Chapter Text
Sherlock worked the handle of the door open with some difficulty—the handle did not seem to be located where his eyes insisted that it was—and stumbled into the back seat. He had a slightly nauseated sense of deja vu. This was how this whole mess had started, hadn’t it? Him in this very back seat, stumbling, high. Well, not so high anymore. He swallowed against the foreign taste in the back of his throat, feeling raw and irritable, thinking of the heroin floating uselessly in his bloodstream while his starving opioid receptors shrieked from behind naloxone molecules blocking their gates. Bloody Mycroft.
The front doors opened: John and Mary getting in. Sherlock snapped his eyes closed and pressed his fingertips together under his chin, hoping to convey the message that he was busy solving the Moriarty mess right now, genius at work, silence please. Which was what he should be doing anyway, why wasn’t he in his mind palace already? He wanted back there, back to the half dream of a time long before he was even born, of always two of us, of the—no. He’d been there already, solved that. Time to move on. He tried to force himself into it, squeezing his eyes tighter to visualize the corridor that led to the Moriarty Network Wing, but he was distracted by the muttering in the front seat and frayed edges of his nerves. Who. Who. He needed more data, needed his computers, needed caffeine, a smoke, a fix.
A door slammed again and Sherlock was startled into opening his eyes. “Why aren’t we moving? We haven’t gone anywhere!”
Mary turned to look at him, her eyes unreadable. “Change of plans. John’s going back to Baker Street with you. There’s a car on the way.”
“Oh,” Sherlock said, taken aback. He closed his eyes again. Good news? Bad news? John, John in Baker Street, good, very good, in his chair, his pipe—no, that was his dream again, and that was the bad news, because Sherlock needed a hit and he needed it soon. He’d planned this day’s chemical schedule in exacting detail: lorazepam to get him through the farewells, heroin for the takeoff, a nap, then cocaine and methamphetamine to get him started. But Mycroft, the stupid interfering git, had given him intranasal naloxone, and now the heroin was effectively and abruptly gone. Sherlock felt its absence in his teeth-grinding irritation and now the lorazepam was just slowing him down. He needed the cocaine, needed it, needed it to smooth away the roughness and hatefulness of the world and let him concentrate on this fascinating problem. But John would not, not--his shocked eyes, his anger, morphine or cocaine?
The door opened again and John’s voice said “Five minutes,” as he slid back inside.
“It’s fine, I don’t mind waiting. You’re sure…”
Sherlock tuned them out again. The video. A message. Not for him, he was meant to be gone. For whom. Not the public; most of them didn’t know who Moriarty was, he’d wanted it that way. But a big message, not to be missed. Attention. Publicity. Who wants publicity? Celebrities. Who else? People with something to sell.
“That’ll be it,” John said and Sherlock opened his eyes and moved swiftly to get out, because the faster they got on with it the faster he could be home. He slammed his own door shut, watching with narrowed eyes as Mycroft strolled unhurriedly to greet a dark-haired woman who had just got out of the new car.
“Oh, hello again,” John said, coming up behind him.
“Sorry,” the woman said, politely indifferent, “have we met?”
Sherlock snorted rudely and moved toward where the driver had just opened the back door, shoving his way past him into the seat. “Don’t feel bad, John, Mycroft has them cloned.”
“Sorry, I’m terribly sorry, I see now of course you’re not—what happened to Anthea?”
“Promoted,” Mycroft said blandly. Sherlock reached out and yanked the door from the driver’s hand to slam it closed.
John got in a moment later and Sherlock immediately said peremptorily, “Don’t talk,” and closed his eyes again. He heard John’s faint huff—a quieter, politer version of Sherlock’s snort—and hid his smile behind his fingertips. John being at his side would always be good news, even though he would have to plan carefully to manage things when they reached Baker Street.
The ride back home was interminable. Sherlock itched to be back at his computers, or at least to scan the news on his phone, but he did not dare pull it out for fear of John seeing his hands shake. “Has anything happened?” he asked abruptly, opening his eyes.
“Hmm?” John glanced over at him.
“In the news. I’ve been out of communication, remember? Have I missed anything? Any crimes?”
“Oh.” John considered. “Well, there was that bloke who ran the media empire, rather controversial figure, got shot…”
“What?”
“But you probably heard about that, it happened Christmas Day.”
Sherlock opened his mouth, caught John’s got you grin, and snapped it shut. “Very funny,” he said curtly, closing his eyes again. Damn it. He was too slow, too bloody slow, his carefully calculated cocktail disarrayed and leaving him dulled and floundering. He didn’t dare risk John noticing further. “Check the news anyway, just to be sure,” he said without opening his eyes.
“Sherlock, it’s New Year’s Day. There’s not going to be anything on. What are you looking for anyway?”
Well, at least he was that much faster than John Watson still. “What do you think Moriarty put that video up for? Wish us happy New Year?”
