CHAPTER 26 – The First Ascent

The changing area is rather basic - a couple of beaten up chairs and a series of hooks in a room off to the side of the grain silo tower. Sherlock assumes that it must have been the access point for the chutes for the grain to drop into lorries, but all the pipe work is long gone.

It isn't heated, and as they undress Sherlock shivers a bit.

John must have noticed, because he comments, "It'll be warmer once we get climbing."

Thankfully there are no buttons or zips involved, so Sherlock is quick at getting his calf-length running trousers on. He turns, hands on hips, to watch John struggle with an old pair of tracksuit bottoms, trying to find the other end of the drawstring.

Sherlock is finding the whole thing a bit bizarre. Why would he ever want to climb a wall for sport? Jonathan's quote of 'because it was there' seems highly irrational.

"Why are we here?" Sherlock inquires, when John finally looks up.

"Because we both needed to get out of the flat. Waiting for something to happen with the case is tedious, as you always say."

"You could have signed up for a locum shift if you were that bored."

"And leave you, for instance, to shoot up the walls with my gun? No, I don't think so." John turns his back to Sherlock as he pulls first a T-shirt and then a sweatshirt on over his bare chest. An answer muffled by cloth emerges, "I don't want to get away from you, you great clot." His head then emerges, hair now messy. "This is something we can do together, Sherlock. Something different for both of us."

"We do plenty of things together", Sherlock argues, "The Work, for starters."

He cannot shake the sense of suspicion. Ever since they'd encountered Jonathan Baxter at the Vault, he's felt like being on the back foot, worrying about the two medical professionals plotting against him. First, he'd been bulldozed into that ridiculous appointment with Doctor Goffe, and now, here he is, sitting on an ancient chair pulling on a pair of rubber shoes that look utterly ridiculous. He can't even get his foot into one of these blue, silver and black contraptions with velcro straps and not one but two heel loops, because it is way too small for his heel to plausibly fit into. His initial willingness to go along with this little adventure of John's is rapidly waning. Is this what someone is supposed to do, when they are in a relationship - put up with the whims of the other? The thought irritates him.

He wonders how long it would take for a cab to show up if he ordered one now. He reaches over to his jacket and starts searching the pocket for his phone. Behind him, he can hear the sounds of John taking a seat on another creaky chair, and the uniquely irritating scritch noise of a velcro strap being fastened on a climbing shoe. Clearly, John is managing to get his pair on without much trouble.

Sherlock's phone lights up the dim room, and John turns, startled. "Got a call?"

"No." Sherlock glares at the phone. There are no bars on the network indicator. "It appears that we are in a reception black hole." He shoves it back into his jacket, annoyance at being trapped into this pointless exercise escalating even further. John is still looking at him, and he feels rather self-conscious. Right now he'd have preferred to be wearing his normal clothes at home, instead of being forced so far out of his comfort zone.

Before John gets a chance to ask him why he had dug his phone out, Jonathan walks into the room and asks how the two of them are getting on.

Sherlock glares at the shoes John had handed him from the selection. "Wrong size."

"Nope. They have to be so tight that you will feel the wall right through it. I'll take the loops, you just stand up," he says, kneeling down at Sherlock's feet.

He follows the instructions and there is a flash of pain as his heel is constricted for a moment, but soon it is gone. Sherlock looks down as Jonathan tightens the velcro straps across his instep. "This is a form of torture device, then?" Sherlock asks dryly.

Jonathan snorts. "No, that's reserved for the harness. Now that really is uncomfortable." He stands up and leads the way back into the silo, stopping in an open, sunlit area near near what had looked like an office.

"You have to warm up your muscles first. Climbing without a preliminary stretch is the fastest way to pull one. A lot of experienced climbers just throw themselves at a wall as a form of warm-up, but beginners need to do a bit of prep. You'll be using muscles that you didn't even know you had," Jonathan promises ominously.

Or ones that have stopped taking orders, Sherlock thinks bitterly.

