Sherlock stepped down off the curb and briskly crossed the street. He had changed his usual outfit for the occasion, wearing a simple suit and a hat that emulated the styles of the other residents in the area. Nevertheless, he was still concerned about being spotted. He was sure that Jim, or more likely, Sebastian, had posted surveillance around the apartment building in front of him, and he would much rather not be caught by any of the watch dogs. As such, he slipped into the building as quickly as possible while still appearing casual. All things considered, he was able to mix in with the afternoon crowd far easier than he would have first thought. No one paid much attention to the up-and-coming son of some wealthy businessman. At least, that was the impression his costume was designed to project.

He found himself standing outside the proper door after a tense climb up the stairs. He had taken that route instead of the elevator thinking, not incorrectly, that he was less likely to run into one of Jim's guards. Despite this, he still became paranoid that every person he encountered on the stairs was one of Jim's men. However, he had found his way to the flat with ease, and this meant that the time he spent out in the open was lessened significantly. It had helped that he had followed Sebastian home twice now.

Picking the lock was a bit more troublesome than he had anticipated. Jim had apparently redesigned the lock himself and had done an admirable job of making the bolts inside it particularly difficult to manipulate with his tools. Sherlock gave a frustrated sigh, but his hands continued calmly working at the lock. Finally, he began to hear the soft clicks of the tumblers falling into the proper position. A couple of excruciating minutes longer, and he was finally slipping through the door.

His first impression of the flat was that it was very minimalist; he had expected an extravagant flourish of wealth and prestige. Instead, it was decorated in tans and browns, and the carpet was simple but very soft. Sherlock slipped off his shoes so as to avoid leaving any traces of dirt on its immaculately cleaned fibers. He quickly reevaluated his opinion of the flat, however, when he stepped into one of the rooms off to the side. This was apparently where Jim did most of his programming and computer hacking. There was a single circular desk surrounded by six separate computer screens. One of the walls also had a large whiteboard with a projector directed at it. Clearly, Jim didn't concentrate on frivolous shows of wealth, just those that also had a certain amount of functionality.

He knew that attempting to gain access to one of the computers was a pointless endeavor unless one had a fleet of highly trained professionals at their disposal, so he moved on to the next room. This was the bathroom, which he only gave a cursory search for the item he had come to find before stepping out to look elsewhere. The next room he deduced belonged to Sebastian; the closet contained far too many plain black shirts and black cargo pants to belong to Jim. That only left one last room at the end of the hall. He nudged the door open and peered in cautiously before stepping through the threshold.

The room followed the same color scheme as the rest of the flat, but it seemed far more alive than the others had. It wasn't messy, but it wasn't nearly as bare as the others had been. Stacks of magazines and papers laid on the nightstand, and the desk was littered with various objects of interest. Some were little figures, others containers of putty or clay, and still more were balls of varying sizes and composition. He deduced that this was where Jim did most of his brainstorming, whereas the computer room was where he actually formulated his ideas into a working scheme. All of this was interesting, but not of importance at the moment. Sherlock estimated that he had no more than an hour before Sebastian would be making his way home to run Jim's empire for the night. He needed to be sure to give himself plenty of time to arrange things in their proper order before leaving, also.

He quickly divided the room into sections. He would examine each one thoroughly before searching that particular section, so he could put things back correctly before moving to the next section. He began with the most obvious hiding place: the closet. He opened the doors and carefully examined the contents therein. Five suits were lined up such that the darker ones were at the far end and the lighter ones were in the middle. He patted them down to feel for any objects tucked into pockets, but quickly moved on to peer at the shoes. These were bare, too, so he began pulling down the boxes that were orderly tucked on a shelf above the hangers. These were filled with more knick knacks, fresh paper and sketch pads, and an assortment of coloring mediums. He stowed all these back away, checked to make sure that everything was in its proper place, and moved on to examine the telly and the shelving unit around it.

He continued through the room, repeating the same process for every area he sectioned off. His search yielded no fruits until he began to search through the bed. This was far more complicated than the rest of the room because it required stripping the sheets off the bed and carefully feeling through the mattress for any peculiar lumps. He also had to examine it for any stitched-up slits or other such hiding mechanisms. Once he was finished checking the mattress, he flipped it from atop the box springs and began the process anew while searching them. He was about to give up and concede that Jim likely didn't have what he was looking for when his knee slipped and thunked onto one of the boards of the box springs. He gave a curse, but underneath his swearing he heard something rattle. His eyes lit up, and he quickly rolled down onto the floor. He slipped beneath the frame of the bed, pulling a small torch from his coat pocket. He ran it over the bottom of the box springs, stopping when he saw just the faintest hint of a seam. He ran his finger over it, feeling it give ever so slightly. He then pulled it aside and revealed a zipper. Fascinating.

He eased the zipper open and cautiously stuck his hand up through the hole. A little pouch had been sewn into the box springs, and inside it nestled a rather aged-looking book. He gently pried it from its hiding place and rolled from in under the bed. He then placed it on the night stand while he carefully arranged the bed back into the order it had been in when he arrived. He even made sure that the pillows with the most wear were placed on top, just as they had surely been before he tossed them onto the floor. Once he was satisfied that everything was just as it should be, Sherlock took the book and sat in a corner of the room.

