A shuddered breath. It was always the anticipation, not the actual sting of the needle itself, and even that was more of a comfort than actual pain. It was familiar, like an embrace from an old friend.
His actions had been called up from the depths of his Mind Palace, and implemented them flawlessly: the purchase, the measuring, the purifying, the injection. Oh the injection. The climax of it all.
But he paused now, as he did each time before a hit, and thought
What would John think of me?
But he silenced his own conscience by thinking:
I am doing this because I need to. I need to focus, I need to concentrate. This only way to get back to John, and surely he will understand…
Not very convincing he knew, but it was enough for him. Much easier to lie to himself than to actually admit the truth: he was back in the clutches of his cocaine addiction, and the scene he subconsciously took in around him was gut-wrenchingly familiar. He was squatting in an abandoned house in Southern France, staring at and slumped against cold dingy walls. His clothes, shoes, and other necessities were tossed against the far wall, hardly in the peripheral line of sight, but the cocaine…
The cocaine sat right in front of him. The bag of white power sat innocently to the side, the premixed solution front and center. The syringe lay inches from it at the ready, the tourniquet sat lazily on the edge of the table. He was only looking, but it filled his body with longing and made his finger itch and blood rush in anticipation of the drug. Yes, he was addicted again. But the lingering of his previous high made it difficult to care.
He was procrastinating sure, but he was Sherlock bloody Holmes! Moriarty's men couldn't outrun him, especially with his secret weapon. And besides, he needs to be rested…well that argument hardly made any sense, especially since he'd been maintaining an almost constant high. But…c'est la vie.
He picked up the needle, finding a suitable vein he got ready to inject the friendly poison.
Don't you feel guilty?! Imaginary John screamed in his head.
"Of course I do," he scoffed aloud, his baritone voice piercing the silence. "But this'll take care of it…"
And with that, he pushed the plunger down, drowning out any further objections Imaginary John might have had, and awaiting the guaranteed burst of artificial happiness that would plague him soon.