, not even knowing quite what he means to do but needing to do something.

He's brought up short when Jim yanks up hard on the chain running from John's collar to his hands.

"You'll want to take a step back," Jim says, voice utterly, infuriatingly calm, as though completely unaware of John's desperate struggle against the tile. "Unless you're ready to have him put down already."

Sherlock hesitates for just a moment, transfixed by the darkening of the skin on John's face, the way his hands are twisting, his fingers clenching and unclenching as he fights for air. Then John turns his neck to peer up at him from the corner of one eye, already red-rimmed and glassy, the lashes faintly damp.

Sherlock takes a step back, and Jim's grip eases.

"That's it. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Sherlock's movement forward is more instinctive than intentional, but Jim rolls his eyes and yanks up on the chain again, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles show white beneath the skin.

Sherlock takes a step back—nothing—then another, and John is once more free to breathe. His chin strikes the tile hard and he sputters, then turns his head to rub his cheek against it, back and forth.

"Maybe Johnny here isn't the only one who can learn a new trick." There's an undercurrent of something like affection in Jim's voice. His fingertips swipe along the corners of John's eye, wiping away the sheen of moisture there, then thread their way into John's hair.

Sherlock swallows hard against the bile threatening to rise in his throat.

When Jim speaks again, it's in the same soft, light tone: "I do so love to watch you dance. Though you'll want to be getting home now." Jim's fingers splay wide; he grinds his palm against John's temple, crushing his face against the hard tile. "You've got about thirty seconds before I run out of patience."

John's eyes flicker open and find Sherlock's. Their gazes lock for the space of one long breath, two, before John gives a tiny downward jerk of his chin.

Sherlock takes a deep breath, turns, and runs from the building.

It's a measure of just how distracted Sherlock is that he doesn't realise Mycroft is waiting for him until he's already opened the door to 221b.

"Have a good evening, did you?" Mycroft's voice is smooth and carefully even. It's far too fatuous a question to dignify with a response, even a snide one.

Sherlock scrubs his hand through his hair. Go home, Jim had said; watch for me. There must be something here. What? Think.

"Of course," Mycroft goes on, apparently—unforgivably—oblivious, "an ordinary man in my position might assume—"

Sherlock whirls on him, his breath coming fast before he manages to organise his mouth around the word. "Out."

Mycroft's eyebrows shoot up. "Excuse me?"

"Out. Get out of my flat."

Mycroft cocks his head to the side. His composure is infuriating. Sherlock can feel the need for action cresting like a wave in his chest and throat, but he doesn't know what to do.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice your little rendezvous, Sherlock? Up there on the website for all to see. I asked you to recover the plans, not go—"

Sherlock's phone chimes with an incoming text message. "Shut up," he hisses, fumbling it out of his pocket.

Sherlock has his laptop out before his eyes even finish skimming the message. He balances it on the palm of one hand, jerking the lid open with the other.

"Sherlock, I'm afraid I really must demand your full attention."

Sherlock drops heavily into his chair, balancing the laptop on his knees. He spits the words through his teeth as he keys in the URL: "The plans are on a flash drive at the bottom of a swimming pool. They're every bit as safe as they would be had I returned them to you. Safer, in fact, since to my certain knowledge no inanimate object has actually managed to lose—"

His jaw snaps shut as all the air is stolen from his lungs.

There, on the screen, is John.

The browser window shows what appears to be a live feed. The only thing in the frame is John's face in close-up, still distorted by the straps of the muzzle.

John seems aware that the camera is there. He stares into it—or as close as he can manage, with the straps impeding his vision—and keeps his jaw square. His expression gives away nothing. Even half-obscured by the leather straps of the muzzle, his eyes seem to be boring directly into Sherlock's own.

After a few moments he shifts, and Sherlock sees the glint of metal at his throat. Christ. Still wearing the bloody choke collar.

Mycroft voice is startlingly close. "That's John."

As observations go, it's completely idiotic. Sherlock ignores him. He keeps his eyes glued on the screen—on John's face; on the dark fury and shame he can read there, lurking beneath the deliberate attempt at steady reassurance—as he pulls out his phone and dials from memory.

Lestrade takes four rings to answer; when he does, his voice is low and rough. "… Hello?" There's a moment's pause, then: "Sherlock, is this you?"

Asleep. The sod was asleep; it'll take ages for him to get back to the Yard and start running a trace on John's TID from Sherlock's phone. Time Sherlock doesn't have.

"Useless," Sherlock snaps, disconnecting the call.

"Sherlock," Mycroft protests, compressing his lips into a thin line. "It's the middle of the night."

Sherlock's phone rings. Lestrade. He ignores it.

Mycroft's voice is tight with disapproval. "I really must insist you tell me what's going on. Is John in trouble?"

More and more ridiculous. "Can your people run a number?"

"Excuse me?"

