It's Not A Game Anymore

Chapter eight

Sally's first text comes in exactly fifteen minutes after she leaves the inn, just as he gets Connor settled and sleeping soundly against his side:

Your brother's a wanker.

He snorts into Connor's hair, but another one buzzes a moment later:

But he loves you.

He rolls his eyes and tries not to make a disgusted sound, lest he wake the child still curled up next to him.

He opens a new message and begins to type, because even though John's phone is in a clear plastic evidence bag downstairs, he needs to say some things. And he needs to say them to John, in the only way he knows how.

You've been gone

for three hours and

forty-seven minutes.

It's hateful. - SH

xxxxxx

He hasn't been in this much pain since he blinked his eyes open in a drunk tank to find Sherlock passed out on the only cot the cinderblock cell had to offer. Didn't even bother to budge over, the selfish git.

He groans and his head lolls to the side (seated upright then, hands tight behind his back, feet tied at the ankles to the chair he sits upon). His fingers are numb, so he's been bound for a while. Two hours, at least. Probably more. He won't be able to move his shoulder when he's released.

If he's released.

He finally opens his eyes (sluggish movements, blurry vision, probable concussion) and blesses the low-level lighting. It's a warehouse of some sort – dilapidated and neglected, metal walls rusted together and rotting insulation growing mold by the pound. The air is humid yet cold, each inhalation lacking in the oxygen he so desperately needs. That could also be the broken ribs talking.

Something in the corner catches his eye, though, and he squints in the dark, finally making out three pairs of eyes staring back at him. Three children, dirty, but healthy. They're quiet – eerily so for how young they are – and John wonders briefly what the punishment is for disobedience. He finds he'd rather not know.

"Fuck," he whispers, tongue barely forming the word. His lips are wet with saliva and the coppery taste of blood. It runs down his chin to drip on his already stained jumper.

"Ah, Dr. Watson, lovely of you to join us," a voice says and he waits until the man walks around into his field of vision before sitting opposite him, elbows propped on his knees like they're having afternoon tea.

"The ice cream shop," John murmurs.

"Yes, the ice cream shop. Very good. Smarter that you look," the man replies and John doesn't know why Pretty damn smart then comes unbidden to his mind. Perhaps something Sherlock said once. Yes, once while coming out of a drug-induced stupor on a plane that was John's damnation and then salvation in entirely too quick a succession.

The man snaps his fingers and John realizes he's been drifting. His vision focuses as much as it can on his captor – he's gray, but not nearly as old as he appeared in the shop. He doesn't look as kindly as he did then either, returning the most precious of items to them. It was probably John's relief and Sherlock's panic that made them blind to the clues in front of them, but then love is like that. It's a pair of rose-tinted glasses that make the world a warmer place.

"Tell me about Mr. Sherlock Holmes," the man says and John smiles. It contains no humor.

"No."

He instructs his body not to tense up a second before the fist collides with his temple.