Sherlock shuffled nearly naked, save for a pair of black boxer briefs, across the hardwood floor of his flat in Montague Street to make himself a pot of coffee for the third time that day. It had been six months since he finished his second year at University & he certainly didn't plan on going back, no matter how much Mycroft pleaded. As the coffee maker bubbled with a low, somewhat comforting noise he leaned heavily against the counter & ran a hand up his track-marked left arm absently. There was a distinct sour feeling in his stomach he suddenly noticed. When was the last time he ate? Surely it couldn't have been more than three days. It didn't matter much; once he drank another cup of coffee he would feel better.

When he finally settled onto the old, black faux-leather couch in the living room he glanced disdainfully at the small television set shoved in the corner that Mycroft had bought him as a moving in present (Mycroft never was very good at jokes) & was piled with various objects & had even suffered a few acid burns, distorting the plastic covering in places. Then his gazed trailed over to the piles of books on the table, one of which fell off onto the floor as he put his foot onto the edge of it. He huffed in annoyance. He'd read all those books, some more than once, & didn't really feel up to going out to find more. His experiments of late had all been disasters as he hadn't the money to pay for any proper supplies. Instead he was stuck with the old chemistry set that he'd inherited from his great uncle & a few pipettes & a Bunsen burner he'd managed to nick from St. Bart's.

Since graduating he'd only been employed with one case & it would have been laughable if his mind weren't so starving for work. The Scotland Yard still didn't take him seriously, though Detective Inspector Lestrade suggested that he join the Yard rather than trying to work independently. Another laughable subject, he thought bitterly as he downed the rest of his coffee. It hadn't made the nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach subside at all & in fact it seemed worse.

He stood up & walked to his bedroom. It was a rather cramped room with a bed that was too small & clothes strewn everywhere as well as a few dirty dishes, some of which contained admittedly fascinating looking mold (he wondered vaguely if he could figure out what types of food or drink they were growing on), as well as a tiny desk overflowing with papers & writing utensils of all types, & a large, cracked mirror that had been there since he moved in & was still covered in a layer of dust. He glanced in the mirror as he picked up his violin. His ribs were clearly visible & his hair was askew in such a way that it looked as though he hadn't washed or brushed it in a week, & he had dark circles under his eyes, making them shine even more brightly. His sleep patterns had been more erratic than usually lately; he never slept more than two or three hours at a time, often waking with a jolt from some vague nightmare. Violin in hand he walked over to the CD player & pressed play. The Wish You Were Here album by Pink Floyd began to play softly in the background as Sherlock positioned his violin & started to play along with it. Once he reached the title track itself though he tossed the violin aside onto a pile of dirty clothes. It had been entertaining for a while at least.

He flopped down onto the bed & pulled the wrinkled sheets in a pouting motion over his head. Everything was so boring, so commonplace, so, empty. He pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes that were still covered by the sheet in frustration, then after a while tore the sheet off, tossed it aside, & leaped out of bed. He grabbed his laptop off a table in the living room & started it up as he threw himself down on the couch again. His fingers drummed impatiently on the surface until finally it started up. He pulled up the local police reports to check if there had been any interesting cases (not that he would be consulted if there had). Apparently there was a suspicious murder/suicide near Regent's Park that was currently being investigated. A man had been found in his car with a gun in his hand & a bullet through his head, not ten feet from a body of a woman on the sidewalk that seemed to have been hit by the car. As he looked through the pictures of the scene of the crime that was invariably surrounded by a mass of people craning their necks, he couldn't help but laugh at all the obvious evidence that the Yarders had missed. Of course they wouldn't have noticed that the lighting during the time of day it occurred was all wrong. He wondered excitedly if he could afford a cab, or if not perhaps he could walk. He picked up his cellphone eagerly to call Lestrade but then he remembered what Lestrade had told him last time, which was to refrain from asking about cases & that he was most certainly not to turn up uninvited. What was the point of even making the Detective Inspector's acquaintance if he had to wait for him to throw him a bone to get any work? It was absurd. He was so much smarter than any of those idiots at the Yard, though his current lifestyle obviously didn't reflect it. He then decided to check his website for the fifth time that day in case a client had sent him a message. Nothing, of course. Maybe he should just get some morphine & forget the whole thing. Ah, but with what money? Mummy had cut him off as soon as he'd graduated & as thrifty as he'd tried to be he was still down to nearly nothing.

He ran his fingers exasperatedly through his hair, making it even messier than before. Then he lay down on the couch until it was well after dark, his mind running over the possibilities of what he could do to go about getting actual work. Nothing sensible came to mind though & he grew more & more frustrated. As he laid there he picked up his packet of cigarettes from the table & smoked just two (he'd been limiting himself since his funds had started to dwindle). It calmed his growing anxiety somewhat, but it didn't help him solve the problem of his rotting mind. It was just so utterly useless. His mind ran over the same ideas over & over & there was nothing to deflect or distract it. The thoughts kept plaguing him incessantly, creating a sort of white noise in his mind, building up to a dull roar of ineffective thought, wasted brainpower. It grew so rapidly in intensity that he was vaguely aware of standing up & running his fingers through his hair again, then pressing his hands over his face as if to block it all out.

Finally he grew so anguished that he kicked the table over simply to have some noise besides the murmur of the thoughts racing through his mind with nowhere to go. The outside, the crashing sound, made him feel slightly better, so he pushed everything off the TV & knocked it over as well. It landed on the hard floor with a dull crack & he smiled at the sight of the broken screen. He walked over to the desk in the living room where he kept records of his experiments & with a sweeping motion pushed everything on it to the floor, including a lamp which shattered in an intensely satisfying way, & an old mug of coffee that he was aware he would later regret spilling all over his papers, but at the moment he was far beyond caring. When he reached his bedroom he knocked over a few more things but stopped as he reached the old mirror sitting in the corner of the far wall, reflecting despite the layer of dust the chaos he'd created. For a moment he'd raised a fist to smash the mirror into pieces but he lowered it as he gazed at what he supposed was his reflection, though at the moment it didn't really look like him. He sunk down onto the little mattress & buried his head in his hands for a while. Then he grabbed one of the blankets he'd thrown off from the floor & wrapped it around him before laying down & curling halfway into a fetal position. He'd attempt to clean up tomorrow; right now he just needed some rest.

"I read the news today, oh boy…."