Chapter Text
Sherlock Holmes could recognise over 140 types of tobacco ash, could identify a software designer by his tie, an airline pilot by his left thumb, and yet, however hard he tried, he couldn’t deduce himself. He had once been told, quite reliably, that he did not posses a heart, that he was ‘a bloody sociopath’, and he had clung to those descriptors for long, so long that he hadn’t ever thought he would be anything else.
Then he met John Watson.
When he first saw the ex-soldier, he saw everything about him at a glance, saw the PTSD, the nightmares, the alcoholic brother(well, sister, but what did it matter?), but worse; he saw himself. In those eyes, he saw his own downfall, and yet, there was nothing to be done about it. Or even worse, there was nothing he did want to be done about it.
The doctor moved in, much to Sherlocks delight. Even the trivial fights about Sherlocks sleep schedule, the grocery shopping, the macabre experiments all over the kitchen were fun. Well, not that fun, it was quite mundane, but Sherlock enjoyed it: He loved it. For the first time in way too many years, he felt human, and whether that was good, he did not know, but at least he wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
The first few cases flew by. The lady in pink, the banker. All good. It seemed like paradise, really, to Sherlock, he was quite enjoying himself.
And then it hit him. The old ghost in the attic, the one he thought was long gone, came to pay a visit late one Thursday night after the solving of the banker-case.
John had ordered Chinese food, lots of it, just to celebrate the solving of the case that had seemed impossible, quickly made mundane by Sherlock.
John indulged in the food, Sherlock as well, eating til he was full, and then a bit more. The friendly chatter at the table took his mind off of the fullness building in his stomach, eating more and more with no restraint. And when John stood up to take a shower, it hit him.
Nausea.
He knew this feeling, not from sickness, not the stomach flu, no, this was a different kind of nausea. The kind that had haunted his childhood and teenage years, the ghost that had haunted him for 20 years, and now came back. It was periodically, he knew that, it would probably go away soon, and to do it just one more time wouldn’t hurt – right?
He hurried out of the back door, nausea making it difficult, his stomach aching. The sweet relief came only as he shoved two fingers down his throat behind the trash cans, vomiting up every bit of the meal he had just eaten.
In the middle of the act he didn’t care if anyone saw or heard – not even John, the doctor that would surely look at him differently. He just … Didn’t care.
It took him three minutes and fifty-four seconds. Three minutes and fifty-four seconds, then he felt clean. With the sleeve of his shirt he wiped his mouth, almost vomiting again at the smell of the throw-up on the ground.
He straightened his back, turned away, and walked back up to 221B Baker Street as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
John didn’t pick up on it, that something was different. ‘Sherlock never eats on cases anyways’, John thought.
Maybe he didn’t know, maybe he was too stupid to see it, Sherlock considered, but another possibility crept in the back of his mind, screaming, ‘He doesn’t care, he just doesn’t’. And if words could ever kill Sherlock, those would be the words.
He had a little black book, hid where he would normally store something much more important, his stash. The stash had been thrown out by John, just because “drugs never solve anything, Sherlock!”, and now it was replaced by a new addiction.
Pale, boney hands caressed the book before they picked it up, flipping the pages to find the most recent one. It was all numbers. Calories, weight. Every single day had its own page, and every single day he would scribble down changes in his body as well.
28th of March, didn’t eat today. my wrist are thin enough for me to wrap my hands around. Well, not too impressive, I have large hands.
29th of March, my ribs are more prominent, but it might be wishful thinking, even though I didn’t eat today.
30th of March, I haven’t had anything to eat today, and my collarbones are beautiful, but they could be more prominent.
31st of March, I think I notice a change in my face now. But it might just be the light. Not eating today.
1st of April, I’m very dizzy, haven’t eaten, but I’ve never felt stronger. My cheek bones are sharp, but ...
He looked upon the unfinished sentence, scanning it. He remembered what had happened, why it remained unfinished – well, of course he remembered, he was Sherlock Holmes! –, and it scared him a bit.
He traced the writing with a deadly pale finger, could almost see himself collapse on the floor with the book still in hand. Fortunately, John had been at work with Sarah, so he didn’t find out. That would not have gone very well, Sherlock thought. But what was the big deal? He had regained consciousness quickly, nothing to worry about.
He wrote down in the book ‘3rd of April, didn’t eat today’, a bit premature, but he had control, control pouring in his veins, and nothing, nothing could change that.
