Fool's Gold

by tripodion

It starts, like anything else, with a dead body. John thinks it's pretty straightforward, right up until Sherlock declares that the murderer is an alchemist. Things start to spiral out of control after that.

"My son, be it quickly understood,
A cruel black dragon lurks in the wood."

---

Sherlock scoffed when people spoke to him of beauty in art. Oh, he liked most of it fine. He had a particular affection and affinity for music, anyone could see that, but visual art? Ay, there's the rub, and it rubbed him in all the wrong ways. Music had melodies and equations and formulas. There was no science, no useful information to be gained from a statue or painting, and religion even less so than fact. Epiphanies were not to be had looking at smears of colour; one simply did not find God in a painting, even if His hand was outstretched to you.

Some called his apathy towards art vitriolic; he called those people idiots. He did not hate art. He didn't understand it's appeal, is all. He could stare at a painting and feel the same way towards it as the rest of the world: bored. If he cared to analyse his feelings, perhaps it was this misunderstanding that made him frustrated with it. It was the worst kind of riddle, supremely uninteresting but an inigma all the same. It was as if he'd been handed a Rubik's cube with half the colours torn off.

As a child, Sherlock had never had patience for art. He saw nothing remotely useful or of interest to him in splashes pretending to be despair or boring English landscapes dotted with horses or vaginas masquerading as flowers or any other ridiculous means of expressionism. He liked symbolism until it became linked with conspiracy, that much was true, but he never saw any value if it was splayed on a canvas.

Over the years, his opinion remained unchanged, although he didn't. He got older. He got sober. He got wiser, emotionally, thanks to John.

Yet still Sherlock Holmes did not believe in art.

At least not until he was far into adulthood…too far to acknowledge what he'd been missing out on, yet at an age where he could objectively appreciate what he found and what he felt.

Lestrade had called, his voice like a curator promising a masterpiece to a collector. Sherlock had been wary; Lestrade found many things interesting that he didn't. But John reassured him that Lestrade knew his rule of not leaving the flat for anything below a seven; Sherlock threatened to boycott any further cases if this one was a disappointment. John laughed and chucked his scarf at him.

Sherlock now walks into the warehouse, John beside him, and for the first time in his life he feels moved by art, a stirring in his chest that feels like a ray of light strumming along his sternum, bright and warm. He feels as if the world has shifted under his feet, as if a blood-hot fist has wrapped around his lungs and squeezed the air out.

Oh, but she is beautiful. Bloated body, blue in the face, pale in everything else, congealed thick blood pooled beneath her, and she's breath-taking.

Sherlock thinks he might swoon.

What a work of art.

A woman, brunette, late-thirties, smoker, owned a short haired dog—most likely a terrier—, unmarried judging by the roots of her hair and unadorned ring finger, moderately attractive for her age and soft physique, worked in printing but in a high up position judging by the brightly coloured ink residue on her fingers as she flipped through a freshly printed copy this morning to check for errors she may have missed; so her publication is something that wants to be eye-catching, something controversial perhaps…

She lies in the centre of the empty, cold concrete, naked and painted in thick violent slashes of black that arc over pale skin, her arms spread out and her legs straight together. There is nothing outwardly erotic about how she's posed, but John coughs anyways out of uncomfortable politeness. How British of him.

The black lines seem to form a pattern, a picture, perhaps. She's supposed to represent something. The slashes look oddly familiar, overlapping each other in pert, layered triangles. An angel—but no, if this were religious in nature there would be other signs. No one leaves a body bare when they want to send a message.

Suddenly, he realises what she is.

"Quoth the raven…" He mutters, stepping around her to view this master stroke in a better light.

Her chest has been sawed open, an empty red space in the cavity where her heart should be. Sherlock sympathises.

Whoever the culprit was—and he'd already amassed his assumptions—they knew what they were doing. Amateur night was certainly over, although, to be fair, everyone was appallingly awful whenever they did something for the first time. This had not been the case, clearly. It was a love of art that was taken too far.

"Cause of death?" He asks as John steps forward to kneel beside her.

"Ventricular fibrillation, maybe," He responds after a moment. "But most likely asphyxiation or immersion syndrome."

Sherlock frowns. There aren't any visible markings around her neck, no bruising or discoloration to hint at her airway being blocked.

"What made you come to that conclusion?"

John looks up at him, brows knitted in the expression he uses when Sherlock says something unconventional.

"Her lungs are swollen; if the chest cavity of a drowning victim is opened after death, they tend to balloon out from the volume of whatever's in them." His gaze darts down and his hands cup the air around her, vaguely outlining the partially visible organs. "These are obviously distended; look how they're straining."

"What do you think that might be from?"

John pauses, thinking as his eyes dart to the two bloated objects that look like twin butterfly cocoons. Distantly, Sherlock wonders if caterpillars will crawl out if he slices them open. Wouldn't that be a sight? Or hundreds of monarchs bursting from split lungs; life born from death. John, however, wouldn't forgive him for the mess. Lestrade most definitely wouldn't either. Something to be saved for later, perhaps?

"I don't know." John says finally, reminding Sherlock that he had a conversation to pay attention to. "She'll have to be sent to Molly of course for us to really know, but for now my best guess is water. Her stomach contents need to be analysed too, although whatever is inside, she had to have been alive when it happened."

This warehouse is a lonely place to die, if indeed she did die here. Cold, empty, detached. Something to be avoided, where no one will hear you scream, cry, beg for your life…knowing you're your last chance and there's nothing you can do. That it's hopeless to scream, cry, beg for your life, so you don't. You don't even try. Total despondency. That's what the killer wanted, after all. To feel in control of something. Sherlock understands.

He crouches in front of the corpse, staring into the bloodied gap where that pale hunk of muscle belongs.

"Where's her heart?" He asks, loud enough for Lestrade to know he's being addressed.

"Haven't found it yet." He answers, stepping forward. "Got any theories on where it might be?"

"When a hunter shoots the deer, they keep its antlers." Sherlock answers solemnly, straightening up.

"You think he kept it as a souvenir?"

"Really, Lestrade," Sherlock scoffs. "Women are just as capable of becoming killers as men are. Widen your horizons, would you?"

"Sherlock's been an equal opportunity kind of man ever since Irene Adler made him see sense." John mutters to Lestrade.

"It's only logical." Sherlock says loudly, as if to dispel her name from the air of conversation. "Hundreds of years of soft philosophy and a patriarchal society have given them the upper-hand. Men tend to suspect other men in cases of extreme or excessive violence because they don't think to consider that a woman might be just as qualified."

"So you think they kept it as a souvenir?" Lestrade clarifies, crossing his arms. "Like Jack the Ripper?"

"It's a possibility." Sherlock admits as he kneels beside one of the dead woman's sprawled arms, carefully prying open her palm to reveal dark writing inked into her skin beneath a narrow patch of skin that's been neatly burned through clean to the other side of her hand.

"What the hell is that?" Lestrade asks, moving beside Sherlock.

"Evidently, something your team missed…although I no longer find it in me to be surprised." Sherlock says sharply, pulling his magnifier from his pocket.

A thin yellow powder lines the red edges of the burn, hovering over the careful lettering 'S16', which is underlined by a thicker stroke of something grey that appears fine and gritty, almost like sand.

"Do you have motives yet?" John asks Lestrade as they watch Sherlock examine the body.

"None so far other than sadism or the fact that they liked doing this to her—"

Sherlock sighs loudly if only to interrupt Lestrade.

"Can I help you, Sherlock? I take it this is where you correct me; we have known each other long enough for me to be able to tell without you being an arse about it. Although now I think it's more a knee jerk reflex for you."

"If it was sadism," Sherlock says as if he hasn't heard anything the DI has said. "You would see welts, bruising, something to indicate that she was beaten or tortured to suggest sexual gratification from suffering. Other than the hole in her chest and her palm, there's no telling mark on her."

"There are other ways of torture that you can't see, Sherlock." John says softly and they both smell chlorine and semtex.

"Well, that's rather pointless then," Sherlock sniffs, turning away as he shrugs off the latex gloves. "If she was psychologically tortured, it doesn't matter anything to us now since she's dead."

He turns around and inwardly winces at John's face, expression mirrored on Lestrade's.

"Not good?" He asks.

"A bit." John replies dryly and Sherlock understands that he's erred on the poorer side of social understanding.

"Where did I go wrong?" He enquires, all too familiar with the situation

"Usually one reserves some sympathy for someone who's gone through something like this, even if they're dead. Helps us cope with the brutality of it all."

"Why?"

John looks at him for a moment.

"Because no one likes being reminded that they're mortal, Sherlock. Really, you of all people should know that."

Sherlock does not.

---

Rain taps against the windows of 221B as it pours over London, trying to reach the warm light inside.

John sits in his chair by the fire, reading some other inane paperback and occasionally stopping for sips of tea as Sherlock bends over his microscope, the silence only broken by the fire popping or the turn of Sherlock adjusting the microscope.

Such a scene of domesticity. He'd never thought he'd live to see the day, much less one where he was happy with it. No, not happy. Content. It wouldn't well have done for him to call common domesticity happiness. Sometimes it made him want to scream and tear his hair out when John broke the quiet and clinked his teacup against the saucer. But right now, in this moment, everything was peaceful.

He stared through the microscope lens and felt he needed to throw his voice into the void of relative silence.

"I need vitriol."

John shuts his book, keeping the page with his thumb, and gives Sherlock a look as he raises his eyebrows.

"I think you've got enough of that, actually."

"Clever, John, but I was referring to sulphuric acid."

"Do I want to know why? Are the cabinets in danger of disintegration?"

"I need to compare it to the sample from the woman's hand."

"You think it's the same substance?"

"I suspect that, yes. It's extremely corrosive—the knowledge of which you've just demonstrated by inquiring about the safety of our cabinets—which would correlate with the long burn that appeared in her palm."

"And the other one? The grey line?"

"I was just getting there; patience will do you wonders, John, really—"

John opens his mouth to point out that Sherlock is the least credited person to talk about patience, when there's a great noise of someone climbing the stairs and Lestrade strides into the kitchen, slightly out of breath and carrying a folder.

"Ah, Lestrade, how fortuitous of you to join us. I was just about to share with John the contents of the substance on this Jane Doe's palm; lovely that I won't have to repeat myself. Is that Molly's report?"

"Jane's been autopsied and identified. Real name's Jane Samson."

"Take comfort in getting half her name right; the Yard's never been on such a winning streak."

Lestrade gives him a look that only endured suffering produces.

"She was—

"The editor of the science magazine Billet-Doux-Kuchaev, a slightly pathetic pun on Vasily Dokuchaev, a Russian geologist who founded the idea of soil science—so she must have been the life of the party—please tell me something that I might find enlightening."

