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She broke up with him over the phone.
In retrospect, that had probably been what had pissed John off the most. Most would advise someone to deal with the destruction of a two-year relationship with someone in a healthy way- by moving past them and accepting the feelings of hurt- but John; despite the fact that he was currently studying to be a medical practicioner, was fairly shite at taking good advice. So when Mary left him a text merely stating things weren’t “Working” for them, the med student decided to do what any nineteen year old might do when faced with the cruel heartbreak of rejection.
He decided to go get plastered with his mates.
He was into his sixth shot of Sambuca when Greg found him in the throng of bodies at the club, John leaning against the bar and feeling rather good about himself even as he licked his lips and tasted lime and salt. Sweat coated the bodies that undulated in front and behind the lights of the dancefloor, and to John they blurred pleasantly. He was at the stage of drunkenness now where everything was just slightly fuzzy on the edges and warm, like he was being submersed in a hot bath. That teetering edge between drunk, and blackout drunk. Greg looked radioactive with the obnoxious lime green trainers he’d bought recently, his prematurely grey-streaked hair glinting even as he navigated his way through the crowd, balancing a precarious tray of drinks on one arm.
Upon seeing John his brown eyes lit up with his raucous grin, and he set the tray down on the bar behind his rugby mate just in time, as John tried standing up to help him with the drinks and momentarily believed that the world was trying to tip him upside-down. Swaying, the blond narrowly avoided impact with the floor, caught only by Greg’s firm hands. John garbled a messy thanks, smiling up at his friend rather foolishly, his gaze owl-like and uncharacteristically carefree in his inebriation.
“Cheers.” He slurred, ignoring the way Greg chuckled at him. John’s eyes were already on the drinks beside them, his brain sluggishly calculating how much more he had to drink before he’d be on the loo floor, vomiting in the morning. He guessed to himself maybe one, two more of the light stuff, and perhaps one more shot if he was feeling particularly ambitious. He was just making to reach for another, resigning himself to his fate (vomiting was a problem for “future Watson” not the current one) when Greg’s arm barred his path. The teen clucked in refusal, steering John gently towards a seat.
“None of that now, you’ve had enough. These are for me n’ Mike, if I can ever find the bastard. I’m calling you a cab. Should’ve known not to let your friends convince you that drinking would be a good idea tonight.”
“Seems l’ke good idea righ now.” John retorted, attempting to sound confident and instead just coming across as mildly incomprehensible. He didn’t need a cab. What he needed was something distracting, another drink or a dance with a pretty girl. Or a boy. Yeah, that last one sounded fun, John hadn’t indulged in a while. The thought made him giggle happily, unaware that he looked vaguely stupid to his friend’s knowing gaze. Greg merely shook his head, sighing through his teeth and muttering something that sounded vaguely like John’s last name under his breath. The silver-haired teen began rifling in his pocket for his phone, hunting for his phone. Upon finding it the blue-white screen lit up Greg’s features, making him appear ghostly even as he hunted in his contact lists for a cab company he trusted. All the while his friend kicked his heels against the legs of the bar stool Greg had sat him down upon, offering slurred explanations and defenses as to why he most definitely wasn’t sloshed.
That was an issue with John: Even when completely plastered, he very rarely ever admitted to himself that he was actually drunk.
It was as Greg was holding the phone to his ear, listening to the ringing of the dial tone that the booming music and crowd gave way to Mike Stamford. Mike was a fellow med student with John, and had a love for food and drink that without his metabolism would likely leave him in trouble with his weight. As it stood he was average sized, not thin but by no means fat, and his blue eyes sparked with mirth even as he accosted Lestrade, telling him with drunken cheer all about his night so far. A chatterbox at heart, Mike had a talent for distracting the silver-haired teen just by running his mouth. Drunken John watched this, blearily noticing the moment when Greg turned his back on him. A whisper of drunken opportunity glowed in his mind: Escape.
Sober John would regret that decision. Then again, sober John wasn’t there. The thundering music as it turned out provided the perfect muffling of John’s footsteps, even when plastered. Poor Greg would have never have stood a chance.
****
The night was blue-black with stars and cigarette smoke in Sherlock’s eyes, the thin teen staring up at the sky and exhaling dragon’s smoke in tendrils that wisped about his dark curls and clung to his frame. Blue eyes fluttered closed, blinking sleepily once before pale hands lowered to drop the burning cigarette onto the pavement. Sherlock crushed the ashy remains under his heel, drawing his coat more tightly about himself, trembling from the cold. Sherlock cursed winter and all it had to bring, the wind feeling as though it was eating through his very bones. He itched for another cigarette, or perhaps something stronger, but damn it all of he was going to suffer through this kind of weather to get it.
