Mozart (John, Sherlock, PG)
Title: Mozart
Characters: John, Sherlock (whichever way you want to read it)
Word count: 3,850
Rating: PG
Warnings: mentions of substance abuse
Notes: thanks to cyntosis for the late-night spelling check! :D
Summary: John doesn't want to be, but he's worried.
John doesn't want to be, but he's worried when he tackles the washing up that's been gathering in the sink for four days and finds the three discarded syringes. They're floating in the rancid water that has collected in an oven tray in which Sherlock had tried to do something that John had first, horrified and thinking himself in an alternate universe, presumed to be an attempt at a mince pie, but then turned out to be a study of the effect of acid on the decomposition of brain matter. (Somehow that had been better. Life with Sherlock has rather changed his ideas on what is horrifying.) He fishes the syringes out and holds them in the palm of his hand.
“Sherlock,” he calls back into the living room, “where did you get these?”
His companion, who rather infuriatingly has been listening to the same five looped-back minutes of recorded suspect interrogation for at least half an hour, and who is now, for reasons John doesn't even attempt to uncover, playing it backwards, doesn't respond.
“Sherlock!” he tries again, a bit more forcefully, although he knows full well that Sherlock can hear him.
“Busy,” Sherlock's low baritone informs him. His tone tells John to stop trying.
John rolls his eyes. He listens in for a bit - the played-back message is nothing but gibberish to him, but he's sure it means something to Sherlock or is at least interesting enough to help stave off boredom. Anything that will keep Sherlock from getting bored is okay with him. Then he looks at the syringes in his hand. They look innocent. He puts them aside, carefully, and stares at them for a moment, feeling something heavy settling in his stomach.
Then, with a different kind of courage than the one he developed in the army, a kind of courage he never knew he had before he met Sherlock, he sets to work on the combined washing-up of four days of his eating and Sherlock's experimenting.
*
Sherlock immediately notices the syringes at breakfast the next morning. Sometimes John wonders how it must feel to be Sherlock, and how it would be possible to ever relax if every new thing, every changed detail lunges at you with such a clarity that you can't unsee it. Then again, he genuinely doesn't know if Sherlock is ever truly relaxed.
“Oh,” he says, “you can throw those out, John, I don't need them anymore.”
“Where did you get them?” John asks around a mouthful of toast.
“I took them from the morgue,” Sherlock answers non-committally, and then buries himself in the newspaper.
John clears his throat. “What were you using them for?”
“Retention fluid from a drowned corpse,” Sherlock's voice comes from behind the newspaper, “Needed to take a look at its bacterial development.”
Okay, John thinks, and tries to placate the small unease at the back of his mind.
*
In spite of himself, he keeps one of the syringes.
And then, even more in spite of himself, he takes it to Molly and asks her to run tests on the residue inside it.
He wonders if she knows why he's asking her to do it when he would in every other circumstance have asked Sherlock, who is decidedly like a magician when he's doing chemistry.
“I'll do it whenever I have a second to spare,” she says, and her smile is real. He likes Molly, he does, even if it makes him cringe to see how she continues to hold out hope about Sherlock. It would make him feel better if she realised that Sherlock is really just a prick - for his own benefit, because he is very prone to second-hand embarrassment when it concerns Sherlock and the women who want him, but also for hers, because he does care about her.
“Thanks,” he says.
Then there is something in her eyes as she takes the syringe from him, and he remembers that Molly has known Sherlock for many more years than he has, and has known him for quite a while now too, and when she's not being compared to Sherlock she's no idiot.
He clears his throat, gives her a smile, and leaves the morgue.
*
She sends him an e-mail with the result:
retention fluid full of organic material, likely from human lungs, pre-mortem, about three weeks old. tobacco present, traces of plant growth and specific chemicals suggest drowned person. want me to run more detailed tests to see what other substances are in it?
molly
He quickly types out the
No, that'll do. Thanks a lot, Molly
and tells himself to stop being paranoid.
There's another e-mail from Molly twelve hours later.
i think i know what you're worried about. if there's anyone he would tell i think it would be you, john. but if this isn't about that at all then sorry, ignore this.
molly
Molly Hooper, when not being compared to Sherlock Holmes, is far from an idiot.