The long-suffering look degrades into a long-suffering sigh as Lestrade pinches the bridge of his nose.

"You know, Sherlock, one day I'd really love it if you shared vital information with me the moment you learn it and save us all the suffering."

"I didn't know until this moment, although I was aware of the magazine's existence. I make it a habit of mine to familiarise myself with as many scientific journals as I can, accredited or not. Actually, the mad ones are usually a better read. Their confidence in their convictions is astounding—"

"You said you knew what was on her hand?"

"I do."

"And how exactly do you know that?"

"I took a sample." Sherlock admitted shamelessly. "I found bone and calcium residue. The line of grey beneath the S16? That's human ash."

"Christ." Lestrade murmurs, running a hand through his hair. "I'll let the fact that you took evidence pass if you tell me what the other substance was."

"Oh, please, that was easy enough. Any school student with a chemistry set would know what it was."

Lestrade and John look to him with twin befuddled expressions, waiting for him to continue.

"S16, the atomic number for sulphur. The sample on her hand was diluted with hydrogen peroxide as a kind of damage control, although it seems to have only partially worked as her palm wasmostly burned through. A quick search on the phrase 'sulphur and crow symbolism' brought me a most interesting result." He bends over his stack of books, searching through them for the one he wants. "Calcination."

"So…what, they're trying telling us she had a calcium deficiency?" Lestrade asks.

Sherlock slowly raises his head. The eye roll is so pronounced it's almost tangible.

"Sometimes I wonder if you're this stupid on purpose or it's just happy fortune smiling down on me." He bites, removing a book from the stack and opening it to retrieve a folded piece of paper.

"Go on then, correct me you massive prat."

"Calcination is essentially purification through fire." Sherlock says, handing the paper over so the two can look over it. "It's more archaically known as the first stage in the process of alchemical transformation, however unsuccessful that transformation usually is. The scientist—loathe I am to call them that—is supposed to psychologically use it to purge their ego for the coming metamorphosis they expect to occur. The crow is a symbol of Nigredo, the Black Phase of alchemy that's initiated to purify the subject of the transformation."

"Wait, alchemy?" John asks, looking up from the paper. "That pseudo-science stuff from Harry Potter?"

He should've predicted Sherlock's next eye roll.

"No, John. As ever you understand the basics but not the details." The detective says, straightening up. "Alchemy is a philosophical tradition more than scientific although in Western culture it's considered protoscience because it led to chemistry through the Arabians discovering distillation and sublimation by trying to change substances. It's generally agreed that the aim of it was to procure the philosopher's stone, which would grant the user immortality as well as the ability to turn base metals into gold. For an almost stupid amount of time it was believed that it could be made from porcelain, although how human logic makes the leap from prolonged life to gold to fine china one might never know or truly understand. Humans do have a fascinating tendency for shiny things."

John chose not to mention the fact that time Sherlock made them stop on their way to the Yard because he thought he saw the missing necklace of Dame Whatever of Somewhere Prestigious when it turned out to be a wad of discarded aluminium foil.

"Was it ever right? I mean…did any of the theories or ideas work?"

"In 1919 a scientist named Rutheford managed to knock the nucleus from one atom to another, thereby technically changing the substance, but otherwise, I'm quite sorry to say, alchemy has been wholly unsuccessful."

"I bet you dabbled in it."

"I do not dabble, John. Perhaps I sample occasionally—"

"Bet you fancied yourself a right Nicholas Flamel. Ever ring up Dumbledore asking for tips?"

"Honestly, John, sometimes I wonder about your mental maturity, and what's more Dumbledore is a fictional character—"

"Oh my god, you did!" Lestrade cuts in, smiling widely. "How did it go, then?"

Sherlock purses his lips.

"Not well."

"Is that something you can elaborate on or will I keep myself up at night wondering?" John asks.

"I hardly think it's worth pondering over." Sherlock says tersely, but leaves the question unanswered.

"And why would you need gold?" Lestrade questions. "Isn't your family one of those rich blue-blood types with palaces and a hundred servants? Did you sleep in a different bedroom every night?"

"If you are quite done," Sherlock bites, "I have investigating to do. Honestly Lestrade, with me doing your job, I still can't believe you get paid for things like this..."

"No, you're right, I should ask for a raise since they don't cover fraternising with mad gits with Napoleon complexes."

"John is shorter than I am, Lestrade, surely your deductive skills aren't that terrible."

"Yeah," John replies dryly. "Lately I've developed a keen interest in large hats and I've kept myself up at nights thinking of how to successfully invade Russia."

"I recommend thick winter coats." Sherlock says solemnly. "Or, better yet, avoid the idea of an invasion completely and find contentment with those you've already conquered. Napoleon did have a history of overreaching…"

"Yeah, he reminds me of you, funnily enough." Lestrade says, moving around him to lay the file on the kitchen table as he begins to flip through it before resting on a few photos from the crime scene.

"You think whoever killed her was an alchemist?" John asks, leaning on the other side of the table.

"It's possible." Sherlock admits. "The world never suffers from a shortage of people desperate enough for attention and mad enough to try and get it."

"And this woman—Jane Samson—she's supposed to represent the Crow? The first part of the alchemic process?"

"It's the most logical conclusion, yes."

"How many steps are there?"

"The general consensus seems to be that there are seven."

"Do you…do you think there will be more?" Lestrade asks tentatively, as if he doesn't want to hear the answer.

Sherlock stares at the picture of the corpse.

"I dare to hope so, yet fear there will be."

---

Three days pass.

The suspense in the anticipation of another murder nearly flees John's mind entirely, but he can tell Sherlock remembers. Sherlock frets. He paces, waiting for the call since he seems convinced that there will be one. John is more uncertain; serial killers aren't known to announce themselves quickly. There's always a pattern, and it usually tended to be a long one, especially after police attention has been drawn to them.

Sherlock's fingers drum on the counter after they've eaten dinner as he turns his microscope back on. He's only eaten the barest amount of food, a habit that makes John want to tear his hair out yet at the same time let Sherlock continue with his research. He felt like a mother hen, hovering over Sherlock until he'd eaten his fill. When he got up to clear the plates, he half expected himself to squawk and lay an egg.

"Did you really live in a palace with a hundred servants?" John asks as he manoeuvres around Sherlock to put the tea mugs away, tugging Sherlock back into the present from whatever cloud of thought he'd been caught in.

Sherlock doesn't seem to react other than trying to focus the microscope lens on whatever he's looking at.

"Do you think I did?" He says finally, and John's nearly forgotten he's asked a question.

John shrugs. "It's not too hard to imagine."

Sherlock whirls around on his chair, arms crossed.

"My family owns a manor house. We have one butler, Eustace. He's quite old and we keep him more out of fondness than necessity. My childhood and teenage years were spent annoying my schoolmates and exasperating my parents, much like any adolescent who asks too many questions. And no, I was not carried about on a throne by four servants to public school."

"Okay, but surely—"

"I did my own laundry, John." Sherlock says as if it answers whatever he was going to say.

"So did I, but that doesn't mean you folded and put it up too." John says, wiping at a wet plate with the dishtowel. He suddenly thinks of the image of Sherlock as a child, coming in from an experiment covered in mud and shedding his clothes carelessly over polished wooden floors as an older man silently picks them up after him, throwing them over his bent arm.

Sherlock thinks the matter is resolved, until John takes it upon himself to talk again.

"Did you have the Batcave under your house?"

"Really, John, that would require an astronomical amount of money—do use some sense."

John smiles as he dries another plate and it's one of Sherlock's favourite kinds of Johnssmiles; teasing and peaceful, playing at the corners of his mouth.

The ring of Sherlock's phone clangs through their warm domesticity.

"Lestrade." Sherlock says, answering John's unasked question as he straightens in his seat. "Hello?"

"You were right. There's another body."

---

Sherlock tosses the door to the cab open as soon as it pulls next to the kerb, leaving John, as always, to pay the slightly irritated driver. Apparently ceaselessly chanting 'Drive faster, you miserable little man' isn't the way to win over a cab driver. Sherlock doesn't mind. His track record with them isn't particularly good anyways; for that matter, neither is John's if manslaughter counted for anything.

The neighbourhood's turned itself out at the appearance of the police. Sherlock holds the tape up for John to go under as they walk into the narrow hallway of the high-end row house, as garishly decorated as any other in an expensive neighbourhood such as this one. Close proximity to Canary Wharf didn't come cheaply.

The living room, while well-furnished with expensive antiques, is absolutely sweltering with an oppressive, heavy heat that bears down on every inch of bare skin until it drew sweat in mere seconds. It very nearly knocks the breath straight out of Sherlock's lungs and he is barely two steps in before he ducks back out into the cooler hall and sheds his coat. He hears John swear quietly before he too joins him.

"Did you see that?" John asks quietly. Sherlock nods, wiping at the sweat that's already formed at his brow as he unties his scarf.

Their loss of clothes makes little difference in a heat so intense it made Sherlock's own skin feel heavy.

Lestrade stands in the middle of the glowing room, arms akimbo before he runs a hand in his damp hair, sweat already sticking his shirt to his skin. His body blocks the view of the chair in front of him, but Sherlock knows instinctively that's where the body is. It's only logical, after all.

He stands silently beside the Detective Inspector, staring down at the corpse.

He feels cymbals crash in his chest. He feels the shock of being utterly awed at the sight before him as a priest feels before Christ. He wants to prostrate himself at the murderer's feet, wash the blood off them and ask how they did it if only so he might know, so he might taste the sweet lightness of epiphany before they were locked away forever.

It's a man this time; how interesting that the killer is equal opportunity. He's older, late-fifties, slightly pudgy but not quite overweight, recently removed wedding band, mismatching cufflinks, stain on his tie, starting to smell a bit sour from the heat.

The heat. Easy enough to spot the source.

Sherlock's eyes dart around the room to the handful of large red lamps mounted on industrial strength stands.

"What are those, then?" John asks as he comes beside the two men, shrugging on a pair of latex gloves.

"Heat lamps." Sherlock answers. "Meant for reptiles being kept as pets. These are obviously built for larger snakes or lizards, among other things." He turns to Lestrade. "Why haven't you turned them off?"

"We only just got here." Lestrade says mildly. "Didn't want to risk cross contamination."

"How smart of you. Astonishing that the thought even crossed your mind."

Lestrade pointedly ignores the barb, turning to talk to a crime scene investigator for a moment. Sherlock steps forward and bends down to the man, hands skimming along his shirt collar and jacket. Light, but durable. Business most likely or possibly politics. Cheap detergent; he doesn't do his own laundry. Shirt is expensive, but well-worn. A downturn in fortunes. That would explain the missing wedding ring—

Hello…

A swatch of green catches his eye and he unbuttons the man's shirt, exposing his chest and the great painted sign underneath sprawling across it. It looks curved like a horseshoe, but at its western end it curves into a circle.