"I received a text. From John's TID. Can your people trace it? I don't think he'd be so stupid as to make it that easy, but right now it's the only lead we have. He'll be expecting me to try, there may be some information there, something we can—"

Sherlock's mouth snaps shut as, on the screen, John's eyes flare wide. He shakes his head frantically and rears back, tendon cording along the lines of his throat as he struggles to keep his airway open against the weight of his arms.

"Sherlock?"

Mycroft must have asked him something. Irrelevant. He can't tear his eyes away from the screen. He reaches out blindly to shove his phone into Mycroft's hand, and Mycroft, to his credit, takes it.

"You should come with me. I could assist you in—"

"No. No. I need to stay here. You're wasting time."

Mycroft doesn't move. Still waiting for an explanation, perhaps. Whatever he wants, it can't be important, not in the face of what's unfolding on his screen, but Sherlock doesn't have the energy to fight anymore.

He sits transfixed, eyes on the monitor, tugging at his hair, watching John's face as he struggles to breathe. Data; he needs data. There's nothing here. Nothing but the small movements of John's eyes, the flare of his nostrils, the strain visible in the lines of his face. Sherlock can't tear his eyes away.

He's still watching when the screen goes black.

A shout tears its way from Sherlock's chest, a shapeless outpouring of frustrated rage. He fights the urge to throw his laptop against the wall. He tosses it onto the opposite chair—John's chair—instead and shoves himself to his feet, pacing the narrow space of the living room.

The clock reads 03:20.

It's nearly five minutes later when Sherlock realises Mycroft has gone. He's taken the phone, at least. Sherlock hadn't even noticed him leave.

The rest of that night—and the following morning—drag on in an interminable, featureless span of waiting. Sherlock continues to pace the flat, a circuit that takes him from fireplace to wall to wall to doorjamb and back again, until he's sure the walls are closing in on him. The boards covering the blown-out windows make the whole flat seem stuffy and dark, even with all the lamps blazing.

Sherlock turns them off again. Back and forth, back and forth, drumming his fingers against his skull, his arm, every surface he passes.

Sometime in the late morning, Mrs Hudson knocks on the door. He shouts at her until she gives up. Sherlock listens to the rapid thud of her footsteps as she retreats downstairs.

Think. He needs to think.

The chime of the pink phone in his coat pocket might be the loudest thing he's heard in hours.

Another link. Sherlock keys it in with fingers that refuse to steady.

The audio comes in first, which is infuriating. Sherlock can hear the sound of something whistling through the air and the thud of impact before he can see its source.

When the image appears, it shows John bent backward on his knees until his head touches the floor. There's a block under his back forcing it into a high, tense arch. He's gripping his own ankles with a force that makes the tendons cord rigid along the lengths of his arms. It takes Sherlock a moment to realise it's to take pressure off the abrasions from the ropes securing his forearms to his calves.

Worst of all is the collar around his throat. It appears to be tied to something out of frame, the rope taut enough that it digs against the underside of John's jaw, forcing his head back. His mouth is open, and Sherlock can see the desperate upward motions of his ribcage as he struggles to pull air into his lungs.

Well, Sherlock thinks wryly, at least they took the muzzle off.

Sherlock's mouth is too dry to swallow. He's gripping the edge of the desk so hard his fingers are white to the first knuckle.

There's a darkened patch of skin at John's temple; a bruise underlying a deep laceration. An odd placement for a blow from above; the perfect angle, however, if John had used what little he had at his disposal to fight. Sherlock can see the scene in his mind's eye: the solid thud as John's head impacted his assailant's chin, the satisfied quirk of his mouth and gleam in his eye even as the blood began to flow.

Good for you, John. Good for you.

On the screen, something lands hard across John's chest. John's muscles twitch and spasm with his instinctive struggle to pull himself away. There's a delay of barely half a second before the audio catches up and Sherlock hears the events play out: the whistling sound, the thud of impact, and the ragged burst of air it forces from John's chest.

The cane comes down again, and again, and again. The camera is positioned in such a way that Sherlock never sees more of the cane-wielder than his hand and, a few times, a scant few inches of forearm. He stares at that hand anyway, willing its owner's identity to reveal itself to him.

There must be a clue here. There must. Focus. There must be something. Something he can use, something to go on.

But all he can see on the screen is John; John's pain, the dark flare of blood under his skin as the cane lands again and again, the harsh lines of his profile. John keeps his gaze fixed on the ceiling; an attempt to hide his face from the camera, perhaps. Or it may be that he simply can't turn his head with the way the choke collar is holding him pinioned.

"What do you want?" Sherlock shouts at the screen in frustration. He shoves his chair back from the desk and turns away.

Barely a moment later he's back in his seat, eyes glued to the screen.

He doesn't want to watch, and he can't turn away. If there's a clue here, he's going to find it. If there's anything here that will let him help John, he isn't going to miss it because he couldn't stand to watch.

Exactly half an hour after it began, the feed cuts out.

