Summary:

Sherlock tries to address one of his issues from his time away. Of course, he has to do it Sherlock-style.

Notes:

A much shorter chapter this time, and (a bit) light-hearted. Consider it a palate cleanser of sorts.

John was tied up for the next couple of weeks; his time tending to Sherlock meant that he had a backlog of hours to make up at the surgery. He spoke to Sherlock several times a week on the phone, though, and things seemed to be going well. The trafficking case continued to simmer in the background, but now there was an increasing trickle of private clients taking notice. Sherlock was once again creeping into the limelight, and was clearly starting to settle back into something approaching his old life.

Thursday mornings, John always got to the surgery early—it was usually their lightest day, and if he was lucky he could catch up on his paperwork and slope off work a little early. He was sitting at his desk working methodically through files when his mobile phone chirped. He looked at the display—Greg Lestrade. "Greg? What on Earth are you doing calling so early? I know you mentioned you were on nights this week. You have to sleep sometime, you know."

Greg groaned. "Don't I wish. I'm home, at least. But look, I wanted… well, I thought maybe you should go and check on Sherlock this morning if you could."

John felt his heart rate speed up a bit. "What's wrong? I just spoke to him yesterday afternoon. He seemed fine. Something go off?"

Greg hesitated. "No, nothing serious. It's just - well, ah. Sherlock puked at my crime scene last night. Twice."

John's jaw dropped. "What, really? I can't imagine…what was the scene like?" John had horrific visions of ritual sacrifice, babies on spikes…

Greg paused for a minute. "Well, that's just it. It wasn't that bad, really. Lots of blood, certainly—poor sod got his throat cut pretty thoroughly, so arterial spray, you know, and completely bled out on the floor, probably less than an hour before we got there. But nothing Sherlock hasn't seen a hundred times and slept like a baby afterward. Well, he would have if he actually slept." Greg waited while John gave an appreciative chuckle.

"But anyway. He comes on the scene like normal, swanning about in his coat. He walks into the room where the body is, stops in the doorway, and then spins around, makes it out to the street and, well, there's his dinner. I kept folks away from him, asked him if he was OK. He insisted he was. After five minutes or so he comes back in. So I'm standing beside him, and I notice he keeps jerking a bit. 'Bout the time I realize what he's actually doing is gagging, he runs back outside and up it comes again. He was really peaky and shaky, then, so I put him in a car and sent him home. He didn't even complain. So what I'm thinking is, he's got some sort of flu, and the last thing I want is for him to insist on coming back out with us again today and give it to everyone else. And you and I both know, John, he'll drag himself out unless someone stops him."

John snorted. "As if he'll listen to me. If he's feeling that bad, though, I can probably convince him. If nothing else, I can point out that it's a little hard on his image."

Greg laughed. "Yeah, bit tough to look mysterious and cool when you're hurling on your shoes, innit?"

In the end, John decided to take an early, probably long, lunch. He got to Baker Street just after 10, and met Mrs. Hudson in the entryway as she was going out. After kissing her cheek, he asked her how things had been going.

She frowned. "Well, dear, he's been doing better. You know that. And he came down and ate breakfast with me this morning. Actually ate, like he was hungry. But then a delivery came, and he went back upstairs—said it was for an experiment. Just a bit ago, though, well… I thought I heard him groaning. And when I started to go upstairs he called down and told me not to come up. So I'm glad you're here."

John considered that. "Greg Lestrade thought he had a stomach bug—said he was ill last night. Maybe he thought he was better and tried to eat too soon?"

Mrs. Hudson tutted. "That would be just like him, wouldn't it? You go on up, then—maybe you can convince him to rest up a bit, if that's the problem. I'll be back in an hour or so, I'm just doing the shopping. You can call me if either of you need me to get anything, invalid food or the like." She gave him a hug and headed off down the street. John turned and went up those familiar 17 steps, automatically avoiding the two that creaked.

As he neared the top of the stairs, his instincts had him on high alert before he realized what had set him off: a strong odor of blood, lots of it. He dashed up the last two steps and stopped short at the scene in the kitchen. Sherlock stood facing the sink, a huge silver bowl on the counter next to him. His knuckles were white where he gripped the edge of the sink, and his shoulders jerked repeatedly. The sour smell of vomit floated above the blood now. "The hell?" John said, moving towards Sherlock. He glanced into the sink—a small amount of what was apparently Sherlock's half-digested breakfast lay in the bottom. And the bowl was full of…"Blood? What in the…?"

He grasped Sherlock's shoulders and turned him around, to see a whiter-than-white face and pinched lips. Sherlock answered, in a peculiar hitching fashion. "Blood. Aversion. I can't…oh Christ!" and he spun back towards the sink, gasping, shoulders still jerking.

