A/N: the story of Sherlock, through snapshots of different years. A lot of this is from my headcanon. My first Sherlock fanfic. I've experimented a little with the POV's in this one.
Characters: Sherlock, Mycroft, John, Lestrade
Pairings: None
Rating: T for drug use and the occasional swearing
If I owned Sherlock, we would have season 3 already.
Inside My World
He is twenty-two, and as he depresses the plunger, the feel of cold metal in his arm is replaced with a tingling warmth as the world spins into focus. Everything has become a single burning point, and for the first time in a long time, outside data becomes unimportant. Soon he finds that he can choose what he absorbs, what he notices, and he welcomes it like a blessing. The feeling of power it gives him is worth the pounding headache and sandpaper mouth the next morning, and the next time the world is spinning out of control, he does it again.
He never means to get addicted.
He is twenty-five, and he knows life's darkest secrets. But at the moment, shivering on your couch in the empty flat, he looks about twelve, and you're hard pressed to believe that this is the same man who blazed his way into your life two years ago in the same way you've seen him blaze through a crime scene and deduce the murderer from the victim's nail polish. ("I know you've been married for seven, no, eight years, one child, a son in fact, no older than five. I know you've recently been promoted to Detective Inspector; and that you play guitar, probably quite well...")
If anyone had told you then that you would be sitting there in the armchair as Sherlock sweated and cursed his way through withdrawal, you would have had them admitted straight away, but over the last two years you've grown to care for the irritating genius, and though you'd rather die than tell him, when he'd called you moments before passing out, you were terrified. Absolutely fucking terrified.
But you'll never tell him that. Git.
He is twenty-eight, and for the first time in his life he has a friend. Not a Sebastian Wilkes 'I'll-use-you-and-you'll-use-me' sort of friend, not even a Mike Stamford 'let's-be-mates-if-you-want' kind of friend, but a proper, loyal, 'I-have-your-back-and-I'll-put-up-with-your-crap-in-fact-I-think-I'll-even-enjoy-it' sort of friend. John Watson. Doctor John Watson, in fact, Sherlock thinks with a smile.
Doctor John Watson who kills for him within days of meeting him, who tolerates his eccentricities and is addicted to the adrenaline rush, the friend who compliments his intelligence, the conductor of light, the one who stays loyal to the end, even when their world is falling down around their ears.
The friend who believes in Sherlock Holmes.
He is thirty, and the wind rushing past his ears makes him want to vomit. Over the sound of his racing heartbeat he can hear John screaming at him, hear the sheer bloody panic in his voice, and he can feel the matching tears on his own face as he falls. Falling is just like flying, Moriarty had said, and Sherlock hopes in those few seconds that everything will go to plan, because otherwise he'll be reaching a very permanent destination and, though he'd die for John in a heartbeat, he values his life thankyouverymuch.
Afterwards, he tries so very hard to delete those moments of terror, but even when he is old and grey he still finds himself jerking awake as he hits the ground, the echo of John's scream ringing in his ears.
Reichenbach's ghosts linger in the dark crevices of his mind.
A/N: Thank you for reading. As for the next chapter, I have written up to the return, but what do you want to see after that? Please review and tell me, because I can't update again until I know.