It was this thought that lead the detective to wander towards his flat, a small and shabby hole in the wall that he rented with Victor. Broken beer bottles were strewn across the pavement, collecting with bits of trash and various other kipple that left shadows along the brickwork like whispering children in the dark. Sherlock himself was a shade, a being made up of angles and sharp contrasts, blacks and pale, pale whites.
He came to his own door and rifled his pockets for keys, only to pause as sharp blue eyes narrowed towards the upper floor. His flat’s window was open, though Sherlock knew for a fact that Victor would not be home this evening (out with a woman, man… someone) and he hadn’t left it open on his way out for a smoke. The fire ladder made the window just reachable, if someone were willing (or stupid enough) to jump the last bit and scramble inside. Sherlock frowned, sighing through his teeth and rolling his eyes.
Trust tonight of all nights (when he wasn’t high and didn’t have an experiment on the go) to be when a thief would try to rob him of what little he had.
****
John’s original goal had been to try and walk himself back to his flat, or at least make it to the tube station. That was before he drunkenly realised just how cold it was outside without his coat, and how dark. Shivering and suddenly miserable, the teen found himself stumbling along, an awkward shamble that had no real direction other than warmth and safety. It made sense then that the teen somewhat blearily made the connection between indoors and “safe”, seeing an unlocked window as a shining beacon of potential that normally “sober” John would have been disinclined to follow up with. Truth be told, the gap between the fire exit and the window provided only a mild inhibitor, and it was one the teen easily ignored, days at the gym serving him well even if his own sobriety didn’t.
Once inside, John found himself noting that he was possibly in one of the shabbier ends of london, as what greeted him was a sight that would have made most medical practitioners cringe, or possibly call the cops. The most immediate and probably disturbing thing was the mess, a veritable cornucopia of illegal paraphernalia that made the teen pause, gaping slightly. Needles were laid out in meticulous order, next to bundles of white powder, blunts and tablets that John admittedly couldn’t identify. What was more, beakers held mysterious and bubbling fluids, all sitting haphazardly across the hardwood. John was fairly certain that on his way to the cluttered oasis that was the stranger’s bed that he tripped over one, the contents spilling out and hissing across the floor like a startled cat. Acid, the med student in him so helpfully supplied.
It was only just now that John hazily admitted to himself that he might be just a little bit sloshed. Okay… a lot. Sitting on the deep blue comforter, the teen could admit that he was out of his depth, and that he wasn’t really sure he could climb back out the window without passing out. This thought sent vague distress through him, and it was only magnified as he heard the muffled sound of a door opening below, alerting him to the owner of said flat’s return. John felt an inkling of panic surge, and he wondered to himself what kind of person lived in this kind of squalor, and how they’d take to uninvited guests. All he had wanted was to forget about Mary, and now he was in this mess.
With that thought, John was horrified to find tears come to his eyes. He hadn’t cried since he had been in grade school, but the combination of alcohol and heartbreak was doing funny things to his emotional state. The hot shame of it caused his cheeks to heat, and Sherlock came into his own room just in time to see a nearly fully-grown young man begin bawling at the foot of his bed in complete and total abandon of all protocol and grace.
For a precious few seconds, all that could be heard was the loud and piercings sobs of John Watson crying, and Sherlock’s quiet breath as he stood frozen like a deer caught in the headlights with his fingers still wrapped around the doorknob of his bedroom. It was strangely loud, even as eventually John managed to quiet some of his crying to overly-loud sniffling, and Sherlock slowly but surely managed to get his brain online just enough to clear his throat, his spine straightening as he found the words to snap
“Oh do stop that!”
He was somewhat embarrassed that his voice didn’t come out controlled and callous, but rather slightly distressed and pleading. No, not embarrassment, more like second-hand shame on behalf of the man sitting before him, as the stranger was obviously far too inebriated to even care what he looked like at that moment. Not that he looked ugly, far from it truth be told, but the detective knew that in all likelihood the man if sober probably would have been slightly ashamed that his nose was running, and that his face was as red as a strawberry. He did at least attempt to stop crying at Sherlock’s stern admonishment, though tears still welled at the corner of his eyes, making blue irises look deep and huge in a face that seemed at once too young and too old.
