~xXx~

"Sherlock," John groused from somewhere on the couch, which had been moved approximately thirty-seven inches to the right of its previous position and angled 20 degrees away from the wall. "Would you please stop darting about like a cat that's just had its tail stepped on? You've checked everything over at least a hundred times."

Sherlock's eyes flew over the room, taking in every inch—calculating and recalculating. "It has to be perfect, John." He ran his fingers along a string, testing out the pulleys once more.

"Well I might be more understanding if I knew what everything had to be perfect for."

Sherlock peeled his eyes away from the web of string to look at John. The early morning sun was just starting to peak over the line of buildings across the street, lighting their flat in a warm orange glow. It made John's hair bright as the tip of a flame. Sherlock took two steps towards him, and John squirmed slightly under his gaze. "Can't you trust that there's a reason that I'm not telling you?"

John's raised his chin, exposing the smooth line of his throat. "To be frank, I don't have much faith in your reasoning lately."

Sherlock stubbornly ignored the stinging sensation in his stomach that came with John's words. "Understandable," he replied simply. He motioned for John to scoot to the edge of the couch. The doctor complied, albeit a little begrudgingly, and Sherlock plopped down on the cushion to his right. He threw his head back to stare at the ceiling and spread his legs just enough that he could feel the heat of John's thigh against his own.

John sighed, his brows pulling together. "You're really not going to tell me?"

"The odds don't really seem to be in your favor."

"So what are we supposed to do then? Sit here and…stare at the bloody wall until something happens?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Accurate if not unimaginative."

"Unimaginative?" John seemed insulted by the word.

"We could do other things besides stare at the wall. We could talk."

"Talk as in…chat?"

Sherlock looked at him. "Aren't they the same thing?"

"Sherlock, you don't chat. You never chat."

"What do I do then?"

"You talk as if you can hear the whole other side of the conversation in your head already."

Sherlock smiled at that, and returned his gaze to the ceiling. "I usually can." He'd put enough emphasis on the word usually that he expected John to remark on it, but he didn't.

John shifted in his seat, angling himself away from Sherlock and resting his head against his hand. "Shouldn't we tell Mrs. Hudson?"

"I don't want her involved."

"She's going to be upset. More so if she knows you were here without telling her."

"As upset as you are?"

John was silent for a long moment. "For different reasons."

Sherlock could feel the weight of those words press down on him. There was pain in them, and something a little darker too. Regret maybe? Sherlock cast a quick sidelong glance at the other man, but it told him nothing beyond the obvious. He returned to studying his changes to the room.

The seconds ticked by, slow and unrelenting, and Sherlock could feel himself slipping into them. When had it become so hard for him to separate himself from time? Usually it just moved around him, like a river around a sharpened rock, quick and unfaltering. The angles of the chairs were all right, weren't they? He couldn't tell. "John," Sherlock said, his voice soft and careful, "it makes it hard for me to think when you're like this."

John snorted. "When I'm like what?"

"Brooding," Sherlock replied simply.

John pushed out a loud breath through his mouth, but said nothing. He was staring at the floor like he wanted it to open up beneath him and swallow him whole.

"You're still doing it."

"Well what do you want me to do then?" John snapped. "Get up and dance like a monkey?"

Sherlock pulled his attention away from the furniture to look at John once more. He was angry—his face was pulling together in its usual contorted way that would've had Sherlock hightailing it to his room had not their position been so vital. "Why on earth would I want you to do that?"

"That's about all I'm good for, isn't it?" John leveled him with a cool glare. "Entertaining you at your own convenience?"

Sherlock met John's glare steadily. "You know that's not true."

"Then why won't you tell me what's going on?"

"I'm trying to protect you."

"No, you're not," John snapped. "You're trying to baby me. Do you think I'm incompetent? Is that it?"

"You've been kidnapped twice, John, lest you forget."

This, apparently, was not the right thing to say.

"Jesus!" John threw his arms up, and practically sprang up from the sofa. "You're not going to do this to me, Sherlock! I'm not going to let you! You may have saved me on multiple occasions, but I've saved you too! You can't just ignore that!"

Sherlock's eyes flickered over to the window for the briefest of moments, his pulse quickening its already fast pace. "Have I not adequately thanked you already? Has your ego not been sufficiently stroked?"

"Don't try to turn this into something that it isn't! We're supposed to be partners, aren't we? Because if that's not what we are, then I don't want anything to do with this anymore! I don't want to be another one of your burdens!"

"Well it's too late for that!" Sherlock was surprised by the explosive anger in his voice. "Don't you understand, John? I'm haunted by what could happen to you! I see it when I'm thinking, I see it when I'm sleeping, I see it when I'm in the bloody shower!"

John's face had faded from red to an ashen white. His temper seemed to constrain him now, rooting him to the floor. "What do you see?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I see you in that vest."

John's Adam's apple bobbed. "The one with the—"

"Yes, yes, the one with the Semtex." Sherlock had to run over the words quickly. He couldn't afford to feel the full weight of them right now. "Just come sit back down, will you?"

"I can't. We need to talk about this. We can't just keep going on avoiding all these things that we want to say but never do. There are so many things I never said before..."

Whatever nonsense John was sprouting was meaningless to Sherlock's ears. John's body was dangerously far from the couch, and the sun seemed to be shining on him like a spotlight. "John, you need to sit down."

"Are you even listening to a single word I'm saying?"

"John!" Whipping his hand out, Sherlock caught John by the wrist and pulled back with all of his strength. Sherlock saw John's eyes widen as he lost his balance and toppled forward. He landed quite gracelessly in a half sprawl on the detective's lap, his breath coming in heavy pants against the exposed skin at Sherlock's neck.

