The world was too bright, too painful when John opened his eyes. He could feel a sizeable lump forming on his temple from where Sebastian had hit him with the butt of the gun and he gave a low groan.

Concussion, most likely, the small part of his brain that was still working rationally.

His hands had been bound behind his back with zip ties that cut painfully into the skin of his wrist. He was lying in the middle of the field, with Jim and Sebastian sitting a ways off conversing, a sour tasting rag shoved into his mouth.

He squirmed a bit, trying to test the strength of his bonds, and Sebastian nudged Jim.

"Jimmy," he said, bumping him again with his elbow. "He's up."

Jim lazily untangled himself from Sebastian and stood up and moved closer to John, peering down at him with cold eyes. He snipped the gag from his mouth with a pocket knife, cutting too close to the skin and leaving a long line of blood across John's cheek.

"John," he said, his voice too loud, an electric jolt of pain to John's pounding head. Seeing him winced, he giggled. "Sorry about that. Aren't the zip ties a nice touch? Seb did them for me."

"Why the hell are you doing this?" John was all too aware that his voice was slightly slurred. "I gave you the book. We had nothing to do with it, Sherlock and me. Why go to the trouble of killing me?"

Jim ignored him in favor of pacing back and forth in front of his prone body. John took the opportunity to attempt to wiggle his hands out of the ties, or at least to get some blood flowing into his wrist. Jim suddenly stilled and looked down at him, tone light but eyes feral, wild.

"Don't even think about it, Johnny. Even if you manage to escape, which you won't, Seb will happily shoot you in the leg before you manage to even leave the clearing. Did you know that it takes the femoral artery under three minutes to bleed out?"

Seb gave a toothy grin.

"But it's not anything personal, really. You're not important in the grand scheme of things. You're the bait. I wonder, John, what his face will look like when he watches Seb put a bullet in your heart?"

The words left a cold twist in John's gut and suddenly he felt the strangest mix of fear and calm. Sherlock would get him out of this. He always did.

(He had to.)

"You realize that when Sherlock realizes that there's something wrong, he'll call the police? He may be a complete arse, but he's not an idiot."

Jim laughed.

"No, no he's not, which is precisely why he won't do that. Can't resist a good puzzle, can he, even when he knows that your life is at stake? Tell me, do you mean anything to him at all, or are you just a distraction between more interesting things, like me?"

There was a prickle of fear when John considered the all too likely possibility that Jim's words were true. After all, this was Sherlock whom they were talking about, Sherlock, who didn't know that it was wrong to use someone's infatuation with him to get what he wanted, who wasn't above berating a grieving widow to find out information. Who was to say that John actually meant something to him?

(But John remembered the way that he had whispered "You are wonderful" into his neck in the middle of the night, all of his clumsy, lovely attempts at comforting, the way that his voice had gone a bit soft and gentle after they had kissed and he had said, "From the start". Sherlock was brilliant and real and human and he cared for John just as much as John did for him and John would be true to him.)

So he said nothing, just tried to keep his gaze level, tried to keep the fear from his eyes.

"Regardless, I think it'll break him delightfully when he comes here to find you about to die, don't you? Teach him to stay out of my way."

"Are you sure about that? You're right; I never could resist a puzzle. But enough is enough, Jim."

He knew that voice. He knew it better than any other.

Sherlock strode into the clearing, looking entirely too composed, the gun from Mrs. Peck's stretched in his hand (and John knew he had been looking at it that day with a bit too much interest. He should've been expecting him to nick it). But John could see through the veneer of calm; his hands trembled around the trigger and when he saw John, lying battered and bruised with his hands tied, something in his face broke, just a little.

(Get away, he wanted to tell him. Run, run and forget about me.)

"What are you going to do? Shoot me?" Jim's voice was quiet and mocking. "You try that and Sebby here will put a bullet in John's heart before you can blink. Don't even bother."

"Don't be so predictable. I came to offer my congratulations."

Jim arched an eyebrow.
"Is that so? What do you expect me to do, tell you just why I did it and how? Bit cliché, isn't it?"

"Perhaps. But indulge me."

Jim smiled and it was a wolf's smile, without humor or kindness.

"Well, I won't give away all my secrets. But let's just say that I've got…friends in high places, who've taken an interest with me. This, the theft of that book, was supposed to be my proving moment. But it got messed up. Someone stole from me and I couldn't let that go unpunished, could I?"

"So you killed everyone who could've had contact with the book, everyone who might've been the thief in order to get it back."

"More or less. Though Seb did the actual killing. Don't like getting my hands dirty. But the fairy tale things was a nice touch, hmm?"

"Brilliant, really."

