The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

- Carl Jung

There was the sound of movement. Irritating, infuriating, ill-timed movement coming from somewhere in the room. Sherlock was barely conscious and the sound was so gentle that he didn't bother opening his eyes to see what it was.

Then someone kicked the medical bag on the floor and swore quietly under their breath. This had caused Sherlock to twitch but otherwise remain undisturbed. It was probably Irene, returning from whatever it was she had been doing all day. She'd taken his morphine – which he wasn't best pleased about. He'd have words with her after he'd woken up properly. Not that he needed morphine, he wasn't addicted, only weak minded, instinct slaves got themselves addicted to opiates. He was simply in pain. He simply wanted to feel numb.

The sound stopped and the room fell back into silence. Sherlock drifted in that blissful place between sleep and consciousness for a few more minutes before he felt someone's weight pressing down onto the mattress. The bed rocked slightly as the person crawled towards him.

"Irene," Sherlock said, his voice muffled by the pillow, "Either lie down on the other side of the bed or leave."

The person paused briefly before continuing to come closer. Sherlock felt a knee brush the outer thigh of his uninjured leg and he mumbled something incoherent, as way of voicing his annoyance at being disturbed.

And then the silence was shattered by a howl of pain, "Jesus fucking Christ!"

Sherlock's eyes flew open and he was confronted with the sight of John sitting next to him on the bed, cradling his hand to his chest.

"John." Sherlock said, as he blinked in the semi-darkness. Night had obviously fallen and the only light came from a combination of the moon and the streetlamps. In the dim lighting Sherlock could just make out John's figure, his face contorted with pain as he looked at Sherlock with his usual level of incredulity,

"You left the fucking IV needle on the bed." John winced as he held out his open palm for Sherlock to see the needle sticking out of his skin, "Why would you do that? You could have turned over and blinded yourself. It would have required minimal effort for you to have put the bloody thing back in the bag."

Sherlock was, in part, certain that he was dreaming. This moment seemed too surreal for it to be real. Perhaps this John was a mere apparition conjured up by his own unconscious mind. "Why are you here?" He asked as he watched John pull the needle out of his hand and throw it across the room. He sucked at his abused flesh, wincing before he looked up at Sherlock,

"We need to talk."

Sherlock felt his blood run cold at the prospect, he couldn't deal with more confessions or admissions about what John felt or needed or wanted. He didn't think he could take another heart wrenching conversation that would start with John fighting his corner and end with him walking away. His skin itched, the veins in the crook of his arm ached with the longing for the sweet sting of a needle.

"We've already talked John." Sherlock said, "We reached an impasse, a deadlock, an immovable position of decay that will neither change nor correct itself."

John raised his eyebrow slightly, "That's a pretty bleak way of looking at it."

"It's the only way."

"I disagree." John said simply and as he said it Sherlock watched as John exchanged his formerly pained expression for a mask of relative impassivity.

"You... disagree?" Sherlock asked slowly, unsure what else he should say.

"Yes, I've been having a chat with Irene_"

"John, whatever ideas that woman has tried to put into your head will_"

"I would appreciate it if you didn't interrupt me." John said coldly. He seemed calm, unimpassioned and in complete control of what he was about to say and do – which differed completely from his usual loud and irrational bursts of anger. John's change in temperament was making Sherlock feel uncomfortable in a way that he was generally unaccustomed to. He was always the one in control; John evened out Sherlock's level of unexpressed emotionalism by being overly emotional himself. It was the way he liked it. Sherlock enjoyed pushing John's buttons until he exploded. He enjoyed dragging him to the brink of insanity and then shoving him over the edge.

"Sherlock, I wanted to apologise for my earlier outburst." John said as he clasped his hands together and rested them on his left knee, "It wasn't fair of me to spring something like that on you when you were in such an emotionally compromised position."

