Define Vulnerability
Disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC, Mr. Moffat, Mr. Gatiss or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made.
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Chapter 44
Monday night
John knocked at Sherlock's door again but didn't get an answer, though he heard Sherlock moving inside.
"Alright, I'm coming in, then," he informed the other man.
Carefully, he opened the door, peering in.
Sherlock was sitting on his bed, phone in hand, looking up at him with dark shadowed and tired eyes, he looked haunted.
"Hey," the doctor greeted, trying to sound enthusiastic. The question how Sherlock was doing would only cause frustration, so he didn't ask. He saw enough with his own eyes anyway.
The pile of blankets was still on the ground.
John entered and sat down on them and to his surprise felt they were warm, which meant Sherlock had sat there moments ago and only moved to the bed when he had knocked. He looked up at the detective and it was clear he was aware John knew where he had been.
Maybe that was why he didn't meet John's eyes.
"Smells bothering you?… I aired the flat."
"Good."
"Stomach bothering you, too?"
Sherlock frowned and finally looked at him.
"Tattered with Lestrade?" he spit in a low voice.
"We do not tatter. We are worried."
"I'm sick of hearing the word 'worried'."
"I know… But you could help minimise its use with a bit of trust, you know, telling us what's going on. That would reduce worrying and therefore the use of the word."
"Oh, God! I'm sick of telling and talking and…"
"Sherlock, you're not mad at us for caring. You're mad at yourself for feeling under the weather and not being able to hide it better… and I bet you think you're not functioning properly, and you're mad about that, too… I know."
"Stop that psycho-BS, I'm not in the mood."
From John's point of view, using such words underlined the statement he had just made.
"Er… Right, then. Let's get to the mind palace. I think the faster we fix it the faster you'll succeed in solving the case."
"I'm not in the mood."
"Yes, you are," John insisted.
"I am not!"
"You want it working. I want it working. We'll go there and work on make it working," John tried to lighten the situation.
"Not now, I'm busy. Your tendency to play with words today is not welcome."
"Sherlock, the opening-up-to-me-thing we discussed before…" John started.
"The excessive use of the word 'work' seems to have tired me beyond…" Sherlock said simultaneously, exaggerating the sharp sounds of the words.
"Well, then you have no steam left to resist and must surrender and do as I ask," John grinned, trying humour once more.
He stood up, then sat on the edge of the bed next to his former flatmate, to look at Sherlock's screen.
"What the hell are you doing?" Sherlock exploded.
"I'm sitting on the bed."
"Get off!" Sherlock's tone had changed drastically, pissed and agitated now.
The detective jumped off the bed and reached for John's upper arm and literally dragged him off the bed.
"Shit!"
John was taken so much off guard he followed his movements.
"What's bloody wrong with you today?"
Sherlock normally wouldn't be this territorial with his room or his stuff, not even with his bed.
Privacy was nothing he particularly needed or cared about, at least not like this.
The doctor tried to use the fact that the other man was off the bed and collected several pillows from it to throw them onto the nest on the ground.
Sherlock seemed to like it there and if the bed was off limits then John would use the nest for what he planned.
"Sit. We're doing this, now!" John made it sound like an order, and not a subtle one, he thrust the last pillow into Sherlock's arms.
Perplexed, the consultant clutched it to his chest was then pulled down by John, who had just sat on another one. With a slightly sulky expression he sat where he stood and stared ahead, waiting for John to speak.
"You know I'm not doing this to cause you trouble, I'm doing this to help you."
The detective said nothing.
"Okay, sit comfy."
Sherlock sat cross-legged and his posture screamed tension.
The doctor therefore abandoned the idea to ask his friend about what had happened today and decided to get them concentrated to get this going as fast as he could.
"Well, let's do this a little different than last time… The room where we found that strand beast model last time. Is there more? I mean is it a room for your former science projects? Or for technical wonders, or what?"
"Oh, please! Get the small talk over with. I'm not…" Sherlock started in an uneasy tone.
"Sorry, I thought I could…"
"Obviously, but it's doing the opposite."
"I haven't even begun," the doctor explained.
"Stop the nonsense."
"I just wanted to do this nice and comfortable."
"There is no nice… Either way, it won't be comfortable and you only prolong the bad experience this way."
"Right…" John was a bit lost for words, especially since the other man's expression was dead and mask-like.
"Lie back," John instructed, putting several pillows behind Sherlock.
"No. Just elaborate where we need to go and get it over with," the detective insisted.
"Where do you think we need to go?… What's bothering you the most?"
"Being unable to use the knowledge of the palace without risking things to get ugly. I need access to my databases, to knowledge."
"So our first priority should be to make the palace a safe place again."
"The existence of safeness is an illusion."
"Yeah, been there, too" John was sighting inwardly.
This was not a good start, not good at all.
"Stop pushing me away."
"I'm not."
"Then stop objecting."
Sherlock just huffed in a sarcastic way to that.
"Close your eyes."
To John's great relieve the detective did.
"You told me before there are large areas more or less unusable by fire and others where you can't enter at all."
"Yes…" Sherlock hesitated.
"You feel up to going there and getting another look at the problems?"
"I don't feel up to it, but I know I'm capable of doing that," Sherlock opened his eyes wide in something close to anger.
"Don't speak, just do it, please…"
The resistance Sherlock was giving him today was quite alarming - but not unexpected.
"Shut up and trust me," John begged in a gentle voice.
He must have sounded more desperate than he thought because Sherlock dropped his gaze to the floor and kept his silence.
