Still The Addict

Needle Point

(John POV)

Mycroft answers the phone and I notice his frantic breathing. Now I'm not much of a detective, but I can tell Mycroft knows what is going on. He must have bugged our house recently. I really hope he hasn't installed a camera in our bathroom like last time...

"Sherlock told Sarah, then," Mycroft speaks down the phone in a smug yet concerned voice. I roll my eyes.

"Great deduction skills," I'm really not the sarcastic one in the relationship between Sherlock and I, but I'm the only one who can actually understand sarcasm. He just makes it without knowing. Mycroft can just make it yet I think he knows when he's making it.

"Actually I have cameras planted all over your house. We're tracking Sherlock now but...it is proving difficult," Mycroft has to admit. His brother is a keen geographer and knows everything inch of London probably better than anyone. If anyone knows how to evade detection it is Sherlock. And that's really frustrating for me and Mycroft when we can't find him. Don't know if he's okay. But I have to believe in Sherlock. Have to believe he'll be okay. For now all I can do iS wait to hear word back from Mycroft and comb Sherlock's usual hiding spots. I hang up the phone.

His most unknown hiding spot - the one only Anderson knew about - is Lorrister Gardens. He owns a house there - well the front of a house. So I checked there. Nothing. Not like I actually expected to find anything. But still; this was all I could think about. The only place he could be part from some unknown crackden that even Mycroft had no clue about. Sherlock knows every street in London, and this is one of those times when I wish he didn't.

I did this. I make him miserable. I might have killed him. I did it.

"Don't be so narcissistic," comes a voice from beside me.

"Mycroft?!" I turn and splutter. "How did you-?!" Oh right the security cameras. "You can read minds?!"

Mycroft raises an eyebrow in slightly amusement, trying his best to hide the worry behind his mask. "You know you said that out loud, right?"

"...Oh,"

"Yes. And as I said; don't be so narcissistic.  Sherlock Holmes was born miserable. He has been traumatised, isolated. Hurt. You aren't special. This would have happened whether you had become his...life partner...or not. All his relationships end with one person being burned at the stake. And very rarely is it someone other than Sherlock himself," Mycroft scoffed slightly, and bright out an antique lighter, igniting the end of a low-tar cigarette. "I'd do anything to protect him, but this one's on him,"

I growl slightly, not accepting Mycroft's answer. Protecting Sherlock is all I've ever wanted to do as well. Mycroft acts like he's some kind of saint for looking out for his younger brother. It's like Sherlock is our child and Mycroft and I are his divorced parents, not even being able to cooperate when everything goes to shit and our bratty son decides to run away. I'll find Sherlock myself. Mycroft doesn't know him half as well as I do. I take off running, hailing a taxi at the end of the street. I do have one lead Mycroft won't be insightful enough to follow.

(Sherlock's POV)

I stand inter doorway, watching. Deducing. The footpath in front of me is worn; many people have travelled this road before me, then. A little spot of blood on the rail. Hasn't been cleaned off. Nobody's even tried. This is a doorway I have walked through so many times, and each time I promise it shall be my last. I hesitate for less than a second before knocking. I know this is what I want to do. No, what I need to do. The only thing that'll make John nothing more than a faded half-delusion. A memory I won't even know is real. "Shezza," I look up at my...college in crime. The gives me a toothless , and I give him one back. He leads me through.

I've passed this threshold. There's nothing more to be done. The door closes behind me. I scale the winding staircase, lined with graffiti both beautiful and crude. I've always had an appreciation for beautiful graffiti, the kind with a meaning that captures your soul. That inspires you.  I reach the top, and open the first door, revealing people on grubby mattresses surrounded by paraphernalia. I've never met them before, by after this day we'll be closer than ever.

I sit down, revelling in the dust and darkness, dampness on the walls seeping through my skin, into my lungs. The self destruction I need. So as to feel excited for just one second. I pick the needle up, watching the point glitter, coated in the blood of another. And I inject. And John Watson no longer exists.

Sorry this is so late! 😓