221 bathroom
Aug. 31st, 2012 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solrosanSummary: Four 221bs with the last word “bathroom”.
Notes: All the ficlets take place during either Eating us Alive or Eating us Alive, again and more might be added in time.
I want to thank![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swissmarg and laurtew for edits and beta, and kidloki for handholding and support.
-x-
Sherlock washed his hands for the third time; he couldn't seem to get them clean. He lifted them to his face even though he knew it was redundant. The smell of gastric acid and semi-metabolised food was in his nose, not on his hands.
He washed them a fourth time, just to be sure, before reaching for the paper towels. He dried his hands and blew his nose – again. He wished his eyes wouldn’t look so puffy, that his nose wouldn’t be so red, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Meticulously, he checked his sleeves for spatter, knowing that he couldn’t do that much about that either. He didn’t find any marks, but cursed himself for not taking off the jacket first. He really should be more careful.
The relief, the short moment of salvation, was already gone. Left was the bad taste in his mouth and the disgust, the self-loathing. Not so much for bringing up the food as for swallowing it in the first place. He was on a case and he should know better. At least it was done now so he could move on.
He washed his hands one last time before he walked out. The very first thing he saw was John who, for good and for bad, always waited outside the bathroom.
-x-
It was the sharp click and the low thump of the door closing that woke John. After checking the time – 02:08 – he rolled over on his back.
“Please, just be in there to pee,” John mumbled quietly, but he had no illusions; it had been a bad day.
John heard Sherlock starting to tear up toilet paper even though they both knew it didn’t really muffle the sound at all. It hid the splashing in the beginning, of course, but that wasn’t the worst sound.
“Please, Sherlock, turn on the shower,” John repeated over and over again under his breath, knowing perfectly well that Sherlock wouldn’t do it. Not in the middle of the night. Because if the door hadn’t woken John, the shower was more likely to do so than the action the running water was supposed to hide.
The wait was excruciating, but it didn’t take long before John heard the unmistakeable sound of Sherlock vomiting. John cringed, counting the heavings. The retching was followed by spitting, not flushing, and more paper tearing.
John considered telling Sherlock to turn the bloody shower on, but that would be admitting to being awake. He couldn’t deal with this tonight. He turned on his side, closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep when Sherlock finally came out of the bathroom.
-x-
“Can I have some?”
John looked up from his food, finding Sherlock completely serious.
”Can I have some?” Sherlock asked again, slower, as if John hadn’t understood the first time.
”No,” John said, pointing at the food with his fork. “There’s cheese on this.”
“I know.”
“You think it’s a good idea during a case?”
”Yes. Don’t question me.”
John sighed, handing Sherlock his fork. He looked out the window as Sherlock helped himself to both food and water.
”What are we going to do if he doesn’t return?” John asked when he got the fork back
”Don’t worry, he’ll show up." Sherlock sounded confident. "He’s desperate to make sure no one finds out he took it.”
”And you’re sure he did?” John asked, looking up to meet a condescending glare. John smirked; it was far too easy to make Sherlock look at him like that.
They discussed the case until John ran out of questions (the obvious, the stupid and the insightful) to keep the conversation going. Shortly after it became quiet Sherlock got up. John reached out and grabbed hold of Sherlock’s coat without looking at him.
“Please, sit down,” John begged.
”John….” Sherlock didn’t move.
John took a deep breath and let go. Unenthusiastically, he finished his lunch as he waited for Sherlock to return from the bathroom.
-x-
Sherlock disappeared to the bathroom as soon as they came back to Baker Street. It wasn’t unexpected. John made tea to distract himself, trying hard not to listen, but the dreaded sounds never came. Not the shower, not the tap, not… the other things. Nothing.
After more than an hour without any sign of life John knocked on the door. “Sherlock? Can I come in?”
He didn’t get a response but opened the door anyway. Sherlock was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, looking down at his hands. Even from where he stood John could see that Sherlock was crying and he felt incredibly guilty for not coming sooner.
“Hey,” John whispered, crouching down in front of Sherlock and taking his hand. “Don’t sit here like this. Let’s… let’s go, okay?”
Sherlock sobbed quietly, shaking his head without looking up.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
Sherlock shook his head again.
John sat down next to him on the tub, gently putting his arm around him and resting his head on his shoulder. They sat like that for a long time, Sherlock silently crying and John trying to figure out what was happening. It didn’t work but, as Sherlock’s breath evened out and the crying subsided, John accepted that he couldn’t understand everything that happened in the bathroom.
-x-
John heard the toilet door close, and the lock turn. He looked up, looking around the empty break room and stopping at the clock on the wall. A far too familiar tension came over him. It was the third time this week his colleague had visited the bathroom within fifteen minutes after finishing her lunch. He stopped chewing, carefully listening for tell tales from the inside, but he didn’t hear a thing.
Of course he didn’t! Why was he even listening to what his colleague was doing on the toilet? He tried to physically shrug off the uneasy feeling, turning back to his lunch. It did not work. His eyes wandered to the closed door again and he held his breath to be absolutely sure that nothing was going on.
Sighing, John rubbed his face and looked at the ceiling. This was ridiculous, it really was, but the sound of a toilet door locking triggered something unpleasant inside him. When he heard the toilet flush he felt incredibly relieved. He didn’t know if it was because he hadn’t heard anything or because he could let go of the fear and the worry.
John picked up his fork and forced himself to take a bite. He was clearly getting paranoid. Not everyone disposed of their food when they went to the bathroom.
-x-
The door had been closed in his face and properly locked after yet another argument about something completely pointless. Today it had been socks. They had yelled at each other for over an hour about socks when they actually were arguing about food. Food, socks, both equally pointless, really.
