Help us to survive (15/17)
Summary: A crime scene involving a dead anorexic woman hits close to home for John and Sherlock, leading John to discover a disturbing pattern and Sherlock to face his eating disorder in new light.
Notes: This is part of the Eating us Alive verse and will make more sense if you have read at least Eating us Alive and Eating us Alive, again, first. The raw first draft of this story was written around the time I finished posting Eating us Alive, again. At that time, its sole purpouse was to entertain a friend. It was never my intention to create actual plot and make it public, but with the help and inspiration of willowmeg that happened anyway. I’m so grateful for the support throughout this, thank you.
I apoligise in advance for the severe hand waving I’ve occasionally done when it comes to medicine and to criminal law.
-x-
It was just after midnight, and the flat was too quiet.
Sherlock moved from the sofa to the window, then over to the mantelpiece where he picked up and then put down the skull. He walked through to the kitchen, walked around the kitchen table, moving test tubes and making sure all the lids were closed. He opened and closed the fridge, only to open it again - it was tragically empty, but neither of them had even pretended to bother with eating since they had handed the case to Lestrade. After closing the fridge door for the third time he managed to step away from it and walk back to the sitting room. To the window. Then to the sofa again.
The silence was closing in on him, slowly driving him insane. More so than he clearly already was. He picked up the violin, rested his chin against it, and for a very brief moment he was at peace at the prospect of filling the room with music. He gently placed the bow against the strings, resisting the urge to move it. John had gone to bed hours ago, and he didn’t want to wake him if he had finally managed to fall asleep. Also, he didn’t want John come out and join him. The silence might be suffocating, but company would be excruciating. Not to mention that John truly needed to sleep; he’d been on the brink of collapsing when they had arrived home this afternoon. Sherlock would never forgive himself for needing Lestrade to point out John’s exhaustion to him.
Sherlock put down the violin; the longing to play was almost physically painful.
He paced back and forth. From the sofa, to the window, to the mantelpiece. To the kitchen. Back to the sitting room. Every now and then he walked up to the bedroom door. He, too, was exhausted. Lying down next to John, have his soft snoring force the silence away, felt as appealing as playing the violin. Perhaps even more so. He hadn’t known how desperately he had missed lying next to someone until John had asked him to sleep in his bed after the case that had led them to Micha. The risk of waking John still made him back away from the door.
Sofa, window, mantelpiece, kitchen, sofa again.
He sat down only to get up right away. Every cell in his body was screaming at him to rest, but there were too many things going round and round in his head for him to stay still. It made him dizzy, but he was afraid to focus on any one thought for long enough to make it stop.
The drug test wouldn’t tell Lestrade anything he didn’t want him to know. Not to mention that there wasn’t anything there to start with; he had practically been force feeding himself for weeks up until three days ago. It was all fine, and he knew that. He did. But Lestrade’s question - what was wrong, if it wasn’t drugs - rang louder than anything else.
Along with John’s gentle but persistent nudgings to talk to him.
More than once tonight, Sherlock had mumbled “There’s nothing to tell” under his breath. It felt less true each time he said it. Every time he came back to the sofa, every time he opened the fridge, every time he didn’t open the bedroom door, he became more and more convinced that he was losing his mind. Slowly, but definitely.
He stopped in the middle of the room, running his hands through his hair. He needed to sleep, he needed to… get control over his life again. Any way he knew how. Even if just for a minute. Even if just for a second.
He almost ran to the fridge and jerks the door open. His eyes frantically searched its pathetic content: milk, jam, pickled pearl onions, old vegetables, boiled eggs, ketchup, butter, beer…
Shaking from head to toe he let the door fall close. He sobbed once, sinking down on the floor and curling up to a ball. Saved by the lack of food. He covered his face with his hands. He couldn’t stay like this, he couldn’t let John find him like here tomorrow, but right now the hard floor helped. It was uncomfortable and gave him something concrete to focus on, as he slowly started to try sorting out his thoughts.
