Work Text:
The following was redacted from “The Reigate Squire”
“So I’m here at Hotel Dulong. I just got a message from the staff that was slightly concerning. Apparently Sherlock has been holed up in one of the hotel rooms here. Won’t come out. So I made my way here as fast as I could. I was visiting my mate’s for a Swindon town game but you know…. Got to check up on my mate. Okay, let me see here.”
John knocks on the door. There is no answer.
“Sherlock?”
A beat.
“Sherlock?”
Silence.
“Okay. I’m coming in. Hope you’re decent.”
John opens the door.
“Oh, Jesus. That smells. Sherlock. Where are you?”
John is greeted by a hotel room covered in letters and crumpled papers. There are two twin beds. One untouched and the other bed a bundle mess of sheets. There isn’t anything that looks like a Sherlock-shaped being.
“Sherlock?”
John walks in between the beds and turns to the pile of sheets to straighten them.
“Oh there you are. Mate, you okay,”
A very thin Sherlock was curled on his side with the sheet wrapped around him so only his head was showing. His eyes were empty and he seemed to be shrinking into the smallest ball possible.
Sherlock didn’t seem to respond.
“Um, okay I’ll just straighten up,”
John starts stacking all the letters up. He’s trying not to panic as he keeps checking to see if Sherlock will respond.
“J-n,”
“Oh my gosh, Sherlock. You're alright. You look awful,”
“I’m f-n. I’m fine,” Sherlock coughed to clear his throat. His voice sounded like he had smoked a pack. He tries lift himself up but falls back to bed when his arms shake too much.
“Okay so tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine. You can leave,”
“Sherlock it looks like you haven’t slept in weeks,”
“That would… be mostly accurate.”
“Sherlock, please sit up,”
“I can’t,”
“Alright then,” There’s a rustle as John shoved his arms underneath Sherlock’s back which was slick from sweat. Sherlock’s face grows an alarming shade of paper white.
“Sherlock, you good?”
Sherlock gulps several times and John with doctor’s instinct grabs a bowl on a conveniently nearby table. With a heave, Sherlock brings up only some bile. John winces at the retching.
“You good, mate?”
Sherlock seemed to have gone nonverbal and just barely nodded before swallowing again.
“I’m just going to tidy while you gather yourself.”
John crossed the room to pick up more crumpled papers on the ground. He squinted at one letter that was written in a child’s handwriting. It read: ‘Congratulations, Mr. Holmes! I’ve always looked up to you. I want to be a detective. My name is Poppy by the way.” John rested the note on the table and took up another which seemed to be a newspaper clipping with a picture of Sherlock plastered on it. It read: “HOLMES HAS DONE IT AGAIN”. This newspaper was wrinkled as if someone had tried to hide its contents.
“Well, you’ve got quite a lot of fans.”
Sherlock groaned. He seemed to gain a bit of pinkness in his cheeks and he no longer had a glazed over look in his eye. He blinked several times and shook his head to clear his head.
“Care to tell me what’s wrong,”
Sherlock grimaced.
“Please, Sherlock. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t feel well,”
“I see that,”
“Not just physically. I feel… I feel nothing,” At the last word, Sherlock’s voice broke and John felt something crack at seeing Sherlock look so lost. Sherlock started breathing in at an increasingly rapid pace.
“Oh okay. Okay okay. Let’s breathe,” Sherlock tried for a second to take a deep breath but his breath hitched. He looked up at John through his lashes. His head down in a pathetic shadow of the usual confident picture-perfect detective.
“It’s just that when I finish a case, I often feel out of control. It’s as if all my senses and emotions crash into me after months after putting them on hold. A case often blocks me from my mind turning on me. My brain is happily occupied in every waking moment with the thrill of the case. And without it… I don’t know what I'm supposed to do and I get this overwhelming feeling that I need to do all the other experiments I've been pushing off. Then, I get paralyzed about what I should do and then I can’t get myself to do anything. I’m afraid that all the cases just seem so pointless. Nothing will compare to the last case and I already peaked and it will only go downhill. And God, I’m so bored and I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of this feeling and-” Sherlock’s voice broke off as he seemed to be at a loss for words. His eyes started to look damp.
“Woah there. I see a lot is on your mind. Can we just take a moment to just focus on the here and now. Right now. You’re with me. And we’re going to focus on just doing one step at a time. How about we take a shower?”
Sherlock let out a sound that sounded like a cross between a groan and a whimper.
“Mate, I didn’t know you had that all going on in your head. I just want to let you know that. No matter if you can or cannot do another case. I’ll be right here, okay? Supporting you. You don’t have to know what to do everyday. That’s way too terrifying.”
“What if…What if this feeling will never pass. I can’t live like this,” Sherlock gulped again and he starting squeezing his hands into fists.
John’s heart broke at the lost look on Sherlock’s face. His eyes were glassy and he kept licking his dry lips.
John took Sherlock’s hand in his. Sherlock’s were ice cold.
“I know it may seem that way. Believe me. I have felt that way. After my injury, I thought it was all over. Felt like nothing would be the same. But you will get through this. If it takes weeks, months, a year, I’ll be here to wait it out.”
Sherlock mumbled something.
“What is it?”
