Author's Note: So yes, I suppose an explanation/warning is required for this next chapter. Although it was never my intention to write an M rated Fanfiction, I starting writing this chapter and it became... um... not T rated. So I decided instead of completely rewriting it I might as well change the rating.

As I said in my first author's note, this is likely to be my first and last Fanfiction so I might as well try my hand at everything and go out with a bang rather than the proverbial whimper.

Although this chapter isn't firmly seated in M rated territory, future chapters probably will be. If you're one of the lovely reviewers - such as Monnikce, CaughtOutInTheDark and NarutoRox - who started reading this fic when it was still a T rating, then I hope that the change of rating won't put you off.

Now, back to John and Irene...

The hotel was cheap looking with its threadbare green carpets and poorly painted red walls. The lighting was too bright and it made John's eyes ache and his head throb. In the dining room – which was attached adjacently to the reception area – John could see a few haggard looking couples eating soggy fish and chips while they stared despondently at one another. A television was nailed onto the far wall, it was playing, what appeared to be, advertisements on a loop: smiling, white toothed people laughing and enjoying life because they had found the wonders of Coke Zero or adult nappies.

There was a mirror opposite the entrance and as John and Irene walked passed he caught a glimpse of himself. He looked terrible, in fact, he didn't even look alive. The skin under his eyes looked black and his face appeared to have the same complexion as a corpse. Irene looked just as bad, however her clothes appeared to be far more creased than his. They looked like they had been sleeping rough for days and were in need of several hours of uninterrupted sleep and an intravenous drip.

There was no one at the reception desk so Irene and John were able to slip across the lobby and up the first flight of stairs unnoticed. They climbed in silence and John kept his eyes on his feet, too tired to continue surveying his surroundings. They crossed the landing, passing dozens of doors and the sound of breathy sleeping. It wasn't that late, maybe just gone midnight, but John felt as if he had been awake for days. The adrenaline had worn off and his energy levels were beginning to crash.

They reached their door and Irene slid the key card out of her pocket and slotted it into the electronic scanner. The red light turned green but before she could push the door open John held onto the handle.

He just stood there, head down, hand clutching the handle for what felt like hours. Every minute felt like an hour, every hour felt like a day and he was so tired but he couldn't open the door yet. He couldn't open the door and obliterate whatever semblance of hope he still had. He had been hoping, the entire drive here, that when he opened the door to their hotel room he'd see Sherlock sitting on the bed, face smeared with mud, coat badly stained with grass and dirt, possibly bleeding but alive, definitely alive. He'd scan John from head to foot before he'd open his mouth and say something so completely insensitive, so utterly Sherlock, that John would want to punch him in the face.

John took several steps forward and pressed his ear to the thin wood. Nothing. He heard no movement or breathing, no sound that indicated that anyone was on the other side. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door,

"I don't think he's in there." John said, and even in his own ears he sounded heartbroken.

"Well we can't be sure until we open the door." Irene said as she slid her hand over his. Slowly she pressed down and the door opened with a soft snick.

No light spilled out of the crack they had just created and as Irene pushed the door completely open John stared into the darkness of a cold, empty room.

"It doesn't mean that he isn't going to show up at some point." Irene said but John could barely hear her voice, he just stared blankly at the shadow cloaked bed where he had envisioned Sherlock sitting. Irene was still talking but all John could hear was the pressure behind his ears.

That pleasant vision of Sherlock sitting warm and safe was replaced with the image of him crawling across a frozen field, his hand clutching his stomach as blood trickled from beneath his fingers. He saw Sherlock trying to claw his way to safety, only to be dragged back by the hand of Jim Moriarty_

Suddenly John's eyes started to feel hot and itchy and his throat grew tight. He was about to cry and he couldn't stop himself. He didn't want to cry – especially not in front of Irene – but in that moment that seemed to be the only thing that he could do. He was about to cry because the second he had opened that door and had seen nothing but darkness, the tiny shred of hope that John had been clinging onto had been snatched away from him, leaving him feeling raw and exposed.

"I think," Irene said loudly as she placed her hands on John's shoulders and shoved him into the room, "That I'm going to have a shower." She flicked on the lights and forced John to sit down on the bed, "You don't mind do you? Only I haven't had proper wash for almost a month."

