#billy hyde

John Watson is not, to the best of his knowledge, an idiot. He has, on occasion wondered if insanity runs in his family - why else would he consent to live in a flat that has been blown up, broken into and played host to an increasingly gruesome array of human body parts - but insanity and idiocy are completely different things.

(He did not ever question whether Sherlock was insane. It was just part and parcel of his nature, like his eyes - the exact colour of ice before it shatters.)

But it stands to reason that when Sherlock - died, because left is a lie that does not soften the truth at all, cannot curve itself around his friend's bones to stop them breaking- that maybe the bottom didn't drop out of everyone's lives. That perhaps some people, honestly, just didn't realise the detective was gone, and therefore unable to solve their petty little problems.

(He gets so bitter now. Is that part of grief, or is he shrivelling into an angry old man, glaring out at the world that wronged Sherlock and then forgot him?)

So when the man comes flying into their flat, sweating heavily, a laptop bag swinging wildly under his elbow, and asks him if he's Sherlock Holmes, John's first thought is that someone is playing a cruel joke.

"No, I'm not." He says tersely, and the dull anger that sits in his chest flares a little, making it difficult to take a full breath.

"I thought-"

"He's dead. Sherlock Holmes ... died. I can't help you. I'm not a detective."

"But I need help!"

"Go to the police then."

The man jerks his elbow out of John's firm grasp, preventing him from expelling his unwanted presence from th ... his flat.

"Please," The man says, and his eyes are wide and intense behind his fogged-up glasses.

"I promised I would help him! I promised."

There is something desperate in his tone, something wild, pleading - Keep your eyes on me John - and John freezes, stupidly, with one foot on the stairs to stare at the stranger who has no idea what ghosts he is stirring, clutching his computer in front of the fireplace.

...

Alexander Melas was not supposed to be working that day. But Jim had called him in - an old friend who had been working for a private corporation for the past few years, never able to tell Alex anything specific, only how it would change the world- and while Alex finds Jim annoying, with his arrogant tone and his top-secret phone calls and how he wears his lab coat as though it's a general's stripes, the price he quoted over the phone was enough to get him out of bed and scrambling for pen and paper to write down the address.

Alex thought at first he'd written down the wrong number. He had walked hesitantly towards the old manor house, gravel crunching under his shoes, and was terribly relieved when Jim rounded the corner, the ends of his ever-present lab coat flapping.

"What is this about, Jim?" Alex asked guardedly as they walked through the echoing entranceway, heading towards the doors of an elevator whose sharp modernity clashed with the graceful lines of the old house. There were security guards with automatic weapons ringing the floor above them. He could feel the prickle of their eyes on the back of his neck as they studied him.

"Three figures just for a consult? What the hell are you doing down there, making supermen?"

Jim just laughed and clapped him on the back as they stepped inside.

"Something like that."

The elevator seemed to go down about twenty floors, which was impossible for Alex to conceive. And when the doors opened the burst of white on his retinas made him fling a hand over his eyes.

"Just hang on a minute." Jim said cheerfully from somewhere beside him.

"Your eyes will adjust. It took some getting used to, believe me."

Alex let Jim march him along the corridor while he was still half-blinded, catching only fleeting glimpses of other people in lab coats striding about, checking data on computers and muttering quietly to each other over clipboards.

And suddenly there were outside a door which read Exam Room 1, and Jim had a hand on his shoulder, pushing him inside.

"Here's your patient, Alex! You've got twenty minutes. There'll be people watching on the screens - you're perfectly safe. I've got to run."

"What? Jim, you haven't told me what's going on! Who is my patient?"

Jim's carefree laugh seemed a little hollow this time, and his eyes flicked past Alex to the room beyond.

"Oh, he's a character. She just wants to know how he's doing, physically speaking. Just do your usual thing."

And then the door slammed in Alex's face.

...

Hyde wakes, or something close to it, and focuses on his bound and wired hands. He can still feel the drugs in his bloodstream, and once he had no control but to follow its winding, surging path short of tearing out the veins through which they travelled - but now ...

