Fic: To The Last Drop - 2/6 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: To The Last Drop
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 5.9k out of 31k
Beta: seijichan, lifeonmars, prettyarbitrary
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: “If you want me to comfort you over my imminent death, I will be kicking you in the head,” John warns.
Warnings: Eventual off-screen character death, illness both physical and mental, assault, graphic violence, blood, bloodplay, explicit sexual behavior, plague, attempted suicide
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Handcuffed to his headboard, John watches Sherlock install the bolts to the outside of John’s bedroom door. He watches Sherlock take care of the window. He studies the supplies Sherlock carries in and can only wonder at what else Sherlock must be keeping in the kitchen.
“I need to move at some point,” John says.
“Yes, that’s what the bolts are for,” Sherlock answers, now rifling through John’s closet. He confiscates all of John’s belts, as well as every shoe with laces. After a small pause, he takes all of John’s ties as well. “I’ll leave you the handcuff key and lock you in once everything’s ready.”
“And then never unbolt the door again? Brilliant plan, perfect. Well done, Sherlock, I’m sure this will end well.”
Sherlock chucks the former contents of John’s closet out into the hall. He stalks back to the closet and tugs out John’s luggage.
“What are you doing?” John asks.
“There are straps.”
“What do you need straps for?”
Sherlock shoots him a sharp look.
John’s stomach drops. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m not going to kill myself.”
“You want to call emergency services. You are clearly suicidal.”
John tries to cross his arms. Instead, he hurts his shoulder and wrist. “It’s called ‘damage control,’ you tit. I’m not going to leave you with my infected corpse.”
Head tilted, eyes narrowed, Sherlock pins his gaze on John’s bitten hand. Sherlock chews on his lip. “Fine.” He proceeds to take John’s laptop and charger next. “I’m going to leave you with the handcuffs and the muzzle. Without visual confirmation that both are in place, I will not open the door.”
“Visual confirmation?”
“I’m taking out your doorknob,” Sherlock explains. “Can’t have you locking me out.”
“Mm, because containment is for morons.”
Sherlock ignores him. “For any instance where I need to open the door, you will put on the muzzle and cuff your hands behind your back. After I bolt the door shut, I’ll pass the key to you through the door.”
John nods along. “And what happens when I refuse to do that? Or did you forget the part where I’ll be going insane?”
“No.” Unmoving, Sherlock stares into John’s desk drawers. “If you stop cooperating, that’s it.”
“Fine. I’m not cooperating.”
Sherlock shakes his head. “You’ll get hungry.”
“For your blood, yes.”
“We’ll see.” Sherlock makes one last search of the room, terrifyingly thorough. Anything that could double as an escape tool, Sherlock takes. Once he’s excavated every other part of the room, Sherlock drops to the floor and peers under John’s bed from a distance. “Last one.”
“What? Oh, Jesus. No, you leave that,” John tells him, but Sherlock pulls out the shoebox anyway.
Sherlock opens it and says, “Oh.”
“Or burn it,” John amends. “When I die, you burn my porn mags. Do not keep those. Oi, stop it.”
With complete disregard for all that is private and excruciatingly awkward, Sherlock quickly flips through the next two magazines. His expression never so much as flickers. Much to John’s horror, Sherlock focuses on the pages themselves instead of the far more interesting pictures printed upon them. “Yes, yes, into the fireplace,” Sherlock says in the most put-upon of tones.
John takes a deep breath. “Look. I know I can’t exactly get it notarised now, but if I write down an update to my will, will you follow it?”
“In the event of your eventual death, yes.” Sherlock drops the porn mags back into the box, drops the tube of lube in after, and shuts the lid. With deliberate flair, he pushes the shoebox toward its home under John’s bed. “Is there anything I’m missing?”
“You already took the bullets?”
Sherlock nods.
“Then I think that’s everything.”
His hands on his hips, Sherlock takes another quick look around John’s bedroom. “I’ll bring up another bucket and the muzzle.”
“That’s biohazardous material, Sherlock.”
“Biohazardous waste, yes,” Sherlock says so flippantly that John nearly laughs. “I know what I’m doing. Stop doubting me.”
“I feel more confident when I can feel my fingers again.” He wiggles them pointedly.
Sherlock rolls his eyes, but it’s like he’s rolling pebbles instead of the usual boulders, like he can't even spare the energy to be overdramatic. “Give me a minute.” He exits without waiting for reply, bolting the door behind him. He rumbles down the stairs and then John can no longer hear him.
John’s chest tightens around his heart, around his lungs. His motion close to involuntary, he tests the restraint and tugs at the headboard. The world tilts and John stops. He forces himself to resume breathing. He adjusts his arm as well as he can.
An eternity later-two minutes, according to his clock-Sherlock returns. “John?” Sherlock’s brow furrows. “Is it worse?”
He shakes his head, more a tremble than a gesture.
“John?”
“It’s, ah.” John swallows. “It’s setting in.”
Sherlock sets down the fresh bucket. “How strong is the urge to bite?”
“What? No, God, Jesus, no.” John futilely gestures with his free hand. “It’s-reality. Reality is setting in. I’m not...” He looks at the wall, its undecorated surface far less blank than Sherlock’s expression. John wets his lips with a dry tongue. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“John, I’m handling it,” Sherlock says.
“Can you just--” John’s voice breaks. “Just call emergency services.”
“John, look at me,” Sherlock says.
John looks.
Implacable, insurmountable, Sherlock stares back. “I’m handling this.”
“I’m going to die.”
“Not yet.” Sherlock tosses John the muzzle.
John catches it. It’s very... leather. “I’m going to die in bondage gear. Lovely.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Something a little more Hannibal Lecter,” John admits. When Sherlock frowns, John says, “Silence of the Lambs? Fine, we can add that to the film list. I think you’d really...” Ah. Right. “Sorry, never mind.”
“I’ll add it to the list,” Sherlock says. He walks to the opposite side of John’s bedside table and sets down the handcuff key with a click. It’s just out of reach. “Do you have enough books up here?”
John nods. He won’t be doing much reading.
Sherlock takes a final look around the room. He takes a final look at John. “Stop thinking like that,” Sherlock says.
“One of us has to.”
“Wrong.” Arm outstretched, his body leaning away, Sherlock slides the key two inches closer to John. He vacates the room, shuts the door, and again bolts it shut.
“Sherlock!” John yanks at the handcuff before thinking to grab the key.
“I’m right here,” Sherlock says from behind the door.
John can still see a spot of colour through the hole that once contained his doorknob. He fumbles with the cuffs and the key until finally freeing his wrist. Cursing, he stretches his arm. The return of sensation has him gritting his teeth, but he endures.
“Toss the key out,” Sherlock instructs.
“Would you give me a minute!”
Sherlock heaves an impatient sigh. “Take your time, it’s only your odds of survival decreasing.”
John doesn’t have any odds, but he keeps his mouth shut. He stands for the first time in a day, wobbles, and proceeds to the door. He drops the keys out. Sherlock catches them.
“Could you break through this door?” Sherlock asks.
“I don’t think so. Normally, but not like this.”
“Try.”
“Shut up and go save my life,” John says.
Sherlock grunts, but he does as told. John resists the urge to crouch and watch through the hole as Sherlock climbs down the stairs. Once he hears Sherlock in the kitchen, he nearly calls out to ask if Sherlock can hear him, but if John can hear Sherlock’s chair scraping against the floor, then Sherlock would definitely be able to hear John shout.
He can probably hear John pacing. He can probably read every ounce of panic from the tread of John’s step. John forces himself to sit at his desk. He shoves aside the two tests declaring him a dead man. Pen and paper, that’s all he needs now.
He clicks the pen and sets to work.