*
Talking to Sherlock can be a wildly differing experience. Sometimes Sherlock is so focused on what John is saying it becomes almost scary, the way those pale eyes flick between John's eyes and his mouth, as though Sherlock wants to literally see what his mouth is saying, while trying to keep his characteristic intense eye contact (and of course succeeding to such an extent that John sometimes gets dizzy from his stare). Sometimes Sherlock is only half interested, and undercuts John's completely normal requests or observation (on something that is usually mundane, admittedly) by one of his pointed, ironic remarks that are infuriating and funny at the same time. Sometimes Sherlock is so focused on something else entirely that he doesn't hear, or if he does, doesn't give a response, or if he does, it's a response to something inside his own brain and not to what John said at all. Sometimes Sherlock shifts between these so quickly, even in one conversation, that John can get heart palpitations just from talking to him.
So it's a question of getting him at the right time. John is getting better at playing into Sherlock's moods; he knows he doesn't need to ask whether Sherlock wants his eggs scrambled or boiled when Sherlock's eyes are glued to the screen of his laptop and also that he doesn't need to start discussing the nuances of multiple personality disorder when Sherlock is deep in his own intellectual maze at the ending stages of a thought process. There are points in a day when Sherlock will happily call out “Sunny-side up, John, remind me how long we've been living together again?” or will eagerly try to trump John's knowledge of psychiatry in an intense intellectual sparring match (always winning, of course, although John tends to think he holds his own... sometimes), and there are a lot more points in a day when he will huff and ignore and even turn his back on John. You just can't get between Sherlock Holmes and whatever it is he's thinking about.
So John waits for the right time and hopes he can catch it before it's gone.
When Sherlock shoulders his violin one evening and starts playing Mozart, a light, playful, whimsical tune he exaggerates by swaying to it more dramatically than the music asks for, he knows it's his time. Mozart signifies calm, or at least as calm as Sherlock ever gets, and in the mood for conversation.
He lets him play for a while. He knows the piece. It's very nice to listen to, and sometimes John wishes Sherlock would be calm more often, one of the many reasons for that being that he would play this more. Just as Sherlock begins the final... whatever it is, John doesn't know much about the technical aspect of classical music; the final swell, the final rising and falling of the tune, he clears his throat. Knowing Sherlock's attention needs to be grabbed from the first moment or he'll lose him, John says: “Sherlock, do you sometimes do heroin?”
And Sherlock even misses a beat; he holds a note for just a fraction too long before he picks the music up again, finishing it flawlessly, the final note trilling beautifully into silence - but John can be observant, too, and he hasn't missed the surprise, which he knows must be considerable if it brings Sherlock to get lost in his music even for a split second.
Sherlock turns to him and studies him with narrowed eyes for so long John begins to find it more than a little uncomfortable and shifts on the sofa. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to bring it up after all.
“Those syringes were for an experiment, John,” Sherlock finally says, putting his violin on the coffee table and with some precision placing the bow on top of it.
“I, um... I know.” It's impossible to lie to Sherlock, so getting the truth out before Sherlock can deduce it is always better.
“You've had them tested by Molly,” Sherlock says drily, as if he knew that all along. Maybe he did. John nods. Sherlock's face is passive and intense at the same time. “But you're still worried.”
Yes, because I'm always worried, John almost wants to say, but then catches himself because it would only remind Sherlock of Mycroft - even if John's concern, to his own mind at least, has so much more basis than Mycroft's and is so much less a part of an elaborate, confusing mix of genuine sympathy, rivalry, opportunism and strategy. His concern only has the genuine sympathy. So, a simple “Yes,” is all he says. He's sure Sherlock will pick up on the rest.
Sherlock pushes the violin aside and sets himself on the coffee table - looking slightly ridiculous sitting so low with his long, long legs in front of him, but only slightly, because Sherlock always manages to still look impressive, even sitting in his blue robe on a coffee table. “John, I'm brilliant. Do you really think I'd be leaving used heroin needles around for you to find?”
“No,” John admits, because obviously that would be immensely careless and stupid and therefore unimaginable for Sherlock, “unless -”
“Unless I wanted you to find them, yes,” Sherlock waves away the rest of his sentence like it's an annoying fly. “But they weren't heroin needles. I had no specific intention of you finding them.”
“I just -” John begins, because he wants Sherlock to understand that he can talk about it, but Sherlock's gaze is steely and something in it tells him to shut up.
“Don't worry so much,” Sherlock says, gets to his feet, stretches and manages to look feline during it, even while dressed in a robe and slippers.
John watches him as he picks up the violin again and starts playing; a tune John can't identify, slow, deep, mournful, a far cry from the Mozart from before, and he feels almost guilty. Leave it to Sherlock to have him feeling guilty over wanting to talk about something that bothers him.
He returns to his book with his stomach not a bit calmer.