“Announcing he’s back, I suppose,” John said slowly. “But…you said he was dead…”
“Yes, that’s irrelevant,” Sherlock said impatiently. “He’s back. Exactly. Not coming soon, back, but he’s got to back that up, hasn’t he, can’t just say ‘hi!’, he’s got to prove it—“
“My God,” John said, clearly catching on. Sherlock could hear him fumbling out his phone. Silence for a few moments as the car hummed along, and then John said in a tone of mingled relief and disappointment, “Nothing. There’s stories about tonight’s telly front and center, can’t be any real news out there. So I suppose that means…something coming up, isn’t it? A warning?”
“Mmmm,” Sherlock said, who truthfully had no idea what Moriarty might be planning to do, but was sure if he could just get to his computers and his cocaine he could certainly work it out.
They lapsed back into silence, John still tapping slowly away at his phone and Sherlock with his fingers pressed tightly together, plotting his strategy. When he sensed from the outside noise and the car’s velocity that they were getting close, he opened his eyes and leaned forward. “Have you got any water?”
Anthea 2.0 looked around. “Not in the car, sorry. Is it urgent?”
“No. Just go straight there,” Sherlock said shortly, leaning back. John looked at him curiously and Sherlock said in explanation, “That utterly superfluous naloxone’s left a horrid taste in my mouth.”
“Superfluous?” John said. He was no longer smiling. “Sherlock, you weren’t breathing.”
Sherlock did not deign to reply to this. Of course he’d been breathing; he’d specified exactly the quantity of heroin he wanted in the smuggled syringe, and Wiggins had never miscalculated before. He swallowed ostentatiously, nose wrinkling, and settled back in his seat as though unaware they were only minutes away. John opened his mouth as though to say something else, then closed it and turned away, looking out his own window.
When they finally pulled up to the kerb Sherlock was out of the car like a shot, hoping this would be taken as part and parcel of his usual rudeness combined with the urgency of the matter at hand. He let the front door bang behind him, knowing that would bring Mrs. Hudson out, and took the stairs two at a time, shedding his coat and scarf and flinging himself into the bathroom. Door locked, taps on, into the hidden pocket in his jacket, oh thank God finally. His fingers were shaking with urgency.
Generally speaking Sherlock vastly preferred to inject—far greater precision that way—but time was short, and fortunately he’d prepared for every eventuality. He gauged the amount of cocaine with a careful eye, sniffed it up, and licked the smooth surface for good measure. Then he swigged mouthwash to bolster his story of rinsing his mouth, washed his hands, and turned off the taps. Excellent, he’d been upstairs less than a minute. Pleased with himself, Sherlock opened the door and stepped out directly into John’s fist.
Thanks to the cocaine zinging through his bloodstream the blow did not hurt as much as it should have, but it still knocked Sherlock backward—into the wall, fortunately, or he’d probably have split his skull on the tile floor. He staggered, righting himself, and John grabbed him by the jacket and punched him again. Starbursts exploded across Sherlock’s vision.
“Do you really think I’m that stupid?” John hissed. He shook Sherlock by his lapels, making his teeth rattle. He tried to bat John’s hands away but John was having none of it; he shoved Sherlock into the wall. “Bad taste in your mouth? How does this taste?” He struck out again, catching Sherlock hard in the jaw so that the coppery taste of blood exploded across his tongue.
“What are you—stop it!” Sherlock flailed wildly, connecting with something that was probably John’s upper arm without enough force to do any real damage. The John from his mind palace flashed through his head—you would be forcibly reminded which of us is a soldier and which is a drug addict—and he laughed before he could stop himself, a laugh which stopped abruptly when John grabbed him by the front of the jacket again and slammed him into the wall.
“Answer me, Sherlock,” John said. He was all cold, steady rage, his fists unshaking as they pinned Sherlock in place. “Were you using when we lived together?”
“No,” Sherlock said immediately. It was the truth. He had been using only infrequently when John had come into his life anyway, and by the time he’d gotten properly bored again he’d feared John’s disapproval enough to stay clear. “You know I wasn’t.”
“I know I never caught you,” John said cuttingly. “Why not?”
“I didn’t need it.” John’s eyebrows went up, disbelievingly. “You—there was your blog, there were plenty of cases, I—“
“You stopped before, you can stop again.”
“I don’t need to stop,” Sherlock said, annoyed. “I’m not addicted—“
“—you just use drugs when you’re bored, or to heighten your thought processes,” John said sarcastically. “Yeah, I’ve heard it before. Well, you’re not bored now, are you? And you managed Moriarty just fine last time without any drugs, so you can bloody well do it again.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do right now if you’d get out of my way and—“
The punch caught Sherlock off guard—rolling his eyes was clearly a mistake—and it knocked the back of his head squarely into the wall. The room went glittery again.
