March 29th, 1867 - Friday

Watson nervously waited for Lestrade's return. He couldn't treat his friend like this, slumped into the corner between the bed and the wall and he didn't dare to move him on his own.

It didn't take long until Lestrade finished their check in and reappeared, although it felt way too long for the doctor. Together, they carefully transferred Holmes back onto the bed, who remained completely dead to the world. At least, this enabled the doctor to rid him of the dirty trousers and give him a thorough examination. Lestrade meanwhile cleaned up the shards of the broken lamp and once he was finished with it left to get some rest in his room across the hall.

During the examination Watson found several bruises in various stages of healing, some in the crooks of Holmes' arms and others on his lower back. The asylum's carers certainly hadn't pulled any punches.

Watson clad his friend in his own nightgown without further complications before he turned to the ominous bandage on Holmes' leg.

After unwrapping it he found an infected wound that had been stitched up with catgut some time ago. From the state of healing he guessed the injury must have happened about ten days ago, or less if tissue repair was impaired due to poor general health. Although it had healed nicely for some time, it was now red and swollen, probably due recent events. Watson had no doubt it was causing considerable pain. The doctor cleaned the site and prepared a plaster with local pain relief, then covered it with a fresh bandage. He wondered how his friend had obtained the injury. They had been kidnapped at the 14th of March and it must have happened during or shortly after the kidnapping.

All in all the most pressing issues were the overdose and the dehydration. Soon, they will be confronted with withdrawal on top of it.

.

Barely an hour had passed when Holmes started to become restless again. He seemed to drift in and out of awareness and although he sometimes briefly opened his eyes, Watson was sure he was not aware. He tried to talk to his friend but he couldn't make him respond.

Ten minutes later the chills started, accompanied by a slightly elevated temperature that should in no way result in tremors this bad. Watson wondered if it could be the onset of withdrawal. He carefully added another warm blanket to the two that already covered Holmes and made sure his feet and shoulders were tucked in neatly.

Then the delirium started - or at least it looked like fever dreams.

Watson took Holmes temperature for the eleventh time that night and found it had risen slightly but it still wasn't a fever - strictly speaking. He cursed about the fact that he didn't have his sphygmograph with him.* It might have been really useful to be able to monitor Holmes' low blood pressure.

The detective became more and more agitated in his sleep and Watson had to reposition him twice to prevent him falling off the bed before he finally decided to try to wake him. More liquids would do him good.

Watson stepped over to the washing stand, filled a glass with water and returned to the bed. He was about to lower his bottom onto the mattress when a familiar pain shot through his leg. As a result he plopped down on the bed way heavier than he intended to, which shook the sturdy wooden frame.

Damn his leg!

The sudden movement woke Holmes with a flinch. He moaned and his breathing sped up. Watson rested his hand on Holmes' shoulder to soothe him - and to keep him in place. It seemed as if his friend was trying to fight some invisible restraints.

Within a few seconds, Holmes' struggles became so intense, it shook the bed frame even more.

As gentle as he could, Watson pinned him down with one hand and reached for Holmes' hand with his other. As he expected, Holmes' hand was cold; he gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"Easy… You're okay… Shhh… I've got you. Everything is alright," he tried to calm him.

For a moment it appeared as if Holmes was regaining his senses and settling down when his fingers returned the squeeze. But the agitation returned almost immediately and Holmes' grip tightened so much he seemed to be holding on for dear life. Much to Watson's dismay, his friend then started to weep. Even before Watson could think of a strategy to handle the laid bare state of his friend, the weeping turned into more intense crying, and shortly after that the room filled with nerve-wracking screams.

Nothing Watson tried to handle the situation had any kind of effect.

It didn't take long until Lestrade stormed back into the room. During the short time the door was open, Watson could see several curious people wearing nightwear in the hall.

"What's going on?" Lestrade wanted to know.

"I don't know," the doctor replied loud enough to be heard. "I am not fond of the idea to introduce any additional substances into the mix."

"Maybe you should rethink, before he has a heart attack or the inn keeper throws us out."

Holmes' thrashing intensified.

"No. Keep him in the bed," Watson ordered and he headed for the door, opened it and stared at the mob of people chattering outside.

"Hey," he yelled. "I am a doctor and we have a severely sick man here and I am very sorry he is a bit loud at the moment, but he can't help it. So please, ladies and gentleman, go back to your rooms and have a bit of patience. I am trying to safe a life here." With that he closed the door in their faces and returned to the sickbed.

"Well, doctor, what do we do now?"

"Wait?" Watson said over the continuing screams and sat down on the other side of the bed next to his friend.

For some dire minutes they were busy just holding him in place. Fortunately, it didn't take long until debilitation set in and the screams ebbed into occasional moans. They allowed him to curl up on his side. The doctor was sure Holmes would succumb to exhaustion soon, which left Lestrade to clear out the last people whispering in the hall and explain what had happened to the inn keeper.

