Define Vulnerability

Disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC, Mr. Moffat, Mr. Gatiss or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made.

As I have done before, in this chapter there is a lot of jumping between Sherlock's and John's perspective. The dot marks the change of perspective though the conversation continues without interruption, hope this is not too irritating.

This and the following chapter were originally one piece, and they were the first chapter for this story I actually wrote over a year ago.

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Chapter 70

Friday morning - Part 1

John was sitting in the living room having breakfast when Sherlock joined him with a cup of tea in his hand.

While hunting down Moriarty's men Sherlock had realised it he longed for those tiny everyday things every time he had his morning tea alone in a hotel or a dark hiding place. He had missed John for every single cup of tea. In the end it had caused him to evade drinking tea, probably a subconscious fear of being confronted with that loneliness again.

But even though he should be enjoying the return of those things now that they were back, the muddy taste of 'probably a sporadic event in the future' was tinting the experience in blue grey chagrin.

Things would never be the same.

Something was gone.

"You're still in the newspapers about the terrorist attack. Mostly positive feedback… Though this article mentions the words 'fraud' and 'liar' a bit too often for my liking," John murmured, turning the pages of one of the daily papers in front of him.

"What are they suspecting now? That I'm a terrorist and uncover terrorist networks to distract from my own terrorist-plans? Well, that would at least be something new. I would make a good fake-terrorist," he knew his voice carried a mixture of sarcasm and bitter amusement.

He sipped at his tea and continued, "They are just dumb newspapers… One thing I actually agree with Moriarty, named them Fairy tales. There have been and there always will be people calling me a liar. Is that still bothering you?"

"Yeah, of course."

"I still don't understand," Sherlock admitted.

John looked up at him without lifting his head, a hint of anger in his face.

"You want to tell me that if they'd call me - let's say… er… a thief - and try to throw me in jail for that, making false accusations, you wouldn't be offended?"

Sherlock tried to imagine John being arrested for something he hadn't done.

It indeed felt… different from… - yes, what exactly?

It felt… like an urge, that... need to make things right.

"Er… well, yes, I guess, that would make me… uneasy… or something," the detective stammered, not comfortable with uttering vague sensations.

John looked as if he had not thought it possible that Sherlock might actually understand the example.

In contrast to back then - when they had had this discussion for the first time shortly before the Fall - he had not understood it at all. He had suggested John was afraid that the accusations might rub off on him. Normal people often did that, assuming a bad reputation would jump over to themselves from somebody they were in contact with, it was a well known phenomenon. That day John had been angry about the accusation but Sherlock failed to find out why exactly… But at this moment, he just understood - partially at least. After those two years of hell the example was easy to understand.

Great! Brain ping time: 741 days.

But there was another factor…

"So why don't you understand that it makes me uneasy if they call you a fraud?" John interrupted his thoughts.

"Isn't that obvious? Because it's me being accused. None cares about the freak. Waste of time. Why would anyone mind?" he grinned at John, trying to say it as a punch line that should end the topic.

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John frowned while he wondered where Sherlock was getting that opinion coming from?

He gulped.

Was Sherlock trying to provoke something or was this really his attitude about himself?

The utterance would fit to his recent depressive behaviour.

"Please, just don't call yourself a fraud as a joke," John begged.

"Oh, you are telling me you can't stand me make any remarks about that topic? I was just… joking," Sherlock suggested.

"Bad one, really."

"I didn't mean anything by that, it was just a remark."

"Sherlock, you never waste a breath to say things you don't mean," John was getting frustrated.

The detective rarely even tried to make jokes and was far from good at it at all. Most of the times he did it to cover things up, to change topics, to divert attention.

"In fact I do that a lot. All those useless social interactions you taught me, to be polite with strangers who mean nothing to me? What about those? Those are useless things I waste my breath for."

"I taught you something? God, Sherlock you are telling me I changed you? I don't believe you."

"Obviously."

"Er, don't change the subject."

"Why am I not to joke about it?… I'm still trying to practise that ability."

"Not with this topic!" John's voice had hardened, was even carrying anger now.

"Why not?"

"Well, it actually hurts me," John burst out.

Sherlock was silent for a long moment, maybe he was as perplexed about the statement as John was himself.

"You mean it hurts physically or emotionally or like in psychosomatic?"

Was this Sherlock being mean or just emotionally dumb once more?

"For god's sake, how can you be so insensible?" John yelled, getting out of his chair. "It hurts me because it reminds me of that bloody phone call, when you made me listen to your dammed suicide note!… The note hurt me. What you said hurt me. What you meant hurt me… and that you wanted me to tell everybody that you're a fraud hurt me… and that you left me in the dark for two years hurt me!"

