Author's note: I have to warn you, I'm starting to have fun with this premise... Until now I didn't realize what possibilities I made for myself when creating this story.
Please review.
By the time he realizes the image in the mirror isn't going to change, minutes have passed. At least he thinks it's minutes; he can't be sure, really, with the way his whole body itches and his head pounds, and the cold and the dizziness and the exhaustion and the pain from some very clearly infected needle marks.
And this pain is the only reason he doesn't give in to a childish instinct and pinches himself: if he's already feeling all of this, how could such a trivial thing convince him he's awake?
He tries to find a rational explanation, but fails. Maybe it's not really a mirror? An idle hope, he knows, but one he clings to until he reaches out and touches a cold, dirty surface.
He tries to wipe some of the dirt away, but it only makes the image appear worse; his eyes have never been so bloodshot, and the shadows under them have never been quite so dark, even when he stayed up five days for a case – he only did so once, and would probably have held out longer, but John put him to bed eventually.
John. The thought wakes him up from his trance-like state.
He has to get out of here and look for his flatmate.
But first...
First, although everything in him fights against the idea, he has to look around this house. It could be important; maybe there's a clue somewhere, something that can tell me what happened and why. He can't just run out into a city (hopefully a city; he can't imagine trying to get out of some remote country in the state he is in) he probably doesn't even know – most of the windows he's passed so far were to dirty to have a good look – in the clothes he's wearing – last thing he knows, it was the middle of November, and it's highly unlikely that he's spent months in a drugged state without waking up to at least a semi-consciousness once, though the way he looks would probably suggest otherwise – and expect results. He needs to look for clues here first of all.
Right now, there are only two facts he's sure about:
One, just a short time ago (at least he hopes so, he has no way of knowing how long he was unconscious), he was the only consulting detective in the world, on a way to a crime scene with his best friend.
Two, an even shorter time ago, he woke up as a cocaine addict lying in an abandoned building.
There has to be an explanation.
He needs more data.
At least he's alone, he can tell. And abandoned buildings are nothing new to him.
Sherlock holds the gun. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. But you really should have stopped running your drug cartel when I warned you and gave you examples of what I've done to some of your associates so far." The man doesn't answer. He just looks at Sherlock, and the silence in the warehouse could be sliced with a knife.
Sherlock steadies his hand.
The shot rings out.
Not now. He has more important things to do right now.
And so, although he really doesn't want to, and everything in him his screaming to get out and look for John , he drags his aching body back up the stairs – he figures it's best to start where it, whatever "it" may happen to be, began.
The room turns out to be a dead end, however. Though it raises another question; He can see where his lying body has disturbed the dust, and the footmarks he left when he stumbled out of the room. But, other than those, no marks. He didn't walk here, he wasn't dragged, he wasn't carried – there would have to be footprints of other persons.
How did he get here?
He decides – and hopes his body will comply, because the withdrawal symptoms (and what if they aren't withdrawal symptoms? Maybe there's a drug that could – his mind must be slipping away. He knows the symptoms, he has been through them once already. No, definitely withdrawal symptoms. Think, Sherlock, think) – that he'll do this systematically.
Thankfully, the mansion turns out to be not so big after all; it has a ground level and a first floor with eight rooms each, yes, but no cellar, thank God, and no attic.
Seven of the rooms on the first floor, including the one he woke up in, are empty and offer no clues, and in his state he doesn't know whether to be thankful or angry about this. It's always the same – he'd probably call it "boring" in any other situation – no furniture, dust everywhere, mildew on the walls and the ceiling, and it's cold, cold, cold. Couldn't there at least be something, anything he could use to protect himself from the cold? He doesn't need this on top of everything else: By the time he's finished inspecting the seventh room, he's even more exhausted than before, the pain and dizziness have once again got worse, and he wishes he could lie down for a moment.
The only reason he doesn't, really, is that he's sure he wouldn't get up again.
Then he enters the eighth room, and, for the first time since he woke up in this bizarre situation, fells a surge of hope.
In the darkest corner, the one farthest from the door, he can barely spot an orange blanket.
I'm in shock, look, I got a blanket.
God, how he wishes Lestrade were here. But that doesn't help.
He's going to need more light to examine this, and he drags himself to the window, because he's already made the discovery (though, in a house like this, it's hardly a discovery) that the light switches don't work. Electricity has been turned off for a long time, of course.
It's hard, and he almost collapses, but he manages to pull open one of the dirty windows (thankfully there are no curtains in this room).
And he's promptly positively surprised a second time – he knows the road he's looking at. Naturally, he does.
He knows every road in London.
This one – yes, there are normally barely any people around, and most of the buildings are abandoned, and it's in a part of town no one really likes to go, aside from Sherlock for a case, that is, but it's in London.
The city whose heartbeat he knows as well as his own.
He's still where he longed to be, those three long years during which he did everything in his power to be able to return. He's still home.
And it's definitely still the middle of November, if the weather is anything to go by. He shivers even more violently, if that is possible.