Jonathan leads the three of them through a series of exercises. "The hands take a lot of stress. So, extend your arms forward with the palms facing the floor. Keep them extended completely throughout the sequence, with the shoulders and shoulder blades down, away from the ears. Now, roll your hands five times to the left, five times to the right. Make sure you try to make perfect circles."

Sherlock remembers something similar from the warm-ups of his fencing days. A rather satisfying pop emerges from his right shoulder joint, followed by similar but quieter cracks from a couple of chest-level vertebrae, when he extends his back and retracts his shoulders. The noise is noticeable is the echoing silo.

Next, Jonathan introduces a few twists. "Spread your fingers and roll the hands five times to the left and five times to the right. Then make claws with the fingers and roll the hands five times to the left and five times to the right."

"Now raise your arms overhead and squeeze and open your fingers 10 to 20 times." This time it's John's shoulder that complains with an audible crunching crack of cartilage. He catches Sherlock's concerned glance and smiles. "It's fine."

"Last bit for the upper body," Jonathan announces, "lower the arms and swing them across your chest - alternating the left arm over the right arm, the right over the left for ten reps."

They comply in silence.

"Okay, take a moment to shake and gently massage your forearms," Jonathan directs them next. The suggestion is welcome, since Sherlock can feel a ghost of a cramp threatening to break out in his left forearm.

While roughly shaking his hands, which are hanging by his sides, Sherlock stares up the wall towards the ceiling. There is a jury rigged ring of lights at the top just below the windows, which illuminate the walls below. "Why here? This isn't a commercial climbing facility, is it?"

"No, you're right. Some urban explorers found this site years ago. The Mills have been used in lots of films and TV shows ever since - a sort of an icon of decaying Britain. Because we're across the river from the Olympic site, there was an attempt to convert this into a sports facility - got as far as installing the two walls here, but then the Silvertown authorities cut back on subsidies and the whole idea of making this a community area was ditched. My mate Darren rents it from the council for peanuts."

Jonathan resumes the warm-up with a set of varied leg stretches. By the time Sherlock finishes these, he is no longer as cold. John had been quicker to finish the set than him, because Sherlock had been forced to move to the side of the area and grab onto a concrete pillar to avoid falling. His balance still leaves a lot to be desired.

"The last one is a bit like ballet dancing." Jonathan lifts his right foot and points the toe, then rolls the ankle in a circle in one direction, before reversing it. "Ten each direction, both feet."

As if to distract them from the absurdity of what they are doing, Jonathan continues answering Sherlock's questions; "this place is still maintained and used by climbing groups. Darren takes the bookings, but no one owns the place. We just collect enough to keep it ticking over."

Sherlock looks sceptical. "Waterfront property is too valuable for this to last."

"Right again. Plans to develop the site have been screwed over twice, but it looks like third time lucky. The facade of one of the two mill buildings will be preserved, the other will be knocked down, along with this grain silo - all to make upscale housing for Canary Wharf types. But they're in no hurry at the moment, so we keep going."

"Squatters' rights," Sherlock reasons.

Jonathan shrugs. "It's just not worth their while, the politicians, I mean, creating a fuss." He picks up a cradle of webbing and odd metal bits from the floor near the office. "Now stop stalling and get yourself into this."

As he guides Sherlock into the climbing harness and tightens various straps, Sherlock wiggles to try to find some way of making the contraption comfortable. "This must've been designed by a woman, since it clearly isn't able to safely accommodate male genitalia."

"You'll live," Jonathan says, "Some climbers have even managed to have kids, you know."

"I think I'd have preferred a thumbscrew," Sherlock comments.

After repeating the preparations with John and himself, Jonathan shows John and Sherlock how to use a belaying device with an automatic brake.

"The pulley system seems rather inefficient when it comes to friction," Sherlock points out.

Jonathan raises his brows. "You're right. Most who really go in for this sort of thing prefer an ATC - that's short for air traffic controller, like this one I'm wearing. The grigri, which is what you've got here, is way too cumbersome for more skilled climbers to enjoy. It's good for beginners, though," Jonathan adds with a grin.