As he stood in front of the mirror, a small smile appeared. He was in control. Finally.
Sherlock would’ve never thought himself stupid, but it was indeed stupid to think that John wouldn’t catch on. It didn’t seem that he would soon, though.
Sherlock was flung across the sofa in his dressing gown, John in his armchair with a cup of tea, Earl Grey Sherlock noticed, not the usual English Breakfast. Probably nothing important, though.
The nicotine patches had worn out their effect, but because of the fact that Sherlock was simply too bored to change them, they stayed. His back was turned to John, but he felt his gaze upon him like tiny daggers, begging him to speak – about what, Sherlock didn’t know, but he had an idea, and since it was him, it was probably quite right.
“What do you want?” Sherlock finally said.
John hummed, cleared his throat, folded the newspaper quite neatly, not a care in the world, about to speak words that would be yet another pain to get through, just like every day.
“What do you want for dinner, Sherlock?” he asked, and Sherlocks breath hitched, back tensed, eyes closed for just a moment, before sitting up a bit aggressively, not enough to worry John, and he turned towards the flatmate.
“I’m not hungry,” he said.
“You have to eat,” was the simple answer, Sherlock snorting, cause that thought had never entered his head before, obviously.
John didn’t seem too worried, though, and for that Sherlock was glad. He did absolutely not have time for a worried doctor in his flat, telling him what and where and when to eat. Sherlock didn’t need to eat. His body was merely transport, useless, stupid transport. His mind was the real deal, and digestion just slowed him down anyways.
It wasn’t that he thought he was fat. Well, he was, he thought, but logically he knew he was quite skinny, an alright size, he could see that much(but that didn’t stop him from weighing himself every morning like clockwork, excitement as the numbers went down). No, it wasn’t that. It was the control, the pure control it showed. He was in control, not food, not some human need, cause he was not a human, that had been clearly explained multiple times: He was a robot. Cold, cynical, not capable of love or any other human feeling. He was so, so cold. Mentally – but also physically.
Sherlock wrapped the dressing gown tighter around himself, sending John a look that he prayed didn’t look scared. Because that was what Sherlock Holmes was: Scared.
“Sherlock, come on, let’s order thai, shall we?” John pleaded.
“Not. Hungry!” then, in a couple of strides, he was in his bedroom and he slammed the door.
Still, John hadn’t caught on.
Sherlock didn’t know whether he was relieved or frustrated. Some part of him wished that John would just notice, would notice Sherlocks shirts hanging a little loosely on his frame, notice how dizzy he was, how he sometimes went days, sometimes weeks without eating.
But at the same time, he was so close to beating his own record. He had gone 18 days without eating now, and his personal best was 23 days. Dangerous? Yes. But so, so satisfying? Also yes.
He had to get creative, he knew. John had not caught on, yet, but when he made excuses every evening not to eat, it was prone to become suspicious. Fortunately for Sherlock, John worked from 8am to 4, sometimes 5pm, so the only meal he’d have to eat with John was dinner, and it was so shockingly easy to convince the doctor that he’d eaten a large breakfast and lunch, sometimes an afternoon snack, when, in fact, he had done none of that. John didn’t care. That’s what Sherlock thought.
But the truth was, John knew. He noticed the buttons on Sherlocks shirt no longer looked as if they were about to burst, he noticed that none of the food was touched during the day. In the beginning, Sherlock had been careful enough to actually prepare food(to throw it out, of course), but he had gotten careless, it seemed.
John noticed the scale in the bathroom that seemingly never moved, but one time he saw Sherlock on it through the almost-closed door. He saw the sick smile on his face, probably because he lost weight, and felt nauseous, a completely new kind of sick to his stomach.
John was not the brains in that relationship, he knew, but he decided to conduct an experiment himself. It drove him insane to see Sherlock do this to himself, he cared way too much about the stupid man to watch him die, commit suicide oh so slowly.
John began writing down, in a little black book, Sherlocks eating habits. Even if it was just an apple, he wrote it down with the calories next to it, just to keep track.
Sherlock, of course, noticed. John wasn’t exactly subtle. Every time he would grab for something to eat, John sat there scribbling something down, it didn’t take long for Sherlock to put two and two together. It was stressful, embarrassing, and at the same time he wanted to eat just so that John wouldn’t sit him down and explain to him with his doctor-puppy-eyes that he was killing himself. He knew quite well what he was doing.