Nonetheless, he takes a moment to catch his breath – what did they, or whoever, do to him, and for how long, that opening a window leaves him breathless? He knows withdrawal symptoms, but you have to take cocaine for a prolonged period of time for it to get this bad this quickly – and drink in the familiar sight, then he turns back to the corner, that he can now see quite clearly.
There seem to be some items wrapped in the orange blanket, and since he has never had any respect about personal property or personal privacy, he immediately decides to investigate.
Turns out, there isn't much to look at – well, at least he gets a jacket out of it that fits him, so he isn't that cold anymore, and there's a – a kind of wallet, though it's shiny and new and quite expensive, you whoever lives here must have stolen it.
It's not like he's surprised, really.
But what he could really use right now is some cocaine.
He hates himself for the fact that he hoped he'd find some; he hates himself for the craving he feels for the drug. But he can't help it.
He's going through withdrawal and, right now, if he wants to keep a clear head, do the right thing, find John and solve this mystery, what he needs is the drug.
"Do I see old needle scars on your arms there?" Again the voice that speaks Spanish. He's alone, and the room he's in doesn't have windows, and he's scared, but he can't let them see it, because if he dies now, he'll never get back to London, never get back to his fri– life.
"And if I decided that you needed a fix to make you talk? What would you say?"
Go away, memory. Just go away. Back in your room.
What's more important right now is the wallet.
It's expensive all right. The sort of thing Mycroft would use. Expensive, posh, and rather, though Sherlock would never admit it, because he doesn't care about this sort of thing, elegant.
There's something weirdly familiar about the wallet, but Sherlock can't put his finger on it now, so he flips it open.
Quite a lot of cash, as expected – well, at least he won't go out in the world all alone and without help. Money has opened far more doors in the history of men than kindness or being polite, something he's always tried to teach John.
Other than that, there's pretty much – nothing.
No credit cards, no driving licence, no bills, nothing. So either the thief knew how to cover his tracks and get rid of the most easily detectable pieces of evidence – really, that's far more likely – there's no other explanation – except for – except for –
If the owner, in case the wallet was stolen, wanted no connection to himself, except for fingerprints, but which thief would check for fingerprints, anyway?
It's in moments like this that Sherlock hates his brain.
Because there can't be many people in London who would wish to have their identity protected at all costs, even if it would mean the loss of quite a bit of cash.
Which further means whoever owned the money wouldn't care about the cash.
But about other things.
And, if Sherlock things about it, there's only one person who would want to protect his identity at all costs and who has enough money to not care if he lost quite a bit of it. One person who keeps secrets – dangerous, expensive, important secrets – one person who –
But the thought is ridiculous. Sure, the wallet looks familiar to Sherlock, and there is this one person he knows quite well who fits all these criteria, but there would have to be –
Sherlock looks through the wallet again, and this time, tucked against the bank notes, almost hidden, he finds it.
A photograph. An old photograph. A boy, maybe fourteen years old, and another, much younger child, maybe seven years of age. The younger boy is scowling at the camera and already has a mop of unruly dark curls. The older boy is carrying an umbrella...
Him and Mycroft.
The one photograph Mycroft always kept, no matter what happened.
This is Mycroft's wallet.
And there's only one person in the entire city who'd be able to steal Mycroft's wallet and get away with it.
Sherlock Holmes.
The dizziness he's feeling all of a sudden has nothing to do with the detox he's going through, he's sure of it. He has to lean against a wall and try to breathe, very slowly.
If this is Mycroft's wallet, then he's stolen it.
Then he's slept here.
Then he is –
No. He's Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective.
Unless...
Unless he was suffering from delusions, because that's what drug addiction does to the brain, and –
No. He remembers everything to clearly: even his mind couldn't have invented everything.
He needs to find John. Then everything will become clear.
But first, though he hates to admit it, he needs cocaine.
He finds it in the room-that-was-once-the-kitchen of course, in the cookie jar, he still remembers his favourite hiding places from his time as an addict. In the room with the blanket – he doesn't have any trouble moving now, first downstairs, then upstairs, and soon downstairs again, because his body seems to know that he's going to get a fix, and he loathes the feeling – he finds a needle.
True, it is dirty, and even in his worst times, as far as he remembers, he'd never have considered using it, but right now, he has no other choice, because the withdrawal symptoms have been getting worse and worse and he needs to have his wits together in order to find John.
He plunges the needle in, and almost immediately there's the euphoria he remembers so well, and he hates the drug, he hates the craving, and he hates the euphoria, but there's nothing he can do about it now.
So, high, but at least kind of lucid and not so cold anymore because he has – his – jacket, he opens the door and steps out on the street.
The door slams behind him.
And then, there's only one thought:
He has to find John.
Author's note: I should probably point out, just to be on the safe side, that I've only researched, but thankfully, never experienced drug addiction, may it be in my family, myself or amongst my friends. So, it would only be normal for me to put some mistakes in – I certainly hope that I'll never have the personal knowledge to see them.
I hope you liked it, please review.