CHAPTER 54 – Restitution
Darkness. Can't move. Breathing – self or a machine?
Where is he? Where is this?
He swallows, at least he can still do that. He's breathing, but it's hard and keeps getting harder and his heart is convulsing against his ribcage.
"John!" he calls out, voice breaking with relief that he can produce sound.
There's startle and a rustle of sheets – is that someone else shifting under the duvet or is it him and he just can't feel it? There seems to be a disconnect between his sensation of where his body ends and the bed begins.
"I can't-" he tries to call out for help again, but the words get stuck in his dry throat. Is he even saying them out loud?
A sudden weight presses down on his hip. He manages to wrench his own upper limb free from the nameless something that's keeping him in place and to desperately grasp at whatever is trying to imprison him. It feels like a hand. "John!" he calls out in alarm.
He still can't breathe.
There's a hand on his cheek, now. Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut, not wanting to face what's right outside the black mirror of his eyelids, in case he's back in that place, in case he never even left- Thoughts stutter to a halt, as he fights the panic. He hears his name being called from somewhere distant. It's like being underwater.
"Hang on; let me turn on the light."
Sherlock wants to tell him that the bulb had burned out the night before last.
There's a groan, "blasted bulb's out." At least this is reassuring evidence that this is his own bedroom.
He feels hands on him, then. "Oh, you stupid sod, you've just got yourself tangled up in the sheets," John's voice chides tiredly but endearingly.
If John sounds like that, it can't be that bad, surely. Sherlock feels himself being rearranged, and suddenly his other hand springs free. He finally dares to open his eyes. There's enough light coming through the curtains for him to guess where he is. London is never really that dark, not even in the middle of the night.
He can move, now, but the cold sweat clings to him like fog and he can't stop shaking. He stares at John, who is lying on his side and watching him, a hand hovering in mid-air as he tries to decide whether to reach out to Sherlock or not.
"Hey, calm down. It's fine. You're fine," John whispers, and Sherlock doesn't need to explain why it doesn't work like that, why it isn't that easy, but John already knows that.
He still isn't quite sure what's going on. "Where am I?" he asks. He thinks he knows, but he wants confirmation from someone he trusts.
"Home. With me." John shifts closer and pulls him against his chest, resting his chin on Sherlock's shoulder. The sharpness of it is almost uncomfortable in the notch between his trapezius and his clavicle, but it's grounding. Gentle fingers stretch the collar of his T-shirt so that a kiss can be pressed on his bare shoulder blade. "Can you feel this?" John asks quietly.
John knows what is required at times like this because Sherlock has told him. Evidence.
"Yes," Sherlock says, mouth dry and heartbeat still in his ears. John's coarse five-o'clock shadow scrapes a little when he kisses the side of Sherlock's neck next, not so much as to be unpleasant, but it does tickle.
Sherlock squirms slightly.
John's warm palm snakes underneath his shirt, fingers ending up splayed on Sherlock's upper back, his other arm wedged between them. "Can you feel this?" John asks, walking his fingertips along the bony ridge of Sherlock's shoulder blade.
"Yes," Sherlock whispers and lets out a ragged breath. The anxiety is receding like the tide off the beach but not gone entirely.
John strokes his hand down to his hip, thumb brushing back and forth on the sensitive skin just above his waistband. "Can you feel this?"
Sherlock swallows and nods, and he knows John can feel him doing so.
Fingers trail from his neck up to his scalp, then tug gently at a handful of his hair, eliciting a shudder. "I know you can feel this," John asks, his tone now less tentative.
"At no point did I ever stop feeling that, so it's hardly evidence of anything," Sherlock protests.
John, with his cheek now pressed against his deltoid, must be smiling, judging by the minuscule shifts Sherlock can feel on his skin. He doesn't care if he's over-sensitised or not if it means that he can now deduce these things without even seeing or hearing anything.
Sherlock turns to his back while John withdraws to rearrange some of their bedding again and then crawls closer again so that his front is pressed against Sherlock's side. "Go back to sleep," John says and yawns.
Sherlock no longer feels like he has misplaced his Transport and been left floating in the darkness. For a moment, he just breathes, letting the tension flow out of him into John's warm body, now framing him protectively.
Moments pass and the adrenaline dissipates. His brain can now focus on more than just survival. John is squirming a little to find the most comfortable position and the arm he has just slung across Sherlock is warm and reassuringly heavy. Slowly, John's movement and their proximity begin to bring on tentative arousal. Sherlock is surprised that this can even happen: shifting from fright to the polar opposite in such a short period of time.