An email comes in from Mycroft. His people found John's TID buried in the archives in a sub-basement of New Scotland Yard, tucked into a box of evidence left over from the Parry murders.

If you see any significance to that, please do let me know, Mycroft writes, but Lestrade wrapped that case up years ago. Airtight. Useless. It's all useless, when Sherlock is trapped here like a rat in a cage, and John is— John—

He sleeps, possibly. He thinks he must have slept, for a bit, because he wakes with his cheek pressed against the wood of his desk.

The first thing he does when he opens his eyes is check the pink phone. No messages.

Silence.

Mrs Hudson uses her key to open the door without knocking. She leaves the lights off and sets a tray of food on the table without meeting Sherlock's eye. He is, he supposes, grateful for that. Grateful, too, when she leaves without a word.

He shows his gratitude by not throwing the tray at the closed door. The effort is so exhausting that the food has gone cold by the time he brings himself to touch it. It's cold and tasteless on his tongue. He eats what he can.

Sometime later, he sleeps again.

When he wakes he forces himself to drink some water. It comes back up almost immediately, spilling from his nose and down his chin, leaving the sharp scent of bile in its wake. He wipes it away from his upper lip with the back of his hand.

The sound of the glass shattering brings Mrs Hudson up the stairs again. Sherlock can't even be bothered to shout at her this time; he curls into himself on the sofa, pink phone clutched tight to his chest, until she gives up and leaves him alone.

Even after the feed begins to play, it takes Sherlock a moment to work out what he's seeing.

The camera is pointed at a wall. (Blank, white; utterly uninformative. As always.) In front of it is a strange shape that Sherlock realises only belatedly is John. Or, more precisely: the backs of John's legs.

He's naked, evidently lying with his back on the floor. His legs are extended toward the ceiling, tied together at the ankles, and secured to a bar that must attach to something on each side, though whatever that may be is currently out of frame. His hands are looped around his legs and bound at the wrists, resting against the backs of his thighs.

He's naked. He's naked and, in this position, very much on display.

Sherlock doesn't want to see this. He doesn't want to see this, but indulging himself would be unconscionable. He has to watch.

For nearly a minute, there's nothing but sick anticipation roiling in Sherlock's stomach and the minute movements of John's muscles as he shifts: the flex of his thigh, the curl-uncurl-clench of his fingers.

The marks on John's skin are testament to the damage his body has already sustained. They're infuriating, nauseating, but they contain no new information. Sherlock witnessed the making of some of them. Not all. Not all. (What has he missed? Pointless to speculate; impossible not to.)

But no. This isn't new information. It won't help. Sherlock fists one hand in his hair and tugs, the sensation just enough to put him back in his body. Focus on what's happening now. On what's coming. Focus.

There's a quick blur of motion in the upper part of the screen. John's feet jerk violently, a thin welt rising almost instantly: first white and bloodless, then flushed dark as broken capillaries spill blood into the crushed tissue. John's legs shift against each other, muscles bunching and coiling with effort as he fights to get away.

Sherlock squints at the screen. Leans closer.

Image and audio in sync this time: the same blur of motion, the brutal crack of impact followed by the immediate white-purple flare of another raised wheal, and understanding clicks into place.

By the third strike, Sherlock has identified the instrument being employed as a whip: a length of electrical cable. It's thin, no more than an inch thick, leaving livid marks against John's skin. Already the soles are bruise-dark and swollen.

Watching it is impossible. Sherlock can't allow himself to turn his eyes away.

He doesn't know if he's ever seen the bottoms of John's feet before. It's such an absurd consideration that he could very nearly laugh. Almost; if his chest weren't so impossibly tight; if he could breathe.

Sherlock forces himself to concentrate on the movement, trying to block out John's ragged, pained gasps, the only protest he's capable of making.

He could mute the video. He wants, fervently, to mute the video.

He leaves it at full volume.

The blows come steadily, just enough of a pause between for the blood to bloom and spread beneath the thick skin. John is panting for breath. The bar creaks under the force of his desperate struggle to get away from the assault. More than once, his hips lift clear off the ground, giving Sherlock a clear view of his back and the layered bruises and damage there.

Not new information. Not new information.

The beating goes on and on, long past the point where Sherlock would have thought it had to stop. John's feet become swollen, absurdly outsized, a pulpy mess of ruptured tissue and broken capillaries.

The cable comes down again and the skin over John's instep splits. Blood wells instantly to the surface and spills over to seep down over his heel.

Sherlock can't breathe.

"Now Johnny," comes Jim's voice. Sherlock is glad he didn't mute the video. He wishes he had muted the video. Jim's voice is perfectly even, not even a bit winded; he's not the one wielding the cable. Doesn't like to get his hands dirty. "I've told you. Good doggies don't try to do tricks their masters haven't taught them."

