Story beta'd by the awesome BrokenKestral
"Stay down here."
I glanced back three steps from the door, more curious at how that had almost sounded like a request than the request itself.
Holmes sat in his armchair, now staring at me instead of the chemistry journal he had been updating.
"I am just going to get another journal," I replied, waving off his words with the journal I had just filled as I turned toward the door again.
"Watson."
I made no answer, opening the door to the landing as I wondered why he wanted me to stay in the sitting room. It was not like I was going to work in my room; I would return in a moment. He had done stranger things, however, and I wrote it off to Holmes being Holmes. Perhaps he had been quietly enjoying the scribbling of my pen. He always did think better with background noise.
That was probably it, I decided. He had been enjoying the noise of my writing, and I had interrupted his focus by getting up. With his focus already broken, there was no use in me turning back now, but I could make sure I did not interrupt again. I would put this journal away and retrieve a new one from the extras I kept in my room, but I would also grab a second fresh one to keep in my desk in the sitting room. That way, I would not interrupt his train of thought so much the next time I needed a new journal.
Slipping the journal into a pocket, I put my curiosity out of my mind and crossed the landing. The stairwell smelled amazing, and I inhaled deeply, wondering what Mrs. Hudson was cooking. I smelled basil, rosemary, pepper…
The rest of my conjecture fled before I reached the base of the stairs.
An intense wave of dizziness washed over me, nearly sending me to the floor, and I froze mid-step, gripping the wall to stay upright as my knees tried to buckle beneath me. My vision darkened around the edges, and I allowed my eyes to close as I fought to stay awake.
"Watson?" I heard from the doorway behind me. Holmes had followed me out to the landing.
I made no answer, still using the wall to stay on my feet. The dizziness passed after a moment, and I tried to open my eyes, deciding I had simply stood up too quickly.
The staircase that had been going up now went down, and I quickly closed my eyes again as the vertigo returned with the realization that I appeared to be standing on the ceiling. Beyond disoriented to see tables and doors hanging from the ceiling, I leaned harder against the wall, fighting to get my bearings without hitting the floor. Too much of my balance was tied to my sight for me to easily stay upright when the room turned upside down.
Keeping my eyes closed slowly helped, and I tried to figure out what was wrong before opening my eyes again. What could cause vision problems and vertigo, but no fever?
Short of a concussion, I could think of nothing. I was only three days beyond a nasty 'flu that had sent both of us to bed for nearly a week each, but even that had not caused such symptoms without a fever.
"Watson, answer me."
The knowledge slammed into me as Holmes came around to look at my face, steadying me with a hand on my arm. This was why he had not wanted me to leave the room. My infuriating flatmate had used me in another experiment.
I dared to open my eyes, barely glancing at where he stood in front of me before quickly closing them again as the sight intensified the dizziness. A childhood fairy tale had included a man with the ability to walk on the ceiling, but I had never thought to see it myself. I would have preferred not to see it, actually. Touch informed me that I was standing against a wall, but my eyes said that either I or Holmes hung from the ceiling. No matter which it was—or even if it was neither, as I was more inclined to believe—the conflicting signals churned my stomach as if I were on a boat in the midst of a storm. I dug my fingernails into my palm, trying to wake from this bizarre dream.
Nothing happened, of course.
The hand gripping my arm squeezed briefly. "Say something, Watson."
Even the smallest movement amplified itself several times and sent the room spinning around me, and I did not answer, more focused on staying upright and quelling the motion sickness.
He squeezed my arm again as worry crept into his tone. "Watson."
"What did you do?" I finally growled, keeping my eyes firmly shut.
He started to ask what I meant, but I cut him off mid-word as I tried not to grow truly angry. "You used me in another experiment! What did you do?"
I probably imagined the loud swallow. "It was supposed to improve balance."
"It failed," I growled, my irritation darkly coloring the words. "How long until it wears off?"
