Chapter Text
No sooner had I obtained my medical doctorate from the Royal University of London in 2002 than I was immediately dispatched to Helmand Province as an assistant army surgeon. The entire campaign was a complete farce, bringing nothing but misery and disaster—at least, that was how it seemed to me. During a fierce engagement, a bullet struck my knee, severely damaging the ligaments and the tibial nerve. Though I was fortunate to escape with my life, my right leg was left permanently disabled; I would likely need a crutch for the rest of my days—unless a miracle occurred.
The injury and pain wasted me away. Coupled with long months of arduous travel and strain, my health broke down completely. After lying unconscious for several months in a rear hospital, I finally regained my senses and gradually began to recover, though I remained terribly weak and gaunt. Consequently, after a medical board's assessment, I was discharged due to my wounds and promptly sent back to London.
I had neither kin nor close friends, free as the air itself. London was expensive, and the rent for a private flat far exceeded what my meagre pension could cover; my monthly stipend was spent almost as soon as it arrived. Thus, I was forced to take a position at a clinic, working the night shift, dealing with all manner of chaotic emergencies.
It was a difficult period: the pain, the financial strain, the loneliness, and the disordered, day-night reversal routine. But later, I would write on my blog: "It was a highly dramatic time, charged with a sense of waiting. Everything was moving relentlessly towards a watershed moment ，and I was utterly oblivious."
And without a doubt, Sherlock Holmes was that turning point.
My first encounter with Sherlock Holmes was not a pleasant scene. I would have preferred our meeting to be more legendary, something worthy of the man himself and of all we were later to experience together. But truthfully, there was nothing remarkable about that day. It was around half-past two in the morning; London's severe air pollution rendered the sky a murky black, devoid of stars or moon. Business as usual. I was dozing at the emergency room desk when a sudden, shrill alarm bell startled me nearly out of my chair. I quickly donned my mask and gloves, grabbing a roll of bandage from the nearby cabinet while stifling a yawn, preparing for a bloody scene.
Then the door opened, and he was wheeled in. There was no blood. He was simply curled tightly into himself, shuddering, forcing his moans down into his throat until they became fractured gasps.
Morphine poisoning. One look at his uncontrollably trembling hands and the bluish needle marks on his arms told the whole story. I administered an injection of Nalmerfene and then left him on a nearby bed to sleep it off.
Black curls, pale skin, cheekbones and jawline sharp enough to cut. Despite the constant shivering and sharp intakes of breath, the overly clear and distinct contours of his face made him appear sharp and cold. I had seen plenty of addicts. London, that great melting pot, brewed much ugliness and filth; people were frequently brought in with infections or poisonings from substance abuse, almost a daily occurrence. So this was hardly unusual, yet I found myself looking at him a few moments longer, an inexplicable feeling of pity, even indignation, rising within me. I couldn't quite say why—perhaps because he looked too young, too beautiful, too clean; he looked like he should be standing above everyone else, not lost in a morphine-induced stupor.
As dawn approached and I was packing up to leave, he let out a soft groan, his features contorting in pain. Knowing he was likely coming round, I went and sat by his bedside for a moment. His long eyelashes fluttered unsteadily, then his eyes snapped open. Wet, startled, panicked. But that vulnerable, soft expression lasted less than half a second before his cobalt-blue eyes fixed precisely on me, his gaze instantly turning sharp, like the cold gleam of a scalpel, scanning me from head to toe.
He reached to pull out the IV needle. Startled, I quickly caught his wrist. He frowned. "Is there something else?"
It was the first time I'd encountered such a bizarre patient. I was so speechless I almost laughed. "Something else?... How about the fact you nearly died, little addict?"
"I am not an addict," he said. "I know what you're thinking. Drugs help relieve the boredom, sometimes sharpen my thinking. Controlled usage is rarely fatal. And you—" his eyes swept over me again, "—you don't smoke, don't drink, insist on waking at half-past five every day—a habit from the army—and have yet to be with a woman. But for all your abstinence, your physical condition isn't significantly better than mine. The knee... a bullet in Helmand?"
