Sherlock's view of the situation, as suggested by one of the people who commented and it was just as interesting to write as the first part, though now it's a little bit more canon I guess. And headcanon, really.
Chapter contains references to drugs and mild ED.
White Powder Lines and Tobacco Ash
An addiction is something that can be summarised accurately in three words: unrelenting, unforgiving, and unloving. An addiction is not easy nor is it something that someone can completely control (if they were able to control it, it wouldn't be an addiction at all, would it?). They ruin lives, they ruin bodies, and they ruin minds. This is something Sherlock Holmes knows all too well. He's far more familiar with the comforting lull that comes from giving in to a long staved off urge, and he knows even more closely how that gentle bubble of security can quickly be popped and turned against him. Addictions are life consuming and very rarely truly overcome by the people they claim.
He's known what addictions do to people from a much too young age and years of living with Mycroft. He has always been one for observing and watching and learning – why should it have been any different when he was five, six, seven, and eight...? He saw Mycroft's relationship with food, how it claimed him and manipulated him. Even more so, how he let it. The constant diets that his brother always forced himself to stick by because he thought he was too 'fat' or ate too much.
He knows fully that Mycroft, as a teenager, used to go from starving himself to binging himself, starving to binging, starving to binging, all the way up until the day Mummy finally confronted him about it, told him he had to stop what he was doing to himself. Sherlock (aged twelve) had watched in utter amazement as Mycroft (aged nineteen) had agreed to stay at home for a year before heading off to University to let Mummy help him with his problems. It would have been sweet if it had worked, if Mycroft had wanted the problems to be fixed.
Mummy herself wasn't exactly an ideal representation of someone without an addiction herself, but in hindsight Sherlock can see that it was more of a habit that she'd build up over the years which led her to cover herself in layers of cosmetics every day. Looking back, he supposes that's why Mycroft is the favourite son – because he never questioned her on why she spent four hours in the mornings readying herself, why she needed to put on a mask, why she needed to look good when it was just Sherlock and Mycroft there with her.
She'd never once answered him; instead she had merely smiled sadly into the vanity mirror and busied herself with blending the pale foundation over the skin of her face.
His father had been worse. For the five short years that Sherlock had known him before he'd disappeared, he had never once seen the man without smoke falling from between his lips. He smoked and Sherlock almost willingly followed in his footsteps. At first it was learning to tell which of the three tobaccos his father had put into his pipe on a particular day through judging the colour of the ashes and the smell of the smoke, the next it was wondering what it would be like to smoke it himself, to taste the dancing clouds. He didn't find out in the five years he knew his father, or in the five years that followed his removal from Sherlock's life.
Sherlock first began smoking when he was fifteen at a Christmas dinner when his Uncle Hamish had fallen asleep, drunk, in an armchair that the main living space of the Holmesian mansion held within it. He'd seen the cigarette held precariously between the forefinger and middle finger of his Uncle's hand and – being as helpful as he so obviously was – Sherlock had plucked it away from the grasp that had loosened with sleep. He'd had every intention of the action following to have been putting it out before it just so happened to cause a house fire.
But he didn't.
All of two steps had been taken towards the fireplace in the centre of the room's largest wall before Sherlock had been distracted by the way the embers managed to glow a reddened orange yet yellow at the same time. The first drag he'd taken had burnt its way down his throat, stung, and made him cough. The second drag he'd taken had almost made him choke but it had been far better than the first. The third drag he'd taken had bordered on feeling pleasant. And, by the end of the cigarette, he'd almost wanted another.
The addiction was easy to fuel for the few years where it was illegal for him to buy cigarettes purely for the fact that most of the shops never asked him for ID when he purchased the packets of thin, paper covered tobacco. His mother was far too busy worrying over her appearance and the how the house looked and the income to notice the habit and he had no cause for concern with Mycroft as he was at University, but for a few days every year. By the time he'd found out, it was perfectly legal for Sherlock to smoke and there was absolutely nothing Mycroft could do about his brother's life choice except complain about it.
Something that was a little less than legal that Mycroft could probably do a lot about was the cocaine.
Sherlock can't even remember how he started with that but he's rather sure it was some time during his stay at University and that Sebastian Wilkes was probably the one he could blame for it. Income was practically disposable, especially with their family backgrounds, so they could easily afford to pay for the expensive drugs.
The things he can just manage to remember from University are mostly just little snippets of moments in the dorm rooms with him and Sebastian as not-really-friends consuming line after line after line of powdered cocaine. It's all so much of a blur that he can't even recall what subjects he studied or what qualifications he gained – if any – from the mostly forgotten and definitely wasted five years of his life.
After University, he hadn't stopped but he had been down one person to share the high with. The addiction carried on until one night, when he'd done at least ten long lines of the powdery substance, he'd come dangerously close to an overdose and had passed out. When he'd awoken he was in hospital with a pointedly unimpressed Mycroft frowning at him from the chair settled by his bedside. "This has to stop," he'd heard Mycroft say and it had, for the most part.