The air around them went still, and the silence seemed to hold them there. Their eyes met, and Sherlock saw a different sort of heat bloom across John's cheeks. He still had a firm hold on the doctor's wrist, and for some reason he wasn't inclined to let it go. For a moment, every single thought seemed to fly from his brain, and all he knew was the heat of John's body pressing against his own.

John breathed against him, trembling ever so slightly. "Sherlock," he whispered, and the word sounded like a plea. "This…this isn't…"

It was almost strange having John so close to him—being able to see every pore in his skin. His eyes looked like two precious gems, the color of a stormy sea reflecting brilliant flashes of lighting, glittering and flawless. All the air seemed to leave Sherlock's lungs at once, and for a second he didn't quite know where he was or why. "This isn't what?"

"I can't do this with you," John said so quickly that all the words seemed melded together."Not like this. It's not healthy."

Healthy? Sherlock's eyes flicked over John's face. Why? Why was it unhealthy? It was so simple—two bodies responding to physical stimulation and causing the brain to release endorphins into the bloodstream—the same way fear was sometimes caused by pain. Biologically, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary about it. But John had a bad habit of speaking outside the normal terms of biology. "Do you really think," for the first time Sherlock found his mind was working slower than his mouth, "that I don't trust you?"

John tensed against him. "I don't just think that, Sherlock. You couldn't even…" his words fell off with a broken sigh.

"John?"

"You couldn't even trust me enough to tell me that you were still alive."

For some reason, John's words made Sherlock's throat tighten painfully. He stared at John; at the crease between his brows and the hard line of his mouth. "He…" Sherlock swallowed against the large lump that had formed just behind his tongue, "he tried to use you against me, John. Up there on the roof of Bart's, it was supposed to be a trade—your life for mine."

There was a moment of silence followed by a heavy breath. "Moriarty?"

Sherlock nodded, his mouth pulling into a grimace. "He was so determined, and I thought—I thought, even if I manage to stop this, what's to keep anybody else from doing the same thing? What's to keep it from happening again? And—John—if I ever failed you—"

"You never fail, Sherlock."

"But if I did—"

"You won't," John insisted, his eyes piercing. "You can't. Not you."

Sherlock finally released his hold on John's wrist, trading it instead for his soft pale hair. It slid through is fingers, fine and smooth as silk, and Sherlock couldn't understand why he'd never thought to touch it before. It seemed like such a natural thing now. He wondered how such a faith was possible—how this man's unwavering belief in him still held strong even after everything they'd been through. He wondered if Moriarty had known it would exist.

"Sherlock?"

Trust. Faith. John had given those things to him without question. Without hesitation.

"Sherlock? Are you alright?"

Sherlock blinked. "The death of your friend had to do with me," he blurted the words out before he could think better of them.

He saw John's expression morph from confusion to shock. "What?"

"Bill Murray. The man who—"

"I know who you're talking about," John said, somewhat unsteadily. "What I want to know is what you meant."

Sherlock swallowed against another lump. "Moriarty had a plan for what would happen if our final game resulted in his death and not mine. He wanted to…teach me a lesson." His eyes dropped, as did his hand. John suddenly felt much too close. "He wanted to show me that I hadn't beaten him—that I couldn't ever beat him, because he'd always held the hand that couldn't be beaten. He sent me a series of murders—four bodies across three days—that told a story…and I was supposed to figure out what that story was."

John's hand lifted to his shoulder, and Sherlock found his eyes pressing shut. "What was it, Sherlock?"

"It was you." Sherlock opened his eyes, staring straight at John and imploring him to understand.

John's hand fell. "Me?"

"Moriarty has known about me since I was ten years old—since Carl Powers—but I wasn't what he wanted. I wasn't my best. I was missing something—someone. So he sent me you."

"He sent…me?" A pale sort of dread began to stretch John's face. Slowly he peeled himself from Sherlock's lap. "Sherlock…that's not possible…Stamford was the one who introduced—"

"He was working for Moriarty. So were Sylvia Yaskoff, and Bill Murray, and the man who shot you. It was all a ploy—a maze that he built that would lead you directly to me."

"Sylvia Yaskoff? My…anatomy professor? Sherlock, that was—Jesus—that was over ten years ago."

Sherlock didn't respond. He didn't even move.

"What are you trying to say? That it was all…planned? That the last ten years of my life have just been…?"

Sherlock nodded slowly. "Yes."

"That's not…this isn't…" Shaking his head, John rose to his feet, his entire body trembling. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Isn't this the sort of thing that you want me to tell you? Isn't that what you just said?"

A beat of silence. "How long have you known?"

The biting accusation in John's tone was enough to render Sherlock's tongue immobile. He stared at the other man, something in his chest growing hot.

"Don't give me that look, Sherlock," John hissed. "I know you. You could've spotted something like this from a mile off. You would've noticed. So, what then? You were just messing with me the rest of time? Enjoying watching me make a fool of myself falling all over you?" The pain in his voice was palpable. He looked like he was unraveling.

"I've only known for two days, John. Maybe less."

"That's bullshit!"

It was just then that Sherlock realized how far John was standing from him, and how high the sun had grown in the sky. It was blazing through their windows with a bright and untamed fury. His head whipped back to John. "Come back over here, John."

"This is too much, Sherlock. I can't—it's too much." John's knees began shaking violently, and his face had grown alarmingly pale. He pressed his palm to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. "Sherlock."

Sherlock felt his entire body go taught.

BANG!

The gunshot resounded through the air like a crack of thunder, broken only by the sound of shattering glass and a body hitting the floor.

"JOHN!"