I was utterly stunned. He continued, "Financial difficulties, working nights because the pension isn't enough, probably planning to move in with a flatmate; despite the bullet wound, your psychologist believes the limp is psychosomatic; your brother's engagement makes you feel abandoned, so even though he's well-off, you don't want to ask him for help."
"May I go now, Dr. Watson?" he asked coldly. "And incidentally, you're hurting my wrist."
My mind was a blank. I felt offended—every word had targeted my most private, unwanted secrets. Yet after the initial flash of anger burned away, all that escaped my lips was an "Amazing."
This time, it was his turn to be stunned. His mouth fell open slightly like a child's, and he looked at me with disbelief, the defensive shell momentarily shattered.
"Er... did I hear correctly? Were you just... admiring that?"
"Yes. That was incredibly cool."
"Er..." He shook his head slightly. "That's not right."
"What's not right about it?"
"People don't usually say that."
"What do they usually say?"
"'Piss off, freak.'" He said it with a mocking smile. "Like that."
The atmosphere froze. I watched the smile slowly vanish from his face. "Please let me go. I'm leaving," he repeated, his blue eyes cold on me. He pulled his hand free, removed the IV catheter, picked up his long coat, and walked out. At the door, he paused, shot me one quick, deep look, then turned and left.
The following weeks passed uneventfully. Night shifts, treating drunks' scrapes or citizens' sudden bouts of gastritis, then dragging my weary body back to my cold flat at dawn. Yet, those cobalt-blue eyes that had seen through my old wound and my straitened circumstances in an instant were like a stone cast into stagnant water, sending strange ripples through my halted life. The chance encounter of that night replayed in my mind again and again. It was so bizarre and startling that I began to wonder if it had all been an overly vivid dream. Until that afternoon, when, as if guided by some unseen hand, I found myself entering the old bookshop named "Dot."
I often lingered in the military history section, trying to find some resonance with my own past experiences—perhaps a form of solace—in Napoleon's campaigns or the smoke of Crimea, proof that my military career, cut short by a bullet, had once been part of a grander narrative. The shop smelled of old paper and leather bindings, and time seemed to stand still there.
Just as I was pulling out a monograph on the Battle of Waterloo, my gaze, through a gap in the shelves, caught a profile I could never mistake.
It was him.
He was even thinner than I remembered, a black silhouette wrapped in that distinctive black greatcoat, standing before the toxicology shelves, flipping through an intimidatingly thick volume at an impossible speed.
He was utterly absorbed, his slender fingers turning pages rapidly, his eyes scanning the text like machines, lingering on each page for no more than three seconds. The bustle of the world around him seemed irrelevant. I instinctively held my breath, a primal caution keeping me in place, merely observing. He looked... different. Not the deathly fragility of the clinic, but a razor-sharp, tempered intensity. The gold-embossed title of the book in his hands, Rare Plant Alkaloids and Synthetic Toxicology, gleamed with an ominous sheen in the dim light. This was not reading material for an ordinary young man, let alone an ordinary addict.
Just then, a harsh commotion shattered the shop's peace. A portly, middle-aged man in an overly loud checked suit was berating a young, slight shop assistant over an almost imperceptible scratch on the cover of a hardback book. His spittle practically sprayed onto the boy's pale face; the lad looked terrified, his eyes wide with fear behind thick spectacles.
A surge of the old military indignation at injustice rose in me. I set my book down and prepared to step in and stop this disgusting spectacle. My right leg ached dully with the agitation, but the pain only strengthened my resolve.
However, a voice cut through the noise first. Cold, clear, like a shard of ice dropped into hot coffee, instantly freezing all the clamour.