Sherlock glowers.

"Has anyone accidentally lifted the brake so that someone has fallen?" John asks.

"Thankfully, no; people tend to be really careful when they belay someone the first few times until they get the hang of it, and the grigri has an anti-panic handle." Jonathan unclips a pouch from his own harness and offers it around. "You'll need a bit of this for your hands," he says.

John sticks his hand in, and it comes out coated with white powder that to Sherlock looks remarkably like cocaine.

Sherlock grabs John's hand, pulls it to his nose and sniffs the fingers, frowning. "Magnesium carbonate. Di-, tri- or pentahydrate?" he asks.

"Who cares?" John says as he offers Sherlock the pouch.

Sherlock slowly sticks just the tips of his fingers in, and brings his hand out. He stares at it, rubs his fingers together and cringes. The feeling of it makes his skin crawl, and the desire to get the stuff off his fingers is almost overwhelming.

"It's meant to give you traction," Jonathan says, "so your grip won't slip."

The texture seems to grate on Sherlock's skin even when his fingers aren't touching anything. He can't resist wiping his fingertips on his slim black running trousers, but the irritating feeling remains. It's probably mostly in his head, but that doesn't mean he can stop being bothered by it. It takes effort to ignore, energy he really needs for other things right now. He wants to leave, go home, bury himself under a blanket. The only thing keeping him here is the fact that John had arranged all this for him, and Sherlock doesn't want to face the inevitable disappointment on his face. Disappointment he would have, yet again, caused.

Jonathan leads them to a wall. "We've got slab, such as this, then there's vertical walls, and even overhang. As a beginner, you should stick to slab and vertical. Overhang requires quite a bit of technique and upper body strength."

Sherlock can't decide if he should ignore what Jonathan has said - calling him a beginner is hardly patronising - or to be offended by the potentially inbuilt notion that he's still too weak and pathetic to manage such a challenge. Jonathan's insinuation that he might not be very good at this annoys him. He hates having to deal with other people's expectations; his own are disheartening enough at the moment. He has always hated this stage in learning things, where all the newness distracts from the actual task.

Trying to put a damper on his irritation, Sherlock looks up and turns in a semicircle, watching the rays of light shining through the windows high up in the tower. There's dust twirling in the lights, softening the colours of the harsh autumn sun. He then turns to stare at the wall, and trying to make the theoretical connections in his mind between what he assumes a climber does, and what the belayer does from the ground. It leads him to give John an appraising glance. "What if the belayer is much lighter than the belayee?"

"We just say 'climber', Jonathan corrects. "If there's a real disparity in weight, then we clip the belayer to a length of rope attached to a floor anchor. Not a problem. Their toes might lift off the floor if the climber falls, but it's perfectly safe with top-roping. It's only with lead climbing that you see sudden significant forces being put on the rope."

"Lead climbing?" John asks.

"That's when you are the first climber to ascend up a route, being the one to attach the rope to the wall. This is done either by clipping the rope to pre-installed carabiners, which is referred to as sports climbing, or wedging things you bring with you into crevices in the rock to run the rope through. The gear you carry for that is referred to as your climbing rack. That's how a lot of outdoor rock climbers work their routes - it's called trad climbing when there isn't anything pre-attached to the wall. Whatever you put on the rack, you have to take out, and you have to make do with the gear you have selected to carry, because you can only take as much as you can comfortably drag up the wall. But, that's getting ahead of ourselves here."

Jonathan points at the wall and grabs a rope hanging from the ceiling. "You'll climb first," he tells Sherlock, then secures the belay device onto John's harness with another carabiner. "John, you need to learn how to belay before he heads up the wall. It's actually more important than climbing, because you've got someone's life in your hands. And it isn't as easy as it might seem, so Sherlock you need to watch this, too, because you'll be belaying John after your climb."

"Stand here." He points to a place about six feet out from the bottom of the 80 degree incline. "You need to be able to see him climbing, so you can anticipate a fall."

