Author's note: The order in which I post these ficlets has nothing to do with chronology. Some of them take place during the epilogue of Fragile, some afterwards. It really doesn't matter what order they're read in. Just thought I'd put that out there in case anyone was confused.
It had been about five months since Sherlock's final dose of chemotherapy, and their lives had long since reached a happy balance. John was content, and Sherlock at least seemed content—it was always hard to tell with him. The only thing that ever caused them trouble was travelling in public places with lots of people around. Not that Sherlock had ever wholly confessed to it, John knew he loathed the looks he always received from strangers. Unfortunately, unwanted attention was inevitable with the extensive scarring. Because the donor skin had been meshed to cover the entire wound, the new skin appeared scaly and almost reptilian, and its color didn't match the rest of his head. John was accustomed to it, and he sometimes had to remind himself how frightening and unnatural it would seem at first glance. He understood that people simply couldn't help themselves; their attention was innately drawn to the macabre and perplexing, but he still wanted to confront every single person who looked at his friend funny and tell them to mind their own business. But he knew that if he did this, it would only increase Sherlock's embarrassment tenfold.
Fortunately, most adults had enough street sense not to whisper to one another. People never whispered as quietly as they thought they did. John had heard the occasional, "Oh my goodness," or, "That must've hurt." Most people assumed it was burn. He saw the detective tense up whenever he heard such remarks, but they were rather easily pushed to the back of his mind. However, most children were yet to learn to keep their comments to themselves. One incident in particular validated this statement, and enraged John to no end whenever he recalled it. That instance was probably the closest John had ever come to totally losing it.
John and Sherlock had just vacated the cab that had taken them home to Baker Street, but that day, the short walk between the street and their front door proved to be a gauntlet of humiliation. The neighbors and the frequenters of Speedy's had all seen Sherlock before. Most of them didn't even turn their heads anymore when he walked past. It was early evening, when the sidewalk was most crowded. As he stepped out of the cab, John saw the little boy and his mother headed their direction from a few meters away. John generally liked children; their innocence reminded him of a time when things were simpler, but when he heard the words that came out of that little mouth he wanted to march over there and throttle the life out of that child.
"Look Mommy, a monster!"
Even though Sherlock was ahead of him, John could visualize his cheeks flushing deep red. John turned to look at the woman; she was mortified. The child, on the other hand, was evidently confused. John watched her mouth, "I'm so sorry," but it did nothing to assuage his ire. John tossed Sherlock the key to the flat and allowed him to open the door while he continued to stare her down. His angriest glare couldn't come close to conveying how strongly he really felt, but even so it was frightening. John could feel the rage bubbling up inside of him, and he wished Sherlock would hurry up with opening the door so he wouldn't have to restrain himself anymore. If it weren't for a considerable amount of willpower, the child and his mother would have been reduced to bloodied, unconscious heaps.
At last, Sherlock opened the door, and John followed him inside with one last death glare at the woman. It wasn't exactly her fault, but John needed some target to direct his anger at lest he actually explode. He turned back around to speak to Sherlock, but the detective was long gone. John dashed up the stairs after him. When he arrived at the landing, Sherlock was curled up on the sofa facing the wall, the butchery blanket wrapped around him from head to toe. John had a quick internal debate on whether to acknowledge the incident, and decided in favor.
"Sherlock, you can't let things like that get to you," he said. "He's just a kid, he doesn't know any better." Sherlock didn't reply, but John sat down in his chair to wait for the sulk to end. Eventually, the detective unwrapped himself and turned around to leave the couch, but when John opened his mouth Sherlock put his hand out to signal him to shut up. John decided to leave the issue and not pressure Sherlock to talk about something he didn't want to. Hopefully, he was choosing to let it roll off his back, and John badgering him would only make things worse.
John envied how easily Sherlock wiped incidents like that from his memory. It wasn't the first time something like that had happened, but that child had certainly been blunter than most people. With observational skills as keen as Sherlock's, it was impossible for him to miss when people gawked at him. Every single time, his discouragement would last up to an hour before he returned to normal. John, on the other hand, would mull over how best to murder the offender for days on end. It was often Sherlock who had to tell John to forget about it instead of the other way around. He'd say, "People are idiots. Idiots will be idiots."
~0~
About a month after than unfortunate encounter, John sat at the kitchen table with a newspaper and morning tea. Sherlock was yet to wake up. Since the cancer ordeal, he slept much longer hours, and John dared not wake him unless there was a case. But this morning, he was taking even longer than usual to rouse. At about half eight, John began to worry. Chances were Sherlock had gotten sick again and was attempting to hide it for fear John would make him go to the hospital. On the few occasions that had been necessary, Sherlock had made it very clear how much he hated going back there.
John was about two minutes away from barging into Sherlock's room to check on him, when he heard a shout: "JOHN!" Fearing the worst, he threw the paper down and almost knocked over his mug in his race to get to Sherlock's room. He sprinted down the hall and burst through the door, only to find the room empty.
"Bathroom, John." Sherlock amended. John backtracked a few steps and stopped outside the closed door.
