A/N: So here is a second go at this story. This turned out a lot darker and adult-themed than I originally planned, so you have been warned (mentions of rape, physical abuse, and almost-incest)! Also, this is JOHNLOCK. Don't like, don't read, don't hate, OK? Tell me if you think anyone is out of character, please, OK? I will do anything to make my readers happy!

This is for Ulura, who was upset that I deleted the original, so I rewrote it and now it's absolutely unlike the original. Sorry.

For the Fire And Nothing Inside of Us All

John Watson seemed to be a simple man.

When you met him, he was calm, smiling, a normal, everyday doctor. He had combed blond hair that wasn't too short, wasn't too shaggy. He wore respectable clothes and shoes and always had the right thing to say.

Inside of him, though, it was always in turmoil. A fuel that never ceased to burn. His mind was divided into thinking of different things at once. The darkness of the war haunted him, not solely when he was unconscious. It battled to become John's reality as he walked around, seeming normal, but it wasn't strong enough to win, and usually it didn't even bother him at night. He hadn't really had nightmares after becoming Sherlock's flatmate.

A lot of John Watson's mind was darkness, actually, much more than possibly even Sherlock would believe. There was the war, which he would only ever acknowledged nocturnally, and not too often. Other darknesses were not as fresh, like a high school girlfriend, found at an oak tree, a noose knotted to a high branch around her neck.

John had always found suicide pointless.

Then there were earlier memories of being called gay and a poof at the age of twelve all the way up to when he had found Jenny. Someone caught John crying at her funeral, and it started up again until he was able to escape to medical school.

The memories before that were hazier, repressed, some of Harry being cruel and very distant, and of someone hurting him, kicking him and screaming, asking John why he wasn't good enough.

John had never figured out an answer.

But he had been asking himself that same question over and over lately, every time he looked at him. He who had stolen John's heart since they had first laid eyes on each other, even if the doctor hadn't even known it. He could make John's chest swell with merely a glance, and make the doctor completely melt with a smile.

John Watson was utterly, completely, head-over-heels in love with Sherlock Holmes.

The Sherlock Holmes.

The Sherlock Holmes who was married to his work.

If John had never met Irene Adler, he would have died believing that The Sherlock Holmes was an asexual. And if John had never met The Sherlock Holmes, he would have died believing that he, himself, was a complete heterosexual.

And then he met The Sherlock Holmes.

So after Irene had gone, after Molly had grown in wisdom, and after John had given up on love, John saw an angel.

It was after they had solved a tricky case. John and Sherlock were walking away from the crime scene, ready to catch a cab.

"So how did she acquire a flamethrower?" John asked his friend.

"Easy," the detective shrugged. "She seduced the manager of an illegal trading system."

"The manager was a woman."

"I know."

John chuckled, and Sherlock started to laugh. The doctor turned to look at his friend and almost forgot to breathe.

He had never realized how...beautiful Sherlock was. Pale skin free of any freckles or blemishes, teeth straight and white. His curly hair a bit unruly, but was dark- a perfect contrast to the porcelain that was stretched perfectly across his high cheekbones. His gray eyes were shimmering and his stride was proud. He was so tall, so perfect, and his hair was outlined with the most perfect silver from the moonlight.

How romantic.

How cheesy.

And how pathetic for a thought-to-be straight doctor reflecting on his probably asexual flatmate.

Quite suddenly, out of the blue, as the two were strolling down the sidewalk, John watching Sherlock laugh, the doctor's legs decided not to work. His knees buckled, his feet went numb, his ankles crumbled, and he fell flat out on his face.

For some reason, this only made the detective laugh harder. It was glorious music to John's ears, but he was annoyed at himself for falling for no reason. John picked himself on wobbling legs. He glared at Sherlock. He wasn't mad at his friend, but mad at himself. The doctor felt his cheeks go red. "What is so amusing about my pain?"

Sherlock shook his head, but said nothing, a smile still on his face, and John decided that he didn't want to know. Seeing his 'emotionless' friend laugh at all was good enough for him.

"Why did you fall?" Sherlock asked, curious, but not intensely. John's blush returned. Head over heels, his mind jeered. Weak in the knees.

"I...honestly don't know. Exhaustion, possibly. I'm surprised you haven't keeled over yet, with the way you've been running around."

"It was so exciting!" the detective gushed. He told you he was married to his work, John, the doctor's inner evil voice laughed. Don't you see how in love with it he is?