Watson felt drenched, the episode had unsettled him more than it should unsettle a war veteran and the fact that Holmes continued to openly weep made him heavy at heart.

Watson's only way to soothe his friend was to comfort him in a physical manner and he gently placed his hand on Holmes' head so he could stroke his thumb over his forehead, hoping a tender touch might make him realise he was not going through this alone.

"I am here, Sherlock. It's gonna be okay. I am here."

Watson almost never used the man's first name, but now he did. The situation was too dire to keep up the distance the usage of last names produced.

"Sherlock? Listen to me. You're safe. I'm here and I will not allow anyone to harm you. You hear me?" He placed his other hand on Holmes' chest and carefully rubbed up and down.

Judging by the effect, the gesture had the desired effect, the distressed noises slowly died down.

"Hey mate, open your eyes!... Can you hear me?"

Holmes blinked his eyes open and actually managed to keep them open but they were looking through Watson, not at him. Holmes seemed blinded by the light and Watson had the mind to dim the lamps. However, the agony and confusion remained clearly written on his patient's face.

Watson stroked the side of his head to encourage him with more sensory input, wishing it might anchor him to reality.

"You're almost there, Sherlock. Don't give up. Come on, wake up. Fight your way out of it!"

Holmes' breath hitched and he blinked several times, obviously trying to focus.

Watson caught his hand on his chest and squeezed it.

For a long moment, Holmes just stared at him, trembling, wide eyed, and confused.

Then his eyes started to scamper through the room. It seemed almost manic and whatever he was seeing was amplifying his turmoil.

Before Watson could even try to counteract it, Holmes' body suddenly lost all tension and he was out again.

.

For quite some time he drifted in an out of awareness, which provided him with nothing more than vague snippets from a dreamlike state. His self was a flickering light of a nonentity soon to die.

Sometimes he hallucinated another presence nearby, sometimes the only thing that registered was pain or anxiety pressing into him.

Once he woke trembling all over, like having the chills. The shock of being reminded that he actually had a body was followed by the insight that he felt so atrocious and overall sick that he wondered if the end was finally coming.

Another time it registered that he was on a soft surface. His surroundings were rocking, as if they were moving, and he wondered if he had been dragged into another carriage.

All these brief episodes of resurfacing had a few things in common. One of those was that he still couldn't focus on anything for longer than a few seconds before he drifted off again. Another was the sensory onslaught; his transport was either producing this issue or failing to handle the input. His sight remained too disturbed to help him gather any valuable information about his surroundings at all. It was not the only sense that was acting up; his hearing was in a similarly state of dysfunction. Sounds switched from raucous noise to barely audible humming in a way that made them unidentifiable, which would make processing speech impossible.

.

At some point, he lost the connection to himself entirely; he no longer had a sense of who or what he was, not even of what he was supposed to be. He was a stranger in his own mind and his body had entirely disconnected, he wasn't even aware he should have one. The concept of existing had vanished and life itself had turned into a fractured and abstract concept no longer viable.

.

Some indistinct time later, he finally managed to break through the surface of unconsciousness but whatever was happening remained veiled by his condition. At least he was actually aware that some part of him still existed and what existing meant, although he was not fully there.

A gentle pressure on his scalp and the connection to his body snatched back into existence. The strangeness of that realisation hit him hard and threatened to drown him in existential fear.

The caring touch was remote at first but then intensified. His first reflex was to try to shake it off but then his mind provided him with the only possible source of this kind of touch and he seized to fight it. There weren't many people who had ever touched him like this and those who did were precious - even if they were hallucinated.

Slowly, bit by bit, more sensory input trickled in through the fog surrounding him.

He found he was on his back and for some reason it was hard to breathe. He gulped. There was a disturbing tickle in his throat and on the back of his soft palate. A disgusting sensation that forced more alertness into him - in the form of adrenaline. Whatever was in his throat, he needed to get it out. Being only half aware paired with rising panic and he tried to roll onto his side, but something hindered his movements.

Was he back in the strait jacket?

Not only was his torso restrained but his legs seemed to be bound to the surface he way lying on. His eyes were still closed but he hadn't realised it because it wasn't dark. Maybe he was just not ready to see or face whatever was happening. He felt like some fragile object, helplessly tumbling in a strong current, thrown back and forth with no means to stop whatever was happening to him.

The pressure moved from his head to his right shoulder.

A warm hand squeezed his own and it took him a long time to realise this meant the strait jacket was absent.

Sherlock clung to the hand, desperately. It was the only point of focus in the storm of sensations and the confusion raging in his mind.

"Easy… You're okay… Shhh… I've got you. Everything is alright."

So, hallucination-Watson was still with him. His imaginary touch the first familiar and welcome one he felt in weeks.

A vague memory of endless days filled only with strangers and their antagonistic contacts.

He held on for dear life even though the effort caused considerable pain.

Nearby, some kind of alarm started to squeak; a foreign and obnoxious sound with a threatening quality to it that reverberated in his teeth and worsened his headache.