It was far from the first time he’d had the bathroom door slammed shut in front of him, but it hurt just as much this time as it had all the other times. It was a punch in the gut to hear the shower being turned on. There was nothing he hated as much as knowing what went on inside while pretending that he didn’t. He put his hands on the door in a silent plea to make it stop, to make both their hurt go away. But he knew deep down that this was his fault and that he couldn’t make it better.
He wasn’t angry anymore and he had probably never been. He was just tired. Apparently they both were. Tired of this. Tired of not being able to talk. Tired of life. They were losing each other. He knew it, but he couldn’t stop it.
With guilt building up in his chest, almost suffocating him, Sherlock rested his forehead against the door, listening to John crying inside the bathroom.
-x-
John only knew her first name, Anne, and that she preferred lager over bitter. He didn’t know what she was running or hiding from when she had let him buy her that third beer on a Monday night, he didn’t know if she lived here alone or if she had to get up early tomorrow.
None of it mattered, because when he licked her nipples she moaned, and with his hand he could make her arch her back and beg for more. She was so warm and soft, her hair, her lips, her skin, her breasts, her bum… all of her. She didn’t have a hard angle anywhere, so very unlike the body of just skin and bone that he usually slept next to.
“Okay?” he murmured as he – finally! – slowly pushed in.
“Mhmm, yes.” She lifted her hip slightly to make his movement easier.
It took them a moment to find a rhythm, they were too unfamiliar with each other and way too drunk to make it go smoothly, but they got there. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was enough and John had forgotten how good it felt to be allowed to touch another human being. But no amount of sex or alcohol could completely erase the guilt of having walked away when Sherlock had locked himself in the bathroom.
-x-
“Oh, sorry.” John stopped at the sight of Sherlock standing at the kitchen sink, eating a toast. “I just… Never mind, I’ll make tea later.”
“It’s all right, you can do it now,” Sherlock said, but put down the toast. “I’m on my way to Barts.”
Giving the toast a look, John walked in the kitchen and put the kettle on. Never in his life had tea felt as unnecessary as it did right now.
“You know I want to get better, right?” Sherlock suddenly asked as the kettle was done.
“Some days I do,” John said, taking out a mug and avoiding looking at Sherlock. “I didn’t yesterday.”
“And today?”
John nodded, and he met Sherlock’s eyes. “Today I know.”
Sherlock smiled, looking painfully guilty, probably knowing that John was lying. John wasn’t at all sure that Sherlock actually wanted recovery anymore. Recently they had been at a complete standstill, which was obviously better than going downhill, but it had been going on for so long that John was losing faith.
Hearing Sherlock say that he wanted to get better felt like first the step they’d taken in the right direction for months. It wasn’t enough to make John believe in change and when Sherlock had left, John spent a long time just staring in the direction of the bathroom.
-x-
The flat was quiet.
There was the humming from the fridge, the sporadic dripping from the kitchen tap. That random squeaking from John’s bedroom that no one had quite figured out what it was.
But quiet.
Sherlock had no idea how long he had been lying in foetal position on the bathroom floor, but since he had started counting there had been four drips and one squeak. Making it everything from fifteen minutes to nine hours.
He was pretty sure it wasn’t nine hours, but he his right side was starting to go completely numb and the tile floor didn’t seem hard anymore. Instead the smooth surface seemed to be his only real connection to the world. He traced the nearest tile with his finger, round and round and round and round…
There was another drip.
Sherlock wondered for the first time if he actually should try to get up. It didn’t become more than a thought, but the awareness that he probably shouldn’t be down there made his eyes tear up.
Then, three to seven hours later, there was a new sound: the unmistakable sound of John coming home from work. John called out for him, but he couldn’t answer. Sherlock closed his eyes and wished himself miles away, as John – whispering his name – opened the door to the bathroom.
-x-
”Sherlock?” John whispered as he opened the bathroom door. The sight of Sherlock in a ball on the floor filled him with the odd, but familiar, mixture of relief and despair. John took a moment taking in the rest of the room: the toilet lid was down, the shower curtain the way he left it this morning, the cabinet under the sink slightly open.
They were out of toilet paper.
John got down on his knees next to Sherlock, gently taking his hand. “Sherlock,” he whispered. “Sherlock, look at me.”
He had to repeat the request twice before Sherlock opened his eyes and unfocused looked up at him. John squeezed Sherlock’s hand lightly until Sherlock squeezed back.
“Let’s get you up off the floor,” John said, and Sherlock nodded.
John nodded too, squeezing Sherlock’s hand one more time. He then carefully placed Sherlock’s arm over his shoulders and put his own arm around Sherlock’s back.
“On three,” he whispered, and counted quietly, before lifting Sherlock first to sitting and then helping him to his feet. Sherlock swayed and John moved his arm so that he had a firm grip around Sherlock’s waist. He waited until Sherlock regain his balance – actively trying to ignore how much weight Sherlock has managed to gain – before he finally could lead Sherlock out of the bathroom.
-x-
John was lying on his back, his arm under his head, staring at the bathroom ceiling. He had managed to convince Sherlock to change out of his suit (which probably was the only positive thing tonight) and then stayed with him until he had fallen asleep. It had gone surprisingly easy.
Unwilling to leave Sherlock alone again, but unable to stay in the bedroom John had retreated to the bathroom. The dreaded, hateful bathroom.
And now he was stuck there on the floor, like a macabre parody of Sherlock.
