Sherlock:
I drop out of uni at some point during my third year. I don't actually know when I drop out because it's not intentional; one day I'm in my dorm room, surrounded by colour and soft noise, and the next day I'm in some stinking, mouldy flat in London wearing someone else's clothes and smoking a cigarette the wrong way around. I think it must be summer, judging from how much I'm sweating and how bright liquid hot the sun is, but it's hard to say. Time moves strangely. I find myself in odd places: sitting in an alley with a newspaper, solving crimes in the margins with the stub of a knife-sharpened pencil; in a rubbish bin, apparently hunting for something someone lost and is paying me to find (only I don't remember who lost it, or what was lost in the first place); in a nightclub, impossibly unfathomably irrevocably high, a pair of rough and random hands on my hips, my thighs, my arse; at the shops, stealing supper; on the corner, buying more and more and more of whatever drug I can get my hands on. The heroin is the worst, I think. I lose myself most often when I'm riding that particular high. But…I take what I can get.
One day I'm wearing a coat and gloves, and the world is so bright, so glossy, so interesting that I want to gather all the air around me and hold it still while I study it. I chase a certain current until I'm dizzy, and when I wake up (did I fall asleep? I think I must have done, because I've been dreaming) I'm in a holding cell and there's a man staring at me intently from beyond the bars. He's got dark hair, threaded with silver, and a strong jaw. He looks like the sort of man who enjoys a good pint after work and will always, without a doubt, order the fish and chips wherever he goes.
"Your wife is cheating on you," I say slowly. My throat hurts; I don't remember the last time I ate drank breathed slept. "But you knew that already. You allow it because you think it's easier to pretend you don't know than to confront the thing head-on."
If the man is disturbed by my (undoubtedly true) deduction, he doesn't let on. The only change in him is a small quirk of the eyebrow. I take in his long coat (wants to appear taller), crossed arms (wants to appear tougher), black eye (? has been a fight recently, that much is obvious) and combative expression (oh, I gave him the black eye, I see) and sit down with a sigh. "I'm being charged with assaulting an officer, obviously," I yawn. I am so tired. So, so tired. "What else?" I could guess, but I'd rather not give fuel to any non-existent fires.
"A whole host of drug charges, for one," says the man, a bit stiffly. His accent is very working-class; I'd guess Brixton. "Lewd and disorderly conduct."
"Lewd?" That's something of a surprise. I had been half-dozing, but I crack my eyes and stare at him as he spreads his hands and shrugs.
"Three dozen witnesses claim you…eh, exposed yourself in order to urinate. Directly in front of a double-decker filled to capacity with American tourists." He's trying not to crack a smile. I decide I like him.
Closing my eyes, I ask, "Anything more?"
"Should there be?"
Oh, yes, I like him quite a bit.
Mycroft must wave his magic wand in my direction, because after a short nap and a particularly horrid cup of coffee I'm free to go. This is for the best because my skin is beginning to itch something awful. I need a quick fix, a nicotine hit, a real cup of coffee, a shower, and a good shag, possibly not in that order. But definitely the fix first. Always the fix first.
x
The next time I see my favorite Yarder, he's sitting beside me in Processing, his face at once bemused and curious. "How did you know about my wife?" he asks, and I wonder vaguely how long ago we had that conversation. A year? A week? I'm wearing decent trousers (my own, then) and a somewhat baggy button-down (someone else's, clearly; male, possible athlete, wealthy enough that money isn't a huge concern but nothing near as rich as I am/was) but no coat, so I guess it must be awhile later. I brush the concern aside with a stifled yawn.
"The first part was a guess, but a good one. You're in your mid-thirties, so most likely married. The bags under your eyes and the state of your clothes suggested you'd been working late; your lack of irritation on the matter suggested this was habitual. So, we've got a man who's been married, oh, five years or so going on the state of your ring, but spends an exuberant amount of time at work and isn't unhappy about it. If your wife wasn't messing about, Sergeant, she'd be the most moral woman in London. Or the most depressed." I take a breath, fidget in my handcuffs. "The second part was easier: your face told me. You weren't surprised, but you were uncomfortable, only the discomfort wasn't directed at me. Clearly it was something you knew but disliked acknowledging. Deducing the motive was extraordinarily simple. People love ignorance; it's the only thing that keeps them sane." My mouth tastes awful, like blood and dirt and something worse, something stale. "Coffee? I take mine black, two sugars. And none of that rubbish they gave me the last time; I want whatever you drink."
