#something about john having clumsily stumbled into the life and having this black and white view of the world where the only future for his

[beatsheetromanroy]

both parents know evil could be lurking at any corner. and yet

[angelaiswriting]

Lovestruck | Finn Shelby x reader

[original picture]

✏️ Pairing: Finn Shelby x fem!reader

✏️ Summary: Finn has a crush on the new barmaid at the Garrison. Michael pushes him to confess his feelings. (Requested by Anonymous)

✏️ A/N: this is one of the fics I’m most proud of, tbh. I hope I captured the shyness of Finn’s youth. Many thanks to @sweetvengeancee​ for beta-reading and pushing though my idiotic mistakes HAHA As always, to be added to the tag list and/or to submit requests, hit me up somehow 💛

✏️ Warnings: fluff, young people in love being awkward, that’s all :)

✏️ Word-count: 2,953

Ever since the day Finn had turned eighteen, she had always been there, behind the counter of the Garrison, serving customers and helping Harry.

He hadn’t known her name, back then, she had just been a pretty face in a sea of manly chaos, her smile shining as bright as the sun. She had brought drinks and booze to his table – on the house, she had said – and had wished him a happy birthday when Isaiah had let the news slip. She had gasped, lightly, and that happy birthday, Mr Shelby still brought a smile to his lips when he thought of it – when he thought of her.

After that first chilly March Friday, he hadn’t missed a night at the bar. He had spent hours sitting there – at the counter, at a table, it didn’t matter –, watching her work. She served each patron with a sweet smile and an even sweeter greeting, her eyes always twinkling happily and her blouses always light in colour, always clean. She stood out like a sore thumb, like a bottle of water among the various rums and whiskeys and gins on the shelves behind her.

No matter what, she always had a nice word to spare for him, too. When the day was gloomy and his mood under the soles of his boots, when he felt a second-class Shelby or simply when things didn’t seem to go as planned no matter what, she was there and somehow, she always managed to bring a smile to his face.

Tonight was no exception. He was sitting in his family’s private room, shielded away from the din of the bar as though he were in a box of cotton, and he was sulking. It should have been a nice night out had it not been for Michael and Isaiah being late because of business. He had been given a couple of days off since he had ended up with a bump on his head in the gym on Wednesday and ever since then, he had been so looking forward to going out for a drink – or ten – with the two guys he considered his closest friends.

But as he sat there, alone, absentmindedly staring out of the small window that gave on the bar – absentmindedly staring at her –, he couldn’t help but think that maybe he should, indeed, have his fucking drinks, even without them. He had drunk alone plenty of times, so why should today be a problem?

“Mr Shelby?”

Y/N was at the door before he could make his mind up and call her. And while he had spent countless days nurturing the crush he had developed for her, tending at it like one waters a flower, with that same innocence of the late adolescence and early adulthood, he had never… He had never gone to her. He had courted her – awkwardly and clumsily – but it had always been from a distance.

“Yes?”

He wasn’t Michael, nor Isaiah, nor any of his brothers. He had never walked up to a girl he liked, had never had his way with women, had never even touched one. His innocence bubbled up when Y/N was around and not even all the blood covering his hands was able to help, for he always cowered away, turned his head to the other side.

“Would you like a drink? You’ve been sitting here with the door open for a while, now, and I was wondering if you…” She was blabbering, her hands fidgeting with each other, probably wondering if interrupting his contemplative silence had been a good idea. “If you would like a drink.”

Finn blushed when he met her gaze. He hadn’t expected for her to be staring right at him, for she, too, always averted her gaze when he was around, a shy smile always poking at her lips.

He nodded.

“Whiskey?”

Whiskey sounded as good a drink as any, but tonight felt particularly blue and he wanted to try something new. Something stronger. Something that could hopefully turn into liquid courage by the end of the night, when he would finally ask Y/N out. “Rum,” he answered, shaking his head at her question. “Bring two glasses.”

He had made up his mind. The thought had been playing around in his head for a while now, bugging him more than he would ever admit – and probably more than his lifestyle should have allowed. He was going to ask her out and if he had some luck, she was going to accept the offer.

But when she came back, two tumblers in a hand and a full bottle of rum in the other, his resolution withered. He looked at her and what he saw was something he couldn’t have. This wasn’t Esme, born and raised among gipsies, doing the same kind of shit he and his brothers had grown up courting. This was a girl from a respectable family, someone that had definitely studied more than him, for she could read and write, someone that went to church every Sunday morning and that had never deviated from the law.

The dull thud of the glasses being put down on the table distracted him from his thoughts and he focused his gaze just in time to see her pour liquor in one of the glasses.

“Should I close the door while you wait for your guest, Mr Shelby?” Her voice was as sweet as ever, even if more tired, strained by the hard time tonight’s clients were giving her.

His brows furrowed for a moment before he truly understood what she was saying. “Close the door and sit with me.”