The tiles were hard and his body kept constantly moving to find a better position even though he knew he wouldn’t find one. The physical discomfort was actually a blissfully distraction from his thoughts. He was so frustrated and angry with himself for not noticing that something had been wrong. Mostly because there was no way he was going to allow himself to be as disappointed in Sherlock as he probably was. It was a merry-go-round of guilt and it made him feel slightly queasy and completely exhausted.
John closed his eyes, trying to focus on the tiles, and counted the seconds between the fridge’s humming. It calmed him down, shut out most of the blaming voices in his head, and before he knew it he actually fell asleep in the bathroom.
-x-
“John,” Sherlock said, poking John’s shoulder with his foot. “Wake up.”
“What…?” John blinked.
Sherlock stood over him, looking amused. “How come you’re allowed to sleep in the bathroom when I’m not?”
“Because no one came and got me.” John rubbed his eyes, making a face. “Everything hurts.”
“I can imagine,” Sherlock said. “My entire body’s stiff and I spent most of the night in bed.”
“You spent all of the night in bed,” John said after checking his watch. “I came home about half past six.”
“Oh.” The amusement disappeared from Sherlock’s face.
“How long were you down here?”
“Four hours, maybe five.”
“I win.” John held up both his hands. “Help me up.”
Sherlock took John’s hands to pull him up and with some joint effort John got to his feet. John muttered about getting old, making pained grimace as he stretched.
“About yesterday…” Sherlock started.
John froze. “Yes?”
Sherlock frowned, opening his mouth slightly to continue, but he just shook his head and broke eye contact. John waited another moment before accepting that there wouldn’t be an explanation this time either.
“How are you today?”
Sherlock hesitated, but looked back at John. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay.” John took his hand, both of them squeezing tightly. “But let’s decide that neither of us spends tonight in the bathroom.”
Notes:
There. Now both of them are up. I'm so sorry for the quality of the last ones.
I'll take a long break from this series now.
-x-
(Please note that this one is more graphic than they usually are.)
Sherlock checked the stalls to make sure he was alone before entering the one furthest from the door. The stall was incredibly small and smelled like it hadn’t been properly cleaned since the Tony Blair administration. But there was toilet paper and, most importantly, it was out of sight and reach from John.
Sherlock locked carefully and felt the handle twice to make sure no one could come in. He took off his suit jacket, looking around for some kind of hook; there wasn’t one. Instead he put piece of paper on the door handle and hung the jacket there. He unbuttoned his right cuff to roll up the sleeve, but before he started he changed his mind and removed the shirt entirely.
He lifted the toilet seat, using another piece of paper to make sure he didn’t touch it. Then he spread his legs as wide as the small space allowed him and hunched down over the toilet, quickly finding the spot in the back of his throat. As he forced his fingers down the second time he briefly worried about the higher splatter risk now when he was standing up, but he just had to hope that he wouldn’t get anything on his trousers because there was no way he would kneel on the floor of a public bathroom.
-x-
John had moved on to doing the dishes when the shower stopped running. He lowered his hands in the dirty dishwater and just waited. When the lock finally turned he sighed deeply.
“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said, his voice sore.
“Shut up,” John whispered without turning around, closing his eyes. He was so incredibly tired. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept through the night.
“John?”
“Go away….” He couldn’t deal with this – with Sherlock – right now. “I can’t…. Go away.”
Sherlock didn’t move.
“Please, Sherlock!”
Instead of leaving Sherlock walked up to John and before John managed to gather himself Sherlock wrapped his arms around his waist. He put his head on John’s shoulder and the little strength John had left disappeared. He leaned into Sherlock’s embrace and lifted his hands from the water, placing them on Sherlock’s arms.
“I hate what you’re doing,” John said. “I would do anything for you not to do that again.”
“I know,” Sherlock whispered, his breath smelling minty of mouthwash. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
Sherlock held John, silently, for almost a minute before leaving him alone. John braced himself against the counter, feeling the emptiness where Sherlock’s warm body had been. He blinked away tears, smiling ruefully, as he once again found the strength to fight all the demons of the bathroom.
-x-
(This is part of what John writes about at the forum on July 21.)
“Sherlock?” John said drowsily, blinking in the dark. “Is that you?”
There was no answer, but before John had turned on the bedside lamp Sherlock – of course it was Sherlock, who else came into his bedroom at 3 in the morning? – crept down under the covers and wrapped his entire body around him.
“Hi,” John whispered, his heart stuck in his throat. It had been months since Sherlock had been comfortable with, or even accepted any form of physical contact so this was, well, John had no idea what this was.
“I’ve missed you,” John mumbled into Sherlock’s hair.
Sherlock nuzzled up against John’s chest. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.”
They lay in silence for a while before John dared lifting his hands to stroke Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock’s breath trembled, making John stopp instantly, but since Sherlock didn’t move away John started stroking his hair again. After almost ten minutes John risked gently putting one arm around Sherlock. When Sherlock seemed all right with it John put his other arm around him as well. He felt sickly thin even through all the layers of clothes and his hipbone cut into John’s side, but at the moment no of that really mattered. This was the closest they’d been since the last time John had had to help Sherlock out of the bathroom.
-x-
“Are you ever going to eat that or are you just peeling it to annoy me?” Lestrade asked after watching Sherlock peel an orange for eighteen minutes during a stakeout.
Sherlock looked up from what he was doing for a second before he went back to carefully remove the small, white pith still sticking to the pieces.
“I can assure you, Inspector, this has nothing to do with you and if I had a choice I wouldn’t do it anywhere near you,” Sherlock said, placing the pith on the dash board. “But we have been here for seven hours and I have to eat something.”
“We’ve been here for eleven hours before you’re done with that thing,” said Lestrade. “Why don’t you just get a burger or something?”
