Lessons in Friendship 7 – Needing something
Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC 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.
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Chapter 6
Day 1 – Friday: Sherlock's POV
When Lestrade had come by Sherlock noticed for the first time that something felt different than it usually did. Eating often made him feel slower, slightly tired. Digestion needed energy, but this was different. It felt like preferring to sit.
He needed almost an hour to realise the odd feeling in his limbs might be described as a distant light trembling deep inside his extremities.
Solution: Trying to stop it by will.
It did work, but came back a few minutes later.
The feeling grew constantly and during their dinner an hour later Sherlock didn't felt the slightest need to eat something solid, so he decided against it, but he had a tea. This was when he noticed he not only felt the trembling, he saw it, too.
Annoying.
John also did, and promptly asked about it.
He realised that he had felt something similar before when injured, but this had several other aspects in it. Those were new, and the most important fact - why he couldn't place the sensation - was: he was not injured at all.
During the meal another perception irritated him, some time later.
He had never felt like this before.
Or had erased the memory?
There were waves, moving through his torso, ugly feeling surges, not really pain, but he wasn't sure what else it might be.
Ignore and wait for further clues.
Within fifteen minutes it became more and more straining to ignore it and he searched the database - that which contained descriptions of other people's sensations and translated them into his own ones - for reference.
Nothing there so far. Collecting more data.
John was bugging him with the question how he was doing.
Quite annoying, there weren't any reasons for the questions. Ignoring requests.
Then another thing was added and a clue was forming… he felt slightly dizzy.
He was probably tired and since John was bothering him, he decided to retreat into his room. Without making a decision he found himself on the bed, on his stomach… He was tired, really tired.
.
He must have dozed off because suddenly John was in his room and he could feel the taste of sleep in the caves of his head. He didn't like it, never had.
Something else was off.
"I'm fine. Leave me alone."
He was briefly annoyed when he felt his privacy invaded, but then decided just to switch off John being there. He slipped into an odd sleeping mode again, and did not hear the thermometer John used.
Some time later he woke up again, this time he was sure he had really slept, John was still there, bugging him, even being so impolite to touch him and tell him to lie on his side. Sherlock tried to move away from the rude disturbance but then John told him that he'd leave anyway. Maybe he had realised how rude he was. Finally…
.
But only a short time later John was back in his room, he was actually touching him again!
Sherlock was getting pissed.
He didn't want to lie on his back!
Why, for god's sake, didn't John just go away?
Besides being annoyed there was something else feeling not right.
"When have you eaten last? I mean before today's meal with me?" John asked.
Was he feeling so odd because he was hungry? Stomach making loud noises… check.
He had eaten lunch with John, and his stomach never made this kind of noise, even when he was hungry.
"I need to examine your abdomen, roll onto your back," John ordered and now Sherlock did not resist.
If he'd let John do it he'd probably go away faster.
"Everything is fine," Sherlock sat up.
He mentally rolled his eyes about his own slowness.
What if he was getting sick?
No way, he never got sick! Maybe that's why he couldn't put the symptoms?
No! He was not sick, being sick wasn't something that just happened.
He just needed to manage it correctly and it would not become a sickness.
Fight it and it'll go away.
The doctor was still there, distracting him.
Sherlock ignored him once more, but when John started touching him again he tried to get out of the bed to flee from the room. But John told him he would go now and John finally vanished.
.
Someone shook his shoulder.
What was it now?
"You're gonna be sick?" John went to the bathroom and came back with a bucket.
What does he needs that for? Surely he didn't plan to clean now.
"Of course not!" Sherlock replied.
"Do you think you'd be able to warn me if you realise you'll throw up?"
This was not funny any more! But John would not bug him like this when he would make jokes, would he?… No, he usually knew where the boundaries were. Did John thought he was sick? Ridiculous.
"Don't be ridiculous, one does not throw up without a reason, and there is no reason here."
But then, from the distance, some part of him noticed he knew that feeling. He had been sick when he was a child and thrown up back then, but he had stored that feeling so far away his mind had not even thought about looking for something like that.