So Sherlock changed his patterns. When John was away at work, he made toast with butter, sometimes spreading jam on the golden pieces of toast that screamed at him – and his stomach screamed back. He would bin it quickly before giving in, then taking out the trash.
But John was not as stupid as Sherlock seemed to think. It was impossible not to notice that the trash had been taken out each day when he got home from work, something Sherlock had never done in the time they had lived together.
John didn’t know what to do as his experiment reached two weeks, and Sherlock hadn’t eaten anything but one biscuit with his tea one Monday at 5pm as they sat together. It was for show. John was sure.
They danced around the problem, Sherlock knew John knew about his eating disorder, and John knew Sherlock knew he knew about the eating disorder. A whole mess, really, Sherlock too proud and stubborn to just admit it, John too worried he might ruin his friendship with the man he –
“John?” Sherlocks baritone voice made his brain go completely quiet.
He hummed.
“Aren’t you gonna have dinner?” Sherlock asked.
John snorted quietly, hoping the other man didn’t notice. But of course he did.
“Why’s that funny?” Sherlock frowned as John shook his head.
“It’s not. I’m gonna make some chicken, want some?”
Having not eaten in fourteen days, beside that dry biscuit, Sherlocks stomach almost growled just at the thought of chicken. But he was strong – he was in control.John lifted both eyebrows. It was quite obvious what he was thinking, and Sherlock saw no other possibility than to say what he especially did not want to say:“Yes, please.”
John cooked the chicken, Sherlock cooked the pasta. Something John would’ve never thought, that Sherlock would be good at cooking. “Just because I don’t do it, doesn’t mean I’m not brilliant at it, as everything else, John”, as he said.
Well, Sherlock was pretty brilliant at it. In fact, John should really have let Sherlock cook the chicken, just because he was better at it, even if it was John who cooked more often.
Sherlock shivered in the warm April-breeze, freezing, pretending not to acknowledge it. John didn’t mention it. His experiment was not quite done yet. He needed one last piece of research, one that he was quite afraid of. If he was right, as he feared, then … Then he was out of his depth.
He looked at Sherlock when he thought Sherlock didn’t notice. He looked sick, skin looking like he was turning to ash. He was so beautiful in the light, but he looked dead, too thin, bones too prominent, clothes hanging loosely. The bags under his eyes were worse than ever, and John wanted to cry and hold him. The curls were brittle and not as full as they had been, and he looked so weak. Sherlock had always been attractive, still was, but John wanted nothing more than to see him healthy again, see the eyes crinkle, sparkle, cause now they were just dull, no life inside them.
John wanted to punch himself.
“What are you staring at?” Sherlock asked.
“Nothing,” John mumbled.
“Concentrate on the chicken, it’s almost burnt on the other side.”
They sat down to eat, and as it wasn’t Johns first time dealing with eating disorders, he noticed all the behaviours. Sherlock looked at him, almost as if looking for a confirmation that it was okay to eat. But before John could say anything, not even nod, Sherlock had taken the cutlery and begun cutting up the chicken in very small pieces.
Johns heart sunk, ached. He wanted to scream, didn’t want to believe what he was seeing.
Sherlock Holmes had an eating disorder?
They ate in silence, Sherlock counting each piece he ate in his mind, sick to his stomach for each bite. John knew what was going on in his mind, that beautiful mind of his. Calories. He could almost see the numbers counting in Sherlocks eyes.
He felt sick.
“I’m going to go to bed,” Sherlock broke the silence.
His plate was still almost full, none of the pasta had been touched, half the chicken was left uneaten, but still in tiny pieces.
John didn’t argue, because now came the next part of his experiment.
“Alright, goodnight,” he tried to sound casual, even if he was scared.
He counted the seconds from Sherlock left the table til he heard the bathroom door click, locked. He wanted to throw up, punch Sherlock, or both. But it could be nothing, he reminded himself.
After twenty seconds, John, on his tippy-toes, went to the bathroom door, listened, holding his breath. The faucet was on, but the sound coming from inside was unmistakable. He could almost see Sherlock push the toothbrush down his throat. The broken coughs as he was throwing up was heartbreaking.
John fell down to the ground, slowly, back against the bathroom door, tears rolling down his face.
Sherlock Holmes had an eating disorder, and John Watson had no clue how to help him.