Sherlock blinked at John a few times, his shock evident to the both of them, "When I was... in such an emotionally compromised position?" Sherlock said each word like it was acid in his mouth. He thought he saw John's upper lip twitch slightly in amusement,

"Yes, what with the shooting, the blood loss, sleep deprivation... I mean you said it yourself, you were on the verge of slipping into shock_"

"I never said such a thing!" Sherlock snapped as he tried to sit himself up in bed.

John placed his palm firmly against Sherlock's chest and slowly, yet forcefully, pushed him back down so that he was lying flat against the mattress again,

"Sherlock, you need to stay still, you don't want to rip open your stitches. Just lie there and let me speak."

Sherlock would have said something but his thought process was momentarily derailed by the scorching heat of John's palm against his skin.

"This is Irene's doing," Sherlock said at last as he batted John's hand away, "She told you to come in here and rile me up."

"No," John said, drawing out the word like he was talking to a child, "She told me to come in here, take you across my knee and then fuck you into the floor."

Sherlock felt his heart rate spike at John's words and even though he knew that he should be trying to take back control of this rapidly devolving situation, he couldn't help but hear a little voice inside him ask, "Well...aren't you going to do that John?" He mentally slapped himself. The body was transport and sex was... just... another impulsive biological, hormone driven weakness.

"I assume that you're not going to take her advice?"

John's upper lip curled up into a salacious smile, "I told you, I came here to talk."

Sherlock sighed deeply and buried the side of his face back into his pillow, "So talk. I'll just go back to sleep. I'm pretty sure I don't need to be conscious in order to follow this repetitive string of nonsense."

John was quiet for a second before he said, with an incongruous level of fondness, "You're such a brat." He sighed, "Sherlock... I think the best thing for us would be if we forgot that this morning ever happened."

Sherlock turned his head slightly and stared at John through narrowed eyes, "Does this mean you are rescinding your..." his mind searched for the appropriate word until he came up with, "declaration?"

John stared at him and Sherlock thought that he saw an internal conflict battling away behind his eyes, "No, I'm in love with you, that isn't going to change any time soon - more's the fucking pity - but I don't think that you're emotionally ready to accept that so I think we should just pretend it didn't happen."

Sherlock felt anger rise in his stomach, "What do you mean I'm not emotionally ready to accept_"

"Calm yourself, you're getting over excited_"

"Don't tell me to_"

"Sherlock if you don't stop moving and calm down I'll have to tie your hands to the headboard." John said as he stared at him with unflinching sincerity. He was serious, Sherlock realised as a cold flash of adrenaline passed down his spine. He tried not to but the image of John grabbing hold of his wrists and tying them down so that he couldn't move crawled through his brain and made him squirm.

This time John did smile, "Or maybe you would like that?"

For one of the few times in his life, Sherlock found that he had been rendered speechless. Part of him wanted to tell John that he was being ridiculous and another, slightly more substantial part, wanted to move and see if John was bluffing. What would he tie his hands with? Would he use his belt? Now a new image entered his mind, that of John rising onto his knees, unbuckling the belt around his waist and then pressing the skin warm leather to Sherlock's wrists before pulling tight, securing him down. He could feel himself growing hard and that was problematic because there was only a thin sheet separating his naked flesh from John's eyes. He was going to see, he would know and Sherlock had no way of hiding it.

John held his gaze for a long time, waiting for his reply. When none came his smile grew more pronounced and he said, "Jesus Christ, Irene was right about you. She's spent the entire day telling me things that I couldn't believe were true. I thought, no, not Sherlock Holmes, he wouldn't get turned on by the idea of getting tied up and having someone shove their hard cock down his throat."

John tugged the quilt cover down so that Sherlock was exposed from his head to his hips. Seemingly, John drank in the sight of him before he reached out his hand and gently ghosted it over the skin of Sherlock abdomen. The muscles just beneath the skin quivered and trembled beneath his touch.

"John, what are you doing?" Sherlock asked, barely managing to keep his voice even as John's fingers moved further down, his fingernails slightly marring the delicate skin of his hipbones. It stung and made him want to rise up into the touch.

