This idea has been floating around in my head ever since I saw His Las Vow (Oh Shezza...) Except I decided I wanted something angsty because apparently I write angst well (and am slightly masochistic?) Hope you enjoy it. Fair warning though this could be extremely triggering in terms of drug usage and elements of anxiety. These characters do not belong to me, I just enjoy torturing them (and so do the writers so that's nothing new). Enjoy!

[xxx]

A Mistake

Nighttime. Nighttime was supposed to be for sleeping, for winding down at the end of the day and recharging one's energy reserves. Nights were for sipping wine while watching the telly or reading a book by the fire or petting your lover's head while they slowly drifted to sleep in your arms. Nights were not supposed to be for chasing criminals through the streets of London, jumping between rooftops, sneaking in to locked buildings or private residences or the sodding tube system. Nighttime was for sleeping and daytime for activities. Nighttime was not supposed to be John's favorite time of day.

And yet, ever since meeting Sherlock, John found himself craving the set of the sun, because with the absence of light came the detective in his element, and bringing John along for the ride. The doctor within him cried out in objection at the nocturnal lifestyle, pleading that it was not natural for humans to rise with the moon and fall with the sun, but he found this little voice easier and easier to ignore the more time he spent with his insane flatmate. Sherlock seemed to defy every law of nature, and John was oddly okay with this. His inhuman tendencies added to his air of mystery, his nature making him untouchable. And though he would never voice it - not even to himself - it fed John's craving for adventure.

Sherlock committed suicide in the daylight. Out of his element. True, it was an overcast day - as days in London usually are - but it was daytime. Sherlock fed off the energy of the city at night. In the daytime he was more vulnerable. More people questioning and doubting him. The papers that crucified his name were published in the early morning. Every dawn a new headline emerged to condemn him, spreading lies about who he was. John hated the daytime after Sherlock's death. It was part of what killed him, part of what took his magnificence from John and from the world. At night he was larger than life. In the daytime he was visibly just as human as everyone else.

After Sherlock's death, nighttime had to go back to being about relaxation. Boring. How could John relax knowing that out there, criminals were still evading the law, mysteries were waiting to be solved, and Sherlock lay buried six feed underground? The only force capable of catching them all in a single night, and he was gone. He mourned for the integrity of Scotland Yard now. At least with Sherlock around they got the credit and the public felt safe. At least with Sherlock around, someone was capable of doing something, was not afraid of the red tape and was only interested in solving the puzzle. Being morally apathetic was better than being a coward in the face of danger.

Nights with Mary were… an improvement. Not nearly as interesting as what nights used to be, but at least they weren't lonely on top of being boring. Mary was nice. Gentle. Kind. Beautiful. Everything Sherlock wasn't. Well, not entirely true. Sherlock was definitely beautiful. Anyone with functioning optic centers could see that. He wondered sometimes how much the detective was aware of this fact. He certainly used it to his advantage when the opportunity presented itself, particularly with Molly. And he'd seen Sherlock turn up the charm on a witness or two in order to get them to talk quickly. As soon as they disclosed what he needed to hear, though, he let it drop. Not interested. Never interested. But it was fine. John understood; nothing could get in the way of the work. Sherlock needed the work like John needed excitement. Both of them were slaves to the avoidance of boredom.

John planned to propose to Mary on a night out at one of her favorite restaurants. High end; waiters in tuxedos, that sort of thing. Fine dining had never been his favorite activity, but she enjoyed it, and he enjoyed seeing her smile. He said "planned" to propose to her because the proposal was interrupted by a waiter. Except it wasn't a waiter. It was Sherlock. Back from the dead - no, not back from the dead. "Back" would imply he were ever dead at all. Never dead. Not dead. Did not lied to John for two years. Lied.