She looked taken aback for a moment, the surprise flashing across her features and showing how young she still was. He had heard her birthday fell in May of his same year, but the innocence of the life she led shone brighter than his dwindling one.

A flash of regret crossed his mind when he poured rum in the empty glass and when she came back and sat on the chair opposite him, he apologized. “Stop calling me ‘Mr Shelby’. I’m Finn, just Finn,” he added, stretching his hand out to properly introduce himself.

She smiled and when she did, pearly white teeth peeked from behind her chapped lips.

Her hand in his was soft and warm, the calluses on her palms nothing compared to the ones that had hardened his skin from long days spent fighting in the ring or holding guns. It was an almost reassuring feeling – she wasn’t that out of his league, after all, or so he liked to hope at that moment.

“Drink with me.” It was probably the alcohol he had drunk as she closed the door that gave him the courage to ask her that.

For a moment, he wished to be more like John – he had never had problems with women. He went up to them and if they were foolish enough to turn him down, he went on with his day like nothing was. But Y/N was probably the prettiest girl he had ever seen – prettier than the rich women he had seen in London, prettier than the gipsy girls he had had the chance to see at the Lees’ camp. She was something else entirely and this was probably what scared him: he had put her on such a high pedestal that if she decided he wasn’t enough, he wasn’t sure he’d be like his brother when faced with rejection.

“I should…” She turned to look at Harry for a moment through the still-open window before she turned her attention back to Finn. “I have tables to clean and people to serve, Finn. I need this job, I can’t afford to be fired.” The conflict was clear in her voice and in the way she fumbled with her fingers.

“I’m a Shelby, we own this place.” He never liked to use his position and influence when she was around, but his courage was already dwindling and he really needed to catch the chance with both hands before he lost it for good. “Your job is safe. Have a drink with me.”

She sighed, eyeing the glass he had pushed in her direction.

“Until Michael and Isaiah arrive?” he added, his voice rising into a question by the end of the sentence, his lips stretching in a hopeful smile.

She nodded and he managed to get a glimpse of her smile before she hid it behind the glass. “Are we drinking to something?” she asked, leaning better against the seatback and looking at him expectantly.

“To being brave,” he blurted out before he could stop himself, his courage riding red.

They had just put the empty glasses back down on the table when the door opened and his cousin and friend stumbled into the private room. They were laughing and even Isaiah was pushing through the black eye someone had gifted him during the day. Then, when the newcomers took in the presence of the girl, they stopped in their tracks, taken by surprise.

“Are we interrupting something?” Michael had a shit-eating grin almost cutting his face in half as his gaze danced between Finn and the young and pretty barmaid sitting closer to the lovestruck boy than he’d ever thought he would see.

Finn’s crush on Y/N was no secret in house Shelby. It wasn’t because he couldn’t stop talking about her – as a matter of fact, he never even pronounced her name – but rather, it was impossible not to read his thoughts when he saw her. The way he smiled, with that shining spark making his eyes seem more alive than ever, and the way he stammered when he talked to her, his words constantly fighting with each other to come out in a haste, afraid they’d never be left free otherwise.

Y/N was expectantly staring at him when he finally convinced himself he was not going to die if he met her gaze again.

“No,” he sighed. “We were just waiting for your arrival.”

And with that and a sweet smile, the pretty barmaid was out of the room.

*

Finn avoided the Garrison for a week. Before March, it wouldn’t have felt this peculiar, but ever since his eighteenth birthday, this absence felt like an insurmountable mountain.

On the eighth day, though, he was dragged down to the pub for a meeting. Walking through those glass doors had felt like the liberation from the invisible weight that had slowed him down during the previous week. He inhaled deeply – the burning stench of low-quality cigarettes and cigars stinging his throat – and smiled in contentment and relief when he looked over at the counter and she was there.

She had pulled her hair up and away from her face and her neck was now exposed. Even from that distance, he could see the lights of the bar glimmering over the fine golden thread of the chain she always wore around her neck. She was towelling freshly-washed glasses and chatting with Harry, enjoying the much-needed break now that the flux of people had died down a little.

There was something so peculiarly hers that always drew him one step closer than the day before and it was something he couldn’t explain. It was the foggy excitement of his first crush, one that made his heart beat faster and the palms of his hands sweat at the idea of talking to her. The innocent shyness that always overcame him in her presence was what often got him taunted by his brothers and while he cared about it at home, he somehow didn’t at the Garrison.

“If you don’t go and talk to her,” Michael’s breath tickled his skin as he whispered in his ear, “I will.”

*

He knew his cousin would follow through with his threat. And while he knew Michael would never do anything to go against him, Finn feared what the man could tell her – feelings he jealously harboured, shielded away from his lovestruck younger cousin? or feelings Finn kept hidden away in the recesses of his soul, waiting for a divine sign before he finally confessed on his own?

Focusing on the meeting had been exhausting, but he had managed. He had listened to what Tommy had to say – an update about the alliance with Solomons and his bakers down in Camden Town – and had agreed on helping out with the bets at the top of his abilities.