Once he finishes his will, he takes notes. When he can no longer withstand observations of his own body, he returns to bed. Tense, aching and exhausted, he sleeps. A fitful eon later, he muzzles himself, cuffs his hands behind his back, and offers Sherlock visual confirmation through the door hole. He retreats to the opposite wall and stands there as Sherlock leaves him dinner and a pair of water bottles. He only turns around once Sherlock bolts the door shut and tosses in the key. It takes some extremely awkward kneeling, but John manages to pick up the key. He unlocks the cuffs and returns the key to Sherlock. He removes the muzzle.
“Hold on a tic,” John says. He fetches the notes and passes these out as well.
“Flu-like symptoms,” Sherlock summarises.
“No chills,” John says. “Just the aches and heat.”
“And the exhaustion might be from last night.”
“Yeah.”
Sherlock hums. “We’ll see. Eat and get some rest.”
John sets his forehead against the door. The wood feels cool against his skin. Pleasant.
“John?”
“I’m fine.” He closes his eyes. “How much time do you think I have?”
“The carrier was in an advanced stage of mental regression. I’ve only found three documented instances where a new vessel was introduced into an advanced group.”
“Any help?”
“No. The first two were put down immediately, a pair of idiots with emergency services who made mistakes. The third’s body was identified fifteen days after the initial infection.”
“Also put down?”
“Killed by the permanent host. Her situation doesn’t apply to you. You could have as many as five days before experiencing the urge to bite. The fever will settle in simultaneously.”
John takes a deep breath. He lets it go. “I am a doctor, you know.”
“You’re also an idiot,” Sherlock says, and John huffs a tiny laugh.
Forcing himself away from the door, John picks up his dinner, searing plastic container and all. “Tell me you cleaned the microwave before you heated this.”
“No, Mrs Hudson did. I’m not sure why.”
“Jesus.” John lowers his voice. “I thought you were going to get her out of here.”
“I am,” Sherlock says. “She leaves for a week, starting tomorrow.”
“Where to?”
“I called in a favour from an old client who owns a spa. I, of course, would never use the complimentary trip, but Mrs Hudson is delighted. She thinks you caught something at the clinic, so she won’t be coming up to say goodbye, as you need your rest.”
That’s good. That’s sane. Mrs Hudson shouldn’t be anywhere near him. John tries to tell Sherlock this, but he can’t. The only words in his throat are I didn’t get to say goodbye, and he can’t let them out.
“She’ll have a fit when she sees what we’ve done to your door,” Sherlock says.
“What you’ve done to my door.”
Sherlock sighs at this tedious distinction. “I’m going downstairs. Don’t shout for me until after eleven tomorrow morning, or Mrs Hudson might come up instead.”
“Got it,” John tells the door.
Sherlock leaves. The panic isn’t quite as bad this time. John takes new notes as he eats. His notes will be more valuable than his will, in the long run. He hopes so.
He wakes sweating and dizzy, his legs trapped. He thrashes against the duvet only to cry out in a pained whimper. Fire blazes through his blood, against his bones. His skin ripples over muscle spasms.
Slowly, against great pain, he pulls his legs free of the duvet. His pyjama bottoms cling to him, plastered to his shins and thighs. Rucked up to his armpits, his t-shirt is in a similar state.
Exhaustion pulls his eyes shut. He lies in a damp spot of his own making, breathing steady lungfuls of cool air through his dry mouth. Where did he put those water bottles? They can’t be far.
He doesn’t get up. Lying in the predawn darkness, he feels his heart beating, feels the gradual crawl of the searing heat. It inches down his thighs and worms into his left elbow. This is what it feels like to be converted into a habitat, a breeding ground. Terraforming, as if he were some science fiction planet.
A giggle pops out of his mouth at the thought. Sapienforming.
The blaze works its way down to the limits of his extremities. His right arm, though aching with tension from its time restrained, suffers no particular heat pain. It’s simply hot, like his chest, his head. He lifts his arm and forces his eyes open. He should change the bandage on the bite again. Or not. It doesn’t exactly matter anymore.
His left hand finishes blazing before his legs do. Fire turns into glowing coal in his fingertips, but a furnace drags itself ever downward through his calves.
He sits up and his room wobbles. Moving his legs tenderly over the side of his bed, he sets his skin against the metal bar of the bed frame. “Oh my God...” Bliss. So cold. Ice, he wants ice. Sherlock will get it for him if he shouts. Maybe he will. It’s worth a try, except it’s well before eleven and Mrs Hudson is still home.
If she comes up, she’ll call emergency services. She’s good like that, practical. But John has burned through enough of the fever to see it to the end. The worst seems to have passed. The local pain isn’t so hot now. Maybe it’s converting him. Maybe he’s burning it out. Maybe he’s already gone mad and simply hasn’t noticed.
He takes stock. He knows he’s dangerous. He knows he cannot be allowed access to anyone, lest he bite them. He knows his corpse cannot be left for Sherlock to manage alone. He knows he absolutely must not bleed on anything. Most of all, he knows Sherlock’s being an idiot.
Temporarily assured of his sanity, John lies back until his legs are fit for walking, and then he downs both water bottles. He’s still so thirsty.
The heat only worsens as the morning crawls toward noon. John strips down to his pants and lies on the wood of his floor, trying not to stick to anything. When Sherlock comes to check on him, John’s lying face down.
“John? What are you doing?”
John groans. “Hot. Bring ice.” His jaw feels like it needs to pop.
After a small pause, Sherlock tromps down the stairs. John hears him at the freezer and listens to the returning footsteps. They sound irate. John grins a little. Not all the joys of life are gone yet.
Sherlock forces two water bottles through the door hole first. They hit the floor and roll toward the foot of John’s bed. Ice follows, Sherlock feeding a bowlful through cube by cube. The ice clatters against the floor.
As a matter of principle, John stands. He walks to the door, sits down, and sighs at the unspeakable pleasure of ice. It melts against his skin so quickly, and it burns so cold.
“How far are you into the fever?” Sherlock asks. “Are the aches in your extremities localised?”
“That stopped a few hours ago.”
“Do you have a headache?”
“No. Bit dizzy, though.” He works his jaw again.
Sherlock crouches down on the other side of the door. They look at each other through their tiny window. “Anything else?”
John shrugs. “Extreme tension, grinding my teeth while I sleep?”
“Be more specific,” Sherlock instructs.
John tries to be. He describes the pain, the heat, the ache, the sense of a wave crawling inexorably through his tissues and organs. He details his exhaustion, how he’s too tired to be bored. His mouth rapidly dries out.
“You’re swaying,” Sherlock says.
“What?”
“You should lie down,” Sherlock says.
John lies down. “Oh. That’s much better.”
“More ice and water?”
“God, yes.”
Sherlock brings the water, liquid and frozen. John lies there and lets the ice cubes hit him. It feels like an odd sort of massage. He groans.
“We should have locked me in the loo,” John says. “Climb into a cold bath and stay there.”
“I could work on that,” Sherlock says. “Do you trust yourself enough to be transported?”
“I--” He makes himself consider it. “No. No, actually. I should stay here. Is Mrs Hudson gone, then?”
“We’ve seven days before she returns.”
You’ve seven days, John doesn’t correct. “How long do I have, roughly? Jaw pain means I’ve reached the bite-or-burn stage, doesn’t it?”
“Only if you want to bite someone.” Sherlock peers at him through the door, far enough back that John couldn’t so much as poke him in the nose. John sits up and leans close anyway. “Do you?” Sherlock asks.
John runs his tongue over his teeth. He knows his canines are sharp, a bit nippy. Mucked up foreplay when he was a teen, his first girlfriend not quite as enthused as she’d imagined about biting. But that was only in play, without so much as breaking the surface. He imagines the jolt of pain beneath his mouth, imagines the taste of copper rising against his lips, and his stomach clenches terribly. “I don’t.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No. Maybe later. Drank too much water.”