He ignored it. "Yeah, well, you're going to actually sleep tonight. Doctor's orders."

Sherlock didn't reply; he gave his friend only a smile.

When John was a child, he liked to talk to trees.

He absolutely never told Sherlock this, for fear of a sure-to-come lecture on how inanimate objects couldn't talk back or even hear what you were saying to them, and it looked rather silly and was rather silly.

But for John, the trees did talk back.

In the summer, he would climb an oak tree and sit in a low-hanging branch, then speak to the bark in a quiet voice as the leaves caressed his hair, encouraging him to go on. He knew that it would draw ridicule, so the boy always admitted what he had to say in a mumble, almost to himself. In the winter, John would lie under the sticky pine needles and gaze up at the sparkling ornaments adorning the conifer, whispering to it.

He always heard soft answers in his head. And though it was most likely his own imagination creating them, it was good enough for John.

John was afraid of other children his age, though they were very nice to him up until he was twelve and he was considered a queer. His parents disapproved strongly, and Harry kept her distance. Mr. Watson tried to change his son. It didn't end with a good relationship between them.

But John would never tell Sherlock any of that. It was too obvious and too boring for a consulting detective who was married to his work.

Pity meant nothing to either of them.

John couldn't sleep.

Thoughts of what had happened swam around him, repeating themselves over and over, going faster and faster and-

It was getting confusing for the doctor. He wondered if this was how Sherlock thought all the time, knowing but not knowing, with one important thought- just a few words- jumping just out of his reach every time it came around.

The voice that had been taunting him all night refused to go away. John had to name it, the way he named everything. He had named the oak tree Sunny, for the way the sun made it shine gold. He had named the Christmas tree Teddy, because the first present he remembered ever opening was a teddy bear. The next year's Christmas tree was Teddy the second, then Teddy the third, then Teddy the fourth, and so on until he lost count.

John called the voice Lock.

Lock never asked The Question. He only ever answered it.

"Why aren't you good enough?" the voice of a furious adult demanded John every day.

Lock would answer every day, telling John exactly how he wasn't good enough.

There was never any way of telling how Sherlock felt, if he ever felt at all.

John's own personal thrill wasn't shooting at villains or running to or from danger anymore. It was Sherlock's emotions. Seeing Sherlock smile. Seeing Sherlock laugh. That was what John lived for. It started a fire inside of him.

Really, though, it was just Sherlock, and not just the emotions.

Sherlock was good enough for John.

One week after John Watson fell in love with The Sherlock Holmes, The Sherlock Holmes found someone new.

It was a woman. It wasn't Irene. It wasn't Molly. It was a stranger.

The woman was only a little younger than the detective. She was filling in for Molly, and she was everything. She was smart and funny and could make Sherlock smile no matter what she said.

Above all else, she was beautiful.

She was thin but not a twig, and her hair was a shiny copper with perfect natural highlights. Her eyes were green- a clear green, without a hint of grey or blue or brown. Green. The greenest green John had ever thought to imagine. She wasn't flat-chested or over-revealing. She was modest, but she knew that she was beautiful and was proud. She was kind and sweet and generous and never jealous or cruel.

Her name was Elisabeth.

John didn't like Elisabeth, but he couldn't be the least bit cruel to her. If he was, Sherlock would surely lose any and all respect for him, kick him out, and offer the new woman the doctor's old room. And there was no reason for John to hate the perfect woman, except that she made him uneasy, and there was just no reason for him to feel that way.

The main reason was probably because of what Lock said.

"Look at her hair: it's so shiny and perfect," Lock admired. "And look at yours: filthy, dirty, blond."

Or:

"Look at how thin she is. How could anyone love you? You're a pig! A cow! How are you living on the top floor and there isn't a hole in Sherlock's ceiling?"

So John woke up earlier in the mornings to shower, scrubbing harder to get to the same level of smooth skin that Elisabeth had, scraping at his scalp with handfuls of shampoo to try to tear out the brown streaks of his hair to make it a sleek, shiny blond, using two, then three, then four different kinds of body washes in one go, drying himself off until he was absolutely as dry as he could possibly be, combing his hair until it was smooth, then washing his hands after he was dressed in his cleanest clothes, brushing his teeth for ten minutes until he thought that he was presentable for the man he was doing this all for.

He would clean himself as many times as he could if it meant he would be as good as Elisabeth.