"Well Irene and I got to talking and we agreed that it wouldn't be fair for me to simply forget about everything that happened without getting to explore one of my fantasies first. She's a very fair woman, I'm beginning to see what you like her." His hand moved lower and Sherlock held his breath, simultaneously praying that John would both continue and stop what he was doing. His hand hovered over the sheet, his index finger gently pressing against the tented fabric.

"John I don't think_"

And suddenly his hand was gone – much to Sherlock's relief and disappointment. John reached over and plucked up Sherlock's phone from the bedside table. He pressed a button and his face became illuminated by the eerie white light of the homepage. Sherlock listened as he clicked through a few apps until he found the one he was looking for,

"We decided that although tomorrow you and I are going to start afresh and pretend that this never happened, I get to have you for the rest of today." John flicked through a few more things before he said, "The time is now 11.42pm which gives me exactly eighteen minutes to do with you what I want. Look, I even set an alarm." John turned the phone around and showed Sherlock that he had programmed an alarm to go off at midnight.

Sherlock looked from the phone back to John's face, his heart hammering painfully in his chest, "What do you want to do with me?"

"Well a part of me wants to punch you in the face for acting like such a child but I don't think that that would be the best use of the limited time that we have left." John said, shifting so that one of his knees was pressed against Sherlock's side and the other was wedged between his legs, "So instead I think that I'm going to start here," he said, gently pressing the tip of his index and forefinger to the pulse point in Sherlock's neck, "and then I'm going to see how much of you I can taste with my tongue before the time runs out."

Sherlock stared up at him, now completely sure that this was a dream. He'd had similar ones before, usually after they'd finished their latest case and he finally allowed himself to sleep. He had a very vivid imagination, had had since he was a child. This could just be the result of being in the middle of a much needed REM cycle and_ Sherlock shuddered as John got closer to him, leaning his face down so that his warm breath fell against Sherlock's skin.

"John, I don't see how this is going to help us return to some level of normality." Sherlock said, his voice on the edge of sounding panicked.

"It's not," John whispered as his lips finally made contact with the skin of Sherlock's neck. He sucked it into his mouth and gently bit down, not hard enough to bruise but forceful enough to make Sherlock gasp, "I'm simply trying to show you that it's not nice to torture people."

His lips moved down and Sherlock could feel the heat of John's tongue and then the slight burn of a bite as his mouth travelled down his chest.

"John I... I've never tortured you." Sherlock said as he clenched the bedclothes beneath his fingers, trying to maintain whatever level of control he still had. It didn't count if he didn't touch him in return. He was frantically trying to work out how he could delete the sensations that he was currently experiencing when John began to place opened mouthed kisses around his left nipple and Sherlock felt himself growing painfully hard.

"You torture me all the time." John said as he continued his own form of agonising torture, his lips and tongue always getting so close... but then narrowly avoiding actually taking Sherlock's nipple into his mouth. It was maddening and Sherlock let out an involuntary groan of frustration.

"It's not nice is it?" John cooed mockingly as he blew a gentle channel of air against Sherlock's chest, making the place his tongue had been grow cold, "Desperately wanting something and being constantly denied any relief?"

"John, stop it!" Sherlock said but it came out as more of a moan.

"What do you want Sherlock?" John asked, as he looked up at him, his eyes dark, head cocked, lips a mere inch away from Sherlock's neglected nipples, "What do you want me to do to you?"

Sherlock felt his face flush as he thought "So many things". But this was insanity. This couldn't happen! Sherlock was not a slave to his impulses, his body was transport and sex was_"

"Fuck!" He hissed when John lowered his head and finally took one of his nipples into his mouth. He sucked hard and Sherlock cried out, his hips lifting off the bed, his now achingly hard cock brushing against John's inner thigh.

