Help us to survive (4/17)
Dec. 23rd, 2014 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solrosanSummary: 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.
Note: This is part of the Eating us Alive verse. 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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-
S and I stumbled over a dead body the other day.
John smiled at how absurd that sounded, but it was the only thing he could come up with and he had to write it down to get it out of his system. He had hoped to be able to just shake off his budding anxiety concerning Sherlock, but after spending the entire day at work thinking about the conversation they’d had yesterday, he knew he had to actually deal with this to be able to be there for Sherlock when he needed it.
If he needed it, John reminded himself, sighing. He had brought his laptop with him to bed. It was a poor substitute to Sherlock, but asking for company two nights in a row didn’t feel right. He had to deal with this on his own and therefore he was now sitting in the dark, aimlessly clicking around LovED Ones – the online support group he had found for himself years ago on Mrs Hudson’s insistence.
He had browsed the forum for roughly thirty minutes before he’d finally opened a new post and written that ridiculous sentence. He didn’t know where to start. How to start… The event that had brought him back here wasn’t sharable in any way, shape or form, but what it actually came down to was that he just didn’t want to seek help at the forum anymore. It was over a year since had last posted anything of substance, and six weeks since he had even logged onto it at all. He hadn’t needed to. These days he mostly just sent private messages to his closer contacts, but that too had become more and more sporadic as Sherlock had moved further into recovery. Going back to the forum and admitting that he had doubts somehow felt like invalidating all the work Sherlock had put into his recovery and John really didn’t want to do that.
He erased what he had written, because he really couldn’t begin a post like that. Someone had died, someone had committed suicide; his own issues aside, that was sad all by itself and he couldn’t make stupid jokes about it even if it made him feel better. Four, five attempts later he still didn’t know how to start. There was no way to put it delicately and he felt like he had to, because his discomforts and fears were triggered by someone else’s loss. His worst nightmare had become someone else’s reality.
Someone out there had lost their Sherlock a couple of weeks ago.
John closed the unfinished post without saving it and clicked his way to the grief counselling section of the forum. Usually he stayed away from that part, since he tried very hard to not think about that possible outcome, but there was no way he was going to post anything tonight without making completely sure that the woman at Rosewood at least wasn’t the loved one of anyone here.
The title of the post at the top of the grief counselling section was called Our baby girl decided that it was enough now. It was posted nine days ago by a user called bubblenox. John stared at the header for close to a minute. He didn’t know bubblenox, but had seen them around for years, and from what little he knew, bubblenox’s baby girl could very well be the woman whose nails he had been staring at. He didn’t want to click on the post, he didn’t want the confirmation, but he did it anyway.
The first thing under the cut was a photo of the woman he had seen at the hotel. She looked healthier in the photo than she had when he had seen her, but it was undoubtedly the same woman. If he’d had any remaining doubt, the date bellow the picture put her death on the day they had found her. He forced himself to read the text that bubblenox had written, a parent’s good bye to a dead child. When he was done he just closed his laptop and put it away.
The image of the woman on the bed, forever burned into his mind, clashed with the picture drawn by bubblenox. It was at it should be; a parent should remember the good times and the laughter and not think about a sealed off hotel room with coppers going in and out when they thought about their daughter, but the contrasts made John’s head spin. Her slightly open eyelids, her wax like skin stretched out over bone rather than flesh, her nails… and before he knew it the woman’s blond hair was replaced with dark curls and the pink bathrobe she had been wearing was a blue, silk dressing gown.
John rubbed his face, unsuccessfully trying to block out the images, but at least he stopped them from turning into Sherlock.
Sherlock…
John got out of bed before the thought was fully formed and he was down the stairs before he even began to question if this was sound or not. Questioning the sanity of what he did, didn’t slow him down, though. He opened the door to Sherlock’s bedroom without hesitation and on memory and pure luck he managed to get to Sherlock’s bed without hitting his toes on anything.
“Wha—? John?” Sherlock said drowsily, turning around, as John climbed into his bed. “Is that—? What?”
“It’s me,” John whispered, lifting the covers to nestle up to Sherlock.
Seemingly on instinct, Sherlock moved to accommodate him. “Nightmare?” he mumbled.
John nodded, the lie being that much better than the truth. Sherlock wrapped his arms around John, holding him close. John closed his eyes and relaxed into his embrace, listening to his breathing as he went back to sleep. When he was sure Sherlock was actually asleep, John reached out and put his hand on Sherlock’s waist. It was a strange indulgence, being able to touch Sherlock’s body in that way, but to feel soft flesh where there previously had been hard angles and bones made John calm and peaceful, and soon enough he was asleep as well.
