Slipping Through His Fingers
Summary: It is raining the night John asks about it. Sherlock remembers the rain, because he writes it down afterwards.
Sherlock is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in his late thirties.
Notes: Warnings for... Alzheimer's and death. Perhaps needless to say, but this is my saddest Sherlock headcanon.
-x-
It starts with things so insignificant that Sherlock doesn’t even notice. It’s the normal kind of forgetfulness that happens to everyone. Who hasn’t misplaced their keys? Or their phone? Or forgotten why they walked into a room? If these things start to happen more frequently, no one notices.
Not until it starts to interfere with work. Not that anyone really notices then, either. No one but him. The realisation hits him like a bucket of ice cold water during a minor fraud case and fear settles as led in his gut. Details that keep slipping his mind. Questions he has to repeat. Evidence almost mistreated. He pushes through it. He solves the case.
He doesn’t google his symptoms. He doesn’t go through his copy of the ICD-10.
He can’t ignore it, though.
He starts to take notes. About everything. It helps. The act of writing makes things stick a bit longer. Having it written down makes it easier to hide it from others. For a while. It is raining the night John asks about it. Sherlock knows it rains, because he writes it down afterwards.
They go to the doctor the next morning.
Good prognosis. Still early stages. Seven years, maybe. Possibly more. New drugs. Therapy. Medical progress. Sherlock doesn’t hear any of it. Doesn’t listen. John does and it is enough. It has to be enough. One year or seven years, does it really matter? He goes to bed without dinner that night, not because he forgets, but because he doesn’t have an appetite.
He writes it all down.
Telling people is terrible. Sherlock doesn’t want to, but John insists.
Sherlock hates ever second of it. Mrs Hudson cries. Lestrade curses. Molly stutters. Mycroft’s reaction is the worst by far. A split second of panic. A brief moment of fear. A few sympathetic words. Then a slow, but obvious, retreat. Sherlock never thought he’d ever miss his brother. He never thought he’d get the chance to.
It doesn’t take too long before he forgets that there is something he should miss.
(John doesn’t forget Mycroft’s absents. He sends him a text message per day. Partly as a concern. Partly as a punishment.)
The progression of the illness isn’t linear. Sherlock desperately wishes it were. It’s hard to plan ahead - or even dare to think about it - when no one can say how much time there is left. The medication helps differently at different stages too. Side effects come and go. Or perhaps he forgets about them at times. He tries to write them all down, but when he goes back to read about it he notices more and more gaps.
John puts labels on everything in the kitchen. All written by hand. They are a painful reminder of where this are heading some days, but more and more often they are a useful tool. When the labels turn up on Sherlock’s chemicals, he gets furious. John says nothing. He just moves two books from the table and exposes the melted wax cloth and the burnt table underneath.
Sherlock tries to find a note about it his notebook - which he always carries these days - but there isn’t one.
John takes away the burner after Sherlock forgets about yet another experiment and accidentally fills the entire flat with gas. The same week John also makes sure to install timers on the stove and all other electricity in the kitchen.
Sherlock takes cases for as long as he possibly can. His doctor encourages it. As do John. Sherlock takes meticulous notes and solves almost all of them. Two years after the diagnosis he works his last case with the police. (A murder-suicide that should be simple, but isn’t.) He takes himself off it. That day is the first time John sees Sherlock cry. That night is the first time Sherlock seriously considers not holding on for those potential last five years.
It’s not the last time Sherlock finds himself at a crime scene, though. Soon everyone at Scotland Yard seem to have John on speed dial. It’s a small blessing that the crushing embarrassment fades along with everything else.
Three years after the diagnosis John convinces Sherlock to close down his website and the work stops for real. He still notices things no one else does, even when everything else slips through his fingers. Details he knows should mean something. Details that might be important. Facts without context. They wash over him. Overwhelm him. Then they hang in the air, unable for him to reach, to draw conclusions from.
Even in times when he doesn’t know why any of it is important, it leaves him with a frustration and a sadness that he can’t make the connections.