*
The first time he notices the small bruise on the inside of Sherlock's elbow, John tells himself he's imagining things. Or at least misreading things. Sherlock is knee-deep in a case, but it isn't coming to him, it's not making sense, so he's thinking and talking, talking, words, John can't really catch any of it though in theory Sherlock is talking to him, storming around the flat, pausing to punch the wall or press his forehead against the window, on which he's drawn the map of the sewers of London (in spite of John's protest, who quite liked the window see-through).
As Sherlock leans himself against the window, his shirt sleeves rolled up as high as the tightness of Sherlock's shirts allows them to be, the small bruise winks at John for a second before Sherlock's gone again, turned around, stalking to the kitchen.
Immediately, he feels sick.
And then tells himself not to: Sherlock isn't under influence of anything but his own mania, a bruise could be anything, even one as perfectly circular as that. For all he knows Sherlock's been doing some experiments with his own blood or has injected himself with something that, well, isn't illegal or at least not highly addictive - it wouldn't be the first time.
Still, he has to swallow bile.
And he knows that now is as far from the perfect moment to talk about this as possible, so he keeps quiet, trying to follow in Sherlock's thought tracks as Sherlock calls his name from the kitchen, with the tell me what you think implicit.
*
Mrs. Hudson is surprisingly perceptive to what he's really trying to say when he asks her what it was like to have Sherlock renting 221B in the beginning, six years ago. From what he's pieced together from the sparse info Lestrade and Mycroft have given him, he was doing drugs quite intensely in that period, the second serious relapse, and the last one. From what he knows.
She says, uncharacteristically unmoved: “He was a mess. I seriously considered kicking him out at one point.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Because as soon as I told him he... he finally allowed himself to be helped. I don't know if it was because of that, but he checked himself into a clinic the next day.”
John's throat is dry. He can't imagine seeing Sherlock in a rehab clinic, he can't imagine seeing Sherlock out of control, he can't imagine seeing him in the claws of something that's not of his own making, at the mercy of something that he has no power over. The thought is extremely unsettling.
“And he hasn't... Ever since?”
“I don't think so,” Mrs. Hudson says, and she sounds quite secure, “it's never been even close to the way it was then. Sometimes I get a little scared, but I think he's got himself under control. He's very different now.” She sighs, picks at her pie. “You're lucky you didn't know him then, dear.”
He's not so sure. Maybe his grip on Sherlock would be stronger if he could understand this.
*
Sherlock is lying on the couch with his shoes on. That can mean two things: either the day started off well so he got dressed but now he's too bored to even change into his robe, or he's genuinely tired. Sherlock isn't tired often, though he regularly puts himself through bouts of self-imposed insomnia because it sharpens his thinking, especially if he also stops eating. John hates it when he does that, because he really shouldn't be getting any thinner, and he shouldn't be growing increasingly hollow-eyed and pale (and then he thinks about that and tries to shut up the small voice that pulls at him, saying that he does look like a junky sometimes, even if it's an exceptionally well-polished junky). When he nags Sherlock about his lack of sleeping and eating, Sherlock's response is usually to continue doing it for even longer - John has, since he's started living with Sherlock, a greater respect for the parents of teenagers everywhere. Sherlock's immediate response after the solving of a case is insane, boundless energy, but as soon as everything is completely settled and he has run the course of the case with his mind again, his body sometimes catches up and he can go from almost manic to almost unconscious in an alarmingly short amount of time - John has had to help him up the stairs once or twice, having fallen away in the middle of a celebratory drink in the pub or a private aftermath celebration at Mrs. Hudson's and now almost unable to stand. The times when Sherlock is really tired he usually falls asleep on the couch (John has only known this to happen four times in the time they've lived together) and sleeps so silently John sometimes checks his pulse to see if he's still alive.
John approaches, setting the groceries on the floor with as little sound as possible.
“I'm not sleeping,” Sherlock's low voice comes.
Oh, that's wonderful, so bored beyond reason it is, then.
But Sherlock sits up, and he doesn't look bored, if anything he looks contemplative.
“Why do you think I'm doing drugs?” John starts at the question, but Sherlock's face isn't accusatory; if anything, it's inquisitive.
“I -” John stammers.
“Mrs. Hudson has been looking through my things.” Sherlock swings his feet off the sofa, leans his elbows on his thighs and rests his chin on his fingertips, looking away from John. “She hasn't done that in years. The only reason I can logically think of is that you must have talked to her about your fears or suspicions that I might be using again and then of course she started doubting herself and tried to find evidence to point either way.”
John has a peculiar sinking feeling in his chest, as though he's just let Sherlock down in a massive way.
