In the morning I almost thought I was dreaming. Reality had never begun for me with tranquility, not since the first few years of my existence, before I had a consciousness, and even then I can't imagine greeting my parents amicably from the crib. As I child I woke to confusion; as a teenager, foreboding; as a young man finding his first refuge in a strip club, discomfort.

Today I woke to a dreamlike serenity. No thoughts. No dread. Just remembrance.

Through the telltale light falling past unfamiliar blinds I saw the truth in my memories, figments of last night, like dust in the amber air, and I heard phrases in his voice that I was almost certain would never be meant for me. There was a waking movement on the bed beside me as he turned to search for the lover he'd drifted away from in sleep. With my back to him I couldn't see him, but I could imagine every gesture, every nuance, and for the first time I fit into the picture right alongside him.

I weaved my fingers through his as they found their place against my abdomen, and upon knowing I was awake he mumbled, "Good morning, sweetheart."

"Good morning," I mumbled back, turning my head to get a glimpse of him, but as soon as I was in reach he greeted me with a kiss.

"It's nice you're here. You should stay the night more often."

"I work late."

"I know," he said simply. It was an invitation, a reminder that he would help me quit and become only his, physically as well as emotionally. We lay there for awhile, eyes half-closed and blurry with the morning, before the smell of sausage and fresh croissants wafted into the room and he asked, "You hungry?"

"I can wait a bit."

"Good."

We didn't get out of bed until twenty minutes and a dozen morning kisses later.

Over breakfast we met the other guests, during which time I unsuccessfully tried to restrain myself from making deprecatory appraisals of every one of them. At times John would shoot me warning glances, only for me to catch him smiling at me moments later, sharing silent appreciation, in love.

The goodbyes were quick and unremarkable. John and I were there for each other, and the remainder of the date was spent just that way.

As the softly shining run rose to the center of the sky, we walked along the shoreline of the isle of Llanddwyn. There I found that unfamiliar thing again: peace. There was nothing to analyze; the land lay undisturbed. There was just us and the sand and the rolling ocean, which were all self-explanatory now. By myself I would have gotten bored very quickly, but he kept me there in graceful respite with all his little philosophies and childhood tales, and in just a few short hours he taught me how to appreciate.

On the mainland we grabbed a lunchtime snack and then headed to the bus stop. He looked around apprehensively as we seated ourselves, asking, "Are you sure you don't want to take a cab?"

"Completely. The fare is ridiculous for long trips."

"I'll pay for the both of us."

"No, it's alright. There are things you still want to do here, and there are things I need to do in London."

"Sherlock."

"What?"

He shot me something close to a glare, but more affectionate. I smiled. He glanced over my shoulder; the bus was approaching in the distance. I stood up.

"Thank you for this. Sincerely," I said.

He stood up all at once and kissed me in front of everyone on the street, and though the people weren't many, something had changed. He wouldn't have cared if there were a hundred onlookers.

As I walked away I felt as though I was leaving the easeful arms of an angel, and throughout the long bus ride home my mind was a void of hopes and kisses and everything irrational.

When I stepped through the back door of the club and the amorous music started pounding up through my soles, everything became clear again. I was back at home, and it wasn't home. Not anymore. I knew what I had to do, though it wouldn't be easy to succeed.

The door to Miss Ginny's office was locked. He wouldn't arrive for several more hours. I glanced toward the main lobby to confirm that all of the present employees were occupied, and then shut off the hallway lights to obscure my undertaking from prying eyes. In the darkness I picked the lock with a tool I had acquired a long time ago, when I'd needed it to keep myself fed and sheltered, and without sticking anything into the room besides my arm I dropped to my knees and felt along the wall for the camera wire. It was there, taped up against the baseboard and following the doorframe up to a camera just above the door. An inconvenient place for a camera, but I knew he had it there for a reason; his computer screen, and the questionable items and documents sometimes hiding beside it, couldn't be seen from that angle. I tugged a free section of wire until I felt the plug on the other end pull loose. Then I stood up, entered, and closed the door behind me.

It took me a dozen tries to input the right password into his computer; thankfully he hadn't installed a lock-out security measure. After that it was easy to find the information I needed. He had forwarded my profile to two professional stalkers, four personal friends, and a private investigator. The investigator had already done his work; he'd replied with my extensively boring life history and its purported psychological effects, ninety-percent of which were false. Perhaps if I was an ordinary person they would have had more value. The personal friends were under the impression that I was a mentally deranged godson who Miss Ginny might need help caging in if a certain John Watson turned up dead one day. Gruesome, that. None of them questioned the legality of the arrangement, which meant they were either very good friends or just as demented as Miss Ginny was. I thought most likely the latter. The professional stalkers had been taking turns trailing me for about a week, which was a problem. I reminded myself to get in contact before their next report came in; men like these could be easily paid off to disappear, and they knew how to disappear well enough for even Miss Ginny not to find them again.

