To the Ends of this Earth

Chapter Five

John stood frozen to the spot, he'd only met Moriarty once before and that time he'd strapped a live bomb to his chest. He raised his gun and aimed it straight between Moriarty's black eyes, he wasn't gonna let him do that again.
"Oh ho John, I wouldn't do that," he said in a vaguely sing-songy tone. He stopped moving forward and put his hands in his pockets.
John blinked, inclined his head and shuffled a little bit trying to look less afraid. "What do you want?"
"John I just want to have some fuuun, quit being such a spoil sport would you." Moriarty's voice was unnerving, seemingly nonchalant but carrying an undertone of violence.
"I'm only going to ask one more time," said John, adjusting his aim, "What do you want?"
"Oh alright, you win. I'll tell you what I'm going to do if you put the gun on the pavement."
John laughed without humour, "Yeah right, how about you tell me what you're gonna do or I'll blow your head off."
Moriarty did a slow motion shrug, closing his eyes at the top of it. He pursed his lips into a downward frown, "I guess you'll just find out." Moriarty snapped his fingers and turned back into the empty doorway that gaped like the maw of a sleeping beast.
John stood there, confused, what was going on? Suddenly he found out. There were fast footsteps behind him, he turned to aim his gun at whoever was coming but they were too fast. One man swiftly disarmed John with two quick blows to his forearm, and the other grabbed John around the torso and proceeded to stuff a sickly-sweet smelling cloth in John's face. He struggled, he knew what the smell was, it was chloroform. The two men pinned Watson to the ground and held the cloth over his face, muffling his cries for Sherlock. He was struggling to much for them to get a good grip on him, he thought maybe if he could get his fists up he could - suddenly there was the jarring feeling of a fist meeting his right cheek and he fell still, the world exploded with stars and everything was ringing. The men covered his mouth with the cloth and he could do nothing to stop his fast coming sleep.
"Well, that took you longer than it should've," said Moriarty materializing again from the shadows. He had been watching the whole time. "Let's go then lads, wouldn't want ol' Sherl to find us here with his most prized possession!"

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Sherlock knew something wasn't quite right but he was busy now, he needed just a few more minutes of reconnaissance before he could go get John and they could enter silently. He regretted not scoping out this building before, but it was too late, he'd have to do it now.
He climbed silently up to a second story window and peered inside, it was empty. Sherlock was confused, this was where they should have been. It looked like the room had been empty for years, but there was one thing missing that couldn't disguise the fact that it had been occupied, and recently - dust. There was no dust in the room, anywhere. Sherlock allowed himself a grin but it was quickly followed by a frown, they should have been here. He hopped down, and headed back to tell John, but he still couldn't cover the feeling that something wasn't quite right, that he'd missed something important. Sherlock stopped and closed his eyes, what was he missing?
He went through all the evidence again: Two dead bodies, poisoned of course, it wasn't really a suicide -the participants had resigned themselves to it. The case had caught Sherlock's attention immediately, that was strange, so it must have been planned so that it would. That meant Moriarty. Sherlock had decided that it was time to go to this warehouse. He'd known about it for some time but he never had an occasion to risk revealing to Moriarty that he knew about it. Everything seemed planned though, and Sherlock still didn't know why he wanted Sherlock's attention, what was the point?
Suddenly everything snapped into focus when a small sound passed him, caught in the wind. A muffled yell, it was John.
Sherlock felt like his heart had stopped, no, he should have seen. How cloud he have missed this? This couldn't be happening, not John, not again. His heart suddenly launched into full scale throbbing, and he broke out into a cold sweat, he needed to get back there, he needed to save John. If anything happened to him, he could never forgive himself. John didn't know how he felt about him, he didn't know how much he needed him around. John was the one thing in his life that was solid, that he could count on, that gave him comfort without even saying a word. Looking into John's eyes was like coming home, like being wrapped in the feeling of security.
Sherlock's feet were flying by the time he rounded the corner where he'd left John. The alley was empty, Sherlock's heart dropped, whoever was here had been gone at least five minutes. He felt like the world was imploding, not John, not his John. Sherlock crumpled onto the pavement, his heart felt like it had vanished leaving a cold, but white hot empty space. He didn't realize he was crying at first, he didn't realize that he was shaking, until a strangled sob escaped his throat. It couldn't be true, it couldn't be John. What if they hurt him? What if they killed him? Sherlock would be broken, he wouldn't be able to put himself back together. He shouldn't have let this happen, caring was a disadvantage and it was blatantly clear now as he struggled to form a coherent thought that didn't involve his friend.
But was he just his friend? He pictured the way John looked at him, he pictured the huge pupils and the racing heartbeat that Sherlock could practically hear. It washed over him like a wave, John. Oh John, why hadn't he seen it before? Now it could be too late, too late to tell him that he felt exactly the same way.

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I'll just leave this here...

xx
-Johnlox