The other penny dropped. "Oh, for—here." John grabbed Sherlock's arm in one hand and reached under the sink for a bucket with the other, then dragged him over and pushed him down on the sofa. He shoved the bucket into Sherlock's lap.

"So. You're still having trouble with this reaction to the smell of blood, right? That's what happened at Greg's crime scene last night?" Sherlock scowled, lips still pressed tightly together but no longer gagging—apparently the scent wasn't so problematic now that he was further away. "And yes, he called me. Get over it. He was concerned you were ill." Sherlock scowled louder.

"And you decided that you would try to overcome this by using controlled exposure. But of course, you being, well, you, the correct way to do this would be to expose yourself to two fucking gallons of blood at once, rather than do it in increments. Am I wrong?"

Sherlock gave him a Death Glare from the sofa that could drop birds from the sky. "The process is very simple," Sherlock spat out. "No worse than allergy jabs. I simply have to endure it until this stops." That last sounded, to Sherlock's obvious discomfort, much more distressed than angry. John forced himself not to react to that. Sherlock would not take pity well.

"Right, then. I'm going to teach you how to do this properly. But before that, I'm going to clean up this mess, and dump this blood. You might want to go up to my old bedroom when I do that—dumping it will make the scent very strong again." Sherlock, of course, ignored that suggestion, ostentatiously putting the bucket on the floor and hunching back into the sofa, sulking.

John rinsed down the mess in the sink, then carefully reached over to grasp the huge bowl. He looked over at Sherlock. "Last chance—you really should leave for a bit." Sherlock gave him the "how do you manage to breathe and walk simultaneously?" look. John sighed, turned the water on again, and dumped the blood into the sink.

From the corner of his eye, John saw the flurry of movement from the sofa as Sherlock grabbed desperately for the bucket, stuck his head in it and lost the rest of his breakfast. He continued to heave and spit while John rinsed the bowl. John went and opened the windows in the sitting room a tiny bit, despite the cold, to let in more air. John then grabbed a flannel, rinsed it in cool water and wrung it out. He walked back over to the sofa, where Sherlock had finally stopped gagging but now sat back, panting, with the bucket in his hands. John set the bucket aside, gently pushed Sherlock down to lie flat on the couch, and put the flannel over his eyes.

John rinsed the bucket, put everything away, and sat in his chair to wait. After ten minutes, Sherlock exhaled loudly, took the flannel off his eyes, and sat up. "So? You ready to listen now?" said John. Sherlock, a light flush on his cheekbones, nodded. John stood up and went to get his kit from the entryway. He dug around in his bag and came up with three items that he held up for Sherlock's perusal. "OK, here. I have two capped sample tubes. We're going to go over to Barts and get you a bag of blood and some liquid anticoagulant. You fill the tube, put in the anticoagulant, and carry it with you. Every few minutes you open it, give it a shake, and take a deep sniff. Make sure you're near the loo the first few times, just in case. If you keep up with it, I doubt it'll take more than a week to work through this. And…," he reached and handed over the third item, "here's a clamshell mask. Until you can smell the tube without gagging, you wear the mask at crime scenes-it should block the scent. You can tell the Met staff that you have a virus that takes a while to get rid of—I'll back you up. They'll believe it since they know you were ill last night."

Sherlock's face broke into one of his rare, crooked smiles, the genuine kind. "John, that's perfect. I don't even have to explain anything to Lestrade." He gave John the kind of indulgent look you give a particularly bright 6-year-old.

John thought about it for a bit, realized what he wanted to say was going to ruin Sherlock's current happy mood, but… "Sherlock? You really should talk to Lestrade about all of this."

The scowl was back. "No need," snapped Sherlock. "Once I conquer this issue," and he gave a wave and a sneer that was the image of Mycroft, "I'll be able to move back into my normal mode of operation. It's ridiculous to attach more importance to it than it requires."

John wasn't having it. "Sherlock. He saw you, after he brought you home that day. He knows you're, well, not quite yourself, and he knows that something serious is going on with you."

Sherlock was silent, his face closed and mouth tight and unhappy. John tried again. "I know. You hate this. I hated it as well, when I thought everyone who met me thought of me as 'damaged'. But I also learned, and you taught me this, that having people close to you know something of what was going on made it easier. Not easy, but easier. Think about this, too: Mary and I already know. Mycroft knows. Mrs. Hudson knows. So what's Greg? One more person, but one more person who's important to you, and one who cares for you. And is very worried about you."

Sherlock heaved a sigh, and then managed to shock John by saying, simply, "I know."

Notes:

Special bonus points if anyone recognizes the (tiny) Eddie Izzard reference!