He was one of the lucky ones.
When John woke up the next morning he was alone and the flat was quiet. It frightened him at first, but then he remembered that he was here for his own sake and not for Sherlock’s. He lay on his back for a long time, staring up the ceiling and going over what he had read last night. With the light seeping in through the blinds it didn’t feel quite as terrible. The young woman, bubblenox had called her Micha, was still dead; she had still offed herself with insulin in a hotel room, but he had more distance to it now than he had had last night.
One thing bothered him, though: bubblenox hadn’t mentioned how Micha took her life, but they had expressed a wish to know if she had suffered much… and he knew the answer to that. With that in mind he forced himself to get out of bed.
“Sherlock?” he called, walking into the kitchen, but got no response.
He had no idea where Sherlock were off to, but it was just as well. If he was going back on the forum he preferred Sherlock to not be home. He brought the computer down from his bedroom, and with a large cup of tea and two well-buttered toasts by his side, he soon found himself back on the very same post that had made him flee to Sherlock’s bed.
While re-reading it, John was relieved that bubblenox wasn’t anyone he knew. That the woman at Rosewood hadn’t been anyone he had ever discussed, anyone he had offered support around or helped rant about. He didn’t know her story, her eating patterns or her struggles, like he did with many others and, right now, that felt good. He knew one thing though, he knew how she’d died and he felt like he should tell her family if they thought it would bring some peace. Especially since the answer was ‘no’, Micha hadn’t suffered.
“Right,” he mumbled, wetting his lips, and started to type up a comment.
I’m very sorry for your loss.
But then, what? He couldn’t very well admit to having seen her and just about been a part in the investigation into her suicide. There was no way he would accidentally know about any of it. The images of Micha came crashing down on him again, but he managed to put them out of his mind.
I’m a GP and a former army doctor. If you really want to know what happened in her body when she died and whether she suffered or not, I can probably answer that for you. If you do, feel free to PM me her cause of death. I promise that I won’t spread the information further.
My deepest sympathies go out to you.
Dr H
He read through the comment twice before deciding to send it as PM straight away. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. It was done. Now all he could do was to wait and see if bubblenox actually wanted an answer or not. He cleared his browser history out of well-established habit before getting up and putting on his jacket; he needed to get out, go for a walk, shake this off, before he needed to go back to the surgery and interact with people in the physical world.
-x-
Chapter 5
Note: This is part of the Eating us Alive verse. 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-
S and I stumbled over a dead body the other day.
John smiled at how absurd that sounded, but it was the only thing he could come up with and he had to write it down to get it out of his system. He had hoped to be able to just shake off his budding anxiety concerning Sherlock, but after spending the entire day at work thinking about the conversation they’d had yesterday, he knew he had to actually deal with this to be able to be there for Sherlock when he needed it.
If he needed it, John reminded himself, sighing. He had brought his laptop with him to bed. It was a poor substitute to Sherlock, but asking for company two nights in a row didn’t feel right. He had to deal with this on his own and therefore he was now sitting in the dark, aimlessly clicking around LovED Ones – the online support group he had found for himself years ago on Mrs Hudson’s insistence.
He had browsed the forum for roughly thirty minutes before he’d finally opened a new post and written that ridiculous sentence. He didn’t know where to start. How to start… The event that had brought him back here wasn’t sharable in any way, shape or form, but what it actually came down to was that he just didn’t want to seek help at the forum anymore. It was over a year since had last posted anything of substance, and six weeks since he had even logged onto it at all. He hadn’t needed to. These days he mostly just sent private messages to his closer contacts, but that too had become more and more sporadic as Sherlock had moved further into recovery. Going back to the forum and admitting that he had doubts somehow felt like invalidating all the work Sherlock had put into his recovery and John really didn’t want to do that.
He erased what he had written, because he really couldn’t begin a post like that. Someone had died, someone had committed suicide; his own issues aside, that was sad all by itself and he couldn’t make stupid jokes about it even if it made him feel better. Four, five attempts later he still didn’t know how to start. There was no way to put it delicately and he felt like he had to, because his discomforts and fears were triggered by someone else’s loss. His worst nightmare had become someone else’s reality.
Someone out there had lost their Sherlock a couple of weeks ago.
John closed the unfinished post without saving it and clicked his way to the grief counselling section of the forum. Usually he stayed away from that part, since he tried very hard to not think about that possible outcome, but there was no way he was going to post anything tonight without making completely sure that the woman at Rosewood at least wasn’t the loved one of anyone here.
