I feel kind of bad that after the week I publish three chapters in a row, I don't do anything. Sorry. I'll make up for it.
"What would you like me to make him say next?" The voice was choked and scared, and Sherlock was at a loss. It wasn't betrayal, but it hurt almost as much. In a different way of course, but the magnitude stayed at that height.
Time skipped suddenly. Sherlock knew he'd said things, and the other man replied, and eventually the puppet master came out to play. But recalling the events, even now, was difficult. There were red lights, warnings. A madman's laughter. Soon a gun loaded, the owner held it out to the puppet master, and the master walked away. Sherlock's heart, something he wasn't entirely sure he'd had, pounded loudly in his ears. He ran forward to free the other man, who had been covered in a Semtex-laced jacket. The bomb laid by the side of the pool conspicuously, but if you didn't already know what it was you couldn't have told. "Are you alright?" he asked desperately, but no one with an untrained ear could have understood it.
"I'm fine, Sherlock. I'm okay," the other man reassured. He could hear the desperate tone to Sherlock's voice, and put a hand on his shoulder, thinking it would be fine just this once.
"Good." Sherlock said it as a puff of air.
The other man grinned. "You know, you just removed my clothes in a public place. People will talk."
Sherlock immediately felt the pain dissipate. "People will talk no matter what we do." The two men began to walk out of the pool area, Sherlock wondering how they'd gotten away so easily, and the other thanking God and Sherlock that he'd been rescued. However, they didn't get very far.
"Sorry, boys! I'm sooooo changeable!" The red lights flashed on again, trained on Sherlock's partner, multiplying as their master called them. The gun came back out; the safety clicked off. Pointed at the madman.
"You'd best not be doing that," the puppet master scolded. Sherlock had red lights of his own now, promises rather than warnings. He hoped, something he'd done very little, that the master would target him rather than the shorter man standing next to him. Sherlock wouldn't be able to bear it if one more thing he loved died.
"You'd best back away from him."
"Ooh, so you do have a heart," the puppet master giggled. "Didn't I tell you? Perhaps I didn't. I will burn the heart out of you. Then it will just be you and I, dear. No pesky hearts to keep you from playing with me!"
Sherlock pointed his gun at the madman. "Or the game ends right here."
The madman giggled again. "You forget who has the power, darling." Sherlock shivered. The term sounded repulsive coming from the puppet master. The madman didn't care about anyone. Sherlock almost forgot what he had said.
"What sort of power do you have?" Sherlock scoffed.
The puppet master grinned. "I have your heart in my hands." Sherlock's expression briefly dropped as he turned to look at the other man.
There wasn't any sort of gunshot, no sound to alert that something was horribly wrong. But, the other man, the heart of Sherlock Holmes, fell to the ground, dead.
"Nononononononono," Sherlock whispered, much past the logical setting his mind was so commonly on.
"I killed him," the madman said. "Now we can play." Sherlock let out a scream, an inhuman, broken sound.
John jerked awake when he heard Sherlock scream. "Darling, wake up." Sherlock didn't respond, and kept screaming, but the screaming made words.
"DON'T LEAVE ME! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME!"
"Sherlock, wake up! You're dreaming!" John shook the detective none too gently. He knew what nightmares were like, and would have given anything to have someone there with him when they happened.
Soon Sherlock's silver eyes opened, staring at the ceiling. He didn't speak, and John didn't either for the first few moments. "What did you dream about?" he whispered.
Sherlock didn't answer for a while. "Please, Sherlock. I need to know."
"Why?" the genius retorted, a bitter tone to his voice. "Nothing about my dream will affect you."
John shook his head in disbelief. "You can't possibly think that."
"Obviously I do, otherwise I wouldn't have said it."
"Sherlock Holmes, I am your boyfriend. I care about you and everything surrounding you."
Sherlock huffed, but John knew there was something behind it. "You shouldn't."
"I do." If Sherlock didn't want to think that John didn't care about him, he was welcome to, but John wanted Sherlock to know it. Sherlock was very important to John, and that would never change. "Darling, if something is hurting you, I want to help."
The silence was getting a bit old, but John knew better than to say anything. The situation was delicate. Knowing Sherlock, it was more than delicate, it was probably destructive.
"I..." John waited. "It was a memory."
"That happens a lot."
"I went to a pool once. A pool a boy named Carl Powers was drowned in. Someone had wanted me to meet there. Incidentally, the killer of Carl. He wanted something from me, and he took someone to convince me to cooperate."
"Who did the man take?" John's voice dropped even lower.
"Him," Sherlock replied.
"Oh." The word was barely a breath.
"Strapped a bomb to him, made him say things. We got away, I thought. That's what really happened. We got away at the real end. But in this one, he...was...shot."
"Oh Sherlock." John wrapped his arms around the detective's waist. "I'm so sorry."
