Hallucination

Sebastian Moran had known what he was doing when he kidnapped Sherlock, pumped him full of cocaine, and dropped him back on the doorstep of Baker Street, leaving him in John’s capable hands. Sherlock seemed euphoric, his eyes wide, his pupils blown, nearly swallowing his ice blue irises completely with black. John gritted his teeth, knowing that this was not Sherlock's doing, and pulled the man off the front steps, leading him into their flat.

“I really am sorry,” Sherlock said, flapping his free hand around and around, letting John pull him up the seventeen steps by his arm. “I knew you wouldn’t be too happy with me, and I really did tell him to stop, I even tried to fight him, but he’s got steel-toed boots and they don’t feel very good, so I couldn’t stop him. Too busy trying to catch my breath,” Sherlock rambled on, his gaze darting around their flat as if everything looked different to him. John stopped abruptly, Sherlock running into him with a soft “Oof!” just a second later.

“Steel-toed boots?” John said quietly, turning back to look at Sherlock. The man nodded, his gaze still wandering the room, his free hand flitting nervously around his ribs.

“He gave me a few good kicks in the ribs. Now that I think about it,” Sherlock said, frowning slightly, “I’m having a little bit of trouble breathing. Is that bad?” He tapped his chin for a few seconds before shrugging. “It’s probably fine. What do you think, John?” Taking a deep breath, John closed his eyes for a few seconds before turning fully to Sherlock, unbuttoning his shirt.

Christ, I hate drugged up Sherlock, he isn’t himself.

John gritted his teeth when he saw the bruises littering the skin over Sherlock’s too prominent ribs, and he skimmed his fingers lightly over the purple and blue splotches, clearing his throat to push down the emotions he could feel building in this throat. Sherlock hummed and placed his hands on John’s shoulders, drumming his fingers slightly. “I like that John,” he said, squeezing John’s shoulders lightly before continuing his drumming. “It’s comfortable. Nice. Soft. Not too much.” He was mumbling now, a happy smile on his face. John’s insides twisted uncomfortably as he placed his hand in the small of Sherlock’s back, pushing him gently towards the bedroom.

“C’mon love, let’s get you in bed, it’ll be better if you sleep it off. I can get you some painkillers in the morning,” John said softly. Sherlock let out a soft whine in complaint, but didn’t stop walking with John.

“I don’t need sleep right now, John, I need to solve cases! Or hug you, but my skin feels a little prickly right now, so maybe not until that stops,” Sherlock said, stumbling into bed, rubbing his face against the silky sheets. “Actually, this feels nice. I think I’ll lay here for a while.” John tried to hide his grimace with a pained smile, and he turned the lights off before shutting the door and letting out a deep sigh.

It wasn’t even five minutes later when the screaming began.

“John!” Sherlock shouted, genuine fear lacing his voice. John was out of his seat and bursting through Sherlock’s door in seconds, eyebrows furrowing when he was met with only Sherlock sitting up in bed, covered in sweat. His hands were clenched tightly in the sheets and his chest was heaving, his face pale.

“John, help me, he’s in here, he’s in the corner, he’s going to kill us!” Sherlock said, scrambling even closer to the headboard of his bed, eyes never leaving the corner. John took a few tentative steps into the room, hands outstretched towards Sherlock.

“Sherlock, shhh, calm down for me, please. Who’s in the corner?” Sherlock turned his panicked gaze toward John for a second before looking back to the corner, his body trembling.

“Can’t you see? It’s Moriarty, he’s here, he has a gun, he’s laughing and laughing and laughing and he won’t shut up and he’s going to kill us! Can’t you hear him?” Sherlock said, his voice broken and full of fear. John inched even further towards him till he was close enough to touch Sherlock’s shoulder. The detective jerked away at the , a shudder moving through his entire body.

“Don’t touch me! There are spiders all over my body, crawling, biting, and the room smells like blood! I don’t like it! I hate it! I don’t want to die!” Sherlock wailed, curling into a ball, his head hiding behind his knees. John ached to touch him, to comfort him, to pull him close, but he didn’t. He only sat next to Sherlock on the bed, tears of his own starting to leak down his cheeks.

“We’ll face him, together Sherlock. And we’ll win,” John said, hoping to whatever being out there that the hallucination would end soon, or it would soon wear Sherlock out to exhaustion.

The latter won over, in the end.