Then, as the family swarmed out of the room and joined the rest of the patrons in the pub, he found himself weighed down by the prospect of having to talk to Y/N. If she had to hear of his feelings from someone, that someone had to be him. He didn’t want to pass as a ball-less fool in front of the girl he had fallen to his knees for. He didn’t want to risk passing as less of a man as he was, afraid to man up and spill the truth.

But he couldn’t do it, not with his brothers watching him like hawks, not with Michael waiting for the right occasion to step in and steal his spotlight. And so he stood there, at the counter, awkwardly, and ordered a drink – he needed some more of that liquid courage that had allowed him to ask her to stay, eight days ago.

His cheeks were still burning from when she had greeted him with a happy hello, Finn! when she sat a glass of whiskey in the space between his hands.

“I haven’t seen you in awhile. Everything alright with the business?” she asked, cleaning the counter with a rag before emptying the ashtrays in the bin.

This was his great chance. The chance to show his stupid brothers – and his very clever aunt Polly, of course – that he wasn’t a kid anymore, that he could take his balls in his hands and act like the man he was destined to be. Possibly, that he could take the Shelby name a step forward and start his own branch on the family tree. But as he looked at her, all he felt was young and foolish and desperately in love with a girl he was trying to convince himself he couldn’t have.

She slowed his brain and stopped his breathing for painful seconds and as he stood there, smiling like an idiot, with fire burning underneath the skin of his cheeks, masking his freckles, nothing had ever felt more right.

“I’ve been… thinking,” he answered. “About… About stuff.” He nursed his glass between slightly trembling fingers before he swallowed the lump in his throat and sipped on the burning Irish.

“‘About stuff’?”

Her chuckle tugged at his smile, making it wider and brighter, and he watched as she fixed a customer a beer – the way her hand wrapped around the lever of the beer tap, the way she politely smiled at the man a few steps to his right, and the way that same smile turned more lively when she came back to him.

“What kind of stuff? If I may ask.”

He had her complete attention as she stood there in front of him, elbows resting on the previously-cleaned counter. She was looking up at him and there was a slight pout to her lips and right there, on the bow of her upper lip, he noticed a tiny freckle.

The shrug in his shoulders was an automatic response as he downed the rest of his drink before setting the tumbler down beside him.

“You,” he confessed eventually. It was now or never and he knew – he just did – that ‘never’ would have never been a good-enough and acceptable answer.

She chuckled and straightened her back, her gaze suddenly avoiding his as his cheeks burned in both embarrassment and fear. “Me? What about me?”

“I was thinking,” he started, humming low in his throat as he leaned over the counter just like she had done a minute ago, and he brushed his thumb against the back of her left hand. On his right, sitting at a table, he could feel Michael’s hawk-like stare piercing through him, waiting to assist to his victory – or downfall. “I was thinking, I could ask her out, take her to the pictures one of these days,” he said. “I’ve also been wondering, what kind of flowers does she like? and who knows if she’s ever gone on a horse ride?”

Unable to look up at her, he heard her hold her breath before it trembled when she released it.

“Well…” She cleared her voice and when he finally met her gaze, he found her already staring at him, smiling brightly down at him. “I would love to go both to the pictures and on a ride with you.”

“You would?” His heart was beating more furiously than it ever had at the mere thought of confessing the same things he had just told her.

She nodded. “I like daisies,” she added, turning her hand in his and entwining their fingers.

“Tomorrow?”

She glanced at Harry, chatting away at the other end of the counter and for a moment, she seemed lost in thought.

“I told you, I’m a Shelby. I can give you the day off.”

Her amused snort ringed in his ears and tugged on some unspecified cords in his heart as his eyes and lips glossed over with the honey-like caress of his first love.

“Tomorrow sound like a plan.”

Wow, I looove writing for Finn! Hopefully you enjoyed this, too.

TAGS (to be added to or to be removed from any list, shoot me an ask)

Everything: @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892  @mblaqgi​

Peaky Blinders: @whimsylavender​ @thethyri​ @princesscouchpotato

People that might be interested: @sweetvengeancee @kind-wolf @flowers-in-your-hayr

[nadineselfships-archived]

Hard Decision

Pairing/s: John Seed/Nadine Sinclaire

A/N: FIRST REVERSE AU FIC ARE YOU EXCITED? John's had a long day and has an Interaction(tm) with The Baptist, let's go.

TW/s: drowning mention(very brief and vague)

It was another long hard day for John; running from peggies, getting attacked by wildlife and getting captured by James to top it all off. He never understood why James bothered capturing his siblings and himself, all he ever did was rant about how what The Mother was doing was for the good of everyone and how they'd be free from the pain if they just accepted her word.

His words never made much of an impact and they always escaped with nothing but bruises and lost time.

Michael's methods never really work on John either, no one's ever been able to get into his head and mess with him very easily so of course Michael can't either. Which just ends in John getting roughed up as Michael gets more and more frustrated with his witty quips and sarcastic comments.