Silence answered me, and I forced my eyes open, finally looking at him just long enough to note the frown of worry twitching his mouth. His keen gaze scanned everything from how I gripped the wall to the way I quickly closed my eyes again. Just opening my eyes had made me dizzy, and I swallowed hard, trying to control my churning stomach.
This gave new meaning to the phrase I had heard children telling each other about turning a frown upside down, and I used the thought to distract myself from the motion sickness caused by opening my eyes—though I did kill the smirk trying to break free. Holmes needed no encouragement to ever do this again, and I would not add to the worry I had seen in his gaze if his thoughts went the other direction.
"What did it do?"
I did not answer immediately, working to remember how many steps it was between the stairs and the settee. I had learned it once, when a case a few years before had left me unable to see for a few days, and that seemed the best way to get off my feet before another wave of vertigo did it for me.
"Watson?"
He interrupted my train of thought just before the memory broke free, and I scowled at him, eyes still closed. "How many steps is it to the door?" I asked instead of answering his question. A number floated from a distant memory. "Four? Was that what I said after the trafficking case?"
He made no reply, and I dared not open my eyes to decipher his thoughts. When the silence stretched for too long, I scowled again and pushed myself off the wall. I was relatively certain it was four to the door and seven to the settee, and if Holmes was not going to help, there was no reason for me not to try it on my own.
His hand tightened around my arm, steadying me as another wave of dizziness tried to send me to the floor. "Yes," he said. "That is correct. What did it do, Watson?"
I stumbled toward the settee, leaning on him despite my attempts otherwise as vertigo assailed me with every step.
"Dizzy," I finally answered shortly, one arm out to make sure I did not run into anything, "and vision flipped."
"What do you mean 'flipped?'"
I cracked an eye open, reflexively checking my location in relation to the settee, but immediately squeezed it shut at the sight of the settee hanging from the ceiling.
"I hate you so much right now," was my only—grumbled—answer.
"I cannot help if you do not talk to me," he admonished. "What do you mean 'flipped?'"
"I mean you are walking on the ceiling," I growled, falling into the cushions more than sitting as another intense wave of dizziness washed over me. "This had better wear off soon."
He steadied me as I leaned back, rearranging the cushions to let me sit semi-reclined, and I did not need my sight to know his frown deepened when I gripped the cushion in an illogical attempt not to fall off. Leaning back was making it worse, and the room seemed to dip and whirl around me like a leaf stuck in a summer storm. I pushed a pillow aside to lay flat before realizing he had never answered.
"Holmes?" I prodded. "How long until this wears off?"
He hesitated. "Three or four hours," he finally said quietly.
"Three or four hours?" I echoed. "Holmes!"
"It was a few hours or all day," he protested.
I scowled at him again. "The better option would be none at all," I growled. "You know I hate it when you experiment on me!"
He said nothing, probably recognizing that I was growing truly angry with him. I always had a shorter temper after being sick, and the feeling of the room moving on its own was doing nothing to calm my irritation that he had used me in another experiment. I had thought we were past him thinking this was acceptable.
The smallest movement was a disorienting torture as the room twisted and rotated around me. The ceiling was uniform enough that, when looking up, there was no difference between opening my eyes and closing them, but I could not turn my head without the room continuing the turn. Several times, I nearly needed the large bowl Holmes had left on the floor next to me as my stomach protested the moving room, and I let the silence stretch as I tried to ride it out.
Every minute seemed an age. I alternated between trying to hold still to keep the room from multiplying every movement and having to readjust as my shoulder twinged my position. I could not get comfortable for more than a couple of minutes at a time, and just when I got the room to stop imitating a top, my shoulder would force me to readjust. Knowing I would not fall off the settee did nothing to prevent me from grabbing at the cushions when the room threatened to flip me upside down with everything else, and I doubt I made it more than fifteen minutes before I finally voiced a question.
"Is there an antidote?" I asked, nearly scowling. My pride demanded I wait for it to pass on its own, but I would not be able to handle several hours of this. Just the movement required to speak sent the settee spinning beneath me.
