Sunday morning Sherlock and John woke up under the covers and indulged in a bit of clothed snogging before going down to the lobby for breakfast. John was relieved to see that all the other members of gay teen train had found their way back to the hotel last night and hadn't gotten arrested. There was a full English breakfast laid out in the dining area, but, of course, Sherlock opted for a solitary styrofoam cup of black coffee with two sugars. After a bit of nudging, though, John managed to get him to eat a few bites of toast.
They sat in comfortable silence at a secluded table near the window. Outside the streetlamps glimmered faintly in the mid-morning drizzle, but Sherlock and John were encompassed in their own light. The warmth of the afterglow from sleeping together last night, literally and euphemistically, had still yet to fade. Sherlock wondered if the universe was feeling gracious enough to allow them to hold on to it a little longer.
After he was finished with breakfast, John looked up from his plate and asked, "So, what do you want to do today?"
Sherlock sipped idly at his coffee. "We should probably stop by Baker Street and check to see if Dannie made it home alright."
"God, I hope she did," John murmured.
"Dannie is incredibly proficient in the game of hide and seek. I'm sure that she and Irene managed to avoid getting arrested." Sherlock set down his cup and stared out the window. "Still, it would be good to verify that."
He glanced at the CCTV camera across the street. Undoubtedly Mycroft would review the footage later, though he usually watched it in real time. It was Sunday morning, and so Mycroft and Lestrade were probably having a lie-in. Sherlock knew that Lestrade would have called him by now if there had been any major breakthroughs in the case. Choosing to disclose a fraction of the truth to Lestrade had been his way of trying to avoid having that particular conversation with his brother. Apparently the information he provided hadn't been enough. Still, Sherlock hoped that they at least wouldn't have to deal with it today, that they had a little more time.
John stroked Sherlock's hand and waited patiently for the boy to resurface from his thoughts. Sherlock blinked and looked back at him, and John smiled. "Still with me?"
Sherlock nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Looks like the rain is starting to let up." John muttered. "Let's get going, then. Dannie's probably worried about us too."
The tube station was rather busy for a Sunday morning. During the short trip across central London, Sherlock and John remained standing and held onto one of the metal poles in the train car. An elderly couple who looked like they were dressed to go to church smiled warmly at the two boys standing suggestively close to each other, the short, blonde one leaning against the tall, dark-haired boy and nestling his head against his shoulder. John wrapped his free arm around Sherlock and laid a hand gently on his back. He hadn't said anything this morning when Sherlock locked himself in the bathroom to change into his usual ensemble consisting of jeans and long-sleeved black t-shirt. For a moment, he had contemplated muttering something like, "It's not like I haven't seen everything already," but then he remembered that wasn't quite true. Though John knew about the scars on Sherlock's back, he still hadn't looked at them, and he had a feeling that Sherlock didn't want him to see them yet.
The sun was peeking out from behind a thin veil of clouds by the time Sherlock and John reached the front steps of 221B. Instead of taking out his key, Sherlock swung the heavy silver doorknocker. Soon enough, they heard a shuffle of tiny feet, and Dannie peeked her head out the door.
"Morning," John said amiably.
Dannie swung the door open and exclaimed, "You're alive!"
"Obviously," Sherlock responded, smiling. "Glad to see you are too."
The girl stepped aside to let them in. "Irene left a couple of hours ago. She gave me this," Dannie said, procuring a wallet-size photograph from her pocket, "to help me remember her face while we're apart."
"That was thoughtful," John murmured, glancing down at the picture.
Sherlock smirked. "Knowing Irene, I would have expected something a bit more risqué."
"Shut up," Dannie muttered, thwacking him lightly on the arm
As the three of them congregated in the hallway, Mrs. Hudson came scurrying out of her flat and ushered them away from the stairwell. "Sorry, boys, I can't let you upstairs right now," she explained quickly. "A gentleman stopped by to take a look at the flat. I may finally have a tenant."
John raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? This bloke wasn't put off by all the lab equipment and chemicals lying around?"
Mrs. Hudson shrugged. "I suppose not. Apparently he's a chemistry professor at the university."
