A/N: Four words – shit hits the fan. (Things can only get better from here, don't worry).

The riding crop had little success on John, but Moriarty was sly. He knew the different levels of pain a man could endure – but he also was well equipped with knowledge on the varying types of pain. John had shown impressive levels of endurance, pain-wise. He would make an excellent addition to Moriarty's team, once he broke. But there were other ways to make the army doctor squeal.

The seventh time the whip sliced into John's back he screamed and oh, what a beautiful sound that was to Moriarty's ears.

John couldn't stop himself; the way the leather cut deep into his skin and flayed against the bone of a rib caused the most indescribable agony. With a whimper, he sagged, finally defeated. He simply had no fight left in him. Sweat ran from his chin, and down the bared contours of his spine; thinking was impossible.

"Stop!" He gasped, voice thick with panting and disuse. "Please!"

Moriarty sprang forward from his chair where he had been sitting, a look of amusement on his face. With a wave of his hand, Moriarty ordered Moran to place the whip down. Moran had wanted to hinder John's pain – so Moriarty had him be the one to cause it.

This was it.

John shifted uncomfortably against his bonds, the way his arms were wrenched over his head attached to the ceiling causing him more pain by the second. Black spots flashed dangerously in his vision. The Irishman cupped John's tear-streaked face in his hands with disturbing softness.

"Had enough, dear?" He murmured, breath hot against John's mouth, brown eyes wide. John just nodded, slowly, focussing his dwindling concentration on forcing his lidded eyes open.

"Good… there's a good boy…" Moriarty muttered, his tone as gentle as his touch. Hesitantly, he drew his crooked finger over John's cheek, slick with sweat. "I think you're ready."

xxxxxxx

It took Sherlock a mere four seconds to come to the conclusion of John's location. It was simple. Stupidly so. The matter that kept him from acting on his deduction was: when he arrived at Moriarty's lair… How exactly did he plan on retrieving John? It wasn't as if the heavily armed guards were just going to let him pass.

He considered brassiness; simply using Mycroft's credentials to ascertain the phone number for the building and demand to be put through to Moriarty. But that would alert Moriarty to his plans.

He deliberated with rounding up a group of the arsonist-types in the Homeless Network to inflame the building to drive the spider from his web. But that would be considerably risky. It was logical to assume John was restrained in some manor, and so in the event of a fire he would have no way of escape.

He contemplated offering himself in John's place. To take John's pain as his own. To insure John's safety. His John. But John wouldn't allow that. His headstrong, intrepid John would tear down London to retrieve Sherlock, if he so had to.

That loyalty had to be repaid. No, not loyalty. Love.

Love. Such a short, inconsequential word and yet it lingered, buzzing warmly with gentle intent around Sherlock's skull. He would file that word away for further analysis. He had to deal on the problem in hand, not get distracted. Of course, when John was safe, if he was up for helping Sherlock deduce the true reasons and feelings behind love, who would Sherlock be to close of that area of interest?

Had he been pervading Moriarty's lair simply from bitterness, he found himself thinking, flaws would have wrecked his plans. Bitterness was a paralytic. Love… was a much more vicious motivator.

Finding himself at a loss, the detective hurled himself from the sofa of the living room and wandered somewhat aimlessly around the flat. Until he found himself in John's room.

He had avoided entering the room since John's abscond to Afghanistan – too many emotions overwhelmed him when he insinuated himself inside it. Loss. Hurt. Distress. He remembered when they first found themselves at the flat, and John's indignant reaction at having separate rooms.

"It's not like we won't be sleeping together…" Sherlock had all but purred into John's ear, finding himself smiling at the shiver that ran down John's spine. "But we'll both need our own space…"

Immediately, he had regretted such a proposal. The extra room would have done wonders as a space for more experiments, and he often found himself in John's bed simply because his own was covered in God knows what after an unprecedented outcome to a chemical reaction. John hadn't minded. As long as the experiment with the dried intestines hanging along the clothes horse wasn't repeated, John didn't mind one bit.

The room was tidy, military, just as John had left it. The bed was made, clean beige sheets, with a slight indent to the right of the bed where John would sleep. On the bedside table was one of the many photos John was so fond of taking – this time one he had received from a rather smug looking Lestrade. It was of the two lovers with identical looks of unamusement, right eyebrows raised – mouths tilted down at the corners, as Anderson tried gallantly to get a photo of them smiling together. John had said he liked that photo because thinking of how incredibly thick Anderson was reminded him he wasn't as stupid as Sherlock liked to make out. Sherlock replied, rather grudgingly, that John wasn't as stupid as he made out. John spent the rest of the day looking like he had won the lottery.

The rest of the room was rather bare; laundry folded and put away. Sherlock took a step forward to thumb his way into a drawer, only half aware he was doing so. The majority of his mind was reverberating with thoughts on how to get John back, not on searching through John's tighty-whiteys.

As he pulled the drawer open, his gaze fell upon a curiosity. A small, leather bound notebook, half hidden. John's diary.

Ah, but he shouldn't. He recoiled instantly, suddenly alert to his current situation. He shouldn't invade John's privacy as such. It was wrong; John trusted him not to do so. And yet…

What was one look between sweethearts?