John found through his tears that he was regarding the man before him in much the same manner. He was stick-thin, pale and with deep circles under his eyes that spoke of being a junkie. Long, tapered hands reached up to flick on the lightswitch, and John winced in affrontation even as he managed to scramble himself together enough to begin some approximation of an apology. Sherlock couldn’t quite understood what the man was saying, but it sounded like an approximation of
“Got lost, house warm, m’cold.” After a good solid minute and a half of mumbling, Sherlock noticed that the young man started to sniff again, eyes watering. To ward off another bout of tears, the detective held up a hand for silence. He found himself less angry than he should have been, in retrospect. Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was rapidly becoming abundantly clear that the stranger in his bed hadn’t had the slightest intention of robbing him.
It was this thought that lead the detective to be… lenient, in his judgement.
“Leave. Now.”
John looked at the man before him, blinking owlishly in surprise. He hadn't expected the man's voice to be so deep. Or for him to be such an arse. Although, he supposed he might deserve it. After a moment, the message got through, and the teen looked at his own legs as if they were foreign to him. Sherlock would admit later to himself that he should have seen it coming when the blond teen stood on wobbly feet, looking momentarily impressed with himself, then promptly turned sickly white as a sheet. Sherlock couldn’t stop it, merely watch in a kind of slow-motion, fascinated horror as the stranger doubled over, vomiting loudly all over his bedroom floor in a projectile stream that landed on the edge of the comforter and John’s shoes.
John to his credit, managed to stay upright for about five more seconds afterwards, long enough to look up at the man with dark curls (and they were kind of pretty, under the layer of grease and grime) and utter a weak, kitten-like “m’sorry.”
He then collapsed, knees sliding out from him, narrowly avoiding the puddle of his own vomit. Sherlock convinced himself that he moved forward out of instinct, catching the teen’s slumped form before John hit his head against the hardwood. The blond teen blacked out to the image of frost-blue eyes boring into his own, and cupid’s-bow lips pursing in some kind of insult towards his intelligence, and possibly his stamina. Those long hands were cool against his cheek, John thought to himself. Then he was drifting, the world tilting itself upside down.
He fell into blackness, and it was strangely soothing.
****
John dreamed he was chasing a honey bee, its wings humming brightly in the hollowed out gorge of a meadow filled with green grass and summer sky. John was eight again, running with the kind of boneless, carefree energy small children had. The grass was shifting colours, giving clue to his dream-like state. The blades shifted the colours of a rave, neon purples, silvers, blacks and blues that refracted and caught the sun in dazzling brightness.
Somewhere in the distance, the high trill of a violin played. It sounded as if it were coming from the bee’s wings. John was suddenly older, dancing hand in hand with another. It was no longer the bee he was chasing, but a golden-haired girl with twinkling fair eyes and a sardonic smile. Mary laughed, her giggle ringing like a bell even as John twirled her, feeling elation. She was so happy. He was so happy.
Yet even in his dreams, that happiness didn’t seem to last. Mary kept twirling, dancing out of sight, and John’s feet despite his desperation, couldn’t follow.
Instead, he found a new partner, dancing with him. A masked figure, dressed in black and with a head of dark curls. When the man spoke, it was like a whip-crack of thunder.
“John Watson.”
John woke to a splitting headache, and to a slightly dirty comforter wrapped about him like a cocoon. If anyone had told the med student that he would one day have wild badgers claw their way into his skull, John would have laughed, then imagined it exactly the way he was feeling right about then. He groaned, the sound reverberating in his own head and making him feel only about a thousand times worse. Licking his dry, chapped lips, John vaguely scented the air and woozily came to recognise that the sharp tang of tobacco and something greasily delicious was unfamiliar to him and yet not entirely unwelcome.
He woke to the somewhat soothing sounds of another human being typing on a laptop, and a low, rumbling voice murmuring “Sherlock Holmes. Ignore the mess.”
It was instinctive that John covered a hand over his face, groaning “John Watson. I’m dying.” He didn't look around, didn't want to know. He vaguely remembered heroin needles. Though he was sure he hadn't taken any.
There was the presence of a small, uncharacteristic smile in Sherlock’s voice was he replied. “I know. And no, you’re just very hungover.”
The laptop closed with a click.
“Fuck... We didn’t shag, did we?”