Sherlock Holmes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
notquiteheartless) wrote2012-07-27 09:15 pm
notquiteheartless) wrote2012-07-27 09:15 pm
Deduction 8 - [ action / audio ]
[Sherlock Holmes almost laughed when he opened his eyes. Seemed his nanny had finally gotten tired of his self-appointed task. The chair John Watson had occupied last night -- and nearly every third night this month -- was empty.
Sherlock had to be amused at the sincerity with which the doctor had clung to his task. He had been so determined to find some method of making his charge fall asleep without letting him resort to the proven opiates.
Doxepin? An utter failure. Vicious, bloody nightmares rendered what sleep the detective managed pointless. Nothing else had really taken hold, either.
But the latest attempt. Zolpidem. Not as effective as morphine or heroin might have been, but Sherlock knew he'd slept a dreamless six hours. The most promising results so far, certainly.
Sherlock went into the main room of the flat to report, but... something was wrong. That it was empty was odd enough, but it went beyond that. Little things were gone. Insignificant pieces in the whole, but he noticed. How could he not? All of them were John's things, too.
He went down the hall of the flat and opened the door. Bed made, perfectly crisp and tidy. But nothing else. Not even the clock by the bed John had used. All of it was gone. The walls were white, not the pale tan he'd helped paint them.
He tried twice to make a filtered message to John over the Journal before hurriedly crossing out the words when the filter refused to work.
Sherlock Holmes accepted the truth and returned to the main room. If he had to pry up every floorboard in the place, he would. He doubted that would prove necessary. An average mind was easy to outwit.]
[It's evening before Sherlock turns on the Journal to address Luceti.
He's sulking in an empty flat on the top floor of Community House Two. A small dish in front of him has twelve cigarette butts -- a cheap American brand -- in it, smoked down to the filters. A thirteenth is half finished and in his hand.
There isn't much to say. There are no explanations to give, deductions to reveal, or clues to interpret. There is just one simple fact.
Perhaps that's why it's so hard to say.]
John Watson's gone.
Sherlock had to be amused at the sincerity with which the doctor had clung to his task. He had been so determined to find some method of making his charge fall asleep without letting him resort to the proven opiates.
Doxepin? An utter failure. Vicious, bloody nightmares rendered what sleep the detective managed pointless. Nothing else had really taken hold, either.
But the latest attempt. Zolpidem. Not as effective as morphine or heroin might have been, but Sherlock knew he'd slept a dreamless six hours. The most promising results so far, certainly.
Sherlock went into the main room of the flat to report, but... something was wrong. That it was empty was odd enough, but it went beyond that. Little things were gone. Insignificant pieces in the whole, but he noticed. How could he not? All of them were John's things, too.
He went down the hall of the flat and opened the door. Bed made, perfectly crisp and tidy. But nothing else. Not even the clock by the bed John had used. All of it was gone. The walls were white, not the pale tan he'd helped paint them.
He tried twice to make a filtered message to John over the Journal before hurriedly crossing out the words when the filter refused to work.
Sherlock Holmes accepted the truth and returned to the main room. If he had to pry up every floorboard in the place, he would. He doubted that would prove necessary. An average mind was easy to outwit.]
[It's evening before Sherlock turns on the Journal to address Luceti.
He's sulking in an empty flat on the top floor of Community House Two. A small dish in front of him has twelve cigarette butts -- a cheap American brand -- in it, smoked down to the filters. A thirteenth is half finished and in his hand.
There isn't much to say. There are no explanations to give, deductions to reveal, or clues to interpret. There is just one simple fact.
Perhaps that's why it's so hard to say.]
John Watson's gone.
Re: [voice] - [filtered 90%]
[voice] - [filtered 90%]
But to do that, I need to focus.
[Find work.
Keep working.
There were a hundred uses for the stimulants.]
I need something to help me focus, Molly.
[To let logic reign and emotion be suffocated. To go back. Back to working alone. Back to before Stamford had walked into the laboratory in Bart's with a newly discharged soldier with a psychosomatic limp.
To return to the days of being able to call himself a high-functioning sociopath.]
Re: [voice] - [filtered 90%]
It won't fix it. It won't bring John back.
[voice] - [filtered 90%]
It will help.
[Calm. A breath. Calm.]
Do you know why it's prescribed? What the general theory behind it is?
[He's almost sure the answer is yes. But he wants to call her attention to it. Make a rational case for what he wants.]
Re: [voice] - [filtered 90%]
But he asks her something else, and she can see where he's going. It's in how she answers.]
It's a stimulant. Helps people stay alert and--focused.
But Sherlock, if you really need it, really, can't you go to one of the doctors?
[voice] - [filtered 90%]
[Rational. Medical.]
I don't think they'd prescribe it. Because I don't actually have ADD. Which is its most common usage.
You know me, Molly. My mind doesn't work like everyone else's. [It's not even arrogance. Not in this moment, presented as it is.]
So the same diagnoses that work for others don't work for me. I've had to do my own experimenting.
Dextroamphetamine isn't the most effective thing I've found, but taken in increments of twenty milligrams, it will work, at least.
Re: [voice] - [filtered 90%]
He's hurting. He wants to escape the pain.
My mind doesn't work like everyone else's.
Twenty milligrams at a time. He's asked her for five doses. Five.
At least five. Five this time, and how many more after if she says yes?]
Sherlock. I've done a lot for you before. I still would do almost anything for you.
[Almost.]
But not this. Everything you're saying makes sense, and I know that, but it's not--it won't work. Not really.
[Not in the way he'll need.]
I'm sorry. I can't.
[voice] - [filtered 90%]
He had his classifications. Bad, decent, and good.
Molly had always hovered at the high end of "decent." Too willing to bend to the wills of others for whatever reason-- flattery, authority, logic-- to really be good. But now.
The small smile on his face doesn't come through in his tone, and he has his face upturned, watching the smoke he's blowing out. His voice is even, every bit the impartial scientist.]
All right.
[No argument, no shouting. He isn't emotional. One bit at a time, that's his strategy. Disconnect.
Besides. There are other people. Other ways to get what he wants.]
Re: [voice] - [filtered 90%]
She isn't sure what she expects to hear before he speaks. Something angry. Some snide comment, a cheap shot at her taste in men or her breast size. Maybe nothing new and creative.
But there's nothing except two words, and quiet acceptance.]
Sherlock.
[It isn't right. None of it. Molly takes in a deep breath. Her voice isn't at all even like his.]
Don't do this.
[voice] - [filtered 90%]
"All lives end. All hearts break. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock."
"I will burn the heart out of you."
"I've been reliably informed I don't have one."
"But we both know that's not quite true, don't we?"
Sherlock deposits the butt of the cigarette and doesn't immediately grab another one.
He wants to work. He wants to sleep. Stimulant or depressant. Cocaine or heroin. Something. Something to break out of this... stagnation.
...He still has a vial of potassium cyanide...]
Don't do what?
[And Jim Moriarty is still a threat.]