Prompt: Perfect Prison
Rated: PG
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes
Author's note: First official foray into fandom, please point to errors and they will be corrected. Also, I do not own the characters contained within this fic. Sad, isn't it?

The perfect prison is inescapable; not by virtue of high walls, cruel guards, heavy chains, or sweeping searchlights. No, the perfect prison is inescapable because the prisoner never knows it exists.

Sherlock saw John's prison as it was, the dissociation crippling him and the loneliness stifling a soul best left to grow wild in deserted places in full sun and wind. A hardy plant, unassuming and tough as its environment, and doomed to death in a tended garden.

He might not be a good man, or even a decent one, but it would be inhuman to let him rot in a cell when he'd done no crime worth that punishment, so Sherlock led John out of the cell and into the labyrinth of his world.

John never knew he'd been a prisoner, too engrossed in savoring his freedom to realize his escape, or his savior.