John was suddenly out of breath, he hadn't spilled his guts about such things in a long time, neither this direct, nor this emotional.

"I did that to keep you safe," Sherlock responded in a stoic and calm voice.

"Oh, really!" John felt his anger rise even more, "Sometimes I wondered if - had I been given a choice - I'd have chosen to be 'unsafe'…"

The detective looked honestly shocked up at him.

"Are you telling me you'd have preferred to be shot?"

John realised he had not wanted to imply this but his frustration was exploding right now.

"Maybe your intention was to spare me pain and death, Sherlock, but in fact the pain that 'keeping me safe' caused might have been worse than the alternative."

With a slightly insecure back and forth Sherlock's gaze went over the walls, he actually looked ashamed, and as if understanding the full force of John's remark.

"I needed you to be safe," he tried to explain his intentions, again.

"I know. But I still don't get why the hell you thought making me listen to your 'note' kept me save?… Or seeing your mangled body on that pavement, covered in blood?… Can you even try to imagine what that did to me? This was not keeping me safe. This was the worst ..." John chocked on his own words and closed his mouth mid sentence. He had a hard time trying to get himself under control.

He stood up and walked over to the fireplace, needing a bit space between them.

Mary had told him to be open and listen carefully, but right now he was doing the opposite.

"It was all fake, you know that," Sherlock said in an impatient tone, "For heaven's sake! Why do I have to explain this again? Just overwrite the old memories with the new ones… I can tell you how I did it in detail if that would help."

"NO! I can not just overwrite stuff! Just to think of that moment where you lay there, your eyes staring blind into space, makes me nauseous… For the rest of my life I will remember the horror of that moment… and the pain it caused," John realised his voice was really loud now, his friend's words pissing him off immensely.

"Those memories will be there for the rest of my fucking life!… And to be honest, they're still popping up at least four times a day… This will never stop to hurt, Sherlock. For you, it was just a show of your brilliancy to fake things… but did you even spend a minute to consider what this would do to me?… It re-awoke the PTSD, the limping came back, I was sick for weeks, I had nightmares for months, I still have trouble sleeping… this still hurts!"

"I took a lot of discipline to go through with that act. It was not easy for me, too," Sherlock explained, his voice sounding dead and monotone.

"You were not the one having to deal with my loss… And I doubt you'd have grieved for me," John was so angry he overstepped the boundary.

He said ugly things with the intention to hurt. He knew he did, he had not done this often before in his life, but right now he did, he was just so very pissed that he didn't care.

"You think saying goodbye to you was easy? I did it to keep you safe… and to evade to lose you," Sherlock self-exculpated.

"And the price for that was making me loose you, great treat…"

"Clearly, I saw no other way."

"You could have told me. As simple as that."

"The risk was too high, I also said that before," Sherlock's tone was getting dangerous now.

"So, you risked me blowing my head off in grief?" John yelled before he could stop himself.

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Sherlock felt himself pale but to his relief John didn't see it. The other man's anger was making is difficult to breathe, it made the air in the room thicken. He stood up, the chair made him feel constricted.

Instead of admitting that he knew all those things, or expressing that it was difficult for him to know he was the cause of John's misery he just said nonsense.

Deep down he knew he had made a huge mistake. He had already said he was sorry.

What else was required?

He knew the aim he had had during his time away - to return to his former life. He now realised an equivalent goal had been missing in John's life after the funeral. John had been sure that there was no chance to return to anything, in his understanding Sherlock had been gone forever. Sherlock at least calculated a chance to get through the mission alive, at least in the beginning, but the longer it took, the smaller the number became.

Since his nightmares last week, when he dreamt about John taking his own life, he had a vague idea of how that must have felt.

"I didn't plan to stay dead that long. I had hoped I'd be back after three or four months," Sherlock tried to explain.

"And when you realised it would take longer, you couldn't have let me know then?… Why didn't you Sherlock?…Why?"

"I didn't mean to… hurt you with this," Sherlock tried to express his remorse once more.

"No, you didn't because you were careless, which hurts even more, Sherlock. You never care about anything else than yourself and your fun."

Was that really what John thought about him? Was he like that?

"The way you sprang at me in that bloody restaurant showed very clearly that you thought I'd welcome you with open arms no matter what, as if I had sat here the whole two years just waiting for you to come back… But – newsflash - I thought you were dead!"

John continued to yell, but then managed to get his tone down a bit.

"It would've been necessary to know you were actually alive to welcome you back… Tiny little thing you forgot… I thought you were DEAD!… Rotting in that bloody grave… lost forever…" Finally, John's voice broke with the last words.

