Hello again, all. I am absolutely overwhelmed by the rush of story faves that I am receiving for my Holmes fics. Thank you all so much for that, and for faithfully reading my fics. That being said...this one is a little different than my others. Okay, let's face it, it is totally different. Delving into Holmes' psyche, I decided to write a fic in which Watson has left him, seemingly for good, and he has fallen into his syringe for comfort. In other words, get ready for some serious angst. Each paragraph is a cluster of one hundred words, the last bit being a bit symbolic, as if Holmes is "breaking through the ice" of his sadness, as it were. Hohoho, so clever.

As per usual, this is a slash fic. As if you didn't know already.

Disclaimer: Do not own anything.

Snow

The syringe is cold against my skin, tightened and bleached by my makeshift tourniquet—an old belt, fished from the chest of drawers in the corner—but I push it through nonetheless, into my pulsing vein, pale blue beneath the sheath of my epidermis. It is the only way that my mind stays focused, nowadays, despite the so-called "findings" of those scientists and doctors that discourage its use. They know, as I do, that it is irresistible. Otherwise, they would not be so afraid. I am not afraid, not anymore. The sole thing that had held me back is gone now.

The snow had begun falling about an hour before, and it quickly blanketed Baker Street with a misleadingly beautiful shroud of white. My twisted mind likened it to a wedding veil, draped over the dark and sooty forehead of the lady London. I wondered though, who would marry such a sickening woman? Who would enter matrimony with such a disgusting cesspool of filth and crime? I flexed my fingers as I pushed the plunger of the syringe to the hilt, watching the ants in their pea coats and top hats swarm around each other, their minds dark and empty.

The cocaine is now rushing through my veins, traveling by capillary action up, up, up to my brain, making me forget. It is all that I can do to not reach up to the window latch, turn it back towards me and let the cold air in, freezing me to the bone and ending this. Perhaps I could just let myself fall to the earth—it would give them all a wonderful fright. Knowing my luck, though, I would just fall into a traveling hay wain or be caught by a wayward police officer. That would just be my luck.

How did this all begin, you ask? Well, if you want me to be perfectly accurate, I would have to tell you that it began nine months ago—I realize now that my sorrow is like a child in the womb, only now poking its head out into the world and taking root. Nine months ago, when he walked into my laboratory, his face flushed with the London air that he was so unaccustomed to, his skin golden from the Afghan sun and his eyes wide as he took in the image of me: wild, genius…perhaps even insane. Who knows?

The snow has really come down since I last looked out the window. I have now fallen against the window, the cold glass breaking me from my reverie. I had forgotten to put pressure on the puncture in the crook of my arm; the blood has run down the pale column of my arm and onto the window sill upon which it is resting. If he were here, he would scold me. Then again, were he here I might have stayed away from it altogether. Fighting the urge to faint, I gaze at the glass container hooding my choice poison.

My muddled mind cannot really comprehend much right now, but the one thing, the obvious thing that I notice now is that it looks like snow. The white crystalline powder, so deceptively simple, is almost identical to that falling from the murky soup of clouds hanging over the city--ironic, though, that it should look so much like it when it does not freeze me at all. Rather, it burns throughout me, as it does now, purging me of the pain that resides in my muscles, stiff from the cold, and my heart, which has not mended, nor ever will.

I remember another time, weeks ago, when the snow burned me as it does now. It was after one of our most prestigious cases…the name escapes me, but it was he who had named it for whoever it was that we had rescued or whatever treasure that we had discovered. Whatever the case, we were standing in the snow, which had fallen quite heavily. It covered our feet and ankles, and the flakes were large, beating against our faces. He was standing with his back to me, silent as the grave. A terrible foreboding had swirled violently in my chest.

"Holmes?" He said, quietly. I could barely hear him over the clickety-clacking of horses' hooves, the deep baritone of the officers who were cleaning up the remaining flotsam and jetsam of the crime scene. I touched his shoulder, tenderly, and he flinched away. "No, you knew that this…this wouldn't last forever, Holmes. I am an engaged man, Sherlock. I have a life to live, a life with my fiancée, with my future wife. I just cannot shackle myself to this life of adventure forever. You knew…" He took a deep breath, before the plunge: "I am leaving Baker Street. Tonight."

"J-John." It could not have been more painful if he had gutted me with a knife. The finality of it all, like a child snipped from the life-giving blood of the umbilical cord, he had cut me off of that which gave me strength. I could say nothing more, do nothing more but watch him walk away from me, his scarf blowing in the icy wind, the snowflakes searing my flesh as if they were pieces of hot ash. Falling to my knees, I uttered a cry not unlike that of a dying animal, and perhaps I did die, indeed.

Now I am here, leaned against the cold, cold window, the belt around my arm loosened and the needle dangling from my fingers. It would be such an easy thing, to fill the barrel and end this half-life, this hollow existence, but then, as I reach for the glass jar of burning snow, I catch, from the corner of my eye, a hansom, out of which emerged…it could not be. I dropped the syringe and pressed myself against the window, peering out and hoping, pleading that my instincts were correct. Closing my eyes, I prayed to…whoever, for the first time.

Footsteps on the stairs make my heart beat fast.

Mutterings in the hall raise the hair on my neck.

He arrives at last, his overcoat swirling.

"Holmes?" As he steps in I see his eyes wander over me, just as surprised as the first time he laid his eyes upon me.

It is indeed him, exactly as I remember, albeit the ring on his left hand.

I fall into him, and his eyes widen. The snow on his shoulders falls onto my bare skin, and I feel it melt, the water dripping onto the floor.

It does not burn anymore.

-fin