When John nods, Jonathan positions his left hand onto the rope. "This is your braking hand. Keep it at least six inches down the rope from the grigri, and anchor it to your left hip. If your hand is too close, in the event of a fall, the rope might yank your hand into the belay device, pinching it, or worse - making you let go of it in a panic."

"The challenge is to use your non-brake hand to take up the slack as he moves up the wall. You have to remember one thing more than anything else: never, ever take your brake hand off the rope. If there's threat of a fall, you need to be abe to lower it next to your thigh immediately for the locking mechanism to work, especially with other types of belay devices. You'll use your right hand up here," he says, positioning John's right hand about fifteen inches up the rope before it passes through the grigri. "As he climbs, you take up the slack. Because he's a beginner, you need to keep it taut but not tight. You pull the slack through the grigri with your brake hand, moving the right hand down to collect the slack and then let your brake hand slide back up to return to your hip. Now, practice the movement. It's a bit odd at first, but you'll get the hang of it soon."

John practices the manoeuvre a few times, and then Jonathan nods. "Right. Time to get Sherlock on belay." He takes the climber's end of the rope and deftly loops it through two of the straps on Sherlock's harness. "You need a double figure of eight."

John smirks. "I was a cub scout and learned my knots. What about you, Sherlock?"

Sherlock looks up from where he has been watching the two of them. "I learned them for sailing at school, and a certain level of knowledge is obviously required for cases dealing with hangings and ligature marks."

Jonathan raises his brows, but doesn't ask anything. He hurries to the wall next to the office space and flicks a light switch. Soon the area they are in is flooded with yellowish industrial light from old halogen tubes.

"Right, you are now on belay," Jonathan tells Sherlock. "Tradition says you call that fact out to your belayer, who answers, 'belay on'. You respond 'climbing' - and only then get going."

The holds on the wall they're standing in front of are large, brightly coloured, each sticking at a few inches away from the wall. There's an abundance of options of things to grab hold of.

Sherlock crosses to the wall and puts out a hand, but then stops. "Is there a preferred method to this?" He feels marginally intimidated, and wonders whether he should ask Jonathan for a demonstration. He has never seen someone do this up close before. Had he known where they were going, he would have done some pertinent research beforehand, so he'd feel less like an underdog.

Jonathan chuckles. "It isn't rocket science. In general, you move one limb at a time. That's all you need to know at this point."

A silence falls, heavy with expectation. Sherlock swallows, as the pause grows. If even stairs give him trouble, then how will this be? At least he can use his upper limbs here to compensate for the weakness in his leg muscles. Not that his upper limbs are very strong at present, either. Better just get on with this. If it all goes to hell, at least getting it over with will deliver him home faster.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he decides, andlifts his right foot onto a blue, wedge-shaped protrusion. He then reaches for a handhold a couple of feet up. He can practically feel two pairs of eyes on his back while he struggles his way up a few metres.

Jonathan calls up to him. "Sherlock, I'm going to ask John to keep the rope taut so you can rest whenever you need to."

Sherlock doesn't answer. Pressing himself as close to the wall as he can, he manages to balance his right foot on a much smaller hold. After finding two sturdy handholds he leans back to see up the route better, but that makes his left leg nearly slip off the precarious position it's in, on top of a small, square hold. He yanks himself back against the wall and fights the vertigo that's threatening to hit. It still sometimes comes on, when his sense of balance feels off sync with the rest of his body.

He isn't even that far off the ground. Pathetic.

"Just lean back on the rope and sit on the harness if you need to," Jonathan prompts.

The notion feels akin to cheating. Isn't a climber only supposed to use the rope as a safety device to fall back on, instead of as some sort of a pulley system to drag themselves up a route?

The need to rest, however, does arise soon. By the time Sherlock has made his way up the route a few more metres, his breathing has become laboured, and the combination of anxiety about doing something wrong, together with the pull on muscles that he has not used in ages, are severely working against him. He has to battle against his fear of falling for a moment, until he manages to convince himself to unpeel his fingers from the handholds. He isn't afraid of heights, never has been, and he certainly isn't worrying about John's abilities to catch him if he falls. It's just that he doesn't trust himself right now.

