Authors Note:Gah so sorry for the delay again! I'm on day eight of nine in a row at work and I was completely dead yesterday. This chapter might be the longest so far though, if that helps. Apologies in advance for any spelling/grammar as well as I may or may not have written this on break at 5 this morning. All mistakes are my own I'm afraid.
Does that make me worse than her? Does it mean you should hate me more?..."
The last few questions to crackle through the recorded static swam through John's mind. Swam like sharks looking for that drop of blood in the water, the hint of weakness in the ex-army doctor. Sherlock hadn't known. After all the time they'd lived together, the months which had turned into years, the brunette hadn't known. Couldn't take one look at John Hamish Watson and find the answers to those two questions.
It made John feel like a failure.
As the detective's best friend he should have done a better job of making sure Sherlock knew the answers to questions like that. Was he worse than his mother? The woman who had abused the detective in every imaginable way, all ways which made John's body do the opposite of tremble from how much rage that knowledge filled him with. Was it possible that is genius flatmate could believe himself to be worse than that? Worse than the woman who had harmed the most precious person in the doctor's life. Had been the most precious maybe. Present tense or past tense, three years later and he still wasn't sure if that had changed.
Which was a rather good indicator of the answer to the second question. It was one thing to suggest that John might think the drug habit and overdose was worse than, as Mycroft had put it, the physical aspects of what Sherlock's mother had done to the other man. It was one thing to suggest just that. That suggestion made John want to punch the wall or Anderson's face repeatedly until he couldn't feel his fingers anymore. But the idea, the whisper of a possibility, the thought about the thought of John Watson hating Sherlock Holmes was another level of wrong. It was almost incomprehensible.
Yes, hearing about Sherlock and overdoses hurt. Like a knife twisting around in circles in his gut. The idea that the brilliant, enigmatic, wonderful man might have died on the floor of some flat John had never been to was more painful than the doctor thought himself capable of describing. But he would admit that it was painful in such a way. Yes, he wished his best friend had never done drugs even if it was a means of escape because it was still a dumb idea and Sherlock was never meant to be dumb. Yes, he wished with every brain cell and heart muscle that Sherlock Holmes had not known a world were that endless sleep had offered so much relief to the detective.
Yes, John resented words like last and intentional.
But to hate Sherlock Holmes? The doctor couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around the concept.
Hate him after everything that had happened? All that John had seen?
Keep your eyes fixed on me, please will you do this for me?
He did as he was asked. John had watched, had listened to what Sherlock told him was his note.
Leave a note when? he'd asked stupidly, unable to think over the visual on the roof and the broken sobs on the other end of the phone.
Goodbye John...
Weren't those the words that were often the last thing he heard before waking himself up at night from screaming? Weren't those the words that could be used to explain the state of the flat, the unemployment, John himself? Weren't those the words Sherlock had branded the doctor with?
And he should feel angry, shouldn't he? John had every right to hate the detective. For many reasons, not the least of which was for leaving him behind. For that, the name Sherlock Holmes should have been erased from John's memory just as the great man had been from the doctor's life.
But now? Now Goodbye John.. were the words he most feared hearing again. The ex-army doctor wasn't sure he could bear it. If that deep, posh, beautiful voice told him goodbye forever yet again. What did that say about him?
It said many things, to John at least. The first being that he should have never listened to these messages. They filled a dangerous empty space in John's heart, but only temporarily. Then that empty place would become a sinkhole again only there would be no comfort left from the dead to fill it with. The doctor had unknowingly allowed himself an emotional crutch.
The second thing the situation told John was that, at some point in three years, he had begun to associate Sherlock with the word beautiful. Hadn't that always been true though? It wasn't the dying that made the detective beautiful, that was just the tragedy that often accompanied beautiful things. Sherlock Holmes had just always been beautiful, the whole time he'd graced the Earth with his presence.
The sort of beautiful everyone admired from a distance though. John wondered sometimes whether the detective had known this, if the other man ever resented begin treated like the porcelain his skin appeared to be made of.
It was a confusing thing for the doctor to wonder about, because he was straight. Wasn't he?
