A/N: Okay wow you guys. Thank you all so much for the reviews and for everyone who has alerted themselves to this sequel. Plot! Intrigue! Fluff! All for you in this chapter. Surely that is worthy of a review? Eh eh?

Nico's office was archaic. Paper files, old books, dusty potted plants and sketches littered the claustrophobic space. There was a door leading to a small closet and John made for it, leaving Sherlock alone to look around, and his eyes for some reason were drawn to the desk. To the notes and papers strewn across it.

Something wasn't right.

"John."

He waited but the doctor didn't answer him. "John!"

Still no answer.

What could he have done going into a closet? Gotten lost! Preposterous. Sherlock whirled around to see the door open but the light inside must've burned out inside because he couldn't see more than an inch past the doorframe, pitch black dark beckoning him in. He frowned and strode towards it fearless; after all it was only a closet.

As soon as he crossed the threshold the door slammed shut behind him and he turned reaching out to jiggle the handle but it seemed to be locked or jammed or something. Never mind he could always get John to kick it down. John, yes of course.

He turned back and took one step into what seemed like an extraordinarily large and oddly empty closet. Then he heard a giggle. A familiar giggle. Sherlocks eyes widened and he blindly reached for the doorknob again, yanking and pulling and scrabbling in his attempts to get out because now light was leaking in, just a little, and he could make out panelled walls and something large, oblong, that stood in the centre of the room.

The cold was creeping towards him and he couldn't hear anything but that echoing sickening giggle. It made his skin crawl and he turned away from the all too familiar room to beat the door with his fists screaming and banging and trying to get out, get away because he didn't want to be here. Not back here.

But then, a voice, "Tut tut I wouldn't have taken you for a scaredy cat."

He froze; every muscle tensed the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He knew that voice.

Turning around he opened his mouth to speak but all he could do was gape soundlessly as the voice boomed from every corner. "This is a dream. This is obviously a dream. I just need to wake up."

"So clever, yes of course this is a dream so as you will logically assume, it can't actually hurt. Or can it?"

Sherlock turned because the voice was now coming from one direct spot, the table in the centre of the room. He peered out taking a step forwards and suddenly it was bathed in light, John's lifeless body hanging limp there, and for a bizarre second he wanted to laugh. Had he looked so listless, so devoid of animation all those weeks?

He sucked in a breath and tried to run to him but his legs were like lead and he couldn't move them no matter how much he tried, the floor seemed to disappear beneath him and he collapsed to his knees, hands only just bracing in time to stop his face from making contact.

His voice wouldn't work, he tried to call out to his lover, to John, but he couldn't get his voice to work, why wouldn't it fucking work! He tried to focus his brain, tried to think logically but he was panicking, his thoughts were scattering in terror of the man, the memories.

It thundered through his veins, through his mind and all he could do was stare as a thin white hand slid up from behind the table and reached up nicking Johns exposed neck with a long nail, a thick trial of black blood seeped from the wound and Sherlocks stomach lurched.

The doctor grunted and woke slowly, blinking and looking around him, sheer panic and terror flooding his eyes and he yelled, calling out for Sherlock.

"Sherlock! Help me! Help me!"

He made eye contact but looked right through him like the detective wasn't even there and the now furious man shakily got to his feet. "No this is happening."

He turned and made a mad dash for the door punching the wall with all the rage that had built up in him, all the force he could muster, hoping that the shock of the pain in his mind would be enough to wake him, to rouse him from the icy cold of the room.

But it didn't work and he stumbled back as pain streaked up his arm and he put his hand in his armpit whimpering with the sheer agony.

He shook his head closing his eyes and trying to force himself to concentrate. He broke out in a cold sweat as that voice slid over him, so close now he could feel the breath on the back of his neck. Cold and clammy like deaths pale hands coming to squeeze the remaining life from his failing lungs.

