Disclaimer! I don't own any rights! Who would have thought?
Warning: Adulti-ish themes, drug use, minor suicidal thoughts, it's Sherlock Holmes everyone knows he as issues.
Once, there was a story, one of a man whose heart was stolen, not by love, not by friendship, but by the lack of. His mind stole his heart, putting it into storage so the man may live without the horrible pain of being alone. He was a mere eight years old when it happened.
(His parents grew worried, but hoped it was a phase. Mycroft knew different)
As his heart grew cold and his pulse lower, his mind began to expand (too fast, oh far too fast). Each minute gave a dozen more facts to absorb; he had started to run, to get away from knowing. There was never a bad tale of knowing too much, but there's many where you learn too much at the wrong time. Minutes are years while you grow up too fast.
(His mind was wrong for the first and final time in years, until ten years later, when Mycroft found him-)
Seeking peace with an ever expanding mind was running a marathon with shoe laces tied together: it took far too long, each movement radiating pain throughout his body. There, lucky for him and no one else, was a cheat, a hack to life, a way to win the marathon without having to move an inch. Alone in the dark of night he pressed a needle to his skin, hands shaking, but mind free.
(He would later find that shivering in the cold, dirty alley praying that his brother found him wasn't something to look forward to.)
When drugs had been forced away (by him, his parents, his brother, or the lingering strength of his frigid heart, he'd never know) he went to the thing that he was best at, that gave him the same high: he began a career as a criminal investigator. Money was lacking, no pay in his freelance search for cases that made his mind work (so it may not be trapped rattling around in his skull), though he always had mysterious money for his rent and food.
(His brother and he had made a silent pact as long as he stayed clean, Mycroft would pay.)
Fingers still trembling, he wrote down each case he performed, an each tedious task he did; it was a bad supplement for an addiction, but each new word added breath to his life sentence. It was a prison, his mind, yet, it was unmarked paper- it was both suffocating and exposing.
(He still lived on, gaining a silent hope; maybe if he lived long enough, his senses would dull.)
It was a night on the job when he collapsed, broken, exhausted, and malnourished. He had built up his life brick by brick, since the last fall; he would not go down without a fight. Knees scraping the dirty London street buckled as he struggled to stand, his hand tightly wrapped around a light pole to keep his balance, he was alone. It hit him for the first time since his youth; nearly a decade ago, he was alone.
(He met Greg Lestrade that night, four hours too late, but there all the same. By then he'd already made the decision there was no reason for him to have to rely on anyone. Alone would be okay.)
Life ran by him in an adrenaline induced haze for years, only stopping abruptly for Doctor Watson, a man who's aura he was drawn to, despite his hate reliance (rely on yourself, he repeated, if someone wanted to help you, they're far too late), he found himself lost in the world of John Watson. Two years drew by quicker than ever before, but only now, he wanted to go back to relive them.
(He knew nothing of what to do, but something was changing, deep inside his core.)
John had many flaws, but they balanced his own in a way he didn't know was possible. Each time the man got on his nerves for one thing or another, John would say do something that said how much he cared. Caring was something he had long forgotten of until then. Many of these occurrences grounded him, kept him sane despite their chaotic lifestyle. Had he found someone he couldn't live without?
(His heart, the same his mind had locked away many years before, had welcomed only one person into his life with open arms, and allowed for the chains to fall.)
His heart pounded, ringing in his ears as he dialed John (oh, his greatest and only, dear friend John). The air breezing below his shoes made him feel nauseous, the awful dread in his stomach growing tenfold as John picked up. Last words, he abridged, were agonizing for a multitude of reasons, but most so, the terrible knowledge that he was going to inflict pain (a pain so deep, each time it was thought of was rubbing salt in the wound) on his best friend. Doctor John Watson, the man that had saved his hostage heart, was going to believe the worst. He was going to know the worst.
(His eyes filled with tears as he spoke, and when he moved his feet and jumped, he pretended it was really his end.)