"That's a zodiac sign." A voice says behind him and he shuts his eyes. "For Leo, birthdays between July and August—"

"Yes, thank you Anderson, you can go host your fake psychic line with useless information like that and stop being an utter waste of space and my time."

"Sherlock." John says beside him and he knows the tone. Stop being a dick in public, please.

"John, it's Anderson for god's sake, not Lestrade! The day I show him deference is the day that the Queen crawls out of my—"

"Yes," John interrupts, ears going a bit red. "Thank you Sherlock, if you'll save the more colourful language for the flat where no one can hear you." He hisses.

"Does he save it for the bedroom, then?" Anderson says unthinkingly, as usual. "I'd hate to be on the receiving end, John, best of luck to you—"

"I wouldn't know. We're not together." John answers, his voice suddenly a little too civil. "But you may want to leave before he gets any worse. You're not doing yourself any favours as it is."

Anderson looks for a moment between the two of them and then cautiously decides to take his leave.

"Imbecile…" Sherlock mutters before turning to John. "Why did you correct him?"

"Because we're not a couple, Sherlock." John sighs.

"Yes, we are."

"We're not shagging—"

"Yes, because that is the absolute definitive sum of a relationship, whether we're shagging or not—"

"I'd appreciate it," Lestrade says, stepping between them. "If you didn't have a row in the middle of a crime scene."

"It's not really a row, Lestrade, so much as a domestic." Sherlock says and John rolls his eyes before stomping off to go pout somewhere, most likely in the vicinity of the forensic team. He'll want his mind off the topic so he can stave off the feeling of recognising denial a little while longer. Sherlock can wait; John is the only subject he has any patience in.

"So what's that, then?" Lestrade asks, gesturing to the symbol painted on the man's chest.

"Your village idiot said it's the zodiac sign for Leo, but I'm unfamiliar with the topic as personally I've never put much stock in weekly horoscopes telling me to believe in myself."

"Yeah, we wouldn't want you to get overconfident." Lestrade says dryly. "Why the zodiac? If this is by the same killer who did in that woman at the warehouse, it should have something to do with alchemy, right?"

"The mind of the mad is a peculiar thing. What makes sense to them rarely makes sense to us."

"That's your life summed up in a nutshell."

"Please, save your verbal pittance for another day. I'm thinking." Sherlock replies, bringing his hands to his temples.

"Didn't your parents ever teach you to do that silently?" Lestrade asks and Sherlock shoots him a glare. "Right, I'll leave you to it then."

Quietly, John sidles up to him, case file open in his hands.

"Name's Richard Thompson. Stockbroker in them middle of a second divorce…apparently his birthday is tomorrow." John says with a 'tch' of pity. "That's a shame—"

Why missing out on cake and pseudo-good feeling about living one more year is a celebratory occasion, Sherlock doesn't know, and tomorrow would have been a very lonely day indeed for this Richard Thompson so it was almost a mercy that he missed it—

"Wait!" Sherlock cries, bringing his hands from his face to point to John. "Say that again!"

"He didn't even get to see it—"

"No, the other thing!"

"His birthday is tomorrow, that's a shame?"

"Tomorrow is the 12th of November."

"Yeah…"

"Leo is for birthdays from July to August, if what Anderson said can be trusted, loathe I am to say it."

Lestrade joins them at Sherlock's outburst, frowning. "Why would there be the wrong sign?"

"Because it's not about the zodiac—obviously." Sherlock says, sending a sharp glare back to Anderson.

"Then what is it about? Alchemy?"

"'All our purifications are done in fire, by fire, and with fire,'" Sherlock quotes. "The death of Jane Samson was the introduction, but not the first step, or perhaps the two are pairs since Calcination, the burning of the soul to purify it for the coming transformation, is usually represented by the Red Lion or the King being burned alive or sitting inside a sweat box. Fitting, as metaphorically this matches both images."

"Alright," Lestrade continues slowly. "But what's this got to do with him?" He asks, gesturing to the dead man.

"Symbolism, maybe. He was well-off, but a businessman on a downturn, the perfect vehicle for someone wanting to send the message that even gold can dissolve under the Red Lion."

"Jesus…" Lestrade mutters, if only because he has nothing else to say. "Why? Why are these people dying?"

When Sherlock speaks next, his voice is low, quiet, an utterance to himself more than the others.

"A madman will write his message in blood if he wants people to listen to him."

"Well, that's lovely and all," John says as he interrupts the stilted atmosphere. "But there's still the question of how he died."

"The theory now is that he died of heat stroke—" Lestrade begins.

Sherlock sighs. "And your winning streak comes to a grinding, premature halt."

"Please, Sherlock, by all means, enlighten us."

"The paint at the curve of the zodiac sign, it's smeared at the edges and there's a stripe across his right hand. He was clutching at his chest. My guess would be cardiac arrest, or perhaps he was attempting to sing God Save the Queen one last time."

"Sherlock, do you think maybe you could try being civil instead of a smartarse for three seconds—" Lestrade is cut off by his phone ringing and he fumbles it out of his pocket. "Hello? Yes. What? Where did you hear that? No, I—no, of course it's not true. I don't know where you got your information, but it's wrong. Yes, it is. That's classified. Well then I guess you'll find out with the rest of the press, then, won't you?"

He hangs up with a gruff sound of irritation.

"The Daily Mail's calling to see how soon they can start calling these 'The Quicksilver Murders'. Can't really see why, though."

"Oh, I'm betting the writer did a quick search on alchemy and decided it sounded best." Sherlock replies. "Journalism tends to fret more about how appealing it is than how informative."

"If the word gets out that there will be more of these, the public will go into a panic." Lestrade says grimly.

"That is what people do in times of crisis. When they have no control."

Lestrade sighs. "I'll do my best to keep this under wraps, Sherlock, but I need you to work with me without question, alright? If a third body turns up and you're in the mood to mouth off or disrespect my team, I'll be in a mood to haul you to the Yard, keep you there, and send pictures of John and I having the bloody time of our lives at a crime scene you're not at, is that understood?"

"Quite." Sherlock says in a clipped tone.

"Wonderful. Now, do you have any theories on the killer yet?"

Sherlock purses his lips.

"Oh, more than a few."

---

For the fourth time in five hours Sherlock, frustrated by the case, ruffles his hair in agitation and for the fourth time, John is reminded of how much his flatmate resembles a wet cat after a bath: irritated and with a mean disposition and worse mood, wild flyaway hair going whichever way it pleases.

He sighs.

"Oh, will you stop doing that?" Sherlock yells from the kitchen and John shuts his eyes.

"Doing what, exactly?" He answers. He's sewn soldiers up in the middle of firefights in the pitch black dark in Afghanistan. Surely he can handle Sherlock on a bad day.

"EXISTING!" Sherlock bellows, striding into the parlour looking every bit the mad scientist. Wild hair, crazed electric eyes…John almost expected him to flip a switch and shock his raggedy, home-made monster into existence.

"Feeling a bit peaky, are we?" John asks calmly with a raise of his eyebrows and subsequently ducks the embroidered pillow Mrs Hudson made them as Sherlock tosses it at his head.

"Right, how about I make you some toast and then see where you go from there—"

John stops as the doorbell rings once, short and brief.

He looks to Sherlock, who seems as confused as he does.

They both speak at the same time.

"Did you order anything?"

---

Sherlock's day was not progressing as he'd hoped.

After Lestrade dismissed them from the crime scene, his head had been buzzing with ideas. The swatches of paint on the dead man's chest were thick, but not more so than any female with large fingers…of course the lines could have been interrupted by his heart attack. And what's more it correlated with the lines on Jane Samson, so the same hands had painted each body—this killer was right handed of course—plus they liked to work with paint, which bespoke more of a creative background than anything else; this killer was apt to have multiple jobs and last a very short time at each before moving on. Low attention rate perhaps, or a discomfort with anything routine or familiar. They were disillusioned easily. They liked to wander. That added up to a reasonable bet that they had within themselves some sort of hero complex; they wanted to change the world and, frustrated by their lack of doing anything important, they turned to the other extreme. Make people notice them. Make them listen. How do you do that? Kill lots of people. Make them fear you. They'll pay attention then.

And a student of alchemy. That was interesting. Although anyone with an internet connection or nearby library could look it up and call themselves an expert. Something about the idea of change appealed greatly to this person. They were dissatisfied with some aspect of their life, most likely their invisibility to the audience they wanted. There certainly wasn't an age cap on learning, but judging by their background they'd most likely be in the middle of adulthood. If they were younger, they would still have the optimism so common of youth, and if they were older, they would be too jaded to act. No, they were Sherlock's age, or thereabout. He knew the feeling all too well. The internal screaming telling you to be noticed, the rage at being unappreciated when you knew you should be. The disappointment that turns bitter and poisonous and so very, very potent if you directed it at something that could be destroyed. This killer, they didn't have a John Watson or a Greg Lestrade; someone who offered the necessary tools to keep their mind occupied. A basic presence to cancel out the acidic rage.

How lucky he had been.

He flips through the file.

There hadn't been any DNA left at the first crime scene, but perhaps with this man a partial fingerprint would turn up or a drop of blood or hair follicle, although considering Anderson was heading the team the chances of retrieving anything remotely useful dwindled down to an almost negative amount.

A heavy frustration wells up inside him, swollen with impatience, and, as is common with someone who can't convey what they feel, he lashes out.

"Oh, will you stop doing that?"

"Doing what, exactly?" John answers, and his voice is too calm and unaffected to appease the great red irritation.

"EXISTING!" He shouts back as he strides into the parlour. John sits there with a stupidly endearing expression on his face.

"Feeling a bit peaky, are we?" John asks calmly with a raise of his eyebrows and Sherlock grabs the nearest thing he can find and tosses it at his annoyingly stupid face.

"Right," John says and damn him for dropping the pillow and dealing with Sherlock like an adult instead of indulging his desire for a fight. "How about I make you some toast and then see where we go from there—"

John's cut off as the doorbell rings once, short and brief. Not a client—or at least not one in the rush so common to them—and too brief to be a visitor either—no one goes out of their way to visit them unless they want something.

He looks to John.

"Did you order anything?" They ask each other.

"I didn't." John answers.

"Nor did I." Sherlock says, frowning.

John gives him a lingering, suspicious look before he goes downstairs, but it's true. All of his lab equipment is still intact—technically—so he had no need to order anything that he couldn't just take from Bart's.

Sherlock moves back into the kitchen, bare feet grazing cold tile. He hears John come back up the stairs and enter the flat, his footsteps absentmindedly crossing the floor so he's preoccupied with something, a package most likely, and Sherlock hears the slice of the paper as he opens it.

There's a brief silence.

"Sherlock!" John calls, and suddenly Sherlock is no longer annoyed with him.

