Envy
by Alia
Notes

It is absurd, criminal some would say, for a medical man like myself to be envious of anything that might bring about the eventual destruction or down fall of another. I am not the man I once was though, certainly I am not the same man who took an oath years ago to aid the sick and do no harm.

Not since my time abroad have I felt my feelings and responses so beyond my control. What was once common place to me now seems strange and unfamiliar. I fear I have lost myself, with no way to recover save one.

To my eternal regret Holmes knows of my weakness, but I cannot leave him, or Baker Street. I am slave to his demands, and destined no doubt, to the fiery depths of hell.

For long hours I have contemplated the dying embers of the fire he had built for us before we had quarrelled and he had sought the sanctity of his room, slamming the door loudly behind him. Having lost complete control over both my body and my mind, I shudder now as I hear that self same door open again.

Unable to look away or to move I watch as my friend enters our sitting room, circling around me to the desk where he keeps his cocaine and syringe. He knows I am here, that I have been waiting to talk to him again, but he does not acknowledge me beyond the look of distrust he gives me as he opens the drawer and retrieves its devilish content.

Once, I would have been appalled by his behaviour and blatant disregard for my feelings, but Holmes knows I will no longer challenge his drug use or anything else he does, and to my ever lasting disappointment conducts himself accordingly in my presence.

Despite my resistance to do so, the lack of cooperation from body and soul make it impossible for me not to observe the foul ritual of my dearest friend injecting himself with his seven percent solution. The arm Holmes exposes in preparation reminds me of the fine polished marble sculptures seen at the Victoria and Albert museum and beckons me without mercy to stroke the fine alabaster skin and to press a kiss to the pulse point where wrist meets with clinching and un-clinching fist.

Of course I do not move to partake of either. He has made it perfectly clear that he prefers the sharp prick of the needle and containing substance to any form of human contact - my touch and unnatural yearnings in particular, yet nothing in the world it seems can spare us the torment of sharing in the most disturbing moment when he punctures his flesh and sighs in the deepest of satisfaction.

There are times when I still imagine a similar sound emanating from his lips as I move against him, but I know my thoughts are no more than a perverse product of my deluded mind and will never come to pass.

I wait until the drug begins to take effect and Holmes's usually hawk-like eyes close in what appears to be pure bliss before I rise and exit in search of my own form of solace and solitude.

Retiring to my room, I lock the door behind me and disrobe for the night. Much later, alone in my bed I rouse my flesh to life. My right hand working beneath the covers against God and nature as I attempt to purge myself of my sorrow, along with my sins.