John is well and truly an exorcist.
"You're cruel," Sherlock tells the man in a low voice. "Getting someone worked up and then abandoning them just to sleep."
"I thought I was trying to make you not worked up."
"There's more than one kind."
"And you can catalogue them all in the morning and write an essay on your blog. Now, sleep, please."
Sherlock huffs indignantly but decides not to punish John by shoving him back to the opposite side of the bed.
Sherlock had always assumed that coming to terms with something meant plastering on a sunny smile and accepting the naive disposition that what he's gone through made him grow as a person and helped him appreciate life in the vein of a magazine sob story.
It doesn't have to be like that. Sherlock knows that now. There are no other expectations besides survival and trying to make the best out of each day, which they do. With someone like John by his side, someone who intimately knows both him and what he has gone through, everything is easier.
He still hates the memories of the illness, but that's fine. He doesn't have to find a silver lining in them, but he does need to accept them as part of his story. The nightmares come and he lets them. Well, it's not like he can stop them, is it? When the fear feels as though Death itself is watching him in the darkness, he no longer stares back but draws the proverbial curtains. They drink tea at night when either of them wakes up kicking the duvet as though fighting off an enemy soldier or some unknown, abstract foe. Sometimes they even drink whisky, neither saying anything but still with a perfect awareness that they're not alone.
He hasn't gained all his weight back yet, but the notion of having residual weakness from the GBS months, even years afterwards has lost its shock value and moved into the realm of being understandable. Not tolerable; never that. But understandable, nonetheless.
Endearing has been promoted to adorable. Sherlock protests, but only half-heartedly – who is he to question John's poetic choices, especially during moments he's being lifted by his thighs onto the kitchen table to be snogged senseless? John seems to have realised that physical proximity will easily derail Sherlock's train of thought by offering more interesting things to do. Damn clever army doctors.
Some evenings, instead of watching crap TV together, Sherlock goes exploring. He plays his fingers on the back of John's hand, then runs his fingertips along the tendons there. He imagines he can read the life lived there like reading braille. There are 2500 nerve endings on a square centimetre of a fingertip. Some of his might have been silenced forever by the Guillain-Barré, but there are still plenty enough in working condition that he can make up for what might be the stupidest mistake he's ever made – not mapping every inch of John with his fingers and his lips much earlier.
He plays the violin whenever he needs to be firmly reminded of what is real and what are just lingering memories. The bow is a weather vane of his moods – more susceptible to bounce and screech than it had been before the illness. It reveals to John when he's tired, distracted or angry, and he likes this notion that John can read his mood on it since he's still not very good at expressing such things verbally.
He does accept that some things must be discussed. He's learning to do this, as well as the other confounding intricacies of being in a relationship. All in all, Sherlock realises that The Change, as he's begun to call it (John thinks everyone else is calling it 'finally you idiots got your heads out of your arses' but Sherlock prefers his own term, since it's more practically concise and much less insulting of his intelligence), has happened with very little fanfare. They've always been like an old married couple, anyway. In a way, the shift in their dynamic had already happened before the GBS barged into their life. "You sort of had me at hello," John had said, and Sherlock had corrected him, "No, I had you at Afghanistan or Iraq."
He would have assumed that showering together would spare both time and hot water, but the truth is quite the opposite. They tend to get preoccupied with sex, and while he enjoys every bit of it, there is a definite slipping hazard and he abhors the feeling of the damp, cool shower curtain latching itself to his bare back.
It isn't always plain sailing. Once while sharing the shower, John had slid his hands around Sherlock and placed both of his palms on his chest. Soon, after sliding his hands down, John had noticed the waning of his arousal, making Sherlock curse inwardly. All it still takes is one moment of self-doubt, a second of hesitation, and he begins questioning whether what's going on is actually real.
John had put his palms on his shoulders and turned him around, looking concerned in a manner Sherlock had grown to hate. He half hoped that John would understand how his gesture could have been misconstrued as something more suitable to caressing a female figure. He so did not want to try to explain what was going through his head.
There was a moment of silence, and eventually, Sherlock decided to bite the bullet, his own hands hanging uselessly at his sides. "Do you miss-" he let the question trail out because he hesitated to ask it, in case the answer was too painful. "I appreciate your willingness to make sacrifices in some things," he offered instead.
John wrapped his arms around Sherlock again and held tight. Somehow, being sopping wet made hugging feel much more intimate than it does even when unclothed in bed.
