Shadow Child - Part 29
Author - Kourion
Summary: 'So you're not a robot. So they were wrong, Sherlock! So everyone who thought you were heartless and unfeeling was foolish and stupid and wrong.' / Warnings for past child abuse/ non-con issues. Eventual Johnlock (romance focus only). Protective!John/ Case-fic.
Author's notes: I want to make note that I will be putting SI tags or abuse-discussion tags in front of specific chapters from now on. Generally, while the descriptions of SI are not detailed - the feelings surrounding SI can be - so I have been encouraged by a reader to put warnings in place.
That said, there is a slight SI warning for this chapter. It's discussion is milder compared to the discussion of the last chapter, but it's present all the same. I have mixed feelings about this chapter, mainly because sometimes I have an idea or two that I want to put into the story - but given my life, at late - it's sometimes difficult for me to get everything worked into the story in a timely manner. So it leaves me adding bits and pieces in a more haphazard fashion.
Still, I am trying my best to juggle a pretty hefty new workload, a recent move and other changes with my online writing projects.
At any rate, I hope this chapter still advances the story appropriately.
((Thanks for the diligent reading and the supportive comments, you guys. I have some amazing readers, and I don't take your reviews or feedback for granted - please know that)).
Aaand...we are back to John's POV.
JOHN's POV
When I get to Baker Street, I trot up the steps two at a time.
Yuri's texts didn't sound alarming, but they did hold a note of insistence that I get back to the flat and back to Sherlock. 'Right now' was the feeling conveyed. And I've never received a text from Yuri like that before. I've never sensed such urgency from him before.
When I get to the top of the stairs, I knock a little bit in anticipation of what I might find (most likely nothing, most likely nothing at all, Sherlock's doing better - he's seeing a therapist now, and he knows that I'm on board, and that I'm not going to just up and leave, and so he must be getting better) and then open the door.
Unsurprisingly, it's been left open for me.
I try to keep my voice evenly paced when I speak. Calm. Nothing indicating worry. As I scan the room, and catch his form, I can tell just by looking at Sherlock that he's feeling guilty. Which makes me feel, in turn, as if I am not doing my job as his best friend. He shouldn't be feeling guilty because other people are concerned for him.
''Hey there,'' I say softly, resisting an impulse to go over there, pull him to my side, and plant a kiss on the corner of his skull. It's been a feeling - almost a drive - that has been increasing in need over these last few weeks. And yet (not a week back) I was the one who told him that we should pace ourselves and hold off on anything that could be seen as 'physical.'
Of course, by physical I meant sexual. Not careful touches meant to show concern or tenderness.
If anything, Sherlock needs more of that sort of contact because I have no doubt that he's touch-starved, in the sense of safe, gentle, reassuring physical presence. The presence of a friend, or maybe even a person more complicated in feeling than friend - but a safe interaction all the same. One he can feel good about, and one he knows is safe.
Because Sherlock is understandably confused about what he feels for me (and vice versa). Yet, I know I am not confused about my feelings in this moment to hold him.
I just don't know how well any touch - even something I would deem incredibly safe, would go over right now.
Generally, touch doesn't go over very well at the best of times with him. I know that he needs it, but he's likewise conflicted about needing it - and sharing that need. Even acknowledging that need, really.
Sherlock has never seemed one to ease into an embrace, even if it's a simple, platonic hug. As to my own feelings, I can't help but think that it's actually been somewhat present - but hushed - for awhile now. (Likely, it's what Mycroft picked up on weeks ago, even though I had no awareness of my feelings at a conscious level).
However, now he's sick, and scared. Arguing that he's neither. Still trying to hold onto his Sherlockian edge and cutting commentary of life and people as if that ornery need to say something snarky for the sake of being snarky actually protects him.
I guess, in an odd way - I understand his logic.
If people are either dangerous, or let-downs, it makes sense to pull back and avoid long term exposure to both.
So in a very real way, Sherlock treats people as if they are caustic chemicals.
The amazing thing, from my perspective, is that he attempts to deal with people at all.