All the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room. John turned to look at Sherlock, whose face was pulled into a cold, unreadable mask. He knew that look, the calm before the storm.
Completely oblivious, Mrs. Hudson nattered on. "He's a chatty sort of fellow. Irish accent, but his last name sounded a bit French." She tapped her forehead in concentration. "Something with an 'M.' Oh, right. Moriarty."
"Bloody hell," John murmured under his breath.
Finally sensing the tension in the room, Mrs. Hudson turned to Sherlock and saw the deadened look in his eyes. "Sherlock dear, what's the matter? What's going-?"
Sherlock raised a long, pale hand, and everyone fell silent. The boy glanced up briefly at the top of the stairs. Then without a word, Sherlock knelt down and gathered Dannie into his arms before dashing into Mrs. Hudson's flat. John put a protective arm around the kindly old lady and followed them inside, shutting the door behind him.
Sherlock stood in the dark corner with Dannie still clinging to his slim shoulders. "Quickly," he whispered, "get away from the windows." Once the pair of them made it across the room, Sherlock turned to face the frantic Mrs. Hudson and said in a low voice, "Mrs. Hudson, I need you to remain calm and answer one question. Did this man bring anyone with him or is he alone?"
A bit dazed, Mrs. Hudson shook her head, "No, it's just him up there." She laid a trembling hand on one of Sherlock's thin, reedy arms, which were tightly locked around Dannie at the moment. "Sherlock, please, you're frightening me. What's going on?"
Sherlock took a deep breath and said, "I promise neither you nor Dannie will come to any harm as long as you stay here and keep quiet. You are not the intended target. I am."
"What does that mean?" Mrs. Hudson asked. "Who is that man?"
Dannie whimpered softly and tightened her grip around Sherlock's shoulders, but the boy gently lowered her to the floor on the other side of John. With adrenaline coursing through his veins, John stood at attention and whispered, "What do we do?"
Sherlock glanced up at the ceiling. "Jim most likely overheard our conversation in the hallway. He'll be expecting me to come upstairs."
"Oh God," John breathed. "Sherlock, no."
The boy gripped John's shoulders and whispered, "Whatever happens, do not leave this room until he's gone."
"Sherlock, no. What are you-?"
Sherlock stopped him midsentence with an apologetic kiss. Then he stepped back and said to Dannie and Mrs. Hudson, "Hold onto him."
It spoke volumes about how well they knew Sherlock that Dannie and Mrs. Hudson obeyed the command without question, each latching onto one of John's arms. In truth, John could have easily thrown them off, but he didn't have the heart to, which Sherlock had been counting on. Before John could protest further, Sherlock flew out into the hall and ran up the stairs.
The flat was eerily quiet. All of Sherlock's sharp senses were magnified as he cautiously walked inside and examined his surroundings. The door to the main bedroom was open. Sherlock crept along the wall and braced himself for whatever fresh hell awaited him. However, it was an old, painfully familiar kind of hell that Sherlock was faced with when he reached the doorway.
Jim stood in front of the desk across from the bed humming the tune of a classical piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. He was in the process of returning a strange assortment of supplies to an open briefcase on the desk: a pair of scissors, tape, a hole-puncher, a ball of twine, and a roll of satin red ribbon. Jim looked up and smiled lasciviously when he heard Sherlock step into the room. "There you are, dearie. I was starting to wonder what was taking so long." He waved a hand carelessly around the room. "Do you like what I've done with the place?"
It had been all Sherlock could do to not to pass out the moment he entered the room and saw what Jim had been busy creating. A long stretch of twine was strung up along the four walls of the bedroom, and bound to the twine with red satin ribbons were photographs printed on large, glossy sheets of paper. Pictures of fifteen-year-old Sherlock. Pictures of him tied up and drugged. Pictures of -
"Oh Sherlock, I know you've always been a bit camera shy," Jim purred. "Never really understood why, though. Just look at how lovely you are here, your mind and body so thoroughly wrecked, so beautiful, so broken, and all mine."
