He cursed himself into the deepest depths of Hell, if only because it painted a prettier picture than what he was currently engaged in. How he had managed to find the place and allow himself to be side tracked was not a train of thought he relished, yet here he lay watching the room, amongst other things, sway before him. Spots seemed to dance upon the crude ceiling, the cluttered floor seemed to dance with the spots, and the whitewashed walls with burgundy draping bled into a vulgar mist that always prevailed where darkness reigned. All this swirled within him to a sound that might at one point been an actual beat, but having come to this place, lost itself entirely. Barrie could keep his damnable Neverland, he thought, pressing his thin lips tightly to a rolled cigarette. A hiss of air accentuated the slight cackle of burning paper and leaves before dying down to a small tendril of rancid smoke swaying like a whore caught in a fairy-ring.

Voices blended into a nonexistent murmur, accompanied by scents strong enough to choke the weary out of their hearts as their money bled from their torn pockets. Movement in hazy corners stirred him in places God fearing men refused to travel. A momentary frown and lick of dry lips, he turned his eyes back to the haphazardly patched ceiling unaware he had looked away at all until heavily painted eyes loomed above him, forcing his breath to turn sharp and his innards to coil in repugnance. A pretty smile promising pretty things stood before him, and all he saw was the face of another, which more than anything made his blood curdle. Brandishing his dying cigarette into a near by clay pot, he smiled back, his eyes curving with the grin in a decided blackness. Surely the girl wasn’t so foolish to try with him, save he had long held the notion that the ladies who frequented dens such as this ignored reason in pursuit of other favours, be it money, drugs, or to mark a gentleman’s back so he must hide from his wife.

The young woman pressed her perfect Cupid’s bow lips together, daring to try to lean down and brush his ear, her long, frosted pink nails playing with the fabric of his vest. He snarled when like a viper her tongue brushed the back of his earlobe, and with a betraying gracelessness he tossed the girl into three patrons behind her. A thick cloud of smoke hung, disrupted in its path, about him as he lowered his eyes to the poor child, such a tiny thing to be a fisher among men, lying on the floor with strands of her treated hair stuck to her bloodless cheeks. She stared up at him in terror, or was it anger -he could never tell in his current state- and more than a little surprise. Perhaps he looked like a demon to her, perhaps he was, perhaps he always had been.

She bolted when he smiled, without so much as an apology to those she bumped into and knocked over. A true sense of horror had overtaken her and without a thought she gathered what things she might have had and ran out the door with tears carving paths in her carefully arranged face. All she knew was that she needed to get away from the place, and away from the man who stared at her with something darker than regret in his eyes.

He didn’t see her leave, to him she was another shadow moving across time and space, background noise and nothing more. Laughter caressed his ears, imagined or not he dismissed it, willing himself into the space that called him. It called him all sorts of things, things of truth and lies, things of no importance and merit, things he told only himself in the predawn that haunted all of humanity if they gave it half a mind. Taking up his previous position on what he might have recognized as large throw pillows when he first arrived, he added yet another dot to the multitude on his arm with a poisonous smile, thinking the whole while of the girl who thought to save him from himself.

What happens when you give it the whole of your mind? You lose.

It was gentle, it didn’t feel forced, but it smiled and kissed him deeply without being there. He swore it wasn’t there, only the disgusting lapping of his gut threatened to convince him otherwise. He called out to a God he wasn’t sure was listening at this point, and then wished things he aught to remove his mind and soak it in bleach for. He felt it, and yet he didn’t. He felt her, and yet he knew otherwise. Twisting and cupping him, he blushed in horror, but the vines continued their assault, snaking and trapping until he could move no more. The laughter and voices turned into hoots and coos. Birds, he thought, and the house -had it been a room?- was no more. Nothing. Dark, dank, and tall woods, flickers of light teasing his eyes, and still he lay caught amongst the roots dreaming it seemed. Dreaming. Are you?

Light grey eyes flew to a sound on his right, alighting on a peaceful face with china blue eyes. She gave him no heed, his cries echoed off the unseen and still she didn’t turn. Like a doll discarded she lay, a Snow White without a story, another girl dead in the wood. Watching the lights above him in a panic, he fought back and pulled at his restraints, hard. Taunt and catching, threatening to snap bones and render flesh, his left arm loosed enough to throw over and touch her. To touch nothing but a mirage would have given him relief, but to feel naught but the cold apple of her cheek . . .

