Define Vulnerability
Disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other characters mentioned belong to BBC, Mr. Moffat, Mr. Gatiss, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun. I wrote this for my personal enjoyment and to improve my English; no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands, and no profit is being made. I am really glad Mr. Moffat and Mr. Gatiss created and own them, and that they made this terrific show. Thank you so much!
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This story had a very clear timeline from the beginning, I just thought it wasn't really important, so I only used the days for orientation. But at the end of this chapter I used it for fun.
This chapter was very hard to write and I really struggled until I was finally daring to publish it now.
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Thursday
The intense whiteness of the sheet of paper in front of him hurt Sherlock's eyes and he stared at it. He had no idea what he was supposed to write down for a moment.
"So, blood is definitely a trigger, probably a quite complex one, linked to several bad events. Start with 'blood' and don't concentrate on the memories, just list what you experienced as unsettling."
Sherlock knew what John was trying to do. This was kind of collecting the evidence, and he had to admit it was necessary, because he didn't know how to do it himself.
John was right, it couldn't go on like this.
He wrote down 'blood', and for a moment he was glad it was just letters without meaning, but then, although he tried to prevent it, they evolved into a meaning.
The characters blurred and the black ink seemed to get a dark red tinge.
He fought.
It was all in his head, he just needed to fight it off.
His mind jumped to the first time blood had smelled bad: the pavement, Barts.
To anchor himself in reality, he drew a line, concentrated on the sensation of the pen moving over the paper, his own movements.
Then he over-neatly printed the word 'Barts' at its end. He added another line, with led to the word 'plant'.
John watched him and stared at the word 'Barts'.
Sherlock needed a moment to realise the look on his face was a question, though was sure the other man wouldn't ask.
He had just told him to stay away from the actual memories, hadn't he?
"How you reacted… you were devastated," Sherlock explained, not looking up.
"Sherlock, you don't need to talk about it if you… if it… I mean I'll listen and I'd be honoured by the trust, but you don't need to, not for me."
"I heard you collapse, felt the commotion when the passers-by caught you. The smell of my blood was intense."
He remembered John's desperation.
Followed by the devastation.
It had taken him by surprise. He had not expected this, neither his own distress, nor John's.
With growing horror he had understood something was already going wrong with his brilliant plan, something serious, but he shoved it away, until he met John in the restaurant two years later.
Blood and John collapsing from extreme distress had linked.
It still hurt, not only physically.
He felt some blackness hurting somewhere in his mind. It mixed with solid flames in biting orange that cut into the darkness.
Like mental stab wounds, slashed into his mind.
This was miserable.
He felt nauseous, again.
"Hey, you need to stay with me."
He swallowed.
"You told me about the homeless guy in the plant, and I also know about the smells of blood from the torture…"
Sherlock wrote down 'cellar'.
"…and Mycroft's wound."
He added 'Mike', to John's obvious surprise.
Had he never used the short nickname in John's presence?
"Your brother is fine."
"I know."
"You seemed very concerned last night."
"Where do you get that idea? I wasn't concerned… His smell combined with the smell of blood, his after shave… I was remembering the moment after he was shot… I'm quite able to observe my own reactions."
"Don't change topics. You feared he was badly hurt, that is called concern. He's not here, you can admit it."
Sherlock hesitated, but then nodded minutely with a grimace.
"The fact that he came personally to get you speaks volumes, don't you think?"
"Although I wasn't happy about him watching me being beaten, most of it had happened before he arrived, and in hindsight, I agree, he made sure we could escape."
John was glad that there was no need to convince Sherlock of the good motives of his brother, because he doubted he'd be very convincing after last night.
"What else…?"
Sherlock didn't answer but wrote down: 'South India' and 'Offshore platform'
The doctor frowned but held back questions.
A moment later Sherlock added 'Golden Gate Park'.
"You were in San Francisco?"
The look Sherlock gave him made John raise his hands.
He stared at the sheet for about half a minute, then handed it back to John.
"Okay."
Obviously, John was not surprised to learn about three more events where blood had played a roll.
"I want you to know that if you need to talk to somebody you can come to me. I can't do what a therapist can, but I can at least listen as a friend."
"I won't want to talk. I don't need to talk."
"I know. I just wanted you to know I'm here."
"I won't."
"Just store the damn information."
"Fine."
"Thank you for trusting me," John said.
Sherlock huffed, "I don't know how to trust. I don't know if I ever knew what the word meant."
"Yes, you do. You just did, and you trusted me last night."
"I'm not sure that was trust."
"I am."
"I never felt this before."
"I know. That was vulnerability and trust, Sherlock."
"There was never anybody there when I…"
"When you needed someone? Mate, you're feeling vulnerable right now, that's absolutely normal."
