Sherlock brings the sordid affair to a final conclusion.

Chapter Five

Cool breeze swept through John's hair as he dashed straight out of Culverton Smith's house, clutching the odd prescription and back into the cab he came in. Smith had promised he'd be at 221B within the hour, while he had give John the task of procuring medicines from Chinatown. But he remembered what Sherlock had told him, and he knew he had to follow that.

"Baker Street!"

Sherlock had told him that Smith would try to send him away on some sort of medicine-gathering expedition, and that John mustn't listen to him, just come back to Baker Street and wait for Smith to treat him. But John knew Sherlock needed the remedy, so he clicked a picture of the prescription and sent it to the one person he trusted at this moment.

"Molly? Hey, this is John. Are you still at work?"

John trod up the steps to their flat, glad to see that it wasn't on fire. Yet. Mrs. Hudson came into view, looking absolutely frazzled. Seems Sherlock hadn't let her near him too. Suddenly it struck him that he had asked her to call the police and the ambulance, but nothing had arrived yet.

He reached the entrance to their flat and bent over, trying to catch his breath.

"Oh, John!" She cried out as she spotted him, "John, he's gone mad!" She clutched his shirt and started to weep into it. John hugged her back, trying his best to pat her head comfortingly.

"Mrs. Hudson, I don't know how you held him off. If it was me, we both would probably have been dead."

Sherlock was quiet now. He had his head down on the kitchen table, the gun still in his right hand, finger on the trigger. John gulped. The slightest thing could set him off. So he called his name softly, "Sherlock?"

Sherlock sprung into life and croaked, "John?" He looked worse than he had left him. Those grey eyes were bright with fever and bones were sticking out of his face, "Did you get him?"

"He's on his way over."

"Good," he remarked hoarsely. "Did you show him the picture?"

"Yes."

"Did he try to send you for medicines?"

"Yes."

"And he thinks you're on the quest he sent you?"

"Yes! Why would not think that?"

"Good, John. You've been too helpful. Mrs. Hudson, you can leave now. John's here, he'll take care of me," Sherlock panted, doubling over and coughing, "Stay away, John."

Sherlock started moving towards the sink and towards the drawing room, "Now John, these could be the most critical minutes of your life. . ."

Of course it bloody well is. You could die.

". . . so I mean it when I say that you must do exactly what I tell you to do."

When have I ever not?

"I will do everything but leave, Sherlock. Not just as your husband but also as a doctor. I have to wait and listen to his opinion."

"Of course, John, of course. There's just room behind the head of our bed. Do not move, do not speak, do not breathe, and most important, do not make any sound despite what you may hear. Just listen!"

John was nonplussed, "What the actual fuck, Sherlock?"

"Do what I say, John!" Sherlock gasped for breath. "I hear a car pull up. If you really love me. . . do this for me! Just listen!"

"At least put out the burner while you're at it, Sherlock!"

"No can do, John. . . The fire is incinerating the bacteria around me as I sneeze or cough. It's important. . . t-that it stays burning, ah-ugh!"

John shook his head and dragged his feet into their bedroom. He crawled under their bed and clapped a palm over his mouth as he waited with bated breath. He could barely hear Sherlock wheezing and coughing in the next room over his pounding heart. Sherlock only had hours, Smith had said. And to think he had it for more than a month, almost two months since Sherlock had contracted the disease from Elena Smith's case, and all John could keep thinking throughout was why he and Sherlock were not having sex? When did he become so selfish? To be so consumed by his own needs that he forgot about his other half?

And had he contracted it too?

He heard footsteps, loud and heavy. Smith was probably here. Another set of footsteps; these were lighter, hesitant, almost limp. Soon after, John could see Sherlock's feet now, wearing those Christmas-patterned socks that he had gifted him, and he felt a much-needed surge of warmth at that.

He could hear Sherlock wheezing and groaning and he climbed into their bed with a creak. The heavier footsteps stopped in their tracks.

"Mr. Holmes?" It was unmistakably Culverton Smith's voice in their doorway.

"Mr. Smith!" Sherlock rasped. "I didn't think you'd come!"

Smith's footsteps were cautious. They stopped in the living room, and then John heard cracks, as if Smith were walking on the broken glass pieces, "This apartment is a mess, Mr. Holmes!"

Sherlock cried out and subsided into a fit of dry coughing once again, "Is it? I tend not to notice these things."

"Oh look, you solved it!" There's an excited giggle from the drawing room, "Took you long enough!"

"Meh! My faculties weren't helped by this sickness."