"Sherlock is something the matter?" John asked. "Do you need me to come in?" Worst case scenarios violently swirled around in his head, making him almost dizzy with worry.
"Come look at this." John opened the door and stepped inside. He looked Sherlock up and down for signs of illness, as was always his first instinct in situations like this, but nothing rang any alarms.
"What do you need me to see?" John asked. He was relieved it wasn't an emergency, and was now curious as to what Sherlock had dragged him in here for. Sherlock had remained facing the mirror, and John honestly had no clue what was going on. They weren't currently working on any cases, so a breakthrough was unlikely, but what else could get Sherlock riled up like this?
John looked back at the detective, who was now running a hand repeatedly over his scalp. "It feels different," Sherlock stated matter-of-factly.
"You're going to have to be more specific," John said. Instead of answering verbally, Sherlock turned around abruptly, grabbed John's hand, and placed it on his own head. After overcoming the awkwardness of the situation, John slowly slid his hand back and forth. He didn't know what it felt like beforehand, so he certainly couldn't tell what was different. He removed his hand, still puzzled. "What?"
"It feels fuzzy."
"You screamed my name and nearly gave me a panic attack just to let me know that your head feels fuzzy?" At this point, John was more than somewhat irked.
"It's never been fuzzy before! It was perfectly smooth, but now it's different."
John began to understand the situation, and he stepped forward for a closer look at Sherlock's scalp. Sure enough, on the side unaffected by the necrotizing fasciitis, he could make out tiny little hairs poking their way through.
"Sherlock, it's just your hair growing back," John informed.
"Hair?"
"Yes, Sherlock. Hair."
"But I thought it would never grow back."
"Only on the grafted section. The rest of your head is fine."
"Well, what am I supposed to do now?"
"Nothing. There's nothing you can do to make it grow faster," John explained. He found it strange that Sherlock wasn't more excited about such a milestone.
"That's not what I meant. I don't want it to grow faster if it's not all going to grow back. Too much will be missing to be able to cover it up properly."
"I'm sorry, what exactly to you expect me to do about it?" John asked. Sherlock stared blankly at him for a solid minute, and then he snatched John by the arm and led him back to the living room. John was taken aback, and almost smacked into the door jamb on the way out of the bathroom. Sherlock finally let go once John was positioned in front of his chair, and the detective took a seat in his own. John understood what he wanted and sat down across from him.
"Sherlock, you're acting strangely. Should I be concerned?" John wondered aloud.
"John, if only half of it grows back, I'll look even crazier than I already do," Sherlock explained.
"Are you still hung up on that little kid from last week? If it really bothered you, we can talk about it."
"That's exactly what we're doing right now. I'm asking you for help, and I'm hoping you'll oblige."
"Of course I'll help you, in any way that I can. Unless it's illegal."
"John, what kind of man do you think I am?" Sherlock asked, pretending to be shocked. John gave him a look, and the detective added, "Don't answer that."
"Sherlock, I told you this ages ago when you first got home: either a wig or a hat would provide adequate coverage. You apparently decided to use neither. Are you changing your mind?"
"Is there another option?"
"Well, there is such a thing as a hair transplant. I'm sure we could look into that once—" John was cut off.
"Absolutely not. No doctors, no procedures, and no hospitals," Sherlock insisted. Of course, John should have known he wouldn't want any sort of surgery, no matter how minor. He'd been forced to endure so many treatments and procedures that having anything done voluntarily seemed unthinkable.
"Okay, I understand. It was just a suggestion," John defended. He was afraid he'd made Sherlock upset just by mentioning it. The detective had gone momentarily silent, eyes staring fixatedly into space. He seemed to be deliberating, but about what, John had no idea. When Sherlock finally spoke again, he changed the subject so dramatically that John was thrown for a loop.
"Mind palace." Sherlock didn't even speak in a full sentence, just those two words after a silence lasting nearly three minutes. He looked at John expectantly, as if he was supposed to know what the hell he was talking about.
"What about the mind palace?" John asked. Sherlock sighed, and John noticed his left hand rubbing the stumps of his two smallest fingers. He only did that when he was nervous. Whatever he was about to say was important, and almost certainly sentimental.
"In my mind palace, I'm still the old me. When I got sick, my mind palace self didn't lose weight, its hair didn't fall out, and it kept all its fingers. Even afterwards, it still looked the same."
"Are you asking me to interpret this? I'm not a psychiatrist," John explained.
"No, just listen. I still looked like the old me, until last month. Last time I went in there, it had changed. It looks like me now—the real me. And for the life of me, I can't understand why it didn't happen until now."
John was somewhat flabbergasted at this confession. If he were a psychiatrist, he would immediately see significance in this development. Sherlock's mind palace was his hard drive, his subconscious, his everything. However he appeared in there was quite literally the definition of body image—that was how he saw himself. It had been over two years since the climax of Sherlock's battle against leukaemia, so one would think he'd have adapted to his new appearance much sooner. Yet he didn't.
