Jim

"It's a qilin," Danielle says. That's the word I mistook for 'killing'. Qilin. "Chinese unicorn." And she slips the red braid over her hand so the jade beast hangs like a bracelet charm.

"You're not actually wearing that?"

She shrugs. "Actually, you're right." Takes it off again and drops it into my pocket, "You need it more than me." Then, without warning, without so much as a perfunctory nod to the flow of conversation, changes the subject. "I can't believe you said I was your sister. I have only ever been fobbed off with 'sister' when 'girlfriend' was already in the room."

I'm not dignifying that with an answer. She's only saying it to be cruel, trying to embarrass me and I'm not giving her the pleasure. It's been two days since she was attacked and I'm still washing the memory of her blood off my hands at short intervals, so she's had all the vengeance on me she can really demand. She's hanging around my place with the bulge of the dressings under her blouse, making a big show of having to push herself up out of every chair; that's enough punishment without her having to humiliate me too, is it not?

Still, I suppose it's good that we've all gotten straight back to work. The wall in front of us is lit up with the projection of the floorplans for, oh, somewhere important I'm sure. There'll be something that needs to go missing and Danielle will be looking for the easiest exits and entrances and thinking of who she can delegate the job to while she heals.

…Must be Tuesday.

I leave her studying and turn towards the kitchen. Over her shoulder, "Black, no sugar." Yeah, I know how you take your coffee, love… Grumpy bitch.

I shout back, "Where's Moran?"

"Gone to be encouraging."

"Hm?"

"That Tory, the one who was going to take his ball and go home." Oh, aye, forgot about him… Here was a gentleman who failed to understand that, if a bad person gives you everything you ever wanted or dreamt of, you can't turn around and hand that person over. There was about five minutes yesterday morning where he could have brought everything crashing down around me. Forgot about him. Anyway, apparently Moran's taking care of it, so that's alright. We can move on to other business, Danielle calling through, "Have we heard anything more back on Ellen yet?"

"Who?"

A pause, while she rolls her eyes, mumbles to God to give her strength; I don't need to witness this to know it's happening. "The cleaning lady who drives a bloody Porsche."

"Oh. I don't think they've gotten her."

"We need to keep an eye on her. She's the kind to panic and tell all."

Nah. Her son works on an oil rig and she was told, in as many words, that he'd never come back from it if she did something silly like tell all. In as many words, she was told there wouldn't even be a drowned or charred or petroleum-soaked corpse home to bury. But she did so want that Porsche. And the electric gates on her driveway, woman was obsessed with electric gates… So there's nothing to worry about there, either. That's why I didn't remember her name. That's why all of them, at the moment, are just coming and going, and the names aren't really sticking and… I don't know. It has to be something like oil rigs and electric gates for me to even remember anymore.

I make the coffees and bring them through. Danielle starts explaining what we're looking at and what the options are, using a laser pointer on her keys to highlight parts of the projection. Doors and windows and things. But I don't even really need to be here; it just helps her to talk it through. And in the end, it's a break-in, so obviously I'm going to trust the judgement of a thief rather than have to sit and learn all this myself. I don't even need to be here for this.

I'm not sure how long the little red dot has been dancing around my face before she gets me in the eye and I notice. "Jesus Christ; what?"

"Am I boring you, dear?"

"No, it's… It's not you." But she's offended now. Doing that thing again where she has to push up on both arms of the chair to stand up, where the very act makes her wince, before she can go and turn the projector off. "You can run that job, can't you?"

Her answer is another question, dead defiant, "What job? Those plans, what job do they relate to, Jim? Tell me what those plans were for."

See? Trying to humiliate me again. Honestly, put a woman where she can get a carbon blade stuck in her flesh and you'll never hear the end of it. Well, I'm not playing to it, no chance. She'll not get a rise out of me. "I have no desire to keep track of everything," I tell her, "That's what I keep you about for."

She sighs. Opens her mouth to say something, but she changes her mind. Instead, she goes to her handbag, looking for painkillers. For a while, I am inclined to let her keep her silence. But she sighs again before she swallows the pills. "Spit it out, Danielle."

"What's the matter with you lately?" She said that very quick. That's been bugging her for longer than just today. "You're not paying any attention. When you started all this you could recite the name-rank-and-number of every client since day one and now you're… What? Losing interest?"

God, the disgust… There's a simile for it, but I'm too lazy and bored to find it. All the disgust, on her voice, when she talks about losing interest.

So I look over at her, and point somewhere in the hazy direction of her midriff. "That," referring to the dressings, "I mean, we've never had a proper disaster until… that." Now to me, who knows what I'm talking about, that's an explanation, but she's just staring, waiting for me to go on. "The rest has just been… easy."

"Oh, right. So the last thing I'm doing is boring you, is that it? The work's not exciting anymore unless somebody's getting sliced up?"