"Save your breath, sir." The voice came from the toxicology shelves. He hadn't even lifted his head from his book, his tone as flat as if stating a physical law. "Your true agitation has nothing to do with that volume. It concerns your personal assistant. Her ultimatum expires at five o'clock this afternoon. If she doesn't receive the funds you promised for handling her 'little situation,' she intends to visit your wife—the one currently planning your silver anniversary celebration—with the complete record of your intimate emails."
The bookshop fell deathly quiet. The checked suit's face turned a purplish-red, then faded to a sickly grey. His mouth hung open, emitting guttural sounds, but no coherent words emerged.
He finally closed his book and looked up slowly. Those grey-blue eyes—sharper, more penetrating than in the clinic—like twin searchlights, illuminated the man inside and out. "Furthermore," he continued in the same monotone, as if delivering an academic report, "traces of a specific blue ink, not fully washed from under the nail of your right little finger, match that used by 'Thompson's' Pawnbrokers when receiving valuable items. Last Wednesday afternoon, you were compelled to pawn your wife's Cartier watch. This suggests the financial state of your investment firm is far more precarious than its books indicate. A man who can neither placate his mistress nor avoid impending bankruptcy and domestic ruin, bullying an underpaid shop assistant in a second-hand bookshop... 'pitiable' seems the most apt descriptor."
The words hit their mark like invisible bullets. The man sagged like a sack of potatoes, his eyes filled with sheer terror and defeat. Unable to endure this public dissection any longer, he let out a choked sob, turned abruptly, and practically scrambled out of the shop, causing the brass bell on the door to jangle in panic.
The young assistant stood frozen for several seconds before casting a look mingling gratitude and awe towards him. But he, as if merely brushing dust from his lapel, had already returned his attention to the toxicology tome. The minor social storm had been, for him, merely the elimination of a bothersome background noise.
I stood rooted, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. This was no longer the fragile youth using sharpness as a shield in the clinic. This was a... a kind of terrifying insight I had never witnessed before. He wasn't dispensing justice; he was more like a master mathematician casually solving an annoying equation—precise, detached, utterly devoid of emotion.
I found myself moving towards him almost unconsciously. He seemed to have been aware of my presence all along. Before I could speak, he said, without looking up:
"Dr. Watson." He pronounced my name accurately, a hint of laziness in his tone, like one satisfied after a successful experiment. "It seems your professional skills extend beyond saving flesh, into attempting to uphold a certain... street-level fairness. An unnecessary heroic impulse."
I was speechless. He not only remembered me but had seen through my intention to intervene. The feeling of being completely seen was both unsettling and strangely compelling.
"You... how on earth did you know all that?" I finally blurted out, my voice laden with a curiosity and awe I hadn't anticipated. The feeling was akin to when he'd deduced my knee injury in the clinic, but the impact now was multiplied.
He closed the book, the corner of his mouth quirking up almost imperceptibly. Those soul-piercing eyes turned to me again, but this time, they seemed slightly less icy.
"Observation, Doctor. The most basic observation," he said lightly, as if stating the simplest fact. "The world is covered in details. They never lie. Most people just choose not to see them."
In that moment, surrounded by old books, in the dust-moted shafts of light, I felt as if a door to a completely new world had swung open before me. And the key was held in the hands of this pale, strange, almost inhumanly intelligent young man. I knew, with perfect clarity, that I had encountered not just an enigmatic patient, but a earth-shattering force. Something that the part of me worn down by war and pain desperately longed to understand and document.
He didn't wait for my response. He simply slotted the book back onto the shelf with a deft movement and, like a silent shadow, glided past the rows of shelves, disappearing into the deeper gloom of the bookshop.
The end of another long and tedious night shift approached, the sky lightening towards dawn. Leaning on my crutch, I slowly descended the clinic steps, the old injury in my right knee aching dully in London's damp chill, like a rusty nail buried deep, a constant reminder of past defeat. I pulled my coat tighter and walked my usual route home, my thoughts mired in weariness and worry over the next rent payment, paying little heed to my surroundings.
