Sherlock sat cross-legged on top of a bookcase in the library of his mind palace. He looked down dismally at the water flowing past the top shelf. The books in his library were mostly waterproof; they had experienced 'feelings flooding' before, but never to this extent. He couldn't know there wouldn't be any lasting damage.

He raked his hand through his hair trying not to remember how John's hand had felt there, pushing back through until he was falling asleep. It was a surprisingly sedating motion. Sherlock hadn't remembered. No one had touched him like that since he was very young. He was astonished to find it worked just as well on adults. John must have known that. There were probably a lot of things John knew that Sherlock didn't about—

Sherlock swallowed, shutting his eyes. Ah yes, the reason his desk was currently underwater in his study and there were rapids in the hallways. John. The inopportune, heart-quickening aesthetics of John in the dark of the room, the soft glow of streetlamps, the sturdy lines of torso beneath light t-shirt, the smooth planes of his face.

John had kissed him. Once, lightly, chastely, and then again more firmly, intentionally, but pulling back soon after—not insisting, not asking for anything. The kiss had been brief, like a statement. An affirmation. But it had been tender too—a gentleness Sherlock didn't expect to be directed toward him. John was rough with him, pushing back harder whenever Sherlock pushed him. But Sherlock hadn't pushed him this time.

It wasn't out of pity, Sherlock knew that much. John had started to look at him that way—a doctor's concerned eyes on his neck—but Sherlock had stopped it in its tracks. He'd flattened his palm over John's shoulder, reminding him of his own wounds. Sherlock was not one to be pitied and John knew that. He had understood when Sherlock touched his shoulder, touched the cut on his cheek. They were both damaged. John understood. And that's when he'd kissed him.

But what did it mean? Was it a spontaneous, impulsive display of affection, never to be repeated? Did Sherlock want it to be repeated?

Glumly he watched the 1891 Crime Annals float by. He looked upstream and squinted at what looked like a plastic tube, vertical in the water, moving toward him.

Oh dear god, not now, was all he had time to think before Moriarty's head surfaced.

The consulting criminal removed the snorkel piece of the mask from his mouth. He grinned. "Come on in, Sherlock. The water's fine."

"I suppose," Sherlock drawled, "there's no point in simply telling you to go away."

Moriarty rolled his eyes behind the bulky goggles. "It's your mind palace." He grabbed hold of the bookcase across from Sherlock's and pulled himself up onto it. Water cascaded from his Westwood suit as he twisted, sitting on the edge to face Sherlock, shiny black shoes dangling in the water. He pulled the goggles up onto his forehead. "If you want me gone, then make me disappear."

Sherlock shut his eyes and tried to focus. Make him disappear, make him disappear…

When he opened his eyes, Moriarty frowned at him. "Oh, that's right," he said in mock revelation, "you can't, can you." He dropped his eyes, shaking his head and smiling almost ruefully. "A glitch in the system; you can't control it. That is rather the point."

Sherlock scowled. "Are you aware it's traditional for people to become less annoying once they're deceased?"

"Traditional. You and I have never really gone in for that," Moriarty said a bit distractedly as he cast his gaze around the library. He whistled. "Wow, what a mess!" His eyes snapped back to Sherlock and they were shining with glee. "This is fabulous, is it not? To think I ever bothered aiming guns at John Watson." He giggled. "All I had to do was let him kiss you!" He clapped his hands together. "Just look at this!" He spread them wide. "The chaos, the wreckage! I couldn't have caused this much damage even if I'd tortured you." He dragged his eyes over Sherlock at the word 'torture' as though he might like to have at him now.

"Anytime you're finished," Sherlock said in a clipped tone, "you may remove yourself from my Nilsen shelf."

Moriarty ignored him. "You know a headful of water is no good for solving crimes. But it is perfect for goldfish." His eyes gleamed. "Do you think John will still like you if you can't solve crimes anymore?"

"What do you want?" Sherlock snapped.

