Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us—if at all—not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

"The Hollow Men" – T.S. Eliot


"Get out of my way!"

John barrelled through the stone streets, his shoes banging harshly with each step as he shoved aside the bystanders that were in his way.

Careful, careful. They're innocents. Not threats. Pure, not red (that you know of). Focus on the grey. Just the grey. He's the one that did this to you. Your blood is on his hands. Find him, find him, make him pay for what he did to Sherlock, for the pain he caused him when he saw your body, do it, run run run—

You remember that look don't you? That look on his face before you passed out from sheer happiness (and maybe more than a little blood loss)? That look you thought was the last thing you'd ever see of him and you were happy, so happy, because you saw him one last time. Your last wish, fulfilled.

But it wasn't, was it?

You woke up. You looked into his eyes. You kissed him and he let you in. You both know what that means to him. You both know that this man almost took you away from him and his wrath would have been of Biblical proportions, an angry and vengeful god set on destruction. You have to stop the grey, erase it, purge it, keep it from hurting him ever again.

As John ran through the bazaar a standing display toppled into his path and he vaulted over it, ignoring the burns of his still-healing wounds if it meant catching this man, if it meant erasing the grey from the world. He felt the burn of adrenaline, the hammer of his heart, the delicious slow burn in his lungs—

Hell, he felt alive again.

He'd been on plenty of foot chases before, both with Sherlock and without, but this one, this one burned with the clearest purpose.

Protect Sherlock. Don't let the grey find him first.

He'd known fully well who was staring at him in that archway. Knew who it was when he stood up, toppled his chair over, and bolted after him.

Sebastian fucking Moran. 6'2". 178 pounds of lean muscle that could snap your ulna like a twig as soon as dislocate your shoulder before you could even realise he was moving.

Soldier. Gun for hire. Author.

John had hardly believed it himself when he came across the titles in his research with 'Moran, Sebastian' listed as the author on the online catalogue. Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas. Three Months in the Jungle. He had briefly considered the thought that it was simply two men sharing a name, which happened often enough, but a quick scan through the pages of each revealed an uncommon bloodlust for hunting game, which sent off all the alarms in John's head, a warning that screamed 'This man would give Doctor Moreau a run for his money. Beware with utmost caution'.

Moran knew fully well what he was doing. And John knew fully well where this was going. They might have been eclipsed in the sun of their mad geniuses, but moons lie in the shadow of nothing, and they drift through space alone before they too will move in front and block out the Sun one day.

His gun pressed against his side. He could feel sweat begin to dampen his shirt against it.

It seemed that John had nothing better to do with his time than chase whatever got in his way.


"What do you do in your free time?" Sherlock asked quietly.

"You." John teased with a smile.

"No, really."

Sherlock's wet hair curling against the pillow, his skin still damp from the shower, water dripping in rivulets over his chest as little wisps of steam curled off his pale shoulders into the cool air. John's hair was matted to his head like papier-mache but it couldn't conceal the pale red scars about his left ear.

"What, you mean like when I'm not working?" He asked, and Sherlock nodded. "Well when I'm not shooting people I'm treating gunshot wounds and when I'm not treating gunshot wounds I'm shooting people."

"But your free time. When it's just you."

"I go out to the pub and wildly shag random strangers every night."

"Unlikely," Sherlock scoffed. "You're a doctor, John. You know the risks of sexual promiscuity."

"Yes, but I'm considerate, I smile often, quick to a joke…people often answer to that. I have what you'd call a natural charm, don't I?"

Sherlock's silence was more than enough confirmation.

"I can hear the gears grinding together." John smiled, tapping Sherlock's forehead. "Easy, I'm just taking the piss."

"Was there really no one?"

"Not a one." John said with an easy smile that said he didn't regret a minute of his abstinence. "There were plenty of opportunities, mind you. I'm not hideously unattractive or rude, so naturally I got a few offers. I accepted a few even—I guess to prove to myself that I could—but I realised very quickly that none of them would ever work."