With Mycroft's financial reserves and his own trust fund (which I have recently come to realize he does have access to in full, now) he could have become much more of a hermit than he is at present. He's downright chummy considering how much he could have isolated himself. Which seems to indicate that he doesn't really want to be isolated from others at all.
Not really.
My eyes glance back down at my mobile, at the last text sent.
'Are you free right now? Can you meet up with Sherlock at home? I think he needs someone to sit with him for a bit.'
As I re-read the words, I can hear Yuri's crisp voice in my mind - in his hybrid accent of French and British.
''Did my psychiatrist actually text you? For heaven's sake! This is completely unnecessary,'' I hear Sherlock mutter, his voice pitched a little on the high side. He also has a flushed look about him. As if he's been screaming at someone, or else is coming down with a fever.
And while it's totally possible that he HAS shouted at Yuri ((very little seems to set him off these days)) this redness looks well suffused.
I pull my chair a little closer to where he is parked on the sofa, and then reach over to gauge the situation. I can feel the tension in his facial muscles and his butterfly-soft eyebrows quirking up in questioning. Then his eyes flutter shut, and he seems to lean slightly more into my touch. I doubt he's aware of this action, but I feel a suffusion of warmth and empathy bloom in my chest.
''Not feeling well, are you?,'' I murmur against his skull.
''Not really,'' he admits, his voice matching mine. ''But I'm not contagious, I don't think.''
I bark out a bit of a laugh and move in incrementally slower, and - surprisingly - he leans slightly against me.
''That wasn't my concern,'' I say kindly, really restraining myself from adding 'love' to the end of the sentence.
I wonder if we will ever have the type of relationship that advances to a stage where I can readily refer to him as ''Love.'' Where there are no restrictions on the usage of the word. And if so - what would that sort of relationship look like? What would it entail?
In all honesty, while I can now admit to myself that what I feel for Sherlock is something different to platonic in feeling, I don't truly believe I have ever felt sexually attracted to him. What I feel for him is an intense emotional connection, with romantic highlights that come out at - unfortunately it seems - the worst possible times.
But I don't think it's a sexual interest.
My self-proclaimed status as a robust heterosexual aside, I have tried to ask myself the tough questions about my possible feelings for Sherlock, and have tried to ask myself if an interest in engaging him in sexual activities is something that I would ever want. So far the idea has never seemed to rouse me sexually, which is something I must admit surprises me. Especially since I have had the impulse to kiss Sherlock, and to hold him close to me. To hold his hand, definitely, and maybe even stroke his back, or his arms. An odd impulse to engage with him sensorally, and maybe even a yearning to comfort him through physical touch (especially since I've always been inclined to be more hands-on with partners and those I had romantic feelings for).
All the same, I am starting to sense that there must be a distinct difference between romantic attraction and sexual attraction, since the latter is conspicuously absent here, while the former seems to be very strong - and continuing to grow in intensity.
Which in some ways is a bit of a relief. Not because I have anything against those who do not identify as heterosexual, but because the issues I am tackling with Sherlock are voluminous; the most complicated issues for him, I suspect - and the ones we haven't really even started to discuss in great detail yet - likely have to do with sex.
In some ways, therefore, I feel slightly relieved that at least my feelings for him - in this one area alone - seem to be unchanging. Because if the subject is one that scares him (as I assume it does), then I don't want to be tied to that fear.
Or, at least I feel relieved until I consider the fact that I have no idea of knowing what he feels for others. What he might even feel for me.
Is it romantic? Is it sexual and romantic? Is it neither?
And, perhaps most importantly...how will he cope if I don't feel the same sorts of feelings for him in return?
Sure, he has termed himself asexual. But he also spent weeks trying to convince me he wasn't ill.
He also seems rather insistent that he's at a perfectly acceptable weight for his height, even now. Even once we've established that he's not. Even though we have already talked about this issue quite a bit already.
So I am not entirely sure if Sherlock's statements about who he is or what he feels in a certain area are always right on the mark.
His light weight leans against my shoulder, and I can feel the slight heat of a feverish body warming the side of my torso.