Sherlock nods. He stands and John’s view is now of his waist. “Shout if you need me.” He turns away.
“Could you-um.”
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s fine.”
“John, it’s important that you tell me everything.”
John swallows. He looks down and plays with the ice melting against his leg. Such a lovely, cold sting. Focus on that. “I know. It’s fine.”
“John.”
“Just make sure you’ll be able to hear me if I need you. That’s all.”
“I will,” Sherlock promises in a shrunken voice. He clears his throat. “Obviously.”
“Right, yeah.”
Sherlock turns to go.
“Wait!” John puts a hand on the door, abruptly dizzy despite his sitting position.
Sherlock stops. “What?”
“Did you solve the case? The smugglers.”
“How else to keep Lestrade from poking his nose in here? I’ve taken care of everything. As far as he’s concerned, you’ve texted him with demands that I sleep before seeing to the paperwork. Also, you caught the flu four days ago and were nowhere near that building and never have been.”
Alibis are well and good, but some things are more important. “You really haven’t slept for days. You’re not going to do either of us any good if you collapse.”
“Are you going to sit there and point out the obvious all day, or shall I get around to saving your life?”
“Sorry, right. By all means.”
Sherlock returns downstairs. John lies down in the forming puddle, seeking all the comfort there he can find.
The bucket stinks, John’s food can’t satisfy, and Sherlock has turned to the violin. He’s thinking. It’s good, of course, that Sherlock is thinking. A thinking Sherlock means a possibly living John. It means a less entirely dead Baker Street. Maybe a not-at-all-dead Baker Street. John can hope.
When the ice puddle turns warm, John stands and towels himself off with a spare t-shirt. He mops up the puddle with the t-shirt and lies down with the wet cloth over his forehead. The violin plays on downstairs.
John listens and aches. He should call Sherlock back up. He wants to. There isn’t a reason, not beyond abject terror. Come sit in the hall, Sherlock. I’m scared. John snorts. He closes his eyes and focuses on the music. He very nearly falls asleep on the floor. For a time, he drifts.
The music stops.
John sits up. He presses the side of his head against the door, his ear in the hole. He hears nothing.
Then, with a groan of frustration, Sherlock must fling himself down on the sofa. That has to be what that sound is. Of course it is. John’s heard it a thousand times. Sherlock’s fine, he’s only lying down.
John listens and waits, and his heart pounds out all other noises. He tries to whisper Sherlock’s name, but again, his mouth is too dry.
His room wobbles less this time when he stands. He pulls on the damp t-shirt and it clings coolly to his skin. The edge of the doorknob hole is rough, and John’s fingers scrape around the outside. He tugs a little but the bolts hold fast. He holds tightly and listens.
Downstairs, Sherlock doesn’t move. It was, what, four days on the case before Alexis? Six days for Sherlock, now. It’s been one hell of a week, and Sherlock is doubtlessly punishing his body for its fallible nature.
The lack of noise continues from downstairs. John sits down in front of the door hole, his bare thighs sticking to the floor. He plucks at the t-shirt, pulling it away from his chest, but he isn’t so hot any longer. The fever has unmistakeably gone down.
When listening to silence and staring at the hallway wall grow torturous, John stand and paces. With the fever reduced, exhaustion has waned. He’s been in this room for nearly two entire days, stuck with an increasingly full bucket of his piss and shit. Even with a lid on it, the smell affronts his senses.
John fetches the handcuffs from his bedside table. He’s healthy enough for them now. He can lock them on and kneel to reach the key when Sherlock tosses it through. Yes, that should be all right.
He brings the cuffs to the door. Staring at the wood, he registers that he left the muzzle. But of course he has: how else to call for Sherlock?
He stands there and he does not call.
Sherlock might be asleep, John reasons. If Sherlock has finally settled down for a piece of rest, John shouldn’t interrupt. That would be awful of him, calling Sherlock up simply to have the moment of company. Sherlock’s downstairs. That’s close enough.
...Provided Sherlock is downstairs. John again sets his cheek against the door, his ear over the hole. Is Sherlock downstairs? He wouldn’t have left John. Not like this. Even that idiot knows better. Unless Lestrade summoned him.
John waits and he waits, and the panic waits with him, crowding him and breathing down his neck. Sherlock’s supposed to help him. Sherlock can’t just leave.
Sherlock wouldn’t, John assures himself. He’s swanned off at horrifically inconvenient times before, but he wouldn’t do that now. For two years, even, but not now. John had heard him lie down on the sofa. Yes, John had heard him.
More waiting, more fretting, and surely Sherlock was meant to bring him dinner by now.
Something’s wrong.
John stares at the door, glares at it, and his eyes fall on the hinges. He takes the handcuffs and sets one edge of the metal against the middle hinge, against the peg holding it together. John pushes, he shoves, he works it up and up, and the peg moves with a metallic shriek.
John freezes. He listens. When no sound comes from downstairs, John paces back to his bed, pulls out the shoebox, and retrieves his lube. He greases the middle peg and pushes once more. This slide gives a squeak, not a scream, and then John holds a slippery bit of metal in one hand. He puts this down on his desk.
The bottom pin takes slightly longer but ultimately gives way to his efforts. Held up by the top hinge alone, the door sags in its frame. The weight of the door pinches the hinge pin into place. John stuffs a paperback under the bottom of the door, and that helps even it a bit. He stands on his desk chair for a better angle. His hands redden from exertion with his makeshift tool, from the friction and innumerable accidental pinches.
He frees the final pin. He holds his hands up, ready to catch the door, but the door does not fall on him. The bolts are still in place.
With a quiet step, he comes down from his chair. He sets down the lube and the pins. He tries to wipe the lube off on his thighs, but that simply makes everything worse. He mops himself up with yet another t-shirt and pulls on a pair of trousers. Hot, but not stifling. He sticks the handcuffs into his front trouser pocket. He’s not supposed to be without them when the door is open.
Gripping the door by the middle hinge and the empty doorknob hole, he eases the door side to side, working outward. He couldn’t have pried the bolts off by pulling the door inward, but as he pushes the hinge-side of the door out into the hall, the bolts on the doorknob side begin to work their way free. His fingers strain and ache. Forward and to the side, forward and to the side, that’s it.
The door slips free.
Gently, John eases his toes under the bottom of the door. He walks it forward one tiny step at a time, easing forward until he’s in the hall. With infinite care, he leans the door against the opposite wall. Now he can check on Sherlock without waking him.
He pads down the hall and takes his care with the stairs. He knows how the third one creaks in the centre, but not on the edges. He knows how the fifth one down can never be silent. Barefoot, he steps down onto the hall by the kitchen. The door to the kitchen is closed, but the one to the sitting room gives John a peek at Sherlock’s chaotic research. Papers and printouts strewn across the room, taped to the mirror, bits of them circled and highlighted and linked together by proximity.
The door opens smoothly beneath John’s hand. John cranes his neck, and yes, a flop of dark hair languishes on the sofa arm.
The ache in John’s shoulders, the tension in his arms, his legs, his every inch; this fades. He’s not alone.
Sherlock isn’t in a particularly good state, he discovers. His hair falls in greasy clumps. Arms wrapped about the Union Jack pillow, Sherlock curls in on himself, the stubborn lines of his body warped into an agonised curve. His chest rises and falls, pushing weakly against the cage of his arms.
It’s probably his first sleep in days. Possibly his first this week. The idiot.
No sign of food on the coffee table. John takes a few steps and peers into the kitchen. No sign of dishes in the sink. John shakes his head. Upon closer inspection of Sherlock’s sofa-turned-nest, he has the paper bin closer than usual. No food wrappers in there, but many more tissues than John would expect.