John was incapable of answering because a massive lump and settle at the back of his throat and as he swallowed he felt the first few tears stain his cheeks. He quickly wiped them away and glanced at Irene. She wasn't looking at him. She was continuing to talk to him as she hurriedly grabbed a towel from the cupboard and removed her shoes but she was deliberately not looking at his face. John realised, after a moment, that she was trying to maintain his dignity by not being an audience to his break down. He felt a surge of affection for her in that moment but this only made him cry harder because his reserve had been rubbed raw by the events of the past twenty-four hours and every emotion felt like lemon juice on an open wound.

"I like to take my time." Irene informed him, subtly conveying her dual meaning, as she slipped into the bathroom and locked the door.

John waited until he heard the sound of the shower running before he finally let out the sob that had been building in his chest since he first saw Sherlock point the gun at his head. He pushed himself back on the bed and curled himself in ball. The sheets smelt musty and John could see that there was a brownish stain marring the left corner of the duvet. He let himself cry, keeping as quiet as he could, as he listened to the monotonous sound of the water hitting the floor in the shower room.

His tears wet the duvet and he had to keep moving his head so that the side of his face wouldn't stick to the cheap fabric. He couldn't think about Sherlock, couldn't even begin to entertain the idea that he could be dead – however, as the events of the evening played out that unbearable possibility seemed to be getting more and more likely. He couldn't think about anything and as his sobs rung the last of the energy from his body John felt his heart rate slow and his consciousness slip away from him until, mercifully, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep...

At first John didn't know why he had woken up. He was still bone tired and the skin around his eyes itched in protest as his lids slid open. He blinked away the fuzziness and stared blankly at person lying next to him. It took him a moment to realise that it was Irene, at some point in the night she must have climbed into bed with him. Strands of her dark – still wet – hair were draped across the pillow and half of her face was covered up by the duvet.

John stared at her for a moment, unsure why he also wasn't still dead to the world. He must have heard something. Maybe people talking in the hallway as they passed by or perhaps Irene had shifted under the covers beside him. It must have been something like that because the room was still and silent now.

He turned, stretching his limbs and spine. All of his muscles ached fiercely so he gave up and simply collapsed back against the pillows. From his new angle John could see through the bare window on the right side of the room, it was letting in lines of pale, grey early morning light. John wasn't sure how long he had been asleep but it couldn't have been more than six, or seven hours. He rubbed a hand across his eyes and then closed them completely when the tug of sleep became too powerful to resist. The bed was warm and the surrounding air was freezing so he burrowed deeper under the covers and allowed himself to drift.

He didn't have to worry when he was sleeping. There were no crazed gunmen to fight, no devastating – possibly ruinous – feelings to declare, no potential funerals to plan_

Suddenly the duvet was ripped from off the bed and freezing air hit John's bare feet and the exposed skin of his back. John shot up, his head spun slightly from the sudden rush of blood to his brain but he was still able to clearly see, a rather bedraggled looking, Sherlock Holmes standing at the bottom of the bed, the duvet clutched in his hand.

John opened his mouth to speak but the sight of Sherlock had rendered him practically ineffable. Even in the dim light John could see that Sherlock was hurt, a mixture of dry and wet blood marred the skin of his hands and throat. His hair was chaotic, pieces of torn off grass and dead leaves poked out from in-between the black strands. His shirt was slightly ripped at the collar and his trouser legs were caked six inches deep in mud – with his knees taking the major brunt of, what appeared to be, half the forest's floor.

"Jesus Christ." John finally said as he scrambled onto his hands and knees and crawled across the bed, needing to make physical contact with Sherlock to make sure that he wasn't merely an apparition or some deluded fantasy that his sleep deprived mind had summoned up. The second his hands touched the rough fabric of Sherlock's coat John let out a chocked sound of relief.

"Oh thank God," John said as he clung on to the lapels of his coat and rested his head against Sherlock's chest, "Thank God you're alive, I thought... Oh thank God."

"I can assure you," Sherlock said, "God had absolutely nothing to do with it."

John smiled widely, "I was being figurative." John mumbled into Sherlock's shirt.

"No, you were being evangelical."

