He needed it.
Needed it, like air or water. His body craved for it, his mind craved for it, he, the whole of him, the entirety of Sherlock needed it. The stimulation. The high. At any cost.
Oh, he knew he was addicted. It was just a matter of how much he cared.
Because the feeling of sliding the needle into his vein, the feeling of his heart rate increasing, his head bursting, the extreme euphoria, the stimulation, the distraction…it far outweighed everything else. There was no boredom. There was no emptiness. There was excitement and adrenaline and clarity and all of it was in his own mind, sparked by a simple seven-percent, intravenous solution of cocaine.
Ah, how everything seemed so beautiful when one is out of their own mind. Especially a mind like Sherlock's. Brilliant and intrinsic and sophisticated…but toxic. Dangerous. A mind that could poison you within if you stay inside it too long.
No cases. No experiments. Nothing. He needed it. He. Needed. It.
I NEED IT, CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND? I HAVE NO CHOICE, CAN'T YOU SEE?
His fingers trembled; his mouth was open as he breathed heavily. His heart was racing, racing, racing…veins full of more than just hot blood.
His eyes, wide open. Dilated. Bloodshot. Blinking rapidly. He saw everything, everything, good glorious god, he could see absolutely every detail, make absolutely every deduction, figure everything out. Everything was his, he owned it all. Nothing went unsolved. Nothing escaped. He was everything.
And the world moved so slowly as he moved so quickly. It all spun around him. Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear…
It had looked almost beautiful. The gleaming hypodermic needle, filled to the brim with pure, crystalline white. And he had gritted his teeth as he pulled up his sleeve, because he knew was going to vehemently regret this. And he knew he needed it, because he had nothing else. Without his cases, without his intellectual stimulation, he was nothing. Just a tall, thin lonely man who understood all the little things, things like the tan line on someone's ring finger and the frayed ends of someone's damaged hair and the aluminum foil underneath someone's fingernail…but he understood none of the big things. Things like love and happiness and friendship. Maybe it was because those were little things to him.
He wasn't just tall in stature. He was taller than everyone, taller than the world, taller than all the normal people with normal minds. And he thought normal things were little things and important things were big things, and he could only bother himself with big things.
Oh, how wrong he was.
As soon as the needle broke skin, swirls of the faintest red erupted in the white liquid. Blood leaking in, happens all the time. The pure crystalline white had been tainted, its virginity robbed by the fluid that kept Sherlock alive.
The red stood out starkly from the white and he stared at it for the shortest second.
It looked interesting.
He pushed down the plunger and it all filled his veins.
Oh, god. His chest heaved as his head fell back and he gasped.
The short – term effects of intravenously injected cocaine are intense, but last only 30 minutes to an hour.
How much difference could a half hour make? It wouldn't kill him. No, nothing can kill him. He is Sherlock Holmes. He is invincible. Nothing can touch him.
Users with cocaine dependence may experience a "crash" after this short 30 minute-one hour period, commonly a feeling of severe depression. This may prompt the use of either alcohol, similar drugs (such as heroin or methamphetamine), or repeated cocaine use, which can lead to overdose, and by extension, death.
How long has it been?
An hour. It's been an hour. Obviously. Look at the clock. Don't be stupid.
It wore off. The brilliance, the beauty, the clarity. It all wore off. Everything is boring and stupid and obvious now. Your blood is pure red, your syringe is purely clear. You have nothing left now, you have nothing to live for now.
You have nothing to lose.
Go ahead. Take some more. Why not? You can't die. You are invincible, you are immortal. You're not human. You're not God. You don't know what you are, but you don't care. All you want is some more of it, some more of what you need. Because you would do anything to stop being bored. To escape your mind. Nobody knows what it's like in there. Nobody understands.
So leave it. Do it. Stop the madness for another short hour. You are a desperate, desperate man.
He jabbed the syringe into his arm and pushed the plunger down hard, gritting his teeth. Quickly, quickly. You must escape. Before it's too late.
The effect was instantaneous.
"No…" he breathed.
His head pounded and his ears rang to the time of his heart, thudding faster than anything, faster than everything. His red, bloodshot eyes teared up and the hot, salty drops rolled down his pale cheeks. He opened his mouth and there was nothing. There was no air. There was no relief.
Time seemed to stop, his mind seemed to slow to a halt, as he felt himself, falling, falling, falling…
Don't die, Sherlock. You can't die, remember?
Nothing.
It was the little things, Sherlock. The little things that are, by far, the most important. How could you, of all people, not know that?
There is nothing.
Death is so simple, so easy. It must boring to you. But you can't escape this.
There is absolutely nothing.
It's too late. Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes.
His heart stopped.
And then there was nothing.