I am coming to learn that Sherlock is much more pliable, if not at times almost 'cuddly' - when unwell. It's almost as if the heat ravaging his cells is, likewise, incapacitating his logical mind. His tendency to overthink.
He responds in a more childlike fashion when sick. Especially when drowsy, as he is right now.
My hand, cool and dry, ghosts over his forehead yet again. I really should take his temperature.
''You called Yuri, huh?''
I keep my voice light and easy.
Sherlock - eyes still closed, hair matted with sweat against his head - nods lazily.
''You wanted me to make an effort,'' he says in a stupor of sleepiness. ''I promised you that I would try.''
''You did,'' my voice is matching his body for warmth. ''But that doesn't mean I'm not surprised. I'm proud of you, Sherlock.''
Sherlock seems to pause for a few microseconds, then tentatively snuggles closer against me. There is no other word for Sherlock's movements now, other than 'snuggling.'
''How are you feeling now?''
''Mmmtired,'' he mumbles, ''And I don't want to think about it all. I just want to pause it. Pause life. Just not deal with it any more tonight. I'm sick of thinking about it and talking about it. You must be even more sick of it than I am,'' he whispers. ''I bet you're half sick to death of me by now.''
I freeze for a couple of sections, not knowing what to say. When I finally realize that doing nothing - saying nothing, but also not communicating something through body language - is going to make his anxiety worse, I wrap my hand around his midsection and stroke his hair.
''I'm sick of this disorder in your life, and I guess - by extension - in my life. Because it is a source of pain for you, even if you don't seem to always acknowledge that fact. But I'll never be sick of you. I want you healthy, is all.''
He shakes his head, fever-damp hair tickling my palm. His locks are now raven-black with sweat.
''It's part of me,'' he exhales. ''I mean,'' and he licks his lips now, ''the predilection. I don't think it's about just gaining a bunch of weight - like that would be a cure-all, a fix. I don't know why everything about how I do things has to change!''
Tension lines have formed above his eyebrows, and his hands are shaking.
I let out of gush of air, and straighten my hands, my knuckles. Wish I knew the magic combination of words that would make him well. Make him see that he deserves so much more than this sort of life, and make him feel that truth throughout his whole body. Not just hear my words and understand the meaning, but know my words with his whole being.
I wish I knew how to undo the damage that has been done to him.
''Not everything about you has to change. I don't want that, I doubt Yuri wants that, and if that's what is making-''
''You both want me to eat like everyone else, and sleep and talk and act like everyone else and-''
I take his hands, wildly flapping about, and still them.
''Not true. I don't want you to be like everyone else at all. Come here,'' I mumble, stroking his fingers.
He leans his head down against his crossed legs, miserable, instead.
''No, come here,'' I repeat, finally maneuvering Sherlock about with my body until he settles into me.
It's almost a hug.
A few seconds later I feel a whoosh of breath spill from his chest. Like a punctured balloon.
''You seem to becoming more agitated as the days go on, and not less. Do you know why?,'' I ask him carefully. ''We are talking more, but you seem more agitated the more we talk about these subjects. I know these are tough things to discuss - I'm not downplaying that for a second - but I want to know if there is something I could do that would make you feel better. Better able to talk to me, talk about what you're dealing with, or talk about how you feel.''
''No,'' he barks out, cheeks fuchsia and his voice conveying frustration and shame.
''You know,'' I am trying something, and I have no idea if it will work, but it's worth a shot. ''When I was a child - about 7 - I got this subsidized camp placement. I got to go to Brighton, and I camped with Cubs and Scouts in a little cabin by the beach. Anyway, it was the first time I had ever been away from home for any length of time, and I was just terrifically homesick the entire time. I can still recall how my stomach felt all tight and wound up, and at night I had a horrible time falling asleep. A few nights I even woke up with a sob in my throat. After about three or four nights of this - and mind you, camp was only for just over a week for us, at that age - one of the counselors talked to me. Told me that he knew how I was feeling, and that it was called homesickness, and it was mostly because it was all so new. He told me that if I could keep in mind that I'd be home in just a few more nights and just try to accept being at camp as something new but otherwise fun, well - some of that upset would maybe go away a little bit.''
