A/N: This first chapter is a repost of the last from the Trilogy, should you need a read through. Chapter 2 will pick up on from this, hopefully very soon. Fingers crossed.

This collection features vignettes or fuller short stories around our characters, with a single line of dialogue in common and little else. And, yes, I have regretted the expression I have used as a thread to weave through my many plotline exploits. I have long stopped making them a key focal point of the story. It's a convenient excuse, an armour I used to hide myself within as a newbie writer.

More to the point, still not a writer as I refuse to get formally trained and conform to narrative structures. Nor am I British, so my English is all over the place sometimes. Not a doctor nor a detective, because I wouldn't be clever enough. But I am old enough to wish for a nice adventure sometime soon.

As always, the disclaimer for the entire collection to come - I make no profit whatsoever from these stories or the characters that, indeed, do not belong to me, and have been appropriated by so many of us.

Also, friendly warning, English is not my first language – but worry not, you don't have to read these shorts with an accent. -csf

1.

I got home late, exhausted from another extra shift at the A&E. As much as I like (love) the constant influx of patients, the unpredictability of injuries and serious ailments, the occasional stab to convention by the antisocial old man making oddball comments about the nurses, the paranoid afflicted young man accusing me of spying on him, or the delirious woman who can see fire breathing dragons in her hospital room – it's never enough to quench that need for stimulation, excitement, and snap decisions born out of instinct or sheer dumb luck. Instant adrenaline hits – I like (love) that. Brings me back to the theatre of action, makes me feel alive and whole again. As if I get back that part of me that got spilled in the hot desert sands of foreign wars.

It's the aftermath that wrecks havoc with my back, I decide finally, as I press both hands on my back over my kidneys. Maybe I need hydrating with a nice cup of tea, I decide. What tea cannot fix, it can help ease nonetheless.

Shuffling sore feet over the linoleum, I tick the kettle on and reach over to the abandoned cup on the drainer, before I freeze in shock over what I have barely noticed...

I turn around with the deep dread of certainty already spreading like pitch dark ink. Oh, no, Sherlock...

Staring at the shinny scientific glassware paraphernalia assembled over the kitchen table, I desperately try to find a fault to the design or the method, but that would be to wish Sherlock not to be the chemistry whizz he is, just as he is at anything he puts his mind to, including self-destruction.

Shit. He's gone under. Hours ago, going by the room temperature to the undeniably used glassware. Addiction urge met with loneliness and despair, I was too far, he was too lost and too knowledgeable.

Even more shit. Porcelain mug shatters on the scarred kitchen linoleum, as I rush to my flatmate's bedroom (no, my now patient, for I must ensure he didn't overdose, he rides this through and starts the detox at once – the damage to ever so long in self-control, all shattered by a conscious decision, alone in 221B). I curse myself (uselessly, for I shouldn't be responsible for my best mate's poor decision making and impulse control). Had I been home... And what good would that have done, but to postpone the poor decision to self-inflict damage to that wonderful mind for a couple of hours of peaceful deliverance from his demons? I should know, the demons all gather in the darkness, waiting to pounce on you, the moment you are delivered from your distraction. Is it my fault, did I drive Sherlock to this act of self-hatred and to gamble away all he (I dare say, we) achieved so far?

I find the genius like a small child, laying atop the bedspread in a tight foetal position, his creased nightwear and blue silk dressing gown an easy to deduction for hours of trying to push back the urges and the demons. I sink to my knees by the bedside and gently touch his wrist to check his pulse. His skin is dry and warm, and I frown. Before I can further assess, his lead grey eyes squint open, straight on me. We hold each other's gaze for stretched seconds until I have studied the lucid pain in his eyes, and he's read the unguarded fear, shock, and betrayal, all reaching as far as my soul.

Dropping his wrist at last, I raise an eyebrow, anger slowly feeling me. 'What was this Sherlock? A test? A punishment because I wasn't here? What sick theatre play did you lay out for me?'

His feline eyes widen, he didn't expect the vitriol in my voice. At first, virtue and indignation filter through his angular profile, then he closes up, guards himself behind a wall of cold arrogance. An honest response if I ever saw one. I feel the guilt flood me, a cesspool full of dark, murky waters threatening to drown me. Clearing my throat awkwardly (I'm so sorry, Sherlock) I resume and restart:

'So you made some, but didn't take any?'

