Author's note: just in time for Christmas, a seven part story, posted one chapter at a time. Warning- this is NOT Christmas fluff


Chapter Nine- 2003 Cold Turkey Cases-Part One


The case against the Belarus smuggling ring and the associated death of Charlie Fanshaw once again brought Lestrade to the attention of his superiors for all the right reasons. He did not forget how and why the breakthrough had come. This time, he was determined that the enigmatic young man would not disappear from his radar. He agreed to letting Sherlock go from the station only after extracting a mobile phone number and a promise to stay in touch. He wasn't sure when another case would come up where Sherlock's skills would be useful, but he would keep him in mind. Over the next week, he sent a couple of texts, got two back in reply. The first simply said "bored" and the second was as brusque- another "boring". He found himself hoping for something suitably challenging to come up soon, even though that thought made him feel a bit guilty on behalf of any future victim.

Twelve days after the arrest of Rafe Stevens, Lestrade was walking along Victoria Street, heading up the road from New Scotland Yard to do a bit of grocery shopping. His wife was away tonight and the next two – a 'hen weekend' in Spain for one of her old school chums getting married next weekend. He was making his way through the lunchtime throngs when he spotted a tall dark haired figure walking down the opposite side of the street. Sherlock's head was down and his eyes were fixed on the pavement. Lestrade realised that there was a black car following Sherlock, going at exactly the same pace as the young man. It looked very odd. Traffic was starting to build up behind it, with irate drivers pulling out around it in annoyance. Sherlock was studiously ignoring it.

He wondered whether he should call out, but then realised that Victoria Street's width and the traffic noise would probably mean he wouldn't be heard, so he just watched as the strange combination of pedestrian and car made its way towards him. When they were virtually opposite from where Greg was standing, the young man's patience snapped. He stopped and stared directly up at a CCTV camera on a lamppost. Even above the traffic noise, the DI could hear Sherlock's shout. "Piss off! How many times do I have to do this? Just GET OUT OF MY LIFE!"

This drew a number of stares from the pedestrians walking by, who adjusted their paths to put more distance between themselves and the shouting man. Without another word, Sherlock tucked his head down into his coat, and sprinted off, heading back up the street about twenty feet and taking a sharp left into the pedestrian plaza in front of Westminster's Catholic Cathedral.

Greg realised at that moment what was going on. Sherlock was escaping from the scrutiny of his brother. If the CCTV camera rant wasn't enough of a give-away, it was the two men in suits who got out of the black car, running after him. Shit, what's going on here?

The car then pulled a sharp U turn and headed up at speed towards Victoria Station. By the time he got across the road and into the plaza, there was no sign of either Sherlock or the men following him. Frustrated, he pulled his phone out and scrolled down until he found Sherlock's number.

13.15pm Big bro being a pain? If you need help, give me a shout.

He didn't get a reply, but then he wasn't really expecting one. Disappointed, he carried on up to the supermarket and started shopping for his weekend supplies.

oOo

His arms were full of Sainsbury bags as he fumbled for his keys to the flat. Memo to self- thank her for doing this so often; it's a real pain coming home on the tube with the shopping.

He put the food away, popped his ready meal into the microwave, and opened a bottle of beer. There was a game on tonight, and for once, he'd be able to eat in front of the telly. His wife did not approve- standards. She insisted that they have a proper meal at the dining room table where they talked to one another. A guilty smile came out when he forked in the next mouthful of curry and rice, as he watched the goalie make a spectacular save from a free kick. He hadn't even dished the food out onto a plate, but was eating straight from the foil container. Save on the washing up was his motto this weekend. He loved his wife dearly, but sometimes a bloke just wants to chill out in front of the football.

The game went well; sometimes football could be frustratingly unexciting, but this one was full of twists and turns of fortune, leading to a good result: Arsenal 2-West Ham 1. He felt delightfully full and sleepy, so he switched off the TV after the post-game review and headed for the bedroom. An early night was called for.

Four hours later, he was woken up by a sound that he couldn't identify; his brain was still half asleep, but it must have been unusual for it to have woken him up. He wondered for a moment whether his wife had made an unexpected return home, and that worried him enough to decide to get up.

He wandered down the hall into the living room, pulling on his dressing gown, and then stopped dead. There was someone standing in the living room- definitely not his wife. The figure in the dark was tall, thin and then his brain caught up with his eyes. "Sherlock? What are you doing in my living room?" Lestrade's sleep fuddled mind then realised the next fact. "Bloody hell, you broke into my flat!" His indignation was loud and clear.

