I hear the creak of the front door closing. A shudder courses down my spine. Back already?

Back when he was human, Sherlock Holmes was an addict.

The slow, heavy footsteps on the stair. He knows Mrs. Hudson is home, otherwise he would have swept up here in an instant.

Ever since his transformation, which saved him from Reichenbach but stole his soul forever, he has remained an addict.

The door to the flat swings open. It's been three days since he's last been home. He stares at me, eyes flashing a brighter silver than usual, the way they only do when he's starving.

Only now, he is addicted to me.

"The cage, John." The transformation is already beginning. It's a subtle one, really, only a few changes here and there, but it never fails to disturb me. "Now."

In two long strides, the door has slammed shut, and he's entered the code behind the fireplace to reveal the secret dungeon behind it – or what he calls, the cage.

My cage.

He'd prefer to keep me in it at all times, but in order to keep up pretenses, he only locks me in when he's ravenous. Or bored.

Both happen very often.

"I said now."

I turn my face from him and walk into the cage. He follows me and locks the door behind him, so that Mrs. Hudson will only see an empty flat. The soundproof walls ensure no one knows the truth about Sherlock Holmes.

I hate taking off my clothes for him, and he prefers to do it himself, but he always tears my jumpers, and I hate losing them more. I strip, unceremoniously, uncomfortably cold in the chill of the dungeon. He has air streaming through here – he only keeps up breathing for pretenses, but if I'm to be unconscious, it's to be his doing, not dull suffocation. The air is just a few degrees below comfortable, and it washes over me unpleasantly as I stumble over pulling my socks off. He likes to warm me himself. He likes to see me shiver first.

"Hmm," he murmurs. I stand naked in the middle of the dungeon, which is lined with various chains, bars, leather, and pulleys. He's used almost all of them on me before, but I know there are some he hasn't yet, and new ones he's planning on devising in the future.

He circles me, sizing me up. He's in the middle of the transformation now. Long fangs erupt bloodily from his gums, sliding over the fullness of his pale lower lip. His eyes are burning silver now, edging out the whites, even more slanted than usual. His normally sharp cheekbones are razors now, cheeks sunken. His shoulder blades protrude as he yanks off his own clothes. The body beneath is covered in scars and violent slashes from where his now-clawlike nails tried to pull this new undead skin off him when he first woke up in this state.

I can see every bone in his body through his thin skin. His nostrils are flared into points, dilating as they smell me, as they smell the blood coursing through me. My heartbeat has began to pound in fear and anticipation.

I will never get used to this.

My body is soft and fleshy and warm in the wake of his ruined one.

Hissing, mouth wide open to accommodate his hard fangs, he traces one talon-like nail down my throat, resting just below my collarbone. His cracked lips pull into a sadistic smile at how my breath quickens, the small dagger of his finger pressing just deep enough to leave a red mark, so close to drawing blood. He pulls away just before it does.

"Not yet," he croaks, voice raw and scratched. "Ah. I know." He glides to a certain set of chains, ones I haven't seen before, and pulls them off the ceiling. He beckons.

I walk over slowly, the cold stone floor stinging the soles of my feet.

His breathing is harsher. His hunger is growing. He grabs my wrists and fastens them to the dangling chains. My arms are elevated, but at an angle so that they won't lose feeling for a while – just enough to drain extra blood into my core. He kneels and pulls my ankles backwards. The manacles on the floor are a few steps backwards from the ones on the ceiling, so I'm half-bent over. The wall is a few feet away, but not close enough to lean against, not close enough to provide any solace, however trapping it may be.

I am completely exposed.

The knot of hot fear in my stomach is growing. I know what's going to happen next. I know what's going to happen next.

He tests the chains, yanking on them harshly. The clanging echoes, lonely, throughout the cage.

He swoops in front of me, bending so that his face is an inch from mine. My eyes shut involuntarily and I let out a whimper.

He hates it when I do this.

He hates it, and I know that, but I couldn't help myself, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't bear it, can't, won't –

His hot hands clench into my shoulders, burning my cold skin. I gasp again, as the pricks of his nails press into my flesh, again not hard enough to draw blood yet, and he growls.

"Look at me, John."

My chest heaving, I open my eyes.

Sherlock's spoiled rotting face stares back at me. Heavily scarred skin, pointed lips with inhuman fangs, caved-in cheeks, angled chin, the flesh coming off in certain places. He's taller than he was before too, now monstrously skinny, like the animated corpse of a jungle cat. Worst of all are the eyes now, that he forces me to look into.

Completely silver. Not a trace of the brilliant sparkling blue-green left.

I used to be able to see constellations in them. I used to be able to see the rush of the ocean of his mind through his eyes, crashing over me in beautiful hot bright waves. I used to be able to count the colors on both hands, the way they would shift to something warmer when he was looking at me.