Sherlock frowned at the suggestion. “Just watch the bloody building and don’t mind my orange.”
Lestrade sighed, but did as he was told. Sherlock kept peeling the orange, dreading the moment he would finish and have to start eating it. Eating on a case was always trying, but this was worse than usual. He couldn’t tell if it was because Lestrade was sitting next to him or the fact that no matter how much he might end up wanting to there was no way he could slip away unnoticed to find a bathroom.
-x-
Sherlock couldn’t sleep. He was lying on his back, staring into the darkness and listening to John snoring softly next to him. His skin seemed too tight and he couldn’t find a comfortable position no matter how much he tossed and turned. He felt bloated, disgusting… heavy.
And he was heavy, a lot heavier than he had been in a long time. He hated it. He had been good for weeks now and it showed, and it made him want to cry. Had John not been asleep next to him he probably would have. It had been building to this for a couple of days, but the dinner tonight (spaghetti and tomato sauce) had been the last straw and all his self-control was now crumbling around him.
His body, and the food he’d eaten, made him nauseous and he wanted to rid himself of both like so many times before. The quick solution. The easy solution that would make him not feel this way for at least a short, freeing moment. Right now though, there was just one thing going round and round in his head, increasing his panic but at the same time making him incredibly proud of himself: it had been too long since he had had dinner, there would be no point making a visit to the bathroom.
-x-
TW: Suicide attempt. I promise this didn't happen, though. I just had to write it.
John would always remember it as the worst thing he had ever done in his entire life, war and all included. They never talked about it afterwards or acknowledged it in any way, which probably wasn’t healthy or constructive, but some things are difficult to talk about.
For example, it’s not easy for Sherlock to put words to why swallowing a bunch of sleeping pills seemed like the only solution at the time. And it’s hard for John to talk about having pleaded and begged Sherlock to put his fingers down his throat, even if it was just to bring up the fucking pills. It’s also tough to admit that they both knew that John’s threats about calling an ambulance would remain as just threats for fear of letting Sherlock’s secret out. Not to mention that it’s impossible for either of them to think about the desperation that finally lead John to force his own fingers down Sherlock’s throat, repeatedly, and then fish up the pills from the toilet to make sure all of them had come up.
Perhaps they could talk about how Sherlock later cried himself to sleep, or how John didn’t sleep at all for the next three days, but there were just too many reasons why they never talked about what happened that afternoon in the bathroom.
-x-
(This probably takes place somewhere between chapter 5 and chapter 7 in EuAa.)
John looked over his shoulder to make sure Sherlock was still engrossed in the crime scene evidence before he knocked on the opened door to Lestrade’s office.
“Got a minute?”
Lestrade looked up from his papers with an “Are you kidding?”-look, but nodded all the same. John stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Lestrade’s expression changed, becoming instantly worried.
“Problem?”
John hesitated – Sherlock would most definitely kill him if he found out about this – but it was too late to change his mind. “I need a favour and you can’t ask me why.”
“Okay?”
“When you need him for a case, call me and not him.”
Lestrade put down the papers he was holding. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I’m not going to tell you.” John shook his head. “And I beg you to not ask him. He doesn’t want anyone to know.”
For a moment it looked like Lestrade was going to argue, but he ended up sighing deeply. “You know what it is?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” Lestrade said. “I’ll call you from now on.”
“Thank you,” John said, nodding once to underline his gratitude before leaving the office. He couldn’t help feeling like he had betrayed Sherlock’s trust, but most of his guilt disappeared two days later when Sherlock broke down inside one of Scotland Yard’s bathrooms.
-x-
Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table when John got home from work. It took a moment before John realised that the lack of greeting was something other than Sherlock’s usual disinterest in small talk.
“What is it?” John asked, walking into the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”
Sherlock bowed his head and closed his eyes, his cheeks burning with shame and heavy teardrops clinging to his eyelashes. In front of him on the table was an untouched bowl of tomato soup. John put a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and moved the bowl – it was stone cold – as far away as he could.
“How long have you been sitting here?” he murmured.
Sherlock shook his head, tears starting to run down his cheeks. John pulled Sherlock to him, gently stroking his hair, as Sherlock silently cried.
“Let’s get up from the table,” John said, when Sherlock pulled away after almost half an hour.
Sherlock sobbed, drying his tears without looking at John, but nodded. As he stood, unsteadily, he grabbed hold of John’s arm. John put a hand on the small of his back to lead him out of the kitchen. It was ridiculous, John knew that, because this wasn’t in any way easier, but it did feel slightly better to find Sherlock like this in the kitchen rather than in the bathroom.
-x-
Sherlock’s cheeks were flushed, and his eyes glittered in inappropriate excitement as he went over the crime scene from top to bottom.
He had always seemed much more alive when working cases, especially the ones that came from the police, John knew that. For over a year now, Sherlock had kept up appearances during cases by draining his last energy resource, resulting in terrible physical and mental breakdowns afterwards, but this was something else. This was real, John could tell. Whatever Sherlock might do when this was over, whatever he would think or feel then, didn’t change the fact that he was completely focused on the case at hand, and that hadn’t happened in a long time.
Sherlock was back; there really was no other way of putting it.
John stood at the edge of the crime scene, watching Sherlock. It was hard to believe that it was just three weeks since they had spent most of the night sitting on a hard tile floor, reading detective novels. The difference was breathtaking and amazing. Sherlock looked over at him and met his eyes, just briefly, but long still enough for John to see that Sherlock noticed the change as well. John smiled, cautiously optimistic that they, at least for now, had spent their last session on the floor of the bathroom.