Perhaps the doctor could admit to himself that there was a metaphorical chink in his heterosexual armor when it came to the detective. Perhaps he could admit to himself that that metaphor didn't really cover it. The brunette was the bullet that shot through the gaps in the Kevlar protection of I'm not actually gay.
Sherlock Holmes was the broken piece of shrapnel lodged in John Watson's shoulder that hurt every time it rained as if the old wound knew the taller man loved how London looked when the weather did that.
Mostly what the fear of those words told John was that he loved Sherlock more than he could ever hate him, even if it was too late to matter either way.
And yet. The lingering sense of failure wouldn't leave John alone. Had Sherlock known this when he was still capable of knowing things? Had he been able to deduce it from John's actions? Feelings weren't the detective's strong suit, they were complicated and difficult to sort out. Sherlock had always admitted, was still admitting even after dying, that he couldn't figure out how John felt about many things. All the other man had claimed to do on those messages so far was guess at what might go on through John's brain. If there was ever something for the detective to miss, it would have been the doctor's feelings. It seemed unlikely that Sherlock had picked up on them when John hadn't fully realized the attraction himself.
The blonde felt another stab of self-hatred for having found one more thing he might have offered the world's only consulting detective if only the man agreed to come down off that ledge.
It is a penance his mind offers and the rest of John finds it agrees while hitting the same button on the familiar phone once again. For all the times he'd missed, John would not turn away from the detective now.
"John, John, John. Look at the pair of us, what are we? Foolish, yes I agree," Sherlock answered himself before the doctor got a chance to think on the question.
The Sherlock he was hearing now was very different from the other messages.
"You must forgive me John, I've been drinking just a touch though it is mostly your fault so really you must forgive me. You insisted I partake and you looked so thrilled when I said yes because the pub was so dreadfully boring. I mean really, not a single person worth deducing. Yourself excluded John, I would happily spend days trying to unravel every neuron in your brain if you weren't so stubbornly requiring them at the moment. No matter, the point here was that I have a rather hard time saying no to you when saying yes would make you much happier. Who could resist how content and smug you look all morning when I simply agree to toast. A colder man than I, which is rather something wouldn't you agree? Of course you would, obvious."
John briefly wondered if Sherlock was even aware he was recording this. But only briefly.
"I'm glad you haven't worked this out on your own yet John. I can't have you knowing the effect your happiness has on mine. I can't have you asking me to stay…" the taller man said softly, much more slowly than the rapid monologue he'd been subjecting John to before.
It made the doctor's heart contract painfully.
"I do not wish to discuss whether this would have made a difference. I can't say for sure. My not existing is… complicated John. Again, I can't say for sure if knowing you would be a shade happier could have changed that."
Sherlock was definitely the only person in the room (sort of, John amended) that didn't want to have that discussion.
"What I am afraid I must do instead is continue where we left off in our little story John. To set the scene for you, a terribly dull hospital room for a little while and then Mycroft's hideous living room sofa. I trust as a doctor I don't need to go into great detail about what withdrawals were like," the too calm voice asked through the phone.
At no point could John decide if he wanted great details or not.
"They are painful, that is about all that matters. Days without relief, even in sleep. Mycroft stayed with me, since it was he who demanded I get clean. His presence helped and after a few weeks I felt better. I suppose sometimes one forgets what feeling like their usual self is like until they've been out of sorts for a while. I was determined to make it work, I really was…" Sherlock confessed, somewhat sadly and the hairs on the back of John's neck stood up as if to scream danger, you idiot.
"Two months. That was all I managed. 61 days and I thought I was going to spontaneously combust, logic be damned. When Mycroft found out, he was…less than pleased with me. I was promptly cut off from the family money."
The was an unusual pause which made the doctor uncomfortable, as he couldn't find a reason for Sherlock to reminisce on his brother not supporting his drug use.
"It wasn't so bad, in the beginning. I had some money saved and I sold all of my things save for my clothes to pay for the drugs. Even after all that though, the funds ran out as quickly as you would probably expect. This was the start of my time spent living on the streets."