After a moment of breathing in deeply, he lets go and leans back away from the wall, putting his weight on the rope. Once the pressure is off, pins and needles compete with a cramp on both his arms, so he shakes them vigorously, glancing down at John.

"Alright?" John asks.

Disturbed both by how little progress he's made, and a sudden worry about his current lack of balance, Sherlock snaps his line of sight back to the wall. Angry at his already aching muscles and lazy, half-offline nerves, he grabs a hold resembling a horn with both hands, and uses it to hoist his legs onto a narrow ledge off to the side of the centre of the route. This leaves him panting and forces him to sit back on the rope again. "Useless," he mutters to himself.

The large, echoing hall must have carried the sound down to the ground level, because Jonathan's cheery "You're doing fine!" comes up from the floor. "You're making progress. That's all that counts."

There's that hateful word again, progress.

At least he hasn't given up, told them this is ridiculous, and walked out. He's a third of the way up the wall, now. Tired of looking decrepit in front of others, he realises this is an opportunity John is giving him to change that notion. He's going to make use of it.

Sherlock gathers his thoughts, and narrows his focus onto the next foothold, pulling himself up with his fingers. If the violin practice is good for one thing, it is to strengthen them. It takes another fifteen minutes for him to reach the top of the route, where he has to sit back on the rope and breathe hard for a few minutes. John then lowers him gently down.

"How was that?" John asks.

Sherlock doesn't really know what to answer. He looks back up the wall. "I can't possibly comment based on a single route. I need more data."

Jonathan looks pleased. "Then let's try another one. The one over there is up the silo's brick wall. The the holds are smaller, imitating rock climbing a bit more closely. It's a straight vertical one, but there are plenty of holds."

"Lead the way," Sherlock says, untying himself from the rope hanging from the ceiling. It takes him several tries to loosen the figure-of-eight. John reaches out to help him, but Sherlock petulantly drags the rope away from him and turns his back before finishing the task.

They assemble in front of the route Jonathan had introduced, and replicate what they'd done earlier to prepare for belay. This route feels more exposed, more awkward to negotiate, because the vertical face makes it harder for Sherlock to find his centre of gravity. On the route, sometimes he's spread-eagled, other times he ends up with his feet on one side and his arms on another and then the balance seems very precarious. At times, the rising tide of panic is hard to fight off. Twice he has to stop and lean back on the rope to re-position himself.

Jonathan coaches him from the floor of the silo. "Think of your centre as being in the middle of your belly - keep that in the right place, and don't worry too much about the arms and legs."

At one point Sherlock's fingers seem to lock, and his momentum grinds to a halt. It's not exactly a cramp, more like his nerves have suddenly forgot what it was that they were supposed to signal to his muscles.

Jonathan talks him through it. "If you hang on for dear life, or try to pull yourself up by your fingers, you'll exhaust your forearm muscles. That's game over. Think of your fingers as just a way to help you balance and keep you centered. Once you get going again, try to build up a bit of momentum again in your movement. The rhythm will help you extend your reach in synch with the lift from your leg muscles."

This time, Sherlock calls down to him, rather than turning his head downwards to look. "How close to the wall should I be? I keep banging my knees on it."

"Theory says that closer your face and body are to the wall, the easier it is to keep your balance. But, don't point your knees directly in towards the wall. You're tall, so you probably tend to think you need to stand up straight. When climbing, that pushes your centre of gravity away from the wall, which is hardly ideal."

After twenty minutes of work hard enough to rival the most intense training sessions at Harwich, Sherlock reaches the top of the route. The relief at making it is, admittedly, exhilarating. He needs the whole abseil down to catch his breath again, and once he reaches the floor his legs feel weak, but they do still hold his weight.

"Again. Practice makes perfect," he announces.

John is giving him a worried look, which he ignores. Fortunately, Jonathan doesn't see their non-verbal exchange, and he lets Sherlock try the same route again. This time, he manages to be slightly faster, but his legs are terribly shaky when he gets down.