Sherlock closed his eyes and tried to keep his heart and respiratory rate under control. The array of photographs didn't just trigger memories of what the clients did to him. He was also reminded of what happened after they left.
The routine was always the same. Once the clients were finished with him, a couple of Jim's lackeys would clean him off and undo the restraints. Then Jim would pick up his limp, lifeless body and carry him back to the bedroom. After the abuse was over, when Jim laid him down on the bed, curled up next to him under the covers and held him close, whispered in his ear and told him what a perfect, lovely thing he was, that's when Sherlock really wanted to die.
"What did you come here for?" Sherlock whispered, standing still as if he was made of stone. "What do you want?"
Jim tilted his head. "Oh, I think you know," he responded silkily
Sherlock kept his face blank, his voice flat and emotionless. "Bit of a risk, isn't it? Kidnapping me in broad daylight?"
The man in the Westwood suit grimaced dramatically. "Kidnap you? No, no, no, no. You see, Sherlock, before the end of the night, you're going to come home to me." He raised a hand a brushed the tips of his fingers along one of the pictures on the wall. "I've waited so long for this, but I figured I'd be generous and allow you enough time to break things off with your precious John. I know he'll be heartbroken once you sit him down and tell him that you still belong to someone else. Maybe when he sees this, though, he'll understand." Jim's dark eyes flashed dangerously. "You best hope he does understand, Sherlock. I don't want to have to come back here."
Jim turned towards the desk and closed the briefcase. "I'll be expecting you at a quarter to midnight," he said, clicking the latches shut. "I already have a client lined up for this evening, and I've got a vial of heroin with your name on it." He drew closer to Sherlock now and reached up to caress his cheek. The boy flinched away from his touch, and Jim chuckled darkly. Then he gripped Sherlock by the back of the head and breathed in his ear, "Don't keep me waiting."
Downstairs in Mrs. Hudson's flat, John craned his neck up towards the ceiling, his whole body vibrating with anxiety. Dannie and Mrs. Hudson were tightly entwined around him like vines clinging to a tree, and he was now the one holding onto them, wrapping his arms protectively around them both. All three of them tensed when the sound of footsteps echoed from the stairwell and down the hall. Then the front door creaked open and shut, and a man in a Westwood suit stepped out onto the street.
John stared through the window and whispered to Mrs. Hudson, "Is that him?" The woman nodded timidly, and John felt anger and hatred grip his heart like an iron fist as he watched the man disappear into a cab. Then another sound echoed from upstairs, the sound of a pair of knobbly knees hitting the floor. "Sherlock," John gasped.
He pulled away from Dannie and Mrs. Hudson, and they let him go. With cold dread pooling in his stomach, John raced up the stairs and stumbled into the flat. He yelled Sherlock's name over and over, but all he could hear was his own heart pounding in his ears. Then he ran into the bedroom and found Sherlock crumpled on the floor at the foot of the bed.
"Oh my God," John yelped, crawling to him on all fours. Sherlock was lying on his side with his arms covering face, and John saw his chest moving as the boy took quick, sharp gasps of breath. "Sherlock, it's okay. It's me," John whispered. "Moriarty's gone." He reached out to touch him, to check to see if he was hurt, but Sherlock cringed and curled in on himself. "Sherlock, what happened? What did he-?"
John looked up and clamped a hand over his mouth. For a moment, he thought he might be sick.
The panorama of photographs strung along the wall showed graphic images of a thin, pale, fifteen-year-old Sherlock tied up or strapped down in various positions as strange men ravaged his body. Even in his worst nightmares, John had never imagined anything this horrifying.
As soon as the paralysis of shock began to subside, John did the first thing he could think of. He reached up to pull at the twine, and in one swift motion, he ripped it all down and let it fall to the floor. The action didn't bring him much relief, but that hardly mattered right now. John crawled back over to the boy on the floor and whispered, "Sherlock, it's alright. I've taken it all down." He gently lifted Sherlock into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around him. Sherlock was trembling, and as John cupped his face, he saw that the boy's eyes were still tightly closed. Then it suddenly hit him. It wasn't the pictures that Sherlock was afraid of seeing. "Sherlock, please," John begged, "open your eyes."