The only member of the crazy cult that ever gets to him is Nadine, the self mutilating Baptist with the confidence of a lion. Whenever they speak to him on the radio or capture him John always feels himself get lost, he hangs off every word and follows every movement. They were probably his biggest threat, if them attempting to drown him didn't prove that, and yet he was utterly drawn to them.

He couldn't explain why his heart ached as they spoke about their childhood, or why he felt the need to reach out and kiss their scarred skin and comfort them when they looked at him with a shielded gaze. John never dared tell his siblings what really went through his head whenever he returned from an interaction with the youngest Sinclaire sibling. Joseph would be appalled, Jacob furious and Rachel ever so dissapointed.

He couldn't bear that.

So why, he wondered, was he currently crouched in a bush in front of Nadine's ranch watching them through a window? This was wrong in so many ways and John couldn't figure out what he was doing, there were patrols of peggies wandering the grounds and at any second one could spot him. Why was he risking being here? Why, when all he wanted to do was rest, was he risking his life to see a glimpse of the enemy?

The enemy that said his name in such a way that left chills running down his spine and a fire ignited within his ribcage. The enemy with eyes that so desperately beg for his attention and drown him in their intensity whenever he meets them. The enemy that is staring at him right now-

Shock washes over John and his body goes rigid. Nadine's now standing in front of the window and leaning against it, smiling at him in a way that showed their own surprise. Surely he wasn't so exhausted that he just threw himself straight into their lap this time? Apparently he was, and, apparently, he had.

John doesn't know what to do. He's afraid, he tells himself. The electricity dancing along his spine and through his veins from their gaze is nothing but his nerves screaming at him to run. He knew he'd been caught because the peggies began to walk to their cars and drive off. The radio in Nadine's hand being the culprit for the act he was sure. A different response than he was expecting but even more unsettling somehow.

The sound of static from his radio nearly topples him over, the world had been nothing but white noise a second ago and suddenly all he could hear was Nadine's dangerously inviting voice.

"Johnny what a surprise, I heard you saw James today, have fun? He told me you left in the middle of your playdate though, that was a little rude don't you think? After he went to all the trouble to set it up for you too."

Their voice was like honey as they casually walked through their home, John watching them with wide eyes as they dissapeared from one window and reappeared in the next. He couldn't find his voice to retort anything witty or sarcastic, he couldn't even get himself to stand and run like he knew he should.

"You look tired Johnny, why don't you come inside and rest your weary little head a moment? I'm sure your little 'friends' can manage without you for an hour."

John's heads snaps to the doorway as he hears Nadine speak but not from the radio. They stand on the patio so confidently, as if there were no possibility he'd take his rifle and put a bullet in their head. He knew even if he wanted to he couldn't. He wouldn't.

Nadine's eyes are peircing, he can see a demand in them, one that's always there. Say yes. That's all they want. John shouldn't be conflicted. He should shoot them and walk away, tell Joseph they can now move into their ranch and have one less cult member to worry about. But he can't. He can't say yes and he can't walk away. He was truly lost.

This wasn't a normal situation, he wasn't tied to a chair and he didn't have a gun to his head. He could leave whenever he wanted. But the way Nadine leant against the railing of their patio had him hypnotized. He stood shakily and the way Nadine's eyes lit up when he did caused nothing but more indecision.

His hesitations cause Nadine to move, they walk to the stairs of the patio but each step down them is a step John takes backwards. They pause at the foot of the stairs, dissapointment flashing in their eyes but quickly being hidden with amusement.

"You've come all the way here John. Why come all the way to my home if you're just going to sit outside and watch me? What's the goal? Was this a stake out? Collecting information for your brothers? Planning to take over my ranch?" Nadine slowly saunters forward as they speak, anger flashing in their eyes as they let their theories run wild in their mind.

John is backing away as quickly as his lead heavy legs will let him, his blue eyes are fixed on Nadine's intense gaze and before he knows it his back is against a tree and they're standing three feet in front of him.

"It wasn't a stake out. Joseph and Jacob don't even know I'm here." The words clumsily stumble out of his mouth before he can think. He curses himself as a sly smile stretches across Nadine's face. Why did he lose the inability to make good decisions or think clearly when they were near him? It's like he reverted back to before he was able to form a coherent thought process.

"Now I'm even more intrigued, you're here alone and you didn't tell anyone were you are. I really thought you were smarter than that Johnny, or, maybe you've just finally come to see the truth. That I'm right. And you're here to finally give in, it would be nice to end our little cat and mouse game wouldn't it?" Nadine took a large stride forward and smiled giddily up at him.

They were close enough that John could faintly smell cedar wood and mint, an odd yet intoxicating mix that was so uniquely them. Or just their choice of bodywash, a small detail John didn't linger on for long.

"Sorry to dissapoint doll, but I'm not here to confess my sins." John quips back, finding a small surge of bravado to hold onto as he straightens his back and looks down at them. A frown wipes away their smile and John feels uneasy under their glare.