Sherlock is listening intently.
I wonder if he ever attended a summer camp.
If so, I know it would never have been a subsidized placement. Really, there are only two possibilities here: he either went to the poshest camp known to humankind with a bunch of snooty kids, or else he never went to camp, period.
Sadly, I suspect the latter. At least, for his early childhood. After his care was absorbed by Mycroft, everything might have been different. At the same time, by the sound of it, Sherlock's health went downhill around that period, too, and I doubt Mycroft - still in his teens, I must remind myself - could have managed much more than barely to hold on and try to survive himself.
''Did it work?,'' he asks tentatively. ''Did speaking to the counselor make you feel better?''
I startle, give a little self-deprecating laugh.
''The truth of it?''
Sherlock nods against my shoulder.
''Truth is, well, that the counselor was so patient and so warm and kind...I think the tension rolling around in my belly had to be let out. So...it came out. Luckily, I didn't throw up or anything like that, but I basically burst into tears. It was like...his kindness made me cry. But if no one had asked me how I was doing, or if no one had been kind like that...I don't think I would have cried at all. I would have steeled my resolve to show nothing but little-kid strength, and I wouldn't have cried. I know I wouldn't have. I think I cried then because some part of me realized...that I was allowed to cry, if that makes sense. That everything wouldn't all fall apart, and that the counselor wouldn't laugh at me or mock me for feeling out of sorts. That ultimately, it was safe for me to show how sad I was really feeling. I think the emotion came to the fore, because I knew I could let it.''
Sherlock pulls back. Frowns.
''But he was kind to you. I don't...I don't understand that, John. Why did his kindness make you cry?''
I give Sherlock a look: a patient look, an expectant look.
''What?,'' he asks sharply, knowing I want him to make a connection here, and not knowing what connection there is to be made.
Which must infuriate someone like him. A person who generally knows what everyone is thinking and feeling before that person, themselves, is aware of those thoughts or feelings.
''What?!''
''Let me ask you this, first: why have you been feeling worse these last few days?''
Sherlock rubs his hands against his lap.
''I don't know what you mean,'' he says quickly.
''No? You're sure? So you've been feeling better? Less anxious?''
He continues to look at his legs. At his nubby protruding knee bones.
''It's okay to admit to not feeling happy. To maybe feeling scared, or uncertain. It's okay to admit that you're in pain, Sherlock,'' I say evenly, even though my own heart is jack hammering away in my chest.
''I should be happier. I...,'' he pauses, looks at me, ''and you. I mean, you know more now - and I told you,'' and his voice drops down to the lowest octave. ''Enough. About it, before - what happened when I was little, and about all,'' and he points to his legs, as if they sum up the whole of his issues, ''this, and Yuri said that's supposed to help. To confide in someone. Which I've done. You said that's supposed to help, too. Everyone says that, but it doesn't feel like that. It feels like the reverse. I don't understand why...because it didn't feel this badly when I kept it all to myself, and I hate that that's the case. I know that's not how it's supposed to work at all.''
His confusion is breaking my heart.
''I don't think there is one right way to feel about this, and I don't think your feelings are wrong or atypical, either. But maybe, it's like...how I felt when I was a kid. When I was homesick. Maybe you always felt that pain, but you kept the emotions and thoughts to yourself, Sherlock. I think we all have this incredible way of surviving through pain, but we get through a lot of hard stuff on our own. Sometimes, it's about repressing certain thoughts, and certain feelings. Sublimating them with other things. Work - your work, the puzzles and riddles that keep your mind busy. That relentless feeling, of always having to do more, and everything about how you've lived for so long. Very little sleep, lots of mental stimulation - that's been your life for so long. Running from place to place with little time to process anything but the immediacy of a case.''
He bites his lip.
''But that works for me, John! I got through Oxford doing that! I had top honours!''