“Sherlock, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have -”
“You're right, you shouldn't have,” Sherlock cuts in, “You worried her. And you worry yourself. Why don't you believe me when I say I'm not on anything?”
John moves into Sherlock's line of vision. “I'm not sure,” he admits, “I know the syringes weren't... But then there was this bruise... And sometimes you seem...”
“As though I'm under influence,” Sherlock finishes, “I know. But I'm telling you it's not drugs. I am clean.”
And at the explicitness of it, and the unexpected earnestness of Sherlock's gaze, John believes it. “I'm sorry,” he murmurs, feeling something miserable slipping into him, a shame, an untrustworthiness.
Sherlock studies him. John feels a desire to slip away and hide in his room for a bit so he doesn't have to endure that look - he can handle it normally, but not now, not now it's telling him he had it all wrong, he had it all backwards, he made trouble where there was none, and he's a bad friend.
“You're a good friend,” Sherlock says as if he can read John's mind. And he can, in a way. It's explicit for Sherlock, it's almost emotional; John realises this must be something that Sherlock has enough feelings about to let them show to John.
“I should've trusted you,” John says, shaking his head.
“Sometimes I can't be trusted,” Sherlock murmurs darkly, “I'm an ex-addict. And also very persuasive. Dangerous combination. It takes a good friend to not trust me all the time.”
John blinks.
Sherlock sighs and leans back into the back of the couch. He looks a little crumpled up. “I don't like talking about it, John.”
“You don't have to,” John says automatically, because although he yearns for some more insight into this, although he really wants to be included in this part of Sherlock's past, he doesn't want Sherlock to do anything he doesn't want to. He knows Sherlock never does anything he doesn't want to, anyhow, so it's better to let it go.
Sherlock looks grateful. “Thank you.”
John nods.
And then Sherlock gets up to go to the kitchen, and John slips into his path, and puts a tentative arm around Sherlock's long torso, lightly, carefully. They've only hugged like this, when it's obvious it's a hug, when there's no emergency, no reason to be close to each other apart from, for example, having to hide in the same nook, a handful of times. Sherlock remains still for a moment and then curls his long arms around John in response.
After a short moment, John lets go, not wanting to push Sherlock beyond his limits of physicality. Sherlock hangs onto him a split second longer, which makes him smile. Then he's released from Sherlock's long-limbed embrace; Sherlock goes to the kitchen and John sets himself in the armchair, reaching for his book. There's a deep, calm feeling of relief in his stomach.
*
When he checks his e-mail the next day at the clinic, there's two: one from Molly, and one from Sherlock.
Molly's says
hi john, just wanted to let you know that sherlock said it was ok to let you know that he knew about those tests i ran. i didn't tell him but he saw the syringe on my desk. it was a couple of weeks ago but today he told me i could let you know. sorry for not telling you, he didn't want me to. hope everything's fine.
molly
John smiles, a bit conflicted. Sherlock knows everything and then Sherlock knows so little.
He clicks Sherlock's, expecting something about a case. Instead it says:
I've had two serious relapses and two that were relatively benign. The last one was six years ago. I was already living at Baker St. I didn't do heroin. Instead I did a mix I made myself. I'm very good at mixing narcotics to get the desired effect, as you can imagine. It felt like having control over what had control over me. It was fake control, obviously. I went to rehab thrice. Mycroft forced me to go the first two times. The third time I checked myself in. The doctors say I'm at high risk for relapse for the rest of my life because my personality is addictive. They're right, for once. I know it's what you would say too, if I asked you, and that that's why you're worried. I try to get my fix out of my work now. I went in because the only thing I can really have is my mind and I was losing that. It was dark. I don't like to think about it, but of course I do. It's good that you don't trust me all the time. It's good that you don't think I can do it all by myself. Keeps me on my toes. Don't reply to this, please.
He reads it twice, heart hammering. Then deletes it.
He hopes the day that he knows everything about Sherlock will never come. If it does, he knows Sherlock will have lost himself again. But then, he's quite sure it will never come, he's quite sure now. Sherlock Holmes will always keep things to himself. But to get even this small chip of him, this shadow, fragments - he's lucky, and he knows it, and he intends to not shame Sherlock's trust. He will trust him when he can, and not trust him when he can't, and trust himself to know which is which. He'll get him to his feet when he can't walk. He'll follow him when he can. He'll keep him on his toes.
*
He comes through the door of 221B and sees Sherlock standing at the window, his violin, unplayed, resting on his shoulder.
“Hey,” John says, hanging up his coat.
“Hey,” Sherlock returns without turning around, and then puts his bow to the strings.