John doesn't exactly remember how they ended up on the ground with Mary and a few waiters pulling him off his not-dead best friend, but he can infer. Deduce. He's not an idiot. By Sherlock's standards everyone was an idiot, but by normal standards he was intelligent. He tackled Sherlock, grabbed him by the lapels of his sodding Spencer Hart jacket and throttled him. He remembers tackling him for the second time. He threw himself across the table and they ended up tipping backwards. And he remembers getting thrown out of the restaurant, but not before he landed a punch to Sherlock's lower lip. The third time there was no tackling, just a perfectly-targeted headbutt to his nose. Not hard enough to break, but enough to bruise and cause a serious nosebleed.

Then he ran.

He was introduced to Sherlock at midday. He met Sherlock in the evening. He started his life with the detective at night. He lost him in broad daylight, and regained him under mood lighting. What an interesting analogy for his fluctuating feelings for the impossible man.

Though he was loathe to admit it, he did miss living with Sherlock. He missed the man's erratic and unpredictable schedule, the violin-playing at two in the morning and the spontaneous decisions to drag John out for a case or just for a walk. "You need to have a practical memory of the city as well as an internal map," He'd say. Sometimes John wondered if this were just an excuse to get out and get some air but have company while he did it. John never minded. He liked the city, and Sherlock's London was an entirely different beast. Sherlock showed him such a different side of the city, both good and bad. London was a living, breathing creature to the detective, another puzzle to be solved, not simply a location in which the mysteries occurred. London was his territory, and he shared it with John. But when he left, that wonderment disappeared.

Without Sherlock, London was just another city.

So why did he still feel so empty at night? Sherlock was back, John was married to the most wonderful woman he'd ever met and was making a steady income for the first time since getting invalided; life was good - wasn't it? Despite having everything he'd ever asked for, including the most impossible one on that list, he still felt hollow when the sun went down. The moon mocked him, beckoned him with its enticing light and then laughed at him as he got into bed with his normal, lovely, domestic wife in his normal, lovely, domestic house and went to sleep right when he was supposed to.

Clockwork. His life had become clockwork. No spontaneity. No mystery. No violins at two in the morning.

His phone buzzed softly on the table. He forced himself to remain in place for a beat and reach for his phone like a normal person. He was not over-eager for it to be Sherlock texting him with a new case. His heart lurched at the sight of the contact ID anyway. Sherlock wouldn't text him with small talk; definitely a case. He smiled and opened the message.

He felt his heart drop from his throat into his stomach. The room around him went dark and blurry at the edges; the phone was vibrating again. No, no that was his hands. Swallowing thickly, he grabbed his jacket and ran out the door, almost forgetting to call to Mary that he was heading out and taking their car.

He had never been more thankful for Mary's insistence that the two of them buy a car after their marriage. Cab drivers were obligated to go the speed limit. Maybe a few of them ignored the posted speed, but knowing his luck, he wouldn't have gotten one that was okay with pushing the limit. He could honestly care less about getting a speeding ticket right now. All he cared about were those seven words that had appeared on his screen, now singed into his occipital lobe like a brand.

Made a mistake. Baker Street. Please hurry. SH

There were two utterly terrifying details in that message. Firstly, Sherlock rarely made mistakes, and never openly admitted to having made one on the occasion he did. Secondly, he never, ever said please, especially when he was rushing someone. Something was definitely wrong. The words remained burned in his retinas during his drive to Baker Street, breaking every speed limit on the way there. Worst-case scenarios danced around in his head like short films as he weaved in and out of the late night London traffic.

He pulled the car up to the curb in record time. Jumping out, he locked the doors without looking before bursting through the threshold of 221B without so much as a knock. Frankly he did not give a damn if he alarmed Mrs. Hudson on the ground flat. Not this time. The seventeen steps up to the second floor were a blur under his feet as he took them in twos. Door closed at the top of the stairs; mildly alarming. Grab handle and turn. Please don't be dead. Not again. I just got you back.