"Don't ever say that. Ever," John warned him. "There are plenty of words I could use to describe our relationship, but none of them would involve sacrifice."
"I wasn't questioning your commitment. Just making an observation that there may have been things you enjoyed about being intimate with women."
John kissed his left clavicle. "Sure, but you don't need to worry about any of them. Breasts are nice, and I've seen plenty, but I've never had anyone as half as gorgeous as you."
Sherlock gently stroked John's biceps with his thumbs, and his tightly concerned posture relaxed. He doesn't share John's conviction about his looks, but the most important thing is that John thinks like that. Besides, he tends to dismiss Sherlock's compliments just as easily.
When Sherlock looks in the mirror it offers a very different image than what is seen by John and vice versa. It's all in their heads: the misinterpretations, the years of cemented beliefs based on no empirical evidence at all. A perfect example is that John thinks his scar unsightly and hates it. Obviously, Sherlock doesn't love the pain and suffering and loss of a career it signifies, but it's part of John and in a way, without it, they would not be where they are now.
"Earth to Sherlock," John had said, sliding a hand around his waist to hand him the bar of soap. Sherlock had blinked back into reality and started washing as John grabbed the shampoo.
"I'm not missing out on anything since you're capable of being both a cock and a complete tit," John then commented deadpan and even had the utter gall to hog the entire jet of water.
As the weeks pass, allowing himself to remember things about the GBS feels less and less unsettling. Sherlock finds that he can even talk about it all now – the night he was admitted, the MITU, Harwich, all of it.
John had once asked him what the worst thing was, and Sherlock could have listed many– being wheeled out of the hospital en route to Harwich was certainly up there since that cemented the fact that he was not going to walk out of the National on his own two feet like he had wanted. That moment had hammered home that recovery was going to be very slow and very difficult. He could also have named the day ending up on a respirator became unavoidable, or the moment when he had thought that John was about to walk out of his life. He could have mentioned pain, loneliness, the uncertainty of the future or the loss of dignity as he could no longer look after himself. Now, those things are only pieces of a complex puzzle, and the whole ordeal no longer feels as black and white in his memories as it once had. At first, he'd been petrified to silence by how the illness had left him, and the bad memories had tainted everything.
Lately, he has begun to remember more.
He remembers John's hand sliding under his. He remembers crossword puzzles, Morse-tapping John the final word when he couldn't figure it out. He remembers riding at Harwich, closing his eyes and getting a moment's respite from acknowledging the state he'd been in. He remembers finally coming home, John waiting for him here. He still has the urge to apologise for being so wrapped up in himself that he must have effectively decimated everyone else's joy over his return, but John insists he'll hear none of it because then was then and this is now. He remembers the first taste of ice-cream and the first sip of decent tea after being extubated.
He remembers the winter garden, John's lips on his, properly, for the first time.
oOo
"Mycroft's coming over," John tells Sherlock one afternoon. He has been putting off inviting the man over, but at some point, they have to do this. John feels that an attempt to build bridges is his responsibility since Sherlock would likely never make the effort, and it had been John who had told Mycroft to take a step back until things got better.
Sherlock stops leafing through a stack of papers. He'd complained earlier that he couldn't find the sheet music for Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata, so that's what he must be still looking for. John isn't very fond of that particular composition, so his offer of helping Sherlock search had been half-hearted.
"When? Why?" Sherlock demands.
"He said his meeting would end at around half four. It's been a while since you've seen him, so I thought it might be nice to have him over for tea."
Sherlock stares at him, scathing disapproval evident on his face. "I hardly think not having seen Mycroft for a while is a problem in need of remedying." He twirls his bow between his fingers, eyes roving the piles of papers on the table doubling as his desk.
John picks up an anatomy textbook from the floor – it's one of his own, borrowed by Sherlock for God-knows-what, discarded after it had outgrown its usefulness. "The last you saw him was almost two months ago, and you were drugged out of your mind screaming bloody murder at him. Maybe it's time to call a truce, yeah?"
"What do you care?" Sherlock asks, flouncing onto the sofa. "You're not under any obligation to put up with him, nor am I."
John hardly expects the brothers to stop bickering, but doing that again would be a positive signal that walking on eggshells around Sherlock has well and truly stopped. "He's still your brother, which means that yes, I do have to put up with him sometimes."
Sherlock's gaze flicks to the side as he momentarily closes his eyes. John has learned this is the milder version of his signature eye roll.
"I think he'd like to hear that you are at least willing to try to understand his side of the story."