"Now, now Sherlock, what did I tell you before?" John chastised, "Don't move otherwise you'll rip your stitches_"

"John_"

"You should really listen to me, I'm your doctor after all." John tutted as he moved over, pulling Sherlock's other nipple into his mouth. It was excruciating. Sherlock had felt aroused before but he'd never felt a physical, aching need in the pit of his abdomen. He felt like he was about to explode and he wanted everything, all at once. He felt so empty and every inch of his skin that wasn't being touched by John's hands or mouth felt jealous and greedy.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this." John said breathlessly as his hands took told of Sherlock's hips and his body began to shimmy down the bed. He was placing open mouthed kisses on Sherlock's stomach but Sherlock couldn't look, if he looked it would become too much, he would completely lose control and he would start to beg and beginning was the sign of a weakling and he was not weak!

So instead he squeezed his eyes closed and took hold of his hair, just feeling the maddening press and suck and bite of John's mouth as he drew closer and closer to_

"I have this fantasy," John said as he licked a line from hipbone to hipbone, "It's one of my favourites. It usually starts with us having this massive argument over something stupid that you've done." John said as he finally ripped away the rest of the covers leaving Sherlock completely exposed to him. The cold air hit Sherlock's overheated erection, making him yelp,

"Jesus John, what are you..." Sherlock swallowed thickly when he finally looked down and saw John crouched between his legs, his eyes staring almost hungrily at his swollen cock. A few immeasurable moments passed before John started kissing and sucking his way down Sherlock's inner thigh,

"Anyway, in this fantasy we're shouting at each other and this time, instead of me walking away to get some air, I go up to you, turn you around and bend you over the arm of the sofa. You struggle but I clasp your wrists tightly behind your back so you can't move, and then I get down on my knees, shove aside your trousers and slowly fuck you open with my tongue."

Sherlock let out a strangled moan at the combination of John's mouth trailing up his inner thigh and the sound of his voice as he spoke those incredibly filthy words.

"If we had time I'd do those things to you, I don't have to be rough; I could be soft and slow and take my time until you scream, begging me to let you cum."

Sherlock felt hot breath fall on the head of his cock and he let out a string of incoherent gibberish as he pressed his palms against his eyes, feeling the burning of the blood beneath.

"God, you look so wanton like that." John said, "Do you know that you're blushing, I can see it staining your neck and throat you... you look so incredibly... Jesus Sherlock, look at me." And his voice sounded so desperate, so uncomposed and raw that Sherlock took his hands away from his eyes and looked down at John.

His cheeks were also flushed and his lips looked swollen from where they had been brushing over Sherlock's body. John's eyes were dark and the way he was looking at him with such reverence, such need, it made Sherlock want to simultaneously cry and scream.

"Are you frustrated?" John asked, his lips turning up slightly.

"Of course I'm fucking frustrated." Sherlock hissed, hating how easily John had been able to turn him into a gibbering ball of carnal want.

"Is there something that I can do to help with that?"

"Oh I'm sure there is."

John looked at him, cocking his eyebrow slightly, "Ask me."

Sherlock blinked, his face growing hotter, "Ask you?"

"Actually I mean beg but I thought I'd save you some face by labelling it under a softer sounding verb."

Sherlock gritted his teeth, "I don't need you to do_ ah!" Sherlock's words were swallowed up by a cry when John, unexpectedly, took him into his mouth, sucked once and then released him.

"You were saying?" John asked innocently.

Sherlock thought that his brain might explode, "You... you can't control me like I'm some sort of simpleton!"

"Oh, I think that I've just proved that I can control you, incredibly easily, especially when my mouth is around your cock. Now are you going to beg me to finish what I've started or are you going to continue sitting there like a stubborn child and finish this yourself."

Sherlock stared menacingly at John, watching as his lips curled into a more prominent smile. Sherlock Holmes didn't beg, it wasn't in his nature, not even when he and Mycroft had had their physical altercations as children. It was a sign of weakness, a failing, a flaw of a lesser man than he_

"Time is literally running out."

