The idea has been floating around in my mind for some years, as far back as 2006 when I first started to write Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. I didn't use the idea because of my own lack of interest (laziness) to do research and for some other reasons. Recently, a lot of great authors have written about this topic. I credit you all, because you - by writing these stories – encouraged me (even if only indirectly) to try my hand at it. I hope you're not getting tired of these kinds of story. Any similarities with other fanfiction are unintentional. I apologise in advance.

ACD created them, I'm just borrowing.

Originally inspired by a quote in "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarte".


I had spend the day on the settee. The cocaine bottle and the syringe were under the pillow my head was resting on.

The whole room was silent. I almost believed to be the only being on the planet, leading a solitary and meaningless existence. Dust was floating above and around me, periodically illuminated by the few shafts of sunlight that managed to escape the cover of clouds. It was a cold day.

I was in my nightshirt and dressing gown. There had been no interesting case for three weeks and I took no interest in the few letters that requested my aid. And I probably used more cocaine than was usual, even for me.

I had been careful not to be caught outright by Watson. The doctor had attempted to wean me from the habit. And I let him believe he had succeeded.

That day, I had already indulged in the stimulant several times. Thus, I did not notice the door to the living room had opened until my flatmate was in the room, looking for his walking stick, which I had taken the night before.

I had examined the stick for some reason. I couldn't remember what I had wanted with it.

My eyes took in his appearance, a slight limp and overall stiff demeanour. The weather would worsen, it was written into Watson's countenance.

Watson did not address me and walked as quietly as he was able to around the room. He made an effort to avoid a snide remark directed at him. He knew my moods well. I knew - in some distant corner of my mind - that it wouldn't do for him to find out that my behaviour was (partly) caused by the drug.

I do not know why, maybe the cocaine lulled me into a false sense of security - invulnerability even. At that moment I was certain that none of Watson's disappointment, sadness or anger would be able to reach or affect me.

Looking back on that day, I am almost unable to believe how the cocaine was able to compel me to say what I did. Any and all confrontation with Watson, when I was under its influence, were undesirable. I regret it now, but the drug sent me headlong into one of these confrontations.

Watson was about to leave, he had picked up his walking stick from behind the settee. He walked towards the door and quietly informed me he was going out to get some more supplies for his medical bag and some other things he needed.

"While you are at it, Watson, would you get me some more of this?"

Already halfway between my resting place and the door, Watson shot me a quick glance from over his shoulder.

"Get you more of what, Holmes? Have you run out of tobacco already?"

"No. As you can see I have plenty left," I rather languidly pointed towards the Persian slipper on the small table beside me, tobacco all over its surface and some of it on the floor. I did not see where the pipe was. Probably under the settee.

I reached underneath my pillow and held up the phial. It must have been madness. Never have I seen Watson pale in such a short amount of time, unless his shoulder was causing him agony. His blue gaze became frigid, enraged. He was a man of deep feelings, but usually very much able to control the more violent ones. Watson was even more stoic than one would believe having read his stories in the Strand magazine.

"Get you more? You are asking me to get you more?" The last three words were marked by a quiet incredulity.

At the time, I did not care had he shouted them.

"You have a talent to state the obvious, Doctor," was my reply, infused with the right amount of mockery. It were words like these which made him accuse me of being no more than a cold and calculating thinking machine. The security the drug offered me (which was no security at all I now know) made me provoke him.

Watson was steadily looking at me. I challenged him to say more, holding his gaze.

He did not disappoint me.

"I told you what it would do to you. What it will do to you if you continue to take it. You told me you had discarded it."

I ignored him, for this speech I knew by heart. Or I appeared to, needling him with my ignorance.

"You do not understand what harm it will do to you, to your mind and body," he continued, his voice still quiet, but ringing clear in the stillness of the room. It was emotionless.

I barely registered that he was behaving quite unlike himself. Usually, he would raise his voice, gesture animatedly and argue against my 'abuse' of cocaine as if the most important thing to him in the world was that I abandon the drug.

It was and it is and I refused to acknowledge it.

"I must take it or my mind will tear itself apart and do spare me another lecture upon the subject, if you please. They are neither welcomed nor successful," I scolded him rather waspishly.

"You must take it…" Watson's voice trailed off into silence, repeating some of my words. His eyes held an emotion I did not recognise and am reluctant to, even now. I do not believe they were fixed upon me but rather upon the bottle I still held in my hand.

He did not continue to speak.

Finally somewhat worried, I leaned up on one elbow.

"How can you ask me to get you more of this?" he suddenly demanded. Watson still did not look at me. I grew annoyed with him.

"It does not matter, I shall get more of it either wa-"

The bang of the closing door interruped me. I had not noticed how Watson had slowly moved nearer to the door until he had shut it in this rather violent manner.

I did not go after him. As his friend and the one who gave offense, I should have. In that moment, I judged following him as being overtly emotional.

The cocaine repressed any concerns that remained, it was stronger than my conscience which insisted that I listen to Watson, to his warnings.

Of course I knew about the damage. How could I not, having shared the rooms with a man that disapproved so strongly of the drug?

In my arrogance, I was sure that I would prove stronger than any addiction I may have developed. My body was merely an appendix. Watson was exaggerating the ramifications.

You have never been the worse for it, my mind whispered.

He could lecture me as much as he wanted to. Upon what did he base some of his claims, some consequences of taking cocaine which were not even described in the few articles about the drug that were either publicly available or in his medical texts?

I should have known Watson never made unjustified claims. Never had. He had always been able to justify his actions and words. And on matters of medical nature he certainly had more experience than I.

I regret to say, more than I expected.