Hesitantly, Sherlock opened his eyes and saw John kneeling before him, his face radiating all the love that his tender heart possessed. In a soft, broken whisper, Sherlock said, "How can you still look at me like that?"
John smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkled with emotion. "How else am I supposed to look at you?"
Sherlock buried his faced against John's shoulder and allowed John to gently rock him back and forth until his breathing evened out. Then he felt one of the hands holding him slip away as John reached into his pocket for his mobile. Sherlock stared up at him and asked, "What are you doing?"
"I'm calling Lestrade." John scrolled through his contacts and found the number, but Sherlock's hand on his arm stopped him before he could dial.
"He'll bring Mycroft with him," Sherlock murmured faintly. "John, please. You can't let my brother see this."
John saw the pleading look in his eyes and whispered, "Alright. It's gonna be alright, Sherlock, but we need to talk to both of them. We've got to tell them everything."
The sound of tiny footsteps running up the stairs made them both jump. Dannie's timid squeak echoed from the sitting room. "Sherlock?"
"Dannie, no," Sherlock called back. "Don't." It wasn't gut-wrenching shame that strained his voce now, but fear. He sounded scared. For her.
The girl appeared in the doorway. "Sherlock, what happened?" Then she saw it. One of the photographs was lying face-up on the floor.
"Dannie," Sherlock moaned weakly. It was too late. Dannie's face turned stark white. Then she looked back up, all the light gone from her eyes.
The girl whispered faintly, "You lived like this too?"
More footsteps resounded from the stairwell as Mrs. Hudson hurried up to the flat. She called out their names, her voice looming closer. Sherlock looked on helplessly as Dannie started to hyperventilate, a hand pressed against her sinuses. She could smell blood already. He turned and buried his face against John's shoulder. There wasn't any way he could help her now. Just the sight of him was making it worse.
John didn't know what to do or say. He simply wrapped his arms around Sherlock and held him tight just as Mrs. Hudson drew near the doorway. Dannie stumbled backward and managed to collapse into Mrs. Hudson's arms right before the seizure hit.
Lestrade and Mycroft sat across from Sherlock and John in Mrs. Hudson's flat, the two boys nestled together on the sofa with their hands intertwined. A clear plastic bag lay on the coffee table filled with the jumble of twine and ribbon that Lestrade had managed to disentangle the evidence from. He was wearing a pair of latex gloves as he quickly sorted through the photographs, not wanting to look at them any longer than necessary. Mycroft pressed his fingertips against his temple and averted his gaze. This relieved Sherlock somewhat, but the pained expression on his brother's face made his chest hurt.
Nothing felt real. Sherlock tilted his head back against the cushions and turned to glance at the kitchen. Mrs. Hudson was sitting at the small square table with Dannie cradled in her lap gently rocking the girl back and forth. Dannie shifted in her arms and hid her face against Mrs. Hudson's shoulder. She still couldn't look at him.
Finally, Lestrade stacked the photographs together and placed them in a second evidence bag. Then he laid them facedown on the coffee table. He cleared his throat and muttered, "So, um, tell me if I have this right. All of these pictures were taken in Jim Moriarty's flat?"
"Yes," Sherlock responded blankly, staring straight ahead. "There's a soundproof office in his flat. The bed they tied me to was some kind of standard issue hospital cot. Jim had it bolted to the floor to keep the metal headboard from banging against the wall so he could hear me…" Sherlock felt John's hand tighten around his. The slight pressure helped keep him anchored to reality. "Anyways, it's probably still there."
Lestrade nodded. Then he cleared his throat again. "And these are all of the clients who, um…" He stopped when he saw Sherlock shake his head. "There were more?"
John turned all the way towards him, his expression stricken. Sherlock closed his eyes and extricated his hand from John's, hugging his arms against his thin frame.
"There were a hundred and thirty-seven in total."
"Christ," Lestrade muttered, massaging his eyelids.
Unhindered by the present company, John reached up and cupped Sherlock's face in both hands. Sherlock let John rest his forehead against his own, shame wracking his limbs as he hunched in on himself and whispered, "I'm sorry."