"You volunteered to help earlier this afternoon, but I didn't think it was civilised to "give you a shout" at this hour, despite your suggestion to do so in the text." This was delivered in a calm, quiet baritone.

Greg sighed. "So, you just thought I wouldn't mind you picking the lock on my front door and marching right in." He rubbed his eyes, which were struggling to see anything in the dark. He reached over to the table lamp and switched it on.

Sherlock turned away from the light, and Lestrade saw that the young man was fighting to stay standing. "What's wrong?" Greg watched as Sherlock lifted his hand to his forehead and then staggered to the armchair where he sat himself down hurriedly.

"Not feeling too well. Might have overdone things a bit."

Lestrade went cold. "Look at me, Sherlock."

When the young man obliged, his eyes were so dilated that Greg could scarcely see any iris at all.

"Shit, you're high."

Sherlock giggled. "Your powers of deduction never cease to amaze me, Detective Inspector. Fancy that, a person you know to be a cocaine addict is actually, for the first time, under the influence of the drug in your presence. Wait, no, I'm wrong. I seem to recall being high at that bar when you first showed up. So, twice, out…. of how many times? Four- well, a lot more if you count the three weeks it took to put the Pountney case together. That's not bad for me. You should feel honoured."

"What the hell, Sherlock. Why?"

"Why what?" He looked confused. "Do you mean why did I break into your flat? That's easy. I deduced when I tailed you home that your wife wasn't here, so I waited until you were asleep, because it was unlikely she'd be returning at this hour. I didn't want to disturb you- just needed a place to rest for a couple of hours that my brother hasn't figured out yet. Managed to get here off CCTV so he won't know. You did offer to help; or was that just being polite?" He looked a bit worried, as if he'd misunderstood the text.

"No, I meant what I said, although I Have to admit that I didn't realise you'd take me up on it in the middle of the night. But let's rewind a bit here. Why were those men after you today?"

"You saw me then- when, on Victoria Street? That was the only time Mycroft's minions got within spitting distance of me, so it must have been then."

"Yeah- I was across the road when you had your little rant at the CCTV camera. Jeez- it makes my skin crawl that your 'big brother' is actually a kind of real Big Brother. Must be a downer."

"You have no idea."

"So, what's got him excited at the moment? Is it the drugs?"

"You might say that. If he had his way, he'd wrap me up in cotton wool, and put me in a cage to keep me 'safe'. He doesn't approve of my involvement in the Rafe Stevens case; says it 'put me onto the path of too much temptation'." The baritone voice gave a surprisingly accurate mimicry of the young man in the three piece suit that Greg remembered from seven years before.

Greg's laugh was short lived. "What I actually meant by my first question is ..why are you back on the coke?"

Sherlock started to say in his usual flippant tone "why n…" but Greg interrupted.

"No, don't say that again. I really mean it. Why would someone with your brain do something so amazingly stupid? I just don't get it. So don't trot out some trite little slogan or just laugh it off as being 'bored.' I want the truth. If I'm going to offer you the chance to come down off of your high on my sofa, then I want some straight answers."

"Now you're beginning to sound like one of Mycroft's therapists- the people he made me talk to before I was allowed out of his idea of jail." Sherlock's sneer was evident.

"You mean, rehab? When you left the station seven years ago that's where you said he would take you. Did he?"

"Oh, yes- six months incarceration that time before I figured out what the shrinks in there needed to hear from me before they would let me out. It was easier the second time."

"The second time…just how many times has it been, Sherlock?"

"Just twice, although if he has his way, there will be another soon."

"Why? And by that I mean, why now? And also why at all?"

"My brother's inability to make me do as he wishes eventually gets to this stage. First, he threatens financial strangulation, if I don't 'mend my ways', then admonishment- which never works- followed by physical restraint, and then 'medication'. Rehab just involves a different set of drugs,Lestrade; the difference is I don't choose to take them, they are forced on me against my will."

Greg took this in and decided he needed a cup of coffee if he was going to continue. "What does caffeine do to you when you're in this state?" he asked as he headed for the kitchen.

He heard the derisory reply. "Not much- my brain is already enjoying the effects so much that adding a bit more stimulation doesn't matter."