"Why do people always feel the need to apologize for things that aren't under their control?" Sherlock asked softly.
"Empathy. Or we're sorry we can't help." John nestled his head into Sherlock's chest.
"But you are." He looked up to Sherlock's face in surprise. Darkness shrouded the walls, but a single beam of streetlamp light threw his features into a sort of impressionist relief. Still beautiful, John thought.
"How am I helping?" John wondered.
Sherlock kissed the top of John's head, surprising him again. The genius didn't start things like this. "By being you. You are amazing."
John could feel himself blush. "Hey, I'm supposed to be comforting you here. None of this complement business."
Sherlock smirked. "I enjoy that expression on you. It makes me feel...I think people call it fondness."
"That's good. I'm happy you're better." John carefully pressed his lips to the small part of Sherlock's neck made visible by the sleep shirt. "Now, we should try to go back to sleep. It'll be okay." Sherlock nodded drowsily and muttered something about sleep being overrated, but John didn't listen, and drifted back off.
The man John was looking for had ended up on a roof. How that happened, John had no idea, and didn't want to discuss it. He just wanted the man to come down so he could be safe. But something was wrong. "John, stop right there! Don't move!"
"Alright." John held up his hands. "Alright."
"Since I obviously can't come down, we'll have to do it like this."
"Do what?" John questioned.
"Ah..." The man broke off, and John thought he could hear tears marring his voice. "This phone call...it's my note. That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note."
"When what? That's what people do when what?" The desperation leaked into John's tone. He wanted the man to hear it. The man didn't do anything when asked, but he listened to John sometimes.
"Goodbye, John."
"No. NO!" The man dropped his phone without ending the call and stepped off the roof. John ran forward, trying not to see what was happening, just trying to get to the front of the building before he hit the ground. But, of course the images burned into his mind. The wind, the coat flapping around his thin body, the flashes of cold and black and glass and RED.
John quickly sat up in bed, heart beating too fast. "What is it, John?" Sherlock asked, looking concerned. That was unusual, but John didn't really care right about then.
"Bad dream."
"You as well? I'm sorry."
John let out half a laugh. "Is it empathy or not being able to help?"
"Empathy." Sherlock leaned down and pecked him on the lips. "Do you remember the dream?"
John reached back into his memory, but he could feel the lucid feeling fuzzing away. "No. Someone died. And there was a rooftop, and it was cold. But I can't recall anything else."
Sherlock nodded, pressing a gentle kiss to John's forehead. "This person that died. Did you know them?"
"Too well. I think I loved them, but in a dream you can't really tell."
"Mhm." The noise was kind of adorable coming from Sherlock, and John smiled, closing his eyes. But then a thought disturbed his falling asleep.
"Darling?"
"Yes?"
"Do you remember what happened the night before last?"
He could almost hear the gears in Sherlock's mind turning. "No. I know we drank alcohol, but after the first sip everything is blurry." Sherlock sounded a bit infuriated, like the alcohol wasn't supposed to do anything that would inhibit him.
John was torn between relief and anxiety when he heard. Relief that their relationship wouldn't become awkward, in which case Sherlock would leave and it would hurt very much. Anxiety because now he wasn't sure what to do. Sherlock loved him, and John was scared he would do something wrong.
"That's alright," John whispered. "Forget I said anything. Neither of us have had a very restful night, so we should get as much sleep as we can."
"Yes." John laid back down, curling close to the detective. Everything would make more sense in the morning, when the light was consistent and Harry was banging around the flat. Sherlock felt him fall asleep.
The genius stayed awake for a little while, not being used to all this sleep. Three hours kept him going well enough, and this was beyond what he'd originally hoped for in the (he hated calling it) experiment, but sometimes he needed to think in the dark, with no distractions.
What had happened when he and John played the drinking game? Sherlock wracked his brain, but the thing couldn't bring any recollections back. It frustrated him to no end!
He floated through his mind palace for a long time, flitting from memory to memory, searching for words that could help speed up the remembrance. Suddenly, Sherlock heard it. 'Who was your first love?'
'My first love is going on right now.' Sherlock flinched at how open his voice was.
'Who is it?'
'His name is John. Have you met him?'
God, how could he have been so stupid? This exceeded even Anderson's level of idiocy! What if...John didn't love him back? It was possible; Sherlock had come up with this whole experiment (wince) and dragged him into it, there was no reason why John would feel anything for him other than perhaps friendship, and even that was a 'long shot' as people said. John had no reason to love a consulting detective who had hurt the one thing that mattered.
Sherlock ran a hand through his hair, but forgot that John was asleep beside him. John shifted on the bed, turning more towards Sherlock. He didn't move until he was sure John was still asleep.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. And this time, it was an apology that he couldn't fix anything. "So very sorry, John."