Tender, light sounds of string on string.
Mozart.
Characters: John, Sherlock (whichever way you want to read it)
Word count: 3,850
Rating: PG
Warnings: mentions of substance abuse
Notes: thanks to cyntosis for the late-night spelling check! :D
Summary: John doesn't want to be, but he's worried.
John doesn't want to be, but he's worried when he tackles the washing up that's been gathering in the sink for four days and finds the three discarded syringes. They're floating in the rancid water that has collected in an oven tray in which Sherlock had tried to do something that John had first, horrified and thinking himself in an alternate universe, presumed to be an attempt at a mince pie, but then turned out to be a study of the effect of acid on the decomposition of brain matter. (Somehow that had been better. Life with Sherlock has rather changed his ideas on what is horrifying.) He fishes the syringes out and holds them in the palm of his hand.
“Sherlock,” he calls back into the living room, “where did you get these?”
His companion, who rather infuriatingly has been listening to the same five looped-back minutes of recorded suspect interrogation for at least half an hour, and who is now, for reasons John doesn't even attempt to uncover, playing it backwards, doesn't respond.
“Sherlock!” he tries again, a bit more forcefully, although he knows full well that Sherlock can hear him.
“Busy,” Sherlock's low baritone informs him. His tone tells John to stop trying.
John rolls his eyes. He listens in for a bit - the played-back message is nothing but gibberish to him, but he's sure it means something to Sherlock or is at least interesting enough to help stave off boredom. Anything that will keep Sherlock from getting bored is okay with him. Then he looks at the syringes in his hand. They look innocent. He puts them aside, carefully, and stares at them for a moment, feeling something heavy settling in his stomach.
Then, with a different kind of courage than the one he developed in the army, a kind of courage he never knew he had before he met Sherlock, he sets to work on the combined washing-up of four days of his eating and Sherlock's experimenting.
*
Sherlock immediately notices the syringes at breakfast the next morning. Sometimes John wonders how it must feel to be Sherlock, and how it would be possible to ever relax if every new thing, every changed detail lunges at you with such a clarity that you can't unsee it. Then again, he genuinely doesn't know if Sherlock is ever truly relaxed.
“Oh,” he says, “you can throw those out, John, I don't need them anymore.”
“Where did you get them?” John asks around a mouthful of toast.
“I took them from the morgue,” Sherlock answers non-committally, and then buries himself in the newspaper.
John clears his throat. “What were you using them for?”
“Retention fluid from a drowned corpse,” Sherlock's voice comes from behind the newspaper, “Needed to take a look at its bacterial development.”
Okay, John thinks, and tries to placate the small unease at the back of his mind.
*
In spite of himself, he keeps one of the syringes.
And then, even more in spite of himself, he takes it to Molly and asks her to run tests on the residue inside it.
He wonders if she knows why he's asking her to do it when he would in every other circumstance have asked Sherlock, who is decidedly like a magician when he's doing chemistry.
“I'll do it whenever I have a second to spare,” she says, and her smile is real. He likes Molly, he does, even if it makes him cringe to see how she continues to hold out hope about Sherlock. It would make him feel better if she realised that Sherlock is really just a prick - for his own benefit, because he is very prone to second-hand embarrassment when it concerns Sherlock and the women who want him, but also for hers, because he does care about her.
“Thanks,” he says.
Then there is something in her eyes as she takes the syringe from him, and he remembers that Molly has known Sherlock for many more years than he has, and has known him for quite a while now too, and when she's not being compared to Sherlock she's no idiot.
He clears his throat, gives her a smile, and leaves the morgue.
*
She sends him an e-mail with the result:
retention fluid full of organic material, likely from human lungs, pre-mortem, about three weeks old. tobacco present, traces of plant growth and specific chemicals suggest drowned person. want me to run more detailed tests to see what other substances are in it?
molly
He quickly types out the
No, that'll do. Thanks a lot, Molly
and tells himself to stop being paranoid.
There's another e-mail from Molly twelve hours later.
i think i know what you're worried about. if there's anyone he would tell i think it would be you, john. but if this isn't about that at all then sorry, ignore this.
molly
Molly Hooper, when not being compared to Sherlock Holmes, is far from an idiot.