John knew that he should probably pull away as they had gone passed the "friend appropriate" amount of time that one platonic friend could cling on to another, but his fingers seemed to be frozen around the lapels of Sherlock's coat and his body was apparently magnetically drawn to the warmth of Sherlock's chest. John could hear Sherlock's heart beating and never before had he been this pleased to hear a human exerting the basic sounds of life.

Sherlock shifted slightly and, even though John couldn't be sure, he thought that he felt the back of Sherlock's hand brush against the side of his stomach.

The main light flicked on and, reluctantly, John turned his face away from Sherlock's chest to look at Irene – who was smiling wickedly at them.

"Is it wrong that this is turning me on?" Irene asked as her eyes lingered on John's claw like grip on Sherlock's coat.

John quickly moved away from Sherlock and sat back down on the bed. Sherlock wasn't looking at him; he was too busy staring at Irene.

"Are you alright dear?" She asked as she snatched the duvet from his fingers and wrapped it around herself, "You seem to be a little listless."

Sherlock was silent for a few more seconds before he said, "I'm trying to work out how to... thank you." The words sounded wrong in Sherlock's mouth, almost as if he was trying to speak a foreign language.

"Well," Irene said as she propped herself up with pillows, "You say: Irene, you glorious, incredibly attractive woman, I know that we theoretically discussed what we would do in a situation such as the one that we've just experienced but... I never thought that you would pull it off as perfectly as you did in practice. And then you say..." She trailed off suggestively.

Sherlock seemed incredibly uncomfortable and John watched as he began picking at one of his coat cuffs, "I wanted to thank you for getting him out of there and keeping him safe."

John looked from Sherlock to Irene who simply nodded and said, "You're very welcome, Mr Holmes."

"You both know that I'm sitting right here don't you?" John asked.

"John, I'll deal with you in a minute." Sherlock said like he was chastising an errant school boy.

"What do you mean you'll deal with me in a minute?" John asked, his newly found joy being rapidly corrupted by anger.

Sherlock sighed, he actually sighed, before he said to Irene, "Could you please get the medical bag out of the car? I was looking for the keys but I couldn't find them. And you should probably take your time coming back," his eyes quickly slid over to John, "This is going to take a few minutes."

John's rage awoke along with a white hot flash of energy that emanated from the back of his skull to the base of his spine.

Irene looked between Sherlock and John before she smiled and slid off the bed, "If you really wanted to thank me Sherlock you'd let me watch what's about to happen... well, you'd let me watch a lot of things." She said as she winked at John conspiratorially.

John watched as she hurriedly pulled on her jeans and shoved her feet into her shoes, "Don't be afraid to let him have it John," She said, "One might even say that, with all that he's put you through, you'd be within your rights to simply take him across your knee and punish him_"

"Get out!" Sherlock snapped and John thought he saw Sherlock flush slightly.

Irene's smile was dazzling, "What happened to Mr Thankful?" When Sherlock did nothing but shoot daggers at her she rolled her eyes and said, "Evidently he's been replaced by Mr Grumpy. I promise to knock before I let myself in." She said before opening the door and slipping into the dark hallway.

Silence surrounded them and John's anger was momentarily abated by a feeling of profound awkwardness. This was the first time they had been alone since they had had their argument and with all that had transpired between them in the past twenty-four hours John was unsure where he should begin. At the moment it was a tossup between: "Hey Sherlock, I'm sorry I flipped out and smashed one of your few cherished possessions" or "Do you remember the time I got kidnapped by your archenemy and he got you to point a gun at my head and made me believe that you were going to shoot me dead? God, wasn't that just crazy?"

Neither of those options seemed to be a winner so instead he said,

"Where did you get shot?"

Sherlock turned his attention from the door and asked, "Pardon?"

"Where did you get shot?"

Sherlock waved the matter away as if it was of little consequence, "In the thigh and in the shoulder."

"Jesus, how much blood have you lost?"

"I'm not sure."

"Are the bullets still inside you?"

"I don't know," Sherlock hissed, "I was a little preoccupied with the task of getting out of there alive."

John blinked at him incredulously, "Did you just...? Did you just give me attitude?"

"I am not a teenage girl John; don't accuse me of "sassing" you."

"But that's exactly what you are doing, you're being all strange and passive aggressive."

"Well I have good reason to be." Sherlock finally snapped, his voice rising just above what is an acceptable inside volume, "We're in this mess because of your carelessness."

