[Author's Note: A few random things. First of all, I'm posting two chapters in one day, so if you're reading this make sure you've already read Chapter Three: The Shift first. Second, I belatedly googled a "bedsit" and realized it does not have an attached bath. So, for the purposes of this fic, just pretend that it does. :-)]

John groaned, his forearm over his eyes, delaying that painful moment when the sunlight would pierce his aching skull. He thought back on last night's dream, his brow furrowing with confusion. What the hell was that? His subconscious must be even more twisted than he had realized.

"John?" The voice came from inches away from his ear and John was half-scrambling, half-falling from the bed before he realized it. The next thing he knew his shoulderblades were pressed to the wall, his hand reflexively moving to the small of his back to grasp the butt of a gun that of course wasn't there.

He squinted through the harsh sunlight, mouth dry and head thumping, and his heart stuttered in his chest. Sherlock lay on the bed, luminous in the late-morning sunlight. As John watched he pushed up on one elbow, head tilted slightly, those unearthly pale eyes sharply focused on John's face as if collating data on his reaction.

This is it. I've cracked, John thought, and the realization was surprisingly reassuring. He had wondered where his ridiculous obsession would lead, it was almost a relief to know. Even as his blood roared in his ears and his head swam, he clicked through the possibilities in the back of his mind. Depression with psychotic features, or true psychotic break? A once-a-week binge shouldn't be enough to induce hallucinations associated with delirium tremens, but perhaps a diathesis-stress response...

For just a moment Sherlock's face shadowed with some expression John had never seen before, and almost as quickly his features fell back into his usual calm mask of diffidence.

"Don't look like that, John, for Christ's sake. You're not going mad," he said crisply.

My hallucination is trying to reassure me of my sanity. That is just...wrong. John felt a hysterical giggle bubble up inside him, and suppressed it sternly.

Sherlock pushed himself to sitting, his feet flat on the floor. His mouth twisted strangely for a moment, and then he spoke again, his voice suddenly rough. "I...I didn't die, John. I never died."

In a sudden, jerky movement, he was in front of John. John hadn't even realized that he had thrown his arms up to ward him off until one slim-fingered hand wrapped around his forearm.

"John," Sherlock said, urgently.

A shock seemed to go through John where their skin touched. He stared down at Sherlock's hand on his skin, his thoughts racing. Slightly ragged cuticles nicotine stains he's smoking again multisensory integrated hallucinations almost impossible level of detail is too much I hear him I feel him he's here bloodyfuckingChrist Sherlock not dead never died...

The room seemed to tilt and sway as his thoughts realigned to this new information. Sherlock, here, alive, never dead at all. He felt the questions rising up, so many that they stopped up his throat. How why what why why why why? He tried to force one out through his dry throat, and felt a rush of bile instead.

The expression on Sherlock's face was almost comical as he released his grip on John's arm just in time, allowing him to lurch into the bathroom. John fell to his knees in front of the toilet more easily than he should have as his bad leg folded under him. Then he was heaving, the alcohol and curry dinner emptying in a rush, followed by endless, shivering dry heaves.

When it was finally over he spat and flushed, and then pressed his head against the cold porcelain of the toilet, focusing on the coolness, trying to breathe again. He was shaking, his legs like jelly underneath him, cold sweat prickling all over his body.

He could feel Sherlock hovering at his side and squeezed his eyes shut tighter, trying to come to terms with something so fundamentally inconceivable that it felt like his head was going to burst.

"You shouldn't drink, John," Sherlock said, the sonorous voice tinged with censure. "Not with your family history."

John suppressed another hysterical giggle.

"John?" Sherlock's voice was oddly hesitant. "Open your eyes, John. Look at me."

Time seemed to skip for a moment, because the next thing John knew he was on his feet again, a roar of rage still ringing in his ears that he belatedly realized had come from his own throat. He had Sherlock pushed back against the wall, one hand tight around his neck and another at his shoulder, holding him with his back awkwardly arched over the towel rack as Sherlock's feet slid and skittered on the tile floor, trying to find purchase. Their faces were inches away.

"'Look at me, John?'" he hissed. "How dare you? How dare you ever ask that of me again?" He felt the words spilling from his mouth in a torrent, unstoppable. "'Keep your eyes fixed on me,' you said. 'Will you do this for me,' you said. Well I did it. I kept my eyes fixed on you while you jumped, while you fell, while you lay dead on the ground with your fucking blood on the pavement, so don't you dare ask anything like that of me again, do you hear me? Don't you dare ask. If you ask one more thing of me I'm getting my gun and I swear to God you mad bastard I don't know which of our heads I'll be pointing it at."

Sherlock's eyes were wide, translucent gray in his pale face. He opened his mouth but only a raspy croak came out. John realized in horror that he was choking him, and he pulled his hands off of him as if he had been burned. He took a step back, chest heaving, as Sherlock pulled in a ragged breath and straightened his shirt, eying him cautiously. He watched, the sudden rage draining from him, as the marks of his fingers faded from white to pink on Sherlock's neck.

"Bloody buggering fuck," he said as the post-adrenaline shakes started to set in.

"Well...yes," Sherlock said, his mouth quirking with a hint of a smile, the mad bugger.

"Not dead, then," John repeated, trying it out.

"No."

John scrubbed a hand over his face, desperately wanting coffee. "So you come back from the dead, ten months later, and what? Just decide you're going to crawl into bed with me, yeah? Just to give me the fright of my life, was it?"

A strange expression crossed Sherlock's face and he dropped his eyes, fidgeting slightly. "You asked me to."

"I asked —" The world seemed to tilt again as John remembered the dream from last night. Remembered dream-Sherlock, so different from how he usually looked, so different from how he usually acted. Not a dream at all, in fact. Bloody fuck, what had he said?

He closed his eyes. "Get out."

"John!" Sherlock's voice was strained, urgent, and when John's eyes snapped open his face was...devastated.

"Out of the bathroom, you git," John clarified, tamping down hard on the urge to reach for him. "Go make coffee for the first time in your bloody life or something. I'm going to shower and get dressed and then we will sit down and you can explain to me what in the bloody hell is going on, yeah?"

Relief showed naked on Sherlock's face for just a moment before he rearranged his features into a calm mask. "Yes," he said. "Yes. Good. Excellent."

They stood staring at each other for long moments. Finally Sherlock seemed to rouse himself. "I'll just..."

"Yeah," John said with a start, pressing back against the tub so that Sherlock could slip by him and out of the bathroom. "Yeah."

He turned blindly toward the tub, making a show of turning the taps as the door closed behind him, before sitting on the edge of the tub weakly.

"Sherlock. Bloody buggering fuck," he said to himself.

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