Work Text:
“Sherlock?”
John saw Sherlock flinch, then open his eyes. The corner of his mouth tugged down; evidence of his frustration at being pulled out of whatever reverie he had been. John stood in the kitchen doorway. Something held him back from moving any closer; he thought it might have been fear.
When John didn’t come over, Sherlock slowly turned to look at him. John saw the exact moment that his glare turned to shocked realisation. The colour fell from his face and his throat moved as he gulped. His eyes flashed to the tied-up shopping bags John held, the viscous brown liquid in each, then determinedly fixed on the ground.
John clenched his eyes shut, forehead creasing. He coughed, ground out, “Sherlock, what the fuck is this?”
It had been—John had thought it had been—a good few months. Sherlock’s eating had seemed much improved, and if he raced off quickly afterwards, John had just put it down to the return of his usual manic energy. He had been glad, and not just that Sherlock was healthier, but that he was free to stop watching, cataloguing, everything that the detective ate. The twinging in his leg, the shaking of his hands; he wanted to put it down to the shock of the situation. He couldn’t quite hide from the guilt, though.
That as a doctor, as a friend , he should have seen this. He should’ve looked. Because looking now, it was laid out in front of him. With Sherlock still resolutely looking at the floor, John raked his eyes over the prone form. With the curtains pulled back, the evidence was all there. Sherlock hadn’t put any weight back on. He was always wrapped up, always shivering. His body was always completely covered; he had never returned to the lack of modesty that had been a hallmark of their first few months together. John’s medical training finally drew his reluctant eyes to Sherlocks hands, where both scars and fresher scabs adorned the first three knuckles of his right hand.
John made to step forward, but Sherlock huffed in exasperation. He flipped himself upright on the sofa. His face contorted into an overdramatic sneer.
“Oh, I’m sorry John, I thought collecting bags of vomit and storing them under my bed would yield relevant results for The Work. Do you not agree?” His eyes were hard, but the grey skin underneath showed his tiredness. The fight suddenly faded from his expression. “What other possible explanation could there be?”
John shook his head. So many answers echoed in his mind, but somehow none of them made it out of his mouth, so he fell back on the practical. He walked past Sherlock without looking at him, pulling the door to the stairwell closed behind him. The squeaky hinge aggravated him more than usual, running up the back of his neck and settling behind his eyes in the beginnings of a tension headache.
He took his time, putting the bags in the black bin, shutting the lid on them but still feeling the horror of what he’d been holding. His fingers were tense; he felt dirty. He made his way slowly back up the stairs, hating Sherlock and himself and his damned leg as he tried not to limp.
Sherlock tried to call out to him as he walked past, but John ignored him. In the bathroom, he scrubbed at his hands until they were pink, running the water as hot as he could take it. He met his own eyes in the mirror. He felt as if he’d just aged a decade; wondered if he looked it, too. A sob broke through unexpectedly, and he clamped his hand over his mouth, pulling himself back under control.
He went straight to his armchair when he finally plucked up the strength to reenter the living room, clutching his union jack pillow like it was a lifeline. Sherlock cleared his throat.
“John, I realise it’s a bit… not good to keep such things in a bedroom, but really, there are much worse things, and I can understand that you’re disgusted, but you must have seen worse in your job, and you’ve seen worse in my experiments, so I really don’t understand why you’re reacting like this and why were you even in my room anyway?” His voice rose with each pathetic statement until he was yelling. The sound echoed obscenely in the quiet of the flat.
John knew Sherlock would be reading his every expression as a wave of emotion wracked him—confusion, followed by fear and raw anger. “I was looking for my first-aid kit, you git, if you didn’t take my stuff so often then— I cut my finger making our tea and— dammit, Sherlock. I thought we’d gotten past all… this,” he waved his arm in an encompassing sweep. “You should’ve said something, this, it’s… dangerous! Don’t you realise that? Don’t you realise that every time you do this, you play with your life? Do you think I’d be fine if I came home to find you keeled over in a pool of your own sick because you couldn’t bloody eat like a normal person?”
Sherlock flinched, and John felt it reverberate through him, his words catching up with him. They were both trembling now. The colour had returned to Sherlock’s face, sitting high on his cheekbones.
“You had NO RIGHT! ” Sherlock bellowed. “No right to go through my things!”
“I had every right! When you take my stuff—I found my first aid kit, by the way—that’s not even the point! How long has this been going on? Because from what I found, it’s not a new thing.”