Spinning on the spot he stared at John, a strange metal contraption now fixed over his terrified face. It was covered in spikes and smacked of the torture devices Sherlock had researched as a child with almost revered glee.

"Sherlock dear. All you need to do to save your little friend here is answer me this..."

The voice was like thick gooey caramel, oozing with malice and delight. He took a step forwards and peered into the darkness beyond the doctor, a well toed foot stepping into view. He appeared impossibly long and thin, fluid but clean movements as he stepped towards him with the soft rustle of a snake's path over the ground.

A well tailored suit, blue rabbit mask with long twisted ears and a slightly broken marred face casting ghostly shadows across the shattered landscape of his features. Beneath it his tongue flicked out over sharp white teeth and he smiled.

"Come on Sherlock dear, what's the answer?"

"I don't know the question."

"Wrong!"

The contraption juddered and snapped a little closer to Johns now weeping eyes. Sherlock yelled out but it did nothing. He collapsed on the slick floor, heart thundering in his too lean chest, his muscles ached and he couldn't hear for the whispering on the wind that flowed around him making him shiver through his thin shirt.

He squeezed his eyes shut, he couldn't look he daren't see the pure agony in Johns eyes. The betrayal. He was shamelessly pleading now, his resolve broken voice just a shadow of his former arrogance.

"I don't know the question what is the question!"

The sly smile he knew all too well and suddenly two frozen bony fingered hands were gripping his head pulling and scrabbling at his eyelids forcing him to look, to watch as the cage closed further around a now screaming John.

"Wrong."

A silky whisper in his ear and his eyes dripped with tears, the wind so painful on his bare gaze and he panted trying and failing to get up, to fight, as the cage dropped further and further towards John, the doctor's screams getting louder and more terrible with every passing second.

"Please stop! Stop! I don't know I don't know!"

"That is a shame."

The cage finally released and slammed down and John let out a blood curdling scream.

The scream echoed around him and he peered out blinking rapidly trying and trying to stop it from deafening him, from tearing his heart from his chest.

"Sherlock! Sherlock calm down hey clam down!"

Suddenly he was being shaken and John was there and he was back in John's bed and everything was fine. Then he realised he was the one screaming.

He shut up.

John's hands were on his bare chest and they were very warm and he let his head fall back with soft thump. The quilt was pooled around his waist, beads of icy cold sweat had built up on his naked chest and he panted, not daring to close his eyes.

John was leant over him, eyes alight in the staggered light filtering through his blinds and Sherlock reached up to pull his face down, pressing a kiss to his lips and letting him go. Yes this was real.

"John. I think I had a nightmare."

"Yeah well, I guessed that one."

"You are real." (It didn't hurt to be sure about these things and somehow he reasoned even in a dream John wouldn't lie to him.)

"Yes of course it is."

The doctors tense shoulders slumped a little and he too lay back, sighing. "Want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Okay."

Sherlock glanced sideways and John was looking at him, careful concern and measured affection his eyes. He smiled and reached out. It was...frankly wonderful to see those eyes, his mouth, and the wrinkles on his forehead, everything, so devoid of pain or fear.

The image of John on the table flashed behind his eyes and he sucked in a breath, reaching out to pull him close in, wrapping his arms around Johns back to trap the doctor's arms in to his chest, short blonde hair brushing against the detectives chin. (His arm would be dead by morning but frankly he couldn't care less.)

He relaxed as his breathing returned to normal, closing his eyes for just a moment and opening them again when cold dread washed over the back of his mind. Well, that was inconvenient.

"Are you sure you are okay?"

John's voice was muffled and his lips brushed against the taller mans collarbone making him shiver. He reached down and pulled the quilt up to cover them, careful not to let John go. He couldn't leave then. (Silly really but there was none else to witness this moment and he wouldn't have cared if there had been.)

"Yes."

And nothing more was said about it. John fell back asleep some time later but Sherlock wouldn't couldn't close his eyes again, instead concentrating on counting John's heart beat through their joined chests.