Sherlock's jaw was clenched tight as he said, "I do not beg."

And then a wicked smile spread across John's lips before he descended and swallowed Sherlock's cock. The pace and the suction was perfect and Sherlock briefly wondered how John knew how to do this if he'd never had sex with a man before, but then John sucked hard and Sherlock's hips bucked off the bed.

"Oh God John." Sherlock had shouted, incapable of stopping himself, his hands re-fisting in the sheets. He wanted to lace his fingers through John's hair but he couldn't touch. This didn't count as long as he didn't touch. His skin felt like it was on fire, his face was blazing and his head was swimming. He felt something tight and dark curling deep in his belly, something that he hadn't felt since he was a teenage boy first exploring his own sexuality. This here, this sheer need and desire and want was new though. He'd never felt this before.

He wanted more. He wanted everything. Nothing was enough, he couldn't get close enough to John and as much as he wanted him to continue he also wanted to feel him pressed against his body, he want to feel the heat of his skin, his lips on his neck, on his throat and then on his own mouth. He wanted to taste his tongue, to taste all of him, to bite down gently on his lower lip and ring out a moan from John's throat. He wanted to see his face contorted in the same wave of pleasure that was currently hitting Sherlock himself.

"Oh God John, oh please, oh please." He wasn't aware that he was pleading, he didn't know what he was pleading for and in that moment he didn't care because all he could do was feel the wet and the warmth and the soft vibrations of John's moans. The fire was building, growing hotter and larger and he was there, on the edge, about to be thrown over the side, all he need was a little more... a little more...

"Oh my... oh fuck, John please_"

An alarm, as shrill and as irritating as there ever had been ripped through the air.

John stopped what he was doing and with a reluctant sigh he released Sherlock's still hard, still aching, cock.

Sherlock opened his eyes, "What... what are you doing?" He asked frantically as he watched John press his heated forehead against Sherlock's thigh. He felt his heavy breath falling against his sweaty skin,

"Time's up." John said hoarsely and Sherlock wondered if that hoarseness was caused by his own arousal or the fact that he had just had Sherlock's cock practically rammed down his throat.

"What do you mean, you can't... you can't just stop!" Sherlock said as he watched with despair as John extracted himself from the bed.

"That was the rule, we had until midnight_"

"But you can't_"

"Look it's for the best." John said, as his eyes continued to rack over Sherlock's body with longing, "From this moment we start afresh, we can just go back to being friends – like you wanted."

Sherlock gaped at him, "But... but what am I supposed to do about..." He said gesturing to himself.

John shook his head, "I would advise you to tug one off but then, friends don't tell friends to masturbate. Irene got you some new clothes; I think there are pyjamas in that bag. After you've... dealt with that you should get dressed and go back to sleep. I'm going to have a shower."

And before Sherlock could say anything, John had plucked up a bag from the floor and had headed into the bathroom.

Sherlock fell back against the pillow: What on Earth had just happened?

The second he had closed the bathroom door John fell to his knees, buried his face into the bathmat and groaned deeply. His heart was beating so fast in his chest he could barely breathe and his legs felt like jelly and his body felt as if it had been wound up and coiled as tight as a spring. His erection was pressing painfully against the seam of his jeans and his shirt was clinging to the liberal amount of sweat that had gathered down the length of his spine.

His head was swimming, his brain pounding painfully against his skull. He could still taste Sherlock in his mouth, could still feel the heat and the gentle pulse beneath the skin. It had been agonising to walk away but Irene had told him that he would have to fight against it. He wasn't allowed to give Sherlock what he wanted – not yet at least.

In the other room he thought that he heard the bed creak and Sherlock let out a strangled moan. John slapped his hands against the tiled floor and then adjusted himself in his jeans. This night was going to be excruciating.

He just hoped that this plan would work as well as Irene assured him it would. Otherwise both he and Sherlock would be needing a few years of serious therapy.