Cleansing

Between work and Baker Street, John thought that he had a pretty good reason for staying the hell away from his own flat. After he had met Mary, he had thought that nothing would keep him away from his wife and under Sherlock Holmes's wing again, but... well, Sherlock was Sherlock. The barmy idiot was like a drug, and even if John tried to say otherwise, he had really, really missed him, and he was really, really glad that he was back. Even if the faked death had been a very, very stupid decision.

He let himself into Baker Street with the key that he owned again. He had long since handed it over to Mrs Hudson after Sherlock's apparent death, when he had wanted nothing to do with Baker Street because of the reminders, but Sherlock had given it back. John had tossed it into the dish at home, planning on going about his life without contacting Sherlock every waking minute of the day like he desperately needed to know that he was there, he was really alive, but now John was glad that Sherlock had given it to him.

It was like he had known... but no. John stopped himself there. Before the wedding, and even after, briefly, Sherlock had taken to Mary like pencil to paper. Dare John say that Sherlock even liked her. He had had no inclination that there was anything wrong. No inclination that she was a lying, thieving, backstabbing-

That's not true, a voice interrupted in his head, something that sounded disturbingly like Sherlock's. She's only a liar. The rest was for her job, and before she met you.

John shook it away and took the steps two at a time. "Sherlock, you home?"

He didn't receive a response, which more or less didn't mean a thing. In fact, he found Sherlock sitting in his chair, staring so hard into space that he probably hadn't even heard John call.

"Hey." John snapped his fingers in front of him.

Sherlock jumped, leaning back in the chair slightly. "Sorry, what?"

"I asked if you were home," John replied, shucking his coat off.

"Clearly." Sherlock have him a look that was half distasteful, probably because of his apparent stupidity.

"What did you get up to today?" John strode into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of tea, only to sigh in annoyance when he found there was none brewed. "Are you literally incapable of making a pot of tea?"

"I didn't want tea," Sherlock replied, in his usual, flippant tone.

"You know I was coming over today, you could have made tea." John moved to the sink to fill the kettle up, piling dirty dishes out of the way.

"I'm not making tea just because you might come over," Sherlock retorted. It was almost snappy, a little bitter.

John looked up. "What's got your knickers in a twist?"

Sherlock closed his eyes and inhaled heavily. It was one of those motions that John had only seen him do when he was either under extreme pressure or trying extremely hard to keep his reactions in check. Sherlock let his breath out slowly, long fingers curling around the armrests of his chair.

John huffed and turned the tap off, plunking the kettle back into its spot. He hit the button and turned away, looking for the canister of Sherlock's best tea.

He secretly hoped that Sherlock wasn't put out at him, or that he was basically using his flat as a reason to stay away from his wife. He would rather put up with an out-of-sorts Sherlock than Mary right now, and that was saying something. He hoped the tea would better soothe Sherlock's nerves than trying to talk about it. He knew he wasn't being such a gracious guest, but it had been a long, long week. He would really owe Sherlock after this one.

"Here," he said, handing over a cup of tea so many minutes of silence later. He held it out like a peace offering, and smiled a little ruefully.

Sherlock's eyes snapped open again, like he was startled by John's close proximity. John noticed that his foot was bouncing every so slightly. That wasn't necessarily a normal Sherlock motion.

"You okay?"

"Fine." Sherlock reached up to take the tea. "Thank you."

John slowly trailed over to his own chair, sitting down. He was focussed on Sherlock now, because it gave him something other to do than to think about Mary or his job or how much crap he'd stepped into between Mary and Magnussen and Sherlock's return to the living. And who the hell even knew about the bonfire. John still woke up some nights, choking on ash and the smell of burning firewood heavy in his nostrils.

Sherlock's fingers tightened around the mug, to the point where his knuckles pressed white against his skin. They relaxed after a moment, Sherlock staring off towards the fireplace blankly, but the movement ceased only for a few minutes of silence before it repeated. Sherlock crossed his legs at the ankles and his toe bounced relentlessly in the new position. When Sherlock finally had to swap hands for his mug to flex his fingers, John spoke up.

"Are you sure you're okay? You're not usually so antsy." He paused. "Or, if you are, you usually aren't trying to hide it."

Sherlock looked up, that same, strange mixture of surprise and guilt flying across his face. It was unsettling, because it was the third time that look had passed Sherlock's face when John had drawn him out of his reveries.

John leaned forward. "Tell me what's wrong."

Sherlock sighed heavily, seeming to deflate all at once. His shoulders slumped, his chin dropped, his back arching over slightly as though he was curling into himself. He set his mug of tea aside, and pressed his fingers together. "... I'm detoxing."

John blinked. And then blinked again, because surely he had to have heard him wrong. "I'm sorry?"

"I'm approximately nine hours into detoxification."

John didn't know if he was being thick or if Sherlock was trying to admit something to him. Either way, it didn't boost any confidence in the situation. "From what?" he asked.

"The morphine, John, obviously!" Sherlock swept to his feet, burgundy dressing gown spinning out around him.

"The morphine," John repeated stupidly, and then it hit him. "Oh." The morphine from the case (now assuming that was what he had taken), the morphine from the hospital, from the gunshot wound (from Mary). "But... you've been on morphine since you left hospital?"

Sherlock made a face that John was certain that he wasn't supposed to see, a mangled combination between vulnerable and disgusted. "I've been in pain."

John cringed. "Sorry, sorry." He could remember the agony from Afghanistan, even after the bullet had been removed and he had been patched back up. It wasn't a one-and-done, a gunshot wound.