-x-
Thank you for reading!
Notes: All the ficlets take place during either Eating us Alive or Eating us Alive, again and more might be added in time.
I want to thank
swissmarg and laurtew for edits and beta, and kidloki for handholding and support.-x-
Sherlock washed his hands for the third time; he couldn't seem to get them clean. He lifted them to his face even though he knew it was redundant. The smell of gastric acid and semi-metabolised food was in his nose, not on his hands.
He washed them a fourth time, just to be sure, before reaching for the paper towels. He dried his hands and blew his nose – again. He wished his eyes wouldn’t look so puffy, that his nose wouldn’t be so red, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Meticulously, he checked his sleeves for spatter, knowing that he couldn’t do that much about that either. He didn’t find any marks, but cursed himself for not taking off the jacket first. He really should be more careful.
The relief, the short moment of salvation, was already gone. Left was the bad taste in his mouth and the disgust, the self-loathing. Not so much for bringing up the food as for swallowing it in the first place. He was on a case and he should know better. At least it was done now so he could move on.
He washed his hands one last time before he walked out. The very first thing he saw was John who, for good and for bad, always waited outside the bathroom.
-x-
It was the sharp click and the low thump of the door closing that woke John. After checking the time – 02:08 – he rolled over on his back.
“Please, just be in there to pee,” John mumbled quietly, but he had no illusions; it had been a bad day.
John heard Sherlock starting to tear up toilet paper even though they both knew it didn’t really muffle the sound at all. It hid the splashing in the beginning, of course, but that wasn’t the worst sound.
“Please, Sherlock, turn on the shower,” John repeated over and over again under his breath, knowing perfectly well that Sherlock wouldn’t do it. Not in the middle of the night. Because if the door hadn’t woken John, the shower was more likely to do so than the action the running water was supposed to hide.
The wait was excruciating, but it didn’t take long before John heard the unmistakeable sound of Sherlock vomiting. John cringed, counting the heavings. The retching was followed by spitting, not flushing, and more paper tearing.
John considered telling Sherlock to turn the bloody shower on, but that would be admitting to being awake. He couldn’t deal with this tonight. He turned on his side, closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep when Sherlock finally came out of the bathroom.
-x-
“Can I have some?”
John looked up from his food, finding Sherlock completely serious.
”Can I have some?” Sherlock asked again, slower, as if John hadn’t understood the first time.
”No,” John said, pointing at the food with his fork. “There’s cheese on this.”
“I know.”
“You think it’s a good idea during a case?”
”Yes. Don’t question me.”
John sighed, handing Sherlock his fork. He looked out the window as Sherlock helped himself to both food and water.
”What are we going to do if he doesn’t return?” John asked when he got the fork back
”Don’t worry, he’ll show up." Sherlock sounded confident. "He’s desperate to make sure no one finds out he took it.”
”And you’re sure he did?” John asked, looking up to meet a condescending glare. John smirked; it was far too easy to make Sherlock look at him like that.
They discussed the case until John ran out of questions (the obvious, the stupid and the insightful) to keep the conversation going. Shortly after it became quiet Sherlock got up. John reached out and grabbed hold of Sherlock’s coat without looking at him.
“Please, sit down,” John begged.
”John….” Sherlock didn’t move.
John took a deep breath and let go. Unenthusiastically, he finished his lunch as he waited for Sherlock to return from the bathroom.
-x-
Sherlock disappeared to the bathroom as soon as they came back to Baker Street. It wasn’t unexpected. John made tea to distract himself, trying hard not to listen, but the dreaded sounds never came. Not the shower, not the tap, not… the other things. Nothing.
After more than an hour without any sign of life John knocked on the door. “Sherlock? Can I come in?”
He didn’t get a response but opened the door anyway. Sherlock was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, looking down at his hands. Even from where he stood John could see that Sherlock was crying and he felt incredibly guilty for not coming sooner.
“Hey,” John whispered, crouching down in front of Sherlock and taking his hand. “Don’t sit here like this. Let’s… let’s go, okay?”
Sherlock sobbed quietly, shaking his head without looking up.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
Sherlock shook his head again.
John sat down next to him on the tub, gently putting his arm around him and resting his head on his shoulder. They sat like that for a long time, Sherlock silently crying and John trying to figure out what was happening. It didn’t work but, as Sherlock’s breath evened out and the crying subsided, John accepted that he couldn’t understand everything that happened in the bathroom.
-x-
John heard the toilet door close, and the lock turn. He looked up, looking around the empty break room and stopping at the clock on the wall. A far too familiar tension came over him. It was the third time this week his colleague had visited the bathroom within fifteen minutes after finishing her lunch. He stopped chewing, carefully listening for tell tales from the inside, but he didn’t hear a thing.
Of course he didn’t! Why was he even listening to what his colleague was doing on the toilet? He tried to physically shrug off the uneasy feeling, turning back to his lunch. It did not work. His eyes wandered to the closed door again and he held his breath to be absolutely sure that nothing was going on.
Sighing, John rubbed his face and looked at the ceiling. This was ridiculous, it really was, but the sound of a toilet door locking triggered something unpleasant inside him. When he heard the toilet flush he felt incredibly relieved. He didn’t know if it was because he hadn’t heard anything or because he could let go of the fear and the worry.
John picked up his fork and forced himself to take a bite. He was clearly getting paranoid. Not everyone disposed of their food when they went to the bathroom.
-x-
The door had been closed in his face and properly locked after yet another argument about something completely pointless. Today it had been socks. They had yelled at each other for over an hour about socks when they actually were arguing about food. Food, socks, both equally pointless, really.