Take a shower, John wants to tell him. Eat something. But Sherlock wouldn’t be happy to see John outside his room, so John won’t wake him. Sherlock’s a sound sleeper anyway. After a case, he sleeps better than a corpse.
He stands in the sitting room, uncertain of what to do. It’s after dinner. He ought to eat. He checks through the kitchen and there’s nothing appetizing. Can’t go out to eat, can’t leave Sherlock when he’s like this. He can’t call for takeaway, as Sherlock’s taken all the phones.
The phones. Yes. Of course that’s what John came downstairs for. He needs one of their mobiles. Emergency services.
He sneaks into Sherlock’s bedroom first. He tries the drawers. He mucks up Sherlock’s sock index just for the hell of it. As silently as possible, he checks everywhere he can think to look, and when living with Sherlock, that’s a very large number of places. He finds his gun, but that’s not what he needs. He puts it back under Sherlock’s bed.
The bedroom exhausted, John returns to the sitting room. Immediately, he sees his mistake. There, on Sherlock’s armchair, is Sherlock’s jacket. Keeping a close eye on his sleeping flatmate, John crosses to the chair. He lifts the jacket and searches through. There. He wraps his hand around the mobile, but something’s off.
John pulls it out with a frown. Sherlock’s battery is missing.
He pockets this mobile, setting it in the pocket free of handcuffs. Another search through the jacket yields John’s mobile, also without battery.
Where could Sherlock have hidden the batteries? More accurately phrased, where couldn’t Sherlock have hidden them?
John studies Sherlock, lying in his protective curl around the pillow. John’s seen flounces and sulks before, but this is the highest he’s ever seen Sherlock’s knees pulled up. His limbs form a barricade in front of his chest.
Maybe the batteries aren’t scattered through the room. Maybe they’re with the handcuff key in Sherlock’s front trouser pocket.
His approach is quiet. His hands are steady. John shifts the papers on the coffee table, medical papers detailing the withdrawal process. He sits down and simply looks. He lets their breathing sync.
His head toward the door, Sherlock lies facing John. His right pocket might be within reach, but definitely not his left.
John stands. He sets his left hand against the wall. The angle prevents him from approaching Sherlock’s pocket with his dominant hand. Watching Sherlock’s face, John lowers his right hand. Bit awkward, but he touches his fingertips to the top of Sherlock’s thigh and, yes, that’s a metal rectangle.
Beneath his eyelids, Sherlock’s eyes move. John keeps his hand steady until the motion ends.
He eases two fingers into Sherlock’s pocket. The slide down is slow and tight, his knuckles against Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock’s foot twitches and his knee bumps against John’s.
Again, John freezes.
Sherlock adjusts, pulling John’s hand with his hips as he settles against the sofa cushions. John rides the motion as well as he can, but not well enough to prevent Sherlock’s elbow from hitting his bare forearm.
John stares at a pair of closed eyes, at a smoothly rising and falling chest, and yet he knows Sherlock just woke up. He makes a quick grab for the battery-he’s buggered anyway-but Sherlock rolls onto his back and catches John’s wrist in one smooth motion. His skin is so cool. It feels the way fresh water tastes.
“John,” Sherlock says softly. His frown gives way to a sigh. “Hinges.”
“You okay?” John asks.
The frown returns. Sherlock nods, his hair scraping against the sofa arm. “Fine.”
John sits down on the sofa, setting the small of his back against Sherlock’s legs. His left hand drops to Sherlock’s hip. John sticks his thumb into Sherlock’s empty belt loop.
As fluid and natural as any stretch, Sherlock presses against the sofa, into it. “Go upstairs, John.”
John shakes his head.
“Why not?” Sherlock asks.
“I shouldn’t be alone like this.”
“Then I’ll sit in the hall,” Sherlock promises.
John doesn’t move.
“We’re going to go upstairs,” Sherlock tells him. “Together, the both of us.”
“It’s much cooler down here,” John says.
Sherlock touches his arm. “You’re feverish.”
John leans into the cool touch.
Sherlock’s breathing hitches and John tenses in an instant. He stares at the door, at the stairs, and he positions his body over Sherlock’s in a protective crouch.
“John,” Sherlock says, voice strained.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine--”
“But are you?” John demands.
Sherlock looks between John’s hands and his mouth. Sherlock’s pulse visibly beats in his neck. It’s racing. It shouldn’t be racing, not if Sherlock is fine. “John, will you do something for me?”
“Yeah.” John nods. “Yeah, of course.”
“Will you go upstairs with me?”
John tilts his head.
“I should clean up that bucket,” Sherlock explains. “I’d like help. Would you do that for me, John?”
“It’s a lot of fuss over shit and piss.”
“But will you?”
John nods, only because of Sherlock’s pleading expression. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” He sets his hand on Sherlock’s forehead. Sherlock flinches. “You’re like ice.”
“No, you’re burning.”
“I was burning before,” John says. “Not now.”
“Please go upstairs with me.”
“You don’t look all right to me.” Pulse too rapid, skin too cool and pale, breathing too shallow. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll be fine once I know you’re safe upstairs,” Sherlock says. “I promise.” His eyes sharp beneath John’s hand, he watches John closely. “I’m going to sit up now.”
John returns his hand to Sherlock’s hip.
Sliding against the sofa back, Sherlock sits up in the oddest way John has ever seen. Belatedly, John realises he’s crowding Sherlock. That’s it. Sherlock and his absurdly long legs, that’s all.
“John, can you bring me my jacket?”
“Yeah, okay.” John stands and fetches it. “Not surprised you’re feeling cold.”
Sherlock also stands. Sherlock holds out his hand.
John gives him the jacket.
Sherlock puts the jacket on and reaches into the pocket where the mobiles were. His expression sticks, not quite frozen, not quite shuttering. “Could you go upstairs in front and make sure the door doesn’t fall on me?”
“It’s fine,” John swears. “You’re safe.” He doesn’t move. Why move? They’re fine here.
“I’ll be upstairs,” Sherlock says. He steps toward the door, toward the staircase, toward leaving and he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be doing that, so John stops him. John grabs him around the middle, the tightest hug they’ve ever shared, and Sherlock slams his elbow into John’s side. John exhales harshly, his body bends, but it barely hurts.
Letting Sherlock leave, that would hurt. That can’t happen. If Sherlock left, John would just die. He would, he would curl up and die.
Instead, John kicks him in the legs, right behind the knee, and he secures Sherlock to the floor with the full weight of his body. “It’s okay,” John tries to explain. “Sherlock, trust me, it’s fine.”
Sherlock thrashes. Poor, exhausted Sherlock. He lashes out at John’s face. The exertion warms, but in a good way.
Straddling Sherlock’s torso, John catches Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock drags it back, pulls his own elbow to the ground and nearly frees his hand from John’s grip, but John follows, John follows him down and sets his mouth to the scalpel’s scab. He bites and he licks and Sherlock’s only making that noise because he doesn’t understand yet.
Flesh punctures between John’s teeth, pale, veined skin bunched by his mouth on the back of Sherlock’s hand. A trickle of heat touches John’s tongue. Oh, God. It’s everything he never knew he was waiting for.
He bites deeper, sucks harder. Sherlock’s other hand beats against the side of John’s head, but feebly. Sherlock must be so tired.
Slowly, Sherlock learns this is for the best. He holds still and lets John lick the bite clean. He lies on his back with his free hand over his eyes. John applies pressure with his tongue until the bleeding stops, more or less. John feels so much cooler already. He licks his lips, unsure if he’s tasting blood or bliss.
“I’ll bandage that,” John promises. “It’s okay, I’m taking care of you.”