If he concentrates, it's almost like the sea, like purple and red waves flowing in and out and if he tries, he can stop the darkness from taking his eyes, he can hold them deep and secret in the puzzles of his veins and stop them reaching the shore.

He grins, stretches his teeth until it hurts his face and then more to feel the sting, to remind himself that he is alive and he is awake and he will not let them drug him again.

Hyde can feel her eyes on him, beyond the glass. He hates her, his Mother, with her grinding voice and her flat black eyes. He hates her more because beneath his hate there is a thread of fear that runs far deeper, that makes him shiver when she speaks to him, that makes him baulk at her commands and then obey them, snarling weakly at her through the bars of his prison.

His ears catch the static of the intercom before her voice crackles through it, and his skin crawls at the thought of her, invisible, omnipresent, that ugly bitch crowing her triumph every time she sees him bound or caged.

He hunches his shoulders and watches one of the whitecoats place a plastic maze on the table in front of him.

"Control the mouse and get it to the centre of the maze." Mother commands, and Hyde gleefully imagines her lungs shredding themselves to grey, fleshy pieces.

He watches the mouse clean its little furry face with its tiny pink claws and recalls hunger. How long since they fed him? Weeks? His stomach claws and howls. He wants to swallow the little thing whole, nose to tail, let it slide down his throat to quell the pain in his belly.

Hyde leans forward, too eagerly, and comes up short. He can't reach the maze - Mother has ensured it, he knows, the wormridden bitch, he wants to tear out her throat and spill her guts onto the white white floors and hear her screams as he stalks her through the empty rooms - and he thrashes against his bonds, anger lending his wasted limbs a little strength.

"Stop wasting time." Mother growls high above him.

Hyde twists his head to look at the whitecoat in the corner of the lab, taking notes on his clipboard. The eyes that meet his above the surgical mask are silver, like coins or clouds or the grey line of the ocean - and he has a vague, very fuzzy memory of having seen those eyes before, closer, from below.

The scientist's heartbeat is regular, not at all elevated with adrenaline. No fear being so close to a monster? No fear at all? He blends in remarkably well, but not enough to fool Hyde. He catches the man's eyes again, grins slow and exceedingly sharp.

"Who of them is not like the others

Who of them does not belong?"

He sing-songs, his throat scratchy and raw, and giggles.

The silver eyes do not change though he watches them with eagerness.

"Hyde! You will do what I say! Do it now!"

He turns to where Mother stands, can almost make out her form behind the dull mirror-glass, and stares.

"Yes, Mommy." He smiles for her, smiles as he would if he were cornering her with all her defences stripped away and she was food and he was hungry-

And the mouse does nothing at all.

Above, dogs begin to bark in the surrounding houses. They howl mournfully at the sky, and they scratch at their fences and doors and bay for blood.

Birds rise up in great clouds from the wood and shatter themselves on the windows of the house, leaving dark smears of blood. Guards and scientists alike stare and point as wave after wave smash themselves against the house, followed by ragged lines of bats blind in the sunlight.

The sound system begins to wail and hiss, drowning out Mother's words.

And still the mouse darts here and there, cleans its white fur, blinks its tiny red eyes, and shows no sign of being controlled.

It hurts Hyde to keep all those tiny minds under the dominion of his. His nose bleeds and he relishes the salty taste as it drips into his mouth like a dehydrated man drinks his sweat.

But finally he falters, and just like that all the animals are released. Hyde sits, gasping for breath in the sudden silence, sweat shimmering on his face and hair.

But he has frightened Mother and thoroughly, for next the door is slammed open and there are men with guns and whitecoats with syringes pouring through to get at him.

The mouse squints over at Hyde and he cocks his head to watch it, reminded suddenly of a man with light glinting off the rims of his glasses, his hands shaking as he takes Hyde's bony wrist - I'll help you, I promise I'll get help I won't leave you here - and he can't recall if it was a dream or reality.

The whitecoat with the grey eyes has vanished from his corner as though he never were, Hyde realises as he is injected once, twice, five times, tiny bites from each needle on the sunken veins of his arms and legs.

Curiously enough, he wishes Tom Jackman were here.

He is very tired.

...

A/N: Sometimes I just don't know what the hell I'm thinking when I write.