"Excuses, Mr. Holmes, excuses! You know, I have to say this. I have been following you for a really long time and I've come to admire you. I really do!"

"How so?" Sherlock rasped. It was the hardest thing John had ever had to do. To stay helplessly hidden while his husband begged and croaked to a stranger who was maliciously taking his own time to see him.

The footsteps grew closer and John could see a silhouette, followed by the ruffling of a fluorescent yellow pair of legs: a hazmat suit.

"Even when you're dying, you still won't admit that you have been so, so stupid. But I'm here now, Mr. Holmes. All will be well."

Culverton Smith drew closer to the bed. John clenched his fists and his jaw.

"Help me," Sherlock implored, his voice almost a sob. "You're the only one who can."

"You really think so?" Smith sniggered.

"Yes. I-I know what's wrong!"

"You recognise the symptoms?"

"I do. I d-do! It's the same as them. It hurts. . . so much."

'Tsk, tsk, tsk, it's all okay, Mr. Holmes. I would be surprised if they weren't. . . Show me your forearms."

A rustle of fabric, and Smith emitted a noise that was equal parts joy and disgust, "Ee-yuck! Goodness, that's disturbing! That right here is stuff of nightmares. Good thing I got this hazmat, or this oozing pus would've shot me in the eye, ugh!"

"W-water! P-please, I need water," Sherlock choked.

"Sure, sure, Mr. Holmes. But I don't work for free. So. . ."

After a beat, Sherlock croaked, "How much money do you need?"

"Not money, Mr. Holmes. The only currency that I will accept today is privacy. So. . . "

"I-I don't know what you mean—"

"Come on! Do you really think I'm that stupid? Take our those devices or I will reach out and twist you in the places that hurt the most."

"Everything hurts," Sherlock croaked.

"It will hurt more."

John could hear some indistinct mumbling and then a loud, high-pitched beep.

"Recording device. How unoriginal!" Smith sighed. "Where are the others?"

"Search for yourself."

Smith groaned, "Oh, Mr. Holmes, why do you keep making things so difficult for me?"

There was suddenly a blast of really loud music as Smith set down what seemed like either a mobile phone or an MP3 player. Sherlock screeched instantly, "Stop this noise. Stop it, immediately!"

"There are about half a million Radiohead fans who would disagree with you," Smith jeered. "That's the thing about recording devices. They only pick up the loudest noises."

Sherlock was sobbing and, honest-to-God, Culverton Smith's right leg was so close to where John was hiding that it took all of his strength not to grab and pull him down and kill him and pull his guts out.

But Sherlock had told him he had to stay hidden.

"So, here we are, Mr. Holmes!" Smith crooned over the music, "Doesn't this song remind you of death?"

"Do what you c-can for me. Let bygones be bygones!" Even with the sounds, Sherlock was still audible, only barely, "Cure me, and I'll forget it!"

"Forget what?"

"About your crimes, Mr. Smith! Alejan-Alejandro, Mercedes, Anna, Sofia, Elena—"

"Elena was my mother!" He growled.

"And yet you didn't spare her!"

"You are an absolute fool, Sherlock Holmes!"

A gasp almost escaped John's mouth. That was why his name and his face was so familiar! His mother was Elena Smith. He had seen his name on his textbooks. He had seen his photograph in her house. He was the murderer. Sherlock had invited the devil into their home. Technically, John had invited him, a very Sherlock-ian voice in his mind intercepted.

"You think I'd hurt my own mother? She was the sweetest woman in the world. She was nothing like those lazy, greedy whores that wanted what was rightfully mine! I killed no one, Mr. Holmes. And neither did this disease. Like your scaredy-little husband described, they all went mad and their families killed them as mercy. I'm merely a carrier of the pathogen. Tell me, Mr. Holmes, if I sneeze and someone gets the flu because of me and dies, is that murder? Oh, no, no NO! That's not how the law works."

"Then what happened to me?!" Sherlock choked, his breathing now increasingly laborious, "I was so careful! Every culture I brew was sterile!" And then he subsided into another violent fit, "Water, please!"

Smith chuckled, "Okay, I'll humour you, just this once. There, there! Don't spill it all, you slob! You think you contracted the disease from the cultures?! Think, Mr. Holmes, think!"

"Ah. . . please!"

"Can't you remember any unusual incident in your life, just about the time your symptoms began?"

"It hurts. . . give me something for the pain at least!"

"Of course, you don't. You think you're so clever. I told you to back off, remember? Now cast your mind back! Did anything come by post, for instance?"