I lightly hold his wrists, trying to keep him sitting down. I can tell if I don't, he's likely to be up and pacing within a few minutes, and mentally constructing walls as to why my arguments are invalid. Why I just simply don't 'get him.'
''You got top honours because you have a gifted mind, Sherlock. That's the truth of it. But that could have been achieved without drugs, or sleep deprivation, or these sorts of problems. So let's not cloud the waters, eh? You know that your behaviour is more than just quirky right now - don't you? Your quirks - my God, Sherlock - I love your quirks...I don't want to ever see those be lost! If you want to get Chinese at 2 in the morning, while discussing a locked room mystery? I'm game. You want to completely rewrite the rules of Cluedo, or do science experiments in the microwave or riddle the fridge with things that really shouldn't be there? - and I can't believe I am saying this, really - but I LOVE that about you. Therapy isn't about taking those interests away, or those peculiarities or differences away. I never want to see you be just like everyone else. I love what makes you different...don't you know that?''
He rubs at his legs again. At this rate, I am surprised he hasn't taken the skin off portions of his body.
''Why is this so hard? For me?,'' and Sherlock glances up at then, nervous distress clear in his eyes. They are grey-blue round moons, imploring me to make sense of it. Some sort of emotional sense, even though - of course - I can't show him logic in the illogic of his actions any better than he can.
Hell, I probably can not even articulate why he feels as he does as well as he could explain it, given that I've never suffered from an eating disorder. Never had the inclination towards that sort of behaviour. Cannot see or appreciate how the withholding of something so vital is so fiercely protected and almost beloved. A beloved, if knowingly twisted, secret. Akin to slowly poisoning yourself, but admiring the bottle of cyanide pills as you do so, while keeping them close to you with a surge of irrational fondness.
And perhaps, deep down, it could make sense. But only from the perspective of one who considers someone in the trap of such behaviour to be subconsciously flirting with death. To be, perhaps, prone to suicidal ideation.
If someone was keeping the very fateful aspect of degenerating health on the table as a means of playing some protracted and bizarre game of Russian roulette - then I could see some strange purpose or 'reason' behind that form of self-harm. But self-harm for the very sake of it - not to end a tortured life, but merely to add more pain to a life that has already suffered too much?
How can I make sense of his behaviour for him when I cannot conceive of something more illogical? When I cannot conceive of why he, in a million years, would be doing what he's doing?
But he is, and he knows he is, and I think that a part of him must want to stop.
Must be raw-tired by now.
The real healing, for him, will occur when he feels that insistent tug towards self-care and self-compassion.
''I don't know, Sherlock. What you've been doing to yourself is something that I can't conceive of doing to myself.''
He winces then, eyes suddenly downcast. And I feel like a heel. I feel like I've slapped him in a moment or relatively rare vulnerability and trust.
''You think it's disgusting,'' he spits out, eyes suddenly looking red.
''No! I don't. I find it bewildering and, yes, at times - I find it scary. But I find it...all of it...outside of my comprehension. I find it pernicious, too, which it is. I see how it has you caught up in it's claws. It's like a monster, Sherlock. One that has grasped you, and has twisted you into it's shape. I know you think you are the one in control, and I know why control is such a big deal for you, but this disorder has taken any control you had away.''
''It's not about that,'' he says rapidly, cheeks suddenly red in shame.
''Why not? It would fit. It would be textbook for this type of disorder, and it would also make sense given your history.''
He seems to be wavering in acceptance of my analysis, and for some reason that irritates me. Perhaps because it seems as if he's trying to understand the connection when the connection is so in-your-face blatant. When anyone can understand that how he was ''treated'' as a child (his term. I readily insist on calling it abuse, and would use even more appropriate terms if not for the look of discomfort that passes over his features when I try to use such terms in relation to the subject at hand) may have just some little, tiny connection to the problems he is currently facing and the feelings he can't seem to make sense of more than thirty years later.
''For God's sake, you had all control over your own body taken away as a child! I know you want to feel like you have control now. It's not difficult to see the relationship here between what you are doing and what was done to you, Sherlock!''