"No, no, no, it's not that. You always were so slow. What do you want, Sherlock? That's what you meant. That's what this is all about. You're weak, Sherlock Holmes. You want him."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes.

"Oh god, you're not going to deny it, are you? Do you want to pretend you weren't already half hard when he shoved you down on the couch in that soldier uniform of his?" Moriarty's eyes flicked down, lingering on Sherlock's trousers as though he could undo them. "What about his gun?" Sherlock felt his eyebrows raise as Moriarty produced John's pistol from his suit jacket. Moriarty looked at it in a mock impression of lust. "Don't you just... want to lick it?" He touched his tongue just above the trigger and dragged it slowly up the shaft. "I suppose you could pretend you don't," he said abstractedly, gazing at the tip of the gun, "but it would be so boring."

Sherlock's glare burned, but he didn't reply.

"Good," Moriarty grinned with sharp teeth. "There's a good lad." He tossed John's gun over the water and Sherlock caught it, blinking down at the familiar weapon. Dangerous. Familiar and dangerous, just like John—

"Biographers!" Moriarty blew out an exaggerated breath, jerking him out of his revere. "They're just adorable, aren't they? Following you around with those puppy eyes, all admiration and ardour…" Moriarty looked faintly disgusted. He replaced the expression with a smirk. "I'm sure even Samuel Johnson couldn't look at his without a certain amount of affection."

"Your prattling will be much more tolerable when you're doing it under water," Sherlock rejoined.

"Is that a threat?" Moriarty furrowed his eyebrows. "Erm, look, Sherlock, I know your mind palace has gone aquatic and all that but do I really need to remind you that it's largely ineffective to threaten dead people?"

"Be dead then. Just don't be here."

"Oh, WAKE UP!" Moriarty shouted loud enough to startle Sherlock's eyes wider. "You moron, I'm here because you need me here. You need me to face me because otherwise you'd have to face yourself. And we both know you can't handle that. You're an idiot, Sherlock. You're drowning in your own mind and you still need me to distract you from it."

"From what?"

"From everything," Moriarty snarled. "You know I used to think we were similar. I used to think you were on my level. But look at you now. You want. You need. You're pathetic. Is this all it takes to defeat the great Sherlock Holmes? Something as ordinary, as base as sex? In the end are you really so obvious?"

An echo. Sherlock felt pain in his jaw and realised he'd been clenching his teeth, apparently hard enough to be clenching them in the real world, outside of his mind palace.

"I thought you were stronger than this"—Moriarty dropped his head—"I thought you were smarter. How disappointing for you. How disappointing for everyone who thought you were better."

"I am human," Sherlock said through his teeth. He hated to admit it, even in his own head. "Everyone knows that."

"You're BORING. And everyone's going to find out. You've done an excellent job pretending to be above it all, really you have. But in the end they're all going to know the truth."

"I don't care what anyone thinks. I never have."

Moriarty smiled softly. "But we both know that's not quite true." He bit his lip and sighed. "There are certain people whose opinion you could live or die on… Certain people who could break you." He shifted his expression into something like pity. "Oh, Sherlock, you're in deep. Waterfalls worth of Feelings deep. John saved you the last time, but he can't save you now. Because, if you think about it, this is really all his fault." Moriarty looked delighted as something occurred to him. "You know you should hate him for this, for what he's done to you. He's pulling you down when you could be—"

"Enough."

Moriarty fell silent, watching Sherlock with interest.

He kept his words deadly even. "Take a swim, Moriarty."

The consulting criminal pouted. "All right, all right," he drew the syllables out with his reluctance. "But think about it, Sherlock. You can't continue like this"—he slid the goggles back on—"you know you can't." He put the snorkel in his mouth and pushed himself off the bookcase into the water.

He dove down. When he resurfaced he tossed up a sodden book and Sherlock caught it. It was his documentation on the Scowrers, one of his more fascinating researches into nineteenth century organised crime in America. He opened it and stared at the running ink, the blurred words.