-x-
“Sherlock, would you please pick up your phone?” John yelled from the kitchen, when Sherlock’s phone rang for the third time within twenty minutes.
John had slept extremely bad last night, dreaming strange dreams about skeleton zombies in Afghanistan, and had no patience for Sherlock being, well, Sherlock.
Yesterday, as they had left Scotland Yard, just about everyone involved in the Angel of Death case had told them not to come in today. It was hard to tell if they all had thought he and Sherlock looked completely wrung out, like Lestrade had claimed, or if they just had wanted them out of the way, as Donovan and Gartner had. Either way, the excuse to not work the case today was welcomed.
Or had been at first.
“You do hear the phone, right?” John asked, walking into the sitting room.
Sherlock was lying on the sofa without confirming in any way that he heard the phone. Or John.
John picked the mobile off the table just as it stopped ringing. “It’s Lestrade,” he said, checking the call-log. “Perhaps he wants us to come in after all.”
“No, he would have called you after I didn’t answer the first time if that was the case,” said Sherlock, just as Lestrade did his fourth attempt to reach Sherlock.
“The more reason to pick up,” John muttered, glaring down at Sherlock, and answered the phone. “Hi, Greg, it’s John. No, everything’s fine; Sherlock’s just being a tit for a change.”
As he listened to what Lestrade had to say, John got even more tired. He felt his annoyance morph into something rather detached he didn’t know the word for. He thanked Lestrade one time too many for calling, before he hung up.
John turned the mobile in his hands for a moment before saying: “So… that was Lestrade.”
“You don’t say?”
“He said the drug test came back negative.”
“Unsurprising as well,” Sherlock muttered. “Hardly worth calling four times for.”
“Not that I’m not thrilled that you’re clean, but when did you take a drug test? And for that matter why?”
“Because Lestrade’s an idiot.”
“No, he’s not. He cares about you.”
“The two are not mutually exclusive. I mean, look at you.” Sherlock sat up, waving it all off with his hand. “So he thought I was doing heroin again. What does it matter?”
John blinked. “What does it- It matters! Of course it matters.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not.”
“And now everyone knows.”
“God, Sherlock.”
“Drop it.”
“No. Tell me how this can possibly be anywhere near better than telling him the truth?”
“Because he thinks it makes you mentally unstable!” Sherlock yelled. At John’s startled reaction, Sherlock took a deep breath, not quite managing to use an indoor-voice as he continued: “He called them mentally unstable, and I’d rather have him think of me as an addict than have him think that about me.”
John was stumped. Many of Lestrade’s comments throughout the last few days had made him want to crawl out of his skin, but he hadn’t believed Sherlock would listen to any of it. Not really. Sherlock never listened. Fragments of things he had written on the forum went through John’s head - He prides himself on being smarter than everyone else, so how can he be this stupid?, I really want to leave and never, ever see him again, if I can shape up and eat properly even though I don’t want to, if I can stop being an idiot, why can’t he? - and he wondered how many of them had stuck with Sherlock the same way Lestrade’s comment apparently had.
“He didn’t mean it like that,” John said when he finally found words again.
“Says the man who repeatedly states that I’m not sane.”
“That’s how I know Lestrade doesn’t mean it.”
Sherlock sighed, suddenly looked extremely tired. “But what if you’re right?”
“We’re… we’re not,” John said, shaking his head. He sat down on the coffee table in front of him, putting a hand on Sherlock’s knee. “Sherlock, listen to me, you’re the most brilliant person I’ve ever met. You’re completely mental - let’s not kid ourselves - but you’re not mentally unstable. Or insane. The things I’ve written on the forum, I wrote most of those things when I was angry or scared. I know it doesn’t-“
“You detailed what I eat,” Sherlock interrupted and John shut up immediately. “You can’t do that. Do you have any idea how much energy it takes for me to not do exactly that? Or to convince myself that no one’s actually watching me eat?”
John shook his head.
“I need to be able to tell myself that I’m just being paranoid.”
