Written for the moment at the pool when John steps forward and Sherlock, for the flicker of a second, thinks it was him the whole time.

Because, for the flicker of a second, I thought it was him too.

Slicker Than Water, Closer Than Blood

But my job here,

Is not to deliver you.

But to hold a mirror

Till you see how...

It's the one thing they share, besides the pulsing of red blood running thick and divided under the surface.

(One of them fights it.)

(One of them is patient.)

Sherlock, the obsession of.

But that's his reflection speaking from the fogged up mirror, twisting words into weapons, into packages with red bows perfectly tied because, yes, he's the one that loves it. The mockery, the games.

Some would call him heartless, but it's there, beating. He can feel it speeding up.

They're falling in tandem, pulling each other down in steady, expected circles.

Blood is truly the tightest of bonds; it's strangling.

He fancies himself rather an expert in it, strangulation. The theories, he hopes, dear god, not the act. Of course, he already knows the answer to that, couldn't do anything but. But it's not him, so it doesn't count, not this time, not really.

They are wrapped in each others veins, pulled closer with every heartbeat, stretched taught.

He thinks that this race he might win, the only deciding factor, the only permanent victory. He comforts himself at night with the thought, tucks himself in with it as he fights to stay awake and himself, braced solidly at the edge of giving in.

Unsteady, that was the other half, the reflection, and this was all about endurance, all in the concept of fortresses and sieges and outliving starvation, outliving sanity.

(One of them calls this survival.)

(One of them is biding his time.)

But Sherlock, dear lord.

His heartbeat quickens, pulse fluttering under the surface like a caged bird, flapping its wings and becoming hopelessly trapped, tangled and wings dripping with heavy black tar and defeat and every contract of toughened cardiac muscle, stiff with boredom and stopping in terror, brings them undeniably closer.

He can't quite bring himself to regret it.

Because Sherlock, dear lord.

Sherlock is fascinating.

It makes the itching in his vein, the dirty blood that ties them together with little red bows and ribbons; it makes it easier to take.

Sherlock is beautiful, all straight arching lines and soft lips that say the things he chokes into submission in the back of his mind and doesn't acknowledge because it's a siege and he must starve himself to win.

He must win. There is cleverness in the things his reflection tells him, things no normal person should know.

So he avoids mirrors and answers and looks at all the wrong evidence. It's a game to, in a way, and the similarities between them are striking, are they not?

The simple chain rule, the most basic of his facts. Deduction, Sherlock calls it, the art of it and he thinks that it is the beginning.

He is beginning to end and he is ending so that they can begin, together.

Winning is much more complicated now.

He still cannot resent Sherlock for it.

But then, he has never been quick to emotion; he was not allowed to be. Balance, of course, is elementary and even they must walk along a line within a certain margin. The troubling fact is, it's getting harder and harder to see.

(One of them is terrified.)

(One of them is getting restless.)

His hands leave little gifts when he isn't watching, on the somedays that he slips up, or rather, cannot make himself stop. Like a cat, slinking and purring and proud, always so proud, laying the slain bird at the master's feet.

It's hardly a fair fight, the bird's wings so sticky with tar.

His pulse flutters anyway and he does not bother to hide the fact, nor flaunt it. He wants Sherlock to figure this one out himself, the way he does best.

Such a deep, shivering pressure; the pleasure of watching him figure these puzzles out.

Widening of dark eyes, the curving of smiles as pictures slide into place to create words, words that mean everything they are not bothering to hide. It's all in the rapid Morse code of his heartbeats, beating against slick flesh.

They listen to it and smile, using the same mouth, tracing white teeth with the same tongue and thinking different thoughts about the same thing.

I would let him break me.

I could break him first.

He wakes up one morning in a place he's never seen before and remembers every little detail. He can remember the taste.

When he vomits he can taste it on the way up.

Terrified and spiraling downward—familiar, yes, but potent still, always—he allows his reflection to take control of his fingers, to write his cleverness on the mirrors, pretty distractions so that Sherlock never finds out. He can never find out what happened here tonight, while he was looking in the wrong direction.

That is, he realizes later, the point.

Hasn't it always been?

They are competing for the same grand prize, racing toward the finish line with the same stretching legs and reaching hands and the only difference there has ever been between them is that he will lose.

The only way to win is by dragging them both back and, dear lord, it's Sherlock, calling out for his help just beyond the red ribbon of the finish line.

Just this case and his dark eyes widen and it's cheating and sometimes he thinks that Sherlock knows.

That he wants him to lose too.

The reflection is much more interesting, isn't it? Much more elusive and if nothing else, Sherlock is a catcher of smoke, slender fingers curved around the bowstring and coaxing his insanity into slanted notes from the air.

(One of them is giving up.)

(One of them is done waiting.)

So, he is waving the white flag, as it were. Surrender, the word burning his tongue as he spits it.

His reflection grins at him, white and glistening and dripping.

