Secrets Aren't Made Slowly

We're Not Here For a Long Time, Or a Good One

Sherlock POV: Sherlock had spent how many years learning the same message, in every health class he's ever heard, from any adult who came within a ten mile radius, from his landlady about every ten minutes...drugs are bad. You think if that message even mattered to him he might heed their warnings, and yet there were so many things those speakers weren't taking into account. First of all, those hypocritical b*stards weren't remembering back to that one time in high school when they went to a cool kid party and smoked a little bit of weed, or that time when they bought a pack of cigarettes just so fit in with the kids at work who smoked in the store room, or Mrs. Freaking Hudson who literally blazed it every other week to try to 'sooth her hip'. Maybe they thought that by spreading the good word they could somehow erase what they had done, or maybe they thought they could change him with their little mottos, hugs not drugs, math not meth, you won't do misdeeds if you don't smoke the weeds. Okay we're just making these up now and yet you get the point, yes? They were hypocrites, and yet for some reason they thought that they ought to share the wisdom that they learned from their pipe smoking grandfather, or their alcoholic gym teacher, drugs are bad. Ya, I think we got that by now. Secondly, those very people probably never found themselves in a situation that they'd probably just rather be high. They've probably not found themselves in a permanent situation where they saw absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel, those idiots were probably already basking in the sunlight while Sherlock tunneled farther and farther, and yet drugs were bad, why don't you just face reality? The one you messed up on, the one you destined yourself to, the misery! If he couldn't change his life he felt as though he at least some entitlement to putting it on pause, he felt as though just one puff or one injection was pretty much what he deserved for going through every waking moment surrounded by idiots. Well maybe it was more like one puff a minute, or one injection every four hours, to be honest he didn't really remember what it felt like to be normal. It felt pretty crappy to be honest. Oh no, don't worry, poor Sherlock isn't always high! No he's drunk sometimes, too. When he felt the need to be a little bit healthy. And that's how he suffered through class every day, with his school issued mug filled with vodka, staring at the desks before him with a blank expression, trying to think, trying to do most everything, trying to ignore the annoying chatter of the kids around him. It was horrible, and even worse...it was his job.
"Mr. Holmes, aren't we going over the homework?" asked one of the anxious little nerds in the front, his braces sticking out as he grinned and displayed what was left of his lunch, caked onto the corners of his lips. Disgusting.
"Homework?" Sherlock murmured, rubbing his eyes and blinking towards the class, all who seemed to have the same worksheet in front of them...oh dear he had the same in front of him, too! So they must be doing something.
"You stopped for a moment." the nerd clarified.
"I stopped? I silly me, silly me. Now um, what question were we going over?" Sherlock murmured almost sarcastically, he hated these horrible children before him, and yet none of them could even tell that his grimace was just that. They all thought he genuinely enjoyed his job.
"Number twelve, we were finding the integral of e to the..." the nerd started, and yet Sherlock held up a finger to shush him, nodding his curly head before getting out of his seat abruptly and going up to the chalkboard, grabbing a piece of blue chalk and proceeding to put the problem on the board. This class was the highest level calculus, some sort of advanced placement nonsense, and yet they couldn't even integrate properly. Weren't they supposed to be intelligent? And yet here Sherlock was now, doing this simply problem on the board, these kids were in twelfth year for crying out loud and yet not one could even figure out the integral of e to the power of x! Okay so maybe that was partially Sherlock's fault, for as a teacher he was sort of supposed to be teaching them, and not just doing problems on the board at his own speed and expecting them to follow along despite almost no instruction at all... Oh you know what? They could just go crying to their rich parents, he was tired alright? It had been a rough night, as usual, fighting with his bloody wife, fighting with his bloody dealer, fighting with his usually kind and yet annoyed at the screaming landlady...it had just been a lot of fighting. And it wasn't like Sherlock had been in a clear state of mind throughout the entire ordeal. This was just what his life had led up to I suppose, quarrels with people you hate (expect for Mrs. Hudson, his landlady, for she was one of the few people he could actually stand). As for Janine, well she was a piece of work entirely. Man what a mistake he had made when he got married to her (they had both been a little bit out of whack that night, Sherlock had forgotten that he decided he was gay a while back, and Janine forgot that she hated him). There was no sort of intimacy between them, in fact all they did was share a bank account, an apartment, and a couple of stashes in case one of them went broke. He hated her, God he couldn't stand the sight of her, or the smell of her, or the sound of her voice, or the wheezing in her breathing, women were just so burdensome. What had been on his mind that night was beyond him, it was most certainly something very concerning, a very good trip where the world seemed amazing and full of opportunities, or a bad one where he had decided to just settle to his parent's wishes. He was only twenty eight and yet they seemed to think that he needed to marry in order to inherit anything, and so he had latched onto the one women he knew would totally be okay with being kicked to the other side of the bed if she got too close, and with that he ensured that when his old parents finally croak he'd get a little bit more money for the good stuff. As for his dealer, there was just another person he couldn't stand. Victor Trevor, the shadiest man on the block, he literally stood in dark allies and waited for people to come to him, he always smelled like trash because of it, and he went knocking to Sherlock's door every week because he knew that by then he'd be running low. The thing is Victor didn't just take cash, and that was the good thing about having a wife that didn't care about you. She'd get out of the way when Sherlock used the alternate methods of paying, and she'd always pickpocket Victor's jacket and jeans that he left behind at the doorway. It was a pitiful life, of course it was, and so why on earth should Sherlock remain sober for it? When the class ended the bell rang, and finally it was time to let out and yet Sherlock wasn't allowed to go just yet. Teachers were required to stay after and 'grade papers' or 'go over lesson plans', more like just stare at a wall for the next twenty minutes until finally they were given the okay to skedaddle. It was only too easy for Sherlock to space out, he had been needing to for a while, and yet just as he sat back in his chair and stared at the finally empty desks before him there was a knock on the door, a knock that could only be one person at this time of day.