Now there is only cold hunger.

Nothing left.

My best friend.

Nothing left.

He snarls in approval as I force myself to stare into those dead eyes. I hold my jaw firm, cursing myself for that whimper. I will not cave so easily, I will not.

Each time I try to keep from crying out, from giving in, longer than I did last time.

His pale mouth stretches wide in a caricature of a smile.

"Now then." The words reverberate throughout the cage, and he begins.

I can already tell that today is a day he tries something a little new. That smile is plastered on his face too hard. Usually he's behind me already, readying to penetrate painfully in one way or another, but he stays in front of me – I suppose this is why I can't be pushed against a wall.

He brings his face very close to mine and I fight to keep my eyes open. His breath heats my skin.

I used to think vampires would be ice cold. I was wrong. He is lit with a fire somewhere inside him, something that has burned up all of his humanity, and the breath escapes his hole of a mouth like smoke.

He traces a nail down my cheek, hissing like a snake. As he moves the nail lower down my body, he kneels, cackling. He places his lips on the tip of my flaccid penis, and I realize what this new torture entails.

I pull back hopelessly, struggling at the chains.

"Oh God, no – please – "

He flashes his knife-sharp teeth at me in a grin.

"Don't worry, I won't feed on you from here," he says mockingly, "I promise."

I grit my teeth, shaking my head, though I know it's futile. Sherlock's promises meant something, but this is not Sherlock anymore and he knows it, he knows it.

He takes my cock in his mouth carefully, and begins to lick the soft length. I can feel my breath catch in confusion. He has never, ever done this before, never so much as touched me between the legs. He's only ever forced himself into me.

This is a trick, a new torment, and I fight against it, every inch of my body screaming silently in fear as I know in a split second he could sink his teeth into me. Yet against my will, I can feel myself hardening in his mouth…

From this angle, in the dark light of the cage, it's all too easy to ignore the graying body. As he moves his mouth somewhat expertly over my length, it just looks like Sherlock's messy hair between my legs. Sherlock, as he really was, and it could just be him home one day deciding to pleasure me. Just as it starts to feel good, just as I begin to let myself fantasize –

He pulls back, screeching delightedly, clapping his gnarled fingers together. He raises himself to my face, compelling me to look into his deadness, and I can feel my eyes burning with tears I won't let spill, mourning my lost friend, the death of what is forever gone.

"That was good, wasn't it? You liked it, I could tell, you liked it. You want me, you want me, John, and I will have you." His voice fills my head like broken glass set on fire.

"I want him," I spit out.

I know I shouldn't've, I know this exactly what he wanted me to say, exactly how he wanted me to feel, but I can't help it, I shut my eyes and I see Sherlock and his heart-shaped mouth and I open them and there's this –

He's laughing again, but it's darker now, fuller now. He yanks painfully on the chains around my wrists, bending me forward still. When his face is an inch from mine, he opens his mouth wide.

"I am him."

At these words, I slump forward in the chains. I can't. I can't fight it anymore, I shouldn't.

He's behind me now. He slides his nails down my back, finally drawing blood from my skin. The cuts scrape over yet-unhealed scars, the raw flesh stinging. He cups the cheeks of my ass and squeezes, nails digging into me. I won't be able to sit up very comfortably for a while now.

He bends, putting his face very close to mine. I fight back a shudder of disgust at his monstrous emaciated skull. His breath rattles by my ears, and I can smell blood and decaying organs and – and –

I do shudder now, I can't help it, and I can feel my eyes grow hot again because somewhere beneath those horrid smells, on his breath is the faintest hint of black tea – the kind I always used to make Sherlock, before.

He seems to know exactly what I'm thinking. He crows with delighted dark laughter.

"See? See, John, I am him! I haven't changed one bit!"

With that last word he thrusts his cock into me without warning and I let out a strangled yell of agony.

Didn't last long this time.

He's laughing harder now, but I can tell he's not smiling.

Just like the rest of his body, his groin transforms. In this state, his length is only a bit thicker than it used to be – I came across him in the bath sometimes, all right? – but longer, easily ten inches hard. He knows my limits and he has never done lasting damage to this part of me, but he always pushes me further and further.

He pulls me close, his enormous shaft stretching me, filling me up. He presses his hot, scabbing body to mine. One hand holds my hips steady so I can't pull away, the other reaches up around me to grab my chin and tilt my neck back, exposing my throat. My hands cling desperately to the chains, my knuckles going white around them as I try to get used to the invasion of his prick inside me, my own cock completely flaccid as usual now.