Chilled to the marrow he strained to free himself further, eyes clenched. The briar round him snapped, wined, and bit at him. He heard the crack, and sweet sound of spilt juice and meat that dogs so love and still he pressed on so that he could just brush the image of her lips with his own. He had broken his arm, God knows what else, and opened his eyes. Startled blue met the wilderness that must have been his own and he simply lost it. Cradling her face in his good hand, he lost himself against her with unrestrained hunger. If he was dreaming, then let him damned, if it was real he was damned all the same. But by God, he would not let this vision of her depart without knowing something, anything, even if it was just a kiss . . . even if half of him was aware of the wood floor beneath him, that the vines might not be there, that he might be in the midst of another one of his episodes, that they might be dead, that it might have been him. It was when that last thought crossed his mind that she fell into step with him, and very nearly drank his soul away.

“Holmes!”

The voice that broke through was not one he had heard in years, decades, a life time, and it shattered his resolve. He whirled round to face a shorter man with sandy brown hair, and warm blue eyes. Sherlock could not keep the surprise from registering on his face, the wood, the vines, and . . . it was all gone, replaced by . . .

“John,” he breathed, “my dear Watson.”

His mouth gaped, much like a fish would out of water- was it any surprise then that his throat was also found to be dry? Watson smiled a terribly sad smile that reminded Holmes very much of the day Mary had died, and he saw, in that one moment, that something was very wrong with the world.

“I never followed my brother out of Baker street, did I?” He asked the apparition, who shook his head in the no, a grimace expressing familiarity etched on his face. “Thought not.” Holmes regarded the other man with something akin to embarrassment. I must admit, I . . .”

“Drank the water without thinking?”

Holmes paused. “The water?”

“Yes,” Watson moved towards him, a thoughtful air resting between them, “that Miss Lestrade very nearly drowned in it.”

Holmes’s eyes lit up. “Good Lord, she’s been coming here?”

“Once or twice to my knowledge.” Watson admitted, meeting his friend’s gaze. “It’s been a long time, Holmes.”

“That it has, that it has. Are you aware . . .” He trailed off, as the doctor sighed.

“Of what is going on, yes, to some extent.”

Holmes let off into an abrupt bout of laughter that nearly drifted into madness. “I simply must apologise, my meddling has pulled you into the middle of so much that you should not be burdened with . . . Watson, I, I am not myself anymore.”

A strong hand clapped the detective’s shoulder briefly. “It seems I am the one who should apologise.”

“What ever for?” Holmes interrupted with a bit of a bark.

Watson chuckled lightly. “I wrote out our adventures, Holmes, and it seems to me that I’ve locked you to them even in your own mind. Everyone is entitled to a private life, even you. You are not those books, nor a machine -which by the way I find terribly amusing, albeit potentially disturbing.” Holmes gave a short smile.

“Have you no quarrel, then?” He asked quietly, distinctly off key. “Are you two places at once?”

Dr. Watson gazed at him frankly. “The answer to that lies in higher powers than us, because I haven’t a damn clue how we’ve all got round like this, but,” he exhaled heavily, “ I feel it my duty to tell you that Elizabeth Lestrade is not crazy, extremely tired, but sane.”

Holmes’s voice carried a chill. “You know of her tales.”

“I know something follows her.”

Holmes lost a bit of colour. “I believe I’ve seen it.”

A quick wind swept round the two men, tunnelling their feet in leaves without origin. Holmes blinked, and realised that they were not in any forest, but beside a small stream with a very large oak tree in an advanced state of decay.

“Is this . . .” His voice was barely audible, “should Lestrade.”

Watson held up a hand to stop him. “Wake up, Sherlock, and for the love of God, or if not Him then at least for her, throw out the rest of that damnable drug.”

“Watson!”

“This world fades, Holmes, and I would have it that way.”

Holmes nodded in affirmation. “One thing, how much of this is of dreams? Have you any idea?”

Watson smiled. “I think that may be the first time you’ve asked me that without an idea of your own, but I think I shall take a page from your own book and leave you to wonder a bit longer.”

Holmes truly smiled at the man. “Good show, Watson.”

What might have been a blink, or a sharp, slapping breeze, brought Sherlock back into his sitting room, the images of the creek still fresh in his mind. He stared in the general direction of the fireplace until an annoyed cough rose him from the cobwebs of his mind. Surprise once again found a home on his face, as the very angry countenance of Beth Lestrade bore down on him, a syringe fixed dangling between her fingers. The second his eyes found it she threw it to smash in the back of the hearth, followed by a tiny bottle.

“You are the most infuriating man I have ever met in my life. Damn it, Holmes, you lied straight to my face, and then you pull this wonderful little act of yours! I, I’ve got so many different things running through my head I haven’t a clue where to start. It actually hurts to think right now, and it’s all because of you.”

“You were released.” A hint of surprise tinged his voice.

Lestrade stopped and a light seemed to come on. “Yes. I was released, yesterday in fact. I thought of coming here to see what had become of you, but decided taking a bath in my own home was preferable to coming here, and I was right.”

Holmes stared. “Yesterday?”

Lestrade flashed him a smile that would have chilled a normal man. “That’s right, yesterday.” She said sweetly.