Sherlock seemed to deflate, body sinking into the sofa. Without the façade, the snark and bravado, he almost disappeared. Utter exhaustion enveloped him. John’s chest felt tight; how long had Sherlock been fighting these demons alone?
Eventually, Sherlock gave in. “It never really stopped. Tried. Can’t do it, not like this. I either… eat too little, or I force myself, and then everything looks normal but then… this happens. It was only supposed to be once…”
John buried his face in his hands again, biting his lip and trying to suppress his desire to cry. Or scream. Or punch something. Anything to let out the tangled mess of what he was feeling.
“Sherlock—”
“Please, don’t be angry,” voice small, shaky “I understand if you… have to leave. I’m sorry, John. Just, please don’t hate me.”
John bit down on the fleshy part of his palm to control the half sob that Sherlock’s quiet fear wrought out of him
“You idiot. I’m- course I’m not leaving. This, it’s not anger, Sherlock. Not at you, never at you. It’s, I’m afraid. This is, well, it’s a lot, and I don’t really know what to do, but I won’t leave. I couldn’t leave. Not now, not ever.”
“You didn’t sign up for this,” Sherlock muttered. “This isn’t exactly part of the flatmate agreement.”
John huffed a humourless laugh. “Yeah, think that’s a bit beside the point. This,” he gestured between them, “Is not just a flatmate agreement. Not anymore, and probably never was. I care about you. I killed for you the day I moved in! This is hard for me, yeah? But you have to know, that genius brain of yours must have realised that I care about you more than I do anyone else.”
Sherlock looked shell-shocked. He shook his head mutely, wincing in what looked like pain. John’s doctor brain, never really turned off, whispered to him about electrolytes.
“Let me help you?” It came out as a question, tentative.
“I don’t know,”
“Why?”
Sherlock cleared his throat, hand muffling his words. “I don’t know if… I want to be helped.” The confession seemed to sap the last of his energy.
John found himself lost in the insufficiency he felt, the despair that those words brought up. "At least let me make you some tea? I'd like you to drink something. Get your blood pressure up a bit. Sherlock?"
The detective bit his lip and swiped a hand across his face, seemingly steeling himself. He looked at John, made momentary eye contact.
Then nodded.
It was ridiculous how happy that small concession made John. It was just tea. Nothing, really. But it felt like a step forward, and maybe, right now, that could be enough.
Sherlock pushed himself up, swaying slightly on his feet.
“John?”
“Yeah, Sherlock?”
“I think… I’m scared too.” he clenched his eyes shut tightly. “Screw that, I’m fucking terrified.”
John rushed to his side, barely holding him upright as Sherlock began to cry. When his shoulder began to go numb, he eased the detective back down to lean against him on the sofa. He stroked his sweat-soaked hair.
Sherlock’s sobs didn’t quiet for a long time. John kept up a prattle of “I’m here, Sherlock. I’ve got you, I’ve got you. You’re safe now, you’re not alone. I’ve got you.”
When Sherlock's cries turned to hitching breaths, John pulled him close, pressing his lips to his hair.
Sherlock pulled back, straightening his shoulders and visibly trying to collect himself. Before he lost the moment of vulnerability, John grabbed Sherlock's chin lightly. Sherlock's red rimmed eyes met his, uncomfortable but not pulling away yet.
"Please?" John ventured, "please let me help?"
Sherlock forced a facsimile of a smile. "How about that tea?"
John's answering smile was real. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."
And when John asked if Sherlock wanted sugar, and Sherlock said yes, John didn't quite know what he was feeling.
Sherlock had stayed in the kitchen while John made their tea, leaning against the counter. When John handed him his mug, his hand shook slightly, but he raised it to his mouth straight away.
"Maybe," Sherlock began, back in the living room twenty minutes later, "I could try a toast?"
"Yeah?"
"I think so. Just… plain?"
John jumped up so fast he almost knocked his mug over. "Yeah, okay. Okay, I'll—"
"John?" Sherlock cut him off.
"Yeah?"
"You're an idiot."
There was a spark in his eye, a soft humour that John hadn't seen since before this mess had begun.
John choked back a sob. They were far from okay, but he knew what the feeling was now.
Hope.
He stepped forward, encasing Sherlock in his arms once more. "Yeah, you too, Sherlock. You too."