The body is just a vessel, Sherlock tells himself.
When he winces at the medium impact of falling into the lorry of linens. His ankle throbs, most likely a sprain, and he's bitten his lip through. Blood. Well.
When he almost retches when Molly gives him tepid tea in her flat that smells a bit like cat and chemical lavender but mostly like formaldehyde.
When he tries not to itch at his newly grown beard in an airport in Prague that smells of grease. There are at least three people having an affair and he's tired enough that he almost feels John's warm, sleep-soured breath on his neck as he leans in to chide him at his would-be loud observation.
When he takes a shower in the motel room with the curtain pulled back so he can see the ribs and the hollow of his stomach, and think of John's mouth and chapped lips as he talks very seriously about nutrient deficiency, and water sprays on the grimy tiles.
When he's on his stomach on a rooftop with his knees and elbows scraped bloody, and a sniper's scope to his eye and a silent but steady count in his head.
(532 days, 6 days, 14 minutes.)
When he spits blood into the stink stained with dye and touches his swollen left eye and thinks somebody loves you and spits again. (And sometime he dreams someone hits him, again and again, beats him bloody, somebody loves you, somebody, teeth in his throat.)
When he's curled up on a bed that smells not like John at all and has his hand down his trousers and almost screams because he can't. When curls up on the same bed a few hours later with a needle in his arm and the static-blurred huff of John in his ear, who the hell is this and do you know what time it is and is this some dodgy marketing thing hello hello? (hell John, John, John, hello) and no, Mary, it's – it's nothing, yeah, just, just go back to bed love (love, love, John, hello, John) and he bites down on the knuckles of his right hand hard enough to draw blood (I'm hanging up, alright, if this is...if this is y– Jesus, just...I'm hanging up now, alright?).
When he meets Irene in a sun-soaked outdoor café in Sacramento and her nail polish is a shade too bright on purpose, and she's married, twice now, happily she says, happily, but kisses him anyway and laughs at the name on his lips when she touches him in the dark hotel room that smells like her skin and his shampoo. She laughs harder still when he zips her dress back up for her, and kisses his swollen cheek.
(166 days, 3 hours, 28 minutes.)
When his hands shake and he has a cigarette, then two, then five, and looks at his phone.
Patience. MH
Bastard.
When Lestrade punches him, just hard enough to bruise, breathing loudly, huffing almost, and says something in French (not 'something', John, pute, whore, fuck, French, it's French, remember that restaurant in May, you were looking at her breasts, I was looking at you looking at her breasts, you smelled like sweat and anise, you ordered crème brûlée, mispronounced it and she laughed and tapped the surface with her spoon, her spoon in your mouth, Mary, her fingers on your wrist, and I wanted to hurt her, hurt you, two seats away, John).
But he didn't and he won't, not yet.
(6 days, 2 hours, 52 minutes.)