"Get up, John."

John would get up if he didn't feel so heavy. Crust rimmed his eyelids, making it hard for him to do much of anything except stay completely still, pretending that he wasn't at least half-awake.

"John," he heard again. "John."

John cracked open a single eye, his gaze travelling up to see a bushy, bearded face. Brown eyes. He found it was Mark, looking angry in the only way he could possibly look angry - half-worried and mostly indignant.

"Ugh," John groaned, pinching his eyes closed again and turning against the light of day. Even with his eyes shut, his entire field of vision was red, like budding poppies.

"Do you know where you are, mate? Huh?" The sentence was followed by the impact of a pillow hitting John's head. "Do you?"

John made a short, broken noise that he usually didn't make, burying himself deeper into the rough, uncomfortable couch he was lying on. Mark persisted mercilessly, even as John blindly reached out to grasp the pillow that kept battering against him.

"Did you sleep here, John? Claire was calling all night long! We were worried sick!"

John's entire body screamed with discomfort, the slow but sudden pain of rigidity spreading into his legs as he pulled himself up. Mark stopped hitting him so John could answer.

"What day is it...?"

Mark stared blankly with his big, brown eyes, thin lips parting very slightly. His eyes were losing their usual warmth, going from chocolate to muddy. He sounded so subdued, like he was close to shouting but wouldn't let himself. "The 17th of October. Did you sleep here?"

His eyes hurt. John pressed his fingertips against them. "I was here all night," he eased out, every syllable painful.

"You slept here." Mark's expression was easing from anger to a very unsubtle disappointment, his thick eyebrows furrowing. The face he was making at the moment was reminiscent of a parent who just found their kid in a crowd.

John huffed heavily as he dragged himself into a stand, using Mark's forearm as a support. "That's the basic idea, Mark," John said, bitterness leaking into his inflection.

"Don't use that tone."

"What tone am I supposed to use?" John met with equal heat.

"Jesus Christ," Mark said, and that worried John, because Mark only took the Lord's name in vain if he was truly holding back heat. Like when his son had slashed holes in his tires with a kitchen knife when he was four. Or when his wife was taken to the hospital after coming down with a bad flu. Or when they'd all been in the living room of James's home, watching TV, when the news anchor announced that Britain had been thrust into a war with Germany. ("Jesus bloody Christ," he'd said.)

John crossed his arms over his chest. "What?" he relinquished.

For a few odd seconds, it was weirdly and totally silent - Mark pursed his lips into a line that made his beard hide any remnants of a mouth he had left. They stood there, staring at each other with their arms crossed and their postures awkwardly rod straight, not sure where to step next, until Mark spoke up. His voice was hard. "You've got some nerve."

John's eyebrows raised.

Mark started walking towards the exit. "I'll tell Claire you're alright, because obviously you don't feel obligated to tell her yourself."

"Mark-"

"No," he almost shouted, and the room shook. His voice was deep and paternal, like he was disciplining a child. He turned on his foot to look John in the eyes from across the room. "For the last few months, you've been acting strangely. Doing things you don't usually do. Hanging out with the wrong people."

Read: Sherlock, John was tempted to say.

"And I wanna know why."

Mark always had stunning clarity, as a father. He could sense things going downhill from a mile away. It was probably an evolutionary response. And as stoic and emotionally stunted as he was - the epitome of current masculinity - he cared about John. He cared about Claire. He was a good person - a compassionate, sympathetic, Christian person - capable of the purest kindnesses, and cordial in every sense.

But beyond that, he was a father. Fiercely protective, and unwilling to accept weakness. "I just" - John looked away from Mark's warm eyes, guilty - "I... I don't know."

"You don't know," Mark repeated, running over the words in his own mouth to see how ridiculous they sounded.

"I know what it sounds like."

Mark scoffed. "I don't think you do."

"I really don't know. Just some things I need to work out, I suppose." John looked outside the room, into the hallway. Class hadn't begun yet, and it was completely empty. "I'd better be off. Apologizing to Claire, and all that."

Mark surveyed his face, picking apart his expression. "Yeah," he finally answered. "Fix your clothes, too. You're a mess."

John laughed, then - because Mark had no idea.

***

He didn't go home, like he was supposed to. John didn't really do anything that he was supposed to do, anymore. From coming to Claire's father's speeches to kissing her before he left for work to feeling guilty, John refused to do the things he was supposed to do.

