The first thing that John did was throw up.
Sherlock winced and leaned away from the bars separating their cells, watching emotionlessly as John repeatedly retched, choking on spit and bile.
He wasn't sure what he had expected. John had been living for the past three years under the false pretence that Sherlock was dead. Sherlock hadn't expected him to take to it right away but he wasn't sure that he had expected him to throw up.
"John," he said quietly, licking his lips.
He had a spectacularly bloody lip. It was split in at least two places, but that was the least of his worries. His captors had come back, taken him to another room and shouted more abuse at him. Sherlock toyed with the idea of speaking a different language back to them to signify that he didn't understand, but he was dressed in the typical British garb. Had been dressed, anyway. He didn't know where his uniform had gone to, not that he particularly lamented the loss. Right now, all he had was a blanket in his cell. He was neither here nor there on the topic of using it to cover up- he had no inhibitions about his body and military mostly squelched all senses of privacy one had- but it was better than sleeping on the dirt when he had actually had to sleep. Thus far, he hadn't permitted himself to close his eyes.
No, he had determined that he was going to sit at the side of the cell and wait for John to wake up and tell him that he was fine. For John to wake up so Sherlock could tell him that he was fine. And then, he finally had and-
"... John," he tried again, flicking his gaze to the door of the room.
No one was ever in the room with them unless they wanted something, but there was always someone at the top of the stairs, behind the door. The basement had no windows and nothing of value that could be used for an attack. They didn't bother with supervision when there was no good way for escape except past them. Sherlock had been looking for an escape.
"... We're dead..." John muttered, voice rasping from the vomiting spree.
Sherlock frowned. "Of course we're not."
"... You're dead... so I..." John trailed off.
Sherlock could see the man literally starting to shake. It was not comforting. This was another moment that Sherlock had grossly misjudged on how it would play out. He thought John would be angry, maybe, or... surprised. Ultimately happy. Not in denial.
"Listen," Sherlock murmured, leaning closer to the bars again. "You're fine. I'm fine. I was never dead, John."
John shook his head a bit wildly. Sherlock tried to think back to reassess how many days John had been kept here.
"You are not dead," Sherlock said sternly. "You are still living and breathing... I admit that it's not the best of circumstances, but you're not dead yet."
John rubbed the back of his shaking hand against his mouth, huddling back against the wall. He hugged his knees to his chest and stared towards a point that Sherlock couldn't find.
"John."
"... Dreaming," John mumbled.
"What?"
"I'm dreaming..." John whispered. "Just like I used to."
Sherlock arched an eyebrow. "Dreaming?"
"... Dreaming... you..."
Dreaming you up was the unspoken thought. Sherlock, however, had an out for this particular scenario. Giving John one of his driest looks, he asked:
"And how many times have I been naked in your dreams?"
Sherlock had the pleasure of watching John's cheeks tint slightly, only slightly, under the coat of dirt and grime. He shifted his weight a bit uncomfortably- sitting on his knees was slightly uncomfortable although preferably to having clods of dirt in places he didn't mind for- and flashed John a sarcastic smile. "Have we established this this is, in fact, not a dream?"
John muttered something that was lost even between the short distance between them.
"What was that?" Sherlock said.
"... Hallucinating."
Sherlock, having expected this as the next tone of conversation, put his hand through the bars, holding it out to John. "Take my hand," he said, with the slightest of smirks as he mirrored the words from that fateful day far too long ago.
John simply stared at it for a good, long while before hesitantly reaching out and prodding at it like it was about to bite him. Sherlock rolled his eyes and grabbed John's hand, curling his fingers around John's.
"John. I. Am. Alive," he said, enunciating each word. He squeezed John's fingers pointedly.
When he looked up again, John was crying.
Tears were not something that Sherlock had grown accustomed to. Something that he would never grow accustomed to, if he were honest, because he just didn't have time for such things. He wouldn't lie- he'd cried before, on few, sparing occasions- but he hated the whole process of it.