The cable comes down again, the impact audibly hard and wet. John's hips arch up, his calves and hamstrings straining with the effort, his shoulders twisting as he fights to manage the pain. Sherlock swallows hard as the camera catches a glimpse of John's face: the veins standing out in his forehead and temples, his cheeks suffused with blood. His eyes are screwed tightly shut, a faint sheen of tears streaking down from one corner.

Christ.

Sherlock raises his hand to the screen. It's a reflexive movement, utterly purposeless. His fingers are shaking. He notices the shaking before he notices the blood. Two of his nails are hanging loose from their beds; he'd been gripping the seat of his chair so hard that he tore them free.

John won't be happy about that.

On the screen, John's own blood is dripping down the back of his leg. Another savage crack and John's spine unfurls into a taut upward bow. His face comes into view again, his mouth open in a scream, but the only sound that emerges is the ragged gasping of his breath.

"Stop!" Sherlock's voice bursts from his throat. "Stop. Stop. You don't need to do this, you can't. Stop it, please, just—" The words shatter into meaningless syllables, but once he starts to shout, he finds he can't hold them back. John can't; someone needs to. He keeps it up until his voice is cracked and hoarse.

It's ridiculous. More than that, it doesn't help. The cable comes down again and again, until John stops reacting altogether, his legs hanging limp in their bindings, the muscles of his feet twitching with each blow.

Even then it doesn't stop. It may never stop. Sherlock's mind conjures the image of John's feet flayed to the bone, the wet gleam of split muscle and exposed tendon, and it just going on, and on, and on....

It's still going when the screen goes black.

Then, for three days: nothing.

Mrs Hudson doesn't even bother to knock anymore. The trays she takes away are as full as the one she leaves.

Sherlock doesn't turn to greet her when she enters. He keeps his eyes glued on the BBC homepage, just as he has been every moment he's managed to keep himself awake for the last three days.

Too long; it's been too long. He must have missed something, but still no video appears. It's both relieving and maddening, the distinction between the two growing ever hazier. His body teeters on the knife's-edge of collapse, powering itself on sheer terror lest he fall asleep and be too exhausted to wake should another message come through.

He doesn't know what would happen should he fail to watch one of the videos. Maybe that would end it; end all of this.

His mind shies away from contemplating of what form that end might take.

Sherlock checks, checks, rechecks the BBC website, his own site, John's blog, an endless cycle that yields absolutely nothing.

John wouldn't want the videos to be broadcast, Sherlock knows that. That's why he's staying in the flat—why he's forced himself to remain inside 221b long past the point of tolerability, until he's ready to chew off his own skin—but even a public video would be better than this incessant nothing. It would prove that John is still alive.

By the time Mrs Hudson speaks, Sherlock has already forgotten that she's there.

"Really, Sherlock dear, I understand that you're worried, but it won't do John a bit of good to have you run yourself into the ground like this."

She doesn't understand. She can't. Sherlock shoves his hands against the edge of the desk to push his chair back and begins to pace, the same path around the sitting room he's traced thousands of times over the course of interminable days.

"— all sorts of things going on out there, you know, and while of course I understand you don't want to miss something, it can't be good for you being all cooped up in here like this. You don't look like you've slept in days. I can hear you through the floor, you know, and—"

Insufferable. Insufferable. He can't stand it a second longer, to be trapped here not knowing, this interminable purgatory of no data with no outlet for the anxiety clawing at his spine. It's as if the very walls of the flat are compressing the air against Sherlock's skull, impossible pressure until there's nothing useful in his head. John. He needs to find John, and he can't even think.

"— rubbish out this morning, dear, and they were just absolutely everywhere! I understand people do get quite anxious about a lost pet, of course, but really, it's ridiculous, you could hardly even see—"

The words settle slowly atop the whirling eddy of Sherlock's thoughts. He turns, catching Mrs Hudson's shoulder and forcing her to face him. She blinks down at his hand, the tight grip of his pale fingers pressing into her cardigan.

"What did you say?"

"Your fingers, Sherlock, what have you—"

Sherlock wants to shove his fist inside her mouth and tear the words from her throat, force her to tell him what he needs to know. Doesn't she see she's wasting time?

"About a lost pet. What. Did. You. Say."

Mrs Hudson's brow creases in confusion. "There are flyers all over the street. Every surface is papered."

Sherlock is halfway to the door before he remembers he can't leave the flat. He growls and spins on his heel. Three long strides and he's at the window, wrapping his fingers around the corner of one of the thin boards still serving as a replacement for the blown-out glass. He grips the edge of the board and simply pulls, ignoring Mrs Hudson's cry of protest as part of the windowpane breaks free.

There are two flyers tacked to the board itself, printed on sheets of A4 which flutter as he pulls it inside. Sherlock yanks one free and stares down at it. Lost dog, it reads. No picture. Below that, a number.

It takes him a moment to place it. When he does, the surge of rage up his spine is so strong that his vision flares grey-dark.