So why was it that, time and time again, he came home to find Elisabeth and Sherlock laughing at an inside joke and John was ignored. Not even a 'Hello' from the generous Elisabeth.

"Why aren't you good enough?"

And Lock answered,"You're fat, you're ugly, your hair is filthy, your hands are sausages..."

That was how John Watson's life went, the same thing everyday.

Christmas was shiny, sparkly, everything John had ever wanted. Presents, loving family, hot food.

The family didn't like how John's father drank so heavily. A lot of people stopped coming to Christmas, then Thanksgiving, then John's birthday.

Then, one Christmas Eve, it was just John and his father alone, and John was talking to Teddy IV, the Christmas tree, and Mr. Watson was scatterbrained with beer and wine.

John was afraid to sit near Christmas trees.

"I'm not a poof," John muttered to Teddy III. The seven-year-old lie underneath his friend's sticky needle branches, speaking quietly.

"John! What are you doing?"

"Nothing," came the pathetic response.

"Get out from under the bloody tree and answer me properly!"

So he did, and when he was standing, he was met with pain. Why was he on the ground? It was dark, and John was alone, but there was blood: blood on the ground, blood on Teddy, blood on John.

Then the pain wasn't physical, but emotional. He was pushing through a thick crowd of shocked people. It was still dark, and there were flashing glares of police cars and spotlights on the trees, one tree in specific, and when John pushed aside the last person blocking his view, his heart dropped all the way to hell and he gave up and went numb.

Then he was back in Afghanistan. Explosions, blood, screaming. This was the usual now.

But not this time. This time, there was one explosion that was too close, and the world went flying. John woke up and it was dark. He heard a little groan and army-crawled toward it. What he found could never be put into words, except that he had finally found a Mrs. Pat Hardy and her son to tell them that someone loved them.

"John!"

And there was an angel, here to save him.

John hadn't had nightmares since before he had met Sherlock. Why now? Maybe it was Lock, who was watching with glee as the doctor screamed in terror. Maybe it was Sherlock. It was Sherlock without Sherlock doing anything?

Exactly.

"I- I'm sorry..." John whispered after shooting up like a rocket, gazing at a space just beyond his friend's head. Sherlock's expression, which had been intense and some other expressions that John couldn't identify through his hazy mind, had gone soft, eyes no longer hard. The detective sat on the edge of his friend's bed in an awkward fashion. He looked at John. "Are you alright?"

John nodded emptily. He wasn't, really, but he nodded anyway.

"You were screaming. I sent Elisabeth home when I heard you moaning. I knew that you'd start screaming."

"S-sorry," was all that would exit John's mouth.

A long silence.

"You can talk, you know." That meant about the nightmares. The detective didn't sound unsure, though John knew that his experience in this field was extremely limited. His expression was sincere. It wasn't "I want to hear it," but it was certainly better than anything else the tall man had to say about nightmares.

John couldn't pass up this opportunity. Sherlock actually caring about a nightmare? This was what he treasured- this man's emotions. Here was a moment of true concern! He looked Sherlock in the eye and opened his mouth to tell him.

"But how can you?" Lock challenged. And that was all that needed to be said to send John's mind into a whirlpool.

How could John tell Sherlock about his shy childhood? How could he possibly confide in the detective that he had nightmares of his parents, the two people a child should trust most? How could he vocalize the embarrassment he knew his father felt when John would sit in a tree for hours instead of playing with other children? How John felt ashamed because his own father was embarrassed of his own son, or how Mr. Watson was a man who liked to take matters into his own hands, and how John was very small and shy, and how his father was very big, and very strong, and very drunk, and very angry that one Christmas Eve when it was just the two of them and how Mum had kept herself and Harry very distant after that?

How could John ever tell Sherlock about how empty and utterly alone he was when he saw Jenny, his girlfriend, swinging from that rope around her neck like a doll, how it had been her own choice, and how he had wanted to run up the tree and jump off and land on his skull?

And how could John tell anyone what he had experienced in Afghanistan? How could he speak of the bomb that had fallen too close and how they had all flown like frisbees, how John had woken to darkness with no one else awake, not knowing who was alive or dead, not knowing who he should go to first to try to save, and what if he went to a corpse and a person who had a chance died while he had made the wrong decision? How could he speak of Algernon Hardy, who had been awake the entire time, whose flesh had been singed off the left side of his jaw and neck and body and scalp? How could he describe the agony he felt when he was told that it hurt, when he was asked to make it better when his mind and supplies were all over the place? How could John repeat what Algernon had said to him in a sandpaper plead, how it was so cold and yet so unbearably hot? That he told John to tell his wife and son that he loved them?