Sherlock was clean for three months and in those three months Mycroft had introduced him to Lestrade and helped him set up step as a Consulting Detective. It had gone well for all of three months and he should give his brother more credit for what he'd done to help him, but what they had was a strong sibling rivalry and one of those isn't so easily broken.
However, when the cold cases and the fresh ones ran dry after he'd solved as many of the crimes as his abilities at the time had allowed, there was nothing left for him to do; nothing that would effectively keep his mind occupied. So he'd created his own seven-per-cent solution of cocaine and around five millilitres of water that he'd taken to injecting three times a day in between cases. The surprise was that it hadn't been Mycroft who had found out first this time; it had been the newly acquainted DI.
"You can't do this," Lestrade had said, frown on his features as he'd stared at Sherlock's slumped figure in his chair.
"I've already done it," Sherlock had replied and, even now, he compliments himself for having had a coherent and rather good retort when he'd had a needle thrust under the skin of his arm at the time.
The downside was that Lestrade had told him, after that particular incident, he needed to get clean or he'd stop letting him come on cases – he refused to be associated with a drug addict – and that had set Sherlock straight on his tracks. He'd lasted a year, fighting with wanting to but being unable to. And then he'd had a brilliant idea: get a flat share.
It was ingenious and really, he should have thought of it a lot, lot sooner. So he'd headed down to St. Barts to complete one of the many experiments he'd been conducting at the time knowing that he'd see Mike Stamford the. He'd waited then mentioned it to him and the next thing he knew John Watson was being introduced to him and had stepped straight into his drug craving life.
Wonderful, fascinating, complicated-but-ordinary John Watson who could so easily be mistaken for any other member of the population, lacking in brains and so utterly boring. But, after only a few hours of knowing him, Sherlock could tell outright that he was anything but. An ex-army doctor has promise to be interesting, but an ex-army doctor with a psychosomatic lip that Sherlock could make go away was just brilliant and it only got better when John shot the cabbie to save his life after knowing him for not even a day.
They'd had curry that night and Sherlock had predicted the fortune cookies (and got them right, of course). It's the first time in his life he can equate to being truly happy.
As pathetic as it may seem, the simple bond of friendship makes it so much easier for him to control the want for drugs and almost enough to stop the more legal craving for a cigarette but not quite. He can safely say he's glad he met John, glad he allowed even this one person into his life, because he couldn't have received anyone better than he had.
But even then, the cutting comes as a surprise.
One second he's playing the violin, the next the phone is ringing and Lestrade is calling to tell him there's been a murder in Camden Town ("locked room, should be right down your street"), then he's opening the door to John's room, slipping the phone into one of the pockets of the dressing gown as he begins to announce:
"John, Lestrade called and there's been—"
But that's as far as he gets because John is sat there, razor pressed firmly against the inside of his wrist and Sherlock can see the white flashes of scars that reside there, gentle in a pack that's just waiting for additions to be made. He stares because he can't help it - he's shocked into stillness as he tries to assemble the facts into some sort of order so he can try to find out what the hell is happening and why it's happening and how he missed this if it's been going on for so long, which it has (a long, long time judging from the littering of scars). How the hell did he miss this?
"John..." he says before he really thinks because it's the only word he knows right now, the only word that is whirling around in his head as he tries to make sense of it, the person, and the actions.
"Get out, Sherlock," is his friend's reply.
"John," Sherlock repeats, more firm this time.
"Get. Out."
He stays still because John doesn't look at him when he says it, won't look at him. But it's easy enough to see the tears as they roll down the still-tanned-from-desert-sun features to hit against the still present tanline on the doctor's wrist as his hands begin to shake. Sherlock's throat goes dry and constricts as his chest tightens in a way that physically hurts. He hears Mycroft's words – "caring is not an advantage" – break in through the barriers of his mind and he supposes that no, it's not, not if it hurts like this all of the time.
Before he really realises what he's doing, he's stepping forwards and has John's left hand grasped between his pale, white, nervous fingers. He squeezes just so and the razor blade drops from John's grip to fall against the bedroom's wooden floorboards with a soft 'plink'. Sherlock takes hold of the end of the jumper sleeve that exposes John's wrist, noting briefly at this is the one he brought him when noticed John's sudden infatuation with the woollen clothing article. Now he knows the reason behind the jumpers.
Gently, he rolls the sleeve down back over the scarred wrist in a gesture that he hopes says 'I understand that you don't want me to see and I won't unless you ask me to.' And then, before he can really control it, his arms are wrapping around John's form and he's pulling John's head down to rest against his chest. He holds him close and, after a few moments, he feels muscles shift as John raises his arms to reciprocate, hands fisting into the blue silken fabric of Sherlock's dressing down.
Sherlock presses his cheek against John's hair and sucks in a breath as he tightens his arms around his friend. He briefly entertains the notion that this is likely the most glad he's ever been in his life to have disobeyed someone's orders for him to do something.
He's not sure how long they stay like that, or when he starts mumbling choice words into the sandy strands of John's hair, but he does know that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because, as much as he loathes admitting it, John is his friend and – sociopath or not – Sherlock will be there when he needs him because he cares.
Whoop, both chapters up. Feel free to review and stuff, any constructive criticism is valued endlessly.
