The blood sprayed in a magnificent arch.

A droplet of blood landed on the camera lens. The conference room Sherlock was trapped in was blanketed in a warm red glow.

Again, Sherlock could not breathe. When he looked down at himself, he saw his body covered in red. Irrationally, he thought he was covered in John's blood. Suddenly, his self-imposed paralysis vanished, his skin crawling. He screamed.

Sherlock? Sherlock?

There was no coherent response from Sherlock.

Sherlock, we have one more round to play before the police show up.

Sherlock's raw eyes blinked slowly. His lips were cracked. "H-how were the police alerted…? John?"

I called them. After all, it's possible that one of you may actually be alive when this experiment is over, and that person may need medical attention.

"Oh." That made sense. "How thoughtful of you."

It was the least I could do. I thought I ought to. To thank you for your participation.

Sherlock looked carefully at John. The stump of John. The unmoving torso of John. Oh. Oh, how he had thrashed. Sherlock had watched every miserable moment of it. The blades stirred John out of his coma. Sherlock couldn't even tell if John knew where he was anymore. He'd screamed and gurgled. The blood. The blood! Then, nothing again. John had slipped back into the blackness. Then the blades moved onto the second leg. John roused again in madness and pain. Pain unlike Sherlock could ever imagine. John was barely clinging to life now. How could the man still be alive?

"There never was a way out," croaked Sherlock.

No. You were going to stay here until my curiosity was satisfied, one way or another.

Sherlock swallowed dryly. "And. Is it satisfied?"

Not yet.

Sherlock smiled weakly.

John's eyes were open. He eyes blinked in muddled confusion.

"Let's play some more," Sherlock beckoned. "Let's end this."

Let's.

John's gaze seemed to steady, as if he were reading along.

This time, I'll make things a little easier. Trolley's coming.

Sherlock watched John mouth form; "Fuck you." It made Sherlock smile. John was obviously deeply in shock. This false euphoria could end at any time, plummeting John back into the darkness, perhaps for good. He was shocked that John was still alive at all.

John, the lever is yours again.

John's lips said, "Fuck the lever, too."

Sherlock, his mind broken, laughed as he cried. Attaboy, John, he thought.

John, if you do nothing, you will die. A needle will project from the neck of the chair and puncture your spinal cord and snap it in half. Paralyzed, you will suffocate. You will not have to live your life as a quadriplegic, a fate you have witnessed in other vets. You know how miserable their lives are. How they beg for death. But your suffering can end now.

Or you can pull the lever, John. If you pull the lever, a scalpel will cut open Sherlock's skull. But unlike in the last scenario, a blade will merely slice into his frontal lobe. Then his skull cap will carefully be replaced and his head lovingly bandaged and his wounds cared for. Sherlock will live. Lobotomized. He will have no thoughts or feelings. He will be reduced to a vegetable, left to rot in an institution. And you, John, can rot in a VA hospital for all the nurses to feel sorry for.

Sherlock was silent for a time. "Clever," he said finally. "You took John's arms and legs. You crippled the man of action. And you want to ruin my mind. Leave us both alive and tragically useless. How romantic."

I thought you'd like that.

"It's a nice touch," Sherlock praised. "For your sake, Jim, I hope John lobotomizes me. Because if he chooses death, I will be sound of body and mind and I will hunt you down to do terrible, terrible things to you." Sherlock smiled wide, his cheeks drenched with tears, his pale eyes empty and soulless and hungry for murder. "You must understand that nothing is off the table now."

I also hope that is John's choice. I don't like the way you too look at each other. I never did. You were made for me, Sherlock.

"What you're doing to us now…will look like childsplay compared to what I'm going to do to you…"

Promises, promises. Although I do love it when you talk dirty. Unfortunately, you could never make me suffer the way I'm making you suffer now. There's no one I love more than you. So, while I force you to watch your boyfriend die by dismemberment, there's no equivalent torture you could put me through.

"And what if John decides to lobotomize me, Jim? What then?"