And was there a way to narrate how Algernon had reached out with a feeble hand towards John, and how John had taken it in his own, smoothing his thumb over the back of the shaking palm? How John had stared right into the other soldier's eyes, how the eyes had stared back, alive and too human to bear, not a tear falling, no fear to recall? How the doctor had hummed a tune that his mother used to sing to him to calm him down? How John was certainly no singer but had sung it aloud anyway?

How John watched the life drain out of Algernon's eyes, and felt him shiver and go limp, and heard the man's very last breath echo in the air?

When had the doctor started to cry? He wiped his cheeks free of them in vain. The man had been staring directly at Sherlock the entire time. He ducked his head so Sherlock wouldn't see. "N-no," he whispered. "Not right now. Please."

Sherlock stood at the door now. Before he left, he said,"Do try to keep it down next time. Elisabeth and I were just getting somewhere interesting."

When John was alone, he curled up into a ball and cried.

Harry and Mum always sniffed over the scrapes and bruises John would present himself with at dinner. Harry always rolled her eyes, muttering to herself about how disgustingly brutal boys were, especially ten-year-olds (for that was how old John was, and her opinion on what age of boys were especially brutal changed with every birthday John had).

Mum always made him wash up and not to whimper and ask for help, made him find the bandaids himself, snapped at him if he asked her to help him. John tried to love his mother, but she didn't really try very hard to love him, and didn't try at all to cover up that fact.

John knew that his mother knew that the bruises and injuries weren't from school. Harry didn't, but Mr. Watson always kept an eye on his wife when she ever talked to John.

John's mother was a frightened woman.

John was washing his hands after taking a shower. He was very dry (save for his hands), and was thinking of his hatred for Elisabeth. Lock added fuel to the bonfire.

How she makes him smile whenever she wants and how they stand so close and how there's more color in his cheeks when I'm watching and they pretend not to notice because I'm not important enough-

John looked down at his hands. While he had been raving in his head with Lock, his scrubbing had gotten harder and faster. It had turned rather violent without him realizing it, and now the water in the the sink was red.

Oh.

John washed the blood away from his hands and the sink, then placed bandaids only where he needed them. He stuck his hands in his pockets and forgot about it completely.

Sherlock made John roar with a fire inside of him.

From the moment he met him, the detective had made a spark, and now John was a train, speeding down the tracks of life in an ecstatic rage.

But John was not Sherlock's spark. Elisabeth was.

And soon after the woman entered the scene, she seemed to set a flamethrower inside the detective. In turn, Sherlock and Elisabeth took a fire extinguisher and pointed it at the doctor.

John's fire had been quenched, painfully, in a matter of days. Like a star, it had been snuffed out and super nova'd, and now it was a black hole, sucking John inside of it, always eating, its appetite never satisfied.

Bit by bit, John's heart was torn apart and fed to the black hole. The Nothing. That was what John called it.

Nothing was waiting for John's heart to break. Nothing wanted to suck in and savor the agony the man felt, to send him spiraling into the depression.

Lock wanted it, too. Wanted it so much that he was half of John's mind now. Lock was John. John was Lock.

Lock had Sherlock's voice.

John took after the love of his life and stopped eating.

He barely felt the shrieks of hunger his stomach let loose anymore. Nothing noticed, though, and laughed, making the pain greater on the inside. The fast had begun three days after that woman had dropped in, and it was working.

Two weeks after Elisabeth came, John was accompanying his friend to a crime scene. He didn't even know what was happening, didn't know who had died or if he was needed, and realized that he didn't want to know, didn't care, as long as Sherlock was entertained and happy.

"John."

The doctor started and turned to Lestrade, who was eyeing him strangely. "You alright, John? You don't look so good. Maybe you should go home. You look like you haven't eaten in a month. You should go home. You're as thin as a twig!"

John merely shook his head and went over to Sherlock was. "Not nearly as thin as Elisabeth," Lock challenged. "You're not good enough."

The fast continued.

John's heart was broken at last.