John stared opened mouthed at Sherlock, "How can you possibly blame me for this? This was your fuck up, you took the case, you got involved with a serial killer – again – you couldn't stop obsessing, you couldn't help but keep probing until you solved your puzzle."

"We wouldn't have gone through what we just did if you hadn't gotten yourself abducted by that serial killer."

"How can you... how can you blame me for getting abducted? That's like blaming a child for his parents' divorce."

"Oh, so in your analogy I'm your parent?"

"No, it was just a comparative – obviously a poor one – because if anything, I'm your parent. I clean up after you, and cook you dinner and drive you to crime scenes and have little sit down talks with Mycroft and Lestrade to talk about your behaviour. All I have to do is start tucking you in at night to truly conform to the role of mother."

Sherlock's nostrils flared in anger and he tried to pace but the bullet wound in his leg impeded his movements, "So you're seriously not going to take any of the blame for this?"

John paused a moment before he shouted, "No! I'm not taking the blame for your mistakes, I want an apology, I want you to say, "Oh, I'm sorry John for pointing a gun at your head_"

"I wasn't going to shoot you_"

"But I didn't know that_"

"Well you should, you should know me well enough by now to know_"

"To know what? That you were going to pull a smoke bomb out of your hair to distract the nutcases that were holding me hostage?"

"Well we're friends aren't we, isn't that what friends are supposed to do – know things about each other."

"Yes," John spluttered, "But it's meant to be stuff like how you take your tea or what the name of your first pet was or whether or not you eat meat_"

"Why would you need to know those things about me? How is the answer to any of those questions going to help you get out of a high pressure situation?"

John hit his head against the mattress in frustration before he sprung off the bed and crossed the room in three long strides so that he was standing in front of Sherlock, "Are you seriously listening to yourself? Because honestly, the only conclusion that I can come to at the moment is that the loss of blood has made you go bat shit crazy!"

"Don't be ridiculous John, I haven't lost that much blood."

John was going to hit him, Sherlock was pushing him too far. The only thing that was stopping John from punching him straight in the face was the knowledge that he had been shot – twice – and he needed medical assistance.

"Well I won't know until I examine you." John said as calmly as he could, "Take it off."

Sherlock seemed a little taken aback, "What?"

"Take off your shirt so I can see what sort of wound we're dealing with."

"Now is not the time_"

"When would be the time? After you've bled to death_"

"Don't be rid_"

"Don't tell me I'm being ridiculous." John hissed, his patience finally snapping as he took hold of the shoulder of Sherlock's coat and wrenched it off, "You're the one being ridiculous, blaming me for something that I couldn't control. Why aren't you blaming yourself? You could have worked it out sooner. You're the great Sherlock Holmes after all, why didn't you make the connection before I was ambushed and locked in a windmill? Or, what about after I was taken, why didn't you go to Mycroft or Lestrade to get back up, to put men on the ground with guns and tactical training? Is it because you can't stand for anyone else to be the hero or was it simply a fantasy of yours to have me kneel in front of you with a gun pressed to my head?"

John was barely aware of what he was doing, anger and rage was so potent in his blood that he could hardly see. He knew that he had thrown Sherlock's coat across the room and that his hands where roughly unfastening the buttons of his shirt.

"John, I think that you should..." Sherlock's voice sounded strange, rough and... almost pleading.

"I'm going to examine you, make sure that you're fine and then I'm going to kick the shit out of you. Do you have any idea what you've put me through? Firstly being drugged by a nutcase, then locked in a windmill to have revelations with a woman that – previous to all this – I couldn't stand. I had to kneel in front of you and watch you point a gun at my head, I thought that you were going to kill me, I thought that I was going to die_ and then I thought that you were dead, I've spent hours thinking that I'd lost you and now that you're here, alive and breathing, all I want to do is smack you in the face."

John said, finally giving up with the delicate preamble of trying to push the fiddly buttons out of the holes. He slid his hand inside Sherlock's shirt, his finger tips briefly brushing against the hot skin of his chest, before he grabbed hold of the fabric with both hands and ripped the shirt in two. Buttons flew in all directions, some of them hitting the walls; others pinged off the lampshade before falling to the floor like dead flies.