Yet fate—or perhaps, he—seemed disinclined to grant me a moment's peace. Perhaps my steps were more faltering than usual, or perhaps due to some unseen pull, I deviated from the main road and turned into a narrow back alley connecting two blocks, one I normally wouldn't take. The lane was dark, cluttered with discarded crates, illuminated only by a single sickly yellow lamp at the far end.
It was this faint glow that lit a scene in the depths of the alley that made my heart clench. Three or four indistinct figures were surrounding a tall, slender one, pushing and shoving.
Even from a distance, I immediately recognized the person hemmed in against the damp brick wall. His pale face, caught between shadow and the lamp's aura, stood out starkly, like a plaster statue abandoned in a squalid alley.
A mix of concern and bewilderment gripped me. Instinctively, I pressed closer to the shadows by the wall, holding my breath to watch. The leader, a large, burly man with a twisted tattoo on his neck, had grabbed Sherlock by the lapels of his coat, cursing foully.
Unexpectedly, Sherlock didn't seem particularly panicked. His voice remained clear, carrying that cold, penetrating quality I'd experienced in the bookshop.
"That matte blue paint on your cuff," he said to the leader, his tone eerily calm, "has a unique composition. Similar trace elements were recently reported from the scene of the art warehouse theft at South Dock Three."
The leader's movements faltered noticeably, a flicker of unease crossing his face.
Sherlock's gaze shifted slightly to a nervous-looking young man holding a mobile phone. "And you," he continued, his voice soft yet distinct, "does the girl on your lock screen know about your recent financial situation? Unemployment benefits shouldn't be funding those pills that leave you spaced out."
My heart sank. What was this fool doing? I thought, anxiously. Didn't he realize he was only provoking them?
Sure enough, the leader snapped. The fear of exposure instantly transformed into violence. "Stop with the clever talk, you bastard!" he growled, swinging a fist squarely towards Sherlock's face.
Sherlock seemed to try to dodge, but his movement was clumsy, too slow. The sickening thud of fist meeting cheekbone echoed sharply in the quiet alley.
He staggered back, hitting the brick wall with a heavy thud, a trickle of bright red blood immediately seeping from the corner of his mouth.
That streak of blood acted like a lightning bolt, shattering my hesitation. The soldier's instinct overrode all rational thought. I didn't even realize I'd moved; a hot rush of adrenaline surged to my head. Using my body's momentum, I let out a low cry, executed a clean block, and slammed the leader away from Sherlock, pinning him against the opposite wall.
My sudden, violent eruption startled everyone. I quickly assessed the situation. Outnumbered. Fighting was not an option. So I made a split-second decision, grabbing Sherlock's hand. "Run!"
We ran. Through the pitch-black, dilapidated alley, through the neon-green streets of London, through the damp air of the Thames and under a sky dotted with few stars. I felt the adrenaline coursing, my heart pounding wildly. It felt like an escape from reality—as if I were back on the battlefield.
We leaned against a wall, gasping for breath. I saw the slight upward curve of his lips and realized I was smiling too. I turned, steadying him as he swayed slightly. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at me. Those cobalt-blue eyes held a faint hint of amusement and a complex, appraising glint.
"Dr. Watson," he said, his voice hoarse, "it seems your hero complex extends to chivalrous intervention."
"Shut up!" I snapped, cutting him off as I examined the injury on his cheekbone. It was already swelling noticeably, the bruise emerging starkly from his porcelain-pale skin. "Are you insane? What was that brilliant mind of yours thinking? You were practically baiting them!"
He gave a noncommittal smile, tinged with a cat-like cunning. "Dr. Watson, have you forgotten something?"
Forgotten something? I looked at him, puzzled. The cold night wind blew, and I shuddered, suddenly realizing I had left my crutch behind in the alley—I had just run like any able-bodied person, and hadn't even felt any pain.
He watched my expression, his smile widening slightly.
"You were born for the battlefield, Dr. Watson," he said.