The rocking of the surface beneath him compounded the sensory onslaught and nausea kicked in.

An ominous humming sound registered.

His attention was drawn back to the fact that although he kept his eyes shut, he felt it was really bright wherever he was.

Something was wrong with his face.

There was a sharp stinging pain in his left brow.

And a pulling sensation in his right nostril.

What kind of torture was this?

The more sensory input he gathered, the worse it got. It was frightening and all too much and too intense and none of it made any sense.

He didn't want to be where he was. Didn't want whatever was happening, didn't want anything any longer. He tried to resist the storm that was building up, but the universe didn't care about what he wanted, he was at the mercy of whatever was happening. Harsh emotions he couldn't even begin to name assaulted him and his helplessness began to boil over. The torment was too much to handle and the frustration mounted in an ugly need to cry out.

His will to keep himself together had evaporated.

Nothing mattered any longer.

His body merely reacted to all those pent-up emotions. His eyes started to water and the pain in his face worsened when it contorted.

Control completely slipped away and before he really knew what was happening his body tried to vent the accumulated distress by senselessly screaming.

He didn't care. The turmoil was too enormous to contain.

Albeit the majority of Sherlock's awareness was caught up with experiencing his own fragileness and the inability to escape, some small aspect of him just watched the chaos unfold.

But even that was soon lost in the maelstrom, the emotions stripping him of anything but blank horror he was doomed to experience.

Then something changed.

As if a warm blanket of mottled orange and red warmth simultaneously settled over his mind and body. It had a slightly bitter overtone. His heart had been beating wildly but it now slowed down when equable comfort enveloped him. But the sudden change left him even more confused.

This was not his doing. It was foreign, coming from the outside.

Nevertheless, Sherlock's mind desperately clawed at it.

A dim voice hovered at the edge of his awareness and Sherlock tried to drown the panic by honing into the one thing he knew. It was just a droning at first but over time it became clearer.

"Hey mate, open your eyes!... Can you hear me?" It was unmistakably the Watson-hallucination that was talking to him.

Sherlock failed to understand the meaning of the words. What did not elude him was the gentle hand returning to his head.

Without conscious thought he tried to lift his leaden lids to see John a final time. If there was a virtual apparition of his friend with him at the end he wanted to see it.

Watson's blurry face appeared in his line of sight, surrounded by brightness so intense it blinded him.

When the pain had faded enough to allow him to see, the absence of a moustache was the first striking detail Sherlock focussed on.

Next were the odd clothes Watson was wearing.

Sherlock's face muscles worked and worsened the pain in his left eyebrow. His left eye felt clogged and swollen and there was some sleek pressure on the index finger of his left hand.

The physical sensations had momentarily distracted him from wondering about the strange surroundings he found himself in.

Bright yellow and blue shapes encompassed him, mixed with pale grey. The contrast of the colours was so intense it seemed beyond natural.

Someone else was there, a stranger, clad in a bright yellow green jacket with letters printed on it that was so glaring he could taste it. The unusual colours and sharp angular shapes of the small space they were in felt so foreign he had to squeeze his eyes shut again. He couldn't remember ever having been in a room this brightly lit and so densely stuffed with equipment he couldn't recognise.

Sherlock's breath hitched when he realised how much he actually failed to understand what was happening. His heartbeat was so loud he could barely see and the overwhelming anxiety hindered his perception.

"You're almost there, Sherlock. Don't give up. Come on, wake up. Fight your way out of it!"

Encouraged by the familiar and gentle voice, he blinked several times to clear his vision.

"Squeeze my hand, Sherlock?"

It took him a long time to actually understand what he was asked and he wasn't sure if he managed to comply. The only thing he could focus on was Watson's bleary face hovering above him.

"Hey. Good to see you, mate. You're alright. We are going home. Stay with me."

John squeezed his hand, a gesture that was probably intended to reassure him but this time, it did the opposite. His mind whiplashed when something about the idea to follow as Watson suggested imploded in his mind.

Some unknown lurking danger would unfold itself if he did as asked. This entire situation screamed danger and it made the hairs on his back stand up in warning. Something was viciously fighting against accepting the luring words.

Sherlock barely had time to wonder to what exactly his subconscious instinct might be reacting to but the intense reaction itself stole his ability to think.

He knew he was missing some vital aspect of this, was failing to make a connection he should be able to make. It was urgent, but also too complicated for a mind mired in chaos.

Trying to make sense of it while keeping the panic and the pain at bay turned out to be too much. His mind dissolved, his eyes closed involuntarily and he didn't have the strength to open them again. Once more Sherlock's mind lost itself in nothingness.

* According to Wikipedia the sphygmograph was the first unbloody method to measure blood pressure, invented in 1854 by Karl von Vierordt. In 1863, Étienne-Jules Marey improved it by making it portable but I don't know if a London GP like Watson could have afforded such an apparatus.

A/N: Make my day and leave a review. Feel free to check out the fanart for this story at tumblr, nickname is in my profile pic.