Lestrade tried to be quiet so he didn't wake John next to him. He just couldn't sleep, never did in hospitals. They brought back too many unpleasant memories for him. His eyes seemed pinned to the ceiling and he could hear the clock ticking. His fingers itched to have his mobile or, in fact, anything. He was just about to give up and wake John regardless, to give himself some distraction, when the door opened a crack.

"Detective Inspector? Why are you awake?"

He blinked and looked over, stunned at seeing Mycroft standing in the barely open doorway. "Mr. Holmes?"

"Mycroft, please. Why are you still awake?"

"I don't sleep in hospitals. What are you doing here?"

There was a complicated look on Mycroft's face that he couldn't decipher. "After your kidnappings, I thought I could not leave anything to chance and decided to see for myself that you both remained unharmed and accounted for."

"Wow, you really don't trust your own people anymore."

"Not after what happened, no," he replied and there was something dark in his voice that sent a shiver down his spine. While he had known Mycroft for years and that he was powerful, he had never felt that power intimidate him before now.

"Come in, talk to me," Greg tried.

"I'm afraid I can't. It isn't visiting hours and I do have work."

"It's midnight."

"When has work ever obeyed because it is midnight?"

"Then answer me a question before you go."

A devastatingly elegant ginger eyebrow rose. "And what is that?"

"Where'd you learn to use a sniper rifle? You were a damn good shot."

"One should never remain out of practice."

"You didn't answer my question."

"No, Detective Inspector, I didn't."

"You can call me Greg," he said, sounding like a broken record. For five years he'd been telling Mycroft that, but he had never once bent.

This time, something about what had happened changed because Mycroft nodded. "Very well, if you continue to insist."

He grinned. "You know, for someone who says he hates legwork, you're good at hand to hand combat."

Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Go to sleep, Gregory. You and John will be released in the morning, I'm assured."

"I'll try, but no promises."

Mycroft eyed him once more before he closed the door, the darkness enclosing him once more. Much to his surprise, he did actually sleep.

-0-

John grinned as he stepped into the flat. Sherlock had cleaned while he'd been in the hospital, and he hadn't just righted the furniture, but put things away. On the coffee table was his laptop, which he clearly remembered having been smashed in the fighting. He raised an eyebrow and Sherlock shrugged, as if it was no big deal, saying, "I had it fixed."

Yet he could see in his flatmate's eyes the waiting, the expectation there, and he gave it to him. "Thanks, Sherlock. I thought I'd have to get a new one. Really."

Sherlock just nodded and headed to the kitchen. John tried to keep the rubbing of his bruised chest surreptitious. The hospital could fix a lot, but bruising and all around soreness was something that just had to disappear on its own. Carefully he settled in his chair and leaned back with a sigh. It was quiet, a rarity.

"John."

He opened his eyes to see a cup shoved in front of his face and he took it. "Tea?" He sipped at it and smiled. "Why am I not surprised you know how I like my tea?"

He thought that they would sit in silence for a bit, but instead, Sherlock dropped to his knees and without warning, yanked up his shirt. "What the hell are you doing?!" he demanded, forcing himself to quell any movement he might have made in his shock so he didn't spill the hot tea over himself and make his injuries worse.

"You were clutching at your chest."

"It's sore." He hissed a little as Sherlock nudged the bruises around his ribs. "Stop poking me!" As if in apology, the poking stopped, but the hands remained there. "Sherlock?"

"…I'm sorry."

Those were not words he had ever expected to hear out of the genius but abrasive detective. "What?"

"I'm sorry, John. I shouldn't have taken that case from Mycroft."

"Wait, wait. You think what happened is your fault?"

Gray blue eyes looked up at him. "Of course it is, John. They couldn't get to me or Mycroft directly, so they took you both instead." Sherlock stood up and paced, and John took the moment to yank down his shirt. "This hasn't been a problem before; I wasn't expecting…" He grimaced.

His tea forgotten in his hand, John leaned forward a little. "Why would they take us if they couldn't get to either of you directly?"

"Because you've become a weakness to me, John." The tone was of that annoyance, that 'why can't you see that', but Sherlock's eyes were serious as they met his, almost drilling him into the seat. He could see the mental power there, the control…and the self-castigation. "I never really cared before, about anyone, until now. Well…maybe Mycroft," he added grudgingly. "They took you because you and Lestrade are…important to me. To us."