"Why?"

"Well…they weren't you, for starters. Actually…that's about it. They weren't you. That's all I needed to know, really." John looked over at him. "Did you know that you look like a bloody barbet with wet hair?"

Sherlock said nothing, letting his thumbs brush over John's jaw before he leaned in and kissed him, his lips sharply sweet with the dew of apologies and promise of compensation. The kisses were sleeping in Sunday, leaving early Friday, coffee at noon, fresh air on a still day.

John lazily rolled over, keeping Sherlock beneath him as they kissed. Idly, while his brain was on standby, he tried to place the taste. Copper. The shine of silver, sharp and bright. Earth, like cloves. The dryness of old paper.

They were still naked after the shower, neither paying much attention to dressing simply because there wasn't any kind of urgency.

John planned to make good use of the fact.

Hands rolling over soft plains, feeling humming skin and damp shoulders. John closed his mouth around one, feeling not only the bone and sharpness but the softness between the two. Sherlock made a strangled sound and insistently tugged his head away to meet his mouth once more and John allowed him a few deep kisses that tasted of a glowing fire late at night, when people slept but others stayed up to watch the flames die.

He pulled away and his hands gently wrapped around Sherlock's hips.

Sherlock groaned. John tasted.

Skin. Sweat. Saltiness, like the damn Black Sea itself, undulating in its freshness, its pungency. A warmth that tasted of heaviness and spun sugar.

"John."

Christ, just the sound alone would make him come.

He felt as if he had just open-mouth kissed a column of the Tower of Babel, language flooding from the salt pillar into his senses. Fingers tight in his hair— te sunt omnes. Pale hand gripping the sheet like an anchor in the current— te sunt interitis. He ran his hands along Sherlock's thighs, smooth and pale like marble, but pulsing with heat. A hand scrabbled at his and intertwined the fingers it found—te sunt tatum. Tongues rolled and swirled in empty and occupied mouths. Iliums twitched, ischiums pulsed upwards—te sunt mundi, sidera, Sol. Muscles tightened in on themselves, writhing, shaking. Tremors. John's hand left the curve of Sherlock's hip and drifted to his own lazily, like a lapping tide.

Te sunt spiritus, cor, anima.

Vita.

Vobis sunt.

A choked sound escaped Sherlock as he broke apart, John drifting after him, and that was the only sound in the room for a long, long time.

They had laid together for another hour, unwilling to leave their room, pressed front to back and as naked as the day they were born. Despite their previous activities, however, there was very little innuendo to be found in their actions, just simple intimacy. Twin souls comforting each other, embracing as closely as possible as if osmosis could be an option.

When they finally did manage to get dressed and wander out, it proved rather disastrous.


They'd been exploring the bazaars of Baščaršija when it started. John had been playing tourist, haggling with sellers without buying anything, stopping to look at whatever caught his eye, and Sherlock had been looking at him with utter fascination, as if he were realising the true worth of something he had only ever guessed at.

As John paused to examine a throw rug, a sharp voice rang out.

"Sigerson!"

They both turned, one in inane curiosity and the other in reflex to the name.

A dark blonde woman, mid-twenties and oddly familiar looking, was staring at Sherlock with blazing blue eyes as if he had just insulted her in the worst way possible.

"Oh, no—" Sherlock sighed, before the woman bounded up to him and slapped him with a resounding, harsh smack.

"Hanne," Sherlock held up his hands, taking on that face that he assumed regular humans made when they didn't want a fight. "Vennligst forstår—"

The woman moved as if to slap him again and John stepped between them, grabbing her hand.

"Sherlock, what the bloody hell is she on about? Who is she? Who is Sigerson?"

"Han er!" The woman shouted, grabbing her hand back and pointing at Sherlock.