He wasn't sure why he was so surprised that Sherlock was still on the morphine. He briefly wondered why he hadn't gone over to a different strong painkiller instead, but then realised that his friend's habits were probably the root of all this evil to begin with. He had just opted to stay on the morphine because he was, what? More familiar with it? John had just thought... if anybody... Sherlock could have just, he didn't know, gone off it.

But that was a stupid assumption. Because while Sherlock was Sherlock, he was still human. He still felt pain, and desire, and he had his vices, morphine being one of them. Maybe it had only been for a case. At first.

... How could have he been so stupid to leave Sherlock on his own after the hospital stay? He should have- No. It was too late for that now. John shook his head and looked up at Sherlock.

"Were you going to tell me?" he questioned. "At all?"

Sherlock's back was to him. "I was hoping to avoid the conversation."

"But, why?"

"Because you have your own problems, John."

It was blunt, matter-of-fact, and completely true. John felt like he was taking the shot in Afghanistan all over again, but the sting that burned beneath his skin had nothing to do with physical injury.

"Sherlock-" He sighed. "That doesn't matter. I don't care if I've got the Queen of England on bloody hold, you know I'd do anything-"

"I know," Sherlock interjected.

"So, why didn't you-"

Sherlock interrupted again. "This is my problem."

John stared at his back. "You can't go through a detox by yourself, Sherlock, surely you know that."

"I can try," Sherlock said crisply.

"Well, that's stupid." John stood up. "You know I'm not going to let you stay here while-"

"I don't want your help, John!" Sherlock snapped, whirling around. He looked livid, alight with determination that nearly shook his lithe frame beneath the gown he was wearing.

John fell back slightly. "You..."

Realisation flickered across Sherlock's face, draining the anger to again a defeated sense of self. "... I can manage on my own," he muttered.

"Why should you have to?" John fired back. He had seen detoxes. He had seen what they did to people, what they made people do. Drugs were strong motivators.

"I want to."

"Why?" John demanded.

"I..." Whatever he had planned to say seemed to slip off his tongue. Sherlock turned away slightly, looking towards the fireplace. "... don't like losing control. Around the people that I... respect," he said shortly, then drew in a deep breath. "Around people that respect me," he added, seeming to take this statement in better stride.

John didn't mind Sherlock fanning his ego this time. "You do realise that, out of all the people around you, I am literally the last person that will judge you?"

"Of course I do," Sherlock muttered. He shifted from foot to foot, and then reached for his tea on a seeming spur of the moment action. "But..."

"But what?" John countered.

"... It's not pleasant," Sherlock said pathetically.

"I know."

"And I get violent." He gestured at the walls. "You've seen the state of the our walls, and that's when I wasn't high or detoxing-"

"Sherlock."

Sherlock stopped talking, although he didn't look back.

"I'm not going to leave you like this. Not by yourself."

Sherlock didn't move for a long while and, when he did, it was with that same sense of slow, detached self-betrayal, like he was legitimately giving up on himself. In a way, John reckoned, Sherlock probably thought he was. Giving up his control, his rationality, his strength in the face of anything that so much as thought about him wrong. "I know," Sherlock said quietly.

John nodded to himself. "Alright." He straightened up. "I'm gonna run to Tesco to pick up some things, food," he added, "since I'm staying. And I'll text Mary to tell her I'm staying here for a few days, pick up some stuff from home. Is there anything you need?"

"Antihistamines," Sherlock replied immediately. "It might not be withdrawal from cocaine, but it can still..." He gestured vaguely. "More paracetamol. And maybe an anti-emetic."

John nodded. "Alright." To be honest, it had been a long while since he had been around anyone who was going through a detox. He was going to have to spend some time researching it before Sherlock hit his peak, or they would both be in knee-deep.

"And for you to develop a sense of self-preservation and not come back."

John shook his head slightly, reaching for his coat. "When have I ever had a sense of self-preservation? I went to war and then became best friends with you."

Sherlock stared at him intently, as though expecting to find something, John didn't know what, pain or horror or pity or something, looking back at him. John didn't feel anything except determination, so he had no problem meeting Sherlock's steely gaze head-on.

"... Right," Sherlock said quietly. He almost cracked a smile, but it vanished under the onslaught of movement that was him striding to the other side of the room. "I'll be here," he said, planting himself at the window and staring out it unmovingly.

"Back soon," John promised.

He wasn't sure, he thought, as he stepped outside and strode up to the kerb for a cab, when he had become the sort of person that was so self-absorbed in his own problems that he was failing to see the problems of the ones he cared for around him, but he was making a promise to himself that he wasn't going to do that anymore. That voice in his head that sounded oddly like Sherlock spoke up just then. That includes Mary, too. John shook the thought away. He was taking this one step at a time. Sherlock was detoxing now; Mary, well, Mary could wait.

That's not fair, John, complained the Sherlock-voice in his head.

"Oh, shut up," John muttered under his breath.

Someone passing by on the street gave him a look that was a cross between affronted and alarmed.

John sighed heavily and waved down the incoming cab. It was bound to be another long week.

The newest story I'm working on. Well, been working on for a couple of weeks (I'm trying to complete stories before I post chapters, so the updates will be fairly regular ^^). It'll be dark, it'll be heavy, and it is not a pretty picture. But the idea's been with me since HLV and I've finally gotten around to writing it. Please take note that I, thankfully, do not have any experience with detox and all the information that will come in this story is gleaned from what info I could find, so if there are inconsistences, please forgive them. In any case, stay tuned~ Lots of Sherlock whump to come.

I do not own Sherlock. Thanks for reading!