"He'd better be the best shag in England at the price you're paying for him!" Moriarty called out, flashing his teeth in a wicked grin before replacing the mouthpiece.

As Sherlock watched Moriarty snorkel away it occurred to him that this had to be the most obnoxious lucid dreams he'd ever experienced.

Dully he was aware of movement on the other side of his consciousness. The bed dipping: John getting up. Footsteps: John leaving.

He lay back on top of the bookcase, holding the wet book to his chest. He could wake up now, but he didn't want to.

At the surgery John was doing his best to keep himself as frantically busy as possible to avoid remembering that he'd kissed his (inescapably male) flatmate last night. While it was true Sherlock hadn't kicked him out of bed for it, it was also true that Sherlock had been drugged and injured and in retrospect it probably hadn't been the best time to kiss him.

John walked into the wrong room and the nurse there gave him a strange look. He needed to focus. He had another patient to see. He couldn't think about what he'd done or the likelihood that when he got home Sherlock would give him another awkward speech about being married to his work and, trying at his best 'polite' tone, ask John to find a new flat. That would be the worst of it, if Sherlock affected some kind of detached attempt at 'polite' with him. They were so far beyond that first night at Angelo's. If Sherlock pulled anything like that again John might finish the job the attacker had started in the warehouse last night.

Except none of it was Sherlock's fault, he scoffed inwardly at himself. It was his own fault for kissing Sherlock while his sanity had apparently gone on a fifteen minute break. He'd lost the plot: the plot in which he was a heterosexual male living with an asexual (or whatever) male and they did not kiss each other. Except when Sherlock needed to test a method of drug transmission for a case. Then apparently it was all right.

But hadn't Sherlock been the one who'd asked John to stay with him last night? John argued to himself indignantly (and a bit manically). What had Sherlock been playing at, asking him to sleep in his bed? Was it possible that he'd wanted— And what if he did? Was John ready for that? For what that would mean? John felt his heartrate increase. He had started this, and he really wished he'd at least given it a thought or two or a thousand first. He should have considered what Harry had said, whether he could—

But it was stupid, all of it, because of course he could, of course he wanted. Dreams of it, fleeting and opaque, had haunted his subconscious since the day they'd met and the gorgeous scientist in the lab had made his head swim, a phenomenon that had only allowed him to be half-interested in the women he'd dated while Sherlock was still alive: vibrant and demanding and overwhelming, absorbing John so completely there had never been room for anyone else. And now, conscious of it in the way he'd never been, the way he'd never allowed himself to be, the desire slammed into him hard enough to make his chest ache. Even just the thought of Sherlock's beautiful skin beneath his hands, the heady taste of his mouth, of Sherlock lying back and letting him— John cut off the train of thought abruptly, first because he was at work, and second because Sherlock wasn't like that.

His untouchable flatmate had never been sexually interested in anyone before. Why should he be interested in John now? Irene Adler had come the closest, and she had been, well, sexy to say the least. John was not sexy. He supposed he was good looking in his own ordinary way—at least women seemed to find him attractive—but Sherlock?

Although… Didn't John catch Sherlock watching him sometimes, in a mirror or out of the corner of his eye? John had dismissed it as part of the mad scientist's relentlessly observational manner, but what if— John realised he'd never seen Sherlock watch anyone else that way. He ignored everyone else unless they were part of a case.

And he couldn't shake the memory of the detective's eyes when John had pulled back from the kiss… Had he imagined it? It was three o'clock in the morning. He had just given Sherlock two pills of oxycodone. The softness in his eyes John wasn't even certain he was remembering correctly could have been the effect of the drugs more than anything else. But what if—

He put his hand to his forehead—stop, stop. Sherlock always had reasons for his actions. Whatever they had been for asking John to stay last night, he was sure they didn't involve a sudden romantic desire that had been entirely absent from the previous five years of their relationship. (Had it? Shut up.)