It was far from the first time he’d had the bathroom door slammed shut in front of him, but it hurt just as much this time as it had all the other times. It was a punch in the gut to hear the shower being turned on. There was nothing he hated as much as knowing what went on inside while pretending that he didn’t. He put his hands on the door in a silent plea to make it stop, to make both their hurt go away. But he knew deep down that this was his fault and that he couldn’t make it better.
He wasn’t angry anymore and he had probably never been. He was just tired. Apparently they both were. Tired of this. Tired of not being able to talk. Tired of life. They were losing each other. He knew it, but he couldn’t stop it.
With guilt building up in his chest, almost suffocating him, Sherlock rested his forehead against the door, listening to John crying inside the bathroom.
-x-
John only knew her first name, Anne, and that she preferred lager over bitter. He didn’t know what she was running or hiding from when she had let him buy her that third beer on a Monday night, he didn’t know if she lived here alone or if she had to get up early tomorrow.
None of it mattered, because when he licked her nipples she moaned, and with his hand he could make her arch her back and beg for more. She was so warm and soft, her hair, her lips, her skin, her breasts, her bum… all of her. She didn’t have a hard angle anywhere, so very unlike the body of just skin and bone that he usually slept next to.
“Okay?” he murmured as he – finally! – slowly pushed in.
“Mhmm, yes.” She lifted her hip slightly to make his movement easier.
It took them a moment to find a rhythm, they were too unfamiliar with each other and way too drunk to make it go smoothly, but they got there. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was enough and John had forgotten how good it felt to be allowed to touch another human being. But no amount of sex or alcohol could completely erase the guilt of having walked away when Sherlock had locked himself in the bathroom.
-x-
“Oh, sorry.” John stopped at the sight of Sherlock standing at the kitchen sink, eating a toast. “I just… Never mind, I’ll make tea later.”
“It’s all right, you can do it now,” Sherlock said, but put down the toast. “I’m on my way to Barts.”
Giving the toast a look, John walked in the kitchen and put the kettle on. Never in his life had tea felt as unnecessary as it did right now.
“You know I want to get better, right?” Sherlock suddenly asked as the kettle was done.
“Some days I do,” John said, taking out a mug and avoiding looking at Sherlock. “I didn’t yesterday.”
“And today?”
John nodded, and he met Sherlock’s eyes. “Today I know.”
Sherlock smiled, looking painfully guilty, probably knowing that John was lying. John wasn’t at all sure that Sherlock actually wanted recovery anymore. Recently they had been at a complete standstill, which was obviously better than going downhill, but it had been going on for so long that John was losing faith.
Hearing Sherlock say that he wanted to get better felt like first the step they’d taken in the right direction for months. It wasn’t enough to make John believe in change and when Sherlock had left, John spent a long time just staring in the direction of the bathroom.
-x-
The flat was quiet.
There was the humming from the fridge, the sporadic dripping from the kitchen tap. That random squeaking from John’s bedroom that no one had quite figured out what it was.
But quiet.
Sherlock had no idea how long he had been lying in foetal position on the bathroom floor, but since he had started counting there had been four drips and one squeak. Making it everything from fifteen minutes to nine hours.
He was pretty sure it wasn’t nine hours, but he his right side was starting to go completely numb and the tile floor didn’t seem hard anymore. Instead the smooth surface seemed to be his only real connection to the world. He traced the nearest tile with his finger, round and round and round and round…
There was another drip.
Sherlock wondered for the first time if he actually should try to get up. It didn’t become more than a thought, but the awareness that he probably shouldn’t be down there made his eyes tear up.
Then, three to seven hours later, there was a new sound: the unmistakable sound of John coming home from work. John called out for him, but he couldn’t answer. Sherlock closed his eyes and wished himself miles away, as John – whispering his name – opened the door to the bathroom.
-x-
”Sherlock?” John whispered as he opened the bathroom door. The sight of Sherlock in a ball on the floor filled him with the odd, but familiar, mixture of relief and despair. John took a moment taking in the rest of the room: the toilet lid was down, the shower curtain the way he left it this morning, the cabinet under the sink slightly open.
They were out of toilet paper.
John got down on his knees next to Sherlock, gently taking his hand. “Sherlock,” he whispered. “Sherlock, look at me.”
He had to repeat the request twice before Sherlock opened his eyes and unfocused looked up at him. John squeezed Sherlock’s hand lightly until Sherlock squeezed back.
“Let’s get you up off the floor,” John said, and Sherlock nodded.
John nodded too, squeezing Sherlock’s hand one more time. He then carefully placed Sherlock’s arm over his shoulders and put his own arm around Sherlock’s back.
“On three,” he whispered, and counted quietly, before lifting Sherlock first to sitting and then helping him to his feet. Sherlock swayed and John moved his arm so that he had a firm grip around Sherlock’s waist. He waited until Sherlock regain his balance – actively trying to ignore how much weight Sherlock has managed to gain – before he finally could lead Sherlock out of the bathroom.
-x-
John was lying on his back, his arm under his head, staring at the bathroom ceiling. He had managed to convince Sherlock to change out of his suit (which probably was the only positive thing tonight) and then stayed with him until he had fallen asleep. It had gone surprisingly easy.
Unwilling to leave Sherlock alone again, but unable to stay in the bedroom John had retreated to the bathroom. The dreaded, hateful bathroom.
And now he was stuck there on the floor, like a macabre parody of Sherlock.
