Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Seven wisps of smoke ebbed from the staling cigarettes, most stubbed out in a careless fashion next to Sherlock, where a companion might have sat if he had one.  He had reserved a few of the smoldering butts, digging them into the fleshy part of his forearm and hissing at the flare of pain, his eventual sigh echoing the spark extinguished on his skin.

His left arm in particular was a veteran of abuse.  Circular burns, rows of nearly white lines, scratches where the withdrawal bugs crawled, the tracks. Hell, his father insisted the tattoos were some elaborate shrine of self-injury, swapping one needle for another.

Sherlock recounted his physical exam during his admittance into Hemdale Rehabilitation Facility, when they documented every one of his scars, made road maps of his self-hatred.  They wanted him in the dual diagnosis ward of a psychiatric hospital, but dear old Father persuaded them (verbally and financially) that the drugs were the only problem, not his son himself.  (However, his treatment team could not deny that mental illness played a large part in his addiction. They couldn't agree on what combination of depression, bipolar II, autism spectrum, oppositional defiance traits, and obsessive tendencies addled his brain.)

The shriveled butts and resulting ash cooled on the numbing concrete, numbing not only in the penetrating frigidity of cement on a stark winter's night, but the gravity which pressed his body further into the comfortless bench.  Well, one might label it a bench if its purpose was for sitting.

Sherlock perched on the ledge of the brownstone’s rooftop, his breath as visible as the cigarettes’ smoke.  But no matter how hard he studied the pattern of air circulating from each exhalation, mimicking the rudimentary breathing exercises he was taught in rehab, it wouldn't seem to turn off.

The world was much like a room full of tv's to Sherlock; each of his senses tingled with smells, sights, sounds, micro-expressions, all fighting for his attention.  Most of the time, when focused on a time-sensitive task, his high-functioning brain would revel in the challenge, healthily stimulated even when subjected to the unhealthy habits of sleepless nights and foodless days.

Sometimes, however, like an exasperated primary school teacher, he needed them to stop- the voices, the observations, the counterarguments, all sporadically increasing and decreasing in volume. And when this happened, no amount of deep breathing would release the steam agitating the cogs of his mind.  He supposed the nicotine didn't help, but he needed something to do with his shaking hands other than...

It was perfectly logical, he reasoned.  His brain was, by admission of everyone he had ever met, exceptionally unique, so why, then, did everyone refuse to believe this could be, uniquely, the only solution he ever needed?

But he couldn't give into temptation, not with everything on the line.  This was no testament to inflated self-esteem, no gimmick of spontaneous self-worth; he needed to stay clean because his work was in jeopardy.  Scotland Yard wouldn't have him back, not with the papers digging up every case he had ghost-solved for them, exposing their incompetency without him. And the number of times one of Lestrade's rank and file found him staggering around Camden at two in the morning, strung out and rambling to himself as he aimlessly dug through trash cans...  No, he had a fine life here, a stable work relationship with Gregson and a brownstone almost all to himself for experiments or case webs.

He felt it was a fool’s errand to try and suss out the origins of an addict’s impulses. Therefore he did not stop to contemplate why exactly it was that, despite gratitude towards his current living situation, he was fingering a syringe full of smack in his coat pocket.

Yes- skag, dope, the H train, heroin- an impatient plunger at his fingertip.  Knot a rubber strip, spit a needle cap, and he would sink into a sea of pleasure that would gladly swallow him whole (and he would gladly let it.) Any anger, disappointment, or pity directed at him would be meaningless, because everything beyond the high was a world away.

Sherlock stroked the familiar sterilized plastic, his pulse accelerating as need burned through his veins, as steam generated in the frantic cogs of his brain with no outlet to escape, a steady crescendo of maddening pressure. He took the filled syringe from his pocket and helplessly gazed into the yellow-orange-brown disgrace.

He looked past the syringe to the street below, the dress shoes dangling stories above ground.  How long would it take to hit the pavement?  Sherlock considered this on the roof any building, calculated the approximate distance with his weight, yet he knew from this height it was not a guaranteed death, and this was where he faltered.

