Jim smiled in the darkness of his room. The scent of melting wax filled the air and he grinned at the tools he had laid out on his bedside table. He sat on the edge of the bed, dipping his fingers into the hot wax and relishing the tingling heat on his skin. He'd never liked drugs. Far too messy, getting caught up in his own business. But in this case, it helped him imagine that he was not alone. That the delicious, thin frame of Sherlock was lying naked in the bed, clawing at his back in a silent plea to join him.
"With pleasure," Jim breathed, lying back on his sheets with his hallucinated partner. He could feel Sherlock's delicate fingers stretching across his skin, the thin digits teasing him as they dances across his torso. They reached across to the table, flickering paleness illuminated by the dim candlelight, picking up a small blade and smirking as he held it in front of the Irish boy. Jim grinned in return, letting out a small cry of pleasure as the metal was dragged across his skin. He looked up into the hallucinated eyes of his desire, growling playfully and smiling as delicate fingers pressed against his wound and drew out more blood. Jim reached down and kneaded the hardening flesh between his thighs.
"I will have you, Sherlock. You will be mine," he hissed greedily.
Sherlock woke in John's embrace. He watched John's chest rise and fall as he peacefully slept, no lines of worry or discomfort etched into his face as Sherlock suspected his own to have. He gently broke free, feeling a horrible lethargic weight in his arms and legs. He shakily moved across the bed, trying to escape the smothering heat of their bodies and falling heavily to the floor in the process. He groaned and tired to lift himself from the floor, but his limbs buckled and slid from underneath him.
"John," he whispered hoarsely, trying to crawl back to the bed. He clutched the blanket covering the short boy and pulled it as he collapsed once more. John roused from his sleep, ejecting a yawn and looking sleepily for Sherlock. Upon hearing another thud from the side of the bed, John slowly turned his head to find Sherlock reaching for him with a hurt expression on his face.
"John," he whispered again, stretching up into the air before landing back onto the floor with another thud. John practically leapt from the bed and held onto Sherlock tightly, trying to pull him back onto the bed. Yet every time John thought he had a firm grasp on the teen, Sherlock's body always slipped from his arms and landed back on the cold, hard floor. John let him go, scared and defeated as Sherlock remained motionless on the floor save for his weak breaths.
"I'll be back Sherlock. Just wait, I'll be back," John soothed, stroking Sherlock's head before rushing down the stairs and to the phone in the kitchen. He grabbed it from the receiver, punching in the numbers 999 and holding the phone to his ear.
Silence.
The phone was dead. And he feared that if he didn't do something Sherlock would be too.
"Are ya sure it was a good idea, sir?" Jim's doorman questioned upon his boss' return.
"A better idea than when you let the Watson boy in here," Jim seethed. Of course Jim was still furious. And his doorman knew it, he just didn't know how to keep his mouth shut.
"But if ya really want 'im, why're ya tryin' to kill 'im?"
"I don't care what condition he's in. If I want Sherlock, I will get Sherlock. Mark my words."
The doorman frowned slightly as he followed Jim down the desolate hallways of his den, the eeriness of emptiness reverberating off the walls and making him shiver. It was silence such as this that made the doorman hate being alone with Jim. Especially after he'd lost Sherlock.
John had re-entered to room to find Sherlock still lying in the position he'd left him in. John rushed to him, carding has hands through the tangled mass of dark hair as he tried to soothe Sherlock. Sherlock opened and closed his mouth, trying to form words but no sound came out.
It was then that John felt it. A tiny bump on Sherlock's scalp. John parted the mass of dark hair and saw a tiny grey lump against his pale skin.
"What the hell is that?" John whispered, prodding the lump with the tip of his finger and jumping as it wriggled deeper into Sherlock's scalp.
It took John exactly one minute and fifteen seconds to reach the phone box at the end of the street. Panting, he held the phone to his ear and prayed to whatever higher being was available at the time for the phone to work. His heart jumped when he heard the voice of the operator.
"I need an ambulance. Quickly. My friend's in danger."
After he finished making the call, it took him exactly one minute and fourteen seconds to run back into his house and cradle Sherlock's unmoving form to his chest.
"You'll be alright, Sherlock. The ambulance is coming. You'll be alright."