John didn't mention it again although that morning he would catch the doctor glancing his way, as if his mind had wandered to him for a second. He smiled, he had never thought he would be in a situation like this but now he was he was surprised at how much he dearly wanted to cling to it.

The receptionist at Nico's office was clearly surprised to see anybody actually in the tiny lobby area of the office building. So much so that she knocked her drink over in shock and John rushed forwards to help her mop it up.

"I'm sorry. Can I help you?"

She was blushing and kept looking at John with a hesitant smile. He gave her his best comforting smile in return and she blushed even deeper, keeping her hands on his a tad too long before taking the sopping tissues from his grasp.

Sherlock glared at her and took a step towards John, pulling him back by a closed hand on the back of his jacket. The doctor glanced up at him frowning a little, clearly confused, this changing to exasperation when he saw the fierce glance Sherlock gave the woman's turned back. John rolled his eyes and took a step back swinging a hand to indicate Sherlock should talk to her instead.

(He was thankful. This woman clearly had no sense of propriety, John was his. Surely she could see that.)

She turned back and looked right through him. Well, John was attractive but really. It was almost insulting. Sherlock politely gave a little cough and her eyes flickered back to him for a moment.

"Hi, we are friends on Gus's and-"

"Friends?"

Ah so he was unlikeable... or a loner.

"Well yes. He is helping us design our new home and-"

"He got an actual job!"

"Yes."

If she was going to keep interrupting then he was going to lose the happy polite persona he had adopted. Very quickly. (And especially if she was going to keep glancing at John like that.)

"That's wonderful. I'm sorry I haven't seen Gus for almost a week so..."

"Ah, he said the drawing would be in his office. You wouldn't mind letting us pop in there and get them would you?"

He gave her his best charming smile and this time she glanced down and back up fluttering her eyelashes at him instead. What a fickle woman. It was a lucky thing John wasn't looking for female companionship; this one clearly would've been a bad choice.

"I'm sorry but I can't let you, I'm not allow-"

Suddenly John was beside them, leaning over the counter and he licked his lips slowly, eyes trailing first over the desk and then over her. It was obvious, it was predatory and it worked. She grinned and John grinned back at her.

"Please? We are on a tight schedule and I don't know what we would do if we couldn't get the plans..."

The woman sighed and tilted her head. "Well I suppose, as it is you..."

Turning away she began rifling through a key cabinet beneath the desk and Sherlock raised his eyebrows at his lover. John shrugged. (As much as he hated John acting in any way like that to anybody but himself, it was effective and oddly...alluring.)

The woman turned back and basically draped the keyring over Johns waiting palm, a slip of paper blatantly placed beside it. "I can help you find it if you want?"

Her eyes were completely focussed on John and she quirked a hip to the side, licking her lips and flicking her hair. Sherlocks pleasant smile dropped and he took both the key and the number from John's hand walking towards the staircase.

"No. its fine we can find it ourselves."

He could hear the doctor apologising behind him and waited one flight up, arms crossed, reading the number over and over. "Perhaps I should put some sort of label on you."

"What, property of Sherlock Holmes? Do not engage."

That would seem about right. He glanced up and John was rather pink in the face, frowning a little.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You have gone pink."

"I was just...thinking...it doesn't matter. What room is it?"

"John as effective as your methods are I do wish you wouldn't go around picking up strange females numbers. Donovan may be wrong in calling me a psychopath but you don't have to be to commit murder. Just so you understand."

John laughed and reached out grabbing the detectives hand to yank him from his corner. "Come on, its two floors up I think, and I don't do it on purpose."

"Yes you do."

"No I really don't. What about you anyway, you can't talk. How many times has somebody come on to you whilst you've been playing friend or family or whatever takes your fancy."

Sherlock smirked. "Yes but I have never actually taken the number John. A distinct difference."

John just rolled his eyes still pulling his taller lover through the thin winding corridors that reminded Sherlock of his youth and the old detective movies mummy would allow him to watch on Sundays. (But only as a treat.)