“How many times, Sherlock?” John bellowed. He was in a full-blown fury now, shaking Sherlock so hard Sherlock lost his balance and staggered. “How many times am I going to have to watch you die? Because I’m done with it. I don’t care if you’re got nine lives like a cat, I’ve had to watch you go through three and I am not. Doing it. Again.” He shook Sherlock like a rag doll, banging him against the wall as Sherlock struggled to get free. “You listen to me.” He pinned Sherlock in place, their faces only inches apart, so Sherlock with his heightened awareness saw every angry line and wrinkle. “I am done. As of now. You stop the drugs right now, today, or I walk out. You will never see me again.”
Sherlock laughed, high and manic and arrogant, because that was ridiculous. “You’ll never stay away. You tried that once before, remember? About died of boredom and that was before—“
He saw the punch coming this time but didn’t bother trying to dodge it; he was just high enough to feel invincible. He laughed again, swallowing blood and mouthwash, and John looked him straight in the eye.
“I know addiction,” John said in a calm, cold voice. “I know what it does. I saw what it did to my family. I will not watch it kill you. Last chance, Sherlock.”
Sherlock bared his teeth in a sneer, seeing John’s fist come up for the coup de grace as he opened his mouth, but to his surprise he heard his own voice say, “Don’t leave.”
BAM.
He’d been a split second too late. John’s punch knocked him flying, feet skittering on the ground and the room whirling up around him as he went down, only to be arrested in mid-crash inches from the floor.
Sherlock blinked, blinked again, tried to force his eyes to focus. He was half-kneeling, half-sprawled, with John knelt in front of him, holding him up with one hand gripping his jacket and the other fisted in his hair.
“What did you say,” John whispered.
Sherlock closed his eyes in defeat. “You heard me.”
“Why.” When Sherlock did not answer, John gripped his hair harder and shook him by it, which hurt enough to register through the cocaine. “Tell me why.”
“You know why.”
“I need to hear you say it.”
Sherlock kept his eyes closed. If he didn’t see his humiliation reflected in John’s eyes, maybe it wasn’t happening. I didn’t need the drugs because you were here. He couldn’t say that, he could never say that. He made his voice as aloof as he could. “I gave up three of my nine lives for you, what more do you want? Sentiment?”
“I don’t want you to die for me!” John shouted. He was so close Sherlock could feel the heat of his breath. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I want you to fucking live for me!”
“You’re the only thing I live for!” Sherlock shouted back, now furious himself.
There was a sudden silence, the two of them staring at each other, both breathing hard. John’s hand was clenched in Sherlock’s hair so hard he felt as though he were being scalped.
“Am I hurting you?” John said suddenly.
“Yes!”
“Good,” John said, and he kissed him.
Sherlock was so shocked that for a moment he could only sit frozen, stunned into immobility. Then John leaned back and said in a worried voice, “Sherlock…” and Sherlock came to his senses, said “Yes,” and grabbed for him. It was a hard, bruising kiss, John’s mouth taking his with no softness, all brute strength and tongue, invading, possessing, laying claim. Sherlock gave himself up to it, opening his lips and letting himself be bent backward as John released his death grip on Sherlock’s hair to cup the back of his head possessively. Sherlock clutched his fingers in John’s jacket. John was holding him up with one arm around his back and one under his head; if he let go, Sherlock would shatter.
John broke away again, his breathing harsh and ragged, but Sherlock pulled him back, unable to stop the desperate noise he made. He had a brief flash of what he must look like, swooning in John’s arms, and he struggled to get upright. Closer, he had to get closer. John’s tongue against his, their teeth clashing, the heat of John’s body under his hands, every unfamiliar touch lighting up his overexcited nerve endings until Sherlock felt he would explode from sheer sensation.
John’s hands moved to cradle his head, his thumbs brushing across Sherlock’s bruised and bleeding cheekbones. His hands were soft now, and his kisses were gentling. Sherlock did not want gentle. He gripped John’s arms, tried to pull him back, but John was far stronger. He always had been. He held Sherlock’s head still with his hands and rested their foreheads together. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut tightly. He could not look at John, not knowing what he would see in his face: anger, pity, regret, good-bye.
“You want me to stay?” John said, barely a whisper.
Sherlock nodded. He did not trust his voice.
John nodded back. “Then you know what you have to do.”
John let go. Sherlock’s eye flew open, but John was already getting to his feet, straightening his jacket as he turned. Sherlock caught a glimpse of his own blood smeared across John’s mouth. Sherlock wanted to say something, something that would bring John back, but without looking at Sherlock John walked out the door and was gone.
Sherlock could only stare after him, stunned. His blood had been on John’s lips. He lifted a hand and touched his own lips carefully; they were puffy and slightly numb. His lips had touched John’s. His mouth had been on John’s mouth, John’s tongue had touched his. A kiss. John had kissed him. The thought was so enormous he could not even think past it to the ramifications; it was a giant asteroid that had crashed into his mind palace.
Sherlock pushed himself abruptly to his feet. He had to move. The cocaine was still thrumming though his nerves, making him restless and desperate: he had to keep moving or he would explode. He needed to work, and, thank God, he had work. Sherlock ran his hands through his hair, deliberately shoving the memory of everything that had transpired in the last hour to the back of his mind, and strode over to his desk.