"I don't. There's no point in..."
"Yes, you do. It feels vaguely like wanting some kind of protection," John tried carefully.
"I do not need protection, I hunted dangerous killers for two years, and lived. Why would I need protection?"
"The one doesn't exclude the other. Besides, I'm not saying you need it, what I'm trying to describe is a feeling like 'nothing is safe any more'. It is more like needing a safe place, needing to feel safe somewhere. A retreat, free of danger, one might also put it."
"What does that feel like, again?"
There they were, discussing the topic once more. John was actually surprised they revisited the term 'vulnerability' frequently. It seemed to be a major issue that Sherlock wasn't really able to connect to the description, or was it too superficial?
"Er, like being exposed, like knowing someone lurks in the dark, pretty much as you described having an intruder in the mind palace. Something unknown aiming at you from behind."
"Wouldn't 'afraid' be a more accurate description, more appropriate?"
"Can be an aspect of it."
"I'm still not sure I know what that feels like, then."
"I'm telling you it is what you feel. That's what it is called, you're feeling vulnerable for weeks now, I was just trying to explain it, now and before."
"The earlier explanations were more useful," Sherlock stated plainly.
John gave him a tight smile, then pressed his lips together when he realised he didn't know how to help his friend.
Some aspects of Sherlock were exposed and unshielded, and he wanted to make him feel safe and protected.
But how?
Overall, what really surprised John, was that Sherlock didn't react with loads of anger or aggression as so many people did after having experienced such a state of defencelessness.
Was this worse than anger?
Or had this been going on far longer than John thought and he was already past the anger, had used it to survive before?
"Your descriptions of feelings are - though more precise than most people's - lacking all major aspects of how things actually feel," Sherlock elaborated.
"No, that's how normal people feel like."
"They are wrong."
"No, they are normal, but let's not have this discussion - I know you sense feelings different. Normal people don't go into detail like this. They don't discuss or dissect or analyse stuff like you - we do… you make us do. They usually want to know the summary, kind off, know the dos and don'ts, but that's all."
John knew sooner or later he needed to ask for details of the triggers to successfully evade them, and needed to talk to Greg about it. The creation of a safety net was necessary.
"Oh," Sherlock looked a bit puzzled, "Maybe it's like exchanging mind palace rooms… and keeping them safe… in a good state, correct?"
"You lost me."
Sherlock made a noise of frustration.
And the doctor concluded he had answered to something from earlier in the conversation.
"Feeling protected."
"Kind of, yes," John finally got it.
"Okay."
"There's one thing that could help you erase the triggers, get you back to work, something very helpful and working rather fast."
Sherlock's features changed immediately, mental recoiling John assumed.
"I am fine."
"No, Sherlock. You're not okay."
"I will not see a psychiatrist!"
"You are definitely not fine, and you know it. We need to get a grip on the smell of blood triggering you. There's actually treatment for that, which is one of the most successful treatment in therapy at all. EMDR."
When Sherlock drew a sharp breath John held up his hand.
"Let me finish. It's something I can't do and we need assistance with, but this actually doesn't need long therapy sessions- ... Well, usually it does, to get to know each other, establish a base for working the trauma thing out, stabilise the patient and so on, but the actual act of 'reprogramming' can be done in a few sessions. I just ask you to read into it, before you refuse."
"I won't…"
"Sherlock! I did this. It helped. You need to consider something this fast and successful!… I know it's actually something that is hard to do, to understand to need help… and maybe even worse, ask for it. Guess I was lucky, I didn't have a choice, they carted me to therapy sessions in a wheelchair before I was even able to go have a piss on my own..." he added sarcastically.
"I can't talk…"
"Yes, if you want, you can. I'll accompany you, if you want me to," John offered, but winced because he feared he was pushing too much too early.
Carefully, he sat down next to Sherlock.
"That's not…"
"You can do it."
"Not with anyone 'not-you'."
"Oh," John just made, lost for words for a long moment. "Well, thank you for that proof of trust… Mycroft might be able to find a therapist who agrees to do just the EMDR sessions without a whole year of therapy around it, if we ask him. Or I can ask Ella," John tried to soften the idea of the scenario.
It was a fine line between speculating about the conditions that might make this work and being careful not to push the detective into dire refusal.
"NO! And not Ella!"
"Well, the thing is, she already has my background and knows what happened, in a general sense, I mean."
"No!"
"Calm down, I'm just trying to find out what circumstances you need to consider this. This is just hypothetical. Can you try to explain what makes you so… opposed to the idea of seeing a therapist?"
"Make a deduction."
"I don't want to. I need to hear it from you, in your own words."
"I simply don't do that."
"That's not a reason, Sherlock."
