Monster

Chapter 3

Season three never happened in this story. Hope no one's confused anymore.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. It belongs to BBC and ACD.

Enjoy!

"You went to see him again, didn't you?" John asked.

He and Sherlock were sitting on a sofa in an empty room on the second floor. Sherlock didn't want to risk meeting the doctor in the actual visitor's room. Jim didn't really get visitors, but he was holding out hope that his brother, Sebastian, would visit soon.

"I had to. They couldn't get him to calm down and take his medicine. He's even worse when he doesn't take his medication," the former detective said quietly. His legs were drawn up to his chest, and his blue dressing gown was draped over his thin frame.

"You're not doing yourself any favors, Sherlock. You're never going to get better and get out of here if you're focused on him."

"He's not getting better either," Sherlock whispered.

"So you're just going to stay here forever? The two of you? Is that what you want?"

"I want…" The curly-haired man slid his pale hands down to his bare feet and tugged on his toes, rocking slightly. "I want him back." He squeezed his pale eyes shut to the point of pain. "I want him back. I want Jim back."

The former army doctor's heart clenched at the obvious pain that his best friend was in.

"I know it hurts, and it feels like you've lost Jim, but letting yourself get worse and worse isn't going to help him."

"I can't help him anyway," Sherlock muttered, opening his eyes and allowing a single to slide down his cheek.

"Sherlock…would you rather Jim to have died when he fell from that rooftop?"

"He might as well be dead. He's not him anymore. I'm sure he'd prefer that as well if he knew who he was before he became this…this broken man-child that he is now."

"But, who he was before…he wasn't exactly perfect."

"Are you suggesting that he's better off the way he is now?"

"I'm just saying that before, despite the fact that he loved you, and I'm not denying that he did, he was a consulting criminal. He enjoyed making our lives a living hell. Not even his love for you could change that. You may not be able to have that same relationship with him, but he's still in your life, and he still loves you. But before you can focus on him, you need to focus on yourself."

"There's nothing wrong with me, John."

"They wouldn't have admitted you here if there was nothing wrong with you."

"They would if my brother, the British Government, forced them to, which I'm sure he did."

"Yeah, he had a hand in it, but you still had to be psychologically evaluated."

"Mycroft probably paid them to say I'm suffering for a variety of mental disorders. He's been trying to section me for years."

The blond doctor sighed. He knew it was pointless to continue arguing with the other man.

"Just promise me you'll try, okay? That's all I ask," John said.

"I'll try," the curly-haired man mumbled.

Sherlock sat in his usual chair in group therapy. His knees were pulled up his chest, and he tugged on his bare toes as his pale eyes darted from face to face. He knew almost everything about each patient despite their reluctance to share. It had been almost a month, and he had yet to speak during group therapy. Every time the sharing stick, which was nothing more than a toilet paper roll that looked like it had been decorated by a four year old, came around to him, he immediately shoved it into the hands of the next patient with a fierce scowl.

Tessa, a petite blonde mousy girl, handed the sharing stick to Sherlock after admitting to self-harming for over twelve years, which was dreadfully obvious from the sleeves of her jumper. The former detective clutched the stick, prepared to pass it on before pausing. His knuckles were white from gripping the stick so tightly. Everyone stared at him in expectation, curious as to what piece of knowledge they were finally going to learn about the mysterious Sherlock Holmes.

"I tell everyone that I'm a high-functioning sociopath, but I'm not. I know I'm not." He said nothing more as he passed the stick on and curled up in his seat once more. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

That was how the next few group therapy sessions went. Sherlock would offer up one small bit of information that usually created more questions than answers.

"I had never had a friend until I was thirty-four years old."

"Up until the age of twelve, I wanted to be a pirate when I grew up."

"I hate the word…freak more than anything in the world."

"Up until the age of thirty, I hated myself."

Sherlock still went to see Jim, which still wore him down, but there were some good days. There were some days where things felt they might actually be okay.