"I'm too ill!"

"Do it, man! Don't you remember the book?"

"What book?"

"The book that came through post. You opened it—do you remember?"

"Yes, yes, it was the Bible! I opened it! There was no stamp on the envelope—!"

"Oh course there wasn't, you fool! Who asked you to cross my path? If you had left me alone I would not have hurt you. You knew too much of the Forellis' fate, so I have sent you to share it! You are very near your end, Mr. Holmes. I didn't get to see them die, but thanks to you, I will sit here and I will watch my handiwork kill you slowly. By the time your plain husband arrives with the medicines, I will have declared you dead because he was too late!"

"But you have just confessed!"

"Oh, don't be silly! It's your word against mine. There's no evidence! There are no witnesses! Trust you, an overrated, obnoxious, public exhibitionist such as yourself, to build a case against me posthumously!"

Sherlock's voice had been reduced to an almost inaudible whisper.

"What's that. . . Your last wish? Very well. . . tell me what you want."

"I want to know. . . who killed your mother. . . "

"Tsk, tsk, tsk Mr. Holmes, one mustn't think of unpleasant thoughts while dying. But if you really want to know, he's at my house."

"Who?" Sherlock panted.

"Tito Sanchez, who else? The man you have been looking for. He will be killed by the very Bible that killed my mother."

"Tito had figured it out, hadn't he?"

"He knew of my profession. . . and he sent it to my address. My mother happened to open it."

"That's why you that's why you didn't send her the last letter, didn't you?"

John almost yelped in surprise. Sherlock's voice was back to normal, although still weak, but it was the same resolute baritone John was used to and loved so much. John had almost begun to carefully slide his right hand to where his revolver was usually kept when he remembered that Sherlock had taken it away.

As if right on cue, John heard the distinct click. Sherlock had cocked his gun. He could see Smith's feet shuffling, retreating slowly.

"Don't bother," the bed creaked on top of John, as if Sherlock had just got up. "John!"

Immediately, John crawled out. His knees protested but now was not the time to complain. The scene in front of him was short of nothing of incredulous. The wiry, gaunt figure of Culverton Smith, inside the fluorescent hazmat suit, arms raised, looking at both of them in wide-eyed bewilderment. John snuck to stop the music and cleared his throat, blocking the only exit out of the bedroom.

"I thought you were ill," was all that John could manage.

"Now's not the time, John," Sherlock deadpanned. "Call Lestrade. He's just around the corner."

"Well, just tell me: can I touch you or not?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "Of course you can, John. If you'll touch my face right now, you'll only feel some Vaseline, a little bit of eyeshadow, rouge and crusts of beeswax and absolutely normal body temperature. Those zombie makeup tutorials really sealed the deal. But I swear I haven't eaten or drank even a glass of water in three days. Call Lestrade."

"It's ringing—"

"What is the meaning of this?" Smith demanded, outraged. "I came here in good faith, and YOU—Dr. Watson," he abruptly turned to John as he began to call for help, "Your husband is very, very ill! You remember? You came to me?" He grabbed John's calling hand, trying to pull at it, trying to throw the phone away, but too late. There were already heavy footsteps on the stairs and muffled shouting. John grabbed Smith's arm; he was a frail man, and so he welped in an undignified manner as John twisted his arm and pushed him chest-first against the wall. Smith's head hit the wall and he groaned in pain.

"I love it when you do that."

John turned around in surprise. Sherlock winked at him, and he turned bright red, almost going weak at the knees.

"Sherlock? John?" Lestrade's voice was audible and stopped short as he registered the state of the flat.

"It's okay, Greg," John reassured.

"Here's your man!" Sherlock called out loudly, his voice strong as ever. "Add the charge of the attempted murder of Sherlock Holmes as well!" he chuckled. "You'll find that John is a witness," he stood up, smirking, tall and majestic and a tiny bit heroic. "My witness picked up only the noises that mattered."

Lestrade clapped handcuffs on Smith's wrists over his suit, "I'm arresting you on multiple counts of murders of Mercedes Sanchez, Alejandro Sanchez, Sofia Cortes and Anna Gordon, and the attempted murder of Sherlock Holmes. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

"But why wouldn't you let me near you? Why all the drama. . .?" John trailed off as Sherlock gave him a pointed look from the bathroom. Of course, it made sense. Sherlock had done this before, convince John that he was extremely ill and needed help and then manipulated him the way he wanted to.