Mouth firmly shut, eyes covered, Sherlock says nothing at all.
back | next
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 5.9k out of 31k
Beta: seijichan, lifeonmars, prettyarbitrary
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: “If you want me to comfort you over my imminent death, I will be kicking you in the head,” John warns.
Warnings: Eventual off-screen character death, illness both physical and mental, assault, graphic violence, blood, bloodplay, explicit sexual behavior, plague, attempted suicide
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Handcuffed to his headboard, John watches Sherlock install the bolts to the outside of John’s bedroom door. He watches Sherlock take care of the window. He studies the supplies Sherlock carries in and can only wonder at what else Sherlock must be keeping in the kitchen.
“I need to move at some point,” John says.
“Yes, that’s what the bolts are for,” Sherlock answers, now rifling through John’s closet. He confiscates all of John’s belts, as well as every shoe with laces. After a small pause, he takes all of John’s ties as well. “I’ll leave you the handcuff key and lock you in once everything’s ready.”
“And then never unbolt the door again? Brilliant plan, perfect. Well done, Sherlock, I’m sure this will end well.”
Sherlock chucks the former contents of John’s closet out into the hall. He stalks back to the closet and tugs out John’s luggage.
“What are you doing?” John asks.
“There are straps.”
“What do you need straps for?”
Sherlock shoots him a sharp look.
John’s stomach drops. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m not going to kill myself.”
“You want to call emergency services. You are clearly suicidal.”
John tries to cross his arms. Instead, he hurts his shoulder and wrist. “It’s called ‘damage control,’ you tit. I’m not going to leave you with my infected corpse.”
Head tilted, eyes narrowed, Sherlock pins his gaze on John’s bitten hand. Sherlock chews on his lip. “Fine.” He proceeds to take John’s laptop and charger next. “I’m going to leave you with the handcuffs and the muzzle. Without visual confirmation that both are in place, I will not open the door.”
“Visual confirmation?”
“I’m taking out your doorknob,” Sherlock explains. “Can’t have you locking me out.”
“Mm, because containment is for morons.”
Sherlock ignores him. “For any instance where I need to open the door, you will put on the muzzle and cuff your hands behind your back. After I bolt the door shut, I’ll pass the key to you through the door.”
John nods along. “And what happens when I refuse to do that? Or did you forget the part where I’ll be going insane?”
“No.” Unmoving, Sherlock stares into John’s desk drawers. “If you stop cooperating, that’s it.”
“Fine. I’m not cooperating.”
Sherlock shakes his head. “You’ll get hungry.”
“For your blood, yes.”
“We’ll see.” Sherlock makes one last search of the room, terrifyingly thorough. Anything that could double as an escape tool, Sherlock takes. Once he’s excavated every other part of the room, Sherlock drops to the floor and peers under John’s bed from a distance. “Last one.”
“What? Oh, Jesus. No, you leave that,” John tells him, but Sherlock pulls out the shoebox anyway.
Sherlock opens it and says, “Oh.”
“Or burn it,” John amends. “When I die, you burn my porn mags. Do not keep those. Oi, stop it.”
With complete disregard for all that is private and excruciatingly awkward, Sherlock quickly flips through the next two magazines. His expression never so much as flickers. Much to John’s horror, Sherlock focuses on the pages themselves instead of the far more interesting pictures printed upon them. “Yes, yes, into the fireplace,” Sherlock says in the most put-upon of tones.
John takes a deep breath. “Look. I know I can’t exactly get it notarised now, but if I write down an update to my will, will you follow it?”
“In the event of your eventual death, yes.” Sherlock drops the porn mags back into the box, drops the tube of lube in after, and shuts the lid. With deliberate flair, he pushes the shoebox toward its home under John’s bed. “Is there anything I’m missing?”
“You already took the bullets?”
Sherlock nods.
“Then I think that’s everything.”
His hands on his hips, Sherlock takes another quick look around John’s bedroom. “I’ll bring up another bucket and the muzzle.”
“That’s biohazardous material, Sherlock.”
“Biohazardous waste, yes,” Sherlock says so flippantly that John nearly laughs. “I know what I’m doing. Stop doubting me.”
“I feel more confident when I can feel my fingers again.” He wiggles them pointedly.
Sherlock rolls his eyes, but it’s like he’s rolling pebbles instead of the usual boulders, like he can't even spare the energy to be overdramatic. “Give me a minute.” He exits without waiting for reply, bolting the door behind him. He rumbles down the stairs and then John can no longer hear him.
John’s chest tightens around his heart, around his lungs. His motion close to involuntary, he tests the restraint and tugs at the headboard. The world tilts and John stops. He forces himself to resume breathing. He adjusts his arm as well as he can.
An eternity later-two minutes, according to his clock-Sherlock returns. “John?” Sherlock’s brow furrows. “Is it worse?”
He shakes his head, more a tremble than a gesture.
“John?”
“It’s, ah.” John swallows. “It’s setting in.”
Sherlock sets down the fresh bucket. “How strong is the urge to bite?”
“What? No, God, Jesus, no.” John futilely gestures with his free hand. “It’s-reality. Reality is setting in. I’m not...” He looks at the wall, its undecorated surface far less blank than Sherlock’s expression. John wets his lips with a dry tongue. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“John, I’m handling it,” Sherlock says.
“Can you just--” John’s voice breaks. “Just call emergency services.”
“John, look at me,” Sherlock says.
John looks.
Implacable, insurmountable, Sherlock stares back. “I’m handling this.”
“I’m going to die.”
“Not yet.” Sherlock tosses John the muzzle.
John catches it. It’s very... leather. “I’m going to die in bondage gear. Lovely.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Something a little more Hannibal Lecter,” John admits. When Sherlock frowns, John says, “Silence of the Lambs? Fine, we can add that to the film list. I think you’d really...” Ah. Right. “Sorry, never mind.”
“I’ll add it to the list,” Sherlock says. He walks to the opposite side of John’s bedside table and sets down the handcuff key with a click. It’s just out of reach. “Do you have enough books up here?”
John nods. He won’t be doing much reading.
Sherlock takes a final look around the room. He takes a final look at John. “Stop thinking like that,” Sherlock says.
“One of us has to.”
“Wrong.” Arm outstretched, his body leaning away, Sherlock slides the key two inches closer to John. He vacates the room, shuts the door, and again bolts it shut.
“Sherlock!” John yanks at the handcuff before thinking to grab the key.
“I’m right here,” Sherlock says from behind the door.
John can still see a spot of colour through the hole that once contained his doorknob. He fumbles with the cuffs and the key until finally freeing his wrist. Cursing, he stretches his arm. The return of sensation has him gritting his teeth, but he endures.
“Toss the key out,” Sherlock instructs.
“Would you give me a minute!”
Sherlock heaves an impatient sigh. “Take your time, it’s only your odds of survival decreasing.”
John doesn’t have any odds, but he keeps his mouth shut. He stands for the first time in a day, wobbles, and proceeds to the door. He drops the keys out. Sherlock catches them.
“Could you break through this door?” Sherlock asks.
“I don’t think so. Normally, but not like this.”
“Try.”
“Shut up and go save my life,” John says.
Sherlock grunts, but he does as told. John resists the urge to crouch and watch through the hole as Sherlock climbs down the stairs. Once he hears Sherlock in the kitchen, he nearly calls out to ask if Sherlock can hear him, but if John can hear Sherlock’s chair scraping against the floor, then Sherlock would definitely be able to hear John shout.
He can probably hear John pacing. He can probably read every ounce of panic from the tread of John’s step. John forces himself to sit at his desk. He shoves aside the two tests declaring him a dead man. Pen and paper, that’s all he needs now.
He clicks the pen and sets to work.