He was brought back into reality by a sudden realization that it was snowing, and had been for some time now, judging by the half centimeter of snow accumulated on the ledge.  Involuntarily, he shivered, not just from the cold nipping at his leather-gloved fingers and anesthetizing the sting of his burns, but the numbness in his heart.

One spoonful of liquid pushed into his veins, and his life would once again be in shambles, yet he could not bring himself to care.  Just once, he would like to allow himself an indulgence that would never abandon him, and took no offense when he abandoned it.

A door slammed open. Three footsteps crunched on the blanketed rooftop.

"Sherlock!" Joan Watson exclaimed.

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Carefully, as if he were just putting his hands in his coat pockets, he deposited the syringe.  He cleared his hoarse throat and explained over his shoulder, "It's alright, Watson.  S'not what it looks like."

Her footsteps crunched as she approached him.  "I've been looking for you for twenty minutes.   You're going to come down with something with this amount of exposure."

She gazed at the bridge lit up in the distance; it was mesmerizing with the snow-filled foreground.  “What are you doing anyway, calculating the number of snowflakes per square foot?”

Holmes could pinpoint the shift in the air as she noticed the abandoned butts.

"C'mon," she urged in a noticeably gentler tone, a shiver in her voice.  "Lets get inside."

The snow had developed from confetti to large, feathery flakes, coming down rapid-fire.

"I'll be in soon," he stated quietly, detaching himself from her.

Nowhere in her job description did it mention being responsible for the overall welfare of her client, simply ensuring he didn't relapse, and there was no indiction of how close he was.

"No, I can't leave without you, come o-"

"It's not your pathetic excuse of a job to babysit me.  I will be in in less than two hours, you have seen me whole and in person, and I am fine, so leave me to my privacy."

Sherlock knew he had made the wrong approach as soon as his snarling retort left his mouth, because if there was one thing about Joan Watson, it was that she didn't give up easily.  Not without a fight.

She sighed, readying her mental stance for another battle of wit.  "Look, can we do this inside?  I can see you're going through something, and we don't have to talk about it now, but the fact is that you're going to catch pneumonia if you stay out here any longer. And although you'd be perfectly fine going to a crime scene like that, I won't let you infect the entire precinct just because you're too stubborn to listen to some common sense."

Silence was the brooding man's only response.

Joan was tired of Sherlock ignoring her, tired of choosing the path of least resistance and ultimately letting him carry on making poor choices. She could not force him to eat or sleep in a healthy manner, but staying out in a snowstorm when not dressed properly was unacceptable. So she decided to take matters into her own hands-- literally.

"Okay," she drew out, "looks like we're going to have to do this the hard way."

Without warning, she grabbed Sherlock's arms, each in a coat pocket, and yanked him backward from the ledge with all of the force she could muster.  Joan was much stronger than she looked, but dragging an unwilling grown man six inches taller than you (with heels) in heavy snowfall was a bit of a challenge.

Joan expected some verbal defiance and sarcastic comments.  The usual.  What she didn't expect was an unhindered yelp of pain as she made contact with the crook of his left elbow.  He regained his footing momentarily, stumbling back from her a few steps.  It only took a second to realize what was missing.

Amongst the disturbed snow was a heroin-filled syringe. It was only a split second after Sherlock's realization that Joan caught his wide-eyed panic and followed his gaze.  But by this time, Sherlock had already dove for his coveted possession.

"Sherlock!"  She screamed as he sprinted back towards the door, slamming it shut behind him, Joan just a few feet away.

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Sherlock had mere seconds to think as he ran down the stairs.  But sheer panic was known to cause lack of coordination (as were wet dress shoes on hard wood), and on the fourth step after the landing, his foot slipped, causing his head to violently connect with its edge.  Joan had just shut the door leading to the roof and now had a clear view of Sherlock hastily stumbling to his feet, swaying slightly, though whether that was due to drugs or an accident, Joan was unsure.

"Sherlock, get back here!"  She shrieked to no avail, a fiery blend of shock, anger, and pure fear.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and bolted to the nearest bathroom, locking it with the feeling still returning to his hands.  He slid down the crack of the door, his body extra reinforcement.  Adrenaline pumped through his veins at a mile a minute; desperately, he tried to catch his breath.