John unlocked the door as Sherlock checked his messages, Lestrade mentioned something about a case but it was clear it could be something to do with Nico and he needed to first understand who this man was and what he had done before he decided whether he was going to hand him over to the police or Irene.

The doctor disappeared inside and Sherlock followed him glancing up from his mobile.

He froze.

It was the room from his dream, same cluttered walls, same study wooden desk. Same closet John was about to open.

"No!"

John jumped clear from the closet and put a hand to his chest, staring at Sherlock like he had finally lost it. "What?"

Oh how embarrassing. It was, after all, just a dream. "Nothing. Sorry."

John shook his head and reached for the handle again, unaware his lover was now clutching his phone so tight his hands were shaking, the door swung open to reveal... an equally cluttered closet full of paper files and odd letters, books, pens and cardboard boxes.

Oh.

Sherlock glanced back to the office space and again something struck him as strange. The desk, it was strewn with paper but...different. "John, John look at the desk."

"What? I don't...see anything. What?"

"Look really look at it. Something isn't right."

"Okay..."

Sometimes he despaired. "Look at everywhere else John, what can you say about it?"

"It's a mess."

"Yes and..."

"It's just a mess Sherlock."

He sighed and stamped forwards throwing himself into the large creaking wooden chair behind the desk, hands on the edge as he glared first around the room and then at the space in front of himself.

"Yes it is a mess, but its ordered mess. See the files are lined up there, paper is stacked, and pens are grouped. But here, look the paper is just everywhere, pens without lids, and marks from where something was stuck here..."

John leant down next to him and frowned. "What does that mean?"

"It means Mr. Nico has already had a visitor. But...I don't think they found what they were looking for."

"Why?"

"We would've found a body by now John."

"Ah. Well what were they looking for then?"

"I'm not sure."

His eyes caught something on the wall and he grinned. "But I think I know where it is."

He leapt up, brushing past John to get to the posters that littered the wall. A world map, old fashioned movie posters and some for a film called the wrath of khan and a large detailed blueprint of a space ship similar to the one on the poster.

Several other poster with crumpled edges and finger marks covered the wall and amongst them all a single, speckles, poster for 'Star Wars', hung straight, upright. It was new, obviously put to replace something that had been there before and Sherlock beamed reaching up to rip it off the wall.

"Sherlock! You can't do that!"

"He doesn't care for this one John."

"You can't know that."

"Really? Mixing star trek and star wars? The other posters are rare; difficult to find no doubt and yet this one is something you could get anywhere."

Behind the space covered by the poster there was a small hidden drawer, with a hole for a key. John gasped just behind him and Sherlock smirked. (After all that was one of Johns best features. His continued amazement when Sherlock noticed the obvious.)

"Where is the key then?"

He span back around, surprising the doctor who had been leaning just over his shoulder and was now almost chest to chest with him. The taller man quirked an eyebrow and John blushed a little stepping aside. He flew back over to the desk surveying the room as he went.

"The key would be somewhere reachable..."

John titled his head and joined him behind the desk, leaning down on his heels. "Sherlock-"

"It would be somewhere obvious only to Nico..."

"Sherlock."

"It would be somewhere hidden in plain sight."

John reached out in front of him and picked up the ring of keys that lay under the paper. Surely it wouldn't be that obvious. John twisted them over in his hands picking out a large and rather hideous keyring, sliding a nail down the side and popping it open to reveal a hidden cavity in which lay an old fashioned iron key.

(This sent a familiar shiver down his spine and he forced himself to concentrate on the work and not at throwing himself on top of his lover. Oh how he found Johns higher than average ability to spot what Sherlock didn't attractive.)

John grinned and picked it up rounding the desk to open the drawer. It took him a few tries but eventually the aged wood creaked out and he reached inside pulling out a thin manila envelope with a pink post it note attached, written in clear black hand writing a phone number and several exclamation points underneath it.