The title of the post at the top of the grief counselling section was called Our baby girl decided that it was enough now. It was posted nine days ago by a user called bubblenox. John stared at the header for close to a minute. He didn’t know bubblenox, but had seen them around for years, and from what little he knew, bubblenox’s baby girl could very well be the woman whose nails he had been staring at. He didn’t want to click on the post, he didn’t want the confirmation, but he did it anyway.
The first thing under the cut was a photo of the woman he had seen at the hotel. She looked healthier in the photo than she had when he had seen her, but it was undoubtedly the same woman. If he’d had any remaining doubt, the date bellow the picture put her death on the day they had found her. He forced himself to read the text that bubblenox had written, a parent’s good bye to a dead child. When he was done he just closed his laptop and put it away.
The image of the woman on the bed, forever burned into his mind, clashed with the picture drawn by bubblenox. It was at it should be; a parent should remember the good times and the laughter and not think about a sealed off hotel room with coppers going in and out when they thought about their daughter, but the contrasts made John’s head spin. Her slightly open eyelids, her wax like skin stretched out over bone rather than flesh, her nails… and before he knew it the woman’s blond hair was replaced with dark curls and the pink bathrobe she had been wearing was a blue, silk dressing gown.
John rubbed his face, unsuccessfully trying to block out the images, but at least he stopped them from turning into Sherlock.
Sherlock…
John got out of bed before the thought was fully formed and he was down the stairs before he even began to question if this was sound or not. Questioning the sanity of what he did, didn’t slow him down, though. He opened the door to Sherlock’s bedroom without hesitation and on memory and pure luck he managed to get to Sherlock’s bed without hitting his toes on anything.
“Wha—? John?” Sherlock said drowsily, turning around, as John climbed into his bed. “Is that—? What?”
“It’s me,” John whispered, lifting the covers to nestle up to Sherlock.
Seemingly on instinct, Sherlock moved to accommodate him. “Nightmare?” he mumbled.
John nodded, the lie being that much better than the truth. Sherlock wrapped his arms around John, holding him close. John closed his eyes and relaxed into his embrace, listening to his breathing as he went back to sleep. When he was sure Sherlock was actually asleep, John reached out and put his hand on Sherlock’s waist. It was a strange indulgence, being able to touch Sherlock’s body in that way, but to feel soft flesh where there previously had been hard angles and bones made John calm and peaceful, and soon enough he was asleep as well.
He was one of the lucky ones.
When John woke up the next morning he was alone and the flat was quiet. It frightened him at first, but then he remembered that he was here for his own sake and not for Sherlock’s. He lay on his back for a long time, staring up the ceiling and going over what he had read last night. With the light seeping in through the blinds it didn’t feel quite as terrible. The young woman, bubblenox had called her Micha, was still dead; she had still offed herself with insulin in a hotel room, but he had more distance to it now than he had had last night.
One thing bothered him, though: bubblenox hadn’t mentioned how Micha took her life, but they had expressed a wish to know if she had suffered much… and he knew the answer to that. With that in mind he forced himself to get out of bed.
“Sherlock?” he called, walking into the kitchen, but got no response.
He had no idea where Sherlock were off to, but it was just as well. If he was going back on the forum he preferred Sherlock to not be home. He brought the computer down from his bedroom, and with a large cup of tea and two well-buttered toasts by his side, he soon found himself back on the very same post that had made him flee to Sherlock’s bed.
While re-reading it, John was relieved that bubblenox wasn’t anyone he knew. That the woman at Rosewood hadn’t been anyone he had ever discussed, anyone he had offered support around or helped rant about. He didn’t know her story, her eating patterns or her struggles, like he did with many others and, right now, that felt good. He knew one thing though, he knew how she’d died and he felt like he should tell her family if they thought it would bring some peace. Especially since the answer was ‘no’, Micha hadn’t suffered.
“Right,” he mumbled, wetting his lips, and started to type up a comment.
I’m very sorry for your loss.
But then, what? He couldn’t very well admit to having seen her and just about been a part in the investigation into her suicide. There was no way he would accidentally know about any of it. The images of Micha came crashing down on him again, but he managed to put them out of his mind.
I’m a GP and a former army doctor. If you really want to know what happened in her body when she died and whether she suffered or not, I can probably answer that for you. If you do, feel free to PM me her cause of death. I promise that I won’t spread the information further.
My deepest sympathies go out to you.
Dr H
He read through the comment twice before deciding to send it as PM straight away. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. It was done. Now all he could do was to wait and see if bubblenox actually wanted an answer or not. He cleared his browser history out of well-established habit before getting up and putting on his jacket; he needed to get out, go for a walk, shake this off, before he needed to go back to the surgery and interact with people in the physical world.
-x-
Chapter 5
