The Steel Barrel in the Thames
54
"One more time," Valspar managed. "That should be enough, yeah?"
"In theory," Sherlock hissed through gritted teeth, and threw his shoulder against the barrel one last time.
It fell over the bridge, into the Thames, and promptly proceeded to sink without so much as bobbing.
Valspar rolled his shoulders; Sherlock shook himself, getting some of the rain out of his hair.
"How did you know there'd be an oil barrel handy?" Valspar wondered absently, rubbing at his shoulder. Both of them would be heavily bruised come morning. "I mean, really, it was dead convenient, the body fit perfectly inside of it. But how did you know?"
"Oil traces along the streets," Sherlock panted, ruefully massaging his own shoulder. "Meant a car repair shop, of course. Hence, child's play to steal a used barrel."
They looked at each other.
And burst into uncontrollable laughter.
Valspar braced himself on his knees. "We just dumped a body into the Thames," he managed. "We just dumped a body into the motherfucking Thames. Oh, isn't that cliché?"
Sherlock grinned. "As cliché as they come. People are drawn to the hobby of dumping bodies in the river, apparently. Something about it must be incredibly appealing."
Valspar laughed again.
"Look at us, Sherlock," he gasped. "Laughing like idiots. Oh, what would they say, if they could see us now…"
Sherlock snickered. "People always have an urge to say something."
Valspar grinned back at him. "Only too true." He straightened, pulling the pack of cigarettes out from under his jacket. "Fag?"
"Gasping," Sherlock answered, reaching for it and leaning in to light it.
Valspar's eyes instantly caught the motion when Sherlock scratched at his left wrist.
"Coke bugs?"
"Yeah."
"Here." Valspar drew a syringe out from under his jacket. "I buy it by the syringe when the dealer doesn't have anything else. Needle's clean and everything, never used."
Sherlock's shoulders relaxed in relief. "You got a tourniquet?"
Valspar handed him a strip of rubber hose. Experienced, Sherlock tied it around his preferred spot just below his elbow, tightening it with his teeth. His fisted his hand until the vein showed, then threaded the needle into the point.
When the drug entered his system, his eyes rolled back in his skull briefly. A deep sigh escaped his lips.
"Do you mean to tell me," Valspar realized, "that you killed a man, connived a plan to dump his body, and successfully pulled it off all while jonesing for a hit?"
"Yeah," Sherlock managed, untying the rubber and standing there slightly numbly, his eyes closed. "You have a good supplier," he said dreamily. "Damn good supplier."
"Six per-cent solution. Where were you getting yours?"
"Sawbridgeworth does have a seedy underside, just like any other city."
"Fuck, up in Hertfordshire they've only got a three percent solution at most. Mind like yours, I'd recommend going up to seven and holding it there. Keep the syringe and the hose. I've got more."
"Thanks," Sherlock breathed. "Oh, hell, this is nice. I was missing out."
"Yeah, three percent doesn't do shit if you ask me. Just for curiosity's sake, how old were you when you had your first hit? What was your floodgate?"
"I was eleven," Sherlock said, his mind blissfully otherwise occupied by the cocaine. "Morphine. Hospital-grade morphine."
Valspar stared.
"Fuck, the youngest I've heard of an addiction starting is so close to fourteen that it counts as, and entering the streets at fifteen. You're barely fourteen."
"M-hmm."
"And you come out of Hertfordshire, land of the shitty three-percent solution, with not much more than the clothes on your back, but you've got a fecking Stradivarius and a necklace worth a hundred quid. You explained the necklace. Being a Holmes, your family could probably have afforded a Stradivarius with their pocket change."
"More like two. And Stradivari is the proper singular term."
"Stradivari, whatever. But why the hell did you leave? You could have the fucking best stuff, if you wanted it, with that kind of money, and why did you become an addict, anyway?"
Sherlock's eyes opened. "Do you think I qualify as an addict, Valspar?"
"Once you start to jones, you're an addict, mate. We all are. It's nothing to be ashamed of. But why?"
Sherlock sighed.
"I became an addict at the age of eleven because I was hospitalized, the result of a fight in which my brother betrayed me. I was nowhere near prepared to face the mental pain of that, and the morphine kept it away. I graduated to methamphetamine at twelve, heroin at thirteen. Cocaine is a new friend of mine. We're doing quite well together."
"Why did you leave?"
"My parents died. My abusive father, might I add, died first without any closure whatsoever to the enigma surrounding him. My mother joined him a month later. My brother claimed the estate, and being a minor, I had no right to my share, or to fight for it. I've got a chance, once I turn of age, but I don't have much hope. There's a trust fund, a small one, but it's already been promised to a school in London. So, I came here, to lose myself and find myself, to start anew and begin to forge my own path. I was sick of them laying out my life for me, so I took my fate into my own hands."
Valspar's head bowed respectfully.
"And you end up killing somebody your first night."
"Yeah," Sherlock agreed, and grinned again. "Yeah. Wonder what else is going to happen to us?"
**
Chapter written in twenty minutes. THANK YOU, MURRAY GOLD. THANK YOU, THANK YOU SO MUCH!
