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Sometimes he thought about using again. Not because the urge to fall back into bad habits was that strong, but because he wondered if it'll make Watson stay.
He wouldn't dare, of course. If there was one thing Sherlock hated it was laziness. He wasn't about to undo all of Watson's hard work just because he wanted to see if she'll stick around. Besides, it was more likely she'll send him back to rehab.
How odd that he ended up getting his wish.
Charlie was humming Whistle While You Work. Sherlock wondered if he was truly incapable of whistling or if he just liked the irony of it. In one hand he held a syringe full of cocaine, way above the average dosage. This was how he intended Sherlock to go: death by overdose.
Watson was going to be so pissed...
Charlie tied off Sherlock's belt around his arm, waited for a vein to pop up and stabbed him with the needle. There was no finesse in his technique, no practiced movements. He probably got all of his drug knowledge off of the television and the internet. Sherlock couldn't believe he was going to be done in by a fifty-five year old, overweight plumber from Brooklyn.
The effect of the cocaine was almost instanteneous. Immediately he felt light headed, warm and full. At the same time, he swore he could feel his body dying from the ffects, this sense of wrongness pulsating underneath his skin. It was too much.
What happened next, he wasn't sure, the door to the room suddenly burst opened and the NYPD stormed in. Charlie didn't bother to put up a fight, not with four guns pointed at him, demanding him to lay on the ground with his hands above his head.
Sherlock's eyesight was slowly going and he felt himself drift. One by one, like the lights on a switchboard, parts of his brain shut down.
"Sherlock, oh God, Sherlock?"
That sounded like Watson. Her voice was lovely.
"Sherlock, Sherlock, please!"
He wanted to tell her sorry, sorry that things ended like this but he could not find the strength to voice it out loud. Instead, all he could do was smile at her and hoped she understood.
A couple of hours later, he woke up in a hospital.
His mouth was dry and he was hungry, cold, and too warm all at the same time. His head was pounding something fierce and his right leg twitched involuntarily.
Watson's face swam in front of his vision. "Sherlock," she said, sounding like she was a million miles away. "Do you know where you are?"
Hospital, obviously. He would have to be a brain-dead idiot for not noticing the IV in his arm, the beeping of his heart monitor and the flat smell of clean floors and walls. The real challenege was trying to figure which hospital. Let's see, there were seven hospitals and eighteen clinics near the vicinity where Charlie tried to kill him. Only three hospitals and two clinics were equipped to handle overdose cases and-
"You're in the hospital," Watson said for him. "At-"
"Don't," Sherlock groaned. His throat was like sandpaper. "Let me... figure..." And that was all his throat allowed him to say.
She gave him some ice chips which was a great relief. He hated that she has to see him like this but knew he'd rather have her than some strange, unknown doctor with cold hands and bad breath.
"You're going to go through withdrawal soon," she told him. "I can stay, if you like."
He wanted to shake his head. The thought of her, seeing him at his lowest, was the worst punishment he could think of. He lived through withdrawal before, he could do it again.
"Please," was what he said instead.
He thought it would be easy compared to the other times. The other times he was fighting through months of usage, not a single syringe's worth. He was wrong.
Withdrawal slammed him like a sledgehammer to the head. Pain wracked his body and his limbs trembled violently without his consent. He felt famished and thirsty yet he knew if he tried to eat or drink anything it'll just come right back up again. He tried to focus on something else, tried to keep his mind occupied, but at this point the body was stronger and in much more dire need of his attention. Every time he tried to name all the chemicals on the periodical table, a tremor would wrack his body and he would lose focus.
By hour four he found himself begging Watson to do something. She was a doctor, she had the authority to prescribe him something. Nothing strong, just something to keep the edge off so he wouldn't have to feel his body disintegrate from the inside out. When she denied him, he snapped.
He called her a whore, a cunt, a good for nothing doctor who couldn't keep her fucking patients alive if she tried.
He regretted it the moment it left his mouth and he sobbed, telling her how sorry he was and how he didn't mean it. His father may have been absent from his life but his mother wasn't and she would always say to him, "Sherlock, be kind to women. They have it hard in this world and we don't need to add on to their burden."
He expected her to leave at that point. Leave and allow someone who had more experience with this take over.
She took no offense to his words, instead offering him more water, little sips for his abused stomach to handle.
Just when he thought he would die- and welcome it with open arms- Watson started talking.
"Babinski's reflex - also known as the plantar reflex; the movement of the big toe upward instead of downward; used to test injury to, or diseases of, the upper motor neurons. Pavulon - trade name for the muscle relaxant pancuronium bromide. Pavulon produces complete paralysis, but with no alteration of consciousness."
At first he didn't understand why she was just speaking random medical terms. He couldn't focus on her words long enough to even understand what she was saying. But after five minutes of listening to her voice in a constant stream, his limbs quieted down without his knowing.
By fifteen, his stomach stopped cramping.
By the forty-five minute mark, Sherlock was drifting into sleep. By the forty-seventh mark, he was gone.
Later when asked why she didn't leave, she would tell him, "It's because you asked me not to." He won't remember saying that.