Alright, I'm here, taking the plunge into a completely different fandom than I've been in for a long time. I've done the best I can to keep the characters all in canon, but I've taken some liberties obviously in the 'behind the scenes' between episodes of the show. This probably takes place between Study in Pink and The Blind Banker. Now bare in mind, I have NOT seen Season 3, so the different developments that the characters might have made in those episodes aren't included in this story. This story will have three parts. Reviews are mana from heaven, let me know how I'm doing on the characters! I hope you all enjoy!
Warnings: A few swear words, heavy drug use. If that upsets you, turn back.
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Sherlock. I wish I did.
He can practically feel the way his brain is shredding itself to pieces inside his skull. He hasn't had a proper case in weeks, maybe a month now, he's not keeping track. Despite the fact he's not been working he's refused to eat unless absolutely necessary and he's not that ashamed to say he's become something of a menace towards anybody who agitates him even slightly. Which isn't difficult considering a wrong look is all it takes to aggravate him these days.
Mrs. Hudson's gone to stay with her sister for the weekend, and John, finally pushed the boiling point, left hours ago, storming out of the flat and slamming the door as hard as he can, which is hard enough to come just shy of cracking it in it's frame. Sherlock's been alone since, and whilst normally he barely notices if he's alone or has company, tonight the silence screams at him with a voice he can't ignore.
He can't shut it off. There's too much, and yet absolutely nothing, to distract him. As he paces frantically around the flat, he tries to find something, anything, to give his mind something to gnaw on, but there's nothing. Everything's too easy. John's laptop, the book Mrs. Hudson left on their kitchen table, even the scrapped remains of one of his experiments sprawled on the counter, all of it unreels through his brain and he shreds it for all it's information before deleting it.
He's near to shouting by the time midnight rolls around. He can't take it anymore. John stole the gun and took it with him and Sherlock knows just by the determined look on his face John's gone to find himself a girl to shag and stay over with just so he doesn't have to face his flat mate. He won't be coming home until at the very least tomorrow morning, if that. Judging by what he was wearing when he left he could get away with going to work in his clothes that he had on his person, no need to stop by the flat for a change. That simple deduction offering him no challenge, he slams his open palm into the wall, causing the little shelves and knick knacks to rattle even as the window pane shakes and his palm begins to smart.
His heart is already pounding when he gets the idea. He wishes he hadn't thought of it, but something about the way the little flurries of snow take off from the window ledge at the force of his blow make him think of an escape he hasn't had in so long. His blood begins to heat and course faster through his veins as his mouth runs dry. Already his brain is dueling with itself, one half encouraging him and the other trying to help him resist. Sherlock cracks the window open and undoes the top two buttons on his shirt, hoping that if he can cool off the craving will pass. He knows where his cigarettes are, he hadn't bothered to tell John he managed to find them, but he knows that even the sweet singe of nicotine won't stop the train wreck careening through his skull. He just can't handle it anymore.
He yanks out his phone and stares at the device as though it's personally offended him, his fingers shaking above the screen. His mind, ever logical and pragmatic, races on ahead without his consent.
Text John. He'll distract you.
No he won't. He's gone to find a girl, he'll have turned his phone off, the odds that he'll answer are less than 3.37%.
The very small thought that he could text his brother enters his mind but he dismisses it before it can take hold. No. He will not go to his self-righteous, pretentious, borderline evil older brother for help. Not with this. Mycroft's never shown anything but contempt towards him when it comes to this, what's to say he'll be any different this time.
Poor little brother, he doesn't have any work to keep him busy and his flat-mate is so disgusted with him that he's gone to crash on a strange woman's couch rather than stare him in the face. Yeah, that will blow over with sympathy and a gentle head-pat Sherlock. Get real.
Bitterness coats his tongue like bile and he flicks through his contacts, the one he's searching for coming up quickly. He's surprised, but his fingers don't shake as he clicks over the screen.
1 g. Usual place. Now. – SH
OMW- D
Before he leaves Sherlock takes a few precautions that are still habitual when he used to do this regularly. He changes out of his expensive slacks into a pair of jeans, leaves behind his long coat and scarf and picks up a black blazer and shrugs into it, snatching his keys and his phone and stuffing them into his pocket before heading out the door. He's halfway to the Metro station before he thinks about whether he locked the door to the flat or not. He doesn't care enough to turn around. It's not like there's anything there that can't be replaced.
He's barely paying enough attention to notice which train he takes but his instinct knows it's the right one when his heart begins to crawl out of his chest and into his throat to pound even harder. Christ, John was right, all those months ago when they worked their first case together and Lestrade had raided his flat.
This guy, a junkie, are you out of your mind?