Joan found what room he had locked himself in just seconds after.  In vain, she slammed her fist against the door.  Her client- her friend needed a voice of reason when he was the farthest from it.  She slowed her breathing as best as she could, trying to incorporate her training and use a calmer voice.  

"Sherlock, open the door.  Please.  You're not going to be in any trouble, we just need to get you to a hospital."

Through heavy breaths, he coughed out, "I-I-I'm n-not- I h-haven't done anything."

Was he telling the truth?

"I'm glad to hear that, but we need to keep it that way.  So just open the door and give me the syringe."

Sherlock felt a warm trickle down his neck.  He took off his gloves and gasped as he touched his hand to the wound on the back of his head.  The sting made his eyes water. He reached for the towel on the rack, applying pressure instinctively.

"What's going on?"  Joan asked, hearing his pained breath.  Her eyes darted as she scanned the hall for something, anything to open the door.  If Sherlock really hadn't taken drugs yet, then it was a very good sign amidst this horrible incident.

"My- my head's bleeding," he replied shakily as he stared at his crimson-stained hand, his lungs still racing.

In fact, he couldn't quite get them to calm down.  He felt like a caged animal, as though all the air was being vacuumed out of the room, away from him.

Like lightning, it struck him: he had heroin in his grasp.  For six months he'd be re-educated that heroin was the devil, the all-encompassing hydrogen bomb, and now, in his hand, the detonator lay, waiting for his last ounce of resilience to crumble.

"Watson, I-I don't think I can come out," he confessed in a small, helpless voice.  

He was trapped- in this room, in this cycle of addiction, of recovery, sideways glances from colleagues and counselors and Watson and every other person paid to pacify his volatile nature, and inevitable, pathetic relapse.

More than anything right now, he wanted it to end.  But there was only one way out, and it was drawn up in a 1mL syringe.

Ignorance was bliss.  He admitted it. All the encyclopedias memorized, cases solved, didn't get him any closer to the alien concept of happiness.  The faster he pursued it, the further it went away from him.  If drugs were the closest he would ever get, than he'd rather achieve peace as a pile of ashes.

Sherlock shifted so he was leaning against the middle of the tub.  He set down the bloodied towel and heroin and reached into his pocket again, this time retrieving the second, larger syringe with a clear but potent solution: fentanyl.  One dose of this and his heart would decelerate to zero in a matter of minutes.  He held it up to the light between his fingertips, and, for the first time since withdrawal in rehab, openly sobbed.

He had failed the counselors at Hemdale, he had failed his mother and brother and father, he had failed Gregson and Bell, he had failed Watson, and he had failed Irene.  He recalled the last night he saw her, the sparkle of her diamond earrings she had worn to her exhibit at The National Gallery, as she shook her head in rage, "How could you choose heroin over me?!"

But he hadn't just failed... it had won.  His greatest fault, and one of his own making.  At least, he thought, it would be no real surprise.  He had to hand it to Kathryn Drummond; she had predicted his drug addiction, and now, the finale of his dramatic descent - his, as she put it, "self-annihilation."

"Sherlock," Joan demanded, panicked in response to his crying, rapping on the door. "What's wrong?"

It took several heaves of breath to choke the words out.

“I’m sorry,” he cried. “It’s not your fault.”

He wiped his damp cheeks and tore off his coat, preparing himself for his first service to the world in quite a while.  He could see the headlines now, "Drug Addict Detective Commits Suicide."

Yes, that was him alright.

Case closed.

"Sherlock!"  She screamed, and without a response, she fervently began kicking at the door, just under the lock, as her unwitting teacher in all things investigative had taught her not long ago...

With his minutes now limited, he rolled up his left sleeve, acknowledging the blur of memories that flooded him at the all-too-familiar action, and tied the tourniquet with one end in his teeth, wildly pumping his arm so the uncollapsed veins would protrude.  He studied his scars and tracks as they darkened with the trapped blood.  The pain that caused them would soon be over.

He felt the relief of a pinprick in his arm.

