Ficlet: The Needle
Aug. 3rd, 2007 12:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daylynTitle: The Needle
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Pairing: Holmes/Watson (preslash or implied)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Drug use
Disclaimer: Not mine, although actually in the public domain. No profit is intended.
Author’s Note: This is written for the Holmesslash Yahoo group Friday Fives prompt: Five times Holmes tried to kick his cocaine habit, with rather scary results. This doesn’t have five times and the results aren’t really scary, but it is about angsty drug addiction.
Summary: With Watson gone, Holmes’ drug use consumes him.
The Needle
The needle calls me. Watson would say I was being foolish. He would tell me that I should fight my dependency and reject that sinister narcotic. But Watson is not here; he’s off to his new and happily married life. I remain behind, alone with my bleak thoughts. And the needle calls me.
I tried, I truly did, to put it all behind me. I could see his grief each time I succumbed, his silent agony at my craving. He could no longer watch, he said, as I destroyed my life. And I would stop – for a day, a week, a case. But in the end, I suppose, the lure of the needle was stronger than the regard for my friend.
And now Watson is gone and I am alone. There is no sense, no purpose, no distraction from the terrible and all-consuming call of the needle. There is no friend to share my rooms, my life. I am amazed at how much I depended on him, how much I needed him, how much I valued him, now that he is well and truly gone.
Without conscious thought the needle is in my arm, the plunger depressed, the narcotic dancing through my vein. I lay back, welcoming it, allowing it to ravage my body and calm my mind. It is all I have left in the world.
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Pairing: Holmes/Watson (preslash or implied)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Drug use
Disclaimer: Not mine, although actually in the public domain. No profit is intended.
Author’s Note: This is written for the Holmesslash Yahoo group Friday Fives prompt: Five times Holmes tried to kick his cocaine habit, with rather scary results. This doesn’t have five times and the results aren’t really scary, but it is about angsty drug addiction.
Summary: With Watson gone, Holmes’ drug use consumes him.
The Needle
The needle calls me. Watson would say I was being foolish. He would tell me that I should fight my dependency and reject that sinister narcotic. But Watson is not here; he’s off to his new and happily married life. I remain behind, alone with my bleak thoughts. And the needle calls me.
I tried, I truly did, to put it all behind me. I could see his grief each time I succumbed, his silent agony at my craving. He could no longer watch, he said, as I destroyed my life. And I would stop – for a day, a week, a case. But in the end, I suppose, the lure of the needle was stronger than the regard for my friend.
And now Watson is gone and I am alone. There is no sense, no purpose, no distraction from the terrible and all-consuming call of the needle. There is no friend to share my rooms, my life. I am amazed at how much I depended on him, how much I needed him, how much I valued him, now that he is well and truly gone.
Without conscious thought the needle is in my arm, the plunger depressed, the narcotic dancing through my vein. I lay back, welcoming it, allowing it to ravage my body and calm my mind. It is all I have left in the world.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Holmes/Watson canon angst reply - part 1
Date: 2007-08-04 08:18 am (UTC)I take it this is all very canon then? The drug use and Watson's leaving/marrying?
Yes (although Watson leaving because of Holmes’ drug use is certainly an interpretation). Holmes definitely had a cocaine (and morphine) habit, and Watson gets married and moves out, although it’s assumed that his wife died during The Hiatus (more on that later).
The Sign of Four (the second Holmes story published) begins with Watson complaining to Holmes about his drug use:
… I suddenly felt I could hold out no longer.
“What is it to-day,” I asked, “morphine or cocaine?”
…
“It is cocaine,” he said, “a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?”
“No, indeed,” I answered brusquely…
…
“But consider!” I said earnestly. “Consider the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process which involves increased tissue-change and may at least leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you….”
It’s interesting to note that cocaine and morphine were both perfectly legal at the time the stories were written, yet Watson is quite vehemently opposed to the drugs and the damage they were doing to Holmes.
At the end of this story, Watson is engaged to their client, Mary Morstan, and Holmes states:
”I feared as much,” said he. “I really cannot congratulate you.”
The story ends with Holmes succumbing to cocaine again:
”The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?”
“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.
So, yes, Holmes’ drug use is definitely an issue. In canon. Oh, the angst!
There’s a bit of a debate as to how many wives Watson had. It ranges from one (Mary) to three (two other unnamed ones) mainly because Watson (well, Arthur Conan Doyle really) couldn’t keep his dates straight if his life depended on it. The accepted date for the occurrences in The Sign of Four is 1888, although Watson will date stories in 1887 that discuss his wife and also reference events from The Sign of Four.
(continued in next reply)