AN: I don't know why I do this to myself, but I keep taking names I love (Vincent) and making them into the worst characters, so then I associate them with all this negativity. Look at me being clever. Anyway, time to liven up your Monday afternoon with everyone's favorite recovering drug addict!

Thanks for reading, and I love it when you leave reviews, so don't be shy.

He seemed to weigh nothing, far less than a healthy adult should, less than John did, in spite of being six inches shorter. John had always known how thin he was, he never ate, but what had seemed a smooth, wiry elegance in waking life now seemed a terrible frailty. If he set him down too abruptly on the bed he might break.

Now reasonably sure that Sherlock was not about to be sick, John laid him gently on his back, but as he stepped away to fetch a chair for his intended vigil, Sherlock's hand caught his wrist weakly.

"This isn't a hospital, remember?" His voice sounded stronger, but somehow John knew not to buy his attempt at crassness. He was still afraid, his nearness to death still cold beneath his skin. John looked away pensively for a moment, but whether or not the situation was appropriate seemed a trifling concern under the circumstances. He was needed, truly needed, and it was no time to be worried about particulars. He wedged a few pillows at an angle between the headboard and mattress and gently lifted Sherlock's head so he could shimmy up onto the bed. Still handling him with the utmost care, he pulled his friend up tightly against him, Sherlock's hips between John's bent knees, his head near his collarbone, and both exhaled in unison, in relief, in exhaustion.

"You might feel muscle cramps, anxiety," he murmured, his mouth thrumming close to Sherlock's ear, "I gave you an opiate antagonist drug, everyone reacts differently. If you feel you can't breathe properly, for the love of god, just tell me, I can give you a second dose." Speaking aloud was calming for him, reassuring. He was relieved that he knew something about this. For once, he could tell Sherlock something to help him. Regardless of whether or not he already knew all this, which he probably did, it made John feel important. "Get some sleep, if you can."

"John?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

He managed the faintest shade of a smile, knowing what Sherlock was really thanking him for. "Well, I am your doctor."

Sherlock grew quiet and John kept his hand resting on Sherlock's chest, for the reassurance of knowing his heartbeat and the pattern of his breathing. That rhythm was the only music John needed, for in spite of his lingering anxiety, he was the very definition of exhausted. Spent. Overused.

Drifting slowly, he slipped into the familiar state of vertigo that floated at the edges of sleep, that space like falling, but it wasn't the expected hypnagogic twitch that startled him back to wakefulness, it was the sudden stirring against him. His stomach leapt into his throat, instantly on the alert, but he relaxed slightly as he took stock, remembered that Sherlock was okay. Sherlock was breathing and sleeping and stable. But that whimpering sound...that worried him. Was he in pain?

"Sherlock?"

"Don't touch me." His voice was a growl, but pleading, cracking with something that sounded suspiciously like fear.

What? John squirmed, trying to move away, but he knew that it was something else that was so clearly upsetting him.

In spite of his pitiful weakness, Sherlock was shaking violently, teeth clenched, his whole body as stiff as glass, and his throat quivered with what could only have been a sob.

"Fuck you, Vincent, no! No!" He had never heard Sherlock swear like that. Even his voice sounded strange, not like himself at all. Flecks of lamplight from the open door sparked warm on his pale face. He was crying; his sharp cheekbones lined with thin, glinting rivulets.

John's throat tightened. "Sherlock, it's okay, you're dreaming," he whispered urgently, his lips pressed to Sherlock's sweat-dampened temple as he tried to hold him still. He felt hot, possibly feverish. "Wake up."

"Let me up!" He was sobbing, screaming. "Stop, get off!"

"Sherlock! Wake up!"

His eyes snapped open with a start and he slumped back against John's chest. He could tell that the heavy panting was wracking him with pain, but he was desperately out of breath.

John held him tightly, unnerved and alrmed, as his rapid gasping slowly subsided.

What was that?

Vincent? Who was Vincent? What was –

No.

No.

Oh my god.

John didn't speak a word, didn't dare to, only tightened his grip and listened to the rush of his own pulse in the silence.

