InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "To the box truck baby!"

Sherlock Holmes (reasonbackward) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2010-10-15 11:26:00

Entry tags:

!@event, !closed, john watson, sherlock holmes

WHO: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
WHAT: Sherlock has always had amazing willpower when he really wanted to. But at the moment, he no longer wants to.
WHEN: October 15th; Mid-afternoon
WHERE: Sherlock & John's flat; Sherlock's room
RATING: PG-13 [for drug use & self loathing thoughts]
STATUS: In Progress

There was a pulse in the back of Sherlock's mind telling him that he had to stay sharp, he had to stay focused, and he had to keep command over his senses long enough to figure out what was happening to the people in this city, find some way to stop it or at least hold it off for the time being. But there was another part of his mind, one that had been itching away at him for some time now but had grown immensely in scope and influence since the day before, that was insisting that anything he did would be all for naught. Like everything this city had since thrown at them, it would either be an impossible challenge with no reachable solution, or it would simply stop with no warning and about as much meaning with what it had started and would leave him just as baffled as he had been during the course of the event. What was the point in endeavouring to find a solution when there was none, or it couldn't be put into practice?

The evening before, for once, he had done as he was told. He had returned to the flat, eaten without compliant or insistence that his work was more vital, and had went to bed without so much as a glance at his current notes on the zombie situation. Sherlock had registered John's worry with every lack of protest and every obedient step that he had taken. But beyond his rather forced attempt to assure him that he would be fine via text, in person, Sherlock hadn't trusted his body to maintain the same sort of composure that words on a screen had offered him. He was anything but all right. And unlike the situation back home, where his mistake had cost people their lives, there was no game that he was forced to carry on here. All that he had now was yet another futile situation and the understanding that his stupidity had cost someone else once again.

When Sherlock had purchased the vials that were hidden in the top drawer of his nightstand, tucked just behind a set of neatly folded handkerchiefs, it had just been a matter of maintaining a situation that he'd held in his mind as being a staple to keeping himself clean. It was easy enough to resist the pull to use if he had to go through all of the efforts of acquiring the substances whenever the urges arose. He wasn't in University anymore. The providers wouldn't come to him. And he had hardly felt like he was beating an addiction if the only reason he was clean was because of something as simple as sheer laziness. So he'd kept it around. Usually just one substance, and he had measured his success by the number of times he had to replace that substance every month...three months...six months. That had varied as the years had crept on. And as Sherlock had extracted the vials of Ketamine from the drawer of his nightstand, he couldn't help but think that this was the first time he'd gotten so close to not having to replace them for a year.

But as the world slipped away from him, Sherlock couldn't really care. In the end, his willpower hadn't failed. He just didn't want to let it hold anymore.

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reasonbackward
2010-10-15 11:29 pm UTC (link)

Sherlock's head lulled to the side, eyes staring, unblinking up at John for what seemed like an eternity before they slowly shifted and fixated on his best friend's face. If Sherlock had been in better possession of his facilities, he could have easily identified the various reactions that John was having at the moment, and while Sherlock could see his friend moving between them with perhaps far more detail than he felt he might even normally, the ability to put words to it escaped him. His mind churned, working to formulate a response to John's question, as his head lulled in the other direction, pulling his gaze from his friend's.

"Whatever you like," Was the response that seemed the most reasonable. It was hardly as through Sherlock could put up much of a fight at the moment, nor would be really want to, as John's only actions would likely be to scold him and possibly roll him even father back into his bed and leave him there to sleep it off. "I had to."

That last statement wasn't entirely true. Sherlock knew that. He had more than had the option to leave it, to carry on how he had been for nearly the last year, without any chemical assistance greater than a nicotine patch, but when one wanted to block out the world and dull your circumstances, nicotine wasn't going to cut it in any dose. And that had been Sherlock's goal: to forget.

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hisbestman
2010-10-16 10:30 pm UTC (link)

John sighed. This was clearly going to be an entirely different sort of frustrating than their normal conversations were. Coming over, he sat next to Sherlock, absently stroking his friend's hair in a vaguely comforting gesture. "Well, thank god nobody was here to hear that," he said dryly. "We'd never be able to convince them we're not a couple."

He shook his head. When he spoke again, he sounded tired. "You didn't have to," he said. "You could have talked to me. I would have helped you. I'm your friend, Sherlock. That's what friends do. They help each other when life is hard. You don't need to do things like this. Maybe you used to, but you don't any more." Part of him was hurt that Sherlock hadn't let him help, even if he wasn't sure what he could have done. Instead he'd turned right to the drugs and John felt utterly useless when it came to his friend.

"How much did you take?"

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reasonbackward
2010-10-17 12:23 am UTC (link)

"Especially not with you stroking my hair," Sherlock said, the words carefully formed and tone modulated to be even and neutral. Even if it was something that likely would cause anyone that came across them to look twice and wonder, it was unlikely that anyone would come across them in Sherlock's bedroom. Besides, it felt nice, and right now, Sherlock could do with as many things that felt nice as he could possibly get. His head lulled slowly back around, eyes focusing up on John as he spoke.

Sherlock had never been ashamed of his drug use, not in the way that most people were. To him, it was simply a fact that in order to cope with everyday life, he occasionally needed a bit of chemical assistance. The crushing doldrums that came with having not activity to focus his mind upon coupled with the events and circumstances that loved to catch him off guard and force his mind to deal with things that it would rather not had forced his hand. He'd needed some sort of coping mechanism, and as he was hardly a proactive person and he was about as emotionally stunted as they come, the harmful methods had basically been the only methods available to him.

Raising an arm in a half-hearted gesture before letting it flop back down on the bed, Sherlock motioned to where he'd set the vials after filling the needle. Two 100ml bottles. One was empty. The other was half full. "150 milligrams is a perfectly acceptable dose," only it really wasn't, and he knew that. It was definitely on the high side of normal, just below the 'you're immediately unconscious' dose, and the difficulty that he was having in doing anything more than lull from side to side showed it.

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hisbestman
2010-10-17 08:34 pm UTC (link)

"I suppose we'll just have to face up to the fact that, for a heterosexual male and an arguably asexual one, we come off really terribly gay." His hand continued to move through Sherlock's hair and he sighed. It would seem he was finally getting over that hang-up. Working with Sherlock made him realise that the opinions of most people didn't really count for much in the long run. "They'll think whatever they want anyway. No real point in getting worked up over it."

He listened to Sherlock and forced himself to keep his reaction calm, in spite of his concern. Yelling wouldn't get him anywhere. "So you just wanted to experience schizophrenia for yourself then?" he asked conversationally, with just a hint of sarcasm. "Well, that's nothing to worry about at all. You've got it perfectly under control. I can't even imagine why I'm here."

He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. "You can't just do that, Sherlock," he said. "It's not healthy or right. You're going to get yourself killed if you keep it up...and that would be such a waste."

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reasonbackward
2010-10-18 03:01 am UTC (link)

Sherlock laughed, a slow, vague sort of laugh that sounded oddly detached from himself, at least to his ears, as his eyes closed, "God. You're as bad as Mycroft." There had more than a few times that his brother had just happened to show up at his dorm when he was in one of his more tragic states only to give him a similar admonishment. He was going to kill himself, destroy his mind, waste away under the heel of addiction. In fact, it had only been to spite his brother that Sherlock had actually attempted to clean himself up. He was hardly going to prove the great pain right even if it meant doing exactly what Mycroft had wanted in the end. "I know what I'm doing."

Because sometimes he just had to change the experience when he didn't like the one that he'd gotten. Besides, schizophrenia might not be so bad for an hour or so. It would certainly be different.

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