Sherlock stood there, staring out of the window, trying to keep something that made him feel like-he-needed-to-rip-it-out at bay, it made his throat hurt.

It was all so wrong.

He had indeed thought that John would react different to his return. Mycroft had warned him that his own attitude was wrong, but he hadn't thought it was possible that his brother was right.

He was wrong. He had screwed it… and he had just added to that mess again, with a dumb remark he had thought might be funny.

Blundered again.

Hurt John again, caused distress.

He bit his lips, wondering why his chest felt so tight.

Everything was wrong.

Interaction was a nasty maze, more than it had ever been before. As a child he had felt like this on a daily basis and he had hated it. Now this feeling was back and his intestines trembled with disgust. When he was little he had stopped speaking as a consequence, knowing that whatever he'd say would be wrong anyway, so speaking was a lost cause.

He turned around and looked at John, the doctor didn't look good. Pale and exhausted... and hesitating.

Maybe another apology was needed?

Would he start to yell again if Sherlock spoke?

This kind of angry shouting was something Sherlock had never liked, but at the moment it was really making him dizzy with the need to flee.

He looked down, stepped back to the table and busied his fingers by adding more unnecessary sugar to his tea, not sure if he should even try to speak.

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John was already sorry for his outburst, he knew how hard it had hit Sherlock seeing the tape of John on his bed with the gun, he shouldn't have brought that into the conversation… but he was so very pissed about what Sherlock was saying.

He tried to calm down, it was not right to have mentioned it, and especially not in such an accusing way.

When he managed to turn and look at Sherlock, the other man was standing next to the table, not meeting his eyes. He seemed to be close to burst with anger himself… or something else?

Why was he holding back?

"Usually you don't hold back about what is getting on your nerves, so go on, tell me why you are angry at me," John grouched, trying to encourage him.

Maybe shouting at each other would be a bit healing… He wanted to hear it and he wanted Sherlock to get it out of his system by saying it.

Then he suddenly became aware that he was provoking a reaction. Inwardly, he rolled his eyes about his own behaviour, remembering a conversation he had the day before with Mrs Hudson when he had come home.

"Oh god, John, I think I did something bad," she had greeted him, "I did a… social experiment myself. I yelled at him. But instead of him coming to life and yell back he just… faltered. I… I'm so sorry. I thought it would work, always did with my sister's children."

"He's not a child, Mrs Hudson," John answered.

"I know dear, I know, but every now and then things like that do work."

"I've noticed."

"He peeled the ginger and my potatoes and although I tried to make him talk to me… he just sat there, looking like… like I had just really done something unforgivable. I didn't even know he... He has never done that before."

John saw tears in her eyes.

"He's so battered, John…."

"I know."

"And he's just so rude… and he woke my caring instincts like that, but he shoves me away whenever I fail to hide them."

John grinned, but when she looked at him he hastily removed the smile from his face.

Had she ever been able to hide them at all?

He hadn't known she was even trying. Quite unsuccessful.

"He'll forgive you. You know how he is sometimes, sulking or exploding. Tell me what happened," he demanded in an understanding voice.

That had only been yesterday and he had been sure Mrs Hudson would be forgiven, but this, he was sceptical if his outburst would be forgiven.

Shit, Sherlock was pissing people off a lot lately.

Was Mary right and he was doing this to test how willing they were to put up with him?

Or was he doing the opposite of what he needed to punish himself, driving people away he actually wanted around?

Now that he had released his frustration, in his opinion Sherlock had the same right to vent.

John knew Sherlock was burying some things deep inside, but didn't expect he would talk about them. This was the hardcore way, provoking a reaction, maybe the only option.

He had not planed to do this, it had just happened, as is had with their landlady. But they were here already, so stopping his own anger to make something good out of this fight would be actually not a bad idea.

But it wasn't working, Sherlock didn't scream back or went into the offensive. It gave John time to collect himself and cool down his anger.

When he had almost given up the hope that Sherlock would speak at all, he finally did, his voice was only a defeated whisper.

"I died for you… I left my life behind to safe you… I destroyed my reputation to make sure you'd survive. I left you behind, yes. It… it was the biggest sacrifice I ever made, there is nothing more I can give… But it was obviously not enough… and not the right thing. I am a fool, doing everything wrong. I am sorry."

Sherlock was looking away.

"Jesus, Sherlock…" this was the least John had expected and it made him want to punch himself for his aggressive behaviour before. In desperation, he rubbed his left hand over his eyes, trying to figure out what to say.

"Moriarty was right. He burned something out of me… I just didn't know it until last week. He won. He destroyed everything that was worth living for. He took what I need the most and he turned it against me. He's a genius."

