Seven wisps of smoke eloquently ebbed from the staling fags, most stubbed out in a careless fashion next to him, where a companion might have sat if he had one. A few stubs he had reserved for more sinister plans, digging the smoldering ash of the butt into the fleshy part of his forearm with a blank face, his skin a veteran of abuse. Circular burns, a neat row of (nearly) white lines, scratches where the withdrawal bugs crawled under his skin, the tracks- hell, his father insisted the tattoos were some elaborate shrine of self-injury in themselves. He recounted his physical exam during his admittance into Hendale Rehab Facility, when they documented every one of his scars, put paper sleeves around his arms and made road maps of his self-hatred. They wanted him in the dual diagnosis ward of a psychiatric hospital, but dear old dad persuaded them (verbally and financially) that the drugs were the only problem, not his son himself. The shriveled butts and the resulting ash dwindled on the numbing concrete, numbing not only in the penetrating coolness of cement on a stark winter's night, but the gravity which pressed his body further into the comfortless bench. Well, one might label it a bench if its purpose were for sitting.
No, the solitary Sherlock Holmes had taken lodging on the ledge of his apartment's rooftop, his breath as visible as the smoke from his fag. But no matter how hard he concentrated on each breath, studying the pattern of air circulation from each laboured exhalation, mimicking the rudimentary breathing exercises they were taught in rehab, it wouldn't seem to turn off. See, the world was much like a room full of tv's to Sherlock; each of his senses tingled with smells, sights, sounds, micro-expressions, all fighting for his attention. Most of the time, when focused on a time-sensitive task, his high-functioning brain would revel in the challenge, healthily stimulated even when subjected to the unhealthy habits of sleepless nights and foodless days. Sometimes, however, like an exasperated primary school teacher, he needed them to stop- the voices, the observations, the counterarguments, all sporadically increasing and decreasing in volume, and when this happened, no amount of deep breathing would release the steam agitating the cogs of his mind. He supposed the nicotine didn't help, but he needed something to do with his shaking hands other than cook up a seven percent solution.
It was perfectly logical, he reasoned. His brain was, by admission of everyone he had ever met, exceptionally unique, so why, then, did everyone refuse to believe this could be, uniquely, the only solution he ever needed?
But he couldn't give into temptation, not with everything on the line. This was no testament to his inflated self-esteem, no gimmick of spontaneous self-worth; he needed to stay clean because his work was in jeopardy. Scotland Yard wouldn't have him back, not with the papers digging up every case he had ghost-solved for them, exposing their incompetency without him. And the number of times one of Lestrade's flunkies found him staggering under the shady streetlights of Brixton Hill, strung out and rambling to himself as he aimlessly dug through trash cans. No, he had a pretty good life here, a smarting yet stable relationship with Gregson, an apartment (almost) all to himself, plenty of space for experiments or case webs.
So seasoned was he in this business that he did not stop to contemplate why exactly it was that, despite his gratitude towards his current living situation, he was fingering a syringe full of smack in his coat pocket. Yes- skag, the H train, China White, an impatient plunger at his fingertip. And to know that in the knotting of a rubber strip and spitting of a needle cap, he would be so far underwater he wouldn't give a shit about the disappointment morphing Gregson's face as Holmes paced a vacuum-like cell, already jonesing for another hit. It wasn't simply his contempt for the place or his apparent multitude of mental illnesses that deterred him from opening up (his team of psychologists couldn't agree on what combination of autism, oppositional defiance, ADHD, and bipolar I with obsessive tendencies addled his brain); he stopped questioning his emotions before he hit puberty.
Sherlock stroked the familiar sterilized plastic, his pulse accelerating as need burned through his veins, as steam generated in the frantic cogs of his brain with no outlet to escape, a steady crescendo of maddening pressure, and Sherlock took the filled syringe from his pocket and helplessly gazed into the yellow, brown, orange sickly-sweet disgrace, disgust-filled redemption. He looked past the syringe to the street below, the dress shoes Joan insisted he wore to the office dangling one and a half stories above the ground. How long would it take to hit the ground? Sherlock considered this on any high building, calculated the approximated distance with his approximated weight, multiplied by 9.8, yet he knew from this height that he was not guaranteed an instant death, and this was where he faltered.
He was brought back into reality by a sudden realization that it was snowing, and had been for some time now, judging by the half centimeter of snow accumulated on the ledge. Involuntarily, he shivered, not just from the cold nipping at his reddened fingers and anesthetizing the sting of his burns, but the numbness in his heart. A second thought at most and his life would once again be in shambles, yet he could not bring himself to care. Just once, he would like to allow himself an indulgence that would never turn their back on him, and only welcomed him back into their arms when he abandoned them.
A door slammed open, three footsteps crunched on the blanketed rooftop. "Sherlock!" A woman exclaimed. Joan Watson, to be precise.