English is not my first language! Sorry for eventual mistakes.

This story exists also here: /works/5878240/chapters/13547632

Besides, John Watson was to be broken.

He knew it.

He knew it at the moment at which he sank to the ground in a dark alley, a half-empty bottle of scotch loosely in his right hand.

He knew it when he vomited crossly in the dirty waste mountain before him, observed by a thin street cat, which stares down on him from the lid of a garbage can.

He knew it when he coiled up, sobbing and clenching, while the alcohol from the open bottle slowly flowed into the gutter.

What has become from me?

There was no answer.
Of course.

The cat stared at him one more moment and then it disappeared into the darkness with a jump.

John saw up in the night sky.
No stars.
Concealed by clouds and the smog of the city.

Eventually, he dragged himself home, in the small apartment he had rented for himself, far away from Baker Street.

Away from the voice which still sometimes spoke to him in his head.
His voice.
Sherlock's voice.
Still. After nearly two years.

John answered no longer on Lestrade's concerned messages
Not, since he had given way, and had come to a crime scene to examine a corpse.
This had been some months ago in summer.
When he has bent over the corpse, Sherlock's voice suddenly roared so loud in his head as never before.

Oh come on John!
What a dull case...
This cannot be more than a 3 on the scale. You deal with something like that? Really?
We better could eat pasta together at Angelo's.
Or drink tea in front of the fireplace.
Or play Cluedo.
I could even play the violin for you, the piece which you like so much. The piece at which you close your eyes and you can relax.
Come on, John! Let's go home…

John had collapsed with a strangled groan almost over the corpse, had pressed his hands against his head and was finally gone reeling thereof, had not paid attention to Lestrade's cries, had almost stumbled against a car and wavered over the street under furious honking...

It was too much.

he was just a man, goddamn.

A man who had to watch, as the man who had meant the most to him in his life - who had been his life, damn - had jumped to his death. Blood on asphalt,
Open stiff eyes which had been so lively before.
No breath,
no pulse.

Nothing.

He was made to see this scene in his mind again and again.
In his sleep and on the day.
Worse than any nightmare about his time in the war.
Much worse.
He had panic attacks again and still refused,
to take the pills which Ella had prescribed for him.
That pills would not help against this kind of pain…

Because there was something, something no one knew.
Something, John no one had ever entrusted.
Something,
hidden in his heart, which was slowly breaking apart.

He had been about to fall in love with Sherlock.
Slowly,
only with reluctance,
however, steadily,
perceptibly at the end.

And he is the only one, who knew this.
And now this knowledge destroyed him.

Why have you done this to me, Sherlock?, John Watson asked silently in the darkness, while he laid motionless on his bed in a far too large room.

Why?
Why have you left me?
You could have had me maybe.
You could have been loved.
You could have lived.
With me.

You damned crossbreed …
Why have you left me behind here?

Lonely.

Besides, of Sherlock Holmes was to be broken.

He knew it.

He knew it at the moment at which a dirty finger touched his broken cheek bone, gently, nearly affectionately.

He knew it when warm breath bumped in his face – stinking after cigarettes and cheap alcohol.
Familiar, in the meantime. A lot too familiar.

Just like the familiar gruff Serbian that haunted him in his dreams – during the few hours in which he was allowed to sleep, before the circle began once more.

„Have you changed your mind, in the meantime? I can continue very long this way, darling," The voice breathed in his ear. This odious voice which was the only one he heard for days now.

„You only have to say it, a few words, and then I will stop. Then I will release you. Maybe it even will be painless. Who knows...only a few words. Why. Are. You. Here? Tell me."

Sherlock closed his eyes and breathed trough his mouth to not have to smell the stinking breath.
He pressed the words through his throat , which was rough and dry ..

„Never…Take your filthy fingers off me…"

The voice laughed quietly and the finger went through one of the cuts in his cheek.
It burnt.

