Pain Management 2

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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This chapter was inspired by two brilliant stories and I'd like to recommend them hereby.

They are about Sherlock's short flight to exile and his return home. You can find them in my favourites or by searching for:

The ride home by Ernil i Pheriannath

His Last Flight by SecretTwin

You might want to read 'His Last Flight' first because I referred to some of the aspects that happened there. Many thanks to 'Secret Twin' for allowing me to do so.

Also many thanks to both authors for sharing their wonderful works with us :)

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4x01 - Flying home from Morocco

When they board the plane, Sherlock is relieved. He had feared that Mary might not allow him to convince her to come home with them. That she might try to escape them once more because she either felt the need to protect them and/or didn't trust them to protect her.

Sherlock is still ashamed about being knocked out by her so she could go on a hunt herself.

Why hadn't she trusted him?

This is still a question he hadn't found an answer to yet.

There was something she definitely didn't want to open up about - or couldn't, or didn't know the answers herself.

She had in fact looked puzzled during their meeting in Sherlock's cemetery bolthole, and not ready to believe she was really targeted by her former team member.

Also, Sherlock is glad to leave Morocco.

There are too many bad memories lurking in the typical aromas and noises of the region's back alleys. It was not the smells it selves, but the things his mind connected them with. He had spent time in North Africa while hunting down Moriarty and although it hadn't been as bad as Eastern Europe, these were no pleasurable memories.

In hindsight many countries were now spoiled by what he had been through.

To experience that particular uneasiness is something he loathes.

Because he should be able to ignore it.

He shouldn't still be affected by things like that – by simple memories!

Partly what was difficult about them was the distress they caused, which lingered, no matter how much he tries to kill it. But the other part was the shame about not being able to switch those sensations (were emotions really?) off, like a light.

It makes him feel defective and not-in-control.

Which was a no go.

Although he is relieved to leave, he is not at all thrilled about doing it by plane.

He had never really liked flying, but there were two air travels in his recent past that had seriously messed up with his willingness to board a plane.

He had noticed a growing level of distress in himself during the outward flight, following Mary to Morocco.

During that flight Sherlock had first realised that he was seriously unsettled by the memories about his flight to exile. But he had managed to push the distress away, trying to sooth an angry worried John and plan their next steps.

The day Mycroft had sent him off to his suicide mission, he had been in quite a bad state, mentally and physically.

The aftermath of his near death experience as well as the physical trauma of being shot were still affecting him when he had shot Magnussen.

Been sent to solitary confinement had caused him to fall into an abyss he had struggled to evade since John's wedding. It had been very hard to keep at bay in the boring hospital while he was in a tremendous amount of pain.

What hadn't happened during recovery due to his friend's efforts was inevitable in the loneliness of the cell.

Deep depression had caught up with him. He had - kind of - lost his mind. Been consumed by self-loathing, nightmares about having killed a person in cold blood, sorrow about this being the only way out of it and still all the haunting memories and trauma of his time hunting down Moriarty.

All those had plagued him to an amount that he hadn't know any longer what was reality and what wasn't. In addition his brain seemed to go to self-destruct mode without proper stimuli. He had suffered from perceptual distortions and other typical symthoms normally associated with sensory deprevation.

In the end he lost the connection to himself and had dwelled in a catatonia-like state - according to Mycroft, he himself couldn't really remember, which made him loathe it even more.

All in all, the only reason he had managed to board that plane, running on fumes, was probably that he had taken a carefully calculated dose of cocaine when being allowed to go home to pack a suitcase.

After only a few moments the desired effects had hit him: the euphoria, the inflated self-esteem and the elevated mood to set in. It was right what he needed – as was the increased energy the drug provided.

He had packed his whole secret stash of various drugs, well aware that due to the nature of his mission neither his luggage nor his person would be searched. He didn't bother to pack much else.

His good-bye from John was a disaster. He was not able to handle his drug induced mood properly and in addition lost for words, still dazed as well as numbed by all that had happened in the past weeks.

He had added things he planned to tell John to a long mental list he had made while incarcerated.

But it was too much, he didn't know how to sum it up or how to start saying any of it at all. Instead he laughed and joked in his desperation, but it was hideous.

It was not how he had wanted their final parting to be and he felt very sick about himself after the plane door had closed behind him.

He had messed up the most important thing in his life again – John. But he eased his mind by telling himself his friend was better off without him in the long run.

The short flight had been disastrous on his already fragile state of mind – and the memories are hitting him full force now that he is once more in a plane getting ready to take off.

The threat of impending doom waiting somewhere in the dark of a sinister future causes him nausea.

He had opted for the aisle seat, fearing he'd need a bathroom soon.

Originally John and Mary had the seats next to him, but when it turned out the plane was only half full, Sherlock had chosen to sit in the empty row behind them, give them some space – and get away from their keen medical eyes. They now sat divided by an empty seat in front of him.

Entering that plane to Eastern Europe and taking off had been his version of the ascending the scaffold.

Of all the bad things his life, this had been one of the worst, maybe even worse than jumping off the roof, back then he had hope that he'd come back.

This time, he would not wait to slowly being tortured to death. This time, he'd be the one in control.

While waiting for take off he had taken more drugs that would ease the horrors of the flight and then planned to end it as soon as he had written down a few things. He had read John's block for the last time, remembering and celebrating the best time of his life.

The despair he had felt back then catches up with him now.