My most alarming finding was a series of cryptic correspondence between my boss and someone called Emil. He, whoever he was, seemed to know the situation in its entirety. He was the hitman; the friend willing to take a man's life at the drop of a pin. They seemed to be on very good terms, but that was the only fact I could determine from the messages that were present.

I left the room in the exact condition I had found it in with an estimated hour to spare, just in case, and immediately got to work as I had promised. The night passed quickly, and I didn't sleep when I got in bed the next morning. My mind stayed at work, trying to find the safest way of identifying and neutralizing Emil. I couldn't let John keep his promise until the danger was gone.

Somehow, I felt that the situation was much more complicated than it seemed to be.

"What's your offer?"

"Two thousand pounds, paid in monthly increments of two hundred."

The taller of the two spat his tobacco onto the asphalt. "Make it three thousand. A down deposit of one thousand right now, and he'll never see or hear from us again."

I paused. "For three thousand, would you also do a short assignment for me?"

He watched me expectantly, leaning back against the wall of the alley.

"Turn the tables around and follow him for a week. He's in contact with a man called Emil; I'd like to know exactly who that is and how they're meeting each other, if at all. If you find nothing after a week, consider the job done. Could you do that?"

"Easy," the other one muttered, not bothering to look up from beneath his hood.

"Five days," said the first, holding out the palm of his hand. I retrieved the allotted banknotes and handed them over.

"Deal, then."

It was several days later, when I was turning in for the night, that I heard Miss Ginny call me from his office. He was clothed ordinarily enough to convince anyone that he was just your average middle-aged man, face clean and blond hair falling natural over his shoulders. He stood up as I entered and pulled his keys from his pocket.

Two things were immediately noticeable as wrong. First, he never stayed at the club this late. Second, he wouldn't be dressed in such a way if he didn't have an occasion planned for us.

"Morning tea?" he asked casually, plain lips curling into their usual smirk, which was only slightly less sickening without the lipstick. I realized that there was no question of whether or not I was tired, whether or not I actually wanted to go. It was a command, So I played along and nodded. He smiled approvingly, and, as he was brushing past me into the hallway, said, "Get your clothes on and meet me out back. Quickly, if you will."

He was waiting in his car when I came out fully clothed and mentally prepared for whatever awaited, besides a small nagging worry in the back of my mind. For a long time I thought I'd gotten over worry. It was a pointless thing, far more capable of harm than benefit.

Yet there it was, vying for control while my prudent subconscious struggled to extinguish it, tugging at the heartstrings which connected at the ends to the subtle idea of John.

Since my subconscious could not extinguish it, I spent the silent car ride shutting it out of my own accord so that when we stepped into the Dote Lounge and Eatery my mind was fully focused on the events at hand.

The Dote was an interesting hybrid of club and cafe, obviously high-end. It was more civilized than a club and more intimate than a cafe. The music was quiet and sophisticated, and from the inside one couldn't tell what time of day it was unless they looked up at the tinted slit windows lining the very top of the walls in the restaurant section, which was where Miss Ginny led me. It didn't seem right referring to him as such when he wasn't in drag, though there remained a subtle feminine grace to his speech and movements. His name was Gabriel Torque.

We were seated in a corner where we could observe everything but no one could safely observe us. There was a television at the edge of the bar, visible over Gabriel's shoulder; the place wasn't busy, so the bartender was leaned up against the sink intently watching the news while cleaning one glass over and over. The waitress served us tea and never came back.

"I feel as though I haven't had a heart-to-heart chat with you in awhile," Gabriel said, drawing my attention from the surroundings back to him. "How have you been?"

"Decent."

"Still satisfied with your employment?"

"You know very well that things have changed."

"Things? Or you?"

"When did I imply that by things I didn't mean me?"

He smiled. "Always the attitude, Sherlock. My, my. Why couldn't we just be friends?"

Couldn't. Not can't. There was purpose to his wording.

"Proper friends don't declare war," he continued. "War gets people killed. Obviously friendship is a positive thing. Speaking of which, have you seen the news lately?"

Immediately I looked at the television, just as the story of two men brutally murdered on a side street started to play out. The police had yet to find any evidence besides the bodies, which caught my attention; usually they could find some sort of lead within the first investigation, whether it was correct or not.

Images of the two men before their mutilation flashed on-screen, and I froze completely.

"War isn't much fun when you're losing, is it?" Gabriel gibed. His smirk could have sailed across the ocean.

"You wouldn't have killed them."

"Wouldn't I?"

"You're not capable of it."

"To win a war you need an army."

"Wrong. All I need is my mind." I leaned halfway over the table, fist shaking with rage against the linoleum. "And I will win."

"Is your beloved's life really a worthy price for victory?"

Suddenly everything that was at stake came into focus, and I realized I shouldn't have said that.

