We are all in danger if Sherlock ever takes apart a nicotine patch. I picture him shooting up on nicotine...
Not good.

i enjoyed this walk in Sherlock's head. Not as scary a place as i suspected it might be.

Oh wow! Having never experienced the effects of nicotine, I found this story fascinating. The whole scene makes so more sense. I love that you have written it from Sherlock's perspective. This was excellent.

You do yourself a disservice - pointless? Hardly! Wonderful insights into the workings of that brain, and his brain's and body's response to the nicotine. So much going on behind the scenes. Judging from descriptions of Cumberbatch's process, it wouldn't surprise me if this is the kind of thing Sherlock is thinking.

Such excellent descriptions. This one is particularly dynamic: "A million and one stray thoughts stutter to a stop..." Sherlock's description of John's "military instincts giving him a please predisposition to follow orders" had me chuckling.

Fabulous last line.

A really do appreciate little insights into a character's thinking. Well done.

It's interesting, the updated "three pipe problem." Because being an ex-smoker, I can tell you that three pipes would make you as buzzed as all get-out, and three patches wouldn't do jack :p They release far, far too slowly into the bloodstream for it, which is part of the reason a lot of smokers think they're crap and don't work. The most you get is twitchy and have slight heart-palpitations, but it in no way makes you *that* high.

Though part of my headcanon is that his patches are laced with cocaine. Nobody'd look at those during one of Lestrade's drug busts. It's my only suggestion as to how the hell he appears to be getting buzzed off them.

(No, I didn't try multiple patches due to this- quit years before. But damn, I needed that nicotine at the time...)

Oh, yes! The fic. :p

Excellently written, though I have a feeling pedant Sherlock would probably keel over and die at the informality of "alright" over "all right." :p

I'm a little confused about Sherlock's thoughts about John turning down the bribe; possibly just because it just conflicts with my interpretation of the scene and not a fault of your writing or anything. Judging from how utterly pissed off Mycroft seemed with John when he turned him down, I imagine his expectations were that the broke mentally-ill little guy with the limp was going to at *least* ask how much money they were talking about. The fact that he threw some sarcastic bitchiness into the mix seemed to be the point where Mycroft went for the throat and mentioned the PTSD. I got the impression that few people ever passed that test. [/cool story, sis.]

You point out some excellent stuff, such as John's military history being a big reason why he's willing to follow orders (which sheds new light on Sherlock's reaction to John pulling rank in Baskerville- he's like oh, that's right, you were a ranking officer...)

I love the explanation for the tiniest of gestures, including the phone between his palms and his initial confusion on the "blacked out" thing... and the fact that there's pretty much no way Mrs Hudson didn't honestly hear him calling (I bet she's managed to decipher his tones so well by now that she knows every nuance.)

I also love the ambivalence toward whether John really is an "idiot" or not. Sometimes Sherlock's outright calling him an idiot to his face; other times he's encouraging him to "think". (Times he encourages Lestrade to think 0.) And then, of course, the fact that John was able to work out on his own who the killer was and where they would be is possibly the only reason Sherlock survives the episode.

This was a great read. Excellent!

Just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this :)

Love it !

Interesting! The iSherlock/i writers certainly do tend to gloss over the realistic implications of many of the elements they introduce, when those implications become inconvenient (as do nearly all screenwriters). I like seeing those little gaps in the realism filled by a good fan author, and you've done a good job here. I'm not sure exactly what effect three nicotine patches would have on someone in the real world, but your description here is very convincing, both in physical terms and in terms of Sherlock's behavior. Well done!

Wow! What an in-character little story you've got here! It makes a great deal of sense and is entirely plausible as far as I can even think. I'm sorry, I'm really bad with words but I just thought you might like to know that I love this. :)

Nice way to explain Sherlock's actions

Thats a clever explanation for what happened!