Disclaimer – characters and settings as depicted in the BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.
John
It was a sad comment on his life that John's first thought when waking up from the dart he'd taken to the shoulder was 'not again'. His second thought was 'ouch' – they'd left him on the floor on his bad shoulder, which didn't react well if he slept on it without moving. This was almost a hundred times worse because he had to fight off whatever the drug that he'd been given as well as the pain from his shoulder.
For a moment he thought he was back in Afghanistan, but that was the confusion and pain talking – some deliberate breathing calmed his mind enough for him to focus on where he was and what was happening. Concern for Sherlock threatened to undo his calm again, but he put his friend to the back of his mind – a difficult task to be sure – and focussed on the present.
The room he was in was clean enough, if a little dusty. There were some windows set high in the walls, formed with thick safety glass. They were grimy and hardly let in any daylight, but from what John could tell, he was in a subbasement, looking over a garden of some sort. He couldn't hear any traffic, or any noise on the ceiling above him. Stretching carefully, John walked towards the door, taking note of the size of the room, the height of the ceiling and the thickness of the windowsills. By the time he reached the door (thick, old wood with peeling green paint) John had worked out that he was in an old building, Georgian era, which had been remodelled at some point. He was in the sub-basement – what had probably been part of the servant's territory at some point – and that the house itself was in an area that wasn't too built up – so possibly in the country or the outskirts of Greater London.
The room was devoid of furniture, no plumbing, no light fittings or switches. He could see that there had been light fittings and switches at one point, but they had been sealed over crudely – someone had bolted panels of wood over where the light switch normally would be, as well as over several places in the ceiling that John assumed were light fittings.
Although he was certain the door would be locked, John checked it carefully before returning back to the patch of sunlight he'd woken in. The stretches were working – the pain in his shoulder was receding slightly, though it would be hours before it faded entirely. John settled himself onto the floor and allowed the winter sunlight to warm him while he thought his situation through. Obviously Moriarty had used tranquilisers on them both, and then transported John here. He wasn't certain if Sherlock was elsewhere in the building or even if his friend had been brought here. He wouldn't put it past Moriarty to have taken John and abandoned him to starve out here as some sort of game or challenge for Sherlock: or even to have taken them both and hold John hostage for Sherlock's continued good behaviour.
There was only one thing to be done: once his shoulder was recovered and his head and stomach had settled in the wake of the drugs he would try getting out of here. At the very least he'd make some noise and see what reaction he could get. If there was none, then there was a good chance he was alone and therefore in a better position to escape.
That was all in the future, though. He would have no chance of coping with the unexpected while his shoulder felt like someone was driving a railway spike through it. Recovery first: then escape. He could put the waiting time to planning and thinking, even if he wasn't as good at it as his captor and flatmate.
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