"Understanding and acceptance are two separate continents, drifting further apart the older we get. It's not your role to try to bridge the gap."
"Is that the reason the two of could practically cause earthquakes with the nasty glares?" John teases him.
This time he gets the full eye roll. "Your grasp of Earth sciences is not your strength, John. Major earthquakes are caused by the collision of two tectonic plates or such plates shifting against one another – not their separation."
"So, what is my strength, then?" John asks with a grin.
This gets him a smile. "I could list them now, but I won't have finished by the time he arrives, and some items on that list might prove embarrassing to us both if overheard by him."
"Why can't you get it?" John asks, pushing aside Sherlock's uncharacteristic praise to return to his concerns. "Yes, he's a giant arse sometimes. Yes, his methods of trying to micromanage your life are beyond condescending. Yes, he underestimates you in a lot of things and yes, he went over the fucking line interfering with your discharge appointment at the National. I understand why you'd be paranoid over his motives, but you do remember what we talked about? In regards to 2007? He did what he needed to, in order to protect you."
Sherlock is not looking at him. "I will admit some of your points may have merit. But, not all of them," he warns.
"I don't know the details of what happened between the two of you-" John had started.
Some of the anger seems to drain out of Sherlock's features.
"-and you do have a right to be bitter, because you went through hell, and things associated with it are never going to bring out any happy memories. But, have you ever considered that the way in which he meddles, as you call it, might be because he might not feel all that good about what happened back then, either? It's bad for the person sectioned, but it can be hell for those who helped initiate the process. It can't have been easy for him to watch you go through all that."
"No," Sherlock admits, looking thoroughly sad and deep in thought, as though he is remembering something important. "I suppose not, but then he didn't care."
John feels angry in that barely contained way of his when he's feeling protective. "I doubt the two of you ever really talked about what happened after the dust had settled. So that might not be a fair assessment. Am I right?"
Sherlock shakes his head, wiggling his toes on the chilly floor. He finds he can still derive some absent-minded joy from the ability to do so.
"I doubt you ever will because you're both arrogant, stubborn idiots with delusions of infallibility," John tells him, "But please stop holding it all against him. That was then and this is now. And, if it's any consolation, if I ever find out he's spearheading some bullshit conspiracy against you, I'm going to kick his bloody arse myself. Agreed?"
Sherlock cocks his head in acknowledgement – begrudgingly, but still.
John breathes a sigh of relief when Sherlock decides to put on a decent set of clothes for the impending fraternal visit. He'd spent half the day lounging around in his blue dressing gown, which had finally been let out of exile from the bottom of the wardrobe.
At half-past five, John makes tea.
He isn't going to try to push either of the brothers into talking about something worthwhile, because that is, in all likelihood, a fool's errand. He just wants them to sit down together without it ending in the verbal equivalent of world war three.
Five minutes after the kettle boils, the doorbell downstairs rings. Before, Mycroft had always walked in without asking for permission, so this is new. John briefly amuses himself by wondering whether Mycroft has lately become worried about interrupting something private. He had called John a week earlier, on a morning when Sherlock had been particularly bored and particularly interested in experimenting with certain body parts of John's. John certainly didn't mind, until Sherlock had decided to continue his ministrations while he was still on the phone. There had been a little too much teeth, and the resulting commotion had led to John deciding he never again wanted to hear the words 'in flagrante delicto' from the mouth of Mycroft Holmes. At least they had been followed by a hasty retreat from the conversation.
Once seated in John's usual armchair, Mycroft turns his attention to Sherlock, who escapes said attention by grabbing his violin and launching into a well-rehearsed rendition of a Handel violin sonata.
After the last crystal-clear, beautiful notes echo out, Mycroft nods appreciatively. "I see Mrs Ellicott has earned her keep, although I am disappointed she didn't manage to fix the out-of-tune non-free string D4 that has always afflicted you."
John wants to wring his neck for failing to realise how much support and encouragement Sherlock's violin playing still needs. However, after he shifts his gaze to Sherlock's face, he calms down considerably because there's a tiny smirk there, a flicker of anticipation. John has seen this before. It's a challenge accepted.
"How it still must grate, being so clumsy that Mummy made you give up the piano after no one could bear to hear you practice," Sherlock comments. He puts the violin on the bookcase, and takes a seat in his usual chair, looking at Mycroft as though he's something a particularly unpleasant cat had dragged in.
"I take it the poisoning case was solved, then?" Mycroft asks politely.