He seems to be listening now with an odd look on his face, and I can't help but hope that I've made a dent. Positively changed some part of his analysis, or broadened his awareness of what he is doing and just how damaging what he is doing actually is - and not just to his body. But how it impacts his entire life - emotionally, mentally, inter-personally?
''I know it's not logical, John. I mean, I really do understand that much. At the same time, when I do certain things - things you say scare you - I feel like I've lanced something. Something full of toxins, something full of garbage. And I can't really explain it much better than that, because if I could - if I had this figured out, then I wouldn't have gotten this bad again. But it's necessary when I feel like this - because it...it's like lancing out the pus.''
I shake my head sternly.
''I don't want this in your life in any form, Sherlock. The hope I have for you is not that you'll merely be borderline healthy for the rest of your life. I'm not concerned about rounding off rough edges, making you 'presentable.' I care about you, wholly you! To me, and yes I'm speaking plainly now - but you have a disorder, Sherlock. You have a serious disorder that is known to have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness! So, in part - you're right. I don't want you to just put on weight, or just look better. It's not about looks to me! It's about YOU! How you feel! How you feel about yourself, when no one is around, and when no cases are present for you to solve or obsess about. When it's just you, and those memories - and how those memories invariably make you feel, and what those memories make you want to do!''
He's fixed his eyes above and behind me, and is now breathing in a regimented fashion.
''I want you to be healthy, Sherlock. I want to help you get to a place where - when you are alone with those memories - your first impulse is to be kind to yourself. Show yourself love. Not make yourself sicker. Not add to the litany of cruelties your body has already been forced to endure since you were practically a baby.''
His jaw muscles have now tightened up in emotion, and the change in his features almost takes me breath away; it further draws out his face in cords and lines and haunting thinness, so I brush the rippled lines of muscles, no fat, with my thumbs - as if trying to erase the horrid emaciation with my hands.
''Okay?,'' I croak, my voice sore and tired. Now I feel like crying, for all this talk of needing to vent.
He still doesn't respond, though. Just continues to breathe that harsh, wheezing breath with that painfully confused look on his face.
''Sherlock?,'' I test again, coughing a bit, rising to meet him. Trying to capture his line of sight.
When that still doesn't work, I lightly touch his elbow, and he jolts back as if poked with a live current.
''I don't want you to take this away from me, because it's mine! It was my way of keeping it all...from falling apart in my mind. It was my ritual, and I never said I was open to being changed! And I do love myself! This was my sanity when there was NOTHING and no one and you have no right to take that away, John! Not when you cannot even ''conceive'' of why it helps me! Not when it bewilders you at best and terrifies you!''
I pull back, stunned at his vehemence. The anguished taint to his voice, to his insistence that he needs this beast in his life.
Not only that, but now his eyes are flickering about, unable to focus on anything for very long. I can only imagine the thoughts rampaging through his mind. The haunting lies from cruel adults, telling him I ''don't really care'' perhaps, or that I'm going too give up on him, too, perhaps - and then, without his debilitating ritual - which may, in some odd way kept him going - does he worry where he'll be? Stripped of his ritual, and everything else?
Is he unable to focus on my words now because he's listening to decades-old lies, whispering perversions to him as a child? Going about and about in his mind, just beyond the reach of my voice?
And what did they say to make him feel as if this self-imposed torture was the highest ideal that he could cultivate for himself? That this was lofty?
That this was the best way to cope?
What switch did they flip in his magnificent brain and gifted mind to get him - Sherlock Holmes, as big a lover of logic as he is a lover of music - to disregard all logic for the pursuit of sporadic self-ruin?
I have no idea how to help him through this.
The only thing I know for certain - for absolute certain - is that I love him.
So the only hope, now, is that this love will be sufficient.
When I am feeling slightly calmer, I decide to talk.
''That's not how I choose to think about it, Sherlock. Anymore than if you had - say - brain cancer. I wouldn't think the cancer was part of you. I know, I know that you can make an argument for cancer thus being part of your cells, part of your body - but it is a disease! Just like this is a disease and it kills, dammit! This disorder isn't part of you. Not to me. It's impacting you. But I don't see that as the same thing at all!''