Sherlock writes his will early on. Or he rewrites it. He’s had a will since he was old enough to understand that his chosen profession came with risks and that he wasn’t immortal. The most significant change he makes is where he directs the small amount of money he wants to donate to medical research.
Around the same time as he rewrites the will, Sherlock asks if John would prefer a body to bury or if it would be better if he just disappears in a few years, when things get really bad. After a long silence, John says he wants a body. And a heads up. Sherlock writes it down..
(The text message Mycroft receives that day is brutal.)
John starts to write. With the help of his own blog and Sherlock’s notes he tries to turn their stories into book manuscripts. Sherlock just rolls his eyes at him. He makes comments about misplaced hero worshipping and terrible romanticising of facts. John promptly ignores him. When Sherlock finally caves and reads through some of them, he fills the margin with corrections when he remembers what happens and questions about accuracy when he doesn’t.
John almost always tells him that all the unbelievable things actually happened.
Sherlock believes him most of the time.
Sherlock reads the unpublished manuscripts over and over. Some days it’s a biography written about him. Some days it’s a sad reminder of everything he doesn’t remember himself. Some days it’s just a thrilling crime novel. On those days he looks up at John and asks if he knows this consulting detective. That’s the question that hurts John the most - it’s far worse than when Sherlock doesn’t recognise him - but he always smiles and says that yes, he did know him.
Five years after the diagnosis time is running out. So much for good prognoses and medical advances. There are no good days anymore. There are barely good hours. Sherlock thought he had a plan for this, but it turns out he doesn’t.
Neither does John. He thinks about assisted suicide every day. He makes inventories about what he can smuggle from work - at least as long as he works as something other than Sherlock’s caregiver. After that other options surface. He thinks about leaving his gun on the kitchen table as an invitation. He thinks about buying heroin as a gift. He does neither, and the only thing the puts in Sherlock’s tea is sugar.
At the end of it all there is no plan. There is no adventure.
2 081 days, almost six years, after being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, the world’s only consulting detective falls asleep on the sofa and doesn’t wake up again.
He is only 43 years old.
Sherlock is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in his late thirties.
Notes: Warnings for... Alzheimer's and death. Perhaps needless to say, but this is my saddest Sherlock headcanon.
-x-
It starts with things so insignificant that Sherlock doesn’t even notice. It’s the normal kind of forgetfulness that happens to everyone. Who hasn’t misplaced their keys? Or their phone? Or forgotten why they walked into a room? If these things start to happen more frequently, no one notices.
Not until it starts to interfere with work. Not that anyone really notices then, either. No one but him. The realisation hits him like a bucket of ice cold water during a minor fraud case and fear settles as led in his gut. Details that keep slipping his mind. Questions he has to repeat. Evidence almost mistreated. He pushes through it. He solves the case.
He doesn’t google his symptoms. He doesn’t go through his copy of the ICD-10.
He can’t ignore it, though.
He starts to take notes. About everything. It helps. The act of writing makes things stick a bit longer. Having it written down makes it easier to hide it from others. For a while. It is raining the night John asks about it. Sherlock knows it rains, because he writes it down afterwards.
They go to the doctor the next morning.
Good prognosis. Still early stages. Seven years, maybe. Possibly more. New drugs. Therapy. Medical progress. Sherlock doesn’t hear any of it. Doesn’t listen. John does and it is enough. It has to be enough. One year or seven years, does it really matter? He goes to bed without dinner that night, not because he forgets, but because he doesn’t have an appetite.
He writes it all down.
Telling people is terrible. Sherlock doesn’t want to, but John insists.
Sherlock hates ever second of it. Mrs Hudson cries. Lestrade curses. Molly stutters. Mycroft’s reaction is the worst by far. A split second of panic. A brief moment of fear. A few sympathetic words. Then a slow, but obvious, retreat. Sherlock never thought he’d ever miss his brother. He never thought he’d get the chance to.
It doesn’t take too long before he forgets that there is something he should miss.
