Loyal (Johnlock)

Found (Sherlock's POV)

A.N: I just wanted to share this cute pic with all you wonderful little mongooses! (That's what you are now, my mongooses- you can't escape this). The art is not mine- creds go to the real artist who did not sign this nor give any signs of ownership over this fluffy drawing. Anywho- thanks for reading!! A few more votes would be nice...as long as you think I have earned them!

"Right under my nose, right under my nose," I continued to mumble the words beneath my breath. Sasha had dropped me off at an old bookstore, refusing any money and instead making me take a card with her number and name on it- in case I needed help. The rain was slowing down, but it was still falling.

"Bloody precipitation! How long do you have to fall!" I grumbled as I paced the soggy sidewalk in front of the bookstore.

"John would like this place, its cozy and secluded. They even serve tea and different toast." I thought to myself, momentarily off of the very dire topic of his whereabouts. "Too bad he'll never see it..." a dark voice slithered in, rocking me to my core.

"Shut up! I'll find him!" I growled.

"Will you? Really? It's been, how long? Weeks? Are you any closer to getting your precious doctor back? He's probably happier with Moriarty anyway." The voice chuckled as it swirled around.

"Shut. Up. You. Bloody. Idjit." I hissed, clutching my head between my hands. The voice was wandering around my mind palace, the owner of the voice hiding inside a maze of my own making.

"Truth hurts, eh?" He slipped past Redbeard's door, me close on his tail. I sat down in the real world, leaning against the glass wall of the bookstore. I managed to plop right down into a puddle, but I couldn't care less as I fell into my own mind.

"It isn't true! I will find him, and I'll destroy you well I'm at it."

"Oh, Sherly, surely you know you can't do that. You're sitting on your ass in the rain!" I ignored the pun, as if I hadn't heard that one before.

"I'm chasing you around- you might be a piece I've been missing."

"Like your heart? You've never had one." The voice was oddly familiar, but, of course that should've been expected. A mind palace is created solely out of places you've already been, which goes to reason that voices and people would follow this same law of mental houses.

"A human can't live without a heart." I reasoned.

"So literal, as usual." I finally saw the heel of the speaker as he turned a corner and started down some stairs. I stopped dead at the top of the stairs, they lead down to Moriarty's cell.

"Come back up here." I called out, not wanting to risk going down there and facing Moriarty or confronting my own bleeding and battered heart.

"Scared, Sherly?" The figure's voice sang up the stairwell, rebounding off the walls and growing impossibly louder.

"I've never-" suddenly I felt like I was torn out of my palace. Something slapped against my cheek, causing my head to turn and bang into the glass wall I was leaning on. I was ripped back into reality. I spluttered and tried to back up, stopped by the wall. My butt was frozen and my jeans soaked through. A fat old man kneeled in front of me. I blinked once or twice before closing my gaping mouth. The man had grizzled gray hair covering the edges of his head and creating a sharp looking and pointed beard. Half moon glasses were perched on his nose, streaked from the rain. He wore a button up, green plaid shirt with sweatpants. His thin and chapped lips were pulled back into a gnarled grin. One eye was sealed shut and a scar ran across it.

"Knew that had to work." His voice was nasally and thin, very different from what his build would suggest.

"What?" I stupidly inquired, still out of it from being so harshly yanked out of my mind palace.