Jonathan seems to notice this, because he says that it is now John's turn. They return to the slab route, and there Sherlock is clipped into the belaying device. Jonathan makes him practice the arm movements. On the fifth pull of rope with his left hand, Sherlock lifts his right hand off the rope to pull it through, and Jonathan grabs his hand, looking stern. "No - never take that hand off the rope. It John were to fall at that moment, and the rope isn't downwards, the brake won't activate and he'll likely fall the whole distance."

Sherlock freezes, looking down at his hands in horror. He takes a ragged breath and then just drops the rope out of both hands, and uses them to grab at the locking carabiner, fumbling as he tries to unscrew it. "I can't do this. I'll do it wrong, and he'll be hurt. You need to belay him," he says quietly, hoping John won't hear.

"No." Jonathan sounds calm as he grabs hold of the grigri and stops Sherlock from detaching himself. "You won't make a mistake, because now you know what to do." He threads the rope into the grigri while John ties himself to the rope with a flawless figure of eight.

"I won't be strong enough," Sherlock points out, and his own voice sounds hollow and defeated in his ears. "I weigh less than he does now. I won't risk his life because I'm not fit to do this."

Jonathan takes the other end of the rope that is lying at Sherlock's feet and clips it into the floor anchor behind him. "Belt and braces. That'll keep you from being yanked up in the air. You won't make a mistake, I promise - the belay working is not up to strength. Now pick up the rope and get him on belay." There is a bit of steel in his voice now.

They end up in a staring match.

"I can't do this," Sherlock says more pointedly, directing his words at Jonathan only, although John is now bound to hear them, too. Is this what the point of this whole exercise in futility is - forcing him to publicly declare to all the world his current state? What good does that do? Do Jonathan and John think he isn't aware of it? Nary a moment goes by when he hopes he weren't, especially not this acutely, and this constantly.

This is why he had sent all those physical therapists packing. He had wanted to come home and get on with his life, not to have his nose ground in what he'd lost every five damned minutes. John clearly somehow thinks it will level out the playing field that they're both beginners in this, but it doesnt change the fact that they're here, doing this, simply because Sherlock's body had decided to self-destruct. At least john's injury is a war-inflicted one, making it understandable and not his own fault if he can't function as he used to. He got shot, instead of being betrayed by something that was supposed to be under his command. John is a victim of a conscious decision to put himself in harm's way, Sherlock had been sidelined by rotten luck. There's no valour there, no achievement to be found within recovery. Everyone is simply for waiting for him to resume normal functioning so that he wouldn't trouble and inconvenience them anymore.

John has now caught wind that there's an issue. He walks up to them from where he'd been surveying the route. "What's going on?"

"First-time nerves," Jonathan says with a disarming smile.

John looks confused. "I'd have thought going up the wall was the more exciting bit," he jests sheepishly, studying Sherlock's face.

Jonathan offers Sherlock the belay device again. "It's fine. There's two of us down here, making sure it all goes smoothly."

He's being reassured like a child. It's infuriating, and what is worse, the more attention he calls to the subject, the bigger the ensuing fuss will be.

"Just do it, Sherlock," Jonathan prompts.

Sherlock almost snaps back never to ask him to willingly risk John's life, but then he locks eyes with John, and the naked trust in the man's eyes halts his tongue. He knows when he's been played and outnumbered.

Sherlock picks up the belay device, clips it to his harness and grabs the rope without further protest, taking up the belayer's position.

John clambers up the first route, which Sherlock can tell is an easy one compared to the routes on the neighbouring walls. He notes that it takes John much less time to get to the halfway point as compared to him. Jonathan tells Sherlock to give his climber more slack since he's advancing well. Unlike him, John doesn't need the top-rope to fall back on, doesn't need frequent breaks, and he watches John even build up some momentum as he climbs without having to even think about the rope. The contrast with his own experience is stark and upsetting.

