Lesson in Friendship 8 - 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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Thanks to all the great and kind readers who take their time to leave a comment and kudos for me.
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Chapter 21
Friday
John woke up, when a text message arrived. It was half past nine.
'You two are up to see some possible new crime scenes facts?' Lestrade asked. It was a bit odd that Lestrade now texted him about it, but only for a second. Of course the DI wanted to know how they were before starting something. Sherlock would not like this.
'Please call him in. JW' John answered, then decided to nap a bit longer.
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Unexpected stress woke him again when Sherlock stormed into his bedroom, shaking him awake. He was kind and careful, a whirlwind, urging him repeatedly to get up immediately. When John reacted too slow he started to search through his bag for clothes.
"Bloody hell, get out. I can dress myself!" John yelled, half joking half in real distress, kind of delighted but also disturbed by the thing.
Sherlock flinched and stopped immediately. In fact he looked kind of ashamed, it was actually a bit funny. He had rarely seen Sherlock ashamed, and even then he had more asserted he was than looked like it.
The next moment the detective fled the room.
John frowned, before the fall his flatmate wouldn't even have stopped, let alone being impressed by him yelling, although John had told him repeatedly not to just storm in. Explained that it was be the appropriate thing to do to knock and wait for an answer. Well, obviously that interaction-rule had been deleted… and the trying-to-understand-jokes-routine was obviously also gone.
Well, hadn't worked at bit anyway… or had he really sounded angry?
John felt frustrated, in fact this reminded him so much of the normal version of Sherlock that he had liked it to be woken like that - a bit.
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Sherlock realised his behaviour was rude when John yelled.
Immediate retreat.
He hurried to get out.
John was angry, he had probably stepped over a boundary, but which one?
Seeing John sleep… no, John was usually not shy about sleeping.
Roused too early?… He had slept almost eight hours.
Stepping into his room?… He had knocked and when there was no movement he feared something had happened to John… and had stepped in.
He should make tea, counteracting bad manners with good ones.
Sherlock hurried to start the kettle.
This was unsettling. Why?
He was eager to get to the Scotland Yard… Had wanted to discuss the things he had figured out during the night – wrong term, he needed John to listen, now that he had him back.
He had found at least three theories of… but John was no longer as eager to listen to him as he had been in the past, was not praising his deductions any longer.
He had missed it for so long to hear John say he was doing excellent work, but although John was back he didn't say it any longer.
These were the feelings of a child, starving for praise, he realised with disgust.
When had he become so dependent on human affirmative responses?
He felt even more ashamed for longing for them.
Stop it!
The distance that John kept was irritating… not nice.
Or was he the initiator himself?
John had told him he was the one not opening up and not sharing information or thoughts… and now he wanted to share and John didn't want to listen.
Oh, he was an idiot, this was different.
Sharing information about his deductions for a case and sharing his thoughts and sensations about himself were different classifications of information, he had mixed them up. But why was John more eager about the one than the other? Right, the one was work and the other one was personal… stuff.
He had become sloppy tagging things right and several parts of the databases had gone to pot during the past two years, especially those about interaction with people he wanted around. No need for that during his 'holiday'. No one was there and the taste of their absence had a nasty mint green tinge. Which he had tried to avoid to sense as soon as he had found it, it was just too frustrating to feel it. Distracting. He couldn't afford that if he planned to come back home alive.
Over time the databases had grown attached temp-folders, a dump of collected information that had not been sorted in correctly. The whole databases collection had never been in so much disarray ever before in his entire life.
Usually being rejected didn't concern Sherlock much… it had been his state of being for too many years of his life, the normal condition. Then there was John… and it had changed things.
It changed everything.
Perception was different, he had classified the term new after he had known John for only a few months, made new databases for John, because John's differences to normal people were too big to be integrated in the normal databases.*
Why had this little interaction made him so uneasy, John yelling?
He needed to keep John… This thought kind of mentally itched and hurt constantly since Bart's roof.
