John stood over the pile of bodies, breathing slowly, his eyes glassy. The stench of rotting flesh didn't register in his nostrils, the heat of the steaming corpses didn't seem to touch his skin. He didn't hear the sound of oozing and dripping blood , nor did the metallic taste in the air reach his tongue.

He would come.

It had started a month ago; his first murder. He hadn't known what else to do. He'd exhausted all of his options, he had no more patience, no more ability to live without Sherlock, no more sanity. It would kill him to do it, but he would die if he didn't.

It was the only way to get Sherlock back, and he would do anything to get Sherlock back.

His hand had trembled when he'd shot the first victim. His limp had returned, and his body had sweat, and he hadn't been able to sleep. He'd had tears streaming down his face as the body fell to the ground, a sickening splat that seemed to echo through his entire body, tearing through his every fiber, leaving behind a filth flowing through his veins, coating his bones, seeping through his skin. His jaw was clenched so tightly that he hadn't been able to eat for a day after, for he couldn't open his mouth. He had spent hours lying on the floor of the shower, but the water never got hot enough to truly clean him of what he'd done.

Even still, he couldn't stop.

By the fifth murder, his hand was steady, and he no longer grasped the handle of the gun so tightly that he thought his fingers might become permanently molded around the plastic. His eyes had been dry, and firmly focused, and he had no aches, no pains, no feeling of disgust rising in his throat along with burning bile. He had been mechanic about it, efficient, and he had walked away without a limp, gone home and eaten a meal, not needed a shower.

By the eighth murder, he had discarded the gun in favor of his feeling of his fingers digging in to the soft, delicate necks of his victims filled him with satisfaction. The anger that boiled in him, steamed under the surface, was so easy to release, so easy to direct on the helpless people in his grasp, and he felt a contentedness afterwards that could not be matched. The screams and garbled, desperate moans, the whining pleads for life, filled him with power, with motivation, and he'd finish the job, reveling in the sick snap of their twisted necks, and he'd wiped the spit from the corners of his smiling mouth as he looked down at their lifeless forms.

By the twelfth murder, he'd begun spicing it up a bit. He became quite the swordsman, splitting his victims into pieces as he roared in anger, his mind filled with the image of Sherlock's body falling from the roof of St. Barts. He became an expert at throwing knives as he shook with the memory of Sherlock's body lying on the pavement, blood seeping from his head. He could have been crowned King of beating and drowning and breaking bones in the precise locations that caused the most pain, was the master of swinging an axe and chopping off heads as he felt his muscles screaming with the pain of living without his best friend, of watching him die, of seeing him buried, and of knowing, knowing deep down, that he wasn't dead at all.

The bodies would be the proof. They would bring him back. He knew it.

He knew it as he piled them up in an empty warehouse, knew it as the headline each week was of all of the missing people whose bodies he arranged one on top of the other, knew it as sure as he knew that the earth went around the sun.

And he was right.

He was standing on that pile of bodies, breathing steadily, slowly, oblivious to his surroundings, counting down the moments until he finally felt his presence, heard his deep, rumbling voice from the distance as he walked into view, when he did, and he said,"John."

One single word. His name. Spoken by his best friend, the best friend who had torn his soul in two, ripped his heart to shreds, stolen his humanity.

He didn't care about that, though. It didn't matter, not anymore. Because he was alive, he was back; John had done it.

The people at his feet had been sacrificed for a worthy cause and John did not regret it, not as his nostrils flared and caught Sherlock's scent, or as his eyes dilated when they fell on Sherlock's dark form slowly approaching, or as his veins throbbed with need, need for him to keep coming closer and closer until John could run a hand through Sherlock's curls to assure himself that there was no blood in them while pressing fingers to Sherlock's wrist for the steady thrum of a pulse.

"John. What have you done?" Sherlock's voice cracked, and John felt a lump in his throat, brows furrowing in confusion.

"I did it for you, Sherlock. You left me. You didn't come back." He paused, voice lowering."I needed you to come back."

"John..." Sherlock said, and he stopped, not moving forward. John watched as his chest rose and fell, and saw the squinting of his eyes and the tightness in his throat and the vein popping in his jaw, and he was suddenly aware of the foul smell that was stinging and clogging up his breath. John stepped off the pile, trying to ignore the cringes that pulled at Sherlock's face as bones cracked and heads rolled, blood spurting out of the ravaged bodies as John descended over them.

Once on the moist cement, he began to approach Sherlock, but his hand rose in the air, shaking, and John stopped.

"What, Sherlock? What's wrong?"

"Wha- What's wrong?" He asked, and his mouth parted slightly before it snapped shut. He closed his eyes for a moment, and seemed to be gathering himself, and when he opened them, there were tears gathered in the corners.

"John. What you've done, it's wrong. It's so, so wrong. It's against everything I stand for. I go after people like you, don't you realize? Why would you become this person? Look at what you've done, John!" Sherlock was breathing heavily, crying openly now as one hand waved towards the pile of dead bodies behind John, and John took a step back, feeling his chest constrict.