He was never meant to have known this. No wonder. No wonder. You idiot. You fucking idiot, what have you done? His heart pounded, hypnotically, disbelievingly, oh-god, oh-god, oh-god.

Sherlock wasn't even quite fully awake, and for that the good doctor was somewhat grateful. John held him until the twitching and the squirming calmed, then put his hand back over Sherlock's chest and waited for him to fall asleep again, dread writhing somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

He then noticed, with considerable alarm, the dark path of blood trickling from Sherlock's nose.

Well, he was sore, but that made sense. Even breathing hurt. He tried to swallow the cottony feeling in his mouth, but it persisted stubbornly. He had decided to lie still for a while, to let John get a bit more sleep, but clearly John had already beaten him to that idea. He could tell by his friend's breathing that he was awake, and by his barely-stifled fidgeting that he was uncomfortable. He had probably lost circulation to a leg, but was too noble to move it. Sherlock let him have his moment. With a sigh and a slight twist that made his head throb, he made a bit of a show of revealing to John that yes, he was awake, and that the good doctor could now freely reposition his prickling feet, which he promptly did.

"You alright?" He wondered sleepily.

"Relatively speaking." His voice was hoarse, but that seemed to make little difference now. John's hand reached down to press a finger to his neck, taking his pulse. It was shaking slightly.

"Do you feel hungry?"

Sherlock shook his head slowly. They sat in silence for a few long moments, John absent-mindedly stroking Sherlock's hair, neither minding. It was strangely soothing, this. In spite of the war raging behind his eyes and his stiff muscles, having his head caressed was…well, it was pleasant. He decided immediately that would have strangled anyone other than John if they had tried it.

"What?" Sherlock demanded suddenly.

John could only stare. "Nothing, what are you – "

"You're clearly concerned, but you're not scolding me yet, nor are you demanding to know where I keep the rest of my stash. I'm recovering and now would be the perfect time to do so, yet you don't. You want to say something else to me but you're afraid to. What is it?"

John licked his lips. He could be as weak as a kitten, but Sherlock was still Sherlock, always on top of things.

"It's nothing, it's not important." He dismissed, dropping his forehead to rest on his friend's thick curls.

"It was important enough to keep you up all night," he retaliated, his voice reverberating through John's chest.

"Just drop it, go back to sleep."

"No."

"Sherlock, please, we're both coping with enough right now."

"And one of us is clearly coping poorly. Tell me."

He was silent for a long moment. He didn't know how to put words to any of what had been ruminating in his overtired mind for the last several hours. There was certainly no way to say any of it tactfully, but perhaps he could at least -

"Tell me."

"I know what happened to you." He blurted, clamping his mouth shut and swallowing apologetically. Smooth, that. Sherlock stiffened, but did not respond. The rest sort of tumbled out. "I know about this Vincent and…what he did... I mean, I have a good idea. You were talking in your sleep, and I kept waking you up, but you kept having the same dream, you kept… talking, and form what you said and how you…you acted, it wasn't difficult to figure out. I mean…" he had to stop to draw breath, tipping his head back against the headboard. "I'm sorry, Sherlock, god, I'm so sorry. I know it's not something you wanted me to know about, and I don't blame you –"

"No, John." He muttered, sounding slightly surprised, but not upset. "No…it's fine."

John nodded slowly, it was all he could do.

"You want to know what happened."

"I – no, no, you don't need to talk about it, I know you don't want to."

"John," he repeated, "It's fine. Ask."

He cleared his throat, then, quietly, "how old were you?"

"The first time? Seventeen."

The first time? "Did you know him?"

"He was my flatmate. Briefly." John's heart sped. He wondered if he should back off a little, he was handling Sherlock rather…intimately. "You weren't living at home then?"

"Father turned me out. After Mycroft told him that I'd been taking Mummy's jewellery to sell for drugs."

"Had you been?"

"Not exactly, but...well, technicalities. Effectively, yes." John didn't press the matter.

"How? Was he a friend?"

"He was my dealer." Sherlock smirked slightly.

"How old was he?"

"Twenty-eight." He involuntarily gripped Sherlock's shoulders a little tighter.

