Well at first I didn't feel a change at all, and in fact I was almost convinced that the drug had done nothing at all. I watched with some minor interest as Victor sat back in his chair, preparing his own vial and injecting much more than half a syringe full into his arm. For a moment he seemed utterly at ease, his eyes falling shut and his mouth exhaling large gasps of air. He seemed entranced, smiling for a moment to himself with that syringe still stuck into his arm, when at last he came back to life and yanked it out of his vein instinctively. I was also beginning to feel considerably more relaxed, though the stress of having taken a drug was still fresh in my mind and was beginning to frighten me more and more. I remembered back to my brother's lectures, those in which he preached to me not to do drugs of any sort, that they would mess with my body's functions and kill me instantly. Then again, this feeling that was beginning to flow through me wasn't something quite like pain, nothing all together forbidding. I felt farther away from death than ever before, and even if it was closing in on me I found it to be a much more pleasurable experience than being perfectly sober. I sat reclined on that couch for a long while, time had begun to take a rather interesting turn within my head, and before long I found myself so bored with staring at the ceiling that I chose to stare at Victor instead. For once in my life I felt perfectly obligated to do so, for when I stared at him my brain began to speak to me in words I could hardly understand, though they were sounding sweet as music. I smiled, and upon seeing me he smiled back, and for a moment I could tell that he was listening to the same sort of chorus as I was. True to our words before, I felt as though we were truly joined by souls, something more intimate than even brothers could be. We were only partially ourselves, and in moments like this I began to recognize that voice in the back of my head to be speaking in his voice. I merely looked about the room and he commented on the things, bringing about his unique and majestic perspective to each article in his home. I found this to be quite amusing, and for a long while I sat smiling rather stupidly, my hand rolling about on my bare forearm and collecting the little droplets of blood that had bubbled up from beneath my punctured skin. It's beautiful Victor's voice reminded me.
"Victor, I can't feel my hands too well." I admitted at last, holding them up to the light of the fire and observing them curiously. I could see them; certainly they were still attached...though every time I tried to touch something it felt as though they were but a hunk of flesh, unable to feel and only available to bump without much pain at all.
"That's normal, Sherlock. This is your first time, is it not?" he wondered quietly, seemingly dismissive of what I would characterize as a terrible crisis.
"My first time...first high. Yes." I agreed, nodding my head back and forth with a smile on my face.
"It feels strange the first time, I'll admit. I got no creative ideas from the first, just a strange feeling over all. But when you learn to control the drug you learn to control your brain, and you can pull from all of the sections of your imagination that you dare not go." Victor explained. I nodded, attempting to sit up but finding that it was too much effort, and so in something of a slump I allowed myself to drape even more heavily over the arm of the couch. There was Victor again; I could see him even as I stared into the ceiling! It was fascinating what my mind could accomplish, allowing me to see the things I wished. I proceeded to clap my numbed hands together, attempting to feel anything at all, though that grew very tiring and so I went back to lounging, letting my arms dangle like fallen puppet strings around me where gravity may pull the strongest. I smiled, and Victor smiled back.
"Sherlock you are so terribly inexperienced. One might even say you were sheltered, not allowed to live your life like most children." Victor muttered, observing from afar as my smile slipped and my jaw hung open in a strange, gaping manner.
"My life is relative. I've lived more inside of my head than I have outside of it." I admitted once I finally regained control of my tongue. I felt as though there should be no more secrets between the two of us, though I was smart enough to control my words without them being summoned. I would only answer questions when I was first addressed, and I very well had no intentions of spilling my secrets to an ear that would not care to hear.
"No one like you should live inside of their head, you are rich and beautiful, the world is yours for the taking. If there is a man that can control you, well let him be forgotten." Victor whispered, his eyes glassing over as if he saw himself falling under the same category of unstoppable.
"You can control me." I pointed out.
"I choose not to. There's a difference, darling." Victor reminded me with a little click of his tongue, to which I nodded along.
"My father tried to control me, but he died. And my brother...and I ran away. I like my life far better now; you're a much better host than that fat old man ever could have been." I insisted.
"I believe it. I never did like your brother much, partially because of his involvement in the human cruelty. Factories are soulless places; they're not made for accommodating human beings at all. They're made for killing children, destroying nature, and crippling the strong." Victor insisted, his eyes flashing with some menace for a moment before he calmed himself, staring over at me as if he was partially blaming me for the state of my father's factory.
"That's why I wanted to get out." I explained quietly.
"And you are out, Sherlock. And don't ever let me tell you what to do. Don't let anyone tell you what to do, except that little voice inside of your head." Victor reminded me, poking at his own head with some amusement as if he had made friends with the devil on his shoulder. He was a man of impulse, that was for sure. He was a man of suffering morals and a pretty face, the worst combination known to the earth since the dawn of creation.
