Failing Upward

Chapter 17 (part 2): Promises to Keep

She reached in and pulled out the syringe; I fixed my eyes on the needle emptying into my IV.

As it dripped in, a warmth spread up through my arm to my heart, and then in red hot ribbons the serum coursed through the rest of my body. I tasted the roses in the back of my throat, and my cock hardened. A stiff prick and a catheter— not on my list of turn ons. It pulled. My eyelids became heavy and my heart wanted Sherlock. I whispered his name.

Molly checked my pulse again.

I was dizzy and the lights exploded in my head just like in the garden. And like then, I lost consciousness and an artificiality tainted the high but I still dreamed ...

I was back in Sherlock's apartment. It was our first night together, and Sherlock's chicken casserole dish clattered from my hands to the table. Vanilla candles and cinnamon spice filled the room. Sherlock had me pressed down on the dining room table, digging my backside into its edge. He sucked on my tongue trapped between his teeth. I groaned. Instead of pulling back this time, he reached for my jeans, and I whimpered into his mouth. I let him push me flat onto the table. He released my tongue.

I had another chance. I told him now. This time, I whispered, "I love you" into his ear.

Then suddenly we were in the garden, my jeans thrown aside in the dirt. I knew this was just a dream, but it felt so real, so good. Sherlock erotic sweat the seeped through my pores. I told him how much I loved him, weeping into his neck. I hoped he heard me in his dreams. I wanted to both be safe and back together.

Then came a knock and a cold jolt, like a bucket of water to the face. I sprang from a dead sleep to wide awake, feeling sick and abandoned.

Although I really didn't need to see to know, I opened my eyes. Moriarty stood next to my bed, moving the covers off me. His face, a young man's face. His hands, a young man's hands. He was completely healed — on the outside. His eyes revealed his inner sickness, a teeming mass of depravity.

He leered at me. My dream had left me a mess. I regretted that I couldn't make my body disappear down into this unforgiving mattress.

"Don't touch him," Molly spoke up. It was the second time today I wanted to kiss her. He ignored her completely, and I flinched as Moriarty flicked my nipple. Another hand snatched his and tore it away.

"That's enough," he said.

Until that instant, I didn't recognize him with his head down and in the scrubs, but he looked at me now with all the regret of a condemned man.

Peter Deal.

Molly was on the other side of the bed, and she pulled the sheet and blanket back up under my chin. I really did feel like kissing her.

"It's not enough. We need to know what he can do. Test him," Moriarty said.

"That's not a test," Deal said. "And it's exactly what I said would negate my agreement with The Community."

Hate is a destructive force. But there's also something to be said about how it can give a hopeless man a purpose. I sure had one.

"I don't believe this," I said. "You backstabbing dick!"

Moriarty smiled like a five-year-old with a bag of candy. His pleasure over my displeasure made him shine like a thousand red candles. Deal, on the other hand, looked like he'd executed his best friend. In a way, I guess he had.

"You're always so slow, Johnny," Moriarty beamed. "He's been with us from the start. Do keep up." He adjusted my bed so that I was sitting.

"What's the matter?" I laughed at Moriarty. "Poor Jimmy! I'm so sorry. My super-serum will never be enough. Know why? Because no matter what you do every morning you're going to wake up, look between those scrawny legs and still have that itty-bitty penis."