“Impossible.”

“Then how do you explain my standing here, it’s the eight of January. Holmes, you’ve been missing for two weeks, care to explain where you were? No, wait, I don’t want to know, I’m having enough trouble with just being here.”

Holmes pinched the bridge of his nose. “My dear Lestrade, that made even less sense than usual.”

She stared at him completely beside herself with shock. “You’re joking. You’re not joking. Forget it, I’m leaving.”

Holmes recovered himself enough to snap back with, “what the devil are you going on about?”

Fire and hot coals rained down from her smoldering blue eyes. “Don’t you dare play with me, I am not in the mood for it.”

Holmes studied her for a moment, going silent much to the young brunette’s agitation. Finally, he gazed directly into her eyes. “That wasn’t part of a dream, was it?”

At first he though perhaps he had figured wrong, that she wouldn’t understand his covert meaning, but slowly a blush crept up on her and told him all he needed to know, for the moment. Her hand went to the edge of her pale pink lips and back to smooth a strand of hair behind her ear, and she looked away from him and his bandaged arm. He felt his entire being grow cold with shame. Good Lord, what had he done?

He stared at her, hard, breathing as though his lungs were made of ice. He couldn’t have, she couldn’t have, he wouldn’t have allowed it, the impropriety of it all was a mental train wreck consisting of uncountable cars converging at one point. Had Sherlock eyes to step outside his body he might have been able to recognise his symptoms, but lacking such design left him to handle the onslaught of clarity with all the grace of an out placed Victorian gentleman. Here was what his brother had been driving at, defiantly staring him in the face. For the love of God, even the implied ghostly presence of his mother seemed to have a better notion of things than he.

Wild grey eyes darted to the lady’s hands, ignoring her own curious glances that revealed thin veins of annoyance towards him. Bare. Her hands were bare. She had no doubt placed it somewhere safe, and out of reach. He laughed aloud, anxiety crawling it’s way up his esophagus as he clawed the arms of the chair with his fingers. It was like drowning, or so he assumed, on the outside a pitiful plight to drive away humanity only to have it stare so deeply inward that you become consciously aware you’re not breathing. She would be far angrier than before, but it was her fault she never thought to check the floor boards, so on the shadows about him danced, and he, in turn enticed them to stay. A small smile crept up on his thin, white face, his eyes a diluted pale blue gazing without focus until locking on hers.

It was strange to realise she wasn’t cross with him, for he couldn’t pin point when exactly her anger had subsided as usually she had all the characteristics of a tropical thunderstorm. No matter, this was merely the eye of the tempest masquerading behind wide eyes and parted lips. Gone for two weeks. Did it matter? No, he thought not. He remembered John Watson speaking of the effects of opium once, after their shared adventure that had started for the good doctor in the search of a friend- had he been in the Devil’s Den for two weeks? He couldn’t have, surely he would have caused his own death, but then, perhaps not. Life was funny that way. As a man brought back from the dead in his original body, did drugs even have the same effect on him as they once had? In hindsight, he supposed they must have similar reactions, having noted no difference, perhaps it was his constitution that played a separate game. Being brought back from the dead most assuredly topped the list of “most unlikely things to live through”.

For a passing moment, he wondered why he placed himself in these states, but the question soon vanished. He didn’t care. It was as simple as that. A voice, however, rallied in the back of his mind contradicting the statement. A sentiment resembling “dear God” rose in the back of his throat choking him off, and in defiant retaliation he drove the needle home for the second, perhaps third time that night, revelling in the freedom of the drug, the acute sensation of seeing everything and nothing at the same time. In this state he truly felt the presence of the higher power he prayed to almost unaware, Christian sentimentality at its highest- then, the low. A mind numbing plunge into the coldest waters where you know God is watching from safety, but unmoving, because he is moving, only you’re too far gone to realise it until the end when you’re drug up on shore by others either to die or live.

Sherlock could only assume that God’s eyes were made of water in cases such as his, threatening to drown, save, or throw back up, but always within His grasp. Then again, he thought, as an encore of dance from the shadows lit by the fireplace light, it could always be the drug, a self indulgent Hell he secretly adored. It had occurred to him in his youth that he would have made a fine scientist, or in the new era’s lingo: an anarchist, or was it atheist? Hard to say which was the more appealing. It brought a laugh to his lips, it truly did, and in due course of his rambling and revelations he failed to notice the pretty young woman out in the hall scared with, barred for all to see, a trail of tears down her cheeks. She left then, hormones at war with the world, and travelled down well worn steps into the servants quarters, sat upon an old bed and cried freely, pregnant and terrified of the thing that now sat where a great man once stood.

Obviously I finished the rest of what I had planned out for the chapter. It's not much of an add on, but I like it a lot.