Sherlock swallowed and waited nervously. When had he succumbed to such things as nerves and uncomfortableness? Somewhere, somewhere in between meeting John and leaving John, and finding John again... he had become more human. John had made him more human.
... It was disgusting.
There was a clack of the door opening and Sherlock jerked his hand away from John as though he'd been electrocuted. He cast a sideways glance at John, mentally communicating to him to stay silent, and looked back towards the stairs with an impassive face.
Two cracked ribs and a building infection that wouldn't go away without proper antibiotics.
That was the self diagnosis after the latest round of abuse that their captors had put him through. He'd been somewhere, separate from the others, tied up and counting the seconds. He'd gotten to the thought that he'd been there for three days when he noted with some interest that he had a fever and it wasn't long after that that he was unceremoniously thrown back into his cell.
It wasn't his fault. Okay, maybe it was a bit. But he had nothing to say so he wasn't going to talk. He only wanted to talk to John, or Mycroft, but neither of those were really great options at the moment. At least talking to John was possible, though.
He collapsed in a heap of bruising limbs and bleeding scrapes onto the blanket. Despite his best interests to stay awake, it wasn't in his body's mental state to make the demand. He coughed slightly into his arm and curled up the best he could, shivering.
The silence was unnerving, but not wholly uncomfortable as he wasn't conscious enough to experience it. He was just about to doze off when
"... Sherlock...?"
Sherlock pried his heavy eyelids up, wondering if he was the one hallucinating now. But then, again
"Sherlock."
Sherlock licked blood off his lips and tilted his head enough to look to the cell next to him. John was leaning precariously close to the separating bars, his wary gaze watching Sherlock.
Sherlock offered a weak smile and closed his eyes again.
"Sherlock," John hissed.
Sherlock's lips moved without his eyes doing the same. "What...?"
"... You're..."
"Alive, yes," Sherlock mumbled.
"Sweating," John said.
Sherlock forced his eyes open again. "... Really?" he mumbled. "I've taken a beating and you say I'm sweating...?"
"... If you're shivering and sweating, you have an infection... fever," John mumbled.
"I am aware," Sherlock murmured.
"... You... You should stay warm..." John murmured. "Cover up with the blanket."
It seemed too much of a hassle, but Sherlock shuffled until he was half laying on the blanket, half covered by the blanket. "... Happy?" he mumbled. "Bloody doctors," he said, lips curving into a half-hearted smile.
He thought that John said something else, but he didn't hear it. His pulse was still pounding in his ears and the fever was thrumming throughout his body. Unconsciousness was bliss and he was helpless to resist it.
When he woke up again, someone's hand was on his forehead.
With all of the quick reflexes of a soldier braced for attack, Sherlock startled awake and grabbed the hand grabbing at him, twisting it back at the wrist.
"Ow!"
The exclamation cut through his fever and sleep fogged senses and he focussed, noting that John's hand had been the one he'd just grabbed. "Oh! John," he murmured, letting go of John's hand. "Sorry. I thought... never mind. Are you okay?"
John looked at him intently. He seemed to have wiped some of the grime away from his face during the time that Sherlock had been unconscious and his eyes were a little brighter.
Sherlock took this as a good sign.
"You still have a fever," John said, leaning against the bars. "Infection. Probably from one of those gashes," he muttered, eyes flitting to a particularly nasty one that was oozing on his shoulder.
Sherlock pulled the blanket up over his shoulders. Now he was self-conscious, simply because John was going to go 'doctor' on him. "I'll be fine as long as we get out of here soon. You've accepted that I'm real, then?"
John was quiet for a minute before sighing heavily. "I don't know if you're real or fake but it beats being alone. Although I'm probably talking to myself and everybody here thinks I'm a nutter..." He laughed briefly, only the slightest ghost of something that Sherlock used to know. "But I've never quite had a hallucination quite like this..."
Sherlock looked away from John and flicked his gaze around the basement again. "It's going to get better. Our imminent and daring escape will begin shortly," Sherlock said.