There was no logical reason for it to have taken Sherlock this long to accept his new self, but the only feasible alternative was the presence of some inciting event. What happened that instigated this change in Sherlock's self-image? The only thing John could think of was the comment from the little boy on the street. Not much else had happened in the past month or so, certainly nothing pertaining to Sherlock's illness. But why was it the ignorant remarks of a child that so drastically changed Sherlock's mindset?
Maybe it was simply the bluntness with which he used the term 'monster.' Sherlock had been called 'Freak' by the Scotland Yard regulars since before John had even met him—though they'd stopped using that nickname since Sherlock's leukaemia—but 'freak' and 'monster' had very different connotations. A freak is strange and different from everyone, but a freak isn't inherently evil. A monster destroys things. A monster takes relentlessly and doesn't care if others suffer at his hand. A monster is universally hated. While he may resemble one to the whimsical mind of a child, Sherlock was certainly no monster.
John wondered how best to lay this out to Sherlock in inoffensive terms he would understand. After a few minutes of deliberation, he took a deep breath and began: "Sherlock, this is difficult to explain. It's hard enough for me to understand; putting it into words is another battle entirely. My best guess as to why your mind palace self didn't change until now is the kid who pointed you out a while ago. Until then, you could ignore it. Most of the people you talk to knew you before leukaemia and they're used to you. But with someone who's never seen you before, their first impression isn't of you bombarding them with incredible deductions, nor is it you insulting their intelligence. Their first impression is the massive scar on your head.
"There's really nothing you can do to change that, unless you accept one of my earlier offers. Otherwise, you'll just have to go with it. Every new person you meet who doesn't have any prior knowledge of your reputation will only see what's on the outside. And that sucks. It just does. You're essentially the face of Deadpool with the hands of Doctor Strange, and it's difficult for many people to look past that."
John saw the sheer confusion on Sherlock's face after he mentioned those characters. Of course, he should have known better than to use pop culture references to reassure him. He may as well have been speaking Greek. Actually, Sherlock understood Greek, so that simile was invalid. Plowing through his failed comparison, John continued:
"Sherlock, before you came along, I was the short, grumpy cripple. Most people who saw me couldn't look past the limp and the cane. I know that pales in comparison to what you're dealing with—"
"No it doesn't," Sherlock interrupted. Why he felt the need to validate John's own infirmities was a mystery, but John appreciated it nonetheless. But he'd come to terms with his own PTSD long ago; now was time to focus on Sherlock.
"But it still made me feel like crap. I felt like I'd never be anything more than that limp. But it was you who proved me wrong. When I met you, I found a new purpose. I think we need to do something similar here. You don't need a new purpose, but you do need to rediscover what has always been your purpose. Who cares what you look like?" John concluded. Sherlock looked at him and smiled hopefully.
"John, how is it you always know what to say?"
"Truth is, I made all that up as I went along. I've been blindly stumbling my way through life ever since I met you, but it's worked pretty well. I'm glad I managed to go in the right direction."
"Although the part about the pool of the dead and Dr. Strangelove was quite confusing," Sherlock admitted. John simply couldn't restrain himself, and he burst out laughing. He laughed harder and longer than was warranted, but he felt like a dam had burst inside of him. All the emotional tension of the past hour just snapped, leaving him gasping for breath. When he finally regained his composure, he told Sherlock,
"Next time you complain about being bored, we're watching at least one Marvel movie. I refuse to reside with someone who doesn't even know who Dr. Strange is. He actually reminds me of you." John thought for a minute about his arrogance and insistence to take on only worthy cases. Now that he thought about it, the number of similarities was rather uncanny…
"I reserve the right to refuse," Sherlock said. "We have more pressing matters to attend to: what am I supposed to do with this half a head of hair that stubbornly insists on regrowing?"
"Shave it off?" John suggested. "But I'd advise you to let it grow back a bit more before you decide. Who knows, it might not be all that bad."
"I look forward to letting it grow in just to prove you wrong. It'll be horrid."
"Maybe it'll grow back differently. Maybe even straight," John mentioned, remembering some article he'd once read about chemotherapy changing people's hair. Sherlock visibly shuddered at the mention of straight hair, making John chuckle. The man's priorities were frankly hilarious.
~0~
Sherlock did let it grow in just to prove John wrong. It had reached about half its previous length—already curling into tight ringlets—before he'd had enough. Unfortunately, Sherlock was right: the strange pattern was even more startling than baldness. Sherlock himself described the pattern on his head as a poor imitation of the yin and yang symbol, and John had to agree. Sherlock also claimed that it itched, the sensation of hair on his scalp now foreign to him. John had become so accustomed to the old Sherlock that it felt strange to see him with hair.
John was ordered to buy a razor, and he reluctantly complied. Sherlock refused to go with him, claiming that he trusted John's judgment. When John returned, Sherlock ripped it out of the packaging and immediately shaved all the hair off. When he returned from the bathroom, once again bald, John almost felt relieved. This was the Sherlock he knew. While the hair growth was a promising sign of recovery, Sherlock feeling comfortable in his own skin was far more important. John glanced up at him and muttered just loud enough for Sherlock to hear:
"I like my detectives clean-shaven."