John's TID. It's the number for John's bloody TID, currently in the custody of Lestrade down at the Yard along with Sherlock's own phone.

Sherlock crumples the paper into a ball and throws it away with a cry. He shoves his head out through the gap in the window. It's the first daylight he's seen since this whole mess began, but there's no space in his head for anything but the flyers.

They cover every available surface: buildings, trees, even the bins are obscured, a sea of white paper and black ink blanketing all of Baker Street. All apparently identical.

Sherlock slams his hand into the wall and pushes back from the window. Mrs Hudson is speaking to him, but he can hardly hear her over the pounding of his pulse. No matter. No matter.

Move; he has to move. Back and forth, fireplace to wall to wall to doorjamb to fireplace again, a tiny space that circumscribes the entirety of Sherlock's world, made foreign and monstrous by the force of his impotent rage.

When he looks up again, Mrs Hudson is gone.

The new opening in the window lets in just enough light that Sherlock can watch the sky pass from late morning to afternoon to evening to dusk. There's no news. No change at all.

Then, soon after the nighttime air begins to glow yellow with the streetlights, a post appears on John's blog.

Sherlock stares at the screen; blinks; reads the words again.

Microchipped.

Vaccinations.

Spayed and neutered.

He's aware that the images filling his head are a useless distraction, but he can do nothing to stop them playing out over and over again: John subjected to painful experimentation, mutilated, left damaged and broken.

(And he's seen it, he's seen it. Not broken, not yet, but—)

Ultimately, the words on the screen tell him nothing except that Jim is trying to get his attention. He checks the page's source code; there's nothing hidden there, nothing embedded. He hacks John's account and checks the IP tracker but, as expected, the last entry was posted from a cached IP address. Unless Jim has an operative in Malaysia; either way, it isn't telling Sherlock anything useful.

There are no comments on the entry. Sherlock checks the other recent entries—again; for at least the dozenth time that day—but there's nothing there that wasn't there the day before, or the day before that.

Buried in the spam trap, however, is one new comment, signed "this_is_just_to_say." The entirety of its content is an effusive "Check this out!!!!!" and a link.

Sherlock clicks, hope curdling sick-sweet in his throat.

He doesn't want to see John hurt again, of course he doesn't, but anything would be better than more silence.

The feed that comes up on his screen is in black and white. That must mean something. It should mean something.

As always, the shot is framed around John, showing little of the surroundings. This time, it shows him inside a cage set against a brick wall. He's naked, lying on his side with his back turned to the camera, curled awkwardly forward into what would be a foetal position if it weren't for the way his wrists were pinned on either side of his neck, bound to the thick band around his throat.

Sherlock's vision flares bright with fury. He's going to find John, then he's going to find Jim, and he's going to kill him with his bare hands. He's going to go after every person who helped him with this, from Jim himself right down to that hypothetical agent in Malaysia.

He's going to skin them alive. He's going to do it slowly.

Sherlock forces himself to breathe. On the screen, John is doing the same, his ribcage rising and falling—the rhythm is fairly even; it's possible he's even managing to get some sleep, though that seems unlikely—and Sherlock reaches out to brush his fingers against the monitor. It's an absurd gesture, unconscious, a simple expression of relief after three days of no information.

But no, there's nothing to be relieved about. Not yet.

Sherlock examines the details of the scene, trying to glean any information he can. At the end of the cage are two bowls, presumably for food and water. The sight of them wrenches something in Sherlock's chest, and he has to close his eyes against a sudden wave of dizziness. He permits himself the indulgence for only a moment before he forces himself to look again.

The cage itself is small, too small for John to either straighten his legs while lying down or stand upright. He might be able to kneel, but even that would be a tight fit. As if on cue, John shifts slightly, rolling his hips forward and back in an attempt to find a comfortable position. It's obviously a futile gesture; every muscle of John's body is eloquent with the strain the positioning of his arms has placed on his damaged shoulder, the forced compression of the joint from the weight of his body.

John angles his torso forward, and what Sherlock had first supposed to be some sort of shadow resolve itself into mittens on his hands. Sherlock leans in until he's mere inches from the screen; yes, John is wearing the muzzle. The muzzle, the collar, and mittens.

Sherlock's chest is tight with anticipation, but apart from the small, restless movements of John's limbs, nothing changes on the screen. Sherlock's eyes can't stop roving over the lines of John's back—his skin is pale, made even more so by the black and white feed, the marks on it stark in contrast—trying to determine what he's missed in the last few days.

Mostly, Sherlock just watches John breathe.

It's almost hypnotic. Steadying. Sherlock loses himself in it, for a long while. Through the window he can hear the low rumble of thunder, a storm beginning to gather.

It's half two when he glances at the clock. This feed has lasted much longer than the thirty-minute period after which each of the others had expired. And that, too, should mean something.

It doesn't.

He doesn't understand, so he watches.