He's quiet for an impossibly long moment and when he begins to speak again, his voice is rough and low and husky, as if his lungs are congested.
They possibly are.
''In the French language they say, essentially, that someone ''has hunger.'' They do not say that they are hungry, as we do in English. Even though hunger is a sensation and what we are is, essentially, sensating beings. That always made me a little antsy. I didn't want to be hunger or be fullness. I wanted none of it. I wanted it gone. I wanted all of those sensations to go away, and I still want them to go away. Do you see?''
I recognize the change in tenses, and feel a burgeoning awareness.
''But you can't make them go away, and you never will be able to, Sherlock. So, you had to choose between fullness and hunger, and you chose hunger. Not once, but repeatedly.''
Sherlock tenses, stares at his beloved skull (''a friend. Well, I say friend'') on the mantle.
''It seems more removed,'' he says with a noticeable shake in his voice. ''The only option out of an array of options that I could live with, really.''
I give his comment a few moments of silence. I have far more questions now than I did before, but I also realize that too many questions all at once will feel like I'm rushing him. Moving in too fast, from all directions. I want to keep the pace of things reasonable. A conversation.
Not a pressured inquisition, as he might otherwise feel if I give voice to all my concerns.
''Removed from what?,'' I test a few pauses later.
''From the body. From giving in to all it's demands.''
I recall Mycroft's advisement now, strong and ringing in my head.
That Sherlock would not be ready for anything skirting the romantic for some time, even if he was seemingly interested. That, above all, Sherlock would likely never be ready for a sexual relationship. At least, that was Mycroft's belief, which at the time sounded typically stifling.
Now I realize what prompted the commentary in the first place.
The unspoken 'but' was there, of course - latent in his words. But so too was Mycroft's assessment that Sherlock wouldn't be ready for such a relationship without making a lot of emotional progress first.
I want to ask - and I feel that it is necessary to know - when Sherlock first stopped eating. When he first started skipping snacks, then meals, then the whole of it for favour of hunger and not ''fullness.''
Except, I kind of have an idea about that, too. Distantly, I can recall Mycroft's explanation of how it began. With Sherlock, teetering on the edge of puberty. Then suddenly engaging in self-starvation.
So eating, as necessary as it is was likely linked to development into a more adult form - at least in Sherlock's mind.
And with those changes, the expectation of more adult activities.
Perhaps what I've looked at as self-abuse is really tied to a greater and much fuller, but not yet articulated fear: the fear of being put into a position whereby Sherlock is expected to engage with other adults, not only as as an intellectual adult, but as a sexual being.
But how do I even launch that as a possibility? Voice that concern?
And even if I could - should I? Or would it be something best left to Yuri? In a different setting entirely?
Because certainly the very notion is going to cause some stress for my best friend. He's deftly skirted around discussing his sexuality with even greater skill than he has avoided the subject of his declining health.
He now blinks up at me owlishly - afraid, I can sense, that he's said too much.
''So you're worried that - what? You have difficulty understanding who you are? Without those experiences? Without the feeling of hunger?''
''You could argue that this is what we are, ultimately. A series of sense events. A series of sense impressions, stored and analyzed. Your sense impressions differ from my sense impressions, and you create a framework from which to judge and analyze the world that differs from my own.''
I give a sad smile at that - at his insistence that his self-denial and his behaviours as of late are nothing more than the tireless workings of a scientific mind drawn to understanding the differences in personality formation.
''It's not funny,'' he hisses. ''Not if you think about it. Not if you break it down into base components. Who we are - what we are - is comprised of the entirety of what we have lived through. You change a major past event - a sense event - and you don't have the same person anymore. Not really.''
I give the side of his forehead a gentle stroke.
''I don't think it's funny, Sherlock. I just think that there may be another reason why you were - and are - drawn to a state of denial as opposed to one where you are bodily fed. Full.''
He looks up at me with reservation, and crosses his malnourished arms across his chest. His 'shield' maneuver.
''What? What reasons?,'' he asks hollowly.