"No," he said quietly, his voice telling me that he had seated himself in his armchair. "Try to sleep."
That was not going to happen. I would never be able fall asleep with the way the room spun with every breath, and I could not take chloral hydrate to make myself sleep.
My shoulder twinged again, and I readjusted, gritting my teeth as the room performed a particularly sickening rotation. I fought the instinct to grab the cushion. I would not fall off no matter how much it felt I might. Hadn't there been another sleep aid I had used as a child, one separate from the ones I had learned in medical school?
"Watson?" he asked.
I ignored him for a moment, chasing the idea that had bubbled to the surface.
A memory came of our kitchen. I sat in a corner watching Martha, our housekeeper, make a tea for my brother when he had complained of being unable to sleep. I had only tried it once, but the foul concoction had knocked me out before I had finished the cup, and it carried none of the danger the medical sleep aids—like chloral hydrate—carried. The ingredients came to mind as Holmes spoke again.
"Watson."
"Hmm?"
"Talk to me. What are you feeling?"
"I told you that already," I growled, refusing to open my eyes even to glare at him. "Do you have any idea how disorienting it is to know you are lying flat but feel as if you are spinning slow circles in a room that never halts its own rotations?"
He did not answer for a long moment. "Yes."
"Good," I snapped, slipping a hand behind a pillow to hide my white-knuckle grip as the room spun yet again. "You know what you did to me, then. Look in my bag. Do I have chamomile and lavender?"
I heard him walk across the room and start digging through the bag I had left near my desk. "Yes," he finally answered.
"Make a weak tea with them, please. You can put some of each in a cup of what Mrs. Hudson brought up a few minutes ago."
"That will taste terrible," he protested, though I heard him set the bag aside and stand as he spoke.
"Yes, it will," I agreed, still gripping the cushion behind a pillow, "but it is better than waiting, and I will find it disgusting no matter what. I never did understand what Harry liked about chamomile."
I described how much of each needed to steep in the hot tea as I listened to him moving around, and a cup clinked on the table behind my head a couple of minutes later.
"Let me know when three minutes pass."
He made no answer—which was just as well, with how close I was to losing my temper at him for using me in an experiment again—and silence fell over the sitting room, broken only by the sounds on the street.
"Three minutes," he finally said when I was sure it had been closer to five.
Grabbing the back of the settee, I pulled myself upright and felt for the cup I had heard him place behind me, and he leaned forward. One hand landed on my back, steadying me, and the other passed me the cup.
"What will that do?" he asked as he leaned back. I swallowed a mouthful, heedless of how hot it still was. "I thought there was no treatment for vertigo."
Sitting up had made it far worse, and I wanted to lie back down. I took another, larger mouthful before answering.
"There's not," I said shortly, grimacing even as I took another large drink, trying to dispense with the unpleasant taste as quickly as I could. "This will make me sleep."
"What?!"
I frowned, wondering at the element of panic creeping into his voice, and took another large drink before deciding that was enough and turning to set the cup aside. He took the cup from me before it touched the table, setting it out of my reach a moment later.
"What is it?" I asked as I leaned back into the settee, trying to relax when the room refused to hold still.
"Watson! You are allergic to sedatives!"
Oh. That explained it.
"Not a sedative," I said shortly, quelling the nausea at drinking half a cup of tea when my stomach was already upset. I tried to open my eyes to make sure he was listening to me, but the sight intensified the motion sickness, forcing me to close them again. "Just herbs," I said instead. "I hate chamomile, but instead of the hour or more it takes to affect most, it combined with lavender makes me drowsy in minutes."
He said nothing, but his sigh told me he had relaxed, and I felt the tea begin to take effect. Relaxing into the cushions, I started planning what I would do to pay him back for this. I would need to do something; flipping my vision was far too disorienting to let pass unchallenged.
I fell asleep before I could decide.
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