Running Like A Wildfire

A/N: An extended scene that got cut out of my other story Can't Rewind Now on account of not really adding anything to the plot. I kind of like it though and so instead of letting it rot on my hard drive I decided to add a bit on to the end with a John cameo and post it as a oneshot.

First eight paragraphs or so are ripped directly from Can't Rewind Now to provide context. Might want to skip them if you've read that one already.

For reference: Sherlock is 19, has been in rehab for 3 months after being kidnapped and dumped there by Mycroft and is a bit depressed. (Read the other fic if you want the whole story.)

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On a dreary Wednesday morning he was told by the nurse that his family would be by to pick him up in the afternoon. By 'family' he understood she meant Mycroft, so while he waited in the lobby later for the familiar black towncar to pull up he occupied himself by absently wondering how he was going to react to finally seeing his brother again. Anger would be appropriate, he supposed. Maybe relief if he was going to be a sap about it. Happiness was extremely unlikely, but he ceded it remotely possible. Very remotely.

The most probable scenario was probably going to be simple indifference. After all emotional responses generally required at least a semi-reactive cognitive state, and Sherlock's mind had gone quite thoroughly numb something like a month and a half ago. Not the comfortable anesthesia of cocaine but something dark and stagnant, spreading like rot through every corner of his head until nothing could move for the filth. His brain was literally decaying. It had rebelled against the forced dormancy by declaring war against itself and now the battlefield was strewn with putrifying corpses.

Sherlock briefly screwed up his face in disgust at the imagery. Ugh, what was with him and strange abstract visualisations of his mental space? And why was it always either a field or a lake? It would really be better to use some sort of building. Then he'd have a bit more permanence at least, perhaps organised places to keep all his cluttered internal stuff. Should try erecting a tower. Have to wait until the corpses cleared out though. And the mud. The rot. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself.

A noise caught his attention and he looked up as the clinic door opened, catching sight of the smart suit and puffed cap of one of his family's valets. Personal staff instead of a government employee? That was new. Might even have been interesting, had he had any capability to be interested by anything anymore. The most feeling Sherlock managed to dredge up was a faint wave of irritation at the fact that his brother was apparently too much of a lazy arse to walk the twenty feet to sign him out himself, but it faded quickly. Too much effort. The manservant handed over a stack of papers, spoke with the receptionist a moment and then initialled a log book before turning to Sherlock and sparing his outfit the barest of distasteful glances.

Sherlock looked down at himself but could see nothing particularly troublesome. Jeans, white t-shirt, navy Oxford hoodie, a pair of still decently-new trainers and the dove grey wool peacoat Mycroft had given him two Christmases ago which he only ever wore because it was easy to hide drugs in the lining (not that there was anything in there now, much to his annoyance). They were the same clothes he'd had on the night of the overdose, which he supposed ended up being sent here out of the convenience of having already been in a hospital bag. Perhaps a little casual, but he hardly felt the need to dress up just to meet his brother. Besides, the only clothing the clinic provided was their stupid uniform of loose-fitting activewear and that was hardly a better alternative.

He conveyed his thoughts to the valet with a bland lift of his eyebrows, and with a very slight look of exasperation the man turned and beckoned him to follow.

The shiny black towncar they approached practically screamed 'pompous ass' in its conspicuous display of wealth, and despite the stifling cloud of dysphoria in his head Sherlock felt a jolt of irrational anger flash through him. Bloody Mycroft, with his stupid bloody cars and stupid bloody valets and stupid bloody... bloody everything. The only reason Sherlock was even here was because that fat meddling whale hadn't been able to keep his nose out of other peoples' business. It was all his brother's fault.

An insult jumped to his lips and as he slid into the back seat he was already speaking. "You're a fuckin-"

The slur died in his throat as he caught a proper look at the man sitting in the opposite seat. That... wasn't Mycroft.

... Oh Christ. The valet shut the door and walked around to start the engine, locks clicking down automatically. He was trapped.