John you might want to shut up right now.
Yeah John, didn't take me for a slavering drug addict did you? Were the nicotine patches and gratified sigh of relief not a big enough clue, or do you actually need track marks?
Anger bubbles through him and he makes sure he holds onto the pole on the train with all five fingers, the spidery appendages biting in hard as he fights to control himself, control the need to pace, to shout, to some how exercise the demons that he can't understand but are relentlessly hounding him nonetheless. He feels the way they're ripping him apart, kicking and clawing and sinking their teeth deep into him, blocking out the logic, the rational part of his brain. That part's still alive though, and it's screaming as loud as it can.
Text John. He might answer.
He all but tells his brain to piss off as his stop approaches. The train is hissing to a stop when he feels his phone begin to vibrate frantically in his pocket. He's surprised to see his brother's ID on the screen. Surprised, but his mind remains unchanged. He stuffs the phone back into his pocket and steps off the train.
Too little, too late.
He spots his dealer without trouble. He only knows the man because he worked to know him. To anybody else he's a nameless, faceless shape in a seething crowd. Together they head for the stairs, falling in step with the herd of other people heading for the exit. Sherlock only knows that the man has slipped his hand in his pocket because they've practiced this art for a long time. His dealer's fingers deposit a glass vial and remove a rolled bundle of cash before slipping away, no one ever the wiser except for the two of them. They don't make eye contact, they don't speak, and as soon as they reach the top of the stairs, they part ways.
In his other pocket Sherlock's saved just enough cash for a cab back to Baker's Street. As soon as he's up the stairs he realizes he did in fact forget to lock the flat but he's distracted from this notion when his phone begins to ring frantically yet again.
"Shove off, Mycroft," Sherlock growls as he locks the door behind him and takes the stairs two at a time into the flat he and John share.
Share whenever he's not too busy being pissed at you because you're a right maniac.
Sherlock's not under any delusion that he's all but impossible to live with. He's tried to tell himself for as long as he's been alive that he doesn't care. The only thing he cares about is the work. Everything else is transport.
Liar.
He sits on the couch and clears off the coffee table and pulls out the vial. He tips it end over end in his fingers, examining the soft, snowy white powder inside. His blood quickens in his veins yet again and he eagerly uncaps the bottle and uses the credit card in his wallet to cut several lines. He can feel the way his body already begins to respond to just the sight of the cocaine cut and ready for him, the way his palms sweat and his heart hammers hard behind his breast bone with eagerness.
He finds an old receipt on the floor and quickly rolls it into a little straw. His phone is sitting beside him on the couch and briefly he glances at it one more time.
You could just try.
He won't answer.
His brain begins to try and tear itself to pieces yet again and this time Sherlock's damned determined to make it stop. He bends his head and snorts an entire line into his nose.
The effect is immediate. His pupils blow wide and even the low light in the flat hurts if he looks too closely. Heat begins to pump through him, flushing his skin despite the cracked window. He shrugs out of the blazer and throws it to the side as he sinks back into the couch and sighs with pleasure as electric sensations spark across his skin and sink into his muscles. He grins a little as everything seems to melt away. He's not sure why cocaine has such a soothing affect on him, he knows that for almost everyone else it sends them into an energetic tailspin, where he himself had been previously. He's tried different downers for the same effect, but all they do is make him feel muddled and chained, as though he's trapped in tar and struggling to get out. They never bring him the peace that cocaine does.
He knows that it's temporary and he doesn't care. He feels his phone ring again and glances down and notices that it's Mycroft, again, but he doesn't answer. He could, just to let his brother hear the laxness in his syllables and the slow, molasses like texture of his speech but he doesn't. Mycroft would just as likely cart him off to rehab if he did, and even the spiteful delight Sherlock would feel knowing he'd upset him wouldn't be worth that humiliation.
"How's it feel, Mycroft, to know that your dear little brother is just another junkie?" he asked in a singsong voice. "Bet you fifty quid you don't care if I die from this. Just if it makes you look bad."
He closes his eyes as he leans back into the couch. He tries to hold onto that bittersweet vision of infuriating Mycroft with his antics but it doesn't last long because his brain just won't stop conjuring up images of John. John concerned about him at various times for different reasons. When he won't eat, when he doesn't sleep, when he won't talk for days and only answers questions with a hum or the mournful sound of his violin. When he tears himself to pieces over a case that he hasn't cracked yet but is so close to spreading wide open that it's killing him not to see the whole picture.
John cares, Sherlock. You know he does.
John's a moron. Why should he care? I've done nothing but drive him crazy. If he's smart he wouldn't care.
