Bad cravings
Sherlock is having drug cravings. established relationship, 1k+ words.
It’s probably a good thing that his nails are short because he probably would have broke skin by now if they weren’t.
He had been scratching his arms for about half an hour (although it felt like it had been hours) not because they were particularly itchy but because he was desperately trying to ground his mind.
He was fighting his various addictions and John wasn’t currently at the flat to help distract him because he was at the clinic covering for a coworker that was apparently going to his third funeral this month and couldn’t work.
At the moment he so wanted to get fucked up. High, drunk, anything. The scratching wasn’t really helping much and he didn’t want to leave any real marks or John would know what had been going on and he didn’t want John to know he was having yet another “bad day” this week. It was pitiful how much he had been fighting himself to stay clean lately.
Cases had been few and far apart, most of them being simple which translates to not enough to keep his mind busy so like always he had been craving his own self-destruction.
“Fucking hell!” He yelled to the empty flat. He decided pacing wouldn’t hurt so he paced the whole flat all the way through again and again.
It felt like he was going out of his fucking mind. All he wanted to do was go out and find someone willing to deal to him. He wondered if any of his old dealers were still around. If they were he could just- no. He can’t.
‘Think about how disappointed John would be’ he told himself over and over again. He had relapsed before and the look John gave him was enough for him to truly try to get better.
He climbed the stairs to John’s old room (That had become their storage room since John had moved into his room) and walked in. He knew John had a spare handgun in his room somewhere and within minutes he had deduced where John had hidden it.
He made sure the gun was loaded before he took it downstairs. He flopped on the couch and aimed the gun at the wall and fired three times.
He set the gun down and felt the dopamine from shooting the gun. It wasn’t nearly as good as the things he was craving but it dulled the want just a bit and at the moment that was all he could ask for.
A moment later though he heard footsteps that he recognized as Mrs. Hudson’s. She gave a short knock on the door before she walked in (This was a vast improvement from her usual which she had been trying to change ever since she walked in on John and him in a… predicament)
“Mrs. Hudson,” He acknowledged.
“Sherlock! Have you been shooting the walls again?” She asked looking at the wall that now had three new bullet holes.
“No, of course not.” He said and slyly hid the gun under one of the couch pillows after putting it on safety.
“I don’t believe you, There are definitely more holes in that wall than the last time I was here.” She said and turned to him.
He saw from the way her eyes traveled that she saw the red marks on his arms from his scratching. She had known him for a long time and she also knew when he was fighting addiction.
“Tut, tut,” She said “Would you like some tea, dear?”
“That’d be lovely, Mrs. Hudson.” He was suddenly quite grateful for her barging in.
She put the kettle on the stove and then left the flat to go fetch some biscuits. After a few minutes she was back with a plate full of biscuits and she went back to making the tea.
Soon it was ready and she was pouring them both a cup. He sipped his tea feeling a bit better than earlier although he didn’t have much faith in that feeling lasting.
Mrs. Hudson talked about some dull subject that he wasn’t really listening to until he excused himself to go to the bathroom and left. When he was in the bathroom though he just stood there. The cravings were coming back and they were almost worse than before. God he wished John would get back. John always seemed to be able to get him through it.
He went back out and chit-chatted with Mrs. Hudson, trying to distract himself. Mrs. Hudson did most of the chatting once again and he tried to focus his mind on whatever she was saying but his thought kept on straying.
Just when he was close to asking Mrs. Hudson to leave so he could look for a few old phone numbers the man he had been dying to see all day walked through the front door.
“Hello, Mrs. Hudson. How are you feeling, Sherlock?” John said setting his work bag down on the table next to one of his experiments.
“Fine,” he said. He had easily deduced that Mrs. Hudson had called John at work to come home early but he didn’t even care. John had only walked through the door and was making him feel better just by his presence.
“I must be going,” Mrs. Hudson said getting up “I brought biscuits for you both.” She told John.
“Thank you,” John said sincerely.
“Any time, dear.” She said and left.
“She called you didn’t she?” He asked when she was gone.
“No, of course not. I just happened to get off early.” John said but from the way he subtly avoided eye contact he could tell he was lying.
“I know she called you,” he said.
“Fine,” John said as he took off his coat and hung it up “She did and I got someone to cover the rest of my shift so that I could make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
“Thank you.”
“What?”
“Thank you, for coming home,” he said simply.
“Shit, you’re saying thank you. The cravings are pretty bad huh?” John asked coming to sit on the couch next to him.
He leaned his head against John’s shoulder and sighed “Very bad.”
“Well, I’m with you now,” John said kissing him on the top of the head.
Even if the bad days never went away he knew John would always be by his side to help him through