Once he finishes his will, he takes notes. When he can no longer withstand observations of his own body, he returns to bed. Tense, aching and exhausted, he sleeps. A fitful eon later, he muzzles himself, cuffs his hands behind his back, and offers Sherlock visual confirmation through the door hole. He retreats to the opposite wall and stands there as Sherlock leaves him dinner and a pair of water bottles. He only turns around once Sherlock bolts the door shut and tosses in the key. It takes some extremely awkward kneeling, but John manages to pick up the key. He unlocks the cuffs and returns the key to Sherlock. He removes the muzzle.
“Hold on a tic,” John says. He fetches the notes and passes these out as well.
“Flu-like symptoms,” Sherlock summarises.
“No chills,” John says. “Just the aches and heat.”
“And the exhaustion might be from last night.”
“Yeah.”
Sherlock hums. “We’ll see. Eat and get some rest.”
John sets his forehead against the door. The wood feels cool against his skin. Pleasant.
“John?”
“I’m fine.” He closes his eyes. “How much time do you think I have?”
“The carrier was in an advanced stage of mental regression. I’ve only found three documented instances where a new vessel was introduced into an advanced group.”
“Any help?”
“No. The first two were put down immediately, a pair of idiots with emergency services who made mistakes. The third’s body was identified fifteen days after the initial infection.”
“Also put down?”
“Killed by the permanent host. Her situation doesn’t apply to you. You could have as many as five days before experiencing the urge to bite. The fever will settle in simultaneously.”
John takes a deep breath. He lets it go. “I am a doctor, you know.”
“You’re also an idiot,” Sherlock says, and John huffs a tiny laugh.
Forcing himself away from the door, John picks up his dinner, searing plastic container and all. “Tell me you cleaned the microwave before you heated this.”
“No, Mrs Hudson did. I’m not sure why.”
“Jesus.” John lowers his voice. “I thought you were going to get her out of here.”
“I am,” Sherlock says. “She leaves for a week, starting tomorrow.”
“Where to?”
“I called in a favour from an old client who owns a spa. I, of course, would never use the complimentary trip, but Mrs Hudson is delighted. She thinks you caught something at the clinic, so she won’t be coming up to say goodbye, as you need your rest.”
That’s good. That’s sane. Mrs Hudson shouldn’t be anywhere near him. John tries to tell Sherlock this, but he can’t. The only words in his throat are I didn’t get to say goodbye, and he can’t let them out.
“She’ll have a fit when she sees what we’ve done to your door,” Sherlock says.
“What you’ve done to my door.”
Sherlock sighs at this tedious distinction. “I’m going downstairs. Don’t shout for me until after eleven tomorrow morning, or Mrs Hudson might come up instead.”
“Got it,” John tells the door.
Sherlock leaves. The panic isn’t quite as bad this time. John takes new notes as he eats. His notes will be more valuable than his will, in the long run. He hopes so.
He wakes sweating and dizzy, his legs trapped. He thrashes against the duvet only to cry out in a pained whimper. Fire blazes through his blood, against his bones. His skin ripples over muscle spasms.
Slowly, against great pain, he pulls his legs free of the duvet. His pyjama bottoms cling to him, plastered to his shins and thighs. Rucked up to his armpits, his t-shirt is in a similar state.
Exhaustion pulls his eyes shut. He lies in a damp spot of his own making, breathing steady lungfuls of cool air through his dry mouth. Where did he put those water bottles? They can’t be far.
He doesn’t get up. Lying in the predawn darkness, he feels his heart beating, feels the gradual crawl of the searing heat. It inches down his thighs and worms into his left elbow. This is what it feels like to be converted into a habitat, a breeding ground. Terraforming, as if he were some science fiction planet.
A giggle pops out of his mouth at the thought. Sapienforming.
The blaze works its way down to the limits of his extremities. His right arm, though aching with tension from its time restrained, suffers no particular heat pain. It’s simply hot, like his chest, his head. He lifts his arm and forces his eyes open. He should change the bandage on the bite again. Or not. It doesn’t exactly matter anymore.
His left hand finishes blazing before his legs do. Fire turns into glowing coal in his fingertips, but a furnace drags itself ever downward through his calves.
He sits up and his room wobbles. Moving his legs tenderly over the side of his bed, he sets his skin against the metal bar of the bed frame. “Oh my God...” Bliss. So cold. Ice, he wants ice. Sherlock will get it for him if he shouts. Maybe he will. It’s worth a try, except it’s well before eleven and Mrs Hudson is still home.
If she comes up, she’ll call emergency services. She’s good like that, practical. But John has burned through enough of the fever to see it to the end. The worst seems to have passed. The local pain isn’t so hot now. Maybe it’s converting him. Maybe he’s burning it out. Maybe he’s already gone mad and simply hasn’t noticed.
He takes stock. He knows he’s dangerous. He knows he cannot be allowed access to anyone, lest he bite them. He knows his corpse cannot be left for Sherlock to manage alone. He knows he absolutely must not bleed on anything. Most of all, he knows Sherlock’s being an idiot.
Temporarily assured of his sanity, John lies back until his legs are fit for walking, and then he downs both water bottles. He’s still so thirsty.
The heat only worsens as the morning crawls toward noon. John strips down to his pants and lies on the wood of his floor, trying not to stick to anything. When Sherlock comes to check on him, John’s lying face down.
“John? What are you doing?”
John groans. “Hot. Bring ice.” His jaw feels like it needs to pop.
After a small pause, Sherlock tromps down the stairs. John hears him at the freezer and listens to the returning footsteps. They sound irate. John grins a little. Not all the joys of life are gone yet.
Sherlock forces two water bottles through the door hole first. They hit the floor and roll toward the foot of John’s bed. Ice follows, Sherlock feeding a bowlful through cube by cube. The ice clatters against the floor.
As a matter of principle, John stands. He walks to the door, sits down, and sighs at the unspeakable pleasure of ice. It melts against his skin so quickly, and it burns so cold.
“How far are you into the fever?” Sherlock asks. “Are the aches in your extremities localised?”
“That stopped a few hours ago.”
“Do you have a headache?”
“No. Bit dizzy, though.” He works his jaw again.
Sherlock crouches down on the other side of the door. They look at each other through their tiny window. “Anything else?”
John shrugs. “Extreme tension, grinding my teeth while I sleep?”
“Be more specific,” Sherlock instructs.
John tries to be. He describes the pain, the heat, the ache, the sense of a wave crawling inexorably through his tissues and organs. He details his exhaustion, how he’s too tired to be bored. His mouth rapidly dries out.
“You’re swaying,” Sherlock says.
“What?”
“You should lie down,” Sherlock says.
John lies down. “Oh. That’s much better.”
“More ice and water?”
“God, yes.”
Sherlock brings the water, liquid and frozen. John lies there and lets the ice cubes hit him. It feels like an odd sort of massage. He groans.
“We should have locked me in the loo,” John says. “Climb into a cold bath and stay there.”
“I could work on that,” Sherlock says. “Do you trust yourself enough to be transported?”
“I--” He makes himself consider it. “No. No, actually. I should stay here. Is Mrs Hudson gone, then?”
“We’ve seven days before she returns.”
You’ve seven days, John doesn’t correct. “How long do I have, roughly? Jaw pain means I’ve reached the bite-or-burn stage, doesn’t it?”
“Only if you want to bite someone.” Sherlock peers at him through the door, far enough back that John couldn’t so much as poke him in the nose. John sits up and leans close anyway. “Do you?” Sherlock asks.
John runs his tongue over his teeth. He knows his canines are sharp, a bit nippy. Mucked up foreplay when he was a teen, his first girlfriend not quite as enthused as she’d imagined about biting. But that was only in play, without so much as breaking the surface. He imagines the jolt of pain beneath his mouth, imagines the taste of copper rising against his lips, and his stomach clenches terribly. “I don’t.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No. Maybe later. Drank too much water.”
