An Unexpected Error Has Occurred

Everything is too loud and bright, built up from a flicker to a glare, footsteps on stairs pounding like a drum, thumpthumpthump. Is it any wonder that his skin feels like it’s crawling? If he could rip it off, strip by strip, he would; fingers tugging at curls, squared nails blunt against his scalp.

It wasn’t really boredom, but how else could he explain it? How do you explain to someone that the world’s too much, too overwhelming, when there’s terabyte after terabyte of information drowning him without anything to focus on? It swallows him whole, screaming and shouting: “Look at me. Look at me!” It’s all just so--the coffee table feels solid against his fist, wood grain leaving imprints, like fingerprints, evidence. He cuts off his own rambling thoughts.

There’s a snap of paper, feels like nails down a chalkboard. How cliché. Dull. “Jesus, Sherlock.”

Ah. John. John, who’s startled pulse he can almost feel against the back of his throat, worn cotton jumpers and English Breakfast tea (not really tea at all, two sugars and too much milk, what was the point?) and maybe if he could reach into his chest and squeeze, he’d be able to just have silence for one second, was that really too much to ask? The people who lived here before them dealt crack, the paint in the kitchen told him that much, and maybe if he got down onto his belly and sniffed at the carpet hard enough he’d be able to focus. On just one thing. Not everything all at once.

But then there’s the stash, hidden from temptation, that would stop this meltdown, his Mind Palace whirling and running on all systems as it tried to catalogue each megabyte of useless information he can’t help but to notice. He’s got defrag running continuously but it doesn’t seem to be doing much good. John’s disappointment would be worth the silence, because what was is it to do with him? Those hideous jumpers of his (favourite one, five to six years old, bought, not knitted, considers it his ‘lucky jumper’ having gone on eight dates wearing it, with different women he feels he needs to note (forgotten traces of different perfumes just about distinguishable), and ended each night with copulation) were his choice and surely if he wanted to shoot up then that was his choice?

If he could just think--fingers wrapping around curls, like a noose around his neck, for all he could breathe right now--then he’d be perfectly fine and he wouldn’t be thinking about hiding in his room and playing chef with a spoon and lighter. (Fine, what a disgustingly simple word; he notices that his copy of ‘The Kinetics of Metal-Gas Interactions at Low Temperatures: Hydriding, Oxidation and Poisoning’ has been moved to a perfect right angle from the windowsill, suggesting a Mycroft (who has put on another five pounds, thanks to frosted goods--a slight freckling of it against the edge of the book--and a lack of self-control, hence the out of hours calling, least he be subjected to his brother’s gloating) visit and the need to search the flat for bugs yet again, but he can’t think of a better word than fine?)

“Sherlock, are you okay?”

Baker Street, usually such a comfort and maybe it’s a touch of cabin fever (when had he last left-oh, yes, of course, the return from his last case, nearly a month ago now, with the weeks steadily pressing against his sternum as they inched by) but the walls were too close, a childhood game of deductions jumping from them, the words blurring together and pressing against him, processors going into meltdown. He was on his feet, pacing the length of the floor, chest rising and falling, the rush of his breath deafening, heartbeat threatening to silence John and his inane questions, and even still he could tell that whoever use to live here (besides being crack dealers), at least one was female--a lost hairpin snagged against a rung of carpet a clear indicator, bottle blonde, a snag of brittle hair wrapped around it.