Suddenly, Sherlock can't seem to run to the parlour fast enough.

He hears many things as John speaks his name. He hears revulsion, disgust, horror, but that's not what sends him running. In John's voice, he hears fear, and that scares him more than anything. He hears stoicism masquerading as bravery, he hears the ticking of bombs and an Irish brogue and John's desperation and the space between the kitchen and the living room seems like miles.

"John? John, what is it?" He reaches out and grasps John's shoulder to turn him around.

In John's hands, there is a parcel.

In that parcel, there is a human heart spattered with dried blood and gold paint.

There is a note.

Jane Samson sends her regards. Yours is next, Sherlock Holmes.

---

It reeks of Moriarty.

It's not Moriarty, of course.

No, no, this is much more interesting. Moriarty has no appeal to him anymore, not since he strapped John to enough semtex to level a building. He is, with utter certainty, very, very dead, his loathsome body rotting in the shallow grave it deserves.

Sherlock stares over steepled fingers at the heart, that stiff, tough mass of muscle. It sits on the kitchen table—"On a napkin, please!" John had demanded, although why that mattered when there had been far worse things on the table's surface Sherlock didn't know (John likes small comforts he reminds himself, so he quietly acquiesces)—lonely and dead. The epitome of human existence, laid out on a paper towel in the flat of someone it had never beaten in front of. In the deeper parts of his imagination, Sherlock liked to believe it was smudged in ink like it reflected its owner's personality. John's would be something dabbed with something nice and pleasant like heavy cream or laundry detergent or rich earth that fine wine grew in. What would his be covered in?

Sherlock's would be sterile, dry and scientific and untouched. The perfect control for an experiment; new from the box, never used.

John comes in with his medical kit and sighs as he rolls up his sleeve.

"Thank you for using a napkin." He says as he opens the kit.

Well, Sherlock decides, his heart is very seldom used.

"What do you think we should do with it?" John asks, palms flat on the counter.

"Open it, of course."

"Open it? Sherlock, it's somebody's heart, I don't think there'd be much to find—"

"How much does the human heart normally weigh, John?"

"About 9 or 10 ounces."

"Tell me, when you lifted it from the box, did it feel like nine or ten ounces?"

"Well, no, it felt a little heavier, but it can change with the person—"

Sherlock takes the heart between his gloved hands and shakes it.

"Easy, Sherlock!" John says in agitation. "It's not a Kinder Egg, there's not going to be a bloody toy inside—"

"On the contrary, John, there is something inside. I can hear it."

"Well if you open it and there's nothing you can explain yourself to Lestrade."

"I shall be perfectly content explaining it to him, John," Sherlock says, grabbing a scalpel from John's kit. "But thank you, as ever, for your endearing support."

"I don't see why the murderer would put anything inside her heart, I think they made their point clearly enough just by sending it to us…"

"Oh, John, do be open-minded. That's what they'd want." Sherlock huffs before turning his attention to the heart, carefully drawing the scalpel down through the tight muscle as it slices through the thin resistance of the dried paint. He reaches for the forceps and carefully pries both sides of the heart apart, feeling like a child on Christmas morning opening their presents.

"Oh come on—" John turns to Sherlock with a wide grin.

The detective frowns, eyes narrowing at what he sees.

Fatty tissue, pale muscle stretched rubbery and taut, but other than that, there's nothing.

"You don't have to agree with me on this, Sherlock, but for once, will you just say I was right—"

"Even if you prove me wrong, I will never agree with you." Sherlock says monotonously, the tone John knows he reserves for when he's sulking.

"Yes, because we never agree on anything."

Sherlock gives him a look and John can tell he's making a list of all the things they disagree on. Violin at four in the morning, binge fasting, what constitutes an experiment versus milk that's gone bad that John has the right to know which is which before he's poured it in his cereal and took a bite(quite the row over that one; it deserved a medal in red-faced shouting).

Fortunately, Sherlock says nothing.

He picks up the scalpel again and softly draws it through the fleshy innards in front of him.

He can't be wrong. There has to be something. There has to be a reason for that weight, for that faint clattering sound he heard, there's always a reason—

"Ha!" He calls brightly as he feels the edge of the scalpel meet something in the darker recesses of the tender muscle. Carefully, he reaches in and draws it out.

"Are those…dog tags?" John asks, leaning forward to look at them.

Sherlock squints as he peers closer at them—there seems to be words printed on the circular stamp of metal, but he can't make them out—

Yes, he can.

He blanches.

"Is that…" John inhales suddenly behind him, sharp and quick. "Sherlock, are those mine?"

Wordlessly, Sherlock shoves himself away from the table and paces the length of the kitchen, hands carding through his hair.

The metal glint of John Watson's dog tags shine up at the ceiling.

---

Sherlock feels a wave of violation as he stares down at the bare table.

They've been inside his home, in this place that his and John's and not theirs. They've been in John's room, rifling through his things like a common thief. They've been close to John, so close, and neither of them even realised it. How dare they even have the arrogance to traipse around this flat as if it were theirs, what gave them the right to—to—

He exhales heavily through his nose. He is getting upset over material things that mean nothing to him. What does he care if they danced around in his underwear and did the hula?

But…some part of him feels tainted that a stranger has wandered around the place where he felt truly safe, protected from the outside world. Anything could happen out there in London but nothing could harm him here, whether he's experimenting or throwing a tantrum or experiencing those peaceful scenes of domesticity when John's reading or chastising him to eat that should sicken him to the core but seem almost ideal to him.

John is on the phone with Lestrade, discussing the thumbprint on the back of the dog tags. He had felt obliged to report it. Sherlock didn't want him to; his home had been intruded upon enough and he had the sudden urge to lock the door, throw the blinds shut, and clutch John to him in the warm dark so nothing could get to him without answering to Sherlock first.

That had been two hours ago. Sherlock had stayed in the kitchen, staring at the space where the tags had sat, smeared with dried blood and flecks of gold until Lestrade had arrived to whisk them off to the Yard for analysis.

He will find them. He will. They will never get that close to John again. John is vital, the oxygen to his blood. If he is harmed, there will be nothing in this world that will stop Sherlock from finding the one responsible for it. He's already seeing red and it's only John's possessions that have been touched.

Mycroft would call it sentiment. Sherlock calls it self-preservation.

He tilts his head towards John as he steps into the kitchen, shutting his phone with a sigh.

"They found a match for the print; an address too."

Sherlock knew they would. He doubts the print is the actual culprit's; they don't seem careless enough.

"Sherlock?" John asks, and his gaze darts to him. "Are you coming?"

Yes, he wants to say, but you will stay here and I will wall you up and lock you in and you are never to leave until I find who did this and destroy them in their entirety because you are colour to a blind man and I will be damned if someone thinks they're smart enough to take you from me.

But he does not say these things. He knows better. He's learned that they are A Bit Not Good.

Instead, he nods.

---

John stands silently beside him as they ride up the elevator to the penthouse suite of an expensive looking apartment complex, the architecture all stainless steel and polished glass and so garishly and utterly modern.

The door opens up to a blindingly white foyer bedecked with gold and black décor, every surface immaculate and spotless and so alien for Sherlock, who is used to ugly chairs and tacky wallpaper and mismatched stacks of war novels and science journals and boxes of slides littering every open space.

He and John share a glance with each other, both wondering if Irene Adler has started working in interior design, before heading down the narrow hallway that opens up into a living room spotted with members of Lestrade's team.

"You're here, wonderful." Lestrade says, dropping a leaf of papers back onto the gilded coffee table, and Sherlock is unsurprised to see the large tomes underneath that were so common with a vapid high-class culture pretending to be sophisticated. Other than the mess his team was currently making, the flat looked as untouched as the lunch room of a modelling agency. Too untouched for someone to live there…

"A home office?"

"You'll never guess of who though—"

"Of whom and it's quite obvious that it belongs to a high-end call girl, one Lily Teague if I'm not mistaken."

Lestrade stares at him for a moment.

"I know I've learned not to list you as a suspect, Sherlock, despite the fact that you seem to know things that only a very few list of people can know—"

"I observe, Lestrade, do use your head. The fashion magazines on the table in the foyer are addressed to her and the decoration around the flat is quite obviously feminine—if you doubt that, have a chat with John on whether he knows about the colour schemes you see here because I rather doubt a typical man would unless it was their profession—and she clearly knew what she was doing, so she either had to hire a decorator or she was one herself. When the former is considered, it must then be speculated on what exactly her job was, as she would have had to make quite a lot of money to contract someone with tastes this refined. Certainly she could have been a banker or stockbroker or editor or held some other fanciful occupation, but when the fact that this flat is situated closely to Canary Wharf as well as that it is virtually unlived in, one can make the conclusion that the owner did not spend much time in it and instead worked on her contacts in the financial district to rope in more clients, of whose time she spent more of at their homes or a nice hotel than her own. Plus," Sherlock reaches into his pocket and draws something out. "It wasn't too much of a stretch to imagine. She has it written on her business cards."

"Is there anything else you want to surprise me with?"

"Other than the obvious fact that she's not the killer but most likely the next victim? No."

"The next victim? Her fingerprint was on the dog tags found in the first woman's heart, I know you recognise that's pretty incriminating evidence, and weren't you the one who was so adamant that the killer was a woman?"

"That does not mean that they are, Lestrade," Sherlock bites irately. "And did you consider possible motives or did that fly right over your tiny little head?"

"She could've been stiffed by a client—"

"Please use what meagre intellect you have and save me the trouble of correcting you because, really, it does get quite tedious. She was a call girl, not a syphilis-riddled prostitute from East End! Do you really think she would schedule sessions without being absolutely sure the client would pay her? And what's more, do you think that the editor of a failing science magazine would be able toafford her? Not on her salary, and a quick glance around this flat tells us that she certainly wouldn't have done it out of charity."

"What about the other man? Richard Thompson? He looks like he could have had the money!"

"Certainly, yes, and I wouldn't be surprised to know that he did do business with her, but why mark him as well as Jane Samson if they were unrelated? Their murders were pre-meditated, you know that crimes of passion are messy, now think of the two crime scenes? Not a spot of beneficial evidence. They knew what they were doing. One does not simply kill their client then take the excessive measure of cutting their heart out, stamping their own fingerprint on it and sending it to a consulting detective because they were angry at not being paid. They had a plan, and I can assure you it's far from over."

"This Lily Teague, then. Where do you think we'll find her?"

"A woman as meticulous as this would keep a record book for insurance against her clients. I suggest we start there."

---

Sherlock hates the smell of chlorine. He's always hated it, but Moriarty certainly didn't do it any favours.

He stands by the edge of the pool, looking down at the pale, red-headed corpse that will be identified shortly as Lily Teague.

