A/N: This story is canon-compliant and set during HLV


Mechanical exhalation. Mechanical inhalation. Mechanical exhalation: intubation.


Slack jaw; lackadaisical feeling about the arms, and legs, and eyelids. Suspended, only just above the twisting pull of vertigo. Thin wires holding him up, there: methadone, or something similarly potent.


Smell of flowers – a background tingling, sequestering his peripheral senses. Far from the salted tang of a nurse's deodorant, or the powdery sting of boiled linen. No; fresh and honest, multifoliate notes. Hm. One of the few pleasant constancies about this place.


"…-lock…"

"Sh...lock."

"Sherlock."

Pause; filled by a muted sigh. Feet shuffling. A glass object clinks on wood-top. Then the door tuts a consonant click and is shut.

John?

Or was it just his drugged imagination?

The quiet takes its night-time sentry duty now, and stands there wringing its hands for a bit before settling like an old friend. A little… lonely here, isn't it?, it remarks.

Bemused, Sherlock clambers to wakefulness. Everything is slightly hazy around the edges. Moving his eyes, the changing patterns of glare on enamelled surfaces twitch like dying beetles. He takes a moment to deconstruct his surroundings. Out the window, the building's shadow makes the encroaching evening look much darker, and an easterly breeze is evidently kicking its paws amongst the red leaves. Unbidden, an autumnal dog barks from its corner in Sherlock's memory. Redbeard?

But Sherlock knows how the opioid sweeps its skirts through his mind palace like Queen Mab: things that were once comforting start toying with his perception. Grimacing, he turns his eyes back towards his room. Inside, the multitude of flower arrangements around him - brought in by visitors, apparently - at least stay still within his blurred vision. The air around them, though, seems pearlescent as oil and water, thanks to the haze of their perfume.

Now he can put a face to a scent. Go figure. Templed fingers of heather; the wide embrace of daisies. Interwoven wildflowers and some rather sturdy hydrangeas. A facetious black wreath. A rose, with no name. Reaching, claw-like crocuses.

And, new amongst them all, judging by the smell, are starbursts of white gladiolus, standing in a glass vase on the wooden cabinet.

Together, the flowers seem to gaze warmly back at him. Sherlock smiles to himself: he's not so alone as one might think, then.