*
Talking to Sherlock can be a wildly differing experience. Sometimes Sherlock is so focused on what John is saying it becomes almost scary, the way those pale eyes flick between John's eyes and his mouth, as though Sherlock wants to literally see what his mouth is saying, while trying to keep his characteristic intense eye contact (and of course succeeding to such an extent that John sometimes gets dizzy from his stare). Sometimes Sherlock is only half interested, and undercuts John's completely normal requests or observation (on something that is usually mundane, admittedly) by one of his pointed, ironic remarks that are infuriating and funny at the same time. Sometimes Sherlock is so focused on something else entirely that he doesn't hear, or if he does, doesn't give a response, or if he does, it's a response to something inside his own brain and not to what John said at all. Sometimes Sherlock shifts between these so quickly, even in one conversation, that John can get heart palpitations just from talking to him.
So it's a question of getting him at the right time. John is getting better at playing into Sherlock's moods; he knows he doesn't need to ask whether Sherlock wants his eggs scrambled or boiled when Sherlock's eyes are glued to the screen of his laptop and also that he doesn't need to start discussing the nuances of multiple personality disorder when Sherlock is deep in his own intellectual maze at the ending stages of a thought process. There are points in a day when Sherlock will happily call out “Sunny-side up, John, remind me how long we've been living together again?” or will eagerly try to trump John's knowledge of psychiatry in an intense intellectual sparring match (always winning, of course, although John tends to think he holds his own... sometimes), and there are a lot more points in a day when he will huff and ignore and even turn his back on John. You just can't get between Sherlock Holmes and whatever it is he's thinking about.
So John waits for the right time and hopes he can catch it before it's gone.
When Sherlock shoulders his violin one evening and starts playing Mozart, a light, playful, whimsical tune he exaggerates by swaying to it more dramatically than the music asks for, he knows it's his time. Mozart signifies calm, or at least as calm as Sherlock ever gets, and in the mood for conversation.
He lets him play for a while. He knows the piece. It's very nice to listen to, and sometimes John wishes Sherlock would be calm more often, one of the many reasons for that being that he would play this more. Just as Sherlock begins the final... whatever it is, John doesn't know much about the technical aspect of classical music; the final swell, the final rising and falling of the tune, he clears his throat. Knowing Sherlock's attention needs to be grabbed from the first moment or he'll lose him, John says: “Sherlock, do you sometimes do heroin?”
And Sherlock even misses a beat; he holds a note for just a fraction too long before he picks the music up again, finishing it flawlessly, the final note trilling beautifully into silence - but John can be observant, too, and he hasn't missed the surprise, which he knows must be considerable if it brings Sherlock to get lost in his music even for a split second.
Sherlock turns to him and studies him with narrowed eyes for so long John begins to find it more than a little uncomfortable and shifts on the sofa. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to bring it up after all.
“Those syringes were for an experiment, John,” Sherlock finally says, putting his violin on the coffee table and with some precision placing the bow on top of it.
“I, um... I know.” It's impossible to lie to Sherlock, so getting the truth out before Sherlock can deduce it is always better.
“You've had them tested by Molly,” Sherlock says drily, as if he knew that all along. Maybe he did. John nods. Sherlock's face is passive and intense at the same time. “But you're still worried.”
Yes, because I'm always worried, John almost wants to say, but then catches himself because it would only remind Sherlock of Mycroft - even if John's concern, to his own mind at least, has so much more basis than Mycroft's and is so much less a part of an elaborate, confusing mix of genuine sympathy, rivalry, opportunism and strategy. His concern only has the genuine sympathy. So, a simple “Yes,” is all he says. He's sure Sherlock will pick up on the rest.
Sherlock pushes the violin aside and sets himself on the coffee table - looking slightly ridiculous sitting so low with his long, long legs in front of him, but only slightly, because Sherlock always manages to still look impressive, even sitting in his blue robe on a coffee table. “John, I'm brilliant. Do you really think I'd be leaving used heroin needles around for you to find?”
“No,” John admits, because obviously that would be immensely careless and stupid and therefore unimaginable for Sherlock, “unless -”
“Unless I wanted you to find them, yes,” Sherlock waves away the rest of his sentence like it's an annoying fly. “But they weren't heroin needles. I had no specific intention of you finding them.”
“I just -” John begins, because he wants Sherlock to understand that he can talk about it, but Sherlock's gaze is steely and something in it tells him to shut up.
“Don't worry so much,” Sherlock says, gets to his feet, stretches and manages to look feline during it, even while dressed in a robe and slippers.
John watches him as he picks up the violin again and starts playing; a tune John can't identify, slow, deep, mournful, a far cry from the Mozart from before, and he feels almost guilty. Leave it to Sherlock to have him feeling guilty over wanting to talk about something that bothers him.
He returns to his book with his stomach not a bit calmer.