"Sherlock," his father said mildly, brows slightly raised at the way his son had nearly spoken. Sherlock felt his body start to lock up in a sort of frozen horror. Oh god this was most definitely Not Good, he was going to die. Or worse. So much worse. He very nearly shuddered. Couldn't panic though, not here not alone with this man. He forced his breathing to remain even and wrestled his expression into something approaching calm composure.

"Father," he replied in a voice that was most definitely not strained. Oh god, Mycroft, why? What did I do? Was it the walrus joke? I'm so sorry about the walrus joke.

His father's head inclined ever so slightly in polite greeting. "It seems we have... matters to discuss."

Sherlock forced his face to stay neutral, only to ruin the effect by clenching his fists in his lap like a child. "Yes, sir."

Father flashed him one of Mycroft's false tight smiles and glanced down at Sherlock's hands with Mycroft's usual slight lift of the browline and the entire effect was horrifying because Siger was just about as far away from his eldest son in terms of morality as it was possible to get. Mycroft at the very least had a soul, even if it was a slightly misshapen one. Siger was a hollow shell which had learned to act human. The fact that they looked nearly identical seemed like the universe's cruel idea of a joke.

Sherlock realised what his father's gaze was hinting at and immediately unclenched his fists.

"Smoking again, are we?" Siger said in a bored tone, noting the nicotine stains.

"Yes," Sherlock muttered, because there was no point in lying. Feeling the car's engine start he wondered where he was being taken. Back home? Oxford? His grave? "... sir," he suddenly added when he realised he'd forgotten. Oh god there's no way I'm leaving this car alive.

"Neglecting manners as well as dress sense, I see," Siger intoned; it was not a question. Sherlock didn't trust himself to breathe. "You are aware of the role reputation plays in the success of this family, are you not?"

"Of course sir." The correct way to interpret Siger's sentence was, of course, 'I will not tolerate anything that might get us mentioned in the papers.' The man was obsessed with keeping a low profile, presumably because he had several schemes of a less than legal nature running and couldn't afford to find himself a tabloid celebrity. The fact that one of his sons had become a rising star in government and the other was both eccentric and visually striking just made him all the more ardent in his refusal to allow scandal of any kind.

"Then I wonder why, given such knowledge, you've deliberately gone against my wishes and drawn attention to yourself?"

"Attention?" Sherlock repeated, forgetting again to add 'sir' in his confusion. What attention? He'd been ridiculously careful not to let anyone catch on, not even his brother's spies had-

Without warning Siger tossed a newspaper in his lap and Sherlock's face drained of all colour as he saw the front page. Across the top of one of last month's issues of the Daily Mirror was the headline 'HOLMES HEIR ON DRUGS - CLASSMATE TELLS ALL' printed in bold black lettering above a grainy mobile photo of himself, Seb, and Victor gathered around a tall pub table looking mostly plastered. From the fact that both of his acquaintances were present at the same time he guessed the picture to have been taken a bit less than four months ago. He'd reluctantly introduced them at Seb's request just before the new term, and hadn't gone out drinking with them more than once or twice.

Sherlock didn't remember being present for the photo, but that wasn't particularly surprising since a closer examination revealed his pupils to be roughly the size of pencil rubbers, meaning he'd just done a massive hit of coke and was probably well on his way to blacking out. (He'd gotten less able to judge his own sobriety after the switch to mainlining, having lost the numbness of his face to remind him when it wasn't safe to have another drink.) The 'classmate' part of the headline coupled with Victor's image made Sherlock's heart constrict in a sickening twinge of betrayal for a moment, but as he quickly skimmed the article he realised the informant was actually Seb.

Wilkes you backstabbing fuck, he thought savagely. The 'anonymous source' essentially just described his abrupt personality shift at the start of Trinity term, relayed a few extremely scant accounts of social events (thankfully nothing about his sex life, as he tended not to chat anyone up unless out with just Victor), and went into frankly lurid detail about the night of his overdose.