Welcome home, he thought bitterly.

Chapter Text

As a sober companion, Joan’s promise to Sherlock, his father, and herself was to keep him safe no matter what. Kicking at the stubborn wood, Joan thought back to another time when a life was in her hands.  

I will not fail, she internally chanted her mantra.  I...will...not...fail!

The bathroom door burst open with the lock attached. Joan fell forward in surprise and stifled a yell as her left knee flared in pain. Sherlock's heaving breaths resounding through the small space proved that he was alive and not yet lost in a heroin haze.

Upon regaining her balance, kneeling just inside the bathroom’s entrance, a horrifying scene forever engraved itself in her mind’s eye: Sherlock with a needle in his arm, thumb on the plunger, his entire body shaking uncontrollably. He stared at the syringe as though he couldn’t believe his own actions brought him to this moment.

“Sherlock,” she whispered breathlessly, the color draining from her face. “Put it down.”

She was only three feet away, but too afraid to move closer in case he reacted by depressing the plunger. Out of her periphery she could see another syringe, which was the one Sherlock dropped on the roof. What was one little push away from flowing to his brain and heart? Cocaine, morphine, both?

His heart pounded in his eardrums, nearly drowning out her voice. Breath came in short, quick gasps at an unsustainable pace. Cold sweat glistened on his ashen face.

She held up her hands. “You don’t have to do this. Please, put it down. Please.”

She felt utterly inept begging like this. There was a faint sense that she should have some ready-made lines about recovery at hand, a soothing verbal antidote to the panicked desperation that drove him to this state. How hard he worked to get sober, how much he had to lose, and how much he was cared for by the people around him.

Sherlock had preternatural senses that could tell the difference between 147 types of tobacco ash. Yet not even he could know for sure if the drug he bought was pure, laced, or an entirely different substance from what he was told until it was too late. As far as she knew, Sherlock had been clean for nine months, meaning his tolerance was lowered and the potential for overdose was much higher.

Joan wished she could say it all succinctly, but in the moment, she could only plead with any and all universal forces that he did not press down the plunger. She readied herself to dive toward him, then run to the closest Narcan kit, located behind books in the study.

Sherlock was paralyzed in terror. He felt completely out of control of his body, sentenced to watch powerlessly what would happen next.

But even this proved difficult, as reality was coming undone. The excess oxygen from hyperventilating made his head feel like a balloon about to burst. He felt himself floating away. The scene blurred and darkened.

Joan watched his eyes glaze over and torso sway.

It was now or never.

She lunged toward him and grabbed the syringe, clamping firmly between the plunger and barrel so he could not press it down. One hand yanked it out of his arm while the other pulled off the tourniquet so blood could flow freely again.

She took the clear syringe as well as the brown one laying beside him, emptied them into the toilet, and flushed. The needles ricocheted off the floor as she threw them and the tourniquet into the corner.

Sherlock lost consciousness. He could not see nor hear, and for a few seconds he did not breathe, as his body reestablished equilibrium. Thankfully, Joan never saw the worst of it, or she would have feared him dead.

It certainly felt for a time as though he was dead, though he was too impaired to muse on this fact, to determine if this was truly what he wanted. Did he truly want to kill the brain he valued above all else? To cease pondering the mysteries of life?

Or did he merely want to kill the parts of him he hated-- the addiction, the depression, the overstimulation, the fear that he would never know peace or happiness? Was there really no separating himself from these afflictions? Had he done all he could in this life, and was he ready to say goodbye?

These questions went unanswered as he was beckoned back to the waking world. He soon resumed breathing, then hearing. Pins and needles rushed down his face. Little dots of green and red danced like tv static before a close-up view of the pale blue tile came into focus.

Joan retrieved a drug test from the bathroom cabinet. She grabbed him by the shirt and heaved him back to sitting position from where he had slumped to the floor. The syringes appeared to be full, but she had no time to make sure when the primary objective was quick disposal. It was possible he had injected a little to gauge its potency, or taken other drugs before she met him on the roof like pills, which would take a while to kick in. It was hard to distinguish whether his demeanor- the paleness, shortness of breath, tremors, lightheadedness- was due to drugs or a panic attack.