I saw him again a few days later. The same clinic, roughly the same time, around half-past two in the morning. On the bright side, at least this time he walked in on his own two feet. He entered without knocking, sat down opposite me, and simply stared at me in silence. Had it not been for the patch of blood slowly soaking through the white shirt on his chest, I might have thought he was there to invite me for a drink.
"What happened to you? Take your clothes off, let me have a look."
He obediently unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it down. About three inches below his collarbone was a large, square-shaped burn, gruesome and raw-looking.
I couldn't help but swear after one glance. "Oh, good God... How did this happen?"
He pressed his lips tightly together, saying nothing. I sighed and went to fetch alcohol and gauze. The burn seemed to have been soaked in water and was already inflamed. My movements were as gentle as possible, but he still trembled violently, sucking in sharp, shallow breaths.
"Did you read the paper today?" he suddenly asked, his voice shaking. Thinking he was trying to distract himself, like telling a story to a child during an injection, I replied, "Er... yes, the Daily Telegraph."
"Anything noteworthy?"
"News? I remember something about a serial murder case being solved? The killer was identified by the way he tied bows on his shoelaces? If you ask me, it sounds like a joke—how did that detective—Anderson, I think?—ever figure it out? It's incredible!"
He suddenly laughed, his eyes lighting up as if all pain had vanished in an instant. "Oh, he didn't figure it out. He's an idiot. I figured it out."
"You did?" I exclaimed, surprised. "Are you with the police?"
"No, I'm not. The police occasionally consult me, that's all." He raised an eyebrow slightly with a touch of pride. "I'm a consulting detective. The only one in the world."
The police consulting an amateur? Though somewhat sceptical, looking into his cobalt-blue eyes, brightened by his smile, I couldn't help but smile too.
"Sounds rather cool. The saviour of the London police?"
"The Scotland Yarders have cerebral cortices as smooth as a koala's, and are uniformly irritating," he said with a disdainful wrinkle of his nose. "But I have studies, and lack your heroic tendencies. I only look into cases that interest me."
"You're still a student?"
"Yes." He seemed to dislike the topic, frowning, his tone cutting off abruptly, like a refusal.
Having finally mostly dealt with the burn on his chest, I set the gauze and tape aside on the tray and continued unbuttoning his shirt to check for any other missed injuries. He watched my movements, blinking, but didn't stop me. Soon his entire upper torso was exposed. His skin was even paler than I'd imagined, almost sickly so. The muscle definition was lean but elegant, yet this sculptural perfection was marred by overly conspicuous marks. Besides the burn, there were several dark bruises, mainly on his ribs, abdomen, and back. Additionally, there were small, round burns on his collarbone and shoulder blade—if I wasn't mistaken, likely from cigarette ends.
I felt a lump in my throat. The answer to my question seemed obvious. "Is someone bullying you? Classmates, right? Why?"
"Why?" he repeated the last word, with an almost amused expression. "Dr. Watson, you've been to war. You know perfectly well violence needs no reason. If I had to name one, I suppose it's because violence makes them feel in control, pleased, relaxed—like all animals. It upholds their dignity, secures some advantage, and gives them a sense of dominance and satisfaction from others' pain. It's fine. I'm used to it. I'm different from them. It's normal."
"No, it's not normal," I said very seriously. "Regardless of whether someone is your 'kind' or not, no one has the right to treat another person like that, and no one should be treated that way."
He lifted his eyelashes to look at me, seeming genuinely surprised. After a long moment, he shook his head slowly, deliberately. He paused, then shook it again, more forcefully.
"No. I should be treated like that," He murmured, as if some part of him had suddenly shattered, his face blank with a hollow vacancy. "It's right that way... I... I don't know why... I have to be alone, otherwise, otherwise..."
He suddenly looked up at me, his sapphire-blue eyes glinting with a deep, eerie light.
"Otherwise, you will die," he said.