Then you won't be able to resist while I fuck your sweet ass over and over again.

Sherlock chuckled at that. He was going to douse that man in gasoline and set him on fire and piss on his ashes after he made him eat a tough full of shit.

I can look deeply into those pale eyes of yours while you stare up at me. No resistance. I'm hard just thinking about it.

"It's not up to you, though," Sherlock reminded Moriarty. "It's up to John."

Yes. It's up to John.

Sherlock looked at John. He smiled painfully.

John was speaking. His mouth was moving.

Sherlock observed John's face carefully. Puzzlement overcame him. John didn't look in pain at all. It was heavenly. "John?"

John's mouth moved with purpose. His eyes roved the camera as if searching for a sign. He was saying something frantically.

Sherlock's eyes softened, distracted by the sheer poetry of it all to decipher John's words. One of them was about to blink out of existence. Either John was going to die, or all Sherlock's thoughts would come to an end. Either way, they would never speak to each other again. They were already dead to each other. Sherlock was already in a pseudo-afterlife. A life after John. A not-life after John.

Sherlock tried to imagine what it would be like to live at 221b Baker Street alone.

Sherlock tried to imagine what it would be like for John to live, never alone again, never a moment of privacy or independence, not even to use the toilet.

For a moment, Sherlock was back in their flat, standing in the foyer just outside the door, peering in.

A ghost of his former self.

Like the ghost of Christmas past. Only in reverse.

Inside the flat, he saw himself and John. John was sitting on the sofa, hands folded neatly in his lap. The other Sherlock was sitting in the arm chair, violin tucked under his chin, his hand delicately holding the bow, poised between notes. But neither John nor Sherlock moved. They were both staring at him. There was such anticipation in their eyes, and disdain and varying degrees of disappointment.

But both their eyes said something….a little different.

"You idiot," Sherlock's disgusted face expressed.

John's eyes were a little more open, questioning, puzzled. "What are you doing?"

"I'm an idiot," Sherlock repeated himself out loud, slowly, experimentally, not really knowing why he was an idiot, but feeling certain that he was. Certain things rang true when said outloud. His subconscious was practically screaming at him. "What am I doing?"

His eyes blinked rapidly. His vision focused.

He saw John's face for real, in the projection screen. John's face mirrored the John he had seen in his mind. His mouth was moving. Finally, he could make out the words.

"What are you doing? Sherlock? Can you hear me? What are you doing?"

Sherlock sat in profound stupidity. "What am I doing? What am I doing?"

Ten seconds.

His eyes grew wide. "Stupid!" Sherlock spat.

Eight seconds.

"You shouldn't be alive!" Sherlock shouted accusingly at John, his sense of reality deteriorating. "You should be dead. That first arm should have done it. Knick just one artery and you should have bled out in just a minute. This…show…while gruesome and spectacular is just a trick."

Six seconds.

Sherlock sank miserably, feeling close to the prize but it was agonizingly out of his reach no matter how madly he swiped at it. Oddly enough, John seemed to have the answer. "John? John? Please tell me it's a trick! This can't be real. I'm dreaming. This is a dream."

In the projection, John was shouting impatiently. "What are you doing?" By now, Sherlock could read his lips so readily he could practically hear John's voice.

Sherlock shouted to John, "Where were we? Where were we before all this happened? How did we end up here? I can't remember anything. Something knocked us out. I'm hallucinating or something." He yanked his sore wrists against the restraints. "Damn it John! Wake me up! You've got it! I can see you've got it! God knows how you figured it out, but you've got it!"

Three seconds.

"Wake me up John!" Sherlock demanded furiously. "Spell it out for me! I'm fucking dense!"

Two seconds.

John was aghast. "You idiot! Sherlock!"

One second.

"What don't I get?" Sherlock howled. "What is my stupid, inferior brain missing? Why can't I work it out?"

I guess John Watson isn't such a good friend after all, Sherlock. He pulled the lever.

To be continued…