The sight of Sherlock sprawled out on the couch flashed him back to his first night at Baker Street. Beckoned in a less urgent matter, the detective had been all long limbs and sinuous lines, ensconced in the expansive universe of his own thoughts. Pale even then, this time Sherlock looked worryingly pallid. John noted on a held breath that Sherlock wasn't just relaxed, he was limp; his long legs dangled over the far end of the couch, one arm across his thin torso, the other hanging off the edge, fingers grazing the wood floor.

John swallowed thickly and clenched his hand to keep it from shaking. "Sherlock?" He called tentatively. No response. Three long, careful strides and he was at the detective's side. "Sherlock?" He called again, and heard a little grumble in response. Dropping to his knees, John took Sherlock's wrist with the delicacy of the doctor he was and felt for his pulse. "Sherlock, can you hear me?" He asked, slipping into his Doctor Watson tone.

"John," he heard Sherlock breathe. The weak and feeble sound pained him.

"Yeah, it's me," John reassured him. The relief of Sherlock's consciousness did not last long in the face of his pulse reading: forty-six beats a minute. Dangerously low. He cleared his throat to keep it from shaking when he next spoke. "Sherlock, what did you take?" The detective turned his head into the cushion, like a child hiding his face in shame. "I don't care what you've taken, just tell me so I can help you."

"I'm sorry," Sherlock whispered meekly.

"I'm not angry with you," John said soothingly. It was true, for the most part. He wanted to be mad, but with Sherlock's pulse so dangerously low, he couldn't muster the anger. He was too genuinely scared. He released Sherlock's wrist to angle his face back towards him and check his eyes: bloodshot, pupils heavily constricted despite the low light. "Just tell me what you did so I can help you, Sherlock," John pleaded, already running through the symptoms in his head for a possible answer. The detective groaned, shifted away from his touch, but otherwise made no effort to respond.

John fished his phone out of his pocket. This got a turn of head from Sherlock. "What are you doing?" He asked.

"Calling an ambulance," John answered, "Your pulse is at forty-six and I'm not letting it get any lower."

"They won't let me enjoy it," The detective drawled.

"Yeah, well, the sooner you're done enjoying it the better," John held the phone to his ear, silently cursing them for letting the line ring more than once.

Sherlock was up and snatching the phone out of John's hand before he could react. The taller man ended the call before launching the phone across the room and laying back down. The exertion from that simple movement had fatigued him.

"Sherlock!" John snapped.

The taller man visibly cringed at the harsh sound, pulling his legs back and tucking in his knees. "I didn't mean to upset you," he whispered, voice terribly small. John's heart lurched. Seeing Sherlock this way was physically ailing. The hand at his side blindly felt through the air until it found John's hand. Long, cold fingers wrapped loosely around his own. John gave them a gentle squeeze.

"I'm not upset," John said, trying to keep his voice even, "I'm worried. You've clearly taken something and you're refusing to tell me what it is. I promise you I'm not angry Sherlock but I need to get you help. Please just tell me what you've done."

"…Heroin." The broken response was barely audible, but John still heard it, and it was enough to cause his throat to constrict. His heart felt heavy as it sank into his stomach again. He tried to echo the word for clarification, but no sound came out. No need; the physical symptoms all fit.

"I needed to stop thinking," Sherlock carried on in a distant, slow voice, "It was there. You weren't here to tell me not to. I needed to stop thinking. So much noise…"

John swallowed the lump in his throat. He'd never heard Sherlock object to thinking before. "What sort of noise?" He asked. If the insufferable idiot was going to object to going to a hospital, he needed to keep him awake at the very least. As long as he was talking, he was conscious. So they would sit and talk.

"You," the detective sounded on the verge of tears now, "All you. Your face in my head, your voice in my ears. Disappointed… Betrayed… I betrayed you, hurt you… Reminded me that I lost you to someone else. I hurt you and it cost me you… doing it again… God, sorry John… so sorry…"

John turned his head, weighed the words. Was it just the drugs talking? "Sherlock," he proceeded with caution, "You haven't lost me. I'm right here." He gave his friend's fingers another delicate squeeze to further prove it.

