London bid a teary farewell to the crisp morning dews and warm rustic shades of autumn as hues of pumpkin and birch rotted and dulled into bitter and wicked winter nights. The fill of jovial yule-tide festivities were but distant memories as stockings and fairy-lights surrendered themselves into their impartial long-term seclusion. Above the cityscape thick plumes of smoke billowed from chimney stocks, dwindling into wisps like sweepings of grey on a navy canvas fading to black. Smouldering flecks of ash spouted from the breast and danced across the sky, ready to ignite the consuming darkness.
As he strode down the street towards his flat, Sherlock turned his collar up against the blistering wind and wrapped his long arms around himself, the flare of his long coat trapping the icy breeze in its grip. His teeth chattered so violently he feared they would shatter and crumble into pieces before he reached the confines of his own abode.
His shallow warm breaths burst from his cracked and bleeding lips in dragonesque blooms of condensed air and vaporised into the night. He tried to hold his warm breath and let it sooth the raw aching in his throat but the wind had scraped away at the lining of his throat and the taste of blood drained into his stomach, curdling and sickening the weaked man until his face contorted into repulsed grimaces.
Sherlock came to a halt outside the familiar door. His eyes burned with needle-like blasts of cold as they scanned the exterior. Oscillating on the pavement for a few more moments, Sherlock crept mechanically to the front door, his limbs stiff and his bones creaking with sheer exhaustion.
He furrowed his eyebrows and sighed deeply as his bloodshot eyes spied a small note flapping furiously in the breeze. He reached for the note, catching hold of his breath to ease the scarring pain in his sides. With a shrill whimper, Sherlock plucked the note from beneath the knocker and mouthed the letters, rolling them over with his tongue, feeling their essence like barbed wires beneath his skin. He paused and squeezed his eyes shut. The letters on the note flashed behind his eyelids and their blood-stained intentions jilted the honour of his purpose.
With a weak cry, he loosened his grip letting the harsh gale whip it from his clutched. The page danced in long spirals and pirouettes, disappearing into the distance, where it would lazily cross the path of an unsuspecting passer-by who would find peculiarity, maybe even innocence in its simplicity.
I O U
I O U
I O U
Those eyes. Those dark, lifeless eyes. They flashed in his mind and a shrill screech echoed deep in his chest.
This was it. This was the end. His end. After all that he had endured, it really was so predictable. Expect this time Sherlock had nothing left to lose. His name, his friends, his family, everyone he had ever loved was gone. He was alone in the world and death became his unlikely confidant.
With both hands secured to the banister railing, Sherlock dragged his tired, rain-soaked limbs up the boundless flight of stairs. He grunted as blinding pains shot through his chest and drained the remaining blood from him face. He clutched at his chest and small tears escaped from the slits, trailing canals of heat down his cheeks blotched purple from the heat of the indoors.
With near heart-stopping trepidation, Sherlock pressed shaking fingertips to the pane of glass that entered into their kitchenette, his kitchenette.
His heart shorted out with a bolt of grief and he passed through the opened door.
The room was empty but Sherlock could hear the sound of life in the next room. There was no noise, not a whisper nor a hum, but like white noise, the dull thud of a human heart pounding hot blood through an intricate network of veins was undeniable in his ears.
He wished with all his heart that he couldn't hear the other man's heartbeat. He wished for once in his life that the gift he had been granted would destroyed itself in his brain so that he could break free from the lifetime of servitude it had reduced him to.
The chase was over and the hunter was soon to become the hunted.
The mood in the flat shifted significantly as the other unseen being tuned himself into the sound of Sherlock's body, his breathing, the sound of his broken heart trying to burst through his chest and consume him.
Sherlock froze on the spot and a stream of tears flowed freely down his cheeks. He couldn't turn back now. This was how it was to end.
Sherlock took a cautious step forward, his mind willing him forward but his heart digging its nails into his shoulders and pulling him back towards the door.
Run, it told him, and don't look back. Hide. Flee. Die in peace a thousand miles from home. From hell.
But where can I go? Where can I hide? I have no one. I have nothing.
Tears continued to flow and burn into his cheeks.
It will end tonight, on my own terms, in my home, where it all started. I will die tonight.
Sherlock turned the small corner and his threadbare heart burned as dark menacing eyes pierced holes into his skin like a daggers.