Sherlock nods. He stands and John’s view is now of his waist. “Shout if you need me.” He turns away.
“Could you-um.”
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s fine.”
“John, it’s important that you tell me everything.”
John swallows. He looks down and plays with the ice melting against his leg. Such a lovely, cold sting. Focus on that. “I know. It’s fine.”
“John.”
“Just make sure you’ll be able to hear me if I need you. That’s all.”
“I will,” Sherlock promises in a shrunken voice. He clears his throat. “Obviously.”
“Right, yeah.”
Sherlock turns to go.
“Wait!” John puts a hand on the door, abruptly dizzy despite his sitting position.
Sherlock stops. “What?”
“Did you solve the case? The smugglers.”
“How else to keep Lestrade from poking his nose in here? I’ve taken care of everything. As far as he’s concerned, you’ve texted him with demands that I sleep before seeing to the paperwork. Also, you caught the flu four days ago and were nowhere near that building and never have been.”
Alibis are well and good, but some things are more important. “You really haven’t slept for days. You’re not going to do either of us any good if you collapse.”
“Are you going to sit there and point out the obvious all day, or shall I get around to saving your life?”
“Sorry, right. By all means.”
Sherlock returns downstairs. John lies down in the forming puddle, seeking all the comfort there he can find.
The bucket stinks, John’s food can’t satisfy, and Sherlock has turned to the violin. He’s thinking. It’s good, of course, that Sherlock is thinking. A thinking Sherlock means a possibly living John. It means a less entirely dead Baker Street. Maybe a not-at-all-dead Baker Street. John can hope.
When the ice puddle turns warm, John stands and towels himself off with a spare t-shirt. He mops up the puddle with the t-shirt and lies down with the wet cloth over his forehead. The violin plays on downstairs.
John listens and aches. He should call Sherlock back up. He wants to. There isn’t a reason, not beyond abject terror. Come sit in the hall, Sherlock. I’m scared. John snorts. He closes his eyes and focuses on the music. He very nearly falls asleep on the floor. For a time, he drifts.
The music stops.
John sits up. He presses the side of his head against the door, his ear in the hole. He hears nothing.
Then, with a groan of frustration, Sherlock must fling himself down on the sofa. That has to be what that sound is. Of course it is. John’s heard it a thousand times. Sherlock’s fine, he’s only lying down.
John listens and waits, and his heart pounds out all other noises. He tries to whisper Sherlock’s name, but again, his mouth is too dry.
His room wobbles less this time when he stands. He pulls on the damp t-shirt and it clings coolly to his skin. The edge of the doorknob hole is rough, and John’s fingers scrape around the outside. He tugs a little but the bolts hold fast. He holds tightly and listens.
Downstairs, Sherlock doesn’t move. It was, what, four days on the case before Alexis? Six days for Sherlock, now. It’s been one hell of a week, and Sherlock is doubtlessly punishing his body for its fallible nature.
The lack of noise continues from downstairs. John sits down in front of the door hole, his bare thighs sticking to the floor. He plucks at the t-shirt, pulling it away from his chest, but he isn’t so hot any longer. The fever has unmistakeably gone down.
When listening to silence and staring at the hallway wall grow torturous, John stand and paces. With the fever reduced, exhaustion has waned. He’s been in this room for nearly two entire days, stuck with an increasingly full bucket of his piss and shit. Even with a lid on it, the smell affronts his senses.
John fetches the handcuffs from his bedside table. He’s healthy enough for them now. He can lock them on and kneel to reach the key when Sherlock tosses it through. Yes, that should be all right.
He brings the cuffs to the door. Staring at the wood, he registers that he left the muzzle. But of course he has: how else to call for Sherlock?
He stands there and he does not call.
Sherlock might be asleep, John reasons. If Sherlock has finally settled down for a piece of rest, John shouldn’t interrupt. That would be awful of him, calling Sherlock up simply to have the moment of company. Sherlock’s downstairs. That’s close enough.
...Provided Sherlock is downstairs. John again sets his cheek against the door, his ear over the hole. Is Sherlock downstairs? He wouldn’t have left John. Not like this. Even that idiot knows better. Unless Lestrade summoned him.
John waits and he waits, and the panic waits with him, crowding him and breathing down his neck. Sherlock’s supposed to help him. Sherlock can’t just leave.
Sherlock wouldn’t, John assures himself. He’s swanned off at horrifically inconvenient times before, but he wouldn’t do that now. For two years, even, but not now. John had heard him lie down on the sofa. Yes, John had heard him.
More waiting, more fretting, and surely Sherlock was meant to bring him dinner by now.
Something’s wrong.
John stares at the door, glares at it, and his eyes fall on the hinges. He takes the handcuffs and sets one edge of the metal against the middle hinge, against the peg holding it together. John pushes, he shoves, he works it up and up, and the peg moves with a metallic shriek.
John freezes. He listens. When no sound comes from downstairs, John paces back to his bed, pulls out the shoebox, and retrieves his lube. He greases the middle peg and pushes once more. This slide gives a squeak, not a scream, and then John holds a slippery bit of metal in one hand. He puts this down on his desk.
The bottom pin takes slightly longer but ultimately gives way to his efforts. Held up by the top hinge alone, the door sags in its frame. The weight of the door pinches the hinge pin into place. John stuffs a paperback under the bottom of the door, and that helps even it a bit. He stands on his desk chair for a better angle. His hands redden from exertion with his makeshift tool, from the friction and innumerable accidental pinches.
He frees the final pin. He holds his hands up, ready to catch the door, but the door does not fall on him. The bolts are still in place.
With a quiet step, he comes down from his chair. He sets down the lube and the pins. He tries to wipe the lube off on his thighs, but that simply makes everything worse. He mops himself up with yet another t-shirt and pulls on a pair of trousers. Hot, but not stifling. He sticks the handcuffs into his front trouser pocket. He’s not supposed to be without them when the door is open.
Gripping the door by the middle hinge and the empty doorknob hole, he eases the door side to side, working outward. He couldn’t have pried the bolts off by pulling the door inward, but as he pushes the hinge-side of the door out into the hall, the bolts on the doorknob side begin to work their way free. His fingers strain and ache. Forward and to the side, forward and to the side, that’s it.
The door slips free.
Gently, John eases his toes under the bottom of the door. He walks it forward one tiny step at a time, easing forward until he’s in the hall. With infinite care, he leans the door against the opposite wall. Now he can check on Sherlock without waking him.
He pads down the hall and takes his care with the stairs. He knows how the third one creaks in the centre, but not on the edges. He knows how the fifth one down can never be silent. Barefoot, he steps down onto the hall by the kitchen. The door to the kitchen is closed, but the one to the sitting room gives John a peek at Sherlock’s chaotic research. Papers and printouts strewn across the room, taped to the mirror, bits of them circled and highlighted and linked together by proximity.
The door opens smoothly beneath John’s hand. John cranes his neck, and yes, a flop of dark hair languishes on the sofa arm.
The ache in John’s shoulders, the tension in his arms, his legs, his every inch; this fades. He’s not alone.
Sherlock isn’t in a particularly good state, he discovers. His hair falls in greasy clumps. Arms wrapped about the Union Jack pillow, Sherlock curls in on himself, the stubborn lines of his body warped into an agonised curve. His chest rises and falls, pushing weakly against the cage of his arms.
It’s probably his first sleep in days. Possibly his first this week. The idiot.
No sign of food on the coffee table. John takes a few steps and peers into the kitchen. No sign of dishes in the sink. John shakes his head. Upon closer inspection of Sherlock’s sofa-turned-nest, he has the paper bin closer than usual. No food wrappers in there, but many more tissues than John would expect.