John had not meant to choose that moment, of all moments, to suddenly decide consulting detectives were for kissing rather than biographing. And now there would be consequences. It would all depend on Sherlock's behaviour when he got home. John had debated waking him up in the morning, eventually deciding it would be best for both of them to have the day off—a little time to sort themselves before any commentary on last night's events would have to take place. Maybe, if John was really lucky, Sherlock wouldn't say anything at all, and they could pretend it never happened.

He paused in front of the correct door this time. The last patient of the day. He would have to go home afterwards. He took a deep breath. He had forgiven Sherlock for so many things; he hoped Sherlock could forgive him for this.

Sherlock was more than a little irritated by the time he heard John's footsteps on the stairs signalling his return from work. Mrs. Hudson had been buzzing around their flat all day like a particularly annoying and silly bee. Tidying, cooking, making tea, fussing over his neck injury, sitting, talking, incessantly talking, and absolutely refusing to go away.

"For the last time I am fine, Mrs. Hudson!" It was maddening to speak words and have them go so entirely unheard, despite speaking loudly, clearly, and even in the correct language.

John opened the door to the flat.

"John!" Sherlock barked. "Get her out of this flat at once!"

"Ah, good to hear you've got your voice back." John gave him a small smile. Nervous. Probably thinking about last night. A sensory memory of John's lips on his flashed in Sherlock's mind and he turned away abruptly, focusing instead on their impossible landlady.

"You see? Now John is here. You may hand over the babysitting relay baton," Sherlock smouldered.

"It was lovely to spend the day with you, Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson beamed. "Let's do it again sometime, shall we?"

"Next time I may just let the strangler kill me," Sherlock grumbled.

"Now, now, Sherlock, let's not pretend you didn't enjoy our game of Boggle," Mrs. Hudson sang from the kitchen.

Sherlock merely grunted in response. Leave it to her to point out the one pleasant part of a nightmarish day. The old landlady was surprisingly good at Boggle. He would have to invent an excuse to get her to play it with him again.

"John, here are the pills," she said, popping a plastic bag out of some kind of snapping compartment in the dishwasher.

So that's where they were. He had searched the entire flat looking for them. Sherlock was in the kitchen in a flash, inspecting the dishwasher door. The cunning woman had known he wouldn't find it there. Sherlock examined the compartment closely; he hadn't known it existed, let alone that it opened. What was it for? Soap? Bleach? A very small dish?

"I got him to eat breakfast, but no luck with lunch," Mrs. Hudson was saying. "And I gave him a pill at four, so don't let him tell you otherwise."

"If you will stop referring to me as a child who is not present," Sherlock interjected petulantly.

"Great, thanks," John said, taking bag of pills and stuffing it into his pocket.

"It was my pleasure."

Mrs. Hudson left the flat and Sherlock dropped down into his chair. He had a message on his phone from Lestrade: Bloody hell. Well done.

The day hadn't been a total waste. Sherlock had compiled the evidence trail connecting Rodgers, Parker, Riley and Elliot tracing all the way back through Monroe's, Karina, and right up to Moran: a connect-the-dots simple enough to execute even with a soggy mind palace (drained since the morning but still quite damp). He'd then sent off the nicely packaged information to Lestrade. He would have liked to include the drug deal and murders from last night, but he wouldn't complain about it. John would just put on that Rolling Stones song again about not always being able to get everything you want and Sherlock hated that. It was an irritating concept.

Sherlock looked up at John, who was hovering awkwardly between the kitchen and living room.

"Lestrade," Sherlock said, indicating his phone. "Sent him the completed Rodgers case. All wrapped up nice and pretty with a paper trail even he can follow. He really should be paying me more."

"He doesn't pay you at all."

"My point."

John grinned for a moment and then ducked his head. He cleared his throat, shifting his weight.

Sherlock did not want to talk about the previous night. He did not want to explain why he'd asked John to stay in his room. He did not want to have to talk to John about finding a new flat. Because he'd thought about it all day, in the back of his mind, and the unavoidable conclusion was that Moriarty was right.