The tiles were hard and his body kept constantly moving to find a better position even though he knew he wouldn’t find one. The physical discomfort was actually a blissfully distraction from his thoughts. He was so frustrated and angry with himself for not noticing that something had been wrong. Mostly because there was no way he was going to allow himself to be as disappointed in Sherlock as he probably was. It was a merry-go-round of guilt and it made him feel slightly queasy and completely exhausted.
John closed his eyes, trying to focus on the tiles, and counted the seconds between the fridge’s humming. It calmed him down, shut out most of the blaming voices in his head, and before he knew it he actually fell asleep in the bathroom.
-x-
“John,” Sherlock said, poking John’s shoulder with his foot. “Wake up.”
“What…?” John blinked.
Sherlock stood over him, looking amused. “How come you’re allowed to sleep in the bathroom when I’m not?”
“Because no one came and got me.” John rubbed his eyes, making a face. “Everything hurts.”
“I can imagine,” Sherlock said. “My entire body’s stiff and I spent most of the night in bed.”
“You spent all of the night in bed,” John said after checking his watch. “I came home about half past six.”
“Oh.” The amusement disappeared from Sherlock’s face.
“How long were you down here?”
“Four hours, maybe five.”
“I win.” John held up both his hands. “Help me up.”
Sherlock took John’s hands to pull him up and with some joint effort John got to his feet. John muttered about getting old, making pained grimace as he stretched.
“About yesterday…” Sherlock started.
John froze. “Yes?”
Sherlock frowned, opening his mouth slightly to continue, but he just shook his head and broke eye contact. John waited another moment before accepting that there wouldn’t be an explanation this time either.
“How are you today?”
Sherlock hesitated, but looked back at John. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay.” John took his hand, both of them squeezing tightly. “But let’s decide that neither of us spends tonight in the bathroom.”
Notes:
There. Now both of them are up. I'm so sorry for the quality of the last ones.
I'll take a long break from this series now.
-x-
(Please note that this one is more graphic than they usually are.)
Sherlock checked the stalls to make sure he was alone before entering the one furthest from the door. The stall was incredibly small and smelled like it hadn’t been properly cleaned since the Tony Blair administration. But there was toilet paper and, most importantly, it was out of sight and reach from John.
Sherlock locked carefully and felt the handle twice to make sure no one could come in. He took off his suit jacket, looking around for some kind of hook; there wasn’t one. Instead he put piece of paper on the door handle and hung the jacket there. He unbuttoned his right cuff to roll up the sleeve, but before he started he changed his mind and removed the shirt entirely.
He lifted the toilet seat, using another piece of paper to make sure he didn’t touch it. Then he spread his legs as wide as the small space allowed him and hunched down over the toilet, quickly finding the spot in the back of his throat. As he forced his fingers down the second time he briefly worried about the higher splatter risk now when he was standing up, but he just had to hope that he wouldn’t get anything on his trousers because there was no way he would kneel on the floor of a public bathroom.
-x-
John had moved on to doing the dishes when the shower stopped running. He lowered his hands in the dirty dishwater and just waited. When the lock finally turned he sighed deeply.
“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said, his voice sore.
“Shut up,” John whispered without turning around, closing his eyes. He was so incredibly tired. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept through the night.
“John?”
“Go away….” He couldn’t deal with this – with Sherlock – right now. “I can’t…. Go away.”
Sherlock didn’t move.
“Please, Sherlock!”
Instead of leaving Sherlock walked up to John and before John managed to gather himself Sherlock wrapped his arms around his waist. He put his head on John’s shoulder and the little strength John had left disappeared. He leaned into Sherlock’s embrace and lifted his hands from the water, placing them on Sherlock’s arms.
“I hate what you’re doing,” John said. “I would do anything for you not to do that again.”
“I know,” Sherlock whispered, his breath smelling minty of mouthwash. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
Sherlock held John, silently, for almost a minute before leaving him alone. John braced himself against the counter, feeling the emptiness where Sherlock’s warm body had been. He blinked away tears, smiling ruefully, as he once again found the strength to fight all the demons of the bathroom.
-x-
(This is part of what John writes about at the forum on July 21.)
“Sherlock?” John said drowsily, blinking in the dark. “Is that you?”
There was no answer, but before John had turned on the bedside lamp Sherlock – of course it was Sherlock, who else came into his bedroom at 3 in the morning? – crept down under the covers and wrapped his entire body around him.
“Hi,” John whispered, his heart stuck in his throat. It had been months since Sherlock had been comfortable with, or even accepted any form of physical contact so this was, well, John had no idea what this was.
“I’ve missed you,” John mumbled into Sherlock’s hair.
Sherlock nuzzled up against John’s chest. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.”
They lay in silence for a while before John dared lifting his hands to stroke Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock’s breath trembled, making John stopp instantly, but since Sherlock didn’t move away John started stroking his hair again. After almost ten minutes John risked gently putting one arm around Sherlock. When Sherlock seemed all right with it John put his other arm around him as well. He felt sickly thin even through all the layers of clothes and his hipbone cut into John’s side, but at the moment no of that really mattered. This was the closest they’d been since the last time John had had to help Sherlock out of the bathroom.
-x-
“Are you ever going to eat that or are you just peeling it to annoy me?” Lestrade asked after watching Sherlock peel an orange for eighteen minutes during a stakeout.
Sherlock looked up from what he was doing for a second before he went back to carefully remove the small, white pith still sticking to the pieces.
“I can assure you, Inspector, this has nothing to do with you and if I had a choice I wouldn’t do it anywhere near you,” Sherlock said, placing the pith on the dash board. “But we have been here for seven hours and I have to eat something.”
“We’ve been here for eleven hours before you’re done with that thing,” said Lestrade. “Why don’t you just get a burger or something?”