*
The first time he notices the small bruise on the inside of Sherlock's elbow, John tells himself he's imagining things. Or at least misreading things. Sherlock is knee-deep in a case, but it isn't coming to him, it's not making sense, so he's thinking and talking, talking, words, John can't really catch any of it though in theory Sherlock is talking to him, storming around the flat, pausing to punch the wall or press his forehead against the window, on which he's drawn the map of the sewers of London (in spite of John's protest, who quite liked the window see-through).
As Sherlock leans himself against the window, his shirt sleeves rolled up as high as the tightness of Sherlock's shirts allows them to be, the small bruise winks at John for a second before Sherlock's gone again, turned around, stalking to the kitchen.
Immediately, he feels sick.
And then tells himself not to: Sherlock isn't under influence of anything but his own mania, a bruise could be anything, even one as perfectly circular as that. For all he knows Sherlock's been doing some experiments with his own blood or has injected himself with something that, well, isn't illegal or at least not highly addictive - it wouldn't be the first time.
Still, he has to swallow bile.
And he knows that now is as far from the perfect moment to talk about this as possible, so he keeps quiet, trying to follow in Sherlock's thought tracks as Sherlock calls his name from the kitchen, with the tell me what you think implicit.
*
Mrs. Hudson is surprisingly perceptive to what he's really trying to say when he asks her what it was like to have Sherlock renting 221B in the beginning, six years ago. From what he's pieced together from the sparse info Lestrade and Mycroft have given him, he was doing drugs quite intensely in that period, the second serious relapse, and the last one. From what he knows.
She says, uncharacteristically unmoved: “He was a mess. I seriously considered kicking him out at one point.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Because as soon as I told him he... he finally allowed himself to be helped. I don't know if it was because of that, but he checked himself into a clinic the next day.”
John's throat is dry. He can't imagine seeing Sherlock in a rehab clinic, he can't imagine seeing Sherlock out of control, he can't imagine seeing him in the claws of something that's not of his own making, at the mercy of something that he has no power over. The thought is extremely unsettling.
“And he hasn't... Ever since?”
“I don't think so,” Mrs. Hudson says, and she sounds quite secure, “it's never been even close to the way it was then. Sometimes I get a little scared, but I think he's got himself under control. He's very different now.” She sighs, picks at her pie. “You're lucky you didn't know him then, dear.”
He's not so sure. Maybe his grip on Sherlock would be stronger if he could understand this.
*
Sherlock is lying on the couch with his shoes on. That can mean two things: either the day started off well so he got dressed but now he's too bored to even change into his robe, or he's genuinely tired. Sherlock isn't tired often, though he regularly puts himself through bouts of self-imposed insomnia because it sharpens his thinking, especially if he also stops eating. John hates it when he does that, because he really shouldn't be getting any thinner, and he shouldn't be growing increasingly hollow-eyed and pale (and then he thinks about that and tries to shut up the small voice that pulls at him, saying that he does look like a junky sometimes, even if it's an exceptionally well-polished junky). When he nags Sherlock about his lack of sleeping and eating, Sherlock's response is usually to continue doing it for even longer - John has, since he's started living with Sherlock, a greater respect for the parents of teenagers everywhere. Sherlock's immediate response after the solving of a case is insane, boundless energy, but as soon as everything is completely settled and he has run the course of the case with his mind again, his body sometimes catches up and he can go from almost manic to almost unconscious in an alarmingly short amount of time - John has had to help him up the stairs once or twice, having fallen away in the middle of a celebratory drink in the pub or a private aftermath celebration at Mrs. Hudson's and now almost unable to stand. The times when Sherlock is really tired he usually falls asleep on the couch (John has only known this to happen four times in the time they've lived together) and sleeps so silently John sometimes checks his pulse to see if he's still alive.
John approaches, setting the groceries on the floor with as little sound as possible.
“I'm not sleeping,” Sherlock's low voice comes.
Oh, that's wonderful, so bored beyond reason it is, then.
But Sherlock sits up, and he doesn't look bored, if anything he looks contemplative.
“Why do you think I'm doing drugs?” John starts at the question, but Sherlock's face isn't accusatory; if anything, it's inquisitive.
“I -” John stammers.
“Mrs. Hudson has been looking through my things.” Sherlock swings his feet off the sofa, leans his elbows on his thighs and rests his chin on his fingertips, looking away from John. “She hasn't done that in years. The only reason I can logically think of is that you must have talked to her about your fears or suspicions that I might be using again and then of course she started doubting herself and tried to find evidence to point either way.”
John has a peculiar sinking feeling in his chest, as though he's just let Sherlock down in a massive way.