It didn't matter what Sherlock wanted. He couldn't stand back and watch his mind palace—his life's work—be destroyed by tidal waves of sentiment. He couldn't lose everything he was, everything he had built himself to be—he couldn't lose it all to intoxicating floods of desire. He couldn't be Sherlock Holmes without clarity of mind.

And yet… He might theoretically know that asking John to leave was the only logical solution, but with John standing in front of him—the body and form that was everything that made 221B home—he knew he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not now, and possibly not ever. Perhaps they could go on for the rest of their lives without another incident occurring, and Sherlock could keep his mind palace intact and John in his flat too. Wasn't it possible? He knew there was some expression about eating cake that might apply here but he had deleted it.

John stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. Sherlock smirked inwardly at his own attempt at optimism. No, it wasn't possible. Because he knew now that if John touched him his skin would burn. If John put his hands in his hair and his lips on his mouth he wouldn't stop him. He had learned last night that all it took now was a caution-inhibiting drug to ask John to sleep in his bed. What would happen the next time there was alcohol or drugs? The two came up rather often in his work. He might not be able to stop himself from… And he would lose everything.

But still Sherlock's mind oscillated. John wasn't necessarily going to touch him again and Sherlock could avoid judgement-debilitating drugs for the time being. He could put off separating them as long as possible. Maybe forever, if John never touched him again. And he could continue to ignore what he now realised had been a subconscious desire to rip off John's clothes and examine him: observe the varying shades of his skin, test the tone of his muscles, touch him and watch his reactions, record his movements, noises, discover the variance in his responses to different kinds of stimulation, not to mention the thrill of the risk in finding out what would happen to him if he allowed John to take him apart...

He shoved the thought aside. He could ignore the impulse. It was harder now that he was aware of it, but as long as John didn't touch him again, he could do it. He had mastered the art of ignoring. People, things, thoughts, feelings, he could ignore them all.

So, no, they wouldn't talk about it. They wouldn't have any conversation that would lead to the inevitable conclusion that John would have to leave. Not if Sherlock could help it.

John had finally opened his mouth to say something, looking horribly uncomfortable about it, when Sherlock cut him off.

"Moriarty is dead. No question."

John lifted his eyebrows at the redirection. "Oh," he said. "Well, that's… good."

"It's almost irrelevant. He's put plans into action that remain entirely unhindered by his death."

"I take it you met Moran last night?" John asked. Sherlock watched his posture visibly relaxing as he realised they were not going to discuss the bedroom events of the previous night.

"With appropriate pomp and circumstance."

John's face hardened. "Did you know—"

"No." Sherlock said firmly, needing John to believe him because it was true. "I was looking for his supply, not him. If I had thought there was any real probability of encountering him I wouldn't have gone alone, and especially not unarmed. It was"—Sherlock wrinkled his nose in distaste—"a coincidence."

Sherlock observed John unconsciously tighten his grip on the doorjamb where he was leaning between the living room and kitchen and close his eyes, just for a moment, almost a longer blink, as he took in the words and judged them accordingly. When he glanced up again he said simply, "I believe you."

Sherlock lifted his chin to meet John's eyes. "Good. You'd be wrong if you didn't."

John scoffed in the sort of half-amusement Sherlock had come to associate with what John considered to be abnormal social behaviour, and Sherlock reaffirmed his decision that John couldn't leave. It was an anomaly in the universe that such a thing as a John Watson existed, and Sherlock would never give up anything so valuable or rare.

Impulse: to go to him, to press his lips to the lingering half-smile there and feel his friend tense in alarm before relaxing into him. No: risk of encroaching on sentiment; mind palace still unstable. Solution: annoy John instead.

"I can't believe you told Mrs. Hudson to babysit me all day," Sherlock complained, jumping out of his chair and pacing around to stand opposite John. "I suppose you don't have any idea how aggravating that was."

John crossed his arms, instantly on the defensive. "You nearly died last night, Sherlock; I wasn't going to leave you here alone."

"Why not? In case the dead man comes back to finish me off?" Sherlock sneered.