I resist an impulse to bite my lip, and try to summon my resolution to do what I need to do. Say what I need to say.
'Ultimately this is for him. To help him.'
''A couple weeks back, Mycroft told me a little bit about how this first started. This...restriction.''
Now Sherlock unwittingly gives in to my impulse - and bites his own lip. Hard.
I see his chest rise and fall with greater rapidity.
''What of it?''
The fact that he's so scared could break my heart, so I push that thought aside. It would be all too easy to go soft on him. To give in to the disorder, and to give in out of a misguided sense of wanting to protect him.
But I can't protect him from himself.
''Your brother mentioned that, from his perspective, he thought perhaps you stopped eating because you were trying to stave off puberty.''
Sherlock swallows, looks away, then rubs his hand over a pink-infused forehead.
''Well - even so,'' he rambles nervously, ''I think it's a little late to discuss staving off puberty now. But I still find it hard to eat. So Mycroft obviously doesn't know what he's talking about and likely never did.''
I frown at the easy dismissal, and remind myself that Sherlock is a master at redirecting conversations. He's done it with amazing finesse since I first met him.
''Of course. Puberty is puberty, over and done with now. You could even say it's dead, now - so to speak. But what if, what Mycroft meant was that it was less about the process and more about, I think, what the process is supposed to mark? The changes it is supposed to mark?''
Sherlock has now lost his easy smile, and is testing out his next words carefully.
''I think I am aware of the changes I underwent. And I think - after more than two decades - I have learned to accept them. I am taller, my voice is deeper. I can live with that,'' he says dryly, with a fake ease.
''But don't you think that some of this...restriction...could be linked to a deeper fear, as it relates-''
He cuts me off. Cuts the very suggestion off at the base of culmination.
''No! I don't! I'm not some mewling, pathetic little child, John! I am a scientist. I can both discuss and conceptualize sexual matters far better than the average person, and you bloody well know it!''
I frown, unsure how to voice the semi-formed ideas in my mind without having them shot down before I finish the first sentence.
''But I'm not talking about sex,'' I say carefully, and he stops his tirade, watching me with sudden apprehension. I shut my eyes, and finish my assertion. ''I'm talking about rape. Those two events are very different things, even though society often treats them as one activity. They are not the same event. Not at all, Sherlock.''
Sherlock blanches, and stands abruptly. His hands are trembling, and I hide my wince.
This time, I do not look away. I do not shut my eyes.
''You wouldn't be the first survivor of this form of child abuse to conflate sex with rape. And it's not a crazy concern to wonder if maybe part of you - even if emotionally - wants to be sick because of the obviousness of what sickness means to everyone around you,'' I say briskly, needing to advance this challenge. Needing him to tell me that I'm wrong. That I'm way off the mark. ''Sickness of this form changes you in an overtly physical way, Sherlock. It visually and immediately communicates the fact that you are in pain, but also that you are not emotionally ready to relate to anyone in very certain ways. It tells everyone - everyone, Sherlock - that you are not to be looked at in a sexual way because it erases and distorts those sexual-''
''Shut up!,'' Sherlock suddenly yells in anguish, eyes wild and whole body taut like a bow that's been pulled back just a little too much.
So I stop talking, and realize that my chest is heaving - as if I have just run a very long distance at a very fast pace.
Sherlock continues to stare at me: dead-eyed, face screwed up - mouth screwed up most of all - ears violet, shoulders hunched to his chin in discomfort.
Yet I just want him to SEE. To see that it can't go on.
Not like this.
''You are ill, and you are preoccupied with being ill, and generally no one of any sense or concern would engage with anyone else who has anorexia, sexually. And deep down, I think you know that.''
He shakes his head, his mouth agape. Then closes his eyes and bites back a yelping sound.
''Can you tell me that is wrong? That anything I've said just now is incorrect?''
When he opens his eyes, I notice that - for a few seconds - they remain unfocused.
But then they turn to meet mine - these grey-flecked eyes, so terribly *angry.*
''Fuck you, John,'' he says in contempt, before racing from the room.