He had woken up late to find that Sherlock wasn't there. In his place was a torn and pathetic piece of paper that read in chicken-scratch handwriting:

Gone to crime scene on Floral Ave. Meet me there. -SH

So John dressed himself, downed half a glass of water, didn't touch a scrap of food, and left to join the detective.

John walked there, needing exercise, anyway, because he was too bulky and balloon-ish and stocky and fat. He was there, at last, seeing Sherlock beam with excitement, and that made John beam, too. Just to see him happy made John feel a spark start to-

And John saw it.

Her.

Elisabeth.

At the crime scene.

Talking to Sherlock.

Standing where John usually stood to give his friend helpful comments.

Being given nods and quick glances from the consulting detective.

No one saw John.

But Lock grinned and Nothing chuckled and started to laugh. John gasped, once in shock, once in pain, once in agony.

John cried out as he grabbed at his chest. His right hand clutched at the skin over his heart as it thumped wildly and started to crack, and it wasn't tearing this time, it was all the more horrible.

John Watson's heart broke.

John rushed around the corner and was sick in the bushes.

John had returned to Baker Street and felt horrible. He had a horrible fever and a horrible broken heart. His head ached, he was sweating profusely, he was shivering and moaning as pain shuddered through his body.

"Lovesick," Lock taunted.

Sherlock had replaced John with beautiful, gorgeous, Elisabeth. A woman. Not a man. Not a bloated, thick, ill man.

Fuck, John felt awful. Everything hurt and he, doctor though he was, couldn't possibly tell what was wrong with him or where the pain was emanating from. Nothing was ready. Ready to devour the thing that kept him alive. And John didn't care. He just wanted not to feel anymore. He didn't want to feel the hurt that he felt when he saw Sherlock with Elisabeth, or the pure love that was radiating off of him when he looked at the detective.

John hadn't noticed the calm footsteps making their way up the stairs to his room, because he was surprised when the door opened, and there was Mr. Holmes, himself.

"John?" Mycroft poked his head in the door and entered when he saw the doctor lying on the bed, shivering, sweating, malnourished, and positively miserable. "Oh, John. I had hoped that it wouldn't have...oh, dear..."

John's mind clicked.

"You sent Elisabeth."

Mycroft ducked his head at being found out. "Well, Elisabeth is a top-of-the-line couple's therapist, you see. She also specializes in Molly's line of work. It was quite convenient, John." He looked up at the miserable man. "I wanted her to talk to Sherlock so he would figure it out. I wanted you two to be happy. I see what Sherlock sees in you, John. It's amazing. You make him so happy."

"Elisabeth makes him happier," Lock shot back, but, of course, only John heard him.

"I wanted to make this all better, because I could see that it had gotten out of hand," Mycroft continued. "But Elisabeth turned her back on me. She said that Sherlock loved her, because they were so compatible. She refuses to leave, and I can't just send someone as clever as her on a one-way trip to Alaska. I'm...I'm...so sorry, John. I didn't mean to make you do this."

It didn't matter if The Mycroft Holmes apologized two thousand and one times. John just wanted Sherlock to say it, and Sherlock would never say it. Sherlock didn't love John back.

"Let me help you now, though. You've got a very high fever." He reached out and placed one hand on the doctor's fiery forehead and one around his wrist.

John's mind jumped back 35 years.

John was nine. He was lying underneath the Christmas tree, Teddy the IV, murmuring to it his secrets of how he was too shy to speak to other kids his age, and that if he tried he would go all red and begin to stutter, and they would eventually laugh at him, then leave to let him calm down.

"I'm not a poof," John grumbled.

"John!" The words were spilling tipsily out of the caller's mouth. "What are you doing?"

John hoped to he left alone. "Nothing," was the pathetic response.

"Get out from under the bloody tree and answer me properly!"

John sighed, said goodbye to Teddy, and slid himself out from underneath his friend's pokey branches. His father stood there, swaying dangerously, because Mr. Watson was very tall, and very large, and very powerful. John matched his gaze, hoping to he tall like his father one day. "I wasn't doing anything, Dad."

"Don't tell me you weren't doin' nothin'!" Mr. Watson bellowed. "Tell me why you blubber whenever you get spoken to by some kid your age!"

John was in despair. "I- I don't know-"

Mr. Watson's response was a slap across the face. John stumbled and fell to the floor. He started to cry. "Tell me why you're such a little poof! Why can't you just talk, ya pathetic sod?"

"I don't know-!"