"Then what? What could you possibly be here for?" Nadine snaps, the aggression and irritation the same as it always was when he refused them. He should be more afraid, should have flinched at their quick spark of anger but instead he softens. Amidst the anger is always floating specks of rejection and hurt and John can't help but want to take back his words and say something else.

But he can't. His family needs him.

Nadine needs him. He thinks he might need Nadine.

He shakes his head, begging the intrusive thoughts to leave him alone so he can section Nadine back into the bad guy box with their siblings and be at peace. But life's not that easy and not so black and white, no matter if Joseph or Remiel wanted to beleive it was.

"Bath." John can't think of any other lie and he feels embarrassed as Nadine's brows furrow and they stare at him in confusion.

"I was going to wait until you left and have a bath." John expands the lie, hoping it was close enough to being somewhat believable. Nadine looks unimpressed.

"I see." The mutter plainly. John is just relieved they beleive him.

Until they're moving again and reaching out their hand to tuck a loose strand of his hair back into place. John's face is on fire, their hand grades his forehead for a second and John can feel his mind racing.

"You do look like you crawled out of a cave this morning." Nadine hums, eyes dragging over him from head to toe and leaving him feeling vulnerable and bare even though he was well armed and fully clothed. They turn and walk away, back to their ranch and John tries desperately to ignore the cold empty feeling they leave in their wake.

"You can use the bath, I've got no where to be however so if you plan on waiting me out you may be here a long while." Nadine walks effortlessly back into their home, not turning back once and leaving the door wide open for him.

The only thing left for him to do was make a decision.

[house-of-holmes-blog]

"What Have You Done?" (Chapter 1) by Em

A heart-breaking emotional fanfiction in the works by one of our founding members and the creator of the group chat that started everything. Thank you, Em.

If you enjoy her work, you can find her AO3 account at the link below:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownpourOfFeels/pseuds/DownpourOfFeels

Blurb: Sherlock sneaks off to a drug den to get high; but as he trips, Moriarty escapes from his mind and comes out to play. Will John and Mycroft get there in time to save him?

Themes: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Mary Morstan/John Watson, Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes, Jim Moriarty, Rosamund Watson, Substance Abuse, Drug Overdose, Mind Palace, Blood and gore, Angst, Emotional hurt/comfort, Ambiguous relationships, Dark Sherlock, Suffering.

Rating: E (Explicit)

READ BELOW THE CUT:

Chapter One: "Sand Falling Through an Hourglass"

Sherlock presses the needle into his arm. It doesn’t hurt like it normally does; there’s just a sharp sting, a prick that lasts a moment, and then it’s done.

He slumps backwards on the mattress and lets his head fall against the damp brick wall behind him. It shouldn’t take long before the drugs start to take effect. He’s taken a higher dosage than normal - a whole 5 percent more.

Enough to knock him out completely, he hopes.

As he starts to drift off guilt gnaws away at his insides and snakes around his stomach like a deadly disease. What will happen to John if he doesn’t make it? To Mycroft? Will they blame him?

He groans and pushes the thoughts away. Not now, he thinks, please not now.

The air is so damp that it clings to his chest, making his forehead bead with cold sweat. He fumbles at his shirt, tries to undo it, but fails as his vision begins to cloud over; blurring as the world wavers in and out of focus. He can’t tell if he’s relieved or distraught. His brain puts up the usual struggle, tries to fight back. Wrestling with the inevitable like a wild animal that’s being smothered by a blanket.

He moans and convulses as the drugs begin to take effect. They make him swallow air and gasp frantically as he loses control over his nerve actions. It’s like his mind is finally backing into a corner, being forced to shut down. Trapped.

He hopes no one finds him here. He deliberately chose a place he’s never been, somewhere so far across town that it’s almost out of London. He can’t get caught. They won’t understand if he does, won’t listen.

He unclenches his fists and lets his head slump forward as the final wave of drowsiness overtakes him.

“John…” he moans softly as he slips into the dark world of unconsciousness. “ Please …”

***

John wakes to the sound of a baby screaming. It’s Rosamund. His baby.

“Ugh…” Mary shifts in the sheets beside him. “I’ll get it.”

John grumbles a word of thanks before pulling the covers over his arm and rolling over onto his chest, listening as the sound of his wife’s footsteps recede to the hallway. The night is still young, and only the dull orange light from street lamp outside illuminates the room. Silence swarms around him. He finds his gaze fixed on the shadows lying still on the floor, outlines cast by the furniture. For a moment he thinks he sees one of them move but then dismisses it. Why isn’t he sleeping?

Sherlock.

Butterflies flutter softly in his stomach. He’s probably fine, he thinks. Probably slumped in bed or passed out on the sofa after spending hours composing on the violin. Or perhaps he’s out on a case, tracking down a criminal with Lestrade. He’ll be fine, John tells himself, repeating the words again and again in his head until he forgets how many times he’s said them.

But it still doesn’t make him believe it.

