CONTEXT IS FOR SUCKERZ

There was nothing. He turned off the light and tried not to think about everything that was going wrong.

By midnight, an hour later, he was still stark awake, and listening to the clock tick evenly and persistently, with no lag. He thought about striking the clock from the wall so it'd stop trying to drive him mad.

Maybe it was better that he was awake at midnight. If he hadn't been, God knows what would have happened when they broke in.

There was a creak in the next room. That was the only warning he received before the door was kicked in.

John's first impulse was to grab the lamp by the couch. There were three men, all significantly taller and sturdier than him, dressed head to toe in black. One laughed at the sight of him, holding the rod of the lamp like a sword.

"Look at this poor sod," John heard as the men advanced forward. "Thinks a lamp is gonna hurt us."

He's not going to think at all when I bash his fucking skull in.

John braced himself.

When they got too close, John hit the leader across the head with a sick, satisfying crunch of glass against metal and bone, and watched as he crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.

"Shit-!" one of them shouted. "You little...!"

The smaller man grabbed the lamp from his hand and flung it against the wall with a rage and adrenaline that was palpable. John watched as it shattered a glass frame, his concentration momentarily broken, and then felt a heat explode against his chin as a fist glanced him. John's body snapped back from the force, and he stumbled right into the couch, the echoes of pain screaming in his head. Soon enough, the largest man had grabbed him firmly by the shoulders, and all the air expelled from John's lungs as he kneed him in the stomach. "Could have made this easy for us," John heard as his vision went spotty, "coulda just stayed quiet, Dr. Watson."

John rasped a protest through the lack of air, even though he knew there was no one there to hear him, even though he knew that Sherlock wasn't here to hear him. Reason flew away as panic ripped its way through, as pain blossomed in his temple, as he felt everything dim.

"Little fucking prat," John heard. A bag swallowed the light as it went over his head. He couldn't breathe.

"Our boss will not like this," one of the men said.

"Tie this bitch up."

John shrieked in protest, but another knee to the stomach shut him up as he doubled over soundlessly. He felt a cord cut into his wrists. He needed to know he'd be okay. He needed to know-

Suddenly, there was a bag being unzipped, and then he heard the sound of someone tapping a syringe. He was exhausted, but he knew that if there was a chance that syringe was going to make him fall asleep - permanently - he'd fight it. With one more surge of energy, he kicked in the direction of his captor's knees.

He knew he hit something when the grip on him loosened, and a scream erupted from the man's mouth. He still couldn't see, so he limped in the direction of the door.

"Fuck! Fucking fuck, get him!"

John cried out as he felt another pair of hands, and a stabbing sensation in his neck.

"Fucking hell!" he kept hearing. "Fucking, shitting hell!"

And then he stopped hearing at all.

***

In his dreams, he was always so scared. Not angry; anger and sadness had melted away into the inky, lightless night. It was the residue of fear; of black, of gray - the murkiness of empty emotion and silence that struck him cold.

There was nothing keeping him from falling back into the void. No safety nets. No way to avoid the pure, brutal honesty of gravitational force. No one was going to catch him when they realized the truth.

Dr. John H. Watson. Husband, John H. Watson. Brother, John H. Watson. Soldier, John H. Watson.

When those words hit gravity, they changed. They reacted. When they hit the dark, they became something else.

Liar, John H. Watson.

Queer. John H. Watson.