"That is not what I said."

Perfectly calm and agreeable, "No. Tell you what, call me when you figure out what you're saying."

Grabbing for her bag, she leans down too quickly and hisses for breath. Knowing she doesn't want to hear from me, I still try, "Are you-?"

"Fine." And as quick as she can manage she's gone, lighting a cigarette on her way out.

Sherlock

I have to leave the flat today. Not to score. Obviously not to score, I don't do that anymore, I just always feel the need to tell myself, and frequently out loud, that that's not what I'm going out for. This is what left me scrubbing bathroom tiles all morning. This is why I'm on my fifth fag of the day already, and God knows how much coffee. Supposed to be avoiding the stimulants, of course, given they get the nervous system running at high power and seeking to be calmed and do you know what would calm it? Can you guess? One thing in all the world that could slow everything down again and make it all palatable. Well, put it at a safe distance anyway. Go on, guess…

Shouldn't be thinking about it. It's only making everything worse. Craving doesn't go away, it just fades in and out and thinking about it only gives it power. I'm at ten days since my last lapse and still it can double me over, and still I look like a wax mask of my own death. I'll go out, and in my current state I'll get more disturbed and edgy looks from strangers than I ever did when I was using, because now I look like this all the time.

Who would go out in the world to willingly face that?

And of course, despite the fact that I am absolutely not going out in order to score, everything out there is temptation. Everything. God, it's been my life for… for too long. I find it impossible to even look around without spotting some connection. When I moved in here out of the old flat, I had already told myself I was taking no more than I could carry with me. The rest could be left behind. Mycroft knows the old place; he could do with it all as he saw fit. But when I decided not to bring anything that could act as a trigger… Well, on the plus side it made the journey much lighter. Got it down to a holdall only half-full of clothes, skull, other bits and pieces, nothing important. One box of books. That was all. Even the bloody violin had to be left behind in the end.

That's nothing to write home about. I hadn't touched it in months anyway. It was lying there without even a hair in the bow. Leaving it behind made the most sense, whether it was a trigger or not, whether or not it brought back words burned into the back of my mind, a woman's voice saying Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away…

But I shouldn't be thinking about that. You let one thought in and it all comes flooding back. All of a sudden even the fact that I'm standing here, shifting from foot to foot in trainers so beaten and soft I can hardly even feel it, is a flashback, to a similar shuffle at a locked door too early in the morning. Even the dealers don't work twenty-four hour days, y'know. You'd probably have to pay them double for that.

Oh God, you could laugh if it didn't make you sick; I'll tell you what has reduced me to this shivering memory, shall I? What started all this? I'll tell you why I'm shifting foot to foot and staring at the inside of my own door like a mortal enemy. Trust me, you'll laugh. It's making me sick, but you'll laugh.

Milk.

There's no milk left. Funny that, how if you keep using something eventually it'll run out. And the really funny thing is that, now I'm thinking about it, it's not such a bad thing. I've been meaning to become less dependent (no reminder intended) on cornflakes, and this could have been just the catalyst I needed. But I only just thought of that there now and everything that has gone before, all the thinking and shuffling and telling myself over and over that I'm not going out to score, that left me chain-smoking and now I still need to go out because nicotine withdrawal is an added hassle I just do not need right now.

…there lived a handsome, multi-skilled…

God, she won't shut up.

This is what I was talking about. Once you let the thought in, it doesn't go away again. You have to force it out and that's so much easier said than done. I'm in my third month now of trying to force the thought of h… of addiction out of my head and it's still not working. And that was after a five month run-up of perpetually telling myself I was going to pack it in. You'd think with that sort of preparation laid down before it you'd be alright when it came to the practical side, but apparently bloody not. No, apparently all that thinking about it doesn't count towards anything at all, and in the end you're left standing around, utterly debilitated by the absence of milk and the fact that you have to leave the sanctuary of the flat, even though you're absolutely not going out to score so it hardly matters anyway. Apparently that's how it works; the more hard work and effort you put into it, the harder it all becomes, and she won't – shut – up, damn her… I don't want her to finish what she's always been saying, that voice, that half-memory, I don't want her to.

But like I said, once you let the thought in…

…duplicitous fucking junkie, that's how that little insult ended. Ridiculous, the most throwaway thing that somebody said and yet, word-for-word, it's in me, and it won't leave me alone, even after all this time.

And I know I should be trying to prove it all wrong. I should be telling myself that it'll leave me alone when I'm better, when I'm cured. But I don't honestly believe that. I don't. And the more I think about it, smoking, staring down the door, the more I think about it, I think she's still right. In a different way, now, but still right. Because once you let the thought in… Duplicitous still rings true. Maybe because I'm trying to pretend I'm not a junkie anymore.