He shakes his head. I study his eyes, his brows, the inner tension of his mouth. He seems oblivious to the display of strength involved in his little defiance of his demons. The rest of us, we would have succumbed to the diseased habits of a lifetime. Vaguely, I wonder what grounded him, held him back, gave him the much needed advantage...

'John...' He pulls me out of my spiralling thoughts with mere whisper of my name.

I bring my focus back from his pale lips to his piercing eyes.

It's an alert. The beast lies barely dormant within. He asks for my help. I'm the Distraction, the Fighter and the Moral Compass. I nod to him, assenting to anything and everything he asks of me wordlessly. I too cannot put it into words, but it's a promise and reminder of a pact.

Co-dependency, some say. They ignore how strong my friend is.

'Where?' I demand to know the hiding place of the unused drugs. He expectedly rolls his eyes petulantly, but also glances briskly in the bathroom's direction. An answer; he swore he'd always answer this question, early on in our friendship. And I swore I'd tell him where my gun was, should it ever feel too heavy on me.

I nod curtly, setting my shoulders as I get up for the clean up. He's no longer looking my way - Shame. I set myself for the task not without rolling up the blanket at the feet of the bed, tucking him in to the softest wool, hoping to leave him comfortable and also to imprint on him a notion that, like that blanket, I'll keep him from the world until he's ready. I march on diligently towards the bathroom sink where his user's paraphernalia is laid out unused.

'John?' I hear him call out from the bedroom, as I gather the bin. 'John, you'll be careful, won't you?' he asks. I smirk to my reflection on the medicine cabinet mirror. We take turns in looking out for each other. We couldn't possibly tackle our demons put together.

'Pfft! Think I'd use your stuff?'

'Oh, please, you know how great a chemist I am!'

'True that, but the state of our kitchen is another thing altogether.'

From the bedroom, I hear his chuckles, and so I'm not quite expecting to next see him in the reflection of the little medicine cabinet mirror, wrapped in the blanket, hair still looking all wild, posture broken and apologetic.

I knot the bin bag and ask in all seriousness: 'How about I choose your next case?'

'There are no interesting cases, John, hence the...' His voice loses volume until it becomes completely inaudible. I still wait for his lips to stop moving before I protest:

'Then I'll choose a boring case, and we search for more cases as we get there.'

'Get there?' he repeats.

I ostensibly look around. I'm definitely removing him from the temptations breeding ground, that's for sure. Following my gaze, he admits to the reasonability of it all. 'Fine, but you're packing my bag for me. Oh, and I'm driving.'

I scoff. 'No offence mate, but you drive like an old lady.'

'You drive like the road is lava, John.'

'Yeah, well, no one complained when I drove the ambulance in Kandahar while we were under attack. It wasn't exactly lava but most of the road was on fire.'

He flashes me a genuine smile at that. 'I'll give you the wheel if we spot any insurgents there. Can we leave in 20 minutes?'

Automatically glancing at my wristwatch, I nod with reservations. 'It will take me less than 10 minutes to pack.'

'True, but someone needs to clean up the lab gear in the kitchen, and it shouldn't be Mrs Hudson.' Oh. No, it really shouldn't; our kind landlady deserves better than that. 'She's broken my last two Liebig condensers.'

I hide my admiration smile for good old Mrs H. She's far more practical than me. Then again, in a world of same day deliveries and drug dealers on instant messaging apps, she can only set back Sherlock's dark temptation so far.

'Right. Get dressed then,' I boss him around gently. Good Lord, he needs to be contrary and starts stripping then and there for a shower. Mind you, knowing my well-pampered flatmate's self-grooming routine, it might take him more than the agreed 20 minutes.

I sigh and leave the bathroom, carefully carrying the bin bag with me for immediate disposal. On my way down 221B's seventeen steps, I wonder just how am I going to live up to the task of distracting the great Sherlock Holmes from the dark clouds in his own mind.

I find that, just like Sherlock, I too can be brave.

.

TBC