Chapter Text
City sounds surrounded and filled the dark, dank alcove. Sirens wailed and their lights illuminated the room as they moved. Trains and cars flew past, people aboard whom had a set destination unlike the detached, desolate hull of a man who laid curled tightly like his bleeding fists on a stained, odious, and repugnant excuse of a mattress. His thick, dark hair was soaked with sweat and was matted. The man's face bore stubble (of which was also laden with sweat), as his last shave had been previous to his last fix, which was approximately 78 hours prior. The aforementioned sounds and lights went unnoticed by the man, everything felt fog-like and muddled, everything was hazy and thick to him. He felt heavy and nearly paralyzed, his body seemingly filled with lead, and he drifted in and out of consciousness, going from states bordering on comatose to moments where everything was sharp and felt. These wavering throes so unstable and fluctuating made his body uncertain of how to respond and so it simply did not, going limp and lifeless but then unexpectedly coiling and contorting with a feeling that was indescribable by any means of language. The apathetic man found it humorous, after all he deserved this, he had caused pain to the ones who cared about him so selflessly, he had lied to them, to them he was dead and if it was any consolation, he wished he was.
At some point in time, not too far after, he began to shake. The tremors overtook his body with such vehement force that he lay helpless, unable to ironically shake them. His chassis was convoluted with convulsions. And what had caused this despicable man to become a hollow husk; it was his true hamartia: cocaine.
Subsequent to the shaking and following the fever, arrived the hunger. He was quite literally starving and this fact was made both evident and obvious by his sickly thin body. Ribs and joints nearly protruded from his pale, diaphanous skin, which was plentifully bestrewn with veins. The ghostly man had been oblivious to his hunger until now but now it was as if a swarm of wasps had simultaneously hatched in his stomach and were furious. To him it was no simile, in his haze he started to believe, how ever incredulous it might be, that an aggregation of the stinging, piercing insects had collected in him. Dirtied, calloused hands began to claw and lacerate his bony, bruised abdomen, causing a voice to rise up his bile-coated throat and let out a series screams.
When his voice became nonextant, he lay, immobile sifting through the indistinguishable debris and remains of what was once his “mind palace”. It was utter disarray, so completely obliterated that even the most basic memories and facts were lost. The man pathetically could not even recall his own name, only the fact that it was painfully common. Something mediocre like Christopher, or Matthew. Maybe Joseph, Joshua, John?
John.
JOHN.
It was if the name triggered a siren in his head, causing his eyes to fly open widely and his breath to stop in his throat, forcing him to emit a choking noise. His mind palace was flooded with a monsoon of memories of the beautiful, selfless creature that was John Watson. Tiny details recollected with such precision it was almost as if he was right there in front him. The man wanted to sob, so thankful for at least the memory of the sandy-haired man who cared about him unequivocally and unconditionally. The man who stayed by his side through his rampant and portentous exploits. The already traumatized man whom of which he had forced to watch as he plummeted to his “death”. The man whom he failed. The man whom he would never get to see let alone love.
These thoughts were too much for the fiend, reminding him all too much as to why he had begun shooting up the narcotics once again. He needed another fix, he had to have it. The man’s muscles began to twitch at the thought of shooting up. A plan began to map itself out in his head. First, he would drag himself into the mold and asbestos filled, cracked, dirt-crusted tile-covered shower and bathe himself to the best of his ability. Then he would scrounge up whatever morsels of food he could find. Finally he would manipulate a dealer into giving him what he required, and he would do it by any means necessary. But first, the shower, because as he was coming to realize, his lower body was covered in an odiferous scent that was most definitely not sweat, or at least not just sweat alone, most likely a combination of sweat and his own urine, how lovely.