Making John angry so that he'd leave was not an option. In the past there hadn't been possible bad scenarios that played out in his mind as consequences of bad interaction. The option that John might leave hadn't existed.
How foolish he had been.
He just hadn't had those before meeting the army doctor… he had nothing to lose.
Now they were there, and they mattered, and decisions were made because of them.
He was… afraid of this group of topics, they were still so new and complex… Human interaction on a whole new level…
To lose John again had turned into a personal horror scenario. When he had dragged him out of the fire the feeling had been paralysing, irritating, unsettling… must have been fear, then.
He knew it was. He hadn't known if John was already dead or just unconscious.
The idea that they might have been too late had made him nauseous, even in hindsight it still did.
When John had finally opened his eyes while Sherlock was feeling for his pulse he had a hard time to keep himself upright. He was glad he had been kneeling, otherwise he'd have fallen to his knees. In the past two weeks he had quite a share of being afraid of losing the other man's presence again.
He had cared for John's well-being for years, nevertheless it was still kind of irritatingly new, like new shoes… Experiencing care felt odd, not uncomfortable or bad, usually he liked exploring new things, but relationships had never been nice to explore – until John.
John had made it easier, he explained, he was patient, he didn't avenge on Sherlock when he struggled to understand human nature. Neither did he make fun of him; he said what he thought, not holding back, not acting with fury - maybe anger sometimes, but he was never mean.
He couldn't lose John again… racing to the fire to get John out and see the stack burning had burned something his mind, the area was sore and up to now had not healed a bit.
It had been a shock how frightened and stressed he had felt when he realised John was in the heap of wood.
The kidnapping had happened absolutely out of the blue, taken him by surprise.
Who had known Sherlock was back? They had probably wanted to hurt him by taking John, but who knew?
This was much too familiar - someone playing games like that, use one to get to the other. What if Moriarty had faked his death, too?
No, couldn't be! He was dead.
Sherlock should have inspected the weapon for tricks and the corpse for a real hole in the head..
Dumb!
But there was so little time and his thoughts had been somewhere else at that moment. The memories of the roof caused pressure to creep over his chest, making breathing more demanding.
"Hey…?" John's voice was soft and low, it jerked Sherlock back to reality.
He stood in front of the kettle, which was boiling hard. Before the automatic had a chance to switch it off John did, then turned back to the detective.
"You're okay?" John's eyes scanned him.
He turned away, "Fine."
He felt naked with his thoughts so wildly running through the surface of his mind.
"What's going on?"
Sherlock hesitated, not ready to even think about talking to John.
"Sherlock, tell me… I'm sorry, I yelled. It was not really that bad… I was startled awake and trying to come to my senses… I didn't mean to sound angry… Remember, that when you're roused like this as a soldier, it usually means something really bad is happening. It send my adrenaline pumping… Please, don't do that as long as no one is in immediate need for medical attention."
Sherlock still tried to come back to reality, though John's apology was kind, something else still felt 'off'.
When his eyes met John's he noted this fact had not escaped the eyes of the doctor, who now switched into some other mode. With one hand he turned a chair and with the other carefully dragged Sherlock towards it.
"Sit, I'll make tea."
But instead of doing so, John stood beside him and Sherlock could feel his gaze on him.
"Tell me where your mind has just been… in which memories were you wandering?"
Voice casual, faked.
Would John make his threat true and leave if he didn't tell him? He had said he wouldn't leave.
Sherlock's first impulse was to overplay this with a joke or laughing at something but… John would be angry if he'd dragged this into derision.
Since when was he so inhibited?
"Sherlock? Where?" John sounded kind, understanding but ordering.
"Bonfire," Sherlock admitted and watched John's reaction. It was the only thought that had crossed his mind he could put into words. The others were… he couldn't summarise them, there were just no right words. It was too complex, and… wild.
"Alright, what aspect?"
Sherlock hesitated, unsure what the other man wanted to know.
"What moment of the events exactly?" John specified.