John wet his lips, nodding. “Okay.”
“Now, tell me that’s not insane or unstable,” Sherlock muttered. There was something almost disobedient in Sherlock’s voice, as if he was challenging John to disagree with him.
“It’s not insane or unstable,” John said. “It’s coping and recovery.”
“But I’m not me without it.”
There was definitely disobedience in his voice this time, but underneath the edge, John thought he heard a sincere belief in that statement, and that scared him. He squeezed Sherlock’s knee gently.
“I haven’t known you without it; I don’t even remember how it was knowing you and not known this, but… I do know that it takes an enormous strength to get up the way you do. Again and again. That’s all you, nothing else. You wouldn’t be the same without your experiences and struggles, but that doesn’t mean it defines every part of who you are. The part that fights, the part that wants to live and control your own life, that would be there regardless. Your intelligence. Your music. Your chemistry research, your interest in forensics, your work… That’s you. That would be the same.”
While John had been talking, Sherlock’s eyes had drifted away and John wasn’t completely sure that he had heard him. He squeezed Sherlock’s knee again to bring him back.
“You’re not your eating disorder,” he said when Sherlock met his eyes.
Sherlock flinched at the last words. It almost made John smile.
“I’m sorry for what I wrote at the forum,” he said. “If it, if I made you feel like… If I made you doubt yourself or what I think of you, I’m sorry. You’re the most important person in my life, and I love you.”
“You’re an idiot,” Sherlock mumbled.
“Stop that,” John said, harsher than he meant to. “I do a lot of idiotic things, I know that, but loving you is not one of them.”
Sherlock looked completely stunned, his mouth slightly open.
“It’s all right,” John continued. “I know what you mean when you say it, but stop it. You don’t have to reply to it at all; I don’t care, it doesn’t change things. Just stop saying that loving you makes me an idiot. It doesn’t, because loving you is not stupid. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. All of this included.”
Sherlock sat quiet for a long time, his eyes fixed on John, and therefore John waited patiently. Then Sherlock suddenly nodded and said:
“I mean what you think I mean.”
-x-
Chapter 16
Notes: This is part of the Eating us Alive verse and will make more sense if you have read at least Eating us Alive and Eating us Alive, again, first. The raw first draft of this story was written around the time I finished posting Eating us Alive, again. At that time, its sole purpouse was to entertain a friend. It was never my intention to create actual plot and make it public, but with the help and inspiration of willowmeg that happened anyway. I’m so grateful for the support throughout this, thank you.
I apoligise in advance for the severe hand waving I’ve occasionally done when it comes to medicine and to criminal law.
-x-
It was just after midnight, and the flat was too quiet.
Sherlock moved from the sofa to the window, then over to the mantelpiece where he picked up and then put down the skull. He walked through to the kitchen, walked around the kitchen table, moving test tubes and making sure all the lids were closed. He opened and closed the fridge, only to open it again - it was tragically empty, but neither of them had even pretended to bother with eating since they had handed the case to Lestrade. After closing the fridge door for the third time he managed to step away from it and walk back to the sitting room. To the window. Then to the sofa again.
The silence was closing in on him, slowly driving him insane. More so than he clearly already was. He picked up the violin, rested his chin against it, and for a very brief moment he was at peace at the prospect of filling the room with music. He gently placed the bow against the strings, resisting the urge to move it. John had gone to bed hours ago, and he didn’t want to wake him if he had finally managed to fall asleep. Also, he didn’t want John come out and join him. The silence might be suffocating, but company would be excruciating. Not to mention that John truly needed to sleep; he’d been on the brink of collapsing when they had arrived home this afternoon. Sherlock would never forgive himself for needing Lestrade to point out John’s exhaustion to him.
Sherlock put down the violin; the longing to play was almost physically painful.