"Sometimes that voice says some awfully bold things." I reminded him, remembering back to Tobias and even to the earlier days of my stay here.
"Listen; there can never be something so bold that your mind could think up, not without the intentions of completing it. Tell me Sherlock, what have you thought of doing, but never tried?" Victor whispered, easing himself to the edge of his chair so that his legs extended almost to where I could reach out to touch them. He was getting closer, though as that question resonated in my mind there was only one face that came up, a face I was not all together ready to deal with.
"Falling in love." I said quietly.
"A bold choice, not always wise but always fun. For the start at least." Victor admitted, shrugging his shoulders as if he had many an encounter with Cupid. Though the way he spoke of it, I'm sure their meeting always ended up with one party broken and battered.
"I've tried so many times, Victor. I've been rejected, I've been humiliated...well I can't think of what I'm doing wrong!" I exclaimed, bringing my hands down hard onto the couch I was sitting on in some sort of childish protest.
"Be quiet, be stoic. Women always love a man who cannot speak to ruin his good looks. You are equipped with all the tools you need, save perhaps for the necessary social skills." Victor insisted. I shook my head, wondering how on earth he could not understand that I did not fall in with such a crowd of men. I would much rather love them than join them, though that was the trouble right there! Vast majorities would not have me. Vast majorities would arrest me, refuse me, trod me underfoot. I was alone in this world, for the most part at least.
"You mistake me, Victor. I have never had an interest in women." I whispered at last, my hands falling together in a startling touch and my eyes snapping towards Victor's. I could see automatically that I had become much more interesting in his eyes, much more entertaining indeed.
"Sherlock, love. You have the makings of a true artist." Victor whispered, nodding as if I had been waiting for his approval this whole time. And perhaps I was, because just as soon as he acknowledged me in such a way I felt my heart begin to swell. All of the sudden I felt as though I had finally fallen into place, I had fallen found a man who would keep me safe. I was not a freak, not within these walls. Victor would protect me, for he was just like me. And my theory was thus far confirmed, I was every bit as much like Victor Trevor as he was like me.

I was standing with my feet in the sea, a dream so vivid that it may very well have happened. My feet were in the sand, rubbing it between my toes quite uncomfortably and wading out farther and farther through the sandbar. The water was becoming deeper though it never rose on my body, instead I felt as though something was raising me up, preventing me from drowning and preventing my clothes from becoming any more wet. The water was cold, though my limbs had gotten used to the feeling and were feeling quite unresponsive to the currents and the waves. The sky had clouded over with thick dark clouds, and from the distance I could hear thunder but saw no lightning. I was afraid, though I wasn't entirely sure of what. There were mystic powers at play, if not entirely of nature then of something cast out of her grip, something different, frightening...I felt as though I was being watched though I could not see the eyes of my assailant, instead I kept walking, deciding that if something was going to attack me then I would respond as was due. Until then I just walked, not seeing the shoreline but knowing that it was falling farther and farther behind, perhaps with no safeguarded return. I was being aided in my walk out, though I may not be in such favors if I decided to turn around. The thunder was growing louder, its sounds closer; before I at last felt my foot catch something in the inky darkness, something solid that was buried right next to where my right foot would have planted. I was overcome with terror, falling backwards into the water and finding that there was no longer any ground to support me. My torso fell, my head submerged, and suddenly I found myself sinking down and down, farther than the light would aid me though I could still make out the shapes, still the visions. I hit the bottom hard, as if gravity had pulled me with distinct purpose, and before long I was forced to open my eyes...to see clearly. I was standing planted in the mud, with seaweed covering a rather strange, humanoid shape before me. I could breathe the water like air, I could move unbothered by the pressures...I could tell that my companion was not so lucky. I knelt by the figure's side, pushing the weeds from where his face was lying flat in the mud. I was quite afraid to see who he was, though he seemed to have avoided decomposition for now. He was, as I could tell, perfectly intact. It was my duty to know. And so with a heave I rolled the body over, disrupting the mud in which he lay but getting a perfectly good assessment of his features. There, lying at my feet...the cold and waterlogged body of John Watson.

