Half naked and in the dark: two places that Sherlock never really wanted to be with James Moriarty on the loose. The former was just inconvenient, but the latter was utterly dangerous. Also, coming down from morphine and feeling generally off because of it didn't help, either.
Our game was fun, Sherlock. Really it was. But it's time to graduate to the big leagues!
Sherlock shifted uncomfortably. Moriarty's voice pierced through his headache, making the pain redouble. Something about a Demon's true voice or... something. He couldn't quite remember, but... it hurt his head.
Pain. He could control that. Control. Right.
He scrambled to his feet, the hardwood floor cold against his bare toes. This hardly seems your style, he countered, narrowing his eyes. Wrapping me in darkness and expecting me to fight. Bit unfair, really.
Not playing fair anymore.
Sherlock sensed movement to his left and moved back two steps, stumbling into the nightstand. He really was off his best. Through the thought, there was a sharp pierce of pain and Sherlock pressed his lips together to stop his gasp of mostly surprise. Moriarty was toying with him; he'd just plucked a feather. It was more a nerve pinch than real pain, but it was... irritating.
He knew what he was waiting on. Of course. But Sherlock had his Angel instincts buried so deep that he hated to bring them back into the fight... He was already coming down from a high. Rarely did he need to 'exert' himself in the Angel sense and... well. It had been a long time.
Still, at the next pinch, it was less hesitation and more spontaneous; with hardly a conscious thought, Sherlock delved deep into his mind palace to find the trigger and- the darkness vanished, replaced with a bright light that encompassed the room in a flash before flickering to normal luminosity.
Moriarty was rubbing his eyes, but he was grinning. "Good. I had begun to wonder if you had that Angel mana at all in you."
Sherlock ruffled his wings irritably, staring down the shorter man. Moriarty had changed, subtly enough, he supposed. His hair had grown longer, his pupils blown so wide that his entire eye looked black, but more noticeable where the long, black wings that stretched mostly to the sides, their tips curled over upon themselves where the room's width was too small.
Unlike Sherlock's, Moriarty's wings were sleek and looked smooth, like the skin of a snake. Completely bare of feathers; it was one signifying factor of if he was dealing with an Angel or a Demon. Clearly, he knew what he was dealing with before he saw Moriarty's wings, but if anyone else was just looking at him? They would know to run and not look back. No, unlike Sherlock's wings, which were packed full of feathery substance, Moriarty's looked like taut leather. Intriguing... but Sherlock much preferred feathers. They kept him warm on a blustery day.
"Not at all," Sherlock replied. "I just don't see the use of pointless parlour tricks in conventional Human life."
Moriarty clicked his tongue. "Disappointing. Parlour tricks are fun."
Shadows swept out of the corner of Sherlock's room, forming chains in an instant. Sherlock saw the motion and countered with another blast of light to chase them away, the shadow restraints dissolving into nothing.
"I've never cared for games," he said bluntly, flaring his wings out. It only slightly lessened the effect when he knocked over his opposite lamp.
Moriarty smiled. "You're out of practise."
Sherlock looked away from the lamp and back to Jim. "Well, you know how it is. Small flat."
"Or are you tied down by those horrid Angel rules?" Moriarty asked, voice full of mock concern.
Sherlock shrugged.
"I'll take that as a bit of both."
Sherlock suddenly had the wind knocked out of him, hit by an invisible object, and fell back against the doorframe. He coughed and sputtered for breath, sending a burst of energy through the room. There was a popping noise as the lights on the ceiling blew and glass rained down upon them.
There was no reprieve. The attacks that came were neither parlour tricks or marginally amateur. Sherlock countered them all, or most of them, without moving a muscle. It wouldn't have mattered; the darkness was back over his eyes. It unsettled him more than he cared to admit, and his anxiety only increased when the sounds of the world around him grew muffled. Moriarty knew his weak spots and he was exploiting them with the darkness, something that could touch and not be touched. Sensory deprivation.
But Sherlock did have instincts. It had been a long time since he was in a mana brawl - he preferred physical combat if the need to fight ever arose, merely because he had spent a great deal of training for it - but fighting against a high-level Demon was hardly an opportunity to take it easy. And, anyway... it was difficult to quell those instincts when someone got him going.
Two nearly invisible pulses of energy shot towards Moriarty and hit him in directly either eye. He doubled over with a yowl and Sherlock took his chance to leap forward, lunging across the room to pin Moriarty back against the wall. He hadn't quite worked out what to do with him. If he turned him in, he would only escape. If he killed him, he himself would be killed for breaking Angel Code, Demon or not. Letting him go wasn't an option, not anymore, but he couldn't exactly keep him chained up in the basement like he so often envisioned.