She's objectively attractive, with all the positive aesthetics that Western culture attributes to beauty. Large eyes, narrow, straight nose, bow-shaped lips, full breasts, and narrow waist. Certainly a figure that would turn heads when it walked past them, although of course it wouldn't anymore.

He wishes John would stop staring.

She's naked, like Jane Samson, and Sherlock was sure that many before him had paid a large price for what he was seeing for free. Death had an uncanny ability to strip everything of its value. Her open eyes stare at the ceiling of the expensive hotel's pool, arms and legs laid straight. Her white skin is unblemished but for the seven budding white lilies neatly sewn into an S shape across her chest, interrupted by a black caduceus inked from her stomach to clavicle.

Her nudeness, however blatantly distracting it may be, is, quite thankfully not why John is staring at her, although the real reason is far more unsettling.

The space her abdomen had occupied was now empty, the squared chunk of flesh cleanly cut away, laying now at her feet.

Dissolution. The Second Stage, the dissolving of the ashes left over from Calcination, the return to the innocence of the womb, symbolized by images such as menstruation, flooding water, and plants blooming with seven flowers.

Sherlock feels an overwhelming sense of failure. Not because this woman is dead and mutilated, but because it has taken him so long—too long—to find this killer, and he knows that he is cleverer than they are, that it shouldn't be this hard, that there is nothing he can do about it if he doesn't start thinking.

"Do you know what keeps your organs in place, John?" He asks in the quite noise of the forensic team's investigation.

He can feel John's gaze dart to him from where he talks with Lestrade.

"In what context?" John replies, voice magnified by the high ceiling. Sherlock hates how his voice echoes through the pool, hates how he must remind himself that this situation and that situation are incredibly different and that John is here of his own volition, not Moriarty's.

"Why don't they move all around your body like the contents of a lava lamp?"

"You…Is this a rhetorical question or something you expect me to answer?" John asks as he walks to Sherlock's side.

"An answer would be beneficial."

"It's called fascia. Dense, flexible tissue comprised mostly of collagen. Kind of like latex, I guess. Keeps everything in place for the most part; its track record of preventing disembowelment is, unfortunately, complete shite. Why'd you want to know?"

"I think the killer has a preoccupation with slicing people open and making sure their organs are displaced."

"So, what, you think they like performing fasciotomies?"

"I think they had one themselves, actually. They feel repulsed by it, so they wish to make others just as ugly as they are."

"Well, a fasciotomy isn't exactly the easiest thing to do, Sherlock. They're used to relieve pressure from an inflamed area, and you have to be sure you're removing the right amount and area or there will be nerve or muscle damage. It's not something you just decide to try. The patient would be in an excruciating amount of pain if you did it wrong."

"I don't think they were too concerned with how comfortable the victim was, to be honest. If anything, I'd say it was done post-mortem, so you can rest easier at night knowing she didn't suffer…" He turns to look at John and sighs. "I did it again, didn't I?"

"A bit, yeah."

"I am trying."

John smiles. "I know."

"Why do you think they left that—um—particular area behind?" Lestrade asks. "If they kept the heart as a souvenir, why leave this?"

"Why did they leave her vagina?" Sherlock asks, unfazed, as Lestrade's ears redden. "Please call it by its proper name, Lestrade, it's only the respectful thing to do. We are not schoolboys in the yard anymore."

"I didn't know they had yards at Eaton." Lestrade mutters and John chuckles.

The look Sherlock shoots him could kill.

"I will address all of the reasons that were wrong with that statement later, after I first focus on all of the things that you said about the killer that are incorrect."

Sherlock takes a few steps forward then turns, his coat flaring dramatically behind him as he stares down at Lily Teague's body.

"The killer did not take Jane Samson's heart as a souvenir, which was evidenced by them sending it to us. No one takes something out of emotional attachment to gift it to someone else—"

"It wasn't a gift, Sherlock," John interrupts. "We're not going to frame it for guests to see."

"Nevertheless, John, we can't ignore the fact that it was given to us, which means it was taken for that purpose; to let us know that we were being observed. So the killer does not take organs out of sentimental value. Now, as to what I said earlier, I do wonder if there is some merit to the fact that they are disfigured by something—or at least believe they look like they are. They are frustrated, and they want people to feel as ugly as they do, so they cut them open, make a scene out of them, and find that they sleep better at night, so they do it again. But then there comes the problem of practise. They know what they're doing and they know not to leave evidence behind, which suggests that they've done this before—or have thought a great deal about it—and that they work in law enforcement or otherwise watch a lot of mediocre crime shows and take notes. Yet they sent us that heart. Why? We know that they took it, so it wasn't a revelatory message, but they promised that my heart is next—honestly, they never learn to threaten anything else, why not my larynx, perhaps, or my spleen?—which suggests that they are familiar enough with me to presume they know where my weaknesses are. They're absolutely wrong, of course, but we can let them continue thinking they're right for the moment; I like to think of it as Black Down."

"As what?" Lestrade asks, looking as if he's struggling to keep up with Sherlock's thought process.

"Black Down." Sherlock repeats. "When Bristol was being bombed by the Luftwaffe the nearby area of Black Down was disguised to resemble Bristol under a blackout so the Germans would bomb it instead of the real town. Quite similar to this, but, lest I fall into Mycroft's habit of naming plans that will ultimately fail after events in World War II British history, I will draft a second option, something that never seemed to cross his mind."

He comes to stand beside John, who stares down at the body with a vague curiosity that Sherlock can only hope is his attempt at subpar deduction. Something all-encompassing and burning and quick crashed through him; he feels like he's drunken something hot that scalds his insides.

John is not theirs to have.

"What about the caduceus and the lilies?" John asks, looking to Sherlock.

"The lilies are a play on her name, and, since they symbolise chastity, I'm assuming they're also intended as black humour."

"And the caduceus?" John asks and, when he gets no response, adds "Sherlock?"

"Hm?"

"The caduceus?"

"Oh, yes, that. The serpent is a symbol of expansion of knowledge and the wings represent ascension, so it's about ascending to another existence through knowledge."

His words are a little too rushed for John to believe they're the truth. Sherlock can tell that he'll ask later, when they're at home or eating, and he'll have to think of a lie that will explain it.

Not theirs. Mine.

"I've got Molly's report on the ash you found on Jane's hand." Lestrade says, flipping through the open file in his hand. "We couldn't find a match, obviously, but someone did report a missing urn from a home break-in recently. We think they might be connected, and I've had the new DC follow up on it."

"Give me their name and number. I'll need it."

"As long as you promise not to be an annoying git and harass her, she's over there." Lestrade says, pointing to a young woman taking DNA samples from the corpse.

"John." Sherlock says curtly and John sighs, heading over to the woman. It's not like he's asking him for anything impossible; she's good looking, so John will be interested enough to get her number. Not for recreational purposes, of course. A crime scene is hardly a place to find a date.

"What about her lungs?" Sherlock asks suddenly.

"What?"

"John said her lungs were distended with something. What was it?"

Lestrade hesitates for a moment. That's A Bit Not Good.

"Molly said she found a solution of mercury and soda ash. Does that mean anything to you?"

Sherlock purses his lips.

"The Daily Mail should feel proud of themselves, then. Quicksilver is the archaic name for mercury. Soda ash is what remains after Separation, the third stage of the alchemical process, which is what this represents. My guess would be that the killer wants to create a Philosopher's Stone of their own, or some version of it, which makes them subsequently more dangerous because they will believe themselves to be immortal—"

He stops as he hears John's laugh.

John is laughing at something that woman has said and it's distracting Sherlock from what matters because he thought John only laughed like that at things he said, not this stupid, idiotic girl that is so unimportant in their lives; he must make sure she stays that way. She only has access to a possibly related crime scene and that most certainly does not deserve John's prolonged attention. He's gripped by the desire to walk over and seize John by the shoulders and drag him off somewhere dark and quiet so they could be alone, but that would leave him without access to the case files he needs so he supposes that before they could make any progress they would have to get past that slobbering hound.

"Sherlock?" Lestrade asks and he turns back. "You were saying something?"

John's laugh grates on his concentration.

He gets out his phone.

---

John has a date tonight. With that stupidly common DC from the crime scene. Emma Bird. Typical name. Fitting. Dull. Ordinary.

Sherlock doesn't know what he sees in her. John says she's nice. Sherlock says no one is ever just nice, they're that way for a reason, and it's only a matter of time before John's tied up in some hidden sex dungeon in her basement waiting for Sherlock to save him before she gets the ticklers out.

It's because she's pretty and laughs at his jokes. Sherlock is capable of both those things; why isn't he enough then?

Because John doesn't know.

John straightens his tie. The one he wears when he wants to impress. Sherlock wants to vomit, preferably all over it because then John will have no choice but to cancel and stay here and look after him.

Tell him. Tell him. He doesn't know.

He turns to Sherlock, holding his arms out for inspection.

"Well?"

Why can't this be for me? Why aren't you mine?

"Your jacket is three years out of date and the elbow is wearing through. She will not be impressed." Sherlock huffs before turning on his heel and leaving an utterly bemused John in the parlour.

He'll just go to Bart's. That's what he'll do.

---

Emma is nice. John knew she would be. He could tell.

Her smile is straight, white, and easy. She laughs at the slightest things he says and God help him if it doesn't make him feel a little bit cocky. He is sitting at this table with a woman far too beautiful to be in his league, and she's laughing at his jokes and smiling and actually carrying conversation. She was a little late, but John can forgive that, mainly because once she starts talking he doesn't want her to stop.

She talks about growing up as a child in Sussex, about her uncle teaching her to paint and how her older brother joining the Yard prompted her to as well. She tells him about India and China, about working as a student in the slums of Mumbai, raising children while their mothers were out begging, teaching them some semblance of English so they'd have a better chance of getting actual jobs that didn't involve digging through trash or carrying buckets of human waste.

The doctor in him, the one who harbours the desire to help people in need, likes her, likes the passionate look in her eyes that she gets when she talks about humanity thriving in squalid conditions.

Hell, John likes her and it's only been an hour into their date.

She asks about Sherlock, which surprises him a little since he's usually the one talking about him, but then he remembers that she works with Lestrade, so the name Sherlock Holmes is well known.

"Surely he can't be all he's cocked up to be." She says with a smile.

"Well people think that, but really he's just as immature and frustrating and brilliant as he seems."

"Why do you stay with him then, if he's like that?"

"How much time have you got?" He asks and she laughs. "Some days I really question that myself, but I suppose it's because—"

Their phones chime at the same moment and they look to each other.

Your immediate assistance is needed. SH

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear." Emma smiles, holding up her phone.

Tell John to leave your date as soon as he can. SH

"Sorry." John sighs, typing on his phone. "He does that."

BUSY, SHERLOCK.