He first simply flipped the book over in his hands, carefully examining the outer covers of it. The binding of the book was straining to hold whatever was inside it, and there were additional pages glued, taped, and simply wedged in throughout it. The cover of it was bare except for lines of age and use. His fingers trailed over the spine which was worn and soft. Gently, he flipped the front cover open and began thumbing through the pages.

Jim's scrawl bloomed across each one of them, either in a journal-style entry or in rough sketches of a scene which he couldn't find the words to describe. Some pages had been written only to have the majority of the writing brutally crossed out later. Still others were stained, wrinkled from tears or splattered in blood. Sherlock paused at these, thoroughly reading what was written instead of simply skimming over them. A couple merely recounted dreams, or rather, nightmares, while others were episodes from his youth. Both made Sherlock give an involuntary shudder, and he hastened to flip to the next page after reading them. He found a whole section dedicated to police records of unsolved crimes all from the same town; they were all relatively petty offenses, destruction of private property and the like, but they all bore a similar mark. Jim had gone through and scrawled notes beside the pasted-in reports, either partially describing his recollection of the event or questioning whether it had been himself that committed them at all. Like Sherlock, he drew the conclusion that he had been the perpetrator, but he made notes which evidenced that he didn't remember his reasoning behind the crime or even committing it.

Throughout the book, Sherlock noted that the name Anthony was often repeated. At first, it was alluded to in recollections of dreams which involved water or trophies. These dreams always had a sort of fond tone to them, but a harsh undercurrent of regret tinted them all. This was evident in the darker themes at the corners of the dreams, things like dead snakes which they stumbled upon while swimming in the lake or clear waters which abruptly turned dark and murky. Later in the book, the name was spoken of in actual memories, not just dreams. At first, he was treated with a sort of hesitant trust, but then he was mentioned in some of Jim's fonder memories, described affectionately while Jim retold some story or another to himself. And then his name began to devour more pages, as if discovering one clear memory of Anthony had led to a whole flood of new ones resurfacing. Sherlock skimmed over these, not really interested in how Jim had spent his youth on the swim team, but then three entire pages were taken up by drawings, meaningless scribbles of faces and places which didn't seem to fit. They were pasted over other pages, and when Sherlock turned past them, the whole tone of the journal entries had shifted dramatically. As if Jim had been intentionally refocusing his mind to change it.

Odd. Sherlock continued to flip through the book, however, making note to come back to that section if he had time. The rest of it was a continuation of the journal-style recording of events from his childhood as they came back to Jim, while others described more recent events, including, interestingly enough, his meeting of Sebastian. Sherlock read over this encounter, smiling at the thought of how surprised Sebastian must have been to have unearthed a true genius completely on accident. From then on, Sebastian was mentioned repeatedly, but with much more caution than Jim had spoken of Anthony. He was treated as a dangerous pet, something to be enjoyed but never completely trusted. Finally reaching the end of the book, Sherlock discovered that Jim had pasted in multiple sheets of paper which folded out to reveal a timeline. Jim had apparently been using his scatterings of memories to try and formulate the events of his youth into a logical progression. Items were penciled in using little references to page numbers in the book, and some had been erased and the order rearranged as Jim was able to recall or piece together a new event. Overall, it seemed that he had been able to put together the major events of his childhood in some sensible formation.

Sherlock glanced at his watch and noted that he still had plenty of time before he would have to worry about Sebastian coming home. He flipped back to those three pages then, and began gently sliding his finger under the edge of the pasted-in drawings. They weren't going to come up easily, however, and so Sherlock drew his pocket knife out and flicked the blade open. He slipped the blade between the pages, working it carefully while he tried to break the glue loose without damaging the material underneath. It was slow work, but Sherlock was rewarded to see the looping scrawl of Jim's hand appearing underneath the drawing. He bit his lip, slowly peeling away each bit of the sketch above, his eyes alighting in excitement as the first page finally fell loose. He then turned his attention to the last two.

After what felt like an eternity, the pages slipped free. He turned back to the first and began eagerly reading. If Jim had been so intent to hide it, then the content was surely worth his attention. And indeed, it was. He read of Jim's triumph at the swim finals. Read of the subsequent encounter with Anthony in the shower. Read of Carl's jeer which struck the final nail into his coffin. As he read, the writing grew more and more frantic and sloppy. Instead of loopy curves, the edges became sharp and violent, and the pen seemed to have stabbed at the paper, leaving splatters of ink amid the wrinkled splatters of tears. As his tale concluded, the pen had apparently begun to shake almost too much to be controlled. Here, the words were wavering and stuttered. As Sherlock read, he could hear the rage and loss filling them, could almost hear Jim's voice narrating the tale all the while teetering on the fringes of a meltdown. The final sentences, however, were written perfectly clearly. The print was measured and determinedly controlled as Jim penned: I will burn him. Sherlock could hear the cold insanity echoing in the words, feel the shudder of terror that Anthony surely must feel when he thinks of Jim. Sherlock had no doubt that the man was still alive, still being tortured endlessly.