“It just feels like it’s getting worse.” Sherlock said in a barely audible voice. John’s heart dropped.
“Oh Sherlock”
John took a seat on the bed and it dipped under his weight.
John reached out and touched the back of Sherlock’s head and leaned him forward until Sherlock's forehead rested in the crook of John’s neck in an awkward embrace. Sherlock tentatively curled his arms around John’s waist. John pulled Sherlock closer, cradling Sherlock's head and combing his hair gently. John’s other hand rested on Sherlock’s back and brushed against it with a light touch over his spine.
Sherlock went boneless in John’s arms and John felt a spike of anxiety thinking Sherlock had fainted. But instead he heard an odd rapid gasping sound like Sherlock was laughing quietly. To his horror, he realized Sherlock was trying to suppress crying.
“Sherlock don’t hold it back”
Sherlock took a deep gulp in and tightened his grip on John’s waist and then he broke down. he seemed to be choking but then he fully let out a sob. It was an ugly sound that shot through John’s as Sherlock. This seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back as Sherlock started wailing like a child and started rocking. As John rocked along with him, Sherlock tried to catch a breath but it started another ragged wave of cries. It apparently had been a long time coming. The sound of the wailing seemed to change pitch as if it was digging up a deeper sorrow. The sound was something John never thought Sherlock would make. Gone was the calm collected detective. What was left was a tattered quivering child holding onto John. John tried to look Sherlock in the eye. But he hid his face. John’s sleeve became damp and he began to realize his leg was cramping but he held on. After the sun seemed to fade and the room fell into a dusty blue, Sherlock’s rapid breathing had softened and he seemed to have fallen into a fitful slumber.
John’s leg was screaming at him. He needed to get up.
“Sherlock?”
Sherlock didn’t respond. John resigned himself to laying flat on the bed and wrapping himself around Sherlock tightly and closed his eyes.
- -
John woke up with his face pressed into tangled sheets and his back killing him. For a second, he wondered why he had woken up in not his bedroom until he saw a gilded fireplace and thick hotel curtains covering the window. The only light came from the bathroom across from the bed. The shower was running.
John’s eyes grew heavy and he drifted off. When he came to, the door opened with a quiet snick like Sherlock was trying to avoid waking him. John snuck a glance at Sherlock whose face was hidden under a towel he was rubbing into his hair. When the towel fell, Sherlock’s face was a mask. He looked back to factory settings except for the puffiness under his eyes. Sherlock’s eyes flicked to John’s form and John quickly closed his eyes to feign sleeping.
Sherlock sighed and John heard his feet shuffling away. He rummaged in his suitcase and John waited until the rustling of putting on clothes stopped to take a peak. Sherlock had taken a seat by the window in the ornate cushioned chair. He propped his elbow on one of the arms of the chair and rested his head against the palm of his hand as he seemed to be resting his eyes but not sleeping.He was a picture of calm, hair perfectly in place and wrapped in his favorite dressing gown, ear defenders snug against his ears. It was hard to imagine this was the same man last night crying like a baby in his arms.
John decided to stop pretending to be asleep. He stretched and made to sit up.
Sherlock’s eyes flew open the moment John started moving.
“Mornin” John croaked.
Sherlock nodded.
“You doing okay?”
Sherlock gave John a look. So it was that type of day.
“Let’s get breakfast.”
John got dressed and opened the door but almost tripped over a new pile of envelopes at the door. John picked them up and set them on a side table.
Sherlock grimaced at the pile and stepped over it carefully. John kept his mouth shut.
- -
At the hotel’s breakfast, Sherlock brought his hand to his eyes to cover them from the blinding white of the sky. When walking into the room, the opposite wall was all glass revealing the Paris skyline. It also seemed to be causing Sherlock a headache. John rushed back to the room to dig around in his backpack for sunglasses and gave them to Sherlock who took it with a sigh of relief.
John led Sherlock to sit down as he seemed to be unsteady on his feet. He stumbled into a booth and John rushed off. He grabbed a dry piece of toast and some jam and got himself a small English breakfast bacon, sausages, eggs, baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, and toast, often with black pudding. As he grabbed the food, he updated the listeners.
“Hello listeners. So I don’t even know if I’m going to share the last recording. I decided not to. I don’t even know if I’m going to share this. But Sherlock isn’t doing too well. Definitely needs some time to recuperate.”
John sighed and returned to Sherlock side.
Sherlock saw the pile of food as John returned he made a face.
“I just got you toast. No penne”
Sherlock didn’t laugh and John tried to keep the smile on his face. Sherlock nodded but he made no move to pick it up.
After several moments of silence of John just eating by himself and trying to gather his thoughts, John tried to look at Sherlock whose covered eyes were tilted down.
John reached over across the table to put a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock flinched but looked up.
“Mate. I want to say I’m here for you. I’m here no matter what. I know you think this will never end, but it will eventually get better. Have some toast.”
Sherlock seemed to not have registered what John said. The sound of clinking silverware and murmuring filled the silence.
Sherlock inched his hand toward the piece of toast and slowly brought it to his lips to nibble it. He chewed it slowly and then took a bigger bite.
His sunglasses eyes lifted up and gave John a nod.