Fic: your bones i let go and the dream did subside, by timeforbees

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Title: your bones i let go and the dream did subside
Author: timeforbees (AO3)
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/OFC (Irene Adler)
Length: 2228
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Verse: Elementary
Author's summary: After two days without sleep, he could smell her perfume, see shadows in the corners of the room that moved like her. ...
Reccer's comments: Contains references to suicide attempts, self-harm, and drug use. Set before Holmes meets Watson.

It's hard to find readable Elementary fic. This, I think, is convincing for this version of Holmes, who is more self-destructive, drained, emotional, and bleak than most incarnations.
This is a sketch of Holmes torturing himself through want, supposedly for a woman, a chimerical figure whom he admits, even in the depths of his craving, is a side effect rather than a cause. She's more convincing as metaphor than fact.

 It's well written. It's the first I've read where I can picture the character saying and doing what's described. It's a cutting representation of addiction and pain and irrational gut-level need. It's a good bit of backstory for Holmes and another sliver of reinterpretation for The Woman.