"Hang on,… don't…" John started, well aware that the other man wasn't saying this because he wanted to hurt or insult him. Sherlock meant those things, it was what he experienced and felt, it was a tiny little glimpse into his thoughts.

Everybody had moved on, but Sherlock was not a part in any of it. He must feel left behind and useless.

"This was what he wanted, he won," Sherlock finished.

Silence.

The detective stood there, his face a dead mask and John realised he himself felt coming close to another meltdown.

Sherlock's defeat was heartbreaking.

John had not deemed it possible the man could be so disconnected and silent as he had been in the past days… so muted.

He even appeared lifeless.

Broken.

This was so much not like Sherlock that it freaked him out; and those words and their meaning freaked him out, too.

"Alright. What do you think were the last two weeks about? Did you get the impression you were not worth my… help?" John's voice broke once more with the last words and he needed a few moments to regain control.

Sherlock did not move, he seemed to be completely oblivious to John's distress as well as his own.

"Did my anger hurt you so much that you really think you are this worthless?"

His former flatmate still didn't move an inch, nor did he say anything, he didn't even blink. The resignation that was in his eyes scared John.

"The past two weeks were about showing you how grateful I am that you are back, to help you regain control over this whole thing. To be a friend. To show you I missed you so much…"

He had to pause again for several seconds and take a few deep breaths.

"I need you in my life and there is one thing you could do right, right now. Stay with me. Do not leave again without me… I'm not really angry any longer… I just still hurt, the same feeling you have experienced during the past weeks… I hurt because I missed you so much and it was so horrible to go through the last two years… Maybe this was what Moriarty aimed for, but it will only be what he wanted if you give up now, do you realise that?"

The doctor did a step towards his friend, then continued.

"This is what he probably meant when he threatened to burn your heart out of you, yes… He meant hurting your soul so much you'd break from it. It's a decision you have to make now... If you want to let him be right or not…"

When there was no response John continued.

"Let's not make him succeed. Let's fight this. We need to get through this, restore what we had. I know it will never be like it was before but it will go on… It will be different, but not... less. I know you have serious issues with things changing, but… the important things won't change..." John paused briefly, making another small step towards his friend.

"Right now, you need to heal… Follow my lead with this if you don't trust yourself. I know this is a selfish remark, but I can't lose you again… I can't…"

John felt the wetness on his face and was glad Sherlock was looking the other way. Instead of provoking Sherlock to spill his guts he was the one doing it, it seemed.

He hadn't hoped Sherlock would speak, but then his cold low voice echoed through the room.

"I don't deserve your friendship, John. I put you through hell. I ruined everything… And I even failed to prevent that you saw the Fall itself. I'm a failure… You'd be better off without me. Go on with your life, have children… enjoy life. Because I never will, and you'd be wasted by the things that drive me."

John was speechless for a moment and before he could figure out what to say about that, Sherlock switched topics.

"I can't think. My brain is so misty I do all sorts of stupid things only normal people do. My observing skills are down to your level, or even worse, you see things I don't. I'm clueless, my mind is dulled and blinded and clouded. I want to go back… back to being a machine," Sherlock was finally showing a bit of agitation, but nothing that was suitable to the message in his words.

John closed his eyes, trying to get a grip.

Well aware that he had been the one who had accused Sherlock of being a machine in the last real conversation before the 'note', before the world had changed for ever... before everything went wrong.

At that day John had yelled at him, had been angry with him.

In the past two years John had repeated that conversation in his head, over and over, asking himself what he could have done to prevent Sherlock from committing suicide, wondered if he had rubbed it in and given him an additional push with his harsh words.

When John opened his eyes Sherlock was back to just staring ahead blindly, his face not showing any emotion or turmoil, just emptiness.

"You can't. I mean, it won't work. I was wrong, you never were a machine and you never will be. You can't go. I won't survive if you leave me again… I won't, Sherlock… Don't do this to me."

This egoistic notion was the only real argument John had, the only thing he knew Sherlock might listen to, at least if it was really true and he had done the whole thing because he wanted to protect John.

Sherlock didn't react.

"I know what is happening to you. Right now you are sliding down a vortex. This is a depression speaking, and the worst thing you can do is going with it. You need to fight it."

"I have nothing left to fight with. Everything I had is depleted."

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A/N:

Sorry I had to divide this conversation, it was way too long (eight pages up to this point and eight more to follow).

There are a few repetitions in this chapter, things have been said before, but since repeating bad facts and thoughts again and again is a depression thing (and also, though in a different way, an Asperger's thing) I use this to underline Sherlock being stuck in this. Besides, many things have been discussed but not by the two of them..

Constructive criticism welcome. Please give me some feedback.