The doctor frowned but Sherlock jumped to his feet jumping clear over the desk to pull the pink note off the front of the envelope.

"I know exactly where to go next."

He wound through the tables, John close at his heels, apologising to people he had knocked into on the way. "Sebastian."

The man stopped his conversation and spun slowly in his seat, shock registering on his face for a moment before he plastered it with a wide smarmy grin. "Sherlock Holmes."

He turned back to the other men at the table and gestured towards the detective. "Guys I think you remember Sherlock."

The detective glanced around the table and fought back a scowl. It was Sebastian's flat mates and his tormentors. Oh how lovely to see them again.

"And his friend, doctor Watson."

"I'm not his friend."

The other men went quiet and sniggered between themselves Sebastian slapping a hand to his forehead with a glint in his eye. "Oh of course, my apologies. You are his colleague."

Sherlock was frozen. Surely John wouldn't do that to him, again.

"No actually, I'm his partner."

"Partner? Isn't that the same thing?" Sebastian scoffed, glancing at his friends as though John was being particularly dense.

Sherlock stepped forwards a little, allowing the tiny flutter of his heart to go to his head for a mere second and John let out a breath through his nose. "Actually it really isn't. If you will excuse us gentlemen Sebastian here needs to have a word with us."

He was using the voice, and after a second of fierce eye contact the slightly confused but still smirking man got to his feet. John reached out and grasped him by the shoulder, he then turned without a word and placing a hand in the small of Sherlocks back, walked him towards the bathrooms, frogmarching the spluttering Sebastian with his other hand.

They entered the bathroom and the banker took a step away from the doctor. Sherlock however took a step closer to him. His mind warred between his twin obsessions, the work and whatever John was doing. (He politely stashed the grin that threatened to break out on his face for when they were back at the flat or at least...whenever he could get John alone.)

"Partner eh? Funny. Didn't think you were the queer type."

The detective rolled his eyes and thrust the envelope towards Sebastian. "This man called you. I need to know why."

"Surely you could work it out." He chortled at his own comment and glanced at John, the smirk sliding of his face. He pulled the sheets of paper form in the envelope and scanned them with his eyes. "Oh yeah, I remember this guy. Nervous type, wanted to know who held these accounts and what they were using them for. I couldn't tell him obviously. Private accounts aren't really for public eyes."

"So who did you think he suspected they belonged to?"

"God knows. I go him out of my office as soon as I could. I tell you what though; he seemed a bit too... pathetic to be striding about demanding to know about accounts worth this much."

"He was scared then."

Sebastian glanced at John and nodded vaguely. "Yeah, Kept glancing around and when he spotted the CCTV camera he all but ran out of there."

Sherlock sighed. So this Nico character was most likely just a civilian who had stumbled something he hadn't understood the importance of...interesting.

"Thank you Sebastian."

John nodded and made for the door snatching the envelope from Sebastian's grasp. On his way past Sherlock leant in a little to speak quietly into the slightly shorter man's ear.

"I'm surprised you hadn't realised my predilections before Seb, after all you of all people should know what I like..."

"What? What do you mean?"

"You really don't remember that night in December, final year? Come now. I certainly remember you waking up in my bed..."

Sherlock grinned wolfishly and whipped around the door leaving Sebastian to turn a delightful deep red and to splutter like an over boiling kettle.

When they got outside John glanced up at him. "You slept with him?"

"Oh no."

"What...but you said-"

"I said I thought he would remember waking up in my bed in December, I didn't say that the fact he had gotten drunk and ended up in the wrong room, crushing me as I attempted to sleep, was another matter. Nothing happened."

"Then why would you say that?"

"Sebastian has a low tolerance for alcohol and can frequently recall nothing of his night's actions the next day."

"So you did it just to aggravate him."

"Perhaps he would be less judgemental if he thought he had his own secret to keep."