"Listen, Sherly. You'll give up the fight, or John will die. The little date you two went on was a gross violation of our agreement, and on top of that...you lied to me. Don't you know that hurts, darling?"

"I removed the tracking device from my phone."

"Clever of you to notice it. Those men - ah, Curtis and Brett, I think they were called; brothers - they filled me in on a bit of your activities before we killed them, but were too shaken to give me the important details. Fortunately I was thoughtful enough to place a backup tracker in your favorite shoes before you went on your little trip. Admittedly, it was a wonderful location for a first date. I hope you enjoyed yourselves, because there won't be another."

I said it even though I knew it was pointless, and my voice was shaking. "Let me see him one more time. To say goodbye."

"I'm not willing to allow that. You've lost your privilege. Approach him again at his risk."

"He'll..."

He'll what? He'll be heartbroken? He'll think he scared you off, that you don't love him? Folly. But you didn't say it, Sherlock. He doesn't know.

"He'll come back looking for me if I don't end it personally."

"I think it would be more fun to let him figure it out himself."

It was then that I had to get up and leave before a murder took place in that very building. I couldn't argue. I couldn't breathe. Where my steps had always been sure, I lumbered back to the club in fear that I would take a wrong turn.

Why did it aggravate me so when it was a challenge I might have otherwise welcomed?

A puzzle. A maze with spikes at every dead end. One life; one chance to plan the correct route. There was a way out of this, and all I had to do was think of it. Mental challenges were what I lived for. Everything else was boring.

So why, in this situation, did thinking scare me so much?

Propped up against the door of my room, body sinking to the floor of its own volition, I remembered the moment when Penrhyn Castle capsized. I remembered the sensation of weightlessness, opposite of this horrendous gravity. It wasn't coincidence. It was him. Without him I was lost.

I had to think. I had to think so I could go home, but I was terrified of the spikes, because if I made a mistake it wasn't me who would be impaled. It was him.

On the corner of the back alley rooftop it was windy and frigid. I was perched still, watching the window several stories down of the building opposite. There were shifty characters scattered about the streets far below, smoking cigarettes and patrolling. Emil's subordinates.

Shortly after the meeting at the Dote Lounge, I'd managed set up a simple mail interceptor that forwarded a copy of all incoming emails to an extra account of mine. I had followed Miss Ginny here after reading a message that said simply, 'Come to HQ tonight, third floor. I'm missing a beautiful woman.' It was the first message from Emil that had arrived since then, as well as the most informative. Miss Ginny had left the club almost immediately after it did.

I wore nothing but a black sheet. It was the only way to ensure that I wasn't being tracked. The cabbie had given me a strange look upon noticing my attire in the rearview mirror, but carried out his job nonetheless. After watching Miss Ginny enter this building through a shady back door guarded by two thugs, I'd gone on foot and started climbing, admittedly with some difficulty wearing only a sheet.

The window I was watching was the only lit window on the third floor. I would be lucky if it was the correct room, but it was worth a try.

Fifteen minutes passed before anything happened. Miss Ginny's voice was unmistakable, though I could only discern broken words and phrases. Through the half-open shutters I saw bodies collide.

So their relationship was more than platonic. In return for business favors, Emil received sexual services at his request. Judging by the disregard for privacy, his subordinates were well-informed.

Suddenly I felt something cool and metallic at my neck. Shuffling of one pair of feet. In my thoughts I hadn't been paying attention.

"I spotted you from way down there, mate, when you arrived. You think this is a good place for a peep show?" The voice was male and sardonic. Unaggressive, which was a good sign. I had a chance of getting out of this.

"I'm not sure yet. I thought I'd try out a new location," I responded. "Looks like this was an unlucky choice."

The man chuckled, and the metal eased from my neck. "You got that right. Turn around, mate."

Slowly, I stood up and faced him, still holding the sheet together at my chest. He was rugged and muscular, a few inches shorter than I. Short stubble and hair shaved close to the head. Despite the obvious brusqueness there was an elegance to his features that made him affable.

"If you're wondering about my choice of apparel, the laundry wasn't finished."

"Hm, right. Prove you're not hiding a rifle beneath that."

"You're asking me to strip?"

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Flatter myself? It's what I do for a living."

"Is that so?"

By the tone of his voice, he was at least bi-curious, which would be normal within a mafia led by a man who regularly copulates with a drag queen.

"It's been a long night, hasn't it? Let me take you to my club for a free lap dance."

He hesitated, though there was a smirk hiding behind his stolid expression. "What are your intentions here?"

"It's a long story," I replied languidly, stepping toward him. "I'd love to tell you, if we had the time." I came only inches from him and he didn't object, even as my fingers trailed his jaw and I leaned close enough to kiss him. Then the tip of the gun was on my chest, cold as ice through the thin sheets. I heard a click.

"We have time," he said, and suddenly I had that familiar feeling that my life was being played like a sick, selfish game.