For a second, he didn't respond. He didn't know how to. It was probably the first time that Sherlock had ever said just how much their friendship had meant to him. "So…what you meant in the hospital, the 'how the mighty fall'… You meant that you two, as the mightiest people in Britain, were 'gotten to' because of us." He couldn't help the mutter, "And if considering yourself 'the mightiest people in Britain' isn't narcissistic, I don't know what is."

"It's not narcissistic, it's fact, John."

"Let's move on from the fact that it's completely narcissistic and you just don't want to admit it," he said, grinning just a little to himself at Sherlock's annoyed pout, "to even how they knew that we were your 'weaknesses'."

"Unfortunately, I think it's terribly obvious if someone is paying attention. You have become someone of great importance to me and I would have thought you'd noticed after the pool."

John shifted a little. They didn't talk about when they'd run home after Moriarty had left, how they'd collapsed onto the sofa only for Sherlock to drape himself over him, listening to his heartbeat until they had both fallen asleep. It had been a very…ambiguous moment that they had never once broached. Sherlock, in the morning, had pretended it didn't happen, so he hadn't asked anything.

"You never brought it up again."

"At the time, I was still attempting to reason with myself that it was the adrenaline, but the truth of it is that it was fear. The only person I'd ever been close to, if you can call it that, was Mycroft and there was no danger with him. He was always too powerful to be touched."

"Was?"

There was no answer to that, but John thought that he knew the answer. Just how terrifying would it be for these Holmes men, with intellects that surpassed the greats, to realize that they were just as much a slave to emotions as the rest of humanity? It may have only happened with one or two people, but that didn't change the fact that it happened to them.

John set his tea down and stood up. "So what are you going to do about it?"

Sherlock blinked. "What?"

"Well you've got a problem, Sherlock. According to you, I'm your weakness and they'll use me to get to you. You don't want that, but you can't stop me from keeping on doing what I'm doing unless you ask me to leave. So you have two choices: You ask me to leave, or you realize that we both have a weakness for each other."

The detective watched him closely before he nodded. "I won't ask you to leave." Sherlock's hand lifted, but fell back down before he did whatever he had thought of doing.

"So..." His eyebrow rose. "Mycroft."

There was a sound of disgust. "What about him?"

"He has a weakness to me and Greg too?"

"Yes. You are his weakness because you're mine. As for Lestrade… They've been united in their desire to harass me for years, so I expect it's partial respect and partial lust."

"Lust?"

"Yes. Mycroft's been eying Lestrade's rear a few too many years. Of course Mycroft has been too stupid to see that Lestrade has been staring at him since the moment they met. If he'd so much as wink, Lestrade would probably strip for him in an instant."

John couldn't help but wonder how they'd managed to get to this part of the conversation. He had never considered Mycroft in a relationship with anyone. In fact, he didn't think he could imagine either one of them in a relationship. Holmes had become synonymous with asexual to him because for as long as he'd known Sherlock, he didn't think he'd ever seen one hint of interest romantically or physically in anyone. Sure there had been Irene Adler, but that had always seemed more mental than physical.

John leaned back in his chair and went back to sipping the tea that Sherlock had made for him. He watched as Sherlock reached for his violin and began to play, his back to his flatmate. It was the only sound in the flat and it was quiet, more like a slightly sad serenade. John could almost imagine that it was trying to tell him something, but… "I've never heard that one before," he commented quietly.

The sound paused for a moment. "I made it last night while you were in the hospital."

"What? You made it? Didn't you sleep?"

Sherlock went back to playing and he knew the answer to that question. Of course the detective hadn't slept. It was difficult enough to get him to sleep at the best of times; it would have been out of the question with John in the hospital. He settled a little deeper into the chair, sipping at his tea and allowing his eyes to close.

When he woke up next, his internal clock said it was night. He shifted, blinking when he felt the weight of arms around him, clutching at him. John looked over his shoulder at his flatmate. Apparently Sherlock had moved them to his bedroom, a place John was rarely in, and had clambered in after. There was no way to extricate himself out of the arms and legs that locked around him. The man was out like a light, breathing even in sleep, but one hand was resting with its palm flat against his chest right over his heart.

Weakness. John smiled just a little at the reassurance that Sherlock needed that he was still alive and knowing just how he felt from that violin piece earlier, he allowed himself to be cuddled. It wasn't so bad, having a weakness.

(I hadn't realized I'd already made a good start on this part 2. I might turn it into a four-parter.)