Warning: Gore

()

John woke to the sensation of a finger stroking his face.

He blinked, expecting to see his room. Instead of the familiar sight of his train lamp, or the posters of snow boarding on his wall, Harry's sleeping form was what greeted him.

Right. The hotel.

It was a nice hotel room, John supposed. The beds were huge, the sheets were clean, and the flat screen television got channels he's never seen before. Mum even allowed him and Harry to get whatever they wanted from the mini-fridge. That was great. It just wasn't home. The sheets smelled different, the food tasted different. They only drove about an hour away from his house and suddenly it felt like he was in a whole new world.

John sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. At his movement, Harry shifted and pulled the blankets more around her. His parents, who slept on the other bed, did not stir. The digital clock on the night stand proclaimed it was two-fifty in the morning.

John peered into the darkness. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust.

He didn't greet Sherlock when he finally spotted him. Instead, he held a finger up to his lips and pointed to the bathroom.

As quietly as he could, he maneuvered off the bed, hissing lightly as cold air bit at his toes. He shuffled towards the loo.

The moment he turned on the light, his mother raised her head. "Mmm... John?"

"Pee," he said as explanation.

She nodded sleepily and laid her head back down. "Remember to wash your hands..."

On any other day, John would have bugged Sherlock, demanding he tell him how he was able to get to the bathroom before John did. At the moment though, John didn't care. Couldn't bring himself to care.

John closed the door behind him and turned to face Sherlock. He took a shuddering breath. "Mum says you're a monster."

Sherlock said nothing.

"She tries to cover my eyes when she and dad watch the news. There's been seven more kids since we left home. All of them... like that little girl. Mum says you're the reason why this is happening. You're the one killing them."

For the first time in his existence, Sherlock felt fear pooling deep inside of him. It wasn't natural, he was a nightmare incarnate, he should be inflicting chaos on the world. Instead, here was, in a hotel barely charging fifty pounds a night, and he was deadly afraid John would think of him as a monster.

John shook his head. "Dad doesn't believe you exist, nor did the police. When mum tried to get me to tell the truth.." He swallowed. "I lied."

Relief so great and so grand bloomed within Sherlock, halting the fear inside. John didn't believe he was a monster. John didn't believe he was to be... hated.

"I don't like that, Sherlock," John said, scrunching up his face. "I don't like letting my mum think she's crazy. I don't like that look in her eyes. I'm so confused. Please, Sherlock, I... I know you're not human. I always thought of you like Superman. You can do anything and go anywhere... so why couldn't you help those kids?"

There was a knock at the door. "Johhhhny..." Harry's sleepy voice echoed through. "You done? I need to wee..."

John reached over and flushed the toilet. "You should probably go," John said, backing away towards the door. "I don't want Harry or my mum to see you."

By the time John touched the doorknob, Sherlock was already gone.

()

Sherlock chose not to eat his chosen children because they held the ability to surprise him. He would never dare get rid of someone if they had the potential to show him something new. Had John been less curious, less brave, more fearful, Sherlock would have never hesitated in eating him.

Sherlock didn't stop those deaths because he didn't care. What made these children any more important than the millions he's seen over the centuries? Children have died in far worse situations than at the hands of a murderer. Dying was what children did and they did it often.

Sherlock only permitted Jim to carry on his killing spree because the little man amused him. Jim still believed with every new death, he could actually summon a nightmare. He ramped up his game by expanding his territories, finding new creative ways of inflicting pain. Sherlock believed the last child actually became shoes.

Sherlock hadn't seen the humans of this land so panicked since the days of the Ripper. It provided endless entertainment.

Sherlock didn't care, he still doesn't. But having John judge him for not trying was... not good. Perhaps it was time to put a stop to all of this before it got worse. His relationship with John was already treading on thin ice.

Without a second thought, Sherlock flung himself back to John's sleepy little town to put a halt to Jim's schemes.

()

Everything was silent.

Sherlock had expected many things, but silence was not one of them. He expected blood, bodies, death and decay. Instead what he found was nothing. There were no new bodies, no reports of missing children. It was like Jim himself fell off the face of the Earth.

The killings had stopped and no one knew why.

It didn't make any sense. A man like Jim did not stop, his actions would have kept escalating until he was caught or killed. He obviously wasn't caught, so he must be dead.