"Your part in that was marginal. Stop fishing for gratitude."
"Far be it from me to ever expect such a thing," Mycroft says. "Ah, thank you, John," he adds upon receiving a mug of tea.
The fancier tea set of Mrs Hudson's which had been used at Sherlock's homecoming is still available in the kitchen cabinet, but John had decided a long time ago that making Mycroft Holmes drink tea out of a chipped novelty mug adorned with curse words was a sight worthy of regular appreciation. He particularly enjoys the accompanying disapproving frown.
It doesn't fail to appear today.
Sherlock ignores his tea, as is customary.
John sips down half his mug while watching the silent pair of brothers steal glances at each other. "Don't all talk at once," he jokes.
"It's unusually warm for this time of the year," Mycroft comments dryly.
Sherlock groans melodramatically. "This is what you invited him here for – to bore for Britain?" he asks John. "The mind, it boggles. Besides, it's still one Celsius degree below the maximum average for this month, and even the precipitation is within the statistical norm for the last decade." He shifts his disapproval to his brother with a melodramatic sigh. "If you had to come here to wear down the furniture, you could have at least brought a tin of biscuits."
John spots a tiny twinge of a relieved smile playing on Mycroft's features. It's probably because Sherlock sounds like the old version of himself, instead of the ball of anxiety of recent times.
"Mummy sends her love, and asks if the two of you might visit for Christmas and New Year's," Mycroft says.
John is startled by the idea. He has not seen Sherlock's parents - or Harry, for that matter – since he and Sherlock became an item. John tries to imagine what the Holmes parents' home in Surrey might be like. Sherlock has not offered a description of it, and his parents certainly outwardly seem less posh than their offspring, but who knows? Even the queen sometimes dons a pair of wellies and a worn raincoat.
"I doubt John would be interested," Sherlock dismisses.
"I think John would be very interested," John corrects, which earns him a glare.
"You need not worry about having to make a grand reveal about your relationship," Mycroft says with a careful smile, "I have updated the parental unit on the situation."
Sherlock's brows climb. "So, you approve? Despite the sentimentality of it all? You were the one who tried to convince me caring is not an advantage."
"While it often leads to unnecessary suffering, caring sometimes helps reveal to us our priorities," Mycroft says pointedly before turning to John, looking pleased with himself. "Father doesn't seem to have much of an opinion, but then again he never does, and Mummy is delighted."
"Must be my wholesome charm," John says.
Sherlock's lip quirks up. "You look harmless enough, I suppose. Respectable. A doctor, even. That's always something for her to mention to the family's Chanel-clad vulture contingency."
"Mother's side of the family," Mycroft explains to John. "She's the black sheep of the clan. Chose a scientific career over life as a wealthy socialite."
"She's the black sheep?" John asks. "Have they met Sherlock?"
oOo
They're lying on top of tangled sheets, spent, happy in the universe that seems to have shrunk down to just the two of them in the darkness of the bedroom. Neither of them has had the energy to get a flannel yet or drag themselves to the shower.
"Sherlock?" John asks him.
"Mm?"
"What do you remember from the hospital from those couple of days when you were…. " John pauses, battling between honesty and diplomacy, "a little out of it?"
Sherlock raises himself onto the elbows, trying to gauge where John's face is in the dark. "Is this a pre-planned attempt to try and take advantage of my post-coital generosity to pry? You're putting a whole new spin on the word 'interrobang'."
John chuckles. "No, you dork. You're not the only one whose brain takes flies off on weird tangents sometimes."
Sherlock considers this and finds the explanation acceptable. They have begun to have occasional discussions of his hospitalisation, but John has not asked about this before. Sherlock fights the impulse to worry that John is using such information to gauge his current level of mental health. At least John's reactions to things Sherlock has revealed have invariably reinforced his trust that he's not about to be betrayed.
"Moriarty. Ravens, for some arbitrary reason. I'm sure there's more, but it's all a bit of a haze."
"Right."
"Any comments?" Sherlock asks, mildly alarmed by John's silence.
"Not really. Just curious, I guess. You do know how many ITU patients get hallucinations?"
"I do since you've taken care to reassure me numerous times that it's normal."
John's fingers lace with his. "I don't mean to pry. Do appreciate you telling me, though."
Sherlock turns on his side, sliding a hand onto John's thigh and drumming it with his fingers. John shifts a bit, likely ticklish.
"Post-coital generosity?" John asks incredulously and laughs. "Remind me of that next time my money's run out because you always make me pay for the cab."
Some things never change.