"Ah, Molly Hooper." Sherlock groaned, blinking as the door opened. And there she was, as if on cue, with her yellow sunshine jumper and a great big smile. She was the only normal person Sherlock knew, or at least...the only clean one. She was a legitimate drugs pacifist, Sherlock had even asked her as a joke and she claimed to have only ever taken vitamins. Now only a good person counted vitamins as a drug, and so he was quite sure she was clean. Sometimes it was nice to be around that kind of clean spirit, and other times it was just...pitiful. How could she really smile without self-medication? Was she one of the few that actually enjoyed their life? Unheard of, purely.
"Oh Sherlock, you know I hate it when you use my full name. Sounds too formal." Molly insisted, skipping inside with her bright yellow heels (they looked ghastly with that sweater) and perching on one of the student's desk in front of him.
"I think it sounds nice. Your name rolls off the tongue." Sherlock admitted with a shrug.
"Yours doesn't." Molly murmured, looking almost ashamed at having to state such an obvious fact.
"My parents blessed me with the one name that made the substitutes stutter. In a world of Toms and Matts and Davids, they had to name me Sherlock." Sherlock groaned, letting his head fall forward in mock agony, for surely his name wasn't the worst thing about his life at any given moment of time.
"Oh well don't complain now, it's a beautiful name, it's very unique." Molly insisted.
"Like me." Sherlock muttered, finishing the sentence before she could even try that same line he had been hearing for the past twenty eight years, everyone trying to justify his name for him.
"Just like you." Molly agreed with a smile.
"It's not like I don't like it. I was just making an observation." Sherlock murmured, to which Molly nodded, swinging her short little legs off of the desk again and looking about the room as if there was something there that interested her. There was nothing, of course, for unlike most of the teachers Sherlock didn't like to hang posters, he didn't like encouraging smiling animals in bowties or children with glasses or cartoon cats, no the walls were bare, just the way he had found them.
"I don't understand you Sherlock, I really don't." Molly admitted with a little sigh, as if not understanding someone bothered her.
"Ya well, get in line." Sherlock sighed.
"Who's in that line?" Molly wondered immediately, leaning forward and pulling her ponytail around her shoulders so as to fiddle with the end of it while she stared at him through her thick glasses. Sherlock sighed, forcing out a little laugh before pretending to count of people on his fingers.
"Well just about everyone I've ever met, and me I suppose. I suppose I'd be first in line." Sherlock admitted.
"You don't understand yourself?" Molly asked, sounding pitiful and concerned as if Sherlock's tragedy really had any impact on her infinite supply of happiness.
"No of course not, I do stupid stuff all the time. I am the definition of stupid stuff." Sherlock insisted.
"And yet you probably have some reasoning?" Molly clarified with a blink.
"Ya I've got reasoning." Sherlock grumbled, and yet without answering and without clearing anything up about what that might be he just picked up his mug and took a swig, wincing as the vodka scalded down his throat, and yet Molly still looked confused.
"How's Janine?" she wondered finally, as if trying to forcefully change the topic. Molly and Janine had met only once, when Molly decided that she and her husband Tom should have the Holmes couple over for dinner. It had been nice...I guess. Nothing exciting to report, no tragedies either. And yet ever since then she kept asking about her, as if Sherlock actually knew how his stupid wife was. He never asked about her wellbeing and she never bothered to even look at him, and so what did it really matter?
"Terrible." Sherlock said truthfully.
"Terrible? Is she sick or something?" Molly asked with a gasp, for of course that was not the answer she was looking for.
"No, not sick." Sherlock said with a shrug.
"Family troubles then, a relative is sick?" Molly guessed, still looking genuinely concerned.
"No, everything's fine. I just don't like her." Sherlock admitted once more. Molly just laughed, she always laughed when he said how much he hated his wife, she acted as if that was just normal every day marital conversation, whining about your spouse, wishing they were dead, declaring your burning hatred for them every chance you got, that oblivious woman still laughed! As if Sherlock's suffering was some sort of joke.
"Ya like I said...you really make no sense at all." Molly decided rather thoughtfully, as if she was trying to finally understand Sherlock here and now. She had no chance of course, and she really never would have one. Finally, however, Sherlock's watch struck the most beautiful time, the time when he was allowed to leave, and with that beautiful strike of the clock he got to his feet abruptly, grabbing his mug and briefcase and bidding Molly good day, not really giving a second thought to if she might have wanted to finish their conversation or not. No he just ushered her out of his classroom on the pretenses of actually having something to do, and when she finally vanished into her own classroom he made a mad dash for the door before she could trap him in the entry way and make him suffer all the way out to their cars, talking about cats and wives and sunshine. Sherlock preferred much more minimal conversational topics, preferably silence. And that's why he left her behind. When Sherlock arrived home there was no sort of congratulatory precision, no one opened the door with trumpets, to butlers bowed him in, in fact he had to take five or so minutes on the stoop patting down his pockets and trying to remember where he had put his key. Unlike most organized and sane for the most part people, Sherlock didn't have a spot for his keys, they wandered around, did their own thing, usually he kept his house key on a lanyard and yet that wasn't very helpful when he couldn't find that lanyard either. And so he just banged on the door repeatedly, ringing the doorbell and whining until at last he heard footsteps approaching. It was a two apartment complex, and so there were only two people that could be approaching. Judging on the time, however, Sherlock was quite sure who he expected to greet him.