December 11: "Cocaine vendor" (from Michael JG Meathook)
I've taken a sip of W. Y. Traveller's angsty tea, it seems...
My friend's use of that infernal seven-percent solution had been long a source of contention in our home, and continued to be the cause of arguments well into my married years. In the initial period of joy that followed Sherlock Holmes' return to my life, it seemed that little could go wrong, and we had settled quickly and comfortably back into our life as fellow-lodgers, now as older and wiser men. But it was inevitable that this period of unadulterated happiness should one day end, and when I came home from a stressful day in which I lost a patient to an overdose in cocaine, only to find my friend lying glassy-eyed upon the settee, I confess I lost my temper. I shouted some things which I cannot remember now, save that they were met with indifference, and I stormed out into the swiftly falling night. I seethed with anger at the revelation that my friend was still in the grip of his old vices, and had not moved past them as he had sworn to me some two years before his "death". I had walked perhaps four blocks when an idea struck me. It might be somewhat improper, but I was determined.
So it was that I found myself knocking at the door of Mycroft Holmes. He was as surprised to see me as could be expected, but invited me in and listened intently as I spoke of his brother's terrible habit, his watery grey eyes fixed upon me in that faraway way that so reminded me of Sherlock.
"Well," he said at length, "there are only so many places in London from which a man can procure cocaine. It would be quite impossible to convince them all not to sell to him, but with enough effort I ought to be able to determine the ten or twenty places he is most likely to go and offer some financial incentive to turn him down and report it to me when he arrives. Perhaps, Doctor, you could hand-write some letter imploring him to give up the stuff that we could have given to him on those occasions as well. The added difficulty in procurement mixed with a little dose of shame ought to do much to deter him."
I thanked him profusely, and the anger having had time to cool and some efforts for a solution underway, I thought again of my dear friend, and that vacant look on his face. Guilt and shame twisted inside me for the way I had spoken to him, and I made my departure. I would return home and care for my friend as best I could. It was not him who was the source of my anger, not really. It was the blasted cocaine. The god-damned cocaine. I would not allow it to take him away from me. I would not lose him again.