He was thrown off of Moriarty before he had the chance to decide. He hit the far wall hard, but was back to his feet with a swish of his wings. More things went falling to the floor, framed posters and books, but they were material.
Two seconds away from moving again, heat swept across the room. Moriarty wasn't playing with darkness anymore, but-
Sherlock knew the instant that the burst of pain washed over him.
He wasn't conscious of the yelp tearing itself through his body or the fact that he collapsed, immediately, again, with the rush of heat. He didn't notice the pain at first; it was all realisation and the thought that they - Angel Council included - had underestimated James Moriarty.
Another sound filtered through the haze and he realised it was himself. He pressed his lips together, in vain, drawing his wings back close to his body with a rush of mind-numbing pain.
Daemon fire. Or... a diluted version of it. Daemon fire should have killed him instantly, and while it certainly felt like he was burning alive, he wasn't dead. Being dead wouldn't have this much pain. His wings were burning. He wasn't certain if they were or if they weren't, if daemon fire was literal or metaphorical, really fire or just pain to the point of it. He had never paid much attention. It was very, very rare. Only certain types could wield it and it was rarely anyone who walked this earth.
It had to be real, though, Sherlock thought through a haze. The prickling sensation of losing a feather now paled in comparison. His wings were being ripped apart. It felt like his entire body was being ripped apart, limb by limb. Everything was screaming in protest, or maybe it was just him, but the pain was excruciating. Nothing compared, nothing that Sherlock had ever experienced and if he got the chance to experience anything after this instance, nothing that he ever wanted to feel again.
Somewhere between the pain and the morphine, he felt his stomach rise and then he was choking and retching and gasping, the bile burning his throat as well as his entire body convulsing from the pain. There were simply too many reactions happening in his body; surely if self-combustion was a reality, this would cause it.
There were fragments of words and voices and he heard Jim and John and distant memories of professor teaching them in school. Daemon fire is the single most deadly substance known to Angels. That was an understatement, Sherlock thought.
His limbs were missing, his mind was in a frenzy. He couldn't even open his eyes, but somehow his stomach managed to constrict again and make him vomit a second time. He wondered if it was an automatic reaction to the pain. Probably; he certainly wasn't controlling it. He wasn't in control of anything right now.
With that stunningly disturbing thought, Sherlock felt the darkness deepen and his entire world blinked from existence.
John was at the pub - in retrospect, probably not the best place that he should have been - sipping at a pint and eyeing a leggy blonde across the room. So, it definitely wasn't the place that he should have been right now, but he couldn't stomach Sherlock's downfall or handle Mycroft's meddling right now. He was letting him sleep it off.
Of course, doctor's habits died hard and John had gone to check on him when he hadn't heard anything past the slamming bedroom door. Sherlock had been out cold, John thought for the best, too, so he had just left. Gone for a pint. Trying to chase away the thought that his best friend was slipping into the path of becoming a drug addict... again. For a case? Everything was for a case, according to Sherlock. John just... needed a breather.
He was in the midst of the breather, currently wondering if he could get a one-night stand out of anyone here (not his style, but Sherlock's habit to do bad things, apparently, also rubbed off). He raised his pint to his lips for another drink.
Pain, sudden and sharp, shot through his body. He tensed up, his fingers alternately loosening on the glass. It bounced off the table and fell to the floor, cracking and breaking. John hadn't made to grab it, still frozen in the position he had been in for fear of causing himself some other bodily injury. Where had that come from? He hadn't done anything. He'd just been sitting here. A pulled muscle or something, maybe, but it hurt a lot, for that...
Another stab of pain jolted John into action, although he didn't know what he was going to do to fight off the invisible warrior. The ache didn't subside this time, but ebbed away beneath the surface and just out of reach. John tried to shake it away, but it only grew steadier, making him feel ill to the point of being sick.
It was only after he was outside and gasping in lungfuls of cool, night air that it hit him. Maybe he wasn't feeling his pain. He tried to tap into Sherlock's mind - something he never got the hang of, really - once, twice, and the third time blew his breath away.
Sherlock was hurting.
John took off running without another thought. This wasn't right, not for morphine. Was it? Maybe... maybe Sherlock had gotten violent, got into something he shouldn't have, but no... something told John that this was a lot worse. This wasn't morphine. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. This was something bad... Quite possibly Moriarty.