"At the very minimum because you can't be trusted with opioids." Sherlock threw a glare at him but John ignored it with practiced ease. "And what if your neck had gotten worse today? Real damage could have been done to your throat—"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "It wouldn't have gotten worse."

"Seriously, Sherlock? Do you really think you're invincible?"

He smirked, "I'd say I've done fairly well so far."

"You almost died last night!" John raised his voice sharply.

"'Almost' being the key word."

John's eyes flashed. "You are flesh and blood. You bruise and you break just like the rest of us. Look at your neck for Christ's sake!"

Sherlock was aware of the angry storm clouds of bruises circling his neck. He narrowed his eyes. "I'm fine. It's just transport."

"Has it ever occurred to you that your brain won't actually work without its transport?"

"More things have occurred to me this afternoon than will to you in your lifetime."

"Oh, brilliant, yeah, nice one." John pushed past him, pacing the space between their chairs. Sherlock watched him, feeling his control of the exchange slipping as confusion trickled through his mind. As with most injuries on pale skin, the bruises made it look worse than it was. As a doctor, John should know that. He'd meant to irritate him about Mrs. Hudson. The intensity of this reaction was… unexpected.

Sherlock squinted at him. "Why are you upset? It's a few bruises; I've had worse."

"God, for someone who spends all of his time around corpses you don't seem to get how easy it is to die. Even after last night—"

Sherlock glared. "I know."

John stopped in his tracks. "Oh, you know? Good, because I've seen it," he hissed. "Just transport, right? Blood pooled under your head, streaked across your face, no pulse in your wrist. What does that matter? It's only transport."

Sherlock stared at him, almost gaping as the understanding hit him. John was describing not one moment from years ago, but an image he'd seen over and over again. One he'd seen even recently. John's nightmares. After the pool—it wasn't about Moriarty or a Semtex vest. It was the closest Sherlock had come to dying since they'd met. The sniper's light. Moriarty was the first of Sherlock's opponents John believed was truly capable of killing him. And then after his fake suicide—

The nightmares were about him. The solider who met mortal danger with clear eyes and a steady hand was afraid of one thing: Sherlock's death.

He blinked in amazement. Shouldn't he have known? Because wasn't the reverse true for him? Wasn't John's death his own greatest fear?

John took a deep breath and put his hand to his forehead. "God damn it, Sherlock! I lost you once, so you can forgive me if I'm overcautious this time."

"You didn't lose me."

"I did, Sherlock, you were gone—" John sat down hard in his chair.

Odd. It had looked more like falling than sitting. Sherlock watched as John ducked his head down, holding it just above his knees. Sherlock's eyes widened. It felt as though the blood in his veins was slowing, running cold.

Dizzy. John was dizzy, again.

A slew of memories from the past week seeped from his subconscious to his conscious mind: John, leaning back against the wall on the street for support, lightheaded; John, stumbling out of his bed in the morning, off balance; John leaning against the building outside the strip club, dizzy; John standing up quickly after crouching in the cemetery, stumbling again, off balance; John, now, dizzy, almost falling backward…

Low blood pressure. The poison. Moran's poison. The one he had spent the past week studying and hadn't noticed the symptoms being displayed in his own flat.

The words Sherlock had said to John exactly one week ago echoed in his mind. Brilliant! The poison increases its effects exponentially. It starts slow, just a few basic symptoms of hypotension, which almost any otherwise healthy adult would ignore. It increases in very small increments. The victim doesn't notice. And then BAM!

Sherlock's mouth went dry. The white noise of the flat faded to a ringing silence in his ears. How. When. The answer presented itself immediately: Carl Reeves. Carl Reeves was the connection. He had been hired by Moran. The bullet that grazed John's arm, the bullet that had been meant for Sherlock, it had been soaked in the poison.

John had had poison in his veins for nine days and Sherlock hadn't noticed.

His phone chimed. Numbly he looked down at it. The number was blocked and the message was short.

Surprise! :D