"Realising you were inside. Jumping off the bike, running to the fire, not seeing you, dragging you out."
"That must have been quite bad," John sat down opposite on the other chair, "Were you reliving the thing or analysing aspects of the events?"
"Analysing."
"What did you deduce?"
Would John have used the word 'feel' instead of 'deduce' with any other person than him?
Sherlock wanted to do something else than talk about this… anything else was okay. But before he was able to stand up John had foreseen his action, his hand got hold of his upper arm.
"What aspect?"
"The Mindpalace… it got… There's damage…"
Sherlock saw a hint of… consternation or something on John's face, or maybe nervousness? Did that mean he had said the wrong thing?
He immediately tagged the topic 'Keep this quiet'.
"Sherlock, look at me? Don't shut the door in my face, come on. What kind of damage?"
Sherlock shook his head. Keep this quiet. He now wondered why he had said this at all. He knew there was, but this was not related. It had jumped him from behind.
Why had he said it? It had been an impulse, he now regretted to not have trodden fast enough.
"Have you slept tonight?"
Sherlock shook his head.
"How many hours did you sleep last night?"
"Nil."
Sherlock could see in the doctor's face that he was… something? Disappointed?
"And the night before?"
"Two on the sofa while you were… shopping."
Shame for being caught in the act of dreaming accompanied that information. He registered his mode of speaking had changed into sharpening consonants.
Not good, too much information about his mental disarray displayed by that.
"Bet that was not really sleep, wasn't it?"
Damn tags. He should try to mute them, but he had tried so often in the past two years, never worked. Where was the use in trying it again?
Sherlock saw no need to answer his former flatmate.
"You didn't eat at all yesterday."
"Had a coffee," Sherlock disagreed.
"Hff, that still does not classify as eating."
John fetched the meds and the vitamins and Sherlock took them with a sip of water that he also offered.
"You're trying to work yourself into total exhaustion?"
Was he?
John didn't seem to expect an answer.
"Well, so we'll carefully get some nourishment into you today," John threatened.
Great! That thing again. He was not hungry, his stomach was uneasy enough, eating would be nasty. Why didn't John get that? Eating would make him much worse.
"Here."
A cup of tea appeared in front of his face. But instead of the nice smell of earl grey or something decent it… er… chamomile.
"You can have some nice tea after this one is gone… and I had a quick look at your stitches."
Switched to full doctor mode.
Sherlock nose sniffed at the tea without him having it allowed to do so. His mind scrunched up it's nose at his transport's nose's autonomy.
He rolled his eyes about his noses and John's idea of caring for his stomach.
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They arrived at SY half an hour later and Lestrade surprised them with the fact that three missing persons had been reported last night.
Since the time distance to the last murder was right Lestrade feared that one of the persons was indeed taken by their serial killer.
"This one looks as if it fits into our suspect's typical prey system," Lestrade pointed towards one of the files open on his desk.
In the back of the room Donovan waited and looked uneasy.
Sherlock sat down and started studying the files, not caring to take off his gloves.
"I have some other things to do, guys. Let me know when you're finished."
"Where are you going?" Sherlock asked.
"We have a suspect in another case, I need to observe the interview," the DI informed and headed for the door.
"You're sure it's a good idea to leave them here, in your office, on themselves?" Sally bickered.
"Yeah, Sally. Leave it alone," Lestrade jostled her out of the room.
"Read that file first," Sherlock ordered.
"Oh, sure," John sat down, too and started reading.
Another half hour later they had both read all three files, not that there was much in them, yet.
Sherlock opened the office door when Anderson passed by.
"Where's Lestrade?"
"Down the hall. Stay here, I'll see if he's finished," Anderson offered and Sherlock saw John raising his brows, probably because Anderson was kind of friendly.
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A/N:
* See 'Lessons in Friendship 1', 'Lessons in Friendship 5', and 'Handle with care' Chapter 13, for more detailed explanation how I think Sherlock's databases work.
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