"Sherlock, I know you go after people that murder. That's why I did it. Because then you'd come after me. You'd come back, don't you see? Don't you understand?" Sherlock had to understand. He had to.

"No, John. Of course I don't. I would never, ever do something like this. Why in the world would you?"

At this, John erupted. "But you did, Sherlock! You did do this! You killed yourself, and you murdered me! You killed me, Sherlock!" John swallowed, then continued rapidly, his voice rising, his hands balling into fists, "I watched you die. I heard your voice shake and saw your body pitch over the edge, and saw you flail as you fell, and heard you hit the pavement, do you know what that did to me, Sherlock? I saw the blood pouring from your skull and felt your cold skin and tried desperately to find your pulse, but there wasn't one! I watched you die! You were dead!"

John's face was bright red, and he was slowly moving towards Sherlock, eyes flashing wildly. He brought a bloodied hand up to his face and ran it back through his hair, and Sherlock flinched as he watched the silvery blonde strands become streaked with the crimson liquid.

"And I can't live without you, Sherlock, don't you know? I tried, but I saw you everywhere, heard your voice... You would get up in the morning and play the violin, and then I'd come out of my room and you'd be gone, and your violin would be right where you'd left it. So I started drinking. I couldn't handle seeing you, but not having you actually there. And then I thought, what if you're alive? And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. You had to be alive! You're Sherlock bloody Holmes!"

His voice started low, soft, and it cracked as he remembered what it had been like to see apparitions of his best friend, of hearing his voice, but then it rose to a crescendo, and spit flung from his mouth as he gained momentum in his speech. His dry, cracked lips were parted over his teeth, and they were bleeding, smudging blood over his teeth as he spoke. He licked his lips absently, and Sherlock found himself wondering if John liked the taste in his mouth.

John paused, moving his leg forward then back under him, shifting in place. His turned his body slightly and shook one of his hands at Sherlock, pointing a finger directly at him. A single drop of blood trickled down his hand, trailing over the veins of his wrist. "But you weren't coming back. You would never come back, not unless I did something that got your attention, not unless I did something that you couldn't ignore."

"So I did!" His voice grew loud again. "You killed me, Sherlock. You ripped away my humanity. You made me cold and heartless. I don't feel bad about killing these people, Sherlock, because now you're here. Their deaths brought you back, and that's the most important thing to me. So don't tell me, Sherlock, that you would never do this. Because you did."

"John..." Sherlock said, but John wasn't done. He lowered his hand and pulled a gun out of his pocket.

"Do you see this? There's one bullet in it. If you didn't come back, if I, somehow, was wrong, you know what I was going to do?" He cocked it, and pressed the barrel of the gun to his hollow, sweating temple. "I can't live without you, Sherlock. So don't you tell me what I did was wrong. You. You drove me to do it, you bastard. And now you're here, and you're looking at me like I'm a monster, but Sherlock... We're both monsters."

John was breathing heavily, gasping for breath, and his vision was beginning to blur, but he could see Sherlock clearly, and his heart stopped in his chest, and his mouth went dry, and he felt tears well up in his eyes as he looked at Sherlock's face. Sherlock's eyes were red now, his cheeks wet and glistening, and John felt his legs wobble.

"I know."

And John fell to his knees, the gun clattering to the ground and skidding into a puddle of blood, and Sherlock moved towards him, repeating over and over, softly, so softly, through sobs he was trying to contain, "I know, John. You're right. You're absolutely right. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I did this to you. I'm so sorry, John. I came back. I came back for you, and I'm never leaving again."

And then he was kneeling down in front of John, pulling him into an embrace, gripping him so tightly, holding him so closely, that the reality of everything he'd done became suddenly clear to John, as if the warmth of Sherlock's body against his was melting away the icy chunk that had become John's heart.

"Oh, God, Sherlock, what have I done? I'm so sorry. It's not your fault, Sherlock. I never should have, I went insane without you, but it wasn't your fault. It was all mine, I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to..." John sobbed, choking on the weight of the souls of those he'd killed, suffocating under the burden of them piling on top of him, determined to bury him under his own sins.

"Oh, God, John, what did I do? I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. I never should have left you, but I had to, to save your life, but I didn't save your life at all, did I? I condemned you, John. I'm so sorry. It's all my fault... I didn't mean to... I'm so, so sorry, John..." Sherlock cried beneath the weight of what he'd done, what he'd caused, and he didn't know if it would ever lift.

Sherlock ran his hands through John's hair, the tips of his fingers turning red, and John grabbed a fistful of Sherlock's curls, feeling the lack of moisture and clotting blood for the first time, and in that moment they each became completely aware of what they'd done to the other.

Goosebumps rose on both men's arms as they thought of the damage they'd done, and they choked on the stench of the deaths they'd caused, and then their breath caught in their throats, and just as their souls were about to sink into oblivion, never to be salvaged, or cleansed, or mended, two pairs of lips uttered the words,"I forgive you," and their souls lifted just enough, and they realized, in that moment, that they would survive this.