“Sherlock, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have -”
“You're right, you shouldn't have,” Sherlock cuts in, “You worried her. And you worry yourself. Why don't you believe me when I say I'm not on anything?”
John moves into Sherlock's line of vision. “I'm not sure,” he admits, “I know the syringes weren't... But then there was this bruise... And sometimes you seem...”
“As though I'm under influence,” Sherlock finishes, “I know. But I'm telling you it's not drugs. I am clean.”
And at the explicitness of it, and the unexpected earnestness of Sherlock's gaze, John believes it. “I'm sorry,” he murmurs, feeling something miserable slipping into him, a shame, an untrustworthiness.
Sherlock studies him. John feels a desire to slip away and hide in his room for a bit so he doesn't have to endure that look - he can handle it normally, but not now, not now it's telling him he had it all wrong, he had it all backwards, he made trouble where there was none, and he's a bad friend.
“You're a good friend,” Sherlock says as if he can read John's mind. And he can, in a way. It's explicit for Sherlock, it's almost emotional; John realises this must be something that Sherlock has enough feelings about to let them show to John.
“I should've trusted you,” John says, shaking his head.
“Sometimes I can't be trusted,” Sherlock murmurs darkly, “I'm an ex-addict. And also very persuasive. Dangerous combination. It takes a good friend to not trust me all the time.”
John blinks.
Sherlock sighs and leans back into the back of the couch. He looks a little crumpled up. “I don't like talking about it, John.”
“You don't have to,” John says automatically, because although he yearns for some more insight into this, although he really wants to be included in this part of Sherlock's past, he doesn't want Sherlock to do anything he doesn't want to. He knows Sherlock never does anything he doesn't want to, anyhow, so it's better to let it go.
Sherlock looks grateful. “Thank you.”
John nods.
And then Sherlock gets up to go to the kitchen, and John slips into his path, and puts a tentative arm around Sherlock's long torso, lightly, carefully. They've only hugged like this, when it's obvious it's a hug, when there's no emergency, no reason to be close to each other apart from, for example, having to hide in the same nook, a handful of times. Sherlock remains still for a moment and then curls his long arms around John in response.
After a short moment, John lets go, not wanting to push Sherlock beyond his limits of physicality. Sherlock hangs onto him a split second longer, which makes him smile. Then he's released from Sherlock's long-limbed embrace; Sherlock goes to the kitchen and John sets himself in the armchair, reaching for his book. There's a deep, calm feeling of relief in his stomach.
*
When he checks his e-mail the next day at the clinic, there's two: one from Molly, and one from Sherlock.
Molly's says
hi john, just wanted to let you know that sherlock said it was ok to let you know that he knew about those tests i ran. i didn't tell him but he saw the syringe on my desk. it was a couple of weeks ago but today he told me i could let you know. sorry for not telling you, he didn't want me to. hope everything's fine.
molly
John smiles, a bit conflicted. Sherlock knows everything and then Sherlock knows so little.
He clicks Sherlock's, expecting something about a case. Instead it says:
I've had two serious relapses and two that were relatively benign. The last one was six years ago. I was already living at Baker St. I didn't do heroin. Instead I did a mix I made myself. I'm very good at mixing narcotics to get the desired effect, as you can imagine. It felt like having control over what had control over me. It was fake control, obviously. I went to rehab thrice. Mycroft forced me to go the first two times. The third time I checked myself in. The doctors say I'm at high risk for relapse for the rest of my life because my personality is addictive. They're right, for once. I know it's what you would say too, if I asked you, and that that's why you're worried. I try to get my fix out of my work now. I went in because the only thing I can really have is my mind and I was losing that. It was dark. I don't like to think about it, but of course I do. It's good that you don't trust me all the time. It's good that you don't think I can do it all by myself. Keeps me on my toes. Don't reply to this, please.
He reads it twice, heart hammering. Then deletes it.
He hopes the day that he knows everything about Sherlock will never come. If it does, he knows Sherlock will have lost himself again. But then, he's quite sure it will never come, he's quite sure now. Sherlock Holmes will always keep things to himself. But to get even this small chip of him, this shadow, fragments - he's lucky, and he knows it, and he intends to not shame Sherlock's trust. He will trust him when he can, and not trust him when he can't, and trust himself to know which is which. He'll get him to his feet when he can't walk. He'll follow him when he can. He'll keep him on his toes.
*
He comes through the door of 221B and sees Sherlock standing at the window, his violin, unplayed, resting on his shoulder.
“Hey,” John says, hanging up his coat.
“Hey,” Sherlock returns without turning around, and then puts his bow to the strings.
Tender, light sounds of string on string.
Mozart.