Before he could tell himself otherwise, Sherlock tugged the book from the drawer and flicked it open. His sight was filled with the familiar sight of John's messy doctor's scrawl. It was endlessly fascinating, not the text, but John's way with it. You could visibly see areas of script where he had become so endlessly excited his writing became two sizes bigger and flew across the page. There were doodles in the margins – one particularly caricatured drawing of Mycroft with a cake as a body, which had Sherlock's eyes crinkle in amusement. Oh, John.

Mostly, the diary was filled with recollections of cases, and John's perpetual amazement at Sherlock's deductions. Names and dates and half remembered conversations peppered the paper, areas of which were smudged in biro ink due to his left-handedness.

There was a certain page that caught Sherlock's tireless gaze.

[-not really sure what happened there,] it read, [but hey, what can you do? So I say to him, "You can't be serious?" And he replies with, "Of course I'm serious, why wouldn't I be serious?" And ooh God, he had that bloody smile on that makes you want to rub kittens on his face. I'd never had Sherlock down for a "cute" bloke – (see: every existing fucking picture of the guy) – but that damn smile! You can't do anything against that smile! Argh! So I say yes, obviously. I bloody say yes. And then there I am, going on a goddamn date with Sherlock Holmes STILL WEARING A CARDIGAN.]

Sherlock caught himself smiling gently. Their date night. How touching. He flicked the page, suddenly enveloped with John's voice that filled his head when he read his writing.

[-to a maniac. What would Harry say? Actually, I don't even have to ask that she would probably encourage me. She always was the upfront one. Probably why she always had more girlfriends than me. And didn't she bloody go on about it! Typical Watson. Anyway, so I'm there in the kitchen the morning after the "date" making tea when I hear this noise. It was sort of like… snuffling? Is that a noise? Like really weird breathing. I'm thinking – 'Oh God it's Norman Bates.' because apparently I'm scared of film characters now, and go out into the living room to see if I was about to be stabbed by a bloke who dresses up like his mum (now there would be a epitaph to remember, haha). It wasn't Norman Bates, obviously. It was Sherlock. I'd left him on the sofa wearing one of my old shirts and he'd somehow managed to sprawl across the entire bloody sofa like some sort of plant. He was still making noises! Half snoring- half pining, I'll call it. The sod sounded like he was in pain or something. I put down the tea (which I hadn't been wielding as a weapon – what are you saying?) and kneel by him on the floor and say, "Hey, you alright?" just to check up on him. And the weirdest thing happens. He proper starts pining! He half opens his eyes and pulls me into his arms until I was practically crushed into his chest and says, "I thought you'd left."

I have to tell you, my heart proper broke. Like, spilled out onto the floor. I kept thinking, 'I can't do this anymore, I can't do this.' I nearly told him everything right there and then. Christ. I'd bet anything that the poor bloke has never had anyone love him like I'm 'pretending' to, and now oh fuck he's talking about me leaving and I'm going to, and oh God this isn't part of the plan and urgh! And then it hits me. I'm not pretending anymore. The sneaky bastard has made me fall for him. So I wrap my arms around him and say, "I won't ever leave you." I know. Deep, right? So damn cheesy. But it was true at the time, I suppose. I don't want to leave him, of course I don't. I've got to start planning something if I ever want to keep him. I'm not going to choose between him and my Dad; that's just ridiculous. I set out years ago to get Dad back and I will do that if it fucking kills me. But in doing so, Sherlock will find out the truth. Bugger. You've really gone and done it this time, John, haven't you? "Got yourself into a right pickle." as Mum would say. Fuck, you know times are bad when I'm quoting my own mother.

I just have to let him know what we have together is real.]

Sherlock closed the diary slowly. That was all the confirmation he needed. John loved him too.

Excellent.

From that spark, a plan spread like wildfire through his mind. Keep it simple. He would infiltrate Moriarty's headquarters using one of the Homeless Network. There, the homeless person would set off a fire alarm/ pass out/ require medical assistance, and in the following disarray, he would sneak in unnoticed-

There was a sudden knock at the door.

Breaking from his revere, Sherlock started, the diary falling from his grasp. There was another knock – harder this time, more violent. A client, maybe? A distressed one at that. Lestrade would have texted first if there was a case he needed assistance on-

A final, impassioned knock. Then silence.

How interesting. Curious now, Sherlock made his way downstairs. With soft footsteps he rounded the stairs, half inspecting Mrs Hudson to bustle out to answer the door before he could. Quickly, he bent over the banister to view her door.

Door locked, but not bolted from the inside, second lock left undone – she left in a hurry then. Hm.

Stepping forward and reaching out he yanked the front door open violently, suddenly half annoyed at having being broken from his plans of retrieving his beloved, then practically stumbled backwards in surprise.

Standing gingerly on the steps of 221b was his John Watson.

Except… it wasn't.

The way he stood – bent inwards, was so different from the old confident straight of his back. His face – his beautiful face - was screwed in pain, pale and drawn with fatigue. And his eyes, his eyes. No longer were they bright and gleaming, but cold and dead in his skull. Hollow. He was but a shadow of who he was; no longer the man Sherlock had fallen in love with. Moriarty had broken him.

Perhaps the most surprising of all was the gun he held in his hand, raised stiffly and pointing directly between Sherlock's eyes. Point blank range.

His finger tightened around the trigger.