He was kicked in the stomach and legs and chest, and he was picked up and slapped across the face. "Dad, please-!" He was thrown to the floor and stomped on. "Stop it! Please!" Then John was on his back and his father's fingers were around his throat, making bruises and John couldn't breathe-

"No, please don't touch me, Dad!"

Mycroft removed his hands. He looked into John's now lucid eyes. "What do you just call me?" he whispered.

John could only stare back. "I- I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me." The eldest Holmes brother stared at him for a while until saying,"I'll be back, alright? Stay and rest while I go get something to bring your fever down."

John nodded. He waited until he heard the bottom door of the flat shut, and then went to work. Nothing and Lock were taking too long. John needed to be empty now, and he knew the only way to do it.

He now saw what Jenny did in suicide.

John stumbled into the downstairs bathroom. The bathroom. That's where it was usually done, wasn't it? No, maybe it was the bathtub. Oh, well. John had to finish this now. There was only one bit of his broken heart left to be sucked into Nothing. John wanted to be empty, he wanted it more than anything!

Well, maybe not anything.

Not more than Sherlock.

He wanted Sherlock more than anything, and this time, he could think that one sentence and not almost vomit from how horrible a lie it was. Because that was the truth.

I love Sherlock Holmes, John thought.

"He doesn't love you back," Lock said.

I love Sherlock Holmes, John repeated, wanting to drown out Lock forever and ever and ever, just wanting to think of Sherlock smiling down on his with the love that certainly did not belong to John and never would.

Just that one thought before he became empty.

John took out the Swiss Army knife that he had swiped from his army box. He opened it and pressed it against the paleness of his wrist.

Let me be free. Please. I love you, Sherlock Holmes.

"I love you, Sherlock Holmes," John whispered so quietly that he could barely hear himself. "I love you, Sherlock Holmes."

Lock was screaming in his head,"He doesn't love you! He'll never love you! Sherlock Holmes will never love you because you're a fat, ugly, stupid, broken-"

"I love you Sherlock Holmes," John whispered over and over again, drowning out Lock as the blood flowed down his arm, as he waited for just the right moment to cut the main artery in his wrist.

John was ready.

"I love you, Sherlock Holmes."

The pain was far greater than before, but John didn't cry or yell as he thought of only Sherlock Holmes's smiling face filled with love, pure love...

The door to the flat downstairs opened and the quick thumping of feet greeted John's ears. He listened as the violent footsteps thunked their way up the stairs to John's room, stopped, then made their way back down to the kitchen, and that voice calling his name, that beautiful, wonderful voice.

"He doesn't love you," Lock's voice was now in John's ear, and then John was angry. He clouted his ear with his bloody hand, sending flicks of red into his hair, and then grabbed either side of his own face, clawing at it, drawing blood from the skin, wanting to tear it off, because if Sherlock didn't love his face, then maybe there was another face, one more beautiful underneath John's hideous one.

The bathroom door opened, and there was a horrified scream. All the pain crashed onto John like an anvil and he cried out, wanting to sob and wail because it hurt, now, he could feel it!

Someone grabbed John's hands and pulled them away from his face, and new, soft hands were there instead, forcing his head to turn and look at the new person.

"John! Oh, John! Oh my God, oh my God..." And there was Sherlock, tears in his wide eyes as he saw John covered in blood. "What did you do to yourself? How could I have not seen this? Oh my God, oh my God..."

Lock was silent, now, and Nothing was about to eat the last bit of John's broken heart.

There was a horrible pain in John's wrist, the one he had cut, and he let out a cry, but it continued, and it was Sherlock doing it, trying to staunch the massive flow of blood and trying to keep John alive.

"John, please stay. Please." Sherlock was very close to him, now. John could kiss him, if he wanted to. He could have a good old snogging before he died.

John couldn't speak. He reached out stroked the detective's jawline. Flashing, tear-filled eyes met calm chocolate ones.

"I hope you're happy with Elisabeth."

A tear finally slipped past Sherlock's defenses, creating a silver trail down his pale cheeks. "I don't love Elisabeth, John! Mycroft told me everything. I never loved Elisabeth. God, I've been so stupid!" He pressed his forehead together with John's.

"I love you, John Watson!"

A spark was lit inside of John. Nothing screeched as it was consumed in smoke and flames. The doctor's eyes became bright again and the smoky film covering them left.