“Sherlock, what did you take?”  She demanded as she swabbed the inside of his mouth. The test could only tell her what class of substance he was on, not the specific drug or quantity, so his answer was vital.

He blinked dumbly at the crook of his elbow. The syringe had disappeared, replaced by a trickle of blood. He had no memory of how that happened.

"Look at me!" She wrenched his head up to face hers.

Joan’s gaze grounded him. As the sole cause of the fear that galvanized her eyes, he felt compelled to alleviate it any way he could.

"What did you take, and how much?" She articulated slowly so he could finally comprehend.

He shook his head as his teeth chattered. “N-nothing.”

"Tell me the truth, Sherlock.  I need to know."

He forced himself to maintain eye contact, unfocused blue irises meeting terrified brown.

"I-I-I d-didn't use," he spluttered. “I j-just aspir-ated...”

Joan believed him, but the test result was the only thing that would relieve the tension in her chest.

Sherlock was slowly coming out of his stupor. The room was littered with the syringes, caps, tourniquet, bloody towel, and his coat. He took it all in as if it were a crime scene; only then did he fully realize what happened.

Ragged breaths elongated into a string of sobs as he buried his face in his hands. She set down the drug test on the edge of the bathtub where she could monitor its progress and wrapped her arms around him, feeling the shaky expansion and contraction of his ribcage.

Unworthy as he felt, he couldn’t help but return the embrace, drenching her shoulder in tears and smearing her side with blood. Typically, he couldn’t stand the touch of others, but in this raw state he clung to her desperately, in hopes that some small shred of the comfort that everyone else felt when being hugged would find its way to his empty heart.

“I’m sorry,” he cried into her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”

Sorry, said a small voice inside him, I didn’t act when I had the chance, though even thinking about what he almost did made his stomach lurch violently and lightheadedness worsen.

Her eyes stung as tears leaked onto her cheeks. It was difficult to talk with the strain in her throat. "It's okay. You’re safe. Try to take slow, deep breaths. It’s gonna be okay.”

And she meant it, especially as no colored bars appeared on the test, revealing he genuinely hadn’t taken any drugs.

This was a relapse, with how far he had gone. But relapses were unfortunately part of being an addict, and as harrowing as they were, the work put into being sober was not lost. One relapse was not guaranteed to turn into a spiral. Having a panic attack in response to near drug use showed that he recognized using as the danger it was and cared deeply, which was far removed from the apathy often associated with active users. Even at this dark moment, Joan could imagine Sherlock picking himself up and eventually getting back on track.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she affirmed. “It’s over now.”

That brought deeper shudders from the heaping mess in Watson's arms.

"N-no it's not!” He anguished, pulling away in exasperation at her lack of understanding. “I’m not dead yet!”

This she did not expect to hear.  It brought to the forefront the nagging sensation in her heart that there was something she was missing, something even worse that would make Sherlock Holmes cry with abandon. She glanced around the room and stopped on the empty needles still in the corner of the room before meeting his hopeless, bloodshot eyes. In all the chaos, she had forgotten about the discrepancy.

"The clear-"

"Fentanyl."

Her eyes widened in shock. Fentanyl was up to 100x stronger than morphine or heroin. The average fatal dose in crystallized form was no bigger than a few breadcrumbs.

“How much...” she breathed, but couldn’t finish. The look on his face said it all, and it was making her sick.

The air became sharper, and chills ran down her whole body.

“No.” She shook her head, unwilling to believe it. She wanted to vomit.

Sherlock dissolved into sobs again. The shame of facing her was unbearable, so he hid between his knees and gripped his skull with both hands. He had failed everyone when he relapsed, but he failed himself when he couldn’t end it all.

It seemed the pain, his own and that which he caused others, was infinite. This made him crave what had been in his grasp just minutes earlier, and the craving made him hate himself more, and the self-hatred increased the craving, fueling the negative feedback loop of despair.

Tears flooded her vision, breaking the levy of her medical training that had until now kept her emotions in check.

“You tried to kill yourself?”