For the next fortnight or so, I didn't see him again. As month-end approached, looking at my pitiful bank balance, I decided I absolutely had to move into a shared flat, and the matter was pressing. One morning, just after my shift, as I stepped out of the clinic, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see Mike—an old assistant of mine. In the vast human sea of London, bumping into an acquaintance was a genuinely pleasant thing for a lonely man. Mike hadn't been a particularly close friend before, but now he greeted me with considerable warmth and invited me for lunch at a nearby Holborn restaurant. So we went together by cab.
As our cab clattered through London's bustling streets, he asked me in surprise, "Watson, what have you been up to? You look sallow and thin, nothing but skin and bones."
I gave him a brief account of my misfortunes. After hearing me out, he said sympathetically, "Poor fellow! What are your plans now?"
I replied, "I need to find a place to live, a flatmate to share rooms with me—somewhere inexpensive yet comfortable. I don't know if it's possible."
My companion immediately clapped his hands. "That's a remarkable coincidence! You're the second person today to say that to me."
I asked, "Who was the first?"
"A student from Cambridge, chemistry department. Just this morning he was lamenting to me that he'd found some excellent rooms, but the rent is too high for him alone, and he can't find anyone to share with."
I said, "Well, if he's genuinely looking for a flatmate, I might be the man for him. I think having company is better than living alone."
Mike's gaze jumped from his wine glass, looking surprised. "You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet, otherwise you certainly wouldn't want to live under the same roof with him."
"Why? Does he have some fault?"
"Oh, quite a considerable one, I'd say. He's an utter freak, constantly buried in his laboratory, tirelessly researching things no one understands. Why do you think he's looking for rooms? Because none of his previous flatmates could stand him. I heard he often brings bits of dismembered bodies—fingers, skulls—back to his rooms, keeps them frozen with his dinner..."
When he said "freak," a pair of cobalt-blue eyes, cold and lonely, flashed through my mind. I felt an inexplicable discomfort and interrupted my old friend, my tone less than friendly. "My dear Mike, what a man keeps in his own freezer is his own business, and others shouldn't interfere. Sometimes our failure to understand something merely indicates our own limited capacity and perspective, not that the thing itself is wrong, don't you think? The world often has a rejection reaction, stifling genius ahead of its time. Frankly, I like people who are different. I look forward to meeting this Mr. Holmes."
He shrugged. "Well, my old friend Watson, you clearly don't know the gentleman. He has significant flaws in some areas, and extraordinary, almost obsessive, peculiarities in others. To put it bluntly—and please don't take offense—I find him quite intolerable for any length of time. But, of course, it's you who needs the flatmate. If you like him, all the better. If you're willing, we can take a cab to see him after lunch."
On our way from Holborn to the hospital, Mike told me more about the gentleman. "Don't blame me if you don't get along. I only know him from occasionally seeing him in the laboratory, heard some rumours, and know he needs a flatmate. Beyond that, I know nothing. Since it was your suggestion, you can't hold me responsible."
"If we don't get along, parting is easy enough," I replied carelessly.
He looked at me, hesitated, then smiled as if deciding something. "My old friend, out of long-standing friendship, I feel I must tell you everything I know, not just seek an agent's fee. My conscience wouldn't allow otherwise. This Holmes is utterly cold-blooded, places no value on human life. I almost suspect he has some antisocial disorder. He once slipped a pinch of vegetable alkaloid into a classmate's coffee. Not out of malice, mind you, purely from a research motive—to accurately understand the drug's effects. In fairness, I believe he'd have swallowed it himself."
"There's a certain logic to that spirit," I said.
"Perhaps, but it's rather extreme. Later, he even took a horsewhip to a corpse in the dissecting room. That's decidedly odd, wouldn't you say?"
"Whipped a corpse!"
"Yes, to see what kind of marks he could produce on a dead body. I saw him do it myself. God knows what he's researching—it certainly isn't standard chemistry! Well, here we are. You can judge for yourself what kind of man he is."
With that, we alighted, entered a narrow lane, went through a small side door, and came to the wing of a large hospital. It was a familiar place to me. Without needing guidance, we mounted the white stone steps and walked down a long corridor. The walls were a cold, sterile white, studded with dark grey doors. At the far end was a low, arched passage leading to the chemical laboratory.