"It's alright." Emma grins. "I knew it would happen eventually. He's got the whole Yard on speed dial, even the janitor."

This is not a joke John. I am not asking you to bring me anything nor am I trying to sabotage your pathetic attempt at a date; I am telling you that you need to come home as soon as possible. Something's happened. SH

John's hand is shaking too much for him to continue texting so he dials Sherlock's number.

Oh god, he's probably burned the flat down or he's hurt himself or Mrs Hudson—I need to invest in those safety corners and drawer protectors that parents use with infants, or better yet put him in a big plastic bubble…what if he's been poisoned? All those chemicals were bound to get mixed up, not to mention the mould cultures he was growing, they could be a biohazard—

"John."

"Sherlock? What's wrong?"

---

John stands in the doorway, slack jawed. Sherlock can't blame him. Emma isn't present, which is a relief. John said he felt bad enough breaking off their date to bring her back, and rightly so as no woman would want to come home with him and see this.

Their flat is a mess.

Of course, that's nothing different because it's always a mess, but this is excessive.

The floor is littered with the debris of the pseudo-tornado that whipped through their flat, objects swept off the table and books thrown from the shelves in a fit of rage, a search fuelled by jealousy and anger and desperation. Sherlock's equipment lay strewn about the kitchen, mostly intact, although some shattered slides were scattered across the floor.

Sherlock's own room had fared no better, the cover and sheets of his bed crumpled in a heap on the floor, his dresser drawers thrown open and rifled through. His dreaded learning the fate of his sock index…

This is good, though. Not the mess, but the fact that the killer was desperate enough to break into their flat to see how close they were to catching them. He'll have to dust every surface of the flat, look for prints, for anything that might point him in the right direction. If they were so careless that breaking and entering seemed like a good idea then their chances of making a mistake had skyrocketed—

"Sherlock?" John calls and he pauses. His tone is low and stern. Not promising.

Reluctantly, he heads into the parlour, ducking into the stairwell and back in again to avoid the mess in the kitchen.

John hears him come in and turns, wordlessly holding up Sherlock's phone so he can see the screen.

If you want to play, you know where to find me.

SH

He blinks at the indisputable evidence of his betrayal, although that's hardly what he'd call it, but John would.

When John speaks, his voice is hard and quiet and Sherlock knows he's done something Not Good.

"The last time you did this, Sherlock, I had to bury you."

Sherlock shuts his eyes. John sounds so…disappointed.

"I understand why you're upset, but technically you didn't bury me—"

"That's not the point here and you know it! The point is that when you get bored you play games and you don't realise just how dangerous they are. You don't care who you hurt and last time I called you a machine for it, but we both know that's not right. You're a child, Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock's eyes narrow.

"How funny it must be," He says lowly. "To call me a child and think that I haven't already considered the consequences of my actions."

"It's not funny, it's the truth!"

"Why is that?"

"Because sometimes I really don't think you understand what your actions do to people! This?" He says, holding up the phone. "That was not on, Sherlock. What if you or I hadn't gone out and they found us here? What if they attacked Mrs Hudson? You let a serial killer into our flat! Did you give them your keys too?" John shuts his eyes. "You don't get to decide these things on your own anymore."

"So you're suggesting I pass everything by you first? That's a wonderful impersonation of a fascist, John, really, high marks all around. I'm about to breathe a few times, is that alright with you or do I need express permission?"

John takes a deep steadying breath.

"That's not what I'm saying at all, Sherlock. I think that after I watched you die, after I buried you and came home to find you sitting in my flat three years later like nothing happened, that gives me the right to know when you're thinking of trying it again!"

"I'm not trying it again, John, I'm trying to catch this person before they get to you! I will not let them put their filthy little hands on you so they can carve you up and put on display like the rest of those people because they are not worthy of even being near you, do you understand? You are not theirs to have, you are mine and they will get to you over my dead body!"

"Like hell they will, Sherlock! I'm not going to let you die again if I can help you!"

Sherlock takes a step forward, crowding into John's space, but John doesn't back down and they are left standing almost chest to chest.

"I'd rather die than have you go first." Sherlock growls lowly. "If you are not in my life, John Watson, then there is no point to it. Everything I've done, everything I do or will ever think of doing, it is so that you may live."

"Not everything." John says quietly.

"What?"

"When you shout at me to make tea or clean your laundry or hand you your phone, that's not so I can live, that's so you don't have to do it yourself. And you know what? I do it because I want to help you. Everything I've done, do, or will ever think of doing is so I can help you. And when you don't let me, where does that leave me? When you throw yourself off a building or send serial killers text messages because you wouldn't let me help you, where does that leave me?"

"What do you want, John?" Sherlock asks softly.

"It doesn't matter, Sherlock, I think it's very rarely about what I want—"

"It matters a great deal what you want. It's absolutely pertinent, what you want, because if you never got it, why would you ever stay with me?"

Sherlock places a hand on the wall, effectively trapping John between himself and the wall. John looks up at him.

"So why do you?" Sherlock asks, and if John ever said there was tenderness in his voice Sherlock would scoff and say John was being too sentimental, but they would both know what it really was.

"I stay," John begins. "Because sometimes I think I'm just as selfish as you are. Actually, sometimes I know I am. And sometimes you are such an absolute arse that I think I could leave you and not look back, but I stay. Why?"

"Because you need me." Sherlock answers almost hopefully.

"Because you need me, Sherlock. You need me to make you tea and clean your laundry and hand you your phone. And, god help me, I need you to make me feel stupid and useful and important. I need you so I don't have to limp everywhere and I need you so I can say this is my friend Sherlock Holmes and I need you because I've lived a life without you and I'm so selfish that I could never live through that again."

Sherlock's eyes dart over his face.

"What do you want, John?" He repeats, eyes darting over his. "Truly?"

"Right now?" He asks and Sherlock nods. He stares into nothing for a moment before bringing his gaze back up to search Sherlock's face. "Kiss me." He murmurs softly, his voice hoarse and quiet.

There. He can't take it back.

Sherlock stares at him for moment before he inhales deeply, as if steeling himself. A brief flash of panic knots in John's stomach and he prepares himself for rejection as he begins to think of fake excuses before Sherlock licks his lips and leans down, ducking his head towards John.

John shuts his eyes.

Suddenly there is a puff of cool air on John's cheek. His eyes fly open, giving him a wonderful view of Sherlock's back. His long hands are rooted in his hair, grasping at the fine curls like a madman.

"Sherlock? Are you alright?"

"Never better." He says without turning around, hands dropping to his sides. "Why?"

"Well...I mean normally when someone asks you to kiss them, it kind of happens…as in one party doesn't suddenly get cold feet."

"I'm wearing socks, John. My feet are fine."

"You know what I meant, Sherlock. Sherlock, look at me."

Slowly, he turns around.

John takes a step towards him, slightly invading his ever-present cushion of personal space.

"Tell me what's wrong."

Sherlock opens his mouth then closes it, eyes moving everywhere about the room except to John.

"I didn't—I didn't know if I was welcome." He admits quietly as he stares at the skull on the mantle before turning his eyes to John, a confused expression on his face.

"What? Were you expecting an open invitation?" John teases. "I'd have thought the request was enough, didn't know it needed engravings. Do you want me to set a date too or—"

He's silenced as Sherlock's mouth closes over his.

---

Later, John cleans up the kitchen and Sherlock tidies the parlour and they do not mention any part of what just happened.

John showers and gets ready for bed, coming out of the bathroom to find Sherlock curled in his chair instead of the detective's own, a book open in his hands as his gaze skims the pages. Something warm and affectionate wells inside him.

"Should I expect this to be an everyday occurrence?" He asks, smiling as he steps around Sherlock's splayed legs. "Because, no offense, your chair doesn't really suit me."

"Do you want it to be?" Sherlock asks, not looking away from his book.

"Only if you get me a new chair." John says, sitting down in Sherlock's chair, arms hanging over the sides.

Sherlock shuts the book and springs to his feet above him in one fluid motion. "What if you don't want a new chair?"

"You can be as thin and tall as you'd like, Sherlock, there's still no way we'd both fit in one chair."

Sherlock smiles and John feels like a deer under a wolf's stare, exposed and hunted.

"Care to test that out then?"

"Sherlock, the mechanics of doing whatever you're thinking of in that chair are inhuman, not to mention the dry cleaning—"

Sherlock's hands slide up his face, tilting John's head up towards his own as he presses their mouths together, sealing back in whatever John is about to say.

"Good night John." He says quietly before straightening up and heading away to the kitchen.

"Wh—what? Sherlock, you can't just kiss someone like that and then walk away."

"Funny," Sherlock calls. "That seems to be what's happening. Food for thought, John."

"Tease." John mutters, unable to keep the stupid grin from his face.

The next day, it's the same. Neither mentions anything, although both think of it often. John stumbles sleepily from his room and Sherlock is in the kitchen, reviewing Lestrade's case file. John is surprised none of it has been worn through with the amount he's been looking at it. He leaves for work and arrives later in the evening only to find Sherlock in the exact same position, staring down at the case file like it's Anderson's latest photoshoot.

"All right?" He asks as he hangs up his jacket and Sherlock grumbles something in response. "Have you eaten anything since I left?"

"Mhmm." Sherlock answers, as if it qualifies as a real reply.

"Sherlock, you really can't do this again—"

"They will not get to you John. Eating only gives them time."

"What if I promised you a reward?"

Sherlock's head raises. "What kind?"

"You'd have to eat to find out."

He doesn't think he's ever seen Sherlock make toast disappear so fast.

"Do you want anything else?" He asks as Sherlock puts the plate in the sink. "Some pasta, maybe? Or an apple? I think we've got some Thai left—"

John's cut off as Sherlock grabs his shirt and smashes their lips together. They move in tandem for a moment, each pulling as the other pushes, and the next kiss sings with electricity as they connect, open-mouthed and hot and slow.

They break apart and John smiles.

"You know how you hate it when you can hear people chewing?" Sherlock asks suddenly and John laughs.

"What a romantic thing to say. I think you've got dirty talk pinned down; well done, you."

Sherlock continues as if he hasn't heard him.

"You, of course, are too polite to ask them to stop, but you endure them sounding like a cow chewing cud until your teeth grind and you think there cannot be anything worse in the world."

"Yes, I see your point."

"I feel like that all the time, John. About everything."

"Surely not everything."

"Everything."

John stares at him a moment, eyes narrowing, before he grabs his face and kisses him, catching Sherlock's lower lip between his own and biting gently on it. As he draws away, he grazes his mouth over the corner of Sherlock's as if he was placing a period at the end of a sentence.

"What about that?" He asks.

"Well maybe not...everything."

Sherlock's hands come up to grip John's wrists.

"You make everything lighter." He says quietly, thumbs brushing the soft insides of John's palms as he lays his head against John's chest. "You mute the noise."

