Bitter
Another small ficlet for @calaisreno may prompts, this time for the prompt ‘bitter’ from May 27th yes I know it’s late again but I have to study but instead I write my second fanfiction so that’s working great.
Content warnings for drug mention, addiction and alluding to drug use but nothing graphic. And it’s also a bit angsty and sad, but just as angsty as the show itself, just a little warning in advance. Take care 💜
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Bitterness is a paralytic, but love is a much more vicious motivator
But Sherlock knew that bitterness could sometimes be both, a paralytic but also a vicious motivator. A numbing agent, paralysing you and making you feel nothing, but also something to be aspired, motivating you to acquire it to the point that it nearly kills you.
He was very familiar with bitterness, in every sense of the word.
The bitter taste of alkaloids, he knew both the chemistry behind the bitterness, but he was even more intimately familiar with their effects. Natural occuring alkaloids of plants like papaver somniferum or erythroxylum coca, their active compounds extracted and concentrated to be more effective, turned into pills and powders, both manufactured illicitly and legally. But also with semi-synthetic molecules, modified to be more effective, or completely man-made fully synthetic substances, imitating their natural occurring relatives, specifically designed to bind to brain receptors for their irresistible effects.
Sherlock was a graduate chemist, having studied everything about the neurochemistry of those molecules, their actions, synthesis and conducted many experiments, some of them even including himself. He had always been curious and fascinated by it, how molecules could modulate brain activity, and wanted to experience it himself to gain even more knowledge.
The bitterness of those substances had been very unpleasant at the beginning, pills disolving on Sherlock’s tongue as he swallowed them or residue of powder running down his throat, the bitter alkaloids binding to taste receptors, leading to an aversive reaction. Aversion to bitterness is an important mechanism for survival, trying to prevent a body from ingesting any possible toxins that are usually bitter. Which this was, it was nothing other than poison, which he didn’t realise yet, slowly poisoning himself.
But after repeated usage you grow familiar with the bitterness, associating it with the euphoric effects of the drugs you even start to look forward to the bitter taste, starting to crave it.
Like a pavlovian dog, having been clasically conditioned to anticipate the euphoria after the bitterness of a pill, the bite of a needle or the burning of cigarette smoke in your lungs.
The bitterness became something positive, something to be yearned after because it meant relief. A vicious motivator.
Sherlock had thought he was above such things, too clever to fall for such a mundane thing as drug addiction, that his superior intellect would protect him from such things and that he could just indulge without any consequences. That all this was just an experiment, something to increase his performance, push himself even further, be even more intelligent than he already was to become near superhuman. To shut off his feelings to become a superior, completely rational version of himself, not held back by human weaknesses.
But human weakness got to him after all.
He was telling himself that his usage was rational, that he wasn’t trying to escape uncomfortable feelings or his problems, that it was all just to be able to improve his work, his mind’s clarity. He didn’t even notice that he was becoming dependent, that he was leaning more and more on this chemical crutch, lying to himself and everyone around him that he was fine. After all he was fine, more than fine, everything was under control.
Until he started to feel horrible without it, his body and mind having become so used to the substance binding to his brain’s receptors that it couldn’t function properly anymore without it.
At first he didn’t even realise what was happening, just assuming that he had gotten sick. But it soon became clear what the true origin of his ailments was, because whenever he got high his symptoms stopped bothering him. He had to get high just to feel normal, to get relief from excruciating physical and mental pain that was becoming a near constant, it was like torture, living hell. He felt trapped, not even functional anymore without any substances in his bloodstream. But of course he was still in denial about it that it had gotten out of control, denying that he had any problem. After all his mind was superior, he wouldn’t fall prey to such a thing.
But he had changed his brain chemistry permanently with his experiments, created an imbalance that was drawing him towards drugs again and again, unable to go without it anymore if he didn’t want to suffer.
He had grown dependent on the bitterness of drugs, it had become a vicious motivator, just to avoid the pain of withdrawal and fullfilling cravings that felt as if they were consuming his whole mind and being. The cravings felt as if they were gnawing at his heart, taking over his mind and clouding everything until he finally gave in. Bitterness had taken over his life.
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The other kind of bitterness he was closely familiar with was the emotional kind, even though he denied experiencing any emotions.
He didn’t even recognise those feelings himself, trying to deceive himself until one day it hit him when it was already too late.
The bitterness started to consume him.
Bitterness caused by his time away after the fall, of all the trauma and pain he went through, all for John Watson. He had done it all for him to protect him, to come back to him and continue his life with him like before, foolishly maybe even hoping for something more than before. It had been all that kept him going during those moments of agony. He had thought that John would wait for him, believe in him, that he would never replace and betray him.
But his hopes had been futile, and he had a rude awakening as he returned and found John trying to propose to a woman, and rather that John felt ecstatic at Sherlock’s return, he broke his nose and ripped the lacerations on his back further open as he tackled him to the ground. He couldn’t determine what hurt more, the physical or emotional pain of it.
Bitterness that John chose someone else over him, even after all he had sacrificed for him. It hurt to have been replaced like that, as if he didn’t mean anything to John, and maybe he didn’t anymore.
Bitterness that someone took John away from him, someone else taking this special place at John’s side, a place he wanted to take since years but was unable to, given that John did not want him like that. And seeing someone else in that place made it hurt even more.
Bitterness that he had to plan John’s whole wedding just for him to marry someone else, smiling through the pain and bitter bile, trying to make everything perfect for John to make him happy, even if it meant despair and embitterment for Sherlock.
Bitterness that John was spending his time now with someone else, travelling for their honeymoon, while he was getting ignored. He had attempted to call John several times, texting him, but the only answers he got from John was to stop bothering him because he was busy. It was just another sign of many that he was not important to John anymore. He had lost John to someone else.
Bitterness that he had lost his old life and John, and what it had become thanks to Moriarty and everything else that had happened. How his body and mind had been damaged by his time away, things he will never fully recover from, scars that will taint his body for the rest of his existence.
All this bitterness was accumulating, slowly devouring him. But what better cure is there for bitterness, than bitterness of a more chemical kind? He thought this while swallowing a bitter pill, trying to find relief from all the other bitterness in his life, giving in to his old demons again. Why try to fight it, if bitterness had become a constant in his life anyway?
He couldn’t have love, so bitterness would have to suffice.
