Some time in 2008...
The pale light of a distant Elvin forest glowed across Sherlock's bare chest and shoulders, he looked emaciated, sick in the artificial glow of the computer monitor, frowning at the beast which lunged upwards all alight with sparking spells and flashing numbers indicating damage.
The computer was the second most valuable thing he owned, five terabytes of hard drive space, top of the line processor, blue LEDs, custom made cooling system. He had sold the old flat screen monitor for drug money and now he was left with an unwieldy grey box from nineteen ninety eight. He had made it himself, carefully researching every component, settling for only the best. He had made it as a work tool, a finely honed machine to be his perfect artificial assistant, the computer was a piece of art, and he had it running World of Warcraft.
Sherlock wore a head set in his long hair through which came voices like banshees from the far side of hell. The sound of them raked up and down his spine which even through the heavy opiate mist, felt like bees stinging his cerebral cortex.
-I'll fuckin' rape the whole Guild, y' ain't even doing it right!
That was StriKKK9 the guild leader slash suspect. His choice of hyperbole matched poetically well with his crime.
-Shut the fuck up, StriKKK9, are you just that fuckin stupid?
That was Akrylik, a forty something, morbidly obese videogame addict
-Akrylik you're such a fag, you're meant to heal me when I use that spell!
Breathe Sherlock, you can do this.
-Bite me Nuggz666 is meant to be here, it's not my fault you can't tank.
There had only been one witness to his crime, an agoraphobic teenage boy named Nick Rasmin, an obsessive online gamer, and an officer in one of the most exclusive guilds in Azeroth. He had been connected on a video call at the time of the rape and murder of Shelia stein. He was the only person who could confirm the man who people "I-R-L" called Thomas Bedfordson also known as StriKKK9 as the killer.
But he had slit his wrists in a bathtub two days later, because apparently that's something that agoraphobic teenagers do.
But he had not told anyone of his suicidal tendencies especially not his guild mates, they still thought he was alive, which left a convenient hole in the officer's circle for anyone with a touch for hacking to take. Sherlock had no way of knowing weather StriKKK9 knew what the boy had seen, but eventually he would let something slip.
With his soul Nick Rasmin took whatever assurance there was of pinning the murder on the guilty party. Bedfordson had been very careful, he had, of course left enough evidence for Sherlock but not, it seemed for Scotland Yard, and so here he sat, waiting for the man to brag. He was under house arrest for the time being and seemed to have decided to spend it on a virtual risk/reward structure. Tongues got loose on the internet. The illusion of anonymity made stories twist into lies and conversation gush with hyperbole.
-I told you to hold back Akrylik, we can't agro the whole fucking dungeon!
These days he seemed to cycle languidly between narcotics and stimulants. An endless tropical cruise from south America to Afghanistan. He could shoot himself around the world through a needle but he couldn't seem to find port in the Thames in the summertime. He missed England, he missed Earth.
-Fucking BITCH AS NIGGA, YOU WANA GO BITCH?
He did not miss Azeroth
-YOU WANNA FUCKING GO?
He split the last of the heroin into two doses and took one up his nose from the flat of his thumb, sinking deeper into the busted out seat of the sofa. His fingers tapped nimbly at the keyboard, if he had the manual dexterity to play the violin he could certainly handle the clumsy mechanics of online gaming.
-is the server lagging you guys?
That was NanCee, a housewife from Minnesota.
Just wait it out they'll say it eventually
-it might just be your connection
-is the server lagging?
-Hey retarded ass whorelock, why don't you let your fuckin ball sack drop before you try to DPS
That was Sherlock, "Whorelock" the Warlock.
He hated his life, and the London police force, and his brother, and his mummy and Oxford University, he hated the cruel dispensations of his chosen profession, he hated people, hated Azeroth and all her mewling denizens but most of all he hated heroin.
He hated it for making him careless enough with his money that he could no longer afford to turn down cases he deemed boring. He was a whore. A brain whore, with no choice over who was the recipient of his inborn talents. Anything for money, anything for a fix.
He hated heroin because it was better than everything else. Better than boredom and loneliness and that crushing sense of endless penumbral ennui that genius forces upon the shoulders of youth.
-This raid is fuckin' bullshit
He was too constipated to eat even if he could afford the food. He chugged mineral water and coffee to stave off exhaustion, and for more than twenty hours a day, he ran raids against the Horde, desperately attempting to get his fox of a Gnome warlock to level eighty.
He named her Aphrodite.
Born of sea foam and her father's lifeblood pouring from his mutilated testicles.
Goddess of love.
He sighed at the irony and sipped cold black coffee. His fingers trembled on the keyboard, thumbing a hand rolled cigarette, leaving it in his mouth as one skeletal hand made its way back towards the mouse.
He dodged a fireball, triple tapped the spacebar, and moved his avatar out of harm's way before he lit it. French inhaling and dragging thick blue white smoke into one nostril.