He paced back and forth. From the sofa, to the window, to the mantelpiece. To the kitchen. Back to the sitting room. Every now and then he walked up to the bedroom door. He, too, was exhausted. Lying down next to John, have his soft snoring force the silence away, felt as appealing as playing the violin. Perhaps even more so. He hadn’t known how desperately he had missed lying next to someone until John had asked him to sleep in his bed after the case that had led them to Micha. The risk of waking John still made him back away from the door.
Sofa, window, mantelpiece, kitchen, sofa again.
He sat down only to get up right away. Every cell in his body was screaming at him to rest, but there were too many things going round and round in his head for him to stay still. It made him dizzy, but he was afraid to focus on any one thought for long enough to make it stop.
The drug test wouldn’t tell Lestrade anything he didn’t want him to know. Not to mention that there wasn’t anything there to start with; he had practically been force feeding himself for weeks up until three days ago. It was all fine, and he knew that. He did. But Lestrade’s question - what was wrong, if it wasn’t drugs - rang louder than anything else.
Along with John’s gentle but persistent nudgings to talk to him.
More than once tonight, Sherlock had mumbled “There’s nothing to tell” under his breath. It felt less true each time he said it. Every time he came back to the sofa, every time he opened the fridge, every time he didn’t open the bedroom door, he became more and more convinced that he was losing his mind. Slowly, but definitely.
He stopped in the middle of the room, running his hands through his hair. He needed to sleep, he needed to… get control over his life again. Any way he knew how. Even if just for a minute. Even if just for a second.
He almost ran to the fridge and jerks the door open. His eyes frantically searched its pathetic content: milk, jam, pickled pearl onions, old vegetables, boiled eggs, ketchup, butter, beer…
Shaking from head to toe he let the door fall close. He sobbed once, sinking down on the floor and curling up to a ball. Saved by the lack of food. He covered his face with his hands. He couldn’t stay like this, he couldn’t let John find him like here tomorrow, but right now the hard floor helped. It was uncomfortable and gave him something concrete to focus on, as he slowly started to try sorting out his thoughts.
-x-
“Sherlock, would you please pick up your phone?” John yelled from the kitchen, when Sherlock’s phone rang for the third time within twenty minutes.
John had slept extremely bad last night, dreaming strange dreams about skeleton zombies in Afghanistan, and had no patience for Sherlock being, well, Sherlock.
Yesterday, as they had left Scotland Yard, just about everyone involved in the Angel of Death case had told them not to come in today. It was hard to tell if they all had thought he and Sherlock looked completely wrung out, like Lestrade had claimed, or if they just had wanted them out of the way, as Donovan and Gartner had. Either way, the excuse to not work the case today was welcomed.
Or had been at first.
“You do hear the phone, right?” John asked, walking into the sitting room.
Sherlock was lying on the sofa without confirming in any way that he heard the phone. Or John.
John picked the mobile off the table just as it stopped ringing. “It’s Lestrade,” he said, checking the call-log. “Perhaps he wants us to come in after all.”
“No, he would have called you after I didn’t answer the first time if that was the case,” said Sherlock, just as Lestrade did his fourth attempt to reach Sherlock.
“The more reason to pick up,” John muttered, glaring down at Sherlock, and answered the phone. “Hi, Greg, it’s John. No, everything’s fine; Sherlock’s just being a tit for a change.”
As he listened to what Lestrade had to say, John got even more tired. He felt his annoyance morph into something rather detached he didn’t know the word for. He thanked Lestrade one time too many for calling, before he hung up.
John turned the mobile in his hands for a moment before saying: “So… that was Lestrade.”
“You don’t say?”
“He said the drug test came back negative.”
“Unsurprising as well,” Sherlock muttered. “Hardly worth calling four times for.”
“Not that I’m not thrilled that you’re clean, but when did you take a drug test? And for that matter why?”
“Because Lestrade’s an idiot.”
“No, he’s not. He cares about you.”
“The two are not mutually exclusive. I mean, look at you.” Sherlock sat up, waving it all off with his hand. “So he thought I was doing heroin again. What does it matter?”
John blinked. “What does it- It matters! Of course it matters.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not.”