He'd never had a lover quite so quiet. Claire hardly bothered nowadays. It was wake up, make breakfast, go to work, go home, eat dinner. Day after day after day after miserable day, all their troubles laid out silently in a row. John could make them fall like dominoes.

He didn't care about the pretense, anymore, love be damned. Maybe he did, once in a while. Maybe, when he'd just gotten a wet blowjob less than an hour ago, and he was too high on endorphins to stay cross at Claire. Maybe if he started trying again, if he tried.

But the margin between "maybe" and reality was too large.

In reality, he stayed late after work so he could visit Sherlock. He left early so he could visit Sherlock. He was sloppy and non-meticulous and maybe that would be a problem, but he fortunately knew someone who learned how to cover his tracks when he learned how to trace them.

It was harder than it looked, cheating on Claire. It required a fine balance between hatred and discipline, the kind that honest people unlike John couldn't replicate. Their love had been resolved long ago. They were done; they'd reached their destination, after three years of trying to maintain the fragility of their relationship.

John knew that now.

So he didn't go home.

"Are you even wearing underwear?" John murmured into Sherlock's neck, pushing him into the side office. His hands were scrambling for something to hold onto, something to keep himself steady. Sherlock was starting to warm to the idea of sex, and John could tell because he was cocking his head backwards to expose his throat, to expose the precious bit of him that made him go boneless.

John ran open mouthed kisses along the taut muscle of Sherlock's neck, holding Sherlock's arms above his head and slowly pushing him to the nearest wall. Their lips met in a wet, sweaty movement, tongues pushing against one another's, eager and hot. John could feel Sherlock's erection against his thigh.

"Already?" John laughed, slowly unbuttoning Sherlock's shirt, feeling the cool, marble skin underneath. His fingertips caught on birthmarks as he wiped his thumb across Sherlock's ribcage, his navel. When he shouldered his way down to Sherlock's nipples he could taste saltiness - a delighted, unapologetic moan breaking through in response. John grinned cheekily, giving Sherlock's erect nipples one more quick lap before allowing Sherlock to rest his arm on John's waist, the other hand undoing John's buckle.

"You're very eager, today," Sherlock hummed into John's ear, catching his earlobe with his teeth. With a smooth movement, he took John's chin in his hand and gently sucked John's bottom lip into his mouth. "Why so?" he questioned, busying his other hand by pulling out John's belt and wrapping it tightly around his palm. His eyes were intense, flickering like a lamp in a thunderstorm.

John gulped, his eyes flickering in anticipation towards the belt. Then he kissed Sherlock, hard, endorphins soaking his skin. "You know why," he mumbled, trying to get some contact from Sherlock's hand.

"How would I know?" Sherlock said, sounding indignant.

"'Cause you're Sherlock," John explained, kissing Sherlock's jawline. "You're - you're amazing - you know... everything" - John punctuated his words with rough, needy kisses, trying to colorize all the blank spots in his soul, trying to bring depth to the shallow, the two-dimensional - "and I need you - to shut up - and turn over."

Sherlock stopped responding to John's touch, going statue still. A hotness flashed in his eyes, and suddenly John felt too close for comfort. Sherlock's fingers were still grasping his chin, and their chests were heaving so hard that they would brush up against one another, the light dusting of a trail of hair tickling John's navel.

They were so close; it was hard to see. Sherlock was searching John's eyes for something, and John was meeting his gaze. For the first time - maybe ever - John could grasp a soft emotion in Sherlock's features, a feeling that could have been interpreted as timidity or worse - bashfulness. A blush hinted at Sherlock's cheeks as John looked him directly in the eyes, carding fingers through Sherlock's curls, only once.

This was their version of affection. Maybe Sherlock would start touching John like they knew each other, soon. To John, nothing about Sherlock felt foreign under his palm.

His eyes dipped into crescents as John kissed him, slowly, expecting nothing in return. "You don't want to," John whispered into Sherlock's mouth.

Sherlock closed his eyes. Shook his head so imperceptibly that John almost didn't catch it.

"Okay." John stepped two feet back, so Sherlock had space. "Okay."

Sherlock made him breakfast afterwards, using the small faculty kitchen to boil wet, gray porridge. "Aren't you going to eat anything?" John asked when Sherlock didn't fish out another bowl. Sherlock sat down directly next to him, folding his hands neatly atop the table and looking toxic and stubborn.

"No."

"When was the last time you ate?"

Sherlock gave John a withering look, to no avail. John pushed his bowl of porridge across the table and felt amused as Sherlock tried to digest John's generosity. "I really don't need it," Sherlock said, looking at the steaming bowl longingly.