Jim smiled again.

"I knew someone would appreciate. Seb told me that it was just asking to get caught, but I think of it more as a sort of calling out. To find someone else who's as clever as me."

"Someone like me." Sherlock hadn't lowered the gun, not once, but one hand was moving behind his back, though John was too far away to see what he was doing.

Jim shrugged.

"At first I thought so. But you slipped up. Let yourself get attached. To someone as dull as him too." He looked down at John with disgust.

Sherlock said nothing, just kept his lips pressed into a tight line.

"If you're such a criminal genius then, why become a student here? Surely after committing several murders, you're not afraid of truancy charges."

Jim chuckled at this, a low and dangerous sound.

"Easier to keep an eye on who had the book. After Peck's death, I wasn't sure who had it. I'd never thought that it was the wife who had bought it from Brooks. So the school was the best place to hide out until I sussed out whose hands it had fallen into. Once I'd figured out it was Mrs. Peck, it was just a matter of applying pressure on her until she gave the book up. Everyone has their pressure point, Sherlock. For her, it was her daughter. For you, it's John."

Sherlock winced.

"So that's why she tried to kill us. A way to throw you off her scent, of proving that she was loyal to you. But it didn't work."

"Of course it didn't. You can't fool me. It was only a matter of time until I realized that she didn't have the book anymore, at which point it would only make sense for you two to have it. Which brings us here, to this little rendezvous. I've already gotten the book from John, so that bit's done. It's just you I'm worried about now, dear."

"Me?"

The pain in John's head had heightened to a stabbing throb and he was beginning to see black spots dancing before his vision. He rolled over onto his stomach and vomited into the damp grass. Jim wrinkled his nose with disgust.

"Yes, you. You've made quite the admirable opponent throughout this whole thing. Bravo, really, you've made it all quite fun. But that's through now. It was nice while it lasted, but I can't have you mucking up my plans anymore. So I'll show you what happens if you get into my way. Seb?"

Seb stood up, stretched languorously and then made his way over to John. He prodded him up into a kneeling position with the end of his gun and for the first time since he had arrived, John met Sherlock's eyes.

He knew that he must look a mess: a throbbing lump on his head, blood dripping from the wound on his cheek, covered with grass stains and his own sick. But Sherlock looked at him with a strange mix of tenderness and fear in his eyes, as if he was silently willing John to be safe.

John could feel the iron cold of the muzzle of the rifle against the back of his head. There was the click of the safety being taken off.

Jim smiled. "Count of three, Seb."

"Stop. Stop, please."

"1…"

"Anything but John. Anything but him."

"2…"

"I'll do anything you ask. Just don't bloody shoot!" Sherlock's voice was frenzied, filed with terror.

"3…"

John shut his eyes tight, praying that there was at least no pain before oblivion took him, but there was nothing. No noise, not bullet, nothing. He opened his eyes reluctantly.

"Put your weapon down."

The voice was familiar but he couldn't quite place it and as Sebastian's rifle moved away from the nape of his neck, he swiveled his head to see who it could've been.

It was Lestrade, along with two other policemen, their weapons leveled at Sebastian and Jim. Sherlock scowled.

"Took you all long enough. He could've been killed thanks to your dawdling."

There was a moment of crackling tension as Sebastian moved his rifle away from John's head but still pointing in his general direction. Lestrade cleared his throat.

"I'll tell you one more time, put your weapon do-"

But the rest of his warning was cut off in a sudden percussive blast. There was suddenly incredible, explosive agony in John's leg, enough to make him see stars, and he remembered Jim's fact from beforehand about how long it took the femoral artery to bleed out.

Three minutes wasn't very long, not long at all for the rest of one's life.

There were more quick blasts of gunshots from above but he couldn't hear anything save for Sherlock's voice low in his ear.

"Don't die on me don't die on me don't you fucking die on me, John, do you understand? Don't you dare. I'll bring you back to life and kill you all over again if you die on me. You can't die. I love you so you can't die."

John could feel Sherlock's hand pressed on his leg in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood. He was cold, cold all over, but he tried to speak regardless.

"You can't kill me if I'm already dead."

Sherlock made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.

"You always told me that I was capable of impossible things."

After that the world was black.

Hi so I know that I said no more cliffhangers but this is really the last one this time, I promise. (Really.) I know this next chapter is short but the next one will be kind of long because it's the last one (except for an epilogue...) and feelings need to be sorted out :) Next chapter will make up for all the ridiculousness of this chapter, because it'll probably be ridiculously fluffy.
ALSO: brief warning for anyone who doesn't like adult content. There might. Um. Be some of that next chapter. So be warned.