The two thoughts clinked into place as though they were always on his mind every second of the day. He knew as soon as he thought it, he was right. It didn't settle his nerves.
He was out of breath by the time that he returned to Baker Street, but he just slammed the door open and took the stairs two at a time.
"Sherlock!?" He snapped his gaze around the sitting room and kitchen. "Sherlock!" His trek was already taking him back towards the bedroom when he heard the faint groan and he threw the bedroom door open unceremoniously.
It looked like the bedroom had been ransacked. The poster of the periodic table was on the floor, frame broken into a thousand bits, the lamp overturned, lights shattered and burn marks on the wall. In the midst of it was the Angel he had come to be best friends with, curled into a ball and shaking visibly.
"Sherlock!" John crashed to his knees next to Sherlock, reaching for his arm for a pulse. "Sherlock? Talk to me. Sherlock!"
He didn't notice his wings until after he was sure he had a pulse and his breath caught for the second time that night. There were patches missing from Sherlock's normally perfect wings, feathers half-there and half not, burn marks marring the delicate skin beneath them. The burns glowed a ferocious red and, while there was no blood, there was a strong smell of decay in the air.
"Sher..." he trailed off, gently reaching forward so he could inspect the damage closer.
Sherlock's eyes snapped open. "Don'ttouchme!" he snapped on one breath.
John withdrew his hand immediately. He wasn't trained in Angel medicine and he had never had the need to be.
Sherlock's face screwed up and he squeezed his eyes together again. "Make it stop, make it stop, makeitstop, John- help-"
John relinquished his concern for the wings and instead grabbed at Sherlock's hands, trying to calm him down even though it must hurt like hell. If John had felt the pain through the Bond... it had to have been strong to get past Sherlock's control. "What do I do?"
Sherlock groaned out loud, which pitched off into a whimper, which crawled into John's mind and settled itself there painfully. He was literally writhing in pain and John had no idea...
"Sherlock, tell me what to do!"
Sherlock whimpered again and latched on to John's arms painfully. "Hurts. Wings. Centre of my being. Make it stop. Help?" The last word was a question and John's heart broke again. Forget the morphine. This was the furthest that Sherlock Holmes could fall and this certainly hadn't been by choice.
"How?" John urged, coaxing Sherlock slightly closer if only to make sure that he wasn't going to injure himself further.
Sherlock twisted around and buried his face in John's jumper, stifling the moan into the well-worn fabric. The grip around John's arms that would be sure to leave bruises in the morning slackened and he grabbed a hold of John's torso instead, snaking his arms around him in sort of embrace.
John wasn't exactly sure how to handle that, but he let it go for a fact that he had more important things to worry about. If he were in that much pain, he'd probably be clinging to the first person he saw, too. "Sherlock-"
"You," Sherlock gasped out thickly. He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and it was an instant later that John realised Sherlock was sobbing.
Irrationally, it made John's eyes sting and he tried to push the feeling away, laying his hand on the one place he felt comfortable with right now, the back of Sherlock's neck. It was the closest thing he could get to hugging him back without touching his wings.
"Just take some deep breaths. Sherlock, I'm going to call 999, okay?" It didn't matter anymore if it was okay. Sherlock's speech was almost as garbled as his wings were mangled, so John didn't understand the reply. It didn't matter... John would have carried him to a hospital if he had to in that instance.
Instead, he just called for an ambulance and, when Sherlock refused to let go long enough for John to get some cool water for the burns (or what he assumed were burns), sat there, feeling utterly useless. He made a vow to himself that he was going to learn Angel First Aid. With all the trouble that Sherlock got into... well, he wasn't going to let this happen again, whatever it was.
Sherlock clutched onto John for dear life, shaking so hard that his sweaty mop of curls bounced against his forehead haphazardly.
John smoothed Sherlock's hair back reassuringly, muttering that help was on the way, that he was going to be okay. He didn't get a snarky response in reply, nor a dignified one, either. Sherlock just clung to him like he was his last link to the living world and he wasn't ready to let go just yet.
Hmmm... I guess this isn't much of a better cliffhanger than last chapter, is it?
Yes, I created my own version of daemon fire! Nope, I didn't do it wrong, because I wasn't intentionally trying to make it like anything else. Do you know how difficult is it to write is a mana battle? Mana is more flashy than descriptive and hopefully I managed it well enough for mental pictures to happen. As for me, I just want to hug Sherlock and stroke his uninjured feathers.
Keep up your reviews; they are the centre of a writer's being. Thanks!