"I bet you haven't eaten in 24 hours."

"And?"

John reached across the table; he took Sherlock's hand in his and ran his thumb experimentally across Sherlock's knuckles.

John's stomach jumped. His skin felt new - soft and gentle - not like it sometimes did. Sherlock's finger pads were cupping the surface of John's palm, and he had to take a moment to readjust to the uncharacteristic sensation of Sherlock's heartbeat thudding under John's touch.

It took a second for him to say anything. When he did manage, it sounded stuttered, like it was trying to make up for something. "You're too skinny."

Sherlock blinked. He took his hand away.

"Well?" John asked, gesturing encompassingly towards the food, his face flushing slightly. "Go ahead, I won't scold you."

Sherlock quizzically, but somewhat daintily, lifted the spoon with only the slightest hint of distaste pursing his lips. In a few humble seconds, he had opened his mouth and began eating.

"How is it?"

"Unpleasant."

John was satisfied. "Good."

***

When John finally got home around noon, Claire didn't have anything to say to him in response to his apology, besides: "You're doing the graveyard shift at work, tonight. And there are leftovers." In kind, he responded with a perfunctory "okay" and climbed up the stairs to their room, falling back onto the bed and allowing himself to rest a bit more before the inevitable onslaught of work began.

He could bet Claire would start asking questions soon enough. She'd find a way to switch from this ugly complacency she had after a bad argument to that state of restlessness again. She would start asking, alright. Maybe not now, maybe not in a week, but eventually she'd start picking apart the truth.

And what a brutal truth it was: that most of the time, he hated her. That he didn't want to be with her. That he wanted to break it off. That there was nothing good about the two of them together, and children were a far off fantasy that she had prescribed to the day she let her father talk John into proposing.

She was so desperate to fit the mold her father put her in. Like it was something to hold onto, something firm and real and true. John would know; nothing about family was true. How many facades did his parents have to present to hide the fact that their children were explosions of personality and addiction?

How many fronts did they have to put up?

And with Sherlock - there was no front. There was no after-product, no filter. He could be himself, and be himself brutally. Sherlock was as real as gravity, as real as art, as real as music. There was something so concrete about him, as much as he was rude and tactless and impossible.

With him, John could put color into something tangible. Unlike god, and unlike family. Something real.

They tried having sex to remind themselves what having sex with each other felt like. John couldn't perform until he thought of Sherlock, lips around the head of his cock, and the friction that came with it. How he let John thrust into his mouth.

John had a force field around him, for a little while. He was in his own head, grabbing onto Sherlock's hips, sinking into his heat. He wondered what Sherlock felt like.

It wasn't until she started saying John's name that he remembered where he was. He felt repulsed. Her cheeks were flushed, and maybe a year ago he would have found her beautiful, but now...

Once they had finished and were comfortable next to each other in bed, John heard Claire say his name. He closed his newspaper and looked over at her.

"Do you fancy going to the cinema?"

"Sure."

"Is next Saturday okay? I'm full to the brim with work at the sewing factory."

"Next Saturday is..." He usually went to Sherlock's, then, but her eyes were hopeful, so hopeful. John had never pitied anyone as much as he pitied her. "...fine."

Her eyes lit up. "Great. We haven't spent any time together since that silly little argument we had, so this is the perfect opportunity."

There was a five second silence. She snapped her fingers. John turned to look at her. "What?"

"I nearly forgot, John. There was a letter for you."

"Oh?" John slid upright on his palms. "Who from?"

"I'm not sure. It didn't have a return address, but it was for you."

Half of John didn't want to move from the bed. "Is it from the bank?"

"I certainly hope not. I already paid the bills."

"Then..." John trailed off, giving her a puzzled look. "Who...?"

"It had a wax seal with a bird. Looked very fancy."

Oh.

John whipped the covers off, hardly paying a look back to Claire.

"John!" she called. "It's still in the mailbox, can't this wait until morning?"

"No," John shouted from the bottom of the stairs. He didn't even bother to put on shoes as he threw a coat on over his pajamas.

"I'm turning off the light!" he heard Claire yell. He ignored her and opened the door, being hit with a wall of bitter cold air. His toes crunched the grass as he ran to the mailbox and removed all its contents. Quickly enough, he was back inside the house.

He threw the mail on the kitchen table and combed through it until he found what he was looking for. The envelope was clean - very clean, with a wax seal, just as Claire said. A magpie, embossed into it. John ripped open the seal with heavy hands. Inside was a piece of equally high quality paper. The same golden insignia - a magpie - caught John's eye as he unfolded the letter. He read it, unsure, his pulse threading in and out a bit more clumsily.