As he prepared the coffee, Greg considered the situation. Thank God, Louise isn't here. She just wouldn't get this. He suddenly thought- "Sherlock, don't you DARE light up a cigarette in here; she'll kill me as well as you!"

When he returned to the living room carrying two cups of black coffee, he found Sherlock sitting with his eyes closed and a contented smile on his face.

"Sherlock, drink some coffee. And then answer the question that you've been avoiding for the past ten minutes."

That got him to open his eyes, looking at Greg with some surprise. He took the coffee and drank a bit as Greg flopped onto the sofa and blew across the top of the steaming mug to try to cool in down a bit.

Sherlock gave a little sigh. "It won't make any sense to you- the reason."

"Try me."

He made a face. Then another sigh. The silence lengthened. Finally, he started; "It's not easy to explain. I don't think like you do; or, rather, you don't think like me. So my motivations won't make sense. I mean it literally, Lestrade. My brain has neurochemical reactions that are different to yours. Why do you think I studied chemistry, if not to understand just what is going on in this brain of mine? Neurotransmitters in…people like me…don't work the same way yours do."

"As a result, people have been drugging me since before I could walk- trying to make me 'normal', whatever that is supposed to mean. I have what others call Sensory Processing Disorder. So in an attempt to create 'order', they've treated me with an entire pharmacy of drugs to deal with symptoms that normal people consider abnormal. Drugs to treat irritability, anxiety, disrupted sleep patterns, repetitive behaviour, self-stimulation, ADHD, depression, aggression. Loads of labels…"

He shrugged his shoulders. "As a result, I've been given drugs all my life- anti-psychotics, beta blockers, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors- that's an antidepressant by the way. Then there were the neuroleptics, stimulants, pain killers of all types. All of those were legal and administered whether I wanted them or not."

He stopped, drew breath, had a sip of the coffee, and then continued. "In almost every case, they don't have the effect on me that people expect. It's called a 'paradoxical reaction'- give me something that is supposed to drug me into a stupor and I'm just as likely to get even more agitated- halperidol does that, much to the astonishment of A&E departments- except the one time that it actually induced catatonia. Even general anaesthesia- when I had my tonsils removed when I was six, I was still wide awake when they wheeled me into the operating room. When they did eventually get me under, I took four times as long to come out of it than anyone normal. I'm NOT NORMAL." This last phrase was uttered through gritted teeth.

"I have overly sensitive senses. I feel things you can't even begin to understand- the pressure of the cotton seams in this T shirt aggravate my skin to the point where if I had a choice, I'd prefer to be naked than put up with the constant irritation. Not socially acceptable, so I have to just lump it, don't I? I can smell things that you just screen out. The fact that you had curry for supper five hours ago is still in the fabrics of this room, in the pores of your skin, which I can smell by the way, along with your stale deodorant, shampoo and aftershave. I know you drank beer- not bitter or ale, it was lager, because I can smell the difference in the malts. Your wife's choice of perfume is all over this chair, for example, and is giving me a headache. Sometimes, the scent of someone's sandwich is so revolting to me, I have to leave a room because it makes me nauseous. Don't get me started on food- tastes explode in my brain, and some are so strong that they make me physically sick. I don't eat much because doing so is actually unpleasant for me nine times out of ten.

"Oh, and let's go on to talk about hearing. I can hear the sound right now of the florescent bulb in your kitchen- it buzzes. Every noise- traffic outside, even at this hour, the dog you can't hear barking about five hundred meters from here to the left out the back of the flat. In a crowded room, every noise is amplified and comes in as one giant cacophony that I have to try to decipher and make sense of. I can even hear the fact that your mobile phone is recharging in the kitchen."

Greg looked at the young man in front of him with something akin to horror. "Shit," he said softly. "I always knew that Sam didn't like noises, but I didn't realise…"

This admission brought a tiny wry smile to Sherlock's lips. "I thought as much; whoever Sam is - a relative?" Greg nodded and said, "nephew."

"Your attitude was more…tolerant about my eccentricities from the start, which I didn't appreciate much at sixteen. Now I do."

Greg didn't reply. He figured that enough people would have made enough patronising comments to Sherlock to last a lifetime. He decided he wouldn't add to them by suggesting that he could understand what the young man sitting quietly in his wife's chair must be feeling.