Take a shower, John wants to tell him. Eat something. But Sherlock wouldn’t be happy to see John outside his room, so John won’t wake him. Sherlock’s a sound sleeper anyway. After a case, he sleeps better than a corpse.
He stands in the sitting room, uncertain of what to do. It’s after dinner. He ought to eat. He checks through the kitchen and there’s nothing appetizing. Can’t go out to eat, can’t leave Sherlock when he’s like this. He can’t call for takeaway, as Sherlock’s taken all the phones.
The phones. Yes. Of course that’s what John came downstairs for. He needs one of their mobiles. Emergency services.
He sneaks into Sherlock’s bedroom first. He tries the drawers. He mucks up Sherlock’s sock index just for the hell of it. As silently as possible, he checks everywhere he can think to look, and when living with Sherlock, that’s a very large number of places. He finds his gun, but that’s not what he needs. He puts it back under Sherlock’s bed.
The bedroom exhausted, John returns to the sitting room. Immediately, he sees his mistake. There, on Sherlock’s armchair, is Sherlock’s jacket. Keeping a close eye on his sleeping flatmate, John crosses to the chair. He lifts the jacket and searches through. There. He wraps his hand around the mobile, but something’s off.
John pulls it out with a frown. Sherlock’s battery is missing.
He pockets this mobile, setting it in the pocket free of handcuffs. Another search through the jacket yields John’s mobile, also without battery.
Where could Sherlock have hidden the batteries? More accurately phrased, where couldn’t Sherlock have hidden them?
John studies Sherlock, lying in his protective curl around the pillow. John’s seen flounces and sulks before, but this is the highest he’s ever seen Sherlock’s knees pulled up. His limbs form a barricade in front of his chest.
Maybe the batteries aren’t scattered through the room. Maybe they’re with the handcuff key in Sherlock’s front trouser pocket.
His approach is quiet. His hands are steady. John shifts the papers on the coffee table, medical papers detailing the withdrawal process. He sits down and simply looks. He lets their breathing sync.
His head toward the door, Sherlock lies facing John. His right pocket might be within reach, but definitely not his left.
John stands. He sets his left hand against the wall. The angle prevents him from approaching Sherlock’s pocket with his dominant hand. Watching Sherlock’s face, John lowers his right hand. Bit awkward, but he touches his fingertips to the top of Sherlock’s thigh and, yes, that’s a metal rectangle.
Beneath his eyelids, Sherlock’s eyes move. John keeps his hand steady until the motion ends.
He eases two fingers into Sherlock’s pocket. The slide down is slow and tight, his knuckles against Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock’s foot twitches and his knee bumps against John’s.
Again, John freezes.
Sherlock adjusts, pulling John’s hand with his hips as he settles against the sofa cushions. John rides the motion as well as he can, but not well enough to prevent Sherlock’s elbow from hitting his bare forearm.
John stares at a pair of closed eyes, at a smoothly rising and falling chest, and yet he knows Sherlock just woke up. He makes a quick grab for the battery-he’s buggered anyway-but Sherlock rolls onto his back and catches John’s wrist in one smooth motion. His skin is so cool. It feels the way fresh water tastes.
“John,” Sherlock says softly. His frown gives way to a sigh. “Hinges.”
“You okay?” John asks.
The frown returns. Sherlock nods, his hair scraping against the sofa arm. “Fine.”
John sits down on the sofa, setting the small of his back against Sherlock’s legs. His left hand drops to Sherlock’s hip. John sticks his thumb into Sherlock’s empty belt loop.
As fluid and natural as any stretch, Sherlock presses against the sofa, into it. “Go upstairs, John.”
John shakes his head.
“Why not?” Sherlock asks.
“I shouldn’t be alone like this.”
“Then I’ll sit in the hall,” Sherlock promises.
John doesn’t move.
“We’re going to go upstairs,” Sherlock tells him. “Together, the both of us.”
“It’s much cooler down here,” John says.
Sherlock touches his arm. “You’re feverish.”
John leans into the cool touch.
Sherlock’s breathing hitches and John tenses in an instant. He stares at the door, at the stairs, and he positions his body over Sherlock’s in a protective crouch.
“John,” Sherlock says, voice strained.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine--”
“But are you?” John demands.
Sherlock looks between John’s hands and his mouth. Sherlock’s pulse visibly beats in his neck. It’s racing. It shouldn’t be racing, not if Sherlock is fine. “John, will you do something for me?”
“Yeah.” John nods. “Yeah, of course.”
“Will you go upstairs with me?”
John tilts his head.
“I should clean up that bucket,” Sherlock explains. “I’d like help. Would you do that for me, John?”
“It’s a lot of fuss over shit and piss.”
“But will you?”
John nods, only because of Sherlock’s pleading expression. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” He sets his hand on Sherlock’s forehead. Sherlock flinches. “You’re like ice.”
“No, you’re burning.”
“I was burning before,” John says. “Not now.”
“Please go upstairs with me.”
“You don’t look all right to me.” Pulse too rapid, skin too cool and pale, breathing too shallow. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll be fine once I know you’re safe upstairs,” Sherlock says. “I promise.” His eyes sharp beneath John’s hand, he watches John closely. “I’m going to sit up now.”
John returns his hand to Sherlock’s hip.
Sliding against the sofa back, Sherlock sits up in the oddest way John has ever seen. Belatedly, John realises he’s crowding Sherlock. That’s it. Sherlock and his absurdly long legs, that’s all.
“John, can you bring me my jacket?”
“Yeah, okay.” John stands and fetches it. “Not surprised you’re feeling cold.”
Sherlock also stands. Sherlock holds out his hand.
John gives him the jacket.
Sherlock puts the jacket on and reaches into the pocket where the mobiles were. His expression sticks, not quite frozen, not quite shuttering. “Could you go upstairs in front and make sure the door doesn’t fall on me?”
“It’s fine,” John swears. “You’re safe.” He doesn’t move. Why move? They’re fine here.
“I’ll be upstairs,” Sherlock says. He steps toward the door, toward the staircase, toward leaving and he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be doing that, so John stops him. John grabs him around the middle, the tightest hug they’ve ever shared, and Sherlock slams his elbow into John’s side. John exhales harshly, his body bends, but it barely hurts.
Letting Sherlock leave, that would hurt. That can’t happen. If Sherlock left, John would just die. He would, he would curl up and die.
Instead, John kicks him in the legs, right behind the knee, and he secures Sherlock to the floor with the full weight of his body. “It’s okay,” John tries to explain. “Sherlock, trust me, it’s fine.”
Sherlock thrashes. Poor, exhausted Sherlock. He lashes out at John’s face. The exertion warms, but in a good way.
Straddling Sherlock’s torso, John catches Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock drags it back, pulls his own elbow to the ground and nearly frees his hand from John’s grip, but John follows, John follows him down and sets his mouth to the scalpel’s scab. He bites and he licks and Sherlock’s only making that noise because he doesn’t understand yet.
Flesh punctures between John’s teeth, pale, veined skin bunched by his mouth on the back of Sherlock’s hand. A trickle of heat touches John’s tongue. Oh, God. It’s everything he never knew he was waiting for.
He bites deeper, sucks harder. Sherlock’s other hand beats against the side of John’s head, but feebly. Sherlock must be so tired.
Slowly, Sherlock learns this is for the best. He holds still and lets John lick the bite clean. He lies on his back with his free hand over his eyes. John applies pressure with his tongue until the bleeding stops, more or less. John feels so much cooler already. He licks his lips, unsure if he’s tasting blood or bliss.
“I’ll bandage that,” John promises. “It’s okay, I’m taking care of you.”
Mouth firmly shut, eyes covered, Sherlock says nothing at all.
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