That left a bitter taste in Sherlock's mouth. It was too easy of an answer. On any other day, he would have reveled at this, that Jim had surprised him yet again. It should've been cause for celebration, instead it felt like the eye of a storm.

For two weeks the silence reigned on and it was deafening. Sherlock kept a steady vigilance, opening his senses wide and far to pick up on Jim's movement yet nothing came back to him. The silence went on for so long, adults on John's old neighboorhood were already letting their kids back out on the street.

The stupidity level of these people made Sherlock want to raze this whole town just on principle.

Something however did break through the silence. It wasn't Jim, just a voice carrying on the wind.

"Tall man!"

The voice was small and female. Definitely not Jim. Sherlock would have ignored it except when it called out again, Sherlock recognized it immediately.

Harry.

()

After the hotel, John's family took refuge at their grandparents' place and that's where they'd been for the past two weeks. Learning from his mistake with John's mother, Sherlock kept his distance and had only checked on his friend once.

Today, a police cruiser sat outside of the house while concerned neighbors looked on.

Sherlock found Harry in the garden. She was alone while the adults were inside, talking to the police. John was nowhere in sight.

"Tall Man," Harry cried out into the sky. She would pause, look around and cry out again, "Tall Man!"

Sherlock was unsure of revealing himself to Harry. She was much younger than John, much more impressionable. He did not have the confidence she could handle looking upon him as easily as John did.

Except as Harry yelled out for him again, nearly sobbing, Sherlock stopped caring.

Harry gave a wet gasp when she saw him. She stumbled back, fell on her bottom and immediately pissed herself. "You-you-you-you..." She sputtered. She glanced back to the house, as if contemplating running back in.

Determination settled into her face. Biting her small lip, Harry awkwardly pushed herself up off the ground. Due to her shaking limbs, she fell twice back on her knees. By the third try, she stood strong. "I know you and Johnny talk. I hear him at night. A-are you his friend?"

Sherlock nodded.

Harry wiped at her eyes. "John went missing this morning."

At her words, trees practically exploded as every single bird in a mile radius took off in fear. The sky was darkened with angry, confused birds and many of them collided with each other, falling to their deaths. Harry cried out, covering her head while dead birds landed around her.

Sherlock seethed.

"Go find him!" Harry screamed at him, ignoring the banging sounds of falling birds striking against roofs and cars. "Find him!"

()

It didn't take a genius to understand what happened. But apparently it would have taken a genius to have seen this coming. There were so many clues, so many warnings, how did Sherlock managed to ignore them all?

Jim was an idiot. He may have eluded Sherlock, but the moment he took John he signed his own death warrant. It didn't matter where on earth John was. He could be in the darkest depths of the ocean, the farthest star of the universe or in the space between spaces- Sherlock would still find him.

His search doesn't take him far. Near the edges of London sat an old, abandoned chocolate factory. Sherlock supposed Jim thought it would be ironic: a child-eating monster in a chocolate factory. It was so obvious it was painful to acknowledge it.

Once upon a time Sherlock thrived in buildings like these. Teenagers flocked to them like flies, wanting to see a ghost or engage in inappropriate behaviour. The walls were covered in graffiti, the floors boards rotted through. Glorious fun it was, watching these teens run aimlessly through these halls, desperate to get away from him.

Somewhere on the third floor, Sherlock found John tied to a chair.

Jim made the effort to place John in the middle of a large room so it was impossible not to see him. John was blindfolded and shoeless, for some odd reason. The boy was calm, his breath concentrated to keep from panicking. An occasional tremor would wrack his body, and he would grit his teeth each time it did. Brave John.

"I don't get it."

Jim was off to the side, leaning against a broken door frame. In one hand he held a large knife, clean and freshly sharpened. It was a no-brainer what he planned to do with that. "Why him?" he said sourly. "He is nothing."

Sherlock cut through the rope binding John. John immediately reached up to rid of the blindfold but Sherlock halted his movements. Instead, he moved John's hands to his ears, then tapped them twice, indicating to keep them there.

John immediately frowned and pressed down harder on his ears.

Sherlock turned to Jim.

"I would have given you anything," Jim kept saying, almost begging now, like he knew what was about to come next. "I would have done anything you asked of me. Just tell me why, why does this boy have your attention and I don't?"