But now he was grown up and he'd manage to make it go away. He concentrated on forcing the feeling down.
It kept reappearing and he pushed it back again.
But it became harder by the minute.
"Yes, I did throw up before." Though he was not sure he could remember what it had felt like before it happened. He decided not allowing the idea to enter his mind would keep it away more efficiently.
How could John be so rude to assume he was too pathetic to have control over his body?
Then the doctor started touching his stomach and suddenly another long forgotten feeling rose in him.
It felt like a cork of soft plasticine - with all colours mixed, leaving a lot of grey but with some swirling colours in between - trapped under his breastbone.
The feeling and the fight to keep it in control exploded and floored all other sensations. Then his mind went blank with an overload of ugly sensations.
He surfaced again when the piercing smell of vomit assaulted his nostrils. It made him retch again and again.
Somewhere in between gasping for air and trying not to choke he snesed John was still with him.
Distress rose with that knowledge.
John was not supposed to be incommoded with his transport's malfunctions.
It was rude to let him see this, wasn't it? John might be angry with him later.
Get away from him as fast as possible. Dispose the signs of this embarrassing lack of control as fast as possible… Make a retreat, showing shame would probably be the right social interaction.
But the disgusting smell made him vomit even more violently.
He had never thrown up into a bucket before, this was disgusting, he needed to move to the bathroom and puke into the toilet.
As soon as he could, he tried to get up, but John held him back and took the bucket.
No, this was disgusting!
He could not let John take care of his waste.
He felt mortified now… that did not happen often, but he knew that sharp feeling.
But his flatmate seemed neither angry nor unnerved.
Was he talking? John usually talked…
Sherlock wondered if he was confused, his mind was in disarray.
John showed odd behaviour… or was it emotions?
His sensations were also odd, he vaguely realised, the whole day was odd… it was peculiar enough to start a new entry in his the emotions-database.
John bugged him by asking for information, again and again… he was talking… and then Sherlock ascertained he was actually answering… on autopilot.
Well, that had happened before… but why had he switched it on in the first place… Right, he had been unnerved and wanted to be left alone… so that was the way.
Maybe, as a favour for bothering him with his problems, he should answer John honestly.
He tried, but the fact that the questions were about his sensations and how John's touch felt made it hard.
Not able to answer request… Missing input. John was right, there should be input.
He tried to find it, vaguely remembering that he had switched it off. He tried to recall if he was in his mind palace when he did.
He might have been, but it was dark… it was usually not dark in there, it was his mind. Not even dim light, the palace's normal state was sufficiently lighted everywhere… Well, sometimes he dimmed it, to make corners more cosy for retreat, but… that was a conscious decision.
Why was everything so wired and vague?
What was he doing?… Oh, yes, switch, search.
He went looking for it… but after a time wondered if he had placed it in some virtual refrigerator.
Was there even one?… Dumb question, of course there was one! It was in the labs.
But when he searched there: no switch anywhere…
Truth be told, he couldn't even remember what it looked like… Switches were usually mounted somewhere, or attached, or build in, weren't they?
John's touch on his stomach jerked his mind back to reality.
"Tell me where you're hurting."
"Eh… that might be a problem… I switched it off," Sherlock decided to inform the doctor.
"What?"
"I switched off the pain reception."
"How….? You can switch it off?"
"Not always and not fully and not all kinds of pain, but… yes."
"That's kind of odd, mate, you know that?"
"No."
"Switch it back on then."
"Switch is gone."
"Blimey… You're telling me you can manage your pain reception but misplaced the mechanism somehow?"
"Of course I can mange it, can't you?" That was odd. Every normal person surely could do this.
"Not to that degree."
"Maybe I classified the kind of pain wrong and now it is not received as pain," he theorised.
John stared at the ceiling, was he unnerved now, too?
"Okay, you try to find that switch while I examine you, alright?" John suggested and started touching him again. Sherlock tried to retreat into his mind palace to get away from the sensation of physical contact… and there was something else he had to do… search the switch.
"Hmmm," Sherlock muttered and drifted off.