A single shake of his head. "Lost you," Sherlock repeated, voice trembling like a terrified child's, "My fault… hurting you now… you should go."

John exhaled. "I'm not going anywhere," he declared, "Someone needs to monitor your stubborn arse if you're not going to go to a hospital."

Sherlock finally turned his face towards John. Yes, definitely holding back tears, and somewhat failing. John had never seen him emoting so strongly. Crying did not sit well on the taller man's face. He wanted to reach out and wipe all his sorrows away, but there were no tears yet, just wet, red eyes. "I irritate you," Sherlock whispered breathily.

"In the way only friends do," John smiled, "The tolerable way."

Sherlock's brow knitted in confusion. He blinked heavily, as if against bright light, but the room was mainly lit by the street lamps outside the half-drawn curtains. "…tolerable irritation?"

"Sure," John said warmly, "I must irritate the hell out of you sometimes. When I'm being slow or nagging you to eat something."

"No," Sherlock lingered on the word a little, "Never grating. Sweet." He set his head down again, his eyelids drooping. "…'s charming, your slow… mind."

"Hey, eyes open," John couldn't keep the concern out of his voice as he reached for Sherlock's neck to take his pulse again. "Sherlock, look at me."

A pair of verdigris eyes found his own. "Always," he said, voice stronger than before. Still weak in comparison to his usual powerful baritone, but definitely more alert, like it was important John heard that. The hand wrapped around John's own separated then to rest on his cheek. John's eyes darted to it, but did not attempt to remove it. "Blue eyes," Sherlock mumbled, struggling to regain the same strength of voice.

"Hm?" John asked wordlessly.

"You," The detective continued, "Blue eyes. They… look brown in bright light… so dark. Have to… look close to see the colour." John didn't know how to respond to that. He was too focused on the shrinking pupils of his best friend; no bigger than pinheads now. He needed to do something.

"Sherlock," he started, not sure exactly what he intended to say afterward.

The taller man's eyes roamed his face. High as a kite and his gaze still felt impossibly sharp, John noted humorlessly. "Beautiful," Sherlock breathed. A thumb grazed John's cheek, like he was porcelain, made to be handled gently. John squinted and lifted his hand to cover Sherlock's with the intent of taking it away. Sherlock tensed his hand around John's cheek at the contact, establishing a grip. John was being pulled downward. He did not resist it. When his descent ended with his lips on the detective's, he still did not fight.

His first thought when Sherlock kissed him was how alarmingly soft the other man's lips were; softer than he had previously imagined. His second thought was how quite possibly insane this was, kissing his best friend when he was high and he himself married; was he even lucid enough for this to be considered consensual? His third, and the thought that quickly dominated his mind, was how much of an idiot he'd been not to see this. Not just an idiot by Sherlock's standards, but an idiot by every standard. His chest constricted with the weight of his guilt, his blindness, and he kissed back almost desperately. No tongue, just glorious slides of lips against lips, as he tried to express the apologies he knew he could never do justice with words alone.

Something damp tickled his cheek; he released Sherlock's hand on his face to wipe the tear away with his thumb, then shifted to cup Sherlock's face with both of his hands, drawing him closer. Don't cry, Sherlock, he thought, and tried to convey with each resealing of their mouths, Please don't cry, Sherlock. I'm here. God, I've always been here. Please don't cry. I never meant to hurt you. I'm so sorry.

"John," Sherlock finally whispered against his mouth when they parted for air. He hummed in attention. "…Call an ambulance."

John jumped back in alarm. Jesus, what the hell was he doing? He should have chased after his phone the moment Sherlock tossed it away. Sherlock needed an ambulance ten minutes ago. He looked back over at his friend and felt his muscles all turn stiff. The detective's eyes had glossed over.

"…I think I overdosed."

[xxx]

Please leave any comments or constructive criticism. Even if I don't respond I always read them and they always make my day. If enough people like it I may continue it. I feel like I could take this into the hospital.

Until the next time, my lovelies.