John sighed and kissed his temple. "We've been over this. You have no reason to apologize for what you went through. None of this is your fault."
The men sat silently and allowed Sherlock and John to have a moment. Then once they composed themselves, Mycroft voiced his own question.
"Is Victor in these photographs?" he asked, pointing to the second evidence bag.
The boy shook his head. "Victor was one of the clients who paid the extra fee to take me back to his place for a… private session." Sherlock took a deep breath and stared down at his hands. "When I woke up in the hospital, I tried to piece together what had happened in the last few hours, but I couldn't really remember how I got there."
Mycroft gripped the handle of his umbrella, his knuckles turning white. "You stopped breathing at one point," he murmured faintly. The pain in the room was palpable now, hanging heavy in the space between them. "Victor told the paramedics that he found you passed out in the alley and brought you up to his flat to try to help you. Then at the hospital, the doctors saw all the strange marks on your body, and so they took a rape kit." Mycroft rubbed his eyelids wearily and sighed. "You were fifteen years old."
Sherlock steeled himself and met his brother's gaze. "I'm not a child anymore, Mycroft."
"No, you're not," Mycroft conceded, "but you're still my little brother." The man's eyes flicked over the stack of photographs again, and Sherlock knew what he was thinking.
"I wish it was that simple," Sherlock said quietly, "but you can't just make Jim disappear like you did with Victor. He's too well-connected."
Lestrade reached over and laid a hand on Mycroft's arm. "I'm sorry, love, but he's right. I have to do this by the book." The detective packed away the evidence in his forensics bag. "The bad news is I'm going to have to reopen Sherlock's missing persons case to add in all this new information."
Mycroft sighed. "And the good news?"
"The good news is that I'll probably be able to get a search warrant for Jim Moriarty's flat. I just need a day or two to get a judge to sign off on it."
Sherlock closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. He didn't have that kind of time.
With the meeting adjourned, the four of them got to their feet and walked to the front door. At the threshold, Mycroft paused for a moment and set down his umbrella. Then he took a few steps toward the younger Holmes. Sherlock braced himself, not knowing what to expect. In an uncharacteristic move, Mycroft put his arms around his brother and wrapped him in a tight embrace.
Sherlock swallowed a lump in his throat and muttered, "I can see why you tend to avoid this sort of thing, caring. It's rather debilitating, isn't it?"
Mycroft stepped back and rested his hands on the boy's slim shoulders. "True," he admitted, "but in your case it can't really be helped."
Just like that, Mycroft and Lestrade were gone, and Sherlock finally came back up to breathe. He retreated to the foot of the stairs and jammed his knuckles against the crook of his left elbow. John settled next to him on the step and studied him with concern. "You okay?" John asked. Then he shook his head. "Sorry, stupid question."
"It's alright," Sherlock muttered, struggling to keep his voice steady. "Apparently that's one of those questions people are supposed to ask even when the answer is obvious." He took slow, controlled breaths and pressed harder against the inside of his elbow. "My arm hurts. It's all tensed up, and there's really only one way to fix that. I left my razor at home last night. I could make due with a piece of broken glass or something, but at this point I'd probably end up hitting a vein."
John slid his hands over Sherlock's arm and gently nudged the boy's fist away. He kneaded along the line of his forearm with his thumbs, massaging the tense muscles. Then he clasped Sherlock's hand between his own. "I need you to do something for me, okay?" John said softly. "I know it hurts, but I need you to feel loved. I need you to understand how much I love you," John kissed his palm and held in against his cheek. "You're my whole world now, and I don't want to lose you."
Sherlock's heart contracted in his chest. Knowing what he had to do tonight was terrifying enough, but being reminded of how much he had to lose scared him even more. He buried his face against John's neck and whispered, "Just promise you won't be mad at me."
John blinked in confusion. "What the hell would I be mad at you for?"
Sherlock was saved from answering when Mrs. Hudson stepped out into the hallway. He and John quickly stood up as if it was the queen entering their midst. Mrs. Hudson wiped a bit of moisture from her eyes and sniffed before saying in a bravely cheery voice, "If you boys would like a cuppa, I can put the kettle on."