"People don't understand that I have no choice in all this. It just is. The upside is that I can see things and understand things that normal people miss, and I've figured out what they mean when it comes to crimes. Putting the pieces together is something I can actually do with all that …stuff. I know it's the only thing that I will ever be truly gifted in doing, which is why I really, really want to do this work with you."

Greg nodded. "Well, I'm not going to argue; you know how much I appreciated your help two weeks ago, not to mention bringing the Pountney stuff to me, and for saving my face at that pub. But, you don't need to be high to do that work; you were clean for three weeks while we put the case papers together."

Sherlock shrugged. "When I'm working, the demands of the case focus me, let me screen out the stuff that doesn't matter. That's why I need to do this; it's the only thing that has ever competed with cocaine. When there's nothing to focus on, then the only thing that gives me relief is to slow the dopamine reabsorption rate. I can do that with nicotine, caffeine and stimulants of various sorts.

"So, if your question was, why do I use cocaine? The answer is that when I found a drug that actually makes me capable of focusing, filtering out the extraneous stuff- well, halleluiah- I'm in seventh heaven. The downside is that it is a class A substance that the world decides is 'bad' for me."

"From my point of view, the reverse is true. Under the influence, I can actually manage to function in a crowd of people. I don't get overwhelmed by the noise, scent, even the sight of people. I am not scared that people are going to take exception to what I say or do, shout at me, bully me, or worse. I don't mind making eye contact, because I don't get stressed that I can't understand how people are going to react to me. When I take cocaine, it is the closest I can get to being normal. Ever notice that 'normal' people don't like 'abnormal' people? When I'm high, I'm not afraid. For the short time, I can actually pass for normal. So, that's the reason why."

Greg just sat, stunned by the revelation. Eventually, he asked, "have you told anyone this before?"

Sherlock just shook his head, sadly. "You don't get it, do you? If I weren't high at this very moment, then there is no way I could be having this conversation with you. Most therapists only ask me 'why' when I'm off the drug, and I can't begin to explain it. No one wants to hear what I've just told you. It's far too logical. People expect cokeheads to be drug addled criminals. Because it isn't 'normal', people assume that I am taking cocaine as some sort of thrill seeking, that I'm after the euphoria, the kick. And, it's illegal, expensive, bad for my health and I am more likely to take risks. So they try to stop me."

"Cocaine has, from my point of view anyway, just the one downside – it's psychologically addictive; once I get the focus, the relief, then doing without becomes difficult. The physical side effects of withdrawal- headaches, nausea, agitation- well, a lot of that I have to live with all the time, even when I am not coming down from a high. There is another problem that is probably more serious- the more I take it, the less effect it has; my system needs more to achieve the same benefit. Sooner or later, the physical effects of upping the ante will probably kill me."

Greg took another long pull at his coffee, trying to figure out what possible response he could give to the young man's brutal honesty.

"What happens next?" he asked quietly.

Sherlock put his empty coffee mug down on the coffee table. He ran his hands through his hair and looked down at the carpet for a moment. "I need to sleep for a while. The odd thing is that when I am on cocaine, I actually sleep better than when I'm not. When is your wife back?"

"Not til Monday; her return flight lands at Gatwick at three forty five. You can stay here until Monday noon, as long as you don't do any more drugs."

Sherlock raised his head to look at the DI.

"No, Sherlock. I can't turn a blind eye to this. It isn't about you, OK? It's about me. I'm a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police Force. I can't have you here in my flat abusing a class A drug. But you are welcome to stay here and come down from it all. Give yourself a little time out. If you can stay off the drugs long enough, we might be able to work together on some cases. But there is no way in hell that I'll be able to do that if you don't get clean. I'm sorry- rules are rules, and I've already broken quite a few of them for you."

The young man just sighed, drew up his legs to his chest, and laid his head down on his arms. Greg remembered a night eight years before, when Sherlock had done the same. Greg got up and rummaged in the closet for a blanket and sheets. Then, on second thought, he got a pair of his soft pyjamas out of the drawer and dropped them onto the sofa, too.

"If those clothes are uncomfortable to sleep in, change into these. They'll be too big for you, but they're better than nothing, because the blanket will itch." There was no movement from the chair.

"Cheer up. At least this time, your brother isn't coming to pick you up."

Sherlock stirred and unfolded himself. He switched off the table lamp and said quietly, "I am grateful for small mercies, Detective Inspector. Good night."