"To be fair, most of that noise is you throwing a tantrum." John says, smiling.

"Well whose fault is that?"

"No one knows, Sherlock. No one knows."

They stand still for a moment in the soft glow of the flat before John takes a deep breath and steps away.

"I have to go." He says softly.

"Where could you possibly have to go right now?"

"Emma's."

Sherlock stiffens.

"You're still going to see her?"

"Well, I've got to break it off, haven't I?"

"Gallant of you, John, but can't you just let her figure it out on her own? You only went on one date."

"It wouldn't be fair to her, Sherlock. She deserves to know."

Sherlock makes a noise at the back of his throat.

"I hope you have a wonderful time."

"No you don't."

Sherlock grins bitterly.

"No, I don't. I want you here, always."

"There will never be a day when I won't want to be." John says quietly before stepping away and grabbing his coat.

"Hurry back." Sherlock calls.

"Yes dear."

He picks up his violin as John shuts the door.

---

"Emma." John says as she answers the door. "We have to talk."

Her eyes widen.

He should have seen it coming. He really should have. He'd been stupid, so incredibly stupid. But making connections wasn't his area, it was Sherlock's, and he hadn't thought it important enough to tell him.

Jane Samson. Richard Thompson. Lily Teague.

Dead, all three of them.

Dead, because the killer wanted to be heard. Because they knew how to hide evidence. Because they knew how to hide in plain sight, how to get a date with a man close to the one they wanted, how to laugh and smile and not feel anything at all.

"Why?" He asks hoarsely through the thick blood running from the cut slashed across the bridge of his nose. The taste of something bitter coats his tongue.

Emma paces in front of him, her eyes clear and hard. She's taken him to Lily Teague's flat, but it's clear that she's been prepared for this; the space under the chair he's tied to is covered in plastic tarp. She expected it to get messy. He hopes he isn't conscious when she starts.

"I worked very hard to conceal my identity and it will remain that way. It's funny how easy it is to get a cab when you play a desperate woman trying to get her drunk boyfriend home."

"I—I didn't know what you were. I was coming to break it off with you, not arrest you."

"Well, you should have said something, then."

"When?" John cries, a little hysterically. "The five seconds before you knocked me unconscious?"

"Couldn't you have just called me?"

"That's not very polite."

"You're so nice, John." She says with a smile as she touches her face and he flinches away. "You are. This isn't personal, really. I like you. You're just…unfortunate."

"Kindly fuck off, will you?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but that's not happening. This is the only way to Sherlock."

"And how will he know I'm gone?"

"I told him of course. That's the only way to get anything done these days. I don't like to play games much."

Stall her. Stall her. Say something, say anything.

"Why did you do it?"

Her eyes flash.

"Why? Because sometimes when people see terrible things happen they sigh and say how unfortunate, but they don't do anything. They're selfish. They're tainted. I cleaned them. I put them through the fire. It's not my fault they burned."

"Are you fucking crazy? You killed them because you thought they were dirty—"

"Shh." She soothes, smoothing down the hair at his temple before pressing her lips to his. Every cell in his body seems to revolt at the touch when a day ago he would have welcomed it.

John had been wrong. So wrong. That passion in her eyes when she talked of Mumbai, that was the darkest kind there was: fanaticism. Utter belief in one's convictions.

"So kill me then." He says harshly, frothy blood spitting out of his mouth. "That's what you want, right? Why I'm here?"

"No, you're here to prove a point. You and I, we will live forever. I can guarantee it."

Forever? That's impossible, unless…unless…Sherlock was right. Unless—

"The Philosopher's Stone?" He croaks. "You found it?"

She scoffs.

"I learned a long time ago that there's no use looking for immortality in a little rock." She crouches to meet his eyes, her own bright with fervour. "It's an idea, John, don't you see? I don't fear death. You don't either. Look at us. We are eternal."

"You wouldn't be so eternal if I shot you between the eyes."

"Yes, I would. My soul has been cleansed, purged in the fire. I've struck gold, see. I can't be harmed."

"We'll see about that." A deep voice speaks from the darkness and John's head falls against the back of the chair in relief as his heart contracts in terror.

"Sherlock—" He groans. "Sherlock, you have to leave—"

"If you think I will do so without you then you are sadly misinformed, John."

"You can't hurt me, Sherlock Holmes." Emma says, her voice unwavering, steady with the confidence of faith. "You can kill me if you like, but you'll never end me. Not really."

"Who said anything about killing you?" Sherlock asks, stepping forward out of the shadows that cling to him like the arms of a desperate lover clutching at a soldier going to war.

He has John's gun.

"No one." Emma answers calmly. "Although that's usually what tends to happen in these situations. Someone's bound to get caught in the crossfires."

John's chest hurts. No…his heart hurts.

Oh god. His heart.

The bitterness on his tongue stings.

"Sherlock, call Lestrade, you have to call Greg now—"

"This won't take long, John." Sherlock says lowly, gaze lingering on John before moving to Emma. His voice turns dark, his eyes feral. "You took him from me. You thought you were clever, going after him, but you should have realised there wasn't any hole in this Earth you could crawl back to where I wouldn't follow. Nowhere to go where I wouldn't find you. And if you ever get away, I feel obligated to tell you now that no place will ever be safe for you again. You will spend your life looking over your shoulder and living in the shadows because you had the arrogance to lay your hands on things that are not yours to have."

"Did it ever occur to you that I did this because that's what I wanted?" Emma asks with a slow smile. She laughs. "I don't make mistakes, Sherlock."

"If you planned this, surely you wouldn't mind telling me why you killed those people."

"What would happen if I said no? If I was silent, left you wondering for the rest of your days? You would be a man starving from hunger. You would eat yourself."

"You clearly aren't familiar with my dietary record."

"Be that as it may, no one survives without a heart."

"Funny, I've managed to for decades."

"You say you have. Any normal person can say they'll live through a drought without knowing what thirst feels like."

"You're avoiding the question."

Emma stares at him, her head swaying side to side like a reptile surveying prey.

"With each last breath leaving their lungs, I became stronger. I became…complete."

"You became crazier, that's for sure." John mutters hoarsely.

Emma ignores him, her gaze focused on Sherlock and John can imagine the fangs about to come out.

"No one is born immortal, but I will not die that way."

"And your secret? What if I knew it too? What if I had done my research and changed myself?"

"You don't. You didn't. I know you didn't."

"Do you? You're certain? You hid your notes so well, but nothing can't be found if I don't want it to be. I called your brother. He had some interesting things to say about you. About what happened."

Emma swallows deeply, harshly, as she blanches and for a moment John can see doubt settle heavily in her limbs before she shakes it off.

"I—It's mine!" She snarls, whirling on him. "Mine! My own! Not yours!"

Something silver flashes in her hand and John feels his heart contract in fear. Fear and something else. Something cold and unflinching, a knot of stone and iron lodged in between his lungs.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Sherlock sneers. "But it's not."

John knew the day he shot the cabbie he'd instilled some new form of cruelty in Sherlock's head. He'd scoffed at guns before, all up to the point when he looked at John over the row of flashing police lights and realised just what he'd done. John knew he'd want to repay the favour, but he was convinced that day would never come; Sherlock loved waving guns around, but that didn't mean he'd ever fire one.

Or, at least that's what John thought.

After his ears stop ringing, he sees Emma collapse to the ground as her knees give out, a large crimson stain spreading across her right thigh.

"Sh—Sherlock, no—you—"

But Sherlock is not looking at him. His gaze has whipped around to where Greg Lestrade crouches in the foyer, gun drawn.

"You lot alright?" He asks, cautiously moving towards them.

John feels a swift rush of relief, for everyone. For Sherlock. He should never know what it feels to know you're the reason someone's life has ended, even if they were the enemy. He wasn't even entirely sure Emma was worth it; wasn't even sure if she was truly the enemy.

"You've already failed the test." Emma gasps, her breathing heavy with pain, face drained of colour. "You look the part, but you are worthless. You are fool's gold, Sherlock Holmes. But the real question is: is he?" She asks slowly, her mocking eyes turning to John.

Sherlock stares at her for a moment, gaze darting to John before a look of abject terror passes over his face, soon replaced by dark fury.

"What did you do to him?"

"It's not so much me as you. You stole him…tainted him. He saved you…and you killed him. You did this to him, you just gave me the knife."

John wants to tell Sherlock how wrong she is, how all of her words are utter shite, but he can't seem to talk, his throat closing as his chest tightens.

"Poor little detective…playing around with fire." She grunts as Lestrade binds her hands behind her back with a zip tie. "You never learn, do you?"

"What did you do to him?" Sherlock yells, advancing murderously on her, wild fury in every line of his face.

John is starting to gasp in air. He can't seem to do it fast enough, and each breath leaves him struggling for the next. He feels a cold sweat dampen his hair to his neck and face.

"I told you, Sherlock Holmes!" Emma calls happily as Lestrade and another officer haul her away. "I told you I would take your heart!"

Sherlock isn't listening. He's collapsed at John's side, untying him as fast as he can before John slumps forward in his arms.

John doesn't pay attention to much after that. He knows they've won. Knows he can let Lestrade and Sherlock take over from here; that they can handle it.

He feels himself being lifted, moved somewhere. Sherlock shouts for something.

His heart pounds painfully, starting to feel heavier in his chest.

He's carried somewhere by thin arms that are stronger than they look. Sherlock's scent is all around him, the light and heady smell of his aftershave, the smell of cigarette smoke and soap.

A car starts. He's moving again.

The lights from the street pass over him as the car speeds down the road. The blurs match his heartbeat, fast and brief. He thinks they're getting brighter. He smells the kebab stands and hears the clubbers and vendors and nightlife of London and he wants to live to hear it again. He doesn't want to go. Not yet. There is still so much time. There is still so much of Sherlock he has to learn, like what he's like when John wakes next to him in the morning and what the skin behind his knees feels like or what the hollow of his throat tastes like. He can't go now. It wouldn't be fair.

Sherlock's hand smoothes over his hair over and over again as if to remind himself that he's still there.

"John, talk to me." He says lowly, voice strained with worry and blurred panic. "How do you feel?"

"Bit not good." John mutters. His mouth feels slow, unresponsive to what his mind is commanding it to do.

"What did she do to you? John? John, what did she do?"

"S'gave me something." He slurs. "Capsule. Think w's hydrocortisone, maybe…don't know."

Sherlock inhales sharply and curses. John hears him shout at the driver to go faster. His voice is hoarse like he's on the verge of tears.

John feels his face being gripped between two hands.

"John, you'll be alright. Do you hear me? John? John."

He can only let his head loll to the side in response. Sherlock's hands clutch at either side of his face.

"John Watson, if you die on me—"

"Won't." John mumbles.

Sherlock doesn't respond.