When I woke I was clammy, frightened, and dissociated from where I was. It would seem as though I had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, however the fire had died down and provided nothing but the soft glow of coals. I could hear rain and wind pounding against the window panes, the occasional rumble of thunder, and I was immediately reminded of the terrible storm in my dream, my horrible dream. I was so afraid, with that same irrational fear that had been stalking me throughout the entirety of my dream. John Watson, that poor submerged man...I dared not to think of it for much longer. Instead I decided to get to my feet, feeling that I finally had full control of my body, and race up the stairs to where I knew only one man could protect me. The howling of the wind followed me up the old wooden stairs, my footsteps falling hard and my hands dragging frantically up the banister. It must have been no earlier than two o'clock in the morning, though I was too frightened to confirm my suspicions when I passed the hallway clock. For some reason I would feel better without knowing exactly what hour of night it was, considering that on certain hours my horror would have increased exponentially. I remembered all the ghost stories my brother used to tell me, all taking place in the earliest hours of the morning, in which the ghosts could walk freely and the witches could perform whichever spells they liked. I was unaware of the house, afraid of the dream, and frightened by the storm that was raging against the exterior. To couple with that, my high had faded away in my sleep, and so now I was left feeling like an empty shell of a man, deprived of the euphoria and filled instead with cold smoke. At last I reached my host's room, and in all of my effort to escape the fear I forgot my common courtesy. I didn't knock, I didn't even hesitate! As soon as I reached the doors I forced my way in, finding the handles unlocked and my entrance free of any barriers. That was the easy part, entering. The worse part was trying to explain myself, something I really should have considered before I went tumbling into poor Mr. Trevor's room, looking like a child frightened of a little thunder. The sound of the doors closing awoke him, and Victor's eyes opened so brightly that I could make them out even through the darkness. His was the window facing the streets, and so the lamps that could still illuminate themselves in the rain provided me with at least enough light to determine his face. It was an expression of confusion, which I honestly should have expected.

"Sherlock what on earth are you doing?" Victor whimpered, his voice sounding quite groggy and his hair falling in long, ungreased strands around his head.
"I um...well now that I think of it I'm being quite silly." I admitted, taking a deep breath of regret as I stared at my host in his disheveled, sleep deprived state.
"Coming off your high, I presume?" he murmured with some irritation, though the fact that he did not send me away at this time of night was perhaps a good sign. He must have taken into consideration that his peer pressure was the reason I had taken that drug in the first place, and in turn he was responsible for everything that happened as a consequence. 
"Yes. I had a nightmare, it was....well I woke up on the couch and I was frightened." I admitted.
"Paranoia is a side effect, it'll pass." Victor assured.
"I'll go then, I'm sorry I didn't mean to wake you." I whispered, digging my nails anxiously into my opposite palm and turning towards the door with more fear now of embarrassment than anything that might be lurking in the shadows.
"Tell me about it." Victor announced in protest. I looked back in surprise, witnessing him sitting up in his bed and exposing his bare chest. For a poet he had a more decent build than I was expecting, and though he wasn't sculpted like an athlete he certainly didn't look starved. I wasn't trying to stare at his chest, though the way he chuckled made it clear that I took too long to process the new change in position.
"Tell you about what?" I wondered apprehensively, worried that he was going to try to elaborate on the silly confessions I had made at the fireside. The man shrugged, pushing his long bangs over his forehead so that they sat more comfortably on his head (they fell back in a matter of seconds, forcing him to part them in an attempt to see) and focusing his attention unyieldingly upon me. He didn't seem to want to sleep, in fact he was almost more awake than I was.
"About your dream of course. Or your nightmare, rather. I find that talking about them helps, substantially." Victor admitted, giving a small smile of encouragement. I nodded, hating to have to relive my dream so quickly but knowing that if I let it get too far in the back of my mind I could never retrieve it any longer. Best to speak it out loud and get it out before it burrows too far into my brain. I walked quietly towards his bed, standing just a couple of feet away as I began to speak.
"I was in an ocean storm, walking just halfway in the water over the open ocean. But I stumbled, and I fell below the waves. And down there was John Watson, drowned." I explained quickly. "It was a lot more frightening in the dream, I know it..."
"It sounds terrifying, Sherlock. And I'm sure this little storm isn't helping anything." Victor assured. "Did you go to your parents when you were little, when you were afraid?"
"I went to my brother." I admitted quietly. "He was always a lot more accommodating."
"And what would he do?" Victor wondered. I hesitated, remembering all the way back when my brother used to be my helping hand, my guiding light. He used to be the only one I could ever talk to, my only friend and companion. And to think I had left him, abandoned him for this life with this poet, a man who hardly knew me at all! 
"Well we were children, but he used to let me into his bed. And he'd talk to me until I felt safe, and then finally I would fall asleep without realizing." I admitted quietly. "But that's...well that was ages ago."
"Perhaps still effective?" Victor wondered, pulling the blankets off of one of the sides of the bed, so as to make it obvious that I was allowed to join him. My stomach twisted though my heart lurched, and I was not at first sure what was expected of me. Was he going to calm my fears, or did he have something else in mind? Despite my hesitations I knew that deep down I wanted to accept that offer, not only because he might be able to talk me out of my fears, but also because I wanted to spent more time with my host, more quality time. I figured this might be a good way to go about that, to have a good and unburdened conversation. And so very carefully I climbed into his bed, sliding under the blankets while still dressed in the clothes I wore for dinner, staying very close to the edge so as not to disturb Victor any more than I already had.