"You're a terrible actor, John. And had I let you in on this, you would not have been able to impress him with your performance," Sherlock was rubbing face wash on his cheeks and forearms. "For God's sake, the man came in a hazmat suit!"

Sherlock snickered, and John followed suit. "I really don't know what you said to him, but I knew that he would have seen right through you had you gone with the knowledge that I was alright. Some makeup, broken glass, the fear of burning down the house added just the right touch of delirium."

John frowned. One thing still didn't make sense, "But why the distance?"

"You're a doctor, John. Any closer than 6 feet and you would've seen right through the charade."

"Christ!" John shook his head. "You really overdid this, Sherlock. You were acting for two months! Two fucking months!"

"Well, I felt like I needed to create a history of lunacy before the final act. But boy, were you insistent that we have sex! I tried to stop you so many times, but that day, you really had your way with me!"

John went bright red, "You called the police?"

Sherlock splashed water on his lathered face, "Who else? I like it when you lick my balls and I knew that was the one thing I could not stop you from doing."

"Christ, Sherlock, it went on my permanent record! Our permanent record!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "We tried to sell state secrets once. We already have a permanent record!"

"Not as a sex offender! Jesus Christ, how do I still have a job?!"

Sherlock wiped his face with a towel as John's eyes wandered over his bare chest, the numerous freckles on those wiry but strong arms, the concave of his back, down to the convex of his tight, full arse. . .

"Mycroft, duh!" Sherlock smirked when he caught John looking. John immediately about-turned, breath quickening slightly.

"That's really not the answer to everything. . ."

He felt two hands slithering down his hips and hot breath on the nape of his neck. John tensed up. Sherlock had done this before too, and now was the time for answers, not sex. He slapped Sherlock's hands lightly and moved away before his depraved self gave in to him.

"I still don't understand. . . Culverton Smith. . . he said he had been following you for a long time."

"Oh yes," Sherlock smiled. "I heard from him after I returned from Sofia's murder scene. That's when he sent that envelope by post. So cliché. As if those movies about Anthrax weren't enough to warn us against opening nondescript envelopes."

"So he killed all of them because what. . . to get their money?"

"Not exactly. You see, right from the moment we saw Mercedes's body, I was convinced that this was not completely personal. Every killer had a pattern and here, heirs were dying. If it had been the work of a rival gang, we would've seen more of a shooting spree aimed to cut the head off the snake. But Tito was alive. So that was not it. So it had to be another heir. Tito did not have any children, or known ones at least, so obviously all the operations would go to the brother, Alejandro. But then Alejandro's heirs started dying. . . his daughter, his wife. It was all inconclusive till Elena's body appeared. At this point, Tito realises who's ticking his family off. Sends his own son the same Bible he sent them, but instead Elena catches it. I must say, it's much different then what I usually see. Victims rarely got to the point where they succumbed to the disease."

"How did you know it was a Bible if you never opened the package?"

"There was a Bible at every scene. Even though it's the most common household book, the fact that the rashes were on the victims' fingers, mouth, scalp made it obvious that the pathogen came through a book," Sherlock then grabbed a textbook from the kitchen table and flipped through its pages, touched his nose, licked his index finger, then scratched his head. "You see?"

"So why didn't I see the package?"

"Because, contrary to what you believe, I skim through our correspondence before it even reaches you. And honestly, who sends things through post these days?" He huffed.

John scowled, "So you could have paid those bills too!"

"John—"

"My entire life is a lie."

Sherlock grabbed John's waist and pulled him close before John could protest and leaned in, nuzzling his forehead with his. John closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, a mix of Sherlock's natural scent and the face wash attacking his senses, "Just one last thing. Did Lestrade know about this? That you were planning all of this?"

"Not at all. It wasn't until you motioned to Mrs. Hudson that he came."

John smiled and leaned in to kiss him, and then realised it, "But she was in on this, wasn't she?" He asked quietly.

"Someone had to be."

"You cock!" John struck Sherlock lightly with his fists, "You absolute dickwad!"

"Come on, John!" Sherlock whined childishly, "I haven't had sex in two months!"

"Make that four months!"

"NOOO."

There you go. First time I ever complete a case fic. Also the first time I've ever completed a multi-chaptered fic. Yayy!

Also, I imagine Culverton Smith plays No Surprises by Radiohead. That's what I usually listen to when I have to type chapters up in a real hurry.

Thanks for reading! Hope y'all enjoyed it and see some of my other fics too! I'm working on a WIP AU, kinda fluff (angst yet to come), if you want to check out more of my fics!