The sergeant (he must be a sergeant, all eagerness in his eyes and exhaustion in the lines of his face; this man is working hard for a promotion, clearly, but he's not young and he's not foolish, so he's been climbing rank for awhile) blinks at me. "The nerve of you-" he begins, but then he stops and seems to collect himself. Eventually, slowly, he says, "Do you…do you do that all the time? That trick of yours?"
"It's not a trick," I sniff indignantly. I think some of the effect is lost when I half-choke on blood from my apparently broken nose (I don't feel it; I don't feel much these days, however, so I'm not distressed) and the sergeant has to clean me up with one of his old tissues. (He doesn't have a cold; must be allergies. So is it spring?) When I'm acceptably clean enough to meet the sergeant's standards, I clear my throat and repeat, "It's not a trick. I merely observe."
"Uh-huh." He glances at his watch and sighs, the sound equally weary and accepting. "Well, I figure we've got at least an hour before your brother sweeps in and rescues you, so…let's say we go down to the holding cells, eh? Maybe you could have a look at a couple of the boys down there, tell me what you think."
"What's in it for me?"
The sergeant grins. "Coffee. Black, two sugars, and from the officer's lounge."
I consider this for a moment. "Deal. But you switch my cuffs to the front, and warn me if I'm bleeding all over myself."
"Fair enough."
x
The third time I meet the sergeant, I come to in his office. I'm cuffed, but otherwise this might have been just a casual chat. There's a cup of coffee, still steaming, on the desk directly in front of me, and beside it is a placard that reads "Sergeant G. Lestrade". The man himself has his feet on the desk and is looking over the contents of a file (the label reads I-#9849-2894, which means very little to me right now) and chewing carelessly on what looks like an extremely old, plain bagel. When I reach out for my coffee, Lestrade glances over at me and practically beams.
"Oh, mornin' sunshine!" He slaps the file down on the desk and put his feet down, knitting his fingers together. "Glad you could join me."
"Hardly had a choice, did I?" I say, lifting my cuffed hands. I glance around the office: sparsely decorated; there's a football pennant hanging behind the chair and a family photo on the desk. It's not recent, so I suspect it was taken before the wife began her affair. There's a potted plant sitting on top of the air unit, the leaves gone brown and crunchy. Someone else bought it, then, and someone Sergeant Lestrade holds in very little esteem. Interesting. A glance down at the rug tells me it isn't hoovered often; late nights, then, and the custodial staff can't drag the man away from his office long enough to give it a proper cleaning. I look back at Lestrade, who's watching me with keen interest.
"Tell me what you see," he says, eager, so I do.
x
When Mycroft comes to collect me, I'm furious. No, furious doesn't cover it; I'm seething with fury, angrier than I've ever been in my life. For one thing, I hate him. For another, I'm no longer high. And thirdly, I can tell from the set of his jaw and the look in his eyes that he's taking me to rehab. This only infuriates me because it means I'll have to find some furtive means of escape, and escaping might take awhile, and damn it all I need a cigarette and a cup of coffee and a hit of anything, anything that will make my skin stop crawling and my mind slow down. I don't have time/energy/interest in breaking out of some overly posh rehab facility, and I tell Mycroft as much.
"Then don't break out," he says. He looks so fussy in his stupid suit, his hair combed so neatly. His diet has been effective, but it won't last. Mycroft's weight will yo-yo for years, I expect, and this brings me some form of marginal satisfaction. "I'm only doing this for your benefit."
"Yes, good, the caring brother lark. Please, do go on. I love this bit." My scowl, I think, makes the sarcasm a touch unnecessary. Still, I don't want to go to rehab. I really, really don't. And perhaps, if I can annoy Mycroft enough, I might be able to talk my way out of it.
"No, you won't," Mycroft says softly, reading my mind again. Well, unless I thought aloud. Sometimes I do that. "I can't save you from yourself, Sherlock, but you'll never forgive me if I don't try."
It takes me five hours and twenty-six minutes to break out of that damned facility.