"Her name is Hanne." Sherlock said calmly. "I lodged with her family in Syria. Vacationing Norwegians. With my conversational knowledge of the language, I fit right in. Perhaps a little too well…" He added, eyeing Hanne, who was still red in the face with anger.

"What—I don't understand. Did you—I mean, were you two a…thing?"

"A thing?" Sherlock asked. "She's a human being, John, I'd hardly reduce to calling her a thing—"

"Did you…were you romantically related?" John said, feeling his face flush although he knew it didn't matter.

"Romantic?" Sherlock echoed with a bark. "She was more inclined than I was."

"So why is she angry with you?"

"Løgneren! Tyven!" Hanne shouted at John, as if gesturing wildly would help him understand Norwegian.

"I may have stolen some money from them to finance my trip to Khartoum."

"Sherlock!"

"Mycroft wasn't allowing me any finances and I had to get out of the country immediately, what was I to do? Oh, don't look so scandalised, John, it's not as if this should be surprising in the least—"

"Well can't you just pay her back or something? It's not like Mycroft hasn't stuffed our wallets with cash from a million fucking countries—"

John moved in exasperation and Hanne's eyes widened, all the fight fleeing her. Both John and Sherlock followed her gaze to where John's gun lay tucked into his waistband with just the hilt peeking out. He had made sure to let his cardigan cover it, but it had been momentarily pushed aside by his arm.

John looked back up to Hanne, who had her hands up.

"Ingen problemer, beklager—" She met John's eyes with a cautious insistency. "No—trouble."

"Oh, wonderful, now she speaks English." Sherlock said acerbically.

"No, wait, I don't mean any harm—" John said, reaching out to show her, but Hanne backed away fearfully.

"Bli der du er!" She said, casting another shaky glance at the two before hurrying off into the crowd.

"I suspected that you'd been carrying your gun with you, John, but I must say that it is quite handy."

"Yes, well please don't expect me to go flash my gun at any other strangers that you happened to have robbed along your travels." John said dryly. "Otherwise we'll never get anywhere."

"I feel obliged to tell you that there are a good number of them."

"Oh, lovely."

"But the likelihood that they are in Sarajevo are staggering. The ratio alone must be in the triple digits—"

"Care to bet on that?" John said, smiling, which Sherlock mirrored before heading on with his quick pace. John began to follow but stepped on a cobblestone the wrong way and stumbled, Sherlock too absorbed in thought to notice.

A hand shot out to steady him, but its grip on his arm was tight, too harsh to be friendly. That grip knew where his still-raw injuries lay.

Enemy. Not Sherlock. Swathed in grey, not black.

"Careful, Doctor Watson." A low voice said and John turned his head in confusion, only to meet the black gaze of Sebastian Moran.

He didn't know why he hadn't shot the fucker in the face right then and there.

Maybe he thought his mind was tricking him. Maybe Sherlock had gotten too far ahead already and they were in a country where it was better to be together than apart. Maybe it was because he knew Sherlock wouldn't wait for him, no matter how many blowjobs he got or however many times he told John he loved him (John didn't hold it against him though. Quite the opposite. He found Sherlock's impatience endearing, when it wasn't annoying him at least). Maybe he like that rush of fear that he felt as Moran stared at him and he stared back. Maybe on some level he recognised that if he drew his gun and shot, he'd either be arrested faster than a hooligan trying to pants the Queen or shot right back, and then Sherlock would be all alone.

Whatever the reason, John moved on into the crowd, following after Sherlock and not knowing whether to tell him or not.

It didn't matter though, that he didn't tell him.

An hour later, he was chasing him through the streets.

Sherlock's ratio of people he pissed off—to—people in Sarajevo seemed with every hour that passed to be falsely corroborated.


Thank you so, so, so fantastically much to everyone who reviewed last time! I really love your reactions (the more detailed the better), and shit is about to get crazy.

Fuseaction, this next chapter and all it's BAMF-ness is for you, so fangirl to your heart's content.