„Well...fight on, resist further, I like it to break the defiant – the proud. And I will break you. Sooner or later."
„No. My brother will come and he will kill you," Sherlock said with all conviction he still could raise. "You shouldn't underestimate him..."
The other laughed again.
„Nobody will come. We are here completely alone for ourselves. Exactly like the last days. I will continue, until nothing more is left of you, until you beg me to kill you and until you spit out everything, only, so that the pain would end…But it must not come this far if you tell me now, what I want to know."
"Never," Sherlock said once more, his eyes firmly closed. „Never..."

„As you wish. Means more fun for me. "

Be a machine, Sherlock…,Mycroft's voice said in his head, cold and considered.
A machine feels no pain … no fear and no desperation.
Be hard like stone. Stone does not break…

Machine!, John's voice shouted in his head, frustrated and unbelievingly.
An echo of the past.

However, when the blows pelted down once more on him, when old wounds burst and new ones were torn, Sherlock thought with himself that machines did not bleed …
And stones did not bleed as well… And stones did not scream.
But humans bled. Humans screamed.
He was only human.
And humans broke.
Sometime.

Where are you Mycroft?

Where does the Eastwind remain?

It should better hurry up.
I do not know, how long I still last out…

„Where is he?" Mycroft asked in harsh Serbian, while he pressed the young man before him to a trunk and held a gun to his throat.
His application team surrounded him, all weapons directed on the Serbian whom they had cornered.
A member of the group which smuggled for Moriarty with drugs and order murders in Serbia, a breakthrough finally, in search of Sherlock. It had lasted far too long…
As an answer to his question Mycroft received a malicious, knowing grin.

„You would know this with pleasure, what?"

„Where is he?" Mycroft barked once more and pressed the run of the gun more emphatically in the soft meat below the chin of the Serbian.
The grin became broader.

„You find out nothing at all from me, you English crossbreed!"

Mycroft curled his lips to a cheerless smile.

„I would not let come it on it," He said coldly. „I have brought quite other men to the speech than small-criminal rats like you. I am a patient man…"

The smile of the Serbian broke when he looked in Mycrofts hard eyes. He saw a dark promise there, which told of pain and left no doubt about the fact that Mycroft meant it completely seriously.
Moriarties nickname for Mycroft was well known in local areas.
Iceman…without feelings, without scruple.
The young man swallowed.

„If I talk, will you let me go?" He asked lurking.
"Hardly. But you would save yourself an amount of incommodities," Mycroft answered drily and with stress.

„He is with Branko…Under the old, closed weapon factory in Kosjerić," The Serbian said without hesitating in a bored tone.
„How many men?"
„Maybe 20..."
"Do they know who he is?"
"Yes, but they want to know, why he is here. How he has found them..."
Mycroft nodded and took the gun off the neck of the Serbian.
He said the truth.

"Hey," The Serbian said grinning. "Are the English prisons really as comfortable as everybody says?"
"If, then I'll hand you over to the local authorities," Mycroft answered chilly, the aversion burnt like bile in his throat.

The man disgusted him. They all disgusted him. This whole gang of criminals. They were primitive, uncivilised and corruptible.
Without spine or solidarity even towards the own people.
There was no spark of decency or honour in them. Exactly, therefore, he gave himself big troubles about Sherlock...

„It was clever from you to talk," Mycroft said coldly and the Serbian grinned again. This time it was a very spiteful grin.
"Anyway, you are already too late, English crossbreed," He spitted Mycroft in the stiff face. „You should have heard him, how he has screamed until his voice gave out…now he does not scream a lot any more, of course, has no more strength for it, I think. But some days ago, oh, yes, there he has only screamed and screamed. Names. John, John over and over again. And the name of his brother who has not come to help him. He has begged you to come, has begged you to save him, to let stop the pain..."
With a furious scream Mycroft hit his gun against the temple of the Serbian, who slumped unconscious in his clutch, the grin still illustrated on the dirty face.
Mycroft sank him to ground and watched, how his men carried him off.