"That's alright Mrs. Hudson," John responded. "You've been through enough today."
Sherlock looked down at the floor and hugged his arms around himself. "I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused."
Mrs. Hudson's face softened. "Oh my dear," she whispered, pulling the lanky teen into a tight embrace, "you don't have anything to be sorry about. I'm the one who let that monster walk right through the door and into my…well, it's really your flat, isn't it?" She stepped back and smiled. "I don't think I'll be able to face meeting any more prospective tenants anyways, but I think you were always meant to have it. 221B is your home whenever you want it to be." She looked over at John. "That goes for you too, John. There's a second bedroom upstairs." Mrs. Hudson blushed. "Of course you probably won't be needing two bedrooms."
John grinned and shook his head. "Who knows, though? Dannie may get tired of the basement apartment and decide to move upstairs with us."
Sherlock gasped. "Oh God, Dannie."
He hurried back into Mrs. Hudson's flat and dashed to the kitchen. Dannie was standing alone by the counter. She seemed to be having a staring contest with the knife drawer. Sherlock stepped toward her cautiously, not wanting to startle her. He drummed his fingers on the counter to let her know he was there. She didn't look up.
After a lull of silence, Sherlock said quietly, "Is it gone yet?"
Still staring down at the knife drawer, the girl nodded. "It took a while, but the image is all fragmented and fuzzy now." She breathed a shaky sigh. "I still have a general idea of what I saw." Dannie gripped her left arm, pressing her thumb hard against her wrist. "I could really use a hit of morphine."
"I know, me too," Sherlock whispered, "but we can't. You're eight months clean, and I'm… five days clean. We've been doing well."
"It takes one to know one, right?" Dannie finally looked up at him, her enormous eyes glistening. "I know what kids at school say about me, about why I did this," she said, pointing to her scar. "It's strange how accurate some of their theories are."
Sherlock shrugged. "Even idiots can make lucky guesses."
"You don't guess, though," Dannie countered. "You filter through all the random details and figure out the truth. What is it about me that made it obvious to you?"
Sherlock sighed and glanced down at the sink. "Apparently seizures in the right temporal lobe are known to be symptomatic of a very… specific kind of childhood trauma."
"I suppose there are some perks to having no visual memory," she said with a sad smile, "but you remember everything, don't you?"
Sherlock kneeled down and got on eye-level with her. "I'm okay, Dannie."
"You don't have to be so strong all the time, you know," the girl said softly. "Doesn't it get exhausting?"
Sherlock gazed steadily back at her. "You tell me."
All at once, Dannie broke down and collapsed against Sherlock's shoulders. She wrapped her arms around him, and Sherlock hugged her back, only slightly disconcerted by being embraced for the third time in the span of five minutes. John and Mrs. Hudson chose that exact moment to appear in the kitchen, and what they seemed to think would be the most appropriate response to the situation was to get down on the cold tile floor with them and join in on the hug. Sandwiched between Dannie, Mrs. Hudson, and John, Sherlock started to feel a bit overwhelmed.
"Alright, I think I've had enough hugs for today," he murmured. "I've officially reached my limit."
The others laughed and as all four of them broke apart and leaned back against the cupboards. None of them seemed ready to stand yet.
"How's your hip feeling, Mrs. Hudson?" John asked.
"Not too bad," Mrs. Hudson answered. "I could probably still use an herbal soother, to be honest. Got myself a bit worked up."
"Well, the crisis is being dealt with," John reassured her. "Sherlock's brother and Inspector Lestrade are gonna keep surveillance on the flat just as an extra precaution, but you'll be safe here tonight."
Dannie and Mrs. Hudson glanced at each other and then back at Sherlock and John. "If this is the safest place for you to be," Mrs. Hudson said, "then you two should stay here as well."
John smiled up at Sherlock. "Is that alright with you?"
Sherlock took his hand and interlocked their fingers. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be." He looked around at his little family. They would be safe here tonight. Sherlock was going to make sure of that.