(A/N: Takes place in late 1992, after Sherlock has run away from home, met Natalia, and become addicted to cocaine. Prequel of sorts to Private Lives and Public Drama)
He rambled at the Swiss security officer as he came back into the room. Sherlock scratched at his head, fidgeted wildly, and paced. He'd finally been caught, finally been arrested, and now he was in jail. Then there was a familiar face in the doorway, Sherlock recognizing it instantly as the jailer opened the door and shot a look at his visitor—the person who'd bring him back to England. His brother. "Sherlock, we're going home."
The flight was a blur, security on return was a blank. The car from the airport was horrible. The cravings for another hit of cocaine were too powerful, and it was making Sherlock ill. He couldn't have focused on what Mycroft was saying, if Mycroft had been saying anything. "Mycroft," Sherlock said weakly. "I need…I need more." He was greeted with silence. "Mycroft!" Still the older brother, twenty-three, gave no reply. Sherlock could tell he was upset, not just from the silence but also from his tense body language. He'd get no answer from him the rest of the trip home.
They got out of the car, and Sherlock's hands were shaking. He wanted—no, needed—more of the drug that had kept him from going mad over the past few months, the drug whose wonders Natalia had seen fit to show him. He walked toward the house, but stopped when he felt a hand grip his thin arm.
"Sherlock."
"What?" He hadn't meant to snap, but he was jet-lagged and in withdrawal, and it was making him upset. The grip lessened.
"Let me go in first." Was that tenderness in Mycroft's voice? Or was he just as tired as Sherlock was? Sherlock gave no answer, instead, walked behind his brother, slouching and foggy-headed. "Mother," Mycroft's voice said hesitantly. "He's home." Sherlock peeked out from behind Mycroft, trying to pretend he hadn't been hiding behind him, and was instantly wrapped in his mother's embrace. It was unwanted.
"I'm not a child, Mother." Something about Sherlock's voice was off, and she could tell. "I want to go upstairs." He hadn't returned her hug and now he pulled away to see his father. In Sherlock's peripheral vision, Sherlock could see that Mycroft was swallowing. Whatever was about to happen, it wouldn't be pleasant. The senior Holmes's face went from mild relief to fury as he saw the drug-deadened look in Sherlock's eyes, and he struck Sherlock across the face, hard enough for his ring to split the skin and to knock the teenager to the ground.
"Avery!" No one had expected quite that level of reaction, and Sherlock ran his hand over his mouth and at the deep cut. It would scar. He didn't rise from the floor, half-apathetic, half-unwilling to provoke his father further. But it seemed that Mr. Holmes wasn't about to stop. He viciously grabbed Sherlock's left arm and forced his sleeve up above the elbow, revealing remnants of needle-wounds and bruises and leaving the boy half-hanging from the wrist—he still hadn't stood.
"What was it, Sherlock?" His father's voice was the iciest Sherlock had ever heard it, which was saying something as the eldest Holmes was known for being particularly cold. "Heroin? Cocaine? Meth?" He tossed Sherlock back down. "I gave you your life, and you waste it on drugs."
Sherlock made no reply, the bleeding freely flowing onto his shirt. Mycroft stepped in. "I'll ensure he goes to rehab, Father."
"Stay out of this, Mycroft." All Sherlock wanted was another injection, another dose, another high to keep the anguish out, the hidden pain that, once again, his father seemed to hate him. Sherlock finally rose and headed wordlessly to his bedroom, where he shut the door. He did not undress, waiting for his mouth to stop bleeding and the rest of the family to go to sleep.
Two in the morning and he slipped out of his window. He'd learned to spot a dealer without having to ask, and he needed another dose, no matter what the consequences. He'd even stolen some cash from Mycroft's wallet in the car on the way home earlier. He hit the dirt and froze, sensing that there was something out there in the dark, something watching him. He took three steps forward before a light came on him, just a torch, and a spike of fear ran through him that his father had found him.
"Please don't do this, Sherlock." The voice was soft, almost kind. Mycroft.
"I have to. I need more." The crusting blood on his lip started to seep again with the movement of speaking. "It's been a day and a half." Mycroft sighed as Sherlock fidgeted with a small moan.
"Get into the car."
Sherlock's gasp of relief was almost instant as he lay in the backseat, the drugs in his bloodstream already taking hold. He let his arm fall to the floor as he shut his eyes, the demonic whispers of cravings finally answered. Mycroft took the needle and tourniquet and threw them in the bin before sitting his brother up and buckling him in. "I will not do this every day," he said. "I will, however, continue do it, but with decreasing frequency, until you have been weaned off this poison. Father's cold turkey method is simply cruel." Sherlock smiled feebly, and the look was a strange one for him to wear. He was lucid and relaxed, something Mycroft had never seen. Mycroft started the car and drove home.
Mycroft coasted the car into the drive and managed to bring Sherlock inside without waking anyone. He lay Sherlock in his bed and tucked him in. Sherlock was still weakly smiling, but the high would soon fade, and Mycroft bade his brother a good night before returning to his own room.