The other man curled his mouth into a grotesque snarl and he brought his hands up into a point in front of his stretched lips.
"Hi-ii. Nice to see you again." He sat in Sherlock's chair, suited and devilish in posture.
"I was getting worried, dear. I thought some harm came to you." He uncrossed his legs and assuredly placed both his feet on the carpeted floor.
Sherlock stood frozen to the ground, unable to speak, unable to move.
"Come ooon, baby. Cat got your tongue?" he snarled between his clenched teeth, his eyes bulging fiercely out of their sockets, flecks of immortality etched into their irises.
Sherlock's body convulsed with fear, yet his paralysis prevented him from speaking.
The other man tutted and stalked slowly towards Sherlock, only stopping a few inches from his face.
Sherlock could feel the other man's breath tickling his face.
"Oh. You really are absolutely terrified! Wow. I must say I am impressed with myself."
He skirted around Sherlock disappearing from the taller man's peripheries for less than a second before returning on the far side. Sherlock's breath hitched in his throat.
Sherlock whimpered noiselessly as the other man grazed his fingers across Sherlock's jawline. He threaded his fingers gently into Sherlock's dark curls, leaving them to rest and massage small circles into the taller man's scalp.
"Ooh. I can see why your doctor was so fond of you."
Sherlock's lip curled into a deep loathsome grimace and stared directly into the other man's black empty eyes.
"Oh. Look who found Sherlock's pressure point. Your dear John won't save you now. And that's all my own doing. Whoops. But now Daddy's tired of the Games." The other man snarled and gripped a handful of Sherlock's hair and pulling sharply, minute threads of spittle projecting from between the crazed man's teeth.
"No more games."
The other man growled exposing a long glimmering blade from behind his back. Sherlock jolted as the blade caught his eye.
"This is your last goodbye, Sherlock Holmes."
Sherlock screamed as the blade plunged into the dark hopeless abyss.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO." John shot up in the bed screaming and beating at the constricting sheets. His entire body was in a thick sweat and his eyes were overflowing with deep uncontrollable tears.
He turned to his right in the bed and his heart lightened instantly. Sherlock lay staring up at his wrecked form, his eyes wide and fearful. He reached over and flicked on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with warm clarifying light. John smiled at how bright the room was and half-promised himself to never sleep in the dark again.
Sherlock sat up in the bed and wrapped his arms around the frightened soldier and John wept solemnly into the material of Sherlock's bed shirt.
"It's ok now, love. You're safe here with me. They're not going to get you."
John gave one weak chuckle and hugged Sherlock tighter than he thought humanly possible.
"I wasn't dreaming about the war." John sighed, patting Sherlock all over, making sure he was all there in one piece.
Sherlock looked confusedly into John's eyes and whispered to him, "Well then what made you so upset?"
"You." He choked, remember the lifeless gleam of the other man's eyes as the blade glided by his face. His own death or the death of his colleagues didn't faze John, but the thoughts of losing Sherlock in such a debasing, horrific way sent a deep back-breaking shudder down his spine.
Sherlock twitched his nose in a way that he knew his boyfriend loved, and indeed John did smile. "What did I do this time?" he half-mocked, fearing that he had rolled off unapologetic deductions about John or Harry Watson in his sleep again.
"No. No it wasn't that. I-" he started but couldn't bring himself to finish it. "-I'm just so glad you are here right now." John pulled Sherlock into a tight, desperate embrace and Sherlock could feel the unspoken trepidation in the doctor's gestures.
"I love you, John. You know that. And I'm not going anywhere." Sherlock smiled, placing a small kiss to John's forehead.
"I-I love you t-too, Sherlock." John replied and nuzzled into the taller man's neck.
They both settled down onto the bed and lay face-to-face in the light of the bedside lamp. Sherlock rubbed large comforting circles into John's back and began to lightly hum a lullaby John had one told him soothed him off to sleep as a child.
John's eyes grew heavy and he bunched his hand into the material of Sherlock's shirt. The lullaby and the warm touches sent John into a peaceful, restful slumber.
Sherlock leaned in to John once he was sure the older man was asleep and placed a light kiss on his forehead.
"I will never let anyone hurt you, John Watson." Sherlock promised before following his John into a deep dreamless sleep.