It’s extraordinary how much he finds himself missing Baker Street; the stories of the clients, the hustle and bustle of Mrs Hudson, the faint sound of the London traffic echoing off the walls. It’s too quiet here. He longs for the cases; for the adrenaline that used to pump through his veins, the midnight pursuits. He wants more than anything to be back with the man with a nightmare of a personality and a charming smile…

It’s strange because the feeling has only come back again recently, a couple of weeks after Sherlock’s return. Before that John was actually moving on, progressing, finding alternatives. Rebuilding his life with Mary.

But he can’t have both of them. He can’t .

He exhales loudly through his nose and stares up at the ceiling. He’s wide awake now, and a sick feeling has settled in the pit his stomach. What if Sherlock isn’t fine? What if he’s lying in an alleyway, bleeding out from a gunshot wound? What if he’s had a row with Mycroft, or is thinking about Irene? What if he’s fallen victim to temptation.....?

John sits up on his elbows and reaches for his phone.

No new messages.

He sighs and flops back down again, his head falling heavily against the pillow.

Will he ever stop worrying about this?

***

Mycroft sits at his desk and scrolls endlessly on his phone. Emails, emails. All the same, just packaged differently. Familiar names and places - occasionally new ones - swapped around endlessly like players on a monopoly board. Each message is a different disaster to deal with, a new crisis to sooth and unravel.

It’s hard to describe what he actually does - there’s just so much to it; shutting people up, forcing them to talk. Switching certain goods to different locations. Exchanging dark words to mindless MP’s on the phone. Everything.

He’s the one that calms all the government fuck ups - orders them out. Finds each one and untangles it neatly before hiding it away far from the public’s view. It’s work that never stops. Dots that don’t stay connected. A task that always needs to be re-assembled.

He sits back in his desk chair and rakes a tired hand through his hair. He should sleep. He needs to be up again in less than 5 hours.

His phone suddenly flashes on the desk in front of him. Anthea.

CCTV just picked Sherlock up in an alleyway in Croydon. Verify?

Mycroft’s stomach twists, and his fingers start to twitch involuntarily. Sherlock hasn’t got a case on at the moment - not to his knowledge - and intelligence is showing that John and Lestrade are both asleep at their separate addresses. Irene is not in the country, and Moriarty is dead.

Croydon? So far from central London. An alleyway?

He fumbles with his phone and types a message as quickly as he can manage, his fingers blurring as they rush across the screen.

Denied. Send me the footage and call for a car immediately. M *** Sherlock floats in and out of consciousness ceaselessly. His limbs are limp, spiritless, and there’s saliva leaking from the corner of his mouth and drooling down his chin. At one point he collapses onto his side. He knows he’s gurgling rubbish, groaning loudly about the one person he really shouldn’t. But it doesn’t matter, this place is empty anyway.

His mind feels white and vacant.

Like an empty room. There’s no thoughts, no talking. Just wide expanses of blank space.

He loves this part.

Because he’s done it. He’s switched off. Numbed the pain so that nothing remains. It’s just him and a wonderful emptiness. A mind that has slowed to a near standstill, what most people would probably consider normal.

See, no one understands what's it's like to live like this - not even Mycroft.

His whole life he’s had to suffer a constant background noise; a glaring buzz that’s impossible to switch off, not even for a moment. 

But he’s done it now.

He tries to open his eyes but feels them rolling backwards. With great effort he shifts so that he’s lying flat on the mattress, and tries to gather the strength to rip apart the remaining buttons on his shirt. Because, although it’s cold in here - he’s hot. So hot he’s sweating all over. Moisture is soaking through his clothes, seeping onto and into the mattress. It’s the only thing ruining this actually, it’s-

He doesn’t normally sweat this much.

There’s a tug from somewhere deep within him. A horrible lurching in his stomach that indicates something is wrong. He feels his conscience fighting back; contracting the emptiness, the white room, shrinking it down in size. He can only form one thought. And it’s not a good one to start a high-dosage trip with.

What if five percent was too much?

***

John wakes to someone shaking him. Someone pushing and pulling at his shoulders. Hard.

“Huh? Mary?”

“John wake up, your-”

“Uh,” John tries to flush the drowsiness from his brain. “Right, Rosie again, my turn-”

“No.” Mary snaps. “Not her, your phone-”

“What? Oh.”

John shakes himself awake sharply and sits upwards. His phone is flashing and vibrating on the dresser beside him. He grasps for it clumsily.

“Hello?”

“John? It’s Mycroft.”

“Mycroft…?” John mumbles, his voice thick with sleep. “Jesus what time is it?”

“2.39am. Now get dressed immediately and get in the car waiting for you outside. Don’t bring Mary. I’ll meet you there. See you-”

“Wait-” John’s head is spinning. The sick feeling in his stomach has intensified to uncharted territory. He feels like he’s in a daze. Is he dreaming?

“What do you mean? Where am I meeting you? What’s going on?”

“Sherlock.” The elder Holmes responds darkly. “I’ve got an intuition. Hurry.”

