A/N - To anyone out there still following this... It is my intention to get this fic out of my head, on my computer and finally posted on here in the near future!

Thankyou to anyone who reviewed the previous chapter :) Huge thanks to IluvSpock both for giving me a nudge to get back to it and for helping me look over some issues!

The first slide of the needle into Sherlock's pale white flesh gave him an unexpected sensation of bliss. Before the plunger had even been depressed his body recognised and reacted to the feeling, his brain preparing for its escape; synapses snapping and neurones buzzing.

Yes. This. This is what he had been missing, this feeling and the euphoria that would follow.

He didn't hesitate for a moment longer, hastily forcing the solution into his bloodstream. Sherlock let out a sigh of relief at the first surge of the stimulant; the sharpening of his mind, of his senses and the incredible surge of energy.

And then there was the near orgasmic surge of pleasure as he entered that perfect dreamlike trance. Sherlock felt his body fade from awareness, the angst and pain and pressure of his ever whirring mind. Just. Stopped. And in that almost heavenly moment he was lost in waves of paradise.

~xOx~

Sherlock heard the unmistakable sounds of John returning to the flat shortly after the euphoria of his first dose began to fade. He was ashamed to admit to the surge of warmth, of pleasure that flooded through him at the sound. John had returned, John had come back!

Relief flooded through him as his brain rebooted. This would likely all end here and now. John would want to talk about things as he always did. Boring. Mundane. His brain supplied automatically - but this time… this time even he could admit; possibly necessary.

So they would talk. He would tell John about Moriarty. John would understand. Sherlock would make John understand. And John would apologise for the things he said, for the tone he used. Then that awful unnamed feeling, that dragging sensation of emptiness within, the ache which those words had somehow imbued into his system would be gone.

John would be furious when he saw the drugs. He would likely shout and rage before he forgave Sherlock. Forgave him as he always did. Then things would go back to normal.

But something was off. Sherlock heard his flatmate open the front door and… John was obviously trying to be as quiet and as unobtrusive as possible although, the detective noted, he failed to miss the creaky timber of the seventh stair. Sherlock struggled to focus his mind against the dense black fog left in the wake of his high. He struggled to hear the tell-tale sounds which would inform him of John's exact movements.

Likely John would shout for him. Or look for him. And when he didn't answer or appear, despite the overwhelming evidence that he was in residence, it was probable that John would come down to his room to bang on the door… And yet why was he being so quiet, so careful about his return?

Surely he would want to check on his flat mate? Surely he had started to forgive Sherlock by now; after all this couldn't be the worst thing he had ever done.

Surely.

When all he heard were the unmistakable sounds of a brief pause in the doorway and then John's carefully measured tread on the steep stairs up to his room the remaining vestiges of the detective's drug induced rapture fractured. The black gloom split open and the hurricane of thoughts that had been building in Sherlock's mind as his high waned surged forward; rushing, crashing, frenetic.

John was back but for how long? The thoughts, the feelings, the void in the centre of his being. They were all suddenly, desperately so much worse. He needed to make them disappear. He needed to escape again. And if he found his escape in the barrel of a needle then so be it. He reached for the hypodermic, thrusting the sharp point home and pressing down on the tiny piston.

And then he let go as the beatific solution, once again, brought on that perfectly exultant delirium.

~xOx~

It was the faint sounds of John moving around the flat which finally roused the detective once more. Time was a concept that had no meaning. Sherlock knew logically that it had passed in steady and measured increments from the point at which he was last made aware of its presence and yet he was unable to focus on the clock for long enough to determine how much time had passed since he last emptied a syringe into his veins.

That John was up and moving around should tell him something, he realised, should provide him with some clues about the length of the hour but the black fog in his mind was denser now; fortified by repeated administrations of his chosen solution.

Sherlock strained his ears and his muddied mind. John was getting ready to leave again, the sounds unmistakable as he paused by the door to collect his keys and jacket.

This was wrong, it was all wrong. John was avoiding him. John wasn't supposed to avoid him. Sherlock was the one who avoided emotions and sentiment, he was the one who shied away from conversations he didn't want to have.

Not John. John was the one who ploughed ahead, who handled the uncomfortable conversations, who forced Sherlock to acknowledge his faults and to examine his actions, his behaviours at every turn. John was the brave one, the one who could always be relied upon to do the right thing. John bettered him, tempered him. John belonged here, with him.

And John was leaving. Again. Which was unacceptable. He had to stop John.

Sherlock forced himself to his feet, his limbs uncooperative and leaden. The room spun as the black void in his mind seeped out to mar his vision.

He lurched towards the door, making it two steps before his balance failed him. Long limbs crumpled as he twisted to the right, gravity fuelling his fall. Sherlock heard the sound of the front door shutting below him in the final moment before his head impacted with the heavy wooden corner of the chest by the door.

~xOx~

The world came back to him in waves. Sound, light, colour, touch, pain. A wave of dizziness engulfed him, his stomach clenched uncomfortably and the wash of sickness that followed was unavoidable.

Sherlock acknowledged the pervasive numbness in his hands and feet and the way that it was slowly creeping up his limbs, leaving a path of seemingly-dead nerves in its wake. The room all at once seemed too hot and too cold as a wave of heat, like a rash, burned over every inch of his tender skin. The ticking of the clock, loud enough to wake the dead, broke into his thoughts and shattered his concentration. Conspiring to distract him from the cool feeling of the blood sipping down his face.

He really ought to get back onto the bed. Yes. Back onto the bed where he could lie down in some measure of comfort. Back… To... Bed.

Surging, grasping, rolling himself upwards, forwards. There was a moment where at the apex of his climb he saw, in glorious and morbid colour, the extent of his own blood loss pooled at his feet.

His now curiously not-so-sharp mind had a moment to recognise that perhaps the volume of blood loss should be alarming to him. That perhaps some ingrained and embedded survival function should be surging to the fore in his mind. To protect him.

Instead all he felt was the heat on his skin and slow crawl of the inescapable numbness as it wound its way into his brain.

There was something wrong… that he couldn't… quite… there was… blood… and heat… and… numb- His failing synapses gave him one last, and under the circumstances brilliant deduction before he was consumed. Hypovolemic Shock – he was bleeding to death. His last thought before he pitched forward onto the bed as the encroaching blackness took him: John.