This was also not what John had expected.
He sighed.
The next moment Sherlock turned away from him and rolled into a ball on the blankets, in his sofa-sulking-position.
"Okay, then. Is there a fire on a level we have already been to? Are there multiple fires?"
"Yes."
"Then let's go… to where you remember a fire was last time you came by."
"There's one on one of the old school levels."
"And that particular level is home to which kind of memories?"
"I built it in my early teens. I don't like that floor. I don't really want to go there."
"See it this way. Let's try there first. If we can't manage it's better than harming a level you like."
"Eurgh," Sherlock made, "Information is non-judgemental. It just is."
"Then why bothering to inform me that you don't like it there?"
"That's different."
"Really? Come on, just go there and tell me what it looks like."
"Dusty public school, hundred years without changes… Smells timeworn."
"Er, why don't you remove the smell? It's your mind."
"Isn't working," Sherlock grunted into the fabrics surrounding him.
"Are you there, yet?"
"Yes," Sherlock's voice had changed to small and soft now, but his posture seemed to be even tenser than before.
"Let's get closer to the smouldering areas… Describe the corridor for me."
"It's dark and with all those typical dark wooden ornamented window- and doorframes, wall panels, stained glass windows, dirty and letting in no light. Peeling paint is scattered on the floor… The…"
"Wait a second, did this level always look like this or has it changed recently?"
"It always looked abandoned and dusty, but it seems to have worsened."
"You made it like this?"
"No… I made it looking antique and… The fire is slowly eating at a wall on the right side of the corridor, rooms are on the left. The area ahead seems to be blackened and destroyed. The glow of the fire is… a source of light in the distance…"
"Hang on… just stand there for a moment."
Had Sherlock moved forward fast to get away from the other topic?
"How about we first light the area properly so you can see?"
"Fine… I put on some heavy duty construction site lights… Em,…That's… that's not right." Sherlock seemed to hesitate or observe something.
"What's going on? Can you see better now? Can you see to through to the other undamaged side of the corridor?"
"No… The black area is still black and the corridor vanishes into the dark. I'll carry the light in manually."
"Do you know what causes this effect?"
"I… The last time I was here was when I tried to escape to my mind palace during… when I was in the Serbian cellar and wanted to get away for a bit. Probably something connected to that incident."
"You don't need to make it sound like a holiday for me, just tell me."
"Needed to escape reality for a bit then… I tried to reach another level, but somehow arrived here by accident. The process of entering the palace was a struggle. I was wrenched out of virtuality repeatedly by my host, who was trying to hinder me switching reality off. I assumed it was against his ideas of making me suffer."
Sherlock's voice was monotone, but the sarcasm the words carried made John flinch.
"He dragged me back to the present again and again. The procedure was not pleasant."
"So, the damage might be caused by his tries to drag you back and you trying to stay?"
"Where do you get that idea?" Sherlock seemed irritated.
"Sounds logical. It's like an opening, caused by one force trying to get inside something, but another force is trying to keep it out… Back and forth movement causing fraction?"
"He tried to follow me…" Sherlock's voice changed to agitated now.
"What?"
That statement and its tone actually made John suck in air.
The fact itself sounded bizarre and the doctor failed to understand the hidden mental equation.
"Did he get in?"
Sherlock didn't answer and John stared at his back, wishing he could see his friend's face. He closed in a bit.
"Sorry, just assess the damage for now. No analysing, yet, just find out what it looks like…" Sherlock didn't react.
"Can you carefully move passed the burning areas?" John tried.
Sherlock held his breath.
"What's happening?"
"Hot… it's hot… and dark. The light is swallowed by the blackness, it's like it can only illuminate twenty centimetres of air, I can't even see my feet…"
"How deep are you in?"
"Maybe ten… steps…"
John heard Sherlock's voice was balking from the virtual heat.
"Do you think you can get through?"
"I will try!"
Sherlock's motivations seemed to be stubbornness, not the honest wish to reach the other side. It sounded as if his teeth were clenched together.
The next moment he hissed angrily.
"What…?" John frowned.
"I dropped the light, fell over some debris… The ground is hot, I… the debris is hot… I burned my fingers… I'll try to find a way to get over the joist and chunks… they are not all hot…. The heat is glimmering in the distance. It's moving away from me when I try to approach."
John realised Sherlock would hurt himself with his stubbornness, just trying to prove that he could make it through.
Time to intervene.
"Sherlock, this might be a bad idea… Be safe. Let's take a look at it from the other side. There is a staircase as well, right?"
"I will get through this!"
Sherlock had started to pant and now was also starting to tremble.
"No, wait! Come back to me, get out of there, you're hurting yourself."
"I don't understand. I need to hurt myself to heal, that's what you said."
"What? No!"
"Yes. In order to get passed my problems - to solve them - I need to endure the healing, endure the time it takes and all that is hurting me. Why am I not supposed to do it then with this? Makes no sense. Shut up."
It dawned to John that Sherlock was not able to make the difference between getting through the agony of healing and the agony of unnecessary self inflicted cruelty…
Yeah, which of those was this?
To John it looked like auto-aggression, but now he wasn't sure any longer.
Could Sherlock be right and this was a healing process?
Or was he just not able to distinguish between the two?
To be reassured of the own powers and abilities might be a good thing, to prove he could weather this?
Double edged thing.
So the doctor waited, and shifted into a position from which he finally was able to see the other man's face, at least partially.
Sherlock's breathing was laborious and getting worse.
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A/N:
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