"Fine, I'm a total imbecile when it comes to communicating feelings. It would be more of an issue to describe them than to deal with them on my own. I doubt any therapist would understand that. They'd probably insinuate that I wasn't willing to confront myself with sensing what I feel and that I try to undermine the therapy just because I can't describe the sentiment I suffer."
"Do you evade feeling what is there?"
"How would I know?"
John sighed, this was exactly the problem, and Sherlock had just said it. He could imagine what Ella would reply being told this, it wouldn't be far from what Sherlock had just suggested.
Not an option.
"Someone told you in the past that you undermined therapy?"
"I don't do therapy."
"That wasn't the question."
"Yess… many people accuse me of manipulating things."
"So you had therapy in the past?"
When Sherlock made a try to get up, John grabbed his upper arm and kept him in place.
So, this was a sore spot Sherlock was not ready to talk about.
"Alright. I won't ask about that again, sorry."
He saw his friend was clenching his jaw.
"I won't waste energy on a tasks like that. On being interpreted and analysed by the absence of certain behaviours I don't utilise because I consider them useless. It is especially stupid that some therapists assume that the decision to behave in a certain way is absolutely subconscious, where every person with a bit of a brain would be able to decide how he or she wants to behave, especially when it comes to body language. So the inability to distinguish between interpreting intentional behaviour and not intentional is where most of them lack, which is in my view the most basic skill in observing people," Sherlock once more spoke very fast and sounded unnerved.
The doctor sighed, he understood what Sherlock was trying to describe, though it was a bit abstract.
In fact, the chance that the detective would be misunderstood was pretty high, John knew how few people actually could communicate successfully with Sherlock. He really understood the problem and was aware Sherlock was not necessarily trying to evade talking, but afraid to be treated in the wrong way due to being misinterpreted.
Like experiencing dismissal because the other person perceived his behaviour as rude, or being called a freak for uttering what his more-than-average accurate senses told him. Or being refused because he didn't see the point in social niceties, gossip or small talk.
Sherlock had been misunderstood in the past when it came to physical health problems, mental issues where so much harder.
But the fact that the detective was well aware that he was able to absolutely manipulate any observations a therapist could make - and therefore render them all useless, because he understood what and why and how they interpreted things - and would be able to adjust his behaviour, might in fact cause havoc.
Sherlock's knowledge about psychology was profound, although he lagged to connect to his own feelings. He was able to analyse others himself, probably even better than some therapists, due to his enormous perceptive faculty and tremendous perception.
He didn't need to know how jealousy felt in his body, he observed the symptoms and diagnosed it was jealousy via process of elimination. Just like John didn't need to know how measles felt to diagnose them, he just went to his mental checklist of symptoms. Sherlock probably even sensed feelings as deficiency of his transport, like others did with an aching throat.
The consultant was not the average person, and it wouldn't help to be 'read' like one.
John was also well aware that things that were totally normal for Sherlock might make a therapist think he was lacking empathy, arrogant, attention-seeking or a liar, like he appeared to so many other people, and particularly those who didn't take the time to understand.
Misdiagnosis might be inevitable from Sherlock's POV due to his practical life experience. Was that what he was so afraid off?
If he was, John could understand, he even shared the fear.
"You fear to be misunderstood," John stated.
Sherlock said nothing, but he looked miserable, even with his emotionless mask that his face was at the moment.
"Well, I'm not trying to make you see a therapist. For starters, I just want you to read into EMDR treatment, get some background, learn how it works and what it does and all the facts. All I'm asking is that you consider it. Just the thing itself."
John knew it would be hard to find a good therapist who would do the thing alone, without the sessions to make sure the patient was stable and ready to try EMDR, but he trusted Mycroft to make it happen.
"I already know."
"What?"
"I read a medical textbook about PTSD when you moved in."
"Shit, is everybody doing background reading on this?" John cursed.
Sherlock only frowned, not aware Mary had done the same.
"Okay, that was some years ago and more general. Read about EMDR - in particular - again, with your new experiences, and then reconsider it. It could do a lot good with only a 'bit' effort. I'm not saying it's easy, but I think you need to get a grip on this blood thing. You can't work like that. You can't risk to be confronted with the smell and then get killed because you have a flashback or experience dissociation. I can't go through that again. Please."
Sherlock frowned.
"And this will not just vanish with time, believe me, almost everybody hopes it will, but it won't, often, it gets even worse."
"Understood."
"You'll read into it?"
Sherlock nodded.
"Okay, we'll see how to proceed later, then. For now, we need to prepare the flat, anyway."
"For what?"
"You happen to know what date it is?"
When Sherlock said nothing, John added.
"December 19th."
"No!"
Sherlock's indignation was almost comical.