Sherlock frowned at the suggestion. “Just watch the bloody building and don’t mind my orange.”
Lestrade sighed, but did as he was told. Sherlock kept peeling the orange, dreading the moment he would finish and have to start eating it. Eating on a case was always trying, but this was worse than usual. He couldn’t tell if it was because Lestrade was sitting next to him or the fact that no matter how much he might end up wanting to there was no way he could slip away unnoticed to find a bathroom.
-x-
Sherlock couldn’t sleep. He was lying on his back, staring into the darkness and listening to John snoring softly next to him. His skin seemed too tight and he couldn’t find a comfortable position no matter how much he tossed and turned. He felt bloated, disgusting… heavy.
And he was heavy, a lot heavier than he had been in a long time. He hated it. He had been good for weeks now and it showed, and it made him want to cry. Had John not been asleep next to him he probably would have. It had been building to this for a couple of days, but the dinner tonight (spaghetti and tomato sauce) had been the last straw and all his self-control was now crumbling around him.
His body, and the food he’d eaten, made him nauseous and he wanted to rid himself of both like so many times before. The quick solution. The easy solution that would make him not feel this way for at least a short, freeing moment. Right now though, there was just one thing going round and round in his head, increasing his panic but at the same time making him incredibly proud of himself: it had been too long since he had had dinner, there would be no point making a visit to the bathroom.
-x-
TW: Suicide attempt. I promise this didn't happen, though. I just had to write it.
John would always remember it as the worst thing he had ever done in his entire life, war and all included. They never talked about it afterwards or acknowledged it in any way, which probably wasn’t healthy or constructive, but some things are difficult to talk about.
For example, it’s not easy for Sherlock to put words to why swallowing a bunch of sleeping pills seemed like the only solution at the time. And it’s hard for John to talk about having pleaded and begged Sherlock to put his fingers down his throat, even if it was just to bring up the fucking pills. It’s also tough to admit that they both knew that John’s threats about calling an ambulance would remain as just threats for fear of letting Sherlock’s secret out. Not to mention that it’s impossible for either of them to think about the desperation that finally lead John to force his own fingers down Sherlock’s throat, repeatedly, and then fish up the pills from the toilet to make sure all of them had come up.
Perhaps they could talk about how Sherlock later cried himself to sleep, or how John didn’t sleep at all for the next three days, but there were just too many reasons why they never talked about what happened that afternoon in the bathroom.
-x-
(This probably takes place somewhere between chapter 5 and chapter 7 in EuAa.)
John looked over his shoulder to make sure Sherlock was still engrossed in the crime scene evidence before he knocked on the opened door to Lestrade’s office.
“Got a minute?”
Lestrade looked up from his papers with an “Are you kidding?”-look, but nodded all the same. John stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Lestrade’s expression changed, becoming instantly worried.
“Problem?”
John hesitated – Sherlock would most definitely kill him if he found out about this – but it was too late to change his mind. “I need a favour and you can’t ask me why.”
“Okay?”
“When you need him for a case, call me and not him.”
Lestrade put down the papers he was holding. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I’m not going to tell you.” John shook his head. “And I beg you to not ask him. He doesn’t want anyone to know.”
For a moment it looked like Lestrade was going to argue, but he ended up sighing deeply. “You know what it is?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” Lestrade said. “I’ll call you from now on.”
“Thank you,” John said, nodding once to underline his gratitude before leaving the office. He couldn’t help feeling like he had betrayed Sherlock’s trust, but most of his guilt disappeared two days later when Sherlock broke down inside one of Scotland Yard’s bathrooms.
-x-
Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table when John got home from work. It took a moment before John realised that the lack of greeting was something other than Sherlock’s usual disinterest in small talk.
“What is it?” John asked, walking into the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”
Sherlock bowed his head and closed his eyes, his cheeks burning with shame and heavy teardrops clinging to his eyelashes. In front of him on the table was an untouched bowl of tomato soup. John put a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and moved the bowl – it was stone cold – as far away as he could.
“How long have you been sitting here?” he murmured.
Sherlock shook his head, tears starting to run down his cheeks. John pulled Sherlock to him, gently stroking his hair, as Sherlock silently cried.
“Let’s get up from the table,” John said, when Sherlock pulled away after almost half an hour.
Sherlock sobbed, drying his tears without looking at John, but nodded. As he stood, unsteadily, he grabbed hold of John’s arm. John put a hand on the small of his back to lead him out of the kitchen. It was ridiculous, John knew that, because this wasn’t in any way easier, but it did feel slightly better to find Sherlock like this in the kitchen rather than in the bathroom.
-x-
Sherlock’s cheeks were flushed, and his eyes glittered in inappropriate excitement as he went over the crime scene from top to bottom.
He had always seemed much more alive when working cases, especially the ones that came from the police, John knew that. For over a year now, Sherlock had kept up appearances during cases by draining his last energy resource, resulting in terrible physical and mental breakdowns afterwards, but this was something else. This was real, John could tell. Whatever Sherlock might do when this was over, whatever he would think or feel then, didn’t change the fact that he was completely focused on the case at hand, and that hadn’t happened in a long time.
Sherlock was back; there really was no other way of putting it.
John stood at the edge of the crime scene, watching Sherlock. It was hard to believe that it was just three weeks since they had spent most of the night sitting on a hard tile floor, reading detective novels. The difference was breathtaking and amazing. Sherlock looked over at him and met his eyes, just briefly, but long still enough for John to see that Sherlock noticed the change as well. John smiled, cautiously optimistic that they, at least for now, had spent their last session on the floor of the bathroom.
-x-
Thank you for reading!
