This idea came to me at work today, and it wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it out. I'm just not sure what to do with it now that I've written it! I hope you like it?
It was a perfectly normal day until John came home and had a mental breakdown. They hadn't had a case in a few days, but the boredom had been satisfactorily mitigated when Sherlock talked Molly into giving him a head. A homeless man had died in the grips of some kind of psychosis, probably the result of a fever or infection, and Sherlock was just about to remove his brain to run some experiments on the tissues when he heard a strangled noise from the doorway. John was standing there, gripping the wooden frame with white knuckles. Judging from his elevated rate of respiration and the fine sheen of sweat that had arisen on his forehead, something was wrong.
"Bad day at work?" His inquiry was motivated partly by the fact that John was always saying he should try to participate more in friendly conversations (which was boring) and partly by the fact that he was interesting in what, exactly, made John tick (which was not). He didn't seem to hear the question; his eyes were fixed on the head and his chest was heaving. Sherlock beamed and turned it so that it was facing John. "I got it from Molly," he explained. "He died raving in the streets, isn't that fascinating?"
Apparently John did not find that fascinating. He sank into a crouch with his back pressed against the wall and his head between his knees. Another groan came from the general direction of his head.
"Oh, honestly, John, it's just a severed head. You'd think you'd be used to this by now." Sherlock couldn't help but roll his eyes. He understood (in theory, anyway) the common man's abjection when faced with such reminders of his own mortality, but he'd come to expect better from John.
"Who was that?" John choked out, though he remained crouching. "What was his name?"
Sherlock clucked his tongue absently, already returning the majority of his focus to the specimen in front of him. "How should I know?" He asked. "He's just some homeless man who turned up in the morgue this morning. Surely you find the circumstances of his death far more interesting than his name. Raving in the streets, John. A full-on psychotic break culminating in death. In public. Think of all the possibilities contained in this man's skull! All the contaminants! He could have infected dozens of people just today!"
No reply. Sherlock was becoming annoyed by his flatmate's reaction. This was not the first head to show up in their flat, and John had never reacted this way in the past. In fact, Sherlock recalled proudly, John was beginning to take the various and sundry body parts in stride, seemingly accepting them as parts of daily life. He studied the specimen's face, trying to figure out what, exactly, John was taking such issue with. The man had been pudgy but not quite overweight, and his skin was pasty white despite the fact that he was homeless. He'd probably spent most of his time in some kind of shelter, perhaps confined to a bed or hiding from imagined foes? The pattern of lines and wrinkles showed that he had once been a happy man who enjoyed laughing, but then the worry lines had begun to crease his forehead, pull his eyelids down slightly. The hair was longish but ragged, as though he had cut it himself several months ago. Overall, he looked like a man who had been living in the streets. Sherlock could not fathom why his face should have such an effect on John Watson, the man who had stared down death repeatedly.
John was muttering something now, and while Sherlock could not quite make out the actual words, the sound of his voice made it clear that something in John had snapped. This was much more interesting than the possibility of biological contaminants stemming from a dead man's head, so Sherlock pulled his gloves off and went to John instead. He crouched in front of him and stooped a bit to try to look into his face. John had his hand pressed to his ears and was still muttering, except now Sherlock could make out the words:
"Not James, no what were you doing you were back James what happened what about Karen where's Karen what did you do what happened to you..."
Okay. Sherlock rocked back onto his heels for a moment with his fingers pressed together under his chin. Clearly the head had called to mind memories of someone John knew—from Afghanistan, from the sounds of things. Seeing his head on a plate on his kitchen table, then, must have sent John into shock. It was like he was in his own mind palace, if his mind palace only contained all of the awful things that he'd ever seen or done. John was finding it hard to breathe, and if the growing desperation in his voice was any indication, was probably unable to stop muttering despite his best efforts. Sherlock leaned forward again and placed his hands over John's. The smaller man flinched, but Sherlock didn't pull away.
"John..." Sherlock began carefully. "Did you know him?"
The touch, combined with the question, seemed to snap John out of his mind-trap, if only a little. He looked up and, although he still had that haunted look in his eyes that he got after several nights of very bad nightmares, he also looked grateful.
"Afghanistan," was the only answer he could manage. He held Sherlock's gaze, and the desperation, the pleading look in his eyes was unsettling. This, like most things, was decidedly Not His Area. He was sorely tempted to get John a blanket for shock and then lock himself in his room until the whole thing had blown over, but then he remembered all the nights that John had distracted him through cravings for nicotine (and worse), and his conscience twinged.
Terribly inconvenient, that.
Pushing aside his fierce desire for more information (how did John meet the man, were they friends, did the man exhibit any signs of illness while they were in the desert together, when was the last time John had seen the man?), Sherlock rose to his feet and pulled John along with him. The sofa had to be a better place for a breakdown than the kitchen floor. Once John had more or less settled into the cushions, Sherlock perched himself on the coffee table in front of him, looking at him with more uncertainty than he was used to or comfortable with.
"What should I do?" Sherlock asked. The question was mostly directed at himself, but he was also hoping that John, even in this state, might be able to help him. Corpses were easy. Criminals were easy. Hell, most of humanity was easy. John was different.
John's hands fluttered in the air before him, maybe trying to wave away his's concerns. Already Sherlock could see marked improvement in his condition: his color was returning, and his pulse appeared to be slowing back down to normal. John pressed his hands to his face for a moment, wiping away his sweat but also taking a private moment to compose himself. Sherlock wondered if he should try making him some tea. Then he wondered where they kept the tea. When John lowered his hands, he seemed mostly back to his old self, albeit with a slightly sheepish look on his face. He met Sherlock's eyes for a moment, before hastily looking anywhere but at him. Not that he knew that his friend was not going to faint or have a heart attack, Sherlock's desire for information was becoming insatiable. Still, he felt strange, unsure. How would he ask? Could he ask? He was not, of course, doubting his actual ability, but he wasn't entirely certain that such a thing was "allowed" in the civil, friendly world that John spoke of.
Thankfully, John read the questions in his face. Without further prompting, he drew a shaky breath and began to form his answers.
"His name's James Davies, and he wound up in Afghanistan just a few months after me. I mostly just saw him around the base sometimes, but we never really spoke until some men brought him in bleeding. He'd gotten too close to this kid in one of the towns, and the doll she was carrying was full of explosives... Most of the other men would have been screaming. I would have been screaming. But he was just crying. He wouldn't stop asking me if the kid was going to be okay." He laughed bitterly. "Nearly lost his bloody arm and he was worried about the kid." He stopped then—it seemed he needed to take another moment. Sherlock was starting to feel a bit twitchy. This wasn't exactly the information he wanted, but he also knew that telling the story was doing something good for John, so he forced himself to remain still, patient.
"He told me that he had a little girl back home the same age as the girl that blew him up. He said her mum had disappeared, so he'd left her with his parents for this one last tour. I told him he was in luck, that he might end up invalided home because of his injuries, but he didn't want to go home like that." He scanned Sherlock's face, then gave him a smile that seemed amused. "At the time, he didn't show any signs of infection or illness, but that was also over a year ago, so things could have changed." His worry lines deepened, and Sherlock found himself wishing that he would smile at him again. With an uncharacteristic lack of thought about the situation, Sherlock reached out to take John's hand, covering it with both of his. He couldn't quite bring himself to look at him, so he kept his eyes fixed on their hands.
John didn't pull his away. In fact, he threaded his fingers through Sherlock's and squeezed tightly, even desperately. The whole episode had reminded Sherlock that, as much as he knew about his flatmate, his blogger, his friend, there was still just as much that he had yet to discover.