Still The Addict

Relapse

"I love you..." I mumble, my head not really in this little flat with John, but rather my imagination carries me to my Mind Palace, locked up in the room I associate mostly with John. In it is a phone, a walking cane, his stupid laptop, and him, or a mental version of him, wearing a black tuxedo, a sharp bowtie and polished black shoes. I think it's our wedding day in this room, since I'm wearing a tuxedo as well. He looks beautiful when he smiles at me like this. But of course I am dragged, rather rudely out of my Mind Palace by the object of my fantasies himself, who has burst out laughing. Oh no. What on Earth have I said while I was in that palace? I turn to him with a furrowed brow and pursed lips, bitterly wondering what is happening and wishing he would tell me why he's laughing. He knows I'm not good with...people.

"Oh Sherlock," he giggles, almost bending over in the chair. I keep my face stoic despite the bubbling trepidation in my stomach. He doesn't seem angry, just amused as he keeps laughing, trying to catch his breath and make an effort to explain it to me. I let him, for I know how difficult human emotions can be. I'd rather not waste any more time than I have to trying to decipher them. It's the one thing Mycroft can do that I cannot, and that makes me a little resentful of him. Well more resentful than I would have been anyway. While Mycroft has even less understanding of emotions than I do, he has learned to decipher all of them and what they all mean. When we were children he tried to teach me how as well. He described human emotions as a long road (he knows I like maps. I am amazing with maps) with some signs leading to other roads. Each sign has a human emotion on it and the characteristics, to help me know what people mean when they say 'I feel down' or so. Unfortunately for me, all the signs in my mental map of feelings lead to winding roads with twists and turns that all curve back into the same direction, the ink on them splattered over by water, rendering all emotions indecipherable as the ink smudges. So I wait for John to calm down and tell me just what the bugger is going on. "Do you realise what you just said?!" he giggles louder.

"No," I answer honestly. I don't know what I said.

"You just said 'I love you'!" He exclaims with pure glee, before calming and grinning with genuine curiosity. "Who were you talking to in your Mind Palace?" John asks eagerly, as an archaeologist would ask his workforce to break open the door to a newly discovered tomb. He wants to know who I love so badly, yet I can never tell him.

"Nobody," I defend sharply. I open one of my chemistry textbooks at a random page, reading about the conversion of ferric oxides to ferrous oxides but quickly becoming very bored by it. I learned this shit when I was ten. I sigh, getting up to leave because honestly there is no point in staying with John when I'm only torturing myself. He's so annoying even when he doesn't mean to be. I go to my room, closing the door behind me and ignoring whatever asinine comments he is calling from the sitting room. I lean against my wall, breathing in the polluted air and the chemicals which sting my eyes despite the fact that I use them for experiments every day. The experiments help keep my mind occupied. An idle mind thinks of John, and I've thought about him enough to last a lifetime. I take out my cigarette box, the one John hid under my skull (like that would ever stop me finding it) and pull one of the log ticks out, hearing the little chafing sound it makes as cardboard creates friction with paper. I lit it with a match. I can't use a lighter. John might hear, and I don't need him worrying about me any more than he already does. Matches it is then. I wince as I remember the betrayed look on his face when I relapsed last time. I won't let him find out this time. I was stupid to involve him.

"Sherlock?" I hear John's voice and go stiff against the door, silently and stealthily flicking the bolt to lock it. "Sherlock? Let me in please. I smell smoke," John asks again, concern laced in his voice as he rattles the door handle. "...Sherlock are you in there?"

Good. He's questioning himself. I have been known to randomly leave the flat without mentioning where I am going, so hopefully he thinks that's what I've done. Eventually I hear an indistinguishable mumble of defeat and the pitter-patter of John's chaffed gait walking back down the hallway. His gait is etched, slightly stiff and the footsteps are harsh and sharp. He's wearing new shoes then. Why would he buy new shoes? Does he have a date tonight? My heart sinks. He has a date. That's it. Fuck John and fuck the relapse. Fuck being clean and having to deal with stupid emotions all the time. I pull my phone out, balancing it in my remaining fingers as I hold my cigarette and begin searching the train times in London today. I'm not going anywhere, I just like to stay up-to-date with the transport news. In case I have a case that needs me to take a train or see a train or recognise a train. Once can never be too careful. Or as John calls me. 'obsessed'. At least that's what I tell myself; The train times just calm me down.

A few hours or minutes later (I often cannot tell which one) I hear my door knock. It's John again, but I don't have a cigarette anymore (where did it go? I wonder, my phone which was in my hand the last time I checked is now on the bed) so it's safe to open the door, or as safe as if can be with John in my bedroom. Alone. With me. In the evening. In my bedroom. Is my nose bleeding?

"Sherlock just let me come in," he pleads in a groaning voice. So this isn't his first time asking. I open the door a little slowly, a little reluctantly. And he stands there wearing his jumper and his brown slacks and his new shoes that look horribly uncomfortable, one size too small. And he stares at me. Is he mad? He seems mad. I hope he won't feel the need to shout. I don't need Mrs Hudson asking if we are 'having a little domestic' again.

"Well, what do you want?" I ask, urging him to get a bloody move on so I can go back to my cigarettes and my Mind Palace.

"You've been in there for hours Sherlock. As hard as it is to believe I do miss your company when I have to spend hours and hours alone in the living room all day," He misses my company when I'm away? What does that mean?

"Ugh, fine, whatever," I walk out of the room, but as I do so I find myself being pinned to the wall, wrestled by the soldier down into the living room. He holds my arm behind my back, pushing me down over the arm of the couch. I momentarily wonder if he's going to rape me. But this is John I'm talking about. Moral code and all that. I wriggle and writhe in his grasp, groaning and screaming for him to get the hell off of me. John tugs up my shirt (looking for needle marks I assume, there are none) and I let lose a series of long, harsh sobs as he reveals my shame. Instead of seeing needle marks he sees the scars cut out of my white flesh, turning it crimson, mixing to make pink. He sees them all as I lie there in defeat, not even resisting him anymore as he peels my shirt and my trousers off to look at the red slashes all over my body.

"And just how long's this been going on for?" John asks angrily.