It may be a long time later that Sherlock recognises the pattern in John's movements. He keeps shifting the same way, over and over: turning his face first down toward the ground, then up again, drawing his upper arm in as though attempting to cover his face.

It takes Sherlock much longer than it should to understand that it's because, wherever John is, it's raining.

He's outside. The realisation filters slowly through Sherlock's brain. John's been left outside, in the rain. Like an animal.

John squirms, shifting his body in small, continuous movements that get him precisely nowhere. He's visibly shivering; of course he is, it's not yet dawn. John has never quite regained his body's ability to compensate for the English chill; he wears jumpers inside, in warmer weather than this.

The casual cruelty of it is staggering.

When he finds Jim, Sherlock is going to crush each one of his bones to powder within his skin. He's going to carve the myelin sheath from every last nerve and apply a current to the wet, raw flesh.

No; he's going to let John do it.

Sherlock has had quite a bit of practice at watching, as of late. He thinks he might even come to enjoy it.

The feed is getting blurrier. Sherlock narrows his eyes, trying to bring the image back into focus. Rain on the camera lens, perhaps. The curtain billows in with a sudden gust of wind, bringing with it a spray of rainwater that coats his screen in a fine mist.

Sherlock swipes irritably at it with his sleeve. He doesn't have attention to spare for the bloody weather, but now that he's noticed it he can hear the drumming of the rain against the remaining window coverings, hammering hard against the rooftops and the pavement below. There's a flash of lightning and almost immediately afterward, a loud clap of thunder.

On the screen, John curls into a ball as best he can.

John is—

Sherlock is on his feet and moving toward the door before he even finishes formulating the thought. His descent to the ground floor is headlong and heedless, dressing gown flaring out behind him, his stumbling feet remaining under him by pure chance.

He yanks the street door open, half-expecting to find John there on the doorstep. A foolish hope, crushed immediately when he is confronted by nothing but the faint gleam of street lights reflected by the wet pavement. There's enough standing water that his bare feet splash audibly when he steps out into it.

He fists both hands in his hair, turning to peer up and down the road. Rainwater courses down his face; he dashes it impatiently from his eyes.

John has to be here. This is Jim; this is a game. It's personal. He'll be here.

Jim will have wanted to ensure that Sherlock would be the one to find him. Somewhere out of the way but not private, not safe. Where?

Oh, obvious. Stupid not to have thought of it before.

The fastest route to the side street where Mrs Hudson keeps her bins is through 221a. Sherlock's rain-slicked fingers slip as he tries the knob. Locked. He doesn't even consider picking it; he simply rears back and slams his heel into the door. Once, and the wood begins to splinter. Twice more and it explodes inward, the doorjamb shattered, and hits the inner wall hard enough to crack the plaster.

The side door is through the kitchen. Mrs Hudson pokes her head out of her bedroom just as he's finally coaxing his shaking fingers to open the deadbolt, but he doesn't have time to deal with her, not now. Down the two steps and his feet stutter to a halt.

Where? Where?

"John!"

Sherlock sees it just as another flash of lightning slices across the sky.

John is still lying on his side, facing the wall. Up close, his skin is a mess, streaked with filth and broken by lacerations and bruises beneath the wet sheen of rainwater. He's shivering, long shudders that wrack his body. He has his head curled forward as though to block his ears, though the bindings on his wrists prevent him from doing so. The mittens are hand-knit, incongruously brightly-coloured, and held on with a thick band of gaffer's tape; beyond those, and the socks taped to his feet in a similar manner, he's completely uncovered.

"John." Sherlock has to raise his voice to be heard above the heavy, sharp drumming of the rain. John just curls closer into himself.

Sherlock falls to his knees in front of the cage, twining the fingers of his left hand in the side of the cage. He can't take his eyes off the wide, pale expanse of John's back, the sharp relief of his spine beneath the skin. He slides his right hand blindly along the corner until he finds the latch that should open the door and get John out of there.

Of course, it can't be that simple.

The padlock isn't overly large, but it's enough. Sherlock wraps it in his fist and tugs, a futile gesture which doesn't accomplish a thing.

"It's locked," he says. "John."

"Sherlock? Sherlock!" Mrs Hudson is splashing across the pavement in thick rubber wellies, her dressing gown pulled up over her head in an effort to keep dry. In her other hand, she's gripping a cricket bat. "Is everything all right? What in—"

She sucks in a breath as she sees John.

"I can't open it." Sherlock turns to her. His voice is tight with strain, unrecognisable even to his own ears. "I can't open it."

Mrs Hudson takes another deep breath, then stoops to deposit the cricket bat deliberately on the ground at Sherlock's side. "Stay with him." As if Sherlock would leave now. "I'll fetch something. And call 999."

At that, John stirs. Sherlock holds his breath as John wrenches his spine until he's lying partially on his back, shielding his face as best he can with his upper arm. In this position he can turn his head enough to slant a glance at Sherlock through the corner of his eye. His expression is hard, unfamiliar, and entirely unreadable, but the shake of his head is decisive.