I stood before the door for a moment, slightly apprehensive, and was about to knock when the lock clicked open.
"Good afternoon, Dr. Watson." Sherlock Holmes—the addict—leaned against the doorframe, his head of tousled curls peering out, his slate-blue eyes looking at me with a faint smile, as if relieved. "What a coincidence, meeting again."
In all fairness, it was quite a coincidence—becoming flatmates with a memorable patient. Yet, strangely, I felt little surprise at that moment. Standing there those few seconds before raising my hand to knock, or earlier, when he was wheeled into the ER at half-past two in the morning, or even earlier, when I was helped onto the ship bound for London, my right leg nearly useless, or earlier still, much earlier—tracing back to the very origin—ever since breaking the unyielding amniotic fluid and issuing my first cry to the world's light, some fateful prophecy had been circling overhead, inescapable. Life is like a play; its true value lies only in that brief climax, while the long years before and after are merely the necessary prologue, interlude, and epilogue for the sake of completeness.
So, more puzzling than the question "Why are you my new flatmate?" was another: "Why have your eyes changed colour?"
He stared at me for a few seconds, then smiled—a shallow smile that seemed like one could cup it in their hands. "It seems I haven't chosen wrongly."
"It's a condition," he said. "But rather beautiful, don't you think? If I'm not mistaken, you've been thinking about these eyes for the past fortnight?"
Though reluctant, I had to admit he was right. That shade of cobalt blue had lingered long in my memory. Now it wasn't replaced, but mingled with the slate-blue , creating a peculiar, heart-racing sensation.
He stepped aside to let us in. I noticed a spirit lamp burning, heating some greyish-yellow viscous liquid, while rubber gloves lay discarded on the table. Quite rudely, he seated himself in the only swivel chair, pushed off from the desk with his foot, and spun around. "Do you mind if I smoke?"
"What? Now?"
"No. I mean, after we live together."
Mike interjected, "Oh, Mr. Holmes, how did you know he was here about the flat? And, if I may, you seem acquainted?"
Sherlock frowned, showing a hint of annoyance. "It was elementary, and unimportant." Then he turned to me. "I've found a suite of rooms on Baker Street. Quite suitable for the two of us. Before that, we should acquaint each other with our worst faults. Do you object to my smoking? And—let me see. I am prone to boredom, and engage in activities others might deem slightly insane, though I attribute that largely to their own smooth cerebral cortices. Furthermore, when in a black mood, I may not speak for days on end..."
"Hold on, Mr. Holmes, those aren't issues, but you seem to have forgotten the most important one. I can't readily accept an addict as a flatmate."
He sighed. "I told you, I'm not an addict. Addicts are slaves. I am the master. I use drugs because they assist me. Help me think, relieve the boredom, help me escape from some... some—" his machine-gun speech slowed abruptly, his voice dropping as if he himself wasn't entirely sure, "—some things that cause me distress."
"Whatever the reason, I cannot accept it. Unless you strictly control the dosage. I can help with that. I'm a doctor. I'm skilled in medication calculation and supervision."
He tilted his head, giving me another head-to-toe appraisal, his gaze taking on a hint of mockery. "Fine. I agree. You can help me then."
Then he abruptly changed the subject. "You may leave now. I have matters to attend to. Meet me here tomorrow at nine o'clock, and we'll go see the rooms."
"Wait, Mr. Holmes, I haven't mentioned my faults yet. Perhaps you might find them intolerable?"
"Oh, I doubt it," he said, smiling again. "Old injury to the right leg, owns a small bulldog, nerves are shaken, dislikes noise, sometimes has trouble controlling some excessive reactions, financially strained, irregular meals. From what I see, your faults are negligible. Some are even rather good, quite compatible with me. Oh, add another fault: I dislike people calling me 'Mr. Holmes.' It makes me sound old. Call me Sherlock. See you tomorrow."