#druglock

There was no reply as the dust curled around his frame in an ethereal light accented his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He was still Sherlock as he always would be but he was changed, lost and unstable without his rock. His steady figure to guide him back home.

There was no one to hide the cigarettes or clean out the needles from his bedroom, no one to care what he put in his body or neglected to put in. It had been some time since he had a proper meal, Mrs Hudson tried as hard as she could but he was changed, frightening in a way.

Unstable was the only word that really fit.

Sherlock looked over his shoulder briefly and turned back away, he brushed his fingers along the spines of books on the shelves. Disrupting more dust and covering himself in it like a disguise, he looked to be in a disguise. Unshaven and ill kept.

“It shouldn’t be. Look at me.” He made a show of gesturing to himself, the clothes hanging off his thin shoulders. Shaky hands and unsteady heavy steps. “As if you don’t know..”

He drifted towards the kitchen now, most of which was filled with various science equipment to make harsher chemicals to put inside him. His hands continued to wander along different surfaces he passed, disturbing various items.

He muttered to himself in a constant stream, a sort of nervous tic pulled out of him from the substance in his veins. Or lack thereof, perhaps. It was hard to say, he could only assume the former.

“I came back to you..” he was saying in a tone that was difficult to describe, a sort of detached disbelief or resentment or mistrust. Something foreign, he’d never expressed the words out loud, never let them leave his tightly kept mind.

It was loose now, open and pouring out. The matter in his brain pooling at his feet in an ugly display of outright humanity, with no denying the truth. His filters, his failsafes, they were gone, disabled or broken it was hard to tell. He was frightened by it.

His knees shook and he leaned against the counter, his hand inches away from a kitchen knife. He did not know but he did not care if it punctured his skin. He took a breath, a slight wheeze of his lungs and his eyes fluttered as his head fell, chin to chest briefly.

“..for this?” He seemed to tremble all over for a moment before sliding down the cabinets as if he had lost the strength to stand. He sat heavily on the floor and his feet outstretched in front him.

His head lifted and looked up to the fluorescent light above the counter, attracting a fly to buzz around it. His eyes watered, it may have been the harsh light on sensitive eyes or emotions he was hiding as such.

“To be left here… to wither away and watch you live perfectly fine without me. I came back for this..” he rubbed his hands over his face, his fingers scraping his stubble on his chin loudly. He winced slightly at the noise of it and settled his hands in his lap, his eyes fell there too and became unfocused as the water welled up further in them.

“Why must you torture me with this silence, what more could I do?” He asked in a low whisper and his eyes closed and his head dropped against the cabinet. He seemed to fall unconscious and the vision of John's ghost disappeared with his consciousness.

~~~

When he opened his eyes again it was to a dark hospital room, the smell of bleach in the air and scratchy bedding at his skin. He looked around blearily, unfocused eyes refusing to cooperate in the new environment.

The blur of John's ghost was in the distance by the window and he groaned slightly as he shifted and stretched. The iv pulled at his arm and he settled a moment later moonlight covering his form.

He couldn’t hear anything for some reason and the little light in the room was snuffed out within moments. He fell asleep just later, a warm sensation around his ears was the last thing he noted feeling.

~~~

John held his hands over Sherlocks ears a moment longer before leaning back and observing him as he rested. It has been the third time he’d woken up so sensitive to any noise or light the first time he was practically yelling about it.

The stream of mumbling that accompanied his wakefulness was the only reason he knew what to do. Able to make out something about the harsh lighting and to silence his talking if he tried. Sherlock was quiet when he slept however, the most silent he’d ever seen him.

He stayed close by his side nonetheless, partly out of guilt. It has been months since he’d seen Sherlock, he was trying to get his own shit together after Mary left before reaching out. Though really he had thought Sherlock didn’t want to see him, he didn’t expect the first time he’d see him in so long would be in a hospital.

He was grateful Greg had been kind enough to check in on Sherlock every once in a while, that he had found him in the flat before things got too bad. He didn’t want to imagine how he looked before, he already looked terrible and that was after they cleaned him up somewhat.

He felt guilty, this isn’t what he wanted for Sherlock. He thought by staying away he was doing him good, giving him space to get over all this mess. He honestly thought he’d gloat when he saw him again that he was right about Mary and her deceit about the baby. He wished Sherlock would snap out of this and tell him he was right John should’ve listened to him.

It was a lot to think about while he wanted for Sherlock to wake up, hoping he’d still be himself. That he wouldn’t be too broken by this and be unable to recover, he hoped for that, prayed for it.

Sherlock shifted and started mumbling again, the words were hard to understand but he tried anyway. He could make out his name a few times but otherwise all other meaning was impossible to understand.

It wasn’t until an hour or so later sherlock woke for real, calm and quiet with a river of mumbling behind it. He looked up at John and sighed somewhat and closed his eyes again.

“Disappointed?” He asked lightheartedly yet he was somewhat upset by his reaction to him.

At that he got more of a start, his eyes opened and looked to John quickly scrutinizing his expression. “John..?” He asked after a moment in a rough voice, seeming a bit confused.

John nodded and took his hand automatically without thinking of the implications. “I’m here.”

Sherlock looked at their hands and back to John’s face before seeming to slowly relax and for a moment John thought he saw relief in his eyes before they closed again. “Good..”

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