There's no need whatsoever to live like this, bogged down and slowed by every past trauma and trouble, every byte of quotidian detail. There's nothing to stop him from keeping his mind neat and precise. There is no reason not to have room for all the information he does need — easy access at the turn of a screw, quad-core CPU and RAM that darts unfettered like atoms and ions.
It's such a simple thing, if only anyone would bother to notice. A few nuts and bolts, an oiled metal hinge, an outward swinging hatch.
There's no need to live the way people do. It's just that nobody makes an effort.
He can hear Afghanistan, in where it's still rattling around in John's chest, clicking and clacking like the beetles that keep vigil in their night walls. How novel it is that it should remain, that it can still chain him when he could so easily be rid of it.
What power should memory have over this funny little man, this army doctor who can thrust his wrists into a hungry gash and give life, who dwells in the quirked space between healer and killer?
Its deathless rattle — constant counterpoint to the kettle and the traffic and the contented hum of the outside world — makes Sherlock want to quirk his head like John's mouth, to point out the irony of that old wound, to say to him, Physician.
He doesn't, obviously. He says nothing about it at all, and every night, he unpacks himself carefully, methodically, item by item, bit by bit. Unpacks and examines it all in the palm of his hand, examines and separates worth from chaff, data from static. He can separate and process and dispose, and after that he can close the hatch up and be ready again, clean and precise and smooth, for another day.
Heal thyself.
And that's how it is, until, unexpectedly, Sherlock starts saving things. He finds himself sitting on the corner of his bed, studying the day dormant in the palm of his hand — re-reading the twist of an eyebrow, a wry word, the wisp of some pawkish quip — and folding these things, carefully, back into his chest, settling them safe among his ribs.
Just for now, he decides. Because it can't hurt. Just until he can work out why he's keeping all this.
They start to build up, these things he holds onto. They start to jumble together and crowd out his reason, to judder and jar against one another, all sharp edges that dig into the inner curve of his ribs and rub the tissue raw and red and tacky.
And the more he saves, the more each moment seems to matter, the more evidence each flinch or giggle or thoughtfully bitten lip manages to assemble in defence of its value. It's getting crowded in there, each little tickle of memory jostling for position, slowing his work.
The day that he strikes his chest and doesn't hear the answering echo, Sherlock deletes the whole of secondary school. Not the important stuff (the chemistry, the biology, the Shakespeare) — but everything else shatters on the floor beside his bed, grinds to dust beneath his slippers. He's not sure why he'd kept it so long anyway; it's all horrid, really.
It continues like this, growing and accumulating, packed closer and closer til he doesn't even rattle, and meanwhile John's Afghanistan grows quieter every day. John stands closer and warmer, smiles wider, lingers his touches longer, and creates so many new memories that Sherlock's throat aches with the unfairness of it all. This is not how he's built, to be a tight-packed cavern of feelings, a receptacle of light.
One night, Sherlock bites his lip and holds the solar system in the palm of his hand. He ponders it briefly (all pinprick stars and sparking solar flare and black, black nothing) and he takes a deep breath and closes it out of its mind. Goodbye to supernovas and the milky way, black holes and dark matter, to our planets, nine in a row. Make room for important things.
It's painful to live like this, to accumulate more and more, knowing all the while that he will have to discard. Fearing that this new fixation will eclipse his gospel, throw his work out of orbit and render him into something soft and warm-blooded, craving and quivering.
It's intolerable, this craning obsession, this pounding of waterfalls in his ears and he can't get his balance. It stays like that, untenable and unbearable, straining top-heavy towards the point of critical mass until he finally topples — until one day, he up and reaches for the back of John's neck, tumbles and pulls John down to join him, heals himself.
I'd actually forgotten about this, so thank you to everyone on tumblr who suddenly discovered it late last night (how does that happen?) and made me feel really good about myself. Hope you enjoyed!
Also, the photo is of the Golem who lives near the Žižkov Television Tower in Prague. He has a convenient swinging hatch. I love stories about the Golem.