"No ambulance," Sherlock tells her, not taking his eyes from John's face. "Not yet."

Mrs Hudson hesitates as though about to protest, but finally just says, "If that's what he wants."

Sherlock listens to the sound of her retreating footsteps. John is trying to hold Sherlock's gaze but his eyelids are beginning to droop. Sherlock's eyes rake over his body, a frantic inventory. He's no longer shivering; hypothermia setting in. Christ, and little wonder if he's been out here all night, hour after hour while Sherlock did nothing but watch, while he'd seen without observing—

Sherlock clenches his fingers around the metal supports of the cage, leaning his forehead against it. John is right here and Sherlock longs to set his hand against the solid warmth of his skin, wants reassurance both offered and received, but he doesn't know how John would react to being touched. He hates not knowing; worse, perhaps, he doesn't even know what reaction he would want.

Any indication John might give him that things are all right would be just as much a lie as the words Sherlock can't bring himself to voice. The back of his tongue is thick with swallowed reassurances, and for once in his life, Sherlock finds he has nothing to say. While John is still here, like this, promises are meaningless.

Eventually, what Mrs Hudson returns with is a screwdriver. She also brings a blanket, and an umbrella, which she holds over Sherlock's head as he struggles to work the padlock open. His hands are shaking, or perhaps it's the cold, or the wet, or any other number of things getting in his way. It doesn't matter; what matters is that he's failing, this stupid little lock and he can't open it, he—

"Take your time, Sherlock," Mrs Hudson says. "I've seen you pick better locks than this. You'll have John inside soon enough."

There is no soon enough. The metal slips from his grasp again and he growls his frustration. John's eye opens slowly, the lashes heavy and damp with rainwater, then closes again.

In the end, he wedges the shaft of the screwdriver into the hasp and twists until the mechanism cracks and the bloody thing clatters to the pavement.

"There you are," Mrs Hudson says, handing Sherlock the blanket. "I'll just... leave you boys to it. I'll be in my room if you need me." Her voice is completely casual, but the set of her mouth makes it clear that her decision is an attempt to afford John some measure of privacy.

Sherlock has to call John's name three times before he stirs; even then long, anxious minutes pass as he rouses himself enough to move. When he does it's as an awkward crawl on knees and elbows already scraped raw and swollen.

Sherlock has watched everything—everything—but he has to avert his eyes from this.

As soon as John is out, Sherlock pulls him to his feet—John's breath goes sharp and ragged but he keeps his balance, more or less, leaning into Sherlock's chest for support—and wraps the blanket around his shoulders. John's flesh is blue-tinged with chill and covered in goosebumps. It's an effort not to simply wrap his arms around and hold on, to tear at the absurd leather bindings with his nails until they fall away from John's skin, but standing out here in the cold wet isn't going to do him any good.

Standing is obviously painful—walking, worse—but every inch of John's body is radiatiating determination, and Sherlock doesn't even consider taking this small victory from him. He gets an arm under John's shoulders and half-supports, half-drags him over to the side door.

They only make it a few steps into Mrs Hudson's kitchen before John stumbles. Sherlock manages to get his hand against the wall, just enough steadying pressure to control their collapse as they fold to the floor. John leans against the refrigerator while Sherlock unbuckles the straps of the muzzle, prying the ball from between his teeth and finally easing it free of John's head, revealing wide, raw patches of abraded skin.

John averts his eyes from the sight of it in Sherlock's hands. Sherlock swallows down a shudder of revulsion and twists his shoulders to hurl it as far away as he can. There's a thud as it hits the wall of Mrs Hudson's sitting room and falls to the floor. Mrs Hudson's bedroom door remains mercifully closed.

The cuffs and mittens come off easily enough, but the collar, Sherlock finds, is locked on. Its buckle seems to require a special tool. Affixed to the front is a shiny brass label reading "Property of S Holmes."

There's dirt worked into some of the grooved letters; Sherlock can't tear his eyes away.

"Scissors," Sherlock manages around the lump in his throat. Mrs Hudson must have some here. He could find them if he could bring himself to move.

John's hand clamps down around Sherlock's wrist, and Sherlock wrenches his eyes up to meet John's.

John shakes his head, then raises his eyes and tips his chin upward. The raw corners of his mouth are twisted with urgency.

"Upstairs." Sherlock swallows hard. "Yes, we can— Upstairs. Okay." John needs towels, and a warmer blanket—clothes; he must want his clothes—but if John will feel better once their door is safely closed and locked behind them, then that makes two of them.

Sherlock takes one look at the socks still affixed to John's feet, and decides to leave them for now. Soaked and filthy as they are, he can't bring himself to strip John's feet of their only source of protection. Not if he's right about what the trip up to the first floor is going to cost them both.