Sherlock went to Jim's desk and carefully pasted the pages back into the book, making sure that all the edges were perfectly aligned just as he had found them. He then tucked the journal back into its hiding place and finished erasing any evidence that he had been there, including wiping a rag over any surfaces that he thought could bear fingerprints. He doubted that Jim was that paranoid about people entering his flat, but it couldn't hurt to be too cautious. He then put his shoes back on an retreated to Baker Street once again. Retreated back into his reality, back into the orderly world of his mind. It was safe there; a little bizarre at times, but still safe.

He settled onto the sofa and began contemplatively stroking the bow over the strings of his violin. He had gone to Jim's flat with every intention of finding his journal or a similar item. He hadn't had a doubt that Jim had one stowed away somewhere. Finding it had been of the utmost importance. He needed to read it, to see what, if anything, separated himself from the psychopath. Although, even the term psychopath no longer seemed to adequately describe Jim. He had been shocked when he overheard Sebastian and John comparing the two of them, as if they were both just their little pet crazies to be paraded as they saw fit. And then Sherlock had to know, he just had to find out: Was he really the parallel to Jim? Was the only thing that separated the two of them a vague acknowledgment of social mores? Was it possible that, if given the proper motivation, he would topple over the border which Jim had crossed so long ago?

He still wasn't sure whether he had gotten his answer. The book had not only confused Sherlock further, but it had also made him question assumptions which he had already made of Jim. Suddenly, his perceptions of his nemesis were being spun through a meat grinder, and he was left with nothing but a muddled mush with which to try and shape his knowledge of the man. He was more conflicted now than he could ever remember having been, and it disturbed him. It made him want to tell John everything and then have John tell him how to feel. John would know. John was good at feeling and accepting. He showed Sherlock how to do these things, while also being accepting of Sherlock for what he was. And when Sherlock couldn't feel, John felt for him. John could do that now; John could listen and take everything from Sherlock, allowing the detective to feel centered and calm once again.

But telling John would mean admitting that he had broken into Jim's flat and searched through his possessions. Somehow, Sherlock didn't think that John would approve of that. So he would have to be silent. He would keep this all to himself; it would be a secret that he shared with Jim. Jim wouldn't even know that he was sharing his burden, but Sherlock wondered if maybe he would know on a level deeper than logic. Maybe part of him would know that someone else was being hurt by the knowledge, too, and it would take comfort in that fact.

"Are you home, Sherlock?"

"Yes, John. In the lounge."

"Ah. Simple case, then?"

"Yes. Like I said, open and shut domestic murder. Not worth my time."

"That's unfortunate, I guess." John settled into his armchair and began rifling through the day's post. Sherlock watched him carefully, watched for any sign that he suspected Sherlock had been doing things of which he did not approve. Apparently not, because he continued about his usual evening routine.

"What if Jim would have been happier if you had let him die?"

"What?" John looked up from the mail, his eyebrows arching up in confusion. He blinked at Sherlock as if doing so could clear his ears and magically make him understand. Foolish.

"You yourself noted the marks of self-mutilation on his body. Not to mention the drug use, and other obvious signs of attempted suicide. What if by saving his life, you not only put society at large at risk of another one of his bombing sprees, but you also just forced him to continue living when he would rather have not?"

John lapsed into silence, staring down at his hands as if they could help him muddle through the question which Sherlock had posed. His head was cocked slightly to the side, and a deep frown etched its way onto his lips and in the lines on his forehead.

"What's brought this up?"

"Nothing. Curiosity. Simply wondering if your self-sacrificing would have been worth it if he's just going to off himself sometime in the near future. Probably slipping into unconsciousness and never waking up would have been much less painful than his chosen method of suicide, too."

"I suppose that I just assumed he didn't want to die at that particular moment, especially not considering the circumstances. Besides that, it's not in my nature to just let people die right in front of me. I may be a soldier, but I'm always a doctor first."

"How poetic."

"I'm so sorry you don't approve of basic human instincts, Sherlock, but you asked and I answered as best I could. I guess all I can do is hope that he doesn't turn around and blow his brains out the minute I've got them put back in their proper order. Is that good enough of an answer, or would you like to pick my psyche further?"

"Not at all. I've sufficient data."

"Good." John pushed himself up out of his chair and stomped up the stairs as he always did when Sherlock had agitated him. He knew that John would be back down in less than an hour, possibly still scowling but doing his best to smooth things over. John may have missed the war, but it was for the adrenaline, not the combat. He only waged war when it was necessary, and this most certainly was not necessary.

Sherlock continued plucking at his violin and staring up at the ceiling. He had gotten the expected answers from John. Those were simple. Now he wanted to ask Jim himself. Ask to confirm his hypothesis.

Because now he knew that, when Jim said that dying is what people do, it wasn't a threat against humanity; it was a promise to himself.