The sound of John's ragged breathing cuts through the heavy silence. Sherlock's hand strokes his face. His fingers are trembling.

"John," Sherlock says with a hard voice cast in stoicism. "You must survive this as you do everything else: with an annoyingly high success rate. You must. It is absolutely imperative because everything is heavy without you. I did notlive through that three year hell of being away from you only to lose you now. Do you understand? John?"

"Sherlock..." John mutters, his chest feeling like it's being crushed slowly. "Hurts."

"I know, John. I know. We're almost there. You'll be alright..."

The car screeches to a stop. He can hear sirens.

He can feel each heartbeat stutter in his chest.

If you die on me.

If…John doesn't know what will happen if. He doesn't want to know, doesn't want to acknowledge that Sherlock will not allow himself to live without him. That he wouldn't want to.

John's hand hurts more from Sherlock's grip than his heart does. He's lifted again, by stronger hands, quickly followed by Sherlock's protective snarl. The sounds of the cart being wheeled down the hall clatters through his ears.

"Sh'lk."

"Stay with me, John. We're here. We're here. You'll be fine."

John shuts his eyes, his heart kicking harder and harder as if it's trying to protest what's about to happen. Funny how it would kill him by trying to keep him alive. He noticed the contrast now more than ever.

I don't want to go.

"Please, John. You can't do this. Not to me. Not to us. Please."

Sherlock said please.

Through the end of his words, John can hear Sherlock frantically yelling at the paramedics, telling them to let him pass.

John feels his heart stop.

Please. It's a wonderful sound.

Please.

---

He wakes.

Regrets it. Didn't expect to at all. Shuts his eyes.

He hurts. Completely. Entirely.

Everything aches. His eyelids, his throat, the soles of his feet, his chest, his back, everything. He feels like he's been force fed cotton balls, the back of his throat raw and dry from the NC plugged into his nose. As he tries to move he instantly regrets it. His chest is bruised and tender, twin squared spaces on either side stretched taut, reddened and stiff and irritated; that'd be from the shock paddles then.

He opens his eyes.

Bright. Overwhelming. Burns.

His hand is heavier than normal. He feels his palm sweating.

He looks over. Feels a slow smile come to his face.

Sherlock is asleep beside him, head bowed in the crook of his arm, tilted to the side so John can see his face, calm and peaceful in unconsciousness.

His free hand is wrapped around John's, fingers twined tightly together as if they'd been welded into one form. As if he has no intention of ever letting go.

John squeezes his fingers around Sherlock's. Feels him respond.

He shuts his eyes.

He hurts. Completely. Everywhere.

He doesn't regret it.

---

He wakes in the night. Dim light swathes the room from the shaded bedside lamp. Sherlock is staring at him. He tells him to go back to sleep.

He wakes again. Hurts. Medicine rounds. Kind nurse with no face (Strong hands though). Relief. Heavy pain is muted. Sherlock says something to him. Sleeps.

Wakes. His mind feels like sunlight, warm and everywhere and untethered. Sherlock is yelling. No, not yelling. He's talking quick and low, hushed, but John knows he wants to raise his voice. Someone else is here then. He can feel them, their presence. Doesn't want to open his eyes. Sleeps.

Wakes, and stays that way. Awake through the pain meds, through the nurse's visits, through Sherlock's enraged silence at whoever was here. John feels unsettled. He thought Sherlock might tell him who it was, but he feels too exhausted to ask; he doesn't much want to know right now. He wants to sleep. He wants to curl up with Sherlock in the bed they know they'll be sharing now and stare at him until he can't keep his eyes open anymore. He wants to press his head against his chest and listen to his heart and know that they're safe. He wants to go home.

During a longer period of consciousness, when he can talk again, he lays his head against Sherlock's and listens to him, to what he says (yes, I've been here the whole time, idiot. Your eyes look beautiful open, you should try that more.), to how he breathes (slow and steady, like he's calming himself), to how his coat swishes against the fabric of his pants.

John is sitting up in bed, a tray of unappetising food in front of him as Sherlock babbles away, case file open across John's blanketed legs.

"I have to admit I was quite confounded by just how the victims were related. Taking Emma's methods into account, I knew they had to be. She didn't strike randomly. She wanted to send a message." Sherlock says as he sips from the carton of milk on John's tray; it seemed that he finally understood the frustration of trying to make someone eat when they kept refusing to.

"It appears Jane Samson had a hobby of freelance journalism; who knew that there was a limit to how much one could write about dirt?" Sherlock says dryly and John chuckles even though every breath feels like a personal earthquake. "She chose to expose Richard Thompson's poorly maintained habit of embezzlement. She tracked him, met people close to him, saw the skeletons in his closet. Skeletons like" Here he holds up a picture. "Lily Teague."

"He was a client?"

"A regular, actually. Part of why his ex-wife left him."

"You talked to her?"

"Hurled inclinations at her, more like."

"But—wait. This doesn't make any sense…why would Emma murder these people? They hadn't done anything to her. And how the hell did you find her brother?"

"I think it makes perfect sense, John. Someone like her, disillusioned, yearning for change so much she feels it in her bones, the desire for people to pay attention to her, to give her cause meaning…and she had the perfect means to get what she wanted. New enough at the Yard to be overlooked yet familiar enough to be trusted." Sherlock takes a ragged sigh and lets his head fall forward as he grips his hair. "She was in the best possible position, I just didn't notice. I wasn't smart enough to notice—"

"Sherlock," John cuts in sternly, cupping his hand around the curve of Sherlock's temple. "If you hadn't been smart enough to notice, I'd be dead now."

Sherlock's head snaps up, his face full of heavy sadness and latent rage.

"You were dead, John. You were. For one minute and ten seconds. For the amount of time between the paramedics wheeling you into A&E and the doors shutting. I heard them—I heard them say your heart had stopped." Sherlock drops his head to the bed, his voice muffled, his hand shaking and so tight around John's that his knuckles were white. "And I…I couldn't follow you. They wouldn't let me. I thought you were gone. I thought you were—"

He stops, unable to continue. The image of Sherlock standing in the middle of the lobby, utterly alone, as the doors swing shut burn through John's mind; the notion of him thinking that he'd died sends a hot churning curling through John's stomach.

"Hey. Sherlock." John runs his palm along Sherlock's hair. "Sherlock, look at me."

Slowly, the detective raises his head, red-rimmed and bloodshot eyes turning to his.

"I'm still here." He says quietly.

"What if you weren't? What if one day you won't be? And I know you won't, John, I know it. You'll die one day, as certainly as I will. And you're older than I am and you have an absolutely impertinent habit of sacrificing yourself for my safety, so it may very likely be before I do."

"Would that be so bad? Dying for you?"

Sherlock's eyes narrow into a feral glare.

"If you die for me, John Watson, I will never forgive you. I will smoke and drink and not wash the dishes and leave my experiments in the same fridge as the food and so help me I will find all of the bloody heroin in London and shoot it in me if it means that I don't have to live without you."

John exhales heavily, suddenly feeling the exhaustion his injuries have caused.

"I can't really blame you." He murmurs. "I don't have to like it, but I can't blame you. I don't think I'd be much better anyways. I wasn't much better, come to think of it."

They say nothing for a few moments, both turning back to the day when Moriarty blew his brains out and Sherlock fell for John the second time.

"Don't leave me again." Sherlock blurts out, breaking the silence with words that sound like they came out without his permission. "I mean, I—you can't go. I'm not ready."

"It's a two way street, Sherlock." John says softly with a tender smile.

"No, it's an Autobahn freeway and we're stuck on the median, John, but that's not the point. I will not tolerate an existence without you. I won't do it."

"You won't have to…at least, I hope you won't have to." John murmurs. Sherlock doesn't respond, instead staring at him with the oddest, most lost expression John's ever seen. The look of a man watching his life burn in front of him and finding remains in the rubble.

"I need you to not die again any time soon." He tells him quietly.

John says nothing, but wraps an arm around Sherlock's shoulders and kisses his temple.

"I'll try." He whispers into Sherlock's curls.

"What do you want to do after you leave?"

"Here?" John asks, curling a hand through Sherlock's hair as he shrugs. "Lots of things. I want to go home, with you. I want to sleep. I want Mrs Hudson to make me tea so I don't have to move. I want to lock you in the flat for a weekend and have my wicked way with you. I want to love you, uninterrupted—"

He's stopped as Sherlock tilts his head up and presses his lips against John's. John lets his eyes slide shut, a warm heaviness settling in his belly as he smiles.

"I also want to meet Eustace." He mutters as he lays his lips against Sherlock's forehead. "And your parents, I suppose, since that's the proper thing to do. But mostly Eustace."

Sherlock groans.

"My mother is grotesquely affectionate. She'll want to question you for hours."

"I think I can live with that."

"You'll have to drink the absolutely revolting tea my father makes."

"Oh, well now, I suppose the deal is off then…" John teases. "They won't be happy if you hide us, Sherlock."

"Why? It's my life, not theirs. Not Mycroft's either, whatever he may think."

"Because I never want to hide the fact that I'm with you from anyone now that I have you, but also because sometimes parents like to know that their child has chosen someone who's good to them, who takes care of them. Parents do like it when they know their child is loved, or I hope they do."

"They can know that anyways without a personal visit." Sherlock says irately. "Mycroft can tell them. I'll text my mother."

"I think they'd like something a little more personal."

"Sentiment." Sherlock huffs.

"Yeah, well little things seem to matter an awful lot to them, don't they?"

"Humans are basic creatures, John. They only need meagre allotments to survive. Food, sleep, sex and affection, in that order."

"I think that we can spare your parents Christmas dinner or New Year's." John says and Sherlock rolls his eyes, but John knows it will please him to see his parents and (hopefully) their approval. "What are your basic allotments then? A microscope and great coat that costs three months rent?"

"I'm the basest of them all. I only need one thing."

"Really?" John smiles. "What's that?"

Sherlock says nothing. He takes his hand.

John can't wait to go home.

He still has to heal. He still has to pester Sherlock to answer his questions about Emma's brother. He still has to learn what it means to be in love with a man who infuriates him as much as he endears him. He still has to learn all those things he thought he would lose in that lonely and desperate car ride.

That's alright.

He has time.

They have all the time they need.

---

The door slams shut with finality.

She's been told has a visitor. She fiddles with her handcuffs.

Emma looks up and smiles. The bright orange makes her look washed out, but she doesn't mind. She thinks she looks like she's walking in fire.

Her brother sits across from her. He looks so much older, so much more tired. He made it through his fire, but only barely. He was still burned, still hurting, still raw. She tried to help him. She would never stop trying to help him.

He stares at her for a moment before a slow smile comes to his face.

"Hello birdie." He says affectionately.

"Hi Seb."

Sebastian Moran smiles and she sees the beauty of art.