Jim was a mystery Sherlock knew he would regret never solving. There were so many questions, so much potential to tap into. Such a waste.

Sherlock took a moment to look back at John to see if he was keeping his ears and eyes covered. He did.

Sherlock turned back to Jim and went to work.

The very first thing he did was remove Jim's eyelids. He wanted to make sure this human saw everything being done to him, have the image burned into his brain. Jim brought his hands up, covering his eyes as if that would help. He was too stunned to scream and he stumbled back, falling on his arse.

He opened his mouth and with one swipe, Sherlock pulled out all of his teeth, leaving behind only the molars.

That was when the screaming began.

John cupped his ears as hard as he could yet he could still hear the horrors happening. The gurgling noises, the snapping, the scraping, the constant splattering. John could not keep himself from shaking.

It only lasted a minute.

Once it was done, once Jim was nothing more than a splatter on the floor, Sherlock tapped John on the shoulder, allowing him to lower his hands.

John doesn't bother to check the place where Jim once was. He knew he was gone forever, as if he'd never been born. "He-he-he-he told me things..." John admitted, his face scrunching as tears ran freely down his face. "He told me what he planned to d-d-d-do to m-me..."

Suddenly Sherlock wished he had made it last longer. He would have made it last for hours if John wasn't present. But the deed was done and there was nothing more than to throw Jim into the back of their brains and carry on with their lives.

Obviously John didn't think so. Now that the danger was over, John was shaking like a leaf. He wrapped his arms around himself, sobbing uncontrollably.

Sherlock didn't know what to do. He tried touching John, pressing his fingers against his cheek but the boy flinched away, wailing. "I'm sorry!" He immediately apologized. "It's not you! It's not... p-please...!"

Sherlock curled his hands away, upset. He knew he poisoned the very earth he stood on. He hadn't known his touch did the same.

Outside, the noise of police sirens came near. Props for them for figuring out where Jim's hideout was, too bad by the time they got here, it would have been too late. Morons.

John snapped his head up at the sound. "You should go," he sniffled, his bravado taking root once more. "I don't want them to t-think this was y-you."

A few minutes later police stormed the building, checking every room, every closet. John tried to meet them halfway but Sherlock stopped him, touching his feet to remind him he was still shoeless. Once they got near, Sherlock melted into the background.

Then the most incredible thing happened.

Greg, little Greg, walked into the room. Except he wasn't so little now, his hair gone grey and wrinkles lining his face. Greg was no longer a boy, but a man in his fifties. Had it been really that long since Sherlock last saw him?

The moment Greg spotted John, great relief poured out of him. "I found him!" He said into his radio. He kneeled down in front of John, asking him if he was alright, asking him where Jim was.

"I don't know," John sniffled "He left and didn't come back."

()

Sherlock watched from the second story window as Greg carried John out in his arms. Greg wasn't the only one present. Sally was there as well, and she took John from Greg's arms, easing the boy gently into the police cruiser.

Sherlock didn't know what this meant. Why were his children here? The odds of them all coming together like this was astronomical and should never have happen. It didn't make any sense.

Sally suddenly stiffened like she felt him watching her. She glanced up, right at his window and Sherlock immediately backed away. She didn't need to see him.

Sherlock... felt broken. When he first met John he had decided he would stay unsullied. That didn't happen and every thing Sherlock did made it worse. He could see the little black spot on John's soul, just like he could see the same black spot on Greg's and Sally's.

He knew he couldn't be around John anymore.

It wasn't just John. He was tired of this. He was tired of coming to the same conclusion over and over and he knew it was never going to change. He didn't want to hurt John anymore. He didn't want any of this anymore.

Sherlock always knew his end was coming, he just didn't know how. He thought someone would find a way to finally destroy him or perhaps the all powerful creator of this world would snuff him out like the failed experiment he was. He never came to the conclusion it would be done by his own hand.

Sherlock waited till he felt John, Sally and Greg leave, their souls drifting away like the flickering lights of a passing aeroplane.

Waited, then in a blink of a second, Sherlock became nothingness.

He had thought about leaving something behind, to tell John what had happened and decided against it. There was no point.

Nightmares were meant to be forgotten.