While he is watching from below, Sherlock wonders about John's shoulder. He is curious about whether the shoulder injury makes a difference in this. He has never seen John do any exercises that could be thought of as physical therapy - no pull ups or push ups, not even a shoulder roll or two. John clearly suffers from joint stiffness and some mild chronic pain associated with the injury, but tries to avoid taking any painkillers. He also avoids talking about it, only complaining that is neck is stiff at times in the morning, especially after a late night on the sofa watching television. Sherlock's attempts at getting him to divulge the details of how the gunshot wound had happened are met with adamant refusal to get into it. The climbing John seems to be doing without any visible fear or pain. Lucky him.

John manages the brick wall route equally effortlessly. When they switch back again to tackle a new bit of vertical wall, Sherlock's disappointment with his earlier efforts means he sets off at a faster pace this time, being less deliberate. He makes good progress, but this wall has hand- and footholds that are not so easily reached. At one point about half way up, Sherlock moves his left foot to a small blue hold above knee height, and uses his fingertips to pull his torso upwards.

Suddenly, his foot cramps and slips off the hold.

His climbing shoes skitter down the face of the wall, and the weight rips the handhold out of his fingers. John had given him a bit of slack on the rope since he'd been doing better, so now he first falls the length of a forearm until the top rope catches him and tightens at his waist with an uncomfortable yank. He hears John grunt below him as the belay takes his weight just before he gets thrown forward into the wall, knocking the breath out of his lungs.

"Okay, Sherlock?"

"I'm fine."

Jonathan's question embarrasses him. As he catches his breath and tries to still the fear constantly nipping at his feels, he feels the scream of pain move up from his right hand fingers to his shoulder. He's dangling from the harness like a carcass, which makes him even more disgusted and angry with himself.

Unfortunately, the fall has rather stranded him. There is a handhold to the left above him, but the only foothold is off to the right out of reach. He reaches up to the red hook shape above his head and manages to grip it, but his toes can't find traction against the wall, and his fingers now feel numb and weak, tingling and shaking with adrenaline.

"Wait, Sherlock. What you are trying to do is too hard." Jonathan calls up to him from the floor. "John, lower him down a bit so he can re-try that manoeuvre. Sherlock, lean back on the rope and walk the wall down a meter or so."

The humiliation of it. He bellows out, "NO!" knowing it is too loud, but he doesn't care. He will not be defeated like this. He hates his foot for betraying him. He hates his disobeying fingers. He's had it.

His left shoulder is taking the strain of his weight, but then he realises that it is easing, as John tightens the rope. That means John and Jonathan have patronizingly decided to recall him.

"Stop it!" Sherlock yells, voice raised a pitch above normal.

Jonathan tries to reason with him. "It's not a problem, Sherlock; just relax and have a rest."

"I will unclip myself from the top rope if you don't let me continue from where I was," he announces. He can hear the petulant anger in his voice, but no longer gives a damn. He is too ashamed, too furious at the entire uncaring fucking universe at making a mess of this to care any longer. This is what he had only allowed himself short moments of at the hospital - to rail against his inequitable fate, because it's pointless - it doesn't change a thing, and dwelling on it had no point. John wants him to talk, Mycroft wants him to co-operate - none of them have lived this, nobody is listening to him and nothing will bring back the way things were before.

He wants a single fucking moment without being managed, mollycoddled and instructed - a single moment when failure is not the defining word of his entire existence.

Looking down, Sherlock can see Jonathan glancing at John. "He's joking, isn't he?" Jonathan asks with a low voice.

It infuriates Sherlock even further to hear them discussing him like this, as though he wasn't present. As though nothing he says ought to be taken seriously, because he's a patient incapable of advocating for themselves or even understanding the repercussions of their decisions.

"Wouldn't be the first time he risks his life to prove something," Sherlock hears John reply.

It isn't what Sherlock needs to hear. He's stuck in a cliffhanger of a situation, and doesn't need snide comments from the gallery.

John's comment makes Jonathan spring into action. "Don't you dare!" he yells up towards Sherlock.

"Just SHUT UP, both of you!" Sherlock counters.