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Chlorine is a scent so strong it coats his tongue when he stands near a pool. Submerged in one, the chlorine burns as he inhales, but he swims further still into darker depths of deep waters.
He never reaches the bottom, but emerges on the other end in free fall, the padded walls and floor of the cell breaking his fall.
It should have killed him. Killed them both.
The cell is empty. The shackles open.
He freed this prisoner. Picked the fly out of the ointment. Threw him into the abyss.
There is nothing left to recover.
He’d chosen normalcy and thought he’d never regret it.
It was the only choice he had.
Jim Moriarty is dead. He is not coming back.
Still, Sherlock’s fingers are grazing against the cold metal when he hears a voice, that lilting voice calling out to him.
He chases after it. His own thundering, clumsy footsteps resound in his ears.
The afterimage is not the same as the man, but it’s better than empty air.
To anyone keen enough to peer into 221B Baker Street through the always exposed window they’d see one Detective Sherlock Holmes, dazed, high, slowly stumbling through the unlit sitting room of his flat.