He hangs up before John gets the chance to reply.

***

Mycroft sits back into the cool leather seats of the car and waits as his phone downloads the CCTV footage. It seems to take forever; the percent ticking upwards slower than he can physically bear. It’s torture.

It finally comes through.

The video is black and white, grainy, and moves by the frame. An image of a dimly lit alleyway flickers slowly. He’s got to give Anthea credit for identifying Sherlock with this quality of footage.

The alleyway remains empty for a few seconds before a man with a long dark coat and a rumpled white shirt stumbles from a metal door on the left - likely the back of a club. His coat collar is up, and his scarf is hanging loosely around his neck. His hair is stuck together in clumps.

He looks worse than Mycroft’s ever seen him.

As he staggers closer to the camera it’s clear this is far more serious than Mycroft first expected. It’s like a heavy weight has been dropped through him, sinking into his chest. He suddenly finds it very difficult to breathe.

Because his brother is as white as a ghost, a sickly pale. His cheekbones look hollowed out and angular. There’s puffy white bags under his eyes.

How could Mycroft have missed this? How did he let his own brother slip under the radar?

Sherlock looks like he’s going to overdose. In fact, Mycroft is sure of it.

He tries desperately to stop the world from turning upside-down in his head and uses an intelligence database to get the locations of all the nearest drug hotspots. There’s one fifteen minutes away from where Sherlock was last seen. Five.

Within seconds he’s got an address.

***

This has never happened before.

As the minutes tick by Sherlock starts to feel the tables turning, like sand draining through an hourglass. Slowly but surely he starts to slip from heaven to hell. To the darkest corners of his mind. To where the demons are waiting with blood red eyes and snarling teeth.

And it’s one person who controls them all.

Moriarty infects his dreams like a slow acting disease, a cancer. A black poison that corners him from all directions. Snakes under his feet like a python, slide through his hair like smoke. Soon he’s everywhere.

It all starts with a laugh; a silent cackle that gradually gets louder and louder until suddenly it’s so deafening that it's threatening to burst his eardrums.

“No!” Sherlock gasps, his body jolting as his knees contract towards his chest. “Not you.” Tears begin to squeeze from the corners of his eyes.

Did you miss me?

“Please, no!” Sherlock begs, the words falling from his mouth in a jumbled blur, echoing loudly off the empty concrete walls. “Leave me. Leave me alone!”

But shouting only seems to make it worse, and his mind decides to crank up the tricks. He suddenly sees Moriarty’s pale face flash before his eyes, far too close. There’s bright red blood leaking from his mouth and dribbling down his chin. His eyes are completely black, bottomless pits. And when he grins, there's parts of a human heart in his mouth.

I’m gonna burn the heart out of you.

Sherlock lets out a scream and thrashes his arms about frantically in front of his face. He coughs and splutters uncontrollably. He needs to make this stop. He can't handle this. He’ll do anything. Moriarty has never been able to penetrate this deep into his mind before. Never managed to get to him like this when he’s high.

You thought you’d got rid of me, didn’t you Sherlock?

Sherlock shakes and trembles, and has to bite down hard on the corners of his mouth to stop himself from calling out. The metallic taste of blood floods his taste buds. He feels like he’s drowning in it.

“You’re dead,” he whines, the words as loud as he can manage. “You shot yourself, I watched you. I watched you-” He breaks off into a yell as another spasm takes control of his body, causing his chest to jerk upwards.

The laughter floods his ears again.

Dead? Sure. Whatever you want to believe Sherlock, but you know I’ll always be here. Corrupting your dreams, altering your thoughts. It’s the memory that matters now you see, your imagination will do the rest. So brilliant, isn’t it?

“Ah,” Sherlock gags as the image of Jim lying in a bath of scarlet red blood penetrates his mind, tainting his senses. He feels Jim whispering into his ear, the sensation causing tingles to spark down his spine and making him want to retch. He shifts on the mattress.

The best bit is Sherlock, what cure is there? What cure is there for insanity? Meds don’t work on you…you’re resistant to most of them. It looks like even drugs don’t work anymore, I’ve found my way through them too!

Sherlock’s whole body starts to tremble.

What was that one thing that did help? You know, the one thing you loved most that I destroyed?

“Don’t say his name!” Sherlock babbles. “Please. That stuff is private. Get. Out. Of. My. Head.”

Oh it was John wasn’t it. The little army soldier. Like a lion but more loyal. Why isn’t he by your side again?

“You!” Sherlock rasps, his voice cracking as he struggles for breath. He twists and shudders on his back; eyes darting rapidly back and forth behind his fluttering eyelids. “You made me leave. And he found-”

That’s right Sherlock. He’s with Mary now, and aren’t they cute together? It’s just gonna be you and me from now on. Together until the end. Because there’s no one coming to help you. You’re gonna die here tonight, in this disgusting slimy drug den, with the syringe by your side and the image of me in your head. You picked a good spot actually. No one can hear you. Was that so you could moan helplessly about John? Well, he’s not coming Sherlock. No one is coming to the rescue. It’s just you and me now...you and me...