He breathed hard.
He was cold.
He had a goose flesh.
It was long ago that he had lost his control in that way.
However, it also was long ago that he had escorted an application.
He did not like it to be actively in the field.
It was dirty, it was degrading and far under his level.
However, he could not leave Sherlock's rescue to anyone else.

Never in his life had he had to come to assistance Sherlock with a mission.
Sherlock had always got away with some scratches or bruises in the past.
Had appeared in London sometime with a haughty grin in the face as if he wants to say: See what I am able to do. See what I am able of!
However, now it had been weeks that he received the last sign from his brother.
It had been frightening.
It had lasted quite a while, until Mycroft noticed that something had to have gone wrong - until he had had a vague notion where his brother had disappeared and where he was held on – Sherlock had blurred his tracks always very well. This was his special talent…

And now it was a curse.

Now Mycroft had fear…For the first time.

You are too late…, the words resounded in his head.

Oh, Sherlock …

I will be there soon.

Hold out.

Mycroft rose in the dark carriage in whose boot now the tied up Serbian lay, and stared from the window at the snowy, scanty scenery which passed outdoors.
His mouth was pulled to a fierce, determined look.

If he found Sherlock,
and if he was injured,
if he had just one scratch,
then mercy God to his kidnappers.

Because he himself would show no mercy.

Sherlock coughed and gasped for breath as he was dragged out of the water by his hair.
The world around him had become blurred and black points walked before his eyes.
He felt as detached from his body.
This time they had waited long…
Had held him down, until he believed, his lungs would burst.

"Talk," The usual voice said coldly.

"No," Sherlock gasped, and tried to remain with consciousness.

"Again," The Voice said flatly.

Once more he became with the head under water low-spirited and once more his lungs burnt, again panic climbed up to him. The instinct to turn up, became to appear stronger and stronger, his body rebelled like by itself, tried to shake off the hands which held him down relentlessly.
Water everywhere...
No air...
Drowning...
Then – air, black points, the voice.

„Why are you here? How have you found us?"

„...Fuck...you."

„Again."

…

How long was he already here?

Days?
Weeks?
Time played no role here…
Every day was the same.
Worried sleep,
painful reveille,
the voice,
the hands,
pain,
faint,
consciousness,
pain …

People broke.

Sherlock broke when the hands walked deeper for the first time, over cuts and swells and breaks - as that what remained of his consciousness made clear to him what was just about to happen and that it was more than he could endure.

He broke when the hands moved over his hips and when he felt the usual hot breath on his breast which was quicker than otherwise.

„Stop!"

The hands paused, paused carefully.
„Yes pretty boy?" The voice asked expectantly, lurking, with a triumphing undertone.
„Please...don't..."
„You only need to talk…Talk, and I'll stop."
And Sherlock talked. The words erupted from him like bitter bile. He could not stop.
„My name is of Sherlock Holmes. I am Consulting Detective…Moriarty made me jump, otherwise he would have killed everybody which is close to me. I simulated my death and he committed suicide. I went off to destroy his network. I killed Moran. I killed Tramontin in Italy. I brought Silver behind bars and destroyed his drug cartel in Florida…I, I have…," He fell silent, a fit of coughing shook him and cut off his air for talking.
„Nevertheless, this was not bad at all - for the beginning", said the voice nearly affectionately. „Even if you have only told me basically what I already knew...What the spider has told me. And now lie still..."
"No," Sherlock shouted in panic and tried to get away from the hands which held him down. „I have talked, I..."

And then everything suddenly happened all at once.

A shot broke through the space and the hands disappeared from him.

More shots sounded and Sherlock heard shouts somewhere.
The world suddenly was full with noise and shades.
Chaos broke out and foreign blood dripped onto his forehead when a body broke down beside him, a hole between the eyes in which an echo of astonishment was to be seen.

The Eastwind, Sherlock thought weakly. The Eastwind is here…Finally.

He lost consciousness when he felt hands, friendly hands, pressing and reassuringly on his face and from wide distance he heard the voice of his big brother which called his name.

And the Eastwind took them all away…
Away, away in a distant country.