Six months after my last posted chapter, Elementary again pulling me in.
Not Even This
Sherlock & Joan, or Sherlock/Joan, whatever you want to read it. Rated: M. Words: 2,276. Hurt/Comfort. Episode tag. Sherlock has abandonment issues. Sherlock fears losing Watson. Sherlock has a massive breakdown. But Watson is there to catch him.
Set after Shinwell’s death and the memorial service that Sherlock didn’t attend. Something’s wrong with him, he can feel it, and he feels his mind begin to unravel. Watson is hurt, Sherlock is too. The rift is growing bigger between them. Can they start to heal? OR, Sherlock in absolute pain and fear, for what's happening in his head and for fear of losing Watson.
“I know my behaviour has been… appalling,” he said. “Please know that I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
She turned sharply, her voice clipped, brittle.
“Because I don’t know if I can trust you anymore.”
The words hit like a bullet — not metaphorical, but real. Hot metal tearing through the centre of his chest.
His breath hitched. His knees buckled slightly, and he took one step back.
Trust.
The one thing that had always tethered them. Quietly, fiercely. Through lies, danger, and disappearances. Through the worst of who he was.
Gone.
He looked at her, really looked, and saw none of the warmth that had once anchored him. No light in her eyes.
Just the flat, dull ache of exhaustion. Of someone who had finally stopped hoping.
And something inside him cracked.
Not just from guilt or shame, but from the recognition . This was the moment he had spent years fighting to avoid.
Not when she argued. Not when she was angry.
But this.
This silence. This look.
The quiet surrender of someone who no longer believed in him.
Some people might’ve said you were a lost cause once…
That conversation, her voice full of conviction, came flooding back. And with it, the answer he’d given. Well, I may still be. And now, he knew it was true.
He had failed. Not as a detective. Not even as a partner.
But as a friend she could trust.
And with that failure, he had lost the only thing, the only one that mattered.
A raw, involuntary sound tore from his throat, half gasp, half sob.
He staggered back, pressing a trembling hand to his chest as if it could hold him together. But the pain was already breaking him open.
The shaking started in his fingers. Then spread. His throat burned. His vision blurred.
He was crying before he even knew he’d begun, tears tracking silently down his face, soaking into his collar.
His body folded inward, unable to stand tall beneath the weight. His breath came in shallow bursts, like a man suffocating. Shame and grief twisted like wire inside him, sharp and merciless.
He dropped his head. Shoulders hunched. Hands shaking. He couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t bear to see the final confirmation in her eyes.
Available on AO3 and Wattpad