He tries to fight those memories but as soon as they had buckled in, Sherlock had started to sweat in an amount he was not used to.

And it still goes and it feels bad.

Mary's and John's odd silence is grating on his nerves, too.

They are in imbalance and it is like in the months after Mary shot Sherlock. John was angry and Mary saw no other way.

Also, Sherlock is not really able to distinguish between the target of John's anger, all variations of it feel the same from his point of view. His friend being angry at him after his return and later being angry at Mary after she had shot him felt not that different.

John was pissed, and it was difficult. It was always difficult. Aimed at him it was only a bit worse, the difference almost too small to notice. He often wondered how people distinguished if someone were angry about them or about something else. The behaviour was lacked a proper distinction.

Snappy answers, petulant moods, low level of patience, irritability. These were all symptoms of anger John showed no matter if the cause of his anger was present or not, which Sherlock found quite unfair at times.

But a few years ago Mrs Hudson had explained to Sherlock that just absorbing it and not being angry in return was a sign of friendship and so he tried to do just that. She had also said that John deserved that he endured it, since the other man had done the same so often for Sherlock she had lost count.

So he would.

When the plane speeds up and he is pressed into his seat, the panic accelerates, too.

At that point during his suicide trip the drugs he had taken the moment he had been left alone in the cabin had started to kick in, but it was not as pleasant as he had hoped.

Instead of being pleasurable the chemicals aggravated his horror and dismay.

They messed with his emotions and he was glad the cabin crew were advised to leave him in peace until he called.

He would end something sooner and with lesser pain than planned, that was all. He couldn't go through another six months of those kinds of missions, the memories of torture and the permanent wandering on the edge was too much now.

He didn't have the energy left he had back then when he left to free the world of Moriarty. He was tired of all of this and since the outcome was inevitable he wanted it to be over fast.

That had been quite an odd feeling. Being sure it would be all over soon.

All his struggles, his awareness and everything just gone, switched off by himself.

It also left an odd sense of calm, that it was his choice when and where and how.

Then, Mycroft's call came and the plane turned around, although it wasn't allowed to get up he stumbled into the bathroom, the sudden change of his fate, the stress of it all and the sudden realisation that he might live turned his stomach inside out. He refused to puke into a vomit bag – or even search for one.

When he was back in his seat, he was still trembling and still suffering from painful heart palpitations... and a bit of shock probably.

Still, he was dizzy and felt very sick.

Also, he had probably accidentally expelled the drugs he had taken orally, among which was the one that was supposed to soften the unpleasant side effects of the others and take the pain away.

He felt awful.

He hadn't been finished with taking an overdose but it would be enough to make him quite sick for a couple of days...

The next couple of days.

There would be a tomorrow.

He clenches his teeth and headed to his mind palace to try to solve how Moriarty had managed to come back, he had only minutes until the landing and in there time passed differently.

The plane lifts off the Moroccan ground and ascends steeply.

Desperately trying to ground himself in the present, he looks out of the window.

It's evening; the sun paints the dusty beige landscape beneath him in a red tinge.

Nowadays his work is comparable to a mental minefield due to all those memories he tries to evade, which is pathetic and he hates it.

In his youth he had felt like nothing was there that could hurt him.

Now, there were things in his life that mattered and it meant that there are now real horrors.

The memories and insights make him feel queasy and he is aware that his face is covered in a fine sheen of sweat.

The pressure change assaults his eardrums. He closes his eyes and tries to gulp it away but it takes quite some time until it works.

Thankfully, John and Mary wouldn't see it from where they sat. They were also much too busy with being frustrated and not talking to each other.

His head is throbbing and he is tense to an amount that actually causes pain in his muscles.

Although his eyes are now closed, he meticulously monitors every movement around them, he can't let his guard down.

Once more palpitations start and he feels his blood pressure drop.

Short of breath, confined.

His eyes jerk open.

Control.

He needs control!

Slowly, he breathes in and out.

Once.

Twice.

... Ten times.

Then he suddenly feels very tired.

His hands are shaking slightly.

Well aware that no one is sitting in the seat behind him, he reclines his one.

He needs to relax.

But he can't.

Once more, he tries to close his eyes, tries to shut out the world.

But it feels too exposed and bare in the aisle seat.

Stop!

He opens and closes his hands several times. Self-stimulation might help.

But it's not enough.

There was a crown cork in one of his pockets from a soda bottle John and Mary had last night. He had collected it because it had an intriguing pattern on it.

Hastily fumbling for it with closed eyes he was relieved to find it almost immediately.

He pressed the pointy side into his left palm with his right thumb and pressed.

The pain had the desired grounding effect.

Focus!

This flight is a good thing, he tries to convince himself.

They are going home.

He'd feel better once he is back in London.

London is familiar and more assessable.

Then he finally finds something that might help, too.

He pictures 221b, mentally walks up the stairs to the flat. Then he concentrates on going in slow circles from the kitchen to the living room and back, visualising all the items on the shelves and tables.

After a few minutes he is still bathed in cold sweat, but his breathing and heart rate are almost normal now.

Finally, he manages to relax a bit.

They are going home.

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I am not a native speaker and the sequence of tenses in this chapter was very difficult for me. To prevent making a total mess I wrote this in present tense (and put the past in italics), which is something I rarely do.

Hope it worked nevertheless and was not too abstruse (jumping between all those memories/ events in the past).

As every author I'd appreciate some feedback, I also love constructive criticism.

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Don't forget to check out the recommended stories/authors.