***

The journey feels like forever, because it is. They get held up by a truck and are set back thirty minutes at least. Thirty whole tortuous minutes that John has to spend going crazy in the back of a car. He’s actually losing his mind. He wants to cry, to throw up, to kick something.

He won’t be able to handle it if Sherlock dies. Not for the third time. Especially not when he awoke with that feeling earlier and carelessly ignored it.

He. Won’t. Cope.

He speaks on the phone to Mycroft for roughly ten minutes. They formulate a plan: Locate Sherlock, assess what drugs he’s taken, and then get him into an ambulance and try and keep him conscious. If he’s taken a syringe there will be nothing else they can do.

The car finally skids to halt outside a large run-down Victorian building a few streets away from the main road. It’s got faded red brickwork and slanting window ledges. There’s graffiti on the walls. All the glass is smashed through. He practically leaps from the car and makes off down the path towards the doorway; red hot adrenaline pumping through his veins, fueling his system. He feels absolutely nothing other than the desire to run, the need to seek Sherlock out and help him immediately.

To save his life.

***

“John?” Mycroft presses the phone to his ear. The metal feels cold and unnatural against his skin. His fingers are already going pink. His breath is coming out in clouds in front of him. “John are you here?”

“I’m coming, by the stairs now, which floor?”

“Second.” Mycroft doesn't bother to hide the fact that he’s panting and wheezing. He’s climbed the stairs and now he finds himself stood in a large empty hallway. The whole building is absorbed by the smell of damp concrete and cobwebs. It’s pitch black. The only light he’s got is the torch from his phone.

“Sherlock?” he calls.

But nothing other than the sound of his own voice echoes back at him.

Then heavy footsteps, a hand on his shoulder.

“John,”

The army doctor is red in the face and panting hard, but he has a better torch at least. He doesn’t even stop to look Mycroft in the eye.

“This way,” he says suddenly. “I heard something.”

They dart through a wooden door to their left. Even in the dark, Mycroft can tell it’s a sizable room, with high ceilings and moonlight streaming in from bay windows at either end.

He holds his breath as John comes to a halt beside him and scans the walls with his torch. There’s nothing, just tattered remains of mattresses, beer bottles, litter, and then-

“Oh my god.”

All the blood drains from Mycroft’s body.

*** John dashes forwards. Sherlock is lying face up on a mattress in the corner of the room. He’s shaking uncontrollably, hands trembling at his sides. John’s first thought is that he’s having a seizure. He’s never seen anyone so drenched in their own sweat.

“Sherlock! Oh my god, oh god, what have you taken, what-”

His best friend jolts at his approach, groaning loudly before producing a stream of inaudible noises. His eyes flicker open and shut again. His body contracts and then relaxes. Blood leaks from the corner of his mouth. He’s never looked so pale.

“Oh my god,” John drops instinctively to his knees, fumbling for his friend's pulse, but Mycroft suddenly comes up behind him and pushes him roughly out the way. He starts to search frantically through Sherlock’s pockets, as if his life depended on it.

“Where’s the list?” he mumbles.

“What?”

“WHERE’S THE LIST?!”

John collapses backwards. He’s never heard Mycroft yell before.

“What list?” he cries, his voice laced with panic. “I don’t understand?!”

“The list.” Mycroft repeats, his hands still scurrying all over the ground near Sherlock, searching blindly in the darkness. “We have an agreement you see, that every time he overdosed he would write a list. A list of everything he’s taken. It makes things easier when - WHY CAN’T I FIND IT?!”

John forces air to inflate his lungs. He shuffles so he's back at Sherlock's side; placing his hands on the detective's flaming cheeks to try and calm his movements, but as he does so he accidentally nudges something light with his foot.

“Wait Mycroft! Is it this?” He holds up a damp ball of crumpled paper.

Mycroft snatches it from his hands. He places the torch between his teeth and unravels it as fast as he can without making it rip.

“Oh my…” The words get mumbled with the torch in his mouth. He drops it to the floor and pulls out his phone to call an ambulance.

John moves back to Sherlock’s side and starts to carry out the same medical procedure he would on any patient. He checks his pulse, rapid and sporadic. He tries to put him in the recovery position, but Sherlock refuses to keep still. He groans and yells, his limbs shaking immensely. His murmurs are starting to form sentences. He seems to be arguing with someone, but John can’t tell who.

“Sherlock!” John palms at his best friend’s forehead, at his cheeks, at his chest. “Can you hear me? Listen, I need you to stay conscious. I know you’re fighting this but you need to keep going, for me Sherlock. For John, I’m here.”

The sickening sound of a sob breaks out from somewhere behind him. Mycroft has finished on the phone, and is sat back on his heels. John doesn't need to shine the torch to know there’s tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Christ Sherlock...” he whispers, staring down gravely at his brother. “What have you done?”