The raid was almost over, he'd take the last hit and sleep. Or rather, lie there in the empty silence with the hum of his computer still running through the night and calculations for next month's utility bill keeping him from succumbing to Morpheus' soft nocturnal kisses.
His last needle had been thrown out when, after being meticulously cleaned and filed it finally left him with a stinging abscess in his last good vein in the crease between his thigh and his stomach.
So he snorted it, like a rockstar. A fair way to use up his client's down payment.
-I'm gonna RAPE you, I'm Gonna FUCKIN' RAPE you AKRYLIK!- StriKKK9 was yelling so hard into his microphone that his voice had become distorted.
-I'M GONNA RAPE YOU LIKE A RAPED THAT LITTLE WHORE- This caught Sherlock's attention; he pressed a hotkey to open a recording program which her had been running in the background for the past three hours since the suspect had logged on. Sure that it was working properly Sherlock leaned in close to listen to him rage.
-I'M GONNA FUCK YOU, AND YOUR MOTHER, YOURE BANNED YOU FUCKIN CUMBAG, OH MY GOD YOU CAN'T EVEN LISTEN, DO YOU FUCKIN KNOW WHAT I DID TO HER?
Sherlock's lips twitched, oh, rapists, his brain said sleepily, always looking for an audience to their perversion.
The psychology of this sort of crime was not entirely lost on him. He knew that if he waited long enough that Thomas, StriKKK9, whatever he was called, would be compelled to confess. Hopefully it would hold up in court.
-I'M GONNA MAKE YOU BEG FOR IT JUST LIKE THAT LITTLE WHORE
Really, that was the best he could come up with?
-I'M GOING TO FUCK YOUR THROAT WHILE I CUT IT!
Finally something useful!
-Calm down strik, it's just a game! – no, don't tell him that!
-DON'T TELL ME TO FUCKIN CALM DOWN YOU LITTLE FAG! I'M A KILLER, I FUCKIN MURDERED THAT BITCH.
Sherlock smiled morbidly.
-MADE HER FUCKIN SCREAM WHILE I BROKE HER LITTLE FUCK HOLE
Sherlock was grinning, long fingers in his hair, one arm stuck out across the coffee table to control his mouse. The cursor did little circles around the record button on his computer screen.
I think that's a confession
He let the program run in silence, savoring every immortalized word as the crazed dwarf first threatened Akrylik's mother, then his virginity, and finally his status as an officer.
Will this hold up in court as verbal assault?
He pulled the cigarette from his mouth, leaving a white trail in the blue light.
After another five minutes StriKKK9 logged out in a rage. Sherlock could tell by the timbre of his voice that he was playing on one of his alternate characters.
But the detective had what he needed. He saved the file to an encrypted external hard drive, turned off the computer monitor and relaxed back into the uneven seat of the decrepit old couch, blinking out the window at the distant pink black sky. The police wouldn't want the file until the workday started. He sucked down the ember on his cigarette until it burned his fingers before stubbing it out in a filthy ashtray behind his keyboard.
He lay back on the couch, toeing off his shoes over the arm rest. He thought vaguely of the drugs on the coffee table but found he lacked the energy to move, he could save it for the morning.
A small corner of his brain had been delegated to the arithmetic of addiction. He could afford one night to binge, and then ration, everything must be dosed, measured, prepared, tied up in the melted corners of sandwich bags, and kept in a pill case like his grandmother's heart medication, like his life depended on the drugs.
He forced his eyes to close, forced his breathing to deepen through his nose. Sprawled on the couch in a loose assembly of bones. He would never admit that it was the loneliness that was killing him. There had been, in his youth, once, a passing desire for intimacy. He had never indulged. He only cared about things that were sensually obvious, bits of color and shadow and smell and heat and words and drugs and music but never touch. It would overwhelm him. He would become dependent. An addict.
For even after all this he would never admit that he had a problem. He was, after all the tall dark paragon of English stoicism. His upper lip was invariably stiff. He certainly had the self control necessary to utilize opiates responsibly.
Sherlock stared up at the sky and didn't know the names of the stars. They were beautiful in their dark crystalline effulgence, so many lights that they would never be counted and still mostly black.
The universe stretched out before his eyes and it was vast and cold and empty. He didn't fantasize, not ever, didn't see any appeal of indulging ones baser impulses. Why wake the dragon and expect it to only burn straw when there's a whole city waiting for a holocaust.
He wondered if he would be a good lover sexuality was not, after all a terribly complicated equation. His knowledge of anatomy certainly equipped him with all the data he would need to provide a partner with adequate stimulation. And he was not after all, a poor actor it would not be impossible for him to flirt, and cherish and cuddle. Hateful.
Confused, sick and struck by sudden emotional pain he rolled his legs onto the floor. With the enthusiasm brought by impulse he bowed his head towards the drugs. He tossed his hair back from where it had fallen into his face, rubbing at his sinuses.
The deathly silent apartment filled up with the sound of the fan on his computer, the low throb of his own pulse.
He lay back on the couch, alone with his lover. Brain bathed in hot bliss.
He didn't need friends, he had dope.