“And now everyone knows.”
“God, Sherlock.”
“Drop it.”
“No. Tell me how this can possibly be anywhere near better than telling him the truth?”
“Because he thinks it makes you mentally unstable!” Sherlock yelled. At John’s startled reaction, Sherlock took a deep breath, not quite managing to use an indoor-voice as he continued: “He called them mentally unstable, and I’d rather have him think of me as an addict than have him think that about me.”
John was stumped. Many of Lestrade’s comments throughout the last few days had made him want to crawl out of his skin, but he hadn’t believed Sherlock would listen to any of it. Not really. Sherlock never listened. Fragments of things he had written on the forum went through John’s head - He prides himself on being smarter than everyone else, so how can he be this stupid?, I really want to leave and never, ever see him again, if I can shape up and eat properly even though I don’t want to, if I can stop being an idiot, why can’t he? - and he wondered how many of them had stuck with Sherlock the same way Lestrade’s comment apparently had.
“He didn’t mean it like that,” John said when he finally found words again.
“Says the man who repeatedly states that I’m not sane.”
“That’s how I know Lestrade doesn’t mean it.”
Sherlock sighed, suddenly looked extremely tired. “But what if you’re right?”
“We’re… we’re not,” John said, shaking his head. He sat down on the coffee table in front of him, putting a hand on Sherlock’s knee. “Sherlock, listen to me, you’re the most brilliant person I’ve ever met. You’re completely mental - let’s not kid ourselves - but you’re not mentally unstable. Or insane. The things I’ve written on the forum, I wrote most of those things when I was angry or scared. I know it doesn’t-“
“You detailed what I eat,” Sherlock interrupted and John shut up immediately. “You can’t do that. Do you have any idea how much energy it takes for me to not do exactly that? Or to convince myself that no one’s actually watching me eat?”
John shook his head.
“I need to be able to tell myself that I’m just being paranoid.”
John wet his lips, nodding. “Okay.”
“Now, tell me that’s not insane or unstable,” Sherlock muttered. There was something almost disobedient in Sherlock’s voice, as if he was challenging John to disagree with him.
“It’s not insane or unstable,” John said. “It’s coping and recovery.”
“But I’m not me without it.”
There was definitely disobedience in his voice this time, but underneath the edge, John thought he heard a sincere belief in that statement, and that scared him. He squeezed Sherlock’s knee gently.
“I haven’t known you without it; I don’t even remember how it was knowing you and not known this, but… I do know that it takes an enormous strength to get up the way you do. Again and again. That’s all you, nothing else. You wouldn’t be the same without your experiences and struggles, but that doesn’t mean it defines every part of who you are. The part that fights, the part that wants to live and control your own life, that would be there regardless. Your intelligence. Your music. Your chemistry research, your interest in forensics, your work… That’s you. That would be the same.”
While John had been talking, Sherlock’s eyes had drifted away and John wasn’t completely sure that he had heard him. He squeezed Sherlock’s knee again to bring him back.
“You’re not your eating disorder,” he said when Sherlock met his eyes.
Sherlock flinched at the last words. It almost made John smile.
“I’m sorry for what I wrote at the forum,” he said. “If it, if I made you feel like… If I made you doubt yourself or what I think of you, I’m sorry. You’re the most important person in my life, and I love you.”
“You’re an idiot,” Sherlock mumbled.
“Stop that,” John said, harsher than he meant to. “I do a lot of idiotic things, I know that, but loving you is not one of them.”
Sherlock looked completely stunned, his mouth slightly open.
“It’s all right,” John continued. “I know what you mean when you say it, but stop it. You don’t have to reply to it at all; I don’t care, it doesn’t change things. Just stop saying that loving you makes me an idiot. It doesn’t, because loving you is not stupid. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. All of this included.”
Sherlock sat quiet for a long time, his eyes fixed on John, and therefore John waited patiently. Then Sherlock suddenly nodded and said:
“I mean what you think I mean.”
-x-
Chapter 16