But what can he do; nothing, he grits and grinds their teeth and hates himself more than anybody else in the world. Hates their red blood because it should run black, rotting and selfish as they are.

Which part is he in the equation?

He is not the clever one; the better one once, but he now he is simply rattling locked doors, trapped on the wrong side of it for once, the other side.

Chasing in circles, knowing that victory is just around the corner, only to find out he is chasing him own tail and all the late nights in the world cannot keep him from falling asleep tomorrow.

He dreams of white flags against blank, pulsing skies and wakes up laughing.

It's not him laughing, too high-pitched, too terrifying. But he can't make it stop, can only smother the sound in the pillow and make desperate compromises. Begs, maybe. Yes.

Cracking around the edges, sanity fraying him at the edges and hunger keeping him sharp, they are a mismatched couple, tables turned and eating off the floor. That doesn't even make sense in his head.

To be fair, though.

The things in his head have never made much sense.

His hands do not shake as he wraps himself, not in red ribbons this time, but in bombs. Curling wires and ticking green letters and, twisted though it is, he is ready. He is accepting.

For Sherlock and he cannot be resentful.

On this they can agree.

They have only ever really wanted to give this to Sherlock, themselves, completely, whatever way he wanted it.

So here he is, wrapped up in wires instead of wrapping paper, and this was, of course, the most logical outcome. They present opposites, options, and who would pick average when one could have thrill? Certainly not Sherlock. Nor them, naturally.

It is only natural. Really.

(One of them will live with that fact.)

(One of them will die with it.)

He slips the thick coat over his shoulders, over the decorations that he will let Sherlock unwrap him from, slowly. He hopes that it's slowly, that he'll be able to taste it from the locked cavern of his chest.

He hopes that Sherlock says his name, his, before he knows any better so that it can echo and maybe not feel so lonely.

The flickering blue pool lights play across a pale, smooth face that used to be his.

The feeling of it is strange, a dream. Those terrifying ones where you're running for your life, faster than you've ever run before, except it's not working, you're not moving. Trapped, and you are the bird offering yourself up to the Cheshire grin.

White flags and reflections that whistle in the mirror even though he doesn't know how.

There was only ever one of them that could.

Win, he means.

It wasn't supposed to end like this, he's sure of that, under florescent lights, here, in the place where it all began. It's been so many years know since he first heard the name Sherlock.

He whispered it through cracked lips as a prayer, as a warning, as a consequence.

The one that could catch them, in his moments of weakness, in his moments of strength.

The splash of death hitting water and, Sherlock, whispered in reverence, asking for deliverance and for his hands to stop shaking, for his world to stop crumbling at the edges.

He is not the clever one; how was he supposed to prepare for this?

The water is still in the pool and he wants to look at himself, one last time, but he is not in control anymore and his eyes don't turn, don't blink though they're dry and sting with the heavy scent of chlorine.

Teasing him, getting under his skin and pulling the muscles like puppet strings to make him smile. Except , of course, that the skin is his too; it all is.

They watch the shadow clinging to the wall come closer, all slender, slanting lines and an upturned chin.

Sherlock steps out, answering old prayers and questions like the flourish at the end of a circle. This is where beginning meets end; this is their personal Cradle, their own Pandora's box, heavy with the smell of pool and potential and impatience.

They share the urge to step forward and run their fingers through the dark curls, let a steady hand touch between shoulder blades. He always stopped himself because he is the stable one, the one who must be in control.

He is the scared one, the one the worries about consequences.

But he is not in control now, is he? So the feet in his shoes step forward and the space between them shrinks to inches then to shallow breathes and the only thing he wishes with a dull ache is that he wouldn't have to share this moment.

They are going to break Sherlock, he realizes.

He has done his part, the deception of honesty that was real, just as real as the wicked smile stretching oddly across their face, testing muscles he's never let them use before. It's a sideways slanted thing.

Ill-fitting and unstable and Sherlock rocks forward onto his toes, drawn to it like fire.

That was the plan from the start, he realizes bitterly. And, really, he should have known.

"I did it. It was me, the whole time," his voice says, sounding unlike him, childish, as if it's being used for the first time.

Like it's being tested, tried and found satisfactory.

Sherlock looks off-balance, faltering and fluttering and he has the urge to reach forward and take him by the hand, take his pulse and revel in the spike of uncertainty and triumph.

They are bleeding together again, deluding into each other in agreed pleasure at the sight before them.

Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective: theirs.

They lean in, both reaching for the finish line. Dark eyes widen, at the words and at the motion and Sherlock has a second to ask, to answer the question.

And maybe he was wrong, maybe this was the plan.

"John?"

"Shh, he's here too."

(They are going to eat him alive.)

"Let me introduce myself..."

Oh say can you see me

Oh say can you see me

Oh say, can you see me over here?

*dreams of a day when she's a famous movie director and can do whatever the fuck she wants*