Once again, Sherlock, clad in a button down, black trousers, and his Belstaff, followed the disapproving-looking woman to room 331. Luckily, this time there were no screams or sobs to be heard. And when Sherlock stepped into the room, the scene was much less heart-breaking.

Jim Moriarty sat in the middle of his single bed, bundled in a thick purple blanket with his only his head of messy hair and big brown eyes sticking out. Those big brown eyes were glued to a worn book laid out in front of him on the bed. He was poking a thin pale arm out of the bundle of blankets to turn the page when he caught sight of the man standing at the door.

"Sherlock!" Brown eyes widened even more as a beaming smile stretched across his face.

"Hello, Jim," Sherlock murmured, taking a seat beside the bundled up man, "Cold?"

"Mm-hm," the smaller man said, nodding and sniffing, "The lady said I was getting a cold."

"I'm not surprised with as cold as they keep this place." As he said this, Sherlock slipped off his great black coat and held it out to the other man.

Grinning, Jim wiggled out of the blanket and pulled on the coat, shoving his thin arms into the too large sleeves. He sighed in contentment as he snuggled into the wooly fabric that still smelled so strongly of the detective even though he hardly wore it anymore. Now bundled in the blanket-like coat, Jim shuffled across the bed until he was pressed against the other man's side.

"Did you bring John?" he asked, sniffling, after a moment.

For some strange reason, Jim had been asking Sherlock to bring the army doctor to visit him. Having no idea that he had almost killed the doctor before, he seemed to be very fond of the man whom he had only met once after his accident. He found the other man comforting, and he also really like his jumpers. But John couldn't get over everything the other man had done so easily even if he was no longer that man.

"Not today, Jimmy. He has to work," Sherlock said, running his fingers through the other man's hair.

"Fixing people," Jim said quietly, "He fixes people at the hospital. Why can't he fix me?"

"He's not that kind of doctor. Your pain is on the inside. John can only fix pain on the outside."

"The doctors here can't fix me either."

"You're still having night terrors then?"

"They're awful. I do awful things in them. I hurt people. I hurt you and John. I don't want to hurt you. You're my friends. But I do in the dreams."

"Hurt us how?" Sherlock asked. He had never asked about Jim's nightmares before. He figured he knew what they were about. And if he didn't, the he didn't want to know.

"I put a bomb on John, and you were really scared, but I just laughed. And I blew John up and he was everywhere, and you were screaming at me and crying, and I just kept laughing. I wanted to stop. I tried to stop. I tried to die, but I ended up killing you, and I just kept laughing, but I wasn't happy. It was so scary, Sh'lock."

Sherlock could feel the smaller man tremble with sobs as he burrowed into the taller man's side. He turned sideways and pulled Jim so close that he was almost sitting in his lap.

"It's okay, Jimmy. I know you don't want to hurt us. We know that," he murmured, rubbing the distressed man's back, "Try not to think about it, okay? What were you reading before I walked in."

"Harry Potter," Jim said softly, pulling away to look up at Sherlock with red-rimmed eyes. His hair was a mess, his cheeks were splotchy, his nose was red and runny, and his lips were chapped from biting them. Despite all of this, he still looked adorable to Sherlock. Not that I would ever say that out loud, he thought as he pressed a kiss the man's slightly warm forehead.

"Clean your face and I'll read with you," he said, handing him a tissue from the chest of drawers.

Once Jim's face was clean and he had a few tissues clutched in his hand, they moved to lean against the headboard with the book. Jim curled up against the other man's side as he opened the book the page Jim had left off on. For the new half hour, the only sounds in that room were Jim's sniffles and Sherlock's deep baritone voice reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone until they were forced to separate once more.

Days like that made Sherlock want to try harder to get better so that he and Jim could have more of those days.

Sorry I probably took forever to update. I'm so horrible about updating in a reasonable amount of time, but I'm trying. I hope you're enjoying this. Please review! I'm going to work on the next chapter right now!