The unusual pauses continued here, though this one was probably granted by the detective as time for the doctor to pick his jaw up off the floor. It made sense in a way, knowing how Sherlock had made use of the 'homeless network' as the other man had put it. But it was still damn near impossible for his imagination to put impeccably dressed, public school Sherlock in amongst the crowd of men huddling around a trash can for warmth.
"I am not proud of what I had allowed myself to become John. As much as the cravings still linger on those bad days, I do not wish to go back to this state. It is an unpredictable way of life, again obvious. I spent a few months just drifting, it didn't matter much where I ended up sleeping as I still had the cocaine then. I became…more desperate after both the money and that ran out. I was four and a half months in at the time. Is it a bit not good that I remember more about this day than that last Tuesday I told you of? Again, can't be sure. I'd managed to find an open bed in a shelter the night before so I'd gotten to clean myself up a bit, which was always a small miracle as any member of the network will tell you. So, it started as a good day. I'd recently found a new corner to ask for change on when a man approached me asking what I was on. Homeless people get this a lot you understand so I ignored him at first. Until he asked if I wanted more of it," the baritone whispered and there was a loud swallow which John thought might have been Sherlock drinking without the doctor as an excuse.
"I let him John. After Mummy, after Victor, after deciding I didn't want any more of that ever. I told him I'd do whatever he'd like for an eightball. I did it for less, he said my pretty mouth was only worth so much."
John's mouth went dry at the same time bile shot up into the back of his throat. He was suddenly filled with the compulsion to hit next before the message played out entirely but fought it down. This was part of what he felt duty bound to hear.
"I never knew his name, though I've wondered if Mycroft knows it since I doubt disowning me would have included lifting all the tabs to track my movements through CCTV. It is alright if you ask for us where you are John, I understand if maybe you want to know more than I do. It doesn't matter that I didn't know his name, I never asked for it on purpose. I never asked any of them what their name was," the soft voice carried across the line and John couldn't help closing his eyes while his lips formed a tight line as if his body was battening down the hatches to endure the storm of the detective's words.
"This is the time, my dear lovely John, when I must tell you of my second overdose. This one was similar to the last. The thought of doing it had been lurking under the surface for a while, but it was only when opportunity presented itself that I decided on that course of action fully. My sincerest apologies again doctor, you must understand I never thought I'd have you on the other end of this phone to tell my secrets to. I never considered what they might look like under harsher light."
Rather small on the list of things you never considered Sherlock
"It was with the latest of my…colleagues that I made the offer of a little extra for a little extra. I made several injections with perhaps more force than was necessary but I was constantly furious at myself for both allowing myself to need the drugs so badly and stooping so far beyond low to get them. On the last needle I prepared, I even broke the tip. Such a funny detail to remember. Would you like to know what else I recall?"
Yes, and no.
"Saying yes, always so dangerous John. I remember the fog again, the cool feeling of the tiles on the floor, thinking if I closed my eyes it could be a lab and this all just one bad experiment. Then the sound of several pairs of feet stomping loudly, ruining my perfect fog. The door of the flat I was laying in was kicked down, the noise hurt my head which seemed stupid to think as it wasn't as though I cared about what happened to my head did I? The very last thing I remember doing is looking up and seeing Lestrade clearing the room before his eyes fell on me."
John could not stop the sigh of inexpressible relief. He would text Greg about that pint the D.I always wanted the doctor to go for. John would buy him a hundred rounds for bringing Sherlock Holmes to him. Even with the ending to the story John knew was coming, he was still horrifically thankful to have been a character in it in the first place.
"He is a story for a different day though. This is as good a place as any to stop for now, don't you think John? I feel a bit not well at the moment which is probably because I've never been a drinker, as you know. It may be also the subject matter of our conversation but that realm of sentiment is not one I choose to understand. No need to fret though, my good doctor. I will be honest with you as I promised. You should call Lestrade, I am sure he would like to hear from this new you wherever you are as much as I would. Until next time."
Click
Authors Note: I'd absolutely love to know what you thought! Many of you were very good with the title, it is important in the end I swear. If you're interested in what I've been listening to when writing this story, Recovery by Frank Turner on repeat is an excellent place to start!