Sherlock presses himself to standing and extends a hand to help John up. John clutches the sodden blanket tight with one hand and takes Sherlock's with the other, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet, the colour draining from his face as his damaged soles once again take his weight.

Once he's steadied himself against Sherlock, John's expression hardens. It's not pain, this time; it's anger. Sherlock clutches at John's shoulder with his free hand, suddenly fearful.

"John? Are you all right?"

John scowls down at their joined hands, then shakes his head, his lips compressing into a thin line. He flips Sherlock's hand over to trace the letters against his palm.

W-H-A-T-D-I-D-Y-O-U-D-O

A tight band of terror squeezes the air from Sherlock's chest.

He made the wrong choice. How could he have been so stupid, prioritising John's pride? He thought… but he could have stopped this if he'd just done something. Of course John is angry. He has every right to be.

For the second time that night, Sherlock finds he has nothing to say.

John holds Sherlock's gaze, his brows drawing together in confusion. Then he flicks his gaze pointedly down to the still-raw beds of Sherlock's nails and back up to Sherlock's face with a quirk of one eyebrow.

Oh. Oh.

The knot in Sherlock's chest eases, just enough, to allow him a shuddery inhale. Then a second, and a third.

"You can't be serious."

They hold each other's gaze for a moment more. Then some of the tension eases from John's shoulders and his cheek twitches up into a smile.

Sherlock finds himself echoing the expression. He can, after everything, do nothing else.

"All right, doctor," he says at last. "Come along upstairs and patch me up."

John's laugh is a voiceless, brittle rasp of air but it's there. It's enough, at least, to start them on the arduous trek up to the first floor.

The fifth step gets away from them. John's foot catches and he slides backward, landing on his heel with an audible force that drives the air from both their lungs. It's only Sherlock's grip on John's shoulders that keeps them upright. John leans into Sherlock's chest, fisting his hands in the lapels of the dressing gown. His breath is a hot, ragged series of gasps, the muscles of his back and shoulders shaking with the force of his rage. John thumps his forehead deliberately against the hollow below Sherlock's collarbone, again and again. Sherlock can do nothing but wrap his arms around John's back and hold on while he vents his frustration.

Finally, John's breathing steadies, and he pulls away. He sets his gaze on the first floor, squares his shoulders, and jerks his chin downward in a tight nod.

By the time they've reached the landing John is pale and sweating, his mouth set into a thin, determined line, but at least the effort seems to have warmed him enough that the violent shivering has subsided. Sherlock sets his hand on the doorknob and John stops him just long enough to wrap his fingers around Sherlock's other wrist and squeeze tight.

There's a fire blazing merrily in the hearth; when did Mrs Hudson come up to light it? No matter; Sherlock is sure John will be glad of the heat. He leans against the sofa while Sherlock tugs his armchair onto the hearth, then allows himself to be wrapped in a dry blanket and eased down into it.

Sherlock leaves him just long enough to retrieve a pair of scissors from his desk, then stands behind him to cut the wretched collar free of his neck. The leather is thick and gummy with rainwater, but Sherlock works at it with the scissors until it yields. He has to peel it away from John's flesh. The weight of it in his hand makes him feel nauseated; Sherlock drops it immediately to the floor.

The collar has made a raw mess of John's neck. The dye from the leather has left a strange smeared pattern across the skin. Sherlock frowns, brushing at the discoloured patch with the tips of his fingers. The muscles in John's neck cord tight as he fights not to jerk away.

Sherlock stares down at his hand. That isn't dye; it's blood. What he'd taken for flakes of leather are pieces of charred skin.

Christ.

Sherlock leans closer, wiping at the streaks on John's neck with his thumb. They're hard and puffy; burns, not dye. John jerks away from the touch, but Sherlock catches him by the shoulder.

"Hold still," Sherlock hisses over the harsh rasp of John's breath. Sherlock needs to see. He scrapes at flakes of crusted blood and skin until finally the wound is clear enough that he can see what's been incised there, red-raw burns that—Christ; oh, God—spell out Sherlock Holmes in elaborate, looping letters.

Branded. John has been branded. Branded with Sherlock's name, like— like—

Sherlock clutches at the back of the armchair, fighting down a dizzying wave of nausea, listening to the sounds of John struggling to regain control of his breath.

As he watches, more blood begins to well up in one of the marks. Sherlock very nearly loses himself in the loud roar of the his own pulse.

John's hand comes up to grip his forearm, and Sherlock drags his head up with an effort. John's chest is heaving, his eyes narrowed and intent on something in the mirror. When Sherlock follows his gaze, he sees it: there, on the wall behind them, the mouth of the smiley face has been covered with a thick, red line.

Their eyes find each other in the mirror. John's flare wide, an unasked question.

"No." Then, through a wave of sick fear as understanding dawns: "No. John, the fire, I didn't—"

John is still struggling to his feet when the kettle begins to boil.