You just said he's a moron. See, even you're losing touch. You know he cares you idiot.
"Oh just stop it!" he yells. His hands fly to his head and he yanks at his hair as if literally trying to rip the train wreck of his stream of conscious thinking out of his skull so he can throw it out the window where it will get run over by a bus and he never has to deal with it again. He realizes he's on his feet and spins on his heels, dropping down to his knees, grabbing his homemade straw. This, this is the only thing that makes it stop. Work just gives it a direction, but it never really ends. The work is like opening a door to a tunnel, giving the canon fire of his brain somewhere to go so it doesn't pound around on the inside of his skull. The blow actually douses the fuse so the canon can't shoot.
He snorts a second line from his knees. It hits him immediately, like a hammer to the chest, heat exploding through his body like lava carving its way down every artery. He gasps for air as he feels sweat begin to coat his skin and he ungracefully worms his way out of his shirt and throws it to the side, sinking into the couch again, trying to hold still even as his heart pounds frantically in his chest. He's almost gasping at the feeling racing through him, intense pleasure mixed with terror that makes him feel like he's on the verge of literally going insane and never coming back. He gets up on his feet and laughs wildly as though he's giddy but he knows that he's just trying to stave off the panic. He knows he's done too much, he knows it's been too long, his body's not used to such a high dose anymore, he can't really remember the last time he's touched food, and sleep was all but a lost cause. He's not in a fit state physically to handle this kind of stimulant and he knows it. Mentally he tries to calculate the odds of him overdosing but stops halfway through when his phone rings yet again. This time the anger that floods him is too much for him to contend with and he picks up the offending device and throws it across the room where it smashes into the wall near the fireplace.
He gets up and paces frantically, rushing around the room, rearranging every bit of furniture or object that he can find, trying his best to work through the overwhelming energy that is all of a sudden slamming hammers on every nerve end he possesses. Every sensation feels magnified. Every scrape of the wood on his fingers, every crisp piece of paper, every flutter of a cold breeze from the window against his skin, every footstep jarring into his bones. The wind from the street does absolutely nothing to cool his overheated skin and as the minutes tick away into hours and still the effects haven't worn away he begins to feel his skin crawl, as though something is trapped underneath and is trying to dig it's way out.
Sherlock sinks down onto his knees on the floor and wraps his arms around himself, doubled over and quivering madly as his nails begin to bite into his shoulder blades. He tries to hang on to rationality and logic but the cocaine has done its work and has managed to block it out. The disturbing feeling of something digging under his skin continues until he's so frantic with it that he tears his nails into his flesh, desperate to get the offending creature inside him out. He gasps with panic and pain as blood begins to slick his pale skin, mixing with the sweat that is still pouring off him. Claw marks appear across his back, arms, chest, abdomen, and even his neck and throat as he frantically digs at himself.
"Make it stop!"
He howls with misery as he lurches to his feet again, throwing his arms out to catch himself on the side of his desk. With a ferocious cry he sweeps his arm out and knocks everything on the desk to the floor, his laptop clattering sharply, books and papers flying wildly as his chest heaves and his head begins to spin. Nausea rolls up into his stomach and claws its way up his throat and he leans against the desk, desperate to try and calm down but absolutely nothing can make the storm cease.
Ride it out, Sherlock. You've done it before.
It won't ever stop! It will always be like this. You will always be like this Sherlock. You'll always be borderline on insane. You'll never have friends. You'll never have anybody that you fully trust, never anybody you can be close to, never anyone who will see you vulnerable. You will always be like this. You'll always be the addict who's just barely hiding the slavering jaws, snapping and gnashing and crunching, desperate for the next fix until it finally kills you.
Just do it now, Sherlock. There's enough there. Just a little more. Just do it. Make it end. Why do you want to live like this anymore? What does it even matter?
He screeched again as he staggered towards the couch, gripping the sides of his head with his long fingers, ripping at his scalp, trying to just for once make it end. Make it end, he had to make it end, he couldn't live like this anymore. It was never going to change. He had to do something. He had to spare the rest of the world and the only people he might have said he cared about from having to watch him spiral outwards until they found him in the gutter somewhere, dead for days and nobody's noticed because he's just another junkie. That's all he is, and it's all he's ever been, and he knows it. He's always known it, and so far he's tried hard to deny it, but he just can't do it anymore.
He crawls forward on his hands and knees until he reaches the table. He picks up the receipt with shaking fingers and puts his head down, determined to snort these last two lines all at once and just die here in this flat and end the chaos that he's created. If the others never forgive him, he can't say he feels bad, because it's their stupidity that makes them care about someone who will never be anything but a manic drug addict who can't cope with reality. They really ought to know better.