Sherlock's pale chest could be seen through the tattered remnants of his butchered shirt, and John watched briefly as the muscles in his stomach trembled as John's hands made contact with his skin. He pushed aside the sparse strips of fabric to examine the bullet wound. It went through the hollow gap between Sherlock's collar bone and his shoulder socket. John placed a hand on Sherlock's stomach and turned him around roughly so that he could check to see if there was an exit wound. His shirt was still covering his back and John quickly disposed of the remaining fabric so that Sherlock stood completely shirtless.

To his relief John saw an exit wound. Dried blood ran down the length of Sherlock's back and chest so it took John a few seconds to realise that there was faint bruising down the length of his spine. He ran his thumb from the base of his back to the tip of his shoulder blades, gently prodding to check for any extreme tenderness.

Sherlock's breathing faltered as John's thumb retraced its path down Sherlock's spine, "Does that hurt?" John asked, pressing against the spot with the flat of his palm.

"No." Sherlock said after a moment.

"Does it hurt anywhere else other than your shoulder and thigh?" John asked, his temper slowly cooling down as his mind became trained on the task at hand.

"No." Sherlock answered again.

John turned Sherlock around so that they were standing chest to chest again. John finally looked up at Sherlock's face and saw that his cheeks were incredibly flushed and his eyes were dark. He'd never seen Sherlock look this discomposed before and the sight of the flush in his cheeks and the dilated darkness of his pupils made something tighten in John's stomach.

"Take your trousers off." John said, trying to keep his voice even.

"What?" Sherlock asked dumbly.

"I need to examine your other wound."

"It's fine." Sherlock said quickly.

"I don't trust you."

"Well you're going to have to take my word for it." Sherlock said as he turned and began limping away.

John reached out, hooked his fingers into the waistband of Sherlock's belt and dragged him back, "I'm not in the mood to take your shit right now Sherlock." John said as he began to unbutton Sherlock's trousers.

Sherlock's hand flew to where John was undoing his zip, his fingers clutched around John's hand almost painfully, "Stop it John." He said, his voice, although lethal with anger, also sounded slightly breathless.

John was losing it, he was pushing too many boundaries without being consciously aware that he was doing so. Even now, when he knew that he should stop, he didn't let go of Sherlock's fly but instead he looked up at his face, staring at him defiantly,

"Let go Sherlock." He said staccato.

Sherlock stared back, the tendons in his neck rigid with tension. His breath fell hot and heavy against John's face. They stared at each other for an immeasurably amount of time before Sherlock slowly loosened his grip and let his hands fall to his sides, leaving John's fingers alone on his fly.

The feeling of power was immediate and overwhelmingly hedonistic. Sherlock had yielded to him, for the first time since he had known him, this was the first time that Sherlock had actually given in and let John control the situation.

And in that moment their dynamic changed. Up until this point a part of John had always entertained the idea that maybe his evolving feelings for Sherlock were merely a phase that would pass, that it was a sign of a more intimate friendship rather than anything sexual. But not in this moment because there was nothing complex or ambiguous about the way John was feeling right now. It wasn't about difficult declarations of love or affection, there was nothing cute or sweet or adorable about what he was feeling for Sherlock in this moment. Complexity had been replaced by simplistic, carnal want.

John wanted to fuck Sherlock. It was the first time he had truly entertained the thought, or at least given it such a crude term. Prior to this moment he would think about simply touching Sherlock, or feeling his skin against his. But not now, in this moment John was being driven by carnal want. He wanted something harsh and hard and rough. He wanted to throw Sherlock down onto the mattress, press his thighs into the bed to stop him from squirming too much, fall to his knees and_

"I thought you said that you were going to knock." Sherlock said, all the while continuing to stare intently at John.

At first John didn't understand what he was saying, it seemed to jar completely with what had just transpired between them – with what had been about to happen. John quickly swallowed at the thought of what he had been about to do to Sherlock.

"I had my fingers crossed so it doesn't count." Irene said and John slowly turned his head to see her standing at the opposite end of the room, her back pressed against the door, her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes were fixated on the place where John's hand still had hold of Sherlock's fly.

"But please," she said, as she finally looked at John, a wicked smile tugging at the corners of her lips, "Don't let me interrupt you, this looks like it's about to get interesting."