"I'm him," he says, pulling back to thrust into me hard. I grunt in pain, trying to hold back, but I'm panting hoarsely now. I feel as if I'm being split open with a hot poker. "And you're mine," he finishes, and with that, he sinks his teeth into my throat.

I hang helpless from the chains as the fangs press deep into me. If I hadn't been held up, I would have fallen over, the anguish from the fresh cuts weakening me.

He pulls his teeth out and mutters in my ear gleefully, "you taste amazing, John." He lets a substantial amount of blood dribble down my chest unpleasantly before he covers the wounds with his mouth, and sucks.

My body trembles uncontrollably as he drinks from me. He thrusts again, picking up a steady fast rhythm. He rams into me hard, again and again, so many inches of thick hot pain filling me up. With each thrust he takes care to press fleetingly, as he always does, against that spot inside of me that feels so good, just long enough to make me think faintly that if he were still him, this would be the most incredible experience in my life. But then he thrusts deeper, harder, rougher, agonizingly, filling me with his inhuman length, and that bitter memory evaporates into sharp pain.

He does this with every thrust.

He forces into me like a sword, and the adrenaline from the pain makes my heart pound uncomfortably, which is, of course his plan. My pulse quickens, sending my blood throbbing through me, and he growls in pleasure as he drinks.

I can feel the horribly familiar sensation of my blood being pulled out of my veins like a thread through skin. I cling onto the chains around my wrists desperately. My feet have been yanked off the floor by his impossibly strong hand around my waist as he shoves my hips against his cock over and over. I cling hard, trying to stay in control, but I'm shaking from the loss of blood, from the heat of his lips on my skin.

He's thrusting faster and faster and there's blood spilling down from his mouth and from the wounds on my back.

This is deliberate. He does not waste lightly.

He's painting me.

Painting me with my own split blood, his fingers the brush, claiming me, his, as he quickens his thrusts and drinks even more ravenously, forcing his cock into my aching tight ass. His hand moves from my neck and my frail head lolls to the side and down to my chest as he continues to drain me. His hand covers my body, nails scratching at my flesh, sometimes deep enough to draw more blood and sometimes not, but he is smearing my blood all over me, coloring me a macabre red.

Making me a monster just like him.

I stare down at where my ankles are still chained, though I'm being held up off the ground, my body rocking violently with every desperate thrust.

I watch my bare feet scraping against the cold stone as I fade in and out of consciousness. The blood loss is intense now, he must be nearly done, he must.

How did we get to this place?

I used to drag him to Speedy's for lunch. He used to drink the tea I made for him, sometimes. He used to blather on at me about crap telly that I never should have gotten him into in the first place.

It was all for you, John.

The words drift through my purgatorial delirium like a prayer.

He said that, once. At the very beginning, when he came back like this, before his first hunger.

Why he fell.

And why he came back.

My eyes are burning with tears again but it's not from the pain this time, though he's sped up again.

He pulls his mouth off me and flings his head back, howling as he fucks my suspended limp body harder and harder until he finally erupts into it, filling me with more searing cum than humanly possible.

He slides out of me and, breathing hoarsely, steps in front of me.

Just before I pass out from blood loss and pain, just right before, I see him transforming back into his temporary human form, and in the instant I lose consciousness, I see something I will later convince myself I imagined.

I see a flicker of warm light blue in those silver eyes, and it is desperately, achingly sad.

Then everything goes dark.

When I wake up, I am in bed.

I have been cleaned of blood, the dirty red remnants scrubbed out of my hair and fingernails. The wounds on my back and neck have been cleaned, my neck bandaged carefully, with one of Sherlock's favorite scarves wrapped around it.

I can hear him in the next room, talking pleasantly to Mrs. Hudson about an upcoming case.

It is over, until the next time he can't control himself. This was a long drink, so it'll probably be sometime late next week. Mrs. Hudson gets suspicious when he's away too long, though, so he'll have to return to 221B and pretend to sleep in his bed, though I know he prefers not to look at me when he's in his human shape now.

I don't know how much longer my body can take this.

I don't know how much longer I can take this.

But I know that I will, until I can't anymore.

I always will.

If it's not me, it would be someone else.

It's not that I believe that one day I can fix him. It's not. Really. It's not.

Really.

It's not that some part of me...likes being what's keeping him alive. What's keeping him from murdering, what's keeping him from tearing himself apart. It's not like some part of me can't help but be proud that finally, even in this twisted way, Sherlock finally has to admit that he needs me. Because that's what I've always wanted, to the point that I will let myself be killed slowly for the sake of those infinitesimal moments that I am probably imagining, in which I think I see a flicker of blue in those silver eyes and I can feel something human in him. What I've always wanted, to be the one who keeps him, even on the slightest level, himself.

It's not that at all, really.

It's not.

END