(John doesn’t forget Mycroft’s absents. He sends him a text message per day. Partly as a concern. Partly as a punishment.)
The progression of the illness isn’t linear. Sherlock desperately wishes it were. It’s hard to plan ahead - or even dare to think about it - when no one can say how much time there is left. The medication helps differently at different stages too. Side effects come and go. Or perhaps he forgets about them at times. He tries to write them all down, but when he goes back to read about it he notices more and more gaps.
John puts labels on everything in the kitchen. All written by hand. They are a painful reminder of where this are heading some days, but more and more often they are a useful tool. When the labels turn up on Sherlock’s chemicals, he gets furious. John says nothing. He just moves two books from the table and exposes the melted wax cloth and the burnt table underneath.
Sherlock tries to find a note about it his notebook - which he always carries these days - but there isn’t one.
John takes away the burner after Sherlock forgets about yet another experiment and accidentally fills the entire flat with gas. The same week John also makes sure to install timers on the stove and all other electricity in the kitchen.
Sherlock takes cases for as long as he possibly can. His doctor encourages it. As do John. Sherlock takes meticulous notes and solves almost all of them. Two years after the diagnosis he works his last case with the police. (A murder-suicide that should be simple, but isn’t.) He takes himself off it. That day is the first time John sees Sherlock cry. That night is the first time Sherlock seriously considers not holding on for those potential last five years.
It’s not the last time Sherlock finds himself at a crime scene, though. Soon everyone at Scotland Yard seem to have John on speed dial. It’s a small blessing that the crushing embarrassment fades along with everything else.
Three years after the diagnosis John convinces Sherlock to close down his website and the work stops for real. He still notices things no one else does, even when everything else slips through his fingers. Details he knows should mean something. Details that might be important. Facts without context. They wash over him. Overwhelm him. Then they hang in the air, unable for him to reach, to draw conclusions from.
Even in times when he doesn’t know why any of it is important, it leaves him with a frustration and a sadness that he can’t make the connections.
Sherlock writes his will early on. Or he rewrites it. He’s had a will since he was old enough to understand that his chosen profession came with risks and that he wasn’t immortal. The most significant change he makes is where he directs the small amount of money he wants to donate to medical research.
Around the same time as he rewrites the will, Sherlock asks if John would prefer a body to bury or if it would be better if he just disappears in a few years, when things get really bad. After a long silence, John says he wants a body. And a heads up. Sherlock writes it down..
(The text message Mycroft receives that day is brutal.)
John starts to write. With the help of his own blog and Sherlock’s notes he tries to turn their stories into book manuscripts. Sherlock just rolls his eyes at him. He makes comments about misplaced hero worshipping and terrible romanticising of facts. John promptly ignores him. When Sherlock finally caves and reads through some of them, he fills the margin with corrections when he remembers what happens and questions about accuracy when he doesn’t.
John almost always tells him that all the unbelievable things actually happened.
Sherlock believes him most of the time.
Sherlock reads the unpublished manuscripts over and over. Some days it’s a biography written about him. Some days it’s a sad reminder of everything he doesn’t remember himself. Some days it’s just a thrilling crime novel. On those days he looks up at John and asks if he knows this consulting detective. That’s the question that hurts John the most - it’s far worse than when Sherlock doesn’t recognise him - but he always smiles and says that yes, he did know him.
Five years after the diagnosis time is running out. So much for good prognoses and medical advances. There are no good days anymore. There are barely good hours. Sherlock thought he had a plan for this, but it turns out he doesn’t.
Neither does John. He thinks about assisted suicide every day. He makes inventories about what he can smuggle from work - at least as long as he works as something other than Sherlock’s caregiver. After that other options surface. He thinks about leaving his gun on the kitchen table as an invitation. He thinks about buying heroin as a gift. He does neither, and the only thing the puts in Sherlock’s tea is sugar.
At the end of it all there is no plan. There is no adventure.
2 081 days, almost six years, after being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, the world’s only consulting detective falls asleep on the sofa and doesn’t wake up again.
He is only 43 years old.