Hello, John. I've heard nothing from you since our last meeting, which could be perceived as somewhat rude.

Wouldn't it be a shame if something happened to your lover?

Or lovers?

011-7942-0050

- Jim xx

Once he finished, John immediately went into the kitchen and fetched a metal lighter, flicking it open and setting the envelope and letter alight, the nausea dying down as the words were safely swallowed in flames. John dropped the still burning paper into the sink, white fires burning afterimages into his eyelids. Once it turned into black grime, he washed it down the drain.

He had to be some sort of mafia member. How'd he get his home address?

Claire could have opened that - Christ. Moriarty hadn't been joking, he'd been betting on it. He was volatile as gasoline and a spark.

He couldn't chance anyone stumbling upon Moriarty's threats accidentally. And he was so busy trying to get Sherlock to trust him that he'd forgotten about extrapolating information, which was possibly keeping the people he was close to alive.

He didn't even know what he was looking for, though. He'd scoured Sherlock's music room, asked around to find out more about him, but nobody knew who he really was besides who he presented himself to the public to be, and various scandals based off of hearsay. And then he understood what Moriarty meant when he said John was the person closest to him. They weren't close at all, but he had no friends, no family, and he never seemed to be anywhere but the academy.

With one last glance back to the sink, John padded into the living room, to the telephone. He kept on looking behind him in the dark, just in case. As quietly as he could, he dialed the rotary.

The phone began to ring. The exhilaration was slowly turning into a sort of dread as the dial tone seemed to become stronger and louder, pounding a rhythm into John's head.

The real thrill kicked in when the ringing stopped, and the click of a phone being picked up answered. That was when John had to clear his throat to avoid tripping over his words; to avoid thinking about the chills that were erupting along his spine.

"Hello, John," came the soft Dublin lilt. "I'm glad you called."

"Moriarty," John greeted, his tone growing cold.

"Do you have anything?"

"I will," John assured, his voice a menace.

"What?" His voice was becoming a threat. "You will? You're on a clock, here, it's not like I can help you forever."

"I will, soon" - John thought of an excuse, quickly - "I saw Sherlock opening up a locked drawer filled with private files. I could snatch the keys, open it up. Look around." When John was answered with radio silence, he added, "If you want."

After what must have been twenty seconds, Moriarty hissed out a question between his teeth. "Are you lying to me? Because if you're lying to me-"

"No - maybe if I knew what I was looking for-" John insisted quietly before being cut short.

"I wanna know who he's close to. Friends, boyfriends, one night stands, his childhood dog. I wanna know all the skeletons in his closets. I want to know his weakness so I can make him hurt. Do you get it now? Or shall I have to make you get it?"

John's skin curdled. Make him hurt. After a stunned moment, John said, "Give me a month and I'll have something on him."

"You have two weeks," Moriarty said in a monotone.

The line dropped, the end tone much louder than John had anticipated. Quickly, he slammed the handheld into the receiver to stifle the noise.

The padding of footsteps soon filled up the empty silence as Claire slowly made her way down the stairs. John scrambled through the living room back into the kitchen. Raucously, he pretended to rifle through the empty cupboards, foraging for food. John could only note that there was barely anything hidden there before he heard a sleepy, feminine voice. His heart was still beating hard and fast, and he wondered if she could hear it.

"John?" Claire asked, her tone timid and gentle. John turned to her slightly, so her shape was in view. He could see her nightgown - white and silken - dancing around her ankles, and perfect pale toes barely hidden. She was wiping her eyes, still half asleep. "What are you still downstairs for?"

John let his hands fall away from the empty cupboard to the counter, finally leaning over so he had her entire, petite body in view. He tried to emulate her exhaustion, setting his eyelids low. "Love," he began, voice soft, "go back to bed."

"I heard you talking." Claire stepped closer. "On the phone."

"I was looking for food to eat," John explained warmly, placing his hands evenly on her shoulders and smoothing them down her arms. "Go back to bed, and I'll be there in a minute, after I eat this food."

"There is no food."

John gave her a smile - a terse one, with more worry in it than assurance. "I'll find something."

When John thought she was about to leave, content, her face became troubled; unusually garish in the dark. Her hair didn't look blonde - it looked a sickly green, and her lips an oxygen deprived purple. John nearly froze when he thought he caught a glint of realization in her eyes. She blinked, slowly. It was gone.