Sherlock was in better spirits the next morning, if exhausted. He shot a look of gratitude at Mycroft that did not go unmissed by their mother. She was silent, clearly disapproving, but understood—she'd had her own struggle with addictions in the past and knew what her youngest child was going through. Sherlock ate, slightly more than he used to, but ten homeless months in Europe had made him a hungry teenager. The breakfast table had no conversation, their father already having left for work hours ago, and when Sherlock stood and took his dishes to the sink, their mother spoke.
"Are you going back to school? You've missed a whole year."
"No. Don't need to. Boring. Wasteful." Sherlock looked in the other refrigerator for milk, and took a deep drink from the one in the fridge.
"What about college or university?"
"Yes." But that was the end of the conversation as Sherlock retreated to his room and the remaining Holmeses were treated to out-of-practise violin. Mycroft bade his mother a good day and headed off to work, leaving her alone in the kitchen, so frightened for what might happen to Sherlock if his addiction continued that she cried.
It was time for the Holmes family photograph. It happened every year on the same day, regardless of health, every day since Avery Holmes had married Clare Chevalier. And now Sherlock was being forced into it again.
It was one of his dragging days. Mycroft had spaced them further apart, and he was now clandestinely allowed an injection once a week. It was tonight and the cravings were monstrous. He was barely able to think as the photographer tried to put him in front of his father. He refused to stand by him. Mycroft intervened and stood between his brother and father, arm on his shoulder, both a stay here and an attempt to metaphorically keep him from floating away.
The camera flashed in Sherlock's eyes, and he hadn't been looking at it. Through it, perhaps, but not at it. He didn't care. All he cared about was burning time until this evening. Until he could get his fix.
This time, the car was already running, and if Sherlock had been thinking clearly, he would have noticed. He dropped from his window and went to the car, where he climbed in and started looking for his syringe and a fresh needle. He couldn't find them.
"Mycro—" Sherlock froze. It wasn't Mycroft in the driver's seat. It was his father.
"You are no longer welcome in this house. Not until you've gone clean. I've already reported your brother for being an accomplice to your drug use." The car sped up and the doors locked.
"Where are you taking me? The police?" A few nights in jail he could stand—it wouldn't be his first time to sleep there—but something in his father's attitude told him otherwise. "Or are you dumping me like an unwanted dog?"
There was no answer.
It was not a part of London Sherlock was used to seeing. The only word he could think of was slum. When his father had literally dragged him from the car, he'd taken his wallet, his syringe, and everything but the clothes on his back—even his beloved coat had been stolen. And here he was, in the late autumn with nowhere near enough clothing to keep him warm, no money, not even a violin to scrape out some sort of money on the streets. He knew this sort of neighborhood. He'd seen it in the Ukraine. Cold and dark and dangerous in the worst of ways for a teenage boy, especially one so desperate for drugs. He had nothing to bargain with for the hit he needed, let alone food or water or shelter. But at least he spoke the language.
He couldn't find anywhere to sleep. No one would let him into their houses. No one would keep him out of the cold without expecting something in return. Eventually, he curled up down the basement steps of a restaurant after-hours and shivered himself to sleep. And he cried softly as he drifted off into fitful cocaine dreams.
The dawn brought a sharp jab in the ribs by the restaurant owner, muttering something about junkies and trespassing, and Sherlock wearily climbed the steps into the street. He knew what he wanted, what his body craved, other than the food he hadn't had in a day and the water he knew he should have. But it didn't matter and he found himself stumbling into an alley and towards a man who didn't belong. "Cocaine. Intravenous," Sherlock demanded.
"What do you have to buy it with?"
Sherlock froze and thought hard for a few seconds. "Shoes. Belt," he muttered, pulling them off. "Just need the one dose, just the one hit." At first, the man regarded the items as useless, but he saw the look on Sherlock's face and gave in, prepping the dose himself. Sherlock knew that it was a small one, but it didn't matter, it was something.
He insisted on administering it himself as he was very particular, and he plodded to the nearest corner and slid away into his mind as the roars of the cravings turned into whispers. It hadn't been enough to make it go away, but it had been enough to help.
"Sherlock."
A voice came through the crash and the cold and the wet, knocking on Sherlock's mind. He opened his eyes weakly and fought to get a syllable out. "My." Two arms lifted him and put them in the passenger's seat, buckling him in, and he registered a shift in inertia as the car took off.
He didn't know where he was going, fading in and out of consciousness too often, but soon the arms were lifting him again. "You need to walk." One of Sherlock's arms was thrown over the shoulder of his taller brother, and he tried to help walk himself up the stairs—he was at Mycroft's flat. Mycroft tumped him into his own bed, wrapping his hypothermic brother in as many blankets as he could find, and as Sherlock stopped shaking and drifted off to sleep, he registered Mycroft's voice.
"I've got him, Mother. He's with me."