Not that he felt particularly up to an imminent and daring escape, but he could only get back to London one of two ways: breaking out of the military base (not preferable in his state) or relying on Mycroft to get them out.
"Another one?" John murmured. He raised his voice. "How did you fake it? And how in the hell did you get to Afghanistan?"
Sherlock couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his lips at that. The incredulity was amazing. If anyone could fake their own death and get to Afghanistan to save his best friend, it was Sherlock Holmes. Why was John so surprised?
The next few hours where spent in whispered conversations through cell bars. Sherlock leaned against John's shoulder, respectively, through the bars, and John leaned on his. Whenever someone else came to the basement, they retreated as if they didn't know each other. They were acting like two secret lovers, Romeo and Juliet, one of the other captors mentioned. John choked and Sherlock took great delight in watching him as he coughed and spluttered for air, red in the face for lack of oxygen and embarrassment.
Things would have been perfect... had they been back at Baker Street, of course. Sherlock would have killed for a shower and some morphine at this point, but he had better things to think about first.
"Mycroft should be able to get us out of here soon," Sherlock mumbled.
He was leaning back against John's shoulder though the bars, feeling sluggish. It was some time late at night, everyone was asleep- not counting the one or two that always took the night watch- and he was tired. He wouldn't have been but his body, ravaged by infection, was making demands that he didn't care for.
"How?" John asked.
"He knows we're here."
"How?" John asked again.
Sherlock beckoned John closed and whispered- simply for the sake of no one else needed to hear it- "Mycroft has a tag on me".
John frowned. "How does he... You've got nothing on."
"Nanotechnology is superb, John."
John's face was one of confusion.
Sherlock smiled and flicked his gaze to the door. He spit onto his hand- which prompted a "What are you doing?" from John- and scrubbed a bit of the dirt off his arm. He leaned impossibly heavier against the cell bars and felt around his arm for a moment. "Give me your hand."
"What?"
"Give me your hand," he retorted, grabbing John's hand.
"Thanks for the saliva," John muttered.
Sherlock rolled his eyes and pressed John's fingers against spot on his arm. "There."
John gave him a look that clearly said nutter before he pressed his fingers down on the spot specified. The look turned to one of confusion again, and then a full-blown frown. "... Is that an implant?" he whispered.
Sherlock smiled wryly. "Subcutaneous global-positioning device."
"... That's not even real, is it?"
Sherlock took his arm back. "Well, they've been testing out a new model for the past few years and Mycroft pulled a few strings... We did a test run while I was in training and it matched my movements well enough to know where I was so I decided to go with it. Of course, there's no guarantee that it has been working..." he said slowly. "But, given my research, I would assume that it has been."
"So... You're telling me that we could be sitting ducks."
"It's possible," Sherlock replied.
"That... really helps my confidence level, Sherlock."
"Hey, I found you!" Sherlock retorted. "Be happy that you've got someone to talk to now!"
"I had people to talk to."
John's voice was blunt, but Sherlock heard humour behind it. He was... teasing him? Seemed unlikely for the circumstances but also very probable from the tone of voice.
Sherlock gave a hesitant smile in return. "Yes, but they weren't me."
"No..." John murmured, pressing his shoulder more firmly against Sherlock's shoulder. (It hurt but Sherlock didn't wince.) "They weren't you."
The swell of warmth was unexplainable but not uncommon for being around John. Sherlock couldn't explain it and he didn't think he would be able to... Well, he could explain it as 'friendship', but even that was foreign enough concept to him.
"Get some sleep," he said.
Of course, they were going to have to separate, to return to their façade of not knowing each other, but, for now, this, Sherlock thought, was a bit very good indeed.
Technology that doesn't yet exist is the amazing saviour in fiction. Actually, there has been a few cases of people using 'GPS' tracking implants (illegally) in humans. Plus, this story is set in roughly 2015, so who knows what the world will be like then. And Mycroft can do anything. ;) Blame Star Trek and The Last Enemy for the inspiration of the idea.
I do not own Sherlock. Would love to hear your comments and, as usual, thank you!