He was stretched out on the sofa the sounds of John watching TV and rumbling of traffic outside melting into the background as he thought through everything he knew already. His mind focussed in particular on one question. Who would be looking for this man? Who would hire Irene to find him?

Whoever it was, they could be the clue to cracking exactly what Nico had uncovered and what had happened to him.

"John. Phone."

He lay in wait but it never came. Cracking open an eye he tried again. "John phone!"

Still no movement, he opened both eyes and sat up on his elbows. The doctor was dozing in his chair, eyes closed soft snores. How bloody useless. Sherlock rolled off the sofa, landing expertly on his feet and strode across the room.

He knew the phones were on the doctor somewhere he just had to find them, bending down his eyes caught on the doctor laptop screen. An unfinished blog post, half written. John must've fallen asleep whilst writing it.

He read the title glanced to the doctor and then gently took the entire laptop off the side unit, slumping back into his own armchair to read.

A future.

I don't even know why I am writing this. I won't post it. Bloody hell, I just had to put it down somewhere. I love Sherlock, I do and I never thought that would happen to me. I especially didn't expect the person I fell in love with to be so very different to me but I honestly wouldn't change him for the world. Okay that is a lie, I wouldn't mind if he did a little more washing up or just didn't leave body parts next to the dinner I have to cook that night. Not to mention... No I shouldn't complain. The thing that really surprises me is that I can see myself having a future with him, that is just crazy isn't it. I mean, the likelihood I will get killed just working with him is pretty high but then I guess that is part of what is so attractive about him or at least that is what Mycroft thinks. I am definitely not posting this, nobody wants to hear this. Or read this I suppose. Am I honestly considering spending the rest of my life with him? Am I seriously considering asking him-

It ended there.

Sherlock stared at the screen reading and re-reading it several times. There was something about it that was so very important. Perhaps it was that it was clearly not meant for anybody but John's eyes, it was completely personal. This is what John would consider on the no-go list.

(A delightful little note that John had given him a few weeks into their shared lives. It told Sherlock of the few things he was never allowed to mention, ask or say out loud, even if he figured it out through extraordinary means. He had failed to mention that on the list was anything pertaining to John's love life. Something he clearly was allowed to talk about now. Better not to mention it.)

Sherlock took a deep breath and slowly put it back where John had left it, gazing down at his sleeping lover. His heart was in his throat and he swallowed hard, the words running around and around in his head, did he mention it to John? Did he tell him he had read the post, even if only by accident?

No. That wouldn't be wise. John would get mad.

(Although he really really wanted to know what it was about. The fact that John wanted to spend the rest of his life with him had made a warm feeling settle on his chest along with a weird sort of excited energy he didn't understand.)

He sighed and reached down towards him, rifling through his pockets until he found his phone. He was still perched on the edge of his own chair like a bird of prey as John moaned and grunted his way into consciousness, and he patted himself down before blinking blearily at Sherlock.

He frowned and then glanced sideways his eyes widening for a split second before he reached out, slamming the laptop shut.

"Eurgh, uh what are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh I was just texting Irene."

John licked his lips glancing from the laptop to Sherlock and back. "Oh right...have you been using the laptop?"

Sherlock glanced up and made a vaguely surprised face as though he hadn't even noticed it was there. "No...I don't have enough credit. Give me your phone."

John sighed and reached down the side of the chair, swapping phones with his lover. "Why are you texting her? Did you find him while I was asleep?"

"No but I need to know who hired her."

"Why?"

Sherlock didn't answer, he just input his message and waited for it to send, eyes on the screen. "You tell me." It was always fun to see what John made of things.

"So, Nico found something that scared him but he didn't understand so he took it to Sebastian. Irene was hired by someone who wanted to find him...the owner of the accounts."

Sherlock grinned and glanced up to him. (He was getting better at this. It really was surprisingly attractive.)

John smiled. "So if you know who is looking for him you can find out what was so important about the accounts. What they were doing with them."

"Precisely."