The stage is set, the curtain rises. We are ready to begin.
~
The lights. The music. The people. The money. The rush.
John craved everything, all the time.
That was before Sherlock.
In his veins, there was no blood. Just liquefied rubies rushing in circles through his body, to his pearl fingertips, his gold hair, his sapphire irises. Everything he touched became a mine of perfection, just waiting to be exploited and sold to every crevice in society.
That was before Sherlock.
When John tried to recall a good life before Sherlock, he failed. Because in this life, he had never held something so precious in his hands as a single silky chestnut curl or a perfectly sculpted alabaster jaw.
After he met Sherlock, it was never enough. Lights became unwelcome spotlights. Music became noise. People became ragdolls. Money became worthless.
The rush was still there, though. Just a hundred times stronger.
They were incandescent. The wick had been set aflame - a raging hellfire that they knew would shatter their ordinary lives.
But a flame that blazes so bright is never meant to last.
A story of morbid, freakish love and bitter revenge that challenges the rules of the nineteenth century.
Cover credits: @anonymiae (SHE IS UNDOUBTEDLY THE BEST)
(Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from BBC Sherlock. All that brilliant stuff came from Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Any real life resemblances are purely for fictional purposes.)
"Detective Holmes, does your job ever cause you troubles that might lead to consuming drugs?"
"I never have troubles with my job." Sherlock said, holding John's penetrating gaze without flinching.
"Neither family issues, nor anything related with your job. Perhaps unrequited love, then?"
***
Sherlock Holmes relies on many things to keep his supreme mind rational. Murder cases, for instance, provide him the adrenaline required to persist in sanity without falling into an abyss of dullness. Morphine serves as a tranquilizer for his untamable fact processing brain. Cocaine is a fine source of dopamine and fills in the hole of emptiness dug by the lack of intellectual crimes.
To an outsider, he would fit labels like drug addict, sociopath, maniac, freak, but Sherlock thought he had attained a fairly satisfying equilibrium in life.
But that was until he his brother stepped in, and John Watson became his therapist...
And his flatmate.
And a very alarming problem.
⚠️ Warning : mentions of drugs