Finally, a Sherlock fanfic I'm actually minimally pleased with. Good god, this is a hard fandom to write for.
Sherlock is younger here.
"Sorry, sorry…"
"It'll be alright, love. Everything will be alright."
…
How many times has he promised that to him? How many times has it failed?
As he sits in an uncomfortable hospital chair, staring at the too still figure on the bed, he knows it's been too many times. He closes his eyes and leans forward, taking the cold, limp hand between his warm ones, kissing the palm gently. He sighs, and holds on tight.
…
It's like clockwork, never ending, always turning, the circle always looping back around again. When one circle completes itself, another moves the dying heartbeat back to the top of another and lets it fall. It's a painful process.
Or it's like a dance. It lasts as long as the music does, but in a world where music is present only in the mind, it never ends. It has crescendos and decrescendos, and those moments are the restarts in a circle and the twelve-hour mark on a clock. It starts with the first breath and ends with the last, a final, complete song.
…
He's lost so much weight recently. The drugs are taking their toll. His mind works too fast, and the conclusions are reached before he can recover from the last one. He doesn't eat the way he should. And when he passes out, it doesn't matter, because the body is nothing but transport.
All he can do is watch. He watches his lover slowly die.
Twenty years old is too young to die.
…
Years pass.
…
"This is the last time! I can't go through this again, Sherlock…"
There is nothing to say.
…
Things go up and then they go down in relapses, as addicts are wont to do. Their relationship takes the downward slope, and if it matters to him, he says nothing.
And so he packs his bags on one of the few nights where he's actually asleep, and he leaves before dawn can break the night. He is gone before the clock can reach its fourth hour, before the dance can take another turn, before the circle can force its way back around on the upward slope.
He doesn't go far, but leaves a note that says he's gone for good, and he gets the call that very day.
…
"He's broken, John. He woke to find you gone and the note of the table and he just… stopped. He collapsed where he stood and hasn't moved since. That was five hours ago."
"Maybe now he gets it, then."
…
He cradles the twenty-five year old like he's a baby, hating the way he's actually thin enough to be lifted from the kitchen floor without any effort on his part. His skin is cold, and his heartbeat is feeble in his wrist. "What have I allowed to happen to you?" he whispers desperately, feeling his lover jerk minimally in his arms before curling closer and starting to cry.
It was the first and the last time he ever saw the genius cry.
…
"I love you, you know."
"I don't see how you could, after everything I've done."
…
Five years later and the cocaine hasn't been touched in four and a half years.
The circle closed, that last time. A new song started. The clock was changed.