"And…it happened…more than once."

"Routinely. It's not like I had an income." John felt the blood draining from his face. Sherlock, the same Sherlock lying on top of him, had spent at least some brief period of his life trading sex – against his will - for rent and cocaine. He wasn't sure how to handle that realisation.

"Have you –" his voice cracked, thinking, of course, as doctors tend to think. "You have had yourself tested since then right?"

"For STI's? Yes."

"And?"

"Clean."

"Good." He re-played that last question in his head and balked. "I mean, not good that...well, it's good for you...I mean, it's not relevant to me personally. I'm not implying –"

"I know what you mean."

He paused, he knew that Sherlock could feel how quickly his heart was pounding, but Sherlock himself seemed relatively calm. "So...that's why you don't take rape cases."

He turned awkwardly to give John a sidelong look. "That? No, not at all. My reasons are exactly what I told you and Lestrade. Before tonight I had, in fact, thoroughly deleted all of that from my memory, but the trauma to my brain seems to have undone all my hard work." He sighed. Technically, it wasn't quite a lie. "I was trying for a cognitive reset, morphine is good for that, but I seem to have lost track of my tolerance after all this time." But he was good at lying, when he needed to be.

John had to fight to wrap his head around this. He could understand wanting to repress a memory like that, but to forget it completely? To the extent that examining a rape victim wouldn't dredge it back up? That was extraordinary in a lot of ways. Too extraordinary. Even for Sherlock. He didn't buy it.

"So…when you said earlier that you'd had sex…" John swallowed bitterly, "what you…actually meant was that you had been repeatedly raped as a teenager."

"What? No. That wasn't rape."

John was taken aback. "What the bloody hell do you mean it wasn't rape? Consenting people don't cry and scream in their sleep because of - "

"You have to actually say no for it to be rape."

"But you - "

"I was far too high to say much of anything at the time."

"But you didn't want it!"

"Of course not."

"Then it was rape!"

"It wasn't –" Sherlock suddenly sat bolt upright. His head spun, but the tiny flashes of electricity firing in his brain were relatively unaffected. "Oh!"

"What?" John was so exasperated he could hardly bring himself to ask.

"It wasn't rape, John."

"Yes, you said that. I disagree.

"No, John, not me, the case! The girls! They weren't raped!"

John's jaw went slightly slack. "Regarding that, Sherlock, I strongly disagree. Are you still a bit loopy? They were raped, I did the examination!"

"They were made to look as though they'd been raped, but they weren't." His hands had drifted up near his ears as his over-tired brain switched into high gear. "I knew it, I knew something was wrong! This is it!"

John stared, still incredulous. There was no way that this was right. "There was semen, Sherlock!"

"But it didn't match anyone in the police database, correct? That's why nobody's been arrested yet. All that DNA evidence, should have been easy, but nothing. A brutally violent serial child rapist, and he's never been arrested before? Oh come on, rapists don't just jump in, who sets out to be a rapist? Most start off as voyeurs, peeping in restrooms, they work their way up to bigger crimes, and odds are, sooner or later somebody catches them doing something indecent enough to get them arrested. Yet this time, nobody did. A violent paedophile just sprouted up out of the ground in Hyde Park? Doesn't happen. This criminal isn't a rapist, these weren't rape-motivated crimes. God, I was so distracted, how could I not have seen it before? I need more data."

He pushed himself up off the bed, but he had overestimated his compromised strength. He sank to his knees almost immediately, panting, and before he could make another attempt to get up, his stomach turned and he gasped out a few more dry convulsions before dropping his head to the floor, utterly spent.

"You're impossible," John growled, but with an edge of tenderness. Somehow, he was relieved, both at Sherlock's apparent recovery and at the notion that they might be finally moving on from this whole matter. He rolled off the bed and dropped to his haunches beside Sherlock's ailing form.

"If I help you to the sofa so you can look over the files, will you eat breakfast?"

Sherlock groaned.

"It's just toast and tea."

"Fine." His voice was muffled by the floor.

"Alright then, I'll hold you to it. Come on." Small victories.