"I love you, Sherlock Holmes," John whispered before the lights went out.

When John woke up, he was surrounded by darkness.

He was scared. Why was there nothing? Where was Sherlock? Mrs. Hudson? Lestrade? Anyone?

Suddenly, John was falling, falling, falling. It was freezing and he was screaming. He heard voice around him, using medical terms and needing something to keep something else down, and "Sir, would you step out right now, you're getting in our way!"

Then John hit rock bottom. Everything ached. He was sitting on a solid black floor. Then the world was illuminated by flames, huge, six-foot-tall flames that forced the sweat from John's brow and arms and legs and everywhere, and it was so hot.

There was a dark figure inside the flames, repeating John's name in a deep, familiar voice, no, but there were billions of copies of that voice, but there was only one voice.

That was when the lights went out again.

When John woke up, everything was absolutely and blissfully silent.

Light streamed through the window. John blinked at the sudden normalcy of his situation, sitting up with some trouble. The walls were white. The ceiling was white. The floor was white. The sheets covering his legs were white. The bed he was sitting in was white. Maybe John had died.

Then he looked to his left. There was another window, but this one showed a hallway, with official-looking people in white walking up and down it.

Standing near the window, half-facing it, we're two people, a man and a woman. The man was very tall and thin, and every part of him was pale, except for his cheeks, which were pink with rage as he hissed at the woman. The woman was near tears, looking positively miserable. She tried to say something to the tall man, but he spat something back that must have been poison to her ears, because the floodgates broke and she ran away, sobbing.

The tall man glared at her as she fled, then turned to look in the window John was looking out of. They locked eyes. John knew who this was.

This was the man of his dreams.

The tall man walked quickly to the window, then it was a sprint, then a jog, and soon he was running as fast as he could to get to John.

The door burst open and John was being smothered by The Sherlock Holmes.

"John! I- I thought- I swear I can't believe-" Sherlock had John in a Death Grip Hug, and he finally relinquished the man and took either side of his face with his soft hands. "Why would you do that?" was all he could whisper.

"B-because I love you," John admitted,"but you loved Elisabeth, and I was too afraid that you would kick me out or replace me, and I- I was too afraid of- of being in a relationship with a...a man, and if I told you, that you would think that I was broken..."

"Broken?" Sherlock frowned. "Broken how?"

So, with a deep breath, John proceeded to tell Sherlock about how shy he had been as a child, with no one but the trees to talk to. He told him about Harry, who didn't particularly care for John anyway, and had become exceedingly distant when John was nine. He told him about his mother, who was thin and fragile and did only what her husband wanted without fault. John told Sherlock about his father, about how Mr. Watson was very big and violent, and how John was very small and shy. He told Sherlock about that one Christmas Eve when he and his father were very alone, and how Mr. Watson was very drunk.

John had been beaten by his abusive father, who apparently found it amusing and harmed John horribly from then on whenever he was drunk and didn't know what he was doing, and even when he was sober and knew exactly what he was doing. John told Sherlock about his father beating him for no reason until John was able to get away to medical school.

And most of all, John reluctantly told Sherlock, who was now holding him in his long arms, about how his father was so drunk one night when John was sixteen that he was nearly asleep, nearly but not quite, and how he had beaten John so badly that there was blood everywhere and fingerprint bruises painting his throat. How John was lying prone on the floor when suddenly his father was lying next to him, licking his cheek and groping his own son, how John had screamed but had no power to get away. He told Sherlock that his father had torn John's shirt off of him and about to do the same with his pants when his mother heard his screams and rushed down the stairs, disobeying her husband. Mr. Watson had punched his wife until she was little more than a bruise, herself, and then dragged her up the stairs and ravaged her, instead.

John could only listen the entire time.

Sherlock shook his head. "John, I would never judge you because your father was abusive. That is a highly illogical thing to think. It isn't your fault."

John blinked away tears. "But...I'm broken."

"No, you're not." John looked up at Sherlock, and there was that look that he had wanted for so very long: this beautiful man gazing down at him with only love in his eyes. "Just a hit cracked. And that's all right. We all are."

Sherlock leaned down and John met him halfway. As their mouths met, a huge spark found itself inside of John and fire screamed to life inside of both of them.

Nothing was gone. Lock was gone. It was just John, now. They would never return.

And as John and Sherlock kissed with more passion than in any silly old movie, they knew that the fire that was their love would always be everlasting.

fin