Apparently Seb had been the one to find him seizing, which Sherlock hadn't realised or even thought to inquire about. According to the article the man had forgotten his wallet and gone back to retrieve it and while leaving his room had heard someone collapse next door. Nobody answered to his knocking but luckily his absentminded neighbor almost never remembered to lock up, so he'd let himself in and found the lanky boy convulsing on the floor with a used needle lying a few feet away. He'd dialed 999 with his mobile, tucked a nearby jacket around Sherlock's head to try and keep it from slamming into anything too hard, (which explained how Sherlock had managed to get hold of his peacoat, he had been wondering about that) and stayed with him until the paramedics showed up.

The vaguely touching account was quite thoroughly invalidated by Seb's having sold the story to a news rag a few weeks later. Greedy money-grubbing bastard.

Sherlock re-folded the paper and stared blankly at the photo of himself and his sort-of-friends. "I... hadn't seen this."

"Yes, I'd imagine that would be because your... brother-" Siger said the word as if he wasn't entirely sure it was the appropriate way to describe Mycroft in relation to Sherlock. "- appears to have been largely successful in suppressing the incident. I'm sure I don't need to inform you however that even a single obnoxious headline is far too many. I have already received several... concerned queries regarding your health from associates who happen to follow such matters."

Translation: Mycroft removed the issue from circulation, a few of my criminal contacts got hold of it anyway and now they're trying to use you as leverage against me. Sherlock swallowed reflexively. Evidently he'd just become known as a possible weakness to a man who had no weaknesses. That did not bode well for his continued existence.

"I... I'm very sorry, sir," he offered in a futile bid to save himself.

As expected, Siger looked supremely unimpressed. "I'm sure you are. Be that as it may, I have already taken steps to ensure that your... proclivities," (the stress he put on the word made it clear he knew about the sleeping around too, which meant Sherlock was absolutely going to die) "do not affect the family image negatively."

"Meaning you're going to have me killed," Sherlock uttered flatly. No reason to continue being polite; he was done for anyway. A spark of courage flared in his chest at the realisation that he could finally say whatever he liked to his father without the possibility of digging himself any deeper.

Siger gave him a withering look. "You really think I'd assassinate my own son?"

"Yes," Sherlock asserted without hesitation. Siger didn't seem inclined to dissuade him of his confidence, but Sherlock nonetheless continued; "But I'm not your son, am I? I'm the son of the horse groom you hired and then had quietly murdered because he was sleeping with Mummy behind your back."

Despite the surge of bravery Sherlock's heart was still going a mile a minute, and it kicked up another notch when Siger's face darkened fractionally.

"I suppose I should have expected your deducing that," he said in a bored voice. "You always do seem to notice the most useless of details."

"How is knowing my parentage useless?" Sherlock snapped.

"Because it makes no difference." Siger quirked a brow delicately. "Violet's infidelity has long since been dealt with, and any paternity test you care to order will be well within my ability to alter as I see fit. All your discovery of your illegitimate status has done is make it easier for you to accept what I'm about to do."

Sherlock was working very hard to keep from hyperventilating at the unspoken threat. He reminded himself he had nothing to lose and soldiered on. "Oh? And what'll that be? Going to snap my neck and toss me in the Thames? I had hoped for something a bit more creative."

Siger gave a terrible, amiable chuckle. "Dear me, no. I have much more expedient methods of disposing of a body than the Thames, child." Sherlock's mind instantly jumped to about eighty different conclusions at once, all of them awful. "Unfortunately, as much as I'd prefer to be conclusively rid of you, there is the small matter of your brother to keep in mind."

"What's he got to do with anything?" Sherlock asked, hoping he sounded less unnerved than he felt.

Siger sighed very slightly. "It would seem young Mycroft has secured himself quite a sphere of influence within the British government. While I am of course extremely pleased with his success the circumstances have made it rather dreadfully inconvenient to go around killing his relatives. No, Sherlock, I'm afraid you'll have to live."

The implication seemed to be that he would not necessarily have to live well. Visions of being blinded or paralysed flickered horrifically through Sherlock's mind and he started speaking again without thinking. "Then you can't torture me either," he pointed out somewhat frantically. "He'd be really miffed about that, he gets upset when I have nosebleeds. And... and no permanent damage, or he'd go spare."

Siger's brows rose in another one of Mycroft's condescending looks. "My boy I assure you I have neither the time nor inclination to physically disable you in any capacity." At Sherlock's slightly wild look he rolled his eyes. "Or mentally disable you, though goodness knows you seem to have managed that well enough by yourself."

"Wh- I am not brain damaged!" Sherlock sputtered.

"Your choosing to argue with me would seem to suggest otherwise," Siger informed him evenly, a hint of cold steel to his voice that carried with it a subtle threat. The icy tone alone was enough to make Sherlock's mouth snap shut instinctively. His father gave a false smile at his son's forced reticence. "Much better," he affirmed. "Now, Sherlock, the entire point of this little excursion was to secure us time to speak privately without your brother overhearing. Since this leaves us a very narrow window in which to have our discussion I will jump straight to the point: upon leaving this vehicle you shall henceforth be legally disinherited from the Holmes family estate. In addition the Holmes family no longer recognises you as kin and will deny any assistance should you fall into financial or legal trouble. Your actions thus far have been formally repudiated and will continue to be stripped of any official affiliation with the family title for as long as you choose to retain your surname. Do you have any questions?"

Only the fact that Sherlock had been expecting much worse allowed him to keep what was left of his composure. His chest still fluttered too quickly and his hands had clenched into tight fists again, but he nonetheless raised his chin defiantly and met his ex-father's gaze. "No."

"Excellent. In that case I do believe we've reached our destination."

Sherlock startled slightly and glanced out the tinted windows, finding they'd made it all the way to London and were now idling outside a tube station. The clinic must have been nearer to the city than he'd thought.

"You're leaving me at Charing Cross?" he asked blankly. That seemed a little... charitable. He'd half expected to be ditched out in the country somewhere.

"I see no reason to part on poor terms." Siger gave him a look that expressed exactly the opposite. Sherlock put a hand on the door handle (the valet certainly was not going to open it for him) and sneered. His last chance for a final parting shot, might as well take it.

"You know you're a real fucking bas-"

A sudden force slammed him bodily into the door, the feel of crushing fingers on his windpipe alerting him to the fact that Siger was holding him to the window by his neck. He kicked out wildly and scrabbled at the hand on his throat, choking. Oh god oh god no no no-

"I have been extremely lenient with you today, child. I'd suggest you not try my patience further." Siger's voice was deadly calm. His face betrayed no emotion whatsoever as he remorselessly strangled the life out of his former son. Sherlock had no choice but to go limp and acquiesce his submission as spots danced in his vision.

Without another word Siger reached behind the younger Holmes with his free hand and unlatched the door, pushing Sherlock onto the pavement with a light shove. The teenager hit hard on his left elbow and immediately scrambled to his feet, heaving great wheezing gasps as he stumbled backwards to clutch a lamp post for support. He glanced up just in time to see Siger Holmes resume his seat, flip a nonchalant parting wave and slam the door. The car drove off.

Sherlock was alone outside Charing Cross station. People were rushing busily to and fro in a sea of bodies around him but none gave so much as a second glance to the teenager who'd just been literally tossed to the kerb. Shivering with adrenaline Sherlock steadied his rasping breath and shakily relinquished his crushing hold on the lamp post.

The world seemed to expand far too rapidly as his briefly oxygen-starved brain reoriented itself, and he felt sick to his stomach with a sudden vertigo. The skin of his arms and chest broke into a cold, tingling sweat and his heart refused to slow its frantic hammering against his ribcage no matter how steadily he breathed. As an acute sense of impending doom washed over him he rather abruptly realised he was having a panic attack.

Sherlock sat down heavily to tuck his head between his knees and gasped heaving, jagged breaths. People moved past him in an uncaring miasma of faces and clothes. The numb doldrums of his mind seemed to have gone up in a raging firestorm.

Suddenly a face broke free of the crowds, was by his side, touching his arm. He flinched away violently and reeled with the spinning nausea the action produced.

"Hey, it's alright. I'm just making sure you're okay," the face said. Sherlock stared wild-eyed at it and watched as shapes coalesced into the plain sturdy features of a very average-looking man in his late twenties. "It's alright, I'm a doctor."

"P-piss off!" Sherlock stammered. He hated anyone seeing him like this, least of all some stranger. "I'm f-f-fine!"

"You don't sound too fine," the doctor pointed out. Sherlock bared his teeth and forced himself to stand. The hands that gently steadied him when he inevitably stumbled felt like knives even through the thick wool of his coat sleeves. "Here, let's just get out of the walkway."

"I don't need your pi-" he broke off to swallow heavily with vertigo as the shorter man steered him into the lee of a fence where the space was free of pedestrians and guided him to a sitting position against the moulding.

"It's not pity, it's common sense. Leaving someone out on the pavement who's having a fit's potentially dangerous. Someone could've tripped over you and then where would we be?"

Sherlock was too busy curling into a ball and hyperventilating to come up with any sort of witty retort.

"Whoa, hey, alright. It's okay. In, out. In, out." The doctor was rubbing small circles into his back, which in his heightened state was all he could focus on. It was a solid presence in the flames otherwise consuming his head and strangely soothing. After a few minutes he finally calmed down enough to start breathing normally. "Okay?" the doctor asked.

"No," Sherlock intoned, because he'd just been thrown out of a car by his neck after being disowned by a psychopath and he was pretty certain none of that qualified as okay.

"Fair enough. Can I have a look at your face for a minute? Check pupils and such, you know," the very ordinary man asked. He kept lightly touching Sherlock on the arms and shoulders which was annoying, but the small soothing circles on his back never stopped so he accepted it as tradeoff.

"I had a panic attack, not a seizure," he mumbled into the centre of his tightly curled ball.

"Do you get those too?" the man said in some sort of generically authoritative Doctor Voice.

"Only when I've done an enormous amount of drugs," Sherlock replied blandly.

"Bit not good then, huh?" He was very gently tapping the top of Sherlock's head in an effort to get him to lift it, so Sherlock finally raised his face to squint balefully at the good samaritan. "Pupils look fine," the man assured him.

They won't for long, Sherlock thought, and hoisted himself roughly into a standing position. He felt a bit weak still but no longer nauseous, which meant he now had one objective and one objective only.

"Whoa, oi! Slow down there," the doctor was saying. Sherlock rounded on the smaller man and threw the full force of his sociopathy behind a vicious glare.

"Thank you for your assistance. I am going to find a cocaine dealer now, I suggest you allow me unhindered passage out of this alcove to do so." His voice was low and menacing, helped along by his three months of illicit chain smoking and the recent near-strangulation.

The little doctor simply raised his eyebrows.

"You think I can't stop you?" he asked, wholly unmoved by Sherlock's psycho-stare.

Sherlock frowned. "I know you can't stop me."

The doctor regarded him for a moment, seeming to size him up, and Sherlock did his best to appear as physically menacing as possible. It wasn't hard, considering he had about half a foot on the man and the three months in rehab had temporarily cured him of his usual wraith-like appearance by virtue of being forced to eat on a daily basis. The man still didn't seem suitably intimidated, but he did raise his hands in a sort of exasperated placating gesture and took a step back.

"Alright, alright, but only because I think it would do more harm than good to fight you right now."

Sherlock sneered at him. "How conscientious of you. Good day."

He tucked his hands into his coat pockets and sidestepped neatly past the doctor, feeling the man's doleful eyes on him as he strode quickly away. It didn't matter. All he could think about was the scorched field of soot his brain had become in the wake of the firestorm; how ugly it was, and how beautiful the snow had been.

The memory of the doctor soon burned up in the residual heat and scattered away.

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What do you think, should I do a second part from John's point of